In our Detachment Focus series we take a deep dive into an army’s Detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games. In this Detachment Focus we’re looking at the Champions of Contagion from the Death Guard.

The new Death Guard codex provides a ton of different ways to play the army. Champions of Contagion gives you a Detachment that wants you to take a bunch of characters and plague marines to go with them. If you want to run a lot of Marines, this one’s for you.

Changelog

• 2025-12-18 (Current): Updated with new point costs and new lists
• 2025-04-26: Initial publication

Detachment Overview

This Detachment is all about attached units and giving you more flexibility with your plagues. Between the Detachment ability, your enhancements, and your stratagems, you have a bunch of ways to cycle between what plague will be most valuable at any given moment. In addition, it has a lot of support for units with characters attached to them and buffs all your power armor characters in various ways. The Death Guard have a number of very solid characters and good units for them to attach to, making this an attractive and competitive option for Death Guard.

The Video Version

If you’d like to watch a video version of this Detachment Focus, we’ve got you covered here:

Detachment Rule: Manifold Maladies

At the start of the battle round, you can select one of the plagues listed in the Nurgle's Gift rule to be your chosen plague instead of anyone previously listed.

This is powerful but won't always provide a huge benefit - you'll often have a "correct" choice for the opponent, usually -1 to saves or -1 to be hit, and then the other ability may not matter so much depending on your opponent's army and your ability to be in Contagion range. Most of the time you're taking -1 to saves because Death Guard shooting can be kind of anemic when it comes to AP; swapping at the start of the Battle Round makes it difficult to do tricky swaps that let you benefit from two different contagions. But if you're going second then being able to swap to Scabrous Soulrot - giving an opponent -1 to their OC and Leadership - late in the game can be huge, letting you flip and maintain control of objectives in the game's final turns.

The real power here instead comes from being able to double up on Plagues via Stratagems and an Enhancement. Final Ingredient in particular does a lot of heavy lifting, and it's having both -1 to be hit and -1 to saves that really makes your army sing.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Enhancements

The Enhancements here each target a different power armor character. The must-take is Final Ingredient, as the other characters either aren't really worth taking, or can't use their enhancement most of the time.

• Final Ingredient – This one’s for the Biologus Putrifier. Once per battle, if its unit kills a character in melee you can select a Plague and it is active for your army for the rest of the game. This is a huge bonus - The combo of -1 to hit and -1 to save even when one isn’t particularly optimal is great to have. As an added bonus, it's on a character you already want to take in pretty much any army with Plague Marines.
• Visions of Virulence – This is the Malignant Plaguecaster’s enhancement. When they hit something with Pestilental Fallout, they’re also Afflicted. This is fine considering he’ll most likely be with plague marines to get two units when they activate or run them solo for an annoying guy hopping out of a rhino.
• Needle of Nurgle – Here’s the one for the Plague Surgeon. When they use their ability, you return D3 models to a unit instead of 1. It's not quite enough to get the Plague Surgeon over when you can just take the better buffing units instead.
• Cornucophagus – Last up is the Lord of Poxes’ enhancement. When you declare your initial Plague, you also declare one for this model, and he has it for the rest of the game. This can be great for the same reason as Final Ingredient is but it's a bit less flexible and it's attached to a character you aren't likely to take. 

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Stratagems

The Stratagems here are all focused on units with attached characters, meaning that you'll need to pay that tax for every unit in your army, and also that you'll need to keep them alive. But while these seem like they're made for Plague Marines with attached power armor characters, they work just fine with Deathshroud Terminators, and that's where you get some very nasty output.

• Blessings of Filth (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – In the shooting phase or fight phase you select an Attached unit to get crits on 5’s for the phase. There’s a reason the Biologus Putrifier is so good and being able to use this on Deathshroud Terminators with an attached Lord of Contagion is what really makes this sing. Having a 6-model unit of Deathshroud who can throw out 24 attacks with 5+ lethal/sustained is insanely strong, and that's before you factor in [LANCE] and the Lord of Contagion's attacks.
• Malignance Magnified (Battle Tactic, 2 CP) – Used in the Shooting or Fight phase, one Attached unit gets full hit and wound rerolls if you target a unit below half strength. It's a big hoop to jump through and a lot of CP, but a powerful effect. It's fantastic with the Lord of Poxes, letting you fish for devastating wounds, or just generally good if you're trying to kill something big with Plague Marines and an attached Biologus Putrifier. 2 CP is a lot to spend on killing one unit, though.
• Grotesque Fortitude (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Select an Attached unit and it gains +2 toughness for the phase. This is a great defensive strat on everyone. T8 Plague Marines are nice, but consider T9 Deathshroud or T6 Poxwalkers with Typhus as some of your nastiest targets for this. You'll need this when your Plague Marines go up against double gatling Despoilers.
• Rabid Infusion (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – This can only be used on a unit with two characters, so no luck for Terminators. For 1 CP you give the unit Fights First. This is always handy, especially with the Foul Blightspawn’s ability moving to once per game. The use-case here is a ten model unit of Plague Marines with a Biologus Putrifier and a Malignant Plaguecaster. Giving up the Blightspawn for the Plaguecaster doesn't feel nearly so bad when you can replace his ability as needed for 1 CP.
• Mobile Vector (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – This is a weird one. In your Movement phase you pick a Death Guard Character unit from your army that isn't leading a unit and a Death Guard unit within 2" of them that doesn't have a CHARACTER leading it (there's a worthless clause for having two leaders here, the rule is poorly written), and it can attach to that unit as a Leader. This is very limited in scope. There are not a lot of times where you’re gonna have a unit with no characters and a lone character near each other, but the most likely scenario is when one unit of Deathshroud is killed and its Lord of Contagion stands back up and can join another unit of Deathshroud which did not have a character.
• Death’s Heads (Wargear, 1 CP) – Pick a Biologus Putrifier in your Shooting phase and select a unit within 8”. Until the start of your next turn that unit is under the effects of all three plagues. This one’s fire - being able to impose that many debuffs on something for just 1 CP is a deal you can’t get anywhere else. Use it to drop -1 to saves on a key target or protect yourself from a melee threat with -1 to hit. 

