Let's chat Disciples of Tzeentch

[Nico]

@DarkBlack

Listening to Facehammer podcast (how Ben Johnson ruled in on an ad hoc ruling) they might rule it that way in future.

It sounds like the Changeling should deploy after set up then, so at the same time as any other Pre-Battle Abilities. 

That at least works balance wise. Less flexibility to deploy, but you're able to deploy after everything else (and hence avoid being walled off).

[Arkiham]

Ive always thought that, deploying changling is dodge as if they go first and are within range they see the guy, so just deploy next to him 

[Mirage8112]

14 hours ago, Nico said:

I wouldn't classify that as wiggle room. Enemy Territory is a longstanding concept from the core rules (there are even shiny coloured diagrams there). Accordingly, you can deploy in the enemy half.  It's not the only Warscroll  rule which refers to Territory - the Manticore refers to friendly territory - your own half.

I'm not sure the "exactly" you quoted is in the (current) warscoll. I've reread it again and don't read it this way. I agree that there's some doubt, but this seems to be in the deploy in the enemy half of the table unless and until such time as the army is nerfed camp...

Often you will often want to be in the deployment zone for trolling reasons, but you don't have to be. There's a logical reason for this in that some Battleplans may have very specialised deployment areas, whereas enemy territory is usually pretty clear cut.

Now, I'm not in the habit of arguing for a nerf with an army I intend to play. So don't think I'm pushing for this because I want to take the power level of down. I'm just looking at what the rules say, RAW and also considering RAI and "purposive interpretation". 

The first question in my mind is how the changeling is actually set up. The warscroll for the changeling says:



The warscroll clearly says "set up".  The FAQ clarifies this:



so question is what kind of "set-up" is this? Is it an alternate set-up like Sylvaneth and their enclaves? Or a standard set-up that happens in the deployment phase? Regardless of what was said on face hammer every "alternate" set-up in them are shares the same wording as far as I can tell. They all say "Instead of setting up normally":



It seems to me as if this unit is not deployed "after everything else", because it doesn't share the same wording as units who deploy via an "alternate deployment". The warscrolls above change both the "when" and the "how" of deployment. But the Changeling's war scroll only changes the "how" of deployment; not the "when". If it did, it would probably say something like "Instead of deploying normally you can place it to one side, after the battle begins you place the changeling in the opponents territory as if it were one of your opponents models..." 

So my guess is that it's deployed in the deployment phase like everything else. This also means it's subject to alternating deployments from warscrolls like Escalation, where models arrive in "waves". 

The territory thing is more difficult because it says it's deployed "as though it were part of their army." The reason it doesn't say "deployment zone" is because there is no deployment zone in AoS (that's a hold-over term from WHFB) The battle plan has specific rules for deployment. If it's set up as though it were part of their opponents army, my guess is that it would have to follow deployment guidelines set forth in the appropriate warscroll. for example in Border war: 

Notice that the rules for set-up say models must be deployed "in their own territory" with the restriction that they must be set up more than 12" from enemy territory. Since the changeling counts as part of the opponents army, and the other side of the board is your own territory, it looks like it doesn't have to be set up in your opponents "deployment zone" and can be set up wherever on the board you like, since it can be deployed in your opponents territory and can also be set up within 12" of your own territory. 

That's actually pretty balanced. It is subject to being deployed as "normal" which means you have to deploy it in an "alternating fashion" with your opponent or as part of your single "battalion drop", but can be set up effectively anywhere on the board. This means you can't cherry pick the best spot after everything is set up, but you can set up outside the deployment zone (so your opponent can't drop a hero next to him and blow his cover) if you want to deploy everything first to guarantee the first turn.

That seems like a pretty fair trade off to me.  

