The BaC Contemptor can be posed decently well if you have some free time and don't mind doing some plastic surgery. Replacing the helmet is a pain in the ass (you basically have to build your own enclosure for the new one), but it's certainly doable.
Would be nice to get an actual multipart one that wasn't made of resin though.
@Dayspring I was doing thinking while watching the new tabletop tactics of deathwatch verse daemons on Slaanesh.
So I think they may be better than I was thinking, but not as support for a CSM army. The cost of daemons outside a few specific ones are points better spent on cultist for chaff or poxwalkers or termis. CSM kind of doesn't need the support anymore. You have blobs, you have elites, you have big things and small things. And if they drop Fulgrim or another daemon primarch there you have super heavies beyond the Khorn Lord of Skulls which is great.
But in a daemon army? I think they are your vanguard. Nurgle holds the line in your battalion detachment. Plague Bearers with all the buffs are just tough to kill and do a lot of damage. You want to run blocks of 30 for the -1 to hit as well.
But Slaanesh is your runners. A hearld or keeper with seeker and fiend support in their own detachment. They can can advance and charge on the same turn. Seekers are a 14" movement and can have an instrument giving them 14"+d6+1+2d6+1 charge range. That is nasty. Usually an 18" move and an 8" charge you will get into folks fast. And they reroll charges. The keeper is 12"+d6+2d6. Heralds on a seeker is 14". Fiends are 14". Hellflayers are 12".
Slaanesh is going to get across that board fast. They are weak at holding anything because of daemonettes. So use Nurgle to hold or even just horrors because they are balls cheap. Use Slaanesh for your spear head.
Cross-asking here and in SE++, just to cover all my bases:
Do we have any Age of Sigmar guys in here who can tell me in a general way whether I can buy the Flesh-Eater Courts box, then later beef it out with a bunch of cool ghosts and skeletons and regular vampires should I want to set a bunch of money on fire?
You can either take a Death army in which you can take any models in the Undead line, or you can play pure Flesh Eater Courts and get access to their specific traits and allegiance abilities. If you play pure, you can still take a certain amount of non Flesh Eater models via the Allies rules in General's Compendium 2017
Also looks like there'll be a new book for Death soon, legions of Nagash
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Dr_KeenbeanDumb as a buttPlanet Express ShipRegistered Userregular
How is any of their 'major news' from this Open Day allowed to be called either of those things?
Who did any of that surprise? There is literally nothing truly new in what they announced. Did anyone seriously think Thousand Sons weren't getting a new codex? Did anyone seriously think Custodes weren't ever getting new models?
I think they just misjudged how much hype their day-before teaser would generate, and whatever graphic-design intern they got to throw together that image didn't really think things through.
Honestly, the release is fine. This strikes me as an advertising fuckup, which I'm sure someone got chewed out for. Know your audience, chumbos.
I recently moved into a house after spending most of my life in apartments and decided to break in the "dining" room (aka the war room), by setting up the 9x6' city board my buddy built in high school. In the ~15 since it was built we've only gotten to use it once because it's too big. My friend built a ton of character into the board, makes for good gaming.
We're in the midst of a roughly 5k/side 2v2 game Guard/Deathguard vs Guard/Blood Angels(me), to kick off a narative campaign we're running... also only my 2nd game of 8th ed. Seems pretty cool so far! A few pics:
Above the action early on, we used a mixed deployment zone, so a few of those buildings have multi-level firefights inside (they all come apart). The 3 largest buildings are the objectives, loyal guard need to hold out 2 turns until BA reinforcements arrive to either claim the buildings and/or extract a few key characters:
Tanks round the corner as the guard lines clash:
This looks like trouble, deathguard approach the loyalist guard line in back:
Some guard attempt to be sneaky in the trench network, there is a cover for this trench, but hard to take pics... they fail to be sneaky when they end up trapped in the network when rhinos and sentinels park over the 3 exits to the surface:
The first of my blood angels arrive late, and clear the back line, but at the cost of loosing 2 of the objective buildings as the loyal guard front line collapses. At this point we just need the stormravens to arrive to get everyone important out:
Not really as I like having a table or such just having a set terrain gets old . You will know every point of fire, blind corner and the range of everything within time
Played yesterday 2vs2, total 2k pts for each side. Each player pretty much brought approximately 1k points. My side was Death Guard and buddy was Thousand Sons, opponent was Craftworld Biel-tan and Dark Eldar. Since those amazing pics are above, I'll wait til I eat lunch / grab food to type up what happened and Mazzyx can judge me ( ), but .... Rubric Marines are preeeeeeeetty good versus Dark Eldar nonsense.
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Not really as I like having a table or such just having a set terrain gets old . You will know every point of fire, blind corner and the range of everything within time
My plan is to have a cityscape built out of 2'x2' "tiles" that could be re-arranged to avoid this somewhat.
The city design I'm working on is completely undamaged though, as I want it to represent a city that is facing the very beginning of a campaign, as opposed to a city that is bombed out partway through a battle/war. Lately I've been rethinking this though, because bombed out buildings/ruins create a lot of room for infantry and a lot of shortcuts for moving through areas.
Agreed about the static terrain. I made this point to him back in high school, but we haven't had enough games yet for it to be a problem. Thinking of getting a more typical set of GW terrain for more day-to-day use after we get some games in and send this massive thing back to a parent's garage!
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Dr_KeenbeanDumb as a buttPlanet Express ShipRegistered Userregular
I recently moved into a house after spending most of my life in apartments and decided to break in the "dining" room (aka the war room), by setting up the 9x6' city board my buddy built in high school.
