Nurgle's Rot?

SomeDude wrote:

Also, was the warband worth playing without the Rot?

I would say unequivocally yes, the warband is definitely worth playing even without Nurgle's Rot. Nurgle's Rot hardly defines the warband, and even as I pointed out it really doesn't help them so much as it hurts someone else. It's kind of stupid in its conception - if you want a guy dead then ganging up on him in battle is a much more efficient way of getting the job done. You, the Nurgle player, get to eventually kill off an enemy.

Personally, I would go with cianty and NurglesBratwurstBugle's suggestions and just cut it out, the warband is still a great warband. Tainted ones are very much like mutants, and brutes are downright nasty with their ability to learn speed skills. There are few things scarier than a sprinting strongman. Add to that that the magic list is very powerful, even without Nurgle's Rot, and you've got a really tough warband. The only serious drawback I have with them is that there's only one type of promotable henchman. But heck, even Nurglings are great for what they do! At only 15gc apiece you can easily afford swarms of them, and with their built-in armor and cloud of flies a couple of them can easily keep more skilled opponents tied up for a couple of rounds.

Ok guys, let's rethink it from a mathematical point of view.

Let's pick a tainted one with that mutation or a plague cart (both with a starting profile of WS3 and S3) and let them battle against an average troopling with WS3.

First of all, the carnival model has to hit his very average opponent rolling a 4+ on a D6 die (50% of success).
Then he has to wound him with a natural 6 (1 on 6, equal to a percentage of 16.6%)
According to the theorem of the conditional probability, the total percentage of wounding on a natural 6, after a successful hit on a 4+ is 3% (50/16.6 equal to one lucky blow every 33.3 attacks).

50 gold crowns for such power are a lot, and it does not provide an immediate useful help on the battlefield.
The percentage is pretty low but i know nurgle's rot may scary on paper. Making it curable is against all kinds of fluff: nurgle's rot has to be incurable, otherwise it will be meaningless.

On the other hand we have a little "update" of the nurgle's rot on the town cryer annual 2002 (chart of random encounters, page 6) under the 54.Plague Victims event:
On a D6:
1, Major symptoms: If the model is an henchman he dies (i know it's pretty nasty but the original rot's version is almost the same), If a model is a hero roll D3 times on the serious injuries table (ignoring robbed, bitter enmity, captured and sold to the pits results)
2-5, Minor symptoms: The warband member must miss the next game as it recovers.
6, Full recovery! The victim suffers no ill effects.

Replacing the original nurgle's rot text with that little table may be better than jus banning the rot itself.

I think that it looks far tamer than it actually is when you say that the tainted one has a 3% chance of inflicting Nurgle's Rot, for a few reasons. Mainly, it's that every attack he makes has a 3% chance of inflicting Nurgle's Rot (on equally or somewhat more skilled opponents). Give him two hand weapons, or once he makes some attack and WS increases, and he's even more likely to inflict it on someone.

Beyond that, just look at it this way. Causing Nurgle's Rot is just as likely as causing a critical hit. From experience we can all say that, while they aren't commonplace, critical hits aren't all that rare either and you can safely bet that he's going to land one sooner or later.

That said, I do like your alternative quite a bit compared to the normal rules. Just one question - is the roll on that table made once at the end of the battle regardless of whether or not the character was taken OoA?

Hey guys,
I just read through this post, and seeing how i run a little mordheim group of my own i began to think about what i would do if someone in my group wanted to play CoC and if NR became an issue. Maybe you could do something like the 40K nurgles rot, it's kinda like word of pain; every enemy model within 3" takes a str 3 hit, with no armor saves possible and every model that is wounded must roll on the plague victims nurgle's rot, does not affect undead, possesed, or demons. LMK what ya'll guys think.P.S. sorry for the off-topic, but Myntokk what does FSI stand for i've always wodered since i first saw your avatar.

AFKzombie wrote:

P.S. sorry for the off-topic, but Myntokk what does FSI stand for i've always wodered since i first saw your avatar.

Honestly I have no idea, you'd have to ask the sculptor. The lettering is actually a part of the mini, raised off of his hood, so I couldn't tell ya.

Myntokk wrote:

That said, I do like your alternative quite a bit compared to the normal rules. Just one question - is the roll on that table made once at the end of the battle regardless of whether or not the character was taken OoA?

It's not specified but considering it's a disease after all, i'd prefer to consider a certain amount of time for its incubation (rolling injuries and/or killing henchmen at the end of the game).

ObsidianLord wrote:

It's not specified but considering it's a disease after all, i'd prefer to consider a certain amount of time for its incubation (rolling injuries and/or killing henchmen at the end of the game).

According to my warhammer roleplay rulebook, Nurgle's Rot takes eight months to kill the victim. It takes a full month before any symptoms develop.

meerkat wrote:

According to my warhammer roleplay rulebook, Nurgle's Rot takes eight months to kill the victim. It takes a full month before any symptoms develop.

