Great Claw

hi there,

I wonder if a great claw mutates one of the two arms into a claw
OR
means the possessed gets a third arm with a claw attached on it.

so a possessed with a great great claw mutation has 2 or 3 attacks?

I'm somehow confused by the rule wording ...

It mutates an existing arm.

To get the extra arm, you'll have to buy it

That leads to a common argument though Aipha- people in my group have often had a problem with that interpretation (which I am in favour of) because it means you can have two Great Claws, which means effectively having 4 attacks, all at S5 on a Possessed.

The argument I have for that, is that in a single, one-off battle, the price of having +1 Strength and +1 attack is 50gc, which is the same as the cost of a Great Claw.

Most of the people in my group feel that it's more 'balanced' to just have 2 attacks at S4, then one at S5 per Great Claw :/

My interpretation:

You buy a Great Claw - your offhand mutates.
You may now buy an extra arm and turn it into a Great Claw or you may mutate your mainhand to a Great Claw. If you do this, you'll have no 'normal attacks' but only 'extra attacks' from the Great Claw, meaning that you have maximum 2 attacks.

Why?
The Great Claw gives you 'an extra attack', it doesn't turn all your attacks into +1S.

But when you buy one Great Claw, you would have 2 S4 attacks and an extra S5 attack. You wouldn't lose any of your base attacks when you buy one, surely? Then the Great Claw gives you an extra one, it doesn't replace one of your attacks, it gives you an extra one on top of your base amount.

I see it the same as if you had 2 base attacks and you also used two weapons- you have three attacks, one with one weapon and two with the other.

The issue was what happens when you get two Great Claws (and no extra arms). The first Great Claw replaces your first arm, meaning you have two attacks at base strength, an one additional attack at +1 strength. The second Great Claw you buy would mean you have no base attacks any more, as both of your arms have basically mutated into weapons which give you an additional attack at +1 strength, so the only attacks you can make are the ones from the Great Claws; surely you would add the bonus to your attacks, but all of them would be at +1 strength now.

I mean, to be fair, you are paying 150gc for +2 attacks and +2 strength, which in the single battle battle section of the rulebook would only cost 100gc, so I really don't see the problem with it being powerful when you pay that much more.

In my group we re-wrote it to this:

Great claw
Mutants gains a one-handed weapon with a +1 Strength bonus. Possessed gains an extra attack in hand-to-hand combat with a +1 Strength bonus.  
Cost: 50 gc



Edit: we also have the houserule that no mutation can be bought more then twice

I don't see where the 2 S4 attacks come from, I suppose you're talking about a Possessed?

Let me draw my example as to why I interpretate the Great Claw as following offhand weapon rules:

Quote :

A warrior armed with two one-handed weapons may make 1 extra Attack with the additional weapon

And the Great Claw:

Quote :

He may carry no weapons in this arm, but gains an extra attack in hand-to-hand combat with a +1 Strength bonus.

For Possessed that means, that they actually get an offhand attack, which they cannot otherwise get.

Furthermore, this is the Extra Arm mutation:

Quote :

If a Possessed chooses to do this, he gains an extra attack but still cannot carry a weapon.

Again, an extra attack is mentioned, which is an 'offhand' attack.

In my opinion, no mutations should ever be allowed to be bought more than once. That would solve it all, except Great Claw & Tentacle on a Mutant.

In my group we ruled that the +1 attack at +1 S reflected the increased strength of the mutant squeezing with the claw and the other attacks come from either the other arm (with the usual claws/biting/horn knuckles/studs of iron/whatever. In the case of *both* arms ending in claws the Possessed would get 2 attacks at +1 S (one squeeze attack from each claw) and the other basic attacks would come from battering with the claws/kicking/biting/etc.

Lord 0 wrote:

In the case of *both* arms ending in claws the Possessed would get 2 attacks at +1 S (one squeeze attack from each claw) and the other basic attacks would come from battering with the claws/kicking/biting/etc.

What do you do with Mutants with two Great Claws and no extra arms?

