DG Synergies

[DominikB]

I’m preparing for my forth major tornament with my DG in early January. See my post in the Army lists forum: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/352460-lco-2019-list/?do=findComment&comment=5219149

 

I’ve been looking at synergies and such, and struggling to see many synergies or tricks outside the party bus. Hence i thought I’d reach out and see what experiences and advice people may have here at the B&C

[CastellanDeMolay]

I haven't played a game with DG yet, but from my reading of the codex it seems like there's very little in the way of big showy combinations unless you're building your army around one or two tricks, like the 20 Plague Marine/Biologus Putrifier - Blight Bombardment/VotLW combo, or marching Typhus across the board with piles of Cultists and Poxwalkers using The Dead Walk Again. 

 

Most of the DG's synergies are pretty weak, but there's lots of them and they're widely available. I think they tend to be underrated and overlooked a lot from my reading of internet forums where people seem to think that if it's not a Smash Captain or Superfriends levels of point-efficiency then it's worthless. 

 

Take Poxwalkers, you can march a blob of them across the board, with +1 to hit from being over 10 models, then throw in a Myphitic Blight Hauler to provide them with cover, and that's a worthwhile unit in its own right that just gave them a 6+ armour save while also gaining a meat shield, add a Noxious Blightbringer into the mix to get them a boost to their advance rolls while also being able to contribute in an Assault and debuff the enemies' Leadership. Better still a Tallyman anywhere on the board gives a good chance of recovering any CP you spend on them. In this example, each model is doing its own job, and benefiting the models around it, but only by a small margin. However if you multiply this across the entire army, you soon start to see it adding up; I think that's how DG were designed, not to have any one single uber-powerful combo that just destroys everything (a "Death-Star" you might say) but to win through the cumulative effect of many small advantages. 

 

Some things aren't really worth the points, like a Plague Surgeon, whose re-roll 1s on Disgustingly Resilient aura is too small, and too ineffectual to really matter, (even though he's a situationally useful low-end melee beatstick) which is a shame, but I think most units that offer a buff are worth taking for what they do by themselves and for the others around them, and most aren't too situational. 

[Dallas Drake]

DG have some good synergies, but they tend to do damage slowly whilst being hard to kill. My solution to this is to take as much high flat damage weapons as I can (hate d6 as too swingy). My favourites are predator autocannons, butcher cannons, foul blightspawn, basically anything with damage 2 or 3 is just great. I personally think Blades of Putrefaction on Blightlords is a great combo, throw in Vets if you really want to ensure you wound and have them within range of an arch-contaminator DP.

 

If you want to take synergy (and book keeping) to a competitive level then IMO you need Nurgle Daemons. Adding in a simple Battalion of Nurgle Daemons means you can have 3x3 Nurglings camping objectives & Epidemius & a Poxbringer buffing your daemons. PBCs and Bloat Drones are both Daemons & both enjoy Locus of Nurgle and Locus of Virulence, combo once more with arch-contaminator and you're wounding almost everything, the extra CPs are welcome too.

 

On a non-competitive level I think Locus of Nurgle, Locus of Virulence, Virulent Blessing (Nurgle psychc power) and Vets/Blades can be disgustingly powerful but only really works on Possessed. No matter what GW do with Possessed they're just not competitive at all but I've always been a fan of them and now they're cheaper I might look at running them now for laughs; could see a few units of 7 with a foul blightspawn hanging around being fun... still think it sucks they don't have DR though.

[Tokugawa]

DG are not designed for "synergy" much. They are designed for raw power.

[Zombs]

Personally, I would never leave home without a daemon batallion. The loci is awesome on the PBC and the PD.

Aldo the Classic biologus combo is always strong imo, but you have to use it on defense rather than on offense.

[BlackTriton]

My go to are:

Biologus, plague marine and cloud of fly:

Plague marine are not that tough if you can shoot everything at them, cloud of fly ensure the enemy has to be close and personnal, right where you want them.

 

Arc-contaminator and plague flamers: auto hit + rerolls all wounds makes for lots of armor rolls.

 

Poxwalkers are hard to get in range, but 20 of them with typhus + putrecent vitality + VotLW + Blade of putrefaction can net you a lots of S5 T5 +2 to wounds model to supprise the enemy that under estimated them.

