Pestilens Thread, tactics, builds, advice

[tolstedt]

1 hour ago, ChuckESleeze said:

Playing around the idea of this list.

GUO w/ Bell

3x Plague Priest w/ Censer

Plague Furnance

2x 40 Monks - Foetid Blades

2x 20  Monks - Foetid Blades

2x 10 Monks - Foetid Blades

Plagueclaw

Congregation of Filth

 

Debating lowering the amount of monks for another Plagueclaw or a Corrupter (seems sort of redundant with the GUO though).

This looks good.  I would personally drop the plagueclaw and go with more rats.

[Naflem]

I've been considering running Slimex as an ally to get a tree of Nurgle on the table to allow for running and charging by the Monks.   Thinking of having a Arch-Warlock and Slimex as allies, Have the Warlock summon a balewind and bump up Slimex and a couple plague monk units, then having slimex drop the tree in such a way as it affects as far into enemy territory as possible (the full 3 inches forward and deployed "longwise"). 

[tolstedt]

4 hours ago, Naflem said:

I've been considering running Slimex as an ally to get a tree of Nurgle on the table to allow for running and charging by the Monks.   Thinking of having a Arch-Warlock and Slimex as allies, Have the Warlock summon a balewind and bump up Slimex and a couple plague monk units, then having slimex drop the tree in such a way as it affects as far into enemy territory as possible (the full 3 inches forward and deployed "longwise"). 

That's a good plot.  I like it.  

[smucreo]

Hey can anyone who plays Pestilens tell me their view on Verminlord Corruptor? Is it worth it to not run him as a general, does he do enough damage, etc

[tolstedt]

3 hours ago, smucreo said:

Hey can anyone who plays Pestilens tell me their view on Verminlord Corruptor? Is it worth it to not run him as a general, does he do enough damage, etc

There is no other option for general unless you want to run the furnace.

I run the verminlord as general with master of rot and ruin.  This makes him a 12 wound priest with a good command ability and two spells.  Mystic shield goes on the furnace or himself if he is too far away from the furnace.  

Plague is a great spell. 

He doesn't do much damage in combat and can die quickly if they put anything serious into him.

I like to use him as an annoying little threat.  He is mostly bait.  I do not care if he goes down.  The best thing about pestilens is that the units of 20 monks can buff themselves and kill most anything on the charge.  You can lose any piece of this army and still function.  The furnace is probably the best buff piece since rabid fever is so good.

The alternative to the corruptor is 40 more rats which is just fine as well.

[Nikobot]

Corruptor is like a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Pretty mediocre in combat despite the 10 attacks, due to the no-rend and 1 damage. He simply doesn't output much and its not good enough for a big-bad like him. Where he gets some kudos back is the 2 spells he can cast, his unique spell "Plague" is OK vs horde units, and his command ability is good for monk units to increase the very high # attacks to insane levels - monks with swords/staves end up with 6 attacks on a charge.

I run him for the command ability and spells whilst there is a dearth of other options and to remain in theme, not to rely on him to do too much in combat, certainly not kill anything remotely tough. He can weigh in a help add 2-3 wounds to a combat though.

When Pestilens get a proper battletome, he better get some love.

[smucreo]

Ok, I see. Thanks for the answers guys!

[yarrickson]

On 17/01/2018 at 11:33 PM, tolstedt said:

Yes you can.  Allegiance for list building is not affected by choosing allegiance abilities.  So long as everyone has pestilens keyword (aside from 400 points of allies) you are in the clear to take the nurgle abilities.  Just as you can take GA abiltities with the many destruction armies that don't have their own abiltites and still keep their battleline-if options. 

Let me know how the nurgle abilities work out.  I am not inclined to try them!

Sorry, but i don't think that's right. When writing your list you can select Pestilens as your allegiance in order to get battle line plague monks but then (see picture from GHBFAQ) just before deploying you can only then select Pestilens or Chaos, not Nurgle. 

So if you want wheel/tree/spells your gonna need 3 generic Nurgle battle line.

Terribly happy to stand corrected but I fear not 

[Nikobot]

Hmm its a confusing one, I think Tolstedt is correct, but there are issues/confusion with GW stating Allegiances and Factions can be used interchangeably. They demonstrate this interchangeable use by referring to allegiances in the section under Factions before all the tables and have stated this before.

GH2017 pg 76. "The Pitched Battle profile for each faction lists the allegiances of the allied units you can take."

This line demonstrates some of that interchangeable use of wording. The various profiles contain allies such as Clans Verminus, Nurgle Rotbringers, Monsters of Chaos etc ... for which exact Keywords do not exist, these are references to the Faction tables you can choose from for Allies selections.

Whereas when selecting Allegiance abilities it depends on the exact  Warscroll Keywords such as Verminus, Nurgle, Tzeentch etc

The pitched battle profiles in the GH show you which units you can choose from in each Faction's table e.g. Clan Pestilens
If you choose all your units from that table with the exception of the allies allowance (e.g. 400pts) then I believe you can take Plague Monks as Battleline. 

