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hey guys! I put together this list and wanted any feedback you guys could offer before I put it together!

Traits: Cleanse and purify, Bring the fight to them
Disadvantages: We stand alone, eye to eye

Codicier w/terminator armor, force weapon, storm bolter, fear of darkness
- 4 termie command squad w/2 assault cannons
- drop pod

6 marines, 4 w/bolters, 2 w/plasma guns, drop pod
6 marines, 4 w/bolters, 2 w/plasma guns, drop
6 marines, 4 w/bolters, 2 w/plasma guns, drop pod
8 marines, 5 w/ccw & hth, 2 w/meltas, vet sarge w/powerfist & bp, drop pod
8 marines, 5 w/ccw & hth, 2 w/flamers, vet sarge w/powerfist & bp, drop pod
8 marines, 5 w/ccw & hth, 2 w/flamers, vet sarge w/powerfist & bp, drop pod

drednaught w/assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor, searchlight, drop pod
drednaught w/assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor, searchlight, drop pod
drednaught w/assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor, searchlight, drop pod

1. The epistolary is always worth the points

2. After the dreads go, you don't have much of an end game against anything that can run away from you

3. Most of your firepower is effective withing 12". That means you must drop in at charge range. This makes you more vulnerable to bad scatters, and being picked apart piecemeal.

But it's still a solid list. Go for it.

The plasmaguns are not a bad idea, but get the epistolary like Mauleed says.

Looks eerily like my list, only I use 5 x 8 man squads and 1 5 man squad, with an epistolary. And I use more meltaguns and no plasma.

I think you'll find that 5 squads with vets+fists will do better than 6 squads with only 3 vets and fists. But that's just my experience. Not having enough assaulty makes you easy prey for nids, orks and assaulty marines/chaos.

Is there a reason you decided not to get heed the Wisdom of the of the Ancients instead of Bring the fight to them? In my experience having dreadnaughts as venerable with extra armor pays off to know end, it usually stops mine from dying at least twice a game. . . I also can get you that Epistolary upgrade with it. . .

186 points gained
I would reccomend dropping one of the flamer marine squads and all the spot lights, replacing Take the fight to them with Heed the Wisdom of the Ancients and switch all your other Dreadnaughts to Heavy Support but keep the same load out minus the searchlights of course. . .

170 Spent
With those points add a single Venerable Dreadnaught
drednaught w/assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor, drop pod

15 Spent
With these last 15 points make the Librarian an Epistolary. . .

By doing this, you suddenly get Storm of the Emperor's Wrath on the librarian, an upgrade to his LD, an extra wound, also your army will be more effective against assault armies because they will have more trouble killing a dreadnaught than a flamer squad, You will have more assault cannons which is always a good thing, oh and if you decide to expand again you can add another 2 dreadnaughts. . .

Id suggest to to drop the Dreads completely and get Tornados instead. Benefits:

- More Firepower per points
- Like Mauleed said you need to drop near the enemy. When you manage to weaken thouse units you land next to, with tornado fire, you can drop really close without need to fear a charge.
- Better mobility in the late game.
- With no AV 12 at all, you deny proper tagets to the enemys dedicated anti tank weapons.

I also prefer Meltaguns. They are extremely versatile and their main disadvantage of 6" optimum range is counterballanced by the pods to a high degree.

wow i hadn't thought about any of those points. let me see if i can respond to each of them individually and explain my thoughts on them.

1) Epistolary vs. codicier. Good point, I had him as an epistolary first, but needed those points elsewhere. upgrading him to an epistolary again would let me take another psychic power, which would come in handy against fearless armies who don't get scared of the dark.

2) mauleed, I realize that the list is fairly immobile, so i would have to target fast units first on the drop. this would present a problem if there are too many fast units on the field (eldar, tau maybe, anything with bikes) but there's also the fact that not all the pods drop at once, so even if he runs away I'll have other units to drop near him (that's the advantage of having 10 drop pods, right?)

3) as for the vets with fists, i hate having fists in units with rapid fire guns. i feel like i only ever get the points worth of one at a time, since you can't shoot and charge at once. that's the reason for the lower count of fists, no fists in plasma squads, only in squads that can shoot then assault.

