Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Imperial Guard/Elysian Drop Troops(8E)

Why Play Elysian Drop Troops

Back in the old days of Flyers being absolute OP, Elysian players would spam Valkyries, Vendettas, and Vultures before their opponents would flip the table, therefore conceding. For those who wanted an actual challenge, they'd rely on a few flyers and the drop troop ability.

Now flyers are no longer the OP monsters they were, instead being virtually as tough as ground vehicles but with their minimum move and pivot requirements still being a major liability. But they are harder to hit I guess, so not all too bad. They can now also be assaulted by anything with the FLY keyword, which is both terrifying and kind of awesome.

In some ways, mostly pertaining to flyers, Elysians got nerfed to shit. However, the Aerial Drop ability can make up for this. In fact, the flyer spam list has now become the less powerful approach, bringing justice to the world. Aerial Drop allows any unit with that rule to, at anytime, appear 9 inches away from enemies. And almost everything in the Elysian list has it. No more risky deepstrike, no more waiting for that reserve roll. Your plasma command squad can land an fuckton of hot fiery rape upon supple TEQ behinds (before getting mashed to bloody chunks, because guard).

However, like most races right now they have lost a lot of their interesting items, such as the long range scanner. Also, some moron thought it'd be clever to not list sniper rifles as a special weapon meaning that you have to use the sniper squad instead arming a command squad with sniper rifles. Lame.

Rules

• Iron Discipline: Iron Discipline allows anything with the appropriate keyword within 6" of the model with this rule to reroll failed morale checks. How handy.
• Aerial Drop: Got reserves? Of course you do, you're playing Elysians. Pick out the guys you want to drop down. Perhaps you want them to annihilate the enemy commander with glorious fire from behind. Perhaps a certain troublesome unit is entrenched and needs a good digging out. Or maybe you want to get down on to a vital objective. You can do all of that, and probably more. And you can do it whenever you want!

Orders

Like all other regiments of the Astra Militarum Elysians have different orders the can issue to their infantry.

One of the biggest gimmicks to the Imperial Guard, the Orders system grants abilities to your troops to tip the scales of battle! At the beginning of the shooting phase, units with the OFFICER keyword and Voice of Command rule may issue orders to Elysian infantry units within 6". If the Officer is within 3" of a Voxcaster, and the unit he's trying to order also contains a voxcaster, the range is isntead 18".

• Take Aim!: Re-roll ones to hit for the unit during the shooting phase. Very useful for overcharging plasma guns. This will not be as useful as might think though since this buff collides with officer of the fleet. If you are dropping squads with lots of special weapons this order or Bring it down will be your go to order on the turn you drop.
• Bring it down!: Re-roll ones to wound for the unit during the shooting phase. More useful for us than for most other regiments since we already get to re-roll ones to hit with officer of the fleet. Re-rolling ones to hit and to wound when dropping plasma is awesome.
• Get back in the fight!: Unit that has fallen back can fire its weapons as normal this turn. This is arguably the biggest force multiplication players get from an order. You go from not being able to shoot at all to getting a normal shooting phase. Units retreating from close quarters combat will often have had their strength significantly reduced so its not automatically better to use this order over others.
• Move! Move! Move!: The ordered unit moves and advances but cannot charge this turn. Fantastic order that is often glanced over in favor of the buffs to damage output. Every single Elysian infantry unit that has proximity to an officer also has a huge zone in which they can claim objectives or block enemy units. Try dropping an infantry squad or two with an officer 9" from the enemy and the use this order to run in point blank and make it impossible for the enemy to advance. You can even potentially drop a squad a surround an enemy vehicle, killing all of the passengers if the rest of you army can kill that vehicle.
• First Rank, fire! Second Rank, fire!: The ordered unit treats their lasguns as rapid fire 2. If you are shooting infantry squads this is the best order to increase damage output. This is a good reason to give your squad leaders lasguns instead of laspistols. Veteran squads will have more special weapons and often be armed with shotguns so the re-rolls will generally be more useful.
• Hold the Line!: The targeted unit ignores models killed during both the Shooting and Fight phases for the purposes of the Morale phase until the next Movement phase. This makes commissars even less useful for Elysians. Though you will in most cases use the other orders since you company commanders already grant a re-roll.
• Move and Fire!: All of the units weapons are considered Assault weapons until the end of the turn. This is the Elysian version of the move and shoot order but works a little bit differently. The current interpretation of this rule is that each weapon becomes assault instead of what it was before so a lasgun becomes Assault 1 and a mortar becomes Assault D6. This interpretation also means that all grenades also become Assault weapons. So a veteran squad with this order could shoot all their normal guns and then throw a frag and krak grenade each in the shooting phase
  • Waiting for faq: As of faq 1.0 this rule has yet to be clarified.

