Lore of Beasts rule question

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Elithmar
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Lore of Beasts rule question

#1 Post by Elithmar »

It’s been a while, but out I come from lurking in the shadows - albeit perhaps very briefly.

I don’t know if there’s any chance I’ll actually get back into Warhammer and try this, but I came up with an interesting idea for an army list the other day and it prompted the following rules question.

The lore attribute for Beasts lowers the casting value if targeting ‘one or more units of…’. My question is whether a unit of infantry which is joined by a mounted character will count if I cast e.g. Wildform on the unit. Basically, am I counted as casting it on a unit of infantry, or on a unit of infantry and a unit of cavalry (the character), thus lowering the casting value in line with the attribute?

Hopefully that’s clear and someone has an answer! Thanks.
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SpellArcher
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Re: Lore of Beasts rule question

#2 Post by SpellArcher »

Nice to see you Eli.

:)

I've had a good long look and I don't know. There appears to be no guidance in the Troop Types section (pg 80 onwards), the Characters section (from pg 96) or the Magic section (from pg 28). I've been through the FAQ's too, no luck.

It could be argued that the unit is essentially Infantry, with the Cavalry character being a mere guest. What if the combined unit were reduced to one Infantry model though, plus the character. Is it still Infantry? Both Infantry unit and Cavalry character seem to largely retain their respective Unit Type rules while joined. Accordingly, we might hazard that part of the target unit is indeed Cavalry and so the Attribute applies. Or perhaps not!
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Elithmar
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Re: Lore of Beasts rule question

#3 Post by Elithmar »

Hmm, interesting!

I’ve had another look myself and can find evidence in support of both views. However, unfortunately I don’t think my original interpretation would stand against this paragraph on p.99:

Combined units

Whilst a character is part of a unit, both he and the unit… are treated as a single combined unit for all rules purposes”

So, the character ceases to constitute a separate ‘unit’ when it joins, and the only ‘unit’ left (including for the purposes of the attribute) is the infantry. Disappointing, but hardly a disaster to miss out on -1 to casting value.

Thanks for your input SA!
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Prince of Spires
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Re: Lore of Beasts rule question

#4 Post by Prince of Spires »

Combined units

Whilst a character is part of a unit, both he and the unit… are treated as a single combined unit for all rules purposes”
Elithmar wrote: So, the character ceases to constitute a separate ‘unit’ when it joins, and the only ‘unit’ left (including for the purposes of the attribute) is the infantry.
Not what it says though. They are both treated as a single combined unit. So both cease to be a separate unit, they merge into one. Now, it doesn't specify what happens to troop types if you join a unit. However, we can deduce this from p97, under "What unit can I join?" It specifies that a character can only join certain units based on troop type of the unit and can't join units if he is of a certain troop type. Consequence of this is that the character retains his own troop type when he joins a unit. After all, if he would take on the troop type of the unit when joining them, then the character's troop type wouldn't matter when joining a unit. This is further increased by the fact that he retains his troop type characteristics. A cavalry character retains his mount's attacks, a monstrous infantry model retains stomp and so on.

This means it's a unit with a combined troop type. Though rare, there are other units like this, like skaven's giant rats + packmasters (which are infantry + war beasts). Now, that doesn't help us much, since it doesn't explain how the lore attribute works, but it shows that you can have 2 troop types in a single unit.

Where does that leave us for the lore attribute then? Not sure. But for me the most logical option is that if you have a combined unit then the lore attribute applies. After all, if a combined unit has 2 unit types, then you are targeting "a unit of cavalry and infantry" (or similar). Even more so because the lore attributes mentions that it can apply if it's targeting one or more units. This also prevents any weird situations where you can have 2 cavalry characters join 1 infantry model and the attribute doesn't apply or you have to figure out who is in the majority and what happens to other combined units.
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Elithmar
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Re: Lore of Beasts rule question

#5 Post by Elithmar »

Well, I suppose I’d forgotten just how many gaps and contradictions there are in GW rules. :P

I suppose the way I read the rules, characters aren’t really proper units, they’re just treated as units when they’re alone. There’s clearly a difference between characters and other units, because a unit can’t join another unit, whereas a character can. So if the ‘combined unit’ had a single troop type, I would think it would be the unit’s, not the character’s (even if the unit was reduced to such a level that characters were the majority). But maybe that’s not the way a combined unit is treated at all, as you suggest. It doesn’t really help that the concept only gets one paragraph in the rulebook…

As both of you have pointed out, there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer in the rules. To change my mind again though, I think the attribute would apply in this case after all. Given that it would apply if a bubble spell were to be cast on the character and unit separately, there’s no logical reason why the wizard would find it more difficult to cast the spell on a combined unit of exactly the same models.
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"Eatainian jerks…" -Headshot
"It was a little ungentlemanly." -Aicanor (on the Eatainii)
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