There is more than one Deneghra – Part2

A week or so has passed, and the testing with Deneghra3 is going well. Games have been taking the path I fully expected, with attrition being too strong for some people to deal with, and effective MAT7, PS12 Mechanithralls eating whole units in a turn with consummate ease. Brute Thralls against Mortality afflicted targets are just the business however, and I’m strongly considering altering the list somewhat to get 3 more into the 2nd unit. Base MAT6 and 1′ RNG Heavy Steamfists are amazing, and, the effective MAT8 PS21 Combostrike is genuinely bonkers, especially when it just ambushed and it attacking a target in the rear.

I’d really underestimated how powerful the combination of stealth, hyper-aggressive and counter charge is on Seethers. Units / Models that have to come to within 5′ of a Seether to shoot it generally (if they have no serious melee threat) get counter charged, models that can ignore stealth get me to trigger hyper-agressive and generally bring my Seether into charging range next turn.

While on the subject of the Seethers, lets talk about focus efficiency. Well, since the list can’t give them any focus, lets talk about how much work you can get out of a zero focus warjack. Generally, not very much, like, almost nothing. Not so with an ILO (Iron Lich Overseer) marshalled Seether. One round a 3 corpse Skin and Moans? Not a problem! One round a 3 corpse Skin and Moans within the Death Knell aura? Just add Mortality to make sure.

(Quick Note: When I talk about dice maths on my blog, I’m generally going to talk about 2D6 results of 6, and 3D6 results of 9. These are on the lower end of the variance scale, but I find in game that if I use these numbers, my planning actually works!)

Crush is amazing on a MAT8 warjack with Dark Shroud. Just amazing. PS21 talons and an additional attack. YES PLEASE. Just look at the output from this combination to understand how effective it is.

(Charge, 2nd Initial, Tusks, Crush attack)
DEF14 / ARM 19 target: 11+8+3+8 = 30 Total
DEF10 / ARM 20 target: 10+7+2+7 = 26 Total

As you can see, you’re comfortably into the realm of destroying other heavies in one activation. If you add Mortality to those sums, each activation does another 8 damage and makes hitting all but a formality and not rolling 3 or less.

What is also really strong is that Dark Shroud can be a powerful debuff that obviously doesn’t need to target the enemy (looking at your Borka1 ‘King!). Just getting the Seether into the ‘king and getting some damage now means that all the Mechanithralls can combo at PS15 and the Brute Thralls are back to PS21.

OK, so I’ll stop gushing about ILO Marshall’d Seethers now, and talk about my experiences with Deneghra herself.

3 things have come to light;

• Grave Wind is very powerful, but watch out for Flare and Blessed
  • subnote:  In any Cryx mirror watch out for Stalkers, they are bad news
• Mortality + Scourge is a solid control option (even better if you remove cortex or spirit as well)
• Just because she is SPD9, doesn’t mean turn1 you have to move her 9″ forward!

All of those are fairly straight forward, but, the last point needs some more said about it.  SPD9 is very quick, like super quick.  She is also undead, so can benefit from death ride from Darragh.  Completely moving away (sideways) from threats turn1, and forcing your opponent to spend 2 turns running is a great control effect, as is changing which zone you’re targeting with Deneghra.  Remember, she can actually move 15″ in a turn without charging (because of 5″ Reposition), so you don’t need to charge something on the other side of the table to get a strong turn one position that’s 15″ away from where you deployed.

Deneghra’s feat is proving to be everything I’d ever want.  Powering through Spell Vortex and “RUIN” has been brilliant, and causes a big headache for Grymkin players.  Mortality is really strong against Dread Rots as well, and makes then trivial to remove for a unit of Mechanithralls (especially ambushing Mechanithralls!)

All in all, I’m not only finding the list being strong, but also great fun and completely different to play than the Coven Dark Host list I’ve crutched on for 6 months!

So, more testing to come and in the spirit of our team moto…

 

There is more than one Deneghra – Part1

Contrary to popular belief, there is definitely more than one Deneghra in the Cryx faction.   Sure Deneghra1 IS Cryx, but, two other iterations of Gloria exist, and they are both interesting and different.

Deneghra1 Ghost Fleet has been my tournament pairing with Coven Dark Host for a while, but the recent theme ‘dump’ has created some interesting options within the faction, that, I really want to investigate, because…

At the time of writing, Deneghra2 is in the CID process (something she probably deserves to be fair) so I’m not looking at utilising her toolkit in my experimentation.  I’ve been feeling recently that the pairing of;

• Deneghra1 Ghost Fleet (3 min Revenant Crew + 8 Rifles, Max BlackBanes, Wraith Engine, Solos, various battlegroups)
• Coven Dark Host (2 max Bane Riders, 2 min Bane Warriors + UA, Tartarus, Wraith Engine, various battlegroups)

has poor/very poor game into the following current lists;

• Haley3 Grave Diggers (It’s a cloud wall, with recursion, and a helluva lot of guns!)
• Heretic Dark Menagerie
• Rasheth Winds of Double Derp Turtles (All the tools, plus 2 huge ARM20 bases)
• Makeda2 “Cats” (Double Ferox, now in theme, with a casual 15.5′ threat and RFP)
• Testament Exemplar Interdiction (recursion, RFP spells, magical weapon masters)
• Kreoss1 ‘No School like Old School’ (“Oh, you’re caster is knocked down – GG!)

Step forward Deneghra3, or Deneghra the Soul Weaver to use her full and truly well deserved title.

Looking at her base statistics, spell list and feat, I think she a brilliant toolkit!

