Starting a Death Guard Army; Looking for Advice

[Slothysaur]

So as the topic states, I am starting a Death Guard army and am looking for advice from some veteran heretics.

I currently play Blood Angels and am pretty fond of the way Death Guard plays and am looking for a change from the fast and fragile aspect of Blood Angels.

 

I bought a Dark Imperium box set and traded out the Primaris Marines for another half of Death Guard. In addition my buddy gave me the chaos half of his Dark Vengeance box (dusty!) and I have 10 Plaguebearers (in addition to some other random Daemons I was using for 7th ed Conclave Summoning shenanigans). Finally I was able to aquire a METAL Typhus to lead my army.

 

My question to my new heretical comrades is this; what do you recommend? What should I avoid? What is the best way to spread Nurgles gifts to the Imperium?

[Gaz Taylor]

As I'm in the same boat, I'll mention what I'm doing. Just paint up what you have and wait for the upcoming Death Guard release in next few weeks. The Konor campaign is all about Death Guard ransacking the Konor system and making the Ultramarines cry. There will be plenty of new toys by the end of July 

[Sception]

I would second the idea that you should probably wait on expanding your force for a month or two while you wait to see the codex.  That said, it's probably safe to get a couple boxes worth of the starter stuff, plus maybe some more pox walkers off the secondary market, since the walkers are good and are almost guaranteed to stay good.

 

The main issue is that right now, the best advice for a death guard player would be to play a generalist chaos list using a bunch of plague zombies, a couple units of plague marines (for flavor more than for effect), a couple rhinos for those plague marines, typhus as an all round beast who makes your best unit better, plus mix in some nurgle daemons, and some heavy ranged support - maybe havocs or rapiers or predators or FW R&H earthshaker batteries, then a couple counter-charge units to hurt things that get stuck in with your poxwalkers, maybe defilers or plague hulks or dual fist/soulburn contemptors.

 

BUT your new codex is right around the corner, and could change things.  Maybe you'll get new units that change what you want to field or even how the army really operates on the table.  Maybe you'll get incentives for staying in subfaction that would invalidate the earthshaker batteries & havocs.  Typhus will probably still be great, but he'll also probably get a fancy new model which would have you regretting buying the current one (or putting the work into converting him out of the starter box lord of contageon).  Even the rhinos for your plague marines might be iffy.  The primaris guys are getting a special new transport - it's unlikely but still entirely possible that Death Guard might, too.

 

So yeah, other than maybe stocking up on cheap poxwalkers purchased second hand from marine players buying the starter set, I think it's probably better to sit back a bit and wait for your codex.  Shouldn't be more than a month or two.

Edited June 26, 2017 by malisteen

[Sonoftherubric21]

As added bonus for this thread a tiny bit of a battle report; played a 2000 pointer yesterday and out of it I used about 1200 in Death Guard, Dark Imperium contents mainly on my end. 

the Noxious blightbringer is absolutely fantastic. A GREAT 80 points to spend (or 160 if you want two of them, as I will be doing for my DG force) for a Death Guard army, makes the Pox walkers actually able to move decently, and they are relatively deadly in combat. Hit Tocisn of misery is fantastic for the LD defbuff, makes battleshocks even against marines mean something.  Combo this with the Despair icon of the Plauge Marines, pretty great. 

the Pox walkers...live...trudge...and die..... That is literally all they do, but thats exactly what they are supposed to do. My 30 pox walkers held up a Spartan assault tank, 5 Terminators, and a 10 man sternguard unit with 2 flamers, combi flamers, and a captain/apothecary for 2 turns, while the deathguard picked away at them. 

The Plague Marines.....Ohhh boy, These suckers are fantastic. Live forever, fairly deadly, and pointed reasonably well. Disgusting resilience is hilarious. Blight launchers are great, squad leader with Plasma gun AND power fist is perhaps overkill...but good. Lack of bolt pistols was felt, and annoying! 

