pIrusk's feat turn with multi-wound infantry

[profparm]

I asked this question on the Khador threads and people thought it worked one way but weren't 100%.

pIrusk's feat reads, "Feat: Undying Loyalty. While in Irusk's control area, friendly Faction warrior models/units gain Fearless, Tough, and +2 to melee and ranged attack rolls and cannot be knocked down. When a friendly Faction warrior model makes a Tough roll on a 4, 5, or 6 while in Irusk's control area, that model heals 1 damage point. Undying Loyalty lasts one round."

So if a friendly Faction multi-wound warrior model, such as a solo or a Man-of-War, rolls a 5 or a 6 on Tough, does the model heal 2? It does not explicitly say that the "heal 1 point" overrides Tough's old effect, merely that it triggers when a Tough roll is made. The people in the Khador thread that responded were fairly certain it was heal only 1 on a 4+, but I wasn't overly satisfied with the justification. The errata does not mention this scenario.

I am new to this game, but experienced at other games in general, so I would greatly appreciate a thorough explanation in addition to the ruling. Someone mentioned that two of the same named effects don't stack, but it wouldn't seem to me that the Undying Loyalty heal 1 on a Tough roll of a 4, 5, or 6 is an application of an effect named Tough, but an application of an effect named Undying Loyalty. If it were Magic, I could justify my interpretation with separation of statements by a period and calling it a triggered effect instead of a replacement effect, since a replacement effect would have used the word "instead". I'm not sure if this game's vocabulary is as well defined as Magic, as loosely defined as Warhammer or 40k, or somewhere in between.

Answers are very much appreciated!

[PG_Duckboy]

Whenever a model rolls a successful tough roll, they heal 1 pt of health.

[profparm]

So are you saying the model WOULD heal an additional health point when Undying Loyalty triggers on a 4, 5, or 6 being rolled on Tough in ADDITION to the 1 point gained from the successful Tough roll of a 5 or 6, or are you saying that Undying Loyalty MODIFIES the Tough ability to work on a 4, 5, or 6?

Also, is there any justification for the ruling EITHER way? I'm trying to not only learn the answer to this ruling, but how to better judge and gauge the answer to rules questions I have in the future based on the precedence of this game's rulings. Is it simply because that's how it works and people say so and some judge ruled it once so you have to know how the community agrees on it to be? Is there some sort of key wording somewhere in the rules that I'm missing that supports one claim over another?

I'm not just looking for the answer, I'm looking for the WHY.

[R.J.]

"Instead" would be great language to adopt for this kind of thing. I don't think you're missing any wording -- Warmachine is tighter than 40K, but looser than Magic:the Gathering.

[tuttleboy]

His feat turns the normal 5+ tough into 4+ tough. Read what Tough does, then read what his feat does. It's not implied anywhere that you heal 2 pts, only that it gets easier to make the tough roll. Boomhowler has a fell call that does the came thing (4+ Tough rolls) and there's a boat load of Trollblood stuff that can get super tough. All of them only heal you one box.

The same named effect you can't stack is Tough. The feat calls it it Tough, it doesn't call it undying loyalty.

[profparm]

@RJ: I had kinda suspected that's where it would lie, but I wasn't quite sure. Knowing that it seems to have more company-sponsored tournaments than GW games, though, I was hoping it would have clear definitions for rulings like this.

@tuttleboy: Tough reads, "When this model is disabled, roll a d6. On a 5 or a 6, this model heals 1 point, is no longer disabled, and is knocked down." The feat is quoted word-for-word above. My point is that the feat doesn't say that it CHANGES Tough, merely that it (a separately-named effect, called "Undying Loyalty" and not "Tough") heals 1 point when a Tough roll is made of a 4, 5, or 6. If it literally changed the text of Tough, the model would also no longer be disabled, meaning it would still then get boxed. I also saw Boomhowler, but, seeing as I have an interest in no-merc Khador, I was approaching it from the view of my own models. I don't mean to be a pain, I'm just looking for the rules justification for what seems to be a general agreement that he only modifies the Tough roll from a 5+ to a 4+. (By "only", I don't mean to undersell the ability at all; I can tell how clearly powerful an effect like that will be, and am not requesting it be even better if the rules don't intend for it to be so.)

[Maudlin]

If it literally changed the text of Tough, the model would also no longer be disabled, meaning it would still then get boxed.

As soon as you heal any damage, you are no longer disabled. The language for Tough is a bit redundant in that sense, for clarity. You only go to boxed if you are still disabled after all effects triggered on 'disabled' have resolved, so no boxed in the case of a successful Tough check.

