Ain’t M one hell of a cool letter? So then Morning Muchachos! Before writing the ETC battle report I thought it would be best to have some background for my Mordikaar list which I’m currently using and which completes my tournament caster triumvirate.
Void Seer Mordikaar
Stats & Abilities
I am no deviant, I swear to you, it just so happens that the best Skorne casters are either fat or old and skinny. I’d prefer busty babes as much as the next guy. At least this dude has some cool background and reason for his looks and stats. In a Chuck Norris-esque display of bravado and stubbornness he willed himself back to life after dying!
Tactical Pyjamas and talking heads are so two weeks ago. Sleeping gowns and lanterns are the new black!
Despite all this his stats aren’t the worst around. He shoots his lantern lazzors with decent accuracy and his defensive stats total the usual 30. Even with “just” defense 14, your opponent will want to boost when going for the old man because of his main special rule – Poltergeist. If you miss him, you get pushed back, potentially out of melee or shooting range. It is no excuse to get sloppy with his positioning, but it can save your bacon from time to time. Mordikaar can gobble enemy souls if he gets the chance and he supports Void Spirits very well.
Spell List
Hmm, Purification bait I hear you scream? Well, yes, but Revive, Essence Blast and Ghost Walk still work as usual. The awful truth no forum theoretician wants you to know is that many casters can work even without their upkeeps! BAM, the secret is out! This is definitely true for Mordikaar. From my experience 2 Revives per turn are enough to eventually get you the attrition advantage. You will run into problems when the one fury you are left with is not enough to keep him safe.
But back to his spell list. If Hollow stays up, the Revives can easily get out hand and your opponent will be swamped. Ghost Walk is a great spell as every Cryx player will tell you and Banishing Ward can be a game changer in the proper matchup. Essence Blast can be a game finisher or scalpel tool for UAs and solos. However, even though the temptation is often great, unless you have an important target you need to get rid of (Blood Hag) a Revive is a better use of fury in my opinion.
Feat
Yes, the feat can be hit or miss, since there are counter feats (pLylyth, Kreoss2) and a counter spell: Dark Guidance. In all other cases you will jam up your opponent like there’s no tomorrow and he will be very hard pressed to deal with it. Poltergeist can screw with his positioning and scenario presence. It makes attempts to kill titans also very difficult, since non-gargossals will need several swings and will need to boost the hit to not be pushed away.
Why can’t for smash elephant! Mat 5! Mweh!
Miscellaneous
First off, Mordikaar is a caster you need to play to believe in 🙂 Only if you experience the power of Revive first hand, will you appreciate how great it is. I wouldn’t recommend the tier list, since it doesn’t include Paingivers nor any of the more interesting units to revive.
I was always a fan of Mordikaar but had trouble settling on an army for him, since there are so many things one would like to revive, but apart from your preferred revive unit, you need a throw away unit for Hollow, the usual Skorne support and finally some Titans for your endgame and general armour cracking.
Even though Mordikaar is far more “matchup resilient” than forum wisdom suggests, he is unfortunately not an all-comers warlock, but then again, few are these days. Keeping this in mind, you should select your army with regards to the matchups you want him for – in my case Cryx.
The Army
Points: 50/50
Void Seer Mordikaar (*5pts)
* Basilisk Drake (4pts)
* Basilisk Krea (4pts)
* Bronzeback Titan (10pts)
Bloodrunners (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Cataphract Cetrati (Leader and 5 Grunts) (11pts)
* Tyrant Vorkesh (3pts)
Nihilators (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer (3pts)
Agonizer (2pts)
Mortitheurge Willbreaker (2pts)
First off, all the props for this list belong to the semi-retired, best Tyrant from the wrong side of the atlantic – Mr. Jason Watt. I just switched the Willbreaker in for Orin, since this list can benefit from Puppet Master immensely in my oppinion. So then, this is mainly an anti-Cryx list, it just so happens that a lot of different armies don’t want to see a Vorkesh brick across the table as well as Banishing Warded Nihilators or the Bronzeback. The list has the usual Skorne shooting resilience with Revive on top. The Krea is perfectly shielded by the Cetrati and with the feat you should arrive where you need to. All your infantry is a good delivery system for the Bronzeback and you have solid unjamming with the Drake and Essence Blast as well as a back up melee punch with the Krea/Drake combo. The Bloodrunners are the silent champions, being a total PITA to remove and a very potent unit against living single wound infantry as well as McThralls. Shadowplay needs a lot of practice, but once you know what you wanna do with it there is little your opponent can do to prevent it, since you jump all across the table with your ninjas.
The Agonizer supports the Cetrati perfectly and has his uses even against jack-light Cryx builds, since he prevents arc noding. It is also in for the odd Kraken list.
Specialists
This is a tough one. This core of this list is huge, so in this particular case there are not many points to play around with. I guess you could take out the Krea if your opponent doesn’t shoot at you or the Agonizer, if he just uses some inconsequential jack to fill his jackpoints.
The Vorkesh brick can’t be taken out since it’s too many points. The Bloodrunners are your Hollow target at first and excellent jammers. The Nihilators are the workhorses of the list. The Drake opens up charge lanes for them once they get Ghostly.
