In this article series we’re taking a look at the leader options available to each faction, looking at what units they pair with, and talking about the combos available to those units as well as tips for running them solo. You can find our Competitive Faction Focus article on the Death Guard here.
While the Death Guard don’t have a lot of Datasheets, they have a lot of characters to choose from, and are one of the few armies which can “double up” on their character choices, with some characters being able to join a unit of Plague Marines even if there’s already a character leading them. This means there’s more value to some of these characters than there might otherwise be if you had to make hard decisions about only having one.
Changelog
- Update (Latest): 2025-06-26 for the 10th edition Codex
- Update: 2024-08-15 for the June 2024 Balance updates
- Update: 2024-02-21
- Published: 2023-10-04
Let’s start by looking at the faction’s character options and where they can be added:
These have been shaken up a bit since the Index days. First off, there’s a clear distinction here between your Plague Marine and Terminator options which, no surprise, is dictated by the armor worn by the Leader. This means that only Plague Marines have access to the characters who can double up (these used to be referred to as “Foetid Virion”). The big outlier here are Poxwalkers, who could be joined by Typhus, and who gained the ability to be joined by a Malignant Plaguecaster or a Noxious Blightbringer, both of which are interesting options.
Biologus Putrifier
Let’s start things off with the power-armoured characters, first among which is the Biologus Putrifier. Like most of our characters, this guy comes with two abilities:
- First, he gives his unit [LETHAL HITS], and models in the units score critical hits on a 5+. This is very good, particularly on the unit’s heavy plague weapons, mitigating the fact that they normally only hit on 4s. This also carries over to the unit’s non-plague weapons, so your meltaguns and plasma guns will also auto-wound on 5+, and so if you’re taking a Putrifier you’ll get a ton of benefit from doubling up on those.
- Second, the first time a model in his unit kills an enemy unit with a melee attack, his OC increases by 6 for the rest of the battle (to 7).
This is a bit of a downgrade from the Index, where the ability to double up and get free Grenades was so good it had to be nerfed, but it’s still very good and they’ve compensated for this drop by making the Putrifier incredibly cheap to field. So you’re taking the Putrifier for three reasons: The first is that he’s just an incredibly cheap, solid boost on the output of a unit of Plague Marines, particularly in melee. The second is that he’s got his own solid weapons – Hyper Blight Grenades offer a 2-damage blast weapon that will combo just fine with the spot from a Lord of Virulence. And the third is that in a Champions of Contagion Detachment, you need this guy to use the Death’s Head Stratagem to give a unit the effect of all three contagions at once.
Icon Bearer
The Death Guard Icon Bearer can join a unit of Plague Marines and comes with two abilities:
- Models in his unit add 1 to their OC characteristic
- Once per game at the start of any phase you can pick a friendly Death Guard unit within 12″ that is battle-shocked and that unit is no longer battlle-shocked.
That’s it, and it’s way less useful than it used to be. This guy is cheap but that’s all he has to offer. Armed with a bolter and a plague knife, there isn’t much else to say here except that you don’t need this guy in your army when other options are available. Going to OC 3 with Plague Marines is cute, but if that’s a big concern why not just give your opponent -1 OC instead?
Foul Blightspawn
Welcome to the new cheaper, tone-down version of the Foul Blightspawn, who’s still an absolute menace. The Blightspawn has two banger abilities:
- Once per game, in the Fight phase, you can activate one model in your army to use this ability. If you do, this model’s unit gets Fights First for the rest of the phase.
- Enemy models cannot start or end an Advance move within 9″ of this model.
These are both insanely good abilities. The first basically turns the Blightspawn’s unit into an unchargeable juggernaut, guaranteed to punch a hole or two in you before you strike at them, and that’s if you survived what’s bound to be some very solid Overwatch given his Plague Sprayer weapon. The second ensures units can’t use the ability to Advance and Charge to close the gap on your unit and make for easier charges, another very solid ability and one to keep in mind when playing with the unit.
Don’t sleep on the Plague Sprayer weapon, which throws out D6 TORRENT shots that hit at S7, AP-2 2 damage with IGNORES COVER and ANTI-INFANTRY 2+. It’s a nasty weapon, albeit a bit inconsistent, and in a unit with two other torrent weapons makes for a unit that can absolutely wipe infantry off the board at a 12″ range.
You typically want to pair this guy with a Putrifier for maximum effect, but you’ll seldom need more than one in your army.