Just found this btw.:

Quote :

Q. A Mutant has Str 3/ A l, an extra arm (+l A), a great claw (+l A at +1 Str), and a double-handed weapon (+2 Str). He gets 1 attack at Str 4, 2 at Str 5, or 1 Str 5 and 2 Str 4. Is this correct? Does it matter if the claw is on an original, or a 3rd arm (especially a gift of the Shadowlord arm)?
A. This is not correct. The Great Claw replaces an arm. The text reads “One of the mutants arms ends in a great, crab-like claw”. The extra attack represents the ability to attack once with the claw and once with a handweapon in the non-mutated arm. On your mutant above you start out with 2 arms. You get the extra arm mutation so you have 3 arms. One of those arms mutates into a claw, so now you have 1 claw and 2 arms. The extra arm may be used to wield an additional hand weapon or a shield or a buckler but not a two-handed weapon (this arm may be growing out of his head!). This gives you 1 Str 4 attack with the claw and two at Str 3 attacks with the arms.

They would get 2 squeeze attacks at +1S (one for each claw) and 1 attack at normal strength. RAW, I think this should be 1 attack at -1S +1AV because it is unarmed, but we decided to make it at basic strength to keep consistent with our squeeze-vs-bludgeon attacks rationale.

Aipha wrote:

Just found this btw.:

Quote :

Q. A Mutant has Str 3/ A l, an extra arm (+l A), a great claw (+l A at +1 Str), and a double-handed weapon (+2 Str). He gets 1 attack at Str 4, 2 at Str 5, or 1 Str 5 and 2 Str 4. Is this correct? Does it matter if the claw is on an original, or a 3rd arm (especially a gift of the Shadowlord arm)?
A. This is not correct. The Great Claw replaces an arm. The text reads “One of the
mutants arms ends in a great, crab-like claw”. The extra attack represents the ability to attack once with the claw and once with a handweapon in the non-mutated arm. On your mutant above you start out with 2 arms. You get the extra arm mutation so you have 3 arms. One of those arms mutates into a claw, so now you have 1 claw and 2 arms. The extra arm may be used to wield an additional hand weapon or a shield or a buckler but not a two-handed weapon (this arm may be growing out of his head!). This gives you 1 Str 4 attack with the claw and two at Str 3 attacks with the arms.

There we go! I knew I was remembering something relevant . We decided that you could nominate which arm was replaced so in the circumstances listed above you could nominate the extra arm as being replaced by the claw and the two original arms being used to use a double-handed weapon (so one at S4 (claw) and one at S5 striking last (DHW).

We did, however, keep the ruling that extra arms can't be used for two-handed weapons.

Aipha wrote:

In my opinion, no mutations should ever be allowed to be bought more than once. That would solve it all, except Great Claw & Tentacle on a Mutant.

Guess I'll have to withdraw that;

Quote :

QCan you take a multiple of the same mutation so that each one gives you a benefit? For example: Tentacle twice for -1 Attack per tentacle.
AYes.

So as long as you have arms, Claw ahead!
And go with Lord 0's solution with the kicking/biting/etc.

thank you guys for your answers. unfortunately I am still a little confused. i get that a great claw replaces one normal arm, but not what exactly happens ruleswise.

So let's say you have a possessed toddler (S4, A2) and

a) ONE great claw mutation. in regard to the faq cited by aipha, does the possessed have 2 S4 and 1 (offhand) S5 attack or rather 1 S4 and 1 S5 attack?

b) what happens if BOTH arms are replaced with a great claw? 2 S5 attacks, 3 S5 attacks (2 profile + 1 offhand), 4 S5 attacks? or any combination with 2 S4 profile attacks?

With a Possessed toddler the first claw will grant +1A at +1S and so will the second. So:

Possessed with 0 Great Claws: 2 S4 attacks.
Possessed with 1 Great Claws: 2 S4 attacks, 1 S5 attack.
Possessed with 2 Great Claws: 2 S4 attacks, 2 S5 attacks.
Possessed with 3 Great Claws: 3 S4 attacks, 3 S5 attacks.*
Possessed with n Great Claws: n S4 attacks, n S5 attacks.**

You must, of course, purchase a third arm in order to purchase the third claw.
You must, of course, purchase n-2 arms in order to purchase n claws. Negative purchases count as 0.

That is the formula we use in my group. Others may have differing interpretations.

That's a hard one.

I see that rulewise you gain an extra attack twice, but since the Great Claw replaces an existing arm, I don't see why you would gain an additional attack, if not with that arm.
The extra arm gives you an extra attack, but when you turn it into a Great Claw, you simply just upgrade it with +1S the way I see it.

