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Perusing the INAT FAQ 2.1 I have noticed a rather disconcerting trend; in several places changes that are apparently based on personal opinion are labeled not as "rules changes", but rather as "clarifications". This isn't some harmless nuance; when attempting to convince other players of the value of the FAQ, or evaluating for yourself just how valuable the FAQ is, conflating "what the game rules say" with "what the game rules ought to say" is a very troubling problem. Some examples;

-As I have pointed out elsewhere, the same language ("his unit" or variations thereof) is consistently used for bestowing special rules on units, whether it be warlocks providing persistent psychic powers, mad dok's tools giving feel no pain or Captain Shrike's "See, But remain unseen" rule. In RB.48B.02, however, we are told that "this only applies to “special rules” (as defined in their codex) and to the “universal special rules” found in the rulebook, not to Wargear or Psychic Powers" and this is labeled a "[clarification]."

-"If more then one character in your army has the Chapter Tactics special rule, you must choose which version will apply." This is the wording consistently found in the Chapter Tactics special rules of SM special characters, no more no less, but in SM.GEN.02 we are told this choice "It must be declared before either player deploys" and, yes, this is a "[clarification]."

-This stands on it's own: "ELD.24D.01 – Q: The online GW Eldar FAQ lists several flamer-style weapons the Avatar is immune to. Should the Land Raider Reedemer’s Flamestorm Cannon be added to this list? A: Yes [clarification]."

Now, should the house rules for a large scale tournament address these things? Certainly. However, the INAT FAQ also contains the following definitions on the second page;

Rulings that clarify an issue that has no conclusive RAW answer are noted as [clarifications].
Rulings that change the RAW because we feel playing that way is absurd, unfun, or goes against the style the vast majority of people play are noted as [rules change].

The instances I note at the top are not of "an issue that has no conclusive RAW answer ", they are quite clearly rules changes; sometimes rules changes that make sense, sometimes simply opinion codified.

Is it necessary to set a point that Chapter tactics are declared? Yes, but there isn't a conflict in the rules, there is simply nothing said about it, so an arbitrary point has to be decided. There's no reason it should be before deployment as opposed to after other then personal choice, which can scarcely be referred to as "no conclusive RAW answer". This is an arbitrary ruling.

Does it make a certain kind of sense that the Eldar Avatar is immune to the Flamestorm cannon? Sure, the same kind of sense that means an Avatar ought to be immune to a whirlwind's "Incendiary Castellan Missiles", they both lack only the virtue of actually being, you know, RAW, otherwise known as the thing that justifies a clarification rather then a rules change.

By no means the last example is the unit special rules and IC answer (just the last I'm going to bother laboring with): simply put, there is no RAW justification for this, it's clearly rules change based on feeling that certain special rules combos are abusive (particularly the Ork character Snikrot or the SM character Shrike allowing another IC to infiltrate). As I linked to above, there is ample (in so far as there is any) RAW evidence contrary to this ruling, and precious little (to be generous) evidence supporting the bifurcation of special rules into "character based" and "psychic power/wargear" based. Rather then argue the point, the simplest thing is to simply offer evidence from the horse's mouth (you can also see here for another example of the fear that grips the FAQ authors over Snikrot and Shrike) emphasis mine;

yakface wrote:Originally, I was of the opinion that this rule on page 48 was meant to be applied as broadly as possible and its goal was to prevent ICs from gaining any and all types of special rules by joining a unit. I think a large part of this hard-line approach in my head was fueled by my opposition to the idea of an IC joining Snikrot and ambushing from the opponent's table edge, and looking to the rules for a way to stop this. Although to be fair, I do think that that the combination of 'C' and 'E' above is the purest representation of the RAW in my opinion (which is one of the reasons I've been pushing that interpretation in these threads).

However, the more I've looked at special rules in the codexes the more uneasy I've become with this interpretation. I *do* think that there is a fundamental difference between rules like universal special rules that units just 'have' and spceical rules that, in the rule itself, specifies who that rule applies to; something that is fairly common to the special rules that special characters have. I'm now thinking that this specificity is enough to allow independent characters joining the unit to benefit from the special rule.

