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So I was looking at the Guardian entry in the old codex and thinking, wow these guys are rather lame. Way to expensive when compared to IG infantry and DE warriors. 8pts is just too much. I think the shruiken captipults are a bit of a strange one but I am not here to suggest they be different.
I know there is a huge post on new stuff for the eldar dex, but its just too big and long to really have a discussion on just guardians. I checked through and didnt find thread that really addressed what I am thinking of.

Now guardsmen are 5pts a model, have to be taken in squads of 10. They get their sergent for free. They also come with frag grenades.

Guardians are 8pts a model, have a debate-ably better gun(Its def better, but how much better), higher INT, higher base Ld(but not counting the IG sergant), and fleet.

DE warriors are 9pts a model, come with a better gun(again its debate-able how much), still higher INT, and power from pain.

I think Guardians and Storm Guardians should really be 7 points, storm guardians should come with plasma grenades by default and have an option for haywire grenades at +2 points per model.

I might even go to 6.5 points a model (by giving them a 5pt discount in the cost of their warlock)

I like the idea of equipping the storm guardians with default plasma grenades and the haywire option.
Reducing their cost to 7 points per model also sounds good to me.
How about coming with free warlocks as well? Or is that too much?

Lasguns is generally seen as would be an upgrade for Guardian Defenders.

Guardians costing less than say... 10 points... is contrary to fiction. "A struggling dying race" and if you play with Guardians you're almost as bad as the faceless horde that is the imperium foot soldiers.

I'd much prefer they improved Guardians to the point where they would be worth 8-10 points. I'd personally rate Guardian performance as being in the 6-point grade at the moment, where Storm Guardians' cheap flamers pushes up their worth.

Autarch of Saim-Hann wrote:How about coming with free warlocks as well? Or is that too much?

free would be too cheap. Discounted maybe.

Mahtamori wrote:Lasguns is generally seen as would be an upgrade for Guardian Defenders.

The idea that lasguns are better than shurken catapults is perpetuated by spoiled, whiny Eldar players.

The shurkien cat can glance AV10 vehicles, wounds Meq and Geq signifigantly better and ignores save on Geq.
I know I play a Geq army and I have to keep out of range of shurkiens, they actually scare me. Lasguns will only do damage if there are literally hundreds of them.

Consider the lowly shotgun. S3, AP- Assault 2. IG veterans can exchange their lasguns for shotguns for free. Many sergants can exchange their lasguns for shotguns as well. The lasgun and shotgun are like the bolter and the shurken catapult. About equivalent but the shotgun/shurkien cat being more situational. I would say the Lasgun is better than the shotgun in most cases just as the bolter is better than the shurkien catapult most of the time. But the Lasgun is not a better weapon than the Shurkein Cat.

Guardians are supposed to be moving around anyway, why else would they get antigrav heavy weapons. If you want a unit that stands around and shoots perhaps you should look in the heavy support section.

Mahtamori wrote:
Guardians costing less than say... 10 points... is contrary to fiction. "A struggling dying race" and if you play with Guardians you're almost as bad as the faceless horde that is the imperium foot soldiers.

What is unfluff like is the proportion of aspect warriors in most Eldar armies. Unless specifically a Biel-Tan host, most craftworlds have a comparatively few aspect warriors. There are plenty of Eldar that do not choose the path of the warrior and sometimes they go to battle. That Humans, Orks, Tau, and Nids go to battle exclusively with professional soldiers or warriors is a testimate that they have enough populations elsewhere to support such professional armies. That eldar have to call in non-professional soldiers IS fluff related to them not having a high population. If they had more people they would have more warriors and would not need guardians at all. That they cost few points makes no difference

Mahtamori wrote:
I'd much prefer they improved Guardians to the point where they would be worth 8-10 points.

Having guardians be better IS unflufflike. They are basically reserve consripts. They are not supposed to have the weaponskill or balistic skill or a SM, DE wych, or Ork(WS only) who spend their entire lives fighting. They are not going to be encased in terminator armor or carry around death rays.

