As the title says, what are your thoughts?

I feel the dudes are just way too good for the points with their bladestorm guns and bs 4.

First off bs 4? So these militia are just as accuate as avengers? Guys that have dedicated their life at ranged combat, well they must be crap at thier job if farmer bob can shoot just as well.

Bladestorm this just smacks as op, so there's a chance this basic weapon can be ap2? Your telling me these little disks can in face have the same ap value as a lascannon? A weapon designed to take out tanks, but oh wait it dosnt hurt vehicles.

I would love to know what other armies have a basic squad that can fire 20 shots, hit on 3s and have a 1 in 6 chance to insta kill maries/terminators (ok they get there 5+) but you know what I mean.....

Oh and they can run and shoot wtf

Don't get me started on wave serpents

Daston wrote:
As the title says, what are your thoughts?

I feel the dudes are just way too good for the points with their bladestorm guns and bs 4.

First off bs 4? So these militia are just as accuate as avengers? Guys that have dedicated their life at ranged combat, well they must be crap at thier job if farmer bob can shoot just as well.

Bladestorm this just smacks as op, so there's a chance this basic weapon can be ap2? Your telling me these little disks can in face have the same ap value as a lascannon? A weapon designed to take out tanks, but oh wait it dosnt hurt vehicles.

I would love to know what other armies have a basic squad that can fire 20 shots, hit on 3s and have a 1 in 6 chance to insta kill maries/terminators (ok they get there 5+) but you know what I mean.....

Oh and they can run and shoot wtf

Don't get me started on wave serpents

They also are only T3 and have a 5+ ward save so if you sneeze on them they will die. And yes they have rending against infantry but they only have a 12inch range so if you sit back and shoot it does help against them.

But as to the title of your post yes I think Guardians are great and can compete with Dire Avengers for troop slots (even after the FAQ nerf where scatter lasers no longer give the Guardian Defenders Twin Linked). Are the OP like you are hinting? No, not by a long shot.

As already mentioned by previous poster: no, they are definitely not OP.
You could basically ask yourself what other armies have basic troops that units that cost so much while being so easy to kill and what other basic troops have such a short range while being a shooty unit. And I mean good, usable units, not some overpriced crap that nobody ever takes.

You can't just look at power output and ignore all the other aspects of the unit. 10/10/10, 200 point Vendetta with 24" guns would not be OP by simply having three tl S9 AP2 shots.

They're BS4 because all space elves are, by default, BS4.

And yeah, were we talking about guardian jetbikes, which get all that with +1Sv, +1T, and a great deal more mobility, I might see your concern, but regular guardians? They're crappy light infantry with a short-ranged defensive weapon that happens to be rather good against monstrous creatures before they rip your face off. There's nothing particularly overpowered to that.

Really, there isn't THAT much difference between an eldar guardian and a dark eldar warrior.

that's the way the game is going. anything and everything can shred power armour, anything that cant is usually avoided and not taken.

power armour is basically turning to crap. the AP all or nothing system is garbage.

Well, they could be used to sit on a home objective defending it against outflankers or deep strikers. But for this I'd take a full squad so that it will not break easily.
Otherwise, I'd still prefer Dire Avengers since their guns have a greater range.

Well here are the reasons why this is the worst subject to be talking about:

!: In order to survive the eldar must train every citizen intensely. The reason that dire avengers are more advanced and are in a higher level of command is because they are trained in more advanced aspects of eldar technology. For example heavier armour. Guardians use mesh armour (which confers a 5+ save). Dire avengers however use aspect armour. This means they need to be trained in the art of manoeuvrability whilst wearing heavy armour. They also need training with the longer ranged more complex avenger pattern shuriken catapults.

2: Bladestorm is not op you fool. Yes it is good but while a group of guardians may kill a couple of terminators they will still get killed by the ever impending doom of the 5+ armour save. A unit of guardians isn't going to stand much of a chance as a unit of space marines tears them to shreds with rapid fire bolters. And those little disks your talking about they may seem little but shuriken weapons set to automatic can fire up to 20 rounds per secon not to mention that the disks ar mono-filament so they would reduce your insides to a gory soup in a matter of seconds.

3: And what other armies can take units similar to guardians? Well I think your ignoring the fact that 1: they have 5+ armour saves 2: they have 12 inch range weaponry and 3: they are toughness 3.

4: And why oh why is running and shooting in the same phase in the slightest bit op? It adds a whole new tactical game for the eldar to use. Running up the field to pop off some shuriken rounds may seem cool but in the end they ARE guardians and they ARE being left out in the open to be eaten alive by ap 5 weaponry.

Go complain about something worthwhile talking about.

5: and wave serpents? Dude shut up...just shut up.

To me, it sounds like someone just got it handed to them by Guardians and serpents because the Eldar aren't as weak as they were before and they were underestimated because of that....

There are a severe downsides to their high damage output, as outlined above, but are now at least worth taking.

It's a revamped army, they won't fall like flies anymore (well they will, but they'll go down fighting now) so adjust tactics and deal with it.

As for wave serpents, come back when you have a dedicated transport that costs 150 points-ish. Our wave serpents cost the same as our battle tanks, with armour 12 which is susceptible to hull point stripping. The shield is a cool gun, and a cool shield. The eldar army works incredibly well in synergy, adapt and fight it, don't complain because you were destroyed by a player who is probably used to dealing with sub-par units and now has good units.


Von Chogg

No they aren't. They are just veteran guardsmen with a better gun. If you cannot kill veteran guardsmen, you fail as a tactician.

I personally think the shield on the serpent should be 24" and not 60", but other than that it's not OP. Then again I play crons, so I have the RoF for it.

Yep, someone just got their rear end kicked because he was expecting the old, really crappy and overpriced Guardians.

No, they're not OP.

Daston wrote:
..... well they must be crap at thier job if farmer bob can shoot just as well.

Sigh.

I'm getting a bit sick of this being repeated ad nauseum since the new Codex hit, it has to be one of the single biggest misconceptions in 40k. Here are some quotes from Lexicanum (yes, I know its not ideal but it illustrates the point):

.... Eldar also have much faster metabolic rates than humans, and their cardiac and neurological systems are more advanced. These traits manifest in their vastly heightened reactions and agility compared to humans. To them humans seem to move in slow motion with a certain degree of awkwardness, while to humans the Eldar can move with distracting grace and can be blindingly fast in combat.

The Eldar were "adopted" (or alternatively "created") by the mysterious Old Ones. The Old Ones, a race now long extinct were embroiled in a long war against the C'tan and their slaves the Necrontyr and, being desperate, raised many warrior-races.

So at a base level, they're physiology makes them inherently superior to a human, perhaps placing them from birth on the level of an Astrates.

They are long-lived by human standards, and most will live more than a thousand years unless they die from accident or disease

Why is this important? Because Eldar have time to tread many paths in their lifetime, in fact they are encouraged to do so. So yes, he *might* be a farmer now, but he could have also been a Scorpion-costumed badass in the past, with more than 300 years of active duty under his belt. Not to mention the massively highly advanced technology he goes into battle with.

Fluff and gameplay-wise, Guardians =/= Elf themed Guardsmen, stop thinking they are.

/Rant off

On a gameplay level, the new Eldar codex has been rebalanced so that while it takes time and effort to bring things together (ie; 5+ save and 12" range to overcome), that if you do manage it, there are high rewards for doing so. This. Is. Their. Playstyle.

I'm a little butt hurt that Guardians got BS4 but Firewarriors stayed BS3. farmer>trained from birth in warfare

We'll probably see BS3 Orks next.

 agnosto wrote:
I'm a little butt hurt that Guardians got BS4 but Firewarriors stayed BS3. farmer>trained from birth in warfare

We'll probably see BS3 Orks next.

Yeah but Eldar have heightened senses and have lived long lives.

Tau are young with no depth perception.

 agnosto wrote:
farmer>trained from birth in warfare

Yes, but Guardian Defender != farmer, so it's all good.
What do you want? Psychic, 200 year old warrior with incredibly high tech < 20 year old fishguy with hooves and bad eyesight? See, not so hard to justify, especially when you don't use *actual* fluff on one side.

Besides, it's not like game stats equals fluff.

