Bane Witch Agathia
Bane Witch Agathia |
Once regarded as both prisoner and oracle, Bane Witch Agathia is one of the more unusual weapons in Cryx’s arsenal. In life she was valued for her insight into the occult, and the tragic circumstances of her death only increased her worth to the dark lords of the Nightmare Empire. Though presently more pawn than queen, Agathia has begun to assert her will, and she may yet find a way to choose her own fate. Template:Shopbox2
Basic Info
Agathia1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Abilities
- Warcaster - All warcasters come with a stack of standard special rules - most notably being awesome. Click here for a newbie-friendly recap, or click here for the full rules.
- Undead
- Dark Shroud - While in this model's melee range, enemy models suffer -2 ARM.
- Soul Taker: Cull Soul - This model can gain soul tokens. When a living enemy model is destroyed within 2" of this model, this model gains the destroyed model's soul token. After this model replenishes its focus during your next Control Phase, replace each soul token with 1 focus point.
Weapons
- Death Kiss - 2" reach, P+S 12 melee weapon
Spells
COST | RNG | AOE | POW | DUR | OFF | ||
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Ghost Walk
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2 | 6 | - | - | Turn | No | |
Target friendly Faction model/unit gains Ghostly for one turn.
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Hellfire
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3 | 10 | - | 14 | - | Yes | |
Models disabled by Hellfire cannot make a Tough roll. Models boxed by Hellfire are removed from play. | |||||||
Hellwrought
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2 | 6 | - | - | Upkeep | No | |
Target warjack in the spellcaster's battlegroup gains +2 ARM and Retaliation.
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Parasite
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3 | 8 | - | - | Upkeep | Yes | |
Target model/unit suffers -3 ARM and the spellcaster gains +1 ARM. | |||||||
Vanish
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1 | SELF | - | - | - | No | |
Place the spellcaster anywhere completely within 3" of its current location. Vanish can only be cast once per activation. |
Feat: Shadowfall
This feat has 3 effects:
- Friendly Faction models/units currently in Agathia's control range are affected by Ghost Walk (as above).
- While in Agathia's control range, friendly Faction models gain Stealth.
- When a warjack in Agathia's battlegroup ends its activation in her control range, you can immediately place that model anywhere completely within 3" of its location.
Shadowfall lasts for one round.
Tip ! |
Theme Forces
- Black Industries
- Dark Host. Agathia gains Prowl in this theme.
- The Ghost Fleet
- Scourge of the Broken Coast
Thoughts on Bane Witch Agathia
Bane Witch Agathia in a nutshell
Bane Witch Agathia is the Cryx Battlebox caster. Like all Battlebox casters, she is built to be relatively simple to use while still providing a meaningful introduction to the faction. As such she exemplifies many of the powers (ignore terrain & debuff the enemy) and weaknesses of Cryx (easy to kill). If you're learning the game, it is best to use her vs one of the other battlebox casters because they're all designed to have roughly the same power level. None of them are top tier casters, as they lack the flexibility or strength to be top contenders.
Her tool box hits many of the hallmarks of Cryx including a debuff, soul mechanics, mobility improvements, above average focus, and a strong offensive spell. On the down side, her protective abilities will be short lived and she is not that hard to kill.
Leveraging her strengths primarily means using her spells rather than her personal combat ability. As good as Dark Shroud can be, it's best to keep her safe with distance and clever use of Vanish.
Feat thoughts
Agathia's feat provides several different bonuses to your army including faction wide stealth, faction wide ghostly, and battlegroup teleport at the end of activation. Each one of these buffs can be powerful in turn and should be leveraged if possible.
Against a gunline with limited anti-stealth tech, it may be worth using this feat for this buff alone. You can rush your army into position to threaten objectives forcing enemy gunlines to move forward or lose on scenario.
Faction wide ghostly is a huge buff. In anticipation of using this feat, take advantage of the terrain. Cover from walls, blocking LOS obstruction, and patches of rough terrain to restrict enemy movement.
The last element of the feat is a short teleport, don't underestimate the utility of this. It can be used to dive into protective terrain like a forest's concealment or cover from a wall or trench. After charging an enemy, you can teleport out of the way so another one of your units can move in and continue the attack if the enemy survived. Without this, you might be hard pressed to to fit more than one heavy warjack around some targets.
Spell thoughts
- Ghost Walk is an awesome mobility spell, allowing the model/unit to benefit from a combination of Parry and Pathfinder+. A great tool for positioning and making the most of the terrain on the table. It's often worth bringing a Skarlock Thrall or The Withershadow Combine along just to cast this exactly where needed without depleting Agathia's focus or restricting her movement.
- Hellfire The standard high-power "laser" of cryx. It's kind of long range, prevents tough and removes the victim from play once boxed. A great spell for spot removal of pesky solos.
- Hellwrought is a spell with unexpected utility, as not only does it make Deathjack an arm 21 snacking terror, the vengeance move it provides can allow drag jacks threat extension and shooting crab jacks the ability to aim. Because of its synergy with Shield Guard, an Inflictor is also a great target for this spell. Helljacks like the arm buff, but even at arm 19 they are easy to kill or cripple in one round, limiting the value of the vengeance.
- Parasite is a fantastic debuff that gives Agathia a small ARM buff at the same time. Use it to weaken opposing heavy ARM targets to shred them with the rest of your forces.
- Vanish allows flexibility with positioning. While 3" isn't very far, being able to place yourself anywhere within that range can make getting to advantageous terrain easier. Also a Get Out of Melee free card if your opponent managed to get something Agathia can't deal with close but failed to finish her off.
