Drop Pod experience

[Frogstar168]

So, I built a 7-pod drop pod army in 5^th and I lost a lot.  Now with the changes in 6^th, I am picking it up again.  I see the occasional post asking questions about what works in a drop pod army, so I thought I’d share my experience.
 

Last month I played 2000vp against my Dark Eldar buddy.  He runs lots of Venoms, Raiders, Ravagers and a Void Raven, with Grotesques, True Born and Warriors.  I had MotF, 3 dreads, 2 tac squads, 5-man Sternguard, T-fire cannon, 5 sniper scouts, supported by 10 Tactical Terminators and Terminator Librarian.  We played The Relic, I rolled first turn and dropped a Tac squad on top of the Relic, picked it up and threw everything else I had at his army while the Relic-bearers ran for cover.  I won.  It was fun, but I don’t have much Drop Pod wisdom to share from this one.  The Tac Termies were really the MVPs, knocking down DE transports and soaking up a lot of splinter fire.  My dreads dropped, wasted a transport or recently-disembarked squad of DE, and then died the following turn. Same with the Sternguard.
 

This week we will play again, different mission.  I finished my Plasma Command Squad, and so they will accompany my Captain in his pod this time. 

 

See army list here:

 

Drop Pods!

 

edit - added link to army list

[Azash]

I don't think your experience with the Dread's is specific to drop pods. Dreadnaughts were ok in 5th but seem to be pretty damned dreadful in 6th. I have been trying to find a way to run them and the one dread I have found that function's ok was the Ironclad (the 13, 13, 10) which had a little more survivability. Though that could have been running it in an armor heavy list as well (being a target of least priority).

 

What type of dreads? Regular MM dreads or some other variant?

 

Especially DPing them right in range of grenades (haywires and krak's especially) would seem to shorten their life span. I have found a regular tactical squad has better survivability in the current edition and DP'ing marines are not to bad in the foot heavy meta.

[Frogstar168]

Azash - you're right - grenades (esp. haywire) are pretty brutal.  I run an Ironclad (upgraded with heavy flamer and 2 x hunter-killer missiles) and a standard with multimelta and heavy flamer, both of which drop on turn 1.  I also put a Rifleman-style dread in my deployment zome and put his empty pod in reserve.  Tomorrow, I will try dropping them both on turn one, and one of their pods with have a deathwind missile launcher.  I'm playing against Dark Eldar that that str 5 large blast will still be a threat to them.  I have always gotten at least one good kill out of a drop podded dread before he died.  With dreadnaughts, it seems to be about target saturation.  I may try and magnetize that Rifleman and build another short range dread.  That way I can drop three on turn one.  We'll see.  I'll post tomorrow or Sunday how the game when - what worked and what did not.

[Frogstar168]

Report: my Dark Eldar buddy and I played Purge the Alien. He won 12 to 10, mainly because I lost a pod to the warp (dropped pod with dread too close to a table edge on turn 1, scattered off, rolled a 1 on the mishap table, score 2 kp's and First Blood to DE - that's how we intepreted it, anyway). So, I learned to not drop a pod within 10 or so inches of the table edge. The other three pods on my opening drop did score 5 kp's over two turns, but then became irrelevant due to my canny and speedy opponent simply avoiding them. Marines and dreads on foot do not redeploy well at all. Also, he took a Void Raven that I could not scratch, but it did very little due to poor luck. Tac Squads tore up his Venoms with just mass bolter fire.

 

What worked:

- every pod that dropped took at least 1 kp, most took two.

- Thunderfire Cannon is a great support unit for a Drop Pod army. killing two Raiders and stun-locking the Ravagers

 

What did not:

- dropped one pod too close to table edge and lost it

- the bulk of my army was useless after the alpha strike due to being unable to redeploy

 

For next time:

- deploy pods 10-12" away from table edges

- take Librarian (or two?) with Gate

- consider a 2nd T-fire?

 

Drop Pods!

[Azash]

Are you drop podding the TFC in or deploying it? If your deploying it first turn as opposed to another TFC you might consider using an ADL with either an ICL or Quad gun. The TFC could deploy behind the ADL giving both guns a 4+ cover save. Any unit would be effective at firing the thing even a 10 man squad of scouts (as long as you used the sergeant with the BS 4).

 

Would help you with those fliers.