Telion, Scouts, and Stealth

[Dingareth]

This came off of a little debate on Warseer:

Does Telion give his unit the Stealth USR since it is listed under his rules? This would shave a fair amount of points off of Telion's cost if he saved you from having to buy Camo Cloaks.

[Dosadi]

My thinking is that no, he does not give the squad stealth. I play it that way. Unitl I see a FAQ telling me otherwise, I'll continue to pay for the cloaks.
On that note, I've used him twice now and haven't found him to be all that effective. A regular scout sergeant with a sniper rifle is less points and might be just as good. But I like the model (and the corrupted chaos conversion I did) so I'll keep using him for now. One of these days he's gonna pay off in spades!


Dosadi

[StrikerFox]

wow, this one is tricky! he isnt an IC. in the USR it says on pg74 "special rules marked with (*) are automatically lost by an IC joinging a unit that doesnt havethe same special rule.." (and visa versa)

he's not considered and IC.. and usually if an IC is the one joining, he confers his abilities unto his squad// (i thnk that might have been the confusion about warptime) or visa versa... hmm

this is interesting because he is just an upgraded seargent...

[Dingareth]

Exactly! And it's not usually a problem because either the entire unit has a rule or not, and well, Telion he's imbetween.

I think that he does, as it makes sense in the fluff- he's a teacher, so he's teaching his students to be Stealthy, as Dosadi pointed out his points cost is way above what he's worth if he doesn't include the Stealth bonus, and lastly an actual rules point to back it up;

The Stealth USR states that: "The unit's Cover Save is increased by +1." So it seems to me that since the USR says the "unit's" save is increased, the whole unit should get it. It seems to me to be a lot like Sergeant Harker here, who also gives his unit Stealth and it makes Telion actually worth his points in a 10 man squad.

[mkerr]

Does Telion give his unit the Stealth USR since it is listed under his rules? This would shave a fair amount of points off of Telion's cost if he saved you from having to buy Camo Cloaks.

I do agree that it's not a simple answer. This is a very rare exception to the way GW uses USRs. But a complicated issue has never stopped me from wading in with my thoughts!

The short answer, for me, is "No".

Here's the long answer:

1. Telion has Stealth, but isn't an Independent Character. What does that mean? That means he doesn't lose Stealth as a member of a squad. He has Stealth, but his squad makes don't. Is there a rule conflict if only one model has Stealth? No, not as a long as that model isn't an Independent Character.

2. I can't think of any examples where a single model with a USR in a unit gives that ability to the entire squad (i.e., an upgrade character with Furious Charge wouldn't give that ability to the entire squad) without speaking to that explicitly (e.g., Apothecaries, etc.).

But let's walk off the beaten path and talk about intent.

Question #1: "Why did they give him Stealth?". My guess is they wanted him to fit into a wide variety of Scout Marine units. If I update to Telion, but buy the Camo Cloaks what happens to my unit? I can't give Telion a Camo Cloak, right? Giving him Stealth lets him fit into those units without complication.

Question #2: "If they only wanted him to have a +1 to cover saves, then why didn't they just give him a Camo Cloak?". The Occam's Razor answer to this question is that they didn't model him with a cloak, so they couldn't give him one. But that led to problems when the rest of the squad was upgraded to Camo Cloaks, so gave him Stealth instead.

So at this point, I'm leaning heavily into the "Telion has Stealth, but the squad doesn't unless they buy Camo Cloaks" camp. I'd love to hear an argument that would change my mind because I'd love to get a cheaper Telion in my army, lol.

-- MKerr

[Dingareth]

Simply that the Stealth USR says that the unit's Cover Save is improved, not the model's. For Furious Charge, for example, it says that the MODEL gains +1 S and I, whereas Stealth says the UNIT's save is increased.

Think of it as Telion teaching his Scouts to be quieter, or Harker having trained his squad to make good use of Jungle, or Snikrot bashin' some head together until his boyz get quiet and stay down.

Unfortunately, Kommandoz have Stealth built in, and Harker says specifically that he grants it to the unit, which leaves Telion out on his own. But Harker giving it to his squad, which would normaly be able to take it as an upgrade really sealed the deal on this for me, as he is another upgrade charecter that passed his skills along, much like Telion.

