Plague Marine heavy forces

[CMDR_Welles]

I have to agree with Emicus here. One unit of Plague Marines, no matter its size is not Plague Marine heavy. 

 

A proper Death Guard army, should be about the Death Guard. 3-4 units of 7 Plague Marines, 1 unit (or more) of 7 (or more) Blightlords, a unit of Deathshroud, and enough characters to go along with them. PBCs, Drones, and Haulers should have a supporting role (and not the focus), with cultists, Poxwalkers, and maybe some daemons for flavor. 

 

So much of the internet community (all gaming communities, across the internet) is so hyperfocused on what is optimal or competitive that 90% of the game is either outright ignored, or is trampled underfoot and forgotten... It really makes me sad to see the hobby I've been apart of for 35 years turned more into a sport than a game... 

[Prot]

I have to agree with Emicus here. One unit of Plague Marines, no matter its size is not Plague Marine heavy. 

 

A proper Death Guard army, should be about the Death Guard. 3-4 units of 7 Plague Marines, 1 unit (or more) of 7 (or more) Blightlords, a unit of Deathshroud, and enough characters to go along with them. PBCs, Drones, and Haulers should have a supporting role (and not the focus), with cultists, Poxwalkers, and maybe some daemons for flavor. 

 

So much of the internet community (all gaming communities, across the internet) is so hyperfocused on what is optimal or competitive that 90% of the game is either outright ignored, or is trampled underfoot and forgotten... It really makes me sad to see the hobby I've been apart of for 35 years turned more into a sport than a game... 

 

 

How many games did you play this month with your deathguard?

 

When I make that sort of statement ("plague marine based armies aren't valid) it isn't based on what someone told me, something someone posted, or "all gaming communities across the interent". It's based on a LOT of games. I've never, ever played one game with an idea and posted: Well that sucks. It doesn't work.

 

Your broad sweeping statement is really disappointing. I've been apart of 40K as long as anyone I know and I can't disagree with you more. For every hyper competitive ITC player I know, I'd have to guess there are 5+ non-ITC players. In ALL my time being a part of 40K I have never seen as many well painted armies as I do today. We still have local tournaments that have 'soft scoring'. I can think of 8 regulars I play with that have been using the same armies for years. (they may take a break, but who doesn't?)

 

The big difference I see personally is that Frontline gaming has combined with social media to really push their 'system' (for lack of a better term). But that category of player is still far in the minority as far as my experience is concerned.

 

Specfically towards this subject the reason I find your statement hard to swallow is I play in a universe where I don't know if I'm playing against Tau, Astra, Necrons, Dark Eldar, Orks, Eldar, Ynnarri, or Nids -everytime- I am at a table. Those are the most common opponents I run into. Note the lack of marines.

 

Marines (widely accepted) are in a horrible spot (and by GW's own admission). So a "fun" list from one of those armies above can often, quite unintentionally, annihilate a "space marine" based army.  But yet if they faced each other, it would probably be a pretty even, fun, eventful game for the xenos player.

 

So yea after a LOT of experimenting with overpriced marines and using every gimmick I can reasonably come up with, I feel it's safe to say a Plague Marine based army is largely pushing the difficulty level extremely high in a lot of meta's. But I stress, that does -not- mean my Xenos opponent is 'hyper focused' on being competitive. 

 

There's a huge difference between being hyper competitive and trying to eek out a competitive game vs some of the better codexes in the game. That being said here I am still plugging away with 2-3 of the worst codexes in the game, no allies.

 

And by the way even 15 years ago I was going to tournaments with "star cannon/Mind War/Black Guardian" Spam was considered massively overpowered.... The names have changed but the hobby is still extremely healthy from my point of view.

[Emicus]

Totally agree that PM aren't competitive in a pick-up all-comers game, even less a tournament!

 

But in a mystical world with a pre-determined game of 'foot Marines vs foot marines' like modern day horus heresy on the other hand...

 

And no nothing is heavy if it's less than a quarter of something. About half and we're talking though!

