GW Hate Codex Chaos Space Marines too…

…or maybe they just support the counts as phenomenon.  Looks to me like the latter is true, but is certainly not a statement controversial enough to make a post title here on Dick Move.  For evidence of this wild claim check out GW book designer Christian Byrne’s Blood Wolf Army here.

So we’ve got Space Wolves counts as Space Marines coming direct from the mother ship.  Next time somebody gets all uppity about your counts-as army, you might want to shove this in their face and tell them to blow it out their ass.  Or you could be more civil, I guess, the choice is yours.  Regardless, I thought you all might get a kick out of this if you hadn’t seen it yet- I know I did.

Pic stolen shamelessly from Hoagy’s Facebook page without permission.  Complaints will be met with sack taps.

Elysian List Review Part 00111: Heavy Support

This brings us to our final Chapter of the Elysian army list from Imperial Armour 8. Not too bad for 2 days work and no prior thought put into this, eh?
…and now you know why I don’t write army reviews. But anyhow, it’s time to close this chapter in my life and move on. Plus I’ve just about run out of Apocalypse Now pictures that I feel are relevant to my uses.

The heavy support choices are a bit of a mixed bag. In my own list, I don’t even use any of them. This is partially an issue with me not owning the models, but partly an issue with not finding that they heavy support did anything I needed them to do. There is quite a bit of wasted space and needless repetition here.

Vulture Gunship
Arguably the only of the Heavy Support Choices that is worth considering for most games.

For 5 points more than a Valkyrie you get the same unit, minus transport and scout, but more heavily armed. Here let’s see if you can apply the transitive property of equality to the following equations:
Vulture= Valkyrie +5points + more guns – transport – scout
Shit= Valkyrie +5points + more guns – transport – scout

Fresh from the factory it comes with a nose heavy bolter, a twin-linked multi-laser, two hellstrike missiles, a searchlight and extra armor. So all ready we have a decent amount of fire output, but save the hellstrikes, none of it is particularly good against vehicles. Plus, those hellstrikes have got to go.

Want a veritable cornucopia of options to choose from? Well you asked for it…

• Replace your multilaser with a twin-linked autocannon (price of IG power fist), twin-linked missile launcher (price of a power fist and a melta), twin-linked lascannon (price of 3 meltas), or 2 multiple rocket pods (price of 4 melta guns). Well finally, we can take an autocannon. Plus it’s on a platform that can really move. Now if only you had scout, you could get those first turn side armor shots all day long. Not nearly as efficient as Hydras or heavy weapon squads, but it could help you out. Screw the missiles. Ditch the lascannon, vendettas do it better. Do you really need more rocket pods? Shouldn’t you already have 3+ sets of those already on your transports?
• Replace hellstrikes with 6 heavy bombs (price of 4 melta guns), 6 hunter-killer missiles (costed as bombs), or 2 multiple rocket pods (price of 3 meltas). Bombs seem like a great idea, but FW forgot to put the rules in the book. Dipshits. Bombs look very powerful on paper, until you realize that they are random as fuck. They use that stupid hippy flower shaped template to determine hits. No peacenicks in my Guard. I can tell you from experience that that template sucks ass. You’ll never hit what you want with them. Hunter-killers wouldn’t be a bad bet, but don’t forget your BS sucks. More multiple rocket pods. Well I guess if you fucked up your list and don’t have any infantry killing stuff elsewhere, the prospect of 4 total rocket pods on a vulture is funny.
• Replace your multi-laser AND hellstrike missiles with twin-linked punisher cannons. At the price of a Witch Hunters rhino, this is pricey. You can’t tell me that you don’t want to roll and re-roll all those dice, though. But at the end of the day you’ve just got more anti-infantry fire. Do you need that?
• You can also take flare/chaff, armored cockpit, infra-red targeting, illum flare, and a distinctive paint scheme/decals. Flare/chaff lets you re-roll on the damage chart if you’re immobilised- whoopee. Cockpit let you ignore shaken and stunned on a 4+- this is very useful. Infrared gives you acute senses… and I should care because? Illum flares are a single use and illuminate a target in night fighting so everybody can see it- so it’s a fancy searchlight. You already have a regular one, do you really need to upgrade to the bat signal? Distinctive paint scheme lets one friendly unit within LOS re-roll a failed moral check. You don’t take standards do you? This is no different.

