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Ward might have intended it so, since (as someone else pointed out before I think) he could have just put "except Walkers" at the end of Unyielding Anvil. The same argument, though, can be made in that he didnt intend the dreadnought to be able to take that one, and just forgot to put it in. I'm still in the "no" camp, as there are three other valid rules that the Dread can use, it is in no way redundant unless you force it to be redundant (according to RAW at least).

Agreed with the No camp.

I run a Forge World Leman Russ tank company, and I know very well that vehicles cannot score, troops or otherwise.

My Leman Russes score as if they were troops because they ARE troops... so they don't score.

I would like to clarify my position once again. I know I said I was bowing out but I changed my mind...sorry!

"May claim objectives as if they were troops".

Now my understanding is that it does not make them troops. If they were then I would concede the point immediately. To me this is simply a clarification (as I think I have stated before) to show that usually only troops can score. I take it to mean that although Grand Strategy doesn't make them troops they can score in the same way. Thus they can take full advantage of this rule.

Lukus83 wrote:I would like to clarify my position once again. I know I said I was bowing out but I changed my mind...sorry!

"May claim objectives as if they were troops".

Now my understanding is that it does not make them troops. If they were then I would concede the point immediately. To me this is simply a clarification (as I think I have stated before) to show that usually only troops can score. I take it to mean that although Grand Strategy doesn't make them troops they can score in the same way. Thus they can take full advantage of this rule.

They score exactly as if they were troops. Troop vehicles don't score. It doesn't actually say anywhere that this means they score...

The only way for this to work would be if it said they score as if they were NON-VEHICLE Troops !

Okay, I rested, I feel refreshed, and I'm back. I shouldn't be, but I can't help myself. It's like a disease. Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe if I put up some pretty pictures, it might make more sense.

Initial Premise: Not all troops score. Simply describing something as claiming objectives like troops is not enough to show that the unit is inherently capable of controlling objectives for the purposes of scoring.

This is my amazing masterpiece illustrating just scoring like troops works. I call it "scoring like troops". Behold:



So anyway, the thought here is that since not all troops CAN sco...err, 'claim objectives', you have to follow the rules and restrictions on page 90 to determine whether your unit WHICH IS NOT TROOPS (but likes to pretend when they think no one is looking) can.

Please, if you can refute why page 90 shouldn't apply to units using Unyielding Anvil, please by all means do so, but don't give me this "it dunt cuz the roolbook sez it dunt" garbage. Provide page numbers and rule citations. We can do better than this people, and my ignore list doesn't need to grow larger.

Abaddon wrote:The rule says they score. Anything past that point is just bad wording by Ward, IMO.

modifers shouldn't be easily discarded.

If I told a man "I slept with your wife, five years before you met her," the modifier really changes the nature of the sentence.

GW strikes again!

Pantso wrote:The only way for this to work would be if it said they score as if they were NON-VEHICLE Troops !

Or it could have just said "becoming scoring".

In fact, I could argue that they deliberately put the modifier there simply to EXCLUDE dreadnoughts from scoring...

No one can know for sure what they intended unless they tell us through a FAQ. I'm of the belief that they'll allow them to score if they include this in the FAQ.

For rules lawyering online we have to go by what's written. In games with your friends, so long as you reach a compromise that everyone can live with, you can play however you think is fair.

I think they should score based on how it doesn't say the dreadnought becomes a troops vehicle, it becomes a vehicle that can score like a troops choice (which troops choice I don't know). So this for me makes it a elite/heavy support vehicle that can score as if it was a troop choice.

daedalus wrote:Okay, I rested, I feel refreshed, and I'm back. I shouldn't be, but I can't help myself. It's like a disease. Anyway, it occurred to me that maybe if I put up some pretty pictures, it might make more sense.

Initial Premise: Not all troops score. Simply describing something as claiming objectives like troops is not enough to show that the unit is inherently capable of controlling objectives for the purposes of scoring.

