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Half the rules debates on YMDC are over semantics.

The rules are often interpretable either way, ans semantic arguments over the metaphorical meaning of the work 'and' ensue..

It's also hard to know the 'spirit of the rule' without actuallt talking to the designer. Search for SAG 6,6, result rules debates or the old Livin Metal debates...

When in doubt, discuss with your opponent. Dice off if necessary.

pretre wrote:

Jerrous Illandry wrote:I think his summation is what the whole debate is about regarding this rule; semantics.

I lol'd.

I know, I know; just call me Cpt. Obvious.

Buffytrek wrote:Hi,
On a side note but on the same subject of the new FAQs, I was redownloading the Ogre Kingdoms FAQ on my main computer and and noticed they have updated it again to 2.0, the 1.0 was added this morning I believe. In it they added a note from Jervis Johnston with reguards to the ironfist rule question.

Spoiler:

Designers Note: I have to hold my hands up for not spotting that
allowing a Butcher or Slaughtermaster to take an ironfist, would also
allow them to take magic armour. Allowing them access to magic
armour certainly wasn’t my intention, and it’s something we’ll
certainly fix when we do the next edition of the Ogre Kingdoms army
book. However, after much debate, we’ve decided that it does not
give the Ogres an unfair advantage, so we’ve decided to leave the
rule as it is written for the time being. That said, I’d personally
recommend that you avoid giving your Butchers and
Slaughtermasters magic armour – doing otherwise goes against the
spirit, if not the letter, of the rule.
Jervis Johnson 7/12/2011

So, to summarise:

"I fethed up and decided that it needs to be fixed, but we're not going to fix it, instead you can use it because it doesn't give you an unfair advantage, but you should be ashamed if you do."

Jervis Johnson - The Walking Contradiction

Suddenly i feel so happy i dont start the planned SoB army. Wtf those rule specialists are thinking? The only thing SoB had who give them some power, they took out? Well, i will keep the old witch hunters codex, and use Imperial Armor for Vehicles...

That white dwarf "codex" was a fail...

Considering they specifically say that Saint Celistine gives units she enters +1 to their faith roll, it was pretty obvious that the half of the codex that forgot the IC rule was the incorrect part.

Sounds to me that Jervis wasn't very happy that the team agreed to something he didn't agree with.. so he had to update the FAQ with his own response. Sounds like the old dark angels FAQ

"After much discussion we've decided to give the middle finger to the dark angels, however, in consolation we're allowing demon hunters and space wolves to use the newest wargear"

ShumaGorath wrote:They made Celestine even better. Was being 100 points under-costed not enough? Could they not admit to the typo? I think I would despise playing against the SoBs because of that one model. Thankfully I've never seen an SoB army before, so my rage is in check.

Compared to some game breaking special characters like Bjorn Stormcaller who can (and I have seen ) break whole armies single handed, a T3 model without eternal warrior and who can only wound on a 4+ isn't gong to achieve much aside from being an irritation. In fact you can quite easily tool a generic Dark Eldar archon with agoniser and shadowfield to give you a unit with the same killing power and an invulnerable save of 2+.. That model isn't going to break an army any time soon, neither is Celestine, and there are plenty of other cheap OMG powers that are allowed into the game: chiefly the unfair instant death powers like

turning characters into squigs psychic power
Jaws of the world wolf
Necron labyrinth which grey knights can also get, along with every soldier having an instant death weapon.
The Chaos Spawn power

They all make it extremely easy to wipe out expensive units for negligible cost and with incredible chances of success. With all that cheese in the game already, one crappy special character being a bit low in points is not really worth much comment.

I don't like these abilities, I think they're frankly dickish but I won't refuse to play somebody because of that fact; its GW fault for making silly abilities that can be easily abused. Not liking the idea of playing a SOB army because of one unit is pretty silly. Just shoot their few battle conclaves then hit the rest with elite CC units with power weapons or rending; simple as .

Zogworts curse only works if you win a dice off against your opponent, the target MUST be an IC, and it bounces right off psychic defense. Try it VS eldar and watch Zogwort kill himself. Not that dickish, especially since it has a pitiful range, and you still need to pass a psychic test to use it. It doesn't kill you either, it jst tranforms you. I've had Zoggy killed by the squig that used be be an IC a few times.

