Drop Podding may seem brutal, but it isn't an auto-win.

Those 2 turns the Marine player has had very little on the board (all sat in Battle Barge) you have the time to turn 1 rush into favourable positions around objectives and cover, turn 2 set everyone in Overwatch.

Drop Pods can't land in ZoC, with use of Scout and just simply spacing your armies correctly, you can  create quite a large area of denial (a single IG infantry company can spread out over a considerable area) for landings.

They can predictably be expected to land on your Blitz, so either castle immensely as above, or leave it empty. Rush to their Blitz and objectives and save a fast formation to contest your's after they've landed.

There's a lot of ways to hurt the Drop Podder, but I agree it can get boring if most of your army is tied up in this turn 3 drop. I've been guilty of it, especially against Eldar (with their hit and run and ridiculous AA, planetfall was the only way to catch them out), but I tend to restrict it to 1-2 formations whilst most of my army Air Assaults, etc.

Ouch, 2 Barge armies- that's a game wasted, on the plus side you could get a dozen games in an hour.

Myself and a regular opponent used the Birthday's thing a few times, it worked out I could go first 2-3 months of the year and was promptly ignored as Jervis having a funny moment.

Game goes to the person with the best roll. Or, closest birthday

Ouch, 2 Barge armies- that's a game wasted, on the plus side you could get a dozen games in an hour.