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 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
So basically, Nurgle is trash tier until an update, not because they're bad but because they're built for an older meta that no longer is valid.

Oh no, not at all. It's just that mid-tier is trash compared to top-tier, especially if that top tier happens to be a hard counter of the army.

So Nurgle is still mid-tier? That's good, I've read conflicting that they are still decent or that they're junk now.

Wayniac wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
So basically, Nurgle is trash tier until an update, not because they're bad but because they're built for an older meta that no longer is valid.

Oh no, not at all. It's just that mid-tier is trash compared to top-tier, especially if that top tier happens to be a hard counter of the army.

So Nurgle is still mid-tier? That's good, I've read conflicting that they are still decent or that they're junk now.

I edited my post to provide some more context. Suffice it to say trying to play Nurgle outside the slice of it that's viable could reduce it to low-tier quite rapidly.

Well I did well at that RTT yesterday. Very competitive players there. Several players that are in the top 25 of the ITC. And competitive lists. I went 3-0 but I took second place based on secondary, and tertiary objectives.

I ended up taking 2x 40 maruaders, and 2x 10 blightkings, NO epitome.

First game against Bonereapers. Focal points. Petrifix list with katakros, 2 units of deathrider cavalry, 2 boneshapers, 40 mortek guard, and two units of the stalkers. I went first, bladed up a unit of marauders, hit katakros with savage bolt for +1 to hit, and went straight at him. I rolled REALLY low for my charge and couldn’t get many in. Had I been able to I would have straight up murderer his boney ass. Either way I stole the middle objective held as long as I could. Mortek guard came in and removed the maruaders. And retake it. I grabbed one of his side objectives to make up for it. Got the major win in the end. But the mortek guard and so broken. They do INSANE damage output. And can tank anything.

Second game against ironjaws. Pigs and maw crusher. On duality. He outdropped me and alpha’d as expected. Wiped out ten kings and 40 maruaders top of one. I was able to chip damage on the crusher, keep him locked in combat, spume and ten kings came off my back edge as a second wave and took them out. I targeted his warchnaters and he conceded when he had no characters left on turn 3 or 4. Marauders bladed up removes a full unit of pigs just on mortal wounds. That was fun.

Third game against feast day FEC on knife to the heart. He gave me first turn. VERY UNEXPECTED. All his casters were out of unbind range and I had arcane terrain. Bladed up maruaders, made them all fleshy, and ran them straight at 6 horrors, two terrorghesits, and the courier. Removed the horrors and took both TG down 1/3. Spume and ten kings outflanked as close to his home objective as possible. Made the 9” (8”) charge and basically had him split. The TG each activated twice against the maruaders and still only got 38 even after battleshock. He summoned ghouls to backup his objective and flayers to threaten mine. But when the other 40 maruaders charged 11” to reach the ghouls guarding his objective there was nothing he could do.

All great games. Going to wait and see how the slaves to darkness book looks but I like this all or nothing list as long as you don’t panic, and are mindful of unbind ranges and distances I really like it.

1 - You lucked out, that isn't a very competitive bonermen list at all. If it weren't for petrifax I'd even call it a casual list.

2 - One of those matchups where, your list and his being what they are, you don't have room to screw up but have a strong path to victory should you not. Knowing your skill I am not surprised of the result!

3 - He made the classic mistake of thinking "Nurgle is a slow army" without actually examining what your list does. Even so FEC are nasty for just about anyone and it sounds like you exploited his mistakes exceedingly well. The sort of play that highlights how skilled players can really turn around what begins as a lopsided matchup. Nice job on this one, honestly.

Thanks for the kind words!

In the last game against FEC, he is a regular opponent of mine and is well aware of the blades and +to hit stacking and how "fast" nurgle can be. I Think he wanted a double turn most of all. To be fair.. where I did need an 8 for the charge with the marauders on that top of turn one.. I rolled 12 so I was able to get more then 2/3 of the unit in combat and still string them back to the harbinger.

