Mortarion
Also known as "Death Lord", Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard (XIV legion), now Chaos Space Marines. Has an absolute hatred of psykers.
Biography
Mortarion was left on the plague planet Barbarus by the Chaos gods. He was found by the Overlord of Barbarus, who may or may not have been a Daemon or may have been a sorcerer of Nurgle, but whatever he was, he was a something that was less human than Mortarion. The Overlord, naming him Mortarion (to mean "Child of Death") took the infant Primarch and raised him, teaching him the arts of combat and warfare. Mortarion's curiosity led him to leave home and set up shop in one of the human villages in a less plague-filled valley, where he simply helped with the harvest. When the village was attacked by a marauding warlord, Mortarion charged into the fray, defending his home with his scythe. After the battle was won, Mortarion taught the villagers, and other humans on Barbarus, the same lessons of warfare he had learned from his adoptive father. Soon, they were strong enough to take the fight to the warlords of Barbarus until only the Overlord remained. The Emperor showed up in a modest robe, as he feels like doing sometimes, and challenged Mortarion to slay the Overlord alone or swear loyalty to him.
Mortarion wasted no more time and went to kill his adoptive father, but he was too weak and succumbed to the poisonous upper atmosphere. Cue Emperor time and one hit kill. The Emperor stole Mortarion's kill and evil adoptive father.
Great Crusade
He was discovered 130 years into the Great Crusade and was taken to Terra, like all his other brothers were, to learn the ways of the Imperium. But unusually he was held for a bit longer on Terra than his brothers were on the reasoning that they were going to get all of the poisons and toxins out of his system, though this would obviously hit a snag since he got his armour customised to supply him with the Barbarus gases on demand (maybe he was dependent on them?), naturally all this waiting around got him a bit frustrated and annoyed.
Mortarion managed to sneak his way through the Imperial Palace and to the construction site of the future Golden Throne (yeah, despite being all giant and pungent, he was an excellent Ninja, also evidenced by his rules below) When he demanded of Malcador what it was, he wouldn't accept the regent's excuses that it was nothing to concern himself over, since Mortarion knew warp-tech when he saw it, and considered the Emperor & Malcador big giant hypocrites. The same went for his three brothers who set up the Librarius, and he didn't get on that well with the others. Apart from maybe the Khan, Mortarion had the least central role in the Crusade of all the Primarchs.
Thus Malcador revealed to Mortarion the Emperor's greater plan; which was to remove the reliance on psykers and warp travel entirely, and that they were already planning the Council of Nikaea in advance and that Mortarion would be the one to make the case for reining it in.
Mortarion gets his own legion and swears allegiance to the big E. Weirdly, for all his dad and Malcador's worries about him, they didn't see fit to keep him fighting alongside the Emperor like (clearly sane and well-adjusted) Vulkan. After a few years of raping and pillaging those filthy Xenos he becomes best buds with Horus and that creepy pseudo-batman. He wasn't that bad of a guy, but he resented pretty much everyone whose upbringing hadn't been as awful as his, except Horus. There's a bit in Scars where he bitches and moans at Sanguinius, Jaghatai and Fulgrim about how they had it easy before snapping at the Khan that he doesn't resent it. Hmm. The newly renamed Death Guard was moulded to resemble Mortarion's old army on Babarus, as it began prioritising endurance over everything else. In combat Mortarion relied on his raw strength, which according to Jaghatai Khan, only Ferrus Manus had a hope of matching. In a primarch-on-primarch duel he just absorbed damage, tiring his opponent out.
Horus Heresy
When the Horus Heresy began, of all his traitor brothers, we don't quite yet know "why" Mortarion joined the Traitor since there haven't been many books with him as the protagonist. But it was presumably for ideological reasons rather than being outright corrupted, broken or renegade already since we know he already considered the Emperor and the Imperial Truth to be hypocritical. He also felt that the whole goal of the Imperium was the wrong one- viewing non-combatants as unworthy, and hating the influence that civilians began to wield post-Ullanor. Horus' rebellion promised an order based on Might Is Right, and if the Warmaster died in the process of overthrowing the Emprah, then Mortarion might get a shot at the top job. So was probably like "Yeah I won't worship Chaos, but I'll follow you anyway!" with Horus. Then again, a flashback with Malcador tells us that Mortarion might've had mental scars just as big as Curze's and Angron's, between the jail-keeper relationship with his adoptive dad, wanting to kill said foster parent, failing and watching his real dad kill said evil dad and finally finding out that his real dad was also a psyker (basically everything that Mortarion hated).
