Foul Blightspawn

*Wee-Woo Wee-Woo Wee-Woo Wee-Woo Wee-Woo Wee-Woo!* Papa Nurgle's personal Firemen are here to combat the dangerous spread of Eazy Off Bam and its ilk!

Another Death Guard unit with a pretentiously obnoxious name. Seriously GW, you are trying way too hard right now. The Foul Blightspawn are the elite of Plague Marines which serve within the Death Guard and its affiliates.

They are sometimes known as Nurglite Firemen due to their... unique looking weapon (Called the Plague Sprayer) that looks more like a fire hose than anything else. You would seriously expect a group of these guys driving inside a Nurglite Fire Truck and spewing their rotting ichor against the dreaded horror that is the Emperor's Personal Cleaning Products and Agents. They are perhaps the remnants of the pre-Heresy Mortus Poisoners, although they no longer wear the Maximus Armour and instead, wear some sort of heavily modified Chaos Power Armour.

Overview

The Foul Blightspawn's breath rattles through pus-slick tubes as he cranks the rusted handle of his fire hose malignant churn, bellows wheezing and plague slop roiling in the incubatum upon his back. Usually most foes stare in bewilderment at this strange performance. Although the smartest ones usually opt for higher ground so they can take advantage over the weapon's short range whilst the dumbasses charge towards the Blightspawn like fucking idiots.

Foul Blightspawn rise from the Plague Marine ranks, typically those warriors who feel joy in watching their victims suffer ELATE! in the grip of Nurgle’s plagues. Cruelty festers in their souls, manifesting itself in ever more grotesque physical degeneration. One of their many mutations sees their eyes dribble from their sockets as black slime, leaving the Blightspawn to ‘see’ in shades of warp energy. Their mouths twist into fanged, puckered spouts, and a wretched stench seeps from their pores, so foul that it causes even Plague Marines to balk. All the while, forbidden secrets of Nurgle’s plaguecraft form in the Blightspawns’ minds, compelling them toward alchemy and the creation of disease.

When such manifestations occur, the new Blightspawn is sent to the disease factories of the Plague Planet. The foul gears and pistons of the machinery are forcibly driven into his guts, and an incubator is sutured to his armor, never to be removed. On the Plague Planet the Foul Blightspawn gather to learn from the eldest and foulest of their number, beings so bloated with corruption that they have taken root amidst the factories like obscene toxic fungi, akin hilariously enough to those of the Snotrooms of Ork ecology. When the Foul Blightspawn rejoin their warbands, they bring their new alchemical lore with them. Inside their incubators are batches of their latest, finest work, ready to be unleashed or further refined by the Biologus Putrifiers.

Crunch

In 9th Edition, they are 75 points in total, M5″ A3 S4 WS/BS3+ T5 W4 Sv3+ Ld 8. Their primary weapon, the Plaguesprayer, is a 12" Assault 1d6 S7 AP-3 D2 Plague Weapon that autohits like a flamer, which means that it's good enough to deal with MEQs to vehicles. The Unholy Death's Head grenade is cute and has blast. Maybe if they are close to an 11+ squad they can drop 12 shots on something, but their sprayer is way better in most cases, including against units of size 6=10.

They are terrible in assault since they have no melee weapon, but you want them in the frontlines by the assaults due to his ability to make a unit within 3" fight last. For glass cannon melee units that rely on being the first to strike in the Fight phase to compensate for their poor durability (like Daemonettes, Howling Banshees, and Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marines), this can leave them defenseless at the worst possible time. This also doubles as a bit of cross-god synergy: send a Blightspawn in with some Slaaneshi daemons or Emperor's Children marines, and you'll ensure that they always Fight First, for real this time. You will often want to give this guy a Deadly Pathogen, usually Viscous Death (if you're concerned you won't face vehicles) or Corrosive Filth (if you're confident you will).