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Tactics vs drop pod armies

1-    Typical Drop Pod Army types, and the problems they pose Tau
2-    The missions & game types that help or hinder us
3-    Deployment tips
4-    During the game
5-    Conclusions
 
Ok a lot of people in my local store are starting to use drop pods on their marine armies, and it?s really harsh against Tau. This is an attempt to plan out our best options against these chumps, and although its written for the 3rd ed codex, it will probably relate across to the new one to some extent, rather than just being a late, last gasp waste of time before its superseded, rahh
 
Section 1: Typical Drop Pod Army types, and the problems they pose Tau

My Tau army, in the current 3rd ed codex relies on battle suits to crank out the majority of its shots, and the suits are fragile. To keep them alive, I rely on them being able to out-manoeuvre the enemy, staying out of combat, and getting my shots off while denying the return shots, by using terrain to JSJ behind, and also using the protection of stealth field, or being an Independent Character for the Crisis. And also further trying to protect them by making people take LD checks past closer targets like devilfish whenever possible.

Deep strike of any form is harsh on suits, as it just negates all those mechanisms we have for keeping them alive.

Also it forces you to make the choice of jumping into terrain in your assault phase, and taking Dangerous Terrain checks (die on a 1), or being out in the open and not getting a cover save against all the low AP weapons.

Drop pod marines are a particular nightmare for Tau. Several reasons:
-Most of these armies are lead by a Librarian, with Fear and Fury. Fear is horrible for Tau, if you bunch together for protection, the FEAR will make half your guys just break and run off. And there?s nothing you can do about it! Haha!
Fury is pretty bad as well, it can draw its line through your Shas?els who can?t otherwise be targeted, and it also causes pinning even if it doesn?t inflict any casualties, another punishment for our poor leadership. It influences your movement as you?re always trying to make sure he can only draw the line through 1 unit at most, even allowing for his 6? move. While this isn?t a huge problem, it?s still a hassle to deal with and can be a bit constricting.

So the FEAR & FURY Librarian is really nasty for Tau to face at the best of times, and it?s at its worst when it can drop in wherever it wants in the middle of your army without risk of dying, and also it?s the default choice to lead drop pod armies. Erk.

-Having 2 special weapons in the tactical squads, (at the price of not having any allies, boo hoo hoo)
This is also standard in pod armies, probably more common than the Librarian. The twin plasma squads with bolters are just perfect for ruining the day of our stealth squads, and the twin melta squads have a pretty good chance of glancing a hammerhead and then penetrating in the next turn.

-Apothecaries. My Tau army is made mostly of str5 firepower, and it just bounces off apothecary armies. Apothecaries also work well paired with plasma weapons, as it lets them ignore their overheats. So Apothecaries and twin-plasma squads, is a bad combination.
Mounted in drop pods is even worse as they can have multiple Apothecaries working in a network, and even if you target just one squad, all the nearby guys can help to ignore multiple wounds you?re doing to the squad, which makes it very nasty to deal with.
Fortunately I?ve not seen too many drop pod armies using this, races other than Tau will charge them and the Apothecary doesn?t work in combat.

-Drop pods don?t scatter to death. If the scatter dice takes them over impassable terrain or enemy models, they don?t die like normal deepstrike, they just stop 1? away. (Note that the rules don?t say what happens if they land on friendly models, so if you feel like pushing the issue you could claim that they die on their own pods)
Anyway the practical effect of this is that if there is a small gap in your army, the marine player has loads of incentive to drop down right in the middle of it, and get his librarian to make your guys run off. He can drop wherever he likes pretty much, apart from too close to the table edge.

-Drop pods work even in alpha, so the all-pod army is viable. Other forms of deepstrike tend to not get used purely like this, because of the risk of rolling alpha. Drop pods do not fear alpha so they can make an army entirely out of pods.

