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I feel fairly confident about the answer, but it came up in yesterday's game. So, I just wanted confirmation.

Some Warlord Traits and Psychic Powers instruct you to re-roll the result under certain conditions. If, after re-rolling one of these results, you get a result that also instructs you to re-roll it for whatever reason, does that fall under the never re-rolling a re-roll rule, or would these types of rolls be exempt for some reason I am unaware of?

My buddy was re-rolling his Ethereal's Warlord Trait after getting the 'Precision of the Skilled Hunter' result, and got the 'Through Boldness, Victory' result. He felt he should get to re-roll it again, and I felt it would be considered re-rolling a re-roll, but I let him do it anyway.

The wording for Psychic power generation is "roll again" rather than re-roll, and it's clear that the intent is that having a duplicate power is a no-no.

Without knowing the wording on the Tau Warlord traits, presumably you roll again if you end up with a shooty-power on an Etherial?

I don't know about the Tau codex, but Psychic powers in the BRB do not use the word "re-roll." It says (BRBp418): "If a Psyker generates a power he already has, roll again in the same psychic discipline table until a power is generated that he does not already know." Underlined the important bit.

So a PML2 can roll on Divination: 6. He keeps it and rolls a 6, a 6, a 6, a 6, a 6, a 6, a 2. He keeps it and now has powers 6 and 2. It's not called a re-roll, so it isn't a re-roll.
Or perhaps it is a re-roll, but the BRB explicitly instructs you to override the normal re-roll restriction. Either way, for Psychic powers at least, you can roll until your psyker has enough powers.

Tau codex does use the reroll wording. Though I feel the intention is for this like with psychic powers is meant to be an exception to the reroll result. It appears you're not supposed to have a warlord trait that the model literally can't use on the Tau table. But RaW would be the opposite as there is not a specific exemption to the reroll rule as there is for psychic powers.

I think, personally, that re-rolling and rolling again are the same thing. I'd be very uncomfortable if that was our dividing line.

I think that re-rolls for statistical generation (psychic powers, warlord traits) aren't subject to the 'no re-rolling a re-roll' clause, since they take place prior to game play. I think that would be a far less precedent-setting way to look at it.

That's not based on an Internet-forum-gotta-be-right-by-dictionary-RAW way of looking at it, but instead a let's-find-a-reasonable-solution-so-we-can-play-the-game point of view. So I can see it not having a whole lot of supporters.

Thanks for the responses.

Yeah, it seems that psychic power generation would be exempt because of the wording. I should have, but did not, re-read those paragraphs prior to posting.

However, The Tau Codex does use the wording "Re-roll if Warlord has no ranged weapon" and so on.

I would side with Han's brother (cousin? uncle?) in this case: if your Warlord doesn't have a ranged weapon, then roll on the table until you get a result that your Warlord can make use of.

Isn't this a rather simple case of General rule vs. Specific exception?

The General rule is; "Never re-roll a re-roll", and the Specific exception is; "In the case of psychic powers and Warlord traits you keep rerolling until....."?

How is this situation any different from, for example, being allowed to assault from an open-topped vehicle?

Steelmage99 wrote:
Isn't this a rather simple case of General rule vs. Specific exception?

The General rule is; "Never re-roll a re-roll", and the Specific exception is; "In the case of psychic powers and Warlord traits you keep rerolling until....."?

How is this situation any different from, for example, being allowed to assault from an open-topped vehicle?

The same argument can be made for a Twin Linked weapon in a unit that had Prescience cast upon it. These rules are more specific, but they still do not allow you to re-roll a re-roll.

To have a specific VS. General the wording of the ability would specifically have to say that you can re-roll a re-roll in order for it to be conflicting.

Jimsolo - yet they are very different wordings, and have been for at least 4 editions now

Roll again is for first turn. If you are equating the two terms then you have a good chance of never starting a game.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Jimsolo - yet they are very different wordings, and have been for at least 4 editions now

Roll again is for first turn. If you are equating the two terms then you have a good chance of never starting a game.

Huh? You lost me. How is that preventing me from starting a game? Sorry if you've made it clear, but I'm a little sleep deprived these days (new baby) so I might be missing something obvious.

When rolling to see who deploys first, if you score the same you roll again. If you manage another pair, following the "no re-rolling a re-roll" rule means neither player sets up at all.

If you equate roll again to reroll try rolling for who goes first.

Say you roll a 3 and so do I. Then you roll a 2 and so do I. Thus as we can't reroll a reroll we are stuck and we can't even deploy let alone get to turn 1...

 Jimsolo wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
Jimsolo - yet they are very different wordings, and have been for at least 4 editions now

Roll again is for first turn. If you are equating the two terms then you have a good chance of never starting a game.

Huh? You lost me. How is that preventing me from starting a game? Sorry if you've made it clear, but I'm a little sleep deprived these days (new baby) so I might be missing something obvious.

Congrats on new baby, and I understand sleep deprivation that causes

Essentially what others have said. Reroll and roll again being equated, as you posited, would result in a who deploys first roll off of {(1,1), ..., (6,6)} followed by any other double leading to noone being able to start the game, as noone can deploy first.

That is why "Roll Again" and "Reroll" having to be different terms, meaning different things. Thus "rerolls" cannot be rerolled, byt you can "roll again" as often as you like.