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Martel732 wrote:
Marine armies need fewer toys in general and more things that work. All one needs to do to see how dependent marines are on a few selections by comparing BA to regular marines. Because the BA lost all of them, imo. I don't count the drop pod. I wouldn't miss it much, except for Furiosos.

Aren't pretty much all Blood Angel vehicles Fast? Moving 12" and still being able to fire at full BS is a big deal. I'd pay quite a few points for my Hammerheads to have that ability again.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Aren't pretty much all Blood Angel vehicles Fast?

Their drop pods are quite quick, yeah

 BlackTalos wrote:
Point was you though SW were unhinged, but i thing the new BA Codex gives more pods for a cheaper Tax

Well, the Exterminatus book technically...

The SW are unhinged because you can't assault them effectively after they drop. Not because of the drops themselves.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Marine armies need fewer toys in general and more things that work. All one needs to do to see how dependent marines are on a few selections by comparing BA to regular marines. Because the BA lost all of them, imo. I don't count the drop pod. I wouldn't miss it much, except for Furiosos.

Aren't pretty much all Blood Angel vehicles Fast? Moving 12" and still being able to fire at full BS is a big deal. I'd pay quite a few points for my Hammerheads to have that ability again.

That's a small comfort with no grav cents, storm talons, smashbane, grav biker troops, TFCs, or AA tanks. After a few games, I feel the BA are still toward the cellar in the army pecking order. Still bullied by SW. Can't touch the power codices. Still can't handle the GK.

Martel732 wrote:
Marine armies need fewer toys in general and more things that work. All one needs to do to see how dependent marines are on a few selections by comparing BA to regular marines. Because the BA lost all of them, imo. I don't count the drop pod. I wouldn't miss it much, except for Furiosos.


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 BlackTalos wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Yeah, I already said SW pods are unhinged. For the rest of the marines, though, they get less effective. Quickly.

You have heard of the Flesh Tearer Detachment then? 1 HQ+1Troop that allows for 6 Pods? (for those IG and Sisters )

What's your point? That's IG and Sisters being good drop troops, not marines.

Yeah thats totally the point. Since all IOM can utilize the drop pod it is under-costed. If a drop pod stated in it's rules that only space marines could board it then by all rights they should be free to take for all marine squads considering their points and what they are armed with.

I guess. I'm just not feeling it. I guess I'll have to go up against it to fully understand.

Martel732 wrote:
I guess. I'm just not feeling it. I guess I'll have to go up against it to fully understand.

Company command and a vet squad drop together. Cast orders on each squad to ignore cover or tank hunter and it's GG your two biggest tanks, IK, or whatever you got. Really tough for me to stop with my DA who like to field a lot of armor. It's part of the reason I started playing Grey-knights more exclusively.

Assuming they can even drop within melta range.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I guess. I'm just not feeling it. I guess I'll have to go up against it to fully understand.

Company command and a vet squad drop together. Cast orders on each squad to ignore cover or tank hunter and it's GG your two biggest tanks, IK, or whatever you got. Really tough for me to stop with my DA who like to field a lot of armor. It's part of the reason I started playing Grey-knights more exclusively.

The answer to this problem is in deployment. When you deploy your army, and you look down at the table, you should be able to see that the space you left open next to your predators and whirlwinds is wide open. At this point your mind should be telling you, "Hey, I know they have drop pods, and I know what's in them. They have melta guns. I shouldn't let them drop there".

And then something incredible happens. You don't allow them to drop there. Mind. Blown.

Drop Pods are predictable. You know when they are coming, you know how they are coming, you can usually guess where they are going, and you know what's coming. They aren't impossibly difficult game enders like it seems some here are arguing (not directed at you Xenomancers). Most of the counter to them is in the deployment phase.

 Ignatius wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I guess. I'm just not feeling it. I guess I'll have to go up against it to fully understand.

Company command and a vet squad drop together. Cast orders on each squad to ignore cover or tank hunter and it's GG your two biggest tanks, IK, or whatever you got. Really tough for me to stop with my DA who like to field a lot of armor. It's part of the reason I started playing Grey-knights more exclusively.

