Good day everyone! Zak Ludick from a very power-less Cape Town, South Africa!
I was supposed to have done this post last night, but due to load shedding, crazy work hours and the need to cook supper (before the power switches off), I was not able to write last night. Additionally, when I was supposed to have had a spot in the morning to write BEFORE work, the power was out again!
I am not trying to catch up with that writing in my lunch hour! We work 12 hours on site, so we get a full hour to have lunch!
Anyway… onward to the subject at hand. Warhammer 40,000 the strategy boardgame with a massive amount of different armies and characters and played so many different ways. I need to write these reviews to I can get myself ready for the upcoming tournament!
Today we are dealing with one of the armies of Chaos: The Death Guard
Who are the Death Guard?
The Death Guard are a Legion of Space Marines that were one of the original Foundings of the Adeptus Astartes, serving under the Primarch Mortarion. This Primarch and his Legion fell to Chaos and are now the servants of the God of Plague and Disease: Nurgle.
In a nutshell, this means that their main aesthetic is that they are Space Marine Legionaries, corrupted by disease and mutation. They are supported by a collection of units that are Daemon Engines, Daemons or Pox Walkers.
Also in a nutshell, their army specializes in de-buffing the enemy while buffing their own units. Their main weakness is the speed of their units. They generally have slower move speeds than most units in the game.
Army Rule – Nurgle’s Gift
When you play a Death Guard army, you begin the game with a 3” Contagion Range around all your units. When an enemy unit is within this Range, meaning any model from a squad or any part of a larger model, then that unit receives a -1 to their Toughness.
This means that they become easier to harm.
In Battle Round 2, the range of the Contagion increases to 6” and in Battle Round 3 and onwards, the range goes up to 9” and stays there. There are some unit Abilities and some Enhancements that can give you an additional 3” from specific units.
Detachment Rule – Plague Company
The Death Guard are one of those armies that currently only has one Detachment to choose from and they have the Plague Company. This gives them the Spread the Sickness rule.
At the Declare Battle Formations step (which is usually before you deploy and place units into reserve etc) you select one of three sicknesses. This gives their Contagion Range an additional ability. They are:
- Skullsquirm Blight: -1BS and -1WS to enemies
- Rattlejoint Ague: -1SV
- Scabrous Soulrot: -1LD and -1OC
Additionally, when the Death Guard take possession of an objective, it remains theirs even if they do not have models next to the objective, until the enemy takes it over again. This is generally known in the community as “Sticky Objectives” as a variety of units in many armies have that ability to tag an Objective and then walk away from it.
However, my son 
Generally, as per my friend Nicholas, he plays with the -1BS/WS which is Ballistic Skill and Weapon Skill, this means that it worsens the aiming of the enemy.
Key Synergy
Since the Death Guard already lower your Toughness, it makes it easier for them to hurt you. Generally the Death Guard units have a higher Toughness than their Marine counterparts, thus they are more difficult to hurt.
Their main forces of Infantry are the Plague Marines which move 5” a turn and supported by Blightlord Terminators, Deathshroud Terminators and Pox Walkers, which all move 4” a turn. This is rather slow.
The Terminators can Deep Strike to get closer to the enemy quickly and when they do, they set up without 9” of the enemy and cannot move closer, unless they successfully roll a 10+ on 2 Dice on the Charge after arrival. This means that even when this is done on Turn 3 and onwards, they cannot Deep Strike a regular unit and have it cast its contagion zone on top of you.
However, there is an Enhancement for an Character that can extend his Contagion Zone by 3” and thus 6” in Battle Round 1, 9” in Battle Round 2 and 12” in Battle Round 3 and onward.
There is another way of doing it… the Death Guard Hellbrute, is their version of a Castra Ferrum Dreadnought that is corrupted by Chaos. This unit has the ability, once it has hit an enemy with one of its shooting attacks, that the target is not within the contagion zone. This is called Infused with the Blessings of Nurgle.
There are some other units that specifically I do not like but there is something for everyone to dislike in this army! From units with a flamer on each model to kill hordes, to anti-tank that they bring to bear AFTER they reduce your toughness.
I rate this to be an extremely hard army to battle against.
As far as I know, their only real weakness is movement. I have not played against them in 10th Edition yet. In 9th Edition I could not beat Nicholas in a game (well, only played 2) but when facing another Death Guard player at a Tournament, I could very well beat him.
So it would be interesting to see what happens should I cross paths with one of these armies at the tournament this weekend!
Thank you for reading!
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Picture Source - Warhammer Community
Cheers!