This is my amazing masterpiece illustrating just scoring like troops works. I call it "scoring like troops". Behold:



So anyway, the thought here is that since not all troops CAN sco...err, 'claim objectives', you have to follow the rules and restrictions on page 90 to determine whether your unit WHICH IS NOT TROOPS (but likes to pretend when they think no one is looking) can.

Please, if you can refute why page 90 shouldn't apply to units using Unyielding Anvil, please by all means do so, but don't give me this "it dunt cuz the roolbook sez it dunt" garbage. Provide page numbers and rule citations. We can do better than this people, and my ignore list doesn't need to grow larger.

I really appreciate the diagram. I also understand the oppositions point of view. In my opinion "as if they were troops" could mean 1 of 2 things

1. For the purposes of scoring these units follow all the rules for troops. This would include all necessary restrictions as given in the BRB.
2. Only troops may score. However if you give this special rule to a unit it allows an exception to be made where otherwise only troops can score.

And with that said I think I may be coming round to the idea that the Dreadnought doesn't score. Have had a few personal things going on and I needed something to fight...a rules discussion on Dakka is my outlet I guess.

Unit1126PLL wrote:In fact, I could argue that they deliberately put the modifier there simply to EXCLUDE dreadnoughts from scoring...

That's the only functional reason for it.

If they wanted Dreads to be scoring, they could have saved words by simply writing that the units "become scoring." Instead, they spent more space and ink saying they hold objectives as if they were Troops. The only function of those additional words is to deny Dreads the ability to hold objectives. They're otherwise just useless extra text.

I"m not sure about that, Mann. I thought so to, but then I thought about how tournaments and missions word their mission objectives.

Only allowing models to score as if they are troops only helps in missions where troops score. So, a mission in which only, say, elites could score, or where all units score but troops score double, scoring as a troop is different.

More significantly, and frustratingly, is that Grand Strategy does not make any units "scoring units." A mission that had as a secondary objective "kill all enemy scoring units" may or may not include GK units that "can claim objectives as if they were troops."

Typing it out makes me realize that doing so actually creates far more problems than simply hoping the rules for scoring units don't change dramatically in 6th edition.

the more I think about it, the more frustratingly poorly written the rule becomes.

A walker with Grand Strategy Unyielding Anvil can score as if it's a troop choice...only it can't score because it's a vehicle.

That makes no sense.

Those arguing against Noughts scoring are looking to the rulebook to clarify a specific rule written in the GK codex. In the process of clarification, however, they are making it more murky, because they are in fact saying that a walker with unyielding anvil and that has just been classified as scoring cannot score.

This isn't a Deff Dred that has been made a troop choice in the FOC. This is an elite or heavy choice that can now score as if it were a troop choice. What benefit, other than scoring, does the dreadnought receive from Unyielding Anvil? Does it alter the FOC, allowing for an additional elite or heavy to be taken? No, it doesn't. It remains an elite or heavy choice, only with the added benefit of being able to score.

It doesn't make any sense to say "it can score like a vehicle troop," because typically vehicle troops cannot score. Let me ask you this...do monstrous creatures score? Do elites score? Do heavies score? No, they do not. Unyielding anvil removes the non-scoring restriction from these unit types, and allows them to score. So we bring in walkers...and the precedent set for the other MC's, Elites and Heavy's is that they can now score, where before they could not. So those of you arguing the negative find a statement in the rulebook saying that troop choice vehicles cannot score. However, the walker was not a troop choice. It was an elite or heavy choice which was made a scoring unit through the use of Grand Strategy. Does it not say somewhere in the rulebook that MC's, elites and heavy's cannot score...or that only troops can score?

Walkers cannot score, Monstrous Creatures cannot score, elites cannot score, heavy's cannot score. Activate Unyielding Anvil, and you are allowed D3 exceptions to this general rule...so now three MC's, elites, heavy's and/or walkers may now score. The "as if they were troops" should have just been left out...because only troops can score anyhow.