4) venerable drednaughts are pretty cool. i've never used them though, does it really help that much? seems like it might cost more than it's worth for the upgrade.

5) i don't like tornados. they hit hard but die easy, and in alpha missions will be the only things on the board, making them easy prey. also, it's a themed list, and I like everything being in drop pods. i also chose plasma over melta for the reason mauleed mentioned, the extra range to help with my mobility problem.


Citidel, I like your ideas, i'm going to redo the list soon, but I really like take the fight to them. perhaps i could make one drednaught venerable instead of adding a 4th.

Do you guys think the heavy flamers are worth it?

2) mauleed, I realize that the list is fairly immobile, so i would have to target fast units first on the drop. this would present a problem if there are too many fast units on the field (eldar, tau maybe, anything with bikes) but there's also the fact that not all the pods drop at once, so even if he runs away I'll have other units to drop near him (that's the advantage of having 10 drop pods, right?)

Don't worry about space marine bikes unless their Space Wolves or Chaos marine Bikes, I may like my bikes for a bit of added speed but to be honest their extremely exspencive and have issues achieving their goals because of being such a huge target. . . If your assault cannons can't deal with a bike squad or two I will be very suprised. . .

4) venerable drednaughts are pretty cool. i've never used them though, does it really help that much? seems like it might cost more than it's worth for the upgrade.

It does help alot but if your only going to get one don't bother all that will do is give him a priority target, this is similar to the IG mantra, 2 or 3 tanks never solo. . .

Citidel, I like your ideas, i'm going to redo the list soon, but I really like take the fight to them. perhaps i could make one drednaught venerable instead of adding a 4th.

I am glad I could help, but refer to my response to the previous quote. . . One venerable = bad, 3 venerable = good

Do you guys think the heavy flamers are worth it?

Oh most definately when they all have them yes but this could be my local IG coloring my opinion we have a whole crap load of cameleoline cloak users, my only concern would be that with the heavy flamers you break up your ranges a bit, but since you didn't buy frag grenades maybe you can spook him out of the buildings and then assault him?

The dreads with heavy flamers and assault cannons are so vastly superior to tornados in a drop pod list it's ridiculous. More armor, more firepower, more counter-assault. Seriously, tornados are the last thing that should ever go in a drop pod list. I'd take scout bikers or bikers first.

The more I use the tornados, the more I think you might be correct.

A couple used wisely is still an option. I can't imagine how bikes of any variety are a better choice.

 

Bikes and assault troopers are both better fast choices than tornados because they do things that drop pod armies need done:

1) Kill vehicles from relative range with more reliability (Plasma pistols + meltabombs + fists or meltaguns + meltabombs)

2) Up your model count, and are a much more resilient scoring unit.

3) Kick more *donkey*in assault. The assault phase is where a drop pod army will lose unless it has enough fightiness, and every tornado you take decreases your fightiness.

However, I wouldn't take any FA choices at all until your hq, elites and troops were all full of the important stuff. So there's always something better to buy than fast attack until around 3000 pts.

Drop pod armies are, I am finding, dependent upon maximizing the use of your phases as well. If you find yourself buying something that cannot perform in every phase of the game it's probably a bad idea (move, shoot, assault).

That makes no sense that I can see. Perhaps you'd care to explain further.

1. Bikes and assault troops don't kill vehicles nearly as well as a dropping melta gun and/or assault cannons.

2. You're saying bikes up your model count??????

3. Space marine bikes effective in assault?????

In reference to:

"Drop pod armies are, I am finding, dependent upon maximizing the use of your phases as well. If you find yourself buying something that cannot perform in every phase of the game it's probably a bad idea (move, shoot, assault). "

I'm finding exactly the opposite. You want to dominate one phase: Shooting. If you do that, little else matters, and anything that lets you dominate the other 2 is going to hurt your shooting. And pods aren't going to ever be mobile or choppy.

I'm finding the mobility of Tornados a crucial factor in their benefit.