Make sure they?ve got their traits right, if they have 2 advantages (eg. 2 specials in tac squads, apothecaries in tac squads, true grit / counter charge on tac squads, or bp/ccw on tac squads) then they need a major disadvantage.
The minor ones are of no consequence, but the majors can be a bit annoying, all your landspeeders in one squad, or no terminator command squad and only 1 dread, or all transports (inc pods) count as fast attack. None of these major disadvantages are nice for the pod armies, but they can be coped with.

Ok that?s the first section done, a bit of background about the enemy.

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Now, time for some hints as to how to deal with them in game.

Section 2: The missions & game types that help or hinder us


Getting escalation is good for you. It means your tanks might not be on the table when the pods come down, so you don?t get them melta?d

Getting first turn choice is good for you. Its crucial you go second if you have the choice, you want your reserves to come on AFTER theirs.

It?s is important for several reasons, 1) it lets you score safer in the final turn, 2) if the enemy is all off-board anyway then going first isn?t an advantage at all like it normally is, 3) Whoever drops second gets the first shots in.
4) You want to dictate the distance between you and the marines, rather than the other way around. You want to drop down and shoot them, rather than them dropping in and shooting at you. 5) you effectively get one more turn of shooting than he does.
 
Getting a mission objective is good, if its Recon or Cleanse, this is good for you. If its Take and Hold, or Secure and Control not so good. If its Seek and Destroy, this is bad.
Basically the reason for this is you want to deploy quite far away from the objective, because you?re more mobile in the late game. You want to force the choice of going for you with his 12? shooting range, or going on the objective and getting no shots. If you can get him to drop away from the objective, it means you can then force him to footslog to it for the rest of the game, getting no shots off.

Drop pod armies are slow once they drop. Getting them to footslog is valuable, as it means they?ve got nothing to shoot at. Getting them to footslog through terrain is even better as its even slower.

Recon is probably the ideal mission as you can easily get to his dzone with deepstriking suits of your own, and the tanks get 15? deployment in Gamma, plus 12? in the first turn, they?re practically in his dzone by the time his pods are turning up. This means he?s then got the choice, either drop in his own dzone to shoot at you, and accept those squads won?t be able to score, or drop in the middle, hope to shoot maybe for a turn and then run off to score. Once the pods are down, you out-range him so you can be shooting all the way up until the last turn and still be able to get into the dzone to score yourself.

Seek and Destroy is probably the worst mission, as you have no opportunity to punish his poor mobility by out-scoring him.

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Section 3: Deployment tips

Ok so once the game has actually been decided, how do you deploy? (assuming its Gamma, and you?ve actually got stuff that is deploying)

The first thing to realise is he has nothing on the board to deploy, so it doesn?t matter where you go for first turn. You should deploy so that you?re in the position you want to be in, by turn 2 for when the pods start falling.
You basically have 2 options.
Firstly, you can ?Castle? up (ie clump together, to concentrate firepower onto whatever faces you, in a defensive formation)
And secondly you can disperse your units. In 1500 pts, its not going to be more than 5-6 pods, 7 at the most. You?ve got more units than that, so you can afford to trade 1-for-1 if the worst comes to it.

If you castle, it leaves you weak, so very weak, to FEAR of the darkness. And also it poses the risk of getting trapped in and caught in combat.
Most of my playtesting so far has been with dispersal.

The next thing, is all of our jetpack models have the option to deepstrike. If you?re lucky they?ll come in AFTER his pods do, this saves them from getting rapid fired, and it means you can position them anywhere on the board so the pod player doesn?t know where to position.

The downside of dispersing is you cannot protect any single unit. He?ll be able to drop whatever he likes down and target anything of yours that?s on the table. Unfortunately the choice of dispersing or castling needs to be made before you know if you?ve got first turn or not, sux!

A note on the deployment, if you look at p84/85 the Reserve rules say you have to roll for each squad, if it comes on then you deploy it, then you roll for the next one. It's worth bearing in mind, as you don't want to let the pod player know how many pods he has to work with when placing his stuff, he won't know how aggressive he can be or if he's got enough pods to build walls from and so on.

