Hello Everyone Frankie here to review the new Death Guard Codex. Check the Tactics Corner for more great articles and reviews!
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First off, I think we need to start with the main man: Mortarion. As all of you saw on the GW community site his stats are bananas. He is probably a little more resilient than his brother Magnus without any buffs, having 18 wounds and a 5+ Disgustingly Resilient Save makes him tough to chew through. His auras though are some of the most powerful we have seen yet. First he has the Toxic Presence ability which is -1 toughness to all enemy units within 7″. But even more powerful than that is the Host of Plagues which takes effect in the fight phase, each enemy unit within 7″ takes d3 mortal wounds on a 4+. Yikes, that is a lot of mortal wounds. Mortarian’s Damage in close combat is also good. He has 18 attacks at -2 Ap for clearing out hordes, or 6 attacks at -4 Ap, d6 damage for taking out high wound targets. Overall Mortarion is a monster and will buff the army greatly. His warlord trait also gives all plague weapons re-rolls to wound….wow. Beast mode.
Their is a slew of new units in this book as well to make your army fun and thematic. The Plague Surgeon is one of those units and he allows you to re-roll 1’s on your disgustingly resilient saves. Another character with a crazy combo is the Biologus Putrifier who makes your blight grenades +1 strength, damage and on a 6+ to wound does a mortal wound in addition to the normal damage. This character paired up with the stratagems creates a very powerful combo, allowing an entire unit to throw blight grenades. This combined with the Veterans of the Long War stratagem gives you +1 to wound. This means every model in the unit can chuck a Blight Grenade, doing mortal wounds on a 5+, with rerolls to wound if Mortarion (or any character with the Arch-contaminator Warlord Trait) is nearby. Don’t forget rerolls of 1 to wound if a Lord, Daemon Prince or Morty are near by….
An awesome new vehicle is the Myphitic Blight-Haulers which give your infantry units within 7″ cover even if not in cover. 2+ save Plague Marines are no joke! The Blight-Haulers are also little gun boats with their missile launchers and multi-meltas. The gunboat versoin of this new kit, the Plagueburst Crawler, has a solid artillery piece being able to hit units it cannot see out to 48″ at strength 8, Ap-2, D3 damage. However, due to being T8 with 12 wounds, this unit plays more like a Leman Russ, moving into poistion and blasting away with a host of other, powerful weapons such as it’s Entropy Cannons which are str8, Ap-4, D6 damage and 36′ ranged. Lastly we have the Deathshroud Terminators which are complete monsters in combat (and also buff nearby Deathguard characters with +1 attack and can tank wounds for them on a 2+, too!). They all have plague pistols and Manreapers which are +3 strength, -3 AP and d3 damage. Paired with their 3 attacks they are a force to be reckoned with.
Blightlord Terminators are also pretty dang awesome, being more your “standard” Terminators but at T5 for Nurgle, a Combi-Bolters and a Balesword or Bubotic Axe which are Plague versions of Power Weapons. You can also give them a slew of weapon options including Combi-weapons, which is pretty bad ass.
So we already touched on a couple of the stratagems but let’s dive into a few more. The Putrid Detonation stratagem is one of the best, allowing you to make one of your vehicles automatically blow up when it loses its last wound. Amazing for a Rhino or similar vehicle after it has dropped off a unit of Plague Marines! Charge it in to enemy units and make them deal with it, blowing up and taking out some of the models with you.
Another great one is Cloud of Flies which makes a unit of your choice not a viable target in the shooting phase unless they are the closest unit. This is amazingly good! If you want to run foot units, say a big unit of Plague Marines, if even 1 Poxwalkers is in front of them, they cannot be targeted at all, even by Snipers. Talk about ultimate defense. Last is the Nurgle’s Rot ability which does the same thing as Mortarion’s Host of plagues, once per game. Meaning, even MORE mortal wounds. All these stratagems turn Death Guard into a scary army that pumps out Mortal Wounds at close range in dizzying volume.
Even more Plague Marine combos (and they have LOADS of options now, what a versatile unit!): great them up for melee. Give each either two Plague Weapons (Bubotic Axe, Plague Knife, Mace of Contagion) you get a bonus attack and can get rerolls to wound with the above Warlord Trait. Toss in the Blades of Putrefaction psychic power to do Mortal Wounds on a 6+ which again, combined with Veterans of the Long War, to do mortal wounds on a 5+ and you have a unit that can rock even the toughest opponents. If you throw in some Plasma Guns and Blight Launchers to fire as you advance, the Inexorable Advance “Chapter tactics” for Death Guard detachments, you can move and fire Heavy Weapons with no penalty, advance and fire assault weapons with no penalty and double tap Rapid Fire Weapons at 18″ which is pretty dang awesome. As this applies to Infantry and Helbrutes, it makes the later fairly appealing especially when combined with the Fire Frenzy stratagem, allowing them to shoot twice (although to use it, you must remain stationary, but still a fun ability)! If the Tallyman is around–a new character–he gives your Death Guard units rerolls to hit in combat and on the roll of a 7 on 2d6, you get all CP back for a Death Guard stratagem you used. 1 in 6 times, it works every time!
