So DG are the strongest army in the game right now.

[Special Officer Doofy]

@PJ1933 Nice idea!

 

I think the end goal for GW should be enough internal balance in each codex so all their beautiful models have a chance to hit the table with each army as close to possible at the 50/50 win/loss ratio. That would be healthiest for their game, players and model distribution. But because of their sales strategies, codex creep and slow rate of churning codexes out, that will never happen.

 

I think this thread aged like fine milk, we were the best codex until another codex came out, and every codex that came out after is pretty much better, which is GW's status quo so no surprise there.

 

I usually play my brother who has Admech, Grey Knights, Imperial Knights and Necrons. We live only 15min away and in the suburbs. We each have our own gaming tables, so covid didn't stop our playing in the slightest. He usually plays his Admech or Grey Knights. They both do well against my death guard. His admech dakkabots tear through my plague marines. The extra wound helps I guess. And now I have no defense against my brother's Grey Knights mortal wounds, because of the DR nerf. I caved and got the warzone charadon book because I wanted to try a list with 0 Daemon engines against my brother's Grey Knights.

 

I will say the only reason my win rate against him is over 50% is because he hobbies mostly for building and painting, he's not too competitive when it comes to the table. I tend to play more competitively, like I know his codexes better than he does, but I don't competitively list build. I have all of the beautiful death guard models, I like to see them all on the table now and then, no matter how good or bad they are. We both just like to roll dice and drink beer, which again DR nerfed for me hahaha. It was so much fun to make a bunch of clutch saves, or even funnier missing 10 DR saves in a row.

 

So at the end of the day, my thoughts are this: The codex is still doing good, for now. Our secondaries suck, but those could always be faq'd (but probably not). The internal balance is nice. The elite characters got reworked. Flamers were the go to on PBCs and drones, now they are worse than the entropy cannons and mower. Plague marines kinda suck. If the changes to the wargear restrictions on them was because people complained about all the options not being sold in the box, way to find a solution that upset your customers even more GW. And them selling marines in groups of 7, when the squad min is 5 and max is 10 is dumb, and partially caused their wargear issues to begin with. I think as more codexes come out our win rate will drop, but I don't think it will drop to the 30%ish it did in 8th. We will always be a hard counter to an army like white scars, who want to charge at the enemy fast, and spam them 2D hits. That covers our weakness of being the slowest army, and plays to our greatest strength, reducing 2D to 1D.

Edited July 3, 2021 by Putrid Choir

[Bat33.1]

Good points @Putrid Choir and I've now seen a bit of chat about banning codex secondaries at tournaments but not yet heard of a larger event that's tried this. As you say some armies just have flat out easy ways to pick up points and from what I've heard this is very much an issue with the DE book. Then you have those still waiting for a 9e codex who are stuck with core book secondaries and are playing at a disadvantage from the start. 

 

We all know GW and a fully balamced game are not happening any time soon, the flip side is GW at least making changes and trying to improve the game balance, not always in a good way but much better than just waiting for your next codex which in years gone by might be a couple of editions out of date if you were unlucky. I'm happy enough with DG right now, they are not top tier but they can put up a good showing and the very best players have been taking GT wins with them, Nick Nanavati for one but with DE and Ad Mech books plus SoB Nick was about to bench his DG for one of those. He ran various versions of DG from Mortarion builds to heavy Death Shroud, Blight Lord lists and was even using a couple of PM squads but more often poxwalkers recently. At least DG are in a better spot than Necrons and vanilla Marines, DA are still decent and SW took a jump up after the last FAQ at least from Goonhammers competitve ranking data they recently posted in an article.

 

I'm not super competitve myself but I do like to see what is working at events just so I at least have options to add into my army. I have one of every character including Mortarion, 2 PBC with a third one in box, 3 Haulers, 7 Blight Lords, 3 Death Shroud with more inbound, 30 plus PM's, 40+ poxwalkers, 3 drones, a couple of converted Demon Princes and a few other bits and bobs all fully painted, edge highlighted and based and just keep adding more as I enjoy painting the army. Plus I've got some nurgle demons too which started out as an AoS side project but are handy for DG too.