 

Poxbringner have some valuable buff: fleshy abundance can keep your drone and PBC one profile up for a turn, they can use miasma on your daemon engine, freeing one DG caster from having to take the power, or they can just smite. They also give +1 S to daemon engine and princes, a very welcome buff.

 

Plague drones can be a good distraction, they take a lot of space and are pretty fast. Their damage is sub par, but its fine. They are used to engage stuff, take the overwatch. And remember for 2 CP they can get a 4++.

[DominikB]

Thanks for the responses! I’ve used the arch-contaminator combo to great effect it’s my go-to WL trait tbh! Any advice on using non-DP units as your WL? I seem to struggle to justify others!

[MeltaRange]

I'm a big fan of Fleshmower Drones with Virulent Blessing.

[Sandviper]

Remember that helbrutes, helforged dreads, and leviathan dreads can walk and shoot heavy weapons with no penalty! Mobile butcher platforms

[Chazzmos]

Personally, I would never leave home without a daemon batallion. The loci is awesome on the PBC and the PD.

Aldo the Classic biologus combo is always strong imo, but you have to use it on defense rather than on offense.

 

Can you explain this a bit further please?

[Zombs]

If you take a daemon detachment composed by ONLY nurgle daemons, your character gets "locus of virulence". That Is: whenever a nurgle daemon within 6" makes a wound roll o 6+ that attack inflicts one more damage.

Now your PBCs, drones and DPs are nurgle daemons and 2 of these gets to reroll all wounds thanks to arch-contaminator. So you gonna get those 6s. And flamers doing 2 damage is pretty nice. Now the DP doesn't get to reroll wounds, BUT you cast blades AND virulent blessing on him. Now on a roll of 4+ to wound, he will do 5 damage. That's pretty amazing. Also the poxbringer gets all the above models +1 STR.

[DemetriiTZ]

Arch-Contaminator on a Daemon Prince is probably the most widely and easily applicable synergy available -- basically every unit we have can benefit from rerolling 1's to hit in melee and shooting, and rerolling EVERYTHING to wound puts many middling or mediocre weapons waaaaaay over the top in terms of damage output per point expended on the wargear. Fugaris' Helm can extend the radius further (on Reroll Aura, but not on AC, as AC does not appear on the model's actual datasheet). 10'' reroll auras on a model with 8 wounds which can move quickly is pretty clutch, and I have found that Wings are not even that necessary, assuming a model is going to be a buffbot.

 

All the other synergies are easy to spot and basically "Gotcha" abilities, like the Grenade Spam trick, etc. -- I find they're basically traps, and you can easily do without them for almost all armies. You'll get mileage out of them against newer opponents, but vets will just walk around it.

[Azekai]

10'' reroll auras on a model with 8 wounds which can move quickly is pretty clutch, and I have found that Wings are not even that necessary, assuming a model is going to be a buffbot.

 

A DP is wasted as a 'buff-bot.' They are one of our more deadly units. Lords are better in the babysitting capacity.

[DemetriiTZ]

 

10'' reroll auras on a model with 8 wounds which can move quickly is pretty clutch, and I have found that Wings are not even that necessary, assuming a model is going to be a buffbot.

 

A DP is wasted as a 'buff-bot.' They are one of our more deadly units. Lords are better in the babysitting capacity.

 

Yes and no. A DP, if you're only using one (like me), can be a more functional "Lord" for only a handful more points.

 

