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The American Team Championship has made a ridiculous ruling regarding Super Heavy Auxilary Detachments. It's that just because some <Words> were not specifically stated by GW to be faction keywords they are not faction keywords. Even though the rules state that any <Word> is a faction keyword but in matched play certain words could not be used as bridge words (i.e., Imperium, Chaos, Tyrannid, etc.). For more specifics it started with this thread, https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/805880.page .

My friend wanted to bring a SHAD with his detachment. He was told that since SHAD could not have the faction keyword <Chapter> he wouldn't have a battleforged army. Nevermind that both detachments had the <Something> keyword (note the angled brackets). Since <Something> is not listed as a faction keyword, just a keyword, the detachments couldn't combine into a battleforged army. I pointed all of the arguments that were in the thread out to him but the ATC organizers held firm in their belief.

Note: Since the ATC has not taken place yet I don't want to "out" my friend so I am not putting in the specific keywords involved. I do not mean to imply that my friend would face a backlash for this thread but I don't want to let the idiocy of this ruling go unchallenged. This is a national event and it is, to me, a farce if the judges are making rulings like this.

More a tournament discussions subforum issue than a 40k general issue.

Its their event, they can have whatever houserules they like. Announced in advance, it doesn't even seem like a problem.

Was the rule change announced in advance in rulepack? It's not pre announced if army lists are　bounced due to to deciding it's fun.

In your linked thread you confuse the language between detachment and army, I note you do it here as well.

As the others said the language choice between the two likely caused the problem, also you don't want to "out" your friend by naming factions but link to a thread where you specify its chaos knights in a 1k sons army.

Isn't there some rule that let's wandering Knights join Imperial/Chaos forces without messing up things like Battleforged?

ccs wrote:
Isn't there some rule that let's wandering Knights join Imperial/Chaos forces without messing up things like Battleforged?

Aye - "Agent of the Imperium" and "Agent of Chaos", respectively - but the TO appears to be ignoring this.

Unless there is a special rule in War Zone Nachmund: Grand Tournament requiring something not in the core rules, that isn’t even relevant. Two Chaos detachments are a legal Battleforged army even if the two detachments share no common keywords other than Chaos.

 Dysartes wrote:

ccs wrote:
Isn't there some rule that let's wandering Knights join Imperial/Chaos forces without messing up things like Battleforged?

Aye - "Agent of the Imperium" and "Agent of Chaos", respectively - but the TO appears to be ignoring this.

It depends, in the linked thread the 1ksons asked if "how can they put chaos knights into their 1ksons detachment" - you can't.

Without knowing or seeing the transcripts with the TO we can't know for sure.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:
Unless there is a special rule in War Zone Nachmund: Grand Tournament requiring something not in the core rules, that isn’t even relevant. Two Chaos detachments are a legal Battleforged army even if the two detachments share no common keywords other than Chaos.

See above, even in the OP they refer to adding them into a tsons detachment, it's likely a language issue.

He wasn't asking to put the chaos knights into his Tsons detachment. He was trying to have a Tsons detachment and a SHAD (which is made up of Chaos Knights).

To my knowledge there was no announcement that you couldn't do this (in fact he told me that if someone was using the new CSM book it would be legal because then all the detachments could have <Chapter> as a keyword. The problem is that the Tsons codex doesn't have a <Chapter> keyword since it's baked into the codex itself and, according to the ATC judges, <Tzeentch> isn't a faction keyword.

I think you've got too much he said and they said going on.

In fact, neither of those books have <Chapter> as a keyword, and can't (Thousand Sons are Thousand Sons (technically a <Legion>,) with no choice, and Chaos Knights have to be <House> or <Order> or whatever it is in their book). Even if they are for some custom subfaction that has the same name, they don't count for multiple subfaction keywords in different books. (That's been established for a while- you can't call a guard regiment <Blood Angels> and have marine <Blood Angels> stuff work on them).

If this is how the argument is being approached with the TOs, its no wonder they said no. Its a problem of specific language, and you aren't using it.

Given that I think everyone in here understands your friends intent, we all agree it is legal, so there must be something missing? I doubt the ATC is forcing mono codex armies on knights.

