AoS 2 - Clan Pestilens Discussion

[Nikobot]

On 2/17/2019 at 1:38 AM, wander said:

Should much support be given to the Verminlord Corruptor now? His command ability is meh and I find it hard to justify saving points for extra Command Points which seemed a good thing before, given how good 'gouge-tear' was

Corruptors old CA was good. 

Plague monks were mostly ran with foetid blades before. On the charge they'd get +1 attack with their blades and re-rolls.

They still get rerolls so the corruptor CA doesn't look great...

But now monks with staves get +1 attack with all their melee weapons on the charge. 

Monks with blades 2 att and staves 1 att.. charging +1 att each.. noxious prayer +1 att each and corruptor CA for rerolls...

7 attacks per monk with rerolls to hit...

Worth it.

[Alezya]

33 minutes ago, wander said:

Fairly similar to a list I was working on. Y'know, you can cheap out and get Congregation once as it's bubble has been expanded to 18" and the battallion says 2+ Plague Monk units and any wholly within that 18" are good. You can set out a blob of Plague Monks 8 across in 5 ranks, so if they're packed tight, you could get 2 blobs either side to benefit.

Congregation once is enough, true that. But the mega battalion consists of 2, and don't forget the extra CP (in this case 2 extra CP) and 2 extra artefacts + the fact that you are a mono drop list. 

[Num]

Hello all

I never played Pestilens but I'm tempted now with the battletome and all. I just have a plague furnace and some plagueclaws though, I need to get tons of monks. I just finished painting 100 clanrats so I'm ready for a new horde challenge!

May I ask for ideas of lists at 1k with no verminlord please? I really have no idea how to play pestilens and want to prepare some shopping list

Cheers

 

Example:

1. Plague Furnace, Plague Priest, Grey Seer General, 40 monks, 40 monks, 20 monks
2. Plague Priest, Grey Seer General, 40 monks, 40 monks, 2 plagueclaw

Edited February 19, 2019 by Num

[dclandis]

1 hour ago, Num said:

Hello all

I never played Pestilens but I'm tempted now with the battletome and all. I just have a plague furnace and some plagueclaws though, I need to get tons of monks. I just finished painting 100 clanrats so I'm ready for a new horde challenge!

May I ask for ideas of lists at 1k with no verminlord please? I really have no idea how to play pestilens and want to prepare some shopping list

Cheers

A furnace with master of rot and ruin and liber bubonicous and all the monks you can get your paws on is my suggestion.  No harm in adding a plagueclaw it's a cool model, but I've never used it.  I'm gonna try adding a plague priest and leave the endless spells alone for right now, but I'm also gonna keep my corruptor in my 1k list.  I'm sure you'll get plenty of replies to get you thinking about it though.  

[wander]

5 hours ago, Alezya said:

Congregation once is enough, true that. But the mega battalion consists of 2, and don't forget the extra CP (in this case 2 extra CP) and 2 extra artefacts + the fact that you are a mono drop list. 

I've been thinking on the drop and ability for more free stuff, in relation to ranged support (what we have of it left) and Endless Spells. I'm veering to a middle ground between both. Getting the alpha strike is great, though I'm at the moment hard pressed thinking of a counter when throwing Monks against a gunline heavy list. I used to have Ratling Guns allied in and they really helped out where Pestilens would otherwise run into trouble. Sure they can move quicker now and if lucky on the dice you can an early Turn 1 alpha-charge in already rabid-rabided thanks to a gnawhole, I dunno though. Appealing though a bit risky.

I think that the last mega-battallion is sorta overkill, you already get +2 command points and 2 artefacts from the two Congregations, having only 3 Heroes, it feels a waste. Increases drops to three (two Congregations and the Verminlord) but getting some Endless Spells (or whatever you feel 100pts is good for) seems more tactically rounded, though sure loses a bit of competitive edge.

5 hours ago, Num said:

Hello all

I never played Pestilens but I'm tempted now with the battletome and all. I just have a plague furnace and some plagueclaws though, I need to get tons of monks. I just finished painting 100 clanrats so I'm ready for a new horde challenge!