 

3x7 w/two meltas

1x7 w/two fails

1x 17 w/two flail, two plasma

 

933 points. Leaving loads for support like MBH for more durability and loads of elite characters: putrifier, blightspawn, surgeon tallyman..

Typhus and a plaguecaster for HQ..

 

Is it good? No.

Does it make PM the star? Yes

Would it be better with a cultist screen, demon prince, pbc? Absolutely. Wouldnt "be about" PM though.

[Prot]

So are we talking about just taking lots of a unit? Or making it functional in the bigger picture? To be the star of something, I have to assume it has to perform and not just simply exist.

 

Plaguemarines with Biologus are better because you are adding a very cool flexibility and options. Plaguemarines with Foul Blightspawn have a similar effect.

 

Putting a screen of Poxwalkers not only feels accurate to me but helps the greater theme function.

 

I think we have to wait for the Chapter Approoved. I honestly believe we ( hopefully) will not be having this kind of conversation after some changes.

 

I’m never going to chastise someone for taking 20, 30 or , 40 Plaguemarines to a basic game but wow are you in for a difficult time agains a lot of ordinary stuff out there. Who knows maybe Orks will help the situation out a bit.

[Azekai]

I’m never going to chastise someone for taking 20, 30 or , 40 Plaguemarines to a basic game but wow are you in for a difficult time agains a lot of ordinary stuff out there. Who knows maybe Orks will help the situation out a bit.

Intriguing. How do you think orks will help?

[Prot]

 

I’m never going to chastise someone for taking 20, 30 or , 40 Plaguemarines to a basic game but wow are you in for a difficult time agains a lot of ordinary stuff out there. Who knows maybe Orks will help the situation out a bit.

 

Intriguing. How do you think orks will help?

Lol. I’m grasping at straws. My thinking was Orks are likely to force a lot of forces to stop concentrating on two or three esuoer elite units that I see right now in some lists. Orks do have the ability to tie up a lot of stuff while threatening massive board control. Yet they still seem to have the points for super heavies.

 

I’m just guessing though. So far what I’ve seen is 18 tractor cannon units and a lot of bodies.

[Schlitzaf]

Honestly, I don’t play DeathGaurd but I do play Templars, and in general have seen the marines/Astartes lists that work. The main aspect of any Astartes Units when used well. Is not that they are ‘spammed’ or used in mass. But used as a concentrated point, a surgical knife or as a ‘center’.

 

The a space marine takes a disapportionate amount of firepower to kill (I said firepower not points for a reason). 30 Gaurdsman only kill 1 Marine, and 2 inside rapid (before someone goes to the statistic but Gaurdsman more efficiently kill marines etc). Put this into prospective.

 

An average force of Gaurdsman will consist of around 60-80ish of these models. That means to kill an MSU Squad of Marines all of the Gaurdsman have to be concentrated onto a single point. 3 Mortar HVT will only kill around 2-3 Marines. This isn’t a question of points efficiency, it’s a question of firepower.

 

Marines themselves are points wise woefully inefficient in durability and firepower. But what they are capable of is taking the Gaurdsman example above, is that it takes only 10 Marines to kill 1 Marine. It’s far easier to concentrate 10 models onto a single point than 30 Gaurdsman (hell its actually mathematically impossible, for 30 Gaurdsman to all be in 24” range of a target before turn 2.)

 

Now back to the point of the Plague Marines, the best usage of Plague Marines like any Astartes force is concentrated setup. The 1 Squad 20 man Blob, is that concept taken to the exetreme. It’s a small compact force, that can be used to hunker and hold a specific location on the battlefield.

 

Astartes are SUPPORT elements of an army. Not the army themselves. In lore, past heresy, Astartes are never the army. They are the specialized operations force of the Imperium or Chaos. A surgical knife where the fighting is fiercest, where they have the chance to hold the line in a Thermopylae-Esque style or perform the actions of being literal battering rams.

 

It’s why despite a Marines abilities, we see them operate in forms of companies. Not as individuals, on the tabletop, in 8th especially, Marines are best used in combined arms. The other extension of this concept taken to its natural exetreme is SlamHammer.

