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A DP isn't an independent character so cannot join a squad.

But the rulebook FAQ specifies that any unit of a single model is always classed as a character...

Confused Necron is Confused....

No, they aren't independent characters.

 IHateNids wrote:
But the rulebook FAQ specifies that any unit of a single model is always classed as a character...

Confused Necron is Confused....

All Independent Characters are Characters.
Not all Characters are Independent Characters.

It's absolutely clear in the rules when you apply the IC rules.

A character, is someone different from the rank and file troops. They can be challenged.

An independant character, is one who can join troops, or choose to leave unit's of troops, or change which unit's of troops he is in.

A daemon prince is a character, a one man unit. Therefore, he cannot join a unit.

 IHateNids wrote:
But the rulebook FAQ specifies that any unit of a single model is always classed as a character...

Confused Necron is Confused....

Confused Necron is confusing me...
What part of the Rulebook FAQ? I've done a quick search and all I can come up with is:
"Q: Do models classified as unique count as characters? (p63)
A: Yes, but not in the case of vehicles (with the exception of
Bjorn the Fell-handed)."
Unit of one model =/= Unique?
Or am I failing?

Nevermind, I guess I misinterpretted it

Has anyone heard anything or seen anything that would indicate an FAQ release soon?

Nope, was thinking same thing earlier, its been since what April since a FAQ (not including the Eldar one as that was hardly answering many questions!)

MarkyMark wrote:
Nope, was thinking same thing earlier, its been since what April since a FAQ (not including the Eldar one as that was hardly answering many questions!)

The Eldar FAQ could not answer any questions, it was released before the codex.

I find it almost too coincidental to be coincidental that their consistent FAQ release schedule pretty much dried up right around the time GW kicked their codex/army book production into overdrive (now releasing AT LEAST one rulebook, supplement, codex or army book each month, and sometimes more than one per month). Also, given the fact that they now have not just one but TWO different electronic formats (ibook and ebook), I wonder if they now either:

A) just don't have the time/resources to do all the translation necessary for FAQs (cause those translators are all busy translating codexes, army books, supplements, etc), or
B) the sheer amount of time and money involved in putting out FAQs now (having to be translated AND implemented into two different digital formats) simply means they have decided to drastically reduce how often they put out FAQs.


If the latter is the case, I wonder if they are just going to relegate themselves to only correcting serious typos (like they did in the Tau & Eldar FAQs that came out at the same time as the codex release) or if they're still going to do big FAQ updates, but just do them way less frequently (like once every 6 months or a year, for example).

The lack of translation time doesn't make sense... Yes, it takes time to do, but why not release in English and then translate as they have time? They're a models company, not a game company after all...

rigeld2 wrote:
The lack of translation time doesn't make sense... Yes, it takes time to do, but why not release in English and then translate as they have time? They're a models company, not a game company after all...

Because that's completely unfair to their foreign language customers? Or more simply, that's just not the way they do it...they tend to release all their FAQs at the same time for all the different languages.

One thing to point out is the that the initial Eldar epub release wasn't even up to date with the FAQ that was released before the codex.

rigeld2 wrote:
They're a models company, not a game company after all...

This is a good reason why they feel they can send out poor product. A friend of mind even wrote them a letter about how unethical it was to print the DA codex with so many editorial errors. I'm sure that letter got a lot of lulz in the GW office and was quickly placed in the waste bin.

 yakface wrote:

I find it almost too coincidental to be coincidental that their consistent FAQ release schedule pretty much dried up right around the time GW kicked their codex/army book production into overdrive (now releasing AT LEAST one rulebook, supplement, codex or army book each month, and sometimes more than one per month). Also, given the fact that they now have not just one but TWO different electronic formats (ibook and ebook), I wonder if they now either:

A) just don't have the time/resources to do all the translation necessary for FAQs (cause those translators are all busy translating codexes, army books, supplements, etc), or
B) the sheer amount of time and money involved in putting out FAQs now (having to be translated AND implemented into two different digital formats) simply means they have decided to drastically reduce how often they put out FAQs.

Your line of thought has a timing issue. Rule books are generally finished LONG before they go to production. At least months, sometimes longer. Even after being produced they may sit in a warehouse for a couple months before actual release due to product launch timing. So, the books being released now were finished no later than last summer and probably well before that.

Now we believe that there are going to be 3 more books and at least one more supplement before the end of the year. All of which should have been written, translated and sent to production at least 4 months ago. - It takes time to print thousands of full color books, bind them, QC the materials, etc.

