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I'm planning on starting a Traitor Guard army for friendly games, something unusual, fun to play, and most importantly heavy on scratchbuilds & conversions. To that effect I've decided on using the Elysian Drop-Troops list from IA8. Everyone in my group likes to use "just-crazy-enough-to-work?" type lists (and combat drugs ), so I'm not looking to make a hyper-competitive army, but I don't exactly want to get power-fisted either. I've read some of the posts here regarding IG, but I can't find too much info on Drop Troops in 6th. So being clueless about running T3 armies I have several questions for the seasoned Guard players here:

-Given the terrible choice of heavy weapons available to drop troops (no auto/lascannons), is it worth taking heavy weapons teams at all? I want to take a cheap infantry platoon to start on the board and camp objectives in my deployment zone, but I'm unsure what to give them other than flamers and a commy. Long-Range Ground Scanners seem ridiculously overpriced for a single guardsman without any survivability-improving gear...

-Drop Sentinels: are they any good as part of an infantry platoon? The fact that they're scoring makes them look a lot less mediocre. I'd probably have them with multi-melta's and possibly camo nets (?).

-Since Veterans have deep strike, would it be reasonably viable to use triple plas/melta squads almost like scoring stormies, that is aggressively DS'ing on my opponents side (possibly assisted by homing beacons) to pop rear armour or claim objectives/linebreaker? Or is it basically manditory that vets deploy in a Valk?

-Tauros Venators: they look epic and I'd love to convet a few, has anyone here had success with them? It seems like maybe 2 or 3 w/ TL lascannons would be good for suicidal outflanking shenannigans...

-Cyclops: these look like a cheap, fun substitute for demo vets/Marbo. Could they possibly be a decent anti-termie unit (demo charges are AP2 aren't they)?

-And finally, what are the most points-effective HS unit? I'm leaning towards either Thunderbolts or Vultures...

Well, thanks for reading my rambling, long-winded post. I'm aiming for 1500-2k points, and my opponents play BA, Ultramarines, and Dark Angels. Any constructive criticism and advice would be greatly appreciated, and please keep insults and slurs to an acceptable minimum

Don't bother yet. We're still waiting for the 6th edition update to the list (coming "soon" since a week after 6th was released), and who knows what that might change. For example, FW have mentioned giving them a drop pod style rule where half your army arrives on turn 1, so that would make a "start on the table" platoon redundant. Or maybe they won't get that rule and you'll want to keep the platoon. Who knows.

I see. Thanks for the heads up, perhaps I'll just use the regular IG 'dex for now...

My traitor guard just use the regular IG codex. If you want to wait for the update to the Elysians, start working of some of the conversions you have plenty to do, and will be pretty much the same regardless of rules: ie, guardsmen. How your basic troops look is much more important in a guard army than in say, a marine army.

Elysian lists are TONS of fun to play (If not all that "tournament competitive").

The Tauros is a great vehicle (with TL Lascannons) and for Drop Sentinals multi-meltas are a must.

Special weapons squads are good as they have lots of special weapons for cheep and can deep strike right in enemy territory. They don't hit as well as vets but they have a smaller foot print when deep striking so are a bit less prone to mishaps.

Also you can spam some of the best flyers in 40k right now so why not do that