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Hey was glancing through the DE Codex the other day and on the drive home while chatting something occured to me. Now if I read it right Lillith get extra attacks equal to the difference between her and her advisary's weapon skill. Now if it just says difference, those few weapon skill 10 models give her and extra attack, the difference is one. If you drop her to weapon skill 1 with an ability like the nid psy attack she still gets extra attacks. Is this actually cheese I have found, or did I remember incorrectly.

That is how her rule is worded. She gets bonus attacks for being lower just as she gets them for being higher.

It's up to you and your opponent (and TO) to decide if this is how it should be played, but the RAW works for both. (My personal vote is that she needs to have higher WS to get bonus attacks)

Doubled, if there was any justice in the world, you would be forced to read and suffer through the Warseer thread on this topic.

Here it is: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=282485

For your penance, spend the next hour arguing whether the common usage of "difference" is "absolute difference" or whether the example demonstrates how the author expects that difference to be calculated.

Edit: Edited for clarity, since Grakmar's post got in the way.

Or, you could just read Gwar!'s FAQ:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/296151.page

It answers this and a lot more.

For what it's worth, the rule actually says (word for word) "Lelith gets a number of bonus Attacks equal to the difference between her Weapon Skill and the highest Weapon Skill amongst enemy models she is in base contact with."

The difference between X and Y is not the same as the difference between Y and X. You always take her WS and subtract the enemies. This is what the rule says and to argue it any other way shows a fundamental lack of knowledge of the English Language.

Dude the text message killed off the english language long ago lol. As intended it is obvious that she should have a higher weapon skill to get her attacks, but I have descided to start taking a run at some higher end tourny's maybe even take a shot at hardboys down the line, and that means preparing for TFG and his DE BS.

@ Moran: Your attack on the understanding of the English Language by anyone who might disagree with you is unnecessary and obtuse.

The link provided by the poster above you demonstrates that a cogent argument can be made that difference does not always imply directionality (although sometimes it does). Its not entirely clear to me whether a difference can result in a negative number.

As posted by Tremer on warseer

The difference between any given (real) numbers x and y is |x-y|=max{x-y, y-x}. Hence the difference is always positive or 0.

I think its reasonable to interpret it either way.

Not that Dark Eldar is a bad codex, it just has a few grey areas that need an FAQ.

Lelith's rule should have said (IMO): "Lelith gets a number of bonus Attacks equal to her Weapon Skill minus the highest Weapon Skill amongst enemy models she is in base contact with." And, then an additional clause to clarify what happens in she has a lower WS than her opponent. I have no clue as to the author's intent in this regard.

Lelith has 3 options if her WS is lower:

A) She gets bonus attacks based on opponent's WS minus her WS. (This is how it currently reads, but I doubt this is intended and vote against playing this way.)
B) She gets zero bonus attacks.
C) She looses attacks equal to opponent's WS minus her WS.

I don't see a reason B should be used over C, or C over B. Either one could have been the author's intention. Hopefully, a FAQ will come out soon to clarify.


Edit:
Oh, and Morans. That is NOT what difference means. "difference of 4 and 1" is the same as "difference of 1 and 4"

To be fair, I don't see a huge problem with A, with the possibility being that she fights harder against something that is more skilled than she is... from a fluff standpoint.

Realistically, this doesn't matter. There are, what, 2 other models that have a WS higher than 9? Being the Avatar and Bloodthirster, and being T6, means that Lilith is going to get pwned by them anyway, and 1 attack here or there isn't going to matter.

Mathematically:
The potential extra attack will cause .5 hits, .083 wounds, .05 unsaved.

Tyranid tyrant dropping her WS to 1, I feel that'd matter a bit

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:Tyranid tyrant dropping her WS to 1, I feel that'd matter a bit

Ah, yeah, I always forget about that

Morans wrote:Or, you could just read Gwar!'s FAQ:

Gwar's FAQ is a compilation of his personal opinion, not an official source of rules. As such, it's only relevant if you have chosen to use it, and has no bearing on rules discussions in this forum. Please see the tenets of YMDC thread (stickied at the top of the page) for acceptable rules sources for discussions in this forum.

