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My friend once deep striked with Chaos Lord + 10 Termies. They all died. Since then I've kept in mind a few things:

1. Drop Pod is the best choice if possible.
2. Point limit on deep striking units. My general rule is that under 150p units shouldn't be a problem.
3. I know it's not always possible but try always find a place where there are a) no enemies b) no terrain nearby. I know it seems stupid to keep it 10'' away from anything but you just got to expect the worst (well, I play BA so DoA makes this pretty easy for me...)

in 6th, Deep Striking is soooo safe.

It's a tiny chance to lose your unit. I'd recommend it

Also keep in mind that landing in non-impassable terrain just triggers dangerous terrain checks, and in 6th when those allow armor saves that's no threat at all.

I regularly use a Necron Harbinger of Despair with a Veil of Darkness (this allows the squad to move as though deepstriking each turn).

First (as has been mentioned previously), keep the footprint small. The rules state that you have to form circles of models around the first model, so try and keep it to about one half circle. This allows you to place that first circle to avoid obstacles. It's not a huge amount of wriggle room, but it is useful.

Second consider your placement. Bearing in mind that you'll roll a hit 33% (2/6) of the time, place your unit minimising the impact of scatter. A lot of people try and do this by being equi-distant from obstacles on all sides - e.g. in an 11" gap between two buildings, they'll put the model in the middle, 5" from each building. However, this is rarely the safest thing to do, statistically. It's often best to place your model(s) ignoring the obstacles on one side to give you maximum clearance on the other side. The reason for this is the distance on the scatter - the most common roll on 2D6 is 7. So, given that the scatter dice is equally likely to point in any direction, in the example I mentioned above it would be safest to place the model right against one building and 10" from the other. That basically means you only have a 50% chance of suffering a mishap if you want to drop somewhere tight (if the arrow points in the wrong direction).

33% chance of rolling a hit and a 50% chance of rolling an arrow in the right direction (given that you don't hit) basically means a 66% chance of sticking the deepstrike... equivalent to a 3+ save. Spacie saves are pretty reliable.

They've made deepstriking less risky. I'd always choose to do so if I have the option unless the opponent is tau with a lot of interceptor weapons.

I run three Deepstrike-reliant lists (GK, Chaos, Elysians) and have never mishapped a unit to death single time in the past one year. I have only once mishapped it back into Ongoing Reserves when I did a Shadow Skies out of my Stormraven.

Every one of my opponents have always commented on how risky my Deepstriking looks, but frankly, Deepstriking really comes down to calculations and knowing the risks involved. The average scatter distance is 7", so put that as your baseline "safe" limit. If it's a particularly critical deepstrike, use 8" or 9" as a baseline.

Also, don't deepstrike huge blobs, you're asking for placement problems (which become mishaps), or a template to wipe the squad.

Quite frankly, compared to 5th ed, Deepstriking is so much more friendly now. You can even deepstrike into Difficult Terrain with a bunch of terminators and safely expect all of them to live (You'd need a 1 on Dangerous Terrain, followed by another 1 to fail your Armor Save). On the mishap table, there's only a 1/6 chance to lose your squad.

Play it smart, play it cool, and you'll find it works wonders. Err on the side of caution, that extra 1" away that prevents you from holding an objective might be worrisome, but at least you don't risk losing your entire unit, and they're likely tough enough to walk over the next turn.

It's callous but, I look at it as trading units.

Will my 80-90 point MSU squad of spiders get behind your Devastator, or Vindicator and take out 120 points of your vehicle? If not that, will it stop it from pie-plating 200 points of my guys off the table? If not even that, do they contest an objective (or in 1 mission, claim) in a durable way that forces the enemy to shift fire?

I used too but, I never deepstrike next to equal strength units hoping to take 'em 1on1. When I deepstrike, in a way, I almost -commit- to losing the unit, but, so long as the enemy loses much harder, it's ok (which I know is outside of Eldar fluff but, hey...)

Deepstrike is more reliable than ever with every book getting a way to do so without scatter, DoA, and premeasure.

Had a new game today, tried deep striking my Terminators + Chaos Lord once again. Followed many posters' advice on trying to keep at least 50% of the surroundings within 7" safe and clear, while landing close enough to the target to do some damage. That, and

 phoenix darkus wrote:
...pray to the dark gods for a hit

Nailed it.

Dropped four inches away from a hefty squad of Ork Lootas and their Big Mek w/Shokk attack gun. Flamed the entire unit into oblivion with one salvo.
The expression on his face was beautiful.

I absolutely appreciate the tips and advice on how to perform safe deep striking, and wish all of you luck on your next voyage through the warp.

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Had a new game today, tried deep striking my Terminators + Chaos Lord once again. Followed many posters' advice on trying to keep at least 50% of the surroundings within 7" safe and clear, while landing close enough to the target to do some damage. That, and

 phoenix darkus wrote:
...pray to the dark gods for a hit

Nailed it.

Dropped four inches away from a hefty squad of Ork Lootas and their Big Mek w/Shokk attack gun. Flamed the entire unit into oblivion with one salvo.
The expression on his face was beautiful.

I absolutely appreciate the tips and advice on how to perform safe deep striking, and wish all of you luck on your next voyage through the warp.

I'm glad it worked out for you!

Ive only deepstruck died twice since 6th, and I played DSing Daemons before the new codex (i dont DS with them anymore much) and BA who use pods a lot and sometimes DoA. Both times were important so I decided I had to go all or nothing and they only touched the enemies by 1" both times. However, both games ended in a loss. Its all about risk assessment and having the balls to do it, most times it pays off but when you push your luck it can backfire badly on you.

