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Author Topic: What weapons can a sergeant take?  (Read 1970 times)

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Offline Partninja

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What weapons can a sergeant take?
« on: October 9, 2017, 11:53:11 AM »
I'm a little confused as to what weapons a Sergeant can take. The index states that you exchange both of his weapons with option from the Sergeant list. The list then has two sections. Do I take two items from the first list or one item from the second. Or can I take two from the first AND one from the second?

Some friends are saying it's an "or" but that doesn't make sense.

Essentially I want my BA sergeants to take a combi and a power axe.

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Re: What weapons can a sergeant take?
« Reply #1 on: October 9, 2017, 12:50:27 PM »
You can take from both. Either two from the top list, one from the second list, or one from both.

He can switch out both of his weapons. He just can't take two combi-weapons.
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Offline Partninja

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Re: What weapons can a sergeant take?
« Reply #2 on: October 9, 2017, 03:00:47 PM »
Could you take three weapons (melee weapon, pistol, combined)? It doesn't exactly say you trade one item for one options just that you exchange the bolter and pistol for items from the list (which gives you a total of 3 options).

Offline Blazinghand

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Re: What weapons can a sergeant take?
« Reply #3 on: October 9, 2017, 05:33:35 PM »
Could you take three weapons (melee weapon, pistol, combined)? It doesn't exactly say you trade one item for one options just that you exchange the bolter and pistol for items from the list (which gives you a total of 3 options).

A Sergeant can have a total of two weapons. He is trading out two weapons (boltgun, bolt pistol) so he gets two in return. Bear in mind that even a Captain can't have 3 weapons beyond his grenades. No way are you gonna convince anyone your Sergeant can have 3, heh. Even if you could try to make some kind of argument that there are 3 categories of Sergeant weapon, therefore your Sergeant can have 3, you would not convince the people you play with.
« Last Edit: October 9, 2017, 05:34:53 PM by Blazinghand »
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Offline Partninja

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Re: What weapons can a sergeant take?
« Reply #4 on: October 9, 2017, 06:44:50 PM »
I would never pay the points for that many weapons. I'm just saying I don't see why you can't take 3 items. "Exchanging A and B for items in the sergeant list" doesn't sound like you're specifically exchanging each item for each upgrade. Other entries are clearly specific in what is exchanged.

Offline Blazinghand

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Re: What weapons can a sergeant take?
« Reply #5 on: October 9, 2017, 07:30:58 PM »
I would never pay the points for that many weapons. I'm just saying I don't see why you can't take 3 items. "Exchanging A and B for items in the sergeant list" doesn't sound like you're specifically exchanging each item for each upgrade. Other entries are clearly specific in what is exchanged.

He replaces his items boltgun and bolt pistol with items from the Sergeant Equipment list. This means he may replace the boltgun, with an item, and replace the bolt pistol, with an item. This means that he will get at most 2 items from the Sergeant Equipment list. Whether or not you want to pay the points for that many weapons, the largest number of weapons you can get besides grenades are 2: 1 replacing the boltgun, 1 replacing the bolt pistol.

Whether or not you agree with my interpretation of the wording is not actually relevant here. There are no tournaments and almost certainly no players who will agree with you on this. What matters isn't whether or not you think your interpretation is reasonable, what matters is whether other people will think it is. They will not.

What you can field in a game of 40k is limited by what people think the rules are. Everyone who looks at the entry will think "The Sergeant gets grenades, a boltgun, and a bolt pistol. He can swap out the boltgun and bolt pistol each for one item from the Sergeant Equipment list." If you try to convince them your Sergeant can have a bolt pistol AND a chainsword AND a combi-plas, you will not succeed. This is a relevant piece of information for you, even if you disagree with people on this interpretation.
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Offline Partninja

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Re: What weapons can a sergeant take?
« Reply #6 on: October 9, 2017, 09:48:45 PM »
Your tone is coming off odd to me. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I just really don't see how one comes up with the formula of 2:2 when it does not say that. It says 2: for items on the list. The list then gives two different options. One of which says you can take 2, and another where you take 1 but no where do I see a statement that limits to 2 (other than you can only spend points  for two items of part A and one item from part B).

Offline Blazinghand

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Re: What weapons can a sergeant take?
« Reply #7 on: October 9, 2017, 10:08:17 PM »
Hmm, sorry if I am not being clear. Let me be clear: semantically speaking, there's no reason your argument couldn't be true. If your question is, "could this rule be interpreted this way" then the answer is "yes you totally can interpret the rule this way and the Sergeant can have 3 items". In this way, yeah, you got it covered: your interpretation can be correct. However, in almost every sense other than this very constrained literal one, your interpretation of the rule is wrong.

What do I mean by this? Well, in my opinion we should ask a different question than "could this rule be interpreted this way". The question we should ask is: how is the game played, and understood, by everyone who interacts with this rule, when acting in a reasonable way? And furthermore, when this rule is in use, what's the meaning that you can convince others it means? I think that my question is relevant because ultimately, the rules have no meaning except insofar as you and your gaming buddies interpret them when you play with each other.

The question here is actually a question of RAW. As intended, if we assume the intent has to do with how Sergeants used to be, the Sergeant is meant to have 2 weapons. But what about as written? So we must ask, what does "replace" literally mean, as written? Replacing can mean 1-to-1 replacement in a strict way, and this is how it is usually meant (replace a light bulb, for examle).  But in day to day usage we might also say that we replaced a sandwich with a pile of chips, and this isn't incorrect either. So in fact, this RAW question comes down to the definition of a word, which can be contentious. What matters, then, is how the word is understood and how it can be made to be understood.

Perhaps this particular philosophy of approaching the rules seems sloppy or strange to some people. However, my philosophy is that I want to actually be able to play this game with people. So, when we encounter strangeness in the rules, we go with the socially-agreed rule that is possible to convince people of. If someone is wrong on the rules in a demonstrable way, that's an opportunity for us to open the book and convince them: but ultimately, on something like this, what matters is that a reasonable person would be convinced that this rule makes sense.

I think you would be hard-pressed to convince someone that the sergeant who can "replace his bolt pistol and boltgun for items..." can replace them for three items. I think that if you have to sit down and argue the definition of replace and say "well, there's no reason you can't replace 1 item with 2 items" and give it a go. But I think most people will disagree with you, and you won't be able to play using this rule.

In my opinion, unless otherwise specified, RAW, replacement is 1-to-1 for wargear. I don't find your arguments to the contrary to be compelling. I don't think other people will find them compelling either, which means insofar as actually playing the game goes: A sergeant can have 2 pieces of wargear from the Sergeant Equipment list.

I'm not saying you're trying to convince anyone. I'm just saying that, at some point, you will need to, if you go with this interpretation of the rules, and it is unlikely they will find this argument convincing. This matters.
« Last Edit: October 9, 2017, 10:18:00 PM by Blazinghand »
Quote from: Howard Zinn
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