This is what the rule says and to argue it any other way shows a fundamental lack of knowledge of the English Language.

This sort of comment serves no purpose other than getting people riled. Address the argument, not the other posters.

Death Masks on Sanguinary Guard could drop her to WS1 too.

This reminds me a lot of word problems in third grade. Difference means subtract. Subtract what? The first and second numbers listed. the first number = leliths WS. The second number = the opponents WS as the description of the ability says. So you would get positive attacks while leliths skill is greater and zero attacks if the enemies WS was equal or greater since you can't have -1 bonus attacks.

This opens another question - the rule doesn't say to add the difference to her attacks, it says that she gets that many bonus attacks.

Assuming that we're using absolute difference and we get a negative number of bonus attacks, what do we do with that?

Does -3 bonus attacks subtract from regular attacks? Or simply not add anything?

Scott-S6 wrote:This opens another question - the rule doesn't say to add the difference to her attacks, it says that she gets that many bonus attacks.

Assuming that we're using absolute difference and we get a negative number of bonus attacks, what do we do with that?

Does -3 bonus attacks subtract from regular attacks? Or simply not add anything?

if you're going to argue that a bonus number of attacks can be negative, I'd also expect to see you take a negative dollar amount as a christmas bonus.

bonus: noun; something given over and above what is due.
difference: noun; the degree to which one thing differs from another.

I vote we devote further energy towards kidnapping Phil and forcing him to rewrite it.

GW tells you exactly how to determine "difference". One poster in the Warseer thread pointed it out. Look at the example GW gives on how to determine the "difference" for Lelith and the Warboss. Lelith can go into negative bonus attacks and thus only attack with her base plus ccw x2.

So does that mean Lilith gets a neg attack from the Avatar?? his Weapon Skill is 10...

Math equations aside one thing people seem to be glossing over is the fact that Lelith gets difference in WS in 'bonus attacks'.

So say Lelith has WS9 compared to an opponent's WS5 she gets 4 bonus attacks (9-5 = 4).

But if Lelith is facing off against a WS10 model she's going to get 0 bonus attacks because the difference is a negative number (9-10 = -1). But nowhere in the rules does it state that this a straight modifier to Lelith's attacks. These are *only* bonus attacks and therefore by definition can only be in addition to her standard attacks.


So if Lelith's WS is higher than her opponent she's going to get additional bonus attacks. But if her opponent's WS is higher than hers she is not going to get any bonus attacks because the difference between the two is negative.

Strictly speaking "Difference" is always a positive value, think someone's already said this too.

ChrisCP wrote:Strictly speaking "Difference" is always a positive value, think someone's already said this too.

Except the example explains it as a math problem so you can come up with a negative value for Lelith's bonus attacks thus not giving her any.

And Yak, I agree with you completely. Only the bonus attacks are affected.

So? That examle just happens to show a difference of four, that's what the difference is - for that example, if she'd been paroyxismed against a swarmlord then the difference would be 8... maths...

"Difference" is a scalar quantifier, as it is generated using the max function. It *always* generates a posisitve or 0 value.

nosferatu1001 wrote:"Difference" is a scalar quantifier, as it is generated using the max function. It *always* generates a posisitve or 0 value.

So bringing in an expert :

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/69177.html

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/69177.html

Now based on this doctor's opinion, do you think GW wrote this rule for easier understanding or for actual real world problems?

All I can say to that. The Math expert is Math!

I think the rare time you face an avatar just give her an extra attack, she'll need it....

And what about the not so rare time you face a Tyrant with Paroxism? Are you going to give her 8 bonus attacks?

Technically yes, you would do. According to the rules AND maths.

Having not seen a tyrant of any kind fo a while in competitive Nid lists, it is about as common as facing an Avatar.

nosferatu1001 wrote:I think the rare time you face an avatar just give her an extra attack, she'll need it....

And when she faces a ton of BA Death Masks?

Brother Ramses wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:I think the rare time you face an avatar just give her an extra attack, she'll need it....

And when she faces a ton of BA Death Masks?

Assuming she's still S3, she'll need it there, too.....