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

===Stratagems===
Of course there are 14 (7x2) of them!

#'''''Blasphemous Machines (1 CP)''''': Use before a vehicle attacks in the shooting phase. Until the end of the phase, that vehicle can ignore the penalties for moving and firing heavy weapons or for advancing and firing. Identical to CSM version.
#'''''Blight Bombardment (1 CP)''''': Use before a friendly {{W40kKeyword|DEATH GUARD}} unit shoots or fires Overwatch; instead of only one model being able to use its Blight Grenades as usual, the whole unit can throw them at once. Hilarious when paired with the Foul Blightspawn and the Biologis Putrefier since they both buff blight grenades even further. 
#'''''Chaos Boon (1 CP)''''': The infamous boon table returns from the CSM codex, now on 2d6 and triggered after a non-Daemon Prince {{W40kKeyword|CHARACTER}} kills any {{W40kKeyword|CHARACTER}}, {{W40kKeyword|VEHICLE}}, or {{W40kKeyword|MONSTER}} in the Fight phase. A single {{W40kKeyword|CHARACTER}} can benefit from it multiple times, and duplicates turn into '''7'''. Interestingly, Matched Play explicitly does not interfere with your Character transforming; the only restriction is that the transformed unit has to keep the Mark it started with (and since Death Guard can only use the Mark of Nurgle that won't be an issue). Since you can pick and choose who activates this, this is far better than what it used to be. It is also hilarious in friendly games, and this player uses it as often as possible to see how many buffs Typhus gets before Grandfather turns him into a Spawn.
#* '''2:''' Spawndom. Replace your character with one of the gribbly things, set up within 6" of his former position. Incredibly, this also gives your opponent the victory points for Slay the Warlord if your warlord gets ‘gifted’ this or Daemonhood due to your character being explicitly stated to have been slain, not transformed.
#* '''3:''' All of the character's ranged weapons get a 6" range boost.
#* '''4:''' +3 M
#* '''5:''' +1 S
#* '''6:''' +1 A
#* '''7:''' Pick any result other than Spawndom or Daemonhood.
#* '''8:''' Enemies targeting this character in the fight phase get -1 to hit rolls.
#* '''9:''' +1 to ''all'' saving throws. Arguably the pick of the bunch when on a Terminator character like Typhus as it gives him a 1+ save (though remember that all rolls of 1 still fail, you're essentially just subtracting 1 from all AP characteristics) and a 3+ invuln. Make all AP -1 weapons cry. Sadly, doesn't affect Disgustingly Resilient as it's an 'ignore' instead of a 'save' rule (if it did though, you could combine it with the Revoltingly Resilient WT to get T5 1+/3++/3+++ for all your immortality needs - incidentally, blatantly unfair cheesemongering bullshit like this is ''exactly'' why GW don't allow DR to be affected).
#* '''10:''' +1 T
#* '''11:''' +1 W
#* '''12:''' Daemonhood. As Spawndom, but replace the character with a Daemon Prince instead. Note any bonuses from previous Boon Table uses are lost as your character is explicitly stated to be ''slain'' and then a separate DP is set up, so if you don't want to lose your ultra-Lord of Contagion consider a command reroll to keep your earlier boons.
#'''''Chaos Familiar of Nurgle (1CP)''''': Use at the start of your Psychic Phase; a {{W40Kkeyword|DEATH GUARD PSYKER}} can swap one power known for another from the Contagion discipline. Very situational, but it can be useful. As written, this allows you to swap Smite for an extra Contagion power.
#'''''Cloud of Flies (1 CP)''''': During ''your'' movement phase, select a {{W40Kkeyword|DEATH GUARD INFANTRY}} unit. Until your next turn it cannot be the target of ranged attacks, unless they're the closest unit to the foe. This essentially gives your footsloggers the {{W40Kkeyword|CHARACTER}} rule making them immune to shooting attacks. It pairs remarkably well with a unit or two of Nurglings, who can use their Mischief Makers ability to get right up close before the battle even begins. Possessed also love this, considering how vulnerable they are to ranged attacks.
#*As clarified by the FAQ, Cloud of Flies "wins" against the special rule on Sniper weapons that lets them ignore proximity when targeting {{W40Kkeyword|CHARACTER}}s.
#*This ''cannot'' be used on units deep striking in at the end of a movement phase, because of the most recent FAQ, even though it is still the Movement Phase when it happens.
#**The FAQ entry states, 
#***Q: If I set up a unit on the battlefield as reinforcements at the end of my Movement phase, can I then use any Stratagems that are used ‘during your Movement phase’?
