Pestilens Thread, tactics, builds, advice

[DynamicCalories]

4 hours ago, James McPherson said:

oh that's awesome who's that then? Liam or Austin or somebody? Yeah it's a small world everyone knows everyone in VFX! There's quite a few Brits out there too! Thanks mate, was super tense trying to punch through that line and deal with 2 nasty flying kill machines at the same time. That was my first win at WHW, lost all my other games, played absolutely terrible in game 2 and game 5 so I'm glad those didn't go on the stream!

It's Austin! I know him from a totally different forum. Lovely guy! Glad you got to show off on stream - what armies did you end up losing against?

[James McPherson]

yeah sure, I actually fucked my list up a bit , the one I handed in had some mistakes on it which was why Rob was getting stuff muddled at the start, which was totally my fault & I apologise for!

here's what I ran

Corruptor (General) Cunning Deceiver, Chaos Talisman

Plague Furnace , Crown of Conquest

Plague Furnace, Crown of Conquest

Plague Priest with Plague Censer, Crown of Conquest

Plague Priest with Plague Censer

 

10 Monks Foetid Blades

10 Monks Foetid Blades

10 Monks Foetid Blades

20 Monks Foetid Blades

30 Monks Woe Staves

 

Plagueclaw Catapult

 

Congregation of Filth

Congregation of filth

Virulent Procession

 

220pts for reinforcements/summoning

 

 

 

 

[James McPherson]

7 hours ago, DynamicCalories said:

It's Austin! I know him from a totally different forum. Lovely guy! Glad you got to show off on stream - what armies did you end up losing against?

oh cool yeah Austins a good bud of mine!

[James McPherson]

9 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Spotted you on the stream on Saturday too - had a friend round and had great fun going "I know him!".  Was a really good game, nice to see how you've taken your army after seeing it last year at the 1k size  

Yeah I've been playing it a lot in NZ over the last 6 months and learning slowly how to get the best out of it. I've probably hit about 50 games or so by now I think in the year I've been playing. I still suck, but I am slowly getting better. I still remember our game man it was fun (except for those arcane bodkins!) ! This was my first win @ whw so it felt pretty sweet to finally get one after 3 whole events! For some reason I always play badly up there.

 

I'm so tempted to come back for a holiday in October and go to the finals

[ChippyRick]

On 4/11/2017 at 8:20 PM, James McPherson said:

Yeah I've been playing it a lot in NZ over the last 6 months and learning slowly how to get the best out of it. I've probably hit about 50 games or so by now I think in the year I've been playing. I still suck, but I am slowly getting better. I still remember our game man it was fun (except for those arcane bodkins!) ! This was my first win @ whw so it felt pretty sweet to finally get one after 3 whole events! For some reason I always play badly up there.

 

I'm so tempted to come back for a holiday in October and go to the finals

James, are you at SCGT next weekend with the Pestilens?

[James McPherson]

I was meant to be at SCGT yeah, had my display board and terrain all made up and all ready to leave but I had to stay behind at the last minute and look after a sick parent, so missed it in the end which I was pretty gutted about. I'm taking them to the Warhammer Fest Open so will be up there then. I registered for Bristol Smash too, but not sure If I can go yet.

I'm working on a new build at the moment with Plaguesmog (-1 to hit from shooting) and cunning deciever (-1 to hit first turn) and Skrolks command ability (-1 to hit in combat) and Foulrain. It follows on from Thomas Lyon's 'inverse' alpha strike list. Just trying to optimise it so it has enough Plague Monks in it still to kill stuff.

The general idea is to always try to take turn one to surprise your opponent, the 2 large units of Plague Censers can run forward with inspiring presence in large units of 20 swamping board space and providing a screen, put Rabid fever on at least one of them and keep a small unit of Monks close by in a second layer to get the bonuses. You almost want your opponent to double turn you, so you set yourself up for a double turn on turn 3/4. You may roll low for your run rolls, but the furnace should always get quite far ahead if it has enough monks around it, and with the -2 to hit on the first turn should survive long enough for the rest of the army to catch up.