 

The short and sweet version, aethestics asides. A single 20 man Plague Marine squad is most certainly a Plague Marine list or force. Not an army perhaps, but most assuredly a list.

[Emicus]

I'm not disputing PM being in a list as non-existant and if you don't max them out they aren't real PM.

 

What I personally feel is if you say 'my theme is an imperial guard tank company' you don't take a squadron of 3 russes and fill the remaining 75% of your list with foot sloggers.

 

Similarly if I want a 'plague marine list' for whatever reason I desire to punish myself on the table top, I don't take three squads of 5 and call it a day. They're PM but the whole proposed theme isnt being met.

 

By all means take a PM bomb or star, but call a flesheating disease a flesheating disease :p otherwise noobs like emicus get confused thinking you actually meant a tank company when a tank company was said.. Ya feel me?

[McElMcNinja]

Death Guard is a synergy army that gets hurt by restrictions on army composition. I feel the best way to make Death Guard a viable/competitive army choice is to eliminate the current way CP are accrued. In today's environment, the more CP a player has the greater the advantage that player has. If they were to come out with a flat rate like 2cp per 500 points, I think players would build their armies differently. Players would have more freedom to choose what they wanted to bring vs min/maxing detachments for CP.

Another way to make the playing field fair is to change the tournament format, but that's another thread altogether.

[General Strike]

I've built quite a few of these lists, I do wish we had Plague Havoks, even if they only had access to the plague marine weapons or like heavy blight launchers.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

I've built quite a few of these lists, I do wish we had Plague Havoks, even if they only had access to the plague marine weapons or like heavy blight launchers.

Heck even just limit them to death guard specific weapons - heavy/ blight launchers, entropy cannons and plague spewers. I think that would probably solve a good half of the issues we face

[Panzer]

I'm not a DG player, but my objective opinion would be if there were a Plague Havoc unit then they shouldn't have ANY of the Plague Marines weapon options because then it would just turn into "why not just take Havocs instead" situation all over again.

[CastellanDeMolay]

I'm not a DG player, but my objective opinion would be if there were a Plague Havoc unit then they shouldn't have ANY of the Plague Marines weapon options because then it would just turn into "why not just take Havocs instead" situation all over again.

This, why take another unit that does what Troops do, but are worse at holding objectives?

 

If we were getting Dedicated PM heavy-weapon squads, I think I would want Missile Launchers and Multi-Meltas and the like.  

[Nicolai H]

I actually discussed this with a friend the other night and the problems seems to be that power armour is way to expensive, compared to the amount of high strength weapons available to armies.

[General Strike]

 

 

I'm not a DG player, but my objective opinion would be if there were a Plague Havoc unit then they shouldn't have ANY of the Plague Marines weapon options because then it would just turn into "why not just take Havocs instead" situation all over again.

This, why take another unit that does what Troops do, but are worse at holding objectives?

 

If we were getting Dedicated PM heavy-weapon squads, I think I would want Missile Launchers and Multi-Meltas and the like.

Rad Missile Launchers and Multi Meltas, oooh and Heavy Blight Launchers. I might build one of these and test it then send it ten trillion times to GW.

[Wayniac]

Hopefully we get point reductions in Chapter Approved. It's just too expensive in an age of hordes to have more elite armies in most cases. Plague Marines suffer from GW thinking their stats are really good and pointing them to take that into account, when in reality it's not nearly as good as it looks on paper.

[BlackTriton]

In my last game, 10 plague marine killed 10 guardmen with shooting, killed 10 more in melee in the same turn and another 10 + 3 character next turn. I did not lose a single plaguemarine in all that.

Then they all died because a few tanks vaguely aimed in their direction.

 

In another, the same 10 man fought 20 genestealers for mutiple turn, nearly wiping them, all the while holding the objective. They folded only to the intervention of the hive tyrant.

 

Point being, they are terrifing when fighting any infantry. We can see this in infantry focussed game like killteam. But WH40K is a game of big tanks, big monster and hordes. In that game they struggle to fin their place.

That said, cloud of fly really help, forcing the big gun away from them long enough for them to do their work.

