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So with the release of the new codex, the popular consensus is that Guardians are superior to Dire Avengers. I am here to argue that DAs still have a place in many lists.

1) General Overview.

Avengers and Guardians - What the have in common
-Same stats (except saves)
-Same gun (except range)

Guardians, Pros:
-30% cheaper than Dire Avengers
-Can take Warlocks
-Can take Support Weapons

Avenger Pros:
- 6" extra range
- Better save
- Can take an Exarch
- Better Leadership

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2) In-depth analysis, No special upgrades

A. Long Range Support

So based on this alone, I will concede that guardians are better in LONG RANGE SUPPORT, because they can take Support Weapons. So we'll just focus on closed-range anti-infantry. Edit: They aren't the best backfield fire support (no comparison vs. Walkers, Prisms, Vauls) but they are scoring. Keeping them back and potshotting is a legitimate tactic.

Winner: Guardians

B. Offense

At first glance, and with MSU being more and more popular, guardians seem better. 30% more bang for buck is significant. This means you can have 3 10-man guardian squads for every 2 10-man, which translates to roughly to 30% more wounds. However it is worth noting that the 6" range increase with DAs means that you are more flexible with positioning. If your enemy is castled, the 12" becomes a major problem. It's tougher to position those guardian swarms to draw a proper bead - and as any veteran eldar will tell you, positioning is one of the most important things about playing Eldar, moreso with the new excellent battle focus rule.

Still, in terms of raw damage, guardians are still the winner in most cases. In a few select cases however, the positioning of DAs can lead to more casualties. Pseudo-rending makes placement paramount, so you can ignore those pesky cover saves. Another point to consider is the lower leadership. Snapshots from running 12" range units are unlikely to hit anything, even if in range. Also, with higher casualty rates, your second volley will be diminished.

Winner: Guardians - Conditional

C. Defense

An obvious win for DAs, just because of the 4+ save. However a major consideration is that extra 6" range. Staying out of rapid-fire of bolters is KEY. With Battle Focus, guardians can shoot 12" then run a few inches back (or likely into cover). Marines, Tau, Crons, can all advance and rapid-fire. And you can STILL be assaulted, especially by jump troops. 5+ saves won't do you much. With an 18" range, and battle focus, on average you can shoot even firewarriors and battle focus out range of double tap (18" + 3.5" BF = 21.5"; Tau can move up 6" and fire 15" = 21"; 21.5" is also enough to avoid all assault except jump infantry). Lastly, many ignore-cover weapons (Airburst, Thunderfire, flamers) are AP5. AP4 exists too though (Heavy Flamer, Swooping Hawk Nades).

Of worthy note is morale. It's a lot easier to kill guardians than Avengers. On average, one bolter volley will cause a leadership test, with around 30% change to fail. This will shift you out of cover and likely cause your squad's death the next turn. Avengers have around 20% chance to fail, and if you are shifted out of cover, regular weapons won't pierce your armor.

Winner: Dire Avengers

D. Tactical Considerations

The 6" extra range means your opponent will have a harder time denying you of range. 12" weapons are easy to predict, and a ring of tanks or fodder (ie grots) can easily be used to area-deny guradians' 12" shots. 18" is much better. Ignoring battle focus, a 12" circle has a perimeter of of roughly 38", compared to the 54" "Kill-zone" of the 18" DA guns (Although realistically you can't use the full circle). This means that you can be more dynamic in engaging: maybe there's a 4+ cover you can reach, or an objective you can contest, with that extra 6" bubble.

On the flip side, however, guardians are better bullet fodder. More bodies and what-not. It really depends on the strategy, army build, and situation of both you and your opponent.

Winner: Dire Avengers

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3) List building

A. Maximizing Bodies

The clear-cut winner for maximizing the number of bodies is clearly Guardians, no doubt about it. Adding an Avatar means less worry about that Ld8, and more bodies=more squads=more efficient Avatar Aura.

Winner: Guardians

A. Maximizing Tanks

Oh Wave Serpent Spam, the alleged new Eldar meta. Although not everyone will run WS-heavy lists, ansacs brought the very valid point that MSUing Dire Avengers saves 25 points per wave serpent. Sure if they pop it you have less bodies, but smaller squads means less (absolute) casualties from explosions, less wounds from a better save, and most importantly, less chance of running away allowing you to do what MSUs do best - grab objectives with as few models (and points) as possible.

