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I picked Daemons for the following reasons...

1.) they look cool
2.) Even though Grey Knights are everywhere they are still competitive.

I'm doing a Nurgle themed army to play with and am doing a small 500 point force to learn how they play and learning the units by having the following list

Epidemius

9 Plaguebearers of Nurgle
9 Plaguebearers of Nurgle

1 Daemon Prince: Mark of Nurgle, Noxious Touch

Total: 500 points

I chose this list because Epidemius is my favorite character in the Daemon book for rules as the more mistakes the opponent makes (Casualties) the worse the odds are for him.

I feel this small force will give me a fair indication how Nurgle Daemons play before investing into a full 1500 force.

Comments, Daemon tips, and useful paint and modelling guides are more than welcome.

Welcome to the Warp.

I started playing daemons a while back and absolutely love them. They are a refreshing change of pace from other armies. With that being said, I am not a huge fan of Nurgle. Not because of abilities, but fluff.

I think the biggest thing you are going to struggle with this list is the fact that it moves extremely slow. I think you will find most opponents simply staying away from you and shooting you death. I cannot remember if Epidemius has any shooting attacks, but you will struggle as your opponent stays out of CC with you.

Now, I do not how you feel about adding other factions to your army. It seems that you have a thing for Nurgle, and that is great. But, at a minimum, you may want to trim down your plague bearers to add wings to your DP. This would at least give you one unit that can catch and tie up your opponent while the remainder of your army tries to engage into CC.

I just started Daemons as well! Two games played (with some proxies) and can say you're going to be in for some fun, they're very unique and exciting to play.

I don't mean to speak from personal experience, but from having been reading up the subject myself for some time and general mathammer codex browsing.

The first thing that strikes me about the list is that trying to go for a tally is going to be difficult. Most importantly, it won't be a fair view of a 1,500 point or higher tally list. There simply aren't many models on the board, you yourself have only 20. The max rank tally is 20+ so if your opponent has a similar amount you'll be killing half of their army off before you get the tasty bonuses. Compare that to a larger game where you can be hitting max rank while you still have plenty of units left to use it and your opponent has plenty of units left to use it on.

If you do want to stick to mono Nurgle Green is Best has good advice getting wings on your DP. It'll let you tie up things that'll be trying to blast your Nurglings or worse: Epidemius and it's also likely to be your big killing unit to get your tally up before your Nurglings hit.

Nurgle struggles a bit with actually taking models off the table. Daemon princes are FANTASTIC. Since you wont get muck killiness out of your other models, I recommend getting 3 and decking them out pretty hard. Wings, Cloud of Flies, Noxious Touch (or Gaze), and Iron Hide are all great upgrades that will make your princes into pretty solid monsters.

Great Unclean One is also a solid choice for the points, though he struggles at catching up the vehicles.

Unfortunately, the rest of the Nurgle units don't offer much in terms of killing power or mobility. Beasts of Nurgle are bad, and Nurglings leave something to be desired, and Heralds of Nurgle are the worst heralds in the book. Plaguebearers are great objective holders but they aren't going to threaten anybody too much.

That said, Tallyman is a fun casual list that works really well against opponents who don't bring too much mech. If you can get your tally up reasonably high before your princes die then you can do some serious damage.

If you want to expand, I recommend the following units in your list:

Great Unclean One
Tallyman
Plaguebearers
Nurgle Princes w/ Iron hide, Flight, Cloud of Flies, and either Noxious Touch (for CC power) or Gaze (for some shooting)

If you have extra space and are willing to use units that aren't aligned to Nurgle then I would recommend:

Herald of Tzeentch on chariot with Bolt, Master of Sorcery, and We are Legion. This unit is great at popping tanks and providing ranged pressure. Like the tallyman, he only takes up 1/2 of an HQ choice.

Bloodcrushers. This unit provides some extra CC power, but might not help too much because it also suffers from being slow (moves like infantry).

Fiends. This is probably the best unit in the codex. Too bad the model is ugly and costs an arm and a leg. Tons of high strength rending attacks means that it will do the job in CC. 12 inch charge range helps it catch fast moving models.

I am looking totally nurgle. So saying to spend 60 points on wings for the Daemon Prince and removing 4 Plaguebarers to make...

Epidemius

7 Plaguebearers of Nurgle
7 Plaguebearers of Nurgle

1 Daemon Prince: Wings, Mark of Nurgle, Noxious Touch

Total: 500 points

At this point level I would run the Nurgle prince w/o wings (that is 10% of your army on one upgrade).

Epidemus is also not great at this level since there are not many bodies to complement him.

If you are willing to be flexible it might be interesting to run 2 Herald of Nurgles with Aura of Decay and throw another aura on the DP by cutting 1 PB from each unit (they become 7 man units with heralds attached). Spamming those S2 attacks can grind down the enemy since it is likely you will end up in a giant prolonged combat with this list.

