Ork Clanz - Snakebites question

[NoisyAssassin]

Snakebites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Free/Brown

The Snakebites are a primitive clan (even by Ork standards) and use technology only reluctantly. Snakebites will indulge in space travel if it‟s likely to take them to a new scrap, but are likely to spend much of the journey clinging on to the sturdiest (and least tekky looking) thing they can find. Snakebite capital ship skwadrons can only use space hulks or roks – no other kind of capital ship skwadrons are permitted to bear the clan colors. Snakebite skwadrons gain a special +1 bonus to Command checks when attempting to Brace for Impact.

Does this restriction on capital ships apply only to ships that take the clan upgrade, or any ships with a warlord of that clan? Aka, if I have a warlord who controls a big ship skwadron (no clan upgrade) and a tiddla skwadron, am I allowed to declare the warlord to be a Snakebite and upgrade the tiddlas with the Snakebite benefit?

[Green_Squad_Leader]

No, you purchase the ability for the ship, the boss's clan is determimed by the ship they are on. The original clan rules are very poorly written, theybare getting a big revamp in yhe next BFG:XR update.

[NoisyAssassin]

I realize that the clan upgrade is purchased per ship. There are, however, some lines that imply that ships are from clanz regardless of their upgraded status. And if that's the case, every ship under the same Warlord is then from the same clan. We then get to the question of whether big and 'uge ships are forbidden from being Snakebites, or just forbidden from upgrading as Snakebites.

Relevant text:

"A Warlord and his skwadrons may only be from one clan..." and "Additionally, being from a particular clan and being painted as such does not obligate the skwadron to take the benefits of being from a particular clan by paying the extra points for them..."

(And yes, we know that you dislike the clanz list and are redoing them, but not everyone is interested in BFG:R)

[Green_Squad_Leader]

I know and understand many don't want to use the new edition.

If you make the decision to use RAW then you have to accept the consequences.

The wording you are confused by here works thusly.

For Orks your commander is not automatically assigned to a particular ship permanently, instead they are assigned to the largest ship in your fleet for a particular mission.

As such the clan of your commander/other bosses is determined by the clan affiliation of the ship they happen to be on for a mission/match. That means that the same character can actually change clan affiliation several times throughout a campaign, potentially doing so each mission. Note also that if you have multiple ships tied for largest in your list you may decide which your commander/bosses will be assigned to at the start of a mission when selecting ships from your campaign ship roster. This allows you to potentially change the clan affiliation of a given boss each game you play in a campaign.

The reference to "the commander and his skwadrons can only be from one clan" refers to two things. First that if the commander's ship is itself part of a skwadron any other ships in said skwadron must be of the same clan, and second that in an earlier version of the rules you were required to purchase at least one skwadron of tiddlas in addition to any capital ships you purchased for each boss you took.  I have seen copies of the Ork Clanz rules with this particular rule and without it, I will presume that you are using the original text which did include that rule.

So that would mean that the "tiddla tax" tiddla skwadron must be given the same clan affiliation as your commander's ship.  As your commamder's ship is determined at the start of a mission this means that for each capital ship with a boss assigned to it you must include at least one tiddla skwadron with the same clan affiliation/lack of affiliation in your list.

Curiously there was no prohibition to using your rerolls on ships of different clans so long as your boss's ship itself had no clan, so it was always the best call to leave your commander's ship unaffiliated when using the original clanz rules if you included multiple clanz in your list.

Now that word soup was pretty dense, so for ease of reference here is an order of operations chart for the old clanz rules:

1. Purchase a commander.
2. Purchase at least 1 capital ship and one tiddla skwadron.
3. Assign your commander to the capital ship.
4. (Optional) Purchase a clan affiliation for your capital ship, of you do you must purchase the same affiliation for at least one tiddla skwadron.  This is now the clan affiliation for your commander for this mission.
5. (Optional) Declare that your commander's ship will be operating as a part of a squadron with at least one other capital ship. If you do so that ship must have the same clan affiliation.
6. (Optional) If you add a ship to your roster with more hit points than the ship your highest ranking boss is on he immediately changes ships to the larger one. If it has a different clan affiliation or no clan affiliation your commander loses his previous affiliation and gains the new one.  If you have any subordinate bosses of lower rank and the ship your commander was on has more hit points than the ship the subordinate boss was assigned to they immediately are moved to the 2nd largest ship, this again can cause them to gain or lose clan affiliations.
7. (Optional) Repeat Step 5.
8. (Optional) Repeat Steps 1-4 for additional bosses.

I hope that that helps out. There is a reason why virtually everyone I've spoken to who has actually tried to use the old Clanz rules has said that the rules don't work very well.

