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Two quick questions.

Firstly, hammer-hand as we all know gives +1 strength. If a character or IC uses hammerhand while within a squad, does hammerhand pass on to said squad?

Secondly, if that squad then activates their force-weapons, does this pass on to the IC?

Example:
GK purifiers with grenade master charge a trygon. Grenade master reduces toughness of the trygon then hammerhands, giving the halberds in the squad S5. They then proceed to ID the trygon because they're on a 4+ to hit and wound with no saves and wounds not mattering.

Is this possible?

Yes the GM can cast hammerhand and the squad can use their force weapons.

Hammerhand is conferred on the squad.

I am not sure about the force weapons.

As for your example, yes the Grand Master can use hammerhand and his squad will strike at Str 5. Then if any halberds wound you can check for NFW activation for the squad and kill the pesky xenos.

P.S. I was wondering what a Grenade master was, then I figured it out.

Hammerhand works for the squad and vice versa

Force weapons are on a unit by unit basis. Of the GM could cast HH and then the Squad activate their FW...but the GMs FW would not be activated.

The GM would have to activate his own Force Weapon seperatly from the squad, assuming he was Mastery Lvl2.

So the GM could cast Hammerhand, which effects the entire squad, and the squad could activate their force weapons.


Multiple castings of HH will also stack(although they would have to come from different psykers)

So if we had a GK Terminator squad with Justicar Thawn as an upgrade and a GM(lvl2) attached the following could be done.

Thawn could cast HH, the GM could cast HH, and the Squad could cast HH. Thawn then activates his Force Weapon(lvl2) and because he has the BoP rule it would also activate his Terminator's Force Weapons. And finally the GM could activate his force weapon by himself.

So the Squad would be at +3 Str and would have activated Force Weapons. Str7 weapons that cause Instant Death, yummy

Swap the GM for a Librarian with MoT for Str8 attacks that roll 2D6 for Armor penetration.

The Libby would need to be Lvl3 to activate his force weapon but I think that's a little overkill

Thankyou for your assistance.

I don't think Thrawn and the squad could both cast hammer hand - he's an upgrade character, meaning part of the squad, meaning his cast is the squads cast.

He has Psyker mastery lvl2 and also BoP. So I view it as he can use his 2 powers and the squad can use its powers.

As he is also a Justicar, all Perils will effect him until he is no longer with the squad.

Grey Templar wrote:He has Psyker mastery lvl2 and also BoP. So I view it as he can use his 2 powers and the squad can use its powers.

As he is also a Justicar, all Perils will effect him until he is no longer with the squad.

Thawn does not have BoP. Only the Terminators in his unit have the rule. Of course, this plays hell with the NFW rules because those rules don't say what to do if a unit does not have the BoP rule (9 models with BoP and 1 model without is not a unit with BoP - well, by some interpretations anyway). EDIT: I realize this is ambiguous since I normally treat Defensive Grenades differently, so whatever works.

For the purposes of simplicity I'd say to just treat him as an IC when dealing with psychic powers (except that he's considered the squad's Justicar while he's with them). That seems like the most logical solution to me. With that in mind, he'd be able to do everything you said except for activating his entire squad's force weapons; just his own. I'd say that's a fair trade for RAW not being able to activate them at all (as his unit is neither a unit with BoP or ICs - see my edit above).

Thrawn can cast hamerhand.

The unit can cast hammerhand or use the NFW activation, both of these will effect Thrawn, as Thrawn is not an IC.

NFW P.54 clarifies that IC do not get the benefit, but the unit does.

DeathReaper wrote:Thrawn can cast hamerhand.

The unit can cast hammerhand or use the NFW activation, both of these will effect Thrawn, as Thrawn is not an IC.

NFW P.54 clarifies that IC do not get the benefit, but the unit does.

Right, but Thawn cannot have his unit cast HH then have himself activate all their NFWs, as that's an action only the unit as a whole can perform. (So the available actions are Thawn casts HH and the unit casts HH for +2S, or Thawn Casts HH for +1S and the unit activates NFWs for Instant Death).

Thawn is PML2 though, so he can cast two powers can't he?

Scipio Africanus wrote:Thawn is PML2 though, so he can cast two powers can't he?

Yes Thrawn can cast two powers, but he only has hammerhand, and his force weapon. and if they are fighting one wound models the force weapon activation is worthless.

Grey Templar wrote:He has Psyker mastery lvl2 and also BoP. So I view it as he can use his 2 powers and the squad can use its powers.

This doesn't make sense to me.
He's an upgrade character, so part of the unit. BoP (what the Terminators have) says that "[a] Grey Knight unit may cast one psychic power per turn." (emphasis mine)
So the unit casts one - and Thrawn being the Justicar, that's one of his powers. He can then use another because he is PML2.
Unless he's considered separate for psychic tests, but I don't see that anywhere.

Problem is that Justicar Thawn does NOT have BoP. This also raises interesting questions: rest of the unit says to use Justicars (if alive) leadership and make perils hit him, even though he didn't "use" the power.

But by RAW, I'd say unit can use Psychic Power and Justicar Thawn another, BUT with certain limits:
If Justicar Thawn activates his NFW, it does not activate the NFWs for rest of his squad, as he does not have BoP (see Nemesis Force Weapons pg 54 C:GK).

So you can get 2x Hammerhand and ability to kill single enemy wounded by Justicar Thawn via Force Weapon. (All wounds inflict instant death only applies if you have unit with BoP doing the activation).


Same kind of situation is with Mordrak: Though he has only Psyker (Mastery Level 1) so it's 1 power from squad and 1 from him.