How does one

[Sception]

 

If you take a DP you take nurgle.

 

Not if you face ultrasmurfs regularly, imo.  Their ability to voluntarily fail moral checks means that your princes need the ability to overrun to keep from becoming exposed after charging.

[the jeske]

 

If you take a DP you take nurgle.

 

Not if you face ultrasmurfs regularly, imo.  Their ability to voluntarily fail moral checks means that your princes need the ability to overrun to keep from becoming exposed after charging.

cant make tests from stuff your immune from .but it is a secondary thing . nurgle means harder to kill DP , once it is in melee must stuff dies anyway , the extra I or melee upgrade from khorn matter little [rage and all] ,same goes for tzeench it helps against small weapon fire , but the bigger problem for DPs is being shot down by 3-6 precise skyfire lascannons [or teslas].

[Sception]

Generic loyalists can voluntarily fail moral checks for lost combat and try to fall back.  A non nurgle prince clips a SM unit, kills everything it can reach, takes little to no damage in return.  The SMs voluntarily fail their moral and roll init to try and escape.  Usually the prince, with its high init, beats them, locks them in combat, consolidates, and kills the rest of the squad on their turn, freeing the prince to charge again on the next chaos turn.

 

Since a nurgle prince can't overrun, whatever of the unit is left at the end of combat voluntarily falls back, and the prince can't do anything to stop them.  exposed in the middle of the enemy line, the prince likely goes down in the next shooting phase, shroud or no.  So while the nurgle prince tends to hit combat with less damage, it still dies very quickly after that, while other alignments take more damage on the way in, but once they reach their first combat, they basically have free reign for the rest of the game, as long as there's infantry to charge.

 

At least, that's been my experience with princes against loyalist marines, which admittedly probably aren't the most popular marine variety these days, and other factions need to fail a ld test to run in the first place, and if caught non-marines are just wiped out leaving the prince exposed anyway.  So against anything other than generic Space Marines I'd agree that nurgle's the best, but if you regularly play against that particular faction, as I do, other choices seem viable.

[the jeske]

ATKNF makes them immune to fear . there is no test to fail.

[Ravenfeld]

ATKNF makes them immune to fear . there is no test to fail.

 

I think you're pinned on this one Jesk. They still need to take morale checks for lost combat, and they can still break from combat on a failed leadership check. ATKNF means that if they get swept they can keep fighting instead of being murdered to a man. The combat tactics is supposed to allow you to "tactically withdraw" from battle so you can shoot the target. That is what Malisteen was getting at. Since Nurgle stuff can't sweep, the Ultras would withdraw leaving the DP out in the open to get perforated next shooting phase.

[the jeske]

But that is a problem for any MC that can be boged down in a challange . the mace nurgle DP at least forces T checks on all units near the challange , being one of the few weapons that work on the squad when the user is in one .

[Sception]

Mace is not nurgle only.  Any prince should have the black mace, regardless of alignment.  A slaanesh, tzeentch, or even khorne aligned mace prince can charge a squad with ATSKNF, get locked in a challenge, kill the challenger, damage the squad, win combat, lock the squad in combat via overrun if they try to run away, kill the rest of the squad during the enemies turn, then charge again in the next chaos turn.

 

The Nurgle mace prince gets locked in a challenge, kills the challenger, damages the squad, wins combat, watches helplessly as the enemy squad falls back, then gets blown away in the following enemy turn.

 

Again, this does not apply to every enemy (space wolves probably won't run to begin with, guard would be wiped out by a successful overrun anyway leaving the prince exposed anyway - though I'd rather leave a dead enemy squad behind then one that's merely damaged & falling back.  But as a dude who faces vanilla space marines and loyalist marines in general frequently, I typically find that my undivided daemon prince typically does better when he 'counts as' tzeentch than when he 'counts as' nurgle.

 

 

Yes, shroud is by far the biggest benefit among the 'daemon's of' abilities, but it comes packaged with slow & purposeful.  Slow & purposeful is a serious penalty because it prevents overrun, and overrun is an important part of the package for any high init monstrous creature that might like to have the option of making unsupported assaults.  Especially if generic brand, vanilla flavor space marines have a presence in the local environment.

[the jeske]

The Nurgle mace prince gets locked in a challenge, kills the challenger,

damages the squad, wins combat, watches helplessly as the enemy squad

falls back, then gets blown away in the following enemy turn.

ok I think am failing to see something here . ATKNF cant be used on fear , it is auto immunity to fear there is no test taken and if there is no test taken then marines cant auto fail it . If we are talking about auto breaking after a won melee phase , then again I fail to see the difference between any of the 4 DP . combat tactics dudes can run away from each 4 of them .

