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My friend, who's been collecting for 10 years+, has finally convinced me to start playing Warhammer with him. I used to paint miniatures for D&D many moons ago and I figured I could play a bit on the cheap now via E-bay, so I dusted off my old flip-top Games Workshop paints, resurrected them, and dove in. Unfortunately, we don't actually know anybody else who plays so we're starting in a vacuum and I could really use some advice, if for no other reason than reassurance that I'm not screwing something up drastically.

I've decided to start with a Nurgle CSM army, mainly because I find their zombie-esque nature simply irresistable. I figure 3 squads of 10 are a decent place to start. I was able to score some regular CSM packs off E-Bay for a reasonable price and plan on painting them Nurgle colors, with possibly some minor "decaying" modifications of their armor to start with. I also sucked it up and bought a pack of 10 Nurgle shoulders, 5 melta's, and 5 plasma guns from Games Workshop (free shipping and E-bay seems to charge a premium for these pieces) due to things I've read on this forum. One squad is going to get 2 plasmas, one will get 2 meltas, and the 3rd will probably get one of each.

First question: Is this a good starting gameplan? I'm watching E-Bay to try to get a squad or two of Khorne Berserkers at a good price, and figured that would be my second "evolution" of the army. It seems like the Plagues could lead the way soaking up punishment while the Berzerkers follow until they get into charging range, sort of like following a linebacker. Or am I completely off-base?

Second question: What the hell do I do with the Champions? I have one powerfist and plan to stick that on one, but I don't know if I should combo it with a plasma pistol or a regular pistol. What's generally considered standard?

Third question: Should I have a nice mix of chainswords/bolt pistols vs bolters in a squad or try to make it all one or the other?

Fourth question: Is there a good "So you've started Warhammer" article/post I should be looking at? I'm having trouble finding one that...well...seems worth a damn.

Apologies if this is stuff that's been asked 100 times before. I swear I used the search engine and have been reading as much as I can while lurking, but I've base-coated a squad and am about to start gluing stuff together and would rather not make a dumb noobie mistake that can be avoided by a bit of good advice.

1. Don't mix melta and plasma (assault and rapid fire). Zerks and plagues work well together.
2. PF+BP for all CSM champs.
3. PMs have all three by the rules, so it doesn't matter what you model. Do it to taste.
4. I honestly don't know. I should find one for people who I know.

Those were all good questions.

The Powerfist is a great safety net, especially when you are just starting out. It gives Plague Marines a last chance at not getting screwed, but anything that is going to run them over will do so regardless of the Powerfist. You'll learn to support your squads properly, and they'll become less and less useful (I don't use any on my Champions). Berserkers on the otherhand need the extra hitting power to increase their the scope of what they threaten.

You are on a great train of thought. Berserkers are the best objective takers we have, while Plague Marines are the best holders.

For the third question, like Iron said, they have all of them at once. You have +1 to your attacks because of it, while retaining your bolters.

For the fourth question, just hang around Dakka. Go to the hobby section and brush up on techniques, and hang around the Tactics, Army Lists and You Make Da Call. Just remember to keep an open mind, and do not take anything as doctrine.

and do not take anything as doctrine.

Except what I say.
MY WORD IS LAW.

Seriously though.

1.) Khorne berzerkers are a "meh" on a scale from "n00b" to "1337", get one squad if you like, run them in a land raider if you can get the points, they make a good retinue for your non daemon prince HQ. They're among the best troops for assaulting, second only to ork boyz.

2.) Champions of nurgle should have a power fist, as nurgle marines excel at 12" or less, which makes them vulnerable to charge. Many competitive players roll without it, but since you're starting out you will be in some situations beyond your control, and that power fist will save your life. Avoid plasma pistols like the plague. Plasma guns are ok (better on PMs than on anything else IMO), but pistols are junk, especially for their points.

3.) Go for it all! See above, you get them all for free.

4.) http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/18.page

Thank you for your replies. You have no idea how much I value them.

I saw that Plague Marines (and many others) have pistol, ccw, and bolter listed as standard equipment, but I also thought you had to have such things appear on your model - the whole what you see is what you get aspect. So just to be clear, I can have marines with just a chainsword and a pistol and I'm good to go (actually, I prefer the look of the regular bolter, but you know how it goes). I don't have to glue on a bolter to the backpack or any nonsense like that? That's awesome news if I understand it properly now!

