Every one who Play Guards as body guards notice that gurad ability goes before Kroak ward. It makes them eaven worse rip guards
It's still good, but yeah. I think if you're investing a balewind and astrolith into making kroaks cast better, taking a 5 of guard is almost a necessary.
I was convinced they were trash until I saw a battle report with someone getting Kroak in a realmshaker with Saurus Guard nearby. He becomes nearly indestructible. You get -2 to hit with shooting, from Look Out Sir and Garrison, and +1 to armor. Then you can stack things like the +1 to saves from a Starseers Control Fate, Mystic Shield, and the Slann Command ability. You can take hits on Kroak due to 4+++, and pass off the stuff once it gets scary to alabative wounds. They are disappointing bc they have the worst synergies in the book while looking badass (and kickbutt in TotalWar), but when serving the Guard purpose they do really well.
Or i 2 unit of 5. Unit of 10 is no longer playable since you can USe this ability several Times and you want multiple chances for that 2+. Before that i thought it would be 4+ save 4+ fnp then 6+ asrolith and then 2+ guards and again 6+. That was Such long way for wounds that it gave some survability to guards only if you Focus kroak. But now meh...
Well, by lore Guards were, indeed, Slann bodyguards. The last line of defense. Napoleon's Old Guard. GW forced us to basically use them in that way only.
they still should've made them stronger they have basic attacks with rend 1 which u can get with saurus warriors. except from bodyguards there is no point taking them
There are still some advantages of large guard blocks over saurus and knights. The problem is that we don't really need these advantages to win. But we still can capitalize on their strengths. Guards have same wound numbers and same weapon attack numbers as saurus. Only jaws attacks go down. At the same time they have smaller unit size, which means, that with honeycombing we still can get in range most of the models. Small unit size means also that tehy are less vulnerable to spells and abilities which hits every model on 5+/6+, like Plague. Finally, smaller units are easier to fit in auras. Innate 3+ to-hit means that they are less CP-hungry. Finally, they don't count on unit number in terms of maximum output. Saurus, unlike guard, will lose their bonus attack after going under 15. Guards are also can hold for several combat phases without losing combat potential, unlike Knights with lances. And again, they are easier to put in combat range. These advantages make guard better in certain situations compared to other saurus battlelines. This doesn't make them the best, but I couldn't call them a bad unit either.
in groops of 15+ warriors have more attacks then guard do. having the same weapon attacks and twice the models so damage is a lot bigger espeshaly with 2" range spears. having more attacks/ models means warriors hold obj better and take buffes like serpents staff better. they also have a battalion and we need to run a battalion to get either quarts when they drop below 15 they only have as many attacks as guard, and your right guard don't degrade they just die and being smaller isn't a good thing for slow units it makes them easy to wrap
It is unfortunate that GW dropped the ball when it comes to the Guards or even the Eternity Warden. Guards used to be different to Warriors with their amazing save, but they were left in a weird spot as is. Honestly seems a little half-assed. I could totally see them make a White Dwarf batallion including the Eternity Warden (to give him a purpose) some months down the road to make them different and serve a different role than Warriors.
A battalion and some explicit synergy beyond just guarding the slann. Imho a great "fix" would already be to let them guard any seraphon hero (on foot). It'd make a tremendous difference if they can keep say a skink priest safe. Plus, this'd allow you to do something like send a skink priest to grab an objective on your left flank, a starpriest to your right, and a slann to hold the middle, all protected by guard. Right now they're literally just ablative wounds for a slann. At least this way they're ablative wounds to our entire support core. Which is at least a neat gimmick.
The skink has a point here. Theyre guard. Let them guard any VIP whether it be a skink priest, old blood, hell it makes sense for a sunblood to have a retinue of guard.
they are just a hero that doesn't suck at making them better away from being good (looking at you eternity warden)
Do they not have synergy with being Coalesced and also being Saurus for the sake of Old-Blood, Scar-Veteran and other such abilities? (+1 to jaws, +1 to hit, +exploding hits..)?
They benefit from those abilities yeah, but they're strictly worse than warriors or knights. Any of those abilities is simply better utilised elsewhere. And without a battalion or dedicated hero to solidify their role within the army and differentiate them from warriors & knights they're just kind of lackluster. Synergy is probably the wrong term. A use beyond babysitting the slann might be a better description of the issue.
Ok. I see now. They don't have a place in the book at the moment. They're not a partiluarly great anvil, or hammer, too expensive to be chaff or screening, too slow to get far away objectives and wasted if just sitting alone on an objective due to their decent statline (the same as Ardboyz but 1 movement faster, but the instruments and abilities is what sets them apart). In fact, it's rather a shame. As a hardcore Big Waaagh!/Ironjawz player (I don't have bonsplittaz ) Ardboyz are 10 points cheaper (90 per 5) but objectively better. They can be buffed to hit easily on a 2/2/-1/2 2 attacks with Big Waaagh! and a Warchanter, only move 1 slower unless you take Ironfist or Brutish Cunning or run pure Ironjawz and grant them a free move thus making their move 8'', and they have +2 Charge, +2 Bravery (for a total of 8 usually +1 per 10) and their leader gets +2 attacks. Not to mention the shields which give 6+ FNP not even counting Big Waaagh! Laugh At 'Em for another 6+ FNP. Temple Guard can be +1 to hit +1 to wound...if you charge with them in Koatl or spend a CP in Koatl, and then another CP from the Sunblood. However if they're coalesced they'd also get 2 bites at 4/3/-/1 I guess. No way to increase damage. Only 1 extra attack on the leader. No bravery bonus. No charge bonus. Instead they debuff bravery for enemies (which usually barely matters because so many ways to ignore battleshock), re-roll charges instead of bonus to charge which may wash out to be equal. That's it. No FNP or anything else. Pound for pound I'd take Ardboyz all day.
Comparing units across battletomes, especially tomes that play significantly different to each other, is meaningless. Ironjawz got no shooting and no real magic (at least nowhere as good as Kroak), so their units obviously need to punch harder, since it is a pure melee army.
meaningless? no not really there is a lot of value in seeing how 2 units would measure up against each other but definitely disingenuous