I can bring 10 painted sentinels if you need them?

Forgive me if this has already been discussed and discarded.

If teleport does indeed prove overpowered, it may be worth giving the Lunar Cruiser "transport = 24 units" (for example) and adding an unarmed Drop pod to the unit stats (carrying both Infantry and Sentinals).

This would allow a number of infantry and sentinals to 'parachute in', providing the style of insertion appropriate to the list in a limited form. Obviously the pods are merely the mechanic to get the units onto the ground and being *unarmed* they will not repeat the Marine 'scout barrage' issue.

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

Please do, and also any Valkyries and Vultures.

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

Ginger, why add the drop pod at all?  You can simply allow a planetfall mechanic where each deployment spot is pre-plotted, scattered, marked in some capacity (a die, a spit wad, whatever), and the formation falls somewhere in a 15cm radius of the mark.  

I think mixing actual planetfall in with the Elysians is a mistake though, regardless of whether or not we use teleporting or planetfall mechanics to get the troops on the ground.  It makes them too much like Space Marines and I don't see the Elysians being deployed like that.  I see them staged somewhere on a planet, moved at high altitude, then dropped on grav chutes or transported via Valkyries (or both).  That would be more akin to both Vietnam Air Cav and WWII style paratroopers.  

EDIT: I do think there is some merit to having the teleport removed from Support Sentinels though...  If it helps balance the list AND matches typical mechanics for the army.

I'll test the Elysians as soon as I can.


(4 pages and counting to this thread.  When did the Elysians become a member of the Long Thread Club (Necron, Tau, Tyranid)?

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Hi Mosc - purely spitballing at this point to provide an alternative to teleport, IF that should prove overpowered.

The "drop pod" was only making use of an existing mechanic to avoid the addition of a special rule, while adding "transport" to the Spacecraft provides the desired cap to the numbers that can arrive in this fashion without limiting what can be brought in (so you could use up to six Sentinal formations for example to match the tactic Zombocom referred to earlier). Obviously this approach would also allow a limited number of planetfalling Valkyrie as an alternative to the Drop Pods, but that may be a step too far given Honda's last statement and your concerns about making the list too 'Marine like'.

[Spitballing On]
Stepping back a little, the reason for these suggestions is that I understood the background of the Elysian list to be derived on the 1st Air-Cav operations in Vietnam. These did make extensive use of helecopter assaults, but they were usually combined with ground formations and many kinds of support including mobile artillery, helecopter gunships and air strikes by the USAF. Indeed, they ultimately created the TRI-TAC strategy which is still in use today. While the Elysian list includes the capacity to provide most of those elements, the main difference is that the Air-Cav transport helecopters operated in their own separate formations while the Elysian Valkyries are permanently attached to the relevant formation purely because of the existing game mechanics and IMHO, Planetfalling would represent their parachute insertions better than teleporting does.

Now the purists among us might want to make the Valkyries separate formations in the Space&air section and add a special rule allowing Valkyrie formations to use the WE rules to transport other formations. However, apart from providing another means of creating a "popcorn" army, the main problem to this approach is that the Valkyries are permanently on-table and have much weaker armour than THawks. This would probably make them priority targets, easily crippled or destroyed and is probably not worth the effort. But hey, as L4 would say, DWWFY
[/Spitballing Off]

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"Play up and play the game"

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Sir Hemry Newbolt

But question was why do they Deepstrike. We shouldn't clone 40k rules, but look why they are there and then try to make that make sense in epic scale.

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Honda

"Remember Taros? We do"

- 23rd Elysian Drop Regiment

He heard TRC asking me at the Dragon Slayers GT if we'd tried the Scout drop pod army of doom.
After I replied that we had and we also had tried the same with the Black Legion and found both were very easy to deal with,Chris's reply was to our amazement that they had only theorized the power of the list.

I've got either 20 or 24 sentinels (12 older ones only undercoated though but that will differentiate between the 2 variants).
I have 4 vultures and 4 valkyries (need re-gluing after an accident  )

I am not in favor of this approach. In a 40K game, where the amount of ground that is being fought over, it isn't unreasonable to assume that the Sentinels dropped just off the table (Reserves) or landed before the rest of the troops showed up.

Given the scale of Epic, I think that makes less sense.

Now, if indeed the Sentinels are too strong, there are other ways of limiting their number, not the least of which is increasing their cost or allowing one per Drop company. I would be much more inclined to pursue one of those approaches, with the latter preferred.

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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.

Well, that's... interesting.  Normally, TRC is one of the best at putting batreps where his theoryhammer is.  Despite that exception it was tested.

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Neal

I do not think Sentinels are inherently too strong by themselves, IMHO it is the ability to drop great numbers of the things into advanced positions that becomes overpowering despite the teleporting BMs that will be received (which is what I hope to test in 11 days time). I might add that the same could also be true of the Drop Companies, but as you can only get a maximum of 14 (allowing for a Regimental HQ and a few upgrades) this may be less of a problem.

If they have to walk in, I suspect Sentinels (and infantry) can be picked off piecemeal or avoided by faster formations before their short ranged weapons can become effective in large numbers. The alternative of adding Valkyrie transports provides an appropriate points hike that reduces the number of formations to a much more reasonable level (although the firepower and resilience of each is significantly increased). I hope to assess both of these aspects as well.

Finally, I hope to be able to give some views on the Drop Company upgrades and the way they perform - though at first glance they seem to provide an appropriate level of colour and resilience to the formations.

IMHO one of the great attractions of the list is the fact that the individual units (and by extension the formations) are pretty much balanced in terms of power and cost, and seem to go a long way to making the Elysians a really nice variation to the IG family and E:A as as a whole.

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"Play up and play the game"

Vitai lampada
Sir Hemry Newbolt

I recommend reading the BlackLibrary novel "Dark Apostel". There the Elysians are featured.
They all came in via Valkyries and dropped on the head of the defending Word Bearers.
Strictly ground forces where provided by Skitarii Tech-Guard and one single Elysian Tank Company (it was even mentioned as odd in the novel that the Elysians have Tank Companies. They have them but they are very rare).

So to me it seems they operate as a mix of WW2 Parachuters and Vietnam AirCav.

A question came up to me regarding Teleport:
If Teleport is the means in Epic to represent the Elysians droping from high altitude Valykries via gravshutes. So why can't enemy aircrafts intercept these Valkyries?

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A question came up to me regarding Teleport:
If Teleport is the means in Epic to represent the Elysians droping from high altitude Valykries via gravshutes. So why can't enemy aircrafts intercept these Valkyries?

A question came up to me regarding Teleport:
If Teleport is the means in Epic to represent the Elysians droping from high altitude Valykries via gravshutes. So why can't enemy aircrafts intercept these Valkyries?

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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