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Well;
First of all, the gem is used at the start of an enemy phase. So, if your opponent tries to use an artefact, the phase may already in progress. The onus is on you to interrupt before your opponent begins their first in-phase decision.
Also, in the given example, Relic of Lost Cadia is activated at the start of their turn. If they try to activate it during their Shooting Phase, they’re making an out of sequence action.
That said, it’s fair to say that “Shooting phase. I activate Single Use Relic of Better Shooting with Gunbloke” “Not so fast, before your shooting phase begins I activate Forbidden Gem to hypnotise Gunbloke” is a situation that’ll come up.
This raises two questions: your own, and the order in which ‘start of phase’ actions are resolved.
With regards to the latter, see rulebook pg 178:
“When two or more rules are resolved at the same time, the player whose turn it is chooses the order. If these things occur before or after the game, or at the start or end of a battle round, the players roll off and the winner decides in what order the rules are resolved.”
This leaves some room for interpretation, that the FAQ and designers’ commentary don’t clear up. My interpretation of this is:
- First: both players decide whether or not they are activating these rules. (They may agree to make these commitments in secret, perhaps placing a coin under their hand in heads or tails, or they may agree that “if you use Shooting Relic then I use Forbidden Gem”.)
- Second: with the activated rules known, the player whose turn it is decides the order in which they are to be activated.
- Third: the rules are activated in turn.
Now, to return to your own question:
A unit hypnotised by the Forbidden Gem “cannot act until the end of the phase (i.e. it cannot move, manifest psychic powers, shoot, charge or fight) and it cannot use any abilities on its datasheet that affect another unit (e.g. aura abilities and abilities that heal other models)”.
My interpretation is that this will cancel the decision of the owning player to use the Single Use Relic of Better Shooting. Their unit is unable to act, and thus cannot activate this Relic, it does not have any effect, and if their unit survives into future turns then it will still have its single use remaining.
This is based on a soft RAW interpretation that ‘act’ is not exclusively defined by the common actions given in the parantheses, and a hard RAI interpretation that if you are so entranced you can’t use a common item or shout a common order or defend yourself, you can’t, say, use a complex rare item or shout an order that’s reserved for extraordinary situations.
I can see room for different interpretations, and I am not certain if I’d extend my interpretation to Stratagems that do not entail actions or auras on the part of the hypnotised unit. For instance, hypnotising a Poxbringer with the Forbidden Gem - this would kill its Locus for a phase, but I don’t think it would stop the external entity that is Nurgle from affecting the Poxbringer with Revolting Regeneration.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
I did overlook a little nuance, there -
Relic of Lost Cadia May have been used correctly, in sequence, at the start of the turn. It confers an aura ability.
Forbidden Gem states that it prevents the use of “abilities on its datasheet that affect another unit (e.g. aura abilities and abilities that heal other models)”.
Now, a RAW argument can be made that a Relic is not an ability on the model’s datasheet; it is instead an ability on a page of rules for Relics.
However, this strikes me as an extremely weak argument, that opens the door to:
- Chaos Daemons characters losing their Locus of DEITY, but not their Locus of DETACHMENT or STRATAGEM,
- the Standard of the Emperor Ascendent aiding morale even when the bearer has dropped it in the mud and is vacantly drooling;
- the Norn Crown working even when Synapse connection has been killed off
- common items that may confer abilities, have rules that are collated on pages other than the datasheet, and are purchased from a list of weapons that are likewise collated elsewhere. (Datasheet: “this model may take an item from the CROWNS OF COMMAND list”. CoC list, before datasheets section: “Helm of Will, Circet of Command, Tiara of Endurance”. Armoury, after datasheets section: “Helm of Will: grants a 6” +1 to cast psychic powers...”)
It would strike me as a fanciful interpretation of semantics that many TOs would be reluctant to agree to, and would likely not survive many FAQ iterations.
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