Crazy scenario with Ethereal characters

[Siphen]

So this just came up in a game I recently played...Me playing Vampire Counts against Ogres.

I took a unit of Skeletons, with a Necromancer and Ethereal Characters (Tomb Banshee/Cairn Wraith) all in the same unit. Over the course of a couple rounds of combat, all of the skeletons were wiped out, but the unit held. The only models left were the Necromancer and the ethereal characters....so what happens?

Non-ethereal characters cannot join ethereal models, but they started in the same unit. We couldn't decide what would happen. Do the characters immediately cease to be one unit - the Necromancer and the Ethereal characters become two separate combats? Do they stay in one unit until the end of the combat (keep in mind that characters cannot leave units if it's not the movement phase)? Or can all the characters stay as one unit due to some weird loophole?

I kind of doubt that there's a 100% correct ruling, though I may be wrong. I'd just like to know how other people would have played it out. What are your thoughts?

[DenWhalen]

The characters can remain in a single unit. A non-ethereal character cannot join an ethereal unit (per the ethereal rule, p. 68), but that hasn't happened here. Both the necromancer and the ethereal characters joined a regular unit, then most of that unit was wiped out. The other remaining models are ethereal, but the necromancer isn't joining the unit at this point; he's already there. (The rules for a character joining a unit are on p. 97.)

[Lance Tankmen]

im not a great rules expert but if it says join ethereal models then i assume they stay together, because he isnt joining them hes been with them from the start.

[T10]

The closes thing I could find in the rules and FAQ is this:

Q: At what point after a unit has been wiped out do any characters remaining count as having left the unit? (p101)

A: As soon as the last model from the unit has been removed, any remaining characters will count as a new unit. Note that this will cause Panic tests to all friendly units within 6" (including the newly formed unit of character(s)) as the unit has been destroyed.

It doesn't address the issue of units consisting of incompatible models, and it is perhaps unfair to expect that they repeat all the conditions for joining units. It seems wisest to enforce the restrictions on characters joining units and possibly split the survivng characters into two or more distinct units.

However, who's to say that it's the Necromancer that is joining the Etheral characters instead of the other way around?

[Hell Storm]

It perfectly legal to have them joined together. As T10 said:

However, who's to say that it's the Necromancer that is joining the Etheral characters instead of the other way around?

You could even do this at any point in the game without having to kill a unit of skeletons.
Remember that the characters will stay as one unit until they are out of combat and have a chance to split off in a movement phase.

[tw1386]

Characters in a unit whose unit gets taken out of play stay as a unit as long as you want them to, but the only way this ever happens is when the unit itself is wiped out but the characters are not killed. Even if they flee and rally, the characters are still a unit until the individual characters start moving out.