What attracts DG players to the DG (40k)?

[Guest]

I am going to split that new box with someone and taking the DG troops. This will be my first chaos army and it seems opposing thematic in a twisted sense with my SWs (Executioner and Death, the cold helfrost weapons to the burning infectious disease weapons, etc etc) Seeing as how putrid and disgusting they are, made me wonder why people choose them. They aren't "pretty", they aren't huge players in stories, and they don't seem to be a top ranked army.

 

I will say for me to choose and start a small batch is simply because like the A-10 warthog, its ugly its captivating and ends up being pleasant in its own way. They are also as resilient and hardened as a A-10 and prefer semi-CQC. Basically DG are the A-10's of the Legions, and I do "love me some" A-10's for personal/emotional reasons along with it's mythic status. So ugly you just can't help to look and then it grows on you. Also I can yell out "PAPA NURGLE JUST WANTS TO HUG YOU!" in melee.

 

I plan on either going the generic paint scheme, or Weeping Legion the one that looks like the 30k scheme with white and green shoulders that are all dirty and rusted.

[TURBULENCE]

For me the call to death guard has always been there. For many reasons. First and foremost: I love to be the bad guy. Who wants to play boring heroes. Give me the foe who rots even the ground they walk upon every day. Two the image of a reaper and death has always been appealing to me. To the point where my dp conversion tries to exemplify that motif. It's very macabre and Gothic, so it's very 40k. And i love that. I love the wwi trench and Chem warfare feel of the death guard and finally it was the sheer amount of conversion potential that sealed the deal for me

[Schultzhoffen]

I'd also suggest that Death Guard are one of the most powerful Chaos army builds. Plague marines have always been awesome. Always.

 

Plus, they're interesting to paint.

[Cheex]

I've never been a Death Guard player, but what appeals to me is the disturbing duality of Nurgle. He's portrayed as a loving father or grandfather, jovial and generous, but his gifts are no better than the death they promise salvation from. The Death Guard are damned, and I like that in this setting.

 

If I were to do a DG army myself, I'd want to go for a more gaunt, skeletal look rather than the usual bloated look. Not sure how is pull it off, but that would be the plan at least.

[Panzer]

A mix of cool fluff (Nurgle is awesome), easy to make impressive conversions, and being a fairly strong CSM army I'd say. ^^

[Vanger]

For me personaly it's a mix of the aesthetic, the fantasy how they are supposed to be played and background.

 

I do like the corroding/diseased knight look they have, the resilient infantry horde playstyle they embody and the background. Papa Nurgle, he's like a maffioso don. Jovial, but utterly ruthless and always working on something sinister. Also the fact that DG is a tragic tale, that turned them utterly over.

[the jeske]

I am going to split that new box with someone and taking the DG troops. This will be my first chaos army and it seems opposing thematic in a twisted sense with my SWs (Executioner and Death, the cold helfrost weapons to the burning infectious disease weapons, etc etc) Seeing as how putrid and disgusting they are, made me wonder why people choose them. They aren't "pretty", they aren't huge players in stories, and they don't seem to be a top ranked army.

 

I will say for me to choose and start a small batch is simply because like the A-10 warthog, its ugly its captivating and ends up being pleasant in its own way. They are also as resilient and hardened as a A-10 and prefer semi-CQC. Basically DG are the A-10's of the Legions, and I do "love me some" A-10's for personal/emotional reasons along with it's mythic status. So ugly you just can't help to look and then it grows on you. Also I can yell out "PAPA NURGLE JUST WANTS TO HUG YOU!" in melee.

 

I plan on either going the generic paint scheme, or Weeping Legion the one that looks like the 30k scheme with white and green shoulders that are all dirty and rusted.

For  4 editions PMs were the best for of csm unit[which doesn't mean there were good, there was a time when CSM armies couldn't even support runing their best csm type of unit], so people own them, so people play them. And considering that MoN was the best aka only viable mark for a very long time, you have a lot of people wth nurgle stuff in their armies. This is a step away from playing a DG list.

[Guest]

 

I am going to split that new box with someone and taking the DG troops. This will be my first chaos army and it seems opposing thematic in a twisted sense with my SWs (Executioner and Death, the cold helfrost weapons to the burning infectious disease weapons, etc etc) Seeing as how putrid and disgusting they are, made me wonder why people choose them. They aren't "pretty", they aren't huge players in stories, and they don't seem to be a top ranked army.

 

I will say for me to choose and start a small batch is simply because like the A-10 warthog, its ugly its captivating and ends up being pleasant in its own way. They are also as resilient and hardened as a A-10 and prefer semi-CQC. Basically DG are the A-10's of the Legions, and I do "love me some" A-10's for personal/emotional reasons along with it's mythic status. So ugly you just can't help to look and then it grows on you. Also I can yell out "PAPA NURGLE JUST WANTS TO HUG YOU!" in melee.

