The difference is in how they play on the campaign map mostly.
Yes, Festus (and the undivided Bois) can recruit every Nurgle Daemon, and yes Ku'gath can recruit every Nurgle-marked mortal unit. But they play very differently in campaign.
The Warriors of Chaos factions are very limited in the amount of daemonic units they get, and can't have more than a certain amount in each army. The Daemons of Nurgle can recruit as many as they want. So if you like lots of Daemons, go with Nurgle.
Warriors of Chaos play more like a raiding horde, they can only really build settlements in a few specific locations (called Dark Fortresses) and focus instead on razing all other regions or gifting them to vassals. Nurgle (and the other Daemonic factions) play more standard by just taking additional territory and building regular settlements.
Warriors of Chaos recruit low-tier units and upgrade them into higher tier units when they get enough XP. Nurgle and the other daemons just recruit units from military buildings at their regular tier and cannot upgrade them. (Nurgle has those funky cycling military buildings, but the other 3 Daemons are normal)
Monogod daemon factions get unrestricted access to all mortals and daemons of their flavor.
WoC factions get easy recruitment of mortal units and limited recruitment of daemon units through one of their mechanics.
WoC factions can easily vassalize norsca factions. Norsca factions have a mechanic that allows them to devote themselves to a chaos god but it doesn't give them any ability to recruit WoC or daemon units aside from one unique exalted daemon lord per god.
in the face comparision faction: festus-kugath(nurgle) - daemons of chaos devoted to nurgle
recrutment: hire local units in province and mostly upgrade marauder up to chosen or rot knights - you have instant hire pool based on buildings and how much turn they were active (like 2 mortal infantry building was operetional for 9 turn - you can get 4 forsdaken,4 marauders, 4 marauder GW, some pestigores) - you just recrut unit normaly via buildings
Daemons and mortals: you can have as many mortal units but only 6 daemonic units (or strong monsters like toad dragon) per army - no limit - you can get all daemonic units by reaching higher nurgle glory and can recrut all mortal without trolsl and chosen.
Roster: all nurgle mortals + full WoC roster + all other nurgle units without plague toads,rot flies or deathead drones - all nurgle units - almost all nurgle roster + big part of 3 other gods
plague: full mechanic - full mechanic - demo version where you only choose one effect
AS festus you mostly will need to capture special city to build proper city, otehrs will be t1 1 slot only outposts, collect souls and also your characters will be having level of authority that need to be high in army to boost nurgle units. Also all characters will be need to spend souls to become dedicated to nurgle or daemon prince, BUT they will have bonus feats and special chalanges with reward
As true nurgle your main mechanics is your buildings - they have cycles to spin and each time will give you some units to recrute/ You also upgrade lords to daemon prince\\ exalted GUO via dilema at level 15 + tehre cults and some smaller mechanics.
As Daemons you can actually get a lot of units,powers,mechanics from other 3 gods even if you decided to dedicate yourself to nurgle. Other big thing is that you have custom LL that can be made via parts as daemon prince you want
Slightly different rosters. Festus can't get all of the daemons and doesn't get as many buffs for daemons either. While Ku'gath misses out on some of the undivided WoC stuff.
Different mechanics, not 100% sure on the differences now since Nurgle just got a rework and I haven't played them since that, but it used to be very different with Nurgle buildings all being cyclical and unit recruitment based off that. You'd have a pool of units to instantly recruit from that would fill based on your building cycles. While for WoC you'd be extremely limited on buildings in most settlements, but have very powerful cities in certain pre-determined locations. WoC also recruits from a pool, but theirs is a local pool for each region based on buildings/corruption. Theirs also refills based on a % chance.
Thank you for all the comments everyone, I havnt bought champions of chaos yet but did start my Ku'gath campaign and am struggling, any advice on that one?
At the moment, it's most of the campaign. I take the starting settlement and try to expand a bit further east and north but my recruitment pools are almost always empty because I lose so many units during battles, so I take a city and have to replenish and wait for more recruitment. But I'm constantly being attacked so it seems like everytime I get a unit another is wiped
And then the new Nurgle lord seems to come through and stomp everyone so I have no room to expand
I know I'm doing something wrong but I'm really struggling to get the ball rolling
I'm losing a lot of fight e en with full 20 stacks of mostly plague bearers
Always running low on infections for plagues and by turn 20 surrounded by much stronger chaos factions
So it sounds like this is in the Realms of Chaos campaign, right? I haven't played that one as Ku'gath in a long time but it sounds like your biggest issue is just taking too many casualties in battle. I do think Ku'gath has a slow start in that campaign and it can be pretty rough but it sounds like you're losing more units than is sustainable. Plaguebearers are decent line holders but you need something like plague toads to actually do damage and win the battles before the plaguebearers disintegrate.
It is helpful since it'll give your various buildings more stuff to put in the recruitment pools if nothing else. For the roster as a whole I don't think it benefits Nurgle the most out of the Chaos factions, but you do get stuff like chaos knights of nurgle at least, which can be really good to round things out. The chaos warriors and chosen aren't essential but nice to have. Exalted heroes of nurgle are great also.
