Warhammer 40K: Codex Death Guard Shockers
There’s a lot of great twists and reveals within the latest 40K codex. Here are our favorite Death Guard shockers.
Codexes have a lot besides the rules. So the first thing I did (while Goatboy and Abe were tearing into the rules) was read all the background looking for new little tidbits. 
Mantles of Corruption
It turns out that those two HQs we have now, the Lord o Corruption and the Lord of Virulence are only 2 of the “Mantles of Corruption” bestowed by Mortarion upon the legion’s great leaders. There are 6 known:
- Lord of Corruption
- Lord of Virulence
- Lord of Poxes
- Lord of Parasitism
- Lord of Withering
- Lord of Flux
There are rumors of an even more horrific 7th mantle, but its identity is unknown.
Tallymen
The Tallymen have another role besides counting and inspiring their brethren to great acts in the glory of Nurgle. They are keepers of the vaults of Legion biological and rad weapons. these are the same dread Imperial weapons of last resort gifted to the legion during the Great Crusade, now enhanced by the attentions of Nurgle over 10,000 years. Weapons such as Winnowflesh bombs, Cullgene canisters and the like are under their care.
Thomas did not want to go to the Plague Planet…
Predator SCORE!
300 new Predators from the Tri Forge Cluster have been discovered and taken by the Legion during a recent campaign. These were recovered from a Forge World that had a production quota of 1 a year for a Chapter long destroyed 3 millennia ago. Apparently, in their jubilation, the Death Guard forgot to uncover the location of the other 2700 Predators.
Venomariners
The Legion’s 6th Great Company are known as the Venomariners. They are spaceborne and responsible for Legion transportation and command all fleet assets. As such they operate as spaceborne raiders, moving from world to world in quick strikes, leaving behind fields of Miasmic Malignifiers to doom the planet years down the line. They are now locked in a vicious bio-war with the Tyranid Hivefleets, with the the Venomariners testing ever deadlier toxins on the xenos, who are evolving to be ever more resistant in turn.
Vast Bondage Fleet
The Death Guard have a larger more capable fleet than other Traitor Legions – which escaped the Siege of Terra virtually intact and fell back to the Eye of Terror in good order. The fleet has remained at full strength since the heresy and only swelled with Imperial vessels taken over 10,000 years. Even when the occasional Death Guard ship is lost in the Warp, or taken as a battle prize, each eventually finds their way back to the Plague Planet. It is said that once bound to Nurgle, these vessels are doomed to serve for eternity.
Weeping Legion
The 5th Great Company known as the Weeping Legion is covered with inches of clotted filth from their weeping disease. Horrors to behold, they keep close ties with the Dark Mechanicus, and seek out Mechanicus targets to capture and turn over. In exchange, the Dark Mechanicus keep the Weeping Legion well supplied with daemon engines, living rust, viral scrapcode, and machine-pox.
Nauseous Rotbone
Mortarion’s personal physician – is both a patient and talented keeper of the legion’s tainted gene-seed stocks. When not attending to the Primarch, he is most often leading raids to gather ever more Astartes gene-seed to add to his collection and for experimentation.