Bottom line- this is a cool unit that suffers from the problem of not adding anything new that your transports and fast attack choices don’t already do cheaper. Punisher cannons could prove useful in high points games as your efficiency changes.

Sentry Gun Battery
Great another crap unit with a ton of rules to explain.

I’ll get to the bottom line first- More FW shoehorning. You don’t need these and you can’t expect them to hit anything anyway. Continue reading if that wasn’t convincing enough.

For the cost of a Sentinel you get a unit with the same Armor values. They have that ultra-amazing automated gun BS2. Good luck with that. They are immobile artillery. They get a pair of twin-linked Heavy Bolters and can deep strike. For the price of a melta gun you can upgrade to a twin-linked lascannon (2/3 chance of hitting, which is ok all things considered, but not really worth the points- You could just about get another melta Sentinel for the same cost). If you like throwing away points, you can also give these camo netting.

Before the game begins, you must choose a firing mode. Here are the choices:

• point defence mode- set up with a fixed 90 degree firing arc. You can shoot at targets up to 36″ away. Not bad, but that arc could really limit your options.
• Sentry mode- 360 degree arc with an 18″ range. The short ass range kills this one for me.
• Interceptor- this is a new one and only works in Planetstrike. Your gun fires as an interceptor and only as an interceptor, per Planetstrike’s rules. This is useful. <=== hey Internet, that was sarcasm.

And as a last little fuck you from the designers, the model has goofy targeting rules. You must fire at a “preferred target” if possible. If no preferred target is available, you must shoot the closest enemy in range. A heavy bolter fires at non-vehicles and a lascannon will fire at vehicles and monstrous creatures. This will cause just about as many rules disputes as rage when determining things like who is the closest target. Well it would if anybody were dumb enough to take these anyway.

Valkyrie Sky Talon Transport
Strangely enough this unit is a dedicated transport, but the rules say it is also a heavy support choice that doesn’t occupy FOC slots. Weird. This guy costs 5 points less than a Hydra or Griffon. It has the same armor as a Valkyrie and is a fast skimmer. It can deep strike and it has the sky lift rule. Sky lift lets you carry a single Tauros or Tauros Venator. You can alternatively carry 2 Sentinels. Maybe you might want to carry in a heavy flamer Ford Tauros, but other than that skip it. Plus the arguably better Valkyrie can carry a Tauros, too. Why would I carry Sentinels that can deep strike? If I could take heavy flamer Sentinels, this might be useful, but as it is now- not so much.

It comes with a nose-mounted heavy bolter and two hellstrike missiles. You also get a searchlight and extra armor. The only option available is to replace the missiles with multiple rocket pods at codex: IG cost. If you’re not already running a bunch of Valkyries this would give you some fire support. If you’re not already running a bunch of Valkyries, why are you playing Elysians?

Bottom line- this could be an interesting unit, but unfortunately fails to contribute anything useful to the army. Not having scout kills its usefulness as a transport for fast, scout vehicles and deep striking vehicles. If you were playing Apocalypse, this counts as a flyer. That makes it much more useful as a transport. Hi, I just dropped a bunch of Melta Sentinels into your rear arc with no chance of deep strike mishaps on turn 1.

Imperial Navy Air Support
Ooh shiny flyers outside of Apocalypse. Sounds broken. Well maybe if they weren’t shitty, it would be. You can choose either a Thunderbolt or a Lightning. Both have the same armor as a Sentinel and are flyers. As flyers they are fairly difficult to kill. They have the 4+ moving fast save all the time, but Immobilised results kill you. Their mobility will also allow you to easily get side/rear shots on vehicles and can be used to shield you from assaults and block movement very effectively. The model size will, unfortunately add to the battlefield clutter (the Thunderbolt, in particular is god damn huge) and you’ll never get cover ever.

The points costs on these are obscene. The Thunderbolt costs as much as 6 codex: IG platoon command squads, while the lightning is only 15 points less. These are as expensive as Leman Russes and are more fragile and have less firepower. Their mobility makes up for this somewhat, but I can’t see these being too helpful overall.

Either fighter can take flare/chaff, an armored cockpit, infra-red targeting, illum flares, and a distinctive paint job. As with the Vulture, you need the cockpit and can probably skip the rest. But the flare/chaff does become useful as it could avoid an immobilised result. Too bad it costs 20 points and stands a very slim chance of actually doing you any good.

