I hate Drop Pods >:(

Ive tried Castling but here's the problem, Space marines can have everything in reserve turn 1 ( go figure, theres no point in speed if everything is in your board edge turn 1) I usually run 3 ravagers, Reaver Jetbikes, Scourges with HB's and lots of wyches and splinterborn in venoms. I keep the antitank ( well most that are vulnerable) in reserve. That way when he drops in, i put my troll face on and bring everything in (hopefully). Bam,bam,bam there goes your army >;P ( done it before, but rarely happens). Besides castling, ( at this point the real question is what best units to bring against that nonsense over privileged space marines have) what viable options am i looking at?

Thanks for the help

Oh and i usually keep all my ravagers and scourges in reserve.

Not sure exactly what the problem is. What is your opponent putting in the pods that is causing you problems?

things that pop my boats turn one, also like 4 squads with plasmas and meltas. The problem is that so many units can come turn 1. It is literally very hard to not have half your army gone to drop pod melta explosions. How can i best counter that. Is my question


Not to mention blast templates if i decide to castle my units.

I understand that is all we pretty much got but castling is not effective against drop pods. Id say that answer to that would probably be high toughness like Taloi and Wraithknights. Maybe put 2 Talos on the board as bait.

You are going to lose units on the first turn. That's pretty much unavoidable. The key is that you have to decide what you are willing to lose and deploy accordingly. Make sure you know exactly how big a drop pod is and deploy your units so that they are ~0.5" closer together than that distance. That way the pods cannot land between your units. Remember that Inertial Guidance only reduces scatter. It cannot increase it to avoid an obstacle (such as your unit). If it can't reduce scatter enough to avoid the obstacle then it mishaps.

If you decide that you have some disposable vehicles then you should deploy your other units in a corner of the battlefield and leave enough of a gap between them to prevent pods dropping inside your castle. You'll be surpirsed how much area you can take up with proper spacing between your models and units. You then leave a similar gap and place a wall of Raiders all the way across the corner, creating a buffer so that the only thing the marines can hit are empty transports. No big deal if they die and you will always jink to give them the best chance of surviving.

After the first turn you should have lost nothing other than a few empty transports and you should have most of your army positioned to do damage to the enemy.

Count Adhemar wrote:

If it can't reduce scatter enough to avoid the obstacle then it mishaps.

I agree with basically everything Adhemar said, I actually like fighting Drop Pod armies because I don't think they work well against DE.

That said, I want to call this quoted point out - by definition it is impossible for a Pod to mishap since you need to be able to legally place it prior to rolling scatter, therefore it can always reduce scatter to the point of 0" scatter and be placed in its legal initial position. I'm not sure what you were saying there, but, barring weird rules making all DS auto mishap, there's no actual way to mishap a Drop Pod that I am aware of.

Fair point and I probably should have phrased that better. The basic point is that if you don't leave gaps big enough for a pod then you pretty much dictate where they land.

Thor665 wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If it can't reduce scatter enough to avoid the obstacle then it mishaps.

I agree with basically everything Adhemar said, I actually like fighting Drop Pod armies because I don't think they work well against DE.

That said, I want to call this quoted point out - by definition it is impossible for a Pod to mishap since you need to be able to legally place it prior to rolling scatter, therefore it can always reduce scatter to the point of 0" scatter and be placed in its legal initial position. I'm not sure what you were saying there, but, barring weird rules making all DS auto mishap, there's no actual way to mishap a Drop Pod that I am aware of.

I'm pretty sure a DP can scatter off the table. I think the special rule only specifies obstacles such as enemy units, and doesn't mention table edge. I could be wrong though.

Martinman wrote:

Thor665 wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If it can't reduce scatter enough to avoid the obstacle then it mishaps.

I agree with basically everything Adhemar said, I actually like fighting Drop Pod armies because I don't think they work well against DE.

That said, I want to call this quoted point out - by definition it is impossible for a Pod to mishap since you need to be able to legally place it prior to rolling scatter, therefore it can always reduce scatter to the point of 0" scatter and be placed in its legal initial position. I'm not sure what you were saying there, but, barring weird rules making all DS auto mishap, there's no actual way to mishap a Drop Pod that I am aware of.

I'm pretty sure a DP can scatter off the table.  I think the special rule only specifies obstacles such as enemy units, and doesn't mention table edge.  I could be wrong though.

It can indeed mishap through scattering off the table

Going against drop pods you either get a bunch with cheap guys inside or a few with elite guys inside. When going against a drop pod army I tend to bring cheaper units ( most expensive being 180 points). that way no matter what they wont destroy your entire army and you will be able to hit back with a lot of shots and models.

