Nurgle Pestigors Overview:
Nurgle Pestigors may be the most important players on a Nurgle team as they do a lot of the heavy lifting and fill a lot of roles. They have average movement though it is the fastest on the team, topped off with average strength, agility and armour. Cost wise they aren’t the cheapest players but I wouldn’t say they are expensive, very similar players to their Chaos Beastman cousins, though they have the addition of Regeneration and Nurgle’s Rot. As Nurgle teams don’t have an access to an Apothecary, like most of their team mates, Regeneration helps keep them alive and Nurgle’s Rot can net you the occasional free player. They also have Horns like Beastmen along with general, strength and mutation skill access.
Due to their role in the team you may find that they get targeted a lot by opposing teams and even despite Regeneration they may not live that long. The rest of the Nurgle team can cause problems but Pestigors offer the main offensive threat. Due to their movement and having Horns, Pestigors are also the most the likely players to do the blitzing on the team. It is really a toss up between these two roles that you need to decide how to develop each of them.
As such they have a lot of development options, so even despite the builds I offer up below, there are lots of variations possible. Nurgle teams don’t develop very quickly generally either and this plays a large part in how you should develop them. With so many skills that could be useful it can be confusing to know what actually may be the best choice for you. Also a rookie Nurgle team may require a different order of skill choices compared to players on a developed Nurgle team. As ever if you want more advice then post your team on the forum and we can discuss the options.
Ball Carrier Nurgle Pestigor:
- Normal: Block / Sure Hands / Extra Arms, Fend / Two Heads / Kick Off Return
- Doubles: Dodge / Sure Feet / Side Step
- Stat Increase: +ST +AG +MV
With an effective offence being the weakest point of a Nurgle team a specialist ball carrier comes in very helpful. Some coaches advocate only needing one as they can hog SPP so replacements can be developed quickly and it frees up the other three for the different blitzing styles. This does mean the opponent only has one to target but hopefully you can make do using a team mate if they are missing. There are a few choices for the first skill, Block is standard skill for a ball carrier and if it is on a rookie team getting some Block early can be vital. If you are running with only one ball carrier and only field him on offensive drives you can take a risk and forgo Block entirely. Doing that frees up another spot in your defensive formation, perhaps for a Kick Rotter or another defensive build. On offence they should be protected in a cage anyway, though personally I prefer to have Block but not taking it can work.
The other first skill choices are either Sure Hands to help with picking it up and negating Strip Ball. Nurgle teams have expensive players and rerolls, with the latter not usually being very numerous for the team. The other option is Extra Arms which can make ball handling easier, having Extra Arms also can let you carry the ball with a team mate and then have an Extra Arms player as an option for a pass or hand off. After that Fend can offer more protection and cut out some dodges, or Two Heads makes dodging away from or past opponents easier. Kick Off Return can also make a handy addition to your ball carrier, especially if you only have one. Nurgle are a slow team and advancing the ball can take a while, Kick Off Return will let you get to that ball easier from the kick off and may also provide vital if you need to try a two turn touchdown.
For doubles you have some choices, Dodge is pretty standard for protection and to improve success in dodge rolls. You won’t have much Dodge on the team as a whole though and thus can be negated easier by opposing Tackle players. Sure Feet can be very helpful though to give you more reliable extra movement, that can make keeping the ball safe in cages easier and also for scoring from further out or going for quick scores. The last choice I would consider is Side Step to help avoid getting tied up and avoid chain blocks.
A strength increase is useful as it makes them harder to hit and they can blitz their way free even easier. It perhaps isn’t the best use of a strength increase as an offence only ball carrier though and if you get it early enough I may switch to a more flexible build. For a ball carrier an agility increase is probably the best you can get, all ball handling becomes easier as well as dodging. Movement is also very useful for this build giving you the extra range for carrying the ball, if you do get it then Sure Feet on a double can give them an impressive range for such a slow team.
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Great article, I fully understand what you mean by it being difficult to summarize – there are so many options.
I have all four of my Pestigors up over 31 SPPs now, and developed 1 into an out an out Blitzer (juggernaut, frenzy, Mighty Blow with Horns is evil), 2 into secondary blitzers and ball carriers ( 1 with +AG, Block, Mighty Blow, the other with Block, Tackle and Diving Catch) With hindsight I should have just taken extra arm here…
My fourth Pestigor is a bit of an enigma. Injured and only Str 2 from a very early stage in his career. AT the time I didnt have the funds to buy another – so I kept him. Hes got Extra Arms, Pass and Strong Arm and coupled with the Diving Catch and +AG pestigor, I can score quicker than other slower teams. He has been on the ‘to sack’ list for a while admittedly, but he’s still scored twice, caused 3 casualties and made 17 completions in his time!
I had written off Nurgle as an inflexible, uncompetetive team not suited to my style of play, until I saw them thrash my rising star High Elves. The coach warned me in turn one how dangerous they were, but I was confident I could stay out of his reach.
