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 Virulent Vectorium from the Death Guard.
The updated version of the Index Detachment for Death Guard, the Virulent Vectorium Detachment represents the basic "combined arms" form of the Death Guard, giving the army a way to sticky objectives and increase the value of units across the board.
Changelog
2025-12-17: Updated with Dataslate changes and a new list
2025-04-26: Initial Publication
Detachment Overview
This is your classic generalist Detachment for the Death Guard. It's got tools for everything in your army and just helps your guys do their thing more efficiently. Those who’ve played the index will find it familiar but its also pretty significantly different from the Index Detachment. The ability to sticky any objective is still just generically powerful, and the Detachments you have here give you a great mix of effects for infantry and vehicles.
The Video Version
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Detachment Rule: Worldblight
If you control an objective at the end of your Command phase and a Death Guard unit is on it, you keep control of it until your opponent takes it and until you lose it, that objective has the Nurgle’s Gift ability. For a slow and elite army like Death Guard this is a fantastic rule to have on hand. This will let you move your big bricks of dudes without worrying about who’s gonna stand around on the objective, and means you can safely walk off your home and keep moving forward inexorably.
The Nurgle’s Gift component is nice, but most of the time either anyone you want to be Afflicted will be, or your opponent will have stolen the objective from you. It's more like a fun additional effect, especially given that your Stratagems no longer key off of you or your opponent being within contagion range of an affected objective marker. That said, it's also easy to forget this ability and it can become relevant later in the game when your contagion range jumps to 9" so try to keep it in mind.
Credit - Mildnorman
Enhancements
Most of these Enhancements focus on buffing the individual character rather than the unit they're attached to. That said most of these are solid adds, if a bit expensive.
Daemon Weapon of Nurgle – Lets your character’s melee weapons score critical hits on 5+. This one is cheap and great to have on a Lord of Contagion, where it combines with his Manreaper's [LETHAL HITS] ability and the [SUSTAINED HITS 1] ability he gives to his unit. Lethal/Sustained 5+ is a huge benefit when you're going into a tougher target like a vehicle which Deathshroud can otherwise struggle with.
Furnace of Plagues – Increase the Strength and Attacks of a melee weapon by one and that weapon gains Devastating Wounds. This will take your Lord of Contagion to S10 and combines well with the -1 Toughness effect from Nurgle's Gift and his [LANCE] ability to really help him punch up and wound T10 units on 3+. Adding Dev Wounds is a nice bonus here. On a Daemon Prince it'll take him to S9 and let him punch up a bit better as well, but he's usually going to be taking Revolting Regeneration.
Arch Contaminator – If your unit is on an objective marker you control you can re-roll your wound rolls. This is fine on a Lord of Contagion and Deathshroud but amazing on a Lord of Poxes, where having a 6-attack sword with Devastating Wounds means that he can hit like a Chaos Lord when you control the objective he's on and your Plague Marines can pretend to be tougher, sexier Legionaries.
Revolting Regeneration – Gives the bearer a 5+ Feel No Pain. Your primary target for this is a Daemon Prince, giving you a T12, 15-wound mini-Mortarion. This is a huge upgrade in durability, functionally letting him act as a 15-wound model and making Leechspore Eruption that much more valuable when he gets low on wounds. This shows up in most, if not all, competitive Virulent Vectorium lists.
Credit: TheChirurgeon
Stratagems
The Virulent Vectorium gives you a diverse tool box of stratagems to use here. It's a shame the Tallyman is bad since you’ll want the extra CP. The good news is you have ample reason to take a Daemon Prince and his ability to discount a Stratagem is invaluable here for using Disgustingly Resilient every round.
Putrid Detonation (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – you can auto explode a Vehicle or Monster when it's destroyed and until the start of your next turn any enemy unit that took mortal wounds from your explosion is Afflicted. Being able to dish out some mortal wounds when it's favorable to you is a great trick to have in your back pocket. Shoving a Land Raider on its last legs or a beleaguered Mortarion into your opponent’s lines for a fun surprise is a really nasty move with this one. The Affliction rider is more of a nice-to-have due to its timing, but it can be really valuable for making sure an opponent isn't able to avoid being in Contagion Range next turn by killing one of your smaller vehicles, keeping them open for a Deathshroud deep strike.