 

I plan on either going the generic paint scheme, or Weeping Legion the one that looks like the 30k scheme with white and green shoulders that are all dirty and rusted.

For  4 editions PMs were the best for of csm unit[which doesn't mean there were good, there was a time when CSM armies couldn't even support runing their best csm type of unit], so people own them, so people play them. And considering that MoN was the best aka only viable mark for a very long time, you have a lot of people wth nurgle stuff in their armies. This is a step away from playing a DG list.

 

 

I suppose I'm not too familiar with the past editions as I didn't play them. 

 

Curious though, did you get the idea for your signature from my post about Imperium of Darkness book, located in the SW sub-forum?

[Marshal Loss]

I wasn't initially a DG player during 3rd-6th, but they grew on me over time. Typhus has always been one of my favourite characters due to his model, which helped, but it was their 30k incarnation that got me hooked. A grim, implacable force of badasses who believed that the Space Marine is the greatest weapon in the Emperor's arsenal, with a twisted father who fought for humanity's at any cost, no matter how terrible it may have been. It's quintessential grimdark 40k. Now that Mortarion is returning to 40k, probably my second favourite Primarch, there was no way I could resist. There's also the appeal of having a 30k army and a 40k army representing the same dudes, split apart by 10,000 years and their own lost souls.

 

When 6th hit I bought a bunch of the FW upgrade kits and Typhus but never got around to actually building or painting anything. 8th and a completely new line hitting at the same time is too much to resist.

 

Also, they look really cool. I dig that WW1 infantryman aesthetic.

Edited June 16, 2017 by Marshal Loss

[Azekai]

What got me into Death Guard was Ryan Powell (who also ran the old DeathGuard.org site) who featured his army in a tactics article back in WD 290 US. The combination of pale, greasy armor and bright highlights for wounds or mutations really appealed to little teenage me.

When I finally scraped together the money and will to make an army, years later, my soul already belonged to Papa Nurgle.   

I relish all the disgusting options that come with converting the Death Guard and their misshapen allies and warmachines. Besides, what other 40k faction gets to drown their opponents in zombies?? (or Poxwalkers^TM... same crap, different day).

[El_Dicko]

Nurgling cuteness. Infectious charm. Fun conversion possibilities including a range of cool Whfb/aos stuff to use!

[Emicus]

Easy to paint.

[Trevak Dal]

For an alternative take, I'm repelled by Deathguard and Nurgle in general because they are particularly depressing, the entropic end to all things just rotting away. Like the fat-:cuss Sock Puppet from Halo 2-3 (the flood gravemind), and zombies in general, I just feel a great deal of contempt for them all because growing up my dad struggled with depression and it was infuriating at times.

 

Then again I deal with sadness and general unpleasant emotions by anger, because anger is transformative and if channeled well more productive than sitting around in the fetal position sobbing about how recently divorced women aren't eager to get back into long term relationships (and he went for some low hanging fruit too. His lack of pride disturbed and distressed me greatly-and I haven't quite forgiven the gender for that).

 

Its the same reason I kind of hate the Emperor and all the primarchs, because they are supposed to be super human and beyond this basic "but muh dad" bull:cuss.

 

Plus Nurgle always tends to get the best rules with little to no downsides (until 8th, love that move stat) so that made me just bitter/pissed/annoyed about it and fueled my polarizing view points against them even as I begrudgingly took the mark on my oblits (them getting :cussty means I might have more terminators, and more lascannon havocs soon).

 

The first time I painted my army was in catachen green and I was super enjoying how they looked like Spartans from the Halo series, I was going to take the Tzeentch banner to give them a 5++ save (this was back in 5th) and someone said "oh are those Deathguard?" To which I was horrified and promptly stripped them.

 

I really liked that color scheme :(

[Bung]

I think alot comes from the options they offer from a painting and modelling point of view.

You can do full conversions and go full weathering and nothing is out of place and weathering can be easy to do and cover alot of painting failures. ;)

 

They can fit alot levels of painters from beginners to "OMG, i want to drive broken brushes in that painters eyes."

[Chainsword Cookie]

My experience of the Death Guard comes mostly from the BL books. I like how they are an infantry army which relies on toughness and sheer resilience to overcome their enemies. In the books they are mostly a misunderstood legion, very reserved, very clannish, but I like how they simply do their job, thankless as it may be, and with their heads raised they march to their doom. 

 

Then in their 40k iteration I especially like how they are all bio-engineered zombies with guns, daemonic engines and weapons, with hordes of undead minions and a necromancy meet steampunk vibe. 

 

I sincerely hope I will be able to do them justice on tabletop...

