Looking for good Nurgle resources/advice

[Craigtw]

I've not played Nurgle, but I have a whole lot of experience with some similar teams

Matt - I've played most of the teams, and believe me, Nurgle resemble the other teams very little in the way they play. Because their offense is weak, they are often forced to score when other teams might stall. This makes them a ST team that plays two thirds of the game on defense - truly odd. In a 6-game tournament with Nurgle, I will typically manage only one 7 or 8 turn drive in the classic Orc/Dwarf manner - a very low frequency. When I started playing Nurgle (say the first 2-3 years) I made many mistakes by assuming that they would play and/or develop like other teams that I have played.

The classic Nurgle victory is 1-0. Sometimes they will get 2-1 or 2-0.

The Nurgle offense is so weak that you do not have the luxury most teams have of deciding who will get the TD. There is no realistic prospect of getting the ball to the Warriors other than by luck or desperation. You have to expect that the Warriors will skill up slowly and plan their build accordingly.

Nurgle earn fewer SPPs than other teams on average (low TD average, fewer CAS than slayer teams). They also lose a huge proportion of earned SPPs (because of Decay). You should expect team development to be more uneven and less easily controlled than for other teams. The skill development plan should take this into account (i.e. simplicity is best, build generalists rather than specialists).

Hope that helps. A bit difficult to put in a nutshell - I feel that playbook coming on again!

For what it's worth, I agree with everything he's said!

[Carnis]

I've not played Nurgle, but I have a whole lot of experience with some similar teams

Matt - I've played most of the teams, and believe me, Nurgle resemble the other teams very little in the way they play. Because their offense is weak, they are often forced to score when other teams might stall. This makes them a ST team that plays two thirds of the game on defense - truly odd. In a 6-game tournament with Nurgle, I will typically manage only one 7 or 8 turn drive in the classic Orc/Dwarf manner - a very low frequency. When I started playing Nurgle (say the first 2-3 years) I made many mistakes by assuming that they would play and/or develop like other teams that I have played.

The classic Nurgle victory is 1-0. Sometimes they will get 2-1 or 2-0.

The Nurgle offense is so weak that you do not have the luxury most teams have of deciding who will get the TD. There is no realistic prospect of getting the ball to the Warriors other than by luck or desperation. You have to expect that the Warriors will skill up slowly and plan their build accordingly.

Nurgle earn fewer SPPs than other teams on average (low TD average, fewer CAS than slayer teams). They also lose a huge proportion of earned SPPs (because of Decay). You should expect team development to be more uneven and less easily controlled than for other teams. The skill development plan should take this into account (i.e. simplicity is best, build generalists rather than specialists).

Hope that helps. A bit difficult to put in a nutshell - I feel that playbook coming on again!

For what it's worth, I agree with everything he's said!

And I disagree.

Nurgle's just got a slow start (4 less block and 4 less armor than orcs + a 1M team can't afford the starting team due to ridiculous prices).

[Craigtw]

And I disagree.

Nurgle's just got a slow start (4 less block and 4 less armor than orcs + a 1M team can't afford the starting team due to ridiculous prices).

We disagree... what a surprise!

I do not know how you can realistically compare orcs to Nurgle. Besides the very surface connection of the movement scores and four guys with ST4, the similarities really end there:
[*]the orcs move faster with up to eight players who can move 6 squares
[*]the goblins with Stunty open up whole new strategic opportunities
[*]the lack of decay on the linemen makes a HUGE difference to the development of the team
[*]the orcs can have a maximum of 2 players with AV8 and 4 with AV7, the Nurgle only has a maximum of 5 on the whole team who can get to AV9, (couple that with the Rotters decay and we are back to the development issues)
[*]the troll is a roadblock to be placed on the centre of the LOS - the BON is more useful in a more strategic role, and should not be tied up on the LOS
[*]the troll/gobbo one-turn TD can work for orcs in a pinch, Nurgle doesn't have that
[*]the lack of block and lower armour on the Nurgle team means that on defense they are less successful when approaching aggressively than the orcs. They excel at stymying the opposition through the Disturbing Presence, Tentacles and Foul Appearance.

I think any coach who tries to coach Nurgle like they would coach Orcs is in for a rough go of it.

[mattgslater]

Of course Nurgle aren't Orcs. If they were, they wouldn't have their own roster. Duh. I also see the relative disadvantage Nurgle teams are at. But the rules are not somehow different for a Nurgle team like they are for, say, Ogres (I use Ogres, because that's the only exception to the rules of the cage-game, where a TZ isn't almost always just a TZ). You can in fact protect your core players with Rotters. Heck, they do it better than Halflings, and those guys can pull off dedicated scores.... Immediately, in the here-and-now of having 11 guys, they're like any AV8 player you wouldn't APO. Receiving a handoff with a Nurgle Warrior is only different from receiving with a BOB in that the guys protecting your Nurgle Warrior are linemen rather than Blitzers. I'd love an explanation as to how it's harder to funnel a TD to a NW than it is to a Zombie, 'cause even the worst coach in my league does that stuff all the time. Not only that, but the six or seven MA5+ players you field are no less likely to carry in the ball than would the same number of other MA5-6 AG3 schmoes.

