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So I met a guy who swears up and down that by taking drop pods and storm ravens he can carry his whole army in reserve. He plays Codex: Space Marines. Is this right? If so how would this work?

Vehicles which must start in Reserves (such as Flyers and Drop Pods) as well as their occupants do not count towards the reserve limit.

Why does it happen so often that someone makes a "crazy" claim, and then somehow does not bother to offer the rules backing up his position?
"Dood, if I keep allllll my troops in pods and 'ravens, then I can have a null deployment!"
"What? I don't think you can do that...."
"No, I swear I can! Honest!"
"Do you have any rules to back that up?"
"Who cares? It's awesome!"

This is what Socrates calls "right opinion." Technically, he's correct. But he couldn't give any justification for his rightness, so he's only accidentally correct, which isn't very helpful.
Why wouldn't the person who "swears up and down" just show the OP the rule? Or, if they don't have a BRB handy, at least tell him "Models in transports that MUST start in reserve don't count toward the limit"?

However, he must still have a model on the table at all times. If at any point he has no models on the table, he loses automatically per the BRB.

 greyknight12 wrote:
However, he must still have a model on the table at all times. If at any point he has no models on the table, he loses automatically per the BRB.

Not quite, it isn't 'at any point', it is at the end of a player/game turn (I forget which)

Game turn.

Sixth has been out almost a year, and people still don't know that Drop Pod lists (even with fliers as well) still works.

Crazyterran wrote:
Sixth has been out almost a year, and people still don't know that Drop Pod lists (even with fliers as well) still works.

Unless you play Tyranids, null deployment Nids are officially dead, min deployment heavy reserves is still alive and kicking though.

Crazyterran wrote:
Sixth has been out almost a year, and people still don't know that Drop Pod lists (even with fliers as well) still works.

And tend to work better with the reserve roll being increased to 3+ on turn 2

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
Why does it happen so often that someone makes a "crazy" claim, and then somehow does not bother to offer the rules backing up his position?
"Dood, if I keep allllll my troops in pods and 'ravens, then I can have a null deployment!"
"What? I don't think you can do that...."
"No, I swear I can! Honest!"
"Do you have any rules to back that up?"
"Who cares? It's awesome!"

This is what Socrates calls "right opinion." Technically, he's correct. But he couldn't give any justification for his rightness, so he's only accidentally correct, which isn't very helpful.
Why wouldn't the person who "swears up and down" just show the OP the rule? Or, if they don't have a BRB handy, at least tell him "Models in transports that MUST start in reserve don't count toward the limit"?

That was pretty much the EXACT situation I was in. I checked the BRB but I don't have the flyer book or BA book. But I've never encountered that kind of list locally, and he was arguing hull points to high heaven(swearing he was right that land raiders had 3) , so I doubted him.

 greyknight12 wrote:
However, he must still have a model on the table at all times. If at any point he has no models on the table, he loses automatically per the BRB.

What page is that on? Oddly curious as I haven't come across that.

 dreamakuma wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
However, he must still have a model on the table at all times. If at any point he has no models on the table, he loses automatically per the BRB.

What page is that on? Oddly curious as I haven't come across that.

Check Victory Conditions (It is in the Index)

I think the information is there.

I found it, thanks guys for all the help. I'm not too familiar with fighting these kinds of lists and I didn't get any real rules for them, so I was pretty doubtful.

 greyknight12 wrote:
However, he must still have a model on the table at all times. If at any point he has no models on the table, he loses automatically per the BRB.

Only at the end of a Game Turn.

Page 122, for those who need to find the conditions for auto win.

Tactics wise, if he runs this list he'll only have half his pods arriving on turn 1, with the rest arriving on turn 2 at the earliest if not later. You could deliberately try to go second, play aggressively and attempt to wipe out what arrives...if he has no models on the board at the end of game turn 1, you win.

 Super Ready wrote:
Tactics wise, if he runs this list he'll only have half his pods arriving on turn 1, with the rest arriving on turn 2 at the earliest if not later. You could deliberately try to go second, play aggressively and attempt to wipe out what arrives...if he has no models on the board at the end of game turn 1, you win.

Definitely something I'll try to do.

Chances are that if you can wipe out half the opponent's army in 1 turn after suffering losses from their alpha strike, you would've won anyway.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Chances are that if you can wipe out half the opponent's army in 1 turn after suffering losses from their alpha strike, you would've won anyway.

Half the opponents army? No, he's running both pods and ravens. Ravens don't count towards that "half of the pods"-thing. Odds are he will be dropping 3 pods round 1. If you have enough shooting to take those guys out, you won. Since he is gonna drop them on top of your guys, it's not too far fetched.

 Purifier wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
Chances are that if you can wipe out half the opponent's army in 1 turn after suffering losses from their alpha strike, you would've won anyway.

Half the opponents army? No, he's running both pods and ravens. Ravens don't count towards that "half of the pods"-thing. Odds are he will be dropping 3 pods round 1. If you have enough shooting to take those guys out, you won. Since he is gonna drop them on top of your guys, it's not too far fetched.

With marines having a 3+ armor save, it is not likely that you will take out 30 marines and 3 Drop pods, that have 3 HPs each, on your shooting turn...

It depends largely on the size of the game, and exactly how much is in those drop pods. The bulk of the army may be in the Stormravens, with perhaps 1 or 2 pods.

It's easy to imagine winning this way under 1000 points with a few lucky rolls, or with a shooty army like Guard or Tau, or certain builds of Eldar. Hell, I've seen it happen with a Sternguard pod army, although it was against Tau and definitely a case of lucky rolls. Not something to rely on, but might as well be attempted.

(added) Deathreaper - Drop Pods only have 2HP, don't they? Plus they're open-topped. At armour 12, they're not lasting *that* long anyway.

DPs have 3 Hull points. As already covered the rules for null deployment are in the BRB and further clarified by the FAQ. WithcTau and massed interceptor someone using SRs and DPs has a real chance of being tabled turn 1 as he gets alphastruck in his own turn. Then the Tau player has another full turn to kill him.

He's running Calgar and a lot of sternguard and tac squads, only saw a single raven in his collection.
1500 points
I don't know much else, because I haven't faced him yet. Really couldn't get any solid info from the guy. Like I said, he never cited sources or anything and wanted to argue rules.

Drop pod lists work fine as you'll have models on the table by the end of the first turn.

You'd be hard pushed to table some one with interceptor I'm sure losing there now useless drop pods won't cause to many tears.

Well you wouldn't intercept the pods. You'd drop S8 AP2 pie plates on the occupants and the finish off stragglers with Missilesides. The pods you'd assault and use Missile drones on in your turn. It is certainly possible...

For what he's saying it looks like Calgary in a SR presumably with Hammernators (no other way to use him). So that's about 700 points right there. Then the DPs with tac squads and Sternguard means 2 Tac squads and 1 Sternguard as that's basically all you're getting for the 800 points left. Which means you've to kill 20 MEQs and 2 pods between intercept and turn 1. I'd say that's highly likely. Unless he meant Pedro rather than Calgary in which case he could be making a stronger list but still unlikely to include more than 21 MEQs arriving turn 1...

Sorry I'm not to familar with dp rules I thought you ment you could intercept the pods there for killing the occupants, but I didn't think that happend, thanks for clarifying!

If Senor Cortez is there when you drop in on him and his friends at the beginning of turn one, it could be bad...