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I know, I know. SPESS MARHEENS! Jokes asides, would taking 2-3 small units of scout bikers with locator beacons, having them infiltrate as close to objectives/enemy units as possible, and then having as many other units, be they dreadnoughts, sternguards, tacticals, and devastators, take drop pods be a good tactic? Locator beacon guarantees they'll go where you want them; even drops pods are almost mishap proof, they can still scatter way off mark. Especially if you get the first turn, you can almost make certain your enemy is in a world of hurt depending on what you put in the drop pods...

with the new over watch rules, this list type took a hit, but with a cc oriented army like BA it's possible. You wont win many tournaments because your army list is vunerable to horde swamping, so bugs and orks will swamp your DS units on the tunr they arrive, allowing the power units to charge without you getting your over watch wounds. Orks especially, with Waaagh and fearless mobs, will eat that list. In non-competitive, forcing your opponent to deal with you on your terms is super satisfying. I would try to incorporate some speeders and mech MEQ and try a pressure list to push from turn one. All DS puts all your stuff were two or three armies want you.

cod3x wrote:
with the new over watch rules, this list type took a hit, but with a cc oriented army like BA it's possible. You wont win many tournaments because your army list is vunerable to horde swamping, so bugs and orks will swamp your DS units on the tunr they arrive, allowing the power units to charge without you getting your over watch wounds. Orks especially, with Waaagh and fearless mobs, will eat that list. In non-competitive, forcing your opponent to deal with you on your terms is super satisfying. I would try to incorporate some speeders and mech MEQ and try a pressure list to push from turn one. All DS puts all your stuff were two or three armies want you.

Well regards to getting charged, I might invest in one or two PA libbys and hope for foreboding on the divination table. having 8-9 sterguard able to overwatch at full BS will make almost any unit think twice about charging them, especially nids or orks.

The other huge problem I see with Steel Rain is that if you don't get turn one, any halfway competent player will know what those Scout Bikers are for and will dedicate all of their first turn to wiping them out. That and if your drop pod goods dont kill/blow up what they're supposed too, you've love before you've even begun. But there's the fun in STEEL REHN: its either hilariously effective, or just hilarious!

It depends on what you put in the Drop Pods. This strategy would work a lot better for Space Wolves than vanilla Marines due to Grey Hunters being a lot better at mobile stuff than Tactical Marines, for one thing.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It depends on what you put in the Drop Pods. This strategy would work a lot better for Space Wolves than vanilla Marines due to Grey Hunters being a lot better at mobile stuff than Tactical Marines, for one thing.

That and I'd rather have a rune priest than a Libby 9.9/10 times.

It all depends on if you secure a perimeter and establish several beacons that would allow you to perform multiple simultaneous devastating deepstrikes. Even if this does not work your men will die in glory. THEY WILL DIE HEROES DEATHS! They shall not die. No! It is the enemy who will taste death and defeat.

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It depends on what you put in the Drop Pods. This strategy would work a lot better for Space Wolves than vanilla Marines due to Grey Hunters being a lot better at mobile stuff than Tactical Marines, for one thing.

That and I'd rather have a rune priest than a Libby 9.9/10 times.

And Wolf Guard can be cheaper than normal Terminators. And I'm sure there are other things I'm missing, I am less familiar with the Wolves book than I might be.

Hey Wolves and BA are all well and good, but I'm talking about BLOOD RAVENS here, I'm talking about SPESS MARHEENS!

It'd be best if you're opponent spread out so you'd then be able to take on only a part of his army at a time, I'd also suggest comms relay

 AnomanderRake wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It depends on what you put in the Drop Pods. This strategy would work a lot better for Space Wolves than vanilla Marines due to Grey Hunters being a lot better at mobile stuff than Tactical Marines, for one thing.

That and I'd rather have a rune priest than a Libby 9.9/10 times.

And Wolf Guard can be cheaper than normal Terminators. And I'm sure there are other things I'm missing, I am less familiar with the Wolves book than I might be.

Just saying with the nerf to Libbys (rather the nerf to the "hood") Runepriests are the IOM's best psychic defense.

Null Zone is nice.

