Death Guard Tactica

[DemetriiTZ]

Vindicators need Daemonic Possession, or else you need to field something else.

[Evil Homer]

Vindicators need Daemonic Possession, or else you need to field something else.

I actually disagree here. In a triple vindi list that's 60 points I'm giving up...I understand the reasoning for the Dem Poss but I do not think its necessary especially as you are flooding the table with the vindi's. It's been my experience that even in a non-shooting turn the vindi can maneuver for better shots the following turn. When you are flooding the table with tanks and Demon Princes the most opponents either pick something and try to kill it or scatter their fire amongst many targets.

 

That being said its hard to argue against ignoring 1/3 of the vehicle damage table.

[aeroplane]

Oh my god that list sucked HARD. By the end of turn 2 I called it as I only had 4 squads against his ENTIRE ARMY.

 

It's not the list - he got damn lucky with his dice.

 

Remember, there is a random factor to this game - that's why we use dice - and sometimes it totally sucks. HOWEVER, play this list a few more times to take some of the randomness out of it. It will work fine.

 

My rule of thumb is any change must be tried 3 times, to average out the effects of the dice.

[DemetriiTZ]

Well, the thing is, spamming a choice DOES mitigate the need for Daemonic Possession.. However, with only ONE Vindicator in his army, people are going to focus-fire it to death if it poses a significant threat to their particular army style. In a triple Vindicator list, you're still going to run into issues against highly maneuverable armies like Tau and Eldar, who will nail your side armor whenever they have the chance. As such, D. Possession is a good layer of added insurance. On top of that, some newer armies (and some older ones) like Vanilla Marines, IG and Dark Eldar can literally fire so many long-range lances and lascannons (15-18 ... and up) that you'll be hard-pressed to keep firing, regardless of vehicle spam. Possession loses a little of its shine in a heavily mechanized army, but not much. At least, not for me.

[W. Balmephinstein]

The only thing that worried me the most about the list was during the deployment. I lost 1st turn and couldn't steal it back so he went first w/ 4 tactical squads, 4 land speeders, and his land raider. All of his lascannons had range on me and most of his land speaders did after moving 6 inches. I deployed with 5 vehicles and that's it. 2 land raiders, 2 rhino's, and a vendicator. That gave him 5 simple targets to shoot at and before my turn even came up I had 1 destroyed rhino, an immobilized rhino, immobilized vendicator w/ cannot shoot, and an immobolized land raider w/ 1 lascannon destroyed. That left me with 1 land raider to try and rush up the field with and ALL my other units getting out and walking (which got eaten up by land speeder assault cannons and heavy bolters on turn 2). That lone land raider moved 12 inches on my turn and by the start of turn 2 it was hit with 4 lascannons which penetrating 5'd it, making yet more (my last mobile unit) of my PM have to get out and walk. I don't like giving my opponent 5 simple targets to shoot at. But in playing pure DG, I don't get ANY good long range weapons so I HAVE to get up in their face as soon as I can. PM's are expensive so I can only usually afford 4 rhino's worth of 7 man squads if I want anything left over for hq and heavy support. I literally wanted to quit the game entirely yesterday. I LOVE DG and their fluff is super exciting BUT....aside from painting and reading, the tabletop game itself is giving me headaches. I think I might just do a nurgle themed undivided list instead. At least that way I could have long range weapons to support the troops trying to get to the other side of the table rather than give my opponent a free turn of shooting the hell out of me with no response.

[aeroplane]

demetriiTZ - a question about force construction;

 

What do you let go for a 1500pt game? Assume this list -

 

2 DP, warp, MoN, wings

 

4 7-man Plague squads, 2 specials, fist, rhino

 

3 vindicators

 

This is about 1750pt, depending on how you tweak options.

 

What do you trim off to make 1500pt work well? Or do you substitute something entirely?

