Anyone willing to break down the Codex Fluff?

[Guest]

i'm going to be waiting for 2-3 weeks for my copy, so was wondering if anyone had the book and the was willing to share the highlights?

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

Thanks to the Death Guard, we now have Chaos tainted Eldar Corsairs, a rusting plague that can infect Necrons, incursions (well, *an* incursion) into Commorragh, entire hive fleets being scattered due to plague, whole Imperial hives being turned into zombies, the Iron Warriors being forced to abandon a world, Huron being "humbled" by Typhus, and a whole WAAAGH being broken and culled.

 

Oh, and Greyfax shows up turn a Death Guard attack into a massive trap (by using the number 7 against them).

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention, Foulspawn gets a mention, the new Legion home in the Eye gets a few lines (think Barbarus, but up to 11), and a single Death Guard sorcerer managed to infect a Forgeworld through summoning.

 

There's also this bit.

 

 

The first Defilers were created by Warpsmiths on the order of Abaddon the Despoiler to support his Black Crusades. The news of their creation spread quickly throughout the Traitor Legions and renegade warbands, and thus entire campaigns were fought for possession of the dark lore behind the process. Mortarion did not need to resort to such desperate measures. He simply demanded the requisite hexamechanic scrolls from Abaddon as tribute, and the Warmaster – seeing no advantage in antagonising one of the Daemon Primarchs – provided them without question.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra

[Lord Marshal]

Fluff begins with what we knew already. Typhus traps 'em in the Warp, Morty-chan beseeches Nurgle, they fall back to the Plague Planet after Terra, etc. Nothing new here.

 

Typhus gets in a huff about his gene-daddy being sentimental in turning the Plague Planet into Barbarus 2.0. Decides to bugger off and do his own thing. Morty doesn't want to repeat the mistakes of his father and lets him go. The two have a deal where Typhus gets to do his own thing, but comes and helps out when Morty requests it.

 

From M31-M41 the Death Guard are rarely seen in the Imperium.

 

It's reiterated that the Black Crusades were 'actually a success guys, no really' and Morty begrudglingly acknowledges Abbadon's successes, so he sometimes sends warbands to help him out. Typhus does this more readily, fighting beside Abbadon personally a few times and gets his rocks off spreading the zombie plague.

 

It's worth noting here that Poxwalkers are a very recent thing and are a mutated version of what were the Plague Zombies, so they're still canon rather than being retconned.

 

The "Draigo Incident" was part of a plan to permanently banish Morty. It goes down as usual, but nothing is said about his heart being branded with 'draigo was here xxx my senpai'. It's noted as being a Pyrrhic victory for the Grey Knights (at best) as it lets Morty chill in the warp for a while, rebuilding his forces, organising his next offensive, etc rather than faffing about in realspace.

 

Siege of Vraks happens.

 

A plague gets unleashed on Commorragth.

 

At this point we head into M41 ("Time of Outbreaks"). Keep in mind I'm leaving out most of the "the [warband] attacked [imperium/Xenos] and it was awful for them and the Death Guard kicked much arse yo. It was wicked" parts that don't really add much.

 

The Great Rift occurs, Plague Fleets strike across the Imoerium.

 

The Plague Wars occur and Mortarion claims the Scourge Stars north of Ultramar.

 

Invasion of Ultramar happens.

 

Waaaagh! Badsmak hits the Scourge Stars and Mortarion needs to shift his focus to repel it, which he does.

 

Typhus duels Huron and wins. Lets him live to humble him and remind him what a swell dude Nurgle is.

 

The 5th and 6th Plague Fleets engage with the Saim-Hann craftworld. They successfully board it and spread a lot of their corruption around, requiring the Seer Council to cut part od the world-ship away. The despair is so bad hat it actually summons Daemons into the waystones of the surviving Sylthach clan members, possessing them. Now there's Chaos-tainted Corsairs running around, fun! The Death Guard get driven off of course but that was a given.

 

Inquisitor Greyfax figures out the Death Guard's obsession with the number seven and use it to bait the Deff Gard using White Scars. It works and they get killed, but it does highlight just how much they love that number.

 

"The Time of Rotting" (M41)

 

Morty decapitates seven champions of Khorne, turns their heads into 'death heads' and sends 'em into the warp to annoy Khorne.

