Death Gaurd Tactica

[Sanctjud]

Plague Spear.

That was the old name for a LR + rhino 'breakthrough' sort of list.
I'm meh on the LR.
Highly hit or miss and an eggs in basket issue.
________

I agree with FraustyTheSnowman: not liking plasma pistols on PM champs, as a risk averse player.

________

As to the tactica...well...what else do you propose.
IMO the chaos codex (in a competitive view) is pretty limiting.
The icon system is poor, and don't represent old fluff Deathguard.

Seriously though...there's not much to Plague marines that needs to be discussed.

7 man squad, get a rhino. get a pair of special weapons, get a fist, press go.
7 is fluffy, rhino is uber, pair of weapons is 4 times better, fist for combat which they will be in.
There's not much else.

/shrug. For better or worse.

[the-skylord]

I normally run 2 LRs at 1500/1750. They do all right, best used to get up close with the enemy.

[SteelTitan]

@ Sanctjuh Tactical Analysis of DG armies: Wow, this makes me realize that i have two of the least tactical armies in 40k.

Death Guard is all about the list and then press play
Tyranids is all about setting up as close to your opponent and then pressing play

[Latro_]

well its not about just hit 'go'. Its about picking fights you know you are gonna win and careful deployment. But yea you dont have much choice other than to grit ya teeth and charge those rhinos headlong into the enemy.

[Giganthrax]

How does death guard deal with mixed tyranid armies? Say, a nid army composed of a bunch of gaunts, hormagaunts, and 5-6 big bugs, one of them a tyrant with bodyguard, another a flying tyrant?

I pretty much steamroll these with my loyalist lists, but I must admit they seem pretty tuff from death guard perspective.

[FraustyTheSnowman]

You basically described our local nid player's army. I honestly couldn't say who wins more often, him or me. Probably him, as it seems whenever we play a game it ends up being the last of the night, and I end up folding due to time restraints.

Best bet is lots of melta and flamers...so the bigger squads (7-10) just don't cut it in my opinion. You want to get as many specials on the board as you can. Five man squads with a combiflamer champ is a staple of most of my lists, which work well against this type of list. Couple that with my havoc squads and there's quite a few melta/flamers.

Nid ranged attacks don't seem very impressive, either suffering from horrible balistic skill, or low strength. Matched up against plague marines in rhinos, I would say we have the advantage here.

Close combat is a little less in our favor. They have weight of numbers, or monstrous creature attacks...which will either swamp our lower numbers or tear through most of our defences.

Luckily flamer template saturation can handle the swarms, and most of the monstrous creatures are slow enough we can out manuver them. So I would say it comes largely down to generalship. Manuver your flamers into position to take out the troop choices, and get your meltas into position to soften up the flyrant for a DP charge. Afterward you're left with a number of carnifexes that you need to avoid...

Obviously this sounds much easier to pull of than it is. demonstrated largely by the number of losses I have against our nid player. Luckily my latest list capitolizes on the advantages mentioned above, and I've only had one opportunity to butt it up against the nid player...which of course, we ran out of time... Nids and orcs I'm pretty sure my list can handel, once I get accustom to fighting them...my biggest concern however is guard and tau...I really don't have an answer to anything with long ranged firepower.

Maybe SteelTitan will have more advice, being that he plays nids I believe...an insider's perspective so to speak.

[SteelTitan]

I think Frausty's advice is golden. You can't go wrong there!

Remember that Tyranids come in waves. Don't get confused or panick because of the sheer amount of models that come running towards you. One important thing when fighting Tyranids: rationalise! Don't panic, don't waste firepower on things that don't pose a threat. Stay rationale! One of the major weapons of Nids is psychology...don't fall for it. Try to see the waves amongst the seemingly endless horde.

Wave #1: Gaunts and hormagaunts.
Against T5, 3+ Sv, and FNP they won't do much. Blight Grenades shave off SO many attacks against these broods and the # of attacks is what makes gaunts kill things. Normal gaunts will probably just bounce of your plague marines, hormagaunts might hurt a bit more with a potential WS4 S4, but I wouldn't worry too much. Remember, gaunts take wounds for losing combat and with a 6+ save one good round of fighting and the brood is gone.

