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 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I think you are missing Yakface's point, blaktoof. If you want to build an army with nothing but units that have the keyword <Death Guard> maybe for fluff purposes , then you are correct. You couldn't take many other units in your army (like any units that require other gods than Nurgle as keywords, for instance or any unit not in that dumb box). But the point is, you are the one doing the limiting here, not the rules because you are the one making the decisions you don't want any units not labeled <Death Guard > for whatever reason. There really is no gaming benefit (other than army wide synergy) for doing so at this time. And there certainly is no requirement that you have to.

There would be a benefit if you can't just add a keyword and make a unit Elite unit a Troops unit. You instead decided the benefit can be gotten without adhering to the restrictions, and then state there is no benefit.

I would like to also point out the FAQ said you can't name a <Regiment> and a <Chapter> the same thing and gain benefits. It doesn't explicitly say that you can't anywhere, but it is implied just like this case.

Here is what their FAQ actually said: "In the example above, ‘Blood Angels’ is a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes and ‘Death Guard’ is a Legion of the Heretic Astartes – neither of which are Regiments of the Astra Militarum"

So is it your belief that Death Guard isn't a Legion of the Heretic Astartes, so therefore couldn't be put in place of <Legion> in a HA list? Because for their FAQ to apply in this case, that is what you would have to believe. Of course, the FAQ explicitly says the opposite.

Let's break it down this way:
Can a HA army take units labeled Death Guard? Yes
Can a HA army take plague marines? Yes
What are the rules for when a plague marine unit is labeled Death Guard? They become troops.

The actual restriction is I cannot take a plague marine unit labeled Death Guard and have it be an elites choice. The rules prohibit this. They must be troops.

Please tell me where the loophole or leap of logic or any exception to this takes place. Please cite your sources.

I don't have the rules in front of me, but is it actually the case that all Thousand Sons Rubric Marines must be Troops (same question for the other special marines, in case some of their army lists are particularly restrictive)? Can't I give my Elite Noise Marines the "Emperor's Children" keyword? Troops Noise Marines are just an entirely separate unit, which happen to be identical to Elite Noise Marines except that instead of having a variable faction keyword they're always EC.

Dionysodorus wrote:
I don't have the rules in front of me, but is it actually the case that all Thousand Sons Rubric Marines must be Troops (same question for the other special marines, in case some of their army lists are particularly restrictive)? Can't I give my Elite Noise Marines the "Emperor's Children" keyword? Troops Noise Marines are just an entirely separate unit, which happen to be identical to Elite Noise Marines except that instead of having a variable faction keyword they're always EC.

If you give your Noise Marines the EC Legion keyword (which is totally possible because the EC are an HA legion), then they become troops under the rule Masters of the Kakophoni. You can't have EC Noise Marines as an elite.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
What I am referencing are not fluff points, they are actually RAW restrictions as quoted from the rulebook.

You are applying the general keyword system, and ignoring the specific restrictions called out in the chaos book.

You CAN take a death guard legion unit in a normal heretic astartes army.

However if you are taking a DEATH GUARD ARMY- you have to follow those restrictions.

So you cannot take death guard as troops for example outside of a death guard army- as that is a rule of "DEATH GUARD ARMY RULES" Is the army a death guard army or a heretic astartes army? If it is a deathguard army it is adhereing to those rules, one of those rules is a benefit- death guard plague marines are troops.

Claiming that you can take a death guard army, and take units outside of the list on p.57 is directly going against the rules on that page, as well as page 10 which tells you "Not all Heretic Astartes units are available to all chaos armies" It doesn't reference legions, it references Armies, as in all the units in all the detachments in your army. If you are taking units not on that list you are not a death guard army, and do not have the death guard army rules.

You contradict your own point about the "restrictions". You say I can take A Death Guard Legion unit in a normal heretic asartes army, right? Now read the rule listed under "lords of the Plague Host" where it says: "the battlefield role of Death Guard plague marines is troops instead of elites." How can I take Death Guard Plague marines (which you said I could do) in a normal heretic asartes army and not have them be troops? The rules don't tell me I can, therefore I can't. They have to be troops in that case.