And the Bonedoingers player is a GW store manager in the area. He is very knowledgeable, definitely knows what he would change with his list. basically it comes down to more guard. lol. We actually carpooled to the event and had a lot of time to talk (it was about an hour drive) he said that he will add more mortek guard and drop the stalkers. Katakros is REALLY good though.

He wasn't running the guard+harvester combo, which is the strongest thing the army can put out not to mention some of the biggest cheese in the game. In function it means half mortek guard casualties revive immediately unless you can snipe the 10-wound 3+ save 6+ fnp monster. Also boneshapers instead of soulmasons (the latter is a 3-cast/2-unbind wizard for 140 points).

Warriors of Chaos just catapulted to pusgoyle-level durability with the new warscroll (re-roll all saves at 10+ models), while Knights have gotten killier, and the new character is pretty tough even without a Harbinger propping him up. Depending what the point costs are we may see a dramatic shift in the strongest Nurgle options towards StDs.

Post-preview edit: Yyyyyyup

After going through the slaves to darkness battletome reviews, warscrolls and points. I have a few thoughts.

Bloated Blessings (Demon Prince command ability - Unit reflects d3 mortals per 6 to hit scored against them) is simply to strong to exist. It can be faq'd 1/3 ways. Either the core mechanic isn't changed, but it doesn't work against shooting attacks and its game breakingly broken. They change it to 1 mw per 6 to hit and its still great.. just not broken. They faq it to ANY hit of 6, capping it at 1d3 mw and its worthless. We shall see.

Marauders are insane. They took my strategy and cranked it up to 15/10 Im very excited about having 4+ rerollable/5++/6++ marauders with 2 wounds a piece (possibly reflecting damage) but also having 2 attacks (3 with glott) at 3+/4+/-1/1 with full re rolls. which leads me to my next point

The chaos sorcerer got 10x better but 50 points cheaper... ok

The Warshrine is dope now and totally worth the extra points.

Lots of units are a little expensive in points like CLoDM, knights, chariots, Manticores. But this book basically has all the goodies attached to different heros. You will have to figure out which abilities you want.. fight twice? check. "death frenzy" check. +1 to hit? check. Reflect? check.. just gotta find the right character soup.

I anxiously await your thoughts ninth. Here is my re-vamped list.. assuming the (nurgle) Demon prince is made worthless..

Glott with blades, harbinger, Chaos Sorcerer, Warshrine, Spume, 40 marauders, 40 marauders, 10 blightkings, +1cp

1970/2000 so a high chance at a triumph?

Wait the Nurgle dp does WHAT?

Bloated Blessings: The Daemon Prince gifts their
followers with pestilent pustules that spray bile
and corrosive acid when burst open.
You can use this command ability at the start of
your hero phase if this model has the Nurgle
keyword. If you do so, pick 1 friendly Slaves
to Darkness Nurgle unit wholly within 12"
of this model. Until your next hero phase, if the
unmodified hit roll for an attack that targets that
unit is 6, the attacking unit suffers D3 mortal
wounds after all of its attacks have been resolved.

First of all it does not specify a phase.. so this is currently reflecting mortals back to attacking units in the shooting phase from across the board.

There are three ways this can go:
A.) They FAQ it to only proc in the combat phase, and thats it. This is the new normal. Its broken beyond comprehension. I will abuse the ever living FETH out of it.
b.) They FAQ it to only reflect 1 mortal would for each 6 in the combat phase. GREAT but not broken
c.) They FAQ it to proc against ANY hit in the combat phase.. which would cap it at 1d3 mortal wound per phase and would be instantly worthless.

I sincerely hope they choose option B. However, my experience with this company and its rules team tells me it will be C. Instead of admitting a mistake, or not catching something and getting some egg on the face.. they will claim a typo (should have been "any" not "an") and reduce to another wasted potential of a rule.

Dammit GW. Just, dammit.

I was honestly going to do a reboot Nurgle armies III to accommodate new StD options and update older tactics to fit with newer rules & meta, but... Seeing them toss rules like that around cuts into my enthusiasm so much. I know it's GW but there is bad balance and there is stuff like the KoS, the Gothizzar Harvester, and now this. I can only deal with so much at once and still have a desire to play the dam game.