Dude!
Are you back in Toronto? We need to get a game in!
So, in our game of 4 newbies, we picked the starter mission, Only War I believe. 4 objective markers were set up and, as it eventually played out, two were in each deployment zone. We rolled and it ended up that the objectives would give one point each at the end of every half turn to whomever controlled it.
The game type in the book also said that whomever had the lower PL chose who went first. The Dark Eldar/Bieltan Eldar force was two or three under us, so they chose to go first and it quickly became apparent they were both melee focused.
A Dark Eldar Raider, Ravager, and two Venoms joined an Eldar Wave Serpent in charging our position. They were evenly spread out, hitting each flank. The Ravager carried no troops, but it did have 3 dark lances. The Raider did have troops, including a Haemonculus, and had 1 dark lance. An Avatar of Khaine was also advancing towards our left flank behind the two Venoms and a Raider. They left two squads of Dire Avengers back to guard each objective. Also, and unsure what to think of it, but none of their squads were more than 5 dudes. They said they didn't see a reason to have a squad of over 5.
Our left flank was overloaded with both squads of 10 Rubric Marines, a Foetid Blight Drone, and a Plague Marine 5 man squad. Ahriman and an Exalted Sorcerer were also in that direction. A Death Guard Plagueburst Crawler and a Death Guard Helbrute sat in the center rear with 20 Poxwalkers in the center and the final 5 man Plague Marine squad in a trench on an objective for the right flank.
They advanced quickly, the Eldar do, and they all opened fire. I, the Death Guard player, rolled poorly. Very poorly. Both Plague marine squads were knocked down to two Marines and the squad on the left flank would eventually lose another due to morale (kept the blight launcher, the sergeant was shamed for allowing it to happen and fled). The Plagueburst Crawler, however, ate every dark lance and didn't feel a damn thing, losing nothing. Then, they fired into the Rubrics....
The Rubrics stood in a storm of splinter fire and shrugged it off as it was nothing. As the game went on, the Dark Eldar player began to become exasperated at how the resulting 2+ saves basically withstood his fire. 1's would go through occasionally over the course of the game, but otherwise they stood strong.
Our retaliation targeted the Raider. Unfortunately, it withstood the Helbrute's twin lascannon and Plagueburst Crawlers assault, losing only some wounds. The Foetid Blight Drone chipped in, bringing it down to one ... leaving the sole survivor of the plague marines squad with the blight launcher to take it out. That was pleasing.
The game went on, Eldar dropped in, and Howling Banshees charged the center poxwalkers as they had shifted over to our right flank to ensure we had the objective as the Plague Marines were hurting. The Poxwalkers tied them up and then the stratagem that gave them additional Poxwalkers for friends or foes dying to anything within range, plus a barrage of psychic attacks that left the Howling Banshees dead, meant the Poxwalkers had more bodies after they were all dead than when it started. The trend would continue such that by the end of the game, they had probably lost at least 15 Poxwalkers, but due to the stratagem / their own attacks and Mandrakes (with only 5 man squads each..) piling into them, they still had 15-20 by the end of the fight and remained on the objective.
During that, our Scarab Occult Terminators dropped in the back and wiped out their Dire Avengers on an objective. Our shooting and smite were too good, however, preventing the charge...so we couldn't take the objective yet. Still, it meant each half turn we began taking a point lead that incremented by one.
Eventually as the game went on, the Avatar of Khaine was able to get in on the more weakened of the 10 man squad of Rubrics, followed by a 5 man Striking Scorpion squad. They wiped out the entire Rubric squad...but, as we are all newbs, they didn't consolidate properly and there was an angle by which the remaining Rubric Squad and the Helbrute with twin lascannon and missile launcher could hit him after a move. That, plus maneuvering the still alive Foetid Blight Drone to a point where he could also shoot in, allowed a kill on the Avatar AND a charge by the Blight Drone to tie up the remaining Scorpions.
Our opponents had a few good moves, like the Haemonculus managed to get in and do mortal wounds to 3 of our psykers, greatly hurting Ahriman and the Exalted sorcerer. Their Wave Serpent, after dropping off FireDragons (who missed or had EVERY ATTACK on the Plagueburst Crawler saved), dove at the remaining Rubrics and triggered his serpent shield to do more mortal wounds. The squad was weakened by that.
At that point, though, the point every half turn lead was too great, there were still a mountain of Poxwalkers on our one objective. Ahriman, an Exalted Sorcerer, a now half-dead Rubric squad, and the Helbrute were guarding the other objective. An unhurt Lord of Contagion was about to charge and destroy the fire dragons and a Malignant Blightcaster was about to finish off the Mandrakes and Dire Avengers that were still hanging around the right flank objective. We were going to hopefully fire into and finish off the half-damaged Ravager and the bored Scarab Occult Terminators were just chilling on their one objective. One of us had to go so we called it, but it was a fun if WAY too long game....we gotta get better and go faster. Poxwalkers surprised me at how good they could do.
I really think the game was decided by target calling, though. Our Helbrute should've been killed and they should have focused down the Poxwalkers....but hey, we made mistakes too.
Thanks @Mazzyx for the 1k Sons build. I should've asked you for Death Guard, too, obviously....but that was pretty much every DG model I had besides the Bell guy, so it wouldn't have mattered I suppose haha.
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I recently moved into a house after spending most of my life in apartments and decided to break in the "dining" room (aka the war room), by setting up the 9x6' city board my buddy built in high school.
