Disgustingly Resilient

[Iron Sage]

Just curious if anyone else have changed their opinion slightly towards a more positive direction concerning our FNP nerf ?

Because I frankly have. The more codices I see, the more multi damage weapon I have seen given to various units. Maybe I am imagining this, and I don't claim to be "correct" here, which is why I am asking you lovely guys if you too are more positive to the change in context of other codices and weapons being released. It really doesn't seem to be that bad anymore imo when you look at it in context. What do you guys think ?

 

Last week (just a silly personal anecdote this) I played against a very decent Raven Guard player in a 2K game and beat him quite resoundingly despite getting my right flank annihilated in his turn 1 (agressors etc.), and the DR was absolutely king in that match up due to his very many DAM 2 and multi damage weapons. In turn 4 he gave up, he could no longer beat me in victory points. And this is far from my only such experience recently with DR actually being decent despite the nerf due to prolific Damage 2 weapons.

Even now, after the coming release of Thousand Sons and Grey Knights (Sons codex seems to be better written and doesn't suffer from being one of the first 9d codices with better wording and etc.), our Codex seems to be quite strong in comparison to other codices (this is not only due to DR of course).

 

[Marshal Loss]

Happy to admit that it has grown on me a lot, but then again my complaint was never about how strong it was, more that it doesn't have any impact against the kind of weapons you'd expect DR to negate. That it makes more sense to target us with low damage shots than high damage shots makes little thematic sense even when you factor in our boosted toughness. But the tabletop is not a perfect representation of the lore, so these things happen. No point complaining when our book is so fantastic & the new DR is reliable enough to be a core part of our battleplans. 

 

In-game though, it's great, particularly in melee where I've basically just run over anybody who wants to fight me hand to hand. There are so many fearsome units swinging D2 melee weapons whom we just completely ignore - I love it. It's a real "feels bad man" moment for many of my friends though.

 

We really lucked out as I genuinely think the DG codex has the best internal and external balance of any codex released in 9th.

[Iron Sage]

Happy to admit that it has grown on me a lot, but then again my complaint was never about how strong it was, more that it doesn't have any impact against the kind of weapons you'd expect DR to negate. That it makes more sense to target us with low damage shots than high damage shots makes little thematic sense even when you factor in our boosted toughness. But the tabletop is not a perfect representation of the lore, so these things happen. No point complaining when our book is so fantastic & the new DR is reliable enough to be a core part of our battleplans. 

 

In-game though, it's great, particularly in melee where I've basically just run over anybody who wants to fight me hand to hand. There are so many fearsome units swinging D2 melee weapons whom we just completely ignore - I love it. It's a real "feels bad man" moment for many of my friends though.

 

We really lucked out as I genuinely think the DG codex has the best internal and external balance of any codex released in 9th.

Yeah, that was , apart from initial disappointment that it was a nerf that lasted a day or two, my grievance as well with it (and it still kind of is, but as you say, lore cannot be perfectly represented in a game).

But yes, I am so positively surprised regarding codex creep, I agree that our codex seems to be holding up very well indeed. Maybe out worst match up is Drucharii (but I have only played against new dark Eldars once myself, so not an expert) with all the poison and absurd movement, but everyone has a bad match up I guess.

 

Edit: Also hope you are enjoying Australia, I seem to remember you lived in New York previously. I studied there for 6 months myself in 2007 in Brisbane and loved it there !

Edited August 8, 2021 by Iron Sage

[Special Officer Doofy]

Still a huge nerf for me. I run alot of Daemon engines and not that much infantry and my regular opponent is my brother who plays admech (lots of D1 shots) and GK (lots of mortal wounds). I want 5+++ back. It made me quit the hobby for awhile, my enthusiasm for DG (the only army I play anymore) is dwindling.

[Azekai]

Still a huge nerf for me. I run alot of Daemon engines and not that much infantry and my regular opponent is my brother who plays admech (lots of D1 shots) and GK (lots of mortal wounds). I want 5+++ back. It made me quit the hobby for awhile, my enthusiasm for DG (the only army I play anymore) is dwindling.

