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Just saw the other thread, which is either poor timing or excellent timing on my part...

Shuriken
Each time an attack is made with a weapon that has the Shuriken ability, on an unmodified wound roll of 6, improve the Armour Penetration characteristic of that attack by 3.

Battle Focus

Models in this unit do not suffer the penalty incurred to their hit rolls for firing Assault weapons in the same turn their unit Advanced.

In your Shooting phase, either before or after this unit is selected to shoot, if it did not Fall Back or Advance in your previous Movement phase, it can make an Advance up to 3" as if it were your Movement phase.

Guardian Defenders (Troops, Power Rating 3)

10-20 Guardian: M 7"; WS 3+; BS 3+; S 3; T 3; W 1; A 1; Ld 7; Sv 4+
0-2 Grav-Platform: M 7"; WS -; BS -; S -; T 3; W 1; A -; Ld 7; Sv 4+

If this unit contains between 11 and 20 Guardians, it has Power Rating 6. For every 10 Guardians in this unit, you may include one Grav-Platform (Power Rating +1 per model).

Every Guardian is equipped with: shuriken catapult; plasma grenades.

Every Grav-Platform is equipped with: shuriken cannon; sciath projector.

Wargear

Wargear Options

Each Grav-Platform may have its shuriken cannon replaced with one item from the Heavy Weapons list.

Abilities

Battle Focus: See above.

Crewed Platform: Each time this unit is selected to shoot, for each Grav-Platform in this unit, you can select one Guardian in this unit to crew it. Until this unit's shooting is resolved, that Guardian is considered to be equipped with that Grav-Platform's weapons instead of its own. Each Guardian can only be selected for this ability once each time this unit shoots.

Guardian Formation: Do not make Combat Attrition tests for Grav-Platforms in this unit. If this unit contains only Grav-Platforms, it is destroyed.

Warriors of Last Resort: In your Command phase, this unit can choose to enter a defensive stance. If it does, then until the start of your next Command phase:

-- The Movement characteristic of models in this unit is halved, and this unit cannot Advance.

-- Each time a model in this unit shoots a ranged weapon, it makes double the number of attacks.

-- Each time an enemy unit declares a charge against this unit, it can Hold Steady or Set to Defend.

Keywords

Faction: AELDARI, ASURYANI, WARHOST, <CRAFTWORLD>

Keywords: INFANTRY, GUARDIAN, DEFENDERS

Points Costs


Storm Guardians (Troops, Power Rating 3)

8-24 Storm Guardian: M 7"; WS 3+; BS 3+; S 3; T 3; W 1; A 2; Ld 7; Sv 4+

If this unit contains between 9 and 16 Storm Guardians, it has Power Rating 6. If this unit contains between 17 and 24 Storm Guardians, it has Power Rating 9. Every model is equipped with: shuriken pistol; Guardian blade; plasma grenades.
Wargear

Wargear Options

For every 4 models in this unit, 1 model's Guardian blade can be replaced with one of the following: 1 flamer; 1 fusion gun.

Abilities

Battle Focus: See above.

Guidance of the Seers (Aura): While a friendly <CRAFTWORLD> WARLOCK CHARACTER unit is within 3" of this unit, enemy models cannot target that CHARACTER unit with ranged attacks.

Warriors of Last Resort: In your Command phase, this unit can choose to enter an intervening stance. If it does, then until the start of your next Command phase:

-- This unit cannot finish any sort of move (excluding consolidation and pile in moves) more than 3" away from a friendly <CRAFTWORLD> unit.

-- This unit is eligible to declare a charge in a turn in which it Advanced or Fell Back.

-- This unit is eligible to perform Heroic Interventions as if it were a CHARACTER.

Keywords

Faction: AELDARI, ASURYANI, WARHOST, <CRAFTWORLD>

Keywords: INFANTRY, GUARDIAN, STORM

Points Costs

Personally, I'd like to see the Shuriken catapult go up to 18 inch range. With the Dire Avenger one going up to 24 inch.

