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I've been contemplating an alternative to the Phase Out and WBB rules besides the commonly bandied FNP that retains the flavor of the existing rules but combines them into a single ability.

When a Necron unit is reduced to 25% of it's original model count, place a marker in contact with one of the models and remove the unit from the table and place it in reserves. Models destroyed by power weapon attacks or instant killed are removed from play and not placed in reserves. At the beginning of the Necron player's next turn, the Necron unit may re-enter play by making a Reserves roll and Deep Striking on the marker so long as there is another Necron unit within 12" of the marker.

We'll Be Back markers represent severely damaged Necrons that are in various states of repair, down but not out of the fight. They count as a Necron unit with the following profile: BS0 WS1 S4 T4 I1 W1 A1 Ld10 Sv-. The marker is not capable of moving and will not fall back, consolidate, or make sweeping advances. Markers are not removed until the unit Deep Strikes or they are destroyed.

Units within 6" of a Resurrection Orb may enter reserves regardless, even if instant killed or destroyed by power weapons.

A Tomb Spyder allows Necrons to re-enter play so long as there is another unit of Necrons in play on the table EDIT: even if they are more than 12" away.

A Monolith allows a Phased Out unit within 24" to re-roll it's Reserves roll. Units within 24" of a Monolith that pass the Reserves roll may disembark from it's portal in place of Deep Striking. The Monolith may move one We'll Be Back marker within 12" to any other location within 12" of the Monolith in place of firing it's ordinance blast.


What do you think?

I think it's a good idea, at least in concept. I proposed something similar a while back, having downed Necrons (as opposed to Necrons put out by power weapons or Instant Death) put into reserve, and giving players the choice of pulling survivors out like the Tyranid Without Number rule. But keeping the ways they have of entering the board limited to teleportation via Monolith portals, Resurrection Orbs, Tomb Spyders, and so on.

Gavin Thorne wrote:When a Necron unit is reduced to 25% of it's original model count, place a marker in contact with one of the models and remove the unit from the table and place it in reserves. Models destroyed by power weapon attacks or instant killed are removed from play and not placed in reserves. At the beginning of the Necron player's next turn, the Necron unit may re-enter play by making a Reserves roll and Deep Striking on the marker so long as there is another Necron unit within 12" of the marker.

We'll Be Back markers represent severely damaged Necrons that are in various states of repair, down but not out of the fight. They count as a Necron unit with the following profile: BS0 WS1 S4 T4 I1 W1 A1 Ld10 Sv-. The marker is not capable of moving and will not fall back, consolidate, or make sweeping advances. Markers are not removed until the unit Deep Strikes or they are destroyed.

I like the sound of my army not phasing out through losses ending the game but WBB is a trade mark of nrcrons and instead of using marker's I would follow the codex for WBB rolls.

I do like this being based by unit instead of the whole army it'll help to keep whloe units on the field longer. I would lower the percentage to say like 10% based on the fact that Necron Units, at least in my play are rare to exede 12-14 models per unit.

Love the idea for them going into reserves instead of out of the game, but for re-entry I would just run them through the monolith like in the rule book.

Gavin Thorne wrote: Units within 6" of a Resurrection Orb may enter reserves regardless, even if instant killed or destroyed by power weapons.

A Tomb Spyder allows Necrons to re-enter play so long as there is another unit of Necrons in play on the table EDIT: even if they are more than 12" away.

A Monolith allows a Phased Out unit within 24" to re-roll it's Reserves roll. Units within 24" of a Monolith that pass the Reserves roll may disembark from it's portal in place of Deep Striking. The Monolith may move one We'll Be Back marker within 12" to any other location within 12" of the Monolith in place of firing it's ordinance blast.

Nice how you incorporated the res. orb into these new rules. really like the Tomb Spiders ability. I like what the monolith can do but I'd scratch the bit about moving the markers.

Looks pretty good for the most part with just a couple fixes needed.(might just be critcal towards others work. HAHA) I would try to make it a little less wordy, but have no thoughts how at the moment

Stucer wrote:I like the sound of my army not phasing out through losses ending the game but WBB is a trade mark of nrcrons and instead of using marker's I would follow the codex for WBB rolls.

