Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I propose that there should be a USR (Universal Special Rule) for deepstriking vehicles, including marine drop pods.  Particularly to address the issue of scattering onto friendly units in a drop but also to clean up the various mechanics that exist.

Any vehicle that can deep strike will of course follow the reserve rules as previously defined, and should be placed on the table in the normal manner and roll the deviation dice.

Hitting a Vehicle:

If a deepstriking vehicle hits another vehicle by design or accident it causes a glancing hit on both vehicles, the dropper and the target (resolved before the embarked troops take any actions), and the dropper is repositioned anywhere adjecent to the target vehicle on the board by the target vehicles owner.

Hitting enemy troops:

Enemy infantry, (anything with no AV), hit inadvertently or by design will be treated exactly as a tank shock with the existing rules as defined for Death or Glory.

Hitting Friendly troops:

Friendly troops can not be intentionally targeted, any models contacting the vehicle will be hit on a 4+, and may take a regular armor save if hit.  Any casualties in the unit will cause a pin test. Surviving models are rearranged by the owning player in Coherencey outside the boundary of the deepstriking vehicle and the vehicle is placed.

I would intend for these rules to be utilized for Drop Pods, Sentinels and Landspeeders, and for Tyranid Seed pods (if they existed).

Eh..... Good concepts, but take into consideration...
Drop Pods are supposed to come speeding down to the surface soooooooo fast, one could argue that for tank shock purposes you see the rhino driving in your direction, but the drop pod is almost like orbital bombardment at the speed it's moving, so the troops it would land on would not have time to react to shoot it down; therefore they scramble out of its way, hence the 1 inch away rule. Plus Pods would be worse because tank shock is horrible in this game... Pass a LD and use my squad powerfist/melta/plasma/etc... to kill up to 10 marines in 1 shot, no thanks.
The friendly troops idea is good, but you can also argue that they dive out of the way as well, hence the 1 inch rule.
Landing on another vehicle...This can't dive out of your way, but then how do you determine the strength of a falling drop pod, for example if I pod and land on a say speeder (AV10) why should I only glance because in theory if I glance against say a necron moni (AV 14), shouldn't that speeder, much lightly armored just be crushed?

I mean they are good ideas, but without detailed rules on "what if" situations they are impractical... But then again it is also impractical to wield a gun the size of your entire body, but marines can do that too.

Blank> Plus Pods would be worse because tank shock is horrible in this game... Pass a LD and use my squad powerfist/melta/plasma/etc... to kill up to 10 marines in 1 shot, no thanks.

Well, don't aim for troops with a pod then.

Blank>  Landing on another vehicle...This can't dive out of your way, but then how do you determine the strength of a falling drop pod

You don't have to determine any strengths, that's the point, collisions cause glancing hits to both

Blank>  one could argue that for tank shock purposes you see the rhino driving in your direction, but the drop pod is almost like orbital bombardment at the speed it's moving, so the troops it would land on....impractical to wield a gun the size of your entire body...

Put whatever story you want to all this, not really interested in discussing fluff, do you think the rules would work?

Without the thought of fluff, it could go either way. I will elaborate....

Hitting an (AV**) >You would need to be more general, if I pod on to a AV 14, I should not get the same outcome as landing on AV 10. Take a brick, throw it into aluminum foil, goes right through, take same brick and throw it into a metal (wall, garbage can, car, what have you) doesn't go right through = Difference Between AV 10 and AV 14.
Conclusion, you would need to determine a Strength of a hit a falling Pod would cause, but even then, how would you find the Strength of a hit that goes against the pod, would it be the same as what it is landing on or less?

Landing on enemies > I don't aim for them, but when you are playing at 1500 points and I have I don't know say 8 - 10 pods, I will hit by accident... Anyway, the pod is assigned a strength hit to determine against vehicles according to the first rule, so, would every member of the squad that the pod lands on take the strength hit? No, Pods would be insane hitting all kinds of nasty things and being used as I said before as almost like an orbital bombardment, which would not be fair to the opponent. As far as making a tank shock rule out of it, would be quite the opposite, people would just shoot them down every time this would happen, and let's face it, marine transporting rhinos/razorbacks are already useless why nerf the drop pod? So, the enemies are assumed to have had enough sense to move out of the way so they are not crushed under a strength ?? hit.

Landing on own troops > Uhm, same as above with that many pods falling from the sky, between terrain, your troops and mine, I'm going to land on something, why would I risk killing X amount of marines (where x = to the # under the falling pod) with a strength ?? hit?

The rules as of now are ok, I won't say they aregood, you did make many strong points, but in order to even consider them, the points must compliment each other, Say: wherever the pod lands, anything under it takes a Strength X hit and the pod in return has X happen to it. But if you ask me, I don't think that would be a good idea.

Personally I say this:

If the vehicle would land on an any other model (yours or the enemy's) it does not land this round but is held in reserve. The systems in place to keep friendly casualties to a minimum will override the drop unitl a safer drop can be achieved.

Reason for this is that the orbtal vehicles are TOO good. For 20pts less than a rhino you have no chance to get hurt unless you are bad enough to place within 11" of a table edge. Yet the round you drop you are unable to be hurt and can cause untold havoc. No where near fair. Want to take a risk and drop within a few inches, either get the 1/3 chance of hitting dead on or try again. This is still better than ANY other deep strike in existance.

