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I've been reading over this rule quite a few times and I've heard a fair few interpretations of it, and they all seem to make sense to a degree. So I wanted to break it down and see if any of you have heard of a specific ruling on this (or something very similar) that may have been made in the past or spelled out somewhere that I missed.

The Join The Hunt Strat for the new Kroot Hunting Pack is a 2CP Battle Tactic that reads "When: Any Phase. Target: One Kroot Infantry of Kroot Hounds unit from your army that was just destroyed. You can use this stratagem on that unit even though it was just destroyed. Effect: Add a new unit to your army identical to the destroyed unit, in strategic reserves, at its starting strength. Restrictions: This Stratagem cannot be used to return destroyed Character units to attached units.

The combination in question is with the War Shaper's ability War Leader which reads: "Once per battle round, one unit from your army with this ability can be targeted with a stratagem for 0CP, even if another unit from your army has already been targeted with that stratagem this phase.

Okay, so the idea is that when the unit dies, you use the free strat from the War Shaper to bring it back, but it's not quite so simple. First off, here's how I originally interpreted the rule:

a) After a unit is killed the characters are treated as a sperate unit for VP purposes, so they would still be considered one unit. Therefore the strat can be used, but would only return the Shaper, not the entire unit.

However, it was pointed out to me that if the ruling on that was constant, then they would not need to include the line in the original strat that characters could not be returned. If it were a baseline rule, it would not need to be specified in the strat itself. My response was the it was likely for clarity's sake, but I can see their point. Their take was that:

b) They are still a single unit at the point the stratagem is used as it is when they are just destroyed, but not yet separated and that they would all come back. Were it not specifying that the character does not and that this was put in to prevent an infinite respawn loop, that is why that bit was put in.

There is also the opinion that it doesn't work at all:

c) Once the War Shaper is dead, the War Leader ability is no longer a thing, so it cannot use the free strat as while the strat can target upon death, the ability does not specify that it works that way as well.

However, there is also a fourth kind of combination opinion I saw on it as well that is kinda relation / kind of an expansion on them, though even this had variations:

d1) So long as the Shaper is alive, you can use it on the unit as it dies, but not after or when the Shaper dies.
d2) You still can't use it because when the unit dies, it's no longer a part of the unit with the Shaper and thus can't benefit from the free strat.

So yeah, kinda a lot to parse on a simple combo. Since I'll be playing a lot of Kroot this edition and this ability will be rather impactful in games if usable, I'd like to make sure I'm using it correctly. What are all your thoughts?

I don't think you're able to use the Free Strat ability on this.

It's AFTER the unit is destroyed. So after the point the Shaper detaches.

I would definitely say that if the Shaper is dead then you can't benefit from his cost reduction abilitiy. It could be argued that he should be able to resurrect his former squad mates, but it is ambiguous and the cleanest solution would be not to allow this.

Yeah, my understanding is that you can't interrupt attacks with a stratagem, so you'd have to wait until the attacker is done. If the Shaper is dead, he clearly can't use the ability. Even if he survives, he's now all by himself can pass the free stratagem to the unit that just died.

Having reviewed the rules on Attached Characters, I think none of the proposed interpretations are correct.

When you attach a Leader unit to a Bodyguard unit, those two units became an Attached Unit "for the duration of the battle". Even after both the Leader and the Bodyguard have been destroyed, they remain one unit. This is why the rules explicitly state the exception for them counting as multiple units when destroyed. Thus, when you use Join the Hunt on the destroyed Attached Unit there is the rules rider that the Leader does not respawn with the unit. Without that exception, they would respawn as the Attached unit is one unit for the duration of the battle.

The question regarding War Shaper's ability War Leader ability is a bit more murky. You normally cannot use rules from destroyed units unless that rule specifically says you can. However, the destroyed unit does have this ability and Join the Hunt allowed you to target the destroyed unit. I am therefore inclined to say it is legal to use the ability to bring the unit back for 0 CP. Not that big if a deal since it will come back without the War Shaper, so it is a one time trick.

However, this might not be RAI.

 alextroy wrote:
Having reviewed the rules on Attached Characters, I think none of the proposed interpretations are correct.

