Death Guard or Thousand Sons?

[StepwisePilot]

Ok, so I'm making an Ork army. However, these marine changes that just were revealed make me maybe want to start a marine army as well. If I would start one, it would be some kind of chaos army, so I think I'd like either Death Guard or Thousand Sons. I don't know much about them though, other than Death Guard are tough to kill, and Thousand Sons are good at psychic.

I like the look of both factions (Though I'd probably give Thousand Sons the edge in that regard) , but have some nitpicks. I don't like how a few Death Guard Units are locked behind the Dark Imperium box. Even more so since that set is now out of print. ... I guess that may be it for nitpicks. Oh, I've heard that Thousand Sons are in a bad place right now, but I don't really mind too much, as they look so good. 

So, can anyone fill me in on their play styles? Also, can they be paired with the demons of the respective god (Nurgle for DG, Tzeentch for TS)?

[Typhus]

Thousand Sons and Death Guard are both in quite a good place right now, actually. Whichever you pick, you can't really go wrong.

Both have a focus on close-range shooting, dealing the bulk of their damage in the Shooting phase. Thousand Sons supplement this with, of course, their focus on psychic powers. Death Guard rely on a lot of buffs (in the form of psychic powers, warlord traits, and relics) and reroll effects to deal damage. Neither is amazing in melee, though Death Guard have the edge in that regard.

Both factions can summon daemons of their respective Mark of Chaos. Either faction can ally with daemons of any Mark of Chaos (or Chaos Knights, other Chaos Space Marines, or even each other). The sky is the limit (but no more than three detachments!)

Death Guard usually run one (or more) of the following playstyles:
- Daemon Engines (Foetid Bloat-Drones, Plagueburst Crawlers, Defilers, and Myphitic Blight-Haulers pushing up the board aggressively, with infantry to hold objectives)
- Infantry focused (Usually 1-2 large units of Plague Marines with boltguns and flails of corruption surrounding buff characters, a few smaller infantry units to cap objectives and deal with secondaries)
- Terminators (1 large unit of Blightlord Terminators, and/or 1 large unit of Deathshroud Terminators - focused on deepstriking and oblitering key units off the table)
- Mechanized (New to 9th edition, many competitive Death Guard lists now feature several rhinos as a way of dealing with the plodding movement speed of their average unit)
- Forgeworld Dreadnoughts (Hellforged Leviathans and Hellforged Contemptors are strong, mobile, and can acquire Disgustingly Resilient through stratagems)

Thousand Sons lean more towards the following strategies:
- Tzaangor bomb (1 large unit of Tzaangors, deployed via Webway Assault or redeployed via the Dark Matter Crystal, charging in early and dealing with screens/tying up key units if you can grab more than one)
- Rubric bomb (Through the Risen Rubricae stratagem you can deploy a large unit of Rubrics deep in the middle of the board, and from there they can generally shoot twice at anything on the board, while controlling the centre and contesting objectives)
- Cult of Time Terminators (1 large unit of Scarab Occult Terminators, deep striking in to lay waste with heavy weapons, being 1+ being resurrected every turn with the Time Flux psychic power)
- Character Spam (Thousand Sons benefit from a lot of characters, to bring psychic support and offense. Most lists run Ahriman due to his insane efficiency, at least one Daemon Prince of Tzeentch for access to the daemons-exclusive psychic table, and a few Sorcerers to fill out the list. A Tzaangor Shaman is an efficient character with which to use the Mental Interrogation action.)

[StepwisePilot]

Thanks. You've given me a bunch to consider.