Anyways... it will be B. I'd bet money on it. Same thing happened with the Harvester, it was introduced with a beyond-broken rule (they stacked, so if one model died within range of two harvesters both of them would be triggered generating a potential to revive two slain models from one dying) and FAQ'd to be just regular broken (they no longer stack, but they still return slain models IMMEDIATELY, as in: allocate one damage, see if a guy is revived, then allocate the next damage...).

Well in the new warscrolls there is a treasure trove of abilities to choose from. Chieftain command is a 12” bubble of death frenzy. 90 points. Chaos lord on foot has a attack twice command ability 110 points. Be’lekor ability to ineruot actions now only allows you to carry out an action on a 5+

I take it you haven’t seen the maruaders warscroll? +1 to hit AUTO If over 10. If over 20 attacks are also-1 rend. 2 base attacks. They always replace the lowest charge dice with a 6. Even on doubles. So minimum 8” charge always.

Chaos sorc lord is now only 110 points. His orocular visions (pick a unit rr saves of 1) is now ALL save rolls for a unit. His spell demonic power used to be rr 1s to hit, wound and save...now it’s re roll ALL hits and wounds. Lmfao.

Combine a sorcerer and a nurgle warshrine. One unit is +1 save and rr saves and rr wounds. Another is rr all hits and wounds!

I heard marauders went up to 300 points for a full unit though, which when spent on 1-wound 5+ save bravery 6 dudes they better be doing some cool stuff.

As for the rest... yeah, icing on the cake.

(They removed the banner so marauders are actually bravery 5 now. The icon is a -1 bravery debuff for enemies. Horn blower is still +1 run and charge.)

Understood. But My 1 wound, 5+ bravery 5 dudes CAN be 2 wounds, 4+ rerollable/5++/6++ bravery.....5 dudes. >_< Even without fleshy abundance, they still get 4+ rerollable without casting a spell.

The decision I have to make is whether I want to go all in on tankyness, stack DPR rolls.. which would synergize well with the reflect damage (either demon prince or plaguetouched warband.... oh yeah its back baby***) OR go ahead and embrace death, not worry about survivability and run the chieftain and demon prince combo which would reflect damage and then allow the marauders to fight when they die. GRAVY if they are bladed up. I will report back on my thoughts as I playtest.

***Plaguetouched warband is back! 1 STD nurgle hero and 7 std nurgle units. 180 points. specifically states can be used in a nurgle army, one unit in the batalion can be chosen in the hero phase to do d3 mortals to 1 enemy unit within 1" and reflect 1 mortal wound on a wound roll of a 6. Same effect as last time but no longer need to have to be set-up in a multiple of 7.. but obviously lost the -1 to hit. still REALLY good. Cant have rotbringers in there this time though.

I'm not sure you grasp the full ramifications of that Nurgle DP ability. The entire concept of Nurgle is that it wins by attrition; it's really durable but doesn't do that much damage. It outlasts opponents. That command ability plays into the army dynamic EXCEEDINGLY well. Just make things super tanky, charge as many enemies as you can, use that command ability, and sit there. On average for every three attacks they make they will suffer 1 MW. Eventually they will be dead and you won't.

I fully grasp its potential. I just know it will be FAQ'd and it will probably be made worthless. It wont stay d3 per 6. guaranteed. If it does then holy gak. I FULLY expect them to errata it to ANY hits of 6.

Last night I played a VERY competitive sylvaneth player. I charged 40 marauders into drycha and 6 scythe hunters. Drycha had a 5++ and the hunters were re-rolling every save. I only got half the unit in but I killed both drycha and the hunters in one swing. Blades, 3 attacks a piece and re-rolling all hit and wound rolls. Is this the new normal? I did 23 mortal wounds to drycha. from like 17 idiots. I only didnt get everyone in to string back to glott. I used the demon prince command on them but everyone was dead before they could swing.

The fact that the Chaos sorcerer makes units RR everything is just INSANE. for 110 points! EVERYTHING for me hinges on where they go with bloated blessings.

 Sal4m4nd3r wrote:
Is this the new normal?

