Wh40k 10th Edition Faction Focus: Death Guard

[Subtleknife]

Wow, I don't play DG, but i feel bad for them. 

 

My big fear with 10th was the over focus on simplification rather than streamlining. DG have been dumbned down and not in a good way.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Subtleknife

[prava]

I see a lot of fail in this FACTION FOCUS. Lets begin.

 

a) DG get -1 T in an aura range BUT the "plague" weapons now autowund on 6s to hit. So, they are antisynergistic. Amazing. At least make it so that your auto-wound against contagion-affected units go to 5+. Then you would get something.

b) Also, -1 T in a world in which a huge % of the units go up in T means DG get pretty much nothing with their army rule.

c) "Very resilient units", when comparing Blightlors and Space marine Terminators, trade 1" for 1T. Again, in a world of T increases +1T is nothing. 

d) How do DG kill tanks in melee? You ram a unit with a vehicle that is T10 and those melee units will do nothing all game. SM terminators at least get solutions to that.

 

Huge, huge fails. Slow army with focus on melee is extremely bad. And this slowness is not due to being tougher. SM get full re-rolls against one unit every turn and DG get -1T... yikes.

 

The only thing decent is the mortar... and it shouldn't be. If you are a DG player you will have to have 3x Crawlers. That mortar profile is simply insane not to have, specially if infantry is as bad as Blightlords seem.

Edited May 17, 2023 by prava

[happyslugger]

Man as DG are my main love I'm not overly impressed with that preview. 

 

However, I will keep an element of excitement bottled as we don't know all the rules yet. 

 

Hope is the first step on the road.......

[tinpact]

RE: Contagion objectives:

 

Well, it does mean any units in range of a captured objective but not on that objective will be more vulnerable to shooting, so one unit could potentially cover multiple objectives with sight lines.

[OttoVonAwesome]

Huge shame they didn't preview the Plague marines especially since it seems like they are still gonna be very good. Most things have been dialed back to early editions so not too surprised the lost disgustingly resilient. Never cared much for Blight Lords so whatever there. The thing thats bugging me here is the detachment ability being sticky objectives when it seems like I prolly want to camp them anyway since Sangous Flux will turn a unit of Plague Marines into a pretty gnarly shooting unit.

[Marshal Mittens]

This is....not great.

 

And I thought ADMECH was bad. So much seems nerfed. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Marshal Mittens

[Minuros]

Looked a bit disheartening but we may not be seeing the full picture. I have a feeling a lot of the synergy in this edition will be achieved by adding elite characters to a unit.

For the Deathguard the Plague Surgeon would give you fnp and the Noxious Bligthbringer increase your movement. I would expect our vehicles get a toughness buff as well.

Will see what we get but I like where they are going with Death Guard just hope the rest of the army list follows it through.

[Dr. Clock]

I play into Deathguard in about a third of my games. I understand the annoyance at losing a 'precious unique rule', but honestly army-wide -1 damage just meant that I only ever took dmg 1 or dmg 3+ weapons. It was too gamey and strange for balancing diverse weapons. Also I'm glad we're not (likely) going back completely to FnP days where you had to slow-roll your way through all multi-damage hits to see 'when' each wound was saved. FnP was fine when infantry were basically all 1W and it functioned as a 'maybe second wound'. It just slows things down too much to warrant its use on something as core to the faction as 'plague marines'. 

 

Honestly, T5 base marines with -1 T aura is plenty for the baseline of the army when it appears like whole factions have just lost up to 25% of their hits from shooting, or suffer up to a third more failed saves in the shooting game... Indeed, AdMech just got BOTH of those at the same time, and it looks like alot of AP-1 is disappearing, and plenty of AP-3 heading to AP-2... which will make the game less killy overall. Heck - scatter lasers have gone to S5, meaning they actually wound your termies on 5s instead of 3s now.  

