I've already seen this take place with the Necrons.  Mnb had a formation that I reduced to 1 tomb spyder on turn 1.  It rallied at the end of turn one, failed to activate on the retain for turn 2, then returned near full strength on turn 3.  Of course this was played where all BMs were removed after rallying so it isn't clear what would have happened had there been extra BMs.  Still, this annoyance exists already.  Regardless we need to come up with a ruling that works for all the armies and then adjust the lists (if need be) accordingly.  

Come to think of it, Corey played a game against me years ago where he held off bringing his entire army on the board until turn 2.  He won narrowly but mainly because of my own mistake of not remembering what turn it was - a psychological effect of delaying deployment that was entirely intentional.

There are a lot of advantages the Necron have, but staying off board (especially now with BMs being retained) is a risky gamble at best.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

That Spyder would have been left with 0 BM anyway with the current rule (a broken formation of 1 that rallies is left with 0 BM). And that was just one formation, what do you supposed will happen when you could do this if you like and do it with all of your formations.

_________________
Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

If this is mostly applicable to Eldar and Necron, and eldar seem very quiet on the matter or it simply isn't a problem, is there an issue with simply adding a line to the necron rules that say any detachment that fails to activate while off board may not take a hold action; the activation is simply wasted. It would basically be the Aircraft standown rule and eliminates using marshall actions to regenerate off board.

_________________
-Vaaish

however realistic it may be to allow regrouping off-board (and I agree it IS realistic) I really dont' think it's a good idea.

It's one thing to do it on the board, where your opponent at least has the option of derailing your regrouping, undoing it, or destroying you before you can complete it.. it's another thing entirely to allow it to happen off-board where you are invincible.

I'd much rather see a failure to activate an off board unit result in either them stepping onto the field (If possible), or doing nothing at all rather than being able.

Something like:  If an off-board formation is activated, it must be given an order that allows it to enter the board.  If the activation role is failed, the formation must move onto the board (if able to do so legaly), or forfeit it's activation entirely.

_________________
Necron Army Champion
"Do not come whining to me because you are weaker than your enemy." - Alexander Corvinus

Dave, I don't know.  What is weird is nobody has asked this before (or at least brought it up in the last 3-4 years).  That might mean it is simply an unattractive option.  
---
I think the fail-to-activate-nothing-happens solution might be the simplest, but it needs to be an Epic rule, not a Necron rule.  I just remembered Harlequins can go in and out of the webway at will, and there will GUARANTEED be other applications to this other than just armies with portals.  

Vaaish, one problem that has been brought up is Corey suggested that the Necron player be FORCED to make a move if a move was possible.  Open portal?  Gotta take it.  I don't subscribe to that at all.  

My feeling is that if you aren't coming on the board with anything else, you have forfeited your turn and things are done for the Necron/Eldar/whichever player.  They don't need to burn activations but they can opt out of participating.  It isn't necessarily a stand-down action for a formation but a stand-down for the army.  This is how Eldar are played and it should be fine for everyone else.  

The water gets muddied when it comes to failed activations.  Can a player regroup off board?  I say they should since it matches the fluff, it makes logical sense, and it means less fiddling with the core mechanics.  Shooting requires a target.  Moving requires a location.  Regrouping doesn't require anything but rolling two dice.

EDIT

Come to think of it, the Necron can already remove BMs off board with a legal marshall rule.  Take a Necron formation on the board with BMs.  It marshalls, opts to move off the board, then removes BMs.  That would be the same untouchable type of situation as regrouping yet the action was initiated on the board.  It gets way too fiddly to not allow regrouping off board IMO.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Mosc:

I want you to understand clearly, that my thought that you should HAVE to move onto the board reflects what Jervis said should happen in such situations, not simply my personal feelings.

That's why I suggested the "Must move onto the board (if leagally able to do so), or forfeit their activation."

It's an either/or rule.  Either A: You move onto the board if leagally able to do so, or B: You forfeit your activation.