I keep trying to start other armies and have lots of bits started but always end up back with my DG

[Marshal Loss]

I think this thread aged like fine milk

Something that will come as a shock to almost nobody. :P

 

I'm still happy with where DG are. We're strong, but not overbearing. We're no longer the newest terror on the block and some of the more recent releases have our number but the book is solid enough to hang around for a while, I feel, which gives us the potential to surprise later releases as the meta changes and people stop factoring in DG as a threat at the list building stage.

 

Would like Plague Marines and Deadly Pathogens to have their costs tweaked downwards a little, but otherwise no real complaints. I was a Terminator & Poxwalker fanboy back when they weren't the way to play and so it'll come as little surprise to folks that I haven't enjoyed gaming this much in many years. Our secondaries are a weakness but if you're not looking to compete at the highest level that's not a big deal.

 

It's a great book, and I think we lucked out. We're aging a lot better than a book like e.g. Necrons has, for which I am very grateful.

[jgascoine011]

They are probably the 3rd strongest codex right now after dark Eldar and AdMech, but out of all the new 9th Ed codex’s they have been pretty well balanced apart from Dark Eldar (which are just too cheap) and AdMech (which just have insane strats).

 

The internal balance in death guard is just pure poop though.

[Plague _Lord]

TBH I'd say that most tier 2 codexes are pretty balanced - space marines, necrons, Deathguard and now sisters seem to be decently balanced.

Dark Eldar are a bit too cheap and too killy. I would probably just add +10pts to dark lances they should be fine.

Admech are a mystery to me, it's like no one actually tested the codex. Nearly everything can be core and this makes some absurd combos like lascannon chicken walkers rerolling 1's to hit and to wound basically letting them kill anything they want in 1 round with no sweat. The other problem is absurd strats for skitarii - if they went to 2cp for 10 man units and 3cp for 20man units it wouldn't be so absurd as a 160pt unit destroying nearly any elite infantry in the game in 1 go.

 

If they would change the above, I feel the new codex would have win rates closer to 50% than 65% and the competitve scene would be much healthier.

 

I acutally think we have decent internal balance - excluding plague marines and non-daemonic vechicles.

[Bat33.1]

I'd put Sisters top 3 with some of the new abilities to put out MW on 6's in combat, shut down inv saves, and they still have the fantastic ability to not roll a dice and just pick a number from the pile to get stuff done. They were doing well before Drukhari and AdMech dropped and the new book has made Sisters stronger.

Death Guard are in the bigger group behind these 3 capable of strong results but against optimised top tier lists its a tough game to get a win. Secondaries certainly hold the DG back compared to the latest updates and that's where I'd like to see GW take a look at things again.

[KingYertle]

Having played a few games now, including 4 brutal beat downs at the hand of Dark Eldar, I find we have a few holes in our codex that are amplified when you play against some of the newer codexes.  Like most on this forum I have a few gripes with the codex, but the one that really stands out is the design of our Stratagems.

 

We have a lot of good Strats, and some Excellent Strats.  But hear me out on this. 

 

The Death guard’s “schtick” is (and has always been) Toughness.  9^th added the new them of Contagions, which is a great addition.  However we don’t have a single Stratagem that plays off the idea of our Infantry units being disgustingly resilient.  7 months prior to the new Codex, Psychic Awakening dropped and gave us Putrid Fecundity for a 4+++ FNP, Alembichal Narthecium boosted the Plague Surgeon’s FNP re-roll to 1 and 2s, Futility Made Flesh reduced incoming damage by 1, and of course Contaminated Monstrosity gave vehicles DR.  The 8^th codex added Grandfather’s Blessing with the ability to heal or bring a model back from the dead.  These stratagems all played into the theme of the Death Guard’s legendary resilience.  They have all been eliminated with nothing similar replacing them.  I find that in nearly ever game I’m reaching for a Strat to help a key unit survive the incoming beating and coming up empty handed is disappointing, given how many options previously existed.

 

I have no issue with GW re-inventing how an army plays.  It is a great way to keep the armies fresh, and moving DG into a De-Buffing role was a great idea.  However, Death Guard’s main theme is and always should be Disgustingly Resilient.  The new DR rule is fine (I personally don’t like how easy it is to game around if you know your opponent is playing DG but it is what it is) but the codex’ lack of stratagem support for our core themes is a glaring omission.

