40K Charted: The Chaos Gods Explored – Nurgle
March 10, 2017 by warzan
We take another step towards falling to Chaos as we explore another of the Gods from the Warhammer 40,000 world, Nurgle.
This lord of pestilence and decay also has the rather timid nickname of Grandfather Nurgle although I wouldn’t want him in my family!
If you like the thought of ichor covered Space Marines, fly swarmed daemons and shuddering masses from the Warp then this is the army for you.
AJ and Warren also chat about proxying models, which is always an interesting discussion when we talk Chaos since they have such a diverse background!
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Hey guys, cheers for talking about proxying
, guess i get bragging rights of first 40k charted letter 
Loving the IG:Aquatics and AJ’s halftracks
Dave Taylor is currently vlogging the build of his Warlord titan http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsxGIP5z3vyOAfOecRaUSoA/videos
Ah wicked, I didn’t know he had a youtube channel!
Did Games Workshop require you guys to use “unofficial” in the title for this series?
Probably, that or its a CYA activity to distance association from GW and their copyrights(wrongs in my opinion, but we all know how much GW cares about anonymous internet comments and commenters), trademarks and other such legal chod.
I helped write much of a wiki for a game. The company were fine with us using official material but requested we make it clear on the front page it was a fan project and not an official company project.
I’m not being funny, but it was us that wanted to push the unofficial aspect of this as its probably as important for us to disassociate with them as it is for them to disassociate from us these days lol
But really it keeps everyone right and frees us up to talk about all sorts of stuff
AJ’s halftracks are awesome along with his converted sentinels
With what information I assembled throughout the years, Nurgle is more about corruption than decay. He believes in change and transformation. Decay is only a transition from a form to the next. Followers of Nurgle are those who whisper from the shadows into the ears of politicians and such.
Also important to note is the almost fatherly behavior of Papa Nurgle towards his lesser deamons and followers. It’s a shame you didn’t mention the nurglings (miniature versions of Nurgle himself) crawling all over his body and sucking at the vile stuff oozing from his pustules and stuff… He IS quite a disgusting entity…
Yeah on reflection ‘Entropy’ is a word I should have used
I will have to look into the puss sucking little ones!
Often amused myself thinking that the point of the LHC is to proove nurgles existence, that and how much id love to see alan titchmarsh take a tour around his garden, especially after his contributions to the English language (i.e. his awful writing, of which i was forced to read one rainy holiday stuck in a rented caravan with half a deck of cards, a scrabble set bereft of vowels and the complete works of titchmarsh!
)…
There’s quite a lot of references to this in The Lost and the Damned (or is it the other book). That and the fact that great unclean ones travel in “circus caravan” with their court of lesser deamons to spread diseases into the world. That was in the Fantasy setting, though… Maybe they have a crazy spaceship equivalent for the 40k universe…
Pretty sure i read some eldar fluff (may have been harlequin related, with nurgle making a mockery of their show with his own) yonks ago (i.e. when spliffy jeans were popular
) which said pretty much the same thing (may have been in a very early issue of inferno). As far as i’m aware the realm of chaos is the same between 40k and fantasy so what ever the gods do in there “home” should be the same across the board
The link between the two settings was broken by GW some time in the 90s. The RoC books aren’t ‘canon’ now either. At least not GW’s. They are canon for me lol (and yes, it is The Lost and the Damned
)
@redben take it you didn’t hear about a grey knight recently appeared in fantasy…
Quote from the recent short story Kaldor Draigo: Knight of Titan by the character Kaldor Draigo “Time flows strangely within the empyrean. In the scattering of the daemon’s remains, I see patterns. I see shapes and colours. I see echoes of things that are, and futures that were. I see an old world beyond the next horizon – a world that likely never was, where sorcery blew in the very winds and a self-made god-king was all that stood against the Ruinous Powers.”
There has been a sighting of what might be Draigo in the Warhammer Fantasyverse – specifically, in the fluff book for the Khaine splat of The End Times.
During Araloth’s travels into the Realm of Chaos, to rescue Shallya from the mansion of Nurgle, the final traveling companion he picks up is a knight, a “giant of a man” whose armor “gleams like silver” and whose “speech is strange”. Upon reaching the mansion of Nurgle, the knight sacrifices himself so the rest of the party can enter, explaining he has “made something of a name for himself since his arrival in the benighted realm” and so he is sure to draw their attention. More notably, when he makes his sacrificial charge, it’s mentioned that he sweeps out his hand and blue fire explodes amongst the daemon’s ranks.
So yeah, 40k and fantasy connection is still being hinted at.
