Tuesday 16 March 2010

[Eldar] Under-rated Units: Eldar Guardians

Angryman here!! I wanted to start a series of posts regarding under-rated or hardly used units. I want to start with the lowly Eldar guardians.

A lot of people use these guys as cheap troop choices and now 5th ed is here, cheap objective grabbers. Its true that they are very good at this role and being the cheapest troop choice the Eldar have it makes sense to use them in this role BUT they can be used so much more effectively whilst still being cheap troops and objective grabbers.
First off they can have a warlock assigned to them,
who can take several powers to bolster the guardians, couple this with a Wraithlord (who wont have to test for wraithsight as you will keep him close to the warlock)
and you have a scoring unit with psychic abilities backed up by a monstrous creature.

Next you have the mighy guardian heavy weapon platform (which is free, only the weapon choice costs points)

and you have a scoring unit with psychic abilities, backup up by a monstrous creature and a platform that allows heavy weapons (you can choose from a variety of very effective weapons) to move and shoot. Not bad for your basic guardian.
Eldar guardians can also be turned into storm guardians.
This makes them a close combat unit rather than a shooting unit. They take pistols and close combat weapons but loose the heavy weapon platform. All is not lost as they can still take the warlock (who has powers to help them in combat) and if you take a wraithlord (keeping him close to the warlock) it can be geared up for close combat. Now you have a guardian unit that can storm enemy objectives and bases backed up by the warlock and a hard hitting monstrous creature.
Keeping an Avatar close by also make Eldar guardians fearless (so no pinning or morale tests)
The guardians have access to one of the best transports in the 40K universe, the Wave Serpant

Its a fast moving vehicle with access to upgrades to make it move survivable and a varity of twin link weapons to either support your troops or hunt enemy armour.
Thats it. I hope I've imparted my small knowledge of the humble guardian and inspired people to take them or at least comment on the article.

1 comment:

  1. I much agree, usually I run a unit of cheap Guardians with a scatter laser using the High rate of fire to counter their rubbish Balistic skill and my terrible rolling. Also in that unit I have a warlock with embolden, 5pts to re-roll my leadership tests, yes please, and next to them a Wraithlord with a missile launcher and brightlance.

    I also have my favourite unit, 11 Storm Guardiens armed with 2 flamers and a warlock with Enhance (+1WS and +1I) in a Waveserpent armed with Twinlinked Shuriken cannon because it was cheap, and that runs around keeping my 100pt combat wraithlord moving, and he helps protect the fragile Eldar troops.

    my cheap scoring units are two units of 5 Ranger Pathfinders with a 2+ cover save, they dont move easily unless the enemy get close.

    ReplyDelete