Sanguinor's Sergeant Buff

[Khavos]

This just got pointed out to me over in a thread in the BA forum. The entry for the Sanguinor's "The Sanguinor's Blessing" special rule states, "When your force is deployed, randomly choose on Sergeant in your army to receive the sacred blessing of the Sanguinor..."

 

Now, I'd always taken that to mean you could assign the blessing to the Sergeant you wanted to assign it to, but it was suggested that it in fact means you have to somehow randomly determine who it goes to. Tried searching for this and didn't come up with anything. Any thoughts?

[Morollan]

The way we use is simply to roll a die for each sergeant and the highest roll gets the blessing.

[Stormbrow II]

Random means you do not get to choose who it goes to. The only way that can happen is if there is a single Sergeant in the entire army.

 

The easiest thing is to roll a D6 or D3 depending upon the number of Sergeants and assign a number to each one. It seems rare to have more than 6 Sergeants in a 1750 army but in events where it does occur you can split them up into two evenly-sized groups (or as close as possible) and then flip a coin to determine which group the D6 roll will apply to.

 

E.g. you have 5 Sergeants so they are 1-5 on a D6. Re-roll a 6. If you have 8 in your army, then split them into 2 groups of 4: Heads and Harp. When you have the result of the coin toss, roll a D6: 1-4 are the Sergeants, 5 or 6 re-rolled.

[Khavos]

The easiest thing is to roll a D6 or D3 depending upon the number of Sergeants and assign a number to each one. It seems rare to have more than 6 Sergeants in a 1750 army but in events where it does occur you can split them up into two evenly-sized groups (or as close as possible) and then flip a coin to determine which group the D6 roll will apply to.

 

If I had more than six, why could I not, say, roll two dice, and assign the sergeant I want to go get it to a roll of 7?

 

That's why it's a terribly-written rule, by the way. Not that I'd take advantage of it, 'cause, I mean, it's 40K, and who cares, but because there are several different ways you could manipulate the results while still being under the auspices of "random". If the Sanguinor were a character that made it into tournament lists, I think we'd be seeing a lot of shenanigans with this.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

The easiest thing is to roll a D6 or D3 depending upon the number of Sergeants and assign a number to each one. It seems rare to have more than 6 Sergeants in a 1750 army but in events where it does occur you can split them up into two evenly-sized groups (or as close as possible) and then flip a coin to determine which group the D6 roll will apply to.

 

If I had more than six, why could I not, say, roll two dice, and assign the sergeant I want to go get it to a roll of 7?

 

That's why it's a terribly-written rule, by the way. Not that I'd take advantage of it, 'cause, I mean, it's 40K, and who cares, but because there are several different ways you could manipulate the results while still being under the auspices of "random". If the Sanguinor were a character that made it into tournament lists, I think we'd be seeing a lot of shenanigans with this.

 

But that wouldn't be random.

 

The only problem with the rule is that it expects players to think up a method for themselves. I don't see any ways to manipulate it while still being random.

[Frosty the Pyro]

The easiest thing is to roll a D6 or D3 depending upon the number of Sergeants and assign a number to each one. It seems rare to have more than 6 Sergeants in a 1750 army but in events where it does occur you can split them up into two evenly-sized groups (or as close as possible) and then flip a coin to determine which group the D6 roll will apply to.

 

If I had more than six, why could I not, say, roll two dice, and assign the sergeant I want to go get it to a roll of 7?

 

That's why it's a terribly-written rule, by the way. Not that I'd take advantage of it, 'cause, I mean, it's 40K, and who cares, but because there are several different ways you could manipulate the results while still being under the auspices of "random". If the Sanguinor were a character that made it into tournament lists, I think we'd be seeing a lot of shenanigans with this.

if your going to do that you might as well take a d100 and asighn values 1-99 to the one you want and value 00 to mean roll again for the ones you dont want. However its generaly acepted that when you randomly determan something, it should be an unweighted random determination. As a mater of fact the definition of random says it should be unwieghted.

 

1. proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern: the random selection of numbers.

2. Statistics . of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.

[Khavos]

The easiest thing is to roll a D6 or D3 depending upon the number of Sergeants and assign a number to each one. It seems rare to have more than 6 Sergeants in a 1750 army but in events where it does occur you can split them up into two evenly-sized groups (or as close as possible) and then flip a coin to determine which group the D6 roll will apply to.

 

If I had more than six, why could I not, say, roll two dice, and assign the sergeant I want to go get it to a roll of 7?

 

That's why it's a terribly-written rule, by the way. Not that I'd take advantage of it, 'cause, I mean, it's 40K, and who cares, but because there are several different ways you could manipulate the results while still being under the auspices of "random". If the Sanguinor were a character that made it into tournament lists, I think we'd be seeing a lot of shenanigans with this.

 

But that wouldn't be random.

 

The only problem with the rule is that it expects players to think up a method for themselves. I don't see any ways to manipulate it while still being random.

 

That's the problem with the rule. You might very well say that having your girlfriend pick a sergeant out of a bag while blindfolded is a random method for determining which one gets it.

