Email in: Why not? Trying to prove myself right? [Drop Dreads]

"Hello All!

We had a new player join our local play group. Matt, our new player, seems to have a unhealthy fixation on dreadnoughts. He bought, painted and played a unforgivably fluffy dread drop pod army for two months now, and has been steadily expanding it up to 1850'sh points. He's hating every single minute of playing and he said that he's going to quit due to the fact he has only won about 1/5th of his games. He's not a bad player, but his army is just really bad.

A bunch of us offered to help him out and he accepted. The problem is he still won't budge from a drop dread list. We managed to flip him over to the Blood Angels codex, and have convinced him to drop all the extra bling-like upgrades. We've managed to narrow it down to:


1x Librarian - 100
2x Furioso Dreadnoughts - Drop Pod - 160 each
1x Furioso Dreadnought - Blood Talons, Drop Pod - 160
1x Death Company (10 man) - Drop Pod - 235
2x Death Company Dreadnoughts - Blood Talons, Drop Pod - 160 each
2x Assault Squads (8 man) - Power Fist, Meltagun, Drop Pod - 189 each
3x Dreadnought - Twin-linked Autocannon, Twin-linked Autocannon, Drop Pod - 160 each

Total - 1993 (Because we all play at this level we decided to tool the list to 2k)

We've made only two suggestions to him, one being this list, and two being not to just drop only dread's on the first turn but to mix them up with the Death Company and Assault Squad list. We're hoping he'll realize how to screen and wrap his dreads to minimize the retaliation after the drop.

He's played two games just to test the army out. He likes it since he won both, but we're still feeling queasy. We know he's not going to be able to win most of his matches against most of our senior players who know how to counter it pretty effectively, but he'll be doing a bit better than before. I would really like to ask you guys for your idea's on how to improve this list and for any directions as to tactics when playing podding or dread armies.

Thanks for you consideration, and the comments on my previous email!

- Navitude"

Sorry late reply mate. The list concept is certainly a solid one and indeed best done by BA. The major change I would make would be replacing the TL-AC Dreads with MM Dreads. You gain no advantage drop podding in those Rifledreads whilst MM Dreads obviously prefer to be closer and are better in combat. This saves you 15 points per Dread (20 in your list since I think you misadded the Rifledread cost) which gives us enough for upgrading a Furioso to a Libby Dread for another Blood Lance (replace the Blood Talons Dread).

I also don't think you need two DC Dreads. They are great for what they do but the cost of needing 10 DC are a pain. If you drop those down you'll still have 7 Dreads and you can add in a HG squad in Pod and fill out the ASM squads, add heavy flamers to the MM Dreads and and potentially upgrade the Furisosos to Libby Dreads (unlikely). That's all tweaking though and general play preference but I think the major change you need to make is with the TLAC Dreads to MM Dreads (Heavy Flamers if possible). You've got a good number of Pods and Dreads who will hit hard on the Drop backed up by solid infantry numbers. No FNP which is a pain (hence the HG idea or adding Priests) but the DC are a solid torrent unit which is hard to kill. Issues are of course like all Pod armies in that they lose mobility quickly and can be bogged down but it's still a good list (but expensive to buy!).