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With 6th Ed's current rules regarding flyers and reserves, players wishing to use the Elysian lists with Valkyrie dedicated transports get hosed. What about giving them special rules that allow them to circumvent the main rule book?

Here's what I'd like to see (largely based on IA8's Elysian Rules):

1. Bring back Doctrines to allow you to play different fluff based armies competitively.
2. For regiments such as the Elysians and the Harakoni (both drop troop regiments), allow them to take Valkyries as dedicated transports as in IA8.
3. Restrict them from bringing tanks (including Leman Russes, Basilisks, Chimeras, etc...)
4. Give the option of taking aerial support as Heavy Support choices (IE, Vulture Gunship).
5. When taking Valkyries as Dedicated Transports, give them a special rule similar to Drop Pod Assault, allowing them to bring up to half of their Dedicated Transport Valkyries in on their Turn 1, make a standard flyer move as they arrive (T1 Hover would be disallowed), shoot as if making a "strafing run", and require that any embarked units make a Grav Chute Insertion within 6" of the unit that their Valkyrie targeted during it's attack. Surviving infantry that has just disembarked may shoot as normal, but not assault. This would allow the drop troop player to bring in their aircraft on T1, but at the risk of losing their infantry to mishap, dangerous terrain, etc...
6. Alternatively to #5, all Dedicated Transport Valkyries could use their Scout move to make a true strafing run, disembark their passengers using Grav Chute Insertion as described above, and leave the table to enter ongoing reserves. This would simulate an advanced party coming in to weaken an area for the primary fighting force to arrive. Each turn the Valkyrie arrives from Ongoing Reserves, instead of acting like a standard Flyer, they can only make strafing runs and leave the table. Before Valkyrie shooting is resolved, the opposing player makes an out of sequence shooting attack at the Valkyrie at the cost of forfeiting that unit's next shooting phase. If the Valkyrie is destroyed or otherwise loses it's ability to shoot, it does not get to fire that turn.
7. Give the infantry a Doctrine (as in 4th Ed.), that puts the entire army in Carapice Armor at about 5 points per model. This would give the infantry a bit more survivability without going overkill.
8. Give them a Special Rule/Doctrine that would allow them to waive the Half Force Deployed ruling and the No Models on the Table Victory Condition (provided there are still models in Ongoing or Standard Reserves).
9. I'd save this last one for only if the above becomes OP'd. During the strafing run, an aircraft's BS is reduced by 1 (Possibly even to BS1, not Snap Shots to allow the blast template weapons to be fired. Any blast template fired scatters the full 2D6") to simulate the speed of the aircraft making it more difficult to shoot (since the aircraft IS going faster than other flyers in the game).

I personally feel that this would make a powerful airborne assault army, without it becoming overpowered. Just something that would be competitive AND fluffy.

What do you guys think?

EDIT:
Also, add that the opposing player may choose to shoot each of his units at either a Valkyrie or Grav Chuting infantry. Do this by placing the Valkyrie on the table, for each unit the opposing player chooses to shoot at the Valkyrie, he must roll a D6 to see if that unit spots the aircraft before it shoots and drops it's passengers. On a 5+, the unit may take it's shots at the aircraft. If it is destroyed, follow the Crash and Burn rule. Once all shots are resolved against the Valkyries and Crash and Burn is resolved, the Valkyries may shoot, then follow the Grav Chute insertion rules for the infantry. Once the Grav Chute insertion is resolved, the opposing player may follow the same procedure as for shooting at the Valkyries to shoot at the infantry. Remove the surviving Valkyries from play and place into Ongoing Reserves. Once all of the above is resolved, continue into Seize the Initiative and T1.

I think Doctrines were taken out because the system was cumbersome and difficult to balance; I personally preferred the system put forth in Betrayal wherein your Warlord can have a single rule that can alter your army composition is more elegant and effective. So instead of mixing up a set of Doctrines you'd have a Warlord with the Aerial Regiment rule, which gives you dedicated transport Valkyries, drop Sentinels, Vultures, and the like at the expense of prohibiting the use of any units that are not either Flyers, mounted in Flyers, or deployed by Deep Strike.

I could go for that, as long as you can either a)bring multiple special characters, making more changes to the army per character (like a 2nd character to allow Carapice Armor on all models) or b)the 1 special character brings multiple special rules and changes to the army. With the way newer Codices work, I could see this more likely than a Doctrine system.

The Doctrine system, while being cumbersome for some, provided flexibility and a means to bring an army that fights the way you want it to for others. Doctrines weren't required if you didn't want to use them.

