Death Guard: targeted checks from Jordan's notes (T-737)

6 Oct 2026. Report only: no ledger file, frozen input, setting or data file changed. The numbers come from the frozen ledger snapshot (inputs hash dcd477d8a78c, code 8dcd24032d, BSData 374f505) under Track A (step 34b, wCarry 0), and from the frozen docs/ev.js on the rankings' five stand-in targets. node tools/dgchecks.js --json <file> prints all of them in about a minute. Rules read on Wahapedia's 11th-edition Death Guard pages (Biologus Putrifier, Plague Marines, Chaos Rhino, Poxwalkers, the army rule); described here in our own words.

In plain English

1. The Biologus Putrifier

The rule (11th edition). While it leads a unit, that unit's weapons get Lethal Hits and score critical hits on 5+. It may join a Plague Marines unit that already has another leader (not a second Biologus).

Our data. leaderfx.json (frozen copy) gives Foul Infusion two attacking effects, lethal: true and crit: 5, with no condition. tools/ledger.js lends a character's leaderfx effects to every member of the joined unit at the joined unit's keywords (formEffects, lendOf), so both reach every Plague Marine weapon and the Biologus's own. docs/ev.js sets the critical threshold to the better of the skill and the effect (critT = max(BS, min(6, crit))), so a 4+ heavy plague weapon crits on 5+ and a 3+ weapon on 5+, and Lethal Hits turns those crits into automatic wounds. Correct.

How it meets the army rule. Death Guard's army rule (armyfx.json) is counted as −1 Toughness in melee for every Death Guard unit (unconditional); at range it needs Contagion Range, which the ledger counts as not met. The Plague choice isn't picked. −1 Toughness makes wound rolls easier, which shrinks what an automatic wound is worth: the two partly overlap, as they do on the table. Plague Marines' own Infused with the Blessings of Nurgle (Afflict a unit they shot) is noted only; our Auto-equip squad doesn't shoot anyway.

Why the gain is small. In 11th edition every Plague Marine weapon but the plasma, melta and the two torrents already has Lethal Hits. So the Biologus only moves crits from 6 to 5+. Wounds per volley (ev.js, Afflicted in melee, as the ledger counts it):

The ledger's own measurement agrees: the joined form against the same form with the Biologus's effects left out (the ledger's lend) is +7.0% Kill on 5 Plague Marines and +9.6% on 10, at β 6 (the field is mostly infantry).

The forms (Tallyband Summoners; Value under Track A; "would rank" = where the form's Value would sit among the 36):

The Biologus costs 60 points. To pay for itself per point on a 180-point squad it would need to add a third; it adds about a tenth plus its own small guns (68 points of Kill a turn on the 10-man, 14 of Burst). So the joined forms score below the squad alone, at every size. The 10-man suffers least, as the community says.

Two leaders. 11th edition lets the Biologus join beside another leader; the ledger builds no such form (0 of Death Guard's forms have two leaders; the three-member forms the ledger builds are a Leader plus a Support). An estimate (the other leader's joined form plus what the Biologus adds to the 10-man): with a Lord of Poxes, Kill per 100 goes 133 → 129 and Burst per 100 55 → 49; every other pairing likewise drops a little. A second leader doesn't rescue the number.

Verdict: fine dice; the low number is genuine for what the ledger measures. The gap with the community (S) is in three things the ledger doesn't do: (a) a leader's own Value is its solo form (311), never credited with the squad's gain (leaderCredit and attachChars are off in Track A; the misses report already lists the Biologus, +69); (b) the two-leader form is missing (a form gap, not a dice bug); (c) Auto-equip picks an all-melee brick, where the 5+ is worth least; on boltguns and into vehicles it is worth three to five times as much. One aside: at the ledger's pin (374f505) BSData lets the Plague Champion take a bubotic weapon in place of its boltgun, which the 11th-edition page doesn't; the Auto-equip squads use it (5 bubotic weapons on 10 models). Small, and the next BSData pin decides it.

2. The Chaos Rhino's Fire Support

The rule (11th edition). After the Rhino shoots in your Shooting phase, pick an enemy unit it hit. Until the end of that phase, models that got out of this Rhino this turn may re-roll their wound rolls against that unit. Shooting only: it does nothing for the brick's charge or fight.

Our data: a correction to the brief. docs/data/unitfx.json's Death Guard Chaos Rhino (live and frozen alike) has one rule, Fire Support, noted ("re-rolls wounds for units that just left it", kind mark, not in the maths). The Mark of Chaos entries (Khorne, Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, plus Self-repair) are the Chaos Space Marines Chaos Rhino's, a different datasheet. The ledger's Death Guard Rhino form lists Fire Support as "Marks a target for friends", the buff kind (×1.12 on the Rhino's own small Value), and the Rhino's datasheet at the pin carries Deadly Demise, Nurgle's Gift and Firing Deck.

What it adds. Re-rolling every failed wound roll, with the Biologus's crits on 5+ and Lethal Hits (an automatic wound is never re-rolled), adds 12% to 15% wounds on every stand-in (mean +13.4%). On the ledger's β 6 ranged Kill:

That is the turn the brick gets out; a Rhino usually unloads once a game, so over the three turns the ledger averages, about a third of it. Even counted in full on the boltgun brick, the Rhino goes from 146 to about 320 (33rd to about 30th of 36). The reviewer's A (and 63% of lists) is about delivery: the Rhino's carry line is 16 per 100 but weighted 0 in Track A.

Verdict: missing rule (noted, not counted); the bigger gap is the carry line. Proposed data patch for Jordan to approve (it changes the live calculator: a "Marked" chip for the Death Guard brick when the Rhino is its Nearby pick). Not applied here; applied 6 Oct as T-744 (Jordan approved), the chip's label shortened to "Re-roll wounds vs the unit the Rhino shot" (48 characters at most) with the getting-out as its condition, and the same rule on twelve other transports.

