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Traits: Cleanse and Purify; No Mercy, No Respite.
Disadvantage: Eye to Eye

HQ - 390 Points

Librarian - 160 Points
-Epistolary
-Fury of the Ancients
-Fear of the Darkness
-Terminator Armor
-Storm Bolter
-Frag Grenades

Terminator Command Squad - 200 Points
-(4) Terminators
-(2) Assault Cannons
-Drop Pod Transport - 30 Points

Elites - 170 Points

Venerable Dreadnaught - 140 Points
-Assault Cannon
-Heavy Flamer
-Venerable
-Extra Armor
-Drop Pod Transport - 30 Points

Troops - 940 Points

Tactical Squad Alpha - 205 Points
-(10) Space Marines
-(2) Plasmaguns
-Veteran Sargeant
--Power Fist + Bolt Pistol
-Drop Pod Transport - 30 Points

Tactical Squad Beta - 205 Points
-(10) Space Marines
-(2) Plasmaguns
-Veteran Sargeant
--Power Fist + Bolt Pistol
-Drop Pod Transport - 30 Points

Tactical Squad Gamma - 205 Points
-(10) Space Marines
-(2) Meltaguns
-Veteran Sargeant
--Power Fist + Bolt Pistol
-Drop Pod Transport - 30 Points

Tactical Squad Delta - 205 Points
-(10) Space Marines
-(2) Meltaguns
-Veteran Sargeant
--Power Fist + Bolt Pistol
-Drop Pod Transport - 30 Points

Total 1500 Points
Model Count: 45 Marines, 1 Dread.

Still pretty new to playing SM's (started around december), but a pod army was the first style I wanted to do with them and so far this has been working out well for me.  For about 4 months I've used it almost exclusively against a Sisters of Battle army which my best friend plays.  Learned a lot playing this list against him and that army in particular, and I'm thinking that it's a pretty good contender.

Pretty soon I should be done painting the army up and I can take it into our local GW for some games, and I'm hoping to eventually try my hand at some of the local tournies with this list, but I'll have to expand to 1850 points.  Wasn't too sure what to add, but the easiest things would be another Tactical Squad and a deep striking Tornado, but I only say that because I already own the models to add that kind of stuff to the army.

Comments welcome.

You could add a chaplain w/ jump pack and a squad of assault marines w/ flamers and furious charge as a counter charging unit. That shoulfd jusyt about be the points.

I happen to have a lot of assault marines and a chaplain w/ jump pack since when I'm not playing a drop pod marine force, I love that combo.

Problem with using them and pods is that they can only deepstrike in Gamma and Omega Missions, which not every tournament will have.

The other inherant problem is that the chaplain can not deepstrike with the assault squad, and per the reserves rules MUST be diced for separately from the assault squad, meaning there's a good chance that either the Assault Squad or the Chaplain might not come in together anyway. Plus they can't deep strike too close to one another since they can scatter and die.

This leaves me with pulling them on the table edge and hoping they come in together, OR if I'm not playing escallation then they can start on the table and I'm hoping that there's some LOS blocking terrain to hide behind since I don't want 350 points to have to face 1850 points of shooting on the first round.

Trust me, I have about 19 Assault Marines and a Chaplain, I've been trying to find ways to integrate them into the list but I haven't found one that works well yet. It's somewhat possible to do without the chaplain, but I'm not sure how effective it may be.

The saddest part I think is that if I bought another set of termies I could have a unit of 5 Terminators, 2 Assault Cannons, a Pod and 1 speeder tornado and it'd come out to 1850 on the dot. Not the worst idea, though I'm sure it'd put a comp score even lower than it is now.

Yes, it can work well or it can backfire. I aslo play a drop pod list with apothecaries and cleanse. I'm just now writing up some fluff for it after having palyed it at 1500 points for awhile. I am also expanding to 1700 points for GTs in Canada. If we played 1850 I would use four speeders but at 1500 - 1700 I use two.

I tried termies but was not impressed - a tac squad with meltas performed as well for less. I do use speeders ( 2 of them ) and a squaqd of drop podding devestators w/ missile launchers. The dev squad has performed very well for its points and can be podded a fair distance from the enemy lines or behind advancing troops. Speeders of course are eprfect for this force - I always take two. Anyone denying comp scores because you use one or two speeders is really being an a##. You are playing SM and most of your points are in troops. There is nothing unbalanced about using a few speeders. A lot of tournaments no longer use comp scores, BTW but still the army would be very balanced point wise.

