DG has me bummed out recently

[Special Officer Doofy]

I'm currently disappointed with the Death Guard rules. I'm not looking at tournament wins and loss rates, but just how they play.

 

Disgustingly Resilient got nerfed. It sucks. -1 damage literally only helps against 2D and more reliably for D3 versus 5+++, but does nothing for 1D and mortal wounds, and worse for 4D+ (which with all anti tank becoming d3+3 is more and more common). I did the math in a game the other day, I would have ended up saving alot more wounds with the old 5+++. It seems very lack luster now, and I don't get to have all the fun of rolling clutch saves at the last minute (or the fun of Mortarion biffing a bunch of 1D bolter fire DR saves). We can no longer give things DR short of spawns, so Rhino's and Defilers are magnets for anything over 1D on turn one and often don't live long. This is my biggest complaint.

 

The mono bonus of -1T is losing it's luster for me. Pushed DG into a more melee heavy army, when we are the slowest army with no charge mechanic or strategem support for it. The best melee units were/are Mortarion (duh), Deathshroud Terminators, the flail (so blightlords and plague marines) and the bloat Drone mower. But I stopped and compared their datasheets from the old codex to this one. Mortarion always had the -1T, but never needs it as at S8 or S16 he is wounding 99% of things on 2's anyways, but losing Dttfe made him weaker. He is better now with the extra buffs, but does less damage. Deathshroud went from S5 +3 to S4 +3. So they lost a point of strength but gained -1T. That might help with their hand flamers, but it was a wash otherwise. They went to WS2+, but also gained -1 to hit with the multi damage attack profile. Both the flail and the bloat Drone mower also lost a point of strength, which again makes the -1T not really helping their melee at all. And the flail lost it's damage spilling over.

 

It's so dumb our legion trait only effects certain units and not others, when loyalist marines have their chapter traits, doctrines and super doctrines apply to the whole codex minus the servators I believe. It's always bothered me. Some people try to justify it with Daemon engines don't listen to orders, but the same dumb logic can be applied to loyalist vehicles. A blood angel's tank pilot can ram the tank harder off the charge and get +1 to wound? Makes about just as much sense (or lack of) to me.

 

Don't get me wrong, the codex all together is stronger than before. Mortarion got survival buffs. Gave the chaos codex copy and paste characters and possessed +1T and DR. Marines got their +1W. Daemon engines went to 3+ WS/BS. But those last two were happening regardless of the DR nerf and other changes. I'm not saying the codex is worse, just pointing out some of my grievances.

 

I'm just not having fun playing with them anymore, win or lose. I started the hobby in '98 when my brother gave me the marine half of the 3rd edition starter set. I painted arguebly the worst marines you will have ever seen. I was 8 at the time. Then I realized I didn't want to be humans (or at least the good ones) in a scifi fantasy setting with aliens and daemons, so I bought some orks, and painted some of the worst looking orks and started collecting nurgle daemons / death guard (not much painting). It was always a pet project, never got much love until I came back in 8th. I quit in 6th edition I believe, our whole group got burnt out with templates and certain rules and went to other hobbies, I switched to Tau when they came out and played them up until I quit. Some people tell me to just hang in there and keep painting in the mean time. I only paint because I have to. I don't love it or think it's a chore, but I only do it because I play. If I'm not playing the game, I can think of so many other things to spend time and money on (even if to just paint) besides GW's expensive models.

 

Anyone else hit a hobby wall recently? If so how did they get past it? I only ever play two factions, and my other faction is Nurgle Daemons and I have no idea what is in store for them with a new codex. If they get a similar treatment, and Plaguebearers go to 2W (with a points increase and unit size reduction) and they change their DR to -1D I might walk away from the hobby again. I'm just posting to see if anyone else feels the same and how they are handling it. Or if everything is great for you and your DG, you can post that too.

[GrinNfool]

Hmm, I can't post from the perspective of a DG player, but I have 2 friends that are, and one of them for a little while was feeling like you.  So I can share a little about what changed with him, and hope that helps.  For a while he too was mulling about that was lost not happy about what was changed etc, but eventually he stopped looking back at what once was, and focused on what he had, and finding fun things he could do with that.  Things that even if not optimal were fun for him to do, there are some pretty fun things you can do that weren't possible in the past, and he went for those.  He also had another army that plays very different from DG, and he played that for a bit while he was... for lack of a better word, sulking, about the things DG lost.  I think playing a more horde based army made him appreciate a lot of the things DG did have, and could do as well.  But overall that was his answer, focus on the positives that you can do, no sense worrying about what you can't do anymore. 

