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I thought 'always fight first' warlord traits where bad. But perhaps I was wrong? If my opponent makes a lot of charges in his turn, granting those units 'always fight first' is it stil my warlord who starts the fight if he has the 'always fight first' trait?

From the rules bullet points:

Starting with your opponent, alternate selecting units to
fight with.
When a unit fights, it piles in, then it makes close combat
attacks, then it consolidates.
If one player has no more units left to fight with, their
opponent then fights with their remaining units, one at
a time.
Once all units have fought, progress to the Morale phase
(pg 23).
Units that made a charge move this turn fight before all
other units.

Yes, this was an intentional change from 8th to 9th to make those abilities more useful and punish charging units less.

Ah of course! In my mind i just archived it as garbage. And I never took a GSC warlord when they where my Nid allies.

This explains a lott!

 Jidmah wrote:
Yes, this was an intentional change from 8th to 9th to make those abilities more useful and punish charging units less.

This is wrong. It is clarified in the "Rare Rules" section that amongst the 'fight first' units the players who's turn it is still gets to activate the first unit. The change in activation order is only for those who did not charge and do not have a 'fight first' ability.

Edit: relevant quote from "Rare Rules" section of BRB:

Fight First/Last
Some rules allow a unit from your army to always fight first in the Fight phase, even if they didn't make a charge move this turn. If the enemy has units that have charged, or that have similar rules, then alternate selecting units to fight with from amongst these units, starting with the player whose turn is taking place.

Scenario: Ragnar charges a Judiciar. Judiciar uses Tempormortis on Ragnar and the fight last is negated by Ragnar's fight first warlord trait. Ragnar still charged so he hits first. Yes or no?

Main rulebook, pg 362: “If a unit is under the effects of both a rule that always lets it fight first in the Fight phase, and a rule that says it cannot be selected to fight until after all other units have done so, it instead fights as if neither rule is affecting it.”

 lindsay40k wrote:
Main rulebook, pg 362: “If a unit is under the effects of both a rule that always lets it fight first in the Fight phase, and a rule that says it cannot be selected to fight until after all other units have done so, it instead fights as if neither rule is affecting it.”

If you tried to answer my question you didn't. Ragnar would have two rules to let him fight first (Warrior Born warlord trait & Charging) and one rule to force him to fight last. Does fight last negate both rules to fight first or only the other?

 Weazel wrote:
Scenario: Ragnar charges a Judiciar. Judiciar uses Tempormortis on Ragnar and the fight last is negated by Ragnar's fight first warlord trait. Ragnar still charged so he hits first. Yes or no?

Damnnnn.... that is a good question... ok .... so ,,,, here is HIWP until an FAQ


Ragnar and judicar cancel each others fight first abilities.
We are left simply with a unit with no abilities who HAS charged.
Seeing as the judicars ability no longer counts , ragnar behaves as normal.

BUT don't quote me on this one... if anyone has a better explanation or alternative logic I'd love to figure this one out.

a cancels b

It is not known if a cancels bb or reduces it to b

Hiwpi would be that be reduces to b

However from a strict RAW it isn't covered so its a role off

A side question, does Judiciar just cancel charging or actually force a charging unit to fight very last?

The codex wording of the justicar means they have to fight last. (Or st least until all of your units have fought.) Note that this wording thrumps the 'fight now' stratagem.

Justicar, whirlwind stratagem, space wolf psykick power and armour of russ all use the same wording. So these 4 rules are very strong. Maiby the necrons have something similar as well.

 Weazel wrote:
A side question, does Judiciar just cancel charging or actually force a charging unit to fight very last?

Niiai is correct. The exact wording is, "that unit is not eligible to fight this phase until after all eligible units from your army have done so". It neatly sidesteps fight first / fight last, by sidestepping them completely and relying on the eligible wording instead.

Ok ,,, so

Fight first rule + fight last rule = model fight normal
Charge + fight last = model fight last.
Charge + fight first + fight last = model fights first .

Does this seem to be the conclusion ?

Charge against "fight first" means you alternate activations, starting with the player who's turn is taking place, so, if there's only one charge, the charging unit will fight first.

Charge against "fight last" results in alternating activations, starting with the player who's turn is not taking place, so, if there's only one charge, the charging unit will figh last.

A charging unit under the effects of "fight last" against a unit with "fight first" would result in the charged unit fighting first, since the charge effect would be countered by the "fight last" debuff, and the charged unit has "fights first".

There's no indication that multiple "fight first" or "fight last" effects stack in any way, so a charging unit would not receive any benefits from another "always fight first" buff.

