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Fragile wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
The RAI on this is pretty obvious, as is the RAW. I would allow it, and expect an faq clearing it up by saying "except adding more zombies", but nobody should expect a TO to have RAI trump a very clear RAW.

Prove RAI is obvious. It seems clear to me that you can have a large blob of crappy infantry or a small blob of good infantry. Its game balance, so your "RAI is obvious" is a silly statement.

"It's game balance"???? This is 6th ed. Did you forget allies and double FOC? Flyers without adequate flyer defense? There is no balance in this edition at this time. That is my opinion.

The point is the rule is clearly written, but yet everyone is jumping on the bandwagon saying its wrong. It not that people are interpreting it differently than others which is usually the case. They are saying that they know GW's intent and that rule is written wrong.

"That cant be right because I want a bunch of zombies!!"

Fragile wrote:
The point is the rule is clearly written, but yet everyone is jumping on the bandwagon saying its wrong. It not that people are interpreting it differently than others which is usually the case. They are saying that they know GW's intent and that rule is written wrong.

"That cant be right because I want a bunch of zombies!!"

And this is the reason we are even discussing this right now. Everyone thinks they know what GW and Phil Kelly intended. I find everyone saying, "BUT THAT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED IT" ludicrous, because the rule is clear. Its not ambiguous at all.

Fragile wrote:
The point is the rule is clearly written, but yet everyone is jumping on the bandwagon saying its wrong. It not that people are interpreting it differently than others which is usually the case. They are saying that they know GW's intent and that rule is written wrong.

"That cant be right because I want a bunch of zombies!!"

Problem is, the rest of the entry is not written very well. Says they are armed with just just 1 close combat weapon, but then goes on to say that any ranged weapons they have they club people with.. does that mean they have a CCW and a pistol which gives them another attack in melee? It says you nominate the cultists you want to be zombies, which means they are really already purchased, so you have 35 cultists, you nominate.. now they're 10. We KNOW what RAW is, that's not an argument.. but a large amount of players have expressed that they think the RAI is that they can take up to 35 just like normal cultists and any equipment they have is just counts as a single CCW. I've already talked with everyone in our local club and they all agree with me, so luckily I don't have to worry about it.

 Deuce11 wrote:

Fragile wrote:

 schadenfreude wrote:
The RAI on this is pretty obvious, as is the RAW. I would allow it, and expect an faq clearing it up by saying "except adding more zombies", but nobody should expect a TO to have RAI trump a very clear RAW.

Prove RAI is obvious. It seems clear to me that you can have a large blob of crappy infantry or a small blob of good infantry. Its game balance, so your "RAI is obvious" is a silly statement.

"It's game balance"???? This is 6th ed. Did you forget allies and double FOC? Flyers without adequate flyer defense? There is no balance in this edition at this time. That is my opinion.

6th ed is way better balanced than 5th, and there is a much larger # of competitive armies.

I stand by my point that rai is obvious. Cultists can be cheap dakka with 1a in cc, cheap cc with 2a and poor dakka, or fearless fnp punching bags with 1a, s&p, and no dakka. Looks balanced to me, but like I said earlier outside a friendly game raw trumps rai.

Fragile wrote:

 alienvalentine wrote:
Clearly an oversight on the Kelly's part. There's no way that that's the way he intended it.

And an oversight on everyone who playtested it ??

Nick Bayton, John Bracken, Stefano Carlini, Paul Hickey, Matt Hilton, Andy Keddie, Trevor Larkin, Benjamin Mason, Martin Morrin, Gary Shaw??

Yep. Oversight. They can't possibly foresee every which way that the rules lawyer will twist every possible phrase. You cannot tell me with a straight face that they wanted only 10 man squads of zombies.

Everyone: Start emailing them at gamefaqs@games-workshop.co.uk Ask them if they seriously meant for Typhus to only bring 10 zombies per squad. I've already sent an email.

 Red Comet wrote:

Fragile wrote:
The point is the rule is clearly written, but yet everyone is jumping on the bandwagon saying its wrong. It not that people are interpreting it differently than others which is usually the case. They are saying that they know GW's intent and that rule is written wrong.

"That cant be right because I want a bunch of zombies!!"

And this is the reason we are even discussing this right now. Everyone thinks they know what GW and Phil Kelly intended. I find everyone saying, "BUT THAT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED IT" ludicrous, because the rule is clear. Its not ambiguous at all.

No one is even saying that .. We understand that the rule is written clearly, and not "ambiguous" as you seem to keep mentioning but missing the point here..