As for getting across the table, they’re not so slow as you think. Toss in a Chaos Space marine detachment with a Chaos Sorcerer and Warp Time and you can get your Plague marines up the table with a quickness. I foresee waves of infantry coming up the table with Poxwalkers, Plaguebearers, and Cultists in the front, followed by the powerful Plague Marines with Terminators dropping down behind or right in front of the enemy, forcing them to be dealt with while Mortarion and Foetid Bloat-Drones (which are amazing units and now have the option for the funny “Fleshmower” upgrade which looks exactly like it sounds!) hit hard in the most vulnerable locations.
The codex comes with its own relics of decay as well. The Suppurating Plate is probably the strongest relic in this book giving one of your characters a 2+ save. On top of the better save it allows you to do mortal wounds in the fight phase on a 4+ for every armor save you pass. Slap this on a Daemon Prince and go to town. Fugaris’ Helm is another item you will see frequently, increasing the aura range of a character by 3″ that changes most of the aura’s in here to 10″. Dolorous Knell is a powerful tool forcing your opponent to roll two dice and pick the highest when taking morale checks within 7″. It also does a mortal wound on a 6+ to a unit in the moral phase.
Death Guard also have some powerful psychic powers and a new spell-caster, the Malignant Plaguecaster from the starter box. Miasma of Pestilence gives your opponent minus one to shoot at one of your units. Blades of Putrefaction gives +1 to to all wound rolls made by one of your units in the fight phase, and also they do mortal wounds on a 7+ with plague weapons in the fight phase as stated above. Putrescent Vitality makes one of your units tougher giving them +1 strength and toughness. Last but not least we have the Curse of the Leper which you roll 7 dice and every roll that exceeds the closest enemy’s toughness does a mortal wound. That power paired up with Mortarions’ Toxic Presence makes for a powerful combo.
All of the warlord traits are quite good. Revoltingly Resilient gives your warlord +1 to his Disgustingly Resilient saves bringing it to a 4+. Tainted Regeneration allows your warlord to heal a wound at the start of each player’s turn. The most powerful though is the Arch-contaminator which is the same one Mortarion has giving all of your plague weapons re-roll to wound. Some powerful traits in there.
Death Guard have some crazy combos and allow you to play an infantry force that can walk up the table dishing out as much punishment as it takes. Plague Marines are much improved, in my opinion, and can run in mobs on foot or mounted up in Rhinos to great effect. With loads of options between mortal and daemonic units this feels like a full army, not just an offshoot of the Chaos Space Marine codex. I think Death Guard players have lots to be happy about.
Moration is going to be brutal and as our friends over at the NOVA Open staff said, pairing him with Magnus in a Chaos soup army will yield the mighty and terrible MAGNARION! Like the Wonder Twins, it will be equal parts ridiculous and annoying, but unlike that dynamic duo, also very powerful.
Thanks for reading, and prepare for the forces of Nurgle to come to a table near you.
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Aww, nothing about Nurgle Daemons 🙁
Mortarion is a Nurgle Daemon.
There are mentions of them but as they haven’t really changed it wasn’t the focal point of the review.
Well they did seem to get a few points drops and a buff or too from what I have heard. Also their weapons are plague weapons for the purpose of the warlord trait.
Mostly I want to run a small group of renegade Nurgle sorcerers and a herald of Nurgle or two to get healing and wartime going.
Plus I believe the chaos marine Nurgle power is different from the death guard power and thus stacks. Try killing Morty when he is -2 to hit him.
It is the same power, don’t think it stacks. It most assuredly should not stack.
Don’t the two powers come from different lores, codex, and effect different keywords (Nurgle Heretic Astartes vs Deathguard)?
Wouldn’t that make them two separate powers. I mean it requires you to take psykers from 2 different sources.
The real question should be why they made it so CSM psykers can freely buff across legions.
Also add Nurgle daemons for added fun, IE healing.
Blight – if you look at any of the early review articles, they all say that there are 3 new powers. That’s because Contagion already had 3 in Index Chaos, including the -1 to hit. It’s the same power.
Nick the contagion discipline is not the same as Dark Hereticus discipline from the CSM codex. One has a power that grants -1 to be hit for Deathguard units and the other grants -1 to hit for Nurgle Heretic Astartes units. Totally separate lores, books, psykers, and even keywords. It was also listed in promotional material as a new power for CSM before the release of the codex but I don’t think that matters for this.