JOTWW has a special place of hate in my heart.

Not been up against the Grey Knights/Necron labyrinth yet, as no-one seems to take them

Spawning someone is an expensive upgrade (daemons book anyway, i don't have the CSM one) available to very few units. The units that get to take it have their own glaring weaknesses. (Tzeentch units are very shooty, and absolutely sad in CC).

If you're giving it to a daemon prince you're leaving out other useful abilities or pricing yourself out of utility. t also has a max range of 6'', and you have to provide the spawn model to use it fully. If you do make a spawn, and then the enemy kills it you just handed him 40 VP and/or a kill point.

It's powerful, yes, but unlike JOTWW it's short ranged as hell, spendy and a rare sight on the battlefield. as it can only kill one model at a time, and a bog standard marine will pass the test 2 times out of three, let alone anyone tougher that you might want out of the way.

Incredible chance of success?

50/50 on zog's curse, IF he can get within 18'' and you are an IC, assuming he can even get the power off and you have no psychic defense.

Boon of Mutation- 1 in 3 chance on T 4, assuming you can get within 6''


OP, i'm sure...

Totalwar1402 wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:They made Celestine even better. Was being 100 points under-costed not enough? Could they not admit to the typo? I think I would despise playing against the SoBs because of that one model. Thankfully I've never seen an SoB army before, so my rage is in check.

Compared to some game breaking special characters like Bjorn Stormcaller who can (and I have seen ) break whole armies single handed, a T3 model without eternal warrior and who can only wound on a 4+ isn't gong to achieve much aside from being an irritation. In fact you can quite easily tool a generic Dark Eldar archon with agoniser and shadowfield to give you a unit with the same killing power and an invulnerable save of 2+.. That model isn't going to break an army any time soon, neither is Celestine, and there are plenty of other cheap OMG powers that are allowed into the game: chiefly the unfair instant death powers like

turning characters into squigs psychic power
Jaws of the world wolf
Necron labyrinth which grey knights can also get, along with every soldier having an instant death weapon.
The Chaos Spawn power

They all make it extremely easy to wipe out expensive units for negligible cost and with incredible chances of success. With all that cheese in the game already, one crappy special character being a bit low in points is not really worth much comment.

I don't like these abilities, I think they're frankly dickish but I won't refuse to play somebody because of that fact; its GW fault for making silly abilities that can be easily abused. Not liking the idea of playing a SOB army because of one unit is pretty silly. Just shoot their few battle conclaves then hit the rest with elite CC units with power weapons or rending; simple as .

bjorn is more then TWICE celestines point cost and requires a transport and a squad to protect him (+35+180) to function well. All together that's the cost of almost four saint celestines. That same archon is going to cost ~50 points more and he requires a squad and transport as well putting him far over. Every one of your listed powers can only kill her for as long as you don't roll a 4+ (she'll come back 3.5 times in a long game on average if they kill her constantly. Every unit capable of using one of those powers costs more then celestine and when she gets up she will kill the majority of them by herself. Celestine is a troll of a character that rolls over armies at low point values. At high point values she has to settle for averagely paying for herself several times over, but boo too to that.

Hahaha, a buff to St. Celestine?! Looks like she's officially the best HQ in the game now...

Fetterkey wrote:Hahaha, a buff to St. Celestine?! Looks like she's officially the best HQ in the game now...

*sigh* in the worse army....

I wouldn't say that. I actually think the new Sisters are extremely good, and if not for the fact that the models are so dang expensive I would strongly consider starting a Sisters army myself! There are a lot of really, really strong units in that Codex.

I am amazed, that majority of people didn't think she was IC. A unique HQ and not an IC?

I did revive her on the table edge when she one time ran off the board w/ Seraphim. Nothing new really.

Now I only have to buy that one Simulacrum Imperialis for Retributors...