And yes, it references the existing Tough check, and simply modifies the values for which it is successful.

[profparm]

I guess I'm just still not seeing WHY it modifies and doesn't stack. In pIrusk's same feat mentioned above, it also grants +2 to melee attack rolls; does this replace the MAT of the attacker then?! (Obviously not, just using this as an example within the same ability as to why I don't see why this modifies instead of adds to it.)

If I'm understanding this right, when an effect generated by a feat or ability with one name (Undying Loyalty or whatever Boomhowler's shout is called) mentions another ability or effect with a different name, for purposes of effects stacking, they are considered to have the same name? It sound like the consensus seems to be that the second sentence of Undying Loyalty is treated as though its effect has the name Tough, which is why it doesn't stack with the normal Tough roll. Is an ability that references and triggers off of other abilities automatically assumed to replace the effect of those abilities?

I don't know how often one ability or effect will reference another one by name, and so it may be the case that every time one does, it functionally modifies instead of being cumulative. If this is the case, that's good to know, and that will steer the way I look at cards and try to play the game when rules questions come up in other examples. Like I said, I'm new and still trying to get a grasp on the way this game makes rulings and how its wording works, so I could very easily have skimmed over the key sentence in the rulebook or errata that clarifies this.

Thanks again everyone for responding and helping me understand these rules! At this point I'm fairly certain how the ruling will turn out (only heal 1 on a 5 or 6), I'm still just trying to wrap my head around the explanation.

[Davian2K5]

Looking at the wording above, one particular point stands out.

A model cannot have the same ability on himself twice (i.e., if you had 2 casters with Iron Flesh in a 2 caster game, you could not have both casters stack Iron Flesh on the same unit; one caster puts it on, and they now have that effect, meaning the same effect being applied again is redundant). That means that a model that already has Tough cannot have Tough twice; he only has it once. What Irusk's feat does, in this case, is modify the native normal rule of Tough being a roll of 5 or 6 and changes it to a 4,5, or 6. The model still only has one application of Tough to himself; the rule governing the Tough rolls, however, are being modified.

edit: This is in response to the wording of the feat, that it specifically says "gains Fearless, Tough...". It does NOT say they gain a second ability with Tough-like mechanics that is called Undying Loyalty, but the effect of Undying Loyalty grants the effect of Tough. This means that you are attempting to stack the same ability twice.

[quindraco]

I asked this question on the Khador threads and people thought it worked one way but weren't 100%.

pIrusk's feat reads, "Feat: Undying Loyalty. While in Irusk's control area, friendly Faction warrior models/units gain Fearless, Tough, and +2 to melee and ranged attack rolls and cannot be knocked down. When a friendly Faction warrior model makes a Tough roll on a 4, 5, or 6 while in Irusk's control area, that model heals 1 damage point. Undying Loyalty lasts one round."

So if a friendly Faction multi-wound warrior model, such as a solo or a Man-of-War, rolls a 5 or a 6 on Tough, does the model heal 2? It does not explicitly say that the "heal 1 point" overrides Tough's old effect, merely that it triggers when a Tough roll is made. The people in the Khador thread that responded were fairly certain it was heal only 1 on a 4+, but I wasn't overly satisfied with the justification. The errata does not mention this scenario.

I am new to this game, but experienced at other games in general, so I would greatly appreciate a thorough explanation in addition to the ruling. Someone mentioned that two of the same named effects don't stack, but it wouldn't seem to me that the Undying Loyalty heal 1 on a Tough roll of a 4, 5, or 6 is an application of an effect named Tough, but an application of an effect named Undying Loyalty. If it were Magic, I could justify my interpretation with separation of statements by a period and calling it a triggered effect instead of a replacement effect, since a replacement effect would have used the word "instead". I'm not sure if this game's vocabulary is as well defined as Magic, as loosely defined as Warhammer or 40k, or somewhere in between.

Answers are very much appreciated!

Rules with the same name do not stack.

[Sheer_Falacy]

Rules with the same name do not stack.

His point is that it doesn't have the same name. It's an ability with a whole new name which just happens to kick in when you roll for Tough.

For the record, I had the exact same interpretation he did when I first read the rules, but it's been ruled as not stacking so that's that. I feel it would be more clear if there were an instead or something in it. Warmachine tends to be very clear and involve playing the rules exactly as worded, and that makes things like this and Admonition expiration stand out more.

[Valander]

You only get Tough once, regardless of whether it's intrinsic to the model or granted by something else (as in this case). Undying Loyalty specifically modifies the Tough roll to 4+, but Tough will still only heal 1 damage point.