 

It also looks like 'cloud of flies' style stealth mechanics will be pretty accessible in the main DG list given the specific 'instead can't shoot at Nurgle unit' callout in the CSM preview strat.

 

I'm okay with 'extra resilience' being an unlockable option a unit at a time through characters or whatever, but not at the expense of introducing an entire level of dicerolls as FnP tends to, when instead a +1/-1 modifier on one roll does much the same, but faster.

 

As to the concerns about vehicles locking your units up: you can now shoot other units at those vehicles at -1 to hit! I expect dealing with vehicles may be a bit difficult for anyone/everyone who relied on melta, but there are units available in those roles, they've just been ignored for a long time! Like... Helbrutes, Blight-haulers, Landraiders and Predators are likely to be go-tos for anti-vehicle roles. I fully expect almost everyone to want a dedicated back-line tank hunter or two now that melta is being knocked off its pedestal.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[DemonGSides]

I've come down off my hate-high a bit; some reading elsewhere has convinced me that Blightlords aren't as bad as they seem, especially if you pair them with a landraider to carry them around (which I don't have, and don't want, but will at least be an option).

Still wish they had shown more of our "routine" units; like the entirety of the PBC statline, instead of just the one cannon, or at least a look at the Myphitic Blight haulers, and maybe a look at Silence off of Mortarion if they weren't gonna give us the full stat block.

[Squark]

34 minutes ago, Dr. Clock said:

I play into Deathguard in about a third of my games. I understand the annoyance at losing a 'precious unique rule', but honestly army-wide -1 damage just meant that I only ever took dmg 1 or dmg 3+ weapons. It was too gamey and strange for balancing diverse weapons. Also I'm glad we're not (likely) going back completely to FnP days where you had to slow-roll your way through all multi-damage hits to see 'when' each wound was saved. FnP was fine when infantry were basically all 1W and it functioned as a 'maybe second wound'. It just slows things down too much to warrant its use on something as core to the faction as 'plague marines'. 

 

Honestly, T5 base marines with -1 T aura is plenty for the baseline of the army when it appears like whole factions have just lost up to 25% of their hits from shooting, or suffer up to a third more failed saves in the shooting game... Indeed, AdMech just got BOTH of those at the same time, and it looks like alot of AP-1 is disappearing, and plenty of AP-3 heading to AP-2... which will make the game less killy overall. Heck - scatter lasers have gone to S5, meaning they actually wound your termies on 5s instead of 3s now.  

 

It also looks like 'cloud of flies' style stealth mechanics will be pretty accessible in the main DG list given the specific 'instead can't shoot at Nurgle unit' callout in the CSM preview strat.

 

I'm okay with 'extra resilience' being an unlockable option a unit at a time through characters or whatever, but not at the expense of introducing an entire level of dicerolls as FnP tends to, when instead a +1/-1 modifier on one roll does much the same, but faster.

 

As to the concerns about vehicles locking your units up: you can now shoot other units at those vehicles at -1 to hit! I expect dealing with vehicles may be a bit difficult for anyone/everyone who relied on melta, but there are units available in those roles, they've just been ignored for a long time! Like... Helbrutes, Blight-haulers, Landraiders and Predators are likely to be go-tos for anti-vehicle roles. I fully expect almost everyone to want a dedicated back-line tank hunter or two now that melta is being knocked off its pedestal.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

I'm torn on the toughness thing. Army-wide feel no pain was a headache and 9th edition Disgustingly reailient had a really uneven effect on the meta.  It still feels wrong that there's not some sort of mechanic to encapsulate the Death Guard's legendary toughness, but I'm not sure what that mechanic would be. Would preventing unmodified rolls of less than a 3+ from wounding have been too strong? I dunno.

 

As for tank hunting, Strength 10 lascannons seem insufficient to handle the new top end of the toughness spectrum unless you spam the crap out of them, and I don't think most Death Guard players own enough predators to do that. Perhaps this is a "cunning" ploy to sell Death Guard players Deimos Vindicators for the laser destroyers?

