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

===Troops===
*'''Cultists''' - The humble Cultists are a poor investment in a Death Guard list, and outshone by poxwalkers. What weapon they should take depends on your play style and what else is in your list, though the lack of both inexorable advance and objective secured hurts their viability. 
**These guys are far less useful, and cheap troops are no longer as important due to the decline of battalion spamming. The only use is really screening from deepstrike and charges against value targets, which is done much better by Poxwalkers. The only saving grace they may have is as a cheap, action performing unit for Deploying Scramblers.
*'''[[Plague Marines]]''' {{W40kKeyword|CORE BUBONIC ASTARTES}} - Very versatile, reasonably priced and extremely durable troops, available from 5 to 10 bodies per squad. T5 makes it so that everything short of Dreadnought/Knight melee weapons has to wound you on 3+ at best, and Disgustingly Resilient makes plasma weapons and other high-damage weapons less effective. They come with the standard marine bolter, but drop the stock bolt pistol and frag grenades for Plague Knives and Blight Grenades, the first of which makes them more dangerous in melee and the latter of which is a straight upgrade to the base frag grenade (+1S and Plague Weapon). 
**Unlike their [[Noise Marines|other]] [[Khorne Berzerkers|cult-specific]] [[Rubric Marines|cousins]], Plague Marines are best used more defensively and sparingly. Poxwalkers can move ahead to contest mid-field objectives and establish board control while the Plague Marines slowly waddle behind them. Even when not embarked on transports, Plague Marines are unlikely to be focused down so long as you give the opponent [[Poxwalkers|lots of other]] [[Mortarion|targets]] [[Myphitic Blight-Hauler|to]] [[Plagueburst Crawler|shoot]] [[Foetid Bloat-Drone|at]]. Plague Marines are very good at the counter-attack, especially when supported with a Foul Blightspawn.
**They were one of the first units to be affected by the "WYSIWYG from the Box" changes of 9th, retaining a lot of weapon options but no longer able to spam flails like in 8th.
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* The champion can replace his bolter with a bolt pistol, plasma pistol, or plasma gun, he can replace his plague knife with a daemonic plague blade (technically a free upgrade, but be aware you'll lose the +1 attack from the trench fighters stratagem if you do), and he can take a power fist.
* 1 guy can carry a blight launcher, 1 guy can carry a plague spewer, and if it's a 10 man unit, a third guy can take either, in exchange for the bolter.
* 1 in 5 can swap out a bolter for a meltagun, plasma gun, or plague belcher.
* Then there are 5 "1-in-5" melee options, technically allowing a full melee loadout (if you don't mind dice rolling in the fight phase to take all day). Each of these replace your bolter, and they all give +1A courtesy of the Vectors of Death rule. These are the additional plague knife, bubotic axe, mace of contagion AND bubotic axe, flail of corruption and great plague cleaver.
* 1 plague marine with a bolter can also carry an icon of despair (in your Morale phase, roll 1d6 for every enemy unit in engagement, dealing a mortal wound on a 4+), and another one can also carry a sigil of decay (unmodified bolter hits of 6 automatically wound).  Both options require you to keep your bolter, but 1 Marine can carry both; in the unlikely event you want both in the same unit (since one only buffs you at range and one only while engaged), you should always do this, to allow you to keep them in play as long as possible by choosing other squad members to die first.
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*'''Champions:''' Daemonic Plague Blades are exclusive to the champion, but they give you a flat +1S to your knife. Not too bad, and you can always buy a power fist if you want something to punch tanks with.  The champion is less efficient in melee with or without the fist than a Flail or Cleaver marine, so frankly you're best off with the DPB and using the Champion as a Plasma Gunner.
*'''Plague Knife:''' The default weapon, your CCW has AP-1 and Plague Weapon, making them decently effective against marines and smaller units. One in 5 can replace their bolter with a second knife for the same +1A all these other melee options give, which is a poor choice, but at least it's free.
*'''Bubotic Axe:''' A pretty hefty plague weapon with S+2 AP-2 D1. Hitting at strength 6 means it wounds everything t4 and below on a 2+ with re-rolls (when paired with Nurgle's Gift).  
*'''Mace of Contagion:''' S+2 AP-1 D3. Flat D3 is an impressive upgrade to your bubotic axe in exchange for a point of AP. Taken in a pair with the axe, which you can still use against 1W chaff, which also makes the mace ''incredibly'' expensive in practice.
