What would you use…

[McElMcNinja]

If you were building a competitive list in the current meta, what units or combos or what evers do you think a Death Guard army needs to or should include and why (if you don’t mind sharing your thoughts on it)?

I think we need fast durable units like drones and possessed to grab objectives and reliable high damage output units like Contemptors to clear stuff off objectives. I have been trying out conversion beamers on mine (with Tallyman nearby) and they do OK, especially against terminators. PBCs are not as reliable in my games, even when running three of them. I also like Poxwalkers because of their T4 and can bring some back as long as any are left.

[Tokugawa]

I will bring some plague marines. They are mediocre or straightly bad, but without them you can't play some ca2022 missions at all.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

Agree with all of those.

 

I would then fill up on plague marines. Pack gear for close combat and advance as fast as possible. We are one inch slower than regular marines but we can still advance.

 

And people would not be expecting to see a load of plaguemarines

[Plague _Lord]

I'm also contemplating this - COVID seems to be regressing a bit so I'm thinking about attending a tournament next week. My old list got cut by 80points and that is a lot so I kind of don't know what to do.

 

I think the volcon contemptor is still a must.

I think at least 2 PBC are a must - even though they are swingy, we need AT and we also need ignore LOS shooting. With luck they might clear backfield units and remember that most armies are going to take 6 man objective takers for nachmund so we at least get mini blast.

I think my 10 man terminator block will still be in my list - it's the only unit that can mount pressure in the midfield.

 

As for the rest I'm not sure. Poxwalkers allways worked for me but they are now a bit more expensive so it will be hard to fit 2x20 in. Maybe 1x20... Cultists instead? Maybe. a troop selection of 2x10 cultists and 1x6 plaguemarines might be the way to go for banners/RND or whatever action based secondaries you want to take. Maybe attrition is the way to go? Go on low model count and try to kill chaff units and vechicles?

 

The daemon engine list + Epi just doesnt seem to work for me. I am contemplating going back to shooty plague marines, just cause no one will expect them but they are so expensive and when your plague marines are shooting then they aren't doing actions.

[Xenith]

PBC's are still great, when they roll well/average, and occupy an opponent's thoughts. Indirect fire is also super valuable to finish off a to the last unit, or one guy doing an action etc. 

 

Poxies took a hit, so I think you do need PM's or cultists to perform actions now. In Nachmund, some mission specific actions can be performed by any model (e.g. data scry, set/defuse bombs), not just INFANTRY or BIKER, so plague drones, maybe 2 would be useful. 

 

It's ot the most fun strategy, but in hold 1/2/more games, you can almost max stuff out by just holding 2 objectives, taking to the last and banners. Raise banners on the 2 objectives then hunker down and hold those at all costs.

 

You'll get max primaries nearly (36+mission ones?) then 15 for TTL and ~10 for Banners, so 71 including painting, which is respectable. That would prefer 2x10 man PM units and 1 large termie unit, or wrangling your list so smaller units are the TTL ones. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

Since my group has a no FW policy Contemptors are out of the question for me. Reliable anti tank is something I need in my list considering the guys in my group and how they build their lists. PBC's are good but not great after some of these other codexes came out. Sure they are "great" compared to terrible space marine vehicles, but are not quite as nice when you compare them to a much cheaper Drukhari Ravager that can fly, move further, same invuln, 3 free dark lances with melee options and worthwhile strats like -1 to be hit and move after shooting. I like to take PBC's and Blight haulers (which both recently had points drop) for my anti tank.

 

I had some success with 3 haulers in the mid field with miasma and the poxmonger relic for 4++. My brother's admech is very shooty but not too aggressive so that's alot of shooting he needs to dedicate to them and less to my other units. My wins are hard fought from playing the objectives and not trying to table my opponent. Most of my friends get too excited about removing units and less about points early on and I try to exploit that as much as possible.

 

Never been a fan of poxwalkers (not that they are not good, just not a fan of cheap hordes). I'm hoping eventually plague marine's wargear gets a much needed price drop. That might be enough to make them seem fun and less of a tax.

[Plague _Lord]

PBC's are still great, when they roll well/average, and occupy an opponent's thoughts. Indirect fire is also super valuable to finish off a to the last unit, or one guy doing an action etc. 

 

Poxies took a hit, so I think you do need PM's or cultists to perform actions now. In Nachmund, some mission specific actions can be performed by any model (e.g. data scry, set/defuse bombs), not just INFANTRY or BIKER, so plague drones, maybe 2 would be useful. 

 

It's ot the most fun strategy, but in hold 1/2/more games, you can almost max stuff out by just holding 2 objectives, taking to the last and banners. Raise banners on the 2 objectives then hunker down and hold those at all costs.

 

You'll get max primaries nearly (36+mission ones?) then 15 for TTL and ~10 for Banners, so 71 including painting, which is respectable. That would prefer 2x10 man PM units and 1 large termie unit, or wrangling your list so smaller units are the TTL ones. 

 

Problem with PMs is they die super easy. Like honestly there are a lot of codexes that put out amazing ammounts of high volume, high AP, damage 1 shots that just mulch plague marines. For example - space marines, tau, craftworld eldar, orks. These shots are usually around strength 5-6 so they mitigate our high "toughness". Tau are obscene in this but also orks speed freaks. I think GW has gone a bit overboard with high ap guns and armour doesn't mean much in today's game unless you have a 2+ outside of cover.

 

I like PBCs but the overall problem with our AT guns is lack of rerolls so when you get cold dice you have no way of mitigating this. I had this my last game vs orks where my 2 pbc and 2 MBH did 0 damage to a speed freaks list, cause I was rolling a lot of 1-3 (speed freaks have access to easy -1 to hit). It get's even worse when you fight xenos armies that have wide access to -1 to hit.

 

As for cultists vs poxwalkers it's evened out. Poxwalkers can acutally do damage to a tough enemy, while cultists can do actions. Overinvesting in plague marines isn't they way due to high cost and relative fragility. Maybe going 3x cultists and 3x possessed is a possible choice to get decent scoring and filling out a battalion? While possessed lack ob sec, they have a 5++ and more speed for a similiar cost.