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So as I was posting a comment in the Tactics forum about the awesome FAQ ruling the Venomthrope got, I wondered about the exact wording.

Tyranid FAQ wrote:Q: Do enemy models assaulting a Venomthrope brood,
or another frindly Tyranid unit within range of its Spre
Cloud, have their Initiative reduced to 1 for assaulting
through the cloud? (p45)
A: No, as the Spore Cloud is not a piece of terrain.

I know that taking one FAQ and applying it to other codexes isn't always the best idea, but the answer isn't just "Yes." or "No." - there's a justification. And the justification is very generic. You've also got Sanctuary that isn't actually terrain (but I don't have the codex to know if it specifies the penalty in assaults or not) and the Necron Tremorstaves and Writhing Worldscape (although iirc the latter doesn't change what clear terrain is so wouldn't matter for this - just bringing it up for completeness sake). I can't think of any others off the top of my head.

I'm hesitant to make this a poll because I wanted to hear others thoughts on it first. Obviously I'm slightly biased in this, but I'm open to being shot down. Thoughts?

Sanctuary - "...enemy models attempting to assault friendly units from the Grey Knights codex within 12" of the Librarian that turn, treat all terrain, including open terrain, as both difficult and dangerous."

Tremorstaves - "all enemy units hit ... treat open ground as difficult terrain during their next movement phase."

Night Spinner - "...The next time these units move (for whatever reason) they count as being in both difficult and dangerous terrain."

Just a few direct references for ease.

I don't believe spore cloud says anything about terrain, rather only about providing cover saves in a similar manner as the Ork KFF.

ofstatic wrote:I don't believe spore cloud says anything about terrain, rather only about providing cover saves in a similar manner as the Ork KFF.

It does say that units assaulting a unit protected by the Spore Cloud must make dangerous terrain tests.

ofstatic wrote:I don't believe spore cloud says anything about terrain, rather only about providing cover saves in a similar manner as the Ork KFF.

If it didn't, then it'd be a strange thing to have to FAQ, wouldn't it?

It does, as a matter of fact, and any non-vehicle enemy model that assaults one of the units affected by the spore cloud must take a dangerous terrain test.

And the assaulting through terrain section specifies that any unit that takes a difficult or a dangerous terrain test has it's initiative dropped to 1. So the FAQ directly contradicts the main rulebook. So you won't be able to extract precedent from this as if you follow the FAQ you break the rules, and if you follow the rules you have to ignore the FAQ.

FAQs change rules all the time.

It does sometimes. This is a bad ruling, but it's a GW ruling.

I'm going with FAQpwned...sort of

Look at the wording of the rules in question, I'd say that even if it was precedent setting, it would affect very few things. I see the FAQ answer as saying "If a special rule only forces a difficult or dangerous test, it does not lower I to 1 if they assault". All of the rules quoted by Avatar (add in murderous hurricane if you like) do not technically force diff/dangerous tests, they cause your unit to treat all terrain as diff/dangerous, and then the terrain makes you take the check, so for the time being you unit is actually moving through diff/dangerous terrain. The only other rule I can think of at the moment that functions similarly (though not quite identically) is Orikan's Temporal Snares, but I'm actually not even sure that would be affected.

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:I'm going with FAQpwned...sort of

Look at the wording of the rules in question, I'd say that even if it was precedent setting, it would affect very few things. I see the FAQ answer as saying "If a special rule only forces a difficult or dangerous test, it does not lower I to 1 if they assault". All of the rules quoted by Avatar (add in murderous hurricane if you like) do not technically force diff/dangerous tests, they cause your unit to treat all terrain as diff/dangerous, and then the terrain makes you take the check, so for the time being you unit is actually moving through diff/dangerous terrain. The only other rule I can think of at the moment that functions similarly (though not quite identically) is Orikan's Temporal Snares, but I'm actually not even sure that would be affected.

Good point - although the rules do say that if you make the roll you suffer, in other cases you're only making the roll because of the terrain. Venomthropes force the roll but don't change the terrain.