The Thunderbolt comes with 2 twin-linked autocannons (YES!!! autocannons, I’ve missed you). It also comes with a twin-linked lascannon. That is actually pretty scary for something that can basically be anywhere on the board it wants to be. You cn also carry 4 hellstrike missiles, hellfury missiles, or bombs at a cost of 4 melta guns. Well the writers forgot to include bomb stats or hellfury missile stats in the book. I already talked about heavy bombs. The same thing goes for regular bombs, but they suck balls against vehicles. Skip these. I don’t even know what the fuck hellfury missiles are. I can’t find rules for them in anything I own. I’m assuming they are some kind of large blast anti-infantry napalm stuff. If you do know what they do, please leave a comment. As always, hellstrike missiles just don’t seem worth the points.

The Lightning gets a long-barrelled autocannon with an AA mount with a twin-linked lascannon. The AA mount isn’t important in most games, but the long-barelled autocannon gets you extra range. All said and done, you’re losing a lot of shooting versus the Thunderbolt, for a pretty paltry points reduction. You have the same bomb and missile options as the Thunderbolt, but can also take 6 Skystrike missiles for the price of a Witch Hunters rhino (wow, expensive). As you might have predicted, there are no rules for these given, and I don’t know what they do. Seriously, they didn’t even put the rules in the fucking FAQ. How dumb is that? If I had to guess, though, I’d say they are probably AA mounted hunter-killers. This might not be so bad.

Bottom line- The Lightning isn’t worth it. The Thunderbolt gives you a surprisingly good amount of firepower in a very mobile unit. It is quite expensive, though, and the gigantic model takes up a lot of space. Space is likely something you don’t have to spare with Elysians as it is. This could be a problem.

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.

• 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.

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.

Elysian List Review Part 4- Troops

Now we’re off to the meat of the list, the troops section. This list trims a lot of the fat- yes, I’m looking your direction Conscrubs and Penile Legionnaires.

Some of the trimming got a little heavy handed- anybody else getting visions of a fat butcher in a stained wife-beater cutting a pig up? Just me? Ok, that’s the last time I reveal my sexual fantasies to you guys. Again, we lose autocannons and lascannons and what’s more, we can’t take any heavy weapons in our infantry squads at all. Ouch! There are plenty of other fun changes to make up for this though. Let’s stop focusing on what we’re losing and take a look at what we’re gaining. Wow, such positive affirmations coming from me, who’d have thought.

Elysian Infantry Platoon
This will be the first of two stops on our journey through troop land. The composition for the platoon is similar to codex: IG as you get 1 Platoon Command Squad, 2-5 Infantry squads, 0-4 heavy weapon squads, and 0-3 special weapons squads. Now here’s where they Elysian Twist Comes in- you also get 0-1 drop sentinel squadrons. Looks like if you absolutely want those storm troopers, you can still get some sentinels in your army too. You could also abuse this to take a lot of Sentinels if that’s the kind of person you are. Most importantly, though, this gives you the ability to spread out your existing Sentinels. If you’re taking pairs, like I advised, you can move some individual Sentinels into your platoons to get rid of squadrons, present more individual targets, and taunt your opponent by bringing the most kill points you can to the game.

Platoon Command Squad (PCS)
Same stats as codex: IG for 5 points more. You gain iron discipline and deep strike. Sadly, you also lose heavy weapons teams, although due to some awesome cut/copy editing, I just noticed that their stats still appear in the unit entry- way to go editors.

Options anyone?

• Platoon Commander can take bolt pistol, lasgun with auxiliary grenade launcher, plasma pistol, power weapon, melta bombs, or a power fist instead of his stock laspistol and CCW combo. This guy sucks more dick than George Michael in a public restroom. Why waste precious points on him? Spend your points elsewhere.
• You can also add in a Commissar with the same options as the Platoon Commander minus the melta bombs. Hint, this is not a good place to put a Commissar.
• ONE guardsman can take a special weapon. Blech, no more 4 flamer squads. Well, you get your choice of Flamer, Grenade Launcher, Melta gun, or Plasma. I’m thinking GL if you must buy something, but it hardly seems worth it.
• You can also pick one of each of the following: vox-caster, Platoon Standard, or lascutter. Everybody can get Krak grenades. Get a vox if you’re doing tricks with orders. If you really think it’s a good idea to punch a tank, then go ahead and get the grenades and the lascutter. Honestly, though for less points than the cutter you can get melta bombs on your commander, which is better. Too bad the cutter isn’t a melta weapon like it should be.
• You may also take a Valkyrie as a dedicated transport. This could be a good opportunity for you to sneak these guys onto an objective at a decisive moment in the game. It’s not like the commander’s orders are really going to add that much to your troops anyway. Let him fly around the battlefield like a pansy taking pot shots at infantry, only to claim the winning objective at the last moment, stealing glory from the rest of your army. Man, what an ass. Similarly, this squad could even hide most of the game and jump into a Vendetta at the last second to go scoring.

