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Hello everyone, I'm looking to start a codex space marine drop pod list and I was wondering what good tactical options are available to me?

I see a lot of armies of SW and BA drop poding but rarely have I seen a normal space marine list, is it cause C:SM are to broad? Anyways if I could just get some ideas to wrap around and ignite some creativity I would be very thankful, and hopefully I could be putting together a list very soon!

Thank you all

Drop lists with Vulkan can be scary, as all drop pod lists should have a lot of meltas and flamers. A really good unit is an ironclad dreadnought with two heavy flamers and a chainfist. It can kill infantry, and if the enemy lest it survive more then one turn, it can eat tanks to. The key to drop lists is that you need enough empty pods that you can get everything you want on the first turn. I find that having some devs and shooting dreds with pods are good for this. I would think that the TFC would also work for this.

Sweet! Thanks for the info! I'll use your advise as my base template for this new army. I got a good feeling about drop pod lists and I am gonna love playing mine! ODST!

Drop podding assault marines, tacticals, or dreadnoughts is an excellent way to get the most of your models. Combo with locator beacons and other stuff that can deep strike, or even using a gate of infinity libby to maximum in the enemy's face-ness... if that is even a word.

Hmmm I like the idea of a Libby, I'm still new to SM so ill have to look up what he has but I think he will be my second HQ! Thx a lot!

Vanilla marines are probably the easiest to play with drop pods. Purely as they are flexible and have 12 models per pod.
How you deal with flyers is the main question.

Actually I wouldn't suggest having empty drop pods. Have the nonfirstturn drop pods with 5 marines with melta and maybe combimelta, so they can come on maybe kill something and score. I guess a flamer is cheaper keeps them alive due to overwatch, and can clear out enemy scoring units that are in cover and decide to spend most of the game going to ground.
Then you can have the other combat squad with ML at the back, maybe on a quadgun, but definitely on the board first turn so they can do something.

First turn pods then want to be really nasty horrible pods. 10 sternguard with combi weapons, so they can combat squad, maybe a librarian to do something wicked. You should have the vague intention of trying to table the opponent first turn, obviously this is usually impossible but the point being you want as much shooting goodness first turn as possible.

Before you needed to make sure you had something with ranged ability and some mobility. Drop pods suffer when they land and the enemy just moves away, you do need to cover this.

So flyers and not getting tabled. This would an ADL with quadgun.
Actually what I would suggest stormtalons. They are reasonable at shooting down flyers, they have the mobility and range to hit any enemy that has the audacity to walk away from any drop podded unit.

Don't use Vulkan for a Pod list. Vulkan buffs shooting, yes, but what use will Vulkan be when you're in combat? You're in the <12" range when in a Pod list. You need to be able to get out of combat, so look into using either a generic HQ or maybe Calgar.

Libbys don't add much to our army. They were the de facto choice in 5th due to 2 reasons, the first being how powerful a Psychic Hood was, and how much of a necessity it was as well due to the height of GK. Now that Psychic Hoods only add to the DTW roll and only can be used against powers that target units, their power has drasticallly decreased. The second reason why Libbys are taken so often is due to Null Zone. The theoretical reason was so that you can destroy other melee deathstars. This is also a 5th edition mentality. 6th has tremendously buffed our shooting to not need Null Zone to kill deathstars, we have enough firepower to shoot them off. Plus, it really only screwed over Daemon players. Rolling on the rulebook powers may see the Libby to have a different role, but I don't see him as vital as he once was. I can see a Termie Libby with a SS rolling on Biomancy powers to be a monster in a Pod list, but I haven't really experimented with that combo.

Really interesting points coming up, I am fairly new to 6th Ed as I only played chaos in 5th with my friends so yeah, I have a few big changes to get used to lol. A lot of what I am feeling with this drop pod is trying to drop them on critical points at the right times, not to much care anout throwing all my guys out right away, still torn as to what I will load them with tho. The way I'm thinking would be to run them as denial and kill units, stealing points from the heretic at the last second to pull the win.

