damn. foiled again.



Not destroyed, but languishing off board unless you have a spare air-drop capable aircraft to bring them on. Otherwise they're as good as lost anyway.
Not that it matters as I brainfarted on teleport only being available at the start of a turn (when there's no aircraft). All this is just a long winded way of avoiding the invisible aircraft syndrome. Which isn't really that big a deal.

If you're committed to bringing your army on in 8 fragile transports, and the other guy is sitting there with 6 fighter-bommas and 3 flak traks you're going to have a very short and boring game.

This is actually a great argument against teleport - you'd think that paratroopers would be affected by things like enemy fighters and flak guns.

But I'll take it over to Signal's list.

Hey Ulrik, I looked over your army list mod and had a few concerns with such a change.
1. Models. Doing such a change would add around 3-7 new models to the board. It is strange since the Elysians have very little metal on the board, but it is one of the most expensive armies I own. Valkyries and Vultures are pricey, and FW ones are even more expensive. It's not a deal killer, but I thought I'd point it out.

2. Activation drag. Currently the Elysians can parachute down en masse and frequently do. It is normal to hold back a formation or three for tactical reasons, or mass drop them on turn two, but typically they come down in large groups as if multiple planes came by and dropped them from the sky. This is actually pretty realistic since paratroopers were never dropped at 6 hour intervals. They were dropped all at once so they could support each other.

The concept is similar to predation which occurs in the wild, where insects like cicadas come out all at once. Predators can only eat so many of them before they are full and the survivors move on. Elysians are like the cicadas. They all drop at once and, along with supporting formations, do their best to take advantage of their position.

The concept you and others like Zombocom are advancing precludes that ability. You might be able to fit 2 formations per Marauder, which means it is possible to drop 4 formations at the beginning of turn 1. Here is where it gets ugly though. Four formations in two bombers means the the chances of not getting the first two on the board is 1 in 6. The chance of not getting the second two on the board is 1 in 3 (33% chance of failure).

If you commit your first plane and it succeeds, you have those two formations sitting out there, waiting for support. The second formation has a much lower chance of successfully dropping its cargo. If it manages to activate, it can still be CAP'd and destroyed, taking with it 10-15% of your army.

It gets worse though. If you fail your first activation, you can't even try to get a second formation on. Your turn is over and your support formations are all just hanging out there. If you manage to activate and get CAP'd, you are hosed once again.

I understand that one of the complaints about the Elysians is that "they always play the same". While I have never heard that complaint, let's just assume we wanted to move away from the always-play-the-same-model. What will this change result in?

1. The first activation will be a CAP, with the Elysian player insisting that you can CAP and CAP to protect their transport.
2. The second activation will be an attempt to drop a largish (or two 8-strong infantry) formation(s) to hold ground. Unless your enemy has screwed up you won't assault because your opponent will still have most/all his formations within 15cm of the board edge. This ground holding will always be followed by a retain in order to support those formations, either with another drop formation or a supporting formation.
3. The fourth activation will be a response to whatever has happened on the board to the existing formations. Why can I say that with certitude? Because the opponent has had an opportunity to activate 2-6 times by the time you have managed to get any drop formations into position.

It will become incredible difficult for an already tough army to play. My guess is after one game like this people will not bring very many drop formations. Probably token formations for objective grabbing or to mix things up. It will pressure players to bring even more Valkyries, which will make the army even more expensive to own.

All this for what? So you can see a Marauder bomber on the board that can't shoot, can't assault; just to get blown up? I don't see how this adds to the game in any meaningful way, for any list. Harkoni's, Elysians, you name it.

The teleport is a game mechanic that mimics guys falling from the skies on grav chutes. There is an assumption in Epic that 'other stuff' is going on while your battle rages. In this case, there is the assumption that there are Valkyries dropping troops while getting shot at by your opponent's own 'invisible planes' and the ones that get through is the army that you are going to tactically match against the other player. Where is the added value in tactics or gaming in allowing your paratroopers to get plucked from the sky?
Here are your outcomes-
"My opponent brought airplanes and CAP'd before me. He is tactically superior and I will now lose."
or
"My opponent failed to bring planes and/or didn't CAP and/or I won a Strategy Roll. My guys made it! I am a way better player."

What am I missing here? It isn't that I am opposed to this for the Elysian list. I would be opposed to this concept for any list. If you think I am wrong, give it a whirl for a few games. I am predicting hideous results.

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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 just went back and noticed you can bring up to three transports... Nix what I said earlier about activation drag. Although I do see a potentially bigger problem. If you bring all your transports and your opponent scores well on hits (this happens frequently where you have say 3-4 hits to allocate) there is a good chance even more of your army is going down in flames. Once again tactics are replaced by dice rolling.

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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'm going to reply more later, but I'd like to note that the transporters are DC 2. You need 4 hits and all saves failed to down more than one transport.

edit: let's make a new thread for it so we don't annoy Honda too much ( ), but I'd like to see if Zombo has some views on it, as he also seems to think teleport is the wrong way and actually has an Elysian list?

Or 'crit' it. CAPs hit on a 4+ in most cases because of the +1 to their AA.

Two Thunderbolts on a CAP will hit an average of 2 times, which means there is a decent chance of losing one transport.
Six Fighta-Bommers on a CAP will hit an average of 3 times, which will probably kill one transport and injure a second.
Three Nightwings on a CAP will hit an average of 3 times, which will probably kill on transport and injure a second.