Battlebox Fights
In a battlebox fight, two players who bought nothing but their Faction's starter set use everything in that box to play a game.
As a Cryx caster, Agathia is going to win through denying your opponent's strengths, superior mobility, and debuffs. Ghostwalk and her feat will let the most dangerous element of your army reach the enemies most valuable. Superior mobility on your arcnode will allow Agathia a sizeable board presence and to arc your most potent spells from a safe distance. Parasite takes the cake on your spell list. Not only it will help you to remove heavily armored targets, with Dark Shroud it can often lead to excellent piece trades and assassination victories. Just don't forget to keep Agathia safe from retaliation. See Tips and Tricks.
Drawbacks & Downsides
- Agathia does not have any form of DEF debuffs so she has a hard time dealing with high DEF targets; unless you take naturally accurate troops, such as the Satyxis.
- True Sight casters (such as Issyria1 or Kara Sloan) are a hard counter to the Stealth portion of Agathia's feat.
- She is sometimes compared unfavorably to Asphyxious1 who is another all-around caster but who has superior anti-ARM and personal combat ability both in spell slinging and melee.
Tricks & Tips
- Using her feat, a warjack with the Drag ability can walk through LOS-blocking terrain, drag an enemy heavy towards your line, then teleport away. Leaving either the enemy heavy stranded somewhere useless or perhaps just standing in front of your army ready for a pummeling. And if your Dragging warjack misses, the teleport can help save its bacon.
- Because her feat applies the Ghost Walk spell, which is itself a target model/unit spell, when it comes to units you only need to have a single trooper within her control range for the entire unit to get Ghostly.
- Cryx debuff engine allows you great piece trades, ie. you can remove valuable enemy models with your less valuable assets. this is something you should learn as fast as possible when playing Cryx. The most typical example is the ARM de-buff in the form of Parasite, Dark Shroud and other abilities. Here's a quick rundown:
- Let's see a battlebox contestant, the Khadoran Juggernaut. This jack is the golden standard for warjack survival with its basic ARM of 20 and 34 HP. For the sake of simplicity let's assume that none of your attacks miss against it. If you manage to land a charge with your Slayer, and do a Combo Strike, you'll cause ~12 damage with your first hit (P+S 22 + 10 on average for 3 dice minus the ARM), then 3 for each attack you bought. Since your Slayer can have only 3 Focus, and 1 must be spent on charging, most likely the Juggernaut will survive on 16 HP - and with a little (mis)fortune it remains fully functional. Ouch.
- Now, with Parasite (basically making said Juggernaut ARM 17), you don't even have to resort to combo strike - even your 3 basic attacks will cause ~17 points of damage (9+6+2). 2 more claw attacks will leave it on roughly 7 HP, which is basically crippled for good. However, it can still be dangerous if you left the cortex untouched.
- If you can deliver Agathia within 2" to that poor Juggernaut, and land Parasite on it, we're basically talking about a beefier light jack armour level of 15. Your charging Slayer might cause up to 23 points of damage with its initials (11+8+4) and 2 more claw attacks (8 damage each) can one-round the Khadoran jack for good. Just make sure, Agathia won't be killed next turn.
- If you manage to apply both Parasite and Dark Shroud on the enemy caster, it is basically game over.
List Building Advice
Strategy
Once moving beyond the battlebox fights, discussed above, Agathia supports her army in a variety of ways allowing newer players to explore the faction in their own fashion. When seeking infantry, find the units that are most likely to use both Ghostwalk and Parasite. Also she generally wants models that can hit accurately, as she has no to-hit buff.
Theme Thoughts
This theme is full of infantry that hit accurately, but not very hard. They can also sometimes struggle with rough terrain. So they make excellent use of Agathia's Parasite debuff as well as Ghostwalk. The Trolls and Ogrun especially like the Ghost Walk and Stealth from her feat to help them cross the board somewhat unscathed.
Dark Host is the home of the Banes but oddly Agathia doesn't really want to be there. You see, her spells and feat make her army be more like Banes so taking her with actual Banes is like taking sand to the Sahara. That said, as she is a Bane herself there are some synergies there:
- First off, the theme gives her Prowl and fog to hide in, letting her have stealth all game.
- Secondly, she can benefit from Tartarus's Veteran Leader. It applies to her offensive spells as well as her melee attacks (although hopefully she stays out of melee).
- Stealth from her feat can all but guarantee the Banes get to combat unscathed (if you feat early).
- The Withershadow Combine or Skarlock are good for putting Ghost Walk out.
Battlegroup
- A Desecrator can get a free focus from her just by activating within 3" of her.
Other
Trivia
- Bane Witch Agathia is the battlebox caster for Cryx
- Released in Prime Mk3 (2016.06)
Video Battle Reports
- 2019.05 Encounter Wargaming, vs Helynna1
- See also Category: Video Battle Reports for more casters with videos.
Other Cryx models
Rules Clarifications
Rules Clarification : Agathia
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Rules Clarification: : Warcaster (Edit) | |||||
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Rules Clarification: : Magical Damage (Edit) | |
* The "Damage Type: Magical" is not inherited by "secondary" damage from a weapon. That is, stuff like arcs (Electro Leap) or hazards (Scather). (Infernal Ruling)
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Rules Clarification : Undead - None yet. (Edit)
Rules Clarification : Dark Shroud (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Cull Soul - None yet. (Edit)
Rules Clarification : Ghost Walk (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Hellfire - None yet. (Edit)
Rules Clarification : Hellwrought (Edit)
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Rules Clarification : Parasite (Edit)
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