Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So yesterday one of the redshirts at my local GW told me that its nearly impossible to assault warp spiders unless they roll very poorly, because the eldar FAQ specifies that they may make their warp jump in ANY assault phase as long as they are not assaulting or already locked in combat. That of course would mean that if you tried to assault them, they could just jump away, and unless they rolled poor enough for you to still reach them, the assault would fail.

I was skeptical so I went home and looked it up and sure enough, there it was in the FAQ, Just as he worded it.

well my question to you guys is, in what order would this play out? He obviously cant wait for you to assault him to jump, because once your models are in base contact, hes locked, and by the FAQ he may no longer jump at that point.

So would he kind of just have to spring up right as you started your assault phase and cut you off with, "my spiders are using their warp jump to move." or is there a certain order for this kind of thing?

Well if warp jump is anything like hit and run, it specifies "At the end of the assault phase"

If warp jump doesn't say at what point in the assault phase you can jump, then you can do it in the beginning, middle or end of any assault phase.

Also, you would declare it after your opponent started the beginning of their assault phase.

Usually in my experience people call out their phases, by just simply saying Movement, Shooting, Assault, so after Assault is mentioned you'd make your move. If your opponent doesn't declare an assault phase, and just starts moving models in, you have the right to go, hold up a sec, I'm making my warp jump move. If they argued you could just say the assault phase wasn't declared.

Kreedos wrote:Well if warp jump is anything like hit and run, it specifies "At the end of the assault phase"

If warp jump doesn't say at what point in the assault phase you can jump, then you can do it in the beginning, middle or end of any assault phase.

I don't recall it listing a particular time to use it, other than "any assault phase," so in the case that he can use it at anytime during any assault phase, and you delcare you want your squad to assault the spiders, and he says he wants his spiders to warp jump... whos action takes precedence?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kreedos wrote:
Usually in my experience people call out their phases, by just simply saying Movement, Shooting, Assault, so after Assault is mentioned you'd make your move. If your opponent doesn't declare an assault phase, and just starts moving models in, you have the right to go, hold up a sec, I'm making my warp jump move. If they argued you could just say the assault phase wasn't declared.

ah, that clears it up, thank you.

I think you're reading it FAQ the wrong way:
"This move can be made in any Assault phase during which the Warp Spiders are not assaulting or fighting in an assault."
Could technically be read the way you (and he) has, however unless something specifically says that you may use it in your opponent's turn, I'd be wary of interpreting it that way.

I don't have the Eldar 'dex, so it might say you can use it in their phase though.

Also, the ghost of Gwar! Forces me to remind you that FAQs aren't rules

The codex says that in the assault phase they make make a second jump instead of assaulting. That weird and restrictive phrasing is what prompted the FAQ in the first place, it was amended to "any Assault phase during which the Warp Spiders are not assaulting or fighting in an assault."

also, ghost of Gwar? Did I miss something? Is Gwar gone?

Edit: With the straight codex wording, you can't because as unistoo said, you can't assault in your opponent's turn, however, if you're being assaulted, it could be construed as you are entering into an assault, thus instead of entering into the assault aka "Instead of assaulting", you make your warp jump instead.

With the FAQ wording, it seems almost as you can on either turn, "any Assault phase during which the Warp Spiders are not assaulting or fighting in an assault." If they aren't fighting in an assault, and your opponent declares his assault phase, you would think you could make an assault move away, but the only thing is, you can't preform any actions on your opponents turn unless specifically stated otherwise.

I haven't seen Gwar in awhile myself. So yeah he's been gone for awhile.

Ok, then it seems pretty clear to me.

"You may make a second jump instead of assaulting"

You don't assault in your opponent's phase, so there's nothing for it to be 'instead of'

The FAQ seems to be clearing up that you may not use it to get out of an assault.

Well the question in the faq more or less asked "Do you have to be allowed to assault in order to jump" and the answer was -no, "This move can be made in any Assault phase during which the Warp Spiders are not assaulting or fighting in an assault."

I just checked the FAQ - what the question means is that you can use it when you are more than 6" away from an enemy unit - because the original wording strictly means that you must be able to assault in order to 'trade' that move for an extra jump.

I would say it would just be at the start of the assault phase because, if you see an enemy about to assault you eg: within six inches, then you would automatically use this to get away without waiting to see if they really are gonna do it. That just makes sense to me.

Except it's an incorrect interpretation of a non-rule - you CANNOT warp jump in your opponent's turn, the rule as quoted and the FAQ say nothing like this.

