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A warlock with embolden is something around 40 points. Kind of expensive but it does keep the guardians from running away. Much like farseers, warlocks are force multipliers for the most part and the points spent on them goes a farther the larger the guardian squad is.

Going to ground is fine to help the guardians out against shooting, but if something rolls up on them with a flamer or comes in to assault them, they are dead meat. In either case, it puts them back to doing nothing which is the main complaint about the unit to begin with. That and they function as a horde unit which is very unfluffy for the eldar.

Phoenix wrote:A warlock with embolden is something around 40 points. Kind of expensive but it does keep the guardians from running away. Much like farseers, warlocks are force multipliers for the most part and the points spent on them goes a farther the larger the guardian squad is.

Going to ground is fine to help the guardians out against shooting, but if something rolls up on them with a flamer or comes in to assault them, they are dead meat. In either case, it puts them back to doing nothing which is the main complaint about the unit to begin with. That and they function as a horde unit which is very unfluffy for the eldar.

I would gladly pay 40 points for the squad that I KNOW I will be parking on one of my main objectives. How do you win 2 out of the 3 missions right now? A larger squad is also viable in the 3rd mission...

Going to ground does NOT make them do nothing. They are STILL holding the objective!

If something rolls up to assault them then you probably screwed up somewhere or are being over-run. I can see a flamer getting in (deep strike), but one flamer isn't going to annihilate the whole squad.

Again, no codex, so going by what I see in the thread. 15 Guardians is 150 pts, + warlock is 40. Add in a heavy weapon and you're sitting at 200-205 I'm guessing? Thats less than a Tactical Squad for me. 18 models holding an objective. Nothing is going to kill that many guardians in one round of shooting OR one round of hand to hand combat. You'll have plenty of time to bring in a counter charge unit to save them. All the while taking pot shots from the back lines at 36", with 6" of movement to get the gun into a good position. If any large amount of fire looks their way you go to ground. They won't even be taking a Ld test to fallback from shooting until 5 die.

Or you could run 2 squads of 10 guardians, complain about the unit, but call it "fluffy". Think of it this way. One of the squads took some casualties. Replacements aren't available so you've combined the 15 survivors into one large squad, along with the warlock "sergeant" and the still functioning heavy weapon. There's your "fluff"

Lormax wrote:Lets be a little realistic here.

OK.

A squad of 16-20 + warlock isn't un-fluffy.

That depends on how you look at the Fluff.

Orks regularly mob at 16-20 models w/ Nob to lead. Structurally, that's very similar to a Guardian mob. Except it's cheaper and better from a points perspective.

I'm not saying go Guardian horde, I'm talking about using one unit effectively.

How are you intending to limit the player to taking a single, large Guardian mob? If you don't restrict Guardian mobs, then you are implicitly telling the player that fielding an Orky 6 Guardian mobs is appropriate for an Eldar army. I disagree, and would prefer to simply not give the player the option to make a mistake, similar to how GW forced Combat Squads on BA / DA players.

A warlock in the squad allows you to reroll the leadership test. I honestly don't know what the points cost is to add the warlock with embolden, but this is your main objective holding squad. How much is that worth to you?

Given that you've restricted my options down to a false choice, when we're takling about changes, I refuse to answer that question because it's not how I choose to structure the unit (or alternatives).

I'd rather spend the sam 200 pts to field 2 units of 10 Guardians with AGPs, wearing Sv4+ armor, and not have them require a Warlock in the first place. This doubles my firepower and lets me hold or contest 2 objectives.

I don't have the codex near me, but if I remember right, jetbikes, rangers and dire avengers are your other troop choices (wrathguard as well, sort of). Out of those, what are better to hold an objective? We can take jetbikes right out of the arguement since if they're sitting there then you paid for mobility and not using it. Dire Avengers are decently hardy but don't have a long range weapon thus they just sit there doing nothing. Wraithguard for the same reason. That leaves Rangers as an excellent choice but at what points cost?

