Nurgle Defensive setup

[quozl]

Heya lads,

I played Chaos to victory in the first 6 month season of our perpetual ladder.
As they're now pretty killy, they're really unsuited to friendlies, so I'd say they're semi-retired.

I'm playing Vamps, Underworld, and Nurgle in the new season, and I'm having trouble coming up with a defensive formation for the Nurgle. One for use against agility/speed teams.

With Chaos what I typically did was:

Code: Select all

* * * *|* * W G W * *|* * * *
* * ? *|W * * * * * W|* * S *
* 4 * *|* A * * * A *|* M * *
* * * *|* * * * * * *|* * * *

W are warriors. The two on the line have block,guard,stand-firm.
G is a guard,block,standfirm beastman.

4 is a block S4 beastman, a great corner.
S is a side-step, block, guard beastman - an even better corner imo.
M is the minotaur, protected against blitzs, especially chain-saws
A are the anti-agility beastmen. One is wrestle/tackle/tail, the other is block/tackle/MB

This makes it very hard for agility teams to break a hole to flood the back-field. As the warriors are fairly central, and speed 5, they can get involved turn 1, and the beastmen in the wide-zones can get involved very quickly too with their speed 6.

The problem is that with Nurgle, the warriors are speed 4, and I have no side-step.

What I've come up with is:

Code: Select all

* * *|* * * R W R * * *|* * *
* * W|* W * * * * * P *|W * *
* P *|* * P * * * B * *|* P *
* * *|* * * * * * * * *|* * *

W is Nurgle warrior
R is rotter
P is pestigore
B is the Beast of Nurgle

Until I can get some side-step the corners are very vulnerable. A single guard players lets my opponent get a 2dice block on them that clears the entire side-line.
The warriors in the wide-zone make me a bit nervous - if my opponents go down a side line, the warrior on the other side is out of it for two complete turns.

I would like to have the BoN more centrally located. However if I put him in the middle, he won't get to tentacle either side-line on turn 1, so I figure I may as well create a side the opponent will avoid. Down side is the BoN is out of things for sure on the other side - hence why I've put 2 warriors over there.

Any suggestions? I could move the two warriors to the corners, making it MUCH harder to blitz and clear the side-line. Then they're even further from being involved though. I think it has to be done sadly.

At the moment I've got block on most positionals, except for a wrestle pestigor. Would love a side-step pestigor to go asymetrical as per the chaos setup.

[Carnis]

Think standard orc defence works splendid on a Nurgle side, as your warriors are really unfavoured candidates for blitzes (S4, foul appearance). And most of your pestigors will be in blitzing range for T1. Putting the beast on the LOS is not the most optimal solution versus every team, but it is against many (especially after stand firm).

Code: Select all

* * * *|* * R B R * *|* * * *
* * P *|* W * * * W *|* P * *
* W * *|P * * * * * P|* * W *
* * * *|* * * * * * *|* * * *

If you get sidestep or Sfirm warriors, you can make it more waterproof. Personally, I'd invest in more bashy/blocky skills though.

Isn't nurgle just basicly chaos on steroids, if you already played one team why not start over with something different, though?

[mattgslater]

I don't particularly go for putting the Beast on the line unless a) he has Guard or SF, and b) you intend to support him with Warriors. Remember that five of your front seven have to be Warriors or the Beast, as they're too slow for outside duty, until you develop the improvements needed to dictate a strong side.

The defense you posted as a test defense doesn't have enough columns in the wide zones. You'll need to revisit it. That Chaos defensive setup you posted is one of the toughest things in BB, by the way: I've killed leagues with very similar Orc setups. That one SS player just totally reworks the game.

Nurgle does it well, too... get a Pestigor with SS (S), a couple Warriors with Block and at least one with Guard (G), and a Beast with SF and/or Guard, and you've got this:

Code: Select all

- - - -|- - W G B - -|- - - -
- - P -|- W - - - - P|- - S -
- - - -|R - - - - W -|- P - -
- P - -|- - - - - - -|- - - -

Or

- - - -|- - W G W - -|- - - -
- - P -|- W - - - - P|- - S -
- R - -|P - - - - B -|- P - -

depending on what you're up against.

[quozl]

Ta, Carnis. I have pretty developed teams of Chaos, Vampires, Underworld, Dark-Elves, Wood-elves, Necromantic, and Chaos Dwarves.

I've got Skaven, Chaos Pact, and Nurgle a few games in. So I've got plenty of variety, don't worry

A rather worrying 112 ladder games of bloodbowl since last september!

And Mattgslater, I totally agree about the one side-stepper making a massive difference. I'm hoping to get one real soon! I'd even consider taking a side-stepping rotter tbh while waiting for a double on a pestigor.

Until I get that side-stepper, I'll have to go with something along the lines of Carnis's orc defense. I wont put the beast on the line though, he's too good to go there imo - it's important to have him free to move turn1. My BoN is block/stand-firm, he's beautiful