Drop Pod Space Marines RTT results (Torrent of Fire glitches)

I attended an 1850 point RTT over at Anthem Games in Tampa yesterday. We had 16 players show up and used Torrent of Fire to run the event. There were a couple of wonky things with the ToF software that caught my attention—I'll cover those later. Here is my army list:

Primary Detachment - Ultramarines
Marneus Calgar - terminator suit
Tigerius

5x Honor Guard - 5x power axe
Drop Pod (#1)

5x tactical Marine - plasmagun
Sergeant - combi-plasma
Drop Pod (#2)

5x tactical Marine - plasmagun
Sergeant - combi-plasma
Drop Pod (#3)

5x Sternguard - 4x combi-melta, heavy flamer
Drop Pod (#4)

5x Devastator - 4x missile launcher + flakk
Drop Pod (#5)

Allied Detachment - Space Wolves
Rune Priest - terminator suit

8x Grey Hunter - plasmagun, plasma pistol, power axe, wolf standard
Drop Pod (#6)

8x Grey Hunter - plasmagun, plasma pistol, power axe, wolf standard
Drop Pod (#7)

I really like this list a lot and it performed well. I've got enough pods I can cover the areas of the board that need the most attention and four pods coming in on turn 1 is hot. Tigerius let's you reroll reserves so it's likely you'll get at least two more the second turn. I like to go second for the objective grabs plus it negates one shooting phase for your opponent. Versus eldar I'd probably want to go first to deny their jink saves... Same versus White Scars as well.

The first game was versus pulse bomb Tau with Farsight. Most of my opponent's army was deployed behind an Aegis Defense Line. First turn was a fantastic alpha strike with Marneus' squad grabbing the Relic, which held onto throughout the course of the game. The Rune Priest sniped a missileside unit first turn with Jaws which is exactly what I needed. Big win.

The second game was kill points versus Orks... Another big win. This game the battle points were tied directly to kill points so slipped a bit in the standings but was still in the top four.

The third and last game was versus a Chaos Daemon flying circus with five monstrous creatures including Be'lakor. This mission was asymmetrical where you start to accumulate battle points at the beginning of turn 2 for objectives you held. This was easily the toughest game. My opponent only had two scoring units and his Portaglyph had a bad scatter plus nothing ever came out of it. I ended up killing four of the five MCs, shooting them all down over the course of the game. The Devastators were MVP taking a heavy toll on the MCs. The Rune Priest also did quite well blocking a good number of maledictions plus Living Lightning also punished the MCs as well.

So 3-0 and I had the second highest score for battle points... But somehow ToF ended up ranking me as third place with second place going to a player with a 2-1 record—doesn't seem right. Also the second game even though I was ranked number 2 I was paired up against a player that had lost his first round game... I would have much rather played one of the other top ranked players. Overall I like ToF but these two glitches seem pretty bad for a competitive event. I sent a message to ToF to let them know - hopefully these will be addressed soon.

Space Marine Drop Pod Army Redux (2k)

Had a brain storming session with Ben Mohile and came up with this new list:

Marneus Calgar

Chief Librarian Tigurius

Chapter Champion
4x Honour Guard
Drop Pod #1

Command Squad
4x Storm Shield + Grav-Gun
Apothecary
Drop Pod #2

5x Tactical Marine - Plasma Gun
Sergeant:
Combi-Plasmagun
Drop Pod #3


5x Tactical Marine - Plasma Gun
Sergeant:
Combi-Plasmagun
Drop Pod #4

5x Tactical Marine - Plasma Gun
Sergeant:
Combi-Plasmagun
Drop Pod #5

4x Devastator:
4x Missile Launcher + Flakk Missiles
Sergeant
Drop Pod #6

Stormraven Gunship:
Twin linked Assault Cannon + Twin linked Multi-Melta



Rune Priest

9x Grey Hunter - Wolf Standard + Plasma gun + Plasma Pistol + Power Axe
Drop Pod #7

Drop Pod Space Marine Combinations

I've said it several times:

• I spent over a month designing the original army list
• You always make an immediate change after your first game to adjust
• Ultramarines with Space Wolf allies is one of the best combinations

Drop Pod Space Marine (DPSM) armies are inherently aggressive and are one of the best alpha strike armies. By designing your army list to be MSU (many small units) you can have both an alpha strike and a beta strike. Most armies cannot hide from DPSM... The first turn can be brutal. Most players now have zero or very limited experience versus DPSM as they went out of vogue over two editions ago. Some have said it's a glass hammer but that's not true if you design a fundamentally sound list. Proper placement of objectives allows you to take quickly take control of the dominant area on the table.

