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Hi Dakka

I will preface this post by saying I am very new to playing games of 40k so please excuse my noobness

So for my 1500pt Salamanders list, I currently run part of the army in this format

Sternguard Vets in a drop pod
TH/SS Terminators in a Land Raider Redeemer (I also stick my HQ which is a Chaplain in terminator armour in with this squad)
Dreadnaught (TL Heavy Flamer and Power Fist with Flamer) in a Storm Raven

My question is, is this the best way to run these units? I got unlucky in my last game and my LR got blown up first turn so I had to foot slog the termies which wasn't ideal.

I guess the other option I would use would be

Dreadnought in Drop Pod
Sternguard in LR
Termies in Storm Raven

What do you guys think, would this improve the way I can use these units or is the current setup better??

Also just for info, the rest of the army is two tac squads in Rhinos.

Your list doesn’t look bad. Sometimes, you get unlucky. It’s a problem with small, expensive units; one bad set of rolls and you are done. If you are facing an army with a lot of long range AV firepower, work to block LOS, screen with rhinos for cover, etc. If dealing with close range firepower (aka melta) the terminators can just brush off the rubble of their ride, and go put the hammer down.

I’m not a fan of assault troops in flyers. Or reserve, even. You spend too much time off the table, and have to sit around getting shot for a round before charging. I could see putting shooting units in the raven, but that still has the problem of a chunk of your list loitering around while the part on the table gets shot up. It might be fun to put the dread in the pod, and the vets in the raven, see how that works. The dread could really use the precision DS that the pod gives him so he can burninate things.

You could go with a hybrid drop list, with the SG, dread, and a tac squad in pods, letting you drop 2 first turn. But I’d worry about the on-ground portion if you went second. You’d have a LRR and a rhino hiding on the table. Still might work though.

 Nevelon wrote:
Your list doesn’t look bad. Sometimes, you get unlucky. It’s a problem with small, expensive units; one bad set of rolls and you are done. If you are facing an army with a lot of long range AV firepower, work to block LOS, screen with rhinos for cover, etc. If dealing with close range firepower (aka melta) the terminators can just brush off the rubble of their ride, and go put the hammer down.

I’m not a fan of assault troops in flyers. Or reserve, even. You spend too much time off the table, and have to sit around getting shot for a round before charging. I could see putting shooting units in the raven, but that still has the problem of a chunk of your list loitering around while the part on the table gets shot up. It might be fun to put the dread in the pod, and the vets in the raven, see how that works. The dread could really use the precision DS that the pod gives him so he can burninate things.

You could go with a hybrid drop list, with the SG, dread, and a tac squad in pods, letting you drop 2 first turn. But I’d worry about the on-ground portion if you went second. You’d have a LRR and a rhino hiding on the table. Still might work though.

I think I might try mixing it up as you suggested with running the vets in the SR and the dread in the pod see how that plays out.

I only have one pod at the moment so can't do the other option of two pods but I've read that it's better to run an odd amount of pods? Will only having two leave me at a disadvantage?

It’s not that even number of pods are necessarily bad. You still have a lot of flexibility and options. But odd number of pods help maximize force concentration, without having extra units dithering around in reserves. I hate painting pods. I own three now, but it took me years to get to that point. And in that time I’ve fielded them successfully from 1-3 in lists.

One pod is a disruption drop. Stick something mean in there, place it next to the thing it like to kill, carnage ensues. Not necessarily a suicide drop; you can place on a flank. I’ve used dreads and sternguard for this with success.

Two pods gives you options. You can either have two different types of pod (like an AV and anti infantry) and choose what you need first turn. The other option is to have one strong, one weak pod. One full of sternguard, the other a tactical squad. Most games you want to drop the vets early, and keep the tacs off the table for as long as you can. They serve well for a late game objective grab. Versus some lists you need to be more reactionary, so can keep the strong pod off the table to deal with whatever your opponent springs.

Once you hit three pods, the options open us considerably. You can have a mix of units to deal with different threats, and drop two in conjunction for mutual support. This pin-point two unit alpha strike is where drop pod lists start to get their teeth. You can place the forces you want, where you need them, and get your shots in first.