DG weaknesses?

[Sea Reaper]

Hi everyone. After doing pretty well with my initial army I wanted to start another, and Death Guard interested me. Being used to a fragile army I wanted something tough as nails and possibly semi-undead, hence my interest in this army and Necrons. I do see a lot of grumbling about the Codex, though. I was just curious what the low points of the army are. Also, do you think DG or Necrons are tougher in the "those models just won't die no matter what I hit them with" sense?

[Azekai]

Plague marines are tough, but T5 ain't what it used to be. Guard-equivalent troops used to wound PMs on 6's, but now they score wounds on 5+. Basic marines (plague marine or otherwise) don't do much either. For what you get plague marines are relatively good (compared to tac marines or vanilla CSM), but 8th has made the marine profile over all kinda crappy.

Additionally, poxwalkers were nerfed, and now with the rule of three, DG players can't spam the idiotically point efficient crawlers.

On top of that, Mortarion is also an incredibly hit or miss beatstick, that will curbstomp unprepared opponents (especially at sub-2k points) but will melt against the kind of firepower commonly seen at competitive tables.

 

[DominikB]

Azekai summed it up really well T5 just isn’t amazing anymore and helps you more against MEQs now than GEQ if anything unfortunately I get over 4 cultists for my PM which are significantly tougher and in general more annoying.

 

On the flip side I will stand by my opinion that DR is the best special rule available in game atm.

[Tokugawa]

Necron is fairly weak in competitive 8th.

 

PMs are not in their good time now, but bringing 2 units of them won't hurt you.

[happyslugger]

Echo the comments on here really.

 

I love my death guard, but the only good thing about PMs are the ability to take MSU squads with 3 spec weapons.  I still use them, but just try and sit them on a midfield objective in cover (save with blightlords IMO).  I still use poxwalkers to fill out troop tax, but I tend to take Typhus in all my games (just like the guy as he was my first ever character in resin).  

 

I would say our slow speed can be boosted by the noxious blight bringer, who I tend to field regularly.  I had some swift moving poxwalkers in my last game.

 

Anti tank I think is where mono DG are a bit weak...I have plague burst crawlers but they wiff rolling 4s more often than not (stupid nurgle dice) but I have three renegade knights now so it can be sorted out :-)

 

Morty I tend to leave at home (I do not play at comp level) as he either wins games on his own or as is more often the case, gets hammered turn 1 and is a massive point sink (especially when run with death shroud).  I am actually saving up now for a Typhoon Heavy Siege Tank (we are cool with FW) and even though its like 750 points kitted out, I recon you can build a decent 2k list around it (as you have to build a list around Morty) and it will probably live a lot longer than Morty does and do more damage.

 

I have had good luck with my Levi dread though run with either double butcher cannons or one cannon and the siege drill...he can wreck face.  Also Lascannon and missile hellbrutes I like with fire frenzy.

 

Anyway, that is just my 2p

[Sea Reaper]

Thank you, everyone. Just curious, how were Poxwalkers nerfed, exactly? I'm still pretty new to the game and no one around here plays DG.

[Azekai]

You can’t bring ‘free’ poxwalkers to the table if your walking dead kill in excess of their starting numbers. It used to explicitly allow for growing your numbers beyond starting squad size. Once the zombies started inflicting losses on other horde armies, it starts to snowball as you effectively turn their army into your army.

 

The nerf was kinda lame, since our army isn’t terribly great anyway, and hordes of hyper-efficient guardsmen getting turned by Typhus’ plague is hilarious, but them’s the breaks. Free units broke earlier editions of the game, and keeping away from that precedent is probably wise.

 

I just wish we had something better to offer than ‘spam plasma’

[Sea Reaper]

Thank you. Do Nurgle Demons offer any remedies to DG issues, even a small detachment?

 

And.....kind of a strange question, but among the four powers where does Nurgle rank in popularity among players? Just a curiousity, it won't influence army selection or anything but I've always wondered.

[Prot]

I play against Crons quite a bit and I think they are more resilient by nature... they keep rolling "DR" until the squad is wiped. Their Quantum shielding is incredible. And finally they have really good 'tricks' to get units to come back easier, or some that wouldn't at all.. (A squad of 6 regenerating Wraiths is really underrated).

 

 

That's a basic survival comparison based on my games. As far as 'weaknesses' it's the inability to move key units without assistance, and the lack of damage. In fact although people whine a bit about Bloat Drones and Plagueburst crawlers.... I think without them codex would be nearly unplayable in a competitive sense especially since Poxwalkers were so incredibly hard hit. (I know something had to be done, but they hit them at the knees - I never used them to their most abusive builds, but used to love the way they worked).

 

I think the only thing stopping people from playing Necrons super competitively is there is no one, super duper unit and it takes a good player... I mean a good, tactical player to make them work hardcore. Destroyers are amazing but not in the wrong match up, same with Wraiths, and some other units, but they need a very good player to make the match ups. A lot of 'winning' armies are still very monochromatic in build nature with incredibly flexible units. 

 

This leads me to what I think is good about DG and Crons... There's a lot of flexibility there, and both codexes have some real depth, some real fun units. But when you had guys playing "Death Guard" with 6 Plagueburst crawlers and Nurgle Daemons enhancing them... I don't miss that "Death Guard" at all. 

 

What we're left with is something that participates in all phases of the game, has a little trouble moving, a little trouble doing real damage, and therefore can lead to longer games, and games (in tournaments) where you truly are playing to the mission. (Take Drunkari/Aeldari as the ultimate opposite: Super fast, glass units, but incredible damage, incredible volume of varied firepower).

 

Just my two rotten cents.

[Tokugawa]

Thank you. Do Nurgle Demons offer any remedies to DG issues, even a small detachment?

 

And.....kind of a strange question, but among the four powers where does Nurgle rank in popularity among players? Just a curiousity, it won't influence army selection or anything but I've always wondered.

DG has great synergy with Nurgle Daemon.

[McElMcNinja]

Their biggest weakness (in my opinion) is that most units need character/stratagem support to make them competitive. Poxwalkers are a good example, S3/T3 and no save. Put them next to Typhus add a spell/stratagem and they are S5/T5 wounding on 2's.

But that's also what I like about DG, the synergy they have with one another make them fun to play. Sure they aren't winning big tournaments, but they aren't getting wiped off the board.