[Frater Cornelius]

*sigh* Unfortunately, I am also quite attracted to that army, though it shames me greatly. I really like a heavy atmosphere and the subject of death holds a certain interest for me. Also, the iconography with the bells and antlers as well as the 'garden of Nurgle' shows some sort of naturalistic spin (albeit twisted), which also appeals. So yeah, conversion options, style and feel.

 

But, they are evil and thus out of bound for me.

[the jeske]

 

 

I suppose I'm not too familiar with the past editions as I didn't play them. 

 

Curious though, did you get the idea for your signature from my post about Imperium of Darkness book, located in the SW sub-forum?

 

Not realy. A friend sent me some w40k stuff a in march

, mostly to make me angry.

[Guest]

I suppose I'm not too familiar with the past editions as I didn't play them. 

 

Curious though, did you get the idea for your signature from my post about Imperium of Darkness book, located in the SW sub-forum?

Not realy. A friend sent me some w40k stuff a in march

, mostly to make me angry.

 

Heh, dont look at my thread in the SW forums about Dark Imperium and the SW fluff. Not sure what way Guilliman is going but signs point to things i do not wish.

[Hellex_The_Thanatar]

For me a singular quote "Some men just want to watch the world burn."

 

The death guard are such men. They are the polar opposite of what I want for humanity. So I think it's fun to play on that duality.

[Sception]

Lots of things might attract people to death guard.  They're a dirty army, and those tend to paint faster.  Though the new models have a lot of detail so that advantage might be lost, but in exchange the new models are just amazing, and that may be draw enough on its own - they're very visually distinctive, even among chaos.  Nurgle stuff just looks more chaotic, more warped and mutated and corrupted, than other chaos stuff.  There have been one or two not-explicitly-nurgle models that have come close - the dark vengeance chosen come to mind, but for the most part if a CSM unit isn't explicitly nurgle than the models are just 'marines with trim and spikes'.

 

In terms of fluff & narrative, they've got a lot of personality range - the other chaos gods tend to be very one note in terms of their characterization and that of their followers, but Nurgle runs the gamut from grim, silent, corpse-like figures to bubbly, happy, gregarious sorts.  And then there's rules.  Through the last several editions, Nurgle has had a pretty consistent edge on the other chaos gods, if only because their gimmick of being extra resilient is kind of hard to get wrong, and works well pretty much regardless of what a given unit's role on the table is.

[Schultzhoffen]

Aside from rules, they have an obvious "look" and are very distinct, especially from Loyalists. They have an interesting back story.

 

The irony of them is that they're supposed to be these stoic, unstoppable unyielding marines who beg mercy from nurgle (admittedly this was understandable, but still...) and are probably self loathing because they are actually weak where they thought they were strong (mentally, spiritually and physically).

 

....that's actually the kicker about all marines, strong on the surface but actually flawed and weak on the inside...

 

Death Guard seem to be a visual representation of the flaws all marines carry on the inside. They're in many ways, symbolic of the corruption within the Imperium as a whole.

[bozo69pd]

I love durability.

[Berzerker88]

If only their design was focused more on the 'death and decay' instead of 'pestilence and disease' aspects, I could bring myself to like them. I don't know if it's because of all the games and movies that saturated my teenage gears, but maaaan I'm tired as hell of the zombie theme.

[Slave to Darkness]

Hard to say why I love the DG so much. I just clicked with them ever since I read Realms of Chaos and they have been my main Chaos force since 1st ed.

[DuskRaider]

They were my very first army. I didn't know much about the game or Legion itself back in 2003, but I loved the theme. The idea of a zombie force was right up my alley, I was a huge Romero fan (my original Death Guard / Nurgle Daemons had blue skin like the zeds in the original Dawn of the Dead). As I learned more about the Legion itself, I became even more involved. Their fall is very tragic which makes them more interesting. As more information and models / bits came out concerning the Heresy, my army began to evolve and at one point was entirely replaced by the FW Death Guard kits using accurate Armour Mks. to match the torsos, period accurate weapons, etc. to give the force more of a historical feel.

 

6th Edition was the last straw for me. The lack of updates in 5th and then the very lazy 6th update turned me off from 40K in general and I went to 30K full time (playing Death Guard, of course). I sold off most of the army, not expecting GW to ever really come through for me and also feeling unsatisfied with the paint scheme I had chosen.

 

Now that 8th is out, Death Guard are getting their own codex AND they've received amazing models both in the start box and soon to be released independently (17 individual Plague Marines models, awesome!), I've jumped back in. Since my last foray my son has gotten to the age where he also wants to play and currently has a Skitarii / Ad Mech force and my buddies from back in the old 3rd Edition days are also starting 40K back up, so I've picked up the models from the box and will be building back up slowly. It's nice to have my space zombies back, although I don't see blue skin in their future.

 

Oh, I forgot... I'm so devoted to Nurgle that my son was born on 07-07-07. Beat that, other people.

Edited June 19, 2017 by DuskRaider