Any tips for a newcomer to 8th ed Death Guard?

[Vorenus]

I've been out of the game for the past two years due to grad school.  The last time I played Death Guard, they didn't have their own Codex--this would have been in 5th, 6th, and 7th.  (They did get Legion rules in Traitor's Hate at the end of 7th, but I didn't get to play that very much before the edition ended and 8th began.)  I've been trying to find good strategy guides online, but so far I haven't had much success.  Most of what I have found is from a couple of years ago and doesn't really seem relevant any more.  Maybe I'm wrong.  So I have two questions for all you Veterans of the Long War on this forum:

 

1.  What tactical advice would you offer? 

2.  Are there any good tactical guides out there you recommend?

 

Thank you in advance for your help with this.

 

--Vorenus

[Cleon]

In all honesty I've not played with my Death Guard at all (they are more of a project) and I've not played a massive amount of 8th edition with anything, but from hanging around various forums to try and improve my chances of building my models right, I've picked up a few consistent themes:

1 - Try and put the maximum number of flails in any squads that you are trying to get into combat

2 - Plague marines only work if you take a lot of them then use the small squads with dual special weapons plus a tide of bolt fire

3 - The Crawler is good, but not as good as it was earlier in the edition

4 - a Demon or CSM detachment is useful for alternate sorcerers as their powers are often better force multipliers than the base Death guard ones.

[Aarik]

The Arch-Contaminator warlord trait pairs well with the Fulgaris' Helm relic for a 10-inch re-roll wounds on plague weapons aura.

 

I like Bloat drones a lot.  Two with plaguespitters and one a fleshmower synergize well with a daemon prince with Arch-Contaminator and Fulgaris' Helm.

 

Leviathans/Contemptors with butcher cannons (or other guns) can take advantage of being more mobile.

 

The elite guy with the flamer (forget his name) is also pretty well-regarded.

 

 

As far as tactics, I'd recommend something like screen with plaguebearers (from a Nurgle daemon detachment), use plaguebearers or plague marines to capture objectives, use daemon princes and bloat drones to clear chaff and attack objectives, and use plagueburst crawlers and leviathans/contemptors for longer range shooting.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Aarik

[commissarelvis]

Likewise been away (20 years for me, though :D), but definitely seems like CSM with Death Guard detachment, or Death Guard with CSM detachment, is a big plus to fill in the gaping holes in the DG army list (e.g. no heavy weapons squads). It also seems like the only useful DG Dreadnoughts were all Forge World models, and they are all OOP now ...

[UniWolf]

Are any rules lost if a CSM detachment is taken in an army with DG detachment(s)?

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Provided you have them each in their own detachment, no rules are lost.

 

In some more modern codexes you need your entire army to be one chapter to benefit from all their rules, but not for any of the Chaos factions (exception - some of the Legions in Vigilus: Ablaze may require full armies for some of their special rules).

[jgascoine011]

If I am being honest, a pure deathguard army is terrible right now.

They are probably the weakest army in the current eddition. They pay a lot of points for resiliance but struggle to do any real damage at range. Because our killing ability is so useless, we are basically giving out opponent added resliance by not being able to do a lot of damage. 

Our stratagems are pretty meah and while blight bombardment can be great, yea good luck getting that off. 

Our terminators can be brutal in combat but with a 4" move good luck getting them there. Basically you deep strike them in and it comes down to can you roll a 9 on 2D6. If you can then they will wreck face, espically with certain buffs. But if you cant, well they are now a massive point sink.

 

I will just give my opinions on the various force org slots

HQ

Daemon prince

 - He is our best HQ hands down. If you are taking a death guard army then get 2 and give them both wings and malefic talons.

 - Make one your warlord and give him arc contaminator with the furgris helm and possible give the other the supperating plate

 

Maligant Plaguecaster

 - Another decent HQ choice. If you do take him, try take him in a second detachment. Best spells for him are +1S&T and +1 to wound. Use him to buff your combat units

 

Typhus

 - He is a slow combat HQ character that buffs chaff units...he is terrible.

 - If you do get him into combat then yea he does alright but you need to ask yourself is he worth taking over a daemon prince? If you are taking loads of poxwalkers then he could be usefull but then why are you taking loads of poxwalkers? In an eddition where shooting is king, pox walkers wont do a damn thing.

 

Elites

Hellbrute

 - Ha, its terrible. No DG or invun makes it give up 1st strike to your opponent.

 

Terminators (both varients)

 - Like i said earlier, if they get into combat they can be awsome, but good luck getting them there

 - One tactic is to not deepstrike them, but drop cloud of flies on them, then use them to counter punch the enemy. This only really works if the enemy is not a gun line though, otherwise you will be foot slogging them up the table for ages.

 

Troops

 Plague marines

 - Probably the best "marines" across all the codex's, but this is not saying much.

 - They are very flexible though. With a biogious and blight bombardment, along with a range of weapon options they can be kitted out to deal with a lot of threats.

 - Taking 3 units of 7 with 2 blight launchers/plasma guns in each is probably the most "competitve" deathguard can be with regards to troop choices.

 

Cultists/Poxwalkers

 - Small units of 10 to sit on an objective is not a terrible idea. Dont invest to much in these. Could also be used to screen.

 

Fast Attack

Blight Drones

 - They tie up important units 

 - The flamers dont kill much. Dont expect massive amounts from this unit.

 

Haulers

 - In previous edditions they may have been ok. But in this edition, multi-meltas and missile launchers are pretty terrible.

 - They are just very expensive for not being able to kill much. The cover can be usefull but why not just stick your infantry in cover anyway?

 

Heavy Support

Crawlers

 - I think these are the embodinment of deathguard...they are a pain to kill but dont kill much. Random shots, hitting on 4's, D3 wounds all makes them rather meah. They need to be babysat by a daemon prince/lord with arch contaminator.

 

 

A decent 2k list would be.

Daemon Prince with wings

 - Malefic Talons

 - Arch Contaminator

 - Helm

 

Daemon Prince with wings

 - Malefic Talons

 - Sputtering Plate

 

7 Blightlord Terminators

 - 7 Combi-Bolters

 - 7 Bubonic Axe's

 

Bigious Putrfier

 

3 x 7 Plague Marines

 - 2 Blight launchers in each

 - Plague Swords

 

10 Poxwalkers

 

2 Bloat Drones

- Plaguespitters and Plagueprobe

 

Spearhead Detachment

Maligant Plaguecaster

 

3 Plaguebrust Crawlers

 - 2 Entropy cannons and a heavy slugger on each.

 

This comes in at 1998

If you wanted, you could drop the terminators, the biogious and 2 plague swords for 3 Blight haulers. Basically if your terminators get into combat they will be better, but if they dont, the added firepower and reliance of the blight haulers will be more usefull. Now go and have fun against armies that laugh at your pathetic firepower and combat abilites.

[Wolf Lord Loki]

I recently took 2 squads of plague marines armed for close combat in rhinos

 

Hatefull assault meant that there were so many more flail attacks and they decimated the tactical squads that they hit even without arch contaminator nearby

 

But yes we do suck at range. I recently invested in a second plague burst and fielded that in the same game. I would have probably been better investing in something else such as the blight drones or more terminators.

 

Unless you ally in some ranged support you would need to consider some forgeworld weapons or maybe Daemon support