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If a droppod lands on a four-floor building (for example) where did it land? Top floor or ground level? Or, do you roll for immobilization at the top floor, as the droppod enters the difficult terrain on its way down?

I would say ground level, given the paucity of clear rules on point.

The owner of the droppod would get to choose which level to land on provided the droppod can fit, as the deployment follows basic movement rules right?  The Dawn of War opening movies shows droppods gently landing via reverse thrusters, and in the game they crash hard into the ground, so it isn't difficult to imagine either situation occuring.

- Oaka

Based on the Deathwing v. Tau COD battle featured in (US) WD 314, they showed the drop pods always landing at the ground floor each time it hit on a building, so that'd be my likely call.

Plus, even if the pod can control it's rate of descent, I can't imagine most buildings are really made to take the weight of the pod + the various marines, dreads, or termies, considering that a Dreadnought or Crisis suit has to constantly make tests about falling through the floor.

If, and it's a big if, you can fit the entire pod between floors, then maybe take a test just like a walker unit would need, but probably with a -2 modifier for the extra weight. If you pass, fine, if not, then you're on the express to the lobby.

You COULD make the opposite argument based on the ordinance weapon rules though.

Another argument for the floor would be that vehicles can't go on any other floor than the ground floor as per CoD rules.

IMHO a better convention would be to treat any level other than ground impassable terrain so the drop pod stops just shy of it as per drop pod rules.

I don't have the CoD book yet, but if it mentions that vehicles cannot go on any floor except the ground floor, then this should be cut and dry.  However, I believe that any deepstriking unit that isn't composed of vehicles can choose from any of the floors that the first model scatters over- unless there are special rules for that as well.

- Oaka

there is nothing to back deepstriking either way.

Happy - yeah, I am seeing that - there is nothing in the rules telling us anything about where deepstrikers go at all. So, since you can place models on higher levels (if you can move there) it seems to be that you could place the deepstrikers on any level that they could go. However, if you ran out of room on that level, you would lose the remaining models? That sounds right, since you wouldn't be able to place them in base with the other models...

But wasn't the consensus of these boards that droppods do NOT deepstrike? They are not bound by the deepstrike rules. I flipped through the COD book at the store and it looked like there was something about skimmers being able to use a fastline upgrade or strategem or something. That alone makes it sound to me like troops cannot disembark on any floor but the bottom and that if the skimmer can't ft on the bottom floor they ain't getting out. If that isn't the case then that upgrade really doesn't have any benefit that I can see. Of course this is from a glance at the book since I don't own it either.

For those looking for fluff without rules the answer would be "No." No force in it's right mind would ever send droppods into a dense unstable terrain like that. The possibility of the doors being jammed shut on impact would make the things unnacceptable tactically anyways. Grav chute or any other type of airborne drop wouldn't work either. Unless you really wanted your troops to die horribly you wouldn't drop them into a dense urban, or forest landscape.

Well - the rule doesn't allow deployment out of a vehicle onto any but the first level, so as a practical matter droppods have to be close enough to level one to put their troops down onto level one. Good point.

Moving away from droppods, how about models which deepstrike? Terminators, for example. Per RAW, the marker for the deepstrike is placed, then it scatters - certainly leaves it to the owning player's option to place the marker on any particular floor, and teleport to that floor. So by RAW I think it's permitted. Goes with the fluff completely too - Terminators are always being teleported to interior floors of some space hulk.

Demons, I think, work as follows: once you determine where the template is, you would place all of the demons under that template, and in coherency with each other. This would mean that demons could "stack" up all levels. The only possible modifier would be if the demon summoning template counts as a template as described in the COD rules, meaning it has to be assigned to a floor.

@antonin. I don't play chaos but doesn't the rule read something like "must be placed ON the blast marker" ?

Additional question: are drop pods permission only in CoD games? I browsed the book but forgot to look at the wording of the missions (are they called standard missions like the BGB?).

Winterman, I know this is totally off topic, but your sig is a little dangerous.

Here I am sitting in my office, and I just about spewed coffee across my desk when I read that

Sal.