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I didn't give them the shield, they don't need it. Again you are missing the point. You are thinking in a vacuum, and are very hung up on the cost of the avenger catapult as opposed to the cost of the unit.

6 ppm is the cost of an Ork bit and these are much better than that, your analysis is pretty flawed if you think they are far worse than an unit of guardians.


Guardians are point denial units that babysit a heavy weapon. You can use them as a forward move up and shoot unit but they will die horribly. They will get assaulted turn one or two, their overwatch will do close to nothing, they will lose half of their unit and do nothing back in assault, if you fallback with them they cannot shoot and will just get charged your next turn when the enemy unit moves then charges. The 12" range of their gun means anything they do not wipe out can threaten them, and they bring less than Grots to the assault table.

Conversely dire avengers have an 18" gun, so they can shoot things in the 12" to 18" range band. Enemy units would need a decent charge roll to reach assault in that band, and then the 5 dire avengers will score as many overwatch shots as the 10 defenders due to 5+ overwatch and will at least have a model that can fight some things in assault to any effective result.

blaktoof wrote:
I didn't give them the shield, they don't need it. Again you are missing the point. You are thinking in a vacuum, and are very hung up on the cost of the avenger catapult as opposed to the cost of the unit.

6 ppm is the cost of an Ork bit and these are much better than that, your analysis is pretty flawed if you think they are far worse than an unit of guardians.


Guardians are point denial units that babysit a heavy weapon. You can use them as a forward move up and shoot unit but they will die horribly. They will get assaulted turn one or two, their overwatch will do close to nothing, they will lose half of their unit and do nothing back in assault, if you fallback with them they cannot shoot and will just get charged your next turn when the enemy unit moves then charges. The 12" range of their gun means anything they do not wipe out can threaten them, and they bring less than Grots to the assault table.

Conversely dire avengers have an 18" gun, so they can shoot things in the 12" to 18" range band. Enemy units would need a decent charge roll to reach assault in that band, and then the 5 dire avengers will score as many overwatch shots as the 10 defenders due to 5+ overwatch and will at least have a model that can fight some things in assault to any effective result.

Again it seems you are the one doing a flawed analysis you need to take an avenger catapult therefore the cost is always catapult+avenger base.

Dark reapers are 5ppm because they have 31 point guns. Actually the guardians would still do better on overwatch because almost every single unit in the game has a max charge of 12 and the 1 heavy weapon outshoots the avenger shuriken catapult provided you didn't take a bright lance.

If you take a combat model avenger one model fighting back doesn't actually help you against tyranid or ork units you kill maybe 8 points for your 10 point combat weapon and don't forget you gave up shooting as you have to lose the catapult to take that weapon meaning you shoot worse than guardians. You then also proceed to fight worse because outside the Exarch you only have 1 attack so 6 guardians get the same as the 5 squad with an Exarch except you have 10 guardians for that cost.

Literally every problem you have with guardians being worse than Avengers the Avengers actually suffer to. It doesn't help you are even squished because you have less wounds transport space is no different because guardians still fit to. What does this unit actually do better and the answer is nothing.

They are very clearly overcosted look at their power level score they evidently changed the catapult to fit an starch and forgot about the avenger or they would not have such a low power level compared to points. It's actually dumb to argue this as they are the furthest away from a 1 power level to 20 point ratio that there is which is a ratio seen in every unit in every single force.

blaktoof wrote:
Dire avengers are not bad, or overcosted.

Indeed, they very clearly are. SM is 13, Necron Warrior is 12, Firewarrior is 8, 17ppm is 2pts shy of a sternguard vet, 17ppm is a loota boy w/ a 48" heavyd3 str 7, ap-1, d2 gun...

blaktoof wrote:
The basic model is 3 ppm more than a guardian. It has a better save (4+ vs 5+), a better ld (8 vs 7), can overwatch on a 5+.

ok valid, yeah, that makes sense.

blaktoof wrote:
The other big differences are: you can take dire avengers in units of 5, guardian min size is 10. Avengers get a squad leader upgrade who comes with a 4++, guardians have no squad leader upgrades. Guardians can get a heavy weapon platform.