 

The Foetid Blight Drone is very nice. Fast, spews puss on everything and anything in sight, and is fairly decent for the point cost.  fairly deadly especially against lone models.

The Malignant Plague caster has a good buff, a decent debuff (dang random rolling), and is about average in combat. Which is fine for his very reasonable price point. I have not had the chance to use the "6 = mortal wound" trick, as the army I played against was super elite. 

 

 as  for additions? wait for the upcoming codex

Edited June 26, 2017 by Sonoftherubric21

[Slothysaur]

These are all good things to hear. I have access to about anything loyalist marines have that chaos can take as well (mostly unpainted) so I can avoid a fair bit of purchasing for the most part and bide my time with that until the codex drops.

 

Side note, absolutely love the idea of Typhus and a Blightbringer with two 20 man squads of poxwalkers and fire support from preds or land raiders.

[balordazul]

 

My point of view is going to be a little different than Sonoftherubric21 as DG has been one of my main armies for many years all the way back to 3.5 so I hold a lot of the different versions still coloring my opinions.  

 

I played a 1300 DG vs BA last weekend working with mainly what you can get out of two starters sets.

 

First off do not take the Lord of Contagion he is extremely over costed mainly because of the absurd 45 point cost of the weapon that should be no more than 25 points max.  Use that model as a stand in for Typhus he is cheaper and better.  Hold off buying a Typhus model as we might get a new one soon but there are no hits have been dropped yet.  His model is still fantastic and imo it is better than the new sculpts but on the scale of the older metal CSM terminators.  

 

Typhus pros over Lord of Contagion.

Cost efficient

Better weapons

Psycher

Force multiplier for Pox Walkers

 

I did forget to use Nurgle's Gift in that game.

 

Pox Walkers - These guys look weak at first and they are as you need to advance and charge the enemy.  As I was playing against an aggressive BA player, if he had taken his time and let his Baal Predators do their job he would have wiped out both units of 20 without an issue. Having a larger unit helps as you can hit a little better from a 33% to 50%.  Typhus is huge for these guys as the 7" range buff is nice for +1 S&T.  Now you need to note Typhus is slow as his advance rolls are reduced by half.  The Psychic powers Miasma of Pestilence and Contagion will really help out this unit.  I had two psychers and found the DG is very dependent on these two powers.  

 

This might shock you but I feel so long as you are running Typhus, the Pox Walkers are DG current melee damage dealers.  

 

 

If you are using a Blightbringer he is mainly here to help you advance.  The minus LD is not that big as there are a lot of morale protective abilities in the game.  The minus two LD against Psychers is useless unless you run into psycher units containing more than one model.  As we don't have anything that attacks vs LD and single model units do not take morale tests.  I'm honestly disappointed with this unit as they focused on the cool factor vs something more synergic.  As much as I don't like him you do need to get Typhus and the Pox Walkers across the table so he feels more like a tax to make the army work.  Sadly he has 7 plague bells on him that are doing nothing but making the model stand out.  It would have been nice to have a random buff system off those bells.  

 

Plague Marines - These guys are in a strange place right now.  They no longer have pistols and do not get 2 attacks in CC but re-roll 1's to wound with the plague knife.  They have gone from a great unit to something that is ok.  We lost the punch in CC but we did get a very good ranged weapon with the blight launcher that I tried out in my game.  For weapons go with melta guns and blight lunchers and double up so you can stay consistent and focused in their battle field roll.  If you plan on getting in CC with them and most likely you will, gear the plague champ with PF and plasma pistol for a low cost of 27 points.  If you are going with the starter set models you can easily clip off the plague sword and change out that weapon.  

 

T5 in 8th!

So T5 in 8th is a huge change but if you are coming to DG only in 8th this might not be a big deal.  In the past S3 attack were not that dangerous to T5 but now they are just as deadly as S4.  On the flip side a S7 to S9 now only wounds you on 3+.  