I do like this being based by unit instead of the whole army it'll help to keep whloe units on the field longer. I would lower the percentage to say like 10% based on the fact that Necron Units, at least in my play are rare to exede 12-14 models per unit.

Well, the idea is that instead of individual models getting WBB rolls, the whole squad gets them. This can still cause phase out, but only if all necron squads are pushed into reserve, so the total phase out percentage remains consistent with the codex (75% of necron forces removed from play = phase out) except it's determined at the squad level instead of the model level.

Many players dislike the codex rules for WBB simply because you have to set your carefully painted models on their side against a hard scratchy table. The marker helps to prevent this. The markers also represent a unit of fallen necrons that are still capable to fighting back if engaged in assault, although in a limited manner. Think of the Terminator - even severely damaged it's capable of crawling after and killing it's target. With this in mind, the monolith is capable of teleporting models on the board, specifically models that have failed their WBB rolls and have not been removed from the table.

Stucer wrote:Love the idea for them going into reserves instead of out of the game, but for re-entry I would just run them through the monolith like in the rule book.

I wanted to represent this ability using the new rules as well, hence being able to move the marker. This benefits the necron player since units can only return to play if another necron unit is within 12" and allows you to move the marker in range of another unit. It also helps to prevent Deep Striking necrons from having mishaps - if the marker is in close combat, the deepstriking necrons will not be able to enter play in a standard deepstriking formation and be punted to the mishap table, something that the opposing player can take advantage of, but not without dedicating one of his own units to tying up the marker.

In any case, allowing the necrons to stand up where they fell without having to worry about non-coherent units and lone warriors shuffling around makes things simple, but I also wanted to let the warriors re-enter through the monolith since they could be transported out. The whole idea being that they are damaged enough to field repair and simply get back up or they need to be teleported to a repair facility but leave behind enough vital components (i.e. the marker) that phase out after they're repaired and return to battle via the portal. Hope that makes sense.

Stucer wrote:Nice how you incorporated the res. orb into these new rules. really like the Tomb Spiders ability. I like what the monolith can do but I'd scratch the bit about moving the markers.

Looks pretty good for the most part with just a couple fixes needed.(might just be critcal towards others work. HAHA) I would try to make it a little less wordy, but have no thoughts how at the moment

Thanks! My hope was to capture the spirit of the phase out and we'll be back rules into something that works a little easier, without the confusion that can occur in some situations with the current rules. Keeping the res orb and spyders doing what they're made to do just makes things easier. I'm wordy by nature, so my rules are going to reflect that as well. As it is I think I left out that if there are no Necron models in play (either destroyed or removed to reserves), the army has been phased out and auto-loses.

I appreciate the feedback. I know that you play necrons Stucer, care to playtest this concept and see how it works? I'll be giving it a test run as soon as I can schedule a game.

[quote=Gavin Thorne I appreciate the feedback. I know that you play necrons Stucer, care to playtest this concept and see how it works? I'll be giving it a test run as soon as I can schedule a game.

PM sent.

Another thing I forgot to mention in the original post:

When Necron squads Deep Strike, they make a standard Deep Strike formation using the marker as the first model.

Most Necron players have a few damaged warriors that just didn't hold up well - missing bits, been stepped on, etc. - I'd put one or two on a 40mm or 60mm base to count as your WBB markers. Remember that you'll need one marker per Necron squad that you field and I'd make sure that they are numbered in some way so you can tell which marker is for which squad.

Any suggestions regarding the size of base to use as a WBB marker anyone? I'd probably go for 40mm (Termie size) bases.

Gavin Thorne wrote:Any suggestions regarding the size of base to use as a WBB marker anyone? I'd probably go for 40mm (Termie size) bases.

I would just use whatever base size my model happened to be standing on.