If we're talking about an objective that is assault-proof and in cover, the only rational choice is to take Rangers. Point-for-point, Rangers with a 2++ save will not be removed by shooting.

If the objective is at all assaultable, then Rangers and Guardians will both die quickly.

Overall, I like Jetbikes for their toughness, speed and cheapness. They have T4 Sv3+, which is very difficult to dislodge. They are fast enough to survive by hiding, and then sprint to contest whatever objective I need them to later in the game.

Comparing their cost to a Dark Eldar warrior really doesn't work, as the DE codex was written for 3rd edition. DE warriors are undercosted compared to the books coming out now.

The current Guardians are little changed from their 3E version, and are no more overcosted relative to the DE version than the were back then. They're still only good for their AGPs, but the AGPs have gotten relatively pricier with a squad size of 10 instead of 5+2..

Let's face it, Guardian's aren't bad. They aren't meant to be MEQs though! What is this crap? Lasblasters? Longer range shuricats? And you're complaining about squad sizes being un-fluffy! Good Lord, they aren't broken, they just don't have many uses. You can't expect them to function like Marines, Guardsmen, or other troops from other races, because they aren't that at all. They are actually relatively cheap for having bolter-S/AP guns, despite having terrible defensive stats. As far as things go, Guardians aren't bad, you're just asking them to do a LOT more than they were intended to do.

I tend not to use gaurdians in my games (mainly because my regular opponent plays a very static tau army but also becuase I made my Eldar Beil-Tan with high numbers of aspect warriors) but I might get a squad now i know what the heck you're supposed to do with them.

I'm still not seeing how 2 squads of 10 Guardians + 2 heavy weapon teams is any more "fluffy" than one squad of 16-20 guys with 1 heavy weapon team. Really, wtf is the difference?

Honestly, guardians are good. Giving them 4+ armour saves ignores the simplest fact about the fluff there is.

They are the space elves. They wear pretty armour.

They are fast, deadly, elegant, and come apart in a haze of blood if they're hit with a bolter shell. As it should be.

Stick the Guardians in cover, and do as their name suggests. Defend! Use their weapon's platform to full effect against people trying to take your objectives, or speed them forward and fire in a supporting role while your aspects take the enemy objective!

Not every unit needs to be good at everything. Not everyone unit needs to be capable of winning on it's own.

Maybe not artillery, but an increase in the ws for the storm and an increase in the bs for guardians, like in the old craftworld books, under ulthwe with the black guardians.
i totally see where your coming from a s i play eldar and miss the advanages of these benifits as they really suited the fluff and they had more character.
maybe ld at 8 and ws for storm put up to 5 and bs for guardians put up to 4 or 5

a BS 5 Guardian? Wow, please bottle up and sell whatever crack you're smoking, you'll make a fortune.

Lormax wrote:a BS 5 Guardian? Wow, please bottle up and sell whatever crack you're smoking, you'll make a fortune.

Have you read any of the eldar background sections? the old codex: croftworlds and the ulthwe section?
i thinks it's almost reasonable, maybe bs 4 more than 5 but still

open_sketchbook wrote:Honestly, guardians are good. Giving them 4+ armour saves ignores the simplest fact about the fluff there is.

They are the space elves. They wear pretty armour.

They are fast, deadly, elegant, and come apart in a haze of blood if they're hit with a bolter shell. As it should be.

Stick the Guardians in cover, and do as their name suggests. Defend! Use their weapon's platform to full effect against people trying to take your objectives, or speed them forward and fire in a supporting role while your aspects take the enemy objective!

Not every unit needs to be good at everything. Not everyone unit needs to be capable of winning on it's own.

Wisdom.

I hate elves.

"Their arrogance is only match by their firepower" isn't just a comparison - you have to be close enough to see their arrogance (12", enough to see the detail in their pretty dance steps, etc.) before you're shredded by a storm of S4 fire.
Basic troops have to be within 12" at the start of the turn to get into combat, generally. The fact that everyone runs or fleets only balances the fact that you have to roll your charge range because everyone is deployed in cover. And they're Assault 2 weapons. Why is every so determined to make sure GW keeps selling models with s:3 AP:piss shotguns and still complain about guardians? If you're afraid to fight at 12" then you're an even bigger girl than the Farseer in Dawn of War.

