Hammer of Math: The Aeldari Guardian Death Star

In Hammer of Math we look at statistics and probability in Warhammer. This week, we’re looking at a monster combination unit from the upcoming Codex: Aeldari.

Something that caught the eye of James "Boon" Kelling during our review of Codex: Aeldari was the prospect of attaching multiple units to a single unit of Guardians, using the Leader rules of datasheets like the Farseer, Eldrad, weapons platform, and Warlocks to attach multiple units to a single unit of Guardian Defenders or Storm Guardians, creating a larger "mega unit" with some surprising output capabilities. This week we'll be looking at this unit, talking about what it can do, how it will play, and how to handle it.

The Unit

Let's start with what this is. Essentially this unit is built using the "add-on" rules for various units, which allow these units to either attach to the unit as a leader if Warlocks are already attached to it, or just become part of the unit entirely. The build here is:

• One Farseer or Eldrad Ulthuan
• One Warlock
• Warlock Conclave (2-4 models)
• 10 Guardian Defenders (with Bright lance heavy weapons platform)
• One D-Cannon Platform

In this case, the Conclave lacks the CHARACTER keyword, while the Warlock and Farseer add exemptions for each other as units which can co-join the guardians unit. What you're left with is a unit of 17 models, all with the INFANTRY keyword. They clock in around 450 points and come with the following abilities:

• Fleet of Foot (Guardians) - The unit can perform a Fade Back Maneouvre without spending a Battle Focus token, and can do so even if other units have done so in the same phase.
• Protect (Conclave) - While a Farseer is leading the unit, incoming attacks get -1 to wound.
• Psychic Communion (Warlock and Conclave) - When this unit shoots, its Destructor attacks will get +1 Attacks and Strength for each other friendly Psyker within 6" of the model, to a max of +2. There will be at least 4 psykers in the unit and as many as 6, so these will usually be going off at D6+2 attacks and S7.
• Runes of Fortune (Warlock) - Enemy units charging the unit get -2 to their charge rolls.

And the final abilities depend on which Farseer you take:

• Doom (Eldrad) - At the end of your Movement phase you can pick a visible target to Eldrad within 18" to get +1 to wound rolls against for your army.
• Branching Fates (Farseer) - You can change the result of one hit, wound, or damage roll per phase for a non-Support Weapon model to an unmodified 6. So you can't use it on the D-Cannon, but you'll be able to use it on the Bright Lance.
• Guide (Farseer) - At the end of your Movement phase you can pick a visible target to the Farseer within 18" to get +1 to hit rolls against for your army.

Additionally Eldrad will give you +1 CP, and the Warlock Conclave give you four non-Character, 2-wound bodies to tank incoming shots with using a 4+ invulnerable save. The Warlocks also provide a nasty punch: their Psychic Torrent Destructor weapons are solid, and in total the unit will have 5D6+10 S7 AP-1 Psychic Torrent shots to throw out at 12" when shooting or when firing Overwatch, making them a nasty threat to go after, even if you do pass the roll with the -2. Those 5D6+10 shots will put out an average of 27.5 hits, and against marine targets you can expect that to convert into about 9 damage.

On that note, it's worth pointing out that -2 is a pretty hefty drop - going from a 7+ on your charge to a 9+ takes you from 58% odds to 28%. And going from 9+ to 11+ if you're trying to come in from deep strike will take you down even further, to 8%.

Aeldari Guardians (photo courtesy of Musterkrux)

On top of those 5D6 torrent shots you'll also get your two big guns, giving you:

• One S12, AP-3, D6+2 damage shot from the bright lance - to which you can apply your unmodified 6 to hit/wound/damage
• D3 S16, AP-4, D6+2 damage shots from the D-Cannon. This re-rolls 1s for damage normally, giving it an expected output of 6 damage per shot, and re-rolls all damage against TITANIC targets, which brings the expected output up to 6.25 damage (assuming re-rolls of 1-3).
• 5 shots from Singing Spears - 1 shot at S9 AP0, 3 damage.
• 20 shuriken catapult shots at S4 AP-1, 1 damage
• Farseer: Eldritch Storm gives you D6 shots at S6, AP-2, D3 damage, and can give you a sixth singing spear shot.
• Eldrad: Mind War gives you 1 shot at S5 AP-2, D6 damage.

Of course, just as valuable as what the unit does is what it can do with the support of a Detachment, and that's where you can get a ton of value running this monster in either the Guardian Battlehost or Seer Council Detachments - both of these have quite a bit to offer, though our competitive crew tend to lean more toward the Seer Council at the moment for the free Stratagems. Being able to give enemy units -1 to hit and wound in melee, pick the unit up and deep strike them back onto the table, or give them ignores cover and +1 AP on critical wounds in shooting. Most importantly, this includes Psychic Shield, which allows you to make your unit untargetable with shooting attacks from more than 18" away, helping solve one of this unit's key problems - durability.

While the unit costs around 450 points, its durability is a key flaw: It's made of 17 models, sporting a total of 31 wounds at 3 toughness - and you're going to lose output with every lost wound. This makes the unit very vulnerable to indirect fire from Astra Militarum mortars, and in turn makes having Psychic Shield that much more valuable. This ensures that the Eldar player can protect the unit until it's time to strike, then hit with a big blast of torrent and catapult output. Then when they start taking damage, tank it with Warlocks and Guardians before taking a free fade back move.

On the other hand, if they go with Guardian Battlehost, they'll get +1 to hit against targets on objectives, be able to give incoming shooting attacks -1 to wound, drop back into reserves and return with all their dead Guardians restored, and re-roll wound markers against a target on an objective. And regardless of your Detachment, you can use Crystalline Targeting from your War Walkers to improve the AP on your death star if it targets a unit the War Walker shot.

Iyanna Arienal - Credit: RichyP

So how do you combat this? Well it's important to remember the most important statistic with any unit like this: The number of activations. No matter how many shots or models it has, it still only activates once in the Shooting phase, meaning you can blunt its effectiveness with transports, forcing the Eldar player to use a unit of Fire Dragons or another heavy weapon to pop your transport before they can shoot. And while 18" lone operative is a neat trick, it's a pretty generous distance - one you can slip inside without being hit by Overwatch. As a unit, it's pretty gross, but it's far from invincible and there are steps you can take to mitigate the damage it'll do in an alpha strike before you clap back.

The final thing to consider is that Eldar players don't have to run this just because they have the units - many of the attachments occur before the battle, so a savvy player can just choose not to group up into the death star formation if they need. This gives the tactic some surprising flexibility if players don't feel the need to roll with a (relatively fragile) 450-point death star unit.

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