The Faction Focuses roll on with a day filled with Chaos goodness.

I have been assigned my favourite Chaos 40k faction to bring to you all. The Death Guard!

The smelly boys have come in for some flak from the community based on early information. Can I change minds? Will Death Guard be any good?

Well let’s take a look at their cards…

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Massive thanks to Games Workshop for giving us access to the rules a little early, and you can download them right now off WarCom!

We also have a whole raft of 40k 10th Edition and Leviathan content up, so be sure to check it out here on the site or on YouTube!

Army Rules

First and foremost we need to discuss the army wide rule, Nurgle’s Gift.

This is an aura ability which grants enemy units -1 to their toughness. As the game goes on the aura gets bigger, giving more enemy units the debuff. Turn One it’s a 3” aura, Turn Two 6” then Turn Three 9”. The aura doesn’t get any bigger in the final 2 turns.

If you plan on getting into combat it’s a great boon, as -1 toughness could make all the difference on the dice rolls.

Detachment Rules: Plague Company

Like with all the other factions, just the one Detachment at launch, but it’s a great one.

At the end of your command phase, so long as you have a Death Guard unit in range of the objective, it’s now locked to your army until someone else controls it, meaning you can move away from it. Whilst under your control it also has the Nurgle’s Gift army rule, so it’s almost like a little contagion node!

Enhancements

Time to move forward to Enhancements, and there’s a couple here to enjoy. Sadly Arch-Contaminator is no more (but don’t fret, rerolls are coming…).

Let’s have a look at each one:

• Living Plague: Add 3” to all of the bearers aura abilities and yea, this includes Nurgle’s Gift.
• The Droning: While an enemy is within contagion range of the bearer, and should they fail a battleshock test, you roll a D6. On a 2-5 the enemy unit suffers 1 mortal wound, on a 6 it’s D3 mortal wounds. Failing battleshock is going to be a lot more common, so this could have some play.
• Deadly Pathogen: This is more me however. Add 1 to the Strength and number of attacks the bearer has. If in range of an objective you control add 2!
• Shamblerot: Each time this model/unit he is attached to is chosen as a target for charging, deduct 2 from said charge. Handy, and perhaps competitive, but for me probably not worth it.

Stratagems

Now for the Stratagems. Safe to say they are all very Death Guard.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. No, unfortunately their is no strat to give the Death Guard a FNP, which has been a super contentious point on various Facebook groups. Their is one here that maybe of interest to those same people, which we’ll kick off with:

• Disgustingly Resilient: Two words synonymous with the Death Guard, now a strat. Gives a unit -1 damage, but can only be used in the Fight phase and costs 2CP. Use only on a unit worth it. Wish it was 1CP as it’s use is going to be a little limited.
• Ferric Blight: Let’s talk a bit more positively! This strat only costs the 1 CP, and can be used in either the Fight or Shooting phase. It improves the units weapons by one and on top of that Critical Hits score an extra pip of AP if in range of an infected objective marker.
• Sanguous Flux: Unit gains Sustained Hits 1 in the Fight phase, or Sustained Hits 2 if they are in range of an infected objective marker.
• Gifts of Decay: Used in the Command phase, and allows you to heal a Death Guard model for D3 wounds, or flat 3 if in range of an infected marker
• Boilblight: This one requires an enemy unit you want to target within contagion range. Each time a unit fires at said unit, you gain Heavy and Ignores Cover.
• Cloud of Flies: Use in your opponents shooting phase. One of your units gains Strath of .

Not a bad selection of strats, but you need to ensure you are capturing objectives and/or getting units within your contagion range.

Key Units

There are quite a few key units for the Death Guard, but I’ve picked out a few I think are worth highlighting:

• Mortarion: I couldn’t not spend a few words talking about the Primarch of the Death Guard could I? He’s a monster, and as well he should be. Toughness 12, 16 wounds, a 2+ save/4+ invulnerable save. Rot wind is his psychic attack, D6+3 attacks, S7 -2 AP and D1. He still rocks around with the Lantern and Silence, the latter having lol both a sweeping attack as well as the less attacks but more of everything else. Both attacks have Lethal shots though. He has an ability called Host of Plagues which always you to pick one of three abilities each turn. Miasma of Pestilence gives an aura of cover, Diseased Influence gives a wound reroll of 1s and finally Toxic Presence extends the contagion range. Finally he has another rule which allows nearly units to ignore any modifiers.
• Typhus: The only HQ unit that can attach to Poxwalkers. Gives his unit -1 to hit. The Eater Plague is a cool new psychic ability. On a 1 he takes D3 mortal wounds, 2-5 the enemy suffers D6 mortal wounds or on a 6 it’s D3 + 3. This ability helps the Poxwalkers, which we’ll cover shortly.
• Lord of Contagion/Virulence: The former gives full rerolls to hit for his unit in combat, whilst the latter gives full rerolls to wound. Both strong characters, and no longer with the limit that you can only take one per detachment.
• Icon Bearer: Now a HQ character, and should he be leading a unit he gives them an extra pip of Objective Control, and also once once per battle it can enable itself to project a 12” contagion range.
• Blightlord Terminators: I never leave home without them, and at T6, 3 wounds each and a 2+ save, I’ll be continuing to use them. They also get rerolls of 1 to wound in the shooting or combat phase.
• Poxwalkers. Braaains. These guys haven’t changed too much, but you do get to bring a model back each time you slay a model. Oh, and it also states that when Tyhpus is attached and pulls off the Eater spell, you gain whatever damage you do with the ability back in poxwalkers!

Summary

It’s come under fire but I actually think the Death Guard have some tactics. You also absoutey need to get moving and grabbing those objectives early doors to spread the contagion around the battlefield as much as possible.

With the array of HQ choices, it’s great that lesser hero’s, Blightspawns for example, can join units even if you have a lord or another HQ attached.

No feel no pain does suck. It’s not even a strat, so I can understand the frustrations out in the community, but personally there’s enough for me to be interested in, and I can’t wait to see what they can do.