Looking for good Nurgle resources/advice

[Smeborg]

Nurgle do have stupidly expensive positionals, I have tried a few builds to keep tv down in a matchmaking environment.
I think you can definitely get away without a beast ( I did for 85 games with my best team).
Also I only build 2 pestigor killers so 3 pestigors might be ok for a long while.
Also you may want to consider 2 rr + leader rather than 3 RR at low TV.
Once you get to 2k + TV you can have all positionals and 3 RR as the bloat is not so bad then.

Hi Jimmy. I agree that Nurgle positionals are expensive. The 9 positionals average 100,000 each.

I have tried playing without the Beast (for short periods, not for 85 games like you!). I have found in practice that the team performs considerably better with the Beast, and would recommend he be included in all starting rosters and tournaments. I think he is perhaps the best value Big Guy in the game (by quite a bit). He is the ultimate stymie player!

I don't feel the need to take Leader, unless the league is very short, or in tournaments (when it can be excellent value).

I agree that you can manage with 3 Pestigors, provided all 3 are skilled. The 4th Pestigor is needed more for resilience, and to ensure that skilled replacements keep coming through. A rookie Pestigor with no SPPs can also be good value on the defensive LoS (he is cheaper to put there than a Rotter).

I think considerations of TV bloat depend partly on ruleset. In my experience, TV efficiency is important if Wizards can be induced by your opponents. Nurgle hate facing the Wizard.

All the best.

[spubbbba]

I am very interested in the stymie/killer debate but I think part of the reason for the friction in this thread is that there is a 3rd key way of playing that has been largely ignored, what I’d call the “Standard build”.

You only really have a few player types in the game Blockers, Blitzers, Throwers, catchers and linemen though I could see Runners and Specialist being added too as there are some players that are difficult to categorise. Within these there are a few subsets so you’d have a blocker big guy such as a Troll or a Blitzer big guys such as a Mino and a normal Blocker like a Black orc.

The beast is a Big guy Blocker, Warriors are blockers, Rotters are linemen though I’d put them as fodder linemen, Pestigors are tricky as they definitely suit the Blitzer player type but also can be runners or even throwers/catchers.

There are standard skills you’d always consider for these players regardless of what race they are or the rest of the team, these are usually the safe and boring choice. They are rarely bad choices on their own but can be bad for the team overall as they lack synergy.

The standard build team will play to it’s strengths and be pretty predictable, they may try something out of the ordinary if desperate but won’t be built for that as skills that would help with this are wasted. In general the idea is to get a good balance of skills to maximise TV efficiency so a bashy team like nurgle would want plenty of block, with some guard and MB and add a sprinkling of other skills like tackle, wrestle, sure hands, stand firm, PO and claw with doubles taking things like dodge, DT and SS to give them a chance against all comers.

The usual skill path for blockers is Block, Guard or MB then Stand firm or Grab, maybe with tackle or PO (and claw if allowed). Big guy blockers get Guard and SF with Block on doubles and maybe Grab. For fodder linemen it’s block or wrestle with maybe a kicker or dp, they are often fired before getting a 2nd or 3rd skill.

The Pestigors can be made into runners with skills such as block, sure hands, extra arms, Kick off return Big hand, 2 heads and dodge on doubles. Ball hunter Blitzers; wrestle, tackle, strip ball, maybe juggernaut. Or Killers; Block, MB, PO, Claw if allowed and possibly frenzy or tackle.


The teams Smeborg and Jimmyfantastic posted I’d say start off following the standard path particularly for warriors the beast and rotters. It’s only with the Pestigors and 2nd skills that the teams start to diverge. The other consideration is that the slayer build is not all about taking bashy skills, division and Cyanide’s MM have a reputation for this but these teams tend not to win that much unless they get lucky and wipe the other team out (or they concede). The really effective teams best exemplified by RandomOracle (ok normal chaos rather than nurgle) have a few real killers but still take plenty of the standard build skills and they focus on the ball but will try to get a numbers advantage if there is no obvious way to attack the opposing ball carrier or safely advance theirs.

Anyway gone a little long winded again and off topic so will end here.

[Hitonagashi]

I think considerations of TV bloat depend partly on ruleset. In my experience, TV efficiency is important if Wizards can be induced by your opponents. Nurgle hate facing the Wizard.

I'd actually say that's always true....while inducements don't have their punch against Nurgle currently on FUMBBL, due to the TV based matchmaking in the Blackbox, you will get paired with a team of similar TV. Hence, if you've put skills as utility which very rarely get used(leaping dirty player troll ftw), you are playing down TV without getting any handicaps for it!

