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I'm a CSM player that's just getting back into the game and one of the only people I fight is a friend that plays vanilla space marines. He has this annoying habits of using three drops and having one of them always full of Sternguard vets all equipped with combi-meltas, one with a dreadnaught with either a mult-melta or a lascannon, and one more of them has a ten man tactical squad for late game objective taking. On top of this he always has a Chapter Master in his back ranks waiting to drop an orbital bombardment on one of my high price units such as my havocs. Basically every game we play starts with him putting pressure on all my units while he takes free reign on the rest of the board.

What can I possibly do to counter this? I have a wide range of units, but I just don't know what I should be using that can either relieve the pressure from my vehicles or at the least help to make drop pods less of a threat. The only advice I've ever been given is to walk all my units out of reserve, but I wanted to see what kind of input I could get from here.

Reroll Grey Knights, get Warp Quake

Reserve your whole army and go 2nd. He'll waste 2 turns and won't have a choice to not drop in 2 pods turn 1 (of course he could not embark his squads, but that's a waste). Then when your units arrive, destroy his squads or avoid them as you will.

I Predominately Play MSU Black templars, a fully drop pod/deepstrike list. I use this in a very specific manner that you are running into issues with, a drop pod army can place pressure on a specific point in the battlefield practically at will (with some issues, but who is nit picking) you need to be able to provide mutual support in your battle lines, that is in your deployment, group up, not to tight, just tight enough to prevent a pod from landing, if you can also create a large enough bubble wrap for your tanks you will not need to worry so much about melta shots. forcing him to get into close combat will hurt him, ok, one turn of shooting can hurt, yes, but have enough heavy close combat units interspersed throughout your army can counter attack him and remove the threat quickly, or at least bog him down locked in combat not letting him shoot.

I hope this helps some.

bring melta, put it in a rhino. If he shoots the rhino, the squad can shoot him back. Also, bubblewrap your vulnerable units with some Thundershields: Thunderbubble yay! They can counter-assault anything he drops near them.

Andilus Greatsword wrote:Reserve your whole army and go 2nd. He'll waste 2 turns and won't have a choice to not drop in 2 pods turn 1 (of course he could not embark his squads, but that's a waste). Then when your units arrive, destroy his squads or avoid them as you will.

+1. This will work very well. If he loses enough times, he'll reconsider his list.

In 40k, your army's position is almost as important as your luck.

Pods are islolated elements of his army, most of the rest of his stuff (other than bikes and speeders) can only move 12, so you will be able to take out what is exposed from those 2 pods piecemeal

Which means dont take any uber units but rather lots of good units

CSM zerkers are great for this role, place 3 units of them across your denied flank frontage in cover. What is he going to do, melta 5 to death in cover?

One of the easiest ways to victory in 40k is to take your whole army vs half his army, mop that up, then take the rest. Pods deliver that to you on a plate.

A dropping dread usually only gets one shot off because you're loaded up with meltaguns (you are loaded with meltaguns, right?) and he drops in melta range, takes his one shot, then gets aced.

The best answer to dropping sternguard is doom sirens (and wind of chaos). They're all bunched up when they disembark from the pod. Screen your melta-vulnerable units with infantry in cover, let him take his sternguard shots when he drops, then move up with 2-3 doom sirens on Slaanesh champs or characters and wipe those units out.

Then score a few free KPs by charging something with a power fist or meltabombs against the pods. Automatic hits.

Then once you've handled the sternguard and dread, you're fighting the rest of his depleted army from regular range.

I really appreciate all the in put. I'm going against him this weekend and I hope it turns out a lot better for me. Thanks to everyone that contributed.

How did you go?

What is he popping with the dread or sternguard? Field a bunch of troops in rhinos and use them to block LOS to your obliterators.

If he pops a troop transport with a melta gun then do the emergency disembark towards him. Then eat him alive with your berzerkers or whatever.

Meched up Chaos should be able to survive a couple drop pods assaulting, then easily mop them up in your turn. Really he should be the one trying to outrange you since he has cheaper/better heavy weapons.