'Choasifying' apocalypse models

[kiltwearer]

I was not sure if this thread belongs here or under some other heading, but here it goes.

I recently purchased a baneblade, a stormlord, and enough warhound titan parts to create a good nurgle infested titan. I am not familiar with the chaos apocalypse versions of the 3 mentioned units (playwise). Before getting into some heavy customization and flinging green stuff everywhere, I was looking for some help in coming up with the best/most fun chaos versions of these units. I like the idea of the plague tower, but I don't know if this is even playable anymore. The tank with the puss cannon looks like a good idea for one of the tanks. My friends suggest all laser destroyers for the titan in case of titan on titan combat. The all destroyer titan seems cheesy and really only has one use.....kill other titans.

If anyone uses these units on a regular basis and could help me come up with a good plan of attack, I would greatly appreciate it. This looks like a task that will take me a few months to complete, so a little help will go along way.

[Chem-Dog]

The Plague Tower is great, I built and used one in an Apoc a couple of years ago it was an unholy terror on the table thanks to it's Pusscannon, the Mortar is pretty handy too. The Plague Reaper is what happens when a Plaguetower is left in charge of a Baneblade without proper supervision, swapping out the main gun is about the only really significant change. Both of these are worthy additions to a Nurgle themed force.

The key with any of these tanks is keep 'em grinding forward, keep them covered from assaults and just keep blasting, there's very little tactical utility to them over and above using them to shoot things, battle tend to revolve around either avoiding them or killing them. The only tip I have that's even vaguely useful is use the PT's transport capacity to keep a corps of melee counter-attack troops handy for any attacks with meltabombs, chainfists and whatnot (it's even feasible to store a couple of Great Unclean Ones in there*). Particularly worthy of note is the fact that the pusscannon and mortar both ignore cover making them particularly handy in any situation involving defended buildings.

There's no reason not to field the Baneblade and Stormlord as their unadulterated type though (as either captured or allied vehicles), both are pretty handy. The Stormlord is best suited to a static defence as it can shoot twice if it doesn't move. The open topped crew compartment allows you to magnify the shooting dramatically by having a bunch of Heavy Weapons shooting out of the top or have a bunch of melee troops in there as backup, I like Ogryn for the job (or Nurgle Plague Ogryn if you wanna keep the King of poxes theme strong).

Not ever used a Titan so I don't have too much to say about that. It's certainly true that the army with the most Structure points tends to win in apoc and in the case of a draw the army with the most Dstrength weapons is usually the victor but I wouldn't let either fact get in the way of building a themed model rather than a optimised winner. I'd probably go with the huge flamer and consider it another plaguecannon. There's no shame in not being able to easily combat a specific threat in Apocalypse games as, without strict control from a GM, they do tend to devolve into a competition to see who can build the most cunning super deathstar unit or most devious combo of units.

Hope that's the kind of thing you're looking for.
Good luck.


*or fill out the transport space with Nurgle Lords carrying Daemon Weapons, it is Apocalypse after all. If your group is ok with the idea you can even mount it up with Dreadnoughts.

[kiltwearer]

That is exactly the kind of info I was looking for. I like the look of the plague tower and plague reaper. If they are good units as well, that is the way I will go. The arms on the titan are modular so I can just build a few different variations. Thanks Chem-dog.

[madd0ct0r]

thematically, nurgle is slow, tough and consequently shooty. Weapons tended to be area effect, ignore cover and be disruptive to the enemy.

'classic' plauge tower weapons were shortish range bombardment chem-mortar types and much longer range focused artillery types (rot cannon comes to mind). The plaugerepaer uses a superhavy flamer template if I recall.

fun wise, stuff with a shortish range on a brutally tough tank slowly grinding towards the enemy who are desperately trying to stop it probably beats 'superheavy artillery tank that sits at the back of the board and blasts away')

If your gaming group is happy, there's also various other themes to investigate for something unique.

1) Plauge Zombies - combine the 'siege tower' idea in the plague tower with plauge zombies - think a nurgle gorgon, pus sprayers on the sponsons, rumbling forward to discharge its ungodly cargo
2) Nurgle Beasts -horrific masses of writhing tentacles with the mentality of an excited puppy. Can you imagine a baneblade enthused beast slipping it's leash (to the titan) and playing 'tag' with the other tanks?
3) Blight Drones - Build up the back of your warhound, and have a single blight drone nesting there, taking to the air to spot for it's papa.
4) Snotling hive - Similar, but the entire titan is heaving with jovial nurglings? what ever else the titan's armed with, they could swarm another superheavy...
5) contagion engine - one of the old epic nurgle units was basically a tankified ballista. Nurgle does seem to like archaic weaponry. Perhaps more for a tank then a titan though.
6) Farmer Maggot - I love the image of a Warhound sewing seeds from a bulging sack as it walks across the board. Seeds generate nurglings / zombies each turn.
7) Mortarion - if it's a legion affiliated titan, then mortarion's weapon of choice was a scythe (and gas grenades). Pay affectionate homage to the gaunt primarch