Wait, Dark Artisan allows you to combine two UNITS, Not Models.

@ BetrayTheWorld

I like your style, but as others have pointed and I did in my first post the other formations make GW's intent pretty clear.

Alright, well, I don't agree. But, seeing as it's incredibly rare for people on a forum like this to be united on something, I guess I'm going to stop arguing the point.

Just to be clear, I don't believe in correctness by commitee, but I also don't feel like I'm making any headway here.

Yeah... no.
You lose serious respect and are being decidedly disrespectful of everyone else by berating other people posting on this thread with the concept that they haven't read the books and relevant passages. By that line of thought, how do the rest of us know you've actually read it yourself?

1 Talos means 1 Talos. It doesn't say unit, it says 1 Talos. The model in the codex is called a Talos. It very specifically DOESN'T say 1 Unit of Talos, as you yourself have pointed out. It says 1 Talos. Regardless of what the plural for "talos" is, it has the number 1 telling you how many you can have. You don't get to hypothesize that they forgot to amend it. That isn't how rules interpretation works.

The Corpsethief Claw, as mentioned, specifically calls out "1 UNIT of Talos." Looks to me like the write did, in fact, know what they were writing throughout the rest of the entire supplement.

Yes, we saw the bit describing how formations are to be read. That doesn't mean you get to ignore what is actually in the Formation Composition and ad-lib it as you will.

The places it specifies "1 Unit of" are clearly meant to include 1 Unit of, composed as detailed (or not) in the restrictions section.
Since this DOESN'T say "1 Unit of" we are left to understand and accept that it calls for "1 of X", which is to say "1 Talos."

Thor665 wrote:

...they still specifically cited 'units' of Warriors on the datasheet - something they are not obligated to do by the wording of their own explanation of the datasheets but something they clearly do, in fact, do, and hav for all relevant 7th edition examples I can find.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Tournaments can't really make special exceptions for individuals and maintain a good reputation. They'd have to alter their rules completely.

Until your interpretation of this Formation is accepted by the masses, you won't be able to get it into tournament play by your own reasoning.

Also you can think about this way. 1 talos and or cronies could mean the minimum number to be taken, yes it does not say minimum.

I've added the question to the FAQ.

I see what you're arguing. And there might be some merit to it if not for
(a) the absolute consistency of wording between "x units of y" and "x y"; and
(b) the direct comparison of corpsethief claw in this light.

Furthermore, the text at the start does not really say anything as specifically as you seem to think. It still lists the units. There is a unit of 1 Talos and 1 Cronos. The description under "Formation Datasheets" is non-limiting in precisely how much information is given, as long as that information falls under the banner of "number and type". (I agree, though, that it would have been more elegant, although less simple, to include the number of models in each unit as a under the formation restrictions section).

In any case, while I see your point, I don't think there is a case here for the necessity of what you are arguing.

Good point Valmir. Rules for formations state that if you lose the Talos/Cronos/Haemy formation, you are losing 3 units (3KP). So stating that there is 1 Cronos, 1 Talos, does mean they are still units as of themselves, but the absence of the word "unit" in the formation sheet strongly suggests that these are meant as models. And it validates the formation sheet breakdown paragraph... - my opinion.

Laughingcarp wrote:

You lose serious respect and are being decidedly disrespectful of everyone else by berating other people posting on this thread with the concept that they haven't read the books and relevant passages.

Calm down. Some people prior to that DEFINITELY didn't read the part that said Formation=Units in the beginning of the section. I am perfectly aware that there IS reason to disagree while being completely informed. However, based on their specific response, you could tell that they didn't consider that part AT ALL. That being said, I don't appreciate the tone of your response, as it came across extremely hostile. If that wasn't your intention, no big deal, I am not holding grudges here, but I won't respond to anything else that comes across in such a manner. I am not interested in a flame war where we try to berrate one another for tone via text, and dictate how and what the other is allowed to say. It won't end well for either of us.

