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

===Lords of War===
[[File:DaemonMort.png|200px|thumb|right|I have returned...]] 
*'''[[Mortarion]]''' - '''''Tremble, mortals, the Rotten Angel cometh!''''' After a long teasing campaign by GW, Mortarion is finally here and is probably going to be the centerpiece of many Death Guard or even regular CSM armies. Standing at 18 wounds, a 4++ save, and Grandaddy's trademark Disgustingly Resilient he will prove quite hard to bring down, his survivability can be boosted further with Nurgle's stratagems. He has the best (at the moment) anti-horde weapon in the game, his huge scythe ''Silence''. It can dish out Ax3 (18 base!!!) S:U AP:-2 D1 Plague Weapon attacks per phase of combat, which will annihilate tarpits like there's no tomorrow. To deal with anything requiring more killing, ''Silence'' has a second profile being S:x2 AP:-4 D:1d6 Plague Weapon. His 'command aura' affects every enemy unit standing within 7" of him, giving them -1 toughness and they will receive 1d3 mortal wounds on a roll of 4+ (scaling down as he takes wounds, alas). He still carries his old ''Lantern'' pistol that can cause quite a bit of damage to lined units for it hits automatically every unit in a straight line between him and the one he aims for, but only once per shot. He still carries nice phosphex bombs that deal 2D6 S5 AP-1 hits (They're not Plague Weapons, though). Cherry on top, he's now a psyker. (Yeah, the very thing he hated back in the days but, hush. No more tears, only Nurgle's happiness now!) He knows 3 powers from the Contagion discipline, he's able to cast two and deny three every turn. All this is in addition to the fact that he is the fastest piece in the army, moving 12" with FLY, meaning he can hit things like Stormravens and Thunderhawks in CC. Just go away and think about that for a second. Anyway, all in all he’s a really, REALLY strong big daddy. Use him whenever you can.
**Like Magnus, Mortarion's command aura only grants reroll 1's to hit. However he has two other auras that either weaken or damage his enemies so there's no reason whatsoever to hold him back since you can achieve a reroll 1's aura with a regular chaos lord, Morty is at his best being in close combat with his enemies while his son's support him through units like the deathshroud soaking wounds for him. Do note however that while he's tanky he's '''far''' from invulnerable and always keep in mind that he is a massive fire magnet. Just like in 30k, you'll need supporting units and a plan to get the most of ole Morty. That said, if he does somehow go down he explodes like a vehicle for a few parting mortal wounds.
**Don’t forget his Primarch of the Death Guard rule! Re-rolling 1s is always useful. Also remember that Mortarion benefits from this, so you’re <s>mathematically auto-hitting with his attacks</s> hitting 97% of the time.
**It's worth noting that because Mortarion is considered a daemon of Nurgle, he can be targeted by the Nurgle daemon psychic spells. So if you think that having an ensemble of deathshroud and Miasma of pestilence to protect Morty isn't enough, then ally in a Great Unclean One or Herald of Nurgle and give them fleshy abundance to keep Morty topped off on wounds and even more difficult to kill. Or give him Virulent blessing and watch him shred through armor and infantry alike even faster.
**He also loves you (except you Typhus, fuck you).
** Special Note on Psychic Powers: Give him Blades of Putrefication and any other Psychic power. Ally with a Chaos Space Marine Patrol Detachment. During your first turn spend 1 CP on Chaos Familiar to swap out the second power for '''WARPTIME'''. Congratulations, you now have a flying deathmachine who can travel 24'' a turn assuming your opponent doesn't stop his Warptime. 
***Blades of Putrification here is especially good for the added fun of using it on himself and abusing it with his Reaper Swings for 18 Strength 8 ap-2 D1 attacks that have +1 to wound and cause Mortal Wounds on a 7+. This goes to 21 Strength 10 attacks if you can get Diabolic Strength on him. Virulent Blessing from Daemons gives you +1 to wound and 7+ Wound rolls do double damage. The final statline is 21 s10 attacks with +2 to wound and on a 7+ doing a mortal wound and double damage 
**** Maths says that this should generate 7.72 Mortal Wounds and 19.84 Wounds doing 27.56 damage. (97.2% chance to hit accounting for re-rolls he gives himself, 97.2% chance to wound anything in the game accounting for Plague Weapon re-rolls, 38% proc Mortal Wounds accounting for Plague Weapon re-rolls)
***** Don't forget the Nurglings! Mortarion ALSO has d6 additional attacks at S2 and no AP, but they'll also benefit from Blades of Purtrefication and Virulent Blessing, and are Plague Weapons to boot, for potentially even MORE mortal wounds!
*****Hilariously, for being a huge daemon primarch, Mortarion is exceptional at dealing with infantry. 2 attacks with a blades of putrefaction will inflict 10.7 wounds to Guard meaning mortarion with diabolic strength can kill 4 full squads of guard! Sweeping blows are nearly always better. With blades of putrefaction Mortarion will wound anything T8 or lower on a 2+ with the sweeping blows if he has diabolic strength this extends to anything T10 or lower. While the increased damage and ap on the strikes would be helpful having 3x as many attacks. If this is an Imperial all the better since each 6 gives you 3 extra attacks. Over 40 wounds inflicted average before saves but some of them are mortal
*****Pay attention to the Death Guard FAQ. Mortarion may switch the profile for his DTTFE attacks against Imperium units. Use the 3x hit rolls from Sweeping Strikes to generate some 6s against Knights, and use those 6s to attack with d6 damage Reaping Blows. Prescience is more your friend here, and let your imagination run wild. When surrounded by 3 Smash Captains, split them 6, 6, and 6, and let DTTFE carry the day as 6 hit rolls apiece turns into 9,12, or 24 (Yahtzee, motherfucker). They'll never charge him again. They'll be dead.
*****Always run the Deathshrouds with Mortarion. 155 points to save his ass from being punked turn 1 is worth its weight in gold. 4-5 means that he can kick around for 1-2 turns before absolutely murderizing your enemies. Warptime them up so that they can keep up with him, and run them through cover. Their armor save is better than his, and when taking 6 or 2d6 or 4d3 damage from a failed save would make even Morty balk, the Deathshrouds dgaf about biting it for the Lord of Silence.



