Maggotkin of Nurgle March Onto Tables in Putrid New Wave

The Garden of Decay Blossoms

The first shipment arrived at Warhammer stores on Saturday morning, and by lunchtime the stench—part sulfur, part sickly-sweet rot—was already drifting through the aisles. No one complained; for hobbyists queuing to buy the new Maggotkin of Nurgle range, the smell was proof that Games Workshop had nailed the theme again.

What’s New in the Swarm

This release adds seven kits to the Age of Sigmar line-up:

• Lord of Afflictions on a winged plague-steed, flail dripping with bile.
• Putrid Blightkings re-sculpted with cracked leather, exposed guts, and 47 optional heads.
• Pusgoyle Blightlords—dual-build kit that can also be assembled as flying Rotmire Creed.
• The Maggoth Lords return in plastic for the first time since 2015, compatible with the new 120 mm oval base.
• Feculant Gnarlmaw scenery piece, now modular so you can chain grotesque trees into an entire corrupted copse.
• Battletome: Maggotkin of Nurgle—184 pages, hardback, with updated Path to Glory rules and the first canonical map of the Bountiful Valley.
• Warscroll Cards and a 36-piece dice set in pus-yellow acrylic.

A Weekend of Contagion

At the Lenton bunker in Nottingham, designers hosted a 24-hour paint-along streamed to 62,000 viewers. Art director Jenna Paints revealed the studio colour scheme: “We wanted a palette that looked like it could infect the viewer’s screen—olive greens, bruised purples, custard yellows.” The event raised £48,000 for SpecialEffect, the UK charity that adapts controllers for gamers with disabilities.

“Nurgle is love,” sculptor Maxime Pastourel told the crowd. “He loves you so much he’ll never let you go—literally. We tried to sculpt that paradox: beauty inside horror.”

Rules That Spread Like Plague

The new battletome introduces the Contagion Points mechanic: each time a unit is wiped out, Nurgle players accrue points that can be cashed in to summon daemons mid-game without spending reinforcement points. Early battle-reports on YouTube already show 1,000-point armies ballooning into 1,600-point forces by turn four.

Community Reaction

Reddit’s r/ageofsigmar added 18,000 subscribers over the weekend. Twitter’s #Maggotkin tag trended worldwide, cheek-by-jowl with photos of slime-coated miniatures and sour-dough starters dyed green for effect. Independent stockist Dave’s Wargames in Manchester reported selling through its 200-unit allocation in 47 minutes. “We had to shut the door for fire-code reasons,” manager Dave Singh said. “We’ve never seen anything like it—not even for the Stormcast refresh last year.”

What It Means for the Mortal Realms

Games Workshop is betting big on narrative play. A free downloadable campaign, The Tarnished Spring, lets players fight for or against the spread of Nurgle’s latest gift: the Verdigris Bloom, a rust-coloured moss that turns living stone into putrid sludge. Victory points are tracked globally; whichever faction tops the leaderboard at the end of May will influence the next storyline arc, teased for June’s Adepticon reveal.

Bottom Line

Whether you embrace the rot or stand against it, the Maggotkin release is already reshaping tournament tables and hobby desks alike. One thing is certain: the Mortal Realms just got a lot messier.