I see what you are saying with the new CSM codex but the spell has the same name (Miasma of Pestilence). IMO it is just two different version of the same spell, even if the discipline and targets are different, and you can’t cast the same spell more than once. Unless GW FAQs it to explicitly say that they are not considered the same spell despite sharing the same name, I am going to assume I can only cast one or the other.
Well I put the question to the Facebook group so hopefully we’ll have an answer shortly after release. I think it could go either way.
Though if the goal is to not have the powers stack then I would hope they simply stop the CSM power from effecting DG and not have a power that can only buff deathguard prevent the use of a power that buffs other legions.
I’m gunna hit you in hard in your most vulnerable location with my flesh mower.
lolol
I have been working long and hard on my MAGNARION list 😉
You are part of the problem! =P
I think it sounds like a fun list to play, and play against.
Are you a Dark Eldar at heart?! That sounds like a bit of sadomasochism =P
My heart is a mix of Dark elder and Ork! A strange combo I know! But what does it mean?
You love mushrooms, and being spanked….I think? =P
That sounds about right
Or am I part of a solution? 😉
lol
Nope.
Nice review Frankie.
They picked a horrible cover, seeing what great artwork seems to be inside. Apart from that I’m still trying to fight being dizzy from GW actually releasing a Chaos Legion Codex after all this time. I don’t even care for Deathguard that much and I still want to start with them somehow.
They’re really good! An infantry army that is pretty dang fearsome, actually.
Good is nice but what really works for is that they actually sit down and create units and even a vehicle just for them. Well, that and they finally stopped trying to push the Chaos Warbands on people and actually sell the Legions people have been asking for. I’m curious how they’ll handle Thousand Sons, especially with both them and Necrons sharing so much Egyptian style.
Frankie I think I found a typo 😉 ….18 attacks! Lol
Yeah, so brutal! Mortarion is an absolute savage.
As a DG player I am really happy, the only thing that pisses me off is hearing how much people are thinking they are OP. I really hope everything balances out once all the codexes are out…On a personnal note, can’t wait to put Mortarion on the table.
They do a LOT of mortal wounds. That upsets people, but time will tell if they’re OP or not. They’re certainly good, IMO.
Hopefully the codexes do balance out in the end. The perception of being OP stems from the power of generating mortal wounds to which there is practically zero defense against, especially when it targets every unit instead of just the closest. DG are going to be very powerful in that regard. You don’t want to get close to them and they are really resilient versus shooting. It creates an interesting tactical problem. My SW are going to struggle for sure!
Exactly. That is why mortal wounds should be applied only very sparingly, IMO. In small doses they bring balance to the game. When used too much, they’re just not fun.
The bubotic axe is so brutal! If you want to get them in combat auto hit with a S5 ap -1 d1 for 6 points adds up but it auto hits! Im a bit jealous I stuck with emperors children honestly, but this weapon is mandatory for auto hits IMO. I hope to see a BR woth Frankies old school plaguenmarines now that they made a resurgence! His 5th edition rhino rush was so fun to fight.
How does it atuo-hit?
I like how they tried to fix the awful awful beast of Nurgle, however compared to 5 plaguebearers it is still:
More expensive
Less durable
Does less damage
Is slower (bearers take instruments).
The 2 abilities seem negligable. Heroic intervention means next to nothing on a non-aura unit in a fighting army. The 1 mortal wound on 4+ also seems like a joke compared to Fiend’s “can’t run away at all”.
Sounds like a very fun codex.
Gonna be nice to test run them.
Lets hope they dont end up brokenly op and we´ll see competitive play always auto include some 8ed version of instant-win-button magnus.
Geedub is very good now days at balancing game bugs in the form of loopholes and unintended rule uses but NOT wrongly balanced point costs, those we will be stuck with forever.
From the little I´we seen so far the fluff seems to be extremely fun and good BUT also very one sided meaning they get all kinds of fluffy benefits and advantages for being a resilent footslogging army (as they should) but absolutely no drawbacks what so ever for being used in non fluffy ways..but then again so is no one else either.
This makes me excited for the thousand sons codex… it is coming out soon I hope! 🙂
Amazing stuff! I hope the new Terminators are good!
The melee terminators are baller.
As if they weren’t already bordering on OP. So many mortal wounds. Elite armies won’t stand a chance.
Primaris release was garbage compared to these guys. What’s their downside actually supposed to be?
Um… did DG win a single tournament (not counting friendly, narative stuff) in the entire world prior to the release? no
Did they dominate any tournament prior to the release? no
Did they consistently make it to top 16? Again. No.
They are were bad. Now they might be good. Time will tell.
Thankfully, the mortal wounds have to be close but I agree, they get a LOT of them. Mortarion can solo some armies, it’s rough if you don’t have the right tools.
All those mortal wounds exist in AoS and it doesn’t kill the game, it just created a variety of armies you have to prepare for.
I disagree for many reasons. For one, AoS armies tend to have a lot more models than 40k armies (baring all the Conscripts and Brims we see now, but part of the reason those are so popular is BECAUSE of mortal wound spam).