 

as the S&P goes , yes it can run after runing dudes , but this is why your runing those other 4-5 flying MC dudes and fast moving units to help with that. Or are we here talking about DPs in a void without actual builds . Because you are totaly right in a list with 1 MC the nurgle DP sucks , but so does any other DP .

[Sception]

What fear, jeske?  Nobody is talking about fear, Jeske.  Fear is a non-rule, nobody cares about fear.  We're talking about moral checks from lost combat, which will leave Nurgle princes exposed to enemy shooting the turn after it charges, where a non-nurgle prince would typically still be safe in combat.  Or, against enemies without ATSKNF, would at least have wiped out a whole squad, instead of just part of one.

 

Even in builds with multiple fast elements, it's nice to have the option of solo charges, which Nurgle princes don't.  A non-nurgle prince that solo charges engages a squad until it dies, which typically happens in the enemy turn.  A nurgle prince engages the enemy until it falls back, which typically happens the same turn it charges.  A nurgle prince requires a babysitter in close combat.  A non-nurgle prince does not.  Also unlike an overrunning prince, bikes or spawn don't have high enough init to reliably lock an enemy squad down.

 

Or you can run enough fast assault elements to try and lock all the enemy shooting / block all their firing lanes.  But doing that means taking multiple units of bikes and spawn, which means running fewer heldrakes, another significant drawback, especially since you want to run drakes along with princes for flier saturation.

 

 

 

No matter how you slice it, Slow and Purposeful on an otherwise fast, hard hitting melee element is a significant drawback.  A bigger drawback, even, then it is on a shooting unit.  Shroud may still arguably be strong enough to make Nurgle the best choice, but it's hardly as cut and dry as the line I quoted implied.

[the jeske]

where a non-nurgle prince would typically still be safe in combat

for that to happen he would have to lose or draw the combat . I dont see it happening unless the stuff charge was of the "should not be charged with a DP"-kind and/or the DP is charging a full 10+unit unsupported [or 7-8 sized terminator unit] . but lets say they do break [ not an easy feat as other stuff in the game is stubborn, fearless or in a flyer] and the DP is siting right now in the open [true for every DP out there] it gets double taped , focus fired and dies. Awesome , this means the 3 other DPs and 1-2 GD took less incoming fire . The nurgle DP survives longer then other winged dudes , the mace [like for every other DP] gives him a very specific goal in MC based lists[killing blobs and tar pits something other DPs/GD arent so great at] .

[Sception]

What do you mean?  You win the combat, so your opponent falls back.  If you're nurgle, you let them.  If you're not nurgle, you overrun, and either lock them in combat (if they're ATSKNF) or at least wipe out the full unit (if they're not).  The nurgle prince does not get left in the open like every DP out there, it gets left in the open like a nurgle DP, because a non-nurgle DP would not have been left in the open.

 

Yes, if you exclusively face fearless enemies, it doesn't matter.  Yes, if you exclusively face stubborn enemies it matters less (but not none).  That's why I specified that it's somewhat opponent dependant, and in particular the nurgle prince doesn't like to face off against generic loyalist space marines, who not only can fall back, but can choose to do so automatically without even having to fail a check.

 

And no, princes are not run exclusively in armies with six other princes & greater daemons, because drakes can contribute to flier spam as well.  You may have several fliers, but only a couple FMCs.

 

 

Regardless, the point remains that Slow and Purposeful is a significant disadvantage for a fast melee unit, one that denies you a key benefit of your otherwise stellar initiative, and the fact that daemon of nurgle comes packaged with S&P means that it is not the automatic best choice in all cases that you make it out to be.

 

A non-nurgle daemon prince and comfortably solo multiple infantry units in a single game without any support, leaving the rest of your army to focus on other tasks.  A nurgle prince requires additional support.  A non-nurgle prince is going to wipe out any unit it engages (barring something like hammernators), a nurgle prince is only going to damage it and force it to fall back, potentially requiring multiple charges and multiple unit investments to, say, knock scoring units off of objectives or secure kill points.  Slow and Purposeful sucks on a daemon prince every bit as much as shroud is awesome on them.

[abadizzle]

Hahah... Malisteen is correct, nurgle DP is slow and purposeful...can't sweeping advance. The other 3 alignments have a very good chance to sweeping advance Initiative 4 units. What are you missing here jeske?