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Is an army based on all it's tactical squads put in drop pods and dreadnoughts doing the same.. Is it competitive has anyone tried it? if so link to a report or thread? What are your thoughts?

It's a powerful, yet risky tactic. You can put half your army on the enemy's doorstep on turn one. The risk comes when you try to roll for the rest. You have land raiders running everywhere, and your MM Dread won't make the deep strike roll? Too bad. Additionally, there is the problem of the intervening turn. When your pods drop, unless they are within assault distance, they need to stand still for a turn and get shot to ribbons. And they count as having moved, so your heavy weapons can't be used. Even so, it is very powerful and can throw the tactical advantage to you extremely early in the game. Especially against armies that use their distance as defense (Tau).

Thats what im wondering i mean okay your right on their door step but next turn your blown to pieces..

First question is which Codex you talking about? That makes a huge differences.

Well space marine drop pods are juicey hard to resist targets for an ork player with boyz in trukks. But, you can get drop podded bad if you make your roles, so do the math figure out the percentages against your enemies and go from there.

you have the basic idea down.


there is of course a bunch of different ways to use Drop pods.


the Key is to have an odd number of pods so you can get 1 more pod coming down. the means that most will be coming down first turn. example: you have 9 pods, 5 come down first turn.

the way i think pods should be used is like this.

you take 2 dreadnoughts with MMs and heavy flamers. any number of tactical squads.

all or most of the pods should have locator beacons.

your Dreadnoughts drop first turn into the heart of the enemy and unload their MMs into vulnerable vehicles. they WILL die, but should buy valuable time for the rest of your force to arrive and they are highly likely to kill something too.

your Tac squads which come down first turn, and in subsequent turns, should drop onto any objectives and should drop near by each other. you can "Circle the Wagons" and use Pods as cover.

the Tac squads can hold that objective/strongpoint and blast then enemy with weapons fire. the best way to equip your squads is to make them all identical and able to take on vehicles and infantry. this means Flamers and Missile launchers. keeping them cheap will allow more of them to be taken.

Forces that are good as reserve forces: Assault Terminators. they can deep strike using the beacons from the Pods to strike on target. Assault marines can do this too.

Landspeeders are good forces to start on table as they are fast and can provide long ranged fire power(something DP armies generally lack) in the form of Typhoon missile launchers and heavy bolters.

Librarians can go with a Sternguard squad and use GoI to jump around from Drop Pod to Drop Pod(using the locater beacon to avoid scatter) and shoot enemies up with rapid fire goodness.

Wow grey templar! Great reply! you really helped me i love the idea of "circling the wagons" what kind of cover save is that 4+? and the odd number of pods is a good detail. i want and all deep strike force... so i could have termies and other fun stuff! thanks man!

and i am using vanilla dex.

it would be 4+

the standard "1/2 of the unit is obscured so they get a 4+ cover" rule.


Terminators are great to use for deep strike. the only problem with Assault terminators is the fact the enemy can simply move away from them after they drop in.

10 Tactical terminators with 2 clyclone missile launchers can come down and blow a unit out of the water with one volley. 20 Stormbolter shots and 4 Krak or Frag missiles can shred Tanks(shy of AV14) and infantry.

yeah i thought so.

and yeah i prefer tactical just because i normally deep strike my termies and have had problems getting my assault into to assault where as my tactical will land blow a good chunk out of a unit and still have potential to assault. Im excited about this army what chapter do you think has fluff based around that?

the Raven Guard, White Scars, Aurora chapter, and the BA all have Drop Pod history.


You can make up your own chapter that specializes in Drop Pod assaults

One neat trick is use devastators with drop pods. Deploy the devs and drop the pods empty. This can also be done with rifleman dreads. 3 empty pods means you can drop more of your army T1.

Is that legal dont you have to deploy with your drop pod if you take one?

Drop Pods are Dedicated Transports.

Transports are treated as seperate units for all intents and purposes except ONLY the unit that purchases it may deploy inside.

You can place any unit in reserves if you want to.

