Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hey mates. Finally planning on getting back into 40K after taking a break and basically I want to run a Space Marine Drop Pod Army, as I like the feel of it an it is a vry aggressive, fast hitting army that makes many opponents sweat due to the nature of how quick they can come at you. Now saying that, I have a number of options to chose from on what list to run using a drop pod list, so without further ado, I am just curious to see which Drop Pod Army do you find to be the most effective currently in this edition and why. Would really appreciate the feedback so please tell me your opinion instead of just voting and thanks for all of the help.!

Sallies for C:SM as the boosts to Melta and Flamers make them amazing.

Voted Space Wolves, because they are the premier in pods.

Having said that, go Sallies or Crimson Fists. Their pods are not much worse and the rest of the army is appropriately priced for 6th ed.

I dont roll a full DP army, but I do manage a good hit in the first few turns (if not the first) with Space Wolves

10 guys pouring bolters and either 2 plasma guns, 2 melta guns or 2 flamers into what ever it is is pretty glorious

Or even fitting a rune priest in with a squad, and popping off some really nasty psyker abiliites and then your 24" 4+ deny (abuse it while you can, it needs to be gone)

Double special weapon Grey Hunter Squads with Rune Priest LL or Jaws support and Wolf Guard combi drops. Quite good.

 obsidiankatana wrote:
Voted Space Wolves, because they are the premier in pods.

Having said that, go Sallies or Crimson Fists. Their pods are not much worse and the rest of the army is appropriately priced for 6th ed.

I considered Crimson Fists for awhile, as Pedro alone makes them awesome for the ability to make Sternguard Scoring Units, making that a pretty nasty aspect of my army in that regard as I can get a lot of firepower off with that squad. You can make a nasty list with that.

Up until the newest SM codex I would have said Wolves.

Now? Salamanders. They can peel open transports and roast the occupants, or pop bubblewrap and still murder the shielded vehicle. They're versatile, potent, and cheap. Great stuff.

I prefer BA. I'd rather have assault marines standing 1" away from enemy models than tac marines. Red thirst could make an appearance to help out, and then there's those dreadnoughts... The last time I tried out a pod list, it was Gabriel Seth and honor guard in a pod, 6 5 man asm squads with 1 melta each, 3 dreads with melta/flamer-CCW, and 3 furiosos with melta/flamer blood talons. 13 pods, so 7 on turn 1.

Salamanders with Space Wolf Allies.

niv-mizzet wrote:
I prefer BA. I'd rather have assault marines standing 1" away from enemy models than tac marines. Red thirst could make an appearance to help out, and then there's those dreadnoughts... The last time I tried out a pod list, it was Gabriel Seth and honor guard in a pod, 6 5 man asm squads with 1 melta each, 3 dreads with melta/flamer-CCW, and 3 furiosos with melta/flamer blood talons. 13 pods, so 7 on turn 1.

Murder much??

 Jimsolo wrote:
Up until the newest SM codex I would have said Wolves.

Now? Salamanders. They can peel open transports and roast the occupants, or pop bubblewrap and still murder the shielded vehicle. They're versatile, potent, and cheap. Great stuff.

SW are still better. Salamanders still disintegrate when counter assaulted. Their alpha strike is not so strong that many lists counter assault or counter fire won't crush them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

niv-mizzet wrote:
I prefer BA. I'd rather have assault marines standing 1" away from enemy models than tac marines. Red thirst could make an appearance to help out, and then there's those dreadnoughts... The last time I tried out a pod list, it was Gabriel Seth and honor guard in a pod, 6 5 man asm squads with 1 melta each, 3 dreads with melta/flamer-CCW, and 3 furiosos with melta/flamer blood talons. 13 pods, so 7 on turn 1.

BA make a terrible drop list. They have to assault, not be the ones getting assaulted.

Martel732 wrote:


BA make a terrible drop list. They have to assault, not be the ones getting assaulted.

The people I've played the list against disagree with you. I almost never drop the marines in first. The dreads come down and flame or melta enemy anti-armor. The opponent usually attempts tar-pitting the normal dreads while attempting to kill the furiosos. Marines then start raining down into a hot mess, and on turn 3 there will be at least one charge into a squad that is busy tarpitting, if not 2 or 3, and then those dreads will be free again, and the chaos continues. I've only played the list 4 times mind you, but only because I decided it was unsporting, as none of my opponents made it past turn 3 without either being tabled or so close that they concede anyway.

BA? Unsporting? That will be the day. If these people can't handle a few second-rate walkers delivered via drop pod, I can't imagine what their lists look like. Your dreads don't even have frag cannons on them it looks like.

The problem this kind of list has is a single melta gun is very unlikely to actually kill anything. BA furiosos are pretty weak against meched up foes.