However, that wasn't as easy as he thought, especially when he saw just how many despised psykers, witches, and sorcerers were running around all over the place. As a last-ditch attempt to change the balance, he tried to recruit Jaghatai Khan on Prospero, using the Warrior Lodges to subvert the White Scars. Being an architect of the Librarius and a generally cool guy, the Khan told Mortarion he was an idiot and went to town on the Death Lord. Mortarion gave Jaghatai the fight of his life, but eventually ran away to take his butthurt out on the rest of the Prosperine system, all the while brooding over the Khan's taunts. He'd thrown his lot in with the thing he hated the most and now that he'd run out of allies, it was going to claim him. Scars kinda retcons the start of Mortarion's descent here- the Khan thinks that Mortarion's "power" has grown (probably psychically) and that the guy's face looks discoloured around his rebreather. Despite this, he still insisted on claiming he was the only "pure" Primarch.
Just after getting into that scrap with the Khan, he travelled to a library world that once belonged to the Thousand Sons and set about purging it to find a particular person possessed by a daemon. This would prove a turning point, as he kept the daemon in order to extract knowledge on how to defeat daemons, but ended up getting goaded into using sorcerous powers to blast the creature into a mushy pulp and declaring that he would learn all he could about his enemy in order to learn how to better eradicate it. Which the daemon had forseen as the beginning of Mortarion's descent into Nurgle's Pocket. The retcon continues here, as Mortarion's claims to "purity" are mocked to his face and we're told that a Chaos God has already staked a claim on him. It's also pretty clear that Mortarion's close to going nuts even before this push, as his quarters are littered with Scientific Anti-Warp Devices (shit tons of charms, incantations and numerical codes which do hurt Daemons... once he starts using the Warp). Oh yeah, and he makes speeches about how destroying worlds is good for the soul.
When his big ol' fleet was pimping their way to Terra, they were caught in a Warp Storm, where they had to suffer diseases which would kill anyone else. The Death Guard's legendary endurance turned against them, holding them just on the edge of death, suffering so hard that it makes a Dark Eldar torture feel like massage (no, really). Well, what would be the best way to stop the disease? Start the worship of the God of the Diseases, of course! To be fair, Typhon was already doing that- in fact, he was the one who arranged them to be caught in the warp storm in the first place. Nurgle was pleased as the Death Guard swore loyalty to him, and ended their suffering (but made them walking sacks of meat that simply won't die, our beloved Plague Marines).
This act of "swearing loyalty" takes on a different context when you realize that Mortarion utterly despised the Ruinous Powers (even if he may have been getting some assistance from them towards the end of the Heresy, if the events of Scars are to be believed) and only submitted to Nurgle because he physically couldn't suffer any longer. Certain fluff sources literally state that as Mortarion lay in agony he pictured himself once again defeated atop his daemon-father's lair, too weak to fight on in the face of certain death, only this time he knew the Emperor wasn't going to save him from his fate (when you consider the importance he placed on strength and the refusal to surrender, this becomes an even bigger nightmare). And so, after a lifetime of striving to become the most grim, unstoppable motherfucker in the galaxy he still crumbled when the stakes were highest, and lost his soul to Chaos, becoming everything he hated most. Grimdark.
Post Heresy
After Horus got his ass kicked, Mortarion made epic formations, and marched his ships (yes, marched them!) to the Eye of Terror, where they found a nice new home, known as Plague Planet, which they started decorating and uhh... "cleaning".
Long story short, him and his legion now worship Nurgle and owns his personal little planet in the Eye of Terror from which all disease and plagues in the galaxy originate. Of note, he is now a Daemon Prince, so don't piss him off. He should probably work out more so as to get back into shape, but the fact that he just has to be within a few kilometres for you to die from the toxic emanations sort of renders that superfluous. Still, Typhus got bored with his dad pretty quickly, and decided to go off on a great big Getting Shit Done expedition.
To his credit, he did make himself useful in the Fall of Sanctia in 437.M36 by sending an army of diseased Orks to soften the planet up, then made their corpses explode into a massive horde of Nurglings when he and the Death Guard landed, wiping out all life in less than a day. (Thanks, Phil!) Now if only some other assholes would do some work every now and then...
