There is a big difference between discarding units during the creation of the player's army, and doing so once the army is complete.

I totally agree with you that when building your army from a given list, you must do so under the constraints and assumptions for that list. Moreover, when providing transport upgrades for troops, there is a general (but occasionally unwritten) rule that transport upgrades must be provided for all units in the formation. So in your example of the Cadians, if the player elected to upgrade his Karskin infantry company with further infantry, he would have to buy 2x Stormlords (as the list intends). He might indeed also add three Sabre platforms for some AA capability.

However, once the list is complete I would allow the player to discard all but one of the vehicles so that the upgraded Karskin company could garrison. Doing so means that he has given up cost, capability and mobility for the potential advantage of starting on OW in an advanced position. If you had provided air-transport, I would allow him to discard all the vehicles (and some of the infantry) so that the formation could be air-assaulted into position on the grounds that he has then given up further cost, mobility and formation size for this advantage. Note, in a count-off, I would cost the formation at its original size, which would be 700 points in this case.

This is not a list design decision at all as the player is making these choices at the start of the game *after* he has built the army. Indeed, by not giving the player any separate WE transport formations (air or otherwise), you have already removed one of the the two occasions where the player might want to consider discarding units for some potential in-game advantage

As I see it, allowing a player to make these kind of in-game decisions is part of the richness of Epic. The potential advantages are matched by a number of costs, they are balanced if not slightly against the player taking these kind of gambles and they certainly do not detract from the game as a whole. However, I would suggest that this be an FAQ for the tournament scenario, not part of the 'core rules' as such.

However the designer of a list would need to take into account the fact an opponent might discard units before the game. Certainly having to take a second 200pt WE and discard it would discourage that behavior in the case of the Cadians, but the fact remains that list design should ideally take into account all possible uses of a formation. That includes discarding units to allow certain tactics.

Incidentally, Kasrkin with a single Stormlord can't garrison - WEs can't garrison unless there is a movement 0cm unit in the formation.

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Totally agreed - so to garrison he would have to discard all Stormlords at 200 points a pop; which seems to be quite a gamble in its own right. However I was actually refering to discarding 2x Sabre platforms as well, leaving one Sabre platform which could garrison.

But back to the wider point, I still don't see this affecting list designs at the micro level inferred. The question only relates to garrisoning and separate formations with transport capacity. Garrisoning affects all lists, but the conditions are quite severe and as we have noted potentially quite costly. If really concerned about this, the designer can ban it outright (like the Eldar). And the same is true for transport formations; if the designer wants to include separate formations with transport capabilities (eg a 'Stormlord squadron'), he will already have taken into consideration the transport possibilities and designed the formations accordingly (eg Marine THawk transporters).

The point is that taking this kind of gamble is an in-game decision made by the player. It has the same validity as choosing to give up one objective or avoiding the opponents titan / BTS, in the hope of gaining other objectives and winning by different means.

Sabres are INF, but point taken. I don't happen to agree, but I understand the PoV.

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And I also understand your PoV.

As I said at the start of all this, there has been quite extensive debate on the various merits or otherwise without a firm conclusion. Some favour the perspective of "it is illegal if not specifically stated", which is certainly the ruling in other discussions; while others like myself think it should be allowed (I know Neal has been supportive of allowing this in the past).

Either way there ought to be an FAQ to cover this one way or another, so I have raised this in the FAQ section

I'd be doubtful about allowing this in a tournament

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The current compendium version of Space Marine Transport:

"Choosing transport options is part of the army selection process. Portions of a formation may be left behind during deployment (to garrison, for example) and the decision to exchange options, even free ones, must be determined when the army list is determined."

Did the NetERC rule on this when I wasn't looking?

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I was more interested by the bit about how "portions of a formation may be left behind (to garrison, for example)".

NetEA Marines have always had to pick their transport options when the list was made, IIRC.

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Yeah, I thought I'd be ok with this (with blast markers as stated earlier in the thread) but now I think I'd disallow this aswell.
It just seems to be opening up a can of worms which I hadn't fully considered.

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I am also slightly surprised as I thought that the E-UK practice had been generally adopted. To continue what Rug said, for many years in the UK tournaments, we have allowed Marines to revise their transport choices at the start of each game - and there has been no adverse effects as far as I know. Note, this is done within the context of the particular army being used by the player, in the 'spacecraft' step before any troops hit the table.

Given that this process is working for the Marines, perhaps people could express further their misgivings over allowing all races to discard units at the same point in order to Garrison or enter in other transport.

Just how is this 'unfair' or abusable in such a way that his opponent is put at a significant and permanent disadvantage.

Except I don't think it's actually been played that way (i.e. I don't think Marine players have been routinely leaving behind parts of the formation when garrisoning). I just noticed it in the rules and am curious when it got ruled on (if it did at all - it may be something Hena came up with on his own, for example).

I do think Spectrar Ghost's reasoning on this is sound.

If you're bored with an army list, play another army list. There are plenty of NetEA lists for almost every race.

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By way of background, I can state definitively that it was contemplated that players would leave out parts of formations.

Specifically, it was in the context of the Ork lists where you are buying big chunks of troops at a discount. Jervis used the example of an Ork player who had only 7 additional bike models for a Kult of Speed. The 8-unit upgrade to Big/Uge would be cheaper than buying 7 bike units as extras. The player could buy a Big/Uge formation for the cheaper price and simply play without the missing models.

While my memory on the matter is somewhat fuzzier in this case, the way I remember it is that the SM transport rule concept of "leaving units behind to garrison" was discussed in terms of an overall concept. It's just that as the army lists stood at that time, the Marines were the only list where dropping units was remotely advantageous.

Whether that should be taken as a general ability is obviously up for argument.

Personally, I have no problem with dumping units in favor of deployment options. The trade-off is obvious - units for deployment option. In the absence of demonstrated balance problems, I don't see any reason to disallow it.


To take the supposedly problematic Wraithguard example, there's not an apparent balance problem. You're paying roughly 50 point "premium" for an air deployment option by dropping the Guardian units. That's 25% more than any other formation in the army pays for the same deployment option. On the face of it that seems pretty reasonable to me.

More technically, the question to my mind is whether the internal balance is okay. As a sample comparison, is the end result better than 300 point Aspect formation? A basic 300 point Aspect Host without the Exarchs is actually a sub-optimal load, so even if the Guardian/Wraithguard host is a little better, it's fine.

A mix of Warp Spiders and Dire Avengers packs more offense and takes only a small number of additional casualties compared to Wraithguard/Guardians. After the assault, the Warp Spiders add some additional move range and the Aspects don't have the same kind of directional vulnerability that the Guardians/Wraithguard do. So, you're looking at a potentially smaller but slightly more flexible formation of Aspects.

I find it hard to consider that a substantial advantage for the Guardians. And, again, even if it is in the Guardians' favor, the comparison is against a suboptimal Aspect Host. Add in the extra 50 points/10% cost (550 for Vamp+load versus 500) and the Aspects are undeniably better - much more than +10% better.

Neal seems to speak a lot of sense, as usual.

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