Locally we have a guy that's spreading the doctrine of the hammerhand.

That is, join a mastery level 2 independent character to a squad of grey knights. Have the grey knights cast hammerhand, then have the grand master or special character cast hammerhand twice more.

We've been combing the rulebooks for something to say he can't do this, but we're coming up blank. People have shown that "might of titan" specifically says it can be combined with hammerhand - but nothing says hammerhand can't be combined with itself. Had the wording of the spell been "strikes at strength 5" or "the unit gains the 'hammerhand' ability", which you'd then look up and find that having "hammerhand" means you have +1 strength - that would also have been fine, because no matter how many times you used the power, the effect would be to "have hammerhand" and thus only ever have +1 strength. Unfortunately the spell just says "if cast, you get +1 strength". Heck technically you can cast Might of Titan twice for 3d6 penetration, too!

I've found where you can't use the same psychic shooting attack twice, but nothing that says you can't use the same psychic power twice. I've seen Eldrad's entry, where he specifically mentions he's able to use the same power twice in the same turn [but now that I think about it, I wonder why he can't use the same power three times?]

I'd appreciate any help I can get. I threw two defilers, a dreadnought, and two daemon princes at a squad of paladins. They destroyed every last one of them at initiative 6, because they were all striking at strength 7 and Draigo was S8. It's getting ridiculous.

And don't get me started on his theories that Purgation Squads can fire twice, once by just shooting and then by casting Astral Aim, which tells you to shoot as well.

nothing prevents you from stacking open ended modifiers. and you are correct that you can cast multiples of the same psychic power in the same turn.


Eldrad(and other Eldar) can't use the same power twice because their codex forbids them.

GKs(and other races) have no such restrictions.

But you can't fire Purgation squads twice.

The last line of the Psychic Shooting Attacks entry suggests that you can only use multiple different powers, not the same one multiple times:

pg.50

However, if he is allowed to fire more than one ranged weapon per turn, he can replace the firing of any of the weapons he is allowed to fire with a psychic shooting attack (but still cannot use the same power twice in a turn).

Emphasis mine. Since you *still cannot* do it, my guess is that you can't do it in the first place.

that says you can't use the same PSA twice.


a Tzeench DP couldn't cast the sam,e PSA twice and fire it.


but they ARE allowed to cast Gift of Chaos twice at different models.

The "Still cannot use the same powe twice in the same turn" is to show that it's like firing the same weapon twice which you can't do.

Meh, if it had said "[...] cannot use the same psychic shooting attack twice in a turn," I might be inclined to agree with you, but it just says "same power." Not all psychic powers are psychic shooting attacks, but all psychic shooting attacks are psychic powers, eh?

Except its in the PSA section. Context tells you everything.

Yeah I tried that one. Since it's under the psa section it's useless as an argument. We kinda did this dance back with "is ramming a kind of tank shock".

And it becomes a completely circular argument because there's no general rule in 40K saying whether or not multiple copies of the same effect stack.

Stipulate that a give model has successfully cast Hammerhand twice in the same turn. And then what?

It's intuitively obvious that the identical effects would add together.
It's intuitively obvious that the identical effects would NOT add together.

Mix in various posters substituting variants for "intuitively obvious", and repeat for 20 pages of argument.

im of the impression that hammerhand stacks with other castings, but the same character cant cast hammerhand twice in the same turn. so a lvl 2 libby and termie squad could do 1 hh from termies, 1 hh from libby and 1 might of titan from libby for +3 str. i dont think the libby could use hammerhand twice. else, you could have a lvl 3 psyker just use hh 3 times and not bother with buying other powers.

....exactly. So we get S7 grey knights across the board. We just need GW to come out and say "no, Hammerhand can't stack with itself". Period, that's all we need.

And what about Shrouding? Ugh, this is horribly written.

Spellbound wrote:....exactly. So we get S7 grey knights across the board. We just need GW to come out and say "no, Hammerhand can't stack with itself". Period, that's all we need.

And what about Shrouding? Ugh, this is horribly written.

Well Shrouding just gives Stealth. Stealth doesn't stack.

except it also gives a 6+ cover save in the event one is not present already.

a unit in the open could be given a 5+ cover with 2 castings.


the 1st gives the 6+, the 2nd adds stealth for a 5+

Grey Templar wrote:except it also gives a 6+ cover save in the event one is not present already.

a unit in the open could be given a 5+ cover with 2 castings.


the 1st gives the 6+, the 2nd adds stealth for a 5+

I thought since it gives the unit a cover save, but since it also gives Stealth that was already a 5+?

no, its either/or

you either get a 6+ if you have no cover, or get the Stealth Special rule if you do have cover.


if it gave both it would be a permant 5+ all the time.

Yes Hammerhand stacks that's what makes it so darn good.

I have a question, I haven't checked the rulebook yet, but for the longest time I thought you couldn't cast the same Psychic Power twice. Is it really true you can cast the same Psychic Power as many times as your unit permits it except for PSA's?

So a Level 3 Grey Knight Libby can cast Hammerhand 3 times plus the unit can cast Hammerhand for a total of +4 strength to the unit? Thats str 8 Purifiers striking at Initiative 6 with Halberds!

If thats true, my god I have to try that!

Yes, it is fine to cast multiple non-PSA powers repeatedly. The only codex that is restricted is the Eldar codex.

Solkan - the main reason it stacks is there is a definite order to casting, unlike other powers which are cast simultaneously.

Stacking is the default for multiple modifieres, unless an exception is given, anything stacks.

I can not wait to get my hands on some Grey Knight models, moreso now. Thank you, OP!

Pfft, as if my Purifiers weren't good enough in combat already..


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wait, so as it stands, a Librarian with Mastery Level 3 + Draigo + Paladins could cast Hammerhand 6 times.. for a total of +6 Strength in close-combat. S10 W2 Insta-killing Power-weapon Terminators with potential for I6 and FnP? YES PLEASE!

Grey Templar wrote:except it also gives a 6+ cover save in the event one is not present already.

a unit in the open could be given a 5+ cover with 2 castings.


the 1st gives the 6+, the 2nd adds stealth for a 5+

While you may be able to stack Hammerhand, I'm 95% sure this one doesn't work that way. On the first casting "if the unit is not in cover it benefits from a 6+ cover save instead." On the second casting the unit is still not in cover, so "it benefits from a 6+ cover save instead."

pg.21 of the rulebook:

When are models in Cover?
When any part of the target model's body (as defined on page 16) is obscured from the point of view of the firer, the target model is in cover.

The same can be said of models that have gone to ground in the open. They're not in cover, but have a temporary cover save.

bushido wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:except it also gives a 6+ cover save in the event one is not present already.

a unit in the open could be given a 5+ cover with 2 castings.


the 1st gives the 6+, the 2nd adds stealth for a 5+

While you may be able to stack Hammerhand, I'm 95% sure this one doesn't work that way. On the first casting "if the unit is not in cover it benefits from a 6+ cover save instead." On the second casting the unit is still not in cover, so "it benefits from a 6+ cover save instead."

pg.21 of the rulebook:

When are models in Cover?
When any part of the target model's body (as defined on page 16) is obscured from the point of view of the firer, the target model is in cover.

The same can be said of models that have gone to ground in the open. They're not in cover, but have a temporary cover save.

This man knows his stuff.

bushido wrote:The same can be said of models that have gone to ground in the open. They're not in cover, but have a temporary cover save.

A model with Stealth that goes to ground will have a 5+ cover save though. Stealth doesn't say anything about being in cover - it says that 'all of the unit's cover saves are improved by +1.' In this example, if the GK had a 6+ cover save, another casting of Shrouding would give them a 5+.

You're right, a model with stealth does get a 5+ save by diving on the ground. However, when The Shrouding is cast on a unit not in cover, it benefits from a 6+ cover save instead of gaining stealth.

bushido wrote:You're right, a model with stealth does get a 5+ save by diving on the ground. However, when The Shrouding is cast on a unit not in cover, it benefits from a 6+ cover save instead of gaining stealth.

Yeah I just re-read the wording of the power and it does indeed say 'in cover' and not 'that has a cover save.' Good spot.

Why argue over a poorly worded rule. Clearly the way spellbound's unruly grey knight opponent uses Hammerhand is overpowered to say the least. A simple solution would be a house rule. Hammerhand shouldn't be allowed to stack with itself, because it lends the player with an unfair advantage. I only say this because the rules are poorly written. When GW decides to make a FAQ, then we will know for sure what the intent of the author was for the psychic power Hammerhand. When in doubt play fair, after all we are all playing a board game.

Massive_Mouse wrote:then we will know for sure what the intent of the author was for the psychic power Hammerhand.

In that case it's definitely going to be allowed to stack.

Massive_Mouse said: Why argue over a poorly worded rule. Clearly the way spellbound's unruly grey knight opponent uses Hammerhand is overpowered to say the least. A simple solution would be a house rule. Hammerhand shouldn't be allowed to stack with itself, because it lends the player with an unfair advantage. I only say this because the rules are poorly written. When GW decides to make a FAQ, then we will know for sure what the intent of the author was for the psychic power Hammerhand. When in doubt play fair, after all we are all playing a board game.

Seriously Hammerhand is overpowered?! I can't believe you would say that with all the other broken Psychic powers out there.

By your logic then Jotww shouldn't be able to target models within units, Paroxysm and Lash should be banned from tournaments altogether! I can't believe that with all the other broken Psychic powers out there including the three I mentioned you would say Hammerhand is broken. It is by far the least broken power. If you can't handle it then get some Psychic defense in your army, if your playing an army that has no Psychic defense then rework your strategy so that Hammerhand is no longer an issue. It's called adapting!

Wow I had to comment, Mod's please close this thread were done here.

Final answer: Wait for the FAQ unit then...it stacks.

You got me there Darkvoid. Lol



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sanguinis thats not what I'm saying at all. All I'm saying is that we don't know what the limits are on hammerhand. All of the other Psychic powers you mentioned have clarity now because they are faq'd. What should be done is instead of venturing into grey areas in the rules, we should take a step back and leave it up to GW to decide. That way we don't abuse some of these powers in an unfair advantage. I don't know about you but I6 S7 sounds a bit overpowered for a squad of paladins. You do bring up some good points about psychic defense. I do utilize some of my own, but I'm fortunate enough to play space wolves. Chaos however has little in the way of the psychic defense that you speak of. I Don't want to ban some psychic powers because I feel threatened by them, I just want clarity on them, and in my opinion hammerhand is being abused in this situation because of grey areas in the rules leading them to be over powered.

it isn't unclear.

the modifier is open ended with no restrictions. its going to stack.



GW probably won't even bother to FAQ it.

Fair enough Massive_Mouse I agree wholeheartedly with you that the Grey Knight codex is very unclear and very (dare I say it) poorly written because of a certain GW employee who's initials are M.W. and rhyme with Fat Sword.

I think, like you, that some of them need clarity.

Chaos Psychic defense is hard I'll agree on that point too. You should use more Lash that way your opponent has to worry about that!

use Lash at -1 LD while psychic hoods are possably around?

Sanguinis wrote:If you can't handle it then get some Psychic defense in your army, if your playing an army that has no Psychic defense then rework your strategy so that Hammerhand is no longer an issue. It's called adapting!

