Detachment Focus: Plague Legion

Merry Grotmas! Games Workshop is releasing a new series of detachments – one per army, every day until Christmas. In this series we’re looking at these new detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games.

Chaos Daemons have had a single detachment with their Index, representing an undivided army featuring daemons of each god in The Pantheon. When Games Workshop announced that there’d be four Grotmas Detachments for Chaos Daemons, it was pretty clear to Daemons players what they’d be. And so one of those is naturally the Nurgle Daemons Detachment. But Nurgle Daemons were already pretty good, and plenty playable in the Daemonic Incursion Detachment, where they could field a Great Unclean One with a 4+ Feel No Pain and Beasts, Nurglings, and Plaguebearers have been playable units. So this new Detachment will have its work cut out for it if it wants to see play… and spoiler: It doesn’t get there.

We’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a preview copy of these rules for Review purposes.

Detachment Overview

The Plague Legion Detachment is dedicated to the Daemonic Legions of Nurgle, with Enhancements and Stratagems which only work with and affect Nurgle units. As an actual set of rules, it’s pretty lackluster, offering some solid Stratagems, a couple of pretty good Enhancements, and a Detachment rule that leaves a lot to be desired. There’s a legitimate question as to whether this is better than just running mono-Nurgle Daemons with the Daemonic Incursion Detachment, and we don’t think it is.

The Video Version

If your brain has rotted to mush and you’d rather watch our review of this Detachment than read an article, you can check out the video version here:

Detachment Rule: Melancholic Miasma

While an enemy unit is within 9” of none or more LEGIONES DAEMONICA NURGLE units from your army, that enemy unit is within your army’s Shadow of Chaos. In each player’s Command phase, select one enemy unit within your army’s Shadow of Chaos. That unit must take a Battle-shock test.

It’s important to remember that this combines with the Daemons Daemonic Terror army rule – those units in your army’s Shadow of Chaos will have to take their tests at -1 and will suffer D3 mortal wounds each time they fail. 

TheChirurgeon: Okay with that out of the way, let’s dispense with the formalities: This sucks. While it’s neat that this goes off every Command phase, Battle-shocking a single enemy unit within 9” per turn is among the weaker Detachment rules in the game. It may occasionally get you some mortal wounds or steal you an objective but it’s just incredibly unreliable and even when it goes off, it may not actually get you anything but a single mortal wound. What’s worse is that this doesn’t even make sense for the Nurgle datasheets; only two of your units – the Poxbringer and Spoilpox Scrivener – really have abilities which affect enemy Leadership or Battle-shock tests, making this something that’s pretty tough to build around. If you’re playing this Detachment, it’s primarily going to be for the Enhancements and Stratagems, because it won’t be for this rule.

Mike Pestilens: I genuinely don’t understand how this Detachment rule got printed. I understand that Nurgle has a “despair” vibe in the lore and they wanted to try to represent that, but this is a miss on both representing that and giving players anything effective on the tabletop.

Let me think of a way to explain this Detachment rule: Are you familiar with Death Guard contagions? Now imagine this Detachment rule as like having a Death Guard contagion with the effect of doing nothing. 

I know what you’re thinking: Mike, hold on. Maybe this Detachment rule is bad by itself… but it could unlock some amazing synergies with the enhancements and stratagems! You probably can’t wait to keep reading on and find all of these other amazing rules that make the Detachment rule function. 

Prepare to be disappointed. 

Enhancements

Four enhancements, each of which can only go on a NURGLE Daemon.

• Cankerblight (Aura) – Each time a non-Monster/Vehicle Enemy unit within 6” of this model fails a Battle-shock test, you can use this Enhancement. If you do, one model in that unit is destroyed (and no mortal wounds are inflicted by Daemonic Terror). This is an OK upgrade but again the problem with Daemonic Terror is that it’s insanely unreliable, making this not worth spending point son.
• Maggot Maws – In your Shooting phase, pick an enemy unit within 6” of the Bearer; that enemy unit has to take a Battle-shock test, then roll a D6; on a 3+ they take D3 mortal wounds. Each time they use this you don’t do mortals with the Daemonic Terror rule. OK for getting extra tests but you shouldn’t be spending points on it.
• Droning Shroud (Aura) – Monster model only. While a friendly Nurgle daemon is within 6” of the bearer, that unit can only be targeted by ranged attacks made within 18”. This is great – gives you Be’lakor’s signature ability without having to take him. Great for a unit sitting in your backfield, or just in the open but far from enemy units. A must-take in this Detachment.
• Font of Spores (Aura) – Monster only. While a friendly Nurgle Daemons unit is within 6” of the bearer, improve the AP on their attacks by 1. This is extremely good – it works with ranged attacks as well as melee, and it’s a must take as well.

