meatpipeline

More interesting lists from TTS on Tabletop.to. Both Bightcyst and Thricefold lists going 2-1. There is also an Archaeon / Nurgle's Menagerie list which didn't do well. https://tabletop.to/hammertime-iii Notable parts of the Thricefold list: Munificent Wanderers Be'Lakor Plaguebearers in units of 30 / 10 / 10 Allied in Untamed Beasts (probably for the pregame move + run and charge) The Untamed Beasts are a clever idea for a slower list. They allow a 6" pregame move plus warscroll run+charge. They can be used as either a screen against deepstrike / teleport / alpha strike or they can first turn charge to try to pin the enemy in their deployment zone. The first turn charge is especially interesting because Thricefold is a slower list. Pining your opponent can allow you to move out and secure board control. All for 70 points.

You don't need to use Belakor in Legion of Chaos Ascendant. I can't seem to find a rule that says you need to use him in the LoCA subfraction: Legion of the First Prince. This subfaction is built around Belakor, so if you don't use him you lose out on the subfaction's Ability & Command Ability (both require Belakor).

A few interesting lists in the Hammertime 2 TTS Tournament. Lists on TableTop TO: https://tabletop.to/hammertime-2 Lists include a Blight Cyst, a Menagerie, and a Tallyband / Menagerie. The Menagerie list from Benjamin Savva looks the most interesting: Allegiance: Nurgle - Host of Chaos: Munificent Wanderers Leaders Horticulous Slimux (220) Lord of Blights (140) - Artefact: Mucktalon The Glottkin (380) - Lore of Malignance: Blades of Putrefaction Harbinger of Decay (160) - General - Command Trait: One Last Gift - Artefact: Tome of a Thousand Poxes Battleline 20 x Chaos Marauders (160) - Axes & Shields 20 x Chaos Marauders (160) - Axes & Shields 30 x Plaguebearers (300) Units 1 x Beasts of Nurgle (70) 1 x Beasts of Nurgle (70) 1 x Beasts of Nurgle (70) Battalions Nurgle's Menagerie (180) Endless Spells / Terrain / CPs Extra Command Point (50) Total: 1960 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 2 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 131

Only one character means you can only summon Bloodletters, so I would make as many of them available for summoning as possible. Allegiance: Legion of Chaos Ascendant Skulltaker (120) - General - Command Trait: Ruinous Aura - Artefact: Fourfold Blade 20 x Daemonettes (220) 10 x Bloodletters (110) 3 x Flamers of Tzeentch (140) Total: 590 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 0 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 41 Use the Skulltaker to summon Bloodletters every turn. The Skulltaker should be durable with re-rollable 4+ save and 5+ FNP. Use the Skulltaker to give the Flamers 5+ FNP with the aura. You can break the Daemonettes into two units if you want.

What was your idea of battalion composition? How big are your Beasts of Nurgle units? What other units were you thinking of taking in the battalion? There are three issues I see with the battalion: 1. It doesn't contain any battleline units. Which units were you planning on taking for battleline? 2. Horti can't take an artifact. How were you planning on using both your artifacts? 3. The bravery debuff requires 7 models, which might be difficult based on battalion composition. In general, bravery debugs aren't super useful unless you build around them (multiple debugs, bravery based abilities). I could see building this battalion and completely ignoring this ability. I haven't used the battalion, but I have looked at summoning in detail. A few pages back, I did some analysis on how likely you are to summon Plague Drones on turn 3 (this is the most offensive / damage unit you can get from summoning). Using the Horti battalion makes it likely to summon Plague Drones on turn 3. By turn 3, the second Horti tree adds 2D3 and the third adds 1D3... this means average going first is 25 pts and average going second is 20 pts. I think the most interesting thing you can do with the Horti battalion is ALSO run a tallyband battalion. With the point drops from GBS2020, you might be able to take enough heroes to use 3 artifacts... I haven't looked at this in a while... so maybe it isn't worth it (it wasn't before GBS2020).

Thinking about it more, if you use the Nurgle allegiance with Epitome (ally) + Morbidex + Nurglings then you get access to Blades of Putrefaction. I would need a good reason to go GA Chaos over Nurgle with this composition. Kairos is one of those reason. I'll have to take a look at other Greater Daemons to see what command abilities / warscroll spells exist. I've been theorycrafting a number of Nurgling based lists since the GBH2020 points drop. I was looking at Nurgle and Legion of Chaos Ascendent. I'm not really happy with any of the lists yet. I report back when I have something that seems interesting.