#***A: No, unless the Stratagem specifically says otherwise
#'''''Fire Frenzy (1 CP)''''': Use on a Helbrute unit that did not move this turn. It may fire all its weapons twice but can only target the nearest visible enemy unit. Another CSM Stratagem and quite good. Consider a Helbrute with two gun arms to take advantage of this.
#'''''Gifts of Decay (1 or 3 CP)''''': Use before the start of the battle. You can have a second Relic of Decay for 1 CP, or 2 extra for 3 CP. All the Relics have to be different, and all have to go to different Characters.
#'''''Grandfather's Blessing (2CP)''''': Select a {{W40Kkeyword|DEATH GUARD INFANTRY}} unit. One model heals d3 wounds. If there are no wounded models in the unit, a single model that was slain earlier in the battle is returned to the unit with 1 wound. You guessed it, another CSM copypaste. The nice part about this one is that ''you'' choose which model gets resurrected. Champion blew himself sky-high with his Plasma Gun? Give 'im a second chance.
#'''''Killshot (1 CP)''''': Use in the shooting phase if you have a Predator within 6" of 2 other Predators. Add 1 to the wound rolls and damage for all of its attacks against Monsters and Vehicles. Again, the same as CSMs and regular Space Marines by extension.
#*Now only effects baseline Predators, not Hellforged ones. Probably hard to coordinate fire with a shrieking daemon, but it still sucks to not have.
#'''''Nurgle's Rot (3 CP)''''': Use in the shooting phase, but only once per battle. Select a {{W40Kkeyword|DEATH GUARD CHARACTER}} unit and roll a d6 for each enemy unit within 7" of them. On a 4+, the unit being rolled for suffers d3 mortal wounds. Note that this has no effect on units with the {{W40Kkeyword|NURGLE}} keyword, so don't use it in mirror matches or against Nurgle Daemons. If the enemy makes the error of bunching up his units then you can punish them pretty hard with this mini nurgly nuke.
#'''''Plague Pact (1 CP)''''': Use this stratagem when a {{W40kKeyword|DEATH GUARD CHARACTER}} attempts to summon a unit of {{W40kKeyword|NURGLE DAEMONS}} to the battlefield using a daemonic ritual. The summoning roll uses 4 dice instead of 3, and your character will not suffer any mortal wounds for rolling doubles or triples (no word on what happens if you somehow roll quadruples). <s>Make Word Bearers weep with how good this is.</s> Nah, Word Bearers are good at summoning again. Considering how much cheaper Daemons have gotten, this makes summoning a lot more viable.
#'''''Putrid Detonation (1 CP)''''': Select a vehicle that's lost its last wound; it explodes with no need to roll for it. Useful for one last "fuck you" to the guy who destroyed your Land Raider with his Assault Terminators. 
#'''''The Dead Walk Again  (1 CP)''''': Use at the start of the movement phase. Pick a unit of Poxwalkers and change their Curse of the Walking Pox to the following: "Each time an Infantry (Non-Poxwalker units) model, ''friend or foe'', is slain within 7″ of this unit, add one model to the unit." Pair up with a cultist blob to recycle your tarpit with ease.
#*'''RAW''', this stratagem allows a dead model to be raised as a poxwalker in multiple different units, for example if a poxwalker kills a model, another unit (with stratagem), 7" away, can also gain that model. Note however, the same stratagem can only be used once per phase, so you would not encounter a situation in which two units both had curse of the walking pox active.
#'''''Veteran of the Long War (1 CP)''''': Select a {{W40kKeyword|DEATH GUARD}} {{W40kKeyword|INFANTRY}} unit. They add 1 to all their to wound rolls for the rest of the phase. Cannot be stacked with blade of putrefaction in V9, but still can be used with grenade combo.

The following Stratagems can be found in Psychic Awakening: War of the Spider. They are roughly divided between 7 general stratagems and 14 unit specific ones.  

General
#'''''Plaguechosen (1 CP)''''': Praise Nurgle, a way to get additional warlord traits. No duplicates. At the moment RAW does not say this is once per game, expect it to get FAQed.
#*Due to the wording of how named characters generate their forced warlord trait and the wording of this particular stratagem, it MAY be possible that this allows for you to give Typhus and Mortarion a different warlord trait as long as they are not nominated as your actual warlord. Stay tuned for a possible FAQ.
#'''''Relentless Volleys (1/2 CP)''''': Use in the Shooting phase. Select one Death Guard Infantry unit to shoot. Until the end of that phase, boltguns and boltgun profiles of combi-weapons become Rapid Fire 2. Combi-bolters become Rapid Fire 3. Costs 2 CP for units of 6 or more models. otherwise, it costs 1 CP. 