Weapons and wargear

• Breacher Charges: One use only (since faq 1.0) piece of wargear that is used by a model in lieu of its notmal close combat attacks. On a 4+ the target unit suffers d3 mortal wound or if its a vehicle, building or monster d6 mortal wounds. Mortal wounds are nice. The price point or reliability is not. If you plan on charging out of Aerial-Drop, know that it is only a 10/36 chance of making the charge and then only 1/2 chance of the Breacher Charge having any effect at all. Trying to charge a vehicle out of deepstrike will cause 0.5 mortal wounds on average. Great piece of fluffy kit for Elysians but from a competetive/efficiency point of view, STAY CLEAR unless you want them for narrative purposes.
• Lascutter: More or less the same outcome as the Breacher Charges.

Unit Analysis

In addition to those below, you can take:

Valkyries Tauros Assault Vehicle

Tauros Venator

Vulture Gunship

Tarantula Battery

Cyclops Demolition Vehicle

Thunderbolt Heavy Fighter

Lightning Strike Fighter

Avenger Strike Fighter

Replace <REGIMENT> or <AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS> with ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS. Anything with ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS also get to Aerial Drop.

HQ

• Elysian Company Commander: Basically a IG company commander but a bit better. Can give two orders and can drop. Iron discipline is good, proximity to this guy makes any Elysian as brave as a Space Marine. Tempestus or regular guard players will utilize their officers to re-roll ones for their plasma squads. We can do this as well but for maximum punch we will be granting re-roll 1s to wound to our plasma squads with our officers, leaving re-roll ones to the OotF.

• Elysian Lord Commissar: Well how'd you like that, Elysians have commissars now. He can drop. He is more expensive than our Company Commander and is redundant in most cases. Elysian officers grant Iron Discipline and squad leaders are at leadership 8, combine with Elysians having no squads exceeding 10 men means he will never really be useful.

Elites

• Elysian Special Weapons Squad: 6 models, all have lasguns and 3 of them get to take a Breacher Charge or Special Weapon in addition to their lasgun. The Breacher charges are not a good option (see above) but plasma is and melta is acceptable. As a special weapon squad this unit is far worse at bring special weapons fire to the field than the command squad is. This squad with 3 plasma guns costs 51 points where a command squad with 4 plasma guns costs 56 points and bring 1 point better BS to the party. These guys find their usefulness based on the command squads being limited by the number of officers present in the detachment. Point for point they are a better source of plasma than Veteran Squads but that is before taking in to account the points cost of orders and anchors.

• Drop Sentinels: Can be very very useful, but not really... They can take multi-meltas and deep strike which can be amazing. However they are only BS 4+, which with a one shot weapon is not so reliable. On the bright, aerial drop being far more reliable and 9 being less than 12 means that if they DO hist with mutli-melta, they're taking a vehicle to pound town. 60 points for a model (with multi-melta), same price as a base lord commissar, 10 more than a base drop troop squad. Make of that what you will.

• Elysian Veteran Squad: Like regular guard, now elites. Eh... Hits on 3+. Can take three special weapons. And a heavy flamer. And a heavy weapon. And a Breacher Charge. And shotguns. Basically standard vets but can drop. So better.

