This article was written for a previous version of the Blood Bowl rules and has some outdated information in it. You might still find it contains some useful information.
There is now an an updated Blood Bowl 2020 Second Season Nurgle Starting Rosters article.
Nurgle Starting Roster Overview:
Nurgle teams have fairly expensive players (apart from the really cheap Rotters) though none of them start with any of the core skills (Block, Dodge, Sure Hands etc.). Their rerolls are also expensive and the Rotters while cheap don’t generally have very long life spans. These factors all combine to make a Nurgle team one of the weaker or harder ones to play effectively compared to a lot of the other Blood Bowl races.
Nurgle teams are perhaps also started in more variations than a lot of other races based on the preference of the coach and what they like to have from the outset. Unfortunately Nurgle are one of those teams where you really have to make a sacrifice somewhere and can’t really start with the full compliment of what you would like.
The Pestigors tend to do most of the blitzing and ball handling work due to the limitations of the rest of the team, though taking a handful of them means dropping something else. Nurgle Warriors benefit from starting early to aid their slow development and gets you the extra strength, Foul Appearance and Disturbing Presence on the team from the outset. A Beast of Nurgle has similar benefits to the Warriors and can also tie up more opponents with its Tentacles. Rotters are really cheap and can save you cash to spend on other things but with Decay and neither Regeneration or an Apothecary access they may need replacing fairly soon. Rerolls can also go a long way to help combat the lack of the core skills, though again they cost a lot so it means less money for players.
Full Mutations TV1000 Nurgle Starting Roster:
| Quantity | Player / Item | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Rotters | 200k |
| 1 | Pestigor | 80k |
| 4 | Nurgle Warriors | 440k |
| 1 | Beast of Nurgle | 140k |
| 2 | Rerolls | 140k |
| Total | 1 Million |
This is perhaps the nearest you will come to a “standard” Nurgle starting roster. It gets the maximum amount of players at the start who have Foul Appearance and Disturbing Presence. This makes it much easier to cover the pitch with their effects and harder for the opposition to avoid. These five same players are also your five strongest and also all have Regeneration which will help with avoiding getting out numbered.
It is handy to have at least one Pestigor to do the roles as mentioned above and by just having the one you claw back a bit of the money you blew buying all five of the most expensive players. You can also then concentrate on getting a skill on this solitary Pestigor before you start purchasing more. With six players so far you need at least five Rotters to fill out the mandatory eleven players you need to start the team with. That handily leaves you with exactly the right amount left over to get two rerolls. I do like to start with more normally but there is only so much you can afford. Hopefully though with careful play and positioning you can minimise the need to use rerolls. Nurgle teams can cope fairly well with failed Blocks by the strong players too, what with their high armour and Regeneration.
Going forward an extra reroll would be nice, especially if you are struggling. If you are coping with two though then a second Pestigor would be a great addition to the team. Hopefully you will have skilled up the first Pestigor by the time you get the money as well. If you tend to struggle more with having eleven players every drive then getting a couple more Rotters as soon as you can might be the better option. Nurgle teams have a good defence, though it does rely on having more players.
Three Reroll TV1000 Nurgle Starting Roster:
| Quantity | Player / Item | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| 6 | Rotters | 240k |
| 1 | Pestigor | 80k |
| 4 | Nurgle Warriors | 440k |
| 3 | Rerolls | 210k |
| Total | 970k |
Trying to fit three rerolls onto the initial lineup requires cutting one of the more expensive players. A reroll after team creation costs the same as a Beast of Nurgle and as Big Guys tend to be somewhat unreliable that is the one most coaches probably cut. The advantages of having three rerolls over two afford you a bit more flexibility on the pitch at the trade off for more strength and those disruptive skills. Some games the trade off will be worth it, other games they won’t. It is a bit of a gamble and why starting a Nurgle team can be quite tricky.
