40K: Dreaming Of Mortarion
The arrival of the Daemon Primarch Mortarion is imminent. So what do you suppose he will be bringing to the table?
Mortarion will be the third Primarch to return to the tabletop in Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition. His brothers Magnus and Guilliman are both mighty combatants in their own right but they also represent a rough template as to what a Primarch will function like on the tabletop. Based on what they can do and reaching back into the Horus Heresy Era ruleset, let’s see if we can guess as to what Mortarion will be able to do on the tabletop.
The Stats
This is Mortarion’s profile from the Horus Heresy. It’s important because when Guilliman showed up, his stats were virtually the same. Now (obviously) these are stats from 7th edition, but it’s pretty simple to convert these over to 8th. We can also use Guilliman and Magnus as a base-line for many of these, too. With that said he’s also been juiced up by the Chaos Gods since the Heresy so I’m guessing his Strength, Toughness and wounds all probably got a bump. Also, we wouldn’t be surprised to see Mortarion with a degrading profile like Magnus as well.
Movement – Now that he will have Wings (and thus the FLY keyword) we’re thinking he’s probably going to have a basic movement of 16″ that drops down to 12″ as he takes wounds (identical to Magnus).
WS/BS – 2+ all the way. Primarchs hit on 2s all day long and it fits.
Strength – 7. He’s been buffed by Nurgle, plus if he’s using a similar weapon (which we’ll get to below) he’s going to effectively be Strength 14 anyways.
Toughness – 8. Again, Nurgle is know for being Tough. Guilliman is a “normal” Primarch with a 6. Magnus is Daemon enhanced and he’s a 7. Mortarion should have a higher toughness than both of them.
Wounds – 18. We’re basing this number of Wound on Magnus. He (Mortarion) had 7 before his Daemon Ascendance…but that was an edition ago! With the wound changes this one is still up in the air so this one is a rough one to guess.
Initiative – HA! However, those Phosphex bombs were represented by his censers… And he’s wearing a LOT of censers now. Maybe his Blight-powers will mess with Initiative orders and allow him to strike first or disrupt units that charge. It’s a long shot but it’s a possibility.
Attacks – 7 base, degrades down to 5. Again, basing this on Magnus and it seems to fit the template.
Leadership – 10 all the way. He’s a Daemon Primarch!
Save – +2 with a 4++ invulnerable. His Barbaran plate looks like it’s been modified since the Heresy Era, but it’s still what he’s wearing.
The Wargear
Phosphex Bombs – All those Plague Censers will do SOMETHING. As mentioned above, will they allow him to mess with initiative? Or will they do some other strange battlefield effect? What if they allow him to re-roll failed wound rolls? Or allow friendly DEATH GUARD units re-roll to wound within 9″ of him due to the foul incense burning? Perhaps they go the other route and increase the toughness of friendly DEATH GUARD models by 1 or make them harder to kill. I just hope they are more than just eye-candy.
Silence was his Man-Reaper Scythe from the Heresy Era. It was +1 Strength in melee and AP 2. It also had a ton of special rules like Sweep Attack, Sunder, Two-Handed…and more. Most of those rules are no longer in the game. However, way back when we first saw it at Adepticon, one of the things GW said was “looks like it could kill a Primarch.” I was in the room when they said it! So based on all that (and with some guidance from Magnus) here at BoLS we think it’s going to have the following weapon stats:
Silence – Melee, Str x2, AP -4, Damage 3. Re-roll failed wound rolls with this weapon. We also think that it will have some crazy sweep attack option that allow him to get a special attack on each enemy unit engaged with him. Each unit will be attacked equal to the number of models within “X” inches of Mortarion. It’s a big Scythe after-all!
The Lantern is a “drum barrelled energy blaster of unknown origin” from the Heresy Era. The previous stats were range 18″ Str 8 and AP2 Assault 1 and it re-rolled armor pen. We’re guessing it’s going to be similar:
The Lantern – Range 18″ Str 8 AP -4 Assault 1. Re-roll failed to wound rolls.
Abilities
This is one area we are going to diverge a bit. We are also going to be looking at Typhus because we are assuming he’s probably going to get a few of his special Death Guard abilities too.
Death to the False Emperor and Disgustingly Resilient pretty much have to be included.
These are Typhus’ abilties – we wouldn’t be surprised to see variations on Nurgle’s Gift/Host of the Destroyer Hive. Again, referring to those Censers he’s wearing, some crazy DEATH GUARD boosting Auras seem warranted. Or Aura’s that damage enemies…Or both!
Let’s not count out the fact that he’s the Primarch of the Death Guard. Base on Magnus’ rule maybe they get a re-roll boost and a bonus to their toughness. That could be the Primarch rule or one of the other auras. I don’t think he’ll have ALL those boosts, but some combination of them seems likely.
Psyker – Mortarion is not Magnus but he is still a Daemon Prince. He’s probably going to get to cast 2-3 powers a turn but only get to deny 2. He’s probably going to get access to some crazy powers from the Death Guard book as well.
Faction Keywords – Chaos, Nurgle, Heretic Astartes, Death Guard
Keywords – Character, Monster, Daemon, Primarch, Fly, Psyker, Mortarion
Mortarion is going to be tough and deadly. Here at BoLS we are chomping at the bit to get our hands on him and we are super excited to see him on the tabletop!
What crazy abilities do you think Mortarion is going to have in 40k? Tell us your guesses and reasoning behind them in the comments below!