Rule: "You may warp jump instead of assaulting"
Problem: This meant that you could only warp jump in the event that you were eligible to assault - i.e. were within 6" of an enemy and could choose to either assault them or warp jump.
FAQ: "Can I really only warp jump under those circumstances"
Response: "No, you may warp jump when you are outside 6" of your enemy"

GW rules are very clear when something can be used in your opponents turn.

Oh right...i didn't actually know that you could in your opponents turn i just saw this post. But thanks. I was gonna try it next game.

It's a common misconception that "instead of" or "in lieu of" means that you have to have the ability to do the one thing in order to substitute something else. This is factually incorrect.

"I went to the grocery store instead of the moon" does not require that I had the ability to go to the moon in the first place in order for me to get my groceries.

That's why GW keeps FAQing the "instead of" phrasing out of various rulebooks, because it leads to that kind of confusion. Historically all of their FAQs go to the side of not requiring that you be able to do something in order to substitute another action, which is in keeping with the literal meaning of the English phrase.

Unfortunately in this case it looks like the FAQ is unclear in a totally different way.

Why is every1 reading into the FAQ. Its as if you want things to be ambiguous even when they are written with precision such as the Eldar 2008 5th edition FAQ.

"This move can be made in any Assault phase during which the Warp Spiders are not assaulting or fighting in assault."

Now with my edits to bring context into the answer:

"[A Warp Spider unit] may, in any Assault phase during which the Warp Spiders are not [(1) already engaged in assault or (2) going to assault the opponent, make their extra move as described by the warp jump generator's description.]"

I pray GW pubplishes all future rules with such clarity.

As others have said. No, you cannot do this in the opponents phase. Only on your turn.

coredump wrote:As others have said. No, you cannot do this in the opponents phase. Only on your turn.

so basically your ignoring the FAQ and playing rules as you think they are INTENDED to be played.

Timmah wrote:

coredump wrote:As others have said. No, you cannot do this in the opponents phase. Only on your turn.

so basically your ignoring the FAQ and playing rules as you think they are INTENDED to be played.

dont be a douche bag... hes playing the way we all know it works as opposed to reading the way you want it to work into a poorly written FAQ.
it says any assault phase meaning any of your assault phases.
it was a poor choice that they didnt think to specify that you cant do it in your opponents turn.
i guess they figured people would know that.... silly GW.

this one is as bad as the argument over whether or not IG orders can be issued in the opponents turn because it says any....

usernamesareannoying wrote:

Timmah wrote:

coredump wrote:As others have said. No, you cannot do this in the opponents phase. Only on your turn.

so basically your ignoring the FAQ and playing rules as you think they are INTENDED to be played.

dont be a douche bag...

hes playing the way we all know it works as opposed to reading the way you want it to work into a poorly written FAQ.


it says any assault phase meaning any of your assault phases.
it was a poor choice that they didnt think to specify that you cant do it in your opponents turn.
i guess they figured people would know that.... silly GW.

this one is as bad as the argument over whether or not IG orders can be issued in the opponents turn because it says any....

really? how do you know it works that way? Did you write the codex/faq? Any assault phase =! your assault phase last I checked.

We have a thing call RAW for a reason. So people don't go interpretting the answer for stuff. The popular answer or most accepted answer is not always correct.

Have a judge tell you that, "thats the way the rule is intended to work" in a tournament and have it cost you the game. Then tell me if you would rather play RAI or RAW.

In my book if you are playing RAI no matter how ludicrous the RAW is, then you are playing house rules and not 40k.

We don't need personal insults being thrown around. Everyone cool out

I find it so hypocritical of the posters on this forum to harp on RAW so much and then claim someone is being a DB for following clear language, regardless if consensus says otherwise.

Besides, the warp spiders are a crap unit anyway. IMO this FAQ is a reasonable and much needed improvement. I don't understand the strong contention against the FAQ as written.

The FAQ does not fully supplant the rules in the codex, but is intended to clarify them. The rules in the codex only allow warp jumps during your own turn. The rules in the fAQ say you may do so in any assault phase that you are not either assaulting an enemy unit, or engaged in combat.

When you combine the two, you may warp jump in any of your own assault phases during which you are not assaulting or already engaged in assault.

Should they be written more clearly and only in one place? Sure they should. But that's the rules we got.

Its just misinterpretation and poor writing on GW part. Its as if they don't even proof read what they wrote.

I blame the American Education system and its poor emphasis on understanding the English Language.

willydstyle wrote:The FAQ does not fully supplant the rules in the codex, but is intended to clarify them. The rules in the codex only allow warp jumps during your own turn. The rules in the fAQ say you may do so in any assault phase that you are not either assaulting an enemy unit, or engaged in combat.