There is however, a ton of stuff I’d love to put in. My first choice would be Arcuarii, since with Revive placement and CRA they can catch easily even opposing casters. Incindiarii might be good as well, though later in game, after combat is joined, they might lack targets, so they are less flexible than their brethren.
Finally – Void Spirits. It is a shame there are no points for them, especially since they are supposed to be played with Mordikaar but alas, the support solos bring control to the table, which is simply more valuable 😦
Playing Mordikaar!? Woo! I’m out of the case I- Hey! Hey! No! Don’t leave me h-
Finally, finally – Despoiler. He is a good beast for Mordikaar, no doubt about it, yet I still don’t think I would include him instead of the Bronzeback. Even with Dark Shroud, his damage output is not comparable with a Bronzi and my biggest issue is his MAT 6. Also, he is far less resilient, which is a big thing if you are running just one heavy.
Matchups
As I said, this is currently my answer to Cryx. With a lot of spell immunity, tough and even undead of your own, you deny Cryx A LOT of tricks. Just get rid of the Blood Hag A-S-A-P!! The feat is good, because spell immune high def is something even the Dennys frown upon and Gaspy has no answer to at all. Revive is a big thing obviously, placing Nihilators into blobs of Cryxian undead is good fun and even satyxis can be mowed down with a bit of help from Puppet Master.
Revive is perfect against all kind of feats, be it control feats like eDenny’s or Haley’s or pulses and charge preventing ones since it circumvents them in a lot of cases.
What you don’t wanna see is a lot of RFP naturaly, which luckily isn’t that prevalent against unliving, unless it comes in a package with Purification and a goat ride on top. Generally, this army wouldn’t be my pick against Circle, since you don’t have the tools to remove Shifting Stones effectively and thus your Bronzeback can be reached even behind the Cetrati wall. Bestial would be an issue as well. Apart from Circle, there are as usual, just certain casters I’d suggest to avoid. Watch out for Lamentation and you might struggle with stuff like Iron Flesh too.
Mordikaar is a unique warlock in Skorne. I’d go as far as claiming that Revive creates it’s own playstyle and even if you disagree there can’t be any doubt that Mordikaar plays very differently from other Skorne casters and it has the triple benefit of being great fun a rewarding game experience AND a nasty surprise for your opponent!
-M
Overload Online 
Solid piece. I’ve been playing a bit of Mordikaar lately and would implore you to give Despoiler a better run. His ability to create Voids is amazing – at first I wasn’t so fussed but on the table it’s so hard to limit what they can do. Natural speed 5 means he can generally engage some infantry model turn 2 to create a void, plus be protected by the feat and Krea aura. The Void will usually cause 1-3 Abom checks for your opponent which is potentially game winning right there. A rushed charging Despoiler has a total threat of 21.5″ of where he can get a Void (after it then charges). In my games so far he creates 1-3 voids a game, who then go on to murder backfield models (this is the true benefit, spawn frontline and get into the midline pieces like Great Bears). Sure you lose some punch compared to the BB but the benefits are huge IMO. The free upkeep and animus are icing on the cake.
My list for posterity.
Mordikaar
– Despoiler
– Gladiator
– Archidon
– Krea
Max Nihilators
Min Incendiarii
Min Pains
TyCo
Marketh
Accidentally hit enter… Last part of the list was an Agoniser and a Void Spirit. The list definitely differs in its approach to yours as its more of a generalist, but it’s been fantastic for me. Your right in your assertion about the Incendiariis late game ability, but I’ve found them to be a great answer to Skornrs high def issue (outside the obvious eHex, Zaal and Mammoth). The ability to revive one, aim, advance the others and CRA to set a caster on fire has also been fantastic.
The Archidon is another piece I feel synergizes well with him. The obvious stuff is GW + Flight, and the feat is amazing for letting it get into dangerous positions. Sprint also let’s the Despoiler do his Void dance while stayin safe (if you dont want an early feat for instance).
Mordikaar is an amazing warlock though, severely underrated within Skorne. Revive is simply that game changing and the feat allows for extremely aggressive scenario play. Expecting to see a lot more of him once Despoiler hits.
All are valid points Ben, I had some games with the Despoiler and his ability can be huge. It is a bit matchup dependant (I play Legion waaay too often and there are quite often no warrior models anywhere nearby 😦 and I will also play against Convergence A LOT now…. sigh ) The thing is I just feel and have experienced that the list needs some the basics first instead of tools, tricks and techs. The BB gives you a whole different kind of respect from your opponent because he knows that if he can’t deal with him, he WILL come and crush him.
There is a lot of stuff one can try out with Mordikaar and certainly other powerfull builds can be created, but for my current needs, this one works great so for the time being I’ll go with the old saying: if it ain’t broke… 😉 Oh and the Despoiler is not on the horizon even, so from a tournament point of view, this discussion is moot currently…
True about Despoiler not being relevant right now. I have a BB in its place at the moment for tournaments. 😛 The meta point is also on note, locally I see a lot more living infantry so its perfect for Despoiler. I can see how he would lose a lot of effectiveness in your meta.