meatpipeline

Very few Beastmen models have a mark of chaos (giving them the Nurgle keyword), which makes it hard to play them in a Nurgle army without taking the Pestilent Throng battalion. This battalion will end up taking a block of points out of your army, so you'll need to choose early if you want to go this way or not. I'd recommend getting the Maggotkin of Nurgle start collecting and building the Lord of Afflictions. That gives you two good heroes (Lord of Afflictions, Lord of Blights) with some blightkings. Then you can add blightkings, marauders, and a feculant gnarlmaw. The start collecting Daemons of Nurgle box has all the daemons you'd ever want to summon, if you want to go that way. Otherwise, just buy Plaguebearers as @Hannibal noted above.

I totally missed that the SC box can be built into so many different combinations of chariots / dudes on chariots. You can definitely make the battalion out of 2x SC boxes. That is a good start which will allow you to branching out. After that you can look to add / adjust your daemonette units to better benefit from Be'lakor's CA or try and branch out into Bloodletters/Horrors. Horrors are actually pretty easy to add, with Blues being 100 pts. Blues/Brims come in the same box, so it wouldn't be too costly to add another unit that Be'lakor can bring back. I'm building towards a Nurgle Daemon army (started AoS a year ago) and you've got me thinking about how I want to branch in LoCA. I was originally going to be Nurgle based (summoning PB) and adding powerful heroes. I like the Karanak target / summon ability. Here is my target list... thoughts? Note: I'm using Legion of the First Prince without Be'lakor, because I get the second fight-on-death spell. Allegiance: Legion of Chaos Ascendant - Host of Chaos: Legion of the First Prince Leaders Great Unclean One (320) - General - Plague Flail & Massive Bilesword - Command Trait: Primordial Commander - Spell: Echo of Hatred Rotigus (320) - Spell: Echo of Hatred Poxbringer Herald of Nurgle (120) - Spell: Bolt of Ruin Poxbringer Herald of Nurgle (120) - Spell: Bolt of Ruin The Contorted Epitome (210) - Artefact: Fourfold Blade - Spell: Echo of Hatred Karanak (140) Battleline 10 x Bloodletters (110) 10 x Bloodletters (110) 10 x Bloodletters (110) Units 6 x Plague Drones (380) Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs Extra Command Point (50) Total: 1990 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 1 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 114

I'll suggest something that nobody has mentioned yet... Legion of Chaos Ascendant. Allegiance gives 6+ FNP and a fight on death spell (probably not that good with a monster profile). I would build the list around a GUO, with a Nurgle mark on the Soul Grinders to launch them into combat and CP them +1 attack. Then an Epitome as the general with Ruinous Aura command trait to get them a 5++ FNP , war-scroll spell of Reroll 1s to hit (cast on their targets), and Burning Head to give the +1 to hit. The Soul Grinders act as the Distraction Carnefex while the GUO summons Plague Bearers and caps objectives. Fill the rest in with whatever you like... it isn't amazing, but seems like it would be fun to play. I really like this Contorted Epitome setup, 9 attacks with 5+ to hit being D3 MW, double caster with reroll casting and a decent warscroll spell. Survivable 5++ wound FNP, 2++ mortal wound FNP. Allegiance: Legion of Chaos Ascendant Leaders Great Unclean One (320) - Bile Blade & Doomsday Bell - Spell: Echo of Hatred The Contorted Epitome (210) - General - Command Trait: Ruinous Aura - Artefact: Fourfold Blade - Spell: Echo of Hatred Units Soul Grinder (210) - Daemonbone Talon Soul Grinder (210) - Daemonbone Talon Soul Grinder (210) - Daemonbone Talon Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs The Burning Head (30) Extra Command Point (50) Total: 1240 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 1 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 71

