Keywords - Leader attached to unit

[Luciant]

I think it's well established (and if it's not please let me know) that when a leader joins a unit, the entire unit gains the keywords for all datasheets for the leader and the unit. 

 

I think this is broken. If that was the case does that mean every model in the unit are now characters. Allowing enhancements to be take, or allow a weapon with precision to target any model they want (ie. a model with a heavy weapon) first?

 

If true, would that mean that Grey Knight player could take a Brotherhood Librarian, and stick him with a 5 man terminator squad, given all terminators the 'Brotherhood Librarian' keyword. This would mean they all can use his abilities, since they are all librarians now?

 

What about putting Kaldor Draigo in a 5 man unit of terminators, given them the 'Kaldor Draigo' keyword. Does that mean I have 6 Draigos running around? <-- you might state that you cannot have more than one unique hero but I think that is at the time of building your army (detachment). They don't get the keyword until Draigo is put with them and that is at deployment. And if that isn't true, woudl that mean I can never take Draigo because I cannot have more than one?

 

Am I missing something here about the unit consuming all keywords. Just seems broken?

 

Thank you in advance for any responders. :) Trying to figure out what I might be missing.

 

I should clarify, as I don't want this to seem like a comment rather than a question. I think I'm missing something. Their has to be limitations on when or what keywords but I cannot find it in the rules. Any help is appreciated to better understand how this works.

Edited February 26 by Luciant

[Wormwoods]

Only the keywords called out in the Abilities section of the character model are applied to the unit, nothing else. Nothing that's attached to the character models weapons applies. Putting a Lt with a plasma pistol into a squad of Intercessors doesn't mean they all get Hazardous, but the Lt's ability, Tactical Precision, does give them all Lethal Hits. 

[Luciant]

@Wormwoods thank you for the response. That makes so much more sense than what I was understanding.

 

Can you point me to where it references that in the rules or any clarifications GW put out on it. 
 

 

 

This is the scenario that prompted my question. Maybe you can help me understand how it would work.

 

I’m a grey knight player, and I was playing against custodes. A unit of Allarus custodians were in combat with Draigo and 5 paladins. The custodians player said that they got re-roll to wounds while attacking my unit because of their ability ‘Slayer of tyrants’. He said because the character keyword carries over to the entire unit my paladins are now characters and is know. As a character unit. Giving him re-rolls. do you know if that is correct and why or why not? 

 

Slayers of Tyrants: Each time a model in this unit makes an attack that targets a Character, Monster or Vehicle unit, you can re-roll the Wound roll.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 26 by Luciant

[Wormwoods]

It's an interesting case. My read, which I'm afraid is all I can offer here, is that it would only apply if the unit also had Precision, allowing them to directly target the character model. Otherwise it's being allocated to the bodyguard unit until they're all dead. 

 

The wording from the Core Rules is: 'Attacks cannot be allocated to CHARACTER models in Attached units'. If they can't be allocated to the character, they're hitting the bodyguard unit, which has its own datasheet and set of keywords. 

 

Anyone more familiar with Custodes able to chime in? 

[Ikthelion Orthos]

2 hours ago, Luciant said:

@Wormwoods 

I’m a grey knight player, and I was playing against custodes. A unit of Allarus custodians were in combat with Draigo and 5 paladins. The custodians player said that they got re-roll to wounds while attacking my unit because of their ability ‘Slayer of tyrants’. He said because the character keyword carries over to the entire unit my paladins are now characters and is know. As a character unit. Giving him re-rolls. do you know if that is correct and why or why not? 

 

Slayers of Tyrants: Each time a model in this unit makes an attack that targets a Character, Monster or Vehicle unit, you can re-roll the Wound roll.

 

 

 

 

 

Your opponent is right, but for the wrong reasons.

 

Where an independent character joins a unit, the ‘Unit’ (character and bodyguard models combined) gains the keywords of all the models it is made up of. This does not mean that individual models gain all the keywords, but their ‘Unit’ does. You have to start thinking of units and models as almost different entities.

 

Whilst Draigo is part of the unit, the unit is considered a ‘Character unit’ and fulfils the requirements for Slayers of Tyrants. This does NOT mean that all the models in the unit gain the Character keyword. If Draigo is killed, then the units loses the 'Character' keyword as it contains no models with 'Character'. Slayers of Tyrants would then not work against the unit. Remember - attacks are made against units, not models.

 

The rules commentary provides further (and better!) clarification:

 

Quote

KEYWORDS

■ If a rule specifies that it applies to a model/unit with a Keyword, it only applies to a model/unit with that keyword on its datasheet.

■ If a rule specifies that it applies to ‘non-Keyword’ models/units, it only applies to models/units that do not have that keyword. For example, if a rule applies to non-Vehicle units, it only applies to units that do not have the Vehicle keyword.

■ Some units can contain models that have different keywords. While this is the case, such a unit is considered to have all of the keywords of all of its models, and so is affected by any rule that applies to units with any of those keywords. Remember that attacks are made against units, not models.

 

Example: An Attached unit contains a Leader model with the Psyker keyword. While that Leader is part of that unit, the entire unit is considered to have the Psyker keyword. If that unit is attacked by a weapon with the [ANTI-PSYKER 4+] ability, any unmodified Wound roll of 4+ made against that unit scores a Critical Wound, even if the attack itself is not allocated to that Leader model.

