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I really love eldar guardians, they are one of my favourite rank and file troop types in the 40k universe.

I have only been able to have a few glances at the new codex, but they do look like a more viable option than before, with combat focus and BS WS 4 although their mesh armour and 12" shooting range is kind of a draw back. I was wondering however, would guardians taken in units of 20 with 2 shuricannons be viable? the sheer volume of faux rending shots, and the ability to run away a little after firing could make them pretty nasty at only 210 points.

If one was to run a couple of these units, what other choices from the dex would make good support? Walkers, tanks, aspect warriors?

Any advice would be great, as i would love a guardian heavy eldar force that remains reasonably competitive, although i only really play for fun, so semi competitive is good enough.

Thanks!

Guardians can be OK. They will need some support to really go up to the next level.

20 man blobs have durability through ablative wounds, but at 9 points a model they can become expensive ablative wounds very quickly. Warlocks can help cover this issue. (get it? cover?)

Blobs will completely fold in assault. If your going to use a few of them, you need a counter assault element. Dark Eldar can help provide this with some awesome ICs. (Vect, anyone?)

A few jetbikes will help you grab linebreaker and late game contesting.

You probably don't want more than 3 blobs, and may be able to make it work with 2. Blobs quickly hit a point of diminishing returns due to their footprint.

If your looking for a guardian theme, look at the non-aspect warrior support units. Wave Serpents, Nightspinners, Prisms, etc.

Realize that by avoiding aspect warriors your automatically putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Edit : This is all theoryhammer. Someone with practical experience may give better advise.

If you want a guardian theme a good support unit would probably be the support batteries, or even warwalkers.

You would certainly need conceal for the guardians. Id also have though that if you are taking weapon platforms in the squads then scatter lasers for laser lock would probably be ideal.

Well, the range of a Shuricannon is only 24", and with T4 Sv5 models (even in that large numbers), the problem would be getting the units far enough to shoot. Being 22 models in a single unit, they can't ride a serpent either.

If you would like to try Guardian spam, I would recomment units that can fit into serpents, so that they actually can get in to range. 11 Guardians + 1 Shuriken Cannon would mean 20 S4 Rending shots, as well as 3 S6 rending shots, if you get them within 12". That combined with the Serpents fire should slaughter most infantry models (that aren't too durable).

For support, I'd take anything that can threaten more durable units and tanks. War walkers could do this very well, either with Bright Lances, or with Scatter Laser/Starcannons. Also Fire Prisms could do a lot, both threatening regular infantry, more durable infantry/MC's and Vehicles.

You might also need some AA. Either a model with Fast Shot on a Quad Gun (though even then you would have problems against multiple flyers) or/and Crimson Hunters. Personally, I would recomment 1-2 Crimson Hunters, a Fire Prism or 2, and some War Walkers kitted out for elite infantry killing/TEQ killing.

Guardian spam might work, but again, you need a way to get them into range.

Good luck, and hope I helped!

Guardian Hordes can work, but then you need, as has been said above, countercharge units. I would recommend Wraithblades with swords. They are very, very tough and draw fire from your fragile Guardians. Also, put a Warlock in every Guardian blob. Just do it. You also need The Avatar of Khaine for the Fearless bubble. Very important. Also get some Fire Prisms with Holofields and Crimson Hunters for anti-armour and anti-air duty.

Remember if your unit has shrouded and its behind another unit your unit is rocking a 3+ cover save

Be weeary of Tau SMS, they will rock you hard. And at the price you pay for a Guardian, it just isn't worth it. I'd much rather field Kroot/Orks/Guard if you want to do a foot horde. Guardians just don't cut it IMO.

I think you could very much make them work, so long as you don't let a Dreadnought get too close, lol. I think it'd be a cool list to run 10-man Guardian squads w/ a Warlock in Wave Serpents, combined with a bunch of War Walkers and maybe an Artillery battery.

Some of the other posters are correct though, in that if you intentionally avoid aspect warriors you are handicapping yourself somewhat. If you run the guardians on foot, you will need a counterattack unit. I like to stick to my own Codex, so I'll advocate for a unit or two of Scorpions to do that job.

Either that or the Wraithblades idea somebody bounced around earlier, scorpions are not a bad idea though depending on the situation and deployment/cover setup.

