Total War Warhammer/Tactics/Nurgle

This is the general tactics page on how to play Nurgle in Total War: WARHAMMER. As the game isn't out yet and we know very little about how the faction will work, this page won't be filled out for a long time. However, we can make some early guesses based on the table top and the trailer.

Why Play Nurgle?

• Because you've always wanted to take a cannon to the gut and say "I'm sorry, did something hit me?"
• You will be a tanky menace. Burning through you is going to be a massive pain in the face for most factions.
• Because you want to worship Chaos but not be a COMPLETE asshole.
• Saying you worship Nurgle is the perfect cover for your horrible B.O. (No it isn't take a fucking shower.)
• You enjoy the irony of playing the God of Disease during/after a certain global pandemic. Bonus points if you actually had it. Double bonus if you were asymptomatic like a true favored one.

Pros

• Durability: You will likely be one of the tankiest factions in the entire game. With high health, defense and regeneration on most of your units you will be a monstrous pain in the ass for most faction to cut through.
• Morale: Nurgle is about toughing it out even when you're a walking mass of pustules and tumors, expect high leadership if not outright unbreakability.
• Poison Aplenty: It'd be a sin if Poison wasn't common in your roster, helping you carve through enemies and make it even harder to take you out.
• Debuffs: The mark of Nurgle gave a reduced chance to hit on the table top, which will likely translate to some nurgle units giving reduced melee attack to units they're in contact with. As such the enemy units will rarely be fighting at full strength. Your plagues can also provide plenty of debuffs, speaking of which...
• Plagues: It is Nurgle, the god of disease, and despair. He can spread plagues better than the Skaven can, allowing you to spread corruption very fast, and soften up enemies and settlements before you pick them off the map like ripe rotting fruit from Nurgle's garden. For the cultists that understand Grandfather Nurgle's love, expect powerful boosts instead from receiving a plague.

Cons

• Slow: Don't expect to be going anywhere fast. Most factions are probably going to have you beat when it comes to mobility so try and get into the meatgrinder as fast as you can.
• Weakness to Fire: With all that Regen comes a weakness to fire, so any faction that has plentiful access to it is going to be your bane. High Elves, Dwarfs, Tzeentch, and really any faction with Lore of Fire may be a rough time.
• Lack of Ranged: I mean, Tzeentch aside Chaos isn't known for being strong in the ranged department, but unlike you they at least have options. You may get Mortal followers with short ranged options and you'll certainly get a Soul Grinder but that will probably be it.
• Lack of Offense: Sure the enemy won't be killing you quickly, but you aren't going to be killing them that much faster. Melee Attack and charge will likely be low for your units. Debuffs will probably be there to make up for it, but expect to either have to rely on monster or magic to delete enemies or prepare yourself for the grind.
• Give papa Nurgle a hug! I promise it's not contagious!: Very few factions are willing to align themselves with the literal personification of plague. Besides the Skaven who also personify it, and your mortal followers in the Beastmen, Norsca, and Warriors, you are unlikely to have too many diplomatic options.
• DLC: Call it a safe bet. Every core race before you had units cut for DLC and you will be no exception.

Faction Traits

• Cloud of Flies: A trait shared by all of your Daemon Units. As your Daemons stay in melee combat, they actively gain Melee Defense, encouraging leaving them in to grind it out against the enemy. As you are supposed to be the tanky Daemon faction, this encourages you to stay in and outlast the enemy as opposed to outfight them. While this doesn't encourage you to be completely passive, it does mean that you don't really need to do any complex pull out game or maneuvers. Not exactly the most complex faction passive in the entire game, but one that does fit the playstyle that Nurgle want s to go for.

Lords

Legendary Lords

• Ku'gath Plaguefather: The one and only. He's a spellcaster of Nurgle (duh) and also works as artillery here like on tabletop. Big Ku'gath has 14,800 HP(!), but is expectantly VERY slow. Like 28 speed slow, Heirotians can outpace this guy. His slow speed combined with only 70 armor means that he will actually be rather susceptible to skirmish fire. While this may sound bad, again, mother fucker has 14k HP and ranged attacks so he should be able to weather the storm and pelt and skirmishers that come his way.

