Reserves questions

[dswanick]

I think I just figured out where the confusion is coming from :

 

"When deploying their armies, players can choose not to deploy up to half of their units (rounding up) keeping them in Reserves ro arrive later.", BRB, pg.124

 

The rulebook calls for you to calculate a reserve limit number (one half of your total number of units, rounded up).  It does not call for you to calculate the minimum number of units which must be deployed on the table.

 

So in my list of 17 16 counted units, I may place 8 in reserve:

Space Wolf primary detachment

1] Wolf Priest (Outflank USR, attached to Grey Hunter pack #1)

 

2] Rune Priest (attached to GH pack #2)

 

3] Rune Priest (attached to GH pack #3)

 

4] Wolf Guard pack

 - in Terminator Armor (attached to GH pack #1)

 - in Power Armor (attached to GH pack #2)

 - in Power Armor (attached to GH pack #3)

 

5] Wolf Scout pack

 

6] Wolf Scout pack

 

7] Grey Hunter pack #1

 

8] Grey Hunter pack #2, with Drop Pod

 

9] Grey Hunter pack #3, with Drop Pod

 

10] Grey Hunter pack #4, with Razorback

 

11] Grey Hunter pack #5, with Rzorback

 

12] Long Fangs pack #1, with Razorback

 

13] Long Fangs pack #2, with Razorback

 

Blood Angels allied detachment

14] Captain

 

15] Death Company

 

16] DC Dreadnought

 

17] Strom Raven

 

I choose to place the Captain, the Death Company, and the DC Dread in reserves embarked in the Storm Raven.  Because of the FAQ, none of these units count against the reserve limit (current reserve limit = 0/9 8).

I choose to place the two Rune Priests, two of the Wolf Guard, and two of the Grey Hunter packs in reserve embarked in their respective Drop Pods (current reserve limit = 0/9 8).

The Wolf Priest, the last Wolf Guard, and the #1 Grey Hunter pack all go in reserve together to make use of the Wolf Priest's Outflank (current reserve limit = 2/9 8).

My two units of Scouts (Behind Enemy Lines Outflanking), and two units of Long Fangs embarked in their Razorbacks (normal reserve deployment) go in reserve (current reserve limit = 6/9 8).

I place my last two Grey Hunter packs in reserve embarked in their Razorbacks (current reserve limit = 8/9 8)

My whole army is in Reserves (null deployment).  I will not lose the game at the end of turn 1 (one of two Drop Pods will land turn 1).  And all reserve rules and FAQs are adhered to.

[cielaq]

"Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purpose of working out how many other units may do so." - So they are not only ignored only for the number of units that can be in reserves, but the are totally ignored when calculating the reserves. For example, if I have 10 units, and 4 of them must be in reserves, I have 6 units that are taken into consideration, so 3 of them can be chosen to go into reserves (so up to 7 units total).

In your example only units #1, 5, 6, 7, 12 and 13 are used to calculate the number of units that can go into reserve (other units must go into reserve, so are excluded). So you have 6 units (characters are couted separately even if they join a unit!), 3 of which can go into reserve.

[Squirrelloid]

Not quite dswanick, although the result you end up with is perfectly correct, but your reserve limit is 9, not 6.

 

Okay, so first we calculate how many units we can place in reserve.  That number is 9.  That number doesn't change.

 

By not counting against the Reserve limit, it means it doesn't add to the number counted as being held in reserves.  They still count for calculating the number that *could* be held in reserves.  So when we don't count the Stormraven and it's embarked units, we're at 0/9, not 0/6.  (Which is the only place I disagree with you).

 

And I see I was misreading p124 still, as I thought that units compelled into reserves didn't count to working out how many you can place in reserves, but that's not actually what p124 says.  They all count for determining how many, just many units may not count towards reaching that quota.

 

The reserve rules could really stand to be rewritten as a bulleted order of operations that breaks it up into clear steps so it was obvious what exactly you were doing at each step.  By jamming everything together into only a few paragraphs, they've created unnecessary confusion.

