422nd Elysian Drop Troopers

Elysians going forward It's been some time since I have posted, but rest assured the blog isn't dead. I'm still around and using my Elysians. Just not so much lately due to a combination of real life commitments, and the Elysian rules getting further behind. And now it looks like Elysians will be consigned to Legend status, While this works for some people I do like to play in the occasional tournament so prefer to play with rules suitable for match play. Because of this I have been looking at ways to utilise my Elysians in 9th edition using standard Astra Militarum rules. In preparation for this I have already made 6 sergeants with chainswords, 3 with laspistols and 3 with bolters as pictured below. And I'm going to need make quite a few more, as well and platoon and company commanders. The new Strategic Reserves rule will likely be key to the way I will play, effectively using it to replace aerial drop. To make it a bit more useful I'll probably use...

Over the weekend I attended a 1750pt tournament with my Elysian's. I used a similar list to what I have used in the past with an Elysian brigade including 3 Vultures, and also brought a Vanguard detachment of 3 assassins. My list here. https://downunderpairings.com/ArmyList.php?ArmyID=13879 As an interesting aside check out my new unit markers, which are kids hair ties. I bought a pack of 1000 of them in a bunch of different colours for a few bucks, and they fit really well around a 25mm base. Now generally in tournaments I end up somewhere in the lower part of the top half, but times have changed. Game 1 My first game was against a Mechanicus army, and my opponent was quite an experienced player. His list is here. https://downunderpairings.com/ArmyList.php?ArmyID=13900 He managed to all 3 of my Vultures round one, but did burn through all his command points to do so. However from there I did not have the firepower to carry they day, and while I killed some of ...

In the previous weekend I attended the tournament I mentioned in a previous post . My army is pictured below but see that post for my army list, as well as details of the tournament's list restrictions. In addition to this tournament I also attended a smaller 1000pt tournament at the local GW store, taking a cut down version of the above list. Game 1 My first game was against a Sisters of Battle list with a Vindicare assassin.  My opponent is quite an experienced player and managed to keep most of his troops in cover making the most of his mainly 3+ saves killed some of his vehicles early on, but then his arco-flagellents started mowing through my infantry and my some of my flyers got taken down. My eversor assassin tried to kill his vindicare but failed to kill him, then got shot to death. But doing some damage with his melt-down. In the end I just wasn't able to keep him off the objectives and the game ended in a minor win for him, with him claim...

When I first started to get into Elysians one of the the difficulties I faced was the limited amount of current information avaliable online. So here is a summary of some of the more useful online resources that I have found since I started, and feel free to add in any ones I miss in the comments. 1d4chan tactics section https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Warhammer_40,000/Tactics/Imperial_Guard(8E)#Elysian_Drop_Troops This is a sub-section of the Imperial Guard tactics article, and provides a good overview on all the available options and some suggestions for their use. It is certainly worth a read, but don't take it all as gospel Wahapedia Elysian Drop troops section http://wahapedia.ru/wh40k8ed/factions/elysian-drop-troops/ This is an incredible useful resource, and contains all the rules for the game, including all the rules for Elysian drop troops, and is continually updated with and changes from Chapter approved and the FAQs. This site is a realistic replacement for your rul...

It's been a slow few months for my Hobby progress due to various factors including moving house, and a lot of my stuff is still packed up. However I have signed up for an upcoming 1500pt tournament in July. In the ongoing effort to make things as fair as possible this tournament has a number of restrictions regarding factions, detachments and Forgeworld models. Effectively you can only gain one faction benefit for your army, e.g. Cadian doctrine etc. And a max limit of 400pts of Forgeworld. However in corresponding with the TOs I have been allowed to run a pure Elysian List, even though it is almost all Forgeworld as the forgeworld limitation is to allow people to bring things like leviathans etc not whole armies. If you are interested in the full list of restrictions and everything else, here is the link to the players pack. While I haven't finalised my list I'm actually looking at taking a pretty standard list to this. Probably a Brigade with 3 CCs, 6 Infantr...

Last weekend I attended a 1000pt tournament at the local GW store. The tournament had some unusual rules, including a special detachment we were required to use and a score out of 20 depending on the composition of the list to try and discourage some of the more extreme lists. The detachment was called a Fire and Fury detachment, and was as follows. 1-2 HQ 2-8 Troops 0-3 Elites 0-3 Fast Attack 0-2 Heavy Support 0-1 Flyer 3 Command points for this Detachment Obviously only 2 HQs is a bit of a limitation for Elysians so only 2 Company commanders could be taken, but the rest of the slots gave plenty of scope. However the Army composition rules were more of an issue. Army Composition is out of 20 pts and easy to work out before you join us: 3 pts - The most points have been spent on your troop selections 1 pt - You have spend more than 400pts on your troop selections 2 pts - You have spent more than 500pts on your troop selections 2 pts - 0-2 Units in your force h...

