Nurgle's Rot?

My friend's and I are starting back into Mordheim after a long break from it. Originally when we played, we only allowed the Rule book and its warbands. Now we are considering delving into the other official warbands. However, one thing seems way out of place: Nurgle's Rot.

Nurgle's Rot is a definitive death sentence for one figure and could wipe out an entire war band. Are there any house rules or rewrites that don't make banning the carnival of chaos necessary?

I was actually going to ask Mark Havener about this some day soon, because I am considering playing the Carnival myself and I don't want to use the rot in its current version. I remember him making a proposal on the Mordheim yahoo group but I can't remember.

I'll keep you posted.

We found Carnival of Chaos way too strong in general. We might have gotten extreme levels, spells etc the few times we tested it but the general opinion in the group was that they are way too strong compared to the warbands in the regular rulebook. This led to that we banned CoC, much thanks to Nurgle's Rot.

It's easy to resolve it : we don't play this rule... Because without its, the CoC is enough good and competitive
And it's the same with the spell of the Master, we banned it, no more problem

Lanyssa Ryssyll wrote:

It's easy to resolve it : we don't play this rule... Because without its, the CoC is enough good and competitive
And it's the same with the spell of the Master, we banned it, no more problem

Yeah, that's what I am doing too for now. I'll just not use the mutation and re-roll the spell, but it would be good to have an agreed on solution to this stupidness of an effect.

Here's what I put in for our house rules:

Nurgle's Rot. This model has been infected with Nurgle's Rot. Every time he rolls a 6 to Wound roll against an opponent in HtH, his target* must successfully test Toughness, or lose 1 Toughness and contract Nurgle's Rot. *Except Daemons, Possessed and Undead, who are immune to this effect.

This is untested (no-one in our group has played CoC yet), and conflicts with Nurgle's Rot's fluff, but at least keeps it in the game.

Rationale, such as it is:

1. The target must be damaged (Wound), not just touched (Hit) to contract Nurgle's Rot. This is weak in the fluff rationale department, but does help limit how often Nurgle's Rot can be spread.

2. The effect of Nurgle's Rot happens only once per Wound roll of 6. It still permanently affects the target (just like a Serious Injury result of Chest Wound), and so represents an ongoing, uncurable sickness.

3. Models who contract Nurgle's Rot still become carriers, though they only infect others in HtH combat, so Nurgle's Rot is no longer a death sentence for the model's warband.

wyldhunt wrote:

1. The target must be damaged (Wound), not just touched (Hit) to contract Nurgle's Rot.

This has already been changed officially with the Mordheim Errata.

At least something...

It kills me a little that this was considered a balanced warband with the Rot in place. We will probably just remove the rot.

I would limit to one model only.

Da Bank wrote:

I would limit to one model only.

Even limited to one model only, it is a death sentence for that model. I think the notion that rolling a six to wound once guarantees the eventual death of that model. No other power in the game does that.

Regardless of balance issues, why would you even want to take Nurgle's Rot? It doesn't really give you any tangible benefit, and on top of that your opponents will hate you for it. In what other situation would you add something that isn't there to help you (Nurgle's Rot doesn't add to your combat ability, or affect your chances of gaining xp) but only to hinder your opponents?

There is a long-term benefit, of possibly killing off an opposing model (although there's also a certain likelihood that he'll never succumb to the rot before the end of the campaign), but I think you're as likely to kill the guy by taking him out of action first and at least then you're gaining xp for it.

Now for the spell, since that's out of your hands I would ask your group if they'll let you re-roll it, and I have a hard time imagining that anyone will say no.

On balance issues with CoC, I would also highly recommend drastically reducing the range of Pestilence. I think our group settled on 4", maybe 6".