 

[Nico]

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That's actually pretty balanced. It is subject to being deployed as "normal" which means you have to deploy it in an "alternating fashion" with your opponent or as part of your single "battalion drop", but can be set up effectively anywhere on the board. This means you can't cherry pick the best spot after everything is set up, but you can set up outside the deployment zone (so your opponent can't drop a hero next to him and blow his cover) if you want to deploy everything first to guarantee the first turn.

I agree with the above post.

@Leonardas and I tried the opposite approach just now at the South London Legion (so deployed after deployment, but in the Deployment zone, we both had Changelings in a DoT off.

This also seemed balanced, but I would prefer your approach above.

What we want to avoid is the double nerf that makes it unplayable.

[Malfallax]

So a Host Duplicitous could be deployed in whatever way I want starting from a 1 drop up to a 10 drop?

Edit: additional questions...

1. Can I have a DoT army using the Tzeench allegiance but giving my General the Lord of War trait and the Aura of Mutability?

 

2. I have my 1st AoS game tomorrow and I came up with this:

Herald on Disc: General, Lord of War, Aura of Mutability, Fold Reality (as long as I can depending on question 1)

Blue Scribes, Bolt of Tzeench

2x10 Pink Horrors

3x Burning Chariots

 

The plan is to buff the burning chariots with the herald and let them burn stuff and use the tome to make fold reality certain and return 2 chariots when they die.

 

Thoughts?

[Nico]

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So a Host Duplicitous could be deployed in whatever way I want starting from a 1 drop up to a 10 drop?

You could deploy (for example) in these (ordered) increments:

10

4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

In that order.

What you cannot do is 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5. See the Warscroll Battalions page of every Battletome - middle column.

 

[Eldercaveman]

18 minutes ago, Nico said:

You could deploy (for example) in these (ordered) increments:

10

4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

In that order.

What you cannot do is 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 5. See the Warscroll Battalions page of every Battletome - middle column.

 

But could you do 2 1 1 1 1 4 for example?

[Nico]

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But could you do 2 1 1 1 1 4 for example?

No - the point I was making was that the large increment from a Battalion can only be the first one. After you've deployed the first "drop" of a Battalion whether 1 unit or (say) 5 units, the other units from that Battalion must be deployed individually (so only one larger increment and it has to be first).

I think the idea is to prevent their being too much of a mini-game at the start, where people are having to overthink deployment (when they both have a low drop army for example) due to a risk that the other side can drop all the rest of their units at once and finish before you - hence seizing the initiative. 

A very rare, but available strategy is to stop deploying early (forgoing the points of the omitted units entirely ), so as to seize initiative. 

[Malfallax]

And I guess I cannot do a 

4, 4, 2 drop right?

Or a 4, 3, 2, 1 ?

[Malfallax]

@Nico could you please feedback my 2 questions on the above post?

[Nico]

Quote

 

Edit: additional questions...

1. Can I have a DoT army using the Tzeench allegiance but giving my General the Lord of War trait and the Aura of Mutability?

 

2. I have my 1st AoS game tomorrow and I came up with this:

Herald on Disc: General, Lord of War, Aura of Mutability, Fold Reality (as long as I can depending on question 1)

Blue Scribes, Bolt of Tzeench

2x10 Pink Horrors

3x Burning Chariots

 

1: No. 

In short you cannot mix and match from difference allegiance packs (as they are referred to in the App).

2. For Daemons, the best trait is likely to be Magical Supremacy - the 27" unbind. The book is very cleverly designed such that the best spells and buffs belong to the sub-faction that can abuse it least (this isn't meant to be a criticism).

So for example, if a Lord of Change could take the Windthief Charm (which like Kairos's Oracle ability - identical wording - can be used at any point in the game), then this would be stupendously powerful/broken - as the LoC could abruptly move 20 inches whenever it chose (for example in your hero phase or their hero phase - do some quality zapping/unbinding. In fact, this artefact is deliberately limited to the Arcanite heroes (which is even narrower than the Mortal heroes). These folks are generally movement 5" and aren't gods at casting and unbinding spells like the LoC is; and they aren't tanky in the way that the LoC is reasonably tanky. The result is good balance!

