Morvahna - issues?

[Nargacuga]

Being a Legion player, I come at this as bit of an outsider.

That said, I've always liked Morvahna in concept and as I've put enough time into brainstorming and submitting feedback on Legion stuff, I thought I would try lending a hand with other models before the FT wraps up.

From what I see, she is almost useless vs Cryx, and may have some trouble with Skorne.

I think that the old "fruit tokens" ability that became auto in Eruption of life should be innate for her.



Bounty of the Forest:
Friendly Faction Models ending their activations in a forest heal 1 damage point.


I like this thematically for her as she should be the "forest caster" of Circle.

Then change Eruption of life to:



Eruption of Life COST:4 - RNG:10 - AOE:4 -POW:13 - UP:yes - OFF:yes
The AOE is a forest that remains in play as long as the upkeep is payed. Enemy models ending their activations in the AOE suffer an unboostable POW 7 damage roll.


This change would allow her to drop the Forest without relying on a kill to get it. It would work as a normal AOE as you could get a deviation on it and boost the damage on the blast. It is essentially a damage dealing version of rapid growth.

Finally change her Feat to:



Seeds of Destruction
For one Round, whenever a friendly living model is destroyed in Morvahna's control area, center a 3" AOE on the destroyed model and then remove it from play. Enemy models in the AOE when it is put into play are automatically hit and suffer an unboostable POW 13 blast damage roll. Enemy models ending their activations in the AOE suffer an POW 7 damage roll. These AOEs remain in play and are removed during the controller's next maintenance phase. Morvahna may spend a fury during her maintenance phase to keep a forest in play for an additional round. Morvahna may spend no more than 3 fury in this way.


I'm sure this could be cleaned up a bit in the wording but you get the idea..

This transforms the feat into a defensive one where Morvahna's forces will be able to stop charges, limit shooting, and she can keep the forests around for a while if she chooses. It also works well against undead, and is much more reliable than her current feat while being more useful than her MK1 feat.


I would appreciate any thoughts and ideas on these changes.

[bushman101]

Those are some interesting ideas, but not sure if it would do it for me.

My problem is with all the upkeeps.

I do like Bounty of the Forest, though

[magi]

Yeah, the upkeeps are a pain.

But maybe you're on to something.

What if they gave her your version of Eruption of Life, but made it a 3 Fury spell (maybe change it down to AOE 3" to compensate). Then, drop Revivify (again) and give her back Revive. Finally, make Harvest an innate ability and remove the Fury cap (possibly make it so she gains harvest tokens from enemy models which become Fury during the maintenance phase?)

How does that catch your eye?

[bushman101]

Eruption of Life can stay 4 if they bring back Wurmwood.

[AmonadRodrigues]

From what I see, she is almost useless vs Cryx, and may have some trouble with Skorne. She also has big problems against Trollbloods, Privateers, against all casters that have good possibilities to shutdown upkeeps (majority of PoM-casters for example) and against all armies mainly using Warjacks. That makes, depending on your local meta, between 30% and 70% of the games you don't even have to start with.


Bounty of the Forest:
Friendly Faction Models ending their activations in a forest heal 1 damage point. Maybe: Friendly living Faction Models ending their activations in a Forest and in Morvs ctr heal 1 damage point?

Yes that would be a big step.


Eruption of Life COST:4 - RNG:10 - AOE:4 -POW:13 - UP:yes - OFF:yes
The AOE is a forest that remains in play as long as the upkeep is payed. Enemy models ending their activations in the AOE suffer an unboostable POW 7 damage roll.I'd like that, too. It would solve the "killing a living modell" Problem.


Seeds of Destruction
For one Round, whenever a friendly living model is destroyed in Morvahna's control area, center a 3" AOE on the destroyed model and then remove it from play. Enemy models in the AOE when it is put into play are automatically hit and suffer an unboostable POW 13 blast damage roll. Enemy models ending their activations in the AOE suffer an POW 7 damage roll. These AOEs remain in play and are removed during the controller's next maintenance phase. Morvahna may spend a fury during her maintenance phase to keep a forest in play for an additional round. Morvahna may spend no more than 3 fury in this way.That is a poor feat imho. I see to many possibilities to avoid the effects. High Arm melees are unimpressed, Ranged units disturbed at best. It's a nice idea and of course the implications are so complex, that my final judgement should rely on playtests, but my first impression is, that it won't work as it should.

