2000 points Plaguetouched Warband

[ogmaadn]

Hello guys,

I'm thinking about getting into some Chaos Stuff, and Nurgle seems like the most appealing to me (those Blightkings and the Harbinger look absolutely insane).

From what I've seen so far, Plaguetouched Warband is the most competitive list for Nurgle, and maybe one of the best among Chaos armies. Am I right? Is it competitive enough?

That being said, I'm not 100% sure about the rules for this army list, but if I am not mistaken, it is required to include at least 1 Nurgle Hero and exactly 7 Mortal Nurgle Units in total (including the Nurgle Hero already mentioned).

So bearing this in mind, I've thought about this army list (2000 points):

The Glottkin 480pt

Harbinger of Decay 140pt

Festus the Leechlord 120pt

1 unit of 14 Putrid Blightkings 540pt

2 unit of 28 Chaos Marauders 360pt

1 Chaos Washrine 200pt

Plaguetouched Warband 140pt

TOTAL: 1980pt

So this army list is supposed to meet the requirements (7 units in total, with 3 Nurgle Heroes). But I've got some questions about it:

* First of all, and the most obvious one: is this army list competitive and balanced enough? What could I improve, or what changes would you make?

* Is this enough model count, or should I replace Festus or The Glottkin with more models (i.e. more Blightkings)? I'm not sure these heroes really fit this sort of army, and maybe there are other things that can make it better and create more sinergies.

* In case I decide to keep these 3 heroes, which one should be the general? Harbinger above all?

* As you can see, every unit with more than 1 model is meeting the requirement of "7 or multiple of 7 number of models in the unit" that is the Plaguetouched Warband in order to take advantage of the special rule of these list (28 marauders and 14 Blightkings). But I'm not sure such large units are really worth it... Is this special Nurgle advantage that good so that I have to give up these 1 Blightking and 4 Marauders? On the other hand, I can't divide these units into smaller ones since it would mean more units, and the Plaguetouched Warband requirement is exactly 7 units.

* Not sure if a Warshrine fits this army at all. Should I replace it with something else?

* Any other suggestion, recommendation or change that you would make to this list?

Thank you very much guys!

 

 

[sal4m4nd3r]

You need one mortal nurgle hero and 7 additional units to fulfill the requirements of the warscroll battalion. If harbinger is your general, then festus, glotkin, blightkings and marauders and warshrine are only 5. You need to break the blightkings up into three squads. 14 blightkings in one unit is not only a huge footprint and very unwieldy, but also doesn't maximize their best abilit..virulent discharge. Grandfathers joy is best left to the units that die and are menant to die.. the marauders.

 

Obviously the harbinger is yor general..because the only reason tomfield him is for the command ability. Without it he isn't worth the 140 points!

festus is cool. Nice as an additional heal for glotkin. But you'll find he isn't in range turn one of two. Will fail one roll out of 1-3 turns. I didn't think -1 save on one unit during the game was worth it. I might go back to him though. 

 

 

[Thomas Lyons]

1 hour ago, ogmaadn said:

* First of all, and the most obvious one: is this army list competitive and balanced enough? What could I improve, or what changes would you make?

First, there are practical problems. As noted, you need another unit; you need 7 + 1 hero (8 total).  You'll also have a waste item since you get 2 but only have one non-unique hero.  So you're wasting an artifact.  

I don't indeed think it is either balanced or competitive.  As it stands, its slow.  Glottkin is largely considered overcosted (which I've slowly come to agree with).  You don't have a good sacrificial high rend solution against tough targets.  You're trying to maximize Grandfather's Favour on the wrong type of units.  You need units that can take hits and then save out of that damage, so their kicking it back without losing models.  If you shove those Marauder blocks forward, they will explode from battleshock.  The blightkings are much better, but even then, they aren't made for that kind of grinding.  The better pickup is 28 Chaos Warriors marked Nurgle (I'll come back to this).  I agree that the Warshrine is probably too inefficient for its points.  

1 hour ago, ogmaadn said:

* Is this enough model count, or should I replace Festus or The Glottkin with more models (i.e. more Blightkings)? I'm not sure these heroes really fit this sort of army, and maybe there are other things that can make it better and create more sinergies.

