Warhammer 40,000/10th Edition Tactics/Death Guard
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This is the current 10th Edition's Death Guard tactics. 9th Edition Tactics are here.
Why Play Death Guard
Pros
- Plague Weapons have converted over to having Lethal Hits, making Toughness less of a hassle.
- Army rules are still super simple, making it the best Chaos army for beginners 3 ED's running. Thanks Papa Nurgle. Very cool.
- The army is simple to paint. Just slather dark greens and purples everywhere as well as some flesh tomes and voila! Instant Nurgle army.
Cons
- Movement 4 Terminators are a PAIN IN THE DIIICK.
- Since 8th has seen massive downgrades each edition, gone from universal special rule to a limited and expensive Stratagem. no omnipresent -1 Dmg, no FNP.
Faction Rules
- Nurgle's Gift: Unchanged from last edition, it's a slowly growing bubble on every unit that inflicts -1 to Toughness for enemies inside it.
- On turn 1, the bubble is only 3", on turn 2, the bubble grows to 6", and on turn 3, it reaches its max size of 9".
- because of the expanded toughness chart are most effective against models with already low toughness like GEQ with some payment against MEQ. Not effective agienst Vehicles.
Detachments
Plague Company
Special Rules
- Spread the Sickness: If you hold an objective at the end of your Command phase, you have infected it. Not only will it now remain capped even if you don't have anyone on it, but it's now able to spread Nurgle's Gift as if it had that rule.
- While an enemy capping the objective will undo the plague, it does put them in a bit of trouble, as they'll be taking anything that contagion will give them for that turn, risking getting blasted off the map.
Enhancments
- Shamblerot: when bearer's unit is charged, -2 to that enemy charge roll.
- Living Plague: +3" to bearer's aura abilities.
Stratagems
- Sanguous Flux (1 CP): Nurgle has infected your enemies with Bloody Shits. One unit that fights gains Sustained Hits 1 for this phase. This is improved to Sustained Hits 2 if they're on an objective.
- Disgustingly Resilient (2 CP): Since 8th has seen massive downgrades from special rule to limited and expensive Stratagem. During the fight phase when targeted, one Death guard unit takes -1 damage from weapons for the rest of the phase.
- Counter point: there's no minimum damage at the moment. So turning damage 1 to damage 0 is a thing now.
Equipment
Unit Analysis
Characters
- Foul Blightspawn: Has 1 job, and does it well: protecting a unit you care about. He gives any Plague Marines he leads the Fights First rule, and he can be paired with any other Leader on the same unit. His Plague Sprayer is a decent gun optimized for Overwatch, a super-flamer with S7 AP-2 D2 with Anti-Infantry 2+
- Lord of Virulence: Now better at his job at being master of ordnance. He gives his Blightlord/Deathshroud terminator buddies re-roll to wounds with ranged attacks. He also acts as a spotter, giving Blast weapons from your army +1 to hit and ignores cover against units he can see.
- Malignant Plaguecaster: Plague Wind gives this gross psyker a flamer-like weapon, with the basic version getting S4 AP-1 Dd3 and the overcharged version upping the power to S6 AP-4 with Hazardous, both benefiting from Pestilential Fallout and making anyone wounded by the power take -2 to movement and advance/charge rolls. Gift of Contagion gives you a debuff that makes an enemy within 18" take -1 to wound in melee on a 2+ (with a 1 backfiring and dealing d3 MWs instead).
- Tallyman: If you ever feel useless, remember, you're more useful than this guy. Leader: Plague Marines and grants his led unit +1 to hit, even though Plague Marines are full of weapons that don't really benefit from that due to Lethal Hits, or worse, Torrent. He also has a rule for a 7/12 chance of gaining you 1 CP in your command phase. Strong competitor for least useful character in the faction.
Epic Heroes
- Mortarion: In a fine example of GW failing to read their own rules, Mortarion's datasheet specifies both that his hit rolls cripple like a normal high-W model (at 1/3W rounding up, in this case 6, or less, -1 to hit rolls) and that he ignores modifiers to his hit rolls. Stellar work, GW.
- Typhus:
Battleline
- Plague Marines: Kinda sad that these guys no longer get any defensive features. After 9E nerfed their FNP to just flat damage reduction, now you've got nothing. No, the universal nerf to AP doesn't really help things. They're just as vulnerable to meltaguns and plasma guns as any other marines. Remorseless only adds +1 to battleshock test while within range of an objective they control, which only lets them keep them in place.
- Their basic bolter is the same as any other, with the addition with Lethal Hits like any other plague weapon, as is their melta and plasma gun. While their Plague Belcher and Plague Spewer can't benefit from Lethal Hits due to not needing to roll to hit, they do get Anti-Infantry 4+ and Anti-Infantry 2+ respectively to get through any high-toughness units. The Blight Launcher lets them get something in between the basic and charged plasma gun, complete with Lethal Hits. Your squad can pick up quite a few of these guns, with a squad of 5 getting the option for a Plague Spewer, Blight Launcher and a Plague Belcher/Plasma/Melta at the same time - with no way to double up on guns without more models.
- Alongside their sergeant, two of your models can also pick up either a S5 AP-2 Bubotic Weapon (essentially a power weapon with Lethal Hits) or S8 AP-2 D2 Heavy Bubotic Weapon.
Infantry
- Blightlord Terminators: Dear lord have these bastards taken a buff, they're now at T6 without needing to take any Primaris gene-seed. The Plague Weapon conversion to (usually) Lethal Hits serves them quite well, as their S5 AP-2 Bubotic Blades now all get to bypass Toughness on a critical hit, as does the Flail of Corruption, which is now more suited for handling multi-wound models, but suffers in AP. Of course, this also means a distinct lack of synergy in melee: whenever Lethal Hits goes off, Nurgle's Gift doesn't matter.
- Blistering Fusillade makes their guns the big selling point, letting them re-roll 1s to wound when shooting the closest target. Between their basic Combi-Bolters gaining Lethal Hits and their Reaper Autocannon getting both Devastating Wounds and Sustained Hits 1, they've got plenty to work with. Bear in mind that Lethal Hits is better the worse you are at wounding, so re-rolling 1s to wound makes LH less useful overall - basically, always take a Reaper Autocannon over a Blight Launcher.
Vehicles
- Helbrute:
- Plagueburst Crawler:
- Chaos Land Raider:
Dedicated Transports
- Chaos Rhino: T9 gives the Rhino at least a chance to shrug off handheld meltaguns, but not by much - at least it has the ability to heal a wound each turn. Of course, it can carry up to 12 Infantry units that aren't terminators, cultists or poxwalkers and two of the models inside it can fire out of it thanks to Firing Deck 2.
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