I can tell you as someone who works in Occupational Therapy and sees how parents approach their kids struggling with things... the Emperor stepping in like "Ah, fuck this, we're on the clock", punking the kill and expecting Mortarion to be grateful is 100% on brand

Brother! Bring the alcohol! The heavy alcohol!

What I love about the death guard is when they got cut off from the warp/grandfather's love they immediately screams fo mercy since every single wounds, parasite, disease, and viruses in their body start killing them

"The emperor does not miss often" excuse me, what? Hes the Shaq at the free throw line bad when it comes to his sons lol

I like to think The Death Guard perpetually hear and sing along to some joyous 40s tune while everyone else just hears the flies, screeching and "gurgling".

He not only hated Psykers he also hated Astropaths and Navigators. Mortarion was shown the webway project when he returned to Terra by Malcador. I assume he appreciated be transported almost instantly somewhere without filthy Psykers.

"Mortarion manages to make Perturabo jealous of his spite and is a hypocrite of immeasurable proportions." -Lion 'El Johnson

One of my favourite parts of the Dark Imperium series was finding out Morty keeps the soul of his father captive out of spite

I like the idea of death guard characters and nurgle worshippers in general being extremely obsessive compulsive. Constantly fretting over every plague that doesn’t succeed while meticulously tallying the ones that do. Sort of like a group of insane zombie accountants.

When I first got into 40k, these guys where the one faction that genuinely scared and disturbed me just as a concept. As humans we are naturally very scared of disease, infection, slow decay etc. I think the thought of facing these guys in battle is 10x scarier than say a Khorne berserker or even a night lord

About his Morty's meeting with Big E, I'm pretty sure the challenge was *only* for Mortarion to kill his necromancer father, which he failed in. The Emperor only stepped in once Mortarion was on the ground, his lungs and body permanently crippled by the poison, about to be killed by his foster father who noticed him dying outside on his doormat.

Not only it was a last minute kill steal, but what also pissed mortarion off was that at the end of the day his adoptive father's shackles were just replaced with the emperor's, he never really tasted freedom and that's not something to be undestated

The death guard are not for everyone, but they are easily accepted as one the most popular chaos legions. Everyone always looks at it as just being these gross hard to kill marines, but just think of the army from the perspective of their victems. The terror of these twisted hulks of rotting flesh mutations marching slowly forward, followed by thousands of hungry zombies, grotesque daemons of plauge, clouds of stinging flys, and seige machines all spreading viruses that will painfully melt you into bloody pus in seconds. And if your lucky enough to reach the escape craft, you notice one of the other passengers cough up some blood...and the rictus grin of the walking pox spreads across his mouth...

The Death Guard, where health care insurance is a machete...

Death Guard is my first army, still building them, but I picked them for the aesthetic and the silliness of Nurgle loving everyone. They just make me laugh, especially the nurglings

Mortarion had such a Grudge against the Emperor, and not even for taking him away from his men like Angron, but saving him in a way that could've been done better. As you said, it was one hell of a Grudge, and Mortarion also hated Magic, is he a Fantasy Dwarf then?

i know a few guys at the game store that resemble these lads, their only weakness is deodorant and dating apps

Okay so you aren't wrong about anything here but I'd like to defend/mention something important about Mortarian's character. A lot of people focus on the kill steal, and rightfully so, but another big part of his backstory is that Mortarian learned through the Emperor's actions that he was too slow. On his home planet he was patient in earning the human's trust, he went from town to town to teach and arm them, and he slowly built up their armor and poison masks so that the humans could join him and eventually improve how far he himself could go. In the primarch book, "The Pale King" Mortarion takes a long time before committing to bringing a planet into compliance. During that time we see him do a lot of research and planning. The plan he comes up with is actually pretty creative. Which shows that when he can move at his own pace he is much more capable and interesting as a character. But the plan wasn't perfect, it was creative but also way to direct. This is because his big character flaw is him constantly trying to overcome the fact that he is slow. Slow for a primarch is still bonkers fast, but slow in comparison none the less. All of his legions tactics are straightforward and kinda dumb because the most straightforward way is often the fastest. There are tons of other small examples of this but I've wrote a book about it. Just look into his lore a little and consider the "he's slow but aware of it" angle.

