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They would have no place to deploy, and therefore land on enemy models and/or impassible terrain and are destroyed.

I don't think pods are destroyed when landing on enemy troops or impassable terrain. They just go to the nearest spot they can land. You'd have to leave no spot a pod could physically fit in order to stop pods landing.

excepting that if you leave 3 inches in your "castle", Im going to drop a tactical squad in there and kill a vindicator with a melta gun. Sure that squad is toast, but your whole idea just got cut down 1/3rd in effectivness. Plus if your maul you will fury twice into your castle hitting tons of your models.Ya they may not get pinned, but they will take casualties.

Artorius: In regards to spreading out over the whole board:

The problem with the situation you describe is that you don't "nominate a spot" with a drop pod. You set it down, then scatter. If you can't set it down, the rules don't describe what to do.

And besides, who's got a 350+ model all infiltrating army anyway?

Ohh... I have no idea. I don't think you would need 350 models for it. you would only need to put the guys 4x4 inches away from each other (while mainting squad coherency). But I agree, who has that many infiltrating guys! I definitely wouldn't bank on it. Although off the top of my head, a kroot merc army that all infiltrates might be able to pull it off.

I didn't consider it a real tactic, I was just being silly.

Celticpride - As for the area about the '3x3' areas around the viindicator, that is the point. I castle up, and leave NO room. Most marine armies are around 40 - 60 models. You leave the Vindicator out of sight behind the rhinos (or terrain), then you block up in a castle. They have to drop in front of you if they want to hurt you with their bolters/special weapons. If I want I can leave some small boxes in the back for the tactical squad to drop into, but unless they are larger then 5x5 inches, they can't drop in it and disembark troops (The Drop Pod can't be within 1 inch of an enemy model and also must have no one within 2 inches of any exit to disembark). So, I think it's pretty easy to create a box to protect your good stuff, as long as you have the vehicles to block LOS to them.

Also, talking about Fury. You really think that d3 str 5 hits is that effective. Your distributating some hits around. Let's say you hit 5 squads and generate what... 8 hits on average? About 6 wounds, 2 dead marines... that's barely worth mentioning. The Dark Angels could just take a Psyker as well, meaning the powers are only going to go off around 1/2 the time. Take that and a Grand Master w/Jump Pack/Sword of Secrets.

In the end, my point is that if Dark Angels completely castle, you have 100% of your army against 50% of their army. A drop poding army has a great first strike potential, but if you can make him fight you piece meal, while you fight back with your entire army, that's a fight I'm willing to take.

Drop pods win because they (1) pick when to fight and (2) pick where to fight and therefore will always attack you at your weakness. If you can force them to fight you in a single location, you get rid of a lot of their advantages.

Has anyone used them against tyranids? I've heard they were not very good against them, is this bunk or true?

Posted By Artorious on 03/08/2006 1:50 PM


Has anyone used them against tyranids? I've heard they were not very good against them, is this bunk or true?

I haven't seen it yet, but I imagine its mostly true. Nids normally have to burn a turn or two getting into assault range. I image that Pods act like the pizza delivery man in that respect, you are bringing the assault to them. Also, there usually is no weakness in the backfield for Nids. Their slow gun platform is the Carnifex, which can be ruinous in CC. The reason that most Fexes are gun platforms is because there is no good way to get them into combat, Pods dropping behind the lines works directly against you there.

You will render what little long range firepower he has useless, but you will play right into the hands of his dual TL-ed Devourers. 12 s5 or 8 s6 shots rerolling hits and wounds at 18" is nothing to sneeze at.

I imagine the smart Nid player will spend his first couple turns perfecting his position and happily await the sound of lunch speeding its way to him.

I've played a few tyranid players in my pods and the number of flamers, heavy flamers and assault cannons I have makes it not a fun game for the bugs. And then when nothing's left but the TMCs, they get to play hug-a-bear with my 5 powerfist squads.

Necrons are impossible to beat with a shootie pod army. Period. If you don't have fists to finish them off in assault, you are not going to phase them. You'll beat them by fisting them to death and outnumbering/breaking them in assault and chasing them down, and that's about the only way.

Posted By Longshot on 03/08/2006 4:31 PM
You'll beat them by fisting them to death...

