Wh40k 10th Edition Faction Focus: Death Guard

[Mogger351]

25 minutes ago, tzeentch9 said:

The infantry is a whole inch slower. Big whoop. The speed of spawn, blight haulers, the flying things, winged daemon princes are unknown, but can be expected to be pretty nippy as usual. 

I enjoy that someone disagrees with this, does that mean there's an expectation the speed of the faster units is expected to go down suddenly?

[Special Officer Doofy]

1 hour ago, tzeentch9 said:

The infantry is a whole inch slower. Big whoop. The speed of spawn, blight haulers, the flying things, winged daemon princes are unknown, but can be expected to be pretty nippy as usual. 

 

Again, doesn't make my statement any less true. Slowest army in the game just got slower. Again our fast units are slower than every other faction's fast units. That was supposed to be offset by staying power (disgustingly resilient ring a bell?)

 

And just to keep proving you wrong (since you clearly know nothing about death guard), the flying death guard daemon prince has 2" less movement than the world eater, thousand sons and chaos Space Marine one (has for multiple editions too). Mortarion has 4" less movement than Angron and Magnus. The only other flying unit is the bloat drone, which again is only 10" movement. You can keep trying to argue objective facts with your subjective opinions though.

 

Movement matters. In a game of moving to objectives to control more (which is the bulk of every mission), movement matters. Literally this whole game is moving to objectives, staying alive, and destroying opponents models. We got worse at the first two and at best will get a side grade for lethality.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[danodan123]

1 minute ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Again, doesn't make my statement any less true. Slowest army in the game just got slower. Again our fast units are slower than every other faction's fast units. That was supposed to be offset by staying power (disgustingly resilient ring a bell?)

 

And just to keep proving you wrong (since you clearly know nothing about death guard), the flying death guard daemon prince has 2" less movement than the world eater, thousand sons and chaos Space Marine one (has for multiple editions too). Mortarion has 4" less movement than Angron and Magnus. The only other flying unit is the bloat drone, which again is only 10" movement. You can keep trying to argue objective facts with your subjective opinions though.

 

Movement matters. In a game of moving to objectives to control more (which is the bulk of every mission), movement matters. Literally this whole game is taking objectives, staying alive, and destroying opponents models. We got worse at the first two and at best a side grade for the lethality.

 

What would your answer be to fix DG ?

 

It seems most people want their faction to be pretty much the best thing that can be possible, would an army wide 5+++ solve the issue?

[jaxom]

58 minutes ago, tzeentch9 said:

The infantry is a whole inch slower. Big whoop. The speed of spawn, blight haulers, the flying things, winged daemon princes are unknown, but can be expected to be pretty nippy as usual. 

 

31 minutes ago, Mogger351 said:

I enjoy that someone disagrees with this, does that mean there's an expectation the speed of the faster units is expected to go down suddenly?

 

I think it's about relative speed? Like, DG fast units are still faster than DG infantry, but slower than other army fast attack options. I'm reserving judgement for the moment because of how little we know. For example, Plague Marines are the core of the DG and we don't know what sort of boost they get. And I'm confident they will as we've seen each 'Troop' unit get something that either interacts with objectives (Hearthkyn, Chaos Legionaries) or with objective & Faction Rule (Aeldari Guaridans). There's a lot of ways it could go. For example a stacking effect so Plague Marines + Infected objective give either -2T or an extended aura range, or MW, or who knows what.

 

My main concern is the equity of anti-tank options. DG definitely have some, but they tend to be on Blight Crawlers and PBCs, and it's harder to get the numbers of infantry-borne Str 8 and 9 weapons to deal with T10+ units.

[Special Officer Doofy]

13 minutes ago, danodan123 said:

 

What would your answer be to fix DG ?

 

It seems most people want their faction to be pretty much the best thing that can be possible, would an army wide 5+++ solve the issue?

 

It's not that I want them to be the best. I posted earlier, 33% win rate in 8th and less than 50% in 9th. 5+++ isn't broken when it was offset by terrible movement, mediocre damage output and competitively point costed. They are just slowly stripping away the identity which directly translates to staying power. That's what us DG players are mad about.

