I am frustrated by their response on the WK special rule as well. "It's usually obvious" leaves a wee bit more room for interpretation than I'd like. I mean, if the WK is 3" directly behind a Formation, great. What if he's 6" behind. Is he still close enough to have an effect? What about 12" directly behind?

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

I think they are trying to make it as simple as possible and people who think its complicated make it more complicated than need be. There is never mention of measurable distance, just if it is behind a formation. Its pretty straightforward when you think about.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showpost. ... stcount=41

that might help.

If the witch king is anywhere behind that formation they can benefit from his rule as it does not list a maximum distance for the effect, the range is infinite. If you think about the rule in context it makes perfect sense. In the books the orcs would quail at even the rumor of his coming...if they even thought he was anywhere nearby they would throw themselves towards the foe. His reputation was almost as fearsome as his presence

back to the subject of overlord. This really does seem like a tedious argument, are we not encouraged to fill in the gaps where necessary when the rules are ambiguous? sometimes you have to use common sense to make sense of rubbish wording and contradictory summaries in the back of books. To me it seems evident that the rule can be interpreted ' formations without might may use the overlords might points to call heroic actions' and furthermore outside articles from games workshop indicate thats the way it was meant to be used and thats good enought for me.
Thats ridiculous, a formation without a hero cannot fight a heroic duel, there is no one to call out the challenge! a hero needs to fight the duel and because there is no hero and heroic duel cannot be fought. Once again we have to use our common sense to make the game flow in situations like this. You guys do what you like with your games and your opponents but I have better things to do then just debate the finer points of RAW until my beards turn grey. In the end I care not whether the rules ambiguity causes contention with nitty gritty rules pickers. my opponents and I play for fun and when the rules cause conflict we alter them to suit our play and improve our enjoyment. After all, in the end this is a game and it is meant to be fun, not every answer can be found in the rules and in times like that a little common sense and ingenuity will solve the rest.

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"Thou fool! No living man may hinder me!"
Witch King, RoTK

Interesting about the Heroic Duel, I never thought about that.

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Better, though difficult, the right way to go, than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe. John Bunyan - Pilgrim's Progress

Spot on with the Common Sense Card.

Heroic Move, Heroic Shooting, Heroic Charge...that all makes sense with the Overlord rule for the "no hero needed" interpretation. Think about it like the Overlord character burning his might to get his maggoty troops to do something exceptional for a change. Now if someone tried to use Overlord to have a common warrior in a Formation of Goblins call an Heroic Duel... Uh...where's the Hero? It doesn't allow you to get past other rules, just that you don't need a Might

No Hero? No Heroic Duel
No Archers? No Heroic Shooting

Etc.

_________________
Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

It obviously could be clearer or this argument about the Overlord rule wouldn't exist.

Despite that, I think your reasoning has convinced me that you do need a hero for the Overlord rule.

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"There are few left in Middle Earth like Aragorn, son of Arathorn." - Gandalf, Many Meetings

I concede that because of that wording (as I mentioned before, I've not got my book with me: it's 350 miles away) it reads as being that only other heroes can use it.

Having said that, the formations may still increase or decrease rolls using Might because that wording is directly relating to heroic actions. If that wording wasn't there, then they could do (as all evidence outside of that rule points to and no evidence points towards the "hero necessary" ruling), but wouldn't be able to use Heroic Duelling, not because there is no Hero but because there isn't and it specifies the Hero rolls and adds his might etc. But, it's moot since there is the heroic actions wording.

So, the Overlord rule isn't very well written, due to its correct application being mentioned via another ruling (although rolls may be affected by might as nothing disagrees with that), but it is now known that a Hero is necessary for the Heroic actions, but Overlord allows roll editing.


Beowulf: it mentions no distance, so that doesn't affect it, the contention is what is classed as behind? Does all of him have to be behind (I'd say yes)? Behind the front of the unit (as it's behind)? Behind any models in the unit? Behind the whole unit? Even if it's at the other side of the boardand in line with the backfoot?