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Can you use the GK stratagem Heed the Prognosticars on a character that is not on the table, but is in reserves?

Thanks

Rolling Thunder wrote:
Can you use the GK stratagem Heed the Prognosticars on a character that is not on the table, but is in reserves?

Thanks

No

Rolling Thunder wrote:
Can you use the GK stratagem Heed the Prognosticars on a character that is not on the table, but is in reserves?

Thanks

You're going to get people arguing both that you can't (mainly based off the way GW ruled on some similar situations in previous editions) and people arguing that it works fine (essentially RAW with what we have in 8th edition so far).

It would be really nice if GW would make a ruling on ONE of these types of situations (where an ability has no specific range and so can theoretically be chosen on a model waiting arrive onto the table just fine), just so we know what they're thinking.

IMHO, I go with the RAW and say that the stratagem allows you to pick any GREY KNIGHTS CHARACTER, so its fine to pick one that is waiting in a teleporarium chamber as there is no rule saying that this isn't okay.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Rolling Thunder wrote:
Can you use the GK stratagem Heed the Prognosticars on a character that is not on the table, but is in reserves?

Thanks

No

You're typically a hard-core RAW advocate, so what basis are you saying 'no' here? The rules say you can pick any GREY KNIGHTS CHARACTER to apply this stratagem to. There is nothing indicating that choosing a model in a teleportarium chamber isn't allowed.

I am inclined to agree with you, Yak, but of course it would be great if there were better guidance from GW. I often find that obtuse rules from previous editions confuse a lot of us veteran gamers in this edition.

 yakface wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

Rolling Thunder wrote:
Can you use the GK stratagem Heed the Prognosticars on a character that is not on the table, but is in reserves?

Thanks

No

You're typically a hard-core RAW advocate, so what basis are you saying 'no' here? The rules say you can pick any GREY KNIGHTS CHARACTER to apply this stratagem to. There is nothing indicating that choosing a model in a teleportarium chamber isn't allowed.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
And my usual response of "The rules also don't explicitly disallow me to [REDACTED] a puppy for a re-roll." The rules don't give you the ability to choose a model not on the battlefield, much like the rules for shooting don't let you target a character who isn't on the field or embarked on a transport. I admit I should have elaborated on that rather than just say one word.

This is not one of those cases. The rules allow a player to choose any GREY KNIGHT CHARACTER as the subject for the stratagem. That allows you to pick any GREY KNIGHT CHARACTER. So the rules would specifically have to disallow Grey Knight Characters that are off the table from being valid subjects for what you're saying to be RAW.

This is NOT the case of doing something the rules don't give you permission to do (like 'the rules don't disallow me from f-ing a puppy for a re-roll). This is following the permission of a rule as written, which means the rules would have to then prohibit choosing a GK character in a teleportarium chamber to make it something you cannot do.

Aha, I knew I had seen something that reinforced my point (somewhat).

The CSM Relic "The Murder Sword" has the following special ability.

Page 162 Codex: Heretic Astartes wrote:Abilities: At the start of the first battle round but before the first turn has begun, you must nominate one enemy CHARACTER to be the target of the bearer of the Murder Sword (this can be a character that is not yet set up on the battlefield). Remember to tell your opponent which character you have nominated.[...]

I would contend that, because it explicitly calls out that "this can be a character that is not yet set up on the battlefield", while the Grey Knights Stratagem does not, this shows that there is a need to specify that you can select a character not on the battlefield, because if you could anyway there would be no need to explicitly allow it.

I'd say that without permission to affect someone in a teleportato in space, all the game's rules affect models on the table only, so a common sense 'no' applies.

So then, according to that same logic, you are not able to give any relics to your characters via "Armory of Titan," since that happens before the battle (and any models are on the table).

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I'd say that without permission to affect someone in a teleportato in space, all the game's rules affect models on the table only, so a common sense 'no' applies.

Requiring the rules to explicitly say it can effect models in a teleportarium is effectively making a rule that rules don't effect teleportarium unless they say so. We don't have a basis for that either.

Regarding the Murder Sword, some FnP abilities say explicitly that they work for Mortal Wounds while some don''t yet we allow all of them to be taken against Mortal Wounds. In light of that, I'd say the wording on the Murder Sword is irrelevant.

RAW it says pick a GK character so you can pick a GK character. It doesn't say pick a GK character on the board.

