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So my question is if I run a chaos lord with votl and include Cypher in the army what is the chaos lords leadership. The reason I ask is because normally votl does nothing for a chaos lord except hatred however with Cypher doing minus one leadership and votl doing plus one is his leadership still 10.

The +1 from VotLW and the -1 from Cypher will essentially cancel each other out. Your Lord will have hatred and still be leadership 10.

It's something I'd discuss with the person you're playing first.

I'm okay with it because it encourages people to utilize him in a Chaos list over any of the other armies he can be taken in, which fluff-wise works out just fine.

However, it also makes things a little awkward that scratch-build HQ units end up with higher leadership than the named HQ guys that already have VOTLW (all of them, right?) as the rules for VOTLW state units that already have the rule have the resulting statline change reflected on their rulepage. So, you could bring Abaddon, who must be your warlord, at LD9, and have your second HQ (as Cypher doesn't take up a force org slot) with LD10, which would break the BRB rule that the warlord must be the HQ model with the highest leadership.

It's kind of mucky. I hope they address that specific question at some point on an official level.

In which case Abaddon would have to be your warlord, as the codex rule is more specific.

And cyphers rules says he can never be your warlord, problem solved

Lungpickle wrote:
And cyphers rules says he can never be your warlord, problem solved

What are you talking about? The question was not whether Cypher could be the warlord.

Kind of a interesting one.

I would say you would be ld9.

Chosing Votlw is something that you pick in your list before the battle, and in a fluff perspective is already well established (your lord has been around a while) , so Cyphers sudden appearance is a very much on hand thing when the battle starts.

Basically can't be ld11 so your 10 when the battle starts which gets put to 9 when Cypher appears.

You're LD 10+1(votlw)-1(Cypher)=10.

You're modifying characteristics and that's explicitly covered in the BRB.

rigeld2 wrote:
You're LD 10+1(votlw)-1(Cypher)=10.

You're modifying characteristics and that's explicitly covered in the BRB.

That's what I'm thinking.

rigeld2 wrote:
You're LD 10+1(votlw)-1(Cypher)=10.

You're modifying characteristics and that's explicitly covered in the BRB.

Right, or to use some more technical terms. You 1st apply the the product of any multiplies, then apply the summation of any addition and/or subtraction, and finally change the characteristic to any set values.

So it does not matter if there is enough addition modifier to push the characteristic past 10, as long a there are enough subtraction modifiers to reduce it to 10 or lower when all the addition and/or subtraction modifier are applied all at once, otherwise it will be set to 10.

The BRB entry for reference:
If a model has a combination of rules or wargear that modify
a characteristic, first apply any multipliers, then apply any
additions or subtractions,and finally apply any set values.

 Punisher Gatling Cannon wrote:

Lungpickle wrote:
And cyphers rules says he can never be your warlord, problem solved

What are you talking about? The question was not whether Cypher could be the warlord.

He's talking about the situation where Abandon and Cypher are your only two HQs in your army. Abbadon has a rule that says he must be the warlord, and Cypher has a rule that he may never be the warlord. Neither rule conflicts with one another and either overrule the BRB's need for the warlord to be the HQ character with the highest leadership.

Its really not that strange that Abandon would be a lower leadership then a generic lord. Since Abbadon's profile already includes the bonus for VotLW and the Lord's does not, that means when you compare non veterans version of both of their profiles Abbodon's would be Ld 9 and the Lord's Ld 10. Just means Abbadon would not have been as god a leader as the lord is without being a veteran.

In order for it to be 10+1(votlw) you would have to take the characteristic over 10, but anyway. I think the Cyphers rule is designed to defy Ld 10 , from a fluff perspective it should always be in effect.

Maybe itl be faq'd though.

 Elgrun wrote:
In order for it to be 10+1(votlw) you would have to take the characteristic over 10, but anyway. I think the Cyphers rule is designed to defy Ld 10 , from a fluff perspective it should always be in effect.

Maybe itl be faq'd though.

Except as noted the addition and subtraction occur simultaneously, never taking the stat above 10. They basically cancel each other out.

They don't occur simultaneously though as one is selected as an upgrade while making a list and one is a rule that comes into play as soon as the armies enter play.

Can you cite a rule stating that the VotLW bonus is applied only at list creation and never thereafter?

 Elgrun wrote:
They don't occur simultaneously though as one is selected as an upgrade while making a list and one is a rule that comes into play as soon as the armies enter play.

They both modify the characteristic. The modifiers remain in a variable state and the base characteristic never actually changes. We have instead a 'modified characteristic. This is a dynamic number that needs to be calculated every time its called. . So The Lord had a 10 as his unmodified stat. Then you purchase VotLW and he has a 10+(1) as his modified stat. Because the game sets the maximum for the stat to 10 10+(1) = 10. When the game starts and Cypher's rule applies a modifier as well the stat is now 10+(1-1), We still have the base of 10 we still have a single modifier increasing the stat by 1 but now we have a single modifier lowering the stat by 1. 10+(1-1) = 10.

