The Dynamic Duo - Morty + Seb

[Gypsey]

I want to share something I've played just a few times and really enjoyed. The dynamic duo that is Mortimer and Sebastian. These two have so much synergy together, especially when under the orders of Dr. McMourning.

Here's why I like them.

Sebastian: The lynch pin of the poison bubble. I often find myself with spare AP with Seb. After I get him in a good spot with cover, he mostly just sits there. I have Transfusion on him for a (0), but no other AP use. With Those are not ours, I can summon a dog off a corpse, but those are not plentiful first two rounds. 

Mortimer: Beatstick? Morty always serves his master Nico, but he doesnt mind getting dirty with McMourning. He reliabily puts out corpses, even without corpse bloat. He is beefy with regeneration and 11 wounds. He can also hit reliably and spread poison.

Canine Remains: Decent minnions and great in a poison list. 1ap charge on poisoned models. Auto infect on the attack. But also -1df on enemies with 1", which stacks.

The concept is:

Mortimer with My Favourite Shovel and transfusion.

Sebastian with Transfusion and Those Are Not Ours!

Turn 1:

Mortimer moves forward, finds a bone.

Sebastian moves forward, raises a dog. 

Dog moves forward.

Turn 2:

Mortimer finds a bone and uses fresh meat on the first dog or spreads poison. Transfuse as needed.

Sebastian moves forward, raises a dog transfuses as needed.

Turn 3:

Mortimer is now close enough to lay some hurt. He charges if there is an enemy near by with Ml 7 range 2. Fairly weak damage track, but your likely to hit and either hoping for a crow to flip or cheating it in to place a corpse. Less reliable than finding a bone, but this is turn 3, there's bound to be a corpse near by. Transfuse as needed.

Sebastian is raising dogs, destroying evidence to get more stones for crows. 

The dogs are now your scheme runners and back up. Your first two turn dogs can head off and drop schemes, then rejoin the scrumb when things are poisoned. They can also pile in and crash a models Df. That makes McMourning very happy.

This Canine engine provides a solid area that enemy models will melt in. It gives a place for McMourning to retreat to if he needs to be healed. And it produces soulstones with Those Are Not Ours! when needed. Finally the Canines do so much work and support my McMourning crew so well.

The Cost:

Mortimer is not cheap, 12 stones after upgrades. He is not putting out major damage for that cost.

The engine needs crows, so it only really works in a McMourning crew which isn't Crow hungry.

If you dont have crows, you may need to spend stones. Usually I wouldn't unless it was first turn. You can always get that stone back later. Summons are more valuable in the early turns as tgey have more activations with slow and insignificant.

I'm putting this up for you to poke holes in, share similar thoughts, and so you can try it yourself.

I'll leave you with this final thought. McMourning with Spare Parts...

[Nicodemic]

They are often my main  pair for hardcore games with rafkin and a nurse.

[Gypsey]

Just a quick update. Played a game of Interference against Ramos at out local tournament using the morty/seb combo. I wasn't fully out activating Ramos, but getting close. I scored every round on Interference and denied my opponent. 

[Munindk]

Its an interesting use of Mortimer in a McMourning crew. So far I've only considered him useful for ranged poisoning and movement help, but activation control is all the rage these days.

15 hours ago, Nicodemic said:

They are often my main  pair for hardcore games with rafkin and a nurse.

Where does your last stone go?

[Nicodemic]

transfusion on sebastian

[MEGAHORSE]

Joe Wood uses something similar with Kirai, albiet minus the Mortimer for activation control in the backfield. However he just uses the Canine to find a Bone instead of Mortimer (As mortimer is ALOT of SS investment), however this comes at the disadvantage of needing 9+ crows without the ability to stone for crows to find a bone with your dogs. 

However, while this can work with McMourning, all the points spend on Mortimer are a tough sell. One could also use the Emissary instead, using the Shards and Mindless Zombies to create dogs/eat zombies or dogs for soulstones, which I wanna try soon! 

Still, a very fun strategy!

[valhallan42nd]

Take Mortimer with McMourning. Use Plastic Surgery.  Have a crooligan deployed near a point you want the crew to get to. Deploy all your living models near Mcmourning and in LOS of the crooligan. Use Fresh Meat; move your entire crew to the point where the crolligan is. Since Morty could be undead as well (yay, Plastic Sugery!) he can push off of it as well. It's a very efficient use of AP.  Use that and take corpse bloat on morty to get that Corpse counter as a zero.

[Munindk]

On 11. april 2016 at 3:17 PM, MEGAHORSE said:

However, while this can work with McMourning, all the points spend on Mortimer are a tough sell. One could also use the Emissary instead, using the Shards and Mindless Zombies to create dogs/eat zombies or dogs for soulstones, which I wanna try soon!

Mortimer is expensive but he can do a lot more than just create corpse markers. He's got chatty, he can apply poison at range and move all your undead models forward. If you take him solely for the corpses to turn into canine remains, he probably wont pull his weight.

Mortimer with corpse bloat can move, make a corpse marker and poison something, then Sebastian makes a canine remains which can charge whatever Mortimer posioned. Next turn you could use fresh meat to move up some support the canine remains.

[MEGAHORSE]

7 hours ago, Munindk said:

Mortimer is expensive but he can do a lot more than just create corpse markers. He's got chatty, he can apply poison at range and move all your undead models forward. If you take him solely for the corpses to turn into canine remains, he probably wont pull his weight.

Mortimer with corpse bloat can move, make a corpse marker and poison something, then Sebastian makes a canine remains which can charge whatever Mortimer posioned. Next turn you could use fresh meat to move up some support the canine remains.

On the other side of the coin, the emissary also does alot more than make Mindless Zombies. While he doesnt have Chatty (which is pretty niche to begin with, you need to have scheme markers matter, you need to have him within 6" of an area the enemy would want to plant the markers in, etc), the Emissary can also help move your models forward with his aura that increases their Walk by 1. I think both movement enhancing abilities are good. Mortimer's is better in the amount of extra inches you get, and that it's a free move, but you have to move directly toward the model shot if you wish to take advantage, which can be bad versus masters like Raspy/Sonnia. The Emissary's is also not without its faults. It's merely an extra 1", but it doesnt hamper where you want to move. You just need to stay nearby to take advantage. It's weak, but helps. The Emissary can also apply poison at range if he needs to, or just shoot normally, buff your minions, etc depending on your upgrade (MCM or Generic)

I think the Emissary, being a few points less, is better as an all purpose solution in a vaccum, but Mortimer is definitely better when he matters!

edit: To reiterate, I'm not saying Mortimer is a bad choice. I'm not saying he's useless for this scenario or any others. I'm merely trying to throw out the idea of the Emissary as another valid choice, particularly in a vaccum , and saving you 2ss, where Mortimer succeeds more, in your scenario, in specific scheme/strategy picks.  I will definitely try both sometime soon, and perhaps update the topic on which worked better for me! 

[Gypsey]

After reading through these comments, I will definitely try using the Emmisary instead of Mortimer. There are pros and cons to both. The orginial concept was built to use mortimer in a different way other than just dropping corpses. He does have Ml 7, and his damage is usually enough when enemies are already taking poison damage. I also wanted to run him without corpse bloat as the quantity of corpses isnt an issue. Seb is likely only raising one canine remains a turn. Having Morty take on a hitter role, I dont want him slashing himself.