Death Guard
| Death Guard | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Battle Cry | None. Yes, none. Alternatively: Plague for the Plague God! Poop for the Poop throne! Let the galaxy drown in it! Pre-Heresy, the more loyalist ones might say, "For Mortarion and Terra", but Mortarion put a stop to that. | |
| Number | XIV | |
| Original Name | Dusk Raiders | |
| Original Homeworld | Barbarus | |
| Current Homeworld | Plague Planet | |
| Primarch | Mortarion | |
| Champion | Typhus | |
| Strength | Unknown; we can't tell the live ones from the dead ones | |
| Specialty | Close assault, mass infantry formations, bio-warfare | |
| Allegiance | Nurgle | |
| Colours | Sickly green | |
"Not a bad chap when you get to know him (and sooner or later, everyone gets to know him)."
-Terry Pratchett, on Death (the character within the Discworld Novel Universe)
"Sometimes, when I'm alone, I like to cover myself in Vaseline and pretend I'm a slug."
-Internet Cancer
The Death Guard are one of the nine Space Marine Legions who betrayed the Emperor during the Horus Heresy, and became Chaos Space Marines. They worship the Chaos God Nurgle and in return he infests their armor with pestilence and disease. The Primarch of the Death Guard is Mortarion, who has been elevated to Daemon Prince status. Their original homeworld of Barbarus was a septic tank disguised as a planet, entirely populated by country bumpkins (and a few Dark Eldar) and stank continuously of horseshit. Barbarus has since been destroyed (probably for the best). The new homeworld of the Death Guard is now the lazily named Plague Planet ( it fucking rhymes too! Actually it's an alliteration, which is still awful) where all the Galaxy's diseases from meningitis to crotch rot collect.
History
Not many neckbeards dare to paint them up. Back during the Unification Wars of Terra, before the coming of Mortarion, they were known as the Dusk Raiders due to their early-evening assaults, using the confusion of the afternoon twilight to catch their enemies off-guard, during dinner. Because Mortarion had been endowed by the Emperor with the aspect of humanity's Teenage Edginess, he renamed his legion the Death Guard instead, and had them repaint their armor to the charming colors of algae-green and mudslick brown white their armor was unpainted, save for a snot green trim and the legions heraldry. They got dirty after they started swimming in the drops.
Due to living in the utter shithole (in their case, quite literally) that was Barbarus, where the local air was equivalent to huffing the engine exhaust from a Chinese cab, the Death Guard soon grew proud of their 'ridiculously tough beyond humanly possible' bodies, which made them resistant to almost all forms of poisons and diseases (didn't stop them from succumbing to Nurgle's Gift, hur hur!). Due to their affinity to biological and chemical elements (likely programed into their GeneSeed as well), the Death Guard quickly became the Emperor's personal bio-chem experts. It wouldn't be a surprise if their main source of orbital bombardment was Virus Bombs. In fact, they probably bathe in that shit on a daily basis. They were also morbid as fuck.
Before the Horus Heresy, the Death Guard differed from the other 17 known Legions in that they had only seven Great Companies, although these held far more men than those of other Legions such as the Ultramarines or Space Wolves. There were three privileged titles held by captains of the Death Guard. The captain of the First Company was known as the First Captain, the captain of the Second Company was known as Commander, and the captain of the Seventh Company was known as Battle-Captain.
The Death Guard tended to be organized into units of foot-slogging infantry, rather than mechanized squads (since the Death Guard themselves were already tough to the point they might as well have Hull Points). Mortarion ensured that his men were well-equipped and highly-trained. He also ensured that they could fight in almost any kind of atmosphere, and placed little emphasis on specialized units using jump packs or bikes. The Death Guard did not have dedicated Assault and Tactical Squads. Every Marine was equipped with a bolter, bolt pistol and close combat weapon and told to fight with whatever weapon circumstance dictated. The Legion was also well known for its use of Terminator Armour. Possibly as a result of this, the Death Guard were highly successful at high-risk boarding and close-quarter operations such as space hulk clearance.
By the time of the Horus Heresy, the Death Guard was known to have had roughly 95,000 Space Marines.
During the Galaxy's Greatest Hangover since the Fall of the Eldar, the Death Guard and Mortarion were one of the traitor legions to rebel against daddy. Within the Heresy, Mortarion's smaller fleet led a failed attempt on Prospero to convince Jaghatai Khan and the White Scars to join with them, only for Genghis Jaghatai to tell the psychic-hating bigot to fuck off and thus, the White Scars and Death Guard battled to a stalemate. Butthurt for failing to sway over the Khan, Mortarion, in a fit of moronic idiocy, decided to kill off his Navigators who he suspected of still be loyal to the Emps. You know, he killed off THE ONE GUY that helps the crew from getting lost in space and time and being gobbled up by inter-dimensional molesters. As you might suspect. Entering the Warp without a Navigator's help is just asking for something bad to happen. Then came the Destroyer Plague and the Death Guard were struck down and all was history. You would think the guys emulating the Grim Reaper would have gotten a pretty badass downfall, but nope, they uncharacteristically pussied out and submitted to the Grandfather of Plagues like a young virgin girl submitting herself to a fucking pedophile. Just wow. What a way to go. Even the bookworms whom the Death Guard hate with a passion had a more dignified fall then this. Fucking embarrassing.