I would got for Magical Supremacy trait for Daemons and then the artefact is difficult.

At this point in time (still early days), the DoT traits and artefacts (for Daemons) seem a lot worse than the Sylvaneth ones (however, this makes sense as the LoC can lob out a lot of mortal wounds).

 

[DarkBlack]

15 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

The first question in my mind is how the changeling is actually set up. The warscroll for the changeling says:



The warscroll clearly says "set up".  The FAQ clarifies this:



so question is what kind of "set-up" is this? Is it an alternate set-up like Sylvaneth and their enclaves? Or a standard set-up that happens in the deployment phase? Regardless of what was said on face hammer every "alternate" set-up in them are shares the same wording as far as I can tell. They all say "Instead of setting up normally":

This is a false dichotomy. Why are these the only 2 options; when there are no defined "types of alternative deployment"? The two options you present are before and after the game has started, but the Changeling is set-up "at the start of the battle" which is between your 2 "types". Every alternative setup does not include the same wording; for example: the Changeling has different wording.

Other warscrolls are not relevant to the rules on this warscroll, it stand on it's own, with it's own rules.

15 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

It seems to me as if this unit is not deployed "after everything else", because it doesn't share the same wording as units who deploy via an "alternate deployment". The warscrolls above change both the "when" and the "how" of deployment. But the Changeling's war scroll only changes the "how" of deployment; not the "when". If it did, it would probably say something like "Instead of deploying normally you can place it to one side, after the battle begins you place the changeling in the opponents territory as if it were one of your opponents models..." 

So my guess is that it's deployed in the deployment phase like everything else. This also means it's subject to alternating deployments from warscrolls like Escalation, where models arrive in "waves".
 

The "when" is AT THE START OF THE BATTLE. When does the battle start?

15 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

...

Notice that the rules for set-up say models must be deployed "in their own territory" with the restriction that they must be set up more than 12" from enemy territory. Since the changeling counts as part of the opponents army, and the other side of the board is your own territory, it looks like it doesn't have to be set up in your opponents "deployment zone" and can be set up wherever on the board you like, since it can be deployed in your opponents territory and can also be set up within 12" of your own territory. 
 

Where does it say the Changeling can be deployed in your territory? If you chose to use arch-deciever it explicitly states that it has to be in enemy territory (if you don't it deploys normally and the entire argument is moot). Which of your opponent's units can be placed anywhere in their territory? The Changeling is placed as if part of the enemy army, so any restrictions that apply to them also apply to the Changeling

Edit: I think we've reached the point where continued discussion should be on it's own thread.

[Mirage8112]

4 hours ago, DarkBlack said:

I think we've reached the point where continued discussion should be on it's own thread.

If you really wanted to start another thread you could. I don't think it's necessary since this is a "let's chat DoT", we are chatting about a unit in the army, after all. 

 

4 hours ago, DarkBlack said:

 Which of your opponent's units can be placed anywhere in their territory? The Changeling is placed as if part of the enemy army, so any restrictions that apply to them also apply to the Changeling

The rules for deployment are on the equivalent battleplan. The battleplan above says that "models must be set up in their own territory more than 12" from the enemy territory."  Since the rules for arch deceiver say that it can be set up in "enemy territory" (rather than it's own) as if it were part of your opponent army". So you're right in the sense it has to follow all the restrictions for set-up your opponent has to, but the only restriction is that it can't set up within 12" of the "enemies" half of the board. 

Just because it's pretending to be a unit in your opponents army doesn't mean it treats it's own territory as "enemy territory" all of a sudden. It's still friendly, so it should be able to deploy anywhere on your opponent half of the board, not just in the deployment area (if using arch deceiver. Since puckish misdirection only works on enemy units within 9" I don't know why you're even bring the changeling if you didn't intent to use it, but I suppose you could choose not to and just deploy it as normal

 

4 hours ago, DarkBlack said:

The "when" is AT THE START OF THE BATTLE. When does the battle start?

