I have almost all the older lists. Which ones do you want?

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Some thoughts and suggestioms
The Elysians are 'weak Marines' so ought to have similar flexibility in their transport and weaponry, but poorer capabilities and armour. They make up the deficiencies through their flexible upgrade choices

Company upgrades
I have no problems with giving them a variety of weapons including morters. These would be light weapons so 45cm range max, while the Mortar company has heavy weapons so 30cm indirect (they should br less powerfull than Whirlwinds).

Perhaps the Vendetta could have the following stats to distinguish it from the Valkyrie and Vulture while also providing the missing airbourne capability
"Aircraft LV 30cm"
Notes "Planetfall transport (2)"
These will allow the formation they upgrade to arrive as air transport but their vulnerability and the consolidation rule make it unlikly they will get to disengage. More importantly this approach makes use of existing rules.

The IG must have access to space cruisers. Perhaps these could be introduced with stats matching the SM ones and carry 20 infantry or sentinels and suffient Vendettas or drop pods to deploy them for 200 points.

Finally formation numbers is the key to the list. Working on an average of 15 formations or 200 points each the current costs seem fairly close. Support Sentinels (including the scout variety) could be tried at 125 but I am not convinced on the Lightning pairs though these might also work. The list already forces some hard tradeoffs between numbers and hitting power and only needs a little tweek to provide resilience and variety.

I think SR3 would be warranted and it should be relatively easy to test and see if it has a large effect or not on the "power" of the list.

The "many but fragile fms" feel seems to fit the idea of a lightly armoured and equipped airborne army. They shouldn't be able to stand up to much attrition, so a decline in effective fms over the course of the game fits the feel and is part of the challenge. I think that should feed into the size of the units, although it wouldn't hurt for players to add extras (eg. base fm of 4 Tauros, with a potential upgrade of 2 for Xpts)

Lightnings as pairs or quads is good, with a discount for taking for (or a increase in cost for a pair) to balance the extra utility of having an extra activation, which has an even great impact on the air side of things. This is one reason why T'bolts are so powerful, despite being a relatively weak fm.

Support sentinels - do what ever necessary to stop Mosc. whinging about them. Give them burning cheese lobbers, cat-apults a la The Simpsons cat lady, anything!

I don't play Elysians or have any plans to, but...

I miss a proper "paradrop" mechanic in Epic. A transport aircraft actually landing on the battlefield and then taking off again feels weird to me, but acceptable as it's sci-fi. But I'd like to see a proper paradrop mechanic, for non-landing transports. Aircraft flies down to about 500' and drops of paratroopers in a standard combat drop. Teleport works for Swooping Hawks because they fly under their own power (and have done so since 2nd ed 40k), but for Elysians you need to posit some kind of 'invisible aircraft'.

What I'd do would be to make a non-landing transport 1) not attack except flak, but the transported formation(s) attack as normal (shooting or engage) 2) only units with Jump Packs or Grav Chute can deploy, 15cm as per standard Jump Packs 3) the aircraft never lands, so can't be attacked by ground fire but can be intercepted as per normal.

But anyway, Teleport would be easier for the list. Ignore me, as I got no real interest in the Elysians. I'll go bug that Warhawk list instead

It would be very interesting to do it that way, although it means creating new rules and/or new units to facilitate the change. It also means changing the cost of the formations down even further because of their increased vulnerability, plus more models to accommodate making the invisible planes visible.

I'd like to see somebody actually put together an army list that allows all this plus one or two sample armies. It could all be done on paper, but it would be interesting to see what this would really look like in numbers of models.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

It's a big change, yes. Honda's said he's not interested in it, so it probably belongs over in the Harakoni thread instead. Model-wise, a marauder variant is probably the simplest way (like in the Harakoni list).

How does it make the formations more vulnerable, though? Teleports require you to win initiative, or at least survive until you want to activate them. With Air Assault they're safe until used (but have to survive CAP).

Why not just have a special rule - Air-drop

units with this rule may teleport onto the board within 5cm of an aircraft with this rule. The aircraft may only air-drop once per turn

That sounds simple, but it really isn't. For one thing, it's not a teleport, as it doesn't happen at the start of the turn (no aircraft is on the table at the start of the turn). So this would be an entirely new rule with new implications. And what happens if an Air Drop-capable aircraft is destroyed by interceptors? Shouldn't the transported formation go down as well?

For another thing, the game already has parachuting, it's just that it only happens when an aircraft is already landing (skimmer 15cm deployment from transport aircraft). Air assaults are an integral part of the game, and hopefully well understood already.

Well CAP is a big thing. Shooting down aircraft is not difficult, and if you even have one formation that has the likelihood of being blown out of the sky on turn 1, that is a 300+ point deficit to start with. If you bring them on in waves it gets even worse.

Still, I'd like to know how many models would be in a typical army of this composition. I think when the rubber meets the road it is going to be a mess, but maybe not.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Well there is the Tau Tigershark/Gun Drones abilities:
Could this concept be worked into the Elysians list?

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That's the sort of thing I've had in mind, but Honda's totally against considering any kind of mechanism other than teleport.

I'd say put it to paper. Honda will read it, as will everyone else. But right now you guys are throwing out a concept that the developer is clearly against and expecting him to adopt it, digest it, put written rules to it, and then integrate it into the existing list. That doesn't seem quite fair. If it's your brainchild you can't expect somebody else to change its diapers.

Write it out and build one or two army lists with it. Post it here and let people see it.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I vote 37cm.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the Support Sentinels? They were an integral part of the list for years and hopefully will be again. No sense in not having your voice heard on the matter.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Okay, I wrote a quick list based on the 3.1.5 list. Basically I took 50 points off all companies, added Marauder Transports for 50 points and increased the Valkyrie/Venator cost for transports by 50 points.

As I have no personal experience with the Elysians, I'm hoping that somebody that does have it and likes my point (Zombocom?) might make a test list of it. If nobody's up for it I'll write one later.

Hope the formating is readable.

edit: Why 50 points? That's my eyeball for the cost of Teleport for the formations (including drop sentinels). Why a transport capacity of 16 for the Marauder Transports? Well, it means they can transport either an upgraded company or two minimum companies. Also, modern aircraft used with paratroopers (c-130, C-17) have a capacity of up 90 or 100 paratroopers with equipment, so 16 stands doesn't seem to wrong. Thunderhawks only transport 8 units, but I imagine even power armored space marines are significantly bulkier than guardsmen, especially in an aircraft where weight is a consideration!

Ok, have dropped back in real quick as time has been a bit tough...and I find that things went all interesting again.

@Ulrik: I don't want you to think that I think your idea is bad, but it is not for this list. I would recommend talking to Signal and seeing if he's looking for that mechanic. I understand what you are looking for, but that doesn't simulate an Elysian drop assault as well as Teleport.

The mechanic for the drops was argued/discussed/debated/spit on ad infinitum in the past. That decision is not going to be revisited. It has always been Teleport and it always will as far as I am concerned.

I have started with the updates on the list. I'm not able to commit to a delivery date yet, but it should be relatively soon. Some of that has to do with deciding on the cost reductions for the Drop Companies to get the activation count up a bit.

More later.

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- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment