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Hey there guys,
Recently I've been trying out a force with a full pack of both scouts and grey hunters lead by a Wolf Priest w/ SotH. I'm wanting to take it to the next level with Bran Redmaw, joining him to a pack of grey hunters, using his patient hunters rule to outflank another and outflank a full wolf scouts pack. Obviously with the new 50% reserves rule this makes things quite dicey, and so a possible solution that has come to mind is purchasing drop pods for the squads, sending them down empty and having the squads come in over the next two turns (the second turn if the dice gods are in my favour). To my understanding this would discount them from the 50% reserves rule, but then I'm not sure if its legal, what does everyone think?
On a similar subject, the oath for SotH states the character "should be held in reserve", does this discount the character from the 50% reserves ruling?

Anything that is forced to be in reserve, such as Flyers or Drop Pods, does not count towards the units for 50%. So if you have 4 units, of which 2 arrive in Drop Pods, you can have 1 of the Drop Pod-less also in reserve.

Redemption wrote:Anything that is forced to be in reserve, such as Flyers or Drop Pods, does not count towards the units for 50%. So if you have 4 units, of which 2 arrive in Drop Pods, you can have 1 of the Drop Pod-less also in reserve.

This correct for Drop Pods, but you're reading the rules wrong. Units that are forced to be in reserve, like Drop Pods and fliers, are not counted towards the 50%. Now, this specific rule does not apply to units that have embarked on a Drop Pod or Flier.

Now, for Drop Pods have Deep Strike USR which tells us that "any model that is embarked upon unit that must Deep strike is not counted for reserve purposes". So the end result is correct, but only becuase you use Drop pods as an example. For Stormravens, if you had 4 units, 2 of which were embarked upon Storm Raven, you couldn't put anything else to reserve anymore.

The rule for reserves states:
'When deploying their armies, players can choose not to deploy up to half of their units (rounding up) keeping them as Reserves to arrive later. Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so. (Page 124)

So in your example of 4 units of which 2 are Storm Ravens, the Storm Ravens would be ignored for determining how many units can be placed in reserve. As there are now 2 left, 50% of that is 1 unit that can be put in reserve.

And don't forget that if you do not have any units on board at the end of any game turn, you automatically lose the game. So any army that manages to put everything in reserves that don't arrive until at least turn two, such as a Dark Angels full Drop Pod army, will lose the game before they get to put a single model on the table.

My plan was to send the pods down empty with the squads not embarked, would this still take them out of the 50% ruling? It states in the faq that you can send drop pods down empty but then can the unit who purchased it still outflank and not be counted towards the 50%.
The point is to have 2 plasma guns and PP in the pack, along with a pack leader with either 2 PP or a Combi-P, and wolf priest armed similarly, meaning between 4 and 9 plasma shots per grey hunter squad on the turn they arrive, with rerolls of gets hot with preferred enemy and possibly a prescience RP. Obviously all these dudes cant fit in a pod, in which case id get a max 4 shots when it drops.

If the squad is not embarked upon the reserved transport, they still count towards the 50% ruling.

Vrall wrote: On a similar subject, the oath for SotH states the character "should be held in reserve", does this discount the character from the 50% reserves ruling?

Nope, this is flavour to the rule and also should =/= must.

I also don't see the big problem, you should have around 9 units in the army. That would mean that you end up with 5 units going into reserves. So redmaw, the squad he is attached to, the priest, his unit and the wolf scouts.
3x troops, 1 wolf guard, 2 hq, 2 long fangs, 1 wolf scouts and maybe something else.

Redemption wrote:If the squad is not embarked upon the reserved transport, they still count towards the 50% ruling.

A unit and it's transport count as one unit for determining reserves. The rule makes no mention of embarked, disembarked, requirement for both to be in reserves, etc. Flat out, unit and DT count as one unit for determining reserves counts. That's it.

Vrall wrote:Hey there guys,
Recently I've been trying out a force with a full pack of both scouts and grey hunters lead by a Wolf Priest w/ SotH. I'm wanting to take it to the next level with Bran Redmaw

Where are there rules for Bran?

J Mac wrote:

Vrall wrote:Hey there guys,
Recently I've been trying out a force with a full pack of both scouts and grey hunters lead by a Wolf Priest w/ SotH. I'm wanting to take it to the next level with Bran Redmaw

Where are there rules for Bran?