May I ask for ideas of lists at 1k with no verminlord please? I really have no idea how to play pestilens and want to prepare some shopping list

Cheers

 

Example:

1. Plague Furnace, Plague Priest, Grey Seer General, 40 monks, 40 monks, 20 monks
2. Plague Priest, Grey Seer General, 40 monks, 40 monks, 2 plagueclaw

As a quick one,

Plague Furnace with the already suggested warlord trait and artefact, then you could run 40 Monks, 30 Monks, 30 Monks, 1x Congregation for exactly 1000pts.

If you want the Plagueclaw, then swap the Congregation out for it. I'd really doubt the worth of 2 Plagueclaws in a 2k list, let alone a 1k one.

[Alezya]

49 minutes ago, wander said:

I think that the last mega-battallion is sorta overkill, you already get +2 command points and 2 artefacts from the two Congregations, having only 3 Heroes, it feels a waste. Increases drops to three (two Congregations and the Verminlord) but getting some Endless Spells (or whatever you feel 100pts is good for) seems more tactically rounded, though sure loses a bit of competitive edge.

The only endless spell really worth it that I see in this list is the Chronomantic Cogs... But it's because that endless spell is broken

The rest I am not sold yet... That leaves 40 pts for another endless spell though... I dunno...

 

At the beginning I thought I could fit in a Greyseer, but I made a mistake when looking at the Congregation point cost (I calculated them as being 100 instead of 160). So the 4th artefact made sense for a frenzy spell.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Alezya

[Axter]

Guys, i have a doubt about liber bubonicus. Maybe it's a stupid question but i do not know..

As now Liber Bubonicus on the new book says "give to the characther the Plague prayer ability (the prayers of the plague priest on foot). If the this hero is a Plague Priest, he can use Plague prayer twice"

Now, if i give liber bubonicus to the plague priest on furnace (that actually is  a plague priest by name and keyword) what will it gove to him? For how is written in my book (it is in italian so maybe it's bad translated) it will give him the plague prayer ability and let him use those twice, but meanwhile he still have the Noxius prayer ability so he will cast once the noxius prayer and twice the plague prayers. But i think it's not like that, it shoulf be too strong and pointless.

So what Liber bubonicus give to the furnace? Cast twice Noxius Prayer? Cast twice Plague Prayer? Cast once Noxius and twice Plague?

I think i'm missing some faq maybe

Again sorry if it is a stupid question and thanks for the help!

[Overread]

The wording is a little messy but here is how it is:

"The bearer can use the Plague Prayers ability from the Plague Priest warscroll. If the bearer is a Plague Priest, then it can use the Plague Prayers ability twice in your hero phase." 

 

Ok so this is really messy in the way its written and it can be interpreted two ways. 

1) It gives the plague priest access to the Plague Prayers, but only 1 casting because the model does not have the prayer ability before hand - so the second part can't act on its own.

This interpretation assumes that the two sentences that form the description are distinct and separate - an either one OR the other situation

2) It gives it the ability to use the Plague Prayers with the first sentence and then, because the plague priest on a furnace has the key word plague priest, also confers it the ability to pray twice.

This latter interpretation assumes the two sentences are linked even if they are also separate - ergo both can be true at the same time.

 

 

Another element to consider is that there are only plague priests as heroes for Pestilens, so as of right now you've either got a plague priest or a plague priest on a furnace; there are no other pestilens heroes; and only pestilens can take from the pestilens gear. So the way its worded sounds rather redundant if one assumes the second interpretation which leads us to supposed that the first interpretation is the correct one. 

This is something that should get flagged for GW to FAQ/Errata on as right now whilst we might suppose that the intended ruling is the second; the way its worded makes the first interpretation true.

 

 

Note if the first interpretation is true then it shines a big light on the potential for GW to be adding a new pestilens hero that isn't a plague priest to the army

 

Edited February 20, 2019 by Overread

[kenshin620]

59 minutes ago, Overread said:

Note if the first interpretation is true then it shines a big light on the potential for GW to be adding a new pestilens hero that isn't a plague priest to the army

Would be neat if they had something akin to a generic "9 Plague Lords".

[Axter]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

The wording is a little messy but here is how it is:

"The bearer can use the Plague Prayers ability from the Plague Priest warscroll. If the bearer is a Plague Priest, then it can use the Plague Prayers ability twice in your hero phase." 