Vanguard Vets may also not be a bad idea if droped near a drop pod (great for desamating tou lines)

Are those cc oriented or what?

Vanguard are horribly overpriced. you have to buy Jump packs, then you have to buy equipment for them.

They are a bad idea all together.

I think a a useful tactic with an entire army that pods is to have an odd number of pods to begin with.... like 7 or 9.

This way you have more deploying than being held back - 4 or 5 deployed 3 or 4 in reserve.

Then... the cool part.

For those 3 or 4 you hold back - hold them back empty. Deploy the units they belong to without their drop pod. These units should be able to shoot. The 4 or 5 pods you DO deploy can hold nasty things like Sterguard with a Libbie or Dreadnaughts.

When you do bring on those Empty Pods from reserve - a few Deathwind Missile Launchers cant hurt

Something like this would be fun:

Space Marine Captain; Combi-Meltagun; Relic Blade

Command Squad; Apothecary; 3 Meltaguns; Drop Pod; Locator Beacon

Librarian; Null Zone; The Gate of Infinity

10 Sternguard; Combi-Meltagun x2; Heavy Flamer x2; Sergeant; Melta Bombs; Bolter; Power Fist x1; Drop Pod; Locator Beacon

2 Dreadnoughts; Dreadnought CCW; Multi-Melta; Heavy Flamer; Drop Pod; Locator Beacon

2 Full Tactical Squads; Plasmagun; Lascannon; Sergeant; Drop Pod; Deathwind Missile Launcher

8 Devastators; Missile Launcher x4; Drop Pod; Deathwind Missile Launcher

The Libbie can go with the Command Squad and Captain if you need to Gate Meltaguns around using the Locator Beacons or he can go with the Sternguard if you need to Gate Heavy Flamers around.

I own 10 drop pod I am in the process of finishing my 2nd Company Ultramarines (6 Tacticals, 2 Devastators, 2 Dreads, and Captain Sicarius/Command Squad all in Drop Pods with two Assault Squads to deep strike in)

I have found that when you get in to the 6 or more range of drop pod you don't have to concern yourself with an odd number pods. It's better actually to have an even number of pods. The reason being if someone reserves everything you can hold your alpha strike unit back (i.e. MM Dreads, sternguard, etc) and drop your troops instead.

And trust me people will reserve everything as a strategy versus a drop pod army because the internets tells them too. But unless their list is built for reserves (i.e Autarchs, Genestealer/Hive commander, White Scars, etc) this "strategy" is full of fail if they start coming in piecemeal.

The best part about a drop pod list is the flexibility you have. Don't make your battle plan until you know who your playing, their list, the board, and the mission.

Don't forget you can combat squad. Again depending on the game am playing I will sometimes combat squad my tacticals deploying the heavy weapon on the board and leaving the Sgt. and special weapon in the pod.

The biggest flaw in playing a Drop Pod list is in Kill Point missions a bunch of AR12, Open-topped, immobile vehicles just are just to easy to kill. An all drop pod list is not uber tournament competitive list. But it sure is fun as hell to play.

I like dread spam with MotF and lots of dreads, backed up with tacticals... At 1750, you can drop 5 pods turn 1, all containing drads, and still have 3 or 4 pods with tacs (I like the idea of 1 5-man stein unit with combi-weapons and 3 tacs, but you can have 4 tacs) dropping to finish the job... Nothing is as scary as 5 MM/HF dreads with 4+ cover save right between your lines

I find biggest disadvantage of drop pod lists against opponents who can start in reserves (e.g. eldars w autarch)... That way, if you go first (and he will definitely let you go first) not only 5 pods fall into nothing, but cca 2 more pods drop down before his forces arrive... In that case, you're in trouble

however you can sit just on the board edge and wait for him to show up in small numbers and just drown each unit in a disproportionate amount of fire.

if they are all in reserve you would just kind of blind deploy and he could bring units on away from the threat and make your units hike to get back into the fight which could turn into trouble.

In majority of the missions, both in a standard game and tournament style, are objective-based which forces your opponent to come to you anyways.