[dswanick]

"Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purpose of working out how many other units may do so." - So they are not only ignored only for the number of units that can be in reserves, but the are totally ignored when calculating the reserves. For example, if I have 10 units, and 4 of them must be in reserves, I have 6 units that are taken into consideration, so 3 of them can be chosen to go into reserves (so up to 7 units total).

In your example only units #1, 5, 6, 7, 12 and 13 are used to calculate the number of units that can go into reserve (other units must go into reserve, so are excluded). So you have 6 units (characters are couted separately even if they join a unit!), 3 of which can go into reserve.

Actually, only 8, 9,  and 17 might not count in this way (they are the only ones with a Dedicated Transport that must start the game in Reserve or must do so themselves).  But only if you take the above mentioned position that a part of the unit doesn't count, so the whole of the unit doesn't count vs. part of the unit counts so the whole counts.

 

The Raven doesn't count either way (and that's what I get for copy/pasting an example while at work :) ).

[Jolemai]

Blood Angels allied detachment

14] Captain

*Shakes head*

[Squirrelloid]

"Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purpose of working out how many other units may do so." - So they are not only ignored only for the number of units that can be in reserves, but the are totally ignored when calculating the reserves. For example, if I have 10 units, and 4 of them must be in reserves, I have 6 units that are taken into consideration, so 3 of them can be chosen to go into reserves (so up to 7 units total).

In your example only units #1, 5, 6, 7, 12 and 13 are used to calculate the number of units that can go into reserve (other units must go into reserve, so are excluded). So you have 6 units (characters are couted separately even if they join a unit!), 3 of which can go into reserve.

 

Okay, let's express reserves as x/y, where x is the number of units in reserve, and y is the reserve limit.

 

y = 1/2 units in force, by definition in the sentence preceeding the one you quote.

 

It is ambiguous whether the sentence you quote is then referring to x or y.  Is not counting towards the number of units that can start in reserves mean they don't count as having been held in reserve for figuring out if you've reached the limit?  Or is not counting towards the number of units that can start in reserves mean they don't count towards figuring out what the reserve limit is in the first place?  Both are equally valid interpretations because they've confused two senses in which units count towards determining how many can start in reserves.  (Seriously, does GW not employ a technical writer?)

 

It is clear that the FAQ dswanick cites is specifically referring to x.  (They don't count towards 'the 50% that can be held in reserves', which is x.  That doesn't stop them from counting towards calculating what x is.) 

 

The way the FAQ makes the most sense is if you read the sentence you're quoting as referring to x.  That is, units which are compelled into reserves still matter for calculating y, but don't add to the total you count as having actually held in reserve.

[dswanick]

The only real unclear part of these rules (when some common sense is applied), is if a unit which does not have to start the game in Reserves with a Dedicated Transport which does have to start the game in Reserves counts towards the reserve limit calculation.

[Squirrelloid]

The only real unclear part of these rules (when some common sense is applied), is if a unit which does not have to start the game in Reserves with a Dedicated Transport which does have to start the game in Reserves counts towards the reserve limit calculation.

 

I don't believe in common sense. xP  What is lauded as common sense is rarely common.

 

I mean, the writers of the rules clearly failed common sense, since it would have been easy to lay out the reserve rules as a step-by-step process and thereby eliminate any confusion.  Clear technical writing is a virtue.

[dswanick]

 

Blood Angels allied detachment

14] Captain

*Shakes head*

Completely off topic, but - the DC are my 13th Co Wolfen (the DC Dread is my dual Wolf Claw Wolf-marked Dread).  The Captain brings the Inv.Save that a Wolf Priest would have giving the whole unit a profile nearer to one that could be fielded in C:SW.  It's a fluff thing. :)

 

http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l634/dswanick/Warhammer%2040000/Armies/Space%20Wolves/SpaceWolvesDreadnought.jpg

[Jolemai]

That's actually pretty cool. Sorry about the derail

[Morollan]

Blood Angels allied detachment

14] Captain

*Shakes head*

Completely off topic, but - the DC are my 13th Co Wolfen (the DC Dread is my dual Wolf Claw Wolf-marked Dread). The Captain brings the Inv.Save that a Wolf Priest would have giving the whole unit a profile nearer to one that could be fielded in C:SW. It's a fluff thing.

http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l634/dswanick/Warhammer%2040000/Armies/Space%20Wolves/SpaceWolvesDreadnought.jpg

It was the only logical explanation for including a BA Captain.

