Are Plague Marines Competetive?

[bozo69pd]

 

My problem with the BH is that I get a PBC for 2 points less so it’s hard for me to rationalise the BH even if has slightly different shooting. I know the bubble is good with PMs, but I feel I get more reliability especially in ITC with 3 PBC and PWs instead

 

 

The funny thing is people almost never shoot the PMs first. They try to shoot the Mortarion, spitterdrones, FDP's, PBC, and BH first. If I had a game where they shot all the PM first and left those other guys alone that would be a magical easy win. F the PM, all they do is sit in cover on objectives anyways while the various 2+ armor things assault them.

[Sheesh Mode]

I have looked through the FAQ and determined that it has only helped my current build. The supports light infantry hordes enjoyed to be effective prior April 4th 2018 are now limited by three duplicates per unit per army. Which, given that light infantry is generally terrible at killing anything, only improves helps my well-equipped plague marines do their job. I have been running a mechanized list almost exclusively for some time now and relied on my plague marines durability in cover and 18" rapid fire range to hold objectives while engaging enemy infantry and light vehicles. These marines were covered by my advancing rhinos which would assault enemy vehicles, monsters, and infantry attempt to take them out of the game for a turn or more. When the rhinos were destroyed I forced them to explode to force wounds on enemy units. 

@Prot: All of our infantry must be supported by characters of some kind. My standard list uses a Chaos Lord and a Winged Daemon Prince with the Fugaris Helm. I find Plague Marines are effective when holding the mid-field against enemy infantry, but I have not seen them excel against most vehicles. I equip my marines with Plasma Guns, Blight Launchers, and bolters to achieve what I just described. It is generally effective. I avoid combats with heavy vehicles and monsters. Anything that is T8 is adequately dealt with by rhinos, Blight Drones, or my heavily buffed Daemon Prince until I destroy enemy infantry with the rest of my army. Then I can focus my force on those other elements, isolate them, and destroy them. 

I maintain that Plague Marines are best when transported by rhinos because it increases their movement and durability while giving the controlling player another weapon. The combat potential of Bombino's cannot be overstated.

[Prot]

I like a blighthauler a a complement to a plague marine squad, at least in theory. But a unit of 3 is never worth it? Its so unnatural, the only compeling reason to get 3 is a rule on the datasheet that you feel bad to ignore, and probably pay some points for.

 

 

 

Well the other compelling reason would be you have to be wholly within the aura to benefit. I've played a lot of games were it is surprsingly difficult to do this.

 

The thing with 1 is the fire power is horrid. It's so bad it feels not worth taking one. So at some point I usually convince myself to take 3, increasing the amount of firepower, as well as the quality of it, and the overall aura.

 

I don't think it's worth it really because...

 

 

 

 

My problem with the BH is that I get a PBC for 2 points less so it’s hard for me to rationalise the BH even if has slightly different shooting. I know the bubble is good with PMs, but I feel I get more reliability especially in ITC with 3 PBC and PWs instead

 

 

The funny thing is people almost never shoot the PMs first. They try to shoot the Mortarion, spitterdrones, FDP's, PBC, and BH first. If I had a game where they shot all the PM first and left those other guys alone that would be a magical easy win. F the PM, all they do is sit in cover on objectives anyways while the various 2+ armor things assault them.

 

 

PCB is definitely a better fit. -Maybe- if the BH hit ineherently on a 3. I also thought the missile launcher/multi melta was an oddball choice. I'd almost rather have some sort of 'plague' weapons that complimented the spitters, and PCB's. Here we have these cool vehicles with funky plague weapons, and a BH fits that ideal until you look at the sponsons and it's essentially a medicore dreadnought load out. 

 

Plus the second point there is definitely true, drones, and poxwalkers go quickly for me. (No one like watching their troops turn into disgruntled postal employees with bad colds.) I don't play Mortarion a heck of a lot.

 

If I were going forward with multi units of Plague Marines I think I'd go multi Rhino. I still believe in supporting them with Blightlords, and the FAQ changes don't really affect that.

[BlackTriton]

Good point.

The easy build weapon load out is weird, I do like multi-melta but its a pricy and risky proposition on a 4+ model.

 

Heavy blight launcher would have been great, im sad it is only avayable on one unit.

