Blade Rush and Black Blood

[voranth]

A point of discussion that came up in a game today. Using Blade Rush to charge through Mr. Graves and doing 1 damage to him, the question came up if it would trigger his black blood. One player though it would, saying it was generated by an action (The Charge). Player 2, and a third player not involved in the game called in asked to decide the point agreed the source of the damage was the Blade Rush ability, so it did not trigger black blood. We ruled with that latter, but also agreed to post here and double check for future clarification. Thanks for your input hive mind.

 

 

[santaclaws01]

It's the ability doing damage.

[Ogid]

As a follow up question, this damage is added to the charge damage or it is an independent source (so it would trigger BB twice, wouldn't be able to be reduced to 0 with armor...)

[Maniacal_cackle]

Black blood:

Quote

After this model suffers damage from an Action or Trigger, every model within 1 suffers 1 damage. This model ignores damage caused by Black Blood.

Blade Rush:

Quote

When this model takes the Charge Action, it can move through other models. Enemy models moved through in this way suffer 1 damage.

I think there is room for a bit of ambiguity here.

On the one hand, you could argue that the damage comes from the charge action. On the other, you could argue the damage comes from blade rush as you say.

The question of "does this count as FROM an action/model/trigger/attack/etc" comes up a lot. My personal preference for dealing with this is the following:

If something is listed as part of the action, the damage comes from that action. If it's not listed as part of the action and instead is from an ability like Blade Rush, then it comes from the ability, not the action.

It seems to work reasonably well so far! I don't think there is a clear cut answer yet.

EDIT: One of the interesting cases of this coming up is what if you push a model through hazardous terrain. Are they taking damage from the action or from the terrain or both?

[Ogid]

I'm almost sure it'd be an independent source of damage for the wording, the models suffer the damage being the charge attack sucessful or not, and isn't there any link to both sources of damage (like, "when resolving, the target suffers +1 damage"). So a model doing this to a Nephillim would get damaged twice by black blood if the attack is successful.

However It'd be interesting to know other user's opinions.

An extra follow up, when does this Blade Rush extra damage happens? I'd say at the end of the charge action... so models could avoid being damabed by black blood ending the charge more than 1 inches away. But maybe it's instant and the damage cannot be avoided. Thoughts?

[Adran]

It's definitely a different source of damage for the purposes of armour, shielding and so forth.

I think I agree that the blade rush damage is from an ability, so doesn't trigger black blood. 

[Maniacal_cackle]

4 minutes ago, Adran said:

It's definitely a different source of damage for the purposes of armour, shielding and so forth.

I think I agree that the blade rush damage is from an ability, so doesn't trigger black blood. 

I think it is clear that it is not part of the attack (so incorporeal for example wouldn't apply), but I'm not sure it is 100% clear whether it is part of the charge action (which is a separate action from the attack anyway).

As above, I lean towards the 'separate from the charge action' interpretation, but also worth noting the distinction in the original question between attack and charge action.

[Ogid]

Ah ok, black blood isn't affected by ability damage (I somehow forgot that lol). Then I'd also say it doesn't trigger black blood, the "trigger" is the charge, but the source of the damage is the ability.

[voranth]

Thanks for all your responses! Looks like opinions are mixed still here. Hopefully we'll get some clarity in the first FAQ/errata released for this edition.

[Adran]

3 hours ago, voranth said:

Thanks for all your responses! Looks like opinions are mixed still here. Hopefully we'll get some clarity in the first FAQ/errata released for this edition.

Really? As I read it everyone gave the same answer ( at least once the wording of black blood was pointed out). 

[voranth]

46 minutes ago, Adran said:

Really? As I read it everyone gave the same answer ( at least once the wording of black blood was pointed out). 

Personally I agree, but the responses here were kind of mixed. Ogid did seem to change opinion after having that pointed out.

[santaclaws01]

26 minutes ago, voranth said:

Personally I agree, but the responses here were kind of mixed. Ogid did seem to change opinion after having that pointed out.

And Manical spent most of this talking about something completely different.

[Ogid]

47 minutes ago, voranth said:

Personally I agree, but the responses here were kind of mixed. Ogid did seem to change opinion after having that pointed out.

I was so focused in if that was an independent source of damage and the timing of that source that I forgot BB is only triggered by actions, my bad. But everyone seems to agree, BB isn't triggered by Blade Rush. As I said before, the charge is the trigger but the damage comes from the ability (Blade Rush), not from the charge itself (but I see it can be confussing)

I'm still interested in this one tho:

10 hours ago, Ogid said:

An extra follow up, when does this Blade Rush extra damage happens? I'd say at the end of the charge action... so models could avoid being damabed by black blood ending the charge more than 1 inches away. But maybe it's instant and the damage cannot be avoided. Thoughts?

 

[Adran]

49 minutes ago, voranth said:

Personally I agree, but the responses here were kind of mixed. Ogid did seem to change opinion after having that pointed out.

Your requirements are your own, but 4 people gave answers and all 4 said that they thought the damage was caused by the ability and not the charge action. Ogids questions were assuming the ability would have triggered black blood. 

I can't give definitive proof. But let me offer a question. If a model attacks a terror tot, and died to the black blood, who killed it ? I would say the terror tot, as it was the black blood ability that did the damage. 

[Adran]

10 hours ago, Ogid said:

 

An extra follow up, when does this Blade Rush extra damage happens? I'd say at the end of the charge action... so models could avoid being damabed by black blood ending the charge more than 1 inches away. But maybe it's instant and the damage cannot be avoided. Thoughts?

Really short answer, blade rush doesn't cause black blood damage so it doesn't matter.

