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It seems that per the most literal interpretation of the rules a 'Leader' positional can never be replaced. That is to say an Aspiring Champion, Saur'ii, Syren, Troupe Master... if they die you can never get another one. Since you are required to appoint a Trooper as the 'Leader' before recruitment and the role of those pieces is as 'Leader', it seems to conflict with the repeated statement of the rule that "There can only be one leader."
Anyone see a way around this or has their been a clarification or FAQ on the topic?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/04/24 17:13:46
Akar wrote: When you select a model as the leader, they will switch to that role.
They should be able to access any Leader specific gear with a Re-arm after that point.
This is where it gets weirder.
Skill access seems tied to "role." So a trooper becoming leader would gain leader skill access.
But gear access is tied to named individual models.
So while a chaos marine could become the leader, he isn't an Aspiring Champion. So any Aspiring Champion gear can't be purchased from that point further.
There really needs to be a one sentence addendum: "If a new leader type fighter is purchased, it takes the leader role from any trooper that may have assumed it."
Sorry for the delay, had to wait to get my book back.
Short Answer:
Use a little bit of common sense. It's a specialist game and I honestly believe if you're looking into the rules so specific that you can't do something like this then you might have to step back. SWA, like Necronmunda/Blood Bowl/etc, is a more involved game, since we're watching the development of a team evolve from game to game. As opposed to 40k where nameless ratings go to battle, follow their leaders, and never really learn anything until the day they die. It's hard to kill off a model in SWA, and recovery from being shot at is fairly more survivable than being taken down in CC. They have to be taken out of action, which is only a 50% chance if they are down at the end of the game. Then you there is only a 50% chance of actually dying IF you roll a 1. To have a player get involved, develop his own epic storyline, actually watch his brave leader die, and then tell him the replacement can't get cool stuff is just foul play, rules or not. He's already lost some games and will be struggling to recover. Forcing him to start over just to have access to gear because a promoted leader won't have access will probably kill his motivation to play SWA at all. You don't want to lose players over something like this.
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Long Answer:
While this is a bit of a stretch, there is a precedent in the game to allow it. Look at how promotions are currently done.
- Normally, when a recruit earns it's third gold star on the report card, it becomes a full fledged trooper, losing their previous role and changing their characteristics to match a trooper of their faction. - Several factions prevent this from happening. Cultists (like you mentioned) and Necrons (what I play) have rules that prevent the change to characteristics, and title.
- When you promote a Trooper to a leader, they lose their role, but keep their Characteristics, Skills and Equipment. Similar to how yo promote a recruit, there is no exemption to changing the title.
- So any Trooper that becomes the Kill Team Leader also adapts the title of whatever occupies the 'Kill Team Leader' role. So your Chaos Marine will become the Aspiring Champion, but unlike (normal) recruits, none of them will change their statline.
- You would have to survive a full game before you could perform a Re-arm action and actually re-equip him with the new gear.
**This might only cause problems should a player with a restricted recruit, like Chaos/Necrons, choose to promote one of these recruits to a leader after they have gained Trooper status. I'd give them the title, but they wouldn't gain access to anything because their equipment doesn't change. It's not unreasonable to have an Aspiring Champion with a cultist statline and restricted to Cultist gear. Hell, he survived long enough didn't he?
Best answer I've got for you.
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Realistically, I don't see this happening too often. Campaigns will typically end before you get the opportunity to promote a recruit up to a Trooper and then have him as the only trooper option to promote to a leader. You could voluntarily promote one, but since you want your leader alive to be able to re-arm, it wouldn't be wise to pick the weakest guy to do so. Especially if they have the restriction that their gear doesn't change. As opposed to 'keeping their gear'.
Fluffwise, I can totally see it working. A Chaos Space marine would never follow a Cultist, but put a bolter shell in his head between games if he thought he should lead. However, in the unlikely event that all 3 of your Chaos Space Marines die, and you manage to have a promoted Cultist around, it would allow you to continue on with your Kill Team instead of starting completely over. If you later added a Marine, he'd be there to assess the success of the cultists and would follow the new leader until he failed and then took over.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2017/04/26 15:35:51
Current Armies
Waiting for 40k to come back in the next edition.
Read carefully. The Role and model name are separated by the rules.
An Ordo Xenos Inquisitor is the default leader of the team. An Acolyte taking the leader role, per the chart, gains leader skill access. BUT the listing of gear access is done by model name. He's still an acolyte.
