Elysian Tactics - Commanders and the Lord Commissar

Elysian Tactics - Commanders and the Lord Commissar


Continuing my series of tactics posts I will cover both the HQ choices for an Elysian Regiment, and also the platoon commander as he fills a similar battlefield role.

First is the Lord Commissar. He costs 10 points more than the regular Lord Commissar, but discounted slightly as his power sword is optional. I see him as not that useful in that Elysians have less of an issue with morale than regular guard armies due to several factors. Primarily their increased leadership and the fact the nearby company and platoon officers grant morale rerolls without executing someone.
The Lord Commissar still has a few things to offer though in that he confers his higher leadership to nearby units. The main use that I can see for him is as a melee character, with a Power fist and his WS 2+ he can do some damage. But I won’t be taking one. His cost is just too high for what he does. I’d much rather just take another company commander.

Company Commanders are the only other HQ choice, so with Lord Commissars not being a good option I will be taking quite a few of these. Compared to the regular Company commander they are 10 extra points for the Aerial drop ability and the extra point of Leadership. They do lose the chainsword though. Weapon options are similar but they lose access to the other power weapon variants than the sword and also lose access to the shotgun. And they gain krak grenades.

With arming these guys, the best option is to keep them cheap, especially for backfield commanders. Their main use is to give out orders and they should be avoiding combat. I will cover the orders later in this post. For company commanders that accompany the troops that drop in, a useful investment can be a plasma pistol and/or a power fist. I don’t really like power swords as despite having a good AP, the commanders are still only strength 3 meaning you don’t wound your opponent very often, and the power fist is only a few points more. Additionally as they don’t have a chainsword  there is more incentive to give them something to use in combat. When I get around to playtesting I will try both options. With the power sword however, you can upgrade it to the Blade of Conquest relic which if you have spare command points I feel will be a useful option.

One of your backfield Company commanders will usually be your warlord in a pure Elysian army. The best option for a Warlord trait is the Grand strategist, none of the others really compare. It also pairs well with Kurovs Aquilla, although the Laurels of Command can be useful too. I often put these on different commanders as that way there is less of a single target for your opponent.
Don’t forget the heroic intervention rules either. If a nearby unit gets charged, and your CC is within 3” of an enemy model he can do a free pile in movement. And if he wasn’t a target of the charge your opponent is not eligible to strike at him. You don’t even need to move him into combat. I highly recommend gaining a good understanding of the rules in the assault phase. As guard players assault if often a foreign concept to us, but it is essential to have an in depth understanding to make to most of how it all works and counter assault heavy armies. This article here is a pretty good summary. https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2017/10/07/assault-phase-tactics/

Platoon commanders fulfil a very similar role to company commanders, but are 10 points cheaper, lose 1 wound and 1 point of Leadership, and only having one order. But they get Melta bombs for free. Almost always it will be worth paying the extra for a Company commander over a Platoon commander, but I am rather keen to see if I can get their Melta bombs into play. Remember the extra order stratagem so if needed you can have these guys issue 2 orders. The same points for Company commander weapon options hold here, except a platoon commander will less often be a backfield commander, so a plasma pistol and power fist/sword can often be considered.
Also Platoon commanders come from the elites choice, and Elysians have so many excellent elite options this slot can be quite crowded.

Orders

Elysians lose access to the Forwards, for the Emperor and Fix Bayonets Orders.
But they gain Hold the Line and Move and Fire orders instead.

First Rank Fire Second Rank Fire will be one of the most used orders as it doubles your lasgun shots, allowing your troopers to fire 4 shots each at half range, that’s up to 40 lasgun shots.

Take Aim is also very useful letting you reroll hit rolls of 1. FRFSRF is more useful on lasgun squads, but this is the order you use on your drop plasma squads to fire supercharges plasma without half of them dying.

Get Back in the Fight is the one to use after one of your squads gets in combat, as it allows you to withdraw and still shoot, and you seldom want to keep your troops tied up in combat.

Move Move Move allows you to travel large distances in a single turn, up to 24” but 17” on average if you advance with both of your moves. Great for objective grabbing, and allows you to move after an aerial drop.

Bring it Down is less useful as it is mathematically the same as Take Aim. Usually only used if you already have reroll 1s to hit from some other source.

Move and Fire is not that useful, but could come into play if you need that bit of extra movement and still want to shoot. A note about this order is that RAW it also changes all the grenades to assault, allowing each trooper to throw 2 grenades as well as shooting his weapon. This is obviously not as intended and I don’t play that way.

Hold the Line is probably the least useful order as morale is not usually an issue. And if you do put this order on a unit your opponent will probably just shoot someone else. I can see it coming in handy maybe if you have a unit that is on an objective and you really want them not to run away.

Summary

In general, out of the 3 choices about you will usually only have Company commanders, and just enough of them to put out the number of orders you need per turn. I plan to take a Brigade and a Battalion so will probably have 5 or 6 of them. 2 cheap ones in the backfield with one being the warlord, and the rest dropping in to order units as needed.




Next up I will cover my thoughts on Command squads and special weapon squads.





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