Guardian

The chewtoys of Black Library writers. If they get any worse they will be reaching grot levels of pathetic (or Star Wars canon Stormtroopers).

Guardians aka Guardian Defenders are your basic Eldar boots on the ground. Every Eldar is given some military training and drill so that a militia can be formed if necessary to defend their craftworld. Guardians are those who are not currently walking the Path of the Warrior, but instead do something like baking or artistic flower arrangement. When the need arises, these civilians are called upon to serve as infantry as well as vehicle and starship crews.

On the tabletop, Guardians are often considered to be the equivalent of disposable dogfood in a race that is clearly meant to be on the contrary. In truth, Guardians possess fairly respectable equipment in the form of the Shuriken Catapult and Mesh Armour, both of which have been significantly buffed in 9E. Frequently they are also armed with plasma grenades for extra explosive punch or haywire grenades to shut down tanks.

One might ask why Guardians even exist in the board game, considering that the Eldar race has been dying out for more than 10,000 years. The oft-repeated saying that "one Eldar life is worth more than a hundred thousand human lives" is seemingly contradicted by the fact that the lives of these ordinary Eldar citizens can so easily be thrown away. Of course, the lore makes it abundantly clear that on nearly every occasion that the Eldar go to war, it's all hands on deck for them. This is not a choice. With Aspect Warriors being so few in number, the Guardians represent the only real way for Craftworlds to field proper armies. And yet, as casualties inevitably occur, the number of available citizens goes ever downward. Due to the very slow rate of Eldar reproduction, these numbers almost never have time to fully replenish themselves. Thus, year by year, the Craftworld finds itself even *more* dependent on its diminishing number of Guardians in future conflicts. This is a cause-and-effect death spiral that the Eldar are all too aware of.

Black Guardians

Black Guardians of Ulthwé. They are a standing force and not a militia when compared to Guardians from other Craftworlds.

Black Guardians are special chaps in that they act more like a reserve military force rather then a civilian militia or national defense force. Exclusive to Craftworld Ulthwé, these guys are the Elfdar equivalent of the Imperial Guardsmen Infantry Squad in the same way that normal Guardians are the equivalent of the local Planetary Defence Force. Because the Path of the Seer is the longest and most dangerous Eldar Path, and because Ulthwé relies especially on its Seers, this leaves little time for its denizens to tread the Warrior Path.

They are more highly trained compared to standard Guardians, as previously mentioned, but are arranged in a similar manner, consisting of both Defender and Storm units as well as crewing heavy weapons and light vehicles. They are called Black Guardians cos their armor is painted black (Gee! Who would have thought!?). Although official fluff material states that it is to symbolize the Eldar color of mourning, for the frequent attacks it has suffered passing close to the Eye of Terror (even though the Eldar colour of mourning is white). We in /tg/ state otherwise... in that it is just GeeDubs trying to make the Elfdar look super edgy and goth. Tactically, they make heavy use of the Webway which allows them to appear anywhere on the battlefield, seemingly emerging from nowhere.

Black Guardians sometimes offer their services to other Eldar races, most predominantly the Harlequins, in exchange for guarantees of future support.

Role on the battlefield

When not dying in droves. They can look pretty fuckin' badass.

For the most part Eldar Guardians only take to the field in the most dire of events when the Aspect warriors just aren't enough to win the day. The Craftworlds would rather not put the civilians they are supposed to protect into harm's way, which means that Guardians generally function in support roles on the battlefield.

Most Guardians have never walked the Path of the Warrior and so have not developed their own War Mask. Therefore before they enter battle they will gather together for a seer to cast a temporary Mask over the group to protect them from the horrors they are about to experience. At first glance it might seem rather strange that Eldar are so sensitive to violence, but keep in mind that Eldar are more sensitive to ALL emotions and experiences than humans are, so naturally the shock (or thrill) of a battlefield in the 41st millennium is quite enough to mandate the additional aid.

Guardians will often be led by a Warlock who will try their best to keep as many of them alive as possible.

In their role as a support force they are also in charge of the Eldar Support Batteries, War Walkers, Windriders and piloting the many Eldar vehicles of war.

