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Hi All

I have recently been reading the imperial armour books and have been thinking about starting a new army for ages after my deathwing. I was wondering what are the pros and cons of both of these armies including price for an average army (1500 points) and any thing else really.

Thanks

Elysians will be mor expensive, but you'll be able to ally with your Deathwing, so thats that.

That depends. If you're going to use the FW Elysian infantry and not just the rules, don't even ask how much it'll cost, the answer is $$$$$$$$$$$. On the other hand, if you use generic IG models then your expensive models will be limited to the pile of Valkyries and other aircraft you need to buy.

The main problem with the Elysians is that the drop troops army list was broken by 6th edition. The limits on how many units you can hold in reserve and automatic loss if you have nothing on the table (even if you have 1500 points in reserve about to arrive) killed the old all-reserve list, and once you have to deploy on the table Elysians are weaker than normal IG. Allies are almost mandatory, whether a non-Elysian force to deploy at the start of the game and hold the table, or taking Elysian allies in a conventional army.

are drop troops compeditive at all now? how did they used to play and were they effective then? I think i may ally with my deathwing and then use them, so its sorta fuffy and a good excuse to play them, though tyranids is still an option. Chances are within 10 years ill have both anyway

 bobtheoverlord wrote:
are drop troops compeditive at all now?

Probably not. The main appeal was the all-Valkyrie army, and the 6th edition reserve rules killed it. You get some decent units, but you're probably going to be better off taking standard IG with Vendettas/Vultures/drop Sentinels/etc than the actual drop troops list. Or, in large games, you might benefit from taking drop troop allies to add the extra FOC slots to, say, take 2x single Vendettas and 2x Vultures.

how did they used to play and were they effective then?

They used to be awesome because you could take nothing but Valkyrie/Vendetta squads (usually melta/plasma vets), hold everything in reserve, and deliver a powerful alpha strike anywhere on the table. Or, if you were going first, you could start the gunships on the table and use your scout move to get turn 1 charges with vet squads armed with 10x melta bombs each (and multi-charge 2-3 vehicles per squad). Sure you were squishy, but with that kind of firepower guaranteed to get the first shot it didn't really matter. And with 10+ aircraft on the table you had as much AV 12 saturation as a Chimera spam list.

would a deathwing/drop troop list be viable? with all of the flyer rules i think that maybe 2-3 squads of terminators supported by the drop troops could work, using the same tactics as Peregrine mentioned before, just demolishing everything

 Peregrine wrote:
The main problem with the Elysians is that the drop troops army list was broken by 6th edition. The limits on how many units you can hold in reserve and automatic loss if you have nothing on the table (even if you have 1500 points in reserve about to arrive) killed the old all-reserve list, and once you have to deploy on the table Elysians are weaker than normal IG. Allies are almost mandatory, whether a non-Elysian force to deploy at the start of the game and hold the table, or taking Elysian allies in a conventional army.

If I read correctly, units that naturally have Deep Strike or Outflank do not count toward your reserve limit. And as a player with a Harkoni Warhawks army (who went from 4th to Imperial Armor), it's not as bad as it seems. I haven't read the full Imperial Armor update for 6th, but I'm going to wager that there's an addendum to that rule. If there isn't, a House Rule can easily prevent crap like that from happening.

I run two small squadrons of Tauros Scout Vehicles and they seem to hold up long enough for everything to fall from the sky.

I've never resorted to consorting with Allies just to get my Warhawks down...

I have an elysian army from Forgeworld and can confirm that they are masses of fun to play.

I offer the following advice....based upon quite a few games with them....

1) Infantry Platoons are good. Tool them up with Demo Charges and they can be truly devastating.

2) Storm Troopers are ok for an Elites choice, the double plasma with forward observers can surprise people. Likewise the Airbourne Assault deep strike with double meltas can hurt.

3) My experiences with multi melta sentinels arent great, they only hit on 4+ and I have seen it go to waste - although the time it did work I smashed a land raider.

4) My experiences with Heavy bolter sentinels are good, attach them to the infantry platoon.

5) Tauros is quite nice, outflank with HK missile and missile launcher FTW - no experience of the Venator as I dont have any.

6) Vulture gunship is win (bring 2) the heavy 20 with vector dancer can really lay down some hurt.

7) All flyer list on 6x4 table is actually quite cumbersome and not as much fun as you might expect. They are clunky to use in squadrons and can sometimes be difficult to get shots off when in flyer mode.