I have given guardians a shot inside a wave serpent though, and if somebody manages to whittle down its serpent shield (which unfortunately happened to me recently, TWO [possibly three, memory's fuzzy] failed shield saves and failed cover) the guardians can become suddenly the biggest sitting ducks ever. Keep in mind a contingency so you don't end up like me lol

So, what i'm getting here is that if COULD work with the right kinda support? i was thinking sans wave serpents, just a big block on foot. While it would be nicely themed not to, i have no quarrells about taking Aspects, but i am leaning towards Wraithblades/guard because they are damn beautiful models.

I usually work towards 1k points to start, so i guess 2 gauradian blobs with a warlock in each will come to 550ish? how could i wisely spend the rest of the points?

 stargasm wrote:
So, what i'm getting here is that if COULD work with the right kinda support? i was thinking sans wave serpents, just a big block on foot. While it would be nicely themed not to, i have no quarrells about taking Aspects, but i am leaning towards Wraithblades/guard because they are damn beautiful models.

I usually work towards 1k points to start, so i guess 2 gauradian blobs with a warlock in each will come to 550ish? how could i wisely spend the rest of the points?

I believe it could work, might not be great, but could work. The main things I think that need to be filled are Fearlessness, Anti-tank and Counter Assault.

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For Fearlessness you can either go for an Avatar, Psychic powers or Phoenix Lords. If you go for the Avatar you want target saturation so you'd need some Wraithlords, an Avatar and two 'Lords would fit (just) in 450pts, if I'm remembering it right. Those three MCs should give your opponent something to worry about while laying down a good Fearless blanket, unfortunately there is still a good chance the Avatar will bite it and everything else will come unpinned. Also solves the counter-assault nicely, but some armies would just shoot out the MCs and laugh.

With psychers, I ran a list on the old codex with Eldrad and a Farseer, both rolling on Telepathy and was able to score Mental Fortitude twice and Invisibility as well, thats now even easier and you can use the stones to drop the cost of Invisibility too. You'd be amazed how quickly a guardian blob cuts through even a squad of Termies when they're fighting at WS1! Still, you could have problems with CC.

For Phoenix Lords, I think either Karandras or Asurman are the best bets, Karandras is a total CC monster and also bring Steath to stack with the Shrouding, Asurman has a native 4++ and a good chance for autofortune from the Traits. Again, solves the CC issue somewhat.

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Thematically, spamming Artillery Platforms with either Vibrocannons or Shadowweavers is the way to go for anti-tank, also they'd also be a pain to remove for your opponent with conventional anti-tank. Walkers could work, you should be able to squeeze in maybe 4 with brightlances but theyre hella fragile, Wraithlords probably synergise better. I think Prisms would be a mistake, due to the lack of mech saturation.

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If not already covered, Infiltrating Scorpions could cover counter-assault nicely, they're cheap and you can guarentee to have them where you need them. Harlies are always an option, though you'd leave yourself dangerously low on points for anything else. A Laughtarch is great counterassault unit, tarpit with a Guardian blob and then just keep hit and running with a laserlance and you can make mincemeat of most targets.

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Sorry for the wall of text, this is one of my pet loves about 40k, Guardians have some bizzare appeal to me and I do spend an unfortunately large amount of time working out how I can use them in the silliest ways possible

What i do is run 10 barebones guardians x2/3 in WS with only holofield and tl Scatter upgrade that comes out to 225 points. 1st turn you move 6-8 inches up and fire at stuff that needs to die from ignore cover. Turn 2 move 6 deploy 6 fire 12 (24 inch threat range) d6 fleet run back in addition to the ignore cover/SL shots that you get from serpent. So Much Dakka, such a great delivery system. Then sprinkle in some WRJB for long objectives and rangers for home ones. And just alpha strike the poop out of people turn 2 with 20-30 guardians and 20 Warp Spiders in addition to running WW with BL (i do 12 shots a turn with those). They will have no land raiders and few transports. Spiders will pop whats needed or finish off whats left. Thats about 1750 points with only 2 of those squads. I've been very very pleased with the results


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah b/c if you want to use them at maximum efficiency they need 12" range, so why bother with a heavy weapon for more points. for the same points you can get 2 more guardians almost...Way better b/c when are you going to sit out of range and fire with your alphastrike force?

My personal opinion is yes and no. It seems to me the new dex has very few, truly take all comers builds, and the only ones I can think of revolve around the wave serpent. The problem is that eldar cannot get fire density at range on guardians. A roughly 250 point unit that has 23 models in it can only fire 8 shots at 36 inches. Granted they are str 6 but when your spending 750 points to get three of these blobs, you are for the same points you could comfotably have 3 wave serpents with twin linked scatterlaser, shuriken cannon and holo fields. Each one would be carrying 10 guardians and a scatterlaser platform. The difference?