Good stuff. Some disorganized thoughts...

* Battle Focus. Don't make it an advance roll. One of the lessons learned from 6th/7th edition is that taking the time to roll for each guerilla unit in your army can make the JSJ mechanic extra annoying. Especially when you roll low and end up taking 10 seconds trying to move a model just right to hide it behind a wall. Make this a flat value instead. Maybe 3"?

*Statline. I feel like we're kind of obligated to give every living eldar body +1 Attacks inkeeping with the drukhari changes. I know it's not actually all that valuable for guardians, but not including it kind of feels like we're trying to min-max our points costs.

*Bright lance. Makes sense.
* Plasma launcher: I actually feel like skyhawk missiles (and flakk missiles) no longer really have a job in the game. They made a clunky sort of sense when flyers were only hit on a 6+. Now, I'm pretty sure the math works out such that you're better off eating the to-hit penalty and just firing a starshot missile against most (all?) flyers.
* Scatter Laser: Not sure I like using the actual blast rule here. Feels like scatter lasers should be able to fire against enemies in melee (and be quite good at it even). I'm also not sure it makes sense for it to potentially have a lower number of shots than normal against a non-horde target. So maybe just leave it at Heavy 4, but give it a special rule that ups its number of shots vs hordes? Alternative direction: make it Assault 4, and let scatter lasers be fired on turns that the wielder falls back. Makes it the more mobile/aggressive option.

* Shuriken cannon. Makes sense. Inkeeping with the heavy bolter and splinter cannon.
* Starcannon: Makes sense. Can we get away with bumping this up to strength 7 now that human plasma can be strength 8? Or is that too greedy?

* Warriors of Last Resort (Defenders). Like the idea of stances. Feel like you'll just use this every single turn to double your number of heavy weapon shots. What do Hold Steady and Set to Defend do?

* Guidance of the Seers. Is this not redundant with the normal LoSir! rules? I'm not sure this rule makes enough of a difference to warrant adding another special rule to the game. I'm also not sure storm guardians should be especially good body guards.

* Warriors of Last Resort (stormies). Feels weird that I can't benefit from this when the stormies are isolated. Seems like they shouldn't become worse at falling back and charging just because all their friends are dead. Also not sure storm guardian fluff warrants giving them harlequin-tier charging ability; this makes them more capable of falling back and charging than wyches, scorpions, incubi, etc. I'm probably biased, but I also feel like this is the sort of thing dire avengers should be doing rather than stormies.

Also, because everyone seems to have been inspired by the guardian discussion in the General Discussion thread, here's my post from over there that seemed to be well received:

I'd love for guardians to be something like...
* WS/BS 4+.
* 4+ armour
* Squad size 5-15.
* Gain a lasblaster option and/or up the range of catapults to 18" and/or make catapults rapidfire 2.
* 1 heavy weapon platform per 5 dudes.
---Platform can be given either a targeting visor (+1 to-hit with the platform's gun) OR a celestial shield (4+ invuln for the squad)
---Platforms probably go back to being gun markers rather than models with wounds and a toughness value; no more tanking shots on the gun itself.
* Squad can be joined by a warlock with one of the following always-on buffs:
---Conceal: -1 to being hit vs ranged attacks.
---Quicken: Always auto-advance 6" instead of rolling. Can overwatch without using a stratagem.
---Enhance: The squad becomes WS/BS 3+. (Meaning your heavy weapons potentially hit on 2+ with a targeting visor).
---* Squadlock can be upgraded to have EITHER a singing spear OR a "Destructor" (which is basically an Assault version of a heavy flamer).

Storm guardians could, I think, stay at WS/BS 3+. Inkeeping with the Ulthwe fluff, these guys aren't normal guardians; they're basically guardian veterans that you can trust to pull off more dangerous missions with more specialized gear when you still don't have enough aspect warriors around. Some possible tech upgrades for them:
* Give them some sort of melee explosive like oldschool meltabombs or vibro mines that are effective against vehicles.
* Give them a variant holo-field that replays the last few moments of movement in the surrounding area causing making them untargetable from more than 9" away if they began the turn within engagement range of an enemy unit. (The holograms make gunmen think the stormies are still in combat with their allies.)
* Let them deploy smart mine tokens that do mortal wounds to enemy units within X" unless an enemy unit spends their shooting phase performing an action to destroy the mines.

