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.

Wargear

Ranged Weapons

• Lasgun: Your trusty flashlight hasn't changed, really, but because of the way strength rolls against wounds now, you stand a chance of actually making a small dent in anything. You'll need a lot of shots (and hits), but gone are the days when a lone model with high toughness and some bullshit save can creep its way to your 50 guardsmen without so much as a scratch. Worse against TEQ HQs and others who now have more wounds, unless they also have T5 or 7+ where the buffing to wound makes up for it.
• Laspistol: Like the Lasgun, it's not a huge threat by itself, but it clocks in at the low-low price of zero points. If something comes stock with this weapon and has the option of exchanging it you probably should. Sergeants can swap them for Lasguns or Plasma Pistols and your officers can take a Boltgun or Plasma Pistol.
• Bolt Pistol: S4 AP-0, almost universally a better choice than the crappy flashlight pistol your sergeant/Officer starts out with. Commissars and Lord Commissars start out with this.
• Boltgun: Rapid Fire 1 S4 AP-0 1 D. (Added to Elysian ranged weapons in faq 1.0) Very efficient upgrade for officers. Should generally be taken unless you want the plasma pistol.
• Plasma Pistol: Going to be a common choice on Veteran squad sergeants and officers. In both cases its a points efficient upgrade. You do not have to use overcharge when shooting with officers but in the cases where you do Elysians do it better than most thanks to Officer of the Fleet.
• Shotgun: Buffed since last edition, but not by much. Only available to vets. The Shotgun is still 12" Assault 2. OH and it can't accept FRFSRF. However, the shotgun does have a little quirk. Should the enemy get to 6 inches, the weapon becomes str 4 AP-0, hilariously becoming makeshift Bolters with assault or shootas. An interesting and fluffy choice.

Special Weapons

• Flamer: A S4 AP-0 1 D Assault d6 weapon with 8" range which automatically passes rolls to hit. A classic anti-horde option, most useful when up against Tyranids, Orks, and blob Imperial Guard. The changes to how Flamers work give them a bit of effectiveness against small, lightly armored units as well- the number of hits they can score means that a single model can be hit more than once.
  • Just remember, your flamers no longer ignore cover, and on top have lost all ability to penetrate armor. They do at least ignore to-hit modifiers, which "seems" to mean they can hit fliers. Significantly, you can no longer control shot volume with clever model placement - your rate of fire is up to luck, not skill - so they also won't behave as predictably/reliably as before. You'll need to apply multiple flamers to a problem if you want a reliable number of shots, due to what happens to probability when you add dice rolls together: it becomes much more likely their sum will be close to average, but sadly you can still find yourself getting 3-5 hits with your full squad of flamer sentinels from time to time.
• Grenade Launcher: Multipurpose portable explosive grenade launcher. A versatile weapon that stands an good okay chance of putting a dent in whatever it needs to, now including MEQ and TEQ (krak are still slighly worse than frags against MEQ) . Unfortunately it took a big hit to what was its favorite target: 4+ saves. All told, it's almost useless. Plasma guns, lasguns and hotshots can do it's jobs just fine. Would be decent 2 points cheaper. It most well suited to footslogging special weapon squads with its good range and low cost, but then you could take veterans or ratlings instead.
• Meltagun: S8 AP -4 D d6 Assault 1 with 12" range. If within half its range (so 6" or closer) it rolls 2D6 for damage and selects the higher number (takes the average from 3.50 to 4.47, or basically +1 damage and more reliable), so it's good against Monsters as well as vehicles now. The changes to wounding, number of wounds, and AP "helped" the meltagun by nerfing its competition; plasma doesnt hurt TEQ or monstrous creatures the same without taking a big risk. Meltaguns are now better at hurting heavy infantry in cover and can melt away wounds a lot faster than a plasma gun.
  • Meltaguns are very good, but remember, anything in range of your meltagun is in range for your plasma gun to shoot twice, and that's at only slightly more than "half" the price of a meltagun; also neither weapon can negate an invulnerable save. For most infantry targets, your Points-Per-Wound from plasma guns will vastly exceed that of meltaguns, but with the safety and price cut to plasma guns, you already wanted plasma for armoured infantry anyway, melta is anti-multiwound.
• Plasma gun: The plasma gun works differently from its earlier incarnations- for a start, it now has two firing profiles, both of which share Rapid Fire 1 and a 24" range. In its normal mode, it's S7 AP-3 1 D so it's basically a flat upgrade from a bolter that does a good job of taking out MEQs and TEQs. In its supercharged mode, it has one extra point of Strength and Damage that lets it one-shot Terminators. Firing the supercharged mode triggers the new version of Gets Hot!, and this time it just kills a model with no saves on a to hit roll of 1. Lastly, (and importantly) they are now boldly, DISGUSTINGLY cheap. This is all great news for Guardsmen. They appreciate the safety of regular shots more than anyone else and the overcharged shot isnt much more dangerous than regular shots used to be. On top of that, especially with the price cut, you won't hardly even "care" about the loss of a guardsman plasma gunner, not even a veteran. At least they can shoot straight and make the risk even more worthwhile.
  • The Take Aim! order or Strafing co-ordinates buff will do wonders to simultaneously improve your accuracy and reduce models lost to Gets Hot!
• Sniper Rifle: Gives you the ability to target an enemy character, even if they aren't the closest model. Also, rolling a 6 to-wound dishes out a mortal wound in addition to its normal (mediocre) damage of 1. Can only be taken by Sniper teams.

===Melee Weapons=== (EDIT : Elyssian may use Power Fist and Power Sword only in melee type weapons. They cant use chain sword !!

Most of these are specific to one unit. The the ones that aren't are listed below, and may be taken by sergeants and most characters.

