Worse than the deploy cost reduction supports from the core set, as the resources gained by this card are gotten in a much more conditional manner. Because it only gives you a resource on the death of your unit, it's also much more likely that you'll only get the resource after the deploy phase.

This is one of those cards where I feel like I must be missing something. Because it is so similar to the Fortress-Monastery, it seems like it needs to offer some real benefit. The only thing I can see is that it's better on the off chance that you have too many limiteds or that you aren't playing any units for a few rounds while units are dying. 

The main benefit of this card over Fortress-Monastery is that it's non-unique. Multiple copies can react off the same trigger, so you could potentially gain up to 3 resources each turn if the triggering event goes off. With that said, Promethium Mine is still better for this purpose, as it's guaranteed to trigger every turn and pays out before the Deploy phase when the resources are more useful.

This card is really only worth considering if you're already running maximum Promethium Mines and want even more support economy. A support economy strategy might even be viable someday with more cards like Calamity that can stymie you opponent's command dominance, but we're not nearly at that point yet.

Gaining resources out of command phase is good. Space Marines do get destroyed. Having to exhaust the apothecarion to use it makes the apothecarion less useful in its task. I guess that if it didn't require exhaustion to use it, having two or three in play could be a bit nuts?

Yeah, clearly this card is terrible at the moment, but I wonder if it will make more sense in the future.

Maybe some sort of SM Support-themed deck or Warlord will open up in the future, and will appreciate a 1-cost non-limited non-unique that can break even fairly quickly?

Right now though, this card is almost as bad as Guardian Mesh Armour.

I feel it's slightly better as the cost deductor but still holds no place in highly competative SM decks.

I feel it's slightly better mainly because it allows you to eventually stack up huge ammounts of resources in combination with Cato.

The effect itself is rather easy to 'trigger' the only downside is that currently there is no reason to go fully SM in an SM deck.

Still  a 2/5 however.

I can't beleive this is a 1/5.  This is at least a 4/5 if not 5/5.  I'll check again in 3 months

I've been wrong many a time before, so I could be wrong again.

What's your logic here, n00bcommander? Are you thinking its a good way of spreading resource tempo to the later game, maybe?

I also think that isn't a bad card. 

The standard reducer can only be used in units of one faction, and is limited and unique and most people rate it as solid. This support gives you a resource during the combat that can be used in events (of the allied faction also). In addition, isn't unique, so you can activate multiple copies with one casualty. I can't understand why so much hate. Isn't awesome, but is solid.

I think that this card allows you to pursue a very aggressive gameplan with Cato, turning key planets into meat grinders without second thought. Especially in combo with Holy Sepulchre and Maxos or anything else for that matter - it simply rewards you for headbutting your opponent.

Well, you have to exhaust this card, so you can't get several resources in a single battle. Furthermore, SM units are amongst the beefiest in the game, making them hard to kill in the first place (especially with cards like Indomitable, which should be an auto-include for a long time).

I'm still trying to figure out a deck that can make good use of this. So far I'm not a fan of it.

Right now this card just feels cool. So I'm going to have to test it. Winning is overrated if it's awesome to lose.

I also think that isn't a bad card. 

The standard reducer can only be used in units of one faction, and is limited and unique and most people rate it as solid. This support gives you a resource during the combat that can be used in events (of the allied faction also). In addition, isn't unique, so you can activate multiple copies with one casualty. I can't understand why so much hate. Isn't awesome, but is solid.

The potential problem here lies in the math of it.

Best case scenario is one activation each turn, from the turn you trigger it.

T1: -1R,1C when played, go back to +0R, -1C by Battle phase when you've lost a unit.

T2: +1R,-1C, but again not till Battle Phase

T3: +2R, -1C by Battle Phase. This is break even point.

That is to say, for this card to break even, you have to wait at least till two turns after you play it, and not till the Battle Phase of that turn.

Now, if we factor in that there may be turns when you don't take a SM casualty (about one third of the game turns in my experience), and that you may not get this card on turn 1 of the game.

That puts us in a position where we may be looking at a failure for this card to pay its break even if its drawn any time within 4 turns of the end of the game.

Despite this, I believe there may be a hard to quantify value in this card. First off, its a 1 cost deploy in a faction that doesn't often tun 1 cost deploys, which gives a mild deploy tempo advantage if the deck slot it takes was of a 2+ cost card. Second, it shifts resources from the turn its played till later, which means more access to resources in the late game and less in the early game. Depending on style of play and when your deck suffers/excels most, this may have tempo advantages too.

However, much the same arguments are made for and against Promethium Mine, which is more or less the same thing with about the same speed of payback as far as resources for deploy actions go (though this card is slightly faster for resources for combat actions, which is signifcant for space marines), and gains consistency in exchange for the Limited status. Promethium Mine is widely considered a poor card, but I think this card is slightly stronger than Promethium Mine.

Does that make it strong enough for inclusion?

With the growing card pool and excellent low cost non-unit options that emerge from both AM and Tau allies, and from SM themselves, I'd say no. The question is, if you run this, are you cutting better cards like Crushing Blow, Staging Ground, Tense Negotiations, etc?

There may be a deckshape that can exploit this card though, especially if options emerge in the future for a hard-stall game (e.g. an event card that can force a draw on a planet for the first turn of the game), so this card should be kept in the back of mind, much like cards like Piranha Hunter and Penal Legionnaire. I don't think its viable yet, but I strongly encourage others to test and record, and with good scientific rigor note if it improves or weakens their game on average, especially paying attention to what would have been in its card slot in place.

I dont see this as a garbage card like everybody else does, I am sure that if you make a deck full of 1-2 drops and you abuse catos ability + this and cost reducers you can potentially be resource rich to start deploying heavier units like dreads and other high cost units.

If you cost reduce a 1 drop and it dies then you get 1-3 resources back depending on how many supports in play, there are ways to get gain from this but im sure its subtle and would require a very specific deck to see any use of it.

Right, tempo change in the right deck shape, thats what I'm getting at. If you can build a low/high deck that misses out the mid-range you could get the resources flowing in at just the right time.

I can see that working, except that SM still relies a lot on its midsize drops and doesn't have much high cost quality. Also, despite some strong additions recently, most of SM's 1-2 drops come from neutral or allied factions.

One thing I'm thinking is that same deck might synergise well with Staging Grounds, because of the timing of the resource gain, and the fact that both decks would want to build heavily around a 1-2 cost swarm.

Will poke around the deckbuilder though and see if I can come up with an experimental concept.