Elysians in 8th

[Galron]

I initially was all for flamer units like that, but its the 1st turn charges that really get you and thanks to the  rule that says flamer gunners twiddle their thumbs instead of prepping a spray plan and getting a bonus to hit when opponents charge from 9" away those are just free points and a way to get further into your lines. I am thinking our best defense are Cyclops vehicles. Maybe they hit them and kill them and risk a d3 mortal wound explosion on a 3+ or even worse it lives and they explode on your shooting phase doing what 2d6 wounds? Third option is they don't charge at all and leave you free to shoot with everything else.

[DietOfLiquor]

Looks like we've got a boost with the FAQ's! Hello officer of the fleet!

[Shamansky]

Breacher charges FAQ'ed for the logic sake. Boltguns for vet sarges, yay! Still no word about DS-ing flyers. Let the bookworm fight continue!

Edited July 17, 2017 by Shamansky

[Captain_Krash]

Love the boltguns!!!! What was the change to Breacher charges?

 

Krash

[Shamansky]

They're one use items now

[Galron]

Had my first relatively pure Elysian game today at 2250 vs a tau army. He didnt equip as if going against an IG army as he really didnt know what to expect.

4 COs

1 Scion commander

3 Scion squads 2x2Plasma and 1x meltagun

2 infantry squads each with a grenade launcher

vet squad with 3 meltas and a breacher charge

Valk with missile pods

2 Vultures with punishers

Tauros Venators x2 with lascannon and HKs

Tauros x2 with grenade launchers

3 command squads 2x3  plasma, 1x3 melta

2 scout sents with heavy flamers

2 Drop sents with multi-meltas

2 Heavy bolter squads

2 Sniper squads

2 Missile launcher squads

4 mortar squads

Cyclops

 

He had 2 commanders, 3 crisis teams with marker drones, all with twin fusion and flamers, 1 stealth, 1 Vvarhha(flamer riptide), 1 Storm Surge, 1 squad kroot, 1 squad bug guys, 1 piranha.

 

I had stupid amounts of troops more than him. But it came down fairly close once he started fusion blasting my weapon squads.  We had the end of table deployment zone deployments up to 24" in. I started with all of my mortars and an officer in the back field, my flyers at the front with the scout sents and a cyclops along with all the Taurosi. My warlord and the vet squad in the valk. He started with the stormy bubble wrapped by a screen of kroot, bugs, with the skimmer bringing up the rear. His Stealths were in ruins in the center.

 

He obviously got first turn with me rolling a 1, we play ITC rules for initiative since they make more sense than guard autofailing every time. My sents went forward extending my bubble. His moves had the stormy moving up, stealths moving point blank in front of my valk and one vulture and dropping a beacon. He DS'd two crisis teams and their drones. One was midway up the field on the edge. The other team was right on the beacon with their drones. He also DSd the Yvarha mid field within range of the vulture. He then lit it up with 3 markerlights and fired the Yvarha and the storm surge at it with its missles. Needless to say, the Vulture went down. The crisis and stormsurge had split fired on the other vulture and did 10 damage to it. He forgot to fire the stealths. The Yvarha took out one of the sentinels too.

 

My first turn had me dropping heavy weapon teams all over the place. I left the scions in reserve along with the two infantry squads. I drove the valk to right in front of the surge, drove the tuarosi up either side. I drove my cyclops to the homing beacon. Due to never playing tau before I didnt know about how they took wounds when they had drones around even in different squads. So I popped my cyclops. It hit all three units. Not knowing about tau I was just going to go around the circle and started with the crisis. Now that I know better I would have done the drones. So after wasting the first hits on the drones, then actually hitting the drones finishing them off, I hit and wiped the stealths. On the other side I wiped the drones for the other crisis squad and took one of them out with various shots. My drop sents did one wound to the yvarha and two of my command squads with an officer no less giving the reroll ones to hit, did a couple more wounds to the Yvarha, mortars killed two bugs, and did one wound to the other crisis team. Vuture killed a couple kroot. All in all not a very effective shooting phase.

