Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Can someone help settle a debate please!

How many melta guns can 5 man squad take? The rules say ''Up to two Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders’ bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following: 1 plasma pistol; 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.

To me, this says 3 melta guns in total. 2 for the squad members and one for the pack leader. The 40k app only allows for 2 in total though, so my friends say the same.

Can anyone assist?!

Many thanks in advance

Hello. This debate has been highly discussed with no good awnsers.

A loose reading of the rules means you can exchange two of the guns and then the leaders gun.

Those who are better in English then me tell me that you can exchange only two guns total, and the sporstoffer in the spelling of the leaders gun means that it is referring two guns total.

Most tournament accept the first interpretation. Battelscribe is also written that way. Some tournaments hold to the last interpretation and gw's app does not support it. However, noke of that means anything because the source of the rule is ambiguous written.

It is worth noting the regular assault marines can not take the 3 gums some claim space wolves skyclaw can take . That si before you ad the combi weapon from the packleader.

My interpretation is three.

The way I read it, it is very poorly written, is that you can take two total. The single and indicates that the skyclaws and skyclaw pack leader are to be treated as the same for the purpose of exchanging bolt pistols.

 KingGarland wrote:
The way I read it, it is very poorly written, is that you can yake two total. The single and indicates that the skyclaws and skyclaw pack leader are to be treated as the same for the purpose of exchanging bolt pistols.

That is how I read it as well.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 KingGarland wrote:
The way I read it, it is very poorly written, is that you can yake two total. The single and indicates that the skyclaws and skyclaw pack leader are to be treated as the same for the purpose of exchanging bolt pistols.

That is how I read it as well.

Yup, two according to standard English parsing. If it was intended to be three, it should read "up to two Skyclaw's bolt Pistols and the Pack Leader's bolt pistol can be replaced..."

Agreed that it is poorly worded.

Definitely poorly written. I would lean towards 2 total replacements.

And the best way to write it if you meant 3 would be, “The Skyclaw Pack Leader’s and up to 2 Skyclaws’ …”

 alextroy wrote:
Definitely poorly written. I would lean towards 2 total replacements.

And the best way to write it if you meant 3 would be, “The Skyclaw Pack Leader’s and up to 2 Skyclaws’ …”

If I was writing it I would create two seperate bullet points. One would say "Up to two skyclaws'..." and the other would say "The skyclaw Pack Leader's..."

This would minimize confusion.

 KingGarland wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
Definitely poorly written. I would lean towards 2 total replacements.

And the best way to write it if you meant 3 would be, “The Skyclaw Pack Leader’s and up to 2 Skyclaws’ …”

If I was writing it I would create two seperate bullet points. One would say "Up to two skyclaws'..." and the other would say "The skyclaw Pack Leader's..."

This would minimize confusion.

How would you write it if you could only uprade two total?

 Niiai wrote:
How would you write it if you could only uprade two total?

I would say "Up to two models in this unit may replace their bolt pistols..."

Up to two bolt pistols on Skyclaws and/or Skyclaw Pack Leader can be replaced…

It's ambiguously written as to allow both ("its 2" or "its 3") interpretations depending on how it's read.

"up to TWO skyclaw and skyclaw pack leader's bolt pistols can be replaced..."

"up to two skyclaw AND skyclaw pack leader's bolt pistols can be replaced..."

Hash it out with TO/opponent beforehand, but I would lean towards total 3, as the first interpretation requires you to assume "skyclaw and skyclaw pack leader" is a single collective noun in order for the interpretation to hold true.

We all agree the writing is poor. Even one simple letter addition would make it clearer:

"up to two skyclaw and the skyclaw pack leader's bolt pistols can be replaced..."

But lacking any separation between skyclaw and skyclaw pack leader, we have a mess.

The writing is poor but is not, strictly , ambiguous. Two total

nosferatu1001 wrote:
The writing is poor but is not, strictly , ambiguous. Two total

Then you're reading with bias.