10 guardians costs more than 5 avengers, once given wargear this changes. Let's be honest though, if you are giving the dire avengers wargear let's say 5 avengers catapults and exarch has pistol and diresword. Total cost is 89 pts. 10 guardians with starcannon platform, total cost is 94 pts.

Dire avengers and guardians fill different roles. If they didn't there would be no real choice between the two.

The math is incorrect:
5 DA are you not going to put into CC, you'd be purchasing 2x shuriken catapults: cost = 92 points vs. 10 guardians + starcannon platform (your example) is 115

DA and Guardians largely fill the same role, that is why they are both in the troops section of the codex.

blaktoof wrote:
Dire avengers are a smaller unit, but carry an exarch which can give the unit an ++ save and do some assault damage. Your not wiping out an 30 man unit of Ork boyz, but you could put some wounds reliably on something with them in assault unlike guardians. Charging and striking first with the exarch against an ongoing melee could change the outcome with dire avengers, guardians are not doing that.

I think you are being disingenuous here, if you want to say the DA's have an invulnerable save, you need to buy it, which is a shimmershield, which costs 20 points + and a power glaive (4pts), you can't have a shimmersheild and a diresword, it's not an option.

blaktoof wrote:
Being a smaller unit you can do interesting things with them in transports which guardians cannot do. For example a wave serpent with 5 banshees and 5 dire avengers in it.

Yes, this is a neat trick, although why not go 6 and 6 =)

blaktoof wrote:
LD 8 is no joke. You need to lose 3 dire avengers in a turn before morale has a chance to affect you, guardians need to lose 2. Models slain+d6 lower than ld to pass for morale. Looking back at saves of models you are much more likely to lose 2 guardians Than 3 dire avengers.

blaktoof wrote:
And finally the aspect warrior keyword gives them access to synergy buffs that guardians don't have. Having asurmen near some squads of avengers gives the avengers a 4++ save, which is nothing to sneeze at. Guardians cannot get that.

So, craftworld elder has to pay a 180 point Asurmen tax to make the BASIC troop choice viable... cool, cool, I guess elder players are so much better, that they need to be set at a disadvantage before the game starts...

blaktoof wrote:
So while the catapult being 7 seems high, it's because the base cost of 10 per model is probably undercosted.

no freaking way, catapult at 7 is SUCH A MISTAKE, a stormbolter is freaking 2 points, a hurricane bolter is 4 points. no other way to explain it.

blaktoof wrote:
Dire avengers are not bad, or overcosted.

The basic model is 3 ppm more than a guardian. It has a better save (4+ vs 5+), a better ld (8 vs 7), can overwatch on a 5+.

The other big differences are: you can take dire avengers in units of 5, guardian min size is 10. Avengers get a squad leader upgrade who comes with a 4++, guardians have no squad leader upgrades. Guardians can get a heavy weapon platform.

10 guardians costs more than 5 avengers, once given wargear this changes. Let's be honest though, if you are giving the dire avengers wargear let's say 5 avengers catapults and exarch has pistol and diresword. Total cost is 89 pts. 10 guardians with starcannon platform, total cost is 94 pts.

Dire avengers and guardians fill different roles. If they didn't there would be no real choice between the two.

If you can't see the different uses, you haven't played 8th. Guardian defenders are denial units. They guard a weapon platform that does some damage and are a threat if anything comes within 18"- but only a shooting threat. They have almost no value in assault- and assault is very common in 8th.

Dire avengers are a smaller unit, but carry an exarch which can give the unit an ++ save and do some assault damage. Your not wiping out an 30 man unit of Ork boyz, but you could put some wounds reliably on something with them in assault unlike guardians. Charging and striking first with the exarch against an ongoing melee could change the outcome with dire avengers, guardians are not doing that.