 

Generic advice I know, but thats just how he handled it.  From my perspective, taking a break or focusing on the lore can help get me back into the game if I start to feel a little disconnected sometimes.

Edited January 4, 2022 by GrinNfool

[Special Officer Doofy]

Thanks for the feedback GrinNfool. I do believe I picked a wrong second faction haha. I just thought I was already doing nurgle, why not keep rolling with it. I should have went back to my Tau, great shooting and mobility, literally the opposite of the DG. I'll never play a horde army again. I like painting the models so they look good and how I want them, but that's it. It's to play the game, I don't particularly enjoy the painting side for the sake of painting. Kind of reminds me of playing a MMORPG and leveling. The leveling process can be fun for awhile, but quickly turns tedious and into a grind. And the end game experience is when alot of MMO's open up, and for 40k to me that's having the painted army done and being able to play. So I avoid horde armies, poxwalkers were bad enough haha.

[Closet Skeleton]

It's so dumb our legion trait only effects certain units and not others, when loyalist marines have their chapter traits, doctrines and super doctrines apply to the whole codex minus the servators I believe. It's always bothered me. Some people try to justify it with Daemon engines don't listen to orders, but the same dumb logic can be applied to loyalist vehicles. A blood angel's tank pilot can ram the tank harder off the charge and get +1 to wound? Makes about just as much sense (or lack of) to me.

 

The Legion trait doesn't really help much other than on infantry anyway, BA don't care about Predators with +1 to wound.

 

There's no way Deathshroud are worse in 9th.

 

-1T does work with shooting you just need to combo flash outbreak with the spell that books contagion range and a forward moving unit.

 

The flail needed to lose damage spill to balance out the plague marine weapons. Doesn't help blight lords who don't have those options. The new damage spill stratagem on plague marines and deathshroud is way more powerful than the old flails.

 

Can't make someone else have fun. I only used 9th ed DG at one tournament and found my old list to have a lot of problems and had no interest in spamming plagueburst cralwers and contemptors.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Closet Skeleton

[USNCenturion]

Thanks for posting; always helps to bounce these bad feels off each other. I hit hobby walls with literally every one of my projects and armies. It would depress me if I actually ever stopped and thought about how many armies I’ve started and sold off and how much money I’ve spent. That last part i rationalize by telling myself I find great enjoyment in getting new kits and building them, so all told nothing has been wasted because I wouldn’t have had that joy otherwise.

 

Now to the Death Guard. I can’t say anything that will convince you to keep at your army. All I can say is Death Guard has been consistently the army I come back to the most (besides marines). I find that their paint scheme is incredibly forgiving and in line with my abilities and techniques; the messier they are the better they look and they don’t need pinpoint edge highlighting to look great. They also utilize the verdigris, rust, swamp, and blood technical paints the most out of any other faction and those are so fun and easy to use it’s worth it alone. Playing bad guys are always fun and doubly so for possessed, decaying legionaries. Even if they lose they still spread the gift and cackle maniacally back into the warp where they can plot their next moves. Mortarion is an awesome model and a cool concept lore-wise as well.

 

From a crunch perspective, I’m probably not the best to handle that as I don’t get to play much with any of my armies. I will say a lot of your complaints or concerns share a common theme and that is comparing to what was lost or not gained. I think that way lies madness in any endeavor, never mind picking an army to play. I would focus on what death guard can do now and lean into it. Don’t use vehicles that don’t get DR and are vulnerable to D2 weapons. Use your infantry to advance slowly up the board spreading plague while faster drones and haulers pressure the enemy. Try the Typhus special formation. Try a corrupted guard/zombie fluff list. Do some crusade and build your warband and plague.

 

My last piece of advice is to perhaps seek out another army that is the opposite of DG. Eldar and Tau are coming out soon and favor maneuverability and firepower and are always high powered. Maybe they will give you the break you need from DG and provide an alternative play style so you can come back to the rotters later when you’ve had a break.

