Taeblewalker
September 17th, 2007, 10:41 PM
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Unit Strategy Review
Unit: Obsidian Guards
Author: Taeblewalker (with thanks to my sewing circle)
Ever since terrain packs started coming out, the units therein have been seen as niche figures. The Obsidian Guards are a quintessential example. Most of the powers require either molten lava or lava field terrain, and to make it worse, among “normal” terrain, water takes away from their Defense! However, with a high Attack and Defense, equivalent to that of the Dumutef Guard, these units are still nothing to laugh at, even outside their habitat. When placed in their natural habitat, few would wish to tangle with them.
We will begin with their stats.
Vital Statistics
Cost – 100 – Bishop Class
Size – Medium 5 – Vulnerable/Visible
Squad – 3 Average
Move – 4* – Slow
Range – 1 – Melee
Attack – 4 – Good
Defense – 4 – Average
*Lava Resistant – Obsidian Guards don’t roll or lava damage or lava field damage and they do not have to stop on molten lava spaces.
Lava Throw – When an Obsidian Guard is on a molten lava space it may add 2 to its range.
Water Weakness– An Obsidian Guard on a water space rolls two fewer defense dice.
In-Depth Analysis
We shall now look carefully at the Obsidian Guards’ statistics, and draw strategies from our conclusions. Let us start with cost. Below is an explanation of Agatagary's cost classification:
Pawn class (expendable, units that can be useful, but are not worth enormous trouble to protect)
Bishop class (more useful than a pawn, but still somewhat expendable)
Knight class (units that are interestingly powerful and can have a significant impact on the game in of themselves. It is advisable that they be kept alive, but if absolutely necessary they may be sacrificed)
Rook class (units that almost inevitably have a significant impact on the game, and whose death should be avoided as much as possible)
Queen class (devastatingly powerful or important units that should be protected at all costs)
Class
The Obsidian Guards are a Bishop class unit. On non-lava terrain, they are powerful enough to take out many units, and expensive enough to be protected for a time. On lava terrain, they are key – although being a common squad, they are not sufficiently importantly individually to be considered Knights.
To examine the Obsidian Guards’ core stats, we will break them up into two categories—offensive ability and survivability.
Offense:
Only a handful of squads have an Attack of 4. The Dzu-Teh, while less expensive, also have a lower Defense. The Minions of Utgar and the Ninjas of the North Wind are more expensive, while other units like the Anubian Wolves, Marro Stingers and Templar Cavalry all have lower base Attacks and can only unreliably reach or exceed an Attack of 4. Only the Kozuke Samurai have a higher Attack for the same price, and in spite of Counterstrike, a lower Defense. Plus, the Kozuke are a unique squad. Add to this one thing that all of the aforementioned units lack – a chance at range! Lava Throw is the single example in Heroscape of a melee unit being able to increase its range with its normal attack.
Finally, their threat range - their Movement across flat terrain plus their Range - is 5. This becomes more important on molten lava, which would not only stop other units from moving, but likely destroy them as well -and on lava fields, which can do damage to a unit should it be left there at the end of its move between turns.
Survivability:
Their Defense of 4 gives them average survivability. On water, this drops down to poor, but you won’t be putting them in water unless you have no choice or have made a serious tactical error. Their survivability increases to above average if most of the action in a game takes place on lava field terrain, as they need not roll to take a wound at the end of each round.
Strategy:
A unit that doesn’t move very well is essentially an ambush unit. Essentially – but not in every case! We shall explore the Obsidian Guards’ primary roll as a unit that waits for the enemy to come to it. However, in the end, we will also explore ways that will utterly surprise your opponents with their very audacity.
Before talking about any strategy, however, understand that even one squad of Obsidian Guards is likely to be highly useful. If you can afford to draft two or three, so much the better. Their stats allow them to take and give out punishment well enough that one squad should be enough.
On normal terrain, where all of their bonuses are gone, remember that the Obsidian Guards have an Attack of 4 and a Defense of 4. Few Life 1 figures in the game have this for the cost. Only the Dumutef Guard does – and he does not give you three activations per turn! Therefore, before we even talk about Volcarren Wasteland terrain, we will consider the use the Obsidian Guards on any map.
The Obsidian Guards can strike from ambush. They can hide behind ruins, trees and castle walls, as well as elevations of five of higher. When an enemy unit comes close, send them out! Use your order markers to anticipate when the enemy will draw near. When your opponent comes to expect this maneuver, place the X Order Marker on them occasionally, just to keep him guessing.
A variant of this strategy is to have the Obsidian Guards waiting just inside the castle door. In this case, you will want to anticipate when the door is likely to give way and have an order marker waiting to activate your Obsidians.
When you do send them out to ambush figures, choose your targets well. This is where their Bishop status comes into play. With three attacks of 4 a single Obsidian Guard squad can take out low Defense heroes or several low Defense squad figures in one turn. Higher Defense or high Life heroes can be beaten down significantly. If you wait for a queen figure, such as Braxas, to be worn down to low Life by another unit, the Obsidian Guards can reliably finish such figures off. With their Defense of 4, they are also likely to be able to withstand the attacks from those figures they don’t destroy in one turn.
Even the maddeningly high Defense units like the Minions of Utgar, the Zettian Guards and various the Deathwalkers will quake with fear at three attacks of 4. There is a threshold in Heroscape, before which units with high Defense feel confident that they can shrug off an attack and after which those units get nervous. That threshold is the transition from an Attack 3 to an Attack of 4, all the more so in this case because the Obsidian Guards have three possible activations per round. What’s more, their Defense of 4 again gives the Obsidian Guards a reliable chance to survive return attacks.
This threshold of an Attack of 4 is one reason to gladly pass on two squads of the Roman Legionnaires or the Sacred Band. Even four Attacks of 3 with a replacement squad waiting in the wings can be maddening ineffective if your opponent has several units with average Defense or higher. The Obsidian Guards' greater survivability is another reason, as their Defense of 4 is far more reliable than a possible Defense of 3 or 4 for the Romans, or the limitations on drafting and tactics imposed by Disciplined Army Defense and Death Defy, respectively.
The ambush strategy outlined above becomes even deadlier when you draft Warden 816. This scary soulborg gives the Obsidian Guards 1 extra Move. Furthermore, if you keep an order marker of him as well (even an X to keep your opponent guessing), you threaten at a Range of 7 with an Attack of