Dealing with the new Mortarion

[Oxydo]

Honestly, the best option seems to be either Eradicators (as previously mentioned) or heavy amounts of MWs to bypass his defenses outside of the FnP.

[Daynga-Zone]

Unless my opponent just throws Morty forward by himself and lets me shoot him with almost my whole army I’m not sure it’s worth it to try and bring him down. I’ll probably start off by trying to either play around him or slow him down with bladeguard or other SS units. Concentrate on bringing down the rest of the army and wrestling board control from them. I really have a hard time envisioning another good way to deal with Mortarion. Makes me think I should try and get more bodies in my list.

 

DG, especially with Mortarion, looks like it’s about to make a viscous splash competitively. At the very least maybe there will be less whining about marines.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I want to be able to take him out with two shooting phases and mortal wounds.

[Skywrath]

I mean taking town Mortarion is pretty easy as a Grey Knight - 4 damage smites galore, goodbye 400 points! 

[L30n1d4s]

I think I may have found another Mortarion killer --

 

 

White Scar Successor (Born Heroes and Whirlwind of Rage)

 

1) Primaris Chaplain on Bike (Master of Sanctity upgrade)

**Relic: Benediction of Fury

**WL Trait 1: Imperium's Sword

**WL Trait 2: Wise Orator

**Litanies: Re-roll hits in melee (aura); +1S/A/Dmg; +1 to Wound in melee

 

2) Librarian with Jump Pack (Chief Librarian upgrade)

**WL Trait: +1 to cast

**Psychic Powers: Smite, Might of Heroes, Null Zone

 

 

In short, Libby puts Might of Heroes onto

Chaplain and lights off Null Zone as well. Chaplain gives himself +1A/S/Dmg and +1 to wound with his Litanies. Charge Mortarion and use the "Death to the Traitors" Strat for full rerolls to hit for the Chaplain (notice none of these are friendly auras, so nothing for Mortarion to shut off).

 

 

On the charge, in Assault Doctrine, the Chaplain has 8 x S9 AP-3 Dmg5 attacks with WS2+, full rerolls to Hit, and +1 to Wound (also, exploding 6s to hit). He should average 9-10 hits, 7-8 wounds on Mortarion (with 1-2 MWs from to Wound rolls of 6 with his Relic Mace), 6-7 unsaved wounds (Mortarion is down to a 6+ save with the AP-3 Mace and Null Zone up), and 24-28 damage inflicted (Dmg5 Relic Mace, -1 Dmg from Disgustingly Resilient).

 

With the 1-2 MWs from earlier, that is 25-30 Damage that Mortarion has to roll his 5+++ FNP saves on, leading to an average of 17-20 total damage on him when all is said and done... either killing him outright or leaving him on a single wound, per Mathhammer averages.

 

Most unreliable part of this whole thing is getting the two Psychic powers off, including avoiding Mortarion's Deny the Witch abilities. Otherwise, as long as you can get into Assault Doctrine, these two models (worth a little under 300 points total) can reliably "solo" the 490 point Primarch of the Death Guard in a single turn.

Edited January 21, 2021 by L30n1d4s

[Iron Sage]

I think I may have found another Mortarion killer --

 

 

White Scar Successor (Born Heroes and Whirlwind of Rage)

 

1) Primaris Chaplain on Bike (Master of Sanctity upgrade)

**Relic: Benediction of Fury

**WL Trait 1: Imperium's Sword

**WL Trait 2: Wise Orator

**Litanies: Re-roll hits in melee (aura); +1S/A/Dmg; +1 to Wound in melee

 

2) Librarian with Jump Pack (Chief Librarian upgrade)

**WL Trait: +1 to cast

**Psychic Powers: Smite, Might of Heroes, Null Zone

 

 

In short, Libby puts Might of Heroes onto

Chaplain and lights off Null Zone as well. Chaplain gives himself +1A/S/Dmg and +1 to wound with his Litanies. Charge Mortarion and use the "Death to the Traitors" Strat for full rerolls to hit for the Chaplain (notice none of these are friendly auras, so nothing for Mortarion to shut off).

