With the release of 10th edition now firmly behind us and more than a month of competitive games in the books it’s time to start taking a deeper look at each of the game’s factions. In this series we’ll talk about each faction, what they have to offer, how they play, and talk about a few list concepts to consider.

In this article we’re looking at the Sons of Mortarion, the Death Guard.

Why Should You Play This Faction?

Because you have something to prove to yourself and the world. Jokes aside, the situation isn’t as dire as it seems for the Death Guard, who have a few solid tools to work with and ways to play the mission despite having slower movement speeds. Death Guard units are still tougher than most, and they have a number of nasty tricks they can pull off by mixing and matching interesting character choices with their units. If you’re a fan of a slower, more deliberate play style with an emphasis on trying to squeeze more out of your units, then the Death Guard will appeal to you. On the table, winning with them is a tricky puzzle to be solved – but one that has at least been solved with some limited success – Death Guard at least have a single GT top four to their name in 10th – and not every faction can say that.

Five Things You Need to Know

• You need Mortarion on the table. Mortarion is the best unit in the Death Guard army and you absolutely need his ability to ignore modifiers to your characteristics. His Host of Plagues ability is a huge benefit as well, and both the defensive benefit to your saves and the ability to re-roll 1s to wound are huge boosts to an army that needs all it can get. 
• Your Army is slow. Real slow. Few of your non-vehicle units have more than 5” Movement, and your terminators and poxwalkers have been saddled with 4”. That means your movements are going to be deliberate and telegraphed to opponents, making it easy for opponents to plan for your tactics. Become familiar with the Rapid Ingress Stratagem, because it’s going to be a key tool in your arsenal when it comes to putting terminators into a position to do well, anything.
• Learn when and how to leave objectives behind. Spread the Sickness is a powerful ability that helps make up for your units’ lack of Movement – being able to leave an objective that stays under your control is huge when your army needs all the Movement help it can get. That said, when and how you’ll be able to do this will vary by mission and opponent, so understand when you can and can’t afford to leave an objective unguarded.
• You’ll need to push forward aggressively. Having a short range on your guns and getting your best performance at targets within 12”, and that’s going to be a tall order against enemies who can easily avoid you with higher Movement values. It also puts you in a vulnerable position and while your army is more durable than some, it’s not so durable it can just tank shooting from the game’s better shooting armies.
• This isn’t the melee army it used to be. Unfortunately the units you’re working with now are a far cry from the melee powerhouses they were at the end of 9th edition. Gone are plague marines’ flails and cleavers, replaced with “bubotic weapons” and “heave plague weapons” which do 1 and 2 damage, respectively, and lack the punching power of their older counterparts. While this is an army that needs to come in close to reach its targets, it’s not as effective as it needs to be at finishing things off in melee. 

What Are the Must-Have Units to Start This Faction?

These days building a Death Guard army starts with Mortarion. The big guy is the most valuable unit in the army, and his auras are incredibly useful to have. His Lord of the Death Guard aura helps you avoid getting completely waylaid by abilities that reduce Movement while also helping keep your army firing at full efficiency – a good trick to have for Plagueburst Mortars firing indirectly. 

Speaking of which, you’re going to need some Plagueburst Crawlers. At least two of them, and probably three. They’re the army’s second best unit, combining a solid mix of movement (10”), and Toughness (T10, 12W, 2+/5++) on a body that includes the army’s best anti-tank weapons and a solid indirect fire option in the Plagueburst Mortar. And while you’re taking those, the Lord of Virulence is a very solid add-on option, as he gives your Blast weapons +1 to hit and [IGNORES COVER]. Combining this with Mortarion can give you PBCs which hit targets out of line of sight on a 2+, re-rolling 1s to wound, which is pretty solid. Well, it’s only AP-1 shooting, which is going to hurt against targets with a 2+ save, but against less heavily-armored targets it’s a very solid strategy.

You’ll need troops, and that means at least 1-2 units of Plague Marines, plus either some Cultists or Poxwalkers. Poxwalkers aren’t quite what they used to be thanks to having Ld 8+ and no fearlessness, so these days Cultists do more for the faction – in part because they have a 6” move. That said, Poxwalkers’ value is mostly in being able to take 20 models with a 5+ Feel No Pain, so if you’re going with them it’s usually for the larger model count/increased durability on a unit that isn’t going to do a lot of moving. You will likely want at least one Rhino for your Plague Marines, both to protect them and to improve their mobility.

After that, your options are a little more open. The more successful competitive lists tend to bring a unit or two of terminators – Deathshroud tend to be a little more useful than Blightlord Terminators as their -1 to wound on incoming attacks is a big boost to their durability, plus having D2 melee attacks is a big edge over blightlords. For their part, Blightlords give you a better ranged push with the ability to take combi-weapons and plague spewers. They can also take a Flail of Corruption for some much-needed added melee punch.

