Warhammer 40K: Death Guard Faction Focus
The Death Guard are getting some updates in Psychic Awakening: War of the Spider and those will carry over to the next edition, too!
Games Workshop has been showing off some of the benefits factions will have in the next edition of 40k and today, they are putting the focus on the Death Guard. These followers of Nurgle are one of the toughest armies in the game already and now they are getting some love from War of the Spider. How will this help in the next edition? Let’s find out.
This time around, GW has brought in Death Guard fan Sam Lucidi to talk about how the new edition has helped his Death Guard Army out.
“Sam: My favorite change of the new edition is how many more Command points the servants of the Plague God have at their disposal.”
Cloud of Flies in a popular option for the Death Guard but now, with even more CP to spend, players will be able to dabble in some of the other stratagems the book offered.
Sam also mentioned that he likes to play “the long game” with his Death Guard army relying on his superior durability to win the war of attrition. Keep in mind the new missions and objectives in the next edition are going to be tweaked. So always playing with the objective in mind is going to be the key to victory.
Key Units
In terms of units and combos, Sam has some tricks to share too.
“Sam: The Death Guard get a lot of value out of the new rules for Vehicles. I’ve always loved to use Plagueburst Crawlers to engage the enemy with their plaguespitters while the rest of my army advanced behind them, but canny opponents knew how to lock the Crawlers in combat to shut down their guns. Under the new rules, my Plagueburst Crawlers are just as deadly with their plaguespitters even while locked in combat. Not only that, but now my Crawlers can fire their nasty plagueburst mortars (which are now Blast weapons too) on the move without suffering a hit penalty!”
The Plagueburst Crawler was one of the five tanks I called out as getting buffed in the next edition. Glad to see that Death Guard pros seem to agree. But here’s one unit I wasn’t quite expecting: Deathshroud Terminators.
The Deathshroud are useful because, apparently, Characters are getting easier to target thanks to the updates to the Look Out, Sir rules. Their ability to tank some hits could come in quite handy.
For reference, here’s the new Look Out, Sir rule:
Another deadly combo is pairing the Blightlord Terminators with a Foul Blightspawn.
“Sam: Since the player who isn’t taking their turn gets to choose the first non-charging unit to fight with, the Foul Blightspawn’s Revolting Stench ensures that the Blightlords will fight first against any enemy units that dare charge them. Blightlords are already brutal in combat and incredibly durable, and this combo makes them even harder for your opponent to deal with.”
Well that’s an interesting tidbit in terms of combat rules. If you look at the current rules, that is a subtle change for sure.
In the next edition, the “player who isn’t taking their turn gets to choose the first non-charging unit to fight with” so these types of abilities just got a lot better.
What do you think of the Death Guard and the new combat change? Let us know in the comments!