 

If I had control, the faction bonus would have been DR. That way it was on every unit. They could do away with -1T aura and undo all the units and wargear that got their strength nerfed in 9th when it came out. They always found a way to keep DG down. Marines chapter trait applied to all their vehicles. DG legion trait only applied to bubonic astartes units, a keyword conviently left off all of their daemon engines (who would have loved the +1 to hit with guns in melee).

 

18 minutes ago, jaxom said:

My main concern is the equity of anti-tank options. DG definitely have some, but they tend to be on Blight Crawlers and PBCs, and it's harder to get the numbers of infantry-borne Str 8 and 9 weapons to deal with T10+ units

 

This. Infantry strength seems to cap around 8, which is where the Deathshroud and mower drone will end up (our only decent multi damage melee). Meltas cap at S9, making MBH's not great for anti tank. Hopefully PBC's entropy cannons go to S12?

[Squark]

Are we certain Plague marines got slower? Or is this just the terminators returning to their original speed?

[Special Officer Doofy]

2 minutes ago, Squark said:

Are we certain Plague marines got slower? Or is this just the terminators returning to their original speed?

 

Plague marines will mirror the power armor plaguecaster, so most likely staying at 5". Terminators went back to 4" (they were 4" in 8th) and pox walkers have always been 4".

[Progenitor]

7 minutes ago, Squark said:

Are we certain Plague marines got slower? Or is this just the terminators returning to their original speed?

In truth, nobody knows until the new Datasheet is shown off. 

[burningsky25]

Honestly, I think GW couldn't figure out a good way to represent disgustingly resilient, gave up, and highlighted a different element of death guard instead.  They do already have extra toughness built in of course too so not as if it's gone entirely.  

 

The problem with previous solutions is fairly obvious; -1damage skews terribly against certain weapon types and more importantly certain armies, and 5+++, as much as people like it, is actually terrible for rolling damage against multi-wound models.  It's no surprise for me if this isn't a balance consideration but a gameplay one. 

 

I know it was always hilarious seeing how many FNP's my regular opponent could make successfully; more than he ever should have.  That was a huge part of their identity, so sad to see it go, but interested to see how the pestilence feels on the tabletop instead.

[WrathOfTheLion]

It's definitely a gameplay one. All you have to do is try to work out a sequence of attacks on a multi-wound unit and you can see why.

 

Three damage weapon on some Blightlords. Rolled a five and a six, he's at two. Next attack, failed them all, but it just kills him. Next attack...

 

You have to go attack, by attack, by attack. That's why it's gone. As much as I would like it, while damage doesn't spill like in Sigmar, it's not coming back.

 

It's also why they don't mind putting it on Knights. It's one model, so you can still batch roll it all.

[jaxom]

16 minutes ago, burningsky25 said:

and 5+++, as much as people like it, is actually terrible for rolling damage against multi-wound models.  It's no surprise for me if this isn't a balance consideration but a gameplay one

I think Imperial Knights only got it because of their low model count.

[danodan123]

4 minutes ago, jaxom said:

I think Imperial Knights only got it because of their low model count.

 

Do big stompy robots feel pain anyway?

[Dont-Be-Haten]

T6 is cool. Even if they are the slowest infantry unit in the game. Good luck doing anything after the initial deep strike.

[tzeentch9]

1 hour ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

 

Again, doesn't make my statement any less true. Slowest army in the game just got slower. Again our fast units are slower than every other faction's fast units. That was supposed to be offset by staying power (disgustingly resilient ring a bell?)

 

And just to keep proving you wrong (since you clearly know nothing about death guard), the flying death guard daemon prince has 2" less movement than the world eater, thousand sons and chaos Space Marine one (has for multiple editions too). Mortarion has 4" less movement than Angron and Magnus. The only other flying unit is the bloat drone, which again is only 10" movement. You can keep trying to argue objective facts with your subjective opinions though.

