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I've been looking at building a Thousand Sons list for an upcoming game. I was finding Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch to be a bit annoying; he can only attach to Rubric Marines, meaning he would be giving up a lot of the mobility of the Disc, but if he's not attached, he loses out on a powerful Leader ability. I then remembered the Rules Commentary stating that if you have a model in a unit with a certain keyword, that whole unit gains the keyword.

Initially I thought this was another downside; now my Rubrics would be vulnerable to ANTI-FLY weaponry (I was also thinking of ANTI-MOUNTED, but it turns out for some reason that being on a Disc of Tzeentch still counts as INFANTRY and not MOUNTED). But unless I'm missing something...doesn't this mean that whilst Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch is attached to a Rubric Marines unit, that unit gains the FLY keyword and so...can fly? Am I missing something here? (I sincerely hope so).

Any help much appreciated, thanks!

Yes. See Flying on page 15 of the Core Rules.

In short, a Model must have the Fly Keyword to benefit from Flying movement. Putting Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch in a unit of Rubrics gives the unit the Fly Keyword, but not any of the model besides Ahriman himself.

Scion of Fate wrote:
I've been looking at building a Thousand Sons list for an upcoming game. I was finding Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch to be a bit annoying; he can only attach to Rubric Marines, meaning he would be giving up a lot of the mobility of the Disc, but if he's not attached, he loses out on a powerful Leader ability. I then remembered the Rules Commentary stating that if you have a model in a unit with a certain keyword, that whole unit gains the keyword.

Initially I thought this was another downside; now my Rubrics would be vulnerable to ANTI-FLY weaponry (I was also thinking of ANTI-MOUNTED, but it turns out for some reason that being on a Disc of Tzeentch still counts as INFANTRY and not MOUNTED). But unless I'm missing something...doesn't this mean that whilst Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch is attached to a Rubric Marines unit, that unit gains the FLY keyword and so...can fly? Am I missing something here? (I sincerely hope so).

Any help much appreciated, thanks!

yeah, so because only Ahriman has the FLY keyword, only he can make flying rules moves. the rubrics are still bound by thier INFANTRY movement rules. to a large degree, your right in that using him on the disc adds vulnerability to [anti-fly] weapons but doesn't grant a huge amount extra benefit, beyond it being easy to shift form flank to flank of the parent squad.

the reason he's INFANTRY and not MOUNTED is likely to prevent any odd interactions with terrain, transports etc where INFANTRY can move/enter normally but MOUNTED cannot. IT would be another frustrating thing if Ahriman couldn't enter transports, or couldn;t follow his bodyguard squad though a ruin wall, etc.

 alextroy wrote:
Yes. See Flying on page 15 of the Core Rules.

In short, a Model must have the Fly Keyword to benefit from Flying movement. Putting Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch in a unit of Rubrics gives the unit the Fly Keyword, but not any of the model besides Ahriman himself.

Ah, model vs unit! Thank you!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

xerxeskingofking wrote:

Scion of Fate wrote:
I've been looking at building a Thousand Sons list for an upcoming game. I was finding Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch to be a bit annoying; he can only attach to Rubric Marines, meaning he would be giving up a lot of the mobility of the Disc, but if he's not attached, he loses out on a powerful Leader ability. I then remembered the Rules Commentary stating that if you have a model in a unit with a certain keyword, that whole unit gains the keyword.

Initially I thought this was another downside; now my Rubrics would be vulnerable to ANTI-FLY weaponry (I was also thinking of ANTI-MOUNTED, but it turns out for some reason that being on a Disc of Tzeentch still counts as INFANTRY and not MOUNTED). But unless I'm missing something...doesn't this mean that whilst Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch is attached to a Rubric Marines unit, that unit gains the FLY keyword and so...can fly? Am I missing something here? (I sincerely hope so).

Any help much appreciated, thanks!

yeah, so because only Ahriman has the FLY keyword, only he can make flying rules moves. the rubrics are still bound by thier INFANTRY movement rules. to a large degree, your right in that using him on the disc adds vulnerability to [anti-fly] weapons but doesn't grant a huge amount extra benefit, beyond it being easy to shift form flank to flank of the parent squad.

the reason he's INFANTRY and not MOUNTED is likely to prevent any odd interactions with terrain, transports etc where INFANTRY can move/enter normally but MOUNTED cannot. IT would be another frustrating thing if Ahriman couldn't enter transports, or couldn;t follow his bodyguard squad though a ruin wall, etc.

