Looking for good Nurgle resources/advice

[Smeborg]

Maybe my skill level on offense is lower than some of you guys, but I find in practice that I do not have the luxury of giving TDs to players of my choice on the Nurgle team. Typically I am out of re-rolls by the time it comes to score (often on turn 8 or 16), so a hand-off would be a high-risk proposition and put the match result in doubt (wins by more than 1 TD are rare). Or, when I do have a re-roll left, often there will only be one player left with a reasonable chance to score on a hand-off (typically a Rotter, sometimes a Pestigor, very rarely a Warrior). Typically, go-for-its will be required as well.

I have a simple and robust development plan because I expect skill development to be uneven, and for the Warriors to skill up slowly. All I can say is that it seems to work rather well. The only significant development risk seems to be losing a well-developed Runner Pestigor (the only "specialist" on the team), but in practice, when that has happened, I have built a new one quite fast.

Hope that helps.

[Ulthuan_Express]

A silly question, perhaps, which may have been answered already, but is it worth starting with the Beast?

Admittedly, it helps give the team a real Nurgley flavour, but with more Re-Rolls and Pestigors available instead, is leaving the slow-moving, really stupid Beast out of the team viable?

[Carnis]

A silly question, perhaps, which may have been answered already, but is it worth starting with the Beast?

Admittedly, it helps give the team a real Nurgley flavour, but with more Re-Rolls and Pestigors available instead, is leaving the slow-moving, really stupid Beast out of the team viable?

Starting without it is fine. Think of it as a troll with tentacles. Nothing you'd miss really.

The biggest thing you miss out on is MB blocks on your first game, but you wouldnt be blitzing with a beast anyway. I feel the added # of regen players compensates for that, too.

Smeborg:

I think your stymie style may well take a lot more rerolls, because you have a less crippled opponent on the field. It's fairly easy scoring at 9 vs 4, for instance, you barely need to go for it at all.

I usually dont need a reroll for the pickup, so the only stuff I need RRs for are GFIs, double skulls & the like. That being said, of my 55 TDs at least 14 have been on my primary +AG ball carrier, with 21 completions most leading to TDs on other players.

[Smeborg]

A silly question, perhaps, which may have been answered already, but is it worth starting with the Beast?

Admittedly, it helps give the team a real Nurgley flavour, but with more Re-Rolls and Pestigors available instead, is leaving the slow-moving, really stupid Beast out of the team viable?

I have tried both systems, and have found in practice that it is much better to start with the Beast. He is your chief resource, tying up opponents. And you want to start skilling him up ASAP. He protects the team too.

All the best.

[Smeborg]

Smeborg:

I think your stymie style may well take a lot more rerolls, because you have a less crippled opponent on the field. It's fairly easy scoring at 9 vs 4, for instance, you barely need to go for it at all.

I usually dont need a reroll for the pickup, so the only stuff I need RRs for are GFIs, double skulls & the like. That being said, of my 55 TDs at least 14 have been on my primary +AG ball carrier, with 21 completions most leading to TDs on other players.

I don't think the stymie style takes more re-rolls by its nature. It is quite conservative, since you are relying on your opponent failing things (which you don't need re-rolls for). Having said that, I think I probably defend in a more dogged way than the average coach - this might possibly consume more re-rolls. I would guess that most of my re-rolls are used on GFIs and on sack attempts on the ball-carrier. While I try to keep a re-roll in hand for turns 8 and 16, this probably only happens about half the time. I have 3 re-rolls on the roster, I can manage with 2 if I have to.

The main point I was trying to make is that against most opponents, my Nurgle team will normally get a score of 1-0, 2-1 or 1-1. This leaves little room for fancy ball movement in the hope of skilling up an AG3 or AG2 player. The stymie style can win on numbers, too (Block+S-Firm gets you a lot of return blocks). Of course it's easy to skill up players at will against weak opponents, but I'm pleased to say that we have rather few of these in our league now that the coaches themselves are starting to skill up.

The stymie style is designed for optimal match results against all teams (we are lucky to have all races in our league now). It seems to work quite well at this. I am sure a Nurgle slayer team works fine - as I have said before, I just feel it may not be the very best design for the team, and anyway it's not my cup of tea!

All the best.

[Ullis]

Partly because I want to keep this thread alive, I'd like advice on warrior skills.

I'm of firm belief that the first skill on a warrior should be Block or +ST, no matter what the skill roll is. But what about second or third skills? I took Side-step as a second skill on a warrior (first warrior to get to two skills). This was partly motivated by my wish to try Stand Firm as a second skill on warriors.