Don't face many meched up armies nowadays. Even so, against say...armor 12, a single melta is a 54% chance of a pen, 36% if the vehicle is getting a 5+ save. (Cover/daemon/invuln whatnot.). And half those will blow it up. More than half if its open topped. As far as anti-tank goes, melta stands significant chances.

And of course, one of the strongest parts of drop pod lists is that you could just leave the furiosos for later when troops are exposed.

The lists I played against were: green tide orks, where I lost a single marine the whole game. (Annoyingly, it was Seth, who failed to kill a nob in a challenge, and I have never made an iron halo save against instant death in my entire 40k history, but that was more wacky dice than anything.)

Tau farsight shadowsun deathstar with triptides. The dreads all surrounded the deathstar and flamed, so that got crippled pretty quick, but I definitely took damage that game, and won by objectives from marines just podding in on them later.

Eldar jetseer council was similar. Admittedly, he would've won if he got to go first and get powers up and running.

And space wolves long fangs and rhinos full of squads. Think I lost two squads and 1 dread to krak grenades.

So I'm just gonna have to disagree and say that full-on pod lists are pretty competitive. Not ultra god-tier, but they will decapitate any casual list in a round or two if you can identify where to pod things in at.

Doesn't sound like any of these players bubble wrapped appropriately. If people didn't know what was coming in the pods, I would agree, but they do. And they can manipulate their setup to minimize your effectiveness.

Templars all the way.

Nothing sweeter than watching 6 pods of scoring cc-initiates rain down and permanently tie up your gunline for the rest of the game after having melta'd your tanks.

Sounds like a lot of people have a lot of opinions so far, which is good so lets keep them coming! Saying that, I have recently made my first purchases through ebay and at the moment, this is what I currently have for the start of my drop pod Space Marine Army:

* 3x Drop Pods (All Well Built Thankfully).

*2x Ironclad Dreadnoughts (Best way to run these guys?).

*1x Dreadnought

*30+ Marines (Most w/Bolters, w/some Flamers and other extra Weaponry).

*Stormtalon w/Twin-Linked Lascannon

A pretty good start, as it is pretty generic for the most part for most Drop Pod lists out there, and I was also able to purchase a number of Sternguard Bolters, as to be frank, they look so much better then the tradition Bolter, and from there I will hopefully see where I am at from there. That being said, lets keep this going, as at the moment I like the sound of the Space Wolves as they get 2x Assault Weapons, however I'm still tempted to try out the others as there is already a solid group of Space Wolf Players at my store already.

[spoiler]

niv-mizzet wrote:
I prefer BA. I'd rather have assault marines standing 1" away from enemy models than tac marines. Red thirst could make an appearance to help out, and then there's those dreadnoughts... The last time I tried out a pod list, it was Gabriel Seth and honor guard in a pod, 6 5 man asm squads with 1 melta each, 3 dreads with melta/flamer-CCW, and 3 furiosos with melta/flamer blood talons. 13 pods, so 7 on turn 1.

I the way you think,sir. Have you considered a sang priest or 2 to help the assault marines survive the round of shooting? I know it would mean sacrificing a furioso or two, but it might be worth it to help keep your scoring units alive. Don't forget about the libby dreads either, if you have the points. Give em blood lance and might of heroes for tank hunting, or fear of the dark and smite to mess with infantry. Drop behind opponents lines and laugh as you turn his russ squadrons into chop suey or as your dread, turns out the lights, goes "ooga booga" and runs a broadside unit off the board.


OP, as much fun as drop pod BA.can be, I'd go Salamanders. Twin linked flame weapons is too good to pass up. The up to date support/points costs are icing on the cake.

 Rommel44 wrote:
Sounds like a lot of people have a lot of opinions so far, which is good so lets keep them coming! Saying that, I have recently made my first purchases through ebay and at the moment, this is what I currently have for the start of my drop pod Space Marine Army:

* 3x Drop Pods (All Well Built Thankfully).

*2x Ironclad Dreadnoughts (Best way to run these guys?).

*1x Dreadnought

*30+ Marines (Most w/Bolters, w/some Flamers and other extra Weaponry).

*Stormtalon w/Twin-Linked Lascannon

A pretty good start, as it is pretty generic for the most part for most Drop Pod lists out there, and I was also able to purchase a number of Sternguard Bolters, as to be frank, they look so much better then the tradition Bolter, and from there I will hopefully see where I am at from there. That being said, lets keep this going, as at the moment I like the sound of the Space Wolves as they get 2x Assault Weapons, however I'm still tempted to try out the others as there is already a solid group of Space Wolf Players at my store already.

Ironclads w/ Heavy Flamer and Meltagun in Pod.

Vulkan-manders. Space Wolves have no viable anti-air and its practically mandatory to ally some in. Sallies on the other hand have access to Storm Talons for cheap AA/support and the rather underrated Storm Raven.