 I've only just started testing my list though, and it's a little different anyway, with assault marines and two dreads at 1500pts. I do think drop podding dreads are very nice. They allow you to put a lot of pressure on the enemy and avoid the worst fire.

The problem with bikes, etc al is that they start on the board in gamma/Alpha. I might be mistaken, but I believe only Wolves can drop bikes (I'm quite adle-brained from lack of sleep at the moement and my codex is two floors below this one)

Bikes and assault troops kill vehicles better than tornado speeders.

They up your model count more than tornado speeders.

T5 guys with a 3 attack powerfist are a lot better at assault than say, an armor 10 vehicle.

That whole area was about speeders. Sorry. I'm not advocating taking bikes/assault guys except as a choice for fast attack instead of a tornado speeder.
------------------------------------------


Against a shooting army you will never dominate the shooting phase, due to your pathetic model count. If you're playing Tau or IG, or even other shootie marines, you're going to need to dominate shooting and assault to win. Mobile, you dominate by landing in good places and taking away their mobility by popping the mobile elements first. And by having all of your guns be move and shoot.

All you have to do to dominate the assault phase against 70% of armies out there is to buy powerfists and bp/ccw. This cuts down your bolter shooting, but leaves your special weapon numbers the same. Even dedicated assault armies will lose to you after you soften them up by taking out their key squads on the drop.

Longshot I feel like your pretty off on this one (or I am... ^^).

for 160 Points in Tornados you get 2 ACs, 2 HBs and 2 "wounds". The unit can take a lot of hits and if only one Speeder without weapons survives its still scoring and grabs a 24" away objective. A Dread with Flamer, EA, Smoke and Pod costs 153 points.

I feel that Tornados give you more shooting, more speed and often better survivability, compared to Dreads.

Besides that, 2 Meltaguns per troop-unit landing within 6" of whatever vehicle you like, makes Vehicles one of my least concerns. And even if you are still worried about vehicles, 2 ACs beat 1 AC and a Flamer (both roughly 160 points).

Bikes can be used to tie down the enemy in the turn your pods land. The problem is that this does not work at all in escalation, where your bikes need one turn to cross the board once they arrive, and therefore come way too late to have significant impact.

My favourite tactic after quite some games with pods, is to include troop units with a healthy amount of hidden Powerfists (Space Wolves anyone?^^) and land very close to an (ideally isolated) enemy unit. Then focus fire on that unit to weaken it (Tornados provide the most bang per buck here). The opponent gets into a lose/lose situation this way. He can either charge with his remainders and get smashed by hidden Fists, or he can move back 6", which is even worse because you landed so close that your 6" move plus 6" charge easily catches him.

 

I find that if you land enough marines together with a few fists mixed in (say 3 squads) they can handle anything that comes their way in an assult.. I usually use two squads of termies, 4*8 marines, and either dreads or speeders. Works really well. The terminators are crutial as they really excell in both CC and shooting and the droppods defend them from shooting.

"Against a shooting army you will never dominate the shooting phase, due to your pathetic model count."

Maybe your drop pod army doesn't Longshot, but mine does.

Hmm. If you don't like combining rapid fire weapons and fists, I'd second citadel on Heed the Wisdom of the Ancients, maybe even to the point of reccommending six Vennies in pods.

How about if I trade 1 marine from each of the 6 man plasma-squads, and use those 45 points to upgrade the codicier to an epistolary with FoD and FotA and make one of the dreds venerable?

I realize 5 marines is worse than 6 because of the half-strength thing, but does it really make as much difference as an epistolary would?

Thanks for all the advice, btw...

Posted By mauleed on 03/01/2006 6:36 PM

"Against a shooting army you will never dominate the shooting phase, due to your pathetic model count."

Maybe your drop pod army doesn't Longshot, but mine does.

How exactly??

Either your playing against a very limited pool of opponents, or that just isn't happening. On average you only get half of your army down during turn 2, and the occasional scatter will reduce your shooting. The opponent isn't buying drop pods, but can spend that on guns. He may be a little spread and there is terrain of course, but still that comment smells of ego, not experience, sorry to say.

But share your list and prove me wrong.