Demoralizer/Antagonizer Issues

[Xochi]

So I was building a force and read the old 2016 thread on the use of Demoralizer and Antagonizer being that you must go within 6" of a unit, regardless of which unit is being moved.

With the current rule set nothing stops me from taking lets say a RoTS Celerity or a Balak Attack Helicopter with this ability and fly across their entire force, and debilitate on average, more than half of them to half movement. I can basically do this every turn, staying in medium range of most of the main force (especially if they're halved in movement) to ensure that I either get every single one of them constantly or keep up the effect. This isn't to say you could do that with a Firemoth, Fireball etc to an opponent. Even a Shadow Cat with 16" movement can really race through a force.

If that is the intention, rule sets of "Just don't play with them" or "don't use that section of the book" really don't assist players who want to use the rule sets we are given in our manuals.

If I could make a suggestion it should maybe read:

A warrior with the Demoralizer SPA can make his unit a holy terror on the battlefield, projecting an intimidating presence that manifests in the way he maneuvers and taunts his enemies—with or without the use of communications. If a enemy unit comes within 6 inches of this unit, the player may make a roll 2D6 before attempting to make a weapon or physical attack. If the roll is 8 or less, the enemy unit is Intimidated. Intimidated units reduce their Move by half (round down) and suffer a +1 to hit modifier for all attacks made against the Demoralizer. This effect can only be used on one unit at a time.

Or maybe

Every enemy unit that ends its turn within 6 inches of this unit must roll 2D6 before attempting to make a weapon or physical attack. If the roll is 8 or less, the enemy unit is Intimidated. Intimidated units reduce their Move by half (round down) and suffer a +1 to hit modifier for all attacks made against the Demoralizer.

Thoughts?

[DarkJaguar]

You forgot the errata.

Demoralizer
Unit Type: Any
SPA Cost: 3 points
A warrior with the Demoralizer SPA can make his unit a holy terror on the battlefield, projecting an intimidating presence that manifests in the way he maneuvers and taunts his enemies—with or without the use of communications.
Every enemy unit that comes within 6” of a unit using this SPA must roll 2D6. If the roll is 8 or less, the enemy unit becomes intimidated. Intimidated units reduce their Move by half (round down) and suffer a +1 to-hit modifier for all attacks made against the Demoralizer. The reduced Move rating does affect its target movement modifier.
If a demoralized unit begins any phase more than 24” from or without line of sight to the Demoralizer, the unit is no longer demoralized. This ability does not function at all versus aerospace units.

I would suggest changing "Every enemy unit that comes within 6” of a unit using this SPA must roll 2D6. " to something like  "Any unit that moves within 6" of a unit using this SPA -or- any unit that is within 6" of a a using unit at the end of its movement forces the controlling player to roll a 2d6."

[Son of Kerenski]

Pretty sure Antagonizer was fixed from its broken state so that you can only Antagonizer only 1 unit per turn...

[nckestrel]

Pretty sure Antagonizer was fixed from its broken state so that you can only Antagonizer only 1 unit per turn...

Not quite. You can only trigger Antagonizer once during your move, but it still affects every unit within 6” of when you trigger it.

[DarkJaguar]

Not quite. You can only trigger Antagonizer once during your move, but it still affects every unit within 6” of when you trigger it.

What about demoralizer though?

[nckestrel]

What about demoralizer though?

You just quoted the Demoralizer errata.  There’s nothing that I know of beyond/above that.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Demoralized is a much weaker kick in the gonad than Antagonized is.

Demoralized targets just suffer penalties. Granted, crippling penalties for high-TMM units... but it's still much better than losing control of the unit entirely, which is what Antagonized means.

[Xochi]

Halving most of your force to half movement is pretty bad on its own using large distance covering units.

[DarkJaguar]

Demoralized is a much weaker kick in the gonad than Antagonized is.

Demoralized targets just suffer penalties. Granted, crippling penalties for high-TMM units... but it's still much better than losing control of the unit entirely, which is what Antagonized means.

I think my main issue is that you can cripple the entire enemy force with half move on your turn before they have moved, AND give the opponent a penalty to kill the source of said crippling.

[Weirdo]

So there are units in the game that you really REALLY want to kill before they get close to any of your stuff. Alpha Strike becomes more and more like Total War every day! :thumbsup:

[Scotty]

I think my main issue is that you can cripple the entire enemy force with half move on your turn before they have moved, AND give the opponent a penalty to kill the source of said crippling.

They have to get there.

If they have Demoralizer on something fast enough to get most of your force you can bring Combat Intuition on something nasty to counter.

You have to fail the check

You can still play around a half movement penalty

I'm sure there are many more ways than just those to counter that strategy.

[Xochi]

They have to get there.

If they have Demoralizer on something fast enough to get most of your force you can bring Combat Intuition on something nasty to counter.

You have to fail the check

You can still play around a half movement penalty

I'm sure there are many more ways than just those to counter that strategy.

