Pestilens Thread, tactics, builds, advice

[tolstedt]

11 minutes ago, Drezdenozk said:

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"

Right that's what he means.

You roll to wound and trigger the effect.  So if you roll 40 wounds, and 20 of them are 3+, you roll 20 dice.  Out of those, 6's do mortal wounds.

[Drezdenozk]

6 minutes ago, tolstedt said:

Right that's what he means.

You roll to wound and trigger the effect.  So if you roll 40 wounds, and 20 of them are 3+, you roll 20 dice.  Out of those, 6's do mortal wounds.

and it's normal that "wither" can stack (+1, +2, +3) on enemy unit?

[Mayple]

3 hours ago, Drezdenozk said:

and it's normal that "wither" can stack (+1, +2, +3) on enemy unit?

Correct.

[tolstedt]

1 hour ago, Mayple said:

Correct.

Yes.  They are very diseased.

[James McPherson]

and if rabid then they do it twice in a turn.

[tolstedt]

And not to forget when monks die they do mortal wounds on a 6 as they explode with filth. 
So you can expect 5-6 mortal wounds just from a unit of 40 dying!

[ChaosReigns]

Hey guys,

So I realize that Pestilens is much stronger at 2,000 points as opposed to 1,000 points, but I'm considering starting up a small(ish) Pestilens force and I'd like to begin with 1,000 points to keep the painting manageable. Would any of the Pestilens veterans in this thread be willing to give me some advice regarding what might be a good build to use at that points level? What sorts of lists would you guys be fielding for a Vanguard?

Lastly, do you guys think that taking a Plague Furnace or Verminlord is worthwhile for a Vanguard list? It looks like both leaders can really act as a force multiplier for your army, but on the other hand they take up a fifth of your points allowance...

[James McPherson]

I'd go with a Furnace myself, and leave out a Verminlord, but that's just me. The Verminlord is only really useful against hordes of low armored infantry tbh. So it depends who you are fighting. The furnace is good for buffing your units and you can keep it alive with Vexlers Shroud and Verminous Valor. I'd go with a Furnace, 40 monks, 2x10 monks 3x Priests, 1 Plagueclaw.  If you get a start collecting box you can probably convert some of the Priests up out of the spares from the screaming bell kit. So a start collecting box and 2 plague monk boxes would do it.

If you wanted something better at shooting Stormcast, ally in Jezzails or a Warp Lightning cannon instead of the Plagueclaw (plague for anti horde)

[ChaosReigns]

Great, thanks!

One more question - is it possible to take both the standards and both the gongs and chimes in a unit? Or is it necessary to choose only one or the other?

The Warscroll Builder seems to suggest the latter, but I don't see anything disallowing the use of both on the Plague Monks' warscroll in the battletome.

[HorseOnABeachBall]

Yeah , you can take both standards and both musicians. Only one load out for your champ though. It takes a serious amount of study to memorize the plague monk warscroll.  

[tolstedt]

This is my 1k list

 

Allegiance: Skaven Pestilens

Leaders
Plague Furnace (200)
- General
- Trait: Master of Rot and Ruin 
- Artefact: Liber Bubonicus 
Plague Priest with Plague Censer (80)
Plague Priest with Plague Censer (80)

Battleline
40 x Plague Monks (240)
- Foetid Blades
- Pestilens Battleline
20 x Plague Monks (210)
- Foetid Blades
- Pestilens Battleline
10 x Plague Monks (70)
- Foetid Blades
- Pestilens Battleline

10 x Plague Monks (70)
- Foetid Blades
- Pestilens Battleline


Units
1 x Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (60)
1 x Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (60)

Reinforcement Points (0)

Total: 1000 / 1000

[tolstedt]

I'm running this today for my first pestilens game.  I went mostly with oldhammer models and a super bright Mike Mcvay scheme.  Got 20 rats done already and everything assembled.
 