Again, Eh... You can't Rhino rush, so they are useless, pods therefore become the only way armies likeBT can survive... Are you telling me you want to nerf the BT more? You are mean.

The main thing I'd be afraid of would be people using their vehicles as weapons to ram other vehicles. . .that's just a bad trend to start.

Personally, I like the risk involved fluff/concept be damned!

That's why the Drop Pod rules blow. They take all the risk out of the reward.


However, if we wanted to take all the risk out of dropping vehicles, then following the Drop Pod rules (of course including the proviso including landing on friendly troops counting as landing on enemy models or impassible terrain) seems like it would work just fine without turning DSing vehicles into orbital missiles.

However, if we wanted to take all the risk out of dropping vehicles, then following the Drop Pod rules (of course including the proviso including landing on friendly troops counting as landing on enemy models or impassible terrain) seems like it would work just fine without turning DSing vehicles into orbital missiles.

I agree, but my main argument is for consistancy, if the pod does this when it lands here it does the same when it... I agree, Pods are nuts, that is at least we cannot assault out of them haha. I have 1 army that has nothing but pods, highly effective esp in CoD, I have no fear of landing anywhere due to the 1 inch away rule. So I agree the rules are a bit "powerful" and probably do need a clear and constant revision.

*laughs* Black Templars never seem to have an issue giving me a real fight with or without pods. All marines have this same ability. Rhino rush wasn't a good tactic. Seriously. It was the resort of armies that couldn't fire and maneuver. Deep striking is already an advantage in that it gets a unit that wasn't shot at into a firing position that may be critical. Removing the risk of said ability is like saying that you don't want to have to think and just win. WHy not just flip a coin at that point?

You want to put an assault cannon pointing at a unit that the opponent made sure was shielded from fire using good maneuvering and cover, you should have to either outmaneuver the opponent or take a risk and deep strike nearby with the danger of deep striking being the price paid to get that unit into position. I use crisis suits all the time and I have had obliterators show up 2" from them and blow them to bits. I've also seen the same obliterators deviate on them and die, taking a risk and having it not pay off is fair. Marines don't need to worry as they just stop short, instead of having to deal with their risk. Suddenly I see 2 plasma guns and 8 bolters shooting a unit that had not been in LOS of anything and that paid for its ability to do this. The marines kill it and all for 3pts a guy. Yea, that doesn't seem fair.

The dropping on your own troops thing is nice to try and make it fair, but I don't think it should tank shock in the first place. Tank shock indicates a tank, it is not one. (No where on the stat line does it say tank). Ignoring that, you have the problems of then it getting a death or glory that:
First off, is it a skimmer while falling? If not I can penetrate the hull.
If I immobilise it, it is supposed to stop moving and so the tank stops where it is. So, how do you handle that? The Pod just sits in the air, unable to move and nobody can get out?
Second, since it is already immobilised as part of the dropping, does that mean if I get through the hull, it stops anyway? And as above, how do you do that?
If it does stop, can it move again?

The easy way to fix this? If it suffers anything but a destroyed the pod still falls. Now how fair is that to the dead guy?
Since he couldn't stop it. If it is immobilised, as it already is, then it loses the gun. Yea.
How about if it suffers any damage it is destroyed and the marines suffer the result of a vehicle moving more than 12" being destroyed. After all, you can't really justify stunning a vehicle like that. Would that be fair?

Tank shocking your own troops is fine if you are a marine. Against guard, Eldar and Tau it is not a nice move as they tend to actually care about leadership. So maybe if you drop that completely it would be more fair.

Having a vehicle smash into another vehicle is as was pointed out, unfair. I'm dropping a meltagun at a monolith, so I hope to smack it and get to shake it beforehand anyway.

I seriously DON'T think drop pods need to be better. They need to follow the rules and have the rules defined so they actually make sense.

I think it should be as simple as the monolith: the unit below moves out of the way of the vehicle. The monolith should get something extra like it alrady does, maybe force a leadership check similar to tank shock.

 

My USR for deepstriking vehicles: Any deepstriking vehicle (including the droppod now) is placed in unoccipied and non difficult/dangerous terrain area and rolls 2D6 scatter. If that scatter would take the vehicle into rough terrain the vehicle is instead stopped 1" short of the terrain feature. If the scatter would take the vehicle off of the board or the hull/main body does not fit entirely on the board the vehicle is removed and counts as destroyed. If the vehicle scatters onto enemy or friendly units those units are moved the lest distance possible while maintaining coherency to make room for the vehicle to be placed where it scatters, including a 1" area around the vehicle if the unit is from the enemy army.

The Monolith would be updated to add a morale check to any enemy unit the model scatters onto.

*laughs* Black Templars never seem to have an issue giving me a real fight with or without pods.

Then youare either playing an assault army yourself, or just don't know what you are doing...?

I play berzerkers or Tau usually.

With berzerkers, I have no issue with that. I don't play Berzerkers for consistancy. I play them because after playing Black Legion for a while I was bored with them.


With Tau having an 12-18" range on most of my guns that are allowing saves against them, I see them run forward a lot. Putting over 700pts of fire into a unit worth 150 and watching 3 marines live, run forward and then get in combat with a full unit of firewarriors who they eventually killed to a man I know they aren't anywhere near as weak as people make them out to be.

I'm pretty good with Tau, but I know exactly how good marines are and I never underestimate them.