Strategic Reserves
Strategic Reserves let you hold units off the table at deployment and bring them onto the battlefield later in the game, arriving from the board edges via an ingress move. This guide covers how to place units in reserve, the 50% points cap, when and where reserves can arrive, and the deadline after which unarrived reserves are destroyed.
Placing Units in Strategic Reserves
During the Declare Battle Formations step at the start of the battle, you may nominate one or more of your friendly units to go into Strategic Reserves rather than deploying them onto the battlefield. FORTIFICATIONS cannot be placed in reserve. Any unit you select is set aside off the table instead of being deployed normally; it counts as a strategic reserves unit and will enter play during the game.
There is a hard ceiling on how much you can hold back. Unless a rule says otherwise, the total points value of every unit you keep in Strategic Reserves may not exceed 50% of the points limit for your battle size. This total includes any units embarked inside a TRANSPORT that is itself placed in reserve: the passengers count toward the cap alongside the vehicle carrying them.
Repositioned Units
Some abilities let you pull a unit off the battlefield mid-game and put it back into Strategic Reserves. A unit removed this way is a repositioned unit, and the following rules apply on top of any other restrictions the ability imposes (such as limits on where it can re-enter):
- If the rule is used during the Movement phase, it works even on a unit that has already moved that phase.
- If a repositioned unit is set back up in the same turn it made an Advance, Fall Back, or disembark move, it still counts as having made that move for the rest of the turn.
- Any effect that was applying to the unit for a set duration or under specific conditions carries over while those conditions still hold. For example, a unit that was Battle-shocked when removed remains Battle-shocked if it returns that same turn, whereas a unit that was benefiting from an aura loses that benefit if it re-enters outside the aura's range.
Arriving From Strategic Reserves
To come onto the battlefield, each strategic reserves unit makes an ingress move. Unless a rule states otherwise, no unit can make this move until the second battle round or later. Nothing arrives from reserve on turn one.
An ingress move works as follows:
- Set-up distance: 6". The unit is eligible while it is in Strategic Reserves, excluding units embarked in a TRANSPORT that is itself in reserve. The transport arrives first and disembarks its passengers later.
- While moving: place the unit so it sits fully within 6" of a battlefield edge while keeping it more than 8" horizontally away from every enemy unit.
- Deployment-zone restriction: before the third battle round begins, no model may be placed inside your opponent's deployment zone when arriving. From the third round onward, that restriction lifts.
- After moving: unless stated otherwise, the unit cannot make any further type of move until the start of the next Charge phase.
The Third-Round Deadline
Reserves cannot loiter off the table indefinitely. At the end of the third battle round, unless a rule says otherwise, every strategic reserves unit that has not made at least one ingress move is destroyed. Two exceptions survive this cull:
- Units still embarked within a TRANSPORT that has itself made an ingress move during the battle.
- Repositioned units, meaning those removed from the table and returned to reserve by a rule mid-game, rather than held back from the start.
Because reserves are locked out until the second round and face the destruction deadline at the end of the third, you have the second and third battle rounds to commit them. Decide the arrival edge before you put points into reserve: a unit that never lands is lost for nothing.
Frequently asked questions
How do Strategic Reserves work in Warhammer 40,000 11th edition?
You name the units at the Declare Battle Formations step, keep them off the table, and walk them on from a board edge with an ingress move from round two onward. An ingress move ends the unit's movement for that phase, and it can still shoot and charge afterwards. The Rapid Ingress Stratagem lets one unit come on at the end of your opponent's Movement phase instead.
What is the points limit for Strategic Reserves in 40k?
Half your battle-size points limit, so 1,000 points in a 2,000-point game. It is a points cap with no unit count attached, and a loaded transport is costed as the vehicle plus every passenger inside it.
When can units arrive from Strategic Reserves in Warhammer 40,000?
From the second battle round, in your Movement phase. The 8" gap from enemy units is measured horizontally and applies to every model, so a table edge screened by a line of cheap enemy models can be shut off entirely.
Can reserves arrive in the enemy deployment zone in 11th edition?
Only from the third battle round. In round two a unit arriving near the enemy edge has to stop short of their deployment zone, which on most maps leaves a strip of neutral ground at either side. A unit held back until round three can come on directly behind an enemy line that has pushed forward.
What happens to Strategic Reserves that never arrive in 40k?
They are destroyed at the end of round three. The check is whether the unit has made an ingress move, so one that came on and was later pulled back off by a repositioning rule is safe, as is a squad still inside a transport that landed in time.