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I am getting very frustrated so I am putting it out there:

The scenario is this:
A Seer Council disembarks out of their as yet unmoved Wave Serpent.  They cast Fortune and Doom in order to power up for their charge against the offending infidel horde.  They then move forth, shoot and then assault the aforementioned horde.

This guy insists I can't do it.  He is using the FAQ to tie my hands I feel incorrectly.

The FAQ says that you can't do anything psychic, nor use the Masters leadership ability and so on if you stay in the vehicle.  I read that as "if you wanna' cast a power, you gotta jump out and take yer chances".  OK Fine, I get that. 

The Conundrum then is:
I argue that their intent in the FAQ is to deal with the issue of psychers who try to cast with impugnity from the safe confines of a Land Raider and similar types of heinous armored might.  That is why it is in the Vehicles section of the FAQ.  I read it as "if you plan on using any powers/abilities/advantages etc... you gotta' jump out and expose yourself."  See the FAQ, page 4, under vehicles at www.games-workshop.com/errata/errata.htm

He argues that the Council was "IN" the Wave Serpent at the "start" of the turn so I can't do it even though what I am doing is getting OUT and casting them.

One option is not to bother playing with him.  But I'd like to see what others think, especially other Eldar players but also anyone else.

He is correct. Psychic powers cannot be used within a vehicle and the start of the turn passes before models can disembark.

If you want to cast your psychic powers you need to jump out of the vehicle the turn before or keep the Farseer on a bike.

Yak has it on the money. As an Eldar player, I lamented the FAQ ruling. It doesn't pass the common sense test, but I suppose GW was looking at a way to keep the game streamlined.

Fortune/Guide and Doom (I believe) are the psychic abilities that have to be cast at the beginning of the Eldar player's turn. At the beginning of the Eldar players turn, your Farseer is inside the vehicle, thus can not cast said abilities per the FAQ.

Like Yak advised, Farseers on bikes will work well, especially if you are fielding Mechanized.

Posted By Sarigar on 03/10/2007 2:27 AM
Yak has it on the money. As an Eldar player, I lamented the FAQ ruling. It doesn't pass the common sense test, but I suppose GW was looking at a way to keep the game streamlined.

Fortune/Guide and Doom (I believe) are the psychic abilities that have to be cast at the beginning of the Eldar player's turn. At the beginning of the Eldar players turn, your Farseer is inside the vehicle, thus can not cast said abilities per the FAQ.

Like Yak advised, Farseers on bikes will work well, especially if you are fielding Mechanized.

Actually, I think the FAQ makes sense truthfully. It would irk me to no end to have a Librarian running around in a Land Raider FoDing like mad (that being said and I play SM   . What's actually the stickler is the fact that the Psychic power in question has to be used at the beginning of the turn. Those particular abilities could actually be used at the beginning of the shooting phase which would be better for the Eldar player and make more sense.

Yeah, the Farseer powers that function like shooting are both good to use with a min Farseer.  Farseer with no upgrades except for Mind War can hop out of a grav tank and pop someone's head.  It can be a useful addition to the torrent of fire a bladestorming unit of Dire Avengers can throw out.  Or if there is a Necron Lord or a Crisit Suit Leader hanging around it works great.  Eldritch Storm also works against vehicles and light infantry.

.

The issue isn't a Psyker that is trying to gain an unfair advantage by staying in the vehicle.  That part makes total sense to me and is written clearly in the FAQ.  It is the application of the issue and the intent of the rule (and FAQ) that is what I am looking at.

The example of Librarians or whomever blasting people with Impugnity, as I already said, doesn't enter into the discussion because those kinds of powers dont occur until the shooting phase anyway! 

The reasoning so far regarding the "start of the turn" verbiage is:

1.  A spell that does a lot of damage is allowed after disembarkation and movement (mind war, etc...) but one that just buffs a unit is not.
2.  This Eldar minutiae about the start of the turn was not intended to make clear that Eldar benefitted all turn long;
3.  This was not to make the distinction of when the one round powers end;   4.  It was not stated this way so that the Eldar could move freely (say on Jetbikes) 24" and still be able to benefit from their powers? 
5.  That using the power when  EMbarking is allowable even though doing so while disembarking is not.


For obvious reason I have a hard time with this analysis.

I don't think that they even had disembarkation on their mind when they wrote the Eldar rule and the FAQ to be honest. 

I am hopeful the Eldar FAQ will clarify what was meant.

Jancoran, I hear your frustration, but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for this to be cleared up in your favor in any FAQ.  Disembarkment is part movement.  If the rules were changed to allow such an out-of-sequence action such as disembark, cast spells, then finish movement, this would be open to significant abuse.  For example, you could then move a squad that was 10" away from the Farseer's transport to 4" away first, disembark the farseer, and then cast guide.  You might say that you wouldn't do that, you are just asking to disembark before moving anything else... but then you are essentially asking for general 40k rules to be re-written so that disembarkment from a vehicle that has not moved happens before the movement phase, and indeed, before anything else.  Such a rules tweak is just not likely to be made.

A Farseer not mounted in a transport has his spell casting abilities limited by the position he was left in during his previous turn.  Why should a Farseer in a transport be any different? 

This is a Codex issue  not a 40K main rules issue. I see no problem with them simply issuing something like this for the Eldar Codex itself.

Psykers may still use their Psychic powers immediately after disembarking up to 2" but before their unit takes any other movement.

Posted By Jancoran on 03/11/2007 3:29 AM
This is a Codex issue  not a 40K main rules issue. I see no problem with them simply issuing something like this for the Eldar Codex itself.

Psykers may still use their Psychic powers immediately after disembarking up to 2" but before their unit takes any other movement.

