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I'm in agreement with the "tank shock or ram" crowd.

I'd also add that all transported models should take a dangerous terrain test when it deep strikes to represent them being injured in the landing.

Xyon wrote:Well first of all, I think if you want to land a drop pod on an enemy unit, it should count as either a tank shock or a ram if its another vehicle.

So if you're podding into infantry, they get to make a death or glory attempt, and then take a LD test like normal vs a tank shock, maybe if they fail they take d6 wounds that allow no saves (in addition to the death or glory dieing if they fail). Maybe even if the death or glory blows up the pod, the unit has to take LD test to avoid the shrapnel and explosions falling down at them.

If podding onto a vehicle it counts as ramming the rear armor of the vehicle. I'm not sure what speed you'd count the pod as moving though. If you dont destroy the vehicle you pod onto, the drop pod counts as being destroyed.

And of course in both cases if the pod is destroyed the squad inside is destroyed too.

SM: So... I see you have Abby and a maxed out squad of chosen inside a Land Raider.

CSM: Yup.. about 700 points right there.

SM: Sweet. Ok Turn 1 I drop an empty pod which cost me a fraction of that onto them. *Rolls dice* Sweet! Pen hit *rolls a Six* BOOOM HEADSHOT!!!

CSM: .............

(Take 2)

SM: So, I see you have a Punisher right there.

IG: Yup. Punisher tank with Pask and Tri Heavy Bolters and a stubber.

SM: Sweet. So that costs what?

IG: Around 300 points.

SM: Cool beans. Ok Turn 1 I drop an empty pod onto your Punisher. Since it didn't move last turn it auto hits rear AV... which is 11.... **Rolls dice** BOOOOOOOOOOM HEADSHOT!

IG: ...........

Sorry, but this is still a fail concept.

jp400: Excellent point. Ramming with an empty drop pod would be too awesome and totally broken.

To fix this: Remove the rules about drop pods having stabilizing thrusters. In it's place, use the following rule:

Reckless Assault: Space Marine Drop Pods are often times themselves used as weaponry. They are flung from orbiting ships at breakneck speeds with the hopes of squishing anything that happens to be beneath them. To represent this, in a turn when the drop pod deep strikes, roll the scatter die and 2d6. If a miss is rolled, the Drop Pod scatters the number rolled plus 12 inches in the direction of the arrow. If a hit is rolled, the Drop Pod scatters the number rolled in inches in the direction of the small arrow on the "hit" symbol. If the drop pod is launched without any embarked models to steer it, double this distance. Any models, friendly or enemy, that are beneath the drop pod are killed, vehicles count as Destroyed - Wrecked. If the drop pod lands on impassible terrain or a vehicle, it is Destroyed - Wrecked and all passengers are killed.



Or, for even more fun, perhaps we should take an old mechanic from the Magic card Chaos Orb.

Drop Pod Deep Strike: When a drop pod enters play using deep strike, the Marine player must take the drop pod and toss it at the table from a distance of not less than 15 feet. Any models broken or knocked off the table count as destroyed. If the drop pod manages to survive the toss in one piece and it stops on the table, any embarked unit must immediately deploy.

Still, there's a chance it will still drop on top of some highly expensive unit, and then a 35pt drop pod just won you 300 points..

The second option, while fun, would not earn you popularity with you gaming buddies when you chuck a drop pod at the table and smash their beautifully-painted Stompa or something that they got for their birthday.

loota boy wrote:Still, there's a chance it will still drop on top of some highly expensive unit, and then a 35pt drop pod just won you 300 points..

The second option, while fun, would not earn you popularity with you gaming buddies when you chuck a drop pod at the table and smash their beautifully-painted Stompa or something that they got for their birthday.

How is that different than someone with a meltagun popping your 2XX LR?

Ok, well a modified ram for the drop pod, if it drops onto a vehicle, the vehicle gets to shoot at it, maybe an auto hit, so it could defend itself like a unit being tank shocked by the pod.

I think it would make sense for rules to exist for a drop pod to try plopping onto a unit or vahicle, but I think it should be very risky, with a good chance for the pod to be destroyed, I would also change the drop pod rules so that if a unit purchases a drop pod they have to be deployed in it, so there would be no abuse of "pod missiles".

How about this as an apocalypse unit:

In the most dire of need a space marine fleet may sometimes, out of desperation, evacuate one of their smaller battle cruisers and set it full speed ahead toward enemy defenses.

Cruiser Strike: 5,000 pts

A cruiser crashes via normal deep strike rules. Use the 10" blast to represent the tip of the cruiser making impact. It then scatters 4d6" in the direction of the arrow, or, if a hit is rolled, 2d6" in the direction of the small arrow. If it scatters off the board just measure the range of the blast from off the board the distance it would be off by.

The blast is felt by all. The next turn turns all movement within 36" of the center of the blast hole counts as through difficult and dangerous terrain, and all movement for the rest of the game everywhere counts as through difficult terrain. All units under the blast marker take 20 strength 10 AP 1 hits. All units within 18" of the edge of the blast marker take 12 strength 9 AP 3 hits.

