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Hello everyone, just curious what everyone thinks. I am considering building a Drop Pod army to add on to my Air Cav Elysians and wanted to know your opinions: Is it better to go pure pod and get as many men on the table first turn? Or to add support units like Centurion Devastators, ect. and have them start on the board with Pods coming in? Just curious as we had a great debate at my FLGS about this a few days ago.

Edit: oh you removed the list.......

It depends on your air cav list.

 Desubot wrote:

Edit: oh you removed the list.......

It depends on your air cav list.

Yeah had "duh" moment and really I would only be combining them in 4000pt. games, besides that I want them to be "stand alone" armies.

If you want it to be a stand alone army, the pods are definitely going to need some support IMO. TFCs, bikes, possibly Centurions all make good compliments to pod armies.

Grav cents in Stormravens work well.

You can go either way. Full pod, or a hybrid list. If you are just going to go with a few, I'd stick with 3; 2 first turn, and a late game tactical squad.

As much as the prevailing theory (which I do agree with to an extent) is that, as far as infantry are concerned, go all-pod, I've been doing very well recently with a hybrid pod/rhino list.

At 1500, I tend to bring 2 pods (Ironclad first and a Melta+Libby tac squad) and 2-3 tactical squads in Rhinos (sometimes swap one squad out for Sternguard. I then go for a dev squad and scouts for objective-squatting, and if I have the points either a tooled-up captain to replace the libby, a Whirlwind (don't own a TFC), or a heavier tank. At 1850, I'll shuffle things around a little to bring a Land Raider Assault Squad.

The idea is to go hell-for-leather on the first turn with the Rhinos (and LR), flat-outing everything, while the drop pods cause a distraction to take the AT away from the incoming tanks (an Ironclad tends to do this pretty well). By turn 2 you can basically be anywhere within a 30" (18" Flat out+6" move+6" disembark) position of where you started, with the second wave of pods dropping in, and can have 30+ marines in the enemy DZ. This kind of list has to rely on force concentration, but has the speed to do that.

Of course, all-pod can do something similar, but what I like about this is that, should you need more mobility/more cover/tank-shock mayhem (always fun when you have 2+ Rhinos ramming anything in sight) then you still have the transports on hand to provide that. your mileage may of course vary, but hybrid lists can certainly pull their weight.

I think pods are one of those things that the more you have, the better off you are.

That being said, you need to think beforehand which units you are putting into pods and why. It doesn't make sense to go all pod if some of the units you are bringing don't need the pod to do their job or, indeed, find the use of a pod counter productive to their job.

When I build a pod list I like to divide units into the following categories.

1) Units that I need to drop in the first wave in close to the enemy to cause maximum damage and force the enemy to react to.
2) Units I can drop later in game for either objective captures or to finish off enemy units weakened by the alpha strike.
3) Units I want on the board turn 1 that can contribute to the effects of the alpha strike or deny the enemy access to specific parts of the board, but a pod would interfere with.

As long as you are clear which purpose a unit fulfills, then your list is going to be good regardless of it is hybrid or pure pod.

Martel732 wrote:
Grav cents in Stormravens work well.

I prefer not.
I found that keeping that 250+ point unit in reserve for 2 turns+ really puts your opponent at an advantage.

It can arrive turn 2 and shoot immediately. You opponent might evade your 24" range for at least that long.

Martel732 wrote:
It can arrive turn 2 and shoot immediately. You opponent might evade your 24" range for at least that long.

Other issue, takes one lucky interceptor shot to take the ENTIRE unit out.

I think that 'All-Pod' armies are much better than 'Hybrid' lists from personal experience. Some people say that you lack either AT or Anti Horde but Flamers nad Meltas really get the job done. However, I can see the merits of using a Hybrid List supported by maybe a few Tac Squad Rhinos and Thunderfire Cannons. It's all preference really.