I'd start by asking what does GA Chaos offer that Legion of Chaos Ascendent doesn't. GA offers all the different mortal units, plus the allegiance ability + Lord of War command trait is bonus to hit. So I'd build in a way that buffs blocks of dumb idiots (mortals) and throw them at my opponent. I do something like this: Allegiance: Chaos Mortal Realm: Ghur Kairos Fateweaver (400) Verminlord Deceiver (320) - General - Command Trait: Lord of War - Artefact: Predator's Torc Rotigus (320) The Contorted Epitome (210) Chaos Sorcerer Lord (110) 20 x Chaos Marauders (160) 20 x Chaos Marauders (160) 20 x Chaos Marauders (160) 20 x Chaos Marauders (160) Total: 1960 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 0 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 114 Basically, the list uses Kairos to basically autocast Rotigus, The Contorted Epitome, and Chaos Sorcerer Lord spells every turn. Or Kairos can cast the Verminlord's teleport spell to throw the Verminlord into the opponent's army. If you want to build with Nurgle and Khorne, then think about what they lack. You can already play Nurgle with 400 pts of allied Khorne (and vice versa). Is there really a reason that allies won't work? For Khorne / Nurgle / Beasts, I'd focus on to maximizing the + hit bonus. I'd put the Lord of War command trait on whatever Hero you can make nearly unkillable and have that hero follow around units with a large number of attacks and wounds. Unit examples would be Blightkings, Plague Drones, Bullgors, or Wraithmongers. Or... The Contorted Epitome + Morbidex Twiceborn + Max size units of Nurglings. Just a thought.

I like what you are doing with the big monsters, especially Be'Lakor. Two questions about the list: - What are you summoning? Is it Pinks every time, Plaguebearers, or a mix? - Have you found that 3 troops + summoning + endless spells give you enough units to cover the objectives / hold space on the board? Do you ever feel like you need more units? I love the paint job. Your army looks sweet!

Has anyone tried using Nurglings as a tarpit unit? It seems like 80pts for 12 wounds 6+/6++ that auto-heal would be good for tarpitting. With Hidden Infestation, they can start outside of your deployment zone.

Wow, those are really cool! Thanks for the help.

I'd like to get a few Beasts of Nurgle for my Nurgle Daemons army, but I hate the current models AND they are absurdly expensive. Does anyone have recommendations for alternate models or kitbashing options? I'm open to non-GW suggestions.

Following up with some math on contagion points. This analysis is highly flawed (large number of assumptions), but can serve as a guideline for how to get damage via summoning (or not)... and I enjoyed the thought experiment. The goal is to get an idea of how likely it is to summon Plague Drone on turn 3, with assumption that this is the most damage output from summoning AND it allows for summoning on turn 4/5 to hold objectives. Turn 3 gives the PDs 1 turn of shooting only, plus 2 turns of melee. Summoning plague drones on turn 4 is considered failure. The list we were discussion focuses on trying pull the opponent out with long range mortal wound output, then smash them with charges. Other assumptions: Battleplan has deployment zones separated with a no-mans land. Summon the Horti tree on the first turn in your deployment zone Engage the enemy in the middle of the battlefield, first tree deployed near the middle of the battlefield Opponent blocks your first tree after their first movement phase, as they move into the middle of the battle field. Opponent can't get to your deployment zone until their second movement phase Opponent can't get to your Horti tree until their third movement phase Alternating turns (doesn't account for double-turn) Putting your units in the opponents deployment phase puts you out of position (per the list focus) Note: summoning an additional tree on turn 1 isn't helpful for this analysis, because the 7 pt cost is always less than the 2 turn generation of 2D3. Summoning an additional non-Horti tree on turn 1 isn't really helpful for contagion points at ALL. It takes a minimum of 4 turns to recoup the contagion points ON AVERAGE (3D3 = 3 turns to generate 7 contagion points = 37%). With these assumptions, you get the following points when going first: Deployment (first turn): 4+4+3 pts Tree (first turn): D3 + 0 + 0 Horti Tree (first turn): D3 + D3 + D3 Total: 11 + 4D3 Ana you get the following points when going second: Deployment (second turn): 4+3+3 pts Tree (second turn): 0 + 0 + 0 Horti Tree (second turn): D3 + D3 + 0 Total: 10 + 2D3 First turn of 11+4D3 is an average of 19, approximately ~19% of rolling 21 points. Second turn of 10 + 2D3 is an average of 16, 0% chance to get to 21 points. Both look like consistent failures. To get these numbers higher, we can either: Deploy the first tree in a non-ideal board position... in the center on one board edge could delay an opponent block (D3 per turn) Move into the enemy's deployment zone as early as possible (3 per turn) If we can get 1 turn of extra first tree points, that gives 11+5D3 (avg 21, ~60% of rolling 21 points) or 10+3D3 (failure). If we can get 1 turn of enemy deployment zone, then 14+4D3 (avg 22, ~81% of rolling 21 points) or 13+2D3 (failure). The failure cases (going second) can become unlikely successes (with great rolls) if your opponent doesn't pressure the Horti tree in your deployment zone. The best place to put this tree would be the most out of place position, like an unoccupied board corner away from objectives. Everything gets way worse if your opponent can teleport / deep-strike into your deployment zone and block the Horti-tree. Even cutting off the 1 pt from no opponent in your deployment zone can be tough. If you don't take Horti, then summoning Plague Drones on turn 3 is basically impossible. So it looks getting units in the opponents deployment zone or going first are big deals. With going first being a big deal, then double-turning when going second also becomes a big deal. Playing aggressively into your opponents deployment zone even with a first / second turn charge into their deployment zone, your units would have to live to the next hero phase to get the points. The only way to consistently summon Plague Drones on turn 3 is to have units in your own deployment, plus units in your opponents deployment after the first movement phase. The guaranteed 3 pts for each is incredibly important in getting to 21 pts by turn 3. TL;DR... You can't rely on summoning points to get decent damage, even with an additional Horti tree. In order to do so, you'd have to win the first turn (or double-turn on turn 2) AND play aggressively into your opponent's deployment zone AND survive. This assumes aggressive play into your opponents deployment zone keeps them away from your deployment zone / Horti tree. Even poor first tree placement doesn't make summoning Plague Drones likely. Without the Horti tree, summoning Plague Drones on turn 3 is impossible without sustained fighting in your opponents deployment zone. Summoning looks like it is only good for objective holding, secondaries, screening, or tar-pitting with things like Plague Bearers.

