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I'm beginning a drop pod SM army, and I thought i'd pick the dakka brain here on how to run them.
I was planning on taking 5, to ensure the 3 with units come in turn 1.
In two of them, I would have drednoughts with MM/DCCW
In the last one, i would take x10 Sternguard x5 combi meltas x2 combi-plas x3 combi-flamers with Lysander to use bolter drill to make the most of the specialist ammo, and make Gets Hot! A non-factor. He also can soak shots for the squad, and gives them some melee punch.

Add-on wise, what is worth taking?
Are deathwind missile lauchers worth it?
x1 Locator beacon seems like a must.
What do you think?

With pods, deathwinds are kinda a waste. 12" range is kinda limiting.

Locator beacons are rather devastating and can be used to call in other less precise deepstriking units like melta/flamer speeders or terminators.

Well. I used to think deathwinds were a waste. However, in all comers lists, deathwinds can be useful when you are up against a rush army with superior CC and you want to castle up. Chaos demons, for example, come to mind. You can drop your troops in a corner or other area inhibited by terrain and make the daemons come through the deathwind launchers. They are also useful if you drop into a gap about 1/3 of the way into army. For the rest of the army to reinforce the part of the army cut off, they have to contend with them.

Dark Angels I think might be something to look at as well. Add to your drop pod assault a squad of Deathwing terminators (deathwing assault on turn 1 or 2) and you got something devestating (I run this approach).

5 pods is a must but dont bother with the locator beacon unless your also using other deepstriking units (like the aforementioned deathwing terminators arriving in turn 2). In my 5 pod army I have 3 units dedicated to dropping 1st turn no matter what, 1 tac squad comming in reserve and 1 pod assigned to a devestator squad. The dev squads pod always comes down empty save for the deathwind launcher on it. Throw that one at the densest enemy troop concentration when it becomes available. Of the 3 pods comming down turn 1, ++ on the sternguard/Lysander and dreadnought bits. What do you have in your 3rd pod? Tacticals obviously come to mind but I've used an assault squad to good effect with a chaplain or librarian leading them (dont forget the flamers!)

As another side note dont forget some bolter scouts (infiltrating as close as possible to wherever your going to drop Lysander). When I was running this tactic as vanilla marines I liked to go with Pedro Kantor over Lysander though. Yes while Lysander sync's well with his bolter drill, Pendro at least makes your sternboys a scoring unit and gives them 3 attacks.

Do locator beacons effect other drop pods' scattering?

My three pods with stuff would be
Drednought MM/DCCW + Pod
Drednought MM/DCCW + Pod
x10 Sternguard + Lysander or Pedro + Pod

I'd buy the other two pods for tac squads, and just leave them empty.

I was thinking the deathwinds would help against hordes, which this list might be somewhat weak against.
Seems like they might not be worth it however.

Locators work on pods as long as they were on the table at the start of the turn. So it does not work on your first wave and as you intend to leave your second wave empty you shouldn't need Locators at all and you could put Deathwinds in the empty pods to get one shot off on the biggest blob or at least create a dead zone to hinder your enemys movement, so your second wave is not wasted.

 iGuy91 wrote:


My three pods with stuff would be
Drednought MM/DCCW + Pod
Drednought MM/DCCW + Pod
x10 Sternguard + Lysander or Pedro + Pod

I'd buy the other two pods for tac squads, and just leave them empty.

If your running Lysander I think you might be better off going with another tactical squad over the second dreadnought. Remember that you dont have any scoring units in the vecinity of the Sternguard's drop site. That being the case, what good are they other than a very big 1 turn annoyance. I can assure you from experience that both your dreads and a vast number of youre Sternguard are going to be dead by the next turn in most cases. Another tactical squad in the drop pod deployment zone adds more meat and versitility imo.

 guinness707 wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:


My three pods with stuff would be
Drednought MM/DCCW + Pod
Drednought MM/DCCW + Pod
x10 Sternguard + Lysander or Pedro + Pod

I'd buy the other two pods for tac squads, and just leave them empty.

