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Flyers must start off table
Some flyers are Transports
Deployment says you may put up to 1/2 units in reserve
Deployment says you don't count units that must start off table, but also talks about not counting the passengers on board too (EDIT: more to this latter part)
So, could I take 3 Storm Ravens, or a bunch of Night Scythes, etc and put a bunch of passengers in them... then deploy nothing on turn 1?

If I can, there's a rule that says on the end of any turn, if you don't have any models on the field, you automatically lose

So - legal but auto lose army?

Cheers,

Tactica wrote:Flyers must start off table
Some flyers are Transports
Deployment says you may put up to 1/2 units in reserve
Deployment says you don't count units that must start off table, but also talks about not counting the passengers on board too
So, could I take 3 Storm Ravens, or a bunch of Night Scythes, etc and put a bunch of passengers in them... then deploy nothing on turn 1?

Cheers,

You would lose the game since at the end of Game Turn 1 you have nothing on the board.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An independent character counts as a unit regardless of how it is deployed. So you would need at least 1 unit on the board. Also, are you taking storm ravens as dedicated transports (can you? I don't recall). If not, the units inside are separate as well. You'd have to deploy at least one model here and maybe a good deal more.

I think there's more to it on this one... or I'm expanding it... I'll try to elaborate...

(Pg. 124) Units that must go into reserves (flyers, drop pods, etc). I read that those models don't count toward what you may deploy in Reserves as these MUST be in Reserve. It says that Dedicated Transports and their units count as one unit for the purposes of this rule in determining how many units may be put in reserve. It doesn't talk about OPTIONAL passengers with non-dedicated transports though. This would include Independent Characters it seems.

(Pg. 36) Deep Strike, says there are units that 'must' Deep Strike onto the field and again it talks about determing what may go into reserve. It says units that 'must Deep Strike' onto the field and any of their passengers, don't count toward what may go into reserve. In this section, it doesn't make a distinction about optional passengers vs. Dedicated Transport passengers, it says all passengers.

So what about the Optional passengers of non-dedicated Flyers if all Flyers must start in Reserve? What about optional passengers put in with a unit in a dedicated transport - whether it Deep Strikes or not? It would seem that you count the optional passengers toward what you MAY put in reserve, if reading the rules as written - unless the optional passenger is coming in via a vehicle that must deep strike.

On the other hand, it seems odd that you could attach 3 characters to a unit in a Drop Pod (which must Deep Strike) from Reserves, and none of them count toward determing how many units 'may' go into reserve... but when I put the same units on a flier that must also start in reserve (but like a stormraven that MAY deep strike) now all three of the same characters count towards the units that I may keep in reserve.

I could see someone arguing or at least confusing that units in Flyers that must start in Reserves work the same as units that start in Transports that must Deep Strike from reserve. However, that doesn't appear to be the case.

Thoughts?

Being optional means you don't have to start in reserve. I think that's an important distinction that makes your original plan illegal.

What's odd is what units count for what "may" go into reserve.

If a unit and an IC goes into a (non-dedicated) Flyer, the Flyer (Storm Raven) must go into Reserve. So, you count the IC and unit as 2 of the units that may go into reserve, but not the Flyer since the unit was not dedicated.

However, an IC and unit with a Dediciated Transport together (Rhino) only count as 1 unit for purposes of how many 'units' can go into reserve. However, I think the IC with them means the whole thing only counts as 1 unit that is in Reserve for the 1/2 in and 1/2 deployed.

If a unit and an IC goes into a Dedicated Transport (Night Scythe), that also happens to be a Flyer that must be in Reserve, the Dedicated Transport and it's unit inside normally count as 1 but since the Flyer must go into Reserve and now doesn't count, along with it's dedicated unit... so, it doesn't count as anything... but the IC still counts as 1 of the units that May go into reseve in this case... I think...

