Summoning With Cypher

[Commissar K.]

One last question, partially for the sake of arguement and partially for completeness, what if all non-Chaos Imperium units in the army were dead? In otherwords, what if the only units still active as a part of the army were Cypher and maybe some Fallen? Everything currently in the army would then share the Chaos keyword.

The Army Faction does not change once it is chosen. Even if you have 0 models left you still have the same chosen Army Faction. 

[Commissar K.]

And yet, Be'lakor's datasheet does say that he can be summoned with Daemonic Ritual. So..... yeah. I think he can?

He can but only by Characters who do not have Keyword Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle or Slaanesh aswell. Because these characters are 'forced' to summon units who have the same Keyword. This also gives an additional worth to characters who keep the Keyword <Mark of Chaos>. 

 

The one odd move we do have to preform is to 'choose a god' but it does not denote that Daemons can only be summoned with Keyword Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle or Slaanesh. 

[Kol Saresk]

I mean, I get what you're saying at, but daemonic ritual is just a Chaos ability all daemonic characters can use whether they be daemons, Chaos Marines, or Cypher. So I'd kinda argue that it is a faction ability.

But it's possible that it's griping.

And where I can see where you are coming from with page 114, I'd also argue that it's no different from the page in the BRB where there's no explicit description one way or another. Both say include all units, both say include points, but neither says if reinforcement units are included in the "all".

I'm just including a picture of the page so others can see and draw their own conclusions.

To me, I'd operate on the "talk with your opponents beforehand" rule. Just to be courteous. It clears up a lot of issues.

That's... odd. That page does not appear in my epub copy of the core rule book, so it's the first time I've ever seen it. What page/section is it?

So, page 114 of Index: Chaos states that your army roster holds the points and name of your dettachments and what points you set aside for reinforcements, but that you need to compose a dettachment roster for each dettachment which includes your unit details. The dettachment roster only includes unit profiles that are a part of a dettachment and the army roster does not record reinforcement units, only points and dettachments. Based on this, reinforcements that are not a part of dettachments are not a part of your army until played.

[Commissar K.]

As the option is there in Open and Narrative play keep in mind that Indexes and Codexes from now on arnt solely created for Matched play.

 

Thus before anything else, decide on the type of play and follow the Rulesbook on those steps required for the type of play.

 

What I mean by that is that rules for Battle Forged armies are advanced rules, followed after core rules and type of play.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Commissar K.

[Doom Herald]

@sanityimpaired: that page is in Index Chaos.

 

@ Commisar: so, once the non-chaos units are dead, daemons be come valid reinforcements based on the absence of non-chaos right?

[Doom Herald]

Also, the rules for Daemonic Ritual do say ANY Chaos Character, not any character in a Chaos army.

 

I do wonder at the purpose of Faction keywords that are more specific than Chaos though. That is, why are they even faction words ans not just regular keywords

[Commissar K.]

@ Commisar: so, once the non-chaos units are dead, daemons be come valid reinforcements based on the absence of non-chaos right?

Not really. The essence remains you pick a Faction Keyword (one) build an army for that and Reinforcements also have to have that Keyword to keep your army legal.

 

Say you pick Imperium as your faction keyword at no point will that chosen faction keyword change based on the models on or off the table.

 

The choice is made pre any model inclusion. Including adding models through Reinforcements based on Match play rules.

 

As in order to create an army (at any point) all datasheets have to have the same faction keyword.

 

Removing models from the table is not the same as removing datasheets or keywords.

[Doom Herald]

 

@ Commisar: so, once the non-chaos units are dead, daemons be come valid reinforcements based on the absence of non-chaos right?

Not really. The essence remains you pick a Faction Keyword (one) build an army for that and Reinforcements also have to have that Keyword to keep your army legal.

 

Say you pick Imperium as your faction keyword at no point will that chosen faction keyword change based on the models on or off the table.

 

The choice is made pre any model inclusion. Including adding models through Reinforcements based on Match play rules.

 

As in order to create an army (at any point) all datasheets have to have the same faction keyword.

 

Removing models from the table is not the same as removing datasheets or keywords.

Where does it say you declare a keyword as your armys keyword? Everything i remember just says your army must share a faction keyword, not that you declare one for the army.

[Sception]

Your army must share a faction keyword.  Reinforcements are added to your army.  There is strong ground to argue that reinforcements thus need to share the army's faction keyword.  That's not how AoS works, and would prevent, say, Word Bearer's faction armies from summoning daemons every bit as much as it would prevent Cypher from doing so in an Imperium army, so whenever this gets a clarification from GW I doubt that's the interpretation they're going to go with.  But for now the intent is unclear and the wording seems to lean towards the more restrictive reading, at least imo.