 

Getting the best out of the Foulrain Formation

The thing with Foulrain is you really need a Skaven Chieftain BSB (Compendium) nearby which allows all units in a bubble to re-roll 1's to hit. because even with Lord of War on your general stood nearby, the first Plagueclaw shooting (so hits on a 2+) you still roll a surprising amount of 1's over the course of a 5 game tournament. The problem with doing that is he costs 140pts, and also breaks your Pestilens allegiance, so then you have to take a minimum 180pts core tax of Clanrats (not to mention paint 30 clanrats in matching pestilens colors!) . The other way around this is Epidemius, who also buffs your save and wound rolls. The Skaven BSB cheiftain makes all skaven nearby immune to battleshock so buffs your Plague Monks as well which is nice. Epidemius buffs anything with the Nurgle keyword, and no range restrictions, which is also good. So really either one of these is essential, both which means you break your Pestilens allegiance.

The formation means you wound on a 2+ but you also roll a surprising amount of 1's to wound as well. But this is where you can fix this issue inside Pestilens without breaking allegiance. You need the Plague Scrolls from the Plague Monks (once per game, you can pick a target within 13 and re-roll 1's to wound on that target unit for 1 turn) and you need the Plague Priests Plague Tome (once per game you can pick a target within 13 and re-roll ALL WOUNDS against them for 1 turn), Both of these have the drawback you need to be up close to use them, within 13, so they are best made use of with multiples , ideally multiple small units of plague monks, say 3 or 4 units of 10, spread out and multiple plague priests also spread out. Because of the short range, in the early turns one and two you might be better off putting the Furnace's prayer Bless with Filth onto one of the plagueclaws instead, although it's a bit of a waste compare to the defensive strength of Rabid Fever and only applies to one friendly unit and you have x3 plagueclaws, whereas the Plague Scroll and Plague Tomes apply to everything in your army for one turn. In short, you want to use those Plague Scrolls and Plague Tomes as auto targeting, think of them as requests for calling in an artillery strike, get them in close, set them off and boom, watch the Foulrain come down.

Other than that it's about deploying them so they are all within 13" of the plague priest and trying to keep him in cover somewhere ideally where he can't be sniped.

 

The biggest drawback with taking the formation is the points sink, I find I don't have enough points left to really take what I want to go and capture objectives, but I plan to keep playing it at 2k with full Pestilens allegiance for a while longer and see if I can work out a way to optimise it.

 

[kiblams]

On ‎29‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 8:52 AM, James McPherson said:

Getting the best out of the Foulrain Formation

The thing with Foulrain is you really need a Skaven Chieftain BSB (Compendium) nearby which allows all units in a bubble to re-roll 1's to hit. because even with Lord of War on your general stood nearby, the first Plagueclaw shooting (so hits on a 2+) you still roll a surprising amount of 1's over the course of a 5 game tournament. The problem with doing that is he costs 140pts, and also breaks your Pestilens allegiance, so then you have to take a minimum 180pts core tax of Clanrats (not to mention paint 30 clanrats in matching pestilens colors!) . The other way around this is Epidemius, who also buffs your save and wound rolls. The Skaven BSB cheiftain makes all skaven nearby immune to battleshock so buffs your Plague Monks as well which is nice. Epidemius buffs anything with the Nurgle keyword, and no range restrictions, which is also good. So really either one of these is essential, both which means you break your Pestilens allegiance.

 

So... Allies... That Skaven Cheiftain is looking a lot more tasty now

 

Thoughts?

 

P.S. Great thread here guys!

[Naflem]

9 hours ago, kiblams said:

So... Allies... That Skaven Cheiftain is looking a lot more tasty now

 

Thoughts?

 

P.S. Great thread here guys!

