Codex: Death Guard Homebrew WIP, feedback needed!

[mlambie]

So instead of whining about the chaos codex anymore, my friend and i set out to create some legion codices, for my death guard and for his T-sons. Both of us have been gaming for many years, and have played chaos through several of its iterations. We wanted to create a list that would represent the actual veterans of the Horus Heresy, in contrast to the current codex. In about a week or so we managed to pound out the basic outlines for the rules, drawing heavily on both the 4th edition and 3.5 edition chaos codex, as well as the demons codex.

Heres a link to download the WIP pdf, not pretty, but its got the meat and potatoes there.

[url]http://www.scribd.com/doc/21155189[/url]

I would love to hear your thoughts/concerns/comments/constructive criticism/feedback/questions/ponderings about the list. We are trying to make a competitive list, not over powered, but balanced to the newish 5th edition codices. We are just now beginning the playtesting phase of the list.

anyways, here goes!

special rules:
Mark of nurgle: +1 T, FNP, Fearless
Demons use Daemon special rule from Codex Daemons.

new wargear:
plaguesword (power weapon, kills wounded model outright on 4+)
Pandemic Staff (12",target enemy unit, every model hit on 4+, s3, armour saves apply)
Nurgling Infestation (d6 extra atks at s3 I3, users WS)
Plague Banner (one use per battle, enemy unit in 6" will take d6 wounds as shooting, no armor or cover)

New Spell options:
Nurgle's Dance (12", enemy unit in cover take ld test or lost cover benefit)
Nausea (enemy unit bs -1 in 12" for next next shooting phase)
Aura of Decay (all models in base contact in models next assault phase lose 1 atk)

Demon summoning follows rules from Codex: demons (may not assault turn they come in) but deep strike as normal, excepting that nurglings may start deployed as per the 3rd ed. rules.

Army List:

Hq: Typhus

Daemon Prince 160 pts same stats as codex CSM w/ mark of Nurgle, FNP, may take minor psychic powers.

Chaos Lord: 120 pts (MoN, FNP, Blight Grenades) may take all normal options excepting bike, jump pack. also can take plague sword (25pts), nurgling infestation(20pts).

Sorceror: 130 pts. (MoN, FNP, Blight grenades), may exchange force weapon for Pandemic Staff (1 per army) for free. Also may choose one of the minor psychic powers.

Great unclean one: same as Codex: Daemons.

Elites:

Chosen Plague Marines: 26 pts each (MoN, blight grenades, FNP, fearless, infiltrate)
no hvy wpn upgrade options, one unit may take plague banner for 50pts. other options the same.

Death Guard Terminators: 50 pts. (MoN, FNP, fearless)

dreadnought as normal, may dedicate to nurgle for 5 pts (counts as icon)

Possessed Plague Marines: 34 pts each (MoN, FNP, blight grenades) as normal but since they have FNP, roll of 5 on daemonkin gives them poisoned attacks.

Plague Marines as normal. Brought back rules for only taking 2 in rhinos, any additional count as Fast attack. only troop unit that counts towards minimum.

Nurglings are back! as per codex daemons

Plaguebearers are back as well. as per codex daemons minus the upgrades.

Note: daemons do not count for force org, they are chosen seperately, must start in reserves except nurglings.

Chaos Spawn of course included.

Fast Attack

Blight Drones(IA)

Heavy Support

Plague marine Havocs: 23 pts each (MoN, FNP, fearless, blight grenades) NO heavy weapons.

Pred, vindicator, Plague Hulk (IA) , defiler and land raider all as normal in codex CSM 4.0. may be dedicated to nurgle for 10 pts (count as icon)
(edited 9/29/09)

I will explain our reasoning at a later point, just want to get some reactions!

[DarkLink]

I've though of doing something similar before, I just don't play chaos anymore, so never got the motivation.

I like the looks of it. The only thing I have to say is be careful about how you summon the Daemons. The units from Codex: Daemons are designed with the inherint drawback of being required to deepstrike. This doesn't apply to Plaguebearers so much as other god's units. Imagine being able to summon squads of C Bloodletters straight into combat. It literally wouldn't be fair. Bloodletters are designed so that you get a chance to kill them before they slaughter you in close combat. They would be far to good a unit otherwise.
Now, you mention they must start in reserve. You kept the old summoning rules for them?