[Doom Herald]

Any Chaos character still reads as ANY though. Also, considering the design notes shared earlier in the thread, stating that Faction Keywords functionaly become just keywords, there is a strong arguement that summoned Daemons come in as functionally "Unaligned" since their Faction Keywords would become just Keywords.

 

This faction keyword stuff is just wierd though. I dont understand what the point of making Nurgle, for example, a faction keyword since all Nurgle units have the Chaos keyword so you could just use Chaos as a faction, since there is no benefit to using Nurgle instead.

 

But back to my last question, assuming the Comissar is wrong, would summoning Daemons if Cypher was the last living unit still be a violation, assuming summoned Daemons dont get summoned unaligned, since the only units left in your army have the Chaos keyword?

Edited July 7, 2017 by ThanatosMalleus

[Sception]

The question isn't whether Cypher can summon things, he's a chaos character, he absolutely can.  The question is whether daemon units can be summoned into an army where they do not share the army's faction keyword.

 

Daemons do not come in as 'functionally unaligned', UNALIGNED is a specific keyword on the specific dataslates of those units that have the Unaligned faction (mostly generic fortifications & terrain).  The summoned daemons have all the keywords they normally have, faction and otherwise.  Nothing in the daemonic ritual rules changes their keywords, and nothing in the daemonic ritual rules specifically states that summoned daemons are considered to be independent of your army's faction.

 

Again, I expect that they are intended to be so, because, again, that's how it works in Age of Sigmar, and I cannot imagine GW would go with a ruling that would prevent chaos marine armies from summoning daemon reinforcements.

 

But regardless of intent, the wording right now doesn't not clearly state that, and in the absence of any such statement the fact that reinforcements are 'added to your army' kind of implies that they need to have been units that are allowed in your army in the first place.

[Doom Herald]

I wasnt saying that the Daemonic Ritual makes them unaligned, rather that designer notes for the main rules say that once the battle starts, factiin keywords effectively cease to be faction keywords, IE: Faction Keyword Daemon is no different than Keyword Daemon. Further it states that Faction keywords are only relevent when battleforging your army. Summoned Daemons are not added to your army when battleforging, only alotted points for summoning them. Further, the reinforcement rules state that such models are not added to the army until after the battle has started, at which point faction keywords are said to be no longer relevent. Granted this does depend on designers notes and not the rules themselves, so i dont know how valid that makes them.

[Commissar K.]

No Faction Keyword ceases to be a Faction Keyword, as before, Faction Keywords are just Keywords that are relevant Keywords to decide Army Faction.

 

The only thing the rules say is that Faction Keywords count as regular Keywords aswell. Likewise regular Keywords cannot become Faction Keywords. Daemonic Engine or Character Keyword cannot become an Army Faction.

 

Its not clear, to that I agree. The more you read through 8th the more you need to know about AoS to know the RAI on RAW.

 

Its a bit frustrating really.

[Commissar K.]

Any Chaos character still reads as ANY though. Also, considering the design notes shared earlier in the thread, stating that Faction Keywords functionaly become just keywords, there is a strong arguement that summoned Daemons come in as functionally "Unaligned" since their Faction Keywords would become just Keywords.

 

This faction keyword stuff is just wierd though. I dont understand what the point of making Nurgle, for example, a faction keyword since all Nurgle units have the Chaos keyword so you could just use Chaos as a faction, since there is no benefit to using Nurgle instead.

 

But back to my last question, assuming the Comissar is wrong, would summoning Daemons if Cypher was the last living unit still be a violation, assuming summoned Daemons dont get summoned unaligned, since the only units left in your army have the Chaos keyword?

Yes they keep the Keywords, but Keywords dont change. For an legal army you still have to have all units share that Faction Keyword.

 

Word Bearers are arguably the best designed with this in mind. Keep Keyword <Mark of Chaos> gain acces to all Daemon Flavours based on Faction Keyword Chaos for the Army Faction.

 

In AoS there are exclusive benifits to having a Keyword Khorne or Tzeentch army. These gain bonusses exclusive to such armies. I expect the same for 40k.

 

The last question most certainly is dubious for intend from GWs side, my assumption remains you cant. It would be quite illogical to see Cypher summon Daemons while fighting for the Imperium aswell from a narrative standpoint.

[Sception]

I wasnt saying that the Daemonic Ritual makes them unaligned, rather that designer notes for the main rules say that once the battle starts, factiin keywords effectively cease to be faction keywords

 

These designer notes?  https://17890-presscdn-0-51-pagely.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Warhammer_40000_Designers_Commentary-ENG.pdf

 

I don't see anything about it, is there something somewhere else?

