Question on Mindshackle Scarabs

[turndamage]

Oh, the annoying little insects that burrow into our skulls...

If you have ever faced a necron list that has a royal court dispersed in numerous warrior blobs, you may have suffered the ever annoying Lord with Mindshackle scarabs. I do hate them so much: taking a hive tyrant, fex, trygon, etc and making them punch themselves in the nuts is beyond frustrating.

In any case, 6th ed has made me happy in some respects about dealing with this. I do enjoy how a Lord at the front of the group of warriors can still be brought down first (LO,S does not always go off, so storms of devourer shots can take him down) and the utilization of the character challenges makes things interesting.

But I digress. My question is this.

Suppose a carnifex charged a group of necrons and in the pile in move, the lord makes contact with it. The mindshackle scarabs happen at the start of the fight sub-phase. Now of course the carnifex will have to take that poor 3D6 on his Ld and most likely cut his wrists. But what about the HoW attack that happens first? Does he still get that even though the rest of his attacks will potentially hit himself?

From a fluff and 'cinematic' perspective, I'd imagine that mindshackle scarabs can do nothing against the momentum of a charging fex (or flyrant, or trygon, etc) because that's really what the I10 attack is. The pure weight of the beast plowing into the squad is the attack. However, the faq for necrons does say 'at the start of the fight subphase', so I'd imagine that this does not even go off if he fails the ld since the HoW is only I10 which means the fight sub phase has already started.

[killme304]

Since you do it at the start of the fight subphase, I10 hasn't even started yet. You get MSSed and can't make attacks at all against the necron unit.

And yes, MSS are possibly the most broken challenge fodder ever.

One thing to keep in mind with Royal Court, they are treated as upgrade characters (like a Sergent), so they get LO,S on a 4+. They are -not- ICs. This distinction also allows ghost arks to bring back Royal Court members that have already died with the Repair Barge rule.

[gloomfang]

OK you have a few things wrong.
1) MSS happens before I10.
2) There are no pile in moves before I10.
3) HoW happens at I10 so it goes off after MSS. Either way it always goes off against whoever he is in BtB at I10. The MSS FAQ states it happens instead of his normal attacks and HoW is not his normal attacks.

Make sense? Just don't charge with the Carnifax if you have to get into BtB with the MSS and you will be fine, for the first phase. But you better have a way to stop that Lord before the next turn comes around.

[turndamage]

So HoW goes off? that's good news or at least it's something

[ragnarok]

I am guilty of using MSS lords (lord and overlord in a 6 strong lychguard unit, being the worst I have done).

In one game I managed to get a tyrant to hit itself with a bonesword, then failed its Ld test and died, following turn I persuaded a carnifex to eat its' own face, followed by convincing a zoanathrope to think itself to death.

The only thing that didn't fail its Ld test was a termagant!

Anyway. The key thing is MSS activate before blows are struck, which means before any piling in move. So MSS will only effect you if
a) The lord charged you
b) It is round 2 or later in the combat.
c) Challenging also happen at the start of the fight sub phase, so the Necron player might argue that the challenge move happens first, then the MSS kick in.

Also remember that the more fodder models in base contact with the lord the less chance of the MSS hitting a useful model, this even happens if the lord is in a challenge.

[gloomfang]

Jul 23, 2012 18:16:08 GMT ragnarok said:

c) Challenging also happen at the start of the fight sub phase, so the Necron player might argue that the challenge move happens first, then the MSS kick in.

This is important. Declaring a challange and MSS happen at the same time. The player whos turn it is ALWAYS determines the order that events that happen at the same time go off.

So if it is your turn make them roll MSS First, then do challanges. Also keep in mind if they charge they are going to challange first and then MSS.

Plan accordingly.

[coredump]

Also remember, you can only issue, or accept, challenges with a character that is close enough to the front to be engaged in the combat.

[turndamage]

If you issue a challege as a necron lord and end up in, base contact with both a character and one or two gaunts, you still randomize who gets the mss right?

[gloomfang]

Jul 24, 2012 12:08:54 GMT turndamage said:

If you issue a challege as a necron lord and end up in, base contact with both a character and one or two gaunts, you still randomize who gets the mss right?

When issuing a challange I thought that the two models were put so they were only in BtB with each other. Might be wrong.

If I am then yes you randomize.

[bigpig]

Jul 23, 2012 18:24:26 GMT gloomfang said:

Jul 23, 2012 18:16:08 GMT ragnarok said:

c) Challenging also happen at the start of the fight sub phase, so the Necron player might argue that the challenge move happens first, then the MSS kick in.

This is important. Declaring a challange and MSS happen at the same time. The player whos turn it is ALWAYS determines the order that events that happen at the same time go off.

So if it is your turn make them roll MSS First, then do challanges. Also keep in mind if they charge they are going to challange first and then MSS.

Don't have my rules ifo me. Do you have a page to cite this because this is key. MSS can be overcome easily enough by by multi charging a unit and putting the fodder in contact with the lord, but when there is a character (tervigon or tyrant) to challenge it is a different story. I wasn't sure how it was resolved since both say at the start of the fight subphase, but if there is a rule defining our choice, then that would help a lot.

[coredump]

Physically the models might be in base contact with other models, but the rules of a challenge says to treat them as if they are only in base contact with each other. It is in the challenge section.

[rpricew]

Jul 23, 2012 18:45:22 GMT coredump said:

Also remember, you can only issue, or accept, challenges with a character that is close enough to the front to be engaged in the combat.

Can I ask a clarifying question here?

Let's say you have a unit of Immortals with a MSS Lord as shown below spread out to maximum coherency... so the Lord is on the right and they are spread out in a gunline formation.

I.....I.....I.....I.....I......I.....I.....I.....I.....L
^
HT

Now, a Hive Tyrant assaults (or any character) the model on the left, can the Lord who clearly cannot pile in since he is 18" away in this example declare or receive challenges?

[nurglitch]

"Characters that cannot fight or strike blows (including those that are not engaged with an enemy model) cannot issue challenges." [p.64, Issuing a Challenge, Challenges, Rulebook]

So the Lord cannot issue challenges to the Hive Tyrant, because it is not engaged with an enemy model. By contast, the Hive Tyrant, engaged with Immortals, could. But shouldn't, given Mind Shackle Scarabs.

[rpricew]

@ Nurglitch - Thanks for the quick answer, I don't know if it seems this way to anyone else, but the BGB seems to make for a lot of page flipping to lock down specific answers. If the Tyrant did issue a challenge (because he felt lucky or something) would you just move the Lord down the line until he made base with the Tyrant?

[coredump]

Jul 25, 2012 12:44:27 GMT nurglitch said:

"Characters that cannot fight or strike blows (including those that are not engaged with an enemy model) cannot issue challenges." [p.64, Issuing a Challenge, Challenges, Rulebook]

So the Lord cannot issue challenges to the Hive Tyrant, because it is not engaged with an enemy model. By contast, the Hive Tyrant, engaged with Immortals, could. But shouldn't, given Mind Shackle Scarabs.

This is not correct. As I said above, a model that is not engaged cannot issue *nor* can it accept a challenge. So in the example above, the HT could issue a challenge, but the Lord could not accept.

rpricew: It doesn't even have to be that extreme, if the Lord was more than 2" away from the immortal in base contact, no challenge could happen.