Death Guard
Using the new Codex: Chaos Space Marines a Death Guard army now has access to new units unlike in the old Codex: Chaos Space Marines. This gives you the ability to take units such as Chaos Raptors, Chaos Bikers and an Obliterator Cult. Where as before a Death Guard army was based around normal Chaos marines now you can have a army that includes jump pack armed troops (Raptors) at toughness 5 you can take Chaos bikes with an amazing toughness of 6!. And every unit in your army will have a basic Toughness of 5 that is excluding the Lesser Deamons.
First of all you will have to decide to take either a unit of Plague Marines (the original members of the Death Guard) or a unit of Marines with an icon of Nurgle. The Plague Marines have better abilities and weapons than normal marines but they have a hefty price (23 points a model). But for this expensive purchase you get the ability to ignore most attacks on a 4+ and stop opponents getting their bonus attack for charging you.
Next you should think of a commander, you could take either a Chaos Lord or a Chaos Sorcerer. A Chaos Lord has extremely good close combat skills and that combined with a deamon weapon of Nurgle allows you to wield a power weapon that wounds any opponent on a 4+ no matter there Toughness maybe. While the Chaos Sorcerer has the ability to use deadly psychic powers and he wields a force weapon which can kill any model that he has already wounded by taking a psychic test.
Then on too heavy support a predator has the ability to take either Anti-Personal weapons or Anti-Tank weapons. A unit of Havocs armed with mixture of weapons such as the autocannon, the missile launcher, the lascannon and the heavy bolter. From the mixture of units from the heavy support section you can create an effective fire-base..
And then you have the elites of the Chaos army. These men are some of the best fighting unit's available to the chaos army. Such units are the Chaos Dreadnought, Chaos Chosen, the feared Possessed Chaos Space marines and the extremely dangerous Chaos Terminators. The Chaos Dreadnought can be equipped with a wide variety of weapons and has more attacks than the ordinary space marine version. The Chaos chosen have access to more specialist weapons than ordinary Chaos Marines and they are the only unit in the army to have the ability to infiltrate so putting there deadly close combat weapons and guns to good use. As for the Terminators they have a 2+ armour save and a 5+ invulnerable save making them difficult to kill and can be equipped with power fists, chain fists and combi-weapons and there ability to deep strike makes them even more useful having a unit of terminators appear next to your opponents commander can make him change his plans and give you some breathing space. And lastly the Feared possessed these are perfect close combat warriors there only down side is that they can be really good or really bad. This is due to you having to roll to see what abilities they have. And if you use these guys hope for the roll you want. You don't want a units of 8 possessed that have rending charging a unit of Gaunts while a Carnifex rampages through you normal marines like a hot knife through butter.
In the previous Codex: Chaos Space Marines a death guard army wasn't allowed any fast attack. But know you have access to these units. A unit of Chaos Raptors with The mark of Nurgle have Toughness 5 and there ability to use jump packs makes them deadly in combat even a mighty space marine will have difficulty wounding these men. And the Chaos Bikers have a very useful purpose in the new book their already increased toughness due to their bikes and the mark of Nurgle make them have an amazing toughness of 6! This is equal to some of the large Tyranid creatures and the Eldar Avatar of Khaine. I will be adding a unit of these to my army when I can.
Now we move on to units that DON'T use any selection on the force organisation charts. These are the Chaos Spawn, Lesser Daemons and the Greater Deamon. The Spawn has the ability to assault on turn 1 and if you have a unit of 3 you have the possibility of having 3D6+3 attacks on the Charge at Strength 5! And the Greater Deamon and the Lesser Deamon have been made more rounded. Instead of a deamon for each type of god it's now 1 Deamon no matter who you worship. I don't use these in my army due to I find them not worth there points value and by the time they show up all the fighting is over and it's just a case of mopping up resistance.
Thanks for reading this article if you have any questions or are interested in collecting a Death Guard Army come down Hobbits Hole and ask me or Connor for help or assistance.
Josh Carpenter