So yesterday I was playing against my 2 friends. One of them played wood elves and the other one played bretonnia. So this is the thing I had a skink cohort unit with kroxigor that got charged by wardancer and knights I lost alot of skinks but still had one rank more the them together but before we had started the wood elves player chose to use the dance that takes away rank bonuses. He told me that I didnt get any steadfast because he use that dance is that correct?
Off the top of my head, steadfast is provided by rank bonuses unless otherwise stated (e.g. special rules, magical banner etc.) so if your opponent has a method to remove rank bonuses I imagine steadfast would be lost also. Might want to consult the BRB to see what else it says about steadfast however- I don't have it to hand atm.
He removes your rank >Bonus< not your ranks, your rank bonus is a number capped at 3, whilst ranks can go as far as to whatever you can afford. If the wording (i don't know it) is takes away rank bonuses, it does NOT remove your ranks, and if not noted elsewhere, steadfast. I Believe your friend was mistaken, you can point him to the rules for steadfast at pg 60 of the BRB and the rules for rank bonuses and what it does on pg 52, also there's a box on page 52 mentioning another way of stripping rank bonuses (disruption) that does not strip steadfast. TL; DR. - He should only remove your rank bonus.
There is currently no army book special rule that removes Steadfast - in any book. Other than the normal +1 ranks more than your opponent, it can only be gained or removed via special terrain rules (ie, Skirmishers majority in Woods gain it/ranked units lose it, everyone in rivers loses it, ect.). If such a rule comes into existence, it will need to say that it 'removes Steadfast.' Use the BRB terrain rules as a reference for your argument.
Yeah ghostwarrior and vampteddy have it. You just loose your rank bonus and steadfast rule has nothing to do with your rank bonus, just if you have more ranks than enemy units in the combat. Just a note, I may have ready the OP wrong but it looks like you added up all the ranks in both units and had more ranks than both combined, but you don't need to have more ranks than both units combined just more than both individually. So if 2 enemy units had 4 ranks and you had 5 you would still be steadfast.
I had just 2 more ranks. 5 deep while my friends had a unit of knights 3 deep and a skirmish(doesnt have any ranks )unit of wardancer (that danced and took away rank bonuses) and a charcter with a flying monster. They told me that steadfast counted as a rank bonus and my unit is more like a skirmish unit. They could have read wrong or translated it wrong. thanks
The specific wording for the WE wardancers for the woven mist dance is, "Enemy units in base contact with the unit receive no combat result bonus for extra ranks." As others have already mentioned, steadfast remains if you have more ranks, it is only the up to +3 rank bonus for determining combat resolution that is negated.
That settles it in my mind. Combat result bonus =/= Steadfast. Post-combat bonus for ranks is lost, but the unit itself remains steadfast relative to its rank numbers in comparison to their opponents.