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1 / 4 · Click to enlargeLore & origins
Plague Marines are the Chaos Space Marines of the Death Guard Legion and other followers of Nurgle. During the Horus Heresy, Mortarion's fleet became becalmed in the Warp and a terrible plague swept through the Legion. In their agony, the Death Guard gave themselves to Nurgle and emerged as his champions.
Plague Marines are walking hosts of disease. Their bodies are bloated and rotting, but they feel little pain and shrug off wounds that would kill other warriors. They advance slowly and relentlessly, spreading sickness wherever they go.
The Plague Marines' story starts with the Destroyer Plague. While the Death Guard fleet was becalmed in the Warp on the way to Terra, a supernatural disease swept through the ships. It made a mockery of the Legion's famous toughness, and these were warriors who had been immune to nearly every poison and toxin. Mortarion suffered worst of all. In the end he and his Legion gave themselves to Nurgle to end the agony. Their bodies swelled with corruption, but they no longer felt pain and could no longer die of disease.
Even before that, the novels describe Ignatius Grulgor, a Death Guard commander killed aboard the frigate Eisenstein when the Life-Eater virus was released, and then raised again by Nurgle's power. Since the Heresy, many other renegades have given themselves to Nurgle, but few are accepted into the Death Guard. Some of Nurgle's sorcerers also know how to create Plague Marines, and Abaddon has won several of them over.
Appearance & wargear
Plague Marines wear corroded, pitted power armour, often split open by swollen flesh, with flies swarming around them. They carry boltguns, plague knives, blight grenades and other weapons coated with filth and toxins.
Plague Marines wear cracked, corroded armour in faded greens and bone, bulging around swollen bellies and weeping sores. Horns, rust, flies and dripping slime are everywhere, and the slime eats into their armour and skin. Weapons include boltguns loaded with toxic rounds, plague knives, blight grenades, plague belchers and spewers, blight launchers and great bubotic weapons.
Weapons & Vehicles
The corroded, pus-dripping combat blades of the Death Guard Plague Marines, so saturated with Nurgle's supernatural contagions that a s…
The signature .75-calibre rocket-propelled mass-reactive firearm of the Adeptus Astartes, firing self-propelled explosive bolts that de…
A volatile directed-energy rifle that hurls bolts of miniature sun-hot plasma capable of vaporising Terminator plate and tank armour—at…
A short-ranged thermal sub-molecular agitation weapon that flash-melts battle tank armour, bunker doors and heavy walkers into bubbling…
A volatile liquid-promethium projector that floods bunkers, trenches and xenos swarms in clinging, self-oxidising gouts of cleansing ch…
The screaming, blood-drenched motorised war-axe of the World Eaters and Khorne Berzerkers, trading all defensive finesse for bone-shatt…
The colossal, rust-pitted two-handed battle scythe of Daemon Primarch Mortarion, forged on Barbarus and steeped in the soul-rotting pla…
An oversized servo-assisted armoured gauntlet sheathed in a matter-shredding energy field, capable of tearing open tank hulls and crush…
The one-eyed, rotting lesser daemons of Nurgle, endlessly counting their god's diseases.
Tiny, mischievous daemons of Nurgle that swarm over the battlefield, biting, tripping and smothering their foes.
Explore all 48 entries in the Weapons & Vehicles armoury.
Battlefield role & tactics
Plague Marines are extremely durable line infantry who hold ground and wear down the enemy with disease and toxic weapons.
They are relentless, slow-moving line infantry. They cannot feel pain, so they shrug off wounds that would stop other warriors, and they advance steadily through fire to grind the enemy down. They also crew the Plague Fleets that leave the Eye of Terror to seed diseases across the galaxy.
Munitorum & Ordo Xenos Technical Dossier
Classified under Ordo and Departmento Munitorum threat-index protocols as a primary Plague Marines are extremely durable line infantry who hold ground and wear down the enemy with disease and toxic weapons. asset of Death Guard, Plague Marines relies on a tightly coupled symbiosis between operator conditioning and primary armament. Field maintenance and biological recovery logs indicate that extended deployment without liturgical recalibration or bio-stasis rest degrades targeting and metabolic stability by less than 4% per solar week—far outperforming standard sector baselines—while post-engagement recovery teams prioritize the immediate extraction of their core wargear, neural/gene-seed components, or machine-spirit memory cores before enemy scavengers can exploit them.
Notable battles & users
- The Horus Heresy: the Death Guard fell to Nurgle when a plague swept their becalmed fleet.
- The Siege of Terra: the Death Guard arrived as Plague Marines for the first time en masse.
- Plague Wars: the Death Guard's assault on Ultramar after the Great Rift opened.
Related
Characters (2)
Typhus · Herald of Nurgle, Host of the Destroyer Hive
Mortarion · Primarch of the Death Guard, the Death Lord