The answer to this problem is in deployment. When you deploy your army, and you look down at the table, you should be able to see that the space you left open next to your predators and whirlwinds is wide open. At this point your mind should be telling you, "Hey, I know they have drop pods, and I know what's in them. They have melta guns. I shouldn't let them drop there".

And then something incredible happens. You don't allow them to drop there. Mind. Blown.

Drop Pods are predictable. You know when they are coming, you know how they are coming, you can usually guess where they are going, and you know what's coming. They aren't impossibly difficult game enders like it seems some here are arguing (not directed at you Xenomancers). Most of the counter to them is in the deployment phase.

This is why I still use MM attack bikes.

 Ignatius wrote:

And then something incredible happens. You don't allow them to drop there. Mind. Blown.

How?

 vipoid wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:

And then something incredible happens. You don't allow them to drop there. Mind. Blown.

How?

By spacing your units and utilizing terrain they can't legally drop into. In fact, their own pod will carry them away from you. Irony, indeed.

Many play groups I've seen stipulate that you have to be able to deploy the doors, as well.

 vipoid wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:

And then something incredible happens. You don't allow them to drop there. Mind. Blown.

How?

By setting up the rest of your units around the tanks? By putting them next to area terrain? Buildings? Table edges? Honestly there are tons of ways to manipulate where your enemy decides to come in. Give them a throw away unit that looks too good to be true (and is). A huge part of strategy games is dictating the terms of engagements, knowing what the opponent will do and creating counters to it.

Admittedly, it helps that we play with a lot of terrain. Just not much blocks LOS. But you don't need LOS blocking to shield yourself from pods.

 Ignatius wrote:

By setting up the rest of your units around the tanks?

What if you don't have any expendable tanks to spare for this? Or, not enough to blockade them off?

 Ignatius wrote:
By putting them next to area terrain? Buildings? Table edges?

Depends on the area terrain, surely? I thought Drop Pods could land in some area terrain?

 Ignatius wrote:
Honestly there are tons of ways to manipulate where your enemy decides to come in. Give them a throw away unit that looks too good to be true (and is). A huge part of strategy games is dictating the terms of engagements, knowing what the opponent will do and creating counters to it.

My point is simply that you don't always have multiple 'spare' units you can afford to just throw to the drop pods. Or terrain that's perfect for deploying all your valuable stuff behind.

And, even if you do, your opponent is able to massively influence your deployment with those units - whilst still potentially doing a lot of damage to you.

No, drop pods can not enter any kind of terrain.

"whilst still potentially doing a lot of damage to you."

Not as much as I'm going to do back against non-SW.

 Ignatius wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I guess. I'm just not feeling it. I guess I'll have to go up against it to fully understand.

Company command and a vet squad drop together. Cast orders on each squad to ignore cover or tank hunter and it's GG your two biggest tanks, IK, or whatever you got. Really tough for me to stop with my DA who like to field a lot of armor. It's part of the reason I started playing Grey-knights more exclusively.

The answer to this problem is in deployment. When you deploy your army, and you look down at the table, you should be able to see that the space you left open next to your predators and whirlwinds is wide open. At this point your mind should be telling you, "Hey, I know they have drop pods, and I know what's in them. They have melta guns. I shouldn't let them drop there".

And then something incredible happens. You don't allow them to drop there. Mind. Blown.

Drop Pods are predictable. You know when they are coming, you know how they are coming, you can usually guess where they are going, and you know what's coming. They aren't impossibly difficult game enders like it seems some here are arguing (not directed at you Xenomancers). Most of the counter to them is in the deployment phase.

Unless you are a hoard army or want to deploy in a corner castle (which almost always will lose you the game anyways) There is no way to cover every angle to your armor with drop pod meltas if you have a significant amount of armor. I'm doing everything you suggest you just can't cover the whole board with models. Maybe you play with a lot more impassable terrain than I do or something. Drop pods are actually very unpredictable - they can drop them anywhere - and they can put squads with different specialties in them (plasma or melta) - you know whats in them but they don't have to drop them in any order. Sometimes people will even have empty pods so they can put alpha strike and go for beta strike against castles (it's not just a drop pod tax - it's options.)


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Martel732 wrote:
No, drop pods can not enter any kind of terrain.

"whilst still potentially doing a lot of damage to you."