 

 

On the charge, in Assault Doctrine, the Chaplain has 8 x S9 AP-3 Dmg5 attacks with WS2+, full rerolls to Hit, and +1 to Wound (also, exploding 6s to hit). He should average 9-10 hits, 7-8 wounds on Mortarion (with 1-2 MWs from to Wound rolls of 6 with his Relic Mace), 6-7 unsaved wounds (Mortarion is down to a 6+ save with the AP-3 Mace and Null Zone up), and 24-28 damage inflicted (Dmg5 Relic Mace, -1 Dmg from Disgustingly Resilient).

 

With the 1-2 MWs from earlier, that is 25-30 Damage that Mortarion has to roll his 5+++ FNP saves on, leading to an average of 17-20 total damage on him when all is said and done... either killing him outright or leaving him on a single wound, per Mathhammer averages.

 

Most unreliable part of this whole thing is getting the two Psychic powers off, including avoiding Mortarion's Deny the Witch abilities. Otherwise, as long as you can get into Assault Doctrine, these two models (worth a little under 300 points total) can reliably "solo" the 490 point Primarch of the Death Guard in a single turn.

Thankfully it reads as if you have to work to bend a list into doing this exactly. Because really, it shouldn't ideally be possible on average to slay Mortarion in a single round in an assault, particularly not at his point cost.

But it doesn't look too easy to pull this off, so it is probably okay. Most players won't butcher all fluff and go random chapter either except in tournaments. And maybe your set up isn't the best in all comers list (but this I don't know, perhaps your set up is fine in a balanced all comers list, I haven't studied Codex Space Marines that much). Just as long as you have to pimp up an unlikely combo to kill him in a single round, I am fine with it. But 490 points and a Legion Primarch of the most resilient of Astartes legions, is supposed to be a meaningful and solid model I dare say.

[Karhedron]

It's a good combo but as you rightly point out, relying on psychic powers around Morty is risky. It would be cool when it works though.

[9x19 Parabellum]

Why do Death Guard players keep insisting Mortarion should not be killable in a single round of shooting? A baneblade is killable in one round.  Knights are killable in one round.  If you want your invincible primarch of death to be invincible, he needs to cost double what he costs now.  Frankly i would have rather they just included that as a special rule:

 

"Mortarion"

special rule: Plot armor. Mortarion never takes wounds and cannot be defeated for any reason.  Mortarion costs 1,000 points, and takes a LoW, Heavy and Character Slot.

 

EDIT.

 

To give you an idea of how durable Morty now is, lets look at a little math-hammer.

9 Eradicators (themselves considered an OP unit):

Fires 18 shots at a Knight

12 hits

6 wounds

3 unsaved wounds (will assume Knight rotates Ion Shields, so 4+ invuln)

Let's say around 12 damage (will assume the SM player rerolls one damage roll)

 

If the Knight was in melta range, it's taking 18 damage, effectively rendering this model neutered as it's on it's lowest bracket.

 

Even without Melta, a knight gets chopped in half in one shooting phase.  If the SM player was lucky, he might punch through a 13th wound and bracket the knight.  If the SM is skilled and playing a full knight list, he might have been able to tease out "Rotate Ion Shields" somewhere else and do even more damage.

 

Those same 9 eradicators fire 18 shots at Morty.

9 hits (because Morty put up Miasma on himself)

4.5 wounds (because Morty is now T8)

2.25 unsaved wounds (4+ invuln)

Let's give the SM player 4 damage per hit = 9 damage.

6 damage after disgustingly resilient

4 damage after nauseatingly resilient

 

*IF* they are in Melta range, that's another 4 unsaved, un-resilienced damage, for a total of 8.  And that's a big if, because if they got that close there's a chance they got shot by the rest of the DG army or Morty already charged them. 

 

so that's 12/18 Knight damage vs. 4/8 Morty damage.  That puts Morty at 2-3x the durability of a knight.  Yeah his shooting sucks but he can do a lot of damage in the psychice phase and a :cussload of damage in close combat, plus he buffs the rest of the army AND debuffs yours. 

