A spectacular way to protect your investment in an Elite unit. If you have to pay 5+ resources for a unit, you will want some way to get it back and this fits the bill perfectly. Also, if it's only dying by one damage in the first place, you could always use this as a shield to save it. This card is all about protection!

Potentially useful to soak up attacks or draw out events.

For one resource this can read 'Counter Doom, Fury of Sicarius, Exterminatus, Glorious Intervention,
Tzeentch's Firestorm, Power from Pain, etc'

This strikes me as strong but situational. It's probably best suited to a Chaos deck that tries to ramp Cultists into quick elite Daemon units, but there are a lot of consistency issues, draw order problems, etc. On the plus side, the shield icon means that it's not completely useless in the early game.

Question: 

Does this have to be played immediately after the Elite unit is destroyed, or can you play it say next turn and just search your discard pile for the topmost Elite unit that died? It doesn't say "Immediately after", it just says after.

Reason I'm asking is if you don't have the 1 resource to pay for the card, can you save your unit next turn when you get your 4 resources.

It is a Reaction, so you have to do it immediately.

Card with some good options. Currently 3/5 because I feel the Elites are currently to expensive for the meta to work with. Once we'll see 2-3 drop Elites this card should see play.

It hasn't great play at the moment due to the lack of Elites worth playing. 3/5 hoping for future elites.

Now that we have a few more Elites to choose from - anybody change their opinion of this card?

Nope.

Now that we have a few more Elites to choose from - anybody change their opinion of this card?

Thing is, not many of those new elites are worthwhile. And those big units are still very susceptible to routing and even exhausting effects.

What the card does, it does well, but it's still very hard to build a deck heavy on elite units to make Fall Back not so situational.

Its not that there aren't good Elite units, more that there isn't a good deck that runs Elites in sufficient numbers to justify the inclusion of Fall Back.

For example, nobody would deny that Plaguebeast and Bloodletter are both good elites.

However, even if you run three of each, its still not worth including an Event card that needs to be in hand at the time that one of those six units is destroyed. Draw it too late, and its useless. Draw it too early, and its useless.

I feel that to be playable, Fall Back would need to be in a deck with at least 8 or 9 Elites. The good Elites already exist, but the means to play a deck that in't crippled by that cost curve don't.

Its not that there aren't good Elite units, more that there isn't a good deck that runs Elites in sufficient numbers to justify the inclusion of Fall Back.

People keep saying this but it is not true. Decks that revolve around Know No Far and Tense Negotiations thrive on this card. With Know No Fear having elite units in your HQ is not a much of a concern, Getting three there at once is actually and ideal move. There is definitely an elite archetype that fits this card. People are not running it because there are only 1-2 decks that can support 6+ elite units but those decks DO exist and they HAVE competed at highly competitive events.

Fair enough! You know I'm always up for seeing ideas challenged, and it is my greatest joy at a scientist to be shown to be wrong!

I don't rate it myself, though, and won't do till we get the tools to have a consistent and strong Elite deck with 8+ Elites.

Your own estimations may vary, of course!

The question of the cost curve tends to be one of strategy. People are still very invested in the idea that they need a lot of units spread out over the entire sector in order to make sure they are winning sufficient command, especially in the first round or two. This translates into loading the deck with a bunch of 1, 2 and 3 cost units so as to have as strong a command showing as possible in the first round or two, hopefully dominating the resource game.

Thing is, there are other ways to do it. Pick one planet, put a bunch of Pirates and Traders there and you either create a nice little resource farm for yourself, or a trap where their warlord needs to go every round. 

That's not a fully-formed idea, of course, but it does serve to make the point. IMHO, the "viability" of Elite decks probably has more to do with Meta notions of the usual Command phase and resource management strategies than it does with the quality, or even number, or Elite units available. (Of course, now I have to put my money where my mouth is and build that deck....)

The question of the cost curve tends to be one of strategy. People are still very invested in the idea that they need a lot of units spread out over the entire sector in order to make sure they are winning sufficient command, especially in the first round or two. This translates into loading the deck with a bunch of 1, 2 and 3 cost units so as to have as strong a command showing as possible in the first round or two, hopefully dominating the resource game.

 

Thing is, there are other ways to do it. Pick one planet, put a bunch of Pirates and Traders there and you either create a nice little resource farm for yourself, or a trap where their warlord needs to go every round. 

 

That's not a fully-formed idea, of course, but it does serve to make the point. IMHO, the "viability" of Elite decks probably has more to do with Meta notions of the usual Command phase and resource management strategies than it does with the quality, or even number, or Elite units available. (Of course, now I have to put my money where my mouth is and build that deck....)

This approach would be a bit in the sights of Exterminatus however, but would love to see the outcome

This approach would be a bit in the sights of Exterminatus however, but would love to see the outcome

Yeah, but by the same token, the "spread out with smaller units" strategy is a bit in the sights of Calamity. Heck, Fall Back itself is a bit in the sights of Doom. No strategy is completely unassailable. That's why tactical decisions are so important in this game.

Touché

Surely became a 5/5 card after the dawn of Synapse units?

Yes.

Well, 5/5 would be an auto-include for every deck that can run this card, which would be every deck for every warlord.

To be honest, even for Tyranids its not an autoinclude. I'd say 1x is a sensible conservative minimum, but thats dispensable too. 3x belongs only with Savage Warrior Prime, and maybe Zoanthrope. The deck space is directly competed with by No Mercy, and thats a stronger pick with every other Synapse.

Well, 5/5 would be an auto-include for every deck that can run this card, which would be every deck for every warlord.

 

To be honest, even for Tyranids its not an autoinclude. I'd say 1x is a sensible conservative minimum, but thats dispensable too. 3x belongs only with Savage Warrior Prime, and maybe Zoanthrope. The deck space is directly competed with by No Mercy, and thats a stronger pick with every other Synapse.

Apologies, my sentence should read "Surely became a 5/5 card for Tyranids after the dawn of synapse units".

Sadly TGD is delayed so I still haven't had any hands-on deck building or play time, but in terms of the neutral cards Nids can use I personally would rate this over No Mercy. Obviously the Nids have the Synapse unit so now have a whole 3 units to choose from to trigger No Mercy instead of the usual 2, but is cancelling one shield use as good as an entire second life for your Synapse unit for one resource? Not in my mind.

In terms of magnitude of effect, I'd agree, but you also need to weigh in frequency of opportunity to use an effect, and chance of mistiming of the card.

Fall Back needs to be in hand at the time the Synapse Creature gets killed: get it too early, and it sits dead in hand for ages, get it too late and its just 1-shield. Likewise, even if you get it, you can't be sure you'll get to use it: aside from SWP, its not even sure that a Synapse Unit will see battle during a game. It needs a resource too, which isn't generally too arduous to hold back, but can sometimes be an inconvenience. 

No Mercy has lots of chances to be useful, and is never a dead draw. It can be held back for that bloodying/killer blow vs a warlord, or just dropped in opportunistically to mess up combat maths when an opponent thought their shield was going to give them the planet.

All good points, I can certainly see Fall Back sitting in hand at times.

At this stage of the game I just mislike the 'exhaust a unique unit' cards overall, but just a personal dislike.

You're quite right, and outside of Tyranids, its just too high price to pay for almost all the cards of that sort. Nullify is the big exception, I think!

Having said that, I used to run 1 x No Mercy in a lot of my decks, though the general increase in the card pool has pushed it out recently.