Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Death Guard (section)

===Cons===
* Lack of ranged anti-armor on your infantry (cleaver with 3A S8 AP -3 1d6 damage is ok in melee and deathshroud are great now); your only viable anti-armor options come in the form of expensive daemon engines and a handful of vehicles.
* The infantry that makes up the bulk of your army is SLOW. Most units have 5" of movement at most. And since rhinos and land raiders do not have disgustingly resilient, they will be focused with all manner of damage 2 weapons.
* Practically no ''designated'' long-range fire units outside of vehicles (except the plague burst crawler, which is now a nice tool in this category).
* A slight lack of rerolls; only 4 units have access to them (5 if you count the Termie Lord apart from the normal Lord). This is a much bigger problem in the infantry-heavy Death Guard with high numbers of troops and several back-sitting long-range fire support options in the codex... Even more now that you are limited to one Lord of the Death Guard by detachment.
* Disgustingly Resilient was changed to reduce the damage of all weapons by 1. While this is a pro against high-damage weaponry, this also means you lose a 5+++ Feel No Pain from any wound you take from 8E. This means your army is more vulnerable to Mortal Wounds, and the few FNP options you have are a 6+++ from a Plague Surgeon, Poxwalkers, or a 5+++ Warlord Trait that Mortarion has.
* Most of the mortal wounds you deal out require you to be very close if not in melee range, putting your units at risk against fast, shooty armies like the Eldar as well as flyers in general.
* A slim codex means few options, you're obviously not taking cultists over poxwalkers which leaves you with just Plague Marines and Poxwalkers as your troops. You have some options in the other slots but realistically you know which models you're taking. Most people aren't going to take a predator over a plagueburst crawler and they'll leave the land raider on the shelf.
* You '''are''' "That Guy" for taking Mortarion.
Geedubs recently (winter 2022) decided to nerf our few truly good units without dropping prices on Plague Marines. (Summer 2022) Poxwalker are back at 5 pts model and you can take a free special weapon per squad of Plague Marines.

====How to handle these cons====
* You should imagine playing a DG army as slow-growing but potentially lethal tumor. Sure, we are slow, but we can utilize Spawn, Possessed, Tanks or flying DPs to move ahead of the main wave and cause dissent before the rest catches up into mid-range to cause maximum damage.
* If you had Bikers, Helturkeys, and Obliterators in 7E and want to use them in a DG army, you still can, but they must be restricted to a separate detachment of vanilla CSM (if you want your DG to keep Inexorable Advance and Plague Host). In addition, nothing stops you from painting your Bikers in DG colors and running them with rules for regular CSM Bikers, so get creative! It's all about [[your dudes]]! Bear in mind that this is forbidden in Tournament play.
* Transports can help our slow-moving troops to get across the board, but most of them don't have Disgustingly Resilient. [[Rhino|Metal Boxes]] are not as good as they used to be. Taking transports has always been a tactical choice, but now more than ever. This subject is a bit of a [[skub]] depending on who you ask and on the kind of terrain you usually play on. I suggest experimenting with having more troops, but no transports OR 2-3 transports, but fewer troops. There is always a sweet spot in balance that Papa Nurgle would approve. If you have a LoW slot to spare and can afford Forge World, the Hellforged Spartan Assault Tank is a perfect solution to the transport issue. 
*Opinion on transports. Put a plague marine squad (7 if you're feeling fluffy) and characters to fill the rest of its capacity. Counts as 1 unit drop during deployment while deploying as many as 4 units inside. This can help you move up the board and fire what long range weapons you can. Start the game on your own terms.
*Another opinion about transports. First of all, without disgustingly resilient, they will be focused with 2 damage weapons, you can see them as functionally 5HP in death guard.
**But at the same time, even a destroyed rhino is useful: when you disembark, you have gain 3' move for what's inside. It seems pointless... But it's actually huge: with this and the 5+1d6' move of your plague marines, you are now sure to reach a middle field objective. And you win or lose by objectives. Question is: are you ready to pay ~90points for 5HP T7 3+ armor and the certitude to be able to reach T1 the middle board? 
*An option for a slightly less expensive long range anti tank than predators (as long as you don’t mind taking an allied detachment or two) to take some R&H Disciple/Command squads with las cannons or missile launchers. A second much less expensive option is renegade heavy weapon squads with las cannons, they’re cheap but they will miss more often than not.
*Consider taking a Sorcerer on a Palanquin (Legend) or an Index Daemon Prince (totally not a Legend), or alternatively allying with a CSM sorcerer, with warptime and 1 other power (Prescience is a good pick). Dark Hereticus powers affect Heretic Astartes, rather than [Legion] models, so it will buff your Death Guard. The ability to move an appropriately killy unit twice in an army as slow as DG can make a huge difference in getting your guys where they need to be, when they need to be there.
*Battle maps are now smaller in 9th making our short range anti tank better