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When I read the 6th edition rules as they were being leaked and finally released I realized that guardians became highly outclassed by rapid fire (on top of their pitiful range). I then read enough "guardians are crap!" comments that I started to believe them. So I stopped taking them in 6th. I played in 5th but as I was only starting and learning the rules then Most games were only 750 pt skirmishes. And guardians worked fine in them for me. But in bigger games and with 6th edition rules, it seems the consensus is in that "they suck".

In all honesty, they do suck. Pretty much 3's across the stat board with only 12" range guns. But I had to look beyond that to really get them to mean something to me. If I hav ebeen noticing anything, its that all the choices for eldar troops just fall apart. Bikes only last so long and are really only good at contesting a far away objective. Rangers disappear in close combat the turn after a drop pod lands near them to deliver any kind of space marine. Dire avengers used to make awesome troop choices out of falcons but now they have to be outside to capture. Putting them in a falcon is proving to just be an easy 2-for-1 kill for my enemy.

We just lack troops that can stay on the board until turn 5 or more. This is when I started to look into taking blobs of 20 guardians. 20 with a SC and a conceal-warlock costs 205pts. Or if you know they will always be in cover you can drop the Lock and its only 165pts for 20 and a SC. That is dirt cheap for 20(21) bodies. The weapon platform is just a bonus really.

If you have wraithguard in your list, guardians work great for a meat wall that prevents units from charging your wraithguard and tying them up. Fortning a 5+ cover save from conceal on the guardians can really improve their stay as well.

In my game today, emperors will, I decided to keep them in ruins with my objective and 10 rangers. If shot at, I just had the guardians go to ground giving them marine armour (3+) on a cover save. Its difficult to shoot 20 of them out of the ruins with those saves. Also keeping some out of LOS but still in the ruins helps keep them alive. If someone did come in their effective range (move 6+ shoot 12" =18") I would open fire with close to 40 shots.

Maybe it was just a lucky game or a fluke, but I saw my guardians do what nother troops havent for me. Hold an objective. Granted I had a 10 man wraithguard troop marching towards their objective so alot of fire was diverted to them which helped my guardians. But I still beleive they did their job for their mere 205 pts.

I see the guardians suck and get killed so fast comments all over the place. I just wanted to have a topic giving them a little assurance and talking about good tactical use of them. As I am sure I could play better with them, just need to learn how.

The heavy platforms are nice, but with BS3 I have tried to learn not to count on them and just be happy when the work lol.

I could start trying to take them in 10 man groups but I always want to have a warlock on any guardian unit that is in the open. And those cost an extra 40 pts per unit.

With the 50% chance of night fighting, you can get even more out of those cover saves too.

Dire avengers are no longer a stand out. Most of the time, if you have a very precious farseer (maybe even your warlord) in a wave serpent with a group of dire avengers, your opponent will be very happy. He can shoot at one target and really mangle 3 separate units. That wave serpent would be blown up wit 3 glances before you could even drop your troops off.

That little combo costs 150ish for the DA's, 100 minimum for te serpent, and the farseer is 120 minimum. Thats at least 375 pts all bundled up in one little package to shoot at that will only have a 5+ jink save (and that is only if you go first!). Every krak missle and las cannon shot would shoot at it and wipe it off the board. Honestly, you dont even need all of that. 3 glances and its gone.

Most of the time the serpent has to flat out turn 1 to get in range. Take a round of shooting and survive, then disembark and shoot. Thats counting on a lot to happen i think.

Also, when they go pull those shenanigans, they arent doing what troops need to do in 5/6's of the games. Hold objectives. So DA's sit the bench for me ever since DAVU is gone.

Rangers are good. 10 come at 190 pts. But if you have a smart opponent, they will make sure their flamers can get there. Or veteran sternguard with ignore cover bolts. Or just a plain assault for anything and the rangers go down.

Im not saying that I dont take them, becuase I do, I just dont tink you can plop them on an objective and count on them being there till turn 5.

Guardian jetbikes are great, but run off the board really fast unless you take a unit of 6 and usually even a warlock with embolden. Even they, jetbikes are best at contesting, not really sitting and controlling.

So I disagree with what you were saying

In comes guardians. They sit. And shoot their platfrom. The only real attention they attract is the fact that they control an objective. But if people shoot at them, they have 20 models to take out. If they loose 5 models they will have to take a leadership test though, that is a downfall. But if you dont want a conceal warlock, you can give him embolden instead.