Bottom line- you have to take these guys if you want an infantry platoon. That doesn’t mean you have to invest extra points into them. Use them for their orders or for their ability to score an objective and leave them at that. Without heavy weapons or multiple special weapons they don’t bring anything you need to the fire support game.

Infantry Squad
Ahh the lowly grunts. This squad will set you back an extra 10 points versus codex: IG, but you once again get Iron Discipline and deep strike. You also retain the combined squad rules and lose the ability to take heavy weapons. The other slightly bizarre thing is that your Seargeant carries a Lasgun, with no option to switch that for a laspistol. May not sound significant, but losing that extra attack in CC could suck.

Here are your options for the squad:

• You can take a Commissar. With the ability to merge squads still this is where you may want a Commissar. LD9 Stubborn blob of guys. Nothing new there, except that you don’t have a line of tanks to bubble wrap and you can’t create a CC monster squad as easily as codex: IG. You also probably won’t be able to deep strke a 30+ strong unit very easily, unless you’re playing on a Warhmmer Fantasy table with huge tracts of open, terrainless, space. I guess this would work on a Battlefleet Gothic Table, but regardless if you’re playing on a Necromunda table, deep striking is suicide.
• Your Commissar and Seargent can take up to two of the following: Lasgun with auxiliary grenade launcher, plasma pistol, and a power weapon. The auxiliary grenades could be interesting, but this is the only place in the squad that you can get them. So with a max of two of these in the unit they probably won’t do anything. But then again, they might and hell they’re only 3 points. Why not?
• One guardsman can take a flamer, grenade launcher, melta gun, or plasma. GL and flamer are your best options here depending on how close to the action you plan on getting. As always, the others are too expensive to waste on shitty guardsmen.
• One Guardsman can have a vox-caster and one can have a demolition charge. Voxcaster is a maybe. One would be good in a blob to make sure that they get their orders. The demo charge I have less of an opinion on. If you’re foot slogging, this stands little chance of making it to a target. If you’re flying or deep striking it could be a nice ‘fuck you buddy’ to your opponent, but a single shot weapon that costs as much as a pair of meltas is a hefty investment.
• You can give everybody krak grenades and you can give your sergeant melta bombs. Who cares. Without power fists and lascutters, I don’t want to get these guys close to enemy vehicles.
• Take a Valkyrie as a dedicated transport. Hell yeah! Problem is if you take a lot of these, you may find yourself running out of board space quickly. If my calculations are correct, you can actually fit 99 of these into a list if you really try. If you do take a transport, you become very mobile . Tragically, the only thing you have to deliver to the combat zone is a squad of guardsmen. Woo hoo. We’ll cover this more later.

Bottom line- a lot of the standard tricks work here. There are some new possibilities as well, like mass airborne assaults and deep striking. Your best bet is probably still to blob up and tarpit the shit out of somebody and then try and score some objectives.

Heavy Weapons Squad
5 points more than codex: IG gets you he same unit with deep strike and iron discipline. Deep strike? Do you really want to lose a turn of shooting right off the bat? Leave these far from the fight to support your deep strikers as they drop or your flying advance. But, for the love of God, don’t deep strike these.

You get a mortar for free (but the pestle will cost ya- sorry) and can upgrade to a Heavy Bolter or Missile Launcher. Nothing to write home about here, but I think that Missiles are your best bet again. Sure you’re not as good with them as Marines, but they still offer a solidish anti light armor/transport and anti infantry choice.

Now here’s the weird part, you can give these guys a Valkyrie transport as well. Not sure why you would want to do that as you’re not shooting if you’re moving, but whatever. There are also plenty of other places to get Valkyries in the list, so don’t bother. Speaking of don’t bother, you can also take Krak grenades.

