Standard tactics againts drop pod marines

I play against all types of Marine armies, and always seem to struggle against drop pods. If I put too much on the board turn one, flaming drop pods take a big bite out of my core units. If I leave too much in reserve, the units on the board get focused on and I potentially lose the game before my reserves have a chance of coming on. (Which regularly seems to be turn 4)

I know tactic would be MSU.

Call me stubborn, but i still try to play a melee style list. (Which might be why im having so much trouble). My army consists of a couple Incubi raiders, some Sslyth and Lhamean, then a few warriors in raiders with racks, ravagers, and a razorwing.

In general, what are some basic tactics and strategies you guys use against drop pod lists?

The answer, as it is for a lot of our problems, is to use Grotesques. Preferably a Grotesquerie. They are our best melee unit and they don't really care about Flamers/Heavy Flamers/Grav in Drop Pods. They may take some wounds or even lose a few Grots, but you should have enough left alive to retaliate on your turn. If you roll +1T or 4+FNP on the Latest Experiment table, Flamers will bounce off them even more than they normally do. If you're expecting Drop Pod Grav or Melta spam, stick in them in some ruins to better weather the Alpha Strike. Then on your turn, charge in and start grinding the Marines to death.

One caveat to this advice: this won't work as well against Drop Pod Dreadnaughts. Have some dedicated anti-tank (Ravagers/Scourges, etc) along with the Grots if you see Dreads dropping down.

If you don't see Grav in Drop Pods, another option is a Dark Artisan. Very resilient and laughs at Flamers and even Melta, to some extent, thanks to the 4+FNP.

How many drop pods do you typically see?

Unit choices aside its worth checking out the castle deployment section in this tread. Deployment makes all the difference against drop pod armies.

Hope that helps.

I use the tried and true method of castling and I've also had equal or better success at times using what sweetbacon detailed. The latter really benefits from a healthy dose of terrain and preferably ruins otherwise it can be risky, while castling functions regardless but gets better with terrain also.
The first risks crippling damage while the second risks loss due to failed reserves and/or potential tabling.

I'd suggest tweaking your list to be able to pull off which ever seems more beneficial against each opponent.

To elaborate on the reserve strategy:
You really just want some non mech units that can counter assault and survive the common marine pod weaponry.. aka grav/melta and less commonly flamers (round here anyway). If you really face that much you might consider mandrakes as well. 3 drakes or even 2x3 can solve a lot of problems and create conundrums for your opponents by infiltrating them in far corners into cover or just placing them to deny landing zones. I supplement my grotesquerie with MSU reavers and sometimes drakes and lone clawed fiends or even full beast packs of khymeras. Don't forget to go to ground with the grotesquerie since turn 2 they become fearless and stand back up automagically. Sslyth do similar only marginally worse vs grav btw. Between these and possibly getting infiltrate from strategic you can really throw a wrench in a marines plans once you get comfortable with the strategy.

Anyway deploy these types of units, ideally to limit focused fire and then reserve all your skimmers and fragile contents. Again though its a tool in the box it won't always be better than castling so you gotta weigh the options.

3-5 pods seems to be what I normally see. I read up on deployment and have some good ideas on what I can do now, so thank you for all the input.

Put 2 tasty baits far from objectives and from each others and then, when he drop on it, leave him alone out of the fight. Those 2 baits won't be point efficient, but having half of his army out of the fight is valuable.

I suggest a Warlord Dark artisan as the bait, as it will draw a considerable amount of his army offmap, while strong enough to survive until the main force come.

ive got two options either: Castle up like Mush suggests limiting where they can land and what they can hit as you have other units in the way and then counter hit them with everything that survives the half an army(at best) hit.
Or, and this requires first turn, scatter everywhere making them either focus on a single unit or spread out their drops which makes them alot less likely to damage what they can hit. Then redeploying on your second turn leaving a few units out in the cold and focusing on a single area of the board and then moving onwards

Void shield generator, Grotesquery or corpse thief and castle. It only helps, but they can get a lot if points quite quickly. A lot if pods armies don't hit that hard, but they saturate the field with bodies. Other go for the super alpha and hits hard with cents + whatevs

I see a lot of drop pod marines in my meta (who doesn't). I have had success with reserving everything in my list except two squads of three talos units (as opposed to one corpsetheif). They hold the table turn one. You can spread out the talos units (one in each corner) and force you opponent to split his pods or concentrate on one talos squad. On turn two or three, you bring on your reserves from the table edge and counter his alpha strike.

I've found that it helps to have a reserve manipulation device such as a coms relay or an Autach (or get that one warlord trait). If you take a coms relay and hold it with one talos, you can bet that your opponent will focus on that talos unit. Also, watch out for grav guns. Start the talos in ruins if you can.

I've had alpha striking marines try to take out both talos squads. They split up their forces and can't take out either. They then find themselves getting assaulted by both talos squads while the reserves start arriving. That's game~ I don't care how many free rhinos they have. RB

Talos's all the way. I had two talos chew up two drop poding terminator squads, eat a while lot fo firepower and tie up logan grimnar ^^ I'm gonna paint up a third =)