I think the model count is fine but I would argue they are the wrong models.  One option I would encourage you to consider is the Chaos Sorcerer Lord.  He is a great investment for his points.

1 hour ago, ogmaadn said:

* In case I decide to keep these 3 heroes, which one should be the general? Harbinger above all?

I honestly believe that the Harbinger is the best bet for Mortal Nurgle.  For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is his aura.  

1 hour ago, ogmaadn said:

* As you can see, every unit with more than 1 model is meeting the requirement of "7 or multiple of 7 number of models in the unit" that is the Plaguetouched Warband in order to take advantage of the special rule of these list (28 marauders and 14 Blightkings). But I'm not sure such large units are really worth it... Is this special Nurgle advantage that good so that I have to give up these 1 Blightking and 4 Marauders? On the other hand, I can't divide these units into smaller ones since it would mean more units, and the Plaguetouched Warband requirement is exactly 7 units.

It is worth it for some units, like Chaos Warriors.  It needs to be a unit that the enemy is going to grind on.  Marauders will explode if you try this with them. 

At the end of the day, if someone is going to run a Plaguetouched warband, I'm going to suggest the version I just placed 10th at Adepticon with.  You can find it here with all of the tactics and reasoning discussed.  If you truly want to compete in the current meta, you need to be able to both be highly mobile and deal with highly mobile units, while either dealing tons of damage or being super tanks.  Nurgle doesn't have the rend or mortal wounds output to be super damaging, so you have to go for the mobile super tanks list that can take hits from both standard attacks and mortal wounds.  

[sal4m4nd3r]

I don't think having grandfathers joy

on a large blob of marauders is a bad things. Take the crown of conquest and rush them straight into the enemy. It would be awesome to get the harbinger in there and let him keep them alive while still kicking back mortal wounds. Also glotkin makes them so good 

 

 

[ogmaadn]

Thank you everybody for the quick responses.

But there's something I'm missing here. I thought that "7 units"  refers to the number of units that you have to include in your army, regardless of the type or name of the unit (i.e. having 2 units of 28 marauders each would count as 2 units for the requirement of 7 total, and not only 1 since they all are marauders just divided into 2 different units).

Thus, and according to your answers, this rule means that you can actually have more than 7 units, but only 7 different types of troops/models, am I right? In this case, I've got the required Nurgle Hero (Harbinger) +  5 different troops (Blightkings, Marauders, Warshrine, Festus and Glottkin), so I could still include 2 more different types of troops (divided into any number of units).

17 hours ago, Thomas Lyons said:

The better pickup is 28 Chaos Warriors marked Nurgle (I'll come back to this).  I agree that the Warshrine is probably too inefficient for its points.  

Which equipment are you using on your Chaos Warriors? Shields maybe?

17 hours ago, Thomas Lyons said:

At the end of the day, if someone is going to run a Plaguetouched warband, I'm going to suggest the version I just placed 10th at Adepticon with.  You can find it here with all of the tactics and reasoning discussed.

Wow, that list looks really interesting. Unfortunately, I don't like neither the Belakor model since I don't like to have daemons on my army nor Sayl   Could you recommend another unit or heroes to replace them? More Blightkings maybe? Or some war machines?

I'd like to keep this army as much Mortal and Nurgle I can  

[sal4m4nd3r]

If you look at the marauders warscroll for example.. it says " A unit of marauders has 10 or more models."  This means that the minimum number of models in the unit of marauders is 10. But you can have more up to its maximum which is defined in the General's handbook for matchplay. Just because you have 20 marauders in one unit does not mean that it is considered two units of 10. You can run two units of 10 right next to each other but they are still two different units and act independently of each other. 

 

 If you want to run the list the way it is I would suggest simply breaking up the unit of blood Kings into three  units of five. Run them in one large Bob if you want to but they will be three units each of them and getting a Verlin discharge roll and satisfying the requirements of the battalion without having to change the list at all.

[Nico]

Tom - when you used the Harbinger at Adepticon - did anyone have fewer drops than you, choose turn one and try to kill the Harbinger before the command ability goes up? Depends on whether you have line of sight blocking terrain (at some events that barely exists).

[Thomas Lyons]

4 hours ago, Nico said:

Tom - when you used the Harbinger at Adepticon - did anyone have fewer drops than you, choose turn one and try to kill the Harbinger before the command ability goes up? Depends on whether you have line of sight blocking terrain (at some events that barely exists).