Pretty accurate take. For me, Death Guards are basically the other end of the spectrum of the Iron Hands. Slow Moving, grind the foes into dust kinda strategy. Where Iron Hands slowly creeps in, hates their own flesh and using all kinds of range weaponry to deal damage on the enemies from afar. Death Guard slowly creeps in and uses short range and hated the flesh of the "Non gifted". Basically, Juggernauts that both hates flesh. One hates it because it is flesh, one hates it because it's not fleshy and rotten enough. One has a knack for range, one has a knack for just get close by having close to a Stroll towards their destination.

DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE??!!!

The Lords of Silence was such a gem of a book, I've been meaning to relisten to it.

If I could make a book recommendation for seeing Nurgle in an interesting light, Plague Garden by Josh Reynolds is phenomenal. It’s an AoS novel that follows a redeemed Nurgle chasing a pirate daemon through the realms of the plague god. Great vid as always!

Always thought the death guard was one of the most deadly legions with just there passive abilities that I feel are nerfed especially in terms of how their described to be so destructive and killing

Always felt that Mortarion and his legion were one of the coolest heresy legions in aesthetic and concept, but have been given a raw deal in the lore. I do think Chris Wraight does a banger job with them and even Mortarion himself, but more needs to be done.

After listening to lords of silence, I do not think they are as happy as you claim. It's more like resigned to their fate. Just going through the motions. But their motions cause doom to poor citizens who never deserved to meet them.

regarding phosphex I am pretty sure it can burn in vacuum just fine, you can't put it out, you just have to wait and hope it burns out on it's own. Also I have heard it described as having a particularly horrifying quality where apparently the flames can somehow detect movement and will "chase" after it. So if you are near phosphex flames and you try to get away, it's going to follow you and kill you.

"I know the Emperor don't miss that often ..." lol sure bud

I honestly never cared for the Death Guard due to their aesthetic, but I do understand the appeal. That being said, the last lore tidbit was utterly hilarious.

Nurgle doesn’t seek death. Death ends the suffering and misery. Death is an aspect of change (hint) from life. Nurgle seeks continuous entropy, which is halted when the person dies.

not going to lie every time you say ah...Hi! I cant get the picture of Perturabo smiling out of my head! hahaha

I absolutely love the Death Guard minis. To me they are the perfect minis to learn how to paint on. You get large armor pieces. Huge skin pieces. Lots of boils, puss, wounds, etc. Tons of details.... they are amazing minis for being able to practice almost everything

My poor poor stinky boys. I'm glad theyre dealing with power creep but like.. damn..

The first Space Marine Legion I was introduced to is the Night Lords and Conrad Kurze.

"The Emperor dont miss that often" Are you high? The Emperor misses every time he takes a shot.

I am severely disappointed that we didnt get at least one Nic Cage "Not the Bees!" in this video

There actually was friction between the Terran born dusk raiders and the Barbarus death guard. The terrans saw them as savages and the barbarus people saw the terrans as weak and arrogant.

Literally the best way the emperor could have made mortarion a loyalist would be to give him either a suit of power armour, purify the air around necare's mountain using psychic magics or I dunno, give him a magic sword or something

Death Guard is an awesome chaos faction and outside of the 1K Sons I always loved their death and decay aesthetic and I even run a Death Guard themed deck in MTG. In contrast, I just cant seem to get into Mortarion. To Mortarion's credit, the Death Guard are the most coherent traitor legion that has been active. However at the end of the day, Imo, The Emperor was right. It may have been his life struggle, but in the grand scheme of things if you live solely for revenge then thats a pretty wasted life. The Emperor had plans, and Mortarion was destined for bigger things. Granted, the Emperor could have easily just told a HUGE white lie and said "if you follow me we will crush men like him a hundred times over and you can kill the problem at its true source" That would of course crumble away and Mortarion would probably hate the Emperor anyways for lying...but thats kinda the whole thing with Morty. Dude is just too bitter

Death Guards duty about being infantry focused is very cool. Also I have had idiot commanders over me and their ain’t nothing you can do about it. Perhaps this is why the Death Guard’s lore appeals to me.