FAQs on the other hand go much much faster. Most of the FAQ updates only add a couple paragraphs per army which means translation services ought to finish those up within 3 to 5 days. Granted, deciding what to put into the FAQ takes a little bit of time, however we aren't talking about weeks of rule author time. Most of the inclusions should be able to be completed within a few days (which includes some play testing).

Simply put having the rule authors spend 2 or 3 days a month on FAQ items shouldn't materially impact the codex release schedule. As that time is easily absorbed by how long the books sit in a warehouse. As to the idea of eBook releases: Just like printing and binding a physical book, this isn't handled by the rule authors. GW contracted a 3rd party company to put the codexes in iBook and other formats.

GW is a fairly large company that employs a number of people. We can't think of them as a shop where one person is doing everything.

Which leads me to believe that either they think the current FAQs are good enough or they aren't allocating their resources effectively. My guess is on the former because the FAQ releases dried up when Jervis threw in the following tidbit on the main 40k FAQ:

Q: If two players have special rules or effects that occur at exactly the same time before the game begins, in what order are these effects resolved? (p120)

A: In this instance, both effects occur simultaneously – therefore simply roll a dice for which effect occurs first as per ‘The Most Important Rule’ on page 4 of the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook

Essentially saying, that they aren't going to bother resolving these conundrums for us. That to me was the signal that FAQ releases were going back to the old way of "whenever we feel like it".

clively wrote:

Your line of thought has a timing issue. Rule books are generally finished LONG before they go to production. At least months, sometimes longer. Even after being produced they may sit in a warehouse for a couple months before actual release due to product launch timing. So, the books being released now were finished no later than last summer and probably well before that.

Now we believe that there are going to be 3 more books and at least one more supplement before the end of the year. All of which should have been written, translated and sent to production at least 4 months ago. - It takes time to print thousands of full color books, bind them, QC the materials, etc.

FAQs on the other hand go much much faster. Most of the FAQ updates only add a couple paragraphs per army which means translation services ought to finish those up within 3 to 5 days. Granted, deciding what to put into the FAQ takes a little bit of time, however we aren't talking about weeks of rule author time. Most of the inclusions should be able to be completed within a few days (which includes some play testing).

Simply put having the rule authors spend 2 or 3 days a month on FAQ items shouldn't materially impact the codex release schedule. As that time is easily absorbed by how long the books sit in a warehouse. As to the idea of eBook releases: Just like printing and binding a physical book, this isn't handled by the rule authors. GW contracted a 3rd party company to put the codexes in iBook and other formats.

GW is a fairly large company that employs a number of people. We can't think of them as a shop where one person is doing everything.

Which leads me to believe that either they think the current FAQs are good enough or they aren't allocating their resources effectively. My guess is on the former because the FAQ releases dried up when Jervis threw in the following tidbit on the main 40k FAQ:

Q: If two players have special rules or effects that occur at exactly the same time before the game begins, in what order are these effects resolved? (p120)

A: In this instance, both effects occur simultaneously – therefore simply roll a dice for which effect occurs first as per ‘The Most Important Rule’ on page 4 of the Warhammer 40,000 Rulebook

Essentially saying, that they aren't going to bother resolving these conundrums for us. That to me was the signal that FAQ releases were going back to the old way of "whenever we feel like it".

I certainly considered the fact that printed material has to be completed far in advance compared to FAQs, however if this is a new direction that GW is moving in (an incredibly heightened pace of rules production) then certainly the effect of it could start to impact things like FAQs because presumably they're STILL working at a fevered pace compared to what they used to put out to continue to pump out more rules than they ever have before.

Also, I don't think you can assume that translation services work quite as quickly when we're talking about game rules containing tons of made up names that interact differently with one another based on even the tiniest changes in grammar.

But even more than that, as I said in my first post, I think its not just the matter of getting the translations done, but the fact that any FAQ updates they do now have to get pumped into their digital versions...again, that's $$$ in man-hours to do no matter what.

So if you're talking about doing an update every month, that's a hell of a lot more money to put into updating digital versions than if you do it say, once a year, for example.


Oh, and as for you point about that ruling in GW's FAQ...why do you assume that it is Jervis that wrote that?

The situation described in the question has no answer in the rules...the rules only describe how to resolve timing issues DURING the game (the player whose turn it is resolves their action first, in that case), but BEFORE the game there is no player whose turn it is, so a fitting answer in this case is to essentially roll-off for it (which is what they tell you to do).

There's no indication to me that the ruling you're talking about indicates some crazy new direction in how they're actually making rulings in their FAQs.