Death Guard Tactica

[Killswitch<>]

This ones been lost for a while, and I've recently wanted to know everything on how this army works in conjunction with the new codex, So id thought Id make a new one for you all.

Give all ideas for how plaugemarines work in conjuction with a normal chaos led army, or just a pure deathgaurd army.

How do you all utalise your options.

Whats the best options to take that are available for us.

Are rhinos a must?

Lets get this going.

What Ive always wanted to know is how well your plauge termies perform. Are they worth the points cost? If so what do you equip them with and how would you deploy them. Normaly with the rest of your army and footslog, or in a land raider (major points sink imo). Or even rely on your deep striking abilities?

-Killswitch

[Neo799]

I play a pure Death Guard army and my experience so far is that they are very tough to beat in the new codex. My tips based on how I play are as follows:

- Use a Daemon Prince with MoN, Wings and Warp Time as your only HQ.
- Plague Marines are the best troop choice in the game so use at least 4 squads of 8 or 10 in all lists.
- Use 2 of the same special weapon in each PM squad and arm at least half the champs with powerfists.
- Use rhinos with no extra armour for 2 squads or more.
- Terminators suck.
- Heavy support is up to you, but generally don't make their points back.

I don't use Icons or anything other than pure Plague Marines, a DP and vehicles in my lists so I cannot comment on other variations of a nurgle list.

I've only lost twice since the new codex came out: once to a guy with an illegal list that I wasn't aware of and once to space marines by a slim margin (I wouldn't have lost if I used rhinos). Plague Marines are so good that once they reach the enemy lines I know they aren't going to let me down - so use rhinos!

[Bloodknight]

Which points level is that? I have trouble fitting more than 3 units of 6 into 1700 points.

I haven't won yet with the new book but then I only played against Tau and Deathwing with my good old DG. What I learned is that the old way of playing DG does not work anymore. They are far too slow, suffer from too few scoring units and generally don't do enough damage due to their small numbers. I caught a massacre against Tau (just try to get them with PM...) and an even worse Massacre against Deathwing (not enough firepower on my side and lots of power fists on the other side...).

[StefDa]

Which points level is that? I have trouble fitting more than 3 units of 6 into 1700 points.

Why would you play 1700 pts??? Waay easier to just play 1500 or 2000. Nice, round, calculable numbers. 1500 pts lets you have a quick game, and 2000 is a largish game allowing all sorts of things.

[UberBeast]

Yeah, well I'm not so sure about "Best troops in the game" their high price doesn't really work out when you consider their I dropping to 3. That being said, no PM army worth it's salt should leave home without at least some kind of ranged anti-tank support, preferably a predator either variant. The only thing that will slaughter your PMs is the enemy's heavy support, so you need something that can keep the pie plates off your back for a turn or two, even if it's just by absorbing damage and attention.

[Neo799]

That is at the 1500 pts level. If you have trouble fitting 18 Plague Marines into 1700 pts you must be using some other pricey stuff. My 1500 list has 34 PMs in it, plus a DP, rhinos and predators.

They are definitely too slow without transports, but so were they under the old dex.

Deathwing should die like dogs to a good Death Guard army. Deathwing should have too few models to outnumber/outmanoeuver an entrenched Plague Marine army. You shouldn't lose very many marines from shooting. Your squads should have enough melta and plasma guns to take out the 5-man terminator squads and the DP should be able to wipe out most of a squad on the charge with Warp Time. When I played against Deathwing my DP charged a squad with Belial in it by himself and held his own for 2 rounds until he killed them all and he still had 2 wounds left.

Death Guard are competitive under the new dex, they just take slight tweaking from the previous list. They are definitely not Tyranid or Eldar competitive because they do have obvious weaknesses such as long-range firepower depending on what you use in your list, but they are good.