[Evil Homer]

The only thing that worried me the most about the list was during the deployment. I lost 1st turn and couldn't steal it back so he went first w/ 4 tactical squads, 4 land speeders, and his land raider. All of his lascannons had range on me and most of his land speaders did after moving 6 inches. I deployed with 5 vehicles and that's it. 2 land raiders, 2 rhino's, and a vendicator. That gave him 5 simple targets to shoot at and before my turn even came up I had 1 destroyed rhino, an immobilized rhino, immobilized vendicator w/ cannot shoot, and an immobolized land raider w/ 1 lascannon destroyed. That left me with 1 land raider to try and rush up the field with and ALL my other units getting out and walking (which got eaten up by land speeder assault cannons and heavy bolters on turn 2). That lone land raider moved 12 inches on my turn and by the start of turn 2 it was hit with 4 lascannons which penetrating 5'd it, making yet more (my last mobile unit) of my PM have to get out and walk. I don't like giving my opponent 5 simple targets to shoot at. But in playing pure DG, I don't get ANY good long range weapons so I HAVE to get up in their face as soon as I can. PM's are expensive so I can only usually afford 4 rhino's worth of 7 man squads if I want anything left over for hq and heavy support. I literally wanted to quit the game entirely yesterday. I LOVE DG and their fluff is super exciting BUT....aside from painting and reading, the tabletop game itself is giving me headaches. I think I might just do a nurgle themed undivided list instead. At least that way I could have long range weapons to support the troops trying to get to the other side of the table rather than give my opponent a free turn of shooting the hell out of me with no response.

To me that sounds like a deployment issue to some degree. You have to deploy like you are going to lose the 1st turn. Use the terrain to hide/obscure vehicles. Use other vehicles to hide obscure vehicles, you are running 2 LR's ? Short of melta weapons everyone struggles with AV 14. Use that to your advantage, hide behind the landraiders, in many cases thats enough to block LOS completely and definitely more than enough to provide the 4+ obscurement save. Coupled with terrain you should not lost that much with a good deployment. I'm not saying it can't happen (I played against a eldar heavy bright lance army a couple of weeks ago and lost alot early on because of bad deployment and some luck on his part. Just play through and recognize every list has some bad matchups. From the sounds of his list, once you get comfortable with deployment and how all those vehicles work you should be ok.

[Evil Homer]

demetriiTZ - a question about force construction;

 

What do you let go for a 1500pt game? Assume this list -

 

2 DP, warp, MoN, wings

 

4 7-man Plague squads, 2 specials, fist, rhino

 

3 vindicators

 

This is about 1750pt, depending on how you tweak options.

 

What do you trim off to make 1500pt work well? Or do you substitute something entirely?

I'm not Demi, but that is my list. At 1500 points you drop 1 PM squad. What are you running for specials? I run 2 squads with MM and 1 squad with flamers though I might change up the flamers for plasma at some point. I have a regular opponent who plays the Avatar quite a bit and when you rely on MM to kill big things that is a problem.

[aeroplane]

What are you running for specials? I run 2 squads with MM and 1 squad with flamers though I might change up the flamers for plasma at some point. I have a regular opponent who plays the Avatar quite a bit and when you rely on MM to kill big things that is a problem.

 

Special weapons are usually tweaked to deal with the opponent. However, 2 melta, 1 flamer and 1 Plasma is 'normal'.

 

Why is Melta bad to kill big things? What am I not seeing?

[W. Balmephinstein]

Thanks Homer, that helps a lot. I think it was deployment because I had it in my head to just rush him to start with so I was in line of sight with everything as I deployed each vehicle in a line and was going to run a spearhead straight to him. It was a dumb idea and I am going to try that list a couple more times. Thanks for the reply and the confidence.

[Evil Homer]

What are you running for specials? I run 2 squads with MM and 1 squad with flamers though I might change up the flamers for plasma at some point. I have a regular opponent who plays the Avatar quite a bit and when you rely on MM to kill big things that is a problem.

