Grottys' Musings

[jgascoine011]

After finally getting to play a number of games on the actual table top I thought I would give my thoughts on the codex and tactics.

Would be interesting to hear opinions of other players and thought this would also be useful for new people getting into death guard.

 

I will caveat this with the following:

1) Most of my opponents are very experienced and tend to take "competitve lists" and also tend to face a lot of marines. 

2) I play with a lot of terrain, epecially line of sight blocking (Min 8 LOS blocking terrain and then min 3-4 dense or just light cover terrain)

3) I dont play with mortarion because i hate games like that, it skewes the game very significantly, with you opponent either being able to deal with him easily or not at all.

 

So 1st off the legion trait Inoxerable Advance:

This used to be hilariously garage. I used to take auto-cannons in my BL's just because i wanted to use the trait.

However, with them removing the faq, only 2/3rds of it is useless. The ability to ignore movement penalties is actually rather usefull.

 

Plague Companies:

I used to think Inoxerable was the best but I have changed my mind to Mortarions Anvil.

The main reason for this is that i really feel death guard want to tech into defence and preventing re-rolls to hit and wound on a unit is just huge. In addition i can buff AP in other ways and the relic on mortarions anvil is also great and the threat of their strat is super useful.

I have used the others but i either feel that out of having a WLT, Relic and Strat the others have 1 good one and 2 pretty useless ones.

 

HQ's

Daemon Prince

I just love this guy. If i am using him i run him with gloaming bloat, warp insect hive, sword and wings.

I also give him curse of the lepper power because its hilarious.

I have seen a few people talk about the ignore AP-1/2 and have a 2+ save. However I am finding that so much stuff has AP-3 or can get AP-3. If you are playing against chaos or something and know that it will be hard to get AP-3 or better than yea thats probably better but as a more all comers list I think this is better. The only change I would maybe make is give him Hulking Physique and then Gloaming Bloat to some other character and just use the 2CP strat to give it to him. This would make him ever more rediculious

 

Lord of Contagion

I really want to love him but he is so frustrating.

There have been games where he has just tanked and been amazing, and then other games where is has been stuck behind blight lords trying to get into the fight.

I normally give him hulking physique and the plague skull. The extra wound means that thunder hammers need to get 4 wounds through to kill him, and permanent transhuman is amazing. 

If i wasnt taking a daemon prince then i would probably put the Warp Insect Hive on him, and then a pathogen (Probably exploding 6's or extra damage vs vehicles)

 

Plague Caster

He is really hit or miss for me. 

The powers I like are +1S/T and then -1S/A. The reason for this is because a lot of units are S4, so reducing them to S3 and having T6 means they are wounding on 6s. You could spend the CP for the extra power in which case i would give him -1 to hit but I dont really think its worth him. His main problem is the high casting powers required with no way to really buff it.

 

 

Troops

Pox Walkers

Amazing. Frigging love these guys. I am now running a minimum of 2 units of 20.

They just provide so many things. Sometimes just mass of bodies is all you need and they provide this.

 

Plague Marines

Poop. I used to always run a unit of 10 with 2 blight launchers and 3 plasma guns.

I honestly dont think the blight launchers have ever done a single thing and the plasma is not worth it unless in rapid fire which is just so rare.

The flail is interesting but they are honestly not that durable even in combat and they need so much support to make them decent in combat.

I will be dropping this unit for deathsroud terminators

 

 

Elites

Blightspawn.

Another great unit. Always take the relic and the viscous death pathogen.

The only real problem with him is his range. 6" is good but its somewhat easy to get around and i also find myself charging ahead of him into a unit putting out of range.

 

Tallyman

Another great unit. Super consistant and really saves me a cp each turn as i put the +1 to hit on the BL.

 

Biologous

Dont tech into his grenades. Its honestly a trap. Iv have tried to use it and it really doesnt work. It just requires the stars to align for it to work.

However give him arch contaminator and stick him next to a big unit and watch the mortal wound output.

 

Blight Lords

I do actually like them. They are just such a brick wall, especially with the gloaming.

I run them in a unit of 10 with 2 auto-cannons, combi-bolters and all with plague sword. I did used to run them with axe but i was finding the extra strenght was actually not that usefull but the extra AP was huge

 

Death Shroud.

Not actually used these yet as i dont have the models but planning on getting some soon, but yea these look very good.