When choosing the Allegiance itself its dependent on the keyword of the models that make up the force (excl. Allies) and you could choose CHAOS, NURGLE or PESTILENS.

[tolstedt]

It's confusing because army allegiance and allegiance abilities are two different things that use the same word.

Like Ironjawz in the first handbook.  They have the destruction keyword, so they took the GA destruction allegiance abilities.  This did not make them lose their battleline-if.  They still had Ironjawz allegiance.

The same thing is happening here.  If all your army has the pestilens keyword, they have pestilens allegiance, making the monks battlelin.  Choosing the GA chaos abilities doesn't take away the battleline-if status, and neither would choosing nurgle.

The same would happen if you ran a slaves to darkness list with nurgle allegiance abiltities.  Chaos knights would be battleline.

[yarrickson]

11 minutes ago, tolstedt said:

It's confusing because army allegiance and allegiance abilities are two different things that use the same word.

Like Ironjawz in the first handbook.  They have the destruction keyword, so they took the GA destruction allegiance abilities.  This did not make them lose their battleline-if.  They still had Ironjawz allegiance.

The same thing is happening here.  If all your army has the pestilens keyword, they have pestilens allegiance, making the monks battlelin.  Choosing the GA chaos abilities doesn't take away the battleline-if status, and neither would choosing nurgle.

The same would happen if you ran a slaves to darkness list with nurgle allegiance abiltities.  Chaos knights would be battleline.

I'm not sure it does given that FAQ point?

The destruction example works because Destruction is a Grand Alliance. Nurgle is not a Grand Alliance.

I think with Pestilens battle line you have to choose Pestilens at list writing then Pestilens or chaos before deployment? 

Otherwise that FAQ would need plurality when discussing Allegiance. 

Not sure if I'm getting too hung up on the FAQ tho. Has anyone seen this occur in the wild yet? Maybe at heat 1?

[Nikobot]

Is that a GH2016 FAQ ?

In any case I don't think its necessarily clarifying a situation like this, just rather outlining a process to follow. Its not making any distinction between the FACTION and KEYWORD discrepancies e.g. faction-allegiance = Nurgle Rotbringer and then allegiance-abilities-allegiance = Nurgle keyword

I'd be curious to know if its been done in the wild too.

 

[yarrickson]

Just now, Nikobot said:

Is that a GH2016 FAQ ?

Yep it is. But since the example that keeps being given is Ironjawz/Destruction GHB16 I feel its relevant. 

 

[HorseOnABeachBall]

On 1/21/2018 at 2:53 AM, smucreo said:

Hey can anyone who plays Pestilens tell me their view on Verminlord Corruptor? Is it worth it to not run him as a general, does he do enough damage, etc

I've probably clocked in around 30-40 Pestilens games, the Verminlord IMO is useful about 10% of the time. You are better served with Plague Furnaces. It's got 12 wounds, will do about as much damage as a Verminlord (which is to say; no damage) but can actually spit out 1-3 prayers per turn. Another check in its column  is that the PF can help you dig out those great plagues. A well timed great plague can do an absurd amount of damage. I've had it do 15+ mortal wounds to big blocks of units.

Someone mentioned Plague being a good spell, its not. Its the functional equivalent of an arcane bolt but with a huge price tag.

Things have just recently changed with the release of Maggotkin and its looking better and better for a Verminlord under Maggotkin.

[Nikobot]

On 1/24/2018 at 3:19 PM, HorseOnABeachBall said:

I've probably clocked in around 30-40 Pestilens games, the Verminlord IMO is useful about 10% of the time. You are better served with Plague Furnaces. It's got 12 wounds, will do about as much damage as a Verminlord (which is to say; no damage) but can actually spit out 1-3 prayers per turn. Another check in its column  is that the PF can help you dig out those great plagues. A well timed great plague can do an absurd amount of damage. I've had it do 15+ mortal wounds to big blocks of units.

Someone mentioned Plague being a good spell, its not. Its the functional equivalent of an arcane bolt but with a huge price tag.

Things have just recently changed with the release of Maggotkin and its looking better and better for a Verminlord under Maggotkin.

How does it manage to spit out 1-3 prayers a turn? Im guessing Liber + great plague? in which case, so can a priest...

I just want to know if im missing something here

[Mayple]

On 25.01.2018 at 2:45 PM, Nikobot said:

How does it manage to spit out 1-3 prayers a turn? Im guessing Liber + great plague? in which case, so can a priest...

I just want to know if im missing something here

Command trait + Liber. 

 

A priest on foot can do it too (ish), sure, but he's also ridiculously easy to remove from the field. The corruptor/furnace is generally the choice because of survivability and the furnace prayers are great.

[Nikobot]

19 minutes ago, Mayple said:

Command trait + Liber. 

 

A priest on foot can do it too (ish), sure, but he's also ridiculously easy to remove from the field. The corruptor/furnace is generally the choice because of survivability and the furnace prayers are great.

Master of Rot and Ruin?
I'm afraid the Furnace is a PRIEST as stated in the trait and therefore only gets to re-roll attempts, it doesn't pick up the plague priests ability as an addition.