I'd say in LRB 6, more than LRB 4, because of the way skill cost is calculated, TV efficiency is very important.

[Jimmy Fantastic]

Smeborg- My advice regarding the beast was purely for online matchmaking formats, I agree in TT leagues he is essential and the best big guy.
TV efficiency is more important in matchmaking like cyanide and blackbox than in a TT league.
Consider this: A 1100 TV team that has played 3 games with 200k in the bank and no beast.
In TT your next match would pretty much determine exactly what you bought.
Let's imagine your next opponent is 1240 TV A beast is clearly an awesome purchase as it does not give away an inducement and makes your team a lot better than 2 babes or whatever.
However in MM buying a beast and going to to 1240TV could see you matched vs a 1440 TV team with 17 more skills than you or some minmaxed team of death.
Even assuming an equal TV matchup you have to consider is it worth the massive jump in class (7 skills).
In a tabletop league you are generally always going to be better off with better players like the beast, it's quite easy to trim to stay away from wizards, and it doesn't mean your opponent will get lots of free skills.

Spubbba- I think a lot of the friction has been because Carnis and I have presented the "standard" build but it has been erroneously dismissed as a slayer build that only tries to kill players not position well or try to get the ball.

[Smeborg]

Thanks for the clarification, Jimmy. MM brings a different view of things, I agree.

[soranos]

I have read through a few pages of this thread on several occasions during the last 2 weeks and I feel like also giving a little input.

I have never played nurgle and do not consider them overly tempting, but I would still give some feedback. Smeberg, I am not sure if your stymie build would perform better than a killer build in any format, but they definately would be more fun to play against and that should count for something as well. I think there might be a chance your team can do better against agi-teams that the killer build, but I see them struggeling against other bashers. So how do you manage to hold up with so little guard, when guarded and mb-ed up dorfs and orcs get into full contact with you and render those tentacles rather useless?

Another question I had was, how you are to move the ball on offense? Not sure if all that wrestle on the pests might open too many holes in your own ball protection, especially since you will be less likely to be man up late in the game. I would see that team having problems scoring against mobile opponent, who can leap/dodge in your cage for 1d-blitzes.

Another point are the early games. Maybe you are really a much better coach than the guys you play early on in team development. But I can not imagine any Nurgle team winning 5 of 6 with much certainty, if coaching skills are more or less even. I consider Nurgle a poor starting team and never had great problems beating them at TV<1400, even if played by decent coaches. Amazons, Norse, Woodies, Darkies, Dorfs, Orcs and especially Undead offer some challenges Nurgle has a hard time coping with early on. Starting with 2 RR, which is probably the best long-term build is not helping much either at that point.

[Smeborg]

NURGLE RE-ROLL DISCUSSION
----------------------------
At the risk of getting burnt at the stake again (but remember, I have Regen ), I would like to start an open discussion on what is the best number of Team Re-rolls for Nurgle. I am open-minded. I give my perspective below - I would like to hear others.

The main idea I would like to put forward is: Might 2 re-rolls be best? Several reasons for this:

(a) I start league rosters with 2 RRs, buying a 3rd quite a bit later (I will normally buy 2 or 3 Pestigors plus replacements for dead and damaged positional players first). I do not take Leader (although I might in a very short format). When I get the 3rd RR, I do not notice any step up in performance for the team, and I tend to finish about 50% of all halves with at least one unused RR (leaving me wondering why I bought it). (Of course this is a subjective judgment, as I am not counting the times that the last RR was used, and maybe it won the the game!)

(b) I tend to play tournaments with 2 RRs quite happily (or 1 RR + Leader if the format allows). In a skill rich tournament (small) I took 1 RR with success (finished second, losing in extra time to WEs in the final, 50% of halves in the tourney saw the RR unused). If it works well in a tourney, I like to see if an idea works in a league.

(c) The main underlying idea of (stymie) Nurgle is that they work better during the opponent's turn than during their own. You do not need RRs for this (within reason).

Once the team starts to skill up, I tend to use RRs mainly for GFIs. Less frequent uses are for the "main chance" blitz of the opposing ball carrier (about once per half), and for ball handling, such as when a hand-off is needed in order to be able to score. Of course RRs are also used for the inevitable double skulls. I would be interested to know what other Nurgle coaches use their RRs for mainly. For example, I see quite high RR numbers on FUMBBL teams (5 RRs or 4 + Leader seems fairly common). Are these used for blocking/blitzing of the killer variety? Or are they used to allow more frequent ball handling by Warriors in order to skill them up? Or is there some interesting RR intensive activity going on that I am unaware of?