Oh, and lower the squad size to minimum 5 and let them take 2 special guns per 5 dudes so that they're not super awkward to put into a wave serpent.

Guardians having less attacks than Kabalites makes some sense. Certainly they should both be 4+ save, but Kabalites/Drukhari are a close combat orientated faction and despite the average baseline Aeldari being impressive, at the end of the day a Guardian is still citizen militia and a Kabalite is much closer to an actual soldier. More like gang member really, but it makes sense for them to be a bit scarier physically.

It's Guardian shooting that needs to be fixed more than anything and I think a lot of people would resent paying more points for an extra attack on the profile that will often never get used.

Shuriken catapults being Range 18" Assault 3 ap 0 D1 ap -3 on 6+ to wound is a much more interesting profile now.

I would give the grav platform a large pile of wounds to allow it to soak up hits especially if you're dropping its save.

so something like:

0-2 Grav-Platform: M 7"; WS -; BS -; S -; T 3; W 4; A -; Ld 7; Sv 4+

Thus it can soak 3 wounds incoming before being lost and keep a few guardians alive.

I also don't think they should come in squads larger than 10. Just because they're militia doesn't mean they're supposed to fight in horde formation.


As I said in the post below, IMO they should be seen as support units you take in addition to the core aspect military and thus limited in number, both in unit size and number of units.

EDIT: so basically what I'd do is the following:

Irregular: you can have as many units with this key word as infantry units from the same force org slot. Irregular units are considered to be from the same slot as the unit they were taken with.

Slots:

Elites:
Storm Guardians

Troops:
Guardian defenders

Fast Attack:
Wind Riders

Heavy support
Support Battery



Thus you can have a max of 3 guardian based units in each slot, if you also took 3 infantry units from the same slot.


Black Guardians: These don't have the Irregular rule and can take a warlock as a squad leader. IMO only Ulthwe should do this as they're far more reliant on psykers. The rest of the eldar should be able to use their guardian command structure and autarchs to cover this.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Battle Focus. Don't make it an advance roll. One of the lessons learned from 6th/7th edition is that taking the time to roll for each guerilla unit in your army can make the JSJ mechanic extra annoying. Especially when you roll low and end up taking 10 seconds trying to move a model just right to hide it behind a wall. Make this a flat value instead. Maybe 3"?

Fair enough. It was originally 3", but I wanted it to work with Advance bonuses like Matchless Agility; I suppose those could just be rewritten to account for this version of Battle Focus.

Wyldhunt wrote:
*Statline. I feel like we're kind of obligated to give every living eldar body +1 Attacks inkeeping with the drukhari changes. I know it's not actually all that valuable for guardians, but not including it kind of feels like we're trying to min-max our points costs.

The intent here was to represent the difference between Guardians and Kabalites, considering the latter are lifelong gang-fighters and the former are weekend reserve troops. I could see them just being 2A base, though; I don't think it'd affect costs much.

Wyldhunt wrote:
*Bright lance. Makes sense.
* Plasma launcher: I actually feel like skyhawk missiles (and flakk missiles) no longer really have a job in the game. They made a clunky sort of sense when flyers were only hit on a 6+. Now, I'm pretty sure the math works out such that you're better off eating the to-hit penalty and just firing a starshot missile against most (all?) flyers.
* Scatter Laser: Not sure I like using the actual blast rule here. Feels like scatter lasers should be able to fire against enemies in melee (and be quite good at it even). I'm also not sure it makes sense for it to potentially have a lower number of shots than normal against a non-horde target. So maybe just leave it at Heavy 4, but give it a special rule that ups its number of shots vs hordes? Alternative direction: make it Assault 4, and let scatter lasers be fired on turns that the wielder falls back. Makes it the more mobile/aggressive option.
* Shuriken cannon. Makes sense. Inkeeping with the heavy bolter and splinter cannon.
* Starcannon: Makes sense. Can we get away with bumping this up to strength 7 now that human plasma can be strength 8? Or is that too greedy?