 

Anyway I’m rambling now but these are my 2 cents. Hope this helped.

[Special Officer Doofy]

The Legion trait doesn't really help much other than on infantry anyway, BA don't care about Predators with +1 to wound.

 

There's no way Deathshroud are worse in 9th.

 

-1T does work with shooting you just need to combo flash outbreak with the spell that books contagion range and a forward moving unit.

 

The flail needed to lose damage spill to balance out the plague marine weapons. Doesn't help blight lords who don't have those options. The new damage spill stratagem on plague marines and deathshroud is way more powerful than the old flails.

 

Can't make someone else have fun. I only used 9th ed DG at one tournament and found my old list to have a lot of problems and had no interest in spamming plagueburst cralwers and contemptors.

My blight haulers and PBC would like to shoot when they are tagged without the penalty. And by your logic then if it's not a big deal why did they go to the lengths they did to intentionally not give it to things without bubonic astartes?

 

Never once said Deathshroud are worse off. Just some of the stuff they got at first I thought was a big boon but really wasn't much.

 

I'm not a fan of them taking rules off data sheets and turning them into stratagems, maybe some people are. PM wargear is over priced anyways, maybe instead of nerfing the flail they could have reduced the cost of the other melee weapon options. And with the old flail rules and Dttfe, you could get some mad damage with them, was quite fun haha. Not to mention get two flails in a five man squad.

 

And my gaming group doesn't do FW stuff, it was something we all agreed on because we think FW tends to be less quality for more money and until recently was not balanced at all. Either they were terrible or too good to not take (like the dreads in 8th edition).

Edited January 4, 2022 by Putrid Choir

[Special Officer Doofy]

From a crunch perspective, I’m probably not the best to handle that as I don’t get to play much with any of my armies. I will say a lot of your complaints or concerns share a common theme and that is comparing to what was lost or not gained. I think that way lies madness in any endeavor, never mind picking an army to play. I would focus on what death guard can do now and lean into it. Don’t use vehicles that don’t get DR and are vulnerable to D2 weapons. Use your infantry to advance slowly up the board spreading plague while faster drones and haulers pressure the enemy. Try the Typhus special formation. Try a corrupted guard/zombie fluff list. Do some crusade and build your warband and plague.

 

My last piece of advice is to perhaps seek out another army that is the opposite of DG. Eldar and Tau are coming out soon and favor maneuverability and firepower and are always high powered. Maybe they will give you the break you need from DG and provide an alternative play style so you can come back to the rotters later when you’ve had a break.

Picking an opposite playing army for a second faction would have been the best solution, I agree.

 

My only issue is on playing to DG's new strengths is the exact opposite of how I used to play them. Lots of Daemon Engines with some 5 man plague marines. Now Plague marines wargear got trashed with 5 man squads and the new thing is just spam poxwalkers and terminators. Almost every other DG list I see, at least remotely competitive ones, use 0-1 units of plague marines and spam poxwalkers. That's not fun to me. And like I said, for me it's not about winning and losing, it's about having fun playing the army. And I'm having less fun with the new codex than I was with the old one and PA. Maybe it's just me.

[Kythnos]

I am in a similar state with my IW and what I have been realizing is that this frustration of mine is not primarily linked to the army I play, but to the current rules of the game.

Which is why I am currently looking into the much sleeker Apocalypse rules and am starting to talk my mates into giving them a go (even at smaller game sizes than recommended by the dev team).

 

I enjoy the visual and narrative appeal of a battle in the 41st millenium and if a different ruleset is helping with that, why not? Maybe that is an option for your group as well.

[WrathOfTheLion]

I started DG really in 9E, building off of what was in Dark Imperium from 8E. I don't play competitive, but I've personally had a good bit of fun with DG so far in the couple games that I've played. I normally play with some daemon engines, some plague marines, poxwalkers and terminators, a bit of a mix of all of it. I really like terminators though, so them being a solid core is good :)

[KingYertle]

I totally understand your frustration and share a lot of it myself.  Your complaints are valid.  DG got a huge push with PA War of the Spider book during the tail end of 8th and beginning of 9th.  DG is one of the more popular armies being played right now (check our Goonhammer's 2021 meta analysis, its shocking how many DG games were logged in the datasets they analyzed).  It was inevitable that DG would take a backseat as other armies get their push.  That's GW's business model.  Everyone I know (myself included) has quit the hobby at some point because of a weak codex.  Things will eventually come back around and GW will push DG again as sales lag.