When they are in multi-level ruins, try to equally space them out across all the floors to minimize the damage of blasts. Try to protect and surround your platform firing guys. If they are on the outside of the group and get shot down, no more heavy weapon.

wuestenfux wrote:

The only thing better than guardians are dark eldar allies and running kabbie warriors. For 1 point more they get a +1 boost to most stats, have better guns(and support guns) and can get FNP. I run a squad of 10 of these as well in my ally detatchment.

Indeed, DE Warriors are the better choice.

I'd stay away from Guardians if you can. Unless there is an Avatar close enough, they eventually fall back after facing some casualties.

I do agree, DE allies seem to be nice. I thought about mixing in some kabolites behind a wall of guardians so they kabolites get that 5+ cover. Since their armour will be punched by any shot. But I dont really want to take dark eldar. I would rather challenge myself and stick to just eldar.

I do run the avatar, So I keep them close. If I have them on the front line its just to soak up shots or cover board space and move towards an enemy objective. A fortuned 5+ conceal works fairly well.

But when they are sitting back in ruins they are hard to budge with fire. Unless the entire enemy army is in range and shooting them. But that means no one is shooting at the rest of my army who are much more dangerous.

What I am getting at is you cant take guardians and use them the same way as a normal unit. You have to be smart. Pedro and a veteran sternguard unit drop podded in to take my objective. I had a 3 story ruins where my 20 man guardian unit, and 10 man ranger unit were in. The sternguard had to get to floor 3 to contest so good objective placement lured them in. I essentially lured the sternguard close enough to the building, kept my rangers on the objective then moved the guardians out 6" and opened fire with my "crappy 12" range guns" forcing tons of wounds on the sternguard and crippling them. I then assaulted with guardians, yes assaulted, and finished them off.

Now Im not saying that guardians are good at assaulting, but In that case I used them very well. You just have to play smart wit them. They are a good cheap wall, or a cheap defending unit. Quite simple.

Nologik wrote:I love playing my gaurdians, but like any other Eldar unit they have to be supported by other units to work. Eldar are like a fine oiled machine, when everything is working properly we don't lose. But when something is wrong, the whole machine seizes up and BOOM.
You just can compare gaurdians v marines. Cause they dont stand a chance...

With the illistration above. He forgot to say that the Gaurdians had a scatter laser and killed 3 marines b4 the marines got close enough to fire. But hey, if you wanna duel with a bunch of cracked up marines.. Be my guest..

DAAddict, I think your math on your Dire avengers is off, Should be a little bit higher.

What illustration above are you referring to? Hopefully not mine.

DAaddict wrote:

Nologik wrote:I love playing my gaurdians, but like any other Eldar unit they have to be supported by other units to work. Eldar are like a fine oiled machine, when everything is working properly we don't lose. But when something is wrong, the whole machine seizes up and BOOM.
You just can compare gaurdians v marines. Cause they dont stand a chance...

With the illistration above. He forgot to say that the Gaurdians had a scatter laser and killed 3 marines b4 the marines got close enough to fire. But hey, if you wanna duel with a bunch of cracked up marines.. Be my guest..

DAAddict, I think your math on your Dire avengers is off, Should be a little bit higher.

You are right... The Dire Avengers should cost 152. The point is for the price of 4 guardians with 4 scatter lasers and an avatar to keep them there, I can field 4 dire avenger squads.
4 scatter lasers give me better range but armies tend to be 24" apart not 36" or in the case of EMLs 48" apart.

The point of my comparison was to face the generic most prevalent troop choice. If a troop choice doesn't have a prayer against an opponent's troops, it means it is weak and will lose without support. To say it is an objective holder is fine but it is not going to compare to 5 rangers for effecting the game or an ork gretchin unit for cost effective flag sitters.