Note that at 12" Assault 2 makes it no better than rapid -firing a boltgun.

For a weapon that is meant to be historically better than a boltgun, this is pretty demeaning. Especially as it is basically described a handheld railgun.

The fluff Shuricat is better than a storm bolter.

Daba, remember to take fluff with a grain of salt when taking game balance into consideration. I agree that the fluff shuricat is a weapon capable of slicing it's target to shreds and spitting death at a rate unmatched by even a boltgun (possibly equal to an assault cannon in terms of rate of fire...).

In fluff it is essentially a railgun that fires a discus projectile/shuriken in place of a spherical or shaped charge/slug. The original ammo for the cat was a monomolecular (or almost monomolecular) slice of material. In many cases, the material was poisonous, although you see more of that with the shuriken cannon than the hand-helds or rifled catapaults.

Keeping that in mind and using the core mechanics for the game, the shuricat wouldn't have the sheer stopping/killing power that an exploding shell like a bolter would have, but would have a higher rate of fire and possibly better armor penetration, although infrequently to reflect the "gap in armor" effect (with a mechanic along the lines of the Necron's Gauss weapon, increaing AP by 1 if a 6 is rolled to hit), and due to the shape of the projectile accurate range would be limited. Remember that the mechanics of 40K are intended to reflect an abstracted simulation of combat/battle and not a perfect reproduction thereof.

If we really want to bring up fluff-accurate details concerning the Eldar, their armor is probably a better subject of discussion. It's been debated before to give Guardians a 4+ save - psychokinetic mesh that changes properties to protect the wearer has got to be at least as good as carapace armor while being lighter, more flexible, etc. Most of the aspect warrior (if not all...) could be as protective as power armor since it uses more of the psychokinetic plate, while retaining a more mobile (in most cases anyway, Spiders and Reapers are a bit heavy, but could warrant a 2+ for the extra armor they have while sacrificing Fleet...) nature.

It's been stated in fluff that Eldar technology isn't necessarily more advanced than that of the Imperium, but simply uses a different mechanism that may be more efficient. In the case above, bolter vs. shuricat, you'd imagine that marines are going to have to reload and carry considerably more ammunition since the shell of a bolter is comparable to modern artillery rounds while the shurican ammunition is a single block of material shaved a molecule or two at a time. Unfortunately, this difference isn't reflected in 40K (remember, it's abstract) even though it's a significant one. My recommendation? Switch to Stargrunt or another system that you can make represent the fluff more accurately if that's what you want or get your opponent to agree on the changes you propose and play a few test games to try it out!

My vote is increase the shuriken catapult to 18” and increase the Dire Avenger Catapult to 24”. It is not too much to request that our armies play like an eldar army. I know a lot of people feel this is unbalancing, but the way guardians are played is insulting to the fluff and concept of eldar in general. Guardians should have a basic gun that allows them to contribute to the combat while staying a safe distance from an aggressive enemy so that the aspect warriors can perform the majority of the up close fighting. Guardians were always support to the aspects, this used to be reflective to their 2nd edition armament.

Having played since 2nd edition I remember a time when the shuriken catapult was the superior basic gun in 40K. It was a stormbolter with better AP. Guardians are little more then their guns - they don’t have great characteristics or special rules that give them a great tactile value. They were a force to be feared in 2nd because of the power of their shuriken catapults, but now they are bodies on a field. Dire Avengers are in the same boat more or less. An increase in range allows the guardians to return to their support role they were always supposed to have – they should not be a “shoot when you see the whites of their eyes” type of unit.

Giving Dire Avengers a 24” range is not unbalancing. They have no special weapons or back up ballistics. A 24 inch range is powerful, but they are also Aspect Warriors. Power is a unit of banshees charging your terminators, fire dragons disembarking near your tank, or shining spears hitting your carnifex. Aspects are supposed to be devastating when fulfilling their role. Troop transports, monstrous creatures, and well armored troops can brave their fire easily enough even with their 24" range. Like all Aspects, they are one trick ponies - so for their sake that trick better be powerful.

