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Shuriken Catapults suck. They just suck. Assault 2 is pretty good, but 12" range? Come on. If your in range, your target can attack you! I would make it's profile the following (changes in bold):
Range: 18"; S:4; AP:5; Assault 1
It trades off less shots for greater range, meaning you can stay out of assault range and still fire. What do you think?

First of all, they are already range 18" S4, AP5 Assault, 2. Second, they do not suck, they are amazing, and they would still be amazing at even Range 12". Assault two guns are very hard to find in 40k, not to mention they can bladestorm giving them each an extra shot. Sure, they can't shoot again next turn, but you can still charge and mop up anything left...if there is anything left.

Dedrith wrote:First of all, they are already range 18" S4, AP5 Assault, 2.

Your thinking dire avengers

lol yea true

BloodDeathAssault wrote:

Dedrith wrote:First of all, they are already range 18" S4, AP5 Assault, 2.

Your thinking dire avengers

Oh yeah, you're right. I forgot there were people out there who actually used gardians.

As far as your rule suggestion, it's not bad. I still think I would rather have the extra shot and get charged the next turn though.

maybe they could be 18" and the DA be 24?

Whatever, it's an amazing gun, it makes the bolter look like puddlesauce.

Captain Solon wrote:maybe they could be 18" and the DA be 24?

Whatever, it's an amazing gun, it makes the bolter look like puddlesauce.

I'd take the Bolter on my Guardians, to be honest. The extra range complement their role a lot better, while the loss of Assault on a unit renowned for their weakness in melee is not a big deal.

We're talking about a 12" weapon on a squad which is supposed to operate at 36". An 18" weapon would make the Guardian Defender workable in itself (and not just as an expensive heavy weapon), but that makes Dire Avengers again like the 3rd edition and would need the Dire Avengers to change slightly, too.

No. They do just suck. I've been griping about them since 2nd ed. (-2 save, S4, r24") got nerfed. Avenger cats arent bad, at least they can bladestorm and ride in on the Serpent of death for a ridiculous amount of dakka. But I honestly don't think I have ever used the Guardian version successfully. I only take a single squad of those putzes to leave way in the back firing their scatterlaser platform and waiting around for the last turn to grab a board spot. If they are using their catapults, it usually means they are going to be demolished the next turn.

Farseer of the Quiran-Vae wrote:Shuriken Catapults suck. They just suck. Assault 2 is pretty good, but 12" range? Come on. If your in range, your target can attack you! I would make it's profile the following (changes in bold):
Range: 18"; S:4; AP:5; Assault 1
It trades off less shots for greater range, meaning you can stay out of assault range and still fire. What do you think?

I would say that the change is worse than pointless. You still only get two shots at enemy infantry approaching you but now you only get one against fast enemies. (jump packers, etc) Guardian catapults should be 24" rapid fire. That makes them useful and keeps the advantage for the avengers.

To be honest a well-played Eldar force wouldn't allow your Guardians to be demolished in such a way. Why don't you have several units concentrate fire? Involve a Farseer to doom/fortune/guide your men? A dedicated assault unit nearby to dissuade your opponent, the same way a well-placed Knight in Chess may dissuade your opponent from taking the easily-available Pawn.

the 12" range reflects the weapon's (fluffy) low accuracy due to the shuriken technology. It's a gun that fires wafer-thin metal disks out of a slot. Did you ever use those foam disk guns? Same principle I suppose.

I think they're fine. if you're in range with the squad and a scatter laser, you're actually likely to kill more than a non-BSing DA squad.
Plus, guardians are cheap man, what are you expecting? Take a full squad of 20, then you'll notice things changing on the battlefield.

Captain Solon wrote:maybe they could be 18" and the DA be 24?

Whatever, it's an amazing gun, it makes the bolter look like puddlesauce.

If you wanna keep that opinion, don't look at the profile of an ork shoota.

Tek wrote:To be honest a well-played Eldar force wouldn't allow your Guardians to be demolished in such a way. Why don't you have several units concentrate fire? Involve a Farseer to doom/fortune/guide your men? A dedicated assault unit nearby to dissuade your opponent, the same way a well-placed Knight in Chess may dissuade your opponent from taking the easily-available Pawn.

the 12" range reflects the weapon's (fluffy) low accuracy due to the shuriken technology. It's a gun that fires wafer-thin metal disks out of a slot. Did you ever use those foam disk guns? Same principle I suppose.

I think they're fine. if you're in range with the squad and a scatter laser, you're actually likely to kill more than a non-BSing DA squad.
Plus, guardians are cheap man, what are you expecting? Take a full squad of 20, then you'll notice things changing on the battlefield.