Awesome! So we can savely update the Rot's effect to read: No effect during a normally sized campaign. Yes!

Perhaps you could do a leper type rule and have a hero with Nurgle's Rot be at -1 to find rare items and Dramaticus Personas and such as people recognize the signs of those boils starting to spring up and rumours get around.

Mortimer wrote:

Perhaps you could do a leper type rule and have a hero with Nurgle's Rot be at -1 to find rare items and Dramaticus Personas and such as people recognize the signs of those boils starting to spring up and rumours get around.

Hmm.. I like that idea. Good suggestion.

Heres a long personal change to CoC I knocked up. It takes away plague bearers and mixes them into nurgles rot, an idea I stole previously from this thread. The rules are yet to be play tested with my current group. Please excuse my measly attempts to add some waffles between the rules, it is hardly my forte.

Nurgles rot: The Tainted One is infected with the deadly pestilence of its lord – Nurgle’s Rot. In addition, the Tainted One is immune to all poisons. Nurgle’s Rot is a deadly contagion for which there is no known cure. This virulent disease can be passed on in hand-to-hand combat. If the tainted one makes a successful critical hit he may instead forgo the benefits of the critical hit to have the enemy warrior become afflicted by nurgles rot (note that the rot only affects living creatures). Once a model has contracted the rot mark it on its roster if the model was part of a henchman group have it form its own group. Rather than killing the victim immediately the rot takes time to set in, From now on after the end of each battle the warrior must pass a toughness test, roll this before the serious injury phase. If successful he has staved off the effects. If unsuccessful the warrior loses one point of toughness permanently (if he reaches zero toughness he has succumbed to the rot and died, remove him from the roster).

A henchmen affected by the rot may be removed at any point during the post combat phase as the warband distains his company. Should the rot afflict a hero the warband is more hesitant to remove him, as he is far more vital. A hero with the rot can only be removed from the roster if the warband is at its maximum capacity of heroes and a henchmen group rolls “lads got talent”.

If a model dies from the effects of the rot he mutates until his body resembles that of a plagued bearer. The carnival of chaos player may add a plague bearer to his henchmen, the new plague bearer can form a new group or join an old one. The plague bearers follow these rules

0–5 Plague Bearers; No Hire cost.

Same stats

Weapons/Armor: None. Plague Bearers have huge filth encrusted claws, which they use to tear and slash at their foes. They therefore neither need nor use weapons and cannot wear armor.


Special Rules:

* Cloud of Flies: Plague Bearers are surrounded by a cloud of flies, which buzz around them and their combat opponent. They do not affect the Plague Bearer but distract foes by buzzing into eyes, nostrils and mouths. A Plague Bearer’s close combat opponent suffers a -1 to hit modifier on all attacks.
* Stream of Corruption: Plague Bearers can spew forth a grotesque stream of maggots, entrails and filth. This is counted as a shooting attack with a range of 6" and is resolved at Strength 3 with no saves for armor.
* Demonic: Plague Bearers are Daemons of the lord of disease, Nurgle, and are not made of living flesh but the eternal and unchanging forces of Chaos. A plague bearer may gain experience but may never become a leader nor may any model use the plague bearer’s leadership for a test. A plague bearer may never wear armour or wield weapons but may carry miscellaneous items if he becomes a hero.
* Immune to Poison: Plague Bearers are the Daemonic embodiment of disease and pestilence. They are totally immune to all poisons and diseases.
* Immune to Psychology: Plague Bearers are Daemons and do not know the concept of fear. They automatically pass any Leadership-based test they are required to take.
* Cause Fear: Plague Bearers are horrifying supernatural creatures and therefore cause fear.
* Daemonic Aura: Due to the magical, intangible nature of Daemons they have a special Armor save of 5+. This is modified by the Strength of the attack as normal and is completely negated by magic weapons and spells. Plague Bearers’ attacks are considered as magical also.
* Daemonic Instability: Plague Bearers are bound to the world by Dark Sorcery that is highly volatile and unstable. If taken Out Of Action a Plague Bearer is banished and effectively destroyed on a D6 roll of 1-3 (do not roll for injury). In addition, if the warband routs then every Plague Bearer in the warband must take an immediate Leadership test. If this test is failed, then the Plague Bearer counts as destroyed. A plague bearer that becomes a hero loses daemonic instability as such he rolls his deaths on the serious injury table and does not roll for destruction on rout tests.

Magic: Nurgle’s Rituals
6. Nurgles rot: The master bestows the blessing of the Plague God upon his foe. Any enemy the Master successfully hits in this close combat phase must immediately pass a test against their toughness or contract Nurgles rot. Difficulty 8.

Blessings of Nurgle
Nurgles Rot: As above but at 40 gold crowns.

