Dealing with the new Mortarion

[L30n1d4s]

Looks like we now have the new “ stats” for Mortarion, and he is a beast:

 

M12” WS2+ BS2+ S8 T8 W18 A7 Ld10 Sv3+/4++ (movement and attacks degrade as he takes wounds)

 

On top of this (especially the new upgrade to T8), he has the new Disgustingly Reslient (i.e. reducing incoming Dmg by -1, to a minimum of 1) and he gets three permanent WL Traits, plus the option to pick a 4th WL Trait from one of the Plague Company options. Included in his permanent WL Traits is Revoltingly Resilient, which gives him back the old 5+++ FNP, and among the WL Traits from the Plague Companies is one that makes it so he cannot be wounded on anything better than a 4+ (so, in essence, permanent Transhuman Physiology).

 

Taken altogether, alongside his native 18W and 3+/4++ saves, I think he is going to be the new “7th edition Wraithknight” that just dominates competitive games by being so difficult to kill. To put this in perspective, it now takes an average of 162 x BS3+ Overcharged Plasma shots to kill Mortarion!!

 

So, what does a Loyal Astartes Commander do? Any ideas out there?

 

The best I have come up with is the following:

 

-Deathwatch JP Librarian with Premorphic Resonance and the “Tome of Ectoclades” relic

-10 x DW Vanguard Veterans with JPs and Heavy Thunder Hammers

 

Use “Brotherhood of Veterans” to give the Vanguard Space Wolf Chapter Tactics (i.e. +1 to hit on the charge), use “Death to the Traitors” to give them re-rolls to Hit against Mortarion, and use Premorphic Resonance to give them another +1 to hit – all together, this means the Vanguard are hitting on 2+s, re-rolling all misses, with their 31 Heavy Thunder Hammer attacks. Finally, activate the Tome of Ectoclades to give them re-rolls to Wound against Mortarion.

 

On avarage, this gives the Vanguard 31 attacks, about 30 hits, 21-22 wounds, 10-11 unsaved wounds after Mortarion's 4++ save, 30-33 damage inflicted (their Dmg4 Heavy Thunder Hammers become Dmg3, thanks to Disgustingly Reslient), and 20-22 total damage inflicted, after his 5+++ FNP saves from Revolting Resilent, so enough to remove all 18W from him.

 

That is a lot of resources dedicated to bring down a single model, but give how tough he is, this is realistically one of the only ways to kill him that I can see with “normal” dice rolling.

 

What about you all, any ideas you have to deal with the Primarch of the Death Guard?

Edited January 15, 2021 by L30n1d4s

[Brother Ramael]

It depends on how much he costs as well.... if I would say around 350.

For that cost possibly a 6 man Deathwing Knights squad +1 master apo to hang around them....

Math wise (caveat: I don't know the stats of his weapons in 9th) you could possibly tarpit him, with the added bonus of frustrating your adeversary and force him into making mistakes.

if you want to actually kill him maybe a couple of Dark Talons ( statistically quite possible to dish and average of 9 mortal wounds taking in accounts his defensive rules for each shooting phase plus 2d3 guaranteed mortal wounds once per game,  while they are -1to being hit and 4+ save, so they should survive to attack again in the next turn).

 

Edit: actually for this use a normal TH/SS DW squad instead of the DK and get one more men or ( if he's more toward the 400 points) drop the extra termie and get an Ancient with the 5+++ banner.

Edited January 15, 2021 by Brother Ramael

[9x19 Parabellum]

So he went up 1 T, and he got the -1 damage per wounding attack on top of keeping the 5++ FnP? AND he has permanent Transhuman Physiology.  What about the Death Guard psychic discipline; can he stack on a -1 to be hit on top of everything else?

 

He needs to be closer to 500 points.  That is all just ridiculous in my opinion.

