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Hi all,

I went to a fun local tournament this last weekend and had a blast with my elysian guard list. The field was spikey but not unreasonable. I brought along 9 fliers and assumed that I'd be on the meaner end of the spectrum, but found myself very vulnerable and struggling in two of my three games. I was hoping other folks could weigh in on how to run and how to use the drop troops.

I had 3 games, one against forgeworld bikespam orks, one against 14 drop pods, and one against a chaos army which ended up being pretty one sided in my favor. The scenarios were victory points (orks), objective controlling (pods), and table quarters (chaos). The Orks game was lost because I dropped out of zooming too soon and could not do enough damage to the 900 point bikestar. The pod game was lost because I had to drop out of zooming to contest objectives and even then, did not have enough different sources of firepower to remove 2 pods and 10 marines from each of the 6 objectives in order to claim them, resulting in lots of contested objectives, but since he had all 6 and I contested only 3-4 or so at a time, I was fighting an uphill battle from the get-go.

For reference, I was using a skyshield for improved comms, 4*10 veterans in valkyries with plasma guns, 2*command squads in vendettas, a vulture with punisher cannons, and 2 avenger strike fighters.

My idea is to use the guard in an aggressive manner, operating at the 12-24" range to secure objectives and push my plan, rather than reacting to the enemy. Because of this desire, I feel that the super-mobile Elysians are a solid way to go. In my games, I found myself very vulnerable and having to choose between firepower, objectives points, and durability in a way that kept me from effectively concentrating my firepower in the manner I thought I'd be able to. Basically, any time one of my fliers came down into hover mode, I had to write it off as a casualty almost immediately due to high rates of fire getting into rear armor or more commonly, assault troops walking over and punching it out of the sky.

So why drop out of zooming? Because zooming fliers can't claim objectives and the grav chute insertion rule is unreliable and can result in guys being dropped out of range of orders (12") or double tap range. Additionally, when zooming the veterans can't shoot at anything, wasting potential damage. Finally, zooming fliers have problems with target selection and can't negate cover so require the vets to jump out to get anything meaningful done to bike spam.

Overall, it felt like I was at a distinct disadvantage because my opponents did not have to chose between firepower, mobility, and resilience while I had to. Is this true of Elysians in general or just the list I was running? What factors should I weigh when making choices in games and how can I best set up my situation both tactically and in army set up to make those choices easier/less both bad options?

I suppose I don't really have a solid grasp on what the goals and expectations of this kind of army are. I find that I expect too much offensively from my plasma vets, and this results in them getting into situations where they can't eliminate enough threats to be safe from the counterattack that comes in and takes out either them or their rides. So my fundamental idea of using fliers to concentrate special weapons seems flawed because of the time it takes to get out, shoot, mount up, and zoom off to safety is greater than the time most armies require to zip over and punch out the hovering fliers and/or dudes on the ground.

What are the alternatives for the style of gameplay that I'm after? I feel like the goal is good, but the execution is lacking both in terms of game choices and list choices.

Thanks all!

Firstly, I don't know elysians well.
But I think you are very unlucky: to my mind the drop pod list is really good at this kind of objectives games, because every drop is 3 obsec units;
and the bikerstar is good in kill point team (less KP to you, good Toughness, godd in killing, etc...).

So these games were a bit biased...

What about the avengers, are they good ?

Let's see what more experimented players will say !