Gal Vorback in serrated sun RoW - all drop pod, does it auto-lose?

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**AnomanderRake**

A few suggestions for lore-friendly ground elements for a null-deploy Drop Pod list intended to replicate cases in novels/lore where a Legion force deploys entirely from orbit:

Tarantulas. Consider the visual case of DoW Thunderhawk-dropped Tarantulas and Deep Strike-capable Tarantulas in Imperial Armour, operate under the assumption that they were dropped in ahead of time to clear the landing zone.

Random Legion infantry. These are the dudes who landed earlier. Their transports/Drop Pods are somewhere off that way (points at the edge of the board).

Jetbikes, Land Speeders, and Assault Marines. Independently drop-capable units. They landed somewhere off that way (points at the edge of the board), didn't encounter much resistance at their landing zone, and are here now while the pods are inbound.

Alternately you could be working from a case where a Legion (Raven Guard, Night Lords, someone else with a sneaky bent) has Recon squads on the field ahead of time, or where the Legion's drop deployment is in support of a beleaguered Mechanicum or Army force, at which point the ground element just writes itself.

**kaiservonhugal**

I like the bikes/jet bikes/speeder/assault marine suggestions. For this RoW, immobile units aren't allowed and all infantry must deploy via drop pod, teleportation or be inside a flyer. For rapiers, the actual weapons carrier can deploy but the marines that go with it need a drop pod. It's one of very few units that has two separate unit types, not one as is usual for most.

**HandofMars**

This is false.

Artillery is defined as its own unit type even if it has multiple types models within. They do not need pods in Orbital Assault any more than they need Rhinos in Coils of the Hydra.

The units that follow the rules for two different classifications are explicitly called out by the rules.

**kaiservonhugal**

Ok - I think I can see the logic on this one. I really want to be wrong on this.

If the unit includes artillery, then its an artillery unit for the purpose of determining its unit type, regardless of whether or not there's infantry in the unit also. Where can I find a reference for determining unit type if artillery is part of the unit?

In the Red Book, p.35 it doesn't explicitly call out a singular unit type for rapier batteries, rather it lists both artillery and infantry as its unit types. Since it wasn't explicit I count it as both, and must comply with both unit types rather than picking the one I want.

I like your interpretation but need a reference. Ill be able to use models I have on hand for this RoW using your interpretation. In this case, the Rite of War is: Last of the Serrated Sun is not quite the same as Orbital Assault. This RoW states that.... All infantry UNITS in the army must deploy via deepstriking drop pod, teleportation or inside a flyer.

Since the rapier battery includes infantry as one of its unit types, I conclude it requires a drop pod.

**sm3g**

I might chime in with my 2 cents.

Artillery units consist of a number of crew models and the gun models themselves. These
units can include several different types of models.

That is one of the very first things you read in the Artillery unit type - it acknowledged that the UNIT can be made up of several types of models, yet this still all falls under the artillery unit type. I'd say you don't need em in pods.

**kaiservonhugal**

Nice - Ill go with that. So as long as there's one artillery piece, it counts as artillery. I just wish the Red book referred to the infantry for the rapier as models and not a unit type.

**AnomanderRake**

kaiservonhugal wrote:
I like the bikes/jet bikes/speeder/assault marine suggestions. For this RoW, immobile units aren't allowed and all infantry must deploy via drop pod, teleportation or be inside a flyer. For rapiers, the actual weapons carrier can deploy but the marines that go with it need a drop pod. It's one of very few units that has two separate unit types, not one as is usual for most.

Funnily the Last of the Serrated Sun Rite doesn't restrict putting vehicles on the table during normal deployment, so there could also be a Thunderhawk Transporter just off the edge of the table. And none of the restrictions of the Rite apply to your Allied Detachment and I don't think there's a restriction on taking an Allied Detachment from the same Legion (or at least I can't find an explicit one), so you could use the Allied Detachment for your initial deployment element and leave the Primary Detachment off the table.

(That said I will confess to having not read Last of the Serrated Sun thoroughly, thank you for the correction.)

On scanning the wording of the Orbital Assault Rite it looks like you could start some infantry on the table without loopholes; you're only allowed to take units that could be deployed by Deep Strike or in a transport with Deep Strike, and you must start in your transport if you purchased one, but if you didn't purchase a Drop Pod for a unit it fills all the conditions and can just start on the table. Not sure if that's an oversight or intentional (to make preventing null-deploy losses easier).

