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.

So, Drop Pods got a lot of changes, some good, some bad.

They lost their weapon, it's whatever, but the big thing is that they went from OC2 to OC0, meaning that they can no longer sit on objectives and/or do secondaries, and their profile got smaller so they can't move block as well as they could before.

However, they did get three buffs as well. Units can now charge out of them, which is pretty good, they also can now carry 12 marines, which is fantastic! And finally, they are now Dedicated Transports, meaning they ignore the rule of 3, which is the basis for this list. Full Drop Pod Assault.

Firestorm Assault Force: 2000 Points

Captain with Plasma Pistol / Power First & Forged In Battle: 95pts
Lieutenant with Plasma Pistol / Power Fist & Champion of Humanity: 75pts
Devastator Squad x10 with Multi-Meltas (Sargent with Plasma Pistol / Power Fist): 200pts

Vulkan He'Stan: 100pts
Infernus Marines x10: 180pts

Adrax Agatone: 85pts
Infernus Marines x10: 180pts

Judiciar: 70pts
Bladegaurd Veterans x6: 160pts
Assault Intercessors x5: 75pts

Apothacary: 50pts
Hellblasters: 220pts

Drop Pod x5: 350pts

Jump Intercessors x5: 90pts

Lieutenant with Combi-Weapon: 70pts

Total Points: 2000

The list puts the Combi-Lt onto you home objective to keep it under your control and puts the rest of your army into Deep Strike. (Jump Intercessors get to do this normally, then the rest in Drop Pods)

If you get the first turn, you have the potential to get a massive amount of board control, dropping 9" outside of their zone with your whole army alpha striking with huge force. Yes, you're functionally paying a 350pt tax to do this, but given the amount of damage you can output, I think it would be worth it.

The Captain/LT and the Devastators go into the biggest threat, you can use onslaught of fire to get the melta's up to 3+, combine that with Oath of Moment and the ability to flip 2 dice to 6's for lethals (1 from the Cherub, and 1 from the Enhancement) and +1 to wound, you're going to delete or at the very least cripple most big things, even if you're not in melta range for the bonus damage.

Adrax and He'Stan come down to torch any infantry they can reach.

The Hellblasters go on either the center or your closer objective, whichever one gives them a good firing lane.

The Judiciar/Bladeguard go in front of their largest melee threat, forcing them into a fight as you have fights first and can use Crucible of Battle for some extra punch when they charge you and you've got an extra CP to spare.

Also, the Drop Pods, while smaller in profile now, can still move block a lot of key paths around the board, making them targets your opponent has to chew through to get where they want to go.

Lastly, the Jump Intercessors come down on turn 2 to provide some support where needed or do secondaries.

The list certainly isn't foolproof, if an army has a lot of Infiltrate and scout moves, they could screen you out pretty effectively, even if you do get the first turn. (My Kroot army comes to mind as something that would hard counter this list.) That being said, the deployment flexibility and alpha strike potential is very high against most lists.

Thoughts?

What about unit/point limits for Deep Strike and reserves?

 JNAProductions wrote:
What about unit/point limits for Deep Strike and reserves?

Huh, that's a good point. Unless I'm missing something, the new Drop Pods no longer have the line about not counting against that limit.

 JNAProductions wrote:
What about unit/point limits for Deep Strike and reserves?

My thought was that the wording "This model must start the battle in Reserves" overwrote that like it always has. Since there is no list restriction to the number you can take so long as they have units inside of them, when you take them, they MUST be placed into reserve, which would overwrite the reserve limit.

 Tawnis wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
What about unit/point limits for Deep Strike and reserves?

My thought was that the wording "This model must start the battle in Reserves" overwrote that like it always has. Since there is no list restriction to the number you can take so long as they have units inside of them, when you take them, they MUST be placed into reserve, which would overwrite the reserve limit.

That doesn’t follow.
I don’t think you can legally do this.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
What about unit/point limits for Deep Strike and reserves?

My thought was that the wording "This model must start the battle in Reserves" overwrote that like it always has. Since there is no list restriction to the number you can take so long as they have units inside of them, when you take them, they MUST be placed into reserve, which would overwrite the reserve limit.

That doesn’t follow.
I don’t think you can legally do this.

How so? From what I understand, model specific rules always overwrite general rules. Unless I'm missing something.

But this doesn’t say it’s an exception or that it overwrites.

It says you have to start them in Deep Strike, but doesn’t have any wording saying that it ignores normal limits.

 JNAProductions wrote:
But this doesn’t say it’s an exception or that it overwrites.

It says you have to start them in Deep Strike, but doesn’t have any wording saying that it ignores normal limits.

