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Just curious since Ive never actually met anyone who deos this. The rules is drop the Jump Packs and get a Drop Pod for free. Since I usually deepstrike my Assault Marines anyway, this would basicly give me a free Storm Bolter and a bit of cover from long range fire. Has anyone tried this tactic and if so, what were the results?

Its a tactic I'm going to use in larger lists. The plan is to take 2 furiosos in drop pods, and a third pod with 5 assault marines. This lets me drop the 2 dreads on turn 1, and to grab an objective with the third pod.

I've thought about it as well, because I had a 10 man squad of assault marines who had their jump packs sacrificed to their superiors. So i was thinking of dropping them down and letting them run around on foot. It worked so so. They died pretty quickly as 10 marines without FNP aren't tough to take out. And other times they came down, popped a tank, and the rest of the opponents force just moved away. They were too slow to do anything before he set up a charge and wiped them out.

Good way to double flame someone if using the marine codex.

I think against light infantry it would be ok but if there are vehicles around, watch out. I think you would have to have a fist in the unit incase of dread tarpit as well.

Actually tactical squads work as well in drop pods. The advantages of assault squads is that if you take 5 men then they are cheap and can also can carry a priest or librarian.

Do you need the troops to land early? As in jump packs mean they land in turn 2 onwards anyway and I suppose you want dreads or maybe an honour guard landing first.

I use assault marines in a drop pod sometimes in my 1500-2000 lists for Vanilla Space Marines. I do it mostly because I have 2 dreadnoughts in drop pods and it pushes them both onto the first turn. I usually equip them with two flamers and a powerfist, and I also often put a captain with a powerfist or relic blade in there too.

Given that it comes down turn 2+, and that it is likely to get off at least one charge unless it is focus fired, I find that there's seldom nowhere on the board in which it can make a difference. I also find that opponents who have been burned by it once or twice do tend to keep the fact that you might drop the unit in on them in mind and play a little more conservatively - which is good for my very aggressive list, and precisely why I run drop pods in the first place.

Another advantage compared to normal deep striking of the jump packs is the drop pod's ability to reliably drop into tight places compared to just the marines.

It won't suit everyone's playstyle and indeed I don't even run them every time, but I have overall been fairly happy with their performance. I drop them against certain opponents and I run them against others.

It also doesn't hurt that I have spare assault marine models with and without jump packs either.

Wait, so the BA can take the Drop Pod for free?

I thought t would work with death company dreads, as fleet + ignore shake and stun looks good on paper.
But here's what happened.
I land both pods, dreads stroll out and fire melta guns (missing with one, destroying a weapon with the other).

Then my opponent runs away with his infantry, and turbo boosts some bikes behind my dreads, staying slightly closer to the dreads then the rest of his army.

The real problem with pods is it's basically handing 2 kill points to your opponent.
I was going pods, and I switched to scouts with cloaks to walk in, and storm raven to drop in.
It's 4 kill points instead of 6, and basically does the same thing.

-Matt







Automatically Appended Next Post:

forruner_mercy wrote:Wait, so the BA can take the Drop Pod for free?

Assault squads, as troops, can trade their jump packs for a 35 point discount on any dedicated transport.
Not "free", just trading points they already paid for the transport.

-Matt

another loop hole that could be fun to use with this is that you dont have to declare combat squads when men are in a drop pod until the pod hits on the field

dmthomas7 wrote:another loop hole that could be fun to use with this is that you dont have to declare combat squads when men are in a drop pod until the pod hits on the field

Thats as corny as using grand strategy to make a unit scoring and then combat squading them.

Well yeah, not exactly free, and I should have mentioned the AS specifically, but still.

Are we talking about Blood Angels? I thought we were.

Otherwise no do not take assault squads. My view earlier was that Blood Angels also should not drop pod assault squads.

Combat squading on arrival is not cheesy. It is just a nice tactic, everytime with sternguard and sometimes tactical squads. If you are going to get charged/shot at you might as well only lose one squad.

Thanks guys. Gave me a few things to think about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Thanks guys. Gave me a few things to think about.

in my opinion,
if you were playing competively
I would take off the jump packs i would shove them in a rhino then move them up
but, if you weren't being competive
yea, that might be something fun to play
so it really is based on the style of play you want to play

I wouldnt say that I play compeditively, but I do like to put up a good fight at least. Fluff is a big part of my army list though.