Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Something odd that came up in a game yesterday with the new DW codex:

An Archon's shadowfield is a 2++ save that stops working the first time it fails, and has a clause where "It may not be rerolled for any reason"

A deathwatch xenophase blade is a power sword with the additional rider that "all successful invulnerable saves vs this weapon MUST be re-rolled"

Seems like an unusual situation with no clear indicator of which wins out, or how to resolve such a thing.

The Shadowfield can’t be rerolled for any reason. Xenophase blade is a reason. Shadowfield isn’t rerolled.

Compare an alternate situation: I have an ordinary invulnerable save and I have a “re-roll fails” effect for it. If I am hit by a xenophase blade, fail my initial save, use my own re-roll and pass, must I then re-roll the successful save?
The answer is no, because rerolled dice can’t be rerolled.

 WindstormSCR wrote:
Something odd that came up in a game yesterday with the new DW codex:

An Archon's shadowfield is a 2++ save that stops working the first time it fails, and has a clause where "It may not be rerolled for any reason"

A deathwatch xenophase blade is a power sword with the additional rider that "all successful invulnerable saves vs this weapon MUST be re-rolled"

Seems like an unusual situation with no clear indicator of which wins out, or how to resolve such a thing.

RAW? Shadowfield doesn't get rerolled.

RAI? I THINK Xenophase should win, but not sure.

HIWPI? Xenophase wins out over Shadowfield. The Shadowfield's rule is designed to stop you from command point rerolling it on a 2+ invuln. The Xenophase is a HARMFUL reroll, so I would say it should bypass that.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The Shadowfield can’t be rerolled for any reason. Xenophase blade is a reason. Shadowfield isn’t rerolled.

Compare an alternate situation: I have an ordinary invulnerable save and I have a “re-roll fails” effect for it. If I am hit by a xenophase blade, fail my initial save, use my own re-roll and pass, must I then re-roll the successful save?
The answer is no, because rerolled dice can’t be rerolled.

And this is a weird scenario, since the first roll is effectively pointless. Succeed? Reroll due to Xenophase. Fail? Reroll due to [BUFF].

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The Shadowfield can’t be rerolled for any reason. Xenophase blade is a reason. Shadowfield isn’t rerolled.

Compare an alternate situation: I have an ordinary invulnerable save and I have a “re-roll fails” effect for it. If I am hit by a xenophase blade, fail my initial save, use my own re-roll and pass, must I then re-roll the successful save?
The answer is no, because rerolled dice can’t be rerolled.

The only reason I posted this is because Xenophase blade uses a "must" clause, which means the effect has to occur, it's two absolutes that are contrary to each other.

 WindstormSCR wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The Shadowfield can’t be rerolled for any reason. Xenophase blade is a reason. Shadowfield isn’t rerolled.

Compare an alternate situation: I have an ordinary invulnerable save and I have a “re-roll fails” effect for it. If I am hit by a xenophase blade, fail my initial save, use my own re-roll and pass, must I then re-roll the successful save?
The answer is no, because rerolled dice can’t be rerolled.

The only reason I posted this is because Xenophase blade uses a "must" clause, which means the effect has to occur, it's two absolutes that are contrary to each other.

But of course a "must" effect that was beneficial to the Archon wouldn't apply, right? If you could somehow give them a rule like the Sisters' Seraphim, such as a stratagem that required a unit to re-roll failed invuln saves, that still wouldn't grant a re-roll. It's a specific overrides general thing. Most special rules are over-riding the basic sequence of play laid out in the BRB. Shadowfield's rule is about as specific as can be -- it's telling you what to do in particular cases where another special rule would otherwise over-ride the regular sequence.

"For any reason" is also particularly strong language. It's the sort of thing that rules writers use to communicate that a rule takes precedence over other rules that are seemingly in conflict with it. It doesn't change the meaning of the rule except to emphasize that it always takes effect.

"It may not be rerolled for any reason" seems pretty damn crystal clear to me.

there is nothing ambiguous about 'Any reason'.

The xenophase does not work against a shadowfield.
The blade being a mandatory effect is irrelevant when it is canceled.

"Any reason" includes the Xenophase sword. If they want to prevent just the CP Re-roll, or to only prevent re-rolls when it fails, they need to change the Shadowfield rule to actually do that.
Here, I'll even do it for you GW.

Shadowfield: This model has a 2+ invulnerable save, which cannot be re-rolled if failed for any reason. The first time this invulnerable save is failed the shadowfield ceases to function for the remainder of the battle

Seems like GW went the Special Snowflake FAQ route. Disappointing but at least we have an answer. I only hope they choose to errata the "can't be re-rolled" effects to only affect failed saves.

With the FaQ we have our answer on how it was intended, that was not how the rule was written, but now we know how to play it.

Q: How does the xenophase blade interact with invulnerable saves that don’t allow saves to be re-rolled (e.g. from an Archon’s Shadowfield ability, or the Chaos Daemons’ Warp Surge Stratagem)?

