Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Title may looks like a extremely ridiculous joke. I had always looked down on then from the time I know 40k and think they are just a cheerful fun units, before my last game, when 15 bases of this little buggers plus 2 Rhinos assaulted Guiliman from Turn 2 and chased him every turn after that so his 3 Daemon Princes are safe to eat up everything else I have including Comtemptor Dreadnought, Vanguards and TH/SS Captain, I know how wrong I was.

True it looks like a joke unit, with only Toughness 2! everything better than a flashlight is wounding them on 2s. However, they don't care because they have a 5++ and a 5+++, more importantly, they have 4 wounds each base, and most importantly, the 2 special rules that hurt them the most, i.e. blast and template weapons causing double wounds, and instant death rule, is kaput in 8th. So now the result is, you have to inflict 9 wounds to remove one base, no matter what Str and AP your weapon is. For comparison, no matter what weapon you are firing, you only need to inflict 3 wounds to reliably kill a power armor marine. To be more comprehensive, 6 boltgun hits will statistically kill a marine, but to remove one base of Nurgling, you need 11 hits. So for 1.5 times the points, the Nurglings have 2 times the resilient of a marine. If the Str and AP increases, the advantage of Nurglings becomes more significant. For example, a typical Space Marine "OP" shooty unit, the Twin Assault Cannon Razorback, even assuming everything hits and everything wounds under the buff of Guiliman, is only gonna remove 1.5 bases of Nurgling!!! while it will kill 4 Space Marines on strict mathhammer.

The only weakness the Nurglings have is the multi damage attacks, especially the Damage 4 ones. But that is the field of Dreadnought Chainfist, which is used to take down Imperial Knights, Skarbrand, and other big monsters and tanks, using it to just kill 2 or 3 Nurglings each round? Then those big bads can just run through you. Damage 2 multi shot / strike weapons may also do some work, but that 5++ and 4W means you need to inflict 3 wounds to remove one. For the typical and most efficient weapon in this category: Auto Cannons, it means needing a minimum 3 cannons to destroy 2 bases (i.e. the minimum to cause a failed morale), it means a minimum whole IG heavy weapon team or 3/4 of the Havoc Squad!!!! is required to kill just 2 models worth total 40pts!!!!!

This buggers also cannot be simply ignored despite the fact that they can't kill much. What I experienced is an typical example: 3 units of 9 bases will infiltrate just 9 inches from the frontline. T1, smiting, shooting from Daemon Princes and Rhinos coupled with charges of Nurgling easily wreck a big hole on the Scout screen I lay down. 2nd turn, they charged into Guiliman, then it is mission acomplished for them which sealed my defeat. Because Guiliman cannot fall back and charge, so he firmly grab the inititive at hand and the most dangerous unit for his Daemon Princes is totally out of the equation. In shooting, Daemon Princes cannot be shot at because of being character. In combat, every turn they just wreck up everything I have other than Guiliman, be it shooty or choppy.

So, is Nurglings becone over power in this edition when used right? Anyone has any idea how to fight this little evils, especially coupled with Daemon Princes?

They went down in points and are 18/base now. If I compare them to scarabs that's still quite high for my taste, but you pointed out what Nurglings are good for. They won't kill anything or only an Eldar if they have a herold with them. They are a fine tarpit and screening unit though. You can force enemies to fall back or to concentrate firepower on them, either way it's good as everything else is more valuable than Nurglings .

Since most things hurt them on 2s and multidamage weapons negate their 5+++ I'd still say they are rather squishy esp. in CC, but at 18points for 4 wounds what do you expect?

And don't forget their wonderful deployment rules =D

An AM HWT costs 57 points (63 in the new codex) and as you pointed out it will make it's points back in 2 turns of firing. Not so bad a deal for them. If they were firing on a marine they would net ~20 point per shooting phase, much less if the target was in cover.

In all other cases though they do not offer a good target for weapons.

They're great for preventing deep strikes and alpha legion infiltrates etc. Always bring at least one unit

The question is - Aren't brimstone horrors better tarpit units than Nurglings?