Dude!
Are you back in Toronto? We need to get a game in!
Yup, and definitely up for some games, you can come by and try the city board. Still pretty busy setting up, but will have time in a few weeks.
Gonna be attending a big tourney this weekend. 2k points, 3 hour matches. I don’t think I’ve ever had a 2k point game under 4 hours, but maybe a heavy reduction in social chatting, looking up rules, and drinking will trim it down enough.
Running an Iron Warriors walker spam list so hopefully that will help too. A couple big blobs of cultists too but I’m expecting them to get gunned down horribly and remove any need to move them around. I’m bringing a Lord of Skulls though, and expect there to be a lot of anti-Lord of Skulls weaponry out there. What should I be watching out for? I know Shadowswords can end it pretty well, but what else is there I should be focusing on?
Gonna be attending a big tourney this weekend. 2k points, 3 hour matches. I don’t think I’ve ever had a 2k point game under 4 hours, but maybe a heavy reduction in social chatting, looking up rules, and drinking will trim it down enough.
Running an Iron Warriors walker spam list so hopefully that will help too. A couple big blobs of cultists too but I’m expecting them to get gunned down horribly and remove any need to move them around. I’m bringing a Lord of Skulls though, and expect there to be a lot of anti-Lord of Skulls weaponry out there. What should I be watching out for? I know Shadowswords can end it pretty well, but what else is there I should be focusing on?
There are a few things you might run into.
Guilliman with predator/lasback spam. It can rip you apart super fast. Re-rolls, kill shot, and just a lot of tough firepower.
Thanks #Mazzyx for the 1k Sons build. I should've asked you for Death Guard, too, obviously....but that was pretty much every DG model I had besides the Bell guy, so it wouldn't have mattered I suppose haha.
Further to this I actually wouldn't mind some tips on what to work towards with Death Guard. I'm super fresh after not playing since I was in my late teens.
After splitting the Dark Imperium set with a buddy I've got a Lord of Contagion, Malignant Plaguecaster, Noxious Blightbringer, a squad of Death Guard, Foetid Bloat-drone, and poxwalkers.
I recently came into about 2500 pts of painted white scars (Mostly bikes and storm talons) that I don't really want. Could sell, but would rather trade army for army for something else painted. Anyone interested? List and pics in spoilers.
3 librarian
2 apothecary
40 bikers
-11 melta
-4 grav
-2 plasma
-8 standard
-7 spear
-5 swords
-1 axe
-1 hammer
-1 fist
3 storm talons
6 attack bike with mm
10 sternguard with assorted Combi weapons and Squad weapons
1 rhino
1 whirlwind that can double for a rhino.
Ahh the Sisters of Slaughter head will work for what I want to do to the succubus but sadly the hair will not
Alas I think I found the hair I want but seeing how I have to craft a neck for the head to fit
So much I have to do just to get a certain look C'est la vie.
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valhalla13013 Dark Shield Perceives the GodsRegistered Userregular
I would love to own those White Scars. I want a force of them, but painting yellow was bad enough. If I ever own them, it will be because someone else painted them. Lol.
Sadly DG are not my main army. I can give a list of things I know that work really well though. I think @Vanguard plays death guard though.
Stuff I have seen is more pox walkers. They are key to a DG army. Cheap tough to move troops that come back is so good.
Typhus not only looks great with the new sculpt he really buffs those pox walkers.
If you want to spent dosh Moratorium is amazing.
Plagueburst Crawlers are great tanks, even with the 4+ to hit. Tough to kill. A DP isn't a bad investment. Rhino and more plagues isn't bad either.
I haven't played verse the new blight haulers but I bet they are decent and not too expensive.
So Death Guard
Top Tier Units
Daemon prince
Drones with spitters
PBC with spitters
Cultists
Poxwalkers
Typhus
Foul Blightspawn
Necrosius the undying
Garbage tier avoid
Plauge surgeon
The grenade buff guy
Any plague marine unit over 5 guys.
Melee plague marines
Plaugebearers cavalry
Everything else is basically OK. Not super competitive but not useless either. Some things are a lot better in particular builds but are often outclassed by their A tier counterparts. DPs are better than lords, drones with spitters are better than all other load outs and so on.
Edit: Incidently the new haulers are actually too expensive. Taken solo they are worse than helbrutes who are similarly costed and their buffs don’t have enough range to be usefull. Taken in units of 3 to get the bonus (which then makes them better than helbrutes) is nearly 500 points which at that point is waaayyy too much.
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
edited January 2018
I'm going to disagree with @Norgoth on some points here, with some explanation.
Plagueburst Crawlers: I would swap out the Spitters for Entropy Cannons. Spitters offer slightly above medium strength, low AP, low damage at short range. You're never going to want to move this vehicle since it hurts the WS for all of the other weapons, which means you'll likely never be able to fire these. Swapping for Entropy Cannons adds more high strength, high AP, high damage at range, which is something our army needs to function. The cost for making the swap is also negligible - the difference is a single Poxwalker.
Foetid Bloat Drones: These aren't bad, but they're too expensive to be considered top tier. The build Norgoth suggests is actually more expensive than a Plagueburst Crawler and, if you have the points, I would just recommend taking a 2nd one of those instead. If I were going to run this, I'd also consider the Heavy Blight Launcher as it provides some consistency over the Spitters and the unit's effectiveness won't decline as it takes damage. Spitters also require putting the Drone in harm's way; I've found that this thing is pretty resilient against Shooting attacks but crumbles in close combat.
