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Hello all. I am currently an EDT player and am looking for some advice.

My current Elysian force for is 2 Commanders, 26 Plasma Gun Troops, and 18 Lasgun troops. I have 10 Cyclops Demolition Vehicles and 4 Vultures.
I
'm worried about my ability to crack heavy armor. (Lots of heavy duty targets in the meta here Baneblades, Bio-titans, Leviathan Dreds, Falchions, Imperial Knights, etc.) What do you consider the best way to deal with things like this.

I have been considering branching into a 2nd Guard regiment to create an artillery battery with lots of Earthshakers or even picking up a Trio of Baneblades (Likely to run as Shadowsword variant) to deal with this issue. What has everyone here found to be most effective? What other suggestions would you recommend for expanding my Elysian force.

The plasma guns are good for it if you have a way to re-roll hit rolls of 1, Overcharge will have you wounding on 4+.

You'll probably have a hard time justifying a Shadowsword in an Elysian list, even if it is basically the final word in superheavy murder.

The Vendetta is good AT for Elysians though, 6 flying lascannons with 14 T7/3+ wounds to protect them all for 230 points. Especially if you can convince your group that as a Valkyrie variant, it should benefit from the codex's update to the Valkyrie hover rule that lets it fire on the move without penalty while hovering. It's a lot of eggs in one basket, but with an average cost just under 40 points per lascannon it's a cheaper way to deploy them than Sentinels. In fact I think the HWS might be the only cheaper lascannon platform we have on a per-gun basis.

Have you considered some Psykers for Smite?

Volcano Cannon. It's the weapon for the job. You can also get four lascannons to go along with it.

Of course, that's not the only option.

Deepstriking scion command squads with plasmaguns can crack armor with the best of them.

Cadian lascannons are really good at long range. Re-rolling all failed hits does wonders.

If your enemies' armor tend to come near you, consider giving one command squad meltaguns. I've been happy with mine, even if they're not so "point and click" like plasma scion command squads.

I've been running scion command squads with plasma and to be honest to take down anything with 8+ wounds I need two 4man squads to reliably kill stuff. And then they end up dead the next turn. Now if you need to take out a bunch of terminators they're your man To bad no one runs terminators anymore...

Cadian Lascannon weapon squads hitting on 3s rerolling all hits with take aim and with Creed, Sgt Kell, STT, and Laurels of Command they are probably rerolling wound rolls of 1.

No need for heavy weapons to crack 8+ toughness. Astropath for 15 pts with psychic maelstrom. No need to wound, no sv roll against it.

Heavy Bolters, oddly.

Against a leman russ (for example) HWT Heavy bolters are only paying 56 points per wound average, before any augmentations of which HBolter teams can receives just ever so many.

HWT lascannons pay an eye watering 93 points per wound (not damage) average, whilst krak missile launchers are at a prostate disturbing 156

I personally rely on Manticores when the SHTs are not about, as they're a smidge cheaper than lascannons on average wounds (80), but have the happy benefit of indirect fire and better defence.

It is my firm belief in fact, that the heavy bolter is the king of 8th because it combines adequate strength that nothing short of a titan is getting wounded on 6+, has plenty of shots, good range, AP which is enough to make a difference in many instances and is dirt cheap.

Hell you can easily fit 90 heavy bolters in under 1.5k, with plenty of space left over for biscuits and gravy (detachments and synergy).

90 HBolters do an average of 45 saves, or effectively 2 fully dead russes every turn at range 36. Tone it down to factor in synergy and other things in your army and you can probably vape tanks with 20 hbolters, while keeping your army theme going given how cheap they are.

Scion Battalion
2x Tempestor Prime, 1 with Laurels of Command
2x Scion CCS 4x PG
3x Scion Squad 2x PG 1xPP

Drop down as needed, but for maximum damage, the Laurels Tempestor, 2x CCS, and one of the Troops Scions. Give out 3 orders to re-roll 1's after using the Inspired Tactics strategem. Then use Laurels on a 4+ for each of those squads to give them Elimination Protocols.

If you made all three 4+ Laurels rolls (worth a CP re-roll even to make sure it happens on at least one of the CCS) you're putting out 20 STR 8 AP-3 2D shots re-rolling 1's that on average generate an additional 3-4 shots from the Scion doctrine and re-roll all wounds on Vehicles and Monsters. Also, an additional Plasma shot for the Pistol but that one doesn't generate new hits because it's not at half range.

If you really need something dead, you can drop in the other two squads with the second Tempestor, but at that point, the target needs to be a superheavy to make it worth the points investment.

What platform are you running all those heavy bolters?

What kind of games are running that you regularly run into bio-titans and Falchions? Anyway, the Shadowsword.