The guardians are better now, which doesn't necessarily make them good. They still die when you sneeze in their direction which means whatever they shot had better be dead or the guardians will soon be. They're also scoring units which in many cases means they're target number one. And if you take them they take the place of some more durable scoring unit.

 Macok wrote:

Besides, it's not like game stats equals fluff.

Ah, but fluff is meant to inform the game design of the units, even if sometimes GW epically fails to line each up.

To correctly answer the OP (since I didn't in my last post), I don't see Guardians as being ridiculous, they just have a reasonable threat level now to counterbalance their cost and poor durability. The new Eldar codex does make life more difficult for Marines where before Marines were something Eldar actually struggled with. Even so, still not OP, just a meta shift.

Also, wait till you see Warp Spiders in action.

 agnosto wrote:
I'm a little butt hurt that Guardians got BS4 but Firewarriors stayed BS3. farmer>trained from birth in warfare

We'll probably see BS3 Orks next.

If you had played older 40k, you would've known that orks actually USED to be BS3!

Infact Warbosses could get up to BS5! There's your Dakka!

Is anyone collecting all these tears?

In terms of tabletop ability, no they are not too good.

In terms of fluff, I'd say yes. Not every Guardian is a previous aspect warrior, and an Eldar must re-don their Aspect costume to regain those skills anyway.


Overall it was a "lazy" way to make Guardians better, following into the classic "elf trap" where they have to be better just because. Guardians still have the same issues they've always had, being too short ranged to effectively use their primary weapons and too squishy to get into and survive in that range. In my personal view, all the boost did was make them more expensive, not really make them any better for what you pay for them. Instead of coming up with some way to reflect that Guardians are the artisans, technicians, architects, poets, craftsmen, etc of the Craftworld, they just made them "Dire Avengers, lite".

I disagree that it doesn't make sense. All Dark Eldar have a BS of 4, even Wyches who don't normally partake in shooting. It's just the nature of there skills... regardless, Guardians are still trained. They get some of the same training as Aspect Warriors, there path is merely not that of the Warrior for they've learned to or haven't needed to learn how to deal with their hate, fear and anger yet. Being an Aspect Warrior is more about their emotional state than their physical capabilities. I feel they are sufficiently inferior to the Aspect Warriors in armament and pure versatility to make it feel proper.

As far as being OP goes, I don't think so. They are slightly better per model than my Kabalite Warriors, I feel, but they also don't have the option of a mobile open-topped transport. Within the internal army balance, I think Guardians are still inferior to my Dark Eldar troops, as well as even Vet Guard with there wider berth of armaments. Ork Boyz are too different to compare, in my opinion, though Boyz are the best troops hands down in my opinion. So I actually feel that Guardians are equal too or slightly inferior to the other troops I am familiar with, given internal balance.

Also BS3 on orks? That's absurd. I hope they had a lot less dakka back then. I almost feel cheap throwing 40+ shots from a battlewagon as is. Almost.

 tanuvein wrote:
I disagree that it doesn't make sense. All Dark Eldar have a BS of 4, even Wyches who don't normally partake in shooting.

DE warriors are full time soldiers however, they don't train occaisionally and once in a while get called up for battle, they are soldiers through and through. Wyches are full time professional fighters, even if they're not ordinarily primarily reliant on guns, combat is their profession.

Guardians are still trained.

Yes but it's not something they do all the time or engage in on a regular basis. Not even Imperial Guard Stormtroopers get WS4 BS4, and they're raised from birth in Imperial War academies to be the elite of the elite amongst human soldiers, the best humanity has to offer outside of the Space Marines. The only non-Astartes human troops that really get WS4 and BS4 are DKoK Grenadiers, who, similarly to Stormtroopers, are raised from birth on a deathworld and into one of the most ruthless and brutal IG training regimes from the time they are born, and even then must be proven elite veterans to become Grenadiers.

They get some of the same training as Aspect Warriors

Aspect Warriors are their equivalent of Space Marines, they're an entirely different level of training and experience however. An Aspect Warrior devotes the entirety of their existence to their Aspect while on that path. Aside from biological necessities, it's largely all they do.

You make very sound arguments. I could agree with the argument with regards to their weapon skill, but shooting comes more naturally to Eldar, especially with their superior targeting systems. And to be fair, being raised from birth to fight for a human might still encompass far less time than an Eldar has spent training on a less regular basis.

As for the Aspect Warriors, not all of them are experienced. They may all go through a sort of boot camp, but a lot of them are just the same as the Guardians. Most of their training seems to revolve around learning the specifics of their Aspect, such as stealth for Striking Scorpions or learning the optimum way to disable and burn targets for Dragons. The Dire Avengers are the closest parallel to standard Guardians, but I'm not aware of any fluff that goes into their training.

I still think it mostly comes down to the concept of Eldar being superior in terms of speed and dexterity to humans. In Path of the Outcast we see a relatively untrained Eldar becoming a decent marksman over the span of a few days and he likewise quickly learns to be a very competent swordsman.

Right there's almost 2 conversations here, fluff and rules so lets separate them.

Fluff:
Guardians should be BS4 and better warriors than humans, the Eldar are a genetically engineered species whose sole design purpose was to fight a war against a race of implacable machines, if your designing a race of soldiers at the genetic level you make them good at what they do.
Then they tag hundreds of years of weekend warrior training and potential stints in aspect shrines on top of that natural genetic skill and boom, WS/BS4.

Rules:
Right, Guardians are perhaps the weakest of the Eldar troop choices and frankly not great. 12" range means they will almost never get the first punch they are delicate and rarely get more than 1 shot. As was mentioned Guardian Jetbikes are the premier choice, those are damned good and perhaps worth at least a little complaint, I feel guilty fielding too many frankly. The extra range afforded by Avengers is almost always worth the points and the superior survivability and leadership just compound matters.

As for everything cutting through power armour a) half the dexes in the game are marines, armies need some counter b) Eldar have always been power armour killers, high speed with high hitting power was always their thing.

TBH the biggest problem with giving them BS 4 is the continued stat inflation where BS 3 is supposed to be the normal human average but most armies/units have BS 4 and BS 3 is the mark of shame given to "weak but cheap" units like IG infantry blobs. So Fire Warriors, for example, should be fine at BS 3 because it's the average for a trained professional soldier without superhuman physical characteristics or years of combat experience. But because BS 3 is for "junk" units it feels more like they're a poorly equipped conscript horde and all the Tau players want BS 4 to properly represent their training and superior equipment.

Keeping Guardians at BS 3, on the other hand, does a little to help with this problem and maintain the idea that BS 3 is the standard for basic troops.

I was expecting to see a just kidding coming from the OP, but I guess he is being serious.

 Peregrine wrote:
TBH the biggest problem with giving them BS 4 is the continued stat inflation where BS 3 is supposed to be the normal human average but most armies/units have BS 4 and BS 3 is the mark of shame given to "weak but cheap" units like IG infantry blobs. So Fire Warriors, for example, should be fine at BS 3 because it's the average for a trained professional soldier without superhuman physical characteristics or years of combat experience. But because BS 3 is for "junk" units it feels more like they're a poorly equipped conscript horde and all the Tau players want BS 4 to properly represent their training and superior equipment.

Keeping Guardians at BS 3, on the other hand, does a little to help with this problem and maintain the idea that BS 3 is the standard for basic troops.

There is no "standard", there is bs2 bs3 and bs4.

Tau have bad vision, their troops get bs3.

I feel there are far nastier troops for points avaialable. Necron Warriors for instance.

 Peregrine wrote:
TBH the biggest problem with giving them BS 4 is the continued stat inflation where BS 3 is supposed to be the normal human average but most armies/units have BS 4 and BS 3 is the mark of shame given to "weak but cheap" units like IG infantry blobs. So Fire Warriors, for example, should be fine at BS 3 because it's the average for a trained professional soldier without superhuman physical characteristics or years of combat experience. But because BS 3 is for "junk" units it feels more like they're a poorly equipped conscript horde and all the Tau players want BS 4 to properly represent their training and superior equipment.

Keeping Guardians at BS 3, on the other hand, does a little to help with this problem and maintain the idea that BS 3 is the standard for basic troops.

