[iainuki]

My primary sources for this guide were Baalz's guide to Marverni and a guide on StrategyWiki. I will note going in that Marverni is not the best LA nation, not by a long shot, but I would argue it's not the worst, either.

The Big Picture

Marverni is a nation without a lot of unique distinguishing characteristics. As a consequence, it tends to be underpowered, because as usual, it's possible to leverage advantages and minimize disadvantages, and Marverni doesn't have as much latitude to work with as other EA nations. That said, though, Marverni has some attributes worth discussing.

Advantages

• Cheap buildings: All Marverni forts cost 800 and take 3 turns to complete and their temples only cost 200.
  
• Capital independence: With the sole exception of their sacred boar warriors and lords, Marverni can recruit any of their units anywhere, so each fort/lab/temple combination adds to their recruitment ability proportionally.
  
• Druids: Druids are powerful and versatile commanders with strong astral and earth magic, good leadership, and priest abilities.

Disadvantages

• No heat or cold tolerance put pretender points at a premium.
  
• Druids are expensive at 380 gold per, so Marverni needs lots of money.

This list is short, which is part of Marverni's problem: you have some extreme nations to counter and only a handful of tools to do it with. Note that because Marverni's starting troops aren't that spectacular, but that druids are, Marverni is not the greatest rusher, but gets stronger in the mid- and late games where it can deploy its powerful magic to its best advantage.

Commanders

Staples

• Druids (380g/3r): One of the major reasons to play Marverni, druids are amazing multipurpose sacred casters that Marverni can recruit anywhere. Baalz covers their virtues in detail and I can't add much to what he said, but the general gist is that the earth/astral/nature combination offers some brutal attack spells and excellent buffs, while also providing good utility spells and forging. Druids also have 40 leadership, so by the midgame they can take over army leadership from ordinary commanders. The druid's only downside is that they are so expensive.
  
  As usual, some druid flavors are better than others. All S3 druids can teleport without boosters, but suffer in combat effectiveness unless you're deploying certain specific astral spells. The best evokers have E3S2N1, for access to blade wind and gifts from heaven without summon earthpower coupled with the ability to self-buff eagle eyes; E2S3N1 can fill this role, too, as well as casting astral battle magic when necessary. I usually regard E4S2, E2S4, W2E2S2, and especially rare combinations like E5S2 or E2S5 too valuable to use in combat: they can forge certain items, such as the astral rings, and cast certain ritual spells, like voice of Apsu, that are otherwise harder to obtain; however, sometimes you need to deploy W2 druids to cast counters, e.g. rain against Abysia, and in the late game, chances are you will have enough E4S2 and S2E4 druids so you can afford to commit them to make buffing your army easier. I normally use W1E3S2 druids to cast E3 buffs like legions of steel and strength of giants. Finally, W1E2S3 druids, since they are not so good at other tasks, make decent battle astral casters, when you need astral battle magic, but many of mine end up as researchers or forgers; and I tend to make W1E2S2N1 researchers or forgers since for combat purposes, there's some other druid that does what they do better.
  
• Gutuaters (120g/1r): The other workhorse commander for Marverni, gutuaters are sacred priests with 2 movement and forest survival who get N1 and one of S1, N1, W1, or E1. They are the most efficient researchers Marverni has gold-wise, so they tend to handle the bulk of the researching, especially in the early game. Their mobility and ability to build every building means they also do a fair share of construction; those with the right magic paths make good support casters; and they can cast a variety of useful ritual spells and craft certain items. About the only thing gutuaters don't do at all well is leading troops. For the most part, N1S1/N2 Gutuaters make better combat casters, so you will want to use the other types for research, ritual spells, and crafting, though you will want to assign a few 2N Gutuaters to crafting and ritual spells as well.

Specialists

• Sequani Stargazers (80g/1r): While their initial cost is cheaper than gutuaters, their lack of magic diversity, priest status, and movement makes them much less useful on the whole; and since gutuaters have lower upkeep because they are sacred and give 4 base research compared to the Sequani's 3, Sequani are not the best research-farmers, either. However, their guaranteed astral access makes them useful for crafting, casting ritual magic, and communion slaving, especially since you will want to use most of your 1S1N gutuaters in other roles.
  
• Boar Lords (100g/15r): These sacred, capital-only commanders make a decent thug chassis; they are much better and quite competent in that role in CBM. Their big advantage is berserk and the consequent immunity to routing; because of the multiple-attacker defense penalty, the defense hit hurts but is survivable with appropriate gear. They make even better anti-thugs than they do thugs, though, especially since berserk makes them immune to fear and awe effects.
  
• Carnute Chieftains (40g/15r): These have better combat stats than independent commanders and a small standard, but their major advantage is forest survival, allowing them to lead groups of Carnute warriors and other forest survival units through forest provinces at full speed. If your map is forested, they make good army leaders.
  
• Eponi Chieftains (60g/18r): While they lack berserk, Eponi chieftains are a lot more survivable than Carnute chieftains because of higher defense and mobility and they also have the standard effect. However, their most important ability is base leadership 80; since it's coupled with 3 strategic movement, they can be worth recruiting in some circumstances over independent commanders.

Useless or near

• Marverni Scouts (20g/1r): Dominated by independent scouts. Find an independent scout province and recruit those instead.
  
• Vergobrets (50g/1r): Like independent priests, but old. Build a temple and recruit independent priests instead.
  
• Marverni Chieftains (30g/17r): Dominated by Ambibate chieftains, who are better in every way except for being slightly more pricey.
  