 

Ok so this is really messy in the way its written and it can be interpreted two ways. 

1) It gives the plague priest access to the Plague Prayers, but only 1 casting because the model does not have the prayer ability before hand - so the second part can't act on its own.

This interpretation assumes that the two sentences that form the description are distinct and separate - an either one OR the other situation

2) It gives it the ability to use the Plague Prayers with the first sentence and then, because the plague priest on a furnace has the key word plague priest, also confers it the ability to pray twice.

This latter interpretation assumes the two sentences are linked even if they are also separate - ergo both can be true at the same time.

 

 

Another element to consider is that there are only plague priests as heroes for Pestilens, so as of right now you've either got a plague priest or a plague priest on a furnace; there are no other pestilens heroes; and only pestilens can take from the pestilens gear. So the way its worded sounds rather redundant if one assumes the second interpretation which leads us to supposed that the first interpretation is the correct one. 

This is something that should get flagged for GW to FAQ/Errata on as right now whilst we might suppose that the intended ruling is the second; the way its worded makes the first interpretation true.

 

 

Note if the first interpretation is true then it shines a big light on the potential for GW to be adding a new pestilens hero that isn't a plague priest to the army

 

Actually also verminlord corruptor is  an hero for pestilens, so it's also made for him.

But still it's impossible that they give an item like this that give not  a  real help to the furnace (plague prayer are just damage prayer now and no more buffing)

[Mutter]

10 hours ago, Axter said:

Cast once Noxius and twice Plague?

From RAW, this.

And it might not seem like a lot of benefit, but THEN I realized that with the Master of Rot and Ruin, that PP could potentially throw six dice at prayers every round (could also reroll successful ones, if he wanted), thus quickly (statistically in the first turn) triggering a Great Plague and getting Neverplague, which is gonna be really nice if you happen to have a second (or even more) Furnaces ...

For me, even this niche case would probably worth it, because being able to reroll prayers for all Furnaces throughout the game is gonna be really nice.

[Alezya]

13 hours ago, Axter said:

Guys, i have a doubt about liber bubonicus. Maybe it's a stupid question but i do not know..

As now Liber Bubonicus on the new book says "give to the characther the Plague prayer ability (the prayers of the plague priest on foot). If the this hero is a Plague Priest, he can use Plague prayer twice"

Now, if i give liber bubonicus to the plague priest on furnace (that actually is  a plague priest by name and keyword) what will it gove to him? For how is written in my book (it is in italian so maybe it's bad translated) it will give him the plague prayer ability and let him use those twice, but meanwhile he still have the Noxius prayer ability so he will cast once the noxius prayer and twice the plague prayers. But i think it's not like that, it shoulf be too strong and pointless.

So what Liber bubonicus give to the furnace? Cast twice Noxius Prayer? Cast twice Plague Prayer? Cast once Noxius and twice Plague?

The way I understand it:

The plague priest on furnace can only chant one of the two noxious prayers: Reroll wounds and +1 Attacks. 

When equipped with the liber bubonicus, as the plague priest on furnace is a plague priest, he can cast 2 prayers, which means he can cast both of the noxious prayers: one roll for the reroll wounds, and a second roll for +1 A.

The VL Corruptor can take the liber in order to have 1 roll for a plague priest.

Not? 

[Ajay29]

2 hours ago, Alezya said:

The way I understand it:

The plague priest on furnace can only chant one of the two noxious prayers: Reroll wounds and +1 Attacks. 

When equipped with the liber bubonicus, as the plague priest on furnace is a plague priest, he can cast 2 prayers, which means he can cast both of the noxious prayers: one roll for the reroll wounds, and a second roll for +1 A.

The Liber specifically says “can use the PLAGUE PRAYERS ability twice”, no noxious prayers.

So a priest on a furnace gets one of his own (noxious prayers) and two of the on-foot priests prayers.

[Alezya]

Still, deals some MW, potentially. Not bad though. 

[Mutter]

5 minutes ago, Alezya said:

Still, deals some MW, potentially. Not bad though. 

And might trigger Neverplague, like I said.

[swarmofseals]

Been following this discussion a bit, and I think there are a couple of interesting questions that playtesting will help answer.