• Power Fist: Sx2 AP-3, but forces a -1 to hit on the model using it. Company Commanders and Lord Commissars won't feel that too much, but Veteran Sergeants and Platoon Commanders may. Given its astronomical cost relative to your other melee options in addition to being inaccurate, generally a poor choice.
• Power Sword: Has the greatest armor penetration rating at AP-3, but does not increase your strength in any way. By mathhammer it's really only useful against models with very good saves, as you might expect, but also low toughness - still has more victims than the axe does in terms of being more efficient than a power maul.
• Chainsword: Some credit must be given to the old standby. In addition to being free, it gives an extra attack with it. This serves to make units like Rough Riders a lot nastier than they might look from their statline (Rough Riders effectively carry two of these, giving them 2 bonus attacks with this profile).
• Lascutters: Elysian Drop Troops can take lascutters (a S9 AP-3 D1d3 melee weapon which can only make 1 attack) as special weapons. From a competitive perspective these are not worth the special weapons slots nor the points. Charging from deepstrike is about a 28% chance and charging from valkyries is expensive. Even if you get your veterans (or whatever squad you put these on) unharmed into melee, it is very hard to imagine a scenario where this would outperform some shooting with a melta or plasma gun. If efficiency is not something that concerns you they can be quite a bit of fun. Theoretical cool setups are valkyries carrying 10 veterans with 3 lascutters, a breacher charge, and a power fist. 3 command squads with 12 lascutters in a valkyrie. 2 special weapons squads in a valkyrie with 6 lascutters.
• Breacher charges: Some Elysian squads can take breacher charges. This is what we get instead of demolition charges. Unlike demolition charges which are powerful cheap grenades, breacher charges are 5 times as expensive melee versions which don not let you use your ballistic skill. They do cause mortal wounds but to be frank, if you do the math the average damage output of these one shot weapons are not good. Even assuming you get into melee intact 6 of these (From say 2 special weapon squads armed with 3 each) will put out an average of 10.5 mortal wounds. That wont even kill a rhino and if you want consistent charges you better be willing to invest in a valkyrie for those two squads. If you don't you have to realize that your chance of making a charge out of aerial drop is only 10/36 och 28% chance. If you do invest in the valkyrie you are now spending 300 points for a one shot assault unit that does not even do that much damage.
  • Breacher charges could have been a fun and iconic piece of wargear for Elysians this edition. If they had been 5 points each, or at least auto-hit, they probably would have. Now, instead of throwing a few breachers around your army, making it sort of threatening sometimes in melee, one quickly realizes that a piece of one use wargear that costs more than 3 plasma guns must have a lot more impact on the game than breacher charges do. Two breacher charges are roughly the same cost as a command squad with plasma guns and 4 charges are as expensive as a veteran squad with 3 plasma guns and a plasma pistol.
  • Point is, stay away, outside of narrative games or other settings where efficiency and winning is not the primary concern in constructing a list.

Heavy Weapons

• Mortar: 48" Heavy D6 S4 AP0 1 D, and may fire indirectly. Down in cost, and along with the nerf to the Wyvern this brings it back into the realm of 'good' choices. At 9 points a gun team, it's a dirt cheap light and medium infantry muncher. Because of the revision to the way AP works it's in direct competition with the Heavy Bolter; this ALSO means it's in indirect competition with your entire motor pool. Consider this when the challenge of fitting half a dozen kits' worth of mortar tubes into your list is a daunting prospect.
• Heavy Bolter: 36" Heavy 3 S5 AP-1 1 D. The reasons that this was bad in 7th edition have carried over, unfortunately. It's still standard on every vehicle in your motor pool, and it's still inferior to better than the Autocannon against single-wound T5 and less, but especially 4 and 2 where it hits 50% harder. It's gone "way" down in price (8 points), so the choice is a choice now, but it's still one of the weaker options. Interestingly the AP-1 over the Multilaser makes a double Heavy Bolter Chimera a strong contender now (and the triple Heavy Bolter Chimera, if anyone remembers Forge World, might be a serious powerhouse).
• Autocannon: 48" Heavy 2 S7 AP-1 2 D. The 'Pom-Pom' is a strong contender in 8th. Retaining its decent AP, solid strength, and good rate of fire, the Autocannon has gained multi-wound capability. It's probably your best friend on a Scout Sentinel, and for 15 points (an increase, but on most units the net cost is lower) it makes a solid option for Heavy Weapons Squads.
• Missile Launcher: 48" Heavy D6 S4 AP-0 1 D or 48" Heavy 1 S8 AP-2 D6 D. Still the Jack of All Trades, still the Master of None. Lost the option for a flak missile (though you don't really need it, as fliers can be hit on 5s by guardsmen now, and 4s by Veterans and Scions) but kept the cost; at 20 points it's tied with the Lascannon for most expensive heavy weapon. Once again, compared to Autocannons, it's better against the hordiest and heaviest units such as Guardsmen or Tanks, but the auto cannon has a slight edge against MEQ, a decent edge against T 5/6 MEQ and TEQ, and kicks ass against almost anything with 2 wounds, especially with light or medium armour like Nobz or Rough Riders (as neither frag nor krak missiles are fully effective against such models).
• Lascannon: 48" Heavy 1 S9 AP-3 D6 D. The ever-reliable Imperial tank-buster. The improved strength over Missile Launchers is critical, as most tanks are T8, meaning krak missiles wound on 4s while the Lascannon wounds on 3s. The extra AP doesn't hurt, either; carapace armor is ignored entirely and Land Raiders have to roll with a 5+. It's the same price as last edition, at 20 points, but the D6 damage lets it threaten heavy units, and it can now be used to snipe heavy infantry in cover.
• Plasma Cannon: 36" Heavy D3 S7 AP-3 1 D or S8 AP-3 2 D. Someone found the manual! It's a viable option on Armored Sentinels, now. Of course a reckless guardsman can still overcharge it, getting the more powerful statline, but a 1 on the hit roll kills you. Yes, that's correct - no armor save, you're just dead. The ones on Leman Russ sponsons have special vents to survive this, but the tank still takes SIX mortal wounds (as in, half your maximum amount) and can't fire either of the Plasma Cannons again (can still fire the Executioner Cannon). Cost is unchanged from 7th, though when buying just one (pretty much just armored sentinels, since Servitors are AdMech now) you only pay for one. Careful firing on the move or against Tyranids with venomthropes, those -1 to hit modifiers now make it much more likely to roll that 1, at least until GW regains its sanity and makes it only a natural one.
• Multi-Melta: 24" Heavy 1 S8 AP-4 D6 D. If you're within 12" of the target you roll 2D6 for damage and take the highest. Leman Russ Demolishers can find some use out of this to brawl with enemy heavy vehicles and monsters, although they'll take a penalty for firing on the move. May also be allowed on Forge World Drop Sentinels, as in 7th - when the Forge World lists come out, anyway. Cost is unchanged from 7th.

Special Rules

A few rules that are unique to Elysians and have wide spread effects concerning many or most units in the army.

• Aerial Drop: You can deep strike any Elysian Drop Troops model, as well as any kind of Tauros. Just don't forget the limits of doing so in matched play. Ways of getting unusually high quantity (and quality) of units in tactical reserve i described under the section "Anchors".
• Iron Discipline: All Elysian officers have an aura buff that gives you the ability to re-roll failed morale. Talk about hard core soldier when even junior officers of the Elysian army are inspiring enough to make your guys as brave as space marines. Squads that come with a seargant will be at ld 8 so the enemy will have to inflict some pretty fucking serious casualties before you start suffering significant losses due to morale.
• Strafing Coordinates: This is the officers of the fleet target designation rule. He picks a target within 18" and friendyl aeronautica imperialis units shooting at that target gets to re-roll hit rolls of 1. Sounds familiar? For regular guard regiments this is kind of cute since faq 1.0 this is one of the corner-stones of our buffs. Faq 1.0 replaced all the officers of the fleets instances of the keyword aeronautica imperialis with Elysian giving all units with the Elysian keyword. Fantastic when we write about the ootf or officer of the fleet buff this is what we are talking about.