Oh, it's all so obvious now, I should just change army to someone that has psychic defenses! Why didn't I think of this before?!


On a side note I agree with your main point: Hammerhead stacking is in no way overpowered.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Sanguinis wrote:If you can't handle it then get some Psychic defense in your army, if your playing an army that has no Psychic defense then rework your strategy so that Hammerhand is no longer an issue. It's called adapting!

Oh, it's all so obvious now, I should just change army to someone that has psychic defenses! Why didn't I think of this before?!


On a side note I agree with your main point: Hammerhead stacking is in no way overpowered.

Until you have Draigo, a Librarian and 10 Paladins rocking around at S10.

If an opponent told me he coud get his whatever squad to str 10 innish 6 with multiple casts of something obviously not intended to break the entire game, I would simply start packing up, and never play him again. No amount of rules lawyring in the world would convince me this is anything more than terrible editing.

This is just another example of how poorly written the Grey Knights codex is. I have absolutely no intention of playing against a GK army in a friendly game.

augustus5 wrote:This is just another example of how poorly written the Grey Knights codex is. I have absolutely no intention of playing against a GK army in a friendly game.

But you'll have no objections to playing them in a tournament setting where your opponent will pull every bull gak move he can?

I have Draigo, a Libby, and a paladin squad that trump around the field. I need definitive proof that I can get 3 castings of hammerhand to stack. It makes sense that it would, but being the " permissive rule set" that we play, there's nothing that says it can, unlike Might (I know it's a different spell, but just for example. Cheers!

Lolcanoe wrote:I have Draigo, a Libby, and a paladin squad that trump around the field. I need definitive proof that I can get 3 castings of hammerhand to stack. It makes sense that it would, but being the " permissive rule set" that we play, there's nothing that says it can, unlike Might (I know it's a different spell, but just for example. Cheers!

As I've pointed out twice, you can get S10 with that lot. Libby can cast three times, and Draigo a further two (or one less on either of those and one on the Paladin squad).

Darkvoidof40k wrote:

Lolcanoe wrote:I have Draigo, a Libby, and a paladin squad that trump around the field. I need definitive proof that I can get 3 castings of hammerhand to stack. It makes sense that it would, but being the " permissive rule set" that we play, there's nothing that says it can, unlike Might (I know it's a different spell, but just for example. Cheers!

As I've pointed out twice, you can get S10 with that lot. Libby can cast three times, and Draigo a further two (or one less on either of those and one on the Paladin squad).

Not that this pertains to the rules, and I tend to agree it stacks...but why are people worried about this unit in particular?

Just like any super uber deathstar of doom that moves 6 inches a turn...walk away. And since you probably have a transport or two..drive away.

If you know your opponent sunk over 1000 points into 12 models, expect them to be stupid good, and just ignore them and don't engage. Str 10 is only good if you actually let him get into combat.

How do I convince my gaming group that it can be done then? I've ran out of steam trying to reason with them. Str 7 is close enough that I'm wounding on 2s anyways with Draigo.

I don't know why people get so mad playing against 13 models. Ive alread had 2 people say they won't play against my Knights anymore :(

Lolcanoe wrote:How do I convince my gaming group that it can be done then? I've ran out of steam trying to reason with them. Str 7 is close enough that I'm wounding on 2s anyways with Draigo.

I don't know why people get so mad playing against 13 models. Ive alread had 2 people say they won't play against my Knights anymore :(

If they're not nerdman enough to face 13 models, they really must suck at this game.

Lolcanoe wrote:How do I convince my gaming group that it can be done then? I've ran out of steam trying to reason with them. Str 7 is close enough that I'm wounding on 2s anyways with Draigo.

I don't know why people get so mad playing against 13 models. Ive alread had 2 people say they won't play against my Knights anymore :(

Have you considered that if you're doing fine without it and upsetting people in your group then perhaps you just need to let it go until an FAQ comes out and gives a definitive answer either way?

Lolcanoe wrote:How do I convince my gaming group that it can be done then? I've ran out of steam trying to reason with them. Str 7 is close enough that I'm wounding on 2s anyways with Draigo.

Wait for the FAQ I guess. Some people just can't be reasoned with. If they can't come to grips with +1S to the profile, then they can't come to grips with it.

I don't know why people get so mad playing against 13 models. Ive alread had 2 people say they won't play against my Knights anymore :(

For some reason, people have this insane knee-jerk reaction to new codices. It's like people have to match the OTT of the fluff by having OTT reactions to everything that occurs regarding playing the game. I've only played two games with GK and people are already calling them things such as "Cheese Marines", "Yellow Knights", and so on. I'm going to just have fun with it and roll with it. I might take one of my old pewter GK, drilling holes in him, and then painting him yellow for an objective marker.

Corrode wrote:

Lolcanoe wrote:How do I convince my gaming group that it can be done then? I've ran out of steam trying to reason with them. Str 7 is close enough that I'm wounding on 2s anyways with Draigo.

I don't know why people get so mad playing against 13 models. Ive alread had 2 people say they won't play against my Knights anymore :(

Have you considered that if you're doing fine without it and upsetting people in your group then perhaps you just need to let it go until an FAQ comes out and gives a definitive answer either way?

Exactly, the best way to deal with social bullying is to give in to it. In fact, you should probably just play a different army entirely to make your friends happier.

/sarcasm

But really..

targetawg wrote:

Corrode wrote:

Lolcanoe wrote:How do I convince my gaming group that it can be done then? I've ran out of steam trying to reason with them. Str 7 is close enough that I'm wounding on 2s anyways with Draigo.

I don't know why people get so mad playing against 13 models. Ive alread had 2 people say they won't play against my Knights anymore :(

Have you considered that if you're doing fine without it and upsetting people in your group then perhaps you just need to let it go until an FAQ comes out and gives a definitive answer either way?

Exactly, the best way to deal with social bullying is to give in to it. In fact, you should probably just play a different army entirely to make your friends happier.

/sarcasm

But really..

A disagreement over a somewhat vague rules interpretation is 'social bullying' and upsetting everyone in your group is better than a compromise which will last all of about 2-3 months before an FAQ is released?

How is casting hammerhand four times overpowered? That's still worse than a Farseer's Doom many times, unless you try to kill tanks. In that case might of titan would have been better anyway.

Darkvoidof40k wrote:
Until you have Draigo, a Librarian and 10 Paladins rocking around at S10.

That army would not reasonably be able to defeat any other army.

Corrode wrote:

targetawg wrote:

Corrode wrote:

Lolcanoe wrote:How do I convince my gaming group that it can be done then? I've ran out of steam trying to reason with them. Str 7 is close enough that I'm wounding on 2s anyways with Draigo.

I don't know why people get so mad playing against 13 models. Ive alread had 2 people say they won't play against my Knights anymore :(

Have you considered that if you're doing fine without it and upsetting people in your group then perhaps you just need to let it go until an FAQ comes out and gives a definitive answer either way?

Exactly, the best way to deal with social bullying is to give in to it. In fact, you should probably just play a different army entirely to make your friends happier.

/sarcasm

But really..

A disagreement over a somewhat vague rules interpretation is 'social bullying' and upsetting everyone in your group is better than a compromise which will last all of about 2-3 months before an FAQ is released?

Because according to his post (as i read it), the people are getting mad over playing his knights in general and are refusing play them any further. The issue with casting hammerhand is a separate one, that they won't let him use to begin with.

The people in his group telling him they won't play him because of his army choice, is social bullying. They're trying to cajoole him into playing what they want him to play. And your solution wasn't a compromise, a compromise would be if both sides got something, your solution is to just give in to their interpretation and wait for an FAQ. While a solution, calling it a compromise is a bit of a misnomer.

I was assuming that people were getting tired of 'no they ARE Strength 10 HONEST!' If it's just the case that they're refusing to play against GKs altogether just because the Internet says they're a bit hard then they're bitches and not worth the effort to play in the first place.

Corrode wrote:I was assuming that people were getting tired of 'no they ARE Strength 10 HONEST!' If it's just the case that they're refusing to play against GKs altogether just because the Internet says they're a bit hard then they're bitches and not worth the effort to play in the first place.

I'll agree with you there, and since I guess we were just reading it differently, if it was intended as you read it, I'm in agreement. Offer the 4+ and move on, if they refuse to even 4+ it, just let it go and bide your time until the faq.

Mind you, to get strength 10 you have to actually successfully cast hammerhand/might of titans 6 times on a unit. That's a heck of a lot of psykers, psychic tests, etc. to be passed over and over.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:
Until you have Draigo, a Librarian and 10 Paladins rocking around at S10.

That army would not reasonably be able to defeat any other army.

Exactly. One good S10, Large Blast and you've just killed a good chunk of that "zomg unstoppable haxx!" Squad.

lucasbuffalo wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:
Until you have Draigo, a Librarian and 10 Paladins rocking around at S10.

That army would not reasonably be able to defeat any other army.

Exactly. One good S10, Large Blast and you've just killed a good chunk of that "zomg unstoppable haxx!" Squad.

Well the issue presented in this thread isn't that anyone is stupid enough to try and do it; it's the fact that it's possible.

Darkvoidof40k wrote:

lucasbuffalo wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:
Until you have Draigo, a Librarian and 10 Paladins rocking around at S10.

That army would not reasonably be able to defeat any other army.

Exactly. One good S10, Large Blast and you've just killed a good chunk of that "zomg unstoppable haxx!" Squad.

Well the issue presented in this thread isn't that anyone is stupid enough to try and do it; it's the fact that it's possible.

The issue pretended was that it was somehow "OP" to be able to stack hammerhand on such a unit. Lucasbuffalo demonstrated that such a notion isn't true.

targetawg wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:

Lolcanoe wrote:I have Draigo, a Libby, and a paladin squad that trump around the field. I need definitive proof that I can get 3 castings of hammerhand to stack. It makes sense that it would, but being the " permissive rule set" that we play, there's nothing that says it can, unlike Might (I know it's a different spell, but just for example. Cheers!

As I've pointed out twice, you can get S10 with that lot. Libby can cast three times, and Draigo a further two (or one less on either of those and one on the Paladin squad).

Not that this pertains to the rules, and I tend to agree it stacks...but why are people worried about this unit in particular?

Just like any super uber deathstar of doom that moves 6 inches a turn...walk away. And since you probably have a transport or two..drive away.

If you know your opponent sunk over 1000 points into 12 models, expect them to be stupid good, and just ignore them and don't engage. Str 10 is only good if you actually let him get into combat.

Its a shame that you can't ignore them, since its all your opponent will be able to use at those points!

phantommaster wrote:

targetawg wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:

Lolcanoe wrote:I have Draigo, a Libby, and a paladin squad that trump around the field. I need definitive proof that I can get 3 castings of hammerhand to stack. It makes sense that it would, but being the " permissive rule set" that we play, there's nothing that says it can, unlike Might (I know it's a different spell, but just for example. Cheers!

As I've pointed out twice, you can get S10 with that lot. Libby can cast three times, and Draigo a further two (or one less on either of those and one on the Paladin squad).