Disgustingly Resilient (Battle Tactic, 2 CP) – the return of a classic, except now it works in either the Shooting or Fight phase, giving opponents' attacks -1 to their damage characteristic to a unit for the phase. This won't be useful all the time but when you can put it to use it can be absolutely devastating - there are a lot of damage 2 and 3 attacks in the game and making your terminators that much harder to remove will save games. This Stratagem is probably the biggest reason to have a Daemon Prince on hand - just to be able to use this every turn. It's insanely good on Mortarion, and combines with Leechspore Eruption to give you some of the game's most annoyingly durable units.
Plaguesurge (Epic Deed, 2 CP) – Used in your Command phase, targets your Warlord, and gives all your units +3” to their Contagion Range. This is expensive, but the effect is massive in those times when you need just a bit of extra range to pull of a key Deathshroud deep strike or kill a key unit. It targets your Warlord, so be sure to keep a Daemon Prince nearby to reduce the cost of this.
Leechspore Eruption (Epic Deed, 1 CP) – In your command phase you select a model that has lost wounds, pick an enemy within 3”, then roll a die for each missing wound it has and on a 5+ you do a mortal and you heal a wound, to a max of 6. This can really punish an opponent who didn’t quite kill Mortarion and is great for finishing off something that was in a grueling fight with him. The fact that it heals is nuts, and it's amazing on Mortarion. There are few things in the game more demoralizing than getting back 4-5 wounds on Mortarion or a Daemon Prince and killing a nearby enemy unit in the process.
Overwhelming Generosity (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used in the Shooting phase. Select an enemy unit visible to one of yours; until the end of the phase any time it's targeted with ranged attacks you can re-roll the dice for the number of shots. There are a bunch of different ways to use this, but it's great on Deathshroud, big units of Plague Marines with a Blightspawn, and on Defilers and PBCs. It's also great in concert with the Lord of Virulence. You want this for your Bloat-Drones and Deathshroud, mostly.
Creeping Blight (Wargear, 1 CP) – Used in the Shooting phase on a single Death Guard unit to give full re-rolls to hit and wound against an Afflicted target. This is, in a word, nuts. It's a great way to dramatically boost the output of a single unit against something you casually tagged with a Plague Marine unit, and is the closest you're going to get to having Oaths of Moment. Blightlords love this one as it lets them operate without a Lord of Virulence.
Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones
Playing This Detachment
This is a versatile Detachment and as a result there are a few different ways you can play it. Having army-wide sticky objectives means you can be more aggressive with your units, sticking objectives early and moving forward without having to worry about holding those objectives unless an opponent is able to deep strike onto them later. Death Guard armies really don't want to move backward and stickying an objective with poxwalkers on turn 1 can create real problems for an opponent if they can't make it over to that objective to un-sticky it later.
Your biggest threats here are going to be enemy armies with lots of deep strike and uppy-downy shenanigans, as they're going to force you to actually sit on the objectives you've touched instead of moving off them and continuing on into the opponent's lines. Keep an eye out for units that can just pop up behind you and be ready to take them out at a distance - your units are easily kited most of the time.
There are two key ways to play it, depending on whether or not you want to bring Mortarion to the party.
Because this Detachment has a lot of good all-rounder effects, plus Disgustingly Resilient, it tends to be the place you want to bring Mortarion. And if you're bringing Mortarion and planning to use Disgustingly Resilient often, you'll want a Daemon Prince to give him cover and reduce the incoming damage, in which case you'll want to give him Revolting Regeneration so he can act as a kind of "second Mortarion."
These lists tend to push forward aggressively with Mortarion, using his mortal wounds aura and reactive move abilities to make the rest of your army more mobile while letting his insane durability act as a deterrent for enemy units. If an opponent has to overcommit to killing Mortarion while the rest of your army takes them apart, you win. If they undercommit and he lives and you get to dice him up, you win. If they ignore him and you're able to throw him into their lines and cause problems, you win. It's a solid strategy and works well when supported by Deathshrouds and Bloat-drones, with Poxwalkers to sticky objectives and do actions.
That said, Mortarion isn't invincible, so you'll need to be careful about when and how you use him. You don't want him exposed turn 1 to insane amounts of firepower; you want him to be baiting out key threats and forcing an opponent to make bad decisions. When an opponent does decide to go after him, you want it to be a trap, so ideally it's when Mortarion is in a place where he can't be seen by your opponent's entire army, only some portion of it who can fail to get the job done. And always keep up the CP for Disgustingly Resilient.