I think the guardians are fine at eight points a model. In my opinion when you get guardians you also get a heavy weapon platform that becomes a assault platform for free. Well that is how I am reading it in the codex.

Guardians have the ability of Warlocks and Psychic powers cast on them. Units have a cost based on the entire army, not just in a vacuum.

Personally, I would say bump their gun to assault 1 18" and keep them at 8 points.

I like what the guys on 40k radio suggested - move them to a 4+ armor save. Me, I'd go ahead and give them frags for free as well, so for 8 points you've got a 4+ with frags. Not sure what you're planning on assaulting with them, but that's not my problem!

Well then maybe instead of increasing the stats of the guardians, how about more special weapons. It makes sense in the fluff for guardians to not be the strongest because they are like reserve conscripts that fight when called upon to battle. But eldar are more naturally agile so they have a higher infinitive than a standard guardsman but equal to a space marine that has trained for generations.

So that's why they should have more heavy weapons. If anyone has ever read Path of the Warrior, it says that the guardian sqauds are designed to lay down barrages of firepower to hold back the enemy, while aspect warriors attack specific targets they know they can annihilate thanks to the psychic foresight of farseer's and tactical knowledge of autarach's. The squads have several weapons platforms, not just 1 for every 10-20 guys,

Although I do believe they are a bit expensive for all that they can't do, so I think a balanced solution would be to drop them to 7 points, allow for 1 weapon platform for every 5 guardians, reduce the price on some of the heavy weapons(25 for a starcannon, really?) and allow those platforms to have a targeting array-esque wargear that increases its BS to 4, while the rest of the guardians with catapults stay at BS3.


I also think that shuirken catapults should be assault 2 18" and Dire Avenger should be assault 2 24", but 1 thing at a time.

BuFFo wrote:Guardians have the ability of Warlocks and Psychic powers cast on them. Units have a cost based on the entire army, not just in a vacuum.

Thats the problem with non Eldar players looking at the Eldar army. 4 points:
- This leads to the point that we HAVE to take farseers because otherwise our units are significantly worse than enemy cost-wise. Forcing taking only 1 HQ type is not good.
- We DO have to pay for a farseer. It's not like it's free. You don't pay extra for the Khorne Berzerkers only because some CC can join them and boost their overall efficiency. There are MANY heroes that can influence regular units.
- Psychic defence. Most of bonuses in other armies cannot fail (if they can it's a similar chance as casting a spell). Additionally I can't think of any (non psychic power) that can be nullified like Eldar powers.
- Even with farseers we can't fortune / guide / doom everything. If we pay extra for POSSIBILITY of being fortuned by a Farseer (again, for which we *have to pay for*), then 2 fortuned units a turn are priced well, the rest of the army is still overpriced.

Our codex is overpriced in many places (like the Guardians) and Farseers don't change that.

Guardians should not be cheaper but they need more effectiveness to be playable

Survivability: Improved save 4+ or improved Conceal ability for Warlocks. I like the Conceal improvement as it is not a guaranteed improvement but it does remain an option.
The other is that they should have plasma grenades at no cost.

Offensive: The core issue here is to not stomp all over the DA but to be a viable alternative to DA. So at core, DA are putting 2 S4 shots at BS 4 out to 18" range. What I would like to see is Guardians to gain 18" range as 12" range is a deathwish. Perhaps just make a base shuriken catapult A2 18" or if this gets too close to a DA in effectiveness Rapid Fire 18". I like the rapid fire option because while it will help guardians, bikes and vehicles, it will not make them overwhelming. The third option is to make the support platforms rather than one per squad say one per 5 or 8 guardians.

Just remember the problem with guardians is that they do form a baseline for aspect warriors and you also have to consider the effect of a doom or guide seer to the equation or you will end up with a killer unit that simply must be played.

So consider 10 DAs firing with a bladestorm = 20 hits for about 150 points invested. 20 guardians with a shuriken cannon should generate 20 hits at S4 plus 2 S6 hits for about 180 points. That is what you need to play with so that you don't end up like the present - guardians never played - or like the past - dire avengers never played.
Wounds should count for something even if they only have 5+ save.