Team management principles do vary a little here and there to account for relative strengths and weaknesses, but not that much. With any team, success is a function of development. In the case of Nurgle, this particularly means developing Warriors and Pestigors, as Rotters don't live long. Developing Pestigors is easier than developing Warriors, but any player with MA4 and AG2 can be given the ball from time to time. You don't have to retrieve with your scorer; you don't have to march him downfield all the time, though a BOB is a good carrier in a rookie game, and a Warrior is a BOB with Foul Appearance and less support. You can make him your cage-corner. This means you must master the art of midfield/downfield caging, though: BOBs don't do well in the backfield. Fortunately you have a pretty high-ST side with ST4 blitzers and some real line-clearing potential (for all its problems) and that's a good start.

[Craigtw]

I'd love an explanation as to how it's harder to funnel a TD to a NW than it is to a Zombie,

If I were to argue for the sake of arguing, then I would say that it is probably because the zombies are more numerous on the undead teams so you have more options to hand off to. Also, the Nurgle has to try to use the warriors as much as possible for the cage. While it is still possible that you could hand off to the Warrior at the very end of the drive, unless you have a very secure handle on the other team's players (which given Nurgle's lack of effective blocking can be difficult), then the move is not recommended.

But I understand the spirit of what you are trying to say. Justing rattlin' yer chain!

[mattgslater]

You're right in that you do need Warriors to cage properly. For this reason, you should cage at about midfield. Again, you don't have to get the ball right to a Warrior, but on offense this is easy against a ST3 d-line. Just use some Rotters to push the line on down. If you do a good job of positioning your Warriors on defense, they'll frequently end up near the ball when it comes clear. You may have to block with the Warriors, of course, as you have to leave an extra man deep... how highly do you prioritize Kick-Off Return on a Rotter? It would seem to me that Rotters are a good place to stash utility G skills, because you don't really have any percentage in caring what happens to them.

Oh, and I don't know about you, but I tend to start two or three Zombies (and a Skeleton) on any Undead team, and three or four on a Necromantic team. I might have more, but they're on the bench. (Technically, they're not "benchwarmers" — benchsoilers?)

[Smeborg]

Matt - if you want to pursue the comparison between Orcs and Nurgle, let me ask you how you think an Orc team with the following handicaps would play against another Orc team:

-1AV on half the team.
Take away all starting Block.
Take away all starting ball movement skills (S-Hands, Pass)
Reduce the number of Team Re-rolls
Reduce the number of starting positional players
Take away (say) one third of SPPs earned from time to time
Give your opponent some inducements

Now I suggest that any reasonable person would agree that these handicaps, taken together, amount to a disadvantage of sufficient magnitude that a strategy of trying to play and/or develop Nurgle in the style of Orcs may not necessarily succeed.

But before this debate goes on for ever, may I be so bold as to suggest you need to actually play Nurgle a bit? You may be surprised by what you find. I was.

All the best.

[mattgslater]

Chaos Dwarfs might actually be a better analogy, except that instead of 6 Dwarfs it's 4 BOBs. It's hard to maintain the guys who develop the fastest, and they don't start with skills. All I'm saying is that a Lino picks up and throws to a Blitzer on the same odds that a Rotter throws to a Pest (barring Extra Arms), and a BOB is similar to a Nurgle CW when it comes to ball-handling. It almost doesn't matter what team you're talking about. They're all very distinct, but they're also all rolling the same d6s to earn their SPP with only a few variations in odds, they're still forcing the same die rolls when they screen up and they're still playing on the same pitch.

I've played all-lineman teams before. Not just elves, either: Hobgoblins, Humans, Orcs. It really isn't any different from playing with a loaded roster, just a little harder. There's no magic wand of suckiness that was waved over the Nurgle roster, dooming its players to slow development: they're a slow, clumsy team that starts out behind on the skill curve and develops like a lower-AV team than they play like on the field. But you can win with ANYTHING, and you can develop any AG2+ player with hands, on any team, if you want it badly enough. Fortunately, the best way to win (scoring TDs) is also the best way to develop.

[Smeborg]

Matt, I am not sure this discussion is going anywhere of great interest (!), but I will add a couple of experience-based points.

(1) Handing the ball to a Warrior on a Nurgle team is different to handing the ball to an AG2 player on other teams, because:

- You are less likely to be able to afford a re-roll for this manoeuvre (that's maneuver to you, I think). Indeed, you will typically not have a re-roll left at this point (because the team comes with zero re-roll skills and no Block).

