Codex Necrons: Reanimation Protocols

Warhammer Community dropped a chunk of rule previews for Codex: Necrons. The longest and most important segment of the article was the complete text of Reanimation Protocols.

The net then proceeded to blowup. Different people giving their hot take on the rule. Many of them boiled down to “OMG, Necrons never go away!” and “You have to kill the entire unit!” Others were more nuanced. Still, many online posters believed you kept checking until all models reanimated.

So, let’s go through the rule paragraph by paragraph and see if we can figure what is really happening. I’ll skip the flavor text and get right into the meat.

START REANIMATION PROTOCOLS

The first paragraph tells us when to enact Reanimation Protocols. Check immediately after an enemy unit fights or shoots a unit with Protocols. If that unit was not wiped out and had models destroyed by the attacks, then Reanimation Protocols activate.

Please note that “those destroyed models begin to reassemble”. Models from previous attacks do not reassemble. They had their chance.

Next, total the wounds of the models counting as destroyed in the previous step. Roll that many D6 with a target of 5+. Successful dice rolls are put into a pool. The last sentence merely limits how much the roll may be moddified, never better than 4+ or worse than 6+.

Now we’re comparing the pool to the destroyed models. If you have successful dice in the pool equal to or greater than the Wounds characteristic of any of the reassembling models, then you may choose a model to put back into play.

The returning model sets back up with its unit at full Wounds. Normally, you’ll be able to set it up anywhere it could be legally placed. The first two bullet points prevent you from playing shenanigans with the Fight Phase. Reanimating models cannot get into Engagement Range unless the unit is already there. And if you charged this phase, then you can’t get closer to the target of the charge.

Bonus bullet point, the reanimating model does not count as a casualty for Morale this turn.

Last rules paragraph! Remove a number of dice from the pool equal to the Wounds of the reanimated model. The phrase “repeat this process” starts a loop beginning from the previous paragraph. Check again to see if there are remaining “successful dice in the pool equal to or greater than the Wounds characteristic of any of the reassembling models”. If so, then you’ll get to reanimate another model.

If you don’t have enough dice left or run out of models to reassemble, then the loop ends. Any models that failed to reassemble are discarded as are any dice remaining.

END REANIMATION PROTOCOLS

Example 1
A unit of 5 Ophydian Destroyers loses 3 models in the shooting phase. The Necron player takes 9 dice, 3 models at 3 Wounds each, and rolls 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, and 6. He places the 4 dice that rolled 5+ aside. Each reanimating Ophydian has 3 Wounds. Since 4 dice is more than 3 Wounds they place one Destroyer back in the unit. They deduct 3 dice from the pool. Now, they only have 1 die left. As this is less than 3, the remaining die and 2 Ophydian models are discarded. The unit has 3 models now.

Example 2
A unit of 20 Necron Warriors loses 12 models in the fight phase. The Necron player rolls 12 dice and scores 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6,and 6. Those 7 dice form a pool. Each Warrior has one Wound, so 7 is greater than 1 and a single model is put back into play. The remaining 6 dice are compared to 1 Wound and are greater, so a second model is reanimated. Likewise, this repeats, removing one die each time until both the models and pool have been depleted. The Warriors unit reanimated 7 models and stands 15 strong.

An easily noticed consequence is that multi-wound models have a hard time returning to play. One Wound models, on the other hand, will completely deplete you pool of successes. Hopefully you’ll get your opponent to engage your chaff before your more valuable units.

Also, and this is easily missed, the dice you roll is equal to the Wounds characteristics. An Ophydian Destroyer is worth 3 dice whether it was a 3 Wounds or just 1.