Ascalam wrote:Zogworts curse only works if you win a dice off against your opponent, the target MUST be an IC, and it bounces right off psychic defense. Try it VS eldar and watch Zogwort kill himself. Not that dickish, especially since it has a pitiful range, and you still need to pass a psychic test to use it. It doesn't kill you either, it jst tranforms you. I've had Zoggy killed by the squig that used be be an IC a few times.

JOTWW has a special place of hate in my heart.

Not been up against the Grey Knights/Necron labyrinth yet, as no-one seems to take them

Spawning someone is an expensive upgrade (daemons book anyway, i don't have the CSM one) available to very few units. The units that get to take it have their own glaring weaknesses. (Tzeentch units are very shooty, and absolutely sad in CC).

If you're giving it to a daemon prince you're leaving out other useful abilities or pricing yourself out of utility. t also has a max range of 6'', and you have to provide the spawn model to use it fully. If you do make a spawn, and then the enemy kills it you just handed him 40 VP and/or a kill point.

It's powerful, yes, but unlike JOTWW it's short ranged as hell, spendy and a rare sight on the battlefield. as it can only kill one model at a time, and a bog standard marine will pass the test 2 times out of three, let alone anyone tougher that you might want out of the way.

Incredible chance of success?

50/50 on zog's curse, IF he can get within 18'' and you are an IC, assuming he can even get the power off and you have no psychic defense.

Boon of Mutation- 1 in 3 chance on T 4, assuming you can get within 6''


OP, i'm sure...

One in three or 50/50 to insta kill an IC, usually the most expensive unit in your army, is actually pretty decent. Most characters wouldn't mind those odds in CC against the sort of 100-250pts models you're refering to and how many other shooting attacks have those odds short of plasma spam. 18'' radius is bigger than you would think, thats probably a third of the board once you're further in. It irks me more that these are meant to be 'fun' powers that add to the games character but are really just a way of assasinating high point units.

Anyway, off topic, its good that they've gotten a FAQ up to give the army some love. Have they even brought the PDF online yet?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ShumaGorath wrote:[
bjorn is more then TWICE celestines point cost and requires a transport and a squad to protect him (+35+180) to function well. All together that's the cost of almost four saint celestines. That same archon is going to cost ~50 points more and he requires a squad and transport as well putting him far over. Every one of your listed powers can only kill her for as long as you don't roll a 4+ (she'll come back 3.5 times in a long game on average if they kill her constantly. Every unit capable of using one of those powers costs more then celestine and when she gets up she will kill the majority of them by herself. Celestine is a troll of a character that rolls over armies at low point values. At high point values she has to settle for averagely paying for herself several times over, but boo too to that.

Bjorn stormcaller, yes with his squad etc, is a god! He killed 250 hormagaunts and twenty gargoyles in a apocalypse game with those beardy ( ) powers.

Roll over? She has five maybe six attacks that wound on a 4+. That is not good. In the previous codex she could kill t3 on a 2+ or marines on a 3+. Thats a nerf. Yes the Archon is a bit over her in points, and he needs support to be viable because he lacks killing power, exactly what Celestine does not have, hence why they changed the rules to let her go with a squad of seraphim. Look, if I can't roll over an army with my five attack Archon, then how can Celestine? A plasma gun can instant kill her quite easily and in CC most marines can ignore morale and just keep chipping away whilst the rest of the SOB is butchered. Which army do you collect that could get rolled over by Celestine? If its Tau then , you're meant to lose in CC to everything; guard included.

Actually no, as the poster above claimed, the squig guy would have a shooting attack that could turn her into a squig and since technically shes not dead but just turned into a squig can never come back. The same goes for the Chaos spawn (even more outragious considering who it is!) as technically shes not dead.

Anyway, my main point was that annoying things in other armies shouldn't stop you from playing them.

I'm gunna assume that you guys mean Njal; Bjorn is the Ven. Dread.

Fetterkey wrote:I wouldn't say that. I actually think the new Sisters are extremely good, and if not for the fact that the models are so dang expensive I would strongly consider starting a Sisters army myself! There are a lot of really, really strong units in that Codex.

