Death Guard v. Raven Guard - any tips?

[Vorenus]

Greetings from the Eye.  I'm playing in a campaign and I have had two games against my Raven Guard opponent, and I have a third game against the same opponent tomorrow.  I feel like every battle is an uphill march for me.  His Raven Guard are 100 percent Primaris, so they have an extra 6" of range on all their basic guns, and an extra AP -1 even before the Tactical Doctrine kicks in.  They have lots of ways of killing support Characters, even out of line of sight.  Sure, I can use the Cloud of Flies stratagem to protect one unit, but that only works on one unit and costs a CP.  Once the Tactical Doctrine kicks in the Raven Guard get an extra +1 or +2 (can't remember) to the To Wound roll when they target Characters, and, as mentioned, they have a lot of units that can target Characters outside line of sight and also they don't have to be the closest unit.  Simultaneously, Raven Guard units themselves are hard to kill.  They have a -1 To Hit in the Shooting phase if they are more than 12" away and touching a terrain piece, which they always are.  Eliminators in particular I have had difficulty killing.  They effectively have a 1+ Armor Save in cover, they are -1 To Hit, they have 2 Wounds each . . . Last game I threw two Phoetid Bloat Drones at one unit of Eliminators and didn't kill a single Eliminator.  Deep Strikes are hard to pull off because the Raven Guard have several ways of shutting down Deep Strike (Phobos Captain, Infiltrators, etc.).

 

Any tips on how to beat these sneaky crows?

[happyslugger]

Play Iron Hands...

 

No seriously the new space marine supplements are extremely hard to counter for us (in my opinion).

 

We seriously need some attention to close the gap.

[Vorenus]

Be that as it may, I still have a game tomorrow, so if anyone has any tips, I'd appreciate it.

 

Here's my list:

 

Death Guard Battalion:

 

HQ1 - Lord of Contagion [115]

HQ2 - Typhus [175]

 

T1 - Plague Marines (Blight Launcher) [90]

T2 - Plague Marines (Blight Launcher) [90]

T3 - Plague Marines (Blight Launcher) [90]

T4 - Poxwalkers [60]

T5 - Poxwalkers [60]

 

E1 - Blightlord Terminators (Flail, Blight Launcher, everyone else with Bubotic Axe and Combi-bolter) [208]

E2 - Plague Surgeon [60]

E3 - Deathshroud Terminators [126]

 

FA1 - Myphitic Blighthaulers x3 [306]

FA2 - Foetid Bloat Drone (Plaguespitters) [138]

FA3 - Foetid Bloat Drone (Plaguespitters) [138]

 

HS1 - Plagueburst Crawler (EC, HS) [132]

HS2 - Plagueburst Crawler (EC, HS) [132]

HS3 - Plagueburst Crawler (EC, HS) [132]

 

 

To be clear, I'm not really asking for list advice, although I'm happy to entertain any comments or feedback on the list itself.  I can always improve my list-crafting skills.  This is a campaign, but we can change our lists up quite a bit between campaign games.  I won't bore you with the details here.  So what I'm getting at here is that if you have suggestions for tweaking the list, that's excellent and I welcome those, but I won't be making any changes for tomorrow's game.  Any changes to the list will be in the next game, game 4 of the campaign.  Also, for this campaign we are limited to one Codex, so every army in the campaign is a "mono-build" army.  However, supplements, like the Raven Guard supplement, don't count against the single Codex rule, so unfortunately mono-Death Guard seem to be in a real tough spot in this campaign.  

 

With that said, I do welcome any critiques or comments on the list, but what I am really looking for is suggestions regarding how to beat the Raven Guard on the table with what I have in this army.  

 

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Dallas Drake]

I think you need to get up close ASAP. Those drones should be able to charge anything that infiltrates, push your PBC up aggressively and charge units to force them to fall back. I think you would’ve been better off finding a way to get Rhinos for your PMs, footslogging against a Primaris force is no fun. A Biologus in the PMs would let you use the grenade strat to nail them but this can still work without him, use it if you get the chance. I’ve never used Deathshroud but I suggest you drop them and the BLs in together with both HQs and try to tag team units in melee. Maybe hit the BLs with cloud as much as possible if you can get a PBC or the Deathshroud in front of them.