- Oaka

I'm still not sure I see how nids are going to be on the terminator heavy army any faster. The pods will come in where ever gives the nids the least advantageous/numerous approach, and proceed with the shooting. The pods may well just drop in the space marine players deployment zone.

Necrons do seem like a tough challenge. I think what I'd try to go for, if given the chance, is blocking the monolith in, blocking it's door. Then no one is porting through it. I actually think against necrons I would drop to box them in, but not in LOS, hoping to get them into hth with the terminators the next turn. And fear works just fine on necrons.

Can't wait to try that one out.

Something that comes up as a note, not advocating either side, is that the whole nid force can move up to the center of the board, leaving either deployment zone within easy range, and still not be vulnerable to the 50 vs 100 proglem.

I PLAY DEATHWING, as bigchris said. (actually, its Ultrawing, but with my new dipping mania, maybe I'll do true deathwing finally.)

The deathwing build I run only has pods for the dreadnoughts, and the advantage there is that in the event i face an ork horde or something, I just deploy normally and back up and shoot. Then the dreads are like BONUS . Any other time I can deepstrike to my crazy Mauleed Fanboy heart's content. 13 Assault Cannons in 1850 pts. Who cares if I win or lose, I came, I saw, I rended!

AND people seem to really get upset when you rend things to death, like wraithlords and landraiders.

I played the guy who won best general at the Seattle GT (remember them?) and I beat him.

The pod army works best if you don't know how to counter it. How the pod list works is by divide and conquer. You hit them with drop pods in a vulnerable area with all your pods, and because the podders get to shoot first they can land a lot of hurt into small area, and if the enemy is spread out then they don't get much of a retaliation.

What I did was set up in a corner with my Lost and the Damned (I use Word Bearers as allies, so I am fearless with demagogue so I don?t get scared off the board). Then I spread out so that they can only drop in front of my army. I put the leman russes at the farthest point back facing out. That means that if they want to take a shot at them, they will only hit the front armor, and the meltas will be out of range in most cases and if they aren?t they don?t get the extra dice of armor penetration.

Then as they trickle down, you get to shoot your whole army at half of their army. Also they might try to hide behind the pods. If they do, remember that you can shoot the pods. They are opened topped, so if you get a penetrating hit on them, they are removed on a 5+ (and do some damage to the marines). And then you have some marines standing their with their pants down around their ankles.

Posted By celticpride4246 on 03/08/2006 9:33 AM
excepting that if you leave 3 inches in your "castle", Im going to drop a tactical squad in there and kill a vindicator with a melta gun. Sure that squad is toast, but your whole idea just got cut down 1/3rd in effectivness. Plus if your maul you will fury twice into your castle hitting tons of your models.Ya they may not get pinned, but they will take casualties.

What is the size of a drop pod? 4"-5" around? Then you have to disembark out of it, that is another 1" for your base and they you can't be within 1" of an enemy model. So you need at least an area about 6" around (I bet it might be a lot bigger than that). So you need a huge hole to put a pod into. If you deploy in a corner, it is very easy to spread out enough to prevent a pod with meltas getting any where near a vehicle.

If you did manage to have an army big enough to cover most of the table, I'd think the corners would be the best places to leave open, as they have the most chance of the pods drifting off the board.

And Blackmoor's dead on. I think pods are excellent against anyone that hasn't played against pods. (and just plain old good against everyone else). I'm sure the more I use them, the less effective they'll be, as the local players figure out ways to deal.

The mission also dictates how well a pod army will do. Any capture the objective mission will fall right into the hands of the pod army as they cover the objectives of their choice with pods. Absolutely zero chance to castle in this kind of game. Also a recon game will prevent castling. You can only really castle against a VP game. Castling is also dangerous if the pod army is a wolf army with scouts coming in on the backside. Combine that with any mission that requires you to move and the wolf pod army should have the advantage over most people.

My most lopsided victories against podders have been with the Nids. It really has never been close and the pod players have been pretty good ones. Ed you might remember Jeff from Chicago and I played his podders twice. That is at least one player we both have played. I'm not saying the game is a no win situation, just that in two games it was a good win or me.

In the end, the mission can dictate the power of the pod army for that particular game.

Darth, Jeff is the guy that I stole the beginnings of my pod list from!