I am in agreement. During war of the spider I got to play with 4++ 5+++ defilers led by an Ironclot Daemon prince. Now l can... spam terminators and FW dreads, I guess? Meh. Boring codex with a couple strong stand out units and a lot of weird targeted rules that hobble specific units needlessly. Cultists completely unplayable, pox walkers have their bizarre unfluffy squad limitations, and I can only take 1 DP per detachment. Bleh.

 

9th is lame. I just want to play with the units I like. A couple of DPs leading lots of chaff with a few daemon engines and plague marine squads backing it up. But it feels so dysfunctional and bad.

[Special Officer Doofy]

 

Still a huge nerf for me. I run alot of Daemon engines and not that much infantry and my regular opponent is my brother who plays admech (lots of D1 shots) and GK (lots of mortal wounds). I want 5+++ back. It made me quit the hobby for awhile, my enthusiasm for DG (the only army I play anymore) is dwindling.

I am in agreement. During war of the spider I got to play with 4++ 5+++ defilers led by an Ironclot Daemon prince. Now l can... spam terminators and FW dreads, I guess? Meh. Boring codex with a couple strong stand out units and a lot of weird targeted rules that hobble specific units needlessly. Cultists completely unplayable, pox walkers have their bizarre unfluffy squad limitations, and I can only take 1 DP per detachment. Bleh.

 

9th is lame. I just want to play with the units I like. A couple of DPs leading lots of chaff with a few daemon engines and plague marine squads backing it up. But it feels so dysfunctional and bad.

That was similar to my go to list for 8th. Two Daemon Princes, some PBC's, drones and haulers with some plague marines / chaff for objectives. Was so much fun! Not making the Daemon engines bubonic astartes (so they can't even get our not so great legion trait) was about as dumb as changing (or the way I see it, nerfing) DR.

 

Im curious to see what they do with nurgle daemons and their disgustingly resilient. If they mess them up I'll end up having to walk away for a few editions again. No point in hobbying if you don't have fun with the hobby!

[Closet Skeleton]

Having no defence against high AP on Plague marines makes them really hard to justify. Otherwise its quite good.

 

Daemon Prince spam was the biggest immersion breaking part of the hobby for me so no complaints there. Captain spam was bad but treating planet ruling demigods as regular units made me wonder if anyone actually liked the actual chaos background.

[Plague _Lord]

I like the change as it does save time... however I very much dislike that we lose our fluffy contagion bonus if we just want to take some nurglings. Nurglings belong on the the DG roster, they followed  the DG everywhere!! It just makes no sense!

 

The other thing I dislike is that T5 infantry, -1 dmg and rerolling wounds seemed to be our thing and yet nearly every other army is getting these things as well. Deathguard is starting to lose it's uniqueness sadly.

[KingYertle]

Competitively, the new rule is fine and it really shines in melee, where I tend to come up against the higher volume of D2 weapons.  However, My initial reaction to the DR nerf was that it would negatively impact the “Fun” of playing Death Guard.  For me, this has 100% proven true. 

 

In hindsight, IMO, the bigger nerf to Disgustingly Resilient has been the loss of stratagem and character support.  As I mentioned previously on this forum, Disgustingly Resilient is our Schtick and the fact that there is not a single Stratagem (Outside of 1 unit, Chaos Spawn who should just have it stock), Characters or Spell that interacts with it is a significant oversight, especially after Psychic Awakening which gave us multiple new options in this regard. 

 

Combined with the passive nature of the new DR, the loss of DR support tools make the change to DR “feel” like a more significant nerf then it perhaps actually is.  When your unit is targeted by an overwhelming amount of D1 weapons, the loss of any support options to buff the toughness of that unit generates a more significant negative emotion than the positive emotion of passively changing D2 melee weapons to D1. As a result, I tend to walk away from games with a net negative feeling towards my toys and the new codex, which has impacted my enjoyment playing Death Guard, and really playing 40k in general.