Unfortunately doing that exchange you are 10k short of upgrading a Rotter to a second Pestigor which would have been more attractive. With an extra Rotter on the starting team, that extra money you are saving by getting the reroll to start with may end up getting lost through player injury. With no Apothecary to save for, you can either keep it towards getting more Pestigors or the Beast of Nurgle, spend it on Cheerleader and Coaches (not recommended), or perhaps upgrade one of the Warriors to the Beast of Nurgle. That last option isn’t a bad one, a Warrior is less money to save up for and perhaps despite the reliability factors the Beast of Nurgle can cause problems that a Warrior can’t.
Future purchases are either a second Pestigor, or the player you dropped to afford that extra Reroll. If your single Pestigor bit the dust then I would think replacing them is the highest priority. If you don’t then most your ball handling will be done be Rotters, they will likely get the SPP from scoring (something Nurgle don’t do a lot of) which you risk losing on your high turnover players. Another option is getting some reserves by getting a couple more Rotters like above.
TV1000 Nurgle Starting Roster Summary:
There are certainly many more options when it comes to the starting lineup for a Nurgle team, though these two or slight variations are probably the most workable. You don’t really want to start with less than two rerolls on a slow, low agility, low skilled team. Turnovers will just plague you in early games against a good coach that your chances drop substantially. On the flip side starting with more than three requires cutting players that are probably going to help you on the pitch far more than that fourth reroll would.
The other real way to go with Nurgle is to try and make use of the cheaper players to start with a deeper bench. A Nurgle team can struggle if it gets outnumbered so having reserves can be a great help. The caveat to that though is to do so requires dropping your most hard to remove players in order to free up the cash. By doing that you may be increasing the likelihood that you do lose players and become outnumbered. Even worse though is that those injuries mean those players need replacing, though you are trying to save up the cash to afford those more expensive players that you started without. It also weakens your team on the pitch and those players you need to drop are also slow to develop. This is why I’ve not outlined an option for this, it may work, though I don’t think it is your best way forward.
Personal opinion time. More than any other team, Nurgle is defined by their big guy. Skipping him, for any reason, means you are playing however many games it takes to get to the beast, with a hamstrung Chaos team.
So, just don’t. Go for the beast.
I just have to agreed with bathoz comment: Nurgle team without Nurgle Beast doesn’t taste the same!
Personally, I just feel unsecure starting with only 2 Rerolls. I just go for the second roster presented in this post, but by switching the fourth Nurgle Warrior with the Nurgle Beast. This won’t be too hard to early get to the 110k needed for the last Nurgle Warrior.
There isn’t any reason a Nurgle Team has to start with a Beast. If you don’t that means more Pestigors you can get skilled up earlier which is a very good thing as they need the skills while the beast really doesn’t need many. Stand Firm and Block being the only two big ones for him. It can also mean starting with more rerolls which very well could mean a better win record early on, especially if your opponent is good at making sure your beast is of as little use as possible.
Sorry for the double post but I read the comments and responded to them before I read the article…
My comment being, why not have a 4 warrior, 3 pestigor, 2 reroll roster? Seems to me to be at least as effective as either of the two listed ones. It gives you multiple potential ball handlers so they can’t be singled out as easily and gives you a better chance of your MVP falling on a good player rather then a Rotter (7 vs 5/6). There is also the extra speed and more flexible blitzing to take into consideration.
Certainly an option though starting with the Beast of Nurgle seems a more popular option. It maximises your disruptive skills and they are much more resilient than a Pestigor. The Foul Appearance, extra strength and high armour make them harder to hurt. A BoN also develops slowly but when they get skills they are fantastic players, even just one skill increases their usefulness by a lot. A Pestigor can’t tie players up anywhere near as effectively.
On the other hand Pestigors skill up quicker and are cheaper to save up for. Compared to a Rotter you are paying an extra 40k for +1 movement, Horns and Regeneration. A lot of the time this won’t help you as much in a game and a Rotter isn’t that much worse and could likely do what a Pestigor would have done for you. (Decay doesn’t have any on pitch ramifications.)
