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Ive been tiring to make drop pod guard work ,but ive hit some trouble. My problem seems to be that the turn in which my vets arrive I melta/plasma something in the face,probably killing a tank or two then the wheels fall off the bus and there isnt much of an impact the rest of the army can make.
I've been runing 1850

1x CCS -4 meltas carapace ,pod
2 x10 vets 3 plas , carapace ,pod
2x 10 vets 3 meltas,demo,pod
pask- punisher ,2 multimelta,las
-executioner -2 plasma canon ,las
2 xfuriouso- frag cannon, heavy flamer ,pod
2 xlibrarians ml 1
1 x bolter scouts
1 xmanticor

In my experience pask is to expensive for what he does and hes points may be better spent else where. The manticor's 24" min range was a problem at times and having all my vets close to the enemy mad shoots a gamble at times.No AA which hasnt been an issue but could be against the wrong list.I might be a little low on vets but even taking the full 6 squads in pods i dont see 20 guards man making that big of a dent.If there was a way to take 10 squad then maybe but im at a loss.

I have seen a lot of success with SW characters tanking for the dropping IG squads. I.e. Iron priests, Arjac, etc. MC's and knights cant assault it because of meltabombs, and the 2+ characters tank for the shooty vets/CCS.

Well you dont what the drop pods vets to be the only thing.

If you are going full ham drop pods then you are literally only using half your list at a time.

At best you probably want 2-5 drop pods, 3 to handle Specific vehicles, 2 to handle elite units.

the rest of your list should be Tough and try to hold objectives.
making sure you kill anything that might threaten your troops with the pods.

Its also possibly a good idea to drop by with a CCS with 3 meltas and a vox to chuck a order near by T1 to ignore cover if you have to deal with a lot of jinking guys.

Back when doctrines were a thing, you could have a full army of drop troops. I built up an army where I had 200 guardsmen dropping in. It was a great time.

Discomfort with lowly guardsmen occupying blood angels drop pods aside ( ), I think you've done a grab bag of neat things but not much cohesion. I'd suggest cutting some of the extras and try to make better use of the bodies on the table.

As an example, what about cutting the pask-inator in favor of valkyries? That gives you anti-troop weapons and mobility, which I think you are lacking. I also might consider wyverns and vendettas. The former for its ridiculous cost:effectiveness ratio and the latter to deal with knight-spam and fliers. It also gives your librarian/CCS a pretty sweet ride.

Finally, you said 10 squads might be enough. What about taking blobs and putting the special weapons squads/platoon command squads in the pods? That gives you staying power with boots on the ground, ignores cover/divination-able las cannon batteries, the power of the blob in combat, and lots of little bits and pieces to drop around. Two platoons gets you 8 drop-able special weapons bros (6 SWSs and 2 PCS, potentially 26 melta guns). I don't think that the veterans survive long enough to make the 7 ablative wounds matter all that much.

Manticore only has min. range if it's firing indirectly, if it sees the target, you can fire it up to max range, reducing BS from scatter range, and you still get all the goodies (i.e. sniping) for Barrage USR.

You have 5 IG 10 men squads in drop pods. Even SM or similar drop pod units are suicide squads, what did you expect from guardsman?

Pask performs really good in range, if you are not shooting into to high cover.

I think you are overdoing the drop pods, and expecting way too much of them. What you get from drop pods is turn 1 no scatter DS, and that's it. You have 3 special weapons and some flashlights, they may take out a tank or some glass cannon, but won't win you the game. Likely 2 or maybe 3 suicide squads is enough to deal with whatever they need dealing with, then do your regular IG or SM army.

This is your first few try of something, why do you expect to win already? This "I tried it once, and I didn't win, this sucks" is so angry teenager.

Zsolt wrote:
Manticore only has min. range if it's firing indirectly, if it sees the target, you can fire it up to max range, reducing BS from scatter range, and you still get all the goodies (i.e. sniping) for Barrage USR.

You have 5 IG 10 men squads in drop pods. Even SM or similar drop pod units are suicide squads, what did you expect from guardsman?

Pask performs really good in range, if you are not shooting into to high cover.

I think you are overdoing the drop pods, and expecting way too much of them. What you get from drop pods is turn 1 no scatter DS, and that's it. You have 3 special weapons and some flashlights, they may take out a tank or some glass cannon, but won't win you the game. Likely 2 or maybe 3 suicide squads is enough to deal with whatever they need dealing with, then do your regular IG or SM army.

Manti only fires indirectly like the Deathstrike missle.

 Desubot wrote:

Zsolt wrote:
Manticore only has min. range if it's firing indirectly, if it sees the target, you can fire it up to max range, reducing BS from scatter range, and you still get all the goodies (i.e. sniping) for Barrage USR.

You have 5 IG 10 men squads in drop pods. Even SM or similar drop pod units are suicide squads, what did you expect from guardsman?

Pask performs really good in range, if you are not shooting into to high cover.

I think you are overdoing the drop pods, and expecting way too much of them. What you get from drop pods is turn 1 no scatter DS, and that's it. You have 3 special weapons and some flashlights, they may take out a tank or some glass cannon, but won't win you the game. Likely 2 or maybe 3 suicide squads is enough to deal with whatever they need dealing with, then do your regular IG or SM army.

Manti only fires indirectly like the Deathstrike missle.

My bad.