 

Plague Marines really highlight this.  Against D1 weapons their Legendary Disgusting Resilience relies on their T5.  Compare that with a Primaris Marine who with Gravis can be T5 with 3Ws or can play Transhuman to negate high Str or wound modifiers.  Transhuman is also an amazing counter to Contangions of Nurgle.  Despite gaining the 2nd wound like their loyal first born cousins, when up against a Primaris Marine, the lack of options make the Plague Marine feel more Marginally Resilient than Disgustingly Resilient.  A single Stratagem to assist our Troops in this regard (such as granting the 5++ FNP vs D1 weapons, or preventing modifiers to the wound roll) would have been a Significant, giving us an option to boost a units survivability, and play into the Schtick of Death Guard being truly Disgusting Resilient.  This is so Obvious, that it feels like an intentional exclusion.  In a vacum that makes our codex well balanced, we have good strengths and weaknesses, but as each new codex comes out with varying degrees of balance our Codex seems more like an outlier than the 9th standard.  

 

And that doesn't even include the fact that so many other armies now have ways to give their units -1 damage which makes our schtick feel less unique.

 

[Relentless]

My only complaint is that our non-demon engine vehicles dont get it.  Especially after seeing Thousand Sons get 5++ on theirs, it makes no sense why our predators, rhinos, etc, cant be -1 damage.

[Jorgend Lupus]

I'm not very happy about it :

the -1 Damage mechanic is nowadays spammed in many armies (any Dreadnoughts, Ork vehicles, Warlord traits for Dark Eldar and Thousand sons...), making it far less unique that it should be !

For me rolling 5+++ was far more fun ; swingy for sure, but at least we got to roll some dice... It also used to work on damage 1 attacks, and made our vehicule far better than now...

 

With the offense power creep in the new codices, our resilience is not so efficient anymore, and the caution that GW put in game balance when they didn't give us any defensive strat or  apothicary revival mechanic just nails our coffin for competitive play...

[Azekai]

Daemon Prince spam was the biggest immersion breaking part of the hobby for me so no complaints there. Captain spam was bad but treating planet ruling demigods as regular units made me wonder if anyone actually liked the actual chaos background.

Meh. I liked it. The ability to play 'daemonzilla' is what interested me in the faction all those years ago during 4th/5th. The idea behind the warband was that the Warp Locusts were effectively daemonkin before that was a thing. The Death Guard warband served a council of 7 daemons, a mixture of princes, exalted heralds and greater daemons, all brought together for a specific, vile purpose. They would not all manifest at one time, but the occult ties the Warp Locusts maintained to their dark masters allowed them to bring shockingly powerful daemonic allies to bear.

 

The Whisperer was a Death Guard elevated to princedom during the Heresy, Marrow-Eater was a mortal scientist who created retrovirus that ravaged all the worlds in his native system, and Barrabus was a mutant Nurgle preacher who ascended after leading a planetary uprising to overthrow the Tzeentchian cults that ruled his homeworld. 

 

They were all converted too. It wasn't just a low effort 'toss the gud units on the table damn the lore hur hur' build.

 

tldr chaos is too restrictive in 40k's current iteration and I hate it.

[jgascoine011]

 

 

Daemon Prince spam was the biggest immersion breaking part of the hobby for me so no complaints there. Captain spam was bad but treating planet ruling demigods as regular units made me wonder if anyone actually liked the actual chaos background.

Meh. I liked it. The ability to play 'daemonzilla' is what interested me in the faction all those years ago during 4th/5th. The idea behind the warband was that the Warp Locusts were effectively daemonkin before that was a thing. The Death Guard warband served a council of 7 daemons, a mixture of princes, exalted heralds and greater daemons, all brought together for a specific, vile purpose. They would not all manifest at one time, but the occult ties the Warp Locusts maintained to their dark masters allowed them to bring shockingly powerful daemonic allies to bear.

 

The Whisperer was a Death Guard elevated to princedom during the Heresy, Marrow-Eater was a mortal scientist who created retrovirus that ravaged all the worlds in his native system, and Barrabus was a mutant Nurgle preacher who ascended after leading a planetary uprising to overthrow the Tzeentchian cults that ruled his homeworld.

