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Ok, after the last deamon FAQ i think that we all have questions open about this, so let's put them on a thread.

Topic: Can i use stratagems on units that are not from the same book of the stratagem?

Rulebook and FAQ do not allow this, and state so in every book which could have cross applicability (SM, CSM, Daemons, Tyranids...)

They all have this text (or equivalent) at the start of the stratagem section:

CHAOS SPACE MARINE UNITS
In the rules described in this section we often
refer to ‘Chaos Space Marine units’. This is
shorthand for any unit that has one of the
following Faction keywords: <LEGION>,
BLACK LEGION, WORD BEARERS, IRON
WARRIORS, ALPHA LEGION, NIGHT
LORDS, WORLD EATERS, EMPEROR’S
CHILDREN, FALLEN or RED CORSAIRS. A
Chaos Space Marine Detachment is therefore
one which only includes units with one of
these keywords.
Note that the Death Guard and Thousand
Sons Legions deviate significantly in terms of
organisation and therefore cannot make use
of any of the rules or abilities listed in this
section; instead they have bespoke rules and
abilities detailed in their own codexes.

So, if someone were to ask "Can i use tide of traitors from the stratagem section of the CSM codex on my death guard cultists?" The obvious answer would be "No, because Death Guard models are explicitly called out being unable to use any rules from that section"

Everything clear and everyone happy right?

Now meet this FAQ from the Death Guard Codex:

Q: Is it possible to use a Stratagem from Codex: Chaos Space
Marines to target a unit from Codex: Death Guard? For
example, can I use the Tide of Traitors Stratagem on a unit of
Cultists from a Death Guard Detachment if I have an Alpha
Legion Detachment and a Death Guard Detachment in a single
Battle-forged army?
A: Yes – if you have access to a Stratagem because you
have an appropriate Detachment, it can be used on
any permitted target: they do not need to be from
that Detachment. In your example, the Alpha Legion
Detachment gives access to the Chaos Space Marine
Stratagems, and Tide of Traitors can be used on any
Chaos Cultists – this would include any Chaos Cultists
from the Death Guard Detachment.


Which is telling us exactly the opposite of what multiple sources are stating.

The question is about cross faction applicability of stratagems.
The first part of the answer is ok, it is telling us that stratagems can be used across detachments. Fine.

The statement "Tide of Traitors can be used on any Chaos Cultists" is were this gets weird. Tide of traitors can be used on any CSM Chaos Cultist, where CSM is clearly defined as NOT including Death Guard.


So i think there are 2 questions here:

1) Is that simply a mistake by a rule's writer that forgot that the CSM stratagems are not appliable to snowflake CSM?
2) Can a FAQ rule against an existing rule? Isn't that errata territory?

1) No, the FAQ writer was reinforcing RaW.

2) Has happens all the time. Index FAQ Pask Orders for example, or the Red Grail FAQ. And now Chaos Daemons.

FAQs and errata are kinda interchangeable at GW. Getting hug up on definitions of each kind of document is pointless, as the GW ones overlap. Both include clarifications and amendments and carry the weight of the rules.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
1) No, the FAQ writer was reinforcing RaW.

2) Has happens all the time. Index FAQ Pask Orders for example, or the Red Grail FAQ. And now Chaos Daemons.

Disagree, but want to hear some more opinions before contesting it.

Also, maybe the Daemons has a ruling for balance reasons? I know players love patterns and consistency, but this is the bespoke rules edition. So why shouldn't CSM Strats work on Death Guard and Daemons ones not work on others if that's what GW have decided? No USR exists to cause conflict.

The way I see it, stratagems once unlocked can be used by any unit to which the restrictions match. There aren't particularly many that work outside of the codex but there are a few.

The daemon faq was a sloppy way of saying "please consider all instances of DAEMON in the stratagems section as faction DAEMON"

I can answer this:

1. It is not a mistake. The stratagems in CSM do not actually use 'Chaos Space marines' (I know shocker right?) but rather use HERETIC ASTARTES. Death guard actually have this Faction keyword and therefore CAN actually use them.
The chaos cultist one is actually just calling out any unit with 'chaos cultist' which is singling out a specific unit, which death guard also have. That's where the interchangeability with death guard comes in.

2. They are not interfering with each other, if anything it is reinforcing the statement, because in this Example HERETIC ASTARTES is being used for the stratagems.

Also, the only reason this is now popping up, is because DAEMON is such a common keyword among CHAOS, so of course people would get confused when their mixing up the faction keyword with normal keywords.

Also, look up other codexes, you will notice the stratagems only apply to FACTION KEYWORDS and singled out units. I looked through all my codexes i have and it is very consistent

Yes I agree with that. Just wish it was written down anywhere in the rules.
That does make the most sense and explain why daemons needed clarification (as possibly the only keyword which is commonly a faction keyword and a normal keyword)

 BaconCatBug wrote:
1) No, the FAQ writer was reinforcing RaW.

2) Has happens all the time. Index FAQ Pask Orders for example, or the Red Grail FAQ. And now Chaos Daemons.

We disagree on point 1 obviously, i don't see it as being neither RaW nor RaI, but that would be a sterile discussion. Instead i would point out that both the Pask and Grail examples your brought, were clarifications of how those rules worked in a particular situation, indeed adding to the rule in the end.
In this case we are talking about deleting a whole rule, unintentionally so if i may had, because the books that didn't have that rule were instead faqed to add it back.