Thanks.

Venomthropes still have lash whips to do the I1 thing.
But my vote would be for yes, GW are heartless robots withno respect for organic life.

YOU HEAR ME!? A BUNCH OF FrAQ-ING CYLONS!

Archim3des wrote:Venomthropes still have lash whips to do the I1 thing.
But my vote would be for yes, GW are heartless robots withno respect for organic life.

YOU HEAR ME!? A BUNCH OF FrAQ-ING CYLONS!

Yeah, but the Termagants that are in front of the Venomthropes don't have them. :(

That ruling makes absolutely no sense. Its impossible to say exactly what this implies, as the level of precedent the FAQ sets isn't exactly clear (there have been cases where two armies effectively have opposite FAQ answers to the same question).

Personally, I would ignore this ruling as it directly contradicts the rulebook, and does so for no real reason. And, I think this may have a RAW justification as the FAQ is talking about a "Spre Cloud" and not the "Spore Cloud" rule that a Venomthrope has.

Grakmar wrote:And, I think this may have a RAW justification as the FAQ is talking about a "Spre Cloud" and not the "Spore Cloud" rule that a Venomthrope has.

Lawl. They spelled it right in the answer though.

The FAQ's are often wrong.

They fail to notice the paragraph below that section on pg 36 of the BRB that states "if an assaulting unit had to take a difficult or dangerous terrain test during thier assault move, all models have thier initiative lowered to 1 when attacking,"

Venomthropes cloud triggers a dangerous terrain check and thus should lower the unit to I1 regardless of whether or not it's terrain.

Unless it makes it into an Erratas, im going word for word with the BRB.

On a side note is there a ruling like this for models with Slow and Purposful? The always count as moving through difficult terrain.
*Edit*
from official 1.4 BRB update

Q: If a unit that contains one or more models with the
Slow and Purposeful special rule assaults does the
whole unit count as assaulting through difficult terrain
and hence strike at initiative 1 unless they have assault
grenades? (p76)
A: No. Only models with the Slow and Purposeful
special rule will count as moving through difficult
terrain for this purpose. Whilst the rest of the squad
are reduced to moving at the same speed this does not
also make the ground difficult for them.

Nothing specifically answering my Query, but the above ruling implies that the S&P models will be effected and reduced to I1. Despite the lack of actual terrain.

This makes legion of the Damned squads even more terrible!

Karnac wrote:The FAQ's are often wrong.

Well, no - you and I may disagree with it, but the FAQ is pretty much by definition correct.

Unless it makes it into an Erratas, im going word for word with the BRB.

FAQs have as much power as Erratas. Just saying.

On a side note is there a ruling like this for models with Slow and Purposful? The always count as moving through difficult terrain.

No idea, but most SNP models have power fists or other things that make them swing at I1 anyway.

rigeld2 wrote:

Karnac wrote:The FAQ's are often wrong.

Well, no - you and I may disagree with it, but the FAQ is pretty much by definition correct.

Unless it makes it into an Erratas, im going word for word with the BRB.

FAQs have as much power as Erratas. Just saying.

From the GW website.

gamesworkshop site wrote:
The Errata have the same level of 'authority' as the main rules, as they effectively modify the published material. They are 'hard' material. It is a good idea to read them and be aware of their existence, but luckily there are very few of them for each book.

The FAQs on the other hand are very much 'soft' material. They deal with more of a grey area, where often there is no right and wrong answer - in a way, they are our own 'Studio House Rules'. They are, of course, useful when you play a pick-up game against someone you don't know, or at tournaments (i.e. when you don't have a set of common 'house rules' with the other player). However, if you disagree with some answers and prefer to change them in your games and make your own house rules with your friends, that's fine. In fact we encourage you to shape the game around your needs and your taste. We firmly believe that wargaming is about two (or more!) people creating a gaming experience they are both going to enjoy. In other words, you might prefer to skip the FAQs altogether and instead always apply the good old 'roll a dice' rule whenever you meet a problematic situation.

they aren't on equal footing and Faq are just Studio house rules. By GW own admission we can ignore the FAQ's that make stupid rulings (so long as we can make our case to our opponents)

Karnac wrote:they aren't on equal footing and Faq are just Studio house rules. By GW own admission we can ignore the FAQ's that make stupid rulings (so long as we can make our case to our opponents)

Not according to every tournament I have ever played in, and the YMDC forum.