I love the little pusballs, so much so i ordered 3 more units of 3. Nurglings annoy the crap out of my opponents cos the squishy little buggers dont seem to be worth killing but if they dont, the nurglings get all up in their business

They have held up, chased and generally harrassed;
Predators,
Arjac,
Centurions,
Dreadnoughts,
Devastators,
Hormagaunts,
Trygons.

Cheap and annoying, they help secure my lines from deep strikers and annoy my opponents. The icing on the caje is that they are easy as to paint

If you bring Epidemius they become more survivable and start to be a credible threat (+1 str from Epi, +1 str from herald) as you kill things with your other Nurgle power houses.

 TzeentchMensch wrote:
The question is - Aren't brimstone horrors better tarpit units than Nurglings?

Can horrors be deep strike or infiltrate? if yes, well, maybe brimstone is a better tarpit due to being much cheaper.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
They went down in points and are 18/base now. If I compare them to scarabs that's still quite high for my taste, but you pointed out what Nurglings are good for. They won't kill anything or only an Eldar if they have a herold with them. They are a fine tarpit and screening unit though. You can force enemies to fall back or to concentrate firepower on them, either way it's good as everything else is more valuable than Nurglings .

Since most things hurt them on 2s and multidamage weapons negate their 5+++ I'd still say they are rather squishy esp. in CC, but at 18points for 4 wounds what do you expect?

I think the scarabs and Nurglings are two different kind of things. Scarab will drag things down with volume of attacks and wounding everything on 5s. Nurglings do not have the punchy ability, but is much much tougher than Scarab who with only a T-shirt save.
Well, 18pts for 4 wounds with 5++ 5+++ is pretty undercosted in my opinion, that means inflicting 16 wounds minimum before saving rolls within one turn is required to even have a chance to cause a failed morale check, to make it more reliably, you need inflict 32 wounds. Hence, there is no way you can get out of that tarpit before your other units got crushed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
An AM HWT costs 57 points (63 in the new codex) and as you pointed out it will make it's points back in 2 turns of firing. Not so bad a deal for them. If they were firing on a marine they would net ~20 point per shooting phase, much less if the target was in cover.

In all other cases though they do not offer a good target for weapons.

I agree that AM HWT may be quite good.
But in the scenario I listed, I was assuming that somehow those autocannon shots get all hits and all wounds, so they can remove 2 bases after that 5++. The reality is much more depressing than my scenario, on average the Guardsmen autocannon are only likely to remove 1 base, The probability for AM HWT to remove 2 bases is only around 20%. For the Chaos Havoc with 4 autocannon, it is actually also only about 1/3 chances to kill 2 bases of Nurglings by strict mathhammer. Sooooo, tough to make points back any time soon..........


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JakeSiren wrote:
If you bring Epidemius they become more survivable and start to be a credible threat (+1 str from Epi, +1 str from herald) as you kill things with your other Nurgle power houses.

Haha, that might nake the Nurglings looks more OP for their points. However I don't think that is necessary as they are pretty great in themselves already, for what they should function: tie up enemy strong shooty or choppy stuffs in 1st / 2nd turn, so Daemon Princes and Bloated Drones / Plague Drones can run over the whole army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Casti wrote:
I love the little pusballs, so much so i ordered 3 more units of 3. Nurglings annoy the crap out of my opponents cos the squishy little buggers dont seem to be worth killing but if they dont, the nurglings get all up in their business

They have held up, chased and generally harrassed;
Predators,
Arjac,
Centurions,
Dreadnoughts,
Devastators,
Hormagaunts,
Trygons.

Cheap and annoying, they help secure my lines from deep strikers and annoy my opponents. The icing on the caje is that they are easy as to paint

Yes of course, they are actually an awesome unit if yoy take 3 units of 9 bases each.

At the recieving end I've been taught a very painful lesson about these little buggers, but still not able to find good way against them until now. I think as SM, the master crafted auto boltgun is best answer, but shame it only come on the Lieutenant so cannot be brought in mass........

