Pestilens Thread, tactics, builds, advice

[kiblams]

27 minutes ago, Mayple said:

The start collecting box is definitely the best way to start collecting pestilens. I bought it myself very recently, and it is definitely worth it. You also get parts to build a screaming bell and a warplightning cannon instead of the plague furnace and plague claw - which gives you a lot of stuff for the price. Two of those boxes would put you just beyond 1000 pts.

There's so much you can build from that box! I've bought two of them as the basis for my Pestilens force.

The Furnace and Plagueclaw can indeed become the Screaming Bell and Warp Lightening Cannon, and if you buy a few more of the flail arms from Plague Monk kits, you can make some pretty cool Plague Censer Bearers pretty easily too!

If you don't really fancy using the Screaming Bell you can pretty easily convert the Greyseer into a Plague Priest and that will free up the actual plague Priest to be a standalone version. Or vice-versa...

I have even converted the second Plague Furnace into a third Plagueclaw... So much joy from just two starter boxes

[SolarBur]

Well i thought i would post some questions here. Pestilens seems to not be getting as much love as the rest of the chaos races. Whether that's to do with the fact we are a load of rats with plagues of various kinds, hard to say. Clearly people are just picky ;p

So as for my questions:

Unit sizes for Plague Censer Bearers - Honestly a little weird one given we can take them in 5 - 20 rat groups. My manager of a local GW commented that he just never see's them around anymore. Either converted ones, metal or finecast. So i have started to run them a little differently than i usually would. In games i've started to consider multiple 5 rat groups of them. In my 1k i think i'm running two or three units of that size. Why ? Simple, for 60pts its a pretty scary unit to have running around the board. with the amount of attacks they get, with rend, and a furnace ability to add to the damage. Its the size of the unit that doesn't need a lot of firepower to take it out, but at the same time its a cheap unit that can distract. I ran a 10 rat unit in my first game i played with them, to which they sadly didn't get to do anything, due to a mix of casualties and battle shock. But what do you all think of 5 rat units, or even going to 15 - 20 ?

Next up, general traits and also artefacts - Now we know we have a good combo of libre bubonicus and the re-roll to prayers (name escapes me and book is not within reach ;p). But what about the others ? Going back to my first game we just decided to roll up for our traits and artefacts. I ended up with verminous valour and libre bubonicus. Suffice to say my priest wasn't targeted much just because he could pass off wounds to his allies (rivals ;p). Though sadly i never really got to do much with him till the last turn. I think Verminous Valor on a Plague Furnace would be a good option. Having it act as the bravery beacon for your rats, while also using them as a proper shield from everything, it feels very skaven like. But what about others, any thoughts besides the normal combo ? ;p

Lastly, Battalions - With the points increase on the battalions its been a little harder for armies to squeeze them in. But with armies like ours that run hordes, we have it not as bad. Still amassing a sizable force while also sticking in a little extra for our army. I think at 1500pts the congregation is always a good solid choice. Again using the furnace as a beacon to lead the troops with verminous valour makes it for a target, but a hard to kill one. Plague Smog congregation could also fit nicely into 1500pts. While not as useful as filth, multiple small rat units of censer bearers being harder to hit can panic an opponent when they start to get close. But what about the others ? 

Well its late and that's all i could come up with for now, but lets make this clan great !

death to the clean, death to the other clans, and glory to the horned rat (and to ourselves >:3) ! 

[James McPherson]

The biggest strength of Pestilens for me is when you use something called economy of scale. 

So the idea being you save points by turning your cheapest unit into something more productive or efficient.

for example turning a 10 man unit of plaguemonks into a 30 attack unit with re-rolls to hit and wound , which also gets to attack when they die making 60 attacks in total in one round, plus has acid blood so kills you on the roll of a 6, and gets a free -1 rend on the roll of a 6, and all for 70pts is where it's at for me. hard to get such good economy of scale from any other unit in the game.

You can try and do that with censer bearers, but the finecast ones GW supply come with 32's and it's harder to maximise attacks on 32's than it is on 25's, and plague monks scale up better when you buff them ie you get more for your points. You also get double the amount of wounds for your points.

For me as I've outlined earlier in the thread it's still about using the two Furnace buffs, along with the Corruptors and the Priests to really scale up their effectiveness. Rabid Fever for defense, Bless with Filth for offense. Plague Tome for re-rolls to wound. Use units of 10, 20, 30 and 40, as they all perform different tasks, but all work the same way from the same buffs.