• Elysian Sniper Squad: Why they have to set up like heavy weapon teams, I don't know. I guess it's their models... Only option for snipers now, because why not? (Regular guard command squad can take four snipers, just sayin'). On the other hand, two wounds per sniper so not all bad. AND they hit on 3+ unlike the special weapons squad (afterall, why give billy mcdumbshit a sniper if they can't hit more than half the time?).

• Elysian Platoon Commander: Oh lawdy yes. So dropping these guys on their own is retarded, but paired with a squad rocking plasma guns is basically just the best thing ever forever. A bit costly, but they have iron discipline and voice of command. And can drop. Good shit.

• Elysian Command Squad: These guys are pretty great. You have OPTIONS. Support other troops with medi-pack and standard? Hell yeah. But hey, what if the squad that needs you the most is way over theeeere? Drop time. Pretty sweet. But wait there's more! Compare to the special weapons squad. Same slot (elites), greater points cost per model, two less models. Hm, I guess they aren't all that? WRONG, one more special weapon, hitting on 3+. Pair with a platoon commander, arm with plasmas, and watch the enemy hate on them. They'll die, by the Emperor they'll die standing!

• Officer of the fleet: Pretty marginal and fun choice for your regular Astra Militarum players, not so for Elysians. The OotF's abillity to designate a target unit, thus granting re-roll ones to hit for all ELYSIAN units targeting that unit, makes him a cornerstone of any Elysian force. At only 25 points this character has Aerial Drop, the target designation mentione above and an abillity that dishes out mortal wounds. Better in some ways than Harker and Yarrick and worse in others, much cheaper than both and you get to take multiples.
  • It is not an order: The abillity to grant re-roll to hit or to wound rolls of 1 is very powerfull. Since OotF is not giving out an order to buff your troops your standard company commander can throw in an order as well. As such you can consistently have re-roll 1s to hit and to wound or re-roll 1s to hit while using first-rank-second-rank or back in the fight.

Troops

• Elysian Drop Trooper Squad: A squad of guardsmen that can drop anywhere on the table and cost a little bit more. While a single squad of guardsmen isn't much, orders can make them effective. With first rank fire, second rank fire you can deepstrike in and drop 40 shots on someone. But the true use for these guys is field control. Long as you have a squad in reserve you can quickly snatch those objectives. And at 50 points you can take alot of bodies to flood the field.

Fast Attack

• Tauros: Both the assault vehicle and the Venator are solid, though the Venator stands out. For 86 points you have a twin lascannon that doesn't suffer from movement penalties when firing on a vehicle that can move 15 and gets a 5+ invulnerable when it has moved at least 10. Effective, cheap, and potentially devastating.

Dedicated transports

• Valkyrie Sky Talon: It's a shittier Valkyrie. It can transport two sentinels or a tauros. Both of which don't really need that kind of help, but w/e.

Heavy Support

• Elysian Heavy Weapons Team: These guys are your heavy hitters if uses right. Alot of playing Elysians is about calculated strikes. With their special order Move and Fire, you can drop in missile teams or heavy bolter teams with an officer. This makes their weapons count as assault so you can fire at full BS. Mortar teams aren't as useful for deep striking bit with volume of shots they can sit back and hammer fodder from 48 inches while holding a point. Plus they're only 30 points.

Anchors

An anchor is a unit whose job is to allow you to Aerial Drop more units.

Every role is not created equal for every army. Different armies want to deep strike units from different slots. Space marines' go to is a combination of fast attack (assault marines) and elite (vanguard veterans) while regular guard focus primarily on troops and elites (scions). We Elysians are very dependent on our elite slot for our best deep striking units (command squads, veterans, officer of the fleet). As such we will primarily look for our anchors in the other slots. Slots are less relevant for other forces since their units are in general more expensive (marines) or consume less rare slots (scions).