Edited May 17, 2023 by Squark

[DemonGSides]

Having an army wide rule that said "Enemy BS and WS is never better than 3+" FEELS awesome, but also probably is a bit excessive.

I like it better than just "We've modified toughness across the board!"

[Dr. Clock]

30 minutes ago, Squark said:

Would preventing unmodified rolls of less than a 3+ from wounding have been too strong? I dunno.

Maybe not too strong, as it would only ever affect S 10+ attacks. To me, DG toughness should be just as, if not more important vs. conventional/light armaments tho. T5 on its own makes DGuard better than their comparators vs anything S4, 5, 6, 8 and 9: aka the most common anti-MEQ profiles. Adding 'Weak trans-human' would be a hat on a hat: it's precisely the kind of 'crud' or kludge that adds to everyone's cognitive burden and build anxiety. GW is clearly trying to make the basic stats speak for themselves most of the time, which is a good balance and accessibility objective.

 

I'll be very surprised if there's not some kind of defensive strat for DG: I'd be fine with 1-per-phase Stealth, Armour of Contempt or Trans-human as 'exceptional abilities' that the player has to make choices to capitalize on.

 

The point earlier about a defensive ability kicking in on PMarines on objectives was a good one... I could almost see 'Stealth when contesting an objective' being a thing.

 

In closing I just want to point out than when DGuard terminators get close enough, their T stat will be triple that of about half the units in the game, and about double that of the majority of infantry. Basically if you have a hard time seeing the impact of high T combined with T de-buffs, just read all the T in the list as 1 higher, except that the sickness is making all DGuard units  -1 T all the time lol.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[MithrilForge]

I don’t care much for DG so I’m not fussed about the(perceived ) loss - they are the enemy after all , 

what annoys me is that the next focus isn’t ORKS!…   
 

M 

[Khornestar]

I was watching Auspex Tactics and his video on the DG preview today. He was rather negative about most of the preview, and one of his complaints was the -1T aura and how it often wouldn’t make a difference for units with high toughness, i.e. it wouldn’t reduce the wound to roll threshold sometimes.

 

Does it have to reduce the threshold every time for it the rule to be worthwhile? Universal +1 to wound seems like that would be way too strong.

[Sea Creature]

I’m sure if BA players lose Red Thirst they wouldn’t be too happy about it. Mitigating damage is a big part of the DG lore.

[WrathOfTheLion]

For the most part, it will make normal stuff wound t3 models on 2s, t4 models on 3s and t5 models on 4s with S4 weapons.

 

Quite handy still, but we don't quite see yet what they have (or don't have) to deal with higher toughness vehicles and monsters.

Edited May 18, 2023 by WrathOfTheLion

[Bloody Legionnaire]

5 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

I've come down off my hate-high a bit; some reading elsewhere has convinced me that Blightlords aren't as bad as they seem, especially if you pair them with a landraider to carry them around (which I don't have, and don't want, but will at least be an option).

Still wish they had shown more of our "routine" units; like the entirety of the PBC statline, instead of just the one cannon, or at least a look at the Myphitic Blight haulers, and maybe a look at Silence off of Mortarion if they weren't gonna give us the full stat block.

 

20 in a spartan with a plague surgeon ;)

No longer cares about 4" move

[WrathOfTheLion]

Spartan party bus is always the answer

[burningsky25]

I think what we've seen consistently is: No one will have an easy answer for heavy armor. Every single faction focus makes this point more and more clear.  We are 100% used to any weapon that even thinks of being an anti-tank weapon wounding anything you can imagine on a 4+ or better.  3+ being nearly universal, 2+ not uncommon.  

