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So, tonight I decided to give Trazyn a try for the first time, and of course I come across a problem (Which, as the game is still going, could use an answer as soon as possible before we have to really stop and try and come to a conclusion).

I have no remaining Crypteks, Overlords, Lords, or Lychguard on the table. Trazyn will probably die in this next turn. What happens?

Seed of the problems =
Trazyn's rule, "Surrogate Hosts" states

If Trazyn is removed from play as a casualty, roll a D6. On a score of 1, remove Trazyn from play as normal. If the score is 2 or more, randomly chose another model from all the friendly Lychguards, Crypteks, Necron Lords and Overlords on the table(not counting special character versions of any of the above). Remove the nominated model from play as casualty, and return Trazyn to play in its place - his remaining Wounds are now equal to the number of Wounds the removed model had remaining. Trazyn only awards kill points once he has been slain and does not return. Models removed because they have been replaced by Trazyn award kill points as normal

He also has the "Ever Living" special rule, which refers to this section of Reanimation Protocols -

If a model with Reanimation Protocols rule is removed as a casualty, there is a chance that it will self-repair and return to play at the end of the current phase. -snipped-
At the end of the phase, after any Morale checks have been taken and fall back moves have been made, roll a D6 fir each Reanimation Protocols counter next to the unit. On a 1, 2, 3, or 4, the damage is too severe and no self-repair occurs - nothing happens. On a 5 or 6, A Necron reassembles itself and continues to fight - return one of the slain models to play with a single Wound, -snip-

As Trazyn's "Surrogate Hosts" does not state what takes place if there are no models for him to replace, would you default to Everliving / Reanimation Protocols?

I think that's a reasonable assumption. Surrogate Hosts just seems to be a spiffy little Plan A so you don't have to rely on the less reliable Plan B.

Of course, this leaves open the question as to how to "randomly choose another model," but that's been done to death already.

Sounds good to me as well. I'd leave how to randomly choose up to you and your opponent.

The way I'd interpret it is just like that. You randomly choose from all the remaining valid models on the table. There are zero so obviously randomly choosing something from nothing results in nothing.

As the explicit phrasing of his power does not specify what happens when no models exist, you'd assume that nothing happens and you remove him as a casualty as normal, complete with all of the rules and powers that that would entail.

edit:
More to the point the order of opperations goes something like this

Trazyn is removed as a casualty
Roll a D6 and don't get a 1
No suitable models exist to replace with him.
Trazyn is still a casualty at the end of the phase
Everliving (and subsequently Reanimation Protocols) kick in.

I believe Grakmar put it best, for randomly choosing:

Grakmar wrote:What I do is I fly to England, find Matt Ward, and punch him in the stomach over and over screaming "WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SO IMPRACTICAL A MECHANIC?" until he tells me which model is "random".

Thanks all. As predicted, Trazyn died, and we played it out that he got the EL roll (Which he passed) which allowed the game to end in a tie on turn 6. Phew.

"I'd rather be lucky than good." ~ Lefty Gomez

Happyjew wrote:I believe Grakmar put it best, for randomly choosing:

Grakmar wrote:What I do is I fly to England, find Matt Ward, and punch him in the stomach over and over screaming "WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SO IMPRACTICAL A MECHANIC?" until he tells me which model is "random".

It's not exactly difficult. Even if you're not an RPG-er with various other dice with more sides on hand, you can fairly easily allocate equal chances using just d6s, no matter how many models you're dealing with. If there's more than six eligible models, start off by dividing them into two equal groups and rolling high/low.

I never said it was difficult, I just think Grakmar's way is the "best"

Hey, if he can afford the plane tickets, more power to him.

Mannahnin wrote:

Happyjew wrote:I believe Grakmar put it best, for randomly choosing:

Grakmar wrote:What I do is I fly to England, find Matt Ward, and punch him in the stomach over and over screaming "WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SO IMPRACTICAL A MECHANIC?" until he tells me which model is "random".

It's not exactly difficult. Even if you're not an RPG-er with various other dice with more sides on hand, you can fairly easily allocate equal chances using just d6s, no matter how many models you're dealing with. If there's more than six eligible models, start off by dividing them into two equal groups and rolling high/low.

Care to explain how you divide a prime number of models into "equal groups"?

Clearly the top half goes into the lows, and the bottom half goes into the highs. Jeez.

The random model thing is stupid everyone I play against is fine to just let me choose when I ask them at the start of the game I recommend trying that first.

WanderingFox wrote:Clearly the top half goes into the lows, and the bottom half goes into the highs. Jeez.