 

In sharing your frustration, my best advice;  Stop playing Competitively.  Competitive play, even if its just among friends, highlights the have and have nots of 40k.  40k is not chess, some army rules are superior to others.  

 

Most of us love this hobby because the grimdark setting is awesome and the Death Guard / Grandfather Nurgle fluff in particular is great.  Shift your focus to the Narrative.  Start a Crusade campaign from the ground up. Start simple (no warlords, no relics, limit non-troop unit choices) to balance gameplay.  Create backstories for your heroes as they slowly gain/earn their relics, warlord traits and campaign advancements.  Create your own thematic narrative battle scenarios and string them together so the results of each previous game create a narrative you forge with your friends like an RPG campaign.  Field your Nurgle Deamons along side your Death Guard.  Mix in some Death Guard Kill Team.  Build Some Nurgle Ravaged Terrain or a display board and immortalize key moments from your campaign by incorporating fallen enemies into your bases.  Kit bash zombies and nurgle deamons with enemy troops to turn your opponent's forces into hordes of new poxwalkers.

 

My key point, if the rules have you feeling down, focus on what first drew you to Death Guard and ways to enjoy time with your friends that go beyond just "winning the game".

 

Good Luck!

[Special Officer Doofy]

I totally understand your frustration and share a lot of it myself. Your complaints are valid. DG got a huge push with PA War of the Spider book during the tail end of 8th and beginning of 9th. DG is one of the more popular armies being played right now (check our Goonhammer's 2021 meta analysis, its shocking how many DG games were logged in the datasets they analyzed). It was inevitable that DG would take a backseat as other armies get their push. That's GW's business model. Everyone I know (myself included) has quit the hobby at some point because of a weak codex. Things will eventually come back around and GW will push DG again as sales lag.

 

In sharing your frustration, my best advice; Stop playing Competitively. Competitive play, even if its just among friends, highlights the have and have nots of 40k. 40k is not chess, some army rules are superior to others.

 

Most of us love this hobby because the grimdark setting is awesome and the Death Guard / Grandfather Nurgle fluff in particular is great. Shift your focus to the Narrative. Start a Crusade campaign from the ground up. Start simple (no warlords, no relics, limit non-troop unit choices) to balance gameplay. Create backstories for your heroes as they slowly gain/earn their relics, warlord traits and campaign advancements. Create your own thematic narrative battle scenarios and string them together so the results of each previous game create a narrative you forge with your friends like an RPG campaign. Field your Nurgle Deamons along side your Death Guard. Mix in some Death Guard Kill Team. Build Some Nurgle Ravaged Terrain or a display board and immortalize key moments from your campaign by incorporating fallen enemies into your bases. Kit bash zombies and nurgle deamons with enemy troops to turn your opponent's forces into hordes of new poxwalkers.

 

My key point, if the rules have you feeling down, focus on what first drew you to Death Guard and ways to enjoy time with your friends that go beyond just "winning the game".

 

Good Luck!

I don't play that competitively. Most of us don't competitively list build, we like to use all the units in the codex from time to time, no matter how good or bad. My gaming group is my brother and our friends of 20+ years from multiple gaming systems. It's just how DG play now in general to how they used to play and I'm no longer having fun, not so much winning and losing. I'm still winning over 50% of the time. The 5+++ was my favorite thing about them. -1D is just not the same. I do have my own gaming table and made it full of nurgly terrain with a swamp mat. The lore side has never been an issue for me. I did get crusade stuff to try and start one but the general consensus in the group was crusade is just extra book keeping and more rules GW can't balance. Not saying that's true, but that's how most of the guys feel.

 

My brother's main army is ad mech so we thought warzone charadon would be a good fit for us to do some narrative stuff. Then we get the rules, and DG can't take Daemon engines (my favorite DG units) and my brother can't take skitarii (his favorite). We played one game with the rules and it was like a slap in the face and we moved on.

