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Howdy Ladz.

Just a quickie for all out there...

Do you think that SM Drop pods are way too powerful, and that is why GW have NEVER released a model? It has been about twenty years since I started playing this game, had a hiatus of about 10 years, and during this time, NO drop pods were released(except by FW-$$$$LOTS!)

Is this because, in reality, they make Marines WAY TOO TOUGH?

The scatter is nice and friendly, RF Bolters are suited perfectly for this style of combat, and putting a Death-wind launcher on them (for a big pie-plate blast Marker) for a total of 50pts is cheap as.

I now have about 10 Drop pods for my Chapter, and it honestly seems that they are almost unbeatable. I am not batting my own drum, because I have a win/lose factor of about 8/1. I really think it has a lot to do with Droppies.

Please let fly with your opinions/observations.

But not about my love life(such as it is!!!   )

 

No drop-pods are not too powerful.

I have 7 drop pods and I use them to good effect BUT drop podding marines are not my best army and they are not an army that I fear in competitive play. My mech Eldar are not worried about them. My Godzilla Nidz are not too worried either, and my SAFH marine list is a great matchup for drop pods because I always bring the Inquisitor insurance plan with that army.

Darrian

Nice one Darrian. I Looove seeing another take on what is pretty much my style with our club.

I am sure some of our club members may drop you a line on how to kick the Sh*t outta me...........

i just think GW never bothered with drop pods because not many peole would have bought them prior to 4th edition. Rhinos were better in 3rd so nobody bothred with drop pods.

Rhinos got nerfed and now people prefer drop pods.

If I recall they're saving them for another big cash infusion after Codex verstock is no longer popular.

I have never lost to a drop pod army.

If you have the right army build, and you know how to defend against them, they are easy to beat.

The problem is if you play most IG armies or Tau (I think) they will slaughter you.

I think they are grossly unbalanced since there is no real counter.

Are you saying IG will slaughter pods or pods slaughter IG? I see the latter not the former.

Pods are a prime example of a gimmick army. The problem with gimmick armies is that against seasoned tournament players or the rock to the gimmick army's scissors the gimmick can often be quite easily countered, but against non-optimal lists the gimmick army can be grossly unfun to play against.

Your average person with an average "balanced" army that goes up against a good drop pod army not only has no chance to win, but the game will be a ridiculous slaughter.

So seasoned tournament players may laugh at the idea of a drop pod army being too much but your average player definitely thinks a Drop Pod army is OTT.

Upping the cost to 50pts a la the DA codex is the right answer in my opinion.  Vanilla Pods are way too cheap for what they can do.

There are pod armies and pod armies, of course. A "balanced/fluff" pod army can be a reasonably fun game for most opponents. Shortly after the codex first came out I ran my DA in a podding version, but not optimized for pods. So no dual special weapons, no Fear Librarian. It was competitive but not crazy; I hit reasonably hard on the drop, but the lack of mobility after landing was a definite weakness.

I am not a fan of pod armies. I generally do well against them but the game is not especially fun. Castling and waiting for sufficient numbers of the enemy to appear and then counterattacking them is effective but strictly meh on the funmeter (same when playing EPIC). While always true it literally feels like the game is nothing but dice luck.

Its also not especially interesting in that these are typically the lists that max out A cannons with the usual 2x A cannons on termies with multiple speeder A cannons and dropping dread A cannon. In fact they tend to be plasmas and A cannons now that I think about it, with no other weapon needing to apply.

I alwayu s have wondered about what people think about Chaos Dreadclaw armies?

Does anyone play these other than me?

I think they are pretty good.  The problem is their high point cost but i think there is an advantage by using chaos instead of imperial marines.

I actually dont think drop pod armies are too overpowered, its just a challenge if you dont know how to play against them.

Any thoughts?

My shooty Necrons are able to strongly challenge many lists.

Not Drop Pod marines.

Fear the Darkness from Tiggurious and his sidekick simply beat me. I consider Drop Pod lists very strong. Kudos to those who have never lost to them.

Depends what's in the pods, and if its DA or doctrine marines.

I have a drop pod army doctrines with 6 venerable dreads in pods with heavy armor  heavy flamers and A cannons, I also have 9 typhoons, but I generally play only 6.  It's undefeated.

