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I posted this message on the wrong forum a few days ago because im ne here and didnt read the name of the forum... fail by me. but anyways, this is the message;

'Ive began constructng a Black Templar Space Marine army and am quite new to the game. My two friends who have previously played the game in there childhoods introduced me to the game after them having a trip down memory lane and getting into the hobby again. and then blah blah blah i got into space marines. After collecting and consructing a small army we began talking about playing. I was thinking of getting drop pods for my Space marines for various tactical reasons, ut my friend has now said basically that they are not worth the money. I was thinking of getting 2 pods and having a devisator squad in each. To take out my mates armour as he is collecting Imperial Guard and making his army basicaly a Tank based army. My other friend was the one who said that drop pods are not worth getting because they are essentially crap. So i now have mixed views on weather to get the drop pods.
So i was hoping someone who is experienced in the space marine area could help'

Well, if your using a Black Templar Codex, we don't get Devastator Squads.

You could have a 5 man Iniate Squad with ONE heavy weapon, (Las/Plas/HvyB/ML/MMelta) which to my knowledge wouldn't be able to fire it's heavy weapon when he lands anyway.

I frankly don't go into the Heavy Weapons in squads myself, my Crusader squads have One Melta in each of them and thats it.

The Majority of my Tank popping either comes from Three Vindi's/Las Pred and my three squads of Two MM Speeders.

That sounds like a good tactic actually i might have to take that into account, thanks mate

Well i recently spoke to a guy in games workshop that explained to me that drop pods are pretty useless when playing the game. he told me that if somone is using drop pods to just keep everything in reserve until they are dropped. that and they are basicaly used to deep strike units and if it all goes wrong then the fight could be lost to you in the first few turns. i personaly dont think their worth it.

Yes my good friend mr unreal toast, but do remember that you are the guy that im talking about in this post who said not to get them. Lol but thanks for your input anyway. btw GET ANOTHER WRAITHLORD haha

Ohh i didnt realize, but seriously i think you could put the money to better use somewhere else in your army. and as for the wraithlord i think i might have to

Unreal Toast wrote:Well i recently spoke to a guy in games workshop that explained to me that drop pods are pretty useless when playing the game. he told me that if somone is using drop pods to just keep everything in reserve until they are dropped. that and they are basicaly used to deep strike units and if it all goes wrong then the fight could be lost to you in the first few turns. i personaly dont think their worth it.

that guy is wrong. you can but that only works well when you're talking about a heavy drop pod list in a KP game. what about an objective game? unless all your troops are mounted or superfast like BA or dark eldar, you may never get to the objectives in time. it's not an "easy win" button by any means but it is a decent tactic in the situation i described.

Thats true, your scenario never occured to me since i don't use em.

They are a good investment in those kind of games, dropped a big group inbetween an enemy and an objective, is a good way of delaying them getting to an objective

I guess i can see them beeing usefull in that area, ive never played an objective game myself but i see what your saying.

the first game I ever lost to space marines was against a black templar drop pod list. Since then, the best I think I've ever done against a pod list is to tie them (if they didn't have another player as a partner).

Yes, your forces don't come in all at once, but they come down exactly where you want them without mishap. Experienced players can castle defense you, but experienced drop pod players can mitigate the castle defense and still very much win games.

If you don't like the style of pods, then don't play them, but otherwise do some proxying for a few games (cups work great for this) and see if you can't make use of 2 squads of combi weapon sternguard showing up exactly where you want them unmolested.

Well, My advice to the OP would be to Proxy some like Aliaros said, but i wouldn't use the BT codex.

I would use the Vanilla Marines Codex put paint your models up to be BT if you want?

Considering if you went Shooty BT, the best you can do is loads of Bolters and then if you want to shoot at any enemy BUT the closest you must make a Leadship test in accordance to the "Kill them all.." special rule (-1 to Leadship)

Plus if you go Vanilla Marines Codex, you can make use of all the fancy stuff we don't get like Sternguard, Devastators, Vanguard Veterans etc.

Well i recently spoke to a guy in games workshop that explained to me that drop pods are pretty useless when playing the game. he told me that if somone is using drop pods to just keep everything in reserve until they are dropped.

Something to keep in mind if your friend (the OP) is using BT codex -- their pods don't arrive on turn 1. They roll reserves as normal. As long as he is going 2nd, your all in reserve tactic is not gonna work too well.

?

coming in later is a STRENGTH for reserve-based armies.

Unreal Toast wrote:ive never played an objective game myself...

You must be really unlucky when you roll for mission at the start of the game

If someone plays a full drop pod list, then the all reserves defense is good. But you don't have to play ALL drop pod, you can use drop pods for half of your army, for example.

The advantage of a drop pod is, huge mobility straight away, none later. As opposed to a rhino that has mediocre mobility all the time.

Well ok i have an understanding of what im going to do now because overall it sounds like a powerful tactic to use drop pods, if the rolls are decent when they are used. im probably gonna get two now, like i was going to before and maybe a Dreadnaught drop pod from forgeworld. depending on if thats a good idea. thanks for your help guys If you have any feedback on the idea of the Dreadnaught droppod idea i will be very grateful cheers for the help guys

I was thinking on a few drop pods for my Chaos marines, but there not in my Codex....stinkin GW writters leaving the fluff out....but Deep Striking is just as good lol or Infiltration.....

Xenith wrote:

Unreal Toast wrote:ive never played an objective game myself...