TheChirurgeon: The best of these are the Droning Shroud and the Font of Spores, and I think it’s worth including both in every list. I don’t think I’d bother with the other two. Maggot Maws might be something to look at if you had extra points, as it forces extra tests, but you can probably build to not take it and be better off.

Mike Pestilens: Droning Shroud and Font Of Spores are both legitimately good. Droning Shroud would be much better in literally any other army in the game and it would be more exciting if Daemons hadn’t already had access to that mechanic all edition through Be’lakor, but getting this ability without bringing Be’lakor is good. 

Font Of Spores not being locked to ranged or melee attacks opens up some interesting actions with Soul Grinders specifically, as getting their indirect weapons to AP2 means they have a legitimate chance to munch some Marines. 

One of the biggest disappointments of this Detachment is both Cankerblight and Maggot Maws not stacking with damage from Daemonic Terror, making both of them marginal instead of interesting. Oh well! 

Stratagems

The Stratagems here are a mixed bag, offering some movement tricks, some offensive buffs, and a regen/resurrection option.

• Seeping Virulence (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Used in the Fight phase to give one of your units Critical hits on a 5+. This is very solid on Nurgle daemons, because pretty much all of their weapons have the [LETHAL HITS] ability, letting them punch up effectively against bigger threats. This combos very well with Font of Sports in that regard. The downside here is that you can just get this from a Poxbringer and it doesn’t do enough on bigger models.

• Fever Visions (Battle Tactic, 1 CP)  – Used in your Shooting phase or the Fight phase on one of your units. For the rest of the phase they get +1 to Hit and after you’re done making attacks you can pick an enemy unit hit by those attacks to take a Battle-shock test. This is really good – it’s a big step toward making Plaguebearers useful in melee, and the battle-shock test is a fine add-on to maybe get some extra mortal wounds.

• Foetid Resurgence (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP) – Used in your Command phase on a Nurgle unit to return up to 1 destroyed model to the unit, or D3 if the unit is BATTLELINE. Alternatively, if the target is a MONSTER unit, they regain D3+1 wounds instead. This is nifty to have, and does great work on a unit of Beasts or a Great Unclean One, but 2 CP is a lot. That cost makes this much more situational as you just don’t have a way to reduce costs. 

• Rot and Renewal (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Used in your Movement phase or Charge phase on a Nurgle unit – that unit can move through terrain features until the end of the phase. This has one primary use, and that’s getting your big, fat Great Unclean Ones through tight spaces and preventing them from being screened or blocked in. Has some other outside uses and it’s pretty situational, but when you’re in those situations you’ll be glad you have it.

• Murkshadows (Battle Tactic, 1 CP)  – Used in your Movement phase, on a Nurgle INFANTRY unit. Until the end of the phase, add 5” to their Move characteristic. This may as well say “Plaguebearers unit” given how narrow that Infantry tag is, but it’s a very good Stratagem for getting a huge burst of speed on your Plaguebearers, and they can combine this with an Advance to go even further. .

• Plague of Woes (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP)  – Used in your opponent’s Command phase, before you pick a target for your Detachment rule. Pick a Nurgle Daemons unit from your army, and after you make an enemy take a battle-shock test, you can pick another enemy unit within 9” of your selected unit take a test. Yeah, sure, whatever. This isn’t great but the only way to make this work is to force a lot of tests.

TheChirurgeon: These are pretty solid, save for Plague of Woes. Rot and Renewal and Murkshadows are both solid pieces of movement tech, Fever Visions and Seeping Virulence are important strats for making your Poxwalkers actually useful in combat, and it’s worth saving CP to get back Beasts of Nurgle with Foetid Resurgence. Is this better than what you get in the Daemonic Incursion? Enh, not really.

Mike Pestilens: These stratagems have a few uses, but are collectively disappointing.

Let’s start with the positives. Murkshadow is legitimately good! It helps you get to places to score secondaries without rolling an advance and becoming ineligible to do Sabotage/Recover Assets/etc. You know what is a lot better than moving 10”? Picking up 2 units of Plaguebearers with Realms Of Chaos and putting them literally anywhere you want on the board, but yeah moving Plaguebearers (and only Plaguebearers) 10” is solid. 

Rot and Renewal to let you move a unit through terrain is cool. It’s very funny to imagine a Great Unclean One or Rotigus popping through a wall like a Kool-Aid Man. 

That’s where the good ends. You know how much CP I want to invest in Plaguebearer melee? Absolutely none. 

5+ Crits from Seeping Virulence is cool in theory because most Nurgle Daemons have Lethal Hits. In practice, it’s a very mediocre use of CP. A Great Unclean One has 6 attacks. On average, you spend 1CP to make 1 hit roll go from a normal hit to a Lethal Hit with AP2 and d6 damage. If you’re wounding on a 5+ on they have a 3+ save, using this stratagem is equivalent of 1.5 extra wounds of damage. Thrilling stuff. 