A: In such cases, the successful invulnerable saves must be re-rolled. The intent of the wording of Shadowfield and Warp Surge is to prevent a re-roll of an unsuccessful save, not to prevent an obligatory re-roll of a successful one.

Found here: https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/warhammer_40000_deathwatch_en.pdf

P.S. Clearly FaQ's can and do change the RaW sometimes.

 DeathReaper wrote:
With the FaQ we have our answer on how it was intended, that was not how the rule was written, but now we know how to play it.

Q: How does the xenophase blade interact with invulnerable saves that don’t allow saves to be re-rolled (e.g. from an Archon’s Shadowfield ability, or the Chaos Daemons’ Warp Surge Stratagem)?

A: In such cases, the successful invulnerable saves must be re-rolled. The intent of the wording of Shadowfield and Warp Surge is to prevent a re-roll of an unsuccessful save, not to prevent an obligatory re-roll of a successful one.

Found here: https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/warhammer_40000_deathwatch_en.pdf

P.S. Clearly FaQ's can and do change the RaW sometimes.

That is why they are Special Snowflake FAQs!

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That is why they are Special Snowflake FAQs!

Not at all. Just a regular FaQ/Par for the course for GW.

It has been this way for decades.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That is why they are Special Snowflake FAQs!

Not at all. Just a regular FaQ/Par for the course for GW.

It has been this way for decades.

If it changes the rules, it's an Errata... Or at least should be.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That is why they are Special Snowflake FAQs!

Not at all. Just a regular FaQ/Par for the course for GW.

It has been this way for decades.

If it changes the rules, it's an Errata... Or at least should be.

That ship sailed, ran into a reef, sank and marooned all the passengers several editions ago.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That is why they are Special Snowflake FAQs!

Not at all. Just a regular FaQ/Par for the course for GW.

It has been this way for decades.

If it changes the rules, it's an Errata... Or at least should be.

It did this in 4th. Hell they flip flopped on the sitw question so one of them definitely changed the actual rule.

 doctortom wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
That is why they are Special Snowflake FAQs!

Not at all. Just a regular FaQ/Par for the course for GW.

It has been this way for decades.

If it changes the rules, it's an Errata... Or at least should be.

That ship sailed, ran into a reef, sank and marooned all the passengers several editions ago.

Indeed. Let’s be grateful of clarity, whichever section of the document it appears in.

I found it interesting that the rules team discussed the rules intention in the faq. Will hopefully ease people back of the RAW/RAI arguments a bit if the rules team them selves admit that intention needs to be determined too.

Andykp wrote:
I found it interesting that the rules team discussed the rules intention in the faq. Will hopefully ease people back of the RAW/RAI arguments a bit if the rules team them selves admit that intention needs to be determined too.

Sadly, I can 100% guarantee you it won’t...

Andykp wrote:
I found it interesting that the rules team discussed the rules intention in the faq. Will hopefully ease people back of the RAW/RAI arguments a bit if the rules team them selves admit that intention needs to be determined too.

They were doing that in the Big FAQ too with discussion of some of the beta rules. Hopefully they continue this trend.

 doctortom wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I found it interesting that the rules team discussed the rules intention in the faq. Will hopefully ease people back of the RAW/RAI arguments a bit if the rules team them selves admit that intention needs to be determined too.

They were doing that in the Big FAQ too with discussion of some of the beta rules. Hopefully they continue this trend.

No, hopefully they actually write their blooming rules properly so we know how to use the rules. What is the point of asking for feedback if the majority of people (those who follow the rules) are using the rule incorrectly?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 doctortom wrote:

Andykp wrote:
I found it interesting that the rules team discussed the rules intention in the faq. Will hopefully ease people back of the RAW/RAI arguments a bit if the rules team them selves admit that intention needs to be determined too.

They were doing that in the Big FAQ too with discussion of some of the beta rules. Hopefully they continue this trend.

No, hopefully they actually write their blooming rules properly so we know how to use the rules.

To quote myself from earlier,

That ship sailed, ran into a reef, sank and marooned all the passengers several editions ago.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
What is the point of asking for feedback if the majority of people (those who follow the rules) are using the rule incorrectly?

Because they probably figure that word has gotten out about the Facebook post clarifying Tactical Reserves so that most people know about it and figure that most people will follow what it says instead of playing it incorrectly.

 doctortom wrote:
Because they probably figure that word has gotten out about the Facebook post clarifying Tactical Reserves so that most people know about it and figure that most people will follow what it says instead of playing it incorrectly.

Then they are simply incompetent. No dancing around the issue. I simply hope they make the final non-beta rule do what they want it to do.

The rule does what they meant it o do, and the fb post clarified this.

They might be incompetent in your opinion, however they're the best AIM investment out there right now, so they might not consider your opinion too valuable.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The rule does what they meant it o do, and the fb post clarified this.

They might be incompetent in your opinion, however they're the best AIM investment out there right now, so they might not consider your opinion too valuable.

Yeah, selling 7 pence of plastic for £80 to 9 year olds using Mummy's credit card, who then quit the game to make room to sell to more 9 year olds is pretty profitable, who'dathunkit!

