“All her lessons have been learned at the feet of a god denied.  Will it be any wonder if her own endeavours succeed where his fail?”  – Morgaen of the Coven of Gharlghast

There are casters who excel at assassination.  There are casters who excel at controlling the board to win by scenario.  The Wraith Witch Deneghra is a unique Cryxian mixture of both.  She has the ability to manipulate the field to allow her forces to surgically remove the opposing caster.  She also has the ability lock down opposing forces allowing one the opportunity to remove obstacles to a scenario win.  This article will attempt to discuss abilities, spells, and tactics for victory with the Wraith Witch Deneghra.

Stats:  Deneghra is a mixture of of excellent and poor stats.  She has the highest warcaster SPD of 7 and an excellent DEF of 16.  She has a standard focus of 7.  Unfortunately she has a poor MAT of only 5 and ARM of only 14.  She has 16 wounds. 

Abilites:

1.) Cull Soul:Deneghra gains a soul token for each living enemy model destroyed within 2 inches of her.  A nice fluff ability that rarely sees play with this caster.  If you’re up in the fray gaining soul tokens with Epic Deneghra, you are also likely in trouble. 

2.) Parry: Wraith Witch Deneghra cannot be targeted by freestrikes. 

3.) Seduction: Seduction is a * action with some utility.  Seduction allows Deneghra to take over a living enemy non warcaster/warlock warrior model with which she is in B2Bwith.  The model can move and then make 1 attack.  This ability has the obvious benefit of moving a model so attack another and is obviously best on enemy models with high melee potential.  However, it can also be used to move a pesky model out of a charge lane or to simple move a high defense model around to give the back strike bonus.  The biggest draw back to this ability is it requires Epic Deneghra to be up in the thick of the action where she is the most vulnerable.

4.) Wraith Walker: Wraith Walker is Epic Deneghra’s signature ability where she can become incorporeal every other turn.  This ability is often used during the feat turn to allow Deneghra to make it as far forward into the enemy’s  army as possible while protecting her from non magical attacks.  Notice that she becomes incorporeal at the end of her control phase which means she will still suffer any continuous effects. 

Weapon: Eclipse: Eclipse is Wraith Witch Deneghra melee weapon.  this magical weapon has reach and the ability to preform dark banishment.  Dark banishment states that when Deneghra damages an enemy model during her activation, after the attack is resolved she can place the enemy model anywhere completely within d6 inches of it’s current location plus 1 inch for each focus point on this model. 

Dark banishment can be incredibly useful but is a bit tricky to get a full handle on.  Often dark banishment is used to send a key enemy model into the waiting arm of cryxian jacks and troops.  It can also be used to move models into water features or place models outside of scenario objective areas, like banishing a warcaster outside of the killbox in SR 2010.  This can work very well with Deneghra’s Wraith walker ability allowing her to move through enemy models and rough terrain to strike and then banish the target. 

There are drawbacks to this though.  Dark banishment requires that Deneghra hit and damage the target.  Deneghra’s Mat is only 5 and Eclipse is a P+S 12 weapon.  In order to pull off a dark banishment of a key target, Deneghra often has to move into the thick of the enemy army, give up her incorporeal status if she has it, and boost both the to hit and damage rolls to ensure she can trigger dark banishment.  Even though this can often be a game deciding move, if it fails, she will often be left out to die (again). 

Spells: Wraith Witch Deneghra has a great set of toll box spells allowing her to deal with a variety of situations. 

1.) Curse of Shadows: Curse of shadows effects target model/unit giving it -2 arm and prevents that unit from making freestrikes.  models may advance through the affected model(s) if it has enough movement to move completely past its base.   Curse of shadows is a wonderful toolbox spell.  It not only lowers enemy ARM but can remove troop obstacles from assassination runs.  It can allow our troops to move through the enemy front line to engage the enemy second wave.  It can also be used to allow our forces to move through models that we normally couldn’t.  For example, the Deathjack could trample through small based infantry to get to a caster but cannot trample over a unit of MoW.  Curse of shadows would allow the Deathjack to trample the small based models and move through the MoW to engage the juicy target behind the front lines. 