 

The Eisentein is sighted. Days later Morty-senpai and his men descend upon the planet it was sighted above. Turns out this is the sixth time it's happened and we all know what Nurgle's favourite number is...

 

Typhus along with The Purged and other Nurgle renegades attack Medusa. The Iron Hands drive 'em off but sections of the planet are, you guessed it, corrupted and cursed as quarantine zones.

 

The Death Guard's 7th Plague Company attack the Minotaur Chapter's fortress monastery. They're driven off, but it turns out they corrupted their entire gene-seed stock. Now the Minotaurs are desperately crusading towards Terra to get replacements (probably Primaris) before they're wiped out.

 

Mortarion and Perturabo duel over the 'Temple of Ascension'. It's a close fight, but the Death Guard's plagues begin to wear them down. Perty retreats (which he's loathe to do), leaving the secrets held there to Morty.

Edited September 16, 2017 by Lord Marshal

[Jareddm]

I've really been enjoying the different "Ages of" headers that are written to be faction specific. It lets them get away with not using precise dates, but also feels very thematic that each faction would track the passage of time differently.

[Atia]

The Death Guard are still a coherent and organised Legion as opposed to most other - in fact, they are now even more than they were at the outbreak of the Heresy, thanks to their resilience and harvesting of loyalist geneseed.

 

The Legion is divided into seven Plague Companies, who numbers thousands of warriors - utterly dwarfing loyalist Chapters. Each Plague Company has seven Sepsis Cohorts with roughly 700 Plague Marines each, and these Sepsis Cohorts are divided further into two Maledictums with seven companies each.

 

1st Plague Company are called the Harbingers and are led by Typhus himself. They love their Plague Zombies. 

4th Plague Company is ruled by the Eater of Lives, aka Grulgor - cool, although it's weird he isn't leading the 2nd anymore. 

6th Plague Company are called "The Ferrymen" or "The Brethren of the Fly", and they garrisons the Plague Fleets. 

The 7th are Mortarion's Chosen Sons.

 

The Death Guard still uses super heavy tanks, drop- and gunships, drop pods aswell as Destroyer Colonies (Marines using alchemical weapons), although they have no rules for them - very cool, and far better than the old "GW Codex ignores fluff without models or FW stuff in their background section".

 

Timeline

 

- Starts with the Siege of Terra, although not much info is given about that. Death Guard are the only legion that manages to retreat in good order - for this they are gifted the Plague Planet, aka Barbarus 2.0

- Legion Wars are mentioned, taking some time and thousands of years shall pass where the Dg are rarely seen outside of the Eye of Terror. 

- Morty and the 7th use Nurgle Orks (called the Green Death) to attack an Ecclesiarchy world. Yep, Nurgle Orks are a thing again!! 

- Black Crusades are mentioned as plan to trigger the Great Rift. Morty sends his warbands to support Abaddon, Typhus fights alongside the Warmaster more than once. 

- Battle of Kornovin aka Draigo vs Mortarion - only a pyrrhic victory for the Grey Knights, Morty uses the time to gather fresh forces and plots his next invasion. 

- Siege of Vraks is in the timeline! 

- Typhus infests Hive Pandorial on Necromunda with the Zombie Plague ... 

- Plague in Commoragh

 

- Great Rift opens - Plague Fleets strike all across the Imperium. 

- Plague Wars in Ultramar 

- Waaaagh! Badsmak attacks the Scourge Stars - Morty defends them. 

- Typhus duels and humbles Huron Blackheart, leaves him alive as a lesson in Nurgle's might and generosity.

- Saim-Hann gets attacked by the 5th and 6th Plague Company. Part of the Craftworld gets infected and cut off by ghost warriors. Nurgle Daemons posses the surviving clan members of that part and turn them into insectile half-breeds. Nurgle-tainted Aeldari Corsairs are a thing now!

 

- Morty banishes Ka'Bandha using seven corrupted skulls turned into grenades. 

- The Eisenstein is sighted beyond the third moon of Lorn's Landing (what!?) and later Morty and his Legion invade the planet. Looks like this was the sixth time the frigatte was seen ...

 

- Typhus attacks Medusa and turns regions of the planet into cursed quarantine zones. 