The rule doesn't do what they meant it to do. If it did they wouldn't have had a random GW social media intern make a facebook post about it. Meanwhile, in the real world, the majority of people a) Play by the rules and b) don't follow GW on facebook. If a fraction of them are providing feedback as asked, they are polluting the feedback with incorrect information. In the end the only one who gets a bad deal out of not writing their rules properly is GW's bottom line. The current model of rapidly rotating short term gains by du... "streamlining" things is not going to last forever.

I truly hope the make the final rule properly worded, otherwise it's just going to cause what little goodwill they've built up to be eroded.

Fantastic analysis of supply chain economics 5ere. Yep, the only cost is the raw material cost, nothing else. Well done there!

They've been doing that for years. They were the aim biggest return on,y last year because... I'm sure you know , yeah?

False premise fallacy. Another one. Quite the collection there!
They made the fb post because they wanted to make a pretty pic to go alongside the big faq release. Or because they found some people were misunderstanding the rule " like yourself " so figured that a post by GW would help allay thosse, not realising that an insignificant subset of those would choose not to pay attention to this clarification b3cauwe it didn't meet their arbitrary definition of what's allowed to be "official".

I'd love to see where you get yoUr info on the "majority" of people not using Facebook. Now in the three gaming groups I know, totalling probably 50 40k players, every single one of them knew about this Facebook post. From the last tournament I went to, which was quite large, every person I spoke to knew about it. Now, this isn't statistically sound, but it's something that indicates it's not even a significant minority that don't know, never mi d a majority.

So, please - back up your opinion with something. For once.

Oh, and playing by the rule as written, and marrying that to the official clarification by GW co firming that yes, they did indeed write it how they meant it, seems to again be the majority. You appear to be in the vast minority here.

Or will you ignore this request to follow the tenets again, same as you won't explain, from the BRB, why you are allowed to consider errata as rules? I mean, we can all draw the obvious conclusion why you won't do this - because you cannot and it undermines your claims to follow the rules AND shows your bias has no consistent basis - but it would be fun to see you at least try.

It strikes me that part of the fun of 40k for mr BaconCatThing seems to be arguing about the rules. I’ve seen him argue many times that unless it comes in a rule book or official FAQ it doesn’t count to him and is “wrong”. So now that RAI interpretations are in an official FAQ does that mean he will stop insisting that RAW is the only way to play it. I doubt it but it should help the rest of us who just want to have a fun game and a laugh with our mates.

His claim that the majority of players play by the rules is true. I play by the rules but am happy to have some freedom to interpret them as I see them. So yes most people play by the rules but not most are as concerned about grey areas as him. I doubt he will change though as this thread shows he doesn’t seem keen on admitting to being wrong.

I’m just glad it seems myself and the company that has been a big part of my life for 30 years don’t seem to have drifted too far apart in ways of thinking.

Andykp wrote:
It strikes me that part of the fun of 40k for mr BaconCatThing seems to be arguing about the rules. I’ve seen him argue many times that unless it comes in a rule book or official FAQ it doesn’t count to him and is “wrong”. So now that RAI interpretations are in an official FAQ does that mean he will stop insisting that RAW is the only way to play it. I doubt it but it should help the rest of us who just want to have a fun game and a laugh with our mates.

Nah he's lying that he's playing 100% RAW himself so why stop silly behaviour?

While it's true that BCB might come off as aggressive/rude at times, I still think his view of RAW is a fair point. Unless you're psychic and can read the minds of the game designers, you have absolutely no way to know what exactly the designers mean when they write their rules. Therefore it's important that the rules are clear. Yes, in some situations (like 6th ed Pyrovore explosion) the RAI is quite clear. But take this Shadowfield interaction; the designers had written "can't be rerolled for any reason", when in reality they mean "failed rolls can't be rerolled for any reason". Therefore; arguing RAI is useless because you simply do not know what the designers intend untill they themselves specify their intention. The only assumption for intention is what's written, unless the rule itself makes no sense (which is unfortunately not all too uncommon with GW), and from there on the only thing you can really do is house rule.

Except for all those occasions where intent was obvious all along and could be guessed, you know. Then got FAQ’d to match. It’s not an either/or, all or nothing situation. Intent is easy to guess at times and impossible at others. But pretending blindly following the rules when they generate ridiculous or unintuitive situations makes you better than others is plainly silly, yet every damn day someone does claim this...

 JohnnyHell wrote:
Intent is easy to guess at times and impossible at others.

I agree that intent is easy to see in some sitations, like BCBs all-so-famous "assault weapons can't be fired after advancing" idea. But simultaneously, we had that thread regarding Paroxysm and Counter-Offensive, where certain people argued that the intent is for CO to be usable on a Paroxysm'd unit, which later on got FAQd to not be the intent at all. Therefore it's in my personal opinion that rules should be followed as closely as possible because the only "intent" a rule has is what the rule says it does. If a rule is contradictory or makes no sense (like the 6th ed Pyrovore explosion or current assault weapon rule), one can and should make an educated guess on the intent of the rule and play it like so. However, if there isn't any issues with the rule then RAW = RAI until otherwise stated.