The rules are an interesting concept but I only got through two rounds before I had to give uo in frustration. I like most of the rules but I think WBB should be kept the same as the codex has it written. As for the phase out I treat it basically like a variaton of WBB and make it to where you would roll a d6 and on say a 4+ the unit would be able to then make reeseerve rolls. I might seem to make it a bit harsh on the necron player but being able to pop back up almost constsntly is beyond harsh.

Wow this looks a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

Can I shoot at the markers? You've given them at statline so I assume I can. If I kill the marker your guys cant come back right? So they dont get any sort of WBB at all?

Does the marker count as the same unit if i want to shoot your guys and then assault it?

If they are put back into reserve do you have to roll for your reserves normally? So if I'm playing guard with an Ootf i can kill your army piece by piece and effectively ignore WBB. If I'm playing any other army all i have to do is kill 25% of the squad to effectively remove them for the game for a couple of turns?

If I shoot two squads next to each other down to 25% then neither can come back. So effectively I only need to shoot your army down to 25% over two turns of your guys and you get no WBB and you're gone for good. If you only have a single squad of 4 destroyers and no tomb spider and i kill three of them the last one goes away, never to be seen again.

Does a single tomb spider allow the ability? Whats the point of having more than one thats hidden behind a monolith?

What happens when you get caught in a sweeping advance? The squad doesnt get reduced to 25% or less it just gets removed from play.


As far as i can tell you've just made WBB worse and kept phase out. So now necrons are underarmed and overpriced with almost no benefit?

Whats wrong with FNP? The flavour is still there, you cut one down and it reassembles right before your eyes. This seems incredibly messy. Having to keep track of models that arent on the table is a nightmare, especially when some of them can come back and some of them cant, some of them get to reroll coming back, some of them dont. The biggest problem with WBB is that is messy and inelegant to use. Surely you want to be making things easier for players and not harder for them, and surely you want to make necrons better, not worse.

I second unnessisaraly complicated. And actualy seems to fit the fluff less to me then the current rules or FNP.

If we want Necron models self-repaing and getting back up to kill you after a while, I propose this verson of WBB:

The unit gains FNP, In addition, at the begining of every movment phase, add d3 models (unupgraded) to the unit - this cannot exceed it's starting value.

Mars.Techpries: OH, that's actually pretty good

Any thoughts on Res Orb/Tomb Spider (Tomb Spider could be like add D6 models to the unit. Res Orb..not sure, probably more options to use FNP?)

Mars.Techpriest wrote:The unit gains FNP, In addition, at the begining of every movment phase, add d3 models (unupgraded) to the unit - this cannot exceed it's starting value.

I hate to say it, but that's a bit too strong. There's nothing wrong with replacing WBB with FNP ruleswise; the drawback with FNP is that AP1/2 weapons ignore FNP rolls, and with WBB you have to wait until the beginning of the Necron turn to resurrect the models - hence the issues with CC and sweeping. Plus, it's a little unbalanced. 3 Destroyers are worth a lot more points and have more killing power than, say, 3 Warriors or 3 Flayed ones.

Yeah the cost difference is true, but it still wouldn't apply if the entire unit is destroyed. On particularly expensive units like heavy destroyers, they could be internally modified to have a -1 on the roll, or even the inability to roll. (Particularly if this ability was isolated from FNP, then only given only to Warriors, Flayed Ones & Immortals)

I like the idea for Tomb Spiders, though d6 might be to much. A re-roll of the d3 might be better. As for the Res-Orb, it can be similar to now, make FNP rolls even if FNP would ordinarily be ignored. The monolith's recall ability could add an additional model or again re-roll the die.

This is indeed more powerful then the current WBB. But at least to me, it seems more in line with the fluff, and it's not powerful to a degree that couldn't be midigated with points.

First, thanks for the feedback! I appreciate the response and your counter-response is both well written and addresses concerns that I hadn't thought of initially.

Regwon wrote:Wow this looks a lot more complicated than it needs to be.

I'm proposing an alternative to the model by model, lay-it-on-it's-side method currently in place. While I didn't say that it was less complicated, I don't think that it's any more complicated that the current rules and will be happy to address your comments:

Regwon wrote:Can I shoot at the markers? You've given them at statline so I assume I can. If I kill the marker your guys cant come back right? So they dont get any sort of WBB at all?