But you have a good point about using the Marshall in reverse to rally off the board for Necrons...  Depending on how the general ruling goes, it may be nessesary to address this situation for the Necron's specifically, as regrouping for them allows unit regeneration.  I really don't want to see people restoring formation off-board.

_________________
Necron Army Champion
"Do not come whining to me because you are weaker than your enemy." - Alexander Corvinus

come to think of it, with the new "void shield" rule for the necrons, units are being regenerated off board. so maybe we should be able to with a hold action as well.

true, but if we are allowing it for one it seems odd that we wouldn't for the other

The thing is, to do this "regroup off board", you've got to have a formation that 1) has been broken by the enemy, 2) has survived to the end of the turn, 3) has successfully rallied off-board in the End Phase of that turn, then 4) spends the next turn off board and needs to roll pretty decently to clear any lingering Blast markers (assuming they don't auto-clear anymore) and restore units, and *then* another turn after that finally comes back.

So, basically, you've got to have formations that have gotten savaged in Turn 1 to try this, anything after that leaves a high likelihood of the enemy exploiting your lack of presence.

I'm failing to see how this is game breaking or even thought of as over-powered... seems like more of a (risky) desperation move to me.

Certainly you can try it with a Marshal to move off the board, but that means you're leaving the battlefield to the enemy, and not doing any damage to them as you do it... and it would *still* have to be a formation that's taken damage or it's not worth it.

_________________
"EPIC: Total War" Lead Developer

Now living in Boston... any EPIC players want to meet up?

I honestly don't care at all which way this goes as long as a consistent choice is made for all lists. As such I think it's a NetERC committee decision, and they need to have a quick chat and make a call on it for all portalesque lists.

_________________
http://www.troublemakergames.co.uk/
Epic: Hive Development Thread

My point exactly.  We're allowing troops to regenerate but the one place where the Necrons are absolutely the safest they AREN'T shedding BMs?  That is back asswards.  The beauty of allowing regrouping off board is that it requires nothing new, just a small clarification.  

Try taking the regroup away and now what to do you do with the marshall?  
You cannot regroup off board, but you can regenerate one stand off board but no more than that because that would be related to the mechanic of removing BMs which you cannot do off board.  You cannot marshall off the board and come onto the board and remove BMs since your activation began off the board but you can marshall on the board, move off the board and remove BMs because your activation began on the board.
  Uhmmm.. No.

The Necron player already has enough of an incentive to stay on the board without forcing his hand.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

ok, then let me paint you a picture.

Turn 1
Necron Heavy Destroyers (w/ Destroyer Lord) come out, Savage one of your tank units.  Shortly afterwards, you lay down a barrage of fire on them killing half the formation and breaking it.

Heavy Destroyers withdraw, through another portal, off-board, where you can't finish them off.  At the end of the turn they rally, removing BM.

Turn 2
Heavy Destroyers Marshal.  They make a 0cm movement, stay off board, and roll moderately well on their Regroup roll, and remove all remaining blast markers, and restore the formation to full strength, while remaining invulnerable to attack.

Turn 3
Heavy Destroyers once more make an apearance, ripping into your tank formations, likely even destroying some who had spent the last two turns getting beat on, with no option for hiding safely away.

I'd personally find that immensely irritating, and unsatisfying.

Even better, a Necron player could have a fully decked out Warrior formation, which would make it a BTS formation, use it in a critical first turn assault, and then withdraw it back into a portal where it can recharge.  This would then deny you any chance of actually destroying said formation.

Then, near the end of turn 3, they can bring it back on the board, taking away a VP from you.  Nothing you can do to stop it, other than try to destroy EVERY portal in their army.

If HAVE to come on the board, then all that silliness goes away.  Not to mention, it's just plain wrong to play part of the game off-board. (and for the record, I was under the impression that even with using the void shield rule, Necron regneration would ONLY take place for on-board formations)

Granted, this is an issue that has an impact on more than one army, but it's effects will be most pronouced with the Necrons as portals are the key element on which the army list functions.

_________________
Necron Army Champion
"Do not come whining to me because you are weaker than your enemy." - Alexander Corvinus