No, I'm reading the text exactly as it parses. Two total. The "up to two" references the entire clause following, which is squad and leader

It is poorly worded as there are ways you can write this to be much clearer. But the meaning is not ambiguous if you read it strictly

nosferatu1001 wrote:
No, I'm reading the text exactly as it parses. Two total. The "up to two" references the entire clause following, which is squad and leader

Which fairly assumes that "skyclaw and skyclaw pack leader" is a collective noun, much like how the word "family" describes a plural number of people as a singular noun.

This is an example of where a grammatically correct sentence can yield multiple meanings depending on how its read.

It is strictly ambiguous.

 skchsan wrote:
This is an example of where a grammatically correct sentence can yield multiple meanings depending on how its read.

No it can't. For the two items to be independent statements you must have a complete and grammatically correct sentence if you delete either of them.

Up to two Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders’ bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following: 1 plasma pistol; 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.

Nope. There is a missing "The" or "A" for it to be grammatically correct, to make it "The Skyclaw Pack Leader's bolt pistol ... ".

Up to two Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders’ bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following: 1 plasma pistol; 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.

Not really. Technically you could say that "Skyclaw bolt pistol" is the name of the item being replaced but that's not how GW does it. "Bolt pistol" is the name of the item and it is referred to as "{name}'s bolt pistol". But if you're consistent with GW's usage you're missing the possessive on "Skyclaw".

So if removing one creates an invalid sentence and removing the other creates a sentence that is invalid unless you break with GW's standard phrasing the only conclusion here is that "Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders" is a single group and up to two bolt pistols owned by that group may be replaced.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
No it can't. For the two items to be independent statements you must have a complete and grammatically correct sentence if you delete either of them....

So if removing one creates an invalid sentence and removing the other creates a sentence that is invalid unless you break with GW's standard phrasing the only conclusion here is that "Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders" is a single group and up to two bolt pistols owned by that group may be replaced.

Clauses being independent /dependent has no bearing on whether a sentence can be linguistically ambiguous. A simple sentence with a single independent clause can also be linguistically ambiguous:

"The murderer killed a student with a book" - did the murderer kill a student that was holding a book or did the murderer use a book as a weapon to kill the student?

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Up to two Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders’ bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following: 1 plasma pistol; 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.
Not really. Technically you could say that "Skyclaw bolt pistol" is the name of the item being replaced but that's not how GW does it. "Bolt pistol" is the name of the item and it is referred to as "{name}'s bolt pistol". But if you're consistent with GW's usage you're missing the possessive on "Skyclaw".

By extension of that argument, the model named [Skyclaw Pack Leaders] doesn't appear on the datasheet. There's only [Skyclaw Pack Leader] and [Wolf Guard Skyclaw Pack Leader], but not [Skyclaw Pack Leaders] You can't just go "oh, it's GW's writing" and purposely remove the apostrophe as if it's part of a proper noun. The sentence

Up to two Skyclaw('s) and Skyclaw Pack Leaders' bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following: 1 plasma pistol; 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.

reads perfectly fine. Grammatically, while it's correct, it's more proper to write [Skyclaw's bolt pistols and Skyclaw Pack Leaders' bolt pistols] as [Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders' bolt pistols]. You don't say [Sam's toys and Kelly's toys]. You write [Sam and Kelly's toys] instead. If in doing so muddles the meaning of the sentence, then you opt for a different sentence structure because language is inherently ambiguous.

@OP: it looks like you're working off of wahapedia - can you link a picture of the page you're referencing since the web sources are only showing the entries from the older book that doesn't combine the two entries together. It might be that they (waha) had a typo.

Without going completely Lynne Truss, as appears to be happening, it’s fairly obviously 2 total.

 skchsan wrote:
Clauses being independent /dependent has no bearing on whether a sentence can be linguistically ambiguous. A simple sentence with a single independent clause can also be linguistically ambiguous:

Ok? I'm not denying that linguistic ambiguity exists, I'm pointing out that in this particular case the supposed "ambiguity" only exists if you use a grammatically incorrect parsing of the sentence.

By extension of that argument, the model named [Skyclaw Pack Leaders] doesn't appear on the datasheet.