And it isn’t fun in AoS, either. Play a Clan Skryre army: it sucks, lol. Or Tzeentch armies that lean in to that mechanic, again, not fun.
Too many mortal wounds makes the game less diverse because they are the ultimate weapon in the game. They render most defense pointless. IMO, they should be used very sparingly.
I’m scathing my head at a lot of the points costs, and from what I’ve been reading this weekend, I think I’m not alone. A lot of people are really surprised that Poxwalkers didn’t drop to 5 PPM…with a 4″ move and no ranged weapons and a max starting strength of 20, it seems overpriced to have them be 150% the cost of a cultist, (for now) 200% the cost of a conscript, and 100% of the cost of an Ork Boy (which has str 4, T4, 4 attacks, a ranged weapon, hits on 3+, rerolls failed charges, has some built-in morale immunity as well, and can string a big unit for +1 to hit and +1 attack).
Also would have liked to have seem more points reductions on Plague Marines and Bloat Drones. Lots of the elite characters seem lackluster except for the guy that removes charging bonuses. And disappointed that the bodyguard terminators are among the slowest units in the game and only have 2 wounds each…that makes them more points per wound than anything they’re trying to protect, including Mortarion. Ouch.
Very happy with Mortarion and the shooty terminators though, as well as the two new daemon engines. Due to all the high points costs and missed opportunities the codex seems like a mixed bag competitively, but at least there are a lot of cool models and creative rules. Maybe they will also seem better in the long run once the crazy things currently in the meta get nerfed a bit.
*scratching, sorry, hah
If our experience is anything to go by you will be JUST fine. They’re very good and Morty is too good, IMO. Not a lot of fun to play against for many armies as they simply cannot kill him.
Well this doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement for this new army. I’m worried that if you are saying this then the army will be too much for my group.
Did this not come up in playtesting?
I’m laughing hard at people preemptively panicking that a slow, expensive army that hasn’t been released yet might be “too much” for anything. Worst case scenario, your group doesn’t play stuff that has to account for killing big, expensive, deadly single-model units, and then you leave Mortarion out of your army. Plus, other armies are getting new codexes soon and there’s a chapter approved game balance supplement coming out in December which will make changes to armies that haven’t been updated yet.
I wouldn’t normally be saying this but Reece, a play tester, Is saying that they are crazy strong and sounding very negative about their impact on the game. Makes me worried. On paper I agree with you and I don’t see anything particularly broken about them. It his comments that give me pause.
I am not negative on them, sorry if it came across that way. Draw your own conclusions and we will see how it goes once the book is out in the wild but in our experience they are vicious. Hard Core, long ranged shooting armies can handle them but if you play a melee army or short ranged shooting army, it can be a brutal game.
I will state openly though that I think Morty is too good, IMO. That’s just me, of course, but he’s seriously bananas. His one weakness is something like a Las Cannon heavy army, or something like that, that does high strength, high damage, long ranged shooting. If you roll well on your damage rolls, you can smack him down before he gets too close. But when he gets buffed up….sheesh, he’s all but unkillable which is annoying because his damage output once he gets close is brutal.
Really hope Nids get a big baddie like the Primarchs and a reliable way to kill screened characters like snipers.
I wouldn’t think a Primarch style model would be likely for Nids as they don’t have anything like that in the backstory baring Swarmy who is already in the game, but Nids are amazing in their dex. Simply amazing.
The Emperor was actually a Genestealer.
#themoreyouknow
Looking forward to the Dex, but was hoping for a Broodmother or something that can fight these monstrosities that seem to be invading the other factions.
Swarmy is my to go to guy, but its hard to commit him to battle when stratagems exist that allow Bobby G to fight back even if I kill him and then still probably pop back to life.
Am I right in thinking the best way to deal with these guys is going to be volume mid-strength shooting like Pred Autocannons, Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons and anything else that can chip the armor save but still inflict enough wounds to go through Disgustingly Resilient?
Multi-wound weapons are very helpful (like overcharged plasma or autocannosn) against Disgustingly Resilient in my experience (as the one playing deathguard). You can pretty consistently get through the FnP-style saves with multiple damage since they are taken on damage not wounds. So you’re not rolling and ignoring the entire plasma gun 1/3 of the time – you have to take each individually. Anything with 2-3 damage tends to do work on the standard 1W Plague Marines and zombies because it’s super unlikely you save all of them.
Fun codex with fun rules BUT..
where is this armies weakness??
..oh wait! Geedub must sell the new models so its back to 7ed op crap again or am I wrong?
Did they just reinstate the 7th ed crap of an unkillable primarch model. Soooo fun for a lot of armies to have to face a killing monster they cannot even begin to touch.