The intent was IMHO, for the powers to be usable by the units it was cast on even if they move. Thus, the power has to be used at the beginning of the turn before the move. This allows the Eldar player to say use Guide at the beginning of the turn on another unit while at a safer distance from the enemy, then the unit it was cast on can move freely to get into a better postition to use it. This allows you to not endager your Psykers by having them too close to enemy units.

The intent appears for them to be used as a buffing caster in support of other units, not as a mobile combat monster in the way Space Marine Librarians are used. If you notice all of the SM powers are self buffing or direct attack for the most part. While the majority of Eldar powers are buffs for other units save a few (ie, mindwar). They want you to play a certain style with the Eldar and I think you want to play a different style. Its just not going to work.

Posted By Angelus Mortis on 03/11/2007 5:03 AM

The intent was IMHO, for the powers to be usable by the units it was cast on even if they move. Thus, the power has to be used at the beginning of the turn before the move. This allows the Eldar player to say use Guide at the beginning of the turn on another unit while at a safer distance from the enemy, then the unit it was cast on can move freely to get into a better postition to use it. This allows you to not endager your Psykers by having them too close to enemy units.

In addition, I think it's meant to limit the functional range of the powers.  If you have to cast before moving, the Farseer can only cast Fortune or Guide at a unit within 6" at that point- a 13" diameter circle.  If you allow movement beforehand, the area expands to a 25" diameter circle.  MUCH bigger.  Not to mention the ability to move the OTHER unit into range of the Farseer.

Jancoran, I too feel your frustration.  From May of 1999 until last Fall I pretty much always had my Farseer ride with a unit of Banshees in a Wave Serpent, giving them Fortune.  The main rulebook FAQ completely ruined this tactic, which I had happily used in literally hundreds of games.  I dealt.  At this point I'm running him on foot attached to a large squad of Harlequins, giving them Fortune and also casting Doom on enemy units.  This allows me to still have my Farseer moving forward and getting into the mix.

The jetbike Farseer is another option for an aggressive caster, or even a whole jetbike retinue if you want the warlocks + Farseer.  If you don't want to pay for the jetbikes, you COULD also run them on foot.  This way you keep Fortune up all game.  If you do this, I recommend giving some of them Spears so you can reach out and kill stuff even before you get into HtH.

In my reply, I specified that it is before they make any other movement .  Thusly no unfair advanatge could be wrought from a range standpoint.  Moving in a vehicle is moving the unit, so therefore it would essentially (see Random House definition here) still be at the start of the turn for the unit (which is pretty much the only relevant issue).

Putting them on Jet bikes is a valid suggestion.  HOWEVER it is a HUGE expense both in money (and by huge I mean several hundred dollars huge), time converting (see the front page of the GW website right now which has a very good explanation of the process) and raw unit points (600+ points for a full squadron); and frankly it's a bandaid to "deal with" an issue I dont think they really foresaw in their FAQ. 

On foot they do not suck, averaging 9 inches a round, assaulting usually by round two if the enemy went first and unwisely advanced.  But they are far too expensive to leave dangling out in the wind for three turns which is what this interpretation of the FAQ forces.  Necrons would laugh all the way to the bank about that.  Tough 3 does not lend itself to long survival no matter how good your saves are.  Even Terminator heavy players will admit that the trudging across the field of a super expensive unit is why Deep Striking Termies is attractive...probably the ONLY reason for termies!

Well...I think I just need to make 20 Jetbikes now.  Lame.

Posted By Jancoran on 03/11/2007 5:10 PM
In my reply, I specified that it is before they make any other movement .  Thusly no unfair advanatge could be wrought from a range standpoint.  Moving in a vehicle is moving the unit, so therefore it would essentially (see Random House definition here) still be at the start of the turn for the unit (which is pretty much the only relevant issue).

 

However, since the spell casting would happen during the movement phase, the rule that you suggested above would allow you to move a unit towards the Farseer's transport to get in range of his buffing spell, which would certainly be major improvement to the Farseer's buffing range.

I guess what you'd really need is a rule to the effect of, "A Farseer may cast its spells after disembarking from a stationary transport but before it, the unit it is attached to, or the transport  completes any moves beyond disembarkment, provided that no other units in the army have been moved prior to this unit."  Of course that would open up the issue of what happens if you have two farseers in transports.  Then you'd need to allow two units to begin their movement (disembarking), each carry out an action (spell-casting), and then return to completing the movement for each.

Hey, I wouldn't have any objection to Farseers having this ability.  All I'm saying is that you are really asking GW to write a fairly complex rule that would change their otherwise strict order of operations for a turn - for one specific unit that is already pretty good - in one specific context - and that is very unlikely to occur. 

In general, when dealing with army-specific rules, I like to take the interpretation that is the least advantageous to my army. One time, I was playing against a guy who was using large blast templates instead of small ones (Ork Lobbaz I think) on my Necrons. When he found out from another player that he was using them incorrectly I even offered to let him keep doing it that way for the rest of the game. No big deal.

Posted By swize1 on 03/11/2007 10:59 PM

Hey, I wouldn't have any objection to Farseers having this ability.  All I'm saying is that you are really asking GW to write a fairly complex rule that would change their otherwise strict order of operations for a turn - for one specific unit that is already pretty good - in one specific context - and that is very unlikely to occur. 

Agreed.  GW made a general rule change to put some limitations on psychic powers in transports and make them simpler to adjudicate.  For example, one of the old issues was where exactly do you measure from?  Most people just measured from the edges of the tank, but that significantly expanded the range/area covered by both Fortune and Guide.  This ruling is simple and clear.  It sucks that it kicks this use of Farseers right in the teeth.  But I don’t see GW creating a complex exception just to save this usage, especially since the Eldar have just gotten their new codex..   Adapt, overcome, buy new models.  This is the downside of a new codex.