Clarifying question: Are you saying Bel'akor can summon? He doesn't have a chaos god keyword, so I just assumed he couldn't summon because there are no "Undivided" units listed in the ability. I didn't see clarification in the Errata or Designer commentary.

To be more clear, the STD point changes dropped. Lots of stuff that affects us: Knights down 20 Warriors down 10 Lord on Karkadrak down 20 Marauders up 10 Marauder Horsemen up 20 Varangard down 20 I'd rather break one block of 10 BKs into two units of 5. When I'm looking at this breakout... I would think there would be 3 blobs: - Blight cyst blob (Harbinger, LoB, 10 BKs) - Gutrot + BKs teleporting - Chaos Knights to engage in the center objects / units This leaves 5 BKs to stay home on objectives. I think with this composition, you're going to be hard pressed to cover objectives. The knights are your only fast units (assuming the harbinger is slowed down by wanting to move with the BKs).

The list looks good, but why the Chaos Spawns? If you are in a shooting heavy metagame, don't you want to reduce drops to increase your chance to choose first turn? I'd replace them with a 100 pts unit (chaos warriors, maybe?). I would do Epidemius as a straight swap for Horti. Epidemius wants to hide in a corner, pull your enemy out, and allow you to counter charge. He needs babysitting . If you want Epidemius, you end up in this cycle of prioritizing damage dealing to increase the buffs. I'd never want to remove something like the Lord on Karkadrak to make room for Epi... it seems like that would remove too much damage output. I think it's probably "easy" to get 7 unit kills against most armies. Most battle-line units are not resilient and 5x or 10x in size. With the strength of your chargers, I would expect that after your first charge plus MW output, you'd be near 7 kills. The latest GHB missions upped the average number of objectives, so I would expect people to play with more bodies on the board. More bodies to tally! I wouldn't swap the Chaos Lord on Karkadrak out of the list. That guy is GOOD and very scary for your opponent. I want as many threatening units (Knights, Chaos Lords, Rotigus) as possible, so your opponent can't just focus on one. The only way I'd take the Karkadrak out is for two Lords on Daemonic Mounts... maybe? I'm not really sure. I need to do some math to see what average contagion point totals on turn 3 look like to see how much difference an extra tree makes. I'll get back to you. I think I'd want to go Bloab + Sorcerer, but I didn't think too hard about it before I posted . If chaos warriors are useless under 15, then why take the unit of 5? You could spend your spare points to replace them with a unit of Blight Kings to fulfill the battle-line requirement.