I did hear about the End Times one, though nothing that had officially rejoined them. At one point they were considered to share the same world, or at least it was very strongly hinted at via the Old Slann, but sometime around the late 90s they said they weren’t connected. Maybe they’ll start joining up AoS to 40K.
@redben the rumour is that they liked warmahordes… I don’t know about that. But their is those two recent bits of publication strongly hinting that they are connected. Actually there is another one. A skaven clan found a weird box, and when they activated it they heard “elf like” voices, then they smashed it lol.
Funny… I always thought the Emperor of mankind from 40k was one of Sigmar’s reincarnation and that Terra was the very world (the Old World of Fantasy) where the Slanns had created “space portals” over both poles (2nd edition of WFRPG)…
Or maybe this is what I would have done…
I remember the nurglings were like children
and the Beasts of Nurgle were like excited puppies accidentally killing things?
I couldn’t agree more. He is Vile, but he does seem to love his followers. It is very easy to forget about the Nurglings, but they do add a lot to Nurgles background. Maybe we can do a little bit on these guys another time.
I remembered last week that you guys were asking about minis ever being released for the Chaos Primarchs and you listing them today totally made me remember the old 6mm scale ones that GW did for Space Marine!
I dug out the best links I could find for the Eavy metal versions for your eyeballs pleasure
Magnus
http://www.ninjabread.co.uk/images/tzeentch/magnus-the-red.jpg
Angron
%20Prinarch%20Angron/AngronEpic2.jpg
Fulgrim
http://wh40k-de.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/a/a9/FulgrimEpic.jpg
Mortarion
http://archive.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1387/41/1387419516380.jpg
I was about to suggest the old epic models but you beat me to it. Some great nostalgia for me.
cool. It would be brilliant to see these guys updated. I don’t think it would be too powerful these days given the crazy lords of war we have.
I found a pretty sweet Fulgrim update that some one did for 40k, the second one on this page is fantastic!
http://theundercoater.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/seige-of-terra-tempus-fugitives.html
Looks like I goofed the Angron link!
%20Prinarch%20Angron/AngronEpic2.jpg
Damn!, looks like somewhere on your stack everything before a space is getting discarded…so here’s a photobucket link!
Prinarch Angron/AngronEpic2.jpg
Argh! I wish I could just edit a comment!
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=6mm+daemon+primarchs&rlz=1C1AVNC_enGB582GB582&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=979&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CC4QsARqFQoTCKaZ8YmBhMkCFcSWDwodsFkHWg#tbm=isch&q=6mm+angron&imgrc=gwMoyo40x73jQM%3A
The pain when tech won’t behave! Feeling that pain.
If you guys can get hold of the Liber Chaotica books you’ll find a wealth of information on all the Chaos Gods- including their personal realms and so forth…
Been a long time since I played 40k, but (apart from my Space Wolves) Nurgle Chaos Marines were my main army- I had a lovingly converted army (back before I knew about greenstuff!) using blue-tack ‘hardened’ with superglue to make all kinds of tentacles, pustules and swollen armour… Needless to say it didn’t survive for very long!
I always thought Nurgle was all about embracing despair and finding some weird comfort and enjoyment in just letting everything around you stagnate and fall into ruin- change and transformation were more Tzeentch’s spheres of influence, which was why the two gods don’t get along… But as I say I’m a bit rusty on my 40k so I may very well be wrong there!
@jonhay: It rings some bell to me… I remember reading a story where a great unclean one was sitting in his caravan, looking at the lesser deamons around him count flies and such. He was petting a nurgling and that despair you talk about was all over his thoughts.
And you’re right Tzeentch is the lord of change.
And the two were indeed initially presented in opposition for those reasons (as were Khorne and Slaanesh for other reasons). No idea if that’s still current.
was there a Mordheim gang of Nurgle circus characters?
Yep! There were a Nurgle gang for Mordheim too.
The Liber Chaotica books are brilliant. Interesting point on Nurgle there. As we always say, these videos are only the starting point. It is great to hear your comments!
I really like this serie, it’s veteran AND noob friendly, and that is not an easy task.
I’m all into proxing, as a IHMN player, all miniatures are proxies in their own way xD
Great show again! Seems like Monday is suddenly becoming one of my favorite days
Seeing this video was up while I’m painting a FW Great Unclean One can’t be a coincidence. Papa Nurgle is smiling on me.
Of course, no discussion of Nurgle would be complete without mentioning what a big fan of Blood Bowl he is. He can often be seen in the stands at Nurgle’s Rotters games, cheering on the team whilst munching on a bag of Pop Khorne.
First Blood Bowl team I played in a season! I had so much fun converting miniatures to fill all positions on the pitch as well as on the sidelines!
