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There are a few chaos spells that have similar non-existent restrictions, but this one comes to mind:
Can Infernal Gateway be cast without line of sight, without forward arc, and in to combat?

Its a direct damage spell so front arc, needs los and no cant go into combat.

cowpow16 wrote:Its a direct damage spell so front arc, needs los and no cant go into combat.

It's not listed as direct damage, nor is it FAQ'ed as direct damage.
I thought it was listed as a magic missile, but that might be wrong as well.

-Matt

Just checked the army book and it says nothing there. Just checked faq also nothing.... welp.

I would suggest not casting it into combat since its main purpose is to do damage so I think its safe to assume its a direct damage spell. How ever it dosnt seem like it would be a magic missile since its descriptions says stuff about opening a portal etc and not shooting a bolt of magic.
So I guess no Los is needed neither is forward arc.

Since its an older spell, its casting restrictions are entirely with the spell and they are; range 24". That is the only restriction, so either of you can be in combat, he can be out of LoS and/or foward arc, as long as the target is within 24", you can target it. (WOC pg 108).

Krellnus is correct.
However if you start pulling this on regular basis be perpared to have sallamanders "scatter" onto you'r units in combat and other such funnies.

Krellnus, that's one interpretation. The other (in my view equally valid) interpretation is that the rules say, in general, if it doesn't say you can cast into combat, you can't. I have applied this to gateway, as well as Curse of the Horned Rat. I think this is more shoddy GW rule writing, and I recognize the two interpretations of RAI. And gateway definitely doesn't require front arc. However, casting it into combat just seems terribly unfair to me so I choose to go with the narrower interpretation of the rules (and yes, I do have a chaos army).

Im with malleus I would love to cast it into cc but then people would be less than happy.
I may have to pull that when people start playing that sort of game with me where they nit pick at everything then kazam gateway.

Considering other spells in the chaos lore states that it can be cast into CC I would say no for CC Gateway.

This is the biggest rules question still floating around the tournament scene. The "correct" ruling is that it can be cast into combat. The actual ruling I always see at Tournaments and casual play is 360 line of sight, but can not be cast into combat.

GW really dropped the ball on this issue. The spells should have all been typed the day the new rulebook came out. The fact they refuse to do so is a source of great frustration to me and my playgroup.

Please reread the Choosing a Target (p.31)

BRB p.31 wrote:However, unless stated otherwise the following rules apply:

The target must lie within the wizards forward arc.

The wizard does not need line of sight to the target.

The target must lie within the spell's range.

Wizards cannot target spells at units engaged in close combat.

So unless Infernal Gateway has it stated in its rules that it may ignore one of these restrictions (which it doesn't), then it must follow all of these.

Wrong, please reread every damn thread that this question has come up in.

Youre missing that the phrase AFTER this is where it talks about spells without a spell type - and at that point it says that ALL casting restrctions are given in the spell description.

Now, they probably meant "all further", but they didnt - they said all. As such those 4 bullet points are ignored.

Now, no tournament (including the last one i ran) plays it that way, but those are the actual rules.

This issue can (and has) be debated both ways. I believe the reailty is that GW won't clear this up and it's going to be played how you and your group decide to play it. I would strongly encourage everyone to check with their TO before the play in a tournament to see how this is played. That said, with my group, we play it as it CANNOT be cast in to HtH. Our reasoning is that other Chaos spells say that you CAN cast into HtH and also the rules say that spells with have specific restricitons. Well, being able or not able to cast into HtH is a restriction, and one that is not listed in the Gateway spell. That's how we play, I hope they clear this up soon...

100% behind Jink and Nos on this issue- it comes up every now and thenin our group. A Dark Elf player in our group has started using Dark Magic and has started using/exploiting (depending on your attitude) this rule with Black Horror.

I am a bit surprised that GW *didn't* classify all the old book spells. Almost all fall into one category or another pretty clearly.

It would have been nice if GW did classify all the old spells, but I think it just smacks of laziness. Each new codex that comes out has clearly classified the spell types, or the restrictions the odd spells have.

After all 8th edition codexes come out, (ie. by the time 10th edition is around) we will no longer have this issue.

Wait there are 8th edition codexs?!?!?!

@J-C: I've given up trying to correct Codex vs. Army Book.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Wrong, please reread every damn thread that this question has come up in.

Youre missing that the phrase AFTER this is where it talks about spells without a spell type - and at that point it says that ALL casting restrctions are given in the spell description.

Now, they probably meant "all further", but they didnt - they said all. As such those 4 bullet points are ignored.

Now, no tournament (including the last one i ran) plays it that way, but those are the actual rules.

So you're telling me that my Raise Dead spell (VC army book) can raise the unit anywhere I want on the battlefield because I can ignore the restriction "The target must lie within the spell's range"?

No that is still a restriction. Gateway has a range and so does summoning things for vc. That is in the spell discription.

If you are playing a friendly game don't cast gateway into cc. In a tourny ask the organizer or who ever is in charge of the rules part.

The woc players in my area have pretty much accepted it to be a direct damage spell that needs no Los and no front arc, it can also be cast out of cc.
I would strongly suggest using it this way because it keeps games from turning hostile when the opponent tries to argue about being able to cast it into combat.

cowpow16 wrote:No that is still a restriction. Gateway has a range and so does summoning things for vc. That is in the spell discription.

Obviously there is a range but if I go by what Nos said, i don't have to abide by that range restriction because it is an untyped spell.

