I’ve played like 2 games with Morticians*, 1 was close , 1 I got battered by corsair. So this post is mostly based on theory crafting since I’m planning on going morticians next, and then I can use my own advice.

Since Morticians fight rather than score, i thought i would look out how they get VP for takeouts.

Magical Christmas Land (Vet Graves + Casket)

Vet Graves’ Gravedigger gives you +1VP if you takeout the target. Casket’s Casket time gives you +2VP and removes the player (and influence) for a round. So this is worth 5VP (but You can only casket time humans – no mascots).

Can they do it by themselves?

Let’s assume an average player is Def 4 Arm 1 and has 14 boxes. More boxes tends to be lower def and vice versa.

4 inf on Vet Graves. Charge 7″ (2″ melee is nic e here). 9 dice, prob get 4 hits if we’re lucky, but we only need 3 for KD and gravedigger or 2 for mom 1 and gravedigger. Take KD. 2 more hits, now Tac 5 vs Def 3 so prob 1 and 2 hits after armour, so probably 3 damage.

Now casket comes in, legendaries let’s say he doesn’t charge unless he needs the range. Tac 6 (ganging up) v 3-1. going to get mostly 2 hits after armour, so 1d and mom2. Probably about 7 damage and 3 mom. That’s 10 damage total. So not enough to kill our victim and the legendary is wasted.

So just the 2 of them probably can’t pull this off and that’s not even considering the enemy team and the player itself. So how can we help them out?

To start with, Vileswarm can charge a human for 1 inf. If he goes after vet graves and charges, tac 8 (3+1+4) vs def 3 he probably gets 3 hits for 3 damage thanks to packmaster, if we’re lucky ~70% we wrap for 5 damage. A confident Vileswarm could be enough here to get our uber kill and we still have 3 models left to do other stuff.

Who else can help?

Cosset can lure a model so it’s out of position, should make things easier. And/or get a free charge hoping for screaming banshee (5 hits needed, but on Tac 11 it’s average) for another -1 def.

Pellage can get singled out pretty reliably, so all these attacks get +2 TAC and suddenly that’s a lot easier.

Another option is to wait for the kill until the next turn and win initiative so Casket can go 1st and box them for essentially 2 turns. To help with getting initiative there is a lot of momentous results on 2 hits in the guild. Or use Obulus, go with him last and legendary to steal their momentum and basically win (steal) initiative.

So that seems pretty filthy, what else can we do?

Well Vet graves can stick gravedigger on someone else next turn and Pellage, cosset and scalpel can reliably kill them. 5VP+3VP is 8VP for 2 kills. go for a final goal or 2 more kills.

More Killing Tec (oGraves Tooled up)

If we ditch Vet Grave’s gravedigger Jank and take oGraves we get access to tooled up.

A tooled up Scalpel vs 4-1 victim should hit 4 half the time and 3 75% of the time (anatomical helps) so with 6 inf probably gets mom 2</3, mom2gb, mom2gb, mom1/u2, 1/mom<,1/mom<. + tooled up she can probably hit 17 damage and delete most people, but only generate 2/3 momentum. If singled out is applied AND the model is def-1 (from cosset or KD) now she is hitting 4, 5 and 6 most of the time which is m2, 3/m2 or m3 for a potential 2×3+4×4 = 22 damage with 4 momentum which is wrecking most people. of course this means someone knocked down the target and dirge or Pellage got the Singled out on.

Cosset can be pretty nasty. Lets assume she is tooled up and gets the assist from dirge (people shouldn’t let this happen but killing dirge costs you mom). Free charge and crazy plus assist means Tac 12 against 4-1, you have a 60% chance of hitting 5 hits (-1 arm) for the screaming banshee and a ~40% chance of wrapping and getting 1 damage as well. Tooled up and Dirge will take us to 3 damage or 6 damage if wrapping but they are now def -1. 2 more attacks at tac 8 v 3-1, likley hitting 4 hits for 4 damage for a total of 11 damage or if we were lucky about 15. For 2 inf, and the bird going first.

And then we have the puppet, Memory. People don’t expect the puppet because its a striker and looks tiny. Brainpan can buy attacks form 8″ away and the puppet is tac 5. It’s hard to push away or dodge from because it can just dodge back in. If it gets 4 attacks and is tooled up it likely only does 8 damage with 4 inf. If it has a ganging up, and is against def 3 and maybe singled out, it can ramp up, it now has a 90% chance of getting the m2 on 3, 74% for m3 on 4, 47% of wrapping. So 4 attacks now gets you a realistic 16.

Of course we can’t have tooled up on Scalpel and Cosset and Memory.

Some Control Tec

Of course, no half-decent player is going to let you wreck their players 1 by 1, so how can you get protect your assassins?

Ghast is a handy beater and control piece. 21 health is nice. More importantly, attacking him costs +1inf for the first attack, and damaging him grants 2MP. SO people don’t want to attack him. But if you ignore him he is 2″ melee so can get in the way, and he is Tac 6 and knockdown on 2 which he will hit on a parting blow vs 4-1 85% of the time.

Silence can force opponent models to either go next activation or last activation which gives massive control.

Obulus can puppet master people out of position. And steal MP and inf.

Scalpel’s Tormented Agony can take inf of a beater or scorer and stick it on a mascot.

Casket has both the rough ground Aura meaning charging within 3″ of him reduces your charge by 2. And Ghostly visage which reduces charges within 3″ by another 4″ and gives -2 tac basically meaning you cannot charge in.

Update 1*

So i delayed posting this to at least play with obulus. And got steamrollered by My wife’s Butchers. Why did i try to fight Butchers? Now working on scoring instead.

Things i got wrong:

Kicking with cosset to get easier Lure, but that meant she got charged and died.

Using Puppet master on a model that hadn’t gone, so they got attacks into me.

Not pushing away vet ox after unmasking with Ghast so he got counter attacked and knocked down, because i wanted the kill.

Throwing Dirge at things to set up Cosset, but he dies super easy, and cost me 2VP.

Trying to Fight Butchers!