**Khar_Lupercal**

Nope you can't ally with your own legion according to the last FW FAQ and the orbital assault bug is known but still not corrected... (I always find it so stupid to send empty drop pods like it's usually done in 40k with gladius strike force)

**Freakish1987**

On the subject of automatically losing if you deep strike everything.

Sudden death victory is explained on p133 of the 40k BRB. It specifically states 'Game turn' not 'Player turn'.
If anyone tried to tell me that my full drop pod army has a 50% chance to automatically lose on turn one, I wouldn't be playing with them anyway.

**em_en_oh_pee**

Freakish1987 wrote:
On the subject of automatically losing if you deep strike everything.

Sudden death victory is explained on p133 of the 40k BRB. It specifically states 'Game turn' not 'Player turn'.
If anyone tried to tell me that my full drop pod army has a 50% chance to automatically lose on turn one, I wouldn't be playing with them anyway.

Yea, the core rulebook isn't the problem. It is the Victory Conditions in the latest Red Books that states an auto-lose at any time you have zero models on the table. Sadly.

Hopefully, they address it in a future FAQ.

**HandofMars**

Several points that again could have been resolved just by reading the rules in question:

A. Artillery - The quote regarding artillery is now found on both pages of this discussion, so I hope we won't have any recurrence of people thinking the crew needs their own drop pod. An artillery unit is an artillery unit, no matter if the crew is infantry, monstrous creatures, or some bastard child of a jetbike and a land-raider.

B. Empty drop pod - the rules for 30K drop pods mandate that any unit that purchases them MUST be deployed in the pod. No dropping empty pods. For Orbital Assault anchor units, you can use terminators, assault marines, or jet bikes, which all have innate deep strike but don't have to use it. Also note that while both jetbike units can deep strike, the jetbike itself does not have the rule, so characters mounted on jetbikes are not eligible. Silly, I know.

C. This mess below:

Freakish1987 wrote:
On the subject of automatically losing if you deep strike everything.

Sudden death victory is explained on p133 of the 40k BRB. It specifically states 'Game turn' not 'Player turn'.
If anyone tried to tell me that my full drop pod army has a 50% chance to automatically lose on turn one, I wouldn't be playing with them anyway.

Good, then you won't be playing 30K, because those are the 30K rules.

And it's 100% chance, because the moment the game begins you have nothing on the table, so you lose. It's not just "the latest red book", it's literally all the red books and all the black books except one.

**em_en_oh_pee**

HandofMars wrote:
Several points that again could have been resolved just by reading the rules in question:

A. Artillery - The quote regarding artillery is now found on both pages of this discussion, so I hope we won't have any recurrence of people thinking the crew needs their own drop pod. An artillery unit is an artillery unit, no matter if the crew is infantry, monstrous creatures, or some bastard child of a jetbike and a land-raider.

B. Empty drop pod - the rules for 30K drop pods mandate that any unit that purchases them MUST be deployed in the pod. No dropping empty pods. For Orbital Assault anchor units, you can use terminators, assault marines, or jet bikes, which all have innate deep strike but don't have to use it. Also note that while both jetbike units can deep strike, the jetbike itself does not have the rule, so characters mounted on jetbikes are not eligible. Silly, I know.

C. This mess below:

Freakish1987 wrote:
On the subject of automatically losing if you deep strike everything.

Sudden death victory is explained on p133 of the 40k BRB. It specifically states 'Game turn' not 'Player turn'.
If anyone tried to tell me that my full drop pod army has a 50% chance to automatically lose on turn one, I wouldn't be playing with them anyway.

Good, then you won't be playing 30K, because those are the 30K rules.

And it's 100% chance, because the moment the game begins you have nothing on the table, so you lose. It's not just "the latest red book", it's literally all the red books and all the black books except one.

So it isn't just me you talk to like that, huh? Well, that is a block. Don't need jerks like you ruining such a nice community.

**HandofMars**

What's that puddin'? You still smartin'? I thought you were going to put the big bad adult on ignore because they read the rules and call you on your power gamer BS, while you resort to insults and yelling like a child? Whatever happened to that?

