<<Back to teams list

Nurgle Strategy

Summary:

Nurgle are a more specialised version of the Chaos team with some more expensive versions of similar players but with some cheap injury prone Linemen.

Nurgle teams' strange starting skills enable them to be built into an excellent defensive team. They often use their skills to force mistakes from their opponents, using these to strengthen their position. The Beast of Nurgle is arguably the best Big Guy in the game, easily capable of occupying multiple opposition players

Strengths:

• Beast of Nurgle
• High Strength
• Cheap Rotters
• Regeneration
• Mutation access

Weaknesses:

• Slow
• Expensive Rerolls
• Rotters are fragile
• No Ball Handling Skills

---

Nurgle Team Strategy

Nurgle is a more specialised version of the Chaos team. Focusing more so on defense and disruption of the field, Nurgle provides a more control orientated gamestyle. Their team is slower than the standard Chaos but still maintain a solid core of four heavily armoured and powerful blockers with the addition of one of the best Big Guys in the game. Their linemen, the rotters, are fairly cheap, while Pestigors provide the ball handling and tackling duties. Bloaters are the blockers, slower but more durable chaos warriors and the Rotspawn is an extremely potent and powerful roadblock. The addition of regeneration means that the Nurgle team can have a decent amount of staying power.

Lets look at the players which make up the Nurgle team.

Bloaters

• Skill Choices: Block, Mighty Blow, Claw
• Secondary: Dodge
• Roadblock: Block, Guard, Stand Firm/Tentacles/Prehensile Tail
• Basher: Block, Mighty Blow, Claw

Strong, durable and bulky, the Bloaters are the blockers of the Nurgle team. With Strength 4, Disturbing Presence, Foul Appearance and Regeneration, they are not only good at disrupting and blocking the opposing players but are also capable of taking a fair amount of hits thanks to high armour and regeneration. Their primary role is to be at the front, blocking, tanking and smashing their way through the opposition.

Block should be top priority and from there you can specialise them to be more of a defensive or offensive blockers.

Pestigor

• Primary Skills: Block
• Secondary: Dodge
• Carrier: Block, Sure Hands, 2 heads, Extra Arm
• Sacker: Wrestle, Tackle, 2 heads
• Killer: Block, Mighty Blow, Claw, Tackle

Pestigors play a vital role for a Nurgle team. The first will be your primary ball carrier while the others can be specialised as sackers or killers. With horns, they can be exceptional as defensive safeties or offensively, be used to break open gaps. With regeneration they also have a decent amount of staying power. Protect your pestigors however as they are expensive and fairly difficult to replace.

Rotspawn

• Primary skills: Guard, Stand Firm, Brawler
• Secondary Skill: Block

The Rotspawn is among the best big guys in the game. With tentacles, foul appearance, disturbing presence and strength 5, it takes a considerable amount to put one down and it can have a dramatic influence over a large part of the field by simply standing. The Rotspawn should be used to pin down players and should be constantly supported by either Rotters or Bloaters to prevent the opposition from knocking them down. While they can be used to block, the Rotspawn is best used as a defensive piece, placing them where their tentacles and other abilities can cause the most disruption to the enemy formation and plays. Never leave home without a Rotspawn.

Rotter

• Primary Skills: Kick, Dirty Player, Block

Cheap and expendable, Rotters are your linemen who act as support and meatshields for the remainder of the team. Due to their Ag4+, they are not reliable to disengage or use ball plays, so careful placement is required. In addition to this, due to having decay you can expect to replace rotters as the team progresses. Your first skilled rotter should get kick to assist the defensive drive. The others can either be turned into dirty player foulers, blockers or can be random skilled.

---

Starting Rosters

The most important thing as with most teams is to decide what roster you are going to build. These rosters are designed around a League or perpetual setting. For tournament builds, generally they begin at 1100k TV with free skills.

Here are a number of sample rosters

Roster 1 (Standard Build):

• 5 x Rotters
• 4 x Bloaters
• 1 x Pestigor
• 1 x Rotspawn
• 2 x Re-rolls
• Total 990k
• +1 x Dedicated Fans

The standard and classic build of Nurgle. This gives you a bit of everything you will need with a strong, solid foundation of high strength and disturbing presence. Do not let your Pestigor be exposed and always do safe moves first. If you wish, you can swap a bloater for a rotter to get a third reroll instead.