Finally, if you place the IC with a unit and you place them in a transport that MUST Deep Strike (Drop Pod), then you don't count any of the passengers or the Units or the Pod toward what 'may' go into Reserve, as the Drop Pod rules say that it MUST Deep Strike on and the Deep Strike rules therefore, per the DS rules in the BRB, all of its passengers, regardless of dedicated or optional, don't count towards the units that you "may" put into Reserve.

+ + + Wow, I think I got all that right... this is way too Hard! + + +

Does that look right to you guys?

So, I guess you could have a full army in drop pods off table... but I don't think you could have a full army off table in any kind of fliers... I think.

I'm struggling with how inconsistent it is as to what counts and what doesn't when figuring out how much of your force you may put in reserve.

Tactica wrote:What's odd is what units count for what "may" go into reserve.

If a unit and an IC goes into a (non-dedicated) Flyer, the Flyer (Storm Raven) must go into Reserve. So, you count the IC and unit as 2 of the units that may go into reserve, but not the Flyer since the unit was not dedicated.

However, an IC and unit with a Dediciated Transport together (Rhino) only count as 1 unit for purposes of how many 'units' can go into reserve. However, I think the IC with them means the whole thing only counts as 1 unit that is in Reserve for the 1/2 in and 1/2 deployed.

If a unit and an IC goes into a Dedicated Transport (Night Scythe), that also happens to be a Flyer that must be in Reserve, the Dedicated Transport and it's unit inside normally count as 1 but since the Flyer must go into Reserve and now doesn't count, along with it's dedicated unit... so, it doesn't count as anything... but the IC still counts as 1 of the units that May go into reseve in this case... I think...

Finally, if you place the IC with a unit and you place them in a transport that MUST Deep Strike (Drop Pod), then you don't count any of the passengers or the Units or the Pod toward what 'may' go into Reserve, as the Drop Pod rules say that it MUST Deep Strike on and the Deep Strike rules therefore, per the DS rules in the BRB, all of its passengers, regardless of dedicated or optional, don't count towards the units that you "may" put into Reserve.

+ + + Wow, I think I got all that right... this is way too Hard! + + +

Does that look right to you guys?

So, I guess you could have a full army in drop pods off table... but I don't think you could have a full army off table in any kind of fliers... I think.

I'm struggling with how inconsistent it is as to what counts and what doesn't when figuring out how much of your force you may put in reserve.

The key you're missing here is that any unit which has the option to be put into a transport or not is not something that has to start in reserve.

So yes, even though if you put a unit in its Drop Pod and this counts as one unit for how many units you're allowed to start off the table, utimately you're still going to have to start 1/2 your eligible units (those that don't have to start in reserves) on the table no matter what.


Let's say you have an army with an HQ IC and six Tactical squads, all with Drop Pods. For simplicity sake we'll say you don't take enough models in the unit to combat squad any of them.

Now, the IC always counts as a unit for this purpose regardless of whether he joins a unit or not and the Drop Pods are discounted since they must start the game in Reserve.

So you have 7 units in the army, which means you are allowed to put up to 4 of these in Reserve. The remaining 3 units however will have to start the game on the table while their Drop Pods arrive empty.

Of course, Yak, in your example, even if all the models could start in their drop pods, 4 of theose drop pods automatically come in on Turn 1, so unless you decide to drop pod assult into impossible terrain and roll delay/destroyed or you decide on difficult/dangerous terrain and every model fails their dangerous terrain tests, a majority of your army will be on the board at the end of game turn 1.

The key you're missing here is that any unit which has the option to be put into a transport or not is not something that has to start in reserve.

The rule specifically says that units and their dedicated transports count as one unit for the purposes of calculating the reserve cap. I can see no other way to interpret this than the following:

If your transport is for example a flyer that must start in reserve, the transport has to go in reserve and the passenger unit can be deployed on board or in reserve, and no matter how you decide to deploy the passenger unit, both the flyer itself and the passenger unit will never count towards the cap. Therefore an army with 1 HQ and 6 units with dedicated transports that must start in reserve can go full reserve, because the maximum amount of units allowed in reserve is 0.5 rounded up to 1 after the excluded units that are free to do what they want.