Its two modifiers but a single operation to apply them, the stat does not go from 10 up to 11 and get set to 10 then get lowered by 1 to 9 because all the modifiers are applied simultaneously every time to need to find the current modified stat, regardless of when the modifiers become relevant.

Example. A space marine with a base 4 strength is equipped with a relic that gives him +1 strength during list construction. Later during the game a blessing is used on the marine doubling his strength. His strength was 4+(1) before the blessing, and now its (4x2)+(1) and not 5x2. This is because the modified stat has to be recalculated every time a new modifier becomes relevant.

I would go into it more but i don't think this will come up with a satisfying outcome for anyone.

I'l say from a fluff perspective though if it came up in a faq i would bet i would be right. Since you could take say Magneus Calgar or some otherwise supreme "leader of men" and have his LD at 9, while if we are going by your proposal a Chaos Lord would be LD 10 and i do not believe that Chaos space marine lords make better leaders than the above, so that's why im confident that im right.

From a game perspective as i said from the start, i could see it both ways, but i am confident the rules intent is to represent Cypher's undermining presence which would take effect no matter who you were, unless say your warlord is party to Cypher's scheme and that isn't happening.

So thats what my money will be on if a faq comes.

 DJGietzen wrote:

 Punisher Gatling Cannon wrote:

Lungpickle wrote:
And cyphers rules says he can never be your warlord, problem solved

What are you talking about? The question was not whether Cypher could be the warlord.

He's talking about the situation where Abandon and Cypher are your only two HQs in your army. Abbadon has a rule that says he must be the warlord, and Cypher has a rule that he may never be the warlord. Neither rule conflicts with one another and either overrule the BRB's need for the warlord to be the HQ character with the highest leadership.

Its really not that strange that Abandon would be a lower leadership then a generic lord. Since Abbadon's profile already includes the bonus for VotLW and the Lord's does not, that means when you compare non veterans version of both of their profiles Abbodon's would be Ld 9 and the Lord's Ld 10. Just means Abbadon would not have been as god a leader as the lord is without being a veteran.

Cypher doesn't take an HQ slot, boyos. You can take him, take Abaddon and also bring a scratchbuild HQ of your own design in an under 2k point game.

I realize as a digital dataslate a lot of people hadn't read it so they might not have known, but it says "Cypher does not take up any slots from the detachment's Force Organization chart" right after it lists the armies you can take him in.

I meant it's strange Abaddon would be Ld 9 at any point in time from a fluff perspective, btw. Rules-wise, whatever, it'd only have an impact on the game against Direswords and Psykers with Ld targeting abilities.

I'm still of the opinion it's something that needs to be specifically addressed by GW.

For what it's worth, my friends down at the store decided that despite VOTLW already being reflected in the profile of models it's default on, that because of it's presence it counteracts the negative Ld Cypher confers to the Warlord. It only really affects Ahriman, Huron and Typhus anyway, and we decided rules tend to reflect the fluff as best as possible so it doesn't make sense to us it'd hurt named HQ units more than scratchbuild guys, and it also solidifies Chaos Space Marines as the "best" codex to run him alongside. Just goes to show group discussions can be productive and fun! It's also one of those things I'd check first with anyone who wasn't present for that discussion at my FLGS.

rigeld2 wrote:
You're LD 10+1(votlw)-1(Cypher)=10.

You're modifying characteristics and that's explicitly covered in the BRB.

Why isn't their written ld 10 because its ld9 + 1 from VotLW?. So with Cypher it would be 9+1-1=9?

 CrownAxe wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
You're LD 10+1(votlw)-1(Cypher)=10.

You're modifying characteristics and that's explicitly covered in the BRB.

Why isn't their written ld 10 because its ld9 + 1 from VotLW?. So with Cypher it would be 9+1-1=9?

Because Chaos Lords don't come with VotLW. Which is what rigeld2 is talking about in that quote.

 CrownAxe wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
You're LD 10+1(votlw)-1(Cypher)=10.

You're modifying characteristics and that's explicitly covered in the BRB.

Why isn't their written ld 10 because its ld9 + 1 from VotLW?. So with Cypher it would be 9+1-1=9?

If your referring to units that come with VotLW, and not units that pay extra for it, that actually does need input from GW. We don't know if the units that come with VotLW have a leadership that is supposed to be 10+1 or 9+1 as both would be reflected in the profile as 10. GW would need to tell us what the 'base leadership' was intended to be.

If anything FAQs lean towards a modifier being included in a profile doing nothing, and the 'base characteristic' is the one printed in the profile, at least that's how I read the FAQ entry on bracketed toughness values in older books. Thats still conjecture and an actually answer from GW would be nice but lets be honest we won't get one. There a several other issues that are far more common that have gone ignored.

Its obviously wrong in its current state as people have said, having people like Abaddon at ld9 when a generic chaos lord can get to ld10 makes no sense.

Basically im sure its an oversight involving GW not factoring in VotLW, i would not feel comfortable playing at ld10 due to that but i can't see anything wrong with people that decide to, as it is indeed GW's fault.

also i doubt a faq will come as its a sort of spin off "special" dataslate, so i agree with ^ DJ about that part.