No one ever out dropped me.  Even if they had, I always had the harbinger in cover/behind blocking terrain and the area was zoned around him so no one could drop in my backfield.

Because I was very aware of the possibility of him being alpha-striked, I also ran him with the Chaos Talisman.  When people asked about his defense, me running through 4+/4++ (vs spells only)/5++ (command ability)/6++ (or 5++ vs order), it was usually enough of a deterrent for them to choose a softer target.  I also intentionally would make other targets available (like Sayl) after turn 1 that people would prioritize over the Harbinger.  Given all of these things, the Harbinger only died in the last turn of the last game.

[Nico]

Good stuff. I was thinking Kurnoth Hunters popping into a Wyldwood around the side of the table and sniping him as Sylvaneth often take turn one. However, they would need to know how integral he is to the list. The Chaos Talisman is extremely powerful vs Order as well - I suppose it was worth the risk of it being meh against the other 3 Grand Alliances.

[Thomas Lyons]

25 minutes ago, Nico said:

Good stuff. I was thinking Kurnoth Hunters popping into a Wyldwood around the side of the table and sniping him as Sylvaneth often take turn one. However, they would need to know how integral he is to the list. The Chaos Talisman is extremely powerful vs Order as well - I suppose it was worth the risk of it being meh against the other 3 Grand Alliances.

Don't forget that they can't teleport into a wildwood within 9" of an enemy.  My starting zone at the beginning of the game is filled with 80+ models spread the entire length of my starter area.  There is would be no room for a Sylvaneth player to teleport into my back field because of the minimum range requirement, let alone place a sylvaneth wildwood back there.  Their best bet would be teleport into midfield and try to shoot him off, but I always deployed him behind blocking terrain when it was available (which was most games).  To put things in perspective, the Kunnin Rukk that double turned me didn't even have a chance to shoot him off because of my first turn positioning.  I think players have alot more control of their backfield than they realize when they have a high model count force that can spread out. 

I'll try to get the first of my battle reports from Adepticon up so people can see what I'm talking about.

[Nico]

Quote

Their best bet would be teleport into midfield and try to shoot him off, but I always deployed him behind blocking terrain when it was available (which was most games). 

I was thinking a Wyldwood off to one side and shooting 30" diagonally to get behind a building, but not easy. 

It makes such a difference having line of sight blocking terrain or not doing so. Tournaments vary a great deal in this regard. Finding a hut to cower behind at Firestorm Fours made a big difference in one game. At other events at Warhammer World, literally 25% of the table is a single piece of scenery including two Skull Keeps (and of course we rolled Mystical for it).   

A lot of terrain doesn't block line of sight thoroughly (e.g. Realmgates, where you might be able to hide a Grot or two behind the stairs, but not anything bigger).

It does remind me of fond memories of lobbing lines of 30 Clanrats, 40 Clanrats or 30 Stormvermin at the enemy (in that case with full offensive buffs on) (Archaon's Furry Friends), where I didn't care if I lost any one of the lines outright as any one line could inflict critical damage and tie up most of the enemy force. As you say, having a long line of models spread out can severely restrict where your opponent can deploy and where they can fit (e.g. flying models on mid to large bases can struggle to land and Gordrakk and company really need that Grot Helipad Warscroll. 

 

[Thundercake]

15 hours ago, ogmaadn said:

Thank you everybody for the quick responses.

But there's something I'm missing here. I thought that "7 units"  refers to the number of units that you have to include in your army, regardless of the type or name of the unit (i.e. having 2 units of 28 marauders each would count as 2 units for the requirement of 7 total, and not only 1 since they all are marauders just divided into 2 different units).

Thus, and according to your answers, this rule means that you can actually have more than 7 units, but only 7 different types of troops/models, am I right? In this case, I've got the required Nurgle Hero (Harbinger) +  5 different troops (Blightkings, Marauders, Warshrine, Festus and Glottkin), so I could still include 2 more different types of troops (divided into any number of units).

 

It's just 7 units. You could have 7 units of marauders if you want.

The plaguetouched warband requires 1 mortal nurgle hero and 7 mortal nurgle units. You only have 6 units in that list once you remove one hero to meet the hero requirement.