I wonder if Papa Nurgle liked his Bloodweiser cold or warm…
Blood Ravens – Thousand Sons
Space Sharks – World Eaters
Red Scorpions – Emperors Children
but Death Guard have no cool Imperial equivalent?
Sons Of Antaeus
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Sons_of_Antaeus
Sons of Antaeus would make great True-Scale marines
lots of grime and weather effects – knife in one hand and pistol-gripped bolter in the other
Back in white dwarf 279, the sons of antaeus had trial rules that gave every marine +1 toughness. Just like death guard. Was a good article, various special rules for the cursed founding chapters.
And its interesting you said the space sharks for world eaters, in 3rd edition the minotaurs chapter had the same rules as Khorne Berserkers…
i remember reading in some official 1990s GW thing that Nurgle became an entity in 1340
and he caused a galactic disease-shock-wave that began the Black Death in Europe.
only history fact i can remember from school
The moment I heard Nurgle does not like Slaanesh because I was HUH?
I think Investing a bit on the old 1st edition tomes would be good for this show, Nurgle is the representation of the emotions of perseverance, endurance and fighting the odds his opposite in Tzeench who stands for changing the odds eluding the difficulties and making the world change to his needs instead of plowing through the world.
Slaanesh is opposed to Khorn as it should be expected pride and decadence do not play well together.
Nurgle as all chaos gods is not bad or evil, they are extreme representations of feelings, Nurgle truly believes he gives gifts to the world his diseases allow the victims to endure more making pain feel less and less severe, his best ones even turn the victims to plaguebearers, a daemon.
An interesting untouched side of the nurgle lore is how he treats all his daemons as his children and how his daemons see him as a fatherly figure, in fact he is called Granpa Nurgle, because he tells better stories than “Papa” Nurgle who are the great unclean ones the greater deamons created in his image.
Another untouched aspect is that all followers of Nurgle are quite happy, vigorous and joyful despite the diseased state they are in, the extreme opposite of what one would expect.
That quite a good summary @psychoticstorm . Some of the points you’re raising were already brought to us in the comments. Like @warzan said, the video is just the start of the discussion and I’m glad you’ve added to it.
cool information Psychoticstorm. Will definitely bring this up if we get to do a recap vid!
Don’t play 40k anymore but played Death Guard for ten years, through at least three codex’s!
One thing you didn’t mention was Mortarions philosophy that every soldier should be versatile and equally capable of any task. That’s why the DG don’t have specialised units but are good all rounders. I remember because It’s the reason I chose them at the time, I just wanted to do an army of marines with bolters and the odd special weapon.
The Blade of the Laer (the one used to strike down Horus) was more than likely a Slaaneshi weapon, the demon bound to it briefly possessed Fulgrim before he was able to regain control of his body. The sword is now carried by Lucius the Eternal (a champion of Slaanesh) as well, so its definitely looking more a Slaaneshi weapon.
This was the show I was looking forward to as Nurgle is my own Chaos god of choice. I have the core of a Death Guard army that I’m going to expand and then add in a few units dedicated to the other powers. I had originally planned to keep it pure DG but the more books I read the more the idea of warbands that temporarily ally with each other appeals to me.
I was really interested in the fact that Nurgle keeps Isha as a plaything in a cage. I’ve never come across that lore before and I’d love to know what book(s) it’s from. Likewise, the story mentioned in the comments about the plague circus sounds really cool and I’d like to track it down if anyone can remember the name of the book/magasine it turned up in.
Isha is touched upon in the old Codex: Daemons. However it was also talked about in the old Warhammer 40k Compilation from back in the early 90′s
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EUn653qlyRo/USpLIolKT0I/AAAAAAAAArQ/VW3zRKDUCCo/s1600/IMG_1901.JPG
Glad that Horus’ visions whilst under the effects of Chaos got a mention. For me his outrage when he sees a plaza with statues of the loyalist Primarchs but not the likes of himself, Mortarion, Perturabo etc is still one of the most tragic scenes in all the novel series
I think Mortarion lead an assault on the Space Wolf Homeworld getting to the inner sactum and killing a Company and a Wolf Lord before he phased himself out
nice one guys are the plague marines some of the death guard sacrificed on Isstvan III that succumbed to the virus bombs corruption?
I think they got sick in the warp enroute to earth – like those cruise ships that have a disease outbreak ?
Has that been written in the HH novels?
Enjoyable series, but for the LOVE OF NURGLE PLEASE STOP “orientated”. It is “oriented”
EDIT: *saying
wow, late to the crazy muchly. I understand what you are saying about the tau, but I totally disagree I would say they are one of the best armies for proxying because they have the whole bring people in greater good thing allowing you to play any old ‘aliens’ and their own unique technology.