 

That said I still want one in my list just as an excuse to get the cute little thing.

[Prot]

I am in the habit of keeping mist of my lists handy. And I look at my first Death Guard lists when 8th was young and formations were a thing of the past.

 

Many of my lists in that time included Landraiders carrying Plague Marines. How I’d love to go back to that but I do think 2 Rhinos are a much better idea.

[Stross]

I am still trying to make a list about 20 marines in Spartan, since it not suffer heavy weapon penalty animore, can do a decent shooting and can be buffed -1 to hit

[Checkmate77]

@Prot, I agree that Blightlords are a great compliment to either PMs (or any of our troop choices for that matter).  How does the new deepstrike restrictions affect your use of the blight lords?

 

I refer here to our earlier discussion regarding Combi-Melta vs Combi-Plasma.  I was looking forward to trying out a BL build with Combi-Melta's, but now I'm not so sure anymore.  The problem I see is that we are no longer going to be able to drop in the Blight Lords in the first turn where we want them (i.e. close to the big enemy vehicles/monsters)  We have to decide to either wait till the second turn or else drop them somewhere in our deployment zone. 

 

Personally I'm hesitant to have one of my most expensive units sit out more 1 (potentially 2) of my opponents turns.  I know it's dependent on the situation, but when planning for a tournament in particular I am now hesitant on equipping Melta's vs Plasmas.....I agree with all the points you made earlier Prot, but I think the additional range with the Plasma's now gives you more flexibility of where you drop them and especially now. 

[Prot]

Deep strike definitely isn't a clear cut case of when to drop in....

 

This is going to sound strange but I think the inability to drop in T1 -may- help me. I had a tendency to come in hot on T1 and almost assure suicide for my Blightlords. I eventually went to 10 Blightlords, and a Termie Lord coming in hot, and yea they could cause a lot of damage, but were so bloody expensive this would inevitably cost my 'core' units in a way that prevented me from making them punchy enough.

 

So I backed off of the 10 man Blightlords, not because they're a bad idea, but because I was splitting points too much from the theme of my particular list. And I still found I'd get too anxious with them, and put them in a nasty spot.

 

A good inbetween for me has been waiting a turn, waiting for the bulk of my footsloggers to partially catch up (or at least get close enough to counter assault). If a DP with Wings can move, advance, etc, then by T2 he can help as well as Blightlords will prevent him from getting shot at.

 

it's a strategy that is hard to stick to because I think our gut reaction is drop down immediately and take care of that battery of Basilisks or whatever.

 

I am now thinking of advancing 2 Rhino's T1, and making a 'forward base' kind of play style. Something strategically sound where you find a point on the table nearest a large number of objectives and make your stand there with the support from Blightlords.

 

My problem is fitting it all in. We have a lot of different tools. I SHOULD probably use Nurgle Daemons but don't, and even so I have trouble deciding between Spitter Drones, and PBC's, etc.

[bozo69pd]

Yeah I have done that too, lost my turn 1 DS'rs because they didn't get enough support CC until turn 2 charges. I think the new DS rules are fine.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Fine in how they affect death guard or fine in general lol. 

[BlackTriton]

They are fine in general I think.

 

The big fear seems to be from mono dimentional gun-lines coming back and being overpowered.

The counter argument is to use more LoS blocking terrain. If that is not possible, a Fog of war or night fighting rules (all shooting is limited to 12 in / half range) for the first turn can solve the problem.

 

In any case, this rule does not affect deathguard negativly much.

In the classic Waterloo, Napoleon cite that to use cavalery without infantry support is suicide. This apply pretty well to blightLords.

[DominikB]

They are fine in general I think.

 

The big fear seems to be from mono dimentional gun-lines coming back and being overpowered.

The counter argument is to use more LoS blocking terrain. If that is not possible, a Fog of war or night fighting rules (all shooting is limited to 12 in / half range) for the first turn can solve the problem.

 

In any case, this rule does not affect deathguard negativly much.

In the classic Waterloo, Napoleon cite that to use cavalery without infantry support is suicide. This apply pretty well to blightLords.

More terrain doesn’t just stop shooting it can also make it harder to get into combat and generally navigate around it

[BlackTriton]

Yes.

Whats your point?

