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Ok here is the situation and its an odd one but may have been beat to death 2 am and i dont want to search for it now.

Ok first off i drop pod asaault 2 pods each with a dread. now for the sakes of landing there is a locator beacon 6 inches away on scout biker so i dont scatter. The doors are closed when i land here is the dilemna.

If i land the drop pod and can get it down without being near an enemy or a friendly but i have landed next to a ruin. with doors closed What happens to the 2 doors that are facing the ruin.

1. Do i have to open all the doors on a drop pod even if a ruin is in the way of 2 doors
2. Rules state that if the drop pod lands on difficult terrain its treated as dangerous. so example above if i have to blow off all the doors and the 2 doors hit the ruins its difficult terrain now. Does that mean its a deep strike mishap?
3. If not deep strike mishap do the doors that couldnt open become dangerous terrain?
4. If doors couldnt open does the whole drop pod become dangerous terrain?
5. Can the doors break through the ruins and drop to the ground?
6. If a friendly model is standing where one of the doors would land does it become a mishap?
7. If friendly model is where door would open does that model get to move out of the way maintaining coherency?

If this were the case then the whole thing would have to come down based on the footprint with the doors open rather than closed to prevent a mishap and that seems rather dumb.

Oh and here is a funny scenario --- Lets say i use locator beacon and rules point to if a door opens on difficult or on friendly or foe model then the inertial guidance should land it where it needs to in order to prevent this.. But with locator becaon its not allowed to scatter so it forces it to mishap... that doesnt sound righ either.


From what i know of Drop pods i would assume that if you cant open a door because of terrain then that door is blocked and you can only exit where the route is clear? the situation i was in was it was my first time playing drop pods and i thought i only have to open doors that are clear of traffic to disembark. Well because i couldnt find that in the rules other than in C:SM it says the hatches are blown but doesnt say al hatches are blown.

Thanks in advance for answers.

You have to clear it up pre game. Some people play the doors "count as" hull, others just ignore the doors al together. There is no "right" answer here. There is no rule saying you have to open any of the doors at all if you don't want to. I mean, what happens if you model it with the doors glued shut? You cannot Disembark? Also the Hatches being blown thing is just fluff, don't let it confuse you. if someone forces you to play with the doors opening, force them to open the side hatches of all their Rhinos and such.

As for your funny Scenario, you are correct, if you Pod within a Locator Beacons range in a position that would cause a mishap, you mishap instead of inertial guidencing away.

but this is only a funny scenario if i have to open all my doors upon lnading becaue if i have room to open 3 doors without touching anything but 2 doors have to stay up because of a building in the way or a hill then i shouldnt be worried about it.

My strategy was simple i placed my models with locator beacon where i knew i could fit the hul of the pod and et some doors open 2 could not but 3 could. I was told best solution was to put my assaulting pods back into reserves which left half my army exposed to gun fire because i didnt have the 2 dreads come out and the 2 pods for some extea cover. It was heartbreaking as i figured in the year 40k a drop pod could land and someone could look ooutside and say dont open this dooor we cant get out.. go out one of the other 3 doors.

I would like to know how tournamnets do this. I am of the mind that if the door cant open you can disembark like a land raider up against a wall if one door is blocked you go out the other 2 .

I guess what i need is a census of how people handle pods. do you open all doors that can as long as the hull is free of difficult, dangerous, impassable at landing then its up to which doors can open safely. Or if doors touch anything then its a mishap, or those exits become dangerous.. or the whole drop pod footprint becomes dangerous.

windswept313 wrote:I would like to know how tournamnets do this.

How long is a Piece of String? Same question really. It's up to the Tournament Organiser to decide how to do it.

windswept313 wrote:I guess what i need is a census of how people handle pods.

There is none. Some play it that the Doors are Hull, others play that you ignore the doors, others play that you have to open them all, others play you can open some, some play you can open none. It's all down to what you and your opponent agree to pre game.

windswept313 wrote:
I guess what i need is a census of how people handle pods. do you open all doors that can as long as the hull is free of difficult, dangerous, impassable at landing then its up to which doors can open safely. Or if doors touch anything then its a mishap, or those exits become dangerous.. or the whole drop pod footprint becomes dangerous.

As always, it depends on the tournament.

We ruled this way with the INAT FAQ (so any tournament using our FAQ will play this way):

SM.69A.01 – Q: When a player deploys a Drop Pod can he choose to keep the doors open or closed? If the Drop Pod doors are deployed open can models deploy within 2” of them?
A: Once the Drop Pod lands, the doors remain open for the rest of the game. However, all measurements to and from the Drop Pod, besides firing its weapon, are done based on the hull of the Drop Pod (its shape when the doors are closed). This means, for example, that friendly and enemy models will be able to move on top of the open doors [clarification].

I know the UKGT house rules allowed the SM player to choose which doors (if any) the player wanted to open and deploy from.


As for how everyone else is playing it, you can read one of the half dozen threads that come up if you search this forum for 'drop pod doors' (here's a few for you to read):

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/219409.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/226326.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/230443.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/235154.page

Thaks YakFace i opened a poll just to see how many people feel doors are hull or not.. in my opinion that clears up alot.

INAT FAQ is actually a great resource but i also want to know what people do in friendly games.

so if a door would open into a ruin what happens to that door, the pod and the people inside? Or if one of the doors would fall down off table edge... or land on a crater?

For questions like those and others, the doors have to be irrelevant to game play. The drop pod is a nice model, but it doesn't "play" well. No other vehicle has doors that screw up the game in this manner. I've watched people in my group using pod models and when it first comes down they'll drop the doors and deploy the transported unit and it all looks cool. Then the next movement phase comes and now the doors are a problem for just moving the models around. So those doors go up just to get out of the way. This then complicates TLOS.

Really the best solution is to either build the pod with the doors off or magnetize them so you can take them off when you need to get them out of the way for game play purposes.