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The Powers of the C'tan wording is subtly different to the Combat Drugs wording, which does allow you to pick and choose. I would like to ask your opinion on the matter of whether I can mix and match whether I pick or roll for different units or not.

For example, if I have a Tesseract Vault and C'tan Shard of the Deceiver, and I give powers 1-4 to the Tesseract Vault, am I forced to give powers 5 and 6 to the Deceiver or can I roll for their powers instead?

My opinion is that, no, I cannot. Whereas the Combat Drug rule uses "Alternatively", the C'tan rule uses "Instead". Furthermore I think the instruction in the C'tan Powers rule is a single instruction affecting all models, whereas the Combat Drug rule is individual to each unit.

I am not 100% on this so any and all arguments are appreciated.

(Also for today's tongue-in-cheek rules shenanigans, the rule says "Roll a D6 to generate their powers randomly (re-rolling any duplicate results).", but you can't re-roll a re-roll so what happens if you roll a duplicate, then re-roll a duplicate??!???!?!? )

I agree.

'Alternatively' and 'instead' have very similar semantics, so I don't think the word choice there in supposed to indicate the difference.

With Dark Eldar you'll get one "Before the Battle" (BtB) per unit, Combat Drugs is written from the perspective of that unit, and the replacement effect is contained within that instance of the the rule.

I like this one better, since if you've already allocated all the good ones, you might well roll and hope to get them again.

C'tan Powers have two BtB triggers, one for rolling, one for the replacement effect. I think it's only written that way for clarity, but either way, they both affect "each unit", so if you use the replacement effect, it replaces everything.

Read the Tenets. There’s one expressly against threads like this, not that that ever stops you! Both Rules “alternatively/instead” you quote are functionally identical.

And re-rolling to determine things can be done as many times as you need, logically. It’s not an in-game ‘success roll’, it simply a randomiser. Being blinkered and saying can’t reroll a reroll is fairly barmy.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Read the Tenets. There’s one expressly against threads like this

Which one, exactly?

And pretty funny for you to be referring to the tenets when you break no.5 on a regular basis: "Don't depart from rules discussions by attaching value judgments to different interpretations."

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Read the Tenets. There’s one expressly against threads like this

Which one, exactly?

And pretty funny for you to be referring to the tenets when you break no.5 on a regular basis: "Don't depart from rules discussions by attaching value judgments to different interpretations."

Afaik I am not breaking any rules, and this is a genuine question because I am simply not 100% sure of the answer. I think that it's you have to decide one method for all C'tan, but the reason I am asking is because I am not sure.