An eldar army should be able to have it so the guardians keep out of combat and Dire Avengers should have threatening guns especially to hordes. Adjust the points accordingly and everyone wins the eldar play gets to play an eldar army, and his opponent gets to compete against an army reflective of the way an eldar army fights.

I also really like the idea of giving guardians back their lasblasters.

Gavin Thorne wrote:It's been stated in fluff that Eldar technology isn't necessarily more advanced than that of the Imperium, but simply uses a different mechanism that may be more efficient.

While eldar technology is different from the imperium, it is also clearly superior. Light man portable jetbikes, guns that can fire a thousand times before reloading (brightlance, fusion guns), using the webway, vehicles that can heal themselves, battle tanks that can actually break orbit, troops teleporting around the battle field, warp powered engines, light weight armor that that is as durable as power armor, the ability to communicate across the galaxy, etc

While the imperium can create technology that accomplishes the same affect as eldar, the eldar perform such feats much more easier and less costly then the imperium. Every time the imperial guard fire a lascannon the loader replaces the battery whereas the eldar can fire their brightlance 1000 times. In terms of resource management the eldar beat the humans hands down.

Craftworlds are giant space ships which is home to their entire population. I don’t ever recall reading that the eldar need to acquire resources from other worlds. Their ability to build and maintain these ships is proof of their superiority.

Eldar terra-formed air-less rocks into paradise worlds complete with flora and fauna. Mars is the second most important world to the imperium. It has been occupied for what is basically humanity’s entire history. It is home to humanities greatest technological advancements. It is also terra-formed. There are no forest, oceans, or animals. It is just red ugly desert planet, but you can breath the air. Earth is a toxic cesspool with oceans that are more slug then water. Eldar can turn a resourceless rocks into a dream plant from across the galaxy but the imperium can’t touch up their own planets.

Eldar can do far more with far less. The fact that they are not dependent on planets for their survival, but live in comfort in spaceships clearly illustrates their superiority. Old fluff aside the eldar are clearly technologically superior to mankind.

Grunt13 wrote:

Giving Dire Avengers a 24” range is not unbalancing. They have no special weapons or back up ballistics. A 24 inch range is powerful, but they are also Aspect Warriors. Power is a unit of banshees charging your terminators, fire dragons disembarking near your tank, or shining spears hitting your carnifex. Aspects are supposed to be devastating when fulfilling their role. Troop transports, monstrous creatures, and well armored troops can brave their fire easily enough even with their 24" range. Like all Aspects, they are one trick ponies - so for their sake that trick better be powerful.

What is vengeance when you can't see the whites of their eyes?

What's balanced about 9 Avengers + Exarchw/2xScats and Bladestorm at 24"? Still 12 points a model? Move and shoot 33x s4 ap5 at WHAT RANGE? That is ING SCARY. EDIT: Okay, I see that you mentioned the points values.

How can you compare a couple kilograms of explosive shell to monomelecular discs? There are relationships between mass and energy that transcend stupid elf fancifulness. How far can you throw a circularpiece of paper? Either the ammunition 'block' is uncharacteristically dense, or it's some sort of psychic crap that you're lucky to get 12" out of. Apparently a Space Marine can punch as hard as a bolter round - so can a charging ork. You might not even notice you're taken a shuriken in the heat of battle until you notice your liver on your knee, but you would sure as hell know it if a bolt round hit you. With lasguns/human attacking str the next level down on the scale, you're lucky to get S4 at all.

On that note, Aspect Warriors are not one trick ponies. Dire Avengers are more like Dire Defenders, and have the wargear/abilities to support that role. Put them in a Serpent and they're slightly something else. If you want to just shoot people take Reapers - but remember that Ra and his squad can still fleet with his 2+ save and Maugetar... and is one of the harder CC PLs.

