Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Death Guard (section)

===Troops===
*'''Cultists''' - The proof that Grandfather Nurgle loves everyone equally, the humble Cultists are a solid investment in a Death Guard list. What weapon they should take depends on your play style and what else is in your list. "Inexorable Advance" makes Autogun & Heavy Stubbers equipped cultists a pretty nice [[shooty]] unit for their cost. On the other hand, a big blob of melee-equipped cultists is a premium target for a "Blade of Putrefaction" psychic power as they'll force a lot of armor saves on whatever they're swarming due to sheer volume of attacks. Keep a Myphitic Blight-hauler in their general area for free cover, and they're pretty decent for their points. Received a points increase (1 point per model) in Chapter Approved 2018, and went back down to 4 in CA 2019.
*'''[[Plague Marines]]''' - Very versatile, reasonably priced and extremely durable troops, going from 5 up to 20 bodies per squad. T5 makes it so that everything short of Dreadnought/Knight cc weapons has to wound you on 3+ at best, and a 5+ save-after-the-save makes them shrug off a good portion of the wounds that do come through, unless your opponent points multi-damage weapons at them. They come with the standard marine bolter, but drop the stock bolt pistol and frag grenades for Plague Knives and Blight Grenades, which are equivalents with the plague weapon rule. They are also one of, if not the, most customizable troop squads currently in the game:
** Two guys in a squad can carry Special Weapons, choosing from a Plasma Gun, Meltagun, Plague Belcher (plague flamer), Plague Spewer (heavy plague flamer) and Blight Launcher, the last of which tends to be your mvp against any infantry.
** Two other guys get to be your melee specialists and arm themselves with a tank-busting Plague Cleaver or infantry-cleaving Flail of Corruption. See the weapons section above for input on what you should pick.
** If you want to really kit the squad out for close combat, yet two more guys can take Maces of Contagion paired with Bubotic Axes, and everyone else can drop the bolter for a second plague knife or a Bubotic Axe, getting an extra attack for the hussle.
** With all this, the unit is extremely flexible, able to be geared to be choppy, shooty or specialized against a particular enemy:
***An all-rounder anti-infantry unit with 2 Blight Launchers and 2 Flails will absolutely demolish GEQ/scions and mulch MEQ/TEQ in equal measure.
***If you really want to fuck up some armor, take 3 Plasma Guns (one on the Champion), 2 Cleavers and get your nasty boys a ride to the nearest enemy Land Raider.
***If hordes are giving you trouble, 2 Plague Belchers and 2 Flails will get you 2d6 auto-hitting shots and 4d3 attacks on charge, each rerolling wounds and rolling over excess damage between models, meaning you will shred an average 10 T3 5+ models per turn on the low end.
***Feel like getting a more durable version of Khornate berzerkers? Grab some flails and distribute axes and spare knives to the rest of the squad, and you'll get a highly durable cc squad that the opponent *really* won't like engaging. Admittedly, poxwalkers or cultists make for a better melee screen/tarpit due to cost and sheer numbers, but marines are way more killy by baseline and can be buffed to even killier levels with Blades of Putrefaction, a warlord with Arch-Contaminator or a tallyman, and provide a nice platform for the '''''Blight Bombardment''''' stratagem. You can also bring a Biologus Putrifier to capitalize on the last part, but doing so will make it obvious to your opponent what shenanigans you're up to.
**If you're maxing out on expensive weapon options, don't forget to include a couple cheap bodies for the ablative wounds. Plague Marines specifically benefit from those more than their counterparts from other Legions, both due to their innate resilience and higher value that their special weapons have.
** The Index equipment remains legal to this day, giving the squad Champion access to the typical CSM Champion/Marine sarge loadout, with a bonus Plague Knife and ability to take a Power Fist paired with a Plasma Gun to account for the Easy-to-Build models. This can give you some curious opportunities to explore (ex. take a fist and drop the ranged weapon for a chainsword to benefit from any cc buffs you can bring a bit more), but generally the codex version already includes the best choices for your Champ (power fist for choppy, plasma gun for shooty, plague sword and bolter/pistol for a budget loadout).
