Thursday, March 24, 2011

What special rules do you tell your opponent before your game?

I always wonder what special rule to tell my opponent before the game. In a tournament setting I always ask them how well they know my army. Depending on their answer I either tell them a lot, or a little. 

Here is an example of what and when to tell them of special rules: My foot Eldar always run an Avatar, so when do I tell them that it is immune to melta and flamer weapons? Do I tell them before the game, before they shoot, or after they shoot? It seems realistic that the troops might never have fought an Avatar before and do not have the intelligence to know what can hurt it and what can't and it is just trial and error until they get it right in game. But it also seems fair to apprise my opponent what they can do.
I have played against many Necron players and I do not think that any of them have ever told me in any detail the rules for We Will Be Back. They might tell me that the model comes back on a roll of 4+, but they have never told me what makes them not get a roll at all. It would be a huge advantage to them if I don't know how to get around WBB ahead of time, and if I am told that they would lose that advantage. 

As everyone who is reading this should know, I am taking Demonhunters to Adepticon. The Demonhunters codex is so old, and the army is so rare that there are a lot of people who do not know the armies special rules. So what I am going to do is to help out my opponents and on the first page of all of my army lists I am going to have a cheat sheet detailing all of my special rules.

It should look something like this:

Grey Knight Special Rules
Shrouding: 3d6x3 inches to spot and target Grey Knight (Red) units.
Aegis: If you target a GK unit with a psychic power it acts like a Psychic Hood.
Grey Knight Psycannon: 3, Strength 6, AP 4 shots   Range: Assault 18”, Heavy 36” No invulnerable saves.


Inquisitor’s Rules
Mystics: 4d6 inches to shoot at a Deep Striking unit.

Captain Stern’s Rules
Not an Independent Character while his retinue is still alive
Force Weapon: Psychic test to instant kill models, and it ignores Eternal Warrior
Grimoire of True Names: Demons are at half weapon skill in B-t-B
The Strands of Fate: Can re-roll one dice roll per phase, but opponent gets a re-roll.
Psychic Powers-
Hammerhand-(doubles strength, but not a power weapon)
Holocaust- Strength5 AP4, large blast, 0” range.

8 comments:

  1. I would ask them how well they know the rules. Also the mystics make sure you have full FAQ and rules cause those cause problems. But yes telling rules to a person that has not seen your army is just a good thing. I played against a guy in brea that had not played against orks so I showed hi
    Wgat I had and what they do. Also how to beat me. Which might not have been could cause he did what I said and did it well. Haha

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  2. Except that Aegis isn't a psychic hood. It simply lowers their LD value by 1 when targeting you with a power.

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  3. Old rules are obsolete now tho

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  4. No they are not Moros, as the Grey Knight Codex has not been released yet. It's just that everyone has a copy - that is different.

    Anyway, it wouldn't be Tourny-legal at Adepticon without being released a full month beforehand, so...

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  5. I'd say full disclosure is always best, people hate nasty surprises. Having a "cheat sheet" with the special rules is a good idea I might do myself.

    Should be interesting to see how your army changes in the new codex, I was hoping to get a game in with you at one of the many past tournaments we played in but we always missed each other! Like you said it, either you do well and I do poorly or visa versa, lol. Dice are so fickle.

    -mortetvie

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  6. As you know back in 3rd edition we both played Thousand Sons and we had a ton of special rules and that is where I first started telling them to my opponents.

    I will pick up the Grey Knight codex at Adepticon and take a look at it on the plane ride home. I have taken a look at it and my first impressions is that I still like lascannons in Land Raiders. I am not interested in Rhinos or Razorbacks but Storm Ravens interest me.

    The HQs I like are Librarians (I always love psykers) and the Brother-Captain who is not getting any love, but I like the manipulation of the reserve roll.

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  7. Not telling your opponent the rules is kind of cheating. You are counting on your opponent to not know things so you can take advantage of it, like stormtroopers getting into a grey knight landraider in the old codex. Once is a mistake twice seems like active cheating to me which then makes me plan on pulling out both codices and the rule books next time we play because I know you are counting on your opponent not being familiar with the rules.

    It really just takes the fun out of the game if one player is playing in good faith and the other is counting on a lack of knowledge to win.

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