Undying Hate triggers before deployment. My knee-jerk reaction to this timing is that it turns a powerful upgrade into a mediocre one. If your opponent knows before deployment which of his units has Mark of Vengeance, he can deploy in such a way that your Wraiths may never get to attack that unit. Of course, you could always save your Wraiths for last, too.

But the more I thought about it, the more I started wondering if there weren't some way to leverage Mark of Vengeance during deployment. Could yoy use it to manipulate your opponent's deployment? If so, that would be awesome. But then I remember that it's just upgrading one die to a white die, and usually I think you're just trading blue out for white. That really isn't threatening enough to let it affect your deployment, is it?

EDIT: I also find the timing unfortunate because Kethra can respond after deployment by putting Unnatural Growths on her allies that received Mark of Vengeance. The Wraiths can go ahead and attack with their white die, but they're going to lose a figure before they even get to roll.

I've thought about this, too. I think Wraiths may perform best as speed bumps. Not the kind that can take a bunch of damage, but the kind that makes your opponent think about how best to attack them. @flightmaster101 and the other Runecasters were discussing this with me, and Metered March looks better than I gave it credit. Wraiths with Metered March can move right up to where they're outside charging range, so that if you move up, they can charge through you and get the extra die for flanking. And if you try to out-think them by not moving up, they just reveal their dial and use Metered March to sit tight without moving. This is a 29 point unit (3x1 with Undying Hate and Metered March), so you have to determine whether it's worth it for your unit to be playing this game with them. If your unit is more expensive, the Waiqar player can get to work on the rest of your list while the Wraiths are busy captivating your expensive units.

As I mentioned to you when we were discussing things earlier, I think spamming Wraiths with Undying Hate can be strong because any target let's them drop the blue die for a white die. But Undying Hate combined with Metered March may be the best way to use them, forcing your opponent to make tough decisions. This will be especially important in Demoralize Their Forces.

7 hours ago, Parakitor said:

Metered March  looks better than I gave it credit

I think after the discussion it was the combination of metered march and raven tabards that made this build viable.

On 8/9/2018 at 7:47 AM, Budgernaut said:

EDIT: I also find the timing unfortunate because Kethra can respond after deployment by putting Unnatural Growths  on her allies that received Mark of Vengeance. The Wraiths can go ahead and attack with their white die, but they're going to lose a figure before they even get to roll.

Is it not after they do dammage? Or is it something im missing?

1 hour ago, Datskor said:

Is it not after they do dammage? Or is it something im missing?

Yeah that means that they take the damage after they survive a melee attack from the Wraiths.

Wraiths would only take the Unnatural Growths damage after their melee attack, and even then the target has to survive for Unnatural Growths to trigger.

It works the same way as Shield of Margath.

Yep. I got it confused with Kingsbone Armor. Too much direct damage flying around these days!

So I suppose Kethra's ability doesn't counter Undying Hate, but it certainly appears to have a better timing window for when it enters the battlefield.