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I've heard nothing but horrible things about Drop Pods in 8th. How did they go form a near staple of every Space Marine army to being one of the worst transports?

Thanks

SG

They went up in price and lost their niche.

The used to be one of the few ways to get accurate DS, now that’s universal.
They used to get you down turn one. Gone.
They can no longer get you into flamer and melta half range. Nope, got to be 9” away.
Pretty much everything that wants to get close can DS natively. No reason to shell out for the pod.

Passenger restrictions as well, poor dreads.

There are a few niche uses for them, but none are particularly competitive.

If I understand correctly, they're non-mobile transports that MUST arrive turn 2 or 3, provide very little fire support, and must deploy in places that leave their passengers in danger.

I haven't personally found my Drop Pod to be all that bad, but I only run the one, and that only occasionally.

Because termites exist

The cargo.

 Nevelon wrote:
They went up in price and lost their niche.

The used to be one of the few ways to get accurate DS, now that’s universal.
They used to get you down turn one. Gone.
They can no longer get you into flamer and melta half range. Nope, got to be 9” away.
Pretty much everything that wants to get close can DS natively. No reason to shell out for the pod.

Passenger restrictions as well, poor dreads.

There are a few niche uses for them, but none are particularly competitive.

Yep, pretty much this.

The sad thing is that 1 of 2 potential rules could instantly make them viable, either:
A) Give them an exception to the "no arrivals before T1" limit. Pay for the Pod to still be able to drop T1 would make them worth it, or
B) Alter their drop rule to allow them to arrive much closer, say outside 3", with the Caveat that Passengers also must disembark outside 3" of enemy models and cannot charge the same turn they drop. This change would ALSO make Flamers and Melta worth a look again, so a win-win

Heck, you could even do both as a single Strat allowing 1-3 Pods to drop T1 and just outside 3" as above. Could cost 1CP per Pod used, one use only Strat

-

I think they need to rethink them.

They need to be extremely cheap, and easy to kill, and they can't do much besides give a squad deep strike. Like 10 points, must deepstrike turn 2, Tough 5, 4 wounds, 4+ save, Stormbolter hits on a 4+, can carry 12 Primaris, or 6 Gravis, or 1 redemptor.

And they can't hold objectives, they don't count for any victory condition.

Drop pods offer three things:

1) Protection against retaliatory shooting
2) The ability to alter which elements of your list will deepstrike
3) Deepstriking units that don't have native deepstrike

It may not be worth the points for those things, but they do have potential uses.

1) They are far too expensive for what they do.

2) The 9" bubble rule to prevent instant charges kills any reason for them to exist. Nothing that can fit in a Drop Pod is worth dropping in to double tap as it will be obliterated the next turn. Also the fact you need to cram both the Drop Pod and the disembarking unit makes them almost impossible to use in the era of massed 4ppm overlapping screening, since a single 4 point model on a 25mm base can deny ~8% of the tabletop. There is no chance to get into the enemies back line when they have a unit 8.9" from their table edges.

3) Their niche of preventing Deep Strike mishaps no longer exists.

4) They cannot arrive turn 1.

5) They cannot fight in the Fight Phase (obviously) and are immobile. Therefore enemy units can charge them and magically be immune from all enemy fire. Clearly the risk.... is too great!

6) They bleed victory points since they die to a stiff breeze and unlike T'au Drones don't do anything to mitigate this issue.

They need 2 things to ever be able to be considered viable in 8th

Turn 1 deepstriking
Land outside 9", but allow the occupants to then disembark within 9"

Even then SM don't have much worth putting in them. At best you are going to be double tapping or flaming chaff screens

I could be wrong, so please feel free to correct me if I am. But, with the exception of a couple of formations, they couldn't Deep Strike turn 1 during most of 7th either... then you had the scatter possibility that may put you well out of shooting or charging range depending on the dice rolls.

SG

You are incorrect I'm afraid. Up to half of the drop pods in the army (rounding up) could deep strike first turn, and they had a special rule that prevented them from misshaping or scattering.

You could put dreadnoughts in the too, making them useful.

They are complete trash now.

I can't wait until GW releases the Primaris Drop Pod, that does all of these things but has 9000 missile launchers and assault cannons and each door has it's own power fist that punches things in combat. Only Primaris Marines can ride in it because lowly squat marines are unworthy.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
You are incorrect I'm afraid. Up to half of the drop pods in the army (rounding up) could deep strike first turn, and they had a special rule that prevented them from misshaping or scattering.

Apologies... I had forgotten that "half of drop pods rounding up" rule.

