New to edition, what do I need?

[Furnace Lord]

Hello. I haven't played in many years and never a DG army. I have the main rule book, just wondering what I need besides the Codex now? I'm not up to date on expansion books. Also is there a good purchase to start modeling and painting? I was thinking of just grabbing a Plague Marine set and building them with bolters then saving all the bits to include on later models.

Also I was curious if AoS zombies make acceptable Poxwalker proxies in most areas? I know a lot will be down to the group but I have a bunch of the things ready to go.

Thank you :)

[Tokugawa]

Of course you can use AoS models for proxy/conversion, but AoS zombies are somehow more difficult to paint(they wear more clothes and carry more extra stuff like gravestones), and more expensive to acquire. 

 

Current rules strongly recommend to equip plaguemarines with all possible wargears upgrades. 

 

For starting a new DG army, I think DG battleforce box(not available on GW official webstore) has good discount. 

[Cpt.Danjou]

The combat patrol box is a good buy as a starter, and you will not need more than one. At the moment ordinary plague marines can be equipped with their extra gear for free, so kitting them is a good idea. Other things that are good in a Dg army is the terminators, both Blightlords and Deathshrouds. Dg is a quite slow army, so a Boat drone or two with lawnmower blenders can counter that little issue. And for heavy things most of us use Plagueburst Crawlers. 

In the combat patrol box you get Typhus, a ton of poxwalkers and some Plague Marines. Typhus can easily be a proxy for a Lord of contagion with a manreaper if you don't want to use him as he is. Feel free to ask if you need some more advice.

 

[Furnace Lord]

Thank you. Do I need the Chapter Approved as well, I don't know what's optional?

[Cpt.Danjou]

No, that you don't need. But here is a link to the current point values. Death guard points are on page 24

Current point values for all codex.

 

Cpt.Danjou

[Furnace Lord]

Thanks everyone. If my flgs has one of those old Dark Imperium sets with the Deathguard and Primaris in it for around the same price as the Typhus and friends box, which would you pick up as a new player? I know the rules are out of date but it seems to have a lot in it.

[firestorm40k]

Definitely get the Dark Imperium set - some of the sculpts are either expensive to buy direct (e.g. Malignant Plaguecaster), or no longer available (the whole Plague Marine squad, which has some *great* sculpts). Plus, if you don't want the Primaris, you could probably sell them and make back what you've spent (again, OOP sculpts) 

[Special Officer Doofy]

I would recommend slowly accumulating all the DG specific models. From 8th edition starting till now, most of the units had their ups and their downs. Terminators and poxwalkers were the bread and butter up until they made wargear free on plaguemarines, which makes them compete now. My only fear of making wargear free on plaguemarines is this is only temporary. I don't know what to recommend, I would feel bad to tell you don't use bolters and only use special weapons just to have it go back to wargear being overcosted at half the cost of a marine with the next codex. For me the best special weapons on plaguemarines have been blight launchers for ranged and the flails for melee. Never was a big plasma guy, I get heartburn over-charging plasma and killing my own guys.

So can't go wrong with terminators (both kinds), plaguemarines and poxwalkers. I am a fan of the three DG specific Daemon engines as well, they had point drops over the past edition and all have their places, ontop of being some of the best looking models in the game (my opinion of course). Some of the elite characters are good (great with relics), but some of them suck. I have 1 of each of the 5 just incase they redo one and make them fun.

Typhus is okay. The model is cool and the character in the lore is awesome, but I rarely use him. Daemon Princes are pretty good, my usual go to HQ along with the Malignant plaguecaster. Lord of contagion and Virulence each have their places, most people prefer the LoC.

Mortarion is awesome. I recommend getting him towards the end of your army collecting for 2 solid reasons. Reason 1, he is very expensive and eye popping and will be your center peice if you bring him, so painting him last after you learn and hone in your painting skills and colors is important. It's okay if you do a terrible job painting poxwalker #17, he is a tiny 5 point bullet sponge. But you don't want to mess up your 450 point primarch. Reason 2, he is not fun to play against in smaller 1,000 point games, and is definately meant for larger 2,000 point match ups, so might as well get him after you get 1,500 points of other stuff at least. I play to have fun, and winning is more fun than losing, but I don't want to win that way if it robs my opponent of having any fun themselves.

Sooo where to start. The combat patrol is okay, as long as you want everything inside of the box. DG has possibly the worst combat patrol in 40k. It has 30 poxwalkers, 7 plaguemarines, Typhus and an elite character. Reasons its terrible is it is the only combat patrol I know of that is not even a legal combat patrol. You can't bring 30 poxwalkers with only 7 plague marines, only 20. And it has a named character, which I don't care for in those kind of boxes. If you can get your hands on the DG half of dark imperium (I got two halves at the start of 8th for like $40 and $50, what a deal!) or last year's battleforce box, I highly recommend those. I also recommend buying from one of two ways. Supporting your local store (be it a Flgs or local GW) or from a discount online retailer. I never buy direct from GW online, when I can go to someone else and get a discount. And I since I have my own gaming table, my brother has two, and other guys in my group do too, we don't play at stores so we have no need to support them and only buy online for the cheapest price. Do what you have to do. @Furnace Lord I also sent you a message about another resource you can use.

Edit: I personally avoid using CSM ports like rhino's and Predators. Only the DG specific units have DR built in, so when you take a rhino, it pretty much screams shoot me with all your multi damage weapons T1 and they tend to have very little impact. My personal experience of course. Also the CSM port overs are also dated, smaller and don't mesh well with the nurgle theme without kit bashing and or greenstuff.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Special Officer Doofy