Character-wise, there are a few other options to look at. You’ll almost certainly want a Death Guard Sorcerer in Terminator Armour to go with any Terminators you take – the Sorcerer’s ability to protect their unit by giving them back -1 damage on incoming attacks in the Fight phase is huge (especially when you’re up against scythe Lychguard or Custodians – though for the latter be sure to check your event’s rulings on Trajan first), and when you combine it with a Deathshroud unit’s -1 to wound on incoming attacks with S7+, you’ve got a very tough unit which can weather much rougher shooting attacks. Typhus also has some value as well, giving his unit -1 to be hit in melee instead and having the ability to do some solid mortal wounds output, and he can be attached to a unit of Poxwalkers to make them much harder to kill. There are a bunch of smaller characters you can add to Plague Marine units but the problem is that Plague Marine units aren’t really worth building around or using, and so these characters don’t do much for you – what good is the ability to Fight First (the Foul Blightspawn), if your unit can’t kill anything it fights?

If you want to look at vehicle support, your options are basically Bloat-Drones and Blight-haulers, both of which are overcosted but still capable of being useful. Both give you a much-needed burst of speed, with the Bloat-Drone mostly helping as a melee unit. As a melee threat, it’s OK – it has 10 S7, D2 attacks, but those being AP-1 really hurts it. That said, the ability to Fall Back and Charge is a big help to keep it moving out of combats it doesn’t want to be in. On the other side Myphitic Blight-Haulers give the army some more anti-vehicle punch on a fast little platform.

Finally, there’s Daemons. The biggest value you’re going to get here is from Nurglings, who combine Infiltrate and Deep Strike on a unit that’s relatively tough and only costs 40 points for a unit of 3, giving you a great way to spend your last 40 points in a list. Nurglings are OC 0 so while they can’t help you control objectives, they’re wonderful for scoring secondary objectives that require you to be all over the table and in corners, such as Engage on All Fronts or Investigate Signals. Keeping them off objectives is a bonus, actually – it forces your opponent to commit resources to killing a unit which might score you VP later at the cost of attacking a unit which is much more of a threat. 1-2 units of Nurglings make a great addition to a Death Guard army.

How Does This Faction Secure Objectives?

Mostly by standing on them with units that are tough to dislodge. Either a 20-model blob of Poxwalkers that effectively has 30 T4 wounds, a 5-model unit of plague marines with OC 2, a unit of Terminators, or a whole ass Plagueburst Crawler. You may also just tag an objective and leave it, if your opponent can’t just deep strike or move onto it later – even if you’re removed from objectives, opponents have to move on to them to take them, thanks to your Spread the Sickness rule. A successful game isn’t necessarily one where you move onto objectives and stay there, but rather one where you’re able to move through objectives and put pressure on an opponent.

How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Hordes?

If there’s an area the Death Guard can do well at, it’s handling hordes. The army has a solid amount of smaller and ANTI-INFANTRY shooting, including the ability to take Torrent weapons with Anti-Infantry 4+ and 2+. Their Contagion ability is a big help here as well, as being able to wound T3 targets on a 2+ actually does tip most of the army over into effectively able to remove horde threats in melee, while having T5/6 means not having too much to fear from retaliation. Plagueburst Mortars are also excellent for wiping out hordes, and Deathshrouds and Mortarion have sweep modes which can cut through hordes pretty well. That said, against hordes of T5 targets like Ork Boyz this is much more of an uphill battle, and your melee output will definitely not be enough, though having Lethal Hits on your weapons and Anti-Infantry options will go a long way to softening them up prior to an attack.

This is an area as well where being able to take two TORRENT weapons in a unit of Plague Marines can provide a lot of value, giving them a bit more oomph as an Overwatch unit for controlling the board. PBCs with Plaguespitters are also great in this regard, as they can take out hordes both at range with mortars and up close, and have little to fear from being charged by weaker enemies.

How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Tanks and Monsters?

Bigger targets can be more of a struggle for Death Guard, who have some decent options – mostly Entropy Cannons – but generally suffer from not having very good AP on most of their weapons. So while the majority of your army’s attacks have LETHAL HITS, they’re delivering those hits at AP0 or AP-1, which will often just mean watching your opponent shrug off attacks with a 2+ save on bigger targets. The army doesn’t quite have the volume of Lethal Hits it needs to get past this limitation, and so taking down bigger targets will often mean a mix of shooting from Entropy Cannons, mortal wounds from Psyker abilities, and some finishing from Mortarion, whose AP-3 D4 swings can help get you over the final hurdle. 

What Combos Should You Build Around?