It's definitely looking like on-foot is the way to go.

OTOH it's what 5 pts for extra wound and greater flexibility to reposition Ahriman to reach around.

So far haven't had problem with disc and the extra movement did come handy as I needed to position further than on foot would have been to reach target.

That's the big thing about 10th edition people don't seem to get:

Unit and Models are two different things. Conceptually, the unit has all keywords that its component models have, but the keywords do not back-propagate, i.e. models don't gain keywords by being in an unit.

Then, some things use the unit keywords (i.e. attacks are made against the unit as a whole, so Anti-Fly works against the unit even if only just one model has Fly) while others like movement are determined on a per-model base (e.g. every model needs Fly for the unit to make a Fly move, every model needs Deep Strike for the unit to be set up via Deep Strike) and not everything spells that out, and then there are exceptions (like e.g. the movement rules for Deathwatch killtemas with mixed models).

Tsagualsa wrote:
That's the big thing about 10th edition people don't seem to get:

Unit and Models are two different things. Conceptually, the unit has all keywords that its component models have, but the keywords do not back-propagate, i.e. models don't gain keywords by being in an unit.

Then, some things use the unit keywords (i.e. attacks are made against the unit as a whole, so Anti-Fly works against the unit even if only just one model has Fly) while others like movement are determined on a per-model base (e.g. every model needs Fly for the unit to make a Fly move, every model needs Deep Strike for the unit to be set up via Deep Strike) and not everything spells that out, and then there are exceptions (like e.g. the movement rules for Deathwatch killtemas with mixed models).

It's hard to grasp because it's needlessly inconsistent; it's not like a model vs unit distinction is particularly new to those of us who've played for many editions, but the way it's being handled is odd. Take the Rubric Marine unit itself. The Aspiring Sorcerer model in a PSYKER, but the unit does not have to have the PSYKER keyword. Yet when Ahriman, as a Leader CHARACTER, joins the unit, even though only he as a model has the FLY keyword, for some reason he has to confer his FLY keyword to the unit...and does not confer it to any models.
It seems odd that the Aspiring Sorcerer, as an integral part of the unit, is quite happy having his own independent keywords rather than lumbering the unit he's in with a keyword they can't use but which can be used against them, but Ahriman, as an "independent character" (to grandfather in some language from previous editions) is not, and must share all of his keywords with the unit for no particular reason.
It feels like the so-called clarification in the Rules Commentary was really a rushed and ill-thought-through response to an oversight, in that nobody remembered unit keywords were introduced afted the idea of characters leading units had been abandoned, and running the two systems together gets messy.

Scion of Fate wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
That's the big thing about 10th edition people don't seem to get:

Unit and Models are two different things. Conceptually, the unit has all keywords that its component models have, but the keywords do not back-propagate, i.e. models don't gain keywords by being in an unit.

Then, some things use the unit keywords (i.e. attacks are made against the unit as a whole, so Anti-Fly works against the unit even if only just one model has Fly) while others like movement are determined on a per-model base (e.g. every model needs Fly for the unit to make a Fly move, every model needs Deep Strike for the unit to be set up via Deep Strike) and not everything spells that out, and then there are exceptions (like e.g. the movement rules for Deathwatch killtemas with mixed models).

It's hard to grasp because it's needlessly inconsistent; it's not like a model vs unit distinction is particularly new to those of us who've played for many editions, but the way it's being handled is odd. Take the Rubric Marine unit itself. The Aspiring Sorcerer model in a PSYKER, but the unit does not have to have the PSYKER keyword. Yet when Ahriman, as a Leader CHARACTER, joins the unit, even though only he as a model has the FLY keyword, for some reason he has to confer his FLY keyword to the unit...and does not confer it to any models.
It seems odd that the Aspiring Sorcerer, as an integral part of the unit, is quite happy having his own independent keywords rather than lumbering the unit he's in with a keyword they can't use but which can be used against them, but Ahriman, as an "independent character" (to grandfather in some language from previous editions) is not, and must share all of his keywords with the unit for no particular reason.
It feels like the so-called clarification in the Rules Commentary was really a rushed and ill-thought-through response to an oversight, in that nobody remembered unit keywords were introduced afted the idea of characters leading units had been abandoned, and running the two systems together gets messy.

There is no inconsistency here, because a unit of Rubric Marines does have the Psycher Keyword as long as it contains an Aspiring Sorcerer because he has the keyword.