Plasma Launcher: I don't think that's the case? Using Valkyries as a baseline, the Starshot will land 0.5 hits, 0.33 wounds, 0.11 unsaved, 0.38 damage. The Skyhawk will land 1.33 hits, 0.66 wounds, 0.33 unsaved, 0.66 damage. It also runs about even against Marines (and better against units with 6+ models or T5). It's not really necessary, but it's not un-necessary, and the Imperium kept their Icarus variant.

Scatter Laser: I honestly forgot there even was anything that could shoot a Scatter Laser into melee. Forgot a Wave Serpent could take a twin scatter laser. Blast just felt like a fun way to distinguish it from Shuriken Cannons. Assault would make it more useful, but also more similar.

Starcannon: The main difference would be making it better against medium vehicles, so... not sure. Probably not? Honestly, Imperial plasma getting its 8e upgrade has thrown off the entire inter-faction plasma balance; iirc, it used to be that Imperial Plasma was the strongest (S7, AP2) but always had Gets Hot and less consistent shots on the bigger guns, while Aeldari Plasma was slightly weaker (S6, AP2) but didn't have Gets Hot and had more consistent shots on the bigger guns, while Tau Plasma was slightly weaker (S6, AP2) and less miniaturized for the same "grade" of gun, but didn't have Gets Hot. Now Imperial Plasma has a safe mode (S7, AP-3, D1) and an unsafe mode (S8, AP-3, D2), so Tau Plasma is just much worse for no upside, instead of occupying a middle ground between the two modes like it should. S7 for Aeldari plasma is probably fine.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Warriors of Last Resort (Defenders). Like the idea of stances. Feel like you'll just use this every single turn to double your number of heavy weapon shots. What do Hold Steady and Set to Defend do?

Honestly, that's the idea. It's why I kept Shuriken Catapults at Assault 2 for 12"; you can either choose to move the vast majority of your unit so they can get in range with their (reasonably potent!) guns, or you can stay where you are and fire your big guns twice. That's the same logic behind the Sciath projector only working beyond 12" (i.e. shuriken catapult range). It encourages Guardian Defenders to act as, well, Defenders - they're not really meant to be fighting themselves, they're just there to defend their big guns, who are doing the actual heavy lifting. If someone does go after the big guns, they're looking at 4x shuriken shots per Guardian, each hitting Overwatch on a 5+... but only if the Guardians aren't the ones who went after them.

Hold Steady/Set To Defend are charge reactions available to infantry in Defensible terrain; they let you hit on a 5+ if you fire Overwatch or add 1 to hit rolls in the Fight phase, respectively.

Wyldhunt wrote:
* Guidance of the Seers. Is this not redundant with the normal LoSir! rules? I'm not sure this rule makes enough of a difference to warrant adding another special rule to the game. I'm also not sure storm guardians should be especially good body guards.

* Warriors of Last Resort (stormies). Feels weird that I can't benefit from this when the stormies are isolated. Seems like they shouldn't become worse at falling back and charging just because all their friends are dead. Also not sure storm guardian fluff warrants giving them harlequin-tier charging ability; this makes them more capable of falling back and charging than wyches, scorpions, incubi, etc. I'm probably biased, but I also feel like this is the sort of thing dire avengers should be doing rather than stormies.

Guidance of the Seers is just a standard bodyguard aura, as found on the Deathshroud, Sslyth, etc, which is meant to replicate how Storm Guardians used to have a Warlock "Sergeant". That's less like how the game is played now, so I added this instead... though I guess it could still be done pretty easily. Marines have a few mixed-profile units like that. Hm. I might just modify the unit for that, honestly.

