A while ago, I decided I wanted to start a new army after getting my Ghosts of Mortain to 2,000 points. The problem was that I had no idea which army I wanted to make! So, I went through all the different ways you could build an army, and even tried building a couple of Kill Teams, to get feel for a new project. Still, I couldn’t make up my mind on what force I wanted to build. Then, after watching a few painting tutorials on the Warhammer Youtube channel, I was hit by inspiration.
That’s right, I have decided to step onto the heretical side of life and start a Nurgle Daemon army.
Out of all the all of the dark gods of chaos, Nurgle has always stood out to me. There is something about the rotting and decayed followers of Papa Nurgle that remind me of the classic zombie movies of my youth. In fact, this is not the first time I’ve dabbled with Nurgle Daemons – back when I used to work for Games Workshop, I had a Khorne/Nurgle army, and to be honest I really miss being able to march across the battlefield shrugging off wound after wound. Sadly, I sold that army years ago. The good news, though, is that now I get to build it again out of the fantastic plastic kits available (which will be a lot better on my back when it comes to carrying them to the shop).
There is also an added bonus when it comes to building a Daemon army, and that is the fact that I can port them over to Age of Sigmar if I ever decide I want to do battle in the mortal realms. While 40k is still my first love when it comes to the hobby, I am starting to really enjoy the realms of AoS thanks in no small part to games like Warhammer Underworlds and Warcry. Plus, there is something nice about being able to take a single case down to a game night and know that, no matter the gaming system on offer, you will be able to play a game. Heck, it might even be fun to play some games of Horus Heresy if the mood takes me.
I decided to start were a lot of people begin when it comes to building an army, the ‘start collecting’ boxes. These great value sets provide you with a solid number of models for a variety of armies, while also saving you a bit of money. When it comes to the Nurgle Daemons, you get a Herald of Nurgle as a HQ, 10 Plaguebearers and 3 Nurglings as Troops, and 3 Plague Drones to add some Fast Attack to the force. Maxing out all these units will give us 364 points for 40k and around 540 points for AoS, which is not a bad start for an army. But the question then becomes: what do we get next?
My plan is to build up the army bit by bit in increments of around 500 points (whether this will be 40k points or AoS, I’ve not decided), making sure I build and paint every model before I even spend a single penny on the next batch. That’s right, no shelves full of grey plastic for me. If we are going to build a new army, we are going to do it right. I’m also going to give myself a time frame to get each section completed, which should get the army on the battlefield pretty quick.
For my first task, I’ll be aiming to get the entire start collecting box built and painted by the end of September. After that, I’ll get my first games in with them before I decide what I’ll be building next, and I’ll be giving you all monthly updates on the state of the army and how I’m getting along. If you don’t want to miss out on the next part of the series, or any other articles we write here at Master of Magics, make sure like and subscribe to the site. We also have a Patreon, so if you want to support future content for the site, consider becoming one of our Patrons. Just $1 a month would do so much to help us create more of the content you enjoy.
If you want to start a new army along side us, why not take up the challenge yourself? In fact, if you want a chance to be included in this series, just post up pictures of your starting 500-point army on twitter, tagging me (@MTGTengu) with the hashtag #mynewarmy. If we like what you have done, we will include your work in the next article. Until then next time though, remember: ‘Let the Galaxy Burn.’