Whether or not it was poorly written, or whether or not a group of people purposefully try to find a way to contradict what is written is another issue which should be debated. A walker troop choice cannot score. A walker that can score as a troop CAN score...because it would make no sense to say a walker can now score as a vehicle troop...because vehicle troops don't score. Look at what Unyielding Anvil does: it allows units to score that couldn't previously. So who is arguing that MC's can't score? GK MC's with Unyielding Anvil can. Elites and Heavies cannot score...unless they are from the GK codex and have Unyielding Anvil. So who in the world is arguing that walkers can't score? GK ones with Unyielding Anvil can.

Specific trumps General. You are trying to add a third step, in which General undercuts Specific after Specific trumps General.

Shenra wrote:
Walkers cannot score, Monstrous Creatures cannot score, elites cannot score, heavy's cannot score.

Really? Where does it say this? Nothing stops MC's from being scoring. Tervigons taken as Troops are scoring units. Unlike a Dreadnought, where it is spelt out in black and white in the ruylebook that vehicles cannot score, in spite of being troops.

Shenra wrote:A walker with Grand Strategy Unyielding Anvil can score as if it's a troop choice...only it can't score because it's a vehicle.

That makes no sense.

No...you're reading it incorrectly. The following LIST of units can benefit from Grand Strategy (etc, etc, including walkers) - where Grand Strategy can be used for one of several things. Among that list of things is to score as if they were troops.

There's no need to break down a unit by unit application of the rule when one sentence can be inclusive of them all and consistent.

Shenra wrote:Specific trumps General.

Indeed it does. But it only trumps what it actually specifically refers to.

So the general rules (only Troops can score, only scoring units ) are indeed over-ridden by the more specific rule (Unyeilding Anvil allows non-Troops units to capture objectives).

However, the specific rule within the scoring rules (vehicles can never be scoring units) is not addressed by the Grey Knight codex at all... so the rule in question has no effect on it.

So GK Dreadnoughts can not capture objectives, because vehicles can never be scoring units, and Troops have to be scoring units in order to capture objectives, and so a rule that allows given units to capture as if they were Troops will have no effect on vehicles as it over-rides the one (...only troops...) but not the other (...vehicles can't...).


The whole 'Codex trumps rulebook' or 'Specific trumps general' debate is one of the most frequently misrepresented discussions on the internet. It doesn't give you carte blanche to ignore whichever rules you please. A specific rule in a codex only over-rides those rulebook rules that it specifically addresses.

In other words, it doesn't allow non-Troops units to become Scoring, it allows non-Troops units to act like they were Troops. In most cases that means, yes, they do become scoring. But Drednaughts, being vehicles, cannot score, whether or not they are or are acting like Troops.

Exactly.

Not quite. Vehicles can score as long as they are not troops and have some special rule allowing them to score.

So what if the interpretation of the rule wasn't that they have to follow all the rules for troops scoring, but as follows:

1. Only Troops score.
2. Your dreadnought is not a Troop choice so it can't score (and couldn't even if it was because vehicles can't score).
3. Grand Strategy makes you score just like Troops choices can without making you a Troops choice.

Please correct me if I missed any steps. I would really like to see this settled. I do see the other side of the argument and it's also quite clear, but I do feel it could be read either way.

Vehicles can only score if they have a special rule saying they score. Whether they're Troops or not doesn't really matter.

Units selected for Unyielding Anvil do not become Scoring. They hold objectives as if they were Troops.

So, whatever unit you select now can hold objectives as if it were a Troops unit. In the case of any non-vehicle, non-swarm unit, this means they can hold objectives. However, if you select a Swarm or a Vehicle, "hold objective as if it were Troops" means it still can't hold objectives, any more than a Death Company Dreadnought can.

Lukus83 wrote:Not quite. Vehicles can score as long as they are not troops and have some special rule allowing them to score.

So what if the interpretation of the rule wasn't that they have to follow all the rules for troops scoring, but as follows:

1. Only Troops score.
2. Your dreadnought is not a Troop choice so it can't score (and couldn't even if it was because vehicles can't score).
3. Grand Strategy makes you score just like Troops choices can without making you a Troops choice.