Being a smaller unit you can do interesting things with them in transports which guardians cannot do. For example a wave serpent with 5 banshees and 5 dire avengers in it.

LD 8 is no joke. You need to lose 3 dire avengers in a turn before morale has a chance to affect you, guardians need to lose 2. Models slain+d6 lower than ld to pass for morale. Looking back at saves of models you are much more likely to lose 2 guardians Than 3 dire avengers.

And finally the aspect warrior keyword gives them access to synergy buffs that guardians don't have. Having asurmen near some squads of avengers gives the avengers a 4++ save, which is nothing to sneeze at. Guardians cannot get that.

So while the catapult being 7 seems high, it's because the base cost of 10 per model is probably undercosted.

This is kind of a weird post. I am not sure where a lot of it is coming from. I suspect you're not really taking into account the cost differences between different units.

One of the two main advantages you identify for Dire Avengers over Guardians is that they're better in CC. Presumably you're not talking about the regular Dire Avengers -- they're clearly worse than Guardian Defenders in CC. They cost more than twice as much per model and only get a slightly better save. Per point, Guardians are actually even better at Overwatching than Dire Avengers, if just barely. So it's got to be the Exarch that's making the difference in your mind, right? Unupgraded he's nice but doesn't really change anything. The unit is still a lot more fragile than the same points in Guardians would be, and now does slightly more than half as much damage in combat. He can downgrade his premium avenger catapult to a CC weapon and a pistol (saving three points!), resulting in a 5-man squad that costs just a tiny bit more than a 10-man Guardian unit. Which means that in CC he needs to be doing the work of 6 Guardians. Is he? Well, he only gets two attacks, and both models hit on a 3+, so the power glaive Exarch is only just as good as the Guardians against Marines and a bit better against Terminators (though both of these absolutely crush either the Dire Avengers or the Guardians). He's worse against worse saves and higher toughness. Certainly the Guardians are hugely superior in melee against Ork Boys and I have no idea why you'd think otherwise. Of course, if the DAs charged, the Exarch had to give up a shuriken shot to take his weapon, and if they were charged he got one fewer Overwatch attack, and obviously in general the Exarch is giving up most of his ranged firepower by taking any of his weapon options. Okay, so the pistol and power glaive was a bad idea. The diresword is somewhat better in most cases but not much. Finally, he could take a Shimmershield, which cuts down his firepower a little more and also costs what 2.5 Guardians do. For a 5-man squad this seems like a terrible buy. You're now up to 102 points for 8 shuriken shots, a melee presence less noticeable than 10 Guardians, and just 6 T3 wounds, albeit with a 5++. You could add more Dire Avengers, but of course the individual non-Exarchs are so inefficient already that this is mostly just throwing good points after bad, and the unit is going to fall farther and farther behind Guardians no matter what they're hitting or what's hitting them. You could give each Dire Avenger a 4++ and they'd still be more fragile than 2 Guardians.

The leadership angle is sort of interesting, but again you're not really accounting for how Dire Avengers cost more than twice as much as Guardians. If a unit loses 3 Guardians it expects to lose another 0.5 Guardians to morale. This is better than losing 2 Dire Avengers to shooting and not losing any to morale. Of course this is being pretty generous to the Dire Avengers, since even against something like a Bolter you expect to lose 3 DAs for every 4 Guardians. As the total casualties go up, the difference in Ld will matter less too, except in the sense that the Avengers are so much more fragile for their cost that the shooting by itself has a better chance of wiping the unit.

Asurmen's got a nice ability, no doubt. It's a little hard to work out what it's worth for a single squad, obviously, and I'm not sure it's actually a good idea to take him and a few DA units regardless. I would suggest, though, that it's pretty awful design if a unit is doomed to be absolutely terrible unless you take a whole bunch of them and a specific HQ and then all go around together. Like, if that was the issue then they should have just given Asurmen a different ability and made Dire Avengers halfway-decent on their own.

