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[Grim Portent]

Nurgle daemons are as mentioned above focused on slow hard to kill infantry and have little long ranged weaponry, but they do have faster units in the form of Plague Drones, plaguebearers riding giant pestilential flies that serve as airborne cavalry which support the main infantry advance, and to a lesser extent the Beasts of Nurgle, which are slug monsters that think like puppies and lick people with toxic tongues or crush them while playfighting, who serve as linebreakers and combat support for the infantry.

Nurglings also frequently appear in places they shouldn't, taking enemies by surprise when they burst out of infected wounds or bubble up from latrines. They're pretty good at getting ahead of the main group and distracting targets and tying up ranged fire.

They also use daemon flies, generic little beasties that spread plagues by biting people. Usually they're described as large flies with human faces that chant the litanies of Nurgle. In a big Nurgle invasion they can blot out the sky like a swarm of deranged locusts.


Really all the daemons are hard to deal with in large numbers lorewise, because they warp the very land they battle on as the god's realms intrude into realspace. Armies fighting Nurgle often find the land turning to cloying mud, torrents of acidic rain pouring from the skies and foliage growing thick and tangled and sometimes bitey. Terrain well suited to the tireless hordes of melee plague daemons, but ill suited to the mortal races.

[Kot]

Death Korps. Tremendous amounts of deadly machinery operated by men whose entire life is dedicated to waging war in hellish landscapes, lines of tanks and artillery covered by trenches, spewing munitions downrange, a furious storm of holy fire purging everything it encounters. Slow and methodical destruction of enemies of Imperium, ensuing that there won't be more than bloodied mud left once they're finished. There can be no demonically warped terrain if there is no terrain to speak of anymore.

[Loud Whispers]

Death Korps. Tremendous amounts of deadly machinery operated by men whose entire life is dedicated to waging war in hellish landscapes, lines of tanks and artillery covered by trenches, spewing munitions downrange, a furious storm of holy fire purging everything it encounters. Slow and methodical destruction of enemies of Imperium, ensuing that there won't be more than bloodied mud left once they're finished. There can be no demonically warped terrain if there is no terrain to speak of anymore.

Gamma radiation does wonders to sterilise a battlefield, and luckily the Deathstrike Missile units have plenty of it to spare. It's killing me now because I forgot the name, but there's in canon a stormtrooper regiment that the inquisition noted is unusually good at surviving/eliminating nurgle daemon infestations. Also stern Imperial Parents who remind little Jimmy to clean his room everyday are the greatest enemy of nurgle

[Rowanas]

Death Korps. Tremendous amounts of deadly machinery operated by men whose entire life is dedicated to waging war in hellish landscapes, lines of tanks and artillery covered by trenches, spewing munitions downrange, a furious storm of holy fire purging everything it encounters. Slow and methodical destruction of enemies of Imperium, ensuing that there won't be more than bloodied mud left once they're finished. There can be no demonically warped terrain if there is no terrain to speak of anymore.

Gamma radiation does wonders to sterilise a battlefield, and luckily the Deathstrike Missile units have plenty of it to spare. It's killing me now because I forgot the name, but there's in canon a stormtrooper regiment that the inquisition noted is unusually good at surviving/eliminating nurgle daemon infestations. Also stern Imperial Parents who remind little Jimmy to clean his room everyday are the greatest enemy of nurgle

Nurgle is defeated by fire and Dettol.
Slaanesh is defeated by keeping your hands to yourself.
Khorne is defeated by refusing to put up a fight.
Tzeentch is defeated by sitting about and twiddling your thumbs.

Honestly, Nurgle is the only one who requires any effort at all, as the rest are undone by doing nothing at all.

[Teneb]

Death Korps. Tremendous amounts of deadly machinery operated by men whose entire life is dedicated to waging war in hellish landscapes, lines of tanks and artillery covered by trenches, spewing munitions downrange, a furious storm of holy fire purging everything it encounters. Slow and methodical destruction of enemies of Imperium, ensuing that there won't be more than bloodied mud left once they're finished. There can be no demonically warped terrain if there is no terrain to speak of anymore.

Gamma radiation does wonders to sterilise a battlefield, and luckily the Deathstrike Missile units have plenty of it to spare. It's killing me now because I forgot the name, but there's in canon a stormtrooper regiment that the inquisition noted is unusually good at surviving/eliminating nurgle daemon infestations. Also stern Imperial Parents who remind little Jimmy to clean his room everyday are the greatest enemy of nurgle

Nurgle is defeated by fire and Dettol.
Slaanesh is defeated by keeping your hands to yourself.
Khorne is defeated by refusing to put up a fight.
Tzeentch is defeated by sitting about and twiddling your thumbs.

Honestly, Nurgle is the only one who requires any effort at all, as the rest are undone by doing nothing at all.

