40k Lore, Regiments Of The Imperial Guard! The Elysian Drop Troopers! Elite Shock Grav Chute Troops

girl greetings and sanitation's friends and welcome back to more warmer 40K lore well today we are going to have a look at another Regiment of the Imperial Guard the Elysian drop Troopers this is an unusual albeit far from a unique Imperial Guard regiment as the majority of Elysian troops are deployed into battle as a light highly mobile Airborne infantry although Elysia does also produce more conventional Imperial Guard formations as well regular infantry armor and artillery units are also raised from the planet although I would imagine they tend towards a lighter nature a planet with the kind of backstory and specialization of Elysium would probably seek to apply their particular field of expertise in other areas and hey with vehicles like the valkyrie Sky Talon for example you could carry a fair bit of armor rapidly onto the battlefield chimeres tauros's Sentinels and all of their countless variations including self-propelled guns and heavy tank destroyers you could have a very mobile yet very Punchy and somewhat armored Force to become the rough equivalent of an Imperial Guard tank formation and considering the illustrious and elevated history of Elysia it also wouldn't be entirely Beyond The Pale to perhaps speculate that you could have a fully air mobile armored regiment complete with Lehman rust battle tanks basilisks an even heavier nonsense like Beyblades if they managed to get into a nice Cooperative agreement with the Imperial Navy to supply them with tetrack heavy Landers orb devourero dropships this wood in essence create heavy armored yet fully air mobile Imperial Guard regiments which does sound rather fun doesn't it particularly considering a test Rock brings a small Tank squadron's worth of Firepower into battle by itself but we are deviating a little bit from the topic of the drop Troopers aren't we because as amusing as I like the idea of a combined arms all Airborne assault formation like this we do need to bear in mind that the Imperial Guard is not really actually set up to facilitate combined arms operation within singular formations instead it is intended to have several regiments preferably from different areas of the Galaxy work together in communal support as uh means of making sure that if one regiment goes Rogue the others should be able to deal with it via good old-fashioned rock paper scissors so let us take a quick step back and begin at the most natural start starting point a Leisure itself the planet unlike the home of the hakone warhawks my personal favorites Elysia is a standard gravity world with no real elements that would seem to make it naturally apt at creating specialized Airborne regiments but the surrounding system is filled with gas nebulas and points of Stellar interference which allows pirates of the green-skinned variety to hide an ambush Imperial shipping of which there is plenty as Alicia said rights next to one of the largest and most stable trade routes in the sector and so in turn the duty of protecting aforementioned trade Lanes falls to the elysians this is where their talent for handling the grave shoots and their reputation as Elite infantry come into play due to the nature of the countless heidiholes in the sector orc Pirates and whatever else scum is located are rarely engaged in open void combat only when the Imperial Navy or local space Defense Forces managed to catch them in the middle of an attack or traversing back and forth between their pixels is there any opportunity at all to engage them in the open and even then the windows are fleeting as the Pirates are undoubtedly so going to be avoiding open engagements with the Imperial Navy that they have no chance in hell of actually winning this means that in nine cases out of ten the only way to exterminate a pirate warband is to go in to the asteroid fields to the nebulous into the areas of disturbance and root them out Ship by ship Base by base at what is in void terms knife fighting ranges with boarding actions and clearing operations against bases and due to the nature of these engagements it stands to reason as well that the elysians will be deploying their grave shoot Elite infantry here both obviously because they are the best that Elysia has to offer but also because of the advantages that the grav shoot might offer in void combat now if you're evading a ship that already has standard simulated gravity then the glass shoot is going to offer only marginal advantages it's going to allow you to Traverse vertical spaces for example like elevator shoots or random giant Gorges in the ship Which is far more common in Nork vessel than you might think but beyond that it'll probably only get in the way most of the time as you're carrying a pair of promethium-fueled jet engines on your shoulders however remember the nature of the opposition as well green skins Orcs and here's the thing we are extrapolating a pinch here but a human in zero g is going to activate very very quickly the muscles are simply going to wilt away once they no longer need to constantly struggle gravity to conduct every single motion of your body and with uh no muscle mass a human is going to be remarkably useless against an orc especially in Point Blank Range Corridor fighting however the Orcs the orc body is can be growing Reckless of the forces acting upon it meaning that theoretically one would imagine even in a zero-g environment orc muscles well at the very least remain at their base level and probably simply continue to grow and grow stronger still despite there being no external Force making the body work out this fact would give the Orcs a substantial advantage in zero g environments and in hiding from whomever is trying to chase them