If GW had wanted it to be only shooting attacks, they would have said shooting rather than ranged.
If GW had wanted it to be only shooting attacks, they would have said shooting rather than ranged.
If you choose to play the hardcore rules lawyer game and dismiss the concept of RaI as something inscrutable, I will kindly ask you to point to a quotation from the Magic section that defines a spell as an attack rather than just an ephemeral and glossed-over "thing that happens after you roll for it".Originally Posted by Whut
Also let's note that the quote comparing spells to shooting attacks is about magic missiles.
As someone already specified, there is a precedent from a previous army book of ranged attacks being defined as shooting + magic missiles.
This would allow some spells to work in combo with the fist, but not the death sniper spells as they are Direct Damage and not MM
The quote does not say, "There are several circumstance in Warhammer that call upon you to inflict hits upon an enemy - Magic Missiles being an obvious example (the Fireball spell causes D6 Strength 4 hits on an enemy unit), as well as things like the Impact Hits made by a charging chariot (covered in the Special Rules chapter). Such hits are resolved using steps 4, 5, and 6 fo the rules for Shooting Attacks." It states "spells" and gives 1 example of a particular spell. That does not exclude Direct Damage spells or any other spells it simple stats, "There are several circumstance in Warhammer that call upon you to inflict hits upon an enemy - spells being an obvious example (the Fireball spell causes D6 Strength 4 hits on an enemy unit), as well as things like the Impact Hits made by a charging chariot (covered in the Special Rules chapter). Such hits are resolved using steps 4, 5, and 6 fo the rules for Shooting Attacks."
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I've posted several in this thread.
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."
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Hopefully GW will release another FAQ to resolve this disagreement however even if there is precedent that it is even legal to do, I personally wouldn't play anyone with the "deathfist: combo. Its just overpowered. I compare it similarly to the 100+ strong Chaos Warrior units in smaller games. Not fun at all.
Ha! How did I know you were going to bring that up. I have seen them indeed I use them regularly but... technically they're still not "globes"Hemispheres at best.
Fine. Here's the entirety of the quote.1. Look at the rest of my quote that was clearly from the "rules" section of the rules as you like to see it.
"Unlike other types of spells, magic missiles do require the Wizard to be able to see his target. Accordingly, a Wizard can only cast a magic missile at a target that lies within his forward arc and to which he can trace line of sight (just as if the wizard was firing a missile weapon). ... Magic missiles always hit their target automatically."
So you need LOS to the target, just like missile weapons need LOS. That doesn't make it a missile weapon, merely that it uses LOS like a missile weapon. Magic missiles hit their target automatically. It doesn't say "a wizard hits the enemy automatically when casting magic missiles" does it? It says the missiles hit.
So the attacks made by the spells hit automatically, do they?Okay, then we shall continue through the magic rules to Pg. 36. under 4. Spell Resolution
Many spells inflict hits or wounds on your enemies - you can find out how to resolve these on page 40 of the Shooting Phase.
We go to Pg. 40 as directed and find we are on step 3 of the Shooting Rules. Following to Pg. 41 we find:
Automatic Hits
Some unusual attacks (most commonly those made by magic missile spells - see page 31) hit automatically. Where this is the case, it is exactly how it sounds - do not roll for the attack, it instead automatically causes the number of hits stated within the wording.
... How does this support your argument again? The point is not whether they're attacks or not, but where the hits originate. Fine, I'll concede your quote says that they're attacks ... made by the spell.
Incidentally, you've also thrown out your argument that Flame Cage is a hex and not an attack. So the argument stands that Flame Cage or Comet attacks originate from the caster not the spell even if the caster is dead when the damage is triggered.
I don't see that this is directly analogous. Hits from impact hits or stomps directly come from the model inflicting them. Hits from a comet come from the comet, not the caster.Well, as I stated, the language is common in GW terms and doesn't mean that it is the thing being discussed, in this case a spell, that is counted as the actual "hitter". For example Pg. 88 under the Parry Save rules:
True enough, at least with a question mark over spells. Every single special rule in the rulebook that applies to attacks specifically states it doesn't apply to spells (e.g. flaming attacks). I don't think that helps much either way as there's no specific rule.Stomps specifically exclude special rules, but spells do not. So the Greedy Fist wouldn't trigger from a Stomp, but it would from Impact Hits, Shooting Attacks, Close Combat Attacks, Direct Damage spells, and Magic Missile spells. At least as far as I can determine.
