New Death Guard in 8th edition

[Closet Skeleton]

Two units of Deathshroud to protect Mortarion is almost doubling his points in the hope of giving him an extra 12 wounds. Better to ally in another super heavy like a nurgle knight (or Magnus if you just don't care) and let them protect each other by posing a threat than take expensive wounds that you don't plan on being a threat.

 

If you don't want to do that and go pure DG then you're going to have to find a strategy that doesn't rely Mortarion to do everything for the army.

[Grendaxe]

Two units of Deathshroud to protect Mortarion is almost doubling his points in the hope of giving him an extra 12 wounds. Better to ally in another super heavy like a nurgle knight (or Magnus if you just don't care) and let them protect each other by posing a threat than take expensive wounds that you don't plan on being a threat.

 

If you don't want to do that and go pure DG then you're going to have to find a strategy that doesn't rely Mortarion to do everything for the army.

 

I hate that the synch between mortarion and the rest of the DG army is so bad in this (same goes for magnus really).

The entire army is slow as   while mortarion has to rush forward faster than the rest get value out of his points before dying.

 

I was hoping they would implement a reserve kind of rule for primarchs. For example allow them to come from your table edge at the start of a turn.

This gives your army time to advance and then the primarch can come onto the board when the army is halfway across the table.

No need to power creep defense to stop forcing primarchs in the leeroy jerkins playstyle. 

 

[DuskRaider]

I uhh.. I really don't give a damn about Mortarion. He's a unit that's both a high point (and money) investment and potentially game breaking against some opponents. I want him for the opportunity to paint the model and for high point games, but otherwise I don't see myself really utilizing him. 

[TheMelancholic]

 

Two units of Deathshroud to protect Mortarion is almost doubling his points in the hope of giving him an extra 12 wounds. Better to ally in another super heavy like a nurgle knight (or Magnus if you just don't care) and let them protect each other by posing a threat than take expensive wounds that you don't plan on being a threat.

 

If you don't want to do that and go pure DG then you're going to have to find a strategy that doesn't rely Mortarion to do everything for the army.

 

I hate that the synch between mortarion and the rest of the DG army is so bad in this (same goes for magnus really).

The entire army is slow as   while mortarion has to rush forward faster than the rest get value out of his points before dying.

 

I was hoping they would implement a reserve kind of rule for primarchs. For example allow them to come from your table edge at the start of a turn.

This gives your army time to advance and then the primarch can come onto the board when the army is halfway across the table.

No need to power creep defense to stop forcing primarchs in the leeroy jerkins playstyle. 

 

 

 

Eh, DG has some fast units like Blight-Haulers and Bloat Drones.

 

If mobility is a concern, consider running an outrider detatchment of renegade biker marines. That's what I'm going to be doing with all my Death Guard painted bikes that I (annoyingly) can't use now.

 

As for Morty himself, he's a 470 point centrepiece model with all that entails. Even a cursory glance at his profile and weapons (and rules...and psychic powers) should tell you that he really does have the potential to make those points back. In 1000-1500 point games, most non-tailored lists will have a hard time taking him down. I personally think he's worth it...provided he manages to get in range.

 

Speaking of, a melee heavy DG list with Renegade Outriders might be a nice fit for Morty. They provide a very threatening screen of assault units to overwhelm the opponent while Morty moves on up unmolested.

 

That said I feel like I'll either be doing Night of the Living Trademarkables (seeing as I'm the proud owner of 100 poxwalkers...) or armoured assault Plague Marines. Or some mixture of both, probably in two battalions (80 Poxwalkers and 2x Plague Marine Squads in Rhinos). I feel like that's pretty balanced, though anti-armour is a concern. Probably need to buy a predator or two...

[DominikB]

Some interesting stuff from the Leaks, however surprised the slippers (plague crawlers) hit on 4s base only.

[Grendaxe]

 

Eh, DG has some fast units like Blight-Haulers and Bloat Drones.

 

If mobility is a concern, consider running an outrider detatchment of renegade biker marines. That's what I'm going to be doing with all my Death Guard painted bikes that I (annoyingly) can't use now.

 

As for Morty himself, he's a 470 point centrepiece model with all that entails. Even a cursory glance at his profile and weapons (and rules...and psychic powers) should tell you that he really does have the potential to make those points back. In 1000-1500 point games, most non-tailored lists will have a hard time taking him down. I personally think he's worth it...provided he manages to get in range.

