Tour de Cryx Continued – The Deneghra Surprise Part II – Overview

Well, I knew I wouldn’t be done at the end of the year, because Skarre 3 was on the horizon, but until the CID came about and Denny 2 got a massive facelift, I wasn’t sure I would be coming back to the Tour so soon. Just a few short weeks ago, we were given the new look of our Wraith Witch Supreme, and man, It looks great. 

The new Denny 2, as I went over here, has a very solid kit. It plays with infantry, warjacks, ranged and melee. It has tools to set the tone with pacing, placement, armor and infantry. Her problem, it looks, is that she wants to do everything, every round. 

When I played her old incarnation, you couldn’t pay me to bring her without Deathjack and some soul trappers. The trio just goes together so well, I don’t know that I can pull myself off from those crutches at this point in learning how to play her. 

First Impressions 

Looking at the entirety of the changes, I think that she remains at the core the same caster I played earlier. She’s going to toss Hellmouths around, assist her army, and bide her time for the kill. She can put a ton of scenario pressure early on if you get turn 1 and can afflict the front lines of the enemy with Breath Stealer on the top of 2, but I don’t know how often that’ll come about. She can build a list that defends itself once magic weapons are removed, via the feat, or that plays for the aggressive, assassination angle using the feat, ghostly, and Curse of Shadows to swing through the army. 

Offensively, she brings a strong set of tools to the game. She’s speed 7, netting her a strong, innate 12″ threat with Eclipse. If you combine that with a shadowstep move of 3″, she can push the threat to 15″. Under certain extreme circumstances, hellmouthing herself forward and Darragh Wrathe can put the threat range to an outstanding 19″. Most often, the 15″ is enough. At the end of the charge, she still has a bad MAT, but its better than it used to be, needing 6’s to tag most of the DEF 12 jacks out there, which is important because they changed Dark Banishment, her ability on Eclipse, to needing only to hit instead of damage to trigger. Dark Banishment allows an enemy model hit by the weapon during Dennys activation to be placed completely within d6+3″. This is great because its a threat extender for the vast majority of the army the vast majority of the time. The change to trigger on hit is great, because she can clear a zone almost alone, if need be, and the P+S12 wasn’t reliable enough on enough things to make it worth while. Combine this with her debuff based spell list, and it can really turn the tides on an unsuspecting caster. Her melee ability is passable to strong, but her spell list, especially offensively, is great. She retained both her Focus of 7 and her signature spell. Hellmouth is one of the best spells in the game. RNG 8 and COST 4 provide constraints on the spell to tone it down from the heights it could reach, though it still often does excellent work. It is very, very hard to stay out of 3″ of any model, and its hard to avoid straight up dying to POW 12’s. Pulling everything in and blowing it up is a very satisfying feeling. She maintained Venom, alongside hellmouth, which is often a hard sell, with hellmouth sitting right there, but there are times where you simply need lower cost spells do to a similar amount of work. She has the tools to eviscerate armies, you just need to choose when and how. Finally, she does have soul cages, which on extremely rare occasion can come up to provide her extra focus, but its extremely hard without trappers in her list. 

Defensively, she also has a number of tricks up her sleeve, though they are considerably less powerful than her offensive capabilities. She can be Incorporeal every other round, which is a great boon about 40% of the time, worthless 25% of the time, and game breaking 35% of the time, as she’s absolutely immune to reprisal. Her stats are strong, with a DEF of 16 and an ARM of 15. Parry and Incorporeal combine to give her a lot of maneuverability, getting her out of situations where she doesn’t want to stay. She doesn’t have a great health pool at 16, but its often enough to shrug off a few blows. Shadow Step, one of her new spells, is also a great defensive tool in case she’s in peril, or is soon to be in peril, because she can Easily pin in place infantry or battle engines and prevent other models from getting to her in a simple manner, shadow binding all of them on the way out. There isn’t much there, so you’ve got to be careful in her placement or she can easily end up missing from the board. 

