Curious about Death Guard

[Furnace Lord]

Hello, just getting back into the hobby with Black Legion. I was curious about some Death Guard things because they're interesting, and I don't own the main rulebook yet and have considered running a detachment for some fun.

 

First I was curious how Poxwalkers perform. Are they worth fielding in large numbers and buffing with characters? Are AoS zombies considered okay to use as these, I have a bunch from ages ago when I last played Fantasy.

 

Also curious about Deathshroud and how well they do their bodyguard thing. Can they intercept sniper attacks? I'm not 100% on the rules. How do regular Plague Marine infantry perform? It seems like they have tons of shooting and melee options open to them.

 

Finally, a lore question. Do Plague Marines use a different mark of armor, or is it a special variant because of their use of chemical/bio weapons in the Great Crusade? It has such a distinctive look and I've always wondered.

 

Thank you :)

[apologist]

First I was curious how Poxwalkers perform. Are they worth fielding in large numbers and buffing with characters? Are AoS zombies considered okay to use as these, I have a bunch from ages ago when I last played Fantasy.

 

Also curious about Deathshroud and how well they do their bodyguard thing. Can they intercept sniper attacks? I'm not 100% on the rules. How do regular Plague Marine infantry perform? It seems like they have tons of shooting and melee options open to them.

 

Finally, a lore question. Do Plague Marines use a different mark of armor, or is it a special variant because of their use of chemical/bio weapons in the Great Crusade? It has such a distinctive look and I've always wondered.

 

 

Poxwalkers – Can't comment on them from personal experience. Typhus has some good synergies with them.

 

Deathshroud – Yes, their rules do allow for protection from sniper. Their Silent Bodyguard rules kick in when a nearby character is hit, regardless of source.

 

Plague Marines – Plague Marines are good, solid infantry. Their flexibility allows a number of different (mainly anti-infnatry) builds. They suffer from being expensive and slow, but are dependable and kick out a respectable amount of damage.

 

Death Guard armour – Jes Goodwin's original Plague Marine sketch notes that Death Guard used Mark II and III plate; representing their slow but direct philosophy and intractable nature. The cycloptic vision slit and spike on the head was intended to be reminiscent of a Plaguebearer. That's remained pretty constant through different iterations. The distinctive swollen gutplate is simply an additional reinforcement to Mark III plate, rather than a unique variant.

[Furnace Lord]

Thank you :)

 

I had considered Poxwalkers as an alternative to cultists, I just wasn't sure how well they function and how good their whole grr zombie mechanic is as far as raising the dead and such. But fearless in this edition seems nice.

 

That's interesting about the Plague Marine armor. I've always wondered because they seem to have a WWI aesthetic with the gas masks and pointed helmets and grenades.

[Azekai]

Poxwalkers are, offensively speaking, awful. Even if you have Typhus backing them up, they are not going to kill much. They are ok as screens and backline objective holders, but most of the things Poxwalkers do, Plaguebearers do better.

That said, if you like them, use them! I have used 70 of the damn things in a single battle and while they almost all died without doing anything at all, they did managed to pull down an Ultramarine Primaris Lieutenant and zombify him, which was hilarious.

Also, I do use the old warhammer zombies as my poxwalkers; 'poxwalker' is just a GW corporate newspeak for zombie so they can trademark the silly things.

Back in the days of the 13th Black Crusade campaign they were called 'plague zombies,' and characters like Necrosius buffed plague zombies, not these newfangled poxwalkers.

[apologist]

Thank you

[...]

That's interesting about the Plague Marine armor. I've always wondered because they seem to have a WWI aesthetic with the gas masks and pointed helmets and grenades.

 

Not at all – that's what dicussion fora are for :)

 

You're right to say there's some trench warfare aesthetic mixed in. Given Jes' background, I suspect he grew up with war stories and was surrounded with GW's historical enthusiasts like Rick Priestley et al. during the period GW were initially creating the Chaos Space Marines. 

[Furnace Lord]

Thank you :) I mainly intend to play Black Legion but as I'm new to this edition and don't own the big rulebook yet I was weighing the value of getting the Dark Imperium set vs just buying the book on its own.

 

Also I don't think I'd ever run something as huge and expensive as Mortarion so I could just run them as Black Legion Nurglites with a modification to the color scheme. Hard to decide, but I'm a slooooow painter and Shadowspear is taking me forever, so there's still time to weigh my options :p