Laughingcarp wrote:

Until your interpretation of this Formation is accepted by the masses, you won't be able to get it into tournament play by your own reasoning.

You took a quote from another thread that doesn't even apply here. 10 guys on the internet does not = majority opinion worldwide. Tournaments wouldn't be making a special exception for an individual person if they made that ruling. They would be making a tournament-wide ruling for a single formation in a single faction that is available to ALL players in their tournament.

I'm not saying the masses here are incorrect. They may very well be right, based on intent. There is actually a HIGH probability that it is so. It's debateable. However, what ISN'T debateable, is that GW's datasheet for Dark Artisan either breaks their own rules for how datasheets are to be laid out, OR allows units of Talos/Cronos. Those are the RULES. People are willfully choosing to ignore them based on conjecture and the hypothosis that if they intended it to be units, it'd say units, because all the other ones say units. YES! THAT MAKES SENSE! I'm not saying they're wrong, but everyone is definitely ignoring the black and white, written rule in favor of an unwritten hypothesis.

If you follow GW's own definitions at the beginning of the formations section, then the formation reads thusly:

UNITS: Haemonculus, Talos, Cronos
RESTRICTIONS ON # OF MODELS IN UNIT: NONE

Plain as day.

TLDR: I don't disagree with the masses that it may be GWs intention to be 1 model, but their written rules in black and white say otherwise, unless you add in theory and conjecture about their intent.

No it does not break their own rules. 1 model of Talos is still an unit. 1 model of Cronos is still an unit. Each gives your opponent a KP or counts towards other objectives as written elsewhere in the sup. Therefore the paragraph that incited this issue is in an agreement with what is written. Your explanation willfully disregards a clear indication (not conjecture but written indication) of intent shown in comparison of Corpsethief and Dark Artisan, while mine and some other's explanation is in agreement with all relevant rules and precedences IMHO.

An entry saying that you have to take 1 Talos only does impose restriction on numbers, but does not cancel the fact that the 1 model is an unit. If you are so much interested in the letter of the rules, you cannot disregard any other part of it - like one formation saying 1 unit of Talos and the other saying 1 Talos. Either you take the letter whole and unmodified or you cannot argument with it. There is a clear indication of a difference between these two entries and until I hear any other reasonable explanation for this difference than unit vs. model, I will hold onto my opinion.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

I don't disagree with the masses that it may be GWs intention to be 1 model, but their written rules in black and white say otherwise, unless you add in theory and conjecture about their intent.

I don't think this is a RAW vs RAI issue. It may be the case that RAW is not 100% clear, in that they allow the space for you to make the argument you are making. But even based only on the written rules, I can't see how your reading is more probable than the alternate reading.

I also don't really see anyone here making an argument here based on RAI. People are making arguments based on the way the rules are structured and written.[/quote]

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Laughingcarp wrote:

You lose serious respect and are being decidedly disrespectful of everyone else by berating other people posting on this thread with the concept that they haven't read the books and relevant passages.

Calm down. Some people prior to that DEFINITELY didn't read the part that said Formation=Units in the beginning of the section. I am perfectly aware that there IS reason to disagree while being completely informed. However, based on their specific response, you could tell that they didn't consider that part AT ALL. That being said, I don't appreciate the tone of your response, as it came across extremely hostile. If that wasn't your intention, no big deal, I am not holding grudges here, but I won't respond to anything else that comes across in such a manner. I am not interested in a flame war where we try to berrate one another for tone via text, and dictate how and what the other is allowed to say. It won't end well for either of us.

Laughingcarp wrote:

Until your interpretation of this Formation is accepted by the masses, you won't be able to get it into tournament play by your own reasoning.

You took a quote from another thread that doesn't even apply here. 10 guys on the internet does not = majority opinion worldwide. Tournaments wouldn't be making a special exception for an individual person if they made that ruling. They would be making a tournament-wide ruling for a single formation in a single faction that is available to ALL players in their tournament.

