Using the Death Guard - asking for a friend...

[Rogue]

Here's the thing - my friend has started playing 40k, and is playing Death Guard. He's played twice, and lost to my marines both times. Next time we play, we're going to swap lists and I'll try to do a little better than he has so far (to give him some ideas...)

 

That said, my only experience of the Death Guard is these two games, so I'm not sure how to get the best out his list, and I'm hoping some more experienced players might be able to share a few pointers.

 

Here's the two lists:

 

Marines (playing as Ultramarines)

- captain, lieutenant, techmarine

- 10 man tactical, combi-plasma, plasma, heavy bolter, rhino

- 10 man tactical, combi-plasma, plasma, heavy bolter, rhino

- 6 man tactical, combi-plasma, grav-cannon, assault cannon razorback

- 10 man devastator, 2 lascannon, 2 missle launchers, cherub

- 10 man devastator, 2 lascannon, 2 missle launchers, cherub

- venerable dreadnought, pair of twin lascannon

 

Death Guard

- terminator lord

- apothecary 

- 3 death-shroud terminators

- 5 terminators, flail, reaper autocannon

- 9 marines, blight launcher

- 7 marines, plasma gun

- 20 poxwalkers

- blight hauler? with multi-melta, missile launcher and spiting mouth

- blight drone? with plague spitters (9" range things)

- big tank with mortar, two entropic cannons? and a heavy stubber

 

In our most recent game, his blight tanks went down early, then his poxwalkers and marines got shot up whilst advancing. The terminators all arrived together in turn three, but failed to land any assaults (an auspex scan nailed one death-shroud, and the rest lost their nerve, I think). In the end, I only lost ten bolter marines from various squads, and the razorback, and won 13-3 on victory points. I'm sure it should be closer than that, but I'm not sure how to get there.

 

The Death Guard list is fixed, so this about tactics rather than list building. So if anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Well first off id say that the marine list is a good shooty list which means its up to the deathguard to get in close.

 

Ive not had too many games so this is mostly theory

 

Try picking missions which will require movement to make it more interesting an a slog into the enemys guns.

 

Second is the terminator lord are regular lord or a Lord of Contagion? One buffs roles to hit the other buffs nurgles rot.

 

Id consider bringing them in sooner possible no later than turn two.

Given the units you have in the nurgle force maybe consider the bligh hauler and the bloat drone scooting down a flank and joining the terminators as they teliport in while the infanty plod up behind the plague morter.

[Marshal van Trapp]

Having never played with, only against, deathguard I can tell you what most of my opponents have done. They use the drone and haulers to rush in and tie up my tanks making me have to fall back and sacrifice shooting at which point the haulers unload their AT weapons and the drone goes off to harass my infantry.

 

To that end I would use the drone in a similar manner, rush it into the dreadnought (which can't really punch it's way out of combat without a DCCW) and force it to fall back or be useless in combat.

 

That big mortar tank is a beast and should be shelling the marines as often as possible.

 

I also agree with Loki on the deep striking. If they are not in the game by the end of the second turn you just wasted the points on them. They are a great distraction unit to throw right up in their gunlines to give your plague marines time to get up the field.

 

As for the rest, I would suggest breaking the poxwalkers into 2 10 mans instead of a 20 man because then you can make nice use of both their ability and the stratagem to make even more!

[Rogue]

Thanks.

 

I agree about the deep-striking terminators - getting them on the board and causing target saturation seems key to the overall survivability of the army. The sooner you can get a firebase tied up in combat the better.

 

Loki, I’m not sure about the Lord. I think I’ll need to borrow the codex and the army list in advance, because I’m starting to suspect that a lot of special rules aren’t being utilised, and that’s not helping my opponent get the best out of his units.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Oh yeah deathguard do seem to thrive on their special rules.

 

Id try and brief you on some of the basics but all my warhammer is packed up for a house move (booooo!! BOOO!!!)

[Marshal van Trapp]

Just to be certain, he is rolling his disgustingly resilient rolls yeah? That rule is super important! DR and IA are the 2 most important rules for DG cause it turns a footslogging list into an unstoppable wave of death!

[Rogue]

Disgustingly resilient, yes. What’s IA?

[hushrong]

Inexorable Advance. It affects Infantry and Hebrutes if I remember correctly. You can advance and shoot your assault weapons without a -1. And something about heavy weapons too.

 

That's a lot of paraphrasing as I cannot remember the whole thing and my book is back at my home.

 

**EDIT** Here we go: Link to WH Community page

 

and a picture from there:

Edited December 28, 2017 by hushrong

[Rogue]

All that is news to me. We definitely weren’t playing with that rule at all. Although his marines were mostly bolter armed, so still can’t fire when advancing.

 

I like the sound of 18” rapid fire.

[hushrong]

Yeah, double tapping at 18" with foot-slogging marines is nice. What I really got my mileage out of that rule was the use of blight launchers firing after advancing.

[Xenith]

Well there's your efficient one dimensional shooty list versus your friends new cobbled together list, it seems.