 

Speaking of, a melee heavy DG list with Renegade Outriders might be a nice fit for Morty. They provide a very threatening screen of assault units to overwhelm the opponent while Morty moves on up unmolested.

 

That said I feel like I'll either be doing Night of the Living Trademarkables (seeing as I'm the proud owner of 100 poxwalkers...) or armoured assault Plague Marines. Or some mixture of both, probably in two battalions (80 Poxwalkers and 2x Plague Marine Squads in Rhinos). I feel like that's pretty balanced, though anti-armour is a concern. Probably need to buy a predator or two...

 

 

But then you're tailoring your army around the defining trait of the death guard i think.

When i think of what GW is trying to do for the DG army is to represent a creeping death. Slow,steady and unavoidable.

 

Plague marines, the characters, poxwalkers, the entire codex represents this. That's why no more bikers,flying daemon princes etc.

When you build your DG army now you will almost automatically build a slow but very tough army.

If you prefer to play with a fast and mobile army then other armies are perhaps a better choice (Emperors Children for example).

If every army can do all things (fast/tough/psychic powers/shooting/assault) then all armies lose their flavor in the end.

 

And from what I've seen from the codex this actually works now for DG! ... unless you want to field mortarion. Then you have to start finding ways to "cheat" the slow play-style that defines the death guard. That's what bothers me.   

 

 

I uhh.. I really don't give a damn about Mortarion. He's a unit that's both a high point (and money) investment and potentially game breaking against some opponents. I want him for the opportunity to paint the model and for high point games, but otherwise I don't see myself really utilizing him. 

You absolutely right. I feel the same about magnus. I think GW went a bit overkill on the offensive power of some units in general.

Magnus and mortarion (for example but there are others) can easily kill over 500points worth of stuff in a single turn. if an opponent hasn't got the weapons to deal with them they are tabled in turn 3. And that's just not fun for anyone in a non-competitive setting. 

 

[hopkins]

Death Guard have lost winged DPs?

[Marshal Loss]

Death Guard have lost winged DPs?

 

Unsure - it's listed in the book, but has no points value etc, so perhaps they cut the option from the book (like the jump pack from the sorcerer) and forgot to take the option, or the option is meant to be included but they forgot the points. We'll have to wait for an FAQ

[Blackheart1223]

I'm thinking it's more of a "forgot to remove the option from the dataslate", as the "official" Nurgle Daemon Prince model does not come with wings.

[Bulwyf]

I also was questioning if we lost winged DP in the new codex.

[Lord Marshal]

Even Boltguns come with an entry despite costing a big fat 0, that tells me it's inclusion was accidental. 

[Bulwyf]

I share Grendaxe's concerns about how to field Morty in DG armies. The fluff and rules want this to be the slow, inexorable tide of death that 30k HH DG plays like and now 40k DG is much the same. However, Morty is a unit that needs to be up close and personal as soon as possible since he's going to be a sponge for the shooting/psychic phase for the enemy. 

 

As we all know shooting first in 8th is an incredible advantage. There are few units we can keep off the table in deepstrike/summoned so the opponent will almost always have first shooting. We all know what they are going to shoot first. How many points with how expensive Deathshroud are will people be willing to spend to protect an almost 500 point model?

[Vilicate]

I wouldn't waste points on Deathshroud if you're bringing Morty; I mean, if you're really hot on it, then bring one unit, but I wouldn't do any more that that.  I just don't think if he's deployed well you really need to worry about getting Alpha Strike'd off the board.  It turns out being T7 with 18 wounds and a 4++ and a 5+++ makes for a pretty durable model.

 

The idea that I had for him was to use a Chaos Sorcerer from CSM to get off a nice warptime on Morty so that he gets up the board and can easily clean off any screens, meanwhile having a coupe units of Blightlords come down and help in this process.

 

Morty's plague aura is so awesome against support characters; as they -have- to get out of that 7" otherwise they're often losing half their wounds every fight phase.  So rad.

[General Strike]

I really want to analyze the codex, because while I am planning a Plaguewing army, a mortal wounds one would be cool too. Just Smite, Morty, and other stuff that causes them.

[MoGuy]

Unless tailored against Morty won't need to fear going down turn 1. I shove my bloat drones constantly into my opponents face and they are just as resilient with less wounds than Morty. Even if they get focused they are almost impossible to take down in one round. So I think Morty will reach close combat on turn 2 no problem.

