So I'm drunk and watching Evangelion and don't have anything else to do (yeah, yeah, E&C, you'll get your fluff by midnight ). So I thought I'd throw this one out as I'd been considering it today.

Fact #1: mechanized Marine formations suck somewhat as there is at best 1 extra transport space (not talking about variants like Salamanders with their extra Land Raiders and stuff, but vanilla marines and probably most variants too). Rhinos die from anyone looking at them harshly, and then marines who were riding inside must hoof it, thus slowing down the whole formation. Or, well, they die, but that's hardly a consolation.

Fact #2: Rhino is an exceptionally dependable vehicle in the fluff, and though it's not that hard to render inoperable it can recover - all by itself, frequently - from all kinds of damage in short order.

Idea: "Regenerating" Rhinos in a similar way to void shields. Say, during a Marshall order, for every 3 pips you get on the dice result (and thus could remove 3 Blast markers) you can get one Rhino back into operation instead, up to the maximum of the formation's initial allotment during the start of the battle.

Problems:

1) Bookkeeping required, at least to keep track what was the number of Rhinos a formation had at the start (doesn't happen if you keep your Rhinos distinctly marked for every formation of course )

2) Um... discuss?

In scenarios I often resurrect the old Space Marine rule from 1st edition. In that when you marshal you could take 2 'dead' units and return one to play with its formation (the other being placed in the model box and can never be used again as such). This was for infantry but I say Rhinos can do it as well.

Of course at this point you may as well make 'odd' formations like the old 3rd edition one as well and have all sorts of fun.

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'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

First Tyranids "regenerate" units from nowhere, and now SM?? I would prefer the 3rd edition way.

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From nowhere? Ah, I see you do not play much 6mm stuff...

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If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x

I´ve been playing since the release of Epic40k, but one thing is a bit of abstraction in every army, and other thing is huge abstraction in some armies and nothing in others  

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Epic Armageddon in Spanish: http://www.box.net/shared/aii6v2xqu3

Fact #3: Transports die.

thats about all there needs to be said really. theres no real way to justify re fielding free transports halfway through a game / engagment.

Perhaps the problem here is less that Rhinos die and slow down Tactical formations, and more that other armies (eg, Orks) can start off with a huge transport surplus and thus not suffer the same fate. If the loss of a single transport affected everyone equally it would not be so bad.

How about just allowing Marines to keep some surplus Rhinos when they buy extra transports? Say, rather than insisting on the "minimum" number of transports, allow them to have at most 2 spare transport capacity per formation or something. That way you could add a Land Raider or a couple of Razorbacks and keep one Rhino as a backup.

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