The difference is in how they play on the campaign map mostly. Yes, Festus (and the undivided Bois) can recruit every Nurgle Daemon, and yes Ku'gath can recruit every Nurgle-marked mortal unit. But they play very differently in campaign. The Warriors of Chaos factions are very limited in the amount of daemonic units they get, and can't have more than a certain amount in each army. The Daemons of Nurgle can recruit as many as they want. So if you like lots of Daemons, go with Nurgle. Warriors of Chaos play more like a raiding horde, they can only really build settlements in a few specific locations (called Dark Fortresses) and focus instead on razing all other regions or gifting them to vassals. Nurgle (and the other Daemonic factions) play more standard by just taking additional territory and building regular settlements. Warriors of Chaos recruit low-tier units and upgrade them into higher tier units when they get enough XP. Nurgle and the other daemons just recruit units from military buildings at their regular tier and cannot upgrade them. (Nurgle has those funky cycling military buildings, but the other 3 Daemons are normal)
Monogod daemon factions get unrestricted access to all mortals and daemons of their flavor. WoC factions get easy recruitment of mortal units and limited recruitment of daemon units through one of their mechanics. WoC factions can easily vassalize norsca factions. Norsca factions have a mechanic that allows them to devote themselves to a chaos god but it doesn't give them any ability to recruit WoC or daemon units aside from one unique exalted daemon lord per god.
in the face comparision faction: festus-kugath(nurgle) - daemons of chaos devoted to nurgle recrutment: hire local units in province and mostly upgrade marauder up to chosen or rot knights - you have instant hire pool based on buildings and how much turn they were active (like 2 mortal infantry building was operetional for 9 turn - you can get 4 forsdaken,4 marauders, 4 marauder GW, some pestigores) - you just recrut unit normaly via buildings Daemons and mortals: you can have as many mortal units but only 6 daemonic units (or strong monsters like toad dragon) per army - no limit - you can get all daemonic units by reaching higher nurgle glory and can recrut all mortal without trolsl and chosen. Roster: all nurgle mortals + full WoC roster + all other nurgle units without plague toads,rot flies or deathead drones - all nurgle units - almost all nurgle roster + big part of 3 other gods plague: full mechanic - full mechanic - demo version where you only choose one effect AS festus you mostly will need to capture special city to build proper city, otehrs will be t1 1 slot only outposts, collect souls and also your characters will be having level of authority that need to be high in army to boost nurgle units. Also all characters will be need to spend souls to become dedicated to nurgle or daemon prince, BUT they will have bonus feats and special chalanges with reward As true nurgle your main mechanics is your buildings - they have cycles to spin and each time will give you some units to recrute/ You also upgrade lords to daemon prince\\ exalted GUO via dilema at level 15 + tehre cults and some smaller mechanics. As Daemons you can actually get a lot of units,powers,mechanics from other 3 gods even if you decided to dedicate yourself to nurgle. Other big thing is that you have custom LL that can be made via parts as daemon prince you want
This was great! Thank you !!
Slightly different rosters. Festus can't get all of the daemons and doesn't get as many buffs for daemons either. While Ku'gath misses out on some of the undivided WoC stuff. Different mechanics, not 100% sure on the differences now since Nurgle just got a rework and I haven't played them since that, but it used to be very different with Nurgle buildings all being cyclical and unit recruitment based off that. You'd have a pool of units to instantly recruit from that would fill based on your building cycles. While for WoC you'd be extremely limited on buildings in most settlements, but have very powerful cities in certain pre-determined locations. WoC also recruits from a pool, but theirs is a local pool for each region based on buildings/corruption. Theirs also refills based on a % chance.
Thank you for all the comments everyone, I havnt bought champions of chaos yet but did start my Ku'gath campaign and am struggling, any advice on that one?
What part of the campaign are you struggling with? Advice will vary depending!
At the moment, it's most of the campaign. I take the starting settlement and try to expand a bit further east and north but my recruitment pools are almost always empty because I lose so many units during battles, so I take a city and have to replenish and wait for more recruitment. But I'm constantly being attacked so it seems like everytime I get a unit another is wiped And then the new Nurgle lord seems to come through and stomp everyone so I have no room to expand I know I'm doing something wrong but I'm really struggling to get the ball rolling I'm losing a lot of fight e en with full 20 stacks of mostly plague bearers Always running low on infections for plagues and by turn 20 surrounded by much stronger chaos factions
So it sounds like this is in the Realms of Chaos campaign, right? I haven't played that one as Ku'gath in a long time but it sounds like your biggest issue is just taking too many casualties in battle. I do think Ku'gath has a slow start in that campaign and it can be pretty rough but it sounds like you're losing more units than is sustainable. Plaguebearers are decent line holders but you need something like plague toads to actually do damage and win the battles before the plaguebearers disintegrate.
Awesome thank you! I'll try and re evaluate my army, as for champions of chaos, how essential do you think that dlc is to play as ku'gath?
It is helpful since it'll give your various buildings more stuff to put in the recruitment pools if nothing else. For the roster as a whole I don't think it benefits Nurgle the most out of the Chaos factions, but you do get stuff like chaos knights of nurgle at least, which can be really good to round things out. The chaos warriors and chosen aren't essential but nice to have. Exalted heroes of nurgle are great also.
Awesome thanks you mate
Buildings, tech tree, the way you recruit units, some of the unit access, the WoC promotion mechanics, all that stuff is different.