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So, we all know that the Reanimator is in a rough spot; it can’t fulfill its designated role – close-ranged backline support – without getting blown off the board in one turn from dedicated fire, which then continues to prevent it from fulfilling its role because, you know, it’s dead. It can’t easily use terrain to remove itself as a target because its reanimation beam (the main reason you’re taking a Reanimator in the first place) requires the target unit be visible. Yes, you could trail a line of Warriors back behind a building, but that doesn’t fit the fictional fantasy or gameplay role of Warriors – and, frankly, it doesn’t fit the depiction of Reanimators in the gorgeous new art of them, either. So that’s not an acceptable fix – especially for a model that costs 110 points.

There’s been a number of suggested fixes, most of which have been particularly focused on durability. This broad stroke is correct, but the most common suggestions – more Wounds, higher Toughness, Quantum Shielding, changing the beam’s range and LoS requirement – still don’t encourage the player to fully lean into using the Reanimator as depicted: striding amid the backlines of ranks on ranks of Warriors, silhouetted ominously against the horizon.

So, here’s a breakdown of what a Reanimator fix looks like to me:

Provides little-to-no reason to hide the Reanimator behind cover - EDIT: To be specific, this disqualifies "just go back to the 9" beam with no visibility requirement" as a fix

Encourages placing the Reanimator amid large blobs of infantry, preferably towards the back, but still close to them and visible to them

Is powerful enough to help justify the cost of the Reanimator, while still providing opponents options for counter-play – and the Necrons players options for counter-counter-play

Isn’t a stratagem or invulnerable save. I’m sick of slapping strats and ++ saves onto things as a quick fix. It’s boring and causes issues in other areas further down the line - EDIT: To be specific, this disqualifies "just give it Quantum Shielding/a 5+++" as a fix

Isn't just "the beam continues to work until the end of the turn when it dies," since that effectively turns the Reanimator into a disposable, one-use item - choose a unit for Reanimation boosts for turn 1, then forget about it for the rest of the game because it still won't be around to see turn 2.

Here’s what I’ve got so far. The exact wording is rough, but I think it gets the idea across.

Bolstered Nanopower: The Reanimator’s nanoscarabs surge through the bodies of the necrons, empowering their assaults and pressuring the enemy even as they stagger to their feet once more.
While the Reanimator is targeting a friendly NECRONS unit of five or more models with its Nanoscarab Reanimation Beam, enemy models cannot target the Reanimator with their ranged weapons unless they are closer to the Reanimator than they are to the unit being affected by the Beam.

The beam’s short range and visibility limitations, combined with the protection offered by the unit that the beam is effecting, encourages Necrons players to put their Reanimators smack-dab in the middle of the blob its reanimating, This powerful combination also enables easy Charge screening when used in combination with larger Warrior blobs, though the Reanimator remains viable while accompanying other units – the tradeoff being that you need to invest in larger units to maintain that protection, but Necrons like to do that anyway. Additionally, the Reanimation Prioritisation stratagem gains additional value, as switching beam targets can help prevent the Reanimator from being exposed to enemy fire as its original target unit dwindles to below five models.

As I see it, this change (or something similar) easily makes the Reanimator worth 110 points (if not more), and very functional within the gameplay niche GW was aiming for it to fill. If necessary, a small but substantial buff would be to reduce the number of models needed to fill this screening effect down to three, but I fear that may be pushing it too far. Either way, I would prefer to see a buff like this that may require a points raise but encourages use as a eye-catching model and provides interesting gameplay choices, over a simple points-drop.

Wouldn't it be faster and easier to give it the Character rule?

It would, but I was already stretching the line of reasoning as to how this would work in-universe pretty thin as-is.
Plus, the Character rule would be much more powerful - it would mean that having any unit of 3+ models around would shield the Reanimator, not just the unit of 5+ models being Reanimated, making it even harder to counterplay and taking away the value this rule adds to the Reanimation Prioritisation. The additional speed of just slapping the Character keyword on it doesn't make up for the value lost in other places, IMO - the new rule itself is easy enough to judge just with a glance.

