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I'm thinking of gluing shut my drop pods.* Will this be a problem? Is it required to have open petals when placing the drop pod on game board?



*I'm too lazy to paint the insides

The Petals are fully and 100% ignored for all game purposes.

If you want to treat it as "transparent" and only allow non-vehicle/non-MC models behind it to gain a cover save, but otherwise trace LOS through it I am sure no one will care.

You have to come to agreement with opponents about how to handle it for LOS. It can be a bit of a pain; folks generally do expect to be able to see and shoot through it, albeit with cover saves.

The INAT actually codifies this for tournaments which use it. They still say you need to agree with your opponent, but the two suggested options are:

A) Pretend you can see through it (albeit with cover saves).
B) Play it as blocking LOS, but in this case the gun can't shoot either as the doors block it.

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Kel, the petals IF DOWN are ignored for movement. But they can still impact LOS/cover.

As I play a pod army, what Mannahain quoted is what we usually do. I glued all 11 of my pods' doors shut and we play that you can see through them and get a cover save for shooting through them.

paulguise wrote:As I play a pod army, what Mannahain quoted is what we usually do. I glued all 11 of my pods' doors shut and we play that you can see through them and get a cover save for shooting through them.

Sounds good... most likely that's what I'll do...

I play with blocks line of sight ...... Snarf.

not an issue. Lots of people glue them shut, they're a b*tch to keep shut otherwise.

I was under the impression that you could deploy 2" from the edge of the open door. Is that or is that not correct?

It's not correct.

On all transports, you measure 2" from the hatch. The physical door (which can also fold down on Rhinos, Chimerae, land raiders, wave serpents, etc.) is ignored.

If you count the folded-down doors on a pod they create all kinds of problems; blocking movement everywhere, leaning on nearby units, etc. Thankfully, since the disembarkation rules tell us to measure to the hatch, and since the vehicle rules in general tell us to measure distances in general for vehicles to and from their hull, ignoring the doors for movement is exactly in keeping with the RAW.

Fluffwise, the doors are actually blown off when it lands.

Rulewise, they are meant to be ignored for gameplay purposes.

So, if you're too lazy to magentize them, just leave the doors off entirely.

If you leave the doors closed, they would block LOS. But, if you glue the doors closed, I'd argue that you're modeling for advantage.

Ah well thank you very much for clearing that up.

Grakmar wrote:If you leave the doors closed, they would block LOS. But, if you glue the doors closed, I'd argue that you're modeling for advantage.

As well as disadvantage. The stormbolter or missile launcher in the pod would no longer be able to fire as you're not able to draw LOS from the barrel of the weapon. It goes both ways.

Funny thing is, the game never defines the word "Hull" clearly. Common definitions of the word "Hull" easily include the doors of a vehicle since they're part of the outer shell. Particularly with drop pods since they constitute pretty much then entirety of what seals the drop pod from the outside environment.

Obviously consistency and playability are the key issue here, and common convention makes doors ignored/not part of the hull which is fine. Still it's kind of funny you can take a very strict reading of the RAW and wind up with giant drop pod footprints.

I disagree. A door is not generally considered part of a hull, although I can see how it confuses the issue that most of a drop pod's exterior is comprised of door.

I submit that even if you considered the doors part of the hull while up, they clearly are not once they have blown free.

Mannahnin wrote:I disagree. A door is not generally considered part of a hull, although I can see how it confuses the issue that most of a drop pod's exterior is comprised of door.

Notice my use of the wording "Could easily" rather than "does". You can find quite a few different definitions of "Hull" out there, it varies quite a bit depending on exactly what kind of (real world) vehicle you're dealing with. Even within a single vehicle type it varies by the source.

I submit that even if you considered the doors part of the hull while up, they clearly are not once they have blown free.