Plague Marines: Even after Chapter Approved, Plague Marines biggest problem is their point cost. I would move them out of garbage tier and put them at merely okay. I see two viable builds. 7-10 Man squads loaded in a Rhino or a huge, 20-man squad footslogging across the field. In both cases, I would go with Melee builds, handing out two Flails and Bubotic Axes to everything else. The Rhino build is cheaper and means they will play a more targeted role. You can support the unit with some characters as well. The foot slog approach basically means they will eat whatever they charge, but are more of a late game play (turn 3 or 4).
Plague Surgeon: If your army relies on a lot of foot slogging, I would run this guy with Fugaris Helm to extend his ability a few inches.
From what I've seen, Foetid Blight Drones you basically send out to wreak as much havoc / chaos as you can and to "burn" as many things as possible with their plague flame thrower type weapons. They're DG, so they are tough, and you just charge them into infantry (like we did with our newb game, had them dive into the Striking Scorpions since their mandiblasters didn't work on them) and then just fall back and burn again since they have the Fly Keyword.
If they get targeted, they're tough, but they also blow up easily on a 4+, so you want them deep into the enemy group. And if they're targeted, it's giving you more time for your troops to get in close.
I've seen intense arguments over the Heavy Blight Launcher and that the only reason to bring that would be if you constantly are facing melee heavy fast movers who constantly reach your Plagueburst Crawlers and prevent their arty fire. Blight Drones are fast enough to escape and to keep firing.
For the Plagueburst, I generally see entropy cannons suggested and it's what we ran. I rolled horribly for them, but he was basically a stationary heavy tank in the back. If I hadn't rolled horribly, he'd have been great, but I was wishing for the spitters when the enemy got closer since they auto-hit....again, it might just be dependent on the local meta what you bring?
Plague Marine melee seems tempting with the plague weapons, but the Death Guard get a Legion Trait where they can rapid fire out to 18 inches, so I just can't make myself give them melee weapons. Might be a fun variant to try, though.
Mortarion is a beast and if he wasn't out of stock, he'd be on the way to my house right now....and he's a Daemon, so if you have a detachment of Chaos Daemons, you can deep strike him now (I believe), which seems unbelievably OP if you can pull off a Warptime after he drops in.
Note, I am a newb, so take the above with a grain of salt. Asterisks everywhere! I do enjoy the debate, though, and love tactics talk, so please rip my post apart.
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Cannons on the PBCS are fine, and I would take them over any other anti tank option, but don’t fool yourself. Death Guard is not a longrange faction. Your primary anti-tank weapon is the Foul Blight spawn.
Drones and PBCS are the best options for clearing infantry screens Death Guard have. Whilst the drone is more expensive (and more fragile) than the crawler, being able to fly is a massive increase in usability. They should never be charging, and should always fall back. Degrading strength is a non problem. Str 4 rerolling all failed wounds is enough to clear their preferred targets. (incidently you should be using arch contaminatior as your Warlord trait).
Your game plan as Death Guard is to clear out the screen and have your poxwalker swarm hold opponent whilst your characters and FBs just kill whatever they want.
Plague marines arnt worth using in large groups because despite costing more (and having more toughness) anything designed to kill MEQs kills them just as well. Plasma, Grav, e.t.c. Small groups just to carry some plasmas or blight launchers is ok. Melee units cost a stupid amount of points (the mentioned 20 man Melee unit is 455 points!)for a unit that’s worse in combat than any specific melee unit, like possed or berserkers or anything really(Beskerers with axes is 339 points, and puts out way more attacks, at a comparable strength)
Plauge Surgeons buff is so mathematically small that your better off spending the points on more bodies. Over an entire squad of poxes it’s, on averages, one extra save. You can take 10 poxwalkers with change instead. Or, just swap a normal Sorcerer for Necrosius. He was the same buff for poxwalkers, a 4+ invuln 3 denies and is 10 points more than the regular blightbringer.
How many Foul Blight Spawns would you bring? I actually have one on the way to my house, but....
And isn't the "don't charge the Blight Drone" dependant on what's around? If they're shooty based, flaming and then plowing into a unit actually might keep it safer than never charging.
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I don't think I have seen a foul blight spawn yet but the one main DG player we have tends to put stuff out slowly as he only plays with fully painted models. His army is dope though, no Morty yet.
I will say at least 40k actually has interesting discussions on this stuff now since the meta is fluid thanks to GW putting out new stuff regularly and with consistent FAQ updates and stuff.
Also I am still trying to figure out a use for Daemons with my CSM army. And no I am not bringing brims, I am a Slaanesh player :P.
Right now I am thinking maybe an outrider detachment with 2 seeker squads, 1 herald on a seeker, and a helflayer. Its fast in that it moves 14" plus take an instrument so it advances 1d6+1" and can charge the same turn if you are near the herald for another 2d6+1" with rerolls. The herald makes the attacks of the seekers decent. A lot of possible first turn charges in there. The Helflayer chariot is pretty decent to in the number of attacks and moves 12"+1d6 for the advance then a charge afterwards.
Use this for a big threat while the cultist and noise marines secure the backline with sonic helbrutes. Maybe throw in a daemon prince and my maulerfiend to go with the seekers. If I read the loci right it should work as both would have slaanesh and the daemon keywords.
I know being tough is DG's whole thing but looking at their stuff on battlescribe their vehicles especially seem crazy tough for their points cost compared to other armies. Like the plagueburst crawler is probably as tough as a land raider when you factor in a 5++ and disgustingly resilient, with decent guns for 150-odd points? That seems pretty nuts.