But as you say, we can have different interpretations and I see why you find this more fair, compared to the price of this stunt

The rationale we used is that the base attacks come from slamming the claw onto them and then you get +1 attack at +1 S when you squeeze with the claw. A roll to hit with both is necessary because it would be possible to slam the claw and not do any real damage, but then get a good grip for the crushing attack. Similarly you could strike a solid blow with the claw, but then miss with the gripping, or any combination of hitting and missing.

Just by-the-by, we also have a house-rule that any Possessed or Mutant that costs 500 gold or more must be modeled as a Large Target.

I see your point. However, this does not apply to the offhand (the one you have from the beginning) - where you only gain an additional attack with the Great Claw, not any 'slam' - right?

I like the 500gc rule

I see that people prefer the less powerful interpretation of this, but honestly I don;t see the problem with allowing two Great Claws to equal +2 attacks and then +1 strength on all attacks (as both of your arms are now effectively Morning Star style weapons- when you have two weapons of the same type all your attacks are made using those rules, with no weaker attacks at base STR).

Since you are paying so much for the privilege isn't it reasonable to get something good from it? As I said, in the campaign rules for one off battle it costs the same (50gc) for +1 Attack and +1 Strength, so I don;t see why it would be unfair in terms of gc, or that it differs from the intended interpretation of the author :/

I like the 500gc rule on Possessed, but in my gaming group I have never seen one over 210gc I believe- no campaign has gotten so out of hand that having the spare money for a 500gc beast is possible! I'd be tempted to lower it to something like 'When a Possessed has 3+ mutations then they are a large target, as that's often nasty enough...

I understand your interpretation. However, I can't follow your comparison with one off battles.
You can't buy extra stats in a campaign, which is why anything that can make your Hero start off better, is a welcome addition. For instance, if I play Lizardmen, I get Mark of the Old Ones on my Priest and Totem Warrior, since those will stay in the warband forever - it's a great investment. So are these mutations, even though they're expensive.
Another important thing to remember is, that Possessed can't use weapons, but can reach S6 - and S7 with claws. With your interpretation, the Possessed in question would gain S7 on 6 attacks (two Claws) without any weapons or skills, with the right increases. How much? 150gc - an investment clearly well worth it.

Anyway. Rulewise, the mutation description actually says it all imo.: "One of the mutant’s arms ends in a great, crab-like claw. He may carry no weapons in this arm, but gains an extra attack in hand-to-hand combat with a +1 Strength bonus."

One of the arms ends in a claw, with that claw, he gains an additional attack - THIS SPECIFIC ATTACK has a +1 Strength bonus.

Because of that, Lord 0's interpretation makes sense; if you have two claws, these two has an additional strength bonus, not the rest of the attacks, which are made with kicking/body slamming/etc.

first I try simply to find out, what the author (plus the team in general) MEANT, not how it should be balancewise, thats totally another question (which is relevant too, of course ).

Quote :

Q. A Mutant has Str 3/ A l, an extra arm (+l A), a great claw (+l A at +1 Str), and a double-handed weapon (+2 Str). He gets 1 attack at Str 4, 2 at Str 5, or 1 Str 5 and 2 Str 4. Is this correct? Does it matter if the claw is on an original, or a 3rd arm (especially a gift of the Shadowlord arm)?
A. This is not correct. The Great Claw replaces an arm. The text reads “One of the mutants arms ends in a great, crab-like claw”. The extra attack represents the ability to attack once with the claw and once with a handweapon in the non-mutated arm. On your mutant above you start out with 2 arms. You get the extra arm mutation so you have 3 arms. One of those arms mutates into a claw, so now you have 1 claw and 2 arms. The extra arm may be used to wield an additional hand weapon or a shield or a buckler but not a two-handed weapon (this arm may be growing out of his head!). This gives you 1 Str 4 attack with the claw and two at Str 3 attacks with the arms.

So this means that the great claw does usually NOT grant a bonus attack, except in one situation, namely in the same manner as an offhand weapon would do (although he does not explicitly say so. darn unprecise specialist games team. it's really incredible sometimes!).

so one possessed with S4 and A2 with ONE Great Claw would get 2 profile S4 attacks and 1 S5 attack (for the "offhand weapon")

i guess so far we do agree in the result, whatever the explanation behind it may be, don't we?


in my opinion the ambiguity starts where there are TWO great claws in play (literally ):

does the second claw turn the profile attacks into S+1 attacks (as it now has replaced the main hand and "all" arms are now claws) OR do they stay at S4?

