Pirate Bitch Deneghra!

 

We all remember who was the first, of the cryxian nation, to touch the destiny of the young child Deneghra; Scarre Ravenmane, and since that day, Deneghra always saw her as her cool aunty who plundered, pillaged and even (dare I say it) raped (only males and they truly did not mind) who ever she wanted to. In her teen years Deneghra often went on extended weekends with Scarre, and to the crew of the Widower she became known as “Pirate Bitch Deneghra”. These where here wild years, before Asphyxious tamed the crazy teenager in Deneghra, and Her exploits are many.

Deneghra is the warcaster included in the Cryx battlebox and will therefore often be the first caster that those about to start collecting the faction will get their hands on. The plastic model in the new battlebox looks great, but the old metal one I have I never felt strongly about. To help those about to start Cryx, I will go through what she can do, beyond the common “she is like what Cryx is all about” which was what I could find when looking into her.

1)      Defensive

Deneghra has 16 Def, 14 Arm, 16 hit boxes, stealth, 7 focus, Parry, and Shadow bind. This makes her a hard target to shoot down for those who find a way to ignore stealth, but easy to kill in melee. If, however, a melee assassination run fails she can use shadow bind against non-reach enemies to keep them in place, or parry to run away. She is vulnerable to blast damage, as her armor is low enough that a random scatter will harm her, and if boost able hurt her a lot. A threat that always exist with these high defense casters is to become knockdown. So be aware of jacks slamming her screening models into her for knockdown, and AOE (Area Of Effect) with knockdown (ask you opponent if he has anything other than power attacks that can knockdown). A knockdown makes her become easy enough that support units might have a go at killing your caster (imagine jack slamming another jack into her, then said enemy jacks mechanics beat her with her wrenches).

2)      Offensive

Deneghra uses debuffs to aid her army in overcoming dangerous foes. Even P+S 8 attacks are useful against most jacks due to Crippling Grasp and Parasite (cannot have both on one model/unit though), since it can bring arm down. Especially when combined with her feat which gives minus two to all stats except for command (that would be just WOW). This means focus as well (though not furry) reducing the area that other casters can effect. The feat can be combined with parasite to reduce arm by 5. In an example we have a khador jack with arm 20 go down to 15 through this combination making a charging mechanithrall able to make a combined attack for an average of 10,5 damage. 4 models (priced at half a point each) take out 7 points (at least) jack.

Comming soon to a Cryx Caster near you

The only problem with Denghras spells are that they are all offensive and they have relatively short range so you need to overcome this with arch nodes.

 

Such as those from you battlebox. She is however a caster that likes to use all her focus from turn two and forth, so I like to use focus efficient jacks, like this one

 

3)      Control

This is what I have experienced my enemies being most horrified about. Deneghras feat makes models unable to run, charge or make special attacks on the turn you are effected, as well as giving you a minus 2 speed. Jacks that are too far away from their casters will also experience lacking focus needed to hit her and therefore you can place her quite offensive without fear of repercussions. In that respect, Crippling Grasp does the same thing, just to model/unit and my enemies have felt like that spell just takes out the model/unit the needed the most each turn, making her quite horrible to play against. But these are controlling enemy units, she also has a spell that is often forgotten (by the enemy) Ghost walk. Not the fact that they gain pathfinder and can go/charge through terrain unhindered, but just as much making them immune to free-strikes. Experience players often leave room between their models so they can move about unhindered, does not get hurt as much by AOE and makes it possible to stop charge lanes in a wider area without exposing them as obvious spray targets. This is a good idea, however not if the enemy can become/are immune to free-strikes, and this have given some assassinations and taking out support models that looked well protected. The spell often have to fight for focus against parasite or Crippling grasp, this is why I like this model in her armies

 

4)      Conclusion

Deneghra is a great debuff caster, but hungry for focus so get a focus efficient heavy (they look good so you have no excuse not to do it. She needs archnodes to keep her safe, and a scarlock for the extra spell. Other than that, she can make just about anything a good choice, so a great first caster where you can just buy what you think looks good and it will still work great.