Agreed. The sisters codex is pretty competitive. So far I've seen the new book tear through about 3 GK armies (although one loss on turn 5 to end of game), draw to green tide, win to shooty tyranids, win against BA and win against BW Orks. That's just two tournaments since I retooled my army. (Three of those wins were my buddy who borrowed the army and played it for the first time, winning best general.) 5 Wins, 1 Draw, 1 loss is pretty good and I'm still at less than 15 games of practice.

Avatar 720 wrote:I'm gunna assume that you guys mean Njal; Bjorn is the Ven. Dread.

That rhino riding, stormcalling, raven having ven dread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AdeptSister wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:Hahaha, a buff to St. Celestine?! Looks like she's officially the best HQ in the game now...

*sigh* in the worse army....

I'd hesitate to say that sisters are worse then vanilla marines who exist off the power of assault termies alone or eldar who win well in exactly one mission type against one specific kind of army.

meh_ wrote:I am amazed, that majority of people didn't think she was IC. A unique HQ and not an IC?

I did revive her on the table edge when she one time ran off the board w/ Seraphim. Nothing new really.

Now I only have to buy that one Simulacrum Imperialis for Retributors...

Mephiston isn't an IC, Neither is the Swarm Lord, The Sanguinor, Skarbrand, Ku'gath, Fateweaver, The Masque...

There are a few out there..

Ascalam wrote:Mephiston isn't an IC, Neither is the Swarm Lord, The Sanguinor, Skarbrand, Ku'gath, Fateweaver, The Masque...

There are a few out there..

None of those have rules showing what happens when they join a unit and Independent Character in their Bestiary section.

pretre wrote:

Ascalam wrote:Mephiston isn't an IC, Neither is the Swarm Lord, The Sanguinor, Skarbrand, Ku'gath, Fateweaver, The Masque...

There are a few out there..

None of those have rules showing what happens when they join a unit and Independent Character in their Bestiary section.

I think the swarmlord does.

Ascalam wrote:

meh_ wrote:I am amazed, that majority of people didn't think she was IC. A unique HQ and not an IC?

I did revive her on the table edge when she one time ran off the board w/ Seraphim. Nothing new really.

Now I only have to buy that one Simulacrum Imperialis for Retributors...

Mephiston isn't an IC, Neither is the Swarm Lord, The Sanguinor, Skarbrand, Ku'gath, Fateweaver, The Masque...

There are a few out there..

However The Swarmlord, Skarbrand, Ku'gath and Fateweaver are Monstrous Creatures.

The Swarmlord can also join a unit of Tyrant Guard.

The only 'special' ones are The Masque, Mephiston and The Sanguinor.

And the last two practically have Monstrous Creature statlines!

ShumaGorath wrote:

pretre wrote:

Ascalam wrote:Mephiston isn't an IC, Neither is the Swarm Lord, The Sanguinor, Skarbrand, Ku'gath, Fateweaver, The Masque...

There are a few out there..

None of those have rules showing what happens when they join a unit and Independent Character in their Bestiary section.

I think the swarmlord does.

He has neither. Tyrant Guard tell you how to attach to Swarmy/Tyrant.

pretre wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

pretre wrote:

Ascalam wrote:Mephiston isn't an IC, Neither is the Swarm Lord, The Sanguinor, Skarbrand, Ku'gath, Fateweaver, The Masque...

There are a few out there..

None of those have rules showing what happens when they join a unit and Independent Character in their Bestiary section.

I think the swarmlord does.

He has neither. Tyrant Guard tell you how to attach to Swarmy/Tyrant.

Thats similar.

ShumaGorath wrote:

pretre wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:

pretre wrote:None of those have rules showing what happens when they join a unit and Independent Character in their Bestiary section.

I think the swarmlord does.

He has neither. Tyrant Guard tell you how to attach to Swarmy/Tyrant.

Thats similar.

And... You just arguing for giggles?

The point was that none of those were in the situation that Celestine was in pre-FAQ. The point stands because none of them are still in that situation.

Not a lot, but at least its some...

pretre wrote:And just for all of you that think that I am a complete apologist and have never said anything bad about SoB's new codex, this is a substantial nerf to faith and largely makes faith completely useless.

