Zeblasky

I expect them to go up in points of course. Basically having a fast unit for 440 that is as tanky as Mega with old Amulet and can also do a lot of mortals is not okay. Blightkings doing more damage is also not quite true. If they are going up against low wound 4+ or worse save models, then yes, it is true. But if we're talking about 1+ save monster or my favourite 2+ save phoenix (4+ save plus 2 to its save), then Blightlords are quite superior due to their mortals on charge. That way high save high wound models are a great answer to Blightkings. But, more importantly, Blightkings are very slow. In certain missions it can be 2-3 movement phases, before they can get to the objective on the opponent side, and you can easily block them, kite them or shoot them off the board before they make any impact. They CAN deal more damage, but a smart opponent won't let them do it. If you want something to tank damage, you take Plaguebearers. If you want something to get where they are needed and do damage, you take Blightlords. Blightkings are in between and are kinda overshadowed in both roles at the moment.

@Magnus The BlueI've also forgot to add that GUO boosts free healing from 1 to D3 within 14 of him. That is also why he can be such a great support piece, especially behind the Blightlords (if he can keep up of course).

This is actually very close to the max meta build I was discussing above. I'd say go for Drowned men, replace Blightkings with 4 Blightlords (Blightkings usually are too slow and sluggish to do anything useful). Then you have 100 points left. You can leave them as they are for triumph, get some plague monks (85 points of screening), or may be remove 1 Nurglings and add 1 more unit of Plague Drones. But the best choice here is to instead drop Nurglings and take a hero and get an easy 1 drop build. With that you can go and reasonably hope for a 5-0 at a tourney, you just gotta do your tactics very carefully. You can still build this as one drop without a third hero (with one 3 times reinforced unit of Blightlords), if you really want it that way. With this setup it is quite easy to table most armies by a fourth turn, provided you won't get double turned against Fulminators or some very nasty shooting. And no, that's not Lumineth, their archers are too reliant on mortals you can quite cost effectivelly absorb, just not so much with your heroes. But hey, you can summon Deamon heroes, so who really cares? x) EDIT: was slightly wrong in points, corrected that in army advice section.

About Witherstaff - yes, on paper it looks like only adding an extra wound, but in practice it makes Diseased rolls much more reliable. There is a pretty big statistical difference between mortals on 4+ and 3+. And the chances of a lucky streak with 5 mortals are so much higher as well. And then comes the 6 circle and you get 5-6 mortals around you every turn guaranteed. GUO having big base helps here as well, as you can tag multiple units within 7. But I agree, mortals here do have quite a great selection of reliable artefacts. I am also not sure that Megas are such a problem for Nurgle now, when you have 4x2 Blightlords to charge and beat down 2 megas. With a proper army you should be able to kill 2 out of 4 gargants by around a third turn. Honestly, 4 blightlords just need 3-4 turns in combat to take a Gargant solo on average, even if you count the fact that they will be losing models. And you have other assets to assist them in the task of beating down Megas, while Nurglings can just sit near opponent points, daring other Megas to move from the cap.

So, I've played quite a few games against top players experimenting with Nurgle and here's my 2 cents about Nurgle current state. Glottkin definetly seems overpriced by about 100 points, but it can still do some work. For a big supporting hero slot 2 picks seem most obvious hovewer. First is a Great Unclean One. In this army he's relatively squishy (ONLY 20 wounds for 500 points) and Nurgle Deamon spells are mostly pretty weak, but you take him for The Witherstave. Having Diseased mortals pop off on a 3+ is very powerful, and this artefact does stack with a Circle, so in one battleround you can have your mortals going off on a 2+, which is, well, crazy, anything around GUO will die unless he dies first. Another great pick is Bloat Rotspawned. He is quite cheap for his stats, has +1 to his casting, access to Mortal lore and his MW spam/debuff is pretty strong as well. Another thing of note are Plagubearers. They are nothing special except for being the tankiest unit in the book points wise. That won't win you games on it's own, but that is something to think about. They are great as 2x10 units to hold flanks and screen at the very least. Now, onto the broken stuff. First of all, Nurglings. Yes, Nurglings, you heard me right. Those little buggers right now punch way above their points. They have first turn deepstrike, they autoheal all wounds on a model and they usually spam enough Diseased points to defeat anything close to their price bracket in melee. I've seen 5 Vindictors charge into 3 Nurglings, and after 2 Vindictors retreated from 3 Nurglings. This is at least quite funny, sure. 1-2 of them in Nurgle army creates both a presence in the enemy side of the board for summoning points and a quite valid threat for your screens that are holding your points. EDIT: I've almost forgot about Beasts of Nurgle. Very cheap, quite fast, extremely maneuverable, deal good damage, annoying as hell and cheap to summon, as you can summon them every round without much trying. They are too cost effective in both their point and their summon cost. But all right, the main event, Pussgoyle Blightlords. These guys are what Stormdrakes dream to be. First of all, Blightlords, while not the tankiest Nurgle, are still quite damn tanky, 4 of them are almost exactly like Mega Gargant with old Amulet. Only Fulminators on charge can effectively deal with 4 Blightlords on one go, and Fulminators are quite overpowered themselfs, being the highest damage unit in the game at the moment. It's very hard to kill these flies, especially if you let them Rally once or twice. Then, they are fast, being the fastest Nurgle unit, especially if you take a subfaction that gives them a premove before the battle. They will get where they need to be. And then, the worst part, they deal so much damage, so many mortals... They deal mortals on charge (4 of them deal around 5-6 mortals to a single target AND they can deal those D3 mortals to all units within 1 of each model, so it can be even more mortals) , they deal mortals versus low wound models (four of them deal ~3 mortals usually), they will always max out Diseased on at least one target (so that's additional 3-4 mortals), they can even easily try spreading those sixes on 2 targets if needed. Their base attacks are not great and are quite bad against 1+ save, but they are very numerous all the same, so save stacking is not that bad here. So, just as an example, four Blightlords will deal 8 average damage against 3+ save just with their attack damage. If it's a 1-3 wound target, it also suffers ~11-12 mortals, if not, "only" ~8-9. And all that for 440 points in a tanky faction with summoning. My Anointed on a frost phoenix could not survive more that 3 turns versus 4 Blightlords every time, and that was before the Heroic Recovery nerf. So, Tldr: Pussgoyle Blightlords are tanky, fast and can deal great damage, so they are very good at everything. Enjoy them before FAQ drops. P.S. Oh, and Overpowering Stench is a must have on your general. It can break an opposing army if your general is placed just right.