"I told you," said Ford. "Eddies in the space-time continuum."
"And this is his sofa, is it?" said Arthur.
How many Foul Blight Spawns would you bring? I actually have one on the way to my house, but....
And isn't the "don't charge the Blight Drone" dependant on what's around? If they're shooty based, flaming and then plowing into a unit actually might keep it safer than never charging.
I play four.
Again with the drone it’s a targets thing. Ideally it should be hunting down things like Ork boyz, guardsmen, gaunts e.t.c none of these things reasonably threaten a T7 10 wound 3+/5++/5+++ model. There also so cheap as to be reasonably spammable, and being flying means you can keep them out of LOS much easier. It’s of course a generalisation, there are edge cases when you should charge (hello Gullimans razorbacks!) but in general the overwatch is too good to give up.
There are some caveats to my comments though. My local scence is hyper-competitive so my list it’s tailored to that. A lot of stacking negative hit penalties, brimstone horrors, Gulliman gunlines and the like. Ultimately it depends on your local meta. If people are playing like, deathwatch or flayed one necrons or something then this is largely academic. And of course number one rule play what you think is cool, like 455 20 man Melee plague marine squad may not be top tier competitive, but it does look cool as shit.
Yeah, this page has been awesome. Need more tactics / unit chatter. I love it to death.
I've had one good experience with Cultists, but every other time they just seem to get gunned down without doing anything. They help fill out points / are a troop choice, obviously, but I dunno how else to use them effectively aside from blocking deep strikes.
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I am hoping the only good that comes out of this is a plastic comtemptor kit I can chaosify.
Would be nice to get an actual multipart one that wasn't made of resin though.
So I think they may be better than I was thinking, but not as support for a CSM army. The cost of daemons outside a few specific ones are points better spent on cultist for chaff or poxwalkers or termis. CSM kind of doesn't need the support anymore. You have blobs, you have elites, you have big things and small things. And if they drop Fulgrim or another daemon primarch there you have super heavies beyond the Khorn Lord of Skulls which is great.
But in a daemon army? I think they are your vanguard. Nurgle holds the line in your battalion detachment. Plague Bearers with all the buffs are just tough to kill and do a lot of damage. You want to run blocks of 30 for the -1 to hit as well.
But Slaanesh is your runners. A hearld or keeper with seeker and fiend support in their own detachment. They can can advance and charge on the same turn. Seekers are a 14" movement and can have an instrument giving them 14"+d6+1+2d6+1 charge range. That is nasty. Usually an 18" move and an 8" charge you will get into folks fast. And they reroll charges. The keeper is 12"+d6+2d6. Heralds on a seeker is 14". Fiends are 14". Hellflayers are 12".
Slaanesh is going to get across that board fast. They are weak at holding anything because of daemonettes. So use Nurgle to hold or even just horrors because they are balls cheap. Use Slaanesh for your spear head.
Also looks like there'll be a new book for Death soon, legions of Nagash
Who did any of that surprise? There is literally nothing truly new in what they announced. Did anyone seriously think Thousand Sons weren't getting a new codex? Did anyone seriously think Custodes weren't ever getting new models?
What a massive letdown.
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Honestly, the release is fine. This strikes me as an advertising fuckup, which I'm sure someone got chewed out for. Know your audience, chumbos.
We're in the midst of a roughly 5k/side 2v2 game Guard/Deathguard vs Guard/Blood Angels(me), to kick off a narative campaign we're running... also only my 2nd game of 8th ed. Seems pretty cool so far! A few pics:
Above the action early on, we used a mixed deployment zone, so a few of those buildings have multi-level firefights inside (they all come apart). The 3 largest buildings are the objectives, loyal guard need to hold out 2 turns until BA reinforcements arrive to either claim the buildings and/or extract a few key characters:
Tanks round the corner as the guard lines clash:
This looks like trouble, deathguard approach the loyalist guard line in back:
Some guard attempt to be sneaky in the trench network, there is a cover for this trench, but hard to take pics... they fail to be sneaky when they end up trapped in the network when rhinos and sentinels park over the 3 exits to the surface:
The first of my blood angels arrive late, and clear the back line, but at the cost of loosing 2 of the objective buildings as the loyal guard front line collapses. At this point we just need the stormravens to arrive to get everyone important out:
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My plan is to have a cityscape built out of 2'x2' "tiles" that could be re-arranged to avoid this somewhat.
The city design I'm working on is completely undamaged though, as I want it to represent a city that is facing the very beginning of a campaign, as opposed to a city that is bombed out partway through a battle/war. Lately I've been rethinking this though, because bombed out buildings/ruins create a lot of room for infantry and a lot of shortcuts for moving through areas.
That table looks amazing though.
Tell them I hate them.
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Dude!
Are you back in Toronto? We need to get a game in!
The game type in the book also said that whomever had the lower PL chose who went first. The Dark Eldar/Bieltan Eldar force was two or three under us, so they chose to go first and it quickly became apparent they were both melee focused.
A Dark Eldar Raider, Ravager, and two Venoms joined an Eldar Wave Serpent in charging our position. They were evenly spread out, hitting each flank. The Ravager carried no troops, but it did have 3 dark lances. The Raider did have troops, including a Haemonculus, and had 1 dark lance. An Avatar of Khaine was also advancing towards our left flank behind the two Venoms and a Raider. They left two squads of Dire Avengers back to guard each objective. Also, and unsure what to think of it, but none of their squads were more than 5 dudes. They said they didn't see a reason to have a squad of over 5.