While I would like to believe that every codex author is intimately knowledgeable of the page 48 rule regarding special characters, I think the reality is that most of the authors, like most players follow the simplest approach: If the rule specifically says that it applies to the unit then it does indeed apply to every model in that unit, joined ICs included.


So coming back to Snikrot, based on my new feelings above, that means I now think that Snikrot's ability should be able to be passed onto an IC? Not exactly. Although I do now think that by the RAW ICs joined to Snikrot's unit should benefit from his special rule, the fact remains that in the past their have been some pretty big loopholes left in the rules regarding specialized deployment.

In the Eldar codex, for example it was possible for Autarchs joined to certain Aspect Warrior units to deep strike into play even though they didn't have the equipment to Deep Strike themselves. In last year's version of our FAQ we ruled against this concept and GW went ahead and adopted those rulings into their official FAQs word-for-word.

In the poll thread on the topic of ICs gaining the FNP ability by joining a mob with a Dok, currently 75% of the people play that he does benefit from this ability and I think you'd find a somewhat similar ratio if you polled things like the Waaagh Banner, SM Narthecium, etc. I do think this is a grey area in the rules (as there are multiple valid interpretations of the rule as I've posted above) and therefore it would just be crazy to rule against how so many people naturally read the rule or tend to play regardless of what they think the RAW say in this case.

Therefore, I'm thinking the best answer is to go with a 'C' & 'G' approach for a ruling but at the same time to go ahead and single out Snikrot (and perhaps Shrike) for a 'rules change' just because it is one of those rare cases where it is both over-the-top abusive and incredibly non-sensical to have a bike rider (for example) infiltrating along with a bunch of sneaky guys.

Having said all that, let's be clear, the Adepticon organizers can make whatever house rules they want to ensure fair, fun and efficient play, that's their prerogative. They also have to realize that mislabeling the source of their rulings undermines the integrity of the document as a whole. One the one hand, maybe these examples are simply sloppy labeling, on the other hand maybe the authors are being disingenuous; neither is a particularly attractive option. In any case, it's past time I followed Nurglitch's example, thanked the authors for producing an impressive document that can serve as the foundation of many things, hope that the authors rethink their course of action and relabel these and other similar rulings, and bow out gracefully. Okay, maybe not gracefully, but at least with vitriol that has pretensions of respectability .



As an aside, I'm frankly rather stumped by the repeated argument that an infiltrating IC is "over-the-top abusive and incredibly non-sensical(sic)" when compared to the other special rules deemed acceptable.

For example: with regards to failing to activating a psychic power and taking a perils of the warp (that is, a double or triple 6 failure) compare the benefit a Farseer receives by taking runes of witnessing (a 10 point item) versus being in a squad with a warlock with the Embolden power (a 5 point power);
A farseer with no runes goes from a roughly three percent chance of failure (2.78%) to less then one-tenth of one percent (0.077%), a thirty-six fold reduction;
A farseer with runes goes from less then half of one percent (0.46%) risk to just over a minuscule two-thousandths of one percent (0.0021%) risk, a two-hundred and sixteen-fold reduction.

Put another way, a farseer with runes goes from a 6-6 perils failure roughly every 200 or so power uses, to roughly one every 50,000 uses! This is further a benefit without any drawback; as compared to the danger of infiltrating an IC that, if they try to outflank, may be out of action for multiple turns, enter in a disadvantageous area or, even if not outflanking, runs the risk of isolating one of his HQs from the rest of his force. So you'll forgive me if I'm not completely sold on the magnitude of the danger here*. Is infiltrating good? Sure. Is it up to a 200 fold improvement on the IC's primary purpose? I dunno.


*Yes, I know that a farseer can fail on an 11, not just a 12, it's late and the numbers are similarly improved immensely by embolden.

Buzzsaw wrote:In any case, it's past time I followed Nurglitch's example, thanked the authors for producing an impressive document that can serve as the foundation of many things, hope that the authors rethink their course of action and relabel these and other similar rulings, and bow out gracefully. Okay, maybe not gracefully, but at least with vitriol that has pretensions of respectability .