If you do that though you automatically lose at the end of turn one, so you better deploy a couple of the passenger units on board.

If you don't accept my logic I'd like you to explain what you think the phrase 'Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so. A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.' means and how we should integrate that rule into our calculation.

Either both the dedicated flyer and the passenger unit is excluded from the reserve cap calculation (no matter how the passenger unit is deployed), or neither is. The latter interpretation is either against the rule as written or atleast against the spirit of the rule.

Therion wrote:

The key you're missing here is that any unit which has the option to be put into a transport or not is not something that has to start in reserve.

The rule specifically says that units and their dedicated transports count as one unit for the purposes of calculating the reserve cap. I can see no other way to interpret this than the following:

If your transport is for example a flyer that must start in reserve, the transport has to go in reserve and the passenger unit can be deployed on board or in reserve, and no matter how you decide to deploy the passenger unit, both the flyer itself and the passenger unit will never count towards the cap. Therefore an army with 1 HQ and 6 units with dedicated transports that must start in reserve can go full reserve, because the maximum amount of units allowed in reserve is 0.5 rounded up to 1 after the excluded units that are free to do what they want.

If you do that though you automatically lose at the end of turn one, so you better deploy a couple of the passenger units on board.

If you don't accept my logic I'd like you to explain what you think the phrase 'Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so. A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.' means and how we should integrate that rule into our calculation.

Either both the dedicated flyer and the passenger unit is excluded from the reserve cap calculation (no matter how the passenger unit is deployed), or neither is. The latter interpretation is either against the rule as written or atleast against the spirit of the rule.

No problem.

"Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so."


This is obviously just a general rule for any unit that must start in reserves, not just for transports. So it would naturally apply to flyers that aren't transports, like the DE flyers, for example.

And the next rule:


"A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes."

So what are 'these purposes'? Based on the sentence before (the rule above), 'these purposes' just means: 'for the purpose of working out how many other units may do so'.

All that rule says is that a unit and its transport only count as a single choice for determining how many units you get to put into reserve, and obviously this applies to all units in transports, not just transports that have to start in reserve, so for example a unit in a Rhino would only count as a single unit for determining how many units can start in reserve.

However, NOWHERE does it imply that a unit which starts embarked on a transport suddenly gains the same rule that the transport does. Yes they become a single choice together, but while the transport is ignored, the unit it is carrying is not (there is no permission granted to ignore it).

Therefore, a unit embarked on a transport, where the transport must start in reserve would still count as one unit for the purposes of working out how many units may go into reserve.

Because of that, an all Flyer transport army or an all Drop Pod army still must start with half of its units (not including the vehicles that must start the game in reserve) on the table.

As near as I can tell, Nids are the only army that actually can put everything in Reserves for an auto-lose. Here's how:

Tyranid Prime
2 10-man units of Termagants with Mycetic Spores.

Termagants MUST start in the Mycetic Spores, which MUST deep strike. THis means you have 1 unit to determine who can go in reserves. Half of 1 (rounded up) is 1, so you can place the Prime in Reserve. Your entire army is now in Reserves and you lose.

However, NOWHERE does it imply that a unit which starts embarked on a transport suddenly gains the same rule that the transport does. Yes they become a single choice together, but while the transport is ignored, the unit it is carrying is not (there is no permission granted to ignore it).

Therefore, a unit embarked on a transport, where the transport must start in reserve would still count as one unit for the purposes of working out how many units may go into reserve.

Because of that, an all Flyer transport army or an all Drop Pod army still must start with half of its units (not including the vehicles that must start the game in reserve) on the table.

I want to say I don't have a problem with your interpretation from a gaming perspective and I doubt anyone will. This is a very particular scenario and because of the "auto-lose" rule everyone will deploy plenty of units on the table in any case. However I still think your argument is unsupportable. You're either completely ignoring or alternatively just using some strange interpretation of the phrase 'A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.'