The Daemons thing is my only real issue, and it isn't really a big deal unless you're summoning Khorne or Slaanesh daemons. Other than that, it looks good.

[mlambie]

Ah good Point! I hadnt played the list in so long i forgot. I had intended for the summoned demons, basically the plague bearers are the only thing here, to summon as deep strike, meaning no assaulting the turn they arrive. Absolutely that would be over the top. the GUO still has to posess something, and will follow the rules from Codex Chaos marines.

The greater demon will be something we have to keep an eye on in playtesting, as he will have the ability to summon and get into combat in the same turn.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Exitus Acta Probat]

special rules:
Mark of nurgle: +1 T, FNP, Fearless
Demons use Daemon special rule from Codex Daemons.


Demon summoning follows rules from Codex: Chaos space marines 4.0, excepting that nurglings may start deployed as per the 3rd ed. rules.

Army List:

Daemon Prince 150 pts same stats as codex CSM w/ mark of Nurgle, FNP, may take minor psychic powers.

Death Guard Terminators: 45 pts. (MoN, FNP, fearless)

Plague Marines as normal. Brought back rules for only taking 2 in rhinos, any additional count as Fast attack. must take at least one unit.

Chaos Spawn of course included.

Okay, reaction...I'll give you roughly the same thing I did a friend of mine, and it's going to mirror a bit of what D-Link said.
If you let Daemons from the Daemon Codex assault after DSing...the world will come to an end, cat's and dogs will be living together (for the las 5 minutes sure...) and someone will divide by zero with the cray supercomputer...hence the world coming to an end. this CANNOT happen.

Daemon Princes with 7 toughness all those wounds and FNP??? Read above reactions of biblical proportions...this is worse.

and WORST of course, is giving a unit of 2+/5+ T-5 models FNP. those would HAVE to be 60pts apiece before anyone could consider them balanced...there are people out there that get annoyed enough about the Apothecary in the Deathwing Squad, can you imagine T-5 termies, an ARMY of plaguewing, that costs about the same and ALL have it...without a way to shut it down (like engaging the apothecary)?

I would take your list,
make two 7 man (I love nurgle, I couldn't break sacred number, sorry cheese gawds) rhino mounted units...
and put all the rest of my points into DP'S, Land Raiders, and terminators. whatever points value I had left would get thrown into daemons.

NOT trying to be harsh, and I know you're making a fun in house list, but you asked for feedback.

I sat down and figured out a ratio for him, percentage wise, that worked....and now (at about 4:30 am) I cannot remember it. But it got those Termies (before gear upgrades) close to 60 points (58 ish) and was based on save/T/slot.
Also, we are still assuming that it would be T-4/5...(ie;counts as 4 for ID, not 5) right?

[mlambie]

no i had the same thoughts as you completely. i think it was for a reason that gw has evaded giving anything in a 2+ save FNP save typhus. you are probably right on the 60 pts thing. i kinda figured that after upgrades they would be about that cost, but maybe they should be 70 or more after a few upgrades.

I should have made it more clear, the Daemon prince is only t 6. or 5(6). i dont have my codex handy so im not 100% sure on that.

Also, someone already pointed out the world ending implications of deep striking and assaulting demons lol.
i actually didnt remember that they could assault the same turn, and will definetly be changing that. deep strike as normal. period. no assaulting. they have to wait.

My thoughts on the t5 FNP termies...
wieght of fire is not the way to go here. people used to kill termies with plasma. plasma will still be great against the death guard termies. all they will get is thier inv. or cover, so in some ways, many of the weapons people use to kill termies (or used to use) will be great.

i think the army throws a curveball to the new popularity of rate of fire over ap. a ton of heavy bolter shots will not wipe the squad in short order.

i think playtesting will tell for the points cost on the termies. how about the other units? for the power armoured guys, i just went with the same extra 8 points you pay for a regular plague marine over a regular CSM.

I really would have loved to bring back the favoured units size, but couldnt think of a good way to do it. i dont want to start handing out free champion upgrades to an experimental list that people might already be wary of playing lol. one way to do it might be to just make the unit size 7 for the second special wpn upgrade instead of the usual 10.

i appreciate the honesty here.

