Age of Sigmar/Tactics/Chaos/Maggotkin of Nurgle

Grand Alliance Chaos Maggotkin of Nurgle

Buboes, phlegm, blood and guts! Boils, bogeys, rot, and pus! Blisters, fevers, weeping sores! From your wounds the fester pours.

Lore Tactics General Tactics

Why Play Maggotkin?

Pros

• Tough and survivable: if it doesn't have Disgustingly Resilient, it's usually gonna have a high wound count.
• Incredible variety in models and playstyles: the Maggotkin are essentially six armies in one (Nurgle Daemons, Rotbringers, Slaves to Darkness, Skaven Pestilens, Tamurkhan's Horde, Beasts of Chaos (with the required battalion)).
• You have the most named characters out of any army.
• Surprisingly fast with the right synergies and unit imports.
• They are 乇乂ㄒ尺卂 ㄒ卄丨匚匚

Cons

• Most units are slow and rely on support buffs to get across the board.
• Low rend and damage on most units: you can take a hit, but you can't exactly dish it out.
• With so many -1 to hit debuffs around, and no way to give +1 to your forces, your damage output can get severely hampered.
• Weird stuff happens in mirror matches, due to several effects (most notably the Cycle of Corruption) being based on NURGLE keywords as opposed to being allied or enemy units.

Rulebooks

Faction rules and abilities: Battletome Maggotkin of Nurgle

Latest Matched play points: Maggotkin of Nurgle Errata

Core rules: here

Matched play rules, battleplans and expansions: General's Handbook 2022-23 Season 2, plus the battleplans from the Core Book.

Supplement all the above with any Errata and Designers' Commentary from the FAQs.

Tamurkhans Horde warscrolls: here

Even though you can run Skaven and Slaves to Darkness units, you won't be using their allegiance abilities/spells/traits/etc. This means that the Skaventide and Slaves to Darkness Battletomes aren't necessary. All you'll need is their point costs (found in GHB 2019) and their warscrolls.

Allegiance Abilities

If your army consists fully of units with the NURGLE keyword, it can choose to take the Nurgle allegiance, opening all the below battle traits, command traits, spells, artifacts, and spells. Do note that besides the warscrolls presented in the Maggotkin of Nurgle battletome, any unit with the NURGLE keyword is eligible to join the army while maintaining the Nurgle allegiance. This includes many units from Slaves to Darkness (those who can gain the NURGLE Mark of Chaos), Clan Pestilens, Tamurkhan's Horde, and several others here and there.

Battle Traits

All Nurgle allegiance armies benefit from the following rules:

Cycle of Corruption: Nurgle is life, Nurgle is love, and Nurgle loves to share all his gifts. At the start of the battle - after deployment but before the first turn - the Nurgle player rolls a die to decide where the Cycle of Corruption begins. There are seven Stages of Corruption; the 7th stage being locked from the initial throw (which is good, as it is a healing one you most likely won't need yet).

Each stage will provide you with a buff for your NURGLE units or debuff to your opponent's non- NURGLE units. At the start of each subsequent battle round the Cycle will progress by one step. For example: if your initial roll is a 3, then you will benefit from The Burgeoning during the first battle round, Plague of Misery during the second battle round, and so on. You can either let the Cycle progress or try to change it with spells or abilities. Either way, try to plan ahead because you know which benefits you will get in the following battle rounds.

1. Unnatural Vitality: The first stage adds 2" to the Move characteristic of all NURGLE units. A really good one to offset your slower units (looking at you, Blightkings) and getting them into battle quicker.
2. Fecund Vigour: The second stage adds 1 to the wound rolls of all NURGLE units during the combat phase.
3. The Burgeoning: The third stage is one that affects all units (yours and your opponents) as each unit within 1" of a terrain feature the start of your hero phase will suffer 1 mortal wound - or heal 1 if they're NURGLE - on a 5+.
4. Plague of Misery: The fourth stage forces re-rolls of 1 for battleshock tests for your opponent, NURGLE excluded of course.
5. Nauseous Revulsion: The fifth stage forces enemy units to re-roll wound rolls of 6 during the combat phase. Enemy NURGLE units are, once again, excluded.
6. Rampant Disease: The sixth stage allows you to pick D3 different enemy units at the start of your hero phase (guess which units you can skip) that are within 12" of each other. Each unit will then suffer D3 mortal wounds.
7. Corrupted Regrowth: The seventh and final stage will allow all NURGLE units to heal D3 wounds at the start of their hero phase. Note that this does include your opponent's units, even if they don't field a Nurgle army.

The Garden of Nurgle: Mimicking the Sylvaneth, the forces of Nurgle can now plant their own terrain pieces. After setting up terrain but before choosing a territory, each Nurgle army can place one Feculant Gnarlmaw anywhere more than 1" from any other terrain feature. Since they allow all NURGLE units within 7" to both run and charge in the same turn be sure to drop it off where you would benefit from this.

Summon Daemons of Nurgle: Gone are the days of any CHAOS WIZARD summoning hordes of NURGLE DAEMONS to join their ranks and instead there is a new system: collecting and spending contagion points as a Nurgle army.

In each of your hero phases a NURGLE army collects contagion points in the following ways:

• Any friendly NURGLE models in your own territory nets you 3 points a turn.
• Any friendly NURGLE models in your opponent's territory nets you an additional 3 points a turn.
• Being free of enemy models in a territory nets you an addition 1 point for that territory.
• Each Feculant Gnarlmaw nets you an additional D3 points if there are no enemy models within 3" of it.

Right off the bat, you will most likely be earning 3 or 4 +D3 contagion points for having no enemies in your territory - you are buying that Gnarlmaw, aren't you? (although if the enemy takes the first turn there's a fair chance they will be in your territory, depending on mission map). Coming as no surprise, different abilities will allow you to earn more contagion points during a turn. Some heroes (such as the Lord of Plagues or Epidemius) have been reworked to play into this.

To summon the daemons, all you have to do is look it up in the list and deduct its cost from your total points; unlike Khorne's Blood Tithe, you will be able to keep what you don't spend. There's no cast roll required, just place the summoned unit within 12" of a Gnarlmaw or NURGLE HERO and more than 9" from any enemies. Note that this list contains units in different sizes (Plaguebearers come in 5, 10, or 20), includes nearly all of Nurgle's daemons from Nurglings to a Great Unclean One (sadly no Soulgrinder, boo), and includes new Gnarlmaws (at the cost of Nurgle's favorite number).

Lastly, don't forget that placing new units will cost reinforcement points in Matched Play, though you'll be happy to know the Gnarlmaws only cost contagion points (because you didn't already buy/converted 7, did you?). Yeah, forget that. Age of Sigmar Second Edition baby! No more reinforcement points needed for summoning. This makes contagion points (and Gnarlmaws) much more important.

Subfactions

may pick one, all non-named characters gain the appropriate Keyword.

Tamurkhan’s Horde (defies the notion that Nurgle has to be slow)

• Battle Traits - Winds of Corruption: Subtract 1 from the enemy's run and charge rolls.
• Command Ability: Shout of Command: You can use this command ability at the start of your charge phase. If you do so, pick 1 friendly Tamurkhan’s Horde Hero. You can re-roll charge rolls for friendly Tamurkhan’s Horde units while they are wholly within 14" of that Hero.
• Command Trait: Unrelenting Conqueror: Add 1 to run rolls for friendly Tamurkhan’s Horde units while they are wholly within 14" of this general.
• Artifact - Daemon Flask: Once per battle, at the start of your hero phase, you can roll a dice for each enemy unit within 12", re-roll for War Machine or if it is within 3" of a terrain. On a 4+ that unit suffers 1 mortal wound or D3 on a 6.

Tamurkhan’s Horde Provides a way to play a slightly faster Nurgle, Especially when used in tandem with marked Slaves to Darkness or Beastmen. The command trait gives a bonus to run rolls with wholly within 14" of the general, and the woefully MEH artifact does mortal wounds in nearby units. BUT the added allegiance ability is AMAZING. -1 to enemy run and charge rolls. The absolute killer for alpha striking armies. Although Gavriel Sureheart will just chuckle.

The Munificent Wanderers(Turn Nurgle Daemons wall into poison spike walls)

• Battle Traits: Locus of Corruption: Enemy units within 3" of a Munificent Wanderers Daemon unit reduce the rend of their weapon by 1 (minimum -). Nurgle enemies unaffected
  • Nurgles, especially Plaguebeares, are already fairly durable so adding more resilience really counts. And then you remember that units like Pusgoyles and Lord of Afflictions have the Daemon keyword, and would trigger off this ability as well...
• Command Ability - Infested with Wonders: Pick 1 Munificent Wanderers Daemon unit within 14" of a Munificent Wanderers Daemon hero. Until your next hero phase any enemies which charge that unit suffer D3 wounds. Situational. Possibly good with a big unit of Plaguebearers screening out the front of your army.
• Command Trait - One Last Gift: Any hit rolls of '6' on a Munificent Wanderers Daemon unit with 12" of the General generate a mortal wound on the attacking unit after all attacks have been resolved. This is huge. Nurgle generally doesn't have a great mortal wound output and against the right opponent, this could generate a ton. Imagine 30 Plaguebearers getting attacked by a mob of Mortek Guard, with the -1 to hit from Flies and spitting mortal wound back against their bucket of dice.
• Artifact - Mucktalon. 1 weapon adds 1 to hit if it targets a hero. Pretty much total rubbish. The one weak point of the subfaction really.

The Droning Guard(Air force: Fly Wall. First turn)

• Battle Traits - Locus of Corruption: Enemy units within 3" of a Droning Guard Daemon unit reduce the rend of their weapon by 1 (minimum -). Nurgle enemies unaffected.
• Command AbilIty - twice Blessed Rotspawn: during combat, pick a Droning Guard Plague drone unit wholly within 12" of a Daemon Hero, +1 to disgustingly resilient rolls.
• Command Trait - Rotwing Commander: before the first battle round all Droning Guard Plague drones can move 4". WIth a Tree, you can go 12" + D6" + 2D6" first turn.
• Artifact - Cloud of flies: -1 melee hits rolls against the bearer.

The Blessed Sons(Rotbringer charge forth to soil all)

• Battle Traits: Nurgle's Embrace: each time a Blessed Sons Rotbringer is slain in combat roll, on a 2+ attacker takes 1 MW, but if nurgle they Heal +1.
• Command Trait - Foul conqueror: may use at the double CA once per turn on a Blessed Sons Rotbringer for free.
• Command Ability - Disregard and Defiled: pick a Blessed Sons Rotbringer unit wholly with 12" of Rotbringer hero, the end of fight phase, pick an enemy unit, your unit deals total wounds/MW greater than their bravery, deal 3 MW.
• Artifact - Blackshell Bileplate: Reroll save.