Is there anything that the plasma pistol *would* be good with? Or do I just toss them in the bit box and move on with life?

They can be modeled as...combi-plasma on Termies........ Other than that don't bother with plasma pistols IMO.

Berserkers will help you initially as they are far more assaulty than pm. With experience, you can run all plague marines, but I advise a good assaulty squad until you get your arms around the game. 7 of them in a rhino (including pf champ) work great.
Powerfists will help you initially, and as your knowledge and abilities evolve, you will start to drop them.
Run 7 plague marines (including champ) in a squad, and give them a rhino. In my experience 2 2xmelta and 1 2x plasma squads work great. You really do not need 10 to a squad.
Plasma pistols belong in the bits box. Too expensive for what you get.
For your HQ, get a daemon prince with wings. Give him mark of nurgle and warp time and go kill.
Heavies depend on your style and preference. 3 oblits and 2 defilers is a very nast combination.
1 land raider is just an expensive points sink. It will die and it will die fast. Go with 2 raiders and 3 oblits or no raiders.

Inigo Montoya wrote:For your HQ, get a daemon prince with wings. Give him mark of nurgle and warp time and go kill.

Sorry I have to use you as an example Inigo, but this is the kind of doctrine you'll want to stay skeptical of. Now, Daemon Princes look great compared to the other choices, but because of that it has become 'common knowledge' that it is the only option worth taking. This is train of thought is rampant throughout the forum (and most forums), and following it to the letter will spell doom for you as it only works in a void (meaning not taking into account the rest of the army/opponents army).

Daemon Princes present another large threat, hopefully helping to strain the enemy's anti-tank (although true be told, T5 3+ is not hard to bring down with small arms and most competitant players realise this). Lords and Sorcerers on the other hand will be instantly killed on their own (this is where the 'common knowledge' train of thought stops), so they need the support of a squad. Lords only really shine in close combat (save for some strange Tzeentch builds), but he has many different options and builds depending on what he is built to kill. He needs a squad suited to support his role, even if it means sacrificing what they are best at. The Sorcerer on the other hand helps squads. He isn't a killing machine like the Lord (save for Slaaneshi Warptime), but neither is he a slouch in combat. For example, I use a Nurgle Sorcerer with Winds of Chaos to help my Plague Marines clear and claim objectives. His template weapon is great against hordes and units that stick to cover, compensating for their two meltaguns, but also damages vehicles thus synergizing with them.

Again, I'm not singling Inigo out, but I thought it was an opportunity for learning and used it.

Basically:

Lords and Sorcs buff units.
Daemon Prince buffs the army.

Lords and Sorcs are specialized.
Daemon Princes are a general all-round unit.

I agree with most of the above. My only additions;

If you plan to run Sorcerers do not do them Nurgle. Nurgle sorcs are pretty bad. Either do tzeech or slanesh. If your going fluffy, I highly recommend staying away.

For a lord I almost ALWAYS run a demon weapon, but thats cuz I play slanesh or khorne lords. If your going for a nurgle lord I must suggest a power fist, chain fist, or twin claws. Why? The pure fact the demon wep for nurgle (imo) sucks. Your basically paying a ton of points for a d6 attacks and +1t... not worth it to me.

For demon princes any of the above work. I run them cuz they're cool, but they are overly cheesy in games where opponents ignore them.

Zid, you realise poison weapons are re-rollable if you would normally wound 4+ or better. So, you infact paying a ton of points for +1 T and D6 Lightning Claw attacks that get dramatically better against higher toughness opponents. Probably the best Daemon Weapon of the bunch, really.

DarkHound wrote:Zid, you realise poison weapons are re-rollable if you would normally wound 4+ or better. So, you infact paying a ton of points for +1 T and D6 Lightning Claw attacks that get dramatically better against higher toughness opponents. Probably the best Daemon Weapon of the bunch, really.