And good job on your win, it feels great to pull off kills like that and knowing it required skill and a bit of luck to do it, and your opponent had no way to stop it :3

Cheers gents!
Same tactic today, dropped 4 termies & typhus near a pile of tanks and MEq. Scattered 7" away nearly off the board. Killed a unit of 'rines, but didn't have the position to pull of anything else other than pop a single rhino the rest of the game.
Win some, lose some, hey?

My solution is to keep following the "balls to the wall" advice, but put less pointage into the Terminator squad so it hurts less when they're off/gone.

I'm glad your deepstriking seems to have significantly improved.

Can chaos marines or daemons deepstrike on icons still?

 ductvader wrote:
Can chaos marines or daemons deepstrike on icons still?

Daemons can. But marines dont benefit from the icon unless they have the daemons special rule.

 Billagio wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Can chaos marines or daemons deepstrike on icons still?

Daemons can. But marines dont benefit from the icon unless they have the daemons special rule.

Codex not on hand, and I don't use Daemons, but don't Chaos icons no longer reduce DS scatter?

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Billagio wrote:

 ductvader wrote:
Can chaos marines or daemons deepstrike on icons still?

Daemons can. But marines dont benefit from the icon unless they have the daemons special rule.

Codex not on hand, and I don't use Daemons, but don't Chaos icons no longer reduce DS scatter?

Only Chaos Daemons have the Icons that reduce scatter right? The Daemons codex says that if a friendly unit wants to DS next to a unit with the Icon, then they have to be "Daemons of X (same god) and they wont scatter. If they have the Daemon special rule (but are of a different god or whatever) then they only scatter 1d6. pg.64

Point is, most CSM arnt Daemons, so it wont really affect them too much. But im no chaos player so I could be reading this wrongly or w/e

Actually your not reading it wrong however that only works on daemon princes from the csm codex.
wich can be quite nasty due the mc black mace combo but most people either start there dp on board or fly him on as he doesnt have access to any shooting other than pychic powers

I play chaos daemons, and before 6th ed. update, I had to deal with deep striking my entire army into my opponents lines. What fun, eh?

I normally ended up deep striking right into my enemies face to benefit from templates and that ended up working most of the time as I had to go one way out of four general directions (NSEW) to mishap. And sometimes I hit and devastated whole units.

However, if you deep strike even 6" or 7" way it'll generally worked well. Play it real safe with 12", but you don't actually need to.

Some general advice would be pick a spot where there is only one bad direction (ie. don't DS inside a circle of enemy units and get stuck between a rock, a hard place and several other rocks).

Hope I have been of help. =)

Deep strike w/o pods or beacons is pretty bad, imo.

Martel732 wrote:
Deep strike w/o pods or beacons is pretty bad, imo.

Why? I have an Elysian droptroops army that Deepstrikes 4 flyers on Turn 1 and then two entire Infantry Platoons (Drop Sentinels attached) in my subsequent turns. Seems to work fine for me.

I run a squad of 5 Warp Spiders with an Exarch every game, which I use to Deep Strike in and hit rear armour.

As of 6th edition, I'm yet to lose them from a mishap and they've never disappointed when I have used them.

Iranna.

Icons def don't work for CSM, all they've got is the rubbish Dimensional Key.
It seems like most people are having good results with DSing, and aside from my terrible introduction to it, I've gotta say it's worked out mostly to my benefit as well.

Of course, it is absolutely frustrating to watch my friend's DA termies deep strike with Belial on turn 1 with 0 scatter every damned game.

tommse wrote:
How many drop pods would you consider a good amount in a 1500 pts list? I´m thinking about taking 3 (1 for a dreadnaught, 2 for GH with a RP). Is this sufficient enough?

Depends what's behind it. I played a Drop pod Space Wolf list at 1500 and I had 6. Rune Priest, 2 6 man units of WG w/combis, and 4 10 man units of GH, 2 units taking flamers, 2 taking plas, all 4 with MotW and banner. No LF, no nothin. I feel that the "go big or go home" rule applies to drop pod list making as well. I had a lot of trouble convincing myself to play a list without the tried and true LFs. If you don't get first turn however, the three six man units you have sitting on the board will get chewed up before they can do anything. It's much better to drop 30 plus marines in your opponents deployment zone to do all the work and take all the hurt, than to drop a few, and hope that you can do the rest of the work from the other side of the table.

 Iranna wrote:
I run a squad of 5 Warp Spiders with an Exarch every game, which I use to Deep Strike in and hit rear armour.

As of 6th edition, I'm yet to lose them from a mishap and they've never disappointed when I have used them.

Iranna.

I've had the misplaced mishap a few times, getting greedy trying to get behind a parking lot and a squad scatters into a tank but, I concur; definitely a worthy tactic.

This really is the thread that never dies...

tommse wrote:
How many drop pods would you consider a good amount in a 1500 pts list? I´m thinking about taking 3 (1 for a dreadnaught, 2 for GH with a RP). Is this sufficient enough?

3 would be a good number but I wouldn't put the RP with GH squad because then you are sacrificing a free plasma or melta gun. I always do RP with wolf guard or long fangs in a pod which is amazingly useful against big things like the riptide which crumple and die to Jaws of the World Wolf. Dread is up to you, I would have 3rd pod emptry though and keep dread on the field rifleman style.

Also, for OP, since you are CSM player and dimensional key is a gak item you gotta man up and pick a place for 'em to drop or not DS. Your other option is to infiltrate the hell outta stuff but the only things I ever DS with CSM are 3man termicide squads and 2 obliterators.