down obviously simulated gravity has its benefits like allowing you to simply walk from one place to another or easily store stuff without it drifting away but artificial gravity requires energy and energy signatures are the easiest ways to find anything in the vast immensity of space and whilst some life support features like air filtration water Etc are necessary even for the Orcs or be it to a lesser degree than humans cutting back on whatever you don't absolutely need will make you a lot more difficult to detect and in an area of zero gravity then the grav Chute will become very very useful because it is not simply just a parachute the ground shoot consists of two primary component parts the first is the anti-gravitic device which creates a jet or a column or a directional force of anti-gravity energy now this isn't powerful enough to keep a fully grown human Aloft in and of itself but it will slow down the person's fall rather drastically at the very least to non-lethal non-injury velocities the other two little things on the back however are directional thrusters fuel by good old-fashioned promethium held in a canister within the grav Chute itself these provide negligible lift really but they do allow the trooper to maneuver and if it allows a trooper to maneuver during a drop then in a zero-g environment well they're essentially directional thrusters which would give an Elysian Trooper tremendous maneuverability in zero gravity now there are of course fuel limitations to be taken into account here as the thrusters are powered as mentioned by promethium and they don't carry a whole lot of that around with them because well one it's heavy and two carrying seven liters of flammable liquids on your pack is often a bit of a recipe for disaster particularly as promethium once at least in its gel-like state is relatively stable it is still a fundable and explosive liquid strapped to your soldier's back however there is enough promethium fuel in the Chute to in cooperation with the gravitic components get keep a fully armed and equipped Trooper hovering in the air on a standard 1G gravity planet for 60 seconds now that doesn't sound like a whole lot of time but that is 60 seconds of keeping a fully grown fully armed and armored human being with a grab shoot in the air that is actually a lot of thrust you've got there and seeing as it can hover as well as slow The Descent that is obviously some sort of intensity gauge you can adjust the power of the fastest in other words in a zero gravity environment but all you need to maneuver around is a brief push well then in all due likelihood you've got yourself a very effective and long-lasting zero gravity maneuvering device as well as a parachute in fact I would imagine that the primary limiting factor on the graph shoot at that point in time won't even be the promethium but rather the battery within the grab shoot itself it is usually recharged via solar power or via recharging docks on spaceships or bases but it's only got about an hour or so of battery time now obviously the actual consumption of that battery is going to depend upon how much of it you are actually literally using and so if you're not really deploying the gravity field all that much and merely just moving the thrusters around in various directions it's going to last for a lot longer than an hour but still that is probably the main limiting factor again we are extrapolating a little bit here but it does make a great deal of sense particularly considering the Illusions reputation as Elite regiment as what we've talked about just now well these are the actions of the Elysian PDF the planetary Defense Force not the Imperial Guard regiment this is the kind of fighting that their usual Defenders have to engage in by the time an Elysian drop Trooper is actually recruited into the Imperial Guard therefore he is already a veteran of repeated void and boarding action engagements he is already a trained tested and seasoned Soldier by his planetary Defense Forces close cooperation with the Imperial Navy to keep all of the green skinned thieves under control this is of course a bit of an exception to the rule as more often than not the planetary Defense Force is well they're closer to a militia really than a standard Army on most worlds intended to take care of local disturbances and hauled out for a few months or a year or two until the arrival of the Imperial Guard to deal with large-scale enemy incursions but on planets like Elysia where you need a constant supply of actual genuine fighting men to take on extreme conditions the militia tends to become an army in their own right and really when recruited into the Imperial Guard unlike again most PDF formations the elysians don't actually change that much the average equipment of a PDF member is going to be roughly if not indeed directly one-to-one comparable with those in the guard themselves probably if anything the PDF will have slightly less access to some of the more specialized weapons of the Elysian regiment I imagine for example that the plasma or melter guns will be far rarer in the PDF than in the Imperial Guard but everything else like microbeads for example usually just an Imperial Guard issue I would imagine would be very common within the PDF as when you're maneuvering through the tight corridors of an enemy spaceship communication is pretty important unless you want to blow apart your own soldiers when they come around a corner I guess and speaking of the Imperial Guard version of the Elysian drop troops how does a PDF drop Trooper become an actual proper Imperial Guard drop Trooper well first and foremost the Imperial Guard only recruits from those who have already competed one tour of active combat Duty with the PDF furthermore the Elysian Imperial Guard