Yes, this is correct. The markers have a reduced statline compared to a single necron warrior, representing that this is not quite a swarm (although that would likely be a more accurate depiction) of just-operating parts waiting to regenerate or teleport.

Regwon wrote:Does the marker count as the same unit if i want to shoot your guys and then assault it?

Thank you for asking this... it's one of the things I left out of my initial proposal and meant to include. Yes, the marker counts as the same unit. This means that it pays to completely decimate the unit in shooting and follow up by hacking the left-overs until they stop moving.

Regwon wrote:If they are put back into reserve do you have to roll for your reserves normally? So if I'm playing guard with an Ootf i can kill your army piece by piece and effectively ignore WBB. If I'm playing any other army all i have to do is kill 25% of the squad to effectively remove them for the game for a couple of turns?

Yes, you roll Reserves normally to return the unit (or what's left of it) to play - either by Deep Striking on the unit's marker or passing through a Monolith's portal. I apologize for not being familiar with the Officer of the Fleet - I don't have an IG Codex so I'm not able to address that point directly, but if that unit has abilities that affect Reserves, they would affect Necrons held in Reserve after being removed from play just like they would any other unit held in reserve.

Regwon wrote:If I'm playing any other army all i have to do is kill 25% of the squad to effectively remove them for the game for a couple of turns?

I'm sure that this was a typo, but I'll address it anyway. No, you would need to reduce the squad to 25% of it's original number to remove them from play. In a 12-man squad of warriors you would reduce the squad to 4 models before they phase out to reserves.

Regwon wrote:If I shoot two squads next to each other down to 25% then neither can come back. So effectively I only need to shoot your army down to 25% over two turns of your guys and you get no WBB and you're gone for good. If you only have a single squad of 4 destroyers and no tomb spider and i kill three of them the last one goes away, never to be seen again.

If you remove all Necron units (this excludes the standard non-Necrons like Spyders, Scarabs, Pariahs, and Monoliths) into reserves, you force a win via phase out, just as you currently would using codex rules. What is implied here, rather than being stated, is that the models must be removed from play to force the win, rather than starting play completely in reserve. In a Dawn of War game, if your opponent destroys the HQ and two troops units that begin on the table, he will have forced a win via phase out.

However, if any Necron units remain in play, markers remain on the field but may only return from reserves if another Necron unit is within 12" - regardless of it's type. Destroyers can WBB Warriors and likewise; if 3 out of 4 of your Destroyers are popped and you have no Tomb Spyder they'll come back if you can get a squad of warriors close enough. In the DoW example, if the Lord survives the initial shooting that decimated his troops, they'd be able to Deep Strike from Reserves so long as he remains within 12" of him. Hopefully his Monolith will enter play on his turn to facilitate matters.

Regwon wrote:Does a single tomb spider allow the ability? Whats the point of having more than one thats hidden behind a monolith?

This is a good point and not one that I had given thought - I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. I tried to keep the abilities as close to the originals as possible, but it looks like I'll have to make an adjustment here:

A Tomb Spyder counts as a Necron for purposes of allowing Necrons to re-enter play so long as it is within 12" of the unit's marker and another Necron unit is in play on the table.

Alternately, these rules are presented, allowing the Tomb Spyder to "chain" it's ability to awaken downed Necrons:

A Tomb Spyder counts as a Necron unit for purposes of allowing Necrons to re-enter play so long as it is within 12" of the unit's marker. A Tomb Spyder also allows any markers within 12" to count as in-play Necron units for determining which units may re-enter play via Deep Strike.

Regwon wrote:What happens when you get caught in a sweeping advance? The squad doesnt get reduced to 25% or less it just gets removed from play.

That's exactly correct. WBB doesn't help save you from sweeping advance either and this rule follows that assumption. The sweeping advance is indicative of a unit being overrun and chopped to meaty bits or, in this case, inert necrodermis. They're not coming back.