 

Plague Marines have dropped overal in unit quality in part to new to wound and gearing of the unit.  I do believe they have done this to get us to buy more of the new DG units like Pox Walkers and the DG terminators that they have not released yet.  They are fine as a support unit and still ok but not that great unit they were in the past.

 

Malignant Plaguecaster - Love this guy as the DG psychic powers I feel is what will make this force work.  First smite and I'm sure I do not have to explain how good that power is even with the limitation being the closest enemy.  I had Typhus and Mephiston going one on one and Typhus finished off that sparkly space vamp with a smite right to the face.  

 

Pestilential Fallout is a very helpful close range extra attack that is nice and thematic.  If you roll Nurgle's number or higher you can target within Nurgle's number in inches and inflict one mortal wound. (PS that number is 7)

 

Via right from the rules, characteristic modifiers stack!  The key with rules like this you need to check the rules for exclusionary conditions.  

 

Miasma of Pestilence - This thing is your bread and butter as DG has never really been about doing high damage but being a more elite force that is hard to hurt.  Making units harder to hit in both ranged and melee is fantastic and help to offset the power of shooting in this edition.  

 

Gift of Contagion - This is a random negative characteristic modifiers power can reduce the target's offense of defense and best used when are trying to get into CC.  Stack this on the same unit with as many casters as you have when you assault.

 

Plague Wind - The lowest tier of the three imo unless you are running into hordes.  You should get consistently more out of other two powers.

 

Fetid Bloat-Drone - Offense ok but it has good resilience and this is a chaff or announce unit.  Sadly GW made 8th flamers in heavy favor of attacking single targets with high strength weapons.  Looking at you Elder D-scyth and sad favoritism they have for space elfs. You are going to get near 7 hits each turn when you fire the Plaguespitters but I was honestly not impressed with the weapon.  

 

What I found the Bloat-Drone to be good at is drawing fire and taking enemy charges.  Two things here you can advance and still fire your plaguespitters as they are assault and they still auto hit ignoring the penalty.  So start them near a Blightbringer at the start of the game so you can advance as far as you can.  Next once people have assaulted them next turn fallback as you are a fly unit and you can move over units so pick your location and you are allowed to fire those plaguespitters again.  As these are your fast units use them to charge enemy vehicles that don't have the fly keyword or are good in CC.  You can tie them up and annoy the enemy.  

 

Disgustingly Resilient is fantastic and there is only one thing that ignores it that I have found and that is the plasma supercharge failure.  You can even take it on Mortal Wounds, yes check the wording it is after you take the wound you apply Disgustingly Resilient.

 

Overal all DG is good with the rebalancing of unit power.  I hope the Plaguereaper is FAQ's down on cost because at 45 points we are looking at dreadnought weapons and this is not even close maybe equivalent to SM Thunder Hammer.

 

I'm hoping for a new Typhus model and that the DG terminators are going to be good.  Mortarion I have no desire for as I never really got into mega character models but that is just a personal taste. 

[micahwc]

Nice write up. I was hoping to do some list building today but I accidently ordered the Forge World chaos index instead of the regular one. I bought the E version through games workshop and wasn't paying enough attention apparently. I think I'll wait for the death guard codex instead of buying the chaos index.

 

I think it will be easy to convert the Lord of Contagion into a typhus model. Trim the icon off the top, shave the horns on the shoulders down a bit, and convert the axe into a scythe. The rest is fairly close to Typhus already, a Deathguard in terminator armor.

[balordazul]

I think it will be easy to convert the Lord of Contagion into a typhus model. Trim the icon off the top, shave the horns on the shoulders down a bit, and convert the axe into a scythe. The rest is fairly close to Typhus already, a Deathguard in terminator armor.

 

I had a friend say something similar and I might give it a shot with my second Lord of Contagion if Typhus does not get a new model.  A little bit of greenstuff and the weapon conversion even at bit from WF would put you in the right direction. 