If you're looking for a specific ruling to prevent/allow a Recruit/Trooper access to gear when they are promoted, you're not going to find it. Strictly going off the rules, nope, you don't ever get access to Leader gear if he dies in game. Maybe I misunderstood, but I don't think you asked the question to be proven that you can't get it.
What we don't know is if the names of the models are independent from the roles they are assigned to. Or, if the name is tied to the Characteristic. Are Weapon options bound to the Name or the Characteristic/Statline? It's really over complicating something that should just be House ruled. SWA is intended to be an ongoing thing for a group of repeat players. It's not really setup for 1-off games, Tournaments, or pick ups. That's what Kill Team is for.
I'll try to put it a different way. I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong, just presenting a layout for you to take back to your group and deciding.
Spoiler:
The closest you'll find is that promotions for Trooper -> Leader work like Recruit -> Trooper, as I explained above. Special,exceptions aside, when a recruit advances to the trooper it changes its role, characteristics, etc.
- If the name is tied to the statline, then the name changes when when you go from Recruit to Trooper, but not from Trooper to Leader, because we are treating it as a characteristic.
- If the name is tied to the role, then nothing is different in the above example for normal promotions from Recruit -> Trooper. When going from Trooper to Leader then we still change the name, but not the statline. At this point it becomes an issue if the gear is tied to the statline, or the role, but I'll get back to this.
Special Exceptions, like Cultists, only cover what happens when they transition from Recruit -> Trooper. The easiest way I can describe what should happen is that a Cultist Entry with the Trooper role is added to the Roster. It would've been really easy if that had just gave us a Trooper statline for Cultists placed between the Chaos Marine entry and the Cultist entry, but it would look the same except the role would be Trooper, and there would be no points cost because you can't purchase a Trooper Cultist.
When promoting to a Leader though, nothing changes if the name is tied to the Statline, and we're still sitting where we were with no access to model specific gear. If the name is tied to the role however, then they do get to change their name. This is how a Chaos Space Marine becomes an Aspiring champion, or an Immortal becomes an Annointed Immortal. This is also how you end up with an Aspiring Champion Cultist.
This brings us back to Gear, and where it gets confusing. If the gear is tied to the statline, then you'll be back to never having access to Aspiring Champion gear because his statline still defines the promoted model as a Chaos Space Marine. If the gear is tied to the Role, which is supported my the 'specialist' mechanic, then the promoted model will gain access to the unique gear on the next Rearm action.
With Special Exceptions, it gets tricky because he should have access to Aspiring Champion gear. The only obstacle is that there isn't any Aspiring Champion only gear available on the Cultist gear chart. Whereas the Chaos Marines have access to it, but can't take it until they become an Aspiring Champion. This alone should prevent any CSM player from promoting a Cultist to a Leader before a Space Marine.
* Throwback to Necromunda. If a CSM player ACTUALLY managed to get into a situation where a Cultist was in a position to be a Leader, and wanted to give him a Power Sword, Plasma Pistol, etc, then take the time to model it up when he probably won't be able to use that model in 40k, just to enjoy it for a few games before the campaign ended, I'd completely let him. I'd even let him pay the additional points to Re-Recruit him for the next campaign simply because of how much effort he put into it.
Short Story, Back to the above and just use a little common sense. A Chaos Marine who is made a Leader becomes an Aspiring Champion. An Immortal that is promoted becomes an Anointed Immortal (Though there is absolutely NO benefit to doing so). Scouts become Scout Sergeants, Veterans become Veteran Sergeants, Boyz become Nobs, etc.
It is impossible to break the game by allowing it, and the setback of having to replace a Leader with a model that might have lower stats, and has to wait a game to become equipped is more than enough punishment. You've already Cut him Deep by KILLING his Leader. You pour Lemon Juice on the wound when you prevent him from recruiting a Leader after that. Rubbing Salt in when you tell him that he's never going to get that gear unless he starts over or the campaign ends is going to scar him from wanting to play.
What are you going to do when no one wants to play?
Current Armies
Waiting for 40k to come back in the next edition.
I thought you had to buy a new leader.. Nothing about promoting to leader once they are dead
The leader is just a unit with some extra special rules, if one dies you have to buy a new one.. nothing about a trooper becoming a leader.. otherwise you could say this special becomes leader keeps his gear and then have an extra duder with spec weapon
GodDamUser wrote: I thought you had to buy a new leader.. Nothing about promoting to leader once they are dead
The leader is just a unit with some extra special rules, if one dies you have to buy a new one.. nothing about a trooper becoming a leader.. otherwise you could say this special becomes leader keeps his gear and then have an extra duder with spec weapon
There is a section in the rules that deals with replacing a leader, it even says you can't promote new recruits, and that your KT is disbanded if you only had new recruits left.
