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So we had a weird situation today.

I had Throgg in a unit of 5 Chaos Trolls get charged by 2(!) Brettonian Lances, one with the General in it(way to pick the wrong time to go stupid, guys ). So, Throgg, being the badass that he is, has to go and challenge. His General accepts it and it turns out the dude has flaming attacks. He puts 3 wounds on Throgg and Throgg takes him out via vomit(+Breathweapon).

My opponent then claimed that my other chaos trolls would not get regeneration because throgg was hit by flaming attacks. His reasoning, was that characters are considered part of the unit and the wording for losing regen is that if the unit gets wounded by flaming attacks. I thought this was pretty wonky for a couple of reasons:

1) He attacked throgg, not the chaos trolls, although it seem he was correct about characters counting as part of the unit.
2)It was a challenge, so it should not have mattered when it was resolved, right?

Thoughts?

I agree with you.

Yes, characters are part of the unit, but when characters fight a challenge, those attacks do not go on the unit. At all.

Sounds like he was sore that his big killy General got vomited to death, and wanted to get some payback, even if he had to go sketchy to get it. Which is totally understandable, but I hope he was secretly ashamed of himself later.

I agree with fellblade that this is the apparent intent of the rules for challenges, but cannot offer any RAW support for it.

Not a move that sounds good, but RAW we really can't argue against it.

Even a single wound, on a single troll under normal circumstances cancels out regen for the entire unit for the rest of the turn. So regardless if the wound hits Throgg or the wound hits a Troll regen is gone. This obviously sounds wierd to us because when we look at it realistically it makes no sense. However, we cannot do that, and are forced to accept the rather illogical ruling.

We know for certain that Throgg is part of the unit, and the wording on the regen rule is simply that if the unit is hit by flaming attacks it loses regen. There is no qualifier about challenges. Challenge results affect the combat results. For all intents and purposes challenges ARE part of the main combat.

It sounds shifty, but it is the right way to play according to the rules. Sadly enough.

I agree with Lehnsherr here, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense but it is in keeping with the rule for cancelling regen and he is part of the unit.

The idea that the unit loses regen seems a bit counter intuitive. A challenge isn't a fight between units. It's a fight between models. You cannot direct attacks at the unit in a challanege, only at the model you are currently in the challenge with. It is a part of the main combat, but its on a model vs model basis rather than unit vs unit.

As Lehn has said, there isn't any qualifier in the rules for regen so it would come down to the wording of the rules for challenges to say any differently. Unfortunately I don't have my BRB with me since I'm at work.

Therein lies the problem Infreak. There is nothing in the rules of fighting a challenge that dictates us to rule otherwise. The character still remains part of his unit while he is fighting in the challenge.

Regen rule
"If a unit is wounded by a Flaming Attack it loses the Regeneration rule for the remainder of the phase."

We know that Throgg is part of the unit. If Throgg is wounded, the unit has been wounded.

Challenge rule
"These two characters must direct all of their attacks against each other - they cannot be attacked by any other model for that round of close combat."

So we know that it is still the same close combat phase.

We also know that accepting a challenge does not remove you from your unit. Imagine the implications if it did. If your BSB was in a challenge his unit would lose all benefits of having the magical banner.

There really is nothing else listed here that we can use. The rest of the rules for issuing challenges talk about how to nominate models, how each race might issue its challenge (fluff) overkill and other notes we must remember.

Try to think of it this way, if only 1 wound was put on your unit of 10 trolls (just trolls no Throgg), that would mean 9 trolls have lost regen yet were never wounded by any flaming attack. This is also counter-intuitive to logical thinking. Unfortunately the entire ruleset would have to be changed to get around this problem. Models cannot be attacked on a per model basis. Its always unit against unit with no directing attacks (barring the obvious exceptions). So the rules, however illogical they may be, are there because it opens up far more problems if we were to try to use logical thinking.

But at least all those 10 trolls are the same kind of unit. Wounds on characters don't spill over, so why should special effects? If the trolls were led by a character that didn't have regen and that character was wounded by a flaming weapon in a challenge, would the trolls lose their regen?

Was the unit wounded by a flaming attack? Yes. Thats all we need to know.

I realize how illogical the rule is. Unfortunately thats how it is written.

Yup RAW is clear, even if it is weird. It's like the scaly skin and lore of metal situation, compleetly counterintuitive but still the rules.

Consider this the other way around, if the character in the challenge didn’t have a flaming weapon, but a character fighting the regular trolls did. Should the attacks made on the regular unit go back and retroactively remove the regen from Throgg in his challenge?

Different initiative steps - if the challenge is fought after, init wise, then throgg could lose his regen.

So I have a unit of 5 trolls and throgg. Throgg takes 1 wound for flaming, and the other 5 trolls losing regen.

In another fight, I have a block of 18 trolls. A single troll takes 1 wound from flaming, and all 18 trolls lose regen.

Really, I don't see any difference. It doesn't make any sense to me that a single wound from flaming negates regen for the whole unit, but that's how it works.

On the plus side, since Throgg is part of the unit, I'd argue he gets the benefit of the rolls on the eye of chaos for when you do make the regeneration rolls.


-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:On the plus side, since Throgg is part of the unit, I'd argue he gets the benefit of the rolls on the eye of chaos for when you do make the regeneration rolls.

Well he does have both mutant regeneration and eye of the gods. I see nothing in the mutant regeneration rules that would prevent him to roll with the unit, but he won't roll separately so whatever comes up goes for both him and the unit.

It does say:

"These must be counted separately from wounds suffered by by characters that have joined the troll unit."

We've always taken that to mean that a unit of trolls and throgg have separate pools for wounds suffered, and separate rolls on the EOG table. Whether keeping wounds separate for that purpose affects regen, who knows.

Mikhaila, almost everybody in this thread knows.

It's a problematic rule as some have pointed out, but imagine the alternative: if you had a throgg-free unit of trolls, you'd need to be keeping track which models had been wounded with flaming and which had not, and trying to roll your regens on that basis. It's the kind of complication that GW is trying very hard to avoid with monstrous infantry (see also firing cannons at monstrous infantry, allocating shooting on monstrous infantry, etc).

Sucks that the empire army book contains zero access to flaming attacks :(

The BRB makes it very clear how it is meant to work. If you look at pg. 99 Under Combined Units you'll read

Whilst a character is part of a unit (including any other characters that have joined that unit) are treated as a single combined unit for all rules purposes, save for the exceptions listed here.

It goes on to talk about movement, shooting, close combat, make way, leadership tests and special rules. None of which would allow the flaming wounds to only effect the character or units regen.

Malleus wrote:Mikhaila, almost everybody in this thread knows.

It's a problematic rule as some have pointed out, but imagine the alternative: if you had a throgg-free unit of trolls, you'd need to be keeping track which models had been wounded with flaming and which had not, and trying to roll your regens on that basis. It's the kind of complication that GW is trying very hard to avoid with monstrous infantry (see also firing cannons at monstrous infantry, allocating shooting on monstrous infantry, etc).

Sucks that the empire army book contains zero access to flaming attacks :(

Flaming banner my friend. 10 points for the most flaming attacks this side of a parade. Right there down main street... er the main rule book.