So I guess the point it boils down to is why would you want to take a "DEATH GUARD ARMY", limiting yourself in all of the ways you mention? The answer is either for your own personal fluff purposes (because evidently those words mean something together in that order to you) or because you want army wide synergy where all of the Death Guard characters can buff all of the units in your army. That's it. Personally, I would take a Chaos army so I could take all the Death Guard Plague Marines as troops and characters to buff them and berserkers as troops and characters to buff them any forgeworld units I want. But that's just me.

Because if you take anything other then DG units in your detachment you don't have a DG detachment, you have a Chaos army. A Chaos army does not benefit from the Death Guard Army Rules as it is not a Death Guard Army. So if you bring DG Plague Marines they are Elites, not troops.

That's so weird because that's clearly not what it says. You can take a Chaos army and have Thousand Sons Rubric troops and Death Guard Plague Marine troops. You fixed a quote earlier in the thread to add "Death Guard Army Rules" but where in the actual rules does it say anything applies to a Death Guard-only detachment? The rules don't say what you want them to, it's very clear.

DEATH GUARD ARMY RULES is a heading. Not a rule.
It just lists some dataslates and some generic rules for DG. But I can definitely see the argument.

I don't /think/ "army" is defined anywhere as a specific term. It's used a lot generically tho.

Detachment rules are pretty clear tho, Each unit in a detachment can have a legion, but there's no restriction on mixing legions within detachments.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

blaktoof wrote:
What I am referencing are not fluff points, they are actually RAW restrictions as quoted from the rulebook.

You are applying the general keyword system, and ignoring the specific restrictions called out in the chaos book.

You CAN take a death guard legion unit in a normal heretic astartes army.

However if you are taking a DEATH GUARD ARMY- you have to follow those restrictions.

So you cannot take death guard as troops for example outside of a death guard army- as that is a rule of "DEATH GUARD ARMY RULES" Is the army a death guard army or a heretic astartes army? If it is a deathguard army it is adhereing to those rules, one of those rules is a benefit- death guard plague marines are troops.

Claiming that you can take a death guard army, and take units outside of the list on p.57 is directly going against the rules on that page, as well as page 10 which tells you "Not all Heretic Astartes units are available to all chaos armies" It doesn't reference legions, it references Armies, as in all the units in all the detachments in your army. If you are taking units not on that list you are not a death guard army, and do not have the death guard army rules.

You contradict your own point about the "restrictions". You say I can take A Death Guard Legion unit in a normal heretic asartes army, right? Now read the rule listed under "lords of the Plague Host" where it says: "the battlefield role of Death Guard plague marines is troops instead of elites." How can I take Death Guard Plague marines (which you said I could do) in a normal heretic asartes army and not have them be troops? The rules don't tell me I can, therefore I can't. They have to be troops in that case.

So I guess the point it boils down to is why would you want to take a "DEATH GUARD ARMY", limiting yourself in all of the ways you mention? The answer is either for your own personal fluff purposes (because evidently those words mean something together in that order to you) or because you want army wide synergy where all of the Death Guard characters can buff all of the units in your army. That's it. Personally, I would take a Chaos army so I could take all the Death Guard Plague Marines as troops and characters to buff them and berserkers as troops and characters to buff them any forgeworld units I want. But that's just me.

Because if you take anything other then DG units in your detachment you don't have a DG detachment, you have a Chaos army. A Chaos army does not benefit from the Death Guard Army Rules as it is not a Death Guard Army. So if you bring DG Plague Marines they are Elites, not troops.

Please cite anywhere in any GW publication that says what you just did. Not implied, actually says. Direct quotations.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Here is what their FAQ actually said: "In the example above, ‘Blood Angels’ is a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes and ‘Death Guard’ is a Legion of the Heretic Astartes – neither of which are Regiments of the Astra Militarum"

So is it your belief that Death Guard isn't a Legion of the Heretic Astartes, so therefore couldn't be put in place of <Legion> in a HA list? Because for their FAQ to apply in this case, that is what you would have to believe. Of course, the FAQ explicitly says the opposite.

Let's break it down this way:
Can a HA army take units labeled Death Guard? Yes
Can a HA army take plague marines? Yes
What are the rules for when a plague marine unit is labeled Death Guard In a Death Guard Army? They become troops.
Is every unit in my Heretic Astartes army Death Guard? No
Then I do not receive the benefits of Death Guard rules, as such my PM are Elites not Troops

The actual restriction is I cannot take a plague marine unit labeled Death Guard and have it be an elites choice. The rules prohibit this. They must be troops.