@Godzilos I poked around online and I saw a few mentions of LoCA being run in the Khorne battalion with Be'lakor, 18 blood crushers, 3 skull cannons, 3x10 blood letters, and 2 blood masters. This would be 3x SC boxes plus 1.5x Bloodcrusher boxes. Alternatively, 2x SC boxes plus 2x Bloodcrushers would get you close (minus a Skull cannon). If you are going to max bloodcrushers, then I think it is probably worth trying to get Cogs + Blue Scribes or a Tzeench caster with a one time 3D6, drop the lowest cast (or a Lord of Change). So for the 2x Khorne SC boxes, I would build a Skull Cannon and Bloodmaster (Herald on Foot) instead of a Bloodthrone. Both are subpar choices (the bloodthrone seems more useful for the points), but it gets you closer to the battalion, if that is where you want to go. I wish I could build Skulltakers instead, as they actually deal damage. I'm skipping the battalion, because it is only good when you have access to units that do something on the charge (e.g. Skullmaster, Bloodcrushers). The plan is to leave one of the Bloodletters in reserve to summon, then try to YOLO a 9" charge with the Bloodletters reroll charge banner (~48% to charge). I've included a second Nurgle hero, as the plan is to mostly summon Plaguebearers. Spoilpox makes PBs them better and is cheaper, so that is where I went. In order to maximize Belakor's regen ability, I put the Bloodcrushers, Plague Drones, and Skull Cannons all in the same units. Grouping the skull cannons tries to maximize their kill a model -> shoot again ability. Gravetide is just because I had points left over. This list wants another caster, because Legion of the First Prince gets an additional fight-on-death spell. This is is all the more reason to stay away from Khorne heroes and why I like the Epitome so much. ... it feels like the Bloodmasters / Gravetide are wasted points... Allegiance: Legion of Chaos Ascendant - Host of Chaos: Legion of the First Prince Leaders Be'Lakor (240) - Spell: Echo of Hatred Verminlord Corruptor (280) - Artefact: Fourfold Blade - Spell: Echo of Hatred Spoilpox Scrivener Herald of Nurgle (90) - General - Command Trait: Primordial Commander Bloodmaster, Herald of Khorne (80) Bloodmaster, Herald of Khorne (80) Battleline 10 x Bloodletters (110) 10 x Plaguebearers (110) 10 x Plaguebearers (110) Units 6 x Plague Drones (380) 6 x Bloodcrushers (240) Artillery Skull Cannons (260) Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs Suffocating Gravetide (20) Total: 2000 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 0 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 133 I think my takeaway is that if you are trying to do LoCA in-expensively with Khorne, I would rather look for a used daemon army or buy 2x Boxes of Bloodcrushers (4x units of 3 or 2x units of 6). I think this list gets more interesting if you have an additional 2x SC boxes of Slaanesh... which I'll poke around with next.

I think the problem you are going to find is that you'll need a large number of battleline deamon units, 3x to build the list and up to 5x for summoning (furies count), then an additional unit to summon with the Gaunt Summoner. Wraith and Rapture only has 2x units (Daemonettes and Bloodletters) plus your furies, so you are going to need a minimum of 5x more. I don't anticipate they'll change LoCA much, as it functions off of the daemon keyword. Slaves to Darkness just got a battletome, so I would expect their unit keywords to stay the same for a while. Both Demon Princes and Furries are Daemons in 40k, so I doubt they are going anywhere. When building a LoCA list, I try to keep in mind that the most powerful lists are structured one of two ways: 1. Skewed towards powerful, high cost heroes / units and minimum battleline. These lists rely on summoning to add bodies. 2. Legion of the First Prince lists with Belakor which try to maximize the command ability to bring back expensive cavalry (Bloodcrushers, Plague Drones, Seeker Chariots, Seekers) or resilient battleline (Plaguebearers, Pink Horrors). I haven't really seen a list that functions with hordes of daemons, plus summoning... but it could just be undiscovered. I'd love to see some horde list ideas, if anyone has them. @Godzilos I haven't found a Korne list I like yet.... unfortunately, the battalion is too restrictive (8 bloodletter units!), too many points, and the benefit isn't that great (e.g. Karanak and Bloodletters already have access to re-roll charges)... at least as it maps to SC boxes. I'll keep working... hopefully I can have something interesting later tonight. To complement Nurgle, I'd look for consistent spell-casting from Tzeench (for endless spells) and high mobility / impact hits from Khorne / Slaanesh. Nurgle already has resiliency and a good hero to give the Fourfold Blade.