DAaddict wrote:Guardians should not be cheaper but they need more effectiveness to be playable

Survivability: Improved save 4+ or improved Conceal ability for Warlocks. I like the Conceal improvement as it is not a guaranteed improvement but it does remain an option.
The other is that they should have plasma grenades at no cost.

Offensive: The core issue here is to not stomp all over the DA but to be a viable alternative to DA. So at core, DA are putting 2 S4 shots at BS 4 out to 18" range. What I would like to see is Guardians to gain 18" range as 12" range is a deathwish. Perhaps just make a base shuriken catapult A2 18" or if this gets too close to a DA in effectiveness Rapid Fire 18". I like the rapid fire option because while it will help guardians, bikes and vehicles, it will not make them overwhelming. The third option is to make the support platforms rather than one per squad say one per 5 or 8 guardians.

Just remember the problem with guardians is that they do form a baseline for aspect warriors and you also have to consider the effect of a doom or guide seer to the equation or you will end up with a killer unit that simply must be played.

So consider 10 DAs firing with a bladestorm = 20 hits for about 150 points invested. 20 guardians with a shuriken cannon should generate 20 hits at S4 plus 2 S6 hits for about 180 points. That is what you need to play with so that you don't end up like the present - guardians never played - or like the past - dire avengers never played.
Wounds should count for something even if they only have 5+ save.

Shurkien cats could use a rework, 24" assault 1 or maybe 18" on everything.
If things are left alone I think a point cost decrease is the easiest thing to do to make them playable
4+ armor might make them too good at screening things for 8points, but I still think it should be considered.
Storm guardians should have plasma grenades period, paragraph, end of story, why hasnt this been errataed yet?

A couple of things.

1) Storm Guardians are not sucking right now. They bring 2 flamers and a heavy flamer to the table for 127 points, perform better in an assault then all non cc aspect warriors and harlequins because of their superior number of attacks. They are a cheap unit, with a lot of fire power and a fast durable transport. They don't need grenades because they are a shooty unit first. Flame templates are awesome. Although I won't say that I wouldn't like grenades

2) Defenders, do in fact suck. they are inaccurate with their overcosted heavy wepaon, and they have short ranged guns. To add insult to injury storm guardians do more damage at close range because of the flame templates. Defenders either need a longer range gun, or the ability to take more heavy weapons. Storm Guardians can take 2 special weapons- let Defenders take 2 heavy.

I've always thought conceal should just be changed to confer stealth. That actually makes it worth taking on Defenders and Jetbikes alike. Defenders would get a 3+ cover save for being in terrain, and a 2+ for going to ground. While jetbikes could get a 2+ turbo boost save :-)))) makes Embolden slightly less of an auto pick on those units.

They definitely don't make their points back. I think Guardians should be 6 points per model, with the option to upgrade to upgrade to storm guardains for +1 point per model, and the option to take grenades for another +1 point per model.

I agree that a discount on a warlock would also be great. I'd say 10 points off would be fair. Effectively making the cost of an embolden warlock 20 points instead of 30.

Consider 12 S4 AP5 hits on DA and Guardian Defenders.
8 will wound due to the joys of T3 eldar. 8 kills on Defenders 4 kills on DA. Assuming 10 DA and 20 Defenders, that leaves 6 vs 12 with a platform. So
12 S4 shots or 8 hits from DA or 24 shots or 12 hits from guardians. Bottomline, wounds do count so the only issue for me is guardians need RANGE. 2 assault 18" or Rapid fire 18" solves the defender problem. Along with reduced cost to platforms.

8 pt defenders w grenades and 1 free shuriken cannon per 8 defenders (rounded up). +5 for scatter laser, +10 for EML, +20 for brightlance and then +15 for starcannon with ROF 3 or + 10 for starcannon with ROF 2.
That puts a 20 man defender at 160 points for 20 guardians and 3 shuriken cannons. That is 17 S4 shots at 18" and 9 S6 out to 24". With BS 3 that leaves 8+ S4 hits and 4+ S6 hits or about 7 wounds caused. Meanwhile 10 DA with bladestorm for @ 150 points are putting out 20 S4 hits. That seems somewhat balanced especially when you consider the value of a guide seer and the ability of the guardians to move withing 12" to gain their rapid fire range. 34 S4 shots and 9 S6 shots averaging 17 S4 hits and 4+ S6 hits without guide and 25+ S4 hits and 6 + S6 hits with guide. The guardians - due to rapid fire - aren't as deadly or mobile out to 18" but if they can get to a magic 12" range they will way outperform dire avengers for about the same cost.