* Teneb laughs in Malal Malice

[Grim Portent]

Amusingly, the Siege of Vraks wound up being mostly Nurgle vs Death Korps towards the end as the environment got blasted to the point few others could fight properly. Was a better environment for Nurgle than the DK to be frank.

Miles of trenches, sodden mud, caustic chemical smog and unexploded ordnance, where mortal men had to trudge through knee deep clinging muck, would die if their skin was exposed to the air and where foul miasmas reduced visibility such that the undead could lurch out of the mist onto unsuspecting soldiers. It's a testament to the DK that they could keep fighting at all, but it was very much a hellish situation.


Now Vraks was a horrible fight even by DK standards to begin with, a fanatical population in a heavily fortified position sitting on a munitions stockpile intended to provide supplies for a sector and led by a fallen Imperial Cardinal. Just getting to the enemy took several head on infantry and assault transport waves, and then when they finally made a breach they got counter-attacked by drugged up Ogryn Berzerkers, and that's not a place you want to be with small arms and bayonets.

When you added in the Chaos Marines that showed up later to the mix things went south fast. The Khorne forces were basically just being the frenzied butchers you expect, a wall of steel and axes that killed men in droves, but the Death Guard warband present made things properly nasty when they dug up the chemical weapons stockpiled on the planet and started spreading the zombie plague among both sides, and then things got bad enough Daemons started to pop out. The human responsible for the whole mess even ascended to Daemonhood after joining the Nurgle forces.

[nenjin]

It just came to me, there was a Gaunt's Ghost novel about trench warfare where the big trick was this gas that Nurgle cultists used to raise the dead on the battlefield when it was most inconvenient for the Guard. I don't know if we count that as pysker puppeteering or chaos-infused biological warfare or what, but it is a salient example of Necromancy in 40k. I think the novel is Necropolis.

[Loud Whispers]

It just came to me, there was a Gaunt's Ghost novel about trench warfare where the big trick was this gas that Nurgle cultists used to raise the dead on the battlefield when it was most inconvenient for the Guard. I don't know if we count that as pysker puppeteering or chaos-infused biological warfare or what, but it is a salient example of Necromancy in 40k. I think the novel is Necropolis.

Nah Necropolis was the fuck-hueg awesome Stalingrad taking place in Vervunhive, very little trench-warfare in that novel, but it had some of the best cinematic descriptions of siege warfare I've ever read. The enemies in that one were chaos soldiers under the command of Inheritor Asphodel or something like that, whose specialty was gargantuan siege weapons, not nurgle (I think he was chaos undivided). Dunno what one has nurgle cultists though, I only remember one trench warfare scene involving cultist being the one where the cultists cursed their landmines & had sick drum beats rolling all the time, with one of their soldiers getting possessed shrapnel stuck in them. Then one moment where all the drums hit the same note at the same time, shrapnel dude gets full on possessed; good books them Dan books

[Kot]

Amusingly, the Siege of Vraks wound up being mostly Nurgle vs Death Korps towards the end as the environment got blasted to the point few others could fight properly. Was a better environment for Nurgle than the DK to be frank.

Possibly. But at this point Death Korps are the Imperial group that Vraks was least shitty for, baring Space Marines, which you can't really have in high enough numbers.

Miles of trenches, sodden mud, caustic chemical smog and unexploded ordnance, where mortal men had to trudge through knee deep clinging muck, would die if their skin was exposed to the air and where foul miasmas reduced visibility such that the undead could lurch out of the mist onto unsuspecting soldiers. It's a testament to the DK that they could keep fighting at all, but it was very much a hellish situation.

I am pretty sure they got spiritual orgasms by just looking out the window. Sounds like heaven for a Korpsman.

Now Vraks was a horrible fight even by DK standards to begin with, a fanatical population in a heavily fortified position sitting on a munitions stockpile intended to provide supplies for a sector and led by a fallen Imperial Cardinal. Just getting to the enemy took several head on infantry and assault transport waves, and then when they finally made a breach they got counter-attacked by drugged up Ogryn Berzerkers, and that's not a place you want to be with small arms and bayonets.

Gee, I wonder why Imperial Guard doesn't use tanks and artillery and other stuff that isn't dudes with small arms and bayonets. Oh wait.

When you added in the Chaos Marines that showed up later to the mix things went south fast. The Khorne forces were basically just being the frenzied butchers you expect, a wall of steel and axes that killed men in droves, but the Death Guard warband present made things properly nasty when they dug up the chemical weapons stockpiled on the planet and started spreading the zombie plague among both sides, and then things got bad enough Daemons started to pop out. The human responsible for the whole mess even ascended to Daemonhood after joining the Nurgle forces.

And yet Imperium won. You're looking at all that shit and yet Korps seen it through.

