If I have a Horned One join a unit of Cold Ones does the Horned One prevent the Cold Ones stupidity checks or no? I haven’t seen any rules about it or anyone talk about it so I’m curious if it’s worth taking a Horned One and putting it in a Cold One unit or just having it be a Cold One leader instead
It does not, unfortunately. They are still stupid, and not only that, the stupid rule is contagious and now also affects the character, despite the Horned One.
Keep in mind your Horned one Characters can join infantry units though, so for 23 points (18 for the CO, 5 for the HO), you gain Armoured Hide 1, Fear, 2 WS 3 S4 I2 attacks with Armour bane 1. Big thing there is adding Fear to a large saurus or TG block, so you have fear and a large unit strength. The armoured hide 1 is nice, bumping him up to a 3+ save with a shield.
I don't think that is how fear works. You don't go off the unit strength of the models that aren't producing fear. Surely.
Although it's weird, the rules do seem to say that you do, but they only wind up fearing the character. Pg 168 sets up what appear to be 2 independent tests: "an enemy unit that both (A) causes Fear and (B) has a higher Unit Strength." (emphasis added by me) Later, it says, "any models in the unit that direct their attacks against the Fear-causing enemy suffer a -1 modifier to their rolls To Hit." So even if they fail the fear test, they are only penalized if they try to attack the fear-causing character.
Yeah. That's the way I read it too. So not as good as the whole block getting it, but still has a nice effect and gives a better chance to your character surviving