Conceal should give them the survivability to stand up to enemy fire. Now add in a guide + doom seer and the BS3 guardians are potentially absolutely lethal. Add in an Avatar and the guardians are unshakeable.

DAaddict wrote:Consider 12 S4 AP5 hits on DA and Guardian Defenders.
8 will wound due to the joys of T3 eldar. 8 kills on Defenders 4 kills on DA.

AP5 is just the point where 5+ armor becomes useless. Sure every marine and his mother carry AP 5 weapons, which is part of the reason 5+ armor sucks. But you cant base everything on that. Ork Shootas are AP6, IG lasguns are AP- and Heavy Bolters are AP4, all of which narrow the difference in killed significantly.

Exergy wrote:

Mahtamori wrote:Lasguns is generally seen as would be an upgrade for Guardian Defenders.

The idea that lasguns are better than shurken catapults is perpetuated by spoiled, whiny Eldar players.

The shurkien cat can glance AV10 vehicles, wounds Meq and Geq signifigantly better and ignores save on Geq.
I know I play a Geq army and I have to keep out of range of shurkiens, they actually scare me. Lasguns will only do damage if there are literally hundreds of them.

Consider the lowly shotgun. S3, AP- Assault 2. IG veterans can exchange their lasguns for shotguns for free. Many sergants can exchange their lasguns for shotguns as well. The lasgun and shotgun are like the bolter and the shurken catapult. About equivalent but the shotgun/shurkien cat being more situational. I would say the Lasgun is better than the shotgun in most cases just as the bolter is better than the shurkien catapult most of the time. But the Lasgun is not a better weapon than the Shurkein Cat.

Guardians are supposed to be moving around anyway, why else would they get antigrav heavy weapons. If you want a unit that stands around and shoots perhaps you should look in the heavy support section.

I resent being called "spoiled, whiny".

The heavy support section is where I look when I want stuff that moves around and shoots, thank you very much. What I'm looking for in Guardians is a significantly decreased tendency to mandatorily die after having shot once. I don't generally care if this means having significantly greater range or significantly higher fire power or both, at the natural cost of points, of course.

Mahtamori wrote:
Guardians costing less than say... 10 points... is contrary to fiction. "A struggling dying race" and if you play with Guardians you're almost as bad as the faceless horde that is the imperium foot soldiers.

What is unfluff like is the proportion of aspect warriors in most Eldar armies. Unless specifically a Biel-Tan host, most craftworlds have a comparatively few aspect warriors. There are plenty of Eldar that do not choose the path of the warrior and sometimes they go to battle. That Humans, Orks, Tau, and Nids go to battle exclusively with professional soldiers or warriors is a testimate that they have enough populations elsewhere to support such professional armies. That eldar have to call in non-professional soldiers IS fluff related to them not having a high population. If they had more people they would have more warriors and would not need guardians at all. That they cost few points makes no difference

Mahtamori wrote:
I'd much prefer they improved Guardians to the point where they would be worth 8-10 points.

Having guardians be better IS unflufflike. They are basically reserve consripts. They are not supposed to have the weaponskill or balistic skill or a SM, DE wych, or Ork(WS only) who spend their entire lives fighting. They are not going to be encased in terminator armor or carry around death rays.

No, being a dying race using non-professional soldiers in combat doesn't make sense at all.
1. Less professional soldiers are more likely to die, hastening the population decline
2. Drafting a large number of civilians into an army mobilization is significantly more likely to have adverse effects on industry and cultural identity
3. Supplying your soldiers with mass-produced, less advanced, weapons means the soldiers come less prepared and are more likely to succumb to better armed opponents. See point 1.