• Ambibate Chieftains (35g/17r): Like Carnute chieftains, but with more defense and no ability to go berserk. However, since human commanders should not be much at the front lines anyway, neither of these matter much so Carnutes or Eponis tend to be better, depending on the circumstances.

Units

Staples

• Marverni Bare Chested Warriors (9g/9r): While they don't have much protection and so tend to die like flies, they have a broad sword and a javelin so their offense is quite good. Because they are cheap, they are best used in mass numbers against hard-hitting monsters, including most dual-bless rushes, where it doesn't matter what your protection is; against glamored infantry where missile support is beneficial and it's helpful to overwhelm them with sheer numbers; and against enemies with spells or attacks that bypass armor, defense, or such. They don't fare so well against other heavy infantry cheap enough to be fielded in large numbers, e.g. Ermor's legions, massed missile infantry, and sometimes they don't have the firepower to cut through high-protection units.
  
• Carnute Noble Warrior (17g/15r): In most games, you will want the bulk of your army to be Carnute nobles. They have better combat stats than the other nobles except for lower defense and they can go berserk, which in addition to making them hit harder and take less damage, also makes them immune to tactics like fear spells. They can stand toe-to-toe with almost any humanoid heavy infantry in the EA and give as good as they get, and for the most part archers just piss them off because of their shield and armor; their axe, higher strength, and berserk makes them better at dealing with high-protection units than the Marverni bare chests. They are not so good at handling offense-heavy units, like tramplers and dual-bless combinations, since those attacks cut through their armor and they cost almost twice as much as the bare chests. One final note is that Carnute nobles combine well with Marverni province defense, most of which is offense-heavy lightly-armored troops: a squad or two of Carnutes can noticeably lengthen the lifespan of the province defense and make it much harder to break through it.
  
• Eponi Knights (30g/18r): Marverni's only mounted unit is cheaper than most cavalry. While they lack a lance, they have a javelin and so like Marverni bare chests can inflict some damage before closing to melee. They usually serve best as flankers and in other roles requiring mobility, but they are also a decent counter to some tramplers and low-attack troops.

Specialists

• Marverni Horn Blowers (20g/5r): These are well worth mixing into early battles: standard (12) is much more effective than the standard (5) most of the commanders come with, because of its improved radius. Later on, heroes and magic items will tend to replace them, but its often useful to leave one in each province with province defense since they can make those troops much less likely to rout. I normally put a commander forward enough to be in range of where the main battle line is likely to be, then give the horn blower orders to guard the commander, to keep them in range of the troops without getting them killed.
  
• Ambibate Noble Warriors (14g/17r): While not as good in general as Carnute nobles, they have higher defense and don't go berserk, so they are useful in the same heavy-infantry roles in situations where berserk or low defense is a liability, the most common of which is guarding commanders so that when struck by a stray arrow they don't go charging into the main battle.
  
• Boar Warriors (30g/15r): Marverni's sacred troops, they are capitol-only. Stats-wise, they are improved Carnute nobles, and for the most part, they are best used that way: while they benefit from some blesses, they are not so powerful that it is worth going all-out to boost them nor are there any real bless synergies that can turn them into unstoppable death machines. If you have a decent minor bless, that plus the better stats and morale boost can make them worth the increased cost, but sometimes it's better to sink the cash into casters. I tend to mix them in with Carnute nobles unless I want to create an all-boar-warrior specialized unit for a particular purpose.

Useless or near

• Marverni Slingers(9g/3r): Not much better than most independent missile infantry, the best that can be said for them is they have a shield. However, in most cases you're better off using independent archers or just forgoing missile weapons in favor of spells; their only role is helping kill lightly-armored independents early on.
  
• Marverni Javelineers (9g/5r): These are identical to Marverni Bare Chested Warriors, except they cost fewer resources and they're strictly inferior; since having too few resources for a given amount of cash is not a problem Marverni should ever have, never build these.
  
• Marverni Noble Warriors (11g/17r): Cheaper in gold than an Ambibate noble, a Marverni noble is inferior in every way. In general, Ambibates are worth 3 extra gold.
  
• Ambibate Bare Chested Warriors (11g/8r): While they have slightly better melee stats than the Marverni bare chests, they cost more gold and lack a javelin, which in almost all circumstances means they're not as good.
  
• Carnute Bare Chested Warriors (13g/6r): Almost as costly as the noble version, the Carnute bare chest isn't nearly as good. While they still have better melee stats than the other bare chests, their berserk is a lot less useful because without the armor, they don't get many chances to go berserk: it's common for the first hit to kill them. In general, the nobles merit every bit of the increased cost.

Independents

• Elephants (100g/20r): The main reason why Marverni likes elephants is that it doesn't have any of its own large tramplers and that the nature magic spells berserkers and touch of madness let elephants go berserk, covering a lot of their liabilities, and it can also buff their MR, elephants' other major weakness.
  
• Woodsmen (10g/4r) or Crystal Amazons (12g/4r): The two best independent archers common in the EA, because of their 11 and 12 precision, respectively, 2 strategic movement, and other qualities. While they are only armed with shortbows, many EA troops have light armor so the shortbow does enough damage for some uses. The tribal archers, while not as good in combat, are the only other independent archers I'd consider using in any substantial numbers. While archers are not essential by any measure, they make useful counters to certain troops, and if you have access to flame arrows or wind guide, the combination of javelins and arrows can be lethal.