Ultramarines Batrep Vs. Death Guard (9th ed Codex)

[Prot]

Just thought some of you might want to check out how the UM do against a new DG army played by Tabletop Tactics!
 
Just a side note: perhaps contentious but it appears DG Cataphractii are getting a 4++. Do you think any DG players are going to bother buying a box... or 3?
 
Warhammer 40k *NEW CODEX* Battle Report: Death Guard vs Ultramarines 2000pts - YouTube

[Mordas]

Watched the report this morning and will certainly make me re-think list building to up against DG for sure.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I’m building an Eradicator squad this week.

 

Hopefully an faq will address the armor save issue.

[Brother Ramael]

Well, the UM army was built to showcase the strenghts of the DG, basically no weapons to kill Morty, no weapons in the squads while going against termies, standard Hellblaster (!), so.... well....

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

El BEARDO had a good list but made a lot of little mistakes since he doesn’t normally play Smurfs that added up over the course of the game. Also his initial deployment was good not castling up.

[Prot]

El BEARDO had a good list but made a lot of little mistakes since he doesn’t normally play Smurfs that added up over the course of the game. Also his initial deployment was good not castling up.

 

I have to agree. I think the Beard's list was okay. His play of it was very mediocre though. I don't know if it would have made the difference. As BBF says he is not a marine player, and it definitely shows. The only 'glaring' weakness of the list to me is the lack of the auto include Apothecary in a list of this nature.

 

I always take Eradicators. You have to. It's not that they are -amazing- , there's just very little that can act autonomously while being able to handle extremely tough targets. 

 

If people want to stop seeing Eradicators, GW needs to completely re-think: Aura's, Core, Vehicles, damage tables, etc. Vehicles for marines are a total mess. (off topic: Seeing the Gladiators stuck at ludicrous point levels post FAQ did not help this cause at all.)

 

I think the inclusion of Redemptors (with Guilliman) was good. But I would have used the plasma cannon since you can get up to 3 D I believe.

 

Some people are going to say the Marine list was terrible, but UM are one of the best at using this style of infantry, and I think the video was a showcase of two armies that have very good marine based infantry. (I also think the DG army could have been stronger as well.)

 

I think being unable to Overwatch Morty is going to be incredibly difficult for us, and going forward I am including Eliminators in my lists for testing purposes. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I’m planning to switch out my Hellblasters for Eradicators.

 

I think El BEARDO’s list could have definitely benefited from Seal of Oath to smoke one of the Blight Lord squads.

[Mordas]

The report also shows us how bad Guilliman suffers when we lost the re-roll for his getting back up.

 

I did have a migraine at the time but how on earth would you take down Morty?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

A lot of things aren’t as good without the command point reroll which overall is better for game play.

[Prot]

People who have done the math claim Morty is equivalent of taking down 3 knights. Seal of oath would definitely help but I saw a few more bat reps and morty is insane once he reaches your lines. 

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Yeah he’s definitely harder to kill now... am watching a tabletop Titans batrep and he survived an insane amount of fusion then a charge by Yvraine with like 14 wounds left. If you focus him down the rest of the army is chill as ice.

Edited January 17, 2021 by Black Blow Fly

[NKirkham24]

I’ve just finished the TTT report. The damage reduction overall is really nice, obviously it’s not a 5+ FNP but still very good.

 

I think this was only Beard’s 2nd game with the Ultramarines, so mistakes are expected. I also think they’re slightly prohibited with the units they have available currently.

 

Seal of Oath would be very nice against Morty, almost obligatory. They also took a Repulsor which as we know is like handicapping yourself atm.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Yeah those are good points... based on EL BEARDO’s experience with Ultramarines and the list he brought I think we can handle them. Seal of Oath is huge imo for the most part nerfing -1 to hit and really helping vs Mortarion’s T8.

[Prot]

I think from the additional reports I'm seeing online that the Death Guard army itself appears very competitve, and extremely good at table control with ObSec. 

 

What's really surprising is the amount of damage you have to throw at him, and his new aura's/wl traits/strats combine to make him very functional on the field, helping the rest of the army.

 

I'm not sure of how exactly all this boils down but I've seen games where the following has occurred with Mortation:

 

- No re rolls against him. - this adds tremendously to his survivability

- 6++ FnP

- Aura Halves opponent's movement. (I see now you can slingshot a DP deep into the enemy zone, slow an army that got too close together, then have Morty come in for clean up)

- Aura reduces toughness. Apparently this was working on Dreadnoughts, Tanks, infantry, Guilliman... everything.

- Shutting off opponent's aura's. Amazing. You don't want to get too close to Morty and those terminators, but by holding back, or even mildly clumping up, you risk having your army shut down, and weakened by other aura's.

 

If Cataphractii aren't a mistake, you're going to see min 2 squads, or a giant squad every game. From what I'm seeing Mort may not even really need the  bodyguard terminators.

