You may want to have a shower after reading this article, as we’re discussing the foetid Maggotkin of Nurgle. We're diving into the faction's pool of putrid units and tactics, and 'icky' doesn't even begin to cover it. We’ll also be handing you over to our guest playtester, who’s joining us to showcase how Nurgle’s chosen followers are shaping up in the Era of the Beast.
Indeed, over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at how the new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar affects every faction, introducing each of them, and offering guidance on which of their units and strategies will work most effectively. Well, now it’s the turn of the Maggotkin of Nurgle to fall under the faction spotlight, but before we hand you over to our specialist playtester, let’s take a look at an overview of the faction’s lore.
Who Are the Maggotkin of Nurgle?
Nurgle is the Chaos God of disease, pestilence, and decay. His followers, both mortal and daemonic alike, share the ‘blessings’ of their infernal master, displaying horribly bloated bodies that are infected with all manner of virulent contagions. They take great delight in spreading these ‘gifts’ to anyone and anything they encounter as they march across the Mortal Realms, leaving nought but corruption in their wake.
During the Age of Chaos, Ghyran, the Realm of Life, had all but succumbed to the putrid touch of Nurgle’s Maggotkin legions, and only the intervention of Sigmar’s newly arrived Stormcast Eternals prevented the Everqueen herself from falling into their hands. Even though a revitalised Alarielle eventually woke from her torpor and oversaw the purging of Nurgle’s foul taint from Ghyran, the Chaos God still greatly covets the realm that was denied to him.
The Maggotkin of Nurgle are preceded by thick clouds of buzzing flies and the dolorous ringing of bells. Rank after rank of Putrid Blightkings and daemonic Plaguebearers advance inexorably in their wake, accompanied by the hovering forms of Plague Drones and Pusgoyles, and hordes of diminutive Nurglings. As the minions of Nurgle draw steadily closer, their enemies are beset by pestilential symptoms, their bodies becoming stricken with fever, causing them to retch uncontrollably. What may have once appeared to be a fair fight soon turns into a one-sided slaughter as the Maggotkin reap what their contagions have sown.
Now we know more about them, let’s hand you over to playtester and Maggotkin veteran Kieran Harper to teach us some dirty (see what we did there?) tricks for using them in the new edition.
Kieran: As an army, the Maggotkin of Nurgle have a little bit of everything. They can fight, they can shoot, they can move well, they’re insanely tough to kill, and they have access to both the summoning rules and powerful spells. They make a great all-comers army if you like to play a tactical long game. The good news is, they were good before, but now they’re even better!
Nurgle armies rely on synergy between units and Heroes, and the new edition brings the power level of Heroes up a significant notch, which plays well for this faction. All of the new reactive command abilities are excellent for this army – making it easier to hit or save just makes them better at what they already excel at.
Scoring objectives and victory points is where the new command abilities will really shine for Maggotkin armies. Your opponents are quickly going to learn they have to overcommit to make a dent in your units for those key combats, and that means they’ll be spreading themselves thinner elsewhere. You also have a nice selection of Monster-riding Heroes in the army which can already heal themselves, and with the introduction of a heroic action that allows you to heal, they’ll be sticking around even longer.
Biggest Winners
The Maggotkin of Nurgle are clearly a force to be reckoned with moving forwards, but which of their units have improved most thanks to the game’s updated core rules? We asked Kieran to pick his top three.
Nurglings
Kieran: Nurglings are expressive and fun models that fit into any Nurgle army. The value in these models is their Endless Swarm ability, which will see a unit of them hanging around and taking up valuable board space on the new table size to block enemy movement. To kick it up a gear, you can reinforce them from a unit of 3 to 6, making for a great roadblock unit that will require a lot more damage to remove than your opponent might expect.
Bloab Rotspawned
Kieran: Bloab Rotspawned will likely become an important part of every mortal Maggotkin force. His warscroll spell, which can inflict D3 mortal wounds to the target unit in any phase that they suffer any wounds, can now potentially hurt the enemy in seven phases across both players’ turns!
Pusgoyle Blightlords
Kieran: A large unit of Pusgoyle Blightlords will make excellent use of the combined effects of two command abilities – a Harbinger of Decay’s Morbid Vigour, and All-out Defence – to benefit from a nice, healthy 3+ Save while negating any wounds suffered on a 5+. With 8 Wounds apiece, they’ll each count as two models for the purposes of objective scoring as well. Park them on an objective and it’s going to take a tremendous amount of effort to shift them. Once you’ve lost a couple of models, you can always retreat and Rally them to get a powerful model back for each 6+ you roll.
Thanks for your advice, Kieran. Just as Nurgle’s followers are blessed with his gifts, anyone looking to start or add to an existing collection of Maggotkin of Nurgle are favoured with three fantastic sets to get you going or add reinforcements. The Start Collecting! sets of the Daemons of Nurgle and Maggotkin of Nurgle provide you with a well-rounded selection of daemonic and mortal units respectively, while Gortle Pulpskull’s Invidian Plaguehost offers a more Plaguebearer-heavy option.