The list:

 

Allegiance:  Pestilens

Plague Furnace (200) - Artefact: Liber Bubonicus 

Plague Priest (80)

Plague Priest (80)

Plague Priest (80)

Verminlord Corruptor (220) - General - Trait: Master of Rot and Ruin 

 

40 x Plague Monks (240)

40 x Plague Monks (240)

20 x Plague Monks (140)

20 x Plague Monks (140)

10 x Plague Monks (70)

10 x Plague Monks (70)
 

1 x Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (120)

1 x Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (120)

1 x Warp Grinder Weapon Team (100)

Warp Lightning Cannon (180)

 

Reinforcement Points (0)

Total: 1960 / 2000

All monks has double foetid blades.  I do not want to measure separate weapon ranges and profiles.  Every leader of monks has the book.
Every priest has the book.  If they are in range to wither, they are in range to get the book off as well if something needs to die.  Rerolling hits and wounds is ridiculous with 20 monks swinging for 60 attacks.

6 prayers per turn gives good percentages to getting a few great plagues off.  I love having the general as a 12 wound priest.

Units of 20 are for killing.  They can kill stuff even without wither stacks on the charge.  I put them unbuffed on the charge at easily killing 5 liberators.
The units of 40 are for lasting a bit longer.   I really wish I could get a unit of 5 censers in but I am 20 points short.  I think they are a terrifying threat on the charge with 15 attacks 3/3/-1 and can draw some fire that would be best placed elsewhere.

You must be clever in your use of buffs to win out in the combat activation game.  Rabid fever and inspiring presence can throw tough decisions to your opponent on where to swing.  

I also love the idea of stacking wither.

It's going to be a difficult army.  You must get close and your opponent's double turn will probably be fatal to your priests.

Do not underestimate plague monks in that they are not affected by rend. 

[tolstedt]

I will use inspiring presence mostly, but if you get a double turn and already have a unit of 20 monks in combat, you can get them back up to 3 attacks each with the verminlord's command ability.  

[tolstedt]

I took down the beastclaw on scorched earth with the pestilens.  Did 12 damage to some mournfangs with two mortar teams which was ridiculous.  Love them and love the warp cannon.

20 plague monks can kill anything with just one stack of wither, the plague tome, and their contagion banner popped.

I deep tunneled the 40 monks and got the charge, which just as easily could have not happened.

The great thing about this list is that you could kill anything and I don't really mind.  There are no key pieces, yet everything you have makes threats and has value.  20 rats for killing, 10 rats for chaff, 40 rats for staying power.  It's a lot of fun.  I won't change anything from this list yet.  My plague furnace was destroyed and it didn't matter.  Rabid fever is an amazing threat, but there are more threats beyond it.

I love that the monks do mortal wounds when they die.  The whole army really screams filth and disease, in a totally different way than nurgle demons.  Nurgle is all about building resilience through filth, while the rats are all about spreading filth and making everything become brittle and weak so that it falls apart.  It is a good thematic design.

The bravery buff from our allegiance abilities is great.  The great plagues are great.

[James McPherson]

Happy Christmas everyone! My gaming tailed off a bit in the second half of 2017 as I put on a tournament and was preoccupied but I'm back on it now.

I was trying to paint a new army up in more muted tones as my current one is a bit cartoony and bright, and I wanted a more realistic one, but I haven't gotten too far yet other than build  and prime 60 monks.

It looks like I'll probably be taking the moot green Pests to GT heat one in January, as I'm keen to try out the new GHB17 allegiance abilities against the current meta

Haven't decided on a list yet.

I'd love to hear any good ideas if anyone else is experimenting or playing with them

 

[Umjammerlama]

With the new Maggotkin of Nurgle book coming out, how will this impact on Skaven Pestilens.  What allies to have? etc etc.