Plaguebearers are still 110 points. You don't need the battalion for the "extra" artifact. You get one to begin with. Legion of the First Prince doesn't force you to make Belakor your general (which is odd, but that is how they wrote it). You can make the Verminlord Corruptor your general to get a command trait. It doesn't look to me like you are meeting the battalion requirements. You need 2-3 Slaanesh Daemon Heros AND 6 Daemonette units. I don't think you can count the Bladebringers for both categories. I'd be worried about how much of a target the Verminlord Corruptor ends up being. It has huge damage output (Fourfold Blade) and is the only caster for Warp Lightning Vortex in your list. You lose a lot of output when it dies. The Warp Lightning Vortex casts on an 8 (41% chance without casting bonuses), so it is hard to get off consistently. With only one caster who is a big target and looking to get into combat, I'm guessing there are games were you won't successfully cast it.... which leaves you with 80 pts you never used. I'd drop it for a spell everyone can cast, something with a lower casting value. On the plus side, I like the seekers / bladebringers... when using the battalion you want to make sure you are always charging. If I was going to look at making this battalion work in LoFP (and optimizing with Start Collecting Boxes)... I would take A Contorted Epitome and The Masque as my heros. I would make the Epitome my general so it can have the Ruinous Aura (5+ DPR against wounds, 2+ DPR against MW) AND the the Aqshy realm artifact (6 to hit is 2 hits). The aura will help protect the other units as they march up the board. Then the Bladebringers would count as daemonette units (or could be built as chariots if you want the hero slots). Something like this (I had to drop Rotigus to make it work) with room to spare for an endless spell of your choice: Allegiance: Legion of Chaos Ascendant - Host of Chaos: Legion of the First Prince Mortal Realm: Aqshy Leaders Be'Lakor (240) - Spell: Bolt of Ruin Verminlord Corruptor (280) - Artefact: Fourfold Blade - Spell: Echo of Hatred The Contorted Epitome (210) - General - Command Trait: Ruinous Aura - Artefact: Incandescent Rageblade - Spell: Echo of Hatred The Masque (120) Bladebringer, Herald on Seeker Chariot (160) - Spell: Echo of Hatred Bladebringer, Herald on Seeker Chariot (160) - Spell: Echo of Hatred Battleline 10 x Daemonettes (110) 10 x Daemonettes (110) 10 x Plaguebearers (110) Units 5 x Seekers (120) 5 x Seekers (120) Battalions Host of the Depraved (120) Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs Extra Command Point (50) Total: 1910 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 2 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 98 I'll work up something with Khorne Start Collecting Boxes when I have the chance. Building lists is fun! Edit: The list only has one Nurgle hero, which isn't good if you are trying to summon Plaguebearers. I don't see an easy way to fix that with the requirements of the battalion.

It's not easier to make a charge, it is basically guaranteed. The marauder charge rules are ridiculous. They have get run and charge from the tree, drummer +1 run/charge and change the lowest charge die to a 6, which means you only fail a 9 inch charge on double ones (~97% chance of success). They can consistently make 11 inch charges. They move farther (larger threat range) and can consistently get into combat. Marauders (Axe + Shield) have the same number of attacks as Chaos Warriors. Marauders get more rend (or the same for a Warrior's greatblade). Marauders attack at 3+/4+ which is roughly the same as Warrior's profile. Large number of marauders take buffs better. Marauders are less survivable, but that isn't why you take them. The full answer is that Marauders deliver more damage more consistently than Chaos Warriors. In competitive AoS, damage is very important as otherwise you can't push your opponent off of objectives, destroy their impactful units, or disrupt their gameplan. Playing with low damage high survivability is playing to not lose the game. Even then you have to hope to not die to the insane damage output of the best armies (40 skinks doing mortal wounds on hit / shooting / then charging, Kroak's Celestial Deliverance doing D3 damage to 3 units 3 times a turn, every turn). With Chaos Warriors you are hopping to hold an object / area and not lose, with Marauders you are actively controlling space and dealing damage. This is the reason you see Blightkings in all the competitive lists and relative few Plaguebearers. Blightkings = Marauders, Plaguebearers = Chaos Warriors. If you aren't playing competitively, put whatever models you like best on the table. I've heard a lot of people say they hate the Marauder sculpts and either actively look for alternate models or don't play them at all.

If they follow the example of Idoneth from Broken Realms: Morathi, then they'll be updating the warscrolls for units that don't get used much. I could see any of the Maggoth lords, nurglings, beasts of nurgle, and sloppity / spoilpox getting updates. I'd love to see them make one of the Maggoth lords non-unique. Assuming the warscroll battalions / box sets follow Broken Realms: Morathi... I'm curious to see what the warscroll battalion and corresponding box set will look like. Our existing start collecting boxes are pretty comprehensive and I'd think they would want to avoid too much crossover. The target cost ($90-100 USD) seems to indicate the Maggoth Lords won't be a part of the boxes... so I guess I really have no idea. Maybe a sloppity or spoilpox battalion to go with an updated warscroll? Either way, I'm excited! Also, I don't think they'll do Nurgle Endless Spells until a new battletome, so we'll have to wait till AoS 3.0 for that.