I am in agreement with Peregrine on this one- and I PLAY Eldar. In the old book i was totally fine with the lower statline on Guardians 3/3/3/3/4/1/1/8. It made sense to me. Many Guardsmen aren't trained soldiers in the way that Aspects and Dark Eldar Warriors are, but they still were every bit as capable in weapons training as fully trained human guardsmen or tau. Initiative 4 was fine as well, Guardians aren't as a whole trained as well Aspects or Drucchi again, and that is fine, even without that extra training they were still as swift as a Space Marine- which we have to remember IS super human. I used to frequently run Tripple Flamer Storm Guardians all the time in 5th edition and they always treated me well.

On the other hand there were a few annoyances. It sucked having expensive single shot weapons on bs3 platforms, and some of the Tanks just didn't make sense, why did the Falcon have a lower BS than the Prism / Spinner for instance. But overall it wasn't that bad, and it was one of the quirks of the army, and the lower statline really served to differentiate Aspect Warriors. Honestly I would have been happier with Guardians (including Jetbikes) keeping their old Stat Line and costing 7 points, then creating a Vehicle Pilot Aspect (to give all the tanks bs4). This seems like it would have been fair enough, and still creates a diversity of the stat lines in the Eldar books instead of just re-using the Aspect Warrior stateline with Guardians.

Guardians are about as trained as a regular human guardsman. Which makes their bs one better than the eldar baseline of bs 3, just as guardsmen and firewarriors are one better than their baseline of bs 2. The payoff appears to be that a craftworlders have a lower "ceiling" above which they can't raise their bs, barring exceptional circumstance, while a guard veteran can raise their bs to 2 over the baseline.

However, this could be explained as aspect warriors not so much training to be better at melee and shooting, but becoming more reliable and controlled. The amount of time they would need to spent training their combat skill torreach bs and ws 5, is the amount done by an exarch, meaning someone lost on the path of the warrior and craftworlds can't afford to lose more of their own to that path. I'd say aspect warriors spent all of their time training at the shrine, but that training is mostly mental training of discipline, meditation and tactics, along with specialist training for the use of aspect equipment. You will notice that aspect warriors have a better LD than normal guardians, kabalites, hagashin or even warlocks.

As for gameplay, guardians are hardly overpowered. They are a great defensive unit, well suited for camping on objectives, with great overwatch, the biggest unit size available to elder, a heavy weapon or two to send a small amount os support fire across the board and the abilitiy to gain shrouded. On the other hand their basic weapon shooting rarely copmes into play outside of overwatch, close deepstriking and the rare unit not making their charge, their shrouding can fail or even fry himself, they run at the drop of a hat, their run shoot run mopstly serves to get them a marginal mobility advantage if they don't want to loose cover, they will rarely make their points back and even a small amount of enemies making the charge can reasonably run them down.

Oh no, these T3 5+ dudes with criminally short range are just too powerful! There's literally no way I can just stand at 24" or more and plug away at them, typically with weapons that will ignore their flimsy armor saves!

Bladestorm is good, don't get me wrong, but Guardians are still easy enough to counter. They're light infantry and die like Guarsdmen while costing a bit more. Chances are, you only just read these rules and are kind of taken aback by them and haven't thought of them outside a vacuum yet.

Guardians remain the worst Troop in the game. Nothing changed there. The only change was their once or fewer per game shooting attack now MAY kill something. In exchange, they still cost too much.

Daston wrote:
As the title says, what are your thoughts?

First off bs 4? So these militia are just as accuate as avengers? Guys that have dedicated their life at ranged combat, well they must be crap at thier job if farmer bob can shoot just as well.

I know how things like this are kind of annoying, but most of us have gotten over the differences between lore and game crunch by now. It''s just like how imperial guard vets have the same ballistic skill as space marine sternguard.

I don't play Eldar.

Guardians are fine.... as mentioned before - they are quite fragile and have ridiculously short range.

They have a cool weapon effect come into play when you roll a 6. By the time you make it within range, you'll have hardly any guardians left to roll dice for.

Remulus wrote:
I know how things like this are kind of annoying, but most of us have gotten over the differences between lore and game crunch by now. It''s just like how imperial guard vets have the same ballistic skill as space marine sternguard.

And Sisters of Battle as well. But as I've said before, there's not much you can do with 0-10 stats in a d6 based game. Two models having the same stat number doesn't tell us much about how good they are compared to each other. Marines and SoB both have power armor with auto-senses and weapon links, the veteran guardsman might have access to some sort of targeting system but it's not certain. The difference (which we're not seeing) is the units in PA can shoot as accurately from the hip, or holding a bolter in one hand, or even shooting around a corner without sticking their heads out. The veteran is probably as good as he is because he sensibly lies down to aim? The SoB carry heavy weapons alone but are still only as strong as guardsmen who usually take two men to man a heavy weapon.

There's a lot of factors the stats just don't represent. One unit is this good by nature, another has expensive equipment, the third might boost himself with low-level psychic powers. Speaking of which most eldar are psychic, just not in enough degree to use it for flashy combat manuevers. But their armors, weapons and equipment are usually psychically attuned and serve an eldar much better than they would a human if he could even make it work.

The previous Eldar Codex gave no value to Guardians other than to provide a screen for heavy weapons. I essentially quit 40k over this and didn’t come back until the new Dark Eldar.

I'm extremely happy with their boost in the new codex.

Lioness wrote:
The previous Eldar Codex gave no value to Guardians other than to provide a screen for heavy weapons. I essentially quit 40k over this and didn’t come back until the new Dark Eldar.

I'm extremely happy with their boost in the new codex.

That seems like an odd thing to quit 40k over, not gonna lie.

 Brother SRM wrote:

Lioness wrote:
The previous Eldar Codex gave no value to Guardians other than to provide a screen for heavy weapons. I essentially quit 40k over this and didn’t come back until the new Dark Eldar.

I'm extremely happy with their boost in the new codex.

That seems like an odd thing to quit 40k over, not gonna lie.

I had a Guardian heavy army (former Ulthwe Strike Force) so I needed to buy like 4 heavy weapons to make the army legal again and I realised that even if I spent that money then I wouldn't suddenly be having fun, quite the opposite in fact and switching armies was an unsatisfactory solution.

I think "I'm not having fun" is a pretty logical reason to take a long break from any game system, I focused on Warhammer for a few years and enjoyed that instead.

The problem is that we are dealing with 1 number difference. An average eldar is at least a good of shot as an average IG vet. 200-700 years old probably meant a bit more than basic schooling in firing a weapon. However, they probably arent as good as a space marine. The same way a vet is not as good as a space marine. However, there is no way to draw a line between the two without making complicated rules. Therefore, WS4 BS4. I would have like defenders to get WS3 BS4 and storms to get WS4 BS3, but i cant change the codex. Better question: would black guardians now be WS5? Seems quite silly.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Guardians remain the worst Troop in the game. Nothing changed there. The only change was their once or fewer per game shooting attack now MAY kill something. In exchange, they still cost too much.

BT Marines in an edition that favours shooty stuff that kills Marines, Thousand Sons and (especially) Penal Legion laugh at that statement.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Guardians remain the worst Troop in the game. Nothing changed there. The only change was their once or fewer per game shooting attack now MAY kill something. In exchange, they still cost too much.

BT Marines in an edition that favours shooty stuff that kills Marines, Thousand Sons and (especially) Penal Legion laugh at that statement.

All three of those things are better than Guardians objectively. At the very worst, they can lay on an objective while still participating in the game with their double ranged weapons.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Guardians remain the worst Troop in the game. Nothing changed there. The only change was their once or fewer per game shooting attack now MAY kill something. In exchange, they still cost too much.

BT Marines in an edition that favours shooty stuff that kills Marines, Thousand Sons and (especially) Penal Legion laugh at that statement.

All three of those things are better than Guardians objectively. At the very worst, they can lay on an objective while still participating in the game with their double ranged weapons.

Guardians get Heavy weapons and, crucially, don't cost 16+ points per model (or, in the case of Penal Legion, suck at everything). In cover you'll be almost as survivable as a Marine (T3 vs T4) but you'll outnumber them 2 to 1. If you really think it's worthwhile to have 16/22 PPMMarines as objective campers shooting (AP3) bolters at stuff we'll just have to agree to disagree, especially seeing as the Templars are guaranteed to run off the objective in one direction or another if you kill one.

