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Well Dakka, I'm stumped. I've been playing for almost a year now, usually 5 or more games a month, so I've gotten a LOT of experience playing my Orks, and I can usually hold my own in a battle. Yesterday, however, I got my big green butt handed to me by space wolves in drop pods. There were 5 of them, and they came down and crushed me, 5-0. Does anyone know of a good tactic to defend against drop pods when they deploy? ADLs don't work because they bring flamers, and vehicles don't work because they bring meltas. I can't figure out how to keep from getting crushed. I need some assistance!

easy use boys to to make a wall for the juice targets and remember to spread them out

What was your opponents list?

What was your list?

Pods have wrecked my boyz a few times as well due to the double standard of "flamer and melta at full effect but feth assault"

Pods are usually countered by big blobs of boyz to prevent them from landing next to something important. Almost every droppod unit has short range weapons, 24" being the best (and usually bolters). The weapons he wants to use are the flamers/meltas, so what if he kills a handful of boyz with them? 2" spread means he might torch 4-5 boyz or so wounding on 4s, and melta against any non-termie or vehicle is just lawlsy

I brought six battle wagons because I wanted to try it out. I had expected him to bring more than one vehicle, but the one predator that he did bring was an afterthought. Three nob squads, 5 ea including painboy, with two PKs, a mega armored warboss, KFF, and three squads of 20 boys. He brought 5 tac squads, 8 ea (7 regular, 1 flamer or melta), with one special wolf (I think lone wolf or grey hunter, I honestly can't remember) in terminator armor with a combi waepon, a pack of rocket artillery out of an Imperial Armour book, some long fangs with rockets, and two rune priests.
I tried my best to spread the boys around, keeping them all in range of the KFF to make it more difficult to blast the wagons, but he cleared out enough to take one of them out bottom of first turn, giving him first blood. He killed one entire squad of boys flat and maimed the other two pretty badly. That was only on first turn (which you can do. Drop pod assault armies bring no less than half their pods automatically first turn and they can't mishap). Almost half of my force was wiped clean first turn and there was nothing I could do about it. I deff rolled everything I could reach second turn, aiming at the pods, and assaulted everything else, while sending my warboss and one nob squad up field to try and squelch the long range fire from the plasma tank and rockets. Another pod came in turn three and smooshed more boys, while the meltas took out another wagon. It went on like this until he tabled me at the end of turn 5. I put up a good scrap, managing to take out a lot of his guys, but only three full units actually died (not including the pods that blew up).

So basically, if I know I'm going to be facing a potential drop pod army, take boys, boys, more boys, and maybe a few more boys, and spread them out in the beginning. Is letting him have first turn a good idea? That way I don't have to waste a turn letting him hide across the board?

6 battlewagons!?!? good grief were you playing a doublefoc game or something? i can never even afford more than 3 unless i forego loota or dakkajet or follow-me trukks backup lol.

Trukk lists will just fall over to pod lists. He will get melta shots no matter how bad he scatters, and usually on rear armor or at worst side armor (which is almost an auto-pen on a double D6 roll, since average 2D6 is a 7)

Plus side though, that was just a bad matchup. Wagon spam is a valid tactic if you got a KFF or two around, just not against lists that can insta-gib your rear armor that quick lol and droppod lists are kinda getting rare outside the "fun" games.

The 6 wagons were really all I had; no lootas, no jets. There were quite a few PKs about, and the deff rollas did a lot of damage, but he was just too darn shooty. I couldn't compensate from the slaughter he brought on first turn.

That's probably the bigger problem than those drop pods

If you bring too many toyz, your model count will drop too low, and all orks have to defend against shooting is model count.

If you drop to 4 wagons and start adding fire support (koptaz/jets/lootaz) those pods will become much less of an issue.

Another old trick vs drop pods is gretchin. Get a unit of 29 Gretchin (or 3 units of 10 if FOC allows) and deploy them behind your battlewagons, spaced out to the max. Keep just enough room between them and the gretchin so that no drop pod fits in there (measure the pod if necessary). Meltas aren't as scary if they can't reach your battlewagons - and well, we don't care if they start flaming gretchin, they are meatshields anyways. If your opponent is not running drop pods, reserve those units and have them run onto objectives when they come on.

I quite like getting a marine drop pod in my lines early on, as I always keep back my lootas and a unit of grots and my BW with KFF and 19 shoota boyz are usually in range, the marine player usually comes off hurting alot more than I do.

There's always the risk he'll pop the BW but the squad doesn't normally survive the retaliation.

10 space marines firing bolters
20 shots
14 hit
7 wound
KFF Saves (you have one of these right?) make 4-5 dead orks

25 shoota boys shoot
50 shots
17 hit
9 wound
3 space marines die

... then you charge and we know how that goes.

Yes, there may be a flamer in there and yes JotWW hurts... but 30 space marines in drop pods get run da efff over by orks. Meltas hurt the battlewagons, yes, but you should relish the opportunity to have your opponent set up half his army within assault range.

That's the way it SHOULD go, but somehow it always ends up that more than half of my boys die, even with a KFF. I'll see what happens next time. I'm pretty sure that Yaki (the SW guy) will be willing to take the same list again, just so I can try a different tactic. Thanks for all the advice, Dakka!

Thatguyoverthere11 wrote:
but 30 space marines in drop pods get run da efff over by orks. Meltas hurt the battlewagons, yes, but you should relish the opportunity to have your opponent set up half his army within assault range.

The thing is, if both parties play to events that are happening it always goes in the favor of the Drop pods. You lump your boys up and take maximum damage or you 2" space them to protect key units/models/vehicles and now you have to make a charge where a lot of your boys don't make it into engaged status while the SWs are fighting at maximum unit effieciency. Effectivly piecemealing you in assault as well. Termie Wolfguard with axe vs. power claw nob. Nob wins most of the time but only has a chance to kill 1 model.

Playing against pods is rough, especially if it's at a higher points total where they can bring pods with a cornucopia of options to pick from, to drop on you.

I was thinking about that one, too, Goat. If my boys are barely in coherency, there goes a ton of pain when the charge comes. Though, there is a 6" move plus an average of 5-8" charge move, and the pod guys won't be THAT far away, so a lot of boys will get into combat range, especially if you roll well on the charge. I'll have to try it out to see, I guess.