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Hi all,

Just getting back into the hobby and am about to finish off the SM half of my Dark Imperiam box set.
I was wondering what SM chapter would be a good, balanced one to go against Nurgle? I will be teaching(and learning more myself) 40k with a friend, so want to choose a chapter that will be a fair fight regardless what side either of us play.
My goal here is not to have one army far better than the other.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Do you mean Death Guard or Demons? Because at the moment in 9th Death Guard are actually in an ok place, while Nurgle Demons are sorta middling.

I'd suggest Ultramarines, as they're just an all around "good" one, it doesnt counter Nurgle directly at all.

I'd suggest Ultramarines, as they're just an all around "good" one, it doesnt counter Nurgle directly at all.

Another vote for Ultras. Solid, reliable, but not overly tricky to use or to play against.

 vaklor4 wrote:
Do you mean Death Guard or Demons? Because at the moment in 9th Death Guard are actually in an ok place, while Nurgle Demons are sorta middling.

I'd suggest Ultramarines, as they're just an all around "good" one, it doesnt counter Nurgle directly at all.

Sorry, Death Guard. Models strictly out of the Dark Imperium box to start.

Make a cool custom colour scheme, then you can try anything and not risk the 1% of people who will care that you're running your Ultramarines as Salamanders by running them as Successors.

Still, I vote for Ultramarines. They have a pretty fair and well-rounded trait.

Definitely the smarter move is to come up with your own paint scheme and then call them whatever you want. That way you don't lock yourself in.

If you're absolutely committed to making them something, make them whatever you want, not what you think will be balanced. Painting an army is too much work to do for any reason other than you really want to run that army.

Death guard are also extremely strong right now - one of the few armies that are fairly matched against space marines - so I wouldn't worry about gimping yourself to be fair.

Well, the question is; What colors do you like painting?

Whatever you pick will work.

None of the chapter tactics etc IMHO really directly counter nurgle so play what you like

BrianDavion wrote:
None of the chapter tactics etc IMHO really directly counter nurgle so play what you like

That's not entirely true. I'd suggest Blood Angels as a good foil to Death Guard - that +1 to wound on the first turn of combat largely bypasses the increased toughness of PM and blightlords. Sure DG have lots of strats to help them out in CC, but none of them are worth a single CP if the DG unit is dead before it gets to swing. DG also tend to castle up for a stronger defence, whereas BA have the manoeuvrability to encircle them and hold down more objectives.

Finally, although DG have a lot of good plague-flamer weapons on their daemon engines, with overwatch becoming a stratagem this will be a lot less of a barrier (and BA have ways to negate overwatch anyway).

In the alternative, take Iron Hands because DG struggle with not having too much in the way of effective anti-tank.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.
I think I may just keep it simple and go with Ultramarines!

 Drakeslayer wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
None of the chapter tactics etc IMHO really directly counter nurgle so play what you like

That's not entirely true. I'd suggest Blood Angels as a good foil to Death Guard - that +1 to wound on the first turn of combat largely bypasses the increased toughness of PM and blightlords. Sure DG have lots of strats to help them out in CC, but none of them are worth a single CP if the DG unit is dead before it gets to swing. DG also tend to castle up for a stronger defence, whereas BA have the manoeuvrability to encircle them and hold down more objectives.

Finally, although DG have a lot of good plague-flamer weapons on their daemon engines, with overwatch becoming a stratagem this will be a lot less of a barrier (and BA have ways to negate overwatch anyway).

In the alternative, take Iron Hands because DG struggle with not having too much in the way of effective anti-tank.

The goal is not to tailor to beat Death Guard, the goal is to give fair and fun games.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Drakeslayer wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
None of the chapter tactics etc IMHO really directly counter nurgle so play what you like

That's not entirely true. I'd suggest Blood Angels as a good foil to Death Guard - that +1 to wound on the first turn of combat largely bypasses the increased toughness of PM and blightlords. Sure DG have lots of strats to help them out in CC, but none of them are worth a single CP if the DG unit is dead before it gets to swing. DG also tend to castle up for a stronger defence, whereas BA have the manoeuvrability to encircle them and hold down more objectives.

Finally, although DG have a lot of good plague-flamer weapons on their daemon engines, with overwatch becoming a stratagem this will be a lot less of a barrier (and BA have ways to negate overwatch anyway).

In the alternative, take Iron Hands because DG struggle with not having too much in the way of effective anti-tank.

The goal is not to tailor to beat Death Guard, the goal is to give fair and fun games.

yeah in this case he was asking what to AVOID if he doesn't wanna run the risk of slaughtering the death guard opponent, hence my point that non of the CTs seem to be a hard counter

Ah right, my mistake!

 Drakeslayer wrote:
Ah right, my mistake!

no worries it's not exactly the normal kind of question/conversation line on dakkadakka

DakkaDakka is normally more:

Damn right. Surely the fairest fight is where both players are doing their damnedest to crush one another?

But to the OP's point, I'd say avoid too many really tough vehicles on the side of the marines, or the DG player will have a hard time putting a dent into them. They can have a really hard time of it against gunline armies, particularly if they're massively out-ranged.

Ultramarines is indeed a good shout for a by-the-book match-up.