[NoisyAssassin]

I think this line pretty clearly disproves your points where you say you must purchase the clan affiliation upgrade for every skwadron under the warlord.
"Additionally, being from a particular clan and being painted as such does not obligate the skwadron to take the benefits of being from a particular clan by paying the extra points for them..."
There's also nothing in the list that requires that you start purchasing the affiliations with the warlord's ship/skwadron; you can have an un-upgraded terror ship and a tiddla skwadron of Evil Suns Brutes under the same warlord.


And here we're definitely looking at different versions of the clanz rules:
"Curiously there was no prohibition to using your rerolls on ships of different clans so long as your boss's ship itself had no clan, so it was always the best call to leave your commander's ship unaffiliated when using the original clanz rules if you included multiple clanz in your list."
In the version I'm looking at it restricts each warlord to using their re-rolls on ships under their command (this also partially contradicts your step #6, as each warlord purchases and commands a subset of ships, with each warlord being assigned to the largest ship under their command)

Here's the PDF I'm referencing:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw_dULEfC3rbYzY2ODdlM2YtN2Y4Ny00ZmNjLWI2ZmEtZGRmOGVlYjVlNDQy/view?usp=sharing

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Noisy you're misunderstanding what the term under a particular Commander means. That does not refer to the entire Fleet that the commander is apart of, it is specifically referring to the portion of the fleet which must be purchased when you purchase a boss.

You are of course correct that you can have ships of different Clans within the same Fleet, the main key point though is that you cannot mix Clan affiliations within a particular Squadron and that you must incorporate at least one tiddka Squadron of the same clan affiliation for each boss that you take who has a clan.

Now you can of course purchase more than the minimum number of ships " under the command" of a particular boss, if you did then that would necessitate them having the same OR NO affiliation.

The rules also state that re-rolls can be used only on ships of the same clan affiliation or no affiliation.  Bosses without a clan affiliation have no limitation for their rerolls.

Again though the rules simply have no mechanism for you to determine what Clan affiliation a particular boss has other than by assigning them to a particular ship or Squadron. They state that you do not have to take a clan affiliation for ships under the command of a boss, just that if you do choose an affiliation it must be the same as that of the Boss.

Remember that the rules of this game were designed and intended for use in campaigns, not so much for pick up games.

The main stumbling block here is that the Clanz rules release is a extraordinarily sloppy and thrown together product. It contradicted itself at multiple points and the outcome that the rules are trying to achieve teally wasn't achieved. The things that they were trying to represent were not particularly well represented by the rules as written in the original release.

[NoisyAssassin]

Noisy you're misunderstanding what the term under a particular Commander means. That does not refer to the entire Fleet that the commander is apart of, it is specifically referring to the portion of the fleet which must be purchased when you purchase a boss.

Yup, I get that, it's the basis of the entire list structure. I'm not exactly sure what in my last post made it seem like I didn't? Side note, you keep referring to "purchasing" a commander, I assume by that you're referring to deciding how many re-rolls you want to buy for the free warlords? Because if not, then we're looking at VERY different lists.

Also, let's back up a step and clarify some terminology. Here's my reading of things and how I'll be using terms. All quotes from the Clanz list in green:

1) ALL ships in a Clanz list belong to a clan. This isn't explicitly laid out in the rules, but it is heavily implied, especially in the fluff section at the beginning of Musterin' da Clanz. What is explicitly laid out is that it is possible for a ship to belong to a clan without paying for the upgrade "being from a particular clan and being painted as such does not obligate the skwadron to take the benefits of being from a particular clan by paying the extra points for them." We'll say that each ship is "affiliated" with its chosen clan. The only mechanical thing that being affiliated does is give you the option to purchase a clan upgrade. Let's call the ones that haven't purchased an upgrade "basic" and those that have the clan upgrade "upgraded."
2) Now, let's look at the structure of the list, which is one Warlord per 500 points, each of whom controls a number of skwadrons. Let's call each group of Warlord+his skwadrons an "army"
3) "A Warlord and his skwadrons may only be from one clan..." So here we see that Warlords also have a clan (how else could the warlord's clan match his skwadrons'?). Not that it matters much from a rules perspective, except, as you mentioned, in campaigns, where you'd actually be disallowed from moving a Warlord to a different army if it was of a different clan (a good example of a rule that's just sort of both slipped in and only heavily implied).
4) We now know that within an army all ships and the Warlord have the same affiliation (see quote from #3), but for now, they are all basic ships of a given clan. You then have the option to turn any combination of basic skwadrons into upgraded skwadrons of the army's clan (using the appropriate clan upgrade for their affiliation), provided that you first pay the points, and second have the correct paint scheme for your affiliated clan.