Did your friend send his army list to confirm they thought it was legal, or just asking in general terms?

He sent in his list thinking it was legal. They told him it wasn't due to the fact that the 2 detachments didn't have a common faction keyword. They specifically told him that the <Tzeentch> keyword wasn't a "faction" keyword. He was told that the only faction keywords were, for the purposes of including knights, <Chapter> which knights can't take or <Legion> which the Legions from the CSM can give knights but the Tsons and Deathguard can't give to knights. I don't know their thought process behind this distinction without a difference but that's what he was told.

Yes, I realize this whole thing is hearsay but I do know that his army with 2 detachments was disallowed due to a lack of a common faction keyword. And to reemphasize both of his detachments had the keyword <Tzeentch>. The organizers simply refuse to acknowledge that <Tzeentch> is a faction keyword until GW explicitly says it is.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
They told him it wasn't due to the fact that the 2 detachments didn't have a common faction keyword.

But, once again, there is no requirement to have such a keyword shared between two separate detachments. Soup lists have been a part of the game since day one of the keyword system and no ruling has ever changed that. You are either having a communication problem with mixing "list" and "detachment" and asking the wrong question or you are misunderstanding something about the question. I seriously doubt anyone at ATC has decided to ban soup lists with no public announcement of such a major change.

The organizers simply refuse to acknowledge that <Tzeentch> is a faction keyword until GW explicitly says it is.

They don't need to. CHAOS is a valid shared keyword for two separate detachments.

Then you tell me why an army of two detachments, one Tsons and one SHAD of two wardogs, would be deemed illegal to play at their event. They specifically told my friend it was due to the lack of common faction keywords.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Then you tell me why an army of two detachments, one Tsons and one SHAD of two wardogs, would be deemed illegal to play at their event. They specifically told my friend it was due to the lack of common faction keywords.

because the TO are wrong on the rule or the issue wasn't properly explained to them.

In the thread theres been multiple times where Detachment has been loosely used.

Tsons + knights is legal, they both have the <Chaos> keyword.

TOs might be getting confused with the rule that prevents you from using <Chaos> as a common keyword within the same detachment (so you couldn't do Thousand Sons + Khorne demons in the same detachment)

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Then you tell me why an army of two detachments, one Tsons and one SHAD of two wardogs, would be deemed illegal to play at their event. They specifically told my friend it was due to the lack of common faction keywords.

because the TO are wrong on the rule or the issue wasn't properly explained to them.

In the thread theres been multiple times where Detachment has been loosely used.

Tsons + knights is legal, they both have the <Chaos> keyword.

TOs might be getting confused with the rule that prevents you from using <Chaos> as a common keyword within the same detachment (so you couldn't do Thousand Sons + Khorne demons in the same detachment)

Again, without sharing the email/chat chain, not much anyone can say or do.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Then you tell me why an army of two detachments, one Tsons and one SHAD of two wardogs, would be deemed illegal to play at their event. They specifically told my friend it was due to the lack of common faction keywords.

Why are you asking people on Dakka? What are we meant to do about it.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Then you tell me why an army of two detachments, one Tsons and one SHAD of two wardogs, would be deemed illegal to play at their event. They specifically told my friend it was due to the lack of common faction keywords.

Why are you asking people on Dakka? What are we meant to do about it.

Fair point indeed unless there's an ATC judge romaing the boards?

I'm just pointing out an inane ruling by the EOs. I'm not asking or expecting anyone to do anything about it. The original thread in YMDC was to see if I or my friend had misread/mistaken the rules for force construction. According to most of the people here on Dakka we didn't. My friend apealled the ruling but was turned down for the same reason, lack of a "common faction keyword". This is a major event here in the U.S. and the EOs can't seem to get even a basic rule correctly implemented. I have to wonder about any rule dispute that occurs during the event and about any future events they may want to run.

I guess this is more of a rant than anything else. Take it however you please.

I understand not liking the ruling, but what part of it is insane. It is their event. They could write the rules that no one playing an entire army can participate and they would be fully in the right, and they don't have to explain themselfs. It is their event, and if someone doesn't like it, they can make their own.