Firstly, she is a battle engine caster.  This has some inherent weaknesses (no cover, no concealment), but she makes up for this with a great base defensive stat (DEF 15 / ARM 16) and the spell “Grave Wind” [+2 DEF and Poltergeist].  She also cannot be knocked down or made stationary, so that defense (outside of blind and flare mainly) cannot be debuffed.   She also has an amazing SPD stat of 9.  Add to this she has a 2′ RNG weapon, and she has a personal melee threat of 14″ with a quiet ludicrous 5′ reposition move afterwards (we’ll return to this later).  Her FOC stat of 7 is great, allowing her a very substantial control area from her 120mm base, and giving her a solid reserve of focus after upkeeping Grave Wind.  The other spells on her card (Mortality: Cost3 , Ghostly: Cost2 and Scourge: Cost4) seem fairly inconsequential based on the individual cost of each spell and you’d be easily mistaken for thinking she has very little opportunity to utilise them but then, the back of her card that is where the real magic is.

Just take a minute to appreciate how powerful her Soul Master and Soul Weaver abilities are.  Done yet?  Yeh, it’s pretty bonkers isn’t it.  So , that 3 cost Mortality spell of hers, she can cast for the cost of 1 SOUL, and pay a focus to boost to hit to make sure.  She can do this after pulling multiple souls from a model in her CMD of 9.  So, lets say a unit of Soul Hunters charged, and got 2 souls each, she can advance (remember, SPD9), Soul Weaver all 10 souls, cast Mortality 10 times (ok, maybe a bit extreme, but you get the picture), and reposition back 5″ to relative safety. EDIT: Soul Weaver can only be used on one model .  Still pretty awesome though 🙂

But I hear you ask “How often is she going to get 10 souls?”.

Well, she’s going to get 7 at least once per game, because;

This feat is so so good, in combination with her other soul abilities.  Fuel all your warjacks, cast Mortality and Ghostly on everything you need, or just do nothing with the souls and let them become focus next turn for 3 boosted Scourge spells maybe 😉 .

With all this in mind (and excluding the Slaughter Fleet Raiders theme, which has models in CID again at the time of writing), my initial thoughts are that both Black Industries and Infernal Machines are good starting points for list design.  Both themes allow Soul Trappers, but Infernal Machines allows Soul Hunters, and I’m really keen to try these out with her.

[Theme] Infernal Machines

(Deneghra 3) Deneghra, the Soul Weaver [+27]

– Defiler [8]

– Nightmare [18]

Darragh Wrathe [9]

Iron Lich Overseer [0(5)]

– Seether [13]

Iron Lich Overseer [0(5)]

– Seether [13]

Mechanithralls (max) [9]

– Brute Thrall (2) [4]

Mechanithralls (max) [9]

Soulhunters (max) [18]

Lets break down the theory of the list (I got this from Ryan Evans, read his excellent blog here)

Battlegroup: I want a minimal battlegroup, as I want Deneghra to really hog her focus and souls.  Nightmare gains Stealth while with any Deneghra,  His base MAT8 and PS17 is excellent, add to this Prey and Mortality and he can be effectively MAT12 PS21 against his prey target.  The Defiler is the obligatory arc node, and also the spray (again coupled with Mortality) can get a good amount of work completed.

Darragh Wrathe: Darragh is a brilliant solo.  Fast, hard to kill, good personal output and great support for the army.  Death Ride offers threat extension for most of the army, and Mortal Fear is an effective ARM buff against living enemies (which is primarily where I envisage this list being dropped in the matchup process).  A further great selling point for Darragh is he is a brilliant flag capturing and holding solo.  Combined with Ghostly he can run 18′ ignoring freestrikes, or charge 12′ and reposition 3′ onto a flag.

ILO and Seether Package x2: This is experimental, but, I’m hoping should produce exactly what I want from the list.  The ability for the Iron Lich Overseers (ILO) to stealth itself and it’s marshalled warjack allows a solid delivery mechanism for each Seether.   Walking to within 5″ of the Seether to shoot it is generally also considered bad, because, Seethers have counter charge.  Combining the jack marshall ability “Crush”, with the Seethers already excellent focus efficiency, and the ILO drive of “Dark Shroud”, you have a free charge at MAT8, with 3 PS21 attacks and a PS16 attack.  Add in Mortality to this mixture, and you’re are mathematically doing anywhere between 15-55 damage (with an average of 35) to an ARM20 target.  Add to this further, if required, you can kill the ILO, and take the Seether into Deneghras battlegroup and now allocate it 3 focus for 1 soul.  Lastly, ILOs are great solos, who can happily sit on a flag stealthed at DEF 14 ARM16 with 8 health boxes.  All in all, a great package.

Mechanithralls and Brute Thralls: The list needs zone holding ability, and bodies is the way forward.  The Brute Thralls offer shield guards if required, or alternatively, that unit can be used for ambush shenanigans.  I did mention that 1 unit of Mechanithralls can ambush in the Infernal Machines theme?  Damage output wise, Mechanithralls are hampered by having a low MAT stat, but, Mortality goes some way to fixing that problem!  Effective MAT7 PS15 combo strikes make light work of some targets, and they can often trade into something of far greater points value than themselves.

Soulhunters: 5 FAST cavalry models with multiple attacks for cleaning up infantry quickly and efficiently, and, hopefully gathering souls for Deneghra to Soul Weaver off!  Also, it cannot be under estimated how powerful getting Death Ride from Darragh, charging with a 15″ threat, killing a model and then using the soul to become incorporeal for the turn can be for projecting threat and board presence.

Theorymachine is easy though, I’ll be running the list in the next few weeks (hopefully and ideally into it’s chosen prey) and will report back how it goes!

Keep your eyes open for Part2 and also for my Deneghra3 painting blog posts, and, thanks for reading!