To me there's absolutely no doubt that the purposes they're talking about is the reserve cap because that's what the previous sentence talks about, like I already quoted in my previous post. That's why I can't see any scenario where the transport itself is not counted but the passenger unit is. The fact that this rule applies to Rhinos and Marines just like it does to Night Scythes and Warriors doesn't alter the fact that you can't start counting the Night Scythe and Warriors separately for these calculations. You can't exclude the Night Scythe and include the Warriors because they're counted as a single unit for these purposes.

Therion wrote:
I want to say I don't have a problem with your interpretation from a gaming perspective and I doubt anyone will. This is a very particular scenario and because of the "auto-lose" rule everyone will deploy plenty of units on the table in any case. However I still think your argument is unsupportable. You're either completely ignoring or alternatively just using some strange interpretation of the phrase 'A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.'

To me there's absolutely no doubt that the purposes they're talking about is the reserve cap because that's what the previous sentence talks about, like I already quoted in my previous post. That's why I can't see any scenario where the transport itself is not counted but the passenger unit is. The fact that this rule applies to Rhinos and Marines just like it does to Night Scythes and Warriors doesn't alter the fact that you can't start counting the Night Scythe and Warriors separately for these calculations. You can't exclude the Night Scythe and include the Warriors because they're counted as a single unit for these purposes.

I think the mistake you're making (if I can be so bold) is that you're somehow assuming that you get to decide how your units are arriving before determining how many units you're allowed to keep in Reserves, when the rules are actually not written that way.

How they're written is that you take a look at your entire army without any declaration of how anything is arriving and:

Units that must start in reserve are removed from the pool completely.
Units and their dedicated transports are combined together into a single choice.

And then you add up what you have left and that gives you your total for how many units are allowed to be put into reserve.

yakface wrote:

Therion wrote:
I want to say I don't have a problem with your interpretation from a gaming perspective and I doubt anyone will. This is a very particular scenario and because of the "auto-lose" rule everyone will deploy plenty of units on the table in any case. However I still think your argument is unsupportable. You're either completely ignoring or alternatively just using some strange interpretation of the phrase 'A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.'

To me there's absolutely no doubt that the purposes they're talking about is the reserve cap because that's what the previous sentence talks about, like I already quoted in my previous post. That's why I can't see any scenario where the transport itself is not counted but the passenger unit is. The fact that this rule applies to Rhinos and Marines just like it does to Night Scythes and Warriors doesn't alter the fact that you can't start counting the Night Scythe and Warriors separately for these calculations. You can't exclude the Night Scythe and include the Warriors because they're counted as a single unit for these purposes.

I think the mistake you're making (if I can be so bold) is that you're somehow assuming that you get to decide how your units are arriving before determining how many units you're allowed to keep in Reserves, when the rules are actually not written that way.

How they're written is that you take a look at your entire army without any declaration of how anything is arriving and:

Units that must start in reserve are removed from the pool completely.
Units and their dedicated transports are combined together into a single choice.

And then you add up what you have left and that gives you your total for how many units are allowed to be put into reserve.

A Night Scythe is a unit too while also being a dedicated transport. Units like the Night Scythe are removed from the pool. So how do we deal with two units attached to eachother? They're counted as a single unit for these purposes. I'm sticking to my interpretation that either both of them are excluded from the pool, or neither is. The latter doesn't make any sense whatsoever because the whole paragraph is about these types of units being ignored when determining the maximum.

I tried to discern a structure how you calculate the cap, and basically what you're doing is the following: You include everything in the calculation (1 HQ + 6x Warriors in Night Scythes for a total of 7 units for max 4 reserves), then put all the units that must start in reserve into reserve while not subtracting them from the reserves allowance of 4, and then see what else you want to do. This works from a gaming perspective and you could make a FAQ ruling like this but I can't see how it follows the rules as they've been written to us.

yakface wrote:The key you're missing here is that any unit which has the option to be put into a transport or not is not something that has to start in reserve.