I'm not saying the masses here are incorrect. They may very well be right, based on intent. There is actually a HIGH probability that it is so. It's debateable. However, what ISN'T debateable, is that GW's datasheet for Dark Artisan either breaks their own rules for how datasheets are to be laid out, OR allows units of Talos/Cronos. Those are the RULES. People are willfully choosing to ignore them based on conjecture and the hypothosis that if they intended it to be units, it'd say units, because all the other ones say units. YES! THAT MAKES SENSE! I'm not saying they're wrong, but everyone is definitely ignoring the black and white, written rule in favor of an unwritten hypothesis.

If you follow GW's own definitions at the beginning of the formations section, then the formation reads thusly:

UNITS: Haemonculus, Talos, Cronos
RESTRICTIONS ON # OF MODELS IN UNIT: NONE

Plain as day.

TLDR: I don't disagree with the masses that it may be GWs intention to be 1 model, but their written rules in black and white say otherwise, unless you add in theory and conjecture about their intent.

Firstly, sorry if my post comes across as hostile. I was going for emphatic, not aggressive.
Though it did feel like you were disregarding a number of other posters' contributions to this discussion with your comment about them not having read the rules, so that's why I maybe came across a little "up in arms" with my first comment. My bad.

Secondly, that quote I borrowed. Yes it was from another thread, but I felt it applied perfectly to this situation. Somebody on the first page of this thread mentioned that you'd likely have trouble getting a TO to accept your view on this and I didn't see that you had explained otherwise. So I wanted to bring that concept back to light and reinforce that there are a number of people on this forum that disagree with your interpretation of the rules. Therefore in this admittedly small pool of brains focused on the subject it comes across as you being the one the exception needs to be made for, as opposed to the rest of us being the exception. Do you see where I'm going with that?

The summation of this discussion seems to be that you see the people who don't agree with you as arguing intent instead of RAW, while those who don't agree with you see it as two different interpretations of RAW (instead of someone arguing wishful thinking).

Once again no hostile intent, just trying to emphasize one line of thinking vs another.

@valmir; I think your quote in your most recent post got pasted incorrectly; it shows me as saying something that Betray actually wrote. I believe.

Laughingcarp wrote:

@valmir; I think your quote in your most recent post got pasted incorrectly; it shows me as saying something that Betray actually wrote. I believe.

Yep, sorry. Bad editing. Fixed it now.

Laughingcarp wrote:

Somebody on the first page of this thread mentioned that you'd likely have trouble getting a TO to accept your view on this and I didn't see that you had explained otherwise. So I wanted to bring that concept back to light and reinforce that there are a number of people on this forum that disagree with your interpretation of the rules.

I have a local TO that agrees with me, but admittedly has probably not seen this thread. So his opinion has not been influenced by numbers, though it HAS been influenced by me explaining why it thought it was ruled this way.

Laughingcarp wrote:

The summation of this discussion seems to be that you see the people who don't agree with you as arguing intent instead of RAW, while those who don't agree with you see it as two different interpretations of RAW (instead of someone arguing wishful thinking).

Let me posit a final thought for you, carp. I believe my argument is for RAW because not a single person has offered an argument against my position without looking at another, unrelated formation. The way another formation lists things is simply not relevent to the rules. It's relevent to intent, but not to the rules. It is therefore my opinion that with using ONLY RULES, and not trying to cite an example from a DIFFERENT formation, my position is unassailable.

This is the equivalent to finding a rule in monopoly that says "The race car always goes first, no matter what." And pointing out that rule. Then, 18 people mob you and say, "WE'VE PLAYED MONOPOLY FOR YEARS, AND IN FACT INVENTED THE GAME! THAT ISN'T TRUE!" So, example after example of people repeat that, yet, the fact remains that it is written right there in the rules. Now, for some who may think this statement is comparing the monopoly inventors to people in this thread, it isn't. The one's shouting "THAT ISN'T TRUE" are the OTHER formations. The other formations don't list any rules that apply to formations outside their own. That's what I'm trying to say. So you shouldn't have to look at other formations in order to come to the conclusion that the dark artisan formation is talking about models, not units. You should be able to look at the RULES for formations, and ONLY at the formation in question and get an answer. If the answer that you get by doing that isn't the same as the answer you get when you also look at other formations, then you aren't following rules, you're following intent based upon example.