Following that logic the drop pod arguably has no hull. It's just kind of a free-standing frame (Though I think that would qualify for a "Hull" as it is defined for Blimps...), as no part of the vehicle constitutes the outside shell. Now that would be hilarious. It would still be a model, still occupy space, but nothing could measure distance or interact with. It could still fire out though, since range is measured from weapons. That'd be really silly!

My point wasn't really argue for treating the doors as a part of the hull (that has huge playability issues), rather it was just to point how poorly written the rule is. This is the sort of thing you basically have to make up on the fly with your opponent, or go with whatever the TOs have set for that game.

Chongara wrote:Funny thing is, the game never defines the word "Hull" clearly. Common definitions of the word "Hull" easily include the doors of a vehicle since they're part of the outer shell. Particularly with drop pods since they constitute pretty much then entirety of what seals the drop pod from the outside environment.

Obviously consistency and playability are the key issue here, and common convention makes doors ignored/not part of the hull which is fine. Still it's kind of funny you can take a very strict reading of the RAW and wind up with giant drop pod footprints.

I have no problem with someone counting the doors as hull. However, they're going to need to find an extremely large space to deploy the pod into.

Chongara wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I disagree. A door is not generally considered part of a hull, although I can see how it confuses the issue that most of a drop pod's exterior is comprised of door.

Notice my use of the wording "Could easily" rather than "does". You can find quite a few different definitions of "Hull" out there, it varies quite a bit depending on exactly what kind of (real world) vehicle you're dealing with. Even within a single vehicle type it varies by the source.

Sure, I appreciate that you're not really looking to advance an absurd or unplayable interpretation; more discussing it for the sake of discussion. Within the context of the 40k rules, I'm sure we agree that "hull" is easily understood to mean the body of a vehicle.

Chongara wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:I submit that even if you considered the doors part of the hull while up, they clearly are not once they have blown free.

Following that logic the drop pod arguably has no hull. It's just kind of a free-standing frame (Though I think that would qualify for a "Hull" as it is defined for Blimps...), as no part of the vehicle constitutes the outside shell. Now that would be hilarious. It would still be a model, still occupy space, but nothing could measure distance or interact with. It could still fire out though, since range is measured from weapons. That'd be really silly!

As you say, and as with a blimp, a frame can be a hull, and I think the main body/outline of the drop pod is obviously and intuitively it's hull, and the area it occupies in the game. There is plenty of physical model there to measure to and from. Nothing silly about it, as far as I can see.

Chongara wrote:[My point wasn't really argue for treating the doors as a part of the hull (that has huge playability issues), rather it was just to point how poorly written the rule is. This is the sort of thing you basically have to make up on the fly with your opponent, or go with whatever the TOs have set for that game.

I have never had such problem with it, and I ran drop pods for a good year or more after they first got rules in the previous SM dex, and have played against them regularly in tournaments and pickup games in the ensuing five or or six years. I have never seen any problems, except when people tried to argue that the descended doors counted, which led to all sorts of abuses. Like blocking off multiple feet of linear table space with 4-5 pods, while letting the owners still shoot across the petals. Thankfully when people noticed that the rules clearly say "hull", and observed that we normally ignore descended doors for Wave Serpents, Land Raiders, Chimerae (etc.), it gave us a nice and clear basis on which to disallow such shenanigans.


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Scott-S6 wrote:I have no problem with someone counting the doors as hull. However, they're going to need to find an extremely large space to deploy the pod into.

I do. In part because it makes the Pod (or worse, several) into an extremely wide wall impassible to the enemy. People used to make it worse by placing the pods so that there was a 1"-2.9" gap between the doors, so their own units could move between but the enemy's couldn't. It also makes landing and placing the pods themselves very awkward, as you've noted.

As you say, and as with a blimp, a frame can be a hull, and I think the main body/outline of the drop pod is obviously and intuitively it's hull, and the area it occupies in the game. There is plenty of physical model there to measure to and from. Nothing silly about it, as far as I can see.

Nothing is obvious.
Intuition is subjective.