[psyduck]

I think the terminators can no longer bodyguard mortarion, thankfully.

 

That said, yeah it looks like the best way to take him down is shoot him. Like ludicrous levels of shooting.

Trying to punch him to death seems like it's going to be way difficult without rerolls, movement reduction, -S spells, and his normal enhanced toughness. RIP wolves/angels.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Punching is for when he only has a few wounds left to strip.

[Prot]

I think the terminators can no longer bodyguard mortarion, thankfully.

 

That said, yeah it looks like the best way to take him down is shoot him. Like ludicrous levels of shooting.

Trying to punch him to death seems like it's going to be way difficult without rerolls, movement reduction, -S spells, and his normal enhanced toughness. RIP wolves/angels.

 

I have a few friends with Morty, this is going to be hell to get through.

 

Since I used to play Death Guard, I am very familiar with how the army plays, but Morty was a shadow of this current one. 

 

I don't want to overreact, but over the weekend I got a lot of hobby work done and watched a LOT of battle reports with Morty, and I think he has to be killed by Knights, or a psychic phase.

 

I mentioned earlier that someone on Tabletop Titans mathed him out with buffs and declared him equivalent to taking down 3 Knights. 

 

I watched numerous batreps that had Multi melta bikers, melta infantry just unloading on him. Bolters are nearly useless it appears, and people just still dump the bolters into him.

 

Usually he's -1 to hit. You're losing a point of damage on each wounding hit. He's got Revoltingly Resilient (inherently? Or it's just an auto take) for a 5++. 

 

(Miasma of Pestulence works in CC as well as Shooting if I recall correctly.)

 

I've seen a unit of hammer/shield termies get the charge off and bounce. (Hammers are doing 2 damage to him and then he's got 5++ against it.) But the bigger issue is once you commit that squad, they are probably finished because your units are sitting at -1 Toughness now.

 

So he's got to be shot. MUST be. Other armies will be better at doing mortal wounds to him, and I think our tanks are horrible (See my Gladiator post in the main marine forum.) Does this leave us just using Melta Attack Bikers? Seal of Oath and Multi melta?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I watched a lot of batreps featuring them this weekend as well... need Tiggy to block Miasma then unload in the shooting phase. DG are still overall a slow army so Mortarion will be operating without much support. I think deployment is very important - try to bait him over to a bad position. The redeploy stat is very good.

[psyduck]

 

I think the terminators can no longer bodyguard mortarion, thankfully.

 

That said, yeah it looks like the best way to take him down is shoot him. Like ludicrous levels of shooting.

Trying to punch him to death seems like it's going to be way difficult without rerolls, movement reduction, -S spells, and his normal enhanced toughness. RIP wolves/angels.

 

I have a few friends with Morty, this is going to be hell to get through.

 

Since I used to play Death Guard, I am very familiar with how the army plays, but Morty was a shadow of this current one. 

 

I don't want to overreact, but over the weekend I got a lot of hobby work done and watched a LOT of battle reports with Morty, and I think he has to be killed by Knights, or a psychic phase.

 

I mentioned earlier that someone on Tabletop Titans mathed him out with buffs and declared him equivalent to taking down 3 Knights. 

 

I watched numerous batreps that had Multi melta bikers, melta infantry just unloading on him. Bolters are nearly useless it appears, and people just still dump the bolters into him.

 

Usually he's -1 to hit. You're losing a point of damage on each wounding hit. He's got Revoltingly Resilient (inherently? Or it's just an auto take) for a 5++. 

 

(Miasma of Pestulence works in CC as well as Shooting if I recall correctly.)

 

I've seen a unit of hammer/shield termies get the charge off and bounce. (Hammers are doing 2 damage to him and then he's got 5++ against it.) But the bigger issue is once you commit that squad, they are probably finished because your units are sitting at -1 Toughness now.

 

So he's got to be shot. MUST be. Other armies will be better at doing mortal wounds to him, and I think our tanks are horrible (See my Gladiator post in the main marine forum.) Does this leave us just using Melta Attack Bikers? Seal of Oath and Multi melta?

 

 

My guess is Seal of Oath plus heavy meltas, rather than multi-meltas. The reasoning behind this is that since DR is a flat reduction, you want to make your shots count. In addition, DG have that strat which cuts down number of shots from a gun to a minimum of 1, and thankfully, eradicators get to escape that with the heavy melta. The -1 to hit is a pain, which will either have to be psychic denied hopefully with Tigurius's +1, or made up for with a Chaplain or something. 

 

An interesting strat we can use to reasonable effect to chip off those last 3 wounds is the classic Hellfire + Martial Precision, as he's a MONSTER. edit: unless he FNPs them lol

 

Either way, I won't count on him dying in one turn without luck, but two is probably doable. Also yeah don't charge him unless desperate lol

Edited January 19, 2021 by psyduck

[Prot]

Good points. But this has become a crusade for me to find what kills Morty! 