[Gentlemanloser]

 

Only if you fail to apply common sense...

 

If you have to apply sense to a rule, it's badly written.

[Calnus]

Um, where are people getting the order of operations for calculating reserves %?  Dswanick has been arguing that you take your army, subtract the pods/flyers, and then run with what you have left, saying that you do this BEFORE deciding if you will place anything in the flyer transport or add characters to any unit.  But the way I (and apparently Squirelloid) read it, it doesn't have an order of operations, which means you can combine characters and fill transports, then calculate reserves %.

 

So in order to do a full null deploy (as given above, using scouts in addition to pods and flyers), Dswanick has to prove that there is an order of operations to the calculation of reserves (hint: there isn't any description anywhere of order of operations for deployment, aside from infiltrators/scouts).  Otherwise, the only way to null deploy is to have all of your army embarked in pods/flyers with no other units.  And if they were all flyers, you would auto-lose at the end of turn 1.

[Gentlemanloser]

This is my take on it, using DS's list.

 

First, you ignore units that *must* start in reserves.  This includes any Squad taken with a Dedicated Transport, as they are counted as a single unit.

 

So for the list above, there are 17 units in total, of which, we ignore three (Grey Hunter pack #2 & #3, the Storm Raven), leaving us with 14 units.

 

Of which we can keep up to 9 of these in reserves.

 

If we then decide to add an IC to any of these three units (technically embark an IC on the Raven), we do so *after* we have used our 9 unit limit.  As after placing them in reserves, we then have to inform our opponent if they are joining any units or not (in which case they come in together).

 

This process is now at odds with the FAQ that would discount the IC from the amount of units we could place in reserves.

 

The only way to make this work, is if the explaination to your opponent and the declaration of reserves aren't discrete steps.  You put GH Squad #2 in Reserves, and tell your opponent they are embarking thier Drop Pod.  You still have 9/9 units avaiable to reserve.

 

You then place an IC into reserves, which should leave you at 8/9.  But you inform you opponent the IC is joining the GH embarked on the DP and you're back at 9/9.

 

The declaration to your opponents must be *during* deployment.  But it doesn't have to be *after* you have finished holding units in reserve.

 

I hope this makes sense.

 

Edit: Oi... That a subtle difference.  It's 9, not 7.  /sigh

[dswanick]

Um, where are people getting the order of operations for calculating reserves %?  Dswanick has been arguing that you take your army, subtract the pods/flyers, and then run with what you have left, saying that you do this BEFORE deciding if you will place anything in the flyer transport or add characters to any unit.  But the way I (and apparently Squirelloid) read it, it doesn't have an order of operations, which means you can combine characters and fill transports, then calculate reserves %.

 

So in order to do a full null deploy (as given above, using scouts in addition to pods and flyers), Dswanick has to prove that there is an order of operations to the calculation of reserves (hint: there isn't any description anywhere of order of operations for deployment, aside from infiltrators/scouts).  Otherwise, the only way to null deploy is to have all of your army embarked in pods/flyers with no other units.  And if they were all flyers, you would auto-lose at the end of turn 1.

I'm not sure I follow what you're suggesting.

"When deploying their armies, players may choose not to deploy up to half of their units (rounding up) keeping them as Reserves to arrive later.  Units that must start the game in reserves are ignored for the purpose of working out how many other units may do so.", BRB, pg.124

Are you suggesting that you don't have to know how many units may be kept in Reserve until after you've placed them all in reserve?  Or that no units may be kept in reserve until after they've all been kept in reserve?

[Calnus]

I'm saying that the action of placing a unit in reserves happens simulatenously with the actions of embarking units on transports during deployment.  I.e., you cannot calculate how many units are allowed to be in reserve until you have decided how each unit is composed.