The drop pod success I've seen uses very few points of guys in the pods.
It's:
1 platoon (5 man command, 2x10 infantry)
2 Special weapons teams (2x6 guys)
1 Command (5 man unit)
2x5 tactical marines
All the IG infantry and given krak grenades.

When all things are said and done, it's very few points in those 8 pods. If they can score once, they are worth it.

At 1800, you can fit TWO imperial knights in with this. It's really tough to deal with the throw away scoring units while you have two knights on the table to also contend with.

That's an interesting idea ,putting a platoon in the pods rather than vets. Only thing I don't like is the bs 3 on everthing but the ccs ,but going with that many cheap units really opens up a lot of support unit options.

The thing about Pods is you get a one-time movement advantage. And, you're winding up nice and close to your opponent, so that's not always good.

I gave it a shot a couple of times, and found that I needed Assault Deterrent to go with my Pods. But that assault deterrent also needed to reach out and touch things, or else it was wasted points. So 1 "Regular" Dread with TL AC and Fist turned out to be a pretty good addition.

I also found that podded melta had a habit of leaving my infantry exposed, and that meant no cover save, which meant dying as fast as I could pick them up. Better, was podded Plasma, with Camo. That way, they could drop down on an objective, hold cover for survivability, and still reach out and touch things. Foot Slogging melta is too slow to keep up.

Plus, for realises, they need a CCS with a Vox. Ignores Cover on close range Plasma is amazing. So is Plasma with Tank-Hunter, so long as you aren't targeting AV 14. For serious.

So sub out the Furioso for Regular Dreads with Ranged weapons. Try Voxes, Plasma, and Camo instead. Fewer Vet units, too. Maybe a Platoon to screen Pask and his friend? You can feed a 50 point squad to oncoming units for several turns if you need to. Even if you drop just one Vets and Pod, you'd have enough for a basic platoon with some cheap upgrades. They can walk along with Pask and Pal towards a central objective, or hang out at the back if need be.

If Bolter-Scouts are just there for a Troop Tax in a Flesh Tearers force, consider Cassor the Damned as a Troop Tax instead. See the Shield of Baal: Deathstorm campaign book for details on this TROOPS Dreadnaught.

A single librarian is probably enough. I find them unreliable at best.

deathwind assault launchers would help to saturate everything with fire, more wounds the better! Maybe drop the dreds too, they are ok but you can do so much more backing up your boys with the rolling treads of Leman Russ tanks. Something to really put the pressure on and make your opponent not only consider all the drop pods you just threw at him but also all the stuff thats coming to him as well. Drop pods seem to work best imho when you have only pods or you have something to make them your hammer to your anvil, i.e. something rolling out to also put the pressure on. Additionally, nowadays manticores are kinda meh since they dont kill MEQ or Vehicles that well, unless you play against guard and xenos often, you are better off with the exceptional wyvern and Eradicator w/HB sponson tanks for cheap and powerful anti infantry firepower (you have plenty of surgical anti-tank)

@ greatbigtree I agree with alot of the points you made and have found alot of the same issues in my test games. In regards to cassor I looked at him in place of a Furioso but I seem to remember him not being able to buy a pod. Although I think he can take a Dreadnought pod. I was thinking about a blob squad to screen the tanks ,possibly with cypher (shrouding / hit and run/asknf). The Furiosos are there for assault deterrence but i dont think they are scary enough. I was looking at podding in 5 TH/SS in one pod and dropping mephiston , an apothecary and a priest or two in another pod close by making either a pretty decent deathstarish unit or supporting alone.

What would be the right number of pods to aim for? 5,7,9,11? 9 seems like a good number making for a pretty large 1st turn drop.

 generalchaos34 wrote:
(you have plenty of surgical anti-tank)

What exactly? What's the effective point and click anti tank unit of IG?

Zsolt wrote:
What exactly? What's the effective point and click anti tank unit of IG?

Melta platoon command and melta vets, I think.

That's an interesting idea ,putting a platoon in the pods rather than vets.

What is the advantage? Platoon command I can see; does the entire platoon need to be in if the command is in a pod? Otherwise, I don't see how it's much different, except for lower bs, a heavy weapon, and fewer special weapons.

Ether wrote:

Zsolt wrote:
What exactly? What's the effective point and click anti tank unit of IG?

Melta platoon command and melta vets, I think.

That's an interesting idea ,putting a platoon in the pods rather than vets.

What is the advantage? Platoon command I can see; does the entire platoon need to be in if the command is in a pod? Otherwise, I don't see how it's much different, except for lower bs, a heavy weapon, and fewer special weapons.

The advantage is cost. Some of the objectives you're going to want to drop in on are a death mission. You can send in the vets, take your one round of shooting and die, or send in a unit half the cost, take your 1 round of shooting and die.
It's inefficient to always land fully loaded squads. Often you'll find you just want somebody, anybody, landing on the objective. Using the platoon, gives you 2 of those "disposable drops".
The platoon command throws out the same number of (special weapon) hits as the vets, again, slightly cheaper.

Ether wrote:


What is the advantage? Platoon command I can see; does the entire platoon need to be in if the command is in a pod? Otherwise, I don't see how it's much different, except for lower bs, a heavy weapon, and fewer special weapons.

The only advantage i can see is cost. platoons cost around 10-30 pts less than vets which should be just enough points to get more bodies.Personally I like the BS4 but it s something worth looking at