How to Counter Seraphon

[LLC]

Hi All,

Quite a new player here. I used to play back in 2006/7 but it was too overwhelming for my 6th grade brain.

A friend and I have started up again, him starting Seraphon (the one I always wanted of course) and I started nurgle.

Before GHB2017, it was fine, but now that he can teleport his carnosaur into me and then when i put a bunch of wounds on him, he can just teleport it out. Not too sure what to do to beat that.

 

(We've only just started trying to play with objectives.)

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[Aginor]

Finally the day has come!

I thought I'd never see a thread with somebody asking how to beat Seraphon. Seems my army finally joined that club.

 

Ok let's see.
As Nurgle you will probably have the following problems fighting the lizards:

- you have almost no shooting.
- you are slow.

But you should be relatively hard to kill I guess. When playing with objectives that could work in your favor.

What list are you using? Demons, Mortals or mixed? If we know what units you have we can probably see where the problem is.
I am sure you will be able to beat Seraphon.

[LLC]

Ok so, 

I've gt 1sc! Nurgle. 1. maggoth body, (waiting to build the rider until i know who i want.) 10 extra plaguebearers. 5 blightkings. 

I also have 1 Sc! slaves to darkness. 

 

My opponent is very friendly and lets me use "count as" for now as I'm trying to get a list together.

[Aginor]

Ok I might be talking directly out of my scaly Seraphon rear end here, so any Nurgle players are probably more qualified to help you, but here are some thoughts on Nurgle based on what would make me as a Seraphon player fear them:

First of all: If he plays Kroaknado (some list containing Lord Kroak on a Balewind Vortex, maybe also buffed by an Astrolith Bearer)

Kroaknado is almost an insta-win against Nurgle since they are likely to not have enough shooting to kill Kroak on the Vortex and he will kill those ranged units first of course. You cannot kill him with spells either since he is pretty likely to unbind those. The only way to win would be to just sit on objectives and pray for good regeneration, which isn't exactly fun either. So if your friend plays a Kroaknado list for the first time: Smile and shake his hand and compliment him on being able to use the terrible army balance in AoS to his advantage, but make clear that you refuse to play against him if he does it again because it isn't fun as it means you cannot win.

That being said, now on to real tactics.

 

There are a few Seraphon units that can cause extra damage to Chaos Demons. Use your mortals against them whenever possible. From the top of my head:
- Starpriest's spell (damage in addition to the debuff)
- Kroak (additional damage by one of his spells. Lots of it.)
- Bastiladon's searing beam (additional damage)
- Slann's spell (only affecting battleshock but it will hurt your regeneration since that is done during the battleshock phase)
- Chameleon Skinks (double damage)
 

That Herald of Nurgle is a major threat. Not because of his own damage but because he buffs both the Plaguebearers and the Plague Drones, enabling the latter ones to cause mortal wounds. You should bubble-wrap him to prevent him from being attacked that easily. Seraphon have almost no long ranged shooting so they will probably not be able to snipe him unless they use Kroaknado or so. And that's not something friends should do to friends IMO. At least not more than once since it kills the fun. See above.

 

The Chaos Sorcerer Lord from the Slaves to Darkness box might be really good to buff up your Plaguebearers even more and to add some magical support.
To overcome your lack of speed you could maybe put some points aside for summoning. For example 100 to summon a new Herald if your first one dies and otherwise some Plaguebearers. That could make the Seraphon player nervous since he doesn't know if it will be a Balewind Vortex, a Herald, Plaguebearers or something else, and he will be forced to play more carefully since he doesn't know where summoned units will appear either.

Problem with Plaguebearers is that you should really have the big groups to make them good, pretty much like Skeletons. Perhaps one group of 30 and two of 10 for a 2K game.

Blightkings are really cool dudes. Since they cause mortal wounds they are perfect against Saurus Guard and Bastiladons since those have great saves. They also buff your other units so actually it sounds like a good idea to use them near your Plaguebearers.

You should probably think about getting a Great Unclean one. He is so resilient that a Seraphon player basically has to concentrate everything on him to kill him, which will give you an advantage. Seraphon lack hard hitters to a certain degree so if you can get rid of those you can win (or at least survive to claim objects).

If that Carnosaur gets teleported in you have to swarm it I think. Also make sure that you spread out your units enough to block zones, but still close enough so they receive all the buffs. A Carnosaur needs around 12" of space to be teleported in (9"+his base size) so if you play near the table edge you can at least prevent him from flanking you. Conga line with some cheap units if necessary. That might help keep your important assets alive and force him to attack where YOU want instead of where he wants.

 

....man now I want to play Nurgle as well, some of those warscrolls do sound intriguing.

 

That's it for now, I am sure we can come up with even more though.

 

EDIT: Beasts of Nurgle might also be an option. They don't sound too good at first glance but buffed by the Herald they are not too bad, and they might discourage the Carnosaur or anything else from charging your lines.

[Killax]

While unsalted and perhaps a hard pill to swallow I think going for the Nurgle Allegiance right now isn't sufficient to compete with the more fleshed out Allegiances.
In many ways Allegiances either matter and can be considered competitive (like Seraphon's) or not (like Everchosen or Warherds).

With this in mind though going for a Slaves to Darkness Allegiance or Chaos Allegiance is the next best choice. One of Nurgle's weaknesses, speed, can be easily solved by including Sayl of example. This way you battle "teleportation" with "teleportation".

Other than that The Glottkin or Exalted Great Unclean One are two very solid beacons you can rely upon if you want to. I have no idea at which level you guys are playing though. 

[Arkiham]

Consider plagueclaw catapults for their mass infantry , a exhalted great unclean one if you can find one cheap (likely fake ) or can afford a real one for the more elite choices 

30 Plaguebearer battleline shouldn't really die unless targettged by kroak.

Go for bloab for the maggoth riders, the others are just worse, orghotts is trash morbidex is fun but unless you're running a decent sized unit if nurglings (who aren't really useful) you're paying for a feature you won't use.

Battalions for nurgle are rubbish unless you take plaguetouched but then it's not too easy to make a list 

[Aginor]

I kinda like that Tallyband bataillion. Even more regeneration could make up for the lack of speed wouldn't it?

[Soldier of decay]

Festus the leechlord is a great counter teleport. Put him next to a GUO or  Glottkin to keep him safe and use his healing. 

The real kicker is he creates a 14" bubble with his unique spell that can reduce a units save for the rest of the game. 

They can still tele in. But you can make them pay a hefty price.

Also Bloabs unique spell can help you murder big units adding D3 mortals any phase you damage them. Shoot with GUO and Bloab then add D3. Charge with GUO then add D3. Attack with anything then add D3.  As long as you get a single point of DMG through in the phase you can melt units that come alone.