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This is a 2 part tactical question post. Important things to know is the Army this question is for is an all drop army.

Can some one Mathhammer out the wounds I can expect a Basilisk to rack up per turn?

Second part, Should I take a full platoon of 1 command and 2 line squads armed with 6x plasma, or 2 basilisks?

um... depends what your shooting at for the first

for the second, depends who your playing, but I would almost always go with the command squad, 'except agains necrons or something thats frightened of templates bt doesn't infiltrate or have anti tank.

one question, whats the str and ap on that there Earthshaker?

Earth shaker, with Indirect fire, it can hit any where on the board, so range is never an issue. It's a Str9 ap3 for stats.

It's for an all comers and competitive list.

If I take them they are likely to be placed in reserve to come on with the bulk of my army.

It is impossible to say how many wounds you'll rack up per turn with a basilisk. It is entirely dependent upon how many models are available to be hit. Are they clustered up? Spread out? Large squads? Small? If the shot scatters, is there something else for it to hit? Is your target unit in cover?

Unfortunatly the answer to your math hammer question isn't as easy and just giving you a number. Since the earth shaker will wound on 2+ and negate saves for anything that isn't in terminator armor, you are looking at it killing 83% of whatever it hits outside of cover and 42% of whatever it hits that gets a 4+ cover save. I can also tell you that when firing directly, you'll hit dead on 41.3% of the time and scatter an average of 5 inches other times (with a standard deviation of 2.4 if you care that much). Or if you fire indirectly, you hit 33% of the time and scatter about 7 inches the rest of the time. However, what math hammer can't tell you is how many models you will hit and how exactly scatter will affect how many models you hit. In large squads of spread out guys, scatter won't affect how many hit you get by that much. On the other hand, in small, tightly packed groups, scatter will be a much bigger factor in how many guys you kill.

Hmm. My goal is to gain a bit of insight as to which of these 2 choices is better in an all comers list. The platoon brings, what?, about 3 deaths from the command squad and about 1 from each line squad? So, averages 5 kills a turn? IT can capture objectives, bu give up 4 kill points. And it's close range loving.

Basilisk, if targeting a 10 man MEQ squad with 2" seperation will hit about 4 on a hit, maybe more if it scatters in the gap. Can't capture, but 2 baslisks are worth 2 fewer kill points. And the Lisk can reach out and touch the opponent, forcing him to deal with the threat "hopefully"

This would be a prime example of something that math-hammer is not going to help you with. There are simply too many variables that have nothing to do with die rolls involved here.

In my experience, basiliks have a lot more shock value to them since people inherently fear high strength, low ap, indirect pie plates. On the other hand this makes them major targets that you either have to defend or allow to be destroyed and hope they suck up enough enemy fire power for other elements of your army to live.