Our left flank was overloaded with both squads of 10 Rubric Marines, a Foetid Blight Drone, and a Plague Marine 5 man squad. Ahriman and an Exalted Sorcerer were also in that direction. A Death Guard Plagueburst Crawler and a Death Guard Helbrute sat in the center rear with 20 Poxwalkers in the center and the final 5 man Plague Marine squad in a trench on an objective for the right flank.
They advanced quickly, the Eldar do, and they all opened fire. I, the Death Guard player, rolled poorly. Very poorly. Both Plague marine squads were knocked down to two Marines and the squad on the left flank would eventually lose another due to morale (kept the blight launcher, the sergeant was shamed for allowing it to happen and fled). The Plagueburst Crawler, however, ate every dark lance and didn't feel a damn thing, losing nothing. Then, they fired into the Rubrics....
The Rubrics stood in a storm of splinter fire and shrugged it off as it was nothing. As the game went on, the Dark Eldar player began to become exasperated at how the resulting 2+ saves basically withstood his fire. 1's would go through occasionally over the course of the game, but otherwise they stood strong.
Our retaliation targeted the Raider. Unfortunately, it withstood the Helbrute's twin lascannon and Plagueburst Crawlers assault, losing only some wounds. The Foetid Blight Drone chipped in, bringing it down to one ... leaving the sole survivor of the plague marines squad with the blight launcher to take it out. That was pleasing.
The game went on, Eldar dropped in, and Howling Banshees charged the center poxwalkers as they had shifted over to our right flank to ensure we had the objective as the Plague Marines were hurting. The Poxwalkers tied them up and then the stratagem that gave them additional Poxwalkers for friends or foes dying to anything within range, plus a barrage of psychic attacks that left the Howling Banshees dead, meant the Poxwalkers had more bodies after they were all dead than when it started. The trend would continue such that by the end of the game, they had probably lost at least 15 Poxwalkers, but due to the stratagem / their own attacks and Mandrakes (with only 5 man squads each..) piling into them, they still had 15-20 by the end of the fight and remained on the objective.
During that, our Scarab Occult Terminators dropped in the back and wiped out their Dire Avengers on an objective. Our shooting and smite were too good, however, preventing the charge...so we couldn't take the objective yet. Still, it meant each half turn we began taking a point lead that incremented by one.
Eventually as the game went on, the Avatar of Khaine was able to get in on the more weakened of the 10 man squad of Rubrics, followed by a 5 man Striking Scorpion squad. They wiped out the entire Rubric squad...but, as we are all newbs, they didn't consolidate properly and there was an angle by which the remaining Rubric Squad and the Helbrute with twin lascannon and missile launcher could hit him after a move. That, plus maneuvering the still alive Foetid Blight Drone to a point where he could also shoot in, allowed a kill on the Avatar AND a charge by the Blight Drone to tie up the remaining Scorpions.
Our opponents had a few good moves, like the Haemonculus managed to get in and do mortal wounds to 3 of our psykers, greatly hurting Ahriman and the Exalted sorcerer. Their Wave Serpent, after dropping off FireDragons (who missed or had EVERY ATTACK on the Plagueburst Crawler saved), dove at the remaining Rubrics and triggered his serpent shield to do more mortal wounds. The squad was weakened by that.
At that point, though, the point every half turn lead was too great, there were still a mountain of Poxwalkers on our one objective. Ahriman, an Exalted Sorcerer, a now half-dead Rubric squad, and the Helbrute were guarding the other objective. An unhurt Lord of Contagion was about to charge and destroy the fire dragons and a Malignant Blightcaster was about to finish off the Mandrakes and Dire Avengers that were still hanging around the right flank objective. We were going to hopefully fire into and finish off the half-damaged Ravager and the bored Scarab Occult Terminators were just chilling on their one objective. One of us had to go so we called it, but it was a fun if WAY too long game....we gotta get better and go faster. Poxwalkers surprised me at how good they could do.
I really think the game was decided by target calling, though. Our Helbrute should've been killed and they should have focused down the Poxwalkers....but hey, we made mistakes too.
Thanks @Mazzyx for the 1k Sons build. I should've asked you for Death Guard, too, obviously....but that was pretty much every DG model I had besides the Bell guy, so it wouldn't have mattered I suppose haha.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Yup, and definitely up for some games, you can come by and try the city board. Still pretty busy setting up, but will have time in a few weeks.
Running an Iron Warriors walker spam list so hopefully that will help too. A couple big blobs of cultists too but I’m expecting them to get gunned down horribly and remove any need to move them around. I’m bringing a Lord of Skulls though, and expect there to be a lot of anti-Lord of Skulls weaponry out there. What should I be watching out for? I know Shadowswords can end it pretty well, but what else is there I should be focusing on?
There are a few things you might run into.
Guilliman with predator/lasback spam. It can rip you apart super fast. Re-rolls, kill shot, and just a lot of tough firepower.
AM has tons of toys for big things.
Chaos with primarchs and knights.
CSM plasma drops can do a ton too.
Eldar fire dragons from the webway.
These are off the top of my head.
Alatoic reapers nowadays.
Watch out for Foul Blightspawn who have a crazy damage output and can and will kill basically anything.
Further to this I actually wouldn't mind some tips on what to work towards with Death Guard. I'm super fresh after not playing since I was in my late teens.