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====Forge World====

All of the following units are well beyond the realm of being reasonably priced, most of them getting 200 point (or more, in the case of Scabby) increases on top of their already ridiculous points costs. As such, they should not be taken in competitive play, even some of the better units (Fellblade, Scabby) as Death Guard probably have a lite version of that unit for less than half of the cost (Morty or Mamon for Scabby, Land Raider or 3 Myphitic Blight Haulers for the Fellblade).

*'''Scabeiathrax the Bloated''' - My oh-my is this guy one tough son of a bitch. At T9 with 22 wounds (which can be healed with the Nurgle Discipline), a 4+ Invulnerable save for being a Daemon Lord, and the Disgustingly Resilient special rule, you will need a crap ton of heavy firepower to put him down. And if he dies, on a 4+ a unit within D6" suffers D6 mortal wounds. His close combat abilities are not to sneeze at either. He has Horrific Vomit, which is a 2d6 flamer at S6 AP-2 with Damage D3 that can be fired into close combat. Then, he has the Blade of Decay, a S+2 AP-4 sword that does a flat 6 damage. To round it all out, he gets D6 additional nurgling attacks at S2 AP0. He can cast 3 powers and deny three powers and knows Smite plus two Nurgle powers. Finally, he lets Nurgle Daemons use his leadership within 6" of him. Oh, did I forget to mention he forces a -1 to hit modifier on all friendly Nurgle Daemon units within 6"? Yeah, you want this guy. The only thing stopping you from taking him in every game is he's 777 points, and he's a LoW.
* Annoyingly, despite his sword having 'Decay' in the name, it is not a plague weapon, and neither is the vomit. So no Blades of Putrefaction mega-bonus for you :(

*'''Chaos Sokar Pattern Stormbird Gunship:''' Pretty much the largest flyer/transport/model Forge World offers next to titans. Damn expensive in points and tangible money alike, it can ferry the entire army onto the battlefield. Has like 8 lascannons, a host of various missiles and bombs, void shields, and a few heavy bolters here and there for flavor. The void shields can extend and overlap nearby troops 8" away that jumped out if it has hovered. Has 40 wounds, T9, a 5++ after the void shields. Its insane points cost (2321 for the default, which is more than a warhound Titan) completely prices it out as you won’t be able to fill its transport slots short of a 3000 point game.

*'''Chaos Thunderhawk Assault Gunship:''' Baby’s first Stormbird, costs 1400 points so is more widely useful than its big bro (which, admittedly, isn’t hard at all) but still dies alarmingly fast for such an expensive unit - it has 3+/5++/5+ VS (deg). Its best weapon for survival is its toughness and -12” to the range of weapons shooting at it. Also puts out a surprisingly small amount of hurt - the same number of Heavy Bolter shots as a fire raptor (which is nearly '''FOUR TIMES CHEAPER''') and either a turbo laser destructor (to evaporate vehicles) or the Thunderhawk cannon (generally inferior due to unreliable shot output). It does start off at BS2+ however, so consider keeping a barebones chaos lord in it throughout the game to get those lovely reroll wound (no idea how a plane would feel sufficiently inspired by a 10000-year-old man with horns riding inside it to magically be better at shooting but hey welcome to 8th). The bombs are a nice touch at least, and it’s still '''''very''''' fast.

*'''Hellforged Mastodon:''' Have you ever wanted to transport 40 Marines at once while trashing flyers and generally being nigh-indestructible? Then the Mastodon is the LoW for you! With 30 wounds and a 5+ void shield, the Mastodon is a fucking tough nut to crack, made even more so if it somehow gets into the 6" range for its siege melta array's rerolls to kick in. Good thing too, being 1060 fucking points for a single unit!

*'''Hellforged Spartan Assault Tank''' - THIS IS SPARTA(N)! The Death Guards true answer to its slow speed. The Spartan is a beast! With 8 lascanons (Which can be exchanged for 2 Laser destroyers) and a twin heavy bolter (Can be exchanged for a Twin heavy flamer), plus capacity for a Havoc launcher or the standard pintle weapons. This beast also rocks a transport capacity of a whopping 25! That's 5 Death Shrouds, 5 Blight lords, A Lord of Contagion, a Malignant plaguecaster, Biologius putrifier, Tallyman and Foul Blightspawn. All in one simple sweet package! The only downside is that it is expensive (Still better value than a Land Raider) and that it is a Lord of War choice. Still awesome!

*'''Hellforged Cerberus Heavy Destroyer''' - Jesus, this thing is expensive but nasty. So on top of the rules, we've seen for the other Hellforged tanks, this beast sports T9, 22 wounds, a 2+ save and can always shoot or charge even when falling back. It also hits at S8 from its infernal hunger and rolls D6 for its containment breach mortal wounds (2D3 against psykers). It can take two heavy bolters or lascannons for sponsons and havoc launcher or combi-weapon for the pintle blah blah blah - let's talk about that FUCKHUEG gun sticking out of the front of it. It slings 4 shots down a 6-foot range with AP-6 and dealing an eye-watering 5-10D per shot (aka, 4+D6). The fun part, however, is how it wounds - it doesn't have a strength characteristic but instead, you roll 3D6 and compare against your target's leadership; if you equal or exceed that value, the target is wounded. This means that on average, you will wound '''ANYTHING''' in the game, which then takes an average 7 damage at -6 to their armor. Oh hey, if you kill anything with this tank in the previous turn with any of your guns, you get to roll 4D6 and choose the highest 3. Obviously, wipe something weak and then focus fire on trouble spots. EDIT: don't forget, it's also BS 2+...so it really works well against flyers.
**For countering this beast, the Warlord trait in the basic rules which adds +1 leadership in a 6" bubble (Inspiring Leader) is pretty impressive against this thing, as do other abilities which increase the leadership stat. Invulnerable saves work just fine against it. And lastly, it really can only target one enemy per turn (with 4 shots) so it won't be effective against opponents without elite targets (against grots, it will kill 4 grots per turn). Defensively, this (thanks to chapter approved) very expensive tank has no invulnerable save, so will die quickly to traditional anti-tank weapons.

