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So i was in a game last week and I was playing a 2000pt game against a friend and I brought my Callidus assassin in from reserves on turn 2 and struck a squad of Chaos marines with a lord in the group. When i got around to placing the neural shredder template over the group of chaos marines My opponent said that because there is a lord in the group my weapon has to go against his leadership and I argued that it would go against the majority leadership. The shredder is S8 AP1 and states that "hits from the neural shredder are resolved against the targets leadership rather than toughness". How exactly does this weapon work?

Your opponent was wrong: the neural shredder is checked against each models leadership statistic individually, and is not a 'leadership check' that you can use the lords' stat for. (well, unless the lord has an ability that raises everyones leadership score rather than allowing them to use his for certain purposes anyway, i plead unfamiliarity with the chaos codex)

You basically treat their leadership value as a pseudo-'toughness' stat that you roll against as normal to wound.

For example if model has a leadership of 9, you'd have to roll a 5+ to wound it with the shredder.

Yup, neural shredder is one of the few weapons in the game that ignores majority-stat rules. You wound each model individually but then the wounds are lumped together and distributed as a shooting attack. Complicated, but it was written for 5th not 6th wound allocation.

Just out of curiosity, where does it state you roll against each model separately. Last time I checked, things that wound on Ld, just replaces Toughness with Ld, in all respects, ie S8 is ID against Ld4 models, roll to wound against majority Ld etc.

You check the hits on a per model basis. So while the model itself isn't taking the wound specifically(yet) it still hits his leadership.

 Grey Templar wrote:
You check the hits on a per model basis. So while the model itself isn't taking the wound specifically(yet) it still hits his leadership.

Why? That's not how to wound normally works on units with mixed toughness values, for instance.

It uses majority Leadership.

It follows all the usual rules for shooting, wounding, etc, as a regular attack except replace each instance of "Toughness" with "Leadership".

You don't roll to wound each model by their own toughness, or use the highest toughness. Just because it's Leadership now, those things don't change.

I think since the weapon doesn't require the unit or model(s) to take a characteristic test because it has its own Strength Value, for the Neural Shredder it would be against majority Leadership, unless there's a rule which states a Character's Ld is always used for a unit's Ld if joined to said unit. Don't have my book with me to look it up.

The reason it doesn't use a rule for majority 'leadership' is because there is no rule that exists which requires one to do so.

The Majority Toughness rule only applies to toughness, not leadership.

 Neorealist wrote:
The Majority Toughness rule only applies to toughness, not leadership.

Majority toughness applies to the process of rolling to-wound. If you substitute leadership for toughness in the process of rolling to-wound, the value you roll against must be majority leadership; any other procedure would be changing not the stat, but the very method of rolling, based on nothing in the rules at all.

EDIT:

For example, the normal rule is basically "compare S to majority T and look up the value on the chart".
Now, we substitute T with Ld. You get "compare S to majority Ld and look up the value on the chart".
You do not get "compare S to individual Ld and look up the value on the chart, rolling separately for each model", because that's changing a whole lot of rules you have no permission to change, for no given reason.

Sure you could substitute the word 'leadership' into the majority toughness rule and it'd probably work fine. That said, which rule are you following that requires you to do so?

OK I figured out my confusion:

Q: When using a Callidus Assassin’s Neural Shredder, do you use the
targets Toughness or Leadership for the purposes of working out if
Instant Death applies? (p53)
A: You use the target’s Leadership.

I was at work and mis-remembered the FAQ. This is also in all the FAQs that have a weapon that wounds on d instead of Toughness.

RAI, you're supposed to use majority Leadership. And if enough people asked GW about it, they would be certain to FAQ it that way.

RAW is individual Leadership though.

Just for clarification then? do you use ld 7 or 10 vs alot of ork boyz (>10 models in the mob) ?

If there are more than 10 boys in the mob, then their individulal leadership is 10

AS above. Mob rule is a replacement of the value with the mob size.

You use majority leadership, because every single weapon that has ever used this method has used majority leadership

nosferatu100 wrote:You use majority leadership, because every single weapon that has ever used this method has used majority leadership

This is blatently incorrect. Not a single weapon which has used this type of template (and there are several) has ever explicitly told people to do the above. You and others are making a huge assumption based on how you play or how you'd prefer it to be rather than what is written on the page.

The old neural shredder certainly did, back in 4th edition - took a FAQ...

If you do not use majority toughness you have no method for wounding the unit available to you.

Sure you do. Just follow the 'Roll to Wound' rules from their beginning to end, skipping the parts that don't apply to leadership and replacing the initial check vs toughness to leadership as per the weapons' own rules.

You'll find that essentially removing the majority toughness rule doesn't really change much, just makes it take slightly longer.

Except you have no permission to wound each model individually, as you would have to do; you are woundign a unit.

nosferatu null wrote:Except you have no permission to wound each model individually, as you would have to do; you are woundign a unit.

At the risk of sounding redundant, can you factually authenticate that argument, preferrably with some actual rules quoted from the 6th edition main book?

Wounding each target based on their toughness (or in this case, leadership) is how the 'Roll to Wound' section works as written, it is only through the intervention of the 'Majority Toughness' rule that you ever contrast the unit as a whole.

Please read age 14, and note you only have permission to wound

the target

Unless you have a new rule you can show, shooting requires nominating, as the first step, the enemy unit you wish to target

So, again. Show the rule allowing you to roll to wound against a specific model. Because the real, 6th edition rules state otherwise.

So in answer to your highly sarcastic sounding question - YES, I can and have done. OVer to you.

Thank you. Now if you would, indicate where wounding 'the target' requires the majority toughness rule to be assessed?

The target is the unit.

Find a rule allowing you to wound the unit that does not use majority toughness.

The neural shredder; as it requires you to wound against the targets' leadership, not the majority toughness.

Which since you roll to wound a unit, the unit is the target, not the specific models under the template. so what is the unit's Leadership?

 Neorealist wrote:
The neural shredder; as it requires you to wound against the targets' leadership, not the majority toughness.

Is the target a unit or model?

happyjew wrote: Which since you roll to wound a unit, the unit is the target, not the specific models under the template. so what is the unit's Leadership?

That of the specific models under the template. As per the rules for templates: "...templates... ...are used as a way of determining how many models have been hit by an attack..."

rigeld2 wrote: Is the target a unit or model?

Both, actually. the 6th edition book defines a 'unit' a a group of models. "...we represent this by grouping models together into units..."

 Neorealist wrote:

rigeld2 wrote: Is the target a unit or model?

Both, actually. the 6th edition book defines a 'unit' a a group of models. "...we represent this by grouping models together into units..."

So when you declare a target with your boltgun, you can target the Sarge in the unit? If a target can be a model after all...

So when you declare a target with your boltgun, you can target the Sarge in the unit? If a target can be a model after all...

Irrelevent, no one is discussing a bolt gun and how they target.

You can however place a template over top of a sargeant. That said, the controlling player may very well not choose to place the wound on said sargeant, so that has little functional difference other than determining the number of models hit in the unit.