There is no dispute about the rule's current clearness, however it IS very likely an oversight, and folks are hoping that GW aknowledges it as a mistake, and it gets FAQed. Things don't HAVE to be written unclearly to be an oversight ..

Ludicrous? Time to lighten up and stop reading so much into what people are saying >.>

While I agree that RAW they cannot have more than 10, I can see it being an over site. The entry mentions a cultist unit as a desperate thing. Then it says that cultists can't take options. It is possible that this was meant as models can't take options but the unit can.

However, by RAW a chaos cultist unit=plague zombies=chaos cultists which cannot take options. However the unit is called chaos cultists with an "s" and the model is a chaos cultist so the model can take an option like a gun... but guns can't be firedand are used as CCW so they can't shoot anyway. No matter how you swing it, RAW cannot shoot, cannot be larger than 10.

However my belief is (with no hard evidence) RAI is upgrade to 35.

I don't suppose getting a unit of cultists, increasing the size to X (where X is greater than 10) and THEN upgrading to zombies is an option?

 kronk wrote:

Fragile wrote:

 alienvalentine wrote:
Clearly an oversight on the Kelly's part. There's no way that that's the way he intended it.

And an oversight on everyone who playtested it ??

Nick Bayton, John Bracken, Stefano Carlini, Paul Hickey, Matt Hilton, Andy Keddie, Trevor Larkin, Benjamin Mason, Martin Morrin, Gary Shaw??

Yep. Oversight. They can't possibly foresee every which way that the rules lawyer will twist every possible phrase. You cannot tell me with a straight face that they wanted only 10 man squads of zombies.

Everyone: Start emailing them at gamefaqs@games-workshop.co.uk Ask them if they seriously meant for Typhus to only bring 10 zombies per squad. I've already sent an email.

A reasonable post as always, and I'll be sure to do as you suggested.

 undertow wrote:
I don't suppose getting a unit of cultists, increasing the size to X (where X is greater than 10) and THEN upgrading to zombies is an option?

My thoughts exactly...

 undertow wrote:
I don't suppose getting a unit of cultists, increasing the size to X (where X is greater than 10) and THEN upgrading to zombies is an option?

That's kind of how you have to do it. It says that if you have Typhus, you may nominate any amount of cultists to be zombies. They way that it words it (that they still have their previous equipment,but cannot use it) it seems like they meant to say zombie cultists cannot USE any equipment they have and count as only as having 1 CCW.

We'll see though, not too much point arguing over the internet about it. Kronk had the best idea of just letting them know that there IS a question about it.

I dont think kelly or the play testers considered increasing the squad size as an option or upgrade in terms of RAW. (I honestly do not think GW even thinks in terms of RAW. thats why we have so many FAQs.) They thought I make 35 zombies and just dont buy upgrades and boom zombie horde.

besides, what good is a zombie horde if it doesnt have numbers on its side?

Are we getting into the debate of when the unit is created compared to when it is nominated for special rules... god it's the original shrike debate in new form!

*gets popcorn*

TFGs are strong this week.....
)
The rule is clear. Any chaos cultists units may be plague zombies. END SENTENCE.
Then it says no where that units cannot have upgrades.
NEXT SENTENCE.
Cultists "possessive singular" ie. A single cultist in a unit of them. Cannot be upgraded. Ie they cannot have model upgrades.
To say it is otherwise is ignoring the English language.

This is the internet. Isn't ignoring English a requirement for entry?

Also I think you're arguing that the unit can be upgraded but models cannot. This is incorrect. This entry uses transitive properties.

Chaos cultists unit becomes plague zombies. Plague zombies are chaos cultists. Chaos cultists cannot take options.

 liturgies of blood wrote:
6th ed has tried to remove tarpits as much as it could

As a counter argument to this statement, they did remove Fearless wounds.

The entry states that they cannot PURCHASE Options, which means you nominate while making the army list. This could lead one to believe that nominating them as zombies is done before you can actually purchase options.

Is making them zombies considered an option? OMG we're not allowed to have zombies at all !!!

 Prodromus wrote:
Seriously?
Seriously?!!

I can't believe that anyone wound think that this is intended and not just an oversight..... and then to scold people for thinking taking 35 man zombie packs is "unintended".

How fething petty can you get?

Plague Zombies is not a Free FNP and Fearless just because you take Typhus.
Plague Zombies can't shoot there guns and can't run, it's clearly a trade off that for no reason should limit numbers to 10.

The Idea that Zombies only come in squads of 10 is F'ing ludicrous.

Chaos Cultist -
"Hey Typhus, how come the Zombies get to be in organized squads and we don't?"

