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

===={{W40Kkeyword|Vehicle}}s====
*'''[[Helbrute]]''': You know it, you love it. These are your Dreadnought equivalents and you can kit them to just about anything, but between inexorable advance and their weapon options, you're probably going to go ranged. 7 Power Level because of course we needed another number 7. By default, it comes with a fist and a multi melta. The melta can be swapped for a variety of ranged weapons including twin heavy bolters for horde munching, reaper autocannons for threatening tougher stuff at a distance, plasma cannons that are always overcharged, and for long-range anti-tank, it's your best source of lascannons and missile launchers. Alternately the gun arm can become a second fist arm, adding 1 to the number of attacks it can make (note: due to all units being "equipped" with their unarmed attack per the core rules, this fist is unnecessary according to RAW) and comes with an underslung combi bolter that you can upgrade to a heavy flamer. Meanwhile the fist arm can be swapped for a missile launcher or a mix of melee weapons including a hammer which, compared to the fist loses its underslung gun and takes a -1 to hit penalty, but has 1 more AP and rolls D6 for damage, but since it has the same strength you shouldn't bother, the fists will be more consistent. Another melee option is the power scourge which makes three attacks on its own even if you make all your other attacks with a different weapon and hits like an overcharged plasma with 1 less AP. While Helbrutes can be nasty in melee, you're really going to want to kit them for range because lascannons and missile launchers are some of the longest range weapons this army has, and the Helbrute can have both for less than 150 points. In case Helbrutes weren't great enough to take just with their wargear, they also can fire on the move without penalty, have a stratagem that lets them add 1 to their hit and wound rolls if they only target a single enemy, <s>and every phase in which they take damage they roll a D6 and on a 6 they get a free round of shooting attacks if they're not in combat, or melee attacks if they are</s>. Never leave home without one, and consider taking more. As of CA2019, they cost 12 points less and have lost Hateful Assault in favour of more base attacks, and they have still not fixed the rule that makes the second fist unnecessary.
** Alternate opinion: Even though it seems to be great, you might want to not take them after all. Twin lascannon and missile launcher are good anti-tank weapons, but not for us, we are not gunline army. 3 shots hitting everything on 3s and wounding most enemy vehicles on 3+ isn't that great after all, and you can't really modify the outcome in any reliable way. You might get lucky and shoot down a Leman Russ in 1 turn, or you might not do anything at all for the entire game (or those 2 rounds that Helbrute lasts for). ~~Not having Disgustingly Resilient~~ and an invulnerable save makes you very fragile, and this is exactly what you shouldn't be as Death Guard.They have their own version of DR just by another name and it functions just like DR.
**Alternate Alternate opinion: With Helbrutes being included in the {{W40Kkeyword|CORE}} category they will benefit from our Lord's reroll 1 auras along with a variety of other buffs, including Sickly Corrosion effective turning their whole gun kit into a plague weapon. Their overall synergy both from range and melee has improved with a variety of options to really create a piece that can cover your weaknesses (which is usually firepower).
***Alternate opinion 3: Another consideration is that the helbrute profile doesn't degrade as he takes wounds. In fact after the 1st wound he gets better at his job. The tallyman relic affects him as he is in the {{W40Kkeyword|CORE}} category. 
*'''[[Decimator]]:<sup>Forge World</sup>''': The Decimator has essentially become an oddball Helbrute, It's weaker in melee against everything T5 and above (despite the extra attack) while better against everything T4 and lower, it's sort of better at range in that it has fantastic options. As a Daemon Engine, it can spend CP to re-roll its to hits and wounds. Meanwhile, the Soulburner petard is a downright fantastic anti-everything weapon, and even the Mortal Wounds it causes to the Decimator aren't a concern since it can just naturally heal those off. You can even take two since you can only hurt yourself once per gun. The Butcher Cannons meant more for offensive lists as debuffing an enemy unit before engaging in them Melee can be much more valuable than just shooting them again. With a 5++ it should live long enough to affect the later turns of a game. Recommended that you skip the C-beam cannon though as the arm slot is better spent on another weapon. In short, take Decimators if you need Mortal Wounds, and durability without Warpsmiths/Hellwrights following them around, get Helbrutes for everything else.
