Plagueburst Crawler

The Plagueburst Crawler, the Contagion's less retarded and more slick-looking brother.

The Death Guard got a new toy around, and this time it looks absolutely beast. Like this is the most Nurglite thing that GeeDubs has ever made. It is bland, rustic and visually unappealing, which is everything a Death Guard player wants. And unlike the Nurgle Plague Tower, it doesn't look fucking stupid. Speaking of the Nurgle Plague Tower, the Plagueburst Crawler is essentially the spiritual successor of the giant medieval idiot tower, as well the spiritual successor of the Contagion in terms of function. Visually, the Legion Arquitor definitely seems to have been designed as an ancestor of this unit, in the same way that Vulturax were inspired by Blight Drones.

For a Daemon Engine, the Plagueburst Crawler is surprisingly quite benign and modest, showing very little if no daemonic traits at all as opposed to the over-the-top silliness you find in other Daemon Engines such as the Lord of Battle. The Plagueburst Crawler does not give a shit about fancy shmancy decorations and goes straight into practicality and utility, as befitting the one who first conceived of them.

Overview

The Plagueburst Crawler is essentially an artillery vehicle with a giant plague mortar as its main weapon. It is also equipped with two sponsons, each armed with Plaguespitters or Entropy Cannons, a bulldozer and a triple-barrelled frontal hull weapon called a "Rothail Volley Gun" in the shape of the Nurglite symbol of the Plague Father. The drawback of this weapon is its inability to fire at targets that are closer than its minimum range. On a side note; the Volley Gun can be switched out for a Heavy Stubber-like gun called a "Heavy Slugger".

In-universe, they were designed by Mortarion as an artillery piece capable of outmatching any of its Imperial counterparts, and the toxic spores their plagueburst mortars spew out are so toxic that even Daemons of Nurgle look at them askance.

For months Morty locked himself away in the smog-wreathed spires of the Black Manse on Plague Planet like the edgy emo that he is, obsessing endlessly over his foul brainchild, turning all of his remarkable intellect to the challenge. The resultant Daemon Engines reflect well the values of the figure that created them. Plagueburst Crawlers are lumbering, formidable siege tanks whose huge ram-blades, thick armor plating and daemonic energies provide them with incredible resilience.

Great effort is required to bind a Daemon within each Plagueburst Crawler, once installed the possessed entities tirelessly obey their masters and, by extension, the will of Mortarion. Plagueburst Crawlers are not swift vehicles, even running at full power. Yet their advance is as grinding and relentless as the Death Guard themselves. Intended to support infantry offensives, Plagueburst Crawlers plough forward like huge mechanical slugs, their mortars firing with metronomic regularity. An area under sustained bombardment from these weapons becomes so saturated with foul spore clouds Armour provides little protection, for the daemonic spores corrode the thickest adamantium plating.

So far, reviews have been positive, and it is seen as one of the most visually accurate and mundanely practical of any daemon-possessed vehicle (with the exception of the Chaos air fleet) that has been released by GeeDubs. Although considering the amount of shit that the forces of Chaos were forced to use, it may not really be that much of an accomplishment in the first place.