[Sception]

It's probably not hard to convert a decent Typhus out of the lord of contageon, but considering how nice the official revamps for Khârn and Arhiman were, and that we're probably getting a similarly impressive new Typhus model in a month or two, I think you'd be better served by saving the effort and just running the Lord of Corruption as Typhus in a 'counts as' fashion in the mean time.

Edited June 28, 2017 by malisteen

[balordazul]

True I do have a very nicely painted Typhus already and I will use him until I get a updated model.

[Slothysaur]

Wow, what an incredible write up, Baldor. Thank you so much for the insights! I did already score a Typhus model, but he's metal, so I'm okay with buying the new Typhus as well. Looking forward to putting my learnings into practice!

[balordazul]

Basing off the comparison of Characters with a WS 2+ Thunder hammers (25 points for characters) vs Plaguereaper (45 points)

 

Going to include Rites of Battle rule that SM captains have as most SM characters that can take a Thunderhammer have this type of power or better.

 

The Plaguereaper will include the re-roll 1's on the two wound.  

 

Weapon (to hit%) -> To wound (%) -> Armor mitigation (value of the reduced armor) (%) =% chance to get the wound through

 

Vs MEQ

Thunder Hammer (66%)+(11%) -> To wound (83%) -> Armor mitigation 6+ (-16%) = 55% to do 3 damage to a single model

Plaguereaper (83%) -> To wound (66%)+(11%) -> Armor mitigation 6+ (-16%) = 55% to do 3 damage to a single model

 

Result: Same strength

 

Vs T3 w/5+ save

Thunder Hammer (66%)+(11%) -> To wound (84%) -> Armor mitigated = 65% to do 3 damage to a single model

Plaguereaper (83%) -> To wound (83%)+(14%) -> Armor mitigated = 80.51% to do 3 damage to a single model

 

Result: Plaguereaper is about 15% stronger vs low toughness and weak save models.

 

Vs T5 w/3+ save

Thunder Hammer (66%)+(11%) -> To wound (66%) -> Armor mitigation 6+ (-16%) = 44% to do 3 damage to a single model

Plaguereaper (83%) -> To wound (66%)+(11%) -> Armor mitigation 6+ (-16%) = 55% to do 3 damage to a single model

 

Result: Plaguereaper is about 11% stronger vs toughness 5 with marine armor.

 

Vs T6 w/4+ save (light vehicles)

Thunder Hammer (66%)+(11%) -> To wound (66%) -> Armor mitigated = 51% to do 3 damage to a single model

Plaguereaper (83%) -> To wound (50%)+(8%) -> Armor mitigated = 48% to do 3 damage to a single model

 

Result: Thunderhammer is about 3% stronger vs toughness 6 light vehicles.

 

Vs T7 w/3+ save (monsters or walkers)

Thunder Hammer (66%)+(11%) -> To wound (66%) -> Armor mitigation 6+ (-16%) = 44% to do 3 damage to a single model

Plaguereaper (83%) -> To wound (33%)+(5%) -> Armor mitigation 6+ (-16%) = 27% to do 3 damage to a single model

 

Result: Thunderhammer is about 17% stronger vs toughness 7 monsters or walkers with a 3+ armor.

 

Vs T8 w/3+ save

Thunder Hammer (66%)+(11%) -> To wound (50%) -> Armor mitigation 6+ (-16%) = 33% to do 3 damage to a single model

Plaguereaper (83%) -> To wound (33%)+(5%) -> Armor mitigation 6+ (-16%) = 27% to do 3 damage to a single model

 

Result: Thunderhammer is about 6% stronger vs toughness 8 with marine armor being the common tough vehicles.

 

So overall I believe the results show that the two weapons are fairly close on damage output with both when you add it up have a total of 26% damage out in different areas.  So my question is why is the Plaguereaper 180% of the cost of a SM character thunder hammer? 

Edited June 29, 2017 by balordazul

[Marshal Loss]

Because we're Chaos, and overpriced archaic weaponry is our trademark.

 

Anyway my advice would be to hibernate and hope GW actually decide to release DG sometime in the future