Detachment Focus: Plague Company

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Plague Company Detachment for the Death Guard.

The Index Detachment for the Death Guard is the Plague Company, which launched in 10th edition with some decidedly lackluster rules and much gnashing and wailing of teeth. The faction itself was pretty bad for a while, until the release of the Q3 balance dataslate, which added some outstanding new mechanics to the Detachment which made it much stronger and rendered the faction able to compete.

Detachment Overview

The Plague Company is the Index Detachment for the Death Company and the only detachment they current have access to. As far as Detachment rules go, it has a pair of incredibly strong rules, with the latter being added in the Q3 balance dataslate. Both of these rules key off and interact with the army’s Contagions faction rule, and both push the Death Guard toward a more aggressive play style that pushes around the table, closing distances with the enemy and quickly putting them into contagion range, to devastating effect.

Detachment Rule: Spread the Sickness

If you control an objective marker at the end of your Command phase and a Death Guard unit is within range of that objective marker, that objective marker is said to be Infected and remains under your control even if you have no models within range of it until your opponent controls it at the start or end of any turn. In addition, while an objective marker is infected and under your control, it has the Nurgle’s Gift ability as if it were a unit from your army (so enemy units within Contagion Range of it have their characteristics modified).

This original rule is pretty good – having army-wide sticky objectives is great for an army that doesn’t have a ton of Movement; it allows you to capture objectives early and move on from them and toward the opponent, taking a more aggressive play style against opponents who aren’t capable of punishing you for leaving them alone. Additionally, a number of Detachment Stratagems key off being within contagion range of an Infected objective marker, becoming more powerful, rewarding you for capturing and holding objectives and making it easier to defend them.

Q3 Addendum: During the Declare Battle Formations step, pick one of the sicknesses below. Until the end of the battle, all units from your army with the Nurgle’s Gift ability gain the selected sickness.

• Skullsquirm Blight (Aura) – While an enemy unit is within Contagion Range of this unit, worsen the Ballistic Skill and Weapon Skill characteristics of weapons equipped by models in that enemy unit by 1.
• Rattlejoint Ague (Aura) – While an enemy unit is within Contagion Range of this unit, worsen the Save characteristic of models in that unit by 1.
• Scabrous Soulrot (Aura) – While an enemy unit is within Contagion Range of this unit, worsen the Leadership and Objective Control characteristics of models in that enemy unit by 1 (to a minimum of 1).

This is an incredibly powerful addition to the Detachment rule, giving you the ability to tailor your army’s contagion rule to the opponent you’ll be facing. That said, Rattlejoint Ague is by far the most useful of these, functionally making every weapon in your army a little more potent – an ability which is almost always relevant. It’s worth noting that worsening your opponent’s save has a similar effect to improving AP, but interacts differently with cover: Against 2+ save targets, worsening their save to a 3+ prevents them from getting a bonus from the benefit of Cover, so if you have AP 0 weapons you can use this to fire on 2+ save targets in cover and force them to take 3-ups. Rattlejoint Ague is a must-take against armies with a lot of 2+ saves, as otherwise your supply of AP-1 weapons will struggle to break through and do damage against them.

The other two effects are a bit more niche. Skullsquirm Blight can be very useful against armies with either bad saves or a ton of invulnerable saves – Harlequins and Daemons are great examples here – where reducing saves doesn’t get you much. For these armies, you’re typically better off going with the reduction in WS/BS, which can dramatically improve your survivability against those armies. It can also be a sly pick against armies with poor WS/BS to begin with; dropping T’au or Votann to BS 5+ before their upgrades can really play havoc on their expected damage output. Note as well that reducing BS and WS by 1 is not the same as giving a modifier to hit rolls, and so you can stack this with the -1 to hit from things like the Cloud of Flies/Smokescreen Stratagem or being within 6″ of Nurglings to give opponents an effective -2 to their hit rolls.

Scabrous Soulrot is the odd ability out here – there are very few cases where it’s preferable to the other two effects. In theory it could be good against something like Grey Knight armies which run OC 3 terminators, but those armies have so many 2+ saves you typically want Rattlejoint Ague instead in order to be able to deal with them. Likewise there aren’t many ways to key off Leadership in the Death Guard army and anything with higher OC is likely to be something you just kill using Rattlejoint Ague.

Stratagems

The six Stratagems available to the Plague Company Detachment are just kind of OK at best. Two of them tend to see regular use while the rest are fairly situational. Note that while Death Guard have a way to get additional CP from the Tallyman, they lack any ability to get free Stratagems.

