Death Guard have gotten a whole codex of new and interesting rules and this week on Ruleshammer I’m going to go through a few of the details and interactions that might come up. Most of them have answers too! Last Update 2022-04-02
Table of Contents
Current Q&A
Contagion Rules
How do they work?
If every unit from your army has the DEATH GUARD keyword (excluding UNALIGNED units), this unit gains the following ability:
Nurgle’s Gift (Contagion): Whilst an enemy unit is within Contagion Range of this unit (see below), subtract 1 from the Toughness Characteristic of models in that enemy unit.
There’s been a lot of talk and previous about the Contagion range mechanic, which increments during the game. However there are a few key things to point about these rules. One common mistake players may make with this rule is completely forgetting about it when shooting with a longer range weapon at a unit near a friendly unit with a contagion ability – Contagion rules aren’t just active when a model with that ability attacks; just being near them reduces the enemy’s effective toughness against all attacks you might throw their way.
On that note, Nurgle’s gift isn’t the only contagion – there are others that you can gain access to and your whole army does not have to have the DEATH GUARD keyword to get them. Each Plague Company has a Warlord Trait that confers a different contagion ability. It is just the warlord (or the model with the trait) that has this though, not the entire army. Remember that being Battleforged means that your army is in detachments, and that all the units (in all detachments) share a keyword. For an army of Death Guard and Daemons this keyword would be CHAOS. So long as all the detachments are divided so that all the Death Guard are in their own detachment and all the Daemons are in other detachments, you still get to choose a Plague Company for the Death Guard Detachment.
In a Battle-forged army, all of the units in your army – with exception of those that are Unaligned – must have at least one Faction Keyword in common (eg. Imperium or Chaos) even if they are in different detachments. [Core Book pg245]
Though unlike Nurgle’s Gift, Plague Company contagions only benefit units from that same Plague Company. An example here is Ferric Blight, which only gives friendly INEXORABLE units a bonus to their AP when attacking an enemy unit in contagion range.
They are not Auras
Note, that while similar in many regards to Aura abilities, Contagion abilities are not affected by abilities that affect Aura abilities, and vice-versa.
I’m really glad GW took the time to say this rather than just labelling the abilities Contagions and not Auras but leaving it there for players to resolve. This makes it completely clear that abilities that disable, reduce or extend Auras don’t work on them. Before anyone gets any ideas though, they also don’t stack:
The effects of multiple identically named Contagion abilities is not cumulative (i.e. if an enemy unit is within Range of two models with the same Contagion ability, that Contagion ability only applies to the enemy unit once).
Summoning and Contagions
What is currently not clear is how summoning affects units in a Death Guard army gaining the Nurgle’s Gift Contagion. Looking at the rule again there’s two possible interpretations in my opinion.
If every unit from your army has the DEATH GUARD keyword (excluding UNALIGNED units), this unit gains the following ability:
Nurgle’s Gift (Contagion): Whilst an enemy unit is within Contagion Range of this unit (see below), subtract 1 from the Toughness Characteristic of models in that enemy unit.
The first interpretation I have is that so long as your army met the condition once during the game, the units gain the ability at that time and keep it all battle, even if by summoning there’s a point where you don’t meet the condition. The second interpretation is that summoning causes your army to fail the condition and you can’t use Nurgle’s Gift from then on, with some extra debate on if a destroyed unit is still part of your army or not; which I think it would be.
There really isn’t an answer to this, but I think for now I’d recommend the second interpretation as losing abilities has been the precedent in the past for assassins though I personally think that summoning is not meant to break this, but the book doesn’t really acknowledge summoning at all.
Finally note that the Greater Blight Drone from Imperial Armour Compendium just has the Nurgle’s Gift Contagion ability all the time because of how its rules are worded.
Revolting Stench Vats
This is a new type of effect on the fight phase we haven’t seen before. It’s not a Fight Last ability like we’ve seen and is actually pretty different.
Revolting Stench Vats (Aura): While an enemy unit is within 6” of the bearer, that unit cannot make use of any rules that allow it to fight first and never counts as having made a charge move this turn.
This can actually cause a unit to end up unable to fight at all under a specific set of circumstances. Specifically, the rules for which units can fight state that “An eligible unit is one that is within Engagement Range of an enemy unit and/or made a charge move in the same turn.” (Core Rules, “Fight Phase,” Paragraph 1), which means that a unit affected by this that is pushed out of Engagement Range as a result of removing casualties won’t be eligible to fight, as shown below:
Revolting Stench Vats and Fight Again
A rather Machiavellian player has pointed out a really odd interaction with these rules that I felt worth mentioning. As a reminder here’s what the Death Guard relic Revolting Stench-Vats does:
Revolting Stench Vats (Aura): While an enemy unit is within 6” of the bearer, that unit cannot make use of any rules that allow it to fight first and never counts as having made a charge move this turn.
