Ran into this last night:

If a necromancer's power is triggered so that he summons a re-animate, AND if you have no re-animates left in reserves, can you destroy one in another area and then place it in the battle?

According to the rules, you can do this for recruiting purposes, but it's not clear if this summoning applies as well.

We played that the necro COULD destroy and summon a re-an from elsewhere. That ruling cost me two key fights against my undead opponent, so I'm particularly curious.....

I don't think it's covered in the rules, but my group would probably have played it just like yours did. Though in all honesty I have no Idea how that player had no more reanimates, even late in the game I've always had plenty as have the others in our group.

Lucky fate card draws, probably. I would probably play it the same way.

Yeah, the guy who had no re-animates ran out end of year 5. It was a combo of things that drained his re-ans: 1) He did get several good fate draws. 2) We had two season cards that let everyone in the game recruit for all their resources. His dials were jacked. And 3) he had a very passive neighbor on his left, I was on his right, and my neighbor on my right was aggressive. So I'm fighting tooth and nail with guy on my right, which allows this guy to slowly work across the board, pushing back neutrals, and gaining tons of territory without almost zero battles. So he never really had a chance to lose any re-ans!

I would say NO - the only time you can scrap units voluntarily is when recruiting, and I don't think this ability counts as "recruiting" (otherwise, it could have said "recruit 2 reanimates"). Thus, if you run out of Reanimates, the Necromancer's power would be less effective until you have some destroyed Reanimates.

I submitted an official ruling request yesterday. Will let you know when I hear.

Is there some official clearing house for official Runewars rulings?

sigmazero13 said:

No, it could not. Recruiting would force you to place the Reanimates in one of your Strongholds (which would be stupid). The really cool thing about

summoning /raising Reanimates is that they participate in the very battle they were raised in.

Chancellor of Sol said:

Ok, let me rephrase what it COULD have said, then: "recruit 2 reanimates IN THIS AREA".

In either case, if recruiting DOES have that specific meaning, it just reinforces even more that NO, you cannot scrap units during combat to use this power; the rule is very specific that it only applies to recruiting, and thus if this is not recruiting, you cannot do it; if you run out of Reanimates, you're just out of luck.

For what it's worth, this is one of the questions I've asked Corey (I had a whole batch), so we'll see what his official answer is.

It doesn't mention any special abilities or tactics cards in the rulebook, and there are no other ways to receive units besides recruiting if NOT using special abilities or tactics cards, so what did you want it to say?

broken said:

My point is, they were pretty explicit about it; if they didn't mean it to apply ONLY TO RECRUITING, why would they have specifically said it does?

There is one other way to get units that isn't described as "recruiting": Cities producing Neutral units (this is not described as recruiting, either).

We'll have to see what Corey says of course, but in the meantime, I think the term "recruiting" has a specific meaning, one that does not apply to the Necromancer or gaining Neutral units. I can't remember the wording of the Tactics cards.

For what it's worth, here's something I got from Corey on this:

Q: When a Necromancer uses its special ability can the player destroy friendly Reanimates in another area to create 2 Reanimates in the battle?

A: No. Units may only be voluntarily destroyed when recruiting units as specified on page 31 of the rulebook.

Excellent! Another reply that helps clear up the outstanding questions! Thanks for keeping us up to date!

In case anyone didn't see it already, this answer and many others from recent threads are part of the new FAQ 1.2. The game designers are impressively responsive to rules questions!

hey if you go to the updated faq's section it will say that you can only do it when recruiting