I think it is actually probably more likely we get Nurgle through allies and can pull Epedemius without breaking allegiance than it is to get access to a compedium skaven hero

[kiblams]

17 hours ago, Naflem said:

I think it is actually probably more likely we get Nurgle through allies and can pull Epedemius without breaking allegiance than it is to get access to a compedium skaven hero

You really think so!? I will be annoyed if that's the case as we already know clan 'Verminus' can have 'pestilens' as allies.

[msdos]

Hey guys, with the chaos preview (probably) coming next week, I suppose we will see some pestilens abilities. With that, I've been thinking (and hoping) that we will be able to add other skaven and nurgle as allies and these are the list that I've come up with:

Throt the Unclean

Plague Furnace

Lord Skrolk

Plague Priest with Plague Censer

Plague Priest with Plague Censer

 

Plague Monks with Foetid Blades x20

Plague Monks with Foetid Blades x20

Plague Monks with Foetid Blades x20

 

Hell Pit Abomination

 

Plagueclaw

Plagueclaw

Plagueclaw

 

Foulrain Congregation

Congregation of Filth

 

What I think we lack in pestilens are big guns, something with high rend that the opponent will be scared of and my hope is that the HPA will fill that role. With Throt's buff it's a scary monster, and the abilities of plague priests (+1 to wound) affect all units, not only pestilens.

For a pestilens and nurgle list I was thinking about adding Epidemius and Plague Furnace instead of HPA and Throt.

As for the Verminlord Corruptor, I think he is pretty weak. Even with his command ability. I mean for 240 pts you can add 30 more plague monks, and that's basically the same as his command ability (more attacks) and you have more wounds on the table.

 

 

 

[Umjammerlama]

Any thoughts/hopes/expectations for the Pestilens rules in the up and coming GHB 2017?

[Rubencm81]

On 8/15/2017 at 8:15 PM, Umjammerlama said:

Any thoughts/hopes/expectations for the Pestilens rules in the up and coming GHB 2017?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/08/18/conquering-for-chaos-in-the-generals-handbook-2017-aug-18gw-homepage-post-4/

[James McPherson]

So yesterday/today we had our first real look at Pestilens in the GHB'17 - This is what we know so far....

 

 

 

 

Strength in Numbers - this is probably one of the best things we could've asked for,

(now that you can't spam multiple items)

It will be a vital mechanism without which our army would be almost unplayable. This strikes me as one of the best things they could have done to fix the issue, barring some kind of immune to battleshock giving ability from a hero/new unit ala a Stormcast Lord Celestant. So this is going to mean you probably want to load up on at least one or two big units of 40 to make the most of that.

So say you take a unit of Bravery 5 monks, at 40 full strength, put them next to a plague furnace for +1 then suddenly you are at 14 bravery,  which is pretty good. It will also help against Mournghuls and any other fear inducing type opponents you might come up against.

Echoes of the Great Plagues - Perhaps at first this isn't the greatest, it relies on you having to roll a 6 without modifiers, and only triggers when you cast a prayer. At first when I looked at this I thought - "the biggest caveat about this is, are prayers going to be subjected to the Rule of One with the 5 new rules of one?"

Then I began to think about it - We have 4 prayers per turn available to us in the battletome + 1 extra if you take  Lord Skrolk from the Skaven compendium warscrolls  (who has the Plague Priest keywords) ,  we have 2 with the Plague Priest on foot's Pestilent Prayers and 2 with the Plague Priest on the Furnace's Noxious Prayers . So 5 in total.

