Anti-Air for my Ravenwing.

[Surrender_Monkey]

OK so the rules I have are in IA:Apocalypse, which I thought were the most up to date:

 

1) The Pods in C:SM say that you must disembark immediately under the "Transport Capacity" rule. The Lucius transport capacity rule simply states that it may transport a single Imperial Dreadnought of any type including Contemptors. It DOES NOT say that you must disembark immediately, nor does it say it anywhere else on the page.

 

2) The Lucius has the Assault Vehicle special rule, in the paragraph explaining this it says you may assault on the same turn you disembark, but that you still can't assault on the same turn you arrive from deep strike. If you were forced to disembark in the turn you arrived then this special rule would be entirely useless, since the turn you disembarked would always be the turn in which you arrived from deep strike.

 

The combination of these two points means I am quite certain that you do not have to disembark on the turn which you arrive, or at all if you don't want to, the rules I think are open to interpretation are:

 

- Can the Dreadnought shoot out of the pod? It is an open topped vehicle which to me implies that yes you may.

- Does a contemptor count as stationary in order to gain Interceptor-Skyfire? My interpretation is that on the turn it arrives it counts as cruising speed (snap shots only), every other turn it counts as stationary.

 

P.S. I think the whole "doors must be open" thing is there to stop potential LoS shenanigans by only opening the one door you need to disembark, the Lucius is a big model so it could be an effective LoS blocker.

[Retaliation]

The los issue is what I was talking about when modeling it open or closed. 

 

I'd say it can fire out of the pod because it's open topped, and that it won't be able to use intercept or skyfire until the controller's second turn.

 

Interestingly there's potential for a lot of synergy for ravenwing with a pod dropped kheres contemptor. You get to drop it forward in response to your enemy or and keep up with with your ravenwing scout move. Forward position turn 1 reduces the the range disadvantage of kheres assault cannons for turn 2 skyfire. Finally you're giving the dreadnought 3 AV12 ablative wounds for slightly more than a rhino.

 

Best of all though is that if you move your any of your bikes behind the dropped dreadnought, that squad gets shrouded. So you can give your ravenwing bikers a 2+ cover save first turn if they turbo boost and your BKs a 2+ save if they just move behind the pod.

 

Of course a fully decked out contemptor+pod costs 285 points. A MKV mortis would easily fit in your 175 wiggle room at the cost of some durability, though firepower could easily be equal to or better if you were just going autocannons.

 

Of course I could have read your bit earlier where you thought of this yourself!

[Surrender_Monkey]

I didn't think of it, it was suggested by one of my club-mates, who plays Iron Hands...

 

I can find a few more points by dropping the attack bikes out of the list, but that would leave me a wee bit short on scoring units, definitely something to consider though.