Please tell me where the loophole or leap of logic or any exception to this takes place. Please cite your sources.

Your flawed logic is in red. You simply stop thinking when you get to where you want to be.

This is one long Strawman. I mentioned the FAQ because you are using the logic that they specifically refute. Just because they do not explicitly say you need an all DG army to gain the benefits of the "Death Guard Army Rules" does not mean that you don't it is implied in the title of the page. Just like it is implied that <Chapter> and <Regiment> can't ever be the same because they are different on a fundamental level.

Again you keep saying "sources" when GW has already said they did not say some things explicitly, they heavily implied them.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Here is what their FAQ actually said: "In the example above, ‘Blood Angels’ is a Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes and ‘Death Guard’ is a Legion of the Heretic Astartes – neither of which are Regiments of the Astra Militarum"

So is it your belief that Death Guard isn't a Legion of the Heretic Astartes, so therefore couldn't be put in place of <Legion> in a HA list? Because for their FAQ to apply in this case, that is what you would have to believe. Of course, the FAQ explicitly says the opposite.

Let's break it down this way:
Can a HA army take units labeled Death Guard? Yes
Can a HA army take plague marines? Yes
What are the rules for when a plague marine unit is labeled Death Guard In a Death Guard Army? They become troops.
Is every unit in my Heretic Astartes army Death Guard? No
Then I do not receive the benefits of Death Guard rules,l as such my PM are Elites not Troops

The actual restriction is I cannot take a plague marine unit labeled Death Guard and have it be an elites choice. The rules prohibit this. They must be troops.

Please tell me where the loophole or leap of logic or any exception to this takes place. Please cite your sources.

Your flawed logic is in red. You simply stop thinking when you get to where you want to be.

This is one long Strawman. I mentioned the FAQ because you are using the logic that they specifically refute. Just because they do not explicitly say you need an all DG army to gain the benefits of the "Death Guard Army Rules" does not mean that you don't it is implied in the title of the page. Just like it is implied that <Chapter> and <Regiment> can't ever be the same because they are different on a fundamental level.

Again you keep saying "sources" when GW has already said they did not say some things explicitly, they heavily implied them.

GW is saying Regiment=\= Chapter in that FAQ. Not Legion=\=Legion. A Legion is fundamentally the same as a Legion. (My god, I cannot believe I actually had to type that).
So you are basing your entire argument on how you interpret what GW may or may not be implying. I am basing my entire argument on what is actually written in the rules. Glad we cleared that up.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Please cite anywhere in any GW publication that says what you just did. Not implied, actually says. Direct quotations.

The Restrictions for Detachments all same the same thing, "All units in this detachment must be the same FACTION"

Under Matched play "All detachments in an Army must have the SAME FACTION"

So your faction is determined by the units in the army not whatever you say.

No, you pick a faction keyword that all the units have in common. That can be Chaos, allowing you to take any combination of Legions in the same detachment.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Please cite anywhere in any GW publication that says what you just did. Not implied, actually says. Direct quotations.

The Restrictions for Detachments all same the same thing, "All units in this detachment must be the same FACTION"

Under Matched play "All detachments in an Army must have the SAME FACTION"

So your faction is determined by the units in the army not whatever you say.

Which does nothing to defend the claims you are making.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
GW is saying Regiment=\= Chapter in that FAQ. Not Legion=\=Legion. A Legion is fundamentally the same as a Legion. (My god, I cannot believe I actually had to type that).
So you are basing your entire argument on how you interpret what GW may or may not be implying. I am basing my entire argument on what is actually written in the rules. Glad we cleared that up.

Again, for the 3rd time now I AM NOT ARGUING THAT LEGION =/= LEGION. I AM SAYING GW HAS ALREADY SAID SOME RULES ARE IMPLIED. Which means we need to infer some rules. Like if they put "Death Guard Army Rules" at the top of the page. That implies that Death Guard has its own set of rules for armies made of entire Death Guard units. One of those rules is that PM become troops choices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Please cite anywhere in any GW publication that says what you just did. Not implied, actually says. Direct quotations.

The Restrictions for Detachments all same the same thing, "All units in this detachment must be the same FACTION"

Under Matched play "All detachments in an Army must have the SAME FACTION"

So your faction is determined by the units in the army not whatever you say.

Which does nothing to defend the claims you are making.