 

Let me put it this way: if the deep striking rule said, "Randomly figure out if you scatter, and if so, randomly figure out how much and in which direction," I think we can all agree that'd cause problems, right? It'd be a terrible rule, with no method defined.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

The easiest thing is to roll a D6 or D3 depending upon the number of Sergeants and assign a number to each one. It seems rare to have more than 6 Sergeants in a 1750 army but in events where it does occur you can split them up into two evenly-sized groups (or as close as possible) and then flip a coin to determine which group the D6 roll will apply to.

 

If I had more than six, why could I not, say, roll two dice, and assign the sergeant I want to go get it to a roll of 7?

 

That's why it's a terribly-written rule, by the way. Not that I'd take advantage of it, 'cause, I mean, it's 40K, and who cares, but because there are several different ways you could manipulate the results while still being under the auspices of "random". If the Sanguinor were a character that made it into tournament lists, I think we'd be seeing a lot of shenanigans with this.

 

But that wouldn't be random.

 

The only problem with the rule is that it expects players to think up a method for themselves. I don't see any ways to manipulate it while still being random.

 

 

That's the problem with the rule. You might very well say that having your girlfriend pick a sergeant out of a bag while blindfolded is a random method for determining which one gets it.

 

Let me put it this way: if the deep striking rule said, "Randomly figure out if you scatter, and if so, randomly figure out how much and in which direction," I think we can all agree that'd cause problems, right? It'd be a terrible rule, with no method defined.

 

That isn't really a valid comparison because we need to know the possible distance of scatter for the DS rule to make sense. The reason they haven't put something more specific in for the Sanguinor's rule is that they don't know how many sergeants you'll have, and didn't want to write an extra paragraph or two offering suggestions. Nor should they have needed to.

[Khavos]

As a mater of fact the definition of random says it should be unwieghted.

 

And the definition of "choose" says to select freely and after consideration, to decide on especially by vote, or to have a preference for. The semantic argument breaks down, because, semantically, it's a nonsensical sentence. It should've read "randomly determine" rather than "randomly choose." That's a rules laywer argument that'll eventually come up someday, somewhere.

 

That isn't really a valid comparison because we need to know the possible distance of scatter for the DS rule to make sense. The reason they haven't put something more specific in for the Sanguinor's rule is that they don't know how many sergeants you'll have, and didn't want to write an extra paragraph or two offering suggestions. Nor should they have needed to.

 

Alright, fair enough, bad example.

 

Would you have an issue with my blindfolded-girlfriend-picking-sergeants-out-of-a-bag method?

[JamesI]

Would you have an issue with my blindfolded-girlfriend-picking-sergeants-out-of-a-bag method?

Yes, because you could train said girlfriend to pick the one you want.

 

Really, it has to be random. Roll a die for each, whoever gets the highest gets it. In the case of a tie, roll off between those who tied until there is no tie.

[Drudge Dreadnought]

Would you have an issue with my blindfolded-girlfriend-picking-sergeants-out-of-a-bag method?

 

Nothing is technically random. Even our best computer random number generators are not perfectly random. However, we should attempt to use the most random thing that we can. There are many potential biases to your girlfriend picking sergeants out of a bag. The warhammer game accepts dice as being the source for its 'random' numbers. Therefore, they should be what is used. It is easiest and makes the most sense.

 

Ultimately, you can mess around with this rule. However, that is true of every rule in the game. If you approach it in bad faith, you can cause all sorts of problems. Approach it with good, sporting intent though, and there is very little issue with the Sanguinor's rule.

[Grey Mage]

If your an RPG guy, like myself you just pull out the appropriate die- d4, d6, d8, etc and assign each sarge a number, rerolling any left over.

 

Ie "ok, Ive got seven sarges, starting on the left is 1, 2 etc. Ill reroll 8's" *rolls a 6* "Ok, second from the right.... Sergent McBloddy of the 2nd Assault Squad is our lucky winner".

 

If not, I reccommend droping the 50 cents and buying a d8. Its the largest youll probly ever need outside of apocalypse... especially with BA, and it gives consistently random results.

[BrotherMoses]

I'm like my brother, Grey Mage, a roleplayer with a die for every occassion. ;)

 

That said I think that using shenanigans with this rule would be against the spirit of the game and would bring shame to our primarch and chapter. While the wording of the rule says "randomly choose" to which any number of definitions, interpretations, or nit picking could be applied, we all still know what the intent was. Make Sanguinius proud and be humble, not pedantic or petty.

[stinkenheim]

My method.

 

1 ) Get a hat/cup/small box etc.

 

2 ) Write down each sergeants name/squad on a seperate piece of paper.

 

3 ) Place said bits of paper inside hat.

 

4 ) Proceed to shake hat about to mix them up.

 

5 ) Let the opponent draw one out whilst not looking.

 

6 ) Ask opponent to reveal name/squad number written on paper and voila you have a randomly designated sergeant.

 

Or if I'm in a rush I do the same as GM and others. Number them and roll a dice.

 

I really fail to see how 'randomly choose' can ever be read as 'Choose whichever sergeant you want' regardless of if someone is a rules lawyer or not.

[Leonaides]

Its a very good way to not have anyone to play against ever again though... I know what I'd do if the other BA player in my group tried this.