Demon Icon Bearers and special unit members

[Isotop]

The wording for adding new models to units containing Icon Bearers is pretty vague. Here is an example from the Plague Drones´ warscroll:

"Models in this unit can be Icon Bearers. If the unmodified roll is a 1 when making a battleshock test for a unit that includes any Icon Bearers, no models from the unit flee. Instead, 1 Plague Drone model is added to the unit."

(https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/aos-warscroll-plague-drones-of-nurgle-en.pdf)

My question is about what 1 Plague Drone model exactly means. Is there any reasoning I could or could not add a "special unit member" like a Plaguebringer, Icon Bearer or Bell Toller instead of a "normal unit member"? I guess there is some incentive to believe there can always only be one unit "champion" (Plaguebringer in this case) but I fail to see a clear explanation in the rules as far as I can see.

I would love to hear your opinions/explanations on the topic!

[Skreech Verminking]

Sadly those banners are rather ill described. I just went looking in the faq and the corerules and couldn’t find anything saying that it is only possible to have like 1banner or 1musician in your unit. The same goes for the champ.

so if you’d be playing a raw match (meaning playing at a tournament) I guess you could say that it is possible to add d6champions into your unit of Bloodletters etc. .

Also it seems like you can have more models in this unit than you actually started with 

[EMMachine]

26 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Sadly those banners are rather ill described. I just went looking in the faq and the corerules and couldn’t find anything saying that it is only possible to have like 1banner or 1musician in your unit. The same goes for the champ. 

so if you’d be playing a raw match (meaning playing at a tournament) I guess you could say that it is possible to add d6champions into your unit of Bloodletters etc. .

Also it seems like you can have more models in this unit than you actually started with 

Musicians and Standardbearers are only restricted when the rule said "1 in every x models in this unit can have/carry y".

In case of the daemonunits it simply "models in this unit can have/carry y", so every model can be one of those because the wording is plural.

In case of the champion we have a restriction (for example for plaguebearers but it counts for every unit).

Quote

Plagueridden

The leader of this unit is a Plagueridden. ...

"The leader" (singular) , not "models can be leaders". So there could be only 1 in the unit.

[Isotop]

4 hours ago, EMMachine said:

Musicians and Standardbearers are only restricted when the rule said "1 in every x models in this unit can have/carry y".

In case of the daemonunits it simply "models in this unit can have/carry y", so every model can be one of those because the wording is plural.

In case of the champion we have a restriction (for example for plaguebearers but it counts for every unit).

"The leader" (singular) , not "models can be leaders". So there could be only 1 in the unit.

I understand your points. The problem I faced while thinking about the topic was the following:

(1) A Plagueridden is a Plaguebearer model 

(2) Icon Bearer allows you to add Plaguebearer models

(3) Plagueridden disallows you to have more than one Plagueridden per unit

Assuming that (1) is true, (2) and (3) are clearly clashing with each other. I wondered what the correct resolution was in this case.

[Stroke]

Plague ridden =/= plague bearer, it is the leader of the unit, the icon specifies what model to add to the unit. If it said something like, add 1 model to this unit or even PLAGUEBEARER, your cheeky attempt to game this might work. But tbf I would still look at you funny if u tried that then.

[Isotop]

10 hours ago, Stroke said:

 [...]  your cheeky attempt to game this might work [...]

I asked if there was an reasoning we could or could not add "special unit members" - so I am very much unbiased and open minded regarding the outcome of this discussion. I really do not understand why you would think I wanted to "game" this in a "cheeky" way. In my opinion, asking interesting rules questions (in the rules section!) should not result in the TO being mocked in such a way.

10 hours ago, Stroke said:

 [...] Plague ridden =/= plague bearer [...]