**Alpharius**

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**kronk**

Man, this thread got nasty in a hurry. And without my help for once!

sm3g wrote:
Wow, I never actually knew it was different to 40k! Good to know though, mate of mine runs a pod list.

Yep. Good to know. Something I never noticed, I suppose.

As for why they did it this way, only the designers can say. Maybe Alan Blighe got beat with a Null Deployment drop pod list once with his Orks and said "feth you drop pod fethers!"

Anyway, don't null deploy, kiddos!

**MeanGreenStompa**

kronk wrote:
Man, this thread got nasty in a hurry. And without my help for once!

Yeah, I purposely came to 30k and to this little corner of dakka to get away from all that jazz. Don't need no cats disrupting our cool here. Don't want no squares pushing and shoving with the RAW and other ungroovy attitudes, I've met some of the writers of these heresy things and the last thing any of those hepcats want is anger and negativity clouding up the game, because it's about the game, you dig?

**Freakish1987**

Yeah needless to say a block is the only real course of action for when the first thing somebody says to you is utterly toxic. Issue resolved

Anyway yeah I didn't notice either that the 30k rules specify something different from the 40k ones. Guess we will have to see if that one gets resolved by the team.

**NivlacSupreme**

People should stop trying to defend this. I only have a ground anchor, in the form of a small Death Guard detachment, because I play small games and would only have had 10 guys in the board.

**Brutus_Apex**

I didn't even know this was an additional rule in the Legion Astartes rulebook.

That really sucks, It's so lore breaking and immersion breaking to have a dumb rule like this. So much for being the angels of death, specifically when there are several RoW completely dedicated to orbital assaults.

**em_en_oh_pee**

Brutus_Apex wrote:
I didn't even know this was an additional rule in the Legion Astartes rulebook.

That really sucks, It's so lore breaking and immersion breaking to have a dumb rule like this. So much for being the angles of death, specifically when there are several RoW completely dedicated to orbital assaults.

That was exactly my point. I know many groups just go by the Game Turn per the core rules, which do justice to the fluff and aren't really game-breaking (they are notoriously glass cannon armies, after all).

**Marshal Loss**

Probably a mistake on FW's behalf - this rule was actually fixed in Book 5: Tempest, but then was turned back in Book 6: Retribution. I strongly suspect it's a copy and paste error gone wrong, FW's proof reading is far from their strong suite.

Hopefully we get an FAQ at some point this year. I wouldn't hold my breath though.

**kronk**

Marshal Loss wrote:
Probably a mistake on FW's behalf - this rule was actually fixed in Book 5: Tempest, but then was turned back in Book 6: Retribution. I strongly suspect it's a copy and paste error gone wrong, FW's proof reading is far from their strong suite.

Ha! I wouldn't be surprised. When book 1 came out, it was still 6th edition where at the end of any player turn, if you didn't have gak on the table, you lost. I'm pretty sure it was like that. 93.9% sure.

OR, the designers don't want null deployment.

I can't say, but I will err on the side of "Don't do it" as it's in all but 1 book to-date.

**Jackal**

I do find it somewhat ironic that they create a rite based purely on dropping onto the table via pods or DS (O.A rite)
Yet to do so is actually an auto loss.

While having an anchor is essential, you then end up spending a ton of points on a stable enough one that draws most of your points away from the rite.

So by taking the rite you essentially don't get to fully use it.

And this isn't 40k, so podding minus the grav spam isn't as broken as it is there.
Poor placement generally means you lose.

**sm3g**

Jackal wrote:
I do find it somewhat ironic that they create a rite based purely on dropping onto the table via pods or DS (O.A rite)
Yet to do so is actually an auto loss.

While having an anchor is essential, you then end up spending a ton of points on a stable enough one that draws most of your points away from the rite.

So by taking the rite you essentially don't get to fully use it.

And this isn't 40k, so podding minus the grav spam isn't as broken as it is there.
Poor placement generally means you lose.

There are a few rites that have the majority of your army starting off the table. Orbital assault, your only options are models with deep strike that do not need a drop pod to gain it (Terminators, Assault Marines, Land Speeders?), so that means you're limited to one of those 3 as your anchor pretty much are you not? The fact it's in all but 1 book makes me think that it is intentional, I just think it doesn't make the most sense?