I have talked about this at length previously and I find myself once again going back to a foundational principle in order to discuss a proper defensive posture for an aggressive Drop Pod army. The essence of warfare is a violent struggle between two hostile, independent, and irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other. War is fundamentally an interactive social process. Clausewitz called it a Zweikampf (literally a “two struggle”) and suggested the image of a pair of wrestlers locked in a hold, each exerting force and counterforce to try to throw the other. War is thus a process of continuous mutual adaptation, of give and take, move and countermove. It is critical to keep in mind that the enemy is not an inanimate object to be acted upon but an independent and animate force with its own objectives and plans. While we try to impose our will on the enemy, he resists us and seeks to impose his own will on us. Appreciating this dynamic interplay between opposing human wills is essential to understanding the fundamental nature of war.

I love drop pods. The lists that I always enjoyed playing in 5^th used 3x Drop Pods and would deliver 1x squad with Rune Priest, Wolf Guard and 8x Grey Hunters along side 2x pods full of a Wolf Guard and 9x Grey Hunters. I found this to be hit and miss (because sometimes that 3^rd pod just won’t come on!) and while survivable because of its high numbers – it lacked an ability to run up and punch you in the face. In games against armies using long range supporting fire like Tau and Heavy Marine (thunderfire) armies it did very well. But against mobile armies it could struggle because as Mars always tells me ‘Drop Pods are only fast once’ and every once in awhile my guys would find themselves struggling to keep up with faster armies.

Orbital Drop Pods are specialized atmospheric reentry craft that can be used to deploy Space Marines in a Space Marine army. A Drop Pod has the appearance of a huge, metallic, five-petaled flower bud when it opens upon landing. The interior is a transport chamber for the pod's passengers. In the background, Drop Pods are launched directly from ships in orbit around a planet. They crash down through the planet's atmosphere, at the last moment slowing down via thrusters located on the bottom of the pod. They reflect the nature of the Space Marines as an elite rapid-deployment force, giving them the capacity to reach the battlefield, from their warships in space, within a matter of seconds. Upon landing, the pod's "petals", which are actually doors, open up to disembark its passengers. Many Drop Pod miniatures for use with both the Warhammer 40,000 and Epic 40,000 tabletop games have been released by Forge World, although the original model was an early Epic release. In October 2008 Games Workshop released a Space Marine Drop Pod boxed set in the form of a well detailed plastic kit.

Original Epic 40,000 Drop Pods, open

Original Epic 40,000 Drop Pods, closed