I've found out about warhammer at the middle of the 8th edition and bought the death guard parts from 1 dark imperium, 2 know no fear and 3 first strike boxes, but because none of my friends got interested in 40k i sold it all since i had no one to play with, and words cannot describe how much i regret selling those miniatures.

The thing is I’ve become more interesting in the old dusk raiders more than the death guard. The flight of the Eisenstin book introduced a interesting idea of space marines legions that no-one really considers before the relationship/ culture clash between a primarch the original Terran born marines of the legion.

I’m coming in seven months late because I was flashbanged by the phrase “The Emperor don’t miss too often,” because looking back this at golden sociopath makes him look like the Imperium’s drunk uncle giving them some cool alternative lifestyle while hiding the fact that they just doomed themselves to heroin addiction… love your content btw :)

The Emperor planning to become a mummy and that's why he was an asshole to some of the Primarchs is cope and if GW makes it canon it would be incredibly stupid. Turns out the totalitarian space dictator plays favorites between his experiments, treating some as sons and some as just tools. Big deal. People play favorites in real life, it doesn't have to be more complicated than that.

I mean he did the exact same thing to angron. Dude claims to want to preserve humanity but shows time and time again he has none of his own.

ROCK AND STONE!! 8:28

‘The light will come again!’ Xydias thunders. And that, of all that has been claimed or boasted, is a genuine sorrow. It will never come again. There has not been light, genuine light, for ten thousand years. Vorx should know - he witnessed it, the original blaze of hope, being extinguished by the Doomed Warmaster at the behest of gods he now serves. So this pain must end. This delusion must end. Better to prosper in darkness than batter away at some false dawn like a shroud-moth on a lantern.

They DO win the prize for most legitimately friendly legion....

Lords Of Silence is an amazing book. The opening battle where loyalist marines vomit their innards out through their helmets’ rebreathers is just so gloriously horrible.

"This death.... This death is ours. We choose it. We dent your victory." ~Huron-fal

Big Daddy E offered to help and give him armor and stuff, but Morty said, "Nah bruh...I'm good homie..."

The siege of Terra has some good bits from the death guard point of view of somewhat minor characters, including mortarion’s equery and a weirdly appealing apothecary

Im in the process of finishing my Slaanesh army ( I have five more boxes in my pile of shame to finally finish). I was gifted with a squad of Blightlord Terminators.. I will definitely be making a Deathguard army very soon. They are very interesting bits of plastic crack. And im beginning to like the abilities they have. They tend to grow on you ,, like a malignant fungus..

Honestly love the Death guard, besides Mortarion. The original recruits were drawn from old Albia which was the last city to fall under compliance to the Emperor during the Unification War, actual ending up joining due to the respect that the Emperor had to them cause they were able to hold off his forces for so long that big E actually resorted to diplomance. The original death guard, called the Dusk Raider took a large degree of their culture into the legion, however this was destroyed by Mortarion, who stripped any identity of the Dusk Raiders. Fun Fact, Albia was also the origin recruit origin of the Iron Hands and Night Lords meaning 1/6 of all the known legions (not counting two or eleven) can trace their origins back to Albia which in itself is really fucking cool.

Moratarion being petty is why I love him so much

I really enjoyed the lords of silence book and i’m happy someone mentioned it

“Look at him! His preferred weapon is gardening equipment!”🤣🤣🤣🤣 that was good. It does appear that the Emporer and Malcodor knew that the Primarchs would eventually rebel but they just didn’t know how it would go down. It can be argued that they’re KNOWLEDGE that it would happen, influenced their behavior towards the Primarchs, ENSURING it would happen. Self-Fulfilling prophecy kinda stuff…

By far my favourite army. So happy you did them the justice they well and truly deserve.

Morty is a beautiful butterfly 🦋🦋🦋 I kind of want him for ornamental purpose.

I like playing DG in kill team and being very, very aggressive. It’s so funny to be a slow moving wall with a heavy cleaver and plague knives.

The Emperor does miss frequently, but specifically he misses when handling the primarchs.

