Death Guard

Warhammer 40,000 Death Guard Game News, Reviews, Editorials & Unboxings.

The Death Guard are a faction from UK-Based Games Workshop's Tabletop Wargame Warhammer 40,000. The Death Guard, known amongst themselves as The Unbroken, were the XIV Legion of the original twenty Space Marine Legions. They are a Traitor Legion devoted to the Chaos God of pestilence and decay - Nurgle.

Their Primarch is Mortarion, who relocated their base to his homeworld of Barbarus after his discovery by the Emperor during the Great Crusade. During the Horus Heresy, Mortarion and the majority of the Legion swore allegiance to Horus, becoming one of the nine Traitor Legions who betrayed the Emperor. After Barbarus was destroyed during the Heresy, the Death Guard relocated to the Plague Planet inside the Eye of Terror.

Because of Barbarus's toxic environment, the Death Guard took great pride in their resistance to poisons, disease, and mortality in general. This fascination led them to worship the Chaos God Nurgle and in return he infests their armour with pestilence and disease, and elevated Mortarion to a Daemon Prince.

A Death Guard force is largely made up of Plague Marines, and still follows the doctrines that their Primarch Mortarion taught them ten thousand years ago. Their tactics are based on the use of foot-slogging infantry and their Bolters. Vehicles that were in possession of the Death Guard at the time of the Horus Heresy have since fallen into disrepair or been commandeered by daemonic Nurglings.

The Death Guard make full use of Nurgle's gifts, seeking to attract their God's attention with their plague-addled campaigns, spreading turmoil, advancing solidly amidst a mist of choking disease, surrounded by Nurglings at their feet and summoning horrific Plaguebearers from the Warp to accompany them.