2.) Ghost Walk:  Ghost walk grants ghostly to target model/unit for 1 turn.  This allows the model(s) to not only move through terrain and obstacles without penalty but also ignore freestrikes.  The benefits of this spell are pretty straight forward. 

3.) Hellmouth: One of Wraith Witch Deneghra’s signature spells.  Hellmouth is a range 8 Pow 12 spell with several interesting effects.  The spell requires a direct hit, otherwise nothing happens.  On a direct hit, before making the damage roll, push all models within 3 inches of the target, 3 inches directly towards the target in an order chosen by Deneghra’s player.  Then center a 3 inch AOE on the target and each model in the AOE takes a power 12.  Models boxed by hellmouth are RFP.  Hellmouth is fantastic with the sole drawback of being an all or nothing focus intense spell. 

The obvious uses for hellmouth is to hit an enemy model and then pull in multiple models near it to kill.  This can easily be accomplished when targeting low defense targets like warjacks or knocked down troops.  keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with running your own model up into enemy lines and targeting it with hellmouth to pull in all enemy models.  This can be even better when using a bane thrall as all models in it’s melee range will suffer from dark shroud before dying.  Hellmouth can also be used to move models out of the way or off scenario objectives. 

4.) Marked for Death:  Curse of Shadows gives Epic Deneghra a ARM debuff.  Marked for Death gives a DEF debuff.  In addition,  it removes incorporeal and stealth from the target model and allows friendly faction models to target the affected model regardless of LoS.  In general, I don’t use marked for death as much as Curse of Shadows but it does have utility over the simple -2 DEF debuff.  Curse of Shadows allows one to move through enemy models but it does not allow you to see through them.  Marked for Death in conjunction with Curse of Shadows allows one to select a target behind a meat shield and then charge through the meat shield. 

5.) Pursuit: This upkeep spell targets an enemy model or unit so that when the model(s) advances during its activation, immediately after ending it’s movement, one model in this battle group that is in Deneghra’s control area can make a full advance.  This spell has both offensive and defensive applications.  offensively this spell can be used to maneuver jacks and Deneghra into better position to deliver a killing blow.  It can also be used to get Deneghra up the field more quickly to deliver her feat.  Defensively, it can be placed on key enemy threats so when they advance to closely to Epic Deneghra or a jack, it can simply walk away.  In Deneghra’s case, her parry will prevent any freestrikes.  In the case of one of her battlegroup jacks, it can often be more beneficial to give up a single freestrike than to suffer a serious of blows from an enemy jack. 

7.) Venom: Epic Deneghra retains her 8 inch spray spell, venom, to deliver death to swaths of enemy troops who are not immune to corrosion. 

Feat: Web of Shadow: Wraith Witch Deneghra brings to the field a great set of abilities and spells but her feat makes her one of the best, if not the best, scenario and assassination caster in the game.  Enemy models currently in Epic deneghra’s control area suffer shadow bind.  Models affected by Shadow bind suffer - 3 DEF and cannot move except to change facing for 1 round.  This feat has both immediate and next round benefits.  First off, all enemy models suffer -3 DEF which essentially raises the RAT and MATs of all friendly models by 3.  Even the lowly mechanithralls become essentially a MAT 8.  Perhaps even more importantly though, enemy models cannot move for 1 round except to change facing.  This cannotbe shaken.  This gives the cryxian player a chance to position all models to make either a subsequent assassination run or to eliminate all models in the scenario objectives. 

This is a huge boost in scenario play.  Take for instance Killbox.  If the Cryxian player can either teleport, hellmouth, slam, or throw the opposing caster out of the killbox and then lock them down with Web of Shadow, the game is all but won as long as Epic Deneghra lives.  In scenarios like Convergence, one can use the feat to lock down the scenario objective and then spend two rounds eliminating the enemy models from it. 