It's not clear how the Justiciar's ability works, since it reads "it's not elegible to fight" instead of "cannot be selected to fight". To me, it means exactly the same and just looks like typical GW inconsistency. However, the wording on the Silent King's "fight last" ability is states "cannot fight", so maybe they just want the Justiciar ability to be better than everyone else's. Different tournaments could use different rulings on it but, if we are absolutely strict, the correct interpretation would be that units affected by tempomortis always fight last.

Seizeman wrote:
Charge against "fight first" means you alternate activations, starting with the player who's turn is taking place, so, if there's only one charge, the charging unit will fight first.

Charge against "fight last" results in alternating activations, starting with the player who's turn is not taking place, so, if there's only one charge, the charging unit will figh last.

A charging unit under the effects of "fight last" against a unit with "fight first" would result in the charged unit fighting first, since the charge effect would be countered by the "fight last" debuff, and the charged unit has "fights first".

There's no indication that multiple "fight first" or "fight last" effects stack in any way, so a charging unit would not receive any benefits from another "always fight first" buff.

It's not clear how the Justiciar's ability works, since it reads "it's not elegible to fight" instead of "cannot be selected to fight". To me, it means exactly the same and just looks like typical GW inconsistency. However, the wording on the Silent King's "fight last" ability is states "cannot fight", so maybe they just want the Justiciar ability to be better than everyone else's. Different tournaments could use different rulings on it but, if we are absolutely strict, the correct interpretation would be that units affected by tempomortis always fight last.

To me this seems logical. I also agree with your approach to HIWP given the slight wording diffrence on the justiciar/new fight last abilities.
This will be me my approach until an FAQ is introduced, unless anyone else has a better interpretation to share .

We are couple months into the edition and already it's a confusing mess. Two codices released at the same time have a similar ability (Tempormortis vs Silent King) yet they couldn't manage to word them similarly. It would be most convenient if all fight last abilities worked identically and had the same wording. Better yet, it should read "Tempormortis: This unit can impose Fight Last(see rulebook p. XX) on an enemy unit within 3" of them at the beginning of the fight phase." BOOM they could actually tweak that rule in one place, the rulebook.

 Weazel wrote:
We are couple months into the edition and already it's a confusing mess. Two codices released at the same time have a similar ability (Tempormortis vs Silent King) yet they couldn't manage to word them similarly. It would be most convenient if all fight last abilities worked identically and had the same wording. Better yet, it should read "Tempormortis: This unit can impose Fight Last(see rulebook p. XX) on an enemy unit within 3" of them at the beginning of the fight phase." BOOM they could actually tweak that rule in one place, the rulebook.

You mean Special Rules, that are Universal? What a crazy concept, that could never work!

 Weazel wrote:
We are couple months into the edition and already it's a confusing mess. Two codices released at the same time have a similar ability (Tempormortis vs Silent King) yet they couldn't manage to word them similarly. It would be most convenient if all fight last abilities worked identically and had the same wording. Better yet, it should read "Tempormortis: This unit can impose Fight Last(see rulebook p. XX) on an enemy unit within 3" of them at the beginning of the fight phase." BOOM they could actually tweak that rule in one place, the rulebook.

I'm afraid I have to tell you that GW has no legal way of updating any of the rulebooks they've sold, so all this would archive is having to reference an additional book during games.

And this makes me even likely to want to field emperor's children because I can't quite wrap my head around who's fights first in all the possible combinations of chargings and continuing combats.

BaconCatBug wrote:

 Weazel wrote:
We are couple months into the edition and already it's a confusing mess. Two codices released at the same time have a similar ability (Tempormortis vs Silent King) yet they couldn't manage to word them similarly. It would be most convenient if all fight last abilities worked identically and had the same wording. Better yet, it should read "Tempormortis: This unit can impose Fight Last(see rulebook p. XX) on an enemy unit within 3" of them at the beginning of the fight phase." BOOM they could actually tweak that rule in one place, the rulebook.

You mean Special Rules, that are Universal? What a crazy concept, that could never work!

Oh I see what you did there...

Jidmah wrote:

 Weazel wrote:
We are couple months into the edition and already it's a confusing mess. Two codices released at the same time have a similar ability (Tempormortis vs Silent King) yet they couldn't manage to word them similarly. It would be most convenient if all fight last abilities worked identically and had the same wording. Better yet, it should read "Tempormortis: This unit can impose Fight Last(see rulebook p. XX) on an enemy unit within 3" of them at the beginning of the fight phase." BOOM they could actually tweak that rule in one place, the rulebook.