regiments only accept volunteers so you have to First Complete a tour of Duty with combat in the PDF and then volunteer on top of that for the Imperial Guard making sure that only the best of the best will ever enter the ranks of the god Emperors fighting men and women as a slight side note as well by the way I do say volunteers and that is correct they do only take volunteers because there are so many volunteers that they'd probably actually rejecting the majority of them as Elise of course like all other worlds in the Imperium Bound by the Imperial tide so they are actually required to deliver a set amount of regiments or resources so in times of extreme pedal there is a theoretical possibility that conscription could become the norm and the requirement on Elysia as well but it would require a lot to happen shall we say as Elysium is not only a very wealthy world it is also a very populous world as it has by and large been spared the more aggressive predations of the Galaxy a handful of Pilots here and there is fairly peaceful by you know General 40K standards anywho once the hopeful has actually entered the ranks of an Imperial Guard regiment in training he will go to one of specialized training sites either on Elysia itself or more usually on various planets in the Elysian system as the drop Troopers are put through a grueling training menu that include both of course yet further instructions in the use of the gavetik shoot operations of weapons and specialized Armament but also extreme environment survival as the Elysian drop troops are expected to be able to not only survive but Thrive and fight no matter the environment they are deployed into to Aid them in this bold and worthy Endeavor the elysians are given access to a wide variety of specialized equipment not available to most Imperial Guard formations the first and most immediately obvious is the type 5 pressurized helmet now most Imperial Guard regiments in fact done it all are of course issued with a simple flak helmet and usually some form of rebreather mask as well the type 5 is as the name suggests a fully pressurized and enclosed helmet allowing the trooper to not only survive in outright toxic environments but also in zero atmosphere and zero gravity environments as it is equipped with its own rebreather mask oxygen supply and full face protection the type 5 helmet further allows the trooper to be deployed via transport craft at extreme altitude outright human lethal altitude as in the tipimo's top of a planet's atmosphere altitude hell theoretically you could go even further so long as you are still within a planet's gravitic field and not moving at you know burning to a crisp and Cinders kind of speed entry velocity then the drop Troopers can be deployed and on the note of extreme environment survival the elysians are also issued with Mark 12 carapace Obama an extravagance to put it mildling as most Imperial Guard regiments could not even dream of that level of protection but even more importantly than the Armor itself is the modularity of the armor and the many bodysuits that can be configured to work alongside its systems this allows both for integration with the grave shoot itself of course in addition to oxygen supply and even heating cooling and Water Reclamation systems enhancing the elysian's ability to operate in all environments not even those with outright respiratory hazards like toxic or zero atmosphere environments but also those with Insidious temperature threats for example the Elysian drop troopers were deployed both during the taros campaign on a desert World against the town and on mimura an ice World against the Eldar now I hardly mean tell you I imagine that operating in a desert environment brings somewhat different challenges to operating in the Arctic and yet the Elysian Troopers trailing and Equipment allow them to handle both extremes with relativities but merely surviving of course is not good enough for a soldier of the god Emperor you've also got to make sure that the opposition does not get to live and to ensure that the elysians have developed an array of specialized weapon systems both in the forms of vehicles transport and small arms and Squad support weapons because here's the thing once again these are drop Troopers they're parachute infantry essentially and this branch of service has several limitations placed upon it that the more regular Ground Pounders do not first and foremost they are limited by how much equipment and supplies they can bring with them by the transport capacity of the vehicles actually delivering them to the Target and since this is often deep Behind Enemy Lines resupply is not necessarily feasible as such you've got to bring with you a lot more at once than a regular Imperial Guard regiment would do good old-fashioned infantry can bring all of their guns and ammunition first and then expect to be resupplied with additional ammo food water Etc a drop troop regiment does not necessarily have that luxury and so everything needs to be as light as possible so that as much of everything can be brought along as possible and one of the biggest absolutely necessary weight allocations of any army is of course weapons so the elysians have specialized Theirs to an extensive degree this is only possible due to the relative proximity of the Forge World of akatran as well as the elysian's reputation for excellence and wealth responding to both the Forge World producers for the elysians a series of specialized gear including most notably the acatran pattern 4 Las gun or Las carbine more correctly this Bullpup design is exceptionally unusual within the ranks of the Imperial Guard the Bullpup design allows of course for the magazine or power pack more correctly again to be mounted within the weapons stock itself allowing