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.
Equipment
Unit Analysis
Characters
- Foul Blightspawn: Has 1 job, and does it well: protecting a unit you care about. Leader: Plague Marines, and his led unit gets fights first, and he can be paired with any other Leader on the same unit. Also carries a gun optimized for Overwatch: Anti-infantry 2+, ignores cover, torrent 12" A1d6 S7 AP-2 D2.
- 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 the lord 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:
- adds +1 to battle-shock test while within range of an objective they control.
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:
- Chaos Land Raider:
Dedicated Transports
- Chaos Rhino:
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