Drop Pods and Reserve

[MadmanMSU]

Right. So you can only keep half our army in reserve now, rounded up. So which of the following situations is accurate?

EXAMPLE:

7 Units in an army. 1 of the units, a tactical squad, selects a drop pod as a dedicated transport. Since drop pods do not count towards the 50% reserve limit......

A) ....do you get to keep 4 units in reserve? Because 7 divided by 2 is 3.5, rounded up to 4, and the drop pod doesn't count towards the limit?

B) ....do you get to keep 3 units in reserve? Because the drop pod doesn't count towards the limit, you take half of 6 units. 6 divided by 2 is 3.

[Bean]

Why don't drop pods count towards the 50% reserve limit?

[Wolfshade]

Usually, you round up, so if you had 3 drop pods, 2 would enter at the start of turn 1 and 1 turn 2+.
The troop + pod would count as one choice

[Big Thunda]

Pretty sure the half reserves rule states it doesn't count units that MUST come in from reserve, and it states that if it's a transport the unit inside doesn't count either. So any drop pods/units inside can be excluded from the "half your units" reserves limitation....so situation B is accurate!

[Wildeybeast]

"Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for working out the purposes of how many other units may do so. A unit and its dedicated transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes."

I think that clears it all up. B is correct (assuming you are not counting either the drop pod or the squad).

[Lerra]

It's a good thing, too, otherwise Chaos Daemons would have an interesting time taking allies. "Hmm I have 10 Daemons units in reserve, and all 4 allied units deployed normally, but wait! I must have 7 units deployed normally, but only 4 are allowed to deploy so the table . . . "head explodes".

[DarkLink]

7 units and 7 Drop Pods. All the Pods go into reserve, and are ignored for these purposes, because they must. You now have 7 units, half of which must be deployed on the board. I forget if it's rounded up or down.

[Wildeybeast]

Always round up.

[Archon Charybdis]

As Big Thunda already pointed out, units that must go in reserves, and units inside a dedicated transport, do not count for these purposes. So strictly speaking, you have 5 units for the purposes of figuring reserves. 2.5 rounded up means 3 units can go in reserves.

[Chris Copeland]

7 units and 7 Drop Pods. All the Pods go into reserve, and are ignored for these purposes, because they must. You now have 7 units, half of which must be deployed on the board. I forget if it's rounded up or down.

If those seven units own those seven drop pods then they all have to go in reserve because units and their dedicated transports count as one unit each. It's funny, this conversation JUST came up locally. I posted about it here (http://www.lounge.belloflostsouls.net/showthread.php?p=214580#post214580). Cheers. Copeland

[DarkLink]

Pretty sure your argument is fundamentally flawed. Before you deploy/reserve units together, they aren't one unit. You have the choice between deploying or reserving the tactical squad, and therefore does not qualify for the "must be deployed in reserves" clause. Any attempt to dodge around that is just digging for a loophole.

You quote the 'transport and unit count as one unit' part, but that's taken out of context. I don't have the rulebook for reference, but you'll have to expand on your justification surrounding that point before I'll buy it.

[Archon Charybdis]

"Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so. A unit and it's Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes."

That's it, that's the entire context. A unit with and it's dedicated transport are counted once, and units that have to start in reserve (such as a unit in a drop pod) are discounted for purposes of determining how many other units can be in reserves.

[Chris Copeland]

DarkLink, I feel that the above poster covers where I am coming from pretty well. I think that I'm applying the rule completely in context in that I am quoting the rule in it's entirety. Below is my full argument:


I’ve recently heard it suggested that I’m going to have to shelve my Drop Pod Space Marine army. I’ve heard arguments that, even with a Drop Pod army, I can’t start entirely in reserve.

To put it mildly, I disagree. I think GW is pretty clear on this one, although they did leave it just ambiguous enough to cause a bunch of arguments. Here is why you can place your Drop Pod Army fully in reserve:



The Basic Rule Book says that up to 50% of your army can be held in reserve. Further, units that MUST start the game in reserve do not count toward this percentage.
Drop Pods MUST start in reserve.
On page 124 it says “A unit and it’s Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.” That is a key point.
Thus, my unit of Marines and their Drop Pod are one unit. Full stop. Period. The Drop Pod is required to start in reserve.
There is NO rule that says I need to separate the two. There is no rule that says I need to break them up. There IS a rule that says “a unit and it’s Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.” GW is not being ambiguous about this point at all. My Marines and their Drop Pod are a single unit.
Thus, they start in reserve. They have to. The Drop Pod's rule dictates that they do. The same goes for all of the unit’s that I choose to give Drop Pods to.


I will close with this: this doesn’t mean that putting troops in ANY dedicated transport gives you the choice to have them start in reserve. I could put Marines in a Rhino. That unit (again, one unit) could start in reserve or could be forced to start on the table. The same goes for putting Marines in a Land Raider. They could go in reserve or could be forced to start on the table. The 50% rule covers them nicely.

That covers Rules as Written. Clearly, I think that Rules as Intended (the spirit of the rules) also means that my Drop Pod army can start fully in reserve. However, I don’t feel that I need to turn to RAI since I think that RAW covers this quite nicely.

Cheers and good gaming to all. Copeland

Anyhoo, I think that about covers it. I hope that you come around to seeing things my way on this way because (most of the time) I find your interpretation of the rules spot on. Please take a moment to analyze my above reasoning and tell me what you think. Cheers and goodnight! Happy Independence Day to all of my American brethren! I hope you had a great Fourth of July! G'night! Cope

[DarkLink]

Ok, now that you've actually posted the whole rule, I can actually agree. Just saying "a unit and dedicated transport are one unit for these purposes" is useless, because I can't tell when that applies. It obviously isn't always true, so you have to clarify that it applies when you are considering what does and does not go into reserve.