for the gun to be drastically shorter than the standard issue last gun this makes the weapon both significantly lighter and more Compact and easily maneuverable in cramped conditions like boarding actions against enemy vessels for example it's not all benefits and Roses however as the sacrifice of the weapons long battle and in turn its focusing rings does make the mark IV akatran pattern considerably less powerful than the standard issue lazgun this is compensated for by overcharging the power cell quite a bit so that the Alaska itself has around about the same punch as a standard issue one but only about one third of the magazine capacity 50 shot at standard power output compared to 150 or even more for a standard issue asgun to make up for this again the Elysian drop Trooper is equipped with five power cells rather than the two or three that is standard again considering their drop true prediments I goddamn guarantee you that they're going to be bringing a lot more than five as well whenever possible but each Trooper will be carrying five and then he'll probably be issued with more Reserve power packs from a central storage as again I guarantee you they will be dropping entire boxes full of this nonsense as running out of ammunition behind the enemies lines is a very very bad idea and whilst power packs can be recharged via solar power well that requires access to the Sun and that's not necessarily possible on all planets and during all conditions the forged world of akatran also produces further variance on the mark IV pattern including a Bullpup sniper rifle design which is going to be inherently inferior to the regular long last but at the very least it does provide Marksman capabilities to drop Trooper teams and a variet the mark IV C with an underslung crack grenade launcher anti-tank Weaponry is obviously going to be the most difficult to bring along for drop Troopers and so even just a little bit of light anti-tank punch in a pinch can be extremely useful especially as the drop Troopers are most likely to be engaging rare line formations first and foremost and they are probably going to be in possession primarily of lighter vehicles but as we're talking about anti-tank operations that are of course also a huge number of specialized weapons required for the average Imperial card regiment and even more so for the Elysian drop Troopers as any operation Behind Enemy Lines will require them to be more or less entirely self-sufficient as such they have pretty much all of the regular issue Imperial Guard Weaponry like plasma guns melted guns Harry Potter's mortars missile launches Etc but all of them are specialized variants in addition to some unusual ones as well for example a combat shotgun this is an eight round underslung tubular magazine Close Quarters combat weapon presumably it will also be equipped with sabot rounds to make it useful in regular engagements but mainly this is intended to provide the punch necessary to deal with larger adversaries shall we say up close and personal and shotguns of course are invaluable for storming and breaching operations where the Elysian Troopers are often required to Doom as dropping down Behind Enemy Lines well it usually has a purpose and quite often that purpose is to seize objectives and if it's important enough the guard to want them uh not your likelihood the enemy wants them too stuff like Bridges or real-line Supply Depots or even full-on fortifications we've seen a few examples of this in our own history for example like the second world war German function Yeagers assault on the Belgian Fort of Eben and mile the fort was considered to be almost impregnable at the time and was a highly modern fortification expected to hold the Germans for weeks months or maybe even years but the francium Yeager circumvented virtually all of its defenses landed directly on top of it and employing breaching and demolition charges destroyed most of its armored kipolars and kept the Garrison right inside the fort and the Elysian drop Troopers too have access to demolition charges of this type specifically a rounded shaped charge weighing in at some 9 odd kilograms this would be more than enough to bust open pretty much any sort of armor so long as you can deliver it directly on top of it mind you and can be easily carried into battle on a soldier's hip luckily for the elysians though the far-flung future of the 41st Millennium also has weapons that are basically shaped charges but that you can use or repeatedly and are easily Man portable the melter gun or specifically yet another akatran Forge World special pattern of the melter gun you know the Melt again is one of those weapons that you can't really pair down all that much as most of its weight is actually in its ammunition its safety features and its actual firing mechanism so the acatran pattern melter gun is not noticeably more mobile or smaller than the regular issue one but considering its significant anti-tank Firepower and additional utility versus fortifications it is no doubt a sacrifice that any commander would make willingly the elysians also have their own pattern plasma guns again not noticeably different from the regular patterns with the exception of an additional bipod as well they also have flamethrowers now these have been paired down quite a bit as well as the missile launcher the acatran pattern comes along with frag and crack grenades like usual but it is significantly shorter than your standard missile launcher as is the heavy Bolter yet again you can see the distinctive bipod design as well for added stability and Mobility as normally these are of course weapon crew operated weapons but in Rapid hit and run operations carried out by airborne troops you might not have the luxury of setting up pre-prepared positions