[ReveredChaplainDrake]

Some key things I've noticed:

-All Powerfist Champs. With I3 Champs, there is no point in taking Power Weapons anymore, so you might as well go all out. If you don't want / can't afford a Powerfist Champ, don't take a Champ at all, as with Fearless Ld10 units, there's really no point in the leadership boost, and there are better places to put Icons.
-Plasma Weapons are good! With FNP working even on botched overheat saves, Plasma is Nurgle's best friend. (Not that Meltaguns aren't nice, too...)
-Plague Marines still have the True Grit they had last time, but now they can use it in combination with getting charge attacks. An offensive player using Plague Marines will use them to charge into cover (frag grenades covering the I3 problem) and take out anybody in there. It's no-longer mandatory to hold Plague Marines back, though doing so has incredible perks if they happen to be in Terrain when assaulted.
-Nurgle armies are small, and thus you need to maximize the amount of damage your units do. As such, I find Bikes and Terminators wasteful in a Nurgle list. Conversely, anybody who can get Nurgle's Rot is in a good place. (See below.)
-Nurgle has the most destructive anti-infantry Prince of all if given Wings and Nurgle's Rot. No longer will your Prince be tied up for long with unsightly clouds of Spinegaunts or Conscripts. And Nurgle's Prince is also the only one with T6.
-Nurgle is, predictably enough, the best countermeasure to the AP3 bolters of Tzeentch's Rubric Marines. With T5 and a 4+ FNP, you are effectively taking 2/3 less wounds than normal Marines would anyway. And if you're being a smart little Marine and hugging cover like you should be, you'll take a third less wounds again, resulting in about 2/9 the casualties to Rubric Bolters that normal marines out of cover get.
-Like most cult armies, Nurgle has problems with ranged tankbusting. Defenitely recruit some Obliterators in squads of 1, so that you can reliably get good amounts of Obliterators in when you roll for reserves. (Plus, a 75 pt deep-striking scoring unit isn't too shabby.) Pack some Icons so that you can pretty much slap them down wherever you want when they deepstrike in with their TLed Meltaguns.
-Nurgle Chosen will be your Elite of choice. They're the cheapest elite you have and they can Infiltrate forward with Icons and a number of Special Weapons that make Kasrkin green with envy. (Plasma Guns are great here because they have a bolter's range, but if you'd actually be in rapid fire range anyway, you can cut down on your overheat casualties by using your Bolt Pistols instead. Isn't Mixed Arms just the greatest?) Their loss of Heavy Bolters isn't too much of a deterrent when you consider how anti-infantry Nurgle has become, even moreso than before.
-Nurgle should ideally keep out of Rhinos. Chosen are far more impactful, and Nurgle armies can't well-afford the wasted points. Furthermore, if you play in a random-mission-level environment like I do (roll for mission level: 1-2 is Alpha, 3-4 is Gamma, 5-6 is Omega) then you only get both Infiltration and Rhinos out at the start 1/3 of the time. I'm more of the opinion to play it safe.
-Nurgle should be using a Greater Daemon more often than other legions, as GDs are criminally-inexpensive, they carve through armor like a junior Carnifex, and they work well in unison with Chosen Champions.

[Neo799]

Yeah, well I'm not so sure about "Best troops in the game" their high price doesn't really work out when you consider their I dropping to 3.

Yeah, well have you played with them much in games? I3 means nothing when you get 3 attacks on the charge, you strike at the same time in cover with frag grenades, enemies get no charge bonus, and nothing short of powerweapons are going to hurt you in combat. Not to mention the powerfist on your champ strikes last anyway.

I really worried about the high price when I first got the new codex, but they are incredible troops.

I have played SM, tyranids, chaos, tau, imperial guard, etc and have yet to be disappointed in them.

[shadowsun68]

Hey guys so glad papa nurgle getting a new and fresh tactica yey, anyway so i am planning on makeing a deathguard/nurgle army mabie the purge im not sure yet. so i would like to know what advice can you guys give me for building a 750pts army to start it must have deathguard of course.
thanks
chris

[Bloodknight]

1650 to 1850 is a quite common tournament points range, that's why I try to fit stuff into a 1700 list.

Deathwing should die like dogs to a good Death Guard army. Deathwing should have too few models to outnumber/outmanoeuver an entrenched Plague Marine army. You shouldn't lose very many marines from shooting. Your squads should have enough melta and plasma guns to take out the 5-man terminator squads and the DP should be able to wipe out most of a squad on the charge with Warp Time.

