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Are eldar guardians a better choice now in 5th edition armies? The new fifth edition rules state you need to take out every model in a squad otherwise it scores full points. (at least that is what I was told) 20 guardians even with their limitations seem more attractive now simply because of the attrition factor.

Massive amounts of gaurdians meet my ten shot really durable and cheap predator destructor. Have a nice day!

Or my massed missle launchers for that reason as well.

I think Guardians are the same perfectly adequate selection they have always been.

4/5 times Guardians either run off the table or get cut down in sweeping advance anyway. But it makes the Avatar even more of an 'auto-include'.

I think guardians will be just as viable as they were before or possibly slightly more so. While they are fairly weak stat wise, they are cheap to go along with that so you can cram a whole lot of bodies into fairly few points (98 points gets you 10 guardians with a scatter laser if I remember correctly). And while they’ll get mowed down like wheat if you charge them forward, they tend to be fairly durable if you leave them hanging back in cover. Very few players want to dedicate their long-range troop killing power towards killing off guardians with a 4+ cover save. Heck, I sometimes move my guardians out of cover in attempts to get my opponent to waste their fire power on them (and it rarely works). The new rules that make them a scoring unit down to the very last squad member increases their usefulness of the field but their general squishiness means that its often hard to take advantage of that. The only real hit guardians took with the new rules is from the hand to hand combat moral modifiers. With the addition of a -1 per wound you lost combat by, guardians are going to break and run all the time now. Not much to be done about that, but it does mean that they make a slightly more reliable speed bump since you can more or less guarantee they won’t stick around long enough to leave the enemy still in hand to hand on the round after they get charged.

Ratbarf wrote:Massive amounts of gaurdians meet my ten shot really durable and cheap predator destructor. Have a nice day!

If only it was that simple. I see 12-16 Guardians with a Warlock who has conceal marching around the table giving 4+ cover saves to the better Eldar units behind them. I see the Predator Destructor shooting at the Guardians and if the rolls are good, the Guardians hit the deck to get a 4+ cover save in the open. I see a Farseer with Fortune making that 4+ cover save rerollable. Now I see a unit of Guardians living for a very long time.

13 Guardians + Conceal-lock is a good squad, assuming it does not run off the table. Even if it does, it should get some shots off.

I used to think the same thing until I went up against IG with Hellhounds. That really hurt...

My games with the PDF using my standard 4th edition army (Guardian heavy) are a mixed bag. Against armies specifically geared for 5th edition, my army just folded horribly. Learning that Bezerkers charging into the woods and getting the initiative was a huge blow for my Guardians.

Right now, they will continue to be played, but I really think Jetbikes will be their replacement and Falcons will get replaced by War Walker squadrons.