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A poor ethereal is the sole remaining member of his entourage of pathfinders. He fails his morale check twice (once during the enemy shooting phase and one when attempting to regroup.) He runs 11 inches. This fallback move puts him within 2 inches of another squad of pathfinders. Now on the following enemy shooting phase is he an eligible target to be shot, or is he considered to have joined the squad by virtue of being in coherency?

I don't have the rulebook handy, and can't remember perfectly. Normally this hinges on whether ICs join units at the end of *a* movement phase, or at the end of *your*/*the owning player's* movement phase.
If it's the former, then he joins the unit. If it's the latter, he's still a part of the former unit which can be targeted separately.

However, in your example you've already gone through your movement phase because we know he's attempted to regroup and fallen back - so he's definitely joined the unit in this case.

Falling back ICs dont join or leave units.

When his pathfinders all die he reverts to IC status, as a different unit no morale check is required I think.

Incorrect, he is still a falling back unit. You think incorrectly

If he was falling back when the last one was killed, sure, I was referring to the initial morale check when the squad is wiped out. He is not a falling back unit at that point. I may still be wrong, however.

He was a member of a unit that required a morale check, so he still takes it.

Cool, thanks for the clarification. I've had the opposite argued against me, but as my ICs are so crap they tend to die before the squad its never really come up when I've been shot at.

Could you tell me how you come to that conclusion so I can refute the argument in future?

Page 39, IC rules. Member of the unit for all rules purposes. Morale is a rule.

The argument presented to me is that they are no longer a member of he unit once the unit is wiped out and thus, as a distinct unit, do not have to take the morale test.

I'm not sure that your argument in itself is enough to refuge that, but I'll give it a go and see what response I get.

Drager wrote:
The argument presented to me is that they are no longer a member of he unit once the unit is wiped out and thus, as a distinct unit, do not have to take the morale test.

I'm not sure that your argument in itself is enough to refuge that, but I'll give it a go and see what response I get.

p39 states he doesn't become a unit of one model until the start of the next phase, so he would still test for fall back if reduced to one model, but at the start of his following turn he can regroup at full LD.

Thanks, do 't know how I kept missing that!

spongemonkee wrote:

Drager wrote:
The argument presented to me is that they are no longer a member of he unit once the unit is wiped out and thus, as a distinct unit, do not have to take the morale test.

I'm not sure that your argument in itself is enough to refuge that, but I'll give it a go and see what response I get.

p39 states he doesn't become a unit of one model until the start of the next phase, so he would still test for fall back if reduced to one model, but at the start of his following turn he can regroup at full LD.

An IC always lets a falling back unit regroup at full Ld - a nice change to 6th edition

I wasn't aware that falling back ICs can't join or leave units - if true, thanks for pointing it out. This would mean the IC doesn't automatically leave the unit at the end of the Movement phase. They'd have to keep falling back as a unit of their own until they either pass a regroup or fall back off the board...

I found the ruling for it. p 39. I had been looking in Morale and the Character section. Independent Characters cannot join squads while falling back or at least benefit from not being the lone bearer of a "Shoot me" sign,.