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.

Units

HQ

• Elysian Company Commander: Compared to the basic company commander, the Elysian version loses the shotgun and chainsword but gains an extra point of Ld and allows friendly Elysian Drop Troops within 6" of him to reroll failed morale tests.
  • You will be forced to take these guys to fill out hq slots. He is a superior choice to the commissar in most cases and is a damned fine buffing character. We can also assume that he unlocks command squads for us which are quite points efficient. Elysian orders are good and these guys will spread them around to your troops. Has the benefit over Tempestors of both giving two orders and taking a plasma pistol. You may even risk overcharging that pistol from time to time since officer of the fleet makes access to re-roll 1s free on priority targets.
  • There are two approaches to taking Company Commanders, take as few as possible or take a-lot of them. The first approach gives you more "real" units to aerial drop. The second gives you more command squads and better saturation of orders. I have tried both and will usually land somewhere in between though i think going for few commanders is probably better. Remember commanders are not our primary source for re-rolling 1s to hit on plasma guns, officers of the fleet will help us out on that front.
  • Our commanders are generally more efficient than other regiments since we get access to re-roll ones on our through officer of the fleet. I would always take a ranged weapon for them. Take either a plasma pistol or bolgun as the situation requires.
• Elysian Lord Commissar:This Lord Commissar loses the Power Sword (which is an upgrade, since he can still buy one if you wanted it, and can swap his bolt pistol out for a boltgun), and like the Company Commander he allows friendly Elysian Drop Troops within 6" of him to re-roll failed morale tests as an extra defense against morale checks.
  • Not great for us and you will rarely see any one take a Lord Commissar. He is more expensive than a normal commissar lord but the problem is we do not have conscripts. Since our Company Commanders offer ld re-rolls in addition to being cheaper and giving out orders he is the natural choice. The biggest unit size Elysians have are 10 man squads and while it is quite easy to create theoretical scenarios where a commissar would be better as a morale buffing char than a commander it will rarely impact the game in practice. This is especially true when you consider Elysian commanders have a morale buffing order they can drop in a pinch.

Troops

• Elysian Drop Trooper Squad: More expensive than basic Guardsmen and also lack heavy weapons access, but have an extra point in Ld and the whole unit can take krak grenades. The best way to use them is to deep strike close to an important target and use a breacher charge - d3 mortal wounds on a 4+ is no joke, and against VEHICLE, MONSTER, or BUILDING targets it jumps to d6 mortal wounds. Cannot take Heavy weapons.
  • Charging from aerial drop:This will not work in the majority of cases - the odds of making a 9" charge are 27.78%, 47.84% if you burn a command point on a re-roll, and breacher charges are melee weapons.
  • The problem with breacher charges:Breacher charges are super cool but expensive and ineffective, even when we get to use them. 25 points is a lot for a piece of equipment, especially when that equipment is one use only (faq 1.0). Remember that the entire base cost of the squad is only 50 points. Even when we get to use them they don't do that much damage. Since they only work 50% of the time they will score an average of 1.75 mortal wounds on vehicles, buildings, or monsters, and only 1 on everything else. Combined with the abysmal likelihood of making the charge after aerial dropping in, we can only expect to land 0.5 wounds on a vehicle with an infantry squad.
  • Alternate opinion: Our infantry squads are not very tempting compared to other options. If you are going to take them keep them dirt cheap and expendable because they will not have the punch of veterans or special weapon squads. If you want to have something aerial dropping and killy in the troop slot take some scions. A cheap unit of infantry can be very useful in 8th edition. You can drop them on to objectives, this is especially relevant in progressive scoring missions. You can deploy them as a screening unit for your long range shooting (though conscripts are better at it). In practice i have found two things they do better than any other unit in the game:
    • First rank...: As mentioned above infantry squads really dont carry the punch of veterans when they aerial drop. They are cheaper though and you are compelled to take troop choices in some situations. Since all Elysian benefit from officer of the fleet buffs its often not a bad idea to drop a commander witha couple of infantry squads. Below there are a couple of tips utilizing the movement order but do not forget this basic one. Drop within 12" and use first rank, second rank fire. Remember to give your sergeant a lasgun for 3 more shots. This is 23 lasgun hits (at 58.33% hit chance with ootf is 23.33 hits) so we are not expecting this to vaporize anything truly resilient. We do expect to kill about 2-3 marines though so if we are dropping 2 of these squads with a company commander (140 points total) thats a very sad devastator/long fang/havoc squad. And we can actually expect to do this, Elysians are one of the few types of guard forces that actually can get our regular infantry squads up close to get full use out of first rank second rank. Any one who has played Solar Auxillia i horus heresy will tell you that the extra range on their las rifles makes a huge difference for getting damage out of regular humans, we can get there unscathed and get our 40 shots every time.
    • Surrounding transports: An opponent will either be aware of this and have to limit himself to stop you from doing this to him or he is unaware and will suffer for it. In this edition a unit disembarks from a destroyed transport before the model is removed from the game. Anything that cant deploy legally from a transport is killed. In order for this to work you have to be able to do the following: Drop your infantry around the transport at a legal distance. Drop the squad/squads together with an officer and give them the order to move in the shooting phase. Use this move to surround the enemy transport not leaving room for the enemy to deploy either outside or inside the ring of men you put there. Enemy models need to stay 1" away from your models but have to deploy withing 3" of the transport. For 32mm enemy bases just stay 2" away from the enemy hull and they can not deploy at all. Focus fire with aircraft/tauros/veteras/... and kill the transport.
    • Screen/trap stuff: Dropping veterans and command squads can dish out a lot of damage. Dropping a infantry squad in front of your veterans or in choke points can seriously disrupt the enemies ability to move around the field. Using the move order, these units can get right up in the opponents face and just stand there buying you time. They can also prevent a counter assault by wrapping your freshly dropped veterans. The above mentioned vehicle surround can be performed without killing the vehicle and if you survive its shooting the following turn you can keep it there for quite some time. Even land raiders can't really kill geq in melee.