 

Possessed

I cant decide on these guys. They really compete with Blight Lords IMO. They are cheaper, with more attacks, and faster, but less AP, and way less durable...but much cheaper

 

 

Fast Attack

Mower Done

When the book 1st came out i thought i would love these...but I didnt.

There problem is the change to DR as they just die to easily. The lack of core is also pretty frustrating.

Its not that they are bad or anything, but everything else in the codex is so expensive that I dont really find the room to fit these in, and I am not going to drop things that I need IOT take something that will die as soon as it jumps out of cover.

 

Spawn

Great Unit. If i do take them i run them in 2 or 3 units of 1.

I dont really think the strat is worth it as i prefer to run them as cheap units that can jump on an objective or screen out deepstrikers.

 

 

Heavy Support

PBS

I have such a love-hate relationship with these

In some games they are jusy amazing and other times they roll 1s

I am not sure really whats the minimum number for them. I used to think just take 1 and use that 3D strat...but it really is not that amazing.

I am liking 3 as it gives consistancy and is also an anoyance that forces your opponent to move. The ability to ignore LOS is huge, but with just 1 your opponent wont really care...with 3 then they are a danger

[Jorgend Lupus]

I used to choose The Inexorable too, but it's been difficult to make use of the trait to its maximum potential ; 2CPs to give the Contagion to a Drone or an advanced unit of Infantry is quite expensive ; it's been a one trick (/turn) poney most of the time ; I found out that Gloaming Bloat, which really plays on our strength (...Toughness ^^) gives me better results.

 

I still like the Inexorable strat a lot to maim deepstrikers and keep my PBC safe even when they are not screened. I still have to try a mixed 2000pts game with daemon engines from the Inexorable, and Infantry from Mortarion's Anvil ; that could be interesting, though I'm not sure it would be enough to cover the cost of the second detachment  ...

 

I agree with most of your points, but I don't about the Lord of Contagion ; maybe I've been lucky, but his natural resistance and extended Aura have been really helpfull in my games ; either deepstriked if I play a Daemon prince, or footslogging with his troops for the lovely rerolls, I almost never get disapointed.

 

About the Plaguescaster, I almost always prioritize Miasma of Pestilence and Gift of Contagion ; Gift has been amazing on my Lord of Contagion in many games.

 

One unit I really love (2 x3 models in my roster most of the time actually) is Spawns ; with Grandfather's blessing, flanking a Poxwalkers horde, they really punch hard for their cost, and can suffer a large amout of fire if they manage to reach terrain mid battlefield. I can't remember the crazy number of times where my 2 x 69pts units killed for hundreds of points of an ennemy who got surprised by them  ...

[INKS]

The fact that plague marines aren't very good is a sad let down for me. shame. 

I like the PBC. I don't like the looks of mower drones.

[Bat33.1]

Terminators are what you see in competitive lists, both have a place but deathshroud are certainly the more popular now.

Sadly Plague Marines are rarely seen when they should be the core of the army by lore at least, you might see min 5 man for camping on objectives but most people just look past them to poxwalkers for extra bodies and board control/blocking use.

 

PBC need an all in approach for me its either 3 or none but in less competitive meta you can take a pair but they aren't the auto take they once where

[Plague _Lord]

I've only taken 1 PBC in my 10 or so games in th 9th so far and in each it has done solid work. 

3 might not actually be bad in this meta since they are really solid AT - however u basically need a screen of poxwalkers for each to protect them from getting tagged by all the fast stuff out there.

[Bat33.1]

The fact that plague marines aren't very good is a sad let down for me. shame. 

I like the PBC. I don't like the looks of mower drones.

I've rarely seen drones in a list in recent month's they did get a bit of a boost when the codex dropped but it didn't last long.

 

Plague Marines need a points drop to make them competitive or a rewrite of list building rules making certain units compulsory for each army though I don't see that happening any time soon. GW like to push the build the army your way narrative over lore style builds now.

 

At least Mortarion is in some way playable while making a list mildly competitive because the model deserves table time

[Special Officer Doofy]

I think plague marines themselves are pointed okay, but their wargear is over priced for sure. Primaris get free better bolters and plague marines pay a premium for anything besides their bolter. It's a shame because plague marines look awesome and we have 28 different models/sculpts for them.