Dahag wrote:

first I try simply to find out, what the author (plus the team in general) MEANT, not how it should be balancewise, thats totally another question (which is relevant too, of course ).


so one possessed with S4 and A2 with ONE Great Claw would get 2 profile S4 attacks and 1 S5 attack (for the "offhand weapon")

i guess so far we do agree in the result, whatever the explanation behind it may be, don't we?


in my opinion the ambiguity starts where there are TWO great claws in play (literally ):

does the second claw turn the profile attacks into S+1 attacks (as it now has replaced the main hand and "all" arms are now claws) OR do they stay at S4?

I agree with all of this. To be honest, I can see that it would be more balanced with just having two S4 attacks and two S5 attacks.

I still believe that the reasoning is solid for the other case (four S5 attacks) going by the rules as they are written- each hand becomes a weapon which grants +1 Attack and you get +1 Strength on both weapons, which means all your attacks are at +1 Strength; if you played Sisters of Sigmar, and had a heroine with 2 attacks, you would get three attacks at S4 with Two Sigmarite Warhammers, not just two and one with the bonus).

I've been the only Possessed player in my group before now, so have never made anything cheesy of power gamey before- the most expensive possessed I ran was one with two Great Claws; I have never had them develop to more than that, so none of the over-the-top 'I've got Spines, three extra arms and two tentacles' that Ive heard about on this forum.

If people in my group think it would be more balanced I'm happy to play it the other way (if/ when I ever go back to Possessed) but I still don't think its unreasonable for a Possessed to get to S7 with six attacks, because it takes such a long time to get there that it's likely everyone else will have developed an answer to it by then: it's still T4, so Xbows, Pistols and the like will still kill it easily on one critical roll, as an easy example. The Possessed are meant to be s*** scary monsters, and if they put so many points in one model it means they have a small warband. It means warbands with lots of missile weapons will have fun against them, with easy targets; it makes Spear armed henchmen much more effective, as even one critical hit will take it straight out-of-action easily.

Dahg wrote:

irst I try simply to find out, what the author (plus the team in general) MEANT

In my group we do the opposite. We start with RAW and see if they are fun. If they are then we just leave them how they are and change the flavour text to make the rules make sense. In this case the rules for the Great Claw were not particularly ambiguous so we mostly left them how they were. The only thing we added was that if a Mutant has all its hands replaced with mutations then its base attacks do not count as unarmed. We also decided that the Great Claw attacks on a mutant do not count as unarmed despite not counting as a weapon.

The ambiguity only starts because you have an ambiguous target i.e. trying to decide what the writers *intended*. There is nothing in the rules saying that all the attacks will gain +1S with two claws and there is nothing saying they 'count as a weapon' or similar so the base attacks are unaffected no matter how many claws you had.

Because the rules only allow you to make 1 +1S A per claw we decided there must be something special about it, hence the 'squeeze/crush* attack' rationale. The claw must be properly positioned before it can take full advantage of its bonus strength - otherwise you are just battering away with a hard object and the rules already cover what happens in that situation.

Of curiosity, if you do rule they count as a weapon and *all* their attacks can be made at S+1 then what is the rationale for denying them that when they have only one great claw? Why can't you make *all* your attacks with a Great Claw and then just use your claw or dagger for the offhand?

Dahg wrote:

does the second claw turn the profile attacks into S+1 attacks (as it now has replaced the main hand and "all" arms are now claws) OR do they stay at S4?

If you are going by RAW then, no, the base attacks stay at S4. If you are making house-rules then you can make them whatever makes the most fun for your group.

The Ultra-Mega Bob wrote:

going by the rules as they are written- each hand becomes a weapon ...

Just so you know, this is a house-rule - not RAW. In fairness I know of a number of groups that have not realised they are making this house-rule, they just assumed it was a weapon.

Our campaigns tend towards the complete so it is not uncommon to have a lot of gold and not that much to do with it in the latter stages of the campaign. Possessed players have the advantage here because they can simply pump all their gold into mutations and get a horrific beast against which almost none can stand.

You are right in saying that there is not that much danger in allowing a model with T4 to have 4 S5 attacks, but look at the other end of the life-span - a mature Possessed has 7 S7 attacks on a T6 body. Give it an elven cloak and healing herbs and it almost doesn't need the screen of meat-shields soaking the arrows.