 

I would love to have a warpsmith like character that can interact with Daemon engines, but alas we have none. I thought the Lord of Virulence was supposed to interact with them based on the original reveal community post, but he does nothing with them.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Putrid Choir

[techsoldaten]

Thanks for the feedback GrinNfool. I do believe I picked a wrong second faction haha. I just thought I was already doing nurgle, why not keep rolling with it. I should have went back to my Tau, great shooting and mobility, literally the opposite of the DG. I'll never play a horde army again. I like painting the models so they look good and how I want them, but that's it. It's to play the game, I don't particularly enjoy the painting side for the sake of painting. Kind of reminds me of playing a MMORPG and leveling. The leveling process can be fun for awhile, but quickly turns tedious and into a grind. And the end game experience is when alot of MMO's open up, and for 40k to me that's having the painted army done and being able to play. So I avoid horde armies, poxwalkers were bad enough haha.

 

This sentiment is familiar to me. One of my lockdown projects was Deathwatch, the difference is night and day. While I can't tell you how to love your Death Guard army again, I do appreciate the way each army plays and the fact I can move between one and the other.

 

While the Deathwatch definitely have superior shooting, there are times I wish they were better in melee. Likewise, while there's times I'm disappointing with DG shooting, they can tank a lot of wounds that would put down my Kill Teams.

[Irate Khornate]

I'll be honest I feel the sentiment of being bummed out by my army in general. It's gotten to a point of I really do not feel like playing any of my chaos armies. It's not for a lack of enjoyment of the hobby, but when I know that whatever army I go against that has a 9th edition codex or Space Marines I know I'm likely going to lose unless I bring a very competitive list. And I really don't like that feeling. I got into the game through the love of the lore and a possibly unhealthy enjoyment of the combat phase. It's why World Eaters/ Khorne Daemonkin was my first army. But right now I feel like I have to play the most tactically sound list that I can right now. I can't even sit back and just run a relaxed game.

 

It could be a mix of several factors, but I never had this issue in early to mid 8th edition. I could literally just play as I wanted and have all sorts of fun in my opponent would usually have a blast playing against me.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Irate Khornate

[Special Officer Doofy]

I'll be honest I feel the sentiment of being bummed out by my army in general. It's gotten to a point of I really do not feel like playing any of my chaos armies. It's not for a lack of enjoyment of the hobby, but when I know that whatever army I go against that has a 9th edition codex or Space Marines I know I'm likely going to lose unless I bring a very competitive list. And I really don't like that feeling. I got into the game through the love of the lore and a possibly unhealthy enjoyment of the combat phase. It's why World Eaters/ Khorne Daemonkin was my first army. But right now I feel like I have to play the most tactically sound list that I can right now. I can't even sit back and just run a relaxed game.

 

It could be a mix of several factors, but I never had this issue in early to mid 8th edition. I could literally just play as I wanted and have all sorts of fun in my opponent would usually have a blast playing against me.

Yeah non DG chaos marines have had it even worse and for longer. I feel you there. The codex creep is out of control in 9th edition.

 

For me it's not about winning or losing, it's about having fun playing, which I'm not having anymore.

[USNCenturion]

I dunno, I think the Death Guard codex is very well written and balanced, with lots of neat tricks, opportunities for customization and feelings of flavor. I believe if Drukhari and the other later ‘dexs weren’t so boosted, people would be getting better mileage out of the DG dex. I think if more books were like this one the whole game would be in a healthier spot.

 

Not saying all this doesn’t mean your feelings are wrong, just something further to think about. The idea of us having a good book but GW creating a ‘have and have not’ landscape.

[tychobi]

40k is a balance nightmare but death guard are in a pretty good place on the meta ladder. Possibly a shift in playstyle could spice things up? I find slow armies are dicey, lack responsiveness, and require less creative problem solving. DG are not fast overall but Fleshmower drones are a blast to play at any point level.