At the risk of threadnomancy, how many nurglingd do you use at a time and backed up by what.

I have been thinking that a unit of 5 would be great to guarantee victory on the RELIC mission and also act as a great screen.

Something like
Typhus 175
Herald of Nurgle 73
5 nurglings 90
20 pox walkers 120
25 plague bearers 175
633pts

Nothing looses any benefits due to mixing detatchments. The plague bearers take a lot more shooting to get rid of compared to cultists and the pox walker blob just grows in the back field.

I use 2-3 units of nurglings in both my oblit spam, and my aetaos' centered list. Not for tarpittinf, but strictly for deepstrike denial and landing zones security, these cannot be overlooked at all.

I wouldn't use them as my main troop but they are solid board control and hard to remove with more pressing matters all around.

Cool. I.am thinking about fielding 5 unots of 3 so I can fill the midfield.with them and control deep strikes.....

Have you all.ever.fielded.them with deathguard or Epidemious as part of chaos soup.

I'm more partial to running them in squads of 9 as it allows you to lock enemies in close combat by surrounding an enemy model. You have a lot more flexibility in doing that with a unit of 9 rather than 3. Plus you can block a whole lot of DS with two units of 9.

In my experience they tend to die before Epidemius gets powered up, but that just means your punchier units aren't being attacked. I haven't played with many daemon engines, so that could change if you include them in your list.

JakeSiren wrote:
I'm more partial to running them in squads of 9 as it allows you to lock enemies in close combat by surrounding an enemy model. You have a lot more flexibility in doing that with a unit of 9 rather than 3. Plus you can block a whole lot of DS with two units of 9.

In my experience they tend to die before Epidemius gets powered up, but that just means your punchier units aren't being attacked. I haven't played with many daemon engines, so that could change if you include them in your list.

I will never deny that more dudes do more stuff, but this becomes more of a list question and wether it's worth it with what else you are running to pay for double the nurglings(and cost xD). Also keep in mind that 3 squads of three gives you a 54" x 27" area of DS denial/landing zones security. So definitely won't be lacking at all there.

I’m going to be running 5 squads of 3 as my troops and the rest are Daemon engines, princes and epidemious. Also 2 units of oblits.

My plan was just to use them to assault anything I can while defilers and plague drones close on the enemy. I’ve never run this list in 8th and have been looking for help regarding nurglings. Any advice would be appreciated.

Ecdain wrote:

JakeSiren wrote:
I'm more partial to running them in squads of 9 as it allows you to lock enemies in close combat by surrounding an enemy model. You have a lot more flexibility in doing that with a unit of 9 rather than 3. Plus you can block a whole lot of DS with two units of 9.

In my experience they tend to die before Epidemius gets powered up, but that just means your punchier units aren't being attacked. I haven't played with many daemon engines, so that could change if you include them in your list.

I will never deny that more dudes do more stuff, but this becomes more of a list question and wether it's worth it with what else you are running to pay for double the nurglings(and cost xD). Also keep in mind that 3 squads of three gives you a 54" x 27" area of DS denial/landing zones security. So definitely won't be lacking at all there.

I typically run as many fast elements as possible, so Daemon Princes, Plague Drones, Fetid Blight Drones, and GUO (although he is more of a distraction carnifex), and of course the Nurglings.

I find that the Nurglings are annoying enough that my opponent tries killing them before anything else which gives me enough time for everything else to run up field. Depending on points available, I also run a unit of plague bearers who's sole job is to hold objectives on my back field and prevent DS from behind my main force.

With DS I find it's not so much as preventing your opponent from doing so (let's face it, a unit of 3 Nurglings are going to be removed by end of T1 if the enemy wants to DS there), but forcing them to DS into positions that aren't as favourable. Ie: Minimize available targets, making them DS into a location that you can then ignore them, etc.

Toughness 2 is pretty bad, but I could see some utility in the 5++, 5+++ in comparison to Pox Walkers.

I've been tempted to run Daemon since the start of 8th... Plague Drones and Nurglings in particular.