Bottom Line- you don’t get reliable autocannon fire. If you need the support, missile launchers will make a decent substitute.

Special Weapons Squad
Same unit as codex: IG with a 5 point surcharge for extra skills, namely iron discipline and deep strike. Well deep strike opens up a lot of options for you and will get you close to where you want to be. With only 6 guys in the unit, you won’t be there for long, but hopefully you got to take something down with you.

The options are the same as codex: IG and you still must take 3 special weapons. Snipers get a big meh, because they lose some utility without Psyker Battle Squads. Plasma is still plasma and you still have BS3, so melta is probably best done elsewhere (hint I’m talking about veterans). Flamers or grenade launchers are an ok plan, but odds are you may have a lot of those elsewhere already. Same goes for the demo charge.

You can also give these guys a Valkyrie. I feel sorry for the air traffic controllers during a battle with Elysians. Not sure if it’s worth taking this since you can deep strike for free. Depends on what kind of army you’re going for really.

Veteran Squads
At last we come to the poster boys of the Guard army. As you probably already guessed these guys cost 10 points more than codex: IG, but you get Iron Discipline and deep strike in exchange. Did they lose anything? Well with no Chimerae to hide in yes they lost a lot. You’ll miss those if you try and use these the same way as you do in a regular IG army. You’ll also probably lose the game.

Are you ready for some options?

• Serageant gets laspistol and CCW. He can take a shotgun, bolt pistol, power weapon, plasma pistol, or power fist. Maybe give him a shotgun if you’re going assault heavy, but the rest of the options are a big fat points sink.
• Any veteran can get a free shotgun or upgrade to an auxiliary grenade launcher. Either of these is good. If you’re flying or dropping near enemy lines the assault options you get from these are priceless, provided you have ways of getting troops out of their transports first. Either weapon will be able to do some heavy damage to anybody that you want to assault. Obviously the grenade launchers are better, but regardless this will give you less troops to deal with in an assault which is a good thing.
• you can also take a vox-caster and a lascutter. If you’re using your mobility to the fullest, you shouldn’t ever be able to make use of the vox. The lascutter is a personal preference, but you get a lot of assault and ranged anti tank options in this unit already. Does one more really matter?
• Up to three guys may take a flamer, grenade launcher, sniper rifle, melta gun, heavy flamer, or plasma gun. Good times. This is still why we like you. Now, without a chimera mobile bunker to shoot from these guys will need to be used a little differently. Rather than rushing forward at will to melta tanks, you really need to make a run for the flanks or areas where the enemy can give the least resistance. Let your Tauros, Sentinels, Vultures, and Vendettas worry about the heavy stuff and soak up a lot of fire. Since you have to get out of your ride to shoot, you don’t want to be near anything that can threaten your lives. These are scoring units, after all. So meltas are still going to be the standard for these guys, but you might want to consider adding a flamer or even heavy flamer (since you don’t have a hull HF backing you up any more, although you may have rocket pods). This will give you some nice flexibility without taking much anti-tank firepower away from you.
• Two veterans may become a heavy weapons team with a mortar, heavy bolter, or missile launcher. Are you flying or deep striking? Then don’t take these, idiot.
• Then you can also take a doctrine. They’re the same as codex: IG, but forward observers also gives you a homing beacon. Demolitions is really the standout here. You get a good package against vehicles and infantry. To be honest, though if you’re working with Valkyries in support you may not find this necessary. Use your meltas to pop a transport. Rocket pod and multilaser contents of said transport to death. Assault the survivors. Aggressive? Yes. Reckless? A little, but you the important thing is that you wouldn’t really gain anything from melta bombs or demo charges.
• You can also take a Valkyrie. If you’re not deep striking you’d be a fool not to take one of these. I think this is a better option than deep striking as it gives you much more precision as to where you’re delivering your troops and you can be in your enemy’s lines on turn one if they didn’t reserve all. I don’t mind deep striking things that have decent ranged weapons, like Sentinels, but when you have a 12″ melta with a 6″ super fun range, you can’t rely on fate and the scatter dice to drop you near enough to your target to be helpful.

Bottom line- Still a great unit, just don’t be too stupid with them. You need to be absolutely focused since you don’t have a Chimera covering your ass anymore. There’s no room for error. Aim for the flanks and try to stay out of harm’s way as much as possible while going after easy vehicle/transport targets. Work closely with Valkyries and you’ve got a very efficient way to kill.

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