Maximum plague bearer stats
M WS BS S T W I A Ld
4 6 4 5 5 3 6 5 10

Another take of mine.

A Tainted One with Nurgle's Rot will be immune to all poisons and its hand to hand attacks will be counted as if he was using Black Lotus/Dark Venom (not sure which).

Nurgle's Rot (Spell): All enemies in base to base contact with the Master must make a toughness test or be immediately reduced to 0 wounds and must roll on the injury table.

@Toemass: cool idea! My only problem is how hard it is to dismiss a Hero with the Rot. As it stands, a warband can discard any warrior other than the leader at any time (except in battle, presumeably, I'm not even sure how that would work...). So it seems counterintuitive that once he's contracted Nurgle's Rot the Hero is harder to get rid of than he was before.

However, I also understand the spirit of the rule. Maybe instead a general houserule that to dismiss a Hero, the leader must pass a leadership test to prevent a mutiny over dumping a valued warband member, and this test may only be taken once per post-battle phase?

Here's another alternative that I'm tossing out, sort of inspired by Mortimer's: all models in base contact with a model that carries Nurgle's Rot are at -1 Toughness and/or Initiative due to the weakening effects of the disease.

Additionally, if you still wanted it to be a communicative disease, how about saying it inflicts a one-time permanent reduction in Toughness by 1 point?

I like that idea myntokk, I guess I'll change it to;

A henchmen or hero that suffers from the rot can be removed from the warband during the recruitment phase of post combat. To remove an affected model from the roster the leader of the warband must pass a leadership test.

If a warband wishes to recruit aditional henchmen but is at its max size an affected henchmen can be discarded without the need for a leadership test.
If a henchmen advances to a hero through LGT an affected hero can be discarded, if the warband already contains 6 heroes, without the need for a leadership test.

Edit: that sure is a lot of text for one blessing/spell

I don't think that it makes any sense to disallow kicking diseased warband members. The tainted guy would have to try hard to hide his disease from his comrades are they are likely to put a sword through him the moment they find out. In fact, he can be happy if all they do is kick him from their band...

Myntokk wrote:

Additionally, if you still wanted it to be a communicative disease, how about saying it inflicts a one-time permanent reduction in Toughness by 1 point?

You can see from my first post on this thread that this is the change we've implemented. So far, I still like it better than the other ideas I'm seeing here.

Mmh yeah it could be nice, simple and not overpowered. What about cumulative Toughness penalties (i mean, two lucky nurgle's rot touches on a single model would bring that model to a permanent malus of -2T)?

wyldhunt wrote:

Myntokk wrote:

Additionally, if you still wanted it to be a communicative disease, how about saying it inflicts a one-time permanent reduction in Toughness by 1 point?

You can see from my first post on this thread that this is the change we've implemented. So far, I still like it better than the other ideas I'm seeing here.

Aw shucks, thought I had something original there! That's what I get for skimming the first post a long time ago and never looking back. I think that's a nice, concise way of dealing with it though, and maintains the spirit of the disease. Glad to hear it's worked out for you guys! If it ever comes up again in my group, I'll see what they think of it.

Hey guys. What about this rule?
Nurgle's rot acts as written, except for the fact each model who fail his T test before a game, recover his lost T point at its end.
So everyone still have to roll the test to temporarily counter the disease (or infect other party members on a 6) but while the disease is permanent, its effects are not.

This way the rot will mantain some of its main characteristics: it's incurable and it's contagious, although it may not be deadly. It's still very annoying since it can virtually debilitate heroes forever.

Otherwise you can let Nurgle's rot acts as written, but an infected model may roll an additional T test at the end of a game to recover 1 T point previosly lost.

This way the rot will mantain all of its main characteristics: it's incurable, contagious and deadly, but it's way slower.

I'm on the fence with the rot issue, the player wanting toplay CoC suggest only allowing it in warbands of 200+ rating, only the most deserving of nurgle's servants are blessed with it you see. Also that only the original carrier is contagious, so no tertiary contamination.


Here some comments on the plague cart:

If you remove Nurgles Rot and replace it with Stream of Corruption and Cloud of Flies how does that effect combat?

Normally to hit a moving wagon you roll random locations, and can only hit the crew on a 6. Cloud of Flies would effectively make the guardian impossible to hit in close combat unless the wagon was immobilized, or someone managed to board the cart (initiative test -1) and fight there way to him.

Also i assume it comes standard with 2 draft horses like the model. It is actually a great deal, 30gc discount on the price of a normal cart and horses, with no need to search for it, and all the additional benefits for Carnival of Chaos!

My opinion would be to replace rot with Stream of Corruption and Plague Carrier (see http://cianty.ashtonsanders.com/btb/pdf/Corrupted.pdf on the BtB website).

