You CAN Have a Fully Reserved Drop Pod Army

[Chris Copeland]

As previously stated, Drop Pods don't state that the squad must start in them (bizarrely), so there's nothing stopping you from deploying the squads and having the Drop Pods come in empty. Only the Drop Pods follow the rule for having to start in Reserve, not the squad inside, so I'm pretty sure you have to deploy half of said squads.


I would still let anyone have all of their squads in their pods, because it makes sense and I'm not a douche, but I'm pretty sure that by RAW you can't.

Anggul, the RAW are clear: the troops with Drop Pods disappear from the equation and therefore none of them have to start on the board. The poster known as "Maine" said it all perfectly a while ago. Here is the recap:

Originally Posted by Maine
1. A unit embarked in a dedicated transport counts as 1 unit. Since this can only happen by choice, the fact that it is a choice made by the player changes nothing about the rule - the rule only occurs because a choice is made. Thus, a squad in a Drop Pod is one unit.

2. Drop Pods must be held in Reserve.
2a. Units in Drop Pods must be held in Reserve. They are one unit, because the player chose to embark them.

3. Units that must be held in Reserve are not counted toward the maximum Reserve force.
3a. The Squad must be held in Reserve (with the Pod) because the player chose to embark the unit during deployment, which made it a single Unit, and thus does not count towards the maximum Reserve force.

[thecactusman17]

You are indeed correct! However, there are some critical elements to keep in mind:

Your HQ selections DO NOT count towards your units not in reserve. They MUST start on the table unless they can buy a Drop Pod or similar dedicated transport that must start in reserve.

If your units somehow fail to deploy and you have no friendly models on the board at the end of game turn one, the game is over and you lose. No ifs, ands, or buts. This includes models that deep-strike mishap and models which are destroyed entirely as the result of Interceptor weapons or rules like "I've Been Expecting You" or "Warp Quake."

[incenerate101]

To clear up any misunderstanding the rule book states that a special rule is shared with the unit attached to the model with said special rule unless stated in the entry itself. Deep strike is shared with the unit. To clarify further rules say that units with jump packs cannot join units without jump packs therefore units without jump packs cannot deep strike, but in this instance a unit is in a transport with the deep strike special rule therefore the unit inside shares the drop pods deep strike rule until the unit disembarks.

Sorry for posting on this again but no one even mentioned the actual special rules involved so I thought I'd mention that bit of info

[olberon]

I dont know whats with all the fuzz around droppods is really pretty simple

1. units in droppods must start in reserve; even units like HQ - rule of thumb= unit+ droppod= reserve no matter what.

2. first turn you have you have to make an droppod assault move :

Drop Pod Assault: Drop Pods always enter play using the deep strike rules from the Mission Special Rules section of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook. At the beginning of your first turn, you must choose half of your Drop Pods (rounding up) to make a 'Drop Pod Assault'. Units making a Drop Pod
Assault arrive on the player's first turn. The arrival of the remaining Drop Pods is rolled for as normal. A unit that Deep Strikes via Drop Pod may not assault in the turn it arrives.

easy as pie to me.......

[Hordicant]

Yep, you can start the entire army in reserve if they are all in Drop Pods. Even characters can be attached to units before deployment and if they are in a Drop pod he rides in with them. Just don't forget the very important rule for Drop Pods from Space Marines:

- pg.69 Drop Pod Assault Drop Pods always enter play using the deep strike rules from the Mission Special Rules of the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook. At the beginning of your first turn, you must choose half your Drop Pods (rounding up) to make a 'Drop Pod Assault'. Units making a Drop Pod Assault arrive on the player's first turn. The arrival of remaining drop pods is rolled for as normal.....

No choice there, they may be in reserve, but half of them have to come down turn 1. There is no 'may wait, they hit 1st turn no ifs, ands, or butts.

[Anggul]

1. A unit embarked in a dedicated transport counts as 1 unit. Since this can only happen by choice, the fact that it is a choice made by the player changes nothing about the rule - the rule only occurs because a choice is made. Thus, a squad in a Drop Pod is one unit.

But this is completely false logic. Yes, it occurs because a choice is made. The 50% reserves rule, however, forbids you from making the choice of having all of your squads in their dedicated transports, Drop Pod or otherwise, forcing you to leave half of them out of their pods.

[Archon Charybdis]

Anggul, that just doesn't follow. Nothing about the rule requires that you have units staying on the board if they're eligible to take a drop pod and hence be ruled out of the calculation for reserves. You're reading that into it. The pod and the squad embarked are one unit, and ignored for the purposes of reserves.

Further, I think everyone's looking at the Reserves section of the rules, but the Deep Strike rules cover this pretty explicitly to, "When working out how many units can be placed in reserve, units that must be deployed by Deep Strike (along with any models embarked on them) are ignored" (pg. 36) There is no qualification with that-- you don't have to stop embarking models in drop pods once you get to half of your army.

1.) Up to half of an armies units may be held in reserves.

2.) Models automatically held in reserves are ignored for this calculation.

3.) Drop pods (and any models embarked on them) are automatically held in reserves.

4.) An army composed of drop pods and squads embarked upon them ignores all of it's units for the purposes of calculating reserves.

[Tynskel]

Daemons and Space Marines (in drop pods) can have full reserved lists. This works because they enter the board automatically on turn 1. Therefore (unless your opponent pwns them), they will have units on the board at the end of turn 1, and won't automatically lose.

[Anggul]

3.) Drop pods (and any models embarked on them) are automatically held in reserves.

The words I've put in bold are just incorrect. They become one unit when you embark them, yes, but you're only allowed to embark 50% of them in the first place so the other 50% can't possibly embark in their Drop Pods to then become automatically held in reserves, as otherwise it would be breaking the rule.

Basically, the rule is preventing you from putting them in the Drop Pods in the first place, thus preventing them from becoming one unit and all being forced into reserves.

[Tynskel]

dude, that's totally incorrect.
You are allowed to board your transport. And since this transport is required to be in reserve, they don't count toward the limit.


What you could try is this: put the drop pod in reserve, THEN reserve the squad. That squad now applies to the limits on reserves.