Clearly, the Tallyman has been busy writing down new tactics for the Death Guard to use, as War of the Spider features lots of Stratagems. If you like your Plague Marines to get up close and personal, pay a Command Point to make them into Trench-fighters. You can use Plague marines as a bait unit. Most units capable of destroying plague marines cost more than they do in either points or opportunity cost. Next: Chaos Space Marines Myphitic Blight-haulers [14 PL, 220pts]: Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 110pts], Myphitic Blight-hauler [7 PL, 110pts] Blight Drone • Contagion • Foetid Bloat-drone • Myphitic Blight-hauler • Plague Hulk • Plague Tower • Plagueburst Crawler A number of changes to the game’s secondaries affect Death Guard in Arks of Omen. Assassination, Grind Them Down, and Behind Enemy Lines now grant a bonus CP for completing the secondary with a Troops unit involved, which is fantastic news for Plague Marines. Psychic Interrogation became more difficult and now requires an enemy character have Line of Sight to the caster, which ironically makes Mortarion one of the game’s best units for Interrogate. And the change to Engage on All Fronts makes it slightly easier to score for slower Death Guard armies.

Don’s list is an evolution of the vehicle-heavy lists he brought to tables in 2021, though he’s lightened up on the Daemon Engines in favor of Forge World units. As the new meta unfolds, there are some good and bad matchups for Death Guard to consider. The Positive

Stratagems

Malignant Plaguecaster [5 PL, -1CP, 90pts]: 5. Curse of the Leper, 6. Gift of Plagues, Plague Skull of Glothila, Stratagem: Relic [-1CP]

Whilst we will do everything we can to meet the delivery times above, there may be factors outside of our control and we cannot guarantee delivery within this time frame. What better way to spread Grandfather Nurgle’s diseases than through stabbing your enemies? Don’t worry if you prefer to kill from afar, there’s a Stratagem that can help with that too. The Rotten Constitution warlord trait is now useful again, making ignoring AP-1 and AP-2 valuable if you want to make a Daemon Prince with that trait and the Supparating Plate.Overall the footslogging across the board Inexorable Advance kind of Death Guard playstyle might not be a top 8 tournament winning list but i do think it has potential and is pretty solid. And for any such infantry heavy Death Guard army the Myphitic Blight-hauler definitely is the secret sauce to making it work. Helbrute • Ferrum Infernus Dreadnought • Chaos Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought • Sonic Dreadnought • Berserker Dreadnought • Leviathan Dreadnought At the start of the third battle round, select either Wanton Massacre or Wanton Slaughter; until the end of that battle round, your army (and every unit from it) is engaged in the wanton act you selected. Some weapons have ‘Blast’ listed in their profile’s abilities. These are referred to as Blast weapons. In addition to the normal rules, the following rules apply to Blast weapons:

Generally speaking, this one’s a double-edged sword; Death Guard are still going to be among the game’s most durable armies, but they’re going to feel a quite a bit more fragile. On the upside, the army has a lot of AP-1 and AP-2 weaponry that will suddenly feel much more useful and deadly, and there are fewer armies out there waiting to turn off re-rolls to wound. 2023 Munitorum Field Manual (MFM) Blood Reaper • Blood Slaughterer • Blood Throne of Khorne • Brass Scorpion • Cauldron of Blood • Death Dealer • Doom Blaster • Kytan • Lord of Battles • Lord of Skulls • Skull Cannon of Khorne • Tower of Skulls It’s also bad news for the Vehicles and Mortarion, who really benefit from having the ability to shrug off smaller arms fire. They’re still tough, but it’s going to be easier to bring them down with AP-1 weapons. Deathshroud Champion [1 PL, -1CP, 65pts]: Acidic Malady [1 PL, 15pts], Chimes of contagion, Plague Skull of Glothila, 2x Plaguespurt gauntlet, Stratagem: Champion of Disease [-1CP] If a unit from your army starts your Movement phase embarked within a TRANSPORT model, that unit can disembark in that phase.

Rob’s List

Plague Marine w/ mace and axe [38pts]: 2x Blight grenades, 2x Bubotic Axe, 2x Krak grenades, 2x Mace of Contagion, 2x Plague knife I have also done a lot of theorycrafting on this, comparing the Helbrute, Blight-Hauler and the Plagueburst Crawler (I didn’t compare the Predator because it’s more expensive or the Forgeworld Dreadnoughts). Here was what I came up with: Biologus Putrifier [4 PL, 65pts]: Hyper blight grenades, Injector pistol, Krak grenades, Plague knife The changes with Arks are a mixed bag for Death Guard, who benefit from point drops but lose some durability from the loss of Armour of Contempt. Though as we’ll see, some units are affected more than others by the change. What Changed Foul Blightspawn [6 PL, 100pts]: Blight grenades, Krak grenades, Plague sprayer, Revolting Stench-vats, Unholy death’s head grenade, Viscous Death [1 PL, 10pts]

Games Workshop dropped its Q2 Balance Dataslate for 40k in mid-April, dramatically changing a number of key factions. Astra Miliatrum, Marines and Sisters were buffed, Harlequins, T’au, and Custodes were nerfed, and some key game rules were changed. Now with Tyranids looming on the horizon, we’re looking at several key factions and examining their place in this new emerging meta. At the front of the Daemon Engine's hull, a single eye lens stares at the enemy with feral hunger, while below it a fang-filled maw gnashes and drools. Should the enemy get too close, the Myphitic Blight-hauler falls upon them like a ravenous wolf, biting and devouring, or sprays diseased bile over them from the rotted nozzle that juts between its fangs. I’m also doubling up on Psykers here and that’s both to give myself some additional mortal wounds output/unit support and create some insurance for myself if I want to go for Warp Ritual or Interrogate. There’s a world where I drop the Inexorable here for the Wretched and potentially swap a Plaguecaster for a Daemon Prince. Coming into April, the Death Guard were hurting. Once a steady upper mid-tier performer, the February points update hit them unreasonably hard, and that coupled with a rash of overpowered codex releases left them hovering below a 50% win rate. The new dataslate improves Death Guard dramatically with two changes: If you only want anti-tank, the Helbrute with TL Lascannon and Missile Launcher is better than the Blight Hauler; longer range and you don’t need to take 3 to get the more reliable shots (although 2-3 would still be nasty). Do note however that the Helbrute dies very easily (well, relative compared to the other options) so you really want threat saturation anyways, so you’re still looking at taking at least 2 and preferably 3 of them. Also note that if you want it to do well in melee, you’ll need to pay around 160ish points for a Lascannon/Fist and get fewer shots, but you still get that tasty stratagem. For 1 point more than the Lascannon/Fist Helbrute you could get a Hellforged Contemptor with dual Butcher Cannons and put out a lot more shots albeit not as good at anti-tank.When you select a PSYKER unit to manifest psychic powers, you select one psychic power that unit knows and attempt to manifest it. With the exception of Smite, you cannot attempt to manifest the same psychic power more than once in the same battle round, even with different PSYKER units. The same PSYKER unit cannot attempt to manifest Smite more than once during the same battle round. Plague Marine w/ boltgun [84pts]: 4x Blight grenades, 4x Boltgun, 4x Krak grenades, 4x Plague knife You then make a Charge roll for the charging unit by rolling 2D6. The result is the maximum number of inches each model in that unit can be moved if a Charge move is possible. For a Charge move to be possible, the Charge roll must be sufficient to enable the charging unit to end that move: Spartan Assault Tank • Fellblade • Decimator • Typhon Heavy Siege Tank • Lord of Skulls • Death Wheel • Plaguereaper • Plagueburst Crawler • Silver Tower of Tzeentch