Why not? You cant just assert that it does not you have to make an argument.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Thommy H wrote:
No, you pick a faction keyword that all the units have in common. That can be Chaos, allowing you to take any combination of Legions in the same detachment.

Yes, but in doing so you lose any benefits you might gain from having the other key words, Because while your PM have the DG keyword, they are using the CHAOS keyword, which makes them Chaos PM not DG PM

I cannot make an argument against rules that you are adding to the rulebook. I'll take the rules that GW actually wrote over what you (and it seems like only you) are inferring from them. But keep on fighting the good fight!

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I'll take the rules that GW actually wrote over what you (and it seems like only you) are inferring from them.

You do that play the game however you want.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I'll take the rules that GW actually wrote over what you (and it seems like only you) are inferring from them.

You do that play the game however you want.

I'll play it how GW wrote the rules.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I'll take the rules that GW actually wrote over what you (and it seems like only you) are inferring from them.

You do that play the game however you want.

I'll play it how GW wrote the rules.

Okay Enjoy your Blood Angels Guard Regiment with your Blood Angels SM Chapter then.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
I'll take the rules that GW actually wrote over what you (and it seems like only you) are inferring from them.

You do that play the game however you want.

I'll play it how GW wrote the rules.

Okay Enjoy your Blood Angels Guard Regiment with your Blood Angels SM Chapter then.

I would if I played an imperial army and if GW allowed it, but since I don't and GW doesn't, I won't. Your putting words in my mouth doesn't serve you any better than you putting words in GW's rules.

To come back to the Legion =/= Legion thing. That's not really the point.
It's <X> army =/= army. So a Deathguard army would not be the same as a Blood Angels army.

That is a legit point. The problem is that this isn't really formalized anywhere and they kind of use the term "army" rather nilly willy. <Legion> and friends is also NOT formalized. You can insert anything you want there.
The intent from the designers has been made clear for the bracketed keywords but just from reading the rules it's not clear what is a valid choice.
In this case you could absolutely read a purpose into the heading being what it is. I don't think that's the case here but I can totally see the argument.

If you say you are using a blood angels army or a death guard army, you opponent will have a pretty good idea what to expect. So it's a term that is actually being used colloquially.
A death guard army is a thing in that sense. It's also not hard to imagine that one would expect a death guard army to consist of models with the death guard keyword.

I don't necessarily agree with him, but if you stop long enough to take this possibility into consideration, then indeed plaguemarines would only be troops in an army where every model contains the DG keyword, since the rules on that page would only apply to such an army. You could still take DG plague marines in an chaos army but they would count as elites.
I really don't see the problem with that train of thought, but to be clear, I don't think that's the actual intent.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:

Thommy H wrote:
No, you pick a faction keyword that all the units have in common. That can be Chaos, allowing you to take any combination of Legions in the same detachment.

Yes, but in doing so you lose any benefits you might gain from having the other key words, Because while your PM have the DG keyword, they are using the CHAOS keyword, which makes them Chaos PM not DG PM

What? You don't lose your other faction keywords when you pick one for your detachment. Do you think that if I put my Adepta Sororitas in an Imperium detachment alongside an Inquisitor, they can't use any abilities that affect Adepta Sororitas? Like, does Celestine's Saintly Blessings ability not work on her Sisters because I brought along Greyfax?

There's no rule that tells you to drop a keyword from a unit. A Death Guard unit is a Death Guard unit no matter what faction its detachment has. That's the whole point of having multiple faction keywords.

I totally understand his train of thought and can see where he is coming from, but the problem in this case is there is no actual language in the rules that defends the end result he is claiming. It all relies on intent that he thinks GW is implying, which is open to the eye of the beholder (as your reading of the intent illustrates because you have the exact opposite reading of it than he does).

There is rule support. But it depends on how much weight you put on the title of their rules section. Taken literally, it is rules for a death guard army, so an army of deathguard, ie all sharing the deathguard keyword. There is nothing in the BRB backing that up, but you could take the title at face value in which case it stands for itself. Hence his line about "what army? an army of deathguard." That doesn't really need more backing. It's still ambigous, but then GW is the king of ambiguous rules so eh.

I think it's not so far fetched that it wouldn't deserve a place on a faq even when I'm pretty certain what the answer will be.

Thommy H wrote:
It's possibly worth pointing out that with the new detachments, an Elites choice changing to Troops isn't actually a very big deal. Even without this rule, you could take different cult units as compulsory choices in a Vanguard Detachment anyway.