EDIT: And making Guardians into badass soldiers is waaay out of fluff. They're citizens. ELDAR citizens. ELVES. People who spend more time in thought are not smarter - they're usually more lost. If they can't stick to an aspect, then they're perfect examples of what fragile and flighty personalities they have. Grace does not make perfection, or discipline. Art does not achieve results, it merely inspires us to be more than we see ourselves to be. Van Gogh didn't permanently change the colour spectrum by making a few rubbish paintings.
Basically all Eldar are dangerously close to being sadistic Slaaneshi cultists, and the only thing that has stopped them is that they're hippies. Aspect Warriors are just more disciplined, and better at what they've focused on doing. This lack of focus is the Eldar's primary weakness. They're spread out, shattered, and nothing like what they were. But the Imperium was something else back in old WH20K-31K, before they lost most of their precious STCs to that Y20K bug.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:
How can you compare a couple kilograms of explosive shell to monomelecular discs? There are relationships between mass and energy that transcend stupid elf fancifulness. How far can you throw a circularpiece of paper? Either the ammunition 'block' is uncharacteristically dense, or it's some sort of psychic crap that you're lucky to get 12" out of.

Rifling is the spinning of the bullet as it leaves the rifle this increases the distance and accuracy of firearms. Obviously shuriken weapons do not use this method, but they do spin like a typical throwing star (not sure how that helps them). Tau use their enlarged rail guns to shoot through landraiders - so the power of these guns are not to be underestimated. The force launching these projectiles far surpasses that launching bullets or hand throwing cards. Considering that the catapults barrel is magnetized to control the flight of the ammo I think they would be fairly accurate. Does anyone know how far a profession ninja could throw a shuriken? What if he could throw it so it travels 10 times the speed of a bullet? I think a physic teacher is needed here. A shuriken would have less air resistance then a bullet as well.

Strength 4 represents that you are hit be a massive spray of blades travel faster then any projective as a right to. A boltgun can take an arm off or blow a melon size hole in a human torso – a shuriken catapult can cut a person in half.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:EDIT: And making Guardians into badass soldiers is waaay out of fluff. They're citizens. ELDAR citizens. ELVES. People who spend more time in thought are not smarter - they're usually more lost. If they can't stick to an aspect, then they're perfect examples of what fragile and flighty personalities they have. Grace does not make perfection, or discipline. Art does not achieve results, it merely inspires us to be more than we see ourselves to be. Van Gogh didn't permanently change the colour spectrum by making a few rubbish paintings.
Basically all Eldar are dangerously close to being sadistic Slaaneshi cultists, and the only thing that has stopped them is that they're hippies. Aspect Warriors are just more disciplined, and better at what they've focused on doing. This lack of focus is the Eldar's primary weakness. They're spread out, shattered, and nothing like what they were. But the Imperium was something else back in old WH20K-31K, before they lost most of their precious STCs to that Y20K bug.

We’re not asking for them to be super soldiers just decently equipped and more suited to the manner eldar should be used. It would be like giving space marines a 12” cap on their guns - it effects how the units are played. I just think that well played eldar army should be able to keep the guardians out of the thick of combat until all the aspects are dead. Giving Eldar a respectable gun does not make them super soldiers it gives them a fighting chance to survive the battle. Ork guns are assault strength 4 range 18 Ap6 - why can't guardians have the same?

Eldar live very conservative life styles. They are capable of achieving a level of focus unreached by human minds. That is one of the reasons Slaanesh emerged as the eldar where lost in pursuits of hedonism their minds were completely focused on the pursuit of pleasure. Guardians are eldar on a path other then that of a warrior. It is not like the only job in the craftworld is aspect warriors and the rest of eldar society hangs out all day. The paths eldar follow involve an for an individual to completely master an aspect of life and then move to the next. Eldar use the term artist to refer to anyone who builds or makes any needed item. They just don’t sit around and paint all day.

