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Drop Marines 1750p<?

 

*Cleanse and purify

*Trust your Battle Brothers

*Eye to Eye

*Have Pride in your colours

HQ

Epistolary @ 165 p

 Fear of the darkness, Terminator armour, Familiar

 

Terminator Retinue @ 205 p

 4 Terminators, 2 Assault Cannons, 1 Chainfist

Drop Pod @ 30 p

Elites

Dreadnought @ 124 p

 Heavy Flamer, Extra armour, Smokelaunchers, Searchlight

Drop Pod @ 30 p

 

Venerable Dreadnought @ 163 p

 Tank Hunter, Twin Linked Lascannon, Extra armour, Smokelaunchers

Drop Pod @ 30 p

 

Fast Attack

Land Speeder Squadron @ 130 p

 2 Landspeeders, 1 Tornado, 1 Assaultcannon

Troops


Space Marines x 8 @ 194 p
 True Grit, 2 Meltaguns, Veteran Sergeant, Power Weapon, Bolter

Drop Pod @ 30 p

 

Space Marines x 8 @ 199 p
 True Grit, 2 Plasmaguns, Veteran Sergeant, Power Fist, Bolter

Drop Pod @ 30 p

 

Space Marines x 8 @ 199 p
 True Grit, 2 Meltaguns, Veteran Sergeant, Power Fist, Bolter

Drop Pod @ 30 p

 

Space Marines x 8 @ 161 p

 2 Falmers, Veteran Sergant, Power Weapon, Bolt Pistol

 Drop Pod @ 30 p

   

Total: 1750 p                 

 

 

//Axel

I would say less melta more plasma. Your assault cannon and TH Dread should be enough to deal with armor you need to get some more anti personell in there and the plasmas will do great for that.

Not enough bodies.

37 T4 3+ AS is not enough.

Pods: Melta or Flamer, never plasma. With plasma, you get one shot per game. With melta or flamer, you can shoot and assault.

_I_ don't like dreads in a pod list, but some do. If you do take the TL LC Venerable, throw on the ML as well to get the extra str 9 shot at vehicles.

At 1750, I like to throw around 65 or so bodies into the mix. Hard to kill them all.

Your squads are inefficient. You spend 24 points to give 5 guys +1 attack. That's 5 points per effective attack, PLUS, they're the ones you're losing first.

I like a 10 man dev squad with bolters and TYBB to be a more effective assault element, for cheaper. (that way, I'm paying 30 points for +10 attacks).

Taking only fear will only get you so far with the Librarian. Lots of armies out there that ignore it. Consider a second power, either HtH or shooty, to have some use for the model in games against cult armies or fearless armies.

Why the power weapon? Points I assume. It is not very effective. Find the points by dropping smoke from the dreads to get a fist. Are you really going to be popping smoke when you land?

I don't like landspeeders in a pod list either. Too many times I have faced indirect fire units and lost speeders on turn 1. Not fun when you play 1600 points versus 1750. Trust me.

Agree 100% with papa on the landspeeders. Lots of people claim they're good. I think they a) look twinky, b) suck when you don't have adequate terrain, therefore being unreliable at best.

True grit is pretty inferior. If you're buying bolters and plasmaguns (even one or two) you should be trying to avoid close combat and spend all your time shooting, rather than paying a premium for CC ability you would rather not use (because any turn you're in close combat is a turn you're not using your apothecary and not shooting....and speaking of apothecaries ...)

Apoths would be a valid way to spend the points you're wasting on true grit currently.

However, i think what it comes down to is you're trying to make an unhealthy mix of the plasma/shootie list and the melta/flamer/assaulty list. Choose one and stick to that, and you'll do a lot better. The melta/bp/ccw horde is very very effective, as is the plasma/apothecary/terminator list.

Dreads come in threes, just like rhinos come with smoke and extra armor.

While I'm at it: Buying a power weapon is dumb. I'm not going to explain it. You should understand it innately. Take them off your dudes and then punch the guy who told you they were OK to put on your sargeants. Punch him in the groin until he screams.

Personally i love this list. I like everything about it except the plasma gun/meltagun mix. I'd go with four of one but not 2, 1 and 1. I'm edging on the side of plasma guns. If you got rid of True Grit you could take Suffer not the Work of Heretics or the Alien to Live, which would be mean because you're already right next to them. 8 plasma guns dropping and shooting would be awesome! Especially next turn in rapid fire (oo that would be sweet).

I also say drop the speeders and maybe take another Dread with an assault cannon.

As for tactics maybe start off with the venerable dread on the table (dont you have to have atleast 1 model on the field?)

Okay Mr. Axe, why would you want lots of plasma guns in a pod list? Please explain.

Why would the two traits you suggest be better than True Grit? Please explain.

Why take a 140 point dread over 2 speeders? What is the benefit?

Why would you have to start with anything on the table? Please cite rulebook then explain why, with a drop pod list, you would want anything on the table to be on the receiving end of the entire other army's firepower.

I don't know whether you have no clue what you're doing as pertains to pods or are a genius. I really don't. I'm just curious as to your reasoning for the above suggestions.

I think you should go with plasma because they can easily make up the ten points they cost. 1 Space Marine or Tau, 2 guardsmen, tyranid, eldar or Ork. You can also take down light vehicles and transports from a range greater than the meltagun. I think you should try a shooty marine army because they have a greater chance of killing something from a distance than charging into close combat. You can calculate it for yourself.

Im thinking that if you took Suffer not the Alien to live you could do some real damage in cc and it would cost less than Trust your Battle Brothers. Note that these ideas contradict each other and that if you do take SNTATL then you should probably take flamers or meltaguns because they are assault weapons and you could fire them while charging.

I don't have the new rulebook and i'm wondering if you need something on the table to start. Also i would keep 2 5 man units of scouts behind cover to capture table corners on your side.