OK, before I move on, help me out here...

(pg. 36) Deep Strike, 3rd Paragraph...
"...When working out how many units can be placed in reserver, units that must be deployed by Deep Strike (along with any models embarked upon them) are ignored...."

This does not state only dedicated transports and units... its says, "any"...

What am I misreading... it seems that if I take an all Drop pod army, and I embark all my characters and units on Drop Pods... why is it not legal to start with them all off board on turn 1?

Of course, if this is actually still legal, then following Drop Pod assault, you end up with plenty of goods on the field turn 1.

The answer to this will help before I respond to the other posts / points.

Cheers and thanks for taking the time to spell it out to me folks,

I think some people are making this more complicated than it is.

If you have a transport that must be kept in Reserve (e.g. a Stormraven) and embark a unit and an Independent Character onto it (e.g. an Assault Squad and a Sanguinary Priest), then you have three units in Reserve, but one of them does not count towards your maximum Reserves. Because they are not forced to stay in Reserve (they have the option of being deployed normally), the embarked unit(s) still count towards the maximum Reserves.

If you have a unit with a dedicated Drop Pod, then it counts as a single unit for Reserves and you wouldn't be able to deploy one while leaving the other in Reserves (because you only ever keep "units" in Reserve; a unit and its dedicated transport are one "unit" for Reserves, so they both must either be on the table or not). Therefore, they are both forced to enter by Reserves, so do not count towards the maximum. The Deep Strike rules are simply clarifying this, and also appear to be giving allowance for Independent Characters to be included in this.

If you have a unit with a dedicated Flyer transport, then the transported unit and the Flyer are both forced to begin in Reserves and so do not count towards the maximum.

I can't think of any Flyers that must arrive by Deep Strike, so they are currently not affected by the Deep Strike rule, so any units embarked in them (provided they are not Dedicated Transports) still count towards the maximum number of Reserves. In the hypothetical situation where a Flyer does have to arrive by Deep Strike, then they would not.

(No page references, since this thread already has them all.)

By embarking onto a dedicated transport in reserve, you're putting that unit into reserve.

By attaching an IC to a unit in reserve, you're putting that unit into reserve.

Because you can't put more than half of your units into reserve, 3 of the units will not be able to be embarked onto their Drop Pods in Yak's drop pod army.

I just want to point out that there's actually an exception for Drop Pods (or units that must Deep Strike) that I wasn't aware of, and its on page 36 in the Deep Strike rules.

So an all Drop Pod army is definitely, definitely allowed.

However, I still stand by my interpretation for non-drop flyer armies (like the Scythe lists). And in fact the more explicit version of the rule in the Deep Strike section (which clearly states that models embarked on pods are ignored) makes me even more certain that I'm correct.

But really, as has been pointed out, it would be suicide to take such a list because you'd auto-lose at the bottom of game turn 1 since you'd have no units on the table anyway.

yakface wrote: I just want to point out that there's actually an exception for Drop Pods (or units that must Deep Strike) that I wasn't aware of, and its on page 36 in the Deep Strike rules.

So an all Drop Pod army is definitely, definitely allowed.

OK, now we agree. Since drop pods get half of their pods on turn 1, and rapid fire is full range even after moving, and things like sternguard vets with comb-plasma as a full unit exist... perhaps a drop pod army with Pedro is a viable tactic now... just saying.

yakface wrote:However, I still stand by my interpretation for non-drop flyer armies (like the Scythe lists). And in fact the more explicit version of the rule in the Deep Strike section (which clearly states that models embarked on pods are ignored) makes me even more certain that I'm correct.

But really, as has been pointed out, it would be suicide to take such a list because you'd auto-lose at the bottom of game turn 1 since you'd have no units on the table anyway.

Agreed, all flyer army = auto lose at the end of turn 1.

Cheers,