Sliscus in a venom

Anyone have any insight on this question, if Duke Sliscus is embarked on a venom, does the venom count as part of the unit for the purposes of gaining the poisoned(3+) rule? I'm thinking he could be quite nasty with a unit of four splinterborn, potentially giving 30 shots wounding on 3's...

No, a Transport vehicle and it's passengers are always considered to be separate units.

Figured that would be the case, but hey we can dream right? Guess its gonna be a bigger unit in a raider instead!

yea, unfortunately they do count as different units, but on the plus side that means they can fire at different targets, which they couldn't if they all counted as one

The only situation a transport and it's passengers count as 1 unit is when figuring out the 50% in reserve rule.

I don't believe this to be true. As far as I know, they are separate for reserves % determination.

Tony Spectacular wrote:

I don't believe this to be true. As far as I know, they are separate for reserves % determination.

Rulebook Page 124 "Preparing Reserves": "A Unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes."

Hope this helps.

Does this still apply if the unit does not start the game embarked on its transport?

Why not? You purchased the dedicated transport with the unit. Wether they start embarked in it is irrelevant.

It could be considered relevant if the vehicle starts on the table and the purchasing unit starts in reserves.

Don't think you can do that, they have to be deployed together, even if they're not actually in the transport, so they're either both on the table or both in reserve, hence why they count as one. Pretty sure it's in the transport section of the rulebook (don't have the page number to hand, sorry)

Don't see, why that should be the case.

BRB p.78 wrote:

Sometimes a unit entry in a codex will include a Transport option, allowing a vehicle to be selected together with the unit. These Dedicated Transports do not use up a slot on the force organisation chart (see page 109). [...]
The only limitation of a Dedicated Transport is that when it is deployed, it can only carry the unit it was selected with ...

BRB p.121 wrote:

Note that, occasionally, a codex will allow a player to include several units in his army at the cost of a single force organisation slot (like Imperial Guard Infantry Platoons, etc.). Apart from being bought as a single choice, these units operate and count as separate units in all respects.

Exactly, Tiri. So, how does the separate deployment affect the overall ratio? For example, I have 6 units total. 4 units of, say, Hellions, and a Wych Venom (yes, I know...FOC and all that...I'm trying to make it simple). If the Wych+Venom counts together I can reserve 2 squads. If they count separately, I could reserve 3.

Page 124 - Preparing Reserves

Quote :

When deploying their armies, players can choose not to deploy up to half of their units (rounding up) keeping them as Reserves to arrive later. [...] A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.

Are 'these purposes' referring to the wording immediately preceding them, 'Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so', as in Drop Pods, indicating that a Drop Pod type unit only counts as one as opposed to two, or is it referring to the entire entry preceding the phrase, thereby including the bit about players choosing not to deploy half their army? This is a significant difference.

I think a paragraph is a terrible way to format that entry (bullet points would have been better) but I think it's obvious that each sentence is meant as a separate principle.

Why would it matter whether units that "must start the game in reserve" are counted as one or not, when they are ignored for the purpose of working out reserves?

Because if the aforementioned Drop Pod unit counts as one, it effectively counts as zero. If it counts as two separate units, then the Pod itself counts as zero, and the unit inside counts as one. This yields the same outcome as in my question above.

I meant to post here on this very issue but got sidetracked, thanks for bringing it up and I agree, there are several points that should be seperated to emphasize meaning.

The issue can be argued either way honestly, for example:

'Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so. A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes.
Emphasis mine. In this example the second sentence appears to reference the sentence before it to define when this applies, rather than blanketing all units and all DTs.

Ive seen it played both ways but around here units are free to deploy seperately from their DTs (one reserved one not) and each counts as one unit. If the unit MUST deploy in reserve then the DT is not counted against them (which is what we feel the text states).

The other side is as stated above, units + DT must be deployed together. This makes sense from a fluff standpoint (why would the ride show up without the guys?) but is rather limiting from a gaming pespective, at least to some armies.

Guys, this issue had geen brought up and i dont see the problem in considering the unit and It's transport as 0.5 when deploying the unit seperatly when calculating halve of the army for reserves purposes.