Why would Nurgle receive more mortals? There are already multiple mortal battleline options (Blightkings, Chaos Marauders, Chaos Warriors) with Pusgoyles being battleline if. The Nurgle range is not small, even when you don't factor in all the other books we can pull from. I would expect something to be released with the Broken Realms book that contains Nurgle, but given what was released with Mortathi it will all be existing models. I wouldn't expect new units until the next battletome drops or maybe AoS 3.0. There is a lot of releases in the next year (Broken Realms, Slaannesh Mortals) leading up to AoS 3.0 not even factoring in how COVID has screwed up all the releases. I would say that it isn't strange that Nurgle hasn't received a battleforce. Nurgle seems pretty popular and if I was GW I wouldn't want to sell a battleforce box that people already had a number of models for. Sure, they are a great way to start a new army, but I'm not sure how many people out there are waiting on a battleforce to pull the trigger on a new Nurgle army. We also already have two great start collecting boxes.

Check out @godhand army one page back. Another idea is to paint each non-Nurgle unit with mostly standard colors, then grunge them up... as if the other gods were partnering to spread Nurgle's rot or were in the process of being corrupted by Nurgle. Personally, I would keep them in their own color scheme to keep the flavor of the Great Game and keep the army coherent though the basing scheme.

No idea about Anvil of Apotheosis... the only thing that I've heard is that Ethereal Save is too cheap. If that is true, look for mortal wounds. Also, taking an Ethereal save is good for LoCA, as they get the 6+ FNP. I would expect that without a battleline requirement, you are going to see more monster mash lists that are attempting to smash your opponent (rather than capture objectives). That is what I would do! I don't think LoCA wants to move far away from the batteline requirement, as otherwise it won't have enough bodies to contest objectives. Relying on summoning for objective holding will eventually backfire. So with all that said, I would start by taking your normal list and building a Anvil character specifically for that list. Once that is done, check at how the list looks... Does the Anvil character do something important? Could you better build around that character? Do you need to rebuild the Anvil character... feels like having the Anvil character add your list (rather that just being a random unit) is the way to go.

Lord of Afflictions is my favorite fast moving hero. All three keywords (mortal, rotbringer, daemon), so he can carry the Witherstave. Fast movement, 5+ DPR, reasonable damage, heals himself. Gives all rotbringer (BKs!) reroll ones to hit in a 7" aura, which is great with exploding 6s. There is a lot of extra utility if you can use his command ability on Pusgoyles (if you want to go that way). Radio Free Hammerhall posed a video recently which had a good overview of Pusgoyles plus the interactions with LoA. If you still want the daemon keyword, there are two cheaper fast moving options: Harbinger of Decay and Lord of Chaos on Daemonic Mount. Both bring different things to an army, while carrying the Witherstave and moving quickly. For allies, Bela'kor is probably the best due to the power of his disruption ability. I really like The Contorted Epitome as it gives you some magic disruption (reroll of denial / dispell), the warscroll spell is good (target D3 enemies, reroll 1s to hit on each, and has a decent damage output.

I'll second LoCA, as it's a monster mash of greater daemons. I think if you want to play an S-teir chaos army, it really helps to play Bel'kor. He's one of the best chaos units. LoCA lists I've seen come in two forms: - A character-centric monster mash with minimal other units, using summoning to fill in the bodies. - A cavalry-centric build trying to abuse the Bel'kor subfaction ability to return slain cavalry. I've never seen a mix of both, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'll also mention that Nurgle isn't S-tier and has one of the oldest Battletomes (pre AOS 2.0). It feels like a new Nurgle battletome will come out either late in AOS 2.0 or after we get AOS 3.0. This provides some uncertainty, as the competitive level could change drastically (become S-tier like Seraphon, or get dumpstered like Synvaneth). I wouldn't want to paint 50 blightkings only to have the whole army change.

I'll second everything in this post and add a few things: - High resilience, either though wounds per point, FNP, or minus to hit effects. - Mobile enough to get into good positions on the board. At the Double combined with Trees run & charge. We rely on special abilities to get this mobility, so if you get out of position early it can be difficult to recover. - Not reliant on spellcasting. The top tables are full of super-casters (Kroak, Teclis, Lord of Change) which makes it very hard to rely on spells. - Summoning, which adds to the resilience (new bodies) and functions as extra mobility (I think of it like a short-ranged teleport). All the top armies / lists (Serephon, KO, Lumineth, Changehost - Tzeench) share similar traits: - High ranged damage (shooting, magic, or both) - High Mobility (high movement or teleports) These lists tend to have high power individual units or powerful unit synergy, but that is a bit harder to quantify.