The Drowned Men(Air force: Blightlords Hammer)

• Battle Traits: Nurgle's Embrace: each time a Drowned Men Rotbringer is slain in combat roll, on a 2+ attacker takes 1 MW, but if Nurgle they Heal +1.
• Command Trait - Bloated Raider: reroll charge rolls for Drowned Men Pusgoyle Blightlords wholly within 14"
• Command Ability - kneel before the plague: at start of combat, Pick a Drowned Men Pusgoyle Blightlord wholly within Rotbringer hero, if they roll a 6 to wound, add -1 rend to that attack. Unless FAQ'ed, powerful with how many attacks Pusgoyles could gerate.
• Artifact - Rot-kraken Hide: +1 W.

Command Traits

Maggotkin Generals can choose their Command Trait from three different tables depending on their Keywords (ROTBRINGER, DAEMON or MORTAL). The first three traits in every table are the same.

1. Grandfather’s Blessing: Once per battle, at the start of your Hero phase, you can move the Cycle of Corruption one stage forward or backward if your general has not been slain.
2. Living Plague: At the start of your Hero phase, roll a dice for each enemy unit within 1" of your general. On a 4+ the unit being rolled for suffers 1 Mortal Wound, and you receive 1 Contagion point.
3. Hulking Physique: Add 1 to wound rolls for your general.

ROTBRINGER:

1. Bloated with Corruption: On a 4+ after your general suffers an unsaved wound the attacking unit suffers 1 mortal wound. Combines wonderfully with the Bileheart below, making it all but pointless to attack your General.
2. Avalanche of Rotten Flesh: Add 2 to run and charge rolls for your general.
3. Resilient: Whenever you allocate a wound or mortal wound to your general, roll a dice. On a 6+ it is negated.

NURGLE DAEMON:

1. Tainted Corruptor: At the start of your hero phase, a terrain model within 3 inches gains the Sickness Blossoms rule from Feculent Gnarlmaw warscroll along with any other rules. Interesting in theory.
2. Nurgling Infestation: Once per battle at the start of a combat phase you inflict d3 mortal wounds on an enemy unit within 3 inches.
3. Pestilent Breath: At the start of your shooting phase, pick an enemy unit withing 6 inches of your general. Roll a dice for each model within 6 inches of your general. The unit suffers a mortal wound for each roll of 5+. You know who can get this? A Harbinger of Decay, with his massive footprint and fast (for Nurgle) movement speed. You know who else can get this? A Verminlord Corruptor, who has an even larger footprint and moves even faster!

NURGLE MORTAL:

1. Hideous Visage: Subtract 2 from the bravery of enemy units within 3 inches of your general. Combine this with The Carrion Dirge below for a massive -4 to enemies foolish enough to enter combat with your general.
2. Overpowering Stench: Re-roll hit rolls of 6+ for attacks that target your general in the combat phase.
3. Virulent Contagion: Improve your generals rend characteristics by 1 for attacks in the combat phase.

Artefacts of Contagion

Any ROTBRINGER HERO can be given one of these artifacts.

1. The Splithorn Helm: Roll a dice each time a wound or mortal wound is allocated to the bearer, on a 6+ it is negated. Nice enough on a Lord of Plagues or Lord of Blights but pretty much wasted on Harbingers of Decay and Lords of Affliction.
2. Muttergrub: The bearer can cast one additional spell if they are a wizard or cast Foul Regenesis every hero phase (but no unbinding) if they are not. Great if you need more casts asap but can't afford another Sorcerer.
3. Rustfang: At the start of each combat phase, pick one unit within 3 inches of the bearer. Subtract 1 from the armor save for the rest of the battle. You can only do this once on a unit. Phenomenal, as it negates one of your Blightkings' biggest weaknesses.
4. Flesh Pealer: Roll a dice each hero phase for each unit within 6 inches of the bearer. On a 5+ the unit suffers d3 mortal wounds. Meh. Might be okay on a Lord of Affliction, giving him YET another damaging aura.
5. The Bileheart: Roll a dice each time you allocate a wound or mortal wound in the combat phase and it is not negated. On a 4+ the unit suffers 1 mortal wound after all its attacks are made. Can turn a Lord of Affliction into a mini-Jabberslythe.
6. The Fecund Flask: You can use this once per battle at the start of your hero phase. If done, roll a dice, on a 2+ all suffered wounds are healed. On a 1 the bearer is slain. When slain, you replace the model with a Beast of Nurgle within 1 inch of the models current position. Using this when your Hero only has one Wound left can only lead to positive outcomes. But then, how many times will a Hero survive to the start of a friendly Hero Phase with exactly one wound?

Daemonic Boons

Any Nurgle Daemonic Hero (including the Lord of Afflictions, the Harbinger of Decay and marked Lords of Chaos on Daemonic Mount) can be given one of the following.

1. Noxious Nexus: Roll a dice for each enemy unit within 7 inches of the bearer at the start of the hero phase. If the roll is equal to or less that the battle round (such as a 1,2, or 3 on the 3rd round) the unit suffers 1 mortal wounds.
2. Nurgle's Nail: Pick one of the bearers melee weapons to be the nail. Roll a 2d6 for each enemy model that was allocated wounds by this weapon but not slain. If the result is 7 exactly, the model is slain. Any other result does nothing.
3. The Bountiful Swarm: At the start of your hero phase, pick a enemy model within 3 inches of the bearer and roll a dice. If the roll is greater than the models wound characteristic the model is slain. If the model slain has a wound characteristic of 4+ then add a Beast of Nurgle to your army within 1 inch of the model slain. This allows you to snipe models out of units, like, say, that icon bearer from a Pink Horror unit. Go for reliable kills instead of betting on the Beast of Nurgle.
4. The Witherstave: Re-roll hit rolls of 6 for enemy units within 12 inches of the bearer. This is filthy. Put this on a Great Unclean One or a Harbringer of Decay to negate a lot of exploding 6s. Works especially well with the Lord of Blight's command ability, Plaguebearers' Cloud of Flies, or both if you want show your opponent what a tar pit looks like - a unit of 20 or more Plaguebearers would be -4/-2 to hit for shooting/melee, rerolling sixes, which occur before modifiers are applied.
5. Tome of the Thousand Poxes: Add 1 to casting rolls (for Lore of Nurgle spells only - note that this does NOT include the Foul Regenesis spell) if the target is a wizard, or the bearer can cast Sumptuous Pestilence each hero phase (but no unbinding) if they are not. Putting this on a Great Unclean One with Bileblade is pretty much the most obvious thing in the world. Or is it? The Great Unclean One doesn't exactly have a phenomenal spell lore to choose from. Making a Daemon Prince cast Sumptuous Pestilence might be worth it though.
6. The Endless Gift: At the start of the battleshock phase roll a dice for each wound allocated this turn. On a 4+ the wound is healed. Utterly filthy on a Great Unclean One as it forces your opponent to pump unreasonable amounts of damage into it to finally stop the regeneration.

Plagueridden Gifts

Any Nurgle Mortal Hero can be given one of the following. This includes Rotbringer heroes but also marked Slaves to Darkness.

1. The Virulent Blade: Pick one of the bearers melee weapons to be the blade. Add 1 to the damage characteristic if the wound roll is a 5+. Would be way better if it were just a flat +1 but if you need more damage, it's not too shabby.
2. The Foetid Shroud: Re-roll hits rolls of 6+ for attacks against the bearer in the combat phase. Great for getting rid of exploding 6s but not that effective.
3. Sublucus' Stenchplate: Enemy units within 3 inches of the bearer at the end of their movement phase suffer d3 mortal wounds. Pretty much forces any Hero to fall back or take a significant portion of damage. Small elite units aren't going to like it either. Doesn't help against getting swarmed by hordes though.
4. The Eye of Nurgle: Once per battle you can roll 2d6 at the start of the hero phase if there are any models within 12 inches of the bearer. If the result is a 7, the nearest enemy model is slain. 1-in-6 chance of killing anything. Interesting as a hail mary, but even better as a psychological tool. "Are you sure you want to keep your centerpiece this close to me?"
5. The Carrion Dirge: Subtract 2 from enemy units bravery within 12 inches of the bearer. This can lead to some pretty insane anti-Bravery stacking. And a 12" bubble is pretty large as well. Put on a Lord of Chaos on Daemonic Mount and have him escort some Chaos Knights for a -3 to enemy Battleshock.
6. The Shield of Growths: You can re-roll save rolls if the roll is equal to or less than the number of wounds currently allocated to the model. Risky but potentially pretty useful, especially since a lot of your Heroes have some form of regeneration.

The Lore of Nurgle

First off, all your Nurgle Wizards get this gem:

• Foul Regenesis: Relatively high casting value of 7 (go figure) but it allows you to instantly switch to the Stage of Corruption you want. A great way of using it is picking Nauseous Revulsion. You might be tempted to pick Rampant Disease for those tasty Mortal Wounds, but that only activates at the start of the Hero Phase, which has already passed by the time you cast. So you pick Nauseous Revulsion for the extra defense and then, next turn, it automatically goes to Rampant Disease, and you can spell it back to Nauseous Revulsion again after it dealt its damage. Alternatively, set the wheel to Unnatural Vitality because your army is painfully slow without it.

-After, each Wizard gets one Lore spell, but which lore they have access to is determined by their Keywords.

Rotbringer Wizards get to pick from these:

1. Blades of Putrefaction: Casts on a 7+, affects a friendly unit within 14". 6+ To Hit deal a Mortal Wound in addition to other damage, not specifying melee or shooting. This, of course, is best on something with a lot of attacks and/or something with a bonus to their Hit rolls. In other words, Marauders. Or, you know, those tasty Blightkings.
2. Rancid Visitations: Casts on a 6+, affects 1 enemy unit within 3" of the caster. For each model of that unit within 3" of the caster, the unit suffers a Mortal Wound. Yikes. Do keep in mind though, that this requires your caster to stay alive until he can cast it and that Great Unclean Ones can't pick this. So, in other words, only use on Glottkin and Bloab. So no, named character can't take additional artifacts, spells and command abilities Named characters can take spells, but not artifacts and command abilities. The tome says "As such, these models cannot have a command trait or artefact of power." (pg. 58) says nothing about not taking a spell. Additionally warscroll builder allows you to take spells but not artifacts and abilities.

• • Interestingly enough the new beastgrave warband, The Wurmspat, may be a much more economic choice for using this spell. Her bodyguards make her much tankier, and she is easier to fit into massive melees because of her infantry sized base. Its worth trying out if you really want to make this spell work, but dont have room for the behemoths.

1. Gift of Corruption: Casts on a 6+, enemy unit within 18" takes either -1 To Hit, -1 To Wound or -1 to Saves, rolled randomly. Not too reliable, but everything it can do is good, so go nuts.

