With a new batch of rules updates comes the need to revisit the strategies and tactics of each faction. Today Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones is looking at the traitor legions and how the changes to the points, dataslate, and army construction rules affect them.

Welcome to a new year and a new system as both 2023 and Arks of Omen are upon us! Following in the footsteps of last year’s WarZone: Nephilim, the new Arks of Omen mission pack again brings dramatic changes to the 40k metagame with new army construction rules and mission secondary updates. Along with Arks of Omens, the simultaneous release of the 2023 Munitorum Field Manual and 2023 Q1 Dataslate adds further complexity to the rapidly evolving landscape. To help make sense of it all our team has been working hard on a new series of Faction Focus articles.

In this article Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones will talk about what’s new and what it means for the Death Guard.

The Competitive Context

The Death Guard were one of the earliest codexes of 9^th edition, and the first Chaos book to release by a significant margin. They remain, to my mind, the most balanced codex released in the edition, with solid picks, a clear design throughline, and clear strengths and weaknesses. Of course that “having weaknesses” bit is ultimately what sank them in the edition, as most of the codexes released afterward left the notion of an army having things like “downsides” and “tradeoffs” in the dust. The Death Guard spent most of 2022 receiving buffs as a result, with a continual stream of point decreases and dataslate improvements to help the faction.

The changes with Arks are a mixed bag for Death Guard, who benefit from point drops but lose some durability from the loss of Armour of Contempt. Though as we’ll see, some units are affected more than others by the change.

What Changed

There’s a lot going on with the Arks updates for Death Guard, with changes both major and subtle. Let’s walk through the basic changes and then talk about what it means for the faction.

The new Force Org

The new Force Org changes a number of things for Death Guard, but in ways that mostly don’t matter:

The army now only requires 1 HQ choice, meaning Death Guard armies can now choose to drop out psykers altogether and have Abhor the Witch open as a secondary option. This is likely not a great choice for reasons we’ll discuss later, but it is an option.
The ability to double up on units that were previously one per detachment means that Death Guard players can now take two Daemon Princes or two Chaos Lords in a Detachment. Again, not necessarily great as an option but interesting to note.
Changes to the ally rules prevent taking more than a Patrol of Chaos Daemons… but you weren’t taking them anyways.
Strategic reserves do not cost CP, making Mortarion a slightly more attractive option since he no longer costs you a ton of CP to drop into reserves against armies which can shoot him off the table. Though again, you probably weren’t taking him before.
The big change here that does matter is that armies no longer need to take Troops, which means that an army which only runs Blightlords or Deathshrouds as its ObSec units is a real option. I’m not sure this is actually good, particularly with the point drops on Plague Marines, but it does make certain things more possible. You can also take more Elites or Fast Attack choices now, which can help building skew lists.

Secondary Changes

A number of changes to the game’s secondaries affect Death Guard in Arks of Omen. Assassination, Grind Them Down, and Behind Enemy Lines now grant a bonus CP for completing the secondary with a Troops unit involved, which is fantastic news for Plague Marines. Psychic Interrogation became more difficult and now requires an enemy character have Line of Sight to the caster, which ironically makes Mortarion one of the game’s best units for Interrogate. And the change to Engage on All Fronts makes it slightly easier to score for slower Death Guard armies.

In Death Guard Secondary news, Fleeing Vectors and Despoiled Ground improved, and while neither is an every game pick, they give Death Guard armies a little more choice in how they want to approach things.

The Q1 2023 Dataslate

There’s really only one change in the Dataslate that affects Death Guard and it’s the loss of Armour of Contempt. This has several massive implications for the army, both good and bad:

The Good

The Death Guard have a lot of AP-1 and AP-2 weapons, and those are now much more useful. Blightlord Terminators’ axes in particular are much better when AP-2 is relevant since they can wound T4 models on a 2+, re-rolling the 1 results for plague weapons. This is also great for blight grenades, sweep attacks on Deathshrouds, Blight Launchers, and Flails.
On that note, the removal of Armour of Contempt came with a reversion of rules for some armies that had their subfaction traits changed from AP reduction to not allowing re-rolls to wound. This is great news for the Death Guard, who really depend on re-rolling wound rolls to push through what are otherwise relatively low damage attacks.
Death Guard Terminators have a 4+ invulnerable save and while that was still useful in the AoC meta, it’s much moreso in the post-AoC meta, where AP-3 and AP-4 weapons will continue to lose that effectiveness against them in the open.
The Rotten Constitution warlord trait is now useful again, making ignoring AP-1 and AP-2 valuable if you want to make a Daemon Prince with that trait and the Supparating Plate.
The changes to marines probably mean that we’re in store for a lot more AP-2 2-damage weapons to show up and that’s largely good news for the Death Guard, since paying points for 2-damage weapons is exactly what we want our stupid opponents to do.

