Defeating Mortarion

[greatcrusade08]

Assuming I can find LoS my snipers don't care for 10 wounds or less

[Captain Idaho]

That and Mortarion holding back to walk along with the Sorceror is kinda good for us too.

 

If Mortarion comes towards us we can take out the Sorceror.

 

The game isn't a flat pair of battle lines. If Mortarion is in our lines, spread and break our line up. Move into the gaps.

[Brother Captain Ed]

If Mortarion is in your line, it's probably too late.

[Sugarlessllama]

I would think Lascannons would put the hurt on Morty. Maybe Dev Cents with boob missiles and lascannons.

[Captain Idaho]

If Mortarion is in your line, it's probably too late.

I don't have a line. ;)

 

Besides that, the battle report I linked earlier shows that it simply isn't the case.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Battle lines are something from the early 1900s. Now battle is like waves flowing over a beach and around promontories, wearing away the enemy with the death of a thousand cuts.

 

If your opponent wants to throw Morty in your face, make sure there's no face for him to hit, and keep peppering him with all the high strength firepower you can.

[Captain Idaho]

Indeed. He might wipe out a Tactical squad and that's unfortunate, but you moved said Tactical squad into a position where Mortarion HAD to charge them. Now hit him hard back with a counter charge and heavy fire.

[Brother Captain Ed]

 

If Mortarion is in your line, it's probably too late.

I don't have a line.

 

Besides that, the battle report I linked earlier shows that it simply isn't the case.

 

Idaho...I generally greatly respect your opinion but I was able to watch that batrep last night and I am genuinely left wondering if we saw the same one.

 

Firstly, you absolutely have a line.  Do you have an objective to defend?  Do you have a reroll bubble cluster?  Do you have a sweet firing position with cover and good LOS?  If the answer to any of those is yes, then you have a line.  Simply because it's not a literal straight line, or isn't completely static, doesn't mean the military concept doesn't apply.  If nothing else, there definitely a place in close proximity where Mortarion wants to be and you really don't want him there.

 

Secondly, the only takeaway I had from that batrep is that the Sallie trait is as badass on the table as it is on paper.  When the Codex dropped, I called it as the sleeper.  If each chapter had only one character, Sallies would be top dog. 

 

But, as for Mortarion...  I hate Monday morning quarterbacking batreps because these are both good players, the edition is still relatively new, the models are DEFINITELY new, and they are under the gun while also doing a video performance as they play.  I might have done the same things...or worse.  But, I also feel I can safely say that  the way this game played out was a total best case scenario for the Salamander player. 

1.) The DG spread out in a giant line and made almost no attempt to provide target saturation around Mortarion.  When he went down he was virtually alone.  This allowed the Devastators and the dreadnought to act with relative impunity.  They could gamble on killing Morty and surviving, or failing and dying.  But, they weren't faced with the choice of shooting Mortarion and being in a rough situation with the units that they were NOT shooting at or shooting the units and getting wrecked by the Primarch.  The DG player reduced it to a binary situation in which Morty survived and he won or he died and probably lost.  Furthermore, he let the psykers and support models get sucked into inconsequential firefights, rather than help Morty.  I don't recall exactly what buffs Mortarion lost due to this (and therefore, it might be nothing).  But, if nothing else, it meant the killzone was Mortarion by himself without return fire helping his odds.

2.) The DG player failed to recognize how good the rerollable lascannons are.  If Mortarion was across from lascannon/missile devs in a captain's bubble, he needed to resign himself to saving the CPs to reroll one 4++ save each shooting phase.  Period.  He didn't.

3.) The DG player wasn't very aggressive with a model that calls for it and he walked right into a killzone with everything going for the Sallies: high S / Dd6 weapons, rerolls of both hit and wound, mortal wound generators, and body blockers to bait him into fighting and not advancing into the Salamander positions (bait that he took).  Honestly, if the players said "Yeah, we just wanted to see if he could survive going into the gunline" I'd believe them. 