[Vermintide]

Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem that bad. It's a lot but he'll cost at least 450 I'd imagine. Anything that could handle knights in the days of ROTATE meta should be able to handle this right?

 

Couple squads of Eradicators or a lascannon volley to soften him up, TH/SS terminators charging in buffed by a Libby for extra attacks and Null Zone. Good ol' smash captain would have been handy here I guess, but we can't have everything eh. Turning off that invuln will be a big opening for damage.

 

Or give your friendly local Necrons a call and ask them to loan you their Nightbringer

[Dracos]

bad math

Edited January 16, 2021 by Dracos

[L30n1d4s]

How are you getting 62 hits out of 6 Inceptors with Assault Bolters... by my count, they only put out 36 shots a turn?

[Dracos]

Ouch yeah my apology. Im use to running two units

[SkimaskMohawk]

I'm doing this from not a Raven Guard perspective, because then it's very different.

 

It looks like AP1 weapons S5-7 is the type that will be most useful against him. Bolt weapons for the most part. Melta and missiles also but your going to get a lot more shots at him with Bolt weapons. Also those Bolt Weapons are better off being D1 seeing as D2 is wasted. 

 

I primarily would deal with this through shooting. I hear he's going to be beastly hth. 

Looking at 6 Inceptors with Assault Bolters and an Outrider Chaplain using Bolter Fusillades. Approx. 62 hits and 31 wounds. 15 get through for 10 wounds after fnp. Halfway home.

 

Someone else take it from here

 

Maybe I'm smoking something, but 6 bolter inceptors do...36 shots. With the doctrine bonus you make the chaplain irrelevant and result in 5.7 wounds. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

It depends on how much he costs as well.... if I would say around 350.

For that cost possibly a 6 man Deathwing Knights squad +1 master apo to hang around them....

Math wise (caveat: I don't know the stats of his weapons in 9th) you could possibly tarpit him, with the added bonus of frustrating your adeversary and force him into making mistakes.

if you want to actually kill him maybe a couple of Dark Talons ( statistically quite possible to dish and average of 9 mortal wounds taking in accounts his defensive rules for each shooting phase plus 2d3 guaranteed mortal wounds once per game,  while they are -1to being hit and 4+ save, so they should survive to attack again in the next turn).

 

Edit: actually for this use a normal TH/SS DW squad instead of the DK and get one more men or ( if he's more toward the 400 points) drop the extra termie and get an Ancient with the 5+++ banner.

 

Guilliman is 380 points so I’d say Mortarion will be around 450 points.

[L30n1d4s]

I guess another method is to go Ultramarines with a 6 man Eradicator Squad (with heavy Multi Rifles) and a pair of Librarians (one carrying the Seal of Oath), one with Null Zone and the other with Empyric Channeling... the Empyric Channel Libby buffs up the Null Zone Libby, who then casts Null Zone and turns off Mortarion's Invul... then the Eradicators put 12 Heavy Melta Rifle shots with full rerolls to hit and wound (from Seal of Oath) into Mortarion... with no saves and an average of 6 Dmg per attack at half range (4 + D6 Dmg, -1 Dmg for Disgustinly Resilient), this can statistically bring the Primarch down in a single shooting phase.

[Iron Sage]

 

It depends on how much he costs as well.... if I would say around 350.

For that cost possibly a 6 man Deathwing Knights squad +1 master apo to hang around them....

Math wise (caveat: I don't know the stats of his weapons in 9th) you could possibly tarpit him, with the added bonus of frustrating your adeversary and force him into making mistakes.

if you want to actually kill him maybe a couple of Dark Talons ( statistically quite possible to dish and average of 9 mortal wounds taking in accounts his defensive rules for each shooting phase plus 2d3 guaranteed mortal wounds once per game,  while they are -1to being hit and 4+ save, so they should survive to attack again in the next turn).

 

Edit: actually for this use a normal TH/SS DW squad instead of the DK and get one more men or ( if he's more toward the 400 points) drop the extra termie and get an Ancient with the 5+++ banner.

