How to use Morty

[CaptainBoxman]

I'm a newb, I have little practical experience in the game, and am mostly in it for the modelling and painting, but I'm wondering about how I'll eventually use papa Morty in practice after he's all painted up

 

I was "convinced" by my GW manager to grab him and some Deathshroud without meaning to, so now I'm considering what I can do with them once the fun of modelling and painting is over

 

What do you need in a list to make up for the expense of Mortarion and the space he take up? Not looking for cheese building, but more what to buy in future after the releases are all done

[Charlo]

No experience to speak of myself but really Morty is just such a monster you don't need much in the way of nuance to make good use of him!

 

Fly him up a flank and start ripping into either hordes or tougher targets with silence, all the while throwing mortal wounds out with his aura and the occasional shooting with the Lantern.

 

As you have Deathshroud you can use them in two ways:

• If you go second, keep them close turn one to absorb any shooting
• If you go first, teleport them in near Morty to absorb any firepower

Obviously the downside is then you are stuck with Terminators that only move 4" half way up the board.

[General Strike]

He is a weird fit in our army, which seems to be built around marching slowly up the board and weathering fire as they do. Our army does well with that, bubble wrapping our PMs with cultists or poxwalkers then protecting them with the flies stratagem. So use him like Charlo said, and try to use his speed and terrfying presence to push the enemy towards your slowly marching army.

Or build a list around him, I have one that is 3 flying daemon princes with wings, 3 min units of cultists, Mortarion, and then the rest of the list if filled with Blight-Haulers and Bloat-Drones.

[Panzer]

You really shouldn't let GW manager talk you into buying stuff. I've heard of many who don't even care how sensible their "recommendation" is (aka trying to sell Ork bikes to an Eldar player for example). :D

 

But yeah I don't think you need any specific kind of list for him. Just build a regular balanced Death Guard list with him included. Tho Mortarion + Death Shroud could be quite expensive to get in a list without sacrificing something important elsewhere.

[happyslugger]

As mentioned above, send him up one flank and then a DP and three B.Drones up the other.  Other player then needs to consider what they are shooting at as the drones and prince can deal some damage also.  

[Azekai]

Charlo has some great suggestions. I have not run Mortarion yet, but I am an ardent user of monstrous chaos daemons. There are pregame considerations when using behemoths like Mortarion: first up is terrain. Use plenty of it, and I would recommend something like a large hab building or fortified tower or other big LoS blocking thing that you can plop down near the center and use to hide Morty for a turn. I know that can be hard with those giant wings, but if you can manage, it helps immensely.

Where you drop him can absolutely dictate the flow of the game, so if you want to play close to the chest, place him last or close to it. If you are playing on a dense table or are otherwise confident about your ability to keep him alive, you can put him down earlier in order to influence your opponent's placement. This may not sound like a great idea, but most armies will not be capable of easily re-deploying their heavy hitting weapons that will pose the most threat to Mortarion.

Sometimes you want them thinking you will be coming at them from one flank, because as a chaos player you have access to one of the best psyker powers in the game- Warptime. You will be able to shift Mortarion 2' a turn, half the board, without advance moves. If you take a Dark Hereticus sorcerer, you can re-deploy Mortarion practically at will (and don't be afraid to spend command points to get Warptime off successfully). I would suggest giving said sorcerer a jump pack, so he can get to where he is needed- and advance him constantly, if necessary, since you can cast whatever you want while advancing.

If it looks like your opponent is going to blast the Death Lord to bits, hang Mortarion back slightly and send something, anything else forward, and use the Cloud of Flies stratagem to deny targets. This may get errata'd, but RAW, it is very useful to keeping our Primarch alive. 'But he is so fast, what will possibly be closer to the enemy' I hear you say. Deepstrike is the answer.  Blighthingies or Deadshroud, In a pinch, can deepstrike 9.000001" away from the really shooty elements of the enemy army. Then you use Cloud of Flies and keep Mortarion alive.

 

Edited September 27, 2017 by Azekai

[radionausea]

Mortarion can't benefit from Cloud of Flies - he's not Infantry.

