Thousand Sons & Death Guard with warp bolter

[Doom Herald]

I noticed some chatter on the 40k Facebook page about the Thousand Sons and Death Guard daemon princes not being able to take warp bolters through the Index wargear method because they are named "Daemon Prince of Tzeentch" and "Daemon Prince of Nurgle" and are therefore considered different units. I can accept this, but now we have the issue that the Index allows you to have a "Daemon Prince" with a warp bolter and the "Thousand Sons" or "Death Guard" keywords.

 

For certain, these units were possible before the CSM Codex. The issue here is on page 116, the Codex says of the Thousand Sons and Death Guard that "...you cannot choose one of these keywords when determining which Legion a unit in this codex is from." We are told that Codex datasheets replace Index datasheets, except that wargear options present in the Index but not in the Codex may still be taken. Some people would argue that this means that a unit who has rules updated in the Codex no longer has a valid Index entry. This would mean that the <Legion> rule on page 116 means that no <Legion> unit with a data sheet in the CSM Codex can replace that keyword with "Thousand Sons" or "Death Guard."

 

In the Chaos Index, page 49 and page 57 give us rules for using these 2 problem factions. They both give us a list of units and say that those datasheets can be from our 2 legions. It says that those on the list with <Legion> "can replace it in all instances with Thousand Sons" (or Death Guard). It can be argued that this is a case of specific over-rides general since these entries are more specific in that they would allow only the named units to replace <Legion> with "Thousand Sons" or "Death Guard." Were this not the case, not only would a "Daemon Prince" with these legion keywords have been illegal until the release of their legion's Codex, but every unit on the list that has a CSM Codex entry would have been illegal in this timeframe. In the case of Thousand Sons, this is a sizeable timeframe and the following would have all been illegal in that legion: Daemon Prince, Sorcerer, Sorcerer in Terminator Armour, Chaos Cultists, Helbrute, Chaos Rhino, Heldrake, Chaos Spawn, Defiler, Chaos Vindicator, Chaos Predator, Chaos Land Raider, Forgefiend, Maulerfiend. The notion that all of these were illegal during that timeframe is so ridiculous that, combined with the specific versus general idea, I am not seeing the "the CSM Codex made it illegal" as a plausible notion.

 

The next argument in opposition I have heard is that the Codex rules for these 2 legions replaced the Index rules on pages 49 and 57. This I am more inclined to believe, however it has issues as well. This argument states that because the "Daemon Prince" unit is not in the 2 Codexes, it is not playable in those legions despite being on the approved list. If this is the case, we have also lost all mounted HQs for these legions.

 

Truth be told, all I really want is to be able to have a Daemon Prince with a warp bolter for these legions. I do not believe that the rules writers intended for people to be able to use this method to get a round-about different daemon prince. Even with the warp bolter, a Thousand Sons "Daemon Prince" is inferior to a "Daemon Prince of Tzeentch." Death Guard "Daemon Prince" is more of a trade-off with a "Daemon Prince of Nurgle." It trades away Disgustingly Resilient and Contagion Discipline for Warp Bolter access and Dark Hereticus discipline (without strategems).

 

I think the renaming the Daemon Princes was not fully thought out as far as the interaction with the Index. The 2 definite problems here being the warp bolter issue and the fact that a Dark Hereticus Daemon Prince is now possible in the Death Guard. The best way to adress this would simply be to put an FAQ answer saying that for the purpose of Index interactions, a "Daemon Prince of Tzeentch/Nurgle) is treated as a "Daemon Prince" and can take a warp bolter. I have a hard time believing that after a warp bolter being legal wargear on Daemon Princes in these legions that the rules writers chose to intentionally make them the only factions that can no longer use this option.

 

Are there any other rules issues around This? If so please let me know. I have already emailed the FAQ people, but if others would like to see this issue resolved as well, more people emailing will help.

Edited March 8, 2018 by ThanatosMalleus