Game System: Warhammer 40K
Army Type: Chaos Space Marines
Army Name: Death Guard

When and why did you start collecting this particular army?
There were a few dabblings into chaos in my younger years, but nothing too serious. I played Epic a lot when I was younger, and had a chaos army. I loved some of the characterful upgrades you could give followers of Nurgle, like cloud of flies or incredible flatulence, so collected a Nurgle heavy army. As I started to play 40k more I collected Legion of the Damned instead. Black armour, skulls and flames was hard to resist! Then, somewhat appropriately, while bedridden with illness and really very bored, I decided to collect a Death Guard Army. I got my hands on a Great Unclean One, a handful of Chaos Terminators some Plague Marines and an old Land Raider (when it wasn't the old Land Raider), and the rest is history. They aren't my first army, nor the easiest to use, but they are the most characterful, so I think they are my favourite.

What particular things about the army do you like?
The resilience of the Death Guard is fantastic. A squad can shrug off small arms fire like nothing else. A toughness value of 5 and Power Armour are a great combination. But there are two things that I like more about them. The first is the character that the army has. The background that has been developed for the plague marines (indeed for all Chaos Marines) is just great. I am constantly finding inspiration for new projects or new ideas just from looking through new and old army books, White Dwarf articles and whatever else I can get my hands on. The ideas for converting is almost limitless, which leads nicely to the other thing I like about the Death Guard.....
I just really enjoy the conversion possibilities. Ancient, corrupt marines fighting alongside ancient, corrupt vehicles. Throw in some daemonic mutation and some nurgles rot and you have a fun army to convert.

What things (if any) do you not like about the army, or the way it plays?
Fearless marines with a Toughness of 5 and a 3+ save had to have a downside. The Death Guard armies have several things that disadvantage them. The first is points cost. If you collect an exclusively Death Guard army, you will be outnumbered by everyone. That isn't necessarily too bad on it's own, but the other disadvantage really puts the pressure on the army.
The second disadvantage is the lack of fast attack choices. Death Guard have none, unless you count troops in transports, so altough they have a high resilience, they are forced to test it while footslogging across the board. There are some armies that Death Guard are going to suffer against, and a long ranged shooty army is one. My biggest loss of the tournament (20-0) was aginst Luke Pearce's awesome shooty space marines. Those guys (and Luke!) gave my Death Guard an absolute thrashing, shooting anything quick in the first couple of turns, leaving the rest of the army stranded, looking down the barrel of a lot of high strength, low AP weapons. It was messy.
Another thing that Death Guard lack is heavy weapons, There are a few ways around this, but Death guard will never have a devastator squad equivalent.
And although all of these things are considered disadvantages when compared to a standard army, I don't dislike having these limitations. I understand that they need these things for army balance, as well as character.

Has your view about the two previous questions changed over the course of your time playing with them?
I've always liked the conversion possibilities involved with a dedicated Nurgle force. They quite literally ooze character.
As for the things I don't like about the way it plays; I guess they are things that I have noticed while playing in or preparing for the tournament. Up until recently I've only ever used them in friendly games, and the weaknesses only become obvious to me when preparing for more serious games, and thinking more seriously about how to use them. Fast attack choices (or at least fast mooving troops) are fairly important in tournaments, as quite a few of the missions involve taking objectives, table quaters or similar. Quite often a game can be close until the last turn, until one player suddenly moves all of their fast units onto objectives and end up with a reasonable win. This can be difficult for an army that relies on infiltration and footslogging.

What is your style of play with this army?
The death Guard are a rapid fire or closer army, and I've always played them like that. There are a few tactical nuances that I might have changed, but essentially I've always played them the same: run them forward, blaze away with bolters, and assault whatever is left. I have given as many of them the Infiltrate skill as I could, so they were able to close with the enemy sooner. The Lord has Daemonic Speed, so can close in for the kill before the rest of the army, but I didn't want to make him too over the top, so avoided giving him too many gifts. I tooled him up enough to be a nuisance, and perhaps wipe out a squad or two, but most countercharge units should be able to deal with him, stopping him from being a match winner on his own. I like my troops to win my battles. My Plague marine squads are all the chosen number of nurgle (7 marines) so get the free champion upgrade. My unit champions usually have a power fist, and all squads have plasma guns, melta guns or both. These guys can be lethal up close. I've also modelled icon bearers in each squad, some are the champions, others are the squad members, depending on what took my fancy at the time. These guys summon the plaguebearers so as a result I'm usually trying to close with the enemy pretty quickly in the first couple of turns and really put the pressure on.