Not that this pertains to the rules, and I tend to agree it stacks...but why are people worried about this unit in particular?

Just like any super uber deathstar of doom that moves 6 inches a turn...walk away. And since you probably have a transport or two..drive away.

If you know your opponent sunk over 1000 points into 12 models, expect them to be stupid good, and just ignore them and don't engage. Str 10 is only good if you actually let him get into combat.

Its a shame that you can't ignore them, since its all your opponent will be able to use at those points!

you can ignore them as far as CC goes, just shoot the fools.

I had the one guy say he wouldn't play if I used my GK's, so I broke out the plague marines. 2 games going 7 turns on a Saturday isn't as fun as 5, 5 turn games. Hell my last game my GKs got stomped by deldar, so stacking HH didn't even matter lol

So is it then possible to have S8 I8 Death company? Yikes!

No, because repeated furious charge just gives you furious charge.

Prediction for GW FAQ on the matter:

It can stack, but only twice! So no more than +2 Strength.

Ignoring the rules? Blatantly inconsistent? Simply an idiotic ruling?

Yup, it'll be that.

nosferatu1001 wrote:No, because repeated furious charge just gives you furious charge.

So once a unit is granted Hammerhand it has +1 S. You can cast the power multiple times sure, but you only get one Hammerhand effect.

Dendarien wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:No, because repeated furious charge just gives you furious charge.

So once a unit is granted Hammerhand it has +1 S. You can cast the power multiple times sure, but you only get one Hammerhand effect.

Except that's not how it works.

When you charge, you gain the furious charge USR. This USR gives you 1str/1init

Hammerhand states: if the psychic test is passed, the unit has +1 strength until the end of the assault phase

It didn't give them hammerhand, it gave them +1 strength. It may seem mundane, but that's the difference.

Dendarien wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:No, because repeated furious charge just gives you furious charge.

So once a unit is granted Hammerhand it has +1 S. You can cast the power multiple times sure, but you only get one Hammerhand effect.

Except that isnt how hammerhand works. Hammerhand increases your strength, then the next casting (which is in sequence) increases the already modified strength.

Youre attempting to say apples are oranges.

As much as I hate to say this, casting the power only increases strength. Just because it does not say it stacks means it could stack. It would be very unfair and underhanded.

Nosferatu1001 is right.

Example, Libby with 3 powers with a retinue of Paladins uses the summonning. Fails, than cast again. It passes. He cast another time and passes. So 2 units could be summoned.


(NOTE: THIS EXAMPLE 2 HAD HAPPEN, I NEED SOME HELP ON THIS)
Example 2, Libby with 3 powers with a retinue of paladins uses might of the titan on the squad my libby join with after I desperately assualt an Ironclad Dreadnought, since I have only halberds and no hammer (stupid me). It passes, so I got a D6 for armour penetration. Cast hammer hand and it passes. Now what is stop me from casting another might of the titan AGAIN. It passes. What is to stop me from claiming ANOTHER D6 for armour penetration. Nothing is stopping me claiming it. I would have +3 Strength, striking at I6 and having 2D6 for rolling to penetrate it.

So want to play that way? Fine. I am playing GK now and so are few of my opponents.

Disregarding my last 3 sentences, there is nothing saying we could not cast more of the same power such as hammerhand or might of the titan AND accumulate them in one go.

But as nosferatu1001 said is right. You cast it, it increase Strength. Cast again, it adds more. Might of the titan would also work in same method as applied by hammerhand. AND that power is even worse. Extra D6s for armour penetration.

BUT, I may be wrong. So my statements above have plenty of holes even a I read reread the codex. But that is how I see it.

While I think your wording may be off I think you are right. The wording says that you gain an additional S and an extra d6 for armor penetration. Two castings of that, plus a hammerhand from the squad and you are s7 3d6, not half bad really.

tiekwando wrote:While I think your wording may be off I think you are right. The wording says that you gain an additional S and an extra d6 for armor penetration. Two castings of that, plus a hammerhand from the squad and you are s7 3d6, not half bad really.

With halberds, who needs hammers anymore. Hammers are good within their own right as they lower initiative to 1 if enemy model is wounded and not killed.

Libby Cast Might of the titan 3 times on squad he joins with:
Hammer= Initiative 1 [Str 4(Modify +3 and double Strength=Str 10) + D6(AP roll) + D6 (1effect from Might of the titan) + D6 (2nd effect from might of the titan) + D6 (3rd effect from might of the titan)]= Results 14 - 32 (Auto penetrates AV13) / (Auto glances AV14)

Rear AV is on many vehicles are AV 10. The most highest for normal games are AV11, to my knowledge. In Apoc. God help all those titans and super heavies. Super heavy tanks may have rear AV 12 -AV 13. Even than (this is for a Grey Knight model with a nemisis hammer), After the Grey Knight model roll to hit and it succeeds, all his attacks are penetrating hits already. If against walkers, the enemy will only get glancing hits if the player owning the GK model rolls extremely bad rolls (Which is rolling 1s on 4 dices for his AP rolls).

Note, hammers strike at I1 anyway.

Libby Cast Might of the titan 3 times on squad he joins with:
Halberd = Initiative 6 [Str 4(Modify +3 = Str 7) + D6(AP roll) + D6 (1effect from Might of the titan) + D6 (2nd effect from might of the titan) + D6 (3rd effect from might of the titan)]= Results 11 - 29 (Auto penetrates AV10) / (Auto glances AV11)

Using Might of the titan is maybe less scary, but Str 7 at I6 vs Str 10 at I1? Both are bad news. GK owning player rolls badly after successfully hitting would auto penetrate and auto glance on the worse rolls. (Provided the AV is 11).

For anyone saying that taking the 10-strong paladin unit with libby and draigo auto-loses, not really. That unit can stretch to be almost 40" wide if they have 2 inches of space between their inch and a half width bases, giving them a threat range of over 50" to either side. It also, coincidentally, makes them very hard to hit with 5" templates, as if they scatter only a little forward or backward they hit only one terminator, and that one wound will be allocated to draigo, which saves on a 3+ and if he fails, just takes a wound. And you'd need to do that 4 times before he died.

Same with meltaguns. It's great if you've got several meltas in your unit [firedragons, veterans, chosen, kabalite trueborn, sternguard] but those units aren't always popular for their army [ok just sternguard and chosen aren't]. Typical squads usually only carry two meltaguns. That'll be one wound always allocated to draigo with his 3+.

The unit is hard to kill, and deploying 12" up and able to move 6" a turn, they will be across the board by the end. Any sort of attempt to charge them will end badly.

Spellbound wrote:For anyone saying that taking the 10-strong paladin unit with libby and draigo auto-loses, not really. That unit can stretch to be almost 40" wide if they have 2 inches of space between their inch and a half width bases, giving them a threat range of over 50" to either side. It also, coincidentally, makes them very hard to hit with 5" templates, as if they scatter only a little forward or backward they hit only one terminator, and that one wound will be allocated to draigo, which saves on a 3+ and if he fails, just takes a wound. And you'd need to do that 4 times before he died.

Same with meltaguns. It's great if you've got several meltas in your unit [firedragons, veterans, chosen, kabalite trueborn, sternguard] but those units aren't always popular for their army [ok just sternguard and chosen aren't]. Typical squads usually only carry two meltaguns. That'll be one wound always allocated to draigo with his 3+.

The unit is hard to kill, and deploying 12" up and able to move 6" a turn, they will be across the board by the end. Any sort of attempt to charge them will end badly.

That is powerful, but highly expensive. That runs more than 1000 points. Behold...the might of more than a thousand suns!!!!!!!

But still, imagine a dreadknight having a personal teleporter with a greatsword having a successful cast of might of the titan from a libby.

Opponent argues..." Hey, that DK has a PT. I say he is not MC. Just JI"
Me: "Oh. OK. Libby cast Might Of The Titan on it. Passes psyhic test"

Got my Extra D6 back now

Though unrelated... Good God. These orks emoticons are fun. Makes me glad of joining here.

Spellbound wrote:For anyone saying that taking the 10-strong paladin unit with libby and draigo auto-loses, not really. That unit can stretch to be almost 40" wide if they have 2 inches of space between their inch and a half width bases, giving them a threat range of over 50" to either side. It also, coincidentally, makes them very hard to hit with 5" templates, as if they scatter only a little forward or backward they hit only one terminator, and that one wound will be allocated to draigo, which saves on a 3+ and if he fails, just takes a wound. And you'd need to do that 4 times before he died.

Same with meltaguns. It's great if you've got several meltas in your unit [firedragons, veterans, chosen, kabalite trueborn, sternguard] but those units aren't always popular for their army [ok just sternguard and chosen aren't]. Typical squads usually only carry two meltaguns. That'll be one wound always allocated to draigo with his 3+.

The unit is hard to kill, and deploying 12" up and able to move 6" a turn, they will be across the board by the end. Any sort of attempt to charge them will end badly.

Any random CC specialist unit charges the outer left Shiney Terminator Nob. Guess who can't get all his awesome guys in close combat, loses combat because of this and runs off the board?
Hurray for 50" threat range with... Storm bolters! *glares in awe* Ah, and four psycannons. Any ork would be really thankfull for that formation, when else do you get to charge 12 models with your whole army at once? Also every single weapon in the opposing army is in range to shoot you. Buckets of dice will kill paladins. Do your really think this will ever work against anyone not a complete idiot? It might even fail against them.

I think the right thing to do would be to say it stacks from multiple psykers but not from the same psyker: Squad + Libby not Squad + Libby * 2. If you came up with 2 Libbys, then you could get to +3.

Homer

The right thing to do would be to arbitrarily change the rules?

I still don't see the problem with S10 greyknights. It's not like they can now do anything increadibly better they couldn't do with S6 from hammerhand and titans might.

Jidmah wrote:I still don't see the problem with S10 greyknights. It's not like they can now do anything increadibly better they couldn't do with S6 from hammerhand and titans might.

Not so.. they can enjoy the ability to have a higher chance of Perils.

I hope Draigo is fearless, or I'll be tank shocking that 1000 point unit off the board at some point in my life.

Edit: Damn, he is.

OFF TOPIC:

Has anyone noticed that RAW, purifiers cannot be troops because in the box under Crowe it says you have to have "Castellan Garran" to make Purifiers troops? I lol'd.

I'm really wondering how this thing could have gone to print. The codex has more holes than a gretchin after the attention of a Super Mega Psycho Dakka Blaster...

I think the right thing to do would be to have someone play test a codex before they slap it out to the masses. I would have thought most of this would have been tested in beta!

Right now I think I will just cast each power once and not "rules lawyer" anything. That way at the end of the day when the wall of text FAQ comes out I have been playing with the minium that can be. If GW decides that some of this crazyness, and you all know this is crazy, is true so much the better. Meanwhile I'd like to keep my friends.

So for me Inquisitor Coteaz makes Henchmen troops but I still can have NO MORE then six troops.

Hammer hand can be cast once

Might of Titans also once

Any other cheezy rule interpretation likewize.

You all must have some REALLY tolerant people you play with.

If Purifiers, Paladins, Terninator troops, psybolt ammo, Death Cult Assassins, Jakaero, Psykers, and our bad ass HQ's are not enough for you all, I just don't know what to say!

