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Hey all,
I'm playing WHFB again after a long hiatus (ie., since 5th ed.). I'm considering revamping my Bretonnians, and am wondering if someone can help clarify this:

In the army book for lords/ heroes it says something like the following: "May choose one virtue from the virtues of the chivalric knight list and a mix of magic items from the common or bretonnian magic items list with a maximum total value of XX pts. "

My assumption is that this means that Virtue+Magic Items must be equal to or less than the specificed XX pts., but it strikes me that a second possible interpretation is that the XXpts applies ONLY to the items component of the sentence, and the Virtue doesn't count toward the XX pts. total. Which interpretation is correct? Thanks for any disambiguation.

I *think* the key word to that is "total"

You can choose a maximum TOTAL value of 100 points mixed between the virtues and the magic items, not 100 points of virtues
and 100 points of magic items.

I could be wrong.

yes, that is what "total" probably means ... thanks for clarification as I go rebuild my force !!

After rereading the entry in the army codex, I believe I was wrong. I think you can choose any virute, and a mix of 100 points of magic items.

Meaning your virtue does not count towards your 100 point limit. You get 1 virtue, any points, that just count towards total army value, and then 100 points of magic items.

Anyone who plays a brettonia army able to clarify this?

Thanks for the weigh-in Lensherr... any other thoughts/ references to disambiguations are appreciated, since this potentially affects the playstyle of my (and others') bretonnia lists...

No,your total of virtue and magic points has to be <=100

See VC for where you can explicitly take something in addition to your Magic Items allowance.

In the current version of the book it says (paraphrased): "May choose a mix of magic items ... and one Virtue ... with a combined maximum total value of..."

So no. Virtues count against your magic item limit.

I tend to agree with your interpretation, Vulcan; the only thing that made it questionable was that the ordering is the reverse- that the "mix of magic items" is second and is immediately followed by the "maximum points value" phrase, which means that total could ostensibly correspond to both or only the latter. The RAW seem to make the only completely valid interpretation to be to assume it applies to both, but the sentence is poorly constructed... note I'm not trying to overextend the rules and am pretty impartial (I don't mind if I simply take one or two more characters at lower points values), but in a grammatical sense there's a bit of true ambiguity and it's annoying that it's in a pretty critical part of the rule book

I would think if they didn't want the Virtues included in the Magic Item allowance, they would not have sandwiched 'and one Virtue' in between 'mix of magic items' and 'combined maximum total value.' They would have put it before mentioning magic items... or in a separate sentence entirely.

But then, GW is infamous for vague writing and bad editing so I can see how one would make the misinterpretation.

That GW is famous for bad writing was the main reason I was skeptical; however, maybe I'm not even looking in the right version of the army book? "and one Virtue" is not sandwiched between "mix of magic items" and "total of one hundred points" in what I'm looking at. Instead, it reads: "May choose one Virtue... and a mix of magic items... with a maximum total value of 100 pts." It still seems to come out as 100 total for both (especially now that I crop the fluff text out).

It comes to 100points for both items in total.

There is only *1* total value you are given to adhere to, and nothing states it can be for both items seperately.

ok, sounds like the votes are more or less in, thanks for dealing with the clarification everyone!