Elites

• Elysian Special Weapons Squad: Like the vanilla counterpart, but swaps the demolition charge option for breacher charges. Good as suicide melta units, or as a cheap source of breacher charges. A squad of two flamers plus a breacher charge can make an effective close quarters unit that you can use to annoy any infantry unit in the game.
  • Alternate opinion This squad suffers badly from sharing a slot with Veterans and Command squads. They have 1 worse BS and can't take heavy flamers. The two things that makes this unit unique is the squad size and the ability to take more than one breacher charge. The first is kind of nice if you consider putting them in valkyries or have plenty of elite slots to spare (which is surprisingly rare when making lists at 2k+). If you are putting them in valkyries they get expensive quickly, though. And get the stupid idea of taking two squads with 6 breacher charges in a valkyrie out of your head right now; that is an insane amount of points, and even if you get to dump 6 breachers onto a vehicle, it's only an average of 10.5 wounds. 10.5 wounds and you spent 150 points on breachers, another 60 for the men, and the valkyrie on top of that. Buy something reasonable instead, like melta guns or flamers, if you want to run them in a Valkyrie.
  • Jokes about seriously considering a breacher charge aside, let's talk about the real reason you'd take these guys: plasma guns. A full squad will run you 30 points base plus 21 points for the plasma, or 51 points for 3 guns (6 shots when you drop in, 3 of which will hit) plus the lasguns - deeply inferior to 56 points for 4 plasma guns (8 shots on the drop, 5.33 of which will hit) for a CCS, even before considering accuracy, but those are more limited. Contrast with 91 points for a Vet squad (6 shots, 4 hit), or 96 with a plasma pistol (7 shots, 4.67 hit), and you can see why you'd take this - the lower squad size means a lower "lasgun tax" compared to Vets, particularly since those lasgun Vets are more expensive than the lasguns in the Special Weapons Squad.
    • On topic: if you do like the lasguns, Special Weapons Squads are much better at it than Vets. Plasma Vets swap their lasguns for their plasma guns, but Special Weapons Guardsmen take the plasma guns in addition to their lasguns, and in 8E that means they can automatically dual wield. That means the actual total shot volumes, respectively, will be 51 points for 3 plasma hits and 6 lasgun hits, while the vets will be 91/96 points for 4/4.67 plasma hits and 8.67/8 lasgun hits.
      • However, they don't have Krak grenades. Due to how Move and Fire currently works, Vet squads with order support will completely outstrip them as a result (see below).
      • A few other points to consider in this context. It is an over simplification som simply count plasma shots per point. If we do calculate plasma hits per point the special weapon squad is indeed superior. If we take in to account re-roll ones to hit and a plasma pistol, veterans come in at 188% of the cost and only 155% of the fire power of the special weapon squads. Vets are also far superior using move and fire (while its still broken atleast) but I would also argue that shotguns are a relevant upgrade over lasguns. The biggest error made in the above arguments though is completely ignoring the different types of fixed point-cost taxes involved in purchasing units slated for tactical reserves. If we add the cost of anchors to allow us to deep-strike these units this changes things swiftly. If we add a mortar squad anchor for example the cost of the veterans is now 126 points and the sw squad is 81 points. Now both the cost and damage output of the veterans are about 155% that of the sw-squad. Now if we go further and want officers to buff our squads we would have to add their cost and the cost of their anchors in as well. Now if you already have more than enough ground units and dont want any officers this argument could be ignored (though we often want officers and to deep-strike a lot of units). Also note the higher resilience of the veterans. 4 more wounds is an increase of 66% from the special weapons squad and they also come with an extra point of leadership. The extra point of leadership is especially relevant taking in to account iron discipline and the bigger squad size. I cant be arsed with the math right now but damage that would outright kill a special weapons squad (say 5-6 casualties) is fairly unlikely to put a dent in the plasma output of the veterans. I will concede this though outright dismissing special weapons squads as inferior to veterans as I did above was not prudent. Special weapons squads certainly have a place along side veterans being better than veterans in some regards and/or circumstances and vise versa, which would actually seem like a really cleaver way of having both units be relevant. I will take a few moments to re-write this section (if no one else does) to take in to consideration all points made so far and presenting them in a cohesive manner to the readers.
• Elysian Veteran Squad: Lost their most important option, forward sentries, so now you longer have any source of homing beacons in the entire codex. Identical to vanilla veteran squads (statline is the same but options/orders differ), but gain deep strike. Can make an effective wrecker squad with three lascutters and a power fist/plasma pistol loaded in a valkyrie/vendetta which you can drop down to fuck up fortifications/vehicles without fly, though will draw fire and with WS4+ you'll lose against any real cqc that shows up. Alternatively these guys can take four flamers and jump from a transport into a horde, giving you 3d6 flamer and d6 heavy flamer overwatch hits, or you know, just burn the fuckers if they don't charge you. Breacher charges should be one per squad, as more may not survive to use it next turn (you can't take more than one). Missile teams are the best choice for heavy weapons, assisted by "Move and Fire" (This depends entirely on the target. Against anything you would shoot a frag missile against you are better of with a heavy bolter or mortar instead).
  • The lascutter + breacher charge + power fist is cute, and could be fun to play, but the range weapons will put out more damage and can put out that damage reliably. Remember rolling a 9+ to charge is not very likely (you will roll 9 or more in only 10 out of 36 cases) and the breacher charges are crazy expensive for a one use item that only works in melee. Besides, even when you get there it only deals an average of 1.75 mortal wounds against vehicles, buildings, and monsters, and an average of 1 to everything else. When factoring in the chance to charge out of deep strike this becomes a sad 0.28 mortal wounds on average against infantry. The lascutters are not great either. Str 9 is impressive and so is the d3 wounds. But after taking into consideration your lower chance to hit a melta gun is more reliable, keeps you out of melee (if you want to be in melee you can charge after firing the melta gun) and does more damage.
  • Alternate Opinion: Mathematically, this unit is great at doing aerial drops with 3 plasma/melta + plasma pistol. I would advise staying away from superfluous equipment like breacher charges and taking things like missile launchers and heavy flamers on them without thinking about it. Keep them focused on a task and fairly cheap and they will serve you well. I would also keep them out of transports in general. It is quite tempting to put them with full flamer load out inside a valkyrie but as soon as you do that the price of putting the unit on the board goes through the roof. With the potential of rerolling 1s to hit and to wound from a commander and officer of the fleet this unit is second in efficiency only to command squads in putting out deadly plasma fire at a cheap price.
    • Shotguns: Can and should in most cases be armed with shotguns. With the current fucked up way move and fire interacts with grenades RAW this unit is crazy dangerous up close. Within 6" this unit can put out 10 frag grenades, 10 krak grenades, 14 str 4 shots, and 3 meltas/flamers (plasma and las guns suffer from becoming assault 1 so not quite as effective) in one shooting phase. When you have thrown 20 grenades in addition to all your normal shooting with the squad don't expect your friends to still be... you know, friends. If the TO says it's kosher in a tournament, though, I would go for it.