 

They were all converted too. It wasn't just a low effort 'toss the gud units on the table damn the lore hur hur' build.

 

tldr chaos is too restrictive in 40k's current iteration and I hate it.

You can still field 3 daemon princes. Just run 3 patrols

[gaurdian31]

The moving to -1 damage instead of the 5+++ to save dice rolling is a lie. If they wanted less dice rolling they should have removed the exact same mechanic from the Iron Hands as well. Still pretty angry about this change to Death Guard that others have gotten to keep.

[Azekai]

The moving to -1 damage instead of the 5+++ to save dice rolling is a lie. If they wanted less dice rolling they should have removed the exact same mechanic from the Iron Hands as well. Still pretty angry about this change to Death Guard that others have gotten to keep.

Honestly we could have both. That would have been fine.

 

The Death Guard sold their souls to Nurgle and their resilience is legendary. Having their toughness mechanic be commonly available feels bad. I would also argue it is a bellweather to identify poor game design. The stupider editions of the game also started handing out FnP saves left and right too, and now the current rule set is doing similar things. It is not interesting and removes identity from the Death Guard.

 

I think it is GWs answer to the current game being stupidly deadly; it's easier to put a -1 damage band-aid on instead of actually fixing how the entire game works, which is getting increasingly wonky and out of balance. 

 

 

[jgascoine011]

 

The moving to -1 damage instead of the 5+++ to save dice rolling is a lie. If they wanted less dice rolling they should have removed the exact same mechanic from the Iron Hands as well. Still pretty angry about this change to Death Guard that others have gotten to keep.

Honestly we could have both. That would have been fine.

 

The Death Guard sold their souls to Nurgle and their resilience is legendary. Having their toughness mechanic be commonly available feels bad. I would also argue it is a bellweather to identify poor game design. The stupider editions of the game also started handing out FnP saves left and right too, and now the current rule set is doing similar things. It is not interesting and removes identity from the Death Guard.

 

I think it is GWs answer to the current game being stupidly deadly; it's easier to put a -1 damage band-aid on instead of actually fixing how the entire game works, which is getting increasingly wonky and out of balance. 

 

 

 

 

-1 Damage and a 5+++ would have been insane across the whole army.

 

I do agree though that the current mechanic is kind of pants. It feels more like something thousand sons should have gotten.

 

Personally i would prefer the 5+++ back with either a strat or an ability to put -1damage on a unit, and then remove cloud of flies (or change it to something different).

I use cloud of flies in so many games and it honestly feels kind of broken now. With so much line of sight blocking its not needed.

[Cleon]

What I don't get is why DR1 with a 5+ FNP if you can't reduce damage (D1 weapon) was too hard for GW to do.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

What I don't get is why DR1 with a 5+ FNP if you can't reduce damage (D1 weapon) was too hard for GW to do.

Because if it's not written correctly then the first thing everyone will try to do is;

"this has been reduced to 1dam so now I get a 5+++ save"

 

Or they will argue this is the case even if it is clearly written.

[Iron Sage]

Interesting discussion.

 

Obviously, the new FNP is a nerf, that is granted, we all know that. And against DM 1 weapons, it does nothing which is unfluffy and annoying.

But it is better than I feared (in general, not if your regular opponent just spams 1Dam weapons obviously) and actually does some real work in many match ups.

 

I would have liked to see the old FNP like everyone else, but in context of our entire army, I don't think we should forget our new contagions. They grant us significant buffs too, albeit not in resilience. But the contagions are certainly lore friendly at least and I do like them.

I do think our codex is overall quite strong though. A couple of weak units like our new questionable HQ, even a useless one like cultists. But overall, I think we have fairly strong rules and that we are competitive. But I too lament our less resilient FNP, of course, and daemon engines are not as tough as I would like. But you can't have everything.

[Xenith]

 

The stupider editions of the game also started handing out FnP saves left and right too, and now the current rule set is doing similar things. It is not interesting and removes identity from the Death Guard.

