Unit of the week series: Plague Marines

[TempestBlade]

I’m kind of thinking 10 PM with 2 BL and the sigil for 6 autowound with bolters, then have a LoV and tallyman with the relic for 6s cause 2 hits with plague weapons and some melee PM in front about 4” forward probably 10 with 2 flails, 2 cleavers and PF on sarge. The characters stay in the middle for aura support. Pop the tallymans +1 to hit on the shooty PM, throw in the bolters are plague weapons strat and maybe the new +1 to wound and then March up the board. So the shooty ones will have 4 BL shots, 16 bolter shots, hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, with 6s getting an additional hit and autowounding, wounding on 3s rerolling 1s with 6s getting +1 ap. Then have the melee PM be a screen. Nothing will want to charge them and if they ignore them they will get a charge off. Thoughts?

[McElMcNinja]

I don’t know if screening with more PM’s is cost effective. 20 Poxwalkers are tougher then they appear. I know this is the PM forum, but 40 attacks doing MWs on 6 plus their normal attacks, so good. Sure I rolled some 1’s, but I rolled enough FNP’s and killed enough of the enemy I was still at 20 after combat.

I think the combat squad should be in a transport and if you can fit in a couple characters, even better. Just remember some of their buffs are done in the command phase.

[Iron Sage]

I’m kind of thinking 10 PM with 2 BL and the sigil for 6 autowound with bolters, then have a LoV and tallyman with the relic for 6s cause 2 hits with plague weapons and some melee PM in front about 4” forward probably 10 with 2 flails, 2 cleavers and PF on sarge. The characters stay in the middle for aura support. Pop the tallymans +1 to hit on the shooty PM, throw in the bolters are plague weapons strat and maybe the new +1 to wound and then March up the board. So the shooty ones will have 4 BL shots, 16 bolter shots, hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, with 6s getting an additional hit and autowounding, wounding on 3s rerolling 1s with 6s getting +1 ap. Then have the melee PM be a screen. Nothing will want to charge them and if they ignore them they will get a charge off. Thoughts?

My initial thought is that while it sounds strong, it seems to be a lot of your army sitting around camping and protecting an objective. It's something like 750 points, depending on how you kit that melee squad,  maybe more. Seems too much for me, what about the other objectives in the game and what about your opponents DZ and your own backfield (guessing these go to the midrange objective) ?

[TempestBlade]

Well these guys March up the board with the “screen” melee PM getting into the enemy lines and messing stuff up. Also have 2 drones with the flesh mowers putting early pressure and 2 10 man pox walkers to grab objectives and protect vs deep striking. Idk I was just looking at all the new tools and let my mind run with them. I do like the 20 man poxwalkers screen instead of melee PMs tho so I might have to experiment with that

[Dark Legionnare]

I don’t know if screening with more PM’s is cost effective. 20 Poxwalkers are tougher then they appear. I know this is the PM forum, but 40 attacks doing MWs on 6 plus their normal attacks, so good. Sure I rolled some 1’s, but I rolled enough FNP’s and killed enough of the enemy I was still at 20 after combat.

I think the combat squad should be in a transport and if you can fit in a couple characters, even better. Just remember some of their buffs are done in the command phase.

Tried that today, had a ton die in return on those 1's, haha. 40 Attacks is still nothing to scoff at though, if you can somehow get all 20 in 1" or .5+.5"

 

I’m kind of thinking 10 PM with 2 BL and the sigil for 6 autowound with bolters, then have a LoV and tallyman with the relic for 6s cause 2 hits with plague weapons and some melee PM in front about 4” forward probably 10 with 2 flails, 2 cleavers and PF on sarge. The characters stay in the middle for aura support. Pop the tallymans +1 to hit on the shooty PM, throw in the bolters are plague weapons strat and maybe the new +1 to wound and then March up the board. So the shooty ones will have 4 BL shots, 16 bolter shots, hitting on 2s rerolling 1s, with 6s getting an additional hit and autowounding, wounding on 3s rerolling 1s with 6s getting +1 ap. Then have the melee PM be a screen. Nothing will want to charge them and if they ignore them they will get a charge off. Thoughts?

I just ran my first game today, and while I didn't loadout full 10 mans, I had great fun with the PM's, a surgeon w/helm, and the Tallyman w/ Tollkeeper.