Edited January 21, 2021 by 9x19 Parabellum

[Iron Sage]

Why do Death Guard players keep insisting Mortarion should not be killable in a single round of shooting? A baneblade is killable in one round.  Knights are killable in one round.  If you want your invincible primarch of death to be invincible, he needs to cost double what he costs now.  Frankly i would have rather they just included that as a special rule:

 

"Mortarion"

special rule: Plot armor. Mortarion never takes wounds and cannot be defeated for any reason.  Mortarion costs 1,000 points, and takes a LoW, Heavy and Character Slot.

Lol at that hyperbole. Maybe it is because he costs 490 points and doesn't have any meaningful ranged shooing, is a daemon primarch, and was a useless model in 8th where he got wiped in 1-2 turns of shooting. Now he is worth the points and a threat, of course he shouldn't be reliably killed in a single round. That's ridiculous to suggest of a daemon primarch without a baneblade cannon.

[9x19 Parabellum]

He was not useuless in 8th edition. He required 2 full turns of your enemy's shooting to bring down.  If your opponent spent 2 turns shooting at the rest of your army, they would likely kill more than 450 pts worth of stuff. So he's a fire magnet.  I seriously can't understand why DG players don't evaluate opportunity cost when they consider the affect Morty has on games.  Waaah, my plot armor Daemon Primarch got killed and that's not fair!  

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well talking about 8th, in early 8th he'd get one-rounded by ynnari reapers. Doom, jinx, shoot. As easy as that really. Or kronos hive guard. I stopped playing death guard right before knights dropped so I can't speak to his efficacy later on, but he got mowed down pretty easy despite having some insane damage output. Not useless, but only really decent in a chaos monster mash list.

 

Now at this point having units like ghaz or the ctan who literally can't be nuked by "insert melta unit here" in one turn, its disheartening to see a 500 point unit who also doesn't really buff the army still be very vulnerable to high firepower. And that unit is a factions supreme commander and one of only a handful of primarchs left, not one of literally millions of big tanks.

 

 

Like really, I came up with a sister of battle combo that only needs 1 unit's shooting to kill him. You can do Martyrd lady retributors with extra dudes and cherubs (MM and flamer on the superior) paired with junith. If you've lost a model and get into 12" to pop +1 to wound you kill him. It takes 4cp and a miracle dice, but that's also 350 trading up for 490.

 

There's also the noise marine combo that crushes him in one round too.

 

Point being, it feels bad to have models that are almost impossible to die in one phase any more, and then have the poster child for durability come out and be gunned down in the street so to speak. Especially since his opportunity cost has nothing on the ctan or ghaz. Like oh, I spent one turn of shooting (or one units one turn of shooting) to burn down a quarter of a list, compared to needing to prioritize doing a third of a models wounds against a lists actual damage, while also dancing around obscuring to get those shots. And they heal. And if you don't do enough shooting damage you lose the ability to even kill them. And they're cheaper.

Edited January 21, 2021 by SkimaskMohawk

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Yeah everybody wants to play highly specialized lists now.

[Iron Father Ferrum]

One-trick ponies are nothing new.

[Vermintide]

Well talking about 8th, in early 8th he'd get one-rounded by ynnari reapers. Doom, jinx, shoot. As easy as that really. Or kronos hive guard. I stopped playing death guard right before knights dropped so I can't speak to his efficacy later on, but he got mowed down pretty easy despite having some insane damage output. Not useless, but only really decent in a chaos monster mash list.

 

Now at this point having units like ghaz or the ctan who literally can't be nuked by "insert melta unit here" in one turn, its disheartening to see a 500 point unit who also doesn't really buff the army still be very vulnerable to high firepower. And that unit is a factions supreme commander and one of only a handful of primarchs left, not one of literally millions of big tanks.

 

 

Like really, I came up with a sister of battle combo that only needs 1 unit's shooting to kill him. You can do Martyrd lady retributors with extra dudes and cherubs (MM and flamer on the superior) paired with junith. If you've lost a model and get into 12" to pop +1 to wound you kill him. It takes 4cp and a miracle dice, but that's also 350 trading up for 490.

 

There's also the noise marine combo that crushes him in one round too.