*'''Flail of Corruption:''' Doubles your attack output (and your base A is 3 if you have it, don't forget) with S+1 (5) AP-2 D2 Plague Weapon. Mathematically the best melee weapon against almost every target for the price. Shame we can only take 1 per 5.
*'''Great Plague Cleaver:''' The power fist for the basic plague marine, with Sx2 (8) AP-3 Dd6 Plague Weapon but a -1 to hit. Thanks in part to the random damage, this only beats the Flail against the hardiest of targets - usually monsters and vehicles (generally, anything T5+ W6+).  Use a Flail and a GPC if you have a unit you plan on getting into melee so you can tangle with anything.
*'''Icon of Despair:''' Almost a melee weapon - has a 4+ chance per unit engaged with the bearer to inflict a mortal on that unit in the Morale phase.  Because the bearer gets to keep his bolter, if you assume he gets the chance to shoot (and he should, since you can fire both shots at max range even after moving), this does strictly better than a pair of plague knives (the worst option) per point against even only one other unit (which is usually what you'll be fighting), with the caveat that the icon's mortal necessarily happens ''after'' the unit in question has made its attacks.
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*'''Blight Launcher:''' Effectively a short-range blaster with 24" Assault 2 S6 AP-2 D2 and Plague Weapon, meaning you can fire in any circumstance and it can blow out anything MEQ. 
*'''Plague Belcher:''' A flamer with Plague Weapon. If you want to demolish hordes or scare away charges, you'll do quite well with this. Otherwise, you also have its bigger brother, which is better than it is against almost everything.
*'''Plague Spewer:''' The Heavy Flamer of to the Plague Belcher's Flamer. Don't forget not to Advance if you have these in the unit.  Better than a Plague Belcher and worse than a Blight Launcher against just about everything.
*'''Plasma Gun:''' Overcharge remains stronger against most targets compared to the blight launcher. However, the changes to Gets Hot alongside the lack of Plague Weapon does hurt the odds of ever taking this.  Also: overcharge is essential to take down marines thanks to the D2, and no more double-tapping at 18". Less potent than in the previous edition but useful even in normal form for the added AP over a blight launcher. Possible to take 3 (and a pair of blight launchers) in a 10-man PM squad.
*'''Meltagun:''' The fact that you are one of the slowest troops out there means that melta isn't something to take lightly (although it has the same range as a belcher or spewer or the double tap range of a plasma gun, so in terms of competition by and large if you've gotten this far you probably have a plan for getting them to within 12"). However, this has become your sole anti-tank weapon.
*'''Sigil of Decay:''' Not a special weapon really but an upgrade to all bolters in the squad, which makes bolters auto-wound on natural 6s to hit. Nice combo with the Tollkeeper relic for exploding auto-wounds attacks; they are bolters, sure, but there are ways to improve AP. Ideal on larger squads, and a must when not taking special weapons (which you should, but in case you won't, this is 10 points, less than half a plague marine). [[Derp|Sadly mathematically less effective point-for-point vs all targets than just giving a guy a blight launcher.]]
**Of course, they ''do'' stack.  If something possesses you to field a full 10-man unit with 2 Blight Launchers and 8 Bolters, the Sigil of Decay will make the unit slightly more efficient at murdering everything in the game.  But this will be substantially less efficient even at 24" compared to a 5-man unit with 2 overcharged plasma guns, 1 blight launcher, and 2 bolters.
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*'''Poxwalkers''' - They're Plague Zombies with a trademarkable name. They are completely immune to morale tests thanks to being mindless, and have the old Disgustingly Resilient ability (now named Unending Horde) to ignore wounds on a 6+++. 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. This might seem difficult to do, but 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. Even against T4, they do alright since they are S3 and have the Contagion rule, so they are wounding on 4s, and that's of course even better with Typhus's buff to their strength. Because their only regular "save" is Unending Horde, 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 of attrition. 
** For added fun, add a CSM detachment with Fabius Bile. 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! 
** Main reason to take these is for cheap screening and the new Secondary Objective Spread the Sickness, and just actions in general. This secondary is only kind of ok, but hey it's fun to spread that sickness with cheap objective secured troops.
** Bonus points to you if you make zombified versions of different factions' infantry models, so when you kill them in melee and add new models to your zombie hordes, you are adding those new zombie ones instead. Imagine killing ork boyz in melee and then adding zombie boyz to your squad, or zombie termagants. Just make sure you keep them on 25mm bases.