Desired changes for 10th Ed

[Special Officer Doofy]

There hasn't been alot of chatter in the Death Guard forum in a while so I felt like making a thread about 10th since not much will change for us before then. Essentially I just want to banter about what we want to see for our Death Guard in 10th edition. Wishlisting as some people call it.

 

First and foremost I would like disgustingly resilient to go back to the better 5+++. I'm not going to math hammer it all out on here but 5+++ is better than -1D overall. -1D does nothing against spammed 1D weapons and mortal wounds, about the same for 3D, and much worse for 4D+. It only shines at 2D and is more consistent at 3D. We would get our small arms and mortal wound shrug off back. I don't see this happening unfortunately. 

 

I want free wargear to end as that is just stupid. A blight launcher is better than a bolter in every aspect and should cost different. For some reason this edition wargear costs were multiples of 5 and everything ended up over costed. They can be + 1/2/3/4/5 points for balances sake. Blight launchers and flails at the higher end and plague belchers and bubonic axe at the lower end. This might happen, but it is not an issue unique to DG and DG will get a similar treatment to whatever the other factions get in 10th regarding wargear costs. 

 

Wouldn't mind small wargear changes. Adding the plague weapon to the champions powerfist would be nice. The Lord of Virulence has a plague power fist and it's cool. And if wargear is staying free, they need to give our bolters plague weapon to balance them out, otherwise there is no reason to use them. They gave us the daemonic sword on the champions this edition, I could definately see the small flavor change in 10th like plague weapon on the fists.

 

Our legion trait not applying to our Daemon engines is so stupid. Space marines get their chapter traits to apply to their whole codex (minus servitor like units), we should get ours to apply to everything as well. I'm hoping this is corrected. 

 

Regardless if DR changes or not, it should be applied to everything in the codex. I will never use Rhino's until they get it. If you have one or two units in the codex without it they just scream "shoot me with all your 2D weapons on turn 1". They could just call it a Death Guard Rhino to have the changed rule and charge whatever few more points they want for it for balance. The helbrute already has -1D and -2D might be silly, they could get 6+++ or 5+++. Helbrutes need love in general. I would never take a shooty helbrute over a blight hauler and I would never take a melee one over the flying bloat Drone with the 12A mower. I think there is a decent chance for them to correct the copy and paste units and give them DR in 10th. 9th gave our copy and paste HQ's extra toughness and DR, so why not?

 

I would like to see the Lord of Virulence change in 10th. He was advertised on the community page as interacting with Daemon engines and does no such thing. They should get rid of his master of destruction aura and either heal vehicles, give one vehicle +1 to hit, or maybe give him that relic rule to give Daemon engines 4++ (I love doing that with 3 haulers and giving them -1 to be hit, so hard to shift them). They probably won't do this either.

 

Our least used elite character is the Noxious Blightbringer. He needs to give 2" movement instead of 1" to be worthwhile. Also leadership shenanigans tend to never work unless you put all your eggs in that basket. They should remove that and the -1 to psychic test and just give him a deny. Or turn him into our Chaplin and give chants (which would turn him into a HQ most likely). They will have to do something with him in 10th, I have never seen him in a list in 9th, not even hypothetical online lists.

 

And lastly, people's favorite part of wish listing, new units. To be honest, I think we are doing pretty good. Compare us to TS or WE we are doing very good (talking about DG specific models). 

 

We have solid troops. Plague Marines are a little more elite than a normal marine (as they should be), and poxwalkers are great cheap fluffy units.

 

Our elites are good. We have TWO different styles of terminators and both look amazing. 5 different elite characters, some who are very good.

 

Fast Attack we are spoiled for the slowest army in the game. Haulers and drones are awesome. GW setting them to 9W to not bracket them was badass. For some reason spawns are the only non DR unit we can give DR to. I bought the gellarpox infected just for the boss and 3 big guys, perfect for 4 nurgle spawns to eventually play around with.

 

Heavy Support we have the PBC and the copy and pastes. The PBC is probably my favorite unit. Looks amazing, had some good point drops, non line of site mortar. They even gave the entropy cannons plague weapon and changed them to 3+d3. No complaints from me about heavy supports, I usually take 2-3 PBC in every list.

 

HQ's we have the Daemon Prince, various lords, our own sorcerer and Typhus. Not bad but could be better.