If your arguing that this set-up happens after deployment the war scroll doesn't appear to have the common wording. It doesn't say "after set-up is complete" (pre-battle abilities") or "instead of setting this unit up normally" which is phase that ALL the other warscrolls share when using an "alternate deployment." Since it's not clear I would interpret that to mean it's intended to be setup during normal army deployment.  

 

[DarkBlack]

1 hour ago, Mirage8112 said:

Just because it's pretending to be a unit in your opponents army doesn't mean it treats it's own territory as "enemy territory" all of a sudden. It's still friendly, so it should be able to deploy anywhere on your opponent half of the board, not just in the deployment area (if using arch deceiver). 

Yes it does. Your territory is enemy territory for enemy models, the Changeling is treated as an enemy model when set up.

1 hour ago, Mirage8112 said:

If your arguing that this set-up happens after deployment the war scroll doesn't appear to have the common wording. It doesn't say "after set-up is complete" (pre-battle abilities") or "instead of setting this unit up normally" which is phase that ALL the other warscrolls share when using an "alternate deployment." Since it's not clear I would interpret that to mean it's intended to be setup during normal army deployment. 

THERE ARE NO DEFINED TERMS FOR ALTERNATE DEPLOYMENT. Just because certain terms are common does not make them the only terms for any generic effect. How other rules happen to be worded it not relevant for this UNIQUE rule.

Would you call setting up in enemy territory "setting up as normal"? That part of the rule does not have your wording either.

[Mirage8112]

3 minutes ago, DarkBlack said:

Yes it does. Your territory is enemy territory for enemy models, the Changeling is treated as an enemy model when set up.

No that's not what it says. It says you can set the changeling up "as if it were an enemy model". It says that "enemy units treat [the changeling] as part of their army". It does not say it becomes an enemy model. As it is still friendly model, allied territory is still friendly, hence it doesn't have to abide by the 12" restriction. 

 

10 minutes ago, DarkBlack said:

THERE ARE NO DEFINED TERMS FOR ALTERNATE DEPLOYMENT. Just because certain terms are common does not make them the only terms for any generic effect. How other rules happen to be worded it not relevant for this UNIQUE rule.

Would you call setting up in enemy territory "setting up as normal"? That part of the rule does not have your wording either.

The 4 page rules take precedence unless modified by a warscroll. The only thing explicitly changed by the warscroll is WHERE the unit is set-up. Not when. Whenever they change the "when" theres a phrase they use so it's clear. I'm saying it's not clear here, and it doesn't use the standard wording present on EVERY OTHER WARSCROLL THAT CHANGES WHEN A UNIT IS DEPLOYED. 

Arguing that it changes one thing (clearly) is not an argument that it changes another. 

 

[Malakithe]

Question...when a battalion ability says something like 'whilst this battalion has 9 or more models' is that during the battle or at list building/set up?

[DarkBlack]

35 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

No that's not what it says. It says you can set the changeling up "as if it were an enemy model". It says that "enemy units treat [the changeling] as part of their army". It does not say it becomes an enemy model. As it is still friendly model, allied territory is still friendly, hence it doesn't have to abide by the 12" restriction. 

The 4 page rules take precedence unless modified by a warscroll. The only thing explicitly changed by the warscroll is WHERE the unit is set-up. Not when. Whenever they change the "when" theres a phrase they use so it's clear. I'm saying it's not clear here, and it doesn't use the standard wording present on EVERY OTHER WARSCROLL THAT CHANGES WHEN A UNIT IS DEPLOYED. 

Arguing that it changes one thing (clearly) is not an argument that it changes another. 
 

The "when" is at the start of the battle, set-up has to happen before the battle can begin (according to the core rules). THERE IS NO STANDARD WORDING, it is not defined anywhere.

The thing it changes does not have your "standard wording" either; why dose it apply in one place but not another?