Also, it's not really a Character!

How about:

1. Go back to the reanimator only has to have los to a necron unit at the start of a turn not the whole turn.

2. QS plus a FNP save, the FNP represents the reanimators ability to almost instantly self repair.

 Matt Swain wrote:
How about:

1. Go back to the reanimator only has to have los to a necron unit at the start of a turn not the whole turn.

2. QS plus a FNP save, the FNP represents the reanimators ability to almost instantly self repair.

See, here's the thing - these suggestions:

Don't provides little-to-no reason to hide the Reanimator behind cover

Don't necessarily encourage placing the Reanimator amid large blobs of infantry, preferably towards the back, but still close to them and visible to them

Aren't powerful enough to help justify the cost of the Reanimator, while still providing opponents options for counter-play – and the Necrons players options for counter-counter-play

Involve invulnerable saves. I’m sick of slapping ++ saves onto things as a quick fix. It’s boring and causes issues in other areas further down the line

Which are very specifically the opposite of the criteria I consider necessary for a fix, as I clearly listed in the original post.

Hm. I like the cut of your jib.

You have clear goals, and your proposal meets those. I like!

It really was a shame to see a new unit come out with such trash rules.

Making it fulfill its thematic role as a support unit the way you suggest is great, but at the same time it seems a bit nonsensical. The logic to making the Reanimator an invalid target as I understand you is that the empowered warriors are putting pressure on units which takes focus off of the towering walker, which one could argue would encourage a more disciplined army to focus fire on the giant thing buffing the scary robots. One of the most basic instincts of the Imperial Guard when in doubt is to "shoot the biggest thing" in sight.

The thought is in the right place, but I feel like there needs to be just a bit more to make such a rule logical.

Bit of a different direction but same vein idea.
What if instead the "Prismatic Obfuscation" Cryptek Arcana worked on a selected target each turn instead of just the cryptek equipped with it?

This gives the same end result of your proposed rule but would feel more fluffy with the cryptek doing cryptek things. Would also make the upgrade not so freaking redundant on the character.

Edit: and if that's too open to abuse, maybe limit it's affect to only canoptek units to help cut down on it a bit?
Or even restrict it to certain keywords like CORE and CANOPTEK REANIMATOR...you know, just so there's no crazy invisible monoliths floating around.

But aren't some units alive precisely because the Reanimator aggro'ed all of the hits? Say, 110 points worth of immortals/warriors that can be buffed via MWBD in the ensuing turn?

If this was translated into RTS, it would be like saying "My Medievac's are worthless because it gets targeted first by people with good micro before it can heal a lot of units."

If the reanimator was going down to 110 pts worth of firepower, yeah. But 5 of my last 6 games, it's gone down to a single 20pt las cannon shot.

 Giantwalkingchair wrote:
If the reanimator was going down to 110 pts worth of firepower, yeah. But 5 of my last 6 games, it's gone down to a single 20pt las cannon shot.

That's just bad rolls then.

A lascannon on a BS+4 platform has ~4.63% chance to insta-kill a T5, W6, Sv+3 reanimator.
A lascannon on a BS +3 platform has ~6.17% chance to insta-kill a T5, W6, Sv+3 reanimator.

The issue I think is that this problem largely has to do with psychological aspect more so than actual threat priority being played by your opponent. I suspect that because it's such a new model, despite the unit itself not being OP enough to mandate, it draws way more fire than it deserves. In a sense, it's the fear of the unknown that's causing it to get focused down so quickly and not necessarilly because it's a cool unit with bad rules.

I think this is more of a core rule problem due to the lack of provisions for intervening models. It's a problem when your opponents can cherry pick which units they are going to shoot down with 0 reactive/proactive means from the defender to mitigate that with the exception of infantries hugging terrain. My quick and dirty proposal would be to force a Ld check when targeting units that are not the closest.

For canon, i'd day give it a FNP to reflect it's near instant ability to repair itself.