And then they can share a transport with another small Aspect squad. If they were actually good for anything I doubt anyone would bother bringing up something like this.

Really the sole advantage of Dire Avengers that's worth talking about is the 18" range. But to get this they have to accept half the firepower and half the durability of Guardians. In no way are they worth what the index is asking.

7 points seems like the intended cost for giving the catapult to a Autarch.

17 ppm for a Dire Avenger doesn't seem quite right.

Just to clarify all of your vacuum examples include not actually playing with the models In a game and assume the guardians are always in 12" to fire and somehow aren't going to charged.

blaktoof wrote:
Just to clarify all of your vacuum examples include not actually playing with the models In a game and assume the guardians are always in 12" to fire and somehow aren't going to charged.

I genuinely have no idea what this is in response to.

blaktoof wrote:
Just to clarify all of your vacuum examples include not actually playing with the models In a game and assume the guardians are always in 12" to fire and somehow aren't going to charged.

Just to clarify this still ignores the fact a 2 wound, T4 model is only 3 points more and has a 30" AP-1 rapid fire gun.

How do we make Dire Avengers viable?

Proxy them as guardians...! (only slightly kidding)

pointless818 wrote:

Proxy them as guardians...! (only slightly kidding)

That's what I'll be doing. Mostly since my Guardians are only in squads of 9 men. I come from a day when 5 was the minimum squad size.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

pointless818 wrote:

Proxy them as guardians...! (only slightly kidding)

That's what I'll be doing. Mostly since my Guardians are only in squads of 9 men. I come from a day when 5 was the minimum squad size.

nobody knows what the heck eldar models are anyway for the most part where I am so if i need more than 120 guardians i shall spread out the dire avengers. 17ppm a dire avenger is just plain not worth more than a tac marine, arguably close but not stronger. 13ppm maybe i think they are worth about 12 , but 17ppm insane is pants on head cazy

Also, 1 Dire Avenger = 2 Sisters of Battle.

Just sayin'...

Avenger Catapults being 7 points in and of itself seems wrong.

Sisters pay 4 points for a Stormbolter. Assault is nice, as is the -3 AP on a 6 to wound. I don't think it's nearly double the price -6" range and half the shots at 12" range nice.

They should clearly be 3-4 points - whether on the Avengers or the Autarch.

Given the evidence of the Power Level not matching the points cost unlike almost every other example in the book and it seems clear a mistake was made somewhere. I just hope they fix it soon rather than waiting for a codex to fix it.

So wait. With no games played, you're all willing to say that playtesters with 100s of games under their belt that think DA are the best aspect warrior and that they are simply "crazy good"... are wrong.

But you've not played any games
And don't have top competitive play chops

I'll pass and defer to them. We'll look back at this in a couple months and chuckle.

 Lobukia wrote:
So wait. With no games played, you're all willing to say that playtesters with 100s of games under their belt that think DA are the best aspect warrior and that they are simply "crazy good"... are wrong.

But you've not played any games
And don't have top competitive play chops

I'll pass and defer to them. We'll look back at this in a couple months and chuckle.

...Wait, start over. One point of armour, one point of Leadership, 6" of range, and the ability to hit on 5+ in Overwatch makes a Dire Avenger worth two Guardians because...why, exactly?

"Trust the playtesters" has limits. They can tell me a whole lot of things and I'll take their word for it, but "17pt Dire Avengers is a fair cost" is really not one of them.

 Lobukia wrote:
So wait. With no games played, you're all willing to say that playtesters with 100s of games under their belt that think DA are the best aspect warrior and that they are simply "crazy good"... are wrong.

But you've not played any games
And don't have top competitive play chops

I'll pass and defer to them. We'll look back at this in a couple months and chuckle.

You mean the same playtesters that said they made Eldar bad on purpose and rate it as the worst army in 8th? Because those are the same people in the same paragraph.

You guys are definitely underselling Avengers but down to 15 or 14 points is perfectly fair.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:
So wait. With no games played, you're all willing to say that playtesters with 100s of games under their belt that think DA are the best aspect warrior and that they are simply "crazy good"... are wrong.