Yes, they are to much, the only vehicle that is not destroyed when deepstriking into enemy models... (ok except the monolith...)

Ought to be wrecked when DSing into models, that alone would fix it.  Or more points, and IMO dreads and terminators don't come in pods, that's a current codex aberation, should be flat out removed.  Teleporting should be better and it's not, wrong.  Also should technically deepstrike. But that's what they wrote...

The worst thing you can do when fighting pods is to spread out. Pods are really good at picking off units without return fire. Try to set up in a corner with a lot of cover, and spread out to push back where the pods can land. Put your soft, expensive units in the back. The effective range of a Pod army is 12". Then when they land they will kill some things, but then they get the return fire of your entire army, and then if you have some fast assault units you can engage them before they charge you.


The Librarians can be a game winner against some armies. You need something to make yourself fearless. If you can stand up to Fear the Darkness, your game is half won.

Tau have the most problems with them because of there leadership. I guess you have to either go full mech, or perhaps an etherial will help a little.

IG need to take a INQ w/Mystics and a psychic hood to ruin a podders day.

Not really on the IG blackmoor, inq and mystics MAY not be allowed to fire on doctrine marine pods....  That aside he only has so much range, its pretty easy to put the pods out of that range, and even be able to fire on him (inquisitor) afterward...  Pods destroy IG, I have both armies.

Did I miss an FAQ while I was gone that allows mystics to shoot at non-deepstriking pods while I was away?

I played terminator heavy pods for a while, and only nids gave me worries (but the new eldar book wasn't out long, and would have been tough in escalation games). The terminators and their extra range tended to make the army less 'gimmicky', but overall I agree with the sentiments listed.

I use 'Die Standing' trait to balance out my 'Honour Your Wargear' elite Devastators.

"You are taking elite Devs, you must be a cheesehead."

"Hold on, I have disavowed myself from making a Drop Pod list, and I only have the one Devastator squad in the whole army. How is this cheesy?"

I think this is a more thaan fair trade, what do you think?

I think you need to get a higher quality group of opponents.

When the new rules for drop pods was first released they were strong because people did not know how to deal with them. Tiggy in a pod is a special case and fortunately we don't see it too often. Drop pod armies can be beat by taking advantage of their inherent weaknesses.

- G

Pods are too good in the current SM book, mainly because giving risk free deep strike to every unit in the most customizable army in the game is just too much. Pods, as they are priced in DA/BA revised army lists, with the larger squad requirements and no two AC Term squads in them, are much more balanced, but still a crippler to many types of armies, particularly infantry heavy T3 armies, like Tau and Guard. They have made a lot of people, myself included, design their entire lists around their presence at the competitive level and limited a lot of what people are willing to field. I really would like to see some sort of restriction on their use on basic troops (should be Fast Attack unless the entire army is deep striking), but if the future marine books follow the DA/BA template it should work itself into a more balanced situation, eventually. MY main issue with pods is that it turns Space Wolves, and army that is supposed to be weak on deepstrike and anti-tank options, and eliminates their one major weakness.

Honestly, the real problem is Fear of the Darkness, especially when in multiples. That power, combined with the pods (though it is almost as effective with bikes) and multi-librarian command squads, has changed the entire metagame, giving rise to Mech Eldar/Tau and all but bannishing foot slog guard from the game.

The short answer is No.

The long aswer is...it depends on your opponent.

I began playing drop pods about 18 months ago. For the first 6 months, I lost most games since I was learning to use the list against seasoned opponents. I played my list too aggressively, trying to knockout my opponents on the drop. After a while I learned to use drop pods for protection, pick my fights, and plan my route after dropping. Then I started winning, and didn't lose a game for almost 9 months with drop pods. Eventually though, my opponents climbed the learning curve and most games now come down to the wire.

I usually play terminator heavy lists due to the required tank-hunting assault cannons to take out skimmers.

A drop pod list used by a good player is a good list, but it isn't "too" powerful. It takes a fair amount of skill to play since you are at the mercy of reserve rolls.

I'm actually looking into other marine builds, simply because my regular opponents have adapted so well to my pod lists.