Traits: Cleanse and Purify; No Mercy, No Respite.
Disadvantage: Eye to Eye

Why no mercy no respite? It doesn't look like you even used it (could be wrong though). There's better traits you can take for drop pod list, like take the fight to them. Its free and you don't have to give it to everyone. Purity above all, Trust Your Battle brothers or the dread trait are also good second choices. Not taking a sceond trait is fine too.

Librarian - 160 Points
-Epistolary
-Fury of the Ancients
-Fear of the Darkness
-Terminator Armor
-Storm Bolter
-Frag Grenades

Illegal since terminators can't take frag nades. Also, the storm bolter is nigh useless. Either keep a free hand or give him a power weapon for another cc attack.

Otherwise it's not bad. If you drop 2 guys from each tactical squad (120 points) you could add another dread in a drop pod. With a different trait and some more tweaks (like a trading 2 squads specails for flamers) you can make the 2nd dread venerable.

The Plasma list only works well with apoths in my opinion and is still far less flexible than the melta/flamer list. BP/CCW will save your bacon against a LOT of foes, also.

Also, you're short on pods. You need to trim some of those squads and get at least one more pod if not two. 8 man squads seem to be ideal for me. It sucks to take quarter casualties at 2 guys, but LD9 ATSKNF and assault weapons, combined with pods screwing with people's movement has kept me pretty safe.

Termies are a bit pricy at 1500, save a hundred points and get a fairly cheap command squad instead (2 plasma, tankhunters and an apothecary is a good buy).

Taking speeders in a drop pod army is silly. They screw you in a lot of games and are nothing but easy vps. The only time they help is against fast opponents, and fast opponents can just hunt them down. You should always squeeze in the last pod instead of buying speeders. It's pretty safe to ignore anyone suggesting you take them unless said person has been playing their pod list a lot - there's a TON of theoryhammer that people bandy about as fact about pod armies, but very few people actually play them.

If you're not interested in changing the list, get more dreads to go to 1850. They're the cheapest way to add more pods, and they perform exponentially better as you buy more.

If you do stick at 1500, I'd suggest trying out the 6 venerable dread list. it's by far the best pod army at 1500. (2 x 5 with 2 meltaguns, reclusiarch with command squad of 5, 2 meltaguns, 6 x ven dreads with heavy flamers, EA and pods - 9 pods at 1500 pts).

filthy, i like it. why reclusiarch though, why not the fear & fury? (even if it cost you some h.flamers)

that's probably a better idea tbh, but I like uniformity. the psychic hood would give you a real serious edge against some armies that give you trouble though, and fear would help you out against Tau who might give you some trouble otherwise..

hmm, what can the hood block that would be a threat to ven. dreads?

but yea, i think its pretty good idea. not much point re-rolling hits on the charge when its such a small squad anyway.

bolt of change, prevents the enemy's strking scorpions and such from being fortuned, prevents guided falcons, prevents your meltagun guys from being mindwarred. meh, it's always good to have a hood.

Taking speeders in a drop pod army is silly. They screw you in a lot of games and are nothing but easy vps.

I absolutely do not agree. I really like the added mobility they provide. And I do play pod armies.

I'd suggest trying out the 6 venerable dread list. it's by far the best pod army at 1500. (2 x 5 with 2 meltaguns, reclusiarch with command squad of 5, 2 meltaguns, 6 x ven dreads with heavy flamers, EA and pods - 9 pods at 1500 pts).

Interesting list. I'm sure it could be effective. I play more troops and manage to fit five pods in my list but then I play speeders.

The Plasma list only works well with apoths in my opinion and is still far less flexible than the melta/flamer list. BP/CCW will save your bacon against a LOT of foes, also.

That's my list.
It does lack flexibility so I've stuck speeders in the list for that reason and at 1700 I'm now testing a dev squad. So far so good. But yes, melta/flamer is very strong. Cross-firing Bolters are great against orcs, guard, etc. Never to be taken klightly, I agree.

I may end up dropping my speeders for another dev sqiuad in the end as it seems a very strong addition. But for now , I do not see why you dislike speeders. They provide fmobile firepower and fit the list fine.

They're too squishy and soft and don't help vs. the opponents you need them against.