like that having a weapon that is portable by a single trooper with another handling the ammunition makes it a lot more flexible but perhaps the most iconic and interesting weapon is the automatic mortar this is the akatron pattern Mark 9 automatic mortar it comes with a drum magazine complete with five rounds and can be set up and fired fully automatically in but a few seconds now you might be wondering why you'd want an automatic mortar well part of it is the same reason as the heavy Bolter having one weapon that can be carried by one man deployed by one man fired by one man and then moved by one man who will then find somewhere safe to reload the drum magazine makes for far more flexibility plus the ability to deliver not one but five rounds rapid onto a Target significantly increases the suppression effect allowing other troops to storm the objective without those nasty Defenders shooting them in their expensive helmets it is quite simply important a force multiplier as is the grenade launcher the single man portable grenade launcher this has a six shot revolving drum magazine and is much beloved for the exact same reasons in that it allows a squad of elysians as there is usually a 10-man squad with one sergeant and one specialized weapons Trooper to close with an objective whilst providing their own covering fire there is a little bit of a problem however the acatran pattern grenade launcher well it's gotten paired down quite significantly as a grenade launcher it's a hefty piece of kit at the best of times and when you're slapping on a six round magazine as well it is a heavy little beast and so it had to be paired down a lot resulting in a very short battled weapon with less than ideal ammunition as well with still a hefty recoil on its pistol grip this means that when you're firing this thing well you'd better be strong as Knox first and foremost and secondly your accuracy is going to be questionable but hey so long as there's no allies near the objective you're storming who cares so long as there are lots of loud booms and fragmentations flying around in the air the job of suppressing the enemy will still be completed actually now crack Elysian drop Trooper will be stupid enough to get caught by his allies grenades now would he now let's hope anyways but now that we have a basic understanding of the elysian's Weaponry let's talk some tactics and deployment strategies shall we now first and foremost obviously the elysians are a heavily specialized regiments oh they are Elites as well and they can probably perform the role of line and shock infantry just fine but it would be a tremendous waste because well many Infantry Regiment can hold a line and any Infantry Regiment should be expected to be able to assault an enemy position but not just any Infantry Regiment can deploy Behind Enemy Lines to seize vital strategic installations like Bridges or harass Communications lines or logistical Supply Depots Etc this all requires specialized knowledge and training from both the officers and the men themselves not to mention the psychological fortitude to willingly Place yourself into an isolated and exposed position without any nearby units providing security this means in turn but more often than not the elysians are hoarded and kept back and protected deployed only as a vital strategic resource rather than simple grants this means that the elysians most of the time will be enjoying a relatively speaking luxurious position in the rear they'll probably be sleeping in real beds being able to wash themselves and eat almost every day ideal situation but one not always achieved by Frontline units however it also means that when they are deployed they are likely to be tossed into some truly unenviable situations let's begin with one of the um more risky situations shall we to illustrate the point there is often a strategic need to carry out interdiction operations against enemy positions and Logistics lines of communications Retreats and reinforcements before the commencement of a large-scale operation a grand scale set-piece battle for example might require the enemy's lines of Retreats over for example branches or Railway heads or even Mainline highways and Roads Etc to be cut before the main assault with the idea being that once the main assault begins it'll begin pushing the enemy back forcing them to retreat but since their lines of retreat are already cut they will essentially be surrounded on day one on hour one of the battle placing the attacking side at not only a tremendous Advantage but in a position to completely eradicate large enemy formations this has been tried several times throughout the history of warfare with greater or lesser successes here and there one of the more disastrous ones for example was Operation Market Garden which in the end ended up not as bad as it could have been it could have very well have ended with the complete annihilation of major Allied Airborne formations as well um the whole pushing the enemy thing didn't quite work out as well as Montgomery had envisioned on the other hand you also have the attack on Fort Eben in mile for example which worked out wonderfully and allowed the German blitzki to punch into Belgium and through Belgium a hell of a lot faster than any Allied Commander thought possible ending up of course with the encircling maneuver of many British formations and French formations later on in the war at Dunkirk and many other Pockets besides this is a pirate High reward Gambit if it works out fantastic in fact it might but it will be a ward winning maneuver right there but if it doesn't you now have very there very expensive and exceptionally valuable Elite formations trapped in their own Pockets behind the Enemy Lines that you just failed to penetrate that is a recipe