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I guess the good news is that conscripted eldar aren't going to get slaughtered every game. But it make me sad. I use to play Ulthwe and guardian teams made up my tank hunter force. I loved them. They could move and shoot and when assault troops started to close in I could run up and pepper with fire and tarpit for long enough for my waith lord or avatar to arrive. Forth edition is here now and the caliber of opponents has risen. And it seems that I have a wealth of better troop options
Guardian squads are fun for the sake of having a protected heavy weapon. cost about 100pts and most players find it annoying to try and kill them when they're in cover. So here is my question.

Is here any chance of seeing an eldar SAFH?

thanks

Well, many people go the mech eldar route nowadays and the reasons are at hand. Eldar skimmers (and their cargo!) simply kick donkey!

But other than that, the guardians with warlock and conceal + a higher rate of fire weapon are considered good as well. I've seen many lists with two or more squads and an avatar to make them fearless (important).
Sure, the days of the guardians of doom are over (thank god?), but the days of shooty Eldar aren't. Eldar still bear some amazing firepower.

Greets
Schepp himself

By SAFH, do you mean to suggest a gun-line type army, not just any SAFH? If so, I'd say no. One BS3 missile for every 100 pts. spent is not going to win you the game. I like Guardians, and I use 2-3 squads with an Avatar (while being aware that mech would be better), but I know I have to make damn sure that the rest of the army is able to take the fight to the enemy.

Eldar troops can't put out the firepower for a SAFH.

Dire Avengers are good at shooting, but they only have an 18" range. That means that if you are playing against a true shooting army (Marines, IG and Tau) your forces will be shot up for at least one, and possibly several turns before you will be able to shoot back, and you have no staying power with T3, and a 4+ save.

I do like guardians for all the reasons that you mentioned. One big advantage that the Eldar have that the other SAFH don't, is mobility. Guardians can move and fire, so they are able to get into better positions, and limit the amount of return fire.


And to top it off, there are very few good options for Bright Lances in the Eldar Codex these days, and Guardians are a cheap and some what durable way to get them into your army.

A gunline eldar ary really only works if you have black guardians /sigh

Is my memory failing me, or weren't Black Guardians limited to two squads? I don't see how that made gun-line Eldar viable, and I don't recall Ulthwe ever playing like a true gun-line in 3rd ed either.

gdurant wrote:
Is here any chance of seeing an eldar SAFH?

It’s possible. My eldar army is based around lots and lots of long range shooting. One of the real tricks to is though is to use some units that people just generally don't like. I do take a few support units that don't directly add to the shooty element of the army, but it leads to a slightly more balanced force. Here's a basic rundown of the sorts of things I run with.

HQ
Farseer (sometimes 2): One will always, no matter what, have guide and sit in my back field. The other might also have guide or he might have fortune, doom, and a squad of warlocks...depends on the point level of the game. The guide farseer sticks near either the dark reapers or the war walkers...more on them later.

Troops
Guardians (usually 2 squads): These guys sit in cover near the front of my lines with a heavy weapon. They lay down a bit of fire and are generally not worth the effort it takes my opponents to kill them. So they are either ignored, or they act as good bullet sponges. Either way, they tend to work out fairly well. Since they can move and shoot, its fairly easy for them to back peddle if enemy units start getting close.
Pathfinders: 36" range and 2+ cover saves...sign me up. They lay down a good amount of fire power from a long way away. They excel at picking off targets that are high value and not in cover.

Fast attack:
Vypers: They are about the only fast attack choice with enough range to get into my army. Cheep heavy weapon platforms are good and mobility helps keep them alive.

Heavy support:
Dark Reapers: Very little makes marines soil their armor quite like a squad of dark reapers. 48" range, S5, ap3, and heavy 2 at BS4. That's a lot of killing power. What can make them even juicier is an exarch with a tempest launcher and crack shot. Strength 4, ap 3, blast and Heavy 2. The crack shot makes you re-roll failed to wound rolls which is helpful with the strength 4 weapon and it ignores cover saves. It’s really hard to go wrong there. Put these guys in cover in your back field and they will make a killing field out of any place they can see.

