The Black Death [Help Needed]

[TheHyperion]

WOAH. It seems like 40k has changed a whole load since I last picked up Khorne Daemonkin. From what I can tell that army got canned by GW, and so I have had to move to brightet pastures, or in this case more pestulant and plague-ridden ones. I need some advice on what to takein a Death Guard army. I want to be heavily marine based, but I am not sure whether to take plague marines or other options. If anyone has any advice that'd be super helpful as I am basically a new player again, and saw some damn good new DG models.

[Warpmiss]

I started collecting 40k minis because I fell in love with the new DG line so I might be a bit biased

 

From my perspective, the new Death Guard is fun to paint and play, they might move slowly but they are disguntingly resilient after all! I sadly can't give many tips as last time I played with them was in August and I only had the minis from the Dark Imperium box plus a couple other things, no terminators, no tanks and, of course, no Mortarion. Typhus was incredibly fun to play and surrounding him with poxwalkers was nice trick.

[Lord Marshal]

Death Guard internal balance isn't... terrible, at least as far as a 40k army goes. In terms of overall competitiveness, they're solidly mid-tier. Plague Marines are pretty solid, not amazing, but solid.

 

I think the building of Death Guard is dictated in a big way by what you want in your Troop slots, arguably more so than most other  armies. The question comes down to two things: Do you want a melee unit of Plague Marines or to stick with a ranged-focus? Hell, do you want all melee mono-Berserkers? That's going to decide a lot of how you build your list, since it 'requires' stuff like Rhinos and the like. 

 

The second is whether you're taking Poxwalkers/Cultists in addition to them, or if you want to focus solely on Plague Marines for your Troops? 

 

My advice is to grab Dark Imperium before anything else. You get three Characters (two of which you can't grab elsewhere), seven Plague Marines, a very useful Blight-drone and a bunch of Poxwalkers. Then you can keep the rulebook and sell on the Primaris Marines you get to grab more stuff.

[TheHyperion]

I started collecting 40k minis because I fell in love with the new DG line so I might be a bit biased

 

From my perspective, the new Death Guard is fun to paint and play, they might move slowly but they are disguntingly resilient after all! I sadly can't give many tips as last time I played with them was in August and I only had the minis from the Dark Imperium box plus a couple other things, no terminators, no tanks and, of course, no Mortarion. Typhus was incredibly fun to play and surrounding him with poxwalkers was nice trick.

 

 

Death Guard internal balance isn't... terrible, at least as far as a 40k army goes. In terms of overall competitiveness, they're solidly mid-tier. Plague Marines are pretty solid, not amazing, but solid.

 

I think the building of Death Guard is dictated in a big way by what you want in your Troop slots, arguably more so than most other  armies. The question comes down to two things: Do you want a melee unit of Plague Marines or to stick with a ranged-focus? Hell, do you want all melee mono-Berserkers? That's going to decide a lot of how you build your list, since it 'requires' stuff like Rhinos and the like. 

 

The second is whether you're taking Poxwalkers/Cultists in addition to them, or if you want to focus solely on Plague Marines for your Troops? 

 

My advice is to grab Dark Imperium before anything else. You get three Characters (two of which you can't grab elsewhere), seven Plague Marines, a very useful Blight-drone and a bunch of Poxwalkers. Then you can keep the rulebook and sell on the Primaris Marines you get to grab more stuff.

Thanks for the responses!

 

This does bring up some questions on my end though so bare with me. I am thinking I want to run mostly plague marines, and keep a somewhat more range focused army, but is this the right move? I know Death Guard is rather slow moving, so I figured that close combat I would be at sort of a loss, but perhaps that is the wrong assumption. I am used to more being able to run up with bikes and khorne dogs and get to the enemy in a turn or two into close combat, so this is a whole new ball game for me.

 

Next up, I was wondering how effective taking Typhus as a head with some pox walkers, plague marines, etc. And how the varying vehicles have been doing as well. I love terminators, marines, etc. It's honestly hard to pick what I want to take. Never been a big fan of cultists though usually, only ran them in Khorne for the good ol' blood tithe points.

