FAQ and a questionable thing

[chapter master 454]

So of late I decided to go over the FAQ for marines and remind myself of minor details and found one of the most questionable ones possible, the last question.

 

Apparently if you want to use the warlord trait of a chapter you MUST be that EXACT chapter. This to me is a questionable rule to have within the game itself as it just makes marines even weaker than before and I do wonder, what is the communities thoughts on this and is this in anyway a good idea and possibly something to e-mail GW about (chuckle...like that would change anything). As it stands, it is just telling everyone to pick their chapter based purely on a warlord trait and stifles homebrew chapters (mine is a unique one where I took dark angel geneseed but had the chapter mentored under the ultramarines so thus I run them with the ultramarine tactics AND trait...or at least I would because that trait is the best imo).

 

My main questions thus:

In a tournament setting, how fair would you judge it if a player disputed your warlord trait on these grounds purely because you didn't paint them ultramarines? Would you consider a judge to be largely unfair if he ruled against you to not use that trait under those circumstances?

 

Now I know it is an FAQ and it is the holy word of all however in terms of game balance along with actual hobby going with painting models and such, I should not be forced to paint my marines ultramarines if I want to use that trait. In a similar regard I consider any player should be allowed to use whatever trait presented as they see fit regardless. This to me a massive oversight and while the judge would be right in declaring me unable to use the ultramarine trait, I would none the less call him wrong and challenge it fully and outright shameful. Wouldn't care if I got banned for it or DQed, may as well be at that point because now I have inferior traits available (oh boy they all SUCK).

 

Sorry if I seem a little testy about this...I have suffered many stupid rules in the past in card games, 1 of which I stand by to this day and will see to it whoever ruled it is hung by their own esophagus! (it invalidated an entire deck I built that was fun and made use of a card no-one used because it was too much effort for too little payoff).

[Schlitzaf]

Just say your successor chapter uses Keyword Ultramarines for all Rules purposes. Losing access (Warlord Trait) for successors only mechanically matters if successor has a named character (in which case they also will lose Relic and any named/UU Units of (Chapter).

 

In some cases having a named character be able to choose their own warlord trait is better. Let us say you want to play Minotaurs & Chapter Master and use BT Chapter Tactics. Because you are not Black Templar by Keyword, you do not lose access to Librarians, and if your named Chapter Master is your warlord, you are are not forced to take the BT Warlord Trait. However you cannot use any BT Characters, Crusader Squad or the Crusader’s Helm.

 

If you don’t run any named character of successor Chapter Keyword, you can just use the Ultramarine Rules

[Ishagu]

Unless you are running a unique character you can say that your custom chapter is "keyword: Ultramarines" in competitive games to get around the problem

[Kinstryfe]

There's also no rule that you must paint your models in a particular way or color scheme.

"Dark Angels? No, these are a training cadre of Iron Hands. It was well established when Guilliman was training his Ultras to fight Sons of Horus that Marines sometimes run these kinds of exercises to train against the tactics of other Astartes. Mine were in the middle of an exercise when they were sent on an emergency mission with no time to repaint their armour. I really thought you would have known that can happen, as an event organizer and all."

[Stoic Raptor]

While the Ultramarines might be the most orthodox Chapter as far as adherence to the Codex, there's nothing in the rules that states you must paint your models a certain way in order to use certain rules.  Any judge who tries to rule otherwise should be challenged to produce any instance of a rule stating how an Ultramarine should be painted.  And then make your opponent prove they used the proper Citadel colors to paint their own models. ;)

 

That would be the beginning of a very slippery slope, and any opponent who was that petty would wind up playing with himself, because I have better things to do than indulge a control freak.

[Bronze Beast in the Dark]

There are documented cases of Armies using a chapters characters and Warlord Traits while being painted differently. 

 

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/09/04/nova-open-tournament-report-part-1/

[chapter master 454]

There are documented cases of Armies using a chapters characters and Warlord Traits while being painted differently. 

 

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/09/04/nova-open-tournament-report-part-1/

 

Good to know, thank you for the responses. It seems Warhammer has more sense than other games I have played.

[totgeboren]

I think the intent is that from a rules perspective, you need to pick one and only one Chapter. If you want to use any specific UM rules, you will need to count your entire Chapter as UM, even if you yourself think you are playing the Star Seaguls successor chapter.