8) Veterans are good new, triple melta, triple plasma work well. You can give them infiltrate as well which is nice.

9) My favourite list which I have had some success with is a balanced one - be prepared to put the time and £££ in to get at least one infantry platoon in your case

10) Orders work lovely if you deep strike down with your command HQ - homing beacons can be fitted to a few things and work well

And finally I suggest........be prepared to spend some money. I spent about £600 at Forgeworld - plus eight valks from GW. It is not an army to do on a budget, however, I can confirm they are great to use.

Good luck.

Thanks for that lovepug. I'll keep a lot of what you said in mind. How do you drop the platoon in, do you just use a squadron of Valkyries? Also could you please posts a 750 and 1500 list up in the list section or something so I can have a look what you bring. Also I can see there is a huge amount of anti-armor, but what type of anti-infantry do the troops have?

Hi,

I will try to answer your questions as best as I can......

Ok so I normally field an infantry platoon with 2-3 ten man squads. I deep strike them in. One roll is for the whole platoon. So I attach a unit of sentinels with them. Demo charge and Melta is normal load out. Melta on platoon command squad as well.

I deep strike them in. Try to get a homing beacon on the board.......Forward observers doctrine on veteran squad with camo cloaks, company commander or Tauros can work well.

Valkyries are dedicated transports in the list, Vendettas potentially (depending on number) need to be squadron based.

Anti infantry is demo charge, heavy bolters, punisher cannons on vultures, Multiple rocket pods on valks. las guns backed up my HQ orders. The army can deal with armour and infantry.

The problem is that guardmen are really fragile (and drop troopers even more so), you can end up removing half your army in one turn if you are not careful.

However, there are the games when you drop down a combination of veterans, storm-troopers, and infantry platoons and you can seriously ruin your opponents day.

I remember an ally game I played in where my demo charges ruined a blobbed Blood Angels army....WIN!

As for lists.....I will tell you what I used at 1250 the other evening against some friends.......I allied with the previously mentioned BA player lol

1 x Command HQ, Power Fist, Plasma Pistol

1 x Infantry Platoon - double demo, melta for each squad, 2 x sentinels attached

3 x veterans - triple melta

1 x stormtroopers - double plas

1 x stormtroopers - double melta

1 x tauros,homing beacon

2 x sentinel heavy bolter

1 x vluture gunship - punisher cannons

Hope it helps a bit? I am happy to stay in touch by PM or do a few battle reports for you if thats any good?

 KplKeegan wrote:
If I read correctly, units that naturally have Deep Strike or Outflank do not count toward your reserve limit.

Nope. Only units which MUST start the game in reserve, or units which start the game embarked on a transport that MUST start the game in reserve. If you have a choice of starting on the table you count for the 50% limit.

I haven't read the full Imperial Armor update for 6th, but I'm going to wager that there's an addendum to that rule. If there isn't, a House Rule can easily prevent crap like that from happening.

There is no such rule. There is hope that one may be added if/when the drop troops list is updated for 6th, but there has been no official hints that it might happen.

And sure, you can add a house rule, if you can find someone willing to allow you to make a house rule for the sake of making your army more powerful. I could also make a house rule that all of my units can take Vendettas as dedicated transports, or that all of my lasguns are STR 10 AP 1. However, we should deal with the actual rules of 40k that will be used in a standard game of 40k, not our own personal house rules.

i think what i will end up doing is a sort of an IA4 scene with the drop troops vs tyranids eg having gaunts dead on the bases of valkyries and guardsmen dead on the bases of MC's. Anyway that will be modelling.
As far as a list goes i think ill begin with a small detachment of drop troops for my deathwing. I was looking through their codex (i want to use that as much as i can) and found a whole bunch of weapons i didn't know the stats for such as a lascutter. Where can i find these details? I will also end up making the list more fluffy than compeditive, but i think it shouldn't be too hard to get both

Note that the list in IA4 is obsolete and no longer valid, you'll need to get IA8 for the correct list.

 Peregrine wrote:

 bobtheoverlord wrote:
are drop troops compeditive at all now?

Probably not. The main appeal was the all-Valkyrie army, and the 6th edition reserve rules killed it. You get some decent units, but you're probably going to be better off taking standard IG with Vendettas/Vultures/drop Sentinels/etc than the actual drop troops list. Or, in large games, you might benefit from taking drop troop allies to add the extra FOC slots to, say, take 2x single Vendettas and 2x Vultures.

how did they used to play and were they effective then?