Its not hard to sweep a unit and then move back and use another Mech with the Cover feature and go hull down/Forest/Partial Cover, especially on units with 20+" and sprint.

Rolling an 9 is hard enough on its own, so most of the force is going to fail a check.

You can move but doesn't help if you never get a TMM over 1 if that on some units at half move especially when they don't have heavy or assault armor. (A Shadowcat going 16 now goes to 8 so you from TMM 3 to 1.) This makes it really easy in a round or two to kill people.

Its not an easy strategy to counter when you can keep doing that, especially if they have multiple units with it.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

As a check to make sure we're all on the same page, the current version of the Demoralizer works thusly (errata v2.4):

"Every enemy unit that comes within 6” of a unit using this SPA must roll 2D6. If the roll is 8 or less, the enemy unit becomes intimidated. Intimidated units reduce their Move by half (round down) and suffer a +1 to-hit modifier for all attacks made against the Demoralizer. The reduced Move rating does affect its target movement modifier.
If a demoralized unit begins any phase more than 24” from or without line of sight to the Demoralizer, the unit is no longer demoralized. This ability does not function at all versus aerospace units."

If you sweep a ridiculously fast unit around early in the turn to give the speed debuff before units move, all you do is force your opponent to abandon a bold push and move instead into cover (and granted, that's a potent ability, but hardly in Antagonizer's league)
The smarter play for Demoralizer is to move it reactively rather than proactively, catching those high-TMM units after they've moved and denying them their TMM when they ended their move in a vulnerable location.

As for Antagonizer/Demoralizer SPAs disruptiveness: I'm not a fan of SPAs in competitive games. For reasons exactly like this.. SPAs aren't generally written with an eye towards balance.  The furthest I'd go with SPAs in a competitive game is formation building, which doesn't often grant these particular SPAs.

But if you do like to play with SPAs and these particular SPAs are being disruptive in your meta, then you know you need to start taking more Iron Will pilots.

[Son of Kerenski]

Not quite. You can only trigger Antagonizer once during your move, but it still affects every unit within 6” of when you trigger it.

OK. So you still have to chose which unit? And it's still the only one?

[nckestrel]

OK. So you still have to chose which unit? And it's still the only one?

Antagonizer is every unit in range.
“Once per turn, a unit with Antagonizer may trigger its ability at any single point along its path while moving. At that time, every enemy unit within 6 inches of the unit triggering this SPA must roll 2D6.”
So it can get multiple, but they all have to be within 6” of it at that one time that it triggers. It can’t zoom around getting everybody at once.  Unless everybody is within a 6” area.

[Son of Kerenski]

Right so I've been interpreting the new ruling wrong. Cheers.

Still kinda broken but nowhere like it used to be.

[Weirdo]

Some things are just good. The counter is gun. If you kill the Antagonizer before it gets close or otherwise prevent it from closing(consider mines), then you've negated the goodness.

[Xochi]

Some things are just good. The counter is gun. If you kill the Antagonizer before it gets close or otherwise prevent it from closing(consider mines), then you've negated the goodness.

Taking what was said earlier. How do you counter and kill something with 60" move (using print) that moves around and halves a bunch of movement and TMM and then disappears around a rock. They effect applies till the start of a new phase, they don't need to stay in line of sight. So you run around, wipe out all the TMM on things that moved quick and go hide. During combat phase they are no longer demoralized but they still have super reduced TMM.

[DarkJaguar]

Some things are just good. The counter is gun. If you kill the Antagonizer before it gets close or otherwise prevent it from closing(consider mines), then you've negated the goodness.

 While this is indeed a potential counter, it's not a dependable one.  The force with demoralizer just needs to move first with a suitably fast mech.  In order to counter that you need three things.

1)  You have to know that they HAVE demoralizer, and which unit it's on.  You won't know this until they use it.
2) You need to be far enough away that they can't use it yet, which can be difficult with things like the Wulfen E (26" move, and by far not the worst possibility).
3) You have to not only move first, but you have to move first and have everything spread out enough that they won't all be able to get hit by demoralizer, which can outright destroy your ability to return fire in a coherent manner.

The big difference between demoralizer and say sniper, is that demoralizer just needs to work once to negatively affect an infinite number of opponents, maintaining the demoralized state is completely passive.  Sniper requires you roll a to-hit every time you shoot to potentially affect 1-3 units (Weapon attack, multi-attack, special attack).

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Taking what was said earlier. How do you counter and kill something with 60" move (using print) that moves around and halves a bunch of movement and TMM and then disappears around a rock. They effect applies till the start of a new phase, they don't need to stay in line of sight. So you run around, wipe out all the TMM on things that moved quick and go hide. During combat phase they are no longer demoralized but they still have super reduced TMM.

There's a few things to reply to.