So max is 2... though I wish it were otherwise.

[Mayple]

28 minutes ago, Nikobot said:

Master of Rot and Ruin?
I'm afraid the Furnace is a PRIEST as stated in the trait and therefore only gets to re-roll attempts, it doesn't pick up the plague priests ability as an addition.

So max is 2... though I wish it were otherwise.

Yeah. That's what I meant Sorry, I should have specified. The re-roll to prayers is essentially an extra prayer for the purpose of triggering the great plagues. A sort of catalyst, if you will. I assume that's how they arrived at 1-3 prayers. 2(4 total attempts if rerolls are required)+ great plague

[HorseOnABeachBall]

On January 25, 2018 at 8:45 AM, Nikobot said:

How does it manage to spit out 1-3 prayers a turn? Im guessing Liber + great plague? in which case, so can a priest...

I just want to know if im missing something here

Yeah . You might have missed out on the drama , but it is indeed 3 prayers for a PF. Just read a few pages back. To paraphrase;

Plague Furnace gets Noxious Prayers ability which grants it (but doesn't specifically limit it to) a prayer. Plague Furnace with a Liber gets the Pestilent prayer ability from the plague priests warscroll. Liber also states that if the bearer is a plague priest , you can pray an additional time off the Pestilent prayer ability.  There's a handful of guys who find this morally repugnant, but I see it as a black and white issue. Does the Plague Furnace have the Plague Priest keyword? Yes it does.  The counter arguments try to run the gamut from what a bolded word means/ what keywords mean when it comes to game issues, but I haven't heard one that dissuades me yet,

 

 

[HorseOnABeachBall]

On January 26, 2018 at 9:54 AM, Nikobot said:

Master of Rot and Ruin?
I'm afraid the Furnace is a PRIEST as stated in the trait and therefore only gets to re-roll attempts, it doesn't pick up the plague priests ability as an addition.

So max is 2... though I wish it were otherwise.

Read the Plague Furnace scroll again. It is indeed. PRIEST and a PLAGUEPRIEST.

[Nikobot]

2 hours ago, HorseOnABeachBall said:

Yeah . You might have missed out on the drama , but it is indeed 3 prayers for a PF. Just read a few pages back. To paraphrase;

Plague Furnace gets Noxious Prayers ability which grants it (but doesn't specifically limit it to) a prayer. Plague Furnace with a Liber gets the Pestilent prayer ability from the plague priests warscroll. Liber also states that if the bearer is a plague priest , you can pray an additional time off the Pestilent prayer ability.  There's a handful of guys who find this morally repugnant, but I see it as a black and white issue. Does the Plague Furnace have the Plague Priest keyword? Yes it does.  The counter arguments try to run the gamut from what a bolded word means/ what keywords mean when it comes to game issues, but I haven't heard one that dissuades me yet,

 

 

Oh look I don't know why some people would be deemed morally repugnant, I would find that a bit harsh given how many ambiguities exist in the rules   

Reading through the Liber rules, I always thought the furnace should adopt the Pestilens prayers ability and not much really helps the counter-argument for the following reasons :

- the Liber does not use BOLD KEYWORDS, therefore I interpret it as referring to a unit type, in this case a Plague priest, not a furnace.
- Master of Rot and Ruin clearly uses a BOLD KEYWORD to make the distinction, why wouldn't they have done it consistently if they intended it that way
- There are 2 different Prayers abilities, the furnace uses noxious prayers and the Plague priest uses Pestilent prayers. The Liber refers to gaining the Pestilent prayers ability or allowing a double-use of the Pestilens Prayers ability, the noxious prayers ability is something different thats tied in to the Furnace.

But really it wouldn't bother me either way, as I see usefulness in all the prayers, and if you took the Liber on the furnace then you'd be getting an additional prayer somehow.

[HorseOnABeachBall]

The Liber doesn't say "or" it's more of an "and".

 

[Nikobot]

Oh ok, I think I missed what you were saying earlier.

So your suggesting that some people treat the Plague Furnace as a plague priest and then interpret that the Liber grants it the ability to use 2 Pestilent Prayers per turn?
So end result is it the furnace can use 1x noxious prayers and 2x pestilent prayers per turn?

If so, I wasn't looking at it that way and haven't been playing it that way. I just played it as I said earlier, and didn't really see the Liber being satisfied that the " Plague Furnace" is a "Plague Priest" to achieve this additional bonus.

Not that it means anything with all the ambiguous situations we have in the rules of AOS, but I don't think that was the intention of the Liber.

Any evidence of this being played as such in the wild? at tourneys etc?

[Lucio]

Usually non-bold text refers to a specific unit, whereas bold text is a keyword, which can be a unit name.

Seems fairly clear that the Liber is intended for an on-foot Plague Priest but it'd not massively gaming breaking to use it on a Plauge Furance

[Nikobot]

@ Lucio

So it sounds like you think that using it on a Furnace gives it the ability to use Pestilens Prayers 1x per hero phase?

No issue using it on a Furnace, just a question of how you interpret what effect it has.