When taken as a whole this civilian fighting force can enter battle with the very best their enemies can muster and still have a decent chance of coming out victorious (unless they feature in a black library book, in which case be prepared to watch them charging head first into terminators, and getting mowed down in their thousands).

Despite the jokes, Guardians don't go to war wearing a wet paper bag. Guardians wear the most basic armour available to the Eldar, which consists of a thin skin tight body-glove that acts like a second skin- if Gav's descriptions are accurate then it will spread itself over the users body, like the Venom suit, growing and shaping itself to the wearer; think of it like a combination of the Spider-Man suit and the armour used by the power rangers. This mesh suit not only supply's a surprising good amount of protection but also absorbs and spreads out the energies of any hit, greatly reducing the power of any blow. It is just as effective at dispersing the kinetic energy from a physical blow as it is from any type of energy blast- think of how Black Panthers armour works in the movie (small to medium modern fire arms are going to be very ineffective against this layer of protection).

The "Mesh" armour is then reinforced by more solid plates that when placed into position will grow and reshape themselves to fit the body of the wearer. These plates move- twisting and bending along with the movements of the wearer, almost like they are an extension of their own body. Upon getting hit they will instantly harden, becoming incredibly hard and resilient to damage (with the layer below dispersing the energy of the blow), before once again turning back to their former state (the solid armour plates on heavy Aspect armour are only around maybe 10-15 millimetres thick, and offer the same level of protection as the inches thick armour slabs used by the Space Marines).

Not only does this armour provide a high level of protection against damage without impeding the users movements, but it also allows the user to operate just as well in the dark depth of the ocean, as they would in the cold void of space; modern armies can only dream that they could get access to such armour.

Battlehost

Due to the violent galaxy in which they find themselves and the limited population available to each Craftworld, Eldar fighting numbers upon the battlefield are acutely very small. Indeed, an Aspect Host of Warriors may number only around thirty warriors in total. This is usually enough to ensure superiority in small, tactical engagements, but it is insufficient for larger conflicts. An Eldar Warhost may therefore contain many Aspect Hosts working together in concert, however even then such numbers may be insufficient for planetary-scale warfare. It is in these times that the Battlehosts of Eldar civilian soldiers are called upon to take up arms.

Upon the battlefield a Battlehost normally numbers up to 90 Guardians separated into nine squads. The First six can be deployed on Jetbikes or Wave Serpents, or be combined into larger twenty guardian squads. The other three are normally responsible for operating the Grav-tanks, War walkers, Vypers and artillery batteries. Battlehosts can be made up entirely of Jetbikes, War walkers, Grav-tanks, Vypers or artillery batteries when needed.

Compared to the seemingly endless waves of Orks and Tyranids or even the teeming millions of easily replicable Imperial Guardsmen, these numbers seem almost pathetically small, but even so, the Battlehosts of the Craftworlds continue prove themselves against the very worst the galaxy can throw at them, and still emerge victorious regardless.

On the Tabletop

It took us TWENTY-THREE FUCKING YEARS for GW to get us new guardian sculpts!

And THIS is what we had to put up with until then!

Like most Eldar on the tabletop, Guardians are fast but fragile, being only slightly more durable than a Guardsman. And unlike most Eldar units, they don't have a specialized role— this can be a problem in an army that is all about specialization.

The usual armament for a Guardian Defender is a Shuriken Catapult. It is assault 2, has bolter strength and AP -1, and possesses a neat ability called Bladestorm that is basically a weaker version of Rending (AP -3 on a 6). As of the 9th Edition Codex, shurikats have *finally* upped their range to 18" after being saddled with a ghastly 12" range ever since 3rd Edition; so about fucking time. To round out their equipment Guardians also have Plasma Grenades (STR 4, AP-1, Grenade D6, Blast) and wear Mesh Armour for a 4+ save (prior to the 9th edition Codex, the save was merely 5+).

