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I have decided to run the Airborne Formation in the book, as it is not only pretty sweet to get all 4x Valkyries on the table in one turn, but also allows me the potential to mix and match allies with this army, which is definitely a good thing as I can mix things up whenever I want to. That being said, the formation comes with: Commissar, 3x Scion Squads (will be 10x man squads), a Command Squad, and 4x Valkyries standard. The Valkyries each will have a Lascannon and Rocket Pods base, however I am still debating on whenever it would be worth it to run Melta's or Plasma with the Scion Squads and the Command Squad. Was considering giving the Scion Squads Plasma and the Command Squad Melta's, however some people think more Melta is the way to go in this edition. Basically, asking for advice on whenever Melta's or Plasam Guns are the way to go for squads mounted in Valkyrie Gunships? Appreciate all the help I can get as I am just starting 40k again after a long hiatus and need to catch up with what is competitive in this edition and what is not.

I'm personally hoping to achieve some nice things with a role-ified loadouts for my units. Given that all scions can deep strike, I was going to put pairs of plasmas on my 10 man squads for dealing with MCs, termies and missilesides while kitting my command squads with multiple volley guns for maximum firepower to grant my scions weight of ranged fire support while dropping two or three 5-man two melta suicide squads through deep strike on the backs/sides of enemy tanks. At 90pts they're pretty expendable and if in Melta range, they have a sweet chance to blow the vehicle up.

200% effectiveness if you roll 4 on the warlord trait(D6 scatter for all Scions).

As for the valkyrie mounted troops.. given the point cost of a valkyrie and the scions themselves, I think you will not be that numerous, so those few additional rapid fire TL plasma shots would give you some more weight of fire and at BS4 they will hurt the enemy.

That being said I'd either go all plasma and have dedicated melta units, or try 2:1 plasma-melta squad ratio(Twin-Linked melta dropped correctly can hurt stuff too) but I'd keep my command squads safe so they can act as force multiplier rather than specialized units as there are some sweet orders in this minicodex!

I feel like plasma is the way to go. 4+ save keeps them from dying as often when the guns overheat, and it synergizes better with their Hellguns. They serve better as dedicated heavy infantry hunters that way.

2 with plasma 1 with melta and flamers on the command section.

Would really depend on what you're going up against, and if your MT is the main war-fighters in your army. If you're up against heavy infantry, as Brother SRM suggested, then plasma is the way to go. Against Knights or other armor, with or without tracks, meltas should be in abundance, especially if you're going to DS right into their grill.

Might want to consider having a dedicated anti-armor melta squad if you're going for a TAC list, though also depends on who and what you're allying with.

Klerych's build sounds about how I would go with it in a TAC build, flexible enough to deal with MEQ and vehicles, and if allying in standard IG, enough infantry to bring weight of fire to pretty much anything left on the table.

I'd probably generally be running them with 2 plasmas, the only time you'll want to run meltas is as 5 man suicide deep strike squads.

That said, the potential of a Scion command squad with 4 Hotshot Volley Guns spitting out 16 BS4 S4 AP3 shots at 24" sounds fun.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'd probably generally be running them with 2 plasmas, the only time you'll want to run meltas is as 5 man suicide deep strike squads.

That said, the potential of a Scion command squad with 4 Hotshot Volley Guns spitting out 16 BS4 S4 AP3 shots at 24" sounds fun.

And how would you do that? You have to be 24'' from the enemy and not move (no deepstike no disembark). Why do you think that the enemy will not shoot your 5-man unit?

 Lothar wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'd probably generally be running them with 2 plasmas, the only time you'll want to run meltas is as 5 man suicide deep strike squads.

That said, the potential of a Scion command squad with 4 Hotshot Volley Guns spitting out 16 BS4 S4 AP3 shots at 24" sounds fun.

And how would you do that? You have to be 24'' from the enemy and not move (no deepstike no disembark). Why do you think that the enemy will not shoot your 5-man unit?

You are correct in that you only get that firepower if you don't move/disembark, and that command squads often will get shot to piss. That said, the same is true of the latter no matter what you equip command squads with, Scions or otherwise, Volleyguns or otherwise. IG command squads have been that way since, well, ever. Nothing new there. You deal with that like one always has.

There are ways you can mitigate the command squad being the first thing to get shot to piss (putting something else in a more threatening position to an opponent is one, using transports to block LoS, etc). Such a command squad behind an aegis line with a couple other Scion squads while one's Valkyrie formation comes in could be pretty gnarly.

IG command squads were able to sit tight in transports and then disembark and shoot. You cant do that with scions voleygun...