Daemon Wizards get to pick from these:

1. Favoured Poxes: Oh lord. Casts on a 7+, pick an enemy unit within 14". It takes -1 to their Hit, Wound and Save rolls until the caster moves, casts another spell, or dies. So, that Herald you cast this with will be useless afterward, but such an utterly crippling debuff means your Herald doesn't HAVE to do anything. Just point literally any unit at the target, and the target is gone. Biggest weakness is its range, but whatever.
2. Glorious Afflictions: Casts on 5+, affects an enemy unit within 21". That unit halves its Move, the distance it runs, the distance it charges and cannot make use of the Fly rule. What? Was the enemy trying to flank you? Not anymore. Slows enemies down enough so you can get the drop on them instead.
3. Sumptuous Pestilence: Casts on 6+, each enemy unit within 7" takes a Mortal Wound, unless they have more than 5 models, in which case it's D3 Mortal Wounds. MSU armies beware.

Mortal Wizards get to pick from these:

1. Magnificent Buboes: Casts on a 7+, pick an enemy Hero. He takes D3 Mortal Wounds and gets -1 to Hit, Cast and Unbind rolls. Neuters fighters and heaps damage onto supporters and all of that from phenomenal range.
2. Plague Squall: Casts on a 6+. If successful, roll 7D6. For each 6, pick an enemy unit (no line of sight needed) and deal D3 Mortal Wounds to it. You can only pick each enemy unit once. You know what this one doesn't have? A range limit. Even one cast can kill certain artillery crews from the safety and comfort of your own deployment zone. And the best part is, according to the spell description, that missing range limit doesn't seem to be an oversight since it's basically a rain shower made of plague fluids.
3. Cloying Quagmire: Casts on a 5+, pick an enemy unit within 14" and roll a D6. If this rolls equal to or over their Save characteristic, they suffer D6 Mortal Wounds. So, it gets more reliable on precisely the units you want to affect with it the most. Wow.

Endless Spells

Slaves to Darkness only

• Eightfold Doom-Sigil: (40pts) CV 5. This spell will only have use when things die around it, so you'd best make sure you make at least one model go down so you can power them up. Now a bonus attack won't sound too scary for your Chaos Lord, but throw it on a band of marauders and they won't be laughing anymore.

• Darkfire Daemonrift: (50pts) CV 6. This is a purely predatory spell, dealing d3 MWs to anything it goes through. It's damage potential also powered up by other Wizards and Endless spells, which is pretty trollish for, say, Tzeentch or the Sacrosanct Chamber and all their wizards.

• Realmscourge Rapture: (60pts) CV 7. This Predatory spell is like the Pendulum in that it can only move in straight lines (but in this case can also only go forward, making it even more reliable). Anything that this goes through (or near) suffers not only d3 MWs, but their movement will also be halved, which can positively cripple a unit just in time for your Vikings to flatten them.

Beasts Of Chaos only

• Doomblast Dirgehorn: Subtract 1 from hit rolls for attacks made by units within 3" of this model. BEASTS OF CHAOS models are not affected. Grows by 3" at the start of each battle round. This one is pretty damn cool but comes with the problem of having a casting value of 6 and thus being fairly easy to dispell.
  • On the other hand, it presents the opponent with the interesting dilemma of either wasting his casting attempts to dispel it or letting it get bigger and bigger.

• Balefire Taurus: A big horde cleaning Endless Spell. It moves 12" a turn and has the Fly keyword. Anything it moves over or ends within 1" of it takes D3 Mortal Wounds, and if the unit has more than ten models, it takes D6 Mortal Wounds instead. Furthermore, Units it damages must fight last at the end of any Combat Phase. While brutal in most situations, it really shines when cleaning up blobs of infantry.

• Ravening Direflock:Spawns three tokens of evil Chaos murderbirds. Anything that is not a BEASTS OF CHAOS unit within 6" of one of these tokens has their Bravery reduced by -2. However, if any unit finishes a move within 1" of the tokens, they have to set the Tokens up again somewhere within 3D6" of the place they were previously.
  • These are phenomenal, especially since it only requires a BEASTS OF CHAOS Wizard to cast it, but not Beasts of Chaos Allegiance. Find some nice Bravery gimmick and add these birds to increase its effectiveness exponentially.
  • Nurgle comes to mind. Have a Nurgle General with Hideous Visage and Carrion Dirge, then a friendly bray wizard to zap in the crows. Under all 3 effects, enemy units will have -6 bravery! But keep in mind your General will certainly also be in range of the crows....

Warscrolls

Leaders

Named Characters

Daemon

Epidemius: (200pts)A Herald of Nurgle +1, with two more wounds and a Nurgling base's worth of extra attacks. It doesn't sound like much until you get to his Nurgle's Tallyman ability and realize he's the best force multiplier in the game. You keep a tally of how many models your Nurgle models killed, and as it rises, they get bonuses. How's that so great? Because it doesn't specify Nurgle Daemons, just Nurgle. So this guy buffs your Plague Monks, your Blightkings, Glottkin, the Maggoth Riders, Plague Drones, you name it. And since Nurgle has even a few fast hard hitters like Daemon Princes, those bonuses should start adding up fast.

• If you really want to stack up his bonus fast, bring a couple of Clan Pestilens Plague Claws. If the opponent isn't playing a super low-model count army, you'll rack up the model kills fast and apply it to your whole army before they even get to combat.

Rotigus Rainfather: (Behemoth, 340pts)Rotigus is the newly named version of the GUO. At 16 wounds and a 4+ save he's just as resilient as the normal GUO. He also retains the GUO's ability to deal out mortal wounds to units attacking him. Where he differs from the GUO is trading in his shooting attack for the ability "Streams of Brackish Filth." The ability targets each enemy unit within 6" and on a 4+ slaps them with D3 mortal wounds. Flying units only get hit on a 6+ however. Rotigus also has the "Deluge of Nurgle" unique spell (Casting value 7) which is essentially a more damaging and far-reaching version of the GUO's plague wind spell, allowing you to hit as many as 7 enemy units as long as they are visible to the caster. Regarding melee, he is slightly less effective than a standard GUO equipped with the Sword and flail but is still more than capable of holding his own.

Horticulous Slimux: (220pts) The head gardener of the greatfathers very own garden. Riding into battle on a giant plowing-snail called Mulch, he lops off the heads of trespassers with his giant shears while Mulch eats the rest with his slime-encrusted jaws. 3+ save 5" move and 8 wounds. He has 3 attacks with his Lopping Shears 3+, 3+, -1 and D3 damage. Mulch has D3 attacks with his jaws. 3+, 3+, -2 and 2 damage. For abilities, he, of course, has Disgustingly Resilient but also Beast Handler which lets you reroll failed charge rolls and hit rolls of 1 for friendly Beasts of Nurgle units within the holy inches. Like the Poxbringer you can heal a wound off a Nurgle Daemon within 7" if anyone was killed in the preceding turn. Lastly, he has the ability Acidic Slime Trail which makes enemies within 3" take D3 mortal wounds on a 4+ when Slimux makes a retreat. He also lets you set up 1 free gnarlmaw once per game in your hero phase.

Others

The Glottkin: (420pts) This count also as Behemoth. The big bad bad guys of Nurgle are back. And this time, no bullshit Purple Suns exist that can cascade them out of the game in a single turn. And without that annoying weakness, they are absolutely devastating With Malign Sorcery, the Purple Sun is back, but not as devastating as before. 18 freaking Wounds with an automatic Regen of D3 Wounds per friendly Hero Phase, basically Terror and the fact that enemies can take Mortal Wounds simply for being charged by the Glottkin combine with magic and very powerful attacks to make something truly nightmarish. Their unique spell is very situational but can make a bunch of Marauders into the single most immovable tarpit in the game - for a turn. They also have a really awesome Command Ability that grants one extra attack to every melee weapon of every Nurgle unit within 14" of them. Yes, this includes Nurgle Daemons and Clan Pestilens. Additionally, they have a shooting weapon that is easy to hit with, has a high Rend and inflicts a whole lot of damage, but unfortunately, it only Wounds on 4+, which makes it quite unreliable.

• Protip: in the right army, Fleshy Abundance is the best defensive spell of the game. Using it on 1-Wound models effectively means giving them a 4+ save-after-the-save (and unlike it, it doesn't depend on a dice roll, it always reduces your losses to half). And the targets aren't limited to Nurgle units, too, but it's even better if they are because then they will be affected by the Glottkin's awesome Command Ability. Plaguebeareres and Chaos Marauders become much better, but glass cannons like Plague Monks and Plague Censer Bearers become ridiculously so

Bloab Rotspawned: (240pts)This count also as Behemoth. Of the Maggoth Riders, Bloab is the only Wizard, but in exchange, he has a worse save than the others, makes fewer attacks with his (still decent) weapon and projects several annoying auras. He has a fly swarm that can cause penalties To Hit enemies in a large area and his bells lower enemy casting rolls by 1. His Maggoth also has by far the best shooting attack of the three. Finally, his unique spell is potentially devastating: It affects one enemy unit. At the end of every phase in which the unit lost Wounds, roll a D6. On 2+, the unit takes another D3 Mortal Wounds. Keep in mind, this happens on a per-phase basis. Basically, if you cast this spell, you need to invest in it. Every phase you have to strip off at least one Wound off that unit. Otherwise, just use Arcane Bolt and have done. Other than that, Bloab is simply very versatile. He is strong in melee but not stellar, good at shooting but not the shootiest Hero in the game, can cast but not terribly well and can fuck with the opponent with all his auras and unbinding.

Morbidex Twiceborn: (240pts) This count also as Behemoth. The guy who loves Nurglings, because they love him. Of the Maggoth riders, he has the worst shooting attacks, projects Nurgle's Rot and has a regeneration effect in each friendly Hero Phase. On 4-5 he heals a Wound. On 6, he heals D3 Wounds instead. He also adds 1 model to a nearby unit of Nurglings in each of your hero phases and grants a +1 To Wound for Nurglings around him. Nothing crazy, but a free 33pt bodyguard each round isn't too bad. He's pretty good in close combat, better than his boss Orghotts. Use him to lead your charges, because he's tough, powerful and really fast for Nurgle's standards.

Orghotts Daemonspew: (240pts) This count also as Behemoth. Supposedly the strongest of the Maggoth riders. He damages enemies who punch him, his Maggoth has an okay shooting attack (though with abysmal range), and his Command Ability lets a friendly Nurgle unit reroll To Wound. On the charge, he'll get D3 more attacks, and anyone his axes wound but don't kill will take a mortal wound on a 4+.