We played a game with my pred list vs. his pod list. At the time I thought it was a real pasting, but after actually playing with it, I think I did rather well. And I'm sure with some more practice my pred list would actually beat it. But regardless, it looked like so much fun I had to copy it.

 

I'm in complete agreement with Blackmoor about what to do, that is exactly the way I would play against it. Saying that however, Darthdiggler is also 100% right. If the mission doesn't allow you to castle, and requires you to spread out, you really are in for a problem.

I look forward to playing against a pod army at Adepticon, maybe I can come back with some comments after that.

Posted By DarthDiggler on 03/09/2006 9:25 AM
The mission also dictates how well a pod army will do. Any capture the objective mission will fall right into the hands of the pod army as they cover the objectives of their choice with pods. Absolutely zero chance to castle in this kind of game. Also a recon game will prevent castling. You can only really castle against a VP game.

I disagree, and here is why?

With the exception of speeders, the pod army is very immobile. So after turn 3, what the pod army has on the table, is pretty much where it is going to stay.

So let?s say you have 3-5 objective markers on the table. The podder can spread his forces out and cover all of the objectives...but then he will get picked off pod by pod. A couple of objectives will be near the castle, and so they will just have to take a few more. In this game, your units have to support each other. The marine tac squads in pods are armed with either meltas or plasma, and the other units will have some assault cannons as well. So they will have a very short range. The best tactic for the pods might be to all land together between the castle and the objectives, but this will still be dicey. In an objective mission, I am not that sold on the pods being that great.

And as far as recon goes, are you going to drop pod into the enemy deployment zone where the castle is? Remember that after several turns of shooting, the castle can just move. The pod army is only moving 6? so by the end of the game you can just move the vehicles out to get into the pod armies deployment zone in the last few turns .

What might very well be the determining factor of whether or not the pod army will win is the dice roll of who will go first. If the pod army loses, then they are coming down on the top of turn 2 and 3, so that means that the castle will have 5 turns of shooting, and 4 turns to react to the pod placement . If the castle lost the dice roll, they will only have 4/3 turns. (Here is an example of another area where an inexperienced player might make a mistake by winning the dice roll, and choosing to go first. A couple weeks ago I played against an inexperience drop pod player at an RTT and he won the dice roll and he chosed to go first).

A few more random thoughts about drop pods:
Let me also say that one dimensional armies will have trouble with pods. But if your army has a good fire base, mobility and a good counter assault element, you should be in good shape.

Drop pods work best by taking the initiative, and making the other army react to it. But if you don?t give them any options, they you can take the initiative away from them.

Any other tricks?

PLay sisters of battle.. Between 5+ negation and unmodified leadership with books, we dont care. Add in you'll be in our fun range for double tapping, melta and probably flamer....

Posted By carmachu on 03/09/2006 11:42 AM

Any other tricks?

PLay sisters of battle.. Between 5+ negation and unmodified leadership with books, we dont care. Add in you'll be in our fun range for double tapping, melta and probably flamer....

Not when I drop 19" away I won't...... Ever.

Dude you won't be able to kill all 3 Exorcists  and all the Rhinos w/ sisters in em and the Seraphim on the turn you drop 19" away.

Termy heavy helps but against Sisters FOTD means little and for every threat you will kill on the drop they will have enough to hit you back.  Tiggy also becomes relatively useless and his squad will have to drop close to do any real damage.

Sisters and Necrons are probably the toughest matchups your list will face, with Sisters being more of a problem.

The reason I say all this is because my best friend and gaming buddy plays SoB and I've used Pods against him.  It is one of the toughest things you can face, though I didn't have termy heavy lists, which actually works against sisters since you're not as badly outnumbered and the AP1 flamers and doubletaps aren't as devastating.

Not when I drop 19" away I won't...... Ever.

Please do. It means a shooting war, with no assualt. I can win that one. rending weapons vs acts of faith. Heck I wouldnt even need exorcists that way.

How do you intend to win the shooting war? Other than the exorcists, what moves and shoots? I'm only going to walk into LOS of the things I can kill or gut.

You're going to have to come to me to use bolters/flamers/meltaguns.