 

I agree with you on what I think was the rules intent, I'm just looking for clarification that would justify that to someone whose initial reading was different.

[Kol Saresk]

https://17890-presscdn-0-51-pagely.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Warhammer_40000_Designers_Commentary-ENG.pdf

[Doom Herald]

Kol posted the link. It says "The only real difference [between a Faction keyword and keyword] is that faction keywords are used when building an army."

 

Although, it does also say, in the same answer, that if you are playing matched play you will need to have an "army faction - this is a faction keyword that is shared by all of your units in your entire army." So this was a thing I aparently did miss.

 

But then, it also goes on to say, "Once the battle had begun, the distinction between keyword and Faction keywords no longer has any effect."

 

The rules on reinforcements, second paragraph, states that reinforcements are added to your army during the battle, which is after it has started.

 

So what it really comes down to is whether the units used as reinforcements that are not a part of a dettachment are a part of building your army, since you only have to allot points for them while building your army not declare what units you will be using.

 

If they are, this would mean a Deathguard army would not, infact, be able to summon, now i know where magpie was coming from, or even that a Daemon army could not create Warpspawn out of enemy characters.

 

This brings me back to the "any CHAOS character" bit. If army faction and keywords were intended to affect unnamed reinforcements this way, it should simply be "any character in a CHAOS army."

 

As for why Cypher would summon Daemons while with an Imperium army: Cypher does what he does for his own ends. If Cypher is leading an Imperium, or Chaos, army it is to further his own, unknown, ends. If summoning Daemons to help win a battle would further his ends, ehy wouldn't he?

Edited July 7, 2017 by ThanatosMalleus

[Doom Herald]

@malisteen: the one kol posted seems identical to yours except yours is missing page 4.

[Paradigm]

They already described being able to summon daemons of any alignment during a QnA a couple weeks ago.

 

When you are building your army, you keep reinforcement points. They don't do anything, have any faction or whatever. Just leftover points.

 

If it isn't in the detatchement it isn't a part of your army at game start. Since you don't pick the daemons until after the game starts they don't get checked by the faction keyword restrictions. Ones the daemons get on the board they are a part of your army, and faction keywords no longer matter, so there is no restriction.

[Paradigm]

Tried to edit... Meant to say in the last sentence, "...no longer matter for army building purposes..."

[Kol Saresk]

What was the context? Because the ritual says alignment doesn't matter unless the Character has a specific Mark. For example, Death Guard characters can only summon Nurgle daemons. Because Death Guard armies and characters have to have both keywords Death Guard and Nurgle. Which is why Magpie's freak out anout the Death Guard doesn't make sense.

 

So when they say alignment doesn't matter, do they mean UNALIGNED, or Chaos unaligned?

[Commissar K.]

Doesnt say that. What is stated is that you must reserve points. Adding units to an army at any stage still has to follow the Army Faction rule. As its part of the rules for Matched play and thus also Battle Forged armies.

 

I cannot find where GW tells you to ignore Faction Keywords at any point in the game. What I can find is that its confirmed that Faction Keywords work as regular Keywords aswell but not the other way around.

Edited July 8, 2017 by Commissar K.

[Commissar K.]

What was the context? Because the ritual says alignment doesn't matter unless the Character has a specific Mark. For example, Death Guard characters can only summon Nurgle daemons. Because Death Guard armies and characters have to have both keywords Death Guard and Nurgle. Which is why Magpie's freak out anout the Death Guard doesn't make sense.

 

So when they say alignment doesn't matter, do they mean UNALIGNED, or Chaos unaligned?

They mean Keyword Unaligned specifically.

 

There is no Keyword Chaos Unaligned.

 

Keyword <Mark of Chaos> is not Keyword Unaligned.

[Commissar K.]

As for making an army with chosen Faction Keyword Death Guard, no you cant summon Daemons for that with RAW. Which is why there is no bonus to playing Mono Death Guard or any of the other Legions.

 

Likewise, pre Blades of Khorne, Bloodbound, a mortal army of Khorne could not summon or include Khorne Daemons either. Mono Bloodbound mend mono mortal.

[Kol Saresk]

How does RAW stop Death Guard from summoning Nurgle?

 

Dude, I don't know what wires you have crisscrossed but there are places where you go ridiculously loosey goosey with the rules, and then there are other places where the only words that describe your attitude are against forum rules.

 

Some things you get and others are just off the wall. This is one of those off the wall attitudes.