In any case, my perception is that perhaps Nurgle need RRs somewhat less than other teams (which is just as well, since they are effing expensive!). I will probably stick to 2 RRs in my next league outing, and see what happens.

All the best. Have fun and be nice.

[Smeborg]

Smeberg, I am not sure if your stymie build would perform better than a killer build in any format, but they definately would be more fun to play against and that should count for something as well. I think there might be a chance your team can do better against agi-teams that the killer build, but I see them struggeling against other bashers. So how do you manage to hold up with so little guard, when guarded and mb-ed up dorfs and orcs get into full contact with you and render those tentacles rather useless?

Smeberg, hmm, I quite like it... soranos - I think you are correct that stymie Nurgle are fun to play (with or against), but I am just reporting the results that I have experienced with them (compared to playing with more killy Nurgle against the same coaches). I know this is counter-intuitive, but such seems to be the case with the Nurgly way. Nurgle need Guard, but IMO not as the earliest skills (exception: doubles on Rotters, which is excellent). Stymie Nurgle like to spread the play, for example with 1 Warrior tying up 2 Dwarfs. Guard is wasted in these circumstances. When scrums do occur, Nurgle can deploy their raw ST against a team such as Dwarfs. This can overwhelm them, even with Guards. Bear in mind also that the game plan of a bashy team can be disrupted when they get lots of no result blocks (Block/S-Firm Warriors), and/or when they cannot follow up many of the blocks they make (lots of S-Firm and Fend).

Another question I had was, how you are to move the ball on offense? Not sure if all that wrestle on the pests might open too many holes in your own ball protection, especially since you will be less likely to be man up late in the game. I would see that team having problems scoring against mobile opponent, who can leap/dodge in your cage for 1d-blitzes.

The Wrestle Pests like to range freely, and are not ideal cage corners (a job best left to the Beast, Warriors and Rotters). Of course in practice the Pests are drawn into caging duties more often than they would like. Ball movement is a slow and cautious caging process mostly, with occasional flashes of rapid movement. Mobile opponents will of course attack the caged ball directly. If you lack Guard, the challenge is to position players so that even when the ball is spilled, it cannot be easily recovered by the opponent. An important feature of stymie Nurgle is that they do not stall unnecessarily - they score when they can reliably do so, and then trust to their defense (in this respect they are more like an AG than a ST team - counter-intuitive again). Sure Hands is an important 1st skill on the Runner Pest (to prevent Stripping). Fouling Wardancers, Gutter Runners and the like is also highly recommended.

Another point are the early games. Maybe you are really a much better coach than the guys you play early on in team development. But I can not imagine any Nurgle team winning 5 of 6 with much certainty, if coaching skills are more or less even. I consider Nurgle a poor starting team and never had great problems beating them at TV<1400, even if played by decent coaches. Amazons, Norse, Woodies, Darkies, Dorfs, Orcs and especially Undead offer some challenges Nurgle has a hard time coping with early on. Starting with 2 RR, which is probably the best long-term build is not helping much either at that point.

See above - I mean that I get better results against the same coaches when using stymie Nurgle compared to more killy Nurgle. I consider stymie Nurgle to be effective at all levels of TV, and equally good against AG and ST teams (well-coached Vampires would appear to be the most difficult opponent, Hypno-Gaze being hard to counter). In any case, I don't consider them a weak team (whether in leagues or tournaments), although I have found them harder to play. The missing dimension, I suggest, is style of play - stymie Nurgle are not a traditional bash team (although they do exploit their raw ST, a vital part of the team). If you play them in the style of (say) Orcs or Chaos, you can expect poor results (that's my experience, anyway). For RRs, see my above post on the subject (more counter-intuitive behaviour exhibited by the team in practice).

Hope that helps and all the best.

[Hitonagashi]

Interesting question Smeborg!

Personally, I either like 3 or 4 on teams like that.

It's a choice between how much you want to trust to chance.

I generally plan to throw between 3-5 blocks a turn in a bash vs bash game if everything is going well, which means one in every 5 games, one of those 3 rr's will be used on a double skull. There's one thats always saved for emergency safety play (grabbed the ball on defense, cleared the opponent, want to make 2 gfi to get out of range of the blitz), and one that's used for crazy play(powed the ball carrier, need a rr to pick the ball up in a TZ).