 

Drones are cool and there are 4 different faceplates for them for varieties sake. The mower got a huge buff with the codex and is the best loadout. The flamers are only good for T3 1W hordes (or T4 1W in contagion range) but that's it. The heavy blight launcher is pretty much a waste of points in my opinion.

 

I was upset haulers went up in points. I sometimes take 3 with poxmonger relic, 3+/4++ -1 damage 27W with miasma -1 to being hit up the middle when playing against my brothers admech does great, lots of vehicle targets to shoot at and nothing over T7, the meltas, missle launchers and bile do good work.

 

The codex brought a lot of internal rebalance and the mono buff contagion is cool, but the nerf to DR kinda crapped on alot of stuff. Plague marines are the only one who really benefit from it, and they are pretty much our least point effective unit in the book with stupid wargear restrictions that are overpriced. I keep taking them because they look cool though haha.

[Lord Raven 19]

PMs are good enough to perform in casual games, and I'm a fan of the HBL drones - having some anti meq long (for us) range firepower is handy for me, and they're quite cheap as well, at only 7PL.

[jgascoine011]

I managed to get in a few more games recently.

One of them was vs nids. I wanted to try out the mower drones again, and took a unit of spawn (with GFB).

The PBC's were just incredible that game and that was with pretty poor rolling. I was pretty terrified of his hive guard as even with -1D, 24S8 shots is still pretty scary. But the PBCs just nuked them turn 1.

 

I have seen a lot of people talk about screening the PBCs from deepstrike, but i am actually using them as the screen. 

One of the mowers got eaten by a swarmlord, but it put the swarmlord in a really dumb position and he got shot off the board. The other one waited a bit, then went on a bit of a rampage. The 6" heroic intervien strat is pretty awsome. I do like the mowers but, most of the time i felt a flying daemon prince for 50pts more would be far better, and points become an issue and if its between PBC's and Drones, the PBC's just provide for more utility. I dont think the Heavy Blight Cannons are worth it on them as without re-rolls to hit and wound they are just far to unreliable

 

The LoC i have been soo dissapointed with. Every game I am like, i will throw him into combat against the enemy warlord or something. And every game he is getting stuck behind a unit of poxwalkers and terminators. I think that this is the problem nearly all Terminator lords have though.

 

Another unit i am getting dissapointed with is the Plague Caster. The powers are good, but casting them is so random, and if you dont get the powers off then he is just kind of sat there being a waste of nearly 100 points. In my next game i am going to drop him for typhus and take a daemon prince instead of a LoC. I feel this way i have access to the powers but can also do something else if they do fail to go off. I also run 2 units of 20 poxwalkers so buffing them is also decent.

 

And as for poxwalkers...they are just beautiful. Took a charge by a unit of geenstealers and a broodlord, and just ate them all (well, they converted them to becoming poxwalkers).

[jgascoine011]

Got in a game vs the new grey knights today. I have to say, the are absolutly brutal. So many units are are surprisingly fast.

 

I have been running the following list recently

Moratiorns Chosen

Daemon Prince with wings

 - Sword and talon

 - WLT: Tanshuman & +1 wound

 - Relic: Destroyer Hive

 

Typhus

 

Flamer Guy

 - Relic: Stench Vats

 - Re-reoll shots 

Grenade Guy

 - WLT: Arch Contaminator

Tallyman

 - WLT: Gloaming Bloat

 

10 Blight Lords

 - Relic: Plague Skull

 

2x20 poxwalkers

 

5 Plague Marines

 

3x3 Spawn

 

3 PBC's

 

Its been super fun to play.

The reason i dont take the plague caster is because i have been finding that the powers to cast are reasonably high and you end up not getting off powers when you want and he just becomes a waste of points. Typhus can still cast, can fight, and also buffs poxwalkers and gives re-rolls to hit.

 

Anyway he had

Nemisis Dreadnight (hammer, 3++, redeploy)

Librarian

Brother captain

Chaplain

4x5 strike squads

10 purifiers

10 interceptors

3 Paladins

2 dreadknights

 

The game was brutal, in the end i had typhus on 4W, a PBC, and 5 terminators

He a a librarian on 1, and 9 purifiers.

He just managed to win on points. 