I, personally, won't be playing CoC. I am currently building my Reikland Mercs and plan on one or maybe two more warbands, which would be beastmen and/or dwarves.
One of my friends perked up at the thought of the CoC, because he envisioned painting the crew with a clown motif. You would have to know our group of friends, but nurgle's rot would be a griefing tactic. Something they could do just to 'dick' your warband and would get a chuckle out of. I don't want to discourage him from playing this as I think a CoC warband, properly painted, could really add alot to the game. However, I also don't want him, or any others who might be so inclined, to play this warband specifically so they could debilitate another warband.
It's easy enough to find a way to replace the spell that gives it. And to ban or replace the blessing. Should the point cost of the plague cart be lessened? It's sort of why I was trying a way to re-write the rot so everything could be as it was printed (cept' the rot itself) and still be relatively balanced.

We will see about pestilence too.

Hmm, I'd forgotten that the Plague Cart has it too. Well, you could drop the cost a bit if you wanted to, but as I mentioned above Nurgle's Rot really doesn't add much benefit to the CoC warband, so I wouldn't drop the cost too much if you were thinking about taking Nurgle's Rot off of it.

Also, I had forgotten until now that there are a couple of ways to cure curses and diseases in the Empire in Flames setting (I think they're relatively rare exploration results, like 4 of a kind or something). So if you're playing with that exploration chart then there ya go.

Yes, one thing to do is to add the number of cures from happenings/explorations (and why not come up with some more lesser curses while you're at it?).

If you are worried about the entire warband becoming destroyed then just abandon the warrior. Yes that might suck if the warrior is a good hero (and is not an option if it is your leader) but at least it is a solution to protecting the rest of your warband if you are paranoid. As Myntokk said, CoC is an Empire in Flames warband and so is more balanced within the EiF setting which has some options to remove the rot. Cianty's idea of adding some more lesser cures is also a good idea if your group is worried about CoC.

Myntokk wrote:

Also, I had forgotten until now that there are a couple of ways to cure curses and diseases in the Empire in Flames setting (I think they're relatively rare exploration results, like 4 of a kind or something). So if you're playing with that exploration chart then there ya go.

I noticed that there are a couple of ways to cure curses in there but nothing for disease. Also, under the description of Nurgle's Rot it says there is no cure. Now we could change that stuff to make a cure or one more simply available, and maybe that is what we will do.

SomeDude wrote:

Myntokk wrote:

Also, I had forgotten until now that there are a couple of ways to cure curses and diseases in the Empire in Flames setting (I think they're relatively rare exploration results, like 4 of a kind or something). So if you're playing with that exploration chart then there ya go.

I noticed that there are a couple of ways to cure curses in there but nothing for disease. Also, under the description of Nurgle's Rot it says there is no cure. Now we could change that stuff to make a cure or one more simply available, and maybe that is what we will do.

Huh, sure enough - I had thought that the Faerie Ring removed disease but no. Well, you could always say that Healing Herbs, as well as healing spells can remove diseases from a model. Personally I think that's a pretty good alternative - you could also say that anything that removes a curse will remove the disease as well.

Although fluff-wise you're right, there is no cure for Nurgle's Rot. It used to be that the ultimate fate of the victims of Nurgle's Rot was to become a Plaguebearer - an interesting houserule would be to say that any model that dies directly as a result of Nurgle's Rot may be added as a Plaguebearer to the CoC warband roster (assuming they don't already have their 2 plaguebearers). This would make Nurgle's Rot kind of like a long, drawn out version of the Necromancy Spell of Awakening.

SomeDude wrote:

Myntokk wrote:

Also, I had forgotten until now that there are a couple of ways to cure curses and diseases in the Empire in Flames setting (I think they're relatively rare exploration results, like 4 of a kind or something). So if you're playing with that exploration chart then there ya go.

I noticed that there are a couple of ways to cure curses in there but nothing for disease. Also, under the description of Nurgle's Rot it says there is no cure. Now we could change that stuff to make a cure or one more simply available, and maybe that is what we will do.

Whoops.