They hold the same weight as the errata.

Sorry - I'll clarify. In YMDC and most tournaments, FAQ and Errata hold the same weight.

Nids got boned again.

Their pretty much identical ability is made arbitrarily worse compared to other codices just because they're Nids.


Sanctuary?Tremor staves/Night Spinner still reduces people to I1, Nids however must be nerfed.

FAQ says they don't have their Initiative reduced to 1 just for moving through the cloud.

Fortunately the rulebook says they do have their Initiative reduced to 1. Not because they moved through the cloud, but because they took a dangerous terrain test. So, no worries there.

'for assaulting through the cloud'

The FaQ overrides the book, so the Initiative value of the assaulting models are not dropped to 1.

This FaQ says that assaulting through the cloud, and taking dangerous terrain tests do not reduce the Initiative value of the assaulting models.

Which is completely the opposite of what the main rules on this say, but Specific>General.

And it only applies to the Spore Cloud, not anything else that forces DT tests/checks when assaulting.

It applies to Spore Cloud because it is not an actual piece of terrain.
Other abilities that also are not actual pieces of terrain would be affected.
Sanctuary, for example, creates terrain so is not affected.

Grakmar gave what will be my defense against this.
In a ruleset where people argue RAW so strongly, Going exactly by what is written is required.

So if you charge through my" Spre Cloud" I'm going to say no, you don't go to I1.
Since you take a dangerous terrain check to assault units within 6" of the "Spore Cloud" though, that will cause I1.

GW could stand to maybe run spell check before they publish something.

Archim3des wrote:Grakmar gave what will be my defense against this.
In a ruleset where people argue RAW so strongly, Going exactly by what is written is required.

So if you charge through my" Spre Cloud" I'm going to say no, you don't go to I1.
Since you take a dangerous terrain check to assault units within 6" of the "Spore Cloud" though, that will cause I1.

GW could stand to maybe run spell check before they publish something.

GW's answer was spelled correctly. You might want to not nitpick spelling if you aren't reading the entire thing.

The answer being spelled right means nothing because it does not offer repeated context, so I'm picking nits like a monkey on the savanna.

Cause, then effect.
Not different cause because of effect.

rigeld2 wrote:

Archim3des wrote:Grakmar gave what will be my defense against this.
In a ruleset where people argue RAW so strongly, Going exactly by what is written is required.

So if you charge through my" Spre Cloud" I'm going to say no, you don't go to I1.
Since you take a dangerous terrain check to assault units within 6" of the "Spore Cloud" though, that will cause I1.

GW could stand to maybe run spell check before they publish something.

GW's answer was spelled correctly. You might want to not nitpick spelling if you aren't reading the entire thing.

The answer was spelled right, but that doesn't change the question being about a "Spre Cloud".

So, you do not get reduced to I1 for charging through a Spre Cloud because a totally different and unrelated ability called "Spore Cloud" isn't terrain. But, you'd still get reduced to I1 for charging through a Spore Cloud.


And, I think we can assume this is one of those examples where a FAQ was written by someone not familiar with the rules (like SitW not effecting units in transports), and will be fixed the next time they release a FAQ. In the meantime, we're officially stuck with the bad ruling (but are free to ignore it )

I think the faq means " you move as if in difficult/dangerous terrain, but as the models are not actually behind or in terrain that are being assaulted then the assaulting models are not reduced to initiative 1 because of spre cloud"

yeah. spre cloud.

Spore Cloud doesn't even move as if... It just forces dangerous terrain tests.