** These guys are an ideal partner for Fabius Bile. 8th edition sees him willing to farm out his wares to gullible volunteers, with the only small caveat that it may cost you your life. A squad of 10 plague marines will take 1 or 2 casualties as a result of his experiments, which can be partly mitigated through their Disgustingly Resilient saves. In return you will get a 1/3 chance (or 55% if you are wiling to use a command re-roll) of gaining +1A which will bump your flails to terrifying 6d3 attacks from just the two in a squad. Even before you start counting the 4 attacks the rest of the guys bring, that is enough to destroy an MSU marine squad in a single round of combat. Alternatively, give them T6 and render them utterly unkillable by basic lasguns and other S3 weaponry, as well as considerably dropping the threat that heavy bolters and flamers pose to you.

*'''Poxwalkers''' - They're Plague Zombies with a trademarkable name. They are completely immune to morale tests thanks to being mindless, and have the "Disgustingly Resilient" rule to ignore wounds on a 5+. Good thing, as they have a 7+ save, meaning they only can get regular saves if in cover. Though their statline is unimpressive, they are cheap, and make great tarpits, thanks to their resiliency rules. In addition, every time they kill an enemy infantry model, they can add an additional Poxwalker to the unit. Though this might seem difficult to do, in units of 10+ they get WS4+ to help them create self-reinforcing tarpits. Basically, against light infantry, you use them to shred through stuff like Conscripts while being damn near invincible, and against anything tougher, you hold them in place until your next turn, then Fall Back and have your Plague Marines unleash Plasma against them. Because their only regular save is the Disgustingly Resilient, they're vulnerable to weapons with more than 1 damage, since a wound from a D2 weapon causes two Disgustingly Resilient rolls, either of which could kill the model. Be aware that, despite their appearance, they are not a screening unit. With only melee attacks and a 4" movement, they are a slow, lumbering mass for attrition. If you are looking for chaff to take up space on the board quickly, Cultists will be both better and cheaper. (Although Poxwalkers are now down to 5 points as of Chapter Approved 2019)
**Opinion - If you want a murder squad of poxwalkers, take Typhus with Putrescent Vitality along with an allied CSM patrol detachment with 2 squads of cultists (recommended minimum size of 20) and a vanilla sorcerer with Prescience and <s>Diabolic Strength</s> (Diabolic strength only affects one model, not unit, Putrescent vitality from the contagion discipline will give +1 strength and Toughness.) Use your cultists as a poxwalker battery for The Dead Walk Again, followed by a casting of both Prescience from the Chaos Sorcerer and Putrescent Vitality and blades of putrefaction from Typhus. Now you have a gargantuan squad of S5 T5 zombies of death that are hitting on 3+ with +1 to wound. See that Land Raider? Now you don't. This strategy (as of October 2017) costs 406 points with 2 squads of 20 cultists and a squad of 20 poxwalkers.
***For added fun, add a CSM marine detachment with Fabius Bile (a supreme command detachment with Fabius Bile, Lucius and Abaddon (who shares the {{W40kKeyword|Chaos}}, {{W40kKeyword|Heretic Astartes}} and {{W40kKeyword|Slaanesh}} Keywords, so can be taken alongside Luscious Lucius and Fabulous Bill in the same detachment) works ''very'' well). Over the course of 2 turns, Bile will buff your beautiful zombies by either an additional S, T or A. With all of these buffs combined, you are looking at potentially having T6 poxwalkers. Neat!
****While the above is neat and can work, be aware of a savvy opponent watching for something like this. Remember that you're committing Typhus, a Sorcerer, and 40 cultists to hold one part of the board, which end up only being 4" + advance fast. A simple counter play will be to simply shoot the cultists down enough to force a bunch of morale casualties, then just ignore your giant plodding walker unit (or feed it chaff all game). Sometimes your Pox Walkers will not be doing any work and it's far better to be down just the 120 points for them and get their support staff into the battle.