Not going to compare to 5 rangers?! Do you have any idea how little 5 rangers actually does?? You cant count on 5 rangers to do anything at all. Unless supported by a doom AND a guide. They will most like kill a few random models. Much of this is discussed in another forum here....
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/464961.page#4618955
The benefit of rangers comes when you take 10 of them. And even then, unless supported by 2 psychic powers, they are slightly mediocre. 190 pts gets you 10 rangers, 205 pts gets you 20 guardians a warlock with conceal and a shuriken cannon. I could sit here all day and argue over which I should pick. But in the end, TAKE BOTH. I love my rangers on the top floor. It makes them harder to get to and gives their 36" a good view. Then you can babysit them with guardians. Anyone who comes close has to deal with 40 S. catapult shots. Then you have the heavy gun firing too. In an objective game (5/6) of the game types, this holds nicely.

Arschbombe wrote:I run Guardians to get a spiritseer to babysit my Wraith units. Yes, they are very fragile dying to a stiff breeze and the change in cover saves didn't help. But what I've found is that most people just don't shoot at them. They'll assault them in later turns, but most of my opponents' shooting goes at other targets. In one game in a tournament in May I had an opponent who shot at my Guardians first. It was a little alarming because I thought he had figured it out. Kill my Guardians and I'm looking at a draw at best. Fortunately for me he turned his attention to the Avatar and Wraithlords quickly. I think most people look at Guardians and think, I'll clear them out on turn 5, but they never get around to it.

This is a very true statement. People dont see guardians as threats. They dont get shot by focused fire. Just leftover shots that have no where else to go. Guardians dont really threaten anything on the board so they dont get a lot of attention. When you have a wraithlord or 2 (or 3 :-P) standing bye along with the avatar, all shots are directed at them. If you play things right, by the time your opponent has cleared out your large threats (if he does), there will be so little leftof your opponent to shoot at the guardians that they cant kill the in one swoop or cant kill them all in the assault.

You make a really good point

schadenfreude wrote:

Razgriz22 wrote:

DAaddict wrote:

Nologik wrote:I love playing my gaurdians, but like any other Eldar unit they have to be supported by other units to work. Eldar are like a fine oiled machine, when everything is working properly we don't lose. But when something is wrong, the whole machine seizes up and BOOM.
You just can compare gaurdians v marines. Cause they dont stand a chance...

With the illistration above. He forgot to say that the Gaurdians had a scatter laser and killed 3 marines b4 the marines got close enough to fire. But hey, if you wanna duel with a bunch of cracked up marines.. Be my guest..

DAAddict, I think your math on your Dire avengers is off, Should be a little bit higher.

You are right... The Dire Avengers should cost 152. The point is for the price of 4 guardians with 4 scatter lasers and an avatar to keep them there, I can field 4 dire avenger squads.
4 scatter lasers give me better range but armies tend to be 24" apart not 36" or in the case of EMLs 48" apart.

The point of my comparison was to face the generic most prevalent troop choice. If a troop choice doesn't have a prayer against an opponent's troops, it means it is weak and will lose without support. To say it is an objective holder is fine but it is not going to compare to 5 rangers for effecting the game or an ork gretchin unit for cost effective flag sitters.

Not going to compare to 5 rangers?! Do you have any idea how little 5 rangers actually does?? You cant count on 5 rangers to do anything at all. Unless supported by a doom AND a guide. They will most like kill a few random models. Much of this is discussed in another forum here....
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/90/464961.page#4618955
The benefit of rangers comes when you take 10 of them. And even then, unless supported by 2 psychic powers, they are slightly mediocre. 190 pts gets you 10 rangers, 205 pts gets you 20 guardians a warlock with conceal and a shuriken cannon. I could sit here all day and argue over which I should pick. But in the end, TAKE BOTH. I love my rangers on the top floor. It makes them harder to get to and gives their 36" a good view. Then you can babysit them with guardians. Anyone who comes close has to deal with 40 S. catapult shots. Then you have the heavy gun firing too. In an objective game (5/6) of the game types, this holds nicely.

If 5 rangers shoot at whatever target is doomed they should dump about 3 wounds/turn killing 1 meq/turn. As far as damage goes that's good enough for government work. On occasion they might pick off a heavy weapon or cause a pin test that their target fails, if not ow well. Rangers are there to win the game, not wreck face. It takes about 30 regular wounds to flush rangers from cover. Eldar are actually in decent shape now for troops. They have cheap guardians, 2+ cover rangers, t6 wraithguard, flexible dire avengers, and ultra fast jet bikes. I would diversity myself to gain multiple options.

First off, Your "for government work" comment made me laugh really hard . In a good way.

