Deneghra, the Soul Weaver

Deneghra, the Soul Weaver takes to the skies to terrorize her foes. Atop her nightmarish winged necromechanikal mount she blots out the sun, casting a long shadow over those destined to die by her command. She gathers the souls of those slain in her presence, twisting them to her malevolent will. Such is her mastery that she can send these tormented spirits to empower her machines or tear their essence apart to weave a torrent of withering magic.

Basic Info

Warcaster abilities:

• Focus Manipulation

• Battlegroup Controller

• Power Field

• Spellcaster

• Independent Model

• Leader

Feat - Hell Gate

Deneghra immediately gains seven soul tokens.

Abilities

• Template:Cavalry
• Template:Construct
• Template:Flight
• Template:Undead
• Template:Reposition 5
• Template:Cull Soul
• Template:Soul Weaver
• Template:Soul Mastery
  • Template:Arcane Mastery
  • Template:Vengeful Spirits

Weapons

• Venomous Breath - 8" spray, POW 10 ranged attack
  • Template:Corrosion Damage
  • Template:Continuous Corrosion
• Malefactor - 2" reach, POW 8, P+S 13 melee attack
  • Template:Magical Weapon
• Mount - 0.5" reach, POW 12 mount attack.

Spells

{{Category: Template:Ghost WalkTemplate:Grave WindTemplate:MortalityTemplate:Scourge }}[[Category: Template:Ghost WalkTemplate:Grave WindTemplate:MortalityTemplate:Scourge ]]

Theme Forces

• Template:Black Industries
• Template:Dark Host
• Template:The Ghost Fleet
• Template:Scourge of the Broken Coast

Thoughts on Deneghra3

Deneghra3 in a Nutshell

Deneghra 3 is a curious amalgamation of abilities, mixing together the debuff-happy tendencies of her previous incarnations with some unique, and effective, defensive options.

Although her board control is less than impressive, she brings a personal presence to the battle field which can’t be ignored. With a base threat of 14" and the ability to self-buff to DEF 17 with Poltergeist (combined with the fact that it cannot become stationary or knocked down), there is a significant portion of the field that will struggle to get her dead. Casting spells via Soul Weaving also means it’s realistic that she can sit at DEF 17 and several focus points for damage reduction and is still able contribute. Just watch out for Eiryss.

Spell thoughts

Her spell list, whilst short and lacking a spammable offensive nuke, is not to be dismissed lightly. Mortality is an incredible spell and, considering her Soul Weaving abilities, can be applied liberally to an enemy force in a way that Crippling Grasp cannot. Additionally, her ability to ride-by to apply Mortality reduces her reliance on arc nodes if you’re feeling more inclined to fill her list with cheap bodies/shooting to exploit the effects of Mortality.

• Ghost Walk can be casted by a Skarlock Thrall as usual.
• Grave Wind aids Deneghra's personal survivability in the late game, or that of a key model early on.
• Mortality is her spammable spell.
• Scourge is an expensive knockdown but very useful for assassination.

Feat thoughts

Her feat is there for Soul Mastery, pure and simple. Imagine this, you have 7 beatstick jacks about to make contact with the enemy. You pop your feat, use Vengeful spirits 7 times, and send 21 focus down the enemy throat. And that's just one possibility.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• Huge bases are always a problem - both getting shot at and trying to move around the battlefield.
  • Denny has Grave Wind to help with the first point (and triggering Poltergeist is great)
  • Denny has Flight and Ghost Walk to help with the second point.
• Her Soul Weaving ability may be a list-building trap, be careful that you don't have too many different collectors and end up with a dribble of souls on a large number of models. Ideally you want to have the greatest number of souls on a single model to maximise Soul Weaving's usefulness.
• It can be tempting to go overboard taking souls from friendly models. But remember that if you don't use a Soul Mastery ability, they're just going to turn into boring old focus next round. It may be wiser to leave the soul token where it is until you need it.
• Activation order for Denny3 armies could get tricky. You need to first activate your soul gatherer(s), get them into position, then activate some of your army to kill the enemy and feed souls to the gatherer(s), then activate Denny3 to take the souls from gatherer and use them, then activate the army that benefited from Denny's work.
• Despite being awesome looking, the dragon effectively does nothing. A POW 12 impact attack and a poor RAT spray? Boo. Especially since Deneghra lost Venom in the process.
• Deneghra is not a 'jack caster. Sure, Vengeful Spirits allows her to fuel more jacks, but she's got no Terminal Velocity, Infernal Machine, Perdition, ... nothing to really get them going. And outside of feat turn, you're going to be lucky to fuel them heavily.
• Soul collecting is critical for your battle plan. If you face a list with few, or no soul (jack-casters, or most of the Legion's battlegroup pieces), you can easily end up hunting for solos/support pieces.

