Regarding Inquisitorial Henchmen.

[uberschveinen]

How can you possibly even say that? Do you actually know about the comprehensive rules, at all? It contains every single rule and every single manner in which it can operate. Literally every single one. And all the exceptions, variations, and alterations that exist in the entire game. It's how you can have a game that can have almost ten thousand different rules entries that can be used in any combination or any number of combinations and that have worked across so many fundamental rules changes that the modern game is unrecognisable as the old one, and do so without defect. When there is a new edition, the FAQ and the new rules rulings are out before the game is even officially released. Occasions where the rules team manages to miss an interaction until after release are extremely controversial, just because they almost never happen. Compare that to 40K, where the fundamental workings of a basic element of an army can be called into question such that some six different and distinct interpretations are possible, and will probably continue to be until six months after release, where a FAQ ruling will solve only the most pressing and important problems and miss the small issues entirely for the most part.

[Nian]

my opinion is that you have to use a bit of common sense (if any is actually needed). the reason its in the elites slot is that if it was a hq it would then be an a body guard and you would have to attatch said inquisitor to the unit instead you get a unit you do not have to attatch the inquisitor to the war band and it can be attatched to another unit or move independantly. the only way and i think its common consensus in most places to get more than one warband per inquisitor is by taking cotaez. The other matter of wether they use a FOC slot is pretty irrelevant as it blatently says they count as troops choices and thus are can be made to be the compulsory 2 troop units needed. Most HQ's that dont take up a slot count towards your compulsory HQ slot so why wouldnt the troops.

 

 

Since when has common sense had anything to do with GW and Matt Ward?

 

Oh and uberschveinen is correct, if WoTC can make MtG work so flawlessly with far more rules and options than 40k, then why is it so much of a mess from GW? Honestly if they cared about their player base they would have a comprehensive errata database on their web site and not release such tripe as their codex and rule books.

[Cretheus]

I am sorry i did delete that section pretty much as soon as i wrote it. I do know that MTG has a massive rules section online and my experiences with mtg alot of the time have ended up with what happens in 40k people not knowing the rules exactly mis interpretating them against opponents they may not have faced before. But you cannot compare a card game to what essentially was originly a role playing game. to get all the wrongs out of GW they need to decide wether Warhammer as a whole is a Role Playing game or the competitive one its trying to be. Sorry guys.

[dswanick]

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I've gotta take some exception to the tenor of what you guys are saying about MtG and WotC. Yeah, maybe it is good these days, but my heyday playing Magic was during the Arabian Nights/The Dark period. I started with beta and got out around Ice Age. I remember the inconsistant and contradictory nature of the rules back then. Remeber the killed/sent to graveyard/removed from game and regeneration sillyness? I do. There were a lot of problems with how the game was played back then, as well as flaws in rules wording and loopholes you could drive a Mac truck through.

The difference is in design philosophy. MtG was designed and marketed from the start as a competative, tournament oriented rules set. W40K is by design a friendly set of guidelines to allow a group of friends to play with beautifully designed models produced by GW. MtG entered the gaming landscape at the start of the "Internet timeperiod" while W40K predates this period by a decade. Except for the most basic general rules, each MtG "units" (cards) specific rules are printed right on the "unit" and require only that you read and interpret the rule. W40Ks unit specific rules are often barried in odd and obscure locations in the consolidated rules repository (Codex) for that units faction. Speaking of which a Codex could be viewed similarly to a MtG expansion - internally consistant but both suffer from cross expansion grey areas caused by different design teams. MtG had as many of those as each Codex has - for an example look no further than Ice Age. Just some food for thought.

[Nian]

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{snip}

I've gotta take some exception to the tenor of what you guys are saying about MtG and WotC. Yeah, maybe it is good these days, but my heyday playing Magic was during the Arabian Nights/The Dark period. I started with beta and got out around Ice Age. I remember the inconsistant and contradictory nature of the rules back then. Remeber the killed/sent to graveyard/removed from game and regeneration sillyness? I do. There were a lot of problems with how the game was played back then, as well as flaws in rules wording and loopholes you could drive a Mac truck through.

The difference is in design philosophy. MtG was designed and marketed from the start as a competative, tournament oriented rules set. W40K is by design a friendly set of guidelines to allow a group of friends to play with beautifully designed models produced by GW. MtG entered the gaming landscape at the start of the "Internet timeperiod" while W40K predates this period by a decade. Except for the most basic general rules, each MtG "units" (cards) specific rules are printed right on the "unit" and require only that you read and interpret the rule. W40Ks unit specific rules are often barried in odd and obscure locations in the consolidated rules repository (Codex) for that units faction. Speaking of which a Codex could be viewed similarly to a MtG expansion - internally consistant but both suffer from cross expansion grey areas caused by different design teams. MtG had as many of those as each Codex has - for an example look no further than Ice Age. Just some food for thought.

 

 

Comparing ice age and earlier sets and rule inconsistencies and problems is like talking about 2nd Edition W40k. WotC got past the poorly written issues over a decade ago, all your doing is making our point stronger that Games Workshop have a poor development team and give little regard to their customer. This is 2011, not 1991. Its only right to expect well written and concise rules from a multinational games company. There is no excuse.

[number6]

As much as I agree that GW would be wise to actually attempt editorial and proof control over their manuscripts ... I have long since gotten over being truly angry about it.

 

At some point, you have to ask yourself: Is the game fun enough to be worth the effort it takes to play it? I would argue that anybody willing to argue about rules interpretations over multiple days on a web forum also thinks the game is still worth it, warts and all. :)

 

And this implies three things of fundamental importance which really and truly needs to be seriously considered in ALL "RAW" discussions, not just this one.