• Elysian Sniper Squad: A two wound BS3+ squad with a sniper plus deep strike for seven points each? Quite possibly the best value sniper unit in the game. May have lost the breacher charges and magnoculars for D-99 but got a crazy point reduction so it worked out well. Works wonders with "Move and Fire" (why would you waste your orders on a 21 point unit?) giving you assault snipers negating the move penalty of heavy weapons, combine that with deep strike and you can put these snipers exactly where you want them and dominate the table with them. Feel free to spam vanguard detachments with these guys, a company commander with three units of snipers is 103 points, a great beginning to any Elysian list this edition.
  • These guys are not bad for the points comparing them to other snipers in the game. Keep in mind though that killing high wound characters with good saves will take a lot of these guys. Roboute won´t lay down just because half a dozen of these squads shoot at him (a bog standard Astartes captain will take 23 or so sniper shots to bring down). Something like a Commissar on the other hand is possible to kill with a few units. A reasonable expectation of snipers is for them to be annoying for your opponent, sit on objectives, and allow you to aerial drop more veterans.
  • Only thing limiting these guys' viability is that they occupy the elite slot. They do a great job of filling our quota for boots on the ground allowing us to aerial drop more veteran and command squads.
  • Each of these is like a heavy weapons team (2 wounds, carries an extra lasgun, etc), but because it isn't called that anywhere in its keywords, it will only occupy 1 capacity in a transport, which may be worth remembering.
  • Pack three units of snipers (9 teams) and 1 officer of the fleet in a valk/vendetta, send them off to your opponent's deployment and have a field day as you fuck with his characters with snipers plus an air raid (it seems crazy expensive to transport a few snipers and an ootf in a valkyrie when they have no reason to get within 9" and all have aerial drop).
• Elysian Command Squad:Super cheap and deadly, best configuration is generally going to be 4x plasma/melta, with the first being cheaper and generally more useful. Most of the time you are forced to take at least 3 company commanders and you should pretty much always take the maximum allowed of these guys. Currently even after faq 1.0 these are not limited by the number of officers in your army; this is an obvious oversight, though, so don't go thinking you can take like 14 of these, though if this turns out not to be an oversight it would be crazy powerful. Besides being cheaper than their scion counterparts, they also have greater damage potential with the way officer of the fleet interacts with Elysians after faq 1.0,buffing all Elysians and not only aircraft.
• Elysian Platoon Commander:Gets to take melta bombs for free which is cool. Though with only one order and competing with officer of the fleet for the slot you would be hard pressed to actually find a place for these guys. Officer of the fleet is cheaper, a better buffer in most cases and drops some mortal wounds on the enemy for you. He does unlock more command squads though.
  • Opinion:While you may think this is an inferior company command taking twice as many anchors to get the same amount of orders compared with company commanders. And for this trouble we "save" 10 points compared to the HQ slot. The elite slot is more contested than the hq slot anyways and even if we only pay 15 points for an anchor this guy seems worse in every way. Some or alot of this holds true even after testing the model. Though there are cases where he is quite an attractive choice and I will touch upon them below.
    • I just need a few tactical reserves:Most of whats found under the Elysian section on this page is quite specifically directed towards forces that are primarily Elysian armies. Some people are not interested in playing large amount of aerial dropping units and are rather looking to round out their infantry/artillery or mechanized force. Almost all drawbacks with the Platoon Commanders seemingly vanish. With an infinite(for our purposes) amount of elite slots available and plenty of tax-free units deploying on the ground. Under these or similar circumstances taking Platoon Commanders and command squads is good and much better than taking company commanders. Lets be honest no one takes the company commander because he has an additional wound and leadership. This essentially lets you take 5 man command squads for 86 points each and at that price point they get 4 plasma guns, 1 melta bomb and a dedicated officer to order them around.
    • Tax+anchor:Lets consider the points above. One of the greatest problems with aerial dropping platoon commanders is you need twice as many officers dropping for the same ammount of orders, which means twice as many anchors. If we look at the platoon commander as a pure tax to unlock command squads its not to bad. I mean they still consume elite slots in a way thats hard to accept but points wise 86 points total for a squad with 4 plasma guns isnt bad. It gets even better if you use the platoon commander as the anchor unit. Thats certainly worth a few points (we would pay 8 points for an acolyte in the same slot). If we then can get some versatility out of our deployed commander things are starting to look quite juicy. We of course want buffs for our command squads, but we will leave that to the company commanders and officers of the fleet. The platoon commander will hook up with heavy weapon teams and infantry squads deployed in our backline, what is it worth having those orders around?. It seems like they are very much worth their points used in this manner. If we subtract 8 points for the anchor duty, subtract another 5-10 points for the orders we end up paying only 12-18 points tax in order to take a command squad! Now the bummer here is that we dont have an infinite amount of elite slots as players focusing heavily on Elysians but we can certainly fit a few platoon commanders in our lists, especially if we are going for a brigade + 2 vanguard detachments (thats 20 elite choices).
• Elysian Drop Sentinels:These guys are in our precious elite slot. They are more expensive than regular guard sentinels but can aerial drop. Its super cool to have your guys dropping in via grav-chutes but beyond the narrative etc aplications its hard to fit them in a list. A better idea is probably taking the regular guard version unless you are dead set on pulling off distracting charges from deep strike. They don't get the cc weapons of normal sentinels though and if you are thinking of investing in a Sky Talon to get them in Ogryns seem like a better choice.
• Officer of the Fleet:This guy goes from being a niche character in the wider Astra Militarum to arguably the best buffing character for Elysian armies. Coming in at the same cost as a breacher charge, throwing out mortal wounds (arguably does this better than a breacher charge, too) and buffing ALL Elysians (this is the case since faq 1.0) engaging his designated target by letting them re-roll 1s to hit. This buff is not an order which means you can combine this with re-roll 1s to wound from your company commanders. Rerolling 1s to hit and to wound for a command squad or veteran squad is a significant damage increase. But the best thing about the officer of the fleet is that he can buff all your back line troops to without the need for proximity to said troops, only to the focus target he designates. This means that a threatening target can be designated and then engaged by your heavy weapon squads, aerial dropping veterans, flanking tauroses, etc etc, even though they are spread out over the table. If you thought Harker and Yarrick were good at buffing stuff, this guy arguably does it better (this is dependent on the specific case of course) at a fraction of the price. You should always take at least 1 and probably more.
  • OotF also makes plasma pistols more appealing on your character. Company commander now also get to re-roll 1s to hit! If you do not feel like taking plasma on buffing characters (you can shoot it without overcharge you know) boltguns should be a go-to on commanders.