War walkers: I get so much flack for fielding these things, but they are by far the most deadly unit in my army and its rare that they don't survive (at least partially) till the end of the game. 6 heavy weapons in one squad is not something to laugh at. I find that loading them all up with scatter lasers works well as does 3 star cannons and 3 scatter lasers (for extra MEQ killing power). Both options are good, it just depends on your opponent and general terrain setup (all scatter if there is lots of terrain, split weapons if the table is a bit more barren). The trick with these guys is to have them in your back field poking their heads out from around the side of a big piece of terrain. Work it out so they can see 1 and only 1 enemy unit with significant range (you should always be shooting from 30-36" away). Then open fire on that unit. 3 out of 4 times, the unit isn't there anymore after your shooting. That ratio goes up considerably when the guide farseer is near the walkers. Nothing says loving like 24 re-rollable scatter laser shots coming out of just one unit. Now since these things can be fairly frail, its important to keep them away from enemy shooting. Sneak them around the edges of terrain and don't be afraid to have them back up if something starts getting close.

Falcon: I usually field one as it is a great complement to the rest of the army. I usually give mine a star cannon and an under slung shuriken cannon along with the standard goodies. The unkillable nature of the falcon makes it a great bullet sponge, particularly if something is getting close to one of my more frail units. If that's the case, just zoom the flacon up and tank shock the unit getting close. They will be forced to move back (at least slightly) and now they will have to go around the falcon. In addition, its difficult to ignore the giant tank that just tried to run over you, so many opponents will start trying to kill it (and fail most of the time). Even if they do ignore it, you can now unload the falcons considerable firepower into that unit and dump any cargo the falcon might be carrying. The other major use of the falcon is getting enemy units out of cover. If you tank shock a unit in cover and you park the falcon's considerable bulk over the terrain feature, the unit inside will be forced to move out. Since this happens in the movement phase, they will be out of cover for your shooting phase where the war walkers or dark reapers can lay waste to them. Since the falcon generally ends up being a forward unit in an army that doesn't have much in the way of forward units, it attracts a lot of fire and often gets taken down (significantly more often than my war walkers) but it earns its points back the vast majority of the time and keeps the heat off the remainder of my army.

Elites
This is the section that varies the most in my army. I usually only take 1 elite choice in most games, but in the larger ones I'll go up to 2.

Fire dragons: 4 words, Snakes On A Plane. They are usually in the falcon, but occasionally in their own wave serpent. They are there for tank busting utility more than for their gun line application.

Howling Banshees: Again, there for counter charge more than direct offensive use. Always taken in their own wave serpent (which in itself can add to the long range fire power of the force)

Quins: Same general use as the banshees, usually in the flacon.


When I get home I'll see about digging up my codex and writing a purely shooty army list for you.

In Apocalypse games I'm planning to run my 100+ guardians near a spirit host. The wraithlords and wraithguard should give me a really large buble of fearlessness to keep the guardians safe. In standard games, guardians need the Avatar, preferably with Eldrad or a farseer with fortune to cast on the big boy.

There is nothing wrong with using 10 man brightlance squads instead of Jetbike squads. Absolutely nothing.

They're a bit pricy for what they get, but move and shoot antitank guns are hard to come by in the Eldar dex - especially ones with the range to threaten things.

It's cheaper than the jetbike squad and more durable (since you've got range and numbers and the ability to take cover saves on your side).

I'm not saying it's the best option but it's certainly viable, especially if you're in a heavy armor environment.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Storm guardians are a great, very cheap way to throw two meltaguns into your mechanized list.

10 SG's with 2 meltaguns and a shuriken cannon waveserpent with stones is not all that pricy (maybe 200ish points?). Arguably more reliable antitank than a singing spear and provides more armor to dilute fire with.

for some reason the idea of putting guardians into a wave serpent seems wrong to me. But if you were to do that might as well go all out and add a spearlock to the group.

I like the idea of useing guardians over spearlock bikes to bust tanks. People talk about eaning points with bike squads, but I just don't see how. 3 tw shrukpults and a shrukannon doesn't do alot of damage. A spearlock can pop a tank, but he also causes more fire to come their way.

Guardians are an assaulting unit, never underestimate the humble shuriken catapult.

A heavy weapon is just a bonus.

And with conceal, they just never die. You really notice it when you get hit with markerlights. They do like to run away.

I like em. But they're still just guardians.

As for gunlines, never tried it. 200 points in Guardians with Brightlances is more anti-tank than 0 points in Guardians with Brightlances. Sometimes you just get used to facing lots of vehicles, or maybe you just like the idea. It's definately more bodies than Pathfinders and Jetbikes which seem gimicky to me.