Forgot about that part, tho I still prefer a Khorne or Slanesh DW (due to the fact I can 1 shot an avatar with the slanesh one lol). The nurgle one, put in that light, is ok I suppose against MEQs. Would be pretty brutal against Orks, Eldar, and Tau especially! herm... this makes me think >.>

But it would perform comperably the best against MEQs, and comperably worse (although still only second to Bloodfeeder by a small margin) against GEQs. Blissgiver has a tiny list it performs best against (Nobs, Lolgryn... Mega-Armored Nobs?). For killing MCs it is in second place to Plaguebringer by a huge margin because of how difficult it is to get that single wound on.

So, for GEQs, Bloodfeeder gets top marks, followed closely by Plaguebringer, Deathscreamer and Blissgiver.
For MEQs, Plaguebringer is on top, followed by Deathscreamer, Bloodfeeder and Blissgiver.
For MCs, Plaguebringer almost stands alone, but Blissgiver is hanging on to Plaguebringers coat-tails.

If you want the math, just ask and I'll post it up.

Bloodfeeder is too risky for me. High Risk/Medium Rewards. STr 4 is really meh, and if you go juggy, that just makes it expensive.

Slaanesh is prob. the least useful, seriously, you are killing one wound models most of the time.
If you deal with something more than one wound, it's either:
1. Low-mid level characters that have no buisness confronting a lord and posse.
2. Something tough that the lord should not be going against as he's only str 4.

You 'can' one shot an avatar.
The issue is, you hit half the time, you wound one sixth of the time, then he gets a 4++ which is in most cases re-rollable due to fortune.

Plagebringer:
It's a lightning claw vs. T4 and lower, and allows you to wound stuff St5+ reliably.
It's sole focus is to kill anything with a toughness value.

It makes up for the glaring problem of lords: the strength, while adding attacks.

The tzeench demon weapon is good in 750- games.

Ive played in a 500p tournament were you take elites and one HQ (If you kill the HQ you win).

It was very useful at killing enemy HQ's and dealing with nasty elites like sternguard.

I came second. The guy who won was spamming fire dragons and hadnt list a game.

Well 1 up, have some thoughts now? I'll use this entire thread as an example of what to be careful of on dakka. Most everyone thinks they know what's best in a hypothetical situation, but none of that matters. It's all just posturing. What DarkHound said first was exactly correct: Be suspect whenever ANYONE says, "this is a must", or "this combination always works". You're an individual and so is everyone else, and everyone is different. Figure out how you like to play and look for statistical analysis of weapons/kits/characters, of which there is plenty in the tactics section of dakka.

Haha, head is spinning over a lot of this conversation, mostly because it takes me a minute to think about what initials stand for what stat and how that applies to the game. So far the grand sum of my Warhammer Experience has been glancing through the rule books and CSM codex, then two "practice" games with my friend: the first on which we each stuck 5 troops 18" away from each other and just navigated the most simple shooting/assaulting rules - the second of which consisted of using those same troops to play a simple "King of the Hill" scenario.

Having a wife and children, I'm putting together an army slowly and as inexpensively as possible - mostly buying lots off of E-bay (Been paying about $1 per mini, so feeling pretty good about that). I'm looking for a Demon Prince based on what I've read in the forums, but I scored an Abbadon the Despoiler and a Chaos Lord as part of a lot, so will probably use one of those for the time being. Then again, with how slowly I've been assembling my minis, I'll probably find one before I'm ready for any game that will have enough points to merit one.

A lot of this game feels like starting Magic: The Gathering did back in the day - very, very interesting but once you start you've realized you've only scratched the surface of something incredibly deep.

What I need to do is figure out how to paint AND read forums at the same time

1-up generally WYSIWYG is always within reason. Will you run against guys who are uber-anal on it? Yes should you play them outside of tourney.... I would say no again within reason. with your example the WYSIWYG for PM weapons is kinda mute as the equipment is base, there are no upgrades to model and all opponents should know their weapon loadout of a standard PM.

im a big fan of the bloodfeeder.
The khorn lord starts with lots of attacks anyway, and even if you roll a double 2, you've still got nearly 10 attacks ont he charge. If yuo roll a Double 6, your litterally mroe than making up your points in one turn. Space-marines scream at the wound on 4+ w/ no armoursave

Yea, but str 4 is a real downer.
In addition you need delivery.
It's not that you pass your Inv saves against the one's. It's that you get 0 attacks for your troubles.