I'm actually rather confused why people are confused by this rule. It is the same keyword rule we had in 9th Edition! The only difference is we now have Leader units that can join with other units.

Scion of Fate wrote:
It seems odd that the Aspiring Sorcerer, as an integral part of the unit, is quite happy having his own independent keywords rather than lumbering the unit he's in with a keyword they can't use but which can be used against them

The Aspiring Sorcerer does give the unit the psyker keyword so does lumber them with anti-psyker.

There is a good reason for just giving the Sorcerer the Psyker keyword, that way you can have stratagems and abilities that improve the spell casting power of Psyker models and not buff the power of the mindless Rubricae at the same time. As seen with the strategem that lets Psyker models (not units) become line of sight ignoring artillery pieces.

Tsagualsa wrote:
That's the big thing about 10th edition people don't seem to get:

Which is exactly the issue with the TSons Psyker artillery strat which I keep seeing played online as giving units the ability not just the models.

 alextroy wrote:

Scion of Fate wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
That's the big thing about 10th edition people don't seem to get:

Unit and Models are two different things. Conceptually, the unit has all keywords that its component models have, but the keywords do not back-propagate, i.e. models don't gain keywords by being in an unit.

Then, some things use the unit keywords (i.e. attacks are made against the unit as a whole, so Anti-Fly works against the unit even if only just one model has Fly) while others like movement are determined on a per-model base (e.g. every model needs Fly for the unit to make a Fly move, every model needs Deep Strike for the unit to be set up via Deep Strike) and not everything spells that out, and then there are exceptions (like e.g. the movement rules for Deathwatch killtemas with mixed models).

It's hard to grasp because it's needlessly inconsistent; it's not like a model vs unit distinction is particularly new to those of us who've played for many editions, but the way it's being handled is odd. Take the Rubric Marine unit itself. The Aspiring Sorcerer model in a PSYKER, but the unit does not have to have the PSYKER keyword. Yet when Ahriman, as a Leader CHARACTER, joins the unit, even though only he as a model has the FLY keyword, for some reason he has to confer his FLY keyword to the unit...and does not confer it to any models.
It seems odd that the Aspiring Sorcerer, as an integral part of the unit, is quite happy having his own independent keywords rather than lumbering the unit he's in with a keyword they can't use but which can be used against them, but Ahriman, as an "independent character" (to grandfather in some language from previous editions) is not, and must share all of his keywords with the unit for no particular reason.
It feels like the so-called clarification in the Rules Commentary was really a rushed and ill-thought-through response to an oversight, in that nobody remembered unit keywords were introduced afted the idea of characters leading units had been abandoned, and running the two systems together gets messy.

There is no inconsistency here, because a unit of Rubric Marines does have the Psycher Keyword as long as it contains an Aspiring Sorcerer because he has the keyword.

I'm actually rather confused why people are confused by this rule. It is the same keyword rule we had in 9th Edition! The only difference is we now have Leader units that can join with other units.

People are confused because it's unintuitive and needlessly punishing in cases like this example; Ahriman's only option is to lead Rubric Marines, and yet his FLY keyword doesn't grant them any benefit, but gives them a notable downside.

Yes, I think you are right on the Aspiring Sorcerer though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

EightFoldPath wrote:

Scion of Fate wrote:
It seems odd that the Aspiring Sorcerer, as an integral part of the unit, is quite happy having his own independent keywords rather than lumbering the unit he's in with a keyword they can't use but which can be used against them

The Aspiring Sorcerer does give the unit the psyker keyword so does lumber them with anti-psyker.

There is a good reason for just giving the Sorcerer the Psyker keyword, that way you can have stratagems and abilities that improve the spell casting power of Psyker models and not buff the power of the mindless Rubricae at the same time. As seen with the strategem that lets Psyker models (not units) become line of sight ignoring artillery pieces.

Tsagualsa wrote:
That's the big thing about 10th edition people don't seem to get:

Which is exactly the issue with the TSons Psyker artillery strat which I keep seeing played online as giving units the ability not just the models.

I suppose people get a bit more confused because in that case, you have PSYKER units, in which only one model is a PSYKER and none of the others, but within which all (potentially, if using the Ensorcelled Infusion Stratagem) have [PSYCHIC] weapons. You're right though, that Warp Sight only affects the actual PSYKER model, not his unit, and only affects his [PSYCHIC] weapons, not any other weapons he may somehow have.