 

Special weapons are usually tweaked to deal with the opponent. However, 2 melta, 1 flamer and 1 Plasma is 'normal'.

 

Why is Melta bad to kill big things? What am I not seeing?

Avatar is immune to melta, so rather than a 3rd melta squad at 1850, I had to take a plasma squad just to deal with that, and to give me a few more options against MC's in general.

 

There is no better infantry model to take plasma on than plague marines, between the 3+ and FNP. In 5th though, you almost have to take melta to deal with mech.

 

eh

[Evil Homer]

Thanks Homer, that helps a lot. I think it was deployment because I had it in my head to just rush him to start with so I was in line of sight with everything as I deployed each vehicle in a line and was going to run a spearhead straight to him. It was a dumb idea and I am going to try that list a couple more times. Thanks for the reply and the confidence.

you can try the raider rush. even leaving them in the open but you have to conceal everything but the raiders. You can always train the rhino and vinid behind the raiders.

[Chaos_Minds]

Anything new to add?

[incinerator950]

I'm contemplating taking out 1 troop choice to fit in 1500 pts.

 

Which leaves me a gaping hole to figure out what I'm doing, like take 2 Obliterators or a Termicide.

 

Here I've tweaked a list around because I was extremely bored.

 

Chaos Sorcerer MoN, Wings, Wind of Chaos: 170

Generic summoned Greater Demon: 100

 

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x plasma rifles: 226

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Flamers, 206

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Melta, Champion: 231

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Melta, Champion w/fist: 256

 

Defiler, Reaper Autocannon, CCW: 150

Defiler, Reaper Autocannon, CCW: 150

 

total: 1489

 

Rather than make a chunk army past 1750 I wanted to round to 1500, leaving me 11 pts to do something with. I'm already expecting either switch out the Defilers for Vindicators, and Get 2 Demon Princes/GD for cheap prince, so you don't need to repeatedly hit me with that hammer.

 

Right now I like what this is going with but I need help gearing the Defilers, and organizing my Troops to be more efficient, since I'm using a GD, I dunno if to kill the only powerfist and use those points for melta bombs and another champ for summoning, or what. Again I really like hearing tactica with what I could do minorly then majorly gearing against what I've been planning, and I also would like to hear anything to make the Sorcerer work with.

 

Really appreciate it.

[incinerator950]

bump

[aeroplane]

Generic summoned Greater Demon: 100

 

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x plasma rifles: 226

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Flamers, 206

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Melta, Champion: 231

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Melta, Champion w/fist: 256

 

 

I have to ask - why do you only have 2 champs when running a Greater Daemon? That's a lot of lost flexibility and messes with your chances of having a big unit arrive where he needs to be...

[incinerator950]

I was bored and was screwing around, I wanted to know if I should eek points out for a fist or two, or cut that and put cheap champs on all the squads.

 

 

Chaos Sorcerer MoN, Wings, Wind of Chaos: 170

Generic summoned Greater Demon: 100

 

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x plasma rifles: 226

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Flamers, Champion w/Melta bombs: 226

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Melta, Champion w/ Melta Bombs: 236

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Melta, Champion w/Melta Bombs: 236

 

Defiler, Reaper Autocannon, CCW: 150

Defiler, Reaper Autocannon, CCW: 150

 

total: 1494

 

I added a third champion, took out the fist, and added Melta Bombs for a "tiny" compensation to help with vehicles.

 

How do you guys go for Flamers and Meltaguns? I mean, conversions and assembling goes because I'm using the Plague Marines box sets.

 

What's bugging me is their special weapons setup, is this a decent one or will I eek out more kills by switching it up/doing something?

[aeroplane]

I see a couple of things that could use addressing...

 

1) The sorcerer with the wings is all by his lonesome. Yeah, he is fast, but without a Raptor squad to fly with he is in the open and very vulnerable... Also, on a Sorcerer I would suggest Doombolt, not wind. Or doombolt and warptime... like the old Kai Flyer prince from the old codex.