Real world examples can also be used to prove the point. Answer this: which nations make use of highly trained and well equipped soldiers?
a) Nations with more 2.0 children per female
b) Nations with less than 2.0 children per female
I'll give you a hint, the nations in the western hemisphere typically have a negative population growth if we ignore immigration and war.

As to the last quotation... yes they are. As it stands the only way to make Guardians remotely useful is to encase them into armour that's a tad more reliable than tactical dreadnoughts, and arm them with precisely that - death rays (see: War Walker, Falcon, Fire Prism). In fact, aspect warriors are in general less likely to carry death rays than Guardians are.

Mahtamori wrote:
I resent being called "spoiled, whiny".

The heavy support section is where I look when I want stuff that moves around and shoots, thank you very much. What I'm looking for in Guardians is a significantly decreased tendency to mandatorily die after having shot once. I don't generally care if this means having significantly greater range or significantly higher fire power or both, at the natural cost of points, of course.

Im not saying that some some sort of rapid fire / longer range gun wouldnt be a good idea but I simply dont think Lasguns would be an improvement. IG infantry have lasguns, and similar stats and cost 4.5 points a model when you think bout the free sergent. You take more infantry squads to open up more special and heavy weapons options, not to get more lasguns.

Mahtamori wrote:
No, being a dying race using non-professional soldiers in combat doesn't make sense at all.
1. Less professional soldiers are more likely to die, hastening the population decline
2. Drafting a large number of civilians into an army mobilization is significantly more likely to have adverse effects on industry and cultural identity
3. Supplying your soldiers with mass-produced, less advanced, weapons means the soldiers come less prepared and are more likely to succumb to better armed opponents. See point 1.

1.While reserve soldiers are more likely to die given equal quantity, real war is not fairly balanced. A society can field a lot more reserve soldiers than it could profesional ones and with that numerical advantage would be more likely to win the battle. Winning results in lower casualties and whatever victory condition there was for the war in the first place.
2. True drafting large numbers of people into the army does have adverse consequence on cultural identity and society; which is why only desperate societies do it.
3. But there are more of them, more soldiers are more likely to win

a certain population can support only so many people who do not generate anything productive. Most people are needed to farm, manufacture, or manage society. Profesional soldiers contribute nothing to society unless there is war. Having them is a luxury that signifies that your society is wealthy enough to provide for them so that the populous does not need to directly defend itself. In today's world a professional army can be expected to be about 1% of a total population although most of those people are in logistics and will never see combat.
A reserve army on the other hand can field far more bodies for the same population. Baring the sick, old, and children a reserve army can field an army close to 50% of its total population. While not nearly as effective per man its is considerably better to have more men, more guns, more people involved. Having a larger, stronger army means the chances of victory are higher and the expected losses will be lower.

The points a unit costs have nothing to do with how common or rare they are. It also has little to do with the amount of material used to keep them alive and in the field. A space marine costs 3-4 times more than a guardsman. It probably takes 1000 times more material to breed, train and equip a space marine than a guardman. Flak armor, and Lasguns are mass produceable and are given to something the Impierium has lots of, basic humans. Space marines on the other hand have to be genetically engineered, they then have to have hand made bolt guns and personally fitted powered armor.

Mahtamori wrote:
Real world examples can also be used to prove the point. Answer this: which nations make use of highly trained and well equipped soldiers?
a) Nations with more 2.0 children per female
b) Nations with less than 2.0 children per female
I'll give you a hint, the nations in the western hemisphere typically have a negative population growth if we ignore immigration and war.

