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I think every deep striker's worst nightmare, is to drop in to a game, only to have their unit shot to pieces (or assaulted) the turn before it becomes useful. This might be because the unit is more geared towards assault than shooting, or just because a shooty unit scattered out of thier practical range.

With this in mind; what are your strategies for making a sucessful deep strike? and surviving the first turn of shooting and assault?

Pretty much. Target saturation.
Don't drop 1 unit, drop loads and hope lots.
Unless it's a suicide unit designed to draw fire then survivng is a nice bonus.

While not a huge fan of deep strike there are a few things that can be done to help avoid being shot to death instantly.

1. Use the drop pod for cover. This is easy if you have a drop pod, use the pod model is such a fashion that it will provide some cover between you and your targets.

2. Deepstrike behind terrain or cover. This can be tricky. Use area terrain or LOS blocking terrain to make it harder to be shot at. This can lead to mishaps or being too far away however.

3. Threat saturation. Provide so many targets that the DS unit isn't always at the top of the list. This depends on what is up in the enemies face and what turn your DS unit arrives.

4. Be terminators. 2+/5++ goes a long way.

I love the fact that "Be terminators" is a tactic.
Though they are very commonly depstriked(?)

Being Assault Terminators is indeed a tactic. I've had a squad of them turn a likely victory for me into a smashing defeat. It's even more fun when you give them storm shields! 2+/3++ now, instead!

purplefood wrote:I love the fact that "Be terminators" is a tactic.
Though they are very commonly depstriked(?)

Not so much a tactic as it is a humorous yest functional way to survive DS.

For assaulty units, unless you can take heroic intervention, I wouldn't bother deepstriking them without a specific purpose in mind (like dropping THSS termies on an objective because you want them to just sit there contesting an objective with 2+/3++ regardless of if they ever do any damage). Assault units have other ways of getting into close combat other than deepstriking, which are generally better.

Unless, as mentioned, you have a really convenient piece of LOS blocking terrain in your opponent's lines and your opponent reacts foolishly to them.