The first question is how valuable being a one drop army will be for Pestilens. No doubt being a one drop force is amazing for some factions, but I'm not sure that it really matters for Pestilens. A typical single Congregation of Filth army will likely be 4 drops -- the Congregation, a second Plague Furnace, a Verminlord Corrupter and either a Masterclan general or a third Plague Furnace. That's enough to out-drop most opponents anyway, although clearly there are some 1-3 drop lists out there.  That being said, does going first really matter that much? This is not an alpha strike army. You might be able to pull off some shenanigans with gnawholes, but against a skilled opponent I doubt it will work all that often. It's not like a Slyvaneth list that can drop into the center of the table or a deepstrike n' charge list like eel spam or Gavriel Surecharge. It's not even a "normal but really fast" list like Crypt Flayer spam or Deathmarch. Even with cogs, you've got a 15" or so threat range on turn 1, which is not enough to get a first turn charge with any kind of reliability in most battleplans. 

Thus against alpha strike opponents you're going to be eating it regardless, and against normal opponents you probably out drop them anyway as 4 is still quite low.  That said, this army is very well suited to eat an alpha strike. Your characters are extremely resilient with solid wound counts and buckets of defensive abilities, and your troops are numerous, expendable, and easily made immune to battleshock. Plague Monks are really quite fine on defensive efficiency, especially with the 6++. Offensively, they are so absurdly efficient that you can afford to lose loads of models and still have a comically massive counterpunch. 

The second question: how valuable are small units of plague monks when compared to large ones? Pestilens obviously has an amazing buff game, and that tends to benefit the larger units more. That said, if you are expecting to be counterpunching then having screens is quite valuable, and Congregation of Filth allows you to have plenty of screens without getting bloated on drops. The mortal wound ability from the champion is also quite interesting. It's not very long range, but 13" isn't bad, and it'll really add up if you have a lot of small units.  Since it does not require a roll to hit, spamming this ability can really threaten support heroes in a way that is relatively unique. I'll be very interested to see what balance people end up on between small units and large units of plague monks.

[Alezya]

You don't play one drop armies to play first.

You play one drop armies to be the one who has the choice to go first or second. And that is imho a key to success. 

Some lists will prefer going first, for an alpha strike for example. Or just for rushing objectives and sitting onto it for the whole game (it's the game for Sylvaneth, for example). Some will not and will prefer the opportunity to double turn, potentially.

Some scenarios will make you score more points by going second. Giving yourself the possibility of having to decide who will have the 3 pts and who will have the 1 pt. 

According to the matchup, the scenario, the list, the table and terrain disposal, being the one able to choose whether to go first or second is quite strong, I believe. 

[wander]

On 2/19/2019 at 8:03 PM, Alezya said:

The only endless spell really worth it that I see in this list is the Chronomantic Cogs... But it's because that endless spell is broken

The rest I am not sold yet... That leaves 40 pts for another endless spell though... I dunno...

 

At the beginning I thought I could fit in a Greyseer, but I made a mistake when looking at the Congregation point cost (I calculated them as being 100 instead of 160). So the 4th artefact made sense for a frenzy spell.

I was going to go Chronomantic Cogs and then use Vermintide for 40pts, as it doles out more mortal wounds and doesn't affect Skaventide. It's been a while since looking over the Endless Spells, though the other choices are Aethervoid Pendulum, Bell of Doom (which you won't really need with Plague Furnaces giving battshock immunity), the Geminids, Ravenak's Burning Jaws, the Burning Head or you can take two 20pt Spells (Maelstrom, Quicksilver Swords, Shackles).

16 hours ago, Mutter said:

And might trigger Neverplague, like I said.

The wording of the Neverplague has been changed now. It no longer gives +1 to prayer rolls, instead it just allows rerolls for prayers. Master of Rot and Ruin already does this.

Also on the topic of the Liber Bubonicus, it has the words 'Plague Priest' bolded to show it's a keyword reference. The Plague Furnace does have the 'Plague Priest' keyphrase, so it would use it's Noxious Prayer then get two uses of the Plague Prayers. The Liber Bubonicus artefact even specifies it means the prayers of the Plague Priest on-foot on p.114 now.