 

This is relevant because for example the Black Templars are a Successor Chapter to the Imperial Fists. This means that you do not have access to IF stuff when playing the BT, even though they are a successor chapter. When you pick a chapter keyword, that's what you get, the background plays no part.

 

*edit*

 

Essentially, since the FAQ is strictly about rules, what the Q&A says is: 

"Q: Can successor Chapters that have rules use the Warlord Traits of their founding Chapter?

A: No."

 

Since you by default would want to use the rules of a Chapter that have rules, even if you make up your own successor chapter. And then you either count-as a Chapter that is a founding Chapter, or a successor Chapter that already have rules.

Edited February 5, 2018 by totgeboren

[Lord_Caerolion]

I know, it's just kind of backwards to how they present the game, and how the issue has been treated in the past. It used to be that they encouraged you to convert a counts-as Dante for the Angels Encarmine, or Chronus for your Silver Skulls, etc. Now if you do, and try to play the game the way GW says to, then you lose options compared to just taking one of the "premade" Chapters.

[Schlitzaf]

I mean you still can? Because those various chapters don’t have rules just being mechanically (Blood Angels) Or (Ultramarines) shouldn’t mean anything if you were used to do count as in the past

[Lord_Caerolion]

You still can, sure, but only if you ignore how GW tells you to treat Successor Chapters in the Codex. If it just said "use the keyword of the Chapter that best fits", or whatever, then that'd be fine. Instead, you're told to use a different keyword, which gives you only the Chapter Tactic, everything else is dependent on the keyword. The Blood/Dark Angels codexes even explicitly state that the Successors use their own Keywords, and that you can't redo Special Characters, and then continues to call out in the Relics section that you only get one to choose from, since you're not a Founding Chapter. So yeah, the Codex is outright stating "if you use a Successor, you cannot use special characters unless they're explicitly from your Chapter".

 

It's a big change from the previous stance of "Alternatively, you can use the model and rules for a named character to represent a mighty hero of a different Chapter - for example, using the rules and model for Captain Tycho as a Blood Drinkers Captain, or of a Space Marine chapter of your own design... This is a perfect way to personalise your army".

Now though? Sorry Blood Drinkers, no special characters for you, unless you ignore how GW states to treat Successor Chapters.

 

 

Of course, as above, this is easily avoidable by just using Counts As, I just literally can't understand why GW has reversed their creative policy that's been in place for years.

[Schlitzaf]

I am confused, where in the rules does it say that “Blood Angels are always Red”. Because it doesn’t. And the reason Dante is Dante for Blood Angels only mechanically. Is because Gabriel Seth and other named Chapter Masters for Blood Angels exist.

 

It isn’t ignoring what GW is doing, and frankly acting like successors have been dumpstered is being blind. Because they are doing the same thing they’ve always done for last 3-4 editions. You can run Dante as count as BA Successor CM 93. But even back then he was still by rules Dante, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels implicitly.

 

Reality is nothing has changed. It’s simply stopping folks from running characters who weren’t design to be able to buff stack together in the same list

[Lord_Caerolion]

Except for the limitations on Relics, for if you have the uneasy choice of whether to use a Forge World character or not. As a Lamenters player, I can either use Malakim Phoros, my unique special character, or have access to all the other special characters, and to the better relics.

 

Again, I know there's no rules that "Blood Angels must be red, Ultramarines must be blue and have the correct Chapter symbol", etc, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth that to use the Successor Chapters as GW have written in the codex, you limit yourself for no reason, unless you choose to ignore the section in the codex on how to use Successor Chapters and just use Counts As.

 

You cannot seriously argue that GW intends for you to use Blood Angel successors just using Counts As when the Codex explicitly states that Characters from a Blood Angels Successor Chapter can only pick one specific relic, and singles out the Angels Vermilion as an example. There's a difference between outright stating 'you can use Special Characters to represent the mighty heroes of your own Chapter', and 'Dante can only ever have the Blood Angels keyword, and if you use a Successor you have to use a different keyword". Sure, Counts As gets you around that, never argued otherwise, but to state that GW's treatment of Successor Chapters hasn't changed is blatantly, and outright, incorrect.

