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Anyone else notice how FNP, which used to be fairly common on basic troops/infantry units has almost completely disappeared from the tabletop? My theory is that this is because so much of the game has moved on from 1dmg weapons and into 2+dmg weapons. Heavy bolters are everywhere, Shuriken cannons are the new hotness, Custodes are running around with their basic troops armed with what amounts to a better version of a heavy bolter...all these things are 2dmg. And the problem with that in regards to FNP is that while its not uncommon to roll 1 6+ FNP occasionally, its significantly more uncommon to roll 2 in a row, to put it another way, for 1 wound infantry, FNP is functionally useless because they NEED those 2 6s to get any value back from their FNP investment. As the lethality of the edition has crept up higher and higher the value of a FNP save for 1 wound models has gone down dramatically.

I have thought of two solutions to this problem, at least for 1 wound models and for specific kinds of armies/models.

ATM A painboy is basically non-existent in the meta, he sees almost no play time due to the fact that a 6+ FNP on most units isn't worth much, especially when the bubble is only 3'. So instead of a 6+ FNP I think it should be changed to what amounts to a 5+ resurrection protocol. As boyz get mowed down by enemy fire the painboy runs around collecting usable body parts, so you kill 12 boyz. He finds a way to stitch 4 of them back together so that instead of losing 12 you end up losing 8 and you get 4 to add back into the mob. To justify its existence in an army a painboy would need to resurrect about 8 boyz atm. This nicely dodges the problem of current FNP rules without becoming so broken that its an auto-take for orkz.

At the same time, with multi-wound models like meganobz for example they would just be resurrected on a 5+ but with only 1 wound remaining.

You could also team this up with the "Painboss" the more expensive version of the painboy. Give him the 6+FNP AND the 5+ resurrection protocol. Suddenly there would be a reason to run both of these unseen models.


The other solution would be to make FNP just stronger in general. A 6+ FNP isn't likely to do much, but if it was a 4+, suddenly it becomes a lot more likely you save multi-dmg wounds. Currently a 6+ FNP has a likelihood of saving a single heavy bolter wound is 2.7% or not worth wasting time on. The likelihood of saving a Heavy bolter would on 4s is 25%, Still not likely, but absolutely worth the time/effort invested in the venture. I would though make it so that this scales with a models wounds. So for instance, you aren't just going to run a horde of multi-wound models with a cheap FNP model nearby. I Don't want this to go from making cheap infantry better to making things like meganobz and worse ungodly. So if you have 2+ wounds instead of 4s its 5s, if you have 4+ wounds its 6s again.

Hopefully that curtails anyone from trying to run a horde of Meganobz or other silliness.

I think you're off on why FNP is being scaled back.

I can't prove this, but I'm reasonably sure the reason GW is taking away a lot of FNP sources is to speed up the game and limit the endless reroll pools. They've also taken steps to otherwise reduce the sheer volume of Reroll Everything that you could get in 8th - not to mention reducing Overwatch to generally only happening once per turn, among other things. They're trying to cut down sources of rolling that have a high time cost and a low game impact.

Even if we're talking only D1 weapons, having to roll dozens of 6+ saves for any given army probably won't have a major impact - the replacements for factions that used to have 6+ FNP are mixed, (Sisters of Battle got '+1 armor against AP-1 and -2, which is pretty good, Orks got something kinda like Transhuman Physiology but only against S6 and 7 weapons, which makes it too niche to be broadly effective,) but I think it's clear they're trying to cut down on rolls.

(This also goes back to the start of 8th, where in promotional materials they were talking about how cool it was that you could take a Venerable Iron Hands Dreadnought who would get two 6+ FNP saves, and then within about three months had changed it to, 'We never intended for you to get multiple FNP saves'...)

Anyways, to actually talking about the rules proposal:
Buffing FNP to 4+ for hordes is a bad idea. I get that you're trying to balance it against D2 weapons, but in effect it's just going to make D1 weapons utterly pointless against hordes, which seems like the opposite of how they should work.

For the reanimation protocols: Is that rule limited to only working on Ork Boyz? Because if yes, it's not very useful because Ork Boyz are not very useful. And if no, then that could conceivably be very overpowered when accompanying a more beefy unit like Nobz, Meganobz, Lootas, etc.

Waagh beat me to my best points. To tack on a few extra thoughts:

* 6+ FNP rolls just not being worth it is probably why the remaining FNPs in the game tend to be 5+.

* I'd be worried that giving everyone a pseudo Reanimation Protocols rule would water down the uniqueness of necrons. Ideally, I like each faction feeling unique. Plus, a lot of medic characters already have some ability to revive dead models (usually in the form of a stratagem). See: apothecaries and haemonculi. At least, I *think* there's still a strat for reviving dead guys with haemonculi.

* Is FNP worth buffing? I feel like most of the 5+++ versions are already pretty decent, and the replacements Waagh pointed out for orks/sisters seem like decent prototypes for rules that accomplish the same thing but with less rolling.

(This also goes back to the start of 8th, where in promotional materials they were talking about how cool it was that you could take a Venerable Iron Hands Dreadnought who would get two 6+ FNP saves, and then within about three months had changed it to, 'We never intended for you to get multiple FNP saves'...)

Ah yes. I remember that. Given the game's current lethality, would it perhaps be reasonable to let FNP type rules stack? So for instance, being Iron Hands and being within 6" of an Apothecary both give you FNP6+. So perhaps being Iron Hands in range of an Apothecary could stack to give you FNP 5+? No more rolling than a single source of FNP, but you'd still have a reason to include something like an apothecary in a list that already has FNP from some other source. Would have to put some limits on it to avoid death stars though.

Waaaghpower wrote:
I think you're off on why FNP is being scaled back.

I can't prove this, but I'm reasonably sure the reason GW is taking away a lot of FNP sources is to speed up the game and limit the endless reroll pools. They've also taken steps to otherwise reduce the sheer volume of Reroll Everything that you could get in 8th - not to mention reducing Overwatch to generally only happening once per turn, among other things. They're trying to cut down sources of rolling that have a high time cost and a low game impact.

You're both correct. With too many random D2 weapons around, it's slowing down the game

Factors like FNP can also be represented in a more streamlined way via Toughness. Are they even necessary at all?

Pre-8th FNP's role in the game was closer to things in 8th/9th like the Thousand Sons' "+1 save against D1 weapons"; it was a durability buff against small attacks that went away when Instant Death or power weapons came into play (depending on edition). Its use as an always-on mechanic in 8th was awful and slowed the game down immensely, particularly where multiple-damage attacks and multi-wound units came into play, and doesn't need to exist or come back.

It wasn't an awful mechanic as much as it was a lot of dice rolling if you had the Death Guard and Iron Hands version.

AdMech Graia in 8th handled it closer to how I would've. One roll to negate all damage from the particular attack. Not as much dice rolling.