And all your solutions concentrate on solving the "have to kill living models"-problems. The "shutdown my upkeeps and i'm done"- problem isn't touched.

Anyway: Thanks for wracking your brain with our problems. Maybe deep in your blighted soul still beats the pure heart of the wild nature. ;)

[Amarel]

From what I see, she is almost useless vs Cryx, and may have some trouble with Skorne.
Also, with very no cheap direct damage spells she is somewhat gimped against any army with Tough (TB's, Privateers) as she can only cast EoL once a turn (ignoring Harvest for now) and it can easily fizzle against them. Oh and Legion mostly ignore the Forest effect that she pays for, too.

She really needs a good re-think, but internally they've stated that they're happy with her, so....

[Faradon]

She really needs a good re-think, but internally they've stated that they're happy with her, so....

No accounting for taste apparently.

I find it funny that while the devs think she is where they want her to be she is constantly listed as one of the top 3 things that needs to be fixed most by all the people who play the faction.

Of course I wouldn't really get your hopes up for change either way though. The trencher chain gun was complained about over and over... and we see how much that model improved / changed.

[Macguffin]

No accounting for taste apparently.

I find it funny that while the devs think she is where they want her to be she is constantly listed as one of the top 3 things that needs to be fixed most by all the people who play the faction.

Of course I wouldn't really get your hopes up for change either way though. The trencher chain gun was complained about over and over... and we see how much that model improved / changed.

Except, Morvahna is a caster... Circle deserves, and should be demanding, something better than her current incarnation. I am very confident she will undergo positive change before going to print. Privateer did say that she needed some changes, but they were happy with her design.

[krom71]

As long as she has something that's not an upkeep, I'd be happy. If Harvest were an ability, I think it would go a long way. Even with her lack of Synergy with herself, I would play her sometimes.

[Edicius]

Honestly, I just want Harvest to work with the initial target on Eruption of Life and her feat. Wurmwood would make me happier. An ability to upkeep one spell for free would make me giddy.

I won't lie, I've been having a ton of fun running one-beast armies with her. It's just not something I'd take to a real tournament.

[havukwrecka]

"I like this thematically for her as she should be the "forest caster" of Circle. "

I've always though of Baldur as the forest caster.

She is gimp in her current state and PP knows it, they will either do something with her or leave her as a novelty. Only time will tell.

[Amarel]

I've always though of Baldur as the forest caster.
For me, it's more like this (not saying this PP's thinking, just how I see it):

Baldur is the rock / earth 'Caster, of which Forests & Wolds are a part of.
Krueger is sky / lightning.
Mohsar is sun / heat.
Kaya is the Beasts.
Morvhana is rebirth and cycle of life.
Kromac is the fury of nature.

We're missing 'water', although Krueger touches that field. So Lortus making an appearing in the Meta story is hopefully the lead into that base being covered.

As an aside, it bothers me inordinately (and semi-irrationally) that the Pureblood is a bit rubbish when taken on it's own - I'd really like to just take one of them with Morv and no other beasts and mid-point levels.

[Blaque]

"Water" isn't really a theme of Cricle. The branches of CIrcle magics are Stone, Storm and Beast. Most warlocks have a bit of one or two or all three. Mohsar for instnace has Stone (PIlalr of Salt), Storm (Nature's Wrath namely in SUnhammer, as well as Unbinding in his feat) and Beast (Maltreatment). Omnipotents need all three. A water warlock would likely be about typhoons and thing like that, Lortis hints at this.

Anyhow, on topic, I think the two main things for me is another spell for her (preferrably Wurmwood or hell, even Sunder Spirit or Torment or something), Great Power to help her keep spells going better or hell, if the Woldwyrd gets the nerf in the process, Prasite would be very nice.

I actually suggested something like the OP's version of Eruption of Life in the FT document, wherein the spell was like Eruption, Caustic Mist and such, being an AOE that does flat damage to things underneath it and leaves a forest. If it had an effecdt whether or not the target is killed, it would be a much more sane to cast spell and I would even pay 4 fury if it got the damage of spells like Eruption, honestly.

I actually am going to say I do love Regrwoth a lot more then Revive. Yeah, you only get small-based models back, but I'm finding immortal Bloodweavers pretty damned nice and Steralth on teh girls makes it so Eiryss has to move up pretty far forward towards the jaws of other stuff if she wants to get it off of Morvahna. Still don't take her against say, the Protectorate, but I never did in the first place and its like that for some warlocks, like Krueger versus Khador jack-heavy.

