“Its agony leaves our enemies vulnerable.  Do not fear to sacrifice them early; not only does it bring their misery to an end but it is a simple matter to make more.” – Lord Tyrant Hexeris

I still remember when the agonizer solo was first shown on the Privateer Press website.  There was an out crying of forum members who felt the agonizer solo was offensive to animal lovers.  Privateer Press being the good natured folks that they are actually produced a button for the following Gencon that was a red circle with a line threw it over the Agonizer which read, “PETT  People for the Ethical Treatment of Titans.”  I still have mine on my display wall.

However, despite the out-crying from forum members in the past, as a skorne player, I’m pretty happy the Skorne manage to keep producing Agonizers.  These abused baby titans are among the most useful weapons in the Skorne arsenal and they don’t even have a ranged or melee attack.  The Agonies an Agonizer can produce will have a dramatic impact on the  enemies of the Skorne empire.  Many argue that the Agonizer is more effective against Hordes armies but I disagree.  The Agonizer is an incredible denial tool against both the forces of Hordes and Warmachine.

Stats: I often feel that most non melee oriented solos are squishy with a high DEF but low ARM making them often vulnerable to AoEs.  The Agonizer on the other hands is, IMHO, a very survivable solo.  It is a small based model.  It has a SPD of only 5 and a DEF of 12.  However it has an ARM of 16 with 10 damage boxes.  This makes the baby titan very survivable.  He can shrug off most blast damage without worry.  Even direct hit AoEs cannot kill him in a single hit without a good boosted damage roll.  His DEF of 12 does make him an easier target but with his base being small it’s quite easy to block LoS with other models or even with cloud effects.  I often find it interesting how much trouble an opponent will go to in an attempt to eliminate the Agonizer.  An opponent is often forced to expend multiple resources to destroy the Agonizer just so they can have their army function back at the level it normally would.

Abilities:

Fearless:The Agonizer never flees.  Of course it’s fearless, it’s been tortured by paingivers to an extent unseen in other beasts.  In fact the Agonizer probably seeks death as a way to simply relieve it’s life of torment.

Fury Bank: A friendly Skorne warlock may place fury points on an Agonizer in his control area during his activation.  An Agonizer can have up to 5 fury points on at any time.  While an Agonizer is within a friendly Skorne warlock’s control area, that warlock may leach fury from the Agonizer during it’s controller’s control phase.  This is a nice way to help prepare for any possible lack of fury during the game but the real use comes in the fact that one can use this ability to store fury to activate the Agonizer’s agonies.

Agonies: An Agonizer may spend 1 fury point at any time during it’s activation to use one of three Agony effects.  An Agonizer cannot use more than one agony per activation.  Enemy models suffer the effects of the agony while within 4 inches of the Agonizer plus 1 inch for every fury point on it.  Agony effects last 1 round.  Before getting into the specific agonies let’s discuss some of the generalities.  The Agonizer may spend the fury point at any time during it’s activation and it is not an action.  This allows one to have the Agonizer spend a fury point to activate an agony and then still run giving a possible threat range of up to 19 inches.  The radius of the agony changes based on the amount of fury present.  This means a fully loaded Agonizer can spend a fury point to activate an ability, then move, and then have a friendly Skorne warlock give 1 fury point to it to increase the radius of effect up to it’s maximum 9 inches.  Keep in mind that effects that move or reduce fury will also change the radius of agony effect.

Agony # 1: Gnawing Pain:Affected enemy warbeasts roll one less die on their damage rolls.  In my humble opinion this is a straight forward ability but a very useful one.  It causes enemy warbeasts to force to simply roll 2 die on a damage roll.  But it’s more than just that.  Each fury point spent on a boosted damage roll to simply get 2 die means there’s one less fury to buy an additional attack or 1 less fury to boost an attack roll.  Gnawing pain in conjunction with armor boosting spells like Defender’s Ward or Armor of Karrak means that most enemy beast will be doing marginal to no damage with their attacks.  Gnawing Pain in conjunction with Molik Karn’s Fate Ward reduces enemy warbeast attack rolls to 2 dice and their damage rolls to a single die.  Most light warbeast when attacking the an Agonizer will need to force to do any damage to the little guy.  That further reduces their fury pool often allowing them to only make 2 attacks with marginal damage.  In other words, the poor little Agonizer with a tad bit of luck (good or bad depending on your point of view) will survive an assault from a light warbeast.

Agony # 2: The Maddenning:An affected enemy warbeast must make a threshold check during it’s controller’s maintenance phase.  If the check fails the warbeast frenzies immediately.  I think most players write this ability off quickly with a cursory glance but it can actually have some serious applications.  First, the Maddening forces all enemy warbeast within the affected area to make a threshold check.  This means even those without fury on them must make a threshold check.  Second, the threshold check occurs in the maintenance phase.  This means the check is actually made before the opposing warlock has a chance to leech the fury from the beasts which obviously increases the chance that the beast will frenzy.  Third, if the beast makes the threshold check but the enemy warlock doesn’t leech all the fury for it, then it makes a second threshold check for the round.  If you want to guarantee and enemy warbeast will frenzy, then use the Supreme Archdomina’s Misery spell on the effected beast.  Misery states that a damaged model will automatically fail it’s next CMD or threshold check.  This can be used on multiple enemy beast, and even on those without fury on them, to force them to fail the threshold check that the Maddening agony induces.

Agony #3: Spiritual Affliction:Affected enemy warbeast cannot be forced to use their animi.  Enemy warlocks must spend 2 additional fury points to cast an affected warbeast’s animus.  Warjacks affected by this Agony cannot channel spells or be allocated focus.  This is the only agony to effect warjacks but what a tremendous effect.  Effected warjacks cannot receive focus making them much more inefficient and arc nodes cannot arc spells while within the radius.  Most offensive spells have a range of 8 inches.  That means a fully loaded Agonizer can often shut most offensive spells.  A fully loaded Agonizer’s effects can stretch more than 18 inches across the board.  This allows the Agonizer to threaten multiple jacks at once both shutting down arc nodes and deny focus to the heavy hitting jacks.  A cornered heavy warjack has little hope of destroying Molik Karn he cannot have any focus.  Notice it only prevents allocation of focus.  Warjacks can still receive focus by other means.  If that were not enough, this agony also effects warbeast by preventing them from using their animus and by making warlocks pay 2 more to use an effected warbeast’s animus.  Once again this is a tremendous effect.  Even warbeast animi that cost 1 fury now become a 3 fury spell.  For most casters, the chance to use half their fury on a single beast animi is to costly to be effective.

Summary: Despite having no weapons, the lowly Agonizer can have a dramatic impact on enemy forces.  A single Agonizer can significantly reduce the effectiveness of multiple enemy warbeasts and warjacks each round.  For 30 points this tortured baby titan is a steal for the effects it can have on an enemy army.  To paraphrase a quote from Stunami, a key to victory if limiting an opponent’s options.  If so, then the Agonizer is a key model in victory for the Skorne empire.