Personally, I've always found that deploying outside of transports and keeping our valuable units out of rapid fire range makes drop pods inefficient. Depends on what is inside, of course.

Meltas and Plasma sound pretty favorable to me as they're less effective against our troops than regular bolters and you should still get a cover save if they happen to shoot at your troops through your transports.

I hate frickin' flamers. Because when drop pods come down with flamers they ignore cover and it's impossible to save certain models/troops because if you leave too much of a gap in your castle they can land right in it. Plus now with the new no escape rule you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't. I used to deal with drop pod flamers by just getting in my boat and sailing away. Also, depending on what variant of flamer they have this can be made worse, as if it's more than assault 1 the wounds will spill over and if it's more than S4 it has a decent potential to penetrate your boats as well! I think it's called a frag cannon? But it can wreck a boat and kill half a squad by itself... Let me just end my ranting now.

Btw does someone can give me the groung print dimension of the bloody DP. For the Deep Strike it is the closed ramp DP we need to take into account, but for model to be able to disembark, the DP must be able to deploy its ramp, right ? So If it can't due to scenery or ennemy models, whatever is inside can't do anything, right ?

That is incorrect, the panels opening is purely cosmetic.

Did the OP take picture of his deployment by any chance?

As there is castling and then there is castling.

Ill try that thanks guys ;D appreciate it

I play a LOT of games against my buddy with his drop pod assault list, ultramarines. Castling up is probably the worst thing you can do against a combat squading list with meltas. All he has to do is surround you and then his whole army can shoot at your whole army. What i try to do is spread out as much as I can along the board edge. A proper general will never get closer than 12" to an edge and having a high posibility of scattering away from the edge makes the nightshields work oh so much better. Expect to jink with everything turn one. Keeping half your army in reserve is a good strategy also so that you can keep certain things safe and that would really mess up their plan. The best thing I can think of is to play with lots of Wychs. you space them out around the board. Put your general in a corner and put two transports with wyches around it about 3" away. This is to get intervening model for jink and to deny melta range further. The great thing about fielding lots of wychs is that when he drops in and tried to pop your stuff you can assault him your next turn and fly the rest of your transports out. no move time for the wychs since he is already on you and then you tarpit him for turns while the odds are stacked in your favor. Both him and I have found this to work the best. Castling up is something the both of us really suggest not to do. Ive played about 20+ games just against him at around 1000-1500 level and the wych approach has the best chance.

Our close-range firepower exceed that of any droppodders by a significant margin. And, strangely enough, our melee (in form of beasts with Baron) is way superior to anything Loyalists (bar yiffs yiffs and may be BA) can place on table.

Castling isn't simple, you need to have enough models to hide your most valuable units deep within ranks, so opponent will be forced either to drop away from your army, or waste his firepower on common rabble - while his elite forces will be blown apart by your in retaliation.

It won't work at 1000 pts though, not enough models to properly castle.

Rest of the advices are just terrible. Never ever reserve anything but reavers while going against drop pod army. You need ALL your army to strike back against half of his army (since other half in reserve). Control the flow of the battle!

Its_Rumble wrote:

I play a LOT of games against my buddy with his drop pod assault list, ultramarines. Castling up is probably the worst thing you can do against a combat squading list with meltas. All he has to do is surround you and then his whole army can shoot at your whole army. What i try to do is spread out as much as I can along the board edge. A proper general will never get closer than 12" to an edge and having a high posibility of scattering away from the edge makes the nightshields work oh so much better. Expect to jink with everything turn one. Keeping half your army in reserve is a good strategy also so that you can keep certain things safe and that would really mess up their plan. The best thing I can think of is to play with lots of Wychs. you space them out around the board. Put your general in a corner and put two transports with wyches around it about 3" away. This is to get intervening model for jink and to deny melta range further. The great thing about fielding lots of wychs is that when he drops in and tried to pop your stuff you can assault him your next turn and fly the rest of your transports out. no move time for the wychs since he is already on you and then you tarpit him for turns while the odds are stacked in your favor. Both him and I have found this to work the best. Castling up is something the both of us really suggest not to do. Ive played about 20+ games just against him at around 1000-1500 level and the wych approach has the best chance.

Probably hard to do properly at low point levels but certainly at 1500 points castling is absolutely the best thing to do. Your tactic just allows the marines to bring his entire army in to shoot at whatever element of your force he wants to. Castling forces him to shoot at the stuff YOU want him to shoot at.