You mean to propose that in order to safeguard a support unit, with very short effective range, we need to dedicate most, if not all, our HQ and Elite sections? The very units that the Guardians are meant to support?

The reason why people don't extensively use Guardians is that they are very ineffective in their own being both fragile and short ranged.

I don't know anybody who would use their Guardians like that...

I have a friend who uses them as Storm Guardians but that's just so they can have meltaguns.

Mahtamori wrote:You mean to propose that in order to safeguard a support unit, with very short effective range, we need to dedicate most, if not all, our HQ and Elite sections? The very units that the Guardians are meant to support?

The reason why people don't extensively use Guardians is that they are very ineffective in their own being both fragile and short ranged.

No, I mean to propose that if you're afraid your Guardians will get shot up as they're 12" away from something nasty, then your threat bubble is leaning in the wrong direction. If things are running into assault with your Guardians, where's your Avatar? Your opponent will hesitate losing his Assault Marines if he knows next turn you're gonna nail them with a giant molten-flame sword.

Units support one another, it's not an exclusive, one-way deal IMO. My guardians shoot stuff to soften the enemy so my Scorpions can assault them. At the same time, the enemy is less likely to close on the Guardians for fear of the nearby Scorpions. If my enemy assaults my Guardians, they know the Scorps will eat them up next round. A lot of the time the enemy will falter at target priority and that's a tactical basis of the Eldar.

@Tek: This still doesn't support the statement that the Shuriken Catapult is a good weapon, nor that the Guardians are a decent unit. In the example you gave, for instance, Dire Avengers would manage the same job better for not a lot more cost, and can be set up to receive the assault marine attack and survive it, whereas the Guardians are just as likely to die from it as not.
I know you didn't make the statement, but you're in support of it.

What I'm trying to hint at is that just because you can make a unit not die and possibly even gain some sort of advantage from it, doesn't mean it's in any way well designed.

In 4th edition the Shuriken Catapult was an awesome point-defense weapon for Guardians and Dire Avengers alike because you could kill everything within a 12" charge range.

nostromo wrote:

Captain Solon wrote:maybe they could be 18" and the DA be 24?

Whatever, it's an amazing gun, it makes the bolter look like puddlesauce.

If you wanna keep that opinion, don't look at the profile of an ork shoota.

First off, it's you.

second off, I know Orks are amazingly good in LRC despite their soley CC role.

This is how you make a versatile army list.

SM are beautifully versatile, despite weak amounts of troop choices.

And ork shootas are pistol?
or are they the 24" assault 2?

Or are you refering to the big shoota?

well, sure. you get off 9 shots at 36" range, but a good army can rip you apart by the time you get to the enemy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Scott-S6 wrote:

Farseer of the Quiran-Vae wrote:Shuriken Catapults suck. They just suck. Assault 2 is pretty good, but 12" range? Come on. If your in range, your target can attack you! I would make it's profile the following (changes in bold):
Range: 18"; S:4; AP:5; Assault 1
It trades off less shots for greater range, meaning you can stay out of assault range and still fire. What do you think?

I would say that the change is worse than pointless. You still only get two shots at enemy infantry approaching you but now you only get one against fast enemies. (jump packers, etc) Guardian catapults should be 24" rapid fire. That makes them useful and keeps the advantage for the avengers.

turn them into bolters? WOW HOW ORIGINAL.

Mahtamori wrote:@Tek: This still doesn't support the statement that the Shuriken Catapult is a good weapon, nor that the Guardians are a decent unit. In the example you gave, for instance, Dire Avengers would manage the same job better for not a lot more cost, and can be set up to receive the assault marine attack and survive it, whereas the Guardians are just as likely to die from it as not.
I know you didn't make the statement, but you're in support of it.

What I'm trying to hint at is that just because you can make a unit not die and possibly even gain some sort of advantage from it, doesn't mean it's in any way well designed.

You're right, I didn't make the statement. My statement is that Guardians aren't as bad as everyone makes out. Don't get me wrong, I don't play them every game, but I like them.
I think they're cheap and they have a cool special rule.

I would agree that the concept is great, but ever since 3rd edition the execution of it has been poor, to say the least. The concept, I feel, is currently best embodied by Dire Avengers. They have the correct range to stay out of charge distance and can put out sufficient volume of fire, in short they are very Eldary.
The problem with Guardians is that if you change them too much, they risk replacing Dire Avengers (again). I don't currently feel they merit their point cost, but I think the point cost is appropriate for what it should be - if you follow what I mean. They're missing abilities or stats worth about 2 points.