Aye so all it's restrictions are in it's description.
Oh wait that includes range, go figure.

We argue about this all the time. Yes, it's repeated often. But it's also a hairy issue and maybe if we repost it enough, someone on GW will eventually tell us to shut up by FAQing it (the same day I poop gold ingots as well).

The question is, in the BRB, page 31:

CHOOSING A TARGET

Are the 4 bullets under that and the paragraph below the bullets, mutually-exclusive. IMHO you cannot reach the paragraph below it without reading the header which states that all spells have certain restrictions (the 4 bullets).

The last line of the paragraph says of older spells "their text will contain any casting restrictions that apply." You can take that to mean any 'additional' casting restrictions besides those listed above, that apply to all spells and in which this paragraph exists. Or you could take it to mean literally 'any and all' casting restrictions. Meaning a spell has no restrictions unless it explicitly says it does.

All the old books do not list types other than I think Magic Missile, because they didn't have those types. They didn't exist yet.

But then what you have is a whole lot of spells that can be cast into combat, not in forward arc, no LOS needed, etc.

The BRB exists to create common rules. They don't describe every single melee weapon, they describe how all melee weapons work. Saves paper. All melee combat was updated with the creation of the 8th edition BRB without having to rewrite every Army Book. That's what the BRB does. All spells are described as having those 4 bullet item restrictions 'unless stated otherwise.' I do not see many older spells say otherwise.

But again, this is just my interpretation. Everyone is welcome to their own, of course.

Yet it isnt "unless stated otherwise" - it is "ANY restrictions will be contained within their description"

Are those 4 contained within their description? NO. Guess that means GW missed out a rather key phrase.

Oh, and Hellstorm - so youre saying that you dont have to use the range restriction that is in the spells description, despite proof that the rules require the exact opposite?

It does say: "However, unless stated otherwise the folowing rules apply." Under the heading. That's a direct quote.

I think every spell has at least a range. So that's not a concern. It's just front arc, into combat, LOS. Into combat is a huge one, cuz it's normally where you can take shelter--at least from spells.

Excpet you cannot take it out of context with the fact the rulebook DOES state otherwise - for spells without a type ALL restrictions are held within the spells description.

Yes, the messed up - likely - however RAQ there is no ambiguity. The only way your reading makes sense RAW would be adding in additional wording (such as "additional") meaning it is no longer RAW

That's not necessarily true. I write semi-professionally and am at least somewhat conversant in the English language, though I butcher it often enough. I'm not going to get in a bang-up fight over this cuz we've already done that.

But "--their text will contain any casting restrictions that apply" can have the implication of any additional without the word additional being necessary.

My street has parking signs that list "any regulations that apply." But it doesn't bother listing every Federal law. Those are implied. It doesn't list State laws. Those are implied as well. It just lists the extremely specific regulations to that street (in my case, no parking on Tuesday for street sweeping). That one sign doesn't mean I can park there without license plates (State law). Or park there with a howitzer on my car (Federal law).

It is an ambiguous rule and if you take it to an English professor with a whole lot of time on his/her hands and frame the question, I am certain they would agree that both interpretations are possible and not concrete. I am not saying your view is wrong. It is clearly possible given the verbage. But they both are is what I'm saying. And given that case, I'd go with the one that feels more balanced.

Duke - your example is flawed. The regulations are the BRB, and have (at least in the UK) a clause that they are always in forcce on public roads, and that signs may give additional restrictions. Thus the sign (the spell) does not need to restate that other restrictions still apply - so it doesnt.

However the BRB LACKS this definition - it states the opposite. That it will tell you in the sign (the spell) what restrictions will apply. At best you have a minor *implication* that this is meant to be @additional", but that is massively outweighed by the simple fact that the sentence reads perfectly fine without it - in otherwords, you have to assume they meant something they didnt write, when what they wrote works just perfectly, from a rules context.

You are *assuming* they meant to write something else - they didnt. Even worse for your case, the number of BRB FAQs that have come out that have missed this starts to lend weight that they meant this wording as well.

nosferatu1001 wrote:However the BRB LACKS this definition - it states the opposite.

It states exactly the same. That all spells, unless stated otherwise, have the bullet items apply to them. It states that first. That is my Federal/State law example. The other rule is a subheader, not in bold face type, not even reachable without reading the above.

For them to literally write a half-sentence underneath those bullet items and say, "oh, except older spells, in which case this full page of rules is meaningless" I find hard to believe. And again, you can take the English professor challenge. Hop over to your local university and show them those handful of sentences.

This is quite the grammatical labyrinth.

I've heard it all before, of course. I do think that Duke has a point; the second part about any restrictions being in the spell's description doesn't necessarily free it from the bulleted points. I believe. Something like that. I've seen a decent amount of compelling proof for this side, in one form or another.

I'll also say that Nosferatu's claim is way easier to support and understand, though.

But at least we're all agreed on how it should be played.

DR - yet in your example the Federal laws dont have a statement that says ALL restrictions are contained in X sign - do they? Which is why your example is flawed; you have one point of commonality, and a lack fo the second.

The first page of rules arent meaningless - they apply to all typed spells, which is currently extant in 12 different lores. Thats hardly "meaningless", it just doesnt apply to older spells - exactly as written in the actual rules.

I wouldnt trust a US English professor, unless their subject is British English as well - there are enough differences (eg plurality vs majority) between the two.