I would be sure to put Hide on the prince and maybe lose touch to throw the Nurgle heralds on Palanquins.

You could always use the rules for the Fiends etc that would make the list more diverse and effective while using "counts as" stand-ins that are more Nurgle themed.

The list is an escalation list so I'm playing friends at 500, 1000, 1500 then 1750 so I got to keep in mind who I'd want in at 1750.
I got told tonight that whats in your 500 point list must be at 1750. so if I had a Daemon Prince w.o wings then I couldn't add the wings later on neither could I replace the Herold with Epidemus.

My friend did suggest using Khorne models and nurgling them to make it themed not sure on that yet.

Hi there.

I started daemons recently, and while i love Khorne and his cohorts, i have looked at Nurgle units and know a little bit.

Unfortunately, i struggle making 500 point lists in daemons, so some of my advice might not be useful, but hey.

Generally speaking, Epidemus is great. His tally ability is awesome. However, most of the Nurgle units aren't as killy as the should be in order to get that tally up. Definately take 3 Daemon Princes of Nurlge to help push up the tally. This isn't really advisable in 500 points, but then again, if your taking epidemus for the tally, its somewhat wasted at this level as you'll really struggle to get over 10, considering enemy model count at this level and only having one killy unit.

Ouch, you cannot even add upgrades to the units as you go? That is a total bummer - especially for a Daemon army. In that case do not go with the Nurgle Heralds. You can use Epidemus, he is just twice the cost of the other two and has limited benefit at 500 points. There is no really good way to kit out your army past the basic..

Epidemus

7x PB, 7x PB at this level.

They are not a strong choice but situationally useful and if you are going all Nurgle possibly good - I would fill in with Beasts of Nurgle. They add some flavor, benefit from the Tally and you do not want to waste a Heavy slot on a mediocre Nurgle Prince.

A nurlge prince really needs MoN, Cloud, Touch, Iron Hide, Wings (~205 points)

Maybe a soul grinder?

arguably, its overkill at this point base, but at 135 + 25 for tongue / phlegm, but paint it nurgle-y so the colour scheme fits, it could be that killing factor you need

calypso2ts wrote:Ouch, you cannot even add upgrades to the units as you go? That is a total bummer - especially for a Daemon army. In that case do not go with the Nurgle Heralds. You can use Epidemus, he is just twice the cost of the other two and has limited benefit at 500 points. There is no really good way to kit out your army past the basic..

Epidemus

7x PB, 7x PB at this level.

They are not a strong choice but situationally useful and if you are going all Nurgle possibly good - I would fill in with Beasts of Nurgle. They add some flavor, benefit from the Tally and you do not want to waste a Heavy slot on a mediocre Nurgle Prince.

A nurlge prince really needs MoN, Cloud, Touch, Iron Hide, Wings (~205 points)

I consolted the other guys and they agreed we can upgrade but not remove the squad or Daemon once its in the list. So Daemon prince can be upgraded later on

Beasts of Nurgle has been on my head.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Zambro wrote:Maybe a soul grinder?

arguably, its overkill at this point base, but at 135 + 25 for tongue / phlegm, but paint it nurgle-y so the colour scheme fits, it could be that killing factor you need

Could be.. not a fan of the model tbh but will test it and see what it has to offer thanks for the suggestion

Hey my next 40k force was rearinf towards a nurgle daemon list. but i am still pondering on our good friend epidemus as he just doesnt seem as good as a secound greater daemon. To be honest at 500 points im still taking two greater daemons. here is my list.
great unclean one
unholy might 175 two of these bad boys
10 nrgling bases. it might be beardy but it also allows at 1500 points to expand with more princes and beasts .

You do know Nurglings cannot capture objectives...

I would rather include Ku-Gath myself at higher levels, it is flavorful since a mono nurgle themed list is all about flavor not power.

Ku'gah is a fantastic model to add in and is also very amusing to play

in my opinon nurgle is a fat peice of gak and should die in a fire is slow and is good ageist weak non melee infantry but ageist high armored opponents without epidermus they would fail miserably also is forgeworld units allowed? if so then instead of a soul grinder (witch gets focused and dies turn 1) use drones of nurgle those little guys can rip appart your enamys in seconds

for a 500 point list epidermus is too expensive i would suggest just getting a great unclean one cheap killy unit and can hurt vehicals ... if he gets off his fat ass and catches it

troops i would keep a low count such as 5 pleage bearers because they are just to hold objectives not kill and if possible drones as your main killy force

furrys are not nurgle but they can tear appart anything that isnt a space marine as long as they arnt shot at and they arnt dedicaded meleers such as eldar scropeions also note of there inish 3 :L

beasts of nurgle in my opinion are to unreliable to add them

princes are your tanks and your killy units, upgrade them appropretly