Elysian List Review Part Six: Fast Attack

Sweet, another section of the army where you're going to want to fill ever slot in the list. This is honestly my favorite part of the army and has several great units to choose from. Deciding what to take is going to be difficult.

Vendetta

Nothing at all new to report here. It's identical to Codex: IG. It still kicks ass against vehicles and you still need to give it heavy bolters to fight infantry. I will rage against the storm a little bit here since we're all familiar with this vehicle and I'll talk about my pet peeve instead of analyzing this. I'm tired of seeing people put special weapon squads or really any unit in these at the start of the game. This is only going to tempt you to move your Vendettas close to the enemy. Bad idea. You out range most things in the game, why put yourself at risk when you can snipe people from afar? I prefer to use the transport capacity on the last few turns to give somebody who lost their transport a lift to somewhere important.

Tauros Squadron

Here's a unique unit and a pretty cool one at that. You get a little highly expendable dune buggy to annoy your opponent with. This is the smaller version of the vehicle and is a solid anti-infantry platform. I personally like the larger version better, but this guy is still fun.

Special Rules

• Unit is fast, open topped. Yay for fast vehicles, but boo for being open topped.
• Squadron of 1-3. Uh oh, an open topped squadron, should be easy to kill. I sure hope you have some rules that fix this.
• Armor and BS as a sentinel. Well, you certainly are fragile.
• Scout. Looks like you can just about run the whole board on turn 1 and still shoot. I like that.
• All Terrain Vehicle- you can re-roll difficult terrain tests if moving at combat speed. Looks like if you're not hauling ass, you won't be killing your squadrons by immobilizing them. Awesome.
• Galvanic Motor- whenever it's immobilised, ignore the result on a 4+. Holy shit, you just got a lot more survivable. I'm much less worried about taking squadrons of you now.
• Sky Lift- basically this means that you can ride in a Valkyrie Sky Talon. It can carry 2 Tauros. This will get more coverage in the Heavy section.
• Dedicated Transport: Valkyrie- so this guy is also small enough to ride in a Valkyrie. Interesting, but do you really need a fast vehicle inside another vehicle? The rules also stipulate that if you have a squadron of Tauros in transports, the Valkyries carrying them must be in coherency while transporting the Tauros squadron. How many rules arguments do you think that will cause? There is no precedent that I can think of for putting a single unit in multiple transports. Multiple units in one transport you can do, but this...
• Costs the same as 4 melta guns. Not a bad price for what you're getting.

So what are some things that are great about the unit off the bat. Well, it's really small, like just about sentinel sized. This means that like Sentinels, getting cover isn't a problem. But with all of the ways to avoid immobilized results, you are a little more survivable than comparable vehicles. You're also really maneuverable and totally expendable. Hello movement blocking, something the guard hasn't really had before. These guys are looking a lot like Vypers to me. Your speed could also get you into side shot position for many vehicles.

Now we'll move on to options:

• It comes with a heavy flamer. If you leave this on it, maybe a fast transport dropping you off isn't such a bad idea after all. Scout the Valkyrie/Sky Talon forward and get out on the first turn and still get your full move. This will give you an extra 12" of movement more than normal. If your opponent isn't meched up, they'll quickly regret that decision.
• For the price of a melta bomb, you can upgrade to the Tauros Grenade Launcher. It is Heavy 2 and fires Krak or Frag grenades 36". This is kind of awesome. Again, this is looking like a Vyper, but you get blast templates if you need them.
• You can also take a hunter-killer missile, extra armor, a homing beacon, smoke launchers, and camo netting. Hunter-killers could be good to help with your alpha strike if that's your goal. Meh to extra armor. If you need a homing beacon this is the best place to put one. It can quickly get into position and will allow your troops to land where you want them. Smoke launchers are a must if you have a flamer and no transport and you can blow camo netting out your ass. It's a waste.

Bottom Line- Cheap, expendable, surprisingly survivable, and annoying. Use them like a Vyper, but don't expect to threaten vehicles much other than blocking them.


Tauros Venator Squadron

Here is the big brother to the tiny Tauros. The rules are all the same as the Tauros, but you cannot take a regular Valkyrie as a transport. You also get the front armor of a Rhino, but the side and rear stay the same. The cost is the same as a Witch Hunter Rhino. Pretty much everything I said so far about the Tauros applies to the Venator as well, but the Venator will destroy armored units as well if you pay the price.

Here are your options

• Comes with a twin-linked multi-laser stock to make sure that you get the most out of your hyphen key when writing about them. This can be upgraded to a twin-linked Lascannon at the cost of an IG powerfist and the opportunity cost of not getting to type as many hyphens in one unit entry- quick get the hunter-killers. Do you need anti-infantry or anti-armor shooting in your list? Arm to suit. Both options are good, although the lascannon makes these a bit pricey. On the other hand, if you do it right you can have similar fire output to a Vendetta for a little higher cost, but presenting more targets. Intriguing, no...?
• You can take up to two Hunter-killer missiles, extra armor, a homing beacon, smoke launchers, and camo netting. 2 H-Ks- Fuck YES!! Do want. Welcome to Alphastrikeville population: you. Add that to a pair of lascannons and you'll give most vehicles something to be very scared about. Also you're fast and scouting to boot, so side shots here you come. Skip the armor. Take a homing beacon if you need it, but keep in mind that you don't need to get a Venator close to enemy lines, since your range kicks ass. You can most likely skip the rest of the upgrades.

Bottom line- although they can get pricey, these little fuckers can put out a lot of damage and are highly maneuverable. They can do anything the little Tauros can do as well, so blocking and all that is still possible. Think about these as a reliable way to replace or supplement Vendettas. If nothing else this could help you avoid cluttering your board with too many Valkyrie sized models without sacrificing much firepower.

Cyclops Remote Control Vehicle

Not sure what these are doing here. Not selling enough models FW? Regardless, it got shoe-horned in here, so we need to talk about them, briefly.

Costs the same as a Sentinel with the same armor value. It's crewed by a single guardsman who can control up to 3 Cyclops operating independently (not a squadron).

Rules

• Operator- Deploy cyclops in coherency with operator. Then you can move them any direction you want. If the vehicle is ever over 48" from the operator it stops functioning until the operator moves back into range. If the operator dies, the Cyclops stop functioning. Wow, what shitty rules you've got there.
• Remote control- Johnny 5 is alive and can move to within 1" of enemy models in the movement phase.
• Demo-Charge- you can detonate the demo charge in your shooting phase. Center the large template on the Cyclops and don't scatter. Don't halve the damage against vehicles. So you just paid a shitload of points for 1 demo charge and you don't even get to make use of the whole template. Blech.
• If the cyclops is destroyed by a hit, it goes off as normal on a 6. Wow, that'll happen. So easy to kill and likely to do nothing and taking up FOC space that could be used by something that doesn't suck. Fuck that.

Bottom line- barely worth talking about. Take these if you don't like winning.