Black dragon has such a breath, and from experience I can tell that such type of breath can either be very strong or quite situational, depending on implementation. If you would remake Stormdrakes this way, while keeping the range, even with mortals on 5+ 4 dragons would decimate any kind of 1 wound unit if it's all in range, while killing more than half of 2 wound ones, and all that without double shooting. This would lead to a much more wild MW spikes, not less, and I do not think that you want 4 dragons killing 30 Ironbrakers or 40 grots in one shooting attack.

Then let's wait for a lot of those 4-1 results. I'd say a lot of people running those full dragon lists right now are doing this not because dragons are too strong when spammed, but just because those models are so freaking cool.

Well, then why are you fine with Idoneth (can run, shoot and charge their whole army across the board), Ironjaws (3 units, including Mawcrusha), Living City (ranged deepstrike plus 1 unit charging)? It's not something new.

Okay, I am a little bit late for the discusion here, but I'll throw my 2 cents. Are dragons overloaded with rules? Yea, probably, they could lose one or two and get rebalanced, but I honestly don't care much here. Are dragons breath attacks too sqingy? Yea, on average 2 dragons shoud deal 3.66 mortal wounds, but in my experience they can deal from 0 to 12 mortal wounds (yes, I did roll 2 sixes once already), so that is something to think about. Are dragons just too good, especially when massed? Eeeeh, while I could be wrong, I personally do not think so, as I believe them to be quite overrated as of now. Are they good overall for their points? Yea. Are they good at everyhing? Eh, not quite. Their damage is decent, but even with spears and shooting they do as much damage as fulminators with shooting and fighting WITHOUT charging, although eating a model compensates for that. Double shooting is cool, but even on 6 dragons that's 11 extra wounds on average once per game. Their tankiness for the cost is decent as well, but truly great things about them are their manevurability and their contesting potential. Are they good as a middle cavalry? Yes. Should you mass a whole army of them? No, I do not believe so, as there are a lot of things that can destroy such a one dimentional build, especially if Stromdrakes players does not get the priority. Is 11 dragons build too easy to stomp casual lists with? Sure, but hey, it's not just Stormdrakes that can do that. You can also just spam full army of Fulminators or Idoneth Eeels with Leviadon for overwhelming damage, go with good old Sentinels or BoltBoyz for sniping, go with Ironjaws and their move across the whole board and kill anything with 3 rend alpha or just go with Nurgle, place your 4x2 Pusgoyle Blightlords in your opponent face turn 1 and watch him suffer. A lot of builds can still kill casual lists without much skill or counterplay involved, no news here. Oh, and mark my words, once meta catches up, you will see a simular thread here about Pusgoyle Blightlords. Now those things are actually crazy, both fast (especially with premove), very tanky and quite damaging thanks to mortals on charge and after combat (versus infantry ofc) and Diseased. 4 of them in practice kill Annointed on Frost Phoenix in 2-3 turns (had this happen to me in 3 games with such situation).

I have a lot of things to say, but right now, listen to this idea - Knight-Draconis in Hammerall with Saints Blade. You get 1 more rend on his main attack, if he's contesting any point (and he should), you also get 3 damage instead of 2, if he's in the enemy territory, he can fight twice in a combat phase and if he's near your general, he can even reroll 1 to wound. And of course you can pop all out attack to make both activations to hit on 2. All that rounds up to average 8 rend 4 damage 3 saves for your opponent. And all this without his shooting and mount attacks mind you, in 2 combat phases this should kill any armoured target in the game. In most cases, even 1 phase should be enough.