I was wrong. With four killer Warriors, two killer Beastmen, two custom-built ball handling Beastmen (one for passing, the other for recieving) and 3 unskilled rotters, he created the most ruthless team I have yet seen. So I am emulating him.
Most Nurgle teams are uncompetetive because they are weighed down with a 200k Beast and 250k worth of Rotters. But with four carefully created Pestigors- two for blitzing and two for ball handling- you have a team that score with ease and whose ability to murder is unparalleled.
Ever considered Foul Appearance as an option for a final skill? If you can get it onto practically your entire team, you’ll drive your opponents to distraction! Even with only the basic FA on my warriors and beast, I had one memorable game where my opponent rolled an UNCANNY number of 1s to the stage that he was failing roughly 1 in every 3 blocks!
Before when Foul Appearance also included the benefits of Disturbing Presence as well I may have taken it as a later skill. However with the skill being split in half I don’t think it is worth a skill choice for a Pestigor.
They are really big work horses for the team and generally while I would like it there are many other options that are going to be more useful.
Just had a pestigor reach lvl 5, and I’m thinking Stand Firm is the choice.
Progression was to be balanced, but turned ball carrier with +Agility
Block, Claw, +Agility
My roll was normal, so can’t take Side Step. This would let me run the sidelines with the ball, or to stretch my reach on defense. The agility boost lets me skip extra arms and the like. Didn’t see SF in any build, but I’m liking it here. Rest of my team is fairly balanced except for a slow developing beast, so a ball hog is fine by me too.
Picking skills on a developed team tends to come down a fair amount to what the rest of the team looks like. You will get better advice if you make a thread on the forum and post your entire roster. Also knowing what kind of league environment and what races your opponents use will help to make a decision.
Even with AG4 I think there is a good case for Two Heads (can start dodging through tackle zones on a 2+) I’m not sold on how useful Stand Firm will be on a Ball Carrier compared to Two Heads for instance. It’s a skill I see more fitting for high strength hitting guys (especially with Guard) and crowd push builds with Frenzy and Juggernaut.
In a private league online, team’s 3rd season, entering the highest TV division next season, so they trend heavily toward bashy teams. Most teams tend to have at least one Frenzier, so just being able to set up closer to or on the sidelines with an agility 4 ball hawk sounds good to me. Plus, as I said running the sidelines with a half cage or alone forcing the occasional additional go for it to hit him is where I was thinking. That said, if I went with any other skill, Two Heads could be very useful. I am usually pretty conservative except for when I smell a ball dislodge, so don’t tend towards dodges. I could be totally wrong, but I went with Stand Firm, guess I’ll see how it goes.
Hi Coach ! I’m skilling up my MV7 Pestigor and I just wanted to know your point of view about a very popular debate : Sure Hands vs Extra Arm.
Here are the odds for an AG3 Pestigor (please, correct me if I am wrong) :
Picking up the ball in 0 TZ : Sure Hands 88.89% vs Extra Arm 83.33% (97.22% with Reroll)
Picking up the ball in 1 TZ : Sure Hands 75.00% vs Extra Arm 66.00% (88.89% with Reroll)
Picking up the ball in 2 TZ : Sure Hands 55.55% vs Extra Arm 50.00% (75.00% with Reroll)
Picking up the ball in 3 TZ : Sure Hands 30.56% vs Extra Arm 33.33% (55.55% with Reroll)
Let’s say the situation is not critical. This means that in terms of picking up the ball, Sure Hands is at most 5.55% more efficient than Extra Arm. At this stage, Sure Hands and Extra Arm seem to be similar as I consider 5.55% to be negligeable to make a sharp choice between both skills. The main argument of people in favour of Sure Hands is : ” Save your Rerolls”. Does it mean that Extra Arm is Reroll consuming ? I don’t think so : it’s up to you to be disciplined enough and accept a failed test roll.
My point is that the odds for picking up the ball with Extra Arm are close to the ones with Sure Hands but offer the option to use a Reroll in a critical situation. In the case you HAVE to pick up the ball and use a Reroll, odds are from about 19% to 25% higher in favour of Extra Arm which is, let’s admit I it, a convincing argument.
Besides, Extra Arm can be used in situations like Catch or Interception and Sure Hands negate Strip Ball.
My conclusion is that choosing either Sure Hands or Extra Arm depends on a few factors but picking up the ball is probably at the bottom of the list. Sure Hands should be only favoured in a Strip Ball heavy league. In any other case, Extra Arm is more useful because of its higher versatility.
What are your thoughts ?
Personally I prefer taking Extra Arms for a few of reasons.
Firstly you can combine it with a Team Reroll if you really need to a lot of the time (unless of course you used one that turn already or are out of them at this point).
It is also more flexible given that you can use it on catch rolls as well (and on Interceptions if someone is silly enough to throw over players).
Lastly you can take Sure Hands on nearly every player in the game, if you’re going to do that why play a team that can have Mutations!
Sure hands offers protection against Strip Ball though