I got in a small game at the local club yesterday. My List was as follows Battalion Detachment 2 Company commanders with Auxiliary Grenade Launchers 4 Infantry squads with all lasguns 2 Plasma command squads 2 Tauros Assault Vehicles with Heavy Flamers 1 Tauros Venator with Hunter-killer missile and Twin lascannon 2 Heavy weapon squads with mortars 2 Vultures with Twin Punisher Gatling Cannons My Opponent was playing Death Guard, and had the following Batallion and Vanguard detachments Plagueburst crawler 2 units of nurglings 1 large unit of plague walkers 1 Hellbrute That Nurgle tree And a variety of characters including a psyker. Mission was the Maelstrom mission, Cloak of Shadows, which imposed a -1 to hit on any shooting over 18", and deployment was Hammer and Anvil. He only kept his tree in Deepstrike reserve, and I reserved both my CCs, 3 Infantry squads and both Command squads. As expected he got first turn and moved up and shot with...

I have always liked servitors and Enginseers, and I have quite a few of them in my Cadian army. However for the last few editions servitors especially have been not worth taking. However with the recent point changes to servo arms in Chapter Approved they are both now quite cheap. So I have been thinking about how to include them in an army. An important note is that Enginseers and servitors are in both the Astra Militarum and Adeptus Mechanicus codexes. While the datasheets are very similar there are a few important differences. Engineers Engineers in the Astra Militarum codex are an Elite choice whereas they are a HQ choice in the Adeptus Mechanicus codex. This is important as it allows a Vanguard detachment of Enginseers and servitors. When bought from the Adeptus Mechanicus codex they lose the Astra Militarum keyword, cost the same amount of points, and also have access to Canticles of the Omnissah. Now the Canticles may have some use but they aren't relevant to how ...

Chapter Approved came out last weekend, and while there were a lot of points changes, Elysians got mostly ignored. All the entries in the entry below are either reiterations of previous changes, or there for consistency with the general Astra Militarum changes. In saying that the changes were pretty good overall, with no point increases and some decent wargear reductions. In addition to the above changes the Officer of the Fleet got 5 points cheaper, and more significantly the Valkyrie also got 10 points cheaper in addition to point reductions for most of its weapon options. This means a minimum cost Valkyrie is now only 117pts. This is another nail in the coffin for Vendettas as a lascannon Vendetta now costs only slightly less than 2 Valkyries  (2 x 117 = 234pts vs 230pts). Auxiliary Grenade Launcher: No change, but just included here foe completeness. Flamer: 1 pt reduction. Might make flamers a little more viable, but not a big enough change to field them if you weren...

I have just finished assembling and painting up 8 of these guys, mainly because I didn't have any in my collection. Vox casters increase the range of an officers orders from 6" to 18" if the office is within 6" of a friendly Vox caster, and the target unit also has a vox caster. Initially this seems to be rather useful, but in practice it usually easy enough to keep an officer within 6" of the units he needs to order. While vox's only cost 5 points each, you generally need a minimum of 2 of them to get any use out of them so the points can add up quickly. It is easy to think up scenarios where a vox-caster network can be useful but it is often more effective to just take an additional officer or two. An important point to note is that the Vox caster that the officer uses to send the order does not need to be in the same regiment, so a Tempestus Prime could use the Vox-caster in a nearby Drop Trooper squad to order a distant scion squad, provided that...

I arrived for day 2 of the tournament in plenty of time. A few players had dropped out over night so the tables got spaced out a bit to give more room around the tables. See my reviw of day one here. http://422ndelysians.blogspot.com/2018/12/2-day-tournament-day-one.html Game 4 Deployment: Hammer and Anvil Objective #1: Eternal War: ETC Relic (ALTERED) & Scouring (Marker 1-6) Objective #2: Maelstrom of War: Spoils of War (3 cards per turn scoring cap) My first opponent for the day was another Custodes army, although this one had no jetbikes and had 2 Xiphon flyers. Still had the -1 to hit banner though. As is usual me me he went first, bringing up his Xiphons and Landraider to engage my flyers. I think he expected to kill all 3, but helped by the prepared defences stratagem he only killed the Valkyrie, dumping the melta squads inside not far from his Xiphons. We had a bit of a rules discussion about whether his Landraider could advance and fire the heavy wea...