Space Wolves Q: Jaws of the World Wolf and Arjac's Ranged Thunderhammer attack

[mkerr]

The rulebook explicitly states that a weapon's additional characteristics will be included in its profile.

I don't know how you can make that argument. There are examples in almost every codex of shooting attacks having special characteristics that fail to appear on the profile.

From old codices, like Daemonhunters:

1. The Vindicare Exitus Rifle, the Culexus Animus Speculum, and the Callidus Neural Shredder all have effects that aren't covered by the profile.

2. Heavy Support Orbital Strikes have targeting, timing and placement rules -- as well as Inaccuracy.

to new codices, like the Space Marine codex:

3. Chapter Master Orbital Bombardment has an "always scatters the full 2D6" rule that's not covered in the weapon's profile.

4. Scout Bike Cluster Mines have tons of weird rules that don't appear in the profile.

5. Cassius' Infurnus has rules that don't appear in the profile.

to the latest Space Wolves codex:

6. Psychic shooting attacks like Fury of the Wolf Spirits and Murderous Hurricane have special characteristics that don't appear on the profile.

7. Njal's Lord of the Tempests ranged attacks don't even have profiles.

These characteristics aren't ingored when those shooting attacks are made.

[Nabterayl]

Thanks, MVBrandt. I appreciate that.

In thinking about this, perhaps it is actually the term "thunder hammer" that is tripping people up. I'm a contract lawyer, so I'm used to sentences that are packed with defined terms. I mention that just so you will have some context when I say that I read "Foehammer is a thunder hammer that may be used as a ranged weapon with the following profile" as:

Foehammer disallows armor saves by any model wounded by it in close combat, doubles the user's Strength (up to a maximum of 10), always delivers its attacks at Initiative 1 (ignoring Initiative bonuses from special rules, wargear, etc.), reduces the Initiative of any model wounded but not killed by it to 1 until the end of the next player's turn, against vehicles with no Initiative value inflicts a crew shaken result any time it inflicts any damage result, and may be used as a ranged weapon with the following profile:

Range: 6" S:10 AP:1 Assault 1

That is the exact same sentence, except that I have replaced "thunder hammer" with the rules for how a thunder hammer actually works, taken from page 42. That is not any different to me, structurally, than this:

The D-cannon always wounds on a roll of 2+, and on a roll to wound of a 6 it inflicts instant death on the victim (regardless of its Toughness value). Against targets with an Armour Value, the D-cannon always inflicts a glancing hit on a roll of 3 or 4 and a penetrating hit on a roll of 5 or 6. It has the following profile:

Range: G24" S:X AP:2 Heavy 1, Blast

Both cases have "the following profile," and both cases have written rules that are not in the profile, or indicated by the profile in the slightest way. You might guess that you have to look up what a D-cannon wounds on, given that its Strength is listed as X. But nothing in the profile remotely suggests that a D-cannon inflicts Instant Death on a 6 - and yet it does.

[DarkLink]

Said I wasnt gonna post again but I changed my mind, I wanted to add one thing which everyone seems to totaly be overlooking. Codices add new rules, redefine them or make exceptions to them.

It doesnt say that a thunderhammers special rules effects only apply in close combat, but its a given that it does when there are no ranged thunder hammers at time of writing but it is NOT a rule, just an assumption.

Now in a new codex there is a thunderhammer that works at range, and no where, anywhere in the rules does it say that a thunderhammer loses its abilities because it also has a ranged profile, it simply has a ranged profile added for use in the shooting phase.

Therefore we have a new exception to the rule that thunderhammers are only close combat weapons, and as a thunderhammers special rule about stunning doesnt specify itself to close combat attacks only it also affects any ranged attacks that any thunderhammers can make, which we now have one instance of in foehammer.

Thus any attacks made by foehammer, at range or in close combat, will afflict the stunning special rule on a model that suffers an unsaved wound from these attacks.

I added something new, and tried to sum up nice and clear. Hope it helps.

Right. Foehammer is a thunderhammer with additional characteristics.

summed up as simply as I can
1. Foehammer is a Thunderhammer. Stated explicitly in the Foehammer rule.

2. Thunderhammers "auto-stun" infantry on a successful to-hit roll, and vehicles on a successful to-penetrate roll. Didn't bother copying the rule.

3. The Thunderhammer rule does not limit this effect to close combat, thus it also applies when "shooting" the foehammer. This is evidenced in several cases, such as Instant Death applying to both CC and Shooting, despite only being listed in the Shooting section, as well as the existence of Poisoned Shooting weapons.

4. This only works, because Foehammer has been given an explicit ability to be used as a shooting weapon, unlike other CCW's.

