No he hasn't. Neal recalls him saying something. That isn't the same as a quote

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Guns don't break formations. Blast Markers break formations.

But it's also better than third hand hearsay, and isn't to be lightly dismissed IMO.

Which doesn't preclude a NetEA Errata to.ban the practice.

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Jaggedtoothgrin beat to the reply that Neahlhunt's examples are not appropriate as they just clear up things that are possible by following written rules, while the drop units issue is inventing a new rule.

@EvilAndChaos
It can be no criteria to allow a new rule just whether it will be good or bad for the player using it. Under this procedure we could add 5 million new rules. ANyway if the rule has no advantage why have it ?

@All
Why should it be a criteria that Jervis wanted it in 2002-2003. That's close to 10 years ago. He will most likely not remember, if he wanted it or not and for what reasons. And each and every of the regular gamers will have more experience than Jervis with the game system and it's mechanics.
Why is it that army lists and rules often can be easily abused ? Because the gamers think different and have much more practice and experience with the game.
So IMHO it's much better to find a consent between experienced players than to guess what Jervis might have wanted - and probably didn't want anymore when he would have played once a week for the last 10 years.

In the following "we" is the community or it's chosen organs, just as you see fit or should I say just as we see fit

I think, we should add no concepts that are not already presented except if the vast majority agrees and only after serious testing.

We should clear up ambiguous rules in the FAQ.

We should restrict or expand rules, if there is a way to abuse them or a way to use them that does not feel right, also as part of the FAQ. E.e. the broken fearless/contact rule. It does not feel right, so lets clear it up. Whether it is decided to play it RAW (nothing says otherwise) or restrict it (no it feels wrong) is up to the FAQ maintainers.

We should not shy to change rules slightly to make them more practical or playable without changing the result (e.e. template placement could IMHO be made more playable, or from a different game system the Warhammer LC movement rule - nobody ever played it like the book says it has to be done, because movement in steps with reforms is just so clumsy)

We should not be shy to trust our own judgment.

Each and every change must make the game clearer, more playable, more balanced or "better" (which is difficult to describe and most likely contains the afore mentioned)

We should not let our own advantage or that of the armies we play guide our decisions.

Regards
SH

Hi brumbaer,
As Neal was part of the original rules design team, and has been on the Rules committee and at the centre of rules discussion ever since, his voice carries more weight than anyone elses; mine included. Furthermore, we have been slowly tidying up the game since its inception - hence the extensive FAQ and the considerable uninimity that exists within the E:A community.

That said, we do still find 'novel' aspects of the game like this and usually find an accomodation like you describe, though perhaps not quite as rigid as you may be used to; E:A tends to be played in a more relaxed way than say international Chess.

At the moment, Neal (and a few assistants) are in the process of reviewing and tidying up the FAQ list in the light of other discussions over recent years. The only real question here is just what to do with this particular topic, and whether we are yet in a position to hold an informed poll to guide the process.

Relying on Jervis: Jervis is generally someplace we look for original intent and design concepts because he is, in most of our opinions, a great game designer. He's not the final arbiter but his opinion carries weight. In the case of entrenched differences of opinion, his opinion is usually respected as a fair tiebreaker. Thus, since that's the situation we find ourselves in, there have been lots of appeals to JJ's opinion.

That's clearly not going to work here. As PG rightly points out, my memory is not perfect and I may be misremembering the relevant conversations (or may have simply misunderstood them when they happened).

FAQ: I'm not married to the idea of dropping units during deployment. I just thought the fact that it had been out there in the FAQ for 4 years and had never caused a discussion until now would sway people to the fact that this may be nothing but a tempest in a teapot.

Hasn't been tested: I agree that it has not been actively tested. However, the fact that for at least a portion of us the option has existed for years and has not been used is definitely strong passive testing. Isn't that one of our "gold standards" for whether a unit/formation is underperforming? Years of play and no one takes it?

Doesn't add to the game: I disagree. Would anyone really argue that allowing the Marines deployment options does not give them additional strategic depth? Of course it does, and people like it.

In the past, we have generally erred on the side of allowing players more choice and flexibility. Doing so increases the complexity of the decision-making process and allows for more unusual, interesting or just entertaining tactical and strategic choices. That does add to the quality of the game.

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All that said, I would probably roll over except for the Marines.

The transport rule is about unit selection. Nothing in it says that unit selection occurs anyplace except in the normal, pregame, army selection process. There's no special "during deployment" exception in the RAW. If Eldar can't drop units, neither can Marines.

So... is everyone willing to live with that consequence, removing the deployment options ability from the Marines?

Well I would definitely allow the Marines to discard units at the start of the game, and would prefer to allow all races to do so, because I agree that having these kind of choices enhances the game.
(but you knew that already didn't you)

As a compromise, in the UK we have some non-tournament meetings coming up; why not try it out in this setting where the rules can be relaxed slightly without upsetting things too greatly? It would provide a reasonable testing environment and we could provide feed-back on the results.