In fact, charging straight in, 10 guardians will barely lose to 5 Tactical Marines with Bolters IF THE MARINES GET TURN ADVANTAGE. The Guardians have 10 points more invested in them, but in a vacuum and simply pushing them forward (which I think we can all agree is doing it wrong) the Guardians wipe the Marines out. Combine that with better objective camping and I'd rather have Guardians as Troops every day.

Guardians are what they should have been. Like so much in the NEW codex's, they are making the armies be like you'd expect them and then doing the points for them instead of trying to shoehorn the stats to the points. I love it. So many things in the Tau and Eldar codex just WORK they way they should, the way you'd envision them. the crazy cost of some of the models from a points perspective (both high and low) have been fixed. Warwalkers were way too cheap in the old codex while Guardians just made no sense given their ages and likely experience. Even warrior painters have seen a few more wars than most Ig are ever likely to imagine.

So the Guardian weapons are supposed to shred you apart. awesome! Now they feel like a hail of very possibly lethal shurikens instead of just weak sauce lame STATS.

Guardians totally should have been a part of Eldar armies given their dying race status but who took them ever? Now you might.

Only if one subscribes to the classic elf-trap that fantasy systems so often do. There really isn't much in 40k lore to state such with any degree of certainty. They may have much more or may not, either way the Eldar discard their old selves completely to immerse themselves totally in what they engage in now.

Frankly, it's about time they weren't terrible. When Third Edition established a lot of the stat and point "norms" that seem to have persisted across through to 6th edition, Guardians were hands down the worst troop choice in the game. They're finally a viable option. And, if you get within 12" of a full squad of Guardians, because you didn't shoot at them once, then you deserve what you get.

In the fullness of time, the Wave Serpent may prove to be a slightly different story.

GW is good at tweaking their rules so that units cycle through being good and bad. Third Edition, it was Wraithlords, Howling Banshees, Dark Reapers, and Star Cannons. Then Seer Councils got awesome and vehicles got a little better. Fire Dragons and Wraithguard became popular later, etc... now Warp Spiders are useful again.

It's what they do. Some things get slightly better, some things get slightly worse every edition. Guardians are just finally not the worst. Ever.

I'm having a hard time understanding where the OP is coming from.

Does he think that people are going to be taking hordes of Guardians now? Will almost every Tau and Dark Eldar list include two big squads of Guardians?

That's a little hard to believe. Plenty of Eldar players are going to prefer Jetbikes or Dire Avengers or Wraithguard. Tau with Eldar allies are probably still going to be mostly interested in Jetbikes for scoring purposes. Lots of players aren't even going to max out their Troops slots - many players seem to think Heavy Support and Fast Attack have more valuable options. So does the OP think that the new Eldar codex is absurdly overpowered such that Guardians are still way too good even though they're only competitive with the other choices?

As someone that runs guardians (3 squads in my tournament lists), i'm certainly not finding them to be overpowered. I ran 3 squads in tournament lists just prior to the new codex, and the differences are enough to make guardians good, and subtle enough to still make them feel like the same unit.

Guardians still die like nobodies business. They're as survivable as a guardsmen. They don't get a save against BOLTERS.

Anyone complaining about them should think about that for a second. I imagine anyone complaing about them plays with one of those T4 3+ armies

The only reason there seems to be such a disparity with the different unit types that all have BS4 is because we're only on a d6 system. So we only have so much variety that there can be. The only way to better represent it would to go up to a d10 or d20 system where you can get more granular. That way you'd really be able to represent that in terms of BS it would probably go IG/Tau<Guardian><Space Marine><Aspect Warrior/Space Marine Vet etc.

The stat that bothers me much more than BS4 on Guardians is Ld8 on Warlocks. Their fluff is that these guys are Seers who were Aspect Warriors before. Aspect Warriors are Ld9. Seers are Ld9/10... what?>

Belly wrote:
As someone that runs guardians (3 squads in my tournament lists), i'm certainly not finding them to be overpowered. I ran 3 squads in tournament lists just prior to the new codex, and the differences are enough to make guardians good, and subtle enough to still make them feel like the same unit.

Guardians still die like nobodies business. They're as survivable as a guardsmen. They don't get a save against BOLTERS.

Anyone complaining about them should think about that for a second. I imagine anyone complaing about them plays with one of those T4 3+ armies

They also outnumber said T4 3+ infantry and will win in a shootout, but don't let that get in your way.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They also outnumber said T4 3+ infantry and will win in a shootout, but don't let that get in your way.

From <12'' away? Even when marines still get their 3+ against 2/3 wounds against them?

This whole thing is just a bunch of butt-hurt marine players complaining that an Eldar troops choice is viable again, and that sometimes they take away their precious 3+. Please, my guardians get an armour save against CC attacks, and lasguns... That's pretty much it, and I do just fine

Why should an eldar unit be viable , some armies don't even have one good troop choice?

The only problem with guardians is that they can ride in serpents. It makes all their bad sides like short range, low T, low save unimportant.

Except it makes them expensive and reduces their firepower to that of the serpent. Essentially reducing them to the 'min-sized squad in transport' role.

Hardly the hallmark of a viable troop choice.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They also outnumber said T4 3+ infantry and will win in a shootout, but don't let that get in your way.

You said this earlier, but I'm not seeing it.

Let's use a simple expected casualties model. If the squads are starting at opposite board edges and moving towards each other, at some point the 5 marines are going to be able to shoot at 24". This is expected to kill 2.22 guardians. Almost every time, no guardians will be able to shoot in their next turn because they'd need a very good fleet roll and may have lost models from the front. The guardians move forward as far as they can, and then the marines get to decide whether to fall back to try to gain another turn or to step forward and double tap. If they double tap, that's another 4.44 guardians dead. The remaining 3.33 guardians fire and kill 1.23 marines. The remaining marines kill all of the remaining guardians. 3.77 marines are still alive, out of 5 to begin with. The guardians should have charged after firing, but the marines still win.

Or let's do a better job with the casualty model. I can simulate the scenario described above - marines shoot 3 times before the guardians shoot twice and charge - 100,000 times. I don't have a Marine codex - I assume the sergeant has 2 attacks. The guardians get wiped out over 80% of the time. The marines survive with 4 or 5 men left nearly 50% of the time. And we've completely ignored morale.

I can also do one much more favorable to the guardians. Suppose for some reason the marines don't get a 24" shot off, so they only get two shots each before the guardians shoot and charge. The guardians get wiped out 55% of the time.

And, again, that took no consideration of morale. If the full guardian squad loses 3 models, which is expected when 5 marines double tap them, they have to take a morale test on Ld 8, which fails 28% of the time. If they fail, they're probably not shooting next turn, and if they do shoot they'll be firing snap shots. The marines might likewise fail a test, but they have ATSKNF so it doesn't matter, and actually the distance is helpful.

So Guardians win when they magically appear inside their 12" range and get the first shot off. They lose pretty badly otherwise. They can kind of do a decent job - or at least die with dignity - when the marines only double tap them first before the guardians get to shoot, provided they don't fail morale.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Obviously a Serpent can deliver them close enough, but the Serpent is more expensive than the squad it's transporting. Even if we're assuming no other units are involved, which is advantageous for the longer-ranged marines since concentrating firepower is going to preferentially kill closer guardians, you've got to give the marines another 140 points worth of stuff if you want to be fair.

 Shandara wrote:
Except it makes them expensive and reduces their firepower to that of the serpent. Essentially reducing them to the 'min-sized squad in transport' role.

Hardly the hallmark of a viable troop choice.

My gunline of 20 BS4, pseudo-fearless, pseudo-twin-linked, power-armoured boltguns supports this message. New Guardians are just fine.

Belly wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They also outnumber said T4 3+ infantry and will win in a shootout, but don't let that get in your way.

From <12'' away? Even when marines still get their 3+ against 2/3 wounds against them?

Turns out my math, while right mathematically, was off due to faulty reasoning. But please, stuff your "u mad bro?" attitude. You don't see people posting garbage like "this is just Eldar players trying to justify their OP-brokenhaxx unit rofllollmao", so why are you? If you're going to compare Guardians to Marines on the Marines terms the Marines will win, although not by a lot. Guess who benefits more from cover of the two?

pantsonhead wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They also outnumber said T4 3+ infantry and will win in a shootout, but don't let that get in your way.

