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I have a tough time imagining Necron Warriors in particular falling back after failing their LD test after CC. Warriors are soulless and
nearly dim-witted troops that mindlessly follow any orders of the Overlord. They cant think for themselves, they toasters with big guns. So why the heck would they fail their
ld test after a cc ?

Metal_days wrote:I have a tough time imagining Necron Warriors in particular falling back after failing their LD test after CC. Warriors are soulless and
nearly dim-witted troops that mindlessly follow any orders of the Overlord. They cant think for themselves, they toasters with big guns. So why the heck would they fail their
ld test after a cc ?

balance is the best reason I can come up with... I mean it was either making the whole army stubborn or giving every single necron model LD 10...

even then, necrons being mindless doesnt mean the lords arent aware of preservation or the necessity of falling back... I mean a 60 million year old civiliazation that destroyed Gods but got their butts kicked by space fairies probably knew when to advance and when to relent...

WarlordRob117 wrote:even then, necrons being mindless doesnt mean the lords arent aware of preservation or the necessity of falling back...

This should cover it. The individual warriors might not be afraid but they're probably linked to their Necron Lord who makes the decisions for them. If he thinks it's better they retreat then they will. And the Lords are both experienced and intelligent enough to know when they had better make a strategic withdrawal. Losing today but staying alive means you can come back tomorrow and do it right. Dying for no good reason is stupid.

I vaguely recall it being mentioned that even warriors still included a "sliver" of their original soul. Perhaps this sliver can still experience fear, and perhaps it is able to influence the machine's "programming" on a very basic level, but enough so that it retreats.

Alternatively, you could perhaps explain it with delicate "efficiency calculators" that order a unit to retreat for repairs once some formula hints at the attack not paying off? Though I have a feeling that the creators lean more towards the first option.

Spetulhu wrote:If he thinks it's better they retreat then they will. And the Lords are both experienced and intelligent enough to know when they had better make a strategic withdrawal.

This would be a perfect explanation if Ld-tests would have an effect on the entire army instead of individual units. :(

I cant think of a better way to explain it, but then again I cant think of a better army to fight tyranids for this reason and many others. The "hive-mind, Im controlled by my lord" thing works in conjunction with prolonged campaigns in that necrons still phase out giving them the ability to replace their losses quickly through reanimation or being repaired in the tomb... Im actually pleased with the leadership 10 all around... when you are an implacable army that has seen it all and lived through (and died through) the worst the galaxy has to offer, you are warranted a very strong-willed, albeit controlled mind.

Its "strategic withdrawal" not falling back
Same thing would go for Space Marines, they will fight to the last man for they know no fear.
I guess you could say something like that for half the 40k armies, why would daemons, CSM, nids and SoB run away?

A form of morale exists everywhere - it does not have to be the extreme case of people dropping their guns and running home screaming, like a headless chicken. Failure of morale could also express itself in the unit commander (or the next in line) making a rash decision, namely to pull back with the intention to regroup elsewhere because he or she sees no imminent chance for victory in light of the current situation. Sisters of Battle could have a crisis of faith, Tyranids could have animalistic basic instincts tell them to flee, and even daemons are said to know fear...

They are just advancing in a different direction.

I wish I knew why my necron warriors ran away.
I've lost multiple games because my warriors got hit by some IG tank or some GK psycannons and a few died.

I have horrible luck with LD tests, even at LD10, I failed 3 out of 4 in one game.

Pilau Rice wrote:They are just advancing in a different direction.

Did you do your mandatory time in the Finnish Army? Because that's just what we were told... we don't retreat or run away, we just do a 180 and advance in a different direction.

I always thought it was that, when leaders were absent, they depended on basic strategy programming. enemy too close, fall back, shoot; repeat if needed.

Newcrons are not terminators. They are metal men with feelings. And feelings can be hurt.

Maybe the Necrons malfuction when to large a force gets to close, causing them to run toward there master for reprograming, insruction or repair.

Spetulhu wrote:

Pilau Rice wrote:They are just advancing in a different direction.

Did you do your mandatory time in the Finnish Army? Because that's just what we were told... we don't retreat or run away, we just do a 180 and advance in a different direction.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Wasn't it explained in the 3rd Ed book that though they are souless robots they aren't stupid?

