Abberation with a Scissorhand

Evening Dark City,

I have a quick rules query that I haven't found an answer to after doing a forum topic search. I think the scissorhand may be my favorite piece of wargear in 40k but I have a question when it comes to putting one on a grotesque. Taking into account the 6th edition rules for poison, the Abberation has a strength of 5 so will re-roll wounds against anything with a toughness of 5 or less. This is awesome, we all love it.

But, I'm curious what happens when you fight something with a toughness of 3, or you have the furious charge strength boost (or Urien's). The poisoned rules state that you need to roll on a fixed number (+3 in this case) unless a lower result would be required. Then goes on to state if the strength of the wielder, or the weapon, equals or exceeds the toughness of the victim, you *must* re-roll failed wounds.
Say you are swinging at a T3 model. You would normally wound on a +2. Would you

A.) Roll to wound on a 2 (strength exceeds poison value) followed by a re-roll of failed wounds (due to poison).

or

B.) Have to pick between wounding on a 2+, or a 3+ with re-rolls?

Thanks in advance for the help. I don't see this problem happening often with a haemy or wrack, but with a grotesque their strength is actually high enough for this to be a concern. Since I'm planning on running a Grotesque bodyguard for my archon, I suppose its something I should figure out now!

The answer is A. The rules for Poisoned Weapons on page 40 of the rulebook specifically answer this issue. Not really sure where B comes from to be honest. It's not suggested anywhere in the rules for poisoned weapons or Scissorhands.

This is easy. You already quoted the correct rules, so here is how it works:

1. Your unit has a poisoned weapon and obviously a strength value as it's a melee attack.
2. You wound anything on a fixed number of in this case 3+ unless a lower roll would be required without poison - so this is why you still wound T3 on a 3+.
3. The rules for poison in melee say, that you may or must reroll unsuccessful rolls to wound if your strength equals or exceeds the enemies toughness. This rule is not bound to wounding on a fixed value as it says "additionally".

Conclusion: You wound on the best possible value (either 2+ for T3 and lower or 3+ due to poison) AND reroll wounds if your Strength is equal or greater than their toughness. Every time.

Edit: damn, ninja'd

Nice. Thanks guys!

I forgot to mention, I had a short "discussion" with someone at my FLGS over it. He insisted that the rules must be option B, as A would make a scissorhand *way* overpowered for 15 points.

Thanks for clearing it up for me.

@dogmar, yep, you gotta be quick to beat the Count!
@flint13, I ALWAYS put a scissorhand on an aberration for just this reason. Also note, in the DE codex it says "take" a scissorhand, not swap cc weapon for it. So he has base 4 attacks, one on the charge extra cc weapon AND the bonus attack you get for scissorhand, 7 attacks on the charge. Brutal.

There were a lot of words and my brain is small.
Are we saying that, aberration vs guardsman: 2+ to wound because of S, then a 3+ re-roll to wound because of poison?
Or is it 2+ with a 2+ re-roll?

thesaltedwound wrote:

There were a lot of words and my brain is small.
Are we saying that, aberration vs guardsman: 2+ to wound because of S, then a 3+ re-roll to wound because of poison?
Or is it 2+ with a 2+ re-roll?

2+ with a 2+ re-roll.