Wow. Okay.

Pods: Advantages: Deny 1st turn shooting. Deploy where needed. Immune to loss from scattering (except from off the table), Mobile terrain.

Disadvantages: Little mobility once they drop. Lack of long ranged firepower. Subject to being assaulted on the turn they drop.

In reverse order:
Scouts. By starting with Scouts on the table, you give an opponent a target for shooting. If taking a table quarter worries you that much, pods are not for you. With 7 pods, you should get in 3-4 turn 2, all but one turn 3, and the last on turn 4. You can always use the last drop for table quarters if the mission happens to allow it. However, with randomly generated missions from the rule book, table quarters are a 1/5 chance as the objective. Not sure that spending 150 points is worth it. In addition, for those who will say hide out of LOS, there are too many armies with too many things that have Indirect Fire capabilities and will use the first 1-2 turns to eliminate your scouts.


Suffer not the Alien to Live: Great if you know what you're facing, but wasted points if not. In addition, the models must be modeled appropriately to represent what they hate. Thus, it's points you're paying that won't be useful much of the time. PLUS, it doesn't work against Mostrous Critters or Independent characters. Poor choice for HtH. If you want the HtH feel, better choice is Take the Fight to them for the extra CCW and 3 attacks on the charge. however, you lose a great deal of the first drop shootiness.

Plasma/Melta: Debate will rage endlessly. Pods have no long range shooting (generally). But they still need something to take down AV 14 vehicles, especially those with templates that can do a great deal of damage the turn after the drop (when the marines are all closed up). Combined with cleanse and Purify, 2 meltaguns will do an adequate job of eliminating armored threats. The lack of loss to scatter means you can drop close, and with the 2" disembark still be within 6" even with a 8" scatter directly away. Them's good odds to me. Plasma is good against medium armored vehicles and gives you more shots. However, it also runs the risk of making a marine go poof. Throw in that you can't shoot and charge like you can with meltas or flamers, and they become a one shot weapon. One other point is that, for infantry, you're relying on volume of bolter fire or the power fist to eliminate them. For antiarmor, you have assault cannons and meltaguns. Since your regular marine does just fine against anything you listed with their bolter, you need that anti-armor to make you competitive.

Shooty drop pod force: Doesn't work. You simply can't have the firepower necessary to field a shooty pod force. If you take plasma and stand back, you're wasting the points on the vet sgt w/PF. If you don't take the Vet sgt w/PF, you become easy meat for a counterassault unit. Since pods can't take a great deal of firepower, and have only 4.5 turns of shooting to work with (4 turns, plus half your army turn 2), you need the close combat phase to help eliminate an opponent. One option I've seen proposed is to take 6, 5 man squads in pods with plasma guns. That's 800 points for 24 shots at 12" range. However, those squads die quickly.

And no, you don't need anything to start on the table.

The shootie drop pod force does work just fine, Papa. I'd say it's at least competitive with our horde of guys (I use bp/ccw and meltas or flamers, with some termies/dreads).

The shootie pod list looks something like

4-ish apothecary fist squads with 2 plasmas
2 x 5 with 2 meltas
libby terminator squad
@ around 1700, less if you use 8 man apoth squads (but you shouldn't)

And add/subtract to get wherever. But suffice it to say 4 apothecary fist squads in a bunch with plasmaguns and meltas to sacrifice for vehicles, etc, is pretty dern nasty. Completely discounting it as a credible list is kind of well, clueless.

Basically they stay in a bunch and use apothecaries to soak lots of wounds, and murder you at 18-24", closer if they feel like it and you're not much of an assault threat.

Longshot,
Very few lists are completely worthless. The one you posted is certainly "credible." It will do fine against mid level opponents. Probably will be top army in a local area.

The question is how to optimize it for use against top tier opponents. You know how to make the apothecaries useless? Charge the unit. Once it's in HtH, all those points are useless and wasted. The 5 man melta squads do one thing. Take two shots and die. At 100 points each, that better be an expensive something. Again, the list is fine against most opponents, but it certainly is not optimized for success against a top flight tournament army.

Ask Mauleed about his shootie pod list. It's totally solid as well.

I think you're acting on some misconceptions. Like that an army with 32 bolters, 8 plasmaguns, termies with fear of darkness, and drop pods to use as defensive walls is likely to be assaulted (and there're powerfists in those squads!) in any meaningful way if i chooses not to be.

5 man squads with 2 meltaguns are a lot better for antitank than you might expect They drop in, pop a tank, and cower behind it in 4+ cover, and generally get one more shot and/or force the opponent to move away from them in an inconvenient fashion. A 130 pt squad can afford to be sacrificed to kill a tank that is of their value, and most tanks are >130 pts. Their primary targets are defilers and basilisks, both of which they make up their points off of.

There're multiple ways to play pods effectively, and the shootie lists are definitely top tier as well. I drastically prefer the bp/ccw/horde list because it's more reliable, and it's what I play - so don't think I'm saying it's inferior. I just have seen a lot of cool gak done with the shootie variants and I would never say "no dude, you can't win tournaments with the shootie pod list," because that's just a lie.

First of all, you can't take a familiar with terminator armor (no T next to it on the armory list).

Second, I agree with Papa about true grit. It isn't worth 24 points for those 5 extra ccw attacks, extra attacks that don't apply when you charge. Counter assault can help drop pod armies too I guess but still not worth the cost IMHO.

Overall, I think you should invest the points from the speeders and true grit into another squad. If you want to use another trait, bp/ccw isn't a bad choice, even if you only use it on a couple of squads. However you have other options as well, including making both dreads venerable (what I'd do but only because I like dreads) or going with the apothecay network (probably have to forgo the 5th tactical though).

Hope that helps.