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So I just purchased a solo drop pod to run some sternguard (combi-meltas, the whole deal).

After getting home and prepping some sprues I re-read the drop pod rules only to find that you have to place half of you drop pods (round up) on the board turn 1.
So it looks like these guys are coming in turn one.
:(.

This gives me much less of a tactical advantage as I had previously thought I would get. If i try and get close to any juicy targets I will most likely be in close proximity to the rest of my opponents entire army.
I feel like my sternguard just became even more of a suicide unit.

Has any one else had much luck running a single drop pod? Do you get right up in their face? Or set down next to an objective further back and wait it out?

I am also curious if the Deathwind ML would be a nice addition to the up close and personal option.

I am trying to refrain from turning my army into a pod army (Ive got tanks up the waazoo)

Yes, it is a much better option to have 2 drop pods in an army or more, I`m afraid your gonna have to get a new one if you don`t want your sternguard to get blown to bits just after their turn...

A single drop pod with 10 sternguard is a great alpha strike setup and if they all have combi meltas, they can drop, combat squad and blast two things dead.

A deathwind is great for area denial against enemy hordes, such as near objectives and what have you.

Finally as vanilla marines, you can use combat tactics to fall back when needing to take a test, thus if any sternguard die after the enemies first turn of shooting, you can fall back if 2 guys in a 5 man die, or 3 in a 10 man. Then regroup for free next turn and keep the power coming.

One drop pod can be used effectively. While it suggests suicide, it does not demand it. You don't -need- to drop straight into the teeth of your opponent, but there are times you will want to.

If you drop off to a flank, odd are you will only have one or two units able to fire on you. And one of those you just unloaded on. The rest of your army should also be advancing/doing their thing, so can't just be ignored.

A lot of people suggest running pods at odd numbers, just to maximize the first turn impact. I think 3 makes for a nice compromise for hybrid armies. Drop sternguard and a dread fist turn, and keep a tac squad in orbit for a late game objective grab.

Single pods are nice if you want to bring melta to armor turn 1. I've seen quite a few battle reports of five+ combi-meltas wrecking Land Raiders on turn 1. And even if the guys are killed off afterwards, the opponent is wasting some of their manpower on that squad instead of what's coming their way across the table.

If your going with 1 DP, I suggest filling it with only a 5man sternguard unit with x4 combi meltas. But that will be a sucide unit, that can get you first blood and pop something tasty.

Sam918

Drop pod assault is great. You don't want your forces in reserve. You want them killing from turn 1. That being said, it's important you get some support for the sternguard because they are too expensive to suicide, imo.

Remember, even if you want to have a full Drop Pod army, you still have to buy them and paint them one at a time. It is not a waste, it is an investment!!
A single Sternguard Drop Pod can be effective and game changing. Either use it wisely or suicidaly depending on situation. In a recent game i sacrificed a full Sternguard squad turn 1 as i landed in the middle of an entire imperial guard regiment but they won me the game as upon landing they took out 2 Leman Russes (squadroned) and a manticore. My Predator took out the second manticore and it was almost game over from there..

It is an investment! I'd playtest using cups or soda cans first. You don't want to buy and assemble and paint 5 drop pods and then decide you don't like a drop pod army!

 Nevelon wrote:
One drop pod can be used effectively. While it suggests suicide, it does not demand it. You don't -need- to drop straight into the teeth of your opponent, but there are times you will want to.

If you drop off to a flank, odd are you will only have one or two units able to fire on you. And one of those you just unloaded on. The rest of your army should also be advancing/doing their thing, so can't just be ignored.

A lot of people suggest running pods at odd numbers, just to maximize the first turn impact. I think 3 makes for a nice compromise for hybrid armies. Drop sternguard and a dread fist turn, and keep a tac squad in orbit for a late game objective grab.

Ahh, nice alternatives here thanks!

One stern, one fragnought, and one tactical squad is exactly what I drop in my jumper/drop pod list. To scale it up for big games, I drop an additional fragnought and tactical squad.

drop pods. nothing like making those termies get out and walk before they even get to go.

I like to put locators on drop pods and beam in shooty terminators with a priest. Not sure how good that *really* is, but it doesn't suck and is very fluffy.

Martel732 wrote:
I like to put locators on drop pods

It really bugs me in PUGs when my opponent doesn't tell me that they have a locator beacon on their pod. I would have shot the damn thing if I knew your assault terminators were going to pin point next turn -_-

 Griddlelol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I like to put locators on drop pods

It really bugs me in PUGs when my opponent doesn't tell me that they have a locator beacon on their pod. I would have shot the damn thing if I knew your assault terminators were going to pin point next turn -_-

In fact, I do this to make my drop pods legitimate targets. They are AV 12, which can suck down quite a few kraks on average. They still need a 5 or 6 to explode, after 5 or 6 to pen. Not great odds.

 Griddlelol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I like to put locators on drop pods

It really bugs me in PUGs when my opponent doesn't tell me that they have a locator beacon on their pod. I would have shot the damn thing if I knew your assault terminators were going to pin point next turn -_-

I was curious about this.

The locator beacon entry states that a unit must have the beacon on the table before the pod is dropped.
The cost for a beacon in the drop pod section is 15 points cheaper than it is in the scout bikes section.

So if you take a drop pod and a locator beacon are you allowed to just give it to any unit that is on foot? Or does it have to go to a squad that has the ability to take it? and then at what price point??

BoniFactor wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I like to put locators on drop pods

It really bugs me in PUGs when my opponent doesn't tell me that they have a locator beacon on their pod. I would have shot the damn thing if I knew your assault terminators were going to pin point next turn -_-

I was curious about this.