 

His second turn dropped another crisis team and drones and two commanders. He was trying to use the commanders to go after my firebase in his deployment zone. The crisis were dead center to go after the command units and officer in the center. Kroot moved to engage the center guys and bugs moved to engage the Venators. Shooting he took out the other vulture, one dude in each command squad one Tauros. He moved his Y'varha close to a mortar squad. I lost a missile team to his commanders. He charged with everything in the middle and tied everyone up. Commanders failed their charge on weapons teams, Yvarha failed its charge on mortars. He charged Taurosi, ended up doing a wound to the crisis, the Venators killed a bug in overwatch and killed remaining bugs in hand to hand.  Center fight killed one dude and I took out a kroot.

 

I dropped the scion officer and plasmas near the Yvarha and the other equidistant to the surge and piranha. Everyone ran from the center fight too leaving them open for shooting. Everyone unloaded from the Valk which was in hover mode. Shooting this time was more effective as I dropped the surge down to 10 wounds, did a couple more to Y'varha, dropped both commanders to 2 wounds each and killed the lone crisis near the Tauros. Pirahna and kroot were all killed. My assault was awesome as my vet squad charged the storm surge and threw the breacher charge doing 6 mortal wounds and he saved none of them with feel no pain.

 

Revenge of the tau was this turn as his commanders killed a missile and heavy bolter squad, the center crisis killed the other heavy bolter squad, Yvarha killed the tauros and a scion squad, two crisis killed two mortar squads. He charged the other scions with Yvarha and took 2 damage from overcharged plasma and a hotshot lasgun and promptly failed his charge again even with a command point from 6" away. Commander and three dude hold off his commanders and three crisis in hand to hand losing two guys and doing one wound on a crisis and one on a commander. Surge charged my warlord and did no wounds and none returned.

 

My third turn had the tauros move 10" to get both surge and Yvahra in LOS. lined up the  crisis for the valk to shoot. Mortars dropped the crisis to one guy. Missile moved to get the Yvarha in LOS. Scions rapid fired their plasmas and did a couple wounds I think to the Yvarha. Missile teams got one hit on it and he failed his 4++ and I did 6 wounds and he failed his 6+ feel no pain 4 times which was just enough to kill him. Surge was dropped to 1 wound by the Venators. Mortars killed 2 marker drones. He called the game at this point although I think it was still fairly close. He would have wiped the center, I would have killed the surge. My infantry squads would have been burned by flamers. It would have ended up with my remaining two mortar squads trying to kill off his crisis and marker lights.

 

Things learned, kill drones first. They are easy to kill but the whole protection thing sucks. Also, stealth suits infiltrate whenever they want and can push your DS bubble back if they deploy early. I think if he was geared more for general combat instead of anti-vehicle and MC, the battle would have been different. Tau dont care about flyers and vultures still have a hard time hitting their targets.

 

I am curious, if a stealth team deploys first, and they deploy right at your deployment zone line, can they prevent you from deploying in your own zone 9" from them?

Edited July 24, 2017 by Galron

[Stylian_StHugh]

Elysian Command Squads with OotF and Commander support are really nasty now. With rerolling 1s to hit/wound in RF range, you get 5 dead Marines (or Primaris thanks to D2), 8W on a T7/3+ vehicle or 6W on a T8/3+. For 180pts you can slag entire an entire unit of MEQ or a medium vehicle, or seriously hurt a heavy vehicle or big character (depending on their Inv saves). I'm going to trial it and change my army up  

[Shamansky]

A question came into my head. IA INDEX: FORCES OF THE ASTRA MILITARUM states: 'Models in the list that have the AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS keywords replace them with ELYSIAN DROP TROOPS.' INDEX: IMPERIUM 2 describing the Strafing Coordinates ability of OoF sais: '...For the duration of the phase, you can re-roll hit rolls of 1 for any friendly AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS units that target the unit you picked'.