 

If it were just about characters no longer being able to buff each other, then they wouldn't have mentioned not being able to use Relics and Warlord Traits. They could have just done what they did in the past, and had that you could rename special characters to use in your Successor Chapters but not from multiple "source" Chapters (so no Shrike and Khan in the same army), but that's not what they've done. RAW, Successor Chapters are ruled out from using Special Characters, Relics, and in the case of Codex: Space Marines, from the specific Warlord Traits. Is there a workaround? Yes. Does that change the fact of what the RAW states? No. More specifically, it's been written in the same way across three different Codexes now, so we can assume its RAI as well.

 

We'll do what gamers have always done, and house rule and Counts As our way around it, but you absolutely cannot argue that the RAW/RAI has not changed in how Successor Chapters are treated.

[Schlitzaf]

Yes I can, and I will argue that what GW intends. Anymore is someone trying to see something where their is nothing. Previously the rule was unneeded because (unique) meant only 1 of a unit per an army. That is no longer the case.

 

Like hissyfit all you want. But the reason was to stop aura stacking and having for Marines multiple chapter masters in a single list. I mean you lose relics, okay? You lose only effectively a single relic. Unless you were gonna to go tactic and relic shopping. Which yes, for freedom to choose whichever tactic you want, and whatever warlord trait you want (which notably can change from battle to battle for successors, sense it’s either parent chapter or chapter tactic best represents your chapter), you get a cost, that cost being relics players get for army/tactic dedication and the restrictions that comes with that keyword and chapter tactic.

 

If you get the freedom to choose whichever warlord trait you want for named characters, and furthermore for non-BA Successors, you get access to generic marine Relics. Which are onto themselves pretty solid. If you want to say “but my (snowflake) can no longer (Chapter Master) using Dante Rules.”

 

Is it really that big of a deal? To say for (chapter) write Blood Angels? It’s just you pretending GW hates successors, which isn’t the case in the actual rules functionally.

[Stoic Raptor]

I have to agree with Schlitzaf, I think some people are reading too much into it and overlooking that the intent was to stop Super Friends armies.

I can't seriously believe that anyone  is going to come out and say "Oh, you call your army 'Angels Encarmine' so you can't take Tycho or Corbullo or any of these relics."   

[Lord_Caerolion]

If it wasn't their intent, then why have the FAQ clarify that unless you specifically call your guys Imperial Fists, they don't get the Imperial Fist warlord trait? Directly quoting the FAQ here:

 

 

 

Q: Can Successor Chapters use the Warlord Traits of their founding Chapter? A: No

 

Until we get an amendment, the RAW, as shown in the FAQ, is that Successors are inherently restricted in what they can take compared to the First Founding, if they take the appropriate keyword as GW says. Seriously, what benefit does this bring to the game? How does this stop Super-Friends?

Want to stop Super-Friends without all this? Just make it so that the keywords of a Successor Chapter are treated as the keyword of the Founding Chapter for any and all purposes, but they will not affect each other.

 

Again, I'm not arguing that the rules don't end up functioning that way. Functionally, everybody is going to house-rule, or Counts As. I'm just a bit bitter because I can't get both Malakim Phoros and the Banner of Sacrifice for my Lamenters. At least I don't miss out on that much, although I'd really love to be able to take Mephiston as well. 

[Bronze Beast in the Dark]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/08/29/the-nova-open-warhammer-40000-the-gauntlet-is-thrown/

 

This is a Warhammer Community article talking about the army of the LVO organizer and 8th edition play tester.

 

“The Red Tigers are a Chapter of Reece’s invention. They use the rules of the Raptors Chapter – and so fight using Raven Guard Chapter Tactics.”

 

If you look at the list, he’s using a Raptor characters (Lias Issodon) as well. On paper, his roster says Raptors, but he called them Red Tigers everywhere else.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Huh, so GW really is throwing their support behind Counts As (using Raptors as Red Tigers homebrew), which makes me wonder why they went through the hassle of limiting things in RAW/FAQ...

[Bronze Beast in the Dark]

No rule telling you how to paint. The roster says Raptors, not Red Tigers.

 

You can’t play Raptors and use Shrike as part of the chapter. That’s the rules as written I see.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Nope, so as long as your rules say Raven Guard you can take the Relic/Trait, no matter how they're painted. Just means your Raptors can't use the Ravens Fury, unless you don't bring Lias Issodon, or the Raven Guard Warlord Trait.

[Bronze Beast in the Dark]

I phrased it very very poorly.

 

Your roster/army list determines your chapter. Not your paint or personal fluff.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Sorry, I phrased my response badly. I meant "nope" as in "nope, how they're painted indeed doesn't matter".