A Praetor of the Death Guard rises to command through a record of survival as much as victory, having endured campaigns and hardships that would have claimed lesser officers many times over, a resilience Mortarion valued above nearly every other quality in his subordinates. Even before Nurgle's plague transformed the Legion outright, these officers commanded through grim example rather than inspiring rhetoric, expecting their legionaries to match an endurance the Praetor himself had already proven many times over.
Since Istvaan and the plague that followed, a Death Guard Praetor's authority has taken on a darker, more literal dimension, his own corrupted flesh serving as living proof that the Legion's warriors need not fear death the way ordinary soldiers do. Leading assaults from the front with the same unshakeable will Mortarion demonstrates on a far grander scale, a Praetor drives his companies forward through losses that would rout any other force, certain that the enemy will break long before the Death Guard's advance ever will.
Order of battle