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Section 4: During the game

Ok so the game has started. How do you actually play against pods?
Let?s assume its Gamma and we?ve deepstruck all the suits so we?ve only got tanks and kroot on the table. The kroot have done their normal thing and infiltrated into terrain in a corner somewhere annoying. The tanks have moved in the first turn.

Crucial: protect the rear armour. That means keeping them with their backs to the table edge, or backed against impassable terrain. All pod units have a certain amount of bolt weapon fire in them that can get lucky against AV10.
If you drive up the middle of the table, he can fairly safely drop down behind you and glance you loads.
(remember even if you get Stunned and can?t move, in the next turn, even though you didn?t move over 6? you?re still a mobile Skimmer and therefore still need 6?s to be hit in combat, even though he can now Penetrate you.
Also worth knowing is that you have to charge at the facing of the vehicle you are standing nearest, so you can?t walk up to the side of a skimmer, and use your 6? assault move to charge the rear armour. Even if the rear armour is within 6? of the model, the model has to charge at the side, as that was the facing he was nearest to when the charge was declared.)

Use the table edges:
Not only does the table edge protect your rear armour, it?s also the only way drop pods can die, they can fall off the table if they scatter. So if you?re hugging the edges, and he drops within range to rapid fire, he?s potentially risking scattering off the table.
The corners are even better for this, as there?s even more risk! :p

Use the impassable terrain:
He can?t land in it. He can?t shoot through it. You can use it to protect your rear armour, giving you flexibility rather than being limited to hugging the edges. You can also use it to block LOS and maybe use it to influence where he drops.

Use his own drop pods against him:
You can use them to slow him down, if he has to walk around them. You can use them to cut off his line of sight to you, as you?re more mobile.
Remember any time you make him spend walking around is valuable for you as it means he?s shooting less.

You can use them to restrict line-of-sight to just particular models, in order to pick out the special weapons etc.

I also had a situation where it was my last turn, I had a hammerhead with no vehicles to shoot at, and a choice to make. Do I, (A) run into the score zone and claim 180 pts, or (B) run away from the score zone, and get a shot onto a unit of terminators which needs 1 more causality to go below half strength and be no longer scoring.
I chose (A). I also fired the railgun at a drop pod near the terminators, hoping to blow it up and kill one in the blast. It didn?t work, but it was worth the shot as I couldn?t see the termies directly if I was to still be in the score zone. Probably quite rare situation though.

Use the terrain:
If you keep your suits right next to a piece of terrain, it means the enemy has to be on your side of it, or in it to get shots at you.
If your suits don?t need their assault phase move as they?re not immediately threatened, they can sit in terrain, ?walking? in the movement phase (2D6 pick the highest for elites, or 3D6 pick the highest for shas?el/?Os) in order to get a cover save.

Also if you put your rear armour up against some size 3 area terrain, even if it?s not impassable it helps, it means to get to your rear armour he will have to drop into the terrain.
This is good for you as it means if he?s not in the terrain, your rear is safe, and if he is then he has to roll for difficult terrain distance when he tries to move out, which is good as it slows him down. And it will also restrict his shooting as he can?t shoot more than 6? through it.

Deepstrike safely:
If you opted to deepstrike your suits, you need to be careful with them. You don?t want to drop within 12? obviously, but a unit of stealth is 18? ranged so if you aim to get shots off with them when they drop, you run the risk of them getting shot at as they can?t move in the assault phase when they drop. Even worse, if you scatter towards the enemy, you can get charged. Its worth delaying your shooting for a turn sometimes in order to land safely, and then engage the enemy in the next turn when you?ve got the assault phase jump to protect you with.