But you've not played any games
And don't have top competitive play chops

I'll pass and defer to them. We'll look back at this in a couple months and chuckle.

You mean the same playtesters that said they made Eldar bad on purpose and rate it as the worst army in 8th? Because those are the same people in the same paragraph.

...That explains a lot. Though I don't think they succeeded, pure GK or pure Deathwatch (played on PL, they're a lot better played on points) are worse in my experience.

8 point Gardians are pretty bad - 17 point dire avengers...man...that is hideously bad. I'm just going to throw 12 man gardians in a serpant and use them to wipe out other infantry (they do okay at this).

Realistically I thought Eldar were terrible after first looking at their units but there are some gems in there. Star Cannons are freaking fantastic in this edition. As are EML. Night spinners are great and so is the hemlock wraith fighter. You can basically do well by avoiding everything that used to be good and looking at everything else as your go too options. Don't forget you can still go Ynnari and use strength from death to annihilate everything in your path (it's your best method to keep from being alpha striked off the face of the board too.

Heck - rangers might actually be the best troop choice now. (they aren't my style though)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You guys are definitely underselling Avengers but down to 15 or 14 points is perfectly fair.

11-12 points would be fair. 17 is pure madness.

Wraithlords, Wraithblades, Dark Reapers...there are definitely some winners out of the Eldar book, but unfortunately none of them live in Troops, so we may have to wait for the Craftworld-specific use-the-cool-units-in-Troops detachments to appear.

Put into perspective, a Harlequin Player with a regular weapon is one point cheaper and puts out 4 attacks and a shuriken pistol shot with a built-in 4++.

Dire Avengers are seriously over-costed for what you get.

Just a friendly reminder Power levels as stated by GW is to quickly and crudely tally points for children, people unfamiliar with wargaming, or those brand new to the game. Do not, I repeat DO NOT compare points and power levels directly.

If you are curious about their nature and inclusion, check out the behind the scenes interview with two of the rules writer and how they came up with power levels on the 40k community page.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:
So wait. With no games played, you're all willing to say that playtesters with 100s of games under their belt that think DA are the best aspect warrior and that they are simply "crazy good"... are wrong.

But you've not played any games
And don't have top competitive play chops

I'll pass and defer to them. We'll look back at this in a couple months and chuckle.

You mean the same playtesters that said they made Eldar bad on purpose and rate it as the worst army in 8th? Because those are the same people in the same paragraph.

Do have a citation for this? The "made Eldar bad on purpose" thing, I've heard them rating Dark Eldar fairly high up but I'm unsure how much I trust ITC people because they have a vested interest in keeping broken and abuseable rules in the game.

Wayniac wrote:

Do have a citation for this? The "made Eldar bad on purpose" thing, I've heard them rating Dark Eldar fairly high up but I'm unsure how much I trust ITC people because they have a vested interest in keeping broken and abuseable rules in the game.

Yes, read the summary of their comments in the main News and Rumor posts.

 Lobukia wrote:
So wait. With no games played, you're all willing to say that playtesters with 100s of games under their belt that think DA are the best aspect warrior and that they are simply "crazy good"... are wrong.

But you've not played any games
And don't have top competitive play chops

I'll pass and defer to them. We'll look back at this in a couple months and chuckle.

If they think that 17 point DAs are any good, yes, I would happily put money on them being wrong.

But actually I suspect that that the cost of DAs was increased relatively recently -- it's just so weird and it's so out of whack with the unit's power cost. If there really was a playtester consensus that the DAs are great I would assume that it's because the avenger catapult used to be free and so DAs were 10 points per model. Edit: I mean, it's important to keep in mind when we're talking about playtesting that the whole point is to play early versions of the game so that things can be adjusted for the final version. I doubt many games were played where sizable numbers of points were spent on 17 point DAs.