 

Agree on that. DG's resilience I think could have been much more easily implemented with a flat +1 wound. No messing around with special rules, enhanced resistance to small arms fire etc., but without making things like powerfists redundant. Like the fist will still take 2 unsaved wounds to kill a model, and won't be reduced to doing as much damage as a guardsman's fist. I don't get what these games designers are on. 

[Raktra]

Well a Guardsman’s fist needs a 5+ to wound, and then to get through a minimum 3+ and potential 6+++, whereas the power fist wounds on a 3+, and is reducing saves by 3, so let’s not act like there’s no difference.

[Xenith]

From what I can see, I never made comment about the increased liklihood of the fist to wound, just made the point that the end result is the same: a single point of damage - however yes, I agree that the other stats do something to make PM's tougher against small arms fire. I was taking the D value of the attacks in a vacuum, otherwise it gets messy. Yes, the fist is more likely to wound, but there's likely to be more guardsmen in that fight, and thus increasingly likely to get a wound through. 

 

My point is, that the actual (fluff) result of getting hit and wounded by a powerfist would be different to getting hit and wounded by a guardsmans fist. A powerfist typically is for gripping, ripping and crushing, compared to a fist or bayonet used by a normal, trained human. My opinion is that it would have been better game design to at least have the overall effect of the fist be greater. 

 

Drifting off topic, I faced a DG army in the last 2 games of a tourney. It was unusual, featuring mainly vehicles, but while my assault stuff normally cleared through other armies quite easily, ripping wounds off DG was a chore, especially PBC's. It's maybe not as powerful/swingy as the last version, but still strong. And annoying. But the meta just shifts to lightning claws instead of fists. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Xenith

[Plague _Lord]

TBH they probably should have given the 1ksons rule of +1 to armour saves vs D1 weapons in addition to -1 dmg, while letting the tzeentch lovers keep their schtick of high inv saves. I think it would make Deathguard pretty tough feeling against most antiinfantry fire, while still still keeping them suseptible to AT guns.

 

The main problem is their inability to actually think through rules changes - They buffed damage to absurd levels and were suddenly shocked that certain armies became obnoxious. I mean Meltas could have easily gone to just D6+1 and still be viable, while Dark lances could be 2D3 damage and people wouldn't cry and las chicken lascannons D3+2 and they would be acceptible. But they had no imagination and their only remedy became "let's reduce incoming damage then!". Yeah so instead of coming up with something novel, they just took our main streangth and gave it to everyone.

 

I'm starting to think that our uniqueness comes not from toughness but from being slow...

[McElMcNinja]

I would be ok if they would gave Poxwalkers back a 5+++ or dropped their cost. A 1 point reduction would give me another Deathshroud, fair trade to me anyway.

The way I look at the new DR vs the “classic” DR is this, sure it doesn’t help against 1D weapons, but it takes at least twice as many shots. Usually 1D weapons have 0 or -1AP, which means we’re are surviving most shots or lose a couple models, better odds then a 5+++. On top of that, they can survive a lascannon shot, win-win, I mean theyre shootings that at a PM, go for it.

Don’t get me a wrong, I liked those times DR swung a game, but now we can play on “averages” rather then “luck”. And with all the OP codecies coming out, we can play more strategically and that’s how I like to play.

Besides the Poxwalkers the only thing I want changed is MBHs be cheaper and maybe a spewer on a winged DP, I’m super cereal about that, are they worried a spewer is that big of a game changer?

[Special Officer Doofy]

The 2W was happening regardless if DR changed or not though, so it taking twice as many shots from 1D weapons to drop would have happened even if they got rid of DR all together. MBH are too expensive for sure. The Daemon Prince loadout is a product of what was done to PM as well. Loadout based on what comes in the box. One DP has wings and the weapons (minus spewer). The other only has the sword and no wings, hence that's the only loadout that can take it. Kind of silly, but not surprising. MBH need bubonic keyword as well. Every space marine chapter unit gets their chapter bonus, why can't deathguard do the same?