Thanks for clearing it up

Brandt

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I can't wait until GW releases the Primaris Drop Pod, that does all of these things but has 9000 missile launchers and assault cannons and each door has it's own power fist that punches things in combat. Only Primaris Marines can ride in it because lowly squat marines are unworthy.

Primaris won't get a drop pod... They'll get a deep striking bunker!!!

The base drops in and some windows open and hell blasters annihilate 1 unit for 300pts

 fraser1191 wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I can't wait until GW releases the Primaris Drop Pod, that does all of these things but has 9000 missile launchers and assault cannons and each door has it's own power fist that punches things in combat. Only Primaris Marines can ride in it because lowly squat marines are unworthy.

Primaris won't get a drop pod... They'll get a deep striking bunker!!!

The base drops in and some windows open and hell blasters annihilate 1 unit for 300pts

I, uhh...I want this...

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I can't wait until GW releases the Primaris Drop Pod, that does all of these things but has 9000 missile launchers and assault cannons and each door has it's own power fist that punches things in combat. Only Primaris Marines can ride in it because lowly squat marines are unworthy.

Primaris won't get a drop pod... They'll get a deep striking bunker!!!

The base drops in and some windows open and hell blasters annihilate 1 unit for 300pts

I, uhh...I want this...

I've been playing starcraft 2 and they have bunkers that fall from orbit with a big turret on top too. It would be quite a step up from the current pod. Total objective denial

So now that we've determined they're awful, in what cases are they somewhat viable?

personally, I think dropping in 2 devastator sqds is probably they're best use. Multi-Meltas can be dropped in under half range or Dark Angels can protect their plasma cannons before using WotDA. Granted the -1 to hit is rough, but this could be slightly mitigated by dropping in a Phobos Lt with WT that adds +1 to hit. Still a lot of points wrapped up to achieve this however.

 fraser1191 wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I can't wait until GW releases the Primaris Drop Pod, that does all of these things but has 9000 missile launchers and assault cannons and each door has it's own power fist that punches things in combat. Only Primaris Marines can ride in it because lowly squat marines are unworthy.

Primaris won't get a drop pod... They'll get a deep striking bunker!!!

The base drops in and some windows open and hell blasters annihilate 1 unit for 300pts

In the novel Repulsors deploy from orbit. Maybe they should have deepstrike.

Drop pod doors count as part of the model, per the FAQ, ( which is a bad call imo, and always was in previous editions) to create a huge roadblock. Drop one on an objective and no other unit can come close enough to contest without committing to destroy it.

Empty pods are just board control.

 argonak wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I can't wait until GW releases the Primaris Drop Pod, that does all of these things but has 9000 missile launchers and assault cannons and each door has it's own power fist that punches things in combat. Only Primaris Marines can ride in it because lowly squat marines are unworthy.

Primaris won't get a drop pod... They'll get a deep striking bunker!!!

The base drops in and some windows open and hell blasters annihilate 1 unit for 300pts

In the novel Repulsors deploy from orbit. Maybe they should have deepstrike.

No because now I want bunkers!

 fraser1191 wrote:

 argonak wrote:

 fraser1191 wrote:

 Brutus_Apex wrote:

I can't wait until GW releases the Primaris Drop Pod, that does all of these things but has 9000 missile launchers and assault cannons and each door has it's own power fist that punches things in combat. Only Primaris Marines can ride in it because lowly squat marines are unworthy.

Primaris won't get a drop pod... They'll get a deep striking bunker!!!

The base drops in and some windows open and hell blasters annihilate 1 unit for 300pts

In the novel Repulsors deploy from orbit. Maybe they should have deepstrike.

No because now I want bunkers!

The old 5th edition Planetstrike rules had a strategem for a drop bastion that could be deepstriked in during the game- there is precedent for this!

Best suggestion i have seen is let them infiltrate. 1 for 1 cp 2 for 3 cp. That way you can deploy your boxes full of dudes at start of game instead of deepstrike.

The problem is that they don't do anything of value.

Almost everything that wants to deep strike either already can, or can't fit in a drop pod.

In addition once deployed it basically doesn't interact anymore. It's got a storm bolter and can be kind of an inconvenient obstacle, but that's about it, while a Rhino gets you there on the same time frame and can charge things, get in the way, and capture points.

Really, when it comes to it, Drop Pods should have been a deep strike strategem, but strategems didn't exist when pods were made.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
1) They are far too expensive for what they do.

2) The 9" bubble rule to prevent instant charges kills any reason for them to exist. Nothing that can fit in a Drop Pod is worth dropping in to double tap as it will be obliterated the next turn. Also the fact you need to cram both the Drop Pod and the disembarking unit makes them almost impossible to use in the era of massed 4ppm overlapping screening, since a single 4 point model on a 25mm base can deny ~8% of the tabletop. There is no chance to get into the enemies back line when they have a unit 8.9" from their table edges.

