10th Edition is in full swing and with the Q3 2023 Dataslate behind us and some tournaments in the books it’s time to look at the game’s factions and how they shake out following the most recent changes to the game.

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

Changelog

• Update (Latest): 2024-02-20 for the Q1 2024 Balance Dataslate
• Update: 2023-10-3 for the Q3 2023 Balance Dataslate
• Published: 2023-08-03

Why Should You Play This Faction?

The Death Guard started off 10th edition in a very rough place but emerged as the big winners from the Q3 balance Dataslate, with a set of rules changes and point drops that have catapulted them from the dregs of the edition to a solid competitor. Generally speaking the Death Guard are slow but durable, and capable of hitting pretty hard when they finally arrive on the enemy’s doorstep. In addition they have access to a solid variety of units and are capable of dealing with a variety of threats. Death Guard saw a slight adjustment in the Q1 dataslate to tone down their troops and some grenade strategies (now only one Putrifier per turn can throw a free grenade) but overall are still a fun and versatile army to play, and can handle some of the game’s top armies pretty well.

The New Contagions

When the September 2023 dataslate released, Death Guard were one of the big winners, receiving a major overhaul with an improvement to their contagions. As a quick recap, before each game you now choose the following effects to have in addition to -1 Toughness:

• Skullsquirm Blight (Aura): While an enemy unit is within Contagion Range of this unit, worsen the BS and WS 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 enemy 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).

Each of these is a powerful effect, though you’ll generally find the most value in Skullsquirm Blight and Rattlejoint Ague, depending on the opponent. Both are solid options – Dropping enemy WS and BS makes it difficult for them to remove your units once you finally close the gap, significantly improving your army’s durability. While the added offensive bonus from reducing an enemy’s save by 1 can make many of the army’s low-AP weapons suddenly very deadly, especially when paired with the Ferric Blight Stratagem.

Five Things You Need to Know

• You Need to Learn How to Use the New Contagion Rules. Being able to pick a secondary Contagion effect each game allows you to tailor your game plan to the enemy at hand – but doing that effectively means understanding your army and your opponent. Sometimes this will be easy – extra AP is a lot better against enemies who don’t roll to hit often, and much less useful against targets with a good invulnerable save. It’s worth practicing with each effect to understand when and how it helps.
• You don’t need Mortarion on the table anymore… but you probably still want him. Mortarion is a powerful force multiplier in the Death Guard army and his ability to ignore modifiers is a must-have for overcoming some matchups. That said, you can get a lot more for the points he eats up even at his reduced cost, and as we’ll see in the lists section, it’s possible to play a successful list without him. You’re really going to wish he was around when you go up against movement modifiers or -1 damage, however.
• Your Army is slow… kind of. 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 some of 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 things. You can also mitigate this somewhat with faster units and more vehicles – it’s very easy to “accidentally” build a Death Guard army where everything moves 10″ or more.
• 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. And remember that it doesn’t kick in until your Command phase, so you need to survive on the objective for a turn.
• You’ll need to push forward aggressively. Your army has a relatively short range and will perform best against targets within 12” (or closer if you need to hit contagion range on earlier turns), 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. That said, once you’re on the objectives, the opponent will have to come to you.

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

There’s some debate as to whether you should take him, but I like starting with Mortarion. The big guy packs some incredibly useful auras which make the army much better. 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. And the changes to “ignore modifiers” rules in the Q1 2024 dataslate further improve this, by ensuring that his aura will let you ignore damage reduction and AP worsening effects like Armour of Contempt or the damage-halving effects of the C’Tan Necrodermis ability. You can definitely build an effective army without Mortarion, though.

Speaking of which, you’re going to need some Plagueburst Crawlers. These got a points hike in the Q1 Dataslate but they’re still incredibly good even at their increased cost. The PBC combines 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 and if you can pair it with contagion effects for -1 to save you can put some nasty damage out at range. Having PBC indirect fire is a massive boon when you’re going first and lets you root pesky deep strikers out of your backfield when you can’t screen them. Post-Dataslate it’s more common to see two instead of three in lists and, as we’ll see in the lists section, there have been winning lists which didn’t run them at all.

