Drop Pods and Spave Wolves

Hey,
Im going to play vs heavy drop pod list of Space Wolves on 1500 points. Guy says he will destroy all my ravagers with melts squads from pods and venoms with longfangs. So I wanted to ask are there any specific tactics I can take against drop pods? Does castling in table corner work? Or in case I get first turn should I just flat out to max my cover save?

De do not castle. Keep moving and on the offensive. If pure pod list, u get a turn of engaging half his force. You will lose units but should have some left. Move for the saves till he pods in. Then jump those units with everything u can. If hybrid, head towards the guys on the table.

I have venom spam list. What if he gets first turn, how should I deploy to minimalize lossess?

Well if he is counting on melta to take you out with longfangs for some distance here is what I would do.

Assuming he gets turn one...

Venoms w/nightshields are deployed out front. deploy as far as possible from the long fangs if you wish to mitegate their fire or use LOS blocking terrain. With nightshields this cuts his melta range down to 6 inches. So he is having to get really close to you to use those guns.

Then on your turn with all that survived turbo boost to the other side of the board and pick off his lonely longfangs and pick apart the slow drop pod army in pieces.

Your largest strength against this type of army is your mobility. You will take casulites sure, but with your speed you should be able to minimize those.

-If you use nightshields then 6inch melta does not go far...
-Use your speed to leave behind his slow alpha strike force... Even if you have to sacrifice most shooting for 1 turn to gain 3 turns of good shooting.
-Tear the army apart piece by piece.
-Cover has always been your friend and ally.

Oh and hope for nightfight in there too.

Night shields will help against deepstriking standard 12" meltaguns, although the 6" disembark makes drop pods better than usual against this. A fortification might be nice for that interceptor rule. You could try to MSU so that he can only take out a couple of many squads, or you could be a bit daring and go with no vehicles at all.

Whichever way you go with it, make sure you bring plenty of large, impassable terrain pieces onto the board, and have your units hug that terrain (skimming models can actually go ON impassable terrain with a danger test), or have them hug a board edge.

Hm with interceptor guns I can only shoot drop pods at the end of movement phase so cant shoot marines after they disembark right?

I maybe mistaken, but I think the interceptor works like that. You either shoot at the drop pod, or you take your time and concentrate fire on the disembarking Wolves.

not to sure but maybe look into the rules for how much of his army he is allowed to put in reserve as in 6th i think he can only place 50% of his forces this could help minimise the amount he brings i

A drop pod assault only allows half of your drop pods to come on first turn anyway, so there wouldn't be tons of stuff instantly. If you deploy in such a way that there's something that can either mow down or charge a drop pod unit when it goes for one target, you should be able to minimise his damage. And if you deploy stuff close enough together to stop him getting a pod between units/vehicles, you limit his effectiveness too. Corners of the board might be a good idea there, not castled, just more of a refused flank. It's in the FAQ that if a drop pod scatters off the table, they don't get to do their special correcting move, they just roll on the mishap table, so use that to your advantage.

Don't castle, our troops are too expensive to castle. DE do better when on the move. Yoiu're gonna loose stuff, its kinda one point of the game.

What does your army list look like?

Reavers are good vs Long Fangs as you can scream over the top and whittle them down that way. 1 venom with 2 Splinter Cannons is usually enough to kill 1 MEQ so point as many Venoms at one squad, whilst trying to stay hidden from any others...

Does a drop pod and its occupants count as 2 units for the purposes of reserve limitations???

Yeah, I’d definitely use Reavers too. Even if you end up just sacrificing them to the Long Fangs over a few turns in CC, they’ll at least tie up those missile launchers.

Zanais wrote:

Hey,
Im going to play vs heavy drop pod list of Space Wolves on 1500 points. Guy says he will destroy all my ravagers with melts squads from pods and venoms with longfangs. So I wanted to ask are there any specific tactics I can take against drop pods? Does castling in table corner work? Or in case I get first turn should I just flat out to max my cover save?

For one, negate his advantage. From positioning in terrain or using the Nightfighting and Jink to using Nightshields to negate his meltas and bolters, always make sure that he could not use his list to the best of his abilities. This is the fundamentals that must never be forgotten by any Dark Eldar general. In addition always make room for your own things to maneuver as given the right mistakes, he could castle you into your own deployment zone painfully. And always spread out to give him less ground to land into.

Also, he is working on the assumption where he goes first. IF he does not go first, slaughter his Long Fangs through and through. Anything that lands during his first turn will be the only things preventing him from getting wiped out. If he does not have any presence on the battlefield by the end of the turn, he auto loses. If you have razorwings, just nuke his troops that are now more or less cluttered to a certain degree.

It was 2 vs 2, me and tyranids vs space wolves and tau. We managed to go first. He deployed 2 squads of LFs, one with heavy bolets and second with MLs. I splintered to death whole ML squad and killed over 50% of heavy bolters. Because rest of his army was in pods, Tau player got hit with rest of my s. cannons and all dark lances which made most of his army dissappear. I scattered my transports and asked tyranid player to fill gaps with termagaunts. Pods squads manage to kill 1 transport only and than in 2 turns they were eaten by maaaaaany termagaunts or splintered to death. They conceded in turn 4.

It seems the lesson of this story is that people that tell you that they are going to table you are generally full of it, while people that will actually table you don't have to talk trash in advance
Well done.