After four (or five?) games with the Elysians I wanted to throw out some general thoughts on the list.
Overall the list feels balanced, or maybe slightly underpowered. High activation counts (11-13 range) save the list and the only loss of four (or five) games I took was when I went with heavy formations and 'only' ten activations.
Mortars seem pretty difficult to capitalize on. Because you can't fire indirectly, the limited range makes them difficult to work with and I would rather spend the points on another fire support team. Is the reason for not having the indirect fire the 1.9.8 indirect fire minimum range requirement of 30cm? I'm not sure how to fix it either. If you up the range to 20cm and add indirect, you end up with a unit that can fire 0-20cm directly, 30-40cm indirectly, and nothing 20-30cm. Very weird. Up it higher than 40cm indirect and it seems to be ranging more than mortars should. Perhaps an indirect fire like the support sentinals that can go 45cm but don't double their range when they fire indirectly. It would also give the Elysians a chance to shoot something when they are within 10+ cm of woods. A handy thing to have.
On a side note, the support sentinals are not Barrage weapons yet firing indirect, yet the 1.9.8 rule is for barrage weaponry. It isn't a big deal, but somebody who wanted to nitpick could make a case that non-barrage weapons don't have any business firing indirect at all. Perhaps some notation in the errata indicating that the indirect fire rules were borrowed for that unit...
There is a deadly combination if left to its own devices: the Drop Sentinals in Valkyries. When playing properly, that formation can incinerate an enemy when they get within the 15cm range. It didn't strike me as broken, just an interesting point.
Maurauder Destroyers - I brought them every game. I love the formation and it was great. The unit might feel overpowered in any other list but seeing that it is the only WE in the Elysian list, it did not get any raised eyebrows (especially when they found out how much it cost). My only concern is what felt like my own perceived reliance on it. I felt naked without the formation.
Lightning Strike Fighters - used them once and they seemed like good units.
Lightning Fighters - I am glad we went with four fighters, even though the formation underperformed, and here is why:
These things are killers vs. enemy aircraft and anything they set out to kill will fall from the sky. But once you clear the skies of opponents, they are pretty useless. They can barely hit a single tank between the four of them and can't even kill infantry. They are highly specialized and well suited for what they were intended.
Games played in similar ways, with large infantry formations running for cover and soaking up fire while smaller formations maneuvered about and did the real damage. The large infantry formations frequently could not fire at all because a few blast markers from teleporting plus being shot at supressed the mortars, support weapons, and veterans (the only units in range). This meant the formations did a lot of marshalling or risked everything in an assault.
Commissars IMO should be changed to match the 1 per 500 point limit that the other IG lists are taking on or any fixed ratio. The army is difficult to model already, and having a variable set of commissars is annoying. With a fixed number you can plan your army models better.
All in all, a fun army to play with and it feels very different from other armies. It's like wearing a loin cloth to a lion hunt. You can do it, but you wish you had more on.