Please correct me if I missed any steps. I would really like to see this settled. I do see the other side of the argument and it's also quite clear, but I do feel it could be read either way.

You didn't miss any steps, you just seem to be missing the second part of step two:

Lukus83 wrote:vehicles can't score

There is nothing in the wording of the Unyielding Anvil rule which overrides this restriction, and therefore a dreadnought can't claim objectives in any circumstance yet seen in 40k.

I still don't think I'm getting it. I'm not doing this on purpose, but I can't seem to articulate what I'm trying to show.

Will try to give a page reference to show what I'm getting at.

Page 90: Scoring units

"An Army's scoring units are all the units that come from it's Troops allowance...There are a few exceptions, however, when a unit of Troops does not count as scoring:

1. If it is a vehicle"

Right we don't have to go any further than that.

What I'm trying to show is that Troops vehicles cannot hold objectives/score unless a specific special rule allows them to. I guess both sides agree with this part.

The we move onto the next step. Unyielding Anvil allows D3 to claim objectives as if they were troops. The opposition argument is quite clear and I can see that it is definitely one way of reading the rule. My problem is that, as per my quote above, only Troops usually score in any given circumstance. Thus "as if they were Troops" could also be interpreted to mean they can claim objectives, just like Troops can because no-one else can hold objectives...or "they can claim objectives like a scoring unit". I guess it takes a little more imagination, but that was the way I read it when I first saw it.

I don't mind if I'm wrong and I will be playing the least advantageous method to myself in the future, but I still feel it could be read this way.

edited for grammar

I think you might be reading the rule by jumping ahead too much.

I think you're reading it to read "... may hold objectives as if a scoring unit." Since troops are scoring units and all that.

The problem is that not all scoring units are troops (Ravenwing and Sternguard w/ Pedro), and not all troops are scoring (deff dread, swarms, rhinos)

Now that makes sense to me. Thanks a lot Polonius.

The rulebook also says that Codex rules trump the BRB rules correct?

If the only problem is what is being written in the Codex is contradicting the BRB then the BRB yields to the Codex.

Even if they score "as if" a troops, the passive voice is on the "troop", and the subject (dreadnaught) becomes scoring. The RAW makes the dreadnaught a scoring unit, this rule contradicts the BRB, the BRB always concedes to Codex rules.

DaNewBoy wrote:The rulebook also says that Codex rules trump the BRB rules correct?

If the only problem is what is being written in the Codex is contradicting the BRB then the BRB yields to the Codex.

Even if they score "as if" a troops, the passive voice is on the "troop", and the subject (dreadnaught) becomes scoring. The RAW makes the dreadnaught a scoring unit, this rule contradicts the BRB, the BRB always concedes to Codex rules.

Way to not read the thread. First of all, it's specific>general, not Codex>BRB. Secondly, this only works if there's a conflict of rules, which there isn't. Thirdly, scoring like a troop does not mean it's scoring by default. The rule says that the Dreadnought (in this case) claims objectives as troops. Troop Dreadnoughts still do not score. The rule doesn't contradict the BRB at all, you make the Dreadnought score as if it was a troop choice. Vehicles never score, unless there's a special rule outright stating that it does.

Exactly.

There's not a conflict of rules.

One rule says: Vehicles may not claim objectives.

Another one says: [This unit] May claim objectives as if it were a troop.

One is address rules regarding vehicles scoring, and the other rules regarding troops scoring.

Compare this to the DA Ravenwing Land Speeders, which says that they "always operate as... scoring units"

That is an example of a specific rule overruling a general one. The general rule of "vehicles may not claim objectives" is countered by the specific rule of a vehicle saying it is a "scoring unit".

Also, Lukus, no where does it state that only Troops can ever score. As I stated (much) earlier in the thread, Matt Ward wrote the Space Marine codex, which gives an Elite choice the ability to score, and it doesn't throw in the extra clause of "as if it were a Troop".