I would be happy to take the batton fo the Elysian list.
After reading a40K novel a while back about a mixed force of Elysian style drop troops, Mechanicus and space marines. They tried to take out a Chaos army that had cultists, and warmachines. Chaos were trying to build a demon summoning tower. The Elysians pre-planned a drop from high altitude (demons were already coming out of the tower) and harpies intercepted a lot of the marauder bombers, the valkyries drop transports, but not enough. Elysian troopers dropped in their thousands, on about 3 preset positions, each in support of the now advancing mechanicum army. Marines then dropped on the tower and succeeded in destroying it.
Regardless, the drop was pre-planned. and via halo drop. Obviously some Elysians drifted off their target a little. I agree in the suggestion that the Elysians need to Planetfall. I do not think it needs a spaceship however. I do think they should have self-planetfall, and that they must still have to plan their drop before turn 1 starts. The storm troopers can have teleport due to their elite status, and risk a blast marker or 2 to indicate a misdrop. Being a regimental sized force, they could organise to drop on 2 or more objectives, however that might weaken each force taking the risk to cover more objectives, but with less troops on each. You need to be specific which formations go with each drop group and on which turn they arrive. This still gives them a small advantage but also you have to plan well.
The army gets little in the way of heavy support elements. and you will still have Elysian targets to wipe out from your long ranged artillery, or heavy armour in your force, as they will not all likely be dropping. You need some of your own objectives held.
I would severly liimit their garrisons. As Elysians would only use scout sentinels (4 sentinels), and special scout troopers limited to 6 squads of infantry on foot.
The list would have the regimental command platoon, Elysian drop platoons, and drop sentinels as the core of the force. If you wanted to have the formation on the table before hand, perhaps as a command and control base element for the drop assaults, then they would get bunkers which could only be set up with the formation in your 15cm deployment zone. I would make the infantry formatons only 8 strong including the lieutenant or Colonel/Major. (this would make it perfect for the Vanguard Novan drop forces that will probably be sold as a 40 pack). Valkyries would be an upgrade for the drop Platoons instead of grav shutes, but at a cost and they also lose the self planetfall.
Those sentinels which are transported by Sky talons will look have the normal weapons Lascannon, Autocannon and Missile Launcher and an armoured cockpit. The drop sentinels without sky talons (upgrade) have have thrusters on their side to help them in the drop and get self planetfall and have the same weapons options. In support roles are Scout Sentinels would be lightly armes with heavy bolters or Flamers, and open topped. The other support Sentinels are rocket sentinels and provide a short ranged limited artillery. I would use those that are currently in the Harkoni list. They would have 4 to 6 Rocket Sentinels that are 1 BP range 45cm with indirect (but you do not have the double range or minimum range for indirect). Limit 1 per 1000 points.
Another support formation is the Storm Troopers, keeping it as they are now. Then have Vendetta gunships including Punnishers as they are now, and the other support formatons look good. For a ground based AA I would have a support formation of 4 fixed (0 move) Blitzen weapon platforms with Emplacements which must be set up in your deployment zone (copied from the Mirali list). No artillery except for the rocket sentinels, and no death strikes shown in another list as that would make them way to powerful. You can use the spaceship for taking out or weakening Titans, etc.
As to the 1/3rd portion. Marauder bombers (destroyers, and notmal), Fighters - Lightnings and Thunderbolts, a Luna class Spaceship.
You want the army to be a strike army, that needs another army force to come in a later turn and slowly reinforce the Elysians. You could have a 1/3 allocation formation similar to the Harkoni Warhawks Line Breaker relief column, but they have to come in from the edge of the table on turn one. I would use 6 to 9 Leman Russ tanks that can be conquerors or normal russes (cost more).
In essence the army drops in pre-planned drops. You have to be specific about which formations are dropped as part of which group and where and on which turn they arrive. Those not dropped by self planetfall will have to transported at lower altitudes via valkyrie weathering enemy fire, but geting the extra bonus of a larger formation and more fire power. The support reserves from another regiment slowly move up to hold objectives as the entire army will eventually move up and fall into the area the Elysians have just taken. There will be no supporting artillery companies, just the small support rocket sentinel platoons, that advance or are moved forward via sky talon, and the aircraft/bombers.
I can see the army being a low to mid level army for tournaments depending upon the opponents army. It has a good amount of mobility, but formations are rather small, unless transported by valkyries, in which case they are expensive. Support formations are smaller still unless you add to them, making them more expensive. If you work things out well, you can get a lot of very small cheaper formations, but they break easily, and you will need to rely on the core formations, and aircraft to help you. Your forces are further weakened by low armour saves, a plethora of LV and infantry meaning the enemy can tear your forces apart easier. This list might perform really badly against an AMTL list, but they mightjust outnumber them enough and deny or take enough objectives. I doubt they will get BTS, or DTF, or even HTL, but they might get Blitz, or T&H.
You have no war engines, and very little ability to take out war engines, except to surround them in formations which FF them after the rocket sentinels remove their shields, and add blast marker to them. It will be a harder army to use, and you have to rely on the self planetfall drops ad the mobile forces to hold deny objectives, and hope you have enough forces left unbroken or destroyed to attempt a win or a tie.
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Last edited by Deb on Sun May 31, 2020 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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