I think Space Marines are entering a new golden age with a wide variety of viable builds. The cost points wise for most Space Marine units dropped drastically and overall are better compared to the previous edition. Let's take a look at some of the other potent combinations. Some players believe that a pure Space Wolf army is the strongest build but I think they have some inherent limits since their codex is out of date now. Space Wolves are definitely one of the top allied choices with the Rune Priest and Grey Hunters. The Rune Priest obviously brings a lot to the table with his anti psychic ability (rune staff) and amazing psychic powers (Jaws of the World Wolf and Living Lightning). I used to really hate on JotWW but with the proliferation of monstrous creatures (Riptides, Wraith Knights, Daemon Princes and to a lesser extent Greater Daemons) this psychic power is almost mandatory.

Two other Chapters viable for DPSM are as follows:

• Crimson Fists (Pedro Kantor makes Sternguard scoring plus Bolter Drill)
• Salamanders (they also can buff Sternguard with twin linked combi-meltas)

So these are your main go to Chapters. Another viable Chapter are White Scars with their amazing biker units but this is not a pure DPSM army and I've actually discussed this hybrid build when the codex was first released.

Introduction: Drop Pod Tactica • Going Second

Going first with a drop pod Space Marine army can be one of the most crippling alpha strikes in the game... Versus Eldar for example you can shoot their units with complete impunity before they can move their skimmers for the jink save or cast any psychic powers. Versus Tau for example you can blast their Riptides before they nova charge for the 3++ save. Your initial shooting phase is very powerful when you go first as your opponent cannot counter it as shown with these examples.

Going second you lose a lot of these types of advantages though so it requires a lot more thought to develop viable tactics to make them function close to the same level. Regardless a drop pod army needs a good alpha strike to beat most other armies. This series of articles will demonstrate how to maximize the drop pod army when going second... You can't count on going first most of the time and if you're lucky you'll end up going first roughly 50 percent of the time.

Going second calls for a more protracted approach to these games since you can't play with the same level of impunity.

Anti Deployment

What is anti deployment? Anti deployment is starting with units in reserve. It used to be that each player would take turns deploying one unit at a time. Now one player first deploys their army then the other player deploys theirs. I have noticed a lot of players don't use the ability to hold units in reserve and I think they are missing out on a great tactic. I sometimes like to hold my best assault units in reserve and then bring them in. For the spearhead deployment your reserves can come in across the entire long table edge, not just your table quarter. This prevents the opponent from shooting them. This is a fantastic tactic for orks... Basically you take a strong unit such as Nobz with a warboss and put them in a trukk or battlewagon, don't forget the red paintjob. The turn they come in the transport moves 13" then the squad disembarks another 2". The warboss then calls down the Waaagh for a d6" fleet move and then they can charge up to 6 more inches. 13" + 2" + d6" + 6" = 21" + d6", or all the way up to 27" total. If it were me I'd always run Ghaz for this style army, you can't beat the guaranteed 6" fleet. Suddenly enemy units over halfway across the table are getting pounded by a huge power klaw. I think of this as an advanced anti-deployment tactic since I don't see many ork players using it. If the mission is objective based then place one of your objectives to lure in the opponent.

Using anti deployment has been with us a long time... Wolf Scouts, webway portals, terminators, drop pods and the monolith all come to mind. I personally think that drop pods were played out a long time ago but for some it's a brand new way of playing SM. I even used the old rules for drop podding prior to the release of the 4th edition SM codex... You had to go all drop pod though and there have always been some restrictions on what you can place in a drop pod. It was a great way to quickly close with the old static armies such as Iron Warriors. I have always been a big proponent of anti deployment and it only makes sense that I play daemons now as just like an old drop pod army everything starts in reserve. Deployment is meaningless to a daemon army and this is one of their biggest advantages.

G