So as we all know scaly skin got FAQed “ Q: Does the Coalesced battle trait ‘Scaly Skin’ apply to mortal wounds? A: No” seems simple enough, but the issue is this contradicts the core rules rules which state “After they have been allocated, a mortal wound is treated in the same manner as any other wound for all rules purposes” emphasis on being treated as any other wound. So how does this FAQ resolve? I honestly have no idea
the FAQ always overrides the core rules. that was the basis for my original argument about the basti saves.
I have an question, How does the scaly skin affect an spell, prayers, curses ect.. Is a this seen as a attack? Not mortal wounds ofcourse, but from normal wounds. When a spell,prayer, curse does "x" wounds do you subtract 1 from the damage?
it does not as spells only do mortal wounds any time a spell says "x" wounds it's assumed that they are mortal as you don't get a save against them and the language has changed so such spells are probably just older writings.
Core Rules say that 3 different sources can inflict mortal wounds: attacks, spells and abilities. So, the same distintion must be applied also to every kind of damage. Scaly Skin's text is "Subtract 1 from the damage inflicted by each successful attack". So the answer to your question is no (I am still of the opinion that the faq contradicts the core rules or at least that scaly skin was written in a very bad way if the intention was to not apply it to mws caused directly by an attack, but that's another topic)
I honestly don't get why they didn't just outright state it only works for "normal" wounds in the first place. It'd also have prevented the mess we have now where there's an arbitrary distinction between "attacks" and "not attacks", despite a lot of those represinting the same thing anyway. It'd stil be gamey to limit it just to "normal" wounds, but at least it wouldn't be confusing as to what is and isn't affected.
It does have some decent coverage as it can cover melee and shooting, but the fact that it wont cover mortal wounds is fairly annoying. If GW stated that earlier none of this would be a problem
imho covering spells/abilities would've been more unique, and more usefull given that those are pretty much all D3's. In that sense alone I already find it a bit of a lost oppertunity. It's also pretty much exactly what Coalesced needs defensivly. When I first saw it I was amazed, it looked cool, it looked increadibly usefull, and it even seemed intuitive with little room for rules-lawyers to ruin the fun. And then the rules-lawyers showed up to point out that actually spells & abilities aren't attacks. And then GW showed up to F.A.Q. out even mortal wounds triggered by attacks (e.g. a retributor's blast to ashes). Turning an ability that would've been super usefull against pretty much any opponent into one that's surprsingly niche. It was such a dissapointment. I mean yeah, it still has its uses, and it's still great against say Ogers or Ironjawz. But it's sad that against those it essentially provides a massive armywide damage reduction, while against a horde of skeletons it basicly doesn't do anything.
Fluff wise it makes sense to me Scaly Skin only works against melee attacks or shooting. I see it as the Coalesced dinos having developed thick skin from living in the mortal realms for so long. To me Mortal Wounds is meant to illustrate magic/soul piercing/otherworldly abilities that dont really care about your thick plate mail or whatever, including the thicker and scaly skin.
I'd agree if mortal wounds were actually used exclusivly for that. But sadly that isn't the case, which makes even that argument feel rather weak. Hell in certain cases it's literally the same attack as usual but you rolled a 6 and got a good hit so it gets some bonus damage. Also, on the other end of the spectrum you have "magical" attacks like a ghost ripping you appart with spectral claws doing regular damage. The fluff that mortal wounds represent magical attacks, or at least something against which armour won't help much like poison, simply isn't really upheld.
As with everything else in life there are obviously outliners, but it does seem to be the general theme they are going with. If you wanted it somewhat realistic, they would have to use multiple categories which they havent - likely due to trying to make the game system smooth and easy to understand. The Starpriest venom I would assume is poison making contact with the body. With units doing it on hits I would chalk it up as to being some kind of critical hit.
The original intend was definitly for it to be "stuff that armour doesn't help against" but at this point they've been so inconsistent it barely matters. I wish they'd had introduced 2 different types of damage, physical and non-physical, on top of mortal wounds (so damage that bypasses saves). It would have saved some of this mess (as well as potentially solve some other issues)
so maybe physical damage could be your standard axe to the head, while a non physical could be a sick yo mamma joke?