 

EDIT - Originally noted that Contagions needed some Stratagem support but foolishly forgot about Flash Outbreak.

Edited July 8, 2021 by MCB82

[McElMcNinja]

While I don’t think we are the Strongest army, I do believe we are in a good spot. As new codex come out, they are better then the last, then they get nerfed a little. Then another codex comes out, rinse and repeat, etc. But we have remained pretty solid throughout as people build their lists against the new shiny thing. I personally would like to see our secondaries changed and PM’s need just a little tweak to be viable. Having said all that I am going to a big tournament this weekend and have included a full 10 man squad of Plague Marines in my list. I have seen that if people list build to counter the new codex we fair pretty well and as long as I’m not paired against the new codex, I think I should do ok. My biggest concern now is which secondaries to go with, against most factions holding more and killing more should be easy. It’s the third one I struggle with, we don’t have a solid codex one to choose and the others won’t score many points for me. It’s really going to come down to maxing primary and minimizing what my opponent can score with their secondaries. This sucks cuz most of them have secondaries that they don’t have to do much to score theirs.

[Plague _Lord]

I dunno, spread the sickness has been a guaranteed 9 points for me and I usually max it. I even take the d3 mortals on my plague marines sometimes - it's worth the 3 vps.

 

Attrition also has been solid for me but my opponnents tend to have small units that I can kill easily while they all try to take out my terminator blob.

[KingYertle]

For Secondaries I am intrigued by Warp Ritual.  Being capped at 12 hurts, but being able to perform with multiple units is a plus.  I also like that it forces your opponent to re-act to your center-board presence potentially drawing attention away units holding objectives.  

 

Plague Lord, what's your strategy to max out Spread the Sickness?  In my experience being limited to once per objective, and once per turn make it difficult to score after T2.  Games where I've been in a position to score it on the mid-board objectives or my opponents objectives late game are typically blow outs in my favor.  

[Plague _Lord]

For Secondaries I am intrigued by Warp Ritual.  Being capped at 12 hurts, but being able to perform with multiple units is a plus.  I also like that it forces your opponent to re-act to your center-board presence potentially drawing attention away units holding objectives.  

 

Plague Lord, what's your strategy to max out Spread the Sickness?  In my experience being limited to once per objective, and once per turn make it difficult to score after T2.  Games where I've been in a position to score it on the mid-board objectives or my opponents objectives late game are typically blow outs in my favor.  

 

Warp ritual is tough as we don't have throwaway psychers like some other armies and we really need miasma and vitality to go up. I don't think we can handle a 95pt charachter wasting time on actions instead of handing out  buffs.

 

Well I use 2-3 max blobs of poxies and play pretty hard in to the centre of the board with terminators while my poxies spread out to the flanks. I also use plague marines so people tend to ignore the zombies in lieu of shooting PMs and terminators. It;s not hard to contaminate 2 objective and with 6 objective missions by turn 3 I've dropped my DS deathshroud and either my blightlords and plague marines are dead or my poxwalkers are dead - one of those units is going to contaminate and by turn 3-4 I usually have to use my plague marines or terminators to contaminate and just take the MWs on the chin.

 

I just don't know what else to pick, the other secondaries are so so bad.

[McElMcNinja]

This weekend I took spread the sickness against a daemon list and scored 12. I then took despoiled ground twice, both against sisters scoring 14 the first game and 8 the second. I also played against 2 knights, one of with daemons with it. My last game was against tryanids and for those 3 I stuck with the missions secondary.

With the exception of the first game I tabled all my opponents, but that first game we ran out of time. I am not sure what happened because I still had 20 minutes on the clock and he had 4 when they called it. He had just finished his turn 5 and I don’t get to, but he only had one knights left. I had my drill 4” away and both PBC’s could shoot it. I lost that game by 2 points, but I’m pretty confident had I got my last turn I would have won and should have tabled him as well.

Overall I went 4-2, I lost to one of the sisters who denied me primary points till the last round. It was a hold 2, hold 3, hold more and he is a very good player. I should have moved out earlier, but I felt like I had to deal with all his melta first.

I was surprised how many times I made my opponents roll multiple morale tests each turn, makes me wonder how viable fleeing vectors could be for certain matchups.

Edited July 15, 2021 by McElMcNinja