 

Take this example-- You have an army consisting of 1 IC for your HQ, 3 troops with drop pods, 1 troop unit with no transport, 1 flyer transport (non-dedicated) and 2 other heavy units that may (individually) embark upon the flyer.  The FAQ says you discount units that must start in reserve, including the units embarked upon transports that must start in reserve.  So for purposes of counting how much you may reserve, you need to know how much of your army is not going into a "must reserve" transport.  How do you determine this?  You declare what it is reserving where.  You cannot say that you have 4 units in the above example, of which 2 may reserve, because you have not taken into account the FAQ.  Once you determine that the IC and your troop squad embark upon the flyer transport, the FAQ says you only have 2 units (the heavies), of which 1 may reserve.

 

Only if you disregard the FAQ for transports in reserve can you make the argument that the above example has 4 units to deploy, of which 2 must reserve.  The FAQ was put out to allow you to create things like this where you have a majority of things in drop pods and similar transports.

[dswanick]

So, your contention is that you can't know how many units you can have in reserve until you've placed the units in reserve and described their organization and you can't place any units in reserve until you know how many you can place in reserve?

[Squirrelloid]

Okay, after seeing all the positions and re-reading the text several times, this is how I think reserves work:

 

(1) Make decision on combat squadding.  (As per Codex: BA FAQ if nothing else - found it!)

 

(2) Determine Reserve_Limit = units / 2.  Edit: dedicated transports do not count as separate units.

 

(3) Set aside units which are compulsory reserves.  (Drop Pods, Stormravens, etc...)  These do not count against your reserve limit when declaring reserves in (4) below.

 

(4) Declare Reserves of no more than Reserve_Limit units.  Independent characters in reserves must declare squad joining now.  Units in reserve that are boarding transports must declare so now.

 

(5) Deployment: Units which are not declared as reserves must do one of the following:

-(5a) Unit may deploy into compulsory reserve transports.  They do not count against the reserve limit.  Inform your opponent which transport they are on. (as per deploying units into transports and the FAQ cited by dswanick earlier).

-(5b) An Independent Character may join units in reserve or deployed into transports in reserve.  They do not count against the reserve limit.  Inform your opponent which unit they are joining and/or transport they are on.  (As per IC rules on p39 and the FAQ cited by dswanick earlier)

-(5c) Otherwise the unit must be deployed on the table.

 

Edit: Note: I'm assuming an implicit errata that a dedicated transport counts as a single unit with *one* of its dedicated squads, because otherwise the interaction between dedicated transports and combat squadding is really weird.  Ie, the rules make no allowances for a dedicated transport that belongs to two or more units, but its not clear how the rules as written should handle that situation.

[cielaq]

Squirrelloid, i believe that between (3) and (4) should be one more point - decide which units/ICs go into transports that are in compulsory reserves ( those units (per FAQ) are excluded from Reserve_Limit). It will be more clear this way than doing it at step (4), 

[Squirrelloid]

Squirrelloid, i believe that between (3) and (4) should be one more point - decide which units/ICs go into transports that are in compulsory reserves ( those units (per FAQ) are excluded from Reserve_Limit). It will be more clear this way than doing it at step (4), 

 

I actually handled that as part of deployment, because that's when the IC rules on p39 tell you to do it!

 

Oh, I see your confusion.  The transport boarding / IC declarations are explicit in the rules, and handle the case when you put units or ICs into reserve and then want them to board transports or join squads as appropriate.  Since you already declared those characters and units as reserves, they actually do count as reserves even if they so board.  But you *don't have to* declare units or characters as reserves to put them on compulsory reserve transports or join squads in reserves, as per the FAQ, deploying into transports (p122?), or joining ICs to squads (p39). 

 

Ie, these are units in the nominally 'deploy' group that are 'deployed into reserves' effectively.

[cielaq]

Unless I'm missing something, page 39 only tells us to attach IC to a unit already in reserve. I cannot see any other mention as to when to do it. So, if I'm right, it's perfectly legal to do as I've written.

[Squirrelloid]

Unless I'm missing something, page 39 only tells us to attach IC to a unit already in reserve. I cannot see any other mention as to when to do it. So, if I'm right, it's perfectly legal to do as I've written.