Around the start of AoS 2nd edition the game had been on a trend of improved balance for some time. Yes it was terrible by the standard of any other wargame but it was still a trend of improvement. 2019 has seen a backslide of that over the course of the year, not so much in the frequency of units/abilities that are imbalanced but more in the degree. DoK would stack buffs to get re-rolls on everything, but now we have a 110 chaos sorcerer who does that on his own. LoN would summon back slain units with the general, Slaanesh summons back that much then more off any hero. Kurnoth hunters get a 3+ re-rollable save in the combat phase if they don't charge and stay in their woods for cover, Mortek guard get that whenever they want.

I feel like GW is just cycling through another period of 'who cares about well-designed rules' and will swing back to 'oh, that affects our sales' eventually. For me GW balance is generally tolerable because the games & miniatures are so much fun, but the situation is rapidly becoming something where I just don't want to engage in matched play at all.

So yes, this is the new normal.

Latest FAQ finally gives BKs and the like UNMODIFIED 6s on exploding weapons. Also like all our battalions went down about 60 points!

But didn't change Blades of Putrefaction... RIP

Well that's nice! I'm glad GW did it, though I am hesitant to give them too much credit for something that they should have done for everyone at the launch of the new edition. Also missed blades, which at this point is a good thing since that exploit is big for Nurgle but still.

As for the battalions, I am again happy that a lot of overpriced ones went down, but they just slapped a -60 on all of them. That shows they have absolutely no concern for the balance of which ones are good/bad. Omitting Blight Cyst (the one battalion that is absolutely worth 200 points) would have shown some effort.

Better these changes than none though, so I will give GW credit for doing something. They could have done nothing.

I think the fact they adjust points seemingly random means they don't quite get it, just figure "lower points that will help".

I'm not complaining though. Cheaper Blight Cyst? Yes please!

Ive never really been a fan of blight cyst. It prioritizes the DAMAGE output of kings which isn't really there strength. They are incredibly resilient through high wound count. Now they can do more CONSISTENT damage with unmodified 6s, but -1 rend is easily sidestepped by a whole host of armies. Plus you still must pay the tax of the woefully uninspired and hardly useful Lord of Blights. Even at its new price tag The battalion is still not worth it. I consider is 280 points because the LoB is a straight tax.

Plague Cyst is even worse. its 280 points for RR 2s (LoP already gives out RR 1s) and an extra 17% chance for d3 mw. So absolutely boring is frustrating.

Im so so happy Blades didn't get unmodified. My Nurgle marauder strategy with force multipliers continues the pain train! Now that marauders have an extra base attack, and base rend one.. blades is no longer NEEDED to do damage.. but the extra 60 mortal wounds is a tasty cherry on top.

Blight Cyst is a really big deal. It turns units designed not to deal much damage into powerhouses. Ignoring rend -1 is less common than 4+ rerollable saves these days.

LoB isn't a tax. The shooting attack he makes and gives out isn't much but it adds up, and that command ability is extremely useful. My blight cyst lists usually have a 30-man unit of plaguebearers that go in front with that command ability to make them -2 to hit and the enemy must re-roll 6s because of witherstave. They have taken 3 bloodthirsters to the face and just sat there. And once they are whittled down I counter-charge with rending blightkings plus the LoB, who is free to fight since it's no longer a problem if he dies. Blight cyst also consolidates five drops (LoB, Harbinger, 3 Blightking units) in one for deployment advantage on top of the standard extra cp & artifact, both of which are exceedingly useful for Nurgle.

But really, blight cyst is all about that rend. Anyone who doubts its effectiveness needs only run the numbers for average damage of blightkings with rend -1 and with rend - then compare. I think your specific lists do not have the tools to utilize a LoB properly (and in particular, need the cp elsewhere), which is why he seems bad.

The other cysts are not as good and needed to come down, but since blight ight cyst did too the others are still bad by comparison.

StD FAQ is up, Nurgle DP ability doesn't stack and only works in melee. You called it with any number of 6s only bouncing d3 MWs (why can't we get reasonable errata like this on other factions GW?) though it is ambiguous if multiple different weapons could trigger it multiple times.