Army Composition and Play:  There can be a fair amount of diversity in an Epic Deneghra army but most armies have certain key features.  Arc nodes are a must for Wraith Witch Deneghra as 6 of her spells are offensive.  Wraith Witch Deneghra lacks substantial hitting power, so troops that can hit hard, such as Tartarus and banes, and helljacks that can hit hard, such as the Deathjack, Nightmare, and Seethers are also common features.   

I often find Epic Deneghra to be a focus greedy caster.  With a focus intense spell like hellmouth (often costing 5 focus IMHO to guarantee a hit) and several great upkeeps and buffs like ghost walk, curse of shadows, and pursuit, Wraith Witch Deneghra needs every bit of focus she can gather.  In light of this Helljacks that can perform without focus or make their own are often a priority as are solos and units that can mitigate her focus use.  Such Helljacks include the Deathjack and Seethers.  Along these same lines one should also consider Wrong Eye and Snapjaw.  This minion pair can provide a huge offensive punch without placing any focus requirements on Epic Deneghra.  In addition, they can help close on the enemy in relative safety with submerge. 

Solos/units that can decrease Epic Deneghra’s focus expenditure include the warwitch sirens and Withershadow Combine.  Warwitch sirens can provide focus to the arc nodes to run into place or dish out additional venoms fro troop removal.  With some luck, one can use a warwitch siren to keep a heavy hitting enemy target shadow bound throughout the game after the feat goes off.  The Wither Shadow combine provides some additional benefits with Epic Deneghra.  Adomina provides a way to remove enemy upkeep spells that could hinder the progress of the army.  Tremulus can puppet string Epic Deneghra to help ensure a hellmouth hits or that a dark banishment assassination run is successful.  Web of Shadow also provides the Withershadow Combine a better chance to get into position and pull of their dark industries ability. 

Mercenary options are often centered on Gorman di Wulfe who can provide a layer of defense for Epic deneghra with his smoke cloud while also providing some offensive punch in the way of corrosion bombs and black oil.  A well placed rust is never a bad option either.

Other options to consider would be the satyxis raiders and pistol wraiths.  Pistol wraiths can be an effective RAT 10 during the feat turn and deliver decent damage but their point cost of 3 often makes them to expensive for me to include.  The satyxis raiders provide a great alpha strike unit to get into objects and tie up the enemy until Epic Deneghra arrives and delivers her feat.  During the feat turn the raiders also become an effective MAT 9 with 2 attacks each.  Mechanithralls and brutes should be consider also as these dirt cheap units become effective MAT 8′s and 9′s during the feat capable of delivering P+S 15 and 19 blows.

Typical play for Wraith Witch Deneghra often begins with trying to get a hellmouth out into advance line enemy troops and/or pursuit to help move the cryxian forces forward.  During the second round most players look on how to deliver the killing blow, either by assassination or by scenario win.  Often during the second round Epic Deneghra will go incorporeal and use her feat.  She will often move as far up field as possible to lock down an entire enemy army while not overexposing herself to a possible assassination.  If going for the win she may give up her incorporeal status to dark banish a key enemy model.  More often than not at this time I choose to leave her incorporeal and allow the army to do the work.  During the second round feat the army has the chance to secure any scenario objects, make an assassination run, or position themselves for an assassination round next turn. 

If a game goes to the third round, the Epic Deneghra player will usually either move further forward to try and dark banish an enemy caster to the middle of the cryxian rank or Epic Deneghra will “advance to the rear” to remain safe while her army further cripples the opposing forces. 

To be fair and honest, this is a bit simplified but it is often the basic strategy for a win with Epic Deneghra.  The Wraith Witch is a caster with a ton of available options open to her.  However,  a player usually needs to have a fair amount of experience with her to see all of these options.

Summary:Wraith Witch Deneghra is easily one of the top tier casters for both scenario and assassination games in the mark II environment.  Though she often requires a player to have a fair amount of experience and finesse, those who learn the tricks of the Wraith Witch are often rewarded with a W.