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1) Skitarii have titanium servo-assisted legs.

2) The Mechanicus -makes- drop-pods, and therefore could easily make one that the Skitarii can endure.

Why do people say that skitarii would be dead on impact? What do people think of Sororitas in pods?

Skitarii prefer to walk everywhere as is traditional.

I'd imagine that even with their mechanical parts they would still suffer massive concussive trauma to the rest of their body.

It's more likely that the vessels they deploy from are not set up for a drop pod assault. As you see in battle barges, there are quite a few capability sacrifices that have to be made to armor a capital ship sufficiently to survive the descent into and egress out of drop pod launch altitude. Arc Mechanicus are so valuable (some of the most precious things in the entire imperium) I doubt they are keen on exposing them to any level of integrated air defense.

TLDR Its a naval consideration, not a infantry one.

Sororitas have been stated as using Drop pods in some older fluff.

The Mechanicus could make a drop pod that would be usable with their Skitarri - if they want to. If they don't - they won't.

Drop Pods are used for rapid insertion of elite strike teams.

Skitarii are line troops for massed combat.

As Grey said, a drop pod assault does not fit the Skitarri battle doctrine. They are not a rapid strike force, they are a slow, crushing death that you may see from a long way off, but are not going to be able to stop them. A drop pod assault would basically isolate a unit and, in the absence of backup, have it do some damage before it dies.

The same reason they can't use Chimeras, Rhinos or Leman Russes: Because GW didn't want the new faction having units that people have already. Gotta buy all the new shinies!

The Ecclesiarchy is fabulously wealthy. Commissioning a cruiser to be built for an Order Militant to deploy via pod is no big deal, considering there's only six major Orders Militant. The Ecc also pays the AdMech out the wazoo for it.

For themselves? The AdMech has to eat that cost and if they lose it, they're out both the ship and the price to build it. When building ships for other people, the AdMech doesn't care, they already got paid.

They can. They just generally choose not to. As has been said, their standard battle modus operandi is to simply walk forward while shooting.

In my army, they choose to use Drop Pods. I'm in the process of converting some up for use. I'll be using a Blood Angels Flesh Tearer Strike Force. It requires that you take 1 HQ, 1 Troops and 1 Fast Attack and allows, among other things, 4 more Fast Attack units. I have yet to decide what the HQ and Troops will be, but the Fast Attack choices will be Pods.

They could probably survive the use of a drop pod, but they are unlikely to be able to fight afterwards, also who would let them use a drop pod and why, if a skitarri a drop pod is useable for them it is in a situation whre a marine could use it better

Who would let them? lol.

This is the organisation that MAKES drop pods. THEY generously "let" the Marines use them!

Really? It seems that these days the AdMech rents their drop pods from the Blood Angels.

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Really? It seems that these days the AdMech rents their drop pods from the Blood Angels.

Game =/= fluff

Of course, most chapters produce a lot of their equipment(including Pods) themselves and don't get it from the Ad Mech.

The only Skitarii that would be worth putting into Drop Pods would be the Praetorians, and even then, the Praetorians aren't meant to be used in Drop Pods. If the Mechanicum need some kind of rapid assault force, it can commission virtually any Space Marine Chapter it wants, simply due to the fact that most SM Chapters rely upon the Mechanicum for their juicer bits of tech (like Thunderhawks and Drop Pods)

Well for one "Skitarii" can mean anything in 40K as it can mean anything from what's basically guardsmen with an augmented limb to full blown Thallaxi wannabes. Obviously you mean the heavily upgraded GW infantry, but I'm not so certain even those guys could survive a drop pod impact unless they could transfer the energy of the strike away from their organic bits. Although the Admech could always build a drop pod that fires thrusters before impact lightly touch the ground.

But as others had said it doesn't fit their doctrine either. They're line troops and ride into battle, not elite things to be deepstriked in the heart of an enemy formation.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Really? It seems that these days the AdMech rents their drop pods from the Blood Angels.

Game =/= fluff

Of course, most chapters produce a lot of their equipment(including Pods) themselves and don't get it from the Ad Mech.

What, you're telling me that Guardsmen in Drop Pods, Eldar summoning demons and Tyranids allying with Necrons isn't canon?

I don't run skitarii in pods but I have an ally/friend who does, often, and people keep telling him "Skitarii can't surive pod landings!"

Bollocks - the Admech make the damn things. If they want Podtarii they can figure out how to make Podtarii work.

As for the battle-doctrine argument, that's not entirely true - the Codex itself states that the Skitarii Cohorts are organized into things like Anti-Air Cohorts, Armored Cohorts, et cetera, not all of which are "march forwards and shoot."

It would make sense to have an Orbital Strike Cohort for establishing LZs during an initial planetfall.

They probably don't need them, either, if Scions can jump from space ships and land in good enough shape to take out the surface-to-space weapons that were destroying the Marines pods and landing crafts, I don't see why Skitarii would be able to pull similar crap.

My guess would be that they are sticklers to logistics and the proper requisition forms have not been filled out (or lost in the endless bureaucracy) allocating drop pod production for and distribution to the Skitarii.

More likely they are transported by the Imperial Navy to the world and make planetfall on large transport craft intended to land at the deployment zones away from the front line and then the Skitarii slog to the front line. Dropping in pods is more of a Space Marine thing when 10 walking harbingers of death (as the fluff tends to make a space marine out to be) are going to be nasty to deal with while your more standard Skitarii is just going to be surrounded by the enemy and gunned down/chopped up into bits.