After splitting the Dark Imperium set with a buddy I've got a Lord of Contagion, Malignant Plaguecaster, Noxious Blightbringer, a squad of Death Guard, Foetid Bloat-drone, and poxwalkers.
Suggestions on a next purchase?
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
2 apothecary
40 bikers
-11 melta
-4 grav
-2 plasma
-8 standard
-7 spear
-5 swords
-1 axe
-1 hammer
-1 fist
3 storm talons
6 attack bike with mm
10 sternguard with assorted Combi weapons and Squad weapons
1 rhino
1 whirlwind that can double for a rhino.
Alas I think I found the hair I want but seeing how I have to craft a neck for the head to fit
So much I have to do just to get a certain look C'est la vie.
Stuff I have seen is more pox walkers. They are key to a DG army. Cheap tough to move troops that come back is so good.
Typhus not only looks great with the new sculpt he really buffs those pox walkers.
If you want to spent dosh Moratorium is amazing.
Plagueburst Crawlers are great tanks, even with the 4+ to hit. Tough to kill. A DP isn't a bad investment. Rhino and more plagues isn't bad either.
I haven't played verse the new blight haulers but I bet they are decent and not too expensive.
I will definitely buy Mortarion at some point, but it'll be after I've collected enough of the right paints and gotten good enough to do him justice.
Pox walkers might be a good next pick.
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
So Death Guard
Top Tier Units
Daemon prince
Drones with spitters
PBC with spitters
Cultists
Poxwalkers
Typhus
Foul Blightspawn
Necrosius the undying
Garbage tier avoid
Plauge surgeon
The grenade buff guy
Any plague marine unit over 5 guys.
Melee plague marines
Plaugebearers cavalry
Everything else is basically OK. Not super competitive but not useless either. Some things are a lot better in particular builds but are often outclassed by their A tier counterparts. DPs are better than lords, drones with spitters are better than all other load outs and so on.
Edit: Incidently the new haulers are actually too expensive. Taken solo they are worse than helbrutes who are similarly costed and their buffs don’t have enough range to be usefull. Taken in units of 3 to get the bonus (which then makes them better than helbrutes) is nearly 500 points which at that point is waaayyy too much.
Plagueburst Crawlers: I would swap out the Spitters for Entropy Cannons. Spitters offer slightly above medium strength, low AP, low damage at short range. You're never going to want to move this vehicle since it hurts the WS for all of the other weapons, which means you'll likely never be able to fire these. Swapping for Entropy Cannons adds more high strength, high AP, high damage at range, which is something our army needs to function. The cost for making the swap is also negligible - the difference is a single Poxwalker.
Foetid Bloat Drones: These aren't bad, but they're too expensive to be considered top tier. The build Norgoth suggests is actually more expensive than a Plagueburst Crawler and, if you have the points, I would just recommend taking a 2nd one of those instead. If I were going to run this, I'd also consider the Heavy Blight Launcher as it provides some consistency over the Spitters and the unit's effectiveness won't decline as it takes damage. Spitters also require putting the Drone in harm's way; I've found that this thing is pretty resilient against Shooting attacks but crumbles in close combat.
Plague Marines: Even after Chapter Approved, Plague Marines biggest problem is their point cost. I would move them out of garbage tier and put them at merely okay. I see two viable builds. 7-10 Man squads loaded in a Rhino or a huge, 20-man squad footslogging across the field. In both cases, I would go with Melee builds, handing out two Flails and Bubotic Axes to everything else. The Rhino build is cheaper and means they will play a more targeted role. You can support the unit with some characters as well. The foot slog approach basically means they will eat whatever they charge, but are more of a late game play (turn 3 or 4).
Plague Surgeon: If your army relies on a lot of foot slogging, I would run this guy with Fugaris Helm to extend his ability a few inches.
If they get targeted, they're tough, but they also blow up easily on a 4+, so you want them deep into the enemy group. And if they're targeted, it's giving you more time for your troops to get in close.
I've seen intense arguments over the Heavy Blight Launcher and that the only reason to bring that would be if you constantly are facing melee heavy fast movers who constantly reach your Plagueburst Crawlers and prevent their arty fire. Blight Drones are fast enough to escape and to keep firing.
For the Plagueburst, I generally see entropy cannons suggested and it's what we ran. I rolled horribly for them, but he was basically a stationary heavy tank in the back. If I hadn't rolled horribly, he'd have been great, but I was wishing for the spitters when the enemy got closer since they auto-hit....again, it might just be dependent on the local meta what you bring?
Plague Marine melee seems tempting with the plague weapons, but the Death Guard get a Legion Trait where they can rapid fire out to 18 inches, so I just can't make myself give them melee weapons. Might be a fun variant to try, though.
Mortarion is a beast and if he wasn't out of stock, he'd be on the way to my house right now....and he's a Daemon, so if you have a detachment of Chaos Daemons, you can deep strike him now (I believe), which seems unbelievably OP if you can pull off a Warptime after he drops in.
Note, I am a newb, so take the above with a grain of salt. Asterisks everywhere! I do enjoy the debate, though, and love tactics talk, so please rip my post apart.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Cannons on the PBCS are fine, and I would take them over any other anti tank option, but don’t fool yourself. Death Guard is not a longrange faction. Your primary anti-tank weapon is the Foul Blight spawn.