You said this earlier, but I'm not seeing it.

I fethed up, sorry about that.

For the record, I'd still rather have Guardians than BT Marines, Thousand Sons or Penal Legion as Troops. Guardians are cheap enough that you can take a bunch of them, park them in cover on objectives and then just fire away with your Weapons Platform. None of the above examples (Guardians included) are very killy, but at least the Guardians have some bodies to hold objectives with, and at least they're not guaranteed to run off their objective if they take a casualty. Power Armour's fine and dandy until you realize that everyone is gearing up to kill Power Armour, there's such a thing as Heldrakes or Riptides and Guardians are only 9 PPM as opposed to 16+ PPM (again, discounting the Penal Legion, who are utter bull).

Contrast the Guardians with 7 Dire Avengers for essentially the same cost.

The Avengers' extra range and 4+ save are huge deals. In the scenario where the squads start off on opposite sides of a large barren table, the Avengers get to fire after only one Marine volley, and can Battle Focus back such that the Marines can never step forward and double tap. The 7 Avengers win more than 90% of the time. The Avengers win more than 75% of the time even when the Marines start at 12" and get to double tap (the Avengers step back to 18" to fire, then Battle Focus even farther away).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

For the record, I'd still rather have Guardians than BT Marines, Thousand Sons or Penal Legion as Troops. Guardians are cheap enough that you can take a bunch of them, park them in cover on objectives and then just fire away with your Weapons Platform. None of the above examples (Guardians included) are very killy, but at least the Guardians have some bodies to hold objectives with, and at least they're not guaranteed to run off their objective if they take a casualty. Power Armour's fine and dandy until you realize that everyone is gearing up to kill Power Armour, there's such a thing as Heldrakes or Riptides and Guardians are only 9 PPM as opposed to 16+ PPM (again, discounting the Penal Legion, who are utter bull).

I think this is basically true for BT or Chaos players. I'm not sure it's true for Eldar. Obviously it depends on the list, but almost every Eldar list is going to already have a bunch of really tempting targets for anything that can kill Marines. S6/S7 is a threat to expensive Eldar vehicles. AP3 hurts Wraithguard, Jetbikes, and some of the most popular aspects other than Avengers. And Eldar 3+ saves tend to be much more expensive per model than other 3+ saves, due to every model having a special weapon. Nobody's going to shoot AP3 at 16 PPM 3+ saves when there are Fire Dragons or Dark Reapers or Wraithguard running around, and nobody's going to shoot S6 at a squad with bolters when there are War Walkers on the field.

Edit: Also, Jetbikes and Guardians having fleet, in addition to the general bias of Eldar units towards offense over defense, gives Eldar much less need for something to babysit an objective. Eldar want to be moving to objectives only at the end of the game, not setting up camp on top of them. A bunch of Guardians holed up somewhere taking potshots with a scatter laser is a big waste of points. You should have just taken an extra War Walker and a small Jetbike squad.

TWELVE INCH RANGE

Mellowlicious wrote:
TWELVE INCH RANGE

9 PPM MEATSHIELDS FOR HEAVY WEAPONS IN COVER

pantsonhead wrote:
Contrast the Guardians with 7 Dire Avengers for essentially the same cost.

The Avengers' extra range and 4+ save are huge deals. In the scenario where the squads start off on opposite sides of a large barren table, the Avengers get to fire after only one Marine volley, and can Battle Focus back such that the Marines can never step forward and double tap. The 7 Avengers win more than 90% of the time. The Avengers win more than 75% of the time even when the Marines start at 12" and get to double tap (the Avengers step back to 18" to fire, then Battle Focus even farther away).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

For the record, I'd still rather have Guardians than BT Marines, Thousand Sons or Penal Legion as Troops. Guardians are cheap enough that you can take a bunch of them, park them in cover on objectives and then just fire away with your Weapons Platform. None of the above examples (Guardians included) are very killy, but at least the Guardians have some bodies to hold objectives with, and at least they're not guaranteed to run off their objective if they take a casualty. Power Armour's fine and dandy until you realize that everyone is gearing up to kill Power Armour, there's such a thing as Heldrakes or Riptides and Guardians are only 9 PPM as opposed to 16+ PPM (again, discounting the Penal Legion, who are utter bull).

I think this is basically true for BT or Chaos players. I'm not sure it's true for Eldar. Obviously it depends on the list, but almost every Eldar list is going to already have a bunch of really tempting targets for anything that can kill Marines. S6/S7 is a threat to expensive Eldar vehicles. AP3 hurts Wraithguard, Jetbikes, and some of the most popular aspects other than Avengers. And Eldar 3+ saves tend to be much more expensive per model than other 3+ saves, due to every model having a special weapon. Nobody's going to shoot AP3 at 16 PPM 3+ saves when there are Fire Dragons or Dark Reapers or Wraithguard running around, and nobody's going to shoot S6 at a squad with bolters when there are War Walkers on the field.

Edit: Also, Jetbikes and Guardians having fleet, in addition to the general bias of Eldar units towards offense over defense, gives Eldar much less need for something to babysit an objective. Eldar want to be moving to objectives only at the end of the game, not setting up camp on top of them. A bunch of Guardians holed up somewhere taking potshots with a scatter laser is a big waste of points. You should have just taken an extra War Walker and a small Jetbike squad.

I agree completely that there's better Troops in the Eldar Codex (Jetbikes anyone?), but Guardians are absolutely not the "worst troops choice in the game".

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Belly wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They also outnumber said T4 3+ infantry and will win in a shootout, but don't let that get in your way.

From <12'' away? Even when marines still get their 3+ against 2/3 wounds against them?

Turns out my math, while right mathematically, was off due to faulty reasoning. But please, stuff your "u mad bro?" attitude. You don't see people posting garbage like "this is just Eldar players trying to justify their OP-brokenhaxx unit rofllollmao", so why are you? If you're going to compare Guardians to Marines on the Marines terms the Marines will win, although not by a lot. Guess who benefits more from cover of the two?

Please, it's not a matter of "u mad bro?" It's more a case of me being completely unwilling to listen to crying Marine players who are upset they lose their precious 3+ sometimes.

A 10 man squad with a platform costs 110. That's quite a few points to be 'parked in cover on objectives' when they do nothing but fire a weapons platform. And those guardian bodies to hold objectives are only T3 5+ bodies. And guardians do run off objectives, often. Ld8 isn't great, and they don't get ATSKNF to completely ignore the morale system. All those things that are geared up to kill power armour? They kill guardians too, faster even, due to a lower toughness.

Indeed, that's a ridiculous waste of points for one heavy weapon. I can't imagine any Eldar players bothering with that, there are simply better ways to get heavy weapons.

Belly wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Belly wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

They also outnumber said T4 3+ infantry and will win in a shootout, but don't let that get in your way.

From <12'' away? Even when marines still get their 3+ against 2/3 wounds against them?

Turns out my math, while right mathematically, was off due to faulty reasoning. But please, stuff your "u mad bro?" attitude. You don't see people posting garbage like "this is just Eldar players trying to justify their OP-brokenhaxx unit rofllollmao", so why are you? If you're going to compare Guardians to Marines on the Marines terms the Marines will win, although not by a lot. Guess who benefits more from cover of the two?

Please, it's not a matter of "u mad bro?" It's more a case of me being completely unwilling to listen to crying Marine players who are upset they lose their precious 3+ sometimes.

A 10 man squad with a platform costs 110. That's quite a few points to be 'parked in cover on objectives' when they do nothing but fire a weapons platform. And those guardian bodies to hold objectives are only T3 5+ bodies. And guardians do run off objectives, often. Ld8 isn't great, and they don't get ATSKNF to completely ignore the morale system. All those things that are geared up to kill power armour? They kill guardians too, faster even, due to a lower toughness.

I pay 101 points for 5 bodies with a Lascannon and a Plasma Gun whose only job is to fire heavy weapons. They don't get free saves against small-arms by standing in a ruin and are half as many bodies as your Guardians. Sure, Guardians die faster to low-strength AP3 than Marines, but Plasma, Baleflamers, Riptides, D-scythes and any AP3 weapon with S6+ (i.e. the vast majority) are much more powerful against Marines than against Guardians. You lose a 9 PPM model on a 2+, I lose a 16 PPM model on a 2+. Each individual Marine lives longer against small-arms fire, which is counterbalanced by you getting 10 bodies as opposed to 5 and by you actually getting you use cover to, effectively, get "free" saves. So no, Guardians aren't more vulnerable to AP3 or better weaponry than Marines.