The Blessed Sons is a subfaction that comes from Wraith of the Everchoosen (it isn't the battalion from the Battletome). You can search online to find the exact rules. You can have two battalions (Blight Cyst and Plague Cyst), but you have to pay for both and units can only count towards one of the battalions. The one exception to this is superbattalions, which are battalions that include other battalions (e.g. The Blessed Sons from the Battletome).

I rarely see Grand Alliance lists when I'm browsing Tabletop TO. They are generally less powerful, because they lose the powerful allegiance abilities in the allegiance-specific Battletomes. It seems like it is generally more advantageous to use Allies instead of a Grand Alliance. I do see Legion of Chaos Ascendant lists, but I wouldn't describe LoCA as a Grand Alliance army.

One of the biggest problems with Skarbrand is that he has a large base and doesn't have fly. He can't jump screens and it's easy to lock him in place. I would try pining your opponents bubblewrap screen in place with trash units while the rest of your army takes objectives. Then your opponent either has to spend a turn killing your chaff (and not moving) or separate the Bloodthrusters from the screen/Skarbrand to chase the rest of your army. A big take away from the game I played this weekend is that movement is the most important part of AoS, not killing the opponents army. EDIT: Also, it reduces your opponent ability fight twice / stack up attacks if there is only one unit in range. Try to not group up your units near the deathball. Your opponent has limited number of combat phases and he'll probably wait to active all his combos if the only unit to kill is trash or a screen.

You can build a list with Grand Alliance Chaos as your allegiance. You'll have access to battleline options in every chaos faction, except "battleline if". The only issue is that you don't currently own any of the battleline options, so you'll have to go buy 3 units. Daemonettes and Kairic Acolytes both count as battleline. You'll want a unit of daemons for the Gaunt Summoner to summon.

If you are hobby/painting focused, then pick whichever model you think you'd enjoy the most orwill hold your attention/focus... if that's painting challenge, look of the sculpt, conversion potential, or whatever else drives your hobby. Narrative focus follows a similar pattern. If you are gaming focused (playing models on the tabletop), I usually find that it's easier to have a list as an end goal. So I spend time creating and tinkering with is list, while working on the core troops. By the time I've finalized what I want to build towards, the special models (larger hero/artillery/build-around unit) have generally stabilized. If I had to give you an answer, I would go for the Glotkin as it matches your existing Rotbringers on a larger scale. I've tried to build lists around the Maggothlords and I desperately want them to be good... but they just don't do enough. I do plan on building a list with Morbidex Twiceborn and massive units of nurglings, but that is another story. Rolling buckets of dice that do nothing.

I'd look for the cool stuff you can ally in from StD or Monsters of Chaos, because you can do really sweet custom work on those models (and they don't have to be good)... Fomoroid Crusher, Cockatrice, Mindstealer Sphiranx, Jabberslyth, Chimera, etc. You have 400 points of allies, USE THEM!

I was trying to stay within one grand alliance (Chaos). Greater Daemons count.

I'm curious how you arrived at the 30 / 10 / 10 split for Plague Bearers. What are the pros / cons for this split? The reason I ask is that I'm building a Tallyband list and I'm having a hard time deciding on how to split my Plague Bearer units.

I've been playing for almost the length of COVID now (Nurgle Daemons / LoCA in AoS, Chaos Daemons in 40k) and I'd like to have a Monster Mash style list in addition to the horde army list that I play currently. The idea is to identify a list (or inspiration) that I can built towards over the next year (or longer). So in that spirit, show me your favorite Chaos Monster Mash lists! I'm looking for fun and semi-competitive lists. They don't have to have models/factions in common with the armies I currently play, just be based in Chaos. Thanks in advance.

I've never seen anyone claim the demand for Chaos Dwarves is big. Are there facts to back up this statement? It seems anecdotal at best. If the demand is big, why haven't they remade the skullcracker mold that broke?

There are a bunch of GHB2020 points changes that you are missing (most in your favor). Plug your list into warscroll builder to get the updated points. What do you have available to summon? If you are building from what you have lying around, I feel that that will really dictate your hero / battleline choices. You want to have the right units in reserve for summoning on turns 1 and 2, before anything has died. You only have one wizard who can cast Darkfire Daemonrift and they aren't that durable. I would consider that a risk. I like the inclusion of Nurglings. They are an interesting scout + tarpit unit with the extra 6+ FNP. They give you a really annoying way to block off part of the board.