When you combine the two, you may warp jump in any of your own assault phases during which you are not assaulting or already engaged in assault.

Should they be written more clearly and only in one place? Sure they should. But that's the rules we got.

Perfect summary. When arguing rules, it frequently gets overlooked that no one rule exists in a vacuum. Fitting a rule into the context of the entire game often completely changes what the answer looks like it would be. This is one such case.

I can think of plenty of times that the FAQ replaces the rule in the rulebook.

In this case the rule book says one thing and the FAQ says something contrary.

Rulebook: They can jump in your assault phase
FAQ: They can jump in any assault phase

notice that the 2 points are contradicting. They don't compliment each other at all.

That being said I believe GW clarifying their own rulebook in the FAQ makes it trump the codex rule.

Remember GW is clarifying their own rule. They know what is intended by the rule because they wrote the codex. You, on the other hand, did not.

Yea, people who say it should'nt work in an opponents assault phase are just cherry picking rules because they dont want to have to go against it.

The FAQ is very clear with the word "ANY"

p.s i dont even play eldar so dont go there :p Orks ftw

Timmah wrote:I can think of plenty of times that the FAQ replaces the rule in the rulebook.

In this case the rule book says one thing and the FAQ says something contrary.

Rulebook: They can jump in your assault phase
FAQ: They can jump in any assault phase

notice that the 2 points are contradicting. They don't compliment each other at all.

That being said I believe GW clarifying their own rulebook in the FAQ makes it trump the codex rule.

Remember GW is clarifying their own rule. They know what is intended by the rule because they wrote the codex. You, on the other hand, did not.

Yes, but those are, or should be, errata, and not FAQs. In this case, the FAQ is referring to, but not replacing, the rule in the Eldar codex. If you only read the FAQ and don't apply it to the codex rule, then you are cherrypicking the rules you want to use. The FAQ is only clarifying that you don't have to be within 6" of an enemy to use the warp jump.

willydstyle wrote:

Timmah wrote:I can think of plenty of times that the FAQ replaces the rule in the rulebook.

In this case the rule book says one thing and the FAQ says something contrary.

Rulebook: They can jump in your assault phase
FAQ: They can jump in any assault phase

notice that the 2 points are contradicting. They don't compliment each other at all.

That being said I believe GW clarifying their own rulebook in the FAQ makes it trump the codex rule.

Remember GW is clarifying their own rule. They know what is intended by the rule because they wrote the codex. You, on the other hand, did not.

Yes, but those are, or should be, errata, and not FAQs. In this case, the FAQ is referring to, but not replacing, the rule in the Eldar codex. If you only read the FAQ and don't apply it to the codex rule, then you are cherrypicking the rules you want to use.

As I showed before, the rules between the codex and faq contradict each other. One say ANY one says YOURS. Because they contradict eachother they can not be clarifying each other. We take the FAQ ruling then because it is an amendment to the rulebook.

willydstyle wrote:The FAQ is only clarifying that you don't have to be within 6" of an enemy to use the warp jump.

How do you know what the FAQ is doing? Did you write it? Again we have strict RAW for a reason.

Your interpretation of two rules which contradict is not "strict RAW."

I say that about FAQs because for the most part they are intended to clarify, not to re-write rules. The times that GW does re-write or make new rules in FAQs (outside of errata) is merely evidence of poor rules writing.

So here, we have a rule, and a clarification. Since the clarification does not re-write the previously written rule, it interacts with it, so we apply both of the rules, not simply the one that you choose to apply.

I have to agree with willydstyle on this one. Though we love to pick on the words in rules, it is only the errata where you reword rules and "amend" them.

FAQ makes clarifications on existing rules. The rule itself was never, and still hasn't technically changed, but an instance clarified.

Timmah wrote:They know what is intended by the rule because they wrote the codex. You, on the other hand, did not.

two can play that game... how do you know what their intentions are?

using the move in ANY assault phase changes a core fundamental of the game where the interpretation of it meaning any of YOUR assault phases does not break any mechanics.

Isn't this exactly the same as the old "IG orders on opponents turn" argument?

If Warp Spiders can jump in the enemies turn, the entire "you-go-I-go" game system goes out the window. Suddenly, Carnifexen, Obliterators, Fzorgle Princes, Tzeentch Daemon Princes (Chaos Daemons ones), and IG are firing in the enemies turns as well. Oh, and Land Raiders with the beautiful Power of the Machine Spirit.