Went to LVO. Came in 34/180. My record was 3-2. Quite disappointed. I was aiming for 4-1. In the last 5 mins of my last turn of the last game..had I simply retreated a unit of maruaders tangled up with clan rats..I win the game, sneak into 8th and play in the finals. But I didn’t. I got so caught up with removing models on an objective rather then simply trying to outnumber a smaller group of rats on a nearby objective. Great game though.

I’m excited about the new sub factions in wrath of the Everchosen.

That loss and disappointing finish at LVO aside, I managed to secure the top ranked Nurgle Player in the ITC, and 20th ranked player overall in North America. But the elusive 4-1 finish at a competitive 5 round event has left me with a thirst for glory and will continue with nurgle for this year....seeing as how my $800 buy into KO (bought before the book was announced anticipating a new battletome) proved to be an utter flop..and about as good of a gamble as I made at the blackjack tables in Vegas.

Nurgle has been moving down the averages as power creep gradually leaves the army behind.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Nurgle has been moving down the averages as power creep gradually leaves the army behind.

Do you think the Wrath of the Everchosen stuff will give them a boost, though?

Yeah, but it is always a matter of what you are up against. Tzeentch and Slaanesh got (uneeded) boosts too. Even the rough excuse we once had for balance in matched play is completely shot in 2020, this does nothing to change that.

Having some time to digest things, Nurgle does seem to gain more from the supplement than other gods. Namely sub-faction rules are a straight upgrade, and some of them are quite potent. If you make a list that can reliably take down OBR I think that would be the edge you need for a 4-1 finish

On the other hand you seemed to be having a lot of fun at LVO when I saw you so was it really THAT bad?

You saw me at LVO and didn’t say hi!? ::sad:: Would have been nice to meet you in person. I’ve been able to make some very interesting lists with the new sub factions. Tried out a bunch of new munificent wanderers lists but haven’t had a win. Nurgle demons are in a rough spot. I keep getting pelted by magic since it gets around the hit debuffs.

I’m intrigued by running a huge block of blightkings and running them up the board with 16” of movement plus charging pretty easy to obtain. Been working on a big GUO conversion.. but have been a bit sidetracked with a painting commission. Here is an interesting blessed sons list.

Allegiance: Nurgle
- Host of Chaos: Blessed Sons

Leaders
Great Unclean One (340)
- Bile Blade & Doomsday Bell
- Artefact: Blotshell Bileplate
- Lore of Virulence: Favoured Poxes

Lord of Blights (140)
- General
- Command Trait: Foul Conqueror
- Artefact: Rustfang

Harbinger of Decay (160)

Battleline
20 x Putrid Blightkings (580)
5 x Putrid Blightkings (160)
5 x Putrid Blightkings (160)
40 x Chaos Marauders (300)
- Axes & Shields
- Mark of Chaos: Nurgle

Battalions
Blight Cyst (140)

Total: 1980 / 2000
Extra Command Points: 1
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 190

I did say hi, I even chatted with you more than once!

At any rate, yeah Nurgle has been thoroughly left behind by the power creep at this point. Wrath of the Everchosen does a little but chances of victory remain more determined by the matchup than anything else. Yet what disappointing me even more is that the best way to build Nurgle is turn-1 charging with massive speed buffs, which is about as un-Nurgle as one can get. That said they do it reasonably well and unlike many other speedy armies there is a ton of staying power when you get there.

I can tell you are drawing some inspiration from the 45-blightking list you went up against, but what are your usual opponents? It may be wiser to go a bit lighter on the 'kings in exchange for some other support.

Not a huge fan of favored poxes on a GUO; he often does want to move or cast another spell (certainly he will in the next hero phase). Glorious afflictions may be niche but it can really screw over certain enemies and the GUO has two other spells he can reliably be casting if it isn't needed (Plague Wind and Foul Regenesis). I would also recommend witherstave on him over rustfang, with blight cyst you won't absolutely need the extra save nerf except against the most well armored opponents and the GUO bubbles the 'stave effect over a HUGE area.