 

Had some good luck with OC'd plasmas get multiple procs from tollkeeper, etc...  I think next time, I will definitely think about taking the 10 man squads in rhinos, with the characters waddling up after them.  Then again, having them safe in the rhino, keeping up, and not losing synergy from a bad advance roll, is a big deal.  And losing out on one plasma gun is not that big a deal...

 

Either way, the two squads of 9 PM dig absolute work today, sucked up firepower from a knight, battle cannons, etc... Was glorious.  Them with sigil, tally, and some good gun loadouts are a solid damn core.

Let's not forget the Tallyman 7+ CP proc that went off on 4 out of 5 turns. For 70 pts, he's gooooood stuff finally.

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Dark Legionnare

[GenerationTerrorist]

So how does the Tollkeeper relic interact with the Sigil? It is one of the reasons I thought of taking just a pure Bolter squad of Plague Marines.

 

Does it mean that the 6's from Bolters in the unit with the Sigil cause 2 automatic wounds, or are the additional hit caused by the 6's rolled to wound as normal?

 

I would presume the latter, but I am not a rules lawyer!

[jgascoine011]

 

SNIP

10 Plague Marines, 2 plague spewers, 2 melta guns and maybe a power fist champ. Have them in a rhino.

 

SNIP

 

Call me crazy, I actually like this setup myself. Even though the DG mono benifits are great, I think a DG patrol for soup with CSM will be neat. Basic CSM will go to 18pts, DG are what 20 now? 2-3 x5 man CSM MSU with heavy + combi plas, PM's via a DG patrol is a solid troops base. I would rather spend the rhino points on the PM's, a few less CSM. No commitments yet, waiting on the new CSM codex.

I would rather spend the CP else where.

10PM with 5 special weapons is 260 + rhino is 340. If you were just taking the CSM as a spearhead or something then I could see it being viable, but I otherwise dont see much point.

[McElMcNinja]

So how does the Tollkeeper relic interact with the Sigil? It is one of the reasons I thought of taking just a pure Bolter squad of Plague Marines.

 

Does it mean that the 6's from Bolters in the unit with the Sigil cause 2 automatic wounds, or are the additional hit caused by the 6's rolled to wound as normal?

 

I would presume the latter, but I am not a rules lawyer!

Your presumption is correct, under rare rules you would still need to roll to wound for the extra hits.

[Muskie]

I got the codex today and the options for Plague Marines is crazy. I have painted so many over the years, but will be painting more. I'm going 7th Plague Company and leaning into the plague flamer theme, the fact you can have four auto hit models in one squad is crazy. When I got 9th Edition I thought 5 man squads would be back en vogue, but the way the Plague Marine rules are written you can just make kitchen sink units. Maybe not optimal but fun to paint. I've run 5 plague marines with just boaters before, it was a long long time ago. I'm trying not to think about it, but I may play nothing but Ultramarines once the real world pandemic finally ends. But I plan to make some shooty and some stabby plague marine squads. I'm not so sure about rhinos. I used to use them. I also plan to use Blight Lords and Deathshroud terminators along with the Elite Characters. I'm also committed to the Lord of Virulence. I'm so pro-auto hitting.

 

I'm also a long, long, long time melta gun fan. I might make squads with five models and a single melta gun. Melta guns kill things dead. Everyone has been obsessed with plasma guns since at least 2nd edition but I've always been the outlier. I liked 2 * melta guns and a combi-flamer on the champ because you generally got only one round of shooting your flamer before you were in H2H, but under the current rules I may try one flamer err plague belcher, one melta, and one plasma gun on the champ. I just like my models to all look unique. The champ can have a bolt pistol and a plasma pistol too. I'm going to make some interesting looking squads. It'll be hard to give up reapers in my Blight Lords though. You can have reapers and plague spewers so four special guns in a Blight Lord squad, I'll probably do that too. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

So in a lot of batreps and lists I see people taking a powerfist on the champion but not taking a great plague reaper on one of the marines in their melee squad. The champion has 3 attacks but if the plague marine takes the reaper, with his knife that is 2 plague weapons so 3 attacks also. The champion also gets a free plague sword for a +1S over the dagger and will always have 3 attacks. Both are -1 to hit Sx2 -ap3 but the fist is only 2 damage where the axe is d6 damage AND is a plague weapon. If you only have the 10 extra points for an additional melee weapon (thankfully every list I saw was smart enough to take the flail first), why would someone take the fist over the great plague reaper? 3 reaper and 3 sword attacks is far better than 3 fist and 2 knife attacks. I can't see why one would, besides power fists looking cool haha. The extra bolt gun shots really don't do anything, bolt guns suck, specially when advancing or in a rhino. Thoughts?