This essentially causes a unit to count as if it had not charged. Usually that’s a bad thing, slowing the unit down and allowing the unit it charged to strike first. However this also effects targeting in the Fight phase. A unit that hasn’t charged can fight anything within engagement range, rather than only units that it declared as charge targets. So the situation below can happen and be pretty bad for the Foul Blight Spawn because of stratagems such as this one, or any fight again ability.
Adrenaline Surge: Use this Stratagem at the end of the Fight phase. Select a TYRANIDS unit from your army – that unit can immediately fight again.
I think this deserves a few disclaimers though:
- First of all the Blightspawn is very likely better positioned and defended than I have depicted them here. Or they will be after someone does this to a Death Guard player once, and then never again. Rob: Mine sites in a mass of Blightlord Terminators. He’s not getting hit.
- The plague marines could use their Pile In and Consolidation moves to significantly limit how much the Genestealers can move by moving into base-to-base contact with as many genestealer models as possible.
- The unit the Genestealers move to fight with this “tactic” doesn’t need to be the Blightspawn. It’s feasible that the Genestealer could charge a unit, fight it first because they charged. Consolidate into another unit that brings them within range of Revolting Stench Vats… and use Adrenaline surge to fight them.
- Note that if you’re trying to pull this off, you want to make sure you start the Fight phase more than 3″ away from the Blightspawn, so you can’t be forced to fight last by his Putrefying Stink ability
- Also note that if you move out of Stench-Vats range with your pile-in move, you’ll only be able to target models in units you declared a charge against
The Tallyman
Honestly we think this is just a bit much but the Seven-fold Chant Rules as written is an 83% chance at getting an extra CP per Battle Round. The reason is the wording of their ability.
At the start of the Command Phase, if this model is on the Battlefield, roll 2D6: on a 7+, you gain 1 command point.
It’s not the start of “your command phase” it’s both. So you have two chances per Turn of rolling for this CP. Warning maths ahead. The probability of a 6 or less on 2D6 is 15/36… the probability of failing twice can be found by multiplying it by 15/36 again. Making the probability of failing this over two attempts 17.36% (subtracting this chance of failure from 100% gets you the 83% chance of success I stated. It is still a maximum of one per round though that can be gained from this, on top of the CP per round you gain from missions currently.
TheChirurgeon: This seems like an oversight and something likely to be corrected in a future FAQ, so don’t get too used to it.
Inexorable Advance
First things first, make sure you know which units actually have this rule.
Bubonic Astartes units in Death Guard detachments gain this Inexorable Advance ability.
This pretty much means marines and the tanks/walkers they managed to scarper with during the Heresy. Not Poxwalkers! The Daemon Engines also don’t get it though that’s perhaps less surprising.
Inexorable Advance and Transports
In what might be the first ever preemptive FAQ there were some possible interpretations that would have allowed Death Guard Transports to disembark after moving, because they count as “Remain Stationary”.
Transports and Rules that Count as Remaining Stationary Some rules allow a model to count as having Remained Stationary, even if that model has moved during its Movement phase. Even if a Transport model is subject to such a rule, embarked models still cannot disembark from that Transport model during the Movement phase if that Transport model has already moved, unless that Transport model (or the models embarked within it) have a rule that explicitly allows them to disembark after the Transport model has moved.
This FAQ firmly prevents that though. Whilst I do think the rule itself could use a bit of tidying, such as defining a model’s previous movement phase when it’s just arrived from reinforcements or in turn 1, but these are small issues now in comparison to the rules implications for Transports.
Inexorable Advance vs Difficult Ground and more
The old FAQ that said Inexorable Advance did not allow models to ignore difficult ground has now been removed! Instead we now have a new difficult ground rule.
‘If a unit makes a Normal Move, Advances or Falls Back, and any of its models wish to move over any part of this terrain feature, subtract 2″ from the Move characteristic of every model in that unit (to a minimum of 0), even if every part of this terrain feature is 1″ or less in height. If a unit declares a charge, and any of its models wish to move over any part of this terrain feature as part of its subsequent charge move, subtract 2 from that unit’s charge roll, even if every part of this terrain feature is 1″ or less in height. These modifiers do not apply if every model in the moving unit can Fly. These modifiers do not apply if every model in the moving unit is Titanic and this terrain feature is less than 3″ in height. The height of a terrain feature is measured from the highest point on that terrain feature.’
No longer does this rule modify the abstract concept of “max distance” it now clearly modifies the movement characteristic and the charge roll.
Inexorable Advance: If this Unit has the Infantry Keyword, it can ignore any or all modifiers to its Move Characteristic, Advance Rolls and Charge Rolls
which Inexorable Advance now without doubt makes the unit immune to modification. This is progress, slow but inexorable progress.
Inexorable Advance and Actions
This one game up at the latest GW event.
Q: Can a Death Guard unit with the Inexorable Advance rule Advance and then start an action in the same turn/Movement phase?