Typhus -
"Idk lol"

You forgot they also get SnP without a heavy wepaon tto shoot at full BS and as a result can never run. Awesome trade off for FnP that can be nulled with S6+ and fearless that you could get cheaper. 35 strong cultists would last longer and get into CC faster, I tend to lean towards the idea that squad size isnt intended to be included in the 'no options' rule for Zombies. If it is, then there is no point to taking zombies and you might as well just use the Apoc rules because they are better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Swara wrote:

Fragile wrote:
The point is the rule is clearly written, but yet everyone is jumping on the bandwagon saying its wrong. It not that people are interpreting it differently than others which is usually the case. They are saying that they know GW's intent and that rule is written wrong.

"That cant be right because I want a bunch of zombies!!"

Problem is, the rest of the entry is not written very well. Says they are armed with just just 1 close combat weapon, but then goes on to say that any ranged weapons they have they club people with.. does that mean they have a CCW and a pistol which gives them another attack in melee? It says you nominate the cultists you want to be zombies, which means they are really already purchased, so you have 35 cultists, you nominate.. now they're 10. We KNOW what RAW is, that's not an argument.. but a large amount of players have expressed that they think the RAI is that they can take up to 35 just like normal cultists and any equipment they have is just counts as a single CCW. I've already talked with everyone in our local club and they all agree with me, so luckily I don't have to worry about it.

Even with a CCW and a rifle they use it as a CCW so they'd still get a bonus attack under that presumption.

Honestly, the easiest way to solve this is to look at a similar situation that has been FAQed before, namely the one found in the Orks FAQ.

Q. If a Boyz mob exchange sluggas and choppas with shootas, can a Nob take a power klaw or a big choppa? (p100)

A. You may upgrade the Nob to have a big choppa or power klaw before you choose to upgrade the mob to have shootas, in which case the Nob is not affected by the mob’s weapon swap (as he no longer has a choppa to swap), does not receive a shoota and keeps his slugga and power klaw/big choppa instead.

In other words if you add more models to the unit before Typhus is added to the list, they are grandfathered in as the unit has been established before Typhus was added. In other words you could even buy ranged weapons (if you pay the points) before Typhus is added, but he does away with ranged weapons so you could spend points for nothing as well as buy more units. It's all in the timing of when things are done. If you buy 25 models for the unit then add Typhus you haven't bought upgrades since typhus was put in.

 Lone Dragoon wrote:
Honestly, the easiest way to solve this is to look at a similar situation that has been FAQed before, namely the one found in the Orks FAQ.

Q. If a Boyz mob exchange sluggas and choppas with shootas, can a Nob take a power klaw or a big choppa? (p100)

A. You may upgrade the Nob to have a big choppa or power klaw before you choose to upgrade the mob to have shootas, in which case the Nob is not affected by the mob’s weapon swap (as he no longer has a choppa to swap), does not receive a shoota and keeps his slugga and power klaw/big choppa instead.

In other words if you add more models to the unit before Typhus is added to the list, they are grandfathered in as the unit has been established before Typhus was added. In other words you could even buy ranged weapons (if you pay the points) before Typhus is added, but he does away with ranged weapons so you could spend points for nothing as well as buy more units. It's all in the timing of when things are done. If you buy 25 models for the unit then add Typhus you haven't bought upgrades since typhus was put in.

This is EXACTLY how I was thinking about it, I wasn't completely sure of any examples where this was used, and I was under that impression as well, if you want to gear the whole unit up, then make them zombies, it maybe a waste of points, but you CAN.

Order of Operations Loophole FTW!

 Grey Templar wrote:
Order of Operations Loophole FTW!

And backed by GW no less.

 Beerfiend wrote:

 Red Comet wrote:

Fragile wrote:
The point is the rule is clearly written, but yet everyone is jumping on the bandwagon saying its wrong. It not that people are interpreting it differently than others which is usually the case. They are saying that they know GW's intent and that rule is written wrong.

"That cant be right because I want a bunch of zombies!!"

And this is the reason we are even discussing this right now. Everyone thinks they know what GW and Phil Kelly intended. I find everyone saying, "BUT THAT'S NOT HOW GW INTENDED IT" ludicrous, because the rule is clear. Its not ambiguous at all.

No one is even saying that .. We understand that the rule is written clearly, and not "ambiguous" as you seem to keep mentioning but missing the point here..

There is no dispute about the rule's current clearness, however it IS very likely an oversight, and folks are hoping that GW aknowledges it as a mistake, and it gets FAQed. Things don't HAVE to be written unclearly to be an oversight ..