 Mr.Omega wrote:
Vulkan-manders. Space Wolves have no viable anti-air and its practically mandatory to ally some in. Sallies on the other hand have access to Storm Talons for cheap AA/support and the rather underrated Storm Raven.

Leaning that way just for that reason, as Air-Support is pretty critical in this edition, hence why I am going with the Storm-Talon w/a Twin-Linked Lascannon. However, my brother thinks I should go the Crimson Fists due to there access at making Sternguard scoring units, while a friend of mine prefers the Space wolves list due to making the Wolf-Guard Spam list with Logan Grimnar. All seem like very solid options.

Crimson Fists can be effective, but in my experience can't pull the same muscle as Salamanders. Sternguard are great, but are just marines and die all the same. You don't have to pay anything to make the Salamanders better, just take the guns that are already good to take in pod lists.

Fun part is, Salamanders also have good Sternguard - double 5x of them in a pod with 2x Heavy Flamers. Shove Vulkan in the same pod and that's 3x Heavy Flamers. Or drop triple Ironclads running HF/Melta, or spam your Melta/Combi/Multi-Melta tac squads and let Thunderfire Cannons pummel the contents of whatever transport you just evaporated.

 Mr.Omega wrote:
Vulkan-manders. Space Wolves have no viable anti-air and its practically mandatory to ally some in. Sallies on the other hand have access to Storm Talons for cheap AA/support and the rather underrated Storm Raven.

You mean overrated Stormraven.

Pod lists don't necessarily need anti-air if the whole list is in the enemy deployment zone.

I voted wolves but sallies are like 1b if not just as good as wolves. Wolves have better psychic protection/offense, but sallies can bring better firepower IMO. I'm also not convinced the need for AA is necessary for an all pod army.

Survivors competent at CC bum's rush the Sallies off the table. Try that with SW. I dare you. Also, depending on the table setup, you can run out of places to drop flamer/melta guys real fast. Plasma/bolter SW can bring a lot of GH to bear.

I am a space wolf player at heart all the way--I love everything about my wolves but until theres a good update or a new dex the other options are just better priced. Salamanders are an awesome choice though I do see the appeal for crimson fists. I would go Sal none the less, they are just too useful.

GH are still competitively priced. They are STILL better than 14 pt tac marines. You're paying 21% more to be basically immune to assault from 90% of the units in the game.

I've been playing Sentinels of Terra Imperial Fists and doing well with them. Rerolling bolters at short range is highly effective.

I use dev squads as my first wave. Use the combi melta on the dev sargent, BS5 cause of the signum, tankhunters is very effective. I usually fit in 9 pods, so the other 2 squads are assault squads with flamers. It's a good alpha strike followed up by 4 tactical squads.


Iif you are doing pods, you need numbers. 50 marines on turn 1 is hard to handle, followed up by another 40, is great.

I'm thinking of dropping in ironclads with the devs to take additional heat off the marines.

There is another interesting, if not competitive route to go. Clan Raukaan plasma storm. Take five tac marines in a pod, plasmagun and combi-plasma. Add a Techmarine with a servo-harness, give him a combi-plasma. Your pod is now putting out, at 12'', 7 Str 7 AP2 shots. A Master of the Forge from the Raukaan supplement unlocks three techmarines and can be similarly outfitted (and iirc, unlocks a command squad for more plasma goodness - though I may be wrong).

Tack on IWND Ironclads, buffed by the Iron Stone, and there's some unpleasant things you can do.

I have been tempted to get a Sentinels of Terra book, however although the re-rolling of Bolters is awesome, I'm not sure what else they have to offer in terms of how there force organization works out on top of what makes them unique to other Space Marine Chapters. That beings said, I currently have more models to run a Salamander List at the moment, as I currently have 30x Tac Marines and 2x Ironclad Dreads to work with, along with a single Stormtalon w/Twin-Linked Lascannon. But the eventual plan is to build up my army to the point where I can run both the Salamanders and a Space Wolf Drop Pod Army with the same models, as I am creating my own Chapter of Marines. Both have things that I really like: Slamanders ability to upgrade all Flamer and Melta Weaponry, while Space Wolves can make some nasty Drop Pod units with Logan, Wolf Guard, and Long Fangs, which is why I am starting to lean more in that direction as Space wolves can run some nasty shenanigans when going full drop pod.. Might be tempted to even get the Imperial Fist Supplement book just to see what they can do, as I have always been a big fan of the Imperial Fists Chapter.

That being said, some people have suggested that I don't run a pure Army of Drop Pods, as they feel the risk is too great in the long run due to the reserve rolls and due to the inaccuracy a drop can sometimes be. What are your thoughts on that and would it be more beneficial to run some units in Drop Pods, while other units start on the table? Seen some lists where a few squads of Long Fangs start on the table and bombard the enemy with long-ranged weaponry, while the drop Pod Squads come down. Appreciate all the Feedback so lets keep it coming.