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So a Deathstorm is supposed to drop into a landing zone, open the doors and start blasting away at everything in sight, followed by the follow on drop pods and transports with the troops. I have two issues with the rules as they stand and am wondering if there is an FAQ or someone asked FW if there was a misprint on these.
1. Does it actually have Drop Pod Assault? Kind of hard to be on the ground first when it doesnt deploy like standard drop pods.

2. A DSing vehicle counts as moving at cruising speed thus only gets snap shots. So the two weapon configurations are frag missiles or krak missiles . Frags being blast weapons cannot fire on snap fire and the kraks only get snap fire shots. So are the Independent Machine Spirits true machine spirits or is the way it is supposed to be?

Thats a crap ton of points and a heavy slot that cant even remotely do its job.

Edit. Misread. Thought you were talking about post-heresy.

1. It currently does not have the DPA special rule. There is no FAQ for HH2.
2. Independent Machine Spirits do not override the Cruising Speed restriction. It only allows you to target different units.

Both questions are addressed by emailing fw, which is the closest thing to an faq at the moment. The deathstorm IS meant to have the drop pod assault rule. Further:
Deathstorm Drop Pod paragraph missing...

Q: The turn the Deathstorm Drop Pod deploys it would not be able to fire it's Deathstorm Launchers due to it having to snap fire it's weapons for moving at cruising speed, and the weapon being a blast template it cannot be snap fired.

I am curious if this is simply an oversight or was intended.

A: There was an oversight in the rules for the Deathstorm Drop Pods in that a paragraph was missing which stated that the Missile armed version could fire on the turn it landed (at BS1 still) as an exception to the standard rules. This will be addressed in a future FAQ.

Of course you sometimes get different answers...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Q: Hello Forge World gurus, I have a quick question about the current Dreadclaw rules from the first Horus Heresy book. Is the Dreadclaw intentionally without the Drop Pod Assault rule? While the difference in the drop pod to Dreadclaw rules is distinct, the lack of this rule makes building a force around them (like a Night Lords Terror Assault force) very difficult, I just wanted to see if this was the intent or an omission. Thank you!

A: Hi there.

The Drop Pod Assault rule was missed from the Horus Heresy Dreadclaw profile by mistake so you can consider this model to have that rule.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oops meant this one:
Q: I was wondering whether the Deathstorm Drop Pod is supposed to have the Drop Pod Assault special rule?

A: Yes the Deathstorm Drop Pod is meant to have the Drop Pod Assault special rule. It was missed off by accident.

Well that makes it more usable. I did send FW an email, they just haven't gotten back to me yet.

Interesting on the Deathclaw as well. That always bugged me and is why I never used it. I figured the Flyer rule was the reasoning behind it.

FW sent a reply:
Thank you fro your email. We have recently updated some of the rules concerning the Deathstrorm drop pod, these will be represented in an upcoming update. We do not yet have a suggested date for its publication.

1. The Deathstorm Drop Pod may purchase the Drop Pod Assault special rule for +25 points.
2. The Deathstorm Drop Pod may fire all of it's weapons at its full ballistic skill even on the turn it deep strikes, ignoring the usual restrictions for deep striking units shooting. It still counts as having moved at cruising speed and having arrived by deep strike for any other purposes.

Col. Dash wrote:
FW sent a reply:
Thank you fro your email. We have recently updated some of the rules concerning the Deathstrorm drop pod, these will be represented in an upcoming update. We do not yet have a suggested date for its publication.

1. The Deathstorm Drop Pod may purchase the Drop Pod Assault special rule for +25 points.
2. The Deathstorm Drop Pod may fire all of it's weapons at its full ballistic skill even on the turn it deep strikes, ignoring the usual restrictions for deep striking units shooting. It still counts as having moved at cruising speed and having arrived by deep strike for any other purposes.

Did you mention you were asking about the Horus Heresy version, and not the post-Heresy?

Heresy version.