Ludicrous? Time to lighten up and stop reading so much into what people are saying >.>

Your post is hilarious because you agree with what I say, but then say I'm looking too much into what people are saying.

if you want to gear the whole unit up, then make them zombies, it maybe a waste of points, but you CAN.
-Lord Magnus

Since lots of people in this thread have brought up GW's "intent", it's important to note that since none of us can read minds, the best evidence we have of GW's intent is the language of the rule itself. If GW had intended for players to be able to completely ignore the rule and take whatever options they wanted, they wouldn't have included language in the rule that says "Plague Zombies ... cannot purchase options". (p. 61).

 Lone Dragoon wrote:
Honestly, the easiest way to solve this is to look at a similar situation that has been FAQed before, namely the one found in the Orks FAQ.

Q. If a Boyz mob exchange sluggas and choppas with shootas, can a Nob take a power klaw or a big choppa? (p100)

A. You may upgrade the Nob to have a big choppa or power klaw before you choose to upgrade the mob to have shootas, in which case the Nob is not affected by the mob’s weapon swap (as he no longer has a choppa to swap), does not receive a shoota and keeps his slugga and power klaw/big choppa instead.

In other words if you add more models to the unit before Typhus is added to the list, they are grandfathered in as the unit has been established before Typhus was added. In other words you could even buy ranged weapons (if you pay the points) before Typhus is added, but he does away with ranged weapons so you could spend points for nothing as well as buy more units. It's all in the timing of when things are done. If you buy 25 models for the unit then add Typhus you haven't bought upgrades since typhus was put in.

The situations are barely even comparable, let alone being able to directly apply across an entirely different ruling like you are trying to do.

The key difference is that Plague Zombies are SPECIFICALLY FORBIDDEN from taking upgrades, that means the order doesn't matter, if you have plague zombies, and they have upgrades, then you have broken the rules for that unit. The reason you can still give the Nob a Klaw is that you aren't breaking any rule, you have legally swapped his choppa for a klaw, and then legally traded every choppa/slugga in the squad for a shoota, he just didn't have a choppa/slugga of his own to trade, further, no change of models has occurred in such a way as to make a previously selected option no longer valid.

A more accurate FAQ for you to be reading would be this one from the Ork FAQs:

Q: Can a Painboy in a unit of Nobs take the ‘eavy armour, bosspole,
Waaagh! Banner or ammo runt upgrades? (p98)
A: No.

This is because all those options are granted to Nobs, not to Painboys, it doesn't matter that you upgrade to a Painboy from a Nob, and that you can take options in any order, you can't give your Nob a Bosspole, then upgrade him to a Painboy and claim he still has it, because it's not a valid option for Painboys, and as soon as he becomes a Painboy, your army becomes invalid for having taken an illegal combination of options.

Similarly, nothing is an option for Zombies, so as soon as your Cultists become Zombies, if they have any options they took previously, they must lose them or else your army list is invalid.

The RAW is abundantly clear and this "order of operations loophole" doesn't actually exist at all.

 GiantKiller wrote:

if you want to gear the whole unit up, then make them zombies, it maybe a waste of points, but you CAN.
-Lord Magnus

Since lots of people in this thread have brought up GW's "intent", it's important to note that since none of us can read minds, the best evidence we have of GW's intent is the language of the rule itself. If GW had intended for players to be able to completely ignore the rule and take whatever options they wanted, they wouldn't have included language in the rule that says "Plague Zombies ... cannot purchase options". (p. 61).

It's actually not ignoring the rule, it's an order of operations loophole that GW itself opened up. We cannot judge their intent into the CSM codex until they FAQ it one way or another. They have already ruled on a similar choice, and they have said that the Nob is able to exchange his Choppa for a Klaw before every model giving up their Choppa/Slugga for a shoota. If a Cultist unit buys the upgrades and then Typhus is added in, did Plague zombies buy the upgrades or did the Cultists buy the upgrades? The answer would be, the cultists did. While it is a useless endeavor to buy the weapons when they are cultists because the zombies cannot use them, it is in the end not the zombies that bought the upgrades but the cultists. Either way I feel when GW has already given a ruling to a similar situation it's most fair to apply the ruling from the similar situation to the current one. Besides, would it be so bad to see Plague zombies running around with the MoN? They still die quite a bit faster than marines, and even Necron immortals and warriors.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Drunkspleen wrote:

 Lone Dragoon wrote:
Honestly, the easiest way to solve this is to look at a similar situation that has been FAQed before, namely the one found in the Orks FAQ.

Q. If a Boyz mob exchange sluggas and choppas with shootas, can a Nob take a power klaw or a big choppa? (p100)

A. You may upgrade the Nob to have a big choppa or power klaw before you choose to upgrade the mob to have shootas, in which case the Nob is not affected by the mob’s weapon swap (as he no longer has a choppa to swap), does not receive a shoota and keeps his slugga and power klaw/big choppa instead.