[Charlo]

Yeah I think that's just it. Unless you're against something like Custodes, most infantry will be fought to a standstill against Plague Marines. Our buff characters and such then swing it into our favour!

[Azekai]

In my experience a lot of what is being described feels like a matter of scale. I like playing small games (<1500)  where most armies aren't capable of erasing a unit of plague marines as an afterthought. In larger scale games, power armor (or even DR) offers little protection. 


As an aside, anyone made good use of the blight grenade strat + putrifier + Vets of the Long War? Seems like an amusing gimmick to pull at least once using plague marines.  

[BlackTriton]

@azekai

 

I pulled it off against a large unit of Ynnari shinning spear in a tournament.

The guy actually asked to see all relevant rules because he couldnt beleive I had just wiped his squad.

 

Its not great due to small range on slow unit, and its very expensive both in points and CP.

Its great against agressive lists though!

[Prot]

In my experience a lot of what is being described feels like a matter of scale. I like playing small games (<1500)  where most armies aren't capable of erasing a unit of plague marines as an afterthought. In larger scale games, power armor (or even DR) offers little protection. 

As an aside, anyone made good use of the blight grenade strat + putrifier + Vets of the Long War? Seems like an amusing gimmick to pull at least once using plague marines.

 

I’ve used it and documented it here and on my blog in an ITC GT.

 

In my opinion it’s the one trick that keeps them relevant in a more competitive environment. I got a lot of mileage out of it and every tournament player I played was relatively unaware of it. I went 4-1 with that as my central strategy while people shot the crud out of Mortarion.

[McElMcNinja]

The Plague Bus is a must and I have recently added 2 Plague Spiiters to the mix and it is even more deadly. I've taken down knights, thunder hawks, everything with them... I've been told I should have explained what that unit could do before they were in range of it. I guess?, but I wasn't told ahead of time what his battle plan was.

[Raktra]

The Plague Bus is a must and I have recently added 2 Plague Spiiters to the mix and it is even more deadly. I've taken down knights, thunder hawks, everything with them... I've been told I should have explained what that unit could do before they were in range of it. I guess?, but I wasn't told ahead of time what his battle plan was.

I mean, without meaning to be a gamey git, they shouldn’t be complaining about their lack of knowledge getting them killed. They made the mistake of underestimating you after all.

 

Also, hello Death Guard subforum.

[Charlo]

 

The Plague Bus is a must and I have recently added 2 Plague Spiiters to the mix and it is even more deadly. I've taken down knights, thunder hawks, everything with them... I've been told I should have explained what that unit could do before they were in range of it. I guess?, but I wasn't told ahead of time what his battle plan was.

I mean, without meaning to be a gamey git, they shouldn’t be complaining about their lack of knowledge getting them killed. They made the mistake of underestimating you after all.

 

Also, hello Death Guard subforum.

 

While "gotcha!" moments are frustrating (I play Custodes and they are able to pull off a lot of em!) in a tournament/ competetive setting it's not down to you to explain your stratagems until they are played. Wargear and units, yes if they ask or to begin the game, but if you listed every relevant stratagem for each unit you wouldn't have time for the game left!

[CMDR_Welles]

 

I have to agree with Emicus here. One unit of Plague Marines, no matter its size is not Plague Marine heavy. 

 

A proper Death Guard army, should be about the Death Guard. 3-4 units of 7 Plague Marines, 1 unit (or more) of 7 (or more) Blightlords, a unit of Deathshroud, and enough characters to go along with them. PBCs, Drones, and Haulers should have a supporting role (and not the focus), with cultists, Poxwalkers, and maybe some daemons for flavor. 

 

So much of the internet community (all gaming communities, across the internet) is so hyperfocused on what is optimal or competitive that 90% of the game is either outright ignored, or is trampled underfoot and forgotten... It really makes me sad to see the hobby I've been apart of for 35 years turned more into a sport than a game... 

 

 

How many games did you play this month with your deathguard?

 

When I make that sort of statement ("plague marine based armies aren't valid) it isn't based on what someone told me, something someone posted, or "all gaming communities across the interent". It's based on a LOT of games. I've never, ever played one game with an idea and posted: Well that sucks. It doesn't work.