Now you can take allies, those are the biggest thing I would be looking at to paper over cracks. Nurgle Plague Toads have a 4+ ward save and move 7" and can ignore scenery as they technically fly (or jump), so they are a great objective grabbing unit or frustrating tarpit, at 100pts for 3 they are a bargain. Epidemius is great. Jezzails are great. Night Runners are good. 3 or 4 poisoned wind mortars or warpfire throwers are good, deceiver is ok 30 plaguebearers are great.

The problems are wider spread than picking the right list on paper or unit size or combination of artifacts and traits though , its more inherent than that. Things like slow movement, no defensive capability and never being able to dictate play are what they suffer from the most. So finding ways to overcome that helps. You can pretty much guarantee that you are never really going to be dictating play, even if you get a double turn, so try and use baits, fight how the under dog would fight, traps, baits, sneaky cunning etc and if you can ally in some stuff to help then all for the better IMO.

[James McPherson]

I placed 4th at a tournament at the weekend, If I had won my first game (duality of death vs Slaanesh (my only loss of the day) I could've taken it out in 1st place, but for reasons I won't go into I didn't quite manage it, though through no fault of my own. I got an easier round draw as it was, for loosing my first game, so maybe that had something to do with it.

I tried out a few different things for the first time as there was a 500pt sideboard, and it was my first outing with the GHB'17.  Overall though it felt much more solid. The only thing I struggled with was the 13" reach on the prayers never being in range. 

I tried out massive regiments, taking 3 blocks of 40, and experimented with Allies using Epidemius and Plague Toads. I also played for the first time ever without a Verminlord Corruptor.

The list variation which had the most success was the one I ran with 12 Plague Toads @ 320pts. They were pretty solid.

Among some other stuff the best things my plague monks killed were a unit of 10 Brutes (in one round of combat), a Magma Dragon and the Glottkin.

The Great Plagues feel really good, combo them with Pestilent Breath, and Contagion Banner and you can get a decent amount of mortal wounds off in a turn now.

Best technique of the weekend was using Rabid Fever, and Contagion Banner and stacking Wither 3x with a Plague Tome. Meant I was getting re-rolls to hit and wound, wounding on a 2+ and a chance to do mortal wounds on a 3+, and doing that all twice in a turn. Nothing much can stand up to that much damage in the game, not when you throw in the mortal wounds as well. 

To give you an idea, with a unit of 20 in combat (140pts), you are probably looking at an output of about 50 wounds, 40 or so of them @ -1 rend, and then probably another 7 or 8 mortal wounds. And then they will do that twice per turn. Plus a few mortal wounds extra from the splashback when they die.

I think I'm going to run something similar at the NZ masters in December, not sure yet though.

[HorseOnABeachBall]

Nice , that's great man. What was in your list ? Mind giving us a write up ?

[James McPherson]

well as I said it had a 500pts sideboard, so I changed it up a bit each game. also changed artifacts and abilities.

I had most success with this variation

Furnace,

3x Priests

3x40 Plague Monks w/foetid blades

20 Plague Monks w/foetid blades

12 Plague Toads

2 catapults

 

I was just browsing the destruction FAQ and came across this

 

so now it's got me wondering about Rabid Fever, I've always played it as giving them their full attacks quota each (ie 3 attacks if they charged) but I'm wondering if I've been playing it overpowered and it should just be 1 attack each now looking at the FAQ for a Great Moonclan.

 

what is peoples take on this?

 

 

[Umjammerlama]

For Rabid Fever you would choose a weapon and get to attack with that weapon's profile.

For the moonclan, the extra attack is a bonus to the weapon already being used and not an extra action to attack with that weapon again. 

I would say you are using Rabid Fever correctly.

[tolstedt]

1 minute ago, Umjammerlama said:

For Rabid Fever you would choose a weapon and get to attack with that weapon's profile.

For the moonclan, the extra attack is a bonus to the weapon already being used and not an extra action to attack with that weapon again. 

I would say you are using Rabid Fever correctly.

Yeah you are using it correctly.  It says pile in and attack, not make one extra attack.

It's the same as blood warriors.

[HorseOnABeachBall]

How did your catapults do ?

[Axter]

Hi all, i'm going to devide a pestilens army with a friends, we already have a start collecting a box of monks and a verminlord and just bought other 2 start collecting. With those models i just thought a list, what do you think about?

 

[James McPherson]

5 hours ago, HorseOnABeachBall said:

How did your catapults do ?