IMO libby is still awesome. Nullzone and gate of infinity are as awesome as they always were.

Drop pods are superb if done right.

Firstly you want max concentration of fire. Pods are good, pods coming only scout bikes with a locator so no scatter, terrifying.

Yes sternguard combi weapons are core to this strategy. Pouring out with multiple melta, flamer, plasmaguns is just horrific. After its all over they have a clumped together nest of marines dominating that table edge.

For that reason key to success is destroying the biggest threat to your closely packed marines. Think breath chaos, vindicators, plasmacannons etc. these need to dissapear or be minimised with how you deploy your pods.

The reason why space wolves are good at drop lists is they get two special weapons while vanilla get a heavy and a special in their tac squads, they also get counter attack which is very good when being charged and they get bolters, bolt pistols and chainswords as standard, damn those grey hunters!

I am going to be running a BA drop pod list with 3 furioso dreads, 3 or 4 squads of assault marines (one in pod) DC in pod with chappie and a few other units. I have put the one assault marine squad in a pod to make up the odd number of pods, so I now have 3 pods the first turn and 2 the second, If I only had 4 pods that would be 2 the first and 2 the second meaning the last two wouldnt be able to assault until turn 3 giving the opponent more time to run away.


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Also the first wave of pods all have locator beacons, so I can choose where to put the other two pods or where to deepstrike the assault marines,

With blood angels my assault marines are scoring so that is a big plus

I faced a fun tactic in my last game that took me by surprise:

My enemy had a big 10man tactical terminator squad with 2 cyclone missile launchers, vulkan and a libby. Drop pod w/ locator beacon came down and let some sternguard out, then the libby used gate of infinity to teleport to the drop pod. I was surprised by this as now I had Terminators in my face!

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
I faced a fun tactic in my last game that took me by surprise:

My enemy had a big 10man tactical terminator squad with 2 cyclone missile launchers, vulkan and a libby. Drop pod w/ locator beacon came down and let some sternguard out, then the libby used gate of infinity to teleport to the drop pod. I was surprised by this as now I had Terminators in my face!

Variation on this, two TDA libbys w gate, TWO sets of 10 terms w 2CML apiece, two vindicators.

Your not gating onto a beacon here but instead using your vindicators to ensure large clear spaces to gate onto are clear while opponent hugs cover.

It seems like a lot of people are running BA, although I saw one list using imperial fists and a ton of hammers. It did work on some poor mech imp kid hahaha

I love the idea with the Libby too, especially when you through a bunch of terms in the opponents face, even if you don't kill a ton of things right off the bat, the opponent will make mistakes just because he would be to worried about losing more units to the terminator doom

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
I faced a fun tactic in my last game that took me by surprise:

My enemy had a big 10man tactical terminator squad with 2 cyclone missile launchers, vulkan and a libby. Drop pod w/ locator beacon came down and let some sternguard out, then the libby used gate of infinity to teleport to the drop pod. I was surprised by this as now I had Terminators in my face!

Thank you for that, I may drop my chappie for a libby after reading that, suppose I better read up on the psyhic powers....

And then I remember BA libbys cant take gate

Made an account just to respond.

I run a 3 DP Crimson Fists list.

DP 1: Dreadnought Multi-Melta HF (basically a cheaper Ironclad, but I hold him back to support next DP

DP2: Sternguard 10man, 3combi melta, combi flamer, heavy flamer - Has ability to combat squad if I want to melta then flam a transport turn 1 or drop in backfield/flank and provide pressure.

DP3: from reserve Sternguard 9man - mid game objective holding or troop mop up

I run with Pedro Kantor for scoring Sternguards and +1A, also a Librarian for Null Zone and Gate

Depending if I feel like the initial sternguards will get charged I'll start with Kantor in DP 1, else Librarian for turn 1.

All this provides early game offense while my FA and HS push forward