Death guard or Emperor's Children? Help the indecisive.

[jtm]

I'm currently torn between choosing Emperor's Children or Death guard (or even the marks) as my new army. Both appeal to me on different levels and I'm having a horrible time trying to make up my mind.

I like shooting things and eventually assaulting. Both armies are good at that.

I plan on fielding lots of troops, both armies allow me to that.

I'm stuck in the middle and neither side is gaining any ground, can any of you help me? Talk about the pros and cons, what they are good at, anything would help really.

[Andusciassus]

Well, now that you know what you want, what can you not live without?

[jtm]

Hmm good question. I can't live without troops who can hold their own in close combat. I can't live without having a solid base of marines. I can't live without the flexibility to try new things, configurations, tatics, strategy etc, don't want something that says "do it this way always, it's the only way". That's pretty much it. I've always played infantry (troop choices) heavy with some heavy support to back them up.

I'm coming from being a space marine player who usually took a lot of tactical squads and played using the dark angels for awhile. I wanted the survivability of a space marine, but not the equipment restrictions. Such as tactical squads not being able to have pistols and ccw unless you take a trait etc. With chaos I can do whatever I want for the most part, CSM can have pistols and ccw, or bolters, or if you're plague marines you get bolters and ccw.

[Andusciassus]

If you are looking for diversity and the opportunity to field diferent units then I think Slaanesh would suit you better as they have a wider range of units as well as weapons at their disposal.

[jtm]

I gave it a quick play test and it seems that striking first with EC is required otherwise you will get overwhelmed. Felt like an all or nothing last stand type thing rather than a normal assault. With the death guard you lack long range fire power, but it makes you realise that bolters are actually half way decent weapons and it gave me that kind of mass of infantry feel I was going for.

[MouseC112]

Before you sell yourself either way think about it a little while. I've always viewed an army as a commitment. I have my Eldar and IW in 40K. Both forces are well over 4000pts and are hardly done. I have felt half the fun of 40K is getting into your army, and into the fluff. Nurgle vs Slaanesh are different worlds for tactics. Plus the daemons are vastly different and the weapon options very different.

Trust me from experience, i want a chaos army from each major sect, have i done... no. However, i'm planning on doing a Khorne army and maxing it at 1000 pts.

My best advice would be, think about your target goal for your force, where do you want to end with it, and what do you want it to do. Do you want to fight a war of attritions and stand in there with bolters and come out on top? If you get charged are you more concerned with swinging first, or knowing that most armies only wound you on a 5+? If your summoning a greater daemon do you want a Sadistic and pleasure seeking horned monster, or do you want a beer guzzling and farting beast who will plague your opponent to death?

if you building an army for fun and don't care about fluff your gonna be in good condition either way, but if your putting in the investment to truly dig deep and make a ARMY not a RAIDING FORCE really give it some thought

[jtm]

Up to this point I had been playing space marines, and I had no goal in mind really, just got stuff that seemed neat and went from there. After thinking about fluff and a few quick paint schemes, and a few quick playtests it really cleared up the decision. List wise I'm going to choose the death guard, the battle of attrition suits my playstyle and it's how I currently play. Plus death guard would be a lot more fun to model and convert, I have lots of skeletons and zombie bits lying around from my vampire counts army. Fluff wise being the "grim reaper" and bringing the black plaque appeals to me a lot more than the antics of those slaanesh guys.

[Wolf_Pack]

Why not play both? You can have either mark on your general to access is dedicated Chaos Space Marines as troops, and use the other as elite choices!

I play nrugle myself, and convertions are one of the biggest pros of the army, great modeling opportunities here.

[chaotic scotty]

i think nurgle's better, at toughness 5, lasguns hit on a 6!! this increases the overall resilience of your army,also true grit is a very good ability as well. if i would take two, i'd take nurgle and khorne.

[Scuba T]

I am a nurgle player, and I've got to tell you, that as long as money isn't an issue, use them. They cost just as much, are harder to kill, and can easily hold back most assaults if you give them an AC with powerfist. Plus, any unit with MoN is amazingly tough. My possesed squad of five can last a full shooting phase against a fully tooled eldar army. That's tough.