Which are your favourite units to play with?
There are quite a few units that I really enjoy watching in a game. Provided I don't roll a lot of 1's and 2's I love the basic death guard themselves. They can stand in front of what seems like a ridiculous amount of firepower, and shrug it off before assaulting. They're great.
Also I just love the Lord with the manreaper. He can charge into a huge squad of basic troops and whittle them down. Charging off into insurmountable odds and (sometimes) coming out on top just creates a cool narrative for the battle (even if he does get shot by a lascannon once he's finished them off!).

What are your favourite units/Characters to have modelled or painted?
My favourite model has to be the lord. I made him from a plastic marine torso and arms, an old beast of nurgle, some plague marine bits (head and shoulder pad), a few choice items from some plastic tomb king troops, a paperclip for the weapon shaft (and to hold him together) and a liberal amount of greenstuff. He was just great fun to make, and it was good to see him slowly coming together.

I also need to mention the chaos spawn that I made. I wanted these guys to look really nurgle-like, and I didn't really think that the currently available ones did that. Rather convert them I created my own, looking like floating bloated corpses that the warping power of the sorceror had created.

Another item that was fun to work on was the land raider. I've had that things for years, and was always looking for a way to bring it more into line with the current model range. I was happy for it to look older than the current land raiders, but really needed to upgrade the weapons and give it an assault ramp. I was moping around in Area 52 one day, complaining about how I was working on it and wasn't able to modernise it enough, when Heath ducked off somewhere and came back with some Land Raider weapons and ramp that he had lying around. After I thanked him about 3 or 4 hundred times I raced home and got to work. It contains all sorts of bits now, including fairly obscure items like kitty litter and cardboard, but as far as centrepieces for my army go, it's just what I was after. Also it has a lot of sentimental value, being so old, and I'm glad to be using it again rather than leaving it sitting in the cupboard. Still crushing loyalists under it's tracks after all these years; how fitting!

What are your plans for this army in the future?
With regards to tourneys I'll probably leave them on the backburner for a while. I have a few different things that I'd like to try and work on, and I feel like I'm ready for something other than power armour. However some of the models from this army might appear as a part of a Lost and the Damned force, I'll just have to see what takes my fancy.
There are certainly no shortage of future plans for this army though. A few things that I'd like to make the army more competitive are a predator (possibly converting the old style rhino unless I can find another one somewhere), another dreadnought (or some different weaponry at least) and some terminators. From a modelling perspective I'd love to do some posessed. I think it would be great fun to work on some plaguebearer/plague marine crosses, and I have quite a few ideas I'd like to try.
Also I'd love to work on some sort of Great Unclean one/Defiler conversion. I'm not sure exactly what is involved yet, but I think it will be something pretty slimy with a big battle cannon.

Is there something that makes this army stand out from others of its type?
I guess this army is unlike other Chaos armies in that it's a pure Death Guard army. This means that it lacks certain troop types, but makes up for it with it's highly resilient and fearless troops. I've also included a few items in the army list that mightn't make it into other Death Guard lists. My Land raider for example is really in the list because it's more of an old friend that because of it's battlefield prowess. Although against the right opponent it can be great, but at other times it just gets taken out early on without even drawing much fire. But I just like having the model in there, and will probably always use it.

I've tried to make the colouring my own as well, while still referencing the historic colours of the Death guard. Before they turned to chaos the Death Guard marines wore white power armour with a green trim, and I've tried to represent this on my army by giving them a fairly slimy looking off white colour, with green shoulder guards. Like they never got around to repainting their armour, they just got it really, really dirty.

What background and theme have you created for this force?
Background wise, I'm really just starting to develop a picture for my army. I have a few names for the main characters and vehicles, but since the army has been re-organised for the tournament I haven't really come up with a lot.
I like the idea of this army being a small, self contained force, who make their way onto a planet in secret and begin a campaign of despair, poisoning water supplies, disrupting supplies causing famine and that sort of thing. Agents of the apocalypse or something. This ties in with the heavy infiltration theme that the army has, so it is probably something I will develop further with time. In the Medusa V campaign these guys were doing exactly that, infiltrating and disrupting wherever they could.
However another thing that I imagine them doing is either bending the local population to their will, or answering the call of cultists, further disrupting a warzone. To this end I imagine that the army would fragment into much smaller warbands, and take command of local militia or traitor Imperial Guard regiments. This is a theme that I'm currently developing and working on, hopefully in time for the 2007 state championships.