5. Shooting weapons may have additional effects not mentioned in their profile. There have been several examples listed proving this point.

Conclusion:
As such, Foehammer "stuns" its target in the shooting phase, as well as in CC.



People seem to primarily get hung up on point 3. That doesn't make point 3 any less true, though, as mkerr and others have repeatedly pointed out.

Additionally, the only reason this whole thing works is because point 4 is true. Foehammer can be used as a ranged weapon, an exception to the normal "CCW's can't shoot, and Shooting weapons can't be used in CC".

[AirHorse]

Brilliant explanation nabterayl! Thats what weve been trying to get across for ages!

I also wanted to add something about all this grammar pants(im not the worlds best language user ever :P). Everyone keeps saying "oh it says it can be used as a ranged weapon with that profile so it cant use the other special rules" but having looked at the sentence a fair few times now I twigged, isnt the way to seperate things without inclusion to say "Foehammer can be used as a thunderhammer or a ranged weapon with the following profile"?

Now Im not a master or anything so this is more of a question, but surely without the critical word, or, the sentence effectively means that foehammer is used as both a thunderhammer(a close combat weapon) and a ranged weapon(with its profile) at the same time? Surely this is exactly the same as saying its a ranged weapon with profile str10 ap1 thunderhammer then having the blurb in the book about thunderhammers making it a close combat weapon at the same time?

Im asking this because comments like "oh if it had thunderhammer in its profile then I would totaly agree" are being said and I just find that weird since as I understand it there is actually no difference. But then like I said Im not 100% i understand the language part of it correctly.

[Nabterayl]

Grammatically -

The clause "that can be used as a ranged weapon with the following profile" is a relative clause. You can tell it's a relative clause because it begins with the word "that," which is a relative pronoun. Relative clauses don't have to start with relative pronouns, but in this case we have one, so that's easy.

Relative clauses modify things in some way. They typically modify nouns (or noun phrases, which follow the same rules as nouns, so I will just say "nouns" from here on out), though they can also modify whole clauses. In English, if they modify a noun, they always follow the noun that they modify. Example: The man is the president that I met. "President" is the noun immediately preceding "that I met," which is the relative clause. Grammatically, this means "that I met" modifies the president; it tells you which president you met. If you wanted instead to identify which man you met, you would have to say, "The man that I met is the president."

But does our relative clause modify a noun, or something else?

As it happens, in English, a relative clause that is also a restrictive clause can only modify a noun. As it also happens, in English, a non-restrictive relative clause is marked by off-setting the relative clause with commas. Example: The man, who is the president, is Barack Obama. The relative clause, introduced with the relative pronoun "who," is "who is the president." The commas (or pause in speech, if we're speaking) indicate that the clause is non-restrictive. The restrictive version of the same sentence is: The man who is the president is Barack Obama.

In the Foehammer sentence, we have a restrictive relative clause, which we know because there are no off-setting commas. This means that our relative clause can only modify a noun. This, in turn, means that our relative clause must modify the immediately proceeding noun.

The immediately preceding noun is "a thunder hammer." Hence, grammatically, "that can be used as a ranged weapon with the following profile" modifies "a thunder hammer." It does not modify "Foehammer."

[AirHorse]

Cool, enjoying the lesson in english here :P.

So does that mean that what I said is true? Would it require another word or bit of punctuation to seperate the defined usage of foehammer from what it is(a thunderhammer)?

Also, when it says "can be used as a ranged weapon with the following profile", am I right to say that there is nothing here in language terms which indicates that the profile(well the bit after the following basically to be more language relevant) is completely seperated from what is being used and that it is purely down to the rules we are gaining meaning from to determine this?

Edit: just realised I asked the same question twice I think XD, getting tired now :P

[Nabterayl]

There's no way with the current word order to make "that can be used as a ranged weapon with the following profile" grammatically modify "Foehammer." You could add a comma to make the relative clause non-restrictive, but it would still modify "a thunder hammer." Example: Foehammer is a thunder hammer, which can be used as a ranged weapon with the following profile (that and which are interchangeable in British English, which the rulebook was written in; formal American English requires the switch to "which" with the comma, according to some grammarians).

Changing the word order, or re-wording the sentence, could obviously change its grammatical structure, but that's hardly news

"With the following profile" is a prepositional phrase, which describes the relation of the immediately preceding noun in its own clause to the noun in the prepositional phrase. So there is no way to read "with the following profile" as related to anything other than "weapon," which in turn is modified by the adjective "ranged" (guessing you didn't need me to tell you that "ranged" modifies "weapon"). As a logical, rather than grammatical, matter, nothing in the sentence prohibits Foehammer from being a thunder hammer that can be used as a ranged weapon with a different profile, or even with no profile at all, but of course in a permissive ruleset we are not allowed to go down those roads, even if they are logically possible.