Design wise morty is a huge fail because he further cements this edition to be the lascannon-spam-edition. That is IF you can spam lascannons even. If you cant and face death guard with morty you might just pack up and not waste 1-2 hours of boring one sided game time.
This codex, unless properly point costed is a piss in the face of small elite armies like deathwatch, talons and grey knights that dont have lascannon spam and/or only do damage in melee with overpriced models where all the free mortal wound death guard candy will be soooo fun to face.
Unless the point cost REALLY reflect this insanity, and I dont know about this yet, all I see is another instance of 7th edition oh-you-brought-magnus/eldar/riptides-I´ll-just-pack-up-my-army-and-play-against-someone-not-being-a-waac-asshole.
So pointcost for mortarion or those insane resilence-mortal wound combos? Anyone?
That is what will determine if this is a fun and balanced codex or another op must-sell-models shitfeast that some armies cannot hope to touch.
Where is this army’s weakness? Oh I don’t know… 5″ move across the board with 4″ move on terminators? And it’s pretty price. And plague weapons are mostly ineffectual at going after armor.
Also Mortarion is far from “unkillable.” He’s just got a 5++ FnP
And he’s only toughness 7 with a 3+ save. Even a bunch of bolters can put a big hurting on him, especially with rerolls. If you staggers units, I can see games where he wastes a lot of damage output because he can only kill 1-2 squads of 5-10 guys a turn because that’s all he can grab at once.
“And he’s only toughness 7 with a 3+ save. Even a bunch of bolters can put a big hurting on him,”
lol
That was almost fun to read. Is this threllens shadow account?
Sorry but I dont recall the last time my bolter lines put a “big hurting” on an enemy rhino with mobile coder save and FnP while going flat out towards my lines.
What kind of cheap super bolters do you use in your army and where do I find some for myself?
Myself I see a lot of army builds heavy on the elite side completelly invalidated vs death guard morty.
I can finally bury all notions of EVER using a gk terminaor theme against that, thanks, please do invent a fun excuse for this one. You can always ask threllen to come up with one.
😛
..or even SM terminator list but the best thing is that I didnt get the time to buy a whole talons army so money saved right there on something invalidated vs morty and friends.
Too bad I managed to buy a bunch of DW models though. They and their non existent lascannons and overpriced bolters will surely be fun to be tabled with on a consistent basis vs something they can hardly touch.
As said, it will all depend on proper point costs or else time for ebay.
..wanna buy a small deathwatch army by the way? I´ll give you a special price. They are soooo good I keep hearing, especially vs something that needs lascannon spam to be countered.
I didn’t read most of your random complaining about whatever armies you have, but my point was that lots of bolters that hit on 3s (with easy access to reroll 1s and possibly reroll all misses) and wound on 5s (with easy access to reroll 1s and possibly reroll all wounds) is not hard to get past a 3+ followed by 5+ FNP. It’s the exact same thing as shooting a Plague Marine.
If your army can bolter to death a unit of 18 plague marines (possibly with -1 to hit cast on them), then you can kill Morty with bolters.
Knock the blind zealous fanboyism down a peg will you. The warpsmith defense thread was kind of enough when it came to ridiculous straw grasping already.
5´ movement is hardly a weakness considerign the powerful abilities, tactics and relics on the buff side or do you consider orks to be UP too because they move 5´?
Taking a csm sorc and all of a sudden you move twice. Wow really, your plague marine squads sitting in rhinos suffer sooo much from one inch less movement.
I specifically stated that the rules and specials in the dg codex are super fun BUT all depends on the point cost.
Tell me again how a GK player is supposed to tackle weak little morty again? Super expensive models that do real damage in melee are supposed to chase around a flying monster that sprinkles mortal wounds in melee exactly how?
How about deathwatch, you know those cheap fellas with their insanely over the top bolters? lol
Fact remains, if people expect morty then the meta will be even more boring because why take a heavy bolter when every single slot is to valuable to be wasted on anything else then lascannons.
Only toughness 7 fine, an imperial knight that flies, wasting entire mobs of orks or killing everything in melee while sprinkling mortal wounds pissing on small elite armies not able to spam lascannons and that wee little 5 fnp save is not all since the army easily gives extra cover saves vs shooting for everything.
I will have no problem with morty IF the model is point priced accordingly.
The last thing I want in this game is a return to anything that had to do with 7ed.
A new flying d-line piece of shit magnus analogue is the LAST thing anyone (except a rabid fanboy that grasps at unused wargear while defending warpsmith free abilities) wants to see ruining this edition.
I face dg very often, probably every second game I play and my best friend loves to play them and we are both excited for all the new fun things he will soon get for his until now boring army but even he refuses to touch that pile of broken morty shit UNLESS it is priced in such a manner that his opponents dont simply refuse to play against him the second they see him put it on the table.
Is that so hard to understand or are you now going to keep telling me how poor and weak he is because even grots can damage him or something as infantile as a 5´being a major army weakness?
