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What have you found to be the most effective way to use your droppods. How are they most useful to you?

Is your entire army dropping in?
Is your army a hybrid Drop/Mech/Boots?
Do you just use a single?
What's the best dropping army Codex and why?
Close Range firepower or assault, which do you prefer?

Basically, I'm looking to make this thread a tactica of sorts. I've been playing with them a little recently, and am exploring different ways of using them and little tricks that imaginative play with them can produce. (not loopholes, just smart dropping)

So who's a "Drop Pod Expert"?

The drop pod specialists are Space Wolves.

Cheap units that do damadge when they come in and they can take a punch back.

If you build your list the right way you can also drop emty pods if your oponent do not want to deploy on the table. Or you can drop close to the edge and deny him some good terain (situvational.)

Tyranid spores are cool, but the nids are not so good. (Mind you I have never tryed a drop list.)

I run a drop pod list that runs 5 pods from time to time but its prone to some really bad match ups and I wouldn't really recommend it and when I do win its usually overwhelming and fast which can be a little anti-climatic (I don't like my games to essentially be over by turn 3). I have played a couple of space wolves players who used one or two pods to great effect since counter attack can make their standard troops much more resilient. A couple of time I've had that one guy (I forgot his name) that makes every one relentless drop in with a couple of multi-meltas that can split fire next to my mech army and that was a real pain too.

You are thinking of a logan drop pod. Shure splitt fire melta is fine but logan cost so mutch points every lasercannon will be aimed at his squad. If they manadge enough firepower they will probably just waste him. (But do not attack him! He has a decent chance of taking out mephiston on 1 on 1, do not even think about doing it with any other character. Shoot that man down or runn away!)

Oh I killed him in one turning but it took nearly all my fire power that round and his all terminator army pretty much got a free round of movement closer to me. My list is designed to wipe terminators off the board if they get to close so I was still able to pull a draw but it really put a lot of pressure on that I think many lists can't handle.

Is it pointless to field a single drop pod?

My situation: I have one Ironclad and think he needs a drop pod to get close and personal.

Can an Ironclad be effective without a drop pod?

Niiai wrote:You are thinking of a logan drop pod. Shure splitt fire melta is fine but logan cost so mutch points every lasercannon will be aimed at his squad. If they manadge enough firepower they will probably just waste him. (But do not attack him! He has a decent chance of taking out mephiston on 1 on 1, do not even think about doing it with any other character. Shoot that man down or runn away!)

A 2+ and a 4++ as well as Eternal Warrior leaves him almost as nails as Lysander...

I wouldn't pod in just one Iron Clad. One vehicle even AV 13 is melta bait and the Iron-Clad can only take a melta unlike the stock dreads multi-melta so there is a high chance you will do nothing and get popped the turn you come down. For a single pod I like how space wolves can drop a small squad of troops with some combi-meltas and smoke a nasty tank on the cheep. The regular dread is cheaper and has a higher threat range so it doesn't hurt so bad if you loose it the next turn because you will probably do some damage for less points invested.

coo

It's possible to make a vanilla marine army with some captains and command squads (with FNP), some sternguard with combi-meltas, tac squads and fire support units like missile devs, put everything possible into pods, and drop them. It can be a reasonably effective army, as long as you stay away from the expensive upgrades and focus on fielding as many marines as possible.

The basic tactic is you want to try to go second, so that you know where your opponent is already before your pods drop in turn 1. If you get stuck with first turn, you take extra, empty pods that you leave in reserve (deploy the guys who bought the pod on the table and leave the pod empty in reserve) and drop the empty pods in turn 1 so that your hard-hitting pods can come in after you know where your opponent is.

In an army like this, combat tactics and combat squads substitute for assault ability. Unlike space wolves, you don't want to win combat or stay stuck in--you want to lose combat, fall back, and shoot the things that assaulted you in your turn.

But it suffers from the same drawbacks as any pod army.

1. Once you are on the table, you have only the mobility of an infantry army. So if the battle winds up being somewhere other than where you landed, your lack of speed (after the drop) can hurt you.

2. A pod is an immobile, open-topped, AR12 vehicle that's worth a kill point. In the endgame you can lose a lot of KPs in a real hurry as monstrous creatures, dreads, or a guy with meltabombs walks through your forest of grounded pods killing one per turn.

Personally I haven't found drop pod armies to be among the most competitive.

SickSix wrote:Is it pointless to field a single drop pod?

My situation: I have one Ironclad and think he needs a drop pod to get close and personal.

Can an Ironclad be effective without a drop pod?

Single-Podding can be a viable move depending on the opponent and the terrain. I have a friend who has run a single Ironclad like this, and it can be nasty, especially if you are also sending a LR full of terminators up the middle, so pressure is coming from multiple sources at once. Remember to use the pod itself to give your Ironclad cover, and beware of units carrying multiple meltaguns. Adjust your drop zone target to try to avoid getting within 6" range of those bad boys.


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Deadshane1 wrote:What have you found to be the most effective way to use your droppods. How are they most useful to you?

Is your entire army dropping in?
Is your army a hybrid Drop/Mech/Boots?
Do you just use a single?
What's the best dropping army Codex and why?
Close Range firepower or assault, which do you prefer?

Basically, I'm looking to make this thread a tactica of sorts. I've been playing with them a little recently, and am exploring different ways of using them and little tricks that imaginative play with them can produce. (not loopholes, just smart dropping)

So who's a "Drop Pod Expert"?

This guy is getting pretty close, IMO:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/user/profile/35545.page

He's a newer player, but runs quite a nasty dread-based pod list. He's also posted a ton of battle reports.

Flavius_Infernus is another Dakka member who knows how to use his pods. He's annoyed me with them more than once.

I'm not an expert, but I know a trick or two. I ran a podding army under the previous SM codex for a while, with good results. But I tend to concur that SW are one of the best armies for it now. I used a couple of pods (one with GH, another with Venerable Dread) in a hybrid SW list last year, and found them quite nice.