And stuff.

[Amarel]

"Water" isn't really a theme of Cricle. The branches of CIrcle magics are Stone, Storm and Beast. Most warlocks have a bit of one or two or all three. Mohsar for instnace has Stone (PIlalr of Salt), Storm (Nature's Wrath namely in SUnhammer, as well as Unbinding in his feat) and Beast (Maltreatment). Omnipotents need all three. A water warlock would likely be about typhoons and thing like that, Lortis hints at this.
True, I was kind of thinking traditionally in the Earth / Wind / Fire / Air elements style of things.

For what it's worth, the crux of my feedback for her was:

Make either EoL or her Feat work against Living.
Make EoL's secondary effect trigger on 'hit' rather than 'boxed'.
Make Harvest an innate ability (doesn't matter that a lot of her stuff doesn't synergise with it then).
Give her Revive back, in addition to Regrowth.
Give her Wurmwood back (or equivalent).

Tear apart as necessary, I guess :).

[Faradon]

Morvhana is rebirth and cycle of life.

Hmm... that kind of stuck with me. It would be really nice for her epic form if she comes in a box set that is able to add something similar to mannikins or children of the forest (dryands) with tokens collected from the death of any living or even undead model (kind of like a reverse Alexia.) They would never do this with her current incarnation due to the need for additional models that were not sold with her original mini.

For her current incarnation, and being the autumn blade she should really be more like the reaper / end of the life cycle. Personally I think it would be cool if they added a spell like this:

Hibernate: Cost 2 RNG 8 POW 11 Target warjack damaged by Hibernate suffers Stall, target warbeast suffers Sleepy (same as stall for warbeasts.)

[Rosicrucian]

In thinking about what to do with Morvahna I had an idea when contemplating what makes Morvahna different and weaker. One of the big differences between Morvahna and other upkeep centric casters like Magnus and Absylonia are that all her upkeeps are basically defensive. They either only effect play during your opponent's turn or require a full round before they turn "on" and can start doing their thing. This makes Morvahna very vulnerable to anti-upkeep because an opponent can essentially prevent Morvahna from benefitting at all from her spells outside of the offensive half of Eruption of Life. I played some games against Doomshaper1 and the combination of tough and purification meant I felt like my spell list was effectively blank. I think the simplest and smallest changes to help compensate for this issue is to make her spells do more on the turn you cast them. I have two simple suggestions for this.

1. Change the bonus for Restoration from +2 ARM to +2 STR. Rename it to something like "Vitality". This means that the spell becomes immediately attractive to cast even if you only get one turn out of it. I think it still fits flavor perfectly with the healing effect representing overflowing magical health and energy. The other thing this does is give Morvahna another fairly unique and attractive hook for Circle players and restores one aspect of her game that she lost when Wurmwood and its damage bonus went away.

2. Let you spend extra fury immediately after casting Regrowth to regrow troops, in addition to after upkeeping it. I feel this is a reasonable change because using this option means that Regrowth is going to be hugely expensive. However, it means that if your back is against the wall you can use it as a kind of poor man's revive, immediately getting back two troopers for 6 fury. This isn't great when facing anti-upkeep but it's something. The side effect of this change it is also slight push to Morvahna's power level when things are going well. As long as your opponent has enough troops to give you a big harvest you could potentially regrow a bunch of troops, have your army kill to fill back up, cast regrowth on a different unit and regrow troops, and then even potentially kill a bit more to get transfer fury. Situationally quite powerful but if you're killing that many troops you're probably winning anyway and you're playing very aggressive with Morvahna besides. Therefore I don't think it's overpowered.

I think these two subtle changes would really help Morvahna out. I'd also like to see EoL's restriction relaxed or a 2 fury alternative provided but many other posters have addressed this issue in detail. Any thoughts?

[AmonadRodrigues]

1. Change the bonus for Restoration from +2 ARM to +2 STR. Rename it to something like "Vitality". This means that the spell becomes immediately attractive to cast even if you only get one turn out of it. I think it still fits flavor perfectly with the healing effect representing overflowing magical health and energy. The other thing this does is give Morvahna another fairly unique and attractive hook for Circle players and restores one aspect of her game that she lost when Wurmwood and its damage bonus went away.I don't think Restoration for Morvhana (at the current 1" range) and +2 Str on the unit that should be near to her are a complete contradiction. Maybe change it to: "+2 strength on Model/unit and Morvhana restores 1 hitpoint at the start of the maintenance phase for each effected model currently in her ctr and engaged with an enemy model"
Than it would make sence imho.


