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Hello everyone! The Keeper of Secret's Witstealer Sword in Codex Chaos Daemons has the following rule:
"Subtract 1 from hit rolls made for a model that has suffered any wounds from this weapon."
this weapon is ambiguous. - it can either mean "this specific weapon on this specific KoS" or it can mean "this weapon or any weapon that shares this weapon's name and type" or whatever...

In short, If I have 4 Keepers of Secrets (for the sake of argument), could I inflict 4 -1's to an enemy unit if they all cause an unsaved wound to the same enemy unit?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Hello everyone! The Keeper of Secret's Witstealer Sword in Codex Chaos Daemons has the following rule:
"Subtract 1 from hit rolls made for a model that has suffered any wounds from this weapon."
this weapon is ambiguous. - it can either mean "this specific weapon on this specific KoS" or it can mean "this weapon or any weapon that shares this weapon's name and type" or whatever...

In short, If I have 4 Keepers of Secrets (for the sake of argument), could I inflict 4 -1's to an enemy unit if they all cause an unsaved wound to the same enemy unit?

It's ambiguous due to the nature of the English language. Both answers are true, for a specific value of true. There can be no conclusive answer until GW decide to errata or FAQ it, thus you'll need to clarify pre-game, every game.

But give GW a break, they've only been writing rules for forty plus years now.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Hello everyone! The Keeper of Secret's Witstealer Sword in Codex Chaos Daemons has the following rule:
"Subtract 1 from hit rolls made for a model that has suffered any wounds from this weapon."
this weapon is ambiguous. - it can either mean "this specific weapon on this specific KoS" or it can mean "this weapon or any weapon that shares this weapon's name and type" or whatever...

In short, If I have 4 Keepers of Secrets (for the sake of argument), could I inflict 4 -1's to an enemy unit if they all cause an unsaved wound to the same enemy unit?

Rules do not stack with themselves.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Hello everyone! The Keeper of Secret's Witstealer Sword in Codex Chaos Daemons has the following rule:
"Subtract 1 from hit rolls made for a model that has suffered any wounds from this weapon."
this weapon is ambiguous. - it can either mean "this specific weapon on this specific KoS" or it can mean "this weapon or any weapon that shares this weapon's name and type" or whatever...

In short, If I have 4 Keepers of Secrets (for the sake of argument), could I inflict 4 -1's to an enemy unit if they all cause an unsaved wound to the same enemy unit?

Rules do not stack with themselves.

That is not true.

Rulebook FAQ wrote:Q: Lots of aura abilities say they grant an ability to nearby units that are within range of any such models. Are the bonuses cumulative (i.e. if I am within range of two models with identical aura abilities, is the bonus doubled)?
A: Unless stated otherwise, no. The bonus for such an ability applies once if any (i.e. one or more) of these models are within range.

The Special Snowflake FAQ only applies to aura abilities. The KOS rule is not an aura ability. Unless a rule is worded to prevent it stacking with itself (e.g. Doc's Tools), or is an aura that explicitly says it stacks with itself (e.g. Night Lords Legion Trait) it stacks with itself.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Hello everyone! The Keeper of Secret's Witstealer Sword in Codex Chaos Daemons has the following rule:
"Subtract 1 from hit rolls made for a model that has suffered any wounds from this weapon."
this weapon is ambiguous. - it can either mean "this specific weapon on this specific KoS" or it can mean "this weapon or any weapon that shares this weapon's name and type" or whatever...

In short, If I have 4 Keepers of Secrets (for the sake of argument), could I inflict 4 -1's to an enemy unit if they all cause an unsaved wound to the same enemy unit?

Rules do not stack with themselves.

There is no rule that says that.

think of it this way, each keeper of secrets is an individual model, so as each is attacking separately, as long as long as they caused an unsaved wound the ability would apply, so they would end up with -1 for each keeper of secrets.

this weapon in this case refers to the weapon, but as each model is a separate unit, then it would apply each time.

This will be another endless debate over "well it doesn't say that..." vs. the intent of the rule. I'd imagine the intent of the rule is that only one penalty is suffered regardless of how many units use that rule.