Fast Attack

• Tauros Assault Vehicle: BS4+ with either a twinned grenade launcher or a heavy flamer, same stats as the Venator which has worthwhile weapon options. Pass.
  • Another way of looking at it is that in a pure Elysian force this is the cheapest fast attack choice we get. The grenade launcher is no doubt horrible (priced as a lascannon) but the heavy flamer can make for a mobile cheap-ish unit that let us reserve more veterans and be annoying for the opponent. To be fair, though, taking regular AM scout sentinels is probably a better idea.
• Tauros Venator: Either a twinned multilaser or a twinned lascannon; multilasers can actually annoy 5+ or worse infantry as the laser is S6. Lascannons will usually hit once with BS4+. Ignores movement for Heavy weapons, which means that achieving the 5++ for moving minimum 10" is now worthwhile. Is this Jink brought back in 8th, you ask? Maybe. Three of these pump out the same amount of shots as a Vendetta while being able to move and shoot, as well as having a 5++, for 48 more points. Consider these if you want something meatier than infantry but you can't fit in a flyer. Don't bother putting these in a sky-talon; with the range of these weapons you want to stay back and harass from a distance.
  • These suffer from the standard problem of anything with twin lascannons, which is that Forge World decided every weapon except lascannons deserved to be less than twice as expensive when twinned due to the inability to fire it at multiple targets - meaning the twin multilaser does cost less than two multilasers, which has a tendency to modify the math on which weapon loadout is the most efficient. At 18 points, the twin multilaser is surprisingly good at busting up TEQs and other 3++ targets where the lack of AP basically doesn't matter, as it delivers a lot of shot volume for the cost.

Heavy Support

• Elysian Heavy Weapons Squad: Like Vanilla counterpart, but you gain deep strike, so they become even better. You lose lascannons and autocannons compared to vanilla guard, but with deep strike you get some free positioning without resorting to transports. Mortars are for blobs and missile launchers deal with armour and monsters. Heavy bolters are meh since tarantulas do the job of two heavy bolter teams but for the double the wounds, better toughness and armour save, for three points cheaper in exchange for having to shoot the closest infantry squad, though you were probably using the turret as a distraction anyway. "Move and fire" order combos well, giving you assault missile launchers or mortars. Parking these squads in cover will do worlds of good for them as all three weapons have decent enough range. These will be common as infantry squads lost heavy weapons and vets will be used to deliver melta/plasma/flamers into close quarters environments, where heavy weapons will be a tad out of place.
  • Since we, in all likelihood, won't be aerial dropping these guys, saving those slots for our vets, it may be tempting to take regular guard weapon teams instead to save a few points. Don't fall victim to that temptation. While I would argue that it is a waste to have a commander giving heavy weapon squads buffs, at least mortars and heavy bolters, the main reason for staying Elysian is the buff to re-roll from officer of the fleet. A 25 point character will give you re-roll 1s to hit for all units engaging his designated target. That is a very effective way to buff heavy weapon teams spread out in cover.
  • Mortars are dirt cheap, missile launchers are not. While most opponents will cringe at the idea of throwing their precious shooting at mortar squads (especially when they are hunkered down) engaging missile launchers is a much more palatable activity. From my experience mixing squads to contain 1 missile launcher and 2 mortars seem to work best. Mortars try to deploy out of line of sight while the missile team try to be minimally exposed. Once you start taking fire you can remove the mortars first (or the missile launcher if you have no need for krak missiles). It makes the missiles more cost effective as far as resilience goes.
• Tarantula Battery: Changed up a little bit from 7th with the removal of firing modes, though they came back in a modified fashion. These guys are your most cost efficient source of Heavy Bolters, besting Heavy Weapons squads, though they do focus fire the nearest infantry unit to them (this is the reason why they are not our straight up best source for heavy bolter fire, target selection is a huge part of 40k). Can be used to hold a backline objective or plonk them down in groups to create chokepoints against hordes. Lascannon turrets can do some serious damage; consider them compensation for Elysians losing lascannon HWT (so why does regular am get these, too, then?); with two shots, one will almost always hit (no with two shots you will hit at least one in 3/4 cases, 75%, which does not qualify as almost always), though the new price hike is a little steep. It is manageable; three of these guys is 80 points cheaper than a vendetta, while pouring out the same amount of shots, so still a solid choice. Splitfire for all means you can mix and match these guys to your heart's content. Space Marines get all the goodies with the Assault Cannon tarantula pouring an ungodly 12 shots at 45 points, but we'll just have to make do; we are guardsmen, after all. If they get charged they can shoot out of combat, as they don't have a WS, and allied models can shoot into the unit in combat with the turrets, making these guys good bait for getting charged, as they're not affected by getting charged.
  • Heavy Bolter Tarantulas are our cheapest heavy support choice. At a mere 24 points you can fill out 1 spearhead and 2 vanguards worth of heavy support choices for 240 points allowing you to aerial drop more veterans and command squads. Big disadvantage is, they can't focus fire, making it harder to maximize the benefits from master of the fleet. Big advantage is, they care a lot less about being charged than most other things and can actually act as a screening unit as mentioned above.
• Cyclops Demolition Vehicle: Comes with advantages and disadvantages. The big disadvantage is that this slot is contested by heavy weapons squads and tarantulas, our go to cheap long range shooting. While not quite as cheap as a hb-tarantula or mortar squad its not expensive. Taking one or two to screw with your opponent is a fairly reasonable thing to do. They are t6 with 4 wound, 3+ save and are very likely to blow up when they die so do not deploy them anywhere within 6" of your own stuff. If your opponent shoots these things you can feel kind of good for drawing fire of your other vehicles. If they do not the explosion from these are quite brutal with 2d6 autohits for each unit within d6". Hitting units hiding large numbers of individual characters is optimal. Run them along flanks, hide them in a building, use as "counter assault" and they could very well pay off for you. I've had some excellent results against berserker rhino rushes hiding these out of sight near a screening unit you are comfortable taking 2d6 s9 hits on.

Flyers

• Common ordnance: Yeah they are not aircraft, but most aircraft can take them so here is a breakdown:
  • Hellstrikes: Hell yeah strikes! No but seriously to me this is the most interesting missile since it does a good job against tanks. It is expensive though at 20 points each. This is a go-to on both Lightnings and Thunderbolts. Heavy 1, S8, SP-2, roll 2d6 pick highest for D. At an average of 4.4 damage for each unsaved wound this is the go to monster/tank/aircraft killer.
  • Skystrikes: Cheaper at 15 points each but only Heavy 1, str 7, ap -2, d3 damage and the +1 to hit flyers -1 against everything else. The strength here seems to be that you get to take 6 instead of only 4. But the damage for each unsaved wound is an average of 2 compared to Hellstrikes 4.4. Statistically they are worse unless you are shooting at very specific targets like jet bikes or battle suits. And we get plenty of mileage out of plasma guns againt them. Kind of sad that the dedicated anti-air missile is outperformed by the anti-tank missiles against flyers though.
  • Hellfuries: Anti infantry missile, so fucking cool. They are pricy though for the amount of shots you get. I have not found an effective role for these yet.
  • Tactical bombs: Pretty cool. They are cheaper than the missile options and do some serious damage. May be a valid option on a aircraft that can hold its own without extra missile firepower.