I see the bloodfeeder as high risk/medium rewards.

Str for is really boring. And when you do roll crazy high and wipe out the enemy squad......you get shot in the face, so that's unhealthy for them as well.

Like many have said, Bloodfeeder is fun, and nothing to bank on.

In addition: 'making up your points' is not exactly something to always follow.

Dual Lightning Claws is more reliable then the Blood Feeder because unfortunately if you roll a "1" you stand there and drool for a turn, and an Undivided Demon Weapon gives the much needed +1 STR with less chance of hurting yourself. (1D6 vs 2D6 to roll a "1")

Here's the math on Bloodfeeder vs Dual Lightning Claws:

Dual Lightning Claws has 6 attacks on the charge, hits on 3s (3.96 hits) and wounds 75% of the time against T4 bringing it to 2.97 kills.

Bloodfeeder has a collosal 11 attacks on the charge just under 50% of the time. Hits on 3s (7.26) and wounds only 50% of the time, bringing the kills down to 3.63. Even with the maximum swings (17), you'll kill an astounding 5.61 MEQs, but that happens once in over 36 swings. Thirty three percent of your combat time will be spent smacking yourself in the face with this weapon.

In 4 turns of combat (assuming you finished one and started another one, giving you the on the charge bonus twice), the Dual Lightning Claws will see 10.89 dead MEQs. The Bloodfeeder is harder to keep track of, but given its variable nature should even itself out over 4 combats we'll keep it at 7 bonus attacks. Over the course of 4 combats it will put a wound on itself, and depending on whether it does it on the charge or not the kills you'll get range from 10.23 to 10.56.

So, the Dual Lightning Claws just edge out into the lead, but this gap is widened by the fact that the Bloodfeeder has put a wound on your expensive Chaos Lord.

EDIT: I'm home sick, so if you guys want me to do the matrix on the other Daemon Weapons, I'll post it up later. Tracking 1 die variables is much more difficult, as you have to take into account the equal possibilities of all events.

@Darkhound:
If the maths are correct it only backs up the statement:
High Risk/Medium Rewards.

Oh god, I just realised how unreasonably odd (and fitting) the math on Deathscreamer is going to be. Yeah, I'll have the math up within the next 8 hours or so.

Sanctjud wrote:@Darkhound:
If the maths are correct it only backs up the statement:
High Risk/Medium Rewards.

And the Bloodfeeder costs more than Lightning Claws. Point, Set, Match.

Undivided:
5.5% chance not to take a wound
11% chance to take a wound
16% -> 2.6 kills
16% -> 3 kills
16% -> 3.5 kills
16% -> 3.9 kills
16% -> 4.3 kills

Bloodfeeder:
11.11% chance not to take a wound
22.22% chance to take a wound
Successful swings only:
2% for 4 (2.9 kills)
5% for 5 (3.3 kills)
8% for 6 (3.6 kills)
11% for 7 (3.9 kills)
14% for 8 (4.3 kills)
11% for 9 (4.6 kills)
8% for 10 (4.9 kills)
5% for 11 (5.3 kills)
2% for 12 (5.6 kills)

Plaguebringer:
5.5% chance not to take a wound
11% chance to take a wound
16% -> 3 kills
16% -> 3.4 kills
16% -> 3.9 kills
16% -> 4.4 kills
16% -> 4.9 kills

Blissgiver:
5.5% chance not to take a wound
11% chance to take a wound
16% -> 2 kills
16% -> 2.3 kills
16% -> 2.6 kills
16% -> 2.9 kills
16% -> 3.3 kills

I'm going to do Deathscreamer by itself, but I thought I'd keep you guys updated. This chart has given the Lord the charge bonus. Oh, and this is against T4 targets with less weapon skill than the Lord, incase I needed to inform you of that.

Holy crap that REALLY reminds me why i dont take BF anymore. I agree with dual LCs on lord. Not only does it make lords more killy and not hurt an expensive model but it makes termies a little more worthwhile IMO. Granted i take them in a LR. Cause footslogging is out of the question and DS is kinda risky.