Not great, i kept putting them next to mystical or damned to get the bonuses, or I allied in Epidemius but I found they missed a lot or I rolled low damage. They are a nice threat to have and take the enemies mind off your heroes though which is good. I will always take 2 if I can, but I probably won't build a list around taking 3 or 4 & using Architect of death. I was thinking about it, but the way I see it is the army is already an anti horde army so doesn't need too many. They were most useful at helping a block of 40 Monks shift a block of 30 dark elf spearmen buffed up to the max. Think I cleared about 11 out in one shot which was nice.

The best technique for me at the moment as I've said is stacking wither/contagion banner/rabid fever. if you wanted to get even more sick add in 3 plague drones and a Corruptor or a deamon prince and you can be doing mortal wounds  from the plague drones on a wound roll of a 2+

 

[James McPherson]

44 minutes ago, Axter said:

Hi all, i'm going to devide a pestilens army with a friends, we already have a start collecting a box of monks and a verminlord and just bought other 2 start collecting. With those models i just thought a list, what do you think about?

 

I would say its fine, you might find 2 furnaces is overkill, in the long run I would probably buy more monks with the 200pts. maybe take one unit of 40, one 20, two 10's. either way I think you will find you are running out of monks too quickly to hold objectives  in some games like Scorched Earth or Battle for the Pass.  You'll do ok though at Duality of Death.

[Axter]

The double furnace is there for the prayers, in all the list i have 5 prayers to increase to possibility to trigger the allegiance prayers. One of the furnace from a start collecting will be a screaming bell (and that would allow me to build the priest of the furnace on foot) that can be played as an ally. For now we just have 80 monks and with that i have to play. I don't like big units of 40 monks, they will never attack all together, and most of them will probably run away in battleshock. If you say that they works good i will give them a try, thanks for the advice.

[James McPherson]

Well you need 40 to get them up to bravery 13 so they don't run away. A unit of 20 will only be bravery 7, so if you loose any more than 1 in a turn there's a chance some will run.  I would spam 2 priests over a second furnace as they are cheaper , but that's just me, there's not a lot in it though to be honest, and you may find the second furnace comes in really handy.

Nobody likes pushing 120 Monks around a table I hear you, or painting them for that fact. I'm about to start painting soon. I think units of 20 work fine to be honest as well. Just means they will disappear quicker.  20 is enough to kill a Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon though or another big monster as I've done it before.

the thing I'll say about the prayers is they are useless unless you are within 13" of stuff,  so keep that in mind. I usually protect my furnace at the back, as I rely on keeping it alive to use Rabid Fever. It's not right or wrong, just different play styles, something to be aware of though.

I want to experiment with a list where I run 5 priests and throw them forward into an army one at a time with Skitterleap from a Verminlord Deciever (as an ally) I think it could be really random and fun. Also the spell that the Warpgnaw Verminlord has which gives 6 to movement is really useful, add it in with Blistrevious and thats a 14" move, enough to get onto an objective or within 13" of your enemy on turn 1.

[SkavenInAZ]

4 hours ago, James McPherson said:

Well you need 40 to get them up to bravery 13 so they don't run away. A unit of 20 will only be bravery 7, so if you loose any more than 1 in a turn there's a chance some will run. 

Hi... I'm a noob =)

How do they get to 13 Bravery with 40 models?  I'm super silly if I missed something that obvious?

[SkavenInAZ]

Derp, read book, find rules.. /sigh.  Would've helped a bit in my last few games.  Ahh well, live and learn.

[James McPherson]

Yeah its probably the best bit about the new allegiance ability . The great plagues are good too mind. I saw my friend kill off 17 models in one turn with Undulant Scourge at the weekend!

The hardest thing I faced all weekend that scared me was Dark Elf Medusa's, two of them deleted a unit of 40 Plague Monks in one turn

[kiblams]

1 hour ago, James McPherson said:

Yeah its probably the best bit about the new allegiance ability . The great plagues are good too mind. I saw my friend kill off 17 models in one turn with Undulant Scourge at the weekend!

I've done that myself and it is pretty glorious!

I myself am running a single furnace and lots of priests, though I have an unhealthy desire to run the Plaguesmog congregation with 40 Censer Bearers, not too much experience at 2k game levels, but I have had moments where the last model standing for me was the furnace, and the fumes have decimated the remains of my opponents army as they finished off the rats around it.

If you want to keep the furnace safe (excluding mortal wounds of course) the plaguesmog congregation along with Vexlers Shroud can be a good call.

I am trying to figure out if an army which castles and moves up the field fairly slowly (for skaven) is viable as the claws pick off ranged enemy units and encourages your opponent to get close to me. The hope Is that all of my synergies will be in range as they have come to me and all of the Priests  will be well placed for prayers when they matter most. I fear that the fragility of the monks/censer bearers and of course playing to objectives will prevent this, though I am going to give it a go to see fi it's workable.