They used to be awesome because you could take nothing but Valkyrie/Vendetta squads (usually melta/plasma vets), hold everything in reserve, and deliver a powerful alpha strike anywhere on the table. Or, if you were going first, you could start the gunships on the table and use your scout move to get turn 1 charges with vet squads armed with 10x melta bombs each (and multi-charge 2-3 vehicles per squad). Sure you were squishy, but with that kind of firepower guaranteed to get the first shot it didn't really matter. And with 10+ aircraft on the table you had as much AV 12 saturation as a Chimera spam list.

To make up for the reserve rule; you can inflitrate plasma storm troopers; ally with ratlings, keep HWT's on the ground, deploy sentry turrets or just keep a few units on the table.

I'm not too sure on this one rule(due to GW's awkward wording) but I believe that since a squad can take a Valkyrie as a dedicated transport and run that transport as a flyer, niether unit counts for the reserve limit; but do keep a few units on the table; remember that plasma stormtroopers are now slightly better b/c of the new rapid fire rule

oh i didn't mean use that list, i meant base my models on them. I know i kind of changed subjects half way, sorry.
Also i find the wording quite clear in the rule book. pg 124 'Units that must start in the game in reserves are ignored for the purposes of working out how many units may do so. A unit and its dedicated transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes' Valkyries must start in reserves so the all reserves list still works
can anyone help me with a data sheet with all elysian drop troop weapons?

PresidentOfAsia wrote:
To make up for the reserve rule; you can inflitrate plasma storm troopers; ally with ratlings, keep HWT's on the ground, deploy sentry turrets or just keep a few units on the table.

Well, the problem with that strategy is that the more you have on the table the less of an Elysian list you have and the closer you are to just codex IG with a couple Valkyries. And if you stick as close as possible to the Elysian concept then you're not deploying enough to reliably avoid the automatic turn 1 loss. It's possible to resolve the issue, but only at the cost of giving up everything that made the Elysian list unique in 5th.

I'm not too sure on this one rule(due to GW's awkward wording) but I believe that since a squad can take a Valkyrie as a dedicated transport and run that transport as a flyer, niether unit counts for the reserve limit; but do keep a few units on the table; remember that plasma stormtroopers are now slightly better b/c of the new rapid fire rule

It's covered by the dedicated transport rule, and even more explicitly covered by the main rulebook FAQ. A unit which is deployed on a transport (dedicated or otherwise) which must start the game in reserve doesn't count against the limit.

The problem with the 50% limit comes in because all Elysian units can deep strike. In 5th you could take the Valkyries and then add stuff like deep striking drop Sentinels or 3x demo charge SWS, but in 6th for every unit like that you take you have to take another unit that starts the game on the table.

 bobtheoverlord wrote:
oh i didn't mean use that list, i meant base my models on them. I know i kind of changed subjects half way, sorry.
Also i find the wording quite clear in the rule book. pg 124 'Units that must start in the game in reserves are ignored for the purposes of working out how many units may do so. A unit and its dedicated transport are counted as a single unit for these purposes' Valkyries must start in reserves so the all reserves list still works
can anyone help me with a data sheet with all elysian drop troop weapons?

http://www.scribd.com/doc/89794412/40K-Fandex-Elysian-Drop-Army-List

Since this is a fandex(but the entries seem identical to IA 8 so I don't know if its legal or not, but since I've seen other fandexes on this forum that uses identical unit entries to the Imperial Guard, I don't think it should cause any problems)

However, it might be a nice place to start

ok thanks, as far as the reserves issue goes i think maybe a few turrets hidden in the corner and maybe a few tauros should keep me alive for turn 1 and after that ill just put everything in a valk


Automatically Appended Next Post:
the fandex does look like a copy of the IA8 with a bunch of supplements and is nice and compact, but it still doesn't have a table of contents at the back with all the weapon stats and stuff which is what im really after

 bobtheoverlord wrote:
ok thanks, as far as the reserves issue goes i think maybe a few turrets hidden in the corner and maybe a few tauros should keep me alive for turn 1 and after that ill just put everything in a valk

I reccomend NOT taking a command squad and instead take A company command Tauros(Captain Garek) for your HQ choice; mainly because Elysian Command squads lack the ability to take 4 special weapons which made the vanilla IG codex CCS magical; also Tauros look freakin awesome and are a great break from painting Valkyries

there's an option for that!? its not in IA8

 bobtheoverlord wrote:
there's an option for that!? its not in IA8

It's one of the campaign special characters. It isn't part of the general army list, and is only allowed in specific campaign missions.

