Prometheus at War

I tackled part 1 a few days ago, and after writing a quite lengthy post, I cut it short, not anywhere near done.

I’m doing the Boston Brawlcon 4th of July weekend.  I desperately want many of these questions answered, as some of them will affect the viability of certain lists versus others.  Of course, I’m probably only halfway through this series of articles, and if they FAQ’d the thing this weekend, I’d be deprived of something to blather on about, so I’m a little conflicted.

FAQ Questions, Part 1, can be found here.

As before, I will make some notes regarding RAW (read as written), RAI (read as intended), and GAP (game as played, which simply means what the consensus has been to play it as, in the lack of any other direction, or perhaps “screw it, rule is fucked)

Here we go!

1. All the Anval Thawn questions.  I wrote a post about him recently, which people seem to have liked, and I’ve been using him a fair bit recently.  GW actually did a good job describing when, where, and how he comes back to life, but truth is a great deal about him is unsettled, rules wise, because GW didn’t seem to realize a guy who has all these special abilities like an IC, but is a sergeant, and then resurrects on his own, might cause some unique situations and need more than a paragraph explaining him.
   1. Does he grant the squad he leads fearless? “But ICs don’t give fearless to the squad they join!”, you say.  Well, sure, but Anval isn’t an IC, and he didn’t join the squad, he’s their justicar.  He’s a full part of the squad.
      • RAW:  There’s really no precedent for this, so who knows.  I’d say he does.
      • RAI:  I think they probably meant for it to grant
      • the squad fearless.  It’s actually not that big of a difference with terminators.
      • GAP:  Probably not.  People react very negatively to this, and keep on bringing up the IC rule, even though it has no bearing.  In a tournament, in the interests of time and sportsmanship, you shouldn’t argue about this unless it’s going to matter, which is rarely.
   2. Does he and the squad share a kill point, or is he a separate kill point entirely?  The codex is very specific about when he grants a kill point, but does not mention if once he dies and resurrects, do you have to kill him in order to have finished off the GKT squad (and have him stay dead) or is he worth an entirely separate kill point on his own?
      • RAW:  The closest precedent is a Devil Fish and its drones.  But that’s different in that the drones are proper passengers, while Thawn is properly the sergeant for his squad, fully part of it.
      • RAI:  He’s probably a separate kill point.  It seems that if it can operate separately, in 40k, then it’s a kill point.
      • GAP:  He’s a separate KP
   3. A little minor one here, but, if you buy psybolts for the GKT squad, does Anval get a Str 5 bolter once he resurrects?
      • RAW:  Who knows?  It seems though, that if Anval’s clip had ammo filled with the emperor’s special love-juice when he died, the extra special holy rounds are probably still there when he gets up.
      • RAI:  I actually doubt GW thought of this.
      • GAP:  If your opponent ever argued with you about something minor and stupid like this, punch him in the crotch. Continue reading »