Intro
Glory to Grandfather Nurgle! His Gardeners are here to spread love, flora, and a slight cough. One of the newest additions to Warhammer Underworlds is our first Daemons of Nurgle team, which bear with them some interesting mechanics and very solid fighters. I think it’s time to dig right into these gleeful Plaguebearers!
Warscroll Card
Starting as usual with their Inspire Condition, a fighter Inspires when it is Vulnerable after an Action step. So generally, when you get hit and left on 1 Health, you Inspire. While this seems somewhat unpredictable, it’s actually fairly decent when you look at some of the other abilities, and it’s something you force your opponent to play around. It’s not amazing, since it can be mitigated, but it’s not terrible.
Interestingly, this is a faction with no Active Abilities, only Passive bonuses. The first of which is Blooming Plague, which simply tells you that for certain Characteristics on a Fighter Card, you use the value of the space your tracker is on. What tracker? Well, let’s get to that in a second and then look holistically.
Imperturbable is another passive, this one making it so no more than 2 damage can be dealt to any Uninspired Fighter at any given time. While this does only affect Damage 3 attacks, it does mean that only 1 of your 5 fighters can be one shot while Uninspired, which is a massive bonus. If your opponent hits a 3 Health fighter with anything but a 1 Damage attack, they Inspire. This forces your opponent to rethink their attack and Ploy strategy to try and chip you down before finishing, which also gives you time to counteract and respond. Slowing down a Strike opponent in any way is good overall, so this is a great Ability.
We’ll look at Reap A Harvest and your Tracker at the same time. Basically the way it works is that your have a wheel (very thematic for Nurgle) that goes around as your fighters get hurt, you take turns, and you control the most Treasure. The numbers on the Wheel affect your Blooming Plague values (spoiler: this only affects Damage Characteristics) and once per go-around trigger Reap A Harvest, which Heals a fighter. Between Imperturbable, Reap A Harvest, and their generally decent stats for a 5 fighter Warband, this gives the Gardeners a really solid defensive set that just happens passively!
The damage values of the Tracker is very interesting to me. The relative strength of your fighters ebb and flow over the course of the game, starting fairly weak in your first couple Turns before getting quite strong as time goes on. The “Round Number” space in particular means the team ramps up quite well over time, if you have solid fighters left in Round 3. The majority of the Tracker is 2 or higher, including the Round Number which will be 2 or 3 most of the game, so the damage values of the team is generally pretty good. Your opponent can influence the Tracker by changing who controls Treasure or by dealing damage, so it’s something you really have to react to and have a couple plans depending on where the token may or may not be in your next turn. I find it very fascinating, as I enjoy playing Reactive games. It’s not reliable, but it’s something you will play around and deal with every turn of every game, which is exciting!
Fighters
Starting our fighters off with the Leader, we have Phleghmus (which is a fantastic name, first of all). Phleghmus has a pretty solid profile. 4 Wounds with a Shield is what I consider the baseline good (but not great) defensive profile, and he has a reliable Range 2 attack that will change is lethality depending on the Tracker position. This immediately makes him a solid fighter, as he can take hits (especially with Imperturbable) and dish out violence from 2 Hexes away, which is really good overall. While he only gets Inspired sometimes, he only gains an extra Attack Dice for the trouble. This is a great boost, as 3 Hammers is an awesome stat to have, but dipping down to 1 Health is a bit spooky. That said, you do have Reap A Harvest and can bring things like Healing Potion as well, but I rarely think you’ll focus on him getting Inspired, it’ll mostly be a nice to have for a turn or two before he gets finished off.
Moving on to Strewg, this is the fighter I consider the second best for the team. Like Phleghmus, he gets a very solid Range 2 attack that will be Damage 2+ most of the game. This is already great, as Range 2 Damage 2 is already quite rare, but having multiple sources of it is nearly unheard of for many teams. And Inspired it’s very reliable at 3 Hammers, just like your Leader! Strewg also shows our general Plaguebearer statline of having 3 Health but Inspiring to 4 Health. This means what you generally want is to get hit for 2+ damage, capped at 2 for Imperturbable, and then inspire to gain a Health. This, combined with Reap a Harvest, means many of your Plaguebeaerers will survive way longer than 3 Health would otherwise indicate. However, your opponents can play around this by hitting a Plaguebearer for 1 Damage and then following up with a 2 Damage attack, but this interplay between the two players is a very exciting part of the game.
Dripterus is your Icon Bearer and has a very, very bad headache. While he has another Range 2 attack, the 2 Sword profile is pretty poor and only gets better when he Inspires. Still, with Flanking or any accuracy boosting cards, it can be another solid source of Range 2 damage output. His defense statline is the same as Strewg, so everything noted there about Inspiring and playing around damage goes here as well.
Slunge is the final Plaguebearer, and he’s the most basic, just a dude with a Sword. Now, 2 Hammers is a perfectly fine attack stat, especially when paired with the Tracker for mostly Damage 2+, and he gets the very respectable 3 Sword Ensnare when he Inspires, so he’ll be dishing out decent damage alongside everyone else, just from closer up. Again, the standard Plaguebearer defense/Inspire notes apply here as well.
And last, but definitely not least, is Squort. The cute mascot of the group, Squort is also not to be completely overlooked. Yes, 2 Health means he’s very one-shottable at every point in the game, but 2 Dodge is a solid Save to have which will keep him alive sometimes. Move 4 and Fly also makes him fairly maneuverable. His attack is really the interesting part to me. Squort picks up a pretty ok Damage 1 Attack while Uninspired, but Crit Grievous means that sometimes it’ll pop off. If you can get him Inspired, the Damage 2 attack with 3 Dice and Crit Grievous is very likely to catch your opponent by surprise! While it will be fairly rare for him to Inspire due to his low Health pool, if it happens, he can really contribute to damage in a way that may surprise your opponent. Overall, he’s your worst fighter, but if this is your worst fighter, you’re in a good spot!
Overview
On the whole, a good set of Fighters. This is a team that really needs to pay attention to where the Tracker is, what types of damage your opponent can do, and decide when and where to apply pressure with their surprisingly long-ranged attacks. I think the Gardeners really thrive with a player who can react to gamestates that change and doesn’t rely too much on having a single long-term plan. You have to move with the cycle of growth and decay, just as Grandfather Nurgle does!
As for deck pairings, I think this team will probably thrive with Flex or Strike. While Range 2 and solid Defenses can somewhat play Take and Hold, and spinning the Tracker is nice with Reap a Harvest, the lower speed doesn’t always play into that and their Attack stats probably want to be interacting fairly harshly with the opponent. Though I think there’s room for lots of styles of play here. They likely want to include more Heals and Health bonuses to really play into their damage, but Move bonus cards will also make them surprisingly powerful at positioning with Range 2. Very excited to see what happens with their decks!
May you walk with the Grandfather on your Path to Glory!
