Deathguard army – dugthefug1644

My friends at the Isleworth Wargaming Club (destroyed as a weekly event since Covid and venue issues) are finding a way to get us back playing again. A 40K 500pts starter league, building hopefully up to fuller games of 40K.

I hate list building. But the “New Recruit” website made it relatively painless to get started. I may be a boring opponent for some because I am unsure how deeply I am willing to delve into clever stratagems and special rules to get the best out of my minis.

Here is my starter 500pts list (based on what I have painted mostly)

495 pts
Epic Hero (80 pts) Typhus (1) (80 pts) Warlord
Rules: Nurgle’s Gift (Aura), Deep Strike, Leader, Spread the Sickness, Lethal Hits
Abilities: Leader[1], Invulnerable Save, The Destroyer Hive, The Eater Plague
Melee Weapons: Master-crafted manreaper – strike, Master-crafted manreaper – sweep

Character – Malignant Plaguecaster (1) (65 pts)
Rules: Leader, Nurgle’s Gift (Aura), Spread the Sickness, Lethal Hits, Pistol, Hazardous, Psychic, Torrent
Abilities: Gift of Contagion (Psychic), Pestilent Fallout (Psychic), Leader[2]
Melee Weapons: Corrupted staff
Ranged Weapons: Plague bolt pistol (x2) (x2), Plague Wind – witchfire, Plague Wind – focused witchfire
Character – Plague Surgeon (1) (50 pts)
Rules: Leader, Nurgle’s Gift (Aura), Spread the Sickness, Lethal Hits, Pistol
Abilities: Tainted Narthecium, Diseased Healing, Leader[3]
Melee Weapons: Balesword
Ranged Weapons: Plague bolt pistol (x2) (x2)

Battleline – Plague Marines (7) (125 pts)
• Plague Marine w/ blight launcher
• 4x Plague Marine w/ boltgun
• Plague Marine w/ special weapon: Plasma gun
• Plague Champion: Bubotic weapons, Plasma gun
Rules: Nurgle’s Gift (Aura), Spread the Sickness, Hazardous, Rapid Fire, Lethal Hits
Abilities: Remorseless
Ranged Weapons: Plasma gun – standard (x2) (x4), Plasma gun – supercharge (x2) (x4), Blight launcher,
Plague boltgun
Melee Weapons: Bubotic weapons, Plague knives (x3) (x9)

Infantry – Poxwalkers (x20) – (100 pts)
Rules: Feel No Pain 5+, Nurgle’s Gift (Aura), Spread the Sickness, Lethal Hits
Abilities: Curse of the Walking Pox
Melee Weapons: Improvised weapons
Dedicated Transport – Death Guard Rhino (1) – (75 pts)
Havoc launcher
Rules: Deadly Demise D3, Nurgle’s Gift (Aura), Firing Deck 2, Blast, Lethal Hits, Rapid Fire
Abilities: Self-repair
Transport: Death Guard Rhino
Melee Weapons: Armoured tracks
Ranged Weapons: Havoc launcher, Plague combi-bolter

Never stops amazing me how generous people in this hobby can be.

Got given a Forgeworld Legion Primus Medicae. Not a cheap model. So I am selling my Plague Surgeon and gave the Medicae a Death Guard paint job with a nice Nurgle scar / marking on his face.

I’m not sure what inspired me, but I chose to follow the theme of variety in colours. I then realised that there was room to add converts to the Chaos cause. This poor Space Wolf was corrupted. When dying of mortal wounds inflicted psychically by a plaguecaster, Nurgle sowed seeds of doubt in his mind. It convinced him that his death was being recorded by his chapter as one of shame and disgrace. His damaged mind grasped the offer of renewed life with both hands in the hope that he could clear his name and fight on. Once the body was filled with Nurgle’s gifts the wounds healed, to a degree. Sadly the diseases fogged and twisted his mind and he soon forgot the virtuous reasons for clinging to life and instead became just another Plague marine, with all the treacherous tenacity of any of his new Deathguard brethren.

I had some Space Wolf transfers / decals in the Dark Imperium box set and used these in places to show just how recently the mutations took hold of him. Tarnished runes, but not yet corroded away. I also added green stuff fur in patches on his cloak, showing where some had rotted away and larger pieces holding in place.

The head is from The Frostgrave barbarian plastic box set. The branch growth on his head and extra piece on his shoulder are from the head of a plague marine.

I hope that the army won’t just look ridiculous in the end, but I continue to go for armour colours beyond the normal Nurgle green. I hope the basing and the rotten tentacles and skin help gel them together enough.

Calling this a completed squad.

2 Blightlaunchers, 4 standard boltguns and the plague Champion from Dark Imperium.

I have another squad planned very similar, just with the champion having a plasma gun, 2 marines with plasma guns and the remaining 4 with Bolt guns.

The last 7 will be a bizarre collection of 1 Melta, 1 Blightlauncher, champion with Bolt gun, sword and power fist, a marine with a bubotic axe and the rest with boltguns.

No idea if that is a poor use of points or not, but enjoying the hobby side of the task anyway.

Chose to have the contrast between Typhus and this model as different as I could. Seeing as they came from the same basic miniature I thought that was essential. I enjoyed the model more than I thought I would and am happier painting the new smoke effects appearing in many of these models than I had been before.

I enjoyed painting this, my first ever Rhino. A friend sold this to me built, with the Deathguard specific doors and bell already in place and primed green.

I realised that there was no havoc launcher or Combi-Bolter installed and decided to make my own.

Made from straws, pieces of sprue (circular pieces from the corners of Wargames Factory sprues), missile pieces from a storm talon sprue and some green stuff to add tentacles and gribbly Nurgle bits.

It slots on and off of the spikes next to the hatch on top of the vehicle in case I want to change up the load out and for ease of storage.

Fun to paint a few months ago. Part of my continuing quest to create gross, fetid skin. Finding old pics to try and make this a central point for all my Deathguard efforts.

As you read from the description, I ended up with two sets of Dark Imperium Deathguard models.

As a result I had two identical easy build Bloat-drones to work with. I built them both the same with plague spitters.

I managed to cram both of them in to a 2000 point list and had a great time in their first trip out, but found that over a while that the Plague spitters 9″ range is too short to play some of the ranged weapons heavy opponents I have been playing.

The new Bloat-drones box set came out with new weapon options and the codex gave me some ideas as to what variety I might want in future.

Rather than buy a third Bloat-drone and use the weapons amongst my own two, I decided to convert myself a Heavy Blightlauncher. The studio model shows one side must be a ammunition tank and the other must be a three barrelled gun.

I made my ammo tank out of a diabetic needle cover. I took a saw to cut off the end to bring it down flat to the main body of the tank.

I used half of that sawn off cover end to make the right hand spitter look more like a blightlauncher.

I used offcuts from the Plaguespitters and some sprue to make the three barrells.

I used an offcut from the Plaguespitters to act as a ring holding up a connecting organic pipe from the ammo tank to the launcher. The other pieces have been added with green stuff.

Plague marines are coming along nicely. I like the red champion. He doesn’t particularly mix with my others but had already decided that my Deathguard army was going to be mutated and infected in multiple ways and in various colours.

Got 46 poxwalkers. Painted over half, but still slowly making my way through.

Thanks to the gloriously fun zombie and Ghouls Kings of War Mantic Games miniatures (I got in a bits box on ebay) I was able to really customise and randomise my miniatures, without having to rely solely on paint scheme alone.

Some of my favourite bits were one guy with a whole extra arm, holding a severed hand in it’s fist and one guy has an extra spine growing out of his shoulder. 🙂

I will have a proper group photo once complete.