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Why doesn't the CSM codex have drop pods available? Their are literally 2 options for transporting your guys into combat/around the field and both (in my opinion) are not all that great.
But in the Lore CSM's have access to nearly everything their loyalist counterparts do....

and also do any of you think it would be okay to run drop pods in an allied detachment?

My guess would be that fluffwise it's because of the hit-and-run style tactics of Chaos Marines; they've lost too many pods over the years for it to be a viable representative tactic.

Gamewise, Chaos has a lot that normal marines don't, and they had to lose something for it. Drop Pods seem like a reasonable thing to cut.

And no, it wouldn't be okay to put pods in an allied detachment. Unless I missed something, there's no legal way to do that.

I was so hoping the dreadclaw would make an appearance in this past dex. It didn't have to be troop DT, maybe just for chosen or the like?

 Lobukia wrote:
I was so hoping the dreadclaw would make an appearance in this past dex. It didn't have to be troop DT, maybe just for chosen or the like?

I agree. Pods are epic.

I'm making a SM army because I can't have drop pods in csm . It's just such a disappointing loss honestly. Anyways, the reason is there is no reason! It's just that the developers chose to pick that out. We are CSM and unlike other loyalists we are much different in that we arfe an odd mess of many traits. Warbands are the primary component (although Word Bearers are still very much legion) but often times these warbands are of a specific legion (Night, Iron Warriors, with no other former legion). And then you have newly formed warbands. To be honest, not a single thing SM has would make much sense for CSM also to have but in an attempt to differentiate them, things are removed. Sometimes this is alright, other times irritating, and then sometimes it's things like the loss of drop pods further limiting interesting ways to deploy CSM that really either have to ride rhinos and raiders (and very little diversity with either) or footslog.

Anyways, onto your question. It depends not on us but upon the enemy. Do you have a group of friends? If you want to, ask them. See if you can rob the foolish corpse worshipers of their precious drop pods and mark them free of Imperial service. Perhaps they might be 100% okay, perhaps at a limit of 0-1, perhaps only on specific units, or maybe it might just be denied entirely. Us internet folk aren't likely going to be able to play many games against you alas.

There is no reason other than the lack of a model. They exist in the background, models have existed with Forge World, and Chaos Marines are perfectly likely to be a fleet-based Warband. Plenty of Claws survived the Heresy and plenty of Marines have gone renegade with the new ones.

Unfortunately, they simply weren't given rules. Tyranids previously had the Mycetic Spores and so orbital-insertions were hardly a Marine-exclusive strategy (Admittedly they are now, but that seems model-related rather than rules or background).

Maybe next time they'll get them, and the CSM will rejoice at the news. But for now you get nothing, unless the Forge World Kharibdyss Pod gets 40k rules.

I honestly don't know, I think Drop Pods might be a later-heresy-era type deal or something, not sure. The CSM do get Dreadclaws which are pretty much a better version so if you wanted to you could use those, but unfortunately they take Fast Attack slots. Still, they are flyers and assault vehicles so excellent for delivering a CC squad into a prime target.

Well admittedly that argument falls apart when we realize CSM have forgeworlds, newer armies fall to chaos, and the fact that SM also have a lot of pre heresy tech that csm don't even get (grav guns as a new example) but yet again it's the attempt to differentiate for better or worse. It's kind of like having the BA codices and the other loyalists. Why bother with playing SM if BA have everything SM have plus extra units? Well then, how do you differentiate them? By arbitrarily handing them grav guns whilst not giving DA grav guns. Does it make all that much sense? No, not really. But imagine CSM? What is csm. It represents many things. SM that are pirates, marines that don't listen to the imperium, marines that use chaos weapons against chaos, the ancient legions, new warbands, etc. Chaos would have everything plus more. Heck, look at apocalypse forgeworld. I think the only thing chaos doesn't get that imperial gets in superheavies is the thunderhawk and even then it would make sense for chaos to nab a thunderhawk. But how is this fun per say for the Imperial player? It's an odd little trap we are stuck in.

 StarTrotter wrote:
Heck, look at apocalypse forgeworld. I think the only thing chaos doesn't get that imperial gets in superheavies is the thunderhawk and even then it would make sense for chaos to nab a thunderhawk.