The Death Guard don’t have a ton of amazing combos but there are a few you need to know about and make use of in your games. 

Plagueburst Crawlers

• Plagueburst Crawlers
• Mortarion
• Lord of Virulence

This combo is pretty simple: The Lord of Virulence gives your BLAST weapons +1 to hit and [IGNORES COVER] against anything he can see, and Mortarion prevents your army from taking modifiers to their characteristics and rolls. This means that a PBC shooting an indirect target the LoV can see can hit on 2s, and if you have Diseased Influence up on Mortarion you’ll be re-rolling 1s to wound. This is also a good time to break out the Ferric Blight Stratagem for extra AP, though it only helps on one PBC. The downside here is that it means keeping the PBCs close to Mortarion and that may put too much of your army close together but remember you only need this for targets out of line of sight anyways – your plan with the PBCs should be to play aggressively and get targets in Line of Sight anyways, as the Entropy Cannons are a major part of their arsenal.

Deathshroud Terminators

• A unit of 3 Deathshrouds
• One of:
  • Lord of Virulence
  • Death Guard Sorcerer in Terminator Armour

These are basically the options you want to look at for your Terminator units, and Deathshrouds are the better of your two options, since their melee output is just better and their ability to give incoming attacks -1 to wound while they have a LEADER gives them a big durability boost over the Blightlords. Typhus can also go here, but he’ll do better work on a big unit of Poxwalkers.

Sample Lists

Finding successful lists for the Death Guard is difficult; their only Top 4 result so far at the GT level was early in 10th edition. That said, there are a couple of examples we can point to as exemplars of what’s possible with Death Guard, and with the right match-ups 4-1 is very possible.

Aiden Smalley’s List

Aiden took this list to a 5-0 2nd place finish at Element Games’ Grand Slam in late June.

”Aiden’s

This basically puts into play all of the things we’ve talked about. You have 3 PBCs with a LoV and Mortarion to support them, dumping out ranged damage. There are two units of Deathshrouds, one with the LoV and another with a Terminator Sorcerer, and you have Typhus and a 20-model blob of Poxwalkers. Rather than opt for more mechanized support, Aiden has gone with two 5-model units of Plague Marines and a Rhino for added mobility, plus two units of 10 Cultists to move around and help score secondary objectives. Mortarion and the PBCs make up the core with support from the two units of Deathshrouds here, acting as a nasty set of threats that can roll forward and lay down fire. The Deathshroud units and their characters need not start on the table – they’re easy to deep strike, though the opponent/mission may call for putting down the LoV unit and deep striking the other and using Rapid Ingress to get them in a position to move and charge the following turn.

Note that here Aiden has opted for plaguespitters on the PBCs – this makes them much more aggressive units which push forward and hold objectives and use their spitters for Overwatch and board control. They’ll be good for clearing crowds. This does however leave the list without a strong solution to vehicles and knights, where Mortarion and weight of fire are basically the two solutions at hand.

Mariano Salvatore’s List

Mariano took this list to a 3-2 finish at the recent Arch City GT II, starting 2-0 before dropping games to Custodes and Daemons and finishing with a win against marines. The list is more geared toward handling larger targets and that paid off with a round 1 win against Imperial Knights.

”Mariano’s

Mariano has the same base here of Mortarion + 3 PBCs + LoV with Deathshroud, but chooses to take a completely different route on the rest, and leands much more heavily on anti-vehicle firepower. The Terminator Sorcerer here pairs with a 10-model unit of Blightlords to really take advantage of that -1 damage ability to keep them on the table as an unkillable brick. Meanwhile Mariano jettisons the subpar Battleline units in favor of mechanized support – two Blight-Haulers and a Bloat-drone give the army much more speed and the ability to take down larger targets using multi-melta shots (plus the entropy cannons on the PBCs).

Rounding out the list is a small unit of Nurglings to help accomplish objectives. This is a list which absolutely does not waste time defending its home objective, instead relying on Spread the Sickness to retain that objective for secondary missions and primary missions that require it. That’s a tough choice, and will pay off big in some matchups and be a disaster in others, like when an Allarus Terminator can just teleport onto the objective at their leisure and force the list to commit resources it doesn’t have to staying behind.

Final Thoughts

The Death Guard are not in a good spot – they’re not as tough as they used to be, their -1 Toughness aura isn’t nearly as good, and they don’t pack the melee punch they need. But they still have some interesting units and combos, and with some substantial point drops might get to a competitive place more quickly than some other factions. They’re not an easy army to play in this meta but they can be rewarding to play if you’re looking for a challenge.

That wraps up our look at Death Guard but we’ve got more faction focus articles coming up so stay tuned over the coming weeks. And if you have any questions or feedback, drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.