Death Guard Elite Characters + list building questions

[CaptainBoxman]

I'm a little flummoxed with all the choices we've got for our elite slots; could someone help an overwhelmed (relative) newbie to sort this out?

 

Firstly, I find it really hard to put the rules into context because I've played so few games and am returning after a long break since 5th ed, so I'm finding it difficult to determine good choices from meh choices

 

Secondly, I really want to base my list around Plague Marines, without doing anything cheesey. I'm looking at groups of 7, with Plasma or Blight Launchers, with a fist and plasma on the Champion - at the moment I'm planning on 3, but this may change as releases go on. I'm also planning on using the LoC, Plaguecaster and Blightlords as my other sure inclusions.

 

Where should I go from here? So many potential options, but I'm stumped!

[radionausea]

Foul Blightspawn and a Biologus Putrefier are good to have with plague marines for the blight grenade stratagem and veterans of the long war stratagem. 7 marines in a rhino with those two elites.

Get out of the rhino and use the stratagems for (7+1+2)d6 blight grenades that are strength 4 and causing a mortal wound on a 5+ roll to wound.

[Toomanyprojects]

They are all good in different ways:

 

Biologis putrifier - My least favourite choice. His pistol is very short ranged (but good at that range) and he has a reasonably neat ability with blight Grenades. not going to be in any of my lists, but a characterful and decent (but rather situational) grenadier

 

Foul Blightspawn - I like very much. Very useful when paired with plain deathguard. his plague sprayer will fire like a flamer in overwatch and units charging him or nearby units (or those with the ability to fight before anyone else (banshees, EC etc) will lose their ability to fight first. Also pretty neat in combat himself, with an upgraded blight grenade of his own

 

Noxious Blightbringer - Good buff and debuff unit which can hinder your enemy at the same time as making your own troops better. A solid choice

 

Plague Surgeon - Death guard apothecaries function differently to their imperial counterparts. Allows you to reroll 1s for disgustingly resilient for any units with someone within 3". including vehicles and poxwalker hordes. Can also steal geneseed from imperial bikers and infantry ( + 1s to wound) making him useful in combat. Another good choice

 

Tallyman - My personal preference. The death guard equivalent of a dark apostle, units within 7" of him can re roll hits in close combat. However, his ability with command points (roll over 7 on 2d6 and the stratagem you just used costs nothin) makes him an auto include in my opinion. Weaker in combat than almost anything else on this list though, he shoudl be kept close to, but out of, the fray.

 

Hope this helps, but don't forget about the termies, helbrute and possessed that DG also has in its elite slot. All of which are better than their vanilla equivalents in the CSM codex  

Edited September 21, 2017 by Toomanyprojects

[Bulwyf]

The Tallyman has to roll exactly 7 to get the CP back if I recall correctly, not just roll over 7 on the 2d6.

[Checkmate77]

I can back Bulwyf up on this one, you have to roll exactly 7.

[Toomanyprojects]

So he does, i've been misreading that all this time :) good job i hadn't actually played a game yet :)

 

Still, the potential to refund up to 3cp coudl well be game changing, so it's still worth keeping him in my prospective list

[Bulwyf]

yes, your break down is a good one, I would just edit that bit about rolling over 7 so it doesn't potentially confuse anyone if I could offer a suggestion.

[CaptainBoxman]

Ok cool, thanks

 

What about the second question? How to engineer a list with a focus on Plague Marines that doesn't fall down in other areas?

[seethe]

You can take a Vanguard Detachment as many times as you need to use an HQ and 3 Elite slots.  In fact you can choose up to 6 elites for a Vanguard detachment, so you shouldn't have too much problems fitting in all the elites you need.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The reroll 1s on the surgeon only adds about 11% more chance to pass, so to get value you'd want a lot of units. Aura is very small, so really one giant blob of Marines. Buff is situational.

 

Tallyman can be decent, much better paired with melee units, sadly no teleport option or it'd be really nice with mowers and terminators.

 

Blightspawn is cool, but his aura shouldn't matter if you have a chaf screen. Better with terminators.

 

Putrifier enables grenade combo, very fun synergy.

 

Blightbringer is great for making your army manoeuvre better, especially with launchers

[Blackheart1223]

I think that in order to get more utility out of the Plague Surgeon, I would have to give him the Fulgris Helm to double his aura.

[Plaguecaster]

I'm taking a normal lord alongside a plague caster mainly just for the batallion tax as well as helping a plasma squad not blow up as much. It's a shame that normal lords can't take much of the new weapons like the flails or cleavers as it would be pretty awesome.