Of course it doesn't appear. Skyclaw Pack Leaders' is the plural possessive form of Skyclaw Pack Leader, the name which is on the datasheet. It may seem a bit odd (though not incorrect, the plural possessive form can refer to "one or more" just fine) to use a plural possessive on a model which is strictly one per unit but "X and Y" statements mixing plural and singular forms can read a bit awkwardly so GW used the plural form to match the necessary plural on Skyclaws.

Up to two Skyclaw('s) and Skyclaw Pack Leaders' bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following: 1 plasma pistol; 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.

reads perfectly fine.

It does. But notice that you had to cite only the half of the parsing that I acknowledged is grammatically correct but a questionable fit for GW's standard formatting, not the half which is gramatically incorrect.

Up to two Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders’ bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following: 1 plasma pistol; 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.

Unlike the half you responded to this half of it is not grammatically correct.

You don't say [Sam's toys and Kelly's toys]. You write [Sam and Kelly's toys] instead.

Actually you do write the first if necessary. But this is an excellent demonstration of the situation we're dealing with. "Sam and Kelly's toys" refers exclusively to a single set of toys owned by Sam and/or Kelly. If you say "two of Sam and Kelly's toys" you are referring exclusively to two toys from that single set, you can not interpret that statement as two of Sam's toys and separately two of Kelly's toys for a total of four toys.

Exactly. There is a combined set of objects to which the limit of two applies.

It is poorly written from an understanding perspective,,howevrr from a technical persp3ctive it is not ambiguous.

Cringer67 wrote:
Can someone help settle a debate please!

How many melta guns can 5 man squad take? The rules say ''Up to two Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders’ bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following: 1 plasma pistol; 1 weapon from the Special Weapons list.

To me, this says 3 melta guns in total. 2 for the squad members and one for the pack leader. The 40k app only allows for 2 in total though, so my friends say the same.

Can anyone assist?!

Many thanks in advance

The way I read it there are three places you can exercise the options: Any Two But Only Two generic Dudes and One Sergeant Dude can be chosen.

You can only exercise the option twice. That means two out of the three potential options total.

I can read it both ways it's ambiguous

I've been in contact with GW officials multiple times and have spoken with English teachers at my school, and they have a completely different interpretation that you all seem to be missing here:

"Up to two Skyclaw and Skyclaw Pack Leaders’ bolt pistols can be replaced with one of the following"

The WGPL is listed as a "Wolf Guard Skyclaw Pack Leader", i.e. up to 2 Skyclaws and up to 2 Skyclaw Pack Leaders can replace their weapons, not just 2 or 3! Meaning up to 4 per 6 can have special weapons!

I'm aware this is redundant since the WGPL can get a combi weapon anyway, but this fits the 3 weapon theory more than the 2 weapon theory. I too initially read it as 2 in total due to the positioning of the apostrophe, and I kept asking whether it meant 2 in total, but everyone I spoke immediately told me it was 4 per 6 and not 2 per 5.

I'm almost certain the intended rules are for 2 per 5 models, but everyone at GW I've spoken to has suggested it's 4 per 6, which is crazy to me. They also said if we spam their FAQs e-mail with this question it should be updated on a future FAQ/errata document, so let's do that to make sure!

No one is missing anything.

What are “GW Officials”? No such thing exists.
There’s only one Pack Leader, so why would a rule allow two to replace their weapons?

Let’s let this die instead of finding new ways to overthink and misinterpret, eh?

One could argue, in contradiction to GW rules, that the Wolfguard Skyclaw Pack Leader is a Skyclaw Pack Leader.

The rule says "Skyclaw Pack Leaders’ bolt pistols", that is plural. Makes sense because there are two pack leaders.

Cutting part of the text out is not helpful. It's either poor understanding of English, or argument in bad faith.

It is plural because there are normal skyclaw AND a leader that can swap pistols.

It is still only two. There is only one parsing possible, following standard English, even if it is not intuitive to some (clearly)

Its clearly ambigious, accusing others of poor understanding (even native english speakers), and/or arguing in bad faith is not helpful.