Actually, there's a Chaos Thunderhawk in IA Apocalypse 2013.

Bah! Yeah I was kinda guessing at that point admittedly.

I know it is or was FW, but wasnt there a Dreadclaw pod' for CSM?
True, something like that WOULD be great and suit the chaos playstyle, but i think Jimsolo is right, they did have to have some give and take. Personally, I think they shold have "lost" something else like daemons (they can just ally with daemons now) or make some of the more powerful items a litle erratic or something like that.
Overall though, When I played chaos or chaos space marines, the lack of pods never really inhibited me.

They had drop pods pre heresy, hence the istvaan dropsite massacre. I guess you could always play SM counts as chaos if you were wanting pods officially, but as far as fluff goes I would say that standard Chaos Space Marines probably lost their pods long ago, or they loaded them with bombs and dropped them on an orphanage, you never know with those guys. Plus i always figured that they have pretty much NO standardized supply lines or manufacturing capabilities so having ready made disposable things like drop pods in quantity would be hard. I believe in the new codex it even says that power armor is a rare item for CSM and they are constantly murdering each other (well, more often than normal) for some. Things like dreadclaws are nifty, and I think if they had a drop pod it should be some crazy possessed type thing that will eat things inside of it or nearby if they aren't careful, maybe it turns into a low strength walker with lashers on it.

Its a game design thing. If Chaos Marines have everything that loyalists have, plus extra Chaos toys, there would be little point having a loyalist marine codex, since everything in it would also be in the other book...

In order to keep the factions distinct, Chaos swap out some loyalist gear for their other toys.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 generalchaos34 wrote:
They had drop pods pre heresy, hence the istvaan dropsite massacre. .

'Drop site' is just another word for 'landing zone'... It's nothing to do with drop pods specifically, which in the novel covering that battle, didn't get a mention.

Then why did they give obliterators and mutilators to normal marines ?

 insaniak wrote:
Its a game design thing. If Chaos Marines have everything that loyalists have, plus extra Chaos toys, there would be little point having a loyalist marine codex, since everything in it would also be in the other book...

In order to keep the factions distinct, Chaos swap out some loyalist gear for their other toys.

QFT
You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 EVIL INC wrote:
I know it is or was FW, but wasnt there a Dreadclaw pod' for CSM?
True, something like that WOULD be great and suit the chaos playstyle, but i think Jimsolo is right, they did have to have some give and take. Personally, I think they shold have "lost" something else like daemons (they can just ally with daemons now) or make some of the more powerful items a litle erratic or something like that.
Overall though, When I played chaos or chaos space marines, the lack of pods never really inhibited me.

Unless it is apoc magpie magpie it all!

The only problem with that is that the daemon models in the CSM codex don't really fit that well with the rest of the daemon codex and it also makes them not work as well together. BB isn't really anything great for CSM or CD. It means you can cast spells on eachother and a few other minor bits. Also taking chaos stuff out would make it feel even more SMish arguably. I also would argue that CSM are already erratic. They might get swept, might not, they have preferred enemy and hatred Space Marines and or Imperium but it only works against them, daemon weapons hurt yourself on a 1 and make your ws and bs 1, and even the killy axe of blind furry has a chance of chopping yourself apart, and oblits have to swap weapons around. I will admit, I would have rather lost something else in the place of drop pods. I don't really think that game wise they are that great, but it's a unique way of deployment that would be exhilerating. Rhinos, terminators, jump units, a single outflank model on a very restrivtive unit, land raider, and 1 random roll on the warlord table (which is random d3 infiltrate infantry. Also it is on Ahriman and Huron) feels like very little fresh ways of deployment which admittedly is saddening as it forces one to rhino it up or it forces you to footslog which can be agonizingly painful (and take longer) but they can't really just give CSM all the SM bits. Although I still say they should have given us legion rules and one warband (for Huron who best represents more recent warbands).

But yeah, fluff wise chaos gets it cake and eats it too but that wouldn't be very fun to play would it? An army that is truly SM+ would be an insult to SM and inconsiderate to their players.

Makumba wrote:
Then why did they give obliterators and mutilators to normal marines ?

Touché.

 Lobukia wrote:

Makumba wrote:
Then why did they give obliterators and mutilators to normal marines ?

Touché.

When did that happen?