The rules for formation datasheets are at the beginning of the formation section. If NO OTHER formations existed in the book, there would be no argument at all against my position. So people are arguing INTENT because they were given examples of "A UNIT OF" in other formations. That's all I'm saying. The actual rules don't support what they're saying without USING conjecture based upon our perceived INTENT of the author, no matter how legitimate or accurate that intent may be.(I'm agreeing with people, that is almost 100% the intent, but we can't know for sure.)

No it's actually not written right there in the rules. RAW is certainly to be restricted to what IS in the rules, but those rules also need to be seen in context. Where there is a clear formula for expressing particular ideas, that formula also forms part of RAW.

For your interpretation to be the only necessary interpretation of those rules, you would need to demonstrate that the stipulation on page 51 under "Formation Composition" is limiting in the sense that this entry can only state the unit type, and no further, more detailed information about the unit. You would also need to demonstrate that there can be no meaningful difference between the formulation "1 Talos" under the Dark Artisan and the formulation on the previous page "1 unit of Talos" under Corpsethief Claw.

The interpretation others are providing here is actually entirely RAW, and while your interpretation is also RAW, it introduces inconsistencies of expression that otherwise aren't there.

You're using implied intent rather than explicit rules to come to that conclusion. That's my point.

I can cite a single page that defines the rule of what is to be included under "Formation", and that definition is "The name and number of the units included in that formation".

What you're suggesting isn't to look at a rule, but to look at the interpretation of many other people(writers) in order to develop an unwritten theory on the rule. The rule is clear. Everything else is decyphering intent.

Except all received communication is, to a certain extent, deciphering of intent. In the same way that you're using a sentence on page 51 to countermand the clear grammatical meaning of a list on page 56.

I'll say again, formulation is a part of content. This is not an argument saying "well, I think GW probably should have meant xyz". It's an argument saying "this formulation, in the context of these other formulations, can only mean xyz".

Meanwhile, your interpretation seems to be at least in part based on the presumption that the omission of "unit of" from both the Talos and Cronos on page 56 is an error. Which seems to be a pretty extreme version of RAI, if you ask me.

Finally, I'll just correct your quotation from p.51. It doesn't specific "name and number". It specifies number and type. I think this is important, because there is a difference between the "unit name" and a "type of unit". The latter, to me, seems to be quite general, in that it could provide a variable amount of different types of information.

I agree - as I've said before - that this is inelegantly done. The unit size restrictions should be under restrictions, and the formation composition should say "1 unit of Talos", which is a counterintuitively complicated way of expressing "1 Talos", but at least operates at a level of principle in a manner closer to what is intended by the formation datasheet layout.

valmir wrote:

I agree - as I've said before - that this is inelegantly done. The unit size restrictions should be under restrictions, and the formation composition should say "1 unit of Talos", which is a counterintuitively complicated way of expressing "1 Talos", but at least operates at a level of principle in a manner closer to what is intended by the formation datasheet layout.

We are at least in agreement on this part.

[quote="BetrayTheWorld"]

Laughingcarp wrote:

So you shouldn't have to look at other formations in order to come to the conclusion that the dark artisan formation is talking about models, not units. You should be able to look at the RULES for formations, and ONLY at the formation in question and get an answer. If the answer that you get by doing that isn't the same as the answer you get when you also look at other formations, then you aren't following rules, you're following intent based upon example.