 

That said, spend 5 more points and trade in the sorcerer for a Daemon Prince with MoN, Wings and Warptime. In general, it's a much better unit. (But it does mean buying a new model... but they are very cool!)

 

2) The units with Meltaguns don't need meltabombs. IMO, Meltabombs are not worth bothering with, and remember that Krak Grenades can hit armor 12 and Bolters can still glance armor 10

 

3) Find the points somewhere (drop a guy or two if you need to) and put a powerfist in every rhino squad. This makes your list very forgiving and very dangerous to everything. The last thing you need is one of your units tied up against something it can't hurt. In general, your kills will go up with a fist in each squad.

 

4)As for your special weapon choices, your mix looks good. You can still play around with various combinations to tweak points.

[incinerator950]

Finding pts for the Fists would be painful, even if I took off all the melta bombs, that leaves me very little to do. 15 pts from melta bombs and another from taking away the flamer champ. Now I really miss the Sacred number=free champ :lol:

 

The Sorcerer was supposed to jump in with Infantry, you know, as an extra template/support/baby sitter.

 

Edit: About Doombolt, may I ask why compared to Wind, or Rot?

 

I could change to doombolt, remove all the meltabombs, and be left with 35, enough for 1 powerfist. Take off the flamer champ and it's 2 Champs. Then it means I have 2 expensive Champs for the Greater Demon, and I'm stuck with a flamer squad that's got less to deal with for close combat. I'm keeping wings because it helps keep the Sorcerer mobile, as he can jump into infantry or fly away if it's dangerous, or pop him in a rhino and fling spells.

 

I'm not so keen to lop off a plague marine though :/ I could probably take off the wings, even though I assembled the model with them on already, so I ditched the old Jet pack, plus then I would have wasted money for just fighting a proxy on Ebay trying to get the pair of Possessed Jumppack wings ;)

[DemetriiTZ]

You could always ditch the Greater Daemon, and use the model for a Daemon Prince of Nurgle. You'd have the points freed up for Champions and fists, and they tend to be much more reliable and effective than a Monstrous Creature with no armor save, or rerolls to hit and wound. Just some food for thought. :(

[incinerator950]

Demon Prince of Nurgle instead of a Sorc and GD? Thats how I worded it from you, because a GD costs 100 pts plus a champion. Now the problem is the champions and Sorcerer, if I stick to powerfists I'm wasting more points because the GD will come in. problem with that is if I take 1 DP I should take 2 because the same reason why 1 Defiler is a bad choice. Also the problem is my Plague Marine Squads would be understrength if I sacrificed my Fist Champs to the GD, who I've seen some pros and cons.

 

There is also a Fluff aspect that I've been tearing into the army, hence why I took a Sorcer, rather than do what everyone else does, and take Possessed Vindicators, with Lash/Warpnurgle Princes, or Land Raider Rush.

 

I know they're tactically sound as a stable list, but I don't want to follow the Demon Prince thing, I'm not fond of them, they're a little too cheasy for my tastes, even if Thorpe could have put better thought into our HQs rather than make them just reworked old rules, instead of supporting/buffing the army, like multimeltas or ordanance blasts.

 

One of the reasons why I've been enraged is this, I want fists, but why take the Fist if I'm going to use the Champ as fodder for a GD, because GD might not be as cheasy as a Prince, but a GD will rip people apart, and after watching a GD mercilessly beat a melta squad of Vanilla Marines, a Rhino, a Vindicator, and 2 Lash Princes in under 3 Turns, I'll be satisfied if I can match that kind of results.

 

Here's another thing, 15 points for a basic Champion, +100 for a GD, would be 5 pts greater than a basic non upgraded Demon Prince, which is bad, because it needs wings. Badly needs them.