The idea behind the Storm Guardian "Stance" is that if Guardian Defenders are only on the battlefield to shuttle around and protect their weapons platforms, Storm Guardians also have a more specialised, last-resort role - namely, intervening in combats where their brethren need desperate help. So they can Heroically Intervene if it'll take them into combat with an ally, they can Advance-and-charge if it'll help them get into combat with an ally, and they can Fall Back-and-charge so long as it'll get them into combat alongside another ally. Purely support and reinforcement.

The alternative would be to just make them Guardian Defenders but with Warlocks instead of Grav-Platforms, and give them some alternate benefit to the doubled ranged attacks.

I like your idea of giving rules to the targeting visor, btw. That's a fun one.

And if we ever get a new box I'd really just prefer them to model a Guardian on a platform rather than this weird not-quite-a model thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Shuriken catapults being Range 18" Assault 3 ap 0 D1 ap -3 on 6+ to wound is a much more interesting profile now.

My issue with this is that it doesn't really change anything about the Shurikats, it just makes them better. Which is fine, lord knows they're not good right now, but this version - which is still 12" Assault 2 but becomes Assault 4 if you moved below half speed - encourages a specific kind of binary choice I find more interesting. Are you going to sprint your 10-man Guardian squad 10" into shooting range, for 20 shots hitting on 3+ (and perhaps some shooting from an Assault weapon on your grav-platform)? Or keep them where they are, fire twice with your big floaty heavy weapon behind an invulnerable save bubble, and force the enemy to come to you and your 40 shots hitting on 3+?

 Hellebore wrote:
I would give the grav platform a large pile of wounds to allow it to soak up hits especially if you're dropping its save.

so something like:

0-2 Grav-Platform: M 7"; WS -; BS -; S -; T 3; W 4; A -; Ld 7; Sv 4+

Thus it can soak 3 wounds incoming before being lost and keep a few guardians alive.

The reason I didn't bother to give the Grav-Platform a profile bump past a regular Guardian - it's actually down from 2 wounds, here - is because it's not meant to soak up hits. 9e wound allocation rules mean that once your platform takes one hit, you have to assign every other hit that phase to it, regardless of the weapon in question - and once it actually takes a wound, it's front of the wound queue for the rest of the game. If you use a Grav-Platform as something to "soak up wounds", you're basically guaranteeing that your valuable heavy weapon will be the first model in the unit to die... which is the opposite of what you want to happen. "Shield" models only work in units where you don't mind much if they die first, like a single storm shield in a unit of Vanguard Veterans, or an Iridium Battlesuit in a unit of Crisis Suits, because both models are otherwise identical to the rest of the unit.

That's a problem though - because the eldar would value their guardians more than the gun they come with.

That the game encourages you to sacrifice guardians to keep the gun alive is the opposite of how the eldar should be playing.

 Hellebore wrote:
That's a problem though - because the eldar would value their guardians more than the gun they come with.

That the game encourages you to sacrifice guardians to keep the gun alive is the opposite of how the eldar should be playing.

Sure, but in practice the grav-platform is just a bizarre, grandfathered-in alternative to "having a heavy weapon". There's no difference between having a Guardian next to a grav-platform with a bright lance, and just having a Kabalite with a dark lance. You're never going to kill off the dark lance Kabalite first, so creating mechanical incentives to kill off the bright lance Guardian first is counter-intuitive at best. At that point I'd actually rather just remove the Grav-Platform's stats entirely and have it just be a floating "token".

As it stands, you'll at least kill off your Grav-Platforms before the last 1-2 Guardians.

RevlidRas wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
That's a problem though - because the eldar would value their guardians more than the gun they come with.

That the game encourages you to sacrifice guardians to keep the gun alive is the opposite of how the eldar should be playing.

Sure, but in practice the grav-platform is just a bizarre, grandfathered-in alternative to "having a heavy weapon". There's no difference between having a Guardian next to a grav-platform with a bright lance, and just having a Kabalite with a dark lance. You're never going to kill off the dark lance Kabalite first, so creating mechanical incentives to kill off the bright lance Guardian first is counter-intuitive at best. At that point I'd actually rather just remove the Grav-Platform's stats entirely and have it just be a floating "token".