Now here's the thing, even if the rule of One does count towards praying, you are probably never going to fit more than 4 or 5 priests in your army at 2k, which means each hero phase, you will probably be averaging 4-5 different prayers or if no rule of one, 4-5 of the same prayers. So it wont really effect it much. So if you max out your Priests hero slots to 4 or 5 it means suddenly there's a bit of a better chance of hitting that '6' you need. So lets say you do get lucky, and look at what happens -

Red Maw Plague - This would be way better if you could get the model to attack itself, it would make a useful defensive threat against big Alpha Strike hero's like the Skaarbrand/Sayle combo or the Treeman popping up behind your lines. As it is, you have to get pretty close, within 13" and not have your troops within 3" of the enemy, and have some of theirs close to it for it to work. Only time I can see this really working is either just before you get off a charge, or as they edge closer to you or charge you. Its very situational and will work best on tightly packed or close bubbled synergy armies with lots of troops/heroes like BOK. In general I'd say it's probably a turn 2-3 onwards type thing as you footslog it across the table and line up charges or get charged, and only triggering on a 6 it's not something you can rely on, but is a good threat for the enemy to think about. Most useful as a deterrent or opportunistic use.

The Neverplague - +1 to casting prayers for all your priests  for the rest of the game, so does that then mean you can never roll a one and inflict a mortal wound on yourself? Would seem a pretty good to put on Skrolk, who then casts D6 mortal wounds on a 2+ . This would possibly be my first pick out of the 3 if there's no rule of one affecting prayers, allowing you to spam Wither or one of the Furnace's two prayers more reliably.

Bubonic Blight Plague - This is reminds me of a cross between Lord Skrolks Death Plague prayer and the Verminlord Corruptors Plague spell, it's pretty good and it spreads which is nice also. Combo it with Lord Skrolk to inflict 2d6 +d3 +1 (I think that's what happens next but the text is cut off) mortal wounds in one hero phase! This would be my top pick if you are within 13" and there's the rule of one affecting prayers, and you can't get Red Maw off which is very situational.

So all in all you have one very situational one which has the potential to be devastating , one very buff one to make your army reliable and dependent and one very aggressive one. Not sure of the math and how many times a game you will roll a 6, but i'll probably choose my army to take as many plague priests and furnaces as possible, with at least 4 or 5, and Lord Skrolk just got even better now.

Artifacts

So if you are taking all these extra 5 priests , and your squishy Corruptor as your usual general, I guess you want some decent artifacts to give them.

 

Blistrevous the Living Cyst -  I'm not 100% sure but I think I saw it written somewhere that artifacts don't effect the mount now,  I'm not sure if it was just to hit/wound rolls ie weapons or all artifacts , if that's the case, then you won't be able to give your plague furnace an extra 2" to it's move characteristic, which is a shame as it's base movement is only 4, and you could get it up to movement 17" with 33 monks surrounding it with the 'Pushed into Battle' ability. This is probably well placed on the Furnace though still as the re-roll 1's to hit will make it a bit more reliable in combat. The Corruptor already gets re-rolls to hit so that part is wasted on him, but the extra 2" would be very helpful.

Liber Bubonicus -  The usefullness of this will largely depend on if prayers are subject to the rules of one, if they aren't then suddenly stacking wither, becomes a very very powerful way to auto wound your opponent (and trigger those sweet -1 rends on your plague monks). Imagine casting Wither 4 times for +4 to wound on an opponent, then using an allied block of plague drones to swoop in with your Corruptor nearby to unlock their Locus of Contagion rule, they would be doing mortal wounds on a 2+ then.

 

Summary

The biggest question hanging over all this is are prayers subject to the rule of one? I would like to think what they giveth with one claw, they do not taketh away with the other, but we shall see. It also forces you to choose if you want to play to the strengths of the Great Plagues and the Battle Trait and start taking 4-5 Plague Priests. The Plague Priests carry a really useful bit of kit, the Plague Tome, it allows you to re-roll all wounds inflicted by any of your army against an enemy for one whole turn, shooting and combat, but it has to be within 13". If you are taking 5 Priests, suddenly that's one for every turn. It's great for helping your Plague Claws hit home.

I think we will start to see a lot of armies with 5 Priests in, probably 1 or 2 Furnaces and the rest on foot. There is almost no reason to take the Warpstone Tipped Staff priest over the Plague Censer priest, as one comes with the Plague Tome and one comes with a Plague Censer that only works if you are within 6" of a wizard (which never happens) .