We were playing the hold 2,3,more mission. I made a huge mistake of actually pushing out. This left my flanks super exposed and he was just trowing things at my objectives, that ment as soon as he took 1 objective off me he was holding more for a 10 point difference. A unit of spawn managed to charge his interceptors on one of my flanks, absolutly decemating them, keeping me in the game but then just died to a dreadknights. I kind of feel like the spawn should just get DR (as should nearly everything else in the codex)

I also took abhore the witch but only just realised that I shouldn't have been able to take it because i had two psychers myself.

The biggest issue is that you cant tie anything up. They have a strat to allow fall back and shoot and chagre, + another strat to redeply, + a power to redeploy.

[Hannibal]

Great reports / ideas here!

 

I´m in the process of deciding wether I want to run Death Guard (lovely models and I own a pretty large collection of NURGLE Daemons) OR Thousand Sons (their background is better IMO, better magic?) and therefore I like to ask you:

 

What are the strenghts / weaknesses of Death Guard? Why should I run them?

[Plague _Lord]

Played against the new orks today. It was bloody but I was really pleased with the performance of all my units (as in there were no underperformers).

I'll write up the bat rep soon.

[tangoalphatwo]

Great reports / ideas here!

 

I´m in the process of deciding wether I want to run Death Guard (lovely models and I own a pretty large collection of NURGLE Daemons) OR Thousand Sons (their background is better IMO, better magic?) and therefore I like to ask you:

 

What are the strenghts / weaknesses of Death Guard? Why should I run them?

Their models are sick! But really. I rarely ever play. I mostly collect. I’m a :cusse painter though. I just think they look cool.

[Special Officer Doofy]

Great reports / ideas here!

 

I´m in the process of deciding wether I want to run Death Guard (lovely models and I own a pretty large collection of NURGLE Daemons) OR Thousand Sons (their background is better IMO, better magic?) and therefore I like to ask you:

 

What are the strenghts / weaknesses of Death Guard? Why should I run them?

Well I have nothing bad to say about thousands sons. They are cool, look cool and magnus is awesome. They just got a new codex so I'm not sure how they play on the table now (probably better than the old codex one would hope). The only thing I see some thousand sons players complain about is the use of AoS gors. I think the goats are cool, but to each their own. Also rubrics are slightly smaller scale than plague marines.

 

Reasons to play death guard. I think their lore is really cool (my favorite of the 18 Legions). Mortarion had his own tragic relationship with the emperor. He turned exactly into what he despised. Typhus betrayed the whole legion and got them turned to nurgle. For the chaos Legions, death guard are still the most unified legion besides maybe the Iron warriors. The dark imperium trilogy is pretty cool, the ending of the last book is sweet, Mortarion really hands it to Guilliman.

 

The models are only an edition old and look amazing. I love all the belly mouths, tenticles and Mark III armor on everything looks awesome. Two different dedicated terminators. Their Daemon engines look slick. Plague weapons on alot of units for free wounds rerolls of 1.

 

Rules wise they are pretty good. Mortarion is now playable (actually quite badass). -1T mono bonus is pretty good. Kind of turned DG into a melee faction. Poxwalkers are very point effecient. DG is a hard counter to fast moving factions that like to get in melee and spam 2D attacks like white scars.

 

The bad. DR got nerfed pretty hard. -1D is worse then 5+++ overall. Does absolutely nothing for MW or 1D, which is a large amount of the wounds you'll be receiving. It's better for 2D obviously, statically the same for 3D, and worse for everything over it (4D+). The nerf almost made me quit the game (I only play DG and nurgle daemons). But eventually I got over it. The -1T aura pushed us in the melee direction, but we are the slowest faction in the game, which does not pair well being mostly melee. We have no charge mechanics. The legion trait does not apply to every unit (no Daemon engines), which is completely friggin stupid considering loyalist marines get it on all their vehicles. Poxwalkers are better than plague marines which sucks, cause I personally want just a bunch of marines on the table without poxwalkers while still being as effective as possible.

 

Don't read too much into the DR nerf like I did. I just love rolling dice. If you hate rolling dice I don't know why you would even play Warhammer in the first place. It made the game hilarious. Making a whole bunch of clutch saves can be game changing and make you laugh as a poxwalker tanks a thunderhammer. And the opposite was funny as well, biffing a whole bunch of rolls in a row can swing the game the other way and make you and your opponent laugh as well. My main opponent is my brother who mainly plays admech and Grey knights, which was just 1D spam and MW spam, which the new DR does nothing to stop.

[jgascoine011]

Great reports / ideas here!