Next you’ll need objective holders, and here’s where you have options. Plague Marines are still one of the army’s best units and one of the game’s best Battleline options, though they’re not as durable as they used to be. A single squad can provide solid value, especially when paired with some characters. You can take them in units of 5, 7, or 10, and each has its uses. A squad of 10 can be given three heavy plague weapons and two each plague spewers/belchers, making them a surprisingly deadly close range unit. A unit of 5 can take 3 heavy plague weapons, plus a pair of special weapons, giving a nasty little melee punch. And if you have the extra points to spend you can split the difference and do a 7-model unit. Before the dataslate nerfs, lists tended to run 20-25 plague marines, mostly in units of 5 with Biologus Putrifiers, though a 10-man with a Blightspawn was also pretty common. As a unit they’re pretty versatile and you can outfit them for a ton of different purposes. Whatever you take them for, you want to put them in a Rhino to give them more mobility and improve their durability.

After your 2-3 units of Plague Marines you’ll want some additional action/objective support, and that’s usually going to mean Nurglings. As a Battleline unit, these avoided the big Daemon allies nerf but did go up to 40 points in the Q1 dataslate. They’re still worth it however as a cheap, annoying unit which can deep strike and deploy homers/investigate signals. You can also look at a unit of Poxwalkers or Cultists to act as backfield objective holders and action-doers. Cultists give you a little more value here with a 6″ move, though Poxwalkers being able to go to 20 models is nice, and pairing them with Typhus when an opponent is suffering -1 WS from contagion is pretty funny.

After that, your options are a little more open. The more successful competitive lists tend to bring a unit or two of terminators – Deathshroud just got cheaper and 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… but having 4d6 auto-hitting shots with ANTI-INFANTRY 4+ and full re-rolls to wound form a Lord of Virulence is usually better. Deathshroud are also substantially better when they don’t have to eat damage or hit penalties.

On the subject of Deathshroud, we can’t skip over Typhus any longer. He’s a big, nasty Terminator character but most importantly his ability to throw out D6 mortal wounds at 18″ is huge. When combined with the Chaos Lord’s aura, Typhus can be part of a powerful 1/2 punch that finishes off enemy targets weakened by other units.

Character-wise, there are a few other options to look at. The Chaos Lord – both the power and terminator variants – have a powerful aura ability that causes enemy units within Contagion range to suffer D3 mortal wounds on a D6 roll of a 4+. Not massive but pretty good given it’s free of charge. The Terminator Sorcerer is also a pretty good option for pairing with Deathshroud – getting -1 damage on incoming attacks in melee is very solid as well, and good for going up against Custodes and Lychguard. And the 2-3 extra CP you can get from the Tallyman is very useful for pushing out extra AP via Ferric Blight or protecting units with Cloud of Flies.

When it comes to the Death Guard characters, it’s worth noting that while they tend to offer solid options as leaders, many are also perfectly fine as stand-alone takes. Doing so forces an opponent to waste fire on a suboptimal target that can often shrug off more damage than expected – especially for the terminator characters. A lone Terminator Chaos Lord can be pretty nasty, especially as a Contagion generator who throws out extra mortal wounds every turn.

If you want to look at vehicle support, your options are basically Bloat-Drones, Blight-haulers, Predators, and Helbrutes, the former two of which received much-needed point drops in the dataslate. At 100 points, they’re great options to have, not just as mobile damage dealers but also as Contagion spreaders. The Foetid Bloat-Drone is 10 points cheaper thanks to the Q1 dataslate and can be a terror now that its Fleshmower can casually hit what is effectively AP-3 and the twin plaguespitters can be nasty anti-infantry shooting. The ability to Fall Back and Shot/Charge makes them very versatile and good for doing actions in a in a pinch. Meanwhile the Blight-Haulers are also very solid additions to the army, giving you some extra punch against heavier vehicle targets that the Entropy Cannons just don’t buy you. Predator Annihilators have a lot of play, particularly on more open terrain, where their ability to put out 3 lascannon shots each and re-roll damage rolls is pretty nasty.