How are you targeting a model not on the board?

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
How are you targeting a model not on the board?

Who's 'targeting' anything? It's not shooting.

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
How are you targeting a model not on the board?

Because the Stratagem simply says pick a GK Character? Where in RAW does it say being in the teleportarium means you're not in the game? Where in RAW does it say targets of Stratagems ca?n only be on the board?

Audustum wrote:

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
How are you targeting a model not on the board?

Because the Stratagem simply says pick a GK Character? Where in RAW does it say being in the teleportarium means you're not in the game? Where in RAW does it say targets of Stratagems ca?n only be on the board?

Calm yourself, it's a valid question. Honestly, this is one of those situations where people are going to argue strongly one way or the other, and I would be on the side saying it's nonsense to use abilities on models that are not currently on the table. Are there any other examples of this currently in the game? I honestly don't know. Sounds like a question for GW, but I can see a lot of in-game situations where people are going to argue and just roll off to see whose logic to apply.

Considering you can use stratagems to purchase relics for models before the game even begins, why is it nonsense to use a stratagem to give a model off the board an invulnerable save?

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Retrogamer0001 wrote:
How are you targeting a model not on the board?

Because the Stratagem simply says pick a GK Character? Where in RAW does it say being in the teleportarium means you're not in the game? Where in RAW does it say targets of Stratagems ca?n only be on the board?

Calm yourself, it's a valid question. Honestly, this is one of those situations where people are going to argue strongly one way or the other, and I would be on the side saying it's nonsense to use abilities on models that are not currently on the table. Are there any other examples of this currently in the game? I honestly don't know. Sounds like a question for GW, but I can see a lot of in-game situations where people are going to argue and just roll off to see whose logic to apply.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize rhetorical questions weren't calm. I think you're misreading tone.

Ghaz actually raises another valid point. We can also use Stratagems to Target dice before the game has even begun as well.

 Ghaz wrote:
Considering you can use stratagems to purchase relics for models before the game even begins, why is it nonsense to use a stratagem to give a model off the board an invulnerable save?

Because before the game and during the game are two different things.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
Aha, I knew I had seen something that reinforced my point (somewhat).

The CSM Relic "The Murder Sword" has the following special ability.

Page 162 Codex: Heretic Astartes wrote:Abilities: At the start of the first battle round but before the first turn has begun, you must nominate one enemy CHARACTER to be the target of the bearer of the Murder Sword (this can be a character that is not yet set up on the battlefield). Remember to tell your opponent which character you have nominated.[...]

I would contend that, because it explicitly calls out that "this can be a character that is not yet set up on the battlefield", while the Grey Knights Stratagem does not, this shows that there is a need to specify that you can select a character not on the battlefield, because if you could anyway there would be no need to explicitly allow it.

Two things about this:


1) By the rules of general grammar and sentence structure, items in parenthesis are supposed to be only extra clarification to what the sentence already says (you're supposed to be able to ignore the bits in parenthesis and the sentence should still say fundamentally the same thing...see what I did here?). By that standard, putting that note in parenthesis should signal that allowing a character off the table to be picked is the way its generally supposed to be played, and they just decided to include the bit in parenthesis to make it doubly-clear to the reader.

HOWEVER, I will say that GW regularly disregards this basic rule of putting only extraneous items within parenthesis, so that alone isn't any great indicator.


2) More important is this: just because this one rule does specify that it can be used on a model off the table in no way suddenly changes the basics of logic and how the rest of the game rules are constructed. GW has failed in 8th edition to put any kind of rule in place stating that models which are set up off the table cannot be the subject of abilities/rules that do not require a range and/or visibility.

Which means this particular rule (the one in parenthesis) simply states what is already RAW.


As to 'why' GW might bother to include a rule that is essentially unneeded? The most obvious reason is likely that the person writing that particular rule was under the mistaken impression that the general RAW don't allow models off the table to be affected by rules that don't require a range and/or visibility and therefore wrote an unneeded addendum to address an issue that doesn't exist.

But regardless of 'why' they added it, the fact that one rule has such a mention does not suddenly invalidate the basic logic of the rules that we do have, which in the case of the Grey Knight stratagem allows a player to pick any GK CHARACTER and nothing in the rules forbids that from being a model set up in a teleportarium chamber.