Regarding the Morale system, if I run off the table my ATSKNF isn't going to matter. If I run forward due to Righteous Zeal (I'm also Ld8, so yeah...) I can't move back unless I'm fine with firing Snap Shots with my Heavy Weapon (and if I'm on the second floor of a building it'll probably mean I won't have very good LoS to anything). So please, tell me all about how I "ignore" the morale system.

If you're completely unwilling to listen to the other side in a discussion without insulting them, why are you on a discussion board in the first place? That seems rather counterproductive to me.

 shamikebab wrote:
Indeed, that's a ridiculous waste of points for one heavy weapon. I can't imagine any Eldar players bothering with that, there are simply better ways to get heavy weapons.

Considering that's one of the best uses of the only Troops Choice in the Black Templars Codex you might get why I'm rather annoyed at people implying that I'm just a QQing Marine player that can't play without my "precious 3+ save"...

I don't think I insulted you, but whatever.

Also, I wasn't talking about Templars, I was referring to Marines in general. I think we can all agree that the Templars codex is a terrible bag of flaming buttholes.

That said, all that cover ignoring Ap2-3 weaponry you were talking about...At least your guys get a 6++ against it, that's gotta count for something, right?

They do if you take the worst vow in the Codex, yeah...

As for the insults:

Belly wrote:

This whole thing is just a bunch of butt-hurt marine players complaining that an Eldar troops choice is viable again, and that sometimes they take away their precious 3+. Please, my guardians get an armour save against CC attacks, and lasguns... That's pretty much it, and I do just fine

I rest my case.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
They do if you take the worst vow in the Codex, yeah...

As for the insults:

Belly wrote:

This whole thing is just a bunch of butt-hurt marine players complaining that an Eldar troops choice is viable again, and that sometimes they take away their precious 3+. Please, my guardians get an armour save against CC attacks, and lasguns... That's pretty much it, and I do just fine

I rest my case.

If you're referring to the use of the phrase 'butt-hurt', may I direct you to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/butthurt

Adjective - butthurt (comparative more butthurt, superlative most butthurt)

1.(slang) Overly annoyed, bothered or bugged because of a perceived insult; aimlessly offended; having an overly sensitive ego.

The irony is delicious.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:
Indeed, that's a ridiculous waste of points for one heavy weapon. I can't imagine any Eldar players bothering with that, there are simply better ways to get heavy weapons.

Considering that's one of the best uses of the only Troops Choice in the Black Templars Codex you might get why I'm rather annoyed at people implying that I'm just a QQing Marine player that can't play without my "precious 3+ save"...

Black Templar troops being bad does not mean Guardians are too good. BT is just hopelessly outdated, newer codices shouldn't have to have duff troops just to balance against a codex that old.

 shamikebab wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:
Indeed, that's a ridiculous waste of points for one heavy weapon. I can't imagine any Eldar players bothering with that, there are simply better ways to get heavy weapons.

Considering that's one of the best uses of the only Troops Choice in the Black Templars Codex you might get why I'm rather annoyed at people implying that I'm just a QQing Marine player that can't play without my "precious 3+ save"...

Black Templar troops being bad does not mean Guardians are too good. BT is just hopelessly outdated, newer codices shouldn't have to have duff troops just to balance against a codex that old.

True. I've never been arguing that Guardians are too good, I've been arguing that they're not the worst Troops Choice in the game, as claimed by another poster on page 2.

Belly wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
They do if you take the worst vow in the Codex, yeah...

As for the insults:

Belly wrote:

This whole thing is just a bunch of butt-hurt marine players complaining that an Eldar troops choice is viable again, and that sometimes they take away their precious 3+. Please, my guardians get an armour save against CC attacks, and lasguns... That's pretty much it, and I do just fine

I rest my case.

If you're referring to the use of the phrase 'butt-hurt', may I direct you to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/butthurt

Adjective - butthurt (comparative more butthurt, superlative most butthurt)

1.(slang) Overly annoyed, bothered or bugged because of a perceived insult; aimlessly offended; having an overly sensitive ego.

The irony is delicious.

No, really, there's absolutely no point in using butthurt in the context you did other than to use it as an insult. Your claim, by your own definition above, would be that every single person posting that wasn't on "your side" was doing so out of an overly sensitive ego. When no one's gone for ad hominem attacks earlier in the thread, that is beyond being just a percieved insult.

Ah, we've moved on from the OP. Apologies.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

No, really, there's absolutely no point in using butthurt in the context you did other than to use it as an insult. Your claim, by your own definition above, would be that every single person posting that wasn't on "your side" was doing so out of an overly sensitive ego. When no one's gone for ad hominem attacks earlier in the thread, that is beyond being just a percieved insult.

Alright then, I apologize for using it in that previous context. I didn't think you'd get so butthurt about it.


Back on Guardians, do people have an opinion on Storm Guardians? Is there any situation they might be a good choice? Would that situation include the use of the power weapons?

I'm of the mindset that the only viable option would be the 10 man / 2 flamers in a serpent build that saw some use in the previous codex. Fusion guns certainly are an option now with BS4 however.

I'd assume that 10 with two special weapons would be somewhere around 100 points, yes? In that case I'd agree with you, although I'd probably prefer the Fusion Guns; it's not like there's a lack of anti-infantry shooting in the Eldar Codex.

I can't think of a single scenario in which I'd take Storm Guardians.

 Brother SRM wrote:
Oh no, these T3 5+ dudes with criminally short range are just too powerful! There's literally no way I can just stand at 24" or more and plug away at them, typically with weapons that will ignore their flimsy armor saves!

Bladestorm is good, don't get me wrong, but Guardians are still easy enough to counter. They're light infantry and die like Guarsdmen while costing a bit more. Chances are, you only just read these rules and are kind of taken aback by them and haven't thought of them outside a vacuum yet.

Think about 20 Guardians with 2 shuricannons sitting on one home zone objective. Suddenly emerging enemy units with be surprised by the fire power (bladestrom) these little poets and philosophers will have.

 shamikebab wrote:
I can't think of a single scenario in which I'd take Storm Guardians.

Cheap fusion guns. Put them in a wave serpent, profit.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:
I can't think of a single scenario in which I'd take Storm Guardians.

Cheap fusion guns. Put them in a wave serpent, profit.

But for the amount you're paying for 10 guardians, 2 fusion guns and a WS....you could get 5 fire dragons and a WS for the same price. If I wanted an AT unit I'd always make that choice (or go a bit higher for standard Wraithguard)

 shamikebab wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:
I can't think of a single scenario in which I'd take Storm Guardians.

Cheap fusion guns. Put them in a wave serpent, profit.

But for the amount you're paying for 10 guardians, 2 fusion guns and a WS....you could get 5 fire dragons and a WS for the same price. If I wanted an AT unit I'd always make that choice (or go a bit higher for standard Wraithguard)

Well, never said it was a good idea

Why 10 guardians? Why not 5? 5 is the minimum isn't it?

The reason marine players (and I am one of them) are so "butt hurt" by Eldar (guardians included) is because the new codex essentially made Eldar laughably good at completely annihilating MEQ and even TEQ armies.

Eldar have exactly 26 different ranged weapons that are capable of AP3 or better (including monofilament and bladestorm). Of those 26, 18 are capable of AP2 or better. Now throw in the large amount of twin-link enabling powers and wargear. On top of all that, Eldar also have 6 different melee weapons that have AP2 capability that strike at initiative, including at-initiative powerfists. Along with the upgrades to guardians (which includes upgrades to all vehicles and jetbikes), it just all seems like its an example of excessive pile-on.

So yes, many marine players are a bit "butt hurt" that a single army has become a complete hard counter to 2/3 of the available armies in the game. Eldar got their identity back as high speed deadly combatants, and for that I'm glad, but until Marines get their identity back as "elite, durable, and deadly" (which won't happen this edition), you are going to continue seeing posts complaining about the latest xenos powerhouse.