If your running Lysander I think you might be better off going with another tactical squad over the second dreadnought. Remember that you dont have any scoring units in the vecinity of the Sternguard's drop site. That being the case, what good are they other than a very big 1 turn annoyance. I can assure you from experience that both your dreads and a vast number of youre Sternguard are going to be dead by the next turn in most cases. Another tactical squad in the drop pod deployment zone adds more meat and versitility imo.

I mean, I had assumed that they'd take significant casualties, but my intention was more a kill as much as possible, and keep him boxed in his deployment zone while the rest of my army gains map control
Ok, so locator beacons as I intend to use them are practically worthless, so I'll save some points there. I'm leaning towards just straight, plain pods atm.

I feel like taking Lysander as a primary HQ in a pod army is sort of a waste. I run a 3 pod 2 rhino 2k list with Vulkan, Lysander, sternguard, and tacticals. Lysander is such a beast and soo fun with the sternguard ap3 gets hot ammo as like you said getting hot is almost a complete non issue.

If I were to run 5 pods I really like the idea of the 4th/5th pod being empty save for a deathwind. What do you plan on having on the table to start the game? You need to be able to make sure another alpha strike army can't wipe you.

Currently I would have x2 10 man squads of tactical marines 3 predator tanks of various varieties, and scouts with Camo cloak hiding behind an ADL for cover from any shooting.

I highly doubt that I'd be able to be shot off the board turn 1.

Would a tac squad with flamer/heavy flamer be viable in a pod as well?

Off topic but worth a laugh, somwhere else i read about a nifty tactic for the ADL's and scouts. Basically give them all sniper rifles and upgrade the Sgt to Tellion. With him using the quad gun or Icarus las it makes for some very entertaining sniping situations as he picks out HQ's and special/heavies at range.

That telion scout setup is great for sniping non character special/heavy weapons. But with the proliferation of look out sir it isn't as great as you'd think.

And iguy that's definately enough ground presence. I run 2 tacticals in rhino's, a tactical on foot, a thunderfire, and 2 Attk bikes and haven't even come close to being wiped. Seeing as pods come in turn 1 guaranteed, not turn 2 at best like flyers.

Chancetragedy wrote:
That telion scout setup is great for sniping non character special/heavy weapons. But with the proliferation of look out sir it isn't as great as you'd think.

And iguy that's definately enough ground presence. I run 2 tacticals in rhino's, a tactical on foot, a thunderfire, and 2 Attk bikes and haven't even come close to being wiped. Seeing as pods come in turn 1 guaranteed, not turn 2 at best like flyers.

With the quad gun they would only be able to negate a single shot from that wound pool would they not?

Sadly only your Sternboys can take the heavy flamer (which imo they should).

You 'can' be tabled in turn one by an equally aggressive alpha list. 2 deathwing/5 pod list could do it handilly (10 terminators and 30 (6 combat squads) tacticals in your face turn one)

 guinness707 wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
That telion scout setup is great for sniping non character special/heavy weapons. But with the proliferation of look out sir it isn't as great as you'd think.

And iguy that's definately enough ground presence. I run 2 tacticals in rhino's, a tactical on foot, a thunderfire, and 2 Attk bikes and haven't even come close to being wiped. Seeing as pods come in turn 1 guaranteed, not turn 2 at best like flyers.

With the quad gun they would only be able to negate a single shot from that wound pool would they not?

Sadly only your Sternboys can take the heavy flamer (which imo they should).

You 'can' be tabled in turn one by an equally aggressive alpha list. 2 deathwing/5 pod list could do it handilly (10 terminators and 30 (6 combat squads) tacticals in your face turn one)

No they only get 1LOS per wound not wound pool. So 3 wounds is 3 los's.

And what would that deathwing have to start on the table? That's a lot of points tied into the 5 pods and deathwing. I'm sure I can be tabled but your talking about killing 30 marines(20 in rhinos 10 in 3+ cover), a t7 thunderfire in 3+ cover, and 2 non squadroned Attk bikes. To make that happen would be pretty difficult at 2k points I think.

