8th Ed. RE: Death Slann Tactica

[Karnus]

I love death magic and was looking through the death Slann tactica that is stickied to this forum and I noticed next to doom and darkness Scalanex (sorry no idea how to link) has stated that it doesn't work with spirit leech.

I can't find anything to support this. I have found the following FAQ's:

"Q: When taking a Leadership test, sometimes you have to take it on your unmodified Leadership. What is your unmodified Leadership? (p10)

A: Your unmodified Leadership is the highest Leadership characteristic in the unit. So the Leadership from any characters in the unit itself (but not from outside the unit, from Inspiring Presence for example) with a higher Leadership can be used unless specifically stated otherwise."

"Q: Do units benefit from their General’s Inspiring Presence for the purposes of spells that use Leadership, such as Spirit Leech or Okkam’s Mindrazor? (p107)

A: Yes."

"Q. If an enemy unit is affected by the Doom and Darkness spell, and the unit is within the general’s Inspiring Presence radius, does the Leadership value conferred by Inspiring Presence suffer the modifier even if the General is not affected? (Reference)

A: Yes."

Ignoring the fact that the first two FAQ's completely contradict each other....

If I cast Doom and Darkness on a unit with a character in it and then spirit leech on said character BUT the general is nearby - what leadership does the character roll on?

 

[airjamy]

Interesting question. It is frankly baffling how contradictory the FAQ is here, which will probably make it hard to come to a RAW conclusion. My inclination is that you would be able to use the general's leadership, as inspiring presence sets the leadership to a certain number, it does not modify it. A modifier is in my interpretation of the rules always a +1 (or 2 or 3 etc) or a -1 (or 2 or 3 etc).

 

[Karnus]

Interesting question. It is frankly baffling how contradictory the FAQ is here, which will probably make it hard to come to a RAW conclusion. My inclination is that you would be able to use the general's leadership, as inspiring presence sets the leadership to a certain number, it does not modify it. A modifier is in my interpretation of the rules always a +1 (or 2 or 3 etc) or a -1 (or 2 or 3 etc).

I would argue that RAW if "unmodified leadership" is the highest leadership in the unit and as the general isn't in the unit, his inspiring presence would be subject to modifiers while characters in the target unit would not. I think that makes sense?

 

[airjamy]

Inspiring presence is worded as "Providing that the General is not fleeing, all friendly units within 12" may use his Leadership instead of their own". RAW it does not say that it can be used as if the general was in the unit, which would solve our issue. I would really not know what they intended with this. It is not specifically stated otherwise that you cannot use Inspiring presence though, as it is for example with the TK item the Death Mask of Karnut, so I would still argue you can, but i totally see your point and i can't find anything detailed to really counter it.

 

[Karnus]

Happy New Year! Resurrection time!

Inspiring presence is worded as "Providing that the General is not fleeing, all friendly units within 12" may use his Leadership instead of their own". RAW it does not say that it can be used as if the general was in the unit, which would solve our issue. I would really not know what they intended with this. It is not specifically stated otherwise that you cannot use Inspiring presence though, as it is for example with the TK item the Death Mask of Karnut, so I would still argue you can, but i totally see your point and i can't find anything detailed to really counter it.

Taking just this line from the FAQ:

"Q. If an enemy unit is affected by the Doom and Darkness spell, and the unit is within the general’s Inspiring Presence radius, does the Leadership value conferred by Inspiring Presence suffer the modifier even if the General is not affected? (Reference)

A: Yes."

So I could cast Doom and Darkness on a unit who is lets say is Ld 7, within that unit is a hero who is Ld 8. The unit now has Ld 5 and the hero Ld 6. However for the purposes of spirit leech we use Ld 7 and Ld 8.

The General is nearby, he is Ld 10. The unit may use his inspiring presence however they may only use it at Ld 7 because of Doom and darkness. Thus the enemy will have no choice but to roll on his Ld 8 hero as per the FAQ linked above.


I am still confused by this:

"Q: When taking a Leadership test, sometimes you have to take it on your unmodified Leadership. What is your unmodified Leadership? (p10)

A: Your unmodified Leadership is the highest Leadership characteristic in the unit. So the Leadership from any characters in the unit itself (but not from outside the unit, from Inspiring Presence for example) with a higher Leadership can be used unless specifically stated otherwise."

why doesn't it state "use the leadership number on the models stat line" or something to that effect?

 

[Killer Angel]

I love death magic and was looking through the death Slann tactica that is stickied to this forum and I noticed next to doom and darkness Scalanex (sorry no idea how to link) has stated that it doesn't work with spirit leech.

here you are

to link something, basically just copy the url, and paste it using the "link" icon in the upper part of the post (the one on the right of the "font" icons)

Ignoring the fact that the first two FAQ's completely contradict each other….

but you cannot ignore it.
It's the case when rules tell different things and those rules are both valid. You must agree with your opponent on one of them, or you roll a dice.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

I need to pull out my rulebook and re-read the Inspiring Leadership rule. It doesn't make sense to me that you would use it against Spirit Leech.