- 7th Plague Company attacks the fortress monastery of the Minotaurs and taints the gene-seed stocks beyond redemption. They are now on a desperate quest for survival, a crusade across the stars to reach Terra and access purified gene-seed reserves before the Chapter wastes away ... 

- Morty and his Deathshroud survive alone against a whole legion of Necrons. 

- Oh, and infected Necrons are a thing too ... 

- Death Guard plagues are so toxic, not even a Tyranid would want to drink it ...

 

- Big battle between Iron Warriors and Death Guard, including Perturabo vs Mortarion. Morty wins, Perturabo is grumpy.

 

[Plaguecaster]

What's the fluff for the Death Shroud and possessed like??? Unfortunately I don't get my book till Monday since the post service in my area first deliver on weekends since I live out of town so was really curious on their fluff

[Lord Marshal]

What's the fluff for the Death Shroud and possessed like??? Unfortunately I don't get my book till Monday since the post service in my area first deliver on weekends since I live out of town so was really curious on their fluff

Death Shroud are still recruited in the same way (survivors from almost-wiped out units, considered deceased, etc) however they now function as both bodyguards for Morty and as enforcers of his will. They'll accompany Death Guard leaders into battle, fight for 'em, protect them from harm, but if they should fail they execute them. If they succeed they leave without a word.

 

The Death Guard are noted as having much fewer Possessed compared to other Legions because of the gifts already bestowed upon them by Nurgle. They do still exist, usually when they're deranged, want to serve Nurgle even more fully, etc. When they die, they're both cast back to the Plague Garden and the daemon pretty much takes them over completely, forever.

[Plaguecaster]

So how are Vectoriums organised in regard to the 7 great companies??

[DeadFingers]

Of all the fluff for the units I've read for now, I think my personal favourites are the Foul Blightspawn, that's the blokes with the tanks on their backa and all the Blight Grenades. Basically, these guys start as Plague Marines that are particularly sadistic, and eventuaklly get so bloated that their skin turns translucent and their eyes start oozing black goo until they kinda just leave their sockets, and they start to "see in shades of warp energy". So they send these guys to the "Disease Factories" in the Plague Planet, where they get a churn, let me repeat that, a churn, this thing

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NjAwWDM4OQ==/z/kloAAOSw-dBTvlKu/$_32.JPG

 

forcefully stuck into their guts and the big ol' vat permanently attached to their backs, and they become walking factories of toxic goo, which then they use to fill Blight Grenades, give to the Disease Factories and Putrifiers so they can refine it, or just shoot it at people. They even mention that in the factories, some of the older Blightspawn haven taken root and grown, and live "like fungus" on the factories, with cults forming around them to learn from their vast knowledge of brewing diseases.

 

They actually do paint quite the picture about these factories and their inhabitants in various fluff entires, I really like it.

Edited September 17, 2017 by DeadFingers

[Sete]

"The Eisenstein is sighted"

 

I need an explanation on this one.

[Iron Lord]

"The Eisenstein is sighted"

 

I need an explanation on this one.

The Eisenstein was destroyed by Imperial Fist weapons fire (the Phalanx, after Garro & company were rescued). However, a spectral Eisenstein sometimes appears before big Death Guard attacks - and the example in the codex is described as a "latest example of an Eisenstein appearance".

Edited September 17, 2017 by Iron Lord

[MoGuy]

The fluff sounds so cool. I love those grimderp bits. What's the fluff on the Putrifiers?

[Iron Lord]

Scientists - they have mutated extra eyes that see through armor - they spread diseases like the rest of the army does, then they use their injectors to take samples (killing their targets) of disease for further examination.

 

They also have grenades.

 

EDIT- apparently the injectors are used to give the target disease, before being used again for sampling.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Iron Lord

[DeadFingers]

Also, they work in the Disease Factories along with the Blightspawn. They refine and mix the raw toxic goo the Blightspawn produce. The two are pretty much science buddies. Their extra eyes allow them to see how disease spreads through a body and the effects it has on it, so they can describe it in detail to scribes and other servants, mortal or daemonic, that follow them around. In the battlefield, they urge other Plague Marines to pluck blight grenades and other disease-filled things from the racks on their backs and chuck them at the enemy, so they can observe how their concoctions work. Then they pick a test subject from those affected and experiment with them a bit before taking a sample from them and moving on.