When you attach a Leader unit to a Bodyguard unit, those two units became an Attached Unit "for the duration of the battle". Even after both the Leader and the Bodyguard have been destroyed, they remain one unit. This is why the rules explicitly state the exception for them counting as multiple units when destroyed. Thus, when you use Join the Hunt on the destroyed Attached Unit there is the rules rider that the Leader does not respawn with the unit. Without that exception, they would respawn as the Attached unit is one unit for the duration of the battle.

The question regarding War Shaper's ability War Leader ability is a bit more murky. You normally cannot use rules from destroyed units unless that rule specifically says you can. However, the destroyed unit does have this ability and Join the Hunt allowed you to target the destroyed unit. I am therefore inclined to say it is legal to use the ability to bring the unit back for 0 CP. Not that big if a deal since it will come back without the War Shaper, so it is a one time trick.

However, this might not be RAI.

That's a really interesting interpretation of those rules and it makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

 alextroy wrote:
Having reviewed the rules on Attached Characters, I think none of the proposed interpretations are correct.

When you attach a Leader unit to a Bodyguard unit, those two units became an Attached Unit "for the duration of the battle". Even after both the Leader and the Bodyguard have been destroyed, they remain one unit. This is why the rules explicitly state the exception for them counting as multiple units when destroyed. Thus, when you use Join the Hunt on the destroyed Attached Unit there is the rules rider that the Leader does not respawn with the unit. Without that exception, they would respawn as the Attached unit is one unit for the duration of the battle.

The question regarding War Shaper's ability War Leader ability is a bit more murky. You normally cannot use rules from destroyed units unless that rule specifically says you can. However, the destroyed unit does have this ability and Join the Hunt allowed you to target the destroyed unit. I am therefore inclined to say it is legal to use the ability to bring the unit back for 0 CP. Not that big if a deal since it will come back without the War Shaper, so it is a one time trick.

However, this might not be RAI.

I don't think that's right.

If the Warshaper is alive at the end, it's detached from the Bodyguard unit at that point, as per the rules on Leaders.
If the Warshaper is dead at the end, one could argue it never detached from the squad, but the Shaper is also dead and therefore can't use the ability.

Given the wonkiness of this interaction, I'd ask your TO or opponent how they'd rule it before the game even starts.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Having reviewed the rules on Attached Characters, I think none of the proposed interpretations are correct.

When you attach a Leader unit to a Bodyguard unit, those two units became an Attached Unit "for the duration of the battle". Even after both the Leader and the Bodyguard have been destroyed, they remain one unit. This is why the rules explicitly state the exception for them counting as multiple units when destroyed. Thus, when you use Join the Hunt on the destroyed Attached Unit there is the rules rider that the Leader does not respawn with the unit. Without that exception, they would respawn as the Attached unit is one unit for the duration of the battle.

The question regarding War Shaper's ability War Leader ability is a bit more murky. You normally cannot use rules from destroyed units unless that rule specifically says you can. However, the destroyed unit does have this ability and Join the Hunt allowed you to target the destroyed unit. I am therefore inclined to say it is legal to use the ability to bring the unit back for 0 CP. Not that big if a deal since it will come back without the War Shaper, so it is a one time trick.

However, this might not be RAI.

I don't think that's right.

If the Warshaper is alive at the end, it's detached from the Bodyguard unit at that point, as per the rules on Leaders.
If the Warshaper is dead at the end, one could argue it never detached from the squad, but the Shaper is also dead and therefore can't use the ability.

Given the wonkiness of this interaction, I'd ask your TO or opponent how they'd rule it before the game even starts.

I think that Alextroy is onto something here. My original interpretation was the same as yours, however thinking about it more, if a unit's abilities stopped working the instant that they died, they any of the revival abilities, like those on Guilliman wouldn't work either, because the unit would die, then the ability would no longer exist, and they wouldn't get to come back.

The War Shaper's ability lets you target the unit with a strat for 0cp, however since most strats can't target a dead unit, it doesn't matter that this ability is always on. Since the strat makes a specific exception to target a unit that has died, I think the implication is that it is possible. (Still needs an FAQ for sure though )