Mortimer – Henchman
Mortimer is an excellent support henchman, with limited offensive abilities. While capable of doing damage, he works best lurking nearby.
Mobility
Mortimer has a very average Wk of 4, which is fine considering he wants to be just behind combat. He has no tricks or other movement abilities.
His Chatty ability is very useful in limiting opponents’ options in interact-heavy Strategies and Schemes. It’s a huge asset in Headhunter, and is very useful defensively in Schemes like Exhaust their Forces, Mark for Death, and Catch and Release.
Offense
Mortimer has a few offensive abilities, but these are not his strongest suits. His shovel attack has the ability to generate Corpse counters on a trigger and with an Ml of 7 he is very skilled with it. However this should be used opportunistically, to finish off models etc. most of his more useful abilities are ranged and cannot be used in combat.
Fling Rot – This attack places Poison +3 on the target from a range of 12″ which can be very useful for crews like McMourning that operate around the Poison mechanic. Also remember that there are several Resurrectionist minions that have the ability to heal instead of taking damage from poison (e.g. Flesh Constructs) it can be more effective to target your own freshly summoned models that start damaged, to give them regeneration effectively.
Fresh Meat – While it does not help him much, the Fresh Meat ability has tremendous tactical uses as it allows all to move their Walk towards the target. Again this ability can target your own models as well and, when
planned carefully, can surprise many opponents with how fast the normally slow Resurrectionists can be. By using one very fast model (Necropunk for example) you can move most of your undead models to specific locations very fast.
Resilience
Mortimer is very resilient with high wounds and the regeneration ability, but unlike most Resurrectionist models he does not have the Hard to Wound ability, so be cautious as a strong offensive model may be able to cause damage quickly. Also if you are using the Corpse Bloat upgrade to generate corpse counters he will frequently be operating hurt.
Soulstones
Mortimer rarely has a need for Soulstones, which is good as Nicodem, his most common master tends to use them rapidly.
Useful Upgrades
Corpse Bloat – this is a general Resurectionist Upgrade, but works extremely well with Mortimer. Unforgiving stench is excellent for draining cards from your opponent, if you target the corpse counter of a recently killed model in a combat the 3′ burst requires a high Wp test or take a significant amount of damage, however the best use of this upgrade is the (0) action You don’t need a spleen.. right? which allows you to take 3 damage and generate a Corpse counter. Combined with Mortimer’s regeneration ability each turn you can generate a Corpse counter for Nicodem without having to even flip a
card. Be cautious however as this will frequently leave Mortimer operating hurt and easy pickings for clever opponents.
My Favorite Shovel – A must have upgrade. The extra Action point for casting actions allows you to use Find a bone and still have a general AP left for use. Combining this with Corpse Bloat, you will be able to generate 2 Corpse counters a turn for Nicodem to summon new undead minions.
Building a Crew
Mortimer is designed to work with undead and has some limited affinity to crews that use the Poison mechanic.