I'd rule it as -55 due to Best Quality being already included. But this argument was already done to death in the other thread and should not be repeated here. -55 is still difficult enough to obtain.

The issue is resolved. -85 is RAW. Anything else is a house rule.

Fresnel said:

RT p271 Acquisition Tests,  "This roll is modified by Availability, Craftsmanship, and Scale".

HA p63, "The cost and rarity of such armour is beyond the means of most individuals, with maybe only half a dozen suits of Lathe-wrought armour constructed in a decade, each created under commission for a specific wearer."

"A suit of Lathe-wrought armour weighs half the normal amount and increases the AP by 1, as each suit of Lathe- wrought armour is inherently of Best Craftsmanship."

The point of contention is that Lathe-wrought superceeds the usual Craftsmanship modifier since it dictates the level in its description. You have not presented any evidence that your interpretation is the more correct one, so I'd hardly call the issue 'resolved' until FFG weighs in on it.

What we have is an unambiguous statement the Lathe Wrought armours are only made at Best Quality - which makes perfect sense. Applying this to the acquisition roll is standard.

The idea that the Quality modifier is ignored in this case is completely baseless. It is an extraordinary claim that requires some support - there is none. Unless and until some appears, the rules as written are as clear as they ever get. 

That's a super thin peg to hang "You can ignore the -30 modifier from Best Quality in your acquisition roll." from…

I don't see doing so as a reasonable interpretation.

eBarbarossa said:

Why would you get best quality for free?

lurkeroutthere said:

You don't pay for an inherent quality separately since the definition of inherent is things that cannot be separated. In Deathwatch many relics are inherently of Best craftsmanship and you don't adjust their Req costs up because of this. Likewise appling a separate modifer for an inherent quality of Lathe-wrought is inappropriate since it's already a part of the Lathe-wrought modification's Availability.

When I have a chance I'll see about giving you some more examples.

Seriously… If the author and line editor really intended for the Quality Modifier to be ignored, they would have given us more than 'inherently'.

In my years in RPG forums I have seen (and been guilty of) some monsterous over-readings - this is up there with the best of them.

I look forward to the huge post referencing every 40k ruleset, attempting to convince us how we should read 'inherently'.

I refer you to reply #79.

HappyDaze said:

Question if it was their intent that inherantly meant the best quality modifer didn't need to be paid for why didn't they just say that? You can't tell me that the text maintains a slavish economy of words. Why would they just say "these items are best quality, that does not need to be accounted for in the acquisitions test".

Exceptions to rules need to more explicit the non exceptions. An item being inherantly besrt quality doesn't mean you don't automatically treat it as best quality for anything, just that it's qualites (like armor etc) can't be further improved by taking it and then getting a best quality version.

But if this thread has proven anything to me it's some people, you especially, are capable of reading things in the most selective way possible to get their desired outcome.

lurkeroutthere said:

They did. It's quite obvious if you understand the meaning of 'inherent(ly)' and how it's used in the sentence. Perhaps they failed to dumb it down and make it explicit to those that fail at vocabulary, but that's not really a problem with the language used so much as the ability of some of the readers.