Storm Guardians just seem like a waste, that and the upgrade kit only comes with 1 Flamer, 1 Fusion gun and two power swords. Giving power swords to them seems like a waste as well. Two dudes almost cost a model and a half more than banshees.

@Cthululs Spy -no guardians/storm guardians are min 10, unless you're referring to DA's they are min 5

 shamikebab wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:
I can't think of a single scenario in which I'd take Storm Guardians.

Cheap fusion guns. Put them in a wave serpent, profit.

But for the amount you're paying for 10 guardians, 2 fusion guns and a WS....you could get 5 fire dragons and a WS for the same price. If I wanted an AT unit I'd always make that choice (or go a bit higher for standard Wraithguard)

Fire Dragons aren't scoring and Wraithguard are quite a bit more expensive and aren't scoring without a Spiritseer.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 shamikebab wrote:
I can't think of a single scenario in which I'd take Storm Guardians.

Cheap fusion guns. Put them in a wave serpent, profit.

But for the amount you're paying for 10 guardians, 2 fusion guns and a WS....you could get 5 fire dragons and a WS for the same price. If I wanted an AT unit I'd always make that choice (or go a bit higher for standard Wraithguard)

Fire Dragons aren't scoring and Wraithguard are quite a bit more expensive and aren't scoring without a Spiritseer.

A squad of Storm Guardians that have just got out of their transport are unlikely to be scoring for long

Either you want a troop choice (in which case there are better options) or you want a tank hunter unit (in which case there are better options) no-one is expecting a T3 5+ tank hunting unit to survive after it's first attack.

 gmaleron wrote:
They also are only T3 and have a 5+ ward save so if you sneeze on them they will die. And yes they have rending against infantry but they only have a 12inch range so if you sit back and shoot it does help against them.

But as to the title of your post yes I think Guardians are great and can compete with Dire Avengers for troop slots (even after the FAQ nerf where scatter lasers no longer give the Guardian Defenders Twin Linked). Are the OP like you are hinting? No, not by a long shot.

The FAQ is up? Where is it? The only thing I can find is this: https://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m3250082a_Eldar_v1.0_June13.pdf

-Dinkins

If guardians could get lasblasters like they could in 2nd i would take them in a min. 24" range would be worth losing rending. I could actually use them for backfield camping without feeling like im wasting points!

 Vaktathi wrote:
Only if one subscribes to the classic elf-trap that fantasy systems so often do. There really isn't much in 40k lore to state such with any degree of certainty. They may have much more or may not, either way the Eldar discard their old selves completely to immerse themselves totally in what they engage in now.

Path of the Warrior shows this not to be true. A Path of the Sculptor regresses onto Path of the Dreamer to centre his thoughts without leaving the path.

The mask is just stronger with the Warrior path and unless I recall very poorly training isn't conducted with the mask on. At least not all.

Almost none of the training is done with the mask on. They go into a murder rage if they do so, and it makes a point in a few stories that if an Eldar duels with there War Mask on, they'll try to kill each other.

In fact, the Path series goes to some depths to explain that it's all the previous Paths that make up who they are, and though there behavior may change, there underlying flaws and strengths are the same as well as the abilities and training they learned from those previous paths. That's what makes part of the story so tragic.

Wraithlord wrote:

 gmaleron wrote:
They also are only T3 and have a 5+ ward save so if you sneeze on them they will die. And yes they have rending against infantry but they only have a 12inch range so if you sit back and shoot it does help against them.

But as to the title of your post yes I think Guardians are great and can compete with Dire Avengers for troop slots (even after the FAQ nerf where scatter lasers no longer give the Guardian Defenders Twin Linked). Are the OP like you are hinting? No, not by a long shot.

The FAQ is up? Where is it? The only thing I can find is this: https://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m3250082a_Eldar_v1.0_June13.pdf

-Dinkins

I'm not sure what FAQ gmaleron is talking about, but just reading the rules for laser lock clearly shows that Guardian Defenders don't gain twin linked from a scatter laser.

Their price and scoring potential is enough to warrant looking at Storm Guardians, at least for me. I think either taking them with Fusion Guns as cheap transport poppers, then cowering behind the wreckage could be a very useful tactic. Particularly using Battle Focus to shoot, then run farther behind cover, hopefully out of LOS.

As far as the flamers go, I'm not so sold. their lack of range on the catapults kinda makes me think opponents won't have to charge, they can just stand back and shoot them off the board.

Power weapons could be an interesting choice, if running with an IC who can soak up a challenge. You then have two power weapons to slash away at the rest of the squad. The down side being their lack of Strength.

 Homeskillet wrote:
Their price and scoring potential is enough to warrant looking at Storm Guardians, at least for me. I think either taking them with Fusion Guns as cheap transport poppers, then cowering behind the wreckage could be a very useful tactic. Particularly using Battle Focus to shoot, then run farther behind cover, hopefully out of LOS.

As far as the flamers go, I'm not so sold. their lack of range on the catapults kinda makes me think opponents won't have to charge, they can just stand back and shoot them off the board.

Power weapons could be an interesting choice, if running with an IC who can soak up a challenge. You then have two power weapons to slash away at the rest of the squad. The down side being their lack of Strength.

Do they have to take power swords? Can't they take mauls and axes?

 Homeskillet wrote:
Their price and scoring potential is enough to warrant looking at Storm Guardians, at least for me. I think either taking them with Fusion Guns as cheap transport poppers, then cowering behind the wreckage could be a very useful tactic. Particularly using Battle Focus to shoot, then run farther behind cover, hopefully out of LOS.

As far as the flamers go, I'm not so sold. their lack of range on the catapults kinda makes me think opponents won't have to charge, they can just stand back and shoot them off the board.

Power weapons could be an interesting choice, if running with an IC who can soak up a challenge. You then have two power weapons to slash away at the rest of the squad. The down side being their lack of Strength.

I'm quite interested in the interaction between Runes of Battle powers and the Storm Guardians. All of the powers are strong choices for them. Spiritseer and Warlock +10 in a Wave Serpent?

Storm Guardians are SO much better now. Gotta' say... they aren't the worst you could do. Lotsa power weapons and special weapons to sling around.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:

 Homeskillet wrote:
Their price and scoring potential is enough to warrant looking at Storm Guardians, at least for me. I think either taking them with Fusion Guns as cheap transport poppers, then cowering behind the wreckage could be a very useful tactic. Particularly using Battle Focus to shoot, then run farther behind cover, hopefully out of LOS.

As far as the flamers go, I'm not so sold. their lack of range on the catapults kinda makes me think opponents won't have to charge, they can just stand back and shoot them off the board.

Power weapons could be an interesting choice, if running with an IC who can soak up a challenge. You then have two power weapons to slash away at the rest of the squad. The down side being their lack of Strength.

Do they have to take power swords? Can't they take mauls and axes?

I think they can, in which case two Power Axes would be nice to hide in the group.

 Jancoran wrote:
Storm Guardians are SO much better now. Gotta' say... they aren't the worst you could do. Lotsa power weapons and special weapons to sling around.

Since when was a Power Weapon that makes them cost more then the books Actual Dedicated Melee units (You can get a Harlequin with kiss for 3 points more)

 Homeskillet wrote:
I think they can, in which case two Power Axes would be nice to hide in the group.

My version of the Codex states it as "power swords". For me it's a bit overpriced when you take the low strength into account.

Suite, I stand corrected. Didn't have my codex handy. Either way, could be fun to run them and demoralize your opponent by killing a few Space Marines with cheapo Guardians.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Storm Guardians are SO much better now. Gotta' say... they aren't the worst you could do. Lotsa power weapons and special weapons to sling around.

Since when was a Power Weapon that makes them cost more then the books Actual Dedicated Melee units (You can get a Harlequin with kiss for 3 points more)

Its not a comparison. Harlequibns dont score for one. and for two, they dont score. Two power swords pr unit, that cannot be challenged, is good.

Guardians are a good deal more powerful than their previous incarnation, but not by any means overpowered.

Though, I would have been perfectly happy with previous edition Guardian stats and abilities, but with a catapults of at least 18" range.

 Jancoran wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Storm Guardians are SO much better now. Gotta' say... they aren't the worst you could do. Lotsa power weapons and special weapons to sling around.