Gutrot Spume: (140pts) Do you remember Wulfrik? No, not his awful joke rule, don't worry. But do you remember his awesome rule to outflank himself and a unit of Marauders? Well, Gutrot gets to do that now, except he can take a unit of Putrid Blightkings with him instead. That's right, outflanking Blightkings. He can also use his tentacles to wrench enemy weapons off them, making his 7 Wounds with a 3+ Save even tankier. Finally, his already decent attacks gain rerolls of 1s To Hit against Heroes but in exchange, he can only target Heroes if there are Heroes within 3" of him (so watch out as his highest ranged attack in melee is 2"). He lost his Command, but all his changes make him into a superb supporter and beatstick, who can not only survive but overcome a lot of powerful Heroes. Nothing quite like holding a Gryphon's beak shut while you hack away at the rider. A recommended tactic is to bring a single unit of 10 blight kings with him on turn 2 (after your opponent has likely forgotten you can deep strike him, just keep your mouth shut), and then proceed to tear the everliving fuck out of your enemy's backfield warmachines and characters. When you're done with that, use your remaining Blight King flankers (re: probably all of them) and flank his battle line from the rear. Or just sit on his objective and annoy the fuck out of him, because they will never get you off, no matter how hard they try.

Festus the Leechlord: (140pts) Festus is a support Hero, pure and simple. He heals a Wound a turn and can either heal a friendly model for D3 Wounds or give out D3 Mortal Wounds to an enemy model, though for both he needs to be within 1" of whoever he wants to affect. His unique spell lowers enemy saves by 1 PERMANENTLY (Save rolls though, not saves. So Nighthaunt or anything else that ignores modifiers will ignore this). Unfortunately, with the Maggotkin Battletome, this explicitly doesn't stack anymore. However, for all this awesome, his close combat potential can be very generously described as lacking, at least compared to melee characters. Compared to most other Wizards, he's about twice as strong.

Tamurkhan The Maggot Lord: (Behemoth, 420pts) The eponymous character for the army. Big, mean and perfect to destroy the heroes of the other side; send him after enemy characters where the Black Cleaver and its re-rolls can go to work. Even if he dies, he'll be dealing mortal wounds to them with a chance to Resurrect himself as a final insult. With 18(!) wounds, D3 of which are regenerated per turn, a host of attacks from Bubebolos and a command ability that re-rolls charge rolls for his Horde he's also well-suited for grinding through infantry, so plonk him into the center of your line and go to town. If you have him there's no reason not to use him; just watch out for armies with a high proportion of powerful shooting units like Aelves or Duhardin, since he's only packing a 4+ save.

Kayzk the Befouled: (120pts) Tamurkhan's second in command. 7" move, 7 HP, 7 bravery...I think I see a pattern... Best ran alongside a few units of Pox Riders or (even better) Nurgle Chaos Knights for cover - although he does have a 5+ ignore Mortal wounds. consider using him as an archer or wizard hunter. His Command Ability is a slightly buffed version of Inspiring Presence that only works on Nurgle unit, so consider making either the chap above or below your general instead.

Generic Characters

Daemon

• Great Unclean One: (Behemoth 340pts) Your Greater Daemon and one of the best choices to evoke other units. Your standard general on bigger games. The GUO is one of the toughest fuckers around. He has the same basically-40k's-Feel-no-Pain rule of a 5+ save after his save but for him, if he rolls a 6 and is in melee, he actually inflicts Mortal Wounds. He also has a regeneration of D3 Wounds per turn, has a strong though short-ranged shooting attack and a melee profile worthy of a monster. What makes him shine is his unique spell, a 14" line that damages enemy units under it and heals Nurgle units under it. It can't resurrect but is perfectly able to make the obscenely tough Plague Drones even harder to remove. Also, his command ability gives a Nurgle Daemon unit within 21" play an extra melee attack with each of their weapons. NICE. With the new model, he can now swap his weapons for worse damaging versions with benefits. The sword can be swapped for the bell which gives any Nurgle unit a 3-inch movement increase if they start within 7 inches at the start of the movement phase and the flail can be swapped for a dagger that can give a 1 point boost to a casting or unbinding roll for a unnegatable wound, and with his regen abilities, it could be quite worth it if there's one spell you don't want to be dealing with.

• Exalted Greater Daemon of Nurgle: Better sword but no secondary weapon, slightly longer-ranged version of the GUO's command ability, but crucially, a different name so they can both be used on the same unit. Fancy some Plague Drones with 11 attacks each?

• Poxbringer, Herald of Nurgle: (120pts) Your gamechanger. Compared to a Herald of Khorne, he has fewer attacks that are harder to hit and can't deal Mortal Wounds but do D3 wounds if they go through. On average they should do about the same amount of damage, but the HoN will last much longer because he's Disgustingly Resilient and can heal (himself or others nearby) a wound if anyone at all died in the preceding turn. If you play any Nurgle Daemons, at least have one of these guys in reserve so that you can summon him if need be. Beasts of Nurgle especially turn from okay to murder on no legs if a Daemon Hero of Nurgle is nearby. If relying on him for synergy, keep him away from combat(and out of range of enemy ranged units) and take advantage of his synergy bubble. Now has a unique spell that does d3 mortal wounds on a unit that's in 7 inches of a Plaguebearer unit, but it's on a higher casting roll than Arcane Bolt and same damage so it's not much of a use if you're in range for bolt, but since there's no specified range on how far the Plaguebearers can be away it can work if you need a spell shot on a unit your herald is not close enough to for bolt.

• Sloppity Bilepiper, Herald of Nurgle: (90pts) A New Support Provides 7" +1 to the bravery of Nurgle Daemons(Not that useful) but subtracts 1 bravery from enemies. Also, Re-roll failed charges and hit rolls of 1 for Nurglings & Great Unclean Ones at 7". Although his Marotter attacks may not seem useful at first, 4 Plaguesword attacks with a -1 rend and 2 damage is nothing to scoff at for a measly 100 points. Additionally, against similarly priced heroes, Bilepipers perform shockingly well. A 4+ save with a Disgustingly Resilient save after that ensure that your favorite Scottish Daemon will be whacking his foes to death turn after turn.

• Spoilpox Scrivener, Herald of Nurgle: (90pts) Scrivener does for Plaguebearers as what Bilepiper does for Nurglings & Great Unclean Ones as stated above, except that you always reroll charge dice results of 1 rather than failed charges. Worse in close combat than the Bilepiper, but you can sneeze people to death with him!

• Daemon Prince: (210pts.) He’s gone through a reworking since his last outing. He no longer has the ability to taken Unmarked and the buff for killing heroes, but now he gains a unique command ability for Nurgle, make a friendly unit within 12 inches cause d3 mortal wounds each time an enemy unit rolls at least one 6 to hit them (so if they get to attack twice they may cause a further D3 MW - errata from the absurd 'D3 mortal wounds for each 6 rolled'). His damage output is pretty solid, so use him to rack up the Epidemius points, and he's fast enough to keep up with (or outpace) Beasts and Plague Drones and activate their abilities.

• Verminlord Corruptor: (Behemoth, Pestilens, 280pts)A Skaven Daemon from the Clans Pestilens. He's got 12 wounds. With his insane 10 attacks on his melee weapon, he can equip the Sword of Judgement from the shadow realm artifact list and have 10 chances to absolutely murder heroes and monsters. Has a Skaven version of Disgustingly Resilient. Cast two spells and abilities to deal mortal wounds. His COMMAND ABILITY gives Pestalence wholly within 13" re-roll to hit.

Mortals & others

• Lord of Plagues: ( MORTAL, ROTBRINGER, 140pts) Oh, dear lord, talk about overcompensating. Before, the Lord of Plagues was extremely underpowered. But now, with a price-bump and some new rules, he's pretty brilliant. First off, he gets the same "6+ To Hit hits D6 times" rule as the Blightkings, but he gets this on top of -1 Rend and D3 damage, so he is potentially murderous. Then, he lets Blightkings around him reroll 1s To Hit, making him into a proper support Hero. Then he can help you rack up contagion points, which is nice. Finally, his Command is still bad, being a very unreliable way of delivering Mortal Wounds over 21". A whole 1.16 of them on average. All in all, a very nice beatstick who can support Blightkings (and only Blightkings) very well. Still slow and with a terrible Command, though.

• Lord of Blights (MORTAL, ROTBRINGER, 140pts) Sporting the same statline as the Lord of Plagues, the Lord of Blights is a new hero for the forces of Nurgle. Gets basically the same melee as the Lord of Plagues, but without the exploding 6s, so it's alright. He also gets Death's Heads he can throw - his own is pretty powerful already, but he also allows Putrid Blightkings next to him to throw a bunch. While a shooting attack over 14" sounds incredibly useful, keep in mind it's one shot per Blightking, so not that much shooting at all. His real meat comes from his Command, which grants one Nurgle unit the Plaguebearers' Cloud of Flies rule, so -1 To Hit when shooting them or -2 To Hit while shooting and -1 To Hit in melee at 20+ models. Very powerful. He also has a shield that allows him to re-roll saves of 1 in melee, but whatever.

• Lord of Afflictions: (MORTAL, DAEMON, ROTBRINGER, 200pts) And all the Daemons say he's pretty fly for a blight guy. Superbly killy, combining the melee of the Lord of Plagues (sans exploding 6s, sadly) with a Rot Fly's worth of attacks and another damage 2 knock from the underslung bell. For survivability he's also golden, like the other Lords, but with an additional Wound, Disgustingly Resilient and a 1 wound per turn heal. His buff allows all Rotbringers to reroll 1s To Hit - so Blightkings, Blightlords, and all the mortal heroes. He also has a couple of abilities for dealing Mortal Wounds, one of which, the Incubatch, is so deadly it can even damage Nurgle models (even himself), albeit only on 6+. Finally, his Command doubles the Move of a Pusgoyle Blightlords unit. All in all, he's just good. He provides good support, especially to the Pusgoyles, he deals a ton of Wounds, both Mortal and otherwise, he's fast and tough and thanks to the Daemon keyword he can trigger Locus effects as well. However, when playing him, remember that for 40 points more, you could have gotten a Maggoth Lord instead (which honestly isn't flattering to the Maggoth Lords at this point).

• Harbinger of Decay: (MORTAL, ROTBRINGER, 160pts) Decently killy and with a one-use ability that can cause extra Mortal Wounds. However, despite the mount, his Movement is stuck at 7". He makes up for that with his Command Ability, though, since he basically projects Disgustingly Resilient to all Mortal Nurgle units within 7", but as it is a different ability that means the Lord of Afflictions can benefit from both at once! Makes tough Nurgle bullshit even tougher, which is excellent for keeping your Blightkings alive that much longer. Another thing to consider: Thanks to his Mount, he has the DAEMON keyword. His mount lets make him a useful utility hero as he can move relatively quickly to shore up Mortal Nurgle units with his command ability, while also letting him trigger Daemons' Locus abilities, as those only need a NURGLE DAEMON HERO to trigger. Let him run after your Plague Drones, which he can keep up with, and suddenly your Fly Riders deal a bunch of Mortal Wounds in addition to their normal damage.