I'll try and give an actual timing when I'm at a computer rather than on a phone without the rules. 

[santaclaws01]

12 minutes ago, Ogid said:

I was so focused in if that was an independent source of damage and the timing of that source that I forgot BB is only triggered by actions, my bad. But everyone seems to agree, BB isn't triggered by Blade Rush. As I said before, the charge is the trigger but the damage comes from the ability (Blade Rush), not from the charge itself (but I see it can be confussing)

I'm still interested in this one tho:

 

The damage from blade rush happens at the end of the move and damages everyone at the same time. It doesn't tell us to resolve the damage immediately, so we go to sequential effects to tell us when to start resolving the damage as the damage is an additional effect to the movement of the charge.

[Kadeton]

Interesting responses. I would have assumed the opposite interpretation to what seems to be the consensus: that Blade Rush modifies the Charge action (allowing the Charge to be made through other models, and dealing damage to them), and it is the modified Charge action which is dealing the damage in that case.

[santaclaws01]

10 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Interesting responses. I would have assumed the opposite interpretation to what seems to be the consensus: that Blade Rush modifies the Charge action (allowing the Charge to be made through other models, and dealing damage to them), and it is the modified Charge action which is dealing the damage in that case.

Abilities that modify an action are pretty explicit that they're modifying the action. Blade Rush is just a specific and unresistible version of Make Way! on McCabe or the Shadow Emissaries Mv duel on being placed.

[Adran]

47 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Interesting responses. I would have assumed the opposite interpretation to what seems to be the consensus: that Blade Rush modifies the Charge action (allowing the Charge to be made through other models, and dealing damage to them), and it is the modified Charge action which is dealing the damage in that case.

For this I would have expected some words in the ability that suggested the Charge action is dealing the damage.

Otherwise do you read Black Blood as modifying the attack action that damaged the model to deal the splash damage?

[Kadeton]

33 minutes ago, santaclaws01 said:

Abilities that modify an action are pretty explicit that they're modifying the action. Blade Rush is just a specific and unresistible version of Make Way! on McCabe or the Shadow Emissaries Mv duel on being placed.

I'm interested in the comparison. What's an example of an ability that explicitly modifies an action?

[Adran]

2 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

I'm interested in the comparison. What's an example of an ability that explicitly modifies an action?

Flight

When resolving the walk or Charge action, instead of moving normally, this model may place itself completely within X" where X is equal to this models Mv...

[Kadeton]

Quote

Flight: When resolving the Walk or Charge Action, instead of moving normally, this model may Place itself completely within X", where X is equal to this model's Mv. This model does not suffer Falling damage.

Blade Rush: When this model takes the Charge Action, it can move through other models. Enemy models moved through in this way suffer 1 damage.

I'm honestly not clear what makes Flight more explicit. If Blade Rush were worded in the same style, something like:

Blade Rush: When resolving the Charge Action, instead of this model's Push being interrupted by other models normally, this model may Push through them and inflict 1 damage to them.

Would that be equally explicit, and therefore modify the Action? I'm not sure what part of the rule text you're focusing on as explicit.

[Adran]

2 hours ago, Kadeton said:

I'm honestly not clear what makes Flight more explicit. If Blade Rush were worded in the same style, something like:

Blade Rush: When resolving the Charge Action, instead of this model's Push being interrupted by other models normally, this model may Push through them and inflict 1 damage to them.

Would that be equally explicit, and therefore modify the Action? I'm not sure what part of the rule text you're focusing on as explicit.

I've spent a while looking for abilities that explicitly change something else, and abilities that don't.

I haven't been able to quickly answer this with a simple rule of when the ability does it to when the ability changed something else.

Which always worries me that its not clear.

 

Abilities like

Soul Furnace: Enemy buried models suffer +1 damage from burning

To me are obviously modifying the burning damage and not doing the damage themselves.

 

The Flight actively replaces part of the description of walk/charge.  The place is clearly part of the walk action (and so is subject to the not leaving engagement range restriction).

 

Whilst Blade rush does seem to do both. It modifies the charge ability to allow you to push through a model. It then deals damage. 

Your new wording still isn't explicit to me.  I'd like something along the lines of "when this model makes a charge action it may move through other models.  The charge action deals +1 damage to enemy models pushed through in this way".

Sentences inside an ability don't all have to all apply to the same thing, see incorporeal that has effects during attack actions of models damaging it, its own actions, action that moves it and any action that moves something else.  

 

[diki]

So looking at the intent and game world

Black Blood - you have acidic (or whatever) blood so when you are injured it spurts out and hurts things

Blade Rush - modifies charge so you can go through things. When you go through things (with the modfieid charge action this ability gives you) it injures them (as part of charge).

Logically and intent wise I think black blood should trigger! (Rules wise its pretty unclear though!)

[santaclaws01]

1 hour ago, diki said:

So looking at the intent and game world

Black Blood - you have acidic (or whatever) blood so when you are injured it spurts out and hurts things

Blade Rush - modifies charge so you can go through things. When you go through things (with the modfieid charge action this ability gives you) it injures them (as part of charge).

Logically and intent wise I think black blood should trigger! (Rules wise its pretty unclear though!)

No, the intent very specifically was for black blood to only work on actions and triggers. Black Blood was deemed too strong if it worked on every source of damage and there are too many sources of damage that wouldn't thematically make a model bleed to include exceptions to all of them.

Rules wise it's clear. Blade Rush is doing the damage. Blade Rush is not an action or trigger.

[diki]

Sorry, I probably used the wrong words.

Thematically I don't think their blood stops being toxic and bursting and spraying things because it was caused by blades on someone charging past cutting them.