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I’m pretty new to AoS. A friend and I just went to a doubles tournament at warhammer world, where we each brought 1k armies. I brought mortal nurgle, because I really like their models. We won all of our games, so currently I have a 100% record at this game – which is tricky to improbe on! I’m now looking to expand my list up to 2k, to use in the Grand Tournaments that GW is introducing this year. I’m not going to heat 1 though – I aim to learn how to play first, and there's the small issue of painting my army.

This is the core of my list. It comes to 1600 points, including the plaguetouched warband battalion. The whole army fits in the battalion at 2k, meaning I deploy in one step. I ought to get to decide who goes first. If there are objectives in the middle I’ll probably take first turn myself and swarm all over them.

Everyone has mark of Nurgle of course. The blightkings are battleline so long as I keep my mortal nurgle allegiance.

The Glottkin
28 Chaos Warriors with two-handed weapons
10 chaos warriors with shields
5 Putrid Blightkings
Exalted hero BSB

That covers the core of my army. I've got the battleline units that I need. The BSB is there because failing charges makes you lose games - and because I feel like an army ought to have a BSB. The Glotts are the Glotts.

In terms of allegiance abilities I think I’ll take a chaos talisman for the Glotts, and the general ability that gives enemies -1 to hit in turn 1. I get another artefact thingy from the detachment and I’m not sure who to give it to, but partly that’s because I don’t know which guys to bring.

The unit of 28 is because they are a multiple of 7, and therefore if an enemy lands a 6 to wound them in melee they take a mortal wound. This happens even if I then make my save, which I hope to do. The plan is to cunningly buff the hell out of these guys (eg +1 wound, +1 save, reroll 1s to hit, wound and save) and then even-more-cunningly run them forwards. The glotts and others traipse along behind, while other people try to grab objectives. I’m not sure if greataxes are the best option for these guys, but they seem like a reasonable one.

I'm left with 400 points to buy 3 units to fill out the battalion. I'm going to assemble a few different combinations and see how they work out. Options include:

A sorceror on manticore 240. Basically I’ve got the guy, as a lord on manticore was my general at the doubles and the riders are interchangeable. I think I prefer the spell from the one on foot.

5 Chaos knights. 200. These guys don’t seem to kill much, but they are an effective blocking unit. They can also snatch objectives at the start, and then are difficult to shift.

10 more warriors with shields. 180. A bit dull, but effective, and I’ve got them.

Chaos Sorceror Lord on foot...or on a horse. 140. Good choice for seriously buffing my big warrior unit.

Exalted Hero. 80. This guy is mainly bad I think. I had fun with him at the doubles as I gave him a daemon weapon, which he got to use a lot.

Festus. 120. Main job is healing the glottkin. His own spell seems unlikely to get cast very often, due to range, but might swing the game if I get stuck with someone else’s death star in the middle of the board.

Chaos lord on daemonic mount. 140. A fighty guy who can grab objectives. I think that Gutrot is probably strictly better, except that this guy can guarantee grabbing one of the places of power on turn 1.

Gutrot Spume. 120. World’s slowest assassin. Benefits a lot from either the sorcerer or Festus’ company.

A unit of chosen. 160. Interesting alternative to a sorcerer. They kill stuff themselves, have rend, and would pass on a major buff to the big CW unit nearby.

Either kind of chariot 80/100. An ok filler unit. I’d rather take the horsey one I think. Not a fan of the model, though I do have an unassembled one from the start collecting set.

Spawn. 60. A bad filler unit.

I could also potentially have some chaos familiars for 40. I’ve stuck two nurglings that come with the Glottkin on 25mm bases so they’d be useable. Problem is that they aren’t nurgle or mortal, so they aren’t eligible to be part of the battalion and they’d make the blightkings stop counting as battleline. That’s not ideal. They probably aren’t worth it in this army, because I’d need another chaos warrior unit to make them legal, and probably at least one more wizard to make them worth considering.

I keep changing my mind about what to bring. Knights, Gutrot and a chariot would be a decent option I think. So might be the chosen, Gutrot and Festus. The sorcerer, 10 more warriors and a chariot or exalted hero might also be a plan. I need to test out how survivable the Glottkin really are, and whether Festus would be useful to help keep them alive. In any case I'll have some options to play with, some of which might be useful in friendly games as well.

If you’re interested, I’ve started a plog of painting these guys over on the newly-resurrected warseer.

I’d be very grateful for any suggestions. Thanks!

Glottkin won't get a command trait and cannot be given an item as a name character, so give your BSB favor of the gods to help keep him alive.

Bring Festus. The Glottkin aren't as durable as they seem when the whole enemy army focuses on them (and they will).

Bring Chosen. You desperately need the rend and they will buff your other Slaves to Darkness units.

The 28 warriors with double hand weapons unfortunately won't serve you nearly as well as they would with shields. At 20+ models they re-roll saves of 1, which with the mystic shield that you are going to be casting on them will put them at a 3+ re-rolling 1's, letting them tank very well while putting mortal wounds on enemies who hit them. Note that an enemy will suffer the mortal wound even if the attack is subsequently saved...

