Plague Marine 2000pts - advice?

[Bad Man]

Hi Guys.

While I am in the midst of building my new Ork Speed freek army, I have been challenged to dust off my old Nurgle outfit and play a couple of games.

i haven't played with the old rotters since early 4th ed so I have come to you all for some tweaks on my army i'm putting out.

(BTW the dudes I'm playing are all competitive types so cheese is always in - but I want character in my army)

I'll be playing against Necrons, Witch Hunters and Dark Eldar.

So here it is:


Daemon Prince: Wings, MoN, Warptime - 175

Chaos Lord: Terminator armour, MoN, Daemon Weapon, Combi-weapon - 170
4 x Terminator: Icon of Nurgle, 2X Power Fist, Heavy Flamer, 2X Combi-weapon - 195

7 x Plague marines: 2x Melta, champion wth power weapon, plas pistol, rhino - 261

7 x Plague marines: 2x Melta, Icon, champion wth power weapon, plas pistol, rhino - 266

7 x Plague marines: 2x Plasmagun, champion wth power weapon, plas pistol, rhino - 271

7 x Plague marines: 2x Plasmagun, Icon, champion wth power Fist, rhino - 271

3 x Obliterators: 225

Predator: Las Sponsons and Twin Linked Las Turret - 165

Should come to 1999 and has the bonus of involving models I already own (given most of my cash is currently bleeding out on an Ork army).


Obviously i'll be deep striking the Lord and Termies - thought about a land raider but I'd rather have more marines in there.

I haven't played chaos for ages so any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers guys!

[Rabbit]

Not a bad list. Some of your upgrades could perhaps be reinvested to better suit your needs. Such as: Give all your plague marine squads a champion with a fist, rather than a power weapon, and drop the plasma pistol. While plague champs are renowned for the resilience against "gets hot" effects, they still occasionally prey. This obviously reduces the prime offensive model in the squad. Plus, those points could be used elsewhere, such as upgrading your champs with fists. There is no scenario I can imagine where a basic power weapon is superior on a plague champ to a power fist. NONE.

Predator: Tri-las preds are notorious for getting bushwhacked during the first round, especially in larger games, such as 2000 points. Your opponent should easily have the capacity for popping the pred first round. With tri-las, you're pretty much inviting the opportunity. For this reason, downgrade the turret back to the original auto-cannon, but keep the sponsons. This will net you a little cash for other upgrades.

Prince: Fine. I use him. I love him. He's my little darling.

Termis: It's awfully expensive to equip a four man termi squad with a 50 point icon. Really, you need a minimum of six termis for justifying the IoN. Otherwise, it's just not cost-effective.

Lord: Nice little brute. Of course, for competitive scenarios, his points are generally better spent in other areas, such as a defiler or additional pred. While he's fairly nasty in close combat, you're playing against SoB, Dark Eldar, and Crons- three armies notorious for avoiding slow footslogging power squads (such as your termi unit and lord). All in all, if you really want to make a competitive death guard, then drop them- Lord, termis, and all. Use these points for taking either an additional plague squad, preds, or even dreads with missile launchers.

Note about the missile dread: As a longtime devotee of Nurgle, I have become dependent on missile dreads. I run 4-5 plague squads, a smattering of preds and defilers, princes, and of course, dreads with missile launchers. You'll notice in your build, as well as mine, that there is a serious deficiency in light tank busting. While the oblits and preds are excellent at popping medium to heavy armor, they are a bit of a point sink for managing rhinos. In other words, las canons are best used against more potent armor. This is where the missile dreads comes in handy; it's perfect for 11AV. Then, during mid to late game, the dread transitions into c.c. support for your spearhead. Just something to think about.

[teplicuss]

Daemon Prince: Wings, MoN, Warptime - 175


Chaos Lord: Terminator armour, MoN, Daemon Weapon, Combi-weapon - 170
OK, i have to say i would take the points and put in another demon price. they tend to do better for the points. Now if you would like to keep your lord, then make sure you either add a few more termies so he stays alive. Or if you wanna scrap the demon wepon you could give hime lightning claws.

4 x Terminator: Icon of Nurgle, 2X Power Fist, Heavy Flamer, 2X Combi-weapon - 195

I agree with rabbit on this unit, go six or go home is my opinion as well. just two few to deep strike and you dont have a Landraider so i dont see the point. But if you must, first let them play a role in your army. Are they troop killers, tank killers, maybe they kill special charectures or monster's creatures. But make them a part of your army thay fills a function.

