jimmyzimms wrote:
I think Planetfall with a free unit (not a spaceship) that activates for the combined drop is probably the best route to go myself mechanically. Represents the assault force coming in onto the battlefield and prevents individual units getting shot to shit as they individually activate.
This was exactly the direction I was thinking we should go. Basically works just like Planetfall, sans the need to purchase a Lunar Cruiser. It'd essentially work in a similar way, pick your turn, make your roll for arrival. If they arrive, everything lands and is immediately considered disembarked (thereby triggering overwatch fire).
The other thing I would change is that they aren't subject to the rule where only one space craft can be over the board at any time. So if for example, you declared turn 1, and your opponent had a spacecraft arriving on turn 2, your failed roll would not prevent the drop troops from coming in on turn 2. If we kept that logic...it could be more than half the game before planetfall happens.
Now...here is where this could get sticky...people get antsy when you start messing with set rules. So my suggestion/thought is we just create an army rule called Drop Troops which we write up as a modified Planetfall. This was the path I was going to take with this after looking at everything that's been proposed/discussed. People don't like Teleport, Planetfall requires a space craft (which isn't canonical), and self planetfall usually ends up with piecemeal broken formations....so this to me seems like the best path forward.
I was thinking instead of placing a spaceship model on the board, we place a lone Valkyrie model to represent the high altitude Valkyries deploying the drop troops (could be any marker really, a Valkyrie is just thematically cool).
My two cents.