[Nico]

Quote

Other warscrolls are not relevant to the rules on this warscroll, it stand on it's own, with it's own rules.

This is a feeble argument (every Warscroll is in a vacuum - there is no context for anything). I'm pleased to say that they deleted the similar wording from the FAQ.

[Mirage8112]

15 minutes ago, DarkBlack said:

The "when" is at the start of the battle, set-up has to happen before the battle can begin (according to the core rules). THERE IS NO STANDARD WORDING, it is not defined anywhere.

Yeah, I don't see it that way. It's possible (as I've already said) but it just doesn't have the right wording. Every single war scroll that has a unit come on the board AFTER set-up says "instead of setting this unit up normally" or "after set-up is complete." Every. Single. One. The fact that that every other war scroll uses the same two phrases tells me there IS a standard wording for that specific point.


I'm not trying to argue for a nerf here (as I all said above), I'm just trying to interpret what is unclear wording.  

[Nico]

Quote

No that's not what it says. It says you can set the changeling up "as if it were an enemy model". It says that "enemy units treat [the changeling] as part of their army". It does not say it becomes an enemy model. As it is still friendly model, allied territory is still friendly, hence it doesn't have to abide by the 12" restriction. 

Also the deploying in their territory part of the rule is optional ("may"), so you could deploy it in your territory.

I think we can probably agree that it could be clearer and needs to be FAQed.

[Malakithe]

54 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

Question...when a battalion ability says something like 'whilst this battalion has 9 or more models' is that during the battle or at list building/set up?

Anyone know?

[Mirage8112]

2 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

Anyone know?

yes. It must be in the list. summoned models do not count toward battalion requirements. It's in the fAQ. 

[Nico]

Quote

Question...when a battalion ability says something like 'whilst this battalion has 9 or more models' is that during the battle or at list building/set up?

Thanks for the change of topic. I'm guessing you're looking at the Overseer's Fate Twisters, which does look interesting.

It will be "during the battle", so if you go minimum sized, then you will lose that buff as soon as you lose a model.

It's a very strong ability, but Exalted Flamers are very expensive sadly. I'm struggling to write convincing lists using either this battalion or The Eternal Conflagration. 

Has anyone come up with a convincing list with the Herald on Chariot as General and using Chariots to cover 1-3 of the battleline requirements? 

[DarkBlack]

15 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

Yeah, I don't see it that way. It's possible (as I've already said) but it just doesn't have the right wording. Every single war scroll that has a unit come on the board AFTER set-up says "instead of setting this unit up normally" or "after set-up is complete." Every. Single. One. The fact that that every other war scroll uses the same two phrases tells me there IS a standard wording for that specific point.


I'm not trying to argue for a nerf here (as I all said above), I'm just trying to interpret what is unclear wording.  

Other than summoning and THE CHANGELING. I does not matter how many OTHER warscrolls use any particular phrase, it's not a rule till it is defined. This warscroll does not refer to any other, so other warscrolls are not relevant.

[Mirage8112]

Other than summoning and THE CHANGELING. I does not matter how many OTHER warscrolls use any particular phrase, it's not a rule till it is defined. This warscroll does not refer to any other, so other warscrolls are not relevant.

Yeah, were the wording explicit I would agree. But it's not and I don't. They obviously know how to write rules that alter deployment in various ways, so it's not like they have no idea what their doing. They've written things a specific way in the past and didn't for this one particular scroll. Why? Is it because they are trying to be obscure in purpose? Or maybe it's because it doesn't work this way.

For right now I'm going to say your interpretation of an unclear rule doesn't hold up. I say specifically because when when's rule is unclear you look at the rules across the game and make a "best guess" based on other warscrolls, FAQs and core rules. Based on that I'll play it as standard deployment, anywhere on the table (though for the deceiver rules he'll have to be on my opponents half of the table) until GW (or a tourney organizer) rules otherwise.


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