You could very well promote a specialist, but it's unclear if you could indeed recruit a new specialist afterward. As Akar said, we don't really now how the names and role interact, and if, upon upgrading to the leader status, a trooper/specialist changes both or not.
GodDamUser wrote: I thought you had to buy a new leader.. Nothing about promoting to leader once they are dead.
Its quite the opposite of this actually, and it appears that it's impossible to purchase a Leader after your starting roster. Which is probably a major concern the OP has regarding losing any Leader only gear.
The first thing you do after a game ends is check the status of each of your fighters. This is where Out of Action Fighters have a 50% chance of dying if they roll a 1. To backup what Fresus said, when you get to the Resupply step you can only choose to Rearm/Recruit if the Leader was not slain. It's in here that you'll find the rule that tells us to promote a Trooper to a Leader if he was. It's also why you can't do a Rearm action just after his promotion and have to wait a game.
Want to avoid all this hassle? Don't let your Leader Die!
Current Armies
Waiting for 40k to come back in the next edition.
The direction I was going with my original post is that being disallowed to ever repurchase your leader type model is needlessly punitive.
Losing what is likely your most expensive and powerful model stinks. Having to spend promethium to re-recruit and rearm is also painful. Bad wording preventing you from even trying to get your team back on track? That's just un fun for its own sake.
I think there needs to be an "assume command" rule where by recruiting a new leader model an existing promoted leader reverts to his original role.
You might have a point if the rule unfairly singled out a specific list. Regardless of which way you choose to play it, it applies to all of the armies.
It also sounds like you've made up your mind that the roles and names are independent of each other. If that's the case then we're done here? So once a leader is dead, you're out of luck for any specific gear for the rest of the game. Yes this might seem overly punitive, but since it applies to everyone it becomes an issue of perspective. You have the choice to play your leader recklessly which naturally results in a higher risk of losing him. Someone else who plays conservatively might feel opposite to you and wouldn't see the point in the promotion rule if you could simply replace him.
I do agree that in most cases it might be harsh because he's already lost one investment, has to spend the time and resources to replace him, but it's not the end of the life of the team. Losing a model isn't tied to losing the game. Our IG guy has learned that kamikaze conscripts do more damage jumping off buildings on top of enemies is more effective than law guns, and is now playing some sort of suicide kill team. He's only had a one or two die, but he's winning games.
You also have the option to voluntarily fail your bottle tests after you lose 25% of your force, so if you find the scenario hopeless, you aren't forced to wait for a failed test to minimize your losses. This too might seem overly punitive, especially in scenarios where you've got guys missing or simply out for a game. Worst case scenario is that you end up against the guy who has won 9 games undefeated. It applies to everyone so it's not unfair, it's just a result of playing the game.
Like the Promoting a Trooper to Leader, your solution of repurchasing a Leader and 'Assuming Command' is a good solution as well, and you should discuss it with your group. Like promoting a Trooper, your not going to find a black and white rule allowing you do this. You want a rule to exist as a written solution, when you could just work it out with your group. I think you'll find this the more difficult resolution since some other Leaders can't be replaced even if they spend the Promethium. They knew this when they picked their army, but going this route will penalize them longer than simply promoting someone with Underhive Experience.
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This isn't 40k/AoS where events from one game don't have an impact on your list, composition, or even balance since the points don't change. In SWA, they don't have any way to balance one player having the equivalent of 1500 points, when you're down to 600 because your previous game was brutal. They roughly have a way to evaluate the advances, but they don't incorporate that until you start a new team, and want to bring players from your old team over. The old rating system is the only thing that I wish they'd have brought over from Necromunda. It really helped to offset the imbalance between a player who plays 5 games a week vs. they guy who can only get in 1.
The Black and White permissions that we're used to for 40k/AoS need to be flexible as a result. We have two players in our group who have this strict mindset when they play SWA. For example, they have to check specific LoS on every last inch, instead of giving the benefit of the doubt that the firing model would simply be in the best position. Or the big gaping hole of how to draw LoS to models that are pinned or down. It QUICKLY turns the game into a waste of time and not very fun. Even those of us who are relaxed still struggle with trying to accept it, even myself. As we grow though, we're knocking out games in 15-20 min, and having a blast.
Current Armies
Waiting for 40k to come back in the next edition.