 

Your broad sweeping statement is really disappointing. I've been apart of 40K as long as anyone I know and I can't disagree with you more. For every hyper competitive ITC player I know, I'd have to guess there are 5+ non-ITC players. In ALL my time being a part of 40K I have never seen as many well painted armies as I do today. We still have local tournaments that have 'soft scoring'. I can think of 8 regulars I play with that have been using the same armies for years. (they may take a break, but who doesn't?)

 

The big difference I see personally is that Frontline gaming has combined with social media to really push their 'system' (for lack of a better term). But that category of player is still far in the minority as far as my experience is concerned.

 

Specfically towards this subject the reason I find your statement hard to swallow is I play in a universe where I don't know if I'm playing against Tau, Astra, Necrons, Dark Eldar, Orks, Eldar, Ynnarri, or Nids -everytime- I am at a table. Those are the most common opponents I run into. Note the lack of marines.

 

Marines (widely accepted) are in a horrible spot (and by GW's own admission). So a "fun" list from one of those armies above can often, quite unintentionally, annihilate a "space marine" based army.  But yet if they faced each other, it would probably be a pretty even, fun, eventful game for the xenos player.

 

So yea after a LOT of experimenting with overpriced marines and using every gimmick I can reasonably come up with, I feel it's safe to say a Plague Marine based army is largely pushing the difficulty level extremely high in a lot of meta's. But I stress, that does -not- mean my Xenos opponent is 'hyper focused' on being competitive. 

 

There's a huge difference between being hyper competitive and trying to eek out a competitive game vs some of the better codexes in the game. That being said here I am still plugging away with 2-3 of the worst codexes in the game, no allies.

 

And by the way even 15 years ago I was going to tournaments with "star cannon/Mind War/Black Guardian" Spam was considered massively overpowered.... The names have changed but the hobby is still extremely healthy from my point of view.

 

 

Sorry it's taken so long to reply to you, been dealing with continuing illness, a funeral, surgical teeth extractions, and then a holiday. I wasnt ignoring you.  I'm also not very eloquent, so making myself understood can be problematic, I'm sorry for that as well.

 

When I said what a Death Guard army should be, I meant it. Yes, the current rules might mean it isnt competitive, or even fairly matched with other factions is irrelevant... This is partly a rules problem, and to a lesser degree a perception problem. Rules wise, we cannot do anything about, and I'll touch on perception in a bit. 

 

As to my other statements; yes they are blanket statements. I freely admit that. And yes, they are based on subjective impressions and experiences I've encountered and trends I've seen grow in the gaming community over the last 20 years. When I say gaming community, I mean ALL games, from RPGs, to Board Games, and Miniatures gaming. I've been gaming for 35 years now, and frankly there are times I really want to just give up... Gaming has changed. There is a growing undercurrent of cutthroat competitiveness that frankly makes me weep. I blame MTG and the ttg boom of the 90s, as well as proliferation of RTS games like Starcraft. With the prevalence of the Internet, this trend has only been  added too and compounded. 

 

If this trend is only a minority, then where on the internet is the majority talking about narrative or open play? I cannot find it... All I see is discussion on is my list competitive, or how do I break this edition of D&D, or How do I kill "said" Warcaster" in first turn. This is the perception I am talking about.This focus on breaking the game, and not playing the game is the problem. These attitudes filter down and people start to think this is how these games are played. That there is no other way. I started seeing it early when MSU Las/Plas Squads in Las/Plas Razorbacks, and it only got worse to me as each new edition came out... 7th killed all enjoyment in 40k for me after only two games.... And frankly, I've been too scared to go to a store to play a game of 8e yet. Why? Because all I see being discussed is the current meta. I dont want to game the game. I want to play a game... 

 

Yes, I'm bitter, yes I'm old, yes I am jaded. Yes all this is my personal feelings. But I cant be the only one who sees it... Am I? I know I am not explaining myself well. I'm sorry. I wish I could articulate this all more clearly. Gaming has been a big part of my life since I was 11 years old. I hate feeling alone in this.