Lord of Poxes
The new addition in Codex: Death Guard, the Lord of Poxes basically replaces the Chaos Lord option for the Death Guard, giving Plague Marines their own lord option to drop into a unit. Unlike the rest of the power armour characters here, the Lord of Poxes comes with a 4+ invulnerable save. His two abilities are:
- Add 3″ to the range of this model’s Contagion Range
- While this model is leading a unit, that unit cannot be targeted by ranged attacks from more than 18″ away.
This is a nice little combo of abilities that point to the Lord of Poxes as a leader option for a melee-focused unit of Plague Marines, helping you close the distance before you get in and swing. And on that front, he’s a solid melee threat – his Great Plague Blade gives him 6 attacks at S8, AP-2, 2 damage that hit on a 2+ with Devastating Wounds and Lethal Hits. Not the best combo, but you don’t get a lot of Dev Wounds in the Death Guard army.
The problem with this guy is that his brand of “close the gap and hit them” just doesn’t work well with the way Death Guard want to play, which is sitting back and shrugging off damage while obliterating an opponent with midrange shooting and punching them to death when they try and claim objectives. That’s a shame, because the model is great.
Malignant Plaguecaster
Now your only non-EPIC HERO psyker option, the Malignant Plaguecaster packs a lot of wallop into a single power-armoured model. The Plaguecaster comes with a corrupted staff, which is basically a force weapon with Lethal Hits (better than you’d think given it’s S6 and your T4 targets will be T3 when you swing at them in melee), a bolt pistol, and Plague Wind, a stellar ranged psychic attack. Plague wind has a 12″ range and is a TORRENT weapon that does D6 attacks at S4, AP-1 and D3 damage but that upgrades to D6+3 shots at S6 and AP-2 when you fire it on focused/Hazardous mode. That’s very good, and when you combine it with the -1 to saves effect from Rattlejoint Ague it becomes an extremely lethal ranged attack – to the point that taking two of these guys in a Rhino just to turn it into the world’s nastiest Razorback is a valid strategy.
The Plaguecaster’s two abilities are Gift of Contagion, which gives the unit he’s leading [SUSTAINED HITS 1] against Afflicted targets, which is good but has no synergy with his own psychic attacks, and Pestilent Fallout, which gives an INFANTRY target he hit with his psychic weapon -2″ to hits Move Characteristic until the end of your opponent’s next turn. These are some solid add-on effects for your units, and the fact that SUSTAINED HITS works on melee attacks means he’s a great partner for a Biologus Putrifier, where the ability to get Critical Hits on a 5+ gives you that wonderful lethal/sustained 5+ combo that makes a unit so much deadlier.
The biggest new wrinkle for the Plaguecaster in the codex is that he gained the ability to join a unit of Poxwalkers. This is better with a unit of 20 than 10 but the general idea is that you can give him cheap protection on a unit that really benefits from the extra output on its melee attacks. Just be mindful that if you attach him to a unit of Poxwalkers, they lose the ability to INFILTRATE. The real place for these guys leading Poxwalkers is in the Shambling Vectorium Detachment.
Noxious Blightbringer
The Blightbringer has improved substantially in the Codex, to the point that he’s almost playable. The Blightbringer has two abilities:
- Sickening Vitality – While leading a unit, they get +1″ to their Movement characteristic and can re-roll Advance and Charge rolls.
- Tocsin of Misery (Aura) – In the Battle-shock step of your opponent’s Command phase, if an enemy unit that is below its Starting Strength is within 9″ of this guy, that unit has to take a battle-shock test, and at -1 if they’re a PSYKER unit.
These are fine. The extra movement is great, and 6″ Plaguemarines and Poxwalkers is a surprisingly bigger deal than you’d think. These guys also have a plasma pistol and a 2-damage plague bell, though at AP0 it needs Rattlejoint Ague to really shine.
The biggest new wrinkle for the Blightbringer in the codex is that he gained the ability to join a unit of Poxwalkers. Giving them the extra movement and re-rolls on advances/charges is great, and you can double up on this guy and a Plaguecaster in a 20-model unit if you’re a sicko. Just be mindful that if you attach him to a unit of Poxwalkers, they lose the ability to INFILTRATE. Again, this is only useful in a Shamblerot Vectorium army. The Blightbringer might also be OK with Plaguemarines in Flyblown Host.
Plague Surgeon
The Plague Surgeon is a model that would be a hell of a lot more useful if he could join a unit of Terminators. As-is, the ability to return a single destroyed model per Command phase just isn’t creating enough surplus value and his new second ability is something that looks great at first until you actually read it and realize that it’s only him that scores Crits on 5+ or 4+ if the target is below half strength in the Fight phase. As a guy who just has a 2 damage power sword, that’s hardly worth writing home about.