 Lance845 wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Hello everyone! The Keeper of Secret's Witstealer Sword in Codex Chaos Daemons has the following rule:
"Subtract 1 from hit rolls made for a model that has suffered any wounds from this weapon."
this weapon is ambiguous. - it can either mean "this specific weapon on this specific KoS" or it can mean "this weapon or any weapon that shares this weapon's name and type" or whatever...

In short, If I have 4 Keepers of Secrets (for the sake of argument), could I inflict 4 -1's to an enemy unit if they all cause an unsaved wound to the same enemy unit?

Rules do not stack with themselves.

There is no rule that says that.

Weird, it was in the FAQ and now it is gone.


However, the rule says to "subtract 1 from any hit rolls made for a model that has suffered any wounds from this weapon without being slain"

Therefore if you subtract 1, you have satisfied all instances of that rule.

Say you have 3 different models all with the sword. They each do 1 wound to a model. When the wounded model checks the rules he can see he needs to subtract 1 from his to hit rolls. he has done so. he looks at the second rule (which is the same rule) and yep, he has subtracted 1 from hit to hit rolls, same for the third sword. so all instances of that rule are satisfied by simply subtracting 1 from the to hit rolls.

At best it is ambiguous as it can be interpreted at least two different ways.

Warhammer 40k rulebook update 1.2.

Q: Lots of aura abilities say they grant an ability to nearby
units that are within range of any such models. Are the bonuses
cumulative (i.e. if I am within range of two models with identical
aura abilities, is the bonus doubled)?
A: Unless stated otherwise, no. The bonus for such an
ability applies once if any (i.e. one or more) of these
models are within range.

It’s not an aura ability though.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
It’s not an aura ability though.

We dont know for sure.

Aura Abilities
Some units – usually
Characters – have
abilities that affect certain
models within a given
range.

It says units have abilities that affect certain models within a given range, its not limited to characters only. The sword is on the unit, and its affects certain models within a given range.

 p5freak wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
It’s not an aura ability though.

We dont know for sure.

Aura Abilities
Some units – usually
Characters – have
abilities that affect certain
models within a given
range.

It says units have abilities that affect certain models within a given range, its not limited to characters only. The sword is on the unit, and its affects certain models within a given range.

We do know for sure, because no range is mentioned.

The only other case I can think of is Venomthropes and Malanthropes. They both have the Shrouding Spores rule, but the Malanthrope specifically mentions that it does not stack with the Venomthropes' Shrouding Spores. If one were to use this as a basis, the intent is most likely that rules with the same name stacks unless otherwise stated. But RAW it'd be impossible to know until GW actually makes a ruling. Granted come to think of it, they're both Auras so it might not even be relevant here.

There is a special snowflake rule for the DA psychic power mind wipe.

Q: Can an enemy model be affected by the Mind Wipe psychic
power more than once per battle?
A: Yes.

Another hint that rules with the same name arent cumulative by default, but we dont know for sure.

 p5freak wrote:
There is a special snowflake rule for the DA psychic power mind wipe.

Q: Can an enemy model be affected by the Mind Wipe psychic
power more than once per battle?
A: Yes.

Another hint that rules with the same name arent cumulative by default, but we dont know for sure.

That is NOT a hint that rules with the same name aren't cumulative by default.

If anything that is evidence that rules with the same name ARE cumulative by default. In almost every other case the rules are worded in such a way so that they cannot stack. Such as Cryptek's Technomancer rule.

Add 1 to all Reanimation Protocol rolls for models from friendly <DYNASTY> units within 3" of any <DYNASTY> Crypteks.

A unit could be within 3" of 6 crypteks but because of the way the rule is worded the bonus would still be +1 only. If the rule is not worded that way, then by default it stacks. The only special snow flake is the aura ruling without any indication of which abilities are or are not auras. Thanks GW! You could have just put -AURA- after the name of any ability if you had the fore thought to plan ahead ya dick heads!

Well, glad to see it is as unclear as I thought it was at least!