The Draigo Incident
Tl;dr: he got his ass handed to him by Kaldor Draigo who carved the name of the previous SUPREME GRAND MASTER, Geronitan, into Mortarion's heart.
The Longer story as told by the Audio Drama Mortarion's Heart, Geronitan more or less baited Mortarion and allowed whole sectors to die under the Primarch's massive force (every Nurgle cult and warband within 100 sectors) until he showed up at Kornovin, which is one of the few places the Grey Knights can preform the ritual to bind his soul and kill him for good. It failed due to the fact Geronitan forgot to Wear a helmet so Mortarion just Plague Wind him to death and laughed as the entire Grey Knights Chapter cried (yes this happened.)
After Kaldor got elected, mostly because he's the most expendable Grand Master who's also skilled enough to fight the Death Lord. Grand Master Crom gave Kaldor the true weapon, the name The Emperor gave to Mortarion.
After a laughably short and one sided fight, which was really just Mortarion punching Kaldor in the face over and over again, Kaldor was able to light Mortarion's cape on fire when Mortarion eventually got a hand cramp. Mortarion pauses for a second because that was his VERY favorite cape and becomes distracted enough to allow Kaldor to slip Mortarion's true name into the Death Lord's mind, which causes him to FUCKING EXPLODE somehow, regardless of the fact that in every other instance of true names ever the worst that can happen is your combat stats getting halved. Though it might be because in this case the name itself originated from the Emperor, and anything that has to do with the Big-E will mess up anything Daemonic big time. Kaldor then crawls over to a helpless, nearly broken in half Mortarion and writes Geronitan's name on Mortarion's heart in magic marker.
Just more of the usual stupid Grey Knight circle jerk stuff.
As the 13th Black Crusade grinds on, rumours abound that Abbadon has finally persuaded Nurgle to set Mortarion's alarm clock and got him moving again and killing Imperial scum! His fans resent the implication that he's a lazy old fuck, because even though he isn't as active as Angron, he still gets waaaaay more shit done than people like Lorgar or Perturabo.
Tabletop
| WS | BS | S | T | W | I | A | Ld | Sv | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mortarion: | 7 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 2+/4++ |
Mortarion is a tough son of a bitch: with the Primarch rule, T/W 7, flat dice wounds like poisoned and fleshbane wound on 6's, rerollable IWND and Toughness tests, 4+ Deny the witch (that becomes a 3+ thanks to AW, because fuck Psykers) and 2+ armor save and a 4+ invulnerable save, he's basically a Gargantuan Creature for all intents and purposes. Death Guard gain Stubborn and Poisoned (4+) on all frag grenades and missiles which is pretty sickening. For weapons he has the Lantern pistol which is almost a pistol meltagun, phosfex bombs (an unlimited supply of them, and he can throw them at double the range!), frag grenades and Silencer, a S7 AP 2 power scythe with sweep attacks that causes Instant Death and reroll failed penetration rolls, but with Unwieldy. Great for getting rid of that annoying Praetor or captain.
Not enough for you? Good, because they also gave him the Shadow Of The Reaper rule. It makes enemy units take a fear check at -1 leadership. Awesome. But much more importantly in the shooting phase if Mortarion, while not locked in combat or embarked, does not shoot or run he can take a leadership test and teleport 10 inches away from his current position. It does not count as moving, does not scatter, and does not prevent him from charging (But he does count as making a disordered charge. Not that big of a problem, seriously). There are some other caveats, but he effectively has a minimum 18" charge range without factoring in his base size, and he is fleet to boot. Because he's fucking terrifying.
His model is equally as badass as his rules, if you can get past the whole he doesn't have a rebreather. Although the designer probably thought that he didn't really need to breathe, and he's probably immune to anything poisonous anyway (on Prospero the Khan had to go in totally suited up, whereas the Death Lord just strolled in dressed just the same as normal, and Girlyman established that Primarchs don't even need to breathe - they can apparently fight in the void for hours on end without a helmet, because fuck physics, we're daemons!). (even in-universe, Guilliman's ability to fight in the void without a helmet and oxygen has Imperial scholars going "WTF?")