A physics teacher is a failed engineer. I'm not one of those.
Look at the distance the salvo has to accelerate through a railgun barrel. Look up the difference between acceleration and time as opposed to just velocity. TAU ARE MORE ADVANCED IN WEAPON DESIGN THAN ELDAR. Now look at the s'cats. Now the stats. They have monomolecular EDGED ammunition in the form of shaped aerodynamic discs, not just 1-atom thick pieces of high-mass wraithbone. The dense 'block' of ammunition required to fire little sheets of molecules would be to heavy, too unstable, and unfortunately for GW's make-it-up-as-we-go ball of fluff, they've obviously just changed their minds. I know full well what Eldar were like in 2nd ed, and no one needs to see that again. The Tau are a more realistic approach to high-tech weaponry that works better in game mechanics anyway; there are enough armies capable of massed S4 fire. Eldar are powerful psykers with some nifty lance/laser weapons and a few other specialised systems... but more than anything they're just a struggling cultural force.

GW can move out of eighties pseudoscience for the sake of better suspension of disbelief. Can't anyone else? The current Eldar list doesn't need to be any more powerful, and the fluff does little more than exxagerate like every other codex does.

And a bullet is certainly more aerodynamic under atmospheric pressure. Shurikens may well be more dangerous in open space/zero gravity, but mass and energy are still relative. A disc allows for a cutting edge, sacrificing of the potential velocity and stability that a more spherical projectile offers. There's nothing impressive about the fact that shurikens move faster than the speed of sound because most effective projectile weapons do that. If Eldar should have BS4, then their silly guns should force them to be effectively BS3. So there.

Also, I play Eldar, and not Tau.

BS3 Guardians with 18" Shuricats would be closer to being worth their 8 pts.

Also arguing ever-changing Fluff is kind of wierd

Well I think basic guardians are better than basic guardsmen. The guns are better (just used differently - Eldar gun lines match the box images, but don't make sense) and they have better initiative, mobility, and a Codex that can back up CC in other ways. But if you want to play Eldar AND a static gun line, fine, I'll let you have 24" rapid fire s'cats.
Use the alleged vulnerability of your Guardians to draw your opponents in. No one wants to be rapid fired by s4 anything, except maybe plaguemarines.

Basic Guardians are better than basic Guardsmen, but mostly in ways that don't matter. Better I & FoF? Init is only useful in CC - the last place a Guardian wants to be. Hell, you could give him WS6+ to make his A1 CCW attack "better", and he'd still be terrible. FoF means he's not using his (mandatory & expensive) AGP to stay out of CC. Better Ld is somewhat useful, because it makes it less likely that they run away. Whoopee.

No, Guardians are part of a mobile gun line. But 12" range isn't helpful at all unless they have AP3 weapons.

John, I know you argued before about removing Guardians from the FOC, but allowing them to remain a Troops selection. This would require you to purchase either DA's or Rangers/Pathfinders as Troops, while allowing the option of purchasing Guardians to flesh out the list with "reserve" fighters, putting the Defenders in their appointed role. Arctik, Grunt, how do you feel about that?

@Gavin: Removing Guardians from the FOC is only *part* of what I'm advocating, because Rangers should be Elites, not Troops.

My fundamental concept is that Troops represent the core fighting force, Non-FOC Troops are lower-end / reservist supplementals, and Elites are higher-end external supplementals.

I believe that the current Eldar Codex is an Ulthwe-based anomaly, and that the standard Craftworld that the Imperium encounters would be more like Biel-Tan.
____

Like this: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/216421.page

The thing about Dire Avengers is they are stated as the 'least specialised'. What I would do is increase the range of Guardian Shuriken Catapults to 18", leaving the DA one as the same but giving all DA a pistol and CCW (a la Chaos Space Marines).

From the pricing of CSM and relative to other troops, I don't think any point increase is needed with this. (S + T4 and a 3+ save go a long way and are easily worth 3 points, fleet now run is in the environment and one value in initiative)

JohnHwangDD wrote:@Gavin: Removing Guardians from the FOC is only *part* of what I'm advocating, because Rangers should be Elites, not Troops.

