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How do!

So an aspect of the background that I feel is underserved, is the 28mm Marines not really feeling like an Orbit To Up Your Hoop super elite strike force.

Sure, you’ve the Flying Fist mini-drop ship, but that can only carry a small squad with a Dreadnought stuck to the back. Which…I’ll admit is kinda cool as a principle.

But given 40K is a mish-mash of pop culture influences, I’m surprised we’ve not seen anything like the USMC Cheyenne Dropship for Astartes, complete with the APC. That’s a helluva sci-fi combo, providing two forms of mobility and infantry support, along with the infantry to be supported in one neat little package. Add in that Power Armour is itself environmentally sealed and perfectly capable of operating in a vacuum, it makes even more sense, as the Dropship itself needn’t have the same bulk.

What I envisage is akin to one of those carrier Chinook things. So the Dropship element is fairly lightly built in terms of its hull, intended to hurtle down from Orbit, deposit the APC and contained infantry, before dusting off to run fire support and interdiction. Done as one per squad, and it feels suitably Astartes, as even two or three squads (depending on weapon loadout on the transports and Dropship elements) begin to feel like suitably potent strike forces, with a ridiculous degree of mobility. Arms wise I’m thinking the smaller, non-transport Flying Fist. So a chin gun and some missile pods - weapons intended for precision rather than saturation. Enough to see off interceptors, and take out ground based enemy armour - or at least drive them into cover.

And yet…we just don’t have that. Sure, there’s the Thunderhawk Transporter. Or was. Not sure if that has current rules, so delete is/was to your satisfaction there.

I mean the Thunderhawk, Stormbird, Stormeagle and Stormraven all exist.

The only thing they can't do is drop the single APC but now we have Primaris hover tanks which can seemingly do that from low orbit or whatever Dark Imperium had them do.

There's a fan-made Storm Eagle Transporter which kinds of fits the bill.

Some Chapters have Teleportariums big enough for vehicles - that was an Iron Hands strat a few editions back.

Thunderhawk transporter carries two rhinos or a land raider. Space Marine landing craft carries 6 rhinos/4 land raider hulls.

The Corvus Blackstar somewhat fits the bill -. even down to the form factor of the Cheyenne. It can carry bikes (as in "multiple"), so it would not be much of a stretch that a modified version could haul an ATV or light APC.

Fair point on the Corvus. Certainly closer in form and function to what I have in mind than the other Marine flyers.

I think the Storm Eagle is the closest Marine aerospace craft to the Cheyenne. Especially with the big missile launchers.

Always loved the Thunderhawk Transporter. Secretly wishing it will be remade in plastic for HH - It might even be more feasible than making the regular Thunderhawk to plastic, since a big part of its hull is sort of stick-like and thus requiring less sprues..

The Imperial Guard got the Valkyrie variant a while back that carried the Elysian Dune Buggy.

Can't the Stormbird carry a Rhino in addition to other infantry?

Gert wrote:The only thing they can't do is drop the single APC...

Didn't the Blood Angels used to be able to Deep Strike Rhinos because they effectively fired them from orbit?

Space Marine orbital assaults are more based around drop pods than dropships.

What is weird is that they don't have an oversized drop pod for their tanks.

 BorderCountess wrote:
Can't the Stormbird carry a Rhino in addition to other infantry?

Gert wrote:The only thing they can't do is drop the single APC...

Didn't the Blood Angels used to be able to Deep Strike Rhinos because they effectively fired them from orbit?

Nope. Land Raiders. They could Deep Strike Land Raiders. I think it was only for one edition and was never really mentioned again. It was a pretty dumb rule though because it was back when DS could scatter and scattering into enemies or certain terrain caused mishaps that could outright destroy you. Land Raiders are big, the chance of not scattering somewhere bad was tiny.

I guess because the USMC aren't like for like for Space Marines. The Imperial Guard have a couple of Valkyrie mods that can carry vehicles.

Space Marine tactics are much more brutal and orbital assaulty.

Slipspace wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:
Can't the Stormbird carry a Rhino in addition to other infantry?

Gert wrote:The only thing they can't do is drop the single APC...

Didn't the Blood Angels used to be able to Deep Strike Rhinos because they effectively fired them from orbit?

Nope. Land Raiders. They could Deep Strike Land Raiders. I think it was only for one edition and was never really mentioned again. It was a pretty dumb rule though because it was back when DS could scatter and scattering into enemies or certain terrain caused mishaps that could outright destroy you. Land Raiders are big, the chance of not scattering somewhere bad was tiny.

Yep, one edition of BA had that.
I played a 2v2 game with my BA & a friend vs Chaos & IG.
My teammate's fully loaded Land Raider with Terminators Deep strike scattered into a building & immediately we were down around 500pts.
Neither of us ever tried it again.

It never made sense to me that a Thunderhawk couldn't carry a single Rhino between it's landing gear. Normally I's say it's because they couldn't be carried externally, but the T-Hawk Transporter kills that line of thought. Missed opportunity there.

Space Marines are sad, I can carry a tank in an Valkyrie.

a very small tank (a cyclops!)

Three outriders and a Bike Chaplain in a Blackstar. (I think each bike = 3 models)

I've had 2x5 man Kill Teams, one lead by a watchmaster and one lead by an Inquisitor in a Blackstar before- five units altogether, which felt pretty cool.