Assuming the above happens, I would recommend dropping the 10 warriors in exchange for 7 marauders (or 10, whichever you like better). This frees up the points to bring the Chaos Lord on Daemonic mount, who can carry the second artifact you get for having a battalion, and the chaos familiars to run behind Glotts & Festus (just keep them more than 3" away from the Blightkings!). If you don't swap the 10 warriors out for marauders, then take the Exalted Hero to carry the item and fill the extra points, along with the familiars.

Thanks, that’s very helpful. I’d forgotten that I couldn’t give allegiance stuff to named characters. That at least solves the question of which command ability to take! It actually raises the potential option of taking a general other than the glottkin. Probably not, but at least it means they aren’t a complete no-brainer. The army I was looking at taking might only have had one non-named hero in it, so one of the artifacts would have to go in the bin. Not ideal!

Unfortunately I can’t swap the warriors for marauders. Doing so would leave me without enough battleline units, as the blightkings would stop counting. Otherwise it would be a good way to save points. I guess I could swap out the blightkings themselves. But I don't want to.

Rend does seem to be in short supply in my army. That’s why I’m planning to go with two-handers for my unit of 28. Shields don’t improve their save, they just protect against mortal wounds. I realise mortal wounds are fairly common, but a big source of them is people like retributors, spiders and witch elves who score them on a 6+ to hit. In theory, the battalion should help a lot with that issue.

I realise it’s no protection against warpfire throwers and the like, but in that case I feel like my best option is to hit the damn things with big axes until they are all dead. I feel like these guys need to have rend if they are actually going to be a threat, rather than just a massive speed bump.

Glad you agree on Festus and the chosen. From my theorycrafting they do seem to add a lot. Unfortunately it does look like a lord on daemonic mount would be a better call than Gutrot Spume, since I can give the daemonic mount guy an artefact. Trouble is, Festus, Chosen and the lord come to 420 points, and I only have 400. I could go with a lord on foot, but I’m not sure if a foot lord with an artefact is better than Gutrot is without one.

Maybe the real problem is that I’m trying to fit too much in. That unit of 28, along with the battalion and Glottkin, uses up well over half of my points. It means all of my eggs are firmly in a single basket. If I just fielded 20 of them then the spare 180 points could go a long way. I could have something like this:

Battalion. 140
Glottkin . 480
20 warriors. 360
10 warriors. 180
5 blightkings. 180
Manticore lord with chaos talisman. 300
Festus. 120
Chosen. 160
Exalted standard bearer with extra wound. 80

The manticore lord is an interesting one. He isn’t the most dangerous guy, at least for his price, but he’s tough enough to stick on an objective. With -1 to hit him in melee he’d be seriously tanky, especially if a lot of the focus was on the Glottkin. He gets buffed by everyone as well.

Oops! I read 'two-handed weapons' as 'two hand weapons' which is very different. You are correct with the weapon option in that case. If Glottkin is in the army you are going to want them as the general simply because their command ability is so good, but there are two exceptions; a Harbinger of Decay could take precedence if you need the durability (you don't), and of course Archaeon will always be preferred if both are in the same list.

Chaos Marauders are mortal and can be marked nurgle, so they won't mess up your allegiance.

Thanks again, and damn it! I swear I looked at the marauder entry a bunch of times to see if they could be marked, and didn’t spot that they can. My eyes have clearly rotted. Maybe I’m getting them confused with beastmen or something.

So I can take a unit of 28 marauders with shields and axes for the price of 10 warriors. People will get sick and die if they hit them, which they’ll struggle to do in combat with -1 to hit. I could potentially even cast fleshy abundance on them.

I need to consider this option I think. They get a lot more benefit out of the glottkin’s bonus, since there are tons of them. Even their lack of rend isn’t too problematic with Festus around.

I could see a case for only really using chosen and marauders in this battalion. If all my core units were gangs of 28 marauders, backed up by a couple of units of chosen, the glottkin and the odd fighty hero, that would be seriously nasty.

I don’t think I’ll do that though. Here’s a revised attempt at a 2k list, with a bit more of a mixture of stuff in it. I think this list is a pretty big improvement over the first.

Plaguetouched Warband Battalion. 140:
Glottkin. 480
28 marauders. 180
10 warriors with greataxes. 180
10 warriors with greataxes. 180
Gutrot Spume. 120
Chaos Lord on daemonic steed. 140
5 Chosen. 160

Not in the Battalion:

Exalted standard bearer. 80
Festus. 120
Familiars. 40

The familiars, which are otherwise awesome, are neither mortal, nor nurgle. That is a bit of a pain. I've therefore split the greataxe warriors into two units of 10, so as to have enough battleline units. Alternatively I could swap the blightkings for 10 warriors with shields, reform the unit of 20 warriors, and stick the BSB back into the battalion. Not sure what's best, but I do like my blightkings' models.

I don’t like the actual marauder miniatures that much, but I’ll get myself some flagellants and see what I can do with them. I think they’ll look pretty good with assorted shields scavenged from about the place. I’ve got some from Gors and skeleton warriors that could work well.