Characters not being able to join units.

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**SargentWhiskey**

Hi guys, my gaming group and i are still pretty green to 8th ed, my group played a lot of 7th and still have that mentality. I tried to explain to them that characters cannot join units and that they have to roll for things separately. Can someone point me to the direction of where i can find these rules in black and white so i can show them.

Thanking you in advance guys!

- No greater satisfaction than vindication

**BaconCatBug**

SargentWhiskey wrote:
Hi guys, my gaming group and i are still pretty green to 8th ed, my group played a lot of 7th and still have that mentality. I tried to explain to them that characters cannot join units and that they have to roll for things separately. Can someone point me to the direction of where i can find these rules in black and white so i can show them.

Thanking you in advance guys!

- No greater satisfaction than vindication

You can't prove a negative. Ask them to show you the rule where it says they CAN join units. The game rules are permissive, they state what you can do. And if they say "Where does it say I can't", state that the rules also don't say you can't juggle five dozen eggs to autopass morale.

**SargentWhiskey**

BaconCatBug wrote:
SargentWhiskey wrote:
Hi guys, my gaming group and i are still pretty green to 8th ed, my group played a lot of 7th and still have that mentality. I tried to explain to them that characters cannot join units and that they have to roll for things separately. Can someone point me to the direction of where i can find these rules in black and white so i can show them.

Thanking you in advance guys!

- No greater satisfaction than vindication
You can't prove a negative. Ask them to show you the rule where it says they CAN join units. The game rules are permissive, they state what you can do. And if they say "Where does it say I can't", state that the rules also don't say you can't juggle five dozen eggs to autopass morale.

Damn... so it isn't actually written in rules... ?

**DeathReaper**

BaconCatBug wrote:
SargentWhiskey wrote:
Hi guys, my gaming group and i are still pretty green to 8th ed, my group played a lot of 7th and still have that mentality. I tried to explain to them that characters cannot join units and that they have to roll for things separately. Can someone point me to the direction of where i can find these rules in black and white so i can show them.

Thanking you in advance guys!

- No greater satisfaction than vindication
You can't prove a negative. Ask them to show you the rule where it says they CAN join units.

100% this.

Ask them what rule allows a unit to join another.

In some cases they can, like the Ork's or AM because of stratagems, but neither of those strats affect character units.

**Ghaz**

From the New Warhammer 40,000: Characters article on Warhammer Community:

Previously, Independent Characters would join units, and those units would benefit from the Character’s Leadership and certain special rules, while the unit offered protection from enemy fire. Broadly, this worked pretty well, but there was a tendency in more competitive games to see multiple Characters pooled into a single unit, resulting in an all-conquering unkillable mega-unit with a smorgasbord of special rules, a few psychic powers for good measure, and often, some very un-thematic pairings (we’re looking at you, Dark Angels and Space Wolves, running around in your Ravenwing/Thunderwolf units).

So here’s a big thing – Characters can’t join units anymore. The age of the <add prefix>-star is over.

Instead, you’ll tend to find that a lot of Characters will have an ability that affects nearby units with a certain Keyword within a radius of effect. For example, the mysterious Dark Eldar Character Drazhar lets you add 1 to the hit rolls of all friendly Incubi units that are within 6″ in the Fight phase, while the Kroot Shaper allows nearby Kroot to re-roll wound rolls of 1 and share his superior Leadership.

It may be helpful for them to give all of the New Warhammer 40,000 articles a once over.

**JohnnyHell**

Joining units would have to be spelt out in the rules. It’s fairly staggering edition lag for your group to be having, some 2+ years into this edition!

Edit:just re-read that follows are new to it. The document linked above is helpful.

**doctortom**

There are some units in 8th edition that have what used to be multiple ICs in earlier editions in them, but those are specific datasheets (Craftworlds Warlock Conclave for example), and some units can include a character in their datasheet. This isn't the same having a character join a unit though. Earlier editions had specified rules allowing the ICs to join up with other units; you would need a similar rule this edition for it to be able to be done. As was pointed out, your opponent can't get by with saying "show me where I can't", since even in earlier editions the had to have explicit permission in their rules to be able to do it. The lack of that permission now means they can't.

**Lance845**

Also, independant character is not a thing in 8th. None of the datasheets say that. So even the units that COULD join a unit in 7th would not be able to join a unit in 7th with their 8th datasheets. Nobody has that lable anymore. Unless they want my swarmlord to join a unit of hormagaunts for 30 abaltive wounds. Im pretty cool to play your friends with those rules.

**ThatMG**

Permissive game: You can do this.
Non Permissive: Well, the rules don't say I can't shoot galaxies out my model to instant win the game.
The opponent: Well it doesn't say I'd lose if you did so...
Game has come to a full conclusion.

Characters joining units was a dawn of war 1 game thing. That got dropped.

**Charistoph**

Lance845 wrote:Also, independant character is not a thing in 8th. None of the datasheets say that. So even the units that COULD join a unit in 7th would not be able to join a unit in 7th with their 8th datasheets. Nobody has that lable anymore.

Pretty much this. It's not a universal rule any more, and it's become a rarity to include something similar directly in to the datasheets, as others have noted.

ThatMG wrote:Characters joining units was a dawn of war 1 game thing. That got dropped.

I don't know if it was in 2nd Edition, as I don't have any of those books any more, but it was there in 3rd Edition when it was released in 1998. Dawn of War was released in 2004. Dawn of War 1 did it because the Tabletop game did it. I'd like to think it was dropped because there was always a lot of rule questions on what happened when an IC joined a unit, and it caused more headaches than it helped.

**Banville**

8th Edition is the first edition that characters aren't allowed to join units. For the OP, characters are no longer Independent Characters. The rule doesn't exist anymore. They are a unit, like everything else. Unless their rules entry specifically states they can join other units, they can't.

You can't clump a landraider and a rhino together into one unit. You can't clump a chaplain and assault squad into one unit.

It's why auras exist rather that the old way of conferring abilities onto units the character has joined. It also explains the slightly counterintuitive character targeting rules.