Drop Pods

[Battlegrinder]

Has anyone worked up rules for drop pods (either ODST style 1 man pods, or the bigger 40k style ones). I'm working on some special units for my new army, and several of them work really benefit from being able to drive via drop pod (I suppose teleporting would also work, but it's not as manly).

[Gungnir]

I tried coming up with a Delayed Deployment ability that reduced a unit's CP at the cost of delaying its deployment (surprise surprise), but when considering the cost of the vehicle, it just wasn't worth it.

[Battlegrinder]

What I've been thinking of doing would something about the cost of a steel horse (likely less, since horses can move and drop pods can't), that can appear on the battlefield within X inches of a beacon your troops have to deploy, with a 1d4 scatter roll. Cost might become an issue, but since I'm going to use it for small, precision drops, I'm hoping the troops will be able to earn their points back quickly (to borrow a phrase from the 40k community). Bulk deployment pods might cost something like steel horse X half the number of troops you can fit in the thing. How does that compare with your attempt to build pods?

[stubby]

Why use a scatter roll? These are physical objects. Just drop them and see where they land.

[Battlegrinder]

Why use a scatter roll? These are physical objects. Just drop them and see where they land.

The main reason I'm planning to use a scatter roll is because doing so for drop pods and teleporting troops is the norm for wargames (and brikwars too, I distinctly recall people having to roll when teleporting in troopers during some of the larger forum battles), and having the ability to deploy troops anywhere I wanted once I got the beckon in place seemed a little OP. Actually dropping them in might work for the squad sized ones (though it will be tricky for me to build one tough enough to survive the landing), but since I'm planning on using the ODST-type pods to drop my specialized tank-hijacking squads into position, dropping a chunk of bricks the size of a horse on top of someone's tank might not go over well.

[Battlegrinder]

The simple way would be just to have the drop pods be free "surface" elements, with your space marines or whatever inside, and then drop them out of the orbiting craft planetwards (dropping things off a vehicle doesn't cost inches of weapon use). Since the troops will have their action saved, they can bail, jetpack out, parachute to the surface, whatever.

Fluffwise, that's exactly what they will be, but I don't plan to bother coming up with rules on whether they're surface elements or free launching vehicles or whatever, since the ship they're dropping from will not be appearing on the battlefield (if it was, I'd be easier to just stick a hanger bay on it and launch a small dropship instead of the pods).


Either make the pods beefy enough for the trooper inside to survive collision (which then may need to have the pod purchased as a structure, but in that case, you get improvised forward bunkers wherever they land!), or have them break apart prior to touchdown, like in this Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles episode (around the 7:55 mark).[/quote]

I did not know there were Starship Troopers spinoffs other than the movies. At least this one looks to be more faithful to the book (though the bar for that is not set all that high). Making the pods count as structures might work for the big ones, but I don't think I'll do that for the smaller one-man pods, since they're going to be used a lot like ODST drop pods (or starship troopers ones, as it happens), to deliver special forces units in places regular units can't get. buying the pods as structures would probably make them too expensive for that role, since the special forces troops and their equipment will already be rather pricey, and eventually it would be cheaper to just buy another tank or some missiles, rather than take a chance with the special forces.

[Silverdream]

Does it still contain similiar themes and militarist philosophy?

[Battlegrinder]

Does it still contain similiar themes and militarist philosophy?

Given that he said it doesn't contain the novel's philosophy, I'd guess not. "Only those who have learned the value of sacrifice are truly able to responsibly lead a complex society!" is a rather difficult lesson to cram into an action movie (which is likely why the film series didn't bother).

[stubby]

Instead of a scatter roll, a MissedBy might be more appropriate. Less chance of abuse by dropping on enemy tanks, more risk of ending up in a volcano for lava-based hilarity.

If you do physically drop them, they don't need to survive the drop. Just have space marines climb out of the shattered wreckage.

[Battlegrinder]

Instead of a scatter roll, a MissedBy might be more appropriate. Less chance of abuse by dropping on enemy tanks, more risk of ending up in a volcano for lava-based hilarity.

If you do physically drop them, they don't need to survive the drop. Just have space marines climb out of the shattered wreckage.

That was more or less what I was thinking of doing with the scatter. Roll a d6, on a 1 the pod exploded on the way down, on a 6 it landed exactly in position (or you get to pick where it lands), and for 2-5 you roll a d4 or d8 to see what direction it drifted.

The small ones probably would shrug off the impact, based on how the prototypes are doing. the big ones might not, but unless I bulk them up substantially they shouldn't need to. They're only supposed to get troopers down to the surface, not be air-droppable fortresses.

[IVhorseman]

If you use the missed-by rules instead, you'd simply treat the pods as a payload of their size fired from the appropriately-sized launcher. So, a size 3 drop-pod (I estimate this fits a group of around 6 figs) is fired from a size 6 launcher, and has a UR of 12 for landing on a specific pinpoint. I'd imagine you'd use the skill of one of the occupants "steering" the thing unless something else makes more sense in context. When you inevitably miss, an opponent simply picks a convenient spot within (amount the roll was off by) inches for maximum crushing. Usually, this means on top of one of your lesser infantry squads, but there you go. Exploding mid-air on a 1 seems like a good compromise regardless.