[Plaguecaster]

I completely agree with the feeling I never usually play competitive trying to focus on fluffy and casual games unfortunately since I try an play a older style death guard army using the older units defilers etc I'm actually locked out of using the most of the actual death guard rules simply because I'm using the units not deemed true death guard so alot of rules like disgustingly resilent are Locked out for them due to gw's stupid rule of not letting everything in our army actually benefit from the actual army rules since it feels like they only added them into the book as an after thought and not as death guard units. I really dislike the "oh just play for fun not about winning " excuse Yes I can try an only play "fun" games but everyone who plays even for fun still has mostly strong meta units they aren't going to remove them and use weaker units just to give me a fighting chance and even then doesn't change the fact alot of armies have so much stuff that make a mockery of our so called "resilience" so basically does absolutely nothing apart from giving my opponents an easy win making it even less fun

 

I'm taking a break from 40k this year to focus on age of sigmar instead with my Nurgle army as nurgle got far better in it actually getting army wide feel no pain for everything and the ability to heal wounds each turn so everything actually feels like a resilent army that whilst slow will shrug off alot of damage as they advance upon the enemy playing like a true death guard army should. I will still collect and try painting but unless we get some sort of massive buff to stuff like plague marines like a massive price decrease and change to our weapons I doubt I'll play much games at all this year.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Plaguecaster

[Marshal Loss]

Sucks to hear you're not enjoying things mate. My experience has been very different, despite us holding basically identical opinions. Probably down to different playstyles: my preferred zombie/terminator/PBC spam style list is of course very good now, and I've been having a blast (though nearly a year of regular games has me starting to get a little bored, and I'll probably be moving back to vanilla CSM once they're out). Can see why you'd be disappointed.

 

Solution wise, personally if I was in your scenario with no rules change in site I'd probably look to pick up another force to play games with. That being said, we will be getting the CA points changes soon. They won't fix underlying rules issues but they may well give your preferred playstyle a major shot in the arm (if you're lucky).

 

Don't you dare quit the hobby though, B&C would be a worse place for your absence

[Special Officer Doofy]

Sucks to hear you're not enjoying things mate. My experience has been very different, despite us holding basically identical opinions. Probably down to different playstyles: my preferred zombie/terminator/PBC spam style list is of course very good now, and I've been having a blast (though nearly a year of regular games has me starting to get a little bored, and I'll probably be moving back to vanilla CSM once they're out). Can see why you'd be disappointed.

 

Solution wise, personally if I was in your scenario with no rules change in site I'd probably look to pick up another force to play games with. That being said, we will be getting the CA points changes soon. They won't fix underlying rules issues but they may well give your preferred playstyle a major shot in the arm (if you're lucky).

 

Don't you dare quit the hobby though, B&C would be a worse place for your absence

Haha I appreciate it Marshal Loss! I won't quit just yet, super curious with what they do to chaos daemons. Will they ditch their start collectings and do new combat patrols for each god? Maybe I just need to treat myself to Be'lakor when their codex comes out.

 

Maybe instead of swimming against the current I should go with it. Pick up some more terminators, shelve the plague marines, and finally paint some more poxwalkers.

[Plague _Lord]

Putrid, I've actually had the same thing with Space Wolves lately - I even made a thread similiar to yours on the space wolf forum, you can check it out. it might give a new view on things. Basically I have a similiar problem with them - I like the whole painting and modelling project but got so mauled during gameplay that I felt I had to go heavy into dreads just to not lose 20-0 each game at a random tournament. The funny thing is that I actually liked the Idea of Bjorn and 7 other dreads walking up the field but after a few games (all losses) I just didn't feel the army games wise. In the end I've decided to sell the army.

 

As for Deathguard, and I'm a vet since the 3,5 ed codex, this is the army I never tire of and if I've had breaks from them it was because of taking a break from the hobby as a whole. Your first army tends to have a special spot in your heart and even though I too mourn that my plague marines are near trash level and that DR is less interesting (now that every army has it lol), I still can't think of ever stopping Deathguard. Now I do play in a competitive environment and I must say that I'm having a lot of success with hardly optimised lists - I can take a loss on the chin if I had fun playing but the fun has to be there! I have found that it's easy to fall into the rabbit hole of optimising your army and suddenly you wake up and the list has no soul. That's why I take a 70/30 approach - 70% of the army is optimised so the game will be balanced and 30% is my fun units. For example for some time my core is 10 blightlords, 2 pbc, 3 deathshroud and a Volon, so pretty standard tournament stuff and I add to that units that I like so for example I've been playing a 10man, fully kitted plague marine unit for a long time in 9th and even though they had some games where they dropped like flies, I've also had some when they actually did a lot and I my fun :) The same goes for me playing my Land Raider during the whole of 8th ed - most of the list was optimised but I was having fun with my land raider and the games where never one sided (apart from a few games when I was a tournament noob :)

 

Now as for the state of the codex - sure there lot's of thing that need to improve :

- for 1 ofc we need DR on everything including Defilers and Rhinos

- a lot of our strats are weak and boring, could use a shakeup

- plague marines need to either be cheaper or stronger, make bolter plague weapons or something. This is actually and all around problem - bolters have become a trash weapon.