I like what you are doing here. Pull the enemy towards you with MW, then smash them with charges. Also, you'll want to use Rotigus to set the wheel every turn for more mortal wound output. So basically, you are focusing on two things: - Long range mortal wound output - High damage charges with Chaos Knights, Chaos Lord There are two places that I think are room for improvement. Lord of Plagues - His command ability isn't worth it. (if my math is correct) 7d6 aiming for 6s, there is 27.9% of 0, 39% chance of 1, 20% of 2, 10% chance of 3. This isn't much better than an Arcane Bolt. Plus you want to be using the Chaos Lord's command ability every turn to smash with the Knights. I don't think he fills the role well. I would rather have a Lord of Blights in this spot. He has a good shooting attack and gives your BKs shooting as well, increasing their overall threat range. I would ignore his command ability. Horti - I never want to build around "getting lucky" with my lists. The question I would ask myself is what am I using summoning for: damage (Plague Drones) or holding objectives (PB, Nerglings). If I'm aiming to summon Plague Drones for damage, I want them down on turn 3 which means Horti is valuable (3D3 by turn 3, average 6 pts). This makes it far more likely to get 21 points by turn 3. If you are going for objective holders, I'd skip Horti. As for replacing Horti, I can think of a few interesting / non-standard ways to go: - Epidemius , use remaining points for 70 pts trash screen allied from STD - Chaos Lord on Demonic Mount, use remaining 100 pts for more Chaos Warriors - Ally in Karanak (hard hitting, decent movement, adds summoning), use remaining 130 pts for ??? I think the Chaos Lord on Demonic Mount route is the best. You get the same command ability as the other Chaos Lord, which means you have more freedom of movement with both Lords and can still use it if one dies. I'd like to add that Bloab Rotspawned is a mortal wizard, so another source of Plague Squall. He's more durable than your Sorcerer and Miasma of Pestilence is really good with the number of phases you wound in (Hero, Spell, Shooting (with LoB), Combat). I'll have to ponder this a bit more...

Sounds like you want to run a Nurgle / Korne / Tzeench / Slaanesh allegiance army with a large number of StD units that have the mark of chaos. The nice thing about a allegiance army is that most of them can Ally in 1-2 units of daemons from the other armies. The other option is Grand Alliance Chaos, which would allow a mix of daemons from different allegiances. Look around for "mortal" based Nurgle / Korne / Tzeench / Slaanesh armies. While they generally lack daemons, I've seen a number of them that rely on StD units. I know Nurgle armies often rely on StD units, because many Nurgle units lack good damage output (or their damage output is over-costed). Another option is to look at the Legion of Chaos Ascendent armies. They use only daemons, so they'll point you towards which daemons are most powerful. For tanky, Nurgle is that tankest of the daemon armies. I'm not sure what you mean by hero-centric. Nurgle armies more often use heroes in a support role, relying on them for a small number of abilities and most Nurgle heroes are not daemons. The big exception to this is the Verminlord Corrupter. If you want melee / shooting / spell-slinging heroes, you'll want to look at the other factions.

Can you post your latest list? You've definitely got me curious

Is summoning legal? It seems like it would be too good. Summoning 10 Plaguebearers is 25% of the total points of your army. You might be able to find more information by looking for discussions of escalation leagues. I think they usually start in the 500-600 point range. Theorycrafting about the 500 pts level... the most units I could see people taking would be 5 (averaging 100 pts per unit), but even then I think most armies will have 4 or less units. This means that heroes are going to be at least 1/4th the opposing army, so anti-hero abilities become better. Killing and mobility seem like they become more important. Hitting first is huge. Every time you kill a model, you remove more points (percentage wise) from the enemy army than a higher point game. Then there are command points...your army will have limited number of ways to spend command points. I think you want to make sure if you have a command ability, it is very good or you can use the core ones effectively. I would look for a command ability that helps with killing or mobility. Rend becomes more important, as you have less "weight of dice" to punch through high armor saves. I'm learning to play AoS, so I've played a few 500 pt games recently via TTS. I've been running a Lord of Plagues (Hulking Physique / Splinthorn Helm), Blightkings, and Pusgoyles. The army is slow and with only 3 units, I need to hope the game is on a small table and I don't need to spread out. If its a moving objective battleplan, I have a hard time keeping up. My army would have more range with a Lord of Blights (shooting + give Blightkings shooting), but his command ability is defensive. The Lord of Plagues gives reroll 1s to hit to Blightkings, can generate contagion points, and has a command ability that deals mortal wounds. Mathammering Pusgoyles vs. Plague Drones comes out very close with Plague Drones being more offensive (more average wounds in melee, ability to shoot) and Pusgoyles having more survivability (more effective wounds) + healing. Plague Drones pull farther ahead if you can consistently trigger Locus of Contagion (+1 attacks with nearby daemon hero). I wouldn't use Festus, as he is the most fragile unit in the battletome (6 wounds, 5+ save, no DPR). Hope that helps. Interesting, I haven't seen that before! Has anyone tried using a Contorted Epitome as an ally in a Nurgle army?