Which would be great, except that prime numbers are not divisible by 2. Which means you cannot put them into "two equal groups." There's no "top half" and "bottom half" when you can't halve them.

... that was a joke.

I was referring to the top and bottom half of the model that is left over when you divide by 2.

In other words 7 would be split as 3.5 and 3.5

Hence the top half and bottom half... of the offending model.

Corollax wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:

Happyjew wrote:I believe Grakmar put it best, for randomly choosing:

Grakmar wrote:What I do is I fly to England, find Matt Ward, and punch him in the stomach over and over screaming "WHY WOULD YOU MAKE SO IMPRACTICAL A MECHANIC?" until he tells me which model is "random".

It's not exactly difficult. Even if you're not an RPG-er with various other dice with more sides on hand, you can fairly easily allocate equal chances using just d6s, no matter how many models you're dealing with. If there's more than six eligible models, start off by dividing them into two equal groups and rolling high/low.

Care to explain how you divide a prime number of models into "equal groups"?

You don't need to, a small selection of dice will cover most if not quite all eventualities.
For each prime number roll the following dice:

3 - D3 (D6/2)
5 - D6 (re-roll 6s till you get a result 1-5)
7 - D8 (re-roll 8s till you get a result 1-7)
11 - D12 (re-roll 12s till you get a result 1-11)
13 - D20 (re-roll 14-20s till you get a result 1-13, a little less practical this one)
17 - D20 (reroll 18-20s till you get a result 1-17)
19 - D20 (reroll 20s till you get a result 1-19)

For any higher, you're rolling D100 (2xD10), and I'd advise you to assign multiple numbers to each model else you'd be rolling all night.

Which works nicely if you've got a selection of oddly-sided dice. But the standard die for 40k is d6's, and 40k sets do not come with any of the dice you've described.

I was mostly trying to address the issue where people will divide a group of 7 into 3 and 4, and flip a coin to decide which group is still in danger of being struck. A surprisingly large number of individuals think this produces an equal distribution.

Nebulas1 wrote:The random model thing is stupid everyone I play against is fine to just let me choose when I ask them at the start of the game I recommend trying that first.

I hope they just FAQ that in. I don't think any of the abilities in the Necron codex that are completely random (I.E Bloodswarm and Surrogate Hosts) would be too strong if you got to choose. In fact, I'd say it'd actually make them worthwhile. I don't lump MSS into this, as it can be controlled to extent, how "Random" it can be, so it's fine.

Corollax wrote:Which works nicely if you've got a selection of oddly-sided dice. But the standard die for 40k is d6's, and 40k sets do not come with any of the dice you've described.

I was mostly trying to address the issue where people will divide a group of 7 into 3 and 4, and flip a coin to decide which group is still in danger of being struck. A surprisingly large number of individuals think this produces an equal distribution.

A). Might try to get a random-numbers generator on an iPhone or something.

B) The second version would be good enough for me. It's not "equal distribution" in a strict, statistical definition of "random", but it serves the purpose of allocating the replacement-model with litte-to-no-involvement of the player (i.e. no I pick the model where Trazyn would suit me best right now). As such, it is more than adequate for the game.

Unfortunately, by consistently putting an "important" model in the larger group, you decrease its odds of being chosen by the scheme above by as much as 17%. Fortunately, this is largely irrelevant. Necron units are almost entirely uniform, with no upgrade options or wargear available to single models.

If I were the opponent, I would probably not object to this scheme. But I still want to strangle Ward for writing this completely impractical mechanic.

IMO the Nec player should get to choose. Taz isn't THAT badass. He dies fairly easy against anything SW(which is what I was playing as the 1 time I played against him) so its not THAT big a deal where he goes. My cuz and I played. He stuck taz in a squad of lych and each time he died just replaced a lych each time. No biggie.

Which is why they should just take the word random out.

I also have 2 other solutions.

A) roll a scatter die and the squad closest to where its pointing to gets taz(for hits use.the lil arrow
A2) for hits the owning player chooses

B) chances are your only going to have what 6 squads he can go into? Number them and roll a d6 (if you have less than 6 then either reroll or the higher number means you pick) if you.have.more than 6 roll 2d6 and follow same rules as.I.just stated

I HATE necrons more than anything because.my cuz often beats me and has over.the years, but I say just let him choose. It makes the.model worth.taking.to have.that.awesome flexibility suck it up guys! He's gonna be a pain and should be lol


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Oh.oh! and I totally.agree with the plain flight idea. Let me know when and I.might.be able to help pitch on the ticket Lmao