Guardian blob 36" range equals 8 shots at bs 4
24" range equals 8 shots at bs 4
12" range add (assuming you can get all 20 guardians into range which is unlikely, given also, that many will already be dead) add in 36 str 4 shots at bs 4 twin linked.

Wave serpent w guardian 36" range 4 twin linked bs 4 str 6 shots (plus d6+1 str 7 no cover shots if you drop the shield). 4 shots + 2/7 shots = of 6-11 str 6/7 shots
24"range 4 twin linked bs 4 str 6 shots, 3 str 6(suedo rending, twinlinked if laser hits) (plus d6+1 str 7 shots no cover if you drop shield) 4shots +2/7 shots +3 shots= 9-14 str 6/7
shots
12" add 18 str 4 rending at bs 4 twinlinked if thier own 4shot str 6 scatter laser hits

I am speaking also from the table top here not just math. Against say, tyranids, your guardian blobs will be out maneuvered, out shot, and out numbered before they even have a chance to really contribute.
where as if they are in the wave serpents, you have the mobility and density of fire at greater than 18" to be effective the whole game. Add to that, once the swarms close in you have the mobility to precisely apply the guardians to where they are needed.

Im not saying that running 60 guardians is not going to be effective, I am simply trying to argue, and support my argument, that it will be severely hard countered by quite a few armies that can easily replicate what nids can do. ala daemons, csm, guard, drop pod marines, tau etc...

Drop it down to 30 guardians and 3 wave serpents? different ball game

I thought about a guardian horde of 4x20 man units with a warlock in ach for shroud.


then take eldrdad for his redeploy shenanigans and more importantly his warlord trait GIVES STEALTH for one turn.

turn 2 you can have 2+ save guardians

I also thought then about taking a unit of ten jetbikes to be in front give them a spiritseer for turn 1-2 so THEY have a 2+ cover save, and all the guardians behind them have cover getting 2+ save.

this unit would also likely be fortuned by eldrad for rerollable, and HOPEFULLY your spiritsit gts the 2+ armor save power as well.

eldrad

spiritseer

9xguardian bikes with 3x cannons (maybe make them shining spears for counter assault?)

4x 20 man hordes with shuricannon

this isnt even 1300 points or so!

Try 20x6 squads (with lock & BL) with an avatar & eldrad + 5 sword lords leading the charge to draw enemy fire... Just for fun it covers the bases

That list actually seems interesting.

It needs some AT and fearless. Perhaps an avatar could help but then you have 1 mc. Bright lances could help and open transports turn 1.

You could always skip eldrad for 2x avatar since fortune is unpredictable anyways

You can't take 2 avatars

I ran a 20 man guardian blob against a BA drop-pod army over the weekend.

I lost the game, but the guardians were the standout. I was very much just experiementing in this game, and playing some combos that I thought might be useful. I did get some crazy synergy with my psykers though. In this unit I threw in a Farseer, spiritseer and warlock. Warlock rolled embolden/horrify, so the blob was fearless most of the time, coupled with fortune from my seer and the +1 armour save from the spiritseer, meant my guardians usually had a 4+ re-rollable, which was pretty awesome. I also had my weapons platforms upfront to tank wounds with a 3+ when needed. (I took bright lances, which were useless against this list).

My opponent was dead scared of them. I would dance them forward to shoot a ton of guided bladestorm at a target, then dance back. He was even too scared to risk a charge against them with guide up.

I do think an Eldar gunline would work well with a guardian blob as a base. I think you need to find a way to get fearless, and potentially throw in the avatar or wraithlord countercharge unit.

Thanks everyone! All this is really helpful and i now think i will go ahead and get myself some more guardians. At 1000 points if i cvan get one blog within 12" withour casualties, 40+ rending shots is going to cuase a bad day for any tactical squad.

I really like the idea of running an Avatar for fearless and sticking warlocks in each unit. Am it right in thinking a Warlock can give a guardian unit Shrouded? if so that is pretty aweosme!

I do get carrie away with themed armies, so will probably end up leaving out Aspects, and focus on walkers, tanks, and wraith constructs (that still works, right?)

Xeriapt wrote:If you want a guardian theme a good support unit would probably be the support batteries, or even warwalkers.

You would certainly need conceal for the guardians. Id also have though that if you are taking weapon platforms in the squads then scatter lasers for laser lock would probably be ideal.

The Laser Lock rule doesn't do anything in the guardian squad. It only twin-links the model, not the unit.