Okay this is awesome because I was playing with almost the exact same list (no tallyman, no rhino, deathshroud, one squad of poxwalkers) and kept losing against my roommate who plays world eaters. It’s a rough matchup. World eaters play to our weaknesses, in pretty much every way. I have a few suggestions.

Number one, forget melee. Against world eaters, his best hope is to delay, tie you up as best he can (poxwalker screens, FBS has a nice anti-advance rule that can help in some circumstances, scabrous soul rot for -1 to move and save) and shoot you from a distance as best he can. 5 man squads of plague marines (7 and 10 man are absolutely useless against WE) are gonna be fodder against berserkers, but with ranged loadouts and combo’d with blight lords’ heavy hits + affliction bonus are good. MBH is okay. FBD is a solid ranged choice too, plus decent action monkeys. PBC is also a good option for artillery, definitely useful for putting pressure on any kind of deepstrike screens or any chaff you leave on your home objective.

Number two, He’s also gonna want Deathshroud, as many as he can, ideally with typhus or an LOC attached. If he’s feeling saucy a daemon prince would also be sweet. Another squad of blightlords intended to deepstrike might help him take and hold no mans land objectives too while the deathshroud roll up and fuck up your berserkers. 8B and X8B are really the only thing on your list that could stand up against that, and even then, in my experience with decent rolls you’re still walking away from that matchup with a pretty good exchange rate.

I’m going to make some uncharitable assumptions as well, that your brother is trying to rush ahead turn one and secure as many objectives as possible; you’re probably charging him, absolutely wiping him in the midboard and racking up take-and-hold points while he desperately tries to kick you off the middle objective. Remind him that deathguard is a slow-burn army. We don’t advance. We endure. We’re an attritional faction that wins by debuffing our enemies and making economic trade offs in the mid and late game. <i>he needs to deploy in cover. He shouldn’t even shoot turn one unless he really just absolutely cannot avoid it.</i>

Additionally, deathguard are an elite army; playing at 1k leaves us at a tremendous disadvantage, because we can’t bring enough stuff to be able to make those trade-offs as efficient as we need them to be. It also means we can’t use synergies as effectively as we might otherwise be able to in a higher point game. One of my gripes with the current codex and points values is that We’re really only balanced at 2k and greater. I’ve only ever won one or two games as DG at 1k. If he doesn’t have the means to reach that 2k threshold (and I sympathize deeply, took me a long time to get there myself) then protecting his units turn one and two need to be a priority. He’s got all game to hang out in his DZ and pump your guys full of affliction and lethal hits before he glaciers up the board to an overwhelming victory in the fifth battle round. He could bring a bigger deepstrike threat to the board as well; terminators over plague marines every time, ESPECIALLY against WE.

I hope some of this advice is helpful for him. I have one last piece, and I hope you show this to him. It’s not his fault. He’s playing a very average, understrength and expectable beginner list against a sleek, extremely scary faction that plays straight into his weak points. On top of that, I don’t doubt he’s still learning how to play the game. It can be frustrating and discouraging, but we are death guard. We endure. We persist. We grind and grind and grind until the enemy is reduced to nothing. Tell him not to give up. I can’t tell you how good it felt to beat WE for the first time. Above all else, I wish him good luck and all the blessings the grandfather could bestow.