 

Edit: Grammar.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Putrid Choir

[Dark Legionnare]

So in a lot of batreps and lists I see people taking a powerfist on the champion but not taking a great plague reaper on one of the marines in their melee squad. The champion has 3 attacks but if the plague marine takes the reaper, with his knife that is 2 plague weapons so 3 attacks also. The champion also gets a free plague sword for a +1S over the dagger and will always have 3 attacks. Both are -1 to hit Sx2 -ap3 but the fist is only 2 damage where the axe is d6 damage AND is a plague weapon. If you only have the 10 extra points for an additional melee weapon (thankfully every list I saw was smart enough to take the flail first), why would someone take the fist over the great plague reaper? 3 reaper and 3 sword attacks is far better than 3 fist and 2 knife attacks. I can't see why one would, besides power fists looking cool haha. The extra bolt gun shots really don't do anything, bolt guns suck, specially when advancing or in a rhino. Thoughts?

Edit: Grammar.

My money would be primarily on, like me, people do it because it's what the dark imperium sarge has for gear. I've yet to build another PM (Aside from a box as possessed last year) since Dark Imperium early 8th days.

[KingYertle]

As DL noted, I too tend to run mine with power fists because that's how I modeled them.  

 

That said I also like this loadout because I find that my plague marines tend to drop quickly and as I'm likely saving the Flail and Champion as the last men standing I like to keep the rest of the squad cheap.  However, recently I've found that the plasmagun Champion has proven more effective then the PF as the flail is already an excellent weapon and often I find my army wanting for more guns.  

[Plague _Lord]

The champ does give +1 ld which might sometimes save you fron losing more marines, so maybe for that?

 

Oh and powerfist champs are just cool ;)

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Ditto. Almost all my plague marines are from Dark Imperium.

 

I do have a squad with fist, 2 cleavers and 2 melta to go after hard targets like tanks.... But it hasn't always worked well...damn dice gods

[Evil Eye]

Not strictly the topic of this thread, but I finally opened up my Plague Marines and started building them. Got 3 built so far, I really like this kit! It's amazing how customizable each Marine is. Not sure the loadouts on the mace-and-bolter Marine and the champion are strictly legal but hopefully it shouldn't cause any arguments. What exactly is a legal loadout for them confuses me, hopefully they're at least close enough to an actual loadout that it's not going to bring games to a screeching halt; I'm not trying to put a Great Cleaver and a Blight Launcher on one model after all.

[Special Officer Doofy]

I just love the amount of sculpts there is/was for plague marines. The 7 from dark imperium (2 are a partial share, but with different weapons/head), the 7 from the current plague marine kit, the 3 from the easy to build, the 3 from the reinforcements, the stand alone champion, the stand alone standard bearer, and the 6 from the heroes. That's 28 unique sculpts without converting at all. Pretty cool if you ask me, more than most troop choices get! I converted one of my DI champions with the Malignant plaguecaster and an AoS staff with a bell to make a much better looking plaguecaster.

[Lord Raven 19]

I'm looking forward to running three squads of 10

1x Fist, sword, 2 blight launcher, 3 plasma

1x Fist, sword, 2 blight launcher, 2 melta (maybe a plague sprayer)

1x Fist, sword, plasma pistol, 2 cleaver, 2 flail, 2 mace and axe, 2 axe, 1 double knives

[Special Officer Doofy]

I'm looking forward to running three squads of 10

1x Fist, sword, 2 blight launcher, 3 plasma

1x Fist, sword, 2 blight launcher, 2 melta (maybe a plague sprayer)

1x Fist, sword, plasma pistol, 2 cleaver, 2 flail, 2 mace and axe, 2 axe, 1 double knives

Love me some blight launchers. You using a rhino for the melee squad? I see people talking good things about dreadclaws now too since they can first turn deepstrike.

[Lord Raven 19]

No rhino for the moment (don't have one, and the kit's quite dated), probably running them up the board with a blightspawn, my general tactic is threat overload so that and the bloat drones, with a pbc at the back, is good enough for the casual games that I play.

[McElMcNinja]

I believe Plague Marines are good and in the casual setting maybe even great. It’s when you get into the competitive scene they get overlooked as people start being more selective. I think they are priced right for the casual game’s and overpriced for competitive. Also a little perturbed their load out is based off what comes in a box and not what I would consider optimal.

