December Detachment Review: The Flyblown Host

10th edition is getting a massive injection of life after a 4 months of nothing. Hard to write articles when the most exciting thing happening is nothing. So lets dive in with our first daily article on the new (daily) detachments.

Death Guard are first and what they got is The Flyblown Host. It’s in simple terms, neat.

Your detachment rule is Verminous Haze which gives all your Death Guard Infantry a 5″ scout move (not in a transport) and Stealth. It’s pretty neat, and will help you get up the table slightly faster and with more defense. Tau beware.

It’s definitely worse than the Plague Company detachment ability (and maybe the whole detachment, but hey, let’s be positive), but it’s fun, a no doubt playable.

Enhancements

As with every detachment there’s also four enhancements.

Droning Chorus is the first and its a solid 15 points. It gives the bearers entire unit assault. For 15 points its cute. B+

Insectile Murmuration is 20 points and lets you re-roll wound rolls of 1 when targeting enemy units within contagion range. Sure. Maybe I’m missing something here, but this doesn’t seem amazing. C+

Rejuvenating Swarm: Your character becomes a beast of nurgle and heals all lost wounds at the end of each phase. If you could put this on a Daemon Prince, it would be awesome, but it goes on Death Guard Infantry (kind of the theme here) so it’s bad, would take if it was 5 points maybe. F-

Plagueveil, which I’ve been calling Plague Evil (way cooler name) is 25 points and makes you unable to be targeted outside of 18″ while you control an objective. This is the best one, easily. You’ll take it in every list. A+

Stratagems

Moving on to the stratagems, they’re a bit of a mixed bag to be honest. At least they’re all 1 CP.

The first is Nauseating Paroxysms (say that 10 times fast). Makes one enemy unit in the fight phase take a -1 battle-shock test. Now, you might say, “Josh, this seems really bad” to which I say, you’re a fool of a TooK. I wish to turn your attention to the Noxious Blightbringer. A 45 point unit which subtracts 2 from battle-shock tests. Ever seen marines have to make 9+ tests or lose an objective? CSM is crying. This is a based stratagem. Easy A

Vermin Cloud lets you Pile-In and Consolidate 6″ instead of 3″. I don’t really have to say more, if you don’t see the value in this you’re playing the game badly. A+

Eye of the Swarm gives your Infantry guns the pistol keyword. Unless they’re blast. Womp womp. This is fine. Deathguard infantry is uh, “super ok buddy.” That’s going to be a B.

Droning Horror lets you re-roll hit rolls of 1 in shooting, or full re-roll hits if in half range. There’s ways to get critical 5s in the army, and there’s a few lethal hit guns in the army. Its a cute thing to slap on the unit with the assault enhancement from earlier. Again, it’s Death Guard shooting, so take that as you will. Solid C+

Everlasting Onslaught is tank shock but for your infantry and you can’t use it against vehicles or monsters. Its per model in engagement range so it’s a little hard to get max value without a crazy charge, but it’s a nice tool. We’ll give it an A.

Myphtic Invigoration have you pick an Infantry model with 6″ of a Myphitic Blight-Hauler and give the Infantry unit -1 to wound (in shooting,) this combined with stealth is pretty cool, and Blight-Haulers aren’t bad either so that’s a bonus. Lets call it an A, I think that’s correct.

The stratagems as a whole aren’t amazing, but none of these are offensive or useless. They all have a place within the army, hence the higher grades. Big shout out to Vermin Cloud, that one is going to carry.

Lists

For the lists we’ll be posting one I make, and then we’ll be getting a local faction expert to make a list when able and get some of their thoughts. The app doesn’t update until January so there’s no enhancements. Put the can’t shoot within 18″ in every list.

Josh Tries to Make a List

CHARACTERS

Biologus Putrifier (50 points)
• 1x Hyper blight grenades
1x Injector pistol
1x Plague knives

Lord of Contagion (80 points)
• Warlord
• 1x Plagueblade

Noxious Blightbringer (45 points)
• 1x Cursed plague bell
1x Plasma pistol

Typhus (80 points)
• 1x Master-crafted manreaper

BATTLELINE

Plague Marines (180 points)
• 1x Plague Champion
• 1x Heavy plague weapon
1x Plasma gun
• 9x Plague Marine
• 1x Blight launcher
4x Heavy plague weapon
2x Meltagun
9x Plague knives
2x Plague spewer

OTHER DATASHEETS

Deathshroud Terminators (220 points)
• 1x Deathshroud Champion
• 1x Manreaper
1x Plaguespurt gauntlet
• 5x Deathshroud Terminator
• 5x Manreaper
5x Plaguespurt gauntlet

Myphitic Blight-Haulers (90 points)
• 1x Bile spurt
1x Gnashing maw
1x Missile launcher
1x Multi-melta

Plague Marines go brrrr. I’m going to make a diagram for you to show how to play this:

As you can see, the plague marines walk up, and make you not hold an objective. Replace that blob with 6 Deathshroud and scout 5″, move 4″ (Faster than Quins, eat that.) and alpha strike. Probably lose the game right after, but the other two Deathshroud units just rapid ingress after.

Dave Cruickshanks List

CHARACTERS

Biologus Putrifier (50 points)
• 1x Hyper blight grenades
1x Injector pistol
1x Plague knives

Foul Blightspawn (60 points)
• Warlord
• 1x Close combat weapon
1x Plague sprayer

Noxious Blightbringer (45 points)
• 1x Cursed plague bell
1x Plasma pistol

Typhus (80 points)
• 1x Master-crafted manreaper

BATTLELINE

OTHER DATASHEETS

Deathshroud Terminators (220 points)
• 1x Deathshroud Champion
• 1x Manreaper
1x Plaguespurt gauntlet
• 5x Deathshroud Terminator
• 5x Manreaper
5x Plaguespurt gauntlet

Deathshroud Terminators (110 points)
• 1x Deathshroud Champion
• 1x Manreaper
1x Plaguespurt gauntlet
• 2x Deathshroud Terminator
• 2x Manreaper
2x Plaguespurt gauntlet

Foetid Bloat-Drone (90 points)
• 1x Fleshmower
1x Plague probe

Myphitic Blight-Haulers (90 points)
• 1x Bile spurt
1x Gnashing maw
1x Missile launcher
1x Multi-melta

Poxwalkers (50 points)
• 10x Poxwalker
• 10x Improvised weapon

When asking Dave to come up with a list his words were something along the lines of “You pretty much got it. Put Pox walkers in.” You can see a few subtle differences, 3 less Deathshroud, the fight-first character to peel behind a wall, and a bloat-drone to make early objective holding a possibility.

We’ve also reached out to Mr. Adam Schneider for his take on Death Guard, which when we’ll get will be added to the article, so come back soon for that update.

That’s everything today, tomorrows Dark Angels, apparently. I can tell you that I know nothing about Dark Angels past: Deathwing good. So we’ll try and get some Space Marine Andy’s in here to tell us more. Think you’d have some insight? Reach out, we’d love to have you in the article.

Until next time, be safe.