Blind zealous fanboyism? You must selectively read what I write. Which is fine, up to you.
Either way I’m done trying to tone down your relentless whining and ‘sky is falling’ mentality. Warpsmith is a perfect example. They aren’t dominating the meta (in fact they’re rarely seen outside of specific Forgefiend + abaddon lists). They cost more than a Techmarine *for what you actually want them to do* which is heal vehicles. They suffer from too much extraneous mandatory wargear that balloons their cost even when they don’t make use of them. Yet somehow the fact their base cost is the same as a Techmarine makes you think it’s the most absurd thing ever and shows how GW doesn’t know what they’re doing?
Some people just like to b*tch and moan because they like to hear themselves talk and think they’re smarter than everyone else. That seems like the kind of person you are. And sometimes there’s just no changing that.
Yeah you call your free warpsmith straw grasping not being selective fanboyism if it makes you feel good. Your call.
And I never said the warpsmith was meta changing, quite the opposite but you also “forgot” to mention that.
I pondered about the inbalance point wise between free rule abilities in which you went on a tirade about unused wargear, completely one sided might I add since the tecchie also is burdened with unused wargear but I guess you “forgot” to mention that too.
Of course you are done talking to me, all you have is insane straw arguments like 5´movements being a major weakness.
Some people are just zealot fanboys and just like to defend everything no matter the absurdities and see all and any criticism as whining and doomsaying never caring to realize the positives I bring up.
I´m also perfectly fine not having to talk with you any more, I´d rather debate with someone that can show decent arguments or teach me things then throw pearls to a fanboy swine who is utterly incapable of finding any flaw in the game.
Mortarion benefits from cloud of flies and his terminator guard… I think in some games he will really be unkillable.
Not to say he is bad or the army is unbalanced- I don’t know the point costs and haven’t tried him yet!
My point exactly.
The whole army looks super fun with cool rules BUT it all depends on a sane point cost.
Having a too cheap power house like morty that some armies simply cannot touch (shitty 7ed game design right there no matter the excuses), no matter how much the fanboys claim otherwise because grots-can-hurt-him-duuh reasons, does not make for a fun game, fun meta or good game design.
I would like to use or face morty and friends on the tabletop without one sided 7ed-alike battles because some mathematically challenged monkey point cost the thing to boost model sales.
The last thing we need is a repeat of 7th where my orks packed up for the reason of eldar and/or riptides being unpacked on the other side because some armies had zero tools to handle that.
A 185 Mortarion would ruin this edition, lol! An 800 point Mortarion would be a non-factor. Who knows where they end up putting him?
470 for Mortarion and the defenders are like 70 pts a model(don’t qoute me on this). Also do you people even do the math? Mortarion is less durable than Magnus and costs more…
It isn’t the durability you should be worried about, it’s the damage.
@rvd1ofakind
He’s more durable in certain situations. For starters he can be protected using the deathshroud (Magnus can’t). Also he can have a spell cast on him for -1 To Hit which is huge. Especially against armies who already have crappy hit mechanics. And his disgustingly resilient is good against mortal wounds which is Magnus’ arch enemy. Throw on top of that various ways Deathguard/Nurgle has of regenerating wounds and he can get pretty beefy.
Raw stats he may not be as durable as a 3++ re-rolling 1s but he can get there.
Yeah but with the amount of people crying about it, you’d think he’s T9, 3++, 5+++, 6++++
Is cloud of flies the cover save ability? If so then he can’t do that because he isn’t infantry.
I think it’s the ability that only allows a unit to be shot at if they are the closest model/unit. So basically Mortarion can become a 9W or less character.
He may also be immune to sniping, as I believe sniper rules state they ignore the character consideration, and that is not the mechanism Cloud of Flies is relying on.
You can’t use Cloud of Flies (the spell that only lets you shoot the unit if it is the closest) on Mortarion as it specifies infantry only.
However, the psychic power that gives -1 To Hit works on any Deathguard unit so you can cast it on him. It would make him so much harder to kill.
Deathshroud termies looks pretty expensive, wondering if they are worth it considering the amount of plasma spam availalbe these days….
Lets hope so, they are fun and look awesome.
I dont have the SM honour guard rules in my head atm but I think they are better at being body guards as they take teh saves instead of the HQ instead of taking mortal wounds.
The way people are planning on cloud of flies working is tanking with Morty and having his bodyguard with the cloud of flies on them so your rolling against Morty’s stats but he is shrugging wounds to the bodyguard if they get through.
The thing is, the bodyguard are pretty slow though.
Except that’s not how it works. The bodyguard intercept *hits* not wounds. So if Mortarion gets hit by an attack you would make the wound roll and the saves against the deathshroud’s stats. Cloud of Flies wouldn’t change that at all.
