Death Guard army rules, detachment abilities, stratagems and lore for Warhammer 40k, with links to the full unit datasheet table.
The Death Guard are one of the Traitor Legions of Chaos Space Marines. They worship and devote themselves exclusively to the Chaos God Nurgle and as a result of his mutational "gifts" they have become Plague Marines; Heretic Astartes who are eternally rotting away within their power armour and infected with every known form of disease and decay but who are immune to all pain or minor injury.
When the XIV Legion was first raised on Terra by the Emperor during the First Founding, its Astartes were known as the Dusk Raiders. After the XIV Legion was reunited with its Primarch Mortarion on the world of Barbarus, he renamed the Legion the Death Guard.
The Death Guard are a Traitor Legion entirely steeped in the power of Nurgle, the Chaos God of death, disease and despair, their very essence the epitome of all that vile Chaos God stands for. Their bodies are hives of filth and decay, their flesh eternally rotting away even as it is renewed by the ceaseless process of death and rebirth.
Once, however, the Death Guard were the strongest and most resilient of all of the Emperor's Space Marine Legions, the inheritors of Primarch Mortarion in whose genetic image they were created. Mortarion grew to maturity on the world of Barbarus, a planet steeped in a toxic miasma where the Human population cowered in the dark lowlands, fearful of the overlords that preyed upon them from their mountaintop keeps deep within the fog.
History does not record who or what these beings truly were, but it is certain they were more than, or at least other than, Human. For one, they were able to breathe the deadly gases that made up the atmosphere of Barbarus, getting ever more deadly the higher the altitude, but they are said to have displayed other abilities too. The abominable masters of Barbarus were somehow able to enslave or dominate the flesh of the dead, and they preyed upon the cringing natives in the valleys below, ever needful of raw material to fuel the endless wars they fought against one another.
The infant primarch was raised by one such overlord, Necare, the greatest of them all, who taught him the ways of war, yet would not answer his questions regarding the people who dwelled in the lowlands. When Mortarion defied his master and descended through the fog, which as a superhuman primarch he could breathe, he found people, like himself, if weaker and existing in perpetual terror of the overlords who preyed upon them each night.
Though they were initially suspicious of him, Mortarion proved himself one of their kind, and moulded them into an army that at first defied the hunting parties of the overlords, and then turned the tables upon them. At length, the only one left was he who had been Mortarion's master, the High Overlord Necare, residing so high in the toxic strata that not even Mortarion could pursue him.
When the Emperor came to Barbarus, the people greeted Him as their saviour, yet Mortarion was jealous and resentful of the adulation heaped upon this perfect stranger. Though his people could see that the Emperor was the primarch's sire, he himself saw only the differences. Where the stranger was noble of form and tanned of skin, Mortarion was pale and gaunt. When Mortarion refused to join Him, the Master of Mankind issued Mortarion a challenge -- if the primarch could defeat the last overlord of Barbarus, the Emperor would depart. If he could not, Mortarion must accept his fate and join the Great Crusade.
Mortarion accepted the Emperor's challenge and ascended into the toxic clouds, higher than he had ever travelled before. At length, he reached the grim keep of Necare and raged for the high overlord to face him.
The Emperor of Mankind sought to unite all of humanity under one banner following the Long Night of the Age of Strife, and end inter-human conflict. Once united, the Emperor intended to begin the next stage of His great plan to ensure human domination of the Milky Way Galaxy, which He judged to be necessary if humanity was to survive the never-ceasing threats to its existence embodied by Chaos, myriad xenos races and its own fragile human nature.
In time, when the Emperor's eye first began to fall beyond Terra, He began to raise new armies to fight His Great Crusade. He drew these new troops in part from the forces that had already unified Terra during the Unification Wars of the late 30th Millennium.
To carry out the Great Crusade and reunite all the scattered colony worlds of Mankind beneath the single banner of the Imperium of Man, the Emperor created the genetically-enhanced transhuman warriors of the Space Marine Legions. These forces would serve as the speartip of His Great Crusade that began in ca. 800.M30, bringing the light of the Imperial Truth and enforcing Imperial Compliance with the new regime on every human world encountered.
The origins of the Dusk Raiders can be found during the Unification Wars. The base human stock for the majority of the first Space Marine Legions to be raised came from Terra, and in the case of the XIVth Legion the main bulk of the gene-recruits used were drawn from the ancient and warlike clans of the islands of Old Albia on the continent of Europa.