for a very very bad day indeed if you happen to be wearing a grab shoot at the time now theoretically the Elysian drop Troopers are fairly mobile and could possibly be extracted via the use of Valkyrie gunships for example but in these kinds of operations in audio likelihood they will have been deployed by high-flying transports rather than Valkyries because the valkyrie can only carry so many troops meaning you need a lot of them if you have a lot of relatively speaking slow VTOL aircraft moving through enemy airspace well one you're at a massive risk of interception two the enemy is going to know where you're going long before you get there and three in turn any hope of the element of surprise is almost certainly going to be long gone aerial insertion particularly High atmospheric insertions can reduce the risk of this as especially if you continue over flights of the area or bumming rounds or other tactical operations the enemy are not likely to guess paratroopers first and foremost at the very least nowhere near as quickly as if they see a formation of you know Transport Aircraft like the valkyrie is now a later operation could be conducted by Valkyries and other transport craft to try and extract the elysians but well at this point the enemy knows they're there and they are aware that their enemies operating behind their lines delicious delicious juicy trapped targets and are likely to be keeping them under considerable pressure meaning that a hot extraction is going to be very very dangerous and it could also be well the risk of reinforcing failure okay so you've lost a regiment of Elysian drop troops that sucks pretty bad but would you now also like to risk losing dozens of valuable fatal aircrafts yeah that's sort of the problem in many cases in this worst case scenario the elysian's best bet will be to try and break out on foot at the very least until they managed to disengage from the enemy and then hopefully be able to re-establish connections to Allied headquarters and then requests an extraction luckily the elysian's relatively light gear and self-sufficient nature give them a better chance of doing this than most regiments furthermore if deployed on such an operation the elysians will probably be carrying extra Russians too and immediately necessary supplies additional ammunition additional water additional water cleansing tablets and the good old-fashioned food of course but assuming a non- worst case scenario what precisely would be the elysian's job well in the case of cutting lines of communications and Retreat it would be to occupy areas of strategic significance again Bridges highways rail heads Etc this also means holding them against enemy attempts to reclaim them or to break out of the now forming pocket against the enemy this means that they will first have to take the objective hopefully which will not be overly heavily guarded as again Airborne operations are a rarity and a high risk thing obviously any army worth its salt will have patrols and guard stations all along its lines of communications for obvious reasons both counter-insurgency operations and guard against enemy sabotage operations particularly true for things that can't be repaired easily like you know Bridges but things are likely to be second or third line formations or even just simply militia local guard forces or police no match for the elysians whatsoever and they will probably be quickly overrun then the elysians will construct whatever temporary fortifications they can as I'm presuming they'll probably be dropped into battle with some engineering Specialists too and you can make relatively formidable defensive positions with just shovels axes and maybe some blasting charges depending on the nature of terrain the good old-fashioned Foxhole for example will give the average infantryman a hell of a lot higher chance of surviving shelling than if you had to sit out in the open Simple log and Earth bunkers too can be very difficult to deal with not to mention camouflage to fighting positions multiple preferably and dugouts to shelter against artillery such improvised measures will hardly hold out against a major concerted assault but the entire idea of the surround maneuver is to not really give the enemy the time to mount those kinds of large-scale pre-planned and prepared operations but rather rush them into assaulting what will hopefully by then be prepared positions another key Achilles heel of the Elysian drop Troopers 2 which will need to be rectified with the digging of entrenchments and dugouts and shelters is of course ammunition they only have so much and what they've got is probably what they've got meaning keeping it safe is very very important and so dug out ammunition bunkers will need to be built immediately or the ammunition needs to be dispersed or hidden or scattered in some way as bear you in mind even if each Soldier carries within five charge packs that is diddly dick nothing in an extended engagement not to mention everything you need for grenades Rockets extra fuel packs for the multi melters etc etc all of this it takes up a significant amount of space and if the enemy gets lucky and hits it with a stray artillery round suddenly you are very very ammo starved very very quickly but in essence these operations boil down to storming a Target seizing it and then holding it against enemy opposition until relieved by friendly forces in the case of a rare Line supply disruption and rage either they will be deployed with their Valkyrie gunships and they will be a mobile Force specifically aiming for a type of hypermobile warfare this will be difficult against large-scale enemy opposition if the enemy has the kind of resources required to fortify huge areas of the front line they've probably got more than enough sitting