Here is where she gets interesting. I’ve talked about nearly her whole spell list, but lets still break it down. Hellmouth and Venom are extremely good spells. Venom takes out most infantry, and hellmouth is a great positioning tool and damage spell. It can easily pull models out of zones, move specific pieces that need to be in position to do their jobs (Shieldguard, Spell Barrier, Iron Sentinel) and simply lay waste to most warrior models. Curse of Shadows and Breath Stealer are two very solid debuffs, providing superior positioning, armor and defense reduction, and potential immunity to free strikes. Breath Stealer being a non-upkeep debuff means that it can be cast by Spell Slaves and Necromancer, and it can affect nearly an entire army. Shadow Step is additional threat, debuffing, and repositioning, all in one, allowing it to be a versatile tool for whatever ails you. Finally, Damnation allows a strange battlegroup pressure, because many of the traditional defenses don’t work against it and it grants extra distance on a battlegroups charges and slams, neatly putting a bow on what a caster is forced to take, Jacks of some sort, even if they are Cryxian. 

The last part of her card, and sometimes the most important, is her Feat. Its a strange and cool feat that, while simple, has a number of cool interactions as well as a strong affect on many tables. she can make d3+3 models in her army Incorporeal for a round. Its really powerful defensively when you’re looking at an army with few magic weapons, essentially saving key pieces from retaliation either after aggressive positioning or a turn of attacks in a vulnerable position. The most egregious of these is turning the Wraith Engine back into a ghost after it activates, and it can be combined with other incorporeal models to make it even more tilting. Offensively it can be used to move through terrain or other models, and keeping it in the pocket for a potential assassination can keep an opponent honest. Combined with Damnation, enemy models will have a hard time hiding at any point of the game. It is an interesting feat with a lot of options, and I think its quite strong.  

The First List

So, Looking over the caster, my first instinct was to take Hellmouth as far as it can go, which is the same place that her original incarnation went. Soul Trappers and Deathjack, along with the Withershadow Combine can get a lot of mileage out of a number of her spells, and increase her output turn to turn. I don’t know that these are the right direction, though, as Breath Stealer is an amazing debuff every turn, and trying to squeeze the most out of that spell seems like a proper method to victory. 

What I am looking for in a list is something like this: 

 

• Ranged attacks to make the most out of Breath Stealer, as the penalty to defense and the penalty to speed will work nicely inconjuction
• Spell Slave to toss out Breath Stealer
• Cheaper, LOW mat Troops to make use of breath stealer
• Heavies that will make the most use out of Damnation, or combat lights. 
• Arc Nodes

Its a pretty strange puzzle to unwind, and I think that the end game is Infernal Machines. It provides the most opportunity to get Breath Stealer and Hellmouth out into the world while also capitalizing on Heavies, Arc Nodes and Cheap Troops. 

I’m thinking something like this: 

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Infernal Machines

Wraith Witch Deneghra [+28]
– Deathjack [23]
– Nightmare [18]
– Nightwretch [7]
– The Withershadow Combine [9]
Eilish Garrity, the Occultist [5]
Soul Trapper [1]
Soul Trapper [1]
Mechanithralls (min) [6]
– Brute Thrall (3) [6]
– Skarlock Commander [3]
Mechanithralls (min) [6]
– Brute Thrall (3) [6]
Mechanithralls (min) [6]
– Brute Thrall (3) [6]
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls [0(4)]
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls [0(4)]

This has plenty of cheap attacks, heavies and arc nodes to protect with the feat, two “free” spells a turn and two different sources of Puppet Strings. I like it a lot. 

However, The first list I think I am going to play was one suggested by my good friend and cryxian compatriot: Brad Park. 

Guns and Darkness: 

Cryx Army – 75 / 75 points
[Theme] Dark Host

Wraith Witch Deneghra [+28]
– Corruptor [14]
– Deathripper [6]
– Desecrator [14]
Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)]
Darragh Wrathe [9]
Bane Knights (max) [15]
Bane Riders (max) [20]
Bane Warriors (min) [10]
– Bane Warrior Officer & Standard [0(5)]
Wraith Engine [15]

Lets see how it goes! 

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