Sportsmanship: We might have to go ahead and disagree as to whether someone using a 60" move to maximize the ability to exploit Antagonizer is being a good sport.  If you can't rule these sorts of things out from the "good sportsmanship" code of conduct, then you might have to start looking at removing some of the optional rules you play with.  Alpha Strike isn't written to be a competitive game.. if you want to play it that way you really shouldn't be using unbalanced optional expansions to the rules like SPAs and Sprint anyway.

Current state of Antagonizer: Remember that even with a 60" move you can't deny the opponent control of large swathes of his army.  Antagonizer is actively triggered at any point during your own move, and only affects units within 6" of the Antagonizer at that moment. Furthermore, if those antagonized units begin any phase (movement, or combat) more than 24" away from the antagonizer or without LOS to it (you hid behind a rock) the SPA's effect immediately ends.

Current state of Demoralizer: Demoralized wears off the same way as antagonized. (You seem to be under the mistaken impression that hiding out of LOS is going to allow the Demoralized debuff to last into the combat phase) If you swept around to TMM nerf half the opponent's force and still stay within 24" of all nerfed units and inside their LOS so that the debuff doesn't expire... it ain't gonna live through the round to ever do it again.  Even a +1tn won't save it from that much concentrated hate (and artillery will ignore it anyway).  And besides, demoralized targets can shoot at everything other than the demoralizer at no penalty (unlike Antagonized units, which must shoot at their debuff-er...)

"How do you counter and kill [a fast Demoralizer]...": If you moved it late, I've already got full value of my MV on the affected units and all you're doing is lowering their TMM by 1-2. And if you hide out of LOS, not even that as the effect immediately wears off when Combat phase begins and your Demoralizer is >24" away or out of LOS...

OTOH if you moved the Demoralizer early in the phase, before I moved the affected units, they'll mostly just go into whatever cover is still available, or even to stationary for the firing bonus if already in cover.  However something will be able, even if my entire army is at 1/2 MV, to achieve LOS to wherever you hid.  And artillery will guarantee your demoralizer doesn't see another round. It'll only take 1 or 2 hits to knock out anything that can go 60". And since LOS is reciprocal, if you Demoralize early and go break LOS then my TMM will be restored when you're shooting at me in the combat phase...

[Weirdo]

Taking what was said earlier. How do you counter and kill something with 60" move (using print) that moves around and halves a bunch of movement and TMM and then disappears around a rock. They effect applies till the start of a new phase, they don't need to stay in line of sight. So you run around, wipe out all the TMM on things that moved quick and go hide. During combat phase they are no longer demoralized but they still have super reduced TMM.

Bombs. Mines. Artillery. Ortillery. MV is so powerful in Alpha Strike that any force that can't deliver solid AE damage deserves everything that happens to it. Bring some big boom, and remind him that people proved back in WWI that speed is NOT armor. Do so as brutally as possible. KILL the Demoralizer.

Bring your own Demoralizer. Demoralize his Demoralizer. KILL the Demoralizer.

Fire. Heat up the Demoralizer, slow it down. KILL the Demoralizer.

Also, if your opponent can bring Demoralizer, what's preventing you from bringing Iron Will? Sure it only protects one unit, but if you fear Demoralizer that much, it's worth it.

Plenty of counters. And that's not even counting stuff like playing canon units only(show me that 60" unit), only allowing SPAs from formations(good luck cramming something that fast into a legal assault lance), or playing on terrain that screws up those high MV units.

[nckestrel]

Demoralizer is broken if LOS is broken.  Or if the Demoralizer is more than 24” away.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Demoralizer is broken if LOS is broken.  Or if the Demoralizer is more than 24” away.

Technically not until the next phase, so theoretically a 60" Demoralizer could move early, debuff, hide, and still force you to make 1/2 speed moves.

Of course Demoralizing and hiding won't do anything to TMMs due to shooting happening in a completely different phase than movement.

[nckestrel]

Yeah, the doesn’t affect TMM is an important piece as well.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

Due to the necessity of NOT breaking LOS for meaningful impact to Demoralized, my preferred unit is juggernaut Battle Armor such as Kanazuchi.  Kick the expendable BA out of a fast moving APC for maximum munchkin-age. Much more of a kick than a Demoralizing, hiding Fireball.

Just so, it's still hard countered by artillery.

[Son of Kerenski]

What on gods earth moves 60 inches?

[nckestrel]

A sprinting Fireball ALM-XF goes 48” *1.5 = 72”.

[Son of Kerenski]

Right. Never use sprinting. And never intend to now.

[Weirdo]

Yeah, I'm assuming they're going full hog on customs, or maybe the NapFind can make that?

[nckestrel]

Yeah, I'm assuming they're going full hog on customs, or maybe the NapFind can make that?

The 60" move reference specifically said with sprinting (assuming "print" was a typo for "sprint).
I think that Fireball is still the faster canon ground unit. There's a Celerity that matches it, and the LCT-6M at 36".