Ok, so I played my brothers Plague Marines for the first time today. It was the first time he used them as well.

His list was roughly thus:

Sorceror Lord with Doom Bolt, Dark Blade, Nurgles Rot, Daemonic ressilience, Daemonic Essence, Daemonic Armour, and that's it I think.

7 Plague Marines with Aspiring Champion, Power Sword and Plasma pistol. There was one guy in the squad with a plasma gun

7 Plague Marines with Aspiring Champion, Fist, bolt pistol and another Plasma gun in the squad.

Predator with twin linked Las cannon and Heavy Bolters on the side sponsons.

In short he got his heinie kicked. It had a lot to do with a lack of experience though. I fielded Eldar, kept my avengers who were guarding the objective safe in cover...mostly. I had a Farseer with Doom, Mind War, Spirit Stones, Runes of Witnessing and Warding. He didn't get Doom bolt off once, and actually ended up losing three of his four wounds to perils of the warp.
His predator was going ok until it got the side of it ripped open by a D-cannon.
His troops never got close enough to charge or rapid fire.
Then my resserves showed up and pulvarized him. (Warp Spiders helped by Doom, Fire Dragons and the D-cannon.)

So what advice do you have for him? I suggested he take a bit off the Sorceror Lord and gave some more equipment and gifts to his Aspiring Champions. His Champion with the fist failed to do much to the spiders once his squad had been destroyed.
I also advised that he play a little more agressively.
And finally I told him not to forget Nurgles Rot. all units had it and he totally forgot!

So what advice do you guys have for him? I know we have a few Plague Marine players here.

Also, what units should he buy next? His army is exactly as above. two squads of 7, a sorceror Lord and a Predator. He was thinking of Raptors and repressenting them as possessed chaos marines with Daemonic flight. But I was also thinking Plague Bearers or chosen?

Advice?

Cal

avoid chosen too expensive with the point restrictions
Havocs plague marines have some nice specific ones and get them to inflirate with nasty assualt weapons as most of plague marine army is slow
although i dont like them most plague players use rhinos
A deflier is also fluffy and very handy
plague bearers can be useful but nurglings are very useful also

Indeed, I use two rhinos for most games. But as for slow, I disagree. It all copmes down to choice really. You can have flying DP's/Lord/possesed screaming across the board at twelve inches per turn. Infiltrators deploying to harass flanks and forward movement, and Deep striking termies can be a really good tactic also.

Most players are a little wary with their Deathguard, but with their highg toughness, they really aree quite sturdy.

I would suggest that he drops the Sorcerer lord, as the minor spells for Nurgle are pretty much useless, and the points would be better spent in wargear. Deathguard needs to be played in a supporting role, being that without long range support, they can fall victim to pot shots from heavy amounts of firepower.

Nurglings are great for meaty cannon fodder, but I dont use Plauge bearers as I find the points are better spent on troops.

Finally, deathghuard can excell at CC, as long as the general is willing to take a chance on them. One unit I use is this:--

7x Plague Marines with Asp Champion (champ for free because of Favorured number). Champ has bolter and power weapon, blight nades and frag. Troops have 1 plasma gun (love those babies) and CCW's.
Take Furious Charge/assualt (increases strength and Ini on charge) Nurgles Rot (can drop the odd troop hee or there) Unit costs under 280, and hits hard on the charge with:-- 12 normal attacks and 3 power weapon attacks at ini 5 and strength 5, and high toughness for retaliation. Then the blight nades make sure that hitting the plauge marines is made mor difficult (cant go into details cos of copyright).

This unit above is pretty much standard, but is very hard to knock off in CC if they get the charge (made easier with the help of a rhino).

DP's are walking death machines capable of 10x S6, I6, WS6 power weapon attacks on the charge. Not much can stand up to this, trust me :)

I think another squad of Plague marines wouldn't go awry. The more there are, the tougher your army becomes. Also, don't forget that the squads can take two special weapons, and I highly recommned pairing them, don't go mixing wepaon types, as it reduces squad effectiveness as a rule.

