We’re in need of some official clarification on the intent of a few rules interactions. This stems from the section in Game Terms that says that “a model can be identified by its own rules; for this to apply to a unit, however, all models in the unit must have the identifying rule.” It then goes on to give an example that a Reaver Skirmisher can be referred to as Reaver Skirmisher, Orgoth unit, etc.
Primary question: can you use a special ability that targets a specific type of unit if that unit has a UA of a different name/type?
Examples:
A unit of Soulless Blademasters has the Seeker Warden attachment. The Dreadguard Scyir has the Battle Plan “Desperate Pace [Soulless] - Target friendly Soulless unit…”
Similarly, a unit of Immortals has the Extoller Advocate attachment. Abidan the Keeper has the Battle Plan “Desperate Pace [Immortal]”
Are these units no longer “Soulless” or “Immortal” units because they have a member without the Soulless/Immortal tag on its card, and therefore cannot be targeted by Desperate Pace (or similar rules)?
I am absolutely positive that the answer is “No”, and I’ll provide two reasons.
That would be a really dumb interaction that would break all CA’s, and is so obviously contrary to intent that we can dismiss it out of hand.
The unit satisfied those requirements— i.e. “being an Immortal unit” — at the time the model was attached. Thus, the Command Attachment rule was satisfied, and nothing tells us to go back and continually reevaluate that condition.
So you believe that the intent is that CAs with a different name are designed specifically to remove a unit’s ability to interact with other models/abilities that would target that unit type?
First; attachment section does not say there are any changes to the unit’s keywords. We cannot assume that it does.
Second; per your cited section, it says a model “can” be identified, not “must be” identified by its own rules. This does not mean it ivalidates the previous section about rules can refer to a model by any of these identifiers. These identifiers being the unit name and unit description.
The reaver skirmisher example in the section clearly states that reaver skirmisher and reaver and are eligible key words despite not appearing in the descriptor line. Looping back to soulless blademasters, they could be referenced as soulless, blademasters, or soulless blademasters as needed.
Under this assesment, the seeker warden does not change the unit name, thus does not remove the term “soulless” as a valid descriptor for the unit.
Third; supporting this, is the wording of the desperate pace rule itself; “…soulless models in the unit gain…” implies the validity of targeting a soulless unit with models inside the unit that are not soulless, such as the CA."
This post overall is looking for official clarification of the intent of a very finicky rules interaction that only hits a few specific units. It has popped up too many times and always has a divide on the interpretation.
I am not sure what part you disagree with, exactly, but I’ll try to address all these points. Most of these will be simple and straightforward; please pardon me if the answers come across as terse.
Here’s the relevant portion of the rules:
All models in Skorne Immortals unit without an attachment have the “Immortals” identifier.
The Extoller Advocate is added to the Immortals unit.
The Extoller Advocate is part of the Immortals unit.
The Extoller Advocate does not have the Immortals identifier.
All models in the Immortals unit with attachment do not have the Immortals rule.
All models in the unit must have the identifying rule.
Therefore, the unit cannot be referenced as an Immortals unit.
This is already addressed by the rules quote above, and I am 100% certain this is ironclad and there is no room for rebuttal.
(emphasis mine)
The base Soulless Blademasters have the Soulless advantage. Additionally, they have the word “Soulless” as part of their name.
The Seeker Warden attachment is added to the unit.
The Seeker Warden attachment is part of the unit.
The Seeker Warden attachment does not have the Soulless advantage nor does it have “Soulless” in its identifiers.
All models in the Soulless Blademasters unit do not have the “Soulless” identifier.
All models in the unit must have the identifying rule.
Therefore, the unit cannot be referenced as a Soulless unit.
That interpretation is incorrect. Please see above.
That is incorrect. The relevant portion of the Dreadguard Scyir’s rule is as follows:
The Dreadguard Scyir targets a Soulless unit.
All models in the unit must have the “Soulless” identifier to be referenced as a “Soulless” unit.
All models in the Soulless Blademasters unit with a Seeker Warden attachment do not have the “Soulless” identifier.
Therefore, the Dreadguard Scyir cannot target a Soulless Blademaster unit with Seeker Warden attachment with Desperate Pace, because it is not a Soulless unit.
Michael, I think that you should reconsider your interpretation of this segment of the rules:
The requirement that all models in a unit must share a special rule only applies to special rules. There is nothing in this block of text that suggests that all models in a unit must share a name fragment or a tag in order for the unit to be referred to by that name fragment or tag. In fact, since the requirement that all models must share a special rule is only applied to special rules, that implies that this requirement is not present for name fragments or tags.
To make this confusion worse, all of the soulless dusk units have both the soulless special rule and have soulless as part of their name. It is true that the unit could not be said to have the soulless special rule when it has its attachment, but the name of the unit is unchanged, and therefore soulless blade masters are still a soulless unit. Should you still believe that soulless blade masters are not a soulless unit in that case, then I would like to know what you think the name of the unit is in that scenario?
“Additionally, a model can be identified by its own rules;”
Strongly suggests that rules and names are different things. Additionally, names obviously aren’t rules. Those words just mean different things. Magnus the unstoppable does not have the unstoppable rule. Though, horrifyingly, he is an unstoppable model and PP should make a clearer distinction between names and rules because it’s going to get them in trouble one day.
In this example if you have the attachment, the seeker warden, in the soulless guardians they are not a soulless unit anymore until the seeker is no longer in the unit.
Would you mind rephrasing that using Immortals and the Extoller advocate? The Soulless units having the Soulless advantage and therefore being able to be referred to as either “Soulless” or “Soulless” is causing most if not all of the turmoil here. I still cant at the moment tell if your answer is referring who the unit is, what the unit is, or both.
Is a unit if Immortals with an extoller attached no longer an “Immortal” unit, or just no longer a “construct” unit?
Disregard. I had previously submitted a feedback email, but got impatient and went for an additional forum post as well in hopes of a quicker and more social answer.
I however did just hear back from that feedback email with a full solution.
"Sorry for the delay, but I wanted to nail down a solution before I responded.
The conclusion is that although they dont work together, they really should.
We are changing the wording to target a soulless/construct MODEL to give a bonus to their UNIT. As the target fulfills the criteria, their unit can legally gain the bonus."
Only the developers or perhaps an Infernal could do that.