I can't wait for next week. Been waiting for the thousand sons video ever since I found this brilliant series. In all seriousness I absolutely love your work . And wish the best of luck for every future endeavor.

Mortarion was a real asshole. He wanted to do it alone. This time I think the Emperor was at least, reasonable. Mortarion failed, failed miserably in his attempt to kill his foster father. He could kill his foster father on his own nor would he accept any help. He was too stubborn and petulant to be helped. The Emprah here just run out of patience and gave an early ultimatum.

Love your commentary and takes great background music and stellar editing as well

Getting into 40k right now, and I did pick the death guard. Made my own warband called the Spinal Corps. A group of loyalists deathguard marines who were caught and turned into a barely sentient mush and left to die. But were later repurposed and made useful again by a couple of opportunistic plague surgeons.

The sick bois have a cool ascetic, I'm more into Khorn ascetic though. I feel like as they come into battle, there would be a melancholy orchestra playing. The Khorn followers are blasting metal.

The blessed Smelly Marines

8:28 DID I JUST HEAR A ROCK AND STONE ?!

I love the aesthetic and playstyle, I'm also really fond of painting them - it's oddly satisfying making someone gag because of how well I've painted the nastiness, lol The one part of their lore I feel conflicted on is the original legion supposedly originated from Albion, another word for Britain but long before the Angles and Saxons came; so in my own wee head cannon I imagine the celts took back Britain at some point and everyone has either a Scottish, Welsh or Irish accent - my conflict is we're not THAT smelly 🤣

Mr. I despise witches has turned into a full blown witch himself!!! Dude even uses the warp to piss!

Really enjoying your approach to all this dude. Looking forward to more 😊

Emperor doesnt miss, the track record that reads like a stormtrooper drill sergeant says otherwise...

Most other lore videos on Morty say that the Emperor first gave food and medicine to morty's people and then offered to help him kill the last overlord together. I don't know how you can interpret that as the Emperor screwing up. But I never did read the books myself, so maybe I got a warped version of events.

Yo Papa Nurgle high-key the best master in 40k verse.

8:29 DID I JUST HEAR A 'ROCK AND STONE'?

Curses? These are blessings of papa nurg

Who's better at totality? Russ? Angron? Or Mortarion? Prolly morty, but funny how he switched later on technically.

I weep for Fulgrim, I weep for Angron, but I look at Mortarion and go, "Fucking loser"

Jeez without the amount of times "petulant and childish" was thrown around i wouldve thought this was an iron warriors vid

The problem with a lot of Chaos primarchs backstories is that they usually scapegoat the emperor to justify the primarchs fall. IMO, this is a bullshit plot device. I really like Magnus the red as a primarch because his fall is largely his own fault, and the story recognizes it as such. Compare this to mortarion, who got his life SAVED by the emperor and then preceded to hold a grudge and become the very thing he hated.

I'm almost done listening to the Horus Heresy in Ausible and now I'm on The Lost and the Damned where Mortarion reveals his new form to the Traitor Legions. Much gagging and asphyxiation ensues. I've recently bought DG boarding patrol. Can't wait to paint the up.

Konrad smiling is such a cursed visage that it would drive chaste and loyal men to degeneracy. Never show that again.

I love the death guard, my favourite traitor legion. They're so funny. I just find them funny when I dont think too deeply about them. I just like to ignore the disease fact and think they purely kill from being so stinky.

I bet you that even if E gave him armour, Morty would have been upset. FYI viewing the two of them as Rick and Morty is amazing.

like the death guard fighting tactic and name, but i like the dusk raiders color scheme better

