New Nurgle team

[narg]

I started a new Nurgle team with which I played one game (3 warriors, 3 pestigors, 5 rotters & 3 rerolls).

They're pretty terrible.

Any advice on how to deal with the first 10 games? The team is hard to play and is very turnover prone as it lacks all skills, the warriors are slow and not very agile and the rotters are born to die so I'm left with only three players to play ball.

What are the best five first skills for the team? Block across the board or is it more subtle? I plan to give Wrestle to the Rotters but maybe not at the start - if one gets an early skill he'll become temporarily my main blitzer. I guess I will also have to give sure hands to a player at some stage but I wonder whether it's really better than Block in the first few skills.

[Gaixo]

There is a 90-page thread about Nurgle just below this one. It's got everything you ask for and more.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Sadly you just have to suck for ages with nurgle to start with.I always start with the beast so i can get 3d mb blocks every turn and hope to get lucky. block 1st on everyone short term.

[narg]

Right, I went through the first 40 pages and then I gave up. It would be really great if an experienced Nurgle player went through the trouble of writing a 5-page playbook that summarized the thread, it's now just too long.

To summarize:
- Block first on the warriors unless you get +ST, ignore other stat increases and doubles;
- Wrestle first on the rotters, ignore stat increases unless it's +ST, ignore doubles or take dodge as the rotters are just meant to take blows. Carnis also recommends taking dirty player on the first one who skills up but I'm not going to do that because I only have 11 players for the moment.
- Block first on the pestigors unless you get a stat increase or a double, in which case you take dodge to be followed by sure hands.

So block across the board is a good approximation.

And the strategy to deal with the fact that they lack all skills and are turnover-prone seems to be: pray and hope for the best, and if you can, play against teams with a higher TV to get more re-rolls as inducements.

[Chris]

Agree bar rotter - dirty player first to deal with blodgers in case you manage to floor one, kick on the second because you can put pressure on despite slow move.
On the 3rd or 4th pest I would take wrestle to build an interceptor player.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

I think I shall make a Nurgz playbook.

[narg]

I think I shall make a Nurgz playbook.

YES
Looking forward to it!
Craig's Nurgle playbook on Plasmoid's website is okay but I don't think it's state-of-the-art. For example he advocates Extra Arms over Sure Hands. Yes with Extra Arms you get a miniature that looks cool but in my opinion the main use of Sure Hands isn't even to pick up the ball, it's to protect against strip ball.

[Gaixo]

If you want some quick advice, it looks like you might be going about things with the wrong mindset. This is illustrated in the team you've selected. If you want to have a bunch of beastmen, you're better off just running a Chaos team. The warriors and the beast are the heart of a Nurgle team, and you ought to start off with all of them. Disturbing presence, foul appearance and tentacles are the only advantages that a Nurgle team has to start out with, and you need to maximize them.

Some of the best advice in that thread is that you ought to be playing for a 1-0 victory. To me, that means you want to avoid any ambitious or opportunistic moves on offense or defense, and move as carefully as possible no matter what happens.

[narg]

If you want some quick advice, it looks like you might be going about things with the wrong mindset. This is illustrated in the team you've selected.

Sure that's possible, but there wasn't a consensus in the thread and at least one experienced Nurgle player said that the best starting team had three rerolls, and you can't have 4 warriors, a beast and 3 rerolls. The other possible start with 3 rerolls would have been 2 warriors and 1 beast but I thought that 3 warriors would be more reliable.

I may be wrong but as I see it the two most important roles are the ball carrier and the slayer, and the Pestigor is better at both.

I'm probably playing Nurgle like a Chaos team, I must admit I'm not basing my play on Foul Appearance and Disturbing Presence.

[Gaixo]

Yeah, I guess we have a fundamental disagreement, as I didn't develop a reliable slayer until I was 15 games in.

My starting squad was:
1 Beast
4 Warriors
1 Pestigor
5 Rotters
2 Rerolls
If I had to restart them, I don't think I would change that. By the time you start buying extra pestigors (which took me forever, as my beast died in the first game), you know how to get by without them and they feel like a great luxury. Even better, your warriors are likely to have leveled up by that time, as they have a better shot at the MVPs and are doing most of the hitting.

[JaM]

That roster would be my preferance too.

Get the pest skilled up, get some skills on the rotters an the warriors, buy more pests, replace rotters if needed, etc. etc.
Get a 3rd reroll! that too is important.

Personally I like kick on a rotter (apart from block and/or tackle), and I do like KoR on one pest. But not as afirst skill. I prefer sure hands, followed by block. After that KoR, and a 2nd pest.
KoR lets you at least put a TZ on the ball, but speeds up the cage too. And makes sure you un-pressure your pest to pick up the ball before the opponent is bouncing through your line(s). If that makes sense.
In short, I am a fan of the skill, and will probably make 1 player/thrower type per team witht he skill. Maybe not on ALL my teams, but I certainly like it.

