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I was wondering since I have never seen a match up against a drop pod list vs Mech, either eldar or tau. I would be standing from the view point of the drop pod player, most likely running trait marines with a lot of melta and was wondering how well I would fair? I have just got my hands on the drop pod plans and will begin construction soon. But it seems as though a mech list would be a big pain to the pods. If there are those of you with experience in this situation please share some insight! I was thinking along with marines carrying 2-3 melta guns per squad(if the serg takes a combi-gun, or can he I don't have the codex with me) dropping in some dreadnoughts with a missile launcher instead of the ccw would be a good unit to help with all the skimmers.

Sounds very risky. The primary disadvantage of a Drop Pod army is that you will most likely come in piecemeal. The mobility available to a mech force (especially skimmer mech) will allow them to quickly move and engage your troops as they arrive. This could give him local superiority throughout the battle.

Though you will be able to arrive and shoot on the same turn, you will still have to overcome the SMF rule to do real damage with the DSing melta guns.

Maybe there are some tactics that can mitigate these issues - but I think Drop Pods are more useful against a static enemy than a mobile one.

Democratus wrote:
Though you will be able to arrive and shoot on the same turn, you will still have to overcome the SMF rule to do real damage with the DSing melta guns.

What exactly is the "SMF" rule you are referring to?

SMF = Skimmers Moving Fast

As a mech Eldar player, I fear plasmas more than meltas on podding Marines. They're plenty strong enough to get glances on rear armor, which you can usually hit if you're dropping. The bolters are even scary, rapid-firing. Meltas are just overkill in the strength department. And once the enemy retreats to a safe firing distance using their maneuverability, meltas will have little chance against them while plasmas wills till be useful.

Plus, if you're playing against mech Tau, you can return fire versus suits (or even firewarriors) more effectively. Against Eldar, you've got something to take down bikes and Spiders, if they stay in the open.

Democratus is right about getting cut up once you've shot, though. The key will be having your pods that do arrive on the same turn support each other well, ensuring elimination of at least one and preferably two enemy vehicles per drop turn.

And yes, dreads with assault cannons and MLs will help as well. You will probably be towards the midst of the board, so the range isn't as much of a problem for the assault cannons, but the MLs will still give you a chance if the enemy runs to range.

Savnock wrote:As a mech Eldar player, I fear plasmas more than meltas on podding Marines. They're plenty strong enough to get glances on rear armor, which you can usually hit if you're dropping. The bolters are even scary, rapid-firing. Meltas are just overkill in the strength department. And once the enemy retreats to a safe firing distance using their maneuverability, meltas will have little chance against them while plasmas wills till be useful.

I hate to say it, but if pod troops are shooting your skimmers in the rear arc, you screwed up. When the game starts and your opponent doesn’t have a single model on the board, you know what’s coming. It’s not going to be a big surprise even if you didn’t look at his army list. Once you know that the entire enemy army is going to be deep striking in, all you have to do is zoom all your skimmers over to a board edge (any one will do, but I would recommend your own and somewhat towards one side) and face all your vehicles so that the rear is right against the board edge. This will make it so that it’s impossible to get to your rear arc and all the drop troops will be shooting at front or side armor. If you need to move in further movement phases, the whole formation can just shift 7-12 inches to one side or another (or you can do a big shuffle where some move one way and others move the other so little overall formation change really happens). But under no circumstances should anyone in an all deep striking army ever have a chance to shoot rear armor on a skimming transport.

Now, as far as weapons go, there are some considerations to make. If you are going up against a non skimmer list (and I doubt that’s really the issue here) then melta weapons are going to be key to popping rhinos, chimeras, and land raiders. Plasma and/or flamers will be needed to take care of the contents once they are out. When dealing with skimmers, you have 2 flavors that function quite differently. Devil fish and hammer heads are significantly more vulnerable to melta weapons than plasma unless you are shooting at their rear armor (in which case, plasma wins out), so you’ll want to bring more of them. Now, with eldar it’s a different story. Since wave serpents ignore the melta rule, you are much better off with plasma than melta when going up against them. This fact combined with plasma’s significantly better anti troop ability make it the leader in eldar killing. Falcons (part of every eldar player’s daily breakfast) are a bit more vulnerable to melta weapons but the difference is so slight that the inclusion of extra melta weapons to deal with them isn’t really worth the effort.

My 9 tank Eldar army has faced 3 drop podding armies and never lost. I think 2 tanks was the most I lost.

As Phoenix advised, move your tanks, as a group along a board edge about 3-4 inches from the edge with your rear arc facing the table edge. That way the drop pods cannot get in behind you and you have room to deploy troops in case of a crash. The drop pods will get some glances against AV:12 and then the combined firepower of the tanks blows the marines off the table.

Darrian

The best anti skimmer unit you have is the tank hunting terminators with 2x assault cannons.
Make sure to pack in a few of those.