Roster 2 (Hybrid Build)

• 3 x Bloaters
• 3 x Pestigors
• 4 x Rotters
• 1 x Rotspawn
• 2 x Re-rolls
• Total 990k
• +1 x Dedicated Fans

This roster gives you a combination of speed and strength. While only starting with 2-rerolls, having three pestigors, three bloaters and the rotspawn will give you a solid foundation.

---

Defense and Offense as Nurgle

Nurgle are a very defensive, grind orientated team which emphasise disrupting and controlling your opponents advance up the field. They also start with a wealth of combat skills in the form of foul appearance, disturbing presence, tentacles and regeneration which can turn the field into a no-pass zone and disrupt even the skilled catchers of the elf teams. Your primary strategy should be to hold your position and slowly but surely grind your opponent into the turf while shutting off as many options as possible with clever positioning of your team.

Defense

Some general advice for defense.

• Nurgle are a slow team. Be very cautious of your positioning
• Be careful of committing your players
• Wait for your opponent to commit to a point on the pitch before setting your entire team to head towards them
• Unless the ball is within grab range, stay on your side of the field as Nurgle are too slow to aggressivelly threaten a ball held back field.

Nurgle have an extremely durable and tough defense, making it difficult for all but the most determined opposition to get through. Set up a strong, durable front with two bloaters with a rotspawn in the middle while the remainder of your team sets up in a chevron formation with the pestigors at the centre rear to protect them.

Your general plan should be to hold your position, relatively, and attempt to punch the opponent wherever they decide to commit players. Protect your pestigors and keep them to the rear as safeties, using them to blitz down any break throughs. During this time, the team should continue maintaining a strong screen presence in front of the advancing enemy team, with Bloaters and Rotters with the Rotspawn preventing the enemy team from getting through.

Always be sure to protect your Pestigors and have them ready to redeploy if you suffer a break through. Be careful of committing your players as a poor placement can leave your team in a very compromising position, allowing the enemy team to leave you in the dust. Maintain your position, stay in your half and grind the enemy down.

Offense

Nurgle offense is fairly straight forward. Give the pestigor the ball and grind your way up centre field with your bloaters and rotspawn. Use a mix of screening and boxing to push your players up, until gradually you are within scoring range. Similar to defense, be aware that over committing can be a huge problem so be cautious where you put your players.

The Rotspawn and bloaters in particular are key here. Protect the rotspawn and use him as an anchor with which your bloaters can block, advance and pressure.

Overview

Nurgle is a defensive orientated Chaos team. With an abundance of abilities to disrupt the oppositions ball game and a powerful core of Bloaters and a Rotspawn, Nurgle has a solid and strong foundation. However with slow speed and poor agility, the Nurgle coach must be careful about positioning and careful risk management. That said, with a bit of risk management, careful positioning and a bit of luck, Nurgle can be an extraordinarily oppressive and powerful team.

---

Star Players

While Nurgle teams generally aren't known for being the underdog, there are certain situation they may find themselves at a disadvantage. This can occur normally if a Nurgle Chosen coach is entering an established league or they have had the misfortune of losing some key players during a rough match or two. As such, there may be some opportunities for the Nurgle coach to hire a Star Player and knowing which one does what is important. Below are costs and descriptions of each one.

For detailed information on Star Player stats and abilities, go here:

https://fumbbl.com/help:BB20StarPlayerList

The list and costs are as follows

• Akhorne the Squirrel - Star Player Squirrel - 80k
• Helmut Wulf - Star Human Chainsaw Looney - 140k
• Withergrasp Doubledrool - Beastman Blitzer - 170k
• Bilerot Vomitflesh (Favoured of Nurgle Only)- Nurgle Blocker - 180k
• Glart Smashrip - Fat Rat Blocker - 195k
• Hakflem Skuttlespike - Two headed Skaven Runner - 210k
• Grashnak Blackhoof - Star Chaos Minotaur - 240k
• Grak and Crumbleberry - Ogre and Halfling Duo - 250k
• Lord Borak the Despoiler - Chaos Lord Blocker - 260k
• Morg 'N' Thorg - Star Ogre - 380k

Akhorne the Squirrel

At 80k, Akhorne the Squirrel is a small but sneaky star player. At Str1 and AV 6+, he is among the weakest players in the game but at MA7, stunty and titchy he is also very quick and can dodge almost anywhere. This is complimented with Claws, Dauntless, Frenzy and Jump Up, meaning Akhorne can actually fight above his weight. With blind rage he also has an in-built reroll for his dauntless, giving him the chance to smack someone in his favour more often.