Tallyman
The Tallyman has fallen a far distance from the heights he hit in 9th edition as a CP-generating, hit-improving machine but he’s still got a fair amount of value to bring to the table. He still lets you generate an extra CP on a 7+, though only in your Command phase. His second ability is also worse now, letting his unit ignore modifiers to WS/BS and hit rolls when making attacks for a unit he leads – also much worse than getting +1 to hit. Still, he’s incredibly cheap and the likelihood of him bringing you 2-3 CP per game is decent (see the math on that), though you’ll often find that you were already going to get CP on at least one of those turns from discarding a secondary mission. The Tallyman pairs well with a Daemon Prince to get you the most CP possible for a Virulent Vectorium list, and he’s often a model you can take and leave by himself against most armies, where he acts as a solo backfield objective holder to be a screening body and score you extra CP.
With Power Armored options out of the way it’s time to talk about the Terminator characters.
Lord of Contagion
Once a tragic also-ran, the Lord of Contagion is now a powerful piece to add to a unit of Deathshroud Terminators. Having been combined with the Lord Felthius model, this guy comes with a Death Guard Terminator profile – T7, 2+/4++ save, and 6 wounds, plus his Unholy Resilience ability lets him stand back up on a 2+ the first time he dies, with 3 wounds remaining. This is particularly funny if you’ve taken him in Flyblown Host with Rejuvenating Swarm, so he stands back up and immediately recovers all of his lost wounds.
The LoC’s other ability is Vector of Disease, which gives the unit he’s leading [SUSTAINED HITS 1] and [LANCE]. Those are crucial for helping a unit of Deathshroud punch up into vehicles, as any time they’re wounding on a 5+ they’re going to struggle to generate meaningful output. With that combination of abilities and Rattlejoint Ague they can punch up into almost anything, even with 3 models. On top of that the Lord’s melee weapon is nothing to sneeze at, either – the strike on the Manreaper does 5 attacks at S9, AP-2, 3 damage. Finally note that the Lord of Contagion has the GRENADES keyword, giving your unit an extra dash of added versatility they can’t get anywhere else. Opponents love finding out your terminators have Grenades, let me tell you.
Lord of Virulence
The Lord of Virulence received a major glow-up in the tenth edition codex, becoming nearly a must-take with the new rules. He sports the same upgraded, T7, 5″ movement profile as your other terminator characters, and packs the same old D6 shot, S5 AP-1 1-damage twin plague spewer with Anti-Infantry 2+, Twin-linked, and Ignores Cover, but now his abilities have been upgraded:
- Virulent Aura is still around, giving his unit re-rolls to wound with ranged weapons.
- Blight Bombardment lets you pick one visible enemy unit within 30″ at the start of your Shooting phase and until the end of the phase, friendly Death Guard units in your army re-roll 1s to hit that unit, or all hits with [BLAST] weapons.
This is amazing. The re-rolls are already great, but you have so many great Blast weapon options now in Codex: Death Guard that it’s hard to imagine not taking this guy, even as a solo character. He’s also fine leading a unit of Deathshroud but you can just run him solo in Mortarion’s Hammer and use the Tendrilous Emissions enhancement to give him Lone Operative within 3″ of a vehicle. He’s a must-take in that Detachment but he’s pretty great in every other Detachment as well. He’s also not a bad fighter in melee in his own right in a pinch, and durable enough you don’t have to play shy with him.
Typhus
Last – but certainly not least – we come to Typhus, the host of the Destroyer Hive. Typhus is still very good, though not quite the must-take he used to be. This isn’t because he got worse – in fact, he got better in most respects, picking up an additional attack in melee on his strike and two on his sweep – but he’s got tougher competition now from the Lords of Contagion and Virulence, and his -1 to hit in melee ability isn’t as good now that it won’t stack with Skullsquirm Blight. Typhus gives you a tough character with a great Psychic ability in Eater Plague, and a deadly melee attacker to support a unit of Deathshroud (and they can protect him when he hurts himself trying to use the Eater Plague ability). He’s also fine with a unit of Poxwalkers or on his own.
Final Thoughts
The Death Guard have some great character options and as infantry lists have become more viable they’ve become more visible. The Putrifier, Blightspawn, and Terminator characters still dominate the discussion, but almost everything here has a reason to show up in a list, particularly if you’re not fine-tuning for a GT – there are fun lists you can build with pretty much everything here.
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