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So, as a beginning eldar player, I need some help. The most basic troops in a craftworlds's arsenal, guardians, are commonly used in lists on forums, but on discussion threads, people hate them. I asked another eldar player (granted he is an unorthodox one) never touches them. I want opinions on guardians, and how you like to use them.

They only work in foot lists and they are fun to play but really sub optimal.

I've used them as storm guardians with 2 flamers and a warlock with destructor before. Put them in a serpent and hop out an toast a soft target that thinks its safe in cover.

Most of the time you should be using DAs for your infantry troops and 9 times out of 10 buy them a serpent.

If guardian jetbikes count that's a whole other story giving them a warlock with a spear and embolden can make a cheap versatile scoring unit.

First off its important to distinguish between the two types. Storm Guardians are definitely a good unit (basing this around Eldar standards not overall, all the Eldar troop units are terrible based on 5th edition standards) with 2 Flamers and a Destructor Warlock they are probably the best damage dealing options we have in our troops (yes better than Bladestorming Avengers against most targets due to cover being so common). Even against MEQ 3 flamer templates should cause a heap of wounds with proper placement, and with Doom they can easily toast Marine units. They are also passable as an anti tank unit, since they are the only troop unit we have that can take good anti weapons in the form of Fusion Guns (even if they are only BS3). With a Serpent they can get where they need to go fairly reliably and flame a unit to death before probably dying, otherwise you keep them in the Serpent and grab an objective.

Guardian Defenders on the other hand aren't so great. They have to buy a heavy weapon, but all the single shot ones are expensive and not a good plan with BS3, which limits them to Scatter Lasers or maybe EML. On foot they don't last long with Ld8 and a 5+ save, but its kind of a waste to buy them a Serpent, since they don't gain much from being in close aside from the ability to die faster and they can't use the platform while inside it. You are better of taking 5 Avengers and then buying them a Serpent, which ends up being slightly more expensive but you end up with another vehicle with a more accurate and more mobile heavy weapon with a scoring unit which is just as good at staying alive and taking pot shots from outside the Serpent if needed. I should point out that they are still probably the best troop unit available in a Foot based list (which should tell you how competitive those kind of builds are pretty quickly), because they are at least still able to move and fire and can take a heavy weapon to do damage from range unlike the other scoring units.

I love them, the idea of a civillian with a gun taking down the elites of other races

i usually field 2+ squads

And in my current 1.5k list i'm using 3 squads with EML and an emboldenlock.
They do add a certain challenge when using them considering they're not the best troops
Never underestimate them, had a plucky tau opponent telling me how my guardians were crappy and going to eat submunitions fire, i rolled priority, took out his hammerhead first shot of the game.
I did however learn from that game not to take as big a risk with them, so nowadays its stick to cover(no brainer), avoid flamers like the plauge and don't half commit to what they're doing!

I run them with EML wave serpents and stand them behind it so, they get cover and can get in if anything goes bad.

Overall they are terrible, once you figure them out they get slighlty better
Still prefer them over DA tho

Defender guardians cant really be used. If they are used give them an EML/Scatter/BL and put them in a wave serpent.

Storm Guardians can be used in squads of 10 with 2 flamers and a destructor warlock, this is 3 flame templates and can be really cool.

Guardians in the open = no

Also, if you play with guardians doom is a must. It Increases their combat effectiveness by 50%.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MikZor wrote:I love them, the idea of a civillian with a gun taking down the elites of other races

i usually field 2+ squads

And in my current 1.5k list i'm using 3 squads with EML and an emboldenlock.
They do add a certain challenge when using them considering they're not the best troops
Never underestimate them, had a plucky tau opponent telling me how my guardians were crappy and going to eat submunitions fire, i rolled priority, took out his hammerhead first shot of the game.
I did however learn from that game not to take as big a risk with them, so nowadays its stick to cover(no brainer), avoid flamers like the plauge and don't half commit to what they're doing!

I run them with EML wave serpents and stand them behind it so, they get cover and can get in if anything goes bad.

Overall they are terrible, once you figure them out they get slighlty better
Still prefer them over DA tho

This advice is unfortunantly wrong. Guardian squads in the open do not work.

I like the flamer squad quite a bit, 3 flamers plus lots of s4 shots, and you can assault as well. The warlock could also get a spear for s9 action, but perhaps the sword is better.

For footsloggin eldar with a scatter laser they are not bad, considering the fearless granted by the avatar hanging around.

Also something to keep in mind... with all the talk about GK psyrifle dreads, the warlock with s9 and 3 attacks on the charge can actually do some damage to the dreads. Seeing as the squad can also run with flamers in a decent serpent transport with fortuned cover saves, and turn 2 the GK may have some trouble with their dreads all tied up and purifiers ironically burned pretty bad.

Smitty0305 wrote:Defender guardians cant really be used. If they are used give them an EML/Scatter/BL and put them in a wave serpent.

Storm Guardians can be used in squads of 10 with 2 flamers and a destructor warlock, this is 3 flame templates and can be really cool.

Guardians in the open = no

Also, if you play with guardians doom is a must. It Increases their combat effectiveness by 50%.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MikZor wrote:I love them, the idea of a civillian with a gun taking down the elites of other races

i usually field 2+ squads

And in my current 1.5k list i'm using 3 squads with EML and an emboldenlock.
They do add a certain challenge when using them considering they're not the best troops
Never underestimate them, had a plucky tau opponent telling me how my guardians were crappy and going to eat submunitions fire, i rolled priority, took out his hammerhead first shot of the game.
I did however learn from that game not to take as big a risk with them, so nowadays its stick to cover(no brainer), avoid flamers like the plauge and don't half commit to what they're doing!

I run them with EML wave serpents and stand them behind it so, they get cover and can get in if anything goes bad.

Overall they are terrible, once you figure them out they get slighlty better
Still prefer them over DA tho

This advice is unfortunantly wrong. Guardian squads in the open do not work.

I never said out in the open however, you can obscure the squad with wave serpents and they shoot underneath it, unless that was 4th ed

I like the flamer squad quite a bit, 3 flamers plus lots of s4 shots, and you can assault as well. The warlock could also get a spear for s9 action, but perhaps the sword is better.

For footsloggin eldar with a scatter laser they are not bad, considering the fearless granted by the avatar hanging around.

Also something to keep in mind... with all the talk about GK psyrifle dreads, the warlock with s9 and 3 attacks on the charge can actually do some damage to the dreads. Seeing as the squad can also run with flamers in a decent serpent transport with fortuned cover saves, and turn 2 the GK may have some trouble with their dreads all tied up and purifiers ironically burned pretty bad.

The spear is only S9 against vehicles otherwise wounds on 2+ also warlocks only have 1 base attack, so 2 on the charge as witchblades/Singing spears are two handed weapons, Correct me if i'm wrong however

The spear is two handed, the basic witchblade isn't.