AoS Skyre acolytes

I want to build a skryre army using mostly acolytes and weapon teams as I find these slightly hilarious. However I'm wondering how are we suppose to use these.

My main concern is, how the hell are we supposed to keep them protected from ranged attacks? They're cheap enough that a bunch of them dying isn't terrible, but with a 6+ save and a bravery of 4 they'l get devestated by pretty much anything. Add in their rather limited range and they'l lose most firefights, despite having surprisingly effective weaponry for their cost. They're a fairly significant threat but they're just so damn easy to kill that I'd expect my opponent to basicly shoot one or two volleys at em and have them wiped out.

So how exactly are you supposed to field them provided your enemy has any sort or ranged firepower aimed at them? Pray to god there's enough stuff to hide behind? Always have them tunnel?

On a sidenote; why the hell are these things so damn expensive and sold seperatly?

 

Can't agree more, talk about overpriced models

 

Thats because they are one of the "old" armies and especially the acolytes are still made out of metal, give it a few months and GW maybe will release them in plastic too

 

That still doesn't make much sense. Did the acolytes used to be "hero"-type units or something? Usually metal is reserved for those. Plus why aren't they sold as a full unit? It's just weird..

Also a few months? 'They've been this way for the entirety of AoS I think

 

Yeah many of the old armies are still not "converted" to AoS

They where an "elite" unit back then if i remember it correctly plus a few years ago, metal was the only way (besides resin) to produce some nice details, some armies only had metal miniatures

 

meh, peculiar that they went from elite to a mostly fodder unit.

 

Elite didn't always mean that the Unit is powerful, sometimes they just where a Bit less common or even rare lore wise

And rulewise you where Limited to a certain number of Elite units you Could take

 

Well I wouldn't expect all elites to be necesarly powerfull, having exceptional utility or some sort of buff could work as well. Which doesn't really work with the current acolytes. They have a decent-ish ranged attack, but nothing to warrant "elite" status. Just doing it on the fluff that they're rare seems weird...