Looking to get into playing death guard, they appeal to me with the whole footslogging nature.

Not sure where to start though, they seem very activation light but quite tough.

This was my first draft of a list:

DEATH GUARD RETINUE - 500 (BTS)
7 Plague Marines
Daemon Prince
+Dreadnought
+Death Guard Defiler

DEATH GUARD RETINUE - 450
7 Plague Marines
Sorceror Lord
+Dreadnought
+Death Guard Defiler

DEATH GUARD RETINUE - 450
7 Plague Marines
Chaos Warlord (Supreme Commander)
+Death Guard Defiler

SUPER HEAVY COMPANY - 200
Plaguereaper

SUPER HEAVY COMPANY - 200
Plaguereaper

CHAOS SPACE MARINES - 250
6 Chaos Marines, 3 Rhinos

CHAOS SPACE MARINES - 250
6 Chaos Marines, 3 Rhinos

DEATH GUARD DEFILER PACK - 300
4 Defilers

DEATH GUARD TERMINATORS - 400
4 Terminators
Sorceror Lord

9 activations, 3k points (using Epic UK ruleset).

Any help please?

That's not activation light. That's about right for 3k points. You'd only really expect to go above 9 activations using Eldar or Marines in my experience.

Looks good to my eyes. Lots of hard to kill, elite infantry, backed up by plenty of flak and some fast units for objective grabbing and assault setups. I would be play this as a brick to the face, led by the Plague Marines, and make sure the regular CSMs, the Defilers and the Terminators don't get too isolated.

I agree with Sam, it's OK in activation numbers, especially as the Death Guard are a very resilient list.

The 3 retinues firepower/AA will be suppressed very easily so if you wanted an extra activation I'd suggest dropping the dreads and defilers from the retinues and having an extra formation of flyers. Although this will cut the resilience and engage powers of the retinues .

You really need to just play a few games and assess afterwards if anything is needed.



*edited as suggested changes wasn't viable

Played a game yesterday with the list in the first post against a friend (lost, but eldar are just so fast need to get used to playing against them), I think the dreads are droppable, not sure on the defilers they were pretty good at putting blaster markers on and giving me no worries for a few turns of being assaulted from my opponents vampires. They do die very very easily being the only tank in the formation though...hmm.

Not sure on the terminators, they are great distraction units but feel too expensive for such a role and so easy to break. Hellblades are a possibility, though dropping all the defilers feels a bit wrong? Just find they are like hydras, big AA zone of death and can use the death guard units themselves to absorb supressions can't I? Maybe I'm mistaken here..still learning the game .

Are plaguehound titans any good? Could run 2 of them instead of the dreads + terminators. Ups the activation count by 1 and also provides extra firepower though it is again very short range like everything else in the list.

I'm also considering a formation of death guard in land raiders for my next game.

This is the new list after 3 games now:

DG3k, 3000 POINTS
Death Guard (Epic UK v090710)
==================================================
DEATH GUARD RETINUE - 450 (BTS)
7 Plague Marines
Daemon Prince
+Death Guard Defiler

DEATH GUARD RETINUE - 375
7 Plague Marines
Daemon Prince

DEATH GUARD RETINUE - 375
7 Plague Marines
Chaos Warlord (Supreme Commander)

DEATH GUARD DEFILER PACK - 300
4 Defilers

SUPER HEAVY COMPANY - 200
Plaguereaper

SUPER HEAVY COMPANY - 200
Plaguereaper

CHAOS SPACE MARINES - 250
6 Chaos Marines, 3 Rhinos

CHAOS SPACE MARINES - 250
6 Chaos Marines, 3 Rhinos

DEATH GUARD TERMINATORS - 400
4 Terminators
Chaos Lord

HELLBLADE FLIGHT - 200
3 Fighters

I was playing the suppression rule wrong, didn't realise it was only units in range (doh!) are surpressed so that led the defilers to not be as useful in the retinues.

Anyone have any experiences with zombies? I would like to try them and use the points from the terminators elsewhere (perhaps more flyers).

Looks a perfectly decent and well rounded list - dont think you can have two Daemon Princes in a Death Guard army though, so you may need to find something to spend 50 points on.

Thanks...whoops, I knew that! Dreadnought in then for the 2nd prince.