Death Guard Questions

[Wayniac]

So I seriously started talking to some of the 30k people in my area about what looked cool and worked, and I got talking about the Death Guard since I mentioned them as giving me some cool ideas (also sorry brothers of the IVth but turns out painting gunmetal bores me to tears). So I got curious about them and have a few questions:

1) How do they play? Foot-slogging seems a given, little or no transports, lots of firepower, Terminators and Dreadnoughts (all models I love)? I've been told that to be super fluffy, take big blobs of 20 guys with combat weapons and an Apothecary (I forget if they have another name in 30k), which also appeals to me because something about having a huge unit of Marines marching across the field is cool. Also tanks are expensive

2) Did the Death Guard prefer one style of armor over another? I've been reading various things but I've had people tell me to prefer MkIII because it's more heavily armored, MkIV because Horus made sure the traitors were equipped with them first, and even MkV because of the battered/battle-worn approach. Trying to decide if I should get Calth or Prospero (which will be out by the time funds are available), but regardless I'm likely to get the FW upgrade kit as well. I've also heard I should be doing a mix because no Legion was fully equipped with any one type of armor at that point, so maybe I can do one squad with MkIII and one squad with MKIV, or come up with some way to determine who gets what?

3) What, exactly, is the color of their armor? I see it described as being bone-white, off-white, dirty white, "unpainted" and "grey" depending on the source in question. I cannot paint white to save my life so I'm thinking maybe a pale ivory color (like a light khaki) so they can still be weathered and made dirty (dirty Death Guard seems to be quite fluffy), and then sort of an olive drab (more green than grey) for the green parts, and dark bronze for the bronze/gold/brass parts.

4) What units should I look at as being fluffy? Destroyer Squads? I'm almost certainly going to be using "The Reaping" Rite of War, so Heavy Support? I definitely want to use the Grave Warden terminators because they look cool, maybe Deathshroud (depending on how I work the fluff, they don't seem like they would be around for everyone, only important people). From a fluff perspective I don't want to use any special character (I might get Mortarion or Typhon later) but come up with my own guy and tell my own story.

I really do not know that much about 30k yet, have to order the books and read more about it, so I'm a bit confused at this point of it.

[Charlo]

Hey man! Welcome to the Heresy!

 

The Death Guard are incredible and almost a little too spoiled by their play style and unique units as they have a lot of crossover :)

 

But to answer your questions:

 

1) 20man Blobs with Apothecary's sure are fluffy, but depeding on how unforgiving your local players/ meta are, could be met with disappointment. There are a lot of big guns that can wipe a tactical blob from the map quicker than you can say "Barbarus".

 

2) The Deathguard are known for function over fashion. Their armour doesn't look pretty, but they seldom replace it. Because they are one of the Traitor legions, they had ample supply of MkIV and MkIII suits thier usual style of endurance warfare. A Mix will look great as it shows their functional mind-set.

 

3) You've covered this yourself! It's whatever you want it to be really. Just like how the Emperor's children range from pink to purple, DG are a Khaki to Bone white and everything in between. Even a good dirty grey.

 

4) For Fluff the Reaping is great! But bear in mind that it's benefits (outside of Rad Grenades and Move Through Cover) don't always come to fruition in low points levels, especially if you are going full foot-slog army. But scoring Heavy Weapon squads in troops frees up those heavy support slots for more Grave Wardens, which are absolutely brutal. Destroyers are cool, but really just poor from a gameplay perspective sadly. A siege Breaker consul to unlock Phosphex Quad Mortars is a must of course ;) also bear in mind the DG did use tanks just like any other legion. Mortarion especially favored vindicators and other siege tanks. The legion as a whole also prided itself on the trinity of the Bolter, Flamer & Melta as a tool kit to combat most anything as well as each DG marine being trained to be entirely self sufficient in combat. Because of this Pride of the Legion with lots of Veterans is a great Rite of War for them too, plus shredding, sniping Chem Flamers are wonderful.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Sincerely a DG player with an unpainted pile of Resin :P

[Wayniac]

Thank you for your help.  I may look at Pride of the Legion as well, I admit I know next to nothing about how 30k rites and such work, so I will need to get the books and read up on them.  I think most of the locals play fairly fluffy with nothing too crazy but they do like a lot of FW tanks so I may need to save to get one or two to combat them, but I like Vindicators too ;)  I don't quite know what "Siege Breaker Consul" is yet but I'll look at using one to get the Phosphex Mortars (those are on the Rapier batteries right?)

[Charlo]

Ah!

 

Basically you get Centurions as a HQ Choice. They're like a sort of super veteran. They can be further upgraded to be a variety of roles called a consul.

 

There are a Chaplain, Librarian, Siege Breaker etc

 

I cannot recommend this page enough to get to grips with the Heresy:

 

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Space_Marine_Legion_List_(30k)

[Wayniac]

Ah okay.  I have seen the terms but I don't have the "red books" yet to know what they really mean.  That makes sense.  Thanks again :)

[Vodunius]

2) Did the Death Guard prefer one style of armor over another?  I've been reading various things but I've had people tell me to prefer MkIII because it's more heavily armored, MkIV because Horus made sure the traitors were equipped with them first, and even MkV because of the battered/battle-worn approach.  Trying to decide if I should get Calth or Prospero (which will be out by the time funds are available), but regardless I'm likely to get the FW upgrade kit as well.  I've also heard I should be doing a mix because no Legion was fully equipped with any one type of armor at that point, so maybe I can do one squad with MkIII and one squad with MKIV, or come up with some way to determine who gets what?

 

 

Death Guard definitely have a MkIII fetish. The pre-Heresy example in their Index Astartes article was labelled as "MkIV with an Armourum Ferrum helmet", Betrayal has 7 art examples of Death Guard marines of which there are a single MkII, four pure MkIII's, a MkIV with a MkIII chestplate and a patchwork suit of mixed MkII-IV components (which some people classify as MkV).

Personally I'm old school, the original fluff outright stated that no force was ever solely equipped with MkIII - it was too cumbersome and unwealdy for general use, as well as having reduced rear armour to compensate for the weight of the frontal plates (the latter apparently most recently stated in the armour cards that came with the 7th edition space marine codex collectors edition), so I *usually* restrict MkIII to flamer dudes and long-range support units - the former because they're likely to be ignored until they get close enough to be a threat whereupon they become bullet magnets, the latter because they're more likely to be engaged by large calibre weaponry than small arms, and less likely to be outflanked. However I'm planning on doing a Reaping army once Prospero drops and plan on doing the entire force in MkIII as I think its lack of mobility explains the Rite's prohibition on running better than say "You are all ordered not to run in the coming engagement".

[Parsley]

1) How do they play? Foot-slogging seems a given, little or no transports, lots of firepower, Terminators and Dreadnoughts (all models I love)? I've been told that to be super fluffy, take big blobs of 20 guys with combat weapons and an Apothecary (I forget if they have another name in 30k), which also appeals to me because something about having a huge unit of Marines marching across the field is cool. Also tanks are expensive

Well. I didn't find them very effective foot slogging . While playing The Reaping they are way to slow to ever get to the enemy alive.

And it is not even so much of a fluffy way. The only fluff I alwas try to follow is Mortarions doctrine that the Space Marine is the weapon. So I try to field as much troops as I can.

And I try to benefit from the Reaping. So I use many Assault Troops with rad granades, Heavy Support Squads and Phosphex.

Meanwhile I try to counter the slowness of this RoW by using jet packs (perfect with move through cover), outflanking vets (with shredding and rending combi flamers) and of course transports, since DG don't have to do pinning checks when the transports are blown up.