3) Their niche of preventing Deep Strike mishaps no longer exists.

4) They cannot arrive turn 1.

5) They cannot fight in the Fight Phase (obviously) and are immobile. Therefore enemy units can charge them and magically be immune from all enemy fire. Clearly the risk.... is too great!

6) They bleed victory points since they die to a stiff breeze and unlike T'au Drones don't do anything to mitigate this issue.

The part in red is the only part I've encountered as a true problem. The 9" bubble really feths things up. In a recent game, against a player of no great tactical note, it worked out that there were giant empty patches of table space that I couldn't land in.....because. And this was against an opponent who never even considered denying me the space. His only real thoughts were: A) holding several objective points, B) some of the terrain simply dictated where he could move his models, C) In some cases he was simply using the cover on the table.
So just about anywhere you'd want to land a pod? I couldn't.

Firstly, the pod is bad because it has completely lost it's niche as the accurate low risk turn 1 deepstrike mechanism - it is now no different to any other deepstrike rule except you have to pay excessively for it.

Secondly the pod is terrible because the tools you used to put inside them are also bad in 8th - single melta guns used to make knights sweat in 7th, now they either fail to wound or at best scratch a few wounds off (average dice rolling takes space marine 7 melta guns to kill a rhino equivalent vehicle).

<EDIT>

Thirdly, a meltagun in melta range used to be good. In 7th a hit from a melta in melta range had a significantly higher chance of penetrating armour than a lascannon against any AV and AP1 boosted the chance of a one hit kill; in 8th the higher strength, longer range, and ease of being in aura range when in a gunline makes the lascannon better everytime, so no one even considers using a drop pod strike.

If they could arrive first turn I'd put them back in my armies. I used them quite a bit in the early months of 8th edition. I think there are still uses for them, but the mandated delay for deep striking hit them hard.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
The problem is that they don't do anything of value.

Almost everything that wants to deep strike either already can, or can't fit in a drop pod.

In addition once deployed it basically doesn't interact anymore. It's got a storm bolter and can be kind of an inconvenient obstacle, but that's about it, while a Rhino gets you there on the same time frame and can charge things, get in the way, and capture points.

Really, when it comes to it, Drop Pods should have been a deep strike strategem, but strategems didn't exist when pods were made.

I feel like pods are for guys with guns and rhinos are for melee. Like grav cannons - if they were cheaper. Two 5 man devs with cherub, grav cannons, and drop pod are 429 points.

16 * .666 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 4.7
24 * .5 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 5.3

That's 10 damage to a knight.

3 triple dissie ravagers are about the same points

27 * .666 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 8

The ravagers are obviously more durable, don't lose shooting on turn 1, and the cherub wears off, but there are some edge cases that can work if marines got a little bit more of an edge on points.

How about a 1CP/3CP stratagem that lets you subtract D6" from any deep strike effects rule, but the unit (and any disembarking unit) has to make the same roll as disembarking from a destroyed transport (roll a dice for each model, on a 1 a model of your choice is slain), with the 3CP option that lets you roll 2D6 and pick the highest?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
The problem is that they don't do anything of value.

Almost everything that wants to deep strike either already can, or can't fit in a drop pod.

In addition once deployed it basically doesn't interact anymore. It's got a storm bolter and can be kind of an inconvenient obstacle, but that's about it, while a Rhino gets you there on the same time frame and can charge things, get in the way, and capture points.

Really, when it comes to it, Drop Pods should have been a deep strike strategem, but strategems didn't exist when pods were made.

I feel like pods are for guys with guns and rhinos are for melee. Like grav cannons - if they were cheaper. Two 5 man devs with cherub, grav cannons, and drop pod are 429 points.

16 * .666 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 4.7
24 * .5 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 5.3

That's 10 damage to a knight.

3 triple dissie ravagers are about the same points

27 * .666 * .333 * .666 * 2 = 8

The ravagers are obviously more durable, don't lose shooting on turn 1, and the cherub wears off, but there are some edge cases that can work if marines got a little bit more of an edge on points.

Unfortunately you cant do what you suggest, as the cherub takes up a space in the transport. You can do 4 devs with a cherub per squad, but then you have to leave your sergeant behind in another combat squad, or one of your heavy weapons behind. The Cherub is incredibly frustrating.

Being able to just touch that Drop Pod with the one Genestealer out of 20 or with that Wave Serpent or whatever and be completely immune to shooting is just insane.

It needs a new "immobile rule", e.g. something similar to the FW tarantula platforms, which don't prevent you from shooting at units within 1" of the immobile unit.