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quick question that came up the other day when I MSS'ed a riptide. Can I, as the necron player, make the riptide smash attack himself? Or does he have to use just regular attack against himself if he fails the Ldr check (which is pretty damn easy it turns out).

Smash is not a special rule on weapons (except in the case of Fuegan). MSS only allows you to use special rule of the weapon.

 Happyjew wrote:
Smash is not a special rule on weapons (except in the case of Fuegan). MSS only allows you to use special rule of the weapon.

I would be 100% on board with this if it was not for the ruling about being able to spend a Psykers warp charge to fuel his Force weapon.

I will tend to agree with you though HJ on how to play it. (That being not being able to make use of the smash USR).

Agreed that raw seems no to smash on a normal MC when mind shackled, with the caveat that warp charges can be spent and necrons can apparently activate the smite mode on deathwing knights, so intention leans towards yes you can smash even though it makes no sense.

Except Force and Smite are special abilities of the weapon. In all instances (except Fuegan), Smash is not a special rule of the weapon, only the model. If Fuegan got MSS'd, you would be able to Smash (not that there is any point).

 Happyjew wrote:
Except Force and Smite are special abilities of the weapon. In all instances (except Fuegan), Smash is not a special rule of the weapon, only the model. If Fuegan got MSS'd, you would be able to Smash (not that there is any point).

Force is a special ability of the weapon, Spending a psykers warp charge is not.

Happyjew wrote:Except Force and Smite are special abilities of the weapon.

Agreed on that point. Smite isn't really something you "activate", it's just a one use alternate profile for a Melee Weapon, and the MSS rules pretty clearly tell you that the Necron player gets to pick.

Happyjew wrote:In all instances (except Fuegan), Smash is not a special rule of the weapon, only the model. If Fuegan got MSS'd, you would be able to Smash (not that there is any point).

It's be useful if he's in a unit of Wraithguard/Grotesques/etc., personally I think it should halve the number of hits from MSS though (there's absolutely nothing in the rules to support that mind you, but it's in keeping with the spirit of the Smash rule).

DeathReaper wrote:Force is a special ability of the weapon, Spending a psykers warp charge is not.

Spending the warp charge is part of the Force rule and MSS specifically allows you to use the weapon's abilities, so it doesn't really seem all that odd to me.

How do you smash when you aren't making any attacks? You are inflicting D3 hits. There is no way to activate the double strength smash.

or

You can always smash because it doesn't matter if you halve your attacks you are inflicting d3 hits.

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

DeathReaper wrote:Force is a special ability of the weapon, Spending a psykers warp charge is not.

Spending the warp charge is part of the Force rule and MSS specifically allows you to use the weapon's abilities, so it doesn't really seem all that odd to me.

That is what the FaQ says. so currently that is how it works.

Pre-FaQ spending a warp charge is not an ability of the weapon, it is an ability of the Psyker, as weapons do not have warp charges.

I don't know the exact mind-shackle rule in question but I think the key to answering it has been provided:

Does it cause the target to attack itself using all the normal rules for melee?
or
Does it cause a random number of automatic hits, ignoring the number of attacks the unit has completely?

MSS cause a random number of automatic hits, ignoring the number of attacks the model has completely.

Then whether or not melee special abilities can be tapped is moot.

The second part of the Smash rule states you need to use this ability during part of standard melee combat. In particular, you need to roll To Hit like normal after halving the attack characteristic. This means you would need to take everything into account like normal, weapon skills, initiative and number of attacks mostly.

Rolling to determine a number of automatic hits is not the normal progression of determining hits. It by-passes a lot of the things that go into a normal Melee based To Hit roll. Instead it simply is stating 'this many hits are automatically successful.' Even when it makes you roll for a random number, you are still not making normal To Hit rolls.

Therefore you have not met the requirements to invoke Smash.

 DeathReaper wrote:
Pre-FaQ spending a warp charge is not an ability of the weapon, it is an ability of the Psyker, as weapons do not have warp charges.

You were shown pre-FAQ why you were incorrect in your interpretation. The FAQ hasn't changed any rules surrounding this issue, it just clarified that the ability to trigger Force (which MSS does have) also allows a warp charge to be forcibly spent.

In this case Smash has nothing to do with an ability of a weapon.

rigeld2 wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
Pre-FaQ spending a warp charge is not an ability of the weapon, it is an ability of the Psyker, as weapons do not have warp charges.

You were shown pre-FAQ why you were incorrect in your interpretation. The FAQ hasn't changed any rules surrounding this issue, it just clarified that the ability to trigger Force (which MSS does have) also allows a warp charge to be forcibly spent.

In this case Smash has nothing to do with an ability of a weapon.

Except (currently) in the case of Fuegan's Fire Axe (which has the rule).

Since that rule may change very soon and it's the only case I know of, I wasn't bothering to state the exception.

But yes, you're correct.

 Happyjew wrote:
Except (currently) in the case of Fuegan's Fire Axe (which has the rule).

Actually it doesn't anymore lol, on the US site the June Eldar FAQ is up already (spoiler, Shadow Weavers get the monofilament rule!!!....aaaand that is the whole thing...)

awesome thanks! Answers my question nicely.

rigeld2 wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
Pre-FaQ spending a warp charge is not an ability of the weapon, it is an ability of the Psyker, as weapons do not have warp charges.

You were shown pre-FAQ why you were incorrect in your interpretation. The FAQ hasn't changed any rules surrounding this issue, it just clarified that the ability to trigger Force (which MSS does have) also allows a warp charge to be forcibly spent.

Your assertations are incorrect.

Force does not have any ability to spend a warp charge, Psykers do.

The FaQ changed the rules and allowed MSS to force the psyker to spend a warp charge to fuel the weapons ability.