As it stands, you'll at least kill off your Grav-Platforms before the last 1-2 Guardians.

It's only grandfathered if you treat it that way. You have the opportunity to rethink and redevelop its role in the squad.

If you see a defender squad as built around the platform and the platform becomes a weapon, shield and defensive measure etc, it becomes an interesting piece of wargear that connects with the eldar's need to protect their citizens, than just a different way to mount a heavy weapon.

 Hellebore wrote:
It's only grandfathered if you treat it that way. You have the opportunity to rethink and redevelop its role in the squad.

If you see a defender squad as built around the platform and the platform becomes a weapon, shield and defensive measure etc, it becomes an interesting piece of wargear that connects with the eldar's need to protect their citizens, than just a different way to mount a heavy weapon.

And then it becomes a design anchor, because you've created a unit which has, as its focal point, a) the most powerful gun in the squad, which outranges and overpowers everything else (makes sense, that's how they work), which you want to die first because it's tougher than the chaff around it.

It just doesn't work, design-wise; how many ablative wounds do you think your heavy weapons gunner needs to have before you feel comfortable putting them to the front of the bullet-queue ahead of your utterly basic troops?

RevlidRas wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
It's only grandfathered if you treat it that way. You have the opportunity to rethink and redevelop its role in the squad.

If you see a defender squad as built around the platform and the platform becomes a weapon, shield and defensive measure etc, it becomes an interesting piece of wargear that connects with the eldar's need to protect their citizens, than just a different way to mount a heavy weapon.

And then it becomes a design anchor, because you've created a unit which has, as its focal point, a) the most powerful gun in the squad, which outranges and overpowers everything else (makes sense, that's how they work), which you want to die first because it's tougher than the chaff around it.

It just doesn't work, design-wise; how many ablative wounds do you think your heavy weapons gunner needs to have before you feel comfortable putting them to the front of the bullet-queue ahead of your utterly basic troops?

The eldar are full of design anchors, more than most armies. Guardians are a problem imo because they are a part of the army that doesn't have a good one. They are at odds with the eldar aesthetic. They worked in 2nd ed though, because they had 24" ranged guns and thus could keep themselves away from the enemy and survive.

There are an almost endless way in which you could rebuild guardians to better fit their role in the eldar army than they currently do. This is just one.

IMO they shouldn't exist without the heavy weapon, but they should also carry useful long ranged guns that keep them out of harm's way. You can just make it a floating heavy weapon trooper, upgrade catapult ranges back to their 24" range, give them 4+ armour and call it a day. Or you could look at other options, like only making them weapon platform teams and all the catapults and storm guardians become veteran guardians you take as a separate squad.

Or you could redesign the weapon platform as a locus around which a guardian squad forms acting as their mobile forcefield and heavy support piece. You could have rules like 'ablative shielding - the platform absorbs the first 4 unsaved wounds the unit takes with its special shields. Any remaining wounds are distributed across the unit as normal'. That sounds more protect the civilians.

There are lots of ways of looking at it. But my preference is always having it make sense in the context of the eldar as a species and their way of war. Whether is ablative weapon platforms and longer rnaged guns, heavier armour, smaller units specifically for support, defensive force fields or whatever, the next iteration of guardians really needs to make better sense than they currently do.

Regarding heavy weapon platforms, perhaps the easiest solution would be to not give them a statline and instead simply treat them as a token for drawing line of sight when firing their heavy weapons. IIRC, that's basically how they used to work for a long while, and it solves the issue of valuing the gun's life over the guardians'. Narratively, the gun is a relatively small and durable target compared to blob of elven bodies around it, so the enemy tends to gun down guardians rather than trying to focus fire the gun itself. Depending on how you phrase the rule, this could even make it possible to fire the squad's heavy weapon while all the actual eldar in the squad remain hidden out of sight, forcing the enemy to come to them or attack from a new angle in order to silence the platform. Which seems like it might be juuuuust the right level of annoying eldar trickery to be fluffy without being game ruining. It also makes a ton of sense narratively. Surely half the point of having your militia pilot a weapon-toting drone around is to let them shoot a big gun while they remain (relatively) safely around the corner.