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Playing This Detachment

This is the detachment that most wants one or two big units of Plague Marines, and you're always going to want them with an attached Blightspawn sporting Final Ingredient - you want that to kick off early so you can rock two Plagues - and a Malignant Plaguecaster for Sustained Hits and the added shooting. You always want them in a Rhino for the extra mobility, durability, and added damage output the turn they disembark.

After that, your options are pretty open. Yes, you can absolutely run another big unit of Plague Marines and go hard on a Rhino Rush strategy, but Deathshroud Terminators are extremely good in this Detachment as well and they're just one of the game's best units besides. You want at least one full-size unit with a Lord of Contagion to blow through enemy units and most lists will want a second unit with a Lord of Contagion, though two six-man units is likely overkill.

As tempting as it can be to try and make lots of weird character combinations work here, the most competitive options are going to focus on getting the most out of the faction's best units and not going too hard on making janky strategies work. That unfortunately means you'll be leaving the Plague Surgeon, Lord of Poxes, and Noxious Blightbringer at home most of the time, barring an irresponsible drop in their point costs. The good stuff is good enough here.

From there, you have more options than you think. While yes, your core Stratagems are based around attached units, you can only use so many of those and the Death Guard have a ton of great vehicles to work with, so your best play is taking a small core of large, elite units which can do real damage and weather some return fire and supporting them with some of the game's nastiest vehicles. Bloat-drones, Blight Haulers, and Predators have just as much of a home here as they do in other Death Guard lists.

Strengths

• Lots of Flexibility. The ability to cycle between plagues is pretty great, and the ability to stack them makes them that much better. 
• Support for Stuff You Were Doing Anyway. You were always gonna have characters attached to your infantry, and this Detachment provides some great buffs to those units.
• Great Stratagems. Death’s Heads and Grotesque Fortitude are fantastic tools to have in your back pocket and the rest outside Mobile Vector are all valuable too.

Weaknesses

• You Usually Only Need One Plague. There is almost always a right choice for your plagues so switching between them doesn’t always have a ton of value.
• Too Focused. The laser focus on attached units means all of your units in this Detachment will have inflated costs with them if they want to benefit.
• Assassination. This list opens you way up for assassination as a secondary since you’ll be taking so many characters.

Credit: Gerald Miller

Sample Lists

While Champions of Contagion isn't the most competitive option for Death Guard, it's certainly good enough to compete at high levels, and we've seen Champions lists put up good results recently.

Jensen Simmons' List

Jenson took this list to a 4-0-1 , third place finish at the Rise of the Empire event in mid December. It's particularly noteworthy for taking advantage of the reduced cost on the Death Guard Land Raider, suddenly giving the army a much more reasonable cost on the durable weapons platform. Jensen beat Chaos Knights, T'au, Salamanders, and Ultramarines before tying Chaos Space Marines in the final round.



The big thing here is that Land Raider. And let me start by saying: Unlike the Rhino, nothing has to go in it. That Rhino will always be holding the ten-man Plague Marine unit (with a Plaguecaster and Putrifier attached), but you won't always need to put Deathshrouds in the Land Raider. One reason Death Guard haven't played Land Raiders much isn't so much the cost as it is the fact that Deathshroud Terminators can typically just be wherever they want with their 6" teleport. The big exception is that it's typically harder to fit that six-model unit into a tight space, even with a 6" deep strike range, so they're your natural choice for the Land Raider here.

When playing this list Jensen tends to put the Lord of Contagion with the 6-model unit in the Land Raider and the two three-man units into Deep Strike. The Land Raider is tough enough to eat some fire at mid table and gives you some extra lascannons to work with while projecting a huge plague aura and the ability to move, get out, and charge gives the Deathshroud inside some very good range they don't normally have, reducing your need to rely on Deep Strike.

Alex Miller's List

Alex took this list to a 5-0, first place finish at the Winter Warlords event in early December, beating Deamons, Eldar, T'au, Thousand Sons, and Adepta Sororitas on the way.



You want lots of Plague Marines in your Champions list? You got it. This list runs two full Rhinos, each with a Putrifier and a Plaguecaster for maximum support and the ability to fire off Rabid Infusion for Fights First. There's a Tallyman for extra CP here who may or may not be attached to the Plague Marines as the situation dictates, three Drones for ranged support and rather than mess with Deathshroud Alex has instead opted for Mortarion, who won't get much support but typically doesn't need much. Mortarion makes the units around him better, and Plague Marines really like being able to shoot back or use a reactive move.

Final Thoughts

This turned out to be a very solid Detachment with some interesting strategies. It helps that it benefits your Deathshroud Terminators, since those end up being the backbone of many competitive Death Guard lists. Whether you can make this work with lots of Plague Marines will depend heavily on what the meta looks like and how much S6 2-damage shooting is heading your way, but running it as a combined arms army is a very strong option. The Detachment ability here is a bit less powerful overall than what you get in Vectorium or Hammer, but the versatility you get an the Stratagems go a long way toward making up for it.

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