in the backgrounds as well and this is going to make it very difficult for the units to extricate themselves once their raid is over but in smaller scale Wars over large areas where you maybe only have a few dozen regiments to cover something the size of a continent well a small and rapidly moving force of elysians born Aloft in their vital Valkyries is gonna be really goddamn difficult to pin down and Destroy obviously these operations are going to be limited if the enemy has here superiority naturally but so long as the airspace is contested and they have some escort then it's it's not the riskiest thing in the book and considering the potential gains it might very well be worth it these kinds of raiding operations is the thing that the elysians excel in the most as they have the ability to appear quickly over on local resistance with their Superior fighting capabilities and vastly Superior immediately available Firepower due to the Valkyries and its various varials and then move on to the next Target long before a force capable of actually fighting them shows up but on the note of assaulting as well this is actually another thing that the elysians are often employed for shock assault operations now first and foremost this is because the elysians themselves are Elite troops so they are going to have a lot more training than your average Imperial Guard regiment they have a lot of weapons focused on assault operations they themselves have carried out several Close Quarters operations in the past including boarding actions against Pirates so they're going to know what they're doing and they are not green troops even a fresh Legion regiment are filled purely with veterans meaning they're not going to start getting all shaky when having to charge the enemy's machine gun bunkers and most likely they have the support of Navy in the form of Valkyries and vultures well they actually pack one hell of a punch even just the standard Valkyrie has a multi-laser two Health strike missiles anti-tank missiles and two door mounted heavy bolters that is the Firepower equivalent to something between a chimera and the Lehman Rus battle tank and that's just the transport if you throw in something like a vendetta they dedicate the anti-tank flyer with its three twin-linked glass cannons well that thing can turn an armored column into sludge in mere moments and the heavy gunship right the vulture can be mounted with well basically anything and everything in the Imperial Guard Arsenal including one particularly ridiculous configuration having two twin linked Punisher Gatling cannons mounted on it plus of course hunter killer missiles yet further hell Furies and dumbfire multiple launch rocket pods it'll suppress any enemy position very rapidly and very effectively and when this Deluge of Firepower is then also near immediately followed up by hundreds of elite shock troopers there are not that many fortifications in the Galaxy that are capable of standing up to this kind of nonsense plus as we mentioned previously as well the elysians do also have the capability to deploy some Vehicles alongside them as well the larger Valkyrie variant the sky tower is capable of either carrying two Sentinels into battle or a single Tauros multi-purpose vehicle which can carry grenade launchers flamers Auto cannons heavy bolters Las cannons rocket launchers whatever you want the Taurus can probably carry it all of this together means that an Elysian dropped Trooper regiment has at its disposal a truly hilarious amount of oomph but it is limited in its duration Tauruses the Valkyries and the elysians themselves are all on the lighter side of things when it comes to endurance and armor they can pump out a truly ungodly amount of punishment but they rely on this to overwhelm the enemy quickly a valkyrie is not going to stand up to anti-aircraft fire at Taurus is not going to stand up to any sort of heavy anti-infantry or anti-vehicle Weaponry the elysians themselves are relatively speaking light troops if they get pinned down and put under sustained artillery fire they are going to die just as quickly as any other Imperial Guard regiment so they rely almost exclusively on the shock and awe of their arrival and the devastating effect that their multiple weapon system will have on the enemy in the first few moments of a battle if it turns into an extended engagement that Advantage will be lost very very very quickly and once more this is a very valuable formation you're committing here to this shock assault if it does not succeed in its objective quickly you are going to be losing not only a lot of Veteran troops but very valuable and difficult to replace Valkyries vendettas vultures Tauruses the specialized Personnel required to operate them particularly when it comes to close coordinated operations with multiple other arms as well the Imperial Navy and Imperial guards are entirely separate formations and often they don't like working together all that much the Imperial Navy's closest cooperation with the gun is usually ferrying them from one place to another even the dedicated Branch the aeronautica imperialis it really coordinates all that closely with the guard it has some bombing rungs some fighters of course they'll be required to provide air superiority and maybe some tactical support but nothing compared to the kind of close-knit instantaneous reaction required coordination of an infantry assault with the cover of gunships the gunships need to be able to flawlessly identify enemy formations and differentiate them from Allied ones whilst also bringing down relevant Firepower on targets pointed out by infantry commanders on the ground they need to be able to deploy anti-tank assets when requested they need to be able to suppress enemy positions even as there