Maybe allow both, Special Characters to make unit level or minor army rule tweaks and a Doctrine system to make more drastic changes. Make it where you bring Special Characters, Doctrines, both, or none. Include it all, and let the player decide what to run.

Why make it so complicated when you can have a nice simple solution? Just add the following army-wide rule to the Elysian list:

Airborne Assault:
Elysian drop troop regiments make extensive use of Valkyrie transports and grav chutes to deploy troops, and often make sudden attacks far from supporting friendly units. Units chosen from the Elysian drop troops do not count towards the maximum 50% of your army that may be placed in reserve. Additionally, if your primary detachment is taken from the Elysian drop troops army list you may choose to make an airborne assault: after you finish deploying, select half of your units in reserve (rounding up) to arrive at the beginning of your first turn. Your remaining reserves arrive as normal.

That would work for using the IA Elysian rules. However, in a non-Forgeworld game (which, BTW, I like your sig), you're stuck w/ Codex: IG and don't have that option without either making it mandatory to allow FW rules in all games just as if it was a codex, reinstating the Doctrine system (or similar system), or creating a Special Character that allows these changes to be made (which I feel a Special Character that would allow that major of a change would be too points heavy to be worthwhile).

Just for fun, I'm (slowly) working on building a Harakoni army based on the IA8 Elysian rules using Valkyries as Dedicated Transports. My 2k (once collected and assembled) will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 Valkyries.

If you're going to allow house rules then why don't you just add the house rule "I use my IA8 Elysian list" instead of making up something more complicated? I can't imagine a game where you're allowed to use house rules and make up your own characters, but you can't use a FW army list.

House rules are fine and dandy when your at your normal venue. However, if you go visit a friend in another locale who plays and their local meta is nothing but tournament play and practice/test games for tournament play, FW lists are not allowed unless there are some gamers there that would allow it. I feel you shouldn't have to have opponents permission to use FW lists, but you generally do since it's non-codex material.

In the 3rd/4th Ed IG codex, there was a system of Doctrines that allowed you to bring a regiment of your choosing based on that system to ANY game because it was part of the codex. Within the system, you could custom tailor your regiment with up to 5 Doctrines (there's a list of available Doctrines in the codex) or run with one of several pre-established Regiments that had their Doctrines pre-selected.

With this system, you're not just using house rules and making up your own characters (though there was an armory where you could select the weapons of your choice plus wargear that could add/alter special rules for the officer, such as the Medallion Crimson that essentially gave Eternal Warrior to the bearer). You're using pre-set rules where you can either a) play a pre-set regiment such as the Harakoni or Mordians, b) customize a regiment to fight like a known regiment that is not defined in the codes, such as the Vostroyan Firstborn, or c) create your own regiment using the pre-defined Doctrines and write your own fluff to explain the Doctrines.

For example, you could bring the Harakoni with the following Doctrines (keep in mind that the full codex was not available if you chose to use Doctrines. To bring 1 of 10 specialized units, you had to spend a Doctrine to be able to bring them):

Drop Troops - Allows the entire army (minus vehicles with the exception of Sentinels) to Deep Strike if the mission allowed the Deep Strike USR.

Storm Trooper Squads - Allows the use of Storm Trooper Squads in the army.

Carapice Armor - Upgrades a unit's armor from Flak Armor to Carapice Armor at 20 points per unit (2 points per model in a 10 man unit)

Heavy Weapons Platoons - Allows the use of Heavy Weapons Platoons in the army.

Special Weapons Squads - Allows the use of Special Weapons Squads in the army.

Using this system, there were a virtually unlimited number of viable regiments you could run. Each of which fights in a different style than the next, and can still fight effectively when using the proper tactics for the selected doctrines.

The idea of my OP was to put rules in the codex to allow regiments to play by the fluff, and do so to a point where they can stand up in most games, and be fully legal w/o opponent's permission using either a Doctrine type system or using Special Characters to change/add rules to the army to allow them to do so.

Don't get me wrong, I love the ForgeWorld stuff and have no problem playing against FW lists. It's just that you can't always play using a FW list.

 mydartswinger wrote:
The idea of my OP was to put rules in the codex to allow regiments to play by the fluff, and do so to a point where they can stand up in most games, and be fully legal w/o opponent's permission using either a Doctrine type system or using Special Characters to change/add rules to the army to allow them to do so.

Except that's still a house rule, since you aren't GW and don't have the power to edit the codex. So what's the point of this thread? If your goal is to have something that you can use without FW or house rules then you just have to deal with the flawed codex, and this thread is pointless.