The short answer is “no,” but you won’t find that from any of the rules involved. Unlike most “Remain Stationary” rules, it’s not for a specific phase such as “can Shoot as if it has remained stationary.” Inexorable Advance works for the entire turn based on the previous movement phase.
This unit counts as having Remained Stationary if it did not Fall Back or Advance in your previous Movement phase.
However the Remain Stationary FAQ blocks this rule from allowing a unit to perform an action.
8) Even if a unit is subject to such a rule, it cannot start an action if it has Advanced or Fallen Back this turn.
It would be nice to see this line added to the Actions section of the rules in a future Chapter Approved, the number of Rare Rules that aren’t reflected in the main rules text is not quite significant.
Deathshroud Bodyguards
I’m not sure if we’ve covered this but we’re three full codex releases into 9th edition (I’m not counting the supplements) and so far all three of them have included this new way that Bodyguards work in 9th edition. Gone are the old intercepting wounds mechanics that were often needlessly confusing and frequently differed in wording from faction-to-faction.
Bodyguard (Aura): While a friendly <PLAGUE COMPANY> CHARACTER unit that has a Wounds Characteristic of 9 or less is within 3” of this unit, enemy models cannot target that Character unit with ranged attacks.
Both the Space Marines and Necrons Codexes got units with this type of Bodyguard ability, and it’s worth covering how it interacts with some of the other shooting rules.
How does this work with Overwatch?
…Any rule that states the unit cannot be targeted unless it is the closest target (e.g. Look Out, Sir) does not apply when firing Overwatch.
The key thing to notice about how Overwatch disables Look Out, Sir is that it actually deactivates rules that prevent you from shooting at targets unless they are the closest target your unit has. The new Bodyguard ability is not this type of rule; its effects are not limited like Look Out, Sir’s to only preventing shots when the covering unit is a closer target. The unit also doesn’t need to be 3 or more models like a unit for Look Out Sir does (unless it’s a Monster or Vehicle).
How does this work against Snipers?
Bodyguards are Sniper proof so far in 9th.
Each time you select a target for this weapon, you can ignore the Look Out, Sir rule.
So until the Character is stripped of it’s close protection it is entirely untargetable (until someone reminds me of a Stratagem or ability I’ve not found that is a loophole to this).
Gloaming Bloat Warlord Trait and Miracle Dice
The Gloaming Bloat contagion prevents units within Engagement Range from re-rolling hit rolls or wound rolls. How does that interact with Miracle dice though? Best I can tell it doesn’t, here’s the specific rules on this to explain why:
Gloaming Bloat (Contagion): While an enemy unit is within Contagion Range of this unit:
-
- That enemy unit cannot fire Overwatch of Set to Defend
- Each Time a model in that enemy unit makes an attack, the hit roll and the wound roll cannot be re-rolled.
Miracle dice are not however re-rolled, and also can’t be re-rolled themselves.
Before making a dice roll for a model or unit from your army with the Acts of Faith ability, you can choose to use one or more of the dice from your miracle dice pool instead. For each individual dice that is being rolled as part of the dice roll, you can select one Miracle dice from your Miracle dice pool to be substituted in place of that dice. The dice that is being substituted for is not rolled, instead the value of the Miracle dice is used as if it had been rolled.
It then later says
When re-rolling a dice roll, no new Miracle dice may be substituted. The number and values of any Miracle dice that have already been substituted in the dice roll remain the same for the re-roll.
As these dice are treated as the original results and also subsequently already barred from being re-rolled they don’t interact with the Gloaming Bloat restriction.
Miasmic Malignifier Deployment
Can you palace this Fortification closer than 3” other other terrain? Well at the minute it’s not actually very clear. Its deployment rules don’t specifically state that it ignores the restriction.
During deployment, when you set up this model, it can be set up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 12” away from the enemy deployment zone and any enemy models. After a Miasmic Malignifer is set up on the battlefield, you can then set up one Pox Furnace terrain feature wholly within 6” of it and more than 12” away from the enemy deployment zone.
The question is if not mentioning the current limit but providing new ones counts as “otherwise stating” for the fortification deployment rule.
Units with the Fortifications Battlefield Role are terrain features that are part of your army. Unless otherwise stated, when setting Fortifications up on the battlefield, they cannot be set up within 3″ of any other terrain feature that is not part of its own datasheet (excluding hills, page 260). If it is not possible to set up a Fortification as a result, it cannot be deployed and counts as having been destroyed. Fortifications can never be placed into Strategic Reserves (pg 256).
While I personally think it does count as “otherwise stating” doing so then leads to more questions, like if you can deploy these inside area terrain. I don’t think there’s going to be an actual answer on this though until the Death Guard FAQ.
Have any questions or feedback? Got a rules question you want answered? Drop us a note in the comments below, ask a question in our Ruleshammer form, or head over to r/ruleshammer to discuss.