Not as much as I'm going to do back against non-SW.

Drop pods just get pushed to the minimum distance to allow you to deploy it then the units inside get full movement out of the dang thing. they cost 35 points is the only issue. I'm not saying they are unbeatable or anything cause they aren't. They are however to good for their points.

 vipoid wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:

By setting up the rest of your units around the tanks?

What if you don't have any expendable tanks to spare for this? Or, not enough to blockade them off?

Well at this point then you are giving up your tanks. If you don't have the resources necessary to protect them, then either your army list is unbalanced or your tanks are not as important to you as you think. There's no way that you don't have any units to bubble wrap with. What about tacticals and such? Put them around the vehicles at max coherency and dominate your deployment zone.

 Ignatius wrote:
By putting them next to area terrain? Buildings? Table edges?

Depends on the area terrain, surely? I thought Drop Pods could land in some area terrain?

No sir, not that I'm aware of. Essentially, what I'm advocating is using the terrain and table edges to deny landings where you are unable to bubble wrap with units.

 Ignatius wrote:
Honestly there are tons of ways to manipulate where your enemy decides to come in. Give them a throw away unit that looks too good to be true (and is). A huge part of strategy games is dictating the terms of engagements, knowing what the opponent will do and creating counters to it.

My point is simply that you don't always have multiple 'spare' units you can afford to just throw to the drop pods. Or terrain that's perfect for deploying all your valuable stuff behind.

And, even if you do, your opponent is able to massively influence your deployment with those units - whilst still potentially doing a lot of damage to you.

It's a give and take. Sure they are able to influence you in that you have to make sure that your units are protecting your tanks- a minor inconvenience. At the same time however, you are influencing them by making their choice of where to put their pods very difficult. Remember that they MUST bring half of them on turn one. If you can set it up right, you may even scare them enough into just dropping them on objectives or midfield instead of right next to your armor. All I'm saying here is that the application of tactical placement and thinking goes a long way against drop pod lists.

 Ignatius wrote:
Well at this point then you are giving up your tanks. If you don't have the resources necessary to protect them, then either your army list is unbalanced or your tanks are not as important to you as you think. There's no way that you don't have any units to bubble wrap with. What about tacticals and such? Put them around the vehicles at max coherency and dominate your deployment zone. ]

Since when was I talking about marines?

I'm thinking of my DE army here.

If I put any units outside their vehicles then those models are dead.

Don't DE have any cheap, expendable infantry?

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I guess. I'm just not feeling it. I guess I'll have to go up against it to fully understand.

Company command and a vet squad drop together. Cast orders on each squad to ignore cover or tank hunter and it's GG your two biggest tanks, IK, or whatever you got. Really tough for me to stop with my DA who like to field a lot of armor. It's part of the reason I started playing Grey-knights more exclusively.

The answer to this problem is in deployment. When you deploy your army, and you look down at the table, you should be able to see that the space you left open next to your predators and whirlwinds is wide open. At this point your mind should be telling you, "Hey, I know they have drop pods, and I know what's in them. They have melta guns. I shouldn't let them drop there".

And then something incredible happens. You don't allow them to drop there. Mind. Blown.

Drop Pods are predictable. You know when they are coming, you know how they are coming, you can usually guess where they are going, and you know what's coming. They aren't impossibly difficult game enders like it seems some here are arguing (not directed at you Xenomancers). Most of the counter to them is in the deployment phase.

Unless you are a hoard army or want to deploy in a corner castle (which almost always will lose you the game anyways) There is no way to cover every angle to your armor with drop pod meltas if you have a significant amount of armor. I'm doing everything you suggest you just can't cover the whole board with models. Maybe you play with a lot more impassable terrain than I do or something. Drop pods are actually very unpredictable - they can drop them anywhere - and they can put squads with different specialties in them (plasma or melta) - you know whats in them but they don't have to drop them in any order. Sometimes people will even have empty pods so they can put alpha strike and go for beta strike against castles (it's not just a drop pod tax - it's options.)