[Smeborg]

Narg - I hope to write a Nurgle playbook some time this year. Here is a summary of my preferred skill development paths (there are changes to my views over time, especially in skill order):

Beast: B-Tackle, S-Firm, Guard. Grab, Jugs (or Jugs, Grab), M-Block or T-Skull. Doubles: Dodge, Block (or Block, Dodge). Stats: +ST, consider +MA. Note: skill path may be quite variable if doubles and/or stat increases intervene.

4 Warriors: Block, S-Firm, Guard, Tentacles, Grab, B-Tackle. Doubles: ignore (but consider Dodge as a late skill). Stats: +ST.

3 Pestigor Blitzers: Wrestle, Fend, Tackle, 2-Heads, Pro, X-Arms. Doubles: S-Step, J-Up. Stats: +ST, +AG, consider +MA (basic skills may be better).

1 Pestigor Runner: S-Hands, Block, K-Ret, X-Arms, Fend, F-App. Doubles: S-Feet, Sprint, consider Dodge. Note: skill path may be quite variable if doubles and/or stat increases intervene. Tackle can be a good late skill on a Pest with stat increases (to make him handy on defense).

5 Rotters: Block, Fend, F-App. Doubles: Guard. Stats: +AV, consider +ST (but Guard may be better). Note: I have never got a Rotter to 3 skill advances.

Sure Hands is an important skill, it saves precious re-rolls. I find that the team is quite weak without the Beast. 1-0 is the signature score for the team. Score when you can, do not stall unnecessarily, and trust to your defense. Do not try to do too much in your turn, take big risks only on the last action or two. Get used to the idea that the team works better in the opponent's turn than in your own. Use the teams skills (Tentacles, F-App, lots of Fend/S-Firm) to control ever more space. Force your opponent to roll dice at odds which get worse for him each turn. The resulting play is wild and messy for both players - get used to it and enjoy the mayhem.

All the best.

[RogueThirteen]

I prefer to not take Break Tackle on loner Big Guys -- while there's huge advantage in moving a Beast or Kroxigor to a spot where they can most aptly serve as roadblock, I don't like having to make two back-to-back 2+ rolls with a Loner piece (especially when that second 2+ roll risks turnover).

There's only about a 2/3 chance you'll successfully be able to move that Big Guy where you want.

[Hitonagashi]

I prefer to not take Break Tackle on loner Big Guys -- while there's huge advantage in moving a Beast or Kroxigor to a spot where they can most aptly serve as roadblock, I don't like having to make two back-to-back 2+ rolls with a Loner piece (especially when that second 2+ roll risks turnover).

There's only about a 2/3 chance you'll successfully be able to move that Big Guy where you want.

+1. I say this all the time to people...break tackle is such a risky skill choice.

I'm not a veteran Nurgle coach, but from other race experience, this is how I'd develop it in a balanced league with a limited number of games:

Beast: Guard, Stand Firm, Grab, double?
Warriors: Tentacles, Block, Guard (go block first if league isn't elf heavy, and don't block with them)
2 killer Pestigors: one Block/MB/Claw (add PO if you get enough games), one elfslayer: Block/MB/Tackle.
1 ball carrier pests: 2-heads, Sure Hands, Block, Fend
1 general purpose pest: Skill to face whatever you face the most, or whichever coach is the best opponent. Might need extra tackle on this one.
1x Rotter: Dirty Player
Other Rotters: Wrestle/Fend

[narg]

Narg - I hope to write a Nurgle playbook some time this year.

Great! You and Jimmy seem to have a completely different take on it so they should both be interesting.

I must say that I'm more of the Jimmy / Carnis school of playing: teams are different but the game is the same for all, so for example as you can do one blitz per turn, you may as well optimize it and develop one slayer in every team (I even do that with pro-elves so I'm definitely not going to skip on the slayer in a Nurgle team). I know you've got an excellent track record as a Nurgle coach but taking Wrestle and Fend on a strength-access player that can become a slayer really looks like a waste to me.

Break tackle on the Beast: you say "don't take risks with Nurgle" and then you advocate Break tackle as a first skill on a player who is Very Stupid and Loner. I don't get it. In the thread people mentioned the strategy of pushing opposing players in the beast's tackle zones and I thought that was very smart; Stand Firm is the best for that. I'm not saying it's wrong but really, for stuff that's counter-intuitive like that I think that in your playbook you should write a paragraph or two to explain the rationale and why break tackle is better (I don't think the math is on your side on this one, see RogueThirteen's comment).

Tentacles on the warrior: I thought that the skill was only great on players with ST5? Isn't it subpar on ST4? Same, in your playbook you should back it up with some math to prove it really is good.

Overall, the "slayer" style is easy to understand: these players have access to strength and mutations, you can build them into perfect killers, and when you outnumber the opponent it's easier to score. I don't get at all the "stimy" strategy, if you write a playbook could you devote a section of it to explaining the strategy? I think I tried what you call "stimy" with orcs, with lots of stand firm and fend, but it takes forever to get all these skills and in the end I didn't think it was worth it, regular bashy skills such as guard or mighty blow would have been better - as far as I know the different build doesn't have a huge impact on the win/loss rate, but you make more casualties and therefore skill up faster.