[Dave T Hobbit]

Rob1981 raised the interesting question of how Fear and Mark of Nurgle combine.

The options of which I am aware - there might be others of which I have not thought - are:

(i) Failing the Fear check reduces the enemy's WS to 1 then MoN reduces it by -1 so they are WS1 for the purposes of hitting them and cannot strike back (WS0 when attacking);

(ii) MoN reduces the WS on their profile by 1 and then failing the Fear check makes them count as WS1;

(iii) The player whose turn it is chooses.

As both MoN and Fear are fairly common in Warriors of Chaos, I am vaguely disappointed I could not find and answer in the Updaterrata.

 

[Tim/Steve]

If you fail a fear check and are fighting MoN then you are WS0... very very bad.
That means that you dont get to attack at all and that you get hit automatically- not a nice place to be.

 

[Dave T Hobbit]

If you fail a fear check and are fighting MoN... you get hit automatically....

I do not think you are hit automatically; my understanding of the FAQ is that the -1 from MoN only affects you when attacking (stupid FAQ!) so you are at worst WS 1 when being attacked.

If the reduction does also affect your ability to defend, then my Chaos Knights will be very ha... actually they will still be morose.

 

[Sethis]

If GW took a leaf out of MTG's rules writing, then we would know for sure, due to state-based effects, timestamps, the stack, etc etc. However they don't, so we don't.

I will point out, however, their answer to the Dark Elf question about poisons: When given an item that says "Your S is always counted as being the same as the target's T" in addition to a poison that says "+1S", then you always count your S as being 1 higher than the target's T (i.e. the former effect is applied before the latter). This is also in line with their stance on powerfists and similar, that all modifiers (+ or - numbers) are applied after anything else that affects the statistic (such as doubling or equalizing or reducing/increasing to a set value).

In this case I would rule (my opinion only, of course) that you would be WS0 if you failed your Fear test while attacking Nurgle troops, and WS1 for purposes of the Nurglites attacking you (I think it's fairly clear in the wording of the Mark itself that the -1 WS only applies when rolling to hit the Nurgle models and not vice versa).

 

[Rob1981]

yeah, unfortunately for us followers of Nurgle the FAQ means we don't auto-hit but it's always fun when someone's big unit consistently fails it's fear test and just sits there getting hacked to pieces. I'll have to work on a way of maximising that effect- I'm sure there's a banner that drops Ld for the purposes of fear tests... The Filth Mace is going to start appearing in lists more now as well. In a game against Skaven on Monday I had a unit of 10 Nurgle knights and a lord kick the crap out of a huge number of rats because they kept failing fear (and later on terror) tests. Might start taking a Tzeentch sorcerer though as Pandemonium has been made insanely good as has the puppet

 

[Masked Jackal]

If GW took a leaf out of MTG's rules writing, then we would know for sure, due to state-based effects, timestamps, the stack, etc etc. However they don't, so we don't.

I will point out, however, their answer to the Dark Elf question about poisons: When given an item that says "Your S is always counted as being the same as the target's T" in addition to a poison that says "+1S", then you always count your S as being 1 higher than the target's T (i.e. the former effect is applied before the latter). This is also in line with their stance on powerfists and similar, that all modifiers (+ or - numbers) are applied after anything else that affects the statistic (such as doubling or equalizing or reducing/increasing to a set value).

In this case I would rule (my opinion only, of course) that you would be WS0 if you failed your Fear test while attacking Nurgle troops, and WS1 for purposes of the Nurglites attacking you (I think it's fairly clear in the wording of the Mark itself that the -1 WS only applies when rolling to hit the Nurgle models and not vice versa).

Not to nitpick, but I am. The item was rending stars, which was just users strength+1, and the Manbane was what made it one about targets toughness, effectively making it the enemy's toughness+2. Other than that, nice summary.

 

[The Son of Horus]

The Mark of Nurgle's -1WS only applies to blows being struck against models with the Mark. They'd still be whatever their profile WS is when being hit by the Warriors of Nurgle (in this case, 1). I'm inclined to think that if you fail a fear check against models with the Mark of Nurgle, you'll be out of luck-- models with WS0 can't fight, and -1 WS from WS1 is WS0. Kind of makes up for the fact that Chaos Knights took the same hit other cavalry did, but you can't bring a large enough unit of them to bring 'em in a way to actually break somebody in one round. But making them immune to consequences for a turn drastically makes up for that.

 

[HiveMinder]

I agree with the above statements. As a general rule (although not stated specifically anywhere), GW prefers to apply static bonuses last.

Further proof is the Dwarf Slayer Axes, which make attacker's S equal targets T. They state there too that any Strength modifiers are applied last.

Not to begrudge the evilly cackling nurgle players out there, but I have a feeling this will get errata when they get around to army FAQs.

 

[Wolf_Lord_Skoll]

They have done the FAQs and nothing was mentioned...