Ongoing Reserves with a Webway Portal

[The Sovereign]

On page 62 of the Dark Eldar Codex, it says "If you have a webway portal in your army, you may keep units in reserve, regardless of mission being played." So I'm reading this as I can elect not to roll for reserves to come in before I've activated my portal? I ask because my gaming group is under the impression that I have to roll for reserves to come in regardless of whether a portal's on the table, meaning wyches, the talos, etc. might have to deploy from my table edge and slog it.

[DarkLink]

That's not what "may keep units in reserves means".

Though all the rulebook missions always allow reserves, GW has always included this rule for several units (ex. Terminators may always deepstrike even if the mission does not allow deepstrike) because it's possible that a mission doesn't allow reserves.

However, this just means that you can put a unit in reserves during deployment. You still arrive from reserves exactly as normal. Webway portals have no effect on arriving from reserves, only that they guarantee you can put something in reserves, and obviously that you can come on via the webway portal rather than the table edge.

[Nabterayl]

obviously that you can come on via the webway portal rather than the table edge.
That is, if the portal happens to be on the table when you arrive. DarkLink and your group are both right that you have to roll normally, and if the portal isn't on the table when a unit arrives from reserve, it has to walk on from the table edge.

[The Sovereign]

Ah, well that makes webway portals even less useful. Well, thanks for the clarification.

[Houghten]

If you want to guarantee your units come out of your portals, obviously you need to activate at least one of them first turn. To get it into a useful position first turn, it needs a transport. A Haemonculus riding a minimum-size Trueborn unit's Venom is the cheapest way to do this, if not necessarily the best or most point-efficient. Deploy as far forward as you can, move 6" forward, disembark 6" more and pop the portal in front of you. Then your other portal-bearer can come through that portal and plonk his wherever he happens to feel like, giving you a decent forward base.

[DarkLink]

They're good for shooty units, which DE have plenty of, but in most cases you might as well just deploy said shooty units anyways because of how fast DE are.

Incidentally, I think the wording of the WWP is "may always place units in reserve", not "may always keep units in reserve", which is an important difference.

[Archon Charybdis]

WWPs were something that still took work and luck to make effective even in 5th edition, and in 6th they're largely unusable. As DarkLink mentioned, instead of dealing with the restrictions and hassle of placing the portal in most cases you're better off deploying normally because most DE units are so fast to begin with. The units they were most handy for in 5th ed were assault units who can no longer really make use of them (at least without taking a round of shooting first).