[James McPherson]

I did pretty rubbish in the end at the GT heat one at the weekend, two major wins and three losses. I also forgot my general / plague furnace but one of the guys up there lent me one. I had two games against Tzeentch I almost threw away because I didn't know what the army did well enough, and also just played really badly.  I've not played much over the last year so was a bit out of practice and out of the loop on what the latest armies do and stuff.

And my list was really broken too which didn't help. I took 12 plague toads as I wanted a big unit that could hold stuff up, but in the end it was way overkill, 6 would've probably been enough I think. I also changed my list at the last minute from 7 drops, to 12, and then the first 3 games I played were all 8 drop armies. Looking at the current Stormcast pew pew and Tzeentch / Gaunt Summoner meta, I think I missed the 6+ ward save from the Congregation of Filth pretty badly. If I'd had that, then my army would've been 7 or less drops and I think I would've done better.  I changed it because I heard an interview with someone saying 'if your army isn't 2 or 3 drops, then it doesn't matter how many you take" in hindsight I would tend to disagree with this idea, I think anywhere between 1-7 is still worth doing if you can. The main thing I came away with was that the army needed a way to deal with the small 5 wound support characters like the Gaunt Summoner etc from range as he was just deleting my large units of 40 in one go and having a field day. Either a warlock on a BW Vortex or some Jezzails or something like that.

I'm looking at combining some Nurgle stuff in now that the book is out. I'm still working out combo's but a sorceror on a BW Vortex is looking like an auto include.

The Lord of Blights can make a unit of more than 20 Plague Monks -2 to hit with shooting and -1 to hit in combat which is really good anti shooting, if you want to just sit a large block ontop of an objective in one of those scenarios where you only need a unit of 20+ within 6 inches to score.

The spell Blades of Putrefaction will be absolutely devastating on a unit, it allows you to do mortal wounds when you roll 6's to hit on a unit. so imagine it on a unit of 20 foetid blade plague monks, (with +2 attacks )one for charging and one for the corruptor's or glottkin's command ability,  and with rabid fever on them, you're looking at something like 25 mortal wounds done for 140pts.

Glottkin's command ability is also really good. The trouble is trying to fit it all into a 1 or 2 drop list, it's almost impossible, and without that, you are always going to get the odd bad matchup against one drop lists.

Question here for you, I'm also wondering if you can keep Pestilens keyword allegiance, so that your plague monks stay as battleline but choose Nurgle allegiance for the command traits and battle traits/artifacts and spells? Anyone know if (when your entire army is Pestilens keyword), will Plague Monks loose battleline if you choose Nurgle Allegiance? I'm guessing they don't right? As with the Grand alliances you can choose allegiances?

[tolstedt]

1 hour ago, James McPherson said:

Question here for you, I'm also wondering if you can keep Pestilens keyword allegiance, so that your plague monks stay as battleline but choose Nurgle allegiance for the command traits and battle traits/artifacts and spells?

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!

[Naflem]

1 hour ago, 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!

That said I think the Nurgle command abilities and artifacts require one to be rotbringer, demon, or mortal..  so of the pestilens options only the verminlord has an appropriate keyword (that said, if your allies qualify for an artifact, I don’t think there’s anything in the rules that say you can’t take them.. allies just wouldn’t qualify in almost any other situation other than this arrangement and Nurgle demon allies)

[tolstedt]

1 hour ago, Naflem said:

That said I think the Nurgle command abilities and artifacts require one to be rotbringer, demon, or mortal..  so of the pestilens options only the verminlord has an appropriate keyword (that said, if your allies qualify for an artifact, I don’t think there’s anything in the rules that say you can’t take them.. allies just wouldn’t qualify in almost any other situation other than this arrangement and Nurgle demon allies)

Yes only artefact for the verminlord.  I don't think allies can take artefacts.

[James McPherson]

Yeah so the idea I had was to use the Verminlord, and possibly use the big formation Virulent Procession as a 1 drop army, and make the scenery do d3 mortal wounds, and then put it on the nurgle tree's, so they are doing d3+1 mortal wounds a turn to anything that comes near them, obviously put them over objectives etc,  and then summon a lot of stuff in too late game. I think it could work quite well as you can keep healing wounds back on the Verminlord and make him more or less unkillable and take some large blocks of PM's with the 6+ ward save, and it's a one drop army.