 

I´m in the process of deciding wether I want to run Death Guard (lovely models and I own a pretty large collection of NURGLE Daemons) OR Thousand Sons (their background is better IMO, better magic?) and therefore I like to ask you:

 

What are the strenghts / weaknesses of Death Guard? Why should I run them?

Sorry its taken me so long to reply.

 

I will start by discussing the differences between Death Guard and Thousand Sons

So 1st off, both kind of rely on terminators, so if you dont like terminators then I would probably not recommend either of these factions.

Both plague marines and rubric marines are kind of pants. But where as poxwalkers are amazing, both tzaangor and cultists are also trash. However rubric marines kind of tech in to helping the rest of the army by building into cabal points. So if you want a small elite army, then i would go thousand sons. But dont be fooled by painting. Pox walkers take about a couple of min a model to paint, where as rubrics can take frigging hours. And talking about painting, there are loads of great and easy painting tutorials for deathguard out there with loads of different colour schemes.

Deathguard HQ characters are unfortunatly rather dissapointing. They look good on paper, but in all reality they never perform. The way i run it with daemon prince re-rolling hits and wounds, and typhus is imo the best pick. You will also unfortunatly be running the same god damn characters every game (flamer guy, CP guy, and, potentially, grenade guy).

Thousand sons are somewhat similar, in that you will pretty much always be running the same characters (Arihman, Exaulter sorcerer, Infernal master, and potentially another sorcerer).

The big differences between the two is in playstyle and options.

In terms of playstyle: Deathguard are a more combat army, where as thousand sons are more of a well rounded army, ok shooting, ok combat, and ok psyhic. If you do go down thousand sons, do not for a second think they are good in anyone of theses phases. They cant actually do that much damage in the psychic phase, and most of it is to just buff you one of their units, or debuff yours.

 

Now the big thing: OPTIONS

Both deathguard and thousand sons are limited in options, but my god thousand sons are on the poor end of the list.

While deathguard will generally take the same characters every game, you at least have some viable options, just stay away from the generic chaos space marine :cuss that got thrown into the codex (land raiders, predators, rhinos, cultists etc). But both deathsroud and blight lords are good, PBCs are good, spawn are good, possessed are ok, PBCs are good, the drones can be ok (but do die a bit easily) and even the haulers have a place in certain lists.

The big problem with thousand sons is that their entire thing revolves around their cabal points. They want to have as much of them as possible so that you can buff their psychic phase as much as possible. So other than the characters, everything you take that isnt scarb occult terminators or rubric marines, means less cabal points. What this means is you will pretty much see the same units used every single game i.e. nothing but 3/4 characters and then scarabs and rubrics. While its good most things got a 5++, you are still not going to see people play dreadnoughts, land raiders or rhinos. The last one even more so because for each rhino you take that is potentially less cabal points, and then putting a unit inside of it wil mean even less cabal points. And then because your army is completely pants in combat (other than scarabs) you will see people play the same cult of dublicity every single time. The big question you need to ask yourself is, if you want a psychic army, why not go grey knights?

 

In the end I would say it comes down to this:

If you just want a psychic "chaos space marine" army, i.e. you just want a few characters, power armoured dudes and terminators, that you can use every so often then I would say go thousand sons.

If you want a army that you want to build up over time, do some conversions and try out different lists, then go deathguard. Especially if you are just getting into the game, where they are quite forgiving, and can be super easy to paint.

If you want a psychic army that is also super competitve, then go grey knights lol 

[Hannibal]

Thanks for your answer, I already decided to go the Death Guard route due to the modelling / painting options. ;)

 

HTG

[Special Officer Doofy]

Thanks for your answer, I already decided to go the Death Guard route due to the modelling / painting options. ;)

 

HTG

The worst thing about starting DG now versus starting in 8th edition is some of the models are no longer available. You can't get the original lord of contagion and the 6 non champion space marines from dark imperium, the 3 easy to build plague marines or the 6 from space marine heroes anymore (unless you overpay from a reseller or buy second hand). One of my favorite things about death guard was the available options for models on plague marines. There is the 7 from the dark imperium box, 7 from the actual plague marine kit, 3 from the easy to build, 3 from the reinforcement pack, the stand alone standard bearer, the stand alone champion and the 6 from space marines heroes. That's 28 different sculpts of plague marines! Not alot of other factions can say their iconic troop has that many different poses/models.