Wouldn't drop ships be more appropriate for an IG army? I'm anticipating those who might object to drop pods as a SM-only thing.
Besides, there should be a major IG list with a drop ship in it, IMO

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

Those monster dropships on the front of the 5th edition 40k codex?

they'd be cool, but elysians are all about the grav chutes.

I had the DRM dropship in mind - I've never seen that codex.
The conversation turned towards planetfall and drop pods - I doubt they could use grav chutes from orbit.

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

Planetfall for dropships, aircraft for parachutes and teleport for things appearing from thin air! :-/

I'll be quiet now.

I still want to do a Planetary Assault/Hot Drop Guard list. Will have to work on that.

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

I was presuming the same principle as Drop podding Marines who 'appear from thin air' as well - though you can model the drop pods if you want to

On dropships I am assuming that we are precluding the huge 'star wars' style monsters which seem out of character here.
While Valkyries,Vendettas etc could be given planetfall, I wonder whether their speed could be a problem as it would virtually guarantee they could retain and assault? However, the limited number of such formations together with the cost and their general fragility might be Ok - it would need testing.

We could do a lot of things, but so far I don't think anyone has thought past the "what if we-" part.

The teleport complaints came up on two points:
1. It's boring and always the same - no offense but I think the experiences of Honda and I with this army outstrip pretty much the rest of the community put together, so my word here has to count for something; the army never felt dull to me and certainly not to my players. So arguably we can put that one to rest.

2. There are invisible planes - so far the only proposed alternatives to teleport have been a drop pod mechanic which would mean invisible planes anyway, or air transports of some type that will either lag the activations or increase the chances of losses (which has drawbacks as well).

And contrary to Ulrik's statement (which I think was just meant gibbly) teleport in this case is simply representational of falling from skies, just like Eldar Swooping Hawks. That unit set the precedent for using teleport in a broader capacity. I'm just not seeing a serious contender to replace the teleport function, nor a good argument to remove 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.

You don't feel the necessary removal of Iron Discipline as a good reason? Because it's all teleport you've introduced it to compensate. Problem is ID seems contrary to all lists currently running. No other force gets the effect and that's a little off considering even marines get the BMs for a teleport and they are the apex of Imperial troops. <shrug>

I personally would be willing to try a game without Iron Discipline and report back back, or at least where I tallied how often it came into play during the course of a game. Of course anyone playing them can do that too. Just mark it off on a sheet (column titled "How often Iron Discipline Saved My Skin").

The Iron Discipline IMO is more about compensating for the poor armor / no armor and the resulting casualties that ensue from being shot at. In other words, it only matters after you are on the ground and fighting for a turn, and doesn't seem like a crutch to the teleport itself. Its the only special rule exclusive to the Elysians. Teleport is just a placement mechanic for getting the game started to represent where troops are when the turn begins.

Since most of the critiques here are from people who have never played the army or even seen it, you need to remember that you aren't teleporting into somebody's front line and hammering them indiscriminately. Each time you are teleporting into COVER, sometimes on your own half of the board, just scrambling to find a secure place to shed your BMs with a marshal activation. There are uncommon opportunities if your opponent leaves some wayward formation unsupported, but even then I am careful because I know how fragile my formations are.

The phrase "you just have to experience it for yourself" seems appropriate here.

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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.

isnt it funny how statistics can be interpreted. some people would see the poll results of "basically noone plays this army" as a suggestion to consider new ideas, rather than a justification not to.

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~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

Yeah, understood. I'm not saying Elysians are as good as Marines, I never said they needed to be Marines or even compare to them, I was only using them as an example of the apex-elite Imperial troops. My problem with the rule is that it seems to be in place to curtail a problem with the list not add flavour. Changing the rules to alleviate a problem rather than exploring other means just seems wrong. The designers weren't trying to make a whole army that teleported but if they did can you honestly say they would change the game's design for one list instead of working something else out...?


Yeah understood, I'm just not sure that it needs to be this rule thus avoiding the issue entirely. You just need to trial other things too and see what works.

Hey, personally, I'm hoping Elysians can be sorted out. They're a cool idea as I've always played Paras (German, Birtish and American) in WW2 games. Elite troops dropping into enemy lines from the air and holding out against the odds - what's cooler or more heroic?

This army exists already...its called space marines!

I'm normally all for abstraction, and love using special rules for new and unexpected stuff (the way Warp Spiders use Infiltrate, First Strike and Jump Packs to simulate Jump Generators is exquisite). However, in this case you're abstracting away something that is already in the game. To be a bit hyperbolic, it would be a bit like having space marines with 30cm move because, hey, they got Rhinos, but as Rhinos never attack anything we don't need to use models for it.

However, my interest is academic. I'd love to have an Elysian army, and I'd buy one to test the transport aircraft - except that I lack a gaming group to test with. These days I mainly play against a two or three other people who have Epic as their second game, which gives me one or two games a month.

Hope I'm not spamming the topic here too much. I think the concept of a paratrooper/air cav list is cool, and when somebody mentioned not like the "invisible air planes" I thought it was an interesting problem, and now I've been thinking about it too much