[MVBrandt]

I don't know how you can make that argument. There are examples in almost every codex of shooting attacks having special characteristics that fail to appear on the profile.

From old codices, like Daemonhunters:

1. The Vindicare Exitus Rifle, the Culexus Animus Speculum, and the Callidus Neural Shredder all have effects that aren't covered by the profile.

2. Heavy Support Orbital Strikes have targeting, timing and placement rules -- as well as Inaccuracy.

to new codices, like the Space Marine codex:

3. Chapter Master Orbital Bombardment has an "always scatters the full 2D6" rule that's not covered in the weapon's profile.

4. Scout Bike Cluster Mines have tons of weird rules that don't appear in the profile.

5. Cassius' Infurnus has rules that don't appear in the profile.

to the latest Space Wolves codex:

6. Psychic shooting attacks like Fury of the Wolf Spirits and Murderous Hurricane have special characteristics that don't appear on the profile.

7. Njal's Lord of the Tempests ranged attacks don't even have profiles.

These characteristics aren't ingored when those shooting attacks are made.

As is the norm for you, Kerr, you did not reply to any of my answers already posted to Nab's far more eloquent responses in that vein. When you're late to the party, catch up on the whole picture.





Re: Nab, and your restatement of the rule replacing thunder hammer with its rules ... check our pm's, but I think you both got it wrong on the rephrase, and still don't have anything that applies to the fact that when used as a ranged weapon, you have a profile, and no subsequent applications or exemptions or special rules applied to it. It's simply an Assault 1 weapon, when used at range. There's no more to it.

I don't have anything personally against the folks who will play it this way, but you're using a house rule as far as I am concerned. It even makes sense, it's just not the pure RAW. There's a leap being made that because it's a thunder hammer, even though they give a "that may be used as a ranged weapon with profile X" somehow it's included.

A = B, that may be used as C. This does not automatically make B = C, nor does it by default render B a subcomponent of C. Unless C is defined as n + B, or simply as B.

In this case, C is not defined in any such way, and in fact, when C is subsequently defined, B is nowhere to be found.

[mkerr]

As is the norm for you, Kerr, you did not reply to any of my answers already posted to Nab's far more eloquent responses in that vein. When you're late to the party, catch up on the whole picture.

Jump to conclusions much? Your provided "answers" didn't work for the examples I posted (that's why I posted them). But I agree that Nab is quite eloquent.

I suspect my frustration has more to do with your method of presenting your case than anything else. It feels like you post a sweeping generalization and when it proves false, you answer with another sweeping generalization.

Here's an example:

The rulebook explicitly states that a weapon's additional characteristics will be included in its profile.

I'm summarizing here, but you basically said the *only* way for a Shooting weapon to gain an additional characteristic is if that characteristic is included in the profile.

Nab showed an example where that assumption was proved false (Snazz Gun), so you responded with another sweeping generalization:

For all of those weapons, additional rules are presented along with the weapon's profile that specifically amend or add to the profile. That is to say, they amend it (by explaining things like "X"), or they add to it (by adding things such as "Gets Hot!").

Note the "[f]or all those weapons" comment. So you respond by saying that if the weapon has an additional characteristic that's not listed in the profile then that characteristic can *only* amend or add to the profile (e.g., range, strength, AP, etc.).

But if you look at my examples, that's clearly not the case:

1) The Neural Shredder has an additional effect against vehicles that is not an amendment or addition to the profile. If your statement was true, then the Neural Shredder would need a "Crew Scrambler" characteristic in the profile because it's affect against vehicles isn't a change to its existing profile.

Note: This example clearly illustrates our point about the "knocked reeling" effect of a thunder hammer.

2) A Chapter Master's Orbital Bombardment is Inaccurate and never benefits from the Chapter Master's Ballistic Skill. This isn't a change to the profile (i.e., it doesn't amend the range, strength, AP, type or additional characteristics of the Orbital Bombardment). If your statement was true, then it would need to appear as an "Inaccuracy" additional characteristic. But it doesn't.

All of my examples were selected to prove that many ranged weapons in the game have "additional characteristics" that NEITHER appear on the profile NOR modify an existing profile.

[DarkLink]

MVB, I have to agree with mkerr. Mkerr introduced an argument, and the only real counter-argument you have brought up have been sweeping statements which ultimately are either incorrect, or don't actually contradict mkerr's argument, as pointed out in mkerr's post above.