Nobility Made Manifest

[CCE1981]

Ultramarines Successor Chapter and give them Born Heroes Successor Trait

 

On Warlord take Nobility Made Manifest

 

Can an infantry/biker unit Heroically Intervene 6” if they are within range of the Warlord?

[mertbl]

No. They arent character units. Nobility made manifest only let's them heroically intervene.

[Kallas]

No. They arent character units. Nobility made manifest only let's them heroically intervene.

 

"Friendly Ultramarines Infantry units and Ultramarines Biker units can perform a Heroic Intervention as if they were Character whilst they are within 6" of this Warlord."

 

While I certainly understand your point, I don't think it's nearly that clear cut.

 

They can intervene as if they were characters; while they normally wouldn't benefit from Born Heroes, Nobility Made Manifest lets them intervene as if they were characters, which could be argued to trigger the Born Heroes tactic to allow characters to intervene 6" (because they are treated as characters for the purposes of Heroic Intervention).

 

I think it's a fine line either way - I hope this gets included in the post-Codex FAQ, as it would certainly make that choice a little more interesting - and it'd be far from hyper competitive...

[mertbl]

No it's pretty clear cut. They arent character units. They dont gain the character keyword.

[CaptainMarsh]

It just means they gain access to the simple use of the ability to Heroically Intervene. It doesn't grant them the Character keyword and any benefits that would imply, such as Born Heroes ST.

[Kallas]

No it's pretty clear cut. They arent character units. They dont gain the character keyword.

 

I didn't say they did. However, the way the wording is presented leads me to believe that it's not quite so clear cut. I will explain below:

 

It just means they gain access to the simple use of the ability to Heroically Intervene. It doesn't grant them the Character keyword and any benefits that would imply, such as Born Heroes ST.

 

Yes, it does not grant them the CHARACTER keyword, the wording is similar to other uses. Allow me to explain my thinking:

 

Scions of Guilliman:

"Whilst the Tactical Doctrine is active, models with this ability that moved in your Movement phase, but did not Advance or Fall Back, can makes attacks with ranged weapons in the Shooting phase as if their unit had remained stationary this turn."

 

I think this is fairly clear cut: if you moved, you can shoot as if you hadn't ("as if their unit had remained stationary") - they clearly, definitively haven't remained stationary, but through this rule they are treated as such ("as if they had [...]")

 

Born Heroes:

"CHARACTER units with this tactic can perform a Heroic Intervention if there are any enemy units within 6" of them instead of 3", and when doing so can move up to 6" instead of 3". "

 

No real comment on this, just to put the rule in full display: it allows CHARACTER units to HI from further away.

 

Nobility Made Manifest:

"Friendly Ultramarines Infantry units and Ultramarines Biker units can perform a Heroic Intervention as if they were CHARACTERS whilst within 6" of this Warlord."

 

Lets Infantry/Biker units HI within 6".

 

Now, what I specifically want to bring up is this:

"[...] as if their unit had remained stationary this turn."

"[...] as if they were CHARACTERS [...]"

 

I think we're agreed that Scions of Guilliman allows a unit to shoot a Heavy Weapon without penalty, even though they moved previously (that's half of the point of the rule!); the point I'm making here is that:

1. Born Heroes is a Successor Trait that all units have, regardless of whether they are characters or not (simply, it only benefits characters). For reference: "Chapter Tactics: If your army is Battle-forged, units (other than Servitors) in a Space Marines Detachment [...] gain the Chapter Tactics ability, so long as every unit in that Detachment is drawn from the same Chapter. [...] If you Chapter does not have an associated Chapter Tactic, you must instead create a Successor Chapter Tactic for them [...]" Similarly, White Scars all have Lightning Assault - not all units will benefit from the Biker portion of the Tactic, but they still have it - if they were to somehow gain the Biker keyword during the game, they would benefit from it.
2. Nobility Made Manifest allows non-Character units to HI - not in the same manners as characters but, "as if they were" characters. This is the same terminology used to describe units that moved being considered to have remained stationary under Scions of Guilliman. Given that, it is clear that "as if they were" means that all 
3. Born Heroes combined with Nobility Made Manifest should combine. NBM allows units to HI "as if they were characters"; and BH allows "characters units with this Tactic" to HI further. While NBM does not give them character keyword, it does say to treat them as characters for the purposes of HI; and all units have the associated Chapter Tactic, regardless of their capability to utilise all elements of them (eg, White Scars, Iron Hands, Raven Guard).

Basically, "as if they were" does allow a unit to HI 6" with Born Heroes provided that they were close to a Warlord with Nobility Made Manifest; because otherwise "as if they were" has basically no rules grounding elsewhere and would unravel a ton of other interactions.

 

I do not necessarily believe that this is an intended combination (there are so many that it'd be incredibly difficult for GW to find them all) and if it were to be errata'd then fine. But I do believe that the current rules writing means that it is possible.

 

That said, I am not arguing this because I am overly attached to it - I am not going to blindly argue against people, and I am happy to concede I am wrong if presented with reasoned arguments, so please don't think I am trying to dig in my heels.

 

Cheers,

Tom.