Maybe im dumb for not doing it, But I mostly dont use doom. With Eldrad, I usually always cast fortune, fortune, guide. So maybe Im the one making the mistake. IDK.

I guess it comes down for what you use your troops to do. I use them to hold objectives. I want a troop I can stick on an objective and with smart play they will be there turn 5. If all i have are rangers on the objective, they always seem to get moved off. Not necessarily by fire, but by getting charged by something (usually a deep strike unit or a drop pod). Sternguard also ignoring cover saves with that one type of ammo really messes them up. I've seen a good bit of Pedro and sternguard swooping in on a drop pod to snatch up my rear objective.

So Like I said, I use both. 5-10 Rangers up top, 20 guardians(give or take) downstairs. I like how they can protect eachother. The rangers soak up the shots mostly and the guardians are there to hold off the inevitable charge from something wanting to get to the rangers.

Jihallah wrote:My drop pod dreadnoughts and fast mobile heavy flamers enjoy the presence of large guardian blobs on the field.

Arschbombe wrote:In one game in a tournament in May I had an opponent who shot at my Guardians first. It was a little alarming because I thought he had figured it out. Kill my Guardians and I'm looking at a draw at best.

Because they understand the above principle well Whilst I've always liked guardians, I gotta say heavy flamers and bolters catching them out of cover is deadly.

Obviously there are many things that are really good at killing guardians. They die to anytihng really. Point being, guardians are really hurting you. My 10 wraithguard will be. So shooting at them is supposed to seem not really worth it when you are getting shredded by the wraithguard/ wraithlord/ avatar standing by.

And if you are close enough to heavy flame, then im close enough to fire back. Dread front armour they cant hurt but they can shoot the rear if posible. The warlcok standing with them with his singing spear can hurt it pretty bad, as well as charge it and hurt more.

Everything in the game has a counter. So it comes down to how you use your units. And with eldar, it comes down to how you support your units with others.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Razgriz22 wrote:
Obviously there are many things that are really good at killing guardians. They die to anytihng really. Point being, guardians are really hurting you. My 10 wraithguard will be. So shooting at them is supposed to seem not really worth it when you are getting shredded by the wraithguard/ wraithlord/ avatar standing by.

Doesn't matter. There are going to be units in the enemy army that are invariably only useful at killing other "average" troops, like Tactical Marines. If they have the choice between shooting Wraithguard and Guardians, a smart player picks the Guardians. A Tac Marine squad has a reasonable chance of killing any sized Guardian unit with one turn of shooting (thanks to lackluster Morale).

Between AV-having War Walkers and tanks and impossible to draw LoS to jetbikes and harlequins, most of what Eldar put on the table that can be shot by other base infantry is their own terrible Troops. They're going to get shot at simply because the other infantry killing guys have nothing else to shoot at.

1. Avatar. Guardians are running no where.

2. People who shoot at guardians with infantry weapons deal with a 5+ cover save conceal at minumum. If I know my guardians are in range for a rapid fire shot, I will obviously fortune them the turn prior. 5+ re-roll. Not bad.

If they can rapid fire my guardians, My guardians can also double tap back. Its just smart play to make sure you get the double shot off first. Is it doable everytime? no.

I still think people are looking at the stats and going well obviously XYZ is better. Or XYZ can easily shoot and kill them. You CAN NOT judge guardians but those methods. You just cant.

20 Bodies for 8 points a piece. Quite simple. They score. They have a heavy weapon. The bog stuff down. They are dangerous to move around or through due to high volume of fire. They ARE NOT marines. They dont go toe to toe with Marines. They arent supposed to. Look at them from another view point please.

In any other army guardians are probably not usable. But we as Eldar dont really have many options. So thats why they are valuable to us.

Jihallah wrote:

Razgriz22 wrote:[Obviously there are many things that are really good at killing guardians. They die to anytihng really. Point being, guardians are really hurting you. My 10 wraithguard will be. So shooting at them is supposed to seem not really worth it when you are getting shredded by the wraithguard/ wraithlord/ avatar standing by.

Yes, but you're not winning objectives games with no troops fast cheap heavy flamers or a midgame pod plan can sort it out easily. Sure, your going to blow my dread/speeder/monkey with a flamethrower if a run in on the first turn, but If you can't win without troops, smashing my throwaway dread/speeder/purplemonkeydishwasher doesn't bother me too much
Of course, If I don't have a suicidal unit the trade off becomes more balanced, but of course this is a problem say Rangers suffer from as well. More so I'd say- smaller squad, more expensive per model, dies just the same.