At this point I ask myself the question: What exactly is a "Plaguebearer model"? There are some options we can discuss:

(1) Plaguebearer model = every member of a unit called Plaguebearers

(2) Plaguebearer model = every member of a unit with the keyword PLAGUEBARER

(3) Plaguebearer model = every member of a unit called Plaguebearers excluding "special unit members" (because they have special names)

Everybody, feel free to add more options. In my view neither of the ones stated above is supported by the core rules. The problem I am seeing is the following: There really is no name for individual models in a unit. Units have names (Plaguebearers), units have Keywords - individual models in said units do not have a generic name, they do not have Keywords as far as I can see. I have to admit I implicitly assumed that every model in a Plaguebearers unit was called a Plaguebearer. Which makes perfect sense in a narrative way, but is not supported by any rules (as far as I can see). In my view there is no proof for (2) or (3) ((3) being @Stroke´s attempt) either. I would really like to discuss the topic a bit more and hope to find out which rules I may have overlooked and even more the opinions people have on this (in my eyes very discussion-worthy) rules problem.

Finally:

10 hours ago, Stroke said:

[...] But tbf I would still look at you funny if u tried that then [...]

I think that is the absolute wrong way to "deal" with people critically questioning rules with not so clear substantiation. 

[Stroke]

So to meet you half way if you had the actual champion models to add I would let you just to avoid laughing at you for the philosophical question of "what is a plaguebearer model?" I mean at least they're clear about needing the actual miniature to represent the champ/musician/bearer. 

[Isotop]

9 hours ago, Stroke said:

So to meet you half way if you had the actual champion models to add I would let you just to avoid laughing at you for the philosophical question of "what is a plaguebearer model?" I mean at least they're clear about needing the actual miniature to represent the champ/musician/bearer. 

How is the question a "philosophical" one? You very much need to know what a Plaguebearer model is in order to correctly use the ability of the Icon Bearer. In your earlier post you claimed the Plagueridden is not a Plague Bearer and therefore can not be added to the unit via the Icon Bearer ability. Following this method, Icon Bearers and Bell Tollers can not be added as well (since they have special names just like the Plagueridden). If this method of yours holds true, you would need to have "normal Plague Drone models" in addition to your Plaguebringer, Icon Bearer and Bell Toller when bringing a unit of 3 Plague Drones (since you can only add "normal" Plague Drones" via the Icon Bearer). 

I hope I made clear why the question "what is a Plaguebearer model?" is an important one. The answer to it seems to come very easy and obviously for you - so I kindly aks you to enlighten me with the inclusion of an actual rules backup for your claims. Just to be clear, I do not want to offend you - I just want to find out what the answer to my rules question might be or if there is a answer supported by the rules in the first place.

[Stroke]

No worries I don't get offended on the internet. I'm not saying you mean it as a philosophical question but if I'm playing some one and they start saying thing like what is a model... really its cringy at best, since I don't see the vagueness.

I'm using the ability as written and I wouldnt let you add icons or tollers if those abilities didn't say models. But since their rules say models I say you add the plaguebear and its warscroll allows you to turn it into one of those. Since the champ doesn't say a model can be or models can be, it say THE leader of this unit is A blank I cant see how it is interpreted any other way. 

So i guess my question for you is, what is stopping you from just having all champs? By your theory you could just do that from the beginning of the game. Except it's own warscroll limits that, or did i just make you question that too? 

Hope this helps to enlighten you to how me and every other daemon player (only 7 people)  I've ever played have played . I mean not one of us ever even tried the champ. I only came to this conclusion after thinking about the question when quizzed about adding command models at all by an ironjaws player. I would have to ask each of them why they don't add champs but I suspect their reasoning will be similar.

[King Taloren]

Thinking of this from a TO position. I would rule it as WYSIWYG on your plague drones that are added. You can’t put additional command modelsunless you have specifically built them for this.  I think the one exception is that the plague ridden cannot be more than one. So if you plagueridden dies and you proc the 1 on bravery I would have no problem with it being brought back. Having more than 1 though I would need to see a good case for that since there is nothing in the rules to indicate that you can have more than one leaderin a unit at the start of the match nor add more of them in on any warscroll that can be summoned/revive/added during the game.