Shroud of Despair in infantry unit

[Lord Drakon]

I have a question about possible plan to for leadership bomb trick.
In my list there is an Supreme Sorceress, Assassin, Infantry Unit (Sisters of Slaughter) and Bloodwrack Shrine.

Bloodwrack and Sisters are combined into Shrine of Slaughter.

C B B B SS
S B B B SB
S B B B S
S B B B S
S B B B S

Hidden: Assassin

Does my Supreme Sorceress need line of sight and front arc to cast Shroud of Despair while in the middle of the battle with the combined unit? If not, she can already stay in second rank because of command models (champion and standard bearer) and all is fine.

But when she needs line of sight etc. to cast Shroud of Despair she has to be in the front rank, so vulnerable. My question is that when I deploy my hidden assassin when in combat, will the Supreme Sorceress take the unit champions place, or move to the second rank ?

C B B B A
ST B B B SS

or

SS B B B A
C B B B SB

If she is moved to the second rank Shroud of Despair becomes a very very interesting spell for my army list

[Haagrum]

Shroud of Despair is a hex spell.

Hex spells do not require line of sight and can be cast at targets outside the caster's forward arc.

Your sorceress can stay safe in rank #2 and cast Shroud of Despair without impediments.

[Lord Drakon]

Evil laugh

[Thraundil]

Also. Shroud of Despair targets all enemies within 12" of the caster. So there

[Lord Drakon]

And when I first want to throw out some doombolts, then when combat is closing in can I just retreat to second rank again in movement phase ?

[Daeron]

AFAIK you can see from the second rank. So, it's possible to put the Sorc on the second rank and shoot Doombolts from there on. However, a Vortex starts in front of the Sorceress and will touch models in front of the Sorc. Perhaps even your BWS though I'd have to check that. A thing to keep in mind for Black Horror.

[dms505]

Models in the second rank are assumed to see the same thing as the front rank I believe. Otherwise the second ranks shooting would always get a -1 for the enemy being obscured. But regardless the game uses true line of site in this edition so she could be 5 ranks deep and still cast a spell as long as you can draw a line from her eyes to the enemy unit. This is especially easy if you have the plastic sorceress with the ghostliness raising her off the ground.