Well the issue is that both dire avengers and guardians are filling the close-range shooty troop genre, so of course they're going to be tip-toeing on each other. To remedy this, I would suggest (and has been suggested before) pushing the guardian genre away from that of the specialized avengers (or any other aspect squad).

In this fashion, guardians could be made to focus on their "crew" nature and tactical flexibility (since they're not focused on a single path). Keep the 12" range and give them the ability to take more heavy weapon platforms: one 2-crew gun per 5 normal guys (up to 3 guns and 15 normal guys). Possibly drop them down to pistols for balance.

For storm guardians, keep them similar to now, but allow 1 special weapon per 5 normal guys and possibly expand the weapon choices (flamer, melta, pw, scorp chainsword, etc...). It would really increase their flexibility to have the option to upgrade their ccw and not just the pistol.

This keeps guardians as support troops that fill in gaps left by the specialized aspect warriors. What do people think?

+Rending

I say give them a 4+ armor and more heavy weapons and they will be much better. They will be pretty balanced and take more of a fire support role. And fluffily it makes sense because they wear the same stuff as DAs.

Augustus wrote:+Rending

Seeing whats in store for dark eldar I think Shuriken weaponry gaining rending is very likely. In fact I think thats all thatll change for them (well maybe a point increase on cannons). Will be interesting to see what sort of stats and points DE Warriors will land at since the Guardians will likely end up a slightly more assaulty version of Warriors. Question is whether they will continue being costly for performance qs Guardians have been the past decade.

I personally have not played eldar for a long time but i've learned that every unit has its advantages and disavantages, so i think they have their purpose with low range (defensive maybe)

goggari wrote:I personally have not played eldar for a long time but i've learned that every unit has its advantages and disavantages, so i think they have their purpose with low range (defensive maybe)

No, their one and only advantage is the extra weapons* they carry, and this has been the case in both the prior editions (since 5th edition codex hasn't been released). I personally think this is fine for defenders, even though the number of platforms per squad is very low, but Storms need a bigger advantage.

* Heavy weapon platform on defenders, fusion guns on storms, and wave serpents on both.

My purpose for extending the range but lowering the rate of fire was to keep the point cost the same. Now that I look at the stat block, they definitely do not deserve 8 points.

Also, Shuriken Catapults are essentially just Assault 2 pistols. Seriously.

I would raise the range to 18" and keep the assault 2 but that is what makes the DA's so special. More of a 24" Assault 1 or 2, which would match the point cost?

I dislike the idea of making it longer range because the unit is meant to be short range and weak.

And especially not flexible in their firepower.

Farseer of the Quiran-Vae wrote:My purpose for extending the range but lowering the rate of fire was to keep the point cost the same. Now that I look at the stat block, they definitely do not deserve 8 points.

Also, Shuriken Catapults are essentially just Assault 2 pistols. Seriously.

I would raise the range to 18" and keep the assault 2 but that is what makes the DA's so special. More of a 24" Assault 1 or 2, which would match the point cost?

I don't understand the thinking behind adding range at the cost of firepower, especially if what you're shooting at is going to do 1 of 2 things:

1. Shoot you back while getting into Rapid Fire range (thus getting 2 shots for your 1). or
2. Die.

The latter is less likely because you no longer are firing twice. In addition to this you cannot assault 18", (obviously you move 6" and assault 6", thus covering the standard range) first. By firing as many shots as possible and assaulting in the same turn you can take advantage of Eldars high initiative and bog down weaker (or stronger, if you like using Guardians as cannon fodder ) units.

I say keep the original rules but perhaps add the range as a special ability/ammo type.

In 2nd edition the guardians had the option to take lasguns. I actually think this is a good option that they should put back in. Why not just give guardians the lasblaster (the weapon that the swooping hawks have)? This would give them the range to be a proper "defensive" unit and would still leave the DA with an important role as a more elite troop unit with a more powerful, if slightly shorter ranged, weapon and a higher BS.

Lasing weapons is so... primitive... for Eldar. I dislike the concept entirely. Taking a solid wraithbone core and slicing it in mono-molecular thin discs, then accelerating these discs near to the point where they'd turn the air to plasma from friction, that is Eldar. The game play effect might not be much different from a bolter.

I'd rather see the Shuriken weaponry be more strong and powerful in close quarters to reward you for putting your fragile Guardians in the line of fire. If you take this one step closer to the description of the shurikens, that might translate to either +1 shot or +rending.
Either way, 8 or 9 points as the absolutely cheapest unit fit Eldar description, rather than adopting the cost to current performance (I'd say the current performance is somewhere in the 6 point region).