#*Look like cacophony, and cacophony is strong... But this one only affect bolters only, which is nice fluff wise but a lot less usefull. If you want it to be worth it, you need to invest a lot more. The best choice here is a blob of 20 plague marines with Virulent rounds (which is very point efficient, see bellow) and your arch-contaminator. Very fluffy, but is it worth it? The damage are there ( with 80 shots reroll one to hit, reroll all to wound and AP-4 on six, you are the bane of all infantry in range) but your range is not the best (you can use one more CP for +6 range as you bolters are now plague weapon...) and more importantly, you use CPs that you need else where if you want to be CP efficient. Usefull on a pintch if you build have bolter plague marines, but not spammable.
#'''''Creeping Blight (1 CP)''''': Use in the fight phase. Select one Death Guard unit. Until the end of the phase, add 1 to any damage roll made for their attacks, and an unmodified wound roll of 6 becomes AP -4.
#*To add more combos to you combos. To use with blade of putrification, arch-contaminator and random damage weapons. ''Trench-fighter on the same unit. It is expensive, but boy does it hurt. Not worth it alone tho.'' Sadly does not work on 1D weapons. 
#'''''Noxious Rupture (1 CP)''''': Use when the last model in a friendly Death Guard unit is destroyed. Select one enemy within 3" of that model. until the end of your opponents next turn, that unit suffers a -1 to its hit rolls.
#*Strong in itself but very very hard to pull of. Best case scenario is to charge an ennemy with your weak one to die on it (do not forget to say some terrorist joke). Other use case is some huge fight with multiple units to debuff a unit that has not attacked yet... Not often usefull. 
#'''''Overwhelming Generosity (1 CP)''''': +6 range to Plague Weapons.
#* THIS. This is with contaminated Monstruosity one of the best new stratagem by far. Your foul blightspawm can now do more (if you are in a rhino, your potential range is now 23"). But most importantly you grenade combos become a LOT more powerfull, with a range from rhino of 3+5+6+6=20". Before it was a threat if the ennemy was too close. Now you can reliably hit with it. It also buff damage: before, it was difficult to have all plague marine in 6" range. And since the grenade combo damage is INSANE (a big enought unit can one shot about anything in the game), it changes a lot the way this army plays.
#'''''Life-Eater (1 CP)''''': Use in the fight phase. Select a Death Guard Unit. Plague weapons in that unit auto hit and wound on a hit roll of 6.
#'''''Contaminated Monstrosity (1/2 CP)''''': Use before the battle begin. Select one Death Guard unit (excluding Cultists and Titanic). Until the end of the battle, the unit gains the Disgustingly Resilient ability, if it did not already have it. If the unit has a wounds characteristic of 12 or less, the stratagem costs 1 CP. For 13 or more, it costs 2. There is currently no restriction on how many times it can be used pre-game.  
#*The other BIG stratagem. It mean basically +50% tanking on your unit. A dreadnought with that become a lot more usefull, the predator also loves this. The defiler is an interesting case: it become with this one of the most cost/tanking efficient unit available, but for 2CP, which is expensive... Or you can just take 20 possessed with it. 40HP with Disgustingly Resilient is expensive but able to put some insane pressure on the ennemy.
#* Be carefull: you can burn all your cp on this one. Essentially very well spend cp's, but there are other things that you probably want to do.
#* It means a lot for DG gameplay: with that, you can totally spam long range unit and win the attrition shooting war agains most other armies... And force them to come to you, a thing that death guard love. Note that this is true for a long range anti-tank, but a lot less agains infantry... And that v9 is not kind for castel armies.

Unit Specific
#'''''Harbringer of Nurgle (1 CP)''''': Lord of Contagion pre-game buff. Gives him the same aura as a Chaos Lord.
#*While this is nice if autism prevents you from fielding a T4 model in a Death Guard army, the sad fact is a Chaos Lord is still cheaper and has better weapon options than a Lord of Contagion.
#*Typhus has the LORD OF CONTAGION keyword, so feel free to spend a command point to give the first captain a rule he should have had all along.
#'''''Virulent Rounds (1 CP)''''': Plague Marine Only. Use in the shooting phase. All bolters in the unit become Plague Weapons. In addition, unmodified wound rolls of 6 improve the AP to -4. The later effect only applies against infantry.
#*Very cp efficiant with archi-contaminator on infantry. It allow for the first time plague marines to be used as there fluff command: as blobs of slow moving grinding bolter infantry. Beware of the huge cp cost (you will want to use other stratagems on them, and it add up fast).
#'''''Putrid Fecundity (2/3 CP)''''': Plague Marine Only. Use during your enemy's shooting or fight phase. +1 to disgusting resilient rolls. Costs 2 CP for units of 10 or fewer models. Otherwise, it costs 3 CP.