I never mind thoughtful constructive criticism, so I am glad that you have posted your displeasure. Although I am sad that you aren't pleased with the FAQ in its entirety, I have accepted that no matter how hard we try we could never, ever hope to make something that everyone would like. Anyone who thinks there is some simple 'switch to flip' that would make an unofficial tournament FAQ suddenly 'work' for everyone is absolutely deluding themselves (not that I'm insinuating that's what you're doing here Buzzsaw, but rather I'm just pointing out that fact in general). No matter what is written in a FAQ (official or unofficial) it will always irk a large group of players; that's just the divisive nature of the way different personalities interpret a complex set of rules.

More importantly, we have never, ever tried to claim that this FAQ isn't anything more than a set of house-rules, because that's all it is: house-rules for Adepticon and for anyone else who likes them and wants to use them. Any unofficial FAQ can't really ever hope to be anything else but that. We don't have any special insider knowledge and we most certainly don't have any type of authority. As people have said before, this FAQ is simply akin to a group of gamers sitting around a room taking a vote and coming up with the house rules they think will best serve their league/tournament/etc.

The only thing that is in our favor is that the people discussing and voting do have a background in running one of the most popular independent GW events in the country and doing so has provided some valuable lessons in dealing with the multitude of issues that arise when dealing with disparate players from across the country. In addition, we spend literally hundreds of man hours into collecting, writing, editing, discussing and arguing over this FAQ. In other words, we put a whole lot of time and effort (some would say an unhealthy amount) into making the FAQ which tends to go beyond what most groups are willing to do for their local club. I do believe that this dedication shows in the overall quality of the final product.


As for your specific concerns:

Having said all that, let's be clear, the Adepticon organizers can make whatever house rules they want to ensure fair, fun and efficient play, that's their prerogative. They also have to realize that mislabeling the source of their rulings undermines the integrity of the document as a whole. One the one hand, maybe these examples are simply sloppy labeling, on the other hand maybe the authors are being disingenuous; neither is a particularly attractive option.

I can most certainly say that the labeling is neither sloppy or disingenuous. In fact, you don't find all that many FAQs out there that actually take the time to at least give you the information as to why the ruling is being made. We could very easily simply eliminate these tags and publish our FAQ exactly like the UKGT house rules (or even the official GW FAQs) both of which (as with any FAQ) utilize a mixture of rules-changes, clarifications and RAW rulings depending on the reader's understanding of the RAW.

Last year's version of our FAQ utilized a much looser interpretation of what a [rules change] was. Essentially, if I could personally recognize any clear way to play a situation by the RAW and I felt our final ruling deviated from that path, then it was labeled as a [rules change]. This was mainly from my own point of view and the effect it had was that people simply looked at the number of [rules changes] total in the document and concluded that we were changing the rules willy-nilly without actually taking the time to look at the rulings and see that in many cases what we had listed as a [rules change] they would, in fact, consider more of a [clarification] or amazingly enough even the [RAW].

This year, we decided as a council that we would only apply the label [rules change] in a situation where every member agreed what the RAW dictated yet, for whatever reason, we still decided to rule in the opposite direction. That decision left [clarification] as the default tag in the document, especially in any situation where in our opinion there are multiple interpretations of the RAW possible.

Is it necessary to set a point that Chapter tactics are declared? Yes, but there isn't a conflict in the rules, there is simply nothing said about it, so an arbitrary point has to be decided. There's no reason it should be before deployment as opposed to after other then personal choice, which can scarcely be referred to as "no conclusive RAW answer". This is an arbitrary ruling.

Rules conflict isn't the only reason a clarification has to be made. Vague and unclear situations also demand a clarification because their very nature means that players at a tournament are likely to wonder exactly how they're supposed to play a situation, at which point they'll ask a judge, at which point he'll be forced to make a ruling, at which point the players are stuck with a random decision from the judge unless we write a set of guidelines to handle the situation as we've done with this FAQ.

Chapter Tacticssays that the player must choose but it doesn't say how or when this choice must be made. Can the player simply switch Chapter Tactics at will throughout the game effectively getting use out of both rules? Nobody knows, because the rules aren't clear. Anytime a player has to make a choice it should be clear when that choice must be made and it simply isn't in this case. Is clarifying that the decision has to be made before deployment arbitrary? Absolutely, but it is a clarification that needs to be made to ensure that everyone is playing by the same rules in the tournament which is exactly the point of this FAQ.