4.)  Mortarion's saves were not good.  I know, I know.  It's a dice game.  So I'm not saying this as some sort of argument about what *should* have happened.  That's silly.  But, Mortarion rolled poorly and died by a very narrow margin.  If he had only 3-5 more wounds (i.e. had saved a single lascannon shot with a CP) that whole flank would have collapsed....possibly without him even swinging thanks to Host of Plagues and a blight drone that finally decided do something.  He still might have lost.  The objectives were not going his way.  But he wouldn't have gone down.

 

Now don't get me wrong: This batrep wasn't bad.  I'm not saying the players are bad, Mortarion is invincible, and the outcome *should* have been different.  Not at all.  But citing this as evidence that you can just Water Army around Mortarion is unconvincing. 

 

I'm not being melodramatic or fatalistic.  The mathematical fact is that the odds of coming out on top after Mortarion hits your line is bad, bad, bad. 

Edited September 14, 2017 by Brother Captain Ed

[Captain Idaho]

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. I meant to use it as an example of how many units / weapons fire it really takes to topple him, nothing more.

 

He didn't die by a small margin though. He died and the guy called it. Had he lived, he would have killed a single unit (as they were spread out) and then taken another round of fire.

 

I don't believe the luck of Mortarion was particularly poor. Many of the damage rolls were low anyway.

 

Regardless I recognise the criticisms of the tactics and armies involved as I pointed them out to a friend. Certainly, Mortarion shouldn't be left alone to fight an army but then he is almost a quarter of a 2000pts army so perhaps this is inevitable.

 

Anyway, I was pointing out how he is killable by an amount of firepower easily within reach of most players and NOT 3600 Bolters or 30 Lascannons.

 

****

 

Slightly off topic but moving across the table in a line is fairly standard but I actually don't do that anymore.

 

I have a firepower support base that hung in a particular corner/flank, a unit of Tacticals that ride in a Rhino with Sternguard in another Rhino etc.

 

The army operates for objectives around the table, including targets I give them. Not a line as such.

[Brother Captain Ed]

Sorry I wasn't clear enough. I meant to use it as an example of how many units / weapons fire it really takes to topple him, nothing more.

 

He didn't die by a small margin though. He died and the guy called it. Had he lived, he would have killed a single unit (as they were spread out) and then taken another round of fire.

Sure.  He's not invincible.  Not even close.  A Redemptor or a second dev squad nearby would have made his death nearly certain.  But it was absolutely a small margin.  There was no more shooting.  And there wasn't going to be another round of fire.  Mortarion's turn was next.  The devs were dead, the dreadnought wasn't going to survive (or he would be in melee in Morty if he did) and the scouts were going to be in melee with the drone.  That's it.  No more shooting of note. 

 

If he hadn't died then and there, the Salamander right flank was done. And it's notable that that is true even without significant support from the rest of his army.  Once he is close, your units literally start melting and you can expect him to target and remove anything nearby that is a real threat.  The math changes hard and fast each fight phase.

 

Slightly off topic but moving across the table in a line is fairly standard but I actually don't do that anymore.

 

I have a firepower support base that hung in a particular corner/flank, a unit of Tacticals that ride in a Rhino with Sternguard in another Rhino etc.

 

The army operates for objectives around the table, including targets I give them. Not a line as such.

Right.  Lots of marines do now.  The reroll bubbles start to force it.  And Primaris operate in a pronounced MSU format.  But that's still a line.  It's just a series of circular zones of control and fields of fire, rather than a long, contiguous, literal full of Guardsmen.  There is absolutely a place you don't want the enemy to be.   If Mortarion has climbed on board a Captain, his HG, and a group of Hellblasters, he is 100% "in your line" even if he can't stay in melee the rest of the game.  Plus, in his case, Morty is arguably in your line at 7" since that's where the mortal wounds start.

Edited September 14, 2017 by Brother Captain Ed