Tips & Tricks

• If any enemy models have soul collection abilities, they're competing with your collection and they become your priority number one. Denny needs those souls for herself, dammit.
• Turning souls into 3 allocated focus is more efficient than letting it turn into 1 focus next round (via Cull Soul). Unless you really need that additional focus for damage reduction in the next round.
• Sticking Mortality on a beast and hitting it just enough to take out key systems (like spirit) can be an effective play if you don't have the resources to fully kill it this turn - the beast will be unable to heal and be substantially reduced in effectiveness. Or, if you want to be extra mean, take out the spirit and Scourge it down. Then enjoy as they sit on their ass for a turn.

List Building Advice

Strategy

Deneghra3 is a versatile caster that can play relatively well in multiple parts of the game. She has a good attrition game with her Mortality spam game, she has a good assassination game her SPD 9, Ghost Walk and Scourge, and she has a good scenario presence as well with her personal mobility and her preferred army choices. But she does not excel in any part of the game either, so instead of having a predefined plan each game, you'll have to adapt your gameplan to your opponent's weaknesses.

When selecting an army for Denny3, ask yourself the following questions about every model.

1. Does it collect souls?
2. Does it carry an arc node?

If your answer to both of these questions is "no", consider the selection carefully.

Building to exploit Mortality is also a valid way to go. Similar to Deneghra1, she enjoys having Nyss and a variety of shooting to blow debuffed models away at range.

Theme Thoughts

Her preferred theme. Lots of soul collecting models, and it makes her jacks tougher, which she runs quite effectively thanks to Soul Weaver.

• Ol' Grim - Pretty much an autoinclude with her. He collects souls and can shoot twice a turn at base POW 12, so he's excellent with Scourge and Mortality.
• The Hellslinger Phantom and Pistol Wraiths function similar to Ol'Grim, but have lower range, less POW and no Apparition to assist aiming.
• Deathjack - DJ can cast the spells of its warcaster, with exceptions of course, see it page for clarification. Important for her is that he can cast Ghost Walk, Scourge and Mortality and hits like a freight train against Mortality targets.
• Bloat Thrall Overseer Mobius - He's got a decent gun, which obviously works well with her debuffs.
• Withershadow Combine - They do a whole lot for her; Puppet Master to nail an important Mortality, a free upkeep of Grave Wind and Spell Slave to cast extra Ghost Walks.
• Soulhunters - Incorporeal and Ghostly makes them very mobile and let them ignore many obstacles. They also collect souls, like the name implies.

Mortality does amazing things for guns, and Ghost Fleet has them for days. Given the low RAT and POW of Revenant Crew, Mortality really makes their output far beyond what it should be. Will recursion for days, Deneghra can play a long attrition game that is hard for a lot of opponents to deal with. Add to this Deneghra has Scourge, you can very easier put multiple POW12 shots into a knocked down 'caster.

There are multiple solos in the theme (Hellslinger Phantom, Ol' Grim, Pistol Wraith) that can collect souls, allowing Deneghra to use Soul Weaver each turn while there are models to kill!

• Asphyxious4 - Gaspy needs no introduction, being a notoriously powerful model. Grave Winds on him makes him annoying to remove and he has a Soul Taker ability.
• Princess Delores Graciela - A unit worth of shooting condensed into one model to abuse Mortaliy, have Gaspy4 bring a Toro along so you can include her and she has a burly bodyguard that enjoys MAT 7 by her Veteran Leader and Carapace from the Black Industries theme.

Battlegroup

File:Nightmare.png

Nightmare is Deneghra's pet warjack that she can bring in any theme.

She can run a LOT of 'jacks if she has the souls to fuel them; at least two Harrowers are essential; Malice can also keep your soul supply in good shape (in the 2 themes she's allowed).

An alternative would be to skip Harrowers and instead have soul-gatherers that transfer the souls via Denny + Venegeful Spirits to focus-hungry jacks (Leviathans, Harrowers, Malice, Reapers).

Lastly, Nightmare is Deneghra's pet warjack that she can bring in any theme. He is often considered over-costed for his abilities, but still.

First Seven Purchases

A few veteran players have put their heads together and tried to figure out the seven best things to buy for this specific caster. This is not designed to add up to a nice round points limit, nor be balanced vs other "First Seven" lists you find on this website. It is simply going to give you some of the essentials this caster needs most of the time.

1. Warjack: Barathrum
2. Warjack: Deathripper (x2)
3. Solo: Satyxis Blood Priestess
4. Solo: Gerlak
5. Solo: Axiara
6. Unit: Blighted Trollkin Marauders + CA
7. Unit: Satyxis Blood Witches + CA

This list is really just a standard Scourge of the Broken Coast list, with Deneghra3 tacked on. It doesn't interact with her Soul Mastery at all, but it does give her Sucker! to bump up her survivability.

Other

Trivia

• Released in the Warmachine: Reckoning book (2015).
• Nicknames = Denny3, Dragonera, Dragon3ra

Video Battle Reports

• 2019.12 Desperate Pace vs Jaga-Jaga
• 2018.09 Not Snakes Gaming 75 points vs Siege2
• Template:VBR