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.

9th edition secondary Psychic Ritual states:

Score 15 Victory Points at the end of the battle if any unit from your army successfully completed the following psychic action 3 times during the battle: Psychic Ritual (Warp Charge 3): One PSYKER CHARACTER unit from your army can attempt to perform this psychic action in your Psychic Phase if it is within 6" of the centre of the battlefield.

This reads somewhat ambiguously to me: is that you need to complete the action 3 times, across any combination of psychic characters, or does it have to be completed 3 times by the same character?

From a strict grammatical perspective, it technically seems to say it has to be the same psyker. But it is worded really awkwardly, and one would think that if that was what they intended, they wouldn't have said "any unit" and would have made it clear that it has to be the same unit that completes the action 3 times. I genuinely think this is ambiguous, both RAW and as to RAI.

What do others think? The difference is quite important, because if it has to be the same psyker every turn, it makes it extremely difficult to succeed with; you can only attempt it with one character per turn, and it can be denied, which means in practice it becomes likely impossible if the psyker you start doing it with is killed.

A single unit needs to complete the action 3 times. Doesn't read as ambiguous to me at all.

Slipspace wrote:
A single unit needs to complete the action 3 times. Doesn't read as ambiguous to me at all.

I agree. You can use any unit to do the action, but the action needs to have been done 3 times by an individual unit to count.

Also, the difference between "any unit" and "any units".

Slipspace wrote:
A single unit needs to complete the action 3 times. Doesn't read as ambiguous to me at all.

I agree, I don’t think it’s ambiguous. Definitely looks like it’s not easy to score though. Look out sir and screening required.

I agree that's what it seems to say grammatically, the ambiguity to me is just that they could have said that in so much easier and less confusing a way if they had wanted to. Why not just say: "Score 15 points if the same unit in your army completes..."?

But I guess this is GW, expecting something to be stated in the obvious and easy to understand way doesn't get you very far.

It also makes it a pretty terrible secondary for the vast, vast majority of lists. It's questionable enough with the possibility of being denied, but the fact that you also have to keep the same psyker alive a minimum of 3 turns...

But then people would complain its an extra sentence they have to read..

It wouldn't be an extra sentence. You could just substitute the word "same" (ok, technically "the same") for "any." Then there wouldn't be any possible confusion. It's the "any unit" bit that is the weird word choice when it appears to actually be a limiting condition.

It could also say "any one unit" and that would also clear it up at the cost of a single word.

Theres no rule question here

Your saying - the rule reads like A

But thats a bad way of wording A even though I understand it

Therefore does the Rule mean B

-No it means A



As to the style of writting GW are notoriously bad at technical writting

Sorry, but I totally get the ambiguity, as I read it the same as OP.

"If any friend of yours does X three times." Sure reads to me like it should be the same friend.

I find a lot of people have already looked at battle reports and explanatory video's so they know how things should work and then read the rules in the correct way. But simply looking at the rule it isn't quite clear.

But hey, not looking for rules discussion, pretty clear what the consensus is, so it's all fine with me, that's the way I'm gonna play it .

The rule is clear. If it said "a" or "the same" or anything else limiting to one unit people would try to score it multiple times. As written you could have 5 psykers doing it and still only score it once.

MorglumNecksnapper wrote:

Sorry, but I totally get the ambiguity, as I read it the same as OP.

"If any friend of yours does X three times." Sure reads to me like it should be the same friend.

I find a lot of people have already looked at battle reports and explanatory video's so they know how things should work and then read the rules in the correct way. But simply looking at the rule it isn't quite clear.

But hey, not looking for rules discussion, pretty clear what the consensus is, so it's all fine with me, that's the way I'm gonna play it .

Just to be clear

"if any unit from your army successfully completed the following psychic action 3 times during the battle"

Sounds like singular unit because it is a singular unit

You don't score it for having 3 units doing the action once.

You dont score twice if two units do it 3 times.

You score 15 if atleast one unit performs the psychic action 3 times

I think it makes sense lore wise - a single unit is conducting a time-consuming ritual. It doesn't make sense for one guy to start it off and then for another guy on the opposite side of the board to take over part of the way through,

dode74 wrote:
The rule is clear. If it said "a" or "the same" or anything else limiting to one unit people would try to score it multiple times. As written you could have 5 psykers doing it and still only score it once.

Everything about this statement is wrong. All secondaries are limited to 15 points, no matter what, so even if you could score it multiple times, it wouldn't do anything. More importantly, it isn't possible to satisfy the condition multiple times. Only one character can attempt it per turn. There's only 5 turns in a game.

There is no reason for this not to be worded in a clearer way. It's just a bad word choice if the intent is, as we all seem to agree it is written, that the same unit have to complete it all three times.

yukishiro1 wrote:


There is no reason for this not to be worded in a clearer way. It's just a bad word choice if the intent is, as we all seem to agree it is written, that the same unit have to complete it all three times.

Seems like an odd stance to take. If we all agree it would seem it's written clearly enough.

There are a lot of ways you can say the same thing. Some of them are much clearer than others. I don't think it's a weird stance to say that they way they chose - although comprehensible if read in an extremely technical way that many readers will not - is not a very good way to say something.

Consider the following:

Gain 5 victory points if the unit in question didn't fail to remain on the objective until the end of the turn.

This is also technically comprehensible, but it's a very poor way to communicate that information.

It's also terrible for people for whom English isn't a native language.

From the Grand Tournament 2020 Mission Pack FAQ v1.0

Q: Does the Psychic Ritual psychic action need to be completed by the same unit three times in order for you to score victory points for the Psychic Ritual secondary objective, or can it be completed by different units?

A: This Psychic action must must be completed three times by the same unit in order for you to score the victory points.

I see why it's worded the way it is. You could have a psyker get to the centre for turn 2, try and cast this, then get themselves killed - the "any unit from your army" part of the wording allows you to try again with a different psyker in turns 3, 4 and 5.

You could instead word it as, "score 15 VP at the end of the battle if a single PSYKER CHARACTER unit from your army successfully completed the following psychic action 3 times during the battle". But then you would have people arguing that you'd have to effectively nominate that single psyker.