BetrayThe World
Dude we're talking about GW rules writing. Surely you jest. They can't even cut and paste an existing rule into a new book without messing up i.e. the Splinter Rack rule. Two references in the new codex and two different verbiage. Heck half the fun of reading GW's stuff is trying to figure out what they intended. They simply lack the consistency and clarity in their writing skills for you or any of us to expect anything more from their work. Your whole argument seems to hinge on GW having rules to their rules writing. I ain't seen that ever.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

The one's shouting "THAT ISN'T TRUE" are the OTHER formations.

I'm pretty sure the only person shouting in this thread - or at least, the only person holding down their shift key excessively - is you.

According to the codex, Formation Composition shows the number and types of units that make up the formation. According to the rulebook, units are sometimes single models.

Calyptra wrote:

According to the codex, Formation Composition shows the number and types of units that make up the formation. According to the rulebook, units are sometimes single models.

Units -are- sometimes single models. And if they are -supposed- to be single models, the format for Formation Datasheets has a nifty little spot specifically dedicated to saying that, called "Formation Restrictions".

average joe wrote:

Dude we're talking about GW rules writing. Surely you jest.

Look, I'm with you. GW sucks at writing. However, barring a FAQ, most major tournaments follow rules as written, unless it's an issue they're aware of, and they make a tournament wide ruling on it before the tournament begins.

That being said, it's important to draw the distinction on what is RAW, and what is RAI, for just such a reason. We can all collectively decide we agree with each other here, and agree to play RAI as we've determined it to be. But -then- we could all get buggered when we go to play in a tournament, and a guy who -didn't- participate in this conversation is allowed to use the opposite ruling by a TO who also -didn't- participate in this conversation.

As I probably didn't use capslock enough, I will repeat - The point is that single models are always units. Thus the paragraph in the datasheet breakdown is valid. There is clear difference between Corpsethief and Artisan and until you cannot explain the difference in any other reasonable way, its Units vs. Models.

aurynn wrote:

As I probably didn't use capslock enough, I will repeat - The point is that single models are always units. Thus the paragraph in the datasheet breakdown is valid. There is clear difference between Corpsethief and Artisan and until you cannot explain the difference in any other reasonable way, its Units vs. Models.

You can't defend your argument without being comparitive. Show me -only- rules and the dark artisan formation, and make a case. Showing another formation as an example doesn't count. Just rules. Go ahead. I'll wait.

If I say, jaywalking is illegal, and I show you the law in the lawbooks...

But THEN, I show you multiple examples of people jaywalking, and thus breaking that law, it doesn't make it any less illegal, or any more right to jaywalk.

Bad example. I am argumenting with a contents of a rulebook, which in and of itself is a rule for all intents and purposes. Your argument says that I should show you someone playing something illegal. Totally different thing.

And my main argument following this is, that if you are argumenting by something in the rulebook (lawbook, whatever), you cannot ommit ANYTHING to suit your explanation. Every condition and reference in that book has to be in compliance with your explanation or you just cannot use that argument.

aurynn wrote:

Bad example. I am argumenting with a contents of a rulebook, which in and of itself is a rule for all intents and purposes. Your argument says that I should show you someone playing something illegal.

Or is it? Is it the rule I quoted that is incorrect, or is it the non-rule example you cited? Does having more than one example preclude both of those examples from being incorrect/illegal?

Not everything in the book is a rule "for all intents and purposes". If you believe it is, we have nothing further to discuss. I will politely bow out of further discourse with you in particular. If you'd like, I will say "You win" to further cement the idea of not having to continue arguing with you.

Example is bad, because it cites a rule and an action that breaks it. I am citing a rule and making an example from another part of the rulebook. I just consider this to be very different.

If you really believe I am discussing this out of some need to be right and "win", then I agree that we have nothing further to discuss. And yes. I believe that contents of a rules section of a rulebook is a rule. Otherwise I could easily argue that datasheet breakdown is just breakdown and not a rule.

Anyway we both said our points and I do not want to antagonise anyone. This is your thread and I will leave.