Friday, December 30, 2011

Warlock Round up -- Morvhanna

I find Morvhanna to be a very interesting warlock. The first one of this series to be very difficult to write a list for. As I was writing my first list I saw an interesting Skornergy (the concept of a model pairing that is the exact opposite of synergy, this can be very entertaining as it is usually due to a very small rule or wording of the unit) with the Tharn ravagers. As Morvhanna's feat doesn't allow for the ravagers to gain corpse tokens from killing models. Also as a note you want to avoid construct infantry as they do not allow you to gain fury from Harvest. So ignoring all my own advice my first list consisted of...

Morvhanna
2x Woldguardians
1 Woldwyrd
6 Tharn Ravagers w/ Tharn Chieftain
6 Bloodweavers
5 Skinwalkers
Sentry Stone & Mannikins
Shifting Stone w/ Stone Keeper
White Mane

As I noted above the mannikin's and Tharn Ravagers offer a lot less synergies with Morvhanna and this list turned out to be pretty terrible in game play. Though I do stand by Sentry Stones being a lot better then people give credit to them for. Free generating infantry and boostable sprays are pretty great.

I played vs. Severius2 as my match up in this game. My opponent was new to his warcaster as well which made the game more enjoyable. There wasn't many mentionable moments in the battle that are worth writing about. The battle was effectively an attrition grind fest, while my opponent was trying to eliminate my 2 heavy beasts to eliminate the threats on to his jacks while I was trying to get to his caster and finish him off. The game ended with an assassination on my caster from Blessing of Vengeance.

Things that I learned from game one was Morvhanna is a very powerful caster at removing groups of infantry with harvest up. One moment in the battle Morvhanna got aggressive and threw eruptions of life all over the place gaining fury from the destructive forces and threw another one earning her even more fury throwing another one! The infantry removable capabilities of Morvhanna is pretty impressive but restricted to the fact circle arc nodes are very slow moving.

I also learned you want to have a good unit with regrowth on it. This is a very key spell to Morvhanna's attrition style of game play. The unit I had it on was the bloodweaver who were staying back and dispelling Fear of God on my own units. With this knowledge I changed the list and was must more pleased with the results of the game.

Morvhanna
2x Woldguardians
1 Woldwyrd
10 Bloodtrackers w/ Nuala
5 Skinwalkers
6 Bloodweavers
2x Shifting Stones
6 Farrow Slaughterhousers

This next game was vs. Harbinger. The first thing of note is purification really sucks to fight as Morvhanna. Though this isn't some new amazing piece of knowledge and I saw this as a very hard match up for my Warlock. The game started out with Menoth being very aggressive and running right at me with the entire army getting ready to feat on turn 2. Turn one I charged his knights errant with my Tharn Bloodtrackers. This was relatively effective as I removed 5 of the unit, but wasn't what I had expected since self sacrifice takes away the ability to use the ability to shoot after they charge their target thanks to Nuala. Next time I'll just position my guys to throw their spear attacks.

The game then started to go down hill as any upkeep spell cast was quickly removed by purification. Also purification was removing my wold guardians ability to keep themselves and Morvahanna safe from the Reckoners shooting. I initiated the first big trade piece by slamming the avatar into a reckoner with my wold guardian applying some serious damage to the avatar and reckoner, while forcing the Harbinger to Martyr the vassal mechanic. This turned out to be more helpful then I had expected. The woldwyrd then moved within 10 of the Harbinger about 9 and 3/4ths and shot her for another 5 damage.

My opponent then spent the next turn dismantling my wold guardian and removing some of my waves of infantry from the table. As I was starting to despair I did notice this took a significant amount of focus from the Harbinger so she didn't have any to camp. I proceeded to threaten his army as much as possible forcing him to cut himself a few times (last turn he had used the excess focus to heal himself) and he was sitting there at 9 hit points with no focus. I teleported Morvhanna next to his paladin of the wall, popped my feat and killed him with her sword. If she had martyred it  then Morvhanna would've had a harrow target being the Paladin. Then Morvhanna burned an eruption of life onto the Harbinger, when it connected I only needed a 10 to kill her and burned my last focus in the hopes of ending the game as any attrition battle was going to end in Menoth's favor. Needing a 10 I rolled a 16 and annihilated the Harbinger.

Very fun game overall. Things that I have learned in this match up is Purificatoin is expensive to continuously throw for my opponent as it is annoying for me to suffer. That extra three focus could easily have saved his casters life. Also the Farrow slaugtherhousers offered a very real weapon master threat that is much needed in this list. I can see removing the skinwalkers and slaughterhousers for 14 pts and throw down Morraig and a unit of WoO.

So to modify the full list here is the next 1 I want to try with her.

Morvahna the Autumnblade (*6pts)
* Woldwyrd (5pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
* Woldguardian (9pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Nuala the Huntress (2pts)
Tharn Bloodweavers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Wolves of Orboros (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Wolf of Orboros Officer & Standard (2pts)
Wolflord Morraig (5pts)

Once again I didn't play the caster I expected to. Cassius is still thwarting me when coming to writing lists. I hope to play Kaya1 very soon.

Morvhanna 1 - 1.

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