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Is it worth it to give Plague Drones of Nurgle the Rot Proboscis (close combat Poisoned 3+)?

In my experience, generally not.

Ditto the instadeath stinger, unless you KNOW you will be hitting non EW MCs.

I run mine basically naked, but for an icon and a sarge with balesword.

Sometimes i'll splurge for deaths heads to give the unit a bit of a reach attack.

ok and what are death heads I cant find them in the codex

They are in the ranged weapon section of the codex. Also the 3+ or ID attacks are not bad choices. They terrify things like Riptides

Plague Drones are great fire magnets, each with good T and large amount of wounds. Plus they're some of the faster Nurgle units out there.

Push them up the field, let them draw fire, and if they survive, their icon is great for troop positioning. Lastly, they're a good tarpit unit to tie up an enemy you want to not shoot/assault other portions of your army.

Plague Drones are best generally left vanilla in my opinion. They serve a similar role to fleshhounds, that is quickly moving up the board and putting pressure on the enemy and drawing fire. Keep them as cheap as you can and get more models on the board.
The difference between poison 3 and 4 is negligible, and the instant death really isn't that efficient when you consider that its only 1 WS 3 attack per model with no AP value. It would be a rather unlucky riptide who would die to those chances.

In fact I would keep these guys well away from MC's altogether, as smash attacks are a sure way to quickly let the squad get ID into nothingness.

Death heads are a mediocre shooting attack on a unit with mediocre BS. Don't take them, and use that shooting phase to get where you need to be.

There's one huge advantage to take the rot - it disconnects their poison from the plagueswords to the model itself, so that a squad leader can take an etherblade and keep the 3+ poison, resulting in a poison 3+ AP2 weapon.

^This. I do this all the time. 3+ poison with AP2 is crazy good.

Is there any synergy between the etherblade and the string? Would he get 1 poison (3) ap 2 insta death attack? Or is it limited to ap -?

Venom Sting nominates 1 attack the model makes to be ID. So the Plaguebringer would combine it with the AP2.

Plague Drones are best generally left vanilla in my opinion. They serve a similar role to fleshhounds, that is quickly moving up the board and putting pressure on the enemy and drawing fire. Keep them as cheap as you can and get more models on the board.
The difference between poison 3 and 4 is negligible, and the instant death really isn't that efficient when you consider that its only 1 WS 3 attack per model with no AP value. It would be a rather unlucky riptide who would die to those chances.

In fact I would keep these guys well away from MC's altogether, as smash attacks are a sure way to quickly let the squad get ID into nothingness.

Considering they have a better WS than a Riptide, and can cause ID through their armor, Riptides should beware. Also Drones are fast enough to get to where they need to be, 12" move, d6 run, 2d6 thrust move. They are a very nice tarpit unit with a threat that needs to be accounted for.

 ThatEdGuy wrote:
^This. I do this all the time. 3+ poison with AP2 is crazy good.

well, I have to try this now. Gotta be the FW drones though rathen than the GW ones, much sexier

I run mine like this:

4x Plague Drone - P. Rot & D. Heads
Plaguebringer - Etherblade

It's a good chunk of points but well worth it based upon my experience. The Rot is great versus everything - especially when you can re roll and helps offset WS3. I like the shooting since there are lots of T3 units roaming around now... That said it'd be the first thing to drop if I needed the points elsewhere.

They are an excellent tarpit and generally do well in melee versus most any other unit. They have rust so they can drop stuff like serpents too, which is handy.

I've had a lot of luck using them as banner-slings for my Grinders of Nurgle + Torrent.

The ID from venom sting is really nice when you couple it with AP2 from an Etherblade, be mindful though, once your opponent find out you're doing that, he WILL focus them down. So I would say hug cover as much as you can and whenever possible, making good use of that Shrouded.

Can just the unit champion take the upgrade for venom or does the entire unit have to?

Whole unit, i believe