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So I'm expecting to see as many drop podding armies this year at Nova as I saw Tau + Eldar armies last year. Could be just me or the fact that one tabled me turn one at Nova last year :( That being said what are the best tactics to mess with pods? Are there really any? Or should I just grin and bear it?

What's your army?

Generally speaking you will want to use reserves for some of your units to prevent them from getting alpha striked.

Here's my current Necron list for Nova.

HQ: Overlord

HQ: Overlord, Warscythe, Mindshackle Scarabs, Sempiternal Weave, Resurrection Orb, Phase Shifter, Catacomb Command Barge

Royal Court
Harbinger of Despair, Veil of Darkness
Harbinger of the Storm
Harbinger of the Storm
Harbinger of the Storm

Fast Attack: 5x Canoptek Wraiths
Fast Attack: 5x Canoptek Wraiths
Fast Attack: 3x Canoptek Scarabs

Troops: 5x Warriors, Night Scythe
Troops: 5x Warriors, Night Scythe
Troops: 5x Warriors, Night Scythe

Heavy Support: Annihilation Barge
Heavy Support: Annihilation Barge

AM Ally:

HQ: Company Command Squad

Troops: Veteran Squad, Heavy Weapon Team Lascannon

Heavy Support: Ordnance Battery 2x wyvern

Horde armies, and run close combat beat sticks. Marines are not good In close combat and most dedicated close cOmbat armies will beat a pod list. Also no death stars, a death star is a pod army's primary target and when you have all those points invested in one unit you have less units to effectively "bubble wrap" that unit to protect pods from dropping in close on it. Also infiltrators, when a pod army deploys usually your infiltrators will have a field day being able to go pretty much wherever they want. Also pod armies are not mobile once they hit the table, so any kind of mobile horde style army will be able to outscore them. Pods are easy to play against you just have to deploy correctly and be cost efficient with your points (hey like almost any 40k game!)

If possible, bubble wrap your shooting base with a larger squad of infantry (Kroot, Guardsmen, Boyz, etc work well). Reserve the rest (or most) of your army.

A good idea is to castle up, bait the opponent into committing to that portion of the table (they will often do this as to maximize the potential alpha of their initial drop).

Once the marines drop they are slow moving infantry and will have a difficult time re-deploying, especially true if the player is taking maxed out squads in pods (7-8 pods with 10 man squads).

Coteaz in a Bastion with the death squad:
2 Jeraeko
3 servators with multi-meltas
1 psyker
6 warriors with combi-weapons

Hoping for rending off the Jeraeko, though extra range isn't bad either.
It gives me a 12" bubble of free shooting, where I'm tossing out some pretty effective free shooting (5 multi-meltas + friends).
With another inquisitor in the neighborhood with a plasma syphon, I can punish any army that loaded up on combi-plasma.

I've been becoming a fan of Jeraeko as the backfield anchors for Grey Knights. Boosting the cheap shooting while bringing lascannon/multimelta/heavy flamer is really solid for 35 points.

If the models were cheap, I'd do a planet of the apes army with 30-50 of those bastards.

-Matt

Jeraeko, imo, are one of the most underestimated models in 40k. I rarely see them being used, despite them offering quite a good advantage.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Jeraeko, imo, are one of the most underestimated models in 40k. I rarely see them being used, despite them offering quite a good advantage.

Henchmen lists arent cheap being fine cast and 1-2 models a pack

I think you're going to have problems against more than just drop pods. Your list is sitting on several fences. For example,

-You only have 3 fliers. Night Scythes are great, but most armies at NOVA will have enough AA to take out 3 AV11 fliers over the course of the game.

-You have 3 close combat threats, again, they will be picked apart because you don't have enough threat overload. They're not going to make it where they need to go most often.

-Your court doesn't have any ablative wounds. It's a cool idea in theory, kiting around the board, but you'd be better off embedding each of the haywire teks in different Ghost Arks.

Necrons are a powerful army now, and make excellent all-comers detachments but I think you're a little too ren-man right now.

A major point in stopping drop pods is your deployment, you have to deploy to deny as much critical territory as possible. If they cant land next to their target they become easy targets since each pod is typically set up to counter a certain unit type.

 LValx wrote:
Reserve the rest (or most) of your army.

Once the marines drop they are slow moving infantry and will have a difficult time re-deploying, especially true if the player is taking maxed out squads in pods (7-8 pods with 10 man squads).

I am a pod player and I use eleven pods.

This maximizes objective holders and targets and makes it easier to take special weapons via free pods on assualt marines, so that I dont lose terribly to close combat specific armies.

Also, do NOT reserve over 50% of your army base unless you are looking to get alpha tabled.

This happens OFTEN when people don't want to lose stuff and they reserve too much and make it so when I drop 6 pods turn one I can kill effectively everything they have.

6 Pods turn one can result in me being able to target up to around 15 different units, and this is to include using things like psychic shriek, which I have killed entire bike squads with in one phase.

The best way to counter pod players is to huddle.