But overall, should warriors take doubles skills, and if yes, then which skills? Dodge is a bit of a waste since I won't be dodging around anytime soon, although eventually the combo of Block+Stand Firm+Dodge on a warrior would be supremely annoying as he'd be impossible to move but only when opponents are blocking him. Anyway, I think that would require that the doubles roll is on the third skill and that Block and Stand Firm were the first choices.

So, what about those doubles on warriors?

[sunnyside]

Maybe my skill level on offense is lower than some of you guys, but I find in practice that I do not have the luxury of giving TDs to players of my choice on the Nurgle team. Typically I am out of re-rolls by the time it comes to score (often on turn 8 or 16), so a hand-off would be a high-risk proposition and put the match result in doubt (wins by more than 1 TD are rare). Or, when I do have a re-roll left, often there will only be one player left with a reasonable chance to score on a hand-off (typically a Rotter, sometimes a Pestigor, very rarely a Warrior). Typically, go-for-its will be required as well.

There is the bit with the slayers. I think there may be a fair argument that such builds have a higher lose rate in a finals game or whatever. But they should have more games where their opponent suffers a bunch of CAS and you walk on them.

That said, I don't know what your team is, but some of these guys have teams with dozens upon dozens of games.

I'm saying they may simply have more re-rolls than you.

A silly question, perhaps, which may have been answered already, but is it worth starting with the Beast?

Admittedly, it helps give the team a real Nurgley flavour, but with more Re-Rolls and Pestigors available instead, is leaving the slow-moving, really stupid Beast out of the team viable?

My impression from my first nurgle team is that starting with the beast is the way to go. It's about playing to your strengths, in this case strength. While some other teams could start out with 4 S4s, 1 S5, and 6 S3s on the field I find they don't. So you can get an early muscle advantage.

Also while TRRs do get more expensive, I've yet to have one of my TRRs skill up, whereas my beast has and that's been wonderful. In the long run I think all of my teams would love to be able to trade some gold for SPPs on a big guy, so it seems good to start on that sooner.

[Chosen Warrior]

Partly because I want to keep this thread alive, I'd like advice on warrior skills.

I'm of firm belief that the first skill on a warrior should be Block or +ST, no matter what the skill roll is. But what about second or third skills? I took Side-step as a second skill on a warrior (first warrior to get to two skills). This was partly motivated by my wish to try Stand Firm as a second skill on warriors.

But overall, should warriors take doubles skills, and if yes, then which skills? Dodge is a bit of a waste since I won't be dodging around anytime soon, although eventually the combo of Block+Stand Firm+Dodge on a warrior would be supremely annoying as he'd be impossible to move but only when opponents are blocking him. Anyway, I think that would require that the doubles roll is on the third skill and that Block and Stand Firm were the first choices.

So, what about those doubles on warriors?

GSM access on normal rolls gives you so much to choose from, especially without any "real" starting skills, that I'd be tempted to skip the double to save on TV. If you took SF as a second skill I'd suggest you take Guard third so you don't get left behind in the Guard arms race. You want Guard on the offensive line to take down Dwarf Blocker/Chaos Warríor/BOB defensive lines full of guard, and also in cage corners to make blitzes on your ball carrier more difficult. Even after Block/SF/Guard you still have lots of regular skills to choose from: MB, Grab, Claw etc.

That said, you've got a couple choices for doubles:

Sidestep is a tempting double on a second roll as an alternative to Stand Firm. Blocking a ST4 FA/Block/SF seems like a useless endeavor in that nothing will be accomplished by it, but blocking a ST4 FA/Block/SS player seems like it will only make things worse, especially if you manage to get Guard on that Sidestepper as well! Possible choice as an early double.

Diving tackle in combination with Stand Firm sounds very stymieish: can't dodge away from him, can't block him away from you! Possible late double choice, although you again have similar skill choices on a normal roll: Tentacles or Prehensile Tail.

Picking Dodge on one double sort of means you need to pick it on all double rolls for the team, so your one Dodge guy doesn't just get marked by the one Tackle guy on the opponent's team. If you plan on rolling lots of doubles ( ) go for it, nothing wrong with 5-6 Blodge on any team, even if it's only AG 2 guys. Keeps them standing.

Leader IS a possiblility, as TRRs are expensive 70k, so it looks like you save 40k and a (skilled) warrior is a good bet to stay on the pitch. However you lose out on a skill. Boring late double choice.

All in all I think my personal unreachable goal is four Block/Guard/SF/MB/Claw nurgle warriors aka ugly, stinky BOB's on steroids.



On a somewhat unrelated matter...