Daydream

Posted By jfrazell on 11/01/2007 10:31 AM
I am not a fan of pod armies. I generally do well against them but the game is not especially fun. Castling and waiting for sufficient numbers of the enemy to appear and then counterattacking them is effective but strictly meh on the funmeter (same when playing EPIC). While always true it literally feels like the game is nothing but dice luck.

I think this expresses my views as well.  I don't think Drop pod armies are overbalanced, but they don't create a really fun game to play.  The first time you come across them, it might have some gimmicky qualities to them...but in the end  it creates a game that largely skips deployment, ignores the concepts of manuver, massing down entirely to a game built solely on locallized combat power.

I think when drop pods hit 50 pts across the board, these armies will lighten up in the gaming field.

Posted By mauleed on 11/02/2007 9:59 PM

Did I miss an FAQ while I was gone that allows mystics to shoot at non-deepstriking pods while I was away?

I played terminator heavy pods for a while, and only nids gave me worries (but the new eldar book wasn't out long, and would have been tough in escalation games). The terminators and their extra range tended to make the army less 'gimmicky', but overall I agree with the sentiments listed.

Yes you did. In the Blood Angels codex FAQ there is a question that asks if Blood Angels can assault after disemarking from a Drop Pod ( yes, it says disemarking).

The answer is a very generic answer that covers the issue at hand. No, as units that enter by Deep Striking cannot assault the turn they enter.

The answer is not Blood Angels specific. It is a very general answer that shows the answer is an obvious one that the questioner should have known.

Drop Pods suffer from the same problem as Necrons. They're either overpowered or underpowered depending on whether you have the counters to them in your army list and they're also boring as hell to play against.

So far I haven't had any difficulty with drop pod armies. Casteling up in cover and then laying waste to them as they come down piece by piece has worked just fine for me. That being said, I haven't faced multiple drop podding fear librarians. Those guys might cause me some serious problems (but who knows). One of the major problems with pod armies is that they are so random. On average, half the army should come in on turn 2, but since we are dealing with dice here, that may not be what happens. If only a couple of units come in then it tends to be easy to wipe them out and move on. If the whole army shows up on turn 2, their opponent is going to be in for a hurting. In general, I find it a lot more fun for the game to hinge on tactics more than on the luck of a couple of critical die rolls.

That having been said, I'm glad to see pods go up to 50 points, 30 was just stupid cheep. I'm also glad to see the "assualting out of pods" problem come to an end as well.

Here's a questions: what's really the problem, that Drop Pods cost 30pts or that good units can take 30pt pods?

Codex Marines can take double AC termies and double plasma marines in 30pt pods, it's a decent list

Dark Angels can take one Plasma marines in 50pt pods, it's a weak list.

what's the key, the cost of the pod or the fact that there are tough shooting squads in the pods?

I think the better fix would be to tighten up what can be carried in the pods, rather than the pods themselves.

No its that, at 30 points, pods eliminate the risks associated with deepstrike, random drop, landing on enemy troops. For 30 points they are better than a rhino in getting your assets into their primary operation zone without fear of reprisal.

it would be better that, if anything dropped, everything had to drop.

Having said that, they still are not entertaining to play against.

Posted By General Hobbs on 11/06/2007 7:46 AM

Posted By mauleed on 11/02/2007 9:59 PM

Did I miss an FAQ while I was gone that allows mystics to shoot at non-deepstriking pods while I was away?

I played terminator heavy pods for a while, and only nids gave me worries (but the new eldar book wasn't out long, and would have been tough in escalation games). The terminators and their extra range tended to make the army less 'gimmicky', but overall I agree with the sentiments listed.

Yes you did. In the Blood Angels codex FAQ there is a question that asks if Blood Angels can assault after disemarking from a Drop Pod ( yes, it says disemarking).

The answer is a very generic answer that covers the issue at hand. No, as units that enter by Deep Striking cannot assault the turn they enter.

The answer is not Blood Angels specific. It is a very general answer that shows the answer is an obvious one that the questioner should have known.

 

First, that answer is certainly blood angels specific.

But secondly, the blood angel pods SPECIFICALLY SAY THEY DEEPSTRIKE!