Drop pods, deep strikes and disagreements

Right, this post contains a bit of cross referencing, but I want to see what other people think - I've queried this with a member of staff at GW, but didn't get a satisfactory answer, plus the last time I asked one of them about a rule they ended up FAQing it and he was wrong! Various other forums don't seem to have a helpful response either.

BRB, page 36 - "In that turns shooting phase, these units can fire (or run) as normal, and obviously count as having moved in the previous movement phase. Vehicles, except for Walkers, count as having moved at cruising speed (even immobile vehicles)."

To my mind, "these units" would apply to infantry of any sort deep striking, such as terminators or scourges, as that was what the rule was discussing prior to this paragraph. Here's where it gets tricky though - drop pods seem to break the normal disembarkation rules. The rule states that deep striking units can't move any further, other than disembarking from a deep striking vehicle if they are in one. You can't disembark from a vehicle that's moved at cruising speed, which it states they count as having moved at in a deep strike. So this must be a special fix to cover drop pods. But the rule also states that even immobile vehicles count as having moved at cruising speed. So I would think that any marines inside have moved at cruising speed too, so can only fire snap shots. If this isn't a special fix for drop pods, all of a sudden we can deep strike our Raiders, disembark our troops and unload everything at full ballistic skill, which doesn't seem right, and directly contradicts the rules on disembarking (BRB, page 79).

The rules on drop pods in the Space Marine codex don't seem to clear this up (page 69). Whilst it says it counts as an immobile vehicle, nowhere does it say anything about the disembarkation affecting the abilities of the passengers, other than them not being able to assault. What do people think?

I suspect this is a hangover from 5e that wasn't caught in the editorial (LOL) process for 6e. In 5e you could disembark after moving at Crusing Speed but in 6e you cannot. The quote part of the rules is probably intended to cover Drop Pods but actually applies to all vehicles due to poor writing.

Short answer, according to the rules we can Deep Strike our vehicles (Hello Duke!), disembark and shoot at full effect.

Quote :

BRB, page 36 - "In that turns shooting phase, these units can fire (or run) as normal, and obviously count as having moved in the previous movement phase. Vehicles, except for Walkers, count as having moved at cruising speed (even immobile vehicles)."

Ok, lets break this up

Quote :

"In that turns shooting phase, these units can fire (or run) as normal, and obviously count as having moved in the previous movement phase."

So this sentence means that your troops count as having moved in the previous movement phase. That means heavy weapons only snapshot, but everything else my shoot like normal (unless your salvo)

then there is a period. This breaks up the two sentences, and shows that they are not connected at all.

Second part

Quote :

"Vehicles, except for Walkers, count as having moved at cruising speed (even immobile vehicles)."

This sentence denotes that the vehicle itself has moved at cruising speed, which therefore it suffers from the results of cruising speed (snapshots, shooting only 1 gun, whatever type of vehicle it is) Also note that any passengers that DONT disembark must shoot at snapshots, as that is a penalty for moving at cruising.


So there you have it. If you deepstrike your vehicle, it counts as moving at cruising. If you disembark your unit, then the unit only moved like they moved during the movement phase. Its a quirk of the rule system, but I guess they are trying to act like the guys deepstriking in their vehicle knew they were going to pile out and pick their shots carefully

This question has been something that has intrigued me since the rules change for not disembarking at cruising speed.

Everyone that I know of uses it as if the passengers need to get out, and act as normal like they did in 5th ed.

A FAQ to clarify this is likely the only means of doing so, but until then, I don't see people changing how they're doing things.

My buddy is a SM player through and through, and he hasn't used Drop Pods since 6th because he agrees that his units can only Snap-Fire after dropping..

He is wrong.

Also infantry dont move at cruising speed to be affected by its restrictions, so its kinda irrelevant.

Shadows Revenge breaked it down pretty acurately.

What about page79. It says that the rule for disembarking is not "moving at cruising speed" it is "moved 6 inches." Doesn't really change the answer here, but makes it make better sense to me. The vehicle moved at cruising speed which has that effect on it, but since it didn't move more than 6 inches the unit inside acts as if it moved less than 6 inches (other than an inability to assault). Otherwise, they would not be able to disembark in the first place.

However, with that said, if a vehicle scatters more than 6 inches, would that count as movement of 6 inches or do you just assume that it didn't move from where it landed? I know, I know, it lands there and still doesn't move any more, but it is fun to think about

So the consensus seems to be that the passengers can shoot as normal, and if they can do it, so can we. That seems reasonable, as the way I was potentially interpreting this irritatingly worded rule meant drop pods were rubbish and pointless rather than really useful and intimidating! Thanks for the replies.