So the question is: does that ability of the OoF can't be used with flyers  taken as a part of Elysian drop troops army list, as long as they are no longer AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS?

[Beaky Brigade]

I think it's clear in the original, but in the FAQ:

Page 71

– Elysian Drop Troops Army List

Change the final sentence of the first paragraph to read:‘Models that have the Aeronautica Imperialis keywords on their datasheets replace them in all

instances with Elysian Drop Troops

 

So his special rule affects Elysian flyers only, because EVERY keyword changes on his sheet.

Edited July 28, 2017 by Beaky Brigade

[Shamansky]

ah, so we have to  take another OoF for Elysians... those writers really need a slap

[TheTrans]

 

I think it's clear in the original, but in the FAQ:

Page 71

– Elysian Drop Troops Army List

Change the final sentence of the first paragraph to read:‘Models that have the Aeronautica Imperialis keywords on their datasheets replace them in all

instances with Elysian Drop Troops

 

So his special rule affects Elysian flyers only, because EVERY keyword changes on his sheet.

 

How so? Don't all Elysians have the <Elysian Drop Troops> ergo they would all benefit from it?

[Shamansky]

 

How so? Don't all Elysians have the <Elysian Drop Troops> ergo they would all benefit from it?

 

 

Elysian flyers would benefit from Elysian OoF only. All other flyers in your army would need their own OoF as the Elisyan one is no longer useful for AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS. Fluff-wise it is logical as long as Elysian aircrafts do not belong to Navy. But it is slightly confusing rule-wise. FW should call Elisyan OoF different, like 'flight officer' or something.

[Feral_80]

Simply put, Elysian Officier of the Fleet gives his bonus to *any* Elysian unit, regardless of them being flyers, infantry, etc. They all have the Elysian keyword, and that's what matters.

It's probably the only way he is worth taking.

[Shamansky]

Simply put, Elysian Officier of the Fleet gives his bonus to *any* Elysian unit, regardless of them being flyers, infantry, etc. They all have the Elysian keyword, and that's what matters.

It's probably the only way he is worth taking.

*AWESOME*

[TheTrans]

Yeah not sure where you where getting the FLY keyword from.... 

[Shamansky]

AERONAUTICA IMPERIALIS consist of Flyers and OoF. As long as we're talking about Indexes. Key word FLY was ment only considering enemy units that cannot be a target of the OoF's abilitiy

Edited August 2, 2017 by Shamansky

[Mitchverr]

Just curious on some of the elysian players thoughts on this, are the elysian infantry worth taking, or should I just form multiple vanguard detatchments for veteran/elite spamming? (as most the interesting things are elite choice it looks like to me)

 

Planning on going 2k or so in the army, so trying to figure if i go with a brigade or just lots of detatchments.

 

 

edit: also, does the marauder destroyer change to elysian like other flyers do?

Edited August 2, 2017 by Mitchverr

[Stylian_StHugh]

Just curious on some of the elysian players thoughts on this, are the elysian infantry worth taking, or should I just form multiple vanguard detatchments for veteran/elite spamming? (as most the interesting things are elite choice it looks like to me)

 

Planning on going 2k or so in the army, so trying to figure if i go with a brigade or just lots of detatchments.

 

 

edit: also, does the marauder destroyer change to elysian like other flyers do?

They aren't bad. Lack of access to Heavy Weapons is annoying, but for 10 points they get Aerial Drop, Krak Grenades and access to the OotF buff. You'll need anchors for Aerial Drop too and they fill that role well. Vets are worth it if you're gonna run quad flamer/heavy flamer in a Valkyrie (plus Move and Shoot order) but it's points heavy  

 

Brigade is super easy to do with Elysians. I'm planning a new Double Brigade at 2k  

 

The Destroyer does not change (and you'd need a normal OotF to buff it). It's powerful but not massively points efficient, particularly if you take the missiles on it. 

