Best Mortarch?

[Eyeless]

Hi guys, managed to get a mortarch box last week but still undecided what to build.
As i haven't got many games under my belt yet, in AoS who's the best one of them? or maybe list some pros and cons please? Arkhan, Mannfred, or Neferata?

Thanks all =]

 

[Demian]

All of them.

Sorry D: haha it's just that all of them are awesome, and function with different armies, so you may want to consider the things you like playing with:

Arkhan: he is a "mini" Nagash that can cast spells owned by other Death wizards, so naturally, you may want to play with 1 of every wizard you have (useful spells are Vampire Lord's Spirit Blight, Necromancer's VDM, Kemmler's Invigorate, Mannfred's Wind of Death, Isabella's Dark Seduction, etc). Plus his command ability is really meant for you to bring as mani wizards as you can, raining death and destruction from 24'' (most spells)

Mannfred: is actually funny to play, specially with his Gheistvor's fluffy power. Other than that, he is more of a leader than the other two Mortarchs since his Command Ability is an area of effect ability, goes really really well with a slow-advancing army, where you want to affect as many of your units as possible, making Grave Guard and Spirit Hosts much more useable to get those special abilities to trigger. The more "attacks" are influenced, the better, so he truly is the Lord of the little guys.

Neferata: is great on her own, but even greater to combo with highly armored units, such as Blood Knights + Dark Mist. if you usually go for Morghasts, Blood Knights, Ushabti, Necrosphinx and other goodies that get the most out of staying power, Neferata is your go-to lady, because she can increase the value of your big guys by quite a lot (and she can "solo" almost any Hero too with an astonishing 2+ to Hit with all her strikes, rend 1 and 2 with a decent damage output, plus Nagadron's claws. Creating a brand new Vampire Lord when she slays said hero is quite something too)

=D choose wisely!

 

[Markond]

Why not all of them? The armoured collar clips into place, the abyssal head can be magnetised easily, and the three riders have their own unique saddles with a little notch that fits a 3x1mm magnet perfectly. A little extra work means not having to choose permanently.

I tend to prefer Arkhan so most of what i know is about him, and have dabbled with Mannfred a little bit.

All three of them have the spirits and claws from their mount so even arkhan, the weakest of them in melee compared to the others can do a fair bit of damage with decent rending and the potential for mortal wounds.

Arkhan is like a tiny Nagash, his abilities are about the same just scaled down. He can use the spells of any death wizard in 18' which means he can be a fairly versatile, I tend to cast with him last and use him to redo any failed or dispelled magic I needed to happen. Curse of Years is a bit temperamental, I tend to use it to pick off a hero or wizard.

He gets a boost to cast and dispel dependent on health so he isn't likely to see frontline combat much. If he ends up getting charged or is pressed into combat he can do some damage because of the abyssal, but nowhere near as much as mannfred with his armour keeping him in the fight longer and 6 attacks at d3 or 2, or neferata with her 7 2+ to hit attacks.

If you think Arkhan is about to get into trouble Vanhels Dance cast or borrowed from a necromancer can really help him, being able to activate him twice in melee effectively doubles his and his abyssals attacks and puts him about equal to the other mortarchs at least for a turn. This has saved me from bloodthirster to the face on one occasion.

His command ability is useful if you have a lot of magic users and play defensively, it means you can keep a slightly bigger buffer zone between your wizards and the things determined to stab your wizards.

His bonus to summoning with his range boost from command means you can reliably 'throw' a unit behind an advancing enemy line, which can be wonderfully disruptive and make a nice distraction.

Mannfred by comparison is much more suited to the frontline. His command ability makes everything in a bubble around him slightly more reliable in both combat and shooting. There's very little that doesn't profit from the command ability; it really helps unreliable units like skeleton archers and screaming skull catapults do more consistent damage, and it can make a good unit that little bit more deadly.

His 'funny' rule of being better at night or anywhere you cannot see the sun pretty much guarantees his sword to hit if you are playing indoors, you'll be hitting and wounding on 2+ with a reroll of any 1's from his command ability. Combined with his speed and ability to fly he can pounce on just about any monster trying to cross the field and handle them swiftly, or provide backup to a unit in peril. Wind of Death can also be a good way to soften up a monster or hero, and has the added bonus of doing a little damage to anything around it.

I will say that both of them can be really fragile in the wrong circumstances, i've had them both lose to a volley of skaven guns, and ground to dust by a group of stormfiends. Choose who you enter melee against carefully, you need to be certain you can either outright kill them with a single decisive round, or whittle them down enough to not be able to harm you back.

 

[Oppenheimer]

Neferata is my favorite since she has 2+to hit which is very rare. Her spell is really powerful too. She could cast mystic shield, dark mist on herself, fly into a hero and kill him and raise him as a vampire all in same turn.

 

[Eyeless]

@Oppenheimer @Markond @Demian Thanks a lot guys. nice write up with lots of important info. To be fair i would probably build all 3 of them in time as i plan to have all 9 mortarchs if possible. Seeing as I already have Nagash (maybe i should have mentioned it earlier) I guess Arkhan isn't an option for now. I'll consider Mannfred or Neferata. As it stands now proabably Mannfred is my best shot, however i kind of like Neferata more so i might opt for her. Thanks a lot all, I still have time to decide as i have other stuff to work on and i won't be playing any games which require that kind of power for now but I have a clearer idea of what i want and what i actually need =]

 

[Woolly.Mammoth]

Personally I just picked one Dread Abyssal head (Arkhans) and magnetized the riders.