[Azekai]

Mortarion can't benefit from Cloud of Flies - he's not Infantry.

You don't use flies on Morty, you use it on literally anything else that is closer and infantry. Sorry if I did not make that clear. A strict reading of the stratagem means that when you use Cloud of Flies, only the unit you use it on can be targeted, if it is the closest unit.

 

 

[Panzer]

 

Mortarion can't benefit from Cloud of Flies - he's not Infantry.

You don't use flies on Morty, you use it on literally anything else that is closer and infantry. Sorry if I did not make that clear. A strict reading of the stratagem means that when you use Cloud of Flies, only the unit you use it on can be targeted, if it is the closest unit.

 

Huh I think you're right.

If they meant to make it that a unit is untargetable unless it is the closest one, it should've been worded "..., enemy models can shoot this unit only if it is the closest visible target." but they wrote "..., enemy models can only shoot this unit if it is the closest visible target."

 

I guess this will require a FAQ to clarify soon.

Basically instead of hiding a unit in a cloud of flies it's turning a unit into a high priority target.

[Azekai]

 

 

Mortarion can't benefit from Cloud of Flies - he's not Infantry.

You don't use flies on Morty, you use it on literally anything else that is closer and infantry. Sorry if I did not make that clear. A strict reading of the stratagem means that when you use Cloud of Flies, only the unit you use it on can be targeted, if it is the closest unit.

 

Huh I think you're right.

If they meant to make it that a unit is untargetable unless it is the closest one, it should've been worded "..., enemy models can shoot this unit only if it is the closest visible target." but they wrote "..., enemy models can only shoot this unit if it is the closest visible target."

 

I guess this will require a FAQ to clarify soon.

Basically instead of hiding a unit in a cloud of flies it's turning a unit into a high priority target.

 

Right. And I agree, FAQ insight would be helpful.

 

Thematically, I can see it working. I first thought that one unit was just shrouded by some flies... but now I envision a seething mass of flies covering the entire Death Guard advance, with the only visible thing being the first unit to emerge... which seems pretty cool.

[Arkhanist]

Huh. Yeah, that could be read either way. Though I would expect it to have said “can shoot only this unit if...” in British English if that’s what they had in mind, so I suspect it will be FAQ’d to the more obvious interpretation.

[Panzer]

Either way it seems to be rather clunky wording. Both, my suggestion for the 'old' inerpretation and your suggestion for the 'new' interpretation, would've been better depending on what they actually wanted to say

[Charlo]

I always read it as you can't target the unit unless it's the closest one to the enemy. Which seems right.

[SkimaskMohawk]

No one's saying that's not the intent behind it, just that they botched the wording so that the unit is a magnet now

[Charlo]

OH I SEE... Yeah that is just poor wording.

 

I wouldn't expect anyone to be only able to target them.

[Panzer]

I went ahead and posted it on their facebook page. Hopefully they'll add it into the FAQ which is without a doubt coming anyway.

Edited September 28, 2017 by sfPanzer

[Plaguecaster]

I really suck at English as I still can't see issue with it, truly what a wonderful language it is no wonder I failed it as a subject at school :D Edited September 28, 2017 by Plaguecaster

[Bulwyf]

You need to go first or hide him behind something. Last game I played other guy had a Chaos Knight, Oblits and combi melta termi unit. He spent his entire first round shooting (he went first) into Morty and killed him in round one. I literally got nothing out of Morty...one quarter of a 2k list points wise gone in one turn of shooting. Game was basically over at that point. I conceded in turn 3 when I had nothing left that could take down his Knight.

[Cryptix]

I really suck at English as I still can't see issue with it, truly what a wonderful language it is no wonder I failed it as a subject at school

Don't worry, remember whenever you think you suck at english remember that read and lead rhyme, but read and lead don't, and neither do read and lead.