Karol wrote:
I understand not liking the ruling, but what part of it is insane. It is their event. They could write the rules that no one playing an entire army can participate and they would be fully in the right, and they don't have to explain themselfs. It is their event, and if someone doesn't like it, they can make their own.

the problem is theyre not saying its a houserule, theyre incorrectly applying the actual 40k rules because they misunderstand them. If they say no to this, they could say no to more critical things which could affect the tournament results

Karol wrote:
I understand not liking the ruling, but what part of it is insane. It is their event. They could write the rules that no one playing an entire army can participate and they would be fully in the right, and they don't have to explain themselfs. It is their event, and if someone doesn't like it, they can make their own.

They didn't put up house rule clearly marked as such.

They are claiming that's 40k official rule. Aka cheat.

@Karol- I didn't say "Insane" I said "Inane". These are two different words. Insane would mean unbelievable or far from the norm. Inane means ridiculous or non-sensical. They aren't mutually exclusive, and in some instances can be used interchangably but in this case I'm meaning that there is no rational reason for their ruling.

Contacted them for a response or to see if they'd respond directly to see if it helps out.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Then you tell me why an army of two detachments, one Tsons and one SHAD of two wardogs, would be deemed illegal to play at their event. They specifically told my friend it was due to the lack of common faction keywords.

because the TO are wrong on the rule or the issue wasn't properly explained to them.

In the thread theres been multiple times where Detachment has been loosely used.

Tsons + knights is legal, they both have the <Chaos> keyword.

TOs might be getting confused with the rule that prevents you from using <Chaos> as a common keyword within the same detachment (so you couldn't do Thousand Sons + Khorne demons in the same detachment)

If Leo's friend sent the army list to the TO's, as Leo has stated, and that army list was laid out clearly, then how Leo has been referring to army vs. detachment in this thread (and/or the YMDC thread) shouldn't matter.

It does sound like the TOs have missed something here, and their "experienced players" may not be as experienced as they claim - or they may be trying to leverage that position of assumed authority to eliminate something they don't want to face? I dunno.

Refusing to review it if provided with the right page references from the rulebook (assuming that happened in the appeal request) is a bit of a douche move, though.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I'm just pointing out an inane ruling by the EOs. I'm not asking or expecting anyone to do anything about it. The original thread in YMDC was to see if I or my friend had misread/mistaken the rules for force construction. According to most of the people here on Dakka we didn't. My friend apealled the ruling but was turned down for the same reason, lack of a "common faction keyword". This is a major event here in the U.S. and the EOs can't seem to get even a basic rule correctly implemented. I have to wonder about any rule dispute that occurs during the event and about any future events they may want to run.

I guess this is more of a rant than anything else. Take it however you please.

What TO was this?

Whoever is running the ATC this year. http://www.whatc.org/

 Dysartes wrote:
If Leo's friend sent the army list to the TO's, as Leo has stated, and that army list was laid out clearly, then how Leo has been referring to army vs. detachment in this thread (and/or the YMDC thread) shouldn't matter.

It does matter because it's the only plausible explanation here. Which is more likely: that ATC is deliberately making a massive change to the army construction rules without any announcement, only a private email to one person asking about a specific list, or that somehow OP and his friend used "army" and "detachment" incorrectly and ATC gave the correct answer that knights can not be taken in a CSM detachment? Even if you assume that ATC wants to change those rules such a dramatic change would require a public announcement, otherwise you're going to have a bunch of angry players getting disqualified on tournament day over a list that was legal under the published event rules.

Or howabout the organizers simply are misapplying a rule? The key thing is that they do not believe a <Keyword> is a faction keyword unless GW states it is explicitly. They look at the rule sited as being exclusive rather than inclusive. As such if the <keyword> is not on the list as a faction keyword then it can not be used as a faction keyword. Also, to support their case, apparently, GW's app does not list <keyword>s like Tzeentch or Nurgle as faction keywords but just as keywords (the App does specify Faction Keyword or just Keyword in the unit's description.