422nd Elysian Drop Troopers

Progress Post First up I now have a logo. Nothing to different or original, but I needed something. Pretty much the standard Elysia logo with the regiment number and some text. I have finished assembling and magnetising all the Tauros's, both the assault ones and the Venators The magnetised mount can hold both the Sentinel HK missile, as well as the other type I have which I have determined is from a Rhino. However the actual Tauros HK will not fit without more customisation than I am willing to do. I have armed all the Venators with Lascannons, and all the Assault ones with Heavy Flamers. I can't see any reason to use the multi-laser on the Venator rather than the lascannon. I can see a case for the grenade launcher on the Assault Tauros, but after a bit of math-hammer I have determined that the grenade launcher will do less damage in almost all situations, and is more expensive. I plan to run them as deepstrike denial/blocking units rather than fire sup...

Elysian Missile Launcher Squad Well I have learnt my lesson about promising models I haven't finished yet. Due to other stuff happening I only just finished assembling these tonight. I went for pretty similar poses across the three, with the 3 missile launcher guys kneeling, and the 2nd guy walking with the extra missiles No with the Elysian infantry there are only about 6 different leg poses, 2 of which are kneeling. Of the other 4 there is the walking one which I really don't like, especially on models that are shooting as they lean forward a considerable distance. In fact I have stopped using them, but they did seem appropriate for the off-sider in the missile launcher team. So now these guys are done. Originally I wasn't going to have any missile launchers as they are sub-par compared to lascanons, but as Elysian can't take lascannon teams I may use them. I am thinking of running them in heavy weapon teams with two mortars and a missile launch...

Drop Troopers - Plasma Guns With plasma guns being so good in the current edition, and with every Elysian having the ability to deepstrike into rapid fire plasma range I plan to have a significant amount of plasma gunners. The Elysian plasma guns are smaller and a different design to other plasma guns, so you can't really mix and match. This is a bit limiting as you only get 1 plasma gun in the Elysian Command HQ set, as well as 2 in the Elysian weapons pack. This makes accumulating large numbers of plasma guns expensive, although I am in the process of finding a way to buy them individually. The first few I assembled I did as per the instructions with the gunner carrying the plasma gun. However this takes quite a while to do with cutting out sections of the gun to fit the hands, and I am not really keen on the pose. So for the next ones put together I have moved to modifying a set of lasgun arms to fit the plasma gun. The issue with these is getting the lef...

Cyclops Demolition Vehicle I have six of these, three of which I have had for some time, and three more recent acquisitions. I am keen to try these out but haven't ever gotten around to fielding one yet. Assembly wise they are incredibly easy to put together only coming in three pieces, the centre section and the two tracks. The only issue was the resin 'gate' was attached to the rear part of the track, and removing it neatly did take a bit of work. But they are such a small model, and it is at the back, so wasn't really a huge issue for me. Anyway, not really much to say about these models. As that is all the vehicles I have in my Elysian collection so far, I will move onto the infantry next post. I'll start with the plasma gunners as they are quite good currently, and I have had to some adaptions to make extras.

Drop Sentinels While I like the idea of these I am not sure how useful they will be on the table. I will be trying them out of course, but they compete with Tauros's for the Fast attack slot, and I really like Tauros's. I have six of them, which I bought in two lots of three, all from the same source, but about a year apart. The earlier ones I bought weren't great quality, and were missing a few of the small covers for the leg joints. The ones I bought recently were also missing these and also missing the rear thrusters, and now I have heard that this particular vendor no longer sells these models. The more recent 3 I assembled I have not glued down the bars covering the driver for ease of painting, like I probably should have done for the first 3. While assembling the sentinels you could tell the mould was old and there was some loss of detail, and some rather thin sections. However they came together alright as you can see. I also attached the magnet so ...

Progress Post Not the post about the Sentinels I has promised next, but that is still coming. Still working on some Tauros Venators and they are coming along. Have completed 4 of them with the 4th one completed this evening after I took this pic. And I have 4 more after this to go so will stick with them till all 8 are done. I have decided to go with the Twin Lascannon option as multi-lasers are rubbish. Still not to sure what to do about the hunter killer missiles as the ones that come with the model seem to require shaving the bolts off the sides where they attach, so will probably go with a different type of hunter killer missile and attach a magnet somewhere to the model. Here are the three types of Hunter Killer Missiles I have. The one of the left is a Sentinel HK, the middle one is the one that came with the Venator, and the two on the right are ones I bought separately so I don't know what model they are from, but is probably the one I will go with as I can ea...

Tarantulas For my Elysian force I wanted both Heavy boler and Lascannon Tarantulas. From what I understand the FW Tarantula is a FW Razorback turret and a base. Interestingly enough the Sabre weapon platform bases are the same size, and for the turrets, but are a slightly different design. I was able to find a source for the bases reasonably cheap so I bouught a few of them and three of the Lascannon turrets. Only recently have I been able to find a source for the FW Heavy bolter turret, so had previously bought 3 of the standard Heavy Bolter razorback turrents, and they look alright, and are certainly usable. I should probably drill out the barrels. And just a few days ago I got some of the FW Heavy Bolter turrets too, but haven't assembeled them yet. Not much hobby progress to report for the last week though due to stuff. Still working on assembling the Tauros Venators. And Elysian Drop sentinels will be the subject of the next post. But here is a...

Valkyries, Vendettas, Vultures and an Arvus I have collected a few flyers over the years for my Imperial Guard army, and all will also be useful in an Elysian army. I will present them in the order that I obtained them. First up is a rather poorly painted Valkyrie that I picked up in an ebay lot. I have have magnetised the wing mounts to no take either Hellstrike missiles, multiple rocket launchers or Twin Lascannons to use it as a Vendetta. The second flyer I got, also as part on an ebay lot was a very nicely painted Valkyrie. Someone spent a lot of time on this one, and even the interior details have been painted. I have not magnetised the weapon mounts on this one as I am reluctant to modify such a nice paint job. Next up is 2 Vendettas I got as part of another lot of mainly tanks. The paintjob on these is okay, and they have the actual Forgeworld vendetta upgrade parts. I have since magnetised the weapon mounts on one of them so I can also use it as a V...

Tauros Assault Vehicle Since I covered the Venators last post I thought I would move on to the Assault version of the Tauros now I have assembeled 4 of these so far and the process is very similar to the Venators with many of the pieces being identical. The four I have assembeled so far I have equipped with the Heavy Flamer as that is how I am currently planning to use them. I looked into magnetising them, but it is not a simple process as both weapon options have different ammo packs on the seats, and the grenade launcher seems to be less useful than the Heavy Flamer on such a fast vehicle. Although if I get some more I will probably make some into the grenade Launcher version. As you can see one of them is a different colour than the rest, This one is from a different source was was of a lesser quality than the others, which is why I have ordered more of them. It was even missing bits like the driver and roll cage, so I ordered another roll cage and made my own driver f...