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I have experimented with several combos, whether its SV's or Tac's or ASM, or DC or a Dread. whatever i drop in never seems to survive to turn 2.

The only thing that has truly "worked" is a sacrificial lamb unit which i hate doing, it never manages to earn its points back. To me thats not "working".

The best purpose of the 1-pod team is, for example, a 5-melta sternguard unit.

Something around 150-200 points, Drop pods behind a Land Raider and inflicts more damage than its worth in points. Or that very expensive kitted-out Riptide, etc.

They usually die on the next enemy Turn.

I prefer either a 1-pod list, or a 3-pod list.

if you are using 1 pod, expect that unit to die. Its really what it's supposed to do. Also remember that when calculating how many points "effective" it was, you should not just calculate its damage, but also, how many points were used that turn to kill it.

So if I drop in a command squad with 4 meltaguns in a pod = 175 points and I wreck a wave-serpent or a chimera, maybe I didnt earn all those points up front. But if the Wraithknight turns and uses his shooting to kill them, then that means the wraithknight wasnt shooting my main force on that turn, and it gives me a chance to get in to position.

It works perfectly fine if it gets your First Blood and/or sabotages the opponent's game plan.

I suicided a dread this way last game. I got first blood, killed a predator that was threatening my vindicators, and my opponent panicked enough where he allowed me to get a back shot on Bjorn with my gun line and diverted enough of his shooting for the turn to allow me to move to a better position with my mobile units.

That was all worth the cost of the dread.

Bonus: my opponent promptly forgot about the drop pod and it had a locator beacon...

Almost nothing in 40k works alone because it can be saturated out. If I bring only one anti-AV14 unit and my opponent has a Land Raider my one AT unit is going to be the first thing removed. You don't have to go 100% Drop Pods to play, but I'd suggest making sure you have at least two with solid threats hitting the board turn one in addition to any threats you've deployed on the board.

That said First Blood and area denial are both considerations, if you can feth up the other guy's movement lanes and keep something scary out of the game for an extra turn it could be completely worth it, and there are scenarios that are won and lost on First Blood. Be sure to recognize that it's a dice gamble here and you could be giving up First Blood just as easily as securing it.

Right, DS'ing turn 1 with little to no support I'm almost guaranteeing my opponent gets first blood turn 1 and im gambling to get it. I dont see the risk reward ratio on that one tipping in my favor.

How hard are you looking? There are plenty of places to pod in that isn't suicide. A tac squad on what had previously seemed like an ignored objective. A troublesome place in the back field where they're hard to deal with, and not a threat now, but once the rest of your army moves up, will be.

If you throw one podded unit right in front of the enemy, unless you've got a really clear objective for it to achieve in one turn, it's probably going to be a waist, but there's a lot more versatility to it than that.

If you put the drop pod in a position where everything of his can shoot the contents, expect everything to shoot the contents. any rapidfire weaponry will be aimed at the guys who are close enough for it to be effective.

I like to drop in as close to the board edge as I dare, on the weakest flank, and try to hide a dreadnaught where he can charge from next turn. make sure to avoid weapons that are too short range to target anything else (rapidfire, flamers, melta) and go close to the long range stuff, making him actually choose what he shoots rather than just letting him shoot the short range weapons as well.

You need to plan where you land it.

With a really good landing you can:
-Mess with his deployment.
-Redirect shooting that would otherwise go at your moving CC-units.
-Blow up more points than you spend on the Drop Pod and content.
-Challenge an Objective.

A unit of Sternguard could easily do it.
I even prefer to up the number to 7 or 8, which will cost him a lot of shooting to get rid of them.
And if they survive they will inflict a lot of damage in the second turn.

Beavetron wrote:
Right, DS'ing turn 1 with little to no support I'm almost guaranteeing my opponent gets first blood turn 1 and im gambling to get it. I dont see the risk reward ratio on that one tipping in my favor.

That's why target priority is important, and not caring as much about that unit getting its points back. It's also why you stack the deck as much as possible. Example: don't drop a regular MM dread, drop a venerable MM dread with Vulkan on the board.

If the opponent only has heavy vehicles (land raiders, etc) or other hard targets on the board, but they have a squishy unit hanging out where you can reach them (like scouts kroot or pathfinders), feel free to go after them instead.

Remember, First Blood is the only bonus objective that you can get that your opponent cannot answer, so it's worth going all in for it.