In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at Mortarion’s Hammer from the Death Guard.
Nurgle Daemons are some of the best in the game, and the new Death Guard book is pretty strong too. So what if we combined the two? That’s the question Tallyband Summoners is looking to answer.
Detachment Overview
Put simply, this Detachment is the one where you can take Daemons. It wants you to take a bunch of them and having them fight alongside your Death Guard as much as possible. What’s interesting here is Nurgle Daemons aren’t exactly offensive power houses but they provide a lot of tech pieces and solid tech pieces which compliment the Death Guard playstyle well.
The Video Version
If you’d like to watch a video version of this Detachment Focus, we’ve got you covered here:
Detachment Rule: Reverberant Rancidity
You can take up to 1,000 points of Nurgle Daemons. In addition, whenever a daemon unit is within 6” of a Death Guard unit the daemon unit gets the Army Rule and the Death Guard unit gets an extra 3” to their engagement range. Here’s the thing, in this Detachment you’ll almost always have a Death Guard unit nearby handing out Affliction if they’re within 6” of a Nurgle Daemon unit. That said, Daemons do benefit from the plagues. AP is something they all lack so the -1 to save plague can really juice them up and -1 to hit makes their already powerful defensive profiles that much stronger.
Enhancements
The Enhancements here are split – three only go on Death Guard models, while the Entropic Knell only goes on the Great Unclean One.
- Beckoning Blight – Death Guard model only. This is probably the best of the bunch. Whenever a Plague Legions unit sets up wholly within 12” of a Death Guard model with this enhancement, it can set up 6” away. Being able to slingshot a unit of Plague Bearers onto your opponent’s home after some Deathshroud get in close is a great little trick.
- Fell Harvester – Death Guard model only. Add two attacks to the bearer’s melee weapons. This is simple but can be pretty nifty on a daemon prince if you have points lying around. Fine on a Lord of Poxes, too.
- Entropic Knell – This one can only go on a Great Unclean One. Your opponent has to take battleshock tests when they’re below starting strength and do so at -1. This has never been a terribly useful rule but Nurgle daemons have a few ways of making Battleshock tests harder and more common so that may combo well with this.
- Tome of Bounteous Blessings – This one can only go on a Malignant Plaguecaster. Whenever a daemon makes a battle shock test they do so at +1 to the roll and heal D3 (or D3 models return to the unit if its Battleline). If Nurglings had battleline in this book this would be an autotake, but otherwise it’s just solid.
Stratagems
The Stratagems here are primarily geared toward your Daemon units, though a few of them focus on interactions between the two, such as All is Rot and Clutching Corruption.
- Persistent Pests (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – When a unit of Nurglings is destroyed, you can use this stratagem to get an identical replacement unit. This would be great if Nurglings were still units of 9 but even at 6 this is a great deal. Remember that it’s only once per game, per the Dataslate.
- Clutching Corruption (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Select a Death Guard unit, whenever that unit fights something within engagement range of a Plague Legion unit, you can re-roll the hit roll. This is great after you throw some Nurglings into combat to help out your Death Guard. Getting full re-rolls to hit with your WS4+ heavy plague weapons is huge, and doubly so if you can fish for 5+ critical hits.
- All is Rot (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – This lets a unit shoot into an enemy unit that is in combat with a Daemons unit. For every wound you do, on a 5+ the daemon unit takes a mortal. Since this lets you shoot your blast weapons into combat, this is great for tarpitting something and then blasting away.
- Fleshy Avalanche (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – this lets your Great Unclean Ones move through walls. With their movement and base sizes, it’s difficult to clear a building you were standing behind, but this is great for maneuvering around terrain.
- Avatars of Decay (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – In the shooting phase, one daemon unit gets a 6” Contagion Range. You’re not always going to be sitting close enough to a Death Guard unit to make this work and it’s super helpful early in the game when you can use it on an infiltrating unit of Nurglings to trip -1 to saves on a key target for your Shooting phase.
- Mireslick (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – when a non-Monster or Vehicle unit falls back from a Daemon unit you can use this stratagem. If you do, they must take a leadership test and if it fails, stay put. This is always nifty to have and you have a lot of ways to modify leadership in this army so you can make this that much more reliable.
Playing This Detachment
You’re likely starting your lists here with a Great Unclean One, then likely considering Rotigus, and if you’re feeling spicy another Great Unclean One. The -1 Toughness that stacks with your standard Contagion is too good to pass up, and Rotigus has some fantastic debuffs and buffs for your units. From there you’re looking at a big unit of Nurglings for Persistent Pests and probably a unit of Plaguebeaerers to sticky objectives. Drones are also very valuable, providing full rerolls to wound for your daemons. On the Death Guard side of things, you want to put a lot of bodies on the table to help keep your Daemons buffs online and some backline shooting to support them.
Strengths
- All Will Rot. If you’re getting your Death Guard units up with your Daemons, you’re likely gonna get everything in your opponent’s army in Contagion range quickly.
- Access to the Good Daemons. Nurgle Daemons are some of the best of the bunch and you get 1000 points of them.
- Solid Stratagems. almost all the stratagems have great play and will help you stick to your gameplan.
Weaknesses
- Weak Enhancements. There isn’t anything here I’m running to fit in my list except Beckoning Blight and even then, it’s more of a light jog.
- Nothing Really Improves Daemons. There isn’t really anything here substantial that notably increases your Daemon’s efficacy. Having contagions is nice, but with the boosted range, your Death Guard can often just do it on their own. That said, it is really easy to pull off so at least it’ll be consistent.
- Relatively Low Power Level. While there’s plenty to like here, nothing is as eye-popping as the other Detachments this is competing with. It’s hard to justify Tallyband Summoners when Flyblown Host, Virulent Vectorum, Mortarion’s Hammer, and Shamblerot Vectorum are right over there.
A Sample List
”Sample
This list aims to put a bunch of units in mid board and support them with bloat drone shooting. Rotigus and the Great Unclean One move to the middle and support each other while Plague Marines get stuck in around them, ideally going into targets that are -2 toughness. The Deathshroud provide a great threat as well with all the Affliction flying around.
Final Thoughts
Since this is the only way to bring Daemons in Death Guard now, this gets some unique identity from that. It’s not the most competitive Detachment I’ve seen but it’s pretty strong and it’s got some unique stuff floating around. The biggest downside though is there are a ton of other great options lying around.
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