Bloodwrack Sisterhood (& Battalion Composition generally)

[Thomas Lyons]

This question popped up in a prior thread and I wanted to bring it to the community on its own because I felt like nailing down battalion composition is really important.  I've been looking at building a Bloodwrack Sisterhood, so I thought that it is as good as any battalion to use as the example in a discussion.

So, I'm interested in building a Bloodwrack Sisterhood.  The requirements are:

• 1 Cauldron of Blood
• 1 unit of Bloodwrack Medusae or Bloodwrack Shrine
• 1 Death Hag
• 3-6 units Witch Aelves, Doomfire Warlocks, Sisters of Slaughter.

Could I use the following 2000 point list?

2000 Points

• 40       Bloodwrack Sisterhood
• 220     *Cauldron of Blood
• 220     *Cauldron of Blood
• 140     *Bloodwrack Shrine
• 280     *20 Witch Aelves
• 280     *20 Witch Aelves
• 140     *10 Witch Aelves
• 320     *20 Sisters of Slaughter
• 200     *5 Doomfire Warlocks

Everything with the * is in the battalion (basically everything).  I used the one Cauldron of Blood to fulfill my CoB and Death Hag requirements, I use the Bloodwrack Shrine to fill its requirement, I used the 3 units of Witch Aelves, 1 unit of sister of Slaughter and 1 unit of Doom Fire warlocks, as well as the other Cauldron of Blood to fulfill the 3-6 units requirement (which the COB can since it also has the Witch Aelves keyword and the requirement on 3-6 is a Witch Aelve unit).  So, is this a legal battalion?  

Everything looks like it is on the up and up except for this one element from the FAQ (see the attached image).  The FAQ says that you have to meet the requirements of each battalion precisely (so the exact set of keywords).  This list technically violates this FAQ response since it has an extra Cauldron of Blood keyword and Death Hag keyword.  If this list is illegal for this reason, what about something like the Plaguetouched Warband battalion which requires 1 Mortal Nurgle Hero and 7 Mortal Nurgle units: can this battalion be filled out with multiple Mortal Nurgle Heroes even though the requirements only allow for a single one (since they are fulfilling the Mortal Nurgle requirement)?

Thanks for the feedback ahead of time!

 

[Thomas Lyons]

10 minutes ago, Choombatta said:

Where is the idea that "1 Mortal Nurgle Hero" is a maximum in a battalion list coming from?

If the battalion states it consists of:

1 Mortal Nurgle Hero

3 Mortal Nurgle Units

It must include at least 1 Mortal Nurgle Hero, but can include up to 4 total, as long as they all contain the needed keywords.

This is coming from the FAQ (posted again) that says for battalions "you must meet any keyword requirements exactly."  See attached image for the specific question.  This means that since the requirements only have one Hero keyword, you can't include additional Hero keywords on other units since only one is allowed in the battalion.  Under this FAQ ruling, battalion "requirements" function as both minimum requirements and maximum requirements.

[Nico]

Quote

And this conflict of opinion is exactly my concern.  Do you think the right way to go is to just talk to event TO's and get their ruling on it?  I would hate to show up with an illegal list and get called on it mid tournament.  Likewise, if I'm obeying these composition rules, I would hate to stare down a list that someone has likewise created an illegal list under the pretense that it was valid.  Do you think the right course of action is to call them on the illegality of the list if this were the case?

Potentially yes. The TO should then broadcast the decision on any house rules like this.

I think if it looked like a player's mistake then I wouldn't raise it. If it looked deliberate; and it looked significantly unbalanced (perhaps the Phoenix example, but probably not the Treelord one as the formation is pretty weak anyway), then I'd think about raising it and see whether there's a sensible compromise (particularly if someone has travelled and shown up to an event for 6 games and only then finds out the army is illegal) e.g. let them proxy it/adjust the list to make it legal and whatever. It's painful enough having to make final week major adjustments to a list (I've had to do so because of a borderline decision on a conversion being not clear; and because two units were Wood Elves rather than Wanderers (they weren't named characters)), but doing them on the day would be horrible. 

I think it would be harsh to ask someone to not use a Plaguetouched Warband on the basis of it having 3 heroes in it for example, when this is a natural way to interpret the formation for some 11 months and only now an unrelated FAQ answer is being used to reinterpret its requirements.

[Choombatta]

Where is the idea that "1 Mortal Nurgle Hero" is a maximum in a battalion list coming from?

If the battalion states it consists of:

1 Mortal Nurgle Hero

3 Mortal Nurgle Units

It must include at least 1 Mortal Nurgle Hero, but can include up to 4 total, as long as they all contain the needed keywords.

[Thomas Lyons]

And this conflict of opinion is exactly my concern.  Do you think the right way to go is to just talk to event TO's and get their ruling on it?  I would hate to show up with an illegal list and get called on it mid tournament.  Likewise, if I'm obeying these composition rules, I would hate to stare down a list that someone has likewise created an illegal list under the pretense that it was valid.  Do you think the right course of action is to call them on the illegality of the list if this were the case?

[Nico]

Quote

It's the same. You're over on keywords. In the same way that the plague warband can only contain 1 Nurgle mortal hero.
They aren't minimum specifications, they are specifications.
Think of then as validation requirements.
Think of it this way - yes, multiple Nurgle mortal heroes fulfil the "7 mortal Nurgle units" requirement, but they then violate the specification of 1 Nurgle Mortal Hero.

I think the Phoenix ruling was specific to that formation - because it's contrasting two different options for the same model and so sets a minimum and a maximum on one particular type - if they intended otherwise it would be just 1-4 Phoenixes or whatever.

Similarly the Lords of the Clan formation contrasts Treelord Ancients and Treelords - even though one might argue that a Treelord Ancient includes the Treelord keyword (there's a whole separate debate on whether keywords can be split up and joined - generally I would say that they can, e.g. many rules refer to a Death Wizard or a Chaos Wizard, but no Warscroll has these keywords written together as one item). I would conclude that the intention here is that you have to have some regular Treelords and some Treelord Ancients.

Looking at the Khorne version of the Everchosen formation it is abundantly clear that more than one hero can be included in the formation. The existence of a single counterexample disproves the proposition that a Khorne/Nurgle hero is a maximum - it's clearly intended as a minimum only.  

I think the Bloodwrack Sisterhood example isn't a case where they are emphasising a maximum number of Cauldrons of Blood, so I would say that your list would work.

[RuneBrush]

@BaldoBeardo has it right (in my opinion anyway).  You can still run a legitimate army - but one Cauldron of Blood will need to be run outside the Battalion.  Very tempted to add this list to my "potential future armies"

[BaldoBeardo]

It's the same. You're over on keywords. In the same way that the plague warband can only contain 1 Nurgle mortal hero.
They aren't minimum specifications, they are specifications.
Think of then as validation requirements.
Think of it this way - yes, multiple Nurgle mortal heroes fulfil the "7 mortal Nurgle units" requirement, but they then violate the specification of 1 Nurgle Mortal Hero.

In your case, the CoB is valid as a Witch Aelves unit, as it has that keyword.
But you then have extra keywords outside the specification.

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