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So I'm thinking of breaking my 40K out of mothballs (it's been a LONG time) as I'm getting the "itch" - y'know, the same itch former drug addicts must get when they glance down and see the scars of their injections and feel that "itch". I have a sizeable force of largely Forgeworld Plague Marines, around 1850 points (give or take a few hundred depending on loadouts) including Typhus and a FW PM Sorcerer. I also have a small, viable force of Nurgle Daemons - 2 Heralds, 20 Plaguebearers, 6 Swarms and 3 Drones - that could either be a small allied detachment or a pool for Malefic summoning. The only thing I DON'T have that can be summoned is a Great Unclean One, as a matter of fact.

So my question is, having very little familiarity with 7th edition and tabletop gaming in general at this point, what are the pros and cons of having Daemons as an Allied Detachment versus investing in Malefic powers for lots of summoning?

Keep in mind I'll probably do more Malefic summoning, because it seems more enjoyable and interesting to drop down extra units throughout the battle while not having to sacrifice points from my Plague Marine army. So to that end, what are some things I should know, the quirks and what-not of summoning during games?

Thanks in advance!

People complain abiut mealefic summoning, or "Daemon Factory" because, the emporers lapdogs think it's unfair + little Timmy doesn't have the money to play the pay2swarm army.

Effectively, you're army isn't a Daemon Factory because you lack the Pink Horrors portion, limiting your Warp Charges Greatly, but the army can still be enjoyed, playing and playing against.

The one hindrance you'll have however, is the fact how easily Nurgle Daemons can be dealt with these days with the plethora of long ranged ignores cover weaponry at the disposal of over powered, unfun armies like Eldar and Tau ( Both of which I played and now "Junked" to some guy thanks to eBay and glorious, glorious returns of my investments)

The game, and Chaos in general as a faction are pigeon hole into certain units, formations and limited to sinking more money into things like Forgeworld and their rules books in order to have an equal chance at having a good, fair game. Because of that the Chaos Factions are considered one of if not the worst armies in the game.

If you haven't done so already I'd really recommend having a look through the 7th edition psychic rules to get a basis for how malefic conjuration is best achieved.

Generally the best option for conjuring units is to use daemons in the first place. Summoning and Incursion are both WC3 powers so you have to throw a decent amount of dice at them for a reasonable chance of success. If you're doing this with CSM sorcerers your chances of suffering perils of the warp are generally much increased.

The other issue is the WC cost itself for the conjuration. Daemon lists commonly have some units of pink horrors to act as WC batteries and also to cover the troops requirement in the CAD. Depending on what psykers you have in your CSM contingent you're only going to get 4WC from your 2 nurgle heralds at most plus whatever you roll for additional charges. Conjuration spam isn't a great tactic but you're only going to have one guaranteed casting of a conjuration with a fair chance of success. Especially if you have any other powers to try.

If you want to try your hand at malefic conjuration your best bet with your current options are to take a CSM force with allied Daemons. Take the two heralds and some plaguebearers and use the heralds to try for one conjuration per turn. You can then bring in your additional nurgle daemons to reinforce your army as the game progresses.

ig is probably the best at daemon summoning cause they do it on 2+ and ain't afraid of anything.

GoliothOnline wrote:People complain abiut mealefic summoning, or "Daemon Factory" because, the emporers lapdogs think it's unfair + little Timmy doesn't have the money to play the pay2swarm army.

Effectively, you're army isn't a Daemon Factory because you lack the Pink Horrors portion, limiting your Warp Charges Greatly, but the army can still be enjoyed, playing and playing against.

The one hindrance you'll have however, is the fact how easily Nurgle Daemons can be dealt with these days with the plethora of long ranged ignores cover weaponry at the disposal of over powered, unfun armies like Eldar and Tau ( Both of which I played and now "Junked" to some guy thanks to eBay and glorious, glorious returns of my investments)

The game, and Chaos in general as a faction are pigeon hole into certain units, formations and limited to sinking more money into things like Forgeworld and their rules books in order to have an equal chance at having a good, fair game. Because of that the Chaos Factions are considered one of if not the worst armies in the game.

Yeah I've heard as much. That's okay though, I'm not looking for super-competitiveness. Just friendly fun games.

Tonberry7 wrote:If you haven't done so already I'd really recommend having a look through the 7th edition psychic rules to get a basis for how malefic conjuration is best achieved.

Generally the best option for conjuring units is to use daemons in the first place. Summoning and Incursion are both WC3 powers so you have to throw a decent amount of dice at them for a reasonable chance of success. If you're doing this with CSM sorcerers your chances of suffering perils of the warp are generally much increased.

Yeah I did this last night, and I saw exactly that. That's really unfortunate and I wish they'd made an exception for CSM.