The Bad

While it’s not all doom for terminators, it’s not great for Plague Marines, where only having a 3+ save with no invulnerable save means they’ll die a lot faster in the Arks meta. That said, they got a small points drop to compensate and their weapons got better too.
It’s also bad news for the Vehicles and Mortarion, who really benefit from having the ability to shrug off smaller arms fire. They’re still tough, but it’s going to be easier to bring them down with AP-1 weapons.

Generally speaking, this one’s a double-edged sword; Death Guard are still going to be among the game’s most durable armies, but they’re going to feel a quite a bit more fragile. On the upside, the army has a lot of AP-1 and AP-2 weaponry that will suddenly feel much more useful and deadly, and there are fewer armies out there waiting to turn off re-rolls to wound.

2023 Munitorum Field Manual (MFM)

The Death Guard got a significant boost out of the latest round of points updates, with drops to a large number of units.

Plague Marines went down 2ppm, to 19
Blightlord wargear upgrades became free
Bloat-drone weapons became free
Defiler weapons became free
Blight Haulers went down to 110 ppm
Helbrutes had all of their wargear except the Twin Lascannon (+10) made free, reducing the cost of pretty much any build you’d take
Rhino weapon upgrades became free
Chaos Spawn went down 2 ppm, to 21
The Foul Blightspawn went down 10 points, to 80
Noxious Blightbringers dropped in points

Other Updates

The Terminus Est Army of Renown is no longer matched play legal, and so goes with it a potentially solid option for running Death Guard in Arks. Plague Marines are better than ever, but without a compelling reason to exclude vehicles, there’s little reason to go overboard with them.

What It Means – Army Construction and Secondaries

All of this basically comes together to put Death Guard back where they were a year ago, albeit with cheaper units and better secondaries. While that all helps, I’m not sure it elevates the army much, and the builds you’ll be looking at will largely look the same as the ones you had a year ago, plus a few more wargear options and an extra unit or two. Plague Marines remain the core of the army, though they need the support of Rhinos in order to have any kind of mobility. The Daemon Engines are more plentiful, and you’ll pretty much always end up running some.

The free wargear and upgrades change is interesting; it makes Blightlords a bit better since they’re able to now pack flails and blight launchers free along with combi-plasmas and combi-meltas. That’s a nice little boost in shooting output that puts them much closer in capability to the Death Shroud, and may even push them past given they run 10 points per model cheaper. This also means that every Rhino should be packing a combi-melta and a havoc launcher. The hard part will be remembering that you have these and making use of them during your games.

Ultimately for Death Guard the big struggle is going to be mitigating the faction’s speed and range issues, and that’s where they’re going to run into their toughest opponents – where enemy factions are fast enough to just run around and avoid the army’s major threats and pick their battles, choosing how and when they engage with the army’s key units.

The Matchups

So let’s take a look at Death Guard as a whole – where they’ll do well and where they’ll struggle. Ultimately Death Guard are still a relatively slow and as a result, often predictable army. That’s not necessarily bad if it means your opponent can’t do much about your plan if they see it coming, but it does mean that it’s harder to catch someone off-guard, and the army has to work hard to make up for a lack of mobility.

Positive Matchups

Custodes are still generally an army we want to see across the table. The majority of their units are rocking 2-damage weapons that became much less great against Disgustingly Resilient, and our own AP-2 attacks are prefect for forcing them to take their 4+ invulnerable saves.
Sisters of Battle are another matchup that is now much better for Death Guard. Repentia need to spend a CP to have a real shot at effectiveness against Death Guard and units like the Blightspawn can turn off Zealot. The challenge is that they can score a ton of VP without interacting, which means Death Guard armies need to be ready to go on the aggressive against them.
Chaos Space Marine armies that rely on possessed will generally also not have a great time against Death Guard, where again relying on 2-damage attacks won’t help much and Blightlords are much, much tougher than Black Rune terminators, and those now cost a staggering 38 points per model if you give them the mark of Slaanesh for a unit of 10.