Well, I got my ass handed to me in CC. Obviously 8 plasma guns were not enough for over 20 terminators in 1500 points.

I am not so sure about that DP. I think you should reread the rules for warp time: you have to reroll all dice, not only misses/no wounds respectively. Add to that the fact that he only has 5 attacks on the charge and he doesn't look that good against terminators. In fact I expect him to kill about 2-3 Termies (3 to 4 hits, 3 to 4 wounds, 1-2 saves) and then get flattened by the other guys. Also, he is the one unit that doesn't like shooting at all with his "mediocre" save, no FNP and the fact that he is a unit, not a character.

[Puziel]

1650 to 1850 is a quite common tournament points range, that's why I try to fit stuff into a 1700 list.



Well, I got my ass handed to me in CC. Obviously 8 plasma guns were not enough for over 20 terminators in 1500 points.

I am not so sure about that DP. I think you should reread the rules for warp time: you have to reroll all dice, not only misses/no wounds respectively. Add to that the fact that he only has 5 attacks on the charge and he doesn't look that good against terminators. In fact I expect him to kill about 2-3 Termies (3 to 4 hits, 3 to 4 wounds, 1-2 saves) and then get flattened by the other guys. Also, he is the one unit that doesn't like shooting at all with his "mediocre" save, no FNP and the fact that he is a unit, not a character.

Usually you only have 5 man termie squads. Just hit the squad from an angle where you can only hit/get hit by 2 or 3. They die first, consolidate, repeat.

One other thing i've been having good luck with is rapid firing 2 plasma guns into units instead of charging. Usually 3/4 marines die in the shooting. If they exposed meltas, or veteran with a Power Weapon/Fist on the flank of a unit, you can use the range to kill them. The return bolt pistol fire is useless, and blight grenades take care of the rest. If you can get into cover and do this, even better.

[Neo799]

I think you should reread the rules for warp time: you have to reroll all dice, not only misses/no wounds respectively.

That is not correct. Why would you pay 25 pts for a power that made you reroll even successful hits/wounds? The 'all' in the sentence refers to both shooting and combat attacks. GW is just too lazy to spell it all out. No one that I have played and showed the rule to interprets it the way you are suggesting.

However, you can play it that way if you like and then I would suggest Wind of Chaos or Nurgle's Rot be your psychic power instead.

[Bloodknight]

I just say what the rules text says. All other stuff that allows rerolls allows to reroll "any misses" "all misses" or "any dice". The way Warp Time is described it says "all dice" and therefore leaves no choice.

That it feels wrong, I agree. But it's RAW. But then it would not be the first time GW included a useless item in a book while grossly underpricing good stuff.

[Bloodknight]

I play in tournaments, that's the crux. (And personally I would allow rerolling misses...but you can't count on that with other people). But yes, let's talk about something important...
what do you think about Nurgle bikers? I always loved the image and think about including a unit of 6 led by a biker lord to make up for the inherent slowness of the army.

[Neo799]

I think Nurgle bikers would actually work really well. The one thing to be aware of is that you have enough other threatening units to keep heavy fire off them. But for sure, turbo boost turn 1, then you are probably in combat next turn and T6 will be hard to get rid of especially with the Lord in the unit.

Anyone tried Nurgle raptors?

[Bloodknight]

Not yet. The icon seems to be very expensive on them and I haven't got enough games with the new list under my belt. T5 jump troops are a grave threat for most enemies, I believe.

[Dooks Dizzo]

I have been stomping people out with Nurlge Terminators for a long time, but you have to theme an army around them.

[SteelTitan]

@dizzo: can you plz explain urself further. Im planning on using termi's in my DG army. How did u "build an army around them"?

[bosstroll]

I play in tournaments, that's the crux. (And personally I would allow rerolling misses...but you can't count on that with other people). But yes, let's talk about something important...
what do you think about Nurgle bikers? I always loved the image and think about including a unit of 6 led by a biker lord to make up for the inherent slowness of the army.

The rule says: "..the psyker may reroll..."

The may in that sentence means you dont have to reroll, you can choose to reroll. Therefore you can choose to reroll only those rolls you dont like, say misses/non-wounds only.

[Bloodknight]

Let's take that to the rules forum.