Mortarion also had a personal guard, the speechless and silent Death Shroud, who were known to be within 49 (Get it? Nurgle's holy number is seven and 49 is seven squared?) paces of their Primarch, Morty.
Oh, and they enjoyed drinking a cup of venomous, poison bile to commemorate victory. Mortarion drinks that stuff like water, though his captains have trouble holding their guts inside after drinking.
All in all, the Death Guard were stoic, poison-drinking, sour-faced martial warriors before Horus threw his surprise birthday bash, and ended up rotting avatars of AIDS, Syphilis, and decay by the time the party was finished. Just like that ONE GUY who always shows up.
Post-Heresy
So the Death Guard and the rest of the Traitor legions failed (what were they even trying to do again?) and were kicked to the Eye of Terror to do their daemonic stuff in private. The Death Guard, along with any non-Word Bearers or Black Legion factions, soon broke apart into splintering warbands. The split of the Death Guard can be contributed to Mortarion being a lazy and mopey fuckwit; punishing himself for what he's done to humanity and his sons and constantly bitching about why he's a bad person and how he's not cutting his wrists just for attention and trying to justify why he's always wearing black. What with daddy reaper suffering a non-stop, 10,000 year depressive slump, his sons soon grew distant from him. Coincidentally, Mortarion's self-loathing was in itself contagious to his sons. Sooner or later the majority of the Death Guard also started to loathe themselves as disgraced abominations who are so ashamed by their own weakness in succumbing like giant pussies during the Horus Heresy, to the point that they decided that if they can't have their happy ending then no one will. What a bunch of selfish pricks. His most powerful son, Typhus, got sick (as in both metaphorically and literally) of Mortarion's moaning and wasting Papa Nurgle's gift thus, and so he went independent to get shit done.
Daily Rituals of the Death Guard
06:00 - The Death Guard awake in the hand-dug graves. Massive, 10,000 year hangovers and rotting ligaments make getting out of bed difficult.
08:00 - Morning Meal. A zombified serf prepares the meat of another rotting serf, alongside a bit of fungus.
08:30 - Morning Prayers. A prayer is dedicated to Papa Nurgle. Each Death Guard secretly wishes a Nurgmas present from Nurgle himself. None of them will receive a present.
09:30 - Morning Firing Rites. The Death Guard proceed to have target practice upon captured Imperial Citizens. Its a win-win situation as the Citizens are revived as zombies and the Death Guard gets experience. Nobody loses, everyone wins. Such is life.
11:00 - Battle Practice. The Death Guard engage in battle practice within the mud swamps of the Plague Planet. Unfortunately, the Pleasure Pits of Pussy Planet were booked for the day.
12:00 - Tactical Indoctrination. The Death Guard plan out their latest campaign to spread Papa Nurgle's Gifts.
13:00 - Evening Meal. A medium meal is prepared by the zombified serfs. Most Death Guard prefer to order from Chaos Burgers and McNurgle's as the food delivery is faster, and the quality is pretty much the same.
14:00 - Evening Firing Rites. The Death Guard continue to practice on their shooting range.
15:00 - Battle Practice.
16:00 - Evening Prayers. This time Papa Nurgle has heeded the wishes of the Death Guard and has given them Nurgmas presents NO PRESENTS! THEY GOT THEIR PRESENTS ONCE, NOW IT'S SOMEONE ELSE'S TURN
17:00 - Pet a Nurgling Period. The Death Guard are allowed to pet some of Papa Nurgle's blobs of rotting cutsies.
18:00 - Daily Nurgle Wedding. A local wedding is held by two love birds in the Plague Planet. Celebrations are held as the Death Guard congratulate the groom and bride. Much confusion is had as to which is the groom and which is the bride.
19:00 - Wedding Meal. A feast is held to congratulate the newly wed couple. Everyone is happy and the Imperial Citizens who were shot for target practice are now revived as zombies and are invited to see that not all things in Chaos are bad.
22:00 - Rousing Mortarion. The Death Guard tries to get Mortarion to come out of his bedroom, but the door is still locked and he continues to bitch about his guilt. They fail to rouse him, leaving as he begins wax poetic, as usual.
23:00 - Free Time. The Death Guard have their free time where they pray to Nurgle, get as much disease as possible, help the locals, and be overall model citizens to those who inhabit the Plague Planet. Senior Captains attempt to get Mortarion to come out of his room, but can't make sense of the unending grumbling and metal objects being sharpened.
24:00 - Rest Time. The Death Guard go back to their graves and rest for a bit. Mortarion screams and cries as he cuts himself.
New models inbound
That's right heretics, new models coming out, including the Daemon Primarch Mortarion himself! You can see it in this video by Warhammer TV
Gallery
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Death Guard Plague Marines, moar like AIDStartes, amirite? (Ha-Ha!)
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Not much difference...
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This is the face of someone happy with their decisions. He has never felt more alive.