The Helbrute is a new addition to the list of vehicles we’d consider thanks to its Infused with the Blessings of Nurgle rule, which lets it pick one enemy unit it hits in the Shooting or Fight phases to count as being in Contagion Range until your next turn. This means you can give it longer-ranged weapons and use it to tag enemy units with contagion effects when you might otherwise not be able to reach them. This sounds pretty great but in practice you’ll likely find you don’t need more than one Helbrute in your list for this – they’re still a bit too expensive and you’re going to end up in Contagion range on turn 2 more often than you think.

When it comes to allies, there are basically two options – Chaos Knights and Daemons. On the Chaos Knight front, Brigands are the most popular choice – a combination of BS2+ and added AP against the closest target makes them a nasty threat when you can combine that with Rattlejoint Ague to give them what is effectively AP-3 chaincannons. They went up in cost to 180 points in the Q1 dataslate, but that’s a minor setback you can work around for a unit that’s fast, lethal, and packs an insanely high OC. You typically see Brigands in lists which don’t take Mortarion.

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 now thanks to the dataslate only costs 40 points for a unit of 3, giving you a great way to spend your last few 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. Nurglings can also be used to screen out melee units as Infiltrators – they can be great for stopping a turn 1 charge from World Eaters – and their Mischief Makers ability pairs wonderfully with giving units -1 WS. 1-2 units of Nurglings make a great addition to almost any Death Guard army.

How Does This Faction Secure Objectives?

Mostly by standing on them with units that are tough to dislodge – and then usually walking away if that unit survives. 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. That said, once you’re on the objectives, the opponent will usually need to come to you, forcing them into Contagion range. 

How Does This Faction Handle Enemy Hordes?

If there’s an area the Death Guard can excel 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 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.

This is also an area where the Rattlejoint Ague (-1 to saves) comes in handy – the added save reduction from things like plague belchers and plaguespurt gauntlets can be incredibly nasty against targets who’d otherwise rely on cover or be able to shrug off half the wounds with a 4+ save. It’s also handy against 2+ saves in cover, as worsening their save puts them on a 3+ and unable to claim the benefit of cover against an AP0 weapon.

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. 

Rattlejoint Ague (-1 to saves) can be helpful here, giving you the extra punch to get through vehicle armor, though you’ll often find going up against knights and multi-tank armies to be more of a marathon than a sprint. In those cases Skullsquirm Blight (-1 WS/BS) may do more for you, as you can combine it with tying up enemy vehicles in melee to put them on what is effectively -2 to hit: You worsen their BS by 1, and then they incur a -1 to their to hit rolls thanks to Big Guns Never Tire, making them have to think much harder about whether they want to stay in combat or Fall Back.

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.

Typhus

• Typhus
• One of:
  • A unit of Deathshrouds
  • A unit of Poxwalkers

Typhus brings incredible value as a stand-alone model already thanks to his ability to just toss out mortal wounds but he also adds a ton of value to the units he leads by making them harder to hit in melee (-1 to the hit roll). This combines extremely well with Skullsquirm Blight to create units that are very difficult to kill – either Deathshroud thanks to being T6 and -1 to wound or Poxwalkers thanks to having a 5+ feel no pain and the ability to regenerate dead models with each kill.

Plague Marines

• A unit of Plague Marines
• One or two of:
  • Chaos Lord
  • Icon Bearer
  • Foul Blightspawn
  • Biologus Putrifier

While it’s unlikely you’ll see success building around 30-40 plague marines, taking 1-2 units is plenty viable with the current army and environment, where Wraithknights no longer trivially wipe a squad in Overwatch. A unit of 10 Plague Marines can be outfitted with 4 heavy plague weapons (including the first on the champion), 2 blight launchers, and 2 each of plague belchers and plague spewer and for my money this is the best way to equip them – it makes them a terrifying Overwatch unit, especially when paired with the blightspawn, while giving them a pretty nasty melee punch.

If you’re taking a unit of ten plague marines, you’ll typically want to give them one or two characters for support.

• The Chaos Lord is a good shout here, giving them re-rolls to hit on 1s and extra melee punch, while giving him protection until he can deliver his extra contagion aura mortal wounds.
• The Foul Blightspawn makes them a terror in Overwatch and to charge thanks to Fights First.
• The Icon Bearer ups the unit’s OC but his real value is a once-per game 12″ Contagion range aura, giving you the ability to surprise unsuspecting enemy units with -1 to their saves or hit rolls. This can also work through walls, opening up enemy units to early bombardments from your PBCs that functionally hit at AP-2. Putting this unit in a Rhino means your turn 1 Contagion threat range is effectively 27″.
• The Biologus Putrifier gives you a free use of the Grenade strat once per game and comes with both Assault and Pistol weapons, making him an extremely versatile unit to play with, plus his ability to have Lethal Hits proc on a 5+ can be huge with some loadouts.

