Aother Mark of the Wulfen question

[Master Bladesinger]

In the codex it says, "a model bearing the mark of the wulfen has the Rending special rule in close combat. Furthermore he replaces his usual attacks characteristic with D6+1, rolled immediately prior to when the model makes his attacks." ...now that part I understand...the next part though has caused some consternation among the people I regularly game with and I would like the sage advice of this forum and its members.

 

The codex says, "These attacks are made using the marked models' claws and teeth, and hence are not affected by wargear, additional hand weapons and so on..."

 

Now some of us think you can use things like thunder hammers and get your D6+1 attacks but others think you can't.

 

What do the astute members of this board think?

[Jonny Wolf]

No thunder hammers.

[Xtee]

The codex says, "These attacks are made using the marked models' claws and teeth, and hence are not affected by wargear, additional hand weapons and so on..."

[AdeptusDavidus]

I won't claim astuteness, but:

 

No.

 

"Furthermore he replaces his usual attacks characteristic with D6+1, rolled immediately prior to when the model makes his attacks." The very next sentence is, "These attacks are made using the marked models' claws and teeth, and hence are not affected by wargear, additional hand weapons and so on, though they may be bolstered by other factors".

 

"These attacks" are clearly the attacks referred to in the previous sentence - the D6+1 Rending attacks. These attacks are not affected by "wargear, additional hand weapons, and so on" - special close-combat weapons, such as thunder hammers and power weapons, are wargear, and thus explicitly do not affect the attacks, meaning that their various special rules do not apply to the D6+1 Rending attacks.

 

The model in question "replaces his usual Attacks characteristic" with the D6+1 attacks, and these attacks have the Rending special rule. Because the model "replaces his usual Attacks characteristic", not "may replace his usual Attacks characteristic", he loses the option of using his normal Attacks characteristic. If he could do so, then attacks made with his normal Attacks characteristic would not be subject to the rules explicit to the Mark of the Wulfen attacks. However, that is not an option, so the model may not make close-combat attacks that are exempt from the rule that his close-combat attacks are not affected by wargear - such as special close-combat weapons.

 

You can, of course, choose to give a model with Mark of the Wulfen a special close-combat weapon. However, that model will reap no benefit from it, as he will not be able to take advantage of the rules that a special close-combat weapon brings to bear, so it would just be a waste of points.

[Grey Mage]

Youll note that unlike in some codices ALL of our weapons are in the "Wargear" section.

 

Thus, for MotW they should be considered wargear, and not usable unless FAQ'd.

[Master Bladesinger]

thanks for your input guys...now i have to bash some heads ;)