If you?re outside his 12+6? range of his tactical squad?s shooting, you only really have to deal with the assault cannons before you?re totally out-shooting him (with whatever you?ve got left alive)


Also worth bearing in mind is that:
A- its not worth shooting at the drop pods themselves unless you've really got no other targets. the chances of them blowing up is quite high (penetrating 5 or 6 cos they're opened topped) but they're still going to kill less than you can get by shooting directly at the squads.

B- railgun hammerheads are actually a bit crap against marine infantry
for 180 points your stealth units are far more important. if he has any assault cannons or meltagun units that are targetting your hammerheads, this is good for you. the stealths will get more kills, and are also less durable. even better if he starts trying to powerfist the skimmers out of the sky, its quite hard when they need 6's to hit

if there's any vehicles dreads etc the railguns can drill them, but after that you /want/ him to be chasing hammerheads rather than battlesuits

C- there's not much point in you trying to kill the tactical squads, because they're so close the target priority is different, as long as you're not in danger of getting charged, you're better off killing the speeders first, then the command squads. you don't have enough time to kill 30-40 tactical marines, and they're all close together, so its better to just run off if you can and stay alive.

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Section 5: Conclusions

So if you wanted to keep your stuff alive at the start, that means playing it cautiously, deepstriking safely, but then you?ve only got about 3-4 turns maybe of shooting before the game is over, in which you have to also make your way safely to the objective to score.
This means that while the initial drop is in favour of the marines as they?ve got more rapid fire guns, the 2nd half of the game should be in your favour as you?ve got the range and mobility. You may not have anything left alive to shoot back with though, hehe

The difficulty comes in that while the 2nd half of the game (once the reserves are all down) is in your favour, it may not make up a significant enough portion of the game for you to return the kills and balance the VPs out. And if the mission doesn?t allow you to out-score him, then you?re down there as well.

I?ve found that by dispersing the tanks, and deepstriking the suits (in Gamma) it does definitely help to soften the initial blow of the drop and the librarian?s impact, it also means the game tends to get drawn out and less bloody. This is probably good as it means the games will tend towards draws, especially if are focused on the objective and you can score more.

Going for a draw is a bit pragmatic and although it?s very tough to do any better against drop pods with Tau, it does bristle my pride a bit. Perhaps Castling might work, but I can?t see any way of not getting owned by the FEAR.

any thoughts?

Yes, it's a Guess range weapon, so no LOS required. That's why I was suggesting putting it on one of the HQ suits so you wouldn't waste an elite slot on a single crisis suit.

It's actually pretty bad___imagine a small Blast template scattering on 2d6" due of not having LoS. You'll be lucky to roll a 4+ on a partial exposure on a Spinegaunt... K, I'm exaggerating a bit, make that a Guardsman. A single Biovore would be more useful, as at least if it doesn't hit, there'll be a Mine wandering the board__and it's still pretty worthless

its a large blast, str4 ap5, guess18"

That and it never gets any penalties for shooting

At least, if I recall correctly.

Well it has limited uses, but might be powerfull. Usefull only uring escelation missions, but there is a war gear item (don't know what it is called) that will allow you to bring any one unit out of reserves on a 2+. However if you use this item, you can only bring that one unit onto the table this turn. So if you go mostly mounted and have a bunch of units with jet packs you can make it so that you only bring down 1 unit while the drop podder has to bring down all the stuff that shows up on a 4+, 3+, etc.

This would for the most part let you respond to his drops rather than the other way around. This item has no use on alpha and gamma missions that I can see, but the 2006 GT is 1/2 escelation. It might be a good investment in this case.

The item is Positional Relay and it can be used only if suit having is in table at the startof the turn when reserves are rolled. And as all non-broadside suits start in reserves in escalation...
(Have read the codex, im 99.99% sure what im saying)

Upgrade an XV-25 to Shas'vre and give it him a Positional Relay. Bam.

don't stealth suits still wait off-board in escalation? And I thought I heard the positional relay was for commander suits only, although I could be mistaken.

XV-25s can Infiltrate.

Infiltrate doesn't override escalation. Only Scout does.