I was thinking the same thing. I mean, besides filling the Troops slot, is there a point to troops? Of course, I haven't read every Index yet so I am still learning the new Edition, but it looks like Troops are just a cheaper, fillable slot. If you used Vanguard Detachments, you wouldn't even need troops in your army at all.

Troops are needed for the detachments that give a greater number of CPs.

 puma713 wrote:

Thommy H wrote:
It's possibly worth pointing out that with the new detachments, an Elites choice changing to Troops isn't actually a very big deal. Even without this rule, you could take different cult units as compulsory choices in a Vanguard Detachment anyway.

I was thinking the same thing. I mean, besides filling the Troops slot, is there a point to troops? Of course, I haven't read every Index yet so I am still learning the new Edition, but it looks like Troops are just a cheaper, fillable slot. If you used Vanguard Detachments, you wouldn't even need troops in your army at all.

It isn't really important in that sense, correct (other than possibly having an easier time getting more command points for detatchments), but it is important because it affects other rules interpretations. For example, following the logic that Thousand Son Sorcerer uses above would mean Thyphus or poxwalkers or tzaangors wouldn't be able to be fielded by Chaos keyword armies because their rules don't exist in the Chaos rules, only in the rules under their respective armies, which is pants on head crazy.

 Roknar wrote:
There is rule support. But it depends on how much weight you put on the title of their rules section. Taken literally, it is rules for a death guard army, so an army of deathguard, ie all sharing the deathguard keyword. There is nothing in the BRB backing that up, but you could take the title at face value in which case it stands for itself. Hence his line about "what army? an army of deathguard." That doesn't really need more backing. It's still ambigous, but then GW is the king of ambiguous rules so eh.

I think it's not so far fetched that it wouldn't deserve a place on a faq even when I'm pretty certain what the answer will be.

Only if you look at the title of the section without reading what the actual rules say below it. Because none of them suggest you have to have any army ONLY containing that legion keyword to get the one tiny benefit (of moving your cult unit to troops).

And all we have to do is look at the Genestealer Cult to see how GW handles writing rules when they want to limit an army to have specific faction keywords. They aren't strangely ambiguous about it.

I want to know what these magically Death Guard army spec rules are?

Because all I see are some rules for units that have Death Guard <legion> key word.. not any army/detachment wide rules

Okay, I think I may have found where some of this confusion is coming from. In the Death Guard Faction Focus published on the Warhammer Community site, Frankie makes this claim, "Furthermore, in an all Death Guard Detachment, Plague Marines are Troops – which can help you unlock more Command Points with a Battalion detachment."

Now Frankie isn't a rules writer, nor does he work for GW, but presumably GW read the article before publishing it. It still isn't the way the rules are written in the books, but it might be where some of the confusion is stemming from.

Here is the link: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/23/warhammer-40000-faction-focus-death-guard/

 Slinky wrote:
Troops are needed for the detachments that give a greater number of CPs.

Right, which pales in comparison to the years and years of troop-centered army building. I'm not complaining, its just something for an old 40K vet to get used to.

 yakface wrote:

 ClassicCarraway wrote:
Remember, in order to field a Khorne Daemonkin army, the ONLY way to do that in 8th is to use the world eaters keyword on Berserkers. Same goes for the 1000 Sons Daemonkin-style build from the campaign books. I dare say it is completely intentional to be allowed to just use the keyword for the cult legions in order to unlock them as troops.

What? There is no Khorne Daemonkin in 8th, nor are there any campaign books.

In 8th edition the actual rules allow you pick any keyword to build your army around (such as 'CHAOS') and then you're free to pick any legion keyword for any of your Heretic Astartes units that you want. If you take the 'real' legions for each of the cult units, then they count as troops units.

Its in the rules. There is nothing saying you have to take ONLY World Eaters legion units in your army in order to get Bezerkers that are troops. The rules just do not say that.

I believe you misunderstood the side I was on for this debate. GW stated any army in 7th was supported in 8th. In order for that to be true, I would have to have the ability to make a Khorne Daemonkin-style army, which allows daemons and Berserkers as troops. Thus, I could take Berserkers with the World Eaters keyword in a detachment that has units without the World Eater keyword and they would still be troops, using just the Chaos and Khorne as my relevant keywords. This allowance is the only way to make such an army that we were assured was still viable.