Your points in favour are obviously correct, though popular opinion is that it isn’t the best trade off. Of course you have to make your trade off somewhere and there is no single right way that is massively better than the alternatives.
I don’t think pestigor are the most representative player of Nurgle Team and 80k make them quite expensive to start with. They are obviously much more than the faster player of the roster, but for me, they are just beastmen with regeneration. Others positional as BoN and NW are far more important for Nurgle Team. that’s why I want to include most of them in my starting roster and start buying 3 last pestigors later.
I think that starting with too much pestigors is not a good choice. In this case why not switch to a chaos roster?
Gotta agree with bathoz – don’t start a Nurgle team without the Beast!
Having that S5, tentacled, disturbing big guy is key to your defense. It also helps with team development as both the Warriors and the Beast will gain SPP much slower and benefit greatly from early MVPs.
mmm… seems like nobody cares for some FF anymores. Is it not the only time one can buy some and thus help get more money in the long run ?
It is the only time you can by any, though it doesn’t affect your winnings like it used to under the older rules. You are usually better off now spending that money on players or rerolls. It can give you a boost early on, though it isn’t very large and get cancelled out fairly quickly. There are a few teams that can take advantage of it still though, check out the individual team starting rosters for more details.
I’m in agreement with barthoz and Randroid. I really don’t see any advantage in starting without the Beast of Nurgle. For the sake of an extra re-roll (which there’s always a chance won’t work or be the result you want/need) you are losing out on possibly the best Big Guy in the game.
I for one would never leave home without my tentacles!
3 warriors, 3 pestigors, 5 rotters and 3 re-rolls and 20k banked or fan factor. Has good balance and better speed, then get the Beast as your next player. Pestigors rank up very nicely IMO
I built a new Nurgle team just a couple days ago. I opted for BoN, 1 NW, 2 Pestigors, 7 Rotters, 4 re-rolls, and 30K in savings.
I’ve been pretty happy with it. I choose to put the money on re-rolls up front because they will cost 2x later while the NWs will always be 110K. It takes a few games, but after 5 or 6 games I got all 4 NW slots filled. The first few games were tough, but it’s a long term investment.
As for starting with the BoN is only 30K more than a warrior and is well worth the investment. As I see it if I’m even considering dropping 110K on a Str4 basher with no skills why not spend 30K more and get a big guy instead. he hits harder, and has tentacles (which has quickly become a favorite)
I’m using a lot of rotters, but they are disposable and temporary. Their main roll is to assist and screen. I get almost as many kills (free rotters) as I have deaths and when I need to replenish my team I replace the rotters with NWs or Pestigors.
For endless online matchmaking league teams I prefer
4 warriors
3 pestigors
4 rotters
2 rerolls
For starters I don’t want to buy many rotters, I figure in the first five games I’ll get one or two through nurgle’s rot.
I want to keep my tv down while my warriors and pestigors get block.
Really stupid and the difficulty in getting block mean I have little interest in a BoN early on.
Also, I think rotters are great ball carriers, because I don’t care if they get hit and I don’t want to put sure hands on a pestigor.
Nobody seems to be compromising with the number of NW here…
I like extra rerolls on this team, plus at least enough warriors to man the LOS.
BON (140k)
3 x Warriors (330k)
1 x Pestigor (80k)
6x Rotters (240k)
3x Rerolls (210k)
Next purchases are the last warrior or more pestigors.
Adz, I second your notion on leaving the door open for not starting with 4 Warriors. I have been having success with the following line up:
BON (140k)
2 x Warriors (220k)
2 x Pestigor (160k)
6x Rotters (240k)
3x Rerolls (210k)
30K in change
I know I am “trading down” a Warrior for a Pestigor but I liked the idea of having 1 Pestigor loose for blitzing, the other for handling the ball, and it also reduces the targeting of my sole Pestigor. 2 Warriors plus the Beast seemed adequate to power the line, if I want to go strong there, and provides a decent spread of Disturbing Presence.