Edited September 17, 2017 by DeadFingers

[Panzer]

I should stop reading this thread...it makes me want to play Death Guard lol

[TURBULENCE]

Typically I favor old fluff over new, I'll chalk it up to nostalgia, but honestly, I'm really liking the codex content this time around. The codex makes it clear they're and organized and functional fighting force, and even with Morty's favor for infantry tactics he's smart enough to know you need armored support. It's why he designed the crawler.

 

Also underlines how they are different from simple Nurgle worshipers as well. Callous, bitter and pragmatic.

[Conn Eremon]

So how are Vectoriums organised in regard to the 7 great companies??

"For all its theoretical cohesion, in reality the Death Guard Legion is broken up across thousands of galactic war zones, often at the whim of Chaos Lords, champions and the like. These warbands vary hugely in size and composition, but all are known as vectoriums. Those that fight together for any length of time will be named by their leader, and will often adopt - or simply manifest - a unifying colour scheme. Most vectoriums are drawn from maladictums or colonies of the same plague companies, but some can be more disparate still."

 

There are seven plague companies comprised of sepsis cohorts. This is the uppermost level of the legion.

 

Each sepsis cohort has roughly seven hundred marines, divided into two maladictums. Each maladictum has seven colonies of seven squads.

 

For sepsis cohorts to be seven hundred strong on average, you'd need an average squad of seven marines.

 

So basically a vectorium is a catchall term for Death Guard Warbands that nominally exist at the lower levels of the legion, but can also exist outside the legion hierarchy.

 

The legion's cohesion has varied over millennia, particularly when Mortarion's attention is elsewhere. During that time, it seems like the Death Guard existed more as a loose collective of vectoriums rather than a unified legion.

 

Efit: Got the maladictum & sepsis cohort level wrong, corrected it.

Edited September 17, 2017 by Conn Eremon

[Balthamal]

Pretty fun that the Minotaurs' fortress monastery got a bit of a kicking since they're fleet based. Guess GeeDub don't make a habit of reading the superior writing in Imperial Armour

[Interrogator-Chaplain Ezra]

Pretty fun that the Minotaurs' fortress monastery got a bit of a kicking since they're fleet based. Guess GeeDub don't make a habit of reading the superior writing in Imperial Armour

The Dark Angels are also fleet based, and maintain a fortress monastery on the Rock. It isn't entirely impossible that one of the larger ships in the Minotaur's fleet functions in the same fashion.

[Arkangilos]

Pretty fun that the Minotaurs' fortress monastery got a bit of a kicking since they're fleet based. Guess GeeDub don't make a habit of reading the superior writing in Imperial Armour

You mean this? http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Daedelos_Krata

 

It's a pretty well known part of fluff that even fleet based chapters have fortress monasteries.

 

Heck, even in battlefleet gothic they had rules for fleet based chapters where you get, you guessed it, rules for a fleet based fortress monastery.

 

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Fortress_Monastery

Edited September 17, 2017 by Arkangilos

[Arkangilos]

 

The Death Guard are still a coherent and organised Legion as opposed to most other - in fact, they are now even more than they were at the outbreak of the Heresy, thanks to their resilience and harvesting of loyalist geneseed.

 

The Legion is divided into seven Plague Companies, who numbers thousands of warriors - utterly dwarfing loyalist Chapters. Each Plague Company has seven Sepsis Cohorts with roughly 700 Plague Marines each, and these Sepsis Cohorts are divided further into two Maledictums with seven companies each.

 

1st Plague Company are called the Harbingers and are led by Typhus himself. They love their Plague Zombies.

4th Plague Company is ruled by the Eater of Lives, aka Grulgor - cool, although it's weird he isn't leading the 2nd anymore.

6th Plague Company are called "The Ferrymen" or "The Brethren of the Fly", and they garrisons the Plague Fleets.

The 7th are Mortarion's Chosen Sons.

 

The Death Guard still uses super heavy tanks, drop- and gunships, drop pods aswell as Destroyer Colonies (Marines using alchemical weapons), although they have no rules for them - very cool, and far better than the old "GW Codex ignores fluff without models or FW stuff in their background section".

 

Timeline

 

- Starts with the Siege of Terra, although not much info is given about that. Death Guard are the only legion that manages to retreat in good order - for this they are gifted the Plague Planet, aka Barbarus 2.0

- Legion Wars are mentioned, taking some time and thousands of years shall pass where the Dg are rarely seen outside of the Eye of Terror.

