Post by gloomfang on Oct 15, 2012 14:04:14 GMT
My 2 cents:
Challenges are issued at the start of the Fight sub-phase....
“Any enemy model that is in base contact with a Tyranid with one or more lash whips at the beginning of the Fight sub-phase counts their Initiative value as 1....
Following the rulebook and the FAQ there is no reason for these things to not happen at the same time. Mephiston in btb with a Lash Guard makes him I1 at the same time the Challenge is issued. So he is I1 for the first round of the challenge. Also, as they happen at the same time, a Tyrant with Lashwhip in a Multiple combat could challenge and reduce the Initiative to 1.
The only time an order of things happening at the same time needs to be determined is if one would prevent/effect the other (hence the sentence on page 9 "When these things happen, the player whose turn it is decides the order in which the events occur.") There is nothing about either rule effecting the other here, so they should both happen simultaneously.
So then why do MSS not also go off automaticaly before challanges? The have almost identical wording.
As for the "effecting" the other, I would say having a model reduced to I1 would definitly effect challanges at least as much as MSS.
I don't know why people are thinking lash whips and MSS should have diffrent timing considerations. I think people are still not getting used to the FAQ change. The whips are not constantly on any more. There is a tiny window when they take effect and befroe and after that window they don't do anything. If a model was in BtB and used Hit and Run, no one would say that the model was at I1 until the end of the next assault phase.