Its fun to play with all 3 of them, and if you are into the lore you cant resist wanting to play with all of them. All 3 are chars have very deep lore.

Mannfred is the most iconic vampire being the ruler of Sylvania by the End Times. Though all 3 are in the end times, Mannfred plays the biggest role throughout the series and is especially badass in the first half of ET:Nagash. Mannfred has also resurfaced in the new lore - I highly recommend the new audiobooks starting with "Prisoner of the Black Sun".

Unlike the other two, Mannfred can also be taken on foot or on a horse. This makes him more viable depending on your comp system.

I'd recommend the novel Nagash: Unbroken if you want to read some great lore about Neferata and Arkhan. Neferata is the mother of all vampires and therefore is the most important char of the VC. Unfortunately her role in the End Times was pretty weak and her rules were nothing great. Now in AoS, she has proper rules and is by far the best Mortarch:

- She is extremely powerful in melee, causing a lot of wounds. The spirits and claws attacks are potent, but then she is 2+/3+ with her powerful attacks. Remember to attack with Akmet-har last because anyone with a wound can then be killed outright. If you want to maximize this power you could roll separately for each of her dagger attacks to spread them across multiple models and have a chance to kill several models outright. And of course, if any heros die by her hand you get a free Vampire Lord.

- Dark Mist is one of the best spells in the game. It allows a unit to fly around obstacles which will become more and more important as people realize that AoS is supposed to be played with tons and tons of terrain. More importantly, it allows that unit to ignore rend. Cast it on a unit about to take rending attacks and the attacks fizzle out. With most undead units able to come to life every hero phase, saving models with defensive abilities like this greatly sustains your lasting power.

-Twilight's Allure might be the best command ability in the game. If you can keep her near the battle, she can sit back causing all of your opponents units to start missing attacks. They took this away from Nurgle because it was too potent, but Neferata can give this ability to your undead army.

If you improve her 4+ to 3+ with a mystic shield, mist herself to ignore rend and activate her ability for -1 to hit, she becomes the most impossible to kill of the Mortarchs, so she can charge into the heart of battle, causing massive wounds and passively buffing the entire army around her making them harder to hit.

If Neferata is taking damage, remember to go after some small units rather than a big hero or monster, since she will regain 2 wounds as long as she kills at least one model.

Neferata is currently my favorite undead hero, I would highly recommend trying her out.

 

[Sception]

I understand that this thread is about the mortarch box set - specifically Arkhan, Manny, and Nef, the three mortarchs which ride dread abyssals, but remember that these aren't the only mortarchs in existence. Krell in particular has become a big favorite of min in Age of Sigmar. His half-wounds rule effectively doubles his wounds characteristic (remember, while attacks are resolved one at a time, wounds aren't allocated until all attacks made by a given unit are complete, at which point they are resolved as a single pool of wounds), making him arguably our most durable infantry-scale hero*, which allows him to function in a much broader range of battles than the big monster riding mortarchs. He's also got a fantastic command ability if you run any skeleton units at all, one that stacks beautifully with a necromancer's danse macabre spell (though, admittedly, pretty much any buff stacks beautifully with that spell). He's basically my favorite army general in faction, and even though I consider my own army to be 'led by Arkhan', he usually leaves the trivialities of field command to Krell.

* EDIT: Apart from Kemmler! After looking at him for the other thread, that guy's nigh unkillable. Shame he doesn't have a useful command ability to go with all that durability.

 

[Eyeless]

I agree @Malisteen while i haven't played Krell yet (as he's still boxed) he looks very solid and i can't wait to try him out =D

 

[Hmmmokaythen]

I find that Arkhan is the least powerful except in games where summoning is not limited (in which case he is basically Nagash Lite).

Honestly, Neferata is probably the mot competitive thanks to her ability to give herself the ethereal rule (ignore rend) and her INSANE command ability that nerfs everything within 15".

Consider this 75 wound list:
Nefrata's blood court battalion (49 wounds)
Mourngul (10 wounds)
Varghulf (8 wounds)
Varghulf (8 wounds)

The slowest unit in this army moves 9", everything flies, it is all really hard to kill and it hits like a ton of bricks.
The Varghulfs are the only "soft" target due to their 5+ save, but once you hit combat they regain wounds so fast they become quite difficult to kill as well. If you bunch up and ram your opponent then they will also have to deal with a 6" bubble of -2 to hit (-3 for units with bravery 6 or less). This makes even the strongest enemy struggle.

Despite this though, I think Manfred is the most fun. Nefrata basically ruins your opponent's day by making all their stuff bounce, while Manfred actually makes your stuff hit harder.
I found that he works especially well with Varghulfs, Morghast Harbingers, Spirit Hosts and Grave Guard.
He also hits harder than the others (I've seen him kill a Stardrake solo in one round of combat).

 

[Eyeless]

@Hmmmokaythen yea neferata got even better with that battalion. I've settled on her as she'll give me the most value with my current set up but next up would defenitely be mannfred =]