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I'm trying to avoid fielding Alaitoc at my causal Wednesday league nights, but rangers are very different when they're only -1 to hit rather than -2. Guardian Defenders taken as a blob from the webway is pretty potent, they really kind of define the rest of my list and eat up a lot of CP if you take more than one of them. Avengers have a decent statline, and I like their new exarch power options, but they seem too squishy to live without a transport. And in a batallion, 3 squads of avengers means ~300 points worth of transports just to bunker up my troops in. And storm guardians are even worse about needing transports unless you're just taking a naked 8 and using them as cheap fodder. Which just doesn't sit well with me.

So uh. What are you guys using as troops? I keep reaching for a cheap drukhari batallion, but I'd like to keep my casual games relatively simple. Maybe I should just go ranger heavy and deepstrike them if I'm worried about their durability?

Hey

It essentially does not matter... Run whatever is most point efficient.
All the troops options we have acess to basically suck. So it depends entirely on what other elements of the army you are taking, and what sort of mission you are playing.

So if you have heavy hitting centre of CC wraithlords, seers, wraithblades and shining spears looking to run at the enemy, then you need some chaff to hold objectives and screen out your backline against deep strikers.

Rangers make good backline objective holders and decent for occasional plinking off a mortal wound. I like them as ulthwe. Because you get a -1 to hit as well as a 3+ 6+++. And then I can take Eldrad. But then Eldrad is no longer as point efficient so ive moved away from this. Guardians in the webway I don't think are what they used to be. Its a big point sink for squishy T3 wounds that fall over to a stiff breeze after delivering their shots. I often find I cant get them all in range if im dropping 20.

Personally I run a mix of whatever I have points to field. If I'm running alitoic for warp spiders/shadow specters I will probably field some rangers. I tend to use Ynnari storm guardians or storm guardians with fusion if Im running pure expert crafters. Likewise dire avengers with shredding fire in minimal squads and expert crafters is ok I think. I like storm gaurdians as they are good number of cheap bodies to screen. My playstyle has a havey hitting CC core moving up the middle backed up by a reliable firebase so I need the bodies to screen and hold objectives so my things can do their shooting.

Don't build your army around the troops. Build your troops around the rest of you army would basically my advice. The troops aren't able to do any heavy lifting(outside of guardian bomb) so I wouldn't worry about it outside of CP generating and objective holding for cheapest.

Rangers are awesome for playing the mission, and can be surprisingly dangerous to characters. They are also one of the only Eldar units that are pretty much good on their own without any psychic support. They are great for screening and they are also great in DS.

Guardians and dire avengers both require a lot of planning to mitigate their defensive weaknesses and for the guardians the short range, but both are extremely powerful in the right circumstances because they both put out an extremely good amount of damage for their points costs.

A 20 guardian blob with two platforms is 190 points, and with protect, fortune and the 1cp 4+ invuln strat has a 2+/3++/5+++ with 24 wounds (ok, only four get the 2+, but you're generally taking them on the platforms if the shots have zero AP, and if they do, that's something like 30 zero AP wounds those two platforms will absorb on average), making it one of the hardest units to shift for the points in the game, and offensively is downright terrifying on a doomed target. The main problem with this is that unless you build your list carefully you invest all that psychic support in them, and then your opponent just shoots something else instead. But in very specific lists this can be incredibly frustrating for your opponent. The guardian bomb has been made far easier to execute if you build around it with the option of 16 inch range on their shots - this allows you to DS outside auspex range, for example, which can be game-changing.

Dire avengers similarly can be extremely nasty either as MSUs with EC and shredding shots or bladestorm, or as 3 10-man units in an asurmen blob with the 4+ invuln and an autarch. The exarch trait that gives them +1 to hit and +1 to wound after taking a single casualty is difficult to set up, but if you can, the damage you can put out on a doomed target is just unreal, and hitting 40% of your shots on overwatch (with the autarch) is a huge charge deterrent, especially with asurmen there waiting to countercharge with his awesome sword of mortal wound fishing and his 3++ in combat.

So basically that's a long way of saying rangers are the choice if you don't want to set up your army around them, while guardians and dire avengers are both extremely good, but generally only in lists that are built around them.

Well, we have no Tacticals or Primaris in the first place.
Our troops are very specialized.
Rangers are decent for holding objectives and at sniping.
DA are a bit tricky to use. Mine are mounted into Serpents and dismount when needed in the mid or end game.
As already mentioned, a large Guardian Defender blob which is deep striking in round 2 can ruin enemy plans and put out some heavier damage.

Two of them fit into any list and don't require any support:

Rangers- Camp backfield objectives or deepstrike onto enemy objectives.
Strom Guardians- Cheapest option and good at screening large areas.

The other two need to be integrated into the list more and need support:

Guardian Defenders: A blob of 20 that uses CP and Psychic buffs to do good damage.
Dire Avengers: Decent all rounders that need transports. Both Falcons and Wave Serpents are good units in their own right.


Our troops internal balance is quite impressive even if they are a bit week over all.

I run 5 x 5 man dire avengers, exarch with double catapults and the exarch ability to always count as AP-3 on his guns. Asurman runs with them to keep them at 4++, they make an effective defensive line and have decent anti infanty firepower.

Storm guardians aren't terrible, but it's hard to escape the feeling they're just an inferior-in-almost-every-way version of kabalites. If you could take them with a MSU of 5 instead of 8 they'd be so much better.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Storm guardians aren't terrible, but it's hard to escape the feeling they're just an inferior-in-almost-every-way version of kabalites. If you could take them with a MSU of 5 instead of 8 they'd be so much better.

I dunno. They are just bodies and board presence screening for me. I like em. .

Well, sure. Which makes them not terrible. But if you could take them in units of 5 - even with the same inferior weapons choices, - they'd be more than that, because their points efficiency would skyrocket. A MSU of 5 with a fusion gun and EC would be points efficient and would actually need to be wiped out. Not that it would take much to do so, but that's less shots going elsewhere, and probably requires the opponent to overkill it a bit to be safe.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Well, sure. Which makes them not terrible. But if you could take them in units of 5 - even with the same inferior weapons choices, - they'd be more than that, because their points efficiency would skyrocket. A MSU of 5 with a fusion gun and EC would be points efficient and would actually need to be wiped out. Not that it would take much to do so, but that's less shots going elsewhere, and probably requires the opponent to overkill it a bit to be safe.

Yeah I har you. But a unit of 8-9 with/without fusion and a protect and or celestial shield can absorb a disproportionate amount of firepower. In terms of objective holding alitoic rangers with thier hit on 6's strat are the only better option IMO.

Dont get me wrong, I would LOVE to be able to field 5 man squads
I think id still take some 8 man squads bare bones units.

Just as much as I'D LOVE to have aspects go from 3-20 So you can build big blob for buffs or small MSU exarch powered squads.