As an example, a game I fought at Throne of Skulls about 18 months ago against a Space Wolf Drop Pod army. I castled in one corner, he dropped as much as possible in a ring around my army but managed to destroy a single empty Venom and a handful of beasts. In return, my entire army was in double-tap/assault range of him on turn one. By the end of that game I'd lost almost nothing and killed his entire army apart from the single Grey Hunter squad that he dropped on the other side of the table hold his own objective.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Its_Rumble wrote:

I play a LOT of games against my buddy with his drop pod assault list, ultramarines. Castling up is probably the worst thing you can do against a combat squading list with meltas. All he has to do is surround you and then his whole army can shoot at your whole army. What i try to do is spread out as much as I can along the board edge. A proper general will never get closer than 12" to an edge and having a high posibility of scattering away from the edge makes the nightshields work oh so much better. Expect to jink with everything turn one. Keeping half your army in reserve is a good strategy also so that you can keep certain things safe and that would really mess up their plan. The best thing I can think of is to play with lots of Wychs. you space them out around the board. Put your general in a corner and put two transports with wyches around it about 3" away. This is to get intervening model for jink and to deny melta range further. The great thing about fielding lots of wychs is that when he drops in and tried to pop your stuff you can assault him your next turn and fly the rest of your transports out. no move time for the wychs since he is already on you and then you tarpit him for turns while the odds are stacked in your favor. Both him and I have found this to work the best. Castling up is something the both of us really suggest not to do. Ive played about 20+ games just against him at around 1000-1500 level and the wych approach has the best chance.

Probably hard to do properly at low point levels but certainly at 1500 points castling is absolutely the best thing to do. Your tactic just allows the marines to bring his entire army in to shoot at whatever element of your force he wants to. Castling forces him to shoot at the stuff YOU want him to shoot at.

Ya but at a sacrifice but then again you control what dies unless he has blast templates.

Dat_Other_Guy wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

Its_Rumble wrote:

I play a LOT of games against my buddy with his drop pod assault list, ultramarines. Castling up is probably the worst thing you can do against a combat squading list with meltas. All he has to do is surround you and then his whole army can shoot at your whole army. What i try to do is spread out as much as I can along the board edge. A proper general will never get closer than 12" to an edge and having a high posibility of scattering away from the edge makes the nightshields work oh so much better. Expect to jink with everything turn one. Keeping half your army in reserve is a good strategy also so that you can keep certain things safe and that would really mess up their plan. The best thing I can think of is to play with lots of Wychs. you space them out around the board. Put your general in a corner and put two transports with wyches around it about 3" away. This is to get intervening model for jink and to deny melta range further. The great thing about fielding lots of wychs is that when he drops in and tried to pop your stuff you can assault him your next turn and fly the rest of your transports out. no move time for the wychs since he is already on you and then you tarpit him for turns while the odds are stacked in your favor. Both him and I have found this to work the best. Castling up is something the both of us really suggest not to do. Ive played about 20+ games just against him at around 1000-1500 level and the wych approach has the best chance.

Probably hard to do properly at low point levels but certainly at 1500 points castling is absolutely the best thing to do. Your tactic just allows the marines to bring his entire army in to shoot at whatever element of your force he wants to. Castling forces him to shoot at the stuff YOU want him to shoot at.

Ya but at a sacrifice but then again you control what dies unless he has blast templates.

Exactly. You ARE going to lose stuff first turn. The question is, do you want to decide what you're going to lose or let your opponent make that decision?

Here's a good link with some pictures to illustrate the points mentioned by Count Adhemar and Thor: Dealing with Deepstrikers

Cool! Sweet ill try that,

I'd like to add my vote to the castling tactic too. You don't castle in the middle of the board, that would see you surrounded. You castle in a corner, so there are only two sides of your force drop pods can get to. Deploy your stuff with roughly the width of a small blast template (three inches) between models to minimise the damage that anything that is on the board firing turn on can do, as well as to stop drop pods landing in the middle of your army. Put the stuff you need to survive at the back, like Ravagers and command boats, then fly over the wreckage of whatever disposable vehicles he might have been able to pop and lay waste to his now footslogging army. My regular opponent uses drop podding Space Wolves, and of the three armies I've used against them (the other two being Eldar and Orks), Dark Eldar respond the best. With careful deployment, you either force them to come down somewhere defensive because the guys inside can't stand the return fire, or you make your opponent sacrifice them for little payoff. You might even get really lucky and not lose anything if you jink and rolled for night fighting (don't forget to specify that you want to use the night fighting rules every single time). With night shields, the drop pods might even scatter out of rapid fire range.

Hi

I created a template for the droppod footprint (based on model drawing found in internet) :


Does someone can confirm the size since I don't have a real one ?