- Morty and the 7th use Nurgle Orks (called the Green Death) to attack an Ecclesiarchy world. Yep, Nurgle Orks are a thing again!!

- Black Crusades are mentioned as plan to trigger the Great Rift. Morty sends his warbands to support Abaddon, Typhus fights alongside the Warmaster more than once.

- Battle of Kornovin aka Draigo vs Mortarion - only a pyrrhic victory for the Grey Knights, Morty uses the time to gather fresh forces and plots his next invasion.

- Siege of Vraks is in the timeline!

- Typhus infests Hive Pandorial on Necromunda with the Zombie Plague ...

- Plague in Commoragh

 

- Great Rift opens - Plague Fleets strike all across the Imperium.

- Plague Wars in Ultramar

- Waaaagh! Badsmak attacks the Scourge Stars - Morty defends them.

- Typhus duels and humbles Huron Blackheart, leaves him alive as a lesson in Nurgle's might and generosity.

- Saim-Hann gets attacked by the 5th and 6th Plague Company. Part of the Craftworld gets infected and cut off by ghost warriors. Nurgle Daemons posses the surviving clan members of that part and turn them into insectile half-breeds. Nurgle-tainted Aeldari Corsairs are a thing now!

 

- Morty banishes Ka'Bandha using seven corrupted skulls turned into grenades.

- The Eisenstein is sighted beyond the third moon of Lorn's Landing (what!?) and later Morty and his Legion invade the planet. Looks like this was the sixth time the frigatte was seen ...

 

- Typhus attacks Medusa and turns regions of the planet into cursed quarantine zones.

- 7th Plague Company attacks the fortress monastery of the Minotaurs and taints the gene-seed stocks beyond redemption. They are now on a desperate quest for survival, a crusade across the stars to reach Terra and access purified gene-seed reserves before the Chapter wastes away ...

- Morty and his Deathshroud survive alone against a whole legion of Necrons.

- Oh, and infected Necrons are a thing too ...

- Death Guard plagues are so toxic, not even a Tyranid would want to drink it ...

 

- Big battle between Iron Warriors and Death Guard, including Perturabo vs Mortarion. Morty wins, Perturabo is grumpy.

 

Confirmed, Nurgle is the only hope of survival against the 'nids

[DeadFingers]

I don't know if this can technically be considered fluff, but, as much as I like the book, there's one thing I really miss, descriptions and drawings of all the weapons. Or at least the new ones.

 

It does cover some of the weapons in the descriptions of the units that use them, in a way that I find quite clever. It mixes the weapons' descriptions, how they work, what they shoot and what their effects are, with how the Death Guard use them, their intended use and typical objectives, giving the reader hints as to how and against who they should use those weapons. For example, in the text about Plague Marines, Plague Spewers are mentioned as being used against large numbers of infantry, while Blight Launchers are used against armoured threats. Bloat Drones equipped with Heavy Blight Launchers are used for long-range bombardment and destroying armoured vehicles, while those equipped with Fleshmowers and Plaguespitters work together slaughtering infantry. Blight-haulers can support the advance of Plague Marines with their fumes acting as cover, and they can act as "mid-to-close range tank hunters". I quite enjoy that union of fluff and hints for their use.

 

But as I said, I miss the art of weapons on their own. They are present in many of the Codices I own from various editions and it was always nice to look at the Wargear/Armoury section of a book and see how the weapons look like and read how they work and what they do. I hope those aren't going away indefinitely.

[Guest]

Nothing about that missing tau fleet? I remember reading that a whole fleet went missing and it was suspected to be the DG. Then we got the artwork of Typhus killing some tau. Makes me wonder what is going on.

[Panzer]

The T'au fleet got swallowed by a warpstorm caused by the Rift afaik. Anything could happen to it and my bet personally is that GW will use that as plot device to let them appear somewhere else in the galaxy to have T'au involved in something big without giving them proper FTL technology.

[Jareddm]

 

Confirmed, Nurgle is the only hope of survival against the 'nids

 

Inquisitor Orbiana thought so too.

 

The next thing she knew she was exploding into the physical manifestation of Ku'Gath and the Grey Knights were burning her flagship to ashes.

 

Edit: It was Orks but still xenos scum.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Jareddm