He's decided to go with either Possessed with Daemonic flight, or some Obliterators.

Olbiterators are a nice cheap choice for him, and add a lot of long range fire support, giving his units a chance to charge forward while his Pradator and Obliterators blast away!

However I have been advising him to go with the possessed. A much more solid choice, and at such small games he already has the Predator for Heavy Weapons support. Their also more expensive to get him into large games quicker.

What do you guys think?

I had another game with him today and beat him pretty badly. I advised him to not be so girly with his units and charge them forward to get into rapid fire range and assault range. Previously he has just been holding back and using the 24" shots.

I also told him to even out his units. Today for some reason he had one really expensive unit and one cheaper unit. Same number of models, just more wargear in each squad. I'll also stear him towards veteran skills and blight grenades instead of Daemonic gifts for his Apsiring champions.

Did I give good advice?

Cal

Well, ther is a big problemo with Oblit's in a Death Guard army, they cant have a mark of Nurgle, therefore they cant be used, sucks, but it's true.

Besides, even if they could be used, they would only be able to use twin-linked PG's/meltagun, flamer or Power fist.

Oh yeah, good advice though, DG's are a great army when balanced, but if you only have one Uber unit and they die, your screwed!

Never thought about Obliterators not able to be used. I knew they couldn't be given the mark but it never occured to me that their not allowed...oh well.

Possessed it is then!

cheers KB,
Cal

Yup, standard ruling for Death Guard (and all god themed army's) is that all units and characters must have a mark of *insert god here*, and if they cant have a mark, then they cant be used.

As for the possesed unit, they are fun. Here is one of the unit's I use, and dey iz ded ard in Kombat!

6 Possesed with:-
Mark Of Nurgle
6 CCW and BP's
D-Flight
Champ with--
Blight nades
d-Flight
N rot
d Mutation
Spiky bitz
pair of Lightning claws.

Very expensive, but well worth it !

good unit!

The other unit he is now contemplating (because he cannot make up his freaking mind!) is infiltrating Havocs.

This would be good infiltrating option, as it would allow him to bring all his plasma guns and Melta guns to bear in the first few turns, with his other two squads of Plague Marines charging forward to get into range to back them up.

Good idea, or bad? Possessed or Havocs?

Cal

Infiltrating Havocs can work really well against small "pocket" army's like Eldar. Few things to note, maintain the unit number of 7 so that you get your free champ, plus it means that the first two to die in that unit means you dont lose your special weapons (the whole point of taking them in the first place).

Tool up the champ, but be specific about his role, his either CC based, or another shooter, dont try to do both as it would be unessacery. Arm him with somthing a little different Vs low toughness like Eldar, such as the Pandemic Staff, or the Kai gun, but remeber that you can only have one Daemon weapon per army, and the whole Daemon Mastery thing (front of the Codes).

Also, change the weapons with regards to the area you are playing in. Melta's work well when there is heaps of cover to play with, and def' work well against enemy armour, plasma guns can put down quite a lot of superheated death, but when rapid firing they overheat on a 1 or 2, and so can easily kill the user as-well! An vs Eldar, do not overlook flamers (particuarly in cities of death) as they remove any cover saves, will wound most Eldar on a 3+, can hit anywhere from 1 through to about 4ish per shot, and will also cancel out poor armour saves.

You can always mix and match your weapons, but I find it more effective to stock up on one type, so as not to confuse! :)

Great advice KB. I'll be sure to tell him that...when he gets havocs.

We went to GW today, and he bought himself the new Possessed models. He will have 8 in the unit with Daemonic mutation and infiltrators. Their roll will be to gain ground quickly on the enemy and assault early to really distrupt battle plans.

They will also distract fire from his Plague Marines as they advance into good firing possitions.

Cal