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I am, as can be surmised fairly, inexperienced. FYI.

At any rate: I understanding that mass drop pods can work well, as mass bolter fire turn one is not condusive to one's health. With this in mind, I do not understand mass deep striking (using DOA) with jump packers. They cannot do as much damage when they come down, come sporadically, and cannot use the drop pod as cover. What advantages does it have over just running the army across the field, utilizing cover and (hopefully) not getting shot up?

To be fair, with the DoA rerolls you'll get 75% of your jumppackers on turn 2, and most of the time get the rest of them on turn 3. But, yeah, the problem of some drop pods coming in on turn 1 and then more pods and jumppackers coming in on turns 2-3 does straggle out your entry to the table.

Also that problem of standing around for a turn and getting shot up before they can do anything seems like it would be an issue.

I play a Ravenguard army that includes both pods and jumppackers, and I just deploy my jump infantry on the table. That way I know all my assault marines can be in assault most of the time by turn 2 at the latest--when deepstriking marines would just be arriving. My opponent gets only one turn of shooting at my assault marines at the most, and even that turn I get to spread out and use cover, which might not be possible if I were deepstriking (and not running to spread out because of wanting to shoot melta weapons).

Then extra empty pods in reserve let me drop the pods I want in turn 1, so all my guys are in the opponent's face by turn 2.

The Descent of Angels special rule allows you to re-roll failed reserve rolls, so you're going to get about 75% of your army on turn 2 (assuming the entire army is jump packs and deepstriking). That is hardly sporadic. In fact it is more of your army on the turn it lands than you get with Daemons or Drop Pods.

The army does significant damage when it lands as well. It has piles of special weapons (Meltas and Plasmas usually) that are very frightening to all of the mech lists out there. Vanguards go from pretty bad to really good with only 1D6" scatter thanks to DoA. Vanguards hit hard too, they get 4 attacks each when they charge and access to a 10pt Powerfist on their Sarge. They're also equipped with Krak Grenades with the option for Melta Bombs making them a nuisance when they charge into a car-park.

Your units will also be very resilient because you should have Sanguinary Priests all over the place granting bubbles for Feel No Pain and Furious Charge.

The turn after you land you get the outstanding mobility of the Jump Packs in combination with the very solid hitting power of Furious Charging Assault Marines/Vanguards/Characters. Your stuff is very good in close combat, the best that you can have for a power armored army. You want to fight in super close where you can take advantage of your powerful close range weapons and ability to fight HtH combat.

Running across the field exposes you to more enemy fire for longer, so you take more damage. It also doesn't place your units in as precise a location in the same amount of time. It can sometimes get you into combat quicker though, which can be a good thing. If you're dealing with another army that i very strong in CC and doesn't have much effective shooting, you will consider starting on the table and using your mobility to set up charges and deny the enemy the chance to charge you. Sometimes, you'll want to deploy your army. There are many scenarios where that will be to your advantage. Other times you'll want to deepstrike the army in order to take advantage of the very potent alpha-strike that the army packs.

prussia59 wrote:I am, as can be surmised fairly, inexperienced. FYI.

At any rate: I understanding that mass drop pods can work well, as mass bolter fire turn one is not condusive to one's health. With this in mind, I do not understand mass deep striking (using DOA) with jump packers. They cannot do as much damage when they come down, come sporadically, and cannot use the drop pod as cover. What advantages does it have over just running the army across the field, utilizing cover and (hopefully) not getting shot up?

there are a couple advantages....
1. if you stay off the board your opponent will deploy without any knowledge of your own deployment. he has to make his choices in the dark, in other words. when you deploy with your jump packs you'll know where he is though, so the strategic initiative is on your side. you get to make an informed decision - he doesnt.

2. deep striking troops get the first shot off in any fire fight. the opponent can't shoot them if they're not on the board, after all, and the DoA reduced scatter role makes your deep strikes predictable enough that if you want to shoot special weapons right out of your deployment via deep strike you probably can. so its like you're getting the 1st punch in a fight.

3. the reroll tends to mean that your army will come in by a group. most of the time most of the army will be there on turn 2, and any stragglers will be in by turn 3. concern about coming in piecemeal is usually an important reason why people dont like to deep strike. blood angels have fairly overcome this.

4. you dont get cover from the drop pod, its true, but you also dont give up an extra kill point, and the reduced scatter roll means that if you drop inside of pre-existing cover you'll probably stay there. also drop pod troops dont have a whole lot of mobility once they're down. jump pack troops retain their ability throughout the whole game.

5. guys who just run across the battlefield are more likely to get shot up than deep strikers because they often spend longer out of assault. for the Blood Angels player he usually doesnt want to be in a shooting match because that's not where he's strongest. so every casualty he takes makes hiim weaker in assault. Deep striking right next to your opponent puts them on notice - they get 1 turn to shoot you, then they're in assault. so deep striking is also a way to minimize your casualties against certain armies.

all that being said there will be times when the blood angels player should just deploy everything rather than assault. for instance in a dawn of war/objectives mission where he has the first turn and most of the objectives are on his side. in that case he can push his opponent's forces 18" away from the objectives by deploying right up to the line that seperates the two deployment zones. or if you're facing another assault themed army in general, it also makes sense to deploy because you can rely on your mobility to let you pick and choose where you want to fight and you dont want to have to wait until turn 3 to have your whole force in action. its mostly a tactic to use against armies that have strong shooting, especially when they have the 1st turn, or in objective missions where deep striking lets you concentrate your forces on one objective at a time, but your opponent cant know which one until you deploy.
AF

The Achilles heel of drop pods is the drop pod assault rule:1/2 of an army's drop pods must land on the table on turn 1, and the other half must go into reserve.

That means if you reserve everything 1/2 the drop pods land on turn 1 while the rest of the army is stuck in reserve, then on turn 2 only 50% of reserves come in. With a DOA army 75% of the army will arrive on turn 2, and 8/9 remaining reserves arrive on turn 3.

Last but not least a DOA list has the option of starting the game on the table, and I would not call it footslogging. A 12" jump+1D6" run=the entire army is in assault range on turn 2.

Deep Striking bolters don't scare anything much, the main advantage of Pods is either getting assaulty units in close quickly (usually Dreads as they are hard to kill and don't have many other transport options) or getting mobile firepower units which can pop tanks or make a big mess of heavy infantry in range turn 1. Pods also let you do this with a fair amount of safety (hard to mishap with them).

Basically DoA lets you do all this without needing the pod. You can get melta weaponry into range without being shot up and get some pretty solid assault units in close in one go. You can also get around the problem Pods have with always coming down turn 1, its very easy to reserve everything, wait till the Pods come down and take out any isolated pods. The reserves re-roll means you don't have to worry too much about being taken apart unit by unit as you arrive, and only scattering D6" means you are pretty accurate. With Jump Packs you are also far more mobile after the inital drop, which is a major issue for Pod based lists. Given choice of running headlong into the enemies guns with no real ability to hurt them until you get right in close, or dropping in exactly where your list is designed to work, close enough that you can start killing their stuff before they start killing yours I know which one I would choose.