Master of Rot and Ruin just refers to 'prayers' for it's warlord trait, so yes you could combo it with the Liber and have a Plague Furnace throw out three prayers and reroll the results to try and get Great Plagues off.

The Neverplague isn't the amazing thing it was though. I'd recommend rereading the Great Plague effects, I'm also going to look for other changes there myself when I can take a moment.

[Mutter]

1 minute ago, wander said:

Master of Rot and Ruin already does this.

Yes, but Master of Rot & Ruin is only on one of your furnaces, like I wrote.

[wander]

True, I'm just a little put out the Neverplague got nerfed as it did. I found +1 to prayers more preferable. Great Plagues on a 5+ meant they'd more likely show up in games.

Currently I think if I'd roll one up, I'd either mess with a Hero using Redmaw Plague or go and be insidious with hopefully getting a support hero with Crimsonweal Curse or a problematic horde blob (thinking Gitz or Ghouls) with Undulant Scourge.

My thoughts atm are that whilst the Great Plagues can potentially do something horrible to an enemy army, because you can only use each effect once in a game and how situational each one is, I find myself less caring about if I can make one happen.

I'm much more concerned on wanting to get rabid-rabid Noxious Prayers out now... Having that placed now on the Furnace as a once per turn prayer than a command ability I can use saved up Command Points to fling onto Monks (my old list started a game with 3 command points, though admittedly I'd usually keep at least one back for Inspiring Presence) feels like a stealth nerf to me. I'm actually considering list-building a third Plague Furnace in a 2k list to max out Behemoths with a Corruptor just so three units of Monks a turn can get rabid-rabid.

[Mutter]

15 minutes ago, wander said:

I found +1 to prayers more preferable.

Well, I guess if looking for Great Plagues, +1 is better, but from a reliance point of view to get prayers off, rerolls are even better (albeit, not by much).

[wander]

Yeah I can agree on that. Especially as there's the chance now when trying to rabid-rabid a Monk blob, not only is there a 1/3 chance it'll fail, there's also the chance you'd attract a mortal wound on your Furnace too (though thankfully if that did happen, it also has 1/3 chance to ignore the MW thanks to Protection of the Horned Rat).

Now I'm wondering how it'd look for the Priest on the Furnace to annoy the Great Horned Rat to attract a mortal wound from it's prayer but the warding of the Great Horned Rat protects the Priest from it. 🤔

[Forrix]

Don't forget that gnawholes give you +1 on prayer rolls now.

[wander]

I knew that got displaced, forgot to relook over the gnawhole warscroll before posting earlier. That stops the potential mortal wound.

Question is still if a three Plague Furnace list can work. You can run a list with a Verminlord Corruptor, 3x Plague Furnaces, 4x 40 Plague Monks and have points spare to get a Congregation of Filth included (or a solo Plagueclaw Catapult). That leaves 80pts, which leaves room for a few options.

Or you could forget the Congregation and add a 5th unit of 40 Monks to make 2000pts exactly. Though I question the mad lad who'd run a Corruptor, 3x Furnaces and then just(!) 200 Plague bois.

[Bailey The Cat]

Regarding the Liber Bubonicus discussion, its important to note that the item says exactly: "The bearer can use the Plague Prayers ability from the Plague Priest scroll (page 114). If the unit is a PLAGUE PRIEST, then it can cast Plague Prayers twice in your hero phase."

This means that a Plague Furnace would now have 4 total prayers, its own 2 Noxious Prayers plus the 2 Plague Prayers from the Plague Priest (on foot) warscroll.  Since the artifact uses bold "PLAGUE PRIEST", you are to check the keywords of the bearer.  In this case, since the Plague Furnace has the PLAGUE PRIEST keyword, the second sentence applies and it gets the ability to use those 2 Plague Prayers twice.  Note that the double-cast ONLY applies to the two Plague Prayers, not the Plague Furnace's original two Noxious Prayers. 

That means that the Furnace with Liber Bubonicus artifact and the Master of Rot and Ruin command trait would actually get to use three prayers (1 of Noxious Prayers, and 2 of the Plague Prayers) per turn, with rerolls for all of them.  

This might get FAQ'd to state that you only get two casts of Plague Prayers if the unit already had access to that ability, or two total Prayers

Edited February 21, 2019 by Bailey The Cat