Battle Traits - This looks like they revealed the whole thing, but the paragraph for Bubonic Blight Plague continues on after the crop, so maybe there is more. I'm not a math hammer guy so I can't tell you what the chances are of rolling a 6 per game but I would imagine, with at least 5 prayers going off per hero phase and that happening 5 times per game , I'd say on average you will probably be getting 2 or 3 off per game. When you compare it with something like Deathless Minions, or Rampaging Destroyers it possibly doesn't seem as good, but I like that it gives you a versatile hand to play for different situations, and your opponent will have to worry about all three as a threat coming into play. The +1 to pray buff is pretty handy too as it is army wide for all priests. My play style is to use the furnaces prayers as offense or defense, and without those going off , everything falls apart, so to have those cast more reliably for the whole game, for me is massive.

Artifacts - Not bad, but keen to see what the others are like. As I said we really need to know about prayer spam before we can comment on the Liber Bubonicus. The Pustule one seems ok, keen to see the others though.

 

What do we need?

I would like to see a warscroll change to Plague Monks to get a 7+ save so it goes to a 6up when they are in cover at a minimum, or preferably a 6up save.

I would like to see some more prayers added, some that can help with battleshock, and some that can help with movement.

I would like to see some more protective artifacts similar to the talisman, none of our stuff has great saves and the heros die so easily, especially the Corruptor.

Nurgle Demons as allies as well as all Skaven clans.

I think we really need some new Plague Priest models so they aren't all the same looking, I am hoping we get some later down the line given the emphasis placed on Prayers and Priests by these abilities.

 

What am I most excited about?

In one word, Allies. I want to be able to use a Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Horseback or a Skaven Cheiftain with Battle Standard , along with Epidemius as allies, without breaking allegiance and keeping my Plague Monks as battleline to ensure my Foulrain formation hits on a 2+ re-rolling 1's and wounds on a 2+ re-rolling 1's. With that and a few blocks of 40 monks and priests, I think it would be pretty solid, especially as this is the age of large units approaching. I could never quite make a list work before when trying to shoehorn all that in, but the Foulrain really needs that reliability added to it, you roll 1's to wound or hit quite often when you have 3 of them and you really need the re-rolls to make it worth spending 700pts on. I get the feeling they might only allow other Skaven allies, but we shall see.....

 

I'd love to hear all your thoughts on it as well, and if you see any leaks or anything share them, I am dying to see the points and the rest of it.

thanks

James

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[James McPherson]

The formations have increased in price so much, seems a bit crazy, not sure what to think at first glance.

-20 pts for the Corruptor and Furnace. I think it should have been more like -40.

Evey list I've ever made for Pestilens has had about 2 or 3 formations in, not sure how I can build one now at these points costs. This is going to change things massively for me.

 

[Rid]

460pts in battalions to field the virulent procession.

 

1380 for the minimum models so still plenty of room for extra toys

[James McPherson]

460 is quite a lot, it used to be 200. That's your allies chunk gone right there. I loved that formation it was awesome.

Foulrain is now 820 for everything.

I guess you can offset it with the Massive Regiments rule, by saving 3x40pts on your 3 battleline units, but playing with 120 plague monks is a challenge in terms of time management and logistics etc. Not sure what to make of it all at the moment, a bit perplexed why the battalions have gone up so much.

Allies with Nurgle Daemons is really good though. And a lot of the other Skaven abilities work with anything with the Skaven keyword, Grey Seer, Thanquol, Verminking, Corruptor etc

[James McPherson]

This is interesting - if you put the artifact Liber Bubonicus onto the Plague Furnace, it states that your Priest can use the Plague Priests Pestilent Prayers ability twice, and one would assume that's on top of the Priests Noxious Prayers ability. So you are potentially getting off 3 prayers per turn with one model.

 

[James McPherson]

skip to 1.31.15

 

Summary -

6 Great Plagues in total

Master of Rot or Ruin command trait - If your general is a priest, he can re-roll his prayer rolls.