Indeed such was the suitability of their peoples for induction into the ranks of the Space Marines that recruits were drawn also to fill the ranks of the First Founding VIIIth and Xth Legions, the Night Lords and the Iron Hands, respectively.
Although this was to a lesser degree than the recruitment done there by the XIVth Legion which was by blood and culture shaped by the the warlords and techno-barbarians of Albia as well as the hand of the Emperor.
The recruitment of the sons of Albia served a twofold purpose; firstly, and most importantly, it drew off the cream of whole generations of strength from a Terran realm, now friend and ally to the Imperium but never fully trusted. For Old Albia, towering amid the northern Atlan wilderness, had once been a true rival of the Emperor for control of the destiny of Mankind.
By recruiting their brightest and best into the Legiones Astartes and the other growing Imperial organisations marked for war amid the stars, the Emperor ensured they could never threaten the Unification from within. Secondly, it subsumed into the Emperor's forces all the martial traditions and bloodlines that had for centuries held much of Terra under their cruel grasp and had eventually overcome the Pan-Pacific Empire under the rule of its half-mad, half-genius tyrant Narthan Dume. Such a breed of relentless warlords and soldier-scientists was an invaluable resource that the Emperor was loathe to waste.
By the time the Unification Wars had begun, the warlord clans of Old Albia had thrown off the tyranny of the last descendants of the Unspeakable King, and did not readily bend their knee to the Emperor, for they refused to have another master in Dume's place. Instead the Albians met the Emperor's regiments of Thunder Warriors with their own battalions of steam-belching proto-Dreadnoughts and heavily armoured Ironside soldiers.
Before they were reunited with their Primarch, the Dusk Raiders conformed very closely to the standard raiment of arms and organisational patterns laid out for the early Space Marine Legions by the Imperial Officio Militaris. At its most fundamental level the Dusk Raiders Legion was organised around the principle of equipping its individual Space Marines as well as possible, so that they could endure and prevail against any foe encountered and operate for extended periods without resupply or support if necessary.
This dogma was the cornerstone of the XIVth Legion's way of war, and was built upon the foundations of independence and surety with which the Dusk Raiders had always fought. The Dusk Raiders are noted in the Imperial records of this period as maintaining a well-rounded capacity for unleashing multiple modes of warfare, although with some bias towards heavy assault formations and attritional engagements, as evidenced by the particular use of close-ranged weaponry within the Legion.
The Dusk Raiders Legion relied upon its infantry to provide its strategic strength, with the bulk of tactical fire support coming from heavily armed support squads, and later with considerable numbers of Terminators and Dreadnoughts providing reinforcement and an assault spearhead where needed.
Once Mortarion became the master of the XIVth Legion the Death Guard changed dramatically, including its arts of warfare. Mortarion was at his heart an infantryman, and in his Death Guard he saw the chance to perfect the principle of the utilitarian warrior on foot who could go anywhere, fight on any ground and destroy any enemy through resilience, resolve and implacable aggression.
As part of this doctrine, the Death Guard's squad formations were largely not static as in most Space Marine Legions of the time, but were formed, reformed and ordered as needed and as the given tactical situation required. To this end, a Death Guard Legionary was trained to be equally adept at any infantry role he might be called upon to perform on the battlefield rather than fighting at all times in a particular specialised role.
In this way, a Death Guard Astartes would act as a Tactical Marine in one battle, a heavy weapons fire support specialist in another and so on, with only Techmarines and other highly specialised occupations remaining wholly dedicated to a single tactical role.
The Death Guard was organised around the principles established by the Dusk Raiders and built upon the ways they had always fought. Bolter, Melta and Flamer became the Death Guard's trinity of weapons around which their wargear was based, keeping supply needs to a minimum. Other types of ranged weapons were deployed sparingly only as the tactical situation or nature of the enemy demanded.
Each Death Guard also carried a close combat blade as well, which included broad trench daggers, Warscythes and the heavy slashing Kukra native to Barbarus. Forged of dense black ceramsteel, these brutal and efficient weapons soon became the hallmark of the Astartes of the XIVth Legion.
This reliance on simple but effective tools of war was an outward manifestation of the cardinal belief held by the Legion that the Space Marine himself was the greatest of all weapons at the Imperium's disposal, a tireless engine of war before which any enemy would eventually succumb.