[Galron]

I use three for my battalion at 2250. I usually bring them in later in the game for objectives, cleanup, or if another more valuable squad needs rescuing and I think they might be able to do something about it. 2 with grenade launchers and one with a flamer, no other upgrades.

[Galron]

Got my butt handed to me today for the Konor campaign. I had to drop my points a bit which messed with my list and made me leave something valuable out that I later regretted. We played 2k instead of my normal 2250. My opponent was chaos. He fielded 3 daemon princes with wings, 2 of them nurgle, 3 decimator engines with soulburners, a Kytan, 3 rhinos, 1 cultist squad and 2 brimstone squads.

I fielded about 30ish units.

Now the official mission itself screws over any kind of infantry guard since it counts VP by units lost instead of by cost so I knew the only possible way to win was to table him. Also he gained extra VP for killing units with units with 3+ saves(all of his daemons bar the brimstones). First turn wasnt bad for me, one of his decimators put 6 wounds on my valk and I lost a mortar squad. My cyclops and a vulture, plus a DSd missile team dropped two of the decimators and a rhino and I put 5 wounds on the Kytan. Down hill from there. I just didnt have the heavy firepower to do anything to his minimum toughness 6 army with FNP and regen. Turn before the end of the game I fired 2 vultures, 1 valk, 2 mortar squads, one heavy flamer and a full infantry squad at point blank at a daemon prince, not a single wound. We ended it at turn 5. I had all three aircraft who unloaded into his warlord and did a total of 3 wounds. He had all three daemon princes left, all wounded, one decimator, the kytan with 8 wounds and two rhinos and a cultist unit. I had the aircraft, a mortar squad, and my warlord. He actually complained when my cyclops killed a rhino and decimator.

 

Major lack of high strength firepower. 

 

Soulburners are stupidly nasty. 4d3 shots with only having to hit to do mortal wounds? What kind of broken is that?

[Galron]

A glorious victory for the Elysians vs the foul legion of the 1k Sons. A 2250 game had me facing Magnus, Ahriman(should they even be allowed in the same army, Magnus kicked him out for fething up the legion) an exalted sorc, 3 Rubric squads, 2 Tzanagors, and 2 terminator squads. I fielded my typical list although I dropped somethings to add another Cyclops giving me three over my normal two. We did random mission and deployment using the cards giving me the one where characters are worth double victory points. All of my characters together didnt equal Magnus.

 

So he makes a mistake and forms a firebase with Magnus as his only mobile element giving me free reign to drop anywhere I want. I get first turn.  I drop in 2 plasma command squads with a commander within rapid fire range of magnus right along the back line. To make a long story short, they drop him to ten wounds. a lucky krak missile drops him to 6 wounds and next turn a Tauros Venator lascannon him for a full 6 wounds and Magnus returns to the warp. In the meantime I start concentrating fire on the Rubrics with everything else. I killed his exalted on the first turn thanks to deep striking closer to him and for once my Snipers do something and actually roll several 6s to wound throughout the game including 2 on Ahriman. Stupidly hard to get through the Rubric 2+ save(most of my guns are 1 damage) and it didnt help that his leaders while they were alive were letting him reroll 1s.

 

But I had him outgunned and while I lost both missile teams, a tarantula battery, both plasma squads, 2 officers, 2 sentinels, an infantry squad, and a Heavy bolter squad, I tabled him. My mortars reliably killed something everything turn.

 

My real MVPs were my Cyclops. I have a bad feeling they are going to either be nerfed ruleswise or increased pointwise significantly in the near future. They are admittingly fairly broken right now. Between the three last night, 7 rubric marines, 3 rubric terminators, and Ahriman, to add to the previous kill list of 3 steath suits, 10 drones, 1 crisis, 1 Decimator engine, a rhino, and wounding a daemon prince. The latter bunch was only done using a single cyclops in two games. I dont know how many points the 1k sons guys were but I am quite sure each type killed was more than enough to pay for the cyclops.