" a piss ant blog" -Rikimaru


"Dethtron, you are...an asshole" - 38% of Dick Move Readers


" I probably won't read unless I'm bored as shit at work" - A. Hack



"I cannot bring myself to actually read this drivel"- anonymous

"pox riddled post coital stain of a blog"- anonymous



Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Elysian List Review part V- the Dedicated Transport

This is where the Elysians really come into their own as an army. You only get one dedicated transport option and it's the Valkyrie.
Well technically, the Valkyrie Sky Talon is also a dedicated transport, but that's a special case and isn't listed in the transports section of the army list.

The Stats and points costs are all the same as they are in codex: IG, but you lose the ability to take squadrons. This is the best thing that could ever happen to anybody that has ever wanted to do an airborne army. Using the normal codex, the squadron rules make it too easy for your transports to get shot down. Plus you can't move them independently if they're squadroned up. Having each Valkyrie operating on its own changes all of this. "Immobilized" won't kill you unless you were hauling ass. You can spread out and move towards and shoot at different targets. Who isn't excited about that? Sure you now give up a few more kill points, but big fucking deal. It's totally worth it. This is why you can't build an airborne army with codex: IG, but can with this list.

Like before you need to ditch the hellstrike missiles for multiple rocket pods. The lascannon upgrade is a waste of time. Leave that to your Vendettas. Heavy bolters can give you some more anti-infantry firepower, but don't count as a defensive weapon. This will limit your mobility if you really want to shoot them. Plus, I can never seem to come up with the points for the bolters anyway.

My only concerns with mass Valkyries in comparison to mass Chimerae is that you leave yourself much more exposed and don't have fire points. With a Chimera you can get cover and smoke. Plus your footprint is quite small. Not so with a Valkyrie. Cover is nearly impossible, you can't take smoke launchers, and you have the footprint of the Hindenburg on the table. Just kind of eyeballing it It looks like trying to take more than 8 or so Valkyrie sized models would be just about impossible to play with on a regular sized table.

The fire points issue is a bit of a rub as well. As I've mentioned previously, you need to play it a little more cautious with your troops now, since you must be outside of your vehicle to fire. Without a reliable anti-armor weapon on the Valkyrie this makes your chances of being able to keep troops into your transport almost nonexistent. Unless you're playing against an un-mechanized enemy, you're going to have to get out at some point. Just be careful.

Other than those basic concerns, things are really looking great for this unit. First turn assaulting? Check. Late game objective grabbing? Check. High volume of fire? Check. That is some flexibility right there.

1 comment:

SandWyrm said...

I can barely stand playing around 2 Valks, let alone 8. By the time you have that many you'll just end up removing the models from the stands and playing with those.