Do Horrors Split when they flee?

[Ganigumo]

As title. I'm constantly butting heads with people that say they do split when they flee, and unfortunately GW has not issued any commentary on it.

Now for the rules: 

Horrors split when they are slain.

Fleeing:  You decide which of 
the models from your units flee – 
remove them from play and count 
them as having been slain.

 

As I see it they shouldn't split because models that flee are never actually slain, only removed from play. The statement "count them as having been slain" is both past tense, and the "count them" part is a qualifier used as a substitution for something, in this case they needed to be counted as slain because they weren't actually slain.

[AlexScipio]

35 minutes ago, Ghoooouls said:

Chill out I said I agree it's silly, but it still needs an FAQ. The rule says they are removed and count as slain - the horror rule says 'each time a model is slain' bla bla bla, so if a model counts as slain, the argument is that model counts as slain for the horrors rule.

GW has always been rubbish at rules writing.

GW is not the problem, players are. Same that bastiladon save characteristic.

Been slain RAW is one thing and flee is other thing, sequence in both cases are not equal, and if we play rules as written there is no problem, they dont split. But the problem is that its only raw when it interest for cheating. I mean rules as written means rules as are truly written, doing everything in the same way that are write, in the same order as are written, and knowing that if an ability modifies a rule, any restrictions that apply to that rule still apply unless specifically noted otherwise

And if count as slain por split, count as slain for everything, not only the split part, otherwise is cheating

Edited March 23, 2021 by AlexScipio

[AlexScipio]

Just now, Angela said:

I don't know.  I'm the Tzeentch player that's on the side of not splitting and I lost the argument.

i'm sorry for answering you in that way 😅

i'm feed up with "its RAW, it count as slain" but only for the good things and the bad dont apply, and the RAW only apply to that part of the rule, and everything else is RAI, even if you read the rulebook in front of them 😅

[warhammernerd]

The players the OP are playing are fecking tools. The kind of people that push for abusive loopholes such as this, will simply move onto the next thing as soon as this one closes. The same people who think casting spells through their own heroes to trigger unrealistic bonuses is fine, who used to conga line into buildings for cover in old fantasy,  who always put vortex in bottles and who will argue about trying to balance a steam tank on a single spindly branch. It comes from a different way of thinking about playing, where the social contract matters less than winning whatever the cost. They are sad acts who rely on these sort of things to win claiming that it is they who are right, and that GW need to pull their socks up. I think its fair to say they are pretty much the one bit of the hobby no one likes. 

Sadly, these kinda players are everywhere. Good luck finding new opponents.

Edited March 25, 2021 by warhammernerd

[Kasper]

14 hours ago, Ganigumo said:

It's always been what its about? 

On the one side the argument is "Counts as having been slain" = "Counts as being slain" = "They are slain"  so they split (which also necessarily assumes incompetence on the part of the GW writers for not just writing "they are slain", and should be errata'd to just "they are slain" for simplicities' sake)

On the other side the argument is that the significance of "Counts as having been" is that the abilities which check when the model is slain (like horrors "each time a horror is slain...") would return false, but abilities that check if the model had been slain would return true. (this doesn't assume incompetence on GWs part, since the entire context of the statement is necessary, and probably requires a designer's commentary for clarification)

I would like you to reference any other rule where they make a clear distriction of "tense", because I dont believe there is any. 

 

In either case, since we apparently are entering the Age of Tense in regards to rules, I will make sure to play my Kairos Fateweaver correctly. I always assumed that we were playing "live" and things were happening "right now", since his Oracle of Eternity ability doesnt refer to the present, I guess I can use him in past tense too? So I will note down important dice rolls during the game and change one earlier in my turn or my opponents turn when it turns out it would have been important for the game. But why stop there? I guess I could go back into earlier turns. Actually, now that I read it, I guess I could change a dice roll in a previous game too. 

 

Honestly this whole discussion of "tense" suddenly mattering for rules seems insane to me. The amount of rulebending that is going on to ensure that "count as slain" isnt "slain" is frankly starting to be ludicrous. I understand many dislike Tzeentch, especially due to Changehost/Flamerspam, but apparently they are willing to jump on any bandwagon that gives Tzeentch a disadvantage, no matter how absurd or abstract the reasoning is. 

[Kasper]

8 hours ago, Kadeton said:

But the timing is important. There is no moment at which you can say "This Pink Horror is slain," and split it into Blues. It never, in the present tense, is slain. But at every moment after you remove the Pink from play, you can legitimately say "This Pink Horror has been slain." Any rule that references it having been slain (in the past tense) will take effect as normal.

Why is the timing important? There is literally nowhere in the rules where they make a distinction of "tense". 

As someone else wrote - When you dance and sing you dont dance, then sing. You do it at the same time. I dont see how this is different. When a unit fails a battleshock test, they flee and count as being slain. This is happening at the same time, hence triggering abilities that would otherwise trigger on "slain".

Claiming that you throw the models in the bin, then count them as having been slain once they hit the bottom of the bin is just intrepretating rules rather than reading them and playing by them.

 

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.