Changeling - Formless horror

[Eric French]

...and I quote, "At the start of each fight sub-phase, the Changeling may choose a single non-vehicle enemy model in base contact and change any or all of his weapon skill, strength, toughness, initiative and /or attacks characteristics to match those of the chosen foe, until the end of the current turn."

Now rules as written... if on my first turn I charged a lowly unit of MEQ's and across the table my 'foe' had put his warlord, lets say Dante, in base contact with a sanguinary guard during deployment. Would I be able to therefore choose to have those juicy attacks/stats of Mr. Dante because he is after-all in base contact.

I assume either this is a tricky special rule or the first order of business in an FAQ/errata.
Your thoughts?

[StarWarsDoug]

Only if you are asking for nerd rage. That is a huge stretch of RAW to think it is any thing other than base contact "with the Changeling". RAI not withstanding, we are all aware of GW's looseness with wording. Don't even try to start a debate on it.

[Nabterayl]

Just to be clear:

You observe that there is nothing written after "in base contact."

You propose, therefore, that we are justified in reading the rule as "in base contact with any model."

Your suggestion for this addition appears to be that "with any model" should be the default reading of any non-modified phrase?

[Eric French]

Just to be clear:

You observe that there is nothing written after "in base contact."

You propose, therefore, that we are justified in reading the rule as "in base contact with any model."

Your suggestion for this addition appears to be that "with any model" should be the default reading of any non-modified phrase?

I'm simply suggesting that they will need to add "with the Changeling" to the script in order to keep lawyers from arguing about stupid stuff. And debate is the best way to solve things without conflict.

[Nabterayl]

I'm simply suggesting that they will need to add "with the Changeling" to the script in order to keep lawyers from arguing about stupid stuff. And debate is the best way to solve things without conflict.
That's fair. As an actual lawyer, though, I might observe that the hypothetical interpretation you suggest is bad rules lawyering :P

[Eric French]

I think it would be too but to be fair the wording could not be more cloudy, and by cloudy I mean debatable both ways. The descriptive text of "the Changeling may choose a single non-vehicle enemy model in base contact " if worded as "the Changeling may choose a single non-vehicle enemy model that is charging" would it imply that the enemy was charging the Changeling? Or would it even be obvious that is was? It needs to be fixed wouldn't you agree?

[Nabterayl]

Well ... no, I don't agree. I absolutely agree that amending the rule to "... a single non-vehicle enemy model in base contact with the Changeling," or an amendment to that effect, would drastically improve the rule.

At the same time, I am professionally offended when people take a phrase that requires a "with" clause to make sense and take the fact that it doesn't have a "with" clause as license to pretend that the phrase makes sense. That is not rules lawyering. That is bad reading comprehension. A phrase like "in base contact" is simply not complete without something to indicate what the thing is "in base contact" with. You cannot simply be "in base contact." You can only be "in base contact" with something.


A truly incompetent rules lawyer simply doesn't know that, and so thinks "in base contact" has the exact same meaning as "in base contact with anything," when in fact it has no meaning at all.

A better but still bad rules lawyer might think to himself, "Aha, a nonsensical phrase! That's basically the same as a contradiction, right? I remember my symbolic logic class! Once you have a contradiction, you can assert anything!" This is not symbolic logic class. Nonsensical phrases are not contradictions. Neither contradictions nor nonsensical phrases are warrants for inserting language into a rule willy-nilly.

When a real [rules] lawyer runs into a phrase that is nonsensical because incomplete, he considers only two options. The first is that the phrase is simply inoperable, that it should be ignored. The second is that the phrase should be read as if complete, filling the gap with the most reasonable phrase he can given everything he knows about the situation and the universe at large. The first option is only considered when the second option utterly fails. (When the interwebz react in horror that this is neither RAW nor RAI, a real [rules] lawyer also facepalms and tells the amateurs to stop dicking around with their pretend dichotomies and let the adults have their grown-up conversation.)

So here's how this should be rules-lawyered: the rule is missing a phrase. Absolutely. There is no getting around that. This must lead us to ask what the most reasonable (!= intended) candidate for the missing phrase is. There are an infinite variety of phrases we could insert to fill in - "with any friendly model," "with any enemy model," "with anything at all," "with a ham and cheese sandwich," etc. But let's cut to the chase and consider one possible candidate for the missing phrase: "with the Changeling."

Is there any more reasonable (!= intended, != intended, FFS != intended) way to complete the rule than "... a single non-vehicle enemy model in base contact with the Changeling?" If one can say yes with a straight face (and hey, maybe somebody can), then by all means, the debate is on and let the adults have their discussion. But only if.

[OrksOrksOrks]

I don't really understand why people feel the need to point out things like this, that would never cause any confusion in a game, no right thinking person would possibly think your suggestion was a correct interpretation of the rules, so what do you get from your smug post pointing out? Attempting to feel superior for noticing some small, unimportant error? Get a life.

[Eric French]

I don't really understand why people feel the need to point out things like this, that would never cause any confusion in a game, no right thinking person would possibly think your suggestion was a correct interpretation of the rules, so what do you get from your smug post pointing out? Attempting to feel superior for noticing some small, unimportant error? Get a life.

I think you miss the point. It's not me feeling superior about anything at all. Being a sparkling new codex paints a uniquely large target for proofreading. I don't own a changeling, I have no machinations to break the game on poorly worded phrase. Settle down Francis. I am pointing out the problem that I see, it is written poorly according to the rest of what I've read so far in the codex. I'm sure I've missed a doozey or two that will crop up. If not then it's actually a very well compiled work.