Regwon wrote:As far as i can tell you've just made WBB worse and kept phase out. So now necrons are underarmed and overpriced with almost no benefit?

My goal was not to eliminate Phase Out, but to make it work at the squad level as an alternative to or an enhancement of WBB. The army level Phase Out is still in place and something that Necron generals must remain concerned about. Whether Necrons are underarmed is not the topic of this thread. Personally, I think the gauss flayer is pretty decent, but they need some better CC - either more power weapons or rending - and more high Strength, AP 2 weapons. If you feel that necrons in general are overpriced, then the abilit to potentially return dead squads to play each turn should help to bring them more in line with their current value.

Regwon wrote:Whats wrong with FNP? The flavour is still there, you cut one down and it reassembles right before your eyes. This seems incredibly messy. Having to keep track of models that arent on the table is a nightmare, especially when some of them can come back and some of them cant, some of them get to reroll coming back, some of them dont. The biggest problem with WBB is that is messy and inelegant to use. Surely you want to be making things easier for players and not harder for them, and surely you want to make necrons better, not worse.

Many Dakkites have indicated that Feel No Pain makes Necrons into Plague Marines, myself included. Yes, it's a relatively simple USR that addresses the problems WBB presents, but I have to disagree and say that it doesn't match the flavor of We'll Be Back. WBB allows "dead" models to slowly rebuild, coming back when you thought they were dead; FNP is much more immediate - like the Black Knight from Monty Python swinging his sword even though he's lost an arm and a leg. It's all subject to interpretation anyway (Toe-May-Toe, Toe-Mah-Toe), but I'm not alone in this regard.

Keeping track of the models isn't a great excuse, really, since you should already be keeping reserves in good order to know who is who and when they're coming on. Using the above rules, here's what I did to make it easy: place returnable downed models from each unit next to the marker for their squad and unreturnables into the army transport (I use a shoebox). When the squad enters reserves completely, the marker goes on the field and the squad stays on the sideline in a nice compact formation separate from all the others. If that's too much work, then you probably shouldn't be using reserves to begin with.

Mars.Techpriest wrote:I second unnessisaraly complicated. And actualy seems to fit the fluff less to me then the current rules or FNP.

If we want Necron models self-repaing and getting back up to kill you after a while, I propose this verson of WBB:

The unit gains FNP, In addition, at the begining of every movment phase, add d3 models (unupgraded) to the unit - this cannot exceed it's starting value.

This is interesting, a valid alternative that I'll consider playtesting, but we disagree on the fluffiness factor of our respective proposals. I might go as far as making the roll 1d6-3, however, allowing for the possibility that Necrons might not come back, but giving them the same number of models if they do.

I was thinking that if your unit was destroyed then you could then roll a single d6 and on a 1-5 unit is removed from board 6 the unit may then take a reserve rolls.

I would keep WBB the same exept that I would add like with a res orb on the field or a tombspider in the game a unit can roll for sweeping advances.

Gavin Thorne wrote:When a Necron unit is reduced to 25% of it's original model count, place a marker

We'll Be Back markers

What do you think?

The necessity of markers is worse than what we have today in terms of fiddliness, on par with the old Pink and Blue Horror model swapping business. Ugh.

Replace WBB with FNP.

Replace the 25% counting in Phase Out with simple check to see whether there are less than 2 units of Warriors on the board.

Fast & simple.

WBB isn't exactly complicated...

If it wasn't killed by something spiffy (AP1 or 2, anything causing ID, or anything else that outright denies their armor save), tip it over.

At the start of the controlling player's turn, as long as there's a unit of identical Necrons within 6 inches, roll a dice for each tipped necron.

On a 4+, stand them back up, joining the closest eligible unit.


That's WBB... that's it... all of it, summed up in 3 simple steps. And here's the complicated parts, easily summed up:

If the unit is within 6" of a Necron Lord, roll WBB even if the model wouldn't normally get to based on what killed them.

If the original unit the model belonged to gets pulled by a monolith, re-roll any failed WBB rolls.