[Slaanesh]

I was a little bit to fast and built my 40 plague monks with woestaves! But now when I looked into things a bit more I feel like the dual foetide is always better. Since rabid fever only uses 1 weapon! And I didnt want to use an verminlord corruptor, but since that is the only buff that makes woestaves marginaly better it feels like I have to get one =]

[tolstedt]

2 hours ago, Slaanesh said:

I was a little bit to fast and built my 40 plague monks with woestaves! But now when I looked into things a bit more I feel like the dual foetide is always better. Since rabid fever only uses 1 weapon! And I didnt want to use an verminlord corruptor, but since that is the only buff that makes woestaves marginaly better it feels like I have to get one =]

I ran the math and it's about the same damage output given that woestaves have longer range, 3 ranks will be able to swing while 2 ranks of blades will get to swing.

The extra attacks from the staves work out to be about the same in value as the rerolls to the blades.

I didn't consider if extra attacks from a second weapon means more chances to roll 6's, which can change things if the unit has all the buffs to 6's to wound.  Woe staves might even be a bit better in this case.

Personally I intend to build all blades because practically speaking, counting two different weapon profiles with different ranges and rolling two sets of dice (I use an app for this many attacks) for attacks seems annoying!

[Slaanesh]

5 hours ago, tolstedt said:

I ran the math and it's about the same damage output given that woestaves have longer range, 3 ranks will be able to swing while 2 ranks of blades will get to swing.

The extra attacks from the staves work out to be about the same in value as the rerolls to the blades.

I didn't consider if extra attacks from a second weapon means more chances to roll 6's, which can change things if the unit has all the buffs to 6's to wound.  Woe staves might even be a bit better in this case.

Personally I intend to build all blades because practically speaking, counting two different weapon profiles with different ranges and rolling two sets of dice (I use an app for this many attacks) for attacks seems annoying!

Haha thanks it feels a bit better now, have been list building the whole day and this is what I got so far, Still not perfectly happy, but i Still got s Long time to figure things out, just got 2 start collecting atm

Allegiance: Chaos
Plague Furnace (200)
Plague Furnace (200)
Verminlord Corruptor (220)
- General
Epidemius (180)
- Allies
Grey Seer (120)
- Allies
40 x Plague Monks (240)
- Woe-stave
40 x Plague Monks (240)
- Foetid Blades
5 x Plague Censer Bearers (60)
Plagueclaw (180)
Plagueclaw (180)
Plagueclaw (180)

Reinforcement Points (0)

Total: 2000 / 2000
Allies: 300 / 400
 

[HorseOnABeachBall]

Need more monks , bro. 

 

I dont think you're gonna get too much mileage out of the grey seer.

[James McPherson]

it'll be alright to start with if thts all he's got. just experiment with different sized blocks. remember different sized units can all perform slightly different tasks. like you dont want your 240points of 40 monks sitting on an objective in your back field, they need to be up in your enemies grill. whereas units of 10 are great for that or bubble wrapping or other types of board control. units of 20 are useful too and can easily take out a large monster or elite unit with the right buffs on them but are a glass cannon and will be gone after a round or two of shooting or combat , units of 40 have some mileage and staying power.

 

 

[James McPherson]

I won 2/3 games in a small event at the weekend, 2 Majors and 1 Major Loss/conceded.  Had a similar list but the format was 1500pts so just same stuff but fewer things. Highlights were killing Spirit of Durthu  with a Great Plague and 20 Plague Monks, and tabling a Verminus army.

Only game I lost was Vs Aetherstike on Knife to the Heart, almost impossible to win, conceded turn 2 as It wasn't a good game. Came about 7th out of 16 in the end, and would've come 3rd if I hadn't conceded Knife to the Heart and scraped a minor loss.

[Drezdenozk]

On 09.10.2017 at 10:59 AM, James McPherson said:

Best technique of the weekend was using Rabid Fever, and Contagion Banner and stacking Wither 3x with a Plague Tome. Meant I was getting re-rolls to hit and wound, wounding on a 2+ and a chance to do mortal wounds on a 3+, and doing that all twice in a turn. Nothing much can stand up to that much damage in the game, not when you throw in the mortal wounds as well. 

Hello!) How did you "up" mortal chance to 3+ ? wither buffs only "to-wound" roll, and in monks warscroll "this" roll named as "another 6" not "another 6 or more"