 

■ If a rule only applies to models with a specific keyword, then it instead only applies to models in such a unit that have the correct keyword.

■ A Keyword Detachment is a Detachment that only contains models that have that keyword (excluding any models that specify that they do not prevent a Detachment from gaining its Detachment rules).

■ A rule with a comma-separated list of keywords, or two keywords separated by the word ‘or’ (e.g. ‘an Immortals, Deathmarks or Lychguard unit’) refers to a model/unit that has any one of those keywords.

■ A rule with multiple adjacent keywords (e.g. ‘an Aeldari Guardians unit’) only refers to a model/unit that has all of those keywords.

 

The rules commentary can be found here:

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/2YpFOYJiw9LXvz4s.pdf

 

Specifically page 8 - hope this helps.

Edited February 26 by Ikthelion Orthos

[Luciant]

Really appreciate both of your time on this. I think I understand now. Thank you again. 

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

Another good example of this is the Canoptek Court. It's bonuses apply to CRYPTEK and CANOPTEK models. Now, looking just at the Codex, that limits to you with the six crypteks, and canoptek models.

 

However!

 

Any unit that a Cryptek joins gains the CRYPTEK keyword. So now Warriors and Immortals can gain the benefits of the Canoptek Court, which includes rr1's to hit flat out, rr all hit rolls in the power matrix, and access to a couple of the stratagems.

 

But in an example of how it CAN be a bit powerful, the battle tactic 'cynosure of eradication', which was already an investment at 2CP, was nerfed to only benefit Canoptek or Cryptek MODELS, not UNITS, like it had beforehand, because Tesla Immortals with a Plasmancer attached were dumping out absolute BUCKETS of shots, and then devastating wounds gave all those S5AP0 attacks a way to bypass everything but FNP (They still dump out buckets of shots, especially against an enemy sitting on an objective, so jury's still out on whether the nerf really does much). So now it really only benefits Canoptek Wraiths, Spyders, and the Forge World Units (excepting Serapteks, which is annoying), because burning 2CP on a cryptek model isn't worth it--they don't have the volume of attacks to make that worth it at all (unless it's a squad of wraiths with an attached technomancer, and even that is just an ancillary benefit rather than a primary use of the strat).

 

So GW is definitely monitoring what's going on. Whether they're making useful changes with this monitoring is up to the reader to decide.

[Xenith]

On 2/26/2024 at 4:53 AM, Luciant said:

What about putting Kaldor Draigo in a 5 man unit of terminators, given them the 'Kaldor Draigo' keyword. Does that mean I have 6 Draigos running around?

 

Not quite, you start with one unit that has the KALDOR DRAIGO keyword, attach him to another unit, and end up with one unit that has the KALDOR DRAIGO keywords. As above, the unit will have the keyword, but only one model will.

On 2/26/2024 at 4:53 AM, Luciant said:

If that was the case does that mean every model in the unit are now characters. Allowing enhancements to be take, or allow a weapon with precision to target any model they want (ie. a model with a heavy weapon) first?

 

No, the precision rules state:

 

Quote

Each time an attack made with such a weapon successfully wounds an Attached unit (see Leader ability), if a CHARACTER model in that unit is visible to the attacking model, the attacking model’s player can choose to have that attack allocated to that CHARACTER model 

 

Emphasis mine - things like preferred enemy characters would work against the entire unit, however [PRECISION] attacks are on a model by model basis, so while a unit might have the CHARACTER keyword, only models with CHARACTER can be selected to have attacks applied to them. 

[Tacitus]

On 2/25/2024 at 11:23 PM, Wormwoods said:

Only the keywords called out in the Abilities section of the character model are applied to the unit, nothing else. Nothing that's attached to the character models weapons applies. Putting a Lt with a plasma pistol into a squad of Intercessors doesn't mean they all get Hazardous, but the Lt's ability, Tactical Precision, does give them all Lethal Hits. 

Not quite.  There are several things to remember here:

 

Keywords are not abilities.

Abilities usually require each model to have the abiliy. 

Units can have keywords that models do not.

 

Some examples:

 

Azrael leads a Tactical Squad.  Together, the create a Combined Unit.  The combined unit has INFANTRY, IMPERIUM, TACTICAL SQUAD, CHAPTER MASTER, DEATHWING and so on.   The Tactical Squad models themselves do not have the DEATHWING keyword, but the combined unit does.  Azrael does not have the TACTICAL SQUAD keyword, but the combined unit does.   This usually doesn't mean much.  When Tigurius leads a Sternguard Squad the combined unit has the PSYKER keyword, so attacks that are ANTI-PSYKER 4+ will wound the Sternguard on a 4+ even though the individual models are not a PSYKER. 

 

Meanwhile SCOUTS X" is a unit ability.  This ability only works while all models in the unit have SCOUTS X"  That's why Captain Sicarius gives the unit ability SCOUTS X" to all models in his combined unit - otherwise his unit couldn't SCOUT move. 

[Tacitus]

On 2/25/2024 at 8:53 PM, Luciant said:

Allowing enhancements to be take,

Enhancements are taken before the Declare Formations step when leaders join units, so characters can only take enhancements that they qualify for on their own.

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, Tacitus said:

Enhancements are taken before the Declare Formations step when leaders join units, so characters can only take enhancements that they qualify for on their own.

 

Yes, this is a particularly important one to pay attention to.