 Xenomancers wrote:
8 point Gardians are pretty bad - 17 point dire avengers...man...that is hideously bad. I'm just going to throw 12 man gardians in a serpant and use them to wipe out other infantry (they do okay at this).

Realistically I thought Eldar were terrible after first looking at their units but there are some gems in there. Star Cannons are freaking fantastic in this edition. As are EML. Night spinners are great and so is the hemlock wraith fighter. You can basically do well by avoiding everything that used to be good and looking at everything else as your go too options. Don't forget you can still go Ynnari and use strength from death to annihilate everything in your path (it's your best method to keep from being alpha striked off the face of the board too.

Heck - rangers might actually be the best troop choice now. (they aren't my style though)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You guys are definitely underselling Avengers but down to 15 or 14 points is perfectly fair.

11-12 points would be fair. 17 is pure madness.

They are worth more than tac marines, I think. 11-12 is right out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Lobukia wrote:
So wait. With no games played, you're all willing to say that playtesters with 100s of games under their belt that think DA are the best aspect warrior and that they are simply "crazy good"... are wrong.

But you've not played any games
And don't have top competitive play chops

I'll pass and defer to them. We'll look back at this in a couple months and chuckle.

You mean the same playtesters that said they made Eldar bad on purpose and rate it as the worst army in 8th? Because those are the same people in the same paragraph.

If that's true, it was truly their time. They'll probably get "fixed" in their codex, by which I mean become complete cheese again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, shuricannon bikes still seem too cheap. So time to spam those, I guess.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
Wraithlords, Wraithblades, Dark Reapers...there are definitely some winners out of the Eldar book, but unfortunately none of them live in Troops, so we may have to wait for the Craftworld-specific use-the-cool-units-in-Troops detachments to appear.

Pretty sure that mechanic has gone the way of the Dodo. If you want an Elite-heavy or Heavy-heavy(?), just use the appropriate Detachment. A Vanguard Detachment will work well for a Wraithhost with plenty of Wraithguard let by a Spiritseer, a Wraithlord or 2 and a sprinkling of living units if you wish. Add a superheavy Auxilliary for your Wraithknight and the job is done.

You don't get the formation bonuses like in 7th but then neither does anyone else and Wraith armies are still pretty tough (even if Wraithknights and Lords can be nibbled to death by bolters :( ).

 Lobukia wrote:
So wait. With no games played, you're all willing to say that playtesters with 100s of games under their belt that think DA are the best aspect warrior and that they are simply "crazy good"... are wrong.

But you've not played any games
And don't have top competitive play chops

I'll pass and defer to them. We'll look back at this in a couple months and chuckle.

So just out of curiosity, which part of using them in power level games makes them suddenly worth less? Those playtesters, designers and professionals set their per level as lower than Howling Banshees, but their point cost was higher?

Every edition of every game that had ever been had professionals doing hours of playtesting. There has yet to be a single game I have ever seen where everything is balanced.

Are you willing to stand by your claim that no mistake had been made? Honestly, I don't even think this is a balance/playtesting mistake. Dire Avenger rules are great, their power level number is reasonable and comparable to their peers. If their point cost was 12 ppm and the same 20 pts per power level everything else seems to have as a base cost? They would be perfect. I think that by far the most likely thing was a single typo in the point cost section for Avenger Catapults. A 7 was put there instead of a 2. A simple typo is by far the best explanation. A storm bolter is significantly better than a catapult for almost half the cost.

I think your right here for Dire Avengers. If the Avenger Catapult was 2 points (or even 4 Points), 5 Dire Avengers would be 50 (60) points plus average loadout cost of the Exarch. That will be about 10 points, so 60 (70) Points for 5 Dire Avengers. Power Level 3 as listed.

Guardians Defenders are a harder one to figure out at 80 Points for 10 plus the Weapon Platform that is worth at least 12 points. Still, if they assume no Weapon Platform as an option for 'averaging' options cost, it might just squeeze in at 90 or less points for Power Level 4.