 

That aside.

#1 Play VoTLW every turn

#2 don’t forget DTtFE

#3 don’t forget hateful assault (especially on BLs!)

 

Good luck!

 

Edit: oh and try to have fun, I often remind myself when playing DG/CSM that it’s just a game.

Edited December 7, 2019 by Dallas Drake

[Vorenus]

Thanks.  I do like Rhinos, but my opponent brought two Repulsors in his list last game; none of my Rhinos survived past turn one.  Since he went first, I basically gave up First Strike for nothing, didn't get any extra movement out of the Rhinos, and lost some Plague Marines in the process when I rolled 1s for the embarked units when the Rhinos blew up.  So I decided to try and make my list more infantry-based for tomorrow's game.  I will be using the Myphitic Blight Haulers' "cover aura" (can't remember what it's called--Infantry units within 7" of the MBH count as if they're in cover) and using the Cloud of Flies stratagem every turn as I move up the board.  Last game we had the 72" deployment, that was rough.  It took me four turns to get to his deployment zone where he had castled up.  By the time I got there I didn't have much left.  I focused on playing the mission, though, and actually won the game on points.  But I had very, very few models left, and he still had quite a lot left.  I did manage to kill both of his Repulsors, but he still had Eliminators, Interceptros, etc.  If the game had continued he would probably have tabled me and I would have lost the mission for sure.  As it is, he won game one of our matchup and I won game two.  But as I said, even though I won game 2, it was an uphill slog the whole game.  The Raven Guard Primaris are really, really hard to kill, especially with the long-table-edge map.  Hopefully tomorrow we'll start out a little closer to each other.

 

I think another thing I need to focus on is killing off his Interceptors--I think that's the name of the unit that screens out Deep Strike.  It pushes Deep Strike out to 12" instead of 9", making charging impossible (not just difficult, actually impossible according to the rules).  Last game I tried really hard to kill his Eliminators, because they were sniping my support characters and I couldn't stop them since they can ignore line of sight and can target Characters even if they're not the closest unit.  But despite my attempts to kill the Elimintaors, I didn't succeed very well.  I had a better time killing his Repulsors than I did his Eliminators!  So tomorrow I think I will focus on killing his Deep Strike screen as my top priority, then I can hopefully open a gap for my Terminators (Deathshroud and Blightlord) and the Lord of Contagion to arrive via the Teleportarium.

 

Thanks again for the suggestions.  I welcome any and all additional suggestions and insights.

 

Wish me luck!

[brother_b]

Tell us how it goes.

[Vorenus]

I lost in round 2. I didn't concede, I straight up lost. It was gross.

[Special Officer Doofy]

I lost in round 2. I didn't concede, I straight up lost. It was gross.

Unless you cheese your list with the best units and spam them it's nigh impossible for a fluffy DG list to hold a candle next to the SM codex creep. Sorry to hear about the turn two loss. Was deployment at least fun?

 

Edit: Grammar

Edited December 9, 2019 by Putrid Choir

[happyslugger]

Thought that might be the case...we really can't compete with the NuMarines

[Wolf Lord Loki]

I lost in round 2. I didn't concede, I straight up lost. It was gross.

Can we at least have a brief break down of what happened?

 

Also were you using the new chapter approved points values?

[Vorenus]

Yes, I used the new Chapter Approved points values.  Deployment was not particularly fun, although I'm not sure if that was a joke question or not. 

 