The other popular way to play this Detachment is to replace Mortarion with units of Plaguemarines in Rhinos, where you have multiple deadly units that can range around the table and put out some devastating shooting when they get out of the transport. Having these gives you a lot more versatility, and you'll want to support them with characters like Biolgus Putrifiers, Malignant Plaguecasters (who love to shoot out of Rhino Firing Decks), and Foul Blightspawn. Depending on your strategy, either ten- or five-man units are perfectly viable. Running Plague Marines frees you up a bit more to rely less on Deathshroud, making them more expendable. That said, you may still want them for their ability to constantly threaten an opponent's backfield and forcing them to keep something back.
Strengths
All-rounder. This Detachment has tools that help everything in the army.
Board Control. You have some fantastic board control tools here and having sticky objectives with everything means that once you hold something, an opponent has to come take it back.
Mortal Wound output. Great mortal wound output through Putrid Detonation and Leechspore Eruption
Weaknesses
CP Hungry. Having two different Stratagems that cost 2 CP means you’ll be hungry for CP a lot of time.
Melee buffs. Most of your tools here are utility pieces rather than buffs to your damage output.
Movement. While you can move off objectives there's not much here to help you get around the table.
Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones
Sample Lists
We mentioned two different ways to run this Detachment, and we're going to show off lists that represent each.
Aaron Hrmstedt's List
A version with Mortarion. This list is deceptively simple, but Aaron took it to a 7-0, first place finish at the Show Me Showdown event in mid-November, beating Custodes, World Eaters, Eldar, Space Marines, Drukari, Genestealer Cults, and Necrons along the way.
Aaron's List - Click to Expand
More Spoiled Than My Cat (2000 points)
Death Guard
Strike Force (2000 points)
Virulent Vectorium
CHARACTERS
Daemon Prince of Nurgle (215 points)
• 1x Hellforged weapons
1x Infernal cannon
• Enhancement: Revolting Regeneration
Lord of Contagion (130 points)
• 1x Manreaper
• Enhancement: Daemon Weapon of Nurgle
Lord of Virulence (100 points)
• 1x Power fist
1x Twin plague spewer
Exported with App Version: v1.43.1 (103), Data Version: v708
This is a remarkably versatile, with a great ranged punch and good melee options into both vehicles and infantry hordes. The three drones and two Blight-Haulers give you great cheap threats that can challenge vehicles and monsters and range wide, and the Deathshroud and Drones can scythe through infantry units. Mortarion does equally well at both. You're a fairly elite army but you still have 13 drops, or 11 after the Deathshroud go into reserves with their attached characters, and that gives you a larger amount than many armies to work with.
The key thing here is your Poxwalkers. You really don't want to lose all of those early. In my experience ranging forward aggressively with two is the correct move, but you want to hold onto your third, both to protect the Daemon Prince with lone Operative and to do actions later in the game. That said, the Fleshmower is your alternative action unit in a pinch.
Gabriel Nixon's List
Now for a Plague Marine version. Gabriel took this list to a 4-0-1 first-place finish at the Get a Life GT in Georgia in early December, beating Genestealer Cults, Leagues of Votann, Daemons, and Marines along the way and tying Admech.
Gabriel's List - Click to Expand
grant me sticky in my hour of Need (1995 points)
Death Guard
Strike Force (2000 points)
Virulent Vectorium
Exported with App Version: v1.45.0 (105), Data Version: v720
Mortarion has been replaced here with 25 Plague Marines in Rhinos and some characters while the Deathshroud have been swapped out for Predator Destructors. The list runs lighter on Poxwalkers but has plenty of mobility to make up for that and the "naked" unit of plaguemarines (you'll want a putrifier and a plaguecaster on the 10-man unit) start on the table and act as protection for the Daemon Prince, who needs a nearby INFANTRY unit for lone operative. The Plague Marine units may be less durable overall than Mortarion but they can hit harder between shooting and fighting. Your big threat with them will be Gatling Despoilers so be sure to keep Disgustingly Resilient handy.
Final Thoughts
With the nerfs to Flyblown Host and Plagueburst Crawler point hikes more or less taking Flyblown Host and Mortarion's Hammer lists out of top contention, Virulent Vectorium has emerged as more or less the most competitive way to run Death Guard. The good news is that the detachment offers a lot of options for play style and makes for great all-comers lists. If you’re looking to try out the faction and see what it can do, definitely start here.
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Credit - Mildnorman
Credit: TheChirurgeon
Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones
Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones
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