Please stop denigrating actual rules by saying they are "cheesy"

Not when the whole SW codex is sitting out there...

Unit1126PLL wrote:I hope Draigo is fearless, or I'll be tank shocking that 1000 point unit off the board at some point in my life.

Edit: Damn, he is.

OFF TOPIC:

Has anyone noticed that RAW, purifiers cannot be troops because in the box under Crowe it says you have to have "Castellan Garran" to make Purifiers troops? I lol'd.

Paladins are not, so he loses it when joining. Have fun tank shocking.

No. You know why? Because it's clearly a loophole and against the spirit of the game. There is nothing in the rules to say you can't do it, but doing it makes you a jerk, makes people hate playing against you and runs you short of people to play against.

Who are you to decide?

zerodemon wrote:No. You know why? Because it's clearly a loophole and against the spirit of the game. There is nothing in the rules to say you can't do it, but doing it makes you a jerk, makes people hate playing against you and runs you short of people to play against.

Yes. Saying the opponent cannot do so makes YOU the jerk, makes people hate playing against you and runs you short of people to play against

See how arbitrary your decision is now?

The rules allow it, for now - so you can do it.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

zerodemon wrote:No. You know why? Because it's clearly a loophole and against the spirit of the game. There is nothing in the rules to say you can't do it, but doing it makes you a jerk, makes people hate playing against you and runs you short of people to play against.

Yes. Saying the opponent cannot do so makes YOU the jerk, makes people hate playing against you and runs you short of people to play against

See how arbitrary your decision is now?

The rules allow it, for now - so you can do it.

/thread.

@Jidmah Who am I to decide? Well I was assuming that since the question was posted in the forum 40K You Make Da Call, I was entirely in my rights to weigh in, but hey, don't let my opinion burden you too heavily. I am one opinion of many. I just know that this kind of beardy-ness has very little place in my gaming circle and generally results in people saying "what a powergaming jerk." Mind you, we're generally a group motivated by playing fair and balanced games so the ability to boost a unit to S10 seems to be a little out of whack to me.

@nosferatu I didn't say I'd stop the guy from doing so. It's legal. I just wouldn't play against him again without an army filled solely with battlecannons and a couple of armoured fist squads. That may be jerky, but getting repeatedly hammered by a beardy army isn't enjoyable and that's why I play.

For me, personally, spirit of the game and having a good time comes first. I don't mind losing a game, but losing because of a technicality in the rules on the kind of thing that makes everybody, including the user of the army pause and say "...that can't be right" is the kind of thing that stops me enjoying myself.

We'll be highlighting the issue at the next group meeting and voting on whether it should be house ruled. We have two Grey Knight players who I expect will probably say yes, house rule it.

I'll also say that making a response to what I said in my last post, however hotheaded you may feel, is redundant. My point was that it was against the spirit of the game. It is against the spirit of the game. I know how arbitrary my point is. It is my opinion, it's meant to be arbitrary. Arbitration is the entire point of this area of the forum.

Mind you, that's probably arbitrary too.

zerodemon wrote:@Jidmah Who am I to decide? Well I was assuming that since the question was posted in the forum 40K You Make Da Call, I was entirely in my rights to weigh in, but hey, don't let my opinion burden you too heavily. I am one opinion of many. I just know that this kind of beardy-ness has very little place in my gaming circle and generally results in people saying "what a powergaming jerk." Mind you, we're generally a group motivated by playing fair and balanced games so the ability to boost a unit to S10 seems to be a little out of whack to me.

@nosferatu I didn't say I'd stop the guy from doing so. It's legal. I just wouldn't play against him again without an army filled solely with battlecannons and a couple of armoured fist squads. That may be jerky, but getting repeatedly hammered by a beardy army isn't enjoyable and that's why I play.

For me, personally, spirit of the game and having a good time comes first. I don't mind losing a game, but losing because of a technicality in the rules on the kind of thing that makes everybody, including the user of the army pause and say "...that can't be right" is the kind of thing that stops me enjoying myself.

We'll be highlighting the issue at the next group meeting and voting on whether it should be house ruled. We have two Grey Knight players who I expect will probably say yes, house rule it.

I'll also say that making a response to what I said in my last post, however hotheaded you may feel, is redundant. My point was that it was against the spirit of the game. It is against the spirit of the game. I know how arbitrary my point is. It is my opinion, it's meant to be arbitrary. Arbitration is the entire point of this area of the forum.

Mind you, that's probably arbitrary too.

Bolded the issue. The point is, who are you to decide what is "the spirit of the game". I guarantee you if we asked each member of your gaming group, each would give a different answer. There is no one definition for this.

Also:

-S10 shouldn't make you up and lose the game, you were nearly as likely to lose combat against these guys prior to the s10 buff, since that's their forte.
-Battlecannons are ap3, and likely wouldn't help you versus terminator armor to begin with. Bring demolishers.
-Tailoring your list to include weapons against a specific type of model is probably against your previous definition of "spirit of the game"

zerodemon wrote:@Jidmah Who am I to decide? Well I was assuming that since the question was posted in the forum 40K You Make Da Call, I was entirely in my rights to weigh in, but hey, don't let my opinion burden you too heavily. I am one opinion of many. I just know that this kind of beardy-ness has very little place in my gaming circle and generally results in people saying "what a powergaming jerk." Mind you, we're generally a group motivated by playing fair and balanced games so the ability to boost a unit to S10 seems to be a little out of whack to me.

@nosferatu I didn't say I'd stop the guy from doing so. It's legal. I just wouldn't play against him again without an army filled solely with battlecannons and a couple of armoured fist squads. That may be jerky, but getting repeatedly hammered by a beardy army isn't enjoyable and that's why I play.

For me, personally, spirit of the game and having a good time comes first. I don't mind losing a game, but losing because of a technicality in the rules on the kind of thing that makes everybody, including the user of the army pause and say "...that can't be right" is the kind of thing that stops me enjoying myself.

We'll be highlighting the issue at the next group meeting and voting on whether it should be house ruled. We have two Grey Knight players who I expect will probably say yes, house rule it.

I'll also say that making a response to what I said in my last post, however hotheaded you may feel, is redundant. My point was that it was against the spirit of the game. It is against the spirit of the game. I know how arbitrary my point is. It is my opinion, it's meant to be arbitrary. Arbitration is the entire point of this area of the forum.

Mind you, that's probably arbitrary too.

Totally agree to you.

But: Have you ever played against any S10 grey knights? How can you know if it even is beardy? The other guy might have bought two librarians just to try that stunt, and needs to spend at least 350 points for librarians without any upgrades to even do it. Plus he does not get any of the other awesome HQs grey knights can field.

To do what? Instant death T5 stuff! No, wait all force weapons, dont need that. To wound anything on 2+! No wait, everyone ignores armor already, can be S6 and strike before anyone strikes back. Well, I guess we can still kill tanks really easy now! They've got S6+2D6 armor penetration before, in addition some of them have hammers, and librarians can auto-pen vehicles instead of casting silly 3 hammerhands. Not to mention army-wide rending auto-cannons. Well, it got a little easier for them to kill that land-raider and monolith now. Yeah! Now shoot them dead.

Pumping any greyknight unit to S10 is not going to break anyone's game, nor beardy nor even a good move. Mixing different powers will always be better than spamming the hammerhand like mad. The only thing you'll do is cheating someone out of the exact single sitiation where he wants to cast hammerhand(or any other power) twice because he really needs nomething dead, and has no other useful power to cast at that moment. It's like the Ghazghkull+Snikrot thing. Everyone thinks it's beardy, a loophole, a downright broken auto-win and everyone yells at GW for being unable to write rules, but I've never heard of anyone actually losing or winning a tournament because of that move.

The spirit of the game comes under the remit of "How I Would Play The Game." As such it is completely subjective. There is no issue in expressing an opinion on the question that has been asked.

Replying to my How I Would Play The Game with a Rules As Written statement is against forum guidelines, which I'd hate to raise, but heck, them's the "Rules As Written."

@targetAWG @Jidmah
I'd agree with you that S10 shouldn't make you up and lose the whole game. To be fair, upon reflection, anybody slow enough to load one unit up with that many IC in one place is dying for a high S AP1 or 2 weapon to hit them and cause instant death on all their multi-wound, high cost characters. Also, anybody slow enough to send anything other than a vast horde or Orks or some such against said unit in CC is a bit slow too.

Tailoring my list to include weapon to defeat said unit is against the spirit of the game in our circle. That is the point of the statement really. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I'd like to highlight that my saying manipulating the rule makes you a jerk wasn't targeted against anyone in particular. It was a theoretical answer to the question of what would stop you doing it. I wasn't calling anybody on the board a jerk. That said, what I was saying is if you did it to me, I'd probably think you were a jerk.

There are loopholes that really are worthy of such reactions, especially in the GK codex.

Multi-casting any psychic power is not one of them. Don't think of people as jerks because they play their army as written.

zerodemon wrote:The spirit of the game comes under the remit of "How I Would Play The Game." As such it is completely subjective. There is no issue in expressing an opinion on the question that has been asked.

Replying to my How I Would Play The Game with a Rules As Written statement is against forum guidelines, which I'd hate to raise, but heck, them's the "Rules As Written."

I think the discussion has been pretty polite and cordial, and don't think anyone was taking offense, they were also exercising their right to express their opinions in response to you. And also, if you want to try and invoke the above, you might want to ponder the logic of responding to a thread about the RAW of multiple hammerhand castings with a "how would i play the game" statement.

That piece of the forum guidelines is to avoid pointless nasty arguments where both sides argue till they're blue in the face without realizing the other side is arguing RAI (essentially) and they're arguing RAW (or vice versa) and that they'll never come to an agreement or conclusion. I don't think that was taking place here. Easy on the defense!

Jidmah wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:I hope Draigo is fearless, or I'll be tank shocking that 1000 point unit off the board at some point in my life.

Edit: Damn, he is.

OFF TOPIC:

Has anyone noticed that RAW, purifiers cannot be troops because in the box under Crowe it says you have to have "Castellan Garran" to make Purifiers troops? I lol'd.

Paladins are not, so he loses it when joining. Have fun tank shocking.

Fearless ICs confer fearless to the unit they join.

No they don't, it only works the other way around(character joining fearless unit).

"However, as long as a fearless character stays with a unit that is not fearless, he loses this special rule."(BRB pg. 75)

On the plus side, stacking hammerhand makes Thawn kind of good?

ph34r wrote:On the plus side, stacking hammerhand makes Thawn kind of good?

Is he Mastery Level 2? If so, interesting.

Unit1126PLL wrote:I hope Draigo is fearless, or I'll be tank shocking that 1000 point unit off the board at some point in my life.

Edit: Damn, he is.

OFF TOPIC:

Has anyone noticed that RAW, purifiers cannot be troops because in the box under Crowe it says you have to have "Castellan Garran" to make Purifiers troops? I lol'd.

yes he is.


so Thawn casts Hammerhand, the unit benifits. now you either have a 2nd round of hammerhand OR activate your Forceweapons.

