Flyblown Host: The 11th-Edition Death Guard Plague Marine Detachment

One sentence: in the Declare Battle Formations step, you can select up to two friendly PLAGUE MARINES units, and those units have Infiltrators.

That is the entire detachment rule. Three things follow from it, and each of them is a claim you will see made about this detachment that the pack does not support:

• It grants Infiltrators, and nothing else. Not Scouts, not Stealth, not the Benefit of Cover.
• It applies to up to two units, not to your army and not to a keyword.
• It applies to PLAGUE MARINES units specifically. Not Terminators, not characters on their own, not Poxwalkers.

What it buys you is real, though. Death Guard's central weakness is that everything, including the aura, arrives late. Two Plague Marines squads deployed outside your deployment zone are two squads that are already Afflicting enemy units in battle round one, when Contagion Range is only 3 inches and your other units are nowhere near anything. If you are running a detachment that pays per Afflicted unit, that is worth considerably more than it looks.

A leader attached to an infiltrating unit deploys with it, since Infiltrators is a unit ability and an Attached unit deploys as one unit, but confirm the current Core Rules wording before you plan a game around a specific character being up the board.

The pack states in the rule text itself that this detachment has the FLYBLOWN tag and cannot be taken with another FLYBLOWN detachment. The Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 says the tag has been removed. That conflict gets its own section below.

Three, all 1CP, and all three name PLAGUE MARINES rather than the detachment, so they only ever help the unit type the rule is written for.

• Nauseating Paroxysms (start of the Fight). Target one friendly engaged PLAGUE MARINES unit, then select one enemy unit engaged with it; that unit makes a battle-shock roll with -1. Note the timing: it is at the start of the phase, so a broken unit is broken before it swings.
• Droning Horror (your Shooting). When a friendly PLAGUE MARINES unit is selected to shoot, its ranged attacks can re-roll hit rolls of 1, and attacks against a unit within half range can also re-roll wound rolls of 1. Two effects for one command point, and the better half needs you to be close.
• Eye of the Swarm (your Shooting). When a friendly PLAGUE MARINES unit is selected to shoot, its ranged attacks have [CLOSE-QUARTERS].

The pattern is consistent and it tells you how to play the detachment: every stratagem pays more the closer you are, which is exactly what the Infiltrators deployment sets up. This is not a forward-deployment detachment that then wants to retreat.

Two, and both are Upgrades on a PLAGUE MARINES unit rather than character relics. You do not need a Character to use either, which is unusual and useful.

• Insectile Murmuration (Upgrade) (15 pts). PLAGUE MARINES unit only. When this unit's attacks target a unit within Contagion Range of a friendly unit, those attacks can re-roll wound rolls of 1. It rewards the same positioning the army rule already wants.
• Plagueveil (Upgrade) (15 pts). PLAGUE MARINES unit only. This unit has -3 inch detection range. This is the direct answer to the obvious objection to infiltrating: the squad that starts closest gets shot first.

If you can only take one, take Plagueveil on the squad you push furthest and Insectile Murmuration on the one that sits on the middle objective.

(Points come from the Munitorum Field Manual and move with updates; confirm in the app.)

Faction Pack v1.2 prints UNIQUE: FLYBLOWN above this detachment's page and restates the restriction inside the Verminous Haze rule text. The Munitorum Field Manual v1.3, read on 27 August 2026, lists no Unique Tag on this detachment and prints an explicit UNIQUE TAG REMOVED note against it. Both documents belong to the same 26 August 2026 release.

The tag mattered for one pairing. On the older reading, FLYBLOWN was carried by this detachment (1 DP) and by Champions of Contagion (2 DP), which is 3 DP together and therefore a whole 2,000-point budget. It is also a pairing that looks tailor-made: infiltrating Plague Marines led by the characters that Champions of Contagion is built around.

We do not state which reading is correct, and we never suggest Flyblown Host alongside Champions of Contagion anywhere on this site. That is the only advice that is safe whichever way it resolves.

The useful part of this for a player is that the alternatives cost you almost nothing. Flyblown Host plus Mortarion's Hammer and Flyblown Host plus Death Lord's Chosen are both 3 DP, both untouched by the question, and both pair better with a forward-deployment plan than the character detachment does.

• Plague Marines are the only unit the rule, all three stratagems and both enhancements name. If you are not fielding several units of them, do not take this detachment.
• Biologus Putrifier is the classic attachment that makes an exposed squad hit hard enough to be worth exposing.
• Plague Surgeon is the other half of that decision, because an infiltrated squad is shot at first and returning models matters more here.
• Malignant Plaguecaster brings damage that does not depend on the detachment rule at all.
• Poxwalkers screen the forward squads so an early charge lands on bodies you do not mind losing.
• Plagueburst Crawler provides fire from your own deployment zone while the infantry hold the middle, which is the right shape because nothing in this detachment helps a vehicle.

One omission to note: Death Guard Cultists are a Warhammer Legends datasheet in 11th edition and do not appear in the matched-play list, so they are not the cheap forward screen some older lists used.

Take it when your collection is Plague Marines first, and when you want to stop losing the first two turns of every game. One Detachment Point to have two squads already Afflicting things in battle round one is the cheapest fix in the faction for the army's timing problem.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. It affects two units, once, at deployment. It does nothing for your vehicles, your Terminators or your characters. Its three stratagems all want you in close, so a player who infiltrates and then plays cautiously gets the worst of both. And with only three stratagems it will not absorb command points.

Sample gameplan: pair it with Mortarion's Hammer (2 DP). Infiltrate two Plague Marines squads onto the midfield objectives so your short early Contagion Range still touches something, and let Miasmic Bombardment Afflict the enemy units more than 12 inches away that your aura will never reach. Put Plagueveil on the squad furthest forward. Spend Droning Horror in the first shooting phase where a squad is within half range, and hold Nauseating Paroxysms for the fight you expect to lose on the swing.