Since when was a Power Weapon that makes them cost more then the books Actual Dedicated Melee units (You can get a Harlequin with kiss for 3 points more)

Its not a comparison. Harlequibns dont score for one. and for two, they dont score. Two power swords pr unit, that cannot be challenged, is good.

That can be shot out with Bolters, I suppose different strokes for different folks, but still..

Apologies if this has been brought up before but I got the impression that things were getting so grim for the Eldar race that the craftworlds no longer had the luxury of a laid back existence where you could get by without combat skills and that more craftworlds had standing guardian armies like ulthwe's black guardians. the only fluff that would support this impression though was in the time line section of the codex on pg.22 under "the sons of khaine".
Of course from a rules standpoint they needed a boost in both abilities and cost because the alternative would be to leave them as they were and make them about 5 or 6 points a model and then we would see guardian horde lists where they would be used to tarpit or overrun the enemy like slaaneshi chaos cultists and I think we can agree that would be counter to eldar thinking and playstyle.

Storm Guardians scoring isn't really much of a factor in the majority of games, though. They have the same problems getting into combat as Banshees do but have less armor and less hitting power, so what makes you think they'll be alive to score if you're using them in an assault role?

Because you time them to approach late game and obviously there is less to deal with THEN. Im not sure I was really trying to engage in a tactical discussion but I can say clearly that they are way better than before.

Pointing out worst case scenarios wont really help anyone understand what they CAN do and CAN be for you. I look at things from the affirmative perspective.

Pointing out the best-case scenario doesn't give an accurate representation of what they can do either. In the majority of games, you'd be better off taking Defenders than Storms. Offensively, they fulfill the same role, which is killing things up close, Storms just happen to be a bit closer. If what you want is specifically a close-combat squad, it's probably best to look elsewhere.

Yeah, they're better than before, but that's not saying a whole lot .

I didn't point out a best case scenario. I just told you facts: Having TWO power weapons that you CANNOT challenge away from affecting the rest of the unit is good. It just is.

Having two special weapons available to you 90 point squad is also good. and thats a fact.

So if you dont want to use them, dont. I dont. But I would and they are WORTH using if your list is built for it. I see no problem with the VALUE here.

 Jancoran wrote:
I didn't point out a best case scenario. I just told you facts: Having TWO power weapons that you CANNOT challenge away from affecting the rest of the unit is good. It just is.

Having two special weapons available to you 90 point squad is also good. and thats a fact.

I disagree with the first part, because you have to pay way too much for that benefit.
Those two power sword guys (no other PW allowed) cost almost 50 points and both kill ~1 MEQ. When assaulting.

In CC your standard C:SM tactical is not much worse at killing guardians than power sword guardian in at killing MEQs. He's often better against other targets. Plus, PW guardians are more expensive (+50%) and tactical has better shooting, is much tougher overall and has all the LD tricks. Once again, that's against lower end tactical which will probably get better in its next iteration.
The sword option is not good.

Standard priced melta on BS4 model OTOH is always welcome.

Yeah but two meltas on 10 Guardians is like the same points as 5 meltas on 5 Fire Dragons, who are also more resilient to bolters and have meltabombs.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:
Yeah but two meltas on 10 Guardians is like the same points as 5 meltas on 5 Fire Dragons, who are also more resilient to bolters and have meltabombs.

Sure. I was not trying to say that meltagun guardians are a great unit.
But upgrade for 20 points changing anti-tank from abysmal to decent at short range is much better than 30 point upgrade that changes CC from "meh" into "meh".

And yet... they are neither deployed the same nor are they again...both scoring units.

this matters.

 Jancoran wrote:
And yet... they are neither deployed the same nor are they again...both scoring units.

this matters.

Scoring units that can easily be made from scoring to "Dead" easily enough. A hidden power-axe or sword isn't going to stop much from assaulting, aside from grots maybe, and if it's purpose is to hide all game in a Serpant and then come out at the end for a last minute grab...Why do you need a fully kitted out Storm guardian unit?

"easily"? The person using them doesn't know how to keep them alive? Thats a big assumption. They'll fail every cover save? The enemy will be able to fire THROUGH the hull of their Wave Serpent?

You kit the storm guardians because it gives you the flexibility you need. Because Drop Pods need to be killed. Because of a lot of things.

No one here is claiming them to be the second coming. I just think you're over rating their mortality. in 7 games so far with my new Eldar force, I've lost my Guardian Defenders exactly zero times. Target priority protects things also.

Storm Guardians have some nice features. They have a place in the eldar forces for sure.

 Jancoran wrote:
I didn't point out a best case scenario. I just told you facts: Having TWO power weapons that you CANNOT challenge away from affecting the rest of the unit is good. It just is.

It just is...if you take it out of context. But when you look at the whole package who cares? They are S3 for one. They are also an assault unit in an army that shoots better in a game where shooting is more powerful than assault. Plus they are also expensive.

You are complaining about people giving worst case scenarios however you are giving best case scenarios while adding in blanket statements formed from your opinions alone and calling them 'facts'.

I'm a marine player but I don't think they are overpowered, nor are they close to the worst troop choice in the game.

I'd be running a few small units of them.

Obviously terrible at standing static trading shots at the enemy. They have their uses against melee units though, esp ones that have been knocked out of their transports (which eldar has to tools to do easily) and are footslogging towards the lines.

They need to be used as the Eldar army is designed to be played, fast and agile. Been able to move > shoot > run is a very strong ability. When those Tacticals drop out of that rhino mid field you shouldn't be standing in the open trading shots, you should be walking infront of the walls, firing, then running back behind the wall into cover, or better yet out of Line of Sight. Using your mobility to kite incoming melee units, and if you cant kite them use the unit to get in the way of something more important. If they ignore the unit then they run the risk of that AP2 dropping models.

Lmao, love the "but our guys are trained from birth" argument from some of these posts... By the time your best warriors die from old age, elves haven't even come of age and still have decades worth of training (path of defender and path of warrior two very different things, to an eldar learning to use shuriken weapons is as important as knowing how to open a door... Which is probably a path on its own sad to say)
Point is your trained from birth means gak when your dead before you've had half the training an elf can receive before he gets laid

HB razorbacks are making a comeback in my meta. Chewing up Firewarriors, Kroot, and half the Eldar make the worth it again. Not to mention the odd Ard Boy or what not.

Godless-Mimicry, its simple.

Either
A. It is better to be able to take two power weapons or
B. it is better to only have the option for one.

See how simple life is when you think about it? At all?

it is a FACT that A is true. Argue yourself blue in the face. But if you dont want to take them: cool. One thing I am trying to get better at as time goes by, is to just LET your opponents assume bad things about your army. it can only end well for me. Thats how underestimation usually ends.

Sure they can deal out the hurt at 12" but with T3, guardsmen will kill them with pebbles if they stay at 24".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sure they can deal out the hurt at 12" but with T3, guardsmen will kill them with pebbles if they stay at 24".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sure they can deal out the hurt at 12" but with T3, guardsmen will kill them with pebbles if they stay at 24".

 zedster40k wrote:
Sure they can deal out the hurt at 12" but with T3, guardsmen will kill them with pebbles if they stay at 24".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sure they can deal out the hurt at 12" but with T3, guardsmen will kill them with pebbles if they stay at 24".


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sure they can deal out the hurt at 12" but with T3, guardsmen will kill them with pebbles if they stay at 24".

If only there were some sort of long-range, high-strength good ROF weapon that ignored cover in the Eldar Codex to deal with those pesky guardsmen...

In what situations is it worth it to go with Dire Avengers instead? The extra armor save really doesn't seem worth it (whatever kills 3+ will kill 4+).

 Ailaros wrote:

Really, there isn't THAT much difference between an eldar guardian and a dark eldar warrior.

One is a botanist that has been conscripted to fight for the craftworlds defense
One is an SM freak who has trained for a thousand years to be a violent pirate assassin and lives only for the pleasure of battle.

seems pretty much the same.

But when an IG guardsman survives a battle he becomes a Veteran, gets +1 BS and access to a bunch of weapons and special rules.

I wish they had kept Guardians and Jetbikes at WS3 BS3 but made Storm Guardians WS4. Would have been more fluffy and seperated the types better. Also I would have given BS4 to all the Tanks and Vypers(not War Walkers) since these platforms have dedicated gunners with all the targeting systems shown on the models. Would have made alot more sense in my mind.