Death Guard Virulent Vectorium wins Alamo 40K GT in San Antonio

Oscar Ruiz’s Death Guard Virulent Vectorium took the Alamo 40K GT in San Antonio with a list that looked built to make every turn miserable for the opponent. In a late-edition field where the last strong builds are still fighting for oxygen, Ruiz paired Mortarion with daemon engines, elite terminators, and cheap objective holders, then let the army do what Death Guard does best: absorb punishment, grind forward, and turn the midboard into a problem no one wants to solve.

The Alamo GT gave that plan a serious stage. The event marked 20 years of battle and billed itself as Texas’s longest continuously running event, returning to the Hyatt Regency on the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio. It ran six rounds with a top cut through the Tournament Companion, and there were two Golden Tickets on the line for the Warhammer Championships of the World. Best Coast Pairings also had the Alamo 40K GT inside the Texas Championship Circuit picture, with Ruiz already sitting near the top of the 2024-2025 40K season leaderboard.

The winning 2,000-point list was pure Virulent Vectorium in the way that matters. Mortarion anchored the force, backed by a Daemon Prince of Nurgle, a Lord of Contagion, a Lord of Virulence, and a Tallyman. Deathshroud Terminators gave Ruiz a brutal forward threat and a hard-to-shift bodyguard package, while multiple Defilers, a Foetid Bloat-Drone, and Myphitic Blight-haulers added the real sting: mobile daemon engines that can threaten at range and still bully combat when they arrive. Poxwalkers filled out the board and made the objective game awkward for anyone trying to play cleanly into Death Guard.

That is the part to steal. Virulent Vectorium, as Goonhammer’s detachment deep-dive put it, is Death Guard’s basic combined-arms shape, the version that makes sticky objectives and broad unit value do the heavy lifting. Ruiz’s build showed exactly how that works in practice: one giant anchor, several supporting characters, durable mid-board pieces, and enough cheap bodies that the opponent cannot just kill the scary models and call it a day. The engines matter because they force respect from both shooting and melee armies, which is how Death Guard turns a slow faction into a constant threat.

If you are preparing for the next event, this is the Death Guard list to watch for and the one to plan against. The formula is not subtle, but it is effective: hold the center, make trades ugly, and let the opponent run out of tools before Mortarion and the Defilers do.