[Arkhanist]

I really suck at English as I still can't see issue with it, truly what a wonderful language it is no wonder I failed it as a subject at school

 

I ran this one past my french wife, and she laughed and reminded me that english grammar is full of stuff like this. English lacks a lot of the formal scaffolding that latin-based languages use which makes it quite a simple language to learn a working usage; but also means it's really hard to master all the subtle tricks (such as adding in small words all over the shop and the seemingly random phrasal verbs, pronunciation emphasis in the spoken language etc) we use to add meaning.

 

"When my alarm goes off, I get up, take off my pajamas, put on my clothes and set off to work." Simple for a native.

Your alarm goes where? Why do you get up rather than stand up? Clothing gets put on but not put off, taken off but not taken on. And what does set even mean?

 

Getting back to the rule, moving 'only' around helps, the sort of thing you can't do nearly as freely in many other languages:

 

"enemy models can only shoot this unit if it is the closest visible target." - the officlal rule. Can mean either:

 

"enemy models can shoot only this unit if it is the closest visible target." (and thus can't shoot any other unit when it's closest)

"enemy models can shoot at this unit only if it is the closest visible target." (but are free to shoot anything else)

 

With the official rule, if you say it in your head, emphasize "only" or "this unit" in turn; if you were saying it, that'd partly indicate which one you meant. Poor sentence construction, really.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Arkhanist

[Isolia]

To me, the English version of cloud of flies is a bit ambiguous, but the "only" would be placed elsewhere if it were meant to force shooting on this unit. From what they say in other rules they propably would have formulated it with "unless" instead.

Writers really should use commas and words properly when formulating rules and regulations :)

 

I checked the French translation for Cloud of Flies, which is unambiguous : this unit can only be targeted if it is the closest enemy. Which is fair for 1 point.

 

I guess the translator asked the team what the hell they meant :)

 

Which still is good, but doesn't help that much with Morty.

 

Edit: I was ambiguous myself, corrected, hopefully :)

Edited September 28, 2017 by Isolia

[Ashe Darke]

My list will be using 60 poxwalkers and no plague marines so given Mortys nature and the fact his warlord trait doesn't affect them I'm opting to make a prince the warlord and just use Morty like a bomb. Send him up, he'll kill stuff, he might die, but he was a distraction on the way and he didn't give away Slay the Warlord.

 

And I'm not bothering with Death Shroud. My Drones have weathered entire armies firing at them, for the moment I imagine he will do ok.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Ashe Darke

[Bulwyf]

My list will be using 60 poxwalkers and no plague marines so given Mortys nature and the fact his warlord trait doesn't affect them I'm opting to make a prince the warlord and just use Morty like a bomb. Send him up, he'll kill stuff, he might die, but he was a distraction on the way and he didn't give away Slay the Warlord.

 

And I'm not bothering with Death Shroud. My Drones have weathered entire armies firing at them, for the moment I imagine he will do ok.

 

It depends on what is shooting at him. Morty dropped in first turn shooting phase, other guy got to go first, in my last game. No model can withstand a full army shooting if they have any decent ant-vehicle weapons.

[Ashe Darke]

 

 

My list will be using 60 poxwalkers and no plague marines so given Mortys nature and the fact his warlord trait doesn't affect them I'm opting to make a prince the warlord and just use Morty like a bomb. Send him up, he'll kill stuff, he might die, but he was a distraction on the way and he didn't give away Slay the Warlord.

 

And I'm not bothering with Death Shroud. My Drones have weathered entire armies firing at them, for the moment I imagine he will do ok.

It depends on what is shooting at him. Morty dropped in first turn shooting phase, other guy got to go first, in my last game. No model can withstand a full army shooting if they have any decent ant-vehicle weapons.

Well this is purely based on anecdotal experience from previous games. Like I've literally had one drone weather the majority of my opponents shooting for a turn and take 2 wounds. But either way based on what I'm swapping out for Morty the list should perform the same if not better.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Mathematical averages are almost better than anecdotal experience. My last game Morty took 19 wounds in two turns of combat, through miasma as well (I had healed him with the Daemon spell so he was still alive but still). In another, he took maybe 3 wounds from hive guard, despite my opponent having 12 of the things.

 

Neither are good examples of how survivable he is. Go for the averages and you can have a more informed decision making process.