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While I agree that pre-Beta rules, being able to bring in half your force via Tactical Reserves (hereby TR) was OP, I think GW overcorrected by a long shot.
Restricting TRs to your deployment zone turn 1 is worthless for many, many units that would have been better off starting on the board and moving normally.
Using Power level to dictate half your force that can be in TR is an ok change, if a bit annoying to plan around.

Here's what I propose: Rather than restrict Turn 1 TR arrival to only your DZ, why not one of the following instead:
A) Units arriving from TR turn 1 can only do so in your table half (usually within 12" of your DZ)
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B) Units arriving from TR turn 1 must arrive outside 12" of enemy units, rather than the typical 9" per their datasheet.

Both options still put units outside range to declare charges, outside Rapidfire range, and outside the ignore range of -1 to hit traits. However, both options still allow critical units to "hide" during the first player turn, but still drop in closer than they may have been by deploying normally and moving.
So this could be a better compromise than having to just wait until turn 2.

I like option A better as it gives the possibility for the player going second to have a potential advantage. If player with first turn moves forward or drops in any units of their own, option A allows the player with 2nd turn to potentially drop 9" away from those units like they can in later turns. Situational, yes, but anything that helps 2nd player is welcome to mitigate the 1st turn advantage.

Thoughts?

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I like the idea of 9" outside of your enemies deployment zone (in addition to the regular 9" from enemy models).

Could be pushed to 12" from enemy deployment zone to make those t1 charges harder but I feel that punishes H2H armies vs shootie ones and that protection can easily be gained by just starting 3" back from the edge of your own deployment.

I think it really helps armies that go second (allowing you to keep units off the board and react to 1st players movements) while not totally neutering your ability to use those units which you are keeping off the board and forcing you to face 2 rounds of enemy firepower before bringing them in.

Also reduces the need for t1 screens as you have a built in screen but doesn't remove the role of scout moves helping to push out your deepstrike denial zone.

I think the 12" from enemy units allows too many board control shenanigans as it would be trivial for some armies to zone out the entire board from deepstrike (nids, orks, demons and guard off the top of my head, hell SM could probably get close with scouts) as 2 units could zone off 48" (vs the theoretical 36 now possible).

The idea is going in a good direction though as the current beta rules are really punishing anything that uses deepstrike to help it's defenses and deepstriking CQC units as well.

bananathug wrote:
I like the idea of 9" outside of your enemies deployment zone (in addition to the regular 9" from enemy models).

Could be pushed to 12" from enemy deployment zone to make those t1 charges harder but I feel that punishes H2H armies vs shootie ones and that protection can easily be gained by just starting 3" back from the edge of your own deployment.

Yeah, I think 9" outside enemy deployment is a good solution as you are right, the opponent has to option of deploying 3" behind their own DZ and thus forcing the opponent outside 12".

The only reason I might still advocate for a straight 12" is for those armies that have larger models or units with large footprints that may have a hard time fitting into their DZ, or for armies that really want to deploy full forward to get into mid-range for weapons or move forward for assaults.
"Forcing" units to deploy 3" behind their own DZ line is an advantage of its own, after all.
The goal of this change it to make it worth dropping in units on turn 1 without reverting back to when it was OP.

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I think good design could've been brought up by providing different tiers of deepstrikes for different units.

Deepstrike (+12"): standard deepstrikers
Deepstrike (+9"): deepstrike given to assault-oriented units, often equipped with less-than-best ranged weapons.
Deepstrike (+6"): deepstrike aided with homers and what not

The thing about 12" is some rf is 30" and assault2 18" is common. Oblits won't care.

Shas'O'Ceris wrote:
The thing about 12" is some rf is 30" and assault2 18" is common. Oblits won't care.

Exactly. Most RP weapons are 24". 30" RP weapons are rare. Assault weapons don't care about half range to begin with.
The goal isn't to deny ranged weapons to be shot with at all when it arrives via deep strike. It's merely a stop gap suggestion for suicide units.
One issue might be meltas, but they should be equipped on a fast units that can close gaps quickly to begin with anyways and not as "land-within-melta-range-and-shoot-once-and-hope-they-live-to-shoot-another-round" type model.

Another option is to keep the Beta rule as-is, but only apply it to the first player turn, not the entire battle round.
This could help mitigate the current 1st turn advantage, although it might be a bit of an over correct and instead of Alpha strikes, we'd have a meta littered with Beta strike tactics.

Still, not every faction has lots of effective TR units and many that do may still prefer units that start on the board.
Being restricted by Power Level prevents armies from putting too much in TR.
So player A goes first and is basically guaranteed to half at least half the enemy army across from him. The Beta rule should mitigate that player from dropping in the rest of his army to wipe the opponent.
But player B has no such ability as-is. He must face that first turn with at least half his force. The Beta rule for TR should NOT affect player B

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