I played it that way a lot - with 3 x 1 speeder, 3 x 2, and even 3 x 3. It never worked more than once - once they got the hang of it I was screwed.

Against a slow opponent I'd rather just have more dudes because I can control the pace of the game by having pods to limit his movement and also having all move+shoot guys whereas most people have a lot of static heavy weapons. Against a fast opponent they can easily kill all your speeders and then out-grab you.

And the biggest most annoying thing is that speeders are inconsistent. In tournaments, 33% of missions have no deep strike, roughly. This means 1 in every 3 tourney missions you might as well just not have the speeders. Very unlikely for you to be able to hide them for 2 turns before your pods start arriving.

I run 10 pods and pretty much always get enough of my army to start laying the beatdown. I can handle any mission, any level, with no real difference in my effectiveness. I have no speeders to be hung out to dry or anything.

I see a lot of people playing with 3-5 pods and then static or whatever troops. What do you do against a shootie army that starts everything on board? You've got half your force on table and the other half waiting. Lots of games you're gonna be screwed. You start to get dependent on the reserve rolls for your pods, and that's exactly what I hate about the partial pod lists. They are just flat unreliable.

Some time you will be playing in a tourney and your pods will flat refuse to come in until turn 5, and the rest of your force will be wiped out, and you wind up playing with half your army for two turns. That just sucks.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that if you want to win with pods it's either everything always deepstrikes (terminators or pods) or leave the pods at home and get more guys that start on the table.

And yes, that's the perspective of a guy who almost exclusively plays in tournaments. So your mileage may vary. My list is flat out designed to win and I'm not talking about being friendly

in the UKGT, the speeders can't fire on the turn they deepstrike (i always did find it a bit insulting that they're assumed to have moved 6-12")

Why wouldn't they be able to fire? As a fast vehicle, they can move up to 12" and still fire a weapon??!??!?!?!

Couple of things:

Sorry about the frags on the Libby. Normally when I play it's against a friend once a week and the list has been at 1499 forever and when I went to post it online I figured eh I need a point somewhere, lemme just throw some frags on the Libby... Totally forgot I couldn't give them to him.

The Librarian has a storm bolter because that's what the model came with and I figure that there isn't much of a place I'd put the 5 points anyway. Plus there are times when I want to charge the Librarian into combat to suck someones soul with the force weapon so I'd probably want the extra storm bolter shots in that shooting phase since I won't be using Fury or Fear.

As for the traits:

I'm in a campaign right now with my Marines and as I mentioned before I use a lot of assault marines when I'm not using pods, so that's why the other trait is there. My other army is Orks and while I initially was interested in the "Take the Fight to Them" trait, I didn't want to model all my marines with BP + CCW and just went with the stock bolter guys instead. Granted there's the true grit/counterattack trait, but that makes each squad 30 points more expensive. I also only own one dread and I already have a bunch of Tactical marines so I don't want to change the army so much from being troop based to dread based (though I really do love the Dread Models). Plus the only real trait I care to use for pods is Cleanse and Purify and the Eye To Eye disadvantage doesn't really come into play when using a pod list since I don't care about being limited to just one speeder or bike squad.

I have the terminators in there over a normal command squad for extended reach. I already have a lot of 18" effective move and fire troops I wanted something longer, and the termies give me 30" effective range assault cannons.

As far as flamers, I'm tempted to throw the Dual Plasma squads into a Plasma/Flamer combo, but I almost prefer the dual plasma because they gaurantee MEQ and terminator deaths and they can deal with side armor on tanks in a pinch if I need it (and I have from my experiences). The things the flamer really kills are hoards of light infantry and I'm double tapping bolters anyway which should deal with it effectively enough. What I do need is gauranteed MEQ punch and for that I like the Plasma - even if it is risky.

I used to use the Plas/Melta combo for every single squad, but I've found that it's better to specialize since the Melta always had a tendancy to miss when I drop and the lone Plas doesn't have the punch to do what the melta failed to do.

I've been considering making my flamer squads into flamer+melta squads, to give me more of an edge vs. vehicle armies and monster armies and so forth. but I wouldn't mix flamer and plasma and nor would I mix plasma/melta. melta/flamer makes sense in a certain context, but not your army. You have bolters for killing bugs/orks/IG. Flamers are better but not enough better that you need them.

The plasma isn't risky imho, it's just inferior to bp/ccw and meltaguns/flamers for the foes you will want to be killin.