Remember that rhinos might be invaluable (look out for MCs and genestealers!) as the gaunts can't touch them while you lay 2 flame templates a turn on them. And when the big bugs approach, you can just move out of assault! (Make sure you know whether the hormagaunts are upgraded to have S4 because then they can still glance you!)


Wave #2: Warriors and genestealers.
Genestealers HURT. They have power weapons so negate your main defense. Make sure you kill these asap! Massed bolterfire from one squad and 2 flamers will probably wipe out a brood a turn (average broodsize is 6-8). Don't underestimate genestealers!
Warriors, while looking scary, are not real high on the damage output (unless having scything talons and rending claws in combination with leaping or wings). I wouldn't focus too much on these unless having not much else to shoot at.


Wave #3: The big bugs.
What Frausty said, melta spam please. Consider the damage output of the bugs and prioritise with that. Remember, tyrants and fexes have a base save of 3+ usually upgraded to 2+ and only the tyrant CAN have a invulnerable of 6+...so melta will hit them hard! Obliterators might be invaluable here with their multi-meltas (24") and TL meltas (although you will probably be too close for your health).

Remember, shooty fexes are pathetic in CC with two base attacks. S9 (upgradeable to 10) and T6 (upgradeable to 7) might be a burden, but a DP will be able to handle a fex in CC I would say. Play with dual prince, one with rot for gaunst and one with warptime for the MCs (or 2x warptime if there are a lot of big bugs around). 5 attacks without armour save and reroll hits and wounds will probably kill a fex in two rounds.


Off course there are things like raveners, lictors, and other units who appear in one wave or another, but you didn't mention them nor should they pose a big problem.


When fighting nids it is extremely important to always keep the mission in the back of your head. Nid scoring troops die easily, so wipe them out and you win. Don't forget that gaunts can come back from opponent's own table edge with without number to claim own table quarter objectives!
In annihilation, kill the tyrants and fexes (and stealers)...and you win...gaunts will not kill your army by themselves.

Sorry for the somewhat unstructured post but i dont have much time.
Hope this helps


Also check out this topic for some common Tyranid builds.
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171007

[Raym7]

If it is okay for you guys I'll start to collect the most useful tactics from this thread here and will start to write the PDF within the next days.

Results will be uploaded within one to two weeks I hope.

[FraustyTheSnowman]

Stealers don't have power weapons, they have rending right? Right? RIGHT??!! *nervously dashes arround looking for nid codex that has been misplaced for over a year now*

I would absolutely doube up princes on the big bugs. I haven't mathammered it out (see above problem about missing dex) but I know in one game against them two princes charged a tyrant and they killed him in one turn with minimal damage in return (might have had warptime, but if I did...I probably forgot to use it). Where as one DP charged a tyrant and was torn apart immediately.

On the subject of genestealers...there is nothing in this game that I hate more. Though, I haven't even seen the new space wolves codex, so I guess that might be subject to change. Our local bug loves the damndable things, and uses max squads (16? 12? too many either way). I don't recall all their stats, but if memory serves flamers and heavy flamers will utterly eradicate them (multi template shots anyways).

This is one reason all my champs and rhinos have combi flamers. I have two units with two constant tempates and a single one shot template, so each unit can hit with one hell of a right cross, and continue to land solid punches the rest of the game. If my first "cross" doesn't wipe something off the board (huge gaunt/boy squads, smaller squads with an excess of luck) I have a rhino near by with yet one more template to "soak up the gravey" so to speak. Only real problem is to get all three templates from the squad they have to exit their rhino....which is something I avoid like the plague. Never fails, no matter how safe I think my position, as soon as I get out my guys catch shells from something I missed.

[Hicks]

They have rending only and they can whiff horribly. Mine regularly can't kill termies or even necron warriors.

[the-skylord]

Originally Posted by Raym7

If it is okay for you guys I'll start to collect the most useful tactics from this thread here and will start to write the PDF within the next days.

Results will be uploaded within one to two weeks I hope.

Go for it. If you need help i can try, uni is pretty usy but i can try and help.

[Hicks]

I can help too as much as I can, but being fairly new to them, I don't have a huge experiance playing as DG, nor do I have that much finished minis for photos.

[SteelTitan]

God, omg, cant believe i said that...of course they dont have PW... stupid sorry...rending it is indeed. Guess i am still too shocked by how banshees mowed through my squad the other day with their PW.