[Sheesh Mode]

 

My problem is fitting it all in. We have a lot of different tools. I SHOULD probably use Nurgle Daemons but don't, and even so I have trouble deciding between Spitter Drones, and PBC's, etc.

It depends on how aggressive you are attempting to be.

[McElMcNinja]

Well I for one am excited about the rule changes, it has made the 3 armies I lost to in tournaments invalid. So I am looking forward to the ones coming up. I was in the process of changing my list, but now I'm going with the same one. Plus they got cloud of flies right, that was a huge help against sniper armies.

[Prot]

Well that’s great news for you. I think there’s validity in using the same or very similar list from Tournament to Tournament.

 

I think vanilla chaos got hit the hardest and you really didn’t abuse Poxwalkers so it seems like your list has nothing to lose.

[DominikB]

Yes.

Whats your point?

I guess that’s it’s not the easy fix to shooty armies that it’s touted as :)

[BlackTriton]

I was over at nick nanavati's site, the brown magic, to see his thought in the meta going foward.

Is seem death guard is in quite a good place.

In his opinion, fast and / or tough unit will become more valuable, includinf rhino, plague drone, bloat drone, daemon prince, pbc and, in a counter charge role, plague marine bomb have all been mentioned in his facebook video as becoming some of CHAOS best option.

 

May have been a good thing for us all :-)

[Sheesh Mode]

I was over at nick nanavati's site, the brown magic, to see his thought in the meta going foward.

Is seem death guard is in quite a good place.

In his opinion, fast and / or tough unit will become more valuable, includinf rhino, plague drone, bloat drone, daemon prince, pbc and, in a counter charge role, plague marine bomb have all been mentioned in his facebook video as becoming some of CHAOS best option.

 

May have been a good thing for us all :-)

Who? 

 

I do not know who Nick Nanavati is but everything he thinks has improved is something I was already using or building up to use. So, huzzah! 

[SkimaskMohawk]

He came in second at the last tournament and has always been highly placed/winning these things

[BlackTriton]

I played my girlfriend Tyranid over the weekend, and although it wasn't a competitive game i thought I would share how the Plague marine fared.

This was a 1000 point game.

 

Turn 1, a 5man plague Marine (only bolters) got charged by 10 Genestealers. The Xenos made 6 wounds on the unit, but only 2 of them died. The last 3 then killed one foul beast each. 

The unit then hold an objective for the whole game, under withering fire. they did not kill anything else.

 

I had a 7man plague marine bomb unit. the turn they disembarked, the BlightSpawn hosed a Broodlord dead, then they proceeded to Blight bombardment + VotLW the swarmlord down to 1W and finished him in combat. It was glorious and turned the game.

 

PoxWalker did ok, I was able to mitigate their slowness with some charge move shenanigan. They mostly just got shot on an objective. The objective stayed uncontested because she did not want to bring infantry next to them, in fear they would turn into more poxwalker. 

 

Overall an impressive (and my first against her) victory for Nurgle :)

[Checkmate77]

Congratz on your victory BT,

 

Question regarding your PM bomb unit, what support characters did they have with them?  Just the FBS or the Purifier as well?  Did you equip them with any other weapons?

[McElMcNinja]

I run my plague bomb with 7 cc Marines: champion with plague sword & plasma pistol, 2 flail, and 4 axes in a rhino. Then a Chaos Lord w/balesword & plasma pistol, a Putrifier, and a Blightspawn (warlord with Arch-contaminator) ride along in the rhino as well.

It's a lot of eggs in one basket, but I have effectively used them in every game so far. I've taken down titans, baneblades, DP's, well pretty much everything in 1 turn.

The key to it is popping smoke and casting the -1 to hit on the rhino, so your opponent is at -2 to hit. Turn 2 you should be in range to bomb away.

[BlackTriton]

I used biologus(forgot he gives 2 damage per grenade so the swarmlord was utra dead)+ blightspawn (gives his death head to the biologus se he's free to hose instead).

I had a lord, but he died baiting the 2 enemy HQ in position.

The marines were equiped with 2 flails and knives. I feel the 2 flails (plus maybe a fist) is the right point / effectiveness ratio for me.

[DuskRaider]

IMO all of the CC weapons are good with the exception of the Cleaver... and even that could potentially be useful against vehicles. Obviously the Flail is tops, but the Axes are nice too.