4 Nov 2010

Drop Pods & Terminators

Hi All!!
I just wanted to get a discussion going about terminators and drop pods. I recently put the question forward to Siph about termi's in drop pods following seeing a picture of some dark angel termi's coming out of a drop pod.

We discussed the pro's and con's- we both believe termi's shouldn't be allowed (apart from characters attached to a squad with a dedicated drop pod) However if you read the rules, it doesn't state terminators cannot be transport, like with the case with rhino's and razorbacks.

Drop podding Terminators?!?!?

I've had a read of several codices, and imperial armour and have found that the dark angels codex states that terminators can be transported- as does the Apocalypse II imperial armour book.

The GW line is that terminators can be transported via drop pod, that the DP is purchased by a tactical, but that the terminators use it instead (if I'm a tactical marine, I'd offer my spot in a dp if a termi asked!)

This does seem slightly odd- I can see the point of DP'ing terminators as you are guaranteed not to lose them due to a deep strike mishap- at 200+points you really don't won't to lose time- it also means that you can drop pod assault them in on turn one. however in the spirit of the game would you say it was fair?

please add your suggestions- cheers!

6 comments:

  1. Read the rules for transports, a dedicated transport can't arrive from reserve carrying any other squad except the one it was bought for, so there is no way at all that a terminator squad can go in a drop pod (unless they are SW's)

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  2. I've just seen that in the rule book- ha! how did I manage to miss that!!

    However it seems bizarre that in the Apoc armour II the 'space marine iron cyclone drop strike' formation indicates that you can have terminator assualt squads in a drop pod(?)- therefore the question is if you can in apoc, then you should be able to in 40k?

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  3. I agree, Termies in drop pods are too bad. (for me as you've more DP's Ha) I don't think they should be used. Is the IA Apoc formation using DP for these Termies or do they Teleport Deep Strike along with the rest of the force in DP's?

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  4. in the apoc book it indicates that they arrive in a drop pod. bizzarre!

    also its strange that the manager in the local GW said yes to having DP'ing terminators!

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  5. generally I don't trust a word that comes out of a GW employee's mouth! ha!
    I apologise if the guy is a friend but they really must learn the rules!

    On the subject of Terminators I have always been very upset by the whole teleport business, I firmly believe that Terminators should be able to assault after Deepstriking in, it's what they are designed for after all!

    I agree that Deepstrike is a useful rule for dropping fast attack choices in which can shoot or last minute gambles to block/contest, but Terminators suck at what they should do.

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  6. "Read the rules for transports, a dedicated transport can't arrive from reserve carrying any other squad except the one it was bought for, so there is no way at all that a terminator squad can go in a drop pod (unless they are SW's)" Drop Pods, Rhinos, and Razorbacks are not dedicated transports anymore in the vanilla marine codex. They are merely transports purchased by the squad.

    You can have drop pods come down with no one in them at all if you really wanted to. You could also have a Devastator squad purchase a Razorback, and a Tactical squad do the same, and then split the tactical squad into combat squads and have a razorback for both of them.

    Black Templars purchase dedicated transports. I believe the Dark Angels mat still purchase there transports as dedicated transports too. The Vanilla codex for 5th does not have the dedicated transport language. You are free to put whatever you want into any transport, so long as it was legally purchased by a squad in your army.

    And, for another reference for terminators showing up in Drop Pods, I ran an all drop pod list in 4th using the vanilla codex, and I had terminators riding in pods. They were a transport choice, along with land raiders. They were dedicated back then, though.

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