Skaven: Art of silent death + tail fighting?

Whenever I played skaven I always felt that these two abilities were mutually exclusive, but someone picked both skills and insists that the tail doesn't need to be equipped with anything, suffers no penalties from being unarmed, and crits on a 5-6.

What do you think? Its 2 skills that give a hero +3 attacks and makes 5's crit....

Doesn't combine by the letter of the rule. It takes some rather artful extrapolation of the rules to suggest that it does.

Art of Silent Death - "The Skaven has patiently mastered the deadly art of open-hand fighting, as taught by the mystics of Cathay in the temples of the far East. In hand-to-hand combat, the Skaven can fight with his bare paws without any penalties and counts as having two weapons (ie, +1 attack). In addition, a Skaven Hero with this skill will cause a critical hit on a To Wound roll of 5-6 instead of just 6. This skill may be used in conjunction with the Eshin Fighting Claws (+2 Attacks instead of +1)."

Tail Fighting - "The Skaven may wield a shield, knife or a sword with its tail. The model gains an extra attack with the appropriate weapon or a +1 bonus to its armour save."

Tail Fighting states that you can use an additional weapon, it does not allow you to take an extra unarmed attack. Tail Fighting would be better if it allowed you to carry an extra weapon. As is, it is basically an extra dagger attack or a shield while you fight two handed.

I would allow a person to use AoSD and TF together. The AoSD would be bare paws or fighting claws and gain the appropriate benefits, the tail would be separate, use a sword or dagger and crit normally.

JAFisher44 wrote:

I would allow a person to use AoSD and TF together. The AoSD would be bare paws or fighting claws and gain the appropriate benefits, the tail would be separate, use a sword or dagger and crit normally.

This is how it is meant to be.

imho the skills are separate

but i think i have read in a faq or rr (not sure ill have to check on this) that this will allow you to buy a third weapon excluding the free dagger .........but if not , weapons that come in pairs count as one weapon just like a brace of pistols does. (ie fighting claws and weeping blades)

-one house rule i have used allows you to use blow pipes or throwing stars with your tail if you also had tailfighting while armed with fighting claws

Well my interpretation of art of silent death is as follows:

1) You crit on a 5 or a 6 (Regardless of what weapons you have, ranged weapons included)
2) If you are using no weapons, you fight without penalty and have +1 attack
3) If you are using fighting claws, you have +1 attack (so 3 attacks)

So under my interpretation you could take art of silent death & expert swordsmen and use weeping blades, which crit on a 5/6, but get no extra attacks. And if you were really rich you could go ahead and crit on 5's with a hochland long rifle.

The problem is with fighting claws - which state you cannot use any other equipment. The tail can wield a dagger/sword/shield, but you can't carry a dagger/sword/shield.

So does the more specific rule (Tail fighting, a model can carry X/Y/Z in the tail) override the more general rule (Fighting claws, a model cannot carry any other weapons)?

Am I the only one who thought that art of silent death's crit bonus wasn't tied to the fighting claws/paws?

tail fighting overrides the no other weapons

the 'rule as intended' means that the claws are stuck to the hands for the duration of the game and cant be removed to use another weapon but the skill allows you to use you tail now for something else which will override that rule but only for the 'tail'

rain9441 wrote:

Am I the only one who thought that art of silent death's crit bonus wasn't tied to the fighting claws/paws?

You look right to me.

Oh, come on, please! Apply some common sense!

hysteria75 wrote:

the 'rule as intended' means that the claws are stuck to the hands for the duration of the game and cant be removed to use another weapon but the skill allows you to use you tail now for something else which will override that rule but only for the 'tail'

Exactly!

Grasping the intention of the AoSD skill is not that hard, is it? It obviously talks about the hands.

Games Workshop Official Mordheim's FAQ wrote:

Q: A model with Fighting Claws may not use any other weapons for the entire battle. I assume that there is no exception for a model with Tail Fighting? The word "any" seems pretty exclusive.
A: With Tail Fighting, you can have an additional weapon (hooray!).[source]

Cianty is correct. When you read it the respective skills it tells you what you can.

Quote :

1) You crit on a 5 or a 6 (Regardless of what weapons you have, ranged weapons included)

I don't believe this is correct. The crit on a +5 or +6 only happens only when the model is unarmed.

per the rule book
"In addition, a Skaven Hero with this skill will cause a crit hit on 5-6..."
the part that makes me believe it's only when unarmed is the "In addition" part.
In addition to what? The previous sentence, which talks about what the skill does, which is allow the model to fight empty handed without a penalty.

I think the argument could be made that the 5-6 crit could be taken if the model is armed with fighting claws, but not with any old HtH weapon, and most certainly not with ranged weapons.

Looking at it any other way just makes the skill way to powerful, in an already powerful warband.