Okay let's look at it from a costs-benefit perspective. A unit of Space Marine Sternguard Melta Veterans drop pods in. Because you are smart, you have placed your most valuable armor units in bubble wraps and in cover. Sadly, you did not have enough units to cover all your armor. One of your (I don't know what army you play, but let's use... Chaos. I don't know) Maulerfiends is out in the open. Your opponent sees this, and puts his drop pod in a manner that he is able to land next to your vehicle. The drop pod scores a direct hit! It lands right next to it. Unfortunately, your Maulerfiend stands no chance. It dies horribly. Your turn comes however, and you want revenge. You assault his sternguard with some Spawn you have with your MoK Juggerlord. Buh bye sternguard.

So, you managed to take out what was probably one of what? 2? 3? 4?! units on the enemy side that can hurt your Land Raider (your high value armor that you bubble wrapped) for the cost of one Maulerfiend. Worth it? Well, YMMV but I'd say yes.

 Xenomancers wrote:
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Martel732 wrote:
No, drop pods can not enter any kind of terrain.

"whilst still potentially doing a lot of damage to you."

Not as much as I'm going to do back against non-SW.

Drop pods just get pushed to the minimum distance to allow you to deploy it then the units inside get full movement out of the dang thing. they cost 35 points is the only issue. I'm not saying they are unbeatable or anything cause they aren't. They are however to good for their points.

Yes, they are good for their points. But so are a lot of other units in the game. Being good for the points shouldn't make it necessary for them to be reduced. If we just went around raising the prices of the good units in the game, then we are left with a standard that is below average- which is fun for no one.


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 vipoid wrote:

 Ignatius wrote:
Well at this point then you are giving up your tanks. If you don't have the resources necessary to protect them, then either your army list is unbalanced or your tanks are not as important to you as you think. There's no way that you don't have any units to bubble wrap with. What about tacticals and such? Put them around the vehicles at max coherency and dominate your deployment zone. ]

Since when was I talking about marines?

I'm thinking of my DE army here.

If I put any units outside their vehicles then those models are dead.

Okay my apologies. I didn't know what army you had and used Space Marines as a filler.

I know for a fact that Dark Eldar Warriors are cheap and plentiful. I also know that they have Webway Portals that you can reserve a significant amount of your armor in. I know they have Nightshields which laugh at melta. Raiders and Venoms are spammable, cheap, and plentiful. They are capable of deep striking themselves. There is always answers. If you'd like we can go through every army and tourny winning list and I can show you, but I don't think that would be the proper use of our time.

It seems the consensus for stopping drop pods is using interceptor and counter-deployment...
A lot of armies have no access to interceptor in their Codex, hell some of them don't even have skyfire.
And as far as expendable troops go, yes you can do this with Orcs, 'Nids, Chaos... But Eldar and Dark Eldar can't really afford expendable troops.
And as far as Deep Striking venoms and raiders go, they don't have the ability to practically ignore all DS mishap and a lot of players won't risk deep striking the raider especially because of its awkward shape. And as far as Night Shields laughing at Melta goes, we loose our ability too shoot most of the time because we need to Jink. To stop this a lot of players are savy and deploy out of line of sight or behind buildings to get better saves, but drop pods ignore our careful deployment and force us into jinking.
Not to mention that deep striking Flamers will probably ruin a DE player turn one. I don't think anyone can deny this fact. No cover, no saves, auto-hit and auto-kill our units inside, all you need to do is wound. Drop pods hurt the Dark Eldar the most of all I believe, which may be bias on my point of view.
Drop Pod spam is probably easy to counter for Marines and whatnot. But for other armies who are relying on mobility, particularly Eldar and Dark Eldar, they can't afford to hide in a corner and get no victory points.
And Even if you do scatter say the full 12" away from what you wanted to shoot at. With the 6" disembarkation you can get into range with everything apart from possibly an unlucky melta range weapon. Scatter doesn't mean much to a vehicle that has no risks when it comes to deep striking other than a table edge. If I deploy my whole army around the table edge, then I loose all of my mobility and you can still just drop down in the rest of my deployment zone that I haven't used.
In a maelstrom mission, Drop Pods are an incredible and efficient way to capture objectives, and then deny the enemy from capturing objectives.
Essentially from the point of a Dark Eldar player, they are too cheap for what they do. From the point of a Space Marine player, it seems as though they are not.

Martel732 wrote:
Don't DE have any cheap, expendable infantry?

Not really, no.