Normally i don't exercise thread necromancy, unless it is a long running project log I started, but this is pertinent to, and inspired by this very discussion!

I have proposed to my Carnival player the following change, which i think balances things out nicely...

Edit, this is broken, you can just fire them at 1 toughness and they will never become a bearer. Currently discussing with my group...
Replace:

Nurgle’s Rot: The Tainted One is infected with the deadly pestilence of its lord – Nurgle’s Rot. In addition, the Tainted One is immune to all poisons. Nurgle’s Rot is a deadly contagion for which there is no known cure. This virulent disease can be passed on in hand-to-hand combat. If the Tainted One makes a successful to hit roll of 6 this will result in the target model contracting the Rot (note: Nurgle’s Rot only affects the living, so Undead, Daemons and the Possessed are unaffected). Once a warrior has contracted the Rot, mark this on the warband roster. Rather than killing the victim immediately, the Rot can take some time to set in. From now on, before the start of each battle, the warrior must pass a Toughness test. If successful, his constitution has managed to stave off the Rot’s effects. If unsuccessful, the warrior loses one point of Toughness permanently (if he reaches zero, he has succumbed to the Rot and died, remove him from the roster). In addition, if a 6 is rolled for the Toughness test then he has unwittingly passed the Rot on to another member of the warband (randomly allocate a warband member and mark this on the roster). Cost: 50 Gold Crowns

With:

Papa Noigul's Gift: The Tainted One is infected with one of the many dangerous pestilences of its lord. In addition, the Tainted One is immune to all poisons. Papa Noigul's Gift is a painful and disabling contagion for which recovery is rare. This virulent disease can be passed on in hand-to-hand combat. If the Tainted One makes a successful to wound roll of 6 this will result in the target model contracting the disease as well as causing a critical wound (note: Papa Noigul's Gift only affects the living, so Undead, Daemons and the Possessed are unaffected). In order to resist contraction the enemy warrior must immediately take a toughness test, if failed the pestilence takes root. Once a warrior has contracted the disease, mark this on the warband roster. Rather than killing the victim immediately, the contagion can take some time to set in. From now on, before the start of each battle, the warrior must pass a Toughness test. If successful, his constitution has managed to stave off the effects for the time being. If unsuccessful, the warrior loses one point of Toughness permanently (if he reaches zero, he has succumbed to Papa Noigul's rot and died, remove him from the roster and add a Plague Bearer to the Carnival of Chaos roster. This may temporarily take them over 2 Plague Bearers, or 15 models in total.). In addition, if a 6 is rolled for the Toughness test then he has unwittingly passed the Rot on to another member of the warband (randomly allocate a warband member and mark this on the roster). If a 1 is rolled on the toughness test, the warrior's hardy nature, or the intervention of his patron deity, has cleansed them of Papa Noigul's Gift, they are now immune to this and further infections. Cost: 50 Gold Crowns.

Also, the spell is renamed and has this same effect, and the plague cart has the gift instead of the rot.

What do you think? Much less likely to take effect, can be recovered from, but still passed on to others, and to spice things up, can turn you into a plague bearer as suggested on page one of this topic. FUN!

One Idea I have been thinking about is change Nurgle's Rot to if the model is taken OOA then roll on the serious injury table and replace all permnate wounds with Nurgle's rot. At the begining of each game roll a toughness test if they fail they perminately lose a wound until they have Zero wounds at they point they die perminately.

That way it would be on par with the other serious injuries, but a little better.

@PD... that is basically the same way that we play! We liked the idea of being able to pass on the rot but didn't like how easy it was to contract initially and didn't like the fact that there is no way to recover (even if that was fluffy).

In our current campaign, we are playing with the official rules as written for Nurgle's Rot (you have written them out so I won't repeat them here) but have added the following minor changes (which are very similar to what you have also changed)...

• After a successful roll of 6 to wound the victim must pass Toughness test or else contract the Rot.
  
• If a warrior with the Rot passes the Toughness test at the start of the battle on a roll of 1, the warrior has been blessed by his/her deity. The warrior has been cleansed of the Rot but does not regain any lost Toughness. The warrior misses the next battle (not the current battle) in order to create a shrine for their deity.

I didn't really like the idea of missing a battle considering that lost Toughness is not regained so there is a permanent affect anyway but our Beastmen player didn't like the idea of a warrior rolling a 1 in their very first Toughness test and potentially getting away with absolutely no ill effects.

So far Nurgle's Rot has been cast several times by the shaman and contracted once by one of my henchmen. Since the warrior who got the rot was a henchmen, I chose to drop him from my warband instead of risking one of my heroes becoming infected. If the warrior that contracted the rot had been a hero though then I would have risked keeping him on in the hope that he would lose the rot before dying or passing on the rot.

Edited to add... note also that the errata has changed contraction of the rot from a 'to hit' roll of 6 to a 'to wound' roll of 6.