Drones and PBCS are the best options for clearing infantry screens Death Guard have. Whilst the drone is more expensive (and more fragile) than the crawler, being able to fly is a massive increase in usability. They should never be charging, and should always fall back. Degrading strength is a non problem. Str 4 rerolling all failed wounds is enough to clear their preferred targets. (incidently you should be using arch contaminatior as your Warlord trait).
Your game plan as Death Guard is to clear out the screen and have your poxwalker swarm hold opponent whilst your characters and FBs just kill whatever they want.
Plague marines arnt worth using in large groups because despite costing more (and having more toughness) anything designed to kill MEQs kills them just as well. Plasma, Grav, e.t.c. Small groups just to carry some plasmas or blight launchers is ok. Melee units cost a stupid amount of points (the mentioned 20 man Melee unit is 455 points!)for a unit that’s worse in combat than any specific melee unit, like possed or berserkers or anything really(Beskerers with axes is 339 points, and puts out way more attacks, at a comparable strength)
Plauge Surgeons buff is so mathematically small that your better off spending the points on more bodies. Over an entire squad of poxes it’s, on averages, one extra save. You can take 10 poxwalkers with change instead. Or, just swap a normal Sorcerer for Necrosius. He was the same buff for poxwalkers, a 4+ invuln 3 denies and is 10 points more than the regular blightbringer.
And isn't the "don't charge the Blight Drone" dependant on what's around? If they're shooty based, flaming and then plowing into a unit actually might keep it safer than never charging.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I will say at least 40k actually has interesting discussions on this stuff now since the meta is fluid thanks to GW putting out new stuff regularly and with consistent FAQ updates and stuff.
Also I am still trying to figure out a use for Daemons with my CSM army. And no I am not bringing brims, I am a Slaanesh player :P.
Right now I am thinking maybe an outrider detachment with 2 seeker squads, 1 herald on a seeker, and a helflayer. Its fast in that it moves 14" plus take an instrument so it advances 1d6+1" and can charge the same turn if you are near the herald for another 2d6+1" with rerolls. The herald makes the attacks of the seekers decent. A lot of possible first turn charges in there. The Helflayer chariot is pretty decent to in the number of attacks and moves 12"+1d6 for the advance then a charge afterwards.
Use this for a big threat while the cultist and noise marines secure the backline with sonic helbrutes. Maybe throw in a daemon prince and my maulerfiend to go with the seekers. If I read the loci right it should work as both would have slaanesh and the daemon keywords.
"And this is his sofa, is it?" said Arthur.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
I play four.
Again with the drone it’s a targets thing. Ideally it should be hunting down things like Ork boyz, guardsmen, gaunts e.t.c none of these things reasonably threaten a T7 10 wound 3+/5++/5+++ model. There also so cheap as to be reasonably spammable, and being flying means you can keep them out of LOS much easier. It’s of course a generalisation, there are edge cases when you should charge (hello Gullimans razorbacks!) but in general the overwatch is too good to give up.
I play this list
+ Fast Attack +
Foetid Bloat-drone [8 PL, 158pts]: 2x Plaguespitters, Plague probe
Foetid Bloat-drone [8 PL, 158pts]: 2x Plaguespitters, Plague probe
Foetid Bloat-drone [8 PL, 158pts]: 2x Plaguespitters, Plague probe
+ HQ +
Daemon Prince of Nurgle [9 PL, 180pts]: Blades of Putrefaction, Malefic talon, Wings
Typhus [9 PL, 175pts]: Miasma of Pestilence, Putrescent Vitality
+ Troops +
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 44pts]
. 8x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun
. Chaos Cultist w/ special weapon: Heavy stubber
. Cultist Champion: Autogun
Chaos Cultists [3 PL, 44pts]
. 8x Chaos Cultist w/ Autogun
. Chaos Cultist w/ special weapon: Heavy stubber
. Cultist Champion: Autogun
Poxwalkers [6 PL, 120pts]: 20x Poxwalker
+ Heavy Support +
Plagueburst Crawler [8 PL, 140pts]: 2x Plaguespitter, Heavy Slugger
Plagueburst Crawler [8 PL, 140pts]: 2x Plaguespitter, Heavy Slugger
++ Vanguard Detachment +1CP (Chaos - Death Guard) [28 PL, 557pts] ++
+ Fast Attack +
Foetid Bloat-drone [8 PL, 158pts]: 2x Plaguespitters, Plague probe
+ HQ +
Necrosius the Undying [7 PL, 120pts]: Curse of the Leper, Miasma of Pestilence, Plague Wind
+ Dedicated Transport +
Chaos Rhino [4 PL, 91pts]: Combi-bolter, Combi-melta
+ Elites +
Foul Blightspawn [4 PL, 77pts]
Foul Blightspawn [4 PL, 77pts]
Foul Blightspawn [4 PL, 77pts]
Foul Blightspawn [4 PL, 77pts]
++ Total: [105 PL, 1994pts] ++
Created with BattleScribe
There are some caveats to my comments though. My local scence is hyper-competitive so my list it’s tailored to that. A lot of stacking negative hit penalties, brimstone horrors, Gulliman gunlines and the like. Ultimately it depends on your local meta. If people are playing like, deathwatch or flayed one necrons or something then this is largely academic. And of course number one rule play what you think is cool, like 455 20 man Melee plague marine squad may not be top tier competitive, but it does look cool as shit.
Thanks everyone!
Gamertag - Khraul
PSN - Razide6
I've had one good experience with Cultists, but every other time they just seem to get gunned down without doing anything. They help fill out points / are a troop choice, obviously, but I dunno how else to use them effectively aside from blocking deep strikes.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).