 

Guilliman is 380 points so I’d say Mortarion will be around 450 points.

 

Mortarion is 490 points, so basically 500 points. This is leaked and 100 % confirmed. He might be worth fielding now, while previously relegated to only "for fun games". To me it seems they have made a relatively decent job, since it is hard to balance a 490 points model. Nightbringer is still killier for a mere 370 points though, so there is that.

 

But yeah, Mortarion seems to be a proper Daemon Primarch now finally. But he costs 1/4 in total of a 2k points army, so he better be useful at that exorbitant cost.

[Karhedron]

DR makes D2 weapons a poor choice and even 3D questionable. 10L30n1d4s is on the money that melta is the best counter to Mortarion since you want a small number of very large hits. Heavy Melta rifles are the best in this regard since they are D6+4 at close range. The -1 to Hit for moving and shooting will be irrelevant if you opponent has put the -1 to-Hit ability on him.

 

For the price of Mortarion you can get 3 squad of Eradicators with heavy melta rifle with change for a buffing Character. Null Zone Libby would be ideal but Morty is a pysker too and likely to but a lot of effort into Denying Null Zone.

 

9 Eradicators get 18 shots. Hitting on 4s, wounding on 4s, saving on 4s will average 2 hits getting through his defenses. 2D6+8 will average 15 Damage which if Revoltingly Resilient will reduce to 10 wounds lost. So they will kill Morty in 2 turns of shooting, even with no other buffs around. Any buffs you can add will make it quicker and easier.

 

The only difficulty is 9th emphasizes terrain so drawing LOS to Morty may be harder than in previous editions. But he will still go down to focused heavy weapons fire.

[Captain Idaho]

Yeah this is the niche Eradicators needed actually! Units of 3 may as well be replaced by Attack Bikes which are more competitive due to their utility, but what Eradicators bring to the table is 5 of them in 1 go for marginally cheaper.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Wow so maybe Eradicators aren’t as OP now.

[CCE1981]

DR makes D2 weapons a poor choice and even 3D questionable. 10L30n1d4s is on the money that melta is the best counter to Mortarion since you want a small number of very large hits. Heavy Melta rifles are the best in this regard since they are D6+4 at close range. The -1 to Hit for moving and shooting will be irrelevant if you opponent has put the -1 to-Hit ability on him.

 

For the price of Mortarion you can get 3 squad of Eradicators with heavy melta rifle with change for a buffing Character. Null Zone Libby would be ideal but Morty is a pysker too and likely to but a lot of effort into Denying Null Zone.

 

9 Eradicators get 18 shots. Hitting on 4s, wounding on 4s, saving on 4s will average 2 hits getting through his defenses. 2D6+8 will average 15 Damage which if Revoltingly Resilient will reduce to 10 wounds lost. So they will kill Morty in 2 turns of shooting, even with no other buffs around. Any buffs you can add will make it quicker and easier.

 

The only difficulty is 9th emphasizes terrain so drawing LOS to Morty may be harder than in previous editions. But he will still go down to focused heavy weapons fire.

Morty has 18 wounds he can be seen regardless anywhere on the battlefield.

[Jacques Corbin]

Honestly, I say do your best to isolate him, then charge vehicles into him. If he falls back, shoot him with the heaviest guns you have. If you can get assault troops to him, even better.

 

Otherwise, treat him almost like Guilliman. Isolate him the best you can. Half of his worth in points is how he bluffs his units. Kill everything around him, and tar pit him if you can.

 

Also, think of how you would deploy him. If not as a buff bubble for DG units, then as a very tanky distraction. He moves as fast as a jump pack unit, it very tough, and will wreck all but the heaviest assault troops. MSU Bladeguard, or even Hammernators, are about the only things to have a chance to hold him for any amount of time. Maybe bring an Ancient to allow the Assault units, to swing again before they die.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

Personally I'm going to try to ignore him the first couple of times I play against him. I think going after their scoring and plague burst crawlers is going to be a better strategy then trying to go all in on one model. I will try and spread out enough he can't get too many high value charges.

