Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, I went looking through the rules to see if it explicitly states that you can't do this and couldn't find anything, so I figured I'd ask around to see if I missed something.

In a 1k point game, you can put 250 points into strategic reserve. If I also used the rest of my 750 points to put units into 3 drop Pods, could I start a game with everything in strategic reserve? From what I understand, there's nothing that says you loose if you have no models on the table?

FTR I'm thinking of either running this as Stormlance to bring in Outriders turn 1 from reserve or in Firestorm with flamers and transport buffs.

Not meant to be competitive or anything, just a fluffy idea I had for themed lists.

The Core Rules do not have any restriction on Reserves outside of 25% in Strategic Reserves. The Leviathan Mission Packs explicitly state only 50% of your total Units can be in Reserves. Your Strategic Reserves take up Half the total amount of Reserve Units you can deploy if you choose to. If you are NOT using the Leviathan Mission Pack you can ignore all Reserves restrictions outside the 25% Strategic Reserves from the Core Rules.

The Drop Pods ability Drop Pod Assault states: "This model must start the battle in Reserves, but neither it nor any units embarked within it are counted towards any limits placed on the maximum number of Reserves units you can start the battle with."

Drop Pod Assault allows it and its passengers to ignore all the restrictions placed on Reserve Units by both the Core Rules and the Leviathan Mission Pack. It also explicitly allows the Drop Pod to arrive and passengers to disembark Turn 1.

Yes you can, in this specific instance, deploy no units on the table as long as you have 250 pts in Strategic Reserve and the rest are in Drop Pods. Alternatively, you can have up to 500 Points in Reserve with the remaining 500 pts in Drop Pods.

BomBomHotdog wrote:
Yes you can, in this specific instance, deploy no units on the table as long as you have 250 pts in Strategic Reserve and the rest are in Drop Pods. Alternatively, you can have up to 500 Points in Reserve with the remaining 500 pts in Drop Pods.

I think this is the key. You may have:

Strategic Reserves: Up to 250 points

Reserves: Up to 500 points including the 250 points of Strategic Reserves

All the points you want in Drop Pods and embarked units

This is probably a pretty meme-ish thing to do at 1000 points, but seems legit. Just keep in mind that drop pods only have a 10-man capacity, so you may have some difficulty getting everyone to fit in three of them.

On a side note, since Drop Pods hilariously don't have the Dedicated Transport Keyword, doesn't that mean you could field an empty Pod?

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
This is probably a pretty meme-ish thing to do at 1000 points, but seems legit. Just keep in mind that drop pods only have a 10-man capacity, so you may have some difficulty getting everyone to fit in three of them.

On a side note, since Drop Pods hilariously don't have the Dedicated Transport Keyword, doesn't that mean you could field an empty Pod?

Yes, however it also means that you can only have 3, not as many as you can fit units into. Which is why you can only really do this at 1k.

My thoughts for the units were a unit of Infernus, 2 5 man melta Devastators for maximum anti tank and a unit of Hellblasters. (Unlike old transports like the Razorback, they don't have to be the old school units.)

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
This is probably a pretty meme-ish thing to do at 1000 points, but seems legit. Just keep in mind that drop pods only have a 10-man capacity, so you may have some difficulty getting everyone to fit in three of them.

Wait, so, if we use something like Huron's redeploy ability, which allows you to redeploy units into Strategic Reserves, and put really two nice blobs of Terms, we could remove the Redeployer himself, blobs and put the rest into droppods? that sounds... broken.

I disagree with this interpretation

The Drop Pods ability Drop Pod Assault states: "This model must start the battle in Reserves, but neither it nor any units embarked within it are counted towards any limits placed on the maximum number of Reserves units you can start the battle with."

So if 750 pts are in Drop Pods and don't count towards limits we are left with 250pts for the rest of the army that leaves 62.5pts limit for that 25%

That's... not how math works.

The Drop pod and units in it don't count when calculating your limits so 1000-750 =250

You therefore calculate your limits from the remainder

if that's 250 pts ÷4 = 62.5 yep the maths checks out


What the initial suggestion was doing was ignoring the drop pod rule and counting the drop pod and there contents when calculating the limits not recalculating based on the drop pod rule

It's not a set amount of limit its a proportion of what counts

You don't recalculate anything after putting stuff in drop pods. Reserves are based on the point level you are playing at not at what units are in what transport on or off the field during deployment.

Units embarked in drop pods are effectively considered part of the point pool outside of the 500 point limit for Reserves.

As I pointed out above, in a 1k game, a player can deploy up to 500 points in drop pods with the remaining 500 in Reserves with 250 of that being Strategic Reserves or 750-250.

No the reserves rules are how you standardly calculate them and are based of a percentage of your army.

The Drop pod rule explicitly modifies the normal process and says that it and the models in don't count for limits effectively modifying your army size. Not use the original limits as if there were no drop pod.

The calculatiom of a percentage of your army allowed to be in reserve is a limitation.

The calculation of a percentage of your army not allowed to be in reserve is also a limitation.

"neither it nor any units embarked within it are counted towards any limits"

I would only need to calculate once - after I've declared the contents of my drop pod

You don't use the standard way of doing it when a rule explicitly modifies it

U02dah4 wrote:
"neither it nor any units embarked within it are counted towards any limits"

What this means is that if, say, you have a limit of 500 points you can spend on reserves, units in Drop Pods (and the Pods themselves) don't count against that limit. Therefore, if you manage to spend 500 points on Pods and embarked units, you can still put 500 points into reserves (250 of which can got into Strategic Reserves).

There's no 'limit recalculation'. The limit doesn't change - you just don't consider the Drop Pods when checking against your limit.

Take a couple of Tactical Squads in Drop Pods, take a couple of Terminator Squads, and *BOOM!* stick it all in reserves.

I disagree there's no specific calculate limits step therefore its a continuous calculation one that doesn't normally change however drop pods change it.

The limit is literally calculated at the 'Select Battle Size' step. Playing an Incursion game? The limit is 500. Full stop.

Drop Pods (and units in them) don't count toward that 500. If you spend 500 points on pods and contents, you can still put 500 points into reserves.

This isn't ambiguous in any way.

I was in error