 

Movement matters. In a game of moving to objectives to control more (which is the bulk of every mission), movement matters. Literally this whole game is moving to objectives, staying alive, and destroying opponents models. We got worse at the first two and at best will get a side grade for lethality.

The objective fact is you actually only know two movement stats, so you don’t actually know if the majority of the army is slower, if there are any ways to boost their movement/ mobility etc. Daemon Prince et al being slower than some equivalents in other armies doesn’t make them slow units. You want to take a shambling slow hoard of pox walkers and plague marines, that’s up to you, but you can make a pretty nippy death guard army now and I see no reason from the faction focus why that should not still be a thing

[jaxom]

40 minutes ago, danodan123 said:

 

Do big stompy robots feel pain anyway?

Personally, I wished they had used the opportunity of a new edition of special rules to name the rule Damage Mitigation *shrug*

[tzeentch9]

12 minutes ago, jaxom said:

Personally, I wished they had used the opportunity of a new edition of special rules to name the rule Damage Mitigation *shrug*

Thing is, people would still call it feel no pain anyway. It’s sort of stuck now

[KingYertle]

4 hours ago, danodan123 said:

 

What would your answer be to fix DG ?

 

It seems most people want their faction to be pretty much the best thing that can be possible, would an army wide 5+++ solve the issue?

 

In my personal opinion, providing Death Guard with +1T/-1M and +1W over a standard Chaos Legionary would have been a simple solution that represents the Death Guard's Disgustingly Resilient Lore without adding any game mechanic that either requires slow rolling or is complicated to point cost.   Plague Marines at T5 and 3W would obviously need to be point costed appropriately, but GW already has a starting point for that point cost analysis with Gravis Marines.  

[Dr. Clock]

3 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

5+++ isn't broken

It's not that it's broken, it's that it's a massive time suck.

 

Similar with DR: it can be somewhat pointed correctly, but -1 damage has worse effects in terms of external balance because it specifically targets units that have paid a premium or made some tradeoff to access Dmg2 in the first place. This was brought up this week on Warhammer Weekly as a 'most overused rule' in AoS, but the issue is very clear here too. Basically all it does is make damage 2 units impossible to point correctly because that choice might be useless for an entire game. If Deathguard make up a reasonable percentage of your opponents, and for me it's like a full third of the games I play, I just... never take anything that's flat 2 damage because the 1Dmg alternative is more efficient.

 

I understand that this feels like a nerf, but I hope you can at least acknowledge that there aren't really too many mechanics other than T, W and Sv in the basic rules to use to make a whole army 'better at taking hits' without creating strange external balance or time suck issues.

 

There's a world where T6, or 3W, or 2+ save base plague marines makes sense, but it's a world where they are essentially Chaos Custodes more than 'cult marines', and I disagree with the idea that plague marines should be that much more elite than 'mainstream marines' across the board. Still, a 'Plague Chosen' non-battleline unit could make sense with 3W like other Chosen... and it's at least possible that that'll be on the menu when your codex rolls around. 

 

As to the anti-vehicle and movement issue: it's almost as if the fluff... makes no sense. A slow-moving, short-ranged heavy infantry force just doesn't make too much sense as an effective strategy in a game you have to share with jetbikes, lasers, massed artillery, and infantry transports. If you don't want to take more transports or long-range guns because it doesn't conform to your headcanon, then that's possibly a self-imposed handicap, not a problem with the rules as such. I like my Berzerkers mostly on foot for fluff reasons, but I won't pretend that Rhino Rush is likely to be alot more effective in-game, and nor will I blame the game for giving me options to 'fight uphill' if I think it's cool.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

 

 

[Verbal Underbelly]

I'm not bothered about the lack of damage mitigation. The almost universal lethal hits seems to give them enough flavour that they're diseased / use chemical munitions. 

 

As for speed I think it's an edition where rhinos and land raiders are going to be more important. Especially now you can hop out after and empty your clips into your enemy's face. 