[Naflem]

2 hours ago, James McPherson said:

Yeah so the idea I had was to use the Verminlord, and possibly use the big formation Virulent Procession as a 1 drop army, and make the scenery do d3 mortal wounds, and then put it on the nurgle tree's, so they are doing d3+1 mortal wounds a turn to anything that comes near them, obviously put them over objectives etc,  and then summon a lot of stuff in too late game. I think it could work quite well as you can keep healing wounds back on the Verminlord and make him more or less unkillable and take some large blocks of PM's with the 6+ ward save, and it's a one drop army.

And run and charge with plague monks is pretty cool...

[tolstedt]

2 hours ago, James McPherson said:

Yeah so the idea I had was to use the Verminlord, and possibly use the big formation Virulent Procession as a 1 drop army, and make the scenery do d3 mortal wounds, and then put it on the nurgle tree's, so they are doing d3+1 mortal wounds a turn to anything that comes near them, obviously put them over objectives etc,  and then summon a lot of stuff in too late game. I think it could work quite well as you can keep healing wounds back on the Verminlord and make him more or less unkillable and take some large blocks of PM's with the 6+ ward save, and it's a one drop army.

I don't think I would ever run 500 points of battalions.  Especially considering if you are taking the Nurgle abilities.  You get one artefact instead of four.  I think that would be a waste.  I'd rather have 80 more rats!

My pestilens armies have 13 drops (praise the rat!)

I think the ward save requiring being close to the furnace is not worth losing the freedom to send the rats off wherever you want.  In my experirence, pestilens are strong because you can lose any piece and still function just fine.

I'm inclined to say that trying to sculpt this army to rely on synergies that require spacial buffs is the wrong way to go, and the best thing is more rats.  A unit of 20 self buffing plague rats is incredible on the charge.  If they kill the 20, you've got 40 more waiting.
 

[James McPherson]

Yeah you're probably right, looking at Virulent Procession the d3 mortal wounds only goes off on a 4+ , but it's to every unit around it,  which is quite nice. If you did that + the Demon spell which subtracts -1 from saves, to hits and to wounds you could really wear down something quite well. Putting Gift of Contagion on the Corruptor to let him heal back wounds on a 4+ is good too. Can def see a more survivable Corruptor based list in there, but to be honest I think the best lists probably lie in Generic Nurgle with Pestilens allied in.

The biggest problem for me with Pestilens before was dealing with the support characters and the movement and lack of save, but if you can keep the dial ticking over on 6 using the Foul Regen spell , those anti horde support characters or teleporters would be gone in a turn or two hopefully. 

If you could add in Bloab to a list, it would really help, but he's not got the demon keyword.  Lord of Afflictions has though which could be useful with Plague Drones. PLague Drones dropping to 200 for 3 would probably replace my Plague Toads in the list, taking 6 as allies to fill up the 400pts slot. You just really need to get Blades of Putrefaction in there somewhere, but sadly it's only available to Mortal Nurgle Wizards & Rotbringers.

It's not reliable enough to try and take out the support characters with the d3 Corruption Wheel wounds per turn just on it's own, you really need something like a Rotbringers Sorceror on a BW vortex doing the Buboes spell + Arcane bolt + the d3 wounds from the Wheel of Corruption to get off in one turn to really guarantee something like a Gaunt Summoner dies.

The strength of the book so far for me has been in the multiple small AOE spells, and the debuffs, things like the -4 bravery stack, or the -4 to hit with shooting stack and you can get up to a -4 to save stack as well I think though it's pretty hard / improbable.

Nurgles Nail is also one of the coolest artifacts, I absolutely LOVE it.

[ChuckESleeze]

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).