The mission was Decapitation, where you win if you kill the enemy Warlord.  You have to start with your Warlord on the table.  I was the Defender so I had to start with my Warlord and up to one third of the rest of my army, and the rest would come in via Reserves.  My deployment zone was effectively  a rectangle cutting across the middle of the board and his deployment zone was a U-shape around the edge of the board.   Reserves would come in from any table edge, unless they can teleport.  He deployed and then moved and advanced in the first turn in such a way that I literally could not get any of my reserves in from any table edge as they would have been within 9" of a unit or within 12" of his Interceptors or Phobos Captain.   The only unit I was able to bring in from Reserves was my Blightlords, since they could teleport, and they were very ineffective since they came in, killed one Inceptor, and then failed their charge roll against Intercessors.  He shut me down so hard that I had only 830 points total of my army on the table  (including the Blightlords who came in turn 2) vs. his 2000 points.  Despite putting Cloud of Flies on my Warlord both turns, and surrounding him with Deathshroud Terminators, two squads of Poxwalkers, a squad of Plague Marines, Typhus, and the Plague Surgeon, my opponent was still able to wipe out the screens and kill the Warlord  by turn 2.  The first turn he used his snipers and Eliminators to kill the Plague Surgeon so I didn't get any re-rolls on Disgustingly Resilient.  Then he focus-fired my Deathshroud off the table so my Warlord didn't have a bodyguard.  He also deleted one unit of Poxwalkers and reduced the second unit of Poxwalkers to 4 left, and killed 3 out of 7 Plague Marines.  Turn 2 was basically rinse and repeat for him: he finished off the Poxwalkers and Plague Marines, and then used his Eliminators and Phobos Captain with a relic so none of them required line of sight to hit my Warlord, who at that point was the closest model (because he deleted all my screens) so Cloud of Flies didn't matter anymore.  He didn't even bother to shoot at my Blightlords or at Typhus since the mission was to kill the enemy Warlord and that's all that mattered.  Having killed my Warlord in the second turn, the game was over and he scored a major victory for the campaign.

 

It was a brutal and dismaying game.  I don't think there was anything else I could have done.  His army outranged me with every single gun and he has so many ways to snipe characters and ignore line of sight that there was no place to hide.  And he was able to shut down my Reserves almost completely, so, like I said, he had 2000 points vs. only 830 points of my army.

 

It was brutal.

[infyrana]

Disheartening.  Surely there's some clause that prevents someone deploying everywhere to prevent further reserves popping in?  Sounds like you were set up for a failure with the mission and army types.  I would be curious how it might have gone were you to switch roles, can DG pull off such character sniping in any shape or form?

[Special Officer Doofy]

The deployment comment was a joke. It also sounds like a bad match up, raven guard is the character sniping legion.

[Aothaine]

Did you guys know the mission in advance? Almost seems like there was list tailoring for an event. If that is the case I don't know how upset I would be. This mission is amazing for Raven Guard and if they new the mission in advance it was just a matter of time before he pulled off the mission objective.

 

I feel you in the pain department though. I play Space Wolves. We're in a bad spot as well. But at least we have some roll-over toys with the new primaris. 

 

Now, lets think about what you might have been able to do better. Knowing how he deployed you may have wanted to run toward one side of the board to try and wipe out or open up some room for your reserves. Death Guard are slow though. I don't think Rhinos would have helped here really. 

 

How much terrain was on the table? 

[Vorenus]

No, we didn't know the mission in advance.

 

I had to deploy basically in the center, and I could not move fast enough to get to either of his sides before turn 2, when it ended. His guns have vastly longer range. The only unit that even got close to his deployment zone was the Blightlords, who teleported in turn 2 and failed a 9" charge. Then he took his second turn and killed the Warlord and some the game.

Edited December 10, 2019 by Vorenus

[happyslugger]

Well I have a game against my sons UM on the weekend and I have decided to take Morty out for a spin with his DS.

 

I know my son plans on running GMAN, Repulsor, Tiggy and a Leviathan....so I will put a fluffy list together and proceed to get hammered lol.

Edited December 11, 2019 by happyslugger

[HeresyBeliever]

Personally I would drop the lord of contagion. They dont offer much put a DP in the list. 

 

Make sure the table has a good amount of terrain on it. 

Other than than all you can do is play the mission and try to keep units safe. Focus down his units don't spread around your shots

 

Can you add a daemon detachment? The buffs help us. 

[MasterDeath]

 

Can you add a daemon detachment? The buffs help us. 

 

+1 on this. Remember that Daemons dont care for AP.

[Bat33.1]

As Heresybeliever says lord of contagion doeant add much to the list, 2 x DP with Typhus and a poxwalker blob seem to be popular builds but DG have slow units and not great damage output compared to nu-marines. There's a reason ITC winning lists are dominated by SM currently, we just have to take the pain and hope PA lifts us up but I can't see it solving the competitive issues with an early 8th edition codex v 8.5 SM.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Just chiming in on this. A couple things I would like to know, playing narrative missions were you playing PL or points? A lot of the strengths in campaigns is the ability to summon Daemons for free as well as hide your characters in transports.