The 40k rules are badly written and ambiguous at best.

If the convention wasn't so common there would be a lot more confusion on the issue. My first time played it with doors-as-hull and it didn't seem off to anyone in my group, since we were all newbies. It did have playability issues.

More than half the stuff that comes up in this forum shouldn't, and wouldn't if the rules were anything approaching sensibly written. Keep the negative feedback alive and maybe (ok probably not), we'll marginal improvements in future editions.

You could glue it with green stuff. It's less... permanent and is a lot less hassle than magnets.

Chongara wrote:

As you say, and as with a blimp, a frame can be a hull, and I think the main body/outline of the drop pod is obviously and intuitively it's hull, and the area it occupies in the game. There is plenty of physical model there to measure to and from. Nothing silly about it, as far as I can see.

Nothing is obvious.
Intuition is subjective.

The 40k rules are badly written and ambiguous at best.

And "Common sense is anything but common"? The 40k rules are really not that bad. They could be a lot better; but they also ARE a lot better than they used to be, and than many, many wargames have been, going back decades. I think people use that as an excuse sometimes to pretend something is less clear than it is.

Chongara wrote:[More than half the stuff that comes up in this forum shouldn't, and wouldn't if the rules were anything approaching sensibly written. Keep the negative feedback alive and maybe (ok probably not), we'll marginal improvements in future editions.

Now you really seem to lack perspective and are exaggerating substantially. 5th edition is much clearer and more consistant than 4th. Which was much clearer and more consistant than 3rd. I've been playing competitive, at-times-nitpicky 40k and discussing it on here for twelve years next week. The FAQs they've come out with in the last few years are also leaps and bounds better than their old ones. GW still writes some unclear, dumb stuff, and embarasses themselves with their poor editing, but much less so than they used to.

They have been responding (usually slowly) to people pointing out problems. I don't think it helps if we harp on or exaggerate trivial ones, because it makes us look silly and lacking in perspective, and it runs the risk of inundating them in a flood of complaints, in which they lose the ones which are actually important.

This is why I don't bother with Gwar's FAQ, for example. Because he seems to lack this kind of perspective, and nickpicks tiny issues which really aren't problematic. No offense to him; it's his hobby, and I know he doesn't actually play the rules as being as broken as he writes about them. I'm pretty darn nitpicky about rules; if GW hired me as an editor, I would check out Gwar's FAQ because I'd actually be crazy and perfectionist enough to want to fix the little stuff too, but a good amount of stuff I could just ignore, as it's basically inventing problems with functional rules.

I don't think I'm going to glue them shut anymore. They stay closed just find. I was really manhandling them last night (hehe 'manhandled my drop pod') and the doors stayed close just fine. Not gluing them down will allow me to accomodate any particular house rules or tournament decisions on how to interpret their use... and its not like the end of the world if they see my in painted insides.


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Mannahnin wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:I have no problem with someone counting the doors as hull. However, they're going to need to find an extremely large space to deploy the pod into.

I do. In part because it makes the Pod (or worse, several) into an extremely wide wall impassible to the enemy. People used to make it worse by placing the pods so that there was a 1"-2.9" gap between the doors, so their own units could move between but the enemy's couldn't. It also makes landing and placing the pods themselves very awkward, as you've noted.

I had never thought of that. That whole 1 inch from the enemy rule can really wreak havok if the doors=hull.

Personally, I don't consider doors on 40k vehicles as hulls... but I can see where others would interpret differently.

I just started playing drop pods - and I think they look really cool with the doors down. Even my wife thought that they looked 'sharp'.

If you are going to skip the drop doors - I'd just make the pod with no doors at all. I'd sure be a lot easier to build!! You can see through it, use your mounted weapon fine and just say that the doors blow off and are scattered around the battlefield somewhere....


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Hey - If you don't use your doors - send them to me and I'll make an Ork Stompa out of them!!