In addition to all other effects, upon impact, all enemy units with a leadership value must immediately take a pinning check with a -3 modifier. Also dust and flaming debris is thrown up into the air and the eyes of troops near the blast site. All units who started within 36" of the center of the blast hole during their movement phase for the rest of the game fight using the night fighting rules for that turn. The noise emitted by the blast is also distracting. All enemy units suffer -1 to their BS and WS for the next two turns.

Finally, All terrain within 24" of the center of the blast hole including objectives is removed from play.

So how do ya like them cookies?

You could just drop suits of power armor out of the sky to kill what they land on too. The weight of all that armor falling fast enough could probably rip through the roof of a hardened building.

Or maybe they should just use boulders. Same effect but cheaper.

Too unfair. Up the price significantly, and we'll see, but as it stands, no. Quite frankly, feth that just on principal, not just because it gives the Space Marines another unfair advantage. If ANY army were to be given that, it would likely be the most overpowered unit in the game.

yknow I would be fine with drop pods having the same rules as monoliths currently do, makes more sense and not so broken(I could see someone dropping long fangs and it lands in the middle of a group of stealers, thatd be an FML)

On the background it should kill or damage something where it lands.... rulewise would be stupid. I can see every marine player getting drop pods just to receive a free hit on the enemy units.

Pod Rain of Death.... dammit that would be wrong!!

KOS wrote:On the background it should kill or damage something where it lands.... rulewise would be stupid. I can see every marine player getting drop pods just to receive a free hit on the enemy units.

Pod Rain of Death.... dammit that would be wrong!!

exactly. ~50 point large blast templates (effectively)? even if you had a sub-rule about the ferried troops potentially being injured, this would be cheap orbital bombardments carrying troops, so dropping them on already held objectives would be insanely cool... and overpowered. This is just like the thread about deep-striking Blood Angels Land Raiders should be killing troops, not killing tanks. If GW didn't write the rule to prevent it, Land Raider drop lists would rule the day. Honestly, has anyone even seen anyone try it?

Really a drop pod has to slow down as it lands, or everything inside would be killed. As it slows down models under it have a chance to move out of the way and likely avoid getting squashed.
While they are moving away they could also take an easy shot at the pod while its in its most vunverable position

It is probably best that drop pods are just not allowed to land on troops as realistic rules for this would be potentially unbalancing, would be needlessly complicated, and would serve limited use.

Exergy wrote:Really a drop pod has to slow down as it lands, or everything inside would be killed. As it slows down models under it have a chance to move out of the way and likely avoid getting squashed.
While they are moving away they could also take an easy shot at the pod while its in its most vunverable position

It is probably best that drop pods are just not allowed to land on troops as realistic rules for this would be potentially unbalancing, would be needlessly complicated, and would serve limited use.

Even a Space Marine can get turned to jelly inside of their armor.

I'll only support drop pods killing whatever they land on if some form of the original Epic-scale drop pod rules are added as well.

For the unaware, you took a bunch of small paper markers - one for each pod. Then you put them on a flat surface, held them a few feet above the table, and flipped the flat surface over. Wherever the markers landed is where the drop pods landed. Of course, since the markers were small pieces of paper, they sometimes didn't fall very quickly and could end up wandering quite a ways before they landed on the table. And if one of your drop pods hit something other than infantry (including another drop pod's marker), well... kiss your drop pod goodbye...

Of course, since 40K scale is so much larger than Epic-scale, we'd need to increase the height that the markers are dropped from. I think a good eight feet above the table should do the trick...




To be quite frank, the way that the rules currently work is really an attempt to make things work somewhat practically. In a "realistic" drop, the ship orbitting the battlefield wouldn't be able to target the pods at specific squads on the ground below. The best that he'd be able to do is to find a spot of relatively clear terrain and launch the pods toward that. As a result, anything that encourages marine players to "aim" their pods at specific units is unrealistic and impractical. So while units not getting squished may not make a whole lot of sense, it does somewhat encourage marine players to think more like the guys in orbit who are aiming the pods.

I could see this being an apocalypse rule, however for this I think drop pods should A:have units inside B:if they hit a unit it must make a dangerous terrain check

Find a way to have them on fire at the same time and I'd say your golden.

I would like to see an idea like this worked out. What would players of other armies do to counter this?

As if the Space Marines need even more broken gak. While I admit it makes sense fluff-wise and even logic-wise, in this case I think that attempting to balance the game mechanics needs to win out. So, in other words, no.

castellan wrote:I would like to see an idea like this worked out. What would players of other armies do to counter this?

Imperial Guard = Hydra

Self Defense Anti-Air: The Hydra my immediately make a shooting attack at all drop pods coming into play within its range ignoring LOS and cover saves. (As the pods are getting shot at in the air) Shooting attack does NOT count toward the models normal allowed shooting.

If a pod is hit and destroyed, all models inside the drop pod are destroyed along with it as it comes crashing down upon the battlefield.

If a pod is hit but not destroyed, it scatters D6 in a random direction as it veers off course from the incoming impacts. Any models under the final location must move a min distance to clear the pods base by two inches. (The models on the ground see the giant flaming pod coming down and simply move out of the way.)

(my 2 cents)