I knew what Tony Spectacular was aiming at yesterday. And It's not a problem really if you consider them as 0.5 when figuring out halve of your Army for reserves.

Now as for situations where you cant deploy them (transport and passengers ) seperatly there is no rule that claims This. On the contrary.

@ Tony: Units that are embarked in transports that must start in reserve (pods, vendettas, etc). Don't count for the purpose of working out the 50%. So you can have an all drop pod army if you want.

As for keeping a raider in reserve and it's unit starting on the board. I guess they count as 0.5. Pretty silly on GW's part.

Thanks. You all seem to play it the way that makes sense to me. Especially Brom. I like that. If deployed together they count as 1 unit, if deployed separately, 2.

I didn't mean to derail the thread. Sorry, TBE.

@Tony: It's an interesting discussion, so I personally don't mind the derailment.

@Tony+Brom: If you two play it like this: "If deployed together they count as 1 unit, if deployed separately, 2' then you're playing it wrong IMHO. In your scenario an empty Venom on the table would count as much as a Raider + Passengers in reserves for working out the halve of your army per the Reserves rule. While in fact the Venom counts as 0.5 as I pointed out earlier (1/2=0.5) and the Raider + Passengers counts as 1. So you need to put atleast another 0.5 on the table.

Hope this helps.

@Mush: Perhaps we should split the topic?

The issue with .5 is that we're told to round up, making them effectively 1, unless there are even numbered multiples.

The rounding up bit concerns the total. So if you have 7 units, you can keep 4 in reserve and 3 on the table.

So let's say we have 4 Raiders with Warriors as passengers and 3 Ravagers. I choose this example because if you don't want to split the passengers you got 7 units as per reserves rules.

Suppose we want to split the passengers from the transports during deployment (because that is when we have our problem).

If you would calculate half of your army like you proposed:

7 - 4 = 3 units
4 * 2 = 8 units (because passengers become 1 unit and the transport becomes 1 unit)
Totals: 11 units

11/2 (rounded up) = 6 --> We can put 6 in reserve:

#1: Ravager (worth 1 )
#2: Ravager (worth 1 )
#3: Ravager (worth 1 )
#4: Empty Raider (worth 1 by your calculation)
#5: Empty Raider (worth 1 by your calculation)
#6: Empty Raider (worth 1 by your calculation)

--> = 6

Calculate this like I proposed:

7 - 4 = 3 units
4 * (2 * 0.5) = 4 units

7/2 (rounded up) = 4 --> We can put 4 in reserve:

#1: Ravager (worth 1)
#2: Ravager (worth 1)
#3: Ravager (worth 1)
#4: Empty Raider (worth 0.5 according to me)
#5: Empty Raider (worth 0.5 according to me)

--> = 4

You see what happens when we do it your way? You can actually put an extra Raider in reserve if you want. So that's not fair. Not according to the rules, according to which we round up on the total. Not per unit you split up.

Quote :

@Tony+Brom: If you two play it like this: "If deployed together they count as 1 unit, if deployed separately, 2' then you're playing it wrong IMHO. In your scenario an empty Venom on the table would count as much as a Raider + Passengers in reserves for working out the halve of your army per the Reserves rule. While in fact the Venom counts as 0.5 as I pointed out earlier (1/2=0.5) and the Raider + Passengers counts as 1. So you need to put atleast another 0.5 on the table.

The reference to 0.5 is a little confusing and not what I am intending. This could be construed as the transport essentially cancelling the unit that is in reserve (0.5 vs 0.5) but not equaling a normal unit which counts as 1, which is not what im asserting.

There is a subtle difference which I will try to describe a little more plainly below:

For the purposes of determining reserves each unit counts as 1. Each dedicated transport also counts as 1. Period.

For those units that MUST start in reserve, the unit AND their dedicated transport together count as 1 (which is then ignored per the rules on page 124.. otherwise players would be ignoring the unit and counting the DT).

Make more sense now?

Anything else including counting a unit as 0.5 tends to make more problems then it resolves. This then is why I assert the quote below is simply clarifying how dedicated transports are counted for forced reserve units only.

'Units that must start the game in reserve are ignored for the purposes of working out how many other units may do so. A unit and its Dedicated Transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes."