Starting eldar

Yarbon · Post by **Yarbon** » Tue May 03, 2005 10:43 pm

Starting eldar. Need help, ill be getting both of the codexes, 5 jetbikes, 16 or so gaurdians, and a viper.

Post by **Loki** » Wed May 04, 2005 1:39 am

Read the codices and decide what kind of army you want to play. Vanilla or a specific Craftworld? These things will help us to better help you with forming your army.

Yarbon · Post by **Yarbon** » Wed May 04, 2005 2:43 am

Right now i am thinking of an ulwthe army, because they look cool, but how are they different that the norm list?

Evilzealot · Post by **Evilzealot** » Wed May 04, 2005 2:56 am

Basically you get a Seer council (which is a strong unit of farseers and warlocks) at a very nice price, and two of your Guardian squads become stronger. There is no real downside, but the seer council is generally over 300 points, so you may want to play normal eldar until you amass 1000 points or so.

Pmpn8ez · Post by **Pmpn8ez** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:52 am

Ulthwe is tied heavily to its guardians because it maintains a professional army of them, as opposed to normal craftworlds whose guardians are just Eldar who have decided to tread the path of the warrior. They have better BS or WS (depending on which kind you get), but the problem is that at this moment in time, Guardians are a very weak choice.

This is not because they got weaker, but their enemies got stronger. When the new edition came out, rapid fire weapons could now move and fire with 2 shots. Since the major advantage of shuricats was the ability to do this before, they have become somewhat dated (though being assault, they can still charge in the same turn they fire). It may be somewhat difficult to play with this handicap, though the Seer Council is widely considered one of the most resilient units in the game with re-rollable 4+ invulnerable saves (given the right powers for a re-roll).

You may also want to look into the USF (Ulthwe Strike Force) list that came with the EoT campaign. It is considered extremely powerful for the sole reason that the webway gate is quite a shock to any enemy army when more than half an army pops up 12" away to fire a massive amount of firepower AND charge with wraithlords and avatars as soon as they arrive.

Ansob. · Post by **Ansob.** » Wed May 04, 2005 8:21 am

Normal guardians are civvies, though, not Path of the Warrior.
And just a quick note (not the time to expand, need to take a train) - the point of shuricat black guardians is that no one can actually have twenty Assault2 bolters. Really. Try it out. It mauls anything.

Blinkpunk · Post by **Blinkpunk** » Wed May 04, 2005 8:35 am

actually most guardians are ex aspect warriors, so why they have such crap WS and BS is beyond me.

ulthwe is good, but they're a little common, try a saim hann army... looks really nice and is different to most other armies now due to the assault from transports rule, and can be themed really easily.

and if you're into power gaming it can also be seriously tooled.

but if you do take ulthwe as said it's probably best to stick with vanilla till you get to at least a thousand points.

ulthwe can be an extremely powerful army with no real limitations as to what it can take from the mother codex, the only problem is the slightly out of date eldar rules.

Hali · Post by **Hali** » Wed May 04, 2005 9:35 am

Umm, Aren't gaurdians more the citizen levy of the Eldar, the aspect warriors spend their time specializing to become what they are. I think with Ulthwe they are simply always in commision so the gaurdians are considered an aspect rather than a recruitment.

http://uk.games-workshop.com/eldar/alai ... kground/1/

this is a pretty good coverage of the different craftworlds, give that a bit more a look into if you're going to choose an eldar craftworld army.

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Wed May 04, 2005 3:49 pm

Not exactly, Eldar society is actaually really complex. Black Guardians are actually a permanant military body something like an imperial guard regiment whereas regular guardians are more like PDF milita.

I might consider waiting until the new codex comes out before starting an army, there's going to be radical changes to the list.

Ansob. · Post by **Ansob.** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:06 pm

Arquinsiel wrote:I might consider waiting until the new codex comes out before starting an army, there's going to be radical changes to the list.

Sure, but guardians, Vypers, jetbikes and great prophets aren't going to be going anywhere (apart perhaps from having a resculpt)...

Loran · Post by **Loran** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:07 pm

Yep, more than likely there will be changes to the army lists in the codexes...

But as my brother plays Eldar (and well

). Despite the fact that many codexes have more powerful units than the old Eldar codex, it is actually possible (and sometimes easy) to win with them. It really depends on the dice gods and the way the game goes and human mistakes, who wins...

Anyway, for an Ulthwe army, a Seer Council is a good option for a HQ choice. But it really depends on your gaming style and preferences what you should get...

- Loran

Post by **Rork** » Wed May 04, 2005 4:25 pm

pmpn8ez wrote:Guardians are a very weak choice.

No, they aren't. Guardians are the same as they were - other units have improved, but still aren't up to catapult standards.

As a regular user of Ulthwé with two units of black guardians, let me break down my use of them:

Make them survivable. It's easy to make Eldar guardians ridiculously difficult to kill for most armies (especially the shooty ones). The basic starting point is a warlock with conceal - you go from no save against most weapons to a save against everything that isn't a close range flamer. Using a farseers fortune on them makes them a hard unit for most units to put a dent in, and makes ordnance/template weapons not particularly effective.