 

Why only one special weapon in each plague squad when he can take 3? No rhinos?

 

Why'd he only drop the Terminators turn 3 instead of supporting the rest of the army?

[hushrong]

Just glancing at the list again I wonder if he would want to drop the Deathshroud for another Plagueburst. I love the Deathshroud with their history, their new minis, and their rules (plus the reduced point cost too for them too) but in that list I'd rather bring a plagueburst kitted out to lob long range death in support of the footsloggers.

 

And going off Xenith's input I would be a bit tempted to drop the blight hauler for rhinos and see if there were some points to give the marines blight launchers or plasma guns. The new hauler does give that cover bonus if you are in range and it has some AT weapons...but metal boxes are nice because they can get your marines somewhere a lot quicker than walking and you can use the rhinos to tie up tanks in combat if you're lucky.

[Bulwyf]

You can't run a DG list without having Typhus in it. I know the OP said no additional models but how about letting him proxy his terminator lord for Typhus? It makes a big difference with the poxwalkers.

[Marshal van Trapp]

You can't run a DG list without having Typhus in it. I know the OP said no additional models but how about letting him proxy his terminator lord for Typhus? It makes a big difference with the poxwalkers.

This is actually really important too, typhus is an auto include this edition (which I'm hoping gets errated)

 

I'm actually converting my DI Lord into typhus cause I'm not a big fan of the new typhus pose and that way I can use him as either

[Rogue]

Why only one special weapon in each plague squad when he can take 3? No rhinos?

 

Why'd he only drop the Terminators turn 3 instead of supporting the rest of the army?

Because he’s only painted one plasma and one blight launcher. And no rhinos (although they’re on his list).

 

And probably because it was his second ever game, and I haven’t got as far as talking about target saturation with him yet.

[Rogue]

The list changing stuff is good advice, and I’ll pass it on, but he only has what he has for now. That said, I have some spare rhinos and a Russ around, so tanks are something we could proxy in fairly easily.

 

He played with Typhus in the first game we had, so he either has him or proxied him. We could do that again if it’ll buff the list up a bit.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Honestly I'd tone down your list more than anything else. That and get that man his codex. Codex will almost always have a huge advantage against non codex; warlord traits, relics and stratagems help a ton as death guard. Cloud of flies helps mitigate all your fire power against a key unit, dwa can make shooting at non zombies a frustrating choice, votlw can help damage output since he's lacking a ton of his own special weapons to match yours.

 

Other than that, theres really only so many tactics. Screen marines with chaf for cloud, have them close together for dwa.

 

Oh and use a proper amount of terrain. The game always recommended 25% board coverage and large los blockers to cut down on the overall advantage static gunlines have, something even more prevalent in this edition.

[Rogue]

He has the codex. It’s more that he doesn’t know it very well yet (I mean, he’s still learning the basic rules at the moment, so knowing how to get the best out of various rule combinations is a work in progress right now.)

 

I’ve not read the Death Guard Codex either - I’m going to borrow his, I think, following this conversation, as he’s clearly missing out on loads of stuff.

 

What are cloud of flies, dwa and votlw?

 

And yes to the terrain thing - everything I have goes down, and it covers about a third of the board.

[radionausea]

Cloud of Flies is a stratagem you play on a unit. You can't shoot that unit unless it's the closest.

Dead Walk Again - stratagem for poxwalkers that makes it so that if anything does within 7" of them you get a poxwalker.

Veterans of the Long War - +1 to wound rolls stratagem

[Rogue]

Thanks. The only stratagem he used was the basic reroll one. So this is something else to add into the mix.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Veterans of thd Long War is worth remembering.

There are several ablities that trigger additional mortal wounds on 6+ and 7+

 

If you combine the right auras and stragegems at the same time well boom!!

 

Also If you are coaching the guy into the hobby i would agree with toning down your list a bit. Lose the devistators or pick something a little less killy until hes hooked! ;-)

[hushrong]

Just another tibdit in case I missed it or glanced over it, but does he have the adjusted points for DG? There were some point reductions that may free up points for extra goodies.

[Rogue]

Adjusted points from the Chapter Approved update? I doubt it. I don’t think he has it, and neither do I.

 

List-wise, he’s due to play my list next time, and after that I’ll try something else - this one was written when I expecting Mortarion to turn up, so I wanted the big guns ready. Given that I ran a terminator-heavy list last time, and then this one, I’ll maybe try scouts and skimmers next time :)

[Panzer]

Try building your armies with Battlescribe. It's usually up to date and even if it's not completely updated it's still better to use partially updated values than using old ones.

[hushrong]

Chapter approved came out awhile ago and its mostly missions and stuff but in the back they have point changes for various armies and weapons. For example, 3 deathshroud in the DG codex with their weapons was 225 but with a points reduction from chapter approved they are 180. That's a lot of extra points that can be used toward something else.

 

Battlescribe is great but I still check back with my books to make sure everything is hunky dory.