Morvahna Queries

[Asdrubael]

I recently played a game with Morvahna and really had my eyes opened to the fact that, with some of the new stuff we have, she's not nearly as bad as I had once thought. Gallows groves and the witch doctor seem to really boost her abilities and make her a fairly potent warlock. That said, I am left with a number of questions about her abilities and how they interact as a result of RFP.

The first question I have, and this really applies to a few other warlocks of ours as well, is which form of RFP (if any) ignores tough? Does Eruption of Life (and, by extension, her feat), Crevasse, or Hellmouth ignore tough? What is it about the wording that makes it so that it does/does not?

The second is, if she upkept Harvest and hits a model with Eruption of Life, does the first model that she kills in order to trigger the blast damage count as RFP and thus refuse her the fury point from Harvest? Likewise, do models killed on her feat turn result in fury points for Harvest or not?

The third question I have, which is the reason I didn't post this in the rules forum, is what warbeasts do you run with Morvahna? I ran a Stalker, Gorax, and Megalith with her to great effect. However, based on other experiences, I'm curious what else other beasts can bring to the table with her.

[skillt]

You always get tough because of how it triggers on the boxed/disabled level of destruction. Tough comes before the effects that RFP. The only thing that doesn't allow a tough save is consume, which is very rare.

Eruption of Life (and her feat) does not RFP. It "removes from table" which is different, and is the same as being destroyed.

I run 2x Woldguardian, and thats it.

Will

[Asdrubael]

Their lack of speed doesn't present a huge issue for you? I'm assuming you mitigate it with 2x SS?

[skillt]

And black clads. Black clads are also excellent self-sac targets for fire/lightning based shooting...

Will

[PG_Crump]

The only thing that doesn't allow a tough save is consume, which is very rare

This, and takedown! Go go gadget Farrow Slaughterhousers.

[The Golden Arrow]

As the others said. I like running her fairly beast heavy as she needs a bit of a boost on killing heavies. In my experience Ghetorix is awesome with her, both for his killing power and that he really likes the arm buff. Megalith is also very nice with her for his arm, geomancy and animus but he is even better with some other casters so it depends on who you play with in a char restricted tourney. I also like a stalker for some sprint fun and gorax for the usual resons (so I run Ghetorix, Megalith, Stalker, gorax with her on 50 pts right now). Guardians are also very good with her, but they need a lot of support in the form of shifting stones/blackclads to work and the lack of reach really hurts in my experience.

[skillt]

This, and takedown! Go go gadget Farrow Slaughterhousers.

I was more thinking about things that didn't explicitly say they removed it. But touché. :-) may as well add in entropic force on gallows groves and the hag for satyxis while we are at it.

Will

[taffyjoe]

Doesn't grevious wounds get round tough too? in the interests of completeness.

I go for 2*warpwolves with Morv, not having a geomancier is not so much of a problem, and I wanted the extra hitting power.

[PG_LEJKaya]

Tough is a healing effect so anything that prevents healing also prevents tough.
RFP Never implicitly prevents tough, but some abilities RFP and also state they do not allow tough (Take Down).

None of Morvahnas abilities RFP. Crevasse and Hellmouth do, but do not ignore tough.

I have been playing my own slight variation on Wills Morvahna for UK Masters and after that tournament I will be trying Ghetorix with her. I think he fits perfectly into what Will is doing with that list with his good ARM, boxes and shooting immunity (Hyper Aggressive).

I also had to lose the 2 blackclads I had in morvahnas list but I have druids for sac pawn at least.

[PG_cheddercaveman]

I've been playing similar to your list LEJKaya with Ghetorix and a Guardian and I've been pretty happy with it. That said, a lot of my games lately they barely come into play it seems like because I normally am slow rolling them in the shifting stones triangle behind the Skinwalkers until its time to kill a big target, or the caster, or some how they've managed to grind through the Skinwalkers.

That said, I've played a lot of games at 35 points lately and hoping to get more in at 50. Leaning towards Wolf Riders, Blackclad, 2nd unit of Shifting Stones and a Gallows Grove to round out the list.

That said, I'm very undecided what to run as reinforcements with this list. I haven't had a lot of time to play any of those scenarios, nor at 50 points at all yet.

[Bloodwind]

Has anyone ever had a chance to use undergrowth/influence/harvest to good effect? With or without a gallows grove

[skillt]

Yes, sometimes it's quite good. Usually it's useless.

Also, ghetorix is just amazing. I would much rather have him in Kromac, but he fits here quite well.

