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Drop pods are critical for units like Furioso dreadnoughts, that have no other options for getting to within firing range.

I also feel that drop pod naked Sternguard with something like a 2+/4++ IC to tank wounds is also pretty worthwhile. But just stuffing anything and everything in drop pods is not an OP tactic; and it backfires frequently.

I'm actually kinda pissed that high STR shooting spam is the cure-all for practically anything in this case.

Totally agree with you. So all in all we can say DPs aren't horribly undercosted (maybe a bit but not much) like some other units, and you can't just spam them carelessly like other transports.

The main issue with them is that they're an 12/12/12 Objective Secured brick in a CAD.

Spamming Ob Sec fairly resilient vehicles is the issue.

One Tac filled DP is cool.
Two can be fun.
Three pack a punch.

Five, things get stupid.

The problem is that their effectiveness scales much better than linear, but there price does not. Once again, spam sucks.

Bharring wrote:One Tac filled DP is cool.
Two can be fun.
Three pack a punch.

Five, things get stupid.

The problem is that their effectiveness scales much better than linear, but there price does not. Once again, spam sucks.

Absolutely agree. Almost anything gets powerful if spammed enough. A simple "Slightly Undercosted" thing becomes a great object for spamming because the points savings start racking up quickly.
Exactly like another vehicle which Wrenthe reminded me...

WrentheFaceless wrote:The main issue with them is that they're an 12/12/12 Objective Secured brick in a CAD.

Spamming Ob Sec fairly resilient vehicles is the issue.

Wave Serpents.



But that's another thread.

Bharring wrote:
One Tac filled DP is cool.
Two can be fun.
Three pack a punch.

Five, things get stupid.

The problem is that their effectiveness scales much better than linear, but there price does not. Once again, spam sucks.

I've fought off 7, so I'm not sure I agree.

I'm sure you've torched a Wave Serpent spam list or two, too. Doesn't mean its fun.

Bharring wrote:
I'm sure you've torched a Wave Serpent spam list or two, too. Doesn't mean its fun.

Actually, no I really haven't. Not "torched". I think I have squeaked out one victory over Serpent Spam since it dropped. Out of many, many beat downs at their hands. I frequently hand drop pod lists their heads because they aren't AV 12 targets flying around shooting maximum firepower at me from 36" away.

It was an attempt at reducto ad absurdum. Apparently failed.

Bharring wrote:
I'm sure you've torched a Wave Serpent spam list or two, too. Doesn't mean its fun.

We weren't talking about "fun" (BTW i agree with you, some lists aren't fun) we were talking about the cost/effectiveness ratio of DPs and their optimal usage.

I guess the limit for "fun" DPs is about 3, more becomes annying.

 mathaius90 wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I'm sure you've torched a Wave Serpent spam list or two, too. Doesn't mean its fun.

We weren't talking about "fun" (BTW i agree with you, some lists aren't fun) we were talking about the cost/effectiveness ratio of DPs and their optimal usage.

I guess the limit for "fun" DPs is about 3, more becomes annying.

Or suicidal.

I agree with the more fleshed out idea that DPs are slightly undercosted BUT the benefits scale more exponentially than linearly.

I use 1/2 'Pods quite often with my Marines. I may suicide them from time to time, but usually they establish a threat. It hardly feels like it makes my lists suicidal.

Bharring wrote:
I use 1/2 'Pods quite often with my Marines. I may suicide them from time to time, but usually they establish a threat. It hardly feels like it makes my lists suicidal.

I'm talking about the 5+ pod case. I've seen this backfire a lot. The benefits are only exponential under some circumstances.

Martel732 wrote:

Actually, no I really haven't. Not "torched". I think I have squeaked out one victory over Serpent Spam since it dropped. Out of many, many beat downs at their hands. I frequently hand drop pod lists their heads because they aren't AV 12 targets flying around shooting maximum firepower at me from 36" away.

Not to be pedantic, and it doesn't change your point at all, but SS has a 60" range, which is part of the problem of the WS. A transport should not have a 60" firing range, especially not S7, Pinning, Ignores Cover, and Assault D6+1. And being able to use it defensively instead, is awesome. At least it isn't AP2

The other weapons and options and are much more comparable to what you'd see on other transports. If it didn't have a 60" range, it wouldn't be possible to do dumb things like hug the back edge of a map.

36" is where it gets ridiculous, because that's where the scatter laser can laser lock it. And add four more S6 shots. It's not AP 2 to give marine lists false hope and to give Eldar players the satisfaction of all the 1's and 2's coming up on the buckets of saves they make us roll.

Oh look! Another thread turning into a discussion about wave serpents.

So a few points to keep in mind:
* Wave Serpents with a "standard" kit of holofields and scatter lasers cost roughly 4 times as much as drop pods.
*That point aside, 99% of people out there know that wave serpents are broken. They should not be the stick by which other units in the game are measured. They are an isolated problem that should be depowered. Trying to argue balance based on something everyone knows is OP simply encourages the whole game to enter an arms race.
*Asking who "wins" between pods and serpents is silly. Pods aren't good because of their damage output. They're good because they're a dirt cheap way to very safely deliver entire armies of marines and because they are annoying to blast off of objectives.

Now, regarding the actual topic of this thread... I don't think cost is exactly the issue for pods. The issue is, as pointed out by a few, that they are very Rock-Paper-Scissors. Against some lists, they get shut down hard. They themselves allow marine players to shut down other lists rather hard. Some units become very scary in a pod. Some units are still meh in a pod. The issue to me is less that they're undercosted in general and more that they're undercosted *when they work especially well*.

This is exasperated by the fact that people don't usually sprinkle in drop pods. 1-3 pods gives you flexibility when goign for tactical objectives or trying to alpha strike. Making it impossible to attack an entire army because the whole thing deepstrikes in is a killer for lists that can't survive the drop and then counter punch.

As an aside, Inertial Guidance never sat well with me. It's not that it's too good exactly. It;s just that it doesn't seem like it really needs to exist. Like it's a little something extra for marines because their parents love them more than the other armies. It lets you stack tons of squads in a small area relatively safely to make the list that much more scary.

Compare to dark eldar. Someone mentioned webway portals earlier. Webway portals don't scatter, sure, but you can only have up to 2 of them in a combined arms detachment, and they don't give you an AV12 3HP slab of metal that somehow manages to contest/control objectives. dark eldar can pull off the mass-deepstrike thing too, but for some reason a pilot with super-human reflexes is more likely to crash into a building than a drop pod hurling precariously from orbit. The dark eldar also don't have the option to deepstrike half of our stuff in on turn 1 meaning we have to leave a sizable chunk of our army on the table or risk getting tabled turn 1.

" 99% of people out there know that wave serpents are broken"

Doesn't help. They are legal. And used. A lot.

"They should not be the stick by which other units in the game are measured."

They are the stick until they are nerfed. Or until people quit using them.

This game IS an arms race. It has been since 2nd ed.

Yes, the DE got kinda hosed with their deep striking trick. I'll admit that.