And as for Storm squads, meh. They're just 8 pt Gaunts, really. I would probably put brightlances on their Wave Serpent, assuming there were other mechanized threats. Think of it as being like a non-scoring Fire Prism with a surprise inside.

Tacobake wrote:And with conceal, they just never die. You really notice it when you get hit with markerlights. They do like to run away.

2 things here.

1) You don't really need conceal if there is a reasonable amount of terrain on the board. Just make use of whats there and the guardians will be fine. The extra points put into the warlock are generaly not worth it in my experience. On the other hand, if you know you are likely to play in a terrain poor environment, then by all means, bring the warlock.

2) They do run away, but that doesn't keep them from fireing their heavy weapon. Don't forget that. And really, if the enemy is wasteing fire power on your guardians, all the better.

Are we seriously trying to justify spending 100 points for a BS 3 Bright Lance that requires a 155 point babysitter on top of it?

and no, 36" is not a long range weapon.

nor will their ever be a chance (or reason) to use those catapults. Its almost always better to back away.

I won't say Brightlances on Guardians are worthwhile as I've not tried it. However, I will say my army is lite on Brightlances. I also wont' make the claim that a Guardian based army is a top tier tourney army, but it is competitive and fun to use.

I believe your taking the term 'long range' out of context. My understanding is that most of the good anti tank weapons the Eldar have are 12" (Melta Gun, Singing Spear). In that respect, a 36" range would be considered long.

My Guardian army is evolving the more I play it. The most effective build I'm finding is simply 10 Guardians, Scatterlaser for 95 points. Cheap and has ok utility. No big loss if they get pounded as that means my more expensive units are not getting shot at.

Regarding shooting Shuriken Catapults, I had to every game at the Baltimore GT. The missions were the biggest factor with this in my opinion as neither myself or my opponent could just sit back all game and claim all 3 objectives.

Game 1 vs. Space Wolves. Yes, especially when trying to get Space Wolf units to be non scoring so they could not hold an objetive.
Game 2 vs. Chaos. Yes, but not as much as the Chaos player really kept his distance most of the game and secured objectives last turn.
Game 3 vs. Tyranid horde. This was the most shooting done. It was tricky to get in a position to unleash Shuriken Catapults w/o being assaulted.
Game 4 vs. Godzilla. The most ineffective shooting I had. Carnifexes just don't care about Shuriken Catapults.
Game 5 vs. Necrons. A bit limited in shooting as Scarab bases were the only thing really trying to close the distance with me.

I went 3-2 with my Guardian style army. Again, not a top tier list, but fun to use and can challenge nearly any list. (I really do need to figure out how to beat Godzilla, however.)

I don't think I'll claim my Eldar are SAFH. There are many, many armies that will out shoot me. However, my army is flexible enough that I can typically outshoot parts of my opponent's army when I need to.


The core of my army that I'm playing with nowadays consist of the following:

Maugan Ra
4x10 Guardians w/ Scatterlaser
2x3 Jetbikes (one Shuriken Cannon in each squad)
5 Fire Dragons
Falcon w/ toys
2 Vibro Cannons

I normally run Eldrad/Avatar with this build, but have been experimenting with Maugan Ra as I have difficulty with multiple Armor 13 and 14 tanks running around. Time will tell what works better for me, but the constant will definitely be my Guardians.

Sarigar, nice list, sounds like mine. and i also have a love affair with guardians beyond normal reasoning. i play with:

eldrad
avatar
30 guardians w/3 starcannons
10 dire avengers
10 banshees
5 firedragons
2 wave serpents
falcon
fire prism
and 3 warwalkers.

this past weekend i played in a local rtt, i went 3-0 and took home a trophy. people ignore the guardians and that's what makes them effective. with some careful planning and some tricks guardians can still put a hurt on meqs.

it's not easy to set up guardians to use the catapults, but when done properly it's devastating. and when it's not done properly 2 starcannon shots/turn for 6 turns isn't a bad deal for 105 pts.

it's nice to know that some one else finds guardians just as consistantly useful as me. i haven't thought about dropping the avatar though, he is to good for 155 pts. he makes sure the only way to get rid of the 3 weapon platforms is to kill all 30 guardians. any rounds of close combat are a plus and usually not uncommon.