- Nurgle score fewer TDs than any non-joke team that I have played (I was not exaggerating when I said above that 1-0 is the "classic" Nurgle victory). Therefore any time you attempt a hand-off to a Warrior, you are likely to be risking the match result on a 50/50 or 75/25 dice roll.

(2) Nurgle gain SPPs at a slower rate than any non-joke team that I have played (that's simply my experience over several years). They also lose SPPs at a faster rate than perhaps any team in LRB6 (since Stunty has improved). This is because any CAS on a Rotter has a 5 in 9 chance of being Dead or SI (because of Decay), with no remedy available. Decay also means that any time a Rotter is a CAS, he has only a 1 in 4 chance of playing in the next match. This makes them poor candidates, IMO, for "team" skills such as Kick or even Sure Hands.

(3) Lastly, I can't meaningfully comment on what goes on in your league, but I can only say that in 10 years of BB, I have yet to play in a league where coaches have had the luxury of giving the ball to the likes of Zombies (other than on rare occasions) without jeopardising the match result and their team's league standing. It seems that we inhabit rather different, if parallel, BB universes(!).

All the best

[Carnis]

I'm actually with Smeborg on this one. Although I have been rather successful in our local league with my nurgle, it hasn't been due to plethora of TDs. I've averaged 1,45 TDs although I've won 65% of my games + drawn some 15% on top of that. I've taken on average 0.5-0.6Tds or something.

FA + tentacles can totally slow an opponents game to a crawl, if they rely on bash. I've had less success in stopping a competent elf-pass play with DPs though.

The Claw advantage compared to orcs is diminished if not totally killed by a) having AV8 b) starting with no block c) paying 120k extra for the nurgle BOBS.

I still think the two teams are awfully similar at high TV though. Orcs are easier to get there, but nurgle at high TV can probably wipe out most teams they specialize against (with claw, they can also specialize in killing AV9ers!).

But anyway, the rulebook even says nurgle is supposed to be "hard"..

Our league never passes to zombies either.

[mattgslater]

I'm going to play a Nurgle team in our developmental league. My Halflings are 4-0, so if I can't score with Nurgle, I'll take a side of crow with the suck pie of not scoring.

As for passing to Zs, we generally don't see a lot of passes to Zombies, but our Necro coach likes to use a FG as an inside corner on offense, leaving his cage-front duties to a Z or Wight. They're ST3, and highly expendable, so if a Guard Wight is needed to crack the line or get a good blitz in, it's good to have a body to clog the far side of the play and it doesn't matter much which (non-Titchy) body it might be. So if you have a Z with two Casualties, that's your boy, 'cause if the drive goes well and you have a TRR when scoring-time comes up, then you might as well score with him and get yourself a Star Player roll.

I totally see how the "four turns, rinse, repeat" strategy for building Orcs wouldn't fly with this team. But where is the major struggle? It seems to me that the team would quickly develop into a fairly safe cage-delivery mechanism (that's cheap: one guy with Extra Arms and one with either the same or something similar), and once this is done, they look like they'd be a good cage team, what with all the ST4/FoulApp blockers.

[Craigtw]

But where is the major struggle? It seems to me that the team would quickly develop into a fairly safe cage-delivery mechanism (that's cheap: one guy with Extra Arms and one with either the same or something similar), and once this is done, they look like they'd be a good cage team, what with all the ST4/FoulApp blockers.

They can be a good cage team, but where they are harder to develop is that the team lack any block skills, and unlike their Chaos cousins, the warriors only having AG2 makes it that much harder to develop.

If the warriors can get developed, then you are laughing. The rest of the team can take care of itself.

[Smeborg]

Matt - the Nurgle cage is very slow, clumsy and ponderous (because, as Spazz Fist points out, you have no starting Block). Accordingly, the Nurgle cage is the weakest of any caging team that I have played - it requires greater accuracy and involves more risk.

But I'll let you find out all that for yourself!

All the best.

[Craigtw]

Matt - the Nurgle cage is very slow, clumsy and ponderous (because, as Spazz Fist points out, you have no starting Block). Accordingly, the Nurgle cage is the weakest of any caging team that I have played - it requires greater accuracy and involves more risk.

The Beast's Tentacles are also very useful when advancing the cage - keeping the Beast near key positions to tie up players with a couple of babysitters to help it to make decisions and to lend TZs for assists (and to nullify the opponents) is also very useful - the less pressure your cage faces, the better!

[mattgslater]

First game with my D-League Nurgle team is tomorrow, against rookie Orcs. I took all four Warriors and only two TRRs.

Here's the base defense I'm considering. I'm thinking about moving that hedge trap with the Warrior and Beast, anchored by the Pestigor, one square up. Not sure.