Email in: Vanilla Drop Pod Army [1750]

"I've been struggling with a list build for a few days now and just can't get it right. I want it to be a codex marine pod list at 1750 points. I've only recently come across your blog and I'm very impressed with the analysis you put into the lists you build. I'm wondering if you can help.

Up till now I've been playing a vanilla SM list with 3 pods - 2 Ironclad Dreads and 10 sternguard with Pedro - supported by 2 tac squads in razorbacks, and assault squad and 2 dakka preds. It's worked reasonably well. What I've liked is the flexibility it gives me on which 2 pods to bringing in on turn one. The IC Dreads are tooled up differently - one has twin heavy flamers, the other has a melta gun and 2 HK missiles. Need to kill armour first turn? Pod in the sternguard with combi meltas, combat squad them and kill 2 tanks. Support them with the melta gun HK missile dread. Need to kill troops? Pod in the sternguard with the twin HF dread. The tac squads combat squad leaving a lazcannon squad in the back field. The other half sits in the razorback and helps the 2 preds and the lazcannons with fire support

The only problem is that the dreads can get bogged down. With only 3 attacks each round it can take them a long time to chew through a simple tac squad. That was the idea of the assault squad - pin the unit with the dread (which is pretty much invulnerable in assault with "normal" units) and then get the assault squad up quick to join in. If they benefit from pedro's inspiring presence, even better.

What I want to do is up the pod number to 5, bringing 3 in first turn. To give me the flexibility of choosing which 3, depending on what needs done, I wanted to go with 3 IC Dreads (2 with twin HF, 1 with melta gun, storm bolter and 2 HK missiles) and 2 captain's with command squads toting 4 melta guns each. So I can hit armour with the command squads and troops with the twin HF dreads. What I'm struggling with is how to back this up. The "obvious" choice is 2 tac squads in pods giving me a full DP army and the ability to bring in 4 pods first turn. It's doable at 1750 points. However, I would have no fire support, and no support units to help out the dreads in close combat. An alternative might be to "tool up the command squads so they would be OK in close combat - so give the captains storm shield and relic blade, add a company champion and give the (now) 3 guys with melta guns storm shields. However that makes it very tight for points leaving me with room for 2 bare bones tac squads in pods or rhinos. Again no fire support and no fast reaction assault support when the dreads get bogged down.

So how would you run a podding c:sm army with 3 IC dreads?

David"

Hey David, so a Drop Dread list Vanilla style with IC dreads. Let's see what we can whip up. Want want an odd number of Pods if possible and as many Dreads as possible as well. We also want to be able to drop either all Dreads or all Marines if possible. The Dreads don't really need support in CC. Ya they can take a long time chewing through units but most units don't want to be in combat with Dreads anyway, especially AV13 Dreads. Rather than bring combat squads then we're going to bring as much infantry as possible to support the Dreads with firepower and saturation and if needed they can throw 20A in on the charge.

So first up we want a Master of the Forge so we can get as many Dreads as possible. We'll stick him with a conversion Beamer for now but maybe not since he should be podding in as well. David wants Ironclads as well so we'll grab 3 of them and give them each a heavy flamer instead of a stormbolter + a Pod w/Loc. That's 690 points gone already. Let's then add 2 Dreads w/MM & Heavy Flamer in Pods as Heavy Support leaving us 760 points remaining and we want 4 or 6 more Pods. Let's go for 4. 3x10xTacs w/meltagun, MM, combi-flamer & Pod w/Deathwind = 230 x3 = 690. Well that's most of the points gone so at 1750 we're not going to be able to fit in a Sternguard unit unfortunately and we still need another pod.

Let's drop the Conversion Beamer and we've got 90 points to play with yet still need another Pod. 110 points will get us an ASM squad w/flamer + Pod so let's shave off 2 combi-flamers from the Tacticals. This puts us at 1750 on the dot with 5 dreads + 4 infantry units all in Pods. List as follows:

Master of the Forge
3x Ironclad Dread w/meltagun, Heavy Flamer, Drop Pod, Locator beacon
2x 10x Tactical Marines w/meltagun, MM, Drop Pod, Deathwind
10x Tactical Marines w/meltagun, MM, combi-flamer, Drop Pod, Deathwind
5x ASM w/flamer, Drop Pod
2x Dreadnought w/MM, Heavy Flamer, Drop Pod

Totals: 1750 points
36 infantry
5 dreadnoughts
9 pods

If you took this up to 2000 I'd add in Sternguard over the ASM. Whilst your opponent can reserve deny you, your army isn't split up and you do have the MMs to drop roughly in the middle and threaten both corners.