You are a bad man Cypher. This is why you never win best sportsmanship awards.

Darrian

That is quite an interesting unit, tank hunting terminators. I don't have any terminators but that is surely something I will look into. I could see this unit being more of a threat than a dreadnought.

Apostolos wrote:That is quite an interesting unit, tank hunting terminators. I don't have any terminators but that is surely something I will look into. I could see this unit being more of a threat than a dreadnought.

Absolutely. It usualy bring a couple of squads of 'em. Works a treat!

If I were to run a couple of units of tank-hunting terminators, would it be better to pod them or teleport them?

Lysander deep strikes.

Deathwing deep strikes.

Everyone else should pod.

Roger.

Keep in mind that, come (allegedly) October, there will be no more Tank Hunters for SM and no more twin-AC terminator units. It might not be worth your while to build/paint models for a unit that will shortly be illegal.

but in the mean time, speaking from the eldar side of things, TH assault cannons are skimmer eaters.

the problem with a podding marine army vs. skimmer lists is the same problem they normally have, inconsistency.

a buddy of mine plays podding trait marines (big surprise!) and i dont think he has beat me with a only pod\termie list. as one to 3 drop pods come down, my army can wipe the 6-18 marines off the board no problem. sure there are lucky times when almost all the pods come out together, but with such mobility it will be a game of try-and-catch-the-skimmers.

also pod lists against me actually help me out, by putting your army right next to mine with out the ability to assault. it makes everything in range and denies you the thing SM do better than most of my army.

Skimmerlists are a main weakness of all Pod armys. No matter what you do it will be an uphill battle.

Another way to play pods is to go for masses of cheap durable Marines, that gain a bit of mobility by the pods. Drop into terrain and you might win by numbers, for Mech armys tend to have a low modelcount.

You can for example do a more close combat oriented style with Space Wulf Blood Claws: 8 Claws + Melta (BS3) + 2 Powerfists + Pod come for 174 pts and provide 8 Powerfist attacks on the charge. Not the greatest odds hitting Falcons on 6 though.

You might want to check out the thread about Hybrid Pods.

So, lets say that you are playing an all podding army, and your opponent is a savvy skimmer player and bunches his vehicles up against a table edge to hide his rear armor.

What's the podding player to do (besides die crying! )

Is is best to surround yourself with a wall of pods (hopefully around an objective) and make them come to you on the other side of the table?

barontuman wrote:
Is is best to surround yourself with a wall of pods (hopefully around an objective) and make them come to you on the other side of the table?

More or less. At that stage of the game, you have lost the mobility war with to the skimmers. Now you are at the disadvantage of seeing half your army faceing all of his. The best option at this point is to start dropping on/near objectives and using the pods to block off line of sight to your units. This will put the pressure on the skimmers to come to you. Make sure your guys are in hard cover if it is at all possible and try to arrange your units so that the expendable ones are on the outside with assault based troops (or as close as you get to them) somewhat behind them. This will allow you to kind of take the initial hits on the chest rather than the chin and come out swinging afterwards.

Phoenix wrote:I hate to say it, but if pod troops are shooting your skimmers in the rear arc, you screwed up. When the game starts and your opponent doesn’t have a single model on the board, you know what’s coming. It’s not going to be a big surprise even if you didn’t look at his army list. Once you know that the entire enemy army is going to be deep striking in, all you have to do is zoom all your skimmers over to a board edge (any one will do, but I would recommend your own and somewhat towards one side) and face all your vehicles so that the rear is right against the board edge. This will make it so that it’s impossible to get to your rear arc and all the drop troops will be shooting at front or side armor. If you need to move in further movement phases, the whole formation can just shift 7-12 inches to one side or another (or you can do a big shuffle where some move one way and others move the other so little overall formation change really happens). But under no circumstances should anyone in an all deep striking army ever have a chance to shoot rear armor on a skimming transport.

You know, I used to do that both to avoid rear shots from pods/termies/IG droppers, and to avoid hatch-blocking when moving forward to mech assault. With Falcons it might work, because the chances of a Destroyed result are so low. However, I found that against Serpents, savvy enemies pick targets and concentrate until they've downed the skimmer, trapping your infantry inside and killing them (especially if you don't buy VE for all your Serpents). Against a full pod/DS army (Lysanderwing), it's been a death sentence for the contents of at least 1-2 of the Serpents backed against the wall. Combined with the small amount of fire required to shake the other tanks, my return fire lacks the power to make the enemy pay after they drop, while they can still dispatch anyone that I might bail out to shoot them.

Vs. 3+ squads of 2-plasma pods or 2-AC termies, it's a bad tactic IMO. Verus more minimal pod armies (foot troops plus 3 or less pods/termies) or IG which can be shot down by your surviving transported troops without assault, it would be an acceptable risk.