[Plaguecaster]

Why is army wide feel no pain an issue,

Oh it slows the game down is such a stupid reasons considering everything else that slows down a game yet no one cares about those 

AOS has feel no pain on entire armies and never is an issue there, I know playing nighthaunt who have it on everything 

And if they removed it for death guard that reason why the hell is it back for others 

You can give every world eaters unit in your army feel no pain due to blessing of khorne so basically every turn if you wanted as long as you rolled a double from the 8 dice rolls. No actual resilence rules for DG is just damn stupid. I like people's idea of going full on transports for armored assault but annoying death guards main theme of bring Infantry only shambling up the battlefield shrugging off most damage is now obsolete 

 

[Special Officer Doofy]

8 hours ago, tzeentch9 said:

The objective fact is you actually only know two movement stats, so you don’t actually know if the majority of the army is slower, if there are any ways to boost their movement/ mobility etc. Daemon Prince et al being slower than some equivalents in other armies doesn’t make them slow units. You want to take a shambling slow hoard of pox walkers and plague marines, that’s up to you, but you can make a pretty nippy death guard army now and I see no reason from the faction focus why that should not still be a thing

 

So you think Blightlords terminators are just going to have 1" less movement then deathshroud, Lord of contagion and lord of virulence? Even though they have all been the same every edition? And same with the plaguecaster remaining at 5", you don't think that would make all the other power armor characters and plague marines 5", which have all been the same every edition?

 

So no, I know about half the codexes movements based on those two datasheets alone, which are objectively slower than every other faction. And yes, having the same units as another codex and having it have 2" less movement does make it slower. 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Special Officer Doofy

[Special Officer Doofy]

Just now, Plaguecaster said:

Why is army wide feel no pain an issue,

Oh it slows the game down is such a stupid reasons considering everything else that slows down a game yet no one cares about those 

AOS has feel no pain on entire armies and never is an issue there, I know playing nighthaunt who have it on everything 

And if they removed it for death guard that reason why the hell is it back for others 

You can give every world eaters unit in your army feel no pain due to blessing of khorne so basically every turn if you wanted as long as you rolled a double from the 8 dice rolls. No actual resilence rules for DG is just damn stupid. I like people's idea of going full on transports for armored assault but annoying death guards main theme of bring Infantry only shambling up the battlefield shrugging off most damage is now obsolete 

 

 

The game time thing is just complete bull:cuss:. There are other subfactions that still get it army wide, so why didn't they lose it in 9th when we did? Why does anyone get it army wide in 10th like world Eaters and knights? So stupid.

[Marshal Loss]

Late arrival in this thread so I won't waffle on, but this was the first 10th edition preview that bummed me more than it amped me. It's not 3rd edition anymore and an extra point of toughness on your marines means very little - it certainly doesn't feel like an adequate representation of the Death Guard's infamous resilience to me. Will wait until the full rules to pass judgement of course but the first impression isn't a good one.

[Dr. Clock]

3 hours ago, Marshal Loss said:

this was the first 10th edition preview that bummed me more than it amped me.

Fair - I know it feels bad, but hopefully you'll give it a shot and enjoy it well enough.

 

4 hours ago, Special Officer Doofy said:

Why does anyone get it army wide in 10th like world Eaters

Fair. I don't think 6+ FnP should be in the game either: time suck for marginal benefit. I'd take T5 WE as the best roll on the mayhem chart instead in a heartbeat.

[Rain]

30 minutes ago, Dr. Clock said:

Fair. I don't think 6+ FnP should be in the game either: time suck for marginal benefit. I'd take T5 WE as the best roll on the mayhem chart instead in a heartbeat.

I prefer FnP. It’s fun getting a last ditch save because your dudes are too angry to die. Also, really angry marines like Death Company and Khorne champions were the first to get FnP back in third edition.

 

All of that said, while I am really happy WE are getting a guaranteed FnP if we want it, Death Guard should get a 5+ if we get a 6+. Maybe even 4+ on Terminators and HQ’s. There’s being too angry to die, and then there’s being too dead to die, like Morty’s boys.