are going to be Allied troops maybe only a few dozen meters away from those positions not to mention the intricate dance of delivering infantry from vital aircraft either via Landing in the battlefield itself and then delivering them directly into the field or via rope insertions it is very difficult exceedingly so and doing it effectively rapidly and carrying out the shock of that assault which needs to be over in an hour or two it needs a perfectly oiled and fine-tuned Machinery of War and thus again throwing them against an enemy's strong point and hoping for the best we could very easily rob you of one of your most valuable formations it is certainly necessary sometimes and the ability of the elysians and their escorts to deal with even heavy enemy entrenched positions is proven repeatedly but man the risk yet again particularly if you're waging a larger scale strategic campaign across multiple worlds but you need to well carry out engagements like these again and again and again you need to think very carefully before dedicating such a limited resource to such high risk operations but at the same time if you simply have the Elysian sitting back in real line Depots for the entire War to bring them for it's kind of the same problem isn't it with the um again we're gonna have another World War II example here too in fact the German Navy it was equipped at Great expense with two of the largest and most modern warships of the time the Bismarck and the tirpitz the two battleships consumed enough steel to produce multiple Panzer divisions and drained enormous quantities of fuel oil even just sitting there as the Machinery needed to be kept running at a small level to keep the ship fully operational and electric and when they actually set out to see well they had fuel bunkers for up to 6400 tons of fuel enough to keep a Panzer Division going again for a very very long time and what did they achieve well diddly addict nothing in the case of the terpits really at least the Bismarck commanders to sink an enemy capital ship but even that the British had a lot of battleships the Germans did not at the end of the day as awesome as both of the ships were they were a criminal waste of resources and leaving an Elysian drop troop regiment simply sitting in the real lines for the entirety of a campaign would be much the same thing but on the other hand deploying them in a hasty assault Mission as well you might very well end up with Crete then mightn't you ah Crete yet another World War II example a Crete was the reason why the German function Jaeger were never again deployed on the scale the ambition and the offensive nature ever again because they took massive casualties taking the island of Crete via a near completely solo Airborne assault they were intended to be aided by Naval troops as well but that didn't work out very well and the real kicker is they succeeded managed to defeat the Garrison from Britain Greece New Zealand Australia Etc a total of some 42 000 troops with half their numbers less than half their numbers in fact it was a Herculean achievement but in so doing more than a fourth of the deployed Force became casualties any single deployment of any formation that ends up in 25 casualties is likely to scare the superior officers rather stiff that of course is precisely what happened as again the function yogas were never again deployed on that kind of scale or in that kind of an ambitious deployment additionally hilarious kicker is of course that the Allies would impress the High Heavens by this and All Began developing their own parachute performations after seeing what they can do at Crete but oh well returning to the 41st Millennium for a moment at least the lessons of the Germans in World War II is very much so relevant here as well sustaining 25 casualties are full fourth of a formation in a single engagement is more than likely to render the entire formation combat ineffective for quite some time as it reorganizes and even when it is finished reorganizing you're now stuck with a significantly larger and less capable formation and that is assuming you win in case of an actual defeat you could be looking at significantly heavier casualties than that again in difficult to replace Elite infantry and specialized vehicles and the specialized Crews too the elysians are an incredible resource they can even bring Victory to campaigns but if deployed without the necessary kind of care and due diligence their extraordinary capabilities and specialization can also lead to their destruction just as quickly as their Victory and so it requires a particular brand of Imperial Guard general to really get the most out of them someone with enough Daring Do to risk their precious Allegiance but also with enough foresight and planning skills to see when and where they can be deployed with the greatest amount of payoff and the least amount of risk it's an easy job by any stretch of the imagination but when the guard gets it right the elysians are worth their weight in gold and considering the size of their combat backpacks is a significant tonnage indeed until next time I've been Arch thank you all very much for listening and I hope to see you all again soon until then have a good day [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Arch

Views: 82,933

Keywords: arch, elysia, Elysian Drop Troopers, 40k, warhammer, lore, warhammer 40000, warhammer 40k, warhammer 40k lore, 40k lore, elysian drop troops, 40k explained, games workshop, imperium of man, gaming, astra militarum, regiments of the imperial guard, warhammer lore, wargaming, imperial guard, wh40k, imperium of mankind, warhammer40k, the imperium of man, channel, discuss, future

Id: EtZ8sZTwBOU

Length: 56min 50sec (3410 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2023