[nenjin]

It just came to me, there was a Gaunt's Ghost novel about trench warfare where the big trick was this gas that Nurgle cultists used to raise the dead on the battlefield when it was most inconvenient for the Guard. I don't know if we count that as pysker puppeteering or chaos-infused biological warfare or what, but it is a salient example of Necromancy in 40k. I think the novel is Necropolis.

Nah Necropolis was the fuck-hueg awesome Stalingrad taking place in Vervunhive, very little trench-warfare in that novel, but it had some of the best cinematic descriptions of siege warfare I've ever read. The enemies in that one were chaos soldiers under the command of Inheritor Asphodel or something like that, whose specialty was gargantuan siege weapons, not nurgle (I think he was chaos undivided). Dunno what one has nurgle cultists though, I only remember one trench warfare scene involving cultist being the one where the cultists cursed their landmines & had sick drum beats rolling all the time, with one of their soldiers getting possessed shrapnel stuck in them. Then one moment where all the drums hit the same note at the same time, shrapnel dude gets full on possessed; good books them Dan books

Ah, you're right. Shame on me for forgetting Vevrunhive.

[Grim Portent]

They would've lost at Vraks if space marines (4 different chapters of them) hadn't intervened several times to take important locations and defeat important enemies before leaving to do stuff they considered more important*, not to mention the Inquisition and 22 titans by the end of the war. Indeed, prior to the arrival of the titans and some new regiments as part of a reinforcement wave with a new commander in charge the war was lost, the DK already deployed were cut off, being systematically destroyed and generally just knackered.

Honestly I would probably have taken the Armageddon Steel Legion over the Death Korps for Vraks, though I do prefer the DK aesthetic their tactics are less than stellar even for their supposed speciality given the gear available. The main weakness the DK assaults had was improper use of armour and slow movement speed, as well as an aversion to actual thinking. The Steel Legion uses Chimeras which are fast and heavily armed with good frontal armour and an enclosed compartment, while the DK prefer Gorgon Transports, which are slower and open topped even if more heavily armoured and able to carry more men at a time. Really an open topped transport is a weird thing in general, especially when you still need a door to deploy from it.

A rapid massed mechanised assault of Chimeras and Hellhounds could easily burn out the outer defensive trench lines and better protects the infantry from artillery fire than the gorgon, as well as better able to follow and support disembarked infantry in most terrain. Chimera's are also amphibious vehicles, well suited to function in the muddy terrain of Vraks. I'd probably want some Elysian Drop Troops regiments in a perfect world, but I think Vraks was ill suited to most fliers due to the electrical storms, the DK didn't bring fliers any in any case.

Of course this is a battle where Death Korps regiments tried to retreat. Some even shot their own Commissars for trying to stop the retreat, so I'm not sure any guard force could do it without problems, but I do think some could have made far better progress at it while also being more resistant to the traitor's main arsenal of artillery and massed small arms fire.

Granted the DK are somewhat better suited to resist chemical warfare than the Steel Legion, but considering that the chemical weapon that was stockpiled on Vraks literally melted DK soldiers into skeletons through their jackets and respirators I'm not sure being better at it matters much. Liquified is liquified after all.



*Weird thing about Vraks, it's this super important location, holds a vast amount of weapons, distributes them and serves as a collection point other planets send psykers to so they can be held until a Black Ship arrives, and yet Space Marines generally only got involved when the DK had hit a major blockade, like fortified gates they couldn't take after weeks/months or when a chaos marine warband was actually doing stuff. Similarly despite this planet being so important the Sector Command officers kept considering writing it off and pulling out the forces because they were taking years to make any progress. Hell, it took 17 years to capture one city.



Another, odd thing, according to SoV the Death Korps don't deal well with mud. They train on Krieg itself, which is mostly ruined buildings and metal/concrete trenches from their civil war. Which makes sense, it used to be a Hive World, so actual bare earth is probably in short supply, but it's weird to think of the WW1 themed regiment not being from a muddy wet place.

[Egan_BW]

But at this point Death Korps are the Imperial group that Vraks was least shitty for, baring Space Marines, which you can't really have in high enough numbers.

There's always the Imperial Navy. Nuke it from orbit till it's no longer an issue.

[Grim Portent]

But at this point Death Korps are the Imperial group that Vraks was least shitty for, baring Space Marines, which you can't really have in high enough numbers.

There's always the Imperial Navy. Nuke it from orbit till it's no longer an issue.

Too much important stuff on Vraks to just nuke it.

[Loud Whispers]

There's always the Imperial Navy. Nuke it from orbit till it's no longer an issue. Decide it's not worth your time, drop some imperial guard and leave

ftfy

[Egan_BW]

IG regiments are basically low-yield nukes which you can hope won't damage infrastructure too much.