1st: A geography lesson. Mexico, Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvidor, Equidor, Bolivia, Peru, Venezuela and the Dominican republic are all in the Western Hemisphere. They all have birth rates well above 2.2 which is necessary for replacement.
2nd: very few nations today feel they are in danger of being overrun. They field armies considerably smaller than they could because there is no need. The only country that I can think of that feels threatened is North Korea. Guess what type of army they field? Yup reserve.
Or look down through history at other nations that have been on the brink:
~Revolutionary France was at war with all of Europe at one time, they used a conscript reserve army (It worked for them, they conquered most of europe)
~19th century Prussia was easily the weakest great power and was located in between Russia, Austria, and France that all had 3-5 times the population. They were also the only great power in the 19th century to field a non professional reserve army (it worked out for them, they ended up conquering all of germany)
~Soviet Russia in world war 2 while fighting a desperate and bloody war against the Weirmark. The germans were literally at the gates and yet the Russians used a consript reserve army to push the Nazis back.
~16th century holland in their long bitter war against the numerically superior Spanish. Again, any guess what they used?

They should still cost more than guardsmen for sure simply because of the Initiative bonus maybe 6 pts per guardian.
Simple debate: Veterans vs Conscripts. Would the eldar like to have conscripts? no. This is because, I think, Eldar would not like for Eldar to die; feeding Slaanesh and all that stuff.

Cadichan Support wrote:They should still cost more than guardsmen for sure simply because of the Initiative bonus maybe 6 pts per guardian.
Simple debate: Veterans vs Conscripts. Would the eldar like to have conscripts? no. This is because, I think, Eldar would not like for Eldar to die; feeding Slaanesh and all that stuff.

that is a debate that a rich and plentiful race can have.

If a race is close to the brink of extinction the question before a battle with a numerically superior enemy becomes, "use conscripts and the craftworld might survive, dont use conscripts and the craftworld will surely fall "

Hmm, instead of making a massive quote like I did at work, let's just respond shortly.

There's nothing wrong with conscription, never said there was, only that it doesn't make sense for Eldar. Or rather, it does make one hell of a lot of sense for defensive Eldar forces, but not for expeditionary forces which is the main focus in WH40K. Soviet tactics is exactly what Eldar can't afford, Exergy.
The example you're looking for is Mexico's defeat over France.

Now. If you are a technologically superior race on the decline, why do you arm your troops with such limiting weapons? You're also a race which, honestly, has no problems with cowardly tactics.
Why not semi-snipers and stealth gear? It's essentially what Eldar are famous for. Shuriken Catapults is a ritual Aspect gear.

Mahtamori wrote:Soviet tactics is exactly what Eldar can't afford, Exergy.

Exactly they cannot afford it but they are compelled to do it. Which is why they are a dying race. If they could pick which battles they wanted to fight, any only field the type of army they wanted they would not have any pressure towards extinction would they?

In their position they are desperate, and if its the defense of the craftworld or some artifact on a far off planet that they need, if they are brought to battle they believe they simply HAVE to, otherwise they would avoid battle and engadge in other things. While the imperium might send a few legions of guard and several entire chapters of SM on a whim any Eldar army in battle is there because they have no other choice. They feel they have to win. Winning is everything and if the numbers are not in their favor they will do anything they have to secure victory, including exposing their comparatively squishy citizens to very risky fates.

Mahtamori wrote:The example you're looking for is Mexico's defeat over France.

Poor example. The French were engaging in battle on a whim because they among other things feared the growing power of the US and wanted an allied counterpoint in the new world. Particularly bad idea for them considering that the US had been a french ally in two previous wars and would be an ally in two subsequent wars. The French did not deploy anywhere near the number of troops they could have and even so they quickly overran the poor Mexican defenders. The Mexican defeat of France had a lot to do with the US emerging from its very bloody civil war and joining the mexican cause.

Maybe the guardians could be similar to orks on the heavy weapons. For every ten you get one heavy.

Exergy, the things that stick out with the cynical soviet leadership during germany's blitz are primarily two things:
1. Supplying groups of soldiers with fewer number of weapons than soldiers and a calculated number of bullets such that ammunition and weapons weren't wasted when the soldiers inevitably died.
2. Deploying machineguns behind their own lines with orders to shoot down anything which ran the wrong way - regardless of uniform.
This is, of course, large part exagregation, but serves well to illustrate the point.

Comparing Eldar to Soviet boggles the mind. On one hand you've got Soviets with a population surplus and technological disadvantage, and on the other hand you've got the exact opposite with Eldar.

Imperial Guard are Soviets, not Eldar.