 Ignatius wrote:

Okay my apologies. I didn't know what army you had and used Space Marines as a filler.

No worries.

 Ignatius wrote:

I know for a fact that Dark Eldar Warriors are cheap and plentiful.

Cheap perhaps, but that's not the same as plentiful. Nor the same as expendable.

 Ignatius wrote:
I also know that they have Webway Portals that you can reserve a significant amount of your armor in.

Are we not discussing a TAC list here? WWPs have to be bought in advance - I can't just see that my opponent is using lots of drop pods and suddenly decide to take 10 of the things.

Furthermore, each WWP also requires a character - meaning you have the cost of said character and need to attach that character to the vehicle (which is frequently impossible when venoms are capacity 5 and most of our squads are minimum-5).

 Ignatius wrote:
I know they have Nightshields which laugh at melta.

I wasn't aware that Night Shields were free.

Also, I assume you're referring to my Jinking - in which case I'm crippling my own firepower.

Also also, Night Shields really don't laugh at melta. Most of the time, it only takes one failed save and your vehicle is dead.

 Ignatius wrote:
They are capable of deep striking themselves.

Which often isn't remotely desirable.

 Ignatius wrote:
There is always answers

Yes, and so far they all involve clairvoyance on my part, feeding different units to those drop pods, or else crippling my deployment.

Even if they don't get to my juiciest targets, can you not see how badly these drop pods are affecting my deployment?

Your whole problem seems to center around the changes to open-topped transports. Given how stupid good open-topped has been for some time, it was a necessary change, because open-topped vehicles were just super-cheap assault vehicles.

Eldar don't need expendable troops. The Eldar just weather the storm with their shields and then crush the drop troops.

Martel732 wrote:
Your whole problem seems to center around the changes to open-topped transports. Given how stupid good open-topped has been for some time, it was a necessary change, because open-topped vehicles were just super-cheap assault vehicles.

Yeah, our open-top vehicles have no disadvantages whatsoever.

Not like they're really fragile or made more vulnerable by being open-topped.

 vipoid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Your whole problem seems to center around the changes to open-topped transports. Given how stupid good open-topped has been for some time, it was a necessary change, because open-topped vehicles were just super-cheap assault vehicles.

Yeah, our open-top vehicles have no disadvantages whatsoever.

Not like they're really fragile or made more vulnerable by being open-topped.

+1 to the pen result was far too little of a disadvantage to be given *assault transport* in return.

Martel732 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Your whole problem seems to center around the changes to open-topped transports. Given how stupid good open-topped has been for some time, it was a necessary change, because open-topped vehicles were just super-cheap assault vehicles.

Yeah, our open-top vehicles have no disadvantages whatsoever.

Not like they're really fragile or made more vulnerable by being open-topped.

+1 to the pen result was far too little of a disadvantage to be given *assault transport* in return.

+1 to damage roll is a pretty big deal when you have AV10 on all sides.

Meltas have a 97.2% chance to penetrate an AV10 vehicle within half range. Outside of half range they have a 66% chance to pen. Then they have a 50% chance of exploding the vehicle (and in 6th it was a 66% chance to explode)

Sounds like +1 to damage roll is pretty damn powerful, if you ask me. I know my Tau railguns loved playing Dark Eldar, especially before our new book when broadsides were S10.

AV 10 is just as easily HPed out and real weapons shot at other targets. The assault upgrade is easily worth the +1 and then some.

Martel732 wrote:
AV 10 is just as easily HPed out and real weapons shot at other targets. The assault upgrade is easily worth the +1 and then some.

Except for the part where Dark Eldar typically don't have many other targets to shoot AT at.
So you might as well pop the vehicles with high AP guns then hose down the survivors with the rest of your guns.

All of their vehicles are AV10 except for the Ravager, the only other thing to shoot AT weapons at are the Cronos and Talos, who are pretty slow so they can wait.

Dark eldar really need to have the first turn...I have no idea why they took vect out of the book. I mean...he was the lord of the dark eldar....

 Xenomancers wrote:
Dark eldar really need to have the first turn...I have no idea why they took vect out of the book. I mean...he was the lord of the dark eldar....

Because there wasn't a model for him.

I mean, it's not like GW could just make a model or anything...