However, in terms of Alpha-striking potential, Guardians will blow your opponents out of the water for less points than DAs. With the new Serpent Shield, there's a good chance for your serpent to make it to the other side. It really depends on what you want your tanks to be doing, and your overall grand strategy.

Winner: Dire Avengers - conditional

Summary: Guardians provide more bang-for buck, but DAs can last longer and offer more tactical options. DAs are better for MSU, but Guardians are superior in flooding the board. To be continued with Warlocks, Exarchs, and Platforms!

From what I've seen it's not as one sided as you seem to think; I've seen people argue both for Guardians and Dire Avengers, and the consensus on either side seems about even. There's definitely benefits to both units, which is why I'm taking both myself, but to each their own I guess.

I think it also depends on the list. If your running wave serpent spam, then Avengers are good because you can save those 30 points, as your units wont be getting out anyway. When they do jump out, you want those armor saves and you don't want them to run away.

If your running more of a foot list, I can see a strong reason to take guardians.

*Edit :corrected what I take in serpents

I take some of both. In a mech list, it's important to understand that they have very different roles.

I find that both have about the same effective range except in a few rare situations. Dire Avengers are too expensive to use as suicide units, so they hop out of a Serpent, advance to 18", shoot, and then run away. Guardians get out of a Serpent, move and run to 12", and then start dying if there's anything left alive.

Guardians are basically making their points back if used as suicide squads, so that's a decent use for them. They're a big disincentive to stuff getting close to your Serpents. Dire Avengers are midfield scoring units that can contribute some shots.

I recently started using Dire Avengers in a test footdar army and they've been fantastic. Nothing survives those shots, just always take more than 1 squad and take them barebones. 130-points for such a unit is fantastic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, remember counter-attack. My friend charged his Belial and 3 termies into 10 Dire Avengers. Proceeded to lose 1 terminator to overwatch and lose another two to 20 I5 attacks. Belial who was already wounded from before, has suffered the same fate two rounds of combat later. Some unlucky dices rolls on his part, but that counter-attack is definitely worth mentioning.

labmouse, I think you meant DAs not Guardians for spam lists? Anyway, I agree that DAs are the cheapest way to get Serpents on the board.

I myself take both as well. They have similar roles but sometimes you want staying power, and others you're just willing to lose it all. Having one of each is great.

Counter-attack is another worthy mention, but seeing as assault isn't as popular as it used to be, the extra attack seems to be an after-thought. IMO DAs should have the option to take a pistol/CCW to make them true "generalist" aspect warriors as per their fluff.

From what I've seen it's not as one sided as you seem to think; I've seen people argue both for Guardians and Dire Avengers, and the consensus on either side seems about even. There's definitely benefits to both units, which is why I'm taking both myself, but to each their own I guess.

Agreed. Both are good. I've moved toward DA for my list (as it is more mech), but Guardians have a place as well.

4+ armor and 6" of extra range means a lot.

When you're deciding to move forward and attempt to shoot and duck backwards, it means a lot.

Guardians - you're going to feel a strong impulse to keep them close to cover, because with a 5+ and no cover, they're dead in the open.

Dire-avengers you don't have to rely on that cover so much, and it is easier to stay close to them.

However, these two units, to me, have a clear differentiation in roles. The presence of the HW allows guardians to use this in a fire support role, and are an excellent source of AT for a foot list in the troops slot. Their shuricat fire is a pure secondary bonus. Dire Avengers are a mid-range skirmish unit which utilize mobility and decent armor in conjunction with similar units (wraithguard).

pantsonhead wrote:
Guardians are basically making their points back if used as suicide squads,

Suicide squads rarely work...as Monty Python has shown us.

Stepping away from the mech, footdar really got a serious buff and the biggest reason why it is a strong build are Dire Avengers, imo.

Up to 30" threat range on such ridiculously strong guns(the range of storm bolters, except storm bolters don't rend), their mobility for an infantry unit and their decent armour makes them one of the strongest troop choices in the game, alongside WRJ. In fact, an army of 2-3 units of WRJ and 2-3 units of Dire Avengers is not a bad army at all, properly supported.

I'm not sure I buy DA's as main-line troops.

In support of wraithguard, or ensconced in wave serpents, yes.

There's too much ap4 (and cover is only 5+) to make them viable as the primary scoring element.

In my opinion.

Well, you can't thrown down 10 DA and call it a day. Your going to need to oversaturate your opponent. Something more like this...
In this example, were throwing down 92 models w/9 Exarchs.