Grey Templar wrote:

Unit1126PLL wrote:I hope Draigo is fearless, or I'll be tank shocking that 1000 point unit off the board at some point in my life.

Edit: Damn, he is.

OFF TOPIC:

Has anyone noticed that RAW, purifiers cannot be troops because in the box under Crowe it says you have to have "Castellan Garran" to make Purifiers troops? I lol'd.

yes he is.


so Thawn casts Hammerhand, the unit benifits. now you either have a 2nd round of hammerhand OR activate your Forceweapons.

So if I'm facing Infantry I can rock S6 I6, and if I meet Nobs/Warriors/Monstrous-creatures/Independant-Characters I can just knock 'em out with S5 I6? Sounds good enough to me!

Darkvoidof40k wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Sanguinis wrote:If you can't handle it then get some Psychic defense in your army, if your playing an army that has no Psychic defense then rework your strategy so that Hammerhand is no longer an issue. It's called adapting!

Oh, it's all so obvious now, I should just change army to someone that has psychic defenses! Why didn't I think of this before?!


On a side note I agree with your main point: Hammerhead stacking is in no way overpowered.

Until you have Draigo, a Librarian and 10 Paladins rocking around at S10.

I have them striking at I10, S6 and rerolling 1s to wound, what more could you want?

that squads costs HOW many points???


925 with NO upgrades, and who wouldn't be throwing kit on these guys?

It's all moot now. I take it all back. I have no problem with somebody pumping that many points in to one unit so I can explode it anyway. Cast Hammerhand as many times as you like. Weight of fire or masses of Orks will solve the issue anyway.

I sorted it in my head and if I can get a big unit of Orks in there I'd get about 30 wounds, 5 of which would go unsaved. The Orks might take some heavy losses but I can consolidate with that idea since I'd only spend 200 points on them anyway and can crump any leftovers with my nobs powerklaw.

I've found the new GK Codex to be fairly balanced so far anyway. Draigo's fluff is over the top but in terms of game balance, even if you make them S10 every army has something fairly basic that will put an end to a squad of GK termies.

Where's the "The rules are permissive and tell you what you can do" people?

The GK codex does not give you permission to have one model cast the same psychic power on itself or its unit twice. Therefore, you cannot.

Mat Ward has one great ability! He bring all those TFGs to the forefront, thanks Mat.

Dashofpepper wrote:Where's the "The rules are permissive and tell you what you can do" people?

The GK codex does not give you permission to have one model cast the same psychic power on itself or its unit twice. Therefore, you cannot.

my Librarian is allowed to cast 2 psychic power a turn.


i am NOT restricted from using the same power twice in the codex and the main rule book ONLY forbids me from using the same PSA more then once.


therefor, the rules explicitly allow me to use the same psychic power(as long as it isn't a PSA) multiple times up to the maximum number of psychic powers i am allowed to use.

General_Chaos wrote:Mat Ward has one great ability! He bring all those TFGs to the forefront, thanks Mat.

Hey, don't get mad at Matt for exposing you.

Dashofpepper wrote:Where's the "The rules are permissive and tell you what you can do" people?

The GK codex does not give you permission to have one model cast the same psychic power on itself or its unit twice. Therefore, you cannot.

You know, this is the common notion, and one I had as well, I think it dates back to an older (3rd or 4th) edition rule set.

Core rulebook: Psykers can use one psychic power per player turn.

There is nothing in the section that says it he can't use the same power more than once. The only mention to something like this is under the psychic SHOOTING attack section, and states "(but still cannot use the same power twice in a turn)". However, this is under a different heading, and hamemrhand isn't a psychic shooting attack. This is mainly a clarification since the previous sentence notes that you can replace a shooting attack with a psychic shooting attack, and they don't want you firing the same weapon twice.

GK Codex: For each mastery level a character has, he can use one psychic power per turn.

I think everyone has this idea that you can't use the same power more than once (I did at first too), but nowhere is this mentioned or hinted at, and it's probably just a hold over of old knowledge. After using the power he doesnt lose it, it's still in his profile.

Just my .02

psst - those orks are going to be way, way thinned down. I mean those 16 psycannon shots followed by 12 stormbolter shots at S5 that re-roll 1's to wound because Draigo's a grand master are really going to tear you up.

And S10 grey knights really is broken. Right now having high strength power weapons isn't bad because you can throw a dread or something at it to counter, as has always been the case. But load them with that and it all goes down the gakker. Now there's nothing they can't kill. At I6.

Spellbound wrote:psst - those orks are going to be way, way thinned down. I mean those 16 psycannon shots followed by 12 stormbolter shots at S5 that re-roll 1's to wound because Draigo's a grand master are really going to tear you up.

And S10 grey knights really is broken. Right now having high strength power weapons isn't bad because you can throw a dread or something at it to counter, as has always been the case. But load them with that and it all goes down the gakker. Now there's nothing they can't kill. At I6.

Except that for equal points, Orks can get roughly 150 boyz plus 5 power klaw (instagibs!) nobs (thats essentially 1k for the orks, you units is more like 1100).

At best, you kill about 15-20 from shooting, then at best, 15-20 from combat. Congratulations, now you get swarmed by the remaining 100+ boys.

It's just not a good idea to put that many points into that few models that don't have some way to move fast, never has been.

targetawg wrote:

Spellbound wrote:psst - those orks are going to be way, way thinned down. I mean those 16 psycannon shots followed by 12 stormbolter shots at S5 that re-roll 1's to wound because Draigo's a grand master are really going to tear you up.

And S10 grey knights really is broken. Right now having high strength power weapons isn't bad because you can throw a dread or something at it to counter, as has always been the case. But load them with that and it all goes down the gakker. Now there's nothing they can't kill. At I6.

Except that for equal points, Orks can get roughly 150 boyz plus 5 power klaw (instagibs!) nobs (thats essentially 1k for the orks, you units is more like 1100).

At best, you kill about 15-20 from shooting, then at best, 15-20 from combat. Congratulations, now you get swarmed by the remaining 100+ boys.

It's just not a good idea to put that many points into that few models that don't have some way to move fast, never has been.

Watches in awe at the miricle of the lone surviving paladin stands firm as the orks run away due to failed morale check. Be happy it is not a squad of purifiers you are assaulting and by some miracle one unit manages to survive..

Your miricle is when you manage to wipe the whole squad out n one go.

The Orks are immune to psychology if there are more than 10 living member of the unit.

In my experience from running Deathwing a unit of 30 ork boyz isn't going to do anything at all to a 10 Man paladin unit that's properly built. Many multiple times I've had 30-man Ork Boyz units with klawz charge my Deathwing Command Squad and everytime it has come through without a scratch. Ork boyz just aren't built for fighting FNP terminators, multiple wound FNP terminators with S6+ I4+ is just going to be worse for them. Granted that's just 30 boyz. If you can get a few units in there, then you *might* stand a chance with Ork boyz. I'd say 2 units of 30 will likely kill 2-5 of the paladins depending on their luck, but they'll still lose the combat by a lot and either flee or take a lot of fearless wounds on each unit also, you're going to find it pretty hard to cram all those orks into the fight which reduces the fighting potential of the mobs. But against 10 Paladins, a Libarian and Draigo, 30 Ork Boyz will just die and only take like 1-3 terminators out if they're lucky (assuming the squad has at least 1 warding stave in it, I'd go for 2 personally). Still not saying this is a great unit/army idea, but Ork boyz aren't going to be the ones taking it down regularly.

Elios Harg wrote:In my experience from running Deathwing a unit of 30 ork boyz isn't going to do anything at all to a 10 Man paladin unit that's properly built. Many multiple times I've had 30-man Ork Boyz units with klawz charge my Deathwing Command Squad and everytime it has come through without a scratch. Ork boyz just aren't built for fighting FNP terminators, multiple wound FNP terminators with S6+ I4+ is just going to be worse for them. Granted that's just 30 boyz. If you can get a few units in there, then you *might* stand a chance with Ork boyz. I'd say 2 units of 30 will likely kill 2-5 of the paladins depending on their luck, but they'll still lose the combat by a lot and either flee or take a lot of fearless wounds on each unit also, you're going to find it pretty hard to cram all those orks into the fight which reduces the fighting potential of the mobs. But against 10 Paladins, a Libarian and Draigo, 30 Ork Boyz will just die and only take like 1-3 terminators out if they're lucky (assuming the squad has at least 1 warding stave in it, I'd go for 2 personally). Still not saying this is a great unit/army idea, but Ork boyz aren't going to be the ones taking it down regularly.

Of course 30 boys won't take down that unit. That unit is 1100 points, a standard boys unit is 215. Equal points though means 150 boyz and the 5 powerklaw nobs (who instakill those multiwound fellas)

The boyz example is more for scale, but thinking about it: 3 vendettas (405 points) keeps at range with 48 inch guns, and fires in lascannons. On average they do 2 wounds per vendetta, only 1 of those can go on draigo.

And many many more examples which take advantage of the units lack of mobility and high point-per-model cost.

zerodemon wrote:The Orks are immune to psychology if there are more than 10 living member of the unit.

Fearless, but that actually can work against them if the enemy has won by a large amount.


10 Purifiers can wipe an entire 30 Boy mob out with in one round potentially.

roughly 13 boyz die to Cleansing flame, 6 die to the Purifier's regular attacks. boyz swing and kill about 3 Purifiers. 13 fearless wounds and on average, 2 orks are still standing. a slightly under average armor save roll and the mob disintegrates completely.

Yeah, because they forgot their shootas at home, you know? 30 Ork boyz will simply outshoot purifiers. Also those 10 purifiers cost twice as much as 30 boyz.

[sarcasm]I bet a unit of 10 biker nobz+warboss will wipe out any Strike Squad, GK can't do nothing![/sarcasm]

targetawg wrote:

Elios Harg wrote:In my experience from running Deathwing a unit of 30 ork boyz isn't going to do anything at all to a 10 Man paladin unit that's properly built. Many multiple times I've had 30-man Ork Boyz units with klawz charge my Deathwing Command Squad and everytime it has come through without a scratch. Ork boyz just aren't built for fighting FNP terminators, multiple wound FNP terminators with S6+ I4+ is just going to be worse for them. Granted that's just 30 boyz. If you can get a few units in there, then you *might* stand a chance with Ork boyz. I'd say 2 units of 30 will likely kill 2-5 of the paladins depending on their luck, but they'll still lose the combat by a lot and either flee or take a lot of fearless wounds on each unit also, you're going to find it pretty hard to cram all those orks into the fight which reduces the fighting potential of the mobs. But against 10 Paladins, a Libarian and Draigo, 30 Ork Boyz will just die and only take like 1-3 terminators out if they're lucky (assuming the squad has at least 1 warding stave in it, I'd go for 2 personally). Still not saying this is a great unit/army idea, but Ork boyz aren't going to be the ones taking it down regularly.

Of course 30 boys won't take down that unit. That unit is 1100 points, a standard boys unit is 215. Equal points though means 150 boyz and the 5 powerklaw nobs (who instakill those multiwound fellas)

The boyz example is more for scale, but thinking about it: 3 vendettas (405 points) keeps at range with 48 inch guns, and fires in lascannons. On average they do 2 wounds per vendetta, only 1 of those can go on draigo.