My fundamental concept is that Troops represent the core fighting force, Non-FOC Troops are lower-end / reservist supplementals, and Elites are higher-end external supplementals.

I believe that the current Eldar Codex is an Ulthwe-based anomaly, and that the standard Craftworld that the Imperium encounters would be more like Biel-Tan.
____

Like this: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/216421.page

have you even read the eldar codex? guardians make up the eldar, without them there is no eldar aspect warriors! the deal with ranges/pathfinders are troops thanks to the Alaitoc who use them as troops, we get guardians on jet bikes thanks to saim hann, we get ten man wraithguard squads as troops thanks to Iyanden. this isnt a ulthwe codex, it's a all rounder but the guardians are really not up to the eldar and fluff standard

Guardsmen have a wound, a basic stat line and a 5+ save for roughly 6 points in a platoon. Guardians have higher Initiative, fleet and better guns for eight points. A wound is worth a lot, and fluff or not, you all know what a wound is worth in game terms. S4 weapons are great for a race that is primarily S3 in combat. CC is what your Banshees and Harles are for, right? And if you don't back them up they're dead because they're fragile.

In the 40k universe lots of things die. Especially foot troops in general - everything is against them, and that's why guardians are basic foot troops. The rest of the army has been so well fleshed out, that the list cries for a basic troop with a basic weapon!

Storm bolters. 24" Assault 2 S4 AP5 whatever. Marines get them but they pay five points apiece. Basically just one vet sergeant per squad. Either that or you're paying for terminators.

Daba wrote:Note that at 12" Assault 2 makes it no better than rapid -firing a boltgun.

The problem with the shuriken catapult is that it's worse than a bolt gun. Both are strength 4, both are ap5, both fire twice at 12". However the big difference is that bolters can fire once at 24 if they hold still. This extra range would be a huge advantage in the hands of a unit that's T3 with a 5+ save. Admitidly the defenders can shoot and then charge (hahaha) but that's hardly a good trade.

Arctik_Firangi wrote:Guardsmen have a wound, a basic stat line and a 5+ save for roughly 6 points in a platoon. Guardians have higher Initiative, fleet and better guns for eight points.

Shuriken catapults are not better than las guns for guardians. I would much rather have the las guns. The reason being that you lose 33% effectivenes when dropping from S4 to S3, but you gain a 50% damage increase from the extra 2 rounds of shooting you get at incomming enemies before they get into charge (or rapid fire) range. It might even be more since you'll thin the enemy ranks more before they get into range to murder you. If I could swap out my catapults for las guns, I'd do it every time.

Daba wrote:The thing about Dire Avengers is they are stated as the 'least specialised'. What I would do is increase the range of Guardian Shuriken Catapults to 18",

Agreed. With Run being standard, the Shuricat should be range 18".

Squig_herder wrote:have you even read the eldar codex?

guardians make up the eldar,

Have you? More than one? Before there was such thing as "Codex: Eldar" at all?

Guardians make up a small portion of the Eldar, as their reserves. They aren't front-line troops, but supplementals. At least, that's what the Fluff says. Of course, if Eldar get R24" S4 AP5 Assault 2 Rending Shuricats (i.e. insanely good like in 2nd Edition), and they're available on Guardians as the cheapest way to field them, then yeah, Guardians will make up the bulk of any fighting force based on the brokenness of a broken Shuricat.

I just don't think that the Eldar should be forced into supporting one of Gav's bad ideas forever and ever.

Phoenix wrote:The problem with the shuriken catapult is that it's worse than a bolt gun.

Shuriken catapults are not better than las guns for guardians. I would much rather have the las guns. If I could swap out my catapults for las guns, I'd do it every time.

In the hands of a Guardian, that's a Bolter is way better than a Shuricat. Guardians don't charge unless being charged would wipe them out, in which case, they're dead anyways, so might as well get stuck in.

A Lasgun is about the same, IMO. S3 AP- is pretty crappy, so you're always looking for luck. Now Range 24" Assault 2 Lasblasters? Yeah, I'd have my Guardians all over that!