 

Suppose I take wings off My sorcerer, take Doombolt and remove the melta bombs, I would get 55 points to muck around with. That would mean I could add 2 powerfists to the Melta squads, and then keep the Flamer Champ as a sacrificial lamb. While keeping my Sorcerer cheap, but less effective than I planned (I'm a defensive player, I like shooting and then ripping their heads off)

 

As for the rest of the topic, I said it before, it's wonderful. It's helped me immensely in narrowing it down, because I'm already happy with what I got, but I want to refine it a weee bit.

 

Also, if without wings and Doombolt, what should I intentionally do with my Sorcerer as he's lost a small advantage of mobility, and the awesome wings I had to go through a headache to get to.

[incinerator950]

Did I scare people away?

 

Hey, I did some changes, but my counting skills suck.

 

Someone else want to help me because it feels like I'm going crazy just redoing these scores.

 

Chaos Sorcerer MoN, Wings, Doooooombolt: 150

Generic summoned Nomarkstandardbasicsameasalltheotherones Greater Demon: 100

 

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x plasma rifles: 226

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Flamers, Champion 221

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Melta, Champion w/Fist: 256

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Flamers, Champion w/Fist: 246

 

Defiler, Reaper Autocannon, CCW: 150

Defiler, Reaper Autocannon, CCW: 150

 

I'm assuming I just reduced anti tank effectiveness by much, or a little.

[Ecophagy]

I would run better anti-tank than Defilers probably, I find them unreliable... Swapping flamers for meltas in one squad could help, but Oblits/Predator/Land Raider would be preferable I think.

 

Also, this tactica is actually awesome, excellent job DemetriiTZ!

[TF-itis]

Well I yesterday I started to make up a Death Guard army as I was reading the Horus Hersey Books. . . I had the CSM Codex and drafted up a few lists before reading this wonderful thread, I started to paint my first rhino and vindicator and became very ill, must have been my transformation to Papa Nurgle. But after spending a good deal of time in the bathroom and completing my forge world orders I started again . . .

 

I think I will use two DG varriants and see what feels better. The standard PM set up and DP's and 2-3 vindicators as I have two already. And the one that Demitri fields the LR's. Very excited (when I am not ill) but I do feel more resistance to the mental/physical attacks from the wife :)

 

One thing I have gathered as I read this thread. Is the importance of deployment and placement of terrain. I love to sculpt and create terrain so I have started my own "Nurgle" theme terrain. It always seems when you need to terrain that it's just magically gone! :) I think the IG players secretly destroy it all after gaming hours. I have made some terrain layouts that use the same area as GW terrain the bases are shaped like golf course dog legs. It helps max out cover saves for vehicles and rapid deployment. Also a few terrain pieces that scream to IG "put artillery here" or what I like to call Terrain traps (I rather have it indirectly firing then with line of sight). I put the terrain all on the table so they can pick it too its pretty harmless looking and is very much like the GW stuff with minor changes for line of sight issues. I have the new DP models.

 

Would like everyone who has taken the time to put their ideas down, and DemetriiTZ thanks heaps.

 

::cough cough sniff sniff::

[nurglephill]

Did I scare people away?

 

Hey, I did some changes, but my counting skills suck.

 

Someone else want to help me because it feels like I'm going crazy just redoing these scores.

 

Chaos Sorcerer MoN, Wings, Doooooombolt: 150

Generic summoned Nomarkstandardbasicsameasalltheotherones Greater Demon: 100

 

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x plasma rifles: 226

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Flamers, Champion 221

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Melta, Champion w/Fist: 256

7x Plague Marines, Rhino, 2x Flamers, Champion w/Fist: 246

 

Defiler, Reaper Autocannon, CCW: 150

Defiler, Reaper Autocannon, CCW: 150

 

I'm assuming I just reduced anti tank effectiveness by much, or a little.

 

 

Hmm. if your running a GD, why not take a squad or two of chosen...they have the cheapest champ to sacrifice AND lots of special weapon options...rhinos...AND infiltrate so you can get right into his lines and WHAM, a GD appears with a squad armed with 4 melta guns lol.