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Hey Guys,
Just getting back into the hobby after having a break of 1-1.5 years, and looking to do something different, up until now I've only competitively played Space Wolves and Imperial Fists, and I've always wanted to do a Nurgle CSM army, so this is my first shot at writing a list, any and all help would be appreciated.








Thanks in advance!

Are you sure a sorcerer with MoN can unlock plague marines as troops?

do you really need votlw on the lonely oblitz?

what happens when your plague marines get assaulted by a walker you failed to shoot to death with the melta guns? do you have meltabombs?

Are you sure a sorcerer with MoN can unlock plague marines as troops?

Damn, my bad, I guess I'll run a Chaos Lord instead.

do you really need votlw on the lonely oblitz?

Fair call, I probably don't need it on them.

what happens when your plague marines get assaulted by a walker you failed to shoot to death with the melta guns? do you have meltabombs?

Alright, I'll add those in.


As I said before, its been quite a while since I've played, also havn't played CSM before, so this'll be a learning experience.


Updated Version:

Hey, I like the idea, I run 4 units of Plague Marines at 1850 with Meltas and it works quite well. I would dump Veterans of the Long War. Hatred: Space Marines is largely useless for them and they are fearless so the Ld boost doesnt do much.

A better escort for your bike lord are Mark of Nurgle spawn. They are a pain for your opponent to kill outside of dedicated cc units, and take a lot of shooting if you hide in cover.

My experience with oblits is their firepower is gak for thr points they cost. They're not bad but you can spend the points better. This is also especially true of a Forgefiend. Consider Maulerfiends, Havocs, or looking into Forgeworld stuff like the Rapier Batteries. Those things are cheap for the firepower and you can equip them in a few ways. If you already own the oblits the give them a try, but they usually disappoint.

UncleanOne wrote:
Hey, I like the idea, I run 4 units of Plague Marines at 1850 with Meltas and it works quite well. I would dump Veterans of the Long War. Hatred: Space Marines is largely useless for them and they are fearless so the Ld boost doesnt do much.

Thanks for the heads up, i"ll change that.

A better escort for your bike lord are Mark of Nurgle spawn. They are a pain for your opponent to kill outside of dedicated cc units, and take a lot of shooting if you hide in cover.

How many Spawn would you recommend to run in a unit with the Lord?

My experience with oblits is their firepower is gak for thr points they cost. They're not bad but you can spend the points better. This is also especially true of a Forgefiend. Consider Maulerfiends, Havocs, or looking into Forgeworld stuff like the Rapier Batteries. Those things are cheap for the firepower and you can equip them in a few ways. If you already own the oblits the give them a try, but they usually disappoint.

I don't own any yet, all I own currently are some Plague Marines + 1 Rhino, I'm taking my time getting back into the Hobby atm, building/painting 1 unit before I buy the next, that sort of thing, but I like having a list to work from, so I know what I'm getting + what upgrades i'm giving things.

What would be the appeal of a Maulerfiend over a Forgefiend? Forgefiends seem great at taking out horde units like gaunts or boyz, and I was thinking that it would be relatively safe with a 36" range.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, so I've removed the Obliterators and added a unit of Havocs, I'm thinking of removing the small unit of Bikers and the Helldrake to add in a uni of Chaos Spawn and maybe a Sorc if I have enough points.

5 spawn gives 15 wounds, thats where I go for. With Mark of Nurgle the unit is 180 points.

Maulerfiends are good because they move 12", ignore terrain, and punch hard. The problem with thr Forgefiend is its expensive for what you get. It's main drawback is it is only BS3, so you aren't getting a reliable gun platform.

Missile Launchers are kind of crap, and paying out the ass for Flakk isn't worth it. I'd go lascannon or autocannon.

Edit: If you want Maulerfiends it's best to run 2 or more. Redundancy is key in this game.