You must be really unlucky when you roll for mission at the start of the game

Well we used to just fight untill the entrie enemy army is demolished, so i guess you could say its an anialation variant (take into account i was about nine years old ) lol

lol well when we play mate we can try some objestive games coz ive never even played the game before

Ok cool, but i have no idear how to play objective games or even how to set them up so im gonna rely on you and nick to sort that out.

well yeah but we can easily find out online or even on this. we should move to a private message coz were gonna look like were spamming my question hahaha


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well we can easily find out online or even on this. We should move to private messaging because were beginning to spam my question lol, message me

They can be extremely useful.
I DP'd behind a Vindi, and took it out with a single melta shot which was lining up to kill me.

EDIT: So yeah, I'd say they're pretty useful. I've always hit exactly/almost exactly on target with mine, so can't say anything about going off kilter. But if your opponent has something you want dead - DP and shoot.
Far out objectives? DP and Run.
General distraction to mess up your opponents tactics? DP.

Some people like to say stick to rhino's OR DP, but having both I think allows for more flexible tactics. After all, a Rhino has to drive and can be shot whilst it's moving - a DP instantly lands.

Drop Pods are great.

I use them all the time and they kick a fair amount of ass.

At one point back when i was collecting chaos i was considering getting a chaos drop pod but decided against it.

Wolfun wrote:They can be extremely useful.
I DP'd behind a Vindi, and took it out with a single melta shot which was lining up to kill me.

EDIT: So yeah, I'd say they're pretty useful. I've always hit exactly/almost exactly on target with mine, so can't say anything about going off kilter. But if your opponent has something you want dead - DP and shoot.
Far out objectives? DP and Run.
General distraction to mess up your opponents tactics? DP.

Some people like to say stick to rhino's OR DP, but having both I think allows for more flexible tactics. After all, a Rhino has to drive and can be shot whilst it's moving - a DP instantly lands.

see thats where i was coming from when i thought of getting them, by dropping a devistator squad in (hopefully where i want it to go) and then destroying tanks and heavy units early and guickly in the game.

Except you cant use devastator squads because your using Black Templars

It helps to remember what is coming down and when. The later waves are a handy place to stick Troops choices, while the 1st wave is a good place to stick shock troops like Dreadnoughts and Sternguard.

PURE SKINZzz wrote:

Wolfun wrote:They can be extremely useful.
I DP'd behind a Vindi, and took it out with a single melta shot which was lining up to kill me.

EDIT: So yeah, I'd say they're pretty useful. I've always hit exactly/almost exactly on target with mine, so can't say anything about going off kilter. But if your opponent has something you want dead - DP and shoot.
Far out objectives? DP and Run.
General distraction to mess up your opponents tactics? DP.

Some people like to say stick to rhino's OR DP, but having both I think allows for more flexible tactics. After all, a Rhino has to drive and can be shot whilst it's moving - a DP instantly lands.

see thats where i was coming from when i thought of getting them, by dropping a devistator squad in (hopefully where i want it to go) and then destroying tanks and heavy units early and guickly in the game.

That's exactly what I would do.
Drop'em in, hit'em hard.

Wolfun wrote:

PURE SKINZzz wrote:

Wolfun wrote:They can be extremely useful.
I DP'd behind a Vindi, and took it out with a single melta shot which was lining up to kill me.

EDIT: So yeah, I'd say they're pretty useful. I've always hit exactly/almost exactly on target with mine, so can't say anything about going off kilter. But if your opponent has something you want dead - DP and shoot.
Far out objectives? DP and Run.
General distraction to mess up your opponents tactics? DP.

Some people like to say stick to rhino's OR DP, but having both I think allows for more flexible tactics. After all, a Rhino has to drive and can be shot whilst it's moving - a DP instantly lands.

see thats where i was coming from when i thought of getting them, by dropping a devistator squad in (hopefully where i want it to go) and then destroying tanks and heavy units early and guickly in the game.

That's exactly what I would do.
Drop'em in, hit'em hard.

The old Brute force tactic Well hopefuly it works, ive never played before. Do you have any other tips on using the drop pods?

PURE SKINZzz wrote:

Wolfun wrote:

PURE SKINZzz wrote:

Wolfun wrote:They can be extremely useful.
I DP'd behind a Vindi, and took it out with a single melta shot which was lining up to kill me.

EDIT: So yeah, I'd say they're pretty useful. I've always hit exactly/almost exactly on target with mine, so can't say anything about going off kilter. But if your opponent has something you want dead - DP and shoot.
Far out objectives? DP and Run.
General distraction to mess up your opponents tactics? DP.

Some people like to say stick to rhino's OR DP, but having both I think allows for more flexible tactics. After all, a Rhino has to drive and can be shot whilst it's moving - a DP instantly lands.

see thats where i was coming from when i thought of getting them, by dropping a devistator squad in (hopefully where i want it to go) and then destroying tanks and heavy units early and guickly in the game.

That's exactly what I would do.
Drop'em in, hit'em hard.

The old Brute force tactic Well hopefuly it works, ive never played before. Do you have any other tips on using the drop pods?

You can't assault out of them, so charging units (IE: Bloodclaws) are useless for it. Scouts it's pointless, too, as they can't Outflank or infiltrate.

I'd stick for Devastators/Long Fangs/Similar, or do something to mess up particular tactics.

Like I said, I DP'd behind a Vindi and took that out - you could do similar things to an assault squad (Drop behind them and shoot them), or object holding.

Hell, I'd be tempted to drop near an enemy objective and try and take that if you could, possibly to distract him from what you're really aiming for. They do make for nice distractions.