Since you picked the manly of the Space Marine lists (not glitter faeries, beastiality marines, emo marines, or zealot marines), you have a few choices that make drop pods great.

A list i've played against at 1500 that seems quite strong is:



It's quite scary, gives you quite a few scary things to appear first turn, allows you to drop right to objectives, and gives you decent tactical flexibility.

You'll lack AA power, but do you need AA power when you are in the enemies deployment zone, generally locked in combat or in control of their cover/Aegis Line?

Sternguard in Pods are also quite the thing. In the list I linked, they are 5 throw away melta guns to eliminate a Vindicator, or Contemptor, Land Raider, or any other giant scary monster that needs to die. In a Pedro list, they can score, and allows you to cut back on the Tactical Marines.

Since units are arriving first turn, you don't have to worry about losing on the first turn or anything like that. Since you are entirely in pods, you are almost guaranteed First Blood.

Weapons that excel in close range, such as flamers, melta guns, and even plasma guns are good. The Heavy Weapons are not so good, however.

The units that get the most mileage out of pods (imo) are:

Sternguard(armed with Combi Meltas/Plasmas/Flamers)
Ironclads (well, any dreadnought that isn't going for ranged weapons)
Tactical Marines (armed with close range weaponry, such as MMs, and any special weapon, a combi weapon...)

Went a little long here, but yes, Drop Pod lists are viable.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

jdjamesdean@mail.com wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It depends on what you put in the Drop Pods. This strategy would work a lot better for Space Wolves than vanilla Marines due to Grey Hunters being a lot better at mobile stuff than Tactical Marines, for one thing.

That and I'd rather have a rune priest than a Libby 9.9/10 times.

And Wolf Guard can be cheaper than normal Terminators. And I'm sure there are other things I'm missing, I am less familiar with the Wolves book than I might be.

Wolf Guard terminators and all wolf Termies for that matter don't teleport. This means you are limited in squad size and have to buy another pod. Grey Hunters are better then Tacs but I feel in this kind of list the C:SM have better terminators. I'd do a Kantor list with max stern guard. The ability to combat squad into 6 units that all have special issue ammo/ combi weapons and are stubborn and scoring AND have +1 attack from kantor is beyond amazing. I would then Allie wolves to get a Prescience priest with a unit of wolf guard and a unit of hunters in a pod. Screw dreads, they die to quickly now, go for more bodies!

For Blood Ravens, I like Pedro Kantor as my force commander, a librarian support character because Ravens are a very psychic chapter, as my starting point in any Blood Raven list.

If you want to run a drop pod list, I would recommend scouts be your troops. You can run a 10 man with Telion squad as Cyrus, with camo cloaks and all snipers save the missile launcher. Add a second scout squad for a second missile, but keep them at 5 men strong for points. This gives 5-6 scoring units in a normal game, which is plenty once you add the sternguard.

I would use 3x5 sternguard in pods with whatever 5 combiweapons you want, or alternatively 4 combiweapons and a flamer, as you will get usage of the flamer in more turns than normal combi weapons. Units of 5 lets you spread out from different pods, as while you can combat squad to get two units, they still both come from one pod which limits your options.

Add 3x5 thunderfire cannons with pods, so you have 6 pods and can reserve your sternguard if facing someone who doesnt deploy much on turn 1 and you are going first. Also, the thunderfire cannon was always really damaging, and now with toughness 7 2 wounds and a 3+ save naturally its a lot harder to kill.

Finally you can add in 2 scout bike squads with locator beacons. I would keep these cheap, as really they are sacrifices. I myself would only run 1 such unit and buff out the sternguard more, but 2 for redundancy is fine.

Total points comes to 1750 ish, with room to add camo cloaks (though with bolstered ruins telion's unit gets a 2+ cover save in ruins anyway) or weapon upgrades on the sternguard.

Question:

When you are counting drop pod that arrive turn 1, do you add in Allied Drop pods?

if you wanted more pods to land turn 1 could you take 5 pods in the Primary Detachment and then 3 in an Allied Detachment

3 of the 5 pods would land and then 2 of the 3 allied pods would land turn 1? you would have 5 pods on turn 1 instead of 4 (or do you just count it as 8 pods and drop any 4 of them?)