Historically, if you are an Eldar player who needs a unit to hang back and defend an objective, a squad of Guardians has probably been your go-to choice. Ideally your Guardians should still be used in a mobile fashion (after all, being a defensive threat is not the same thing as being a potato), because when used to close a gap in the line or to contest an objective Guardians can do a pretty decent job of warding enemies off with the threat of very killy dakka if they get too close. Of course, the Eldar also have access to very fast, tough jetbikes that can have even more firepower than Guardians for only a marginal increase in cost (why aren't you using them instead?), or Dire Avengers, a type of Aspect Warrior who are basically Guardians++, with heavier armor, a gun with 50% more range, and access to an Exarch with neat powers and a sword that can insta-gib pesky champions or leader units in melee. Even so, between Psyker support and Guardian-centered stratagems, in 8th/9th edition they can be buffed to be surprisingly durable, with a 4+ Invulnerable save from Celestial Shield that Warlocks can boost to a 3+, and a 5/6++ Feel No Pain, if Farseers are also involved or if part of an Ulthwe army.

However, 9th edition brought in some core gameplay changes that Guardian Defenders didn't take too kindly to. First, the increase to 10 points each is nothing less than a slap in the face to Eldar players. However, the thing that kills them are the changes to unit cohesion and the addition of blast weapons. With unit sizes of 6 or more requiring each model to be within 2" of two other models in their unit, conga-lining Guardians to bubblewrap your backline or characters is a thing of the past. Poorly positioning your guardians can result in a chain reaction of models being lost from cohesion checks even if only a single guardian actually died earlier in the round. Blast Weapons are also extremely effective against even an MSU guardian squad, since they'll always generate a minimum of 3 shots on any squad with 6 or more models. If players (foolishly) decide to take the heavy weapon platform and put the number of models in the squad up to 11, then all blast weapons always generate the highest possible number of shots they'd be capable of (a 2d6 Blast weapon will automatically generate 12 shots). With the pitiful toughness and armor saves guardians have, having the entire squad get blown out of existence from just a few blast attacks is a very likely outcome. They still do have access to the potential durability afforded to them through psyker/stratagem support, but that'll only get you so far as the new edition's power creep continues continues to grow.

That being said, Guardian Defenders can still make for a surprisingly potent offensive presence in spite of their modest wargear. Utilizing stratagems, Craftworld armies can deep-strike up to two units of Guardians within 9 inches of an enemy unit. In theory, this is well within range of their Shuriken Catapults (in practice, it might be tricky to ensure that all those models are deploying within shooting distance). However, if you can pull this off with two maximum sized blocks of Guardians, that makes for a grand total of 80 shuriken shots coming out of practically nowhere. Even if those shots are only S4 with conditional AP, most standard units of infantry and even some lighter vehicles won't be able to shrug off that much dakka. With 8th and 9th Editions also conferring split fire, you're free to divide up all 80 of those shots among a selection of targets and avoid overkilling the bejesus out of just one unit.

If you are really, really intent on buffing Shuriken weapons, Phoenix Rising did offer several custom Craftworld attributes near the end of 8th Edition that can achieve this. Of these, Superior Shurikens (add 4" to the range of any Shuriken weapon) and Masterful Shots (a target hit by Shuriken weapons does not receive a save bonus for being in cover) are probably the best options. Many of these custom Craftworld attributes have carried over to the 9th Edition Craftworld codex.

As previously mentioned, for every 10 guardians you can take a Heavy Weapon Platform for additional firepower:

• Shuriken Cannon: Shuriken Cannons got a bit of a buff, now dealing a flat 2 damage with a permanent AP-1 modifier at the cost of becoming a Heavy weapon. Guardians aren't as mobile as they used to be with this, but it now stands in as your general anti-infantry weapon of choice.
• Scatter Laser: The long range GEQ hunter, this cheap option does offer some utility for objective holding Guardians who expect to face larger numbers of infantry.
• Starcannon: The Starcannon has been gibbing MEQs since 3rd Edition. If that's what you need, it's hard to go wrong here.
• Bright Lance: The Bright Lance is pretty good at mucking up enemy monsters and vehicles.
• Aeldari Missile Launcher: The missile launcher is arguably the best upgrade for the lone guardian squad parked on an objective. Although expensive, its 48" range guarantees its squad is contributing at least SOME dice no matter how the fight is going.