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Recently In games I feel I haven't been using drop pods to the most advantage that I could. I generally take them with 2 full of tactical marines and 1 full of sternguard (I may swap out sternguard for a dreadnought occasionally when I feel like bringing him.) and 9/10 I have the drop pods do nothing most of the game then occasionally hold objectives. The tactical marines get slaughtered aswell due to the fact they are surrounded in the back field with little or no support.

Another problem I see with them is: They act as 3 extra immobile tactical marines, so 99/100 times the enemy really ignores them and goes for my juicy tacticals. They rarely go for them other then to grab first blood if I have not gotten it. I used to run all my pods with the DW missile launcher, and that seemed to have worked better due to the fact you cannot ignore the drop pod anymore: Its effectivly a 15 pnt insurance that the squad of warriors/crisis suits/meks/horde will target the drop pods because they fear it more then the tactical squad, otherwise they have to deal with a str 5 L. blast ontop thier heads, and if you wipe the enemy squad out you effectively lock down a portion of the board with the launcher.

How would you recommend I should utilize my drop pods?

IMO, you need more pods.
5 to 7 pods seems the sweet spot, landing with enough guys to support each other and do some damage.

-Matt

I own three pods, so can’t do a full drop list myself. I usually put a tac squad in one of them. Normally full melta (MM/M, c-melta sarge) 10 men.

The other pods are often full sternguard, and either an assault squad or an ironclad.

The trick is not to drop unsupported. You place two pods close enough to help each other. You need to drop, and drop hard Kill or cripple everything in the LZ to mitigate return fire. This is easier if you do a safer flank drop. Pick an exposed side, and drop there. Less things to shoot back. If you drop into the teeth of the enemy, expect to die. It’s worth it sometimes, but don’t do it casually. If you are running a hybrid drop list, use the rest of your force to help. I tend to have either very mobile (bikes, speeders) or long range (preds, devs) stuff filling up the rest of my lists. This way they can help out the drop portion.

Combat squadding out of the pod will help. More targets makes it less likely for them all to be killed. Saving the tac squads for the second wave is also advisable. Their primary job is to hold objectives. If they don’t need to sit there taking fire, all the better. If you do need to drop off alone (probably to snag an out of the way objective) consider dropping the pod between you and the enemy, and using it for cover.

Ultramarine Vindictus wrote:


Another problem I see with them is: They act as 3 extra immobile tactical marines, so 99/100 times the enemy really ignores them and goes for my juicy tacticals.

But that's good. Just be lucky to land near an objective and voilà! The enemy will need to take care of it.

I seem to find my melta marines do nothing and have stopped trying that. I use 1 pod to bring in a basic set of marines to harass and grab objectives. another to drop my command squad full of plasmas

I find my dropped Melta Marines to be All-Stars. (Of course, I run blood angels with five-man ASM with 2x meltas and double inferno Sarge.)

niv-mizzet wrote:
I find my dropped Melta Marines to be All-Stars. (Of course, I run blood angels with five-man ASM with 2x meltas and double inferno Sarge.)

I find them very, very unreliable, and hence, very optional.