Primarch Mortarion!

Alrighty... after a far too long wait... The Grim Reaper of the Great Crusade, The Pale King, The Primarch of the Death Guard, Mortarion the Reaper has arrived

-EDIT: MINOR SPACING FIXES AND WEEKENDER OFFICIALISING (is that a word? Close enough, you know what I mean)

Mortarion is one of the more pricy Primarchs, but boy does he come with a lot of tricks. First of Mortarion has 7 wounds and a toughness of 7, a step up from the normal primarch statline of T6,W6. Not only is he tougher, Mortarion Re-rolls any failed IWND rolls, making him even tougher! Not a problem you say, I'll just shoot at him with my Sniper Veteran Squad or my Poisoned Dark Eldar fleet... Not so fast! Mortarion is only wounded by weapons that wound on a fixed roll on a 6, meaning Sniper, Poison and Fleshbane weapons are nearly useless against him. This guy is nails.

To add to Mortarion's resilience, he is equipped with The Barbaran Plate, conferring Cataphractii level saves (its not actually Cataphractii TDA but the saves are the same)

 Continuing on Mortarion's wargear, old Morty is equipped with a massive Death Guard Power Scythe that works exactly the same but with the added rules; Sunder and Instant Death. When combined with Mortarion's 6(7, see below) attacks on the charge this will pretty much ruin any character's day, unless they have Eternal Warrior, in which case they may just cling to life.

 If you've kept up to date with the newest legion astartes book there have been some changes to Power Scythes: no more unwieldy and Sweeping attack, instead they have -1 initiative and if they're in base contact with more than 1 enemy model they gain +1 attack (yes this does make Mortarion strike at normal marine Initiative, but you were going at I1 before anyway) (this is all Death Guard Power Scythes, making Deathshroud even better, coming to 4 attacks on the charge)

For all your shooting needs Mortarion has an UNLIMITED supply of Phosphex Bombs (12", str5, ap2, blast with some other little rules, read your book if you want to know (just little nuances)) which is AWESOME. 

Mortarion also has a personal side arm in the form of a 18" str8 ap2 energy blaster, which is also AWESOME (also has sunder so feel free to take a pop at vehicles before charging them).

For his special rules Mortarion has the Primarch rule which, you guessed it, all Primarchs have. He also has a fancy little rule called Shadow of the Reaper. This rule reduces enemy LD by -1 for fear checks (eh) and ALLOWS MORTARION TO REDEPLOY WITHIN 10" in the shooting phase if he doesnt run or fire. To do this you have to pass a leadership test, (he's a LD10 PRIMARCH so thats almost a given to pass). If passed Mortarion can be redeployed within 10" of his starting position as long as theres space for him (and no he cant magically bring his unit with him, thats specified as part of the rule, i see you 10 man Deathshroud squad). Just to make this that extra bit more awesome Mortarion can still charge after doing this, but counts as disordered (who cares, with the new rules on Scythes its like he charged anyway (+1 attack if in base contact with 2+ enemy models))

This ironically makes Mortarion the fastest of the walking Primarchs (so excluding Corax, Levitating Lorgar and Sanguinius when he's released #timestamp).

As if he wasnt tough enough Mortarion passes any Deny the Witch roll on a 4(3)+, against Maeldictions. (It's a 3+ cause he also has Adamatium will) Against witchfires it's still a 5+

To finish off Mortarion buffs friendly Death Guard with Stubborn and makes any Frag Grenades, Frag missiles and Havoc launchers poisoned 4+ so yay? Its free so no drawbacks (as these keep their original strength as well you're still wounding punny normal humans (Auxila and Militia/Cults) on a 3+)

Thats it for the data on Mortarion, as for what I'd do with him in games, I'd probably just run him solo and abuse his "teleport" and go hunt Vehicles. While he could go and take on infantry, I'd leave that to your elite units (Deathshrouds come to mind). Mortarion is more likely to make up his points if you go in on the flank (explained below) and ice some vehicles and heavy support squads with his sunder power scythe and then move in to sandwich the enemy with the rest of your army.

Watch as your opponent either swerves off to the side to counter Mortarion (especially after he moves 16" in one turn not counting assault distance) leaving their other flank and now side-on front units open to the rest of your army or they split their army and fire power; reducing the damage your main army takes.

 Moving on the flank also serves to reduce the amount of fire coming at Mortarion (going down the left edge for example means that units on the right side will have a much harder time getting in range and hitting through terrain in the other 2 strips (left, middle & right))

This tactic can be amplified further by sending in a Xiphon Interceptor before Morty hits the enemy vehicles to reduce their Hull points, meaning you're much more likely to destroy your target vehicle

(Mortarion is vulnerable to mass Las-cannon fire, deepstriking sucide melta/plasma squads so keep that in mind when playing him.)

Thats it for Mortarion, now onto his Loyalist brother; Vulkan and his Pyromanic legion the Salamaders!

Just as an FYI, I'll be doing some overhauls on previous posts that are affected by the Weekender, namely Emperor's Children and Death Guard. After that I'll be doing a post on the new Legion Rites, the new Generic Rites and their Synergies with Legions I have reviewed (and I'll cover any rites I didn't cover for legions before) so my apologies if you're waiting for Salamaders and bear with me while I make these adjustments. EDIT: Resolved

Thanks for reading!

-Argel Tal