Drop pods

[cmcd]

Thinking about a drop pod list.
 I can’t find in the rules for 9th anything about having no models on the table.  Does anyone know if that is a thing in this edition.   Thinking of a entire drop pod army. Not arriving until your first or second turn.

[Frosty the Pirate]

No more than half the total number of units in your army can be Strategic Reserve and/or Reinforcement units, and the combined points value of all your Strategic Reserve and Reinforcement units (including those embarked within TRANSPORT models that are Strategic Reserve and/or Reinforcement units) must be less than half of your army’s total points value, even if every unit in your army has an ability that would allow them to be set up elsewhere.

In Eternal War missions, Strategic Reserve and Reinforcement units can never arrive on the battlefield in the first battle round. Any Strategic Reserve or Reinforcement unit that has not arrived on the battlefield by the end of the third battle round counts as having been destroyed, as do any units embarked within them (this does not apply to units that are placed into Strategic Reserves after the first battle round has started).

Matched play rules. Under reserves and transports section.

[Typhus]

Drop Pod Assault: This transport must start the battle set up high in the skies (see Death From Above) but neither it, nor any units embarked within it, are counted towards any limits that the mission you are playing places on the maximum number of Reinforcement units you can have in your army. This transport can be set up in the Reinforcements step of your first, second or third Movement phase, regardless of any mission rules.

Note that Drop Pods explicitly ignore the restrictions that prevent you from placing more than half your army into Reserves, and that Drop Pods are allowed to arrive on turn one where it would normally be impossible.

[Jack Shrapnel]

yep, it is conceivably possible to null deploy

[Typhus]

You do need to have literally your entire army in Drop Pods (or Forgeworld equivalents) for it to work - essentially, half of your units not within Drop Pods (rounded up) have to be deployed on the table. Include a single unit of Terminators, and the option to null deploy is gone.

[raceygaming]

Ya, as far as I can tell this would only work if you used infantry characters, infantry non primaris and dreads using the FW drop pod.
so you would be looking at a lot of units of 9 with an HQ in there. I assume you would want to go with iron hands so when stuff got out of the pods they wouldn't take a movement penalty. I know this tactic works on a small scale with things like grav devs.

I also don't see anything that say the game ends when you have no models on the table so you could hold your army off the board until turn 3 BUT of course you would just be letting the other player get primary for 2 full turns, and move around to screen out your pods.

[Frosty the Pirate]

Yeah, I'd be really worried you'd get screened out really hard, it could completely fall over if you go second and your opponent has fast units that can screen out huge chunks of the board, because I don't see anything that let's drop pods violate the 9" rule anywhere. You could basically get forced onto your board edge in theory as that's the only relief from the 9" rule I know of.

[raceygaming]

May 19, 2021 9:51:52 GMT -5 Frosty the Pirate said:

Yeah, I'd be really worried you'd get screened out really hard, it could completely fall over if you go second and your opponent has fast units that can screen out huge chunks of the board, because I don't see anything that let's drop pods violate the 9" rule anywhere. You could basically get forced onto your board edge in theory as that's the only relief from the 9" rule I know of.

For sure some armies like Harlequins, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks, White scars, etc could be very problematic in terms of screening out massive chunks of the board on turn one.

[LizardTau]

Also those marine units that stop things coming from reserve 12 inches from them.

[dave]

Reminds me of a story I read (many editions past) about a white scars bike list that started the game with no models on the table. Apparently it was pretty nasty to play against since even though he could only come on from his own table edge, he could deploy in force wherever his opponent was weakest, and make them waste a turn of shooting if he went second.

The guy who finally beat him was a tau player who brought a big blob of kroot. Their infiltration rule allowed them to be set up anywhere on the table so long as they were far enough away from enemy models. In this case that meant anywhere. So, he conga-lined them all along the white scar's board edge, denying him the abilty to bring anything in from reserves. Shortest game I've ever heard of

[Jack Shrapnel]

there's a meme picture from that game that was amazing.

