Topic: How Many Guardians Do You Own and How Do You Use Them?

[Blazinghand]

I wonder how good a unit of 10-12 Defender Guardians would be in a Wave Serpent? They're reasonably cheap and have pretty good guns. Has anyone tried running a unit like that?

Yep. that's how I run them.

Pretty good, is how they are. I jumped them out of the serpent and advanced and shot a bunch of warriors. Did quite good work. I think I took out 5. Which was a bit above average but I got lucky with my sixes and he got unlucky with his saves. Took out another 7 with shuriken cannons scattered around my army.

There is nothing about this that is different from sixth and seventh. Dropping them out of a transport is awesome. Eldar is all about that alpha strike, they hit harder than Marines for less points.

Wave Serpents are great MBTs this edition too. Especially when you get to 5 or less wounds and just dump your serpent shield into something before you blow up.

So the Guardians just ride in a minimum-equipped Serpent, like one with three Shuriken Cannons? Seems like a good way to get a lot of shuriken fire out.

[Scorn]

Assembled Contemporary Models
-58 Defender Guardians
-24 Storm Guardians

A handful of each in pieces that need re-assembly.

Ancient Models
-About 20 mixed 2nd Ed or older style guardians with inferno pistols, catapults, lasblasters, fusion guns, etc.

So far this edition Guardians have been great.  Screening the Avatar with a unit of 20 Defenders with a pair of Shuriken Cannons has been very effective.  Protected by Conceal Warlock they still die too easy but it helps.

[Adrastos]

So the Guardians just ride in a minimum-equipped Serpent, like one with three Shuriken Cannons? Seems like a good way to get a lot of shuriken fire out.

That's definitely one way to do it. In my one game of 8th I held onto my old motto of "mixed value threats" so I put them in my stationary twin Bright Lance + Shuriken Cannon serpents. While my Fire Dragons rode in the tripple cannon serpent.

Remember there are no doors for tanks any more, so they can get out from that front most tip on the model. I just let the enemy get close enough and surprised them with a wave of gunfire.

You can hop out within 3", move 7", and get a minimum of 1" advance. You then shoot 12". So basically you've got a 23" threat radius. More than that is a gamble but you see my point.

I plan to continue to use them as the core of my mechdar army.

[SeekingOne]

Pretty good, is how they are. I jumped them out of the serpent and advanced and shot a bunch of warriors. Did quite good work. I think I took out 5. Which was a bit above average but I got lucky with my sixes and he got unlucky with his saves. Took out another 7 with shuriken cannons scattered around my army.

In fact, if you had 12 guardians, that's wasn't luck. 5 wounds is a dead average when firing 24 shuricat shots at T4 4+ target. If you had just 10, it was just very slightly above average (not really enough to call it "lucky").

Guardians in a Serpent actually looks like a good way to run Troops in a mech force. They are better than 4th edition Dire Avengers, because back then we got 20 shuricat shots for 120 points and now it's 24 for 96.

In fact, the most space-efficient setup would be 11 guardians + shuricannon platform, which comes at 105 pts, still fires with the equivalent of 24 shuricat shots (because one shuricannon statistically is almost exactly equal to two shuricats), and - believe it or not - this package on average is harder to kill than 10 Dire Avengers, despite 4+ save of the latter!