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.

Especially since the new campaign book buffs them with cool artifacts and stuff, I'm looking to get some advice on running the plague-drone-star.

How do you guys run them (especially considering the new book)?

What powers do you roll?

What combo units do you run with them?

they are not that good but i would use belkor to invis them and then iron arm them, make sure they have a couple of herlads in their so that they actually pack a punch. the main problem with them is that they cant really kill something they just act as a tarpit while the rest of your army actually kills things

The only thing I could see tossing in to a drone star would be the nugling for -1 toughness. That would let the drones re-roll their poison on marines, but even then it is probably a waste of 40pt. You could roll your ML2 heralds on nurgle and try for the toughness increase, but its a tough call between FnP 4 and T6.

So much wrong here goodness. Dronestar is great. They can wound anything on a 3+ (give them the 5 point upgrade to make them poison 3+ instead of 4+ - it's called rot probiscus). Touch of rust means that anything they touch will be glanced on a 6.

Their weakness is their bad weapon skill, so you generally want to be able to prescience them. Typically, I have fate weaver or a tzeentch herald do this, but it depends what else you have in your list. In the squad itself, at minimum you want to have a ML2 herald with the 5 + FNP locus (always worth it). I normally run 2, as this gives you extra chances at endurance (great vs str 10 and 4+ FNP).

I like to run a double star (a squad of 2 tzeentch heralds as well with 8 screamers) which allows prescience wherever I need it, and TBH the tzeentch herald is a better grim carrier if you ask me but the nurgle herald is no slacker - tzeentch just has better mobility and with re-rolls of saving throws of 1, tends to be a little more durable (as well as 4 + jink in the open vs a 5 + cover/invuln for nurgle)

With the new relics, my FLGS (and from what I understand, the FAQ that the ITC is soon to publish), will change it so that a ML2 herald can roll twice on the plague discipline. So that'll mean rolling 4 times to try and get the 6 power for me Toughness 8 dronestar is bonkers, and I can get it 55% of the time with 2 ML2 heralds. Nurgle relics really boil down to 3 for me:

1) the -1 leadership for the whole army - auto include. Bonkers.
2) the -1 toughness if you're not nurgle - good but really not a big deal. More important if you're not running 3+ poison, but even then it only makes a difference vs T4.
3) horn of nurgle's rot - useful but not inside the dronestar. If you're running mono-nurgle definitely an option to consider


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 gwarsh41 wrote:
The only thing I could see tossing in to a drone star would be the nugling for -1 toughness. That would let the drones re-roll their poison on marines, but even then it is probably a waste of 40pt. You could roll your ML2 heralds on nurgle and try for the toughness increase, but its a tough call between FnP 4 and T6.

T8. You'll cast it as WC 3, as your drones will be immune to str 4. 33 percent of the time, you won't take a wound even if you perils (5 and 6 perils result) and then you can FNP 33 percent of the time, so your caster is more durable than you think. Plus if you run Fatey (I never leave home without him) you can negate a perils or re-roll the perils result (if it's a 1 for example)

Grotti's -1 Tougness is pretty big against T3 as well because it makes it a 2+ rerollable to wound and makes Plague Drones cause Instant Death to T3 (as it would be S4 vs T2)