 

 

 

 

[msdos]

It would be awesome if plague furnace with liber bubonicus could cast 3 prayers.

What do you guys think about adding rat ogres to the pestilens army as allies? They benefit from 6+ to wound (1 more attack) and we have plenty of ways to increase wound rolls and reroll wound rolls.

[angrycontra]

I considered rat ogors buuut... because battallion point increases I just don't have room for them. Pestilens is just so dependent on their own unit synergies that it's hard to mix them with anything.

I'm interested that there's six plagues in their allegiance ability. Battletome mentions 7 but there's lore for only 5 so I was expecting only 5 great plagues to choose from. Still, not complaining.

Edit. Regarding that statement that plague furnace could use 3 prayers, I don't think it works that way. The artifact specifically mentions plague priest MODEL. This means that only plague priest itself can cast them twice, not the furnace (furnace would simply be able to use one of plague priest's prayers). 

[James McPherson]

Well it mentions 'if the model is a plague priest' right? The furnace has the keyword plague priest, and it has a plague priest model on it which does the praying. It has a plague priest model on it, no mistaking that. The wooden carriage doesn't do the praying. That's the way I choose to interpret it. Hopefully it gets clarified.

[angrycontra]

5 hours ago, James McPherson said:

Well it mentions 'if the model is a plague priest' right? The furnace has the keyword plague priest, and it has a plague priest model on it which does the praying. It has a plague priest model on it, no mistaking that. The wooden carriage doesn't do the praying. That's the way I choose to interpret it. Hopefully it gets clarified.

Usually when gw means keyword they use bolded letters or just flat out say it. This time they used word model which to me implies that they are specifically talking about priest not the furnace. Also, I don't intend to be rude, but I personally hate this "I'll read this rule this way so it benefits me more"-attitude that people have. The book's purpose as artifact seems to be pure and simple just a way to get ONE extra prayer per turn. They clearly primarily designed it so that verminlord corruptor could get access to prayers.

But who am I to argue here. Play how you want, I play how I want. I just generally dislike this way of trying to find loop-holes and writing mistakes from rules and then exploiting them(or when people overcomplicate some rules like in changeling's case).

[James McPherson]

yeah mate, I can see both sides of the argument though and sympathy entirely with your point of view and sentiment.

But I still feel the need for a clarification from GW as it's just a bit vague.

To me It would be weird if he (the furnace priest) wasn't treated the same way as other plague priests. He carries the same weapon, looks the same, has the same attack profile etc, is exactly the same model.

The furnace is a model yes (but not specifically a 'priest' model by your argument - which is correct) but is the furnace model the thing that does the praying? No, it's the priest riding it who does. I can see how he could be perceived as a part of the furnace and not his own entity, but if that were the case, one could argue he would be like the 3 plague monks on the back. And not have rules, but he does. He has his own separate attacks profile and prayers and abilities etc and the keywords included in the warscroll, whereas the 3 plague monks on the back don't.

Without a clarification I'd be tempted to just say, why should my plague priest be treated differently just because he's on foot or riding a big cart. Doesn't stop him carrying or reading a book does it?

If i'm paying 140 pts for a battalion, I'm going to use the artifact to the maximum effect. If my opponent disagreed I'd probably just dice off for it, but I would definitely try to use it I think.

[James McPherson]

more news , Pestilens review on Bad Dice Daily , go here to listen to a review http://baddice.co.uk/

thanks @Ben

[domus]

My Clan Pestilens was built using SCGT comp with a Glottkin prior to GHB1.  I played an event with them and put them away.

They will definitely be coming back throughout the coming year.  Massive Units beg for Catalpults to rain filth upon their heads. 

The best command trait has yet to be discussed anywhere but it will be worth the wait.  ;-)

Verminlord Corruptor - General

4 catapults

3  x 40 Plague Monks

That's the core of the list.  Will add to it as able.