Higher strength, higher toughness, Feel No Pain, an invulnerable, far more wounds, far more and deadlier attacks, and a much speedier model without a Fly upgrade, as well as a larger base for aura radius extension, on top of Daemon synergies (Poxbringer buffs and auras, etc., as well as allowing allied Nurgle Daemons to re-roll as well). Lords only buff DG To Hit rolls, but not Daemon ones, so a Prince is more widely applicable. The Lord is bargain-basement priced, but I think he's still overpriced for what he does compared to paying a small chunk of extra points to simply make him a Prince instead. Furthermore, Princes are far more threatening to deepstriking insurgent units, which are generally small and specialized, and not particularly spooky for melee beatsticks to deal with -- if you need something to discourage 5-man DSers or random scrubby chaff squads trying to poke and annoy your backfield units, a Prince hiding in the mix can be particularly ... erm ... "discouraging". Basically, I feel a wingless Prince serves the same capacity as a solo JP-less Lord for slightly more points, because those extra points provide a HUUUUUGE value compared to what you're saving on simply bringing a derpy unblessed Chaos Lord. One of our deadlier units, for sure, but what does more damage -- you leaping out with 200 points of model to (hopefully) assault a unit, maybe kill it, and then die to focused firepower, or your same exact model being so scary that the enemy can't reliably attack your backfield safely, while simultaneously making your entire army more accurate and more deadly through Arch-Contaminator + Rerolls? Some people think Princes are expendable, spammable models, but I disagree strongly -- they simply do not do enough damage on their own, by themselves, and function far more reliably as force multipliers. One hidden Prince maintaining buff auras for an entire game essentially deals his damage through the army he is buffing. If you want to charge in and melee with something expendable, Plague Drones are much better options, and Bloat-Drones better still.

[BlackTriton]

Did we mentionned what happens when a poxbringner cast virulent blessing on a nearby DG daemon prince that also cast BoP on himself?

7x S8 -2AP D2, +2 to wound, D3 on a 4+ and D5 on a 5+.

 

Its pretty impressive, although hard to get it all.

[DemetriiTZ]

Did we mentionned what happens when a poxbringner cast virulent blessing on a nearby DG daemon prince that also cast BoP on himself?

7x S8 -2AP D2, +2 to wound, D3 on a 4+ and D5 on a 5+.

 

Its pretty impressive, although hard to get it all.

Easier than you might think -- if the Prince is being screened, you should have a safe DS zone to drop the Poxbringer right beside the Prince, near enough to keep within mutually beneficial aura range. If they fail to Deny, the Prince should easily gain both Loci + both psychic buffs, which means a 4+ to wound will deal 3, and a 5+ will deal 5.

[ashc]

Anyone mention that a GUO with the bell can bring back dead myphitic blight haulers on a 4+? - there are some other good combinations using daemon allies.

[DominikB]

Anyone mention that a GUO with the bell can bring back dead myphitic blight haulers on a 4+? - there are some other good combinations using daemon allies.

The GUO is overcosted for me even after the drop, and has to trade the best CC weapon it has for the bell without any sweep or similar attack to replace it :/

[Chazzmos]

If you take a daemon detachment composed by ONLY nurgle daemons, your character gets "locus of virulence". That Is: whenever a nurgle daemon within 6" makes a wound roll o 6+ that attack inflicts one more damage.

Now your PBCs, drones and DPs are nurgle daemons and 2 of these gets to reroll all wounds thanks to arch-contaminator. So you gonna get those 6s. And flamers doing 2 damage is pretty nice. Now the DP doesn't get to reroll wounds, BUT you cast blades AND virulent blessing on him. Now on a roll of 4+ to wound, he will do 5 damage. That's pretty amazing. Also the poxbringer gets all the above models +1 STR.

Thanks for explaining that, I really appreciate it.

 

So all characters in that detachment get it the locus of virulence?  Does it go across to other characters in another detachment, like a  DP in your main DG battalion?  

 

EDIT: Sorry, and what's the classic Biologius combo?

[Zombs]

No you only get that rule for the daemon detachment.

The biologus combo is made this way:

-You take a squad of plague marines

-you put a biologus near them to buff their granades

-you put a character with the arch-contaminator near them too

-you use the stratagem blight bombardament

-you use the stratagem veteran of the long war (optional)

-delete a unit within 6"

[Chazzmos]

Sweet!  I have a Biologius painted up, but I haven't used him yet.  I might have to give him a roll!

 

I suppose I could even make the Biologius my lord and give him Arch-Contaminator and Fugaris Helm.

[DemetriiTZ]

Sure could, but Helm only amps grenade aura, not AC, alas.

[Chazzmos]

Was there ever a clear FAQ on that?
 

[DemetriiTZ]

Naah -- the wording is clear until they change it. "Auras on the data card". The Warlord trait doesn't appear on the datacard -- if it just said "Auras", we'd be cookin'. That's fine, though -- a Daemon Prince's aura radius is fairly huge.