Generic Lords

• Exalted Great Unclean One: If the convention for the Bloodthirster applies to all Greater Daemons, expect the Exalted version to be the lord while the standard Great Unclean One is a recruitable monster. This blubber butt should be a massive regenerating wall of slime with access to poison attacks and the Lores of Nurgle and Death. It should also be slow. Like, I'm talking Hierotitan and Giant levels of slow. I mean if you want to out run your opponent why the hell are you playing Nurgle? This thing will be a tanky monstrosity that should be able to hold out for a while against almost anything.

• Herald of Nurgle: Since Khorne and Tzeentch have theirs, all of the gods are probably going to get theirs as well. Expect Nurgle heralds to have regen and be able to cast spells from the Lores of Death or Nurgle. they will also likely come with buffing abilities and mounts from palanquins to Rot Flies depending on what gets added it. It will likely be slow as sin to make up for this. Appears in a photo in new magic lore blog.

Heroes

Generic Heroes

• Plagueridden: Expect it to be the hero version of the Herald so you can have it if you want the Great Unclean One as your leader.
• Cultist of Nurgle: Your primary spreader of Nurgle's Love, can move onto enemy or neutral armies or settlements to spread a plague, at the cost of the Cultist.

Units

Infantry

• Nurglings: Confirmed in a recent blog post, they will be your chaff infantry, and will likely be one of the best units at the job. Unbreakable, tanky for it's price and with poison nothing short of magic may get these things off of the battlefield quickly.

• Plaguebearers: It's not really speculative to expect Plaguebearers to be the bread and butter of your armies. Slow and extremely tough.

• Forsaken:

• Exalted Plaguebearers:

Cavalry

• Plague Drone:
• Pox Rider:

Monsters

• Chaos Furies (Nurgle): Khorne has his, so expect the same from Nurgle. These furies will likely be slower than normal ones, but will also be much more resilient and come with poison attacks, which will likely make them the best furies in prolonged combat.

• Nurgling Megazord: What appears to be a bunch of Nurglings banding together to form Voltron and smash their enemies. No, we don't know what the hell this thing is. No, we don't know what the hell it does. Yes, we absolutely fucking love it

• Chaos Spawn (Nurgle):

• Beasts of Nurgle:

• Rotflies: Judging by the concept art, seems like generic rider less Rotflies will be their own unit. They also seem to have Death Heads in their abdomen, so maybe they will have some sort of bombardment attack like Gyrocopters.

• Plague Toads: A surprising addition from the Forge World Throne of Chaos book, but a cool one non the less.

• Soul Grinder of Nurgle: Tzeentch and Khorne got theirs so safe to assume all the gods will get their own version.

• Great Unclean One: Nurgle's big bulbous boys of mass and rot capable of withstanding the blast from a hell cannon and shrug it off. Considering how Khorne and Tzeentch got their greater daemons as unites, it is likely Nurgle will get his.

Multiplayer Strategies

You are designed to pretty much out last everyone you fight against, as your Nurglings and Plaguebearers hold the line so your monsters and army abilities give the enemy a slow death. Poison and debuffs are aplenty in your army as you drown the enemies in their own sickness. However, you had best pray your enemies are Anti Vaxxers because if they practice social distancing, it'll be hard for you to do your job. The fastest thing in your army are toad monsters and fat bugs, so yeah you're not exactly a speed demon. Combine that with your lack of ranged units and kiting builds in particular might end up being a big problem for you. Still, if you are able to get into melee, expect the plagues to slowly melt them down. Now go out there and make Papa Nurgle proud!

• Beastmen:

• Bretonnia:

• Warriors of Chaos:

• Dark Elves:

• Dwarfs:

• Empire:

• Grand Cathay:

• Greenskins:

• High Elves:

• Khorne:

• Kislev:

• Lizardmen:

• Norsca:

• Nurgle:

• Ogre Kingdoms:

• Skaven:

• Slaanesh:

• Tomb Kings:

• Tzeentch:

• Vampire Coast:

• Vampire Counts:

• Wood Elves:

Total War: Warhammer Tactics Articles
General Tactics	Tactics Magic Banner Immortal Empires
Total War: Warhammer	The Empire Dwarfs Greenskins Vampire Counts Bretonnia Warriors of Chaos Beastmen Wood Elves Norsca
Total War: Warhammer 2	High Elves Dark Elves Lizardmen Skaven Tomb Kings Vampire Coast
Total War: Warhammer 3	Kislev Khorne Tzeentch Nurgle Slaanesh Grand Cathay Ogre Kingdoms Daemons of Chaos Chaos Dwarfs