I'm afraid I have to tell you that GW has no legal way of updating any of the rulebooks they've sold, so all this would archive is having to reference an additional book during games.

FAQs / erratas or chapter approved or whatever are not legal ways of updating rules? Not sure if I understood what you meant.

 Weazel wrote:
FAQs / erratas or chapter approved or whatever are not legal ways of updating rules? Not sure if I understood what you meant.

My guess is sarcasm or criticism of GW sticking to physical books. Even during 8th when they released epubs they never updated the epubs. Their app is worthless. They don't seem to realise that if you offered the rules online, for free, it would translate into higher model sales.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Weazel wrote:
FAQs / erratas or chapter approved or whatever are not legal ways of updating rules? Not sure if I understood what you meant.

My guess is sarcasm or criticism of GW sticking to physical books. Even during 8th when they released epubs they never updated the epubs. Their app is worthless. They don't seem to realise that if you offered the rules online, for free, it would translate into higher model sales.

Actually they seem to update the FAQ changes into their app now. Too bad the app itself is kinda garbage...

Yeah, BCB got it right. As you have to bring a pdf reader to play anyways, spreading unit rules to a separate book is all-downside. You would just be forced to reference two books and FAQs all the time. Right now we usually put the BRB away after deployment.

Your suggestion would only have any benefit if there were fully digitalised rules where an update in one place would automatically be applied to the entire ruleset. Which would be awesome, but is currently just not the case.

 Jidmah wrote:
Yeah, BCB got it right. As you have to bring a pdf reader to play anyways, spreading unit rules to a separate book is all-downside. You would just be forced to reference two books and FAQs all the time. Right now we usually put the BRB away after deployment.

Your suggestion would only have any benefit if there were fully digitalised rules where an update in one place would automatically be applied to the entire ruleset. Which would be awesome, but is currently just not the case.

Well even if the rules are only on the datasheets it shouldn't be too much to ask to have "identical" rules be worded you know, identically. But seems like different teams within GW work in their own bubbles.

I agree. They also seem to lack software tooling to support them with handling their rules mess, other companies like WotC have software dedicated to support them with such issues.

Wait so now I'm super confused.

Does the Judiciar ignore the Rare Rules stuff because of his "eligibility" wording?

So a Slaanesh Daemon fighting the Armor of Russ goes "normally" (whatever that means, I guess first on her enemy's turn and second on her own turn, whether or not she charged), but fighting the Judiciar goes last (because his wording is different) or?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait so now I'm super confused.

Does the Judiciar ignore the Rare Rules stuff because of his "eligibility" wording?

So a Slaanesh Daemon fighting the Armor of Russ goes "normally" (whatever that means, I guess first on her enemy's turn and second on her own turn, whether or not she charged), but fighting the Judiciar goes last (because his wording is different) or?

The Judiciar doesn't make you "fight last" so yes, it ignores the Rare Rules stuff. The rules are worded very specifically to prevent you selecting the model targeted by his ability until all other eligible models have fought. The effect is to make the model fight last in pretty much all circumstances. As with any rule that deviates from the more standard wording used for other abilities, it's likely 50/50 as to whether GW understands the distinction or not.

Slipspace wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait so now I'm super confused.

Does the Judiciar ignore the Rare Rules stuff because of his "eligibility" wording?

So a Slaanesh Daemon fighting the Armor of Russ goes "normally" (whatever that means, I guess first on her enemy's turn and second on her own turn, whether or not she charged), but fighting the Judiciar goes last (because his wording is different) or?

The Judiciar doesn't make you "fight last" so yes, it ignores the Rare Rules stuff. The rules are worded very specifically to prevent you selecting the model targeted by his ability until all other eligible models have fought. The effect is to make the model fight last in pretty much all circumstances. As with any rule that deviates from the more standard wording used for other abilities, it's likely 50/50 as to whether GW understands the distinction or not.

So, RAW it bypasses the Rare Rules because it's a rarer rule, but RAI is ambiguous. Nice, thanks GW.

No the rare rule actually says

Similarly, some rules say that a certain unit cannot be selected to fight in the Fight phase until after all other eligible units have done so.

pg 90 CA GT RARE RULES.

This wording is consistent with the wording of the Judiciar.

Armor of Russ and the new Tempests spell have also been updated to match the wording of the Judiciar.

There is no such thing as "always fights last" anymore except for the title of the section in the rare rules section.

The wording of all these rules are consistent and therefor fights first v.s. fights last effects cancel each other in all relevant circumstances.