• Valkyrie: The original bad bitch of the skies can hold 12 Astra Militarum Infantry; Ogryn count as 3 models. Any infantry with the Astra Militarum keyword (and Inquisitorial models with the Authority of the Inquisition trait) count. Transports can hold multiple units now, so 3 Command Squads each with 4 meltaguns for 12 meltaguns (or, cheaper, plasma guns, of course) at BS 3+ in one Valkyrie? Nice! Even better, Grav-Chute Deployment allows you to put anybody the bad bitch can carry 9" away from the enemy...after the Valkyrie's 20" minimum move. Can you say 'turn 1 charge with ogryns?' And to top it all off it has 2 MORE wounds than a Leman Russ tank (though 1 less toughness). Cue the music!
  • Note: On the firepower side of things, hellstrike missiles are no longer one-use only (but you can fire only 1 per turn), and the multiple rocket pod is a nice infantry muncher. However, the Valkyrie isn't immune to the penalties for firing heavy weapons on the move, and being Airborne it HAS to move, so it'll be shooting like an Ork most of the time (unless you hover but then you can also be shot at normally and/or charged). Spring for Multiple Rocket Pods, multilasers and door gunners with Heavy Bolters to power through the penalty. But it also may hover. So if you really want to kill something, you may switch to hover mode and let go. But prepare to die afterwards, since all the Flyer buffs are then gone.
  • Other Note: The Grav-Chute deployment still only counts as a disembarkation from a transport, allowing you your normal movement afterwards with your 12 melta vets, or your 4 Bullgryn for that 3+ charge... Ogryn can fit in Valkyries, just not Vendettas.
  • Note: The new FAQ just stated that you now must have 1 officer per Command squad; while not game breaking, this does mean that you need 3 officers per Valkyrie 3 CC squad combo. Something to keep in mind when you start getting tight on points.
• Avenger Strike Fighter: The ground attack beast rocks on in 8th edition. With T7 and 14 wounds it's pretty tough and will probably stay on the table a while. Comes stock with two lascannons, a 8 shot S6 AP-2 D1 bolt cannon and a 8" heavy stubber that rerolls hits against FLY units. The weapon upgrades now cost double but you'll also get twice the shots so it's only fair. Missiles lost their "one use only" rule so feel free to load up on anti infantry or anti vehicle fire power. Like the other non hover fliers it hits on 3+ but since it always has to move you hit on your regular 4+ (still better that the Ork BS of the Valkyrie/Vendetta).
• Lightning strike fighter: Hard hitting little thing that brings a ton of anti-tank for a reasonable cost. The Thunderbolt is generally the more cost effective choice, with a better airframe for a marginal cost increase and comes with 2 twin autocannons instead of 1 long barreled piece of crap. The Lightning finds its niche though as the cheaper option with slightly more expansive payload options. The most interesting one is loading it up with anti-tank missiles. This is assuming that leaving out one-use only is not altered in a future faq since they would go from "we could pay that" to "no way in hell are we paying that". You can fit the lightning with anti air (could be good) or infantry missles (much worse than vultures). The anti air missiles are not much better than the anti tank missiles at shooting aircraft (or even worse) and the anti air missiles are ALOT worse at engaging tanks. With that being said you do get 6 anti-air missiles for only 10 points more than 4 anti-tank missiles and they do nice job against things like battle-suits and landspeeders. The anti infantry version may seem tempting but vultures do this job much better at a cheaper cost. 235 points buys you a lightning with 4 anti-tank missiles and 245 for 6 anti-air missiles.
• Thunderbolt heavy fighter: The frame itself costs 5 points more than a lightning and fo those 5 points you get 1 more wounds and simulacra repair. Not huge additions by any means but quite good value for 5 points. This guy also carries more guns, 4 autocannons and two lascannons. That 3 more autocannons than the lightning and since they are twin autocannons instead of a long barreled one they are far more cost effective. Has slightly more restrictive payload options than the lightning though the only option you miss out on is anti infantry missiles so no one cares. Basically you get more effective fire power but you need to invest more in a single model to get there. 280 points buys you the thunderbolt with 4 anti-tank missiles and 290 buys you the thunderbolt + 6 anti-air missiles.
• Vendetta: The premier tank-hunter of the galaxy is back, and she's pissed. Carrying half a dozen lascannons and a nice, fat troop bay for 12 models (even keeping Grav-Chutes!) the Vendetta is a fine transport and gunship both. You pay a premium for her - you have to buy every one of those six lascannons - but it's worth it. God-Emperor, is it worth it.
  • Be aware, of course, that Heavy Weapons impose a -1 penalty on a roll to hit if you moved, and you must move as a flyer unless in Hover mode. This means your beautiful (and expensive!) lascannons are fired with an Ork BS of 5; 3 twin-linked ones would have been better, if it were still possible. If you feel safe from assaults or you have already disembarked its cargo, go into Hover mode and unleash hell. Take the slap on the wrist; with the miracles it can pull in the field of transportation the lousy shooting is the only thing keeping this from being outright cheese.
• Vulture: Sorry, did we say the Vendetta was a fine gunship? Well, okay, it is, but this is the exemplar of the role. A Valkyrie's statline with a tasty Strafing Run rule (+1 on roll to hit if target has no <Fly>) and 4 weapon pylons, carrying rocket pods, missiles, autocannons, multilasers and tactical bombs (a special one-time use ability that's great against units with lots of models and deals mortal wounds on a 5+)... yeah, okay, fine. We know why you're here. The Twin Punisher Cannon, a Heavy 40 S5 dual-minigun man-muncher that will turn anything you point this bird at into paste. Scratch the paint and make sure it's not an Ork...
• Valkyrie Sky Talon: Fewer options than a basic Valkyrie and you can't take them in squads, but they can transport either a Tauros or 2 Drop Sentinels. Previously you could spam these guys alone, however with their new points increase valks are generally better value.

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.

Elysian tactics

This section focuses on tactics for Elysians. That means armies entirely made up by Elysian forces or where the majority of points/models/focus is spent on the Elysians. If you are just splashing a couple of deepstrikers in your blob/astropath list then its probably better to post it in the general strategy section below. In any case exercise some common sense.