[Plague _Lord]

Shame about the loss of the winged DP... was looking forward to going back to daemon bombing plaguebearers like I did in 3,5 :/

[General Strike]

I just watched the MWG batrep of him playing DG against salamanders. That salamander re-roll is pretty dang good, and the guy using them built his list well by bringing lots of multi damage weapons, combi-weapons, and single shot/high power stuff. It was scary how much more the SM player brought, but the MWG guy had Mortarion in his army, so that explains some of it. His army had no Poxwalkers, but was a decent build nonetheless, with two blightbringers, a Plaguecaster, a chaos lord in TDA, Blightbringer Squad, two blightdrones, a ten man plague marine and two five man plague marines, a rhino, and Mortarion. He lost, but he threw his PMs out in the open, didn't utilize his psychic powers well, and(understandably) forgot a few rules, like Mortys 4+ mortal wounds ability. The other guy had a really well made list too, tailored for the Salamanders CT.

 

I think Devs and Sternguard are just the go to for SM now, with baby sitting captains. We could do a similar thing with lords baby sitting our advancing PMs with Plasmas and Blight Launchers. I keep wanting to put Pfists on our Champs, but don't know that they would make it that close to use it, maybe a ten man melee build in a LR. I do think 18" combi plasma blightlords with a TDA lord will be mean. I learned a lot by watching them played, especially given my inexperience, but the shining stars were the characters and blightdrones, and of course Mortarion.

[Closet Skeleton]

Unless tailored against Morty won't need to fear going down turn 1. I shove my bloat drones constantly into my opponents face and they are just as resilient with less wounds than Morty. Even if they get focused they are almost impossible to take down in one round. So I think Morty will reach close combat on turn 2 no problem.

 

The internet insist on telling me that 8th ed is a brutal edition where everything dies quickly but I find rhinos by themselves to be pretty tough. Even triple devastators can't be relied on to take out anything.

 

But I'm sure there are really nasty shooty tournament lists I'm never going to face.

[Bloody Legionnaire]

Shame about the loss of the winged DP... was looking forward to going back to daemon bombing plaguebearers like I did in 3,5 :/

We don't know they lost them yet.. awaiting FAQ as the codex does say it has the option..

 

Since we're on the topic of FA options for DG.. Doesn't the army have access to all of the options in Imperial Armour Chaos Index?

[the jeske]

There are resilient models or resilient combinations of units, but in general if you play 8th with objectives, and optimise your army for it and heave forbid use FW too, top armies are rolling comperable or higher number of shots to what top armies did in 7th.

[DuskRaider]

 

 

Shame about the loss of the winged DP... was looking forward to going back to daemon bombing plaguebearers like I did in 3,5 :/

We don't know they lost them yet.. awaiting FAQ as the codex does say it has the option..

 

Since we're on the topic of FA options for DG.. Doesn't the army have access to all of the options in Imperial Armour Chaos Index?

Other than Rapiers and Hereteks, yes.

[2gud2bbad]

Why the   aren't Havocs in the Codex actually? If there's one Traitor Legion making use of Heavy Weaponry on it's Legionnaires it's the Death Guard, isn't it? Just realized that and am just baffled. 

[Marshal Loss]

Death Guard were always renowned for their use of the 'holy trinity' of melta, bolter and flamer in 30k, and in 40k for at least 15 years+ now (with the exception of the short-lived 7th ed Traitor Legions book) Plague Marines have only ever been able to take special weapons, so it's not really surprising as it's been built up to be a part of their theme. I would have liked to see some kind of Havoc squad even if it was just a Plague Marine unit with 4x special weapons in a unit, though.

[bozo69pd]

I have plans on just using the 1 cp strategem on Morty to keep him from getting shot at. Pretty easy to keep him safe with 100 horde bubble wrap, just gotta position smart.

 

What I am bummed about right now though is trying to get fleshy abundance and warp time in my army. I wanted to run a pure DG theme but my Morty is going to need those spells on him every turn for support.

[General Strike]

I see visions of Mortarion and 8 Blightdrones zooming around.

 

I think that's been the problem with both Chaos Primarchs we have had return so far, both are giant, flying centerpieces to very slow, resilient armies. I wonder if they find more balance with Angron charging with his berserkers, maybe giving them a third dice for charges or something. For now, he fits the fluff, he flies around and murders things, I think of him zooming around the field plugging holes in the battle line, but everyone is so rightly afraid of him that he has to slam into and murder what he can as fast as possible before he gets re-rolling lascannoned to death.