Math wise Drakes were slightly better and more reliable with their shots out of the box, but after recent points nerf Sisters once again took the lead. And while Sisters are quite more swingy (20 of them can do anywhere between 2 and 12 mortals in my experience), a simple all out attack or Nomad aura can make them quite more effective. Add to that Sisters better mobility, free Unleash hell and especially the fact that they, unlike Irondrakes, ignore save stacking, and the choice is obvious. But then there is the range... and oh man, the amount of times that extra 2 range on Sisters helped me to hit things I wanted to hit right from the deepstrike... I just can't imaging how frustrating it would have been if I deepstriked Irondrakes instead. So teleport is kinda a must have for them. Sure, Hurricanum with mage can cast the Bridge with +2, buuuut I'd say chances of running into Teclis, Stormcasts with auto unbind or Nagash were pretty high before. And even then, if you mage is in range of unbind, it's a bit too much of RNG. Here however I would have to kinda disagree. Cities have only one real way of making Irondrakes work well, and that is Bridge. Not bad, but not very reliable either. Sure, if you take them in Tempest Eye with all the proper support, buff them and teleport them at the right target, they will wreck almost everything, but for Blissbarbs, you don't need all that. Just run them to targets, may be throw in Curse in the mix, shoot, and that's it. Blissbarbs won't do too much damage, but they can operate on their own (they are also great at depravity points generation, can't forget about that). Irondrakes can destroy armies, but need a lot of support and synergies for that, basically taking half of your army points to work. Which is better in their respected rosters? Honestly, hard to say. But I have to say that at the very least, Bissbarbs are definetly not as bad some would like to claim. They are nothing special, just easy to use and can do a good damage and generate Depravity with great mobility, while leaving the rest of your army to to their things. Btw, Amulet nerf was quite needed, but I'm quite sad that my Dreadlord is quite more squishy now because of that x)

While I don't want to go on about proving that Blisbarbs are better or the same as Irondrakes as they are quite different units with different roles... But if we're talking about those 2 things, well... It really sucks to rely on Soulscream bridge because of the fact that you need it to be casted and not unbound or especially auto unbound. And when you have 800-900 points in your army all based around that bridge going off and teleporting you buffed Irondrakes and it just does not go off or gets auto denied... It is kinda game ending in a lot of cases. And in Living City Irondrakes are kinda bad. You can't really buff them from deep strike, and their range limits them by a lot. That's why I use Sisters of the Watch there instead, as they were secretly very good in Living City for a loooong time. Not as broken as Fulminators of course, just good.

I can understand not wanting to play with a summoning army (all those extra models to buy and carry around can be quite taxing), but even now summoning potentially is extremely strong mechanic, as it gives you a unique ability to adapt your starting army both to your opponent composition and to the situation on the battlefield. This summoning flexibility is extremely underestimated. And yet some competitive lists for Hedonites included both Archaon and 30 Blissbarbs. And honestly, even on paper they are quite good right now. They now cost the same as Irondrakes now, and sure, they can't get buffed hard, they have worse to hit and their save is bad, but they are faster, have better range, don't need to stand still to have 2 attacks and they can run and shoot in a roster that is all about dealing damage. Seriously, do you need them to be more cost effective that Irondrakes damage wise while being much more mobile and with much better overwatch?

To be fait about Blissarbs, they are a unit in a faction that has summons and can use those summons quite effectively at that, both for objective capping and opponent killing. Every unit in their roster costs around 25% more because of that, otherwise it would not be fair.

Here the thing though. I've played ~14 games with Frost Phoenix in the Living City for the last 2 month mostly versus quite competitive and nastly builds, and I've learned very quick, that sure, Phoenix is quite tanky, he can hold his own very well, but he's nowhere near unkillable. He can tank very well for his points, but versus some armies he can easily die in a single phase even with +2 to his save. Stacking +3 helps quite much better, but still, he is good, but 4+ base save is not 3+. I once even had a mirror with one of the best Cities players worldwide, when 2 of our Frost Phoenixes with Anointed dueled in the middle and both mysteriously done 5 wounds to each other in a single combat phase. But I've killed that Phoenix in that game, yet I did not killed his general, who was General on a Griffon. Both because my Sisters of the Watch failed to do an expected amount of damage (bad rolls, oh well), AND because even then he could still teleport and ruin my game, my battle tactic and my scoring. This is why this teleport is amazing, not just because you can come back with this Griffon later, but also because it denies you a monster kill and 2 potential battle tactics. In short, Frost Phoenix is reasonably tanky, but General on a Griffon is actually pretty much unkillable in most scenarious if you do not want to risk him after popping the mount trait. Weeell, this does not do much to them really, their warscroll overwatch will be largely unaffected, unless we're talking about 30 models in a slightly dispersed formation. Oh, and due to Irondrake nerf, Sisters are once again take the cake of being better without any buffs applied. And due to save stacking, which Sisters ignore, they are quite better versus some high priority targets as well.