The new 11th Edition Death Guard detachments finally let Mortarion’s sons move, shoot, and spread Nurgle’s Gift at real speed.
Death Guard has always been the army you took because you wanted to really grind out a win, and in 10th Edition, they’ve been quite slow. When Mortarion’s sons advance at a walking pace, the contagion aura never quite reaches where you need it, and players have spent the back half of 10th Edition (after all the NERFS) trying to make fast-Death-Guard lists to keep up.
Games Workshop’s new Faction Focus revealed three brand new 11th Edition Death Guard detachments, and every one of them solves a piece of that mobility problem.
So whether you’ve been running Death Guard from the codex from day one or just grabbed the Combat Patrol, these three detachments change how the faction plays at every level of the table.
Contagion Engines Turn Death Guard Vehicles Into Mobile Plague Wagons
- Contagion Engines hands Foetid Bloat-Drones, Helbrutes, and Myphitic Blight-Haulers the ENGINE tag and Assault on ranged weapons: shoot at full volume after advancing, and Nurgle’s Gift travels with you.
- Parasitic Woe-reaper enhancement heals D3 wounds on a Contagion Engine vehicle every time it fights in melee: a Helbrute or Plagueburst Crawler can stay in melee instead of getting traded out.
- Bloodrust Deluge stratagem casts your army’s contagion plague onto a chosen enemy unit during the Shooting phase: pair it with a twin-lascannon Helbrute, and you wound an Imperial Knight Valiant on a 2+.
- Flyblown Host hands two Plague Marines units the Infiltrators ability before deployment begins: the army arrives where its walking pace was never going to put it in time.
- Paragons of Putrescence pushes Death Guard Character contagion range out to a 12-inch cap: the aura’s ceiling jumps to its 12-inch max, and Hybridized Pox adds a second plague on top.
Contagion Engines is the detachment that puts Death Guard’s vehicles on actual wheels.
Foetid Bloat-Drones, Helbrutes, and Myphitic Blight-Haulers all pick up the CONTAGION ENGINE keyword, and the Warped and Rusted Animus rule hands their ranged attacks the Assault keyword across the board. Best of all, assault means those weapons fire after the unit advances, which really helps out the 10-inch Bloat-Drone and the 7-inch Helbrute moves.
Nurgle’s Gift travels with them while they move, so the contagion aura reaches parts of the table the rest of the army can’t cover.
- Parasitic Woe-reaper (Enhancement) heals D3 wounds on a Contagion Engine vehicle every time it fights in melee: a Helbrute with the enhancement walks back out of close combat instead of getting dragged out of it, and your Plagueburst Crawler keeps trading rounds in melee without folding.
- Bloodrust Deluge (1 CP) casts your army’s contagion plague onto a chosen enemy unit during your Shooting phase: pair it with Rattlejoint Ague to cut the target’s Toughness by 1 and worsen their Save, which is how a twin-lascannon Helbrute wounds an Imperial Knight Valiant on a 2+ instead of a 4+.
Three Helbrutes pushing 10 inches a turn while taking apart enemy armor is a fire-base list that the Death Guard has never been able to run.
Flyblown Host Lets Plague Marines Infiltrate Before The Battle Starts
Flyblown Host is the “sneaky “Death Guard detachment, which is a sentence nobody expected to read this edition at all.
The Verminous Haze rule picks up to two friendly Plague Marines units during the Declare Battle Formations step and hands them Infiltrators, which means those units deploy past the halfway line before the first turn begins. That ducks the slow-mover problem outright.
Now the army opens with two units already on the line, contagion bubble pressed onto the live objectives, and Plague Marines ready to throw shooting straight into the enemy face.
- Insectile Murmuration (Enhancement) lets you re-roll Wound rolls of 1 when targeting inside a friendly contagion range: clean buff on a unit already getting Nurgle’s Gift bonuses.
- Eye of the Swarm (1 CP) gives Plague Marines [CLOSE-QUARTERS] for the phase: stand in the brawl and shoot back at point-blank range, since [CLOSE-QUARTERS] is the new name for Pistol and works the same way you remember it.
Attach a Lord of Contagion or Malignant Plaguecaster and a full character-led Plague Marine squad lands on the line before turn one starts.
Paragons of Putrescence Push Nurgle’s Gift Aura To A 12-Inch Reach
Paragons of Putrescence is the Character-buff detachment, and it starts with one of those changes that doesn’t sound like much until you see it on the table.
The Hypervirulent Strains rule gives every Death Guard Character +3 inches of Contagion Range, capped at 12 inches. That’s huge because Death Guard Characters have been radiating plague from a tighter base bubble, and a 12-inch reach widens the part of the board your aura controls.
Mortarion, Typhus, and the Lord of Poxes all reach further than they did in the codex, and that’s even before you stack other detachments on top.
- Host of the Hybridised Pox (Enhancement) lets a Character apply a second plague’s effect once per battle: no more committing to Rattlejoint Ague at deployment and wishing for Scabrous Soulrot by turn 3.
- Aggravus Spasms (1 CP) gives an enemy unit within Contagion Range +6 inches of detection range: stealth units, scout-deploying screens, and trickier Lone Operatives all become easier to shoot at.
Stack Paragons with Flyblown Host’s Infiltrate Plague Marines and a Character on the line carries a 12-inch contagion bubble onto the table before dice even start rolling.
Final Thoughts on the New 11th Edition Death Guard Detachments
Alongside Marines, Astra Militarum, and Orks, Death Guard is the fourth faction in 11th edition’s preview cycle to get a wholesale identity reset, and the change here is bigger than any of those. At 1 Detachment Point each, a Death Guard list can run two of these detachments together, which means by the first 11th edition tournaments, Death Guard won’t be the slow plague army anymore.
They’ll be the faction sprinting to put the Contagion bubble onto the objective by turn one, and the next month of competitive Death Guard lists is going to look nothing like the past two years.
🔗 Related Reads:
- Death Guard Codex Index Guide for 11th Edition
- Death Guard Combat Patrol 2025 Review
- 11th Edition 40k Release Plan and Roadmap
- Painting Death Guard Plague Marines Tutorial
- Nurgle the Plaguefather Lore Guide