Second edit: My phone chopped out something I wrote. Keep the Heldrake, it's really good, gives you some anti air with vector strikes, and is a fire magnet. It's a good value. Give it the Baleflamer if you were thinking about what to equip.

UncleanOne wrote:
5 spawn gives 15 wounds, thats where I go for. With Mark of Nurgle the unit is 180 points.

Alright, but should I take out both biker units, or just one to add this in?

Maulerfiends are good because they move 12", ignore terrain, and punch hard. The problem with thr Forgefiend is its expensive for what you get. It's main drawback is it is only BS3, so you aren't getting a reliable gun platform.

I was pretty keen on a Forgefiend tbh, just because they look so cool, do you know if I can make Forgefiend arms + Maulerfiend arms from the same kit? I would love to magnetize the arm sockets so I can use either.

Missile Launchers are kind of crap, and paying out the ass for Flakk isn't worth it. I'd go lascannon or autocannon.

Hmm, I thought they were pretty good due to the flexibility, and as for Flakk, I have no anti-air in this army, so I thought they would be worth it.

Yes you can magnetize the kit. It's a bit tricky but can be done if you're patient.

The problem with missile launchers is they are only AP3, thr AP2 of lascannons is much more useful since it can potentially 1 shot a vehicle, and S9 can pen AV14. Missiles are cheaper, but adding Flakk makes them monstrously expensive. It's not that Flakk is bad, but not worth paying so many points for. You have a heldrake for anti air, and outside of that you can mostly ignore it and stick to the ground war for board control.

Play around with different units, see what works for you, this is just from my experience. I have a lot of guys in my bag who haven't made a return to the battle field

UncleanOne wrote:
Yes you can magnetize the kit. It's a bit tricky but can be done if you're patient.

The problem with missile launchers is they are only AP3, thr AP2 of lascannons is much more useful since it can potentially 1 shot a vehicle, and S9 can pen AV14. Missiles are cheaper, but adding Flakk makes them monstrously expensive. It's not that Flakk is bad, but not worth paying so many points for. You have a heldrake for anti air, and outside of that you can mostly ignore it and stick to the ground war for board control.

Play around with different units, see what works for you, this is just from my experience. I have a lot of guys in my bag who haven't made a return to the battle field

Alright, now I'm sitting at 1414pts, not quite sure what to add to fill it out.

also I know its not a lot of points but is veterans worth it on the plague Marines? they are already fearless so the +1 LD is of no point. and unless you play against nothing but SM players it is a bit waste

very good on the bikes!

 Ckilleen wrote:
also I know its not a lot of points but is veterans worth it on the plague Marines? they are already fearless so the +1 LD is of no point. and unless you play against nothing but SM players it is a bit waste

Yeah that's my bad, I had taken them off in my list I've got in notepad, just forgot to take it off on here, the points remain the same, as in the list just above I wasn't paying for them seeing as I thought I had removed it from the list.

very good on the bikes

Pardon?

I like the current list except for what I've already commented on. I also don't think you should mix weapons on the Havocs. Either go 4 las or for 4 ML. Try thr ML and see how they do for you, the small blast is something handy on occasion.

I like dozer blades on my rhinos.

If you cut a spawn you can probably fit 3-4 nurgle bikes. Probably worth it. Otherwise take a single oblit.

Edit: Previous poster means he likes VotLW on bikes. I agree.

This is just a personal preference having played 40k for over 15 years that forgefiend will be very lackluster, it is the only "tank" you have in the list not counting the rhinos, consequential all the enemy AT will go to that first and kill it turn one. you might be better off making them "waste" AT weapons on infantry so maybe a second dev squad or some oblits

just my 2 cents

UncleanOne wrote:
I like the current list except for what I've already commented on. I also don't think you should mix weapons on the Havocs. Either go 4 las or for 4 ML. Try thr ML and see how they do for you, the small blast is something handy on occasion.

I like dozer blades on my rhinos.

If you cut a spawn you can probably fit 3-4 nurgle bikes. Probably worth it. Otherwise take a single oblit.

