Say I am playing eldar, I activate an aspect formation and engage something, I then decide to retain with my avatar who uses his commander ability to drag a nearby guardian formation into a combined engage, as the farseer stand is still alive and all of the formations count as a single formation for the purposes of the engagement, can I count the farsight of the farseer to ignore the -1 penalty for retaining the initiative?

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Id say no, highlighted what I see as the relevant part
from 2.1.2 Commanders

All 3 formations are not treat as 1 until you pass the test.

Agreed Dptdexys.

The character needs to be part of the activating formation in order to exercise the character's capabilities. The same is true when activating a spaceship or WE transport that contains another formation. It is the transport that is activating, and the only special ability that can be used is the SC reroll.

Once the activation is successful, the other formations are brought in. If the activation attempt fails, it only affects that formation; the other formations are unaffected and can be activated at a later point.

Thread hijack alert. Does that mean I can use the SC reroll to bring on an aircraft if my SC is in the aircraft I'm trying to activate?


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Ooh, brill.


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Extreme thread steal...

Ok, so I'm pretty sure of the answer to this, but I really want my Eldar to become awesome (you know by becoming Necrons or something), - so if you can use your supreme commander re-roll when off board in the vehicle (make sence), can you also use farsight. --- i.e if you were carrying out an air assault with a vampire and farseer guardian squad (on a retain)?

Or am I just hoping for the heavens' emboidered cloths.

Please break my dreams .....

I'd say no as it's the aircraft itself that activates rather than the transported formation, the supreme commander re-roll is a special case

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Agreed Kyuss.

Having a Farseer in the Vampire or Spacecraft does not reduce the activation roll, because he is not actually part of the formation trying to activate. (The transport and contents are only considered a single formation at the start of the assault process).

You need a Farseer on-table to perform a second retain, and a Guardian formation in the Webway does get the activation benefit.

You also need a SC on the table to get the reroll but it has been justified that it's valid to use it when off board if the SC's own formation that is affected.

So whilst the initiative modifier should not apply because that ability can only be used by the formation itself, is the second retain not a direct analogue of the reroll? Especially as you would also allow the initiative modifier to be used when offboard?

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LoL

Possibly Kyrt, though strict RAW you don't get to use the Farseer's ability unless testing the initiative of his formation. As you say, the SC exception to this has been established and you could argue that his ability ought to be extended to the transport that is carrying a Farseer, but at present that is not the case -
- unless the rules committee and community say otherwise of course.

No, what I mean is: farsight has two parts - an initiative modifier (only applies to the farseer's own formation so could never apply to a vampire), and the second retain, which is valid for any formation as long as a farseer is present. The constraint of the farseer being "on the table" for some formation to be able to use this second retain is exactly the same constraint as for using the SC reroll.

The SC ruling has been that the ability can be used when off board only if it affects the SC himself, because he is obviously "present" wherever the offboard activating formation is. The second retain would seem to be a directly analogous situation so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for the second retain to be used in the same circumstances.

That ruling for the second retain could go either way, but what surprised me is that you say the initiative modifier part of farsight could be used offboard - in the webway for example. If you allow this part, then why not the second retain?

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