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I am familiar with W40k background and such,but am just starting at actual wargaming and am building my first space marine army. I will be posting a 2000 point army list soon for review but first I wanted to know, is the rhino or drop pod a better transport? I want to know which I should try and fit into my army, and on top of that, how necessary IS transportation (ie; Will I want a form of transportation for all my squads, most, or just some)?

Depends on what you want them to do. What Codex are you using?

Drop Pods are great for dumping your squads fairly accurately into the "trouble zone" of the battlefield where they'll be most useful. Rhinos are good for accelerating across the table and keeping your guys from getting missiled/plasma cannoned to death.

Again, all depends on what the squad is armed with and what you want them to do.

Depends. Shooty or assaulty? Short ranged or long ranged? If you're shooty, Rhinos are good, unless you're short ranged (such as using meltaguns), in which case Pods are best. If you want to assault, LRs (and Pods) are the way to go due to Assault Vehicle.

Transports are good, they give the enemy less opportunity to shoot your guys, which is sweet with elite armies such as SM. You don't have to go full mech; in fact there are units (like Devs/LFs/Purgation Squads) which are just as good without a transport, but mostly you want to take them. If you don't like it, you can also try other means of enhancing your mobility, such as with jump packs or bikes.

JaggedStar wrote:
Depends on what you want them to do. What Codex are you using?

Drop Pods are great for dumping your squads fairly accurately into the "trouble zone" of the battlefield where they'll be most useful. Rhinos are good for accelerating across the table and keeping your guys from getting missiled/plasma cannoned to death.

Again, all depends on what the squad is armed with and what you want them to do.

QFT

It also depends on if you plan on buying a battleforce, as different ones come with different transports (SW has pod, vanilla/BA have rhino). A couple of things about drop pods. If your LGS miraculously has the DP plus tac squad kit, and you want a pod, nab that. Also, pods are nice if you want to drop a suicide dread or squad. For rhinos, unless buying a battleforce/used, ALWAYS buy the razorback kit.

Generally speaking, the transport should be based on what the unit is.

For example, a unit of 10 tactical marines should have a rhino. It allows you to move around and be protected from light enemy fire. Where as with a drop pod, as soon as it lands, you tactical marines are exposed and have to walk every where.

Drop pods are also good for putting hard hitting units into enemy lines at the first turn. These should be reserved for units like Sternguard and dreadnoughts (not to say that sternguard cant work in rhinos).

Thats how i see it^