On a developed Nurgle team, who do you guys put on the LOS on defence/when kicking? I'm planning on starting with 1 Pestigor, so in the beginning it will be the Rotters who'll be taking the hits, but in the case I get lucky and manage to field all 9 positionals at the same time, how do things change? Should I suddenly start stacking the LOS with the Beast and the Warriors, so that my high strength, AV9, guard/stand firm/foul appearance creates possibly the toughest defensive LOS wall in Blood Bowl? Does my 4th Pestigor become a Linegor in a Rotter's place so I can keep spreading the love(=Disturbing Presence) around my backfield? Or do I do the unthinkable and bench a Pestigor so the Rotters can keep on doing their thing getting punched to death?

It's an interesting dilemma IMO since against the less bashy teams a Beast&Warriors line could create an impenetrable wall on the LOS, but it's against those teams specifically that you want the DP coverage in the backfield. Against bashies benching a Pestigor sounds tempting as all your positionals are valuable players and you don't want to lose them to MB/PO, but then again benching positionals usually seems like a waste of TV for me.

[sunnyside]

Diving tackle in combination with Stand Firm sounds very stymieish: can't dodge away from him, can't block him away from you! Possible late double choice, although you again have similar skill choices on a normal roll: Tentacles or Prehensile Tail.

I rather like the diving tackle idea. Prehensile tail is weaker and while in some instances tents would be more likely to stop movement it doesn't cause a turnover or put the other player down.

Picking Dodge on one double sort of means you need to pick it on all double rolls for the team, so your one Dodge guy doesn't just get marked by the one Tackle guy on the opponent's team. If you plan on rolling lots of doubles ( ) go for it, nothing wrong with 5-6 Blodge on any team, even if it's only AG 2 guys. Keeps them standing.

I find that the "one tackle guy on the opponent's team" is almost always S3. Big guys have better choices with doubles for the first few doubles and S4s tend to start short on skills and have lots of skill options they'd like to take. Therefore I find that dodge on S4s isn't cancelled by tackle so often and it's mere presence can prevent an opponent from trying those 1D blocks (as a skull is as likely as a POW).

It works well with stand firm, which seems to be the classic nurgle choice, and you could go with break tackle, which seems strange, but might work quite well.

And since it's got a 3/4 chance of success and because Nurgle warriors can usually manage to trip without killing themselves, dodging at AG2 could be useful in getting a marked off player somewhere useful at the end of a turn. But I think most of the time you'd rather just take the 2D block.

[Smeborg]

Starting Beast: I would go further, and advise that you should start whenever possible with not just the Beast, but with 4 Warriors as well.

Warrior skills: I believe from my own playtesting that Block/S-Firm are the best first 2 skills for Warriors (I ignore doubles and stat increases except +ST). After that I am open-minded, several skills are tempting (Guard, Tentacles, Grab, perhaps Tackle). If I rolled a doubles after a Warrior already had Block/S-Firm, I might take Dodge, especially if there were some Dodge on the team already. I like the idea of D-Tackle, but it seems to demand Tackle too. I rather like the idea of a Block/S-Firm/Tentacles/Grab Warrior, who would threaten to simply "escort" opposing players off the pitch. I like the idea of Tentacles and Grab, because in practice Warriors are often isolated, and like to tie up more than one opposing player (the combo would optimise their use in such a role). Whether and when to take Guard depends partly on whether you have sufficient quantity of it on other players (e.g. the Beast, Rotters). Guard is good, but does not work when a Warrior is isolated (which they often are, they seem to like it). If you have a ST4 Pestigor ball carrier (I have that luxury at the moment), Guard is less important as it is not needed for caging.

Defensive LoS: As I think I've said before, Nurgle have one of the most variable sets of LoS players of any team that I have played. The commonest set up in practice (in league play, assuming no stat increases) for me is the 2 least skilled Warriors plus a rookie Pestigor on the LoS (normally spread against ST3 teams, bunched against stronger teams). The rookie Pestigor (I always have at least one, it seems) is there because he has Regen and not Decay, so he can "take one for the team". This leaves a Blitzer Pestigor and a Rotter in each wide zone (these Pestigors may be able to screen the Rotters from direct attack, depending on the usual Frenzy, Juggernaut, Fend variations -they are also ready to strike "deep" in the event of a Blitz result or an early Turnover). The Beast and the 2 best Warriors form the second line, threatening to block penetration on the opponent's turn 1 (Block/S-Firm/F-App), and to deploy their Tentacles and D-Pres against intruding receivers in their own turn. The Runner Pestigor hides behind the Beast (in the centre) in a sweeper role.