Only thing Cloud of Flies would help with is it would force you to target Mortarion over the deathshroud so if he has the -1 To Hit on him you’re rolling against that. Other than that it doesn’t change anything about the wounding process.
“Yeah but with the amount of people crying about it, you’d think he’s T9, 3++, 5+++, 6++++”
Oh noes, what on earth are we thinking we who *dare* to criticize something not to well point costed. We are clearly nothing else but whining, bitching moaners.
Morty is balanced vs some armies (with a caveat) and outright invalidates others.
It is not per se his ridiculous 470p cost that is the main problem but the disparity of various other armies tools to handle him.
So what is morty then, for 470 points, (waaaaay to cheap) you basically get a flying rhino with 48 wounds (18 with 4++ with 5+++ on top is kind of analogued to 48 unmodified wounds) that has a pistol of death, psychic powers, and deletes a landraider or mob of orks per turn not to mention sprinkles mortal wounds like mad in case you play a low count elite army.
He is further on not as affected by some of the usual cheese like conscripts and mortars.
Morty and friends vs:
SM: balanced BUT only if SM run lascannon spam. You bring bolters and other fun weapons etc or elite heavy list you might just as well pack up. Not even a 470+point hammernator charge (lol @ getting that one of vs a flying autowin button) will do the trick.
Orks: Balanced ONLY if orks bring tons of lootas. If you run a fun balanced army you might pack up your models.
Eldar: Balanced, wraithknights and doom counter morty.
Tau: Dont know, dont play tau and hardly against them either.
Cults: Pack up, if a bubble wrapped morty deals with your genestealer squad then you dont really need to keep playing.
Nids: Balanced, tools to handle are more frequent then in other armies.
Deathwatch: Pack up, you have NOTHING that can touch morty (unless you run a flyer-only army) for even close to a reasonable point to point basis. Shitty game/army design to say the least.
Grey knights: Same, pack up and refuse to be auto tabled. NO tools to touch morty for reasonable point to point cost, you also need to catch a jumper with slow infantry to do real damage. Really crap army design.
Talons (non soup): Pack up, playing orks vs eldar in 7th was more fun then this. Your only chance not to be tabled is to run 3 relic landraiders backing away fiering and then you auto loose by giving away all objectives.
Meta changing if enough will include morty in tourneys, lascannon spam, here we come.
For those fanboys still grasping straws in denial about the absurdly low point cost of 470p imagine the samlamanders special character Ashmantle, costs 400p, is static and does what again in comparison to morty?
Sorry but adding morty with the absurd points he costs would have been far more fun if armies like DW actually got the tools to handle that.
If not facing morty I look forward to plenty of fun games vs an all in all extremely fun new army that is really unique. If you bring morty then I bring a reaver titan and lower it to 1000 points and well see how “fun” you think it is to auto loose.
If I´m wrong, and I clearly am since I´m nothing but a bitching whiner then maybe our resident rabid fanboy here can conjure up some straws and teach me how 470-600 point of my GKs can handle a mortarion/poxbubblewrapped mortarion or a complete 1500p mortarion list other then building a “fun” GK army that consists of 8 lasbacks with added cheap PAGK squads inside.
Same goes for the poor deathwatch that await on my table or my non loota orks although they do have a better chance then the above two.
All in all it is bad game design to add units into the game, especially so absurdly priced that only a select few other units can hope to counter them reliably enough and on top of that with some armies completely lacking said counters. It kills variety in that it forces fewer of them.
Its a part of 7ed showing its thoughtless faces again.
“If I´m wrong”
Yes
“and I clearly am since I´m nothing but a bitching whiner”
Also yes
Fantastic arguments there. You replied to all the points I made, really “special” of you little fanboy. lol
Let’s not call one another names, fellas.
They can at least meet and answer my points using arguments and logic instead of weasling out with their tails between their little legs ridiculing me.
It´s as pathetic as a liberal “winning” the argument by yelling “raaacist”.
..and I´ll stop calling them for what they are in return. Simple as that.
Lets make it super simple for the nothing-wrong-move-along crowd.
How am I to counter morty and friends using my Deathwatch?
..waiting.
Don, it’s fun to have you here because you’re very passionate but you really do need to show others respect in your arguments as they do others and you as well.
You guys can get in to it for sure, just do it with respect.
Wow – I don’t even have a horse in this race, but you need to seriously tone back your childish attitude.
Guaranteed you’d never talk that condescendingly to someone in person because you know you’d get a well-deserved broken nose.
Watch your mouth and remember this is just a game fella
Or I reply the way I am talked to in the first place.
As for broken nose in real life lol, I very much doubt it, I´m not exactly your average meek nerdy type to say the least 😛
Besides, it would take a particularly special retard to actually try and assault and batter someone causing bodily harm to him/her simply over the usage of a verbal insult or two..
you ought to seriously rethink who is being the childish one here if you consider that to be any sort of norm “out there”.