 

So what do we need? I'm not sure. I rather see existing kits get new rules and models. I would love a new CHAOS ONLY Rhino kit (not just a loyalist one with spikes and trim). Add a couple detail pieces for the different gods. And when taken with DG it gets DR for extra points. Same thing with the helbrute. I love dreadnaughts but the helbrute model is small and rules wise could use some love. But a new rhino and helbrute model with God specific details would help out TS, WE and vanilla chaos marines. Give the TS version a spell cast or something for extra points. Seems like low hanging fruit if you ask me.

 

Other than that I would love a reworked Lord of Virulence with Daemon Engine interacting rules, will feel like a new unit. Same with updating the Noxious Blightbringer, we could use better movement or the whole Chaplin idea (or combine the two, give the movement as a chant).

 

But if I had to think of a brand new unit, I would say HQ. If I recall there was three different mantles lords take up. Contagion, Virulence and some third one (I thought I read this on the lexicanum or maybe it was the 8th Ed codex). I thought it was about poxes or something. If they made the Lord of Virulence more about vehicles, the 3rd Lord could be more of a psyker. Kind of like a unique sorc in terminator armor for DG. A cheaper Typhus without the poxwalker buff, destroyer hive and contagion aura, but with its own unique rule. I would still rather see a new rhino and helbrute with DR and reworked Lord of Virulence and Noxious Blightbringer rather than a new unit though.

 

So fellow Death Guard (or maybe curious chaos) fans, what are your thoughts? What would you like to see changed or added? I know it's a long post, my cat woke me up at 3am knocking off my keys, wallet, wedding ring, medication and pocket change off my night stand and then ran off into the dark. He's definately a Night Lords player if I ever saw one.

[Plaguecaster]

I wouldn't say we really need anything new more that all of our units we have now could do with some buffs and better synergy with army rules.

 

First let the Surgeon actually be able to revive models like the damn loyalist can, the fact the legion of the zombie like marines cant actually be brough back is annoying being able to do so would actually make him worth taking, also the Plaguecaster having no inv save is quite annoying especially with no more AOC.

 

Following the removal of AOC even more of our Survivability has been removed with Plague marines and even terminators being removed easier especially with the abundance of high AP, autowounds or other rules that ignore or make a mockery of our so-called Resilience with even DR able to be ignored now.  Also would be alot nicer if more units in our army got access to actual DG rules r plague weapons like Defilers rhinos etc, as they just feel like they got added without any care of getting alot of the new DG rules

 

 

ok I lied a cool new unit would be a special weapon plague marine squad with more access to our lovely plague weapons and a Blight hauler with more weapon options as having acual ranged plague weapons would be cool on them

 

 

 

 

[WrathOfTheLion]

As a purely nice to have, I'd like another infantry squad of some kind. Special weapons, heavy weapons, something to spice that up a bit. It'd break the expected aesthetic a bit, but a biker or jump pack unit would be really fun.

 

A replacement for the Lord of Contagion, Malignant Plaguecaster, etc. from Dark Imperium, as actual release kits would be great as well.

 

Rules-wise, I do think Disgustingly Resilient needs to change. Even if it does stay the same, they need to stop giving out stuff like turning off damage mitigation.

[KingYertle]

Why wait for 10th?  There are number of minor datasheet tweaks that GW could FAQ/Data-Slate that would breathe new putrid life into our DG.   For Example

 

1) Give us access to new Chaos Datasheets such as the Land Raider and the Possessed.  Update our Nurgle Icon to function like the CSM one which provides the ICON Keyword and 6s to hit auto-wound for ALL ranged weapons.

 

2) Make Death Guard Bolters Plague Weapons.  Re-rolling 1s to wound isn't scary on a handful of bolters but it at least allows for some additional synergies.

 

3) Give our Legacy Choas Lord + the Deamon Prince some Plague Weapon options so they function like part of our army rather than tag alongs.  All powerfists could become Plaguefists for example.  FW has a great Death Guard Praetor model with a power scythe which would make a great Death Guard Chaos Lord.    

 

4) Give our Deamon Engines +1T and the Smokescreen keyword.  Maybe give Haulers and/or Drones the Core Keyword.  A bit extreme on the PBC, but T8 Haulers + Drones would be in keeping with the idea that our units are infused with Nurgle's toughness.  And both Haulers + Drones are modeled with Smoke Stacks yet are ineligible to use the smokescreen strat.  T9 PBCs is likely too strong, but at a minimum the PBC should get the Siege Shield rule from the SM Vindicator (-1AP vs Ranged Attacks) as the model is equipped with one!

 

5) Give Helbrutes a boost.  Helbrutes with AoC were actually pretty good.  Give them a 2+ Save or just make them Deamon Engines so they get the 5++.  Would be great to see the Death Guard Helbrute datasheet differ from the other legions, maybe with +1T but I know that won't happen.

