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Am I really missing something? I'm a newer player and I really think I missed something because this doesn't make too much sense.


I take an Ork mob of 30 boyz with a nob w/bosspole. The boyz get mowed down in an assault and have to run. Let's say they are down to 9 models and they fail their leadership even with the nob sacrificing a boy. Now, this mob can never regroup and runs all the way off the board. Why? It is under 50% of it's original size. Do I really have to watch my boyz run off the board with no possiblity of regrouping?


Also, we ran into a problem with artillery. I had 2 lobbas with 2 grots each as a crew. His crisis suit blasted all the grots away but left the guns. Under the rules, if the guns fall back without a crew, they are destroyed. However, without a crew, there is no model with a leadership rating in which to roll against. We ruled that if all the crew were destroyed, then the guns were as well. What's the ruling on this?

You're not missing anything with the Bosspole, although the problem you seem to have with it has more to do with the rules preventing units below 50% strength from regrouping than with a piece of wargear that's some slight insurance against such gutless dispays of un-Orkish cowardice.

Regarding the artillery, see page 56 of the rulebook. You need at least one crewman per artillery piece ("gun model") or the artillery without crew are automatically destroyed. So if the guns have their crew killed, they are removed, so you ruled correctly.

Nurglitch wrote: You need at least one crewman per artillery piece ("gun model") or the artillery without crew are automatically destroyed.

Not entirely correct.

Guns without crew are destroyed when the unit falls back.
If all the crew in the unit are destroyed, then all the guns are destroyed.

Individual guns within the unit aren't destroyed just because they no longer have crew.

Nope, entirely correct:

"If all the crewmen models are killed, the guns are immediately removed as well."

That's tucked away in the upper right hand corner of page 56.

He had no crew, so no guns, and nothing to fall back.

But is that crewman models in the unit or crewman models with the gun?

If all crewman in the unit are killed then it makes sense to get rid of the gun, but if there are 4 crewman and 2 guns, and one gun blows, and you loose two crewmen from the other gun, I think you can move those two men from the destroyed gun to the functioning gun, so long as they were in the same unit to begin with... but then again I stay away from artillery, so im not sure.

And to the headline of this post, the reason to have a bosspole is to get the moral test reroll, not to regroup while running, but I cant help but wonder, what beat you so badly in assault? Did you get charged by a hoard of Genestealers? Ive yet to have a ork mob that started at 30 break ranks and run, so Im curious.

What he did was correct.
What you said was not.

Namely this (You know, the part I quoted the first time around):

You need at least one crewman per artillery piece ("gun model") or the artillery without crew are automatically destroyed.

This is false.

The correct answer was that the guns are destroyed because all of the unit's crew models are gone. Not because individual guns without crew are automatically destroyed.

Elnicko5: If all of the crewmen models in the unit are killed, then the guns are automatically lost. If there's any crew left to fall back, then you lose the spare gun models.

insaniak: What I said was correct. He did need at least one crewman per artillery piece or the artillery without crew would have been automatically destroyed in the advent of falling back.

Speaking of taking things out of context, did you notice the sentence that immediately followed that sentence about what happens to gun models when artillery units fall back?

In fact the original poster relates that his artillery unit didn't fall back. Therefore saying: "So if the guns have their crew killed, they are removed, so you ruled correctly" is itself entirely correct.

The funny thing, of course, is that these situations are complementary: if you do not have any crewmen left on the board, then all the gun models left in the unit are effectively spare.

...sigh...

Nurglitch wrote:insaniak: What I said was correct. He did need at least one crewman per artillery piece or the artillery without crew would have been automatically destroyed in the advent of falling back.

That's not what you said.

Therefore saying: "So if the guns have their crew killed, they are removed, so you ruled correctly" is itself entirely correct.

No it's not, since it's based on a faulty premise.

Right conclusion. Wrong reason.


Your answer was at best ambiguous. And someone with your incredible grasp of the english language surely wouldn't be posting ambiguous answers...

insaniak: Yes, that is actually what I said. Maybe if you took my comment out of context like you did, then you might have a straw to grasp at. In context what I said was exactly correct and not, as you put it, a "faulty premise". Deal with it.

Speaking of my incredible grasp of English, powerful enough to conjugate verbs within hours and to locate the context of sentences in conversations, let's talk about ambiguous answers shall we?

When people are communicating there is, at least, what one could call the "sender", the "medium", the "receiver", and the "message". The sender composes a message, introduces it to the medium, whereby it is interpreted by the receiver. The meaning or semantics of the message can be fixed by several things, a referent, a sense, a use, conspecific information, or a combination of all four. Where the meaning is not fixed, ambiguity is the result.

As you can tell from the over-simplified model of communication I've sketched here, fixing the semantics such that what is sent resembles what is received requires that the sender and receiver use the same encoding/decoding procedure. If the receiver uses an incompatible decoding procedure from the encoding procedure that the sent uses, then the message can be miscommunicated. It can be misinterpreted, where the wrong decoding procedure is used, it can be ambiguous, where the decoding procedure cannot make distinctions made in the original transmission, and it can be taken out of context where not all the information is decoded. These pathologies are not exclusive.