But whole idea of drop pod army is first turn alpha strike... That's what you're paying 35 pts per unit... You are losing mobility since tacs don't hqve rhino, dreads usually have short range weaponry and so on... So I'd say that it's definitly a problem...

Chinchilla wrote:But whole idea of drop pod army is first turn alpha strike... That's what you're paying 35 pts per unit... You are losing mobility since tacs don't hqve rhino, dreads usually have short range weaponry and so on... So I'd say that it's definitly a problem...

Yeah, but if your opponent is going to deny you a first turn alpha strike, then there's nothing you can do about it. In that case, the whole idea shifts to plan B, which is to force your opponent to start in reserves or to castle up, each of which have their own tactical advantages.

First turn alpha strikes don't automatically win you the game anyway. Not getting one isn't the end of the world.

General_Chaos wrote:
Don't forget you can combat squad. Again depending on the game am playing I will sometimes combat squad my tacticals deploying the heavy weapon on the board and leaving the Sgt. and special weapon in the pod.

I'm pretty sure you can't combat squad like that. I think you can combat squad when you get out of your pod, or combat squad and have both units on the table with an empty pod. I don't think you can combat squad, keep one on the table and pod the other half.

spackledgoat wrote:

General_Chaos wrote:
Don't forget you can combat squad. Again depending on the game am playing I will sometimes combat squad my tacticals deploying the heavy weapon on the board and leaving the Sgt. and special weapon in the pod.

I'm pretty sure you can't combat squad like that. I think you can combat squad when you get out of your pod, or combat squad and have both units on the table with an empty pod. I don't think you can combat squad, keep one on the table and pod the other half.

You can start the game Combat Squad-ed, with half your Marines in a Rhino and half on foot or even in Reserve. Why shouldn't you be able to do the same with a Pod, which is also a Dedicated Transport?

Pods do have special text specifying that you can wait to Combat Squad until after they disembark from the Pod, yes, but it never says you have to if you're going to Combat Squad at all. That's just a countervention of the normal rules that two distinct units can't sit in the same transport. It's perfectly fair to have one Combat Squad Podding in while the other sits on the field.

BishopX wrote:One neat trick is use devastators with drop pods. Deploy the devs and drop the pods empty. This can also be done with rifleman dreads. 3 empty pods means you can drop more of your army T1.

So, how exactly does this work? Are you saying that having 3 empty pods that drop later in the game mean more troops can deploy earlier? How can you guarantee drop pod deployment?

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

BishopX wrote:One neat trick is use devastators with drop pods. Deploy the devs and drop the pods empty. This can also be done with rifleman dreads. 3 empty pods means you can drop more of your army T1.

So, how exactly does this work? Are you saying that having 3 empty pods that drop later in the game mean more troops can deploy earlier? How can you guarantee drop pod deployment?

Drop Pods always start in reserve and 1/2 come down first turn.

you can have the units that purchased 1/2 the pods deploy on the board at the start of the game and have their Pods be the 1/2 that remain in reserve.

a sneaky way to get all your force on the board 1st turn with an all drop pod force.

Grey Templar wrote:

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:

BishopX wrote:One neat trick is use devastators with drop pods. Deploy the devs and drop the pods empty. This can also be done with rifleman dreads. 3 empty pods means you can drop more of your army T1.

So, how exactly does this work? Are you saying that having 3 empty pods that drop later in the game mean more troops can deploy earlier? How can you guarantee drop pod deployment?

Drop Pods always start in reserve and 1/2 come down first turn.

you can have the units that purchased 1/2 the pods deploy on the board at the start of the game and have their Pods be the 1/2 that remain in reserve.

a sneaky way to get all your force on the board 1st turn with an all drop pod force.

Plus, if you're willing to spend a few extra points, those "empty" Pods can be upgraded with Deathwind Launchers, so they provide extra firepower on an enemy weakpoint, in addition to providing extra scenery and cover for your troops.

so if half the army is going to deploy anyway, why waste the points of drop pods, outside of the deathwind tactic...