Even a medium Possessed with T5 and 5 S6 attacks (1A, 1S, and 1T level up) is pretty formidable and will likely have a brethren screen by now. All you need is one or two screeners and on a properly kitted out table that will be enough to allow you to get *very* up close and personal.

Bear in mind also, that all of the above is before any skills are taken into account. Mighty Blow, Resilient, Scale Sheer Surfaces, and the good old Sprint/Leap combo work to make Possessed very potent indeed.

If you are in a group that only plays short campaigns then I could see you allowing it without too much danger, but if you do you might want to put a cap on how many games the campaigns will last for, just to make sure things don't get out-of-hand.

* Yes, 'crush' is a better name than 'squeeze', but I call it 'squeeze' to gently annoy a Possessed friend of mine. Everyone else in the group calls it a crush attack.

Lord 0 wrote:

There is nothing in the rules saying that all the attacks will gain +1S with two claws and there is nothing saying they 'count as a weapon' or similar so the base attacks are unaffected no matter how many claws you had.

Important point, which I agree with.
When looking at attacks, I tend to think of them as being with the hands/arms - I didn't even think about the other possible weapons a body contains.

I don't think I would allow the Mutant to do the same trick, however, but as you say, that's your house rule.

Lord 0 wrote:

Of curiosity, if you do rule they count as a weapon and *all* their attacks can be made at S+1 then what is the rationale for denying them that when they have only one great claw? Why can't you make *all* your attacks with a Great Claw and then just use your claw or dagger for the offhand?

A point I thought about as well, but forgot to mention. And the reason you cannot do this is of course how it's described in the rules - an extra attack, which is not a main (hand) attack.

Lord 0 wrote:

just to make sure things don't get out-of-hand.

Har-har

Lord 0 wrote:

You are right in saying that there is not that much danger in allowing a model with T4 to have 4 S5 attacks, but look at the other end of the life-span - a mature Possessed has 7 S7 attacks on a T6 body. Give it an elven cloak and healing herbs and it almost doesn't need the screen of meat-shields soaking the arrows.

Ah, another point we stick to, more for Wysiwyg thsan anything else, is that Possessed never take equipment. They have so many skill options that I don't think it would be fair to allow them to have healing herbs or Elven Cloaks. Since they are part daemon, having them use mundane items seems out of kilter, so we've never seen it; then again, our group is small and like I say, I have been the only Possessed player that I know of.

Quote :

Bear in mind also, that all of the above is before any skills are taken into account. Mighty Blow, Resilient, Scale Sheer Surfaces, and the good old Sprint/Leap combo work to make Possessed very potent indeed.

But by then, why would enemy heroes not have roughly similar skill advantages to negate/ counter those? I know it's less likely, but there's also nothing stopping a warband loading up on Holy Water on taking him out in only a couple of shots- my brother's Reiklander's decided to do just that in nearly every game they had spare money- just bought 2 or 3 Holy Waters and saved them for games against me; cheesy, yes, but technically it's still allowed, and it didn;t matter a damn what offense my Possessed had at the time.

As an aside, I like Wysiwyg and always tend to theme my Possessed around the models I use- one is a Plague Bearer-esque demon and the other is Narbrut the Cyclops from Heresy Miniatures; I find it fun running one with Cloven Hoofs and a Great Claw, then giving him solely offensive skills like Sprint, Furious Charge (? +1 WS on the charge; I don't have the book with me to check), the only defensive skill I give him might be Lightning Reflexes, as I feel it it fluffy. The other Possessed I run with Blackblood and solely defensive skills (until it's reasonable to take 'Strike to Injure' or 'Pit Fighter')

[quote]If you are in a group that only plays short campaigns then I could see you allowing it without too much danger, but if you do you might want to put a cap on how many games the campaigns will last for, just to make sure things don't get out-of-hand.[quote]

I am about to embark on a new campaign (though I'll be using Witch Hunters) with a new group and might suggest this. We've been struggling to try and define things like this though- some of the players are new and want a more narrative approach to the campaign, which I've never tried before, and am struggling to work out, as I am the Vet. Mordheim player (the rest are Vet. WHFB players). Can you suggest good methods for map based campaigns which aren't too difficult to grasp? I found the advanced Mordheim rules for that kind of thing a bit of a hard read in all honesty, but will put them to the group anyway.