 

Point being, it feels bad to have models that are almost impossible to die in one phase any more, and then have the poster child for durability come out and be gunned down in the street so to speak. Especially since his opportunity cost has nothing on the ctan or ghaz. Like oh, I spent one turn of shooting (or one units one turn of shooting) to burn down a quarter of a list, compared to needing to prioritize doing a third of a models wounds against a lists actual damage, while also dancing around obscuring to get those shots. And they heal. And if you don't do enough shooting damage you lose the ability to even kill them. And they're cheaper.

As a Necron player, I really don't like the 3 wounds per phase rule C'Tan now have. It pretty much is just Plot Amrour: The Rule, and it removes interactivity from the game. Morty does it better in my opinion, he's tough as nails, and he's not going down in a single shooting phase unless your opponent has extensively and specifically tailored for it. But it's not a non-interactive, non-couterable rule that just straight up makes him unkillable.

 

The "problem" with units like this is that they skew a game in a very specific way. With the former rule, your opponent effectively doesn't even have a choice how they deal with that model- They just have to focus it first each phase, and move onto other things when they caused their 3 wound max. At least with the latter method, the opponent can make a strategic choice between focussing him down at the expense of the rest of your army, or if it's better to slowly grind him down while keeping an eye on other threats.

[Mandragola]

Given the new DR I wonder if the best approach is now 1-damage weapons in great numbers. Gatling-style weapons or just weight of fire. 10 Ravenguard ABR intercessors in tactical doctrine do 4.5 wounds to him in shooting, for example. It may turn out that things like the (otherwise pretty bad) Gladiator Reaper are reasonably useful in this role too, thanks to the ability to hit Morty from nice and far away.

 

Anything that requires being right up close to him sounds like a questionable approach, given how dangerous he is. I don't think getting a null zone librarian near him is anything like reliable enough. It also means designing an army that's only really good at killing Mortarion when you really need to be thinking of TAC lists. Dakka at effective strength 5 or 6 looks like a good option, I think.

[The Unseen]

I'm bringing a null zone librarian in because it actually hits a lot of armies where it hurts

Harlies, Custodes, some marine builds, and now DG really don't like their invulns being shut off before they get a melta in their face.

And for BA at least, you can run tome for null zone and use the Sanguinary discipline for wings, or if you want the librarius powers and tome just wings.

And that means you can move 12"+d6 with advance if you really need too, then wings for another 12", and null zone has a 6".

So 31+d6 inches is a hell of a range to be able to sling that ability.

 

In my last game I actually popped it defensively behind my 10 intercessors vs harlies. If they sent the troupes in they wouldn't be able to get to the libby but would be in the aura range for my counter attacks. So they went somewhere else and next round the intercessors cleaned house.

[Mandragola]

It's certainly true that Null Zone is a great power. A Librarian with it is clearly useful against lots of things other than Mortarion, and good against him too, so it's a good option.

 

The thing is, it's only really relevant against Mortarion if you're hitting him with high-ap weapons, which tend to do multiple-damage. The idea is to get null zone off and then hit Morty with a load of multimeltas, or whatever. But it seems to me that this plays into his strengths by letting him significantly reduce the damage you cause. If you're hitting him with onslaught gatlings instead though, then he'll still have an armour save and taking his invulnerable away is far less important.

 

I'm not sure which approach is best: trying to drop him in a single hammer blow or wear him down with dakka. 

[CrystalSeer]

It's certainly true that Null Zone is a great power. A Librarian with it is clearly useful against lots of things other than Mortarion, and good against him too, so it's a good option.

 

The thing is, it's only really relevant against Mortarion if you're hitting him with high-ap weapons, which tend to do multiple-damage. The idea is to get null zone off and then hit Morty with a load of multimeltas, or whatever. But it seems to me that this plays into his strengths by letting him significantly reduce the damage you cause. If you're hitting him with onslaught gatlings instead though, then he'll still have an armour save and taking his invulnerable away is far less important.

 

I'm not sure which approach is best: trying to drop him in a single hammer blow or wear him down with dakka.

Seems like assault hellblasters solve both problems.

Edited February 1, 2021 by CrystalSeer

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I’d rather put the points towards melta.

[Waking Dreamer]

 

Space Marines at 12:20