[fuzzbuket]

might be me but havocs with no H.weapons i thought D.guard are mainly static so im confuddeld

fuzzbuket

[mlambie]

yea its part of mortarion's battle tactics, as described in the 3.5 codex. the army basically just advances implacably. they didnt have the option for heavy weapons or olbiterators or bikers or raptors. it made the list have some big weaknesses, i.e. mobility and long range firepower. we wanted to preserve the weaknesses of the army, as well as its strength, rock hard infantry.

[SlavesToDarkness]

No, it looks fine to me. Few suggestions:

+ Raise cost of Terminators to 50 or 55.

+ Daemon Princes should cost a little more (about +25pts) than a normal Daemon Prince with Mark of Nurgle (so, like 160 or 165?). Exitus was wrong, a Nurgle Prince has only T6. Great Unclean Ones are already T6 with Feel no Pain, so this isn't unbalancing.

+ Where are the Beasts of Nurgle in your Elites?

+ I think in the case of Khorne and Slaanesh daemons, summoning them rather than deepstriking may be an advantage (and so they might need a points "bump"). But Plague Bearers are actually BETTER when they deepstrike so summoning is a disadvantage (trust me, I play mono-god Nurgle Chaos Daemons so this is not just theoretical nonsense). Here's why: Plague Bearers do not fight so well, but excel at deep-striking on an objective and never, ever, ever moving or dying. Being able to summon them into combat is not that great; it's actually much worse than being able to send them directly onto an objective. For these reasons I don't think they need a points increase.

+ Beasts of Nurgle might need a "bump" (maybe to 40pts) since if they can assault straight into combat, that's pretty damn good.

+ Check out the Forge World Plague Hulk (it's new). Add it into your Heavy Support instead of Defilers.

+ Blight Drones to flesh out your Fast Attack.

+ How about "Nurgle Marks" for vehicles?

+ Spawn are fine, but how about "Nurgle Spawn?"

[mlambie]

hmm plague hulk and plague drones... i dont have an IA book! if i ever see one, they will be included! or someone who has them could just send me the rules!!! HINT HINT HINT

Once again for the plague bearers, i think it wil lhave to be playtested both ways to see if its o.p. although i agree with your contention that that is much more unbalancing in the context of bloodletters or daemonettes.

the beasts... hmmm... i suppose if you had some they could be fielded as spawn. we felt that some of the options in the demons codex are more representative of nurgles demon armies. The named greater demon was left out on purpose, as he leads the demonic hosts of nurgle, not the mortal ones.

The nurgle marks we're going to throw in as well. the 3.5 ed. codex had nurgles rot, but now that its a spell i dont know. the marked vehicles in 3.5 also counted as icons, so we're thinking that might be the way to go.

Thematically i think youre right about the defiler. The death guard never had them before, and abaddon had them created for him. Fat chance typhus bought a few. I would love to put in the plague hulk instead.

So far everyone has said the termies gotta go up. Agreed 100%. ill try em out at 50 first.

also, as much as i dislike the current dread rules in comparison to the 3.5 ones, the 4th edition ones should be used as they are the most current.

[DarkLink]

I'd say that the mark of nurgle for the terminators should be +10pts, maybe a little more. But really, they'll just be like the inverse of THSS terminators. THSS terminators laugh off plasma and other AP1/2, but are killed just as easily by weight of fire and forcing wounds. Nurgle terminators would laught at your rapid-firing bolters, but fall like wheat before the sythe to plasma and similar. I'd say 50pts for a nurgle terminator with a P.fist would be fair, or maybe 55 just to be on the safe side.

Are you intentionally leaving out the -1I and blight grenades on some of the units? Just curious.

Summoning Plaguebearers straight into combat is fine as they're not that intimidating, but for consistancies sake (if you were to write a Khorne/Slaanesh list), I agree that summoning them but they count as deepstriking (so no assault) is fair.

I also agree with the idea of looking at Forgeworld stuff, like replacing the Defiler with the Plague Hulk. You might want to check over the rules carefully, as sometimes Forgeworld rules are a little... I don't know, inconsistant. They like to introduce weird abilities and odd pricing for stuff sometimes.

I'll see if I can get a PDF of the pages for any forgeworld stuff, though. I have some friends with all the IA stuff.


EDIT: Here is the Forgeworld Plague Hulk rules. They're online for free. [url]http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/pdf/plaguehulk.pdf[/url]