From Initiative and Deployment rules we have: Player One Deployment: Following the order established in the Initiative Roll, as decided by the player who kept Deployment, the first player places all but one of his Troopers totally inside his Deployment Zone. Player Two Deployment: Once Player One is done, Player Two places all but one of her Troopers totally inside her Deployment Zone. Player One Last Trooper: Then, Player One places the Trooper he kept back during step one. Player Two Last Trooper: Finally, Player Two places the Trooper she kept back during step two. From NOTE on the same page: Other Special Skills, like Combat Jump, allow players not to place certain Troopers on the battlefield at all during the Deployment Phase. So, is it possible to keep Paratrooper as your reserve miniature, but not to place it on the table? I'd say "no" because it is not required to place paratrooper on the table, but I must place the last miniature.
The phrasing for both 'parts' of your deployment are functionally identical: 'the first player places' 'Player One places' So yes, you can keep a Trooper with Parachutist or Combat Jump back as your reserve Trooper, and then decide to keep them off-table via their special skill.
There’s not much point in N4. It could be useful in N3 where you had to choose where the Parachutists were going to walk on.
I have seen para-commando HMG in FRRM or fraacta-HMG in Onyx as solo attackers deployed on the table in N3. Not the worst choices in their sectorials.
I have done it previously with Margot when going second. The suppressive fire command token use is a nice combo with this.
Sadly neither of them have HMGs any more. Margot and possibly Duroc were the ones that came to my mind.
yea, I like to hold margot back when going second just in case. if i go first i generally start my turn moving one of them to my second combat group.
You can deploy it normally in your DZ, rendering Parachutist useless (it's an optional skill) or use Parachutist to bring it on later. You can't use Parachutist during the Deployment Phase to walk on the side of the board because you can't declare Orders during Deployment.
Why keep a combat jump as last trooper to deploy? Makes no sense or I am understanding the rules of deployment wrong? If I have 8 regular troopers, 1 hidden deployment, 1 combat jump. Total 10 units. The opponent only knows about the 8, and sees 8 orders. I would deploy 7 regular, 1 hidden and keep 1 regular in reserve to deploy last. The combat jump is a secret and will just appear whenever I want to combat jump, or I am wrong?
No you are correct, but there are some use cases to deploy in your DZ instead. In particular I have deployed Margot instead of using parachutist because my opponent had 2 in reserve and I had an 2 fire lanes to cover and needed to make the decision to defend one or just jump later. in my case the opponent deployed and was still missing 2 troops somewhere so i covered the lane that also had a good parachutist walk in spot for him. Just in case.