I am not convinced DeathReaper, but the more I read into this the more I come over to your side.

A literal reading of the force rule does informs me there are limitations to the evocation of this rule. As long as the limitations have been met then the rule can be evoked. Just being a Psyker doesn't change anything, in and of itself, as nothing in the Psyker special rule states you can override the evocation of the force special rule. In fact, it is one of the limitations being mentioned along side passing a test, spending a point and choosing to use this power.

My issue is the use of the words 'may chose to activate' and if that means the psykers player can simply state 'he choses no.'

I am going to try and get my hands on a Necron codex in the next few hours so I can find out exactly what these scarabs do. It is going to be the wording within that gives me a better understanding of what the FAQ is trying to clarify. It may actually meet all the above limitations, in which case simply being a psyker does not prevent them from evoking this special rule.

Regardless of what I find, the FAQ does trump here so... pointless, but curious.

 DeathReaper wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
Pre-FaQ spending a warp charge is not an ability of the weapon, it is an ability of the Psyker, as weapons do not have warp charges.

You were shown pre-FAQ why you were incorrect in your interpretation. The FAQ hasn't changed any rules surrounding this issue, it just clarified that the ability to trigger Force (which MSS does have) also allows a warp charge to be forcibly spent.

Your assertations are incorrect.

Force does not have any ability to spend a warp charge, Psykers do.

The FaQ changed the rules and allowed MSS to force the psyker to spend a warp charge to fuel the weapons ability.

I never said Force has the ability to.
I said that MSS can activate Force, which requires a Warp Charge to be spent.
Since Force is being activated, the Psyker doesn't get an option to say no.

Nothing has been changed, simply clarified. No non-weapon abilities are used. Smash isn't normally a weapon ability and therefore cannot be activated by MSS.

The activation of Force first requires a warp charge.

"If a Psyker inflicts one or more unsaved 'Wounds with a Force weapon, he can immediately choose to activate it by expending a Warp Charge point..." P. 37

It is the Psykers Warp charge that activates the weapon.

The FaQ changed the rules allowing the MSS to use the Psykers warp charge to activate the Force quality.

A literal, rule lawyering, reading would have me agreeing with Death. The line stating that the psyker may chose is a limitation. The scarab player can chose to hit you with the force weapon, true, but unless all the limitations within are met it does not suddenly gain the ability to one shot things. It could be argued, easily, that the psyker simply choses 'no,' denying the limitation from being met and preventing the force weapon from activating it's instant-death ability. I don't agree with him that the warp charge is where to focus the objection, if the psyker has one then it meets the requirement for that limitation, but the fact it is not an always active weapon ability.

A more fluffy reading of the rules gets me to the opposite conclusion, as the mind-shackle scarab is in control. In these cases all choices based limitations are now in the control of the scarab's owner. There is even some Rules as Written to back this up, in the bracketed section it states that the scarab controller can make choices instead of the controlling player. This is more likely related to the situation where two melee weapons are present and you need to chose which one is being used in the combat, so terminology can be argued over.

Either way it is a Matt Ward work, so I am not surprised the interpretation that makes them more powerful trumped.

Fluff is actually that the mindshackle bypasses the brain, meaning by fluff the robot CAN NOT activate a psychic brain ability, only swing the arm the force weapon is attached to. If the fluff supported mind shackle allowing psychics to be cast then the necrons would have psykers of their own via permanent mind scale control on the psykers they find.

As for smite mode the whole unit must use smite at once. Mss being allowed to activate said smite mode when 9 other models are saying "no smite" is garbage.

tgf wrote:
How do you smash when you aren't making any attacks? You are inflicting D3 hits. There is no way to activate the double strength smash.

This. To take the Smash option of halving your Attacks to double your Strength, you have to choose to forego your normal number of attacks. Mindshackle prevents you from taking any attacks, in favor of inflicting 1D3 automatic hits. There's no chance to Smash, therefore, as there are no normal Attacks to swap out if the model fails a Mindshackle test.

I say you can smash, just a variant of attack. MSS has already been FAQ'd to make it be the worst possible outcome for whatever is affected, I see this as being no different. You're hit with D3 S10 AP2 hits.

Hope you're not a daemon prince!

Excpet that ignores the written rule, which is you can only choose powers of the weapons used, not the model.

Smash is a model USR

MSS allows you to make whatever it is inflict D3 hits on itself, using whatever weapon the model is armed with (your choice if multiple weapons) and use the special rules of that weapon. So, if you use a lightning claw the model is hitting itself at AP3 with shred, if its a force weapon you can activate force (as per the FAQ) if the model has any charges left and so forth.

The ability to smash is a USR associated with the model type, not with a weapon, so the riptide would hit itself at its strength value at AP2, BUT you could not choose to make a smash attack since MSS limit you to using abilities of the CCW the model is wielding, in this case, unless i am mistaken the riptide has no specified close combat weapon it is instead counted as being armed with a close combat weapon with no special rules.

I suppose a more apt question, since you cannot use the abilities of the model, only the weapon, does a monstrous creature hit itself with AP2 when affected by MSS? since the AP2 is associated with the smash USR and not the weapon, and the smash USR specifically says all close combat attacks are AP2, and the MSS affected model skip the attacks step entirely and inflicts automatic hits on itself.

How i play it, and no-one has ever objected is that it does indeed use the AP2, but is that actually RAW?

MSS is still a close combat attack, just one that auto hits. Still AP2

Yeah, the Smash rule gives all the MCs close combat attack AP2 (except Hammer of Wrath, of course) passively, so they'd be AP2. Making a Smash attack, however, is something you need to activate, and nothing in the MSS rules gives you permission to activate special rules the model has, only the ones the weapons have.