// docs/data/kindfx.json, under "unitfx" > "Chaos - Death Guard" (beside the Tyranid Exocrine's Symbiotic Targeting)
"Chaos Rhino": {
  "Fire Support": {
    "lend": {
      "effects": [
        { "side": "att", "label": "Re-roll wounds vs the unit the Rhino shot (units that got out of it this turn)",
          "mods": { "rrWound": "all" },
          "when": { "type": "ranged", "manual": "the unit got out of this Rhino this turn" } }
      ],
      "to": ["DEATH GUARD"]
    }
  }
}
// docs/data/unitfx.json, "Chaos - Death Guard" > "Chaos Rhino" > rules[0]: status "noted" → "partly",
// cant → "only the shooting of a unit that got out this turn; the ledger doesn't track who rode in it"

The ledger keeps its frozen copy until a re-freeze; counting Fire Support there would also need the carry model to know which brick rode in the Rhino (T-673's attach and carry work).

3. Poxwalkers

The dice. 20 models, 2 attacks each, WS 5+, Strength 3, AP 0, Damage 1, Lethal Hits (the improvised weapon's own, in BSData and on the 11th-edition page), Feel No Pain 5+, Infiltrators. Wounds per 20-model volley (ev.js, Afflicted in melee): GEQ 7.4, MEQ 3.3, TEQ 1.5, light vehicle 2.6, heavy vehicle 1.3. Lethal Hits matters into tough targets (light vehicle 0.7 without it); Afflicted adds about a tenth into infantry. Nothing gives them extra hits or attacks.

The lines. Best form 20 Poxwalkers, Shamblerot Vectorium, 130 points: Value 1,532 (2nd of 36); Kill 1,076 of it (70%), Hold 277, Score 144. Their Kill line is 81, from a Burst of 36.4 per 100 (the median ranking form's is 38.5), with Infiltrators putting their melee on the table every turn (lands 1.0) and a threat factor of 0.8 taking some off. The target choice is the same β 6 kernel as everyone's; about half their β 6 Kill lands on characters (36 of 74 per 100), as for several melee units here (Beasts of Nurgle: 69 of 77).

What inflates them. Curse of the Walking Pox is in the "heals or returns models" kind, and the heal kind's multiplier in Track A is ×1.805, game-wide, on the form's whole total (Kill, Hold, Score...). With Shamblerot's ×1.065 the total multiplier is ×1.92. The rule itself returns one Poxwalker for each non-monster, non-vehicle model their attacks destroy: a few 5-point models a turn. With the heal kind at ×1: Value 849, 15th of 36 (Daemon Prince, Defiler, Plague Marines lead).

Beside other armies' cheap infantry (best forms, Track A):

Poxwalkers' Kill line is among the lowest of these; their Value is among the highest only because of the multiplier. Genestealer Cults' Neophytes and Acolytes carry the same ×1.805 (their own "returns models" rules).

Verdict: the dice are fine; the heal multiplier is too strong for this rule (a weighting bug, not a dice bug). A multiplier on the whole Value for a rule that only returns a few cheap bodies when the unit kills is the wrong shape. Not changed here (Track A is frozen). Two shapes to try, each one change at a time: the heal kind on the Soak and Presence lines only (what returning models buys), or Curse of the Walking Pox measured as models returned (the Spawn line already measures returning models for other rules), its kind moved from heal to spawn.

4. The wargear restrictions (T-723, T-724)

Every army's best form under Track A, checked by name against T-723's one-model pairs (Helbrute hammer and power scourge; baleflamer and autocannon; heavy flamer and multi-melta) and T-724's squad-wide shapes (Aggressors, Thunderkyn, Cthonian Beserks, Yaegirs, Lychguard, Immortals, the Space Wolves' kits, Grey Knights' heavy weapons, Recon Troopers). The ledger's pin (374f505) carries only the Helbrute's and the Sororitas' rules as BSData errors; the others are T-723's list at the site's pin, applied by name.

Checked and legal: Space Marines' and Dark Angels' Aggressors (3 flamestorm), Vanguard Veterans with Jump Packs (every model grav-pistol and master-crafted weapon), Votann's Cthonian Beserks (all heavy plasma axes) and Yaegirs (all revolver and knife), the Space Wolves' Headtakers (all master-crafted weapons), Thousand Sons' and World Eaters' Helbrutes (fist and hammer: no rule against it), the Cadian Recon Squad (2 long-las, no weapons team at this pin). Not settled: Blood Angels' "one pistol replacement" (T-723's list doesn't name the unit, the ledger's pin has no such rule, and Wahapedia has no 11th-edition Blood Angels pages yet); the Death Company squads' best forms swap 2 to 5 pistols and would be next if it's theirs.

Both next-best values are lower bounds: the ledger holds only Auto-equip's squad and the datasheet's per size, so the legal best (a Helbrute with a hammer and a gun arm; Thunderkyn all on conversion beamers) needs the ledger re-run with the T-723/T-724 rules in, which is a re-freeze. The Thunderkyn fall matters most: the reviewers have them S/A, and a legal all-beamer squad is likely well above 674.

What next (not done here)

• Jordan: approve or edit the Fire Support patch (section 2).
• The heal kind's shape (section 3) as a dial test, one change at a time on the frozen snapshot.
• The two-leader forms and the leader's credit (section 1) belong with T-673 (attach) and the leaderCredit dial.
• The legal best forms for the Helbrute and Thunderkyn wait for T-724 and the next re-freeze.