Putrescent Fog: The haulers signature ability. Death Guard infantry that are entirely within 7” of the hauler gain the benefits of cover. If you field a squad of 3 then this aura does become very large indeed. Your plague marines shoot rapid fire at 18”, can advance and shoot without penalties and with this ability have a 2+sv in the open. Even units such as Blightlord Terminators benefit from this, upping their saves against any Ap-1 and Ap-2 weaponry So right off the bat the flavour text gives us a fairly accurate description of what the unit is good at: mid range tank hunting. The blight-hauler very often will also serve as support units on the tabletop due to their amazing putrescent fog ability (more on that later). Unlike the other Death Guard daemon engines such as the Foetid Bloat-drone and the Plagueburst Crawler these little guys may be fielded in squads of 1-3, gaining bonuses while the squad is at 3 models. Unlike many other vehicle squads they however do not get to split up once the game starts, meaning you do have to keep them in coherency at all times. You can use Plague marines as a bait unit. Most units capable of destroying plague marines cost more than they do in either points or opportunity cost. Next: Chaos Space Marines

Votann are also going to be a huge pain in the ass thanks to having Void Armour, which turns off plague weapons and gives them Armour of Contempt on top of it. They’ve also got decent ways to mitigate a low movement speed with their bikes and shooting which can easily remove your daemon engines. While it’s not all doom for terminators, it’s not great for Plague Marines, where only having a 3+ save with no invulnerable save means they’ll die a lot faster in the Arks meta. That said, they got a small points drop to compensate and their weapons got better too.

The result is that Death Guard feel like a strong mid-tier faction now with some interesting options, but not a faction that is likely to dominate. Clearly, the Tallyman has been busy writing down new tactics for the Death Guard to use, as War of the Spider features lots of Stratagems. If you like your Plague Marines to get up close and personal, pay a Command Point to make them into Trench-fighters.

Calamity Engine • Death Wheel • Decimator • Defiler • Forgefiend • Heldrake • Infernal Bombard • Maulerfiend • Soul Grinder • Venomcrawler • WirewolfGenerally speaking, this one’s a double-edged sword; Death Guard are still going to be among the game’s most durable armies, but they’re going to feel a quite a bit more fragile. On the upside, the army has a lot of AP-1 and AP-2 weaponry that will suddenly feel much more useful and deadly, and there are fewer armies out there waiting to turn off re-rolls to wound. 2023 Munitorum Field Manual (MFM) They are fast enough to keep pace with even the battle tanks of the Death Guard, while their smaller size and all-terrain mobility allows them to advance in support of Mortarion's sons in even the densest or most difficult environment. When combined with their potent marksmanship, and their ability to wreathe the Death Guard battle-line in covering fumes, it is not hard to see why these Daemon Engines are so highly valued. The army now only requires 1 HQ choice, meaning Death Guard armies can now choose to drop out psykers altogether and have Abhor the Witch open as a secondary option. This is likely not a great choice for reasons we’ll discuss later, but it is an option.