Lowering the minimum squad size would also make it feel less like you're "wasting" most of the squad by having them sit around out of range to fire their guns. 4 extra bodies are there to watch the visor guy's back. 9 extra bodies seems like an organizational error. Lowering the squad footprint would also make it easier to hide them behind terrain.

RevlidRas wrote:

Wyldhunt wrote:
*Statline. I feel like we're kind of obligated to give every living eldar body +1 Attacks inkeeping with the drukhari changes. I know it's not actually all that valuable for guardians, but not including it kind of feels like we're trying to min-max our points costs.

The intent here was to represent the difference between Guardians and Kabalites, considering the latter are lifelong gang-fighters and the former are weekend reserve troops. I could see them just being 2A base, though; I don't think it'd affect costs much.

That's a fair point. I could go either way on the extra Attack.

Wyldhunt wrote:
*Bright lance. Makes sense.
* Plasma launcher: I actually feel like skyhawk missiles (and flakk missiles) no longer really have a job in the game. They made a clunky sort of sense when flyers were only hit on a 6+. Now, I'm pretty sure the math works out such that you're better off eating the to-hit penalty and just firing a starshot missile against most (all?) flyers.
* Scatter Laser: Not sure I like using the actual blast rule here. Feels like scatter lasers should be able to fire against enemies in melee (and be quite good at it even). I'm also not sure it makes sense for it to potentially have a lower number of shots than normal against a non-horde target. So maybe just leave it at Heavy 4, but give it a special rule that ups its number of shots vs hordes? Alternative direction: make it Assault 4, and let scatter lasers be fired on turns that the wielder falls back. Makes it the more mobile/aggressive option.
* Shuriken cannon. Makes sense. Inkeeping with the heavy bolter and splinter cannon.
* Starcannon: Makes sense. Can we get away with bumping this up to strength 7 now that human plasma can be strength 8? Or is that too greedy?

Plasma Launcher: I don't think that's the case? Using Valkyries as a baseline, the Starshot will land 0.5 hits, 0.33 wounds, 0.11 unsaved, 0.38 damage. The Skyhawk will land 1.33 hits, 0.66 wounds, 0.33 unsaved, 0.66 damage. It also runs about even against Marines (and better against units with 6+ models or T5). It's not really necessary, but it's not un-necessary, and the Imperium kept their Icarus variant.

Again. Fair points. I wouldn't shed a lot of tears over the various flakk misile weapons disappearing, but there's no harm in keeping them around either.

Scatter Laser: I honestly forgot there even was anything that could shoot a Scatter Laser into melee. Forgot a Wave Serpent could take a twin scatter laser. Blast just felt like a fun way to distinguish it from Shuriken Cannons. Assault would make it more useful, but also more similar.

I wouldn't go Assault without giving them a special rule of some sort (and a price hike). I was just spitballing ways of giving them a more distinct role from shuriken cannons and other S6 guns. They were briefly a source of "tracer fire" back in 6th. That wasn't a terribly well-executed rule, but I could see something along those lines being revisited.

Starcannon: The main difference would be making it better against medium vehicles, so... not sure. Probably not? Honestly, Imperial plasma getting its 8e upgrade has thrown off the entire inter-faction plasma balance; iirc, it used to be that Imperial Plasma was the strongest (S7, AP2) but always had Gets Hot and less consistent shots on the bigger guns, while Aeldari Plasma was slightly weaker (S6, AP2) but didn't have Gets Hot and had more consistent shots on the bigger guns, while Tau Plasma was slightly weaker (S6, AP2) and less miniaturized for the same "grade" of gun, but didn't have Gets Hot. Now Imperial Plasma has a safe mode (S7, AP-3, D1) and an unsafe mode (S8, AP-3, D2), so Tau Plasma is just much worse for no upside, instead of occupying a middle ground between the two modes like it should. S7 for Aeldari plasma is probably fine.

