Friday, February 25, 2011

Drop Pods Should BE Weapons

One of my favorite parts of playing Dawn of War II was seeing orks get squished by drop pods, but that scenario isn't even a possibility in a real game of 40K. It's a shame, really. That big huge chunk of metal hurtling down from the sky should be able to do something other than change course to avoid smashing bad guys. Excuse me, I meant avoid a mishap... but really? Wouldn't it be cool to squish something when you land?!?!

I'm sure someone else has attempted to come up with rules to simulate this, but I'm going to give it a shot myself because a few quick Google searches didn't give me anything and I don't feel like looking any harder.

Drop Pod Attack (25 point upgrade)
When the drop pod enters play, it must choose an enemy model as its target. Roll scatter dice as usual.
  • If the drop pod would be placed on top of a non-vehicle unit, the unit suffers 2d6 wounds and is treated as if it was tank shocked. Death or glory cannot be attempted against this type of tank shock.
  • If the drop pod would be placed on top of an enemy vehicle, that vehicle suffers a S10/AP1 hit. If the vehicle is destroyed or explodes, remove the vehicle from the board and replace it with the drop pod. If the vehicle survives, place the drop pod in base to base contact with vehicle.
Is this too over the top for a house rule? Balanced/unbalanced? What do you think?
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6 comments:

  1. I'm not sure about the vehicle part. Somehow I feel the drop pod should take some sort of damage aswell, kinda like in ramming. Then again it would turn complicated with the passengers inside :D

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  2. I thought about the pod taking damage from ramming too, except that the things were built to survive massive impacts with their passengers safe inside.

    Still, I see your point. Maybe the drop pod should take a glancing hit automatically if it lands on a vehicle?

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  3. Yea a glancing hit might be fair. I totally agree with the point that drop pods should be weapons though.

    I was trying to teach a couple of friends to play 40k and they were asking can they smash the drop pod into enemy vehicles :D . Felt kinda stupid telling them that a vehicle that is shot at high speed into a planets atmosphere and smashes into the ground CAN'T land on top of orks.

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  4. I feel that it's a bit of a free hit, without much element of risk.

    I'd prefer it if death or glory were still permitted myself. (but maybe with a single ranged weapon hit, rather than mele?)

    I can just see the insane chaos warrior standing his groud firing his plasma gun into the sky..

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  5. IIRC the old Epic stuff had something similar - if pod lands on something, it makes a save - if it fails, it dies, if it passes, the pod and passengers die.

    I'd be OK with pod scatters hurting what they land on, but there should be an element of risk for the pods too.

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  6. I like that image of the chaos warrior.

    That epic rule (if you're remembering it correctly) is way too "all-or-nothing" for me.

    Keep in mind that it isn't a free hit... it's a 25 point drop pod upgrade. So a pod able to do this would actually cost 60 points. I just kind of threw a number on it, but I was comparing it to the hunter-killer missile: 10 points for a single hit Str8/AP3 vs 25 points for a single hit Str10/AP1.

    If it's a costly upgrade, does there need to be risk to the pods (other than just for realism's sake)?

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