[KingYertle]

I believe Plague Marines are good and in the casual setting maybe even great. It’s when you get into the competitive scene they get overlooked as people start being more selective. I think they are priced right for the casual game’s and overpriced for competitive. Also a little perturbed their load out is based off what comes in a box and not what I would consider optimal.

 

I Agree in the casual setting PMs are good.  However in my experience playing casual games, my opponents, who knew I was bringing DG, can and have loaded up on high output or high Str Damage1 weapons to negate my DR.  As such the point premium on DR is not as valuable as it is in a competitive setting where you have to plan on any opponent.  Therefore the Plague Marines feel over costed.  20 points vs 21, with some 5 point weapon options (5pt blight launchers and plasma/meltaguns for example) would be ideal, while also making list building for Combat Patrol and Incursion a little more interesting.    

 

Load out being based on the box... the fact that other Factions did NOT get this nerf is a real downer.  A 7 Man PM Unit with 2 BLs and 1 Flail is 177 points.   How wonderfully Nurgle is that!!!  But no, despite all the Blight launchers I built in 8th I have to sub in an underwhelming plasmagun and roll each weapon separately.  But hey, at least not having a 5+++ speeds up the game...  Also, from a casual/crusade perspective, I wish they hadn't removed the Power Level for a unit of 7 Plague Marines.  The Box comes with 7!  Come on GW at least be Consistent.  At least this one was easy to house rule.

 

To stay on topic, in a casual setting 10 PMs, 8 bolters & 2 BLs with the auto wounding banner is not terrible.  I don't think its as competitive as 5 Blightlords, but it is thematic and at the Combat Patrol or Incursion level of play they will prove difficult for your opponent to shift.   Support them with a Relic Tallyman with Ferric Blight, or a LoV and Virulent Rounds and you have a decent Dakka squad.  However for 240 points plus the cost of the buffing characters its an expensive unit which makes it a poor choice for Combat Patrol Narrative Play.  

[Special Officer Doofy]

If it wasn't for time and money invested into my army, like if it was just a videogame, I would have switched factions when they nerfed DR. So disappointing. The amount of D1 and MW far out ways the amount of D2. And my vehicles miss 5+++ the most. Plague marines, if playing against an anti marine list, is about the only thing that benefitted from the DR nerf. I hate the excuse about it saves from dice rolling. If you hate rolling dice, why even play 40k?

[Balerion84]

I don't know, even in casual games, which are the only type I play, I wasn't really convinced by them... it's not that they are bad, it's just that in all games, they didn't do very much. We play with plenty of big obscuring terrain, and the best they were able to do, was hide l and sit on an objective. As soon as they show up in the open, then go down quite fast. I'm just so disappointed by them.

In our games, we always know what armies we are going to play in advance and even if we do our best to not tech our lists against each other, some adjustments usually happen. So if I played against old quantum shielding, I left out d6 weapons for example.

 

There's a lot of d1 guns everywhere and even with those 2 wounds, they'll be taken out before they get into combat. I don't play rhinos, so that'd help them get there probably, but that's anooother bunch of points on TOP of their high cost even you give them some special weapons.

 

I wish they were a bit better, or cheaper. I really want to play them more.

[Azekai]

If it wasn't for time and money invested into my army, like if it was just a videogame, I would have switched factions when they nerfed DR. So disappointing. The amount of D1 and MW far out ways the amount of D2. And my vehicles miss 5+++ the most. Plague marines, if playing against an anti marine list, is about the only thing that benefitted from the DR nerf. I hate the excuse about it saves from dice rolling. If you hate rolling dice, why even play 40k?

This book has other big time sinks built in, so DR ‘saving time’ is moot. As another frater noted, you can’t just take a couple blight launchers or triple plasma in a pm squad, you have to take a bunch of different weapons and track them all when shooting/fighting. All the separate Rolling defeats speed rolling and I find it braindead boring. Edited June 8, 2021 by Azekai

[Special Officer Doofy]

This book has other big time sinks built in, so DR ‘saving time’ is moot. As another frater noted, you can’t just take a couple blight launchers or triple plasma in a pm squad, you have to take a bunch of different weapons and track them all when shooting/fighting. All the separate Rolling defeats speed rolling and I find it braindead boring.

Agreed! The wargear changes are silly.