In your case it appears that you've taken what I posted out of context. Hence it appears ambiguous to you. Your attribution of fault, however, is mislaid because the message was correctly encoded with the context and only your failure to decode it properly could result in the perception of ambiguity.

I look forward to your exciting and learned rebuttal.

thedarksaint wrote:Am I really missing something? I'm a newer player and I really think I missed something because this doesn't make too much sense.


I take an Ork mob of 30 boyz with a nob w/bosspole. The boyz get mowed down in an assault and have to run. Let's say they are down to 9 models and they fail their leadership even with the nob sacrificing a boy. Now, this mob can never regroup and runs all the way off the board. Why? It is under 50% of it's original size. Do I really have to watch my boyz run off the board with no possiblity of regrouping.

That's the *point* of the bosspole, to give you a chance at a morale check re-roll when your unit is below 10 Orks strong. This is especially useful if the unit started at a really small number, like a 12 man Trukk mob and contains an expensive Nob model with a powerklaw.

The ability to re-roll a morale check to keep that powerklaw in the game can be well worth the points and the possible dead ork.

Nurglitch wrote:insaniak: Yes, that is actually what I said.

How about we just take it as read that I disagree with you, rather than continuing with the 'Yes, I did' 'No, you didn't' routine...

What you gave was at worst incorrect, and at best an incomplete answer. Deal with it.

For a large footslogging block of Orks, I would not take the bosspole. If you're fielding 1 block of 30 boys, you should be fielding one or two more. In that context, a reroll is probably not as good as another boy somewhere in your list.

On the other hand, if you are using the 12-ork Trukk squads, those bosspoles can be priceless. In these small squads, you don't get much benefit from the power of the Waaagh. This type of squad is both vulnerable to morale checks, and usually able to group back up if it breaks from the first failed check.

With all that in mind, I'd say that the bosspole is an upgrade that should be used in small units because they need the protection and may be able to mob up after breaking. For the big foot squads, I wouldn't buy it, because those points can be better spent on special weapons or more boyz.

Nurglitch and Insaniak, you guys are so far off on a tangent that it is embaressing.

What you are doing is childish one-up-manship of the worst drawer.

just.....let.....it......go.

insaniak: Nope, still wrong. I just don't feel comfortable letting you slander me that way.

http://xkcd.com/386/

Steelmage99: I agree, insaniak has been pretty childish about this whole thing (Nurglitch: "Yeah, that's what I said." insaniak: "No, you were wrong! WRONG WRONG WRONG! WAAAAAAH!")

Nurglitch, are you really claiming to be any better?

Really?

*shakes head*

*walks away*

We were playing a 3 way game and my boyz got hit with a group of genestealers and wytches at the same time. It was pretty gruesome.

Thanks for the pg numbers on artillery. Why they can't put it all in the same place, I'm not sure.

As for the bosspole and my boyz running, I can see why now it would be better in smaller mobs. A mob of 7 sluggas isn't going to do me much good anyway if I'm not packing a klaw. Thanks guys!

Steelmage99: I can see you haven't been paying attention, of course I'm not claiming to be better. I just don't like being misrepresented by some silly bugger playing at "intarwebz penis-warz".

Personally, as an ethicist, I find it's better to be patient with people like insaniak, rather than make a dumb show of my exasperation and impatience to scold people on the internet.

thedarksaint: Hey, no problem. I find if you get frustrated by GW's rules it helps to remember that they're writing under certain constraints like filling column-inches. Writing good rules is easy, writing column-inches is easy, writing good rules in the right column-inches results in bad technical writing...

Suddenly I understand you so much better Nurglitch. I like you less, but I understand why much better.

Quick boss pole related question though. To double check, say I am shooting 2 sniper rifles at an 11 strong ork squad. I kill 1. Am I correct in thinking they cease to be Fearless before they take the pinning check, and that they do get the reroll for the pole at the Ld9 not 8? I don't own the codex, so I can't check, but that is how I would expect it to work.

Wehrkind, in your example, the pin check happens when casualties have occurred, so the Ld will be based on the number of Orks after casualty removal. The re-roll from the bosspole is just that, a re-roll. Defined on bgb p.5 you're after the same result and may only re-roll once.

So mob of 11 (of presumably 30) loses 1 model to a pinning weapon. Pin check on a 10 (- 1 for below 50% does not apply to pinning), fails, bosspole re-roll on a 10.

Nurglitch wrote:insaniak: Nope, still wrong. I just don't feel comfortable letting you slander me that way.

Oh, well, we wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable.

So, sure, you were right.
There, penis back to normal size, and all the bunnies can sing happily again.


Feel better now, you poor dear?

Wehrkind: But your love and respect means so much to me!

insaniak: Yes, thank you.

It's like I'm reading 2 different threads. Someone keeps changing the channel on the ork thread. Actually kinda fun. I hope this thread goes for at least 2 more pages.

Not a chance. The OP's questions have been answered, and we're done here.