If the model is within 12" of a Tomb spider, ignore the distance restriction for WBB.


Is it really that hard for people to figure out?

You should still get points for killing a necron even if they make thier WBB. Because its like fighting space marines with apothecaries in every unit.

Dronze, it is hard for some people to figure out as indicated by previous threads. It doesn't help that not everyone reads the rules to comprehension prior to playing and so grapevine errors develop. I agree with you that WBB is easy to understand once you have the basics and know the exceptions.

It's pretty obvious that most players (necron or not) want WBB to be changed to FNP for simplicity's sake. I'm in disagreement because I like the concept behind WBB and Phase Out, but find the model-by-model roll cumbersome. Hence my version of the rules layed out in a unit-by-unit manner. I have no illusions that it's widely accepted, but I do enjoy a healthy and friendly debate.

If you don't like markers, use the last necron in the squad layed on it's side as a marker. That's essentially what you're doing with the current rules anyway. While my version adds an additional layer of complexity, it also attempts to inject a bit of action into otherwise inert models and using markers gives modellers a chance to have fun and protects the paint jobs of our models from rough tabletops. I'm pretty sure I've even seen some WBB markers floating around on one of the custom game aids sites...

At least when I'm playing against necron, it's the Shrotenger's models that make it anoying, not any direct confusion over the rules.

The other complication's come from how WBB interacts with other special rules not in the Necron codex. Or even some in the codex, like this pair:

On a 4+, stand them back up, joining the closest eligible unit.
If the original unit the model belonged to gets pulled by a monolith, re-roll any failed WBB rolls.

So if some necron die, the unit falls back, the necron get up and join another unit, then I teleport the original unit, do the re-roll stand up where they are currently? Do they join the nearest unit or do they join the unit that just teleported?

What it is is, that say you take your WBB roll should that fail teleport the whole unit through the monokith and then reroll the failed ones from the new location.

Monliths in this manner work basicallly as short term phase out. It's less that the units are repairing in that short time than their is the possibility that their are X number of replacements available to be teleported through to keep them rollin'.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Replace the 25% counting in Phase Out with simple check to see whether there are less than 2 units of Warriors on the board.

Fast & simple.

500p games vs necrons would sure be fun. Kill 40% of their army, and you win. Fair & balanced.

No less fair and balanced than anything else using the full FOC at 500 pts.

Perhaps that is why GW doesn't bother much with worrying over the FOC at small points, and instead recommends Kill Team and 40k/40m as alternatives

So the ones that make the original WBB roll now join a different unit then they would had you not teleported the unit? Forgive the questions but I don't own the necron codex, I've just read 3 or 4 times. But that is, in part, my point. While it might be reasonable for a Necron Player to eventualy figure out after crossrefercing the rules, your opponent would have no idea what's going on.

I wouldn't even mind WBB, if it didn't have so many things modifying it, and it produced an effect that was sugnifigantly different then an already existant and explained USR. As it now stands, The only thing WBB seems to do is make necron more likely to be wiped out in Close Combat.

JohnHwangDD wrote:No less fair and balanced than anything else using the full FOC at 500 pts.

Perhaps that is why GW doesn't bother much with worrying over the FOC at small points, and instead recommends Kill Team and 40k/40m as alternatives

The point is it makes necrons ridiculously weak at lower points and have the drawback hardly matter at high points.

That's why % work so well. The other option would be to do a BFG style adjustment to them, where it's harder for them to compleate objectives then for normal troops. Like warriors must be over half to claim, or all non-warriors count as 2 kp, rather then one, etc. It'd create the situation where you could be loseing badly, but still win due to how valuble necron kills actualy are.. .. or maybe not.

Except that 40k is a FOC-based all-or-nothing units game, not a %-based models game. So any Phase Out rule should count against units, not % of models.

Given that 40k is doing away with complex % and VP calculations entirely to focus on simpler whole unit criteria, the 2+ Warriors is the most obvious replacement test.

Focusing on extremes (and 500 pts is an extreme) is nonsense.

Alright, phase out if you lose 3/4 of your units.