I’m sorry – busy! I know.

Alright things we’ve seen in the last three books has been a movement of Dedicated Transports to Fast Attack. The implications of this at first don’t seem that big – they aren’t gaining Objective Secured, there’s only three Fast Attack slots anyway and most dedicated transports aren’t massive options that you must go for by themselves. Yes even Wave Serpents – if you can take on in the Troops slot, do it. In all all it doesn’t seem like that big a deal though when we take into account the Battle Brother changes from 6th edition to 7th edition (and assuming we are working under a CAD army building approach), some of those transports can be really bloody useful for other armies.

Specifically one comes to mind – Drop Pods.

Every Imperial is Battle Brothers with each other so everything from Space Marines of all flavours, Sisters of Battle, Inquisition, Imperial Guard / Astra Militarium to Grey Knights can hop in a Fast Attack Drop Pod.

Now straight off the bat, only Space Wolves currently have this as they are the most recently released book but with Blood Angels around the corner, expect this to be updated for them as well which will open up a lot more options. Currently the Space Wolves have a very, very good unit in Fast Attack with Thunderwolves – that’s a pretty big opportunity cost to give up one of those units but even one Drop Pod for access to allies is pretty big. You can drop down a Purifier squad with their psychic shooting attack and two Incinerators. A special weapons team / veterans / Dominions / etc. with a bunch of meltas and blow away an Imperial Knight. The applications are pretty wide and far spread – especially if you take Space Wolves as an ally and may not need those Fast Attack slots for Thunderwolves – remember as well for Space Wolves armies that Iron Priests can attach now…

Again, when Blood Angels drop – this will open up more as there will become different options or combinations that Space Wolves cannot give you that Blood Angels can.

What I’d be curious to see is what other options will be useful in this format on-going? It’s only going to be really useful for Battle Brothers so think Imperials, Chaos + Daemons and Eldar + Dark Eldar. Drop Pods are again the most important for Imperials though Chimeras are likely a strong option as well if you’ve got more than two special weapons in there. Given the recent release of the IG / AM book however; this might not come to pass for an extended period of time. Rhinos and Razorbacks aren’t breaking down any doors here – Razorbacks are too expensive in the current anti-light transport format and most other armies have access to Rhinos. Access to Fast Blood Angels Rhinos though…that’s a different kettle for an ally army and I expect to see that taken advantage of more from a BA perspective to let their allies keep up rather than from a parent perspective to make one unit fast. Any army which has dedicated transport Land Raiders will also be helping out – slot free Land Raiders are nice though with the loss of objective secured and people gearing up to take down Imperial Knights; not so sure these will see as much time as people expect.

Chaos + Daemons won’t really have anything and Dark Eldar would certainly love to hijack some Wave Serpents just because they are more durable than Raiders but what are you going to put in them other than MSU scoring units? Eldar certainly don’t need Venoms or Raiders to ride around in – despite the Internet producing the most stupid comment of all time concerning Banshees assaulting out of Raiders…

I’m looking forward to BA dropping and seeing what we can come up with both fast Rhinos and Drop Pods to help out other Imperial armies; any other thoughts out there so far?