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I played a game against a Raven Guard army that ran a Drop Pod that he intentionally mishapped by dunking on top of my guys and moving behind them due to that being the shortest distance to an open enough area. I thought it was a little weird but let that pass due to me just wanting the game to keep on going rather then stopping and checking the rules for it mid-game. After the game though, I saw that for the IGS state that if a Drop Pod scatter on top of impassable terrain/models then it can reduce the scatter to avoid landing on them. So is he using the Pod wrong by intentionally dropping it on top of mishap areas or am I misinterpreting the rules somehow?

If you intentionally land the pod on a place it can't land, it will mishap.

Inertial Guidance only lets you reduce the scatter. It doesn't let you increase the scatter to land somewhere safe. If reducing the scatter doesn't give you a safe landing site, or there is no scatter to reduce, you mishap.

The drop pod's rule says that you can reduce scatter to avoid a mishap. It does not say that you can increase scatter to avoid a mishap. If you deliberately place the drop pod so that it creates a mishap and do not scatter away to a safe location then you are stuck with the mishap, just like if your drop pod scatters off the table.

 insaniak wrote:
If you intentionally land the pod on a place it can't land, it will mishap.

Inertial Guidance only lets you reduce the scatter. It doesn't let you increase the scatter to land somewhere safe. If reducing the scatter doesn't give you a safe landing site, or there is no scatter to reduce, you mishap.

This. It is a common misconception that pods allow you to increase/change/create scatter to avoid mishap. However they may only reduce it.

 FlingitNow wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
If you intentionally land the pod on a place it can't land, it will mishap.

Inertial Guidance only lets you reduce the scatter. It doesn't let you increase the scatter to land somewhere safe. If reducing the scatter doesn't give you a safe landing site, or there is no scatter to reduce, you mishap.

This. It is a common misconception that pods allow you to increase/change/create scatter to avoid mishap. However they may only reduce it.

yes, the misconception arrises from previous rendition of the guidance system that did allow this to happen, which was addressed. personally I think that a pod should be able to smash down into a unit and cause casualties as it it were a barrage weapon, but that would make them overpowered for the cost behond belief, tried it once in a friendly with a friend.....it didn't go well and we scrapped it almost straight away.

 nutty_nutter wrote:

 FlingitNow wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
If you intentionally land the pod on a place it can't land, it will mishap.

Inertial Guidance only lets you reduce the scatter. It doesn't let you increase the scatter to land somewhere safe. If reducing the scatter doesn't give you a safe landing site, or there is no scatter to reduce, you mishap.

This. It is a common misconception that pods allow you to increase/change/create scatter to avoid mishap. However they may only reduce it.

yes, the misconception arrises from previous rendition of the guidance system that did allow this to happen, which was addressed. personally I think that a pod should be able to smash down into a unit and cause casualties as it it were a barrage weapon, but that would make them overpowered for the cost behond belief, tried it once in a friendly with a friend.....it didn't go well and we scrapped it almost straight away.

Its 20 points for a death wind launcher you could use that profile and the Mawlocs rules and cost them at 55 points (i.e. the same as the DWL). Though we're well into proposed rules here

Nutty - whcih versions allowed you to do that? the 4th ed SM codex certainly didnt, from memory.

Inertial Guidance has never allowed you to increase the scatter distance.

Alright, so it sounds like my buddy was right then. Thanks for the clarification!

While there are rare occasions when you will want to deliberately mishap, they are few and far between. The auto-mishap remains a thing you CAN do. (I've seen people argue that it's an illegal placement.) The salient point here, however, is that you can NOT use the Inertial Guidance System to increase your scatter.

 gnoise wrote:
Alright, so it sounds like my buddy was right then. Thanks for the clarification!

He was right in that he can deploy the pod onto something that will cause a mishap. He was wrong in increasing the scatter.

I'm thinking if he placed the model on top of yours it's an illegal placement. Since he's not placing it on the table then rolling the scatter die. Also it cannot increase its scatter to be safe.

The whole debate over drop pods and the shenanigans surrounding them make me not want to play the dbags who try this crap.

If you read through the thread titled "Drop Pods, Locator Beacons and Scatter" in the same forum here you'll find an excellent statement that perfectly explains what the term "reduce scatter" means. Not me though, I had basically the exact same question, someone else did the succinct explaining.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lungpickle wrote:
I'm thinking if he placed the model on top of yours it's an illegal placement. Since he's not placing it on the table then rolling the scatter die. Also it cannot increase its scatter to be safe.

The whole debate over drop pods and the shenanigans surrounding them make me not want to play the dbags who try this crap.

Holy wa!

You know, you're right! No one is ever wrong or just mistaken hey, they're always out to be jerks specifically to us.