The Struggle

Thousand Sons are still a real problem for Death Guard, who have no way to mitigate mortal wounds. Plus the AP-2 shooting from that army is going to hit quite a bit harder, and they’re not really counting on any 2-damage output to force through. The upside is they’re no longer scoring a free 15 off you for Wrath of Magnus, but the downside is they’re probably teleporting into your DZ to score Behind Enemy Lines.
Votann are also going to be a huge pain in the ass thanks to having Void Armour, which turns off plague weapons and gives them Armour of Contempt on top of it. They’ve also got decent ways to mitigate a low movement speed with their bikes and shooting which can easily remove your daemon engines.
Eldar are going to be a real problem. They’ve got tons of speed and the ability to hide with key units. This will mean they can easily put a Death Guard army on the back foot and force it to be reactive for most of the game as they trivially score 15 on Behind Enemy Lines. Their 2-damage Shuriken Cannons may not get full value when shooting, but they have plenty of AP. In this and the Astra Militarum matchup you’re likely to get better results out of plague spewers and other auto-hitting weapons with AP-1.
The Astra Militarum are going to be likewise tough, with lots of ability to screen out your untis and prevent you from smashing through to their tanks as they hit you from a distance. PBCs can help take out mortars and protect your Poxwalkers, but nothing can stop you from getting shredded by Mortal Wounds from Kasrkin.

Building Lists

You could be forgiven for thinking that new Death Guard lists just look like old Death Guard lists. We’ve still got the same pieces to work with, after all. However the major focus of the army is going to be less around building large buffed units and more around cheaper pieces that can move around the board relatively quickly.

My List

The most reliable way to get your otherwise slow army around the board is in transports, and there’s no better way to take advantage of the most recent points changes than by going hard on the army’s Troops, giving you durable units which can pack a real wallop in melee. Here’s a list I’m currently workshopping, which is based on a list I’ve run in the past and updated to reflect new points and my most recent RTT games.

++ Arks of Omen Detachment (Chaos – Death Guard) [118 PL, 4CP, 2,010pts] ++

Arks of Omen Compulsory Type: Troops

Plague Company: The Inexorable

+ HQ [10 PL, 180pts] +

Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, 90pts]: 5. Curse of the Leper, 6. Gift of Plagues

Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, 90pts]: 1. Miasma of Pestilence, 4. Putrescent Vitality

+ Troops [27 PL, 430pts] +

Plague Marines [12 PL, 190pts]
. Plague Champion [19pts]: Plague knife, Plasma gun, Power fist
. 2x Plague Marine w/ blight launcher [38pts]: 2x Blight grenades, 2x Blight launcher, 2x Krak grenades, 2x Plague knife
. 2x Plague Marine w/ cleaver [38pts]: 2x Blight grenades, 2x Great plague cleaver, 2x Krak grenades, 2x Plague knife
. 2x Plague Marine w/ flail [38pts]: 2x Blight grenades, 2x Flail of corruption, 2x Krak grenades, 2x Plague knife
. 2x Plague Marine w/ mace and axe [38pts]: 2x Blight grenades, 2x Bubotic Axe, 2x Krak grenades, 2x Mace of Contagion, 2x Plague knife
. Plague Marine w/ special weapon [19pts]: Meltagun

Plague Marines [6 PL, 95pts]
. Plague Champion [19pts]: Plague knife, Plasma gun, Power fist
. Plague Marine w/ blight launcher [19pts]
. Plague Marine w/ cleaver [19pts]
. Plague Marine w/ flail [19pts]
. Plague Marine w/ special weapon [19pts]: Meltagun

Poxwalkers [3 PL, 50pts]
. 10x Poxwalker [50pts]: 10x Improvised weapon

+ Elites [43 PL, -2CP, 730pts] +

Blightlord Terminators [10 PL, 200pts]
. Blightlord Champion [40pts]: Bubotic Axe, Combi-melta
. Blightlord Terminator [40pts]: Blight launcher, Bubotic Axe
. Blightlord Terminator [40pts]: Flail of corruption
. Blightlord Terminator [40pts]: Bubotic Axe, Combi-plasma
. Blightlord Terminator [40pts]: Bubotic Axe, Combi-bolter

Deathshroud Terminators [19 PL, -1CP, 265pts]
. Deathshroud Champion [1 PL, -1CP, 65pts]: Acidic Malady [1 PL, 15pts], Chimes of contagion, Plague Skull of Glothila, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet, Stratagem: Champion of Disease [-1CP]
. 4x Deathshroud Terminator [200pts]: 4x Manreaper, 4x Plaguespurt gauntlet

Tallyman [4 PL, -1CP, 65pts]: Arch-Contaminator, Stratagem: Warlord Trait [-1CP], Warlord

+ Fast Attack [14 PL, 220pts] +

Myphitic Blight-haulers [14 PL, 220pts]: Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 110pts], Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 110pts]

+ Heavy Support [16 PL, 290pts] +

Plagueburst Crawler [8 PL, 145pts]: 2x Entropy cannon [10pts], Heavy slugger

+ Dedicated Transport [8 PL, 160pts] +

Chaos Rhino [4 PL, 80pts]

I’m trying to break my death star-building habits by splitting into smaller units that can more effectively control portions of the table. That means going to two smaller units of Terminators with a third for support and taking advantage of the free wargear options on Blightlords. There’s a big unit of 10 Plague Marines here to pack a serious punch but that one may also find itself being dropped to two smaller squads at some point. The thing I go back and forth on is whether it’s better to have lots of 19-point Plague Marines or try and make the Terminators work as the army’s ObSec, and this list splits the difference for now – but the next version is almost certainly going to get faster by including some bloat-drones and/or more blight-haulers.

