Poxwalkers

Look at their shit-eating grins. You know they just popped a whoopee cushion filled with all of the Galaxy's known STD's somewhere in the house.

There's a new kid in town and these shambling plague hosts are represented by the repugnant and varied Poxwalkers, each draped in scraps of clothing from their former lives. Poxwalkers — GW's copyright-friendly update of the classic Plague Zombie — are the new breed of Nurgle's rotting legions and sit somewhere between your basic Nurgle follower/cultist and Plaguebearers in Papa Nurgle's food chain.

Overview

In the fluff, Poxwalkers are in fact Plague Zombies of a specific strain. The Walking Pox, as it's called, is spread by the sound of a Poxwalker's groans and has the especially cruel effect of preserving the victim's consciousness even after their death and transformation. This leaves the Poxwalker fully aware of its surroundings and condition, but incapable of controlling the actions of its decaying, increasingly mutated body. The Ordo Sepulturum think the Walking Pox may be a modified form of Nurgle's Rot, as even after the Poxwalker's death its flesh mutates in the same way as a Plaguebearer's.

Because they are formed from literally the dregs of society, Poxwalkers aren't particularly well-armed as they just grab whatever primitive junk they can find across the streets. This includes Flails/Mauls, Swords, Axes, Hammers, Spears/Halberds and Knives.

Whilst models does show some of them carrying the odd firearm like a Flintlock Pistol, Musket or Blunderbuss, there are no rules for them. Although in Darktide, they do carry guns that they fire. This includes Stub Guns, Sawn-Off Shotguns (Including the Pump-Action variety), Stub Rifles, Crossbows, Autoguns and Autopistols.

Moreover, Darktide also introduces new subvarieties of Poxwalker like Poxbursters, who are suicide bombers, and Pox Hounds, who are infected dogs.

Pox Burster

NURGLE'HU ACKBAR! BOOOOM!

The aforementioned merry suicide bomber from Darktide. The Pox Burster is a type of Poxwalker that has filled himeslf with so much god damn diseases, he turned himself into a walking plague bomb. Granted, he does look a bit better in complexion than the usual Poxwalker, but nevertheless, these guys are a one-trick pony into becoming a Plaguebearer.

They are armed with nothing but a bunch of Melta Bombs that had their contents emptied out and filled with a whole range of diseases, not just the poxwalker plague, so they are essentially walking around with 20 kilos worth of Blight Grenades. They are pretty scary to face against as the only you will hear from them is the ticking timer of their explosive charges. You don't know where they are and you don't how close they are until it is often too late.

Once they spot you, Pox Bursters will charge at a player in your party, but unlike a Mutant they will blow themselves up on impact, doing high AOE damage. Therefore, it is a priority for you to try to take them out from range before they can do this, but if that's not possible then it's best for the group to spread out in order to minimize the damage because once this thing goes off, not only would you be dealt heavy damage, but you will get flung across the room and sometimes, fall to your death.

You can also bash the Pox Burster just before it hits you, and it will be knocked backwards before it explodes, doing no damage to you, but this shit is way too risky and not worth the effort.

Crunch

Crunch wise, Poxwalkers are smelly Grognards with pretty terrible stats and no shooting weapons, are slower than even Plague Marines, but can do Advance moves and get two base melee attacks. They also get the same Feel No Pain Disgustingly Resilient ability as Plague Marines so ignore any wound on a 5+, along with a 7+ armor save because that's a thing (since cover is a modifier now this can be improved). One of their only remarkable traits is that enemies slain in combat by Poxwalkers will themselves become a Poxwalker (sadly, they actually become a Poxwalker and not an undead version of themselves). Of course as awesome as that sounds that would probably need a whole ass PDF just to fit the chart of every possible zombified infantry unit and would almost certainly slow the game down massively as well as needing to be updated regularly and likely start all kinds of rules lawyering arguments. So, probably for the best that they went with the simple route.

Poxwalkers can be affected by a few buffs that turn them from a meh tarpit unit into one that's actually kinda good. The first is that if a Poxwalker unit contains 10 or more models it adds +1 to its attack rolls, making them hit on a 4. Another is Typhus; if he's within 6" Poxwalkers gain +1 S/T. Casting Miasma of Pestilence makes enemy shooting rolls -1, Putrescent Vitality gives them a further +1 S/T and all can be combined, along with Disgustingly Resilient ignoring wounds on 5+ and Curse of the Walking Pox adding models every time enemies are slain, to turn this into a shockingly effective blob unit. 20 of these will cost about the same as 5 Plague Marines (not counting Typhus' cost for the S/T boost). One of the Death Guard's Stratagems boosts them further by causing all non-Poxwalker infantry that die near them (including allies) to turn into Poxwalkers on death, so taking them with Cultists lets them become a massive tarpit that gains models faster than they can be killed off.

GW has also made the dick move of not releasing them as a separate kit, so your only options of getting them are 20 from the Dark Imperium set (with some actual variety to the models) or 6 from the Ez-Build box. Consider that you'll probably want some extras on hand, for when your Poxwalker blob starts growing after some rounds of combat. Have fun. If you want some variety, grab some Skeletons or Zombies from the Warhammer Fantasy Age of Sigmar range.