Foetid Resurgence being 2CP is a cruel joke, especially in a faction that has 0 access to abilities to reduce the CP cost of stratagems. This is the one stratagem that even remotely felt something Nurgle Daemon players would be excited to do, and its for some reason completely overcosted. On a related note, Creations Of Bile just got access to a stratagem to revive 1 model or resurrect d3 Battleline models for 1CP. You might think, “You can’t compare resurrecting Nurgle Daemon Battleline to CSM Battleline, it’s not a fair comparison”, and you’re completely right. The models that CSM can resurrect are actually much better and cost more per model. 

Playing This Detachment

Look, this Detachment just doesn’t do nearly enough to make it worth your time or points to invest in Plaguebearer melee as a strategy. Effective mono-Nurgle armies will rely on taking a large number of bulky monsters to essentially act as a stat-check on enemy armies, forcing them to chew through multiple regenerating, high-wound, high-toughness threats. You can honestly treat the Detachment rule as a fun bonus, making this similar to the Chaos Knights Detachment in that regard. Taking a pair of Great Unclean Ones with Droning Shroud and Font of Sports to support some Soul Grinders can be legitimately good, and can act in concert with Rotigus to focus down big targets.

That said, if you can’t be dissuaded and are looking to create some synergy with the Detachment Rule, here are your relevant options:

• Poxbringer: Gives enemy units within 6” -1 to Battle-shock tests
• Sloppity Bilepiper: At the start of the Fight phase, every enemy unit within 6” has to take a Battle-shock test

As we said before, that’s not a lot, but you can kind of see what this might have been meant to look like in theory – running five or six units of Poxwalkers, crashing into an opponent, then forcing a bunch of Battle-shock tests at -2 where you have overlapping auras to do mortal wounds to a bunch of units before you start going to work on them. Then you combine those with Rotigus for extra damage and the Font of Sports Enhancement for extra AP to make their melee even remotely threatening. In this version of the list you take Cankerblight and maximize your output, getting whole models guaranteed every time a test is failed. It’s not good by any measure, but it’s something you can try.

Strengths

• Good movement buffs for both Poxwalkers and big Nurgle monsters.
• Some solid melee buffs for your units, both in Enhancements and Stratagems.
• While Battle-shock failures are never going to be reliable, it’s pretty easy to get -2 on enemy units and with enough tests to make extra mortal wounds very likely.

Weaknesses

• Battle-shock mechanics just aren’t good – they’re incredibly unreliable, and some armies will just ignore them most of the game.
• Surprisingly little here to make your units more durable.
• Very little synergy between Nurgle datasheets and the Detachment rule.

A Sample List

I’m not quite so cynical that I’d just ignore the Detachment rule as a whole, but I’m not going to go super hard on it or anything, either. So here’s my first test pass:

The List - click to expand

There’s a lot of beef here. It’s not fast, but the Poxwalkers can surge ahead when they need to, and between the Bilepiper and the Poxbringer you can make a number of extra tests happen for mortal wounds. That said, most of this list is about sitting on objectives. There’s a part of me that suspects this is a waste, and I should just drop the little guys, take three Soul Grinders and then fill the rest with as many Daemon Princes as I can manage. 

This list really, really wants a 6” deep strike with the Plaguebearers and so not having it is just brutal – you can only surge one unit per turn via Stratagem, and the rest will either want to Advance early or just Rapid Ingress onto the table. The Great Unclean Ones trundle forward until they hit an objective, then that’s where they sit.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately it’s hard to walk away from this Detachment without thinking that Nurgle got the short end of the stick. Leadership shenanigans are almost never good, and you give up a lot to take this Detachment. While the offensive buffs are solid, there’d be more to recommend here if there were defensive buffs to lean on – almost nothing here is as scary as the 4+++ Great Unclean One. What we’re left with is reasonably fluffy, and there are some ways to build around Plaguebearers here, but not particularly powerful, and if you want to run Mono-Nurgle competitively you’re probably better off sticking to the Daemonic Incursion Detachment.

Mike Pestilens: This is one of the worst Detachments I have ever seen in the three editions I’ve been playing 40K. 

I recommend Nurgle Daemon players stick to the index Detachment if they want to play either fun, casual games of 40K or competitive tournament games.

I don’t even care that much about power level, per se. Tzeentch Daemons might not set the world on fire, but they have a very unique and fun mechanic for their Detachment rule and a well-thought out Detachment that synergizes with that new mechanic in clever ways. That’s all I’m asking for. I’m sure Nurgle Daemons players would have been happy with something like that which represents a fun and flavorful way to play their favorite models, instead of whatever the heck this is. 

It’s a legitimate bummer. Oh well. 

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