8th Ed. Temple Guard ranks

[Lijo03]

Hi guys,

My housemate bought the latest Dark Elves book recently and we had a question about the Cauldron of Blood joining units. The led me to look through the Lizardmen book and I noticed something. Now, please bear with me. On page 38 of the Lizardmen book, under spawn kin it says:
"Whenever you are required to work out the mixed unit's frontage or ranks (and therefore supporting attacks and rank bonus) count as if the footprint of the entire mixed unit was filled with skinks"
So far so good. However, a look at page 35, nowhere does it say anything similar for Temple Guard, just that if a Slann joins them "he must be placed in the second rank, rather then the first" and automatically passes 'Look Out Sir' roles he is entitled to make.

Does this mean that a unit of Temple Guard containing a Slann must have a frontage of six to gain a rank bonus, considering that although a Slann takes the place of 2 models per rank for 2 ranks, he still only counts as 1 model?
(And similarly a Witch Elf unit containing a Cauldron must contain 4 Elves per rank to count bonus or 9 Elves for a horde?)

 

[T_Saurus]

Well the Slann is fine because it is a character and those rules can be found on p. 98 of the BRB under Different-Sized Bases section second paragraph.

If a character's base is larger than one model, but has exactly the same size area (or "footprint") as two or more models, simply displace those models to the back rank and position the character in place.

Then an image and the following paragraph.

If your character(s) fit into the unit in this manner, work out the unit's ranks (and therefore its rank bonus) as if the space was filled with rank and file troops.

So we are all good. I am not sure about the Dark Elves Cauldron because I don't know if it HAS to be a character mount.

 

[Lijo03]

Ah, perfect, I had forgotten about that, thanks! The cauldron has does have to be taken as a character mount, but weirdly says something like that it can join and leave units like a character, but is not a character. I guess that's just in case the death hag gets shot off.