I was wrong, it is IA 11.

IA11 i thought

Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes for worknig out how many other units may do so. A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.

Reads to me like if either one of these units (the Unit or the Dedicated Transport) must be held in Reserve then neither counts. It seems exploitative and definitely doesn't seem to be RAI. I'd be leery of a GW FAQ update for the BYB coming out that would clarify the Reserve rules and possibly make it illegal though.

Any reason the whole army needs to be Outflanking?

cowmonaut wrote:

Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes for worknig out how many other units may do so. A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.

Reads to me like if either one of these units (the Unit or the Dedicated Transport) must be held in Reserve then neither counts. It seems exploitative and definitely doesn't seem to be RAI. I'd be leery of a GW FAQ update for the BYB coming out that would clarify the Reserve rules and possibly make it illegal though.

I'm reading it the same way. Single unit and since (part of) the unit must start in reserves, none of it counts. But also like you, I do think that it might be FAQed. But then again, maybe that is how they meant it to work. Won't know until they tell us one way or the other. But until then, I believe the RAW is clear.

don_mondo wrote:

cowmonaut wrote:

Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes for worknig out how many other units may do so. A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.

Reads to me like if either one of these units (the Unit or the Dedicated Transport) must be held in Reserve then neither counts. It seems exploitative and definitely doesn't seem to be RAI. I'd be leery of a GW FAQ update for the BYB coming out that would clarify the Reserve rules and possibly make it illegal though.

I'm reading it the same way. Single unit and since (part of) the unit must start in reserves, none of it counts. But also like you, I do think that it might be FAQed. But then again, maybe that is how they meant it to work. Won't know until they tell us one way or the other. But until then, I believe the RAW is clear.

It would only work for a few units. Necron flyers are the only flying dedicated transport that i know of, but even spamming all flyers the HQ has to deploy by himself on the ground.

Captain Al'Raheim (sp?) outflanking a whole platoon in chimeras perhaps. but I wouldn't find this idea very competitive. Funny to use (done it in 5th) but not competitive.

I have yet to find a list that can truly null deploy (minus drop pod lists) and not risk being tabled by the end of turn 1. So I don't think the unit/DT thing will be abused much.

Wasn't worried about the strategic /tactical/list building implications or whether it would allow all reserves armies, etc. I just see a lot of people saying that if the unit isn't embarked in the DT, it counts as a separate unit. Not so, according to the rules. That's all I'm saying.

Heh, just faced the eight Necron flyers list earlier this week. Even with two hydras and two vendettas (yes, I play IG, they were not allies), I was only able to kill half of them. And thanks to some special rule, when they got destroyed, the embarked unit did not crash and burn but went into ongoing reserves. And then walked on to claim objectives on his side of the table. That was the second game. First game i killed his only deployed unit (a squad of scarabs) with a manticore direct hit (after shooting them with a chimera and using a searchlight on them so that nightfight did them no good whatsoever). Game over after half a turn.

Redemption wrote:The rule for reserves states:
'When deploying their armies, players can choose not to deploy up to half of their units (rounding up) keeping them as Reserves to arrive later. Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so. (Page 124)

So in your example of 4 units of which 2 are Storm Ravens, the Storm Ravens would be ignored for determining how many units can be placed in reserve. As there are now 2 left, 50% of that is 1 unit that can be put in reserve.

I might be missing something here. The Stormraven (BA & GK codex) is listed as a skimmer. I get that Flyers are new to 6th, but the BA & GK FAQs make no mention of adding the Flyer type to them. Was this brought up in White Dwarf when they launched the new flyer models right before 6th hit? It would make sense for them to be, just looking for some clarification for future Stormraven usage. I never bothered looking into the Flyer rules when the models came out since nobody I play with was planning on buying any.

Otherwise they aren't being forced into reserves, so they would count towards determining the 50%

The flyer type is added to them in the back of the rulebook.

Ah, excellent. Thanks for pointing that out.

If you have a drop pod with a unit niether counts as being on the table or in reserves towards the 50% limit as the drop pod excludes them from counting.

So if you have a pod with 10 tactical marines and you deploy them on the table they do not let you put anouther unit in reserve.