A 4th one gives me a bit of liberty to play (like rr'ing a push on a moderately important block), or protects against 2x double skulls. I don't think you'd need 4 on a stymie build though. It's important for bash heavy builds, because you throw a lot more blocks.

2 rerolls to me seems a little low, I'd run with 3 as a baseline personally...I think you generally encounter all 3 of those in a single half most games. It depends how risk adverse your playstyle is really. I enjoy games where I take chances, so if I see a 3+ dodge, 2+ gfi 2+ gfi to sack the ball carrier and I have a rr, I'll take it, whereas quite a few top coaches I've specced will either mark him, or move to block him off and wait for a better alternative. (usually because of inability to retrieve the ball)

[Lunchab1es]

NURGLE RE-ROLL DISCUSSION
-------------------------

I think that Nurgle can get away with two rerolls and function at a high level. As you mentioned Smeborg, their strength lies in making the opponent roll lots of dice, while executing plays that are relatively "dice simple". Due to this and the importance of not risking position when weighted against the benefit of action (eg not blocking with the Beast, as its better to maintain TZs rather than risks the odds of really stupid or a failed block + loner), Nurgle is possibly the most conservative team available in BB. I have actually gone entire halves without using a single reroll.

Sometimes lady luck is not on your side, however, and only having 2 RR leaves you more vulnerable to those games. Ultimately. I can't fault anyone for choosing 2 or 3, but I would take issue with any more or less.

2 RR.+ leader sounds like a great compromise on paper, but I have a hard time imagining it in practice. Who gets leader? Rotters are too unreliable due to their affinity for injuries, warriors skill to slowly, and I can list ten skills that would be better suited for the pestis.

[Lunchab1es]

NURGLE RE-ROLL DISCUSSION
-------------------------

I think that Nurgle can get away with two rerolls and function at a high level. As you mentioned Smeborg, their strength lies in making the opponent roll lots of dice, while executing plays that are relatively "dice simple". Due to this and the importance of not risking position when weighted against the benefit of action (eg not blocking with the Beast, as its better to maintain TZs rather than risks the odds of really stupid or a failed block + loner), Nurgle is possibly the most conservative team available in BB. I have actually gone entire halves without using a single reroll.

Sometimes lady luck is not on your side, however, and only having 2 RR leaves you more vulnerable to those games. Ultimately. I can't fault anyone for choosing 2 or 3, but I would take issue with any more or less.

2 RR.+ leader sounds like a great compromise on paper, but I have a hard time imagining it in practice. Who gets leader? Rotters are too unreliable due to their affinity for injuries, warriors skill to slowly, and I can list ten skills that would be better suited for the pestis.

[betterZthenDeaD]

Isn't 'Leader' a doubles roll? Even though I've got a +2 ST warrior on the Cyanide game I can't imagine that counting on rolling double is a sound buying strategy! As to who you give it to that's down to who rolls 'em!

[betterZthenDeaD]

Saying all that though I might be tempted to put it on a ball carrying pestigor...


... Possibly!

[spubbbba]

Well I am 6 games in now and so far my experiences seem to be mirroring Smeborg’s. I am 5-0-1 and aside from a concession all games have been 1-0 and have scored TD’s on defence in 3 of my 4 wins that went the full 16 turns.

They are great at defence (though this has always been my own strongest area) and I’ve only conceded a single TD (and that was pretty lucky) but terrible on offence. I’ve played every game with 3 or even 4 re-rolls per half and still keep running out as you need to make blocks or 3+ dodge/pick up rolls to move the cage and have a chance to score or hit the opposing ball carrier. It’s far too easy to man mark warriors and the beast leaving you with slow human linemen and 1 Pestigor. The team now has a smattering of Block so they are a little less useless on offence but I am not comfortable being so passive and hoping my opponent fails. I think getting 3 re-rolls asap is a must if you actually want to score when receiving. If the warriors don’t skill up by 1500 then I’d want 4 re-rolls to counter the inevitable skulls/both downs.

I took Jimmy’s advice and dropped a re-roll when a rotter rolled doubles so he got leader to keep the TV low until I can skill up the warriors. I will probably start recycling rotters and Pesigors soon as the team has 90K in the bank. At the moment the team is 1280 and made up of the following.

Beast
3 Warriors
Warrior, Block
Pestigor, Block
2 Pestigors
1 rotter, Leader
1 Rotter, Block –MA, MNG (he will likely get sacked after the next game depending on the state of the team)
2 Rotters, Block
1 Rotter
2 Re-rolls
FF -5

[Wanchor]

With -MA? Keep him. He already has Block.