Edit: Previous poster means he likes VotLW on bikes. I agree.

Alright, this is what I'm at atm, I have 102pts to spare, thinking about adding a sorc to sit w/ the Havocs





Not sure what to add to round off the list, as it stands its ~1:50am for me right now, so I think I'll sleep on it and come back to this thread tomorrow/today.

Thanks everyone for the help so far, if you have any more suggestions or anything, I'll be back in the thread in ~10 hours.

If you take Mark of Nurgle off the Havocs you should be able to get 3 Mark of Nurgle Spawn. With remaining points I'd stick VotLW on the Havocs.

The Havocs don't really need a toughness boost, most things shooting them are wounding on 2's since they tend to be stronger guns that reach that far back.

I always end up running a forgefiend, though to be perfectly honest it rarely pulls it's weight. If you want to use it I'd advise you be very selective with your targets,
on average you are hitting 4 times a turn with it's AC shots, so hitting light armour or multi wound T4 models is a must to get the most out of it. Going full plasma is the simplest way to get decent use out of it,
but then you have the whole "Candle that is twice as bright" issue, what with the 3 get's hot roles a turn. Not to mention that a source of so much plasma on such a weak frame is a massive target.

The overall army is pretty solid, the only concern I would have is that you have a serious lack of bodies on the table, and it is going to be an issue against armies that typically win through attrition or armies that can outshoot you.
In keeping with the Nurgle theme, Typhus and Zombies is the easiest and most effective means of getting cheap bodies, which will give you the ability to soak up hits. Although that would require a rather dramatic shift in your list.

170 points for an HQ seems a little much, you could get a kitted out Vindicator for that price and it's gun will do a lot more a lot faster. At the very least, I fail to see the point of the blight grenades.

The Flamers on the plague marines seems a little odd. Plague marines aren't particularly well suited to fight anything that you would be shooting with Flamers. Ideally you focus on high strength weaponry like Meltas and Plasma.
In particular Monstrous Creatures are good to fight with Plague marines, not so much hordes.

Bikers are fine, always a good unit to have.

A second Heldrake is likely a good idea, for the sake of redundancy mostly.

I'm not a fan of Havocs, I'd rather a pair of Predators here, upgrade them or leave them bare and they will still do something useful. Also, havoc launchers on the rhino's and Combi bolters are a really cheap way of getting decent weaponry on the table,
if you couple those with the Havocs and their ML then you will be throwing out enough small blasts to affect how the enemy positions their units and you could put some real hurt on hordes.

But this is all mostly Nitpicking really, the list is fine as a whole.

That is nitpicking, you're correct.

170 for an HQ isn't even close to a stretch. In fact, more points should be spent on the Lord. Plus Blight Grenades can Blind things.

Now I'll get a lot of abuse for this but I like Defilers and think one would be good instead of a Forgefiend or Maulerfiend.

tri ectoplasma cannon fiend vs defiler. which is better?

 Filch wrote:
tri ectoplasma cannon fiend vs defiler. which is better?

Defiler coz Lascannon plus ordinance.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That is nitpicking, you're correct.

170 for an HQ isn't even close to a stretch. In fact, more points should be spent on the Lord. Plus Blight Grenades can Blind things.

Eh, maybe. I tend to see a lot of high strength HQ unfriendly weaponry though. 170 for a single model may not seem like a big deal to you, but I tend to play more conservatively with my lists.
Spending more than already is there just seems unnecessary, what on earth else would be needed?

spawn body guard are infinitely better than the bikers, go back to the nurgle spawn, you have enough anti armour. drop mon on the havocs and take auto cannons instead, they save your melta shots and provide good aa. the forgefiend is not that great but the way i run them is barebones and use them for aa (which counters your havocs) you have a lot of anit armour but not enough anti infantry. you need some psychic support i recommend sorc ml3 bike and spell familiar its that easy