Mortarion VS other Primarchs:
Primarch fighting, while fun to see isn't a very competitive thing to do as it'll usually tie up both Primarchs for the entire game without either of them dying (especially with Mortarion who can mathematicaly always go the entire game in a Primarch duel), with that in mind this section is how Mortarion fares against other Primarchs Mathhammer wise. Please note that all the various abilities, with the exception of Blind, are taken into account (Blind is ignored because it never changes the outcome of the fights, the winner is still the winner with or without it) and the match-ups assume the Primarchs are the only ones involved in the fighting, so various abilities like Angron's "The Butcher's Nails" and Rampage do not provide any bonuses.
- Mortarion VS Horus
- Horus will use Worldbreaker (as wounding on 2's is better than re-rolling to wound) and hits 3.999 times, wounds 3.332 times, 1.666 after saves and IWND will take that down to 1.111 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.555 wounds after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.222.
- Mortarion loses this fight.
- Mortarion VS Angron
- Round 1: Angron has Hatred, so on the first turn he will instead hits 5.333 times, wounds 3.555 times, 1.777 after saves, and IWND take it down to 1.222.
- Round 2: Angron hits 4 times, wounds 2.666 times, 1.333 times after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.778 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.833 times after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.5 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion just barely loses this fight by one turn as his extra wound almost allows him to outlast Angron.
- Mortarion VS Fulgrim
- Fulgrim hits 5.333 times, wounds 2.666 times (Fireblade)/1.777 times (Laer Blade), 1.333 times (Fireblade)/0.888 times (Laer Blade) after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.778/0.333 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.555 wounds after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.222.
- Mortarion loses this fight either by a little or a lot depending on whether or not Fulgrim has Fireblade or not.
- Mortarion VS Ferrus
- Ferrus with Forgebreaker: hits 2 times and 0.5 with his servo arm, wounds 1.666 times with Forgebreaker and 0.333 with his Servo-Arm (1.999 total), 0.999 times after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.444 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Ferrus with Bare Hands: hits 2 times and 0.5 with his servo arm, wounds 1 time with his hands and 0.333 with his Servo-Arm (1.333 total), 0.666 times after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.111 times at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.25 times, 0.416 wounds after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.083.
- Even though Mortarion is tough in the end Ferrus wins pretty easily thanks to his superior save and damage.
- Mortarion VS Konrad Curze
- Curze hits 4 times, wounds 2.221 times, 1.11 wounds after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.555 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.833 wounds after saves and 0.5 wounds after IWND.
- Mortarion wins as even though he does less damage he'll outlast Curze.
- Mortarion VS Vulkan
- Vulkan hits 2 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.833 wounds after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.278 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.25 times, 0.415 wounds after saves and 0 wounds after IWND.
- Mortarion loses as mathematically he's incapable of harming Vulkan.
- Mortarion VS Lorgar
- Lorgar hits Mortarion 2.5 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.833 after saves and IWND will take that to 0.278 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Round 1: Mortarion hits 2.961 times, wounds 1.752 times, 0.876 times after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.543 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Round 2: Mortarion hits 3.333 times, wounds 2.222 times, 1.111 times after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.778 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Even with forcing Mortarion to re-roll 5's and 6's for the first round Mortarion still beats Lorgar. He also loses to invisible Lorgar Transfigured just like every other Primarch (mathematically he causes 0 wounds to him).
- Mortarion VS Perturabo
- Perturabo hits 2.666 times (both types), wounds 1.333 times (Normal)/2.221 times (Forgebreaker), 0.666 wounds (Normal)/1.11 wounds (Forgebreaker) after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.111/0.555 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.666 times, 0.555 wounds after saves and 0.222 wounds after IWND.
- Mortarion wins but only if Perturabo doesn't bring Forgebreaker.
- Mortarion VS Alpharius
- Alpharius hits 2.92 times and wounds 1.136 times, 0.568 wounds after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.0124 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.667 times, 0.833 wounds after saves and 0.5 wounds after IWND.
- Mortarion wins
- Mortarion VS Rogal Dorn
- Dorn hits 2.666 times (Normal)/1.333 times (Sundering Blow), wounds 1.48 times (normal)/1.183 times (Sundering Blow), 0.74/0.59 wounds after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.185/0.035 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.666, 0.833 wounds after saves and 0.5 wounds after IWND.
- Mortarion wins in 12 turns as Dorn does a lot less damage in return.