And many many more examples which take advantage of the units lack of mobility and high point-per-model cost.

My point was more that 30 Ork boyz does nothing, or nearly nothing to FNP terminators, not just that FNP terminators will beat them, but that it's a complete one-sided slaughter which results in little to no gain for the orks, piling more ork boyz into the situation meat-grinder style will have varying results, but I still don't think it'll work out well for the Orks, there's just not enough room for them to get enough models into the combat. Of course, you are right with the vendettas. Also Broadsides which run around 250-300 points depending on upgrades are great paladin killers. Dark Lances for Dark Eldar. Bright Lances and Fusion Guns for Eldar. Lascannon and Melta for Space Marines/Guard. I'm sure every army good ways to deal with the threat of Paladins and all of them a lot cheaper than the paladin unit, but few of them are close combat, imo.

30 shoota boyz will hit 20 of their shots, wound 10 of those, 1.6 failed saves, about 0.83 wounds caused after FNP. Repeat for 120 more boyz => 4.16 wounds. Now shoot them with 4 psy cannons and 8 storm bolters, hit 10.6 psy cannon shots and 10.6 storm bolter shots, wound 16 boyz total, kill 16. Now you take 3.72 wounds, kill 16 again, wiping a unit. Take another 3.3 wounds, almost everyone is wounded now, if you'Re unlucky you may have lost one. Kill another 16 , even if a storm bolter died, 104 boyz left, shooting another 2.88 wounds of your squad, killing two. You wipe the second squad, 90 orks left to shoot you, killing another two paladins. Point is, on average for every 36 orks, one will put a wound on your squad by shooting, with dice luck working against you. The law of large numbers says you are more likely to screw up your saving throws and roll multiple than the orks are to screw up their shooting. The amount of saves you roll also has the nice side effect of killing paladins before everyone is wounded, as you can't decide who fails the one or two averages out of ten.

This is not counting any Lootaz also shooting at the paladins, kanz, koptaz, buggies or deff rollas getting lucky insta-gibs or Ghazghkhull Thrakka/Burnaz crashing the party.

Jidmah wrote:30 shoota boyz will hit 20 of their shots, wound 10 of those, 1.6 failed saves, about 0.83 wounds caused after FNP. Repeat for 120 more boyz => 4.16 wounds. Now shoot them with 4 psy cannons and 8 storm bolters, hit 10.6 psy cannon shots and 10.6 storm bolter shots, wound 16 boyz total, kill 16. Now you take 3.72 wounds, kill 16 again, wiping a unit. Take another 3.3 wounds, almost everyone is wounded now, if you'Re unlucky you may have lost one. Kill another 16 , even if a storm bolter died, 104 boyz left, shooting another 2.88 wounds of your squad, killing two. You wipe the second squad, 90 orks left to shoot you, killing another two paladins. Point is, on average for every 36 orks, one will put a wound on your squad by shooting, with dice luck working against you. The law of large numbers says you are more likely to screw up your saving throws and roll multiple than the orks are to screw up their shooting. The amount of saves you roll also has the nice side effect of killing paladins before everyone is wounded, as you can't decide who fails the one or two averages out of ten.

This is not counting any Lootaz also shooting at the paladins, kanz, koptaz, buggies or deff rollas getting lucky insta-gibs or Ghazghkhull Thrakka/Burnaz crashing the party.

In the name of the great God Almighty. One squad of Paladins could just take the entire shooting phase AND assualt phase of the enemy. Now that is the best 1000 plus points I have ever spent. The epicness and awesomeness is will be overflowing the bloody table.

Finally, Grey Knight is GW's fluff incarnate on table top. I drool....

Jidmah wrote:30 shoota boyz will hit 20 of their shots, wound 10 of those, 1.6 failed saves, about 0.83 wounds caused after FNP. Repeat for 120 more boyz => 4.16 wounds. Now shoot them with 4 psy cannons and 8 storm bolters, hit 10.6 psy cannon shots and 10.6 storm bolter shots, wound 16 boyz total, kill 16. Now you take 3.72 wounds, kill 16 again, wiping a unit. Take another 3.3 wounds, almost everyone is wounded now, if you'Re unlucky you may have lost one. Kill another 16 , even if a storm bolter died, 104 boyz left, shooting another 2.88 wounds of your squad, killing two. You wipe the second squad, 90 orks left to shoot you, killing another two paladins. Point is, on average for every 36 orks, one will put a wound on your squad by shooting, with dice luck working against you. The law of large numbers says you are more likely to screw up your saving throws and roll multiple than the orks are to screw up their shooting. The amount of saves you roll also has the nice side effect of killing paladins before everyone is wounded, as you can't decide who fails the one or two averages out of ten.

This is not counting any Lootaz also shooting at the paladins, kanz, koptaz, buggies or deff rollas getting lucky insta-gibs or Ghazghkhull Thrakka/Burnaz crashing the party.

Man, they're even more effective against boyz than I had thought. Especially considering you're giving the orks the initiative (GKs out-range their shootas, granted the orks may have big shootas which could inflict some early casualties), allowing all 120 orks to be within 18" of the Paladins which is unlikely and not considering the fact that eventually, somebody's going to charge which favors the Grey Knights a great deal as it prohibits shooting and greatly limits how many orks can get into the combat, in addition causing orks fearless wounds or morale checks. Maybe orks don't have anything that can easily deal with Paladin deathstars... They *can* deal with it, I'm sure, but no easy answer like most armies seem to have. Hmmm, seems custom mega-blastas on Killa Kans could work. You don't out-range the Knights with them though, so could get dicey with so many psycannon shots to fire at them

Orks do have better ways to counter them, but the discussion was going on about a 1000+ points unit crushing 30 boyz being something awesome.

They outrange orks by 6" which is basically nothing, plus you don't need to charge or get charged by 12 foot sloggers if you don't want to.
If you factor in a KFF or even regular cover, Orks are even going to outshoot paladins in the long run. I even forgot that their FNP guy can't shoot, so odds are even worse for them. Note that the paladin unit I was making the calculation for is 1300 points minimum, the librarian is without upgrades at all and no individualization upgrades for any paladins. 150 Boyz on the other hand are 1050 points.

Burnaz, Battlewagons, Thrakka, SAG will all ruin paladin death stars days, while any kind of rokkit has a one in six chance of pasting the wall with 80 points worth of canned super human or at least taking wounds off draigo.

Man, this codex REALLY needs an FAQ.

It costs almost no extra points (I think you have to pay for at least 2 upgrades) beyond the normal squad upgrades (Apothecary, Banner Bearer, 4 Psycannons) to get full wound allocation for a 10 man Paladin squad. I actually didn't notice that you were adding a Librarian and, I presume Draigo, into your example, in which case you included 2 too many stormbolters, but note that the Apothecary can use Holocaust if anything is within 12", Draigo has no shooting at all, psychic or otherwise. FWIW, an optimized paladin squad comes in at about 800 pts, Draigo plus Librarian with 4 powers and PM3 is 500, so it's more like the Deathstar is 1300 at most. Yes, you could push the cost higher, but anything more than 1300 is a complete waste rather than a debatable waste.

I think you're giving too much credit to Burnaz and Thrakka. In the games I've seen of Grey Knights so far, big bad ICs or MCs like Thrakka, don't live to get their attacks in against GKs unless they have a high I and if the Libarian is there, most likely it won't be high enough.

Shokk Attack Gun, I have limited experience with, so can't comment. As for the Rokkits, remember that Draigo is T5, so he gets FNP vs. the Rokkit, so the best bet would be to hit with multiple rokkits from the same unit and hope you get multiple wounds and some 1s.

Elios Harg wrote:It costs almost no extra points (I think you have to pay for at least 2 upgrades) beyond the normal squad upgrades (Apothecary, Banner Bearer, 4 Psycannons) to get full wound allocation for a 10 man Paladin squad. I actually didn't notice that you were adding a Librarian and, I presume Draigo, into your example, in which case you included 2 too many stormbolters, but note that the Apothecary can use Holocaust if anything is within 12", Draigo has no shooting at all, psychic or otherwise. FWIW, an optimized paladin squad comes in at about 800 pts, Draigo plus Librarian with 4 powers and PM3 is 500, so it's more like the Deathstar is 1300 at most. Yes, you could push the cost higher, but anything more than 1300 is a complete waste rather than a debatable waste.

I think you're giving too much credit to Burnaz and Thrakka. In the games I've seen of Grey Knights so far, big bad ICs or MCs like Thrakka, don't live to get their attacks in against GKs unless they have a high I and if the Libarian is there, most likely it won't be high enough.

Shokk Attack Gun, I have limited experience with, so can't comment. As for the Rokkits, remember that Draigo is T5, so he gets FNP vs. the Rokkit, so the best bet would be to hit with multiple rokkits from the same unit and hope you get multiple wounds and some 1s.

Draigo has his personal psychic shooting attack, "Sanctified Flame" which is a flame template.

He also has a storm bolter.

Cerebrium wrote:Man, this codex REALLY needs an FAQ.

I agree. Clarity-wise, it's easily one of the worst written ever. As to fluff and balance, well, I won't go there. heh


Automatically Appended Next Post:

targetawg wrote:

Draigo has his personal psychic shooting attack, "Sanctified Flame" which is a flame template.

He also has a storm bolter.

My mistake on both counts.

nosferatu1001 wrote:The right thing to do would be to arbitrarily change the rules?

I forgot to preface that my suggestion was for the eventual GW FAQ. Arbitrarily changing the rules is what FAQs are for, just look at the INAT one.

Homer

Draigo has a Storm Bolter and Sanctified Flame as PSA.

10 Paladins 550
+ 4 Psycannons 630
+ Banner 655
+ Warding Stave 675 (described as mandatory for catching klaws)
+ Psybolt Amunition 695 (actually I accidently made librarian and draigo profit from this, too)
+ Apothecary 770
+ Librarian 920
+ Draigo 1295
+ PM3 and four powers 1365

This is the exact unit described by previous posters, as without draigo and librarian, they can even be assaulted to some success.

As for Thrakka: He is only hit on 4s by anyone but draigo and wounded on 5+ unless hammerhand is used. Now you still need to get past his 2++ and 4W to kill him during his Waagh! (about 2.5 wounds with three castings of hammerhand) meaning he gets seven attacks off on his turn which should instant-death the librarian and at least one paladin, possibly even making you lose combat. With a little luck (about 20% of the time if there are no hammers in the unit) he gets another 5 attacks on your turn, killing another one. Even if he dies before his second round of attacks, they lost one turn of shooting and much more points than Ghazghkull costs as well as any utility the librarian brought.

Burnaz can reliably dump 3-5 wounds from inside a battlewagon onto the squad, again with high chances of dealing more and killing important models due to the high amount of saves. 1300 points means my entire army has time to shoot you, which means even if every unit only puts 2 or 3 wounds on them, they will be dead in two or three turns, possibly sooner when they get down to an assaultable level or the apothecary dies.

I wasn't aware that Thrakka had a 2+ invuln save.

The fact that it's taking about the same number of points for them to counter the deathstar effectively, means that it's not as terrible a unit as everyone seems to claim it is.

