Recommendations vs Death Guard and Mortarion

[HenricusTyranicus]

It's in the title. I've got a 2000 point game tomorrow vs the new Death Guard, complete with Mortarion. He looks like a bit of a terror. To deal with him, I have Battlecannon Pask, with Lascannon and multi melta sponsons, and three other lascannons. For everything else, I have tons of flamers, plasma, and conscripts, with a healthy dose of mortars and artillery. Any other recommendations? How about for during the battle?

[Tirak]

I played against Death Guard and Mortarion last night. I was using a "fun list" instead of my flyer list, but at the end of the day, I killed Mortarion with 2 Lascannon Heavy Weapons Teams (so six lascannons in total) and Sergeant Harker providing the reroll 1s.  Mortarion looks scary, if he gets close he is scary, but massed lascannon fire blows him away.

 

Don't let Mortarion into close combat with anything important. He upper cut a Knight Errant and killed it in one fight phase (and I command rerolled and got it to blow up in his face). If you do need to charge him, flood him with multiple units. He rolls 3 attacks per normal attack against infantry, so he cleaves through them like butter, but if you flood him with multiple units, he has to split fire, and potentially can stuck in close combat. You'll want to be the one to charge him with conscripts if possible, so that he has to fall back and not get to charge your important things, or stay tarpitted.

 

Now as scary as Mortarion is, don't get fixated on him. If he uses Mortarion as a (expensive) distraction carnifex, and brings a whole bunch of other heavy targets, then it's alright to ignore Mortarion for a bit and feed him units to keep him away from the important things, while you deal with the real threat.

 

Spread out your heavies in deployment. The worst thing in the world would be if Mortarion could pull off a multiassault against more than one of your heavies.

 

But yeah, at the end of the day, you say you've got a lot of conscripts, tarpit the jerk. Make him drown in bodies until you're ready to deal with him.

 

Important side note. Every unit within 7in at the beginning of the fight phase he gets to roll against to deal mortal wounds. That goes off even if he's not in close combat, and that is very very dangerous against your characters. Be aware that it's coming, especially if you pull off forcing him to have to fall back. In my game, Mortarion "fell back" by flying right into the heart of a decent number of my heavy weapons and infantry and having his aura ability trigger. It didn't hurt as bad as it could have, but even a falling back Mortarion is still dangerous.

[bozo69pd]

I bet you kill Morty quickly and easily assuming average dice. If he has plague marines on the other hand get ready for some CC pain.

[The Catachan Devil]

A few things to watch out for:

 

DG have the following special rules:

• DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPEROR: Each time you roll a hit roll of 6+ for a model with this ability in the Fight phase, it can, if it was targeting an IMPERIUM unit, immediately make an extra attack against the same unit using the same weapon. These extra attacks cannot themselves generate any further attacks. 
• PLAGUE WEAPON: You can re-roll wound rolls of 1 for a weapon with this ability.
• DISGUNSTINGLY RESILIENT: A 5+ FNP.

 

 

A note on Poxwalkers, basically DGs EQ of conscripts:

• Curse of the Walking Pox: Each time an enemy INFANTRY model is slain by a Poxwalker in the Fight phase, add one model to the Poxwalker’s unit.
• Diseased Horde: You can add 1 to all hit rolls for this unit in the Fight phase if it contains more than 10 models.
• Mindless: Never has to take morale tests. 

A note on Mortarion:

• He is a LOW (not a HQ)  and is 24 Power!  
• T7, 18W, 3+ save, 4++ inv, 
• He knows the Smite power and three psychic powers from the Contagion discipline
• Enemy units within 7"  lose 1T from their statline
• He can inflict mortal wounds on those with 7" of him
• DG units reroll 1st to hit if with 7" of him

 

As a result you can see that playing against them in CC will get very nasty for you if you play as the Imperium. 

 

 

 

Just stay out of combat, employ tau tactics and speed bump their advance with expendable units like conscripts.

Edited September 23, 2017 by The Catachan Devil