- Mortarion VS Corvus Corax
- Corvus hits 4 times (Scourge)/3 times (Shadow-walk), wounds 2.221 times (Scourge)/1.666 times (Shadow-walk), 1.11 wounds (Scourge)/0.833 wounds (Shadow-walk) after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.556/0.278 wounds at the start of the next turn.
- Mortarion hits 2.5/1.666 times, wounds 1.666/1.11 times, 1.11/0.74 wounds after saves and 0.777/0.407 wounds after IWND.
- Mortarion wins either way in this fight, he causes more overall damage, has more wounds, and regenerates faster. In addition even if Corax runs away Mortarion's ability to teleport will mean he'd catch Corax very quickly after he re-appears so he cannot run away to heal which would render this a stalemate.
- Note: Corax could attempt to "cheat" his way to victory thanks to his special rules, especially Sire of the Raven Guard (which grants him Super-Furious Charge) and Hit & Run. With this he could disengage at the end of Mortarion's assault phase, in order to charge him again during his turn. Using this tactic he would Shoot with his pistols for 1.9444 hits, 0.648 wounds, 0.108 wounds after saves, then charge in with Hammer of Wrath gaining 0.333 wounds, and 0.0555 wounds after saves, then attack with the Panoply which hits 4.5 times (scourge), wounds 3.375 times, 1.6875 after saves and 1.132 with IWND for a total of 1.296 Wounds. This, combined with Shadow-walk during Mortarion's assault phase in order to mitigate his retaliation barely lets Corax win if he goes charging scourge in round 7, then scourge again in round 8 as he strikes before Mortarion, compared to 8 rounds needed for Mortarion to kill Corvus (this is including Overwatch with The Lantern).
- Though this looks like a close fight at first glance, this tactic relies completely on Hit and Run (which is more akin to Corvus's fighting style), as well as assumes the Charging always works out in Corvus's favour and so the strategy will mathematically fail over the eight rounds needed to kill Mortarion (as there's mathematically one turn that either Hit and Run or Charging will fail when Mortarion consolidates away from Corvus's consolidation) giving the victory to Mortarion again. But that's actually the same chance of Corax Blinding Mortarion (Not included in the fights), so the odds are still the same.
- Mortarion VS Roboute Guilliman
- Round 1: Guilliman hits 2.5 times, wounds 2.083 times (With Hand of Dominion), 1.042 after saves, and IWND take it down to 0.486.
- Round 2 and after: Guilliman hits 3.333 times (Thanks to Preternatura Strategy), wounds 2.777 times, 1.388 times after saves and IWND will take that down to 0.833.
- Mortarion hits 2.5 times, wounds 1.666, 0,833 after saves, 0.417 wounds after Armor of Reason, and after IWND they become 0.083 wounds.
- Guilliman wins in 8 turns as Mortarion's damage is almost irrelevant.
- TLDR version: Mortarion's good against Konrad Curze, Vanilla Lorgar, Hammerless Perturabo, Alpharius, Rogal Dorn, Corvus Corax and bad against Horus, Angron, Fulgrim, Ferrus, Lorgar Transfigured, Vulkan, Perturabo with Hammer and Guilliman, putting him quite in the middle of the road for Primarch duelling.
- Dirty Trick: Use Morturg and put Endurance on Mortarion, if you do this Mortarion can beat everyone (including Lorgar Transfigured) except Horus, Fulgrim (with Fireblade) and Vulkan as his damage output will exceed theirs or his extra wound will allow him to outlast them and/or they will be unable to hurt him at all mathematically. The reason Horus Vulkan and Fulgrim still win is because Mortarion will eventually be unable to hurt Horus thanks to Disabling Strike, Fulgrim just causes too much damage (and some of his attacks ignore FnP) and Vulkan's Instant Death hammer ignores FnP.
Gallery
-
Seriously badass.
-
"Not just yet. When Terra is ashes... then you have my permission to die."
| The Primarchs of the Space Marine Legions |
|---|
 Loyalist Corvus Corax - Ferrus Manus - Jaghatai Khan Leman Russ - Lion El'Jonson - Roboute Guilliman Rogal Dorn - Sanguinius - Vulkan |
 Traitor Alpharius/Omegon - Angron - Fulgrim Horus - Konrad Curze/Night Haunter - Lorgar Magnus the Red - Mortarion - Perturabo |