I’m also doubling up on Psykers here and that’s both to give myself some additional mortal wounds output/unit support and create some insurance for myself if I want to go for Warp Ritual or Interrogate. There’s a world where I drop the Inexorable here for the Wretched and potentially swap a Plaguecaster for a Daemon Prince.

Don Hooson’s List

Don was maybe the most excited person I’ve come across when it came to the new Arks changes. Don’s list packs a lot of the hits, only more. He’s got five units of plague marines on foot, kitted out for shooting and melee, supported by two Volkite Contemptors which can get a boost from the Tollkeeper Tallyman for extra mortal wounds.

++ Arks of Omen Detachment (Chaos – Death Guard) [116 PL, , 2,000pts] ++

Arks of Omen Compulsory Type: Fast Attack

Plague Company: The Inexorable

+ HQ [12 PL, -2CP, 225pts] +

Lord of Virulence [7 PL, -1CP, 135pts]: Ferric Blight, Stratagem: Warlord Trait [-1CP], Virulent Fever [1 PL, 15pts], Warlord

Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, -1CP, 90pts]: 5. Curse of the Leper, 6. Gift of Plagues, Plague Skull of Glothila, Stratagem: Relic [-1CP]

+ Troops [30 PL, 475pts] +

Plague Marines [6 PL, 95pts]
. Plague Champion [19pts]: Plague knife, Plasma gun, Power fist
. Plague Marine w/ blight launcher [19pts]
. Plague Marine w/ cleaver [19pts]
. Plague Marine w/ flail [19pts]
. Plague Marine w/ special weapon [19pts]: Meltagun

+ Elites [24 PL, -4CP, 465pts] +

Biologus Putrifier [4 PL, -1CP, 60pts]: 4. Arch-Contaminator, Stratagem: Plaguechosen [-1CP]

Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought [8 PL, -1CP, 170pts]: 2x Twin volkite culverin [30pts]

Tallyman [4 PL, -1CP, 65pts]: Stratagem: Gifts of Decay [-1CP], Tollkeeper

+ Fast Attack [42 PL, 690pts] +

Death Guard Greater Blight Drone [7 PL, 125pts]

Myphitic Blight-haulers [14 PL, 220pts]: Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 110pts], Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 110pts]

+ Heavy Support [8 PL, 145pts] +

Plagueburst Crawler [8 PL, 145pts]: 2x Entropy cannon [10pts], Heavy slugger

+++ 2,000 points +++

Don’s a big fan of Greater Blight Drones and with the rollback to Armour of Contempt they’re suddenly much more viable again. Blight Drones are the fastest unit in the army and make great vectors for Ferric Blight via the Flash Outbreak Stratagem, even moreso when boosted by Gift of Plagues. They can act as forward spreader of the contagion, giving other units in your army the ability to quickly tear through something eating an extra AP.

Don: So fleeing Vectors is the obvious play. With the doubling of the bare minimum points, it is pretty reliable outside of Custodes and Knights lists. With Ferric blight in the list and Armour of Contempt exiting the game, the ability to flash outbreak a greater blight drone and run it up in to a part of your opponent’s army that needs to be destroyed. It is a shooting army for the most part but has a fairly easy way of getting around phase caps with how many phases it does damage with. The Plague marines can do actions and act as cheap screening units. You can also keep your greater blight drones safe for a turn 5 Despoiled ground play.

You can use Plague marines as a bait unit. Most units capable of destroying plague marines cost more than they do in either points or opportunity cost.

Next: Chaos Space Marines

That wraps up our look at Death Guard but come back in a few days when we take a look at Chaos Space Marines and set the stage for some of the other articles we’ll be looking at. We’re going to cover most of these factions eventually.

Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com.

Arks of Omen Faction Focus: Death Guard

The Competitive Context

What Changed

The new Force Org

Secondary Changes

The Q1 2023 Dataslate

2023 Munitorum Field Manual (MFM)

Other Updates

What It Means – Army Construction and Secondaries

The Matchups

Building Lists

My List

Don Hooson’s List

Next: Chaos Space Marines

Related

Related

Arks of Omen Faction Focus: Death Guard

What Changed

The new Force Org

Secondary Changes

The Q1 2023 Dataslate

2023 Munitorum Field Manual (MFM)

Other Updates

What It Means – Army Construction and Secondaries

The Matchups

Building Lists

My List

Don Hooson’s List

Next: Chaos Space Marines

Related

Share this:

Related