 

Lastly,, if anyone has any information on the plague surgeon- or if there are units that you should NOT take under any circumstances, I would like to know that too! While I am mainly building for fluff and model purposes, I also don't want to get stomped against my neighbor's tau and my dad's orkz/blood angels. Thanks again for all the help so far!

[TURBULENCE]

Typhus with a horde of zombies is flat out amazing. But they need help getting to the front where they belong. Still, the amount of firepower the enemy will waste on them is worth it alone. Anecdotal story time: in my last game when I dropped typhus, I made a mistake and left him wide open to the shooting of a 'russ with punished cannon. After saves and DR rolls he only lost two wounds. It was hilarious. After his zombies caught back up, they as well survived well past what was reasonably expected. And on the use of melee in death guard, besides a few units we're in the 'okay' zone. It's not a strong suit but we've got decent options for it. And we're the sons of Mortarion, are specialty was always infantry that can do anything. Be ready to fight on all fronts. And I find with death guard, you have to play aggressively. Most of our units are slow, and that is an issue to be overcome. With all our durability don't be afraid to move up, risk taking some fire to get into position. We can take it.

 

All that being said, Mid range firefights are where things like plague marines excel, so if you focus on shooting you're not losing out.

[TheHyperion]

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

Currently got the box set of Dark Imperium and begin to plan to paint things up. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to gear it up from there? I figure I will get Typhus, and I don't really count on using the Noxious Blightbringer or (The Lord of Contagion if I have Typhus). If anyone has any further ideas on how to upgrade the list that'd be great! I might get some more marines, but I am curious to see what everyone thinks. Also, how intelligent is it to use Chaos Space marines to get some fast attack choices like raptors?

[Kilofix]

Going to take a slightly different approach and say, no matter what you decide to do with troops and whether you decide to go Mortarion or CSM allies, etc - almost everyone will agree that the Flamer Blight Drone is fantastic.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

One of the most sencible options ive come across for non-deathguard options is to collect them into a separate detachment (ie: outriders in this case) with models that wouldnt really benifit from the deathguard detachment rules

 

So in this case possibly

HQ lord/ scorceror

FA raptors

FA flamer bloat drone

FA (One other to suit)

 

That gets you One additional command point

[Kilofix]

The Plague Surgeon is helpful but:

 

1. Remember that he only grants DR reroll to Infantry not Daemons

2. I feel the Psyker and the Biologus (Grenades) are more helpful

 

I think a core Plague Marine centric list would be:

 

Daemon Prince for reroll 1s to hit

Plague Marines with Blight Launcher

Psyker for Mortal Wounds, Blades (if CC) or Miasma (for defense)

Biologus for Grenades and with Blight Bombardment

Blight Drone w/Flamer for anti infantry but it can also tank and also fly over to lock down opposing vehicles in cc

Edited December 26, 2017 by Kilofix

[Azekai]

Not to be a contrarian, but Death Guard can be one of the fastest infantry based armies, since you can advance while firing assault weapons without penalty. Those plague marines go 5" +1d6" all while blasting away with blightlaunchers... if you have an arch-contaminator in your midst, that gets painful. If you have a bell-boy around, your advance rolls get pretty reliable. I enjoy using dual Kheres contemptor dreads too, so those also can march up the field double-quick. Drones equipped with spittters can also effectively advance forever (as long as they didn't fall back out of combat), making them unpredictable *and* dangerous!

Poxwalkers (while admittedly slow) don't have guns so you might as well have your zombies go sprinting up the field as best they can. 

Death Guard are not lightning quick, but they are no slouches!
 

[TheHyperion]

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I gave a shot at trying to paint the Malignant Plaguecaster. I have to say, though I am nowhere close to an expert painter, I found it rather difficult. There seems to be a bunch of smaller pieces to this model than usual, and many tight nooks and crannies to reach in. If anyone has any tips that would be great. Also wondering if the majority of the Death Guard line is like this, or if I merely got the one model in it that has so many parts. Thanks!

Edited December 27, 2017 by GrandMasterSapphon