The Death Guard continued to rely throughout the Great Crusade almost exclusively on its infantry to provide its strategic strength, with the bulk of tactical support firepower coming from heavily armed support squads, and later from the Legion's considerable numbers of Terminators and Dreadnoughts, which provided reinforcement and assault spearheads where needed.
When the XIVth Legion was still known as the Dusk Raiders, its Astartes signature strategy had been to attack their foes at nightfall, thus earning them their Legion moniker. The Dusk Raiders' Power Armour was an unpainted slate grey in colour while their right arm and one or both shoulder plates were painted crimson.
This was done with the intent to symbolically show their enemies what they truly were -- the Emperor's red right hand, relentless and unstoppable. Many enemies would throw down their weapons the moment the sun dipped beneath the horizon rather than dare to fight them.
With the coming of Mortarion, the Legion's combat doctrines changed as the Death Guard became a single instrument of his will. The Death Guard came to believe that victory came through sheer relentlessness. Their weapons, while not ornate, functioned without flaw. They did not manoeuvre in fanciful patterns to confuse the enemy, instead they stood their ground and waited for the enemy assaults to falter before striking back with fatal force.
Any environment or situation Mortarion and his advisors could not compensate for, the Death Guard would overcome through sheer stubborn resilience and painful endurance. Mortarion had learned the art of warfare on a world almost covered in mountainous terrain, and even though his innate intellect allowed him to grasp the proper use of tanks and armoured vehicles, the primacy of the foot soldier remained the Death Guard's trademark. Each Space Marine was well-trained in a variety of infantry disciplines, and was able to function in almost any role or environment.
The Death Guard were arguably the most remorseless and among the most feared of the Space Marine Legions. This was not simply because of their power in battle or force of arms, but also because there seemed to be no loss they would not accept to ensure eventual victory and no hell they would not endure to reach their foe.
Although specialising in entrenched and attritional warfare, the Legion also had a number of formations and tactics that enabled it to operate in concentrated and crushing force in an attack -- one such was dubbed "The Reaping" by those who had fought alongside the Death Guard during the Great Crusade.
A heavily reinforced column of attack particularly suited to urban warfare and shattered landscapes, the Reaping was deliberately slow-moving and utterly murderous in its methodical assault pattern and, like the reaper's scythe, little escaped it.
After the Death Guard was transformed by the Plague God and turned into a Legion of Plague Marines, they preferred to engage in short-ranged firefights, where they could see the festering wounds inflicted upon their enemies whilst they shrugged off the bolts and las-blasts directed back at them. Their decaying brains are inured to the agony of the bodily corruption that runs rampant in their diseased carcasses, making them all but immune to the pain or discomfort caused by battle wounds.
When their enemies close within assault range, Plague Marines make use of their Blight Grenades and release the virulent toxins that they contain, which proceed to eat away at armour and fill the air with thick noxious clouds of blinding, pathogenic spores. The most virulent and flamboyant of these Blight Grenades are made from the severed, decaying heads of their fallen enemies.
It is of note that the Death Guard under Mortarion quickly became associated with the use of alchemical and radiation weaponry to a greater extent than any other Legion, further darkening their reputation with the Battle-Brothers of the other Legiones Astartes.
Barbarus was a Feral World which orbited near its dim yellow sun in the Segmentum Tempestus, which created a thick, miasmic atmosphere of toxic chemicals. The most virulent of these gases rose through Barbarus' perpetual clouds towards the heat of its star, making the world beneath a dismal place of night, unbroken by starlight and with short, shadowy days.
An atmosphere breathable by humans existed only in the lowest elevations, on flat moors and in the valley basins of the jagged, stony mountains which spined the world. Unknown alien beings immune to the toxic soup of the planet's higher atmosphere existed on Barbarus, building great keeps of grey stone in the mountain fastnesses.
When humans first settled Barbarus, the horrific environmental conditions from which they had to eke out survival quickly reduced them to a pre-feudal state. The higher beings' incomprehensible Warp-based powers, their ability to survive where humanity could not, and above all their hunger to prey upon, experiment with and accurse humankind, caused the settlers to ascribe to those beings a medieval supernaturalism.
Lore excerpt from Warhammer 40k Wiki on Fandom, available under CC BY-SA 3.0.
36 Death Guard datasheets on the current roster, each with its points, model statistics, keywords and abilities.
35 Death Guard datasheets that are no longer part of the current army roster. They are kept for reference and for players whose collections still contain the models.