On the other hand, it's a reasonably balanced option, so in a friendly game you could probably convince your opponent to let you use it anyway.

oh right. I'll have to find out about that.

PS. Still no weapon summary?

I tend to start with Taurus, sentinels and infiltrating stormtroopers and veterans for the start on the board.

The command car is ok but you will need those orders from command squad. The command car rules are on page 199 and is campaign specific.

No offence but don't be leaving home without the command squad, those orders are essential for a blob squad......although less so for a veteran list......

Let me know how you guys get on with the elysians.

And remember "from the skies"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The fan dex is basically imp arm 8 formatted differently....

Rules for las cutter on page eleven, although they have never really worked out for me


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The fan dex is basically imp arm 8 formatted differently....

Rules for las cutter on page eleven, although they have never really worked out for me

 bobtheoverlord wrote:
Hi All

I have recently been reading the imperial armour books and have been thinking about starting a new army for ages after my deathwing. I was wondering what are the pros and cons of both of these armies including price for an average army (1500 points) and any thing else really.

Thanks

Don't have any experience with the drop troops specifically, so can't answer to that except on price. If you use FW minis expect the price of the force to be at least 1.5 times the base cost to buy all plastic cadians. The minis *are* nice to look at though. I did a fully converted chaos renegades army which only used conversion parts and it was painfully expensive, but my wife has just walked out and I had spare cash and figured, ahh what the heck. Here almost 2 years later I am only just finishing getting the last units built for the army. Hehehehe...

Biggest pro for the drop troops is that you can start it as an allied contingent for your deathwing so that you can start playing them right away once you have an HQ and at least 1 unit. That enables you to build up slowly and include your slowly growing number of units in as allies for the deathwing as you get them. Saves up front costs.

As for 'nids, I love them. Many people dis them because they aren't "competitive", but they are definitely fun to play and have many very cool models in the range that can be built up in different ways for different uses. 'Nids have a lot of flexibility for development encouraging any type from force from the massive hordes of gribblies swarm lists up to the godzilla type lists full of huge monstrous creatures. Monstrous creatures did get some buffs in 6th edition that will help them be even better.

Only real negative for the 'nids is that they are not one of the strongest shooty armies on the table, and shooting is very big in 6th ediiton now. You need to make sure that you have enough models on the table to get into melee with your opponet *and* provide enough fire support to enable them to get into melee in the first place. It can be tough depending on your opponent. Aside from winged critters 'nids also don't have a lot of extra options against flyers, but that doesn't really make them unique in anyway. Oops two negatives, can't use them as allies with the Deathwing so will need at least 1 HQ and 2 troops before you can play them and will need to invest a lot more up front to play them at all in any bigger games.

Overall the elysians will likely be a smaller and more specialized army, while the 'nids tend to be bigger forces overall, unless relying heavily on monstrous creatures. Deciding whether you want to paint more military looking models or a bunch of critters will also help in your decision making.

Skriker

PS....dont get the tyranids

From the skies brother lol

 Peregrine wrote:

I want to insult you so badly every time you talk, but I would probably get banned if I said anything close to what you deserve. So instead I'll go with a simpler explanation. You arent really a bad person, you were just traumatized as a child on opposite day and have been stuck in a reverse world ever since

Little bit random.....what did he say lol

 Peregrine wrote:


And sure, you can add a house rule, if you can find someone willing to allow you to make a house rule for the sake of making your army more powerful. I could also make a house rule that all of my units can take Vendettas as dedicated transports, or that all of my lasguns are STR 10 AP 1. However, we should deal with the actual rules of 40k that will be used in a standard game of 40k, not our own personal house rules.

Ah I see....I read back through the thread and felt some negatives were highlighted, therefore I would suggest to potential drop troop commanders the following:

6th has not broken the Elysians
the Forgeworld list can be expensive - but you get what you pay for and few people actually have this army (IMO)
Drop troops can be competitive
And you wont need to take allies.....

FW can be expensive but Purchase it in blocks and you will be fine.

I have included a link to some photos, I have added to these models with special & heavy weapon teams and a vulture gunship with Punisher Cannons but you should get the idea......

http://s1221.photobucket.com/albums/dd475/Lovepug13/

I also have my second platoon in production so another 25 men from the skies lol

I will try to spin a battle report at some point if there is enough interest?

Edited by AgeOfEgos