Dude, at 1850 the sisters will all be mounted in Rhinos, 3 Exorcists, 2 Flying Nuns, and there will be at least 2 Seraphim squads, probably w/ 1 flamer, one Inferno pistol, and possibly a brazer of holy fire or evisorator on the Veteran. 

You will get devine guidanced and possibly charged after being dropped since everything in a mobile sisters list will be able to get to you and you will only be able to neutralize so many targets.  Especially if the sisters castle up some they will be able to get at you since they will have more targets than you can kill, especially with only half your army coming in.  The effective range of the Sisters for double tap is greater than your range on the assault cannons, especially on the drop.

This isn't even beginning to talk about the exorcists which can all move and fire, doing some serious damage to your termies.

For 1850 you have a pretty small model count and the sisters have many methods for putting the hurt on your termies with all the AP1 they can throw out.

How do you intend to win the shooting war? Other than the exorcists, what moves and shoots? I'm only going to walk into LOS of the things I can kill or gut.

And how are you going to gut or kill from 19"? I'll out number you 1.5 to 1, maybe 2 to 1. Bolters is all I need with DG. Several assualt cannons are nice, but its the same with DG, you'll need 6's. Bolters work just fine at 24"

Heck, if I have rhinos I'll do with them what you do with DP: block LOS.

Posted By mauleed on 03/09/2006 2:12 PM

How do you intend to win the shooting war? Other than the exorcists, what moves and shoots? I'm only going to walk into LOS of the things I can kill or gut.

You're going to have to come to me to use bolters/flamers/meltaguns.

You should know better than this. Nearly every optimal unit in the sisters list moves and shoots. I know you have seen the advice for people with sisters lists before, telling them to mount up, telling them what the most effective seraph squads are, why Exorcists are best in 3s. The only thing that doesn't move in a tooled sisters list is the slightly suboptimal Retributors with HBs that won't be in the most tooled list, but even they have a 36" range, and if you get in range of them with your ACs or special weapons then you are in double tap range of the other sisters. Now that he mentions it, sisters really are a tough list for drop podders.

Sisters really don't have that much leadership. Fear is going to put a hurt on them - tests at LD6. Or simply pinning tests for everyone.

They might win a close range firefight or even an assault with creative use of faith points, but I seriously don't think they are a contender for this type of challenge. They, like Tau, are an army that is going to have a serious problem with pods.

As a sister player myself i should probably point out other tactics that are used agaisnt podders, one that works fairly well is the wagon train. The thing is when facing a pod list ( IDK about lysander as our league never uses special charecters) we can just sit outside the rhinos and use them as mobile cover for the entire game. By using the vehicles as a shield wall until we know where you'll end up we can usually survive with at most a few casualties to each squad. IF it is done right it can shield the exorcists for that important first turn of shooting.
Combine this with the 2+ invulnerable save nuns, and seraphim and your looking at maybe 2 rounds of shooting to neutralize our assault elements or be left engaging squads that take forever to kill as everythign else moves up. The worst thign we have to fear as sisters is the landspeeders and as long as they all dont come on turn 2 they can usually be dealt with.
And i dont mean to knock your tactical prowness as Im more a WHFB guy myself . I just find it hard to account for what is on average 6 inches of scatter and a 4+ roll to come in and still say you can get everyone where you need.

Have you played against the book of always taken? Unmodifiable LD 9 or 10 around the army is fairly doable unless there was an erreta on the book saying that "may use the bearer's unmodifiied LD" means its only unmodified before the unit in question uses it. Though that wouldnt make sense to use unmodified in the first place then i think?

The Book of St. Lucius is a 5 Point piece of gear that can be given to any one with access to the armory that negates any modifiers to a sisters leadership value, so you'll have them always be LD9 or LD10, FOTD reguardless.

This Imperial Playgirl magazine is the bane of anyone who plays sisters and has tactics that involve forcing low LD checks.

Sisters really don't have that much leadership. Fear is going to put a hurt on them - tests at LD6. Or simply pinning tests for everyone.

Please refrain from talking about things you have no clue about.

sisters are LD standard. Vets make'em 9. Cannoness is 10. Books of St Lucius, which everyone takes, are 5pt steals for unmodified LD tests. Every player has them in just about every squad.

AND thats not including a standard 5+ negation for free before that.

Psychic powers hold no fear for sisters.