Very fragile but can be utilised to dive into a cage to attack a carrier, surf players or if he is lucky, cut open some high armoured targets. Akhorne is a cheap choice if you’re looking for a simple and fairly low investment star and while he is very likely to be removed once he is hit, he can sometimes pull some fairly savage and interesting plays with a bit of luck.

Helmut Wulf

At 140k, Helmut wulf is now freely available for all teams as a chainsaw star. However with both pro and his special rule which allows him to reroll a single armour roll, Helmut is extraordinarily dangerous and also reliable as he will not waste rerolls if he kicks back. A decent choice if you can get him in addition to bribes.

Withergrasp Doubledrool

Doubledrool is a Beastman runner at 170k with a myriad of abilities, including tentacles, prehensile tail, two heads, wrestle and tackle. He is an exceptional safety and excellent at facing off against opponents with a lot of block and dodge and Str3. With Ag4+, he can only dodge on a 3+ with two heads which doesn't make him the best at escaping but if covered, he can be an excellent asset at catching, blitzing or pulling down any potential blodge heavy players. Excels against Str3 teams with a lot of blodge.

Bilerot Vomitflesh (Favoured of Nurgle only)

Bilerot Vomitflesh comes at 180k. He has Str5, Foul Appearance, Disturbing Presence and Dirty Player. He is fairly affordable and can be useful if you want some additional muscle with a bit of extra field control. Naturally without block, it is best to use Bilerot to occupy and mark up players, but without a negative trait besides loner, Bilerot can act as a great asset to any Chaos team.

Glart Smashrip

Glart is a cheaper option for blocking duty. Coming in at 195k, a solid choice as he not only has a safety skill with block but also comes with claw to cut down high AV teams. A very good choice against high armour bash teams.

Hakflem Skuttlespike

A Skaven Gutter Runner with extra arms, prehensile Tail and two heads. Exceptionally fast and if you urgently need someone to score quickly and reliably, an absolute must have for just 210k. Easily one of the best stars in the game. Assuming your team is at full strength, Hakflem can win you games.

Grashnak Blackhoof

The legendary Minotaur Grashnak Blackhoof returns to the field with both a buff and a nerf. With Strength 6 and MA 6, Grashnak is an extra strong, extra fast Minotaur. Unfortunately he now has Unchanneled Fury making him significantly less reliable but has taken a major price drop from 310k to 240k. Still an extraordinarily powerful player but now with the caveat of behaving like a regular Minotaur. Grashnak can be useful as a powerful blitzer and with adequate support, a roadblock.

If you are down strength, Grashnak can be a great asset to 3d block and blitz his way through the enemy lines. His special ability too, which allows him to roll an extra block dice regardless of the enemy strength once per game during a blitz. This can be used as a "soft" reroll where, during the first block on a blitz, if it would result in a turn over you can activate Grashnak's ability to add a third dice. In this way, Grashnak can be used to blitz while having a safety net in case a bad roll is brought up or you really need a particular target, who may be protected, knocked over.

Grashnak excels in matchups where he can get 3d blitzes fairly easily i.e Chaos Dwarfs, Elves, Humans and Orcs. Avoid using him however in matchups with a lot of strength 4 on the field, like Lizardmen and Black Orcs. A decent choice for the strength he brings but needs to be used with care due to his Unchanneled Fury.

Grak and Crumbleberry

Coming in at 250k, Grak and Crumbleberry give you two star players in the form of a decent, albeit slow, ball carrier halfling with sure hands and a standard Ogre. He also provides the Chaos team with the chance for a one turn touchdown, something they normally would not have access to. Expensive but a decent choice.

Lord Borak the Despoiler

Lord Borak returns for Blood Bowl Season 2 and has come not only with a price reduction to 260k (from 300k) but also now provides an extra team-reroll. As well as this, Lord Borak now has a bonus to his Dirty Player skill (+2) on top of Sneaky Git making it much harder for him to be caught fouling!

Lord Borak acts as an extra strong, reliable Chaos Warrior who provides his team with a massive road block like a Big Guy with none of the drawbacks and can be depended on to throw out blocks, blitz and take a few hits for the team. On top of providing an extra team re-roll, Lord Borak comes with block and mighty blow, making him a reliable and hard hitting player. Lord Borak is now a solid choice for any Chaos Chosen team looking at fighting at a disadvantage.

Morg 'N' Thorg

Coming at 380k, Morg has seen a significant price reduction from his old price (430k) since previous editions. On top of that he now has Mighty Blow +2, meaning he can now add +2 to either the armour or injury roll.

While Morg is very good however, with his extremely high price, do consider other inducement options before taking him.