• Lord of Chaos: (STD 110pts) Cheaper and more killy, with a decent command ability to boot. This has come at the cost of the amazing 2d6 damage ability and is no longer able to ascend to Daemonhood automatically on killing the enemy general (let's face it though, how often did that happen?). Don't send him alone against characters more expensive than he is, or he will die. The increased rend and attacks values will mean he's good at killing line infantry and when to send alongside another unit he won't auto-bounce against characters like he used to. Side modeling note, the option to take a flail can be achieved by taking the Chaos Chosen off of a Chaos Chariot and basing him and using his as a Chaos Lord, the jury is still out on whether this is official or not.

• Chaos Lord on Demonic Mount: (STD Daemon 170pts) Your budget (for a Slaves to Darkness character) mounted Lord, and also can double dip into Daemon and Mortal equipment. With the new update, cursed Warhammer now has the potential of mortal wounds on 6s to hit, with the added bonus of healing d3 wounds for killing whelps with your big mallet. Also great for other Slaves to Darkness units as his command ability only affects the mounting options but provides a re-roll to their charge and +1 to hit.

• Chaos Lord on Karkadrak: (STD 250pts) The new mounted lord has arrived, and he rode in style as a fully plastic kit. How does this character scream build around? Movement 9", 9 wounds and the always welcomed 3+ save, this lord on battle lizard loves keeping up with his fellow cavalry and bring nothing short of utter destruction. Without any adages, this character boasts no less than 13(!) attacks across 4 profiles, has mortal wound potential both on the charge and with his sword, and can heal with his attacks with his big axe. Sporting classic mortal wound protection that Slaves to Darkness units are spoiled with, and the same command ability as his horse-riding brethren, he is an excellent pick for a Slaves focused army. Pair him with some Chaos Knights or Chariots and reap all the skulls you can.

• Chaos Lord on Manticore Chaos Lord on Manticore: (Behemoth STD, 280pts) Chaos Lord on Manticore: The Lord on Manticore can have a choice between Flail and Sword, with the Sword being better in most circumstances and a choice between Runeshield, Daggerfist, and Lance. The Lance might be awesome, but since everyone and their grandma will be gunning for your Manticore, the 5+ save against Mortal Wounds might be the best choice. Ironically enough, the Manticore itself is actually less damaging than the Lord on it, but it does provide some nice special rules, such as rerolls of 1 To Hit against Monsters for its Claws and Jaws attacks and always rerolling when attacking units in your side of the field. His Command Ability allows a unit of Chaos Warriors within 15" to reroll charge, wound, and Battleshock rolls.

• Sorcerer: (MORTAL, ROTBRINGER, 120pts) Formerly Rotbringer Sorcerer Has access to the unique spells of both ROTBRIGNERS and MORTAL NURGLE. The Sorcerer fits into many of the Maggotkin battalions but the new Chaos Sorcerer Lord is now 10pts cheaper and has a better move/save/melee profile (though Chaos Sorcerer Lord warscroll abilities/spells now only affect Slaves to Darkness units).

• Chaos Sorcerer Lord: (STD 110pts) Yes. You owe it to yourself to at least check this guy out. While he is utter crap in combat, he can be amazing at support. First, without even casting anything, he can let one Slave to Darkness unit per turn re-roll saves. Then, when he casts, he has a unique spell that provides rerolls To Hit, To Wound and to their saves for a friendly Slaves to Darkness unit in addition to STD endless spells. Just keep him away from the fighting and let Him strengthen your front line. With the new points cost reduction, he could still be a valuable tool for casting some of the Mortal Nurgle Spells.

• Chaos Sorcerer Lord on Manticore: (Behemoth STD, 260pts) Blessed with the same awesome "reroll saves" ability as the normal Lord, this here rides a Manticore, who is just as killy as the one the normal Lord gets. Additionally, the Sorcerer Lord gets the Wind of Chaos spell, which is potentially devastating.

• Exalted Hero of Chaos: (STD 90pts) A guy with a random flurry of axes with the ability to attack twice in the turn he charged, and when he kills a Hero or a Monster he heals. Skip, you have consistent fighters.

• Plague Priest: (Pestilens 80pts) Your standard skaven hero. Gets an extra attack on the charge because of PESTILENS. no longer a buffing priest, he now only has two damage Prayers and deals more mortal wounds after combat.

• Plague Priest on Plague Furnace: (Behemoth Pestilens 200pts) It's 3 Plague Monks with a Plague Priest on a huge censer-thing. It can't move its 6" unless within 6" of 10 or more friendly Skaventide models and it makes 2D6 attacks with Rusty Wheels and Spikes instead of D6 when it charges. It stops battleshock for Skaventide and it damages all the non-Clans Pestilens units that approach it. The Plague Priest on it gets different prayers, boosting Pestilens units either by giving them +1 weapon attacks or by allowing them to reroll wounds. It's clearly a centerpiece. It will pack a punch thanks to the Censer, but it needs Plague Monks to push it around and pushing stuff around and not charging is something Plague Monks with their awful survivability really don't like to do. On the other hand, the Monks do very much like those tasty tasty buffs.

Beasts Of Chaos

Must be used in the Pestilent Throng battalion to be included without being allies

• Beastlord: Meh, good at taking Hero challenges but to be honest your better off with a Shaman or Doombull. He has a situational Command ability that if he kills something in melee, All Brayherd units wholly within 18" and attack after him can re-roll all wound rolls. This upgrades to include all hit rolls if he kills a hero.

• Great Bray Shaman: Magic Goat. He increases the Move of all Brayherd around him by 3", which is incredible combined with their run+charge musicians. Sure, those first turn charges are still not likely (kinda, since chronomantic cogs exists), but they're possible thanks to him. His spell, Devolve, which casts on a 7 and just takes an unengaged enemy unit within 18" and pulls it towards your closest unit by 2D6". Best used to pull the enemy away from objectives, cover, or buffers while improving your Chances for a successful charge.

• Doombull: The murder cow has a two-handed axe (3x 3+/3+/-2/3). Overall, the Bull an absolute melee monster. His attacks are great and he shares the Bloodgreed ability with his lesser kin - on an unmodified 6 to wound, inflicts an additional mortal wound. Although it may look a bit gimmicky and definitely weaker than some of the absurd stuff that the Stormcasts have access to, it is very much relevant. his Command ability grants a +1 To Wound roll to a Warherd unit wholly within in a huge bubble. Play him, CHOP EVERYTHING IN HALF. Also, like his lesser kin, he's very fast with a Move of 7".

• Dragon Ogor Shaggoth: One of the better picks by a long shot. Gee, that can't have anything to do with the Shaggoth being one of the most expensive kits in the WoC range, can it? 10 Wounds aren't all that high, but thanks to his Summon Lightning spell the problem is remedied. The Shaggoth also has an awesome special rule where, if the roll to see who goes first in a turn is a tie, every Dragon Ogre unit, including the Shaggoth, immediately heals D3 Wounds on a D6 roll of 4+. And those ties happen way more often than you expect them to. Also, the Shaggoth has some absolutely devastating attacks in close combat.

Battleline

• Putrid Blightkings: (Mortal, Rotbringer, Min:5 max:20 160/580pts)The super-hardy infantry Glottkin gave us. Same profile as a Skullreaper but with one more Bravery and Wound (yes, 4 Wounds for each!) and an almost identical weapon. Their shtick? If they score a 6 To Hit, you don't hit once. You hit D6 times. Yes, they don't have Rend on those weapons, but with that many hits, you don't need it. Did we mention they are obscenely tough? There's not much else in the game that boasts 21 wounds with a 4+ save at the same point cost. Even more FUN*, every unit within 3" of them (including themselves) rolls a D6 in your Hero Phase. On a 6, they take D3 mortal wounds. Unless that is, they have the Nurgle keyword, in which case they heal D3 wounds instead. Make sure you let multi-wound Nurgle stuff hug your Blightkings and you're golden. Also remember that this affects Nurgle units, not Mortal Nurgle. Chaos Lord of Nurgle? Great Unclean One? Plague Furnace? All of them can be healed by the aura these guys have. Generally though, unless you're counting on stacking auras with Blightkings and Nurgle's Rot, this is more of a gimmick. Just use these as powerful infantry, leave the healing to Festus. If even just half of your Blightkings make it into melee, they will earn back their cost and then some, so just make sure you get them there.

• Plaguebearers of Nurgle: (Deamon Min10, Max:30 120/320pts.) Basic Nurgle troop. Really hard to kill but not so good in melee (average of 0,33 damages). Take 30 in every unit to make them harder to be hit. Reroll 1s in save rolls with Daemon Heroes of Nurgle nearby, which makes them a fantastic bubble wrap for any of the Nurgle Heroes. Keep in mind they actually got a small price bump to 120 for 10. When taking them, remember you could have gotten twice that many Marauders.

• Chaos Warriors: (STD Min5, Max:30 100pts.) We can't talk about the Maggotkin without talking about Nurgle-marked Chaos Warriors. The fact that you can get five of them for a measly 90 points makes them an incredibly effective Battleline unit. Toss in two such squads followed by a big blob of Blightkings, and you had your Battleline for 2000 points over and done with. Especially with the price bump that Plaguebearers have gotten, small squads of Chaos Warriors as backfield objective campers are a perfectly viable strategy. Additionally, if ran in a 25-30 man unit (they come in denominations of 5 for some reason), these guys can be strung across a field to make a giant wall of "fuck you". If hit by your Lord of Blight's command ability, this wall of warriors becomes significantly harder to hit (-1 to hit in CC and -2 to shoot, meaning if your enemy's gunline hits on 5's, your warriors are practically invisible to them, as they are now hitting on 7's). This is a viable tactic for bringing slower Blightkings and Maggotkin characters to your enemy's front line, as your blight kings are roughly the same height as a Warrior, and therefore most players won't argue that they can shoot between your warrior wall when also combined with the logic that the warriors are clouded by flies. However, this tactic is expensive and will cost you 620 points (30 warriors + Lord of Blights).

• Chaos Marauders: (STD Min20, Max:40 150pts.) When marked as Nurgle, these make a great Battleline unit for your purposes that alway make an 8" charge. Grab a big squad of them, add Blades of Putrefaction and watch them dish out a rather obscene amount of Mortal Wounds or just buff them with Fleshy Abundance to make into a hilariously tough tarpit. And if you really hate the models, you can always convert up some Poxwalkers.