An FAQ that asks something like: "can special rules possessed by a model apply to spells" would be a good idea. I simply can't accept that special rules wouldn't apply to breath weapons or stomps but would apply to spells. It would be entirely inconsistent. I don't think there's a cast-iron case to say that hits come from the caster and not the spell, although in previous editions that was ruled that way.
... and then I won.
It already is inconsistent. A Firebelly's Impact hit uses his "Flaming" rule but his Stomp does not. That is already inconsistent.
I agree it needs a clarification to the FAQ. GW needs to change the FAQ to "Shooting Attacks" instead of "Ranged Attacks" if they do not want all these other affects applying to the Greedy Fist. If they want to include spells they need to indicate, "(including Magic Missiles)" in the Ranged Attacks language.
As it stands I don't see why spells would be different from a gun in aspect to a "ranged attack" or why the damage would come from a spell and not come from a gun. In both cases if the model with the Greedy Fist was not on the table the 'attack' couldn't have happened so the source is still the model.
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Not thing i like this argument but I have yet to find a player that'll call my bluff. The game is called warhammer, therefore i can drop my war hammer (Yes I have one) one your side of the table and see what happens.
I if a player plays the combo, drop the warhammer or if your passive just pack up. If it's a torny, it the ref on the head with the war hammer or drop out. Letting stupid good combos happen are just bad rules. Have a in house FAQ that fixes retarded things.
As far as actual rules, they do need to roll a 4 or 5 on death, They are the only spells that cause hits. Also dispel scroll, dispel dice, and short range. Really shouldn't do all that much if your aware of what is going on.
I believe the sniper spells are a 2 or a 5, but either way, on a Lv4 you can all but be sure that one of those two spells will be in your mages spell book. Dispel scroll and dispel dice do nothing to IF. If you're about to coup de grace the other mage, you will throw all the dice! 24" is a long way on a table when your dudes can march 12".
Has there been any thought to the mechanic of RiP spells not using the casters lvl when testing to be dispelled? It would seem that the caster is only "involved" with the spell when it is first cast, and from then on it goes on it's own power. Just a thought.
How about this:
The Lizardmen bane head has been used by Slann for a long time now to double wounds caused with spells, and no one ever complained about that.
"All unsaved wounds caused by the bearer on the nominated target are doubled."
What makes the Greedy Fist + Magic any different than that, other than working on hits rather than wounds? No one ever complained that "oooh no! It's the magic that does the wounds not the Slann!"
Well, the fact that this only works on *unsaved* wounds helps to limit the abuse, if it means that any *hit* by the slann made a wound (in addition to the potential wound from the hit itself), you might see the rule more disputed.
And if you're using 7th edition books in the discussion to compare, then it has been reported that "ranged attacks" where defined as "shooting + magic missiles" in one army book from 7th, the only clear precedent we have found -I think- for the definition of "ranged attacks" that is not an extrapolation from the words themselves.
To this day, unless I missed something in the discussion, "ranged attack" is still not a keyword clearly defined in any 8th edition book, or we would'nt be having this discussion.
You are correct. The Bane Head and the Greedy Fist are directly analogous. Assuming the Bane Head works with spells, then yes, the Greedy Fist should work with spells by the same token. Personally, I think the Bane Head shouldn't work with spells for exactly the same reasons that I don't think the Greedy Fist should work with spells.
However, a little bit of history, when the book first came out the general consensus in 7th was the bane head probably wouldn't work with spells and then there was a FAQ that, as I recall, did confirm that it would work with spells, which was a surprise at the time. That was 7th edition and the FAQ has been removed in 8th. I'd like to see a FAQ that confirms whether special rules possessed by the caster apply to spells in 8th edition.
... and then I won.
Well if "ranged attack" isn't defined, then use your everyday dictionary.
What does "ranged" mean, and what does "attack" mean?
In game full of keywords like Warhammer, we should not have to use a dictionnary and/or discuss the meaning of individual words to get the meaning of a rule.
As already specified, "ranged attack" can also be interpreted as being almost synonym of "shooting attack" depending on the context, and there was a definition in a 7th edition army book of them being shooting attacks plus magic missiles, both interpretations that would not allow the deathfist combo.
The thing that we should all agree is that the FAQ is not clear enough, before it was released nobody ever thought that using the fist on a spell was even possible.
With a more transparent compagny with better support as soon a such a problem would be known a new FAQ/errata would be released to at least confirm what interpretation is the right one, or you could contact them for an official confirmation, too bad that GW is not such a company and that their support is inconsistent for rules questions.
Want to bet on that? I can pull up threads that happened before the FAQ came out asking if spells would trigger it and which spells. Especially since it is a Talisman and not a weapon so it appears to affect all attacks.
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