Hold Steady/Set To Defend are charge reactions available to infantry in Defensible terrain; they let you hit on a 5+ if you fire Overwatch or add 1 to hit rolls in the Fight phase, respectively.

Oh duh! My transport-mounted butt has yet to actually utilize those rules this edition. I should really get in the habit.

The idea behind the Storm Guardian "Stance" is that if Guardian Defenders are only on the battlefield to shuttle around and protect their weapons platforms, Storm Guardians also have a more specialised, last-resort role - namely, intervening in combats where their brethren need desperate help. So they can Heroically Intervene if it'll take them into combat with an ally, they can Advance-and-charge if it'll help them get into combat with an ally, and they can Fall Back-and-charge so long as it'll get them into combat alongside another ally. Purely support and reinforcement.

I'm not sure I'm sold on it. I get the idea that they're in a dedicated support role. It's just that you know you're going to end up in a situation where all your nearby allies are dead, but you could totally win the game if you could just charge after falling back (like you did one turn ago). And in that moment, it's going to feel really weird that the storm guardians can't demonstrate the same freedom of movement that had in the previous turn. I like the general feel of stances; I'm just not sold on this one.

This is probably too strong, but what if units that fell back could shoot at at a -1 penalty afterwards provided every enemy unit they fell back from is currently within engagement range of a storm guardian squad? The idea being that the storm guardians are keeping the enemy occupied and focusing on giving the escapees the breathing room that would normally be denied to them by pursuing enemies. It feels inkeeping with the "melee rescuer" concept, and you don't feel like you're suddenly losing agility when your friends aren't around.

The alternative would be to just make them Guardian Defenders but with Warlocks instead of Grav-Platforms, and give them some alternate benefit to the doubled ranged attacks.

For the record, I miss warlocks on all the guardian squads; not just stormies. (Although they did synergize especially well with stormies back in the day.)

I like your idea of giving rules to the targeting visor, btw. That's a fun one.

Thanks!

Definitely an option, but I find it odd that a tiny targeting visor gets more rules attention than a large heavy weapon platform, itself pretty much a vehicle...

I mean, as discussed above, the weapon platform is kind of a roundabout way of basically just giving the visor guy a heavy weapon. So I'm fine with turning the gun into merely a marker if it happens to be a clean and functional option.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here's a probably bad idea:

What if we made the weapon platforms their own units entirely and really leaned into the "drone fleet" angle? So something like...

* You can take one squad of weapon platforms for each squad of guardian defenders.
* The squad size of the platform unit goes up the more guardians you have.
* The farther the platforms are from their corresponding guardian unit, the worse their BS gets. So they might be BS 3+ near the guardians, BS4+ if they're more than 12" away, BS5+ if they're more than 18" away, and BS6+ if they're 24+" away.

This would give guardians a reason to want to stay close to the gun platforms, but they'd no longer need to expose themselves to dangerous lanes of fire. Their short-ranged catapults would make more sense as they're basically just for blasting whatever enemy peeks inside the ruin they're hiding in. The platforms can be relatively chunky and durable, and enemies can prioritize shooting lascannons into the platforms rather than into the guardians themselves.

I... kind of like that idea actually. Plus, it gives the eldar an actual "drone" unit that makes tons of sense for them from a fluff perspective but doesn't stomp on the hooves of the tau by being an actual AI.

EDIT: Okay, and now I am stepping on the toes of the tau, but picture a vyper with a drone controller on the back instead of a gun, and the drone controller manipulates a pair of drones that detach from the vyper to hit the enemy while the vyper maneuvers out of sight. And then the drones fly back to the vyper and reattach so that they can be carried at speed towards the next target! And one of the detachable drone options can become a deployable energy shield that serves as cover for your dudes. :O

Simplest solution is fixing their garbage gun and giving them a 4+ and make sure avengers have a better gun with a 3+. Simple.