Will

[Blaque]

I do think Morvahna probably will cast Influence more than any other model with that spell in the game, but that's because if it goes well she effectively does it for free every time. I see her as the natural predator of Retribution infantry for this, especially now that she has Gallows Groves.

I have been always hesitant for Wold Guardians with her myself, mostly due to the fact the animus is okay on her, not really great, and I like a Geomancer due to Eruption of Life and getting Restoration out there with her other spells turn one (less order of operations issues). Still, should try it out, just feels odd, and hyper-vulnerable to really good armor.

And stuff.

[Menoth's Gambit]

I must admit that I don't think I bothered much with Influence until the Gallows Grooves came out. It seemed like I rarely needed too. However, now I find myself in positions to use that spell often. Blaque is spot on about Ret infantry, but many factions have tasty targets. Reach/Weapon masters or berserking models are great targets if you have em, the GG can exploit it. Pre GG, being within 10 inches of a bunch of infantry just made me nervous.

I took out my Wold Warden and replaced it with a Wold Guadian some time ago. However, these days, the Guardian just does not seem as vital as it was. My strategy with my Morvhana list was countering shooty gun line armies. But as pointed out already, what does the Wguardians animus do that Sac Pawn kind of already does'nt. Not much really. I am thinking about changing it up again.

I straight up love my Skin Walkers with Morvhana however. They take up a lot of damage with restoration, allowing so much more to cause damage. They found a home!

[Bishop84]

Pre GG, being within 10 inches of a bunch of infantry just made me nervous.

Personally I feel the more opposing infantry the better when playing Morvahna. Nothing makes me as giddy as killing a bunch of infantry, harvesting all the fury, and killing a bunch more over and over until they're all dead. Unfortunately my playgroup tends towards more beast/'jack heavy armies.

In 35 point games which is my norm, I generally just run a Stalker and Megalith. I might swap Megalith for Ghetorix at some point to try it out, but I think I'll miss his animus and Geomancy too much.

[PG_cheddercaveman]

The reason that I continue to go with one Guardian, and also with Ghetorix is that I want pieces that can play a stronger attrition game. Ghetorix is quite a tank and can deal with a lot of different things. DEF 14 ARM 19 is huge. The Guardian is our next best non-character attrition piece really at ARM 20, plus being basically immune to shooting. After that beasts I'd go with either need a decent niche or do some decent attrition on their own. I'd probably start trying out the Griffon, Feral WW, Argus or either of the Satyrs in the list if I was going to swap things around.

The core of my list has been pretty solid for me though, its the extra like 13 points that I haven't completely figured out how I like it.

[Menoth's Gambit]

Personally I feel the more opposing infantry the better when playing Morvahna. Nothing makes me as giddy as killing a bunch of infantry, harvesting all the fury, and killing a bunch more over and over until they're all dead. Unfortunately my playgroup tends towards more beast/'jack heavy armies.
.

That was not the point I was making. We were talking about the spell Influence. Pre GGs, Influence was a gamble. With GGs forward deployed Influence is more surgical. You can get to groups of models and pick them apart. Without any fear of a botched roll ruining your day.

But otherwise I agree. Morvhana is happy to see lots of 1 wound infantry armies. She can pick them apart.

[ringsnake]

So long as your opponent has no way of shutting down upkeeps, and has limited defense against offensive spellcasting, she's pretty good. I pulled off a win by the skin of my teeth last night against eCaine by piling on fury during opponent's turn, then when eCaine gate crashed in I was able to let her take the wounds on the first two shots, make four transfers, and then sack pawn all the rest. It works against gunfighter, who knew?

Then the army killed some more warriors on my turn to get her maxed up in fury and she cut him in half.

The way the feat stalled his army and blocked LOS was an eye opener.

I'd never use her against Menoth or Doomshaper, or a whole mess of others though.

[PG_Albinoprince]

I know I'm in a minority here, but I prefer to only take 1 beast with Morvahna. Almost always Megalith. That said, I rarely play her unless i know my opponent will be using lots of infantry. Regrowth on Bloodtrackers, +2 arm on Skinwalkers, Harvest up to make up the difference. Megalith's Geomancy helps getting all the spells up first turn and after that Harvest does a pretty good job.

Two flaws of this setup is that it's a little pillow-fisted and untill i get a good harvest area set up i may have a turn or two without being able to transfer.

[PG_LEJKaya]

I may use Megalith with her if it weren't for character restrictions. The geomancy EoL which helps harvest and the animus all really help.
He will be vulnerable to shooting (Compared to Woldguardians) but the 21 ARM with Restoration and his regenaration and health should be ok.