• Pusgoyle Blightlords: (Conditional Battline: Lord of Afflictions as your general, Daemon, Mortal, Rotbringer, Min:2 max:12 200pts) To be quite honest, these don't really add much to basic Plague Drones. They are more expensive and are tougher, but while killier per model, they are less damaging point-for-point than Plague Drones. Honestly, their only saving grace is their ability to become Battleline, thus providing you with a frankly obscenely tough Battleline choice that moves quite fast for Nurgle's low standards.

Beasts Of Chaos

Must be used in the Pestilent Throng battalion to be included without being allies

• Gors: (Min:10 max:30 70/200pts)The first thing you notice is that Gors are pretty fast, pretty tough and not too killy to start out. gains +1 attack if the unit is +20 models. All in all, they're good. Either +4 melee save with shields or decently killy and still pretty survivable with two weapons. Though be advised that they painfully miss a spear-option, so while sizes of 20 to 30 are encouraged, never go beyond that, as you can never attack in two rows.

• Ungors: (Min:10 max:40 60/200pts) Weaker Save than Gors and weaker size bonuses. The other redeeming factor to these guys is the fact that they can take spears, which let them fight in more rows.
  • Nurgle already has good screening and objective sitters in the form of Plaguebearers, and Plague Monks fill the 2" range hammer horde role far better. I'd suggest skipping these. If you really want a goat horde for objective sitting, go with Gors instead.

Other Units

• Bile Troggoths: (Min:3 Max:12 180/540pts) While their vomit attack is short ranged (a fitting 7") it's perfect for melting through the armor of heavy infantry and cavalry as well as monsters, and can even help thin out infantry hordes in a pinch. All in all, these can deal a lot of damage very quickly, especially when getting buffed by a Chaos Sorcerer Lord, but their overall reliance on having a babysitter along really hurts them. Also, it doesn't help that they cost a lot more points than Blightkings for a lot less oomph. But hey, at least they have Rend.

• Daemon Plague Toads of Nurgle: (Battleline in Tamurkhan’s Horde army Daemon Min:3 Max:12 120/400pts)) An odd little unit that's packing a weak and short-ranged shooting attack, a chance to generate more close combat attacks on the roll of a 6, 4 wounds each, and a special 4+ save against Mortal wounds. Crucially, they're also one of the faster units in the army, having a move of 7" as opposed to 5". They have some use as a tarpit, but if you've been reading this guide so far you know that packing a lot of wounds isn't a problem for you. They're also largely overshadowed by...

• Daemon Pox Riders of Nurgle: (Daemon Min:3 Max:12 200pts)Adding a Plaguebearer to a Plague Toad leaves them with FIVE wounds each, which already makes them superior to the above. When coupled with the same saves as above, the ability to re-roll saves of a 1 if wholly within 14" of a Nurgle Hero (Epedimius is good for this) and an additional-1 to hit modifier against shooting attacks directed at them, you pretty much have no reason to ever take Plague Toads unless you're using the Leaping Pox formation. Something worth considering is summoning 3 for 21 Contagion Points. The same applies for Plague Toads, but you'll never bother with that either unless you have no more Pox Rider models available.

• Chaos Chariots: (STD Min1, Max:3 120pts.) Pretty fast and uncharacteristic of Nurgle, since they always move 12" and once per game Run & Charge. Other than that, it's a chariot. They have a better chance to inflict more moral wounds the better the charge roll. No, you take these because for 120points, they give you 7 Wounds at a 4+ Save that are fast enough to tie enemy shooters up and tough enough to keep them tied up all game long. Also remember that, since they are used in units of one or more if you play them all as separate units, every Chariot gets an Exalted Charioteer.

• GoreBeast Chariots: (STD 150pts) a lot slower then a normal Chariot but inflicts Motal wounds to clumped up enemies and they replace the horse with a big monster that will deal more damage especially if you get an unmodified charge roll of 8+.

• Chaos Chosen: (STD Min5, Max:20, 140pts.) Warriors with +1 Ld and armed with Great Weapons, which is basically a Protector's Halberd without the cool special rules. What's so special about Chosen, then? If they kill at least one model in combat, all other Slaves to Darkness reroll To Wound until the end of the phase. This is pretty devastating and nowhere does it say that multiple Chosen squads can't affect each other with this. So a good way to look at Chosen is as a potential buffing unit with high damage potential. Do remember than they only buff Slaves To Darkness though, so unless you're going heavy on those and light on all other Nurgle goodies, maybe better skip them.

• Chaos Marauder Horsemen: (StD Min5, Max:30 90pts.) This unit is the speed and range that your Nurlge army severely lacks. They are a cheap, fast screening unit that will either very quickly cap objectives, or will keep your enemies on their toes with a 9" Javelin attack that shoots twice and can be used as a 2" melee weapon to jab between friendly models when they're in combat. This makes them extremely lethal if used properly, as they have a 21" threat range, and using Feigned Flight, they can Shoot AND Charge in the same turn in which they retreat. They also add 1 to hit when 10+ strong and with the Damned Icon's -1 bravery, making them a brutally effective screener (when used competently). Just make sure that you keep them out of reach of enemy melee or cavalry.

• Chaos Knights: (StD Min5, Max:20, 180pts.)These boys should be kept as an intercept unit for enemy cav, or for unprotected characters. If ran together with Marauder Horsemen, they become a lot more effective, as these guys will tank damage for your actual screeners. Overall not as practical as your Marauder Horsemen, but can still stand toe-to-toe with most of your enemies cav options, even if they do suicide by doing it. Extremely recommended running these guys with their Glaive instead of Ensorcelled Weapon option, as they gain rend when they charge, whereas Ensorcelled Weapons have no rend, ever.

• Varanguard: (Min:3, Max:12, 300pts) Supper Warriors lent out by Archaon. They are giant chaos knights with 5 wounds 3+ armour and ignore magic on a 5+, able to Fight twice once per game and get +1 to hit if you have Archaon. Each model can be armour with an Ensorcelled Weapon for consistency, Fellspear to overcome bigger Armour saves, or Daemonforged Blade can more inflict Damage and MW with good RNG.

• Plague Drones of Nurgle: (Daemon Min:3 Max:12 200pts) Your flyers. Their 8" movement sounds promising, but since they are almost the only Nurgle unit with a missile weapon, they will rarely run, so the movement evens out. The missile weapon is rather meh, but combined with the 5 (!) assured attacks per Plague Drones, it adds up. They also hold the distinction of being ridiculously tough to kill, especially with a Banner or two. Make sure to keep a Daemon Hero of Nurgle close to them for that sweet +1 attack with all weapons (yes, including the Death's Heads)).

• Plague Monks: (Pestilens, Min:10 Max:40 80/280pts) antifisising the normal Nurgle style with a Hoards of suicidal Plague rats. They have barely protection but make up for it in raw damage potential dealing MWs and Generating a lot of attacks that can go further with spells and other Pestilens ability. take pared blades for smaller units of 25 while Woe-staves let most of them hit in units of 40. Plague Monks make up a cheap hammer after you get your holding Battline. They will die quickly and you have no way to raise models, so use your Plague trees and At the double to slingshot straight into combat.

• Plague Censer Bearers: (Pestilens Min:5 Max:20 60pts) Get an extra attack when charging, deal a mortal wound to every non-Clan Pestilence unit within 3" on a 4+ during your hero phase, and can reroll hits and Battleshocks if they're within 13" from a Plague Monk unit. Basically, Censer Bearers on their own are nigh useless, but with proper support, they are even deadlier wound-per-wound than Plague Monks. The best use for these is swinging over the top of a line of Plague Monks. Yes, you won't be getting that charge bonus but these are too expensive point for point to be throwing away like, well, Plague Monks.
  • Remember, their only Clan Pestillens units are immune to their Poisonous Fumes ability, so be careful positioning them too close to your non-Skaven units.

• Plague Ogors: (Battleline in Tamurkhan’s Horde army Daemon Min:3 Max:12 160/560pts) These guys want to be charging to get the most out of their abilities. They hit like a ton of bricks with their re-rolls on the charge, ability to deal out d3 Mortal Wounds enemies within 3", and surprisingly high bravery of 7. They can also ignore wounds that would kill them on a 5+, decent against hit taking a few lucky hits but unlikely to protect you for long against the average the hail of metal and Magic the average player would use. Only use these for flavor. Now that Blightkings have been buffed to 4 Wounds each, they're tougher, killier and have a smaller footprint than Plague Ogors for fewer points per model.

• Nurglings: (Daemon Min:3 Max:12 100pts) These things are interesting. Only a 6+ Save with no Disgustingly Resilient insight, but they heal every wounded model at the end of the turn. Yes, the opponent either does 4 Wounds on them, or it was for naught. They also have 5 attacks with bad Hit and Wound rolls, but if you manage to inflict a wound they're likely to do 1 mortal wound after a 2+ roll. So, you have a unit that deals very little actual damage but is amazing at making the opponent dedicate unreasonable amounts of resources to removing them because shockingly, their 5" move makes them rather fast for Nurgle. They can also outflank, which means they can be a thorn in the opponent's side (and deployment zone) from turn 1. What's that? You get 3 contagion points if you have models in your opponent's territory? Oh dear, EVEN more incentive for your opponent to get rid of the little bastards, lest they drown you in contagion points and thus him in Gnarlmaws.

• Beasts of Nurgle: (Daemon Min:1 Max:6 80pts) Fair warning, your opponent is going to hate you for playing these. 7 Wounds and Disgustingly Resilient make for some tough buggers. Additionally, they can run and charge, so they'll be in his face, tying up his favorite units, much faster than he'd like. Their Slime Trail lets them do Mortal Wounds when Falling Back and they can charge right after falling back. Yeah, you can see where this is going. They'll deal tons of damage without ever giving your opponent the chance to get away. Also, since each unit of the Beasts deals Mortal Wounds individually, a couple of lone Beasts will drive your opponent mad. Get even better with a Nurgle Daemon Hero along, as they gain a flat +1 Damage on all their attacks, which makes them absolutely tear through low-Save units.

Beasts Of Chaos

Must be used in the Pestilent Throng battalion to be included without being allies

• Bestigors: (Min:10 max:30 120/300pts) Elite Gors in heavy armour. This unit got quite the fuckin buff in the new book and can easily put out a pretty scary amount of rend -1 wounds on the charge, especially if they are infantry (that will almost always have at least 10 models, if not they are going to die anyway to them) or ORDER units. Spells and command abilities can buff them even more, to the point of being overkill.
  • Unlike most Nurgle units, Bestigors have rend, making them a good choice against armies with good saves. While not being proper hammer units, Bestigors are great at clearing out the enemy screens and weaker infantry, so your Blightkings can focus on other enemy units. If you can handle the points, these are the guys you want to take to fill any remaining slots in the battalion. Gors and Ungors are outclassed by Plaguebearers. Best taken in units of 10 due to their base sizes.