...and that you must incorporate at least one tiddla Squadron of the same clan affiliation for each boss that you take who has a clan.

When you use the term "affiliation" here, are you using it in the same way that I am, or are you using it as I'm using the term "upgraded"? If the former, I agree, excepting the possibility of a Warlord not having a clan. If the latter, can you provide a quote from the rules to support this, as I don't see any requirements about matching clan upgrades. ("A Warlord and his skwadrons may only be from one clan," doesn't apply, because "Additionally, being from a particular clan and being painted as such does not obligate the skwadron to take the benefits of being from a particular clan by paying the extra points for them,")

Also, re: the use of re-rolls,
"A Warlord‟s re-rolls only count for the skwadrons under his command and not for the whole fleet."
This^ is the only restriction on using re-rolls in the version I'm looking at (confirmed via Ctrl+F on "re-roll"); nowhere are clan affiliations mentioned.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

All other publications GW made for orks place the cost of a Warlord/Freeboota Kapitan/Big Mek at 40 points, hence the "purchasing a warlord" terminology.

That PDF is downright painful to read. I get your argument, but you are trying to make a RAI arguement.

My eyes are bleeding from looking the original clanz rules again. Its just so contradictory, 0 playtesting and very little time went into this document.

Overall dude its up to you what you want to do. If you want to use your enterpretation of the rules go ahead, sell your local group on it.  The RAW couldn't be clearer regarding the snakebite question. For ships under a warlord to benefit from a particular clan he must be of said clan even if you aren't paying for the upgrade. No non rok/space hulk capital ship can bear the snakebite clan colors, so they can't be taken as part of a force commanded by a snakebite warlord.

I just don't understand how people can be satisfied with this crap. This looks like something an intern threw together in 2 hours.

[Seahawk]

Like I've said elsewhere, I'm fine with it and it's easy to read. I do not want to play XRgobblygookwhatever because otherwise each group plays with different rules, which makes the whole thing pointless for consistency and a pain for understanding mishandling of rules. *shrug*

To the OP: yes, you can. The rule only refers to Capital Ship Squadrons, which in turn refers to just Hulks and Roks, because no other capital ships can be upgraded to Snakebites.

Tiddla squadrons are unaffected. You can upgrade them to Snakebites without any issues.

No ships in a Clanz fleet are required to take a Clan Upgrade, so it's perfect acceptable to have a Warlord, aboard a Terror Ship in his Big Ship Skwadron, and have just his Tiddla Skwadron be Snakebites.

[Green_Squad_Leader]

Thats the exact opposite of what it says seahawk.  The Warlord and his skwadrons can only be from one clan. It specifies that it is using the terms ships and skwadrons interchangeably. That means that for a snakebite Warlord you can only take Spacehulks, Roks, and Tiddlas under his command. To take ships of a different clan (including no clan) you must take another Warboss of said different clan.

I agree that these rules are stupid and annoying to use. You are arguing the case that the game is permanently trapped in amber in 2010, so that means that we are bound by RAW regardless of how lackluster and poorly designed they are.

And are you making a joke when you imply that every gaming group already isn't simply using a different rules set based on their own preferences?  My experience has been that every group seems to use a different set of rules for this game with the players determining at the onset what rules they are going to use.

[horizon]

Yes, every group uses their own rules. But it is good if there is a base point: Main rulebook+armada+compendium 2010 which is being used in tournaments. So everyone knows what they are up to.

I will check this precious bits within the HA group (it still exists ). And maybe just maybe 2017 maybe a good year.

[Seahawk]

No, what I wrote is what it is saying, for the OP's question. Let's review the rules.

1. A skwadron (not warlord) can be given an upgrade, but they are not required to do so.
2. A Warlord and his skwadrons may only be from one clan; aka all Clan upgrades in skwadrons under the command of a given Warlord must be from the same clan.

So let's make an example grouping.

Warlord - 1 reroll

Big Ship Skwadron
- Terror Ship (Warlord embarks here) (no Clan upgrade)

Tiddla Skwadron
- 3 Ravagers - Snakebite Clan upgrade


This fulfills #1 because skwadrons can have an upgrade, but are not required to take one. It also fulfills #2 because you still only have one clan present in a given Warlord's grouping. Why are you finding complication and issues where there are none? There is no such thing as a "Snakebite Warlord", and there never has been. There are, however, "Snakebite Skwadrons", as mentioned.

Also, I neither implied that other groups all use different rules, nor did I make a joke. I was simply stating that all groups have access to a base core official rules, as horizon said, that will allow all of us to play together without rules issues because we all know them. When each group starts splintering out and using different rules and declaring them all the bestest, it becomes much harder to travel to different groups and play the same game, because it's no longer the case.