Maybe im just used to my eldar dying to everythinggggg. So I just dont get afraid of that stuff. They die, I move on lol. I just try to play as smart as possible. 90% of the time, When I play smart, I win games. When I make mistakes, I lose games.

So as long as i take a balanced list, It comes down to te choices myself and my opposing commander make.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarknessEternal wrote:

Razgriz22 wrote:
1. Avatar. Guardians are running no where.

2. People who shoot at guardians with infantry weapons deal with a 5+ cover save conceal at minumum. If I know my guardians are in range for a rapid fire shot, I will obviously fortune them the turn prior. 5+ re-roll. Not bad.

So you spent 300+ points to make one unit of Guardians slightly less difficult to kill than the game's generic Troop (which is Marines, let's face it), instead of one of your more useful units?

I would already be spending points on the avatar and Eldrad as it is....So I dont see the problem. What eldar army WOULDNT take a farseer or eldrad. I do include a warlock with conceal with the guardians if I know they will be in the open. But that is only 40 points.

The Avatar isnt bought t "just give one squad of guardians fearless" He is a powerhouse in his own right. He gives EVERYone fearless near him.

You are asking why i spent good points on 2 hq's i would already take no matter what. So that doesnt makes sense.

scrabblez wrote:As a SM player who happens to play against Eldar all the time, I must say, guardians can be quite the problem to play against.

Since 2/3 of the games are objective based, they already have the leg up on numbers at 20 models to my 10 for a troop choice. Granted, math-wise this may not mean much BUT, with the whole Night Fighting rules being changed and the fact that most players put guardians in ruins with everything else, they're getting 3+ or 4+ saves most games for possibly a turn or more. So that means I have to shoot MORE at them to clear them out.

Then we have the fact that they really don't do much. Eldar players go "Bah, they can't do much, why take them?" And that's the thing, so does every other player out there. They get ignored, because they don't do much. Everyone else is trying to deal with wraithguard, avatars, jetbike seer councils......you name it. The last thing on their mind is the blob of guys why can't shoot at their army halfway across the board. Of course an experienced player will gun straight for them, but then what? I'm getting curb stomped by an avatar that, pretty much without assault termies I have little chance of killing, or getting gunned down by wraithguard hunting me from the other side of the board.

They're not amazing by themselves no. But combined with the fact that they AREN'T a big threat and the fact that they can sit somewhere pretty much all day and be ok, makes them pretty viable.

Does this happen to you often :-P

Tagboard Wizard wrote:

scrabblez wrote:

Razgriz22 wrote:

scrabblez wrote:As a SM player who happens to play against Eldar all the time, I must say, guardians can be quite the problem to play against.

Since 2/3 of the games are objective based, they already have the leg up on numbers at 20 models to my 10 for a troop choice. Granted, math-wise this may not mean much BUT, with the whole Night Fighting rules being changed and the fact that most players put guardians in ruins with everything else, they're getting 3+ or 4+ saves most games for possibly a turn or more. So that means I have to shoot MORE at them to clear them out.

Then we have the fact that they really don't do much. Eldar players go "Bah, they can't do much, why take them?" And that's the thing, so does every other player out there. They get ignored, because they don't do much. Everyone else is trying to deal with wraithguard, avatars, jetbike seer councils......you name it. The last thing on their mind is the blob of guys why can't shoot at their army halfway across the board. Of course an experienced player will gun straight for them, but then what? I'm getting curb stomped by an avatar that, pretty much without assault termies I have little chance of killing, or getting gunned down by wraithguard hunting me from the other side of the board.

They're not amazing by themselves no. But combined with the fact that they AREN'T a big threat and the fact that they can sit somewhere pretty much all day and be ok, makes them pretty viable.

Does this happen to you often :-P

Every weekend or so...

This is why many players in Magic:the Gathering used to pack a 1/1 Flyer in their decks. it was so cheap and small, no one wanted to waste a kill card on it. It's kinda like Reverse target saturation. You put a bad target so it can keep doing damage when good targets are more then capable of absorbing fire.

I really like this explanation.