[Frosty the Pirate]

May 19, 2021 10:49:29 GMT -5 dave said:

Reminds me of a story I read (many editions past) about a white scars bike list that started the game with no models on the table. Apparently it was pretty nasty to play against since even though he could only come on from his own table edge, he could deploy in force wherever his opponent was weakest, and make them waste a turn of shooting if he went second.

The guy who finally beat him was a tau player who brought a big blob of kroot. Their infiltration rule allowed them to be set up anywhere on the table so long as they were far enough away from enemy models. In this case that meant anywhere. So, he conga-lined them all along the white scar's board edge, denying him the abilty to bring anything in from reserves. Shortest game I've ever heard of

This is indeed a true story.

I'm keenly aware of this since back in 5th Edition a Mechdar (Fully Mechanized Eldar/Craftworlds) list tactic was when going 2nd was to put your entire army in reserves, and use your Autarch's reserve manipulation to stay in reserves until the bottom of turn 3, meaning your opponent only got 2 turns to fight you. Then you would use something that no longer exists called "Tank Shock" to effectively use your tanks like bulldozers and physically push your opponent's models out of 3" of objectives on turn 5 at the end of the game and win any objective based game by force.

These exact two scenarios are why we had/have rules such as "auto losing for no models on the table" and "You can come on within engagement range of the enemy on your own board edge as long as you are within 6" of the edge"

[LizardTau]

Found the pic.

Attachments:

[Typhus]

May 19, 2021 9:51:52 GMT -5 Frosty the Pirate said:

Yeah, I'd be really worried you'd get screened out really hard, it could completely fall over if you go second and your opponent has fast units that can screen out huge chunks of the board, because I don't see anything that let's drop pods violate the 9" rule anywhere. You could basically get forced onto your board edge in theory as that's the only relief from the 9" rule I know of.

That's only for Strategic Reserves - for Drop Pods, no such luck. It's within the realm of the possible that one could be completely unable to deploy any Drop Pods at all, in which case they (and their occupants) would all be destroyed at the end of battle round 3.

[cmcd]

May 19, 2021 7:04:45 GMT -5 Typhus said:

You do need to have literally your entire army in Drop Pods (or Forgeworld equivalents) for it to work - essentially, half of your units not within Drop Pods (rounded up) have to be deployed on the table. Include a single unit of Terminators, and the option to null deploy is gone.

I would argue this.

Drop pod Assualt: “This transport must start the battle set up high in the skies (see Death From Above) but neither it, nor any units embarked within it, are counted towards ANY limits that the mission you are playing places on the maximum number of Reinforcement units you can have in your ARMY. ...” page 190 SM Codex

10. Declare reserves and transports “ ... No more than half the total number of units in your ARMY can be Strategic Reserve and/or Reinforcement units, and the combined points value of all your Strategic Reserve and Reinforcement units (including those embarked within TRANSPORT models that are Strategic Reserve and/or Reinforcement units) must be less than half of your ARMY’S total points value, even if every unit in your army has an ability that would allow them to be set up elsewhere. ...” page 282 MRB

—-
You say, correct me. If I’m wrong. If I included termies of 250 points and the rest are all in drop pods (1750 points) than your saying that my ARMY for the purpose of determining strategic reserves and reinforcements (SR&R) would be 250points and only half of that (points and number) can be in SR&R . 

the way I read it is that the units within the drop pods and the pods themselves are removed and not counted towards the maximum number of reinforcement units.  It does not change your army’s point max.  They are just not counted.  So for my example you could have a unit of 250point termies in teleportation.  The limit is “no more than half the total number of units and the combine point level.”Which those units are not counted towards.

So your left with 1 unit of 250points of 2000 points., which you would meet the combine point value requirement but not the unit requirement.  (No more than half.)

however.  You could start the game with 1 unit of 125points on the table and the other 125 in SR&R.  Here you are still meeting the point requirement (125 out of 2000) and less than half of 2.

This brings up a new question then. If at the end of battle round #1, the one unit I have on the table at the start of the game is destroyed and the 1875 points falling from orbit are not on the table yet.  Do I still get to play come battle round 2?  Last edition was no.  But in this edition, is it still viable?