Shamblerot Vectorium: The 11th-Edition Death Guard Poxwalker Detachment

Two parts.

The reinforcements. In your Command phase in each of a set of battle rounds fixed by battle size, add a new POXWALKERS unit with a Starting Strength of 10 to your army, in Strategic Reserves. The rounds are 2 and 3 at Incursion, 2 to 4 at Strike Force, and 2 to 5 at Onslaught.

The keyword. POXWALKERS units from your army gain the BATTLELINE keyword.

At a standard Strike Force game that is three extra ten-model units, thirty free models, arriving across battle rounds two, three and four. In a faction whose problem is that it is slow and its aura is short, a stream of free bodies appearing behind the enemy's advance is a very different kind of pressure.

Read Strategic Reserves carefully, because that is the rule's real limitation. The units do not appear where you like; they arrive under the normal Strategic Reserves rules, from your table edge, on the turn you choose to bring them in. That is why the Hidden Amongst the Dead stratagem, which gives a reserve Poxwalkers unit Deep Strike, is the most important 1CP in the detachment, and why the Lord of the Walking Pox enhancement, which lets a reserve unit arrive as though it were the third battle round, is worth its 15 points.

At 2 DP it leaves 1 DP spare at a 2,000-point game.

Six, all 1CP, and five of them name POXWALKERS.

• Hidden Amongst the Dead (Reinforcements step of your Movement). A POXWALKERS unit in Strategic Reserves that is not an Attached unit gains Deep Strike for the phase. This is the stratagem that turns the detachment rule from a trickle into a threat, and the one to budget command points for every round.
• Shambling Wall (opponent's Shooting). Just after an enemy unit selects its targets, name one targeted DEATH GUARD unit and one friendly POXWALKERS unit within 3 inches and visible to both. For the phase, attacks allocated to your Death Guard unit make no saving throw; instead a number of Poxwalkers equal to the attack's Damage are destroyed. This is a genuine shield for a key unit, paid for in bodies you got for free.
• Smeared with Filth (the Fight). A just-destroyed POXWALKERS unit names one enemy unit that attacked it this phase; that unit is Afflicted until the end of the battle. The longest-lasting Affliction in the faction, bought by losing a free unit.
• Grip of the Walking Pox (the Fight). Just after an enemy unit selects its targets, one targeted POXWALKERS unit rolls a D6 per model destroyed after the attacker has fought: each 6 is a mortal wound. If your unit survives, models killed this way count toward the Curse of the Walking Pox ability.
• Gnawing Hunger (your Command). One POXWALKERS unit gains +1 Move and +1 Attacks and +1 Strength on its melee weapons for the turn.
• Shock and Horror (your Charge). Just after a DEATH GUARD unit ends a Charge move, each enemy unit in Engagement Range takes a Battle-shock test at -1.

The pattern to notice: three of these six are triggered by your own Poxwalkers dying. That is the detachment's actual engine. You are not trying to keep them alive.

Four, two of them locked to a named character.

• Witherbone Pipes (25 pts). NOXIOUS BLIGHTBRINGER only. While leading a POXWALKERS unit, that unit gets +1 Objective Control and +1 to Battle-shock and Leadership tests. Objective Control is the point: it turns a free horde unit into a scoring unit.
• Talisman of Burgeoning (25 pts). DEATH GUARD model only. While the bearer leads a unit, +1 Toughness for POXWALKERS models in it.
• Lord of the Walking Pox (15 pts). DEATH GUARD model only. If the bearer is leading a Poxwalker unit in Strategic Reserves, treat the current battle round as the third for the purposes of setting that unit up. It is the direct answer to the reserves restriction in the detachment rule.
• Sorrowsyphon (10 pts). MALIGNANT PLAGUECASTER only. While leading a POXWALKERS unit, +1 Damage on the bearer's Plague Wind weapon, but after each time the bearer attacks with it, D3 Bodyguard models in the unit are destroyed. A cost only this detachment can comfortably pay.

If you take one, take Witherbone Pipes, because a horde that cannot score is just a speed bump.

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

This is the practical question the rule raises and most write-ups skip.

The detachment adds a new ten-model unit in your Command phase in three separate battle rounds at Strike Force. Those are models you have to physically place on the table, so you need them built and, ideally, painted, on top of whatever Poxwalkers you paid points for in your list.

A list that starts with two twenty-model units and then receives three ten-model units needs seventy Poxwalkers in the box. That is a real hobby commitment, and it is the single most common reason a player tries this detachment once and shelves it.

Two mitigations. First, Poxwalkers are among the fastest models in the range to paint to a decent tabletop standard, because heavy weathering and contrast paints suit them and nobody is inspecting the fifty-eighth zombie. Second, you can build toward it: run the detachment at Incursion first, where the rule adds two units rather than three, and see whether the play pattern suits you before committing to the full pile.

What you should not do is take the detachment with a single box and plan to proxy. The rule keeps producing units whether you have models or not, and being unable to place them is simply losing the detachment you paid two Detachment Points for.

• Poxwalkers are named by the detachment rule, five of the six stratagems and three of the four enhancements. Buy more than you think you need.
• Noxious Blightbringer is the only legal Witherbone Pipes bearer, which is the enhancement that turns free bodies into scoring bodies.
• Malignant Plaguecaster is the only legal Sorrowsyphon bearer, and the enhancement that spends Poxwalkers as ammunition.
• Plague Marines are the Death Guard unit Shambling Wall protects behind the horde, and the damage the Poxwalkers themselves do not provide.
• Plagueburst Crawler punishes an opponent for clumping up to clear a screen, from behind a wall of free bodies.
• Icon Bearer is a cheap Death Guard model that can carry Lord of the Walking Pox or Talisman of Burgeoning, both of which are DEATH GUARD model only.

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 a second source of cheap horde bodies.

Take it when you own a large pile of Poxwalkers, when you want a Death Guard list that gets stronger the longer the game runs, or when you want to protect an expensive block with bodies that cost you nothing.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. The free units arrive in Strategic Reserves, so without Hidden Amongst the Dead or Lord of the Walking Pox they walk on from your own edge. Poxwalkers do very little damage on their own, so the detachment needs a real Death Guard core beside it. The model count is a genuine hobby cost. And it is the weakest-sourced tier in our set, because the pack does not name it.

Sample gameplan: pair it with Contagion Engines (1 DP), because the free horde holds objectives while four fast war machines provide the damage a Poxwalker list has none of. Put Witherbone Pipes on a Noxious Blightbringer leading your largest starting unit and park it on the centre objective. Spend a command point on Hidden Amongst the Dead most rounds so the reinforcements arrive where they matter, hold Shambling Wall for the shooting phase aimed at your Plague Marines, and remember that a dying Poxwalkers unit is worth a permanent Affliction through Smeared with Filth.