I bring you this example:

Power "P" targets the nearest valid model withing 18" of the caster.

"Valid" is an unclear definition, so a FAQ comes out:

Q - My caster is in front of grot at a distance of 6" he doesn't see, a Culexus at distance 12" and another grot at 18". What would be the target of power "P"?

A - The grot at distance 6" is not visibile and is therefore not a valid target. The nearest valid target is the Culexus and suffers the effects from "P".

Would this FAQ remove the Culexus immunity to powers?

mchammadad wrote:
I can answer this:

1. It is not a mistake. The stratagems in CSM do not actually use 'Chaos Space marines' (I know shocker right?) but rather use HERETIC ASTARTES. Death guard actually have this Faction keyword and therefore CAN actually use them.
The chaos cultist one is actually just calling out any unit with 'chaos cultist' which is singling out a specific unit, which death guard also have. That's where the interchangeability with death guard comes in.

It's not the part about keywords i'm concerned about, but this one:

Note that the Death Guard and Thousand
Sons Legions deviate significantly in terms of
organisation and therefore cannot make use
of any of the rules or abilities listed in this
section; instead they have bespoke rules and
abilities detailed in their own codexes.

Do you not think that it would be a case of "Death guard using an ability from this section" ?

(The one counter example is the daemon forge stratagem, which very frustratingly is chaos space marines only, but death guard players still argue they can use it. )


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:

It's not the part about keywords i'm concerned about, but this one:

Note that the Death Guard and Thousand
Sons Legions deviate significantly in terms of
organisation and therefore cannot make use
of any of the rules or abilities listed in this
section; instead they have bespoke rules and
abilities detailed in their own codexes.

Do you not think that it would be a case of "Death guard using an ability from this section" ?

That was my interpretation too, but the Death Guard faq clearly renders that interpretation void.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
(The one counter example is the daemon forge stratagem, which very frustratingly is chaos space marines only, but death guard players still argue they can use it. )


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spoletta wrote:

It's not the part about keywords i'm concerned about, but this one:

Note that the Death Guard and Thousand
Sons Legions deviate significantly in terms of
organisation and therefore cannot make use
of any of the rules or abilities listed in this
section; instead they have bespoke rules and
abilities detailed in their own codexes.

Do you not think that it would be a case of "Death guard using an ability from this section" ?

That was my interpretation too, but the Death Guard faq clearly renders that interpretation void.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Another counter example is Soul Sacrifice.

This is a chaos daemons stratagem which targets a CHAOS CHARACTER.
RAW this should absolutely be able to be used by non faction daemon units, but the wording of the daemon faq prevents this.

If i remember correct, Stratagems are actually not abilities because they fall under their own rules (Unlike abilities which are sort of clarrified in aura's ) Instead they are treated as 'tactics' which do not fall under abilities at all. But rather represent army strategies

Damn. Quoted before my edit. Did not spot the faq only applies to daemon keyworded stratagems.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
Yes I agree with that. Just wish it was written down anywhere in the rules.
That does make the most sense and explain why daemons needed clarification (as possibly the only keyword which is commonly a faction keyword and a normal keyword)

This right there is why C:CD & C:CSM is a pretty unique situation and not the same as C: DG & C:CSM interactions.

GW mixed Faction "Daemons" and "Daemons" keywords up, the author of the C:CD stratagems was obviously thinking of the Faction "Daemons" keyword (proof: They changed it in the FAQ/Errata) instead of the regular "Daemons" keyword, and he assumed that 'daemonic' units in another codex wouldn't be Faction "Daemons", just regular "Daemons".

Not great, but well, gak happens. At least they're trying to fix it ASAP, and everyone got a good laugh out of the Horrors - but really, we know what the Datasheet should look like and how stuff is supposed to work now.

mchammadad wrote:
, so of course people would get confused when their mixing up the faction keyword with normal keywords.

Which are after game starts functionally identical with each other...As per rulebook.

Except for chaos daemons for reasons.

yea..... i think they didnt think that rule through. My best guess is that they would probably errata that. Or at least add a clause to stratagems that goes 'stratagems belonging to certain factions only work on units that have the faction keyword to that faction'

I think it's going to be we literally have to wait for a specific FAQ each time a codex comes out to tell us exactly which way this codex is meant to be interpreted, because honestly the only interpretation that's at all consistent currently relies on faction keywords explicitly being different from normal keywords, which contradicts fairly straightforward RAW in the main book. Which is really annoying.

I really dislike not even being able to determine the intent behind rules.

Alright this is my opinion on it or rather how I am interpreting it.

Let's say we have the following

Detachment a
Cultists a
Oblit a

Detatchment b
Cultists b
Death guard b

Let's assume they all take nurgal and deathguard

Now if I tried to use a strat from death guard on the oblits in detatchment A I would not be able to, because even though they may meet the key word, they are not in the death guard codex. But the reason it works for cultits is because they are In both codexes.

I think what might be the RAI is it can work corss detatchment so long as the unit you are using it on is in both codexes

SilverAlien wrote:
I think it's going to be we literally have to wait for a specific FAQ each time a codex comes out to tell us exactly which way this codex is meant to be interpreted, because honestly the only interpretation that's at all consistent currently relies on faction keywords explicitly being different from normal keywords, which contradicts fairly straightforward RAW in the main book. Which is really annoying.

I really dislike not even being able to determine the intent behind rules.

You're really unable to see what GW intended here? That's gotta be tough.