Make it so you blob your gak in a goofy ass pattern and spread EVERY model out 2 inches apart to avoid flamers doing too much damage.

If you have to, deploy your tanks far as hell away from your infantry against things like sterngaurd.

Combat squad sterngaurd players usually want to hit a tank, pop it or hull it, and then flame the unit inside with the combat squaded heavy flamers in the other half of the unit.

Hope this all helps.

Honestly, best way to understand is to specifically look at their list and guess what units they are going to drop and where.

This is why I run so many pods, so that I have a lot of options, making it harder to assume what I am going to do.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Jeraeko, imo, are one of the most underestimated models in 40k. I rarely see them being used, despite them offering quite a good advantage.

Henchmen lists arent cheap being fine cast and 1-2 models a pack

Skaven Plague monks and a few minor conversions

I play Tyranids the most so dropped armies are pretty much an auto-win for me. However, for other armies, a few generalised tips I'd recommend.

Reserve your glass cannons, or the closest thing that fits this description. Things are going to die before you get a chance to do anything about it. Accept this and leave on the field the units that provide the most durability for points.

Huddle up, you know he's coming to you - he HAS to, otherwise either all his close ranged weaponry is wasted, or the points put into his drop pods are. Make sure for him to abuse his close range advantage on your mid-long range guys, it comes at the cost of putting himself in range of your short range firepower as well.


Flamers will always be popular with drop pod armies, but check his list. Don't bother spacing out if there is no Flamers, just make your huddle as tight as it needs to be.

Some armies are at a natural disadvantage, by paying more points to bring a ranged gun line to the table. This is kind of what Drop Pod armies will always do best against, so if you are running one of these armies I'd recommend tweaking in some close range support, with the popularity and strength of Steel Rain a strict gun line just isn't TAC with this factored in, although obviously some elements of the gun line play to the strengths of your army and this is not a bad thing, just cover your bases a bit and focus less on a certain type of play, albeit a solid one it's not infallible.


This is intended to be generalised for anybody reading the thread not for any specific army.

I have to say, the best tactic when facing a drop pod army is have more bodies than your opponent has bullets.

i just pick a corner and turtle up, bubble wrapping what i can. like it was said earlier, he has to come to you. i play assault heavy lists, mainly demons. i let him come close, then i start tying everything up in combat, that way the rest of his pods aren't shooting anything.

 The Shrike wrote:
I think you're going to have problems against more than just drop pods. Your list is sitting on several fences. For example,

-You only have 3 fliers. Night Scythes are great, but most armies at NOVA will have enough AA to take out 3 AV11 fliers over the course of the game.

-You have 3 close combat threats, again, they will be picked apart because you don't have enough threat overload. They're not going to make it where they need to go most often.

-Your court doesn't have any ablative wounds. It's a cool idea in theory, kiting around the board, but you'd be better off embedding each of the haywire teks in different Ghost Arks.

Necrons are a powerful army now, and make excellent all-comers detachments but I think you're a little too ren-man right now.

Yeah, I hear ya about the covering too many bases thing. Last year I flew a cronair list with 7 flyers. Granted with jinks being a 4+ now and the nerfing that vector strike took in 7E and the nerfing that Tau took with the buff commander + riptide combo I'm more willing to play last years list however it's that turn one kabillion pod list with lots of dakka turn one that tabled me last year. Basically what Awfeel is describing is what got me. Granted, I should have had everything I could on the board, which I didn't do. But at most with my cronair list I can field 5 5-man warrior squads, 2x anni barges and an overlord with a 2+ save. I might get lucky with more LOS blocking terrain this year making drop pods more difficult...don't know...

Bubble wrap and have a select few units in reserve, it's pretty much all there is to it.

Me personally, I use a bastion with a Malanthrope inside and Barricades around it. Every model within 6" of the Bastion will have a 2+ cover save thanks to Barricades and Shrouding. It is also impossible to place models within 6" of my Bastion, so it can't be Melta'd by Sternguard squads. And then, my turn 1 there are a bunch of angry angry FMCs that will shoot or assault him into the grave, as I see fit. Not every army can do this, but Tyranids are well suited to taking on Pod armies. When my entire army has a 2++ cover save, it's hard to truly cripple me with an Alpha strike since Marines largely do not ignore cover. A psychic power here or there maybe, but I'll be sure to try and deny it. You can flame gants or gargoyles, but they'll be spread out and I frankly don't care if some die.

So yeah. If Drop Pod trouble you, have a bubble wrap unit that you don't care about.

An airforce list isn't great at responding to the alpha strike. The good news is, even if you lose a lot of what you deploy, you then have a lot of advantages for the rest of the game. Few pod lists have a ton of AA.

But to the OP, there's a reason AV13 wall is the new (old) hotness for Necrons. You just deploy everything and jink. OS spam ghost arks, anni barges and command barges do your killing and haywire teks deal with knights. I'm not saying Cronair is bad; it's got great matchups. But it's a classic RPS army. AV13 wall is the better TAC build.