Guardians form the citizen-soldier troops for the Eldar in the 4th Edition Eldar Codex for Warhammer 40,000.

Background and Description

Guardians with a Scatter Laser platform

The Fall of the Eldar means that every civilian has to be ready to bolster the ranks of the Eldar armies. Though never the equal of Aspect Warriors in skill, they are indispensible in the defense of their Craftworlds.

Note: These rules and descriptions are necessarily truncated. Please refer to your 4th Edition Eldar Codex for specific model statistics, rules and points costs

Special Rules and Wargear

1. Fleet of Foot
2. Guardian Heavy Weapon Platform: Two models in the squad are dedicated to this heavy weapon.
3. Infantry
4. Shuriken catapult

Upgrades

1. Character: The unit may include one Warlocks as a leader.
2. Heavy Weapon Platform weapons:
   1. Bright lance
   2. Eldar Missile launcher
   3. Scatter laser
   4. Shuriken Cannon
   5. Starcannon
3. Storm Guardians: Exchange shuriken catapults for close combat weapon and shuriken pistol.
   1. Up to two guardians may be upgraded with Fusion guns or Flamers
4. Transport: A Guardian squad with 12 or fewer models can be mounted in a Wave Serpent

Overview

1. Firepower: Below Average
2. Assault: Poor
3. Durability: Poor
4. Speed: Average

With 5th editions need for troop choices, Guardians are the Eldar’s low cost option.

Strengths

1. Cheap: For the Eldar they are one of the cheapest units that they can buy.
2. Squad Size: With squad sizes up to 20, they can act as a semi-horde, and create some durability.
3. Scoring Unit: They are also a troop choice for additional scoring units.
4. Speed: They are able to move and at the same time shoot their heavy weapon. This makes them a moderately fast unit. They also have the Fleet of Foot special rule.

Weaknesses

1. Warlock Cost: Guardians become much more effective with the use of a Warlock with powers that compliment them. The downside is that warlocks are overpriced for what they do to make the upgrade not worthwhile. Warlocks do become slightly more cost effective the more guardians that you have in the squad, but that increases their point cost to heavy weapons ratio, and again makes people question if they are worth it.
2. Durability: Just like all horde troops they are very fragile.
3. Assault: With one attack each at strength 3 they are not going to be winning any assaults. They have Fleet of Foot, but with 5th editions assault rules, you should never use it.
4. Leadership: Guardians have a leadership of 8, and the addition of a Warlock (unless he has embolden) does not improve it. So they have to be very careful to avoid being in a position where they take 25% casualties and to avoid assaults.
5. Support: As a general rule Guardians are a poor unit. They can be brought up to being mediocre with other support units such as The Avatar of Khaine to make them fearless, and a Farseer for Doom/Guide/Fortune.
6. Storm Guardians: Storm Guardians really do not have a role or a niche that can’t be filled by better units. They cost more than an Ork Boy or a Termagaunt, and they fight much worse. One of the only uses for them is with 2 flamers and a Warlock with Destructor in a Wave Serpent to jump out and to flame a unit, but this unit w/transport is way overpriced for what it can do. If only you could buy 6 of them for a Falcon they might be a good buy, but since you can't, they aren't. These are the major reasons why most people leave them at home.

Common Uses

1. The Guardian Horde

Like all other Eldar armies, the strategy of massing Guardians units works together with other units so that the whole perform better than the sum of their parts. Although Guardians are weak, have poor leadership, and have poor shooting, all of these disadvantages can be overcome or at least mitigated. You can take The Avatar of Khaine to make all of your guardians fearless as long as some of them are within 12”. You can improve their shooting with a Farseer casting Guide, and damage with the use of Doom etc. When you have a lot of relatively cheap units working together, they can have a devastating effect. Another downside to the Guardian horde is that by taking so many of them, they should be hard to kill, but with the proliferation of Ork armies the anti-horde firepower as greatly increased diminishing the Guardian hordes viability.

1. Large Guardian unit

Some players like taking one or two large guardian units (20 guardians) with one of the Warlocks (with embolden) to help pad their troop choices. These units are a nice and durable with their large numbers. Place them in cover, and they increase their survivability. This is a good way to add a scoring unit to your army.

Tacticas that mention Guardians