Sure T-Bolts and FBs have shorter ranges, but there are also crits and lucky rolls too.

The point is if it sticks to odds, you might never see 1-2 formations that you have placed on your list. You could easier just have your opponent roll randomly and have one of your formations removed prior to play.

If it goes terribly good/bad, your game has degenerated into Yahtzee. How do you balance a list like this? Do you adjust points based on how many formations are likely to get through? Is an Elysian army that manages to drop all of its troops stronger than intended or at par?

At least a teleport function gives both the Elysian player and his opponent a clear idea what they are facing right from the beginning, before you even place units. It makes for more balanced play. It certainly is more streamlined, doesn't invent units, and doesn't cost you as much in real money.

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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.

Nah, it's fine here. Bugging Honda is what I do best.

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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.

EW have an excellent answer to the Valk/Vulture cost issue...Just saying

And to the Tauros / Venator availability. Worth going off topic to bring up these fine units.

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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.

Don't make me buy an Elysian list I've already spent too much money on Warmachine.

(Although I could probably get an entire Elysian force for 2/3rds of the price of my 35 pt WM army. Damn pricey 30mm minis.)

Aanyway, I see your arguments that luck will play a bigger role in delivering the Elysians. However:

- If you play an entire airborne army, you'll swamp any CAP fighters out of the game. A single formation of fighters on CAP will (mostly) kill one (or none) transports, and after they've done that your own lightnings are free to take them out, even with out CAP on CAP (I can't really see how anybody could threaten Elysians if the CAP on CAP rule is in effect...?) Unless your opponent is going air-crazy as a counter to the Elysians, how many CAP formations are you likely to see?

- If you don't play an entire airborne army, you have the ability to place either small 200pt formations (minimal company + transport) wherever they are needed, or keep a big hammer in reserve, without relying on winning strategy to avoid it being blown up like you risk with teleport (balanced against having to brave CAP of course).

But all this is just theoryepic for me, without an Elysian force to test with (Zomboooooo ) Mostly my beef with teleporting over aircraft transport boils down to:

- I think teleport for paratroopers is fundamentally wrong. You're playing a paratrooper army. How the hell are those guys getting on the board totally unaffected by flak and enemy fighters? Not only do they have planes that aren't represented, those planes are packing some ultra-advanced stealth technology that makes eldar holofields look like toys. No fighter cover or tons of enemy fighters, a hole in the flak coverage or going straight into two formations of Hydras, makes no difference. You could say that flak is represented by BMs gained from teleporting, but it's still totally disconnected to what AA capabilities your opponent actually brought. Major disconnect for me.

Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that last point. It's supposed to be generally representational. The list IMO represents those that are getting through, and not necessarily a 100% successful landing of all troops. In reality, the Elysians could have dropped 50% more troops and they scattered in the wind or got taken out in transports. The BMs are just general BMs. They could represent losses or disorientation of being in the wrong drop zone or any number of problems.

Games, however, show that Elysians are underpowered. So regardless of the representation being realistic or not, having less Elysians on the board is bound to make them even worse which will require upping their firepower or lowering their cost (or both).

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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.

What I said in the poll thread I think speaks directly to this.

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Let us playtest like the Greeks of old... You know the ones I mean

Guys, Honda has repeatedly said that the Elysians will be teleporting. Period. There's absolutely no reason to be proposing other options, as they're not going to change anything. My Harakoni list is designed at least partially to stop people from bugging him about this issue

On Topic:
I think what the list needs isn't just cheaper formations, but slightly more durable ones. Specifically the groups of 4 units that make up most of the support formations. While 4 is better than 3 (what isn't.... >.< ) it still leaves them as very fragile. I'd like to see the Tauros/Venators have the ability to be taken in larger formations, possibly even a 12-vehicle core choice option.

Mosc has given me permission to continue here even though it's mostly theoretical at this point

Again, my beefs are:

The game includes lots of rules for defense against enemy aircrafts, but if you use teleport you ignore them all in favor of abstract blast markers which aren't affected by such nuisances as flak guns or fighter coverage. The game has rules for aircraft. Use them.

Moscovian has been hammering away at the weaknesses of air assaults, but marines show that they are anything but weak. Compared to teleport they are vulnerable to flak attacks and intercepts, but their strengths are that they are safe offboard until used, you are in no rush to activate them all at the beginning of the turn to avoid getting blown away or the targets moving away. When they arrive they get to move to where they want to be and then attack.

Honda did say that he only wants teleports, but he also asked me to help out. I was curious about the idea and wanted to explore the idea.

Personally I didn't like the idea of it being dismissed outright. Now that I've poked at the idea and seen what it would look like, I can sleep soundly knowing I heard Ulrik out.
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Ulrik, ever air assault with Eldar Guardians? That's what Elysians would be like, except without the spiffy Vampire providing support and the Farseer wolluping guys with his macro-weapon. Oh, and FF on a 5+ instead of the Eldar 4+. That is a better comparison than Marines and Eldar Air Assaults are marginal at best.
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Signal, you could be onto something with the Sentinels. I am hesitant because I have had pretty good success with the army, but maybe it is because I am a strategic genius. In the hands of mere mortals, perhaps the Sentinels need a boost.

Tauros and Venators in groups of 12? Egads! If we went with larger Sentinel formations, it would be good to keep the Tauros and Venators as smaller formations to keep the activation count up. If you increase the size of all the formations, the activation count will drop.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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