#'''''Trench-Fighters (1 CP)''''': Plague Marine Only. Use in the fight phase. Models equipped with a plague knife may make one additional attack it.
#*More often than not this is of little benefit, as your units will be too small for the number of free attacks to matter. Even in a 20 man unit it amounts to a single dead Intercessor.
#*Alternative takes: with rerol ones to hits, rerol every thing to wound, +1 to wound and mortal wounds on 6, suddenly 20more attacks is 4 more Intercessor. Make it 5 with a mephytic blight howler that give -1PA. Make it 6 with the poxmonger command traits. On charge, a plague marines can have 4 attacks wiyh that... It is all abouts buff stack here.
#'''''Miasmal Afflictions (2 CP)''''': Plague Marine only. -1 toughness to enemy units within 1" of the unit. Does not stack with Mortarion's aura.
#'''''Soul Harvest (1 CP)''''': Daemon Prince with a Daemonic Axe or Hellforged Sword Only. Add 3 to the model's attacks, but they can only target infantry. 
#'''''Foulgush (1 CP)''''': Foul Blightspawn Only. Use during the shooting phase to enhance its plague sprayer. Roll one additional D6 and discard one of the dice when you are determining the number of attacks and strength of the weapon.
#*The plague sprayer is a horrifying weapon, and making it more consistent is often worth it. Statistically this takes you from an average of 3.5 hits and S7 to 4.5 hits and strength 8, enough to one-shot a Dreadnought.
#*Remember that overwelming generosity gives you 23" range from a rhino (20 without it).
#'''''Warp Toll (1 CP)''''': Noxious Blightbringer Only. Enemy units within 7" add 1 to morale tests and double the number of models flee.
#'''''Hypertoxic Tinctures (1 CP)''''': Plague Surgeon pre-game buff. The model gains a reroll wound aura. Death Guard units within 6" of the Plague Surgeon may re-roll wound rolls 1 or 2 for attacks made with plague weapons.
#*Only even close to worth it if you've already given a model Arch-contaminator and your strategy requires a second re-roll bubble. 
#* Goes well with shooty plague burst crawler and even better with a combos wormspitter/lascann predator. Note that you can also use it with a plague surgeon that reroll disguntingly resiliant on 1 and 2 and fulgaris helmet near a plague marines unit that can have 4+ disgunstingly resiliant. It will not change the world but at least now the plague surgeon is usable.
#'''''Eruption of Filth (1 CP)''''': Death Guard Terminator only. Use when a model in the unit is destroyed. roll one D6 for each non-Nurgle unit within 7". on a 4+, that unit suffers 1 mortal wound.
#* Not worth it, you have better ways to use your CPs...
#'''''Mutant Strain (1 CP)''''': Poxwalkers only. Use in the fight phase. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 inflict 1 mortal wound on the enemy, but unmodified hit rolls of 1 cause the poxwalkers to suffer 1 mortal wound.
#'''''Fire Fever (1 CP)''''': Helbrute Only. Use in the shooting phase on a Helbrute with two ranged weapons. You can reroll all hit rolls. All ranged weapons must target the same unit. 
#* Legit on a Helbrute with disgustingly resiliant, missile launcher and twin lascann in the back lane if you need that extra edge in anti tank duty.Note that you can also use the other Hellbrut stratagem on top of it. Since flyer in 9th edition are the bane of your characters, it will never be useless.
#'''''Parasitic Fumes (1 CP)''''': Myphitic Blight-haulers only. Use at the end of the movement phase to give your little demon engines an AP boosting aura. For the rest of the turn, attacks allocated to enemy models within 7" of the blight-haulers have their AP improved by 1.
#*Note that this is ''all'' attacks, shooting and melee, plague weapon or not, and can affect multiple enemy units. For 1CP this is an absolute steal.
#* The force multiplier of the first AP is stastically HUGE (+100% damage on 2+ save for no AP attacks, +50% on 3+ saves...). This had one more reason to combine Myphitic Blight-haulers to plague marines blobs, since the best use is probably on grenade/blade of putrification combos.
#'''''Accelerated Entropy (1 CP)''''': Plagueburst Crawler only. Use pre-battle to give it a  permanent aura. Entropy cannons it is equipped with, as well as those on other Plagueburst Crawlers within 7", gain the Plague weapon rule and treat damage rolls of 1 or 2 as a 3 instead.
#*How useful this is will depend heavily on how you play your crawlers. On a single unsupported crawler it's a small buff, but if you're running 3 next to an arch-contaminator it's will double the entropy cannons' damage against a Knight.
#* One of the best case scenario for a plague surgeon with the new reroll one and two.