 

In most narrative based games I play there is much more lax in list building in the sense that it tells a story. So you can take things like Land Raiders as they make sense from this perspective. Or you can open a rift for forward movement to disrupt lines.

 

Summoning a blob of Plague bearers or a GUO would've been aces. As well as double casting powers. Etc. That would've given you an additional extended barrier as to keep him from closing the gap.

 

A second detachment of nurglings would benefit you in the future as to allow you to counter infiltrating units.

 

Good luck going forward!

[Vorenus]

The campaign is points, not Power Levels.  Unfortunately no summoning Daemons for free.  I'm hoping that Psychic Awakening makes Death Guard more viable/competitive.  

[Dont-Be-Haten]

The campaign is points, not Power Levels. Unfortunately no summoning Daemons for free. I'm hoping that Psychic Awakening makes Death Guard more viable/competitive.

That's unfortunate. The best campaigns are played with power level or open play to fully customize your characters and units. Gaining experience and getting buffs is so much cooler than league play.

[Vorenus]

I had my fourth game against the Raven Guard player this past Monday.  Once again, it was brutal.  I focused as much as possible on just playing the mission and so the final score was close.  I lost after the fifth round.  The final score was 18-15 for the Raven Guard; going into the 5th round we were actually tied at 14 to 14.  But even though the score was relatively close (until the final round anyway), the number of models left on the table told a different story.  In the fifth round he removed my final model from the table.  The last model to die was a Plagueburst Crawler, which he had trapped in melee in the third turn and then it slowly got whittled down until it was removed in turn 5.  So in 5 turns he removed all 2000 points of my models.  But he still had over 1000 points of models left on the table.  It may have been as much as 1500.  It was more than a little demoralizing.  I just couldn't kill his units.  His guns have longer range, and all Raven Guard count as being in cover when over 12" away and most of his army is -1 to hit when it's actually in cover, and he has a lot of anti-character snipers.  I was able to keep my warlord alive for four turns by using Cloud of Flies, but he finally killed all the screens and took out the Warlord.  Taking out the Warlord was a major turning point in the score of the game, as he got 5 points from that:  We were playing the mission on page 74 of Chapter Approved 2019, and using the Maelstrom tactical decks with the rules from CA 2019 where you build your decks ahead of time.  In the turn he killed the Warlord he got Assassinate, Kingslayer (for d3 points), and some Raven Guard specific Objective that I think is called "Strike at the Head."  I built my deck entirely around cards that don't involve taking and holding specific numbered objective markers.  That was probably a mistake, but I wanted to use the thematic cards, things like "Death March," and "Disgusting Devotions," and etc.  I made a lot of Disgustingly Resilient rolls, but in the end it just wasn't enough.  I couldn't kill his models fast enough to make a difference as he would be deleting my units with focused fire.

 

I'm thinking I'm going to have to give in and use a "soup" list next time.  I don't want to do that.  I want the Death Guard to be good enough that I can get by with just a "pure" (perhaps I should say "fully corrupted") Death Guard list.  But they just aren't cutting the mustard.  I think I might have to take the advice someone gave above and add Daemons.  Or maybe add The Purge.  I don't want to do that, but I am tired of losing games.  I am tired of being gimped just because I take a "pure" Death Guard, whereas my opponent is actually buffed and rewarded substantially for taking a "pure" Raven Guard list.  

 

Sorry to be negative about this.

[Special Officer Doofy]

No need to apologize about being negative, space marines are much better than death guard. We don't get multiple mono bonuses and legion traits that apply to every unit. Playing against space marines as a mono chaos legion right now is a very negative thing.

 

Chaos has to soup to even be competitive...

Edited January 24, 2020 by Putrid Choir

[Dont-Be-Haten]

To be fair Daemons are in the Codex. Taking a detachment of nurlings, PB, etc isn’t really making Death Guard not pure. Nurglings are excellent infiltration units and even better screens. PB are still decent.

 

There’s some cool stuff coming for DG soon which should help some.

 

In the meantime I would do some self reflection and ask your opponent what they would’ve done by comparison.