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Hey mates. Recently after playing a game against Tomb Kings and managing a draw/minor victory against his 4x Sphynx list, my opponent was curious to know why I dont run any Black Guard in my list since they are a very effective unit and could do a lot of damage against opponents. Though they are very good stat-wise and effective in CC with the reroll in every round of combat and there Stubborn LD9, I told him that for some weird reason that GW decided not to remove the 20x man limit off them, which is slowed since every other unit no longer has a limit to how many you can take in a single unit. Though he thinks a unit of 20x would do ok, I told him that the look good on paper, but because they only come with a 5+ armor save, and true I could use my C.O.B. to give them a 5+ ward save. However, I have found out after after trying it out for awhile that it really isnt that effective and they still die in droves to missile and magic rather quickly. The way I see it, a unit of 20x just doesnt cut it anymore in this edition with all the increases and rules that favor huge blocks of infantry, and though people may argue that smaller support units of BG would be good, I would still prefer to run my units in a larger units, and to be frank, if HE dont have a limit on there Swordmasters, Phoenix Guard and White Lions, then I cant see why BG still have there limit. Now though some people think otherwise, I believe that BG need to have the limit removed because it is an awesome unit, it has a hard time being effective since it it usually immediately targeted by many opponents and by the time they are able to do anything, there are too few to do much damage. Thoughts?

Pretty much the same.

Yes, they do a fair amount of damage. They are still just T3 5+ armor save elves. They still die in droves. And with a maximum of 20 of them in the unit, the unit just corrodes to uselessness far too quickly even when they are winning.

Agreed. The Black Guard of Naggarond, the most feared and ruthless soldiers in the entire Dark Elf army and a General only takes 20 with him?

Still, at least they aren't a 0-1 option (unless you were actually fielding Malekith) like they used to be years ago so thank Khaine for small favours.

They probably make a good hammer piece though, right? If you can get into a squads flank then you would rip 'em apart. Idk if that is helpful against the 4x sphinx list though...

tona7 wrote:They probably make a good hammer piece though, right? If you can get into a squads flank then you would rip 'em apart. Idk if that is helpful against the 4x sphinx list though...

Yeah they can make an amazing hammer, especially with Standard of Hag Graef (if fighting another high Initative army) or Banner of Murder (if fighting a heavily armoured army). Or you can stick some blessings from the Cauldron of Blood on them. An extra attack or killing blow are all useful for doing maximum damage to the enemy unit. You could even charge to the front as long as the unit you're going up against isn't a horde, in which case it'll be able to withstand the casualties you inflict without severely damaging it's ability to retaliate. Of course this all relies on them actually getting into combat and as they're T3 with a 5+ armour save they are easily taken down with shooting so they rely on something else to draw fire.

Like most Dark Elf units they're all about picking your target carefully.

The Banner of Hag Graef is almost totally useless for the Black Guard now. At I6, they go before everything that isn't a character or a high elf. And they already get to reroll misses every round; go look at their Warrior Elite rule.

There are only two reasons to give BoHG to the Black Guard. One is to go at the same time as high elves and deny them their rerolls. The other is, when used in conjunction with a Towermaster bearing the Crimsone Death, to gather the Underdog Challenge bonus VP - a Towermaster striking first with the Crimson Death has a pretty darn good chance of killing most combat heroes, short of tooled-out WOC and Brett heroes.

Vulcan wrote:The Banner of Hag Graef is almost totally useless for the Black Guard now. At I6, they go before everything that isn't a character or a high elf. And they already get to reroll misses every round; go look at their Warrior Elite rule.

There are only two reasons to give BoHG to the Black Guard. One is to go at the same time as high elves and deny them their rerolls. The other is, when used in conjunction with a Towermaster bearing the Crimsone Death, to gather the Underdog Challenge bonus VP - a Towermaster striking first with the Crimson Death has a pretty darn good chance of killing most combat heroes, short of tooled-out WOC and Brett heroes.

I did put in my post that it was only worth it if they were fighting another high Initative army, which for Dark Elves (and Black Guard in particular) is basically just other Elven armies.

Another use for it is to put a CC Dreadlord with a great weapon (Executioners Axe, Blood Armour + SDC gets the most out of it if you have another character nearby with the Ring of Hotek to dissuade magic sniping) in the unit of BG with the BoHG to negate the ASL of the axe. Very expensive unit but can be devastating if you manage to keep it alive to get into CC.