Death Guard army build help

[tangoalphatwo]

So, I’ve never been a fan of Nurgle (Khârn my spirit animal) but the new sculpts were too good to pass up. Mind you, I’m more into the lore, collecting, and converting than I am into actually playing. That said. I picked up pretty much the entire line of Death Guard. (Pics to come. Have to finish my second company Ultramarines first.)

 

So I have 70 plague marines. I’m going to do either 4 or 5 tactical style (sorry, old school loyalist) 10 man squads with a heavy and special weapon each, melta/plasma/launcher and the rest bolters. And 2 or 3 close combat squads of 10 men each with axes, mace, flails, cleavers, and plague knives with a icon per squad. My question is would the cc squads run well with a plague spewer and a plague belcher each? Again, I’m way more narrative so it’s kind of a balance. From a fluff perspective, this sounds good, yeah? And from a playing style, would they be better cc squads with or without the “flamers”?

 

Also, side note... the Space Marine Heroes series three... is the sixth dude a sergeant (champion) or a captain (lord)? Or is it kind of a do whatever you want with him?

[Reyner]

It's a Champion in Heroes Series 3 but nothing stopping you from using him as a Lord. :) 

[Wolf Lord Loki]

I love the idea of plague flamers. However practically they aren't highly thought of.

 

That said they have an inch longer range than regular flamers and they are auto hit and plague weapons.

In a squad that you plan to send against light infantry they are probably okay.

 

However for my squad with the great cleavers I opted for melta guns because I'm likely to be sending plague powerfists against vehicle targets

[tangoalphatwo]

It's a Champion in Heroes Series 3 but nothing stopping you from using him as a Lord.

 

Thank you!

 

I love the idea of plague flamers. However practically they aren't highly thought of.

 

That said they have an inch longer range than regular flamers and they are auto hit and plague weapons.

In a squad that you plan to send against light infantry they are probably okay.

 

However for my squad with the great cleavers I opted for melta guns because I'm likely to be sending plague powerfists against vehicle targets

 

And cool, I think I may roll with one per cc squat then. Part of the reasoning behing the question is I hate having two of the same sculpt in an army, so the veriety would be cool. I have the Series 3 Plague spewer and want to use him and didnt know if I should run a second Spewer or a Belcher on the other cc squad, thoughts?

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Consider how you plan to use the squad one of those is Assault (spewer?) and one is Heavy and that will effect how you move the squad

 

If you can get hold of a few spewer from the plague marine box it should be possible with a little work to exchange it for a Bolter on a another model (assuming they aren't already assembled

[tangoalphatwo]

Oh, yeah, good call. I didn’t think of that. The spewer is heavy while the belcher is assault.

 

Also, what’s the consensus on squad makeup? 5 bolter (Shooty) squads and 2 cc squads or 4 bolter squads and 2 cc squads?

[McElMcNinja]

I have converted the spewer marine to a Blightspawn, I usually run 2 and this gave me variety.

As far as unit make up, I would make them all shooty and add in a flail or two. With Hateful Assault they get an extra attack and I have found that two flails usually have killed off everything before the rest of the unit even gets to attack.

[tangoalphatwo]

Interesting. Maybe run 2 or 3 squads of half shooty half cc then?

[McElMcNinja]

I got in a game yesterday against Orks, I had a unit of 8 Plague Marines charge a unit of 30 boyz. My unit consisted of the champion with plaguesword and plasma pistol, 2 with flails, 2 with blight launchers, 3 with bolters. I had cast Putrescent Vitality on them and played VotLW as well. My DP (with arch-contaminator) was near so they were also rerolling 1's to hit and all failed damage rolls.

I rolled for the flails first, got great rolls scoring 10 attacks (at -2AP he had no save) killing 20 boyz. The other 6 in my unit had 13 attacks, I hit with 10, all wounded, but he made 3 saves. Not bad, killing off 27 Orks and not losing a model in return. Side note: I had cast Blades on them, but it was denied so I settled for Putrescent Vitality.

Had my unit been equipped with only CC weapons, I would have killed them all straight up. Now with me also having shooting elements in my unit, I was able to take out one of his big gunz in the shooting phase.

The shorter version of what I'm trying to say is...

In a competitive environment I run my units with a plasma for the champion, 2 blight launchers, 1 or 2 flails, the rest with bolters. In a friendly/fluffy environment I run a unit 10 with 2 flails, the rest with axes & knives and an icon.

[Vorenus]

If you don't mind my saying so, I think running 10-man units of Plague Marines is not the best idea.  You run into potential Leadership problems because Plague Marines are not Fearless like they used to be in previous editions.  Nor do Death Guard have "And They Shall Know No Fear."