1. Sub-factions (MUNIFICENT WANDERERS) only apply members of your army that have the allegiance (not allies) and are non-unique. The wording from the Tamurkhan's Horde compendium is (underlined emphasis is mine): "After you have chosen the Maggotkin of Nurgle allegiance for your army, you can give it the Tamurkhan’s Horde keyword. All Maggotkin of Nurgle units in your army gain that keyword (with the exception of named characters that do not already have the Tamurkhan’s Horde keyword on their warscroll)." Note: I think that Maggotkin of Nurgle allegiance was later shortened to Nurgle allegiance. There is probably better wording in the Wrath of the Everchosen, but I don't have the book handy. 2. He won't have the MUNIFICENT WANDERERS keyword, so no. 3. He doesn't have the Nurgle keyword, so he won't be affected by the buffs in the cycle of corruption and will take damage from The Burgeoning. 4. UNDIVIDED means devoted to chaos but not to a specific chaos god (it's shorthand for "Chaos Undivided"). I'm new to AoS, so I'm not familiar with any abilities that use the keyword UNDIVIDED... maybe if you you are playing a Grand Alliance Chaos or Slaves to Darkness?

I've just started AoS and I'm planning on building a Tallyband of Nurgle based list that is similar. I don't have much game experience, so this is mostly theorycraft. I'd love to get feedback from more experienced players. When I look at this list, I see the Plague Drones as a very threatening hammer. They cover a large range on the board with move + shoot + charge / run+charge with a tree, the ability to fly over terrain/screens, and multiple ways to stack extra attacks (Locus + GUO command ability). They can be used to kill enemy hero's or pin the enemy in their deployment zone while moving out to take board control with the rest of your army (30x plaguebearers + GUO). The big issue I see is that Plague Drones require a Nurgle Daemon Hero to trigger Locus of Contagions (+1 attacks). This is a big damage boost (+1 ranged attack, +3 melee attacks). Be'lakor doesn't have Nurgle keyword. The GUO could keep up, but Bell + Blade is a support hero so you might not want it on the front lines. The other heroes that fulfill this requirement are slow and won't be able to keep up. Plague drones are expensive. I think that if you want to take them, you have to be able to reliably trigger Locus of Contagion. You have a couple of options to take a higher movement (7+ inches) Nurgle Daemon Hero: Lord of Afflictions (200 pts) Harbinger of Decay (160 pts) Daemon Prince (210 pts) Chaos Lord on Demonic Mount (170 pts) Archaon (800 pts) Verminlord Corruptor (280 pts) If I missed anything from this list, please let me know! Of these options, I like the Lord of Afflictions as it seems like an offensive focused unit and a good mix of healing + mortal wounds / durability / damage. I could see going for the Verminlord as well. Unfortunately the harbinger's amazing command ability is Mortals only. @backslide If I was looking into Legions of Chaos Ascendant, I would definitely take a look at the Verminlord as 10 attacks with the Fourfold Blade is amazing! For reference, the summoning-focused 2k list I am building towards is (3 drops): Allegiance: Nurgle - Host of Chaos: Munificent Wanderers Leaders Lord of Afflictions (200) - Artefact: The Witherstave Great Unclean One (340) - Plague Flail & Doomsday Bell - Artefact: The Endless Gift - Lore of Virulence: Sumptuous Pestilence Horticulous Slimux (220) Poxbringer Herald of Nurgle (120) - General - Command Trait: One Last Gift - Lore of Virulence: Favoured Poxes Battleline 30 x Plaguebearers (320) 10 x Plaguebearers (120) 10 x Plaguebearers (120) Units 3 x Plague Drones (200) 3 x Plague Drones (200) Battalions Tallyband of Nurgle (160) Total: 2000 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 1 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 117

The answer is in the core rulebook on page 1, the last sentence under heading Re-Rolls: "Rules that refer to the result of an ‘unmodified’ dice roll are referring to the result after any re-rolls but before any modifiers are applied." I've just started AoS and have been aiming to build a summoning heavy Nurgle Daemons list. Do people have recommendations for what is good / fun / interesting in this type of list? I've been thinking of allying in Karanak, as he has a warscroll ability to summons flesh hounds. Are there any other units we can ally in that have similar unit summoning / generating abilities?