Death Guard Marines probably the hardest to paint

I really want to share a comment I came across on r/grimdark that completely changed my perspective of Mortrian. It was in response to the question of did Mortrain have any other traits aside being big and smell. After all,Typhus seems to be Nurgle’s champion. Otherwise, as the question went, they didn’t see the point in him: “In many ways its kinda the point that hes a bit of a fuck up tbh, because when you run down his credentials hes one of the more impressive primarchs: hes a high level psyker, hes an expert in infantry tactics, he's stealthy enough to infiltrate the imperial palace far enough to find the proto webway project, he commands a fanatical undying sense of loyalty from his [barbarus born] legionaries, hes an engineering and biochemical expert, hes one of the physically strongest primarchs on top of being the primarch with the highest endurance, of the major traitor primarchs he was right behind perturabo for "having his shit together" during the siege of terra, post heresy he masters numerology as a means of fortune telling, he has doomsday weapons out the ass, his post heresy legion commands one of the largest traitor fleets and is the third most unified/organized, etc. etc. and all of that flys at odds with how so incredibly insecure he is about himself and his capabilities. that for all that he's capable of, he's never good enough. he wasn't good enough to climb that mountain and take necares head, he wasn't good enough to liberate barbarus himself, hes never hard enough, strong enough, good enough to achieve the heights he believes he needs to hit both to meet his own standards and to meet the darwanist mentality that was hammered into him from his youth on babarus. and that is why i would argue mortarion fits so well as nurgles champion. he's not just hardy, hes a miserable wet towel of anxiety, paranoia and inadequacy. the primarch most prone to depression but who also tries to brute force his way through that mental battle because admitting to that weakness means failing his own standards. and he knows it which ends up compounding the problem as he doubles down to overcompensate [hence why he tends to get to hyper fixated on individuals and perceived sleights]. which then compounds itself further with the tragedy that, he so dearly wanted to be a more heroic figure like sanguinius or horus [pre heresy], to be the same liberator he was on barbarus to the rest of the imperium. but his psychological hangups get in the way, his physical scarring gets in the way, and the simple fact that hes so locked into a mindset that worked on barbarus but is out of place near everywhere else dooms him to becoming a grim sanction of utter destruction by both circumstance and choice. now has Black librarys writing always done him justice, no, but that could be said about most if not all of the traitor primarchs.” - TrillionSpiders

Your intro is so iconic lol. Love it

I had only just read the Buried Dagger, it's a fun one which goes this in a fair bit of detail. I side with the Emperor on this one. Mortarion was fucking up, over and over again unable to do this. He had multiple ways to take down the Overlords, but only *his* way was going to work and it was stupid. The armor was untested and too expensive to mass produce, so only his best soldiers got them and wouldn’t you know it, they all died on the first assault. The Emperor saved him and his people. Mortarion was too stubborn to accept the help and went into his death just to spite him, letting his people he supposedly cared for suffer.

Nurgle's blessings upon you!

8:27 did i hear a rock and stone??

You don't fall, you embrace grandfathers gifts.

Calas Typhon is now confirmed to be Dr. Bees

What do you mean the emperror don't mess (miss?) that often? He fks up all the time, from the ban on chaos knowledge, which led to the whole mankind corruption, to being the shittiest dad in the universe.

Coolest demon engines out of all of chaos

I really love the Death Guard in 30k more than 40k, and I think Mortarion the Pale King is one of the big reasons why. Just seeing this horrible, brutal campaign, and getting to see the effects of fucking Phosphex is one of those 'jesus christ, how horrifying' moments, and it's greeeeeeeeat, and they're my Horus Heresy army of choice for the 'oops all warcrimes' moments, behind Iron Warriors. I can't believe you didn't mention too that Morty decided to build a 1-1 replica of the Imperial Palace on his new daemon world, but as a fuck you to The Emperor it's exactly 7 centimeters larger in all dimensions. I love this petty bitch. Also Huron-Fal my beloved, too good for this setting.

8:28 ROCK AND STONE

8:26 rock and stone !

I remember reading if you cut off the warp connection to the plague marines you will force to feel all the pain Of Grandpa Nurgle's "gifts".

I Must say, Pre heresy Death Guard have one of the coolest colorschemes by far. They and pre heresy world eaters are my favorite colorschemes.

All hail pappy nurgies. He may have cursed me with the disease of addiction, but he supplied me with the cure ~ which also happens to be a poison. ( alcohol, nicotine, shrooms and most mind altering substances are essentially poison) But what gets me, is why the Nids don’t have a hardon for pappy. Cockroaches, and many bugs/insects love the hell out of alcohol. And just like every awesome grandmother bakes cookies, every grandfather lets you have a sip from their caldron.