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So, I was thinking of forming my Tyranid army around Leadership modifiers (eg. Deathleaper, Broodlords and Doom of Malan'tai), and I was just thinking, if you have a broodlord, for instance, using Aura of Despair (Codex: Tyranids p. 62) around a mob of 15 Ork Boyz, let's say, then they take a leadership test because of Doom of Malan'tai's Spirit Leech (p. 58), then would the Orks:

a) Not take a leadership test as they are fearless.
b) Take a leadership test at leadership 10.
c) Take a leadership test at leadership 9 (10-1).

a).
Edit: Because the rule only lowers leadership, it doesn't say anything about taking away fearless, or denying Orks the fact that they have 11 or more models.

Are you sure? Because USR Fearless says troops pass Morale and Pinning Tests, however Spirit Leech is simply a Leadership Test.

TherVadam wrote:Are you sure? Because USR Fearless says troops pass Morale and Pinning Tests, however Spirit Leech is simply a Leadership Test.

The game breaks.

Nightwatch wrote:

TherVadam wrote:Are you sure? Because USR Fearless says troops pass Morale and Pinning Tests, however Spirit Leech is simply a Leadership Test.

The game breaks.

No, it doesn't. The Doom does not cause a Morale Check, so Fearless Does not help.

Mob Rule is limited to a max of Ld 10, as per the BRB on Characteristics.
Aura of Despair gives a -1 mod to Ld.

So, a Mob of 30 Orks will have Ld 10, Modified by -1 for Aura, for a result of 9 and thus must take the Ld test on 3D6, taking a wound for every point above 9 they they roll.

So the answer, RaW, is C.

GWAR, I usually agree with you on matters of RAW, as you are usually spot on when giving exactly what the wording of the rules is.

But for this, I believe you may be wrong.

The Ork mob rule specifies that a mob of Orks may substitute the number of Orks in the mob instead of their Ld value for Ld based tests.

Due to the wording I believe that Orks will always test at the number of models, ignoring Ld modifiers.

Example:
Base Ld of 7 for Ork boy.
Aura of Despair makes it a value of 6.
Boys are forced to take a Ld based test.
Boys may choose to substitute their mob size instead of Ld. (This means they may also choose to take the test against the lower Ld)
Boys make the test against a value of 10 because their mob numbers more than that.


[EDIT:]
To expand on this, even if you were to count negative modifiers against the mob rule- Orks could still claim Ld10 until the negative modifiers outweighed the number of Orks in excess of 10.

Ork mob has 11 models.
Is affected by -3 Ld aura...
Max Ld would be 8.

Ork mob has 15 models.
Is affected by -3 Ld aura...
Caps Ld at 10, though it could effectively go to 12.


The mob rule does stipulate that it can substitute the mob size for Ld, to a maximum of Ld10.
If you reduce the Ld to less than 10, the Orks may continue to substitute mob size until it caps again at Ld10.

In_Theory wrote:The Ork mob rule specifies that a mob of Orks may substitute the number of Orks in the mob instead of their Ld value for Ld based tests.

Right. They sub their number for their Ld. Not for their modified Ld... for their actual Ld value.

Modifiers will apply as normal, just as they do for every other army's similar abilities.


It's tempting to over-think it, and work it into some sort of recurring loop, where Mob Rule replaces Ld, which is modified, which is replaced by Mob rule... but that way lies madness.

All that Mob Rule does is allow you to use the number of Orks as the Mob's Leadership value. There is nothing to suggest that this should by extension provide them immunity to Leadership modifiers. It simply gives them a Leadership boost when mobs are large.

insaniak has it spot on.

Just because you replace the Ld with the number of models, does not remove the fact you have a modifier.

So you either have:
Base Ld 7
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9

or

Base Ld 7
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Subsituted for 10
-1 Modifier Applied
Total Result 9
Game Breaks.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the game NOT break

This entire disscussion is void because aura of despair is in the nid assault phase and only lasts until the end of the turn.

Yayz! My suspicions were correct! Thank you all for the quick replies. Is there any way for me to lock the topic now?

ginger_nid_dude wrote:This entire disscussion is void because aura of despair is in the nid assault phase and only lasts until the end of the turn.

It lasts "until the end of the of the following player turn." It doesn't end until the end of the enemies turn. So it CAN affect units near the Doom as the Doom Sucks Souls in BOTH players shooting phases.

In_Theory wrote:GWAR, I usually agree with you on matters of RAW, as you are usually spot on when giving exactly what the wording of the rules is.

Ork mob has 11 models.
Is affected by -3 Ld aura...
Max Ld would be 8.

Ork mob has 15 models.
Is affected by -3 Ld aura...
Caps Ld at 10, though it could effectively go to 12.


The mob rule does stipulate that it can substitute the mob size for Ld, to a maximum of Ld10.
If you reduce the Ld to less than 10, the Orks may continue to substitute mob size until it caps again at Ld10.

Where is this stipulation?

RAW for Mob Rule is that 11 or more models get the fearless USR, not that Mob Rule itself stops working at that number for the sake of tests other than morale.

A friend of mine argued that because the text in the BRB is "no modifier may raise any characteristic above 10," and because mob rule is a substitution rather than a modifier, the cap of 10 doesn't apply. This would mean that an Ork mob with a really massive number of models passes most Ld tests on any roll except box cars. He argued that the reason it was fearless instead of the rule continuing is to avoid the "12 always fails an LD roll" clause.

No, stat caps allways apply.
You cant go above 10.

And graw is right as usual here.


12 WILL allways fail, since no unit/model goes above 10.

MekanobSamael wrote:A friend of mine argued that because the text in the BRB is "no modifier may raise any characteristic above 10," and because mob rule is a substitution rather than a modifier, the cap of 10 doesn't apply.

The Ork FAQ does mention that it caps at 10 for Wierdboyz, but doesn't mention other mobs. It's generally treated the same as any other modifier, though.

He argued that the reason it was fearless instead of the rule continuing is to avoid the "12 always fails an LD roll" clause.

There is no '12 always fails' rule that I'm aware of.

A 6 always fails for other stat tests (which are taken on a single D6). But there is no such clause for Ld tests.

There is a "2 always Passes" clause however. Perhaps he is getting them mixed up?

Although on a silly note: The Ld test rules do say that they work differently to other stat tests, in that they use two dice. It doesn't specifically state though that the 'roll of a 6 always fails' rule doesn't still apply... so you could argue that if either of the dice in a Ld test rolls a 6, the test is failed...




(And no, I'm not seriously suggesting anyone tries that...)