Nation Guide for Marverni

[P3D]

If a nation needs a guide how to survive an early rush, it's Maverni. Vulnerable to bless rushes (Kailasa exempt), tramplers and poison archers and awake SC pretender won't deter most of them.

[Executor]

The question is will taking luck leave you enough points to take a useful pretender?

[TwoBits]

Originally Posted by Executor

The question is will taking luck leave you enough points to take a useful pretender?

I think the question is, do you need a useful pretender? Or does Marverni (with ultra-scales) have enough in the tank to succeed without one?

[Executor]

Originally Posted by TwoBits

I think the question is, do you need a useful pretender? Or does Marverni (with ultra-scales) have enough in the tank to succeed without one?

Ultra scales can't save you much.
The pretender isn't there to help you defend from those rush nations, he's there to help you expand as quick as possible to get those extra forts with druids up.
Sure they can go without an awake pretender, but your expansion will be much slower, the main army can barely take an average indie province and making another expansion party will take 2-3 turns, and it will still be fragile since Marverni troops aren't top class.

Expanding faster will give you more gold which can be proportional to the extra cash but slower expansion with ultra scales. Does this make sense?


As for luck, I feel it's better to just stick a little blood on the pretender.
The heroes don't cover any other paths that your mages don't have already and if you just want them for the blood it's better to get some on the pretender.

With luck 3 it's a 6% chance you'll get a hero every turn, which means you'll probably wait a long time to get the blood hero.
Empowering in blood is very easy and cheap so I don't think it's a good trade off. Going with misf. 1 or 2 will give you 200 design points more and that something!

[Sombre]

I haven't really seen tangle vines do much against the multiple bless/trampler raiding parties you run into in EA. Catching them with mages without crippling your research etc can be seriously high risk. Not seeing how berserk or wind guide really helps either when you're dealing with multiple groups of pd stompers.

[vfb]

I agree with Executor about an awake pretender. Not only do you end up with more gold income, he can take high resource provinces bordering your capitol, allowing you to build more troops or better troops. Same with the luck scales, Marverni PD is actually pretty decent against barbarians, so you don't need to worry too much about bad events.

But I don't think you should put blood on your SC god. The only Marverni SC god it's cheap to add blood to is the Ghost King, and no way can you afford an awake Dom-9 GK even. I really think indy commanders (as cheap as possible) can pull in enough blood for Marverni to dabble a bit and do some sacrificing.

If you want 120 points for scales and an awake SC god who can attack on turn 2, I think you're stuck with (CBM):

A4F4 Dom-6 Phoenix
pathless Dom-9 Wyrm or Manticore (I usually take Dom-10 on a Wyrm & never tried the Manticore)
E5 Dom-5 Cyclops (I've never tried a Cyclops without Awe, but protection is good)
pathless Dom-10 Bull (Haven't tried this either, but looks like it might work)
maybe a Father of Winters (If you can freeze everyone before you take too much damage)

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by vfb

pathless Dom-10 Bull (Haven't tried this either, but looks like it might work)

I remembering trying to get the White Bull to work once as a turn two solo expanding SC, as it has a lot more going for it in CBM than vanilla.

My conclusion -

[vfb]

Oh geez, now you made me go and try it!

It's not so bad, I cleared out 3 provinces
30 mixed heavy/light infantry
30 barbarians
40 mixed atlantians/shamblers

And he didn't die, or get afflicted. Woo hoo! Just wait until he gets a pendant of luck and a girdle.

I didn't even realize he came with N2, actually with Dom10 you can get N3 and have 1 point left or something, and 120 for scales.

[Calahan]

It was a few months ago that I tested the White Bull, and all I can really remember was that when the Bull was trampling it was all good and he killed things. When he wasn't trampling he just got his head smashed in. And buffing was out as he couldn't bring his fatigue back down without items (which made him useless as an early expander).