The other issue is the WC cost itself for the conjuration. Daemon lists commonly have some units of pink horrors to act as WC batteries and also to cover the troops requirement in the CAD. Depending on what psykers you have in your CSM contingent you're only going to get 4WC from your 2 nurgle heralds at most plus whatever you roll for additional charges. Conjuration spam isn't a great tactic but you're only going to have one guaranteed casting of a conjuration with a fair chance of success. Especially if you have any other powers to try.

If you want to try your hand at malefic conjuration your best bet with your current options are to take a CSM force with allied Daemons. Take the two heralds and some plaguebearers and use the heralds to try for one conjuration per turn. You can then bring in your additional nurgle daemons to reinforce your army as the game progresses.

Yeah I was thinking this. Using a minimal setup of one or two Psyker Heralds of Nurgle and my two units of Nurglings as a bare-minimum allied detachment for my CSM. I'm also using Typhus so that'd give me 6 power dice (2 a piece).

On that note, if I'm going to use Heralds, how viable is bringing a Portalglyph to just poop out small units if Plaguebearers all game?

koooaei wrote:ig is probably the best at daemon summoning cause they do it on 2+ and ain't afraid of anything.

I'm sorry but what is ig? Glossary popup just says Imperial Guard but I don't think that's right?

Imperial Gaurd is in fact correct. New formation lets you take tons of psykers and a commisar, harnessing on a 2+ and any time they fail or peril they get shot in the head instead.

zverofaust wrote:
Yeah I was thinking this. Using a minimal setup of one or two Psyker Heralds of Nurgle and my two units of Nurglings as a bare-minimum allied detachment for my CSM. I'm also using Typhus so that'd give me 6 power dice (2 a piece).

On that note, if I'm going to use Heralds, how viable is bringing a Portalglyph to just poop out small units if Plaguebearers all game?

You need your summoners to have some survivability so hide your heralds in your troops unit. If you take 2 ML2 heralds and a unit of plaguebearers this will satisfy the allied detachment criteria and cost you 280pts. Alternatively you could take your 6 nurglings as troops for the same cost; 3 on their own probably isn't enough to protect your heralds much. The troops will serve as ablative wounds, to further protect the combined unit you could give one of the heralds the Grimoire, or hide the lot in ruins for a 2+ cover save.

The Portalglyph is great but more commonly used to summon pink horrors as even a 1 horror unit gives you an extra WC. If you land it in a decent spot it could still be useful with plaguebearers though.

 Tonberry7 wrote:

zverofaust wrote:
Yeah I was thinking this. Using a minimal setup of one or two Psyker Heralds of Nurgle and my two units of Nurglings as a bare-minimum allied detachment for my CSM. I'm also using Typhus so that'd give me 6 power dice (2 a piece).

On that note, if I'm going to use Heralds, how viable is bringing a Portalglyph to just poop out small units if Plaguebearers all game?

You need your summoners to have some survivability so hide your heralds in your troops unit. If you take 2 ML2 heralds and a unit of plaguebearers this will satisfy the allied detachment criteria and cost you 280pts. Alternatively you could take your 6 nurglings as troops for the same cost; 3 on their own probably isn't enough to protect your heralds much. The troops will serve as ablative wounds, to further protect the combined unit you could give one of the heralds the Grimoire, or hide the lot in ruins for a 2+ cover save.

The Portalglyph is great but more commonly used to summon pink horrors as even a 1 horror unit gives you an extra WC. If you land it in a decent spot it could still be useful with plaguebearers though.

Again my inexperience strikes as I see Allied Detachments need only one Troop choice, not the two I assumed. That's good, then I'll have no problem putting at least one of the Heralds into the swarm. Then (unless I'm mistaken AGAIN) they can also Infiltrate directly into the best cover. A Plague-pooping Herald with 24 ablative wounds!

Question, though: I know multiple Heralds can form their own unit, but can multiple Heralds join another unit? I'm guessing not, but just want to be sure... I'll try to play around with it but I'm iffy on the second Herald. Other than literally hiding him in the back behind LOS-blocking Terrain there isn't much protection for him. And if he's summoning units at the back it means they're going to be slogging it up the board. I might just drop him for a CSM Sorcerer doing non-summoning spells (Biomancy?)

As for the Portalglyph, this sounds kinda risky. A very easy vehicular target to destroy while averaging only 3 Plaguebearers per turn. I might just save the points.

Thanks for the wise words guys!

Yes, you can join both your heralds to the nurgling unit no problem. Much better than having one on its own somewhere. You're also correct in that their placement is important due to the summoned units having to be deployed close to the summoned, and nurgle units aren't generally the quickest. Ideally you want to be able to deploy them as close to the action as possible.