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Hey mates, after taking a break from 40k to work, I have decided to jump back in and from looking around, I have always wanted to try out a Drop Pod list as it is very unique to what I am used to. Anyways, I am just looking for tactical advice on how to run a drop pod army in this edition. Any advice, tactics, tips, or anything you can give me related to either of these lists would be much appreciated, especially in this edition since the New Space Marine Book came out, so Im sure there are a lot of good ideas out there that I could try running, as the Marine book has a lot of stuff to chose from. Such as:

* Which Army Tactic/Special Rule would fit best in a drop pod list?

* Any advice on Running a Drop Pod Army out of the Blood Angels Codex?

* Which Units would work best in a Drop Pod List?

* What Support units would work best in a Drop Pod List.

Appreciate the help mates.

One of the most effective atm (on paper and according to the net - I've not personally seen it) is a salamander drop list with Vulkan. It makes all flamer and melta weapons doubly dangerous. And a couple of units of legion of the dammned, ignoring cover, apparently really benefits from this set up.

Poly Ranger wrote:
One of the most effective atm (on paper and according to the net - I've not personally seen it) is a salamander drop list with Vulkan. It makes all flamer and melta weapons doubly dangerous. And a couple of units of legion of the dammned, ignoring cover, apparently really benefits from this set up.

Legion of the Damned are a great choice with this chapter tactic, and are much cheaper then Sternguard. Though Legion of the Damned cannot take a Drop Pod they can bring the pain in the second turn after your initial "Alpha Strike" Pods have hit. Some good tips that I got from a player who runs a Salamander Drop Pod army to great effect:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Salamanders_Tactica%2C_or%2C_How_to_Turn_up_the_Heat!

Another thing to realize that I have found in this edition is to "never go full Drop Pod" meaning putting everything in Drop Pods is not the way to go. I only mention this as since shooting is so potent in this edition and with alot of armies having the majority of their forces on the board with your army coming in piecemeal they dont hold up long, can say this from experience. A squad or two of Centurion Devastators or even some Termies in a Land Raider would not be a bad idea.

 Rommel44 wrote:
* Which Army Tactic/Special Rule would fit best in a drop pod list?

Salamanders is nice as your going to be up close.
Imperial fists is nice as you will be able to take advantage of bolter drill and tank hunters
Ultramarines is nice for the flexability.
White scars gives your entire army hit and run.
Iron hands gives your entire army an extra 1/6 durability.
In fact the only one that's lame is Raven guard, who got the shaft in this codex.

Go through and look at the special characters too. Some are pretty good. Tigerious is awesome for drop pod armies, for example.

 Rommel44 wrote:
* Any advice on Running a Drop Pod Army out of the Blood Angels Codex?

Use them as 'counts as' for normal marines now.
If you really want to use the BA codex, bring a lot of aspirin.

 Rommel44 wrote:
* Which Units would work best in a Drop Pod List?

Your going to want a lot of tactical marines. You might want to take sternguard after that. You can play with honor guard too, I've had more luck with them than I was initially expecting.

 Rommel44 wrote:
* What Support units would work best in a Drop Pod List.

Flyers. One of the best advantages of a drop pod army is your giving a null deployment to your opponent. So he does not have anything to do on the first turn if you go second. By doing this, you can only have one item in reserve normally (like a land raider). Everything else needs to be in a unit that must start in reserve (flyers or pods)

Edit :
This is the list I ran this past weekend. Its the same concept as a drop pod army, but very flyer heavy with 3 pods.
Oh -- always take odd numbers of pods.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/560931.page

I don't necessarily agree that BA drops are that ineffectve. A furioso has a lot of pros over an ironclad, death co dropped are a massive threat, sternguard with combis are 2 points cheaper and assault squads get free pods. In fact, a BA assault squad in a pod is 5pts cheaper than a vanilla tac squad in a pod. And lastly, a pod army is one of the few builds that will let you include the best BA spec character - Corbulo.
The major downside to assault squads taking transports is that you don't get a reduction on the 6th to 10th men, so unless you wan't to pay a tax, your scoring squads are only 5 man.

Poly Ranger wrote:
I don't necessarily agree that BA drops are that ineffectve. A furioso has a lot of pros over an ironclad, death co dropped are a massive threat, sternguard with combis are 2 points cheaper and assault squads get free pods. In fact, a BA assault squad in a pod is 5pts cheaper than a vanilla tac squad in a pod. And lastly, a pod army is one of the few builds that will let you include the best BA spec character - Corbulo.
The major downside to assault squads taking transports is that you don't get a reduction on the 6th to 10th men, so unless you wan't to pay a tax, your scoring squads are only 5 man.

Well, the problem is about the meta.
* Dreads just don't compete in today's meta. In August I played my buddy who brought 6 dreads in pods against my wave serpents. He would drop down, take one shot at a serpent and I would hop behind his dread and glance it to death with scatter lasers.

* Assault marines / death company just are not that big of a threat. Yes, 10 assault marines are 5 points cheaper than tacs -- but bring a lot less firepower to the table. Bolt pistols deliver 50% the firepower output at close range and 0% the firepower output at long range. 6th edition is the edition of shooting for a reason. Dropping down next to Tau or Eldar with the plans to assault will just leave marines standing out in the open waiting to get shot.

* BA don't get chapter tactics. Some of those rules are really quite good. Hit and Run for your entire army is amazing, as it means you cannot get caught in a battle you don't want to. In my last game, a CM ran into a squad of marines and after 3 rounds he managed to kill 7 with his hammer. If I had hit and run I could have bounced out and shot another target in the face.

* If your looking for deep striking melta, you should look into LotD. They are actually pretty good at the role.

Overall, I'm with you on --wanting-- BA to have a good drop pod army, but they just don't have what it takes at this point. I'm sure that will be fixed at a later date, and until then they can just run 'counts as' space marines.

All valid points. C:SM does do drop better for cheaper. But BA drop can still cause problems against non ws eldar or jetpacking armies if dropped en mass. Against eldar and tau it just won't work as they will just move out of assault range and stay out of assault range whilst taking you apart with mass mid strength shots. Which is pretty much what you've just said...

Now I could see an argument made for using jump pack DoA style over drop pods.

You see, once you drop down you have that 12" move before you assault - which means that your effective threat range is 18". Now that's a lot more dangerous to things like wave serpents.

I keep hoping that a supplement will come out allowing C:SM raven guard to take assaults as troops.

I disagree with the BA not doing well, here is a descent of angels army that works well for me very often


Captian Tycho-175
Mephiston- 250 (in storm raven)
Tac squad w/ meltagun and MM in pod- 210
Tac squad w/ flamer and HB in pod- 195
10 assault marines w/ 2 flamers power maul sgt in pod- 215
2 sang priests, and corbulo. Sang priests have power fists- 255
8 man Sternguard w/ 4 combi meltas 1 heavy flamer in pod Sgt has power sword-250
Furiso libby dreadnaught in pod- 210
Storm raven w/ extra armor HB sponson, AC and LC-240

Use the search function man! The following is a four page argument about drop pod list 'best practices.' Post new-dex.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/551489.page

there is a fine fellow whos name escapes me who has a whole artivle on how to use salmanader dro pod tactics.

he has a dud with a big hat and 2 pistols on his profile pic. might be mistaken though....