 

None of these suggestions should be materially significant to the Meta, but it would give us a few new options to play around with and a toughness boost to help push up from the 45% win rate pile.

 

As for 10th Edition, GW could simple reprint the codex with 1 change and I would be happy.... 5+++ DR!   To all the Nay Sayers out there, yes -1 Damage is a fine game mechanic, but it has a Significant Shortcoming.  It is NOT FUN.  Rolling the 5+++ while calling out for Nurle's Blessing is FUN.  Sure it fails more often than not, but when luck favors your dice and you power up 3 saves in a row at a critical juncture in the game it makes for a great memorable moment.  Plus, it doesn't help that in casual play, when your opponent knows you have DR it is easy for them to game plan around it, making Death Guard's signature rule more of an after thought.

 

Edit:  As for new units, I'd love to see a multi-weapon kit for the Hauler that adds plague weapon options and something like a Beast of Nurgle ie a unit that is not exceptionally killy but ridiculously difficult to remove from the table.   We could also use a long-medium ranged infantry unit.  Imagine a 5 man team with 4 Longer Range Blight Launchers with different projectile profiles for targeting mass infantry or heavy armor... Juicy!

Edited January 31, 2023 by KingYertle

[Derpa Derpa 777]

I’d definitely like to see the 5+++ army wide make a return. Maybe some more synergistic strategems. Our army is supposed to walk forward firing bolters and chem weapons. Id like to see more of that. We have no reason to take either. At least give us plague bolters.

 

The Noxious Blightbringer is terrible. Like GW actually wrote that and was like, “someone might use this.” The Lord of Virulence could use some reworking. 

My main opponent is Tau. Mortarion is basically useless against them. Maybe he could do with a better FNP or an Invulnerable that can’t be ignored. Maybe at least a point reduction. Of course, the line of sight and terrain rules might change for 10th so that would be a big help. I find that the basic troops arent as durable as they are supposed to be as well, so they end up being shot off the board even in cover.

 

Id like to see specialized infantry instead of demon engines. Like why dont we have jump troops? Or special weapon squads?

 

 

[Special Officer Doofy]

4 hours ago, Derpa Derpa 777 said:

Id like to see specialized infantry instead of demon engines. Like why dont we have jump troops? Or special weapon squads?

 

The lack of jump troops, bikers and special weapons squads is because of the fluff. Morty wasn't a fan of specialized troops too much, he gave his marines bolters, knives and grenades and said use what is best for each situation. So 10k years later they probably didn't start getting jump pack and bikers.

 

I have yet to meet a DG player in person who wants -1D over 5+++ haha.

[Special Officer Doofy]

Another thing that needs to be corrected is the dumb <bubonic astartes> thing. Daemon engines in Death Guard do no have bubonic astartes for some reason so they do not get the legion trait, where chaos space marines Daemon engines have the traitoris astartes keyword and get their legion trait. The rules writers are terribly inconsistent in this game. I understand design philosophies change, but how hard would it have been to just update the keywords for DG in a FAQ...

[ArcNitemare]

1) Boltguns and Combi-Bolters being Plague. Its a small change that not only feels like it fits with the rest of the kit, but would help boost the dps of bolters slightly.

2) Bring back the old FNP of DR. The current version gives us no protection from D3 or more weapons, as well as gives us no way to stop mortal wounds.

3) More plague weapon options, seriously why is the balesword only an option on regular Chaos Lords, and not Chaos Lords in Termie Armor or Chaos Sorcerers in Termie Armor? What about our Daemon Prince?

4) Give our legion tactic to our whole army, not just select stuff.

5) Give our poor Helbrutes some needed love. The DG of old favored Dreads so it seems to be that the current DG would as well. a 5+ invul would be a start.

6) Get rid of free wargear and let us take as many of a item of weapon as we want on Plague Marines. Let us choose for ourselves what we want as a load out.

7) Some kind of special weapon and weapon weapon squad would be amazing. Maybe a squad that harken back to the Destroyer Squads of old. Think a full squad that starts with all Blight Launchers or Plague Belchers that can take an assortment of plague weapons.

8) Something more for each of the Plague Companies. They are subfactions, make them feel more enjoyable to choose from. Maybe make their signature disease a passive on top of our contagion already so people don't want DG to get in close.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

Given what we have for rumours atm, I think there is zero chance DR goes back to be a 5+++.   I think it is more likely(not a prediction so stop typing if you are mad) that wounds go up on a lot of heavier units.  Giving plague marines 3w is a much simpler solution than datasheet rules and if we are to believe that GW wants to get rid of toughness values.

