Nation Guide for Marverni

[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.

[Micah]

Points for novelty (and perhaps even effectiveness in general with the freespawn) but I can't begin to imagine how burning both your troop's and pretender's time to heal up 12 HP units is a good use of a turn.

[Isokron]

Calahan: I actually took the the mother of serpents sleeping which was what enabled good scales. Ambibate Noble Warriors have no trouble expanding against indies on their own in my experience (which is that one game and a few tests admitedly). Although you probably cant take much slooth, I think i had neutral resources in that game.

[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.

[Jarkko]

Somewhat unrelated (well, actually quite unrelated, but here we go) I've tried different ways to use White or Black Bull for Pangaea. Never occured to me to take Earth for a White Bull, have to try that, I've somehow missed that one from your guides Baalz

Anyway, with Black Bull you can with (EA) Pan get some nice results in SP very early on. Notice, never tried the following in MP, altough I did consider it for the on-going MP Magellan, but scratched in the end.

Black Bull with Blood 4 casts Sabbath Slave, Attack Rear. There needs to be a few other slaves around (I had the pleasure to have some indy astral ones), else the fatigue can become a problem. Need two Pans as Slave Masters casting the usual self-buffs (Summon Earth Power, one of the skins, Personal Regeneration etc) and finally Reinvigoration and retreat off the field (or use a bow, if happens to have one). If astral mages are available, then one astral mage can cast the astral buffs (not to mention those astral-air amazons who can buff the air stuff too, and I still cant stop drooling at how a astral Crystal Priestess would have been able to buff Holy Avenger on the Bull... drool... sadly never got it to work), as long as he has the Retreat order before the Reinvigoriation is cast.

Anyway, with the help of three Pans the Black Bull becomes quite a killer machine without the needing to cast the buffs himself. Indies actually did seem to rout before the Pans had retreated off the field.

[Baalz]

Heheh, you know what occurred to me after reading this, that big invincible ball of regeneration would really like....blood vengeance.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Heheh, you know what occurred to me after reading this, that big invincible ball of regeneration would really like....blood vengeance.

Yes, would definetively be a good late-game spell (never got around to get to Blood 9 on my tests though, as my testing didn't last that long and Blood is not IMO one of the primary paths for Pans). Of course there is the MR roll, but occasionally they do fail even with high MR the SC's have

[iainuki]

Originally Posted by Baalz

Heheh, you know what occurred to me after reading this, that big invincible ball of regeneration would really like....blood vengeance.

Funny that, for Marverni at least it's nice to have blood on your pretender for other reasons . I may have to try this at some point.

[iainuki]

I have updated my guide with some points in this thread and reformatted it for the wiki, at http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Time_...ki's_guide. I think that the wiki is really much less painful than the forum for doing this, so I'm just going to skip the forum intermediate on my next guide.

[KissBlade]

I think this is an incredibly well written guide. Great format albeit there are some disagreements with strategies already addressed previously in this thread.