Does it make a certain kind of sense that the Eldar Avatar is immune to the Flamestorm cannon? Sure, the same kind of sense that means an Avatar ought to be immune to a whirlwind's "Incendiary Castellan Missiles", they both lack only the virtue of actually being, you know, RAW, otherwise known as the thing that justifies a clarification rather then a rules change.

I would fully, whole-heartedly agree with you if it wasn't for the GW Eldar FAQ which says:

Q. Is the Avatar immune to wounds caused by incinerators, inferno cannons and inferno pistols?
A. Yes, as they are all either melta or flame weapons under different names.


This is exactly the kind of tough challenge you face when trying to make an unofficial FAQ. You are stuck dealing with GW rulings that they rarely if ever alter even when they probably should no longer be printed. If we had our choice, we would strike this ruling from the book and make the Avatar's immunity apply only to the weapon types listed in his codex special rule. But we tried to stick with GW's FAQ rulings at all times which meant the door was essentially opened for the Avatar to be immune to any weapon that is a flame or melta weapon under a different name. The Flamestorm cannon seemed to fit this criteria about as much as the Hellhound's Inferno Cannon. In other words, given their FAQ answer, there didn't seem to be a rational place to draw a line between why the Inferno Cannon shouldn't affect the Avatar while the Flamestorm should.

Of course, this ruling led us into an even bigger discussion about whether this meant that Vulkan's abilities should also apply to the Flamestorm. Ultimately we decided that GW's FAQ ruling applied only to the Eldar and therefore we would stick with the straight RAW for Vulkan, despite the inconsistency between the two.

It is exactly these kinds of situations which makes creating this document so difficult. Anyone who thinks that the answers are easily found for most questions, that RAW is easy to define and that the lines between [RAW], [clarification] and [rules change] are always clear, I highly recommend you take a stab at putting out your own FAQ for an event you run. I've always said that even if you hate our FAQ it makes a really good jumping-off point for your own document in that it is a fairly comprehensive listing of potential ambiguities. So I honestly do suggest you try knocking out a FAQ for every codex, attempting to be consistent and fair even when taking GW's own inconsistent FAQ rulings into account. If you do so I think you'd definitely be surprised at how difficult it truly is and how many people will vehemently disagree with your rulings no matter which way you do rule.

-As I have pointed out elsewhere, the same language ("his unit" or variations thereof) is consistently used for bestowing special rules on units, whether it be warlocks providing persistent psychic powers, mad dok's tools giving feel no pain or Captain Shrike's "See, But remain unseen" rule. In RB.48B.02, however, we are told that "this only applies to “special rules” (as defined in their codex) and to the “universal special rules” found in the rulebook, not to Wargear or Psychic Powers" and this is labeled a "[clarification]."

The fact is, the situation regarding ICs joining units is not clear. GW's rulings in FAQs are often inconsistent between two different FAQs and even occasionally between the FAQ and the actual printed rules in the rulebook or codex. Just because they ruled one way about Autarchs gaining special rules from joining a unit does not unequivocally mean that is the gold standard for specificity regarding the transference of special rules between IC and his joined unit. In fact, one could even argue those rulings as necessary in a FAQ because they are exceptions to the basic rules.

What it all boils down to is that the rule hinges around what level of specificity is required and that information can only ever be inferred, not proven. As such, any ruling on the matter is always going to be a [clarification].

I get that you don't agree with our decision, but you need to recognize that there are other people who will gladly argue with you for page, after page, after page on this forum with the exact opposite viewpoint, all the while claiming that they are the ones who have the RAW on their side.

The issue is unclear and we have made a ruling that we feel is fairly based on one possible interpretation of the RAW. While it may not be exactly how I personally would rule it if I was in charge of making all the rulings for the FAQ, it is most certainly a decision that I can live with given the rules we do have.

@yakface:

I was going to ask about the inconsistency of the Flamestorm ruling, but you have already clarified that in your reply above.

I don't know if I will ever have an opportunity to attend Adepticon, but I do appreciate your efforts, along with others who provided time to support this document.
I wish GW would follow your example, and would take the time and effort to provide quality FAQs for their codexes and rulebooks with some level of justification or explanation from at least the 40k end of it, as I can not speak to Fantasy Battles or Lord of the Rings.