The big main reason I hate the plasma list is that you can't charge after shooting. That sucks. You pay the premium for that powerfist and then only use it if you give up a round of shooting or get charged. The bp/ccw list can meltagun a tank and then charge to finish it off. The flamer guys can bake some orks and then charge them, denying the WAAGH.

It works though, just not my style.

Posted By whitedragon on 06/06/2006 10:44 AM
Why wouldn't they be able to fire? As a fast vehicle, they can move up to 12" and still fire a weapon??!??!?!?!

probably because the refs have had to put up with too many arguements about how far its counted as having moved when they deeptrike. people want them to be glance-only, as well as being able to shoot, as normally they go 6-12".

they just say now that it has dropped more than 12" if its dropped from orbit, which is easier.

Posted By Longshot on 06/06/2006 8:32 PM
I've been considering making my flamer squads into flamer+melta squads, to give me more of an edge vs. vehicle armies and monster armies and so forth. but I wouldn't mix flamer and plasma and nor would I mix plasma/melta. melta/flamer makes sense in a certain context, but not your army. You have bolters for killing bugs/orks/IG. Flamers are better but not enough better that you need them.

The plasma isn't risky imho, it's just inferior to bp/ccw and meltaguns/flamers for the foes you will want to be killin.

The big main reason I hate the plasma list is that you can't charge after shooting. That sucks. You pay the premium for that powerfist and then only use it if you give up a round of shooting or get charged. The bp/ccw list can meltagun a tank and then charge to finish it off. The flamer guys can bake some orks and then charge them, denying the WAAGH.

It works though, just not my style.

Well you can't charge on the turn you drop, which is when you'll likely do most of your damage.  Going by that, you want as much punch when you drop as possible.  Vs. MEQ and Termies that's Dual Plasma.  For me, the power fist is there for insurance if I do get charged, or for TMC's, or for just in general.  When you're playing a Pod list that's based around tactical marines you're getting up close and personal which will mean that there will be some kind of CC going on somewhere and when it comes to CC a hidden PF in a tactical squad is hard to beat.

Also looking at it, I'm either going to always face an army that I either:

A.) Want to be shooting
or
B.) Want to be in assault with

Going on the fact that I can't assault when I drop, I need to inflict a lot of shooting damage on the drop.  Assuming that the enemy's army is trying to out assault me, I'm going to get charged no matter what - hence the hidden PF.

Assuming the enemy army is trying to outshoot me, I probably won't get charged after the drop, but fired on.  After their retaliation  I simply decide if it's better to just fire the bolt pistol and assault or to give them another round of rapid fire plasma death. 

Looking at the armies I'd be facing the only units I'd really care to charge that won't charge me first are: Tau, Necron Warriors, Guard, some shooty Chaos troops (unlikely), other tactical squads w/o a PF Sarge, and non Seraphim Sister Units.

Most other units will either want to assault me or will be able to shoot and then assault to tie me up for a turn or two. 

Hence I really think of the PF sarge as a defensive weapon than an offensive one, most of the time I'd rather be shooting than assaulting unelss it's something that's god-aweful in assault - in which case I wouldn't need the fist to win combats anyway. 


As for the list:

I'm tempted to try dropping 2 marines from each squad and then giving them the True Grit/Counter Attack trait for when I go to a tourny with this list.  Not sure how much I like it as it does seem wasted against armies that wouldn't want to assault me but it really does save my bacon against armies that would try and assault.

Going by that, you want as much punch when you drop as possible. Vs. MEQ and Termies that's Dual Plasma.

While there's nothing wrong with taking plasma, especially when there's terminators or TMCs about, this idea that only plasma is good against MEq is false. Flamers are quite good against them too. In fact they are the overall best troop killer available to a drop podding tactical.. As long as you can get 6 or more MEqs under the template, the flamer is as good or better then plasma. It gets even better when you factor in no overheats, the ability to shoot and charge (rare with drop pods but does happen) and its outstanding ability against hordes (the bane of a 12" shooty drop pod list).

That last point brings up something else. This idea that bolters will deal with the hordes is rubbish. Bolters and PGs will not kill enough stealers, orks or uber gaunts in one turn of shooting to keep them safe and that powerfist isn't going to be much help. Replace those PGs with flamers and its a whole other story. Assuming tournament play, you will still face these types of armies from time to time.