[The Unseen]

Get null zone in range, pop him in the jaw with some melta.

 

Otherwise, pray he fails those 4++s when you shoot him with d6 damage weapons.

[SanguinaryGuardsman]

What about Redemptor dreads?  Their fists are str 14 and d3+3 dmg.  Seems like the sort of weapon profile that would hurt Mortarion.  

[SkimaskMohawk]

What about Redemptor dreads? Their fists are str 14 and d3+3 dmg. Seems like the sort of weapon profile that would hurt Mortarion.

The main problem is that mortarion is almost always going to take the warlord trait that grants permanent transhuman. A generic redemptor charging in gets 5 attacks, hits 3.3 times, wounds 1.65, invul reduces to 0.825. Let's say thats a wound, you average 5 damage, which is reduced to 4 from disgustingly resilient and then reduced to 2.64 from FNP.

 

There's obviously more you can do like melee chapter traits, doctrines and then stratagems and stuff on top. But a lone dread is barely going to do anything and then get chopped down by the scythe.

[Oxydo]

 

What about Redemptor dreads? Their fists are str 14 and d3+3 dmg. Seems like the sort of weapon profile that would hurt Mortarion.

The main problem is that mortarion is almost always going to take the warlord trait that grants permanent transhuman. A generic redemptor charging in gets 5 attacks, hits 3.3 times, wounds 1.65, invul reduces to 0.825. Let's say thats a wound, you average 5 damage, which is reduced to 4 from disgustingly resilient and then reduced to 2.64 from FNP.

 

There's obviously more you can do like melee chapter traits, doctrines and then stratagems and stuff on top. But a lone dread is barely going to do anything and then get chopped down by the scythe.

 

 

Mortarion can't take the transhuman WLT, since he's 'stuck' with Revolting (5+++), Living Plague (Aura deny), Arch-Contaminator (rerolls for plague weapons), + one of the Plague Company WLTs. The most defensive one of those is probably Gloaming Boat which stops hits and wound rerolls completely when they are in contagion range.

[Captain Idaho]

I like the idea of an Ironclad or Redemptor counter charge to put additional damage on Mortarion, though it could be quite terminal for them.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

No matter what method used, Null Zone and a high AP is going to be key. He's got so many layers of defensive buffs that to tackle him will require cutting out as many as possible.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Remember that Null Zone shuts down invulnerable saves for both armies.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

 

 

What about Redemptor dreads? Their fists are str 14 and d3+3 dmg. Seems like the sort of weapon profile that would hurt Mortarion.

The main problem is that mortarion is almost always going to take the warlord trait that grants permanent transhuman. A generic redemptor charging in gets 5 attacks, hits 3.3 times, wounds 1.65, invul reduces to 0.825. Let's say thats a wound, you average 5 damage, which is reduced to 4 from disgustingly resilient and then reduced to 2.64 from FNP.

 

There's obviously more you can do like melee chapter traits, doctrines and then stratagems and stuff on top. But a lone dread is barely going to do anything and then get chopped down by the scythe.

Mortarion can't take the transhuman WLT, since he's 'stuck' with Revolting (5+++), Living Plague (Aura deny), Arch-Contaminator (rerolls for plague weapons), + one of the Plague Company WLTs. The most defensive one of those is probably Gloaming Boat which stops hits and wound rerolls completely when they are in contagion range.

Ah previously it was one of the plague company ones, didn't realize they pulled an ol switcheroo.

 

Even without it, the redemptor still only gets to 2.8 successful wounds.

 

Morty's tough, but definitely killable by the big anti tank stuff. Of course part of it is what else gets to live while you have to burn him down and how does that change the game.