Both cost 1 CP and both are a steal at that price. Both of these are significant increases and help smooth the one downside to the Foul Blightspawn: Variance. On the other hand, if you were looking for a reason to take a Chaos Lord in Terminator Armour in your army, Allwyther replaces a balesword with one that’s a S+1, AP-3, 2 damage Plague Weapon where enemies can’t take invulnerable saves against your attacks. This improves your average result significantly vs. 2D6 – you go from a 2 to 12 spread with an expected value of 7 to an 8 to 13 spread with an expected value of 10.5 – but what exactly are you going to summon with it? These guys are the custom, small-batch plague brewers of the Death Guard. Pre battle after chosing a warlord, chose a death guard character model of your army without warlord trait and chose a unique warlord trait for it. The Flux Abated heals a Poxmongers Daemon Engine D3 lost wounds if it destroys an enemy model and given that this is both easy and your only way to heal vehicles is with plague company-specific abilities, it’s a really good ability to have in your back pocket, especially when the wounds you heal are protected by being T8, having a 4+ invulnerable save, and Disgustingly Resilient. On the other side of the Daemon Engine spectrum is the Myphitic Blight Haulers, which got the Parasitic Fumes Stratagem, which improves the AP of allies’ attacks against enemy models within 7″ by 1. Finally, new Chaos 40k rules for the Death Guard are here from War of the Spider and it is ALOT of to read. Going from a 5+ to a 4+ invulnerable save increases the effective wounds from 225% to 300%. The Harbingers are all about Poxwalkers and buffing them. I like it for them just as much as Blightlords. The Death Guard get a new page of Relics, bringing their total up to 13 and helping give players some options beyond the Suppurating plate. 40k chaos chaos space marines Death Guard featured Review War of the Spider Warhammer 40k, © 2020 Goonhammer. You can see how Psychic Awakening has provided a significant enhancement to the resiliency of units through Disgustingly Resilient as well as improving the toughness and output of Plagueburst Crawlers. We’ve covered this before, but Feel No Pain is one of the most powerful abilities in the game. It’s a neat idea laid low by the reality of weapon options. That said, this could become much more useful when combined with From the Carrion Heaps (below) to deep strike a unit or two of Poxwalkers, or with the ability to Outflank units in 9th edition, however that ends up working. The AP-4 bonus on wounds is solid and combined with Trench-Fighters and the extra damage you’ll get on the Power Fist, it can help get you over a lot of tougher units. He is … In addition Death Guard INFANTRY units within 3″ of a Plague Surgeon can re-roll DR results of 1. The Droning is interesting in that usually these abilities give -1 Ld or +1 to rolls instead of 2, but it’s still not very useful in 8th edition. The company’s relic, The Daemon’s Favour, upgrades a Malignant Plaguecaster, replacing its Pestilential Fallout ability with the Torrent of Putrefaction. Will you still want to consider a CSM Sorcerer for Warptime, or Chaos Daemons for a Great Unclean One with a bell? To examine the impact, we’ll take a look at a Plagueburst Crawler firing a pair of entropy cannons under two conditions. The Poxmongers are the most powerful plague company choice and worth building around since they don’t require jumping through a ton of hoops to make mediocre units good. Plague marines now occupy a real consideration space the in the army, while Blightlord Terminators and Plagueburst Crawlers suddenly look significantly better, and I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think there’s a space for Plague Surgeons as well. Credit: Robert “TheChirurgeon” Jones. New Death Guard Rules Followers of Mortarion rejoice! The core benefit to nearly every Death Guard unit (plus any unit with Contaminated Monstrosity for 1 CP) is the 5+ Feel No Pain bonus provided by Disgustingly Resilient (DR). This is a huge boost when combined with the Relentless Volleys Stratagem and even without it, it’s worth using. We’ll dive into this more in a future Hammer of Math article. So let’s start with the best ones. The presence of a high number of invulnerable saves compounds this, as does the ability for many units to regenerate their damage. Helbrutes and transports can really use a 5+ invulnerable save to ensure they get a chance to move on turn 1 if you’re going second. Warlords with the Revoltingly Resilient trait, or Plague Marines receiving the benefits of the Putrid Fecundity Stratagem (2/3 CP) add 1 to the result of DR rolls. That’s a significant boost in survivability for many units, and it’s especially notable on Plagueburst Crawlers, which were already some of the game’s hardiest units. Well, I think it’s an exciting time to be a Death Guard player. So your best option is on a squad of Plague Marines and Blightlords, and then only if you’re in range with both spewers. War of the Spider sees Fabius being chased by the Death Guard after stealing an ancient device from them. This consecutive application also applies to saves as well, but because Feel No Pain is generally a static probability it’s simpler to demonstrate. Even with the bonuses the entropy cannons still suffer from the low Ballistic Skill of the Plagueburst Crawlers, but with only a pair of shots the results are still pretty reasonable especially when you consider that the effect is aura-based and applies to multiple Crawlers. The end result is that while Death Guard have some great units, they typically still need the support of other factions to succeed, whether that’s Chaos Daemons for strength buffs or Chaos Space Marines for access to the Warptime psychic power. Wings: Boring but effective is part of my brand thank you very much. Fabius’ new model perfectly encapsulates the Clonelord. This Company are more defensively minded than some of the others. We’ve already seen the Thousand Sons get a huge boost from Ritual of the Damned; does this book do the same for Mortarion’s sons? TheChirurgeon: It’s a different build, that’s for sure.