 

This Is Not The Case With 10th Edition

 

There, that's the conclusion I've come to.  Really, nothing else makes sense.  What's crazy is how consistently the expected wound rolls have been nerfed.  Melta - 5+, PF, TH - 5+, Missile launchers - 4+ at best.  Lascannons - anywhere from 3-5+.  Down the list you can go.  They have frequently shown the absolutely biggest guns any faction has, and yes, they wound on 3+.  That's usually a single weapon you'll never have more than 3 of in an entire list that's limited to only one chassis.  

 

Anyways.   I was pretty worried about BA - no high strength melee? How do you kill vehicles? Same with SoB - melta dependant faction.  Other factions are in a similar boat, they might not have anything higher than strength 12.  But, I think we'll get a lot more accustomed to chip damage being a meaningful thing.  Personally I'm looking forward to it.  It really seems like the biggest revolution here will be, actually, exactly what they've advertised: simpler, and more to this point, less lethal.  I'm looking forward to it.  

[Tokugawa]

19 minutes ago, burningsky25 said:

I think what we've seen consistently is: No one will have an easy answer for heavy armor. Every single faction focus makes this point more and more clear.  We are 100% used to any weapon that even thinks of being an anti-tank weapon wounding anything you can imagine on a 4+ or better.  3+ being nearly universal, 2+ not uncommon.  

 

This Is Not The Case With 10th Edition

 

There, that's the conclusion I've come to.  Really, nothing else makes sense.  What's crazy is how consistently the expected wound rolls have been nerfed.  Melta - 5+, PF, TH - 5+, Missile launchers - 4+ at best.  Lascannons - anywhere from 3-5+.  Down the list you can go.  They have frequently shown the absolutely biggest guns any faction has, and yes, they wound on 3+.  That's usually a single weapon you'll never have more than 3 of in an entire list that's limited to only one chassis.  

 

Anyways.   I was pretty worried about BA - no high strength melee? How do you kill vehicles? Same with SoB - melta dependant faction.  Other factions are in a similar boat, they might not have anything higher than strength 12.  But, I think we'll get a lot more accustomed to chip damage being a meaningful thing.  Personally I'm looking forward to it.  It really seems like the biggest revolution here will be, actually, exactly what they've advertised: simpler, and more to this point, less lethal.  I'm looking forward to it.  

Remove the obviously "best anti everything option" is a healthy trends. However, designers may make mistakes and still left "anti everything" option in codex. Among all the units previewed so far, I feel IG demolisher would be good against anything.

[jaxom]

From the leak topic:

So yeah, an enemy unit moves up to an Infected objective and you can Fire Overwatch once they finish their move. Obviously would work best with Torrent weapons.

[Muskie]

Obviously it would have been better if there was a Plague Marine preview as I've painted almost 100 of them, but toughness six terminators seem pretty good to me and I'm old enough to remember when Clay or was it Graham prayed every day for the Chaos Codex. I think everything will be fine, it's only a game. 

Edited May 18, 2023 by Muskie

[spessmarine]

4 hours ago, WrathOfTheLion said:

Spartan party bus is always the answer

 

I hope they mention something about HH units soon, I am not available to pester them with questions about it when they post to socials about the day's articles.

 

Like for tomorrow they could mention the Knight-Lancer.

Edited May 18, 2023 by spessmarine

[FormelyKnownAsSmashyPants]

Losing FnP or some other mechanic to represent Disgusting Resilient blows. I do like the effect Nurgles gif gives though. It seems like DG faction will be a little more powerful offensively a less defensively. Wounding  basic Astartes with bolters from turn 3 on a 3+ seems pretty good. Wounding tougher units like terminators and Gravis armoured marines on 4+ instead of 5+ seems pretty good too. While unlikely we may see Disgustingly Resilient return, it may be represented by one of our six unique stratagems, but I’m not holding my breath.

[Blindhamster]

their new rule is a bit sad, that's the sort of rule rad grenades get in HH, and probably should have been a detachment ability or unique stratagem ability, rather than the faction one. They could have kept FnP easily enough