Court of the disposed archon

[ShadowcatX]

Can you take a court of the archon without an archon through use of an hq slot?

[John Bower]

Can you take a court of the archon without an archon through use of an hq slot?

That one's a bit of a grey area without an FAQ. RAW I'd say yes, RAI I'd say probably not meant to.

For one thing it doesn't say you 'must' take an Archon to take them, only that if you do they don't take up a slot.

On the other hand, in most of these cases you find the particular character is a qualifier for the unit in question - ie command squads for HQ's in the Marines, meks for each HQ in the orks and so on.

[0rph3u5]

I don't have the Codex with me, but there is a qualifying statement that a Court can only be taken if you have an Archon if I recall correctly ("for every Archon you may take 1 Court of the Archon" or similar)

(Note: this is only based on the printed, german version of the codex)

[ShadowcatX]

The English version of the codex says that you can take a court that does not take an HQ slot if you have an archon. It doesn't explicitly say you can only take them if you have an archon.

[Nefarius Drapesh]

Well i know the english and the german codex there's a symbol for hq choice in the upper right for the court of the archon and like shadowcat said they have a special rule of not taking up an hq slot when you have an archon.
there're no further restrictions and the like.

[hutting7]

I've been trying to find a ruling on this as I want my army to be led by a crazy group of Medusae, people have argued that rules as written allow you to have an army led by a Court of the Archon without an Archon as long as you let it take up a force organisation slot, however others say rules as intended is that you can't have them lead the army.

What do people think? If I -can- have my army led (without using Unbound) by a group of Medusae, how do I do Warlord traits or such? Does the whole unit get them or would I pick one Medusae to be the boss, or do I not get one?

[Morgrim]

Well, when you have a Court of the Archon it's the archon who is the Warlord, so if you don't have one I feel you wouldn't get a warlord trait. I also suspect that this is something that is going to get FAQed eventually, so you may want to have backup plans involving a mind controlled archon or something. Or a super-medusae counts as HQ, even if none really have fitting rules.

[Houghten]

You can only pick a non-Character model to be your Warlord if you have no other Characters in your army. Note that they don't have to be Independent Characters, just Characters - so a random Sybarite or Hekatrix can be your Warlord.

If you have no Characters, any model can be your Warlord, but they do not get a Warlord Trait.

First and third paragraphs, page 124 of The Rules.

[John Bower]

My thought is why would they qualify the 'no slot if you take an Archon' though? I am forced to wonder if in this case having thought about it RAI and RAW are the same; perhaps it was intentional after all. But unless they are characters (or at least 1 of them is) they can't actually be your warlord. Then again, you don't 'have' to take Sybarites or any other characters so...

[hutting7]

Ah this makes sense. To be fair I'm happy to give up the warlord trait if it means I can have a more themed army. Although my main plan is to have a Haemonculus Coven as the primary detachment (led by a Haemonculus with Warlord trait in a formation) with Wracks, Cronos, Talos, Grotesques etc then have my Kabalites and Wyches as a secondary detachment led by the court of Medusae and with no other characters.

[Charistoph]

Ah this makes sense. To be fair I'm happy to give up the warlord trait if it means I can have a more themed army. Although my main plan is to have a Haemonculus Coven as the primary detachment (led by a Haemonculus with Warlord trait in a formation) with Wracks, Cronos, Talos, Grotesques etc then have my Kabalites and Wyches as a secondary detachment led by the court of Medusae and with no other characters.

Then worrying about a Court member being Warlord is pointless since the Warlord would be in your Coven detachment.

[ShadowcatX]

Looking around other places online, it seems that the consensus is that it is legal, but that it is dubious enough that checking with a T.O. before a tournament is advisable.

[Gleipnir]

Most of 7th Edition and how it is presented in codex now is to give you rules for using any model without preexisting requirements in the rules. They have done so with HQ squads, character models attached to other units and even dedicated transports.

Basically 7th edition has opened up the ability to select just about any model in the rules without prerequisite conditions to doing so.