40K: Infantry Platoon Basic Training
Hi all, Jwolf here. It’s a rare thing that I feel the need to get up and preach about a rules issue, so I apologize in advance for the following rant.
Last week a battle report was posted wherein I played against Darkwynn, using Imperial Guard. I deployed a portion of my Infantry Platoon, and some posters declared that this was illegal – that a platoon must either be deployed or held I reserve, but that the separate units of a platoon could not be deployed separately, but all had to be in reserve or deployed “as a single unit”.
Here is the only text that has been brought up to support this position:
“Each Infantry Platoon counts as a single Troops choice on the force organization chart when deploying, and is rolled for collectively when rolling for reserves.” (Codex: Imperial Guard, p.96).
I agree 100% that “each Infantry Platoon counts as a single Troops choice on the force organization chart when deploying” – that is the text of the Codex, and nowhere contradicted or discussed in the Imperial Guard FAQ. Having agreed to that, I then assert that this is entirely meaningless in 5th edition – there is no deployment based on Troops choices on the force organization chart. In 5th edition, we deploy units, not choices on the force organization chart.
What does this mean for IG Platoon deployment? It means that each unit deploys in exactly the same fashion as units from any other Codex. It means that in Dawn of War, you can deploy two Troops units, not two Platoons. If you are deploying Platoons as units, you are doing it wrong. This isn’t a grey area, and it isn’t an interpretation. That there is text in the Imperial Guard Codex that was meaningful in 4th edition (remember, the Guard were a transition Codex) and meaningless in 5th edition isn’t surprising; what is surprising is that some portion of players have decided to interpret meaningless text as something entirely unrelated to the actual words on the page, clinging to “counts as a single Troops choice…when deploying” and ignoring “on the force organization chart,” and then further translating “Troops choice” as “unit” (which is the meaningful deployment segment in 5th edition). There isn’t need of an FAQ to address the issue – it is written in plain language.
On the other hand, an Infantry Platoon “is rolled for collectively when rolling for Reserves” does still have meaning. Every unit of an Infantry Platoon that is held in Reserves will come in from Reserves on a single die roll (which can be good or bad, but is pretty well required for an Infantry Platoon Blob to have any real value as a Reserved unit). This text does not imply or state that all portions of a Platoon have to be held in Reserve together, and adding that to the text is certainly house rules in effect.
I hope that we all understand the deployment and reserve rules for Imperial Guard Platoons now. If my rant offended you, I did warn you ahead of time. Cadets dismissed!