[Special Officer Doofy]

9 hours ago, ArcNitemare said:

8) Something more for each of the Plague Companies. They are subfactions, make them feel more enjoyable to choose from. Maybe make their signature disease a passive on top of our contagion already so people don't want DG to get in close.

 

This is something I doubt will happen. If you look at the world eaters codex as the new trend, sub factions for sub factions (death guard plague companies) will most likely go away. Death Guard are already a sub faction of chaos space marines. I think the idea of 10th is less strats and bloat, not more. For better or worse, obviously people's opinions on it will vary.

[ArcNitemare]

Oh I don't disagree, I do feel less bloat will be better over all. Seeing Plague Companies go away would make me sad though as I feel at this point both Death Guard and Thousand Sons are full armies in their own right and thus should have the benefits of such, plus Plague Companies add a good deal of variety to the army.

And as SanguinaryGuardsman pointed out, its very unlikely 5+++ is coming back, which makes me sad because it helps the feeling of shrugging off hits and wounds better than just extra wounds does.

[Special Officer Doofy]

5+++ is sooooo much better than -1D. There is sooooo much more MW, 1D and 4D+ than there is 2D. I almost quit when our 9th edition codex came out. My whole group already quit and might come back at the start of 10th depending on changes. Only games I can get in right now are with my brother, and we have better hobbies to do together currently.

 

I'm excited for 10th, it's kind of fun not knowing what's coming. But if the game doesn't address the glaring bloat and wargear lethality and DG rules are still garbage I'll just sell my models and quit. Not worth hanging around hoping every 3 years it will get better.

[Cleon]

At the bare minimum, DG need a 5+ FNP against Damage 1 weapons to fill the gap that their ability does nothing against the weapons it has the most narrative value against. I can see why FNP against multi damage weapons is streamlined to DR 1.

[KingYertle]

I've been a big proponent of seeing FNP return, however SG's comment about 3W Plague Marines is something I could get behind.   

 

Drop DR -1D

 

Gain:

+1 Wound for All Infantry

4++/5++ Daemon Saves for Daemon Engines

 

Now that is truly a Blessing of Papa Nurgle!

 

Hey we can dream right....

[Minuros]

Would love Death Guard havocs. They could even have only the death guard specific weapons. A squad of 5 walking up the middle with four plagued flamers or blight launchers would be cool.

[Tokugawa]

Some new units with speed and/or forward deploy. DG are the slowest faction now. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

18 hours ago, Tokugawa said:

Some new units with speed and/or forward deploy. DG are the slowest faction now. 

 

Since we are no longer really resilient, might as well lose the slowest army moniker. The slow speed was supposed to be offset by the staying power, which we lost in 9th.

[WrathOfTheLion]

It's not like all of the army is slow even now, units like blight haulers and blight drones are not slow at all.

[Special Officer Doofy]

43 minutes ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

It's not like all of the army is slow even now, units like blight haulers and blight drones are not slow at all.

 

Yes, the fast attack is not slow relative to the rest of the army. Kind of would not make sense to have them as fast attack if they were not faster. But compare them to other armies fast attack, their 10" move to a speeders 16" move or a bikes 14" move with the auto 6" advance, then yes they are still slow... 

Edited February 21, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[WrathOfTheLion]

1 minute ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Yes, the fast attack is not slow relative to the rest of the army. Kind of would not make sense to have them as fast attack if they were not. But compare them to other armies fast attack, their 10" move to a speeders 16" move or a bikes 14" move with the auto 6" advance, then yes they are still slow... 

Fair enough, but my point being that having some speed in the army isn't out of left field, so they should just do it. Gimme some bikes

Edited February 21, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Special Officer Doofy]

3 minutes ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

Fair enough, but my point being that having some speed in the army isn't out of left field, so they should just do it. Gimme some bikes

 

Yeah but Mortarion never utilized bikes during the great crusade and heresy, doubt he would start now. Just give DG their resilience back so they can survive the extra turn of moving to catch up. I'm fine with being slow if they can shrug off some damage.

[WrathOfTheLion]

On 2/21/2023 at 6:55 PM, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Yeah but Mortarion never utilized bikes during the great crusade and heresy, doubt he would start now. Just give DG their resilience back so they can survive the extra turn of moving to catch up. I'm fine with being slow if they can shrug off some damage.

The Death Guard Legion definitely had bikes in it, all legions had to be able to perform all tasks given their sheer size. There would have been Alpha Legion, Raven Guard and White Scars armored companies for instance. My copy of book 1 of the 30k black books says they mainly focused on infantry tactics, but nothing implying they wouldn't have used jump pack marines, jetbikes, bikes, etc.

 

But yes, that's why I said it would be a departure from the aesthetic they're going for, but I think it'd be a good addition to the roster to get some faster units with either jump packs or bikes.

Edited February 25, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Special Officer Doofy]

I hope the ability to ally nurgle daemons in stays with the next edition. I felt the 25% limit is fair.

[Special Officer Doofy]

I don't know how to cross thread quote while on mobile so I'm just going to copy and paste our kind frater's post from the rules thread for 10th @Vanger

 

So what was said on the twitch stream:

- indexes for everyone, day 1 everything available free

- new app... and it works

- morale phase is rolled into the command phase and you don't lose models, but gain debuffs (or as they said, units are reduced in effecitiveness)

- psychic phase is gone, all abilities are on the datasheets, they use their abilities in the phase it makes sense

- more rules on the datasheets, every unit has it's own weapon profiles, no more generic weapon profiles (as an example they brought up that the power fist of a character will have different stats from that of a sergeant's power fist)

- you will have 1 full spread page rules for your army, that you switch out according to your subfaction, everything else is on the datasheets

- warlord traits, relics, psyhcih powers and "other upgrades" still in the game

- list building sounds like AoO

- strats culled, some of them appear on unit datasheets, more generic strats, and 6 strats per army/subfaction

- they try to combat unit spamming with more untis giving bonuses and effects that were previously strats

- obsec gone, replaced with Objective Control (OC) which is basically the "counts as X models" rule

- lot more reactive abilities on datasheets

- AP is rarer, "generally lower", cover rules change, the game is "less lethal"

- "stratification of strength and toughness"

- there are vehicles with Toughness higher than 11

- toughness went up on many units, but weapon strength did not change substantially

- Boarding actions is 100% compatible with 10th edition

- Combat Patrol is now fixed army lists (the stuff you get in the boxes) with "aggressively balanced" rules, that are balanced against each other, differnet from Matched Play

 

Things I'm happy for:

-Rumor of toughness going away was false, thankfully so as higher toughness values is one of our factions only gimmicks. Vehicle toughness going up will probably help our PBC's, I can see them going up at least one if the land Raider already did in 9th.

-Better app. Nothing to do with DG in specific, but will be better. I hated having to scroll down to the DG codex when it was one of the only codexes I have unlocked. The current app sucks.

-Dialing back the lethality, specially AP. Although our Daemon engines have a built in 5++ to combat the rising AP, it will be nice to regain some staying power.

-Indexes on day one, our codex is a weaker one so it will be nice to level the playing field.

-One page of rules. I personally thought it was dumb to give DG "subfactions" when they themselves are already a subfaction of chaos space marines. Not sure they are going away but I doubt they stay as is in their current form.

 

Things that worry me:

-Psychic abilities on the page. If Mortarion loses the ability to cast -1 to be hit on himself it will hurt. My main opponent is admech with no way to deny spells, that -1 can often make or break morty for me.

 

Anyone else have any thoughts on how the new rules might affect our death guard?

[KingYertle]

I don't want to get too excited given how quickly 9th edition went off the rails, but so far I like what I'm hearing.  While Stratagems were a good idea, but they became too important to the outcome of the game IMO.  

 

Few Thoughts:

 

Feel No Pain confirmed as a Universal Special Rule.  Could that mean our FNP roll returns?  After all FNP was Created for Plague Marines if I'm not mistaken.  The loss of the FNP ROLL really ruined the Fun of playing Death Guard for me personally.  

 

Unit Datasheets Contain all Weapon Stats + Unit Rules.  The Plague Marine Datasheet is going to be ABSURDLY LONG just from wargear.  I hope that doesn't mean that all our various weapons become a generic "Melee Plague Weapon".   But then again, maybe simplifying all our weapon options is a good thing.

 

Our model selection is a hot mess.  Hopefully we are up for a 2nd wave this edition.  But if not, I hope we receive a good mechanic for summoning Nurgle deamons as teased by WarCom and that the deamons actually fill a missing niche in our codex.

 

Tabletop Tactics hinted that Tempest will continue in 9th.  IMO Tempest and Crusade were the best ways to play in 9th.   I liked the idea of Tournament Seasons but codex power creep really spoiled matched play.