With the release of the Maggotkin of Nurgle book, I’m going to be scouring the internet for information on the book and presenting it to you over the next 7 days, so that you don’t have to (but we all know you will!).
I’ve already covered:
- Day 1 – The Wheel
- Day 2 – Grand Strategies & Battle Tactics
- Day 3 – Spells
- Day 4 – Command Traits
- Day 5 – Allegiance Abilities
- Day 6 – Summoning
- Day 7 – Conclusions
It’s the seventh and final day, so I’ll be giving an overview of the Maggotkin of Nurgle.
There will be definitely be players of Nurgle from the previous book who are disappointed, and I understand that disappointment. The previous book was fast, could hit hard, and had great survivability, but it wasn’t a Tier S army, and would only go 5-0 in the hands of very experienced players – so it wasn’t setting the scene alight.
The Maggotkin have lost that speed, and are now 4″/5″ on most of their foot troops with no teleporting options.
The Plaguebearers have also changed significantly but are 2 wounds (which is a great improvement), going to 6+ save – which in the current Meta isn’t too much of a disadvantage – but retaining their 1″ reach. They provide a different option to Nurgle and should be a good anvil for the Nurgle army.
The disease tokens – whilst being additional admin – are a great new rule for Nurgle and very thematic. The enemy slowly dying because of Nurgle’s Rot is surely something we all want to see. Will have to wait and see if the admin just gets too annoying!
Perhaps the largest improvement is the 5+ ward save for the mortals in the book (joining the daemons with their aftersave). This should make more mortal armies appear on the scene which would be great for the modelling, painting and different gaming challenges. The Blightkings will need play to see if they have any potential, but the Blightlords on Plague Drones are wonderful models and would definitely find a way into a Nurgle army if I were to play one.
So things have definitely changed, and the army now plays differently. Strangely players new to Nurgle may find it easier to play, whereas those with existing armies may have more difficulty getting used to the changed playstyle.
I think they are going to sit well alongside the Kruleboyz in power level, sit at 2-3/3-2 in tournaments with the occasional 4-1 and 5-0 possible with a good draw and in the hands of an experienced player. As long as Games Workshop continue to reduce the overall power level of new books Nurgle should be well positioned in the ‘fat-middle’… and that’s definitely appropriate for Grandfather Nurgle!
Thank you for reading my thoughts and comments over the last 7 days. I’ve enjoyed finding out about potential new opponents and looking at the 3rd AOS3 book released by Games Workshop.
— Declan
How do you feel about Bloab Rotspawned, sitting at 300 points and only a 1 cast wizard?
I know he’s +1 to cast and unbind, but seems low value compared to the other book casters.
I haven’t seen the warscrolls in detail as no book yet. Would need to see what else he could do to justify the 300 point mark.