There are some other options here but the Tallyman’s CP generation ability is inconsistent while the +1 to hit bonus isn’t particularly useful when you’re relying on auto-hit weapons and the Blightbringer’s advance and charge re-rolls and -2 Ld aura abilities sound cooler than they are in practice.

Sample Lists

The Death Guard continue to put up respectable results at the GT level, usually mixing in the occasional win with some solid podium finishes. They aren’t top tier, but in the right hands they’re pretty solid.

Kevin Rutherford’s List

Kevin took this list to a 5-0, first-place finish at the Kingston Nexus 40k Club Champs in Ontario, beating marines, Daemons, Orks, Dark Angels, and Tyranids to get there. It’s a balanced list running a spread of units, but completely eschews Plagueburst crawlers for a Land Raider.

There’s a lot going on with this list. The first thing is that it packs only one rhino, instead opting for a Land Raider. That’s often going to be put to best use toting 10 Plague Marines with a Putrifier. You could put the Deathshroud into it but you want to pair them with the Lord of Virulence to make them a nasty deep striking anti-infantry threat, and losing the -1 to be wounded on the Deathshrouds really wastes their potential. Typhus is being used here to bolster the Poxwalkers, and a unit of 20 with Typhus can be damn near impossible to chew through when you’re using Skullsquirm Blight to reduce enemy WS. Rounding out the list are Mortarion for aura support and a pair of Fleshmower bloat-drones which offer some reasonably fast melee output.

One of the most interesting things about this list is that it packs two units of cultists and three units of Nurglings – this is a list which can spread out quickly and easily and eat up large portions of the table, blocking out enemy units relying on deep strike or strategic reserves to come onto the table.

Tanner Hebert’s List

Tanner took this list to a 5-0, First-place finish at the Great Game Gongaii GT Winter 2024 event, plowing through two Ork players, two Votann players, and Chaos Knights to claim victory. It uses a pair of Brigands and Mortarion, choosing to drop PBCs and run heavy on Deathshroud Terminators.

Tanner’s List - Click to Expand

This list has some decent speed with Plague Marines in Rhinos and the Brigands, and has a ton of Deep Striking assets with the Nurglings and 3 units of Deathshroud. The Deathshroud here are no joke, and with the terminator sorcerer’s Putrescent Vitality and their native -1 to be wounded ability they can tank a lot of damage.

Ryan Cherewich’s List

Two Death Guard players hit the top 4 at Gongaii – Ryan finished in fourth place with a 4-1 record, losing only to Chaos Knights in round 2 and beating Custodes, Orks, Votann, and Daemons. It’s a more standard list.

Ryan’s List - click to expand

The PBCs are back here, though only a pair of them this time around. They benefit bigtime from Mortarion. The third here is replaced by a pair of bloat-drones, taking advantage of their points drop to fit more into the list. The core here is the 2×10 Plague Marines in Rhinos and the two units of Deathshroud, each of which has character support to make them more of a threat. Each PM unit is kitted out for melee, and both are packing meltaguns for extra short range anti-vehicle punch.

If triple deathshrouds aren’t your thing or you’re looking for an option without Mortarion or Typhus, you can also check out Tim Royers’ list from the Wizards Asylum GT. Tim finished 4-1 with a loss only in the final round to event winner Colin Kay’s Adepta Sororitas and ran 10/10/5 plague marines with three rhinos and only one unit of Deathshroud. In place of Mortarion and Typhus he’s running triple PBCs.

Final Thoughts

After a very rough start to 10th edition, Death Guard are in a greatspot – they have a ton of power and versatility, and they’re very fun to play. The Contagion ability is powerful and relevant, they can pack in a ton of weapons to work with, and they can build around faster units that help them extend their effectiveness ahead of slower units on foot. They’re not the absolute top tier or anything but they’re very competitive and rewarding to play.

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.