STARTING A DEATH GUARD ARMY IN 11TH EDITION: ROT MARCHES AT ITS OWN PACE
If deadlines stress you out, the Death Guard are your people — an army for 11th edition that rewards patience, texture, and the slow grind. Nurgle's chosen sons don't rush anywhere: they trudge, they endure, they outlast. And as a hobby project they are astonishingly forgiving. Rust, grime, drips, and blemishes aren't mistakes on a Death Guard model — they're the point. Every technique that terrifies a new painter, from washes pooling to chipped edges, actively improves these miniatures. It's the rare faction where your tenth model looks great and your first one still fits right in beside it.
The first box
Start with the current Combat Patrol-style set. Death Guard starters are dependably built around Plague Marines — the bloated, split-armoured Terminators of decay that define the faction — usually with a character and a mob of Poxwalkers shambling along in support. Poxwalkers deserve special mention: they're the cheapest, fastest painting win in the army. Base skin tone, heavy wash, drybrush, done — and twenty of them on a table communicates "plague outbreak" better than any single hero could.
The second infection
With a painted core, spread the contagion sideways. A Foetid Bloat-drone gives you a floating horror that breaks up the infantry silhouette and paints up in a weekend. More Plague Marines are never wrong — they're the army. A Terminator-armoured character or an elite squad adds punch, and Typhus, Host of the Destroyer Hive, is both a beautifully grim kit and a natural leader for your Poxwalker herds. On the edition itself, keep it simple: 11th edition refreshed points and datasheets across the range, and starter boxes rotate over time, so check the current points before locking in a list.
Recommended: Foetid Bloat-drone
The Death Lord himself
Mortarion. There is no other answer. The Daemon Primarch of the Death Guard is one of the largest, most spectacular character kits Games Workshop makes — tattered wings, censers, scythe, the works. He is also a genuine multi-week painting project, which is exactly why he should be your reward, not your beginning. Paint the garden first; then let its keeper descend.
Purchases to defer
- Mortarion before a single Plague Marine is finished — the Death Lord does not lead grey plastic.
- A third squad of anything while the first two sit unbuilt; rot spreads, it doesn't stockpile.
- Every daemon engine variant at once — adopt one pet, learn to love it, then expand the menagerie.
- Fancy texture paints and weathering kits beyond the basics; Nurgle's look is technique, not products.
Tallying the garden
Nurgle is the god of cycles, and the healthiest hobby cycle is a simple one: log each kit when it arrives and mark it plainly as boxed, built, or finished. The Death Guard practically paint themselves once momentum starts, and watching that finished column swell — like something left too long in a warm cupboard — is what keeps the brush moving. For the complete catalogue of everything the Plague God's legion can field, visit the Death Guard faction page under Data.