SilverHeimdall wrote:Er, you don't count Manbane Strength when you have to take yourself the Strength test, that's like saying Executioners count their Great Weapons when it comes to S tests.
Manbane is a weapon, not a strength bonus to the assassin himself.
Wrong. Whilst I agree it is absurd when thinking about what the item Manbane actually is (a toxin coated on the users weapons) much of the recent publishing of GW has been... lacklustre to say the least. Which is why they announced that rules were to be played as written (the Cult of RAW as it were). Personally I've always hated the RAW warriors (with thier rediculous things like Thorek re-rolling every failed Rune test etc) but I've learnt that the only way to beat 'em is to do so at thier own game.
Once more, I'll quote the RAW of Manbane:
p.99, Warhammer Armies: Dark Elves:
"A model with a weapon coated with Manbane always counts thier Strength as one higher than thier target's Toughness, unless thier Strength would normally be more than this, up to a maximum of Strength 6. This means that they almost always wound opponents on a roll of 3+. This modified Strength is used to calculate armour save modifiers."
and the RAW of stength bonuses applied from weapons:
p.54, BRB [Big Red Book/WHFB Rulebook]:
"Some weapons give thier wielder's a Strength bonus in close combat or when shooting. This is clearly indicated in the weapons profile. For example, a halberd has a +1 Strength bonus, so if used in close combat by a warrior with a strength of 3, any hits caused are resolved with a Strength of 4. Note that this Strength bonus only applies when the warrior is using the weapon - his strength characteristic remains unchanged for other purposes."
Hey presto. You'll notice the second quote has the bold part which is the explicit exception to using Great Weapons for such a test, whereas Manbane modifies the USER'S base strength (also bolded for convenience) and as such would be viable.
Now to my recollection there isn't actually a model/item with a rule to that effect so it wouldn't ever come into play - but I was illustrating the point between the difference in specific rules. Suffice to say, I'm right. And I'm not just being arrogant there, I'm doing everything GW told us to - play the rules as written.
Edit: I realise that you may have thought I was referring to all strength tests being affected by Manbane, which is not what I was saying. I was posing a theoretical example of a rule (like Kouran's armour) that affected Strength instead of Toughness. As I said though, there is no such item in the game as far as I'm aware so thankfully this issue should never arise except as a matter of theorycraft.
(which Milney has provided in the post the page before).