• Bullgors: (Min:3 max:12 140pts) Get the same Bloodgreed rule as the Doombull, а weapon choice of great axes (2x 4+/3+/-2/3) or axe(s)(3x 4+/3+/-1/2) with the option of an additional axe to reroll hit rolls of 1, or bull shields which add +1 to the save rolls against attacks from melee weapons. These options are in addition to horn attacks made by each bullgor (2x 4+/4+/-/1). But the really interesting trait is their Drummer and Banner Bearer abilities: namely, they give +1 respectively to charge rolls and Bravery for each enemy unit within 12" from them. If you want to go full Warherd, take one unit of each and see which ones perform best, but if you take only one unit of them and a Doombull, you're going to want great axes.
  • Arguably the dual axes may be the better option for a higher chance of mortal wounds with the additional attack and rerolling 1's to hit. The loss of rend isn't that big of a deal as we have many ways of reducing saves already.
  • Other than that, they're fast, have more raw, balls-out power than almost anything in the game and have lots of Wounds. The high Wound-count combined with the meh Save also means that targeting them with Mortal Wounds will almost feel like a waste to your opponent, which might keep them safe longer.

• Dragon Ogors: (Min:3 Max:12 140pts) Five Wounds with a 4+ save, okay Bravery and scary weapons. Each has what is basically a Chaos Knight's horse bolted to it and in addition fights with a big weapon. You get either Ancient Weapons which are three Double-Hammer Liberators in one, Glaives which exchange 2 attacks with 1 more inch of range and a Rend of -1, or Crushers which only have 3 attacks, but with 2 damage each. Re-roll hit rolls of 1 if wholly within 12" of a Shaggoth.
• Glaives have an interesting use in that you can hide your dragon ogors behind your 25mm/32mm based guys (just in case may want 2 ranks of 25mm bases to have maximum distance). Enemies with 1" weapons won't be able to touch your DO, while the glaives let your DO wack enemies (though you do lose your claw attacks).

• Ungor Raiders: (Min:10 Max:40 80pts) Same as Ungors, but with bows instead of shields and a basic scouting rule. Don't think their bows are good, by the way, but the mass of shots really helps. Don't underestimate 30-40 strong ungor raider units. They can output a surprising amount of dakka (for Beasts anyways, they're not crossbow freeguild!). in a melee-centric and focused faction that can quickly get into melee, missiles will be taken out of you horde budget, can damage distant enemies while holding objectives.
• Keep in mind that Blades of Putrefaction can be cast onto any friendly unit. Grab a unit of 30 of these bad boys and watch the mortal wounds rain down from 18" away.

• Centigors: (Min:5 Max:20 80pts) Light Brayherd cavalry unit that can Run and Charge. Fairly useless as the other player can lay down even light fire and wipe them out. Their good to at moving across the board, harassing, tieing down or grabbing an objective but not much else. Each turn you can decide to have them get drunk on beast piss to add +1 to their hit rolls but at the cost of your opponent getting +1 on them.

• Tuskgor Chariots: (Min:1 Max:4 60/200pts) It's a chariot. Aside from the fact that the model is painfully showing its age, it's actually damn good. Lots of Wounds, good Save, tons of attacks that are great on the charge and okay normally. Play three of them and make sure they have a Bray Shaman close to them in your first movement phase. Like Bestigors, its Despoiler Axe can re-roll 1s against Order units and add 1 to hit rolls if the unit has 10 or more units.

Behemoths

• Soul Grinder: (StD, Daemon, 170pts) Ever wanted a beast that can throw ranged shots AND be great in melee? This daemon might be for you. Same price as a Daemon Prince but with less special abilities. It makes up for it by giving you a boatload of attacks for very good damage. Two ranged attack profiles, one at 20" and six at 16", the 20" does flat 3 damage the rest do 1 damage. CC has six attacks for 1 damage each, 1 attack -2 Rend for D6 damage, and either: two attacks -2 Rend flat 3 damage, OR 4 attacks -1 Rend D3 damage. Big, ugly, and killy, he fills the hammer role. The biggest downside for it is the most 4+ to hit. And since it is a Daemon, it can't benefit from CSL Demonic Power spell or the Warshrine. But at 16 wounds and a 4+ save, you can probably find a spot in the army. Plague Drones and Great Unclean Ones do good damage, but this guy will run roughshod through units and put out good ranged shooting simultaneously. Bonus points if you manage to hit him with Stream of Corruption from a Great Unclean One and heal him while the opponent cries.

• Chaos Warshrine: (StD, Priest, 210pts) Yes, the Warshrine does not count as a War Machine. If you play with caps on Heroes, Monsters and War Machines, this is a huge advantage. What it does is pretty cool, too. First, it has an Aura that grants Mortal units (almost everything Chaos that isn't a Skaven or a Daemon) an additional 6+ save after their normal save. It can also pray for buffs to Mortal units. God. The favor of Nurgle allows to reroll 1s To Wound, but if the unit it's used on is Nurgle, you can instead re-roll all failed To Wound rolls. Also of note is the fact that this thing can easily hold its own in combat with a monster-like profile and a bunch of strong attacks. Awful Rend, yes, but they plow through low armor tarpits like nobody's business.

• Gigantic Chaos Spawn: ()A strong but unreliable monster burdened with random movement, random attacks, and regeneration. He can put out a fair amount of damage with a mix of its tongues and maws, and has 12 wounds and has a good chance to regenerate and possibly gain more wounds each turn. It's worth remembering that he can be given any Chaos God as a keyword, which opens up amusing possibilities like running a Khornate Spawn alongside a Bloodsecrator.

• Chaos War Mammoth: (StD, 320pts)This monster has 22 wounds and a 4+ save! All of his attacks cause at least D3 wounds, making it an exceptional monster-killer when at full strength. Its real strength lies in supporting a Marauder charge, however - as well as imposing -2 to any Battleshock tests to any unfortunate unit that gets charged, the Mammoth can also help Marauder or Marauder Horsemen get in a little extra movement and increase their damage output in combat. Wounding and even killing this thing just makes it cause more damage. If you're playing with a big Chaos horde then there's no finer feeling than running this guy into the enemy's biggest and toughest-looking infantry blob, although expect a few dirty looks for doing so. Keep in mind that he doesn't like magic missiles or war machine fire, however.

Beasts Of Chaos

Must be used in the Pestilent Throng battalion to be included without being allies

• Cygor: (140pts) Can unbind two spells in each Hero Phase: If he manages to do it, he deals a mortal wound to the caster healing a wound for himself. He can also reroll hit rolls when attacking wizards, which he really really needs, having Hit rolls of 4+ across the board. Two of them can add some okay shooting, but the fact that the damage table influences his range makes him unreliable at best.

• Ghorgon: (160pts) Same Blood Frenzy as Doombull and Bullgors, but deals d3 mortal wounds on an unmodified 6. Also, he can slay a specific model within 1" after he makes all his attack if he rolls a dice equal or greater than its wounds characteristic, do remember that it's a model so you can chomp on any leader or musician you can get your grubby hands on. This thing is your sledgehammer, with insanely strong attacks, but very slow for a monster. If you manage the charge and a Doombull is nearby, this thing can rip apart whole units, otherwise, it will stop cannonballs with its face for two turns and then die.

Warmachine

• Plagueclaw Catapult: (160pts)It's an indirect firing war machine. You know those. They have a nice range and can stand waaay back. Brutal against big hordes, lame against Monster/Heroes, and subtracts 1 from the target bravery. An average war machine when used to it's fullest potential, and a terrible one when not.

Scenery

• Feculent Gnarlmaw: The cornerstone of your army. No, not really, this isn't Sylvaneth. While these creepy trees are useful, they are by no means mandatory. If you're within 7" of them in the Charge Phase, you can run and charge. This doesn't really help you get out of your territory, but if enemies are standing close to them, you can reach them very quickly. They also, in good Nurgle tradition, deal damage to non-Nurgle units around them. Keep in mind that this only activates once no matter how many Gnarlmaws the opponent is close to, so no making one big grove that melts entire units. Still, a Mortal Wound here and there, while also making you run and charge, is pretty amazing for the low cost of some of those contagion points you'll generate automatically. But they also generate corruption points, meaning it will take less time to summon in more gribbly goodness.

Battalions

Blight Cyst (Found in Chaos Battletome - "Maggotkin of Nurgle" - 140pts min. 840pt., max. 4120pt.)

A Lord of Blights takes 3 units of Blight Kings, up to 6 max. May take a Harbinger of Decay and 0 to 1 sorcerer.

Blight Kings gain Rend -1, all Blight Kings within 3" of your Lord of Blight can shoot his death heads (instead of the default single unit), and nobody benefits from being in cover from attacks made by this Battalion. This is the bread and butter of a Nurgle Mortal Army. Blight Kings are fun on their own, but with the addition of rend on all of their attacks, the Blight Kings become a pretty nasty opponent for anything that likes to wear armor. Especially potent if your Lord of Blights takes the artifact Rustfang which permanently reduces a target unit's Save by -1 for the rest of the game, and it can be used twice per turn (at the beginning of YOUR and YOUR OPPONENT'S combat phase). If you take a Sorcerer with Cloying Quagmire, this becomes a ferocious anti-armor battalion, and will munch the everloving shit out of Stormcast.

Plague Cyst (Found in Chaos Battletome: "Maggotkin of Nurgle", 140pts min. 840pt., max. 4120pt.)

A Lord of Plagues takes 3 Units of Blight Kings, up to 6 max. May take a Harbinger of Decay and 0 to 1 Sorcerer.

Units from the battalion (i.e Blightkings) reroll failed to hit rolls rather than the vanilla reroll 1s to hit from the Wanton Slaughter ability from the Lord of Plagues, they still have to be within range to use this though. In addition, they dish out D3 mortal wounds to every enemy unit within 3" of them on a 6+. If you plan on taking some big 'ol blobs of Blight Kings and making this battalion a 2000pt army on its own, it becomes the AoS Equivalent of spamming Terminators in 40k. The rerolling all failed hit rolls is kinda a big deal, as you're squeezing out every drop of effectiveness from your rendless Blight Kings who are relying purely on their bulk damage and exploding 6s. Rerolling failed hits also gives you more chances for exploding 6s. A unit of 5 Blight Kings is usually getting 20-25 attacks per turn factoring in exploding sixes. This "reroll all failed hits" ability has been able to squeeze this to 30+, which is double their base attacks value of 15. This is a very lethal tactic for facing down horde armies with very weak armor saves.

Affliction Cyst (Found in Chaos Battletome: "Maggotkin of Nurgle", 140pts min. 1100pt., max. 8360pt.)

A Lord of Affliction takes 3 Units of Blight Lords, up to 6 max.

The command ability of the Lord applies to all units in this battalion, not just one, and you can deep strike as many units you want from this battalion and have to set them up at the end of your first movement phase more than 9 inches from an enemy unit. Unless your planning on building your army around Blight Lords this really ain't worth it, since one half of the benefits require the Lord of Affliction to be your general which is only useful if you build your army around the bug knights.

