Shenanigans with Grenades and Psychic powers and reducing toughness cumulatively.

[Daemonette666]

With so many new lists going around using Dark Angels and Grey Knights together, there have been a few people asking about and thinking of using a combination of the following powers and grenades.

Your roll up Enfeeble which, I do not know whether Grey Knights can take as I have the psychic card deck at another location. Dark Angels can not take Biomancy though.

In your turn you move int range, cast Enfeeble -1 toughness), then shoot and hit with the Ravenwing Grenade Launcher's Rad Charge (-1 Toughness), then throw the Grey Knights Rad grenade at the unit (-1 Toughness). The unit of Guard/ Eldar/ basic Cultists or some other weak unit is now -3 to their toughness which means they are toughness 0. They are now dead.

I read a few discussions on whether the effect of rad grenades or rad charges from multiple units are cumulative, but only one person said anything on that thread and it was that they do not add up.

I generally run cultists and hope to avoid such a tactic being used against my forces. Even though Cultists are cheap (130 points for 30 of them), the enemy could destroy whole units in one round of shooting without even shooting other weapons, or charging them.

I could lose expensive Plague Marine squads (reduced to toughness 2 from the -3 to my toughness) and also lose my FNP. If the enemy does things right this could be a distraction tactic to keep me off guard and force me to concentrate fire on them instead of scoring units or Terminators coming in to kill of my other units.

I would hope the effects of multiple weapons such as Rad Grenades, Rad Charges and Enfeeble are not cumulative. It would use up a lot of points to make this happen, but you could do in in bigger games, and it could certainly win you a game.

If someone tried it against me then I would personally refuse to play against them again while they used that army combination. It is as bad as the All Nurgle army list - (Chaos Space Marines and Daemons) with Epedemius as one of the daemon HQs. I tried it, and decided to stop using it because it was too powerful.

Does anyone know if the effects are cumulative?

[Tynskel]

wow, it takes 3 different units to kill 1...

sounds crazy! I mean, it's like, if you fired 3 different units worth of weapons, you might kill 1 unit...

[Nabterayl]

There's really no guidance on whether it stacks, and very little guidance on even what sorts of things stack, or how to tell. The general principle seems to be that identical effects do not stack - for instance, rad grenades do not stack with rad grenades per the Grey Knight FAQ.

There is no rule against characteristics being affected by multiple things at once, so I would expect Enfeeble to stack with rad grenades and rad charges. Will rad charges and rad grenades stack with each other, though? Maybe not, on the argument that they're the same thing. Until that's stated, though, I think the most conservative reading is to say that rad charges and rad grenades are not the same thing, and therefore do stack.

The combination you describe requires you to somehow get biomancy into an army (neither Dark Angels nor Grey Knights have access to that), successfully cast it on a T3 unit, then get an RGL within 12" of the unit, then assault it with a Grey Knights IC. As for how fair that would be, no judgment.

[Tynskel]

usually, stuff stacks, unless it comes from the same rule (for example, you cannot gain stealth twice).

[Daemonette666]

Well that is a relief. I thought that if a couple of my enemies were to try this, I would have most of my force dead within 4 - 5 turns.

I suppose an enemy who does try to do something like this would have their opponents change tactics and give up first blood by sticking most of their troops in rhinos or other transports. They would find their models that cause the -1 toughness being targeted and the rest of their army should not be as effective if they had built the army for this tactic.

I will have to look at the Grey Knights FAQ/ Codex again to see where it says the identical effects do not stack.

[DarkLink]

Grey Knights don't have access to Biomancy, only Divination, Pyromancy, and Telekenesis.

If they did, I don't see why -1 T modifiers from different sources wouldn't stack, and so it would be perfectly legal. But it requires you to jump your list through so many loopholes just to pull it off that your opponent doesn't have the right to complain if you do it. You have to shoot them with the DA grenades, and pass the psychic test and Deny, and then assault all in the same turn (GK grenades don't do the -1T when thrown, only when you assault), and if you opponent fails to kill the bikers with the grenades, and avoid the assault, and fail to kill the psyker, well, they'll probably lose the assault anyways.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Considering that +1T effects stack (Nurgle Bikers), it'd be kinda weird if -1T effects didn't. I don't think it'd be overpowered since a Ravenwing and Grey Knight unit working in unison could ice most enemy units, Rad-effects or not.

[Kevlarshark]

I would say they stack, (in a similar way to the attack reducing abilities on some chaos units and the ld reducing powers for a Psyker battle squad) but such abilities are usually capped so the stats can only be reduced to 1.

[Nabterayl]

but such abilities are usually capped so the stats can only be reduced to 1.
Some abilities say they're capped, yeah, but in the absence of an explicitly stated, cap, there's nothing wrong with an ability reducing a characteristic to 0.

[Tynskel]

Yeah, they gotta say capped.


Again, in this instance, this combination is not as powerful as it sounds. It requires 3 different units applying effects to 1 unit. Quite frankly, you have a good shot at just blasting the cultist to pieces with 1 unit...

[Chris*ta]

I'm not convinced that a) toughness can be reduced below 1, or
b) that that will auto-kill the entire unit.

Anyone got any quotes that support either of these? Because, as far as I'm concerned, if the rules don't allow something, then it can't happen.

[Nabterayl]

Page 3 says, "If at any point, a model's Strength, Toughness or Wounds are reduced to 0, it is removed from play as a casualty." If it weren't possible for Toughness to be reduced to 0 during play, that rule wouldn't be there. It just so happens that we have some wargear now that reduces the Toughness of every model in the entire unit.

However, nobody has yet posted a hypothetical list that can actually do that. Enfeeble + Rad Charge + Rad Grenades would reduce an entire unit's Toughness by 3, I agree ... but how do you get all three of those in a single army?

[DarkLink]

Apocalypse. At which point void weapons and str D are far more broken.

Does Enfeeble stack with itself?

[Nabterayl]

I can't imagine it would. I mean, you can assault a unit with 500 rad grenades at once and they get -1T. Rad charge is explicitly written so it doesn't stack with itself. I don't see why Enfeeble would buck the trend, even though I don't think it's explicitly FAQ'd or limited.

EDIT: Or I could read the book, instead of imagining. As page 68 says,


Note that bonuses and penalties from different maledictions are always cumulative, but cannot, unless otherwise stated, take characteristics above 10 or below 1 (emphasis added).

I think that makes it pretty clear that Enfeeble doesn't stack with itself.