In other words if you add more models to the unit before Typhus is added to the list, they are grandfathered in as the unit has been established before Typhus was added. In other words you could even buy ranged weapons (if you pay the points) before Typhus is added, but he does away with ranged weapons so you could spend points for nothing as well as buy more units. It's all in the timing of when things are done. If you buy 25 models for the unit then add Typhus you haven't bought upgrades since typhus was put in.

The situations are barely even comparable, let alone being able to directly apply across an entirely different ruling like you are trying to do.

The key difference is that Plague Zombies are SPECIFICALLY FORBIDDEN from taking upgrades, that means the order doesn't matter, if you have plague zombies, and they have upgrades, then you have broken the rules for that unit. The reason you can still give the Nob a Klaw is that you aren't breaking any rule, you have legally swapped his choppa for a klaw, and then legally traded every choppa/slugga in the squad for a shoota, he just didn't have a choppa/slugga of his own to trade, further, no change of models has occurred in such a way as to make a previously selected option no longer valid.

The problem with saying it doesn't break any rules is that it actually does. If said nob trades his choppa for a klaw, and then the choice is made to have all the models give up their sluggas/choppas he is unable to make the switch, but the way the equipment reads if one does it they all do it. Here's the wording, "The entire unit may replace their sluggas and choppas..." Notice it says the entire unit? Not the entire unit except those that have given up their choppa. The nob simply replaces his choppa for the klaw, which actually means because he replaces it, if the unit changes weapons he replaces his choppa for a klaw. In other words if we were going by strictest RAW it would mean that in all instances the word choppa is replaced by power klaw. It doesn't work like that, instead they gave the Nob the opportunity to exchange his choppa for a klaw before something happens. This is the same for the Plague Zombies, if the unit is purchased during construction before Typhus is, they are able to alter their numbers because when that change is made no such limitation exists on them. Typhus's rules say he gives them rules, but the only thing it takes away is the ranged weapons of the unit. It just says that they may not choose options, but the choice was made before that rule comes into effect. In other words Typhus's rule does say it is retroactive, only that once they become Plague Zombies they cannot purchase options. It does not say they lose any options already purchased.

All of this rationalization people are coming up with for allowing options to be purchased before they become zombies is almost as ridiculous as the people who argued that there was an order of operations for Master crafting a weapon and that decided if it was a Unique Weapon or not.

 Lone Dragoon wrote:
The problem with saying it doesn't break any rules is that it actually does. If said nob trades his choppa for a klaw, and then the choice is made to have all the models give up their sluggas/choppas he is unable to make the switch, but the way the equipment reads if one does it they all do it. Here's the wording, "The entire unit may replace their sluggas and choppas..." Notice it says the entire unit? Not the entire unit except those that have given up their choppa. The nob simply replaces his choppa for the klaw, which actually means because he replaces it, if the unit changes weapons he replaces his choppa for a klaw. In other words if we were going by strictest RAW it would mean that in all instances the word choppa is replaced by power klaw. It doesn't work like that, instead they gave the Nob the opportunity to exchange his choppa for a klaw before something happens. This is the same for the Plague Zombies, if the unit is purchased during construction before Typhus is, they are able to alter their numbers because when that change is made no such limitation exists on them. Typhus's rules say he gives them rules, but the only thing it takes away is the ranged weapons of the unit. It just says that they may not choose options, but the choice was made before that rule comes into effect. In other words Typhus's rule does say it is retroactive, only that once they become Plague Zombies they cannot purchase options. It does not say they lose any options already purchased.

You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding the FAQ which is strange given how recently you quoted it in this very thread, and the fact that it is a verbose and justified response.

"You may upgrade the Nob to have a big choppa or power klaw before you choose to upgrade the mob to have shootas, in which case the Nob is not affected by the mob’s weapon swap (as he no longer has a choppa to swap), does not receive a shoota and keeps his slugga and power klaw/big choppa instead."

it makes it abundantly clear, options can be taken in any order (which I'm not disputing) and once the Nob no longer has a choppa and slugga because of options, he is not affected by taking further options that replace a slugga and choppa. He doesn't break the rules, he follows them to the T and trades his 0 instances of "slugga and choppa" for 0 instances of "shoota", he has thus met the requirements for the trade, without it having any effect on his wargear due to the wargear's prior state.

It's entirely different to taking wargear then going on to later be forbidden from taking that wargear, which as I have demonstrated previously, has a history of not being allowed regardless of the order you are doing so in.