- drones and mbh need to be waaay cheaper - spitter drones aren't worth it, their damage output meagre, while the MBH are way overcosted and lost their fun special rule fo giving cover to infantry - give it back!

- let us use daemons without losing our army rules! I want to use nurglings! Nurglings are fun!

 

I try to work around the above by rarely using the same list every game and try to focus on themes - one game I'll go terminator heavy, another it might be a terminus est strike force with zombie spam and another time I'm going mechanised. I think our codex really has a lot of options and a variety of fun stuff to try out.

 

Anyway I hope you refind the magic of Deathguard, falling into hobby slumps can be tough... Maybe take a small break from Nurgle and try a small Tau project again? As you said the army works in a totally different way so a few games of Tau could make you want to try the tough boys again. I have found that starting smaller projects is also refreshing - for example I have a nice 750point are of admech that I probably wont expand on but the modelling and painting aspect was refreshing and fun and smaller games are also pretty cool. Maybe Kill team? There are a lot of options.

 

My 7 cents,

 

PL

[USNCenturion]

Almost feels like GW felt too many special rules would be a bad thing and so gave DG relatively light rules; only to give tons of SR to later armies like Ad Mech Drukhari and Orks.

 

I still think our kit is fine, it’s just other newer armies have so much more.

[Tokugawa]

The most urgent needed ability of DG is protection against mortal wounds.

 

About underwhelming performance of PMs…I also play loyalists marine; if I have chance to replace intercessors(fact:they cost 20pts per model)/assault intercessors with plague marines, I will do that immediately. But if I can exchange, how many I will? Maybe only 5*3, or similar minimum numbers to fill troops slots.They are not too bad, not too good. Taking 5 or 10 of them won't make you lose too much value(unlike crap units e.g. predator), but also can't give you much value. They are not "profitable", just like most troops units in most books doing.

[Tokugawa]

Unfortunately,IMO in predictable future, nurglings, or equivalent, or units with similar function, are and will be strictly forbidden to be acquired by 9th DG.

 

GW want to make DG a slow army. Yeah, they did it, we are f**king slow now. Nurglings have scout deploy, which could make us start the game on objectives, not only in our own deployment zone. That is conflicted with their plan.

[Plaguecaster]

Unfortunately,IMO in predictable future, nurglings, or equivalent, or units with similar function, are and will be strictly forbidden to be acquired by 9th DG.

 

GW want to make DG a slow army. Yeah, they did it, we are f**king slow now. Nurglings have scout deploy, which could make us start the game on objectives, not only in our own deployment zone. That is conflicted with their plan.

yeah it sucks  I wish it was like maggotkin in AOS that lets us mix mortals and daemons as I actually hate zombie spam give me back my nurgle Daemons mixed with Death guard that still acted as a proper force instead of losing all my actual army rules for including plaguebearers and nurglings, even the summoning aspect of the wretched with that stratgem which was amazing has been removed. hopefully in next edition we go the magotkin route as it would really benefit our army, slow but actually proper resilient. We've been made slow but our resilience is a joke, I still haven't forgiven GW for when they first forced the 'slow army' stick on us removing all our bikes etc making half my old army completely illegal ( bikes and havocs with plague marines and some daemons)  as bikes were amazing for Death guard.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Plaguecaster

[Plague _Lord]

Yeah I also had nurgle bikers and obliterators and even had some fun with raptors! I also used to use daemons in every list I made - either summoning a plague bomb of DS plaguebearers or the fun of having my plague marine champion leave his squad in the rhino and explode into a Great Unclean One, boy that was fun.

 

Still we can kind of do it now with summoning... Just worse I guess.