Thinking now though, maybe I was testing it without awe, as I'm sure at the time I was just looking for the cheapest N4 SC expander I could find. Might have been for my tests as EA Ermor actually (when I think about what nations I've tested since coming back)

Still hard to imagine the White Bull having much use long-term though. Great HP mind you, especially in a dom 10 province. So maybe in CBM with Marverni, give him AMA and +5 reinvig amulet. Self buff with regen + ele fortitude + (barkskin), and have Druid buff with luck + body etherealness + iron will + (Iron Warriors), and he'll probably take a fair bit of stopping.


Never looked at Marverni to give an opinion on what Pretender I'd take, but in the 'Legends of Faerun' game, the player 'Isokron' actually took an interesting Pretender for them. Can't remember the exact paths/scales (but scales were generally good), but it was a Mother of Serpents (CBM) where the freespawning serpents helped with the early expansion problems, along with the Pretender itself, and the Mother of Serpents could also be used to effectively heal the Marverni troops used in expansion. And then in mid-game, the Ambibate Noble Warriors that had been recruited almost exclusively were all affliction free, all had 2-3 stars of experience, and all possessed a fair amount of killing power because their attack/defence stats were boosted 2-3 points. Which makes a serious difference for that unit as the defence then starts getting close to 20, which is sacred territory.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Calahan

It was a few months ago that I tested the White Bull, and all I can really remember was that when the Bull was trampling it was all good and he killed things. When he wasn't trampling he just got his head smashed in. And buffing was out as he couldn't bring his fatigue back down without items (which made him useless as an early expander).

Thinking now though, maybe I was testing it without awe, as I'm sure at the time I was just looking for the cheapest N4 SC expander I could find. Might have been for my tests as EA Ermor actually (when I think about what nations I've tested since coming back)

I did a White Bull build for my EA Arco guide, and found the critical factor was having a little earth magic. Just an extra +4 protection makes a very large difference against spear wielding humans. As long as you stick to the (very common in EA) lower damage indies I found no problem at all expanding very reliably.

Originally Posted by Baalz

Now, the bull doesn’t need awe, but he does really need some earth magic. Taking the great white bull I can afford 4E 4N, a dominion of 5 and Order-3, Sloth-3, cold-1, death-1, luck-3, and magic-1. The earth component is critical for a couple of reasons. Right off the bat it gives him +4 protection, bringing his berserk protection up to 16. Against spear wielding humans the difference between a 12 protection and 16 is *huge* it’s going to reduce the amount of damage you take by an order of magnitude. A 12 protection is kind of iffy for initial expansion, 16 you’ve got no problem against most of the stuff you’ll see in inides. Stay away from barbarians, lizards, wolf tribe & heavy cavalry and you’ve really got nothing to worry about with all those hitpoints.

Originally Posted by Calahan

Still hard to imagine the White Bull having much use long-term though.

This also came up in the Arco thread, and I think people discount him too much. Obviously he's not one of the titans who nicely equipped can jump in and singlehandedly kill an army, but properly deployed he's an extremely useful asset *far* from "not having much use". Equip with a ring of regen & amulet of MR, self buff earth power, invulnerability, resist elements & personal regen attack rearmost. Have support mages cast quickness, haste, body ethereal, luck, & iron will. Assuming you're in dominion your berserk protection is 30, MR is 28, you're regenerating close to 100 hitpoints per turn on top of being lucky & ethereal and front load way more damage against most troops than a typical SC swatting one tile per round with a frostbrand. Even if you run into a large enough force that you pass out before routing them, most troops can't damage you fast enough to kill you even when you're passed out. Even critical hits are going against a 15 protection + ethereal + luck and you're regenning at about a hundred. Even most SC counters are going to struggle with that. Meanwhile your mages switched to evocations after buffing him so life is most decidedly unpleasant for the bad guys piling up around him.

Double plus bonus - it's not really that big a deal if you die if you have a bunch of mage priests (like Marverni). Outsource iron warriors and regeneration to your support mages and call your god back immediately every time he dies to do a pretty good impression of an immortal badass which your opponent *really* wishes you didn't have.