*'''Hellforged Typhon Heavy Siege Tank''' - Your tank for when you absolutely need 1 unit dead. It comes stock with the infamous Dreadhammer Siege Cannon that dishes out 2d6 S10 AP -5 shots that each do 3 wounds on a failed saves, starting at 2+ to hit. The randomness of the number of shots makes it ok at best for dealing with squads that are 10 man or more, but that shouldn't be your priority with this thing. You want to be shooting and those special prize units of 5 or fewer models or rival tanks. This brings us to our next point, wargear. It may also bring Heavy Bolter or Lascannon sponsons and you can give it a Havoc Launcher (if you have the points, just take the Lascannons). Its no slouch defensively either T9, 22 wounds, and a 2+ save will keep it on the board far longer than your enemy will be comfortable with. Oh and it regenerates wounds from Close Combat.

*'''Hellforged Fellblade''' - Incredibly expensive, even more so due to the Chapter Approved points hike it got (897 points for the default loadout), but still the Baneblade's exponentially meaner cousin and the king of the 1500-2000 point game. It comes with a twin heavy bolter, two quad lascannons (that's 8 lascannons, people!), a demolisher cannon, and the Fellblade Accelerator Cannon, which is all kinds of rape. The FAC fires shells in 2 flavour: AE (Anti-Everything), which fires 2 shots at Strength 14, AP -4 and a flat rate of 6 damage per wound - whatever you hit with this shell will die, or be damged so bad it will become irrelevant thanks to degrading stats. HE (High Explosive) is anti-GEQ/anti-MEQ with 2d6 shots strength 8 ap -3 D1, making it absolutely perfect for killing MEQs (S8 and Ap-3 also make it decent against TEQs as you're wounding on 2s and dropping them to their 5++, but the D1 will halve the number of kills you get out), and you can also reroll the number of shots fired against units with 5 or more models in. The HE shells also suffer less than the AE shells as the tank takes damage and loses accuracy thanks to its higher rate of fire (so target vehicles early in the game, while you still have accuracy with AE shooting) The 8 lascannons are arguably the most deadly part of the loadout as rate of fire is king in 8E and you're putting out 8 S9 AP-3 Dd6 shots, making this an excellent knight killer. For dealing with T9 or above superheavies, the lascannons can be replaced for laser destroyers, which are 36" Heavy 1 S12 Ap-4 Dd6. You also roll a d6 every time an unsaved wound is dealt against this weapon, and on a 3-5 the damage is changed to 2d6, and on a 6 the damage is changed to 3d6. A pair of these are also cheaper by 40 points than a pair of qaud lascannons, but their usefulness takes a much greater hit than the lascannons as the tanks takes damage. It also has a demolisher cannon (24" Heavy d3 S10 AP-3 Dd6 (which becomes Heavy d6 against units with 5 or more models), and a twin heavy bolter (which can be swapped for a twin heavy flamer) to round the arsenal out (not including your choice of combi-weapon or havoc launcher goodness). All-in-all, keep this beast at around 24-48" range to get the most use out of its weapons, but watch out for high ap weapons as it doesn't have an invuln. To make up for this, feel free to stay at 100" and snipe the units with high ap weapons with AE shells. It's an insanely good take for non-apocalypse games, and only gets better as the points limit drops towards 1000 as there becomes less and less that can hurt it and less and less targets (allowing you to focus fire). Just don't expect to be having the room for any other expensive units (or just any units at all if you're playing 1000 points).

*'''Hellforged Falchion''' - Insanely expensive (well over 1000 points), but excellent for deleting titanic targets (seriously, Stompas don’t even get armor saves against this thing, not to mention them being wounded on a 2+. Sit there and laugh as your enemy’s 40-wound beat stick is destroyed before turn 2). 2d6 strength 16 shots, -5 AP, 2d6 damage. It'll wound anything T8 or lower on 2's, and the few T9 targets out there on 3's. Keep a lord/DP around to re-roll 1's to make the target's death all but a foregone conclusion. 2 quad lascannons (or two laser destroyers if you really want to wreck superheavies) plus a hull twin heavy bolter add to its already impressive firepower.


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