Return to the Shadows and Deep Strike

[Rogue]

Here's a chain of thought.

 

Return to the Shadows allows us to put units with deep strike into strategic reserves. As we do this at the end of our opponent's turn, our units are only off the board for our Command and Movement phases, reappearing in the Reinforcement step.

 

Strategic Reserves has limitations, with reappearing units having to come on within 6" of the board edge. But (and this is where I might be being gamey), units in strategic reserves are also Reserves (p43). And if you have deep strike, you can use that ability to deploy from reserves.

 

This means that units taken off the board with Return to the Shadows can make use of deep strike to ignore the strategic reserves restrictions and can instead appear anywhere using the deep strike rules.

 

We also gain the additional bonus of access to Tunnel Crawlers again, because we're coming in via deep strike.

 

This may have already been obvious to everyone. But if not, does it hang together?

[brother_b]

I believe it’s rules as intended for GSC. I’ve only played once with GSC but this was a definite idea that I never took advantage of during our game. I never had the need, and so forgot about it. I definitely could have used it though.

 

Did you get a chance to use this yet? How’d your opponent take it?

[Rogue]

It was a post-game thought, so not tried it yet.

 

It also means that we can play Perfect Ambush on units coming in via strategic reserves, because the stratagem is locked to units coming in from reserve. 

 

The powerful application for us is using Return to lift out a shooting unit, then dropping them straight back in to gain sustained hits and potentially Perfect Ambush. Alternatively, it allows us to utilise Return and Tunnel Crawlers as a combo to snatch objectives.

 

Whilst I kept forgetting it, Return triggering at the end of the opponent's turn is incredible, as we can assess where they are, and what the weak points are, before deciding which units can best exploit them.

[Zoatibix]

You aren’t being gamey regarding DS and SR; explicitly allowed in the rules.
 

However, I wonder if this kind of thing might be hit by the nerf bat considering GSC’s current win rates.

[Rogue]

Thanks Zoatibix.

 

Where's that from?

[Zoatibix]

From Warhammer 40,000 The App under Rules Commentary…which is a section I didn’t even know existed! 

[Captain Durante]

I've only used this once in a game. Dice was not with me though though during the turn they arrived which kinda fizzled the momentum. But if the dice perform the way math predicted it could have swung things in my favor. Personally don't think this is too OP though as the 2CP cost and then possibly more CP in the turn to follow you have to hope it pays off otherwise some of your options may run out since you will most likely be CP depleted by this time. This is kinda what happened for the match mentioned.