 

Since it's given as an alternative to deploying into coherency with the unit, I'm reading it as a decision you make when deploying the unit.

 

Whether you think boarding compulsorily reserved transports and joining ICs to squads happens before or after you declare your reserves isn't actually terribly important, you reach the same end result.  I think we should be up front about the fact that declarations for units in reserves (1) handles units boarding non-compulsorily reserved transports and (2) is otherwise exception handling to make sure that all such declarations get made.

 

Ie, whether you 'deploy' a squad into a compulsorily reserved transport as part of deployment, or reserve that squad and declare they are boarding the transport during the declare reserves phase, in both cases the squad ends up in the transport and in reserves.  The 'default' option is the deploy one, but in case you did declare the unit as a reserved unit the game can explicitly handle that situation. 

 

Remember, there is no common sense.  Rules should be written as if they were code and implemented by a computer, so even if the user does something stupid they have rules which handle that stupidity and return sensible results.

[Calnus]

I think the difference we're struggling to prove one way or the other is if you have 3 units that are not compulsory reserves, and 2 are ICS (or more than half, however you want to say it) then depending on when you calculate reserves, you either can or cannot attach the second IC to a squad in reserves legally.

 

An extreme version of the hypotehtical case would be where you had 2 drop pod units, 3 Stormravens, and 6 units  (3 dreads/IC, 3 infantry for example)that could ride in the Ravens.  If you calculate reserves allowed bsed on your raw army list, you would only be able to embark 3 units into the flyers.  If you embark units, then calculate reserves, you can embark everything and null deploy. 

 

So your math for the above example would look like this (so I stop Dswanick thinking its a circular argument):

You have 6 units that can deploy = 6/6.  3 can reserve.  You embark one in a flyer = 5/6.  But because of the FAQ, you now only have 5 that can deploy, so you go to 5/5.  Embark another, 4/4.  Embark another = 3/3.  You will get down to 1/1, and round up to a whole unit, but never get lower than the 1/2 limit.

[Squirrelloid]

I think the difference we're struggling to prove one way or the other is if you have 3 units that are not compulsory reserves, and 2 are ICS (or more than half, however you want to say it) then depending on when you calculate reserves, you either can or cannot attach the second IC to a squad in reserves legally.

 

An extreme version of the hypotehtical case would be where you had 2 drop pod units, 3 Stormravens, and 6 units  (3 dreads/IC, 3 infantry for example)that could ride in the Ravens.  If you calculate reserves allowed bsed on your raw army list, you would only be able to embark 3 units into the flyers.  If you embark units, then calculate reserves, you can embark everything and null deploy. 

 

So your math for the above example would look like this (so I stop Dswanick thinking its a circular argument):

You have 6 units that can deploy = 6/6.  3 can reserve.  You embark one in a flyer = 5/6.  But because of the FAQ, you now only have 5 that can deploy, so you go to 5/5.  Embark another, 4/4.  Embark another = 3/3.  You will get down to 1/1, and round up to a whole unit, but never get lower than the 1/2 limit.

 

That's actually irrelevant for the ICs.  P39 is explicit that an IC can join a squad in reserves.  Fullstop, no waffling or conditions.  So you come to deploying your IC and you say 'he's joining Squad X in reserves' and that's that.

 

More directly, it's not clear whether you count compulsory reserved vehicles for generating a reserve limit or not, but nothing tells you to *go back and recalculate your reserve limit* just because units have boarded such vehicles.  The FAQ dswanick cites is explicitly saying that these units don't count towards your 50% that can be reserve, that is, if you can reserve 4 units, they don't count towards that 4.  They still count towards generating that limit.

[dswanick]

then depending on when you calculate reserves,

If this is your dilemma, then consider this:

"When deploying their armies, players can choose to deploy up to half of their units (rounding up) keeping them in Reserves to arrive later.", BRB, pg.124

 

How much is "half of their units(rounding up)"? How do you know? If you don't know how many of your units is half of them, how can you know how many you can put in Reserves?

 

The only way to know how many units you are putting in Reserves is by doing the calculation before putting any in Reserves. What other way is there to do the calculation than before-hand?