Defensive LoS variants: I have a ST5 Warrior at the moment, so I often put him and the Beast in the "shoulder" positions in second line (forcing my opponent to go through a ST5 F-App player if he wants to make an orthodox penetration). This gives me the luxury of putting my 2 Block/S-Firm Warriors on the LoS, where they rather enjoy themselves. I will vary my defense if facing M-Blow/Claw (2 Rotters and a Pestigor might go on the line), or if I have a reason to put up a "wall of Nurgle" defense (Beast and all 4 Warriors in second line). Reasons for the latter might be (a) when defending against a 2-turn score attempt, or (b) against fast AG teams where I want to keep all my D-Pres players mobile for deployment against intruding receivers. I have a Beast and 2 Warriors all with Block/S-Firm at the moment. This gives me a rather luxurious defense against a 1-turn score attempt (not infallible, but it has not yet failed in practice). This is perhaps a reason in itself for giving Block/S-Firm to the Warriors.

Hope that helps!

[Smeborg]

It works well with stand firm, which seems to be the classic nurgle choice, and you could go with break tackle, which seems strange, but might work quite well.

I agree that B-Tackle seems (theory - not tested) to be a valid late skill choice for a Warrior (say 4th or 5th skill) if building the team in a stymie style (the point being that it enables you to mark a potential receiver and put him at -2 to receive). It would also create a Blitzing threat. Perhaps the following build is suggested:

Block
S-Firm
Tentacles
Grab
B-Tackle

Unfortunately, at the rate my Warriors develop, I won't be holding my breath waiting for them to get to their 4th and 5th skills!

[Carnis]

Perhaps the following build is suggested:

Block
S-Firm
Tentacles
Grab
B-Tackle

Unfortunately, at the rate my Warriors develop, I won't be holding my breath waiting for them to get to their 4th and 5th skills!

Lets say you had that on 4 warriors!

Now how do you think that team would fair against a classic 11 guard/mb orc bash team? Would you get even one block with that 0guard team? The team in the link is LRB4, but it could as well be LRB6..

I'd advocate the less radical NW build of:

Block/Guard/Mb/*

*can be either tents, claw, tackle or break tackle.

or

Block/Guard/MB/Claw/*

*can be either tents, tackle or break tackle.

[mattgslater]

That's an overvaluing of Guard. Stand Firm is pretty useful in that context.

I think Smeborg is right about opening with Block/SF. After that, it's a toolbox/judgment call bit.

[Smeborg]

Carnis - I am not advocating zero Guard on a well-developed Nurgle team (although my highly successful current team has no Guard, that is partly because it has the luxury of a ST4, AG4, Block, Dodge, S-Hands Pestigor, and partly because 3 Guard Rotters have died...).

Guard is obviously a strong contender after a Warrior has Block, S-Firm. But I like Block, S-Firm first. I think there is a good case for Guard as a doubles skill on the Rotters, and as a middling skill (3rd?) on the Beast. This enhances the block-power of the Warriors.

Nurgle are not Orcs, although there are obvious similarities. They do well to remember the differences in the style of play they adopt and the way they develop. Also, while there is a certain imperative to developing Orcs as a slayer team (how else can they play?), there is no such imperative for Nurgle, who have an excellent (and in my view better) alternative available to them: the stymie game.

I get the feeling from this and other threads that as a coach, you only know how to play in a slayer style, and never try other options. Am I being fair? For my part, while I enjoy playing and developing slayer teams, I also enjoy playing with non-slayer teams against slayer teams, since matches are always full of spice and interest, and it's always fun forcing the slayer coach to play in other ways, such as actually having to concentrate on the ball. I don't fear teams in the style of the link you give. As for other slayer teams, I suspect my Underworld team would probably give this Orc team a good run for their money (3 Block/Guard/Claw/M-Blow players, lots of inducements) and would probably gain a numbers advantage quite fast against just 13 Orcs. It's not at all clear to me that they are optimised as a slayer team.

All the best.

[number6]

I rolled Extra STR on a Nurgle Warrior with Block. However I'm finding the league to be rather effectively bashy, and yet I'm not being out-strengthed. Admitted the Extra STR seems awesome, however I felt Jump Up would be my best option. It gives my NW easy repositioning if knocked down by an opponent who does not want to base. If they want to base, I've got a 66% chance to stand up and return the blocking favor.

Take the +ST. I'd hate to face your team when you get to the third skill and get Tentacles on the warrior. ST5 is much better than ST4 in terms of positioning. Opponents will be very hard pressed to move this guy. First they need lots of assists and that's before having to roll for Foul Appearance.

I took your advice, and it worked like a charm vs. my next opponent. An Orc Team with x4 Black Orcs. So with 4 Warriors, one of which had 5 STR and the Beast, I out-muscled him quite easily. Toss in the horns on Blitzing Pestigors and any hope of his throwers being effective, he had to try to run the ball in and I easily mobbed him and won 2-0
We'll see if he gets a 3rd skill, as Tentacles 5 STR is great. 4 STR, not so much.