The locator beacon entry states that a unit must have the beacon on the table before the pod is dropped.
The cost for a beacon in the drop pod section is 15 points cheaper than it is in the scout bikes section.

So if you take a drop pod and a locator beacon are you allowed to just give it to any unit that is on foot? Or does it have to go to a squad that has the ability to take it? and then at what price point??

The locator is attached to the drop pod and cant be removed

Thatguyhsagun wrote:

BoniFactor wrote:

 Griddlelol wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I like to put locators on drop pods

It really bugs me in PUGs when my opponent doesn't tell me that they have a locator beacon on their pod. I would have shot the damn thing if I knew your assault terminators were going to pin point next turn -_-

I was curious about this.

The locator beacon entry states that a unit must have the beacon on the table before the pod is dropped.
The cost for a beacon in the drop pod section is 15 points cheaper than it is in the scout bikes section.

So if you take a drop pod and a locator beacon are you allowed to just give it to any unit that is on foot? Or does it have to go to a squad that has the ability to take it? and then at what price point??

The locator is attached to the drop pod and cant be removed

So then as far as using it when deep striking a drop pod you just pick a spot and place your pod 6" from there? I assume no scatter, correct?

no the drop pod drops as normal and scatters. Its the units that arrive after the drop pod has already dropped and its contents have been placed that can be placed withen 6" of the locator beacon without scattering.

the locator beacon has to be in play the turn before the pod would deepstrike, meaning if another Drop Pod had a locator and had DS'd last turn it can be used in the way you described.

Thatguyhsagun wrote:
the locator beacon has to be in play the turn before the pod would deepstrike, meaning if another Drop Pod had a locator and had DS'd last turn it can be used in the way you described.

Okay I think im getting this

So your first turn assault pods get the locator beacon so that your reserve pods can deep strike 6" from the first set.

Yes, if you give the pod a locator beacon and it comes in turn 1, than all other reserves coming in turn 2+ can arrive via deep strike within 6" without scattering, provided the Drop Pod is not destroyed

It's really cool for pin point dropping terminators with a heavy flamer. BA shooty terminators with a priest are decent vs plasma, but still bit it hard against melta, etc.

Well I'd say it depends of your enemy army. If there's some powerful enemy tank you want to get rid of in the first turn (basilisk, land raider etc.) In that case you should drop down on their flank and fire the meltas. It will need a miracle to survive. And then you just have to survive and hope enemy doesn't blow up your guys. (Sorry, it seems harsh I know, but you just can't help it).

Of course, there's another way. If the enemy doesn't have any big tank as huge threat, you can always drop them on an objective, take cover and hold it until your allies come.

I always drop mine near the enemy ADL and hop over with the Disembarkation move, rapid fire things to death and enjoy the cover save. Heavy/Combi flamers work well for mass wounding

 soomemafia wrote:
Well I'd say it depends of your enemy army. If there's some powerful enemy tank you want to get rid of in the first turn (basilisk, land raider etc.) In that case you should drop down on their flank and fire the meltas. It will need a miracle to survive. And then you just have to survive and hope enemy doesn't blow up your guys. (Sorry, it seems harsh I know, but you just can't help it).

Of course, there's another way. If the enemy doesn't have any big tank as huge threat, you can always drop them on an objective, take cover and hold it until your allies come.

This is why I drop in 8 sternguards with corbs and a libby. The libby can put up shield of sanguinius on my opponent's shooting phase. Yay for two 5++ saves vs plasma! Oh, and once Corbs sucked up an entire war walker squadron shooting him and took only 1 wound. The Eldar were not amused, because I had fragged his second squad after the drop. My libby didn't get to cast shield though :(

Sternguard can threaten practically anything. It doesn't have to be tanks. MCs go down to 2+ poison ammo, and shifty Eldar get hit with no cover saves. And big nasty paladins can all take combi-meltas to the face! I almost never use the AP 3 ammo; wound on a 2+ is usually fine for meqs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Thatguyhsagun wrote:
I always drop mine near the enemy ADL and hop over with the Disembarkation move, rapid fire things to death and enjoy the cover save. Heavy/Combi flamers work well for mass wounding

Sternguards don't need flamers; they have no cover save ammo AND wound on 2+ ammo. These will both cause mass casualties.

Genius.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:


Sternguards don't need flamers; they have no cover save ammo AND wound on 2+ ammo. These will both cause mass casualties.

A safeguard you can use if you don't want to suicide ur sternguard try taking a dpod for a unit and drop it empty and let the stern pod drop later

Thatguyhsagun wrote:
Genius.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:


Sternguards don't need flamers; they have no cover save ammo AND wound on 2+ ammo. These will both cause mass casualties.

But when theres a 50-man blob, 30 boys, or enough units no matter the bolter shots you wont kill than the flamers are a good idea. If I can kill max 20 boyz with bolter rounds, imagine flamer template in that mob. easily 6-8 more hits than I would normally get

Well if I planned on jumping on hard cover to snatch an objective why would I risk hitting my own guys with templates or waste shooting when I have the ability to make the most effect with just one squad? Ill admit its not a 100% of the time scenario but it happens quite often. People ADL an objective and stick some squads back there. When this happens I run in there and give it the whole "Cleansing Flame" treatment. I play vanilla and I drop 10 (5 melta 5 flamer) with vulkan in and a libby. Libby goes one way, vulkan the other. Generally I can both get a russ/big bad tank and clear out a squad with the one suicide squad, and make my life that much easier