Know No Fear DG expansion?

[ggergnayr]

Howdy there, I’ve got a friend getting rid of the 8ed starter Know No Fear Box. 
How is this as a baseline for a small army? What else would I need to get to make something feasible? I know we can’t talk points but any advice on how to round out this group would be most appreciated. 
It has the following:

 

- 1 Death Guard Lord of Contagion

- 5 Death Guard Plague Marines

- 1 Death Guard Foetid Bloat-drone

- 10 Death Guard Poxwalkers

 

 

[N1SB]

Death Guard's MVP unit I've seen in my meta are the Deathshroud Terminator, so that box set is a great start.

 

The Lord of Contagion can naturally lead some Deathshrouds.

 

Plague Marines and Poxwalkers are both good and you'll want more, see if you can get them cheap because a lot of ppl are like your friend, they might've bought the starter sets for the Loyalist Primaris side, a lot of ppl got some Plague Marines that they never really planned to use, but just never remembered to offer to trade/sell.

 

I honestly can't remember when the last time I saw a Bloat-Drone.  Probably not considered competitive this edition.  Might put them away until next edition.

[DemonGSides]

The bloat drone with the heavy launcher is probably our strongest unit right now on a cost basis.  That being said, I think the one in the KNF set is just a easy to build one and might just be a double plaguespitter one. Which is still a good unit but not as good.

 

A fine start to the collection. Pick up the combat patrol and you'll be in a great spot. 

[DemonGSides]

A thing to remember is that with our new codex, we got a SERIOUS glow-up, so discount any posts talking about older than 3 months.  Our codex was a huge shot in the arm in both datasheet strength, and detatchment/army rule strength, so a lot of the earlier concerns for DG have gone the way of the dodo; we used to have insanely expensive primarch for what he did.  They've changed that; he's expensive, sure, but he's also an absolute beast.  Anything under T9/10 can get Swept clean, and the strike is super strong into anything T10+.  His abilities are straight up great; anything that can give a reactive move is worth checking out.

 

There's a couple of themes in the army currently; Infantry, Demon Engines/Hulls, and then Daemons.  Our infantry theme around strong Terminators (Deathshroud are probably the strongest Terminators in the game, only beat out in tankiness by Deathwing Knights (Though it's debatable)), we've got great chaffe in the form of Poxwalkers who can be modified with leaders or even a detatchment that makes them battleline and lets you spawn new ones each battle round, and even our plain old Plague marines have a lot of agency and decision making; there's some optimal loadouts, but bringing a full melee squad is legitimately fun and pairing them with our solid suite of leaders is a fun puzzle in it's own right.

 

Our vehicles are superb, if a bit overcosted (Specifically the PBC, which is a great little tank just slightly too expensive), and all of them have great niche's to fill.  Myphitic Blight Haulers rampaging around solo or in duo's is slightly worse than the trio's they used to get, but there was no need for 9 of these guys anyways so it's not much of a loss to max out at 6, but they are AWESOME at fighting up close and personal with tanks with their melta's and their re-rolls.  Blight Drones have two datasheets, and the Plaguespitter/Lawn mower combo is a solid point assaulter with a good ability (Fall back and Charge is great, especially on the fleshmower), but the Heavy Blight Launcher is just an insanely good statline and is perhaps 50 points under cost currently.  I wouldn't fly out to buy 3, but I don't think you'd be remiss to grab another one for just this loadout alone.  Lord knows that's what I'm doing with mine from the Battleforce that came out on our codex release... one of these days :P  I have 3 already with plaguespitters so I'm just proxying until I get there in the Pile of Potential.

 

Our final theme of Daemons is one I'm less knowledgeable about, but they have been doing great locally.  Great Unclean Ones are gnarly, and even just our regular demon princes are good.

DG is in a great place, with most of the book being viable (Some leaders kinda meh, and Blightlords probably still aren't that worthwhile, though they did get a glow-up compared to their "I just sold 10 of them at a loss because they're that bad" that the beginning of 10th was), and almost all of our detatchments bringing SOMETHING to the table that makes their playstyle both fun and viable.
 

So there's no real bad answer except; Don't buy the DG apothecary guy.  He truly, truly sucks.

Edited Friday at 06:12 PM by DemonGSides

[N1SB]

My meta might indeed be slow in reacting to the new Codex, and may be overlooking the vehicles, because I know my guys like Infantry and Walkers.

 

I'm also seeing A LOT of the Great Unclean Ones.  I either see them or, if I see some Age of Sigmar model with a Death Guard army, that's the PROXY for a Great Unclean One.  Like it's so hilariously common that, if I see a model on that massive base and I don't know what it is, I assume it's a Great Unclean One.  That's another good point.

[DemonGSides]

Oh yeah the GUO is a monster.  I don't own one and am not in love with the GUO model itself (It's really well done, but it's also REALLY gross lol) but the Glottkin is probably the big AoS model you see being represented as a GUO usually, or a 3rd party versions, of which there are PLENTY.

Heavy Blight Launcher is a 36" D6+2 shots, 3+ WS, S10, AP-2, and 3 DAMAGE.  It also has Blast and Lethals.  And with the amount of toughness and save reductions out there with DG, it's pretty easy to get this thing shredding units.  It's so good; wasted into chaffe units but it obliterates all power armor and a good deal of terminator, and is minimum 4 shots into a 5 man squad.  It can also do damage against tanks if they get afflicted, and ap-2 and 3 damage is not anything to sneeze at.

 

And it's only 100 points!  That's completely ignoring it's movement, wounds, or that it has a 5+ invuln.  Just a sweet little package.  They weren't ANYWHERE near this good previously, so it's understandable if people are slow to pivot.  But this variant of the bloat drone is just straight up great.  The ability is even thematic and fun and helps get that afflicted status up across more of the enemy.  Just a really cool unit all around.