As a note, I prefer Ironclad Dreadnoughts over regular dreads when they are podded in. AV13 makes them more likely to weather the storm after they arrive, makes them significantly more durable when they get stuck in, and they can still have a meltagun, and although that has half the range of a multi-melta, when you are podding in range usually isn't an issue.

I love ironclads. The only reason I haven't been taking them is the hull points crap. Av13 while durable can quickly be stripped away when presented right in your opponents face. My favorite tactic with an ironclad is drop close but out of line of sight. Then run around whatever next turn and start smashing stuff. Don't just drop next to something and nuke it, make sure your dread can get into HtH.

Chancetragedy wrote:

 guinness707 wrote:

Chancetragedy wrote:
That telion scout setup is great for sniping non character special/heavy weapons. But with the proliferation of look out sir it isn't as great as you'd think.

And iguy that's definately enough ground presence. I run 2 tacticals in rhino's, a tactical on foot, a thunderfire, and 2 Attk bikes and haven't even come close to being wiped. Seeing as pods come in turn 1 guaranteed, not turn 2 at best like flyers.

With the quad gun they would only be able to negate a single shot from that wound pool would they not?

Sadly only your Sternboys can take the heavy flamer (which imo they should).

You 'can' be tabled in turn one by an equally aggressive alpha list. 2 deathwing/5 pod list could do it handilly (10 terminators and 30 (6 combat squads) tacticals in your face turn one)

No they only get 1LOS per wound not wound pool. So 3 wounds is 3 los's.

And what would that deathwing have to start on the table? That's a lot of points tied into the 5 pods and deathwing. I'm sure I can be tabled but your talking about killing 30 marines(20 in rhinos 10 in 3+ cover), a t7 thunderfire in 3+ cover, and 2 non squadroned Attk bikes. To make that happen would be pretty difficult at 2k points I think.

Sorry, that was a reply to iGuy91's proposed ground forces. Your's are much more durable. The current Deathwing assault allows for ALL your terminators to come down not just half as before (if thats what you were asking). And the general point I was making is just that anything 'can' happen. "Plan to win or you plan to fail" and all that jazz ya know?

Ahhh, yes I completely agree! Gotta be in it to win it and not be scared to lose for sure!

I'm just going to second the posts that talk about Iron clads. the extra AV really helps because now crack gernades can't touch it so you are just dealing with power fists and those can only glance on a 5+ most of the time.

With ironclads I'm more worried about torrent of str 7/8 fire and gauss. Once your in combat it's no sweat and you know it'll do it's job. I like them occasionally though. 2 ironclads in DP's backed up by 2 vindicators is only 600 points and makes for a nasty day versus anything but flyers.

Yeah, I just worry about being out of melta range with the standard meltagun. Obviously aside from the av 13, what makes the ironclad the way to go? it does certainly cost a bit more

An extra point of armor(this is bigger than you think), an extra close combat attack, and move through cover(meaning no immobilized), and an ap1 attack against tanks at str 10 for only 40 points more than a MM/HF dread.

ICs are great, use ironclad launchers to boost cover and deploy 6 from pod into a ruin.

Pod alphastrike is horrific and very hard to deploy against, especially for elite armies, but hordes too as their mass gets impeded by the pods.

Even one pod backed with a high volume of fire HS choice can make a murderous choke point, at minimum an annoyance to use a mob/brood dealing with it.

One note about podding dreads is the FW Lucius pattern Drop Pod . This allows ICs to assault the turn they arrive, which can be devastating.

I run a Contemptor Mortis in a Lucius with my 2x 10 man sterns in my alpha strike, and it absolutely decimates the opponent and freaks them the hell out. He dosn't assault but I find that anything nasty that survives the alpha tends to shoot at him almost exclusively, sparing the sterns for another round of special ammo shooting in many cases.

You could also do this with an IC by creating a CC buffer to block LOS between your sterns and some nasty unit you don't want shooting at them (lootas, devestators, LRBTs ect...). Just make sure you leave a unit alive in between your sterns and the shooty unit you want to block, and tie it up in CC with the Dread. Just make sure to preserve a way for them to get LOS back for their next turn of firing.

Hope that helps