• Deep-strike lots of veterans: If we are talking basic strategy and Elysians it takes a moderately intelligent individual about 60 sec of looking through the rules to think of this strategy. Everything has access to aerial drop? Plasma guns fire att full effectiveness in the allowed drop zone? Veterans get 3 plasma guns per squad? Since our answers is yes, yes and yes we realize that deepstriking veterans with special weapons is a good idea. While a straight forward strategy it takes some clever list building to get something where we can overwhelm our enemy. We want a good balance between usefull but cheap units on the boards as this will allow us to aerial drop more veterans, i recommend reading the section above called "Anchors" for suggestions and an explanation of why we want these units. Now slam a bunch of buffing characters in there, command squads and veterans and go to town! If you min/max with cyber wolves, tarantulas etc, you should be able to deep-strike between 14-20 units in a sweet combination of buffing characters and bs 3+ squads with good density of plasma guns.
  • A note on balance: Spam plasma guns. You cant go wrong. If you want the odd cases where something may outperform plasma check the weapons header above for more thorough analyzes.
  • I want friends: A great aspect of this list is that it is very fluffy at its core. If you are playing friendly, narrative etc games then just tone it down. Dont take cyber wolves as fast attack, take tauros venators. Dont just spam out heavy bolter tarantulas and mortar teams, throw a vulture in there. Maybe it is kind of harsh to play veterans in you gaming group, mix in special weapon teams.
• Command Squads? Command Squads!: Ok som while the idea of placing a ton of veterans in tactical reserve is like the definition of what Elysians do Command Squads are slightly different. The same principles as above generally apply. We will want a pile of anchors on the ground letting us aerial drop a ton of special weapons and fucking up our opponents stuff. The veteran strategy utlizes the minimum ammount of company commanders and a ton of veterans (of course buying one command squad for every company commander) and a few officers of the fleet. This list goes more or less exclusively for command squads as our aerial dropping special weapons. So instead of taking a minimum ammound of company commanders we will take alot of them. And for each company commander we will take a platoon commander. Now the platoon commander will join our ground troops, so he is unlocking an extra command squad and is then relegated to anchor duty. This will, in principle, give your company commanders 2 command squads each to buff (you dont need all squads to get buffed in reality). The thought here is that we will get more cost effective deepstriking plasma (even after accounting for the officer tax). We will generally try going in to 1 brigade + 2 vanguard detachments with this strategy. That buys us up to 20 elite slots and up to 9 hq slots. We quickly see that this would let us buy up to 14 command squads (9 company commanders + 5 platoon commanders = 14 command squads). If you think thats a tad light you may want to shoot for 2 brigades + 1 vanguard (22 elite and 12 hq slots) which would give us up to 17 command squads. That is 12 company commanders and 5 platoon commanders. Do note that at this point we are paying something like 600 points for infantry squads to fill out the troop slot and 630 points for officers (we get 22 command points though). We wont go that extreme though since we want a few officers of the fleet so we may end up with a veteran squad or two. What we gain is a more potent ground force to fight for us. Any officers we dont "need" for deepstriking will augment our ground forces increasing their damage output and/or mobility.
  • I want friends: This is not that kind of list. This is not fluffy it is striving to min/max and optimize everything paying NO head to the backstory of Elysians or the other players enjoyment. If you are playing friendly/narrative games or any sort of game where you have not before hand agreed to a no holds barred dirty fucking fight.
• I just want to play with model aircraft Well it sucks to be you because it turns out in the rule-book faq that you automatically lose the game if you only have aircraft remaining in play. Nah I am just screwing with you. While aircraft no longer count towards having units on the board for determining whet er or not you have been wiped off the board this is only relevant after the first game round (after you and your opponents first turn). Games workshop did not screw us over while sill managing to wreck the storm raven and hemlock spam. So this really falls in to two categories, one where we actually transport our dudes in Valkyries and vendettas and one where we transport our dudes in "high-flying Valkyries" aka waiting to aerial drop them. In principle the first kind gives up a bit of its air power to get more out of the grunts, primarily flamer and melta wielding grunts. The second kind focuses a bit more on effective aircraft and settles for the regular plasma shenanigans.
  • Ride of the Valkyries: The name is on the nose but you will spend a lot of points on Valkyries and vendettas. First turn you will hopefully rush these birds up the field and disembark grunts with devastating effect on your enemy. Its probably worth bringing a few other kinds of aircraft so you keep some teeth after the primary strike when disembarking. Vultures are fucking amazing value and lightnings/thunderbolts are good tank hunters while the avenger lands somewhere in the middle.
  • Broken arrow: Name is inspired by the phrase from "We where soldiers". Here we are aerial dropping almost all of our stuff. To be honest this is the way i prefer running my aircraft heavy Elysian. I feel like the vulture and avenger/lightning/thunderbolt complement plasma veterans very well. Look at it like this, we are already paying for the privilege to aerial drop our stuff. And while you may imagine we should have a discount for taking transport aircraft we do not. I usually go for about 6 aircraft and the rest of the point spent on veterans and anchors. Make sure you bring an officer of the fleet to play his part as a force multiplier. Depending on the opponent its not always best to hit him head on. Some times it can be very beneficial to hold back the bulk of your infantry as the threat of deep-strike may keep the enemy wrapped in his little corner. In objective based missions this can be absolutely devastating as spending 3 turns not moving out often makes it difficult to win objective-based games. I many cases this is a in your face army. Flyers rush up the field, tons of veterans fall down next to their targets, officers of the fleet mark targets for you. If all goes well you will weaken the opponent to the point where you can blunt his counter attack. Just remember the "aircraft dont count when you check if you are tabled" rule. Spreading out some snipers and mortars in your deployment zone is often enough so that you opponent cant easily get to everything.
• "Mechanized" Elysians: Mechanized Elysians are a thing, atleast in the fluff. There are references to entire drop regiment deploying in a barren landscape to fight speed freak orkks (its from an imperial armour book, I belive its volume 8: kastorel novem but not entirely sure). To keep up with the orkks pretty much the entire regiment deployed in tauroses supported by aircraft. Now the regiment ended up being decimated in the fighting (not unusual for the brave Elysians) and this strategy is not really about going no holds barred but rather about recreating something cool from the backstory. So we basically load up on a bunch of tauros vehicles, for most of us that means vanators since assault vehicles are not available any more. We also get our mandatory hq-choices, commandsquads to with them, a few officers of the fleet, atleast enough veterans to not squander our company commander orders and then get some aircraft. This is basically a list with a few deepstriking infantry units, and a bunch of vehicles. Officers of the fleet buff your stuff and then we use our mobility to try and outmaneuver the opponent. It may not be the most powerfull list out there but vultures do a good job against infantry and venators with lascannons do a number on heavy armour. Deepstriking plasma guns should compliment this nicely allowing you to apply alot of force in one place or spread it out exactly wher you need it.
• The infantry squad surround: A compliment to any cohesive Elysian strategy that includes deep-striking infantry squads. The one thing that Elysian infantry squads do better than any one else in the game. Drop 1-2 squads + 1 company commander down 9" away surrounding a vehicle as best you can (this vehicle has to be kind of isolated in order for this to work without lucky advance rolls). In the shooting phase give them the order to move. This lets them move between 7-12". Use the move to surround an enemy vehicle making it impossible for the models inside to make a legal disembarkation. Once they are surrounded give the transport hell with your shooting and smile when your opponent realizes all those terminators (or Custodes or what ever) are now automatically dead.