Troops: As far as I know there is not a cyber wolf/acolyte equivalent for this slot. Marine scouts: The cheapest option marines offer us. 55 points for a base unit, do not know if these can do their infiltration and count towards being deployed on the field but the rules seem to indicate that to be the case. Infantry squads: 40 points for regular guard and 50 points for Elysians. Regular guard can take a heavy weapon which could be sort of attractive. Conscripts: Starting at 60 points for 20 guys is not bad. Are pretty good at keeping a firebase alive, a lot better if you can fit a commissar. Battle sisters: 45 points for 5 sisters, probably a worse choice than anything else listed. Scions: 50 points buys you 5. Not great and you kind of want to deep strike them. Its a shame hsvg are so expensive otherwise they would offer some cheap longish range shooting. 66 points buy you 2 hot shot volley guns on 5 guys. A bit more expensive than your infantry squad with a lascannon or 20 conscripts. I generally feel like the other options are more palatable. Elites: Well this is the slot we are generally looking to reserve for our deep striking units. But sometimes you have a few elite slots to spare and if that is the case there is some stuff to pick up from here. Platoon Commander: Hear me out here. This is probably the only elite choice anchor i utilize to a greater extent. The reason is that he unlocks more command squads and brings some versatility to the infantry and heavy-weapon squads on the ground. There is a more detailed explaination in the platoon commanders section above. Elysian snipers: Our go-to from our very own book. 21 points for a unit and they can be annoying for your opponent to go up against. A neat little bonus is them benefiting from officer of the fleet like all Elysians. Inquisitorial Acolytes: The extreme option. Bringing in the Inquisition for what is one of the cheapest units in the game at 8 points. Astropaths: These guys grant cost effective access to the astra telepathica psychic powers and smite. Generally seen in blobs of conscripts and at 15 points a unit they are one of the cheapest force multipliers in the game. Fast Attack: This is the hardest slot for us to find good anchors in if we want to keep to a pure Elysian force. Tauros assault vehicle: Grenade launcher is useless and pricy, heavy flamer is better. Not super cheap but fills the role of an anchor as tertiary duty. For pure effectiveness you should probably go with some regular guard scout sentinels instead. Tauros venator: Super cool but a bit pricy as an anchor. Its mobile and provides long range fire power. It also brings the lascannon option which is sort of rare for elysians. Scout/armored sentinels: Fairly cheap and provides some fire power. There are better pure anchors around for sure but these bring some fire power. A problem with sentinels is that we generally wont play a lot of high T multi-wound targets so the enemy will surely be able to kill them without breaking a sweat. Tarantulas: HOLD THE EDIT! Tarantulas are heavy support choices you say? Well space marine tarantulas are not. Heavy bolter ones start at 27 points so they are worse than our own in that respect (more expensive and does not benefit from ootf). This is one of my preferred anchors in the fast-attack slot. If you want tarantulas with lascannons though I would try to bring them in the heavy slot (10 points less for guard lascannons at the same bs). Cyber wolf: Well this is the most extreme option out there. 15 points for a unit of 1 cyber wolf. About as pure of an anchor as you can get in fast attack and if you need the points this is your go-to. These guys are not useless so do not just deploy and ignore them. Use them to setup a first turn assault screen for your firebase. Advance them up the board to shut down enemy lanes of movement (remember their shooting phase is after their movement phase). Look for opportune moments to shut down movement and shooting and these guys can earn their keep. Heavy Support: This is the easy slot to fill with reasonable anchors. Heavy weapon squads: Take Elysian heavy weapons. The re-roll from officer of the fleet will pay for the 3 extra points. Keep them fairly cheap with 2-3 cheap weapons. Tarantulas: Starting at 24 points with heavy bolters is a great deal. Cyclops: 40 points is not bad for an anchor and they are a great deal of fun. Flyers: Technically they do allow you to aerial drop more stuff. Problem with flyers is the cost. That is not to say you should not bring flyers. I think both valkyries and vendettas have a place as they can help bring close range weapons (flamer, melta) to their optimal range. The more dakka oriented flyers can also play a fairly important part bringing long range fire power to the table.