True, the wording could be more clear for sure. It should 100% be clarified.

However, what is the alternative? Based on the legal list building rules, you can take a Dedicated Transport for each unit that it can carry, there is no restriction at that point. So then you build your list as above, which is a fully legal list, then you go to deployment and the units MUST be placed in Deep Strike, you have no choice.

I'd cay that there's a certainly a chance that this list might not be allowed to take the 5 Jump Intercessors in reserve, because it possibly checks required reserves, then sees you're over the limit and doesn't let you place the Jump Intercessors into reserve, but I don't see any interpretation that allows the Drop Pods to not be.

I imagine the alternative is that you can't null deploy. If the Drop Pod needs to start in reserve, then you need to factor that into your reserves total - and that may well mean you need to build your army so that it has boots on the ground at the very start.

I don't think you're allowed to do a "oops all Drop Pods" list like the one presented.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I imagine the alternative is that you can't null deploy. If the Drop Pod needs to start in reserve, then you need to factor that into your reserves total - and that may well mean you need to build your army so that it has boots on the ground at the very start.

I don't think you're allowed to do a "oops all Drop Pods" list like the one presented.

Perhaps, but there are other situations in the game where things you MUST do overwrite general rules in that situation. From the way it's written it seems like it would be just like them.

Also, what would be the point of making them a Dedicated Transport then? There would be no feasible list where you could ever run more than 3 based on reserve levels? They weren't Dedicated Transports before, so it was a conscious choice to change that.

Do you have examples of a “Must” overwriting something by implication?

 Tawnis wrote:
Also, what would be the point of making them a Dedicated Transport then? There would be no feasible list where you could ever run more than 3 based on reserve levels?

Honestly, I think this is just a case of GW oversight? You could get 5 Drop Pods into a 3000 point game, maybe that's the intention.

Again, without an FAQ, it's quite unclear, but I personally wouldn't be banking on the "I can put most of my army in Drop Pods turn 1" interpretation.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Do you have examples of a “Must” overwriting something by implication?

I can't seem to find one with the exact wording at the moment, so disregard for now. I'll look more later.

What I was remembering was a conversation her a little while back where someone was claiming that because a unit can never disembark from a transport the turn it advance, if you killed an advancing transport in overwatch, it was an exploit that RAW meant the unit was dead because it could not be deployed. Obviously that's not the case and you emergency disembark it even though it advanced. I figured this was kind of the same way, your units don't just die because you can't put it into reserve when the rules say you must put it into reserve.

I do agree that the removal of specifically calling it out is odd, but I think that's because before Drop Pods previously could go into reserve IN ADDITION to your existing Reserve. I think that now they can't (likely because you can take 6 from being a Dedicated Transport) because they check at the same time (so in this list, it would mean that the Assault Intercessors could not go in reserve as well because the MUST from the Drop Pod takes priority.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:
Also, what would be the point of making them a Dedicated Transport then? There would be no feasible list where you could ever run more than 3 based on reserve levels?

Honestly, I think this is just a case of GW oversight? You could get 5 Drop Pods into a 3000 point game, maybe that's the intention.

Again, without an FAQ, it's quite unclear, but I personally wouldn't be banking on the "I can put most of my army in Drop Pods turn 1" interpretation.

Dedicated Transports are 4 to a 1k game, 6 to a 2k game, and 8 to a 3k game, so that doesn't really line up. Also from a meta perspective, I can hardly see them selling these in pairs when it's near impossible to fill 2 Pods with 500 points for a 2k game. You've got 140 points in pods, so then you have 360 points for 2 squads of marines. At best that 20 basic guys with no characters. I can't imagine they'd push out a product like that, very few people will thinks it's worth it to buy them if they'd only ever be able to functionally use 1 in a 2k game.

I do agree it needs more clarification though. An FAQ to clear it up is needed, but I'm reasonably certain this is how it was inteneded (with the exception that I noted in the last post about additional reserves.)

Strategic reserves are limited to 25% of your army, and they are only limited during the declare battle formations step (abilities like the Shard of the Deceiver that redeploy models into strategic reserves after the declare battle formations step explicitly ignore the limit, and some detachments/units have return to strategic reserves abilities that occur in game that are also not limited).

Models placed in reserves (not strategic reserves) from abilities like deep strike are also put there during the declare battle formations step, but are not counted towards this limit as they are not strategic reserves.

As an example, putting 10 marines in a Rhino and putting that into reserves will require strategic reserves (as the Rhino does not have deep strike) - the transport and the marines count towards the strategic reserves limit. Putting 10 marines in a drop pod puts them into reserves (not strategic reserves), there is no limit on how many times you can do this (other than the rule of 3 etc).