This is a list I played at a local tourney for Nurgle Daemons. I went 3-0 and for every game if they didn't end early, I would have tabled. They used power level, but for daemons it's pretty consistent with points.
Battalion Det:
Epidemius
Daemon Prince of Nurgle
Herald of Nurgle
25 Plaguebearers
2 units of 3 Nurglings
2 Gigantic Chaos Spawn
Plague Toads
Mortarion

Outrider Det:
Herald of Nurgle
2 Foetid Bloat Drones w/ plaguespitters
Plague Drones

It was tough to chew through. Only thing that would die during these games were the Nurgling screen and the drones. Mortarion would be healed back up by fleshy abundance on the heralds and he would always cast Miasma on himself. Anyone that would focus Mortarion would be overwhelmed by everything else, and that 5+,5+ is just gruesome. Plaguebearers just surrounded Epidemius and everything else rushed up the board. MVP had to be either the Nurglings or Mortarion it was a fun and strong list. Making those 5+ saves were just too satisfying lol.

This is the list I am taking to a local league event. I was going to take two defilers but given the opportunity I figured I would try the heldrake. Also, since it’s a league game I am not t9 worried about winning. Think I should drop a squad or two of nurglings and add a corresponding number of plague bearers?


Epidemious 103
Herald 73 virulent blessings
3 nuglings 54
3 nurglings 54
3 nurglings 54
3 nurglings 54
3 nurglings 54
446
CSM Prince 180 warp time
Defiler 214 las scourge
Heldrake 185
Oblits 2x 390
969
Dg prince 180 wings supturating plate arch contaminator miasma of pestilence
3 foetid blight drones 477
Plague burst crawler entropy cannons 156
813

Neophyte2012 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:
An AM HWT costs 57 points (63 in the new codex) and as you pointed out it will make it's points back in 2 turns of firing. Not so bad a deal for them. If they were firing on a marine they would net ~20 point per shooting phase, much less if the target was in cover.

In all other cases though they do not offer a good target for weapons.

I agree that AM HWT may be quite good.
But in the scenario I listed, I was assuming that somehow those autocannon shots get all hits and all wounds, so they can remove 2 bases after that 5++. The reality is much more depressing than my scenario, on average the Guardsmen autocannon are only likely to remove 1 base, The probability for AM HWT to remove 2 bases is only around 20%. For the Chaos Havoc with 4 autocannon, it is actually also only about 1/3 chances to kill 2 bases of Nurglings by strict mathhammer. Sooooo, tough to make points back any time soon..........

Something else to consider is that few (if any) IG players make use of Autocannon HWTs. You're far more likely to see Mortar HWSs (33pts, 3d6 S4 AP- D1 shots per squad) or Heavy Bolter HWSs (42pts, 9 S5 AP-1 D1 shots per squad).

Lascannons are also popular, but these tend to be nested in Infantry Squads, rather than in HWSs (or, if they are used in the latter, it'll usually be a single Lascannon with 2 Heavy Bolters or Mortars).

 sennacherib wrote:
This is the list I am taking to a local league event. I was going to take two defilers but given the opportunity I figured I would try the heldrake. Also, since it’s a league game I am not t9 worried about winning. Think I should drop a squad or two of nurglings and add a corresponding number of plague bearers?


Epidemious 103
Herald 73 virulent blessings
3 nuglings 54
3 nurglings 54
3 nurglings 54
3 nurglings 54
3 nurglings 54
446
CSM Prince 180 warp time
Defiler 214 las scourge
Heldrake 185
Oblits 2x 390
969
Dg prince 180 wings supturating plate arch contaminator miasma of pestilence
3 foetid blight drones 477
Plague burst crawler entropy cannons 156
813

Fleshy Abundace over the blessing any given day. Healing those bloat drones back up is one of the most eye rolling things you can do to your opponent. Go with the heal it's just the better power.

Don't forget you can also throw fleshy abundance onto the Daemon engines. It can be especially good when you go up a damage bracket.