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DA Codex, pg. 35:

"Transport: The Drop Pod has a transport capacity of ten models. Models in Terminator armour count as two models. It may transport a Dreadnought, which counts as ten models. Once the Drop Pod has landed the hatches are blown and all passengers must immediately disembark, following the normal rules for doing so. Once passengers have disembarked, no models may embark on the Drop Pod for the rest of the game.

Fire Points: None.

Access Points: Open-topped vehicle.

SPECIAL RULES

Inertial Guidance System: Drop Pods enter play using the Deep Strike rules from the Mission Special Rules section of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook. They may always enter play using Deep Strike, even in missions where  Deep Strike may not normally be used. In addition, Drop pods are fitted with inertial guidance systems designed to ensure that they land safely. Should a Drop Pod scatter on top of impassable terrain or another model (friend or foe!), then reduce the scatter distance by the minimum required in order to avoid the obstacle.

Immobile: A Drop Pod may not move once it has entered the battle, and counts in all respects as a vehicle that has suffered an Immobilised damage result (which may not be repaired)."

Abby and Nyalry- I apologize for deleting your spam, I mean fluff, I mean posts.

Lordhat- Thanks very much.

Unfortunately not quite as explicit as I might have hoped, but pretty much what I expected.
I believe my original argument stands.

P1: Drop Pods enter play via the Deep Strike rule. The squad then disembarks.

P2: The reserve rules specify that units with transports may arrive on the table in the transport or out of the transport.

Conclusion: If the squad arrives in a Drop Pod, it is arriving via Deep Strike.

Corollary: The Deep Strike prohibition on assaulting the turn you land applies to the squad.

The french GW forum has come out and officially stated you cannot assault the same turn.

- Greenie

I thought GW closed all of their forums...I've visited the UK and FR sites and even though I don't speak more than three words of french I couldn't find any sort of web-forum for either site.

Additionally, the fact that such a clarification is in French hardly helps the english-speaking 40k fans.

As the issue stands, I can see how "deep strike + assault" could be easily concluded from the new DA drop pod rules, and it's entirely allowed by the RAW. However, this is probably another case where previous precendents can't be ingored, as in the case of Eldar benefitting from Fleet even when riding a Jetbike.

But I agree with Skyth; and this rules debate is inconclusive and pointless. Yet another area where V.4 rules writing is messier than previously... I think that many people here have falsely villified Skyth for pointing out obvious ambiguity in the rules, as I was treated for pointing out that by RAW fleet is allowed on a jetbike...

Posted By Lordhat on 02/18/2007 2:09 AM

DA Codex, pg. 35:

"

[b]***
[/b]

[b]Inertial Guidance System: Drop Pods enter play using the Deep Strike rules from the Mission Special Rules section of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook. ..."[/b]

Except, of course, the entry then goes on to point out that it uses none of the deep strike rules...

Heh. 

Couldn't they have easily inserted "and its passengers" immediately after "drop pod" in the sentence above?  That would have addressed all of these concerns that are now coming up.

However, may I say kudos to GW for listening to its fans, and addressing the problems with landing on top of friendly models, and also for clarifying that mystics work on droppods.

Here's a question for you: using RAW, is there a way to definitely say that Mystics can shoot at the squad that disembarks?  I think there's a good argument to be made that at the time of deepstriking, the only thing available to shoot is the drop pod itself - deepstriking is finished by the time the squad disembarks.  Remembering, of course, that if the rule is not clear, the other player is entitled to ask for a d6 on it if it ever arises.

And if the only valid target is the drop pod, what happens if the droppod is destroyed before the passengers disembark?