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I got to a wall trying to choose between two alignments for my CSM. It's either mostly-unaligned warband or a Nurgle warband with Plague Marines. So right now I'm looking for any kind of arguments for choosing Unaligned or Nurgle -- based on the fluff, rules, painting, modelling, whatever. Got any?

Well Nurgle lists are much more competitive at the moment than an unaligned list, considering there is currently no undivided mark (however there is the icon of vengeance). Personally I'd run an undivided warband with Nurgle sway or lots of Nurgle forces, as this way you could justify running non-nurgle forces in your army from a fluff standpoint. Also, many people seem to run mono-god lists so undivided would perhaps make you a little more unique I guess. Nurgle can be hard to get the overall paint feeling right I find, sometimes I find it seems just rusty and other times I find my models to just be walking gloop, but that's probably just me. So basically, I'd recommend going unaligned but with a heavy influence of Nurgle, to allow you to have a varied force. Hope this helped!

As mentioned Nurgle marked stuff is the most competitive stuff in the codex. As for painting, I'm doing all the cult troops their respective colors and using Alpha legion for everything else. This way I don't get bored doing the same color scheme over and over. Also, Alpha legion is awesome in the fluff.

in competitive games nurgle is your best friend

OP I built a sizable ~10k points Red Corsairs army that was largely unaligned aside from some Noise Marine squads. I found myself frequently using MoN on bikers, spawn, etc..

So I ended up building about 4k points of Death Guard. That +1 toughness is worth it. I am also a huge Death Guard fan, so that may have had something to do with my choice.

MoN is worth it on bikers and spawn injust about every scenario.
As far as putting it on other units, its situational.
MoSlaanesh is something to consider as well.

I'd go unaligned.

With nurgle, you're stuck with nurgle, which means you're more at the mercy of changes, and have fewer options you can try out (I mean, you're sort of auto-cutting out a bunch of the codex).

You also would have the unfortunance of an army that is extremely popular, while also not really being any stronger, which is an awful situation to be in.

Unless you really like the fluff for nurgle, I'd stay undivided.

One thing my friend brought up one time, same thing with Chaos Daemons. You have access to all 4 gods, and their special stuff. Taking JUST nurgle limits you to JUST nurgle, whereas you could also have ignores cover guns, very decent melee units, units with sorcerers in them. But, if you like nurgle, play what you like. You'll have more fun with it, by far.

Thanks for all the answers!

Right now, I'll be painting another marine and trying out some colours that would suit fit both Nurgle and unaligned.

I had the same problem when i started collecting and playing CSM. I did Night Lords and Death Guard in the end, so the best of both. One piece of advice is buy the forgeworld conversion kits for Death Guard. The regular plague marines look freakin terrible.

I play undivided.

Nurgle aesthetic is awful in my opinion. There's also the fact that he's the crutch god that everyone rushes to play (too bad you can't mark heldrakes amirite)

Ask yourself what it is about Nurgle you like. Is it that people always tell you its competitive? Because if that's your buzz then you should probably consider a different faction altogether. If you dig the fluff and the models, then go for it.

skybax wrote:Right now, I'll be painting another marine and trying out some colours that would suit fit both Nurgle and unaligned.

You can do that, too. I started making a khorne army, and when I wanted it to be a little more generic, I switched over to brass as the main color. They obviously fit in with the berzerkers, who are red and brass, but the metallic itself doesn't necessarily say khorne only.

Like, in your case, you could go with white, which is a tertiary color of nurgle, without also being strictly only nurgle.

Undivided, and if you want some nurgle then paint up a sarge & HQ or two for your CSM and paint your units of Plague Marines, if you bring any.

Similar to what I0K1 said; I run undivided with my main army one colour scheme, then have each cult troop (berserkers, plagues, 1K sons & Metal Marines!) be their respective god-representative-colour with one shoulder painted up as the main army scheme.
Couple marks of the different gods scattered amongst the chaos stars on my vehicles.
Thus the gods are honoured while your warband can still play undivided, AND you maintain colour-coherency throughout your army.
It gives you the flexibility to expand and play your army as you desire while still letting you field whichever specific god theme tickles your fancy.

And then each HQ ties in as needed.
Standard CSM lord? Standard colours!
Nurgle Biker lord? Nurgle him up!
Sorcerer? Anything but blue and gold!
Khorne Juggerlord? Blood for the blood god!