*'''[[Chaos Dreadnought#Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought|Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought]]<sup>Forge World [Martial Legacy]</sup>''': The Contemptor remains as good as it ever was. It has a huge amount of options, most of which are useless; for guns, the missile launcher is an auto-include, and then a pair of Twin Volkite Culverins beats everything else except the Conversion Beam Cannons at 48-72" (which will never come up, because you lack the tools to stay that far away from the enemy) against very heavy targets and Multimeltas against the same targets (including all the way up to 24" - they don't need melta range to beat the Volkites).  For melee, the basic DCW is a waste of your time - if it's not going to be a gun, it should be a chainfist, and you have no reason at all to take 2 melee weapons.  For the gun mounted in the chainfist, a combi-bolter is a waste of the CP this model cost you, so grab a heavy flamer, graviton blaster, or plasma blaster, depending on how much support you're giving the thing and how risky you want to get - the heavy flamer doesn't roll to hit, so the more hit support you have (Lord of Virulence, Tallyman, etc) the less you want it, while the plasma blaster is of dubious utility over the graviton blaster unless you can re-roll 1s to hit, since without overcharging the graviton blaster is much better. 
** So there's actually a lot of play right now with contemptors because they're {{W40Kkeyword|CORE}}. For example, if you take dual Volkite Culverins (and a missile launcher) on the contemptor for 16+(2 or 7) shots and put him by a Tallyman with the Tollkeeper relic, that Tallyman can make the contemptor hit on 2s while getting exploding 6s in a bubble. If you take 3 contemptors, assuming you use the krak profile in our example, that's 36 shots (32 Culverin, 4 Missile) at what amounts to BS2+, so 30 hits, and then 18 more hits (since the two buffs combined on the third contemptor mean that on average, every shot hits), for 48 landed hits - and with a re-roll 1s to hit aura applied, that goes up to 56 hits landed.  Unfortunately this costs 1 CP for each contemptor you take but hey, luckily for you, the Tallyman gives you cp every turn.
***If Mortarion shows up, full re-rolls to hit is best used on the contemptor ''not'' getting +1 from the Tallyman. The net effect of full re-rolls + exploding 6s is 40/36 accuracy.  The Tallyman's chosen target will have 42/36 accuracy, so the three Contemptors will have 35/36, 40/36, and 42/36 accuracy.  If you lose 2 Contemptors, the Tallyman and Mortarion won't usefully stack; fishing for 6s on a functionally BS2+ model by re-rolling 5 and below will get you total accuracy 42/36, the same as if you hadn't bothered.
***This also works with Multi-Meltas, of course.  They're just less efficient until you get to within 12" of the target.
***If you do this, make sure you take bubble wrap to protect your dakka dreads from getting easily charged.  A Blightspawn with the Revolting Stench-vats relic has an aura of removing ASF and inflicts ASL on one unit, so that plus Poxwalkers is very credible charge protection.  You'll also need Deathshrouds, most likely, to keep the Tallyman and Blightspawn (and probably Lord of Contagion or Daemon Prince) alive.
*'''Chaos Deredeo Dreadnought<sup>Forge World [Martial Legacy]</sup>''': Chaos finally got the Dorito Dreadnought! A lot of people have wanted this for a while and rightfully so, it kicks ass. Is a copy-paste of the marine version with the inclusion benefiting from Chaos marks and legion bonuses.
*'''Chaos Leviathan Dreadnought<sup>Forge World [Martial Legacy]</sup>''': Whatever was sacrificed in the name of Chaos to make these available... it was worth it. This super-dreadnought is a monster and priced very well for what it does. Since all FW Dreadnoughts received the 'Dreadnought' keyword this bad boy can be buffed by your legion traits - Emperor's Children always fights first comes to mind. As for valid weapon options, all are nasty and downright deadly in the right circumstances but are very expensive on an already expensive model. Often the Leviathan Dread is a brilliant distraction unit, but unless you have a foolproof way of getting it into combat quickly he's unlikely to really make his points back. Place him at the front of your army in the middle and use him to make your opponent sweat <s>whilst havocs and obliterators pop heavier targets</s>.
*'''[[Predator Tank|Chaos Deimos Predator]]:<sup>Legends Forge World</sup>''': This is the final anti-tank way for the Death Guard. For 140p and -1CP, the Deimos Predator allows you to destroy almost every 12W tank in one shooting phase, with the lascannon and Magna-Melta options. Some tales speak about that Deimos who shot down that emperor-golden-asslicker-Ares-birdo, but that's nothing I have seen yet...