40K: Haarken Worldclaimer FAQ Reverted – Still Raptor Champ Supreme
Well that was quick. Games Workshop reverses the decision to limit Haarken Worldclaimer’s “Raptor Powers” with an update to the FAQ update. The Raptor Lord rides again!
In case you missed the news, yesterday Games Workshop put out the FAQs for Chapter Approved 2018, Wrath and Rapture, and Vigilus Defiant. Most of the changes were expected and, well, good. They clarified somethings that needed it and added some points to things that got left out. It was a pretty good set of rules and the fans were pretty happy. Except for one thing…
Haarken Worldclaimer’s rule interaction with ALL Raptors got reduced to just working on Raptors from the Black Legion. The idea was that he IS a Black Legion character so, just like Space Marine Characters that only work with their specific Chapters, his bonuses should only work with Black Legion Raptors. It made sense. However, the fan reaction was not positive.
“…lots of you got in touch yesterday to say that you really liked the idea of him leading a combined force of Raptors for the Legions of the Eye, both from a narrative and rules standpoint.
And on reflection, we agree – the idea that Abaddon’s right-hand-Raptor would lead ALL the Raptors of the traitor Legions is pretty cool – so we’re removing that change from the errata. After all, Haarken is the personal herald of the Warmaster who commands Heretic Astartes from all the traitor Legions. “
Now Haarken is back to running things and can be combined with Raptors from all over the forces of Chaos to lead them in to battle. Cool, right? No actually. I don’t agree with that reasoning at all.
Bad Precedent
Look, Raptors aren’t exactly tearing up the 40k meta and having a Raptor Lord Character to help boost them IS good. I don’t have a problem with that. What I have an issue with is the inconsistency with the Legion/Chapter rules application. For just about all other instances of characters with a keyword [specific legion] or sub-faction, they do NOT get to “cross-pollinate” with other sub-factions. And that’s just because of the mechanics of how the keywords work – they were designed in a way to STOP things like Super Friends from being a thing, remember?
I am also finding the narrative justification pretty weak. “Well he’s the Commander of the Heretic Astartes on Vigilus so it’s his ‘Command Presence’ at work.” Uh…then why don’t Marneus Calgar’s rules work for all Adeptus Astartes? Isn’t he the Field Commander and probably the top-ranking Adeptus Astartes Commander on site?
Lord of the Raptor, as a boost, is actually fine the way it was written and GW reverting it back is also fine. It’s really not game breaking to have a Character that is designed to work with a specific unit type. I get that. It’s also not as powerful as Marneus’ Re-roll (which applies to all Ultramarine unit types, not just Intercessors, for example). I’m okay with the limits included to both rules.
I’m not okay with trying to shove the narrative-logic into the rules-logic. Because once you go that route for justification of how rules work and why, then I’m pretty sure players can come up with pretty much ANY reason why “rules should work that way” due to the narrative. Players already have arguments about how rules should work – now we’re mixing in the narrative reasons why they should work in other ways? No. Just don’t.
Haarken’s Lord of the Raptors rule should apply to all Raptors because he’s a special character designed to make other Raptors better. That’s it. That’s all the justification you need. Why does he make non-Black Legion Raptors better? Because they have the Raptor keyword, not because of a narrative reason. It was a mistake to add in the Black Legion restriction and it was good that the restriction was removed. Let’s just leave it at that.
TL;DR – Nothing to see here. Haarken, The Lord of the Raptors is Working As Intended.
