AoS Skinks vs Saurus (this is a frickin long post with wound output and everything)

guards need changing regardless, they're all kinds of horrible the moment they face mortal wounds which is well, against everyone....

 

Meh, I doubt that's enough. I'd say they'd need several things. 1) protection against mortal wounds. 2) more than 1 wound/model and 3) some mechanic to make them actually stand out, "sworn guardians" is a decent start, but it still sorta leaves em at "warriors but with better stats/model". Turn sworn guardians up to 11, For example have them ignore killing blows on a 4+ while near their ward.

In exchange some of their offensive power can be lowered, especially from the eternal starhost battalion.

 

I am very curious what lists you went up against

 

Yes! And along with a look out sire mechanic, make them into Actual guards! And Saurus should be scarier for what they are, I see black Orcs and savage orks all with two wounds and decent starting melee and I get jealous....

 

Mainly Free Peoples with lots of artillery, Darkling Covens with Executioners spam, Slaves to Darkness with loads and loads of Chosen and Karadron Overlords. So not exactly super competitive lists..

 

See, I don't like running a horde though, so I tend to take an Eternal Starhost (So I can end up with a 2 up save, and stupid objective holding capability) and 3 starpriests, so I can cast mystic shield and reroll 1's, with skinks in the back as ranged support, Usually bricks of 20 for a 4/4 javelin attack, and the meta in my area is heavy competitive (lots of DoK and Lon, with a sprinkling of Sigmarines), with quite a few cheese lists, and I manage to take home a win relatively often. against DoK though, I tend to take a bit more skinks to soak the mortals, and I generally take a Bastiladon or 2. The other 2 behemoth slots are usually filled by stegadons, to splatter aelves and dust skellies alike.

 

5/5/5 Eternal Starhost ? Not a lot of mW resilience though.

 

That's why I go heavier skink with high MW opponents.

 

Because a 10/10/10 eternal is nigh on immortal

It also occurs to me, we're talking about a smaller scale battle here. I tend to play between 750 and 1500, and when we want something as small scale as 500 points we just play skirmish, or PtG

 

That seems like a lot... a 4+ MW save would easily make them one of the most resilient units in the game, assuming you're still running then in the starhost.

 

Possibly, but it is kind of what I'd go for with em. Fluff-wise they should be an unmoveable barrier so being one of the most resilient units in game would make sense. They're supposed to be able to guard an objective for milenia against overwhelming odds. So yeah, making it "a lot" would be acceptable .

Having said that, of course it still needs to ultimatly be balanced. If 5 guards can hold of half an army on their own due to how sturdy they are we'l have some other issues, even if fluff-wise it'd make sense.

 

that'd give us yet another horde unit though. We have enough of those.

What about:
while protecting 1 hero ignore wounds on a 6+
While protecting 2 heroes ignore wounds on a 5+
When starting the turn next to an objective, the objective counts as 1 hero.

This way positioning matters and it would tie in more with their identity as guards as opposed to being horde related.

 

Jesus someone needs to airdrop this conversation in leaflets over Nottingham.

 

I did fly Blackhawks in the army, and may or may not have participated in "psychological warfare missions" in Afghanistan and Iraq. just saying

 

No no no, find a different word for warfare- Hearts and minds. We need hearts and minds, specifically those of Kevin Rountree