And they still haven't given them Berserkers, Thousand Sons, Noise Marines, or Plague Guard. Or Hellturkeys. Or daemon princes. Or Chaos Boons. Or possessed.

I agree that Drop Pods are a great piece of equipment, but I also think it's completely reasonable to deny them to Chaos.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:

Makumba wrote:
Then why did they give obliterators and mutilators to normal marines ?

Touché.

When did that happen?

And they still haven't given them Berserkers, Thousand Sons, Noise Marines, or Plague Guard. Or Hellturkeys. Or daemon princes. Or Chaos Boons. Or possessed.

I agree that Drop Pods are a great piece of equipment, but I also think it's completely reasonable to deny them to Chaos.

When did that happen? When Centurions were invented out of whole cloth because GW needed to find a niche the loyalists didn't already have filled (yeah yeah they're not the same thing, but it was a joke). Centurions were made up for business reasons and stole from the Obliterator playbook. Ignoring fluff to make sales.

Similarly, strictly based on fluff, there's zero reason to deny drop pods to CSM. It purely comes down to differentiating the codexes, which again is probably about sales.

And CSM can keep all of the things you listed - aside from Plague Marines and Hellturkeys they're terrible anyway.

Please oh please take chaos boons in particular. We will gladly trade that for your chapter tactics.

 StarTrotter wrote:
Please oh please take chaos boons in particular. We will gladly trade that for your chapter tactics.

Give away Champions of Chaos to sweeten the deal.

World Eaters explicitly used drop pods all the time. Even in the Horus Heresy rule books it states as much. Same with the Night Lords.

So really they should have them, have always had them. but we have to pay 150 quid for a FW one.

Which really sucks, since I'd probably buy 3 if we got them. That's the only think missing from our Codex that really bugs me.

Sure we don't get the funcier LRs and vehicles. but very little reason not to have DPs.

CSM are meant to be the mirror darkly of the good guys.

Even if they just gave TSs Derp Strike and just let the Zerkers have access to the pods, that would make a lot more sense.

Will wait and see if these fabled suppliments come out and let specific legions use them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and Jim Solo:

Berserkers - that Blood Angel frenzied unit I forget what they're called.
Thousand Sons - storm shields kick 4+ ass plus vengance ammo + Legion of the damned look awesome
Noise Marines - Grav Guns are better,
Plague Marines - White Scar bikers as troops (? I know I'm reaching here)
Hellturkeys - without these we'd just be boned
Daemon princes. - Too expensive to field without mass cultist armies
Chaos Boons - feel free to take em along with the dumb challenge rule.
Possessed - too expensive so you won't see them too often. Besides... legion of the damned again!

The Exhalted's Warband of Nightlords were notoriously poorly equipped, with most of their equipment scavenged and in poor supply and yet they made full use of drop pods all the time. In fact as Chaos it is way less viable to launch complex and rare pieces of machinery like Thunderhawks every time they invade a place, than it is to just drop a cheap STC pod on a place and collect it later. Drop pods are really basic tech in 40k. The only reason guard don't use them is that the inertia would kill a standard human. There is no reason why all Marines, chaos or otherwise, can't have a ton of them. Even if you could argue that maybe Chaos have less of a supply chain, they board and steal imperial vessels all the time, it wouldn't be too far fetched to take the hundreds of pods in said ships. It's purely a game quirk with no relation to the fluff. If Chaos don't have a standard flying transport in the codex, or drop pods, then how the hell do they even get planetside in the first place?

We use expensive FW items.... Like Storm Eagles (Which I am yet to glue together).

But you could say the same thing about Rhinos, Titans (especially since they take even longer to get off world), Bolters and Frag grenades.

But as someone already said, we have our own forge worlds, where they crank out the deamon engines.

I just hope that they don't diverge too far from the Space Marines to make them totally different. Otherwise we'd just be playing a Deamon Codex.

I'd love to see a Chaos Guard codex, or suppliment at least.

After all, who doesn't like playing the baddies.

There is no real legit reason. The Legions use them in the fluff quite often for their surprise attacks along with Deathstorm Drop pods to clear landing areas, but for some reason GW decided not to include them, not even Dreadclaws which should have been an auto-include.
They also use thunderhawks and presumably captured Stormravens.

For the same reason Tyranids no longer have spores.