Make it's living metal heal 1d3 wounds, again super repair ability.

Add a strat that would allow a destroyed reanimator a chance to get back up much like a necron character.

 skchsan wrote:
But aren't some units alive precisely because the Reanimator aggro'ed all of the hits? Say, 110 points worth of immortals/warriors that can be buffed via MWBD in the ensuing turn?

If this was translated into RTS, it would be like saying "My Medievac's are worthless because it gets targeted first by people with good micro before it can heal a lot of units."

It can't be translated into an RTS simply because we are playing an IGOUGO game. You can't even remotely debate the reanimator is durable for the cost. Bring down the model that is already a decent amount of points, and truth be told you'd realize you were just better off with more Immortals or Warriors.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
But aren't some units alive precisely because the Reanimator aggro'ed all of the hits? Say, 110 points worth of immortals/warriors that can be buffed via MWBD in the ensuing turn?

If this was translated into RTS, it would be like saying "My Medievac's are worthless because it gets targeted first by people with good micro before it can heal a lot of units."

It can't be translated into an RTS simply because we are playing an IGOUGO game. You can't even remotely debate the reanimator is durable for the cost. Bring down the model that is already a decent amount of points, and truth be told you'd realize you were just better off with more Immortals or Warriors.

Not every discussion needs to boil down to IGOUGO vs AA. We understand your disdain for IGOUGO.

At a tactical standpoint, I would be happy with the Reanimator soaking up multi-damage shots in lieu of those shots going into other units. If I was faced with a situation where I needed to decide where my lascannon is pointing at, and the army I was facing were [DDA + 3 troops] vs [DDA + 2 troops + Reanimator], I wouldn't think twice about shooting at the DDA if I was facing the former, whereas the second army would make me second guess my target priority depending on the situation (i.e. is the DDA pointing at something important? is the DDA threat priority high enough for me to gamble my lascannon shot against its QS when I can target a unit that doesn't have QS? are the troops at my door step? etc).

Army composition & positioning can force your opponent to make mistakes (that's why we have the term 'distraction carnifex'), which I think is one of the key component of 'skill' in IGOUGO 40k.

Warrior/Immortal blob supported by Reanimator causes them to be perceived as higher threat priority (whether it's actual or psychological), in comparison to just bigger warrior/immortal blob with no support.

I do agree that it should at least be T6 since S5 is the new S4.

The Reanimator is 100 points. You shouldn't be glad it's "soaking" up ANY firepower since it can't take it at all for the cost.

The closest comparison I can think of it is the sisters penitent engine which has a near identical stat line (1 less wound than the reanimator), put out 2d6 auto hitting s5 ap-1 shots, rerolls hits in combat, can have 15 s6 combat attacks or 5 s8 attacks and has a 5+++FNP on top of it....for 50pts. Or the Mortifier that can spit out 6 heavy bolter shots every turn for only 60pts.

At the very least, the reanimator is horrendously over costed.
I honestly don't see GW fixing this thing with a rule.
They'd take the easy way out and drop it's points.

Honestly, several friends were talking about the Reanimator today following a Necrons vs Thousand Sons game and I proposed that the reanimator be given quantum shielding but that its primary purpose should be increased. I proposed that that reanimator's beam be extended to a 24 inch range and that it should have 3 reanimator beams, allowing it to buff several Necron infantry units. In addition I suggested replacing its switching target stratagem for one that allowed it to double or triple up on its beams, essentially allowing it to concentrate on repairing a single unit and giving it the exception to the cap on reanimation protocols, to get it to bring back models on a 2+ if they were concentrating on a single unit. I also priced this strat at 3CP.

The point of a reanimator is to keep other things going, yet it suffers from weak durability and it doesn't do its sole job particularly well. By making it relatively fragile but incredibly adept at its task it becomes a trade off for the Necron player. This thing should be able to keep your units alive but doesn't to the degree it should.

I find the self repair abilities to be intriguing and the FNPs to make a degree of sense.