[Gobos]

Since Gallow Groves were released, I dropped geomancers from Morvahna's list to get more armor-cracking power. My battlegroup now consists of Ghetorix, Stalker and Gorax. Haven't been able to play a lot with this setup, but first few games it worked just fine.

[Katkiller 5]

I love Morvahna, and never really understood the bad rep she gets.

The only people she really struggles against are lists that have both the heavy upkeep hate as well as heavy anti-spell hate. If it's only one or the other, then she should be able to adapt and roll with it. If it's both.. well, then all you really have is an anti-infantry feat. Ok, now that I've said that, I also don't really see that many lists, outside of some Protectorate matchups, that she really has to fear.

To be honest, my biggest complaint with her isn't really about her, it's that my Bloodtrackers seem cursed to turn and flee for their lives at the slightest provocation. Had to start taking WoO just for the command re-roll :|

As far as beasts go.. Woldwarden, almost always, as an extra point to cast EoL from, as well as Restoration. Plus the Chain-Attack can really come in handy on occasiion. Apart from that.. whatever I feel like at the time. Usually a Feral whose only purpose is to hang out and trash heavies.

And Gallows Groves, while cool, I usually only take one, sometimes two, just to extend her threat range on the flanks, because I usually want her up-front enough to be using Harvest, which means she's in casting range half the time anyways.

[Asdrubael]

I plan on running her tomorrow, and I'll be drawing up a list that sacrifices Geomanciers for armor crackers. Everything that you guys have pointed out has really made me think a lot about her. I am really tempted to try her with Ghetorix, Pureblood, and a Feral, but I think I'm going to play her with Ghetorix, a Stalker, and a Gorax tomorrow. Thanks for all the input. Also, I'll be posting a battle report from my game with her vs. Kaelyssa the other night on my blog very soon. I'll link it to this thread when I get the chance.

Has anyone tried her tier? Does it function well at all? Seems to be too reliant on the tharn women to take on any army sporting halfway decent armor.

[ringsnake]

Just played her again against Ret, and remembered why she has so many problems against most warmachine factions, because freaking eEiryss makes Regrowth not work good. Almost worked though, Bloodtrackers with Stealth should have stopped the dispel attempt. 1/4" too close...

[Asdrubael]

I also played Retribution with her the other day. Fortunately, my opponent did not have eEiryss, and I wound up tabling the unfortunate kid in three turns. Morvahna's feat against their nice, tight-packed units is stupid good. I tried Ghetorix, a stalker, and a gorax, and I found that to be a great combination. I thought the lack of a geomancer might hurt, but the groves extended her threat plenty.

[Mattho2k3]

The good thing about Regrowth is you can regrow models that were killed earlier than last turn. So if eEiryss knocks off Regrowth and you lose models you can recast it next turn and then the following turn regrow models. It sucks that it sets you back a couple turns but is doable.

[PG_LEJKaya]

Recently playing pKreoss (I am practising bad matchups) he purified regrowth, the turn after I ran the 3 remaining models back to my deployment zone well out of his CTRL and re cast it.

This is more common with eEiryss as you don't play morvahna against purification casters but as Morvahna is attrition, it isn't a bad tactic as she willusually run more turns that other types of caster.

[PG_fildrigar]

If eEiryss is close enough to knock off Regrowth, she's close enough to kill.

[Mattho2k3]

If eEiryss is close enough to knock off Regrowth, she's close enough to kill.

Exactly why I never mind her knocking regrowth off my Bloodtrackers.

[Asdrubael]

I just got back to back games in with Morvahna against Retribution. I've posted the battle report for the first one (a 50 point battle against Kaelyssa) on my blog: Kaelyssa vs. Morvahna 50 pts

In the first battle, Epic Eiryss was on the table, but he deployed her away from my bloodtrackers. I think his goal was to hunt Morvahna and try to shoot Harvest off of her, not realizing I have sacrificial pawn. All and all, I think Morvahna's a shockingly beastly warlock. I remember her field test version being arguably the worst warlock in the game, and that opinion stuck with me. She is almost tailormade for ripping Retribution to pieces. In my second game, against Ossyan, her feat single-handedly vaporized every infantry model he had on the table. When she works, she's a truly terrifying force to behold.

[Cyryst]

Morvahns IS good, IMO she always has been. Better now. Glad to see shes getting some recognition at last.
A couple of friends were in agreement to play a Morvahna tier list vs a Butcher doom reaver tier list, but D3 has put that game on hiatus for them unfortunately. Important to say however, that the Morvahna player is confident in winning.
I havent put her on the table much recently, but whenever she went against ret she dominated them, which was a pity a few solid tactics from the ret players would counter most of that. Odd that im playing ret now come to think of it :P