[darknite]

I do agree that it's not a simple answer. This is a very rare exception to the way GW uses USRs. But a complicated issue has never stopped me from wading in with my thoughts!

The short answer, for me, is "No".

Here's the long answer:

1. Telion has Stealth, but isn't an Independent Character. What does that mean? That means he doesn't lose Stealth as a member of a squad. He has Stealth, but his squad makes don't. Is there a rule conflict if only one model has Stealth? No, not as a long as that model isn't an Independent Character.

2. I can't think of any examples where a single model with a USR in a unit gives that ability to the entire squad (i.e., an upgrade character with Furious Charge wouldn't give that ability to the entire squad) without speaking to that explicitly (e.g., Apothecaries, etc.).

But let's walk off the beaten path and talk about intent.

Question #1: "Why did they give him Stealth?". My guess is they wanted him to fit into a wide variety of Scout Marine units. If I update to Telion, but buy the Camo Cloaks what happens to my unit? I can't give Telion a Camo Cloak, right? Giving him Stealth lets him fit into those units without complication.

Question #2: "If they only wanted him to have a +1 to cover saves, then why didn't they just give him a Camo Cloak?". The Occam's Razor answer to this question is that they didn't model him with a cloak, so they couldn't give him one. But that led to problems when the rest of the squad was upgraded to Camo Cloaks, so gave him Stealth instead.

So at this point, I'm leaning heavily into the "Telion has Stealth, but the squad doesn't unless they buy Camo Cloaks" camp. I'd love to hear an argument that would change my mind because I'd love to get a cheaper Telion in my army, lol.

-- MKerr

I agree completely with this position.

[mkerr]

Simply that the Stealth USR says that the unit's Cover Save is improved, not the model's. For Furious Charge, for example, it says that the MODEL gains +1 S and I, whereas Stealth says the UNIT's save is increased.

That's correct. The USRs were written with the expectations that the squad had the rule and that it would only be applied to single models that were Independent Characters.

But we have a problem with Mr Telion because he's not an independent character (or a unit composed of a single model). So how do we handle it?

We have three choices:
1. Treat Telion like an IC: If he's part of a unit that doesn't have Stealth, then he loses Stealth. I don't like this because he's clearly not an IC and those rules just shouldn't apply to him.
2. Treat Telion like a Stealth Carrier: If he's part of a unit that doesn't have Stealth, then he gives them Stealth. I don't like this because it's over reaching. I believe if they wanted him to grant Stealth, they would've spelled it out.
3. Treat Telion like a Special Case: He doesn't lose Stealth (because he's not an IC), but he doesn't share it either. I like this one because there's no reason why an individual model in a unit shouldn't be able to benefit from Stealth. It works perfectly well with the way that wound are applied to a unit.

Think of it as Telion teaching his Scouts to be quieter...

Unfortunately, you can't make fluff arguments to justify a rules position. I think it would be very reasonable to have an upgrade character give a unit a USR (like the Apothecary or a Standard Bearer), but that's not what Telion does.

I think you should make the case for your FLGS game organizer and if he agrees with you, then you've saved some points on Camo Cloaks. But I think that it's too much of a stretch.

-- MKerr

[The Mystic]

I would have to say he does.

Reason?

One key sentence in the Stealth USR.

"All of the units cover saves are improved by +1."

So you buy a Scout squad. Upgrade Sgt to Telion who has the Stealth USR. By the wording, ALL the unit gets a +1 to cover saves.

As he is not a singular unit the whole squad would benefit.

Simple.

[mkerr]

"All of the units cover saves are improved by +1."

The unit doesn't have Stealth, only Telion has Stealth. Telion isn't the unit.

Nothing in the rules even implies that an upgrade character gives his USRs to a unit he is a part of. If anything, the IC rules indicate that they want the opposite to happen.

I don't see a conflict with the rules if you simply allow Telion to have Stealth. If you allocate a wound to him, he gets a +1 on the cover save. He's stealthy. His less experienced squadmates are not.

Taking a "too literal" definition of the rules leads to all kinds of crazy stuff (like squeaking an extra 27pts out of a 50pt character). It's fun to talk about, but I don't recommend using it on the table.

-- MKerr