You don't need to miss out the extra layer of defense from hidden deployment. Just declare any ZOC ARO with it on your opponent's last order.
OTOH, your opponent knows your lt's WIP is 16, so unless you also have a Skiavoros, Charontid, or Sphinx on the table, they know what you're up to and can burn their last order to put you in LoL. So you Dodge on their second-last order. But maybe they anticipate that and burn two orders...
I mean, what if the enemy isn't actually in my ZoC? You guys seem to imply that I can declare an ARO regardless?
Because you don't measure ZoC until after all skills are declared you can always Declare an ARO, even if you're sure it'll be found to be invalid when measurements are made and reduced to an Idle at resolution.
RAW or not, that seems to be a pretty clear exploit to me so not gonna go for it. What do people think of the Anathematic LT options outside of this? So far, hasn't performed, though thats only been two games. Looks good on paper and then I spend most of my turn simply reaching wherever it wants to get to before it can do anything.
Might want to add the disclaimer of your local TO may beat you with the dreaded sock Maggie for trying this.
@WiT? its funky but he may not be wrong. CB recently clarified in the faq that models can always declare an aro, whether or not it’s successful is determined at the end of an order that triggered an aro. CB stated this in regards to hackers being unable to dodge aro to enemies within by their hacking area. The states this to keep their pdf rule book “accurate”.
Even if that's not allowed you can always have a Slave Drone call an Alert to let your Anathematic dodge out of Hidden Deployment.
To nitpick in N4 Alert! is now Warning from N3, the change facing after a trooper or trooper in ZOC gets attacked. The N3 Alert! is now called Look Out! in N4.
Honestly, I think the largest risk is your opponent passing their last couple of orders to place you in LOL. I looked up the rules this morning, a failed ARO results in an Idle and declaring Idle breaks camo state. https://infinitythewiki.com/Idle
Idle is not an ARO, so you can't Declare it in the reactive turn, but anything you could Declare in ARO (Dodge, Hacking, Reset, etc) would still cancel Camouflage.
I don't play CA, but honestly an Anathematic Lt in Camo(-6) state seems pretty hard to assassinate already. How would your opponent even do it? The assassin has to Discover the Anathematic first, and presumably you have your DZ defended so that as soon as they Discover they eat a bunch of AROs. Normally a Speculo could avoid the AROs using smoke, but if they do that, they can no longer see the Anathematic to Discover it. An opponent recently tried a similar experiment with a Noctifer Lt and a decoy Nexus hacker. The idea was that I would think the Nexus was the Lt and waste my first turn assassinating it, and the Noctifer would reveal at the end of the turn. As it turned out I didn't even think about who was the Lt (I probably should have, but I don't know Onyx very well), but assassinated the Nexus anyway because it was threatening my HI and providing link bonuses to a Unidron (well, I tried to but misplayed my Fiday, but that's another story). In short, I'd like the hidden lt trick to work, because it's kind of a fun idea (and also to thumb my nose at the people who've arbitrarily decided it's "gamey" or whatever), but I'm skeptical that the benefits are worth the risk that your opponent burns an order or two and puts you in LoL.
I would totally go after that with a Devil Dog, I'll say that. If I see an S6 TO camo marker on the enemy side it's either an Anathematic or a Sphinx, either way space USMC wants to smash.
Nice, I couldn't think of any assassins with both Sensor and Smoke, but clearly I missed at least one!
I don't really bother with this kind of shenanigan just for that reason. If you try to pull it multiple times or your opponent is a good mind reader, you end up completely screwing yourself over for a perceived buff in assassination resistance. Yes, you still have the model alive, but you didn't actually avoid going into LoL. Something that your opponent is definitely going to consider worth spending a couple of orders on. And if you try to ARO while they still have a few orders in their pool, you've now given up any marker state at all, and are vulnerable to them using those last few orders to launch an attack anyway. A Charontid lieutenant is pretty hard to kill, and Anathematic in marker state is even harder. Don't over-expose the marker, just like with any other model, and you'll be fine.
I think you guys might be right, that it's not worth it. It's just, hidden deployment can be very powerful if you're a hacker or have a sepsitor, and are afraid of deployment zone attacks. I did try it today, and it worked fine, but it does feel very exploit:y, and my opponent might indeed see through it next time so, no, I might forgo it next time.