"This enemy is not dying fast enough."

"Fall back, reanimate, regroup, fire!"

Lynata wrote:Alternatively, you could perhaps explain it with delicate "efficiency calculators" that order a unit to retreat for repairs once some formula hints at the attack not paying off? Though I have a feeling that the creators lean more towards the first option.

Nope, you were right with this one. In the 3e codex, it is explicitly noted that Necrons do not fall back due to fear, but for strategic gain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Omegus wrote:Newcrons are not terminators. They are metal men with feelings. And feelings can be hurt.

... Well, yeah, that is the case now.

God I miss the 3e codex.

As far as I know its in the codex and its something about their initial will to live on being stronger than their protocols to follow commands.

You cant follow commands when you are dead.

Eydude1 wrote:As far as I know its in the codex and its something about their initial will to live on being stronger than their protocols to follow commands.

Eeeh, not in the new codex. The new codex makes mention of the fact that they don't even have enough will left to commit the suicide they would so desire if they had the mental capacity to conceptualize it.

Morale and morale failure can mean a lot of different things. A big part of it is a solders conviction that he/she can win, as well as ability to communicate, and the cohesion of forces. A morale failure can represent the breakdown of communication, of unit cohesion, or of battlefield control instead of the more standard "panic and run away". In any of those situations a Necron Warrior would be expected to fall back. It may be falling back to re-group and reform, to re-establish communication or get new orders, or just to a more tactically advantageous position.

The key aspect of units that never fall back isn't that they are fearless. Plenty of fearless solders will fall back. It is that they are stubborn, unwilling to fall back even when it may lead to victory.

Necron troops are emotionless and fearless, but not prideful or stubborn. They will fall back when they calculate it to be advantageous. In this situation a successful morale save represents their commanders convincing them holding their ground is the best course of action. Of course, in this case "convincing" merely refers to saying "don't retreat". They are robots after all.

The issue is, the Necrons do not survive falling back! They get swept and lose whole units. I know that fluff doesn't match gameplay, but that doesn't make any tactical sense. If the unit stays, it has a chance of killing a few more enemy models and some of the dead have a chance to reanimate, if it turns and runs then all the "dead" can't reanimate and more than likely the rest of the unit dies too.

First, on what "falling back" means:
Getting swept does not represent a unit getting annihilated, it represents it moving outside the scope of the conflict, either due to death, falling back, or becoming broken up to the point that they no longer contribute in a meaningful way.

Likewise failing to re-animate does not indicate the Necron is 'dead', but that it will no longer be contributing to the battle at hand, either because re-animating will take too long or because they phased out.

Remember, a 40k "battle" usually represents a small part of a larger conflict. A unit that is "swept" could be dead, or it could have fallen back to regroup off the board.

Second, on making tactical sense:
Again, this goes back to what morale is. It is a commanders job to see the big picture. A morale failure represents loss of unit cohesion, failure to communicate, and general battle field disorder taking control of a situation.

Two equally valid and "tactically correct" decisions on the part of the commander (hold the line as long as possible so the tanks can get into position) and the solder (this position can't be held, we can save lives by falling back to a more defensible position) can conflict without either being "wrong". Typically it is the commanders view that takes precedence.

But when communications breaks down, when units lose cohesion and leadership, when the commander is focused on other things, and the troops no longer have direct orders, or no longer believe in them (in other words, when a morale failure occurs) the troops are left to act on their own initiative.

Their perfectly valid tactical decision to fall back may be a bad thing from the commanders perspective, as it may cost him the battle, but his perspective no longer matters. He is failing to communicate his orders, failing to enforce his will, and put his troops in a situation where his orders could not, or would not be carried out.

So a Warriors decision to "fall back" can be assumed to be logical and advantageous from his limited perspective. It may not be correct from a bigger picture perspective where the commander knows help is on the way. It may not be what is best for the battle as a whole. But the warrior doesn't know that, that isn't a perspective the Warrior has access to. In absence of a superiors orders, and a wider understanding of the battle, falling back was the logical decision, for one reason or another.

I think they have retained a tiny bit of the emotions-such as fear-that they had before they got turned into robots.