See, I think there are three actual 'categories' of what is done with this:

1) Formations drop entire upgrades, thus basically taking a loss (example: Marines dropping Rhinos, Razorbacks or Drop Pods to Air Assault).
2) Formations drop parts of certain upgrades, thus taking a loss, but also getting a tactical benefit they could not have otherwise (example: Guard dropping some Griffins to garrison).
3) Formations drop parts of the core units in order to do more advantageous things with upgrades (example: Eldar dropping Guardians to Air Assault their Wraithguard).

I'm perfectly fine with the first two, but not with the third. I'd suggest that a good rule would be the requirement that you can't drop the core units of the formation (or units they have been upgraded into, if that applies). This would prevent people from doing anything TOO strange while still allowing some interesting combinations and flexibility from game to game.

Another obvious option would be to amend the Space Marine Transports special rule to allow Marines to choose to drop their Rhinos/Razorbacks or Drop Pods in order to ride in a Thunderhawk.

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As you will have realized English isn't my native language. We need 1.5 to 2 times as many words to express the same concept. So we tend to save words and try to make "important" statements short.
Naturally, this tendency reflects in my use of the English language.
This will sometimes come across as very decided or smart alec.
While I'm aware of this possibility, this is not intentionally and I apologize if I hurt anybody's feeling - it was not intended.

I know Jervis, we met and discussed rules in the studio (not Epic though) more than once, played Warhammer on a tournament and met on other occasions. I have the deepest respect for him and think he is a good game designer. I don't agree with all of his concepts, but I'm sure he will loose no sleep about that And yes I think somebody should make a mod with his voice for a navigation system .

But I know that game designers think differently about games as players do - there view is usually limited, just as the view of gamers, but in a different "direction".
Many games designers (nearly all that I know) are unsuccessful players (in the tournament sense) because of that. They will not realize many potential interpretations and uses of rules, because they do not think about winning (gaining advantage, whatever) by using a rule, but the think about this rule reflects a concept or allows you to have mimic a real life event in the game.
So while I agree on taking into account the probable intention of the designer, it still has to be tested whether the proposed rule is the right tool to fulfill this intent and that the rule does not cause other problems.

Regarding the dad (drop at deployment) rule.
I will not repeat my arguments, why I think it's not rules conform.
I just want to add that I think it was made as a special rule for SM, because there would be no none Scout unit available for garisson duty.
The problem could have been easily solved by having - no transport, Rhino/Razorback, Droppod - option at army selection. Why this wasn't done I do not know. There might be a good reason or only late in the process somebody realized that SMs couldn't garrison and a solution had to be found in an instant. Sometimes things just happen.

I do not think the dad rule makes the game better. It adds some flexibility in deployment, but so would allowing the selection of formation from other army lists or setting your troops up in the opponents half and many more. And I hope nobody considers those except as part of a scenario.
What you will loose by allowing it, is that certain formations have certain roles. And the reason for some of those units to exist might just be fulfilling this role.
And I do not see it as flexibility - I see it as "cheating". You have a problem (army selection to win a battle, building a cabinet) - instead of solving it with the given tools (formations of fixed size, manual tools) you cheat you way out of the problem (get rid of the fixed limitation, buying power tools)

Until now we could live rather well without the dad rule and most people haven't missed it, so why add it.

I think I said all about dad that I have to say (and probably even more) more than once, and it's not for me to decide, so I let it rest for a while.
My comments were just meant as additional input and food for thought and neither demands nor bullying.

Regards
SH

Edit
spelling errors

brumbaer echoes my thoughts.

Is it presumptuous of me to suggest that the path of least resistance is just to say it is not possible? I'll happily admit this is my own viewpoint, but it's not because I think "OMG wraithguard in vampires is overpowered!", it's because it seems the easiest, fairest and most consistent option. I know some would like to play around with the possibilities it would allow, but plenty of people seem against it and others are ambivalent. Would a house rule be so bad for those who would like to use it, rather than impose it on everyone else? Is it worth even a small possibility of creating bad feeling between players who use the rule and those who feel cheated? Is it worth making lists just that little bit harder to balance, and playtesting all the existing lists?

Marines, on the other hand, already have a special rule that deals with this very topic. I see no problem in whatever ruling the community thinks is right for them, though I think it would be best if it was 100% compatible with the rulebook (the rulebook doesn't say at what point the choice is made, but it is limited to rhinos).

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Whilst I think it's most likely that the rule was always intended to exist, I don't see a great problem if the community consensus is to iron it out of the game with an Eratta.

Mind you, I think in general, usibg the rule is simply going to be a disadvantage in 99% of cases, and perhaps a wash for the remainder - not really a cause for concern at all.

Jervis should do a satnav you're right!

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I don't know how you can say this. The game was never tested like this, the tactic was never mentioned, it was not tested in any of the army lists and nothing of the sort was ever mentioned by Jervis outside of the comment that Neal recalls.

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Guns don't break formations. Blast Markers break formations.

FWIW I've read that comment about dropping an Ork buggy if you only have 7 models and not the 8 required by the list before. Damned if I remember where.

Was this part of the discussion about the number of units in a blister that we had when the packaging for the E:A models was being announced/discussed?

I don't *think* so, but I could be misremembering.