2. Let you spend extra fury immediately after casting Regrowth to regrow troops, in addition to after upkeeping it.Better than nothing, but I'd prefer to have revive IN ADDITION to Regrowth, like others here already mentioned.

[Rosicrucian]

I don't think Restoration for Morvhana (at the current 1" range) and +2 Str on the unit that should be near to her are a complete contradiction. Maybe change it to: "+2 strength on Model/unit and Morvhana restores 1 hitpoint at the start of the maintenance phase for each effected model currently in her ctr and engaged with an enemy model"
Than it would make sence imho.

Personally I don't usually ever worry about the healing. Restoration goes on the model(s) whose combat ability will most benefit from it. The healing is a last resort effect to be used if/when too many beasts die in the attrition battle. It could still do this if you really need it to. I think that a strength buff is a big enough deal in Circle that even just "target model/unit gains +2 STR" would be a fantastic spell. Having an extremely situational secondary ability is fine.


Better than nothing, but I'd prefer to have revive IN ADDITION to Regrowth, like others here already mentioned.

That would work too. I'm just proposing an option that provides needed functionality with the minimal amount of change. This version also leaves room on the spell list for a cheap damage spell to back up Eruption of Life.

[LEJKaya]

I was thinking about regrowth...

Why is it small based only? Basically she did not have that restriction in MkI and was still one of the weaker casters across both games.
MkI regrowth was not a problem at all, power wise, so does it really need changing?

[Rosicrucian]

I can only assume its a consequence of their early internal testing. The regrowth change has the feeling of "This is the other option we were testing." Frankly, other than making offering a bit less useful, it hasn't been an issue for me. Circle lots of great small based targets for the spell.

[Blaque]

The small-base limitation is because of the time-limit limitation being gone from the spell now (you can bring things back whenever), as well as the fact that it can be cast on non-living units now (bringing back Woldstalkers or Shifting Stones).

I actaully find its pretty damned amazing on Bloodweavers, personally. Unless you deal with crap like the Protectorate or one of the Combine, Eiryss has to get within 5" to actually dispell it. In which she's likely to eat a knife to the neck. Feels like a fair trade to me.

As to above statements, the healing I think on Restoration is generally a waste. I'd rather it would be antoher buff to the unit it was instead of a corner-case emergency effect, as with it written right now, it is effectively half a spell to me. I would rather have Defender's Ward or Ivioble Resolve any day.

And stuff.

[Faradon]

I'm cool with small based only...
Harvest should be an ability though
and the regrowth should be upkept on her... so it is much harder to knock off, esp if playing her far back.
Restoration maybe shouldn't do str, but DEF/ARM 2/2 boost. or even 1/2... or arm 2 + fearless... but yea, str would be nice (especially on bloodweavers) but isn't likely to happen.

[Faradon]

Oh, and I just won a game with Morv vs EStryker! ... unfortunately it had nothing really to do with Morv other than her having a Def of 15. Baited stryker in on an assassination run while I had 5 fury to xfer... he failed (partially due to rolls.) and then a gnarlhorn and warpwolf ate him.

[Nuriochi_sol]

My ideas for her spell list...

Death Sentence - make her the troop caster should really could be...
Eruption of Life - fix the above mentioned issues or drop casting cost
Revive - just give it back to her, I think it's better as a non-upkeep.
Restoration - as is seems fine too.
Wyrmwood - just give it back to her...

Passive ability: Harvest - this model gains a Fury for each living Faction warrior model destroyed by a continuous effect, an enemy attack, or collateral damage from an enemy attack in its control area. This modelʼs fury point total cannot exceed its FURY as a result of Harvest.


All told, this may all be a little TOO much, but I think it looks fun to play...

[Tsenzei]

Eruption of Life can stay 4 if they bring back Wurmwood.

Just curious, why IS she "missing" a spell anyway?


In any event, I've always liked Morvahna for her style, if not her overall capability. As such I rather hope they do manage to improve her to a more competitive state. Although honestly with as many potential changes between Field Test and the actual release, it's hard to say what that would require. I think the change to her feat is largely an improvement, but...

Honestly my initial thought is that she could use higher DEF, or something more disruptive than super Fertilize. But I need more time with all the changes to make more specific remarks.