 

I found a batrep channel where a guy did an experiment and made a list created just to shoot and kill Morty. He took Eldar, and put a Cobra in his list just for this on. He actually killed Morty. It took 3-4 turns, and the eldar player killed a total of 700 points of DG and lost the game. (Nothing else really got shot.)

 

How does 975 boltgun shots sounds? or 44 Lascannon shots? (with revoltingly resilient)

 

There's a video out now that shows you what it takes to kill him, which may or may not be accurate but even so, it looks nasty.

 

I think what I'm seeing here is the amazing combination of resilience in the model, but the addition of turning off 'offence' is really potent.

 

Don't forget most of the batreps we are seeing people aren't really well tuned on playing their new Death Guard, and more importantly they are playing pure DG to showcase the codex. In otherwords I fully anticipate to see Warp Time on Morty to better shut down the opponent's abilities where possible.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Geedub will have to nerf him.

[emperorpants]

Yeah, I'm thinking fly is right here. The nerf bat may take a whack or two at Morty if he is as strong as he currently appears to be. It's the overlapping defenses combined with insane damage and debuffs for opponents that does it. I hope that Guilliman is properly balanced when he gets a rules update. We don't need to have a truly op release and become the focus of hate again.

 

Basically, Morty is likely to get a points hike in a few months, it's just how GW operates nowadays. Nerf hard and nerf fast. Not saying it's right, it just seems to be the current way of things.

 

On a different note, between Morty and the silent king, it's looking like the eradicator nerf may have been a bit hasty. Goes to show that yelling that one of the first new dexes needs a nerf before having any idea what the other books will bring is a bit premature imo.

[Prot]

Basically, Morty is likely to get a points hike in a few months, it's just how GW operates nowadays. Nerf hard and nerf fast. Not saying it's right, it just seems to be the current way of things.

 

On a different note, between Morty and the silent king, it's looking like the eradicator nerf may have been a bit hasty. Goes to show that yelling that one of the first new dexes needs a nerf before having any idea what the other books will bring is a bit premature imo.

 

I actually think Morty is quite a bit less killy than he was. For me it's the stack of defense, and de-buffs to the opponent. 

 

As far as early codex nerfs I agree 100%. It really irks me to even watch 'well established' Youtubers crying the blues over the potency of Space Marines when they are literally the only codex out there. Not only that, but if anyone has been around for more than a few months they should know that this happens every bloody edition.

 

Remember how strong Guilliman and Stormravens were? That lasted 5 minutes, then other codexes came out making the primary nerfs by GW look ridiculous. I actually asked them on a stream about how they hit some stuff so hard based on match ups and combos that don't exist anymore. They obviously do not keep track of stuff like that. 

 

So when we are 5-6 codexes down the road and marines look quite plain/mediocre, remember those youtube 'celeberties' crying for nerfs. 

 

Death Guard look absolutely amazing. Necrons are very good, and the Silent King is top tier. But that being said I don't know if Mort will be able to avoid turning him down. I hate saying this because I haven't played against him yet, but now I've probably watched or skimmed 8 batreps and he's only died once by an army (craftworlds) that was finely tuned just to kill him (DG still won.)

 

We saw a knee jerk to Outriders (which I never agreed with). So what happens there is Outriders (which in my opinion were not as good as first born bikers,) are going to appear far less on the competitive table top. 

 

The knee jerk to Eradicators is largely because they are widely accessible ( a brand new player can get them on ebay for 35 bucks) meanwhile vehicles still are basically unusable. (I guarantee this will shift one day and Eradicators will still be over pointed.)

 

So while we see some brutal things surfacing, let's keep in mind what has already happened to armies/combos we considered too strong:

 

- White Scars. Considered to be top of the meta with 2-3 other armies. They are completely screwed by Death Guard. 2 Damage in assault phase does diddly to DG. And getting in their Aura range is just playing into their hands.

 

- Blood Angels. Largely considered one of the best, with their jankery reserves, and amazing thematic units. They now sit in a very similar situation to White Scars. 

 

- Necrons may even move up a notch here. 

 

- Horde armies may look better instantly here. Being able to suffocate Morty in a ton of low damage units might be the best Morty defense. 

 

Just some food for thought.

Edited January 20, 2021 by Prot

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said Prot. Some of the youtubers also play SM armies making them essentially hypocrites. While Morty might not seem quite as Killy now since he’s much more tanky now I think he’ll do much more damage plus he can start in reserve and if you soup him we will see his good bud Ahriman warp timing him right into your lines.

[jonjacob]

After watching that battle report a few days ago I did have a think about ways to chip him out with a few gates as possible. Heavy intersessor and tactical marines could certainly help with the below.

 

Honoured sergant + Hellfire bolt 1CP 1MW

Martial precision + hellfire shell. 2CP 3MW

 

Captain on bike.

Vengance of Ultramar + Paragon of war 0/12MW

 

Anyone else got some cheeky options?