7 x Plague marines: 2x Melta, champion wth power weapon, plas pistol, rhino - 261

7 x Plague marines: 2x Melta, Icon, champion wth power weapon, plas pistol, rhino - 266

7 x Plague marines: 2x Plasmagun, champion wth power weapon, plas pistol, rhino - 271

7 x Plague marines: 2x Plasmagun, Icon, champion wth power Fist, rhino - 271

Not bad, i also have 4 units of 7, here is what i think you need to do. Drop the plasma pistols and the power wepons, get some power fists and maybe a combie wepon or two. You should take out one of your plasma configured wepons squads and simply switch it for a flamer version instead. I make imperial, ork, eldar, nids, and oh yes tau armies cry with two falmers and a combie flamer comming out of a landraider.

3 x Obliterators: 225

good stuff, just make sure they are in cover or are deepstriking with your termies.

Predator: Las Sponsons and Twin Linked Las Turret - 165

now i run two preds in my army, one is a troop killer the other is a tank killer. I agree with rabbit on getting rid of the turret lasscannons, for the points it is not worth it and it will free you up to do other things. But over all you have a great foundation for your army. As for dreadnoughts, i have three with ML/CCW set up, and yes i love them...but i tended to swap them out for mor plague marines. But in 2000 points they are a good choice. Like i said in my ole 1850 i ran 3 and a demon prince and it was just scary, but they had draw backs that made them not as usfull as say oblits or preditors.

[Eye of Horus]

Personally I think the asp champs are a waste of points, if you cut those you can give yourself an extra 68 points per asp champ you cut, which would give you 282 more points! Make the army even MORE versatile and give one of the units 2 flamers for fighting orks, nids, or IG. Cutting 2 of the plasma guns gives you another 30 points. The daemon prince is good, but the predator is not. I am a firm believer that tanks in chaos are bad unless they are for transport. If you were to nix the pred, and put two more obliterators in, that would give you 15 extra points, more maneurverablity, more versatility, and you are not putting all your eggs in one basket that can be completely destroyed in one good shot. Now, at this point why don't you cut the chaos lord, and put in Typhus in a land raider with the terms, that why you have 2 tw lascannons and a tw hv bolter, anf you can get the termies and typhus into the frey quick and take out dangerous units or put that hv flamer to work FAST! This way the only thing deep striking are the oblits, which you WANT to deep strike, and that kills uncertainty, as well as lets you use your turns to their fullest, moving, shooting, AND assaulting, or at least butchering what ever you were gonna assault had you not killed it already. So I think the army list should be:

Daemon Prince: Wings, MoN, Warptime - 175


Typhus: 225 +Land Raider for these two: combi weapon -230
4 x Terminator: Icon of Nurgle, 2X Power Fist, Heavy Flamer, 2X Combi-weapon - 195

6 x Plague Marines: 2 melta - Rhino: Tw Bolter- 198
6 x Plague Marines: 2 melta - Rhino: Tw Bolter- 198
6 x Plague Marines: 2 Plasma Gun - Rhino: TW Bolter- 208
6 x Plague Marines: 2 Flamer - Rhino: TW Bolter- 188

5 x Obliterators - 375

Total: 1992

You could run this, but you mentioned that you thought about the land raider, but wanted to run more marines, but the only way you could do that truly effectively is to run thousand sons, or basic CSM and get creative with marks and options, but then the points you spend on rhinos really starts to build up.

[Lord Ramon]

I really don't think Nurgle can afford to have two HQ choices, as they rarely have anywhere near enough bodies to kill the enemy and/or hold Objectives.

Your list has almost zero anti-horde capability.

With this in mind I would lose the Lord and add a Defiler.

Everything else has already been said.

Lord Ramon

[Duchat]

Try squads of 5 plague marines with 2 plasmaguns. That's it. Sit them on markers and in cover. FnP, T5, 4+ cover or better, recipe for success.

Nurgle Lord in Terminator armor +...
4 terminators. 3 combimeltas, 1 H.Flamer (since you want one), 1 fist. Lots of power weapons to kill infantry, combimeltas for tanks and other TEQ's. Fist for that extra punch in CC against tough opponents.

GW really took a lot of fun out of our list when they made terminators generic.