• Ferric Blight (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Use in the shooting phase or the fight phase and pick a Death Guard unit from your army. Until the end of the phase, improve the AP of that unit’s weapons by 1. If the target of that unit’s attacks is within Contagion range of an Infected objective marker you control, then each time you score a critical wound for that attack, improve the AP of that attack by 2 instead. This is one of the two stratagems you’ll use most often, since combining this with the effect from Rattlejoint Ague gives you some very solid AP boosts that can make units like Deathshrounds incredibly deadly. Note that you have to declare you’ll be using this before an opponent can decide to use something like Armour of Contempt.
• Sanguous Flux (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Use in the Fight phase on one of your Death Guard armies. Until the end of the phase that units weapons gain the Sustained hits 1 ability, or Sustained Hits 2 if they’re within range of an Infected objective marker you control. This is just OK. It’s at its best on Deathshroud Terminators but doesn’t quite do enough to be worth saving your CP for.
• Disgustingly Resilient (Battle Tactic, 2 CP) – Use in the Fight phase after an enemy unit picks targets, and pick a targeted Death Guard unit. Until the end of the phase, reduce the damage from attacks allocated to that unit by 1. For a whopping 2 CP you can relive the glory of 8th and 9th edition, though only in the Fight phase. This is a good effect but just costs too much for how restrictive it is. Gives you the most value going up against Bladeguard Veterans and Custodes.
• Gifts of Decay (Epic Deed, 1 CP) – Use in your Command phase. A death Guard model from your army regains up to D3 lost wounds. If they’re within Contagion range of an Infected objective marker you control, they regain 3 wounds instead. This is pretty situational, though it’s good for bringing a PBC back from the brink. It does its best work on Mortarion, where the wounds you get back are worth 50% more thanks to his 5+ Feel No Pain ability.
• Boilblight (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Use in your Shooting phase. Pick one of your Death Guard units and an enemy unit in Contagion range of that unit. Until the end of the phase, when a Death Guard unit targets that enemy unit, their weapons gain the [HEAVY] and [IGNORES COVER] abilities. This is also only OK. The abilities are fine, but remaining stationary isn’t something you’ll often want to do, and won’t be likely if you’re shooting something within contagion range. On top of that, a good number of the weapons you’ll be using already have Torrent and Ignores Cover, so this won’t do anything for those.
• Cloud of Flies (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Use in your opponent’s Shooting phase, after they pick their targets for a unit’s attacks. Pick a Death Company unit targeted by those attacks. Until the end of the phase, that unit gains the Stealth rule. This is the other Detachment Stratagem you’re likely to use in games, in part because it can be helpful early for keeping certain units alive, like your PBCs, Mortarion (neither of which can pop smoke), or a Rhino, if you’ve already used the Smokescreen Stratagem and have an extra CP to spend. -1 to be hit won’t save you from Oath of Moment or anything but can help avoid taking an extra bright lance shot here and there and keep a key unit on the table. It also combos with the Skullsquirm Blight to give units an effective -2 to hit you, which can be huge. Use Cloud of Flies on big or important units which are likely to be targeted by multiple units, but where the amount of firepower coming in isn’t guaranteed to kill them.

Realistically the Stratagem you’ll be using most in current competitive lists is Grenade, which you get additional uses of free once per game from the Biologus Putrifier. This leads to lots of five-model Plague Marine squads which can amble up to an enemy, chuck two grenades at them (one paid for by the unit, the other free from the Putrifier), then charge in to finish them off. As a result, you’ll often want to save CP on your turn for a paid use of the Grenade Stratagem. On your own turns you may often want to save CP to Fire Overwatch with some plague spewers/sprayers/belchers, so figuring out when to do that vs. Cloud of Flies is important.

Enhancements

The Plague Company Enhancements are nothing special. They’re all relatively cheap, but being able to take 7-model units of plague marines or a unit of Nurglings for 35 points means that you’re seldom sitting on more than 10 points of space to work with for extra stuff and none of these are worth cutting a unit for.

• Living Plague (20 points) – Add 3″ to the range of the bearer’s Aura abilities (including Nurgle’s gift). This one can be pretty potent, and will do its best work on a Chaos Lord, whose Desiccation Conduit aura becomes more powerful the further it extends. Otherwise there aren’t many other aura abilities you’d attach this to – only the Daemon Prince’s 6+ FNP comes to mind. And ultimately you have other ways to extend contagion range, i.e. via Mortarion and Icon bearers.
• The Droning (Aura, 10 points) – While an enemy unit is within Contagion Range of the bearer, each time that unit fails a Battle-shock test, roll one D6; on a 2-5 that unit takes 1 mortal wound. On a 6, they take D3 mortal wounds. Battle-shock failures just don’t happen often enough for this to matter, even with support from PBCs. Really making use of this means combining PBCs with the Scabrous Soulrot contagion and the Noxious Blightbringer’s aura (possibly enhanced with Living Plague). But then you’re doing a lot of work for… a chance to get 1 mortal wound, maybe 2. And that just isn’t enough.
• Deadly Pathogen (15 points) – Add 1 to the Strength and Attacks of the bearer’s melee weapons. If they’re in range of an Infected objective marker you control, they add 2 instead. This is a decent buff and a fine way to spend your last 15 points if you have them. It’s best on a Daemon Prince or Chaos Lord, where it’ll make the exalted plague weapon and plague fist just a bit better.
• Shamblerot (25 points) – Each time the bearer’s unit is selected as the target of an enemy unit’s charge, until the end of the phase, subtract 2 from Charge rolls made for that enemy unit. This is neat, and has a fun combo with the Malignant Plaguecaster’s Pestilential fallout ability, where you can use it to give a unit -4 to charge you, but ultimately Death Guard mostly want to get into melee, though it’s always better to do it on your own terms. This probably goes best on a Foul Blightspawn in a unit that’s been pumped full of torrent weapons so you can Fire Overwatch with 5 snot flamers, then watch your opponent fail their charge after losing 3-4 models. But it’s also too expensive to want to play competitively.

Final Thoughts

The Plague Company Detachment offers two very powerful abilities (thanks to the dataslate), a few decent Stratagems, and… not a ton else. But those abilities are strong enough to single-handedly carry the faction, making them both competitive and fun as hell to play.

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