Make them last. The bigger the squad, the better. At 1.5k I have two squads of 17 (including the warlock and weapons team), 15 in total at 1k and the full 23 at 2k. Big squads mean fewer morale checks, especially with conceal/fortune. The temptation for some players is to take lots of small squads for the heavy weapons, which is just below-par powergaming.

Make them important. Make sure your battleplan involves them from the beginning. You can be agressive with guardians and win, rerolling saves combined with a nearby avatar combine to snag most assault units and allow your own (usually the seer counci/avatar or wraithlord) to counter-charge.

Better to charge than be charged. Sounds nuts, doesn't it? But they do have assault weapons and a move and fire heavy weapon (Starcannon is a reasonable choice). A volley of catapult and heavy weapon followed by an assault denies your opponent the same thing (+1 attack for you!) - combined with an avatar you won't mind losing the combat either.

At a recent campaign weekend I used these two lists for 5 out of 6 games (I won all 6 games):

1k
Seer council
3 farseers, 3 fortunes, 3 Runes of witnessing, 2 helms, 1 witch blade (CCW/SP where appropriate)
3 warlocks, ccw/sp enhance, embolden, augment

2 x 12 Guardians, warlock w ccw/sp & conceal. One with starcannon, one with bright lance

2 Vypers, bright lances (separate squadrons)

2 Wraithlords, starcannons

1.5k
Essentially the same seer council. All have witch blades, 3rd ghosthelm added and runes of witnessing on the augment warlock

Avatar

Guardian squads boosted to 14.

5 Rangers

4 Rangers

(good for annoyance value and claiming quarters from early on)

2 Vypers, bright lances (separate squadrons)

2 Vypers, starcannons

2 Wraithlords, starcannons

(The other game was 400pts)

Blinkpunk · Post by **Blinkpunk** » Thu May 05, 2005 9:07 am

Hali wrote:Umm, Aren't gaurdians more the citizen levy of the Eldar, the aspect warriors spend their time specializing to become what they are. I think with Ulthwe they are simply always in commision so the gaurdians are considered an aspect rather than a recruitment.

Guardian storm squads are formed from Eldar who were once warriors from one of the close combat Aspect Shrines such as the striking scorpions

that's from the eldar codex, p12.

so the way i see it is the guardians are just retired warriors gathered up to fight when they have to.

Shastar · Post by **Shastar** » Sun May 08, 2005 8:55 pm

blinkpunk wrote:
Hali wrote:Umm, Aren't gaurdians more the citizen levy of the Eldar, the aspect warriors spend their time specializing to become what they are. I think with Ulthwe they are simply always in commision so the gaurdians are considered an aspect rather than a recruitment.

Guardian storm squads are formed from Eldar who were once warriors from one of the close combat Aspect Shrines such as the striking scorpions

that's from the eldar codex, p12.

so the way i see it is the guardians are just retired warriors gathered up to fight when they have to.

Yes, and that's reason why they have lower stats then aspect warriors...they are retired

Arquinsiel · Post by **Arquinsiel** » Sun May 08, 2005 9:10 pm

If you want to look at it that way Warlocks are just aspect warriors who happened to be psychic.

Sure, but guardians, Vypers, jetbikes and great prophets aren't going to be going anywhere (apart perhaps from having a resculpt)...

But they might not be necessary if you get my drift.

Pmpn8ez · Post by **Pmpn8ez** » Mon May 09, 2005 12:15 am

Rork wrote:
pmpn8ez wrote:Guardians are a very weak choice.

No, they aren't. Guardians are the same as they were - other units have improved, but still aren't up to catapult standards.

Yes, they are. Guardians are indeed the same as they were. The fact that all other units have improved therefore makes them weaker by comparison and thus a weaker choice. Weakening the unit itself is not the only way to make it weaker. If every basic troop unit except guardians got +1 to each of their current stats, guardians would be weak. They'd be weaker than they were. Everyone got better, but they did not. That makes them weaker. Giving everyone better guns and guardians not makes them weaker, whether they stayed the same or not. Of course, you took what I said completely out of context. The more complete quote would have been-

but the problem is that at this moment in time, Guardians are a very weak choice.

This is not because they got weaker, but their enemies got stronger.

You also provided Black Guardians in your example, which are stronger than the standard guardian type because of an improved stat. They're still comparatively weak now that the rapid fire rules have changed, but not as much so.

Evilzealot · Post by **Evilzealot** » Mon May 09, 2005 12:19 am

I have to agree that Guardians have a part to play in every army list. I use them as my standing army for taking hits and shooting until I am required to unload my Aspect warriors from their transports. With an Avatar nearby for fearless you'll notice 19 man guardian squads hanging around for a long time, long enough to hit the unit with an avater and a unit or two of banshees/scorpions. If anything it would be nice for them to have a gun with a bit more range, but its not required. I wouldnt really consider using normal guardians, but I do enjoy the Black guardians of Ulthwe!

Deathrain-commander · Post by **Deathrain-commander** » Mon May 09, 2005 1:41 pm

Well given what you say your getting I'd suggest Saim Hane (did I spell it right?) That way you can field all your Guardians in one unit and still have your compulsory units (I tend to take Guardians in 15-20 man units as so they can mob smaller units) Out of curiosity what if your HQ going to be?