Alright guys, but your epeens away, lol. I’m sure you’re all tough, blah, blah, blah.
We’re here to talk about games and have fun.
Phew! What a night. DG playing friend over with pizza and rom and five 1850 games in a row proxy testing the new death guard vs GK four times and one game vs SM.
We are both fed up with tabletop gaming atm, too much hobby fun crammed into one short night..anyone having had to many games for too many hours can attest to how tired one gets in the end from standing, shuffling minis, making cats not act as mobile bio titans on the table and waving measuring sticks 🙂
And So? How did it turn out? Is it the end of the world for the GK? Did you die horribly again and again?
I would expect you’ve formed a solid opinion now after actually playing a few games.
Oh, my opinion is mostly based on math and logic..and 15 year of 40k experience. It is correct most of the time but far from always.
To form a rock solid one I would need more then four games (plus a handful of 2-3 turn starters) between gk and new dg under my belt.
Conclusions so far:
Smite is a death sentence vs morty BUT you will unfortunately never be allowed to smite him other then in melee but by then it is to late. Morty will never present himself as a smite target and always have another unit like a rhino closer by.
Smite does sadly for this reason, not work.
The most effective way to run morty is to also run multiple rhinos in the DG army. This allows him to advance at full speed towards melee while also not being the closest target (against psyker heavy armies, I guess 1ksons fall under that threat too).
Drones are a nice substitute for rhinos too. Anything that moves fast and can keep up screening morty.
We toyed a lot with openings using 2-3-4 lasbacks. If you whiff on your lascannons on the first or second turn you might as well pack up, its game over (bad game design).
With 4 lasbacks and no draigo (to expensive) for rerolls you stand a decent chance to weaken morty so much that rapid stormbolter mass will finish him of but you still need to completely disregard the rest of the DG army and they can grab objectives or flank you at leisure.
My first bet was to use captains to get massed 24´smite spam but it simply does not work, nobody will ever let you smite morty freely. The same goes for deepstriking in smite next to him, it is to simple to bubble wrap him, especially using rhinos and not loose movement speed.
Floating blight drones are super fun and also very effective, they wreck elite armies with those 4+ mortal explosions. Drones are one of the most fun units in the game imo.
Dreadknights are worthless vs morty, taking terminators and dreadknights is a death sentence vs DG-morty, too many points are put into units that are ineffective vs DG and dotn bring either cheap smite or cheap stormbolters. (also bad game design forcepegging the GK into boring repetitive lists).
So far the best GK builds vs morty and friends seems to be 2 lasbacks,
four 5 five man strike squads, all naked, no upgrades, just stormbolters, GK infantry heavy weapons are to ineffective for what they cost and you need to move.
one 10 man strike squad, naked with one hammer as upgrade.
Draigo for rerolls only.
Captain, for longer smites only, no upgrades.
Two-three 3-man paladin squads, one hammer each for added cheap smite and a semblance of melee.
All need to be clustered to get draigo aura.
The lasbacks shave of a few wounds on morty.
Second turn all the stormbotlers with luck shave of enough so that he wont earn his points back when he gets into melee or actually dies.
The one 10 man strike squad is used as a full 10 unit to gain maximal psyammo strategem benefit every turn.
When smites are needed split it into combat squads with the proper strategem.
This usually is enough to handle morty but you leave the remaining DG army and objectives to the enemy. The remaining turns is a game of catching up and handling those 2-3 rhinos and assorted drones and infantry.
Winning is very doable from a killing models point but an uphill battle from an objective point and it forces your GK into boring mono builds.
It also very much boils down to pure first turn luck and first-second turn lascannon performance. If you whiff there is no coming back. If you dont have any lascannons then damned if I know how to win more then by sheer luck. Bad GK army design.
This is what I discovered so far, more will surely come with more games but based on the uphill GK battle I shudder to think what the poor deathwatch can do.
There is also a long debate over at bolterandchainswsord gk section about this, maybe they got some games in trying other things. Last time I checked the mood was pretty depressing.
I think when it is time for that promised yearly balance revision all primarchs ought to cost more, it is not only mr blueberry that is irritating but at least blueberry doesnt force peg people into mono builds as much just to be able to handle one new model.
I also suggest a possibility for GK to obtain some sort of rule that lets their smites bypass the closest range restriction BUT this I am aware can also mean GKs will be very overpowered vs certain other armies. For example a no smite range target restriction would mean that poor morty will be pretty much autokilled but something needs to be given to armies that dont have cheap enough access to long ranged anti tank weapons.
That or some sort of mortal wound protection so that your small elite army can be viable vs a mortal wound sprinkling monster.
No matter what you guys think of my constant irritating ability to find flaws in the game system I would like to think that we all want a game that encourages list build variety and not hinders it because certain units have too few counter tools.
After some more gk attempts I will move on to orks, I have no idea how morty can be handled without obligatory loota mass.