Lore of Death Assassination targets

Hello, fellow tyrants and slaughtermasters. I was playing with my Night Goblins army for a few months, but I am getting back to work on Ogres. I am thinking of taking Lore of Death on my slaughtermaster because it suits his character and I like the assassination spells.

I have a pretty basic question on Lore of Death. Can the assassination spells (Spirit Leech for example) target another units standard bearer? I know it could target a BSB. I meant the regular standard bearer. I'll usually have a better leadership than the standard bearer, and could kill them off easily. That would help combat resolution, and give bonus victory points. But there so many rules about standard bearers dying last I want to make sure I'm interpreting this right.

Can't target a standard bearer.

Or, based on rules (page 94 of my little rulebook), you certainly can target the standard bearer and kill that guy: but someone else will just pick up the banner and serve and standard bearer from then on.


Effectively, you can't target non champion, non character models.

Thanks, the "somebody else will pick it up part" makes sense. With leadership 9 the Slaughtermaster should still find some very killable heroes, depending on the other army. Will be great with the O&G and Skaven players. Maybe not so great against the elves and dwarves.

Just re-read the description on Spirit Leech, which makes reference to the caster's and target's unmodified leadership values.

With this in mind, would the SM's leadership be 8 or 9, assuming that he is in a unit with the Standard of Discipline?

The Slaughtermaster's leadership is 8, which is what worries me. He'll have to be lucky to wound most charachters. I assume a helm of leadership or banner discipline would be modified leadership, so that won't help. Anybody tried this?

Could be pretty good against monsters I guess. They have low leadership and multiple wounds.

If he is in the unit with the Banner of Discipline then it counts as modified Ld (and he can't use the bonus). If he isn't the general and is receiving Inspiring Presence from the General's unit (which has the Standard of Discipline in) it then it counts as unmodified Ld (and you get the bonus). There are a host of such wacky interactions for what counts as modified vs. unmodified.

In general, unless you have a juicy low-Ld monster (outside of Inspiring Presence range) to target, my fav tactic with Spirit Leech is to just toss a couple of dice at it early. If my opponent dispels it, great! Less dice to dispel important spells. If not, well still a chance of a wound or two getting through if the rolls go my way. Also, killing unit champs to prevent chump challenges is always useful.

If he is in the unit with the Banner of Discipline then it counts as modified Ld (and he can't use the bonus). If he isn't the general and is receiving Inspiring Presence from the General's unit (which has the Standard of Discipline in) it then it counts as unmodified Ld (and you get the bonus). There are a host of such wacky interactions for what counts as modified vs. unmodified.

In general, unless you have a juicy low-Ld monster (outside of Inspiring Presence range) to target, my fav tactic with Spirit Leech is to just toss a couple of dice at it early. If my opponent dispels it, great! Less dice to dispel important spells. If not, well still a chance of a wound or two getting through if the rolls go my way. Also, killing unit champs to prevent chump challenges is always useful.

Noisy Assassin, I believe you deserve credit as you have unearthed an absolute gem!
It is now possible to boost a Death SM's Ld to 9 or possibly 10:

(1) LotGM SM as a General in a unit of IGs with SoD, within 12 inches of a Death SM confers Ld 9
(2) Tyrant in a unit of IGs with SoD within 12 inches of a Death SM confers Ld 10
(3) Skragg in a unit of IGs with SoD within 12 inches of a Death SM confers Ld 10

This would mean having a larger army but could get around the problem of Ld 8 raised by Lord Rex.

Badmarsh

PS Have a Gnoblar for your comprehensive response!

The definition of 'Unmodified' Ld gets a whole lot weird and wacky when combining the rules, with the FAQ's. In one of the FAQ's changes the definition of 'Unmodified' Ld to mean the highest available Leadership within the Unit. I dont know exactly where this is and I am at work so unable to spend the time perusing through the content, but I am sure its there.

Why this makes a difference is that put the SM in the unit of Guts, with the SoD, with a Bruiser. The Bruiser's Ld increases to 9, making it the highest in the unit and therefore the Units 'Unmodified' Leadership.

Now its a very convoluted application of the rules, but they are the rules. The current rulings for these kind of Ld based spells are kinda sucky anyway.


SOM

All this has me  rethinking my plans. The games  play are pretty friendly, and unmodified leadership would really seem to be the leadership on the models stat line. I don't want to get into a debate about mid-game. I think rules lawyering really screws up the fun of the game, at least in the setting where I play, so i don't want to force myself into it.

I don't think the issue is that of rules lawyering, the problem is this section of the rules is particularly poorly written. Several instances of self-conflicting rules coupled with terms that suggest one thing but are guided by the rules to be something else.

Best thing to do, if in a friendly laid back setting is to house rule it, leave the clarifications for the tournament scene.

To be clear, I just try to avoid situations where the rules are unclear enough that we have to negotiate a house rule at all. I didn't mean to call anyone here a lawyer in the pejorative sense, but in that you need some 'legal' expertise to parse the rule at all.

isn't using the leadership of another model indirectly a modifiction of your own leadership stat line? Advocate of the devil question here (no not more rules lawyering with the advocate dragged in here ).
Whith that in mind I would go for the statline leadership as a clean and cut definition of unmodified leadership.

Yeah, that'd make sense - except they specifically provided some conflicting verbage in the faq/errata.

One specifically says that 'unmodified leadership' is the highest leadership value in the unit (mildly unclear if for the purposes of sniper spells they're still in the unit)

One also specifically says that spirit leech allows for the General's inspiring presence.