Exarchs are amazing 10 point upgrades. Compare them to other champions in books and you will see why. Instead of just 1 extra attack/LD they get a WS, BS, I, A, and Save boost.

1850 Eldar
HQ
SpiritSeer
SpiritSeer

Troops
10 Dire Avengers w/Exarch + Dual Cats
10 Dire Avengers w/Exarch + Dual Cats
10 Dire Avengers w/Exarch + Shimmershield
10 Dire Avengers w/Exarch + Shimmershield

Fast Attack
10 Warp Spiders w/Exarch
10 Warp Spiders w/Exarch
10 Swooping Hawks w/Exarch + Night Vision + Hit and Run

Elite
10 Striking Scorpions w/Exarch + Claw + Crushing Blow
10 Striking Scorpions w/Exarch + Claw + Crushing Blow

Fortification
ADL w/Comm Relay

I didn't know that anyone didn't like DAs.

I've used em in big and small groups, old and new codexes, and they're always surprisingly resilient and can do more damage than I think they can. The saves against flamers and boltguns let them go places I would hesitate to send guardians. I've even sometimes used the shimmersheild exarch (because of a shortage of models) and that 5++ save soaks quite a bit of heavy bolter/flamer fire. Also under the new rules, the shimmershield model's halberd can represent a power axe, which is a pretty decent weapon for an exarch.

Maybe because they just look so bad on paper, I have low expectations, then I turn out being surprised when they do well.

That's a really interesting list, Labmouse. How does that play? Comms relay because the warp spiders are deepstriking, or just the hawks? Who stands behind the ADL? Where do the spiritseers go?

Its a concept list I was thinking of. I've not played it yet, as I'm still 10 DA and 13 scorpions away from being able to.

The idea would be to place the ADL aggressivly, about halfway on the board. This is so your DA move up to it to gain cover and can use the comm-relay. Your right. Its for the deep striking units. A comm relay is more reliable than an autarch for getting your troops in on turn 2. You go from a 5/6 chance to a 8/9 chance.

Spiritseers would go with the DA. They could throw shrouded on DA squads, letting them take advantage of a 2+ cover save from behind the ADL lines. They could also increase the armor saves of the DA.

The SS would be harassment units. They would inflitrate and go for flanking / rear support units.

The warp spiders and hawks would be general purpose units. My idea would be to deep strike all 3 squads.

@labmouse42 consider that list partially stollen. It looks like a fun list to play.

@Thread
I think you forgot some of the strongest abilities of DA.

1) They can be taken in 5 man squads which means their minimum cost is lower than Guardians. This is important in spam list as mentioned above but also where you need to get minimum troops and are maxing your other slots or where you only have 70 pts left.

2) The shimmer shield is actually really huge. A 5++ is like always being in cover but better. It is a big advantage when fighting Tau as they are liable to strip your cover.

3) Grace, you don't see it often but on a combay HQ led squad this can allow your exarch to tank any challenges and leave the combat HQ free to kill the squad. This can be truely awesome against some of the chaos HQs as they run them into the squad alone and you will get rerolls on a 3++ invul.

The guardians major advantage for the gun platforms is not really long range fire support as they are too expensive to do this well but rather the ability to hurt things they would not normally be able to, ie brightlance can kill AV11+ or allow shucat kills to allocate outside 12".

For me, the biggest advantage Dire Avengers have over Guardians is that extra 6" range. If you stick yourself on an objective with Guardians and are within range, you'll get one turn of fire before you get charged, and Guardians do *not* fare well in combat. If you can backpedal with Battle Focus there is still a fair chance you'll get charged anyway.

Dire Avengers, on the other hand, can theoretically keep kiting their aggressors til the cows come home since Battle Focus can put them out of infantry charge range and give faster units like jump packs the same chance normal infantry would have had charging Guardians. Even if you have to sit on an objective, or you're unlucky with your run roll and you get caught, Counter Attack means the DA are not the walkover normal Guardians are.

If you want a heavy weapon then take War Walkers or Vypers; if you want a scoring unit to stay back then take Rangers; if you want a tactically superior backbone unit then take Dire Avengers; if you want a cheap unit with good value for money AND you have a Wave Serpent to protect and transport them in, then AND ONLY THEN take Guardians. That's all there is to it.

Why not have both?

Edited, thanks for the input guys.

@Belly:

That gif molests my neurons.