Monday, May 13, 2013

Chaos Daemons Review: Plague Drones of Nurgle


New for this codex is Nurgle's entry in the fast attack section: plague drones.  Sadly I always get confused with this name and "Blight Drones", but that is about my only criticism.

What are they good for then?  Well, they move fast.  And if you're a long time Nurgle fan, then you will know what a huge boon this is.  Seriously: a Nurgle unit that moves fast breaks the Nurgle rule of being slow and purposeful (literally).  With shrouded and a toughness of 5, these guys are going to be quite mean to take down.

But therein, there's a conundrum.  On their own, they don't have a particularly great role.  The only way that they are going to take enemies down is through their sheer numbers (and sheer number of poisoned attacks).  And as such, the way to play them is either (1) as a tar pit or (2) as a final turn swooper to claim or contest objectives (depending on which of the standard games is being played).  They are simply not geared to take down armour, and not particularly great at taking down terminators and their ilk.  But they might be able to tar pit for long enough that it won't be an issue.  An etherblade or greater etherblade would be a nice way to cause a threat to 2+ save models though and is a serious contender for spending points on.

Death heads give a 12" ranged attack which is also poisoned.  This could actually be good on this unit since they're about the only one that might benefit from it (i.e. being able to position themselves quick and accurately for their use).  Venom sting inflicts instant death and could be a useful idea for character hunting (but is expensive).  Rot Proboscis give a 3+ poisoned rule which is nice, but again: also expensive.  And as with many units, icons and instruments can be added to taste.

Here's a few ideas on builds.

5 Plague drones of Nurgle, Venom Stings, Plaguebringer with Greater Etherblade (260 points)
This is a pricey unit (in comparison to say, thunder hammer terminators), but is fundamentally a character hunter and killer.  Seek out enemy characters and try to instant death them.  You only need to score that one wound and it could be pulled off by this unit effectively (with some good die rolling).

3 Plague drones of Nurgle, Plaguebringer with Greater Etherblade, Icon of Chaos, Instrument of chaos (176 points)
A fairly bland set up, but potentially very useful with the instrument inside it.  Use it as a tar pit to stop pesky fire warriors shooting everything else out the the sky?

3 Plaguedrones of Nurgle, Plaguebringer with Etherblade, Death Heads (156 points)
A slightly cheaper tar pit unit.  If it survive (or if you hide it), use it to swoop on an objective in the late game.

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