Blightguard (Found in Grand Alliance: Chaos - -pts min. 1020pt., max. 3080pt.)

A Lord of Plagues and a Rotbringers Sorcerer take 4 units of Putrid Blightkings.

Everyone can reroll every 1 to wound and gets a permanent -1 to hit (shooting and combat) debuff to attackers. Note that the Rotbringer Sorcerer warscroll has been renamed to Sorcerer, which arguably falls foul of the FAQ'd 'unit name' requirement for battalions. (Anyone know if this is still legal in Matched Play?)

Blighted Warband (Found in "Realmgate Wars" - min. 940pt., max. 3100pt. Realmgate Wars Battalions are illegal in Matched Play)

A Lord of Plagues takes 4 units of Putrid Blightkings and 2 Chaos Spawn.

All enemies have a penalty to hit against these units, and have a chance to ignore (mortal wounds).

Torglug's Foulblessed (Found in "Balance of Power" - min. 640pt., max. 2260pt. Realmgate Wars Battalions are illegal in Matched Play)

A Lord of Plagues 3 units of Putrid Blightkings.

The Lord re-rolls to wound, and gains additional damage to his weapon, and heals an additional wound. The Blightkings get a minor bonus to save rolls if they are near the Lord, and are immune to Battleshock if within LoS.

Bloab's Swarmbrothers (Found in "Godbeasts" - min. pt., max. pt. Realmgate Wars Battalions are illegal in Matched Play)

Bloab Rotspawned takes some friends, meaning 2 units of Putrid Blightkings and 2 units of Plague Drones.

Bloab can choose to deflect damage onto his minions (on a 4+), and enemy units recieve a -1 to wound when near the battalion

Nurgle's Deluge (Found in "The Quest for Ghal Maraz" - min. 680pt., max. 1940pt. Realmgate Wars Battalions are illegal in Matched Play)

Morbidex Twiceborn, a unit of Blightkings and 3 units of Nurglings.

The nurglings can 'rain' onto the battlefield, and do damage in the shooting phase for each unit 'rained' unto the battlefield.

Nurgle´s Menagerie (Found in Chaos Battletome - "Maggotkin of Nurgle" - 180pts min. 720pt., max. 4660pt.)

Horticulous Slimux, 3 units of Beasts of Nurgle. You may also take between 0-3 units of any combination of Plague Drones, Beasts of Nurgle or Nurglings.

Horticulous Slimux can use his Cultivating the Garden of Nurgle ability in EACH of your hero phases instead of only once per battle. In addition, when he does so, the Feculent Gnarlmaw can be set up within 3" of any unit from this battalion instead of being set up within 3" of Horticolous Slimux. The enemy subtracts 1 from the Bravery characteristic while within 14" of 7 or more models from this battalion. This is a serious money-grabber battalion due to the number of trees you need to buy. However, it does generate a lot of contagion points, over a couple of turns, thus forcing you to buy EVEN more Daemons and Gnarlmaws. That said, it IS effective since Beasts are plenty of scary already and the trees can practically blanket the board by the end.

Thricefold Befoulment (Found in Chaos Battletome - "Maggotkin of Nurgle" - 60pts min. 1140pt., max. 1320pt.)

Three Great Unclean Ones of any type, including Rotigus and Exalted Great Unclean Ones.

Reroll hit rolls of one when within 14" of another unit in this battalion, and wound rolls of one when within 14" of two units from this battalion. In addition, Plague Wind does 2d3 wounds if cast within 7" of another model from this battalion, and 3d3 if cast within 7" of two models from this battalion. Expensive but powerful. Give Bileblade and Tome of a Thousand Poxes to whoever's on Plague Wind duty, if not to guarantee it then to stop the inevitable unbinding attempts. Note that this does not increase the healing this spell does.

Pestilent Throng (Found in Beast of Chaos 200pts, Min 470.pt. Max -pt.)

1-4 combination of Beastlord, Dragon ogor Shaggoth, Doombull, Great Bray Shaman; 3-7 combination of Bestigors, and Gors, Ungors, Ungor raiders; 0-7 combination of Bullgors Centigors, Dragon Ogors, or Tuskgor Chariots; 0-2 combination of Cygors or Ghorgons.

Give all units in this Battalion the Nurgle Keyword and when one of the Battalion units are destroyed, enemy units within 7" take a mortal wound on a 2+. Faster than most Nurgle Choices, Letting them Rush into melee faster to make use of use of Nurglish melee buffs and mortal wound abilities. Bullgors are a faster alternative to Plague Orgors.

Tallyband of Nurgle (160 pts, Min 790.pt. Max 7420 pt.)

0-1 GUO,1-3 heralds of Nurgle, 4-7 units of plague bearers or Plague drones, 0-3 of beasts of Nurgle or nurglings.

At the start of your hero phase, you heal 1 wound to each unit on the battlefield or resurrect D3 modells to plague bearers. In Addition, if the number of plague bearers and plague drones at the start of the battle is 7 you get a contagion point in each of your hero phases.

The Blessed Sons (40 pts, Min. pt. Max pt.)

1 Plague Cyst that includes a Sorcerer, Harbinger of Decay, and at least 4 Putrid Blight Kings; 0-6 additional warscroll battalions chosen among; Plague Cyst, Blight Cyst, Affliction Cyst.

Units in this battalion do not have to take battleshock tests while they have 7 or more models.

Reroll Save rolls of 1 for the battalion.

Plaguetouched Warband (Found in Slaves to Darkness 180pts, Min 900pts, Max -pts)

1 Mortal STD Nurgle Hero, 7 Mortal STD units with Mark of Nurgle.

Unmodified wound rolls of 6 on attacks targeting units from this Battalion result in the attacker taking 1 mortal wound. Also, in your hero phase, pick an enemy target within 1" of any unit in the battalion. On a 3+, that enemy unit takes D3 MW. This ability is great on large blocks of Chaos Marauders. Coupled with a Glottkin's unique spell to add 1 wound for a unit, and they become a defensive unit that also a tarpit and kicks back mortal wounds as they take damage.

Super Battalions

The Blessed Sons (Found in Chaos Battletome - "Maggotkin of Nurgle" 40pts min. 1460pts.; Max. none.)

One Plague Cyst with that includes a Sorcerer, Harbinger of Decay and at least 4 units of Blight Kings. Can include up to 6 of any of the cyst battalions and any Rotbringer unit you want on top of that, no limit.

While a unit has 7 or more models, it does not have to take battleshock tests and re-roll save rolls of 1 for models in this battalion. If your taking a Blight Cyst with all the fixings anyway, this can help a rather decent amount as the re-rolls can save a decent helping of wounds keep models alive to be healed by a myriad of sources. The battleshock part doesn't help at all really since you already have high bravery and most likely won't lose enough models to be able of losing anyone to it unless the unit is focused on everything the enemy has.

The Munificent Wanderers Found in Chaos Battletome: - "Maggotkin of Nurgle" 180pts min. 2020.; max. none.

One Great Unclean One designated Thrombolhox the Giving and 2 Tallybands of Nurgle. Can include up to 5 additional Tallybands and any other Nurgle Daemon you want on top of that, no limit.

During the Rampant Disease stage of the Cycle of Corruption enemy units within 14 inches of a unit from this battalion suffer d6 mortal wounds. If Thrombolhox the Giving is on the field, d6 enemy units are afflicted by the Rampant Disease that d3. If your taking This much anyway, its not too much of a price to pay and you can tack on a lot of mortal wounds, especially if you can keep yourself on the Rampant Disease stage through Foul Regenesis, but you'll need to put the stage to the one before Rampant Disease as the wounds happen then and by the time spellcasting starts its already passed.

Army Building

Buying tips

Chaos Daemons should be among the easier and cheaper armies to collect, thanks to the Start Collecting! kits. Those boxes have everything you could possibly want except for their Greater Daemons (a fair and valid business method) and surely you will never want to buy the kits that those contain ever again when you can get two or more kits with nifty discounts.

You can also add the fact they are not extremely diverse like other factions, they have simpler color schemes (damn, just paint them green or bone and add some dark shades and you're ready to go), and are miniatures perfectly compatible with 40K.

For Nurglesque Daemons, you get a unit of 10 Plaguebearers, 3 Plague Drones, 3 Nurglings, and a Herald. All of this for £55 (or your local equivalent) per box, saving £28.50 in the process. Just buy as many SC! kits as you require and the big fat heroes you want. Done.

Allied Armies

Slaves to Darkness is the obvious choice here as you can keep the NURGLE MORTAL allegiance. But, if NURGLE is enough for you, consider The Clans Pestilens.

Since the NURGLE keyword is now enough for Putrid Blightkings to be battleline you can add any unit with the NURGLE keyword without spending points for allies. Save those points for units that unable to gain the keyword (IE: mostly the other gods, or gargants).

Mercenary Companies

• Blacksmoke Battery: Chaos Dorfs with artillery but not really Chaos Dorfs.
• Greyfyrd:
• Grugg Brothers: Perfect excuse to create some sick looking plague giants. A bit of a price sink if you go for all three, but if the ability to Reroll failed hits sounds good enough, then have at it!
• Gutstuffers: They can re-roll charge rolls but they are forced to charge at the closest enemy unit within 12". It's your call if you want to use this company.
• Nimyard’s Rough-Riders: Gives you some speed and ranged firepower if you wanna distract enemies from the slow moving disease ridden iceberg that is your battle line.
• Order of the Blood-Drenched Rose: Remember how in the World-that-was Isabella Von Carsteain resurrect as a serf of nurgle while being possessed by a demon? You can bring her back as a vampire lord, also followed by a bunch of other vampires! The blood knights can be quite useful in your slow army for go around and charge your enemy hard while also blocked in a fight against your immortal hordes.
• Rampagers:
• Skroug’s Menagerie:
• Sons of the Lichemaster:
• Tenebrous Court:

Age of Sigmar Tactics Articles
General Tactics	Tactics Realm Of Battle Malign Sorcery Path to Glory Skirmish
Order	Cities of Sigmar Daughters of Khaine Fyreslayers Idoneth Deepkin Kharadron Overlords Lumineth Realm-Lords Seraphon Stormcast Eternals Sylvaneth
Chaos	Beasts Of Chaos Blades of Khorne Disciples of Tzeentch Hedonites of Slaanesh Maggotkin of Nurgle Skaven Slaves to Darkness
Death	Flesh-Eater Courts Nighthaunt Ossiarch Bonereapers Soulblight Gravelords
Destruction	Gloomspite Gitz Ogor Mawtribes Orruk Warclans Sons of Behemat
Others	Monstrous Arcanum Legends Old Rules