Now that doesn't really hurt the army since faith has been less and less important since the WD codex came out, but the 'keep rolling until you got it' was a cool mechanic.

I don't entirely agree, it hurts the army a little bit. I think it diminishes Uriah's re-roll ability (I don't really care about that), and it makes things more expensive. I can see after a few games where I've repeatedly failed my Retributor or Dominion squad's faith rolls I'm going to start to buy those Simluacra, and at 20pts per, it's going to add up.

I would have been ok with a "middle ground" solution where you can only successfully attempt an AoF once per turn.

If you wanna talk about unbelievablely annoying "come back to life" units is Justicar Thawn. You can never get that fat jerk off objectives.

Amerikon wrote:

pretre wrote:And just for all of you that think that I am a complete apologist and have never said anything bad about SoB's new codex, this is a substantial nerf to faith and largely makes faith completely useless.

Now that doesn't really hurt the army since faith has been less and less important since the WD codex came out, but the 'keep rolling until you got it' was a cool mechanic.

I don't entirely agree, it hurts the army a little bit. I think it diminishes Uriah's re-roll ability (I don't really care about that), and it makes things more expensive. I can see after a few games where I've repeatedly failed my Retributor or Dominion squad's faith rolls I'm going to start to buy those Simluacra, and at 20pts per, it's going to add up.

I would have been ok with a "middle ground" solution where you can only successfully attempt an AoF once per turn.

Uriah's reroll only works at the beginning of the turn for how many faith you get. I guess if faith is less important though, you are right. Simulacrum are spendy, but keep in mind that Kyrinov gets one for free, if you're feeling wacky.

I also would have been okay with that.

DarkStarSabre wrote:

Ascalam wrote:

meh_ wrote:I am amazed, that majority of people didn't think she was IC. A unique HQ and not an IC?

I did revive her on the table edge when she one time ran off the board w/ Seraphim. Nothing new really.

Now I only have to buy that one Simulacrum Imperialis for Retributors...

Mephiston isn't an IC, Neither is the Swarm Lord, The Sanguinor, Skarbrand, Ku'gath, Fateweaver, The Masque...

There are a few out there..

However The Swarmlord, Skarbrand, Ku'gath and Fateweaver are Monstrous Creatures.

The Swarmlord can also join a unit of Tyrant Guard.

The only 'special' ones are The Masque, Mephiston and The Sanguinor.

And the last two practically have Monstrous Creature statlines!

Yup, but the point still stands. They are unique SC's that aren't IC's, which is what meh_ was finding laughable that people might consider possible

I'd not have been shocked if she had been ruled as non-IC the same as the Sanguinor (despite the fact that her WH self was an IC), given that he's basically a gold-plated jack of her concept in the first place ...

There's probably a few others out there, but i didn't have every codex.

There have been MC IC's (albiet with rules crippling the IC status) before also, in the original C'tan.

Re-pasting it from an earlier post because its worth venting about.

Designers Note: I have to hold my hands up for not spotting that
allowing a Butcher or Slaughtermaster to take an ironfist, would also
allow them to take magic armour. Allowing them access to magic
armour certainly wasn’t my intention, and it’s something we’ll
certainly fix when we do the next edition of the Ogre Kingdoms army
book. However, after much debate, we’ve decided that it does not
give the Ogres an unfair advantage, so we’ve decided to leave the
rule as it is written for the time being. That said, I’d personally
recommend that you avoid giving your Butchers and
Slaughtermasters magic armour – doing otherwise goes against the
spirit, if not the letter, of the rule.
Jervis Johnson 7/12/2011

A friend and i were talking about this earlier and we both came to the same conclusion. So what GW is saying with this one that "hey, were sorry we made it so ambiguous. So instead of doing what we did for the Imperial Guard Mortar/master of ordinance FAQ and Tyranid shadow in the warp/Doom of Malan'ti were just going to let this one ride. And on top of that you should feel shame for using it this way." Who says this?!?!?!?!?! Why didn't they just say since an ironfist is a shield that they could only take a magic shield?!?!?!

What the feth?!?!?!?!