 

The first thing is "reality".

The second thing is "reasonable".

And the third thing is "intent".

 

On the subject of "reality".... Dudes. This is the hand we've been dealt. No amount of bitching is going to change GW or their games development practices. Yes, you're right. We deserve better from GW when it comes to writing rules. But, after nearly 3 decades of business, they have given no evidence of willingness to improve on this front.

 

Seriously, let the reality truly sink in to your consciousness: It's not gonna happen.

 

Therefore: move on and deal with reality as it actually exists. It doesn't matter that GW says their game can be played purely Rules As Written. As uberschveinen has quite elegantly put it, that claim by GW is demonstrably false. The rules are not written to the standard that GW says they are. Which is to say: GW is lying to us.

 

Hey, the cake was a lie, wasn't it? :lol: Stop pretending and attempting to hold GW games (like 40K) to an unrealistic and unreasonable standard. That standard simply does not apply. It's time to lower the bar so that we can continue to play the game that we apparently enjoy.

 

On the subject of "reasonable": Nlan wants to parse the Inquisitorial Warband rule in a very pedantic fashion. It might be technically correct to parse it his way. But is it a "reasonable" way to read it? I think it's patently obvious that it is, in fact, NOT a "reasonable" interpretation, no matter how technically or grammatically correct it might be. Why? Because we have other rules to provide context that should -- and given what I said about "reality" earlier -- indeed MUST be taken into consideration as well.

 

Firstly, even Nlan acknowledges that there is at least one other way to read the sentence in question. And that way is the way I described it earlier, with the prepositional phrase modifying the entire expression. This is exactly as technically and grammatically correct English as anything Nlan has proposed.

 

Secondly, we have the Lord of Formosa rule, which contains a little gem that says that when Lord of Formosa is in effect, the number of warbands that can be taken is not limited by the number of Inquisitors in the army list.

 

Once you combine the basic rule and Lord of Formosa rule, the obvious conclusion should be, given two equally valid parsings of the rule for Warbands, only one parsing satisfies conditions such that the entire body of rules involving Warbands actually make sense. This rules out Nlan's parsing because to accept it would be to make portions of the Lord of Formosa rule senseless. Not "senseless" like, "GW, what you wrote is confusing", but "senseless" like, "What the heck does that sentence even refer to? Why does it even exist?"

 

See the difference? ;)

 

On the subject of "intent": I just performed the necessary exercise we sometimes have to employ in order to play the game. Divining the intent of the rules is necessary because in "reality" RAW is a lie and we therefore have to be "reasonable" instead of purely pedantic if we want to play the game. Reality forces us to make reasonable interpretations.

[dswanick]

Comparing ice age and earlier sets and rule inconsistencies and problems is like talking about 2nd Edition W40k. WotC got past the poorly written issues over a decade ago, all your doing is making our point stronger that Games Workshop have a poor development team and give little regard to their customer. This is 2011, not 1991. Its only right to expect well written and concise rules from a multinational games company. There is no excuse.

Please read Number6's post, above. I was pointing out that WotC publishes a competative, tournament-centric game - so yes, they have improved their game design and publishing quality. GW has always and probably will always hold to a different standard - fun, easy rules with which to use their primary product : miniatures. Number6 expressed it very well - stop expecting from GW something that they, themselves, have repeatedly stated will not happen.

[Nian]

Comparing ice age and earlier sets and rule inconsistencies and problems is like talking about 2nd Edition W40k. WotC got past the poorly written issues over a decade ago, all your doing is making our point stronger that Games Workshop have a poor development team and give little regard to their customer. This is 2011, not 1991. Its only right to expect well written and concise rules from a multinational games company. There is no excuse.

Please read Number6's post, above. I was pointing out that WotC publishes a competative, tournament-centric game - so yes, they have improved their game design and publishing quality. GW has always and probably will always hold to a different standard - fun, easy rules with which to use their primary product : miniatures. Number6 expressed it very well - stop expecting from GW something that they, themselves, have repeatedly stated will not happen.

 

 

I fail to see how much fun it is to argue with your opponent on every shoddy poorly written rule. To me the game gets so petty at times that I feel like rage quitting. Its only the few core friends who are agreeable enough that keep me going.

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Given that WH40k is a permissive ruleset (it tells us what we're allowed to do), and the entry for Inquisitorial Henchmen Warband specifically states that "For each Inquisitor in your army..." this is really a non-issue.

 

GW may have problems with getting consistent and accurate rules, but I've found the Grey Knights codex surprisingly clear. As a rule of thumb, just follow what it says in the book. Anything more than that is probably just wishful thinking.

[thade]

Seems this hasn't been put in here yet? This issues has been laid to rest by the FAQ:

 

 

Q: Can you only take an Inquisitorial henchmen

warband if you have an Inquisitor in your army? (p90)

A: Yes, you can take a maximum of one warband for

each Inquisitor (unless you take Inquisitor Coteaz)

[Nian]

Seems this hasn't been put in here yet? This issues has been laid to rest by the FAQ:

 

 

Q: Can you only take an Inquisitorial henchmen

warband if you have an Inquisitor in your army? (p90)

A: Yes, you can take a maximum of one warband for

each Inquisitor (unless you take Inquisitor Coteaz)

 

NICE! An FAQ. Ta.

[maturin]

How timely - new GW FAQ answers this. It's like they were reading the boards or something...

 

Henchmen need an inquis.

[Nian]

How timely - new GW FAQ answers this. It's like they were reading the boards or something...

 

Henchmen need an inquis.

 

 

Actually it answered everything to do with the whole henchmen issue, so I would say they have been reading forums from various sites. Amazing.

 

Shame about the falcions however.