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The emergency disembarkation rule is to be used if "any models cannot disembark, because of enemies or... impassable terrain."

The question is, are "enemies and impassable terrain" just examples, or are they actually restrictive?

What happens if friendly models, or a low roll on difficult terrain movement prevents a normal disembark? Is that unit unable to disembark? Or in the case of a wreck, are those models all removed?

I started down this train of thought because I was checking to see if I could voluntarily emergency disembark (to get my units closer to the enemy when their rear-access-hatch transport is wrecked), and the rule seems to clearly state that I can not. So I thought about putting a block behind the transport intentionally to allow me to emergency disembark, and read closer, and now this rule makes no sense at all... a transported unit should never be worse off with friends behind it instead of enemies... but that looks like what it's saying.

Thoughts?

Isn't an emergency disembark always 3"?

 CrownAxe wrote:
Isn't an emergency disembark always 3"?

I think the point was that you can use emergency disembark to exit the vehicle as if it were open-topped, and gain extra distance that way. Emergency disembark (henceforth "ED") isn't always 3" (it's shown in the diagram as 6"), but in the case of a Wrecked vehicle it would be 3". ED'ing in the opponent's turn (i.e. after a Wreck) would also avoid the drawback of ED (except for Overwatch).

Anyway, back to the OP: I would say that the two are examples, rather than a complete list (though it lacks an "etc." or anything to make that clear). Listing all the possible reasons you aren't able to place a model would get prohibitively complicated quickly, with no future-proofing. That's HIWPI rather than strict RAW though.

I'm torn because I agree with your HIWPI stance in the abstract, but then I think about intentionally putting a friendly unit behind my waveserpent so that if the WS gets blown up, the unit inside can exit out the front using emergency disembark (instead of the rear as they would normally be required to do)... thus gaining them over 6" of movement towards the enemy.

It's a smart move but it makes me feel a little dirty. On the other hand, if people do that all the time and it's considered a legitimate tactic... Well I should start doing it too.

RAW, as always, is less than 100% clear on the subject :/

the because of... line seems exhaustive. I cannot see any suggestion it is a set of examples