Here is the crux of my issue. I was really hoping someone out there was using a reasonable house rule for Nurgle's Rot. We will be starting up a league, not a campaign. So there will be no role play or quests or anything that could resemble a reasonable way to get rid of Nurgle's Rot.
I guess what bothers me most about it is that after re-reading all of the rules and warbands there is noting even remotely like it in the game. I don't see any use for it except as a tool to decimate another warband. If I were playing in a league where I didn't care about any of the other people and just wanted to win, crippling a warband is a viable tactic. But playing in a league where the goal is an enjoyable league, even with making it so the Rot doesn't spread to other warband members, rolling a six to would being an automatic death sentence is silly. No other ability in the game that I could find effects a warband post battle and no power that outright kills a fig. If your guy is tough or you have a hot hand or both it may take a while but in the end that guy is dead and all the while gets easier to beat in combat.
At this point I think I need to make a total re-write on it. I'm not sure what we will decide but I will post it here when I come up with it.

On the few brief times I have played with my CoC in a campaign/league setting we just did not use that rule. It was the simplest way to get around it and it did not really weaken the warband. I did not however use the plague cart so I can't comment on how taking away the Nurgles Rot would affect {EDIT} it, but looking at the rules, I don't see it being too much of an issue {EDIT}.

My advice would just to be not to use it; you then don't have to worry about making up another rule as a replacement and worrying about that rule being unbalanced. Simples.

Edit - Sorry had to edit as I realised I missed some text out

So you wanna play league, and you seem to stress the tournament character of it, at the same time you wanna play to have fun. I think I know what you mean, but it does sound a bit weird at first.

Anyways. So how about just ignoring the effect? If you don't want it to happen at all, why bother rewriting it? Rewriting is basically removing the original effect and adding another one. So why not ignore it altogehter? It's what I would do if I didn't change the ruling so that it is less strong. There are some simple fixes like a one time -1 Toughness or allowing cures.

EDIT: Or in short: what Nurgle's Bratwurst just said.

I could do with not using it at all. That would be fine by me but I did not want to hose a player who wanted to use the wagon, which the one player who wants to play CoC seemed very excited about.
If I am to remove it, any suggestions on a new point cost for the wagon?

Also, was the warband worth playing without the Rot?

SomeDude wrote:

I could do with not using it at all. That would be fine by me but I did not want to hose a player who wanted to use the wagon, which the one player who wants to play CoC seemed very excited about.
If I am to remove it, any suggestions on a new point cost for the wagon?

Very good point! A player willing to invest into the hobbying aspect and purchase a wagon should defiantely not be at a disadvantage.

The Guardian's ability to cause Nurgle's Rot is just one. I always thought that the main benefit was the 'Plague Cart' rule which drastically improves the daemons in the warbands. The plague bearers are pretty good and decreasing their chances of dying is pretty good I think. All in all, I think the warband is still good with just ignoring Nurgle's Rot.

However, anyone who has played with or against the warband is welcome to share different experiences.

Without considering the Plague Cart I would personally say yes, the warband is worth using without the Rot.

Just re-roll the Rot spell and don't take the Rot as a blessing, there are the other blessings which are cool and actually more effective in game terms.

In fact I would rather play without the Rot rules when in a campaign/league as not to punish the other players by giving some of their models a death sentence. It’s about having fun after all.

With regards to the Plague Cart. If the player is definitely going to want to use one then you could always replace the Rot with one of the other blessings - Cloud of Flies, Stream of Corruption or Hideous would all work and then you would not have to try and work out how much to reduce the cost by.

If you wanted to be exact you could replace the Rot with both Cloud of Flies and Stream of Corruption as this totals 50 points on the blessings table, which is the same as the points of the Rot blessing. You could state that the Stream of Corruption is measured from the Guardian meaning that it would not be used too much/easy to avoid and so not overpowered. I know the cart is a large wagon but tens of thousands of flies buzzing around it would distract me when trying to attack it.

Just like to add that I have only played 4-5 games with CoC and have not used the Plague Cart (haven't got around to converting one yet), but I would use it even without the Rot