So here's teh army based aroud the ultimate hunger:

Famine's Avatar with BLade of Shadows
random figure with Strong-Flyer
fillers.

Believe it or not, this army would be legal. But can't you take off teh rider from it's mount? Well yeah, physically it's not possible, barring reconstructive srugery, but as far as rules are concerned,it is possible. See BLade fo Shadows states that you ignore the weilder's faction/subfaction. Now the place where it gets interresting is when you consider the fact that the rules that states that you ccan only field an avatar with his horse is a part of the "Dark Riders" subfaction rules. So since you ignore the weilder's "Dark Riders" subfaction, you can field it without it's mount!

But you don't have a pin to put the rider on, EVEN if you could remove it! Right, but the weilder of Blade of Shadows also gains Ghostform! See, now he's really invisible!

So why pick Famine? Well it's probably the one that benefits the msot from teh extra Vampirism as you can double heal fro each succesfull close combat attack you make.

But Famine cant move, it has 0 speed! Again, you're right buster, but there are waysto paly around this as you could easily field a figure with Strong-FLyer to ferry Famine all around the place. Sure, it's not quite a good surging fig, but it should be fun to play with...

as for the rest of te army, well play whatever you want, it's not like its gonna be a competitive army anyways...

well, i think if you took the avatar dial off the mount base it would no longer be a toruny legal figure

as per what rules?

well that is defineitely a loophole

you cannot field the two seperate

dudes, simply saying you can't do it, doesn't help, try telling us WHY I couldn't... so far, there is no evidence against it.

i think olan has a point but i think we should get an official ruling

Frankly, i dont care, it isnt gonna cause any major malfunction and be game-deciding. This army, he said, is for fun, and by all means i agree. So i dont think that it matters if its legal or not. And so far, without an official correction, it follows all rules. So, knock yourself out Olan, i need to try this with Death!

Man! that was a lot of commas!

Im 99.9999% positive Olan is correct in this. I worked with the wordings on it and posted on envoy forums. Im pretty sure that sigma agree's, but don't take my words for it...im just a Warlord.
-Warlord Farchyld

Olan is bang on with the Blade of Shadows overriding the Apocalypse subfaction symbol's rule on fielding the two together. However, I think it's pretty safe to assume that this is clearly not the intent of the designers to have the two fielded separately. There is no way to physically do it without breaking the sculpt, so I don't think there's any argument that will hold any weight in the "intent" department. A good Warlord should turn you down right here. From a rules perspective, you may want to consider the fact that they have the same unit number, split into parts A and B. I would argue that you cannot field half of a unit, as you had to break apart the sculpt in order to do so (even if the dials did happen to be of a legal size when you did so). I don't think it's that different from cutting out one dial and part of the base from a tank and using it as a figure.

But hey, if it's all in fun and outside of a tournament, fill your boots. Another area to check on a ruling is on tournament legal pieces in the MK general tournament rules. I'm not sure how it defines these, but altering the sculpt (cutting off the rider) may render this illegal outright.

Or take the War avatar, give him the blade and stick him on a chariot, hehe.

Well, this is quite an interesting army to say the least. Sure it's a legal one, but what happens if your Strong Flier gets blown away? That would leave Famine all by his lonesome somewhere on the map (maybe give him the Cloak of Shadows to give him a +1 speed :)). This would at the very least cause your opponent much mental strain as they figure out how the heck you are playing Famine without his horse.

I have found the chick in the logic armor for building this army: The blade only allows you to ignore the subfaction ability ONCE PLAY STARTS. So, you can't build your army ignoring the subfation. You would only ignore the subfaction once you set the peices out in your DZ.

My evidence? Sigma recently ruled that a rider with the Northlanders subfaction ability still counts towards the army build restrictions of that subfaction, despite being unable to use subfaction abilities when mounted. Why? Because all appropriate subfaction abilities are in play until the game begins and the army build requirement happens before game play begins.

By similar logic: the Dark Riders subfaction ability rquires that the Horse and Avater always be played together. That means that this ability is still in effect when building your army, and the relic's special ability is not in play at that time, rather it comes into play after the figures have been placed and play begins.

I think this is right . . .. thoughts?

I know you're doing this for fun, so I won't go onto a spiel about its effectivness. My only question is, since Famine no longer is considered apocalypse, and the Avatar mount no longer has a rider, does it's reviving ability come into play or not when it is eliminated?