Elios Harg wrote:I wasn't aware that Thrakka had a 2+ invuln save.

The fact that it's taking about the same number of points for them to counter the deathstar effectively, means that it's not as terrible a unit as everyone seems to claim it is.

He has that on the turn he waaghs

It takes the same number of points, from orks, in combat, to counter it effectively. It is still a terrible unit. It can easily get shot by far less points before it does much.

In combat, a common unit taken by most marine players counters it: TH/SS terminators.

For the same price as that unit, I can buy 30 thunder hammer storm shield terminators (1200 points). Which can all make it into combat. Why would someone be running 30 Th/SS terminators? The shrike fleeting terminator list for one, but in general, it's just as likely as seeing that paladin death star.

Paladin unit has ~30 attacks, 20 hit, 18 wound (to be generous, these are rough numbers), 6 terminators die.

Paladin unit gets hit with 48 Thunder hammer strikes, 24 hit, 21 wound. Everyone takes 2 wounds essentially, all of the wounds instakill, so likely only Draigo + whoever had a warding stave is going to be around at the end.

But, this is beginning to go way OT (and I wasn't helping admittedly, sorry!) so back to the rules debate.

I think the agreement is pretty much: RAW ATM = Multiple castings are legal and they stack since it just gives additional strength, not any specific rule
RAI = Who knows.

I'd say this is still one you should check with your TO about if attending an event, even if the raw is (fairly) clear (imo) to avoid any confusion/headaches.

Ah, never knew that about Thrakka. Thanks.

I agree, we've gotten way off topic.. I also agree that technically Hammerhands (and Might of Titan) should stack with itself RAW. But yeah, check with the TO or come to agreement with whomever you're playing before the game begins on how they want to run it.

I just think that anyone that has to imagine an absolutely ideal scenario for ONE army to deal with it has missed the point. I'm glad that given a complete ideal [150 boyz all in range at the same time] there's an army that can deal with it if they pretty much ignore everything else [like, I dunno, let's be crazy and say ANOTHER paladin squad kitted the same way but without draigo]. What does chaos do against that squad? Tau? Tau might have plasma sure but we all know how prevalent all-plasma suits are. Anything that's doing 1-2 wounds at a time from meltagun-type weapons will meet with very limited success - one will bounce off draigo every turn and you're hoping that the other shot hit, and wounded, and they failed their 4+ invul [or 3+ cover, if going with the librarian].

The unit needs to be limited in what they can do. I'm even against Hammerhand stacking once, from the unit and an attached character casting it but I'd at least be somewhat pleased to see it limited to that.

This discussion is a bit silly really. What size are most games you play? Between 1,500 and 2,000? This unit as whole can only fire against one other unit every turn until it gets in to combat and will be taking most of the fire from the enemy the whole game an frankly doesn't have the staying power for the points.

An accurate demolisher shot hitting just four guys would take a heavy toll on the squad for instance. A decent SAG shot at S6 or 7 would too. Heck, a round of shooting from a standard Land Raider would make you cry. Imagine taking this in a 2,000 points game against a whole army of enemy squads all giggling as they hurl the firestorm at you as soon as you come in to view. It'd fall apart.

Just treat them the same as normal termies guys, high S, low AP weapons or a big squad of genestealers and you're laughing. Anything S8 will ignore the multiple wound factor and FNP too, as will AP1 or 2 weapons. You'll usually have some of these in a 2,000 point game. It's also highly theoretical. Most sane humans wouldn't take this unit because it costs so much and constitutes such a high risk every time you lose a model.

Spellbound wrote:I just think that anyone that has to imagine an absolutely ideal scenario for ONE army to deal with it has missed the point. I'm glad that given a complete ideal [150 boyz all in range at the same time] there's an army that can deal with it if they pretty much ignore everything else [like, I dunno, let's be crazy and say ANOTHER paladin squad kitted the same way but without draigo]. What does chaos do against that squad? Tau? Tau might have plasma sure but we all know how prevalent all-plasma suits are. Anything that's doing 1-2 wounds at a time from meltagun-type weapons will meet with very limited success - one will bounce off draigo every turn and you're hoping that the other shot hit, and wounded, and they failed their 4+ invul [or 3+ cover, if going with the librarian].

The unit needs to be limited in what they can do. I'm even against Hammerhand stacking once, from the unit and an attached character casting it but I'd at least be somewhat pleased to see it limited to that.

Everything else? Another squad of kittet paladins? Well, at those point limits, I'll just swing my stompa's wrecking ball at them, or charge them with Thrakka and 19 Warbosses out of a Battlewagon *rolls eyes*

Seriously, at 1500 points you'd have nothing but an additional striking squad, at 2k points you'd have two units of paladins (22 models) against a full FOC. The one without ICs will really get eaten up by Thrakka (they wound him on 4's instead of 2+, and might even fail Hammerhand at LD9), and losing a model to every rokkit hitting them if they are not simply tank shocked off the board. Draigo multiplies the strength of a Paladin unit, without him, they really lose value, up to being worthless.

Nobody should ever take this squad.

zerodemon wrote:Nobody should ever take this squad in a competitive army.

Fixed. Flash Gits are a blast to play, too

Spellbound wrote:I just think that anyone that has to imagine an absolutely ideal scenario for ONE army to deal with it has missed the point. I'm glad that given a complete ideal [150 boyz all in range at the same time] there's an army that can deal with it if they pretty much ignore everything else [like, I dunno, let's be crazy and say ANOTHER paladin squad kitted the same way but without draigo]. What does chaos do against that squad? Tau? Tau might have plasma sure but we all know how prevalent all-plasma suits are. Anything that's doing 1-2 wounds at a time from meltagun-type weapons will meet with very limited success - one will bounce off draigo every turn and you're hoping that the other shot hit, and wounded, and they failed their 4+ invul [or 3+ cover, if going with the librarian].

The unit needs to be limited in what they can do. I'm even against Hammerhand stacking once, from the unit and an attached character casting it but I'd at least be somewhat pleased to see it limited to that.

150 boyz is less ideal than the paladin unit, because you often will actually see the 150 boyz fielded, where I doubt anyone is actually going to field this terrible paladin unit.

Pretty much every army has a standard way to deal with this:

-Th/SS terminators
-Demolisher/Vindicator templates
-Lascannons
-Meltaguns
-Particle whip
-Obliterators (you morph relevant weapons)
-Shadow in the warp (this just keeps them honest, as thats basically an "insta perils" unless lucky, and you don't get lucky casting 5-6 powers a turn)

If you put more than 1 wound at a time with any of these guns onto the unit: the unit is about to lose a sizeable chunk. Remember, each guy averages out to over 100 points.

And secondly...you don't change the rules just because you "feel" something is overpowered, or even if it IS overpowered. The rules are the rules. We don't need to change the rules just because some people can't be bothered to learn to adapt to beating a new beast.

When we got rules for the ctan we didn't decide to "limit it's combat ability" or some such. We just shot it and didn't bother trying to beat it there.

Lets just sum this mess up.

- Until a FAQ is released stating otherwise, Grey Knights can stack Hammerhand, up to the point of S10.
- This won't generally make a difference to their combat ability 9/10 times.
- They're still just as easy to kill, S10 or S4.

and in my mind, the effort to get Str10 with this method is far more trouble then its worth.

things that die to Str10 will usually die just as easily to Str5 or 6.

Darkvoidof40k wrote:Lets just sum this mess up.

- Until a FAQ is released stating otherwise, Grey Knights can stack Hammerhand, up to the point of S10.
- This won't generally make a difference to their combat ability 9/10 times.
- They're still just as easy to kill, S10 or S4.

Uh...disagreed.

Every. Single. Action. That. You. May. Take. In. 40k. Must. Be. Given. Permission. To. Do.

40k is not "It doesn't say that I cannot, so I can" it is "I only can if it says that I can."

The only way that you may cast the same psychic power twice is when you are given permission to do so.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:Lets just sum this mess up.

- Until a FAQ is released stating otherwise, Grey Knights can stack Hammerhand, up to the point of S10.
- This won't generally make a difference to their combat ability 9/10 times.
- They're still just as easy to kill, S10 or S4.

Uh...disagreed.

Every. Single. Action. That. You. May. Take. In. 40k. Must. Be. Given. Permission. To. Do.

40k is not "It doesn't say that I cannot, so I can" it is "I only can if it says that I can."

You have permission to cast Hammerhand. Hammerhand adds 1S to the unit's profile. As all psychic powers aren't resolved simultaneously, by the time you'd cast the next hammerhand you'd have an S value of 5 (assuming MEQ) which you'd add 1 to and so on. I really don't see the issue. In this case, it really IS "It doesn't say that I cannot", as you've already obtained permission (meh, almost wrote "persimmons" there) to use Hammerhand.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:Lets just sum this mess up.

- Until a FAQ is released stating otherwise, Grey Knights can stack Hammerhand, up to the point of S10.
- This won't generally make a difference to their combat ability 9/10 times.
- They're still just as easy to kill, S10 or S4.

Uh...disagreed.

Every. Single. Action. That. You. May. Take. In. 40k. Must. Be. Given. Permission. To. Do.

40k is not "It doesn't say that I cannot, so I can" it is "I only can if it says that I can."

You have permission to cast Hammerhand. Hammerhand adds 1S to the unit's profile. As all psychic powers aren't resolved simultaneously, by the time you'd cast the next hammerhand you'd have an S value of 5 (assuming MEQ) which you'd add 1 to and so on. I really don't see the issue. In this case, it really IS "It doesn't say that I cannot", as you've already obtained permission (meh, almost wrote "persimmons" there) to use Hammerhand.

Agreed, it does say that you can. If the permissive rules had to cover every single different variation of an event in which you could use them, nothing would work.

Example: It says I can shoot a gun, I have a meltagun. But it doesnt say I can shoot it at a monolith. Therefore I can't shoot it at a monolith?

It says you can cast two psychic powers per turn.
Hammerhand is a psychic power.

I cast hammerhand -> check, I can do this.
It resolves
I cast my 2nd power of the turn, well, I'll choose hammerhand again -> You have hammerhand to cast and have a power to use, check, I can do this

Dashofpepper wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:Lets just sum this mess up.

- Until a FAQ is released stating otherwise, Grey Knights can stack Hammerhand, up to the point of S10.
- This won't generally make a difference to their combat ability 9/10 times.
- They're still just as easy to kill, S10 or S4.

Uh...disagreed.

Every. Single. Action. That. You. May. Take. In. 40k. Must. Be. Given. Permission. To. Do.

40k is not "It doesn't say that I cannot, so I can" it is "I only can if it says that I can."

The only way that you may cast the same psychic power twice is when you are given permission to do so.

The rulebook does give implied permission by stating that PSAs are the only kind of psychic powers you cannot cast more than once per turn.

Dashofpepper wrote:

Darkvoidof40k wrote:Lets just sum this mess up.

- Until a FAQ is released stating otherwise, Grey Knights can stack Hammerhand, up to the point of S10.
- This won't generally make a difference to their combat ability 9/10 times.
- They're still just as easy to kill, S10 or S4.

Uh...disagreed.

Every. Single. Action. That. You. May. Take. In. 40k. Must. Be. Given. Permission. To. Do.

40k is not "It doesn't say that I cannot, so I can" it is "I only can if it says that I can."

The only way that you may cast the same psychic power twice is when you are given permission to do so.

I think I'll have to go with Dash on this one until the FAQ says otherwise. Just seems like the best way to play it so your opponent doesn't call "cheese" on you. So for me, my Gray Knights will have +1 Strength from Hammerhand.

I'd like to complain about the poorly tested codex again. You would have think in beta this would have come up!

veritechc wrote:
You would have think in beta this would have come up!

Why would it need to? It's been legal for many years before this codex came out.

Please see the many threads about it in this very forum. Typically these come out each time there's a new marine codex with some librarian that has a power that isn't a PSA.

DarknessEternal wrote:

veritechc wrote:
You would have think in beta this would have come up!

Why would it need to? It's been legal for many years before this codex came out.

Please see the many threads about it in this very forum. Typically these come out each time there's a new marine codex with some librarian that has a power that isn't a PSA.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear.

The codex writer could have just said Hammerhand can stack upon itself. Just like they did with Might of Titan.

The Strength bonus from Might of Titan is cumulative with that from Hammerhand.

I would have thought in play testing that someone tried to cast Hammerhand more than once. At that point, when the rule wasn't obvious that the author would have correct the rule. In this codex I see little playtesting or editing. It seems to me that they wrote it and pushed it out the door. The FAQ that will come out will crush us all with the Wall of Text it will have to be to clear up the errors. Personally I would have rather waited longer for a edited codex.

Well since I don't play GK. This is the only rule I could find that would disallow you to do that.
PSYKERS AND PSYCHIC POWERS

Unless specified otherwise in its special rules, a
model may use a single psychic power per player
turn.
That statement comes from the rulebook.

As I see it, there are two questions.

Q1. Can one model cast Hammerhand twice?
Yes. It says that having a mastery level of two allows you to cast two psychic powers per turn. It doesn't clarify that these powers have to be different anywhere in the book.

Q2. Will the effect stack?
I believe the intention was to not have it stack, but because it isn't prohibited the answer is once again yes. The standard in GW codices is to prohibit stacking only if it is clarified in the codex or rulebook (such as the prohibited nature of combining Pedro Kantor's +1A with the +1A you'd get from a chapter banner.) As such, without a clarification to the opposite, it's fine.

bleumike wrote:Well since I don't play GK. This is the only rule I could find that would disallow you to do that.
PSYKERS AND PSYCHIC POWERS

Unless specified otherwise in its special rules, a
model may use a single psychic power per player
turn.
That statement comes from the rulebook.

It clarifies in the GK codex that the model can use one psychic power per mastery level every turn.

bleumike wrote:Well since I don't play GK. This is the only rule I could find that would disallow you to do that.
PSYKERS AND PSYCHIC POWERS

Unless specified otherwise in its special rules, a
model may use a single psychic power per player
turn.
That statement comes from the rulebook.

The Grey Knights special rules for Master Level 2 state that the model may cast more than one psychic power per turn, which overrules the rule book. Codex always overrules rule book.

brassangel wrote:

bleumike wrote:Well since I don't play GK. This is the only rule I could find that would disallow you to do that.
PSYKERS AND PSYCHIC POWERS

Unless specified otherwise in its special rules, a
model may use a single psychic power per player
turn.
That statement comes from the rulebook.

The Grey Knights special rules for Master Level 2 state that the model may cast more than one psychic power per turn, which overrules the rule book. Codex always overrules rule book.

Yes, but irrelevant to this. Hammerhand and Might of Titan stack because they come from different sources.

If you have hammerhand cast on your unit, the unit has +1 strength. There is no justification to believe that multiple hammerhands would give multiple +1 strengths.

Its a check. Does the unit have hammerhand? If yes, it gets +1 strength. If no, it does not get +1 strength. Every precedent that I can think of in 40k disallows stacking of the same benefit. 5 Waaaugh! banners in a unit of Nobs don't give +5 WS, they give +1.

Someone explain to me the justification for trying to stack them?

Dash - but that is because they are worded differently.

Waagh banners do not give +XWS because they are worded as "a unit with a waagh banner....'

Hammerhand is different. It takes your strength and adds to it. There is no "this unit has hammerhand", it is "this unit has +1 S"

Dashofpepper wrote:
Yes, but irrelevant to this. Hammerhand and Might of Titan stack because they come from different sources.

Its a check. Does the unit have hammerhand? If yes, it gets +1 strength. If no, it does not get +1 strength. Every precedent that I can think of in 40k disallows stacking of the same benefit. 5 Waaaugh! banners in a unit of Nobs don't give +5 WS, they give +1.

When did "sources" become some kind of keyword in 40k? Nothing ever refers to anything like that.

Also, Autarchs are a precedent. Each of them provide +1 to reserve rolls.

Also, multiple Psyker Battle Squads can stack penalties to Ld with Weaken Resolve.

also, the fact the Eldar codex FORBIDS them from using the same non-PSA power implies that other Psykers(that can use more then one power) can.


For example,

would you agree that a GK Libby with Mastery level 3 could cast Quicksilver on 3 seperate units?


apply the same to hammerhand except all 3 castings are on the same unit.

really. its pretty clear the wording is bad here. nothing in the GK dex says it can stack, but it dosent forbid it either. nothing in the BRB directly confirms it can or cant. all we have is interpretation, wich by definition is RAI. (rules as interpreted) untill a FAQ clarifys it, make a house rule everyone in your group can be happy with, and make sure to check with TO's if your playing a tourney. but untill a FAQ i think people are just gonna keep going in circles on this... and it makes my head hurt.

on topic.. my 2 bits is that it can stack. our local group read through the rules, and decided that since it dose'nt restrict, and nothing currently does restrict, its fine. your group may rule different.

I think it was intended that hammerhand cant stack with itself, just because of the fact that the might of titan rule has the line written in "this ability stacks with hammerhand"

Why would they bother putting that line in if hammerhand or might of titan stacked with themselves? Why would might even be needed at all when a unit could just keep boosting itself with multiple hammerhands?

Same thing with pys communion. "this ability stacks with other uses of communion"

If abilities were able to passively stack with themselves, they wouldn't have needed to write that rule in.


As a general rule, no ability, pys or otherwise can stack with itself unless the rule states otherwise.

DarknessEternal wrote:Also, Autarchs are a precedent. Each of them provide +1 to reserve rolls.

Astropaths and Officers of the fleet, however, do not stack in multiples. So you can't really cite precedent when there is a competing precedent that rules the other way.

This is just another case of the writers thinking that their meaning (whatever it was) was obvious and didn't need further clarification. We will just have to get by until they decide to put us right.

omerakk wrote:As a general rule, no ability, pys or otherwise can stack with itself unless the rule states otherwise.

This is not a rule. There is a rule for stacking modifiers though (multiplicative before additive).

Trickstick wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:Also, Autarchs are a precedent. Each of them provide +1 to reserve rolls.

Astropaths and Officers of the fleet, however, do not stack in multiples. So you can't really cite precedent when there is a competing precedent that rules the other way.

I'm aware, but Dash said there were "no" precedents of things stacking without explicitly saying they could. There are.

I agree the GK codex is unclear on the stacking of Hammerhand and am only arguing the point that it's uncertain. Anyone who thinks they have 100% accurate interpretation of it is full of hubris.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Trickstick wrote:

DarknessEternal wrote:Also, Autarchs are a precedent. Each of them provide +1 to reserve rolls.

Astropaths and Officers of the fleet, however, do not stack in multiples. So you can't really cite precedent when there is a competing precedent that rules the other way.

I'm aware, but Dash said there were "no" precedents of things stacking without explicitly saying they could. There are.

I agree the GK codex is unclear on the stacking of Hammerhand and am only arguing the point that it's uncertain. Anyone who thinks they have 100% accurate interpretation of it is full of hubris.

The precedent I'm referring to is stacking multiple of the same things on one unit, not multiple units stacking benefits to something other than either unit.

One unit casting hammerhand on itself twice is not the same as two separate autarchs stacking reserve bonuses.

So, how about a Wolf Lord wielding two frost axes as a precendent?

thats different, as a WL only gets the frost axe bonus when he uses the weapon, and cannot use both of them in CC

he can use both as they are the same special weapon.


I would say he doesn't get +2 Str because the Frast Blade description says "The wielder of a Frost Blade gains +1Str"

the Wolf Lord is wielding a frost blade. therefore he gets +1Str and fulfills the requiorements of both blades.


Hammerhand is different as Psychic powers aren't resolved simultainiously.

Grey Templar wrote:he can use both as they are the same special weapon.


I would say he doesn't get +2 Str because the Frast Blade description says "The wielder of a Frost Blade gains +1Str"

the Wolf Lord is wielding a frost blade. therefore he gets +1Str and fulfills the requiorements of both blades.


Hammerhand is different as Psychic powers aren't resolved simultainiously.

I'm not sure how you can say that doesn't stack, because he's weilding two weapons and each seperate one grants +1 Strength in combat. Therefore he has one for each blade.

GT - reread the Close combat rules. they state you pick ONE weapon and use THAT weapon. The other weapon, at best, can add an extra attack.

nosferatu1001 wrote:GT - reread the Close combat rules. they state you pick ONE weapon and use THAT weapon. The other weapon, at best, can add an extra attack.

I had a feeling you guys might use that one against me.

thats what i meant.

he only gets the bonus for 2 CCWs as the special bonus is fulfilled for both weapons when it is activated.

Dashofpepper wrote:
The precedent I'm referring to is stacking multiple of the same things on one unit, not multiple units stacking benefits to something other than either unit.

One unit casting hammerhand on itself twice is not the same as two separate autarchs stacking reserve bonuses.

Weaken Resolve is the same though. Two penalties, both apply. Same as two bonuses, both apply.

omerakk wrote:I think it was intended that hammerhand cant stack with itself, just because of the fact that the might of titan rule has the line written in "this ability stacks with hammerhand"

Why would they bother putting that line in if hammerhand or might of titan stacked with themselves? Why would might even be needed at all when a unit could just keep boosting itself with multiple hammerhands?

Same thing with pys communion. "this ability stacks with other uses of communion"

If abilities were able to passively stack with themselves, they wouldn't have needed to write that rule in.


As a general rule, no ability, pys or otherwise can stack with itself unless the rule states otherwise.

This has settled it for me. Many thanks omerakk. From now on, our group will only read that things stack if specifically permitted. I'm not trying to impose this ruling on anyone else but it seems logical to me as it's part of the content of the latest codex.

The reason for using might is that it boosts your armour penetration potential against vehicles more than hammerhand does.

These things don't come up in playtesting because they discuss the rules with each other. They know, in their heads, that they can't stack hammerhand. So they don't. They cast Might of Titan, which they intended to stack with hammerhand, which they spell out.

So no time in playtesting did anyone ever try to cast hammerhand multiple times - they know they can't, it never even occurs to them.

We just don't see all that. We don't even know that happened. All we see is a broken rule, and people call it how they see it.

I personally see clear intent and precedent even within the same codex. My local players do not, and see nothing stopping them.