We played our first game with Harbinger Cthulhu as an independent great old one last night. The question was whether HC was the summoner’s unit for various purposes in a turn. The summoner of HC used him to capture a cultist that entered his area after the original flattening of the other forces. Later, when the summoner and another player both had units in the flattened area, the other player declared combat on the summoner. In that instance, does HC count as a unit for the summoner against whom the three kills must be rolled? Can the summoner instead allocate three rolled kills to his other units present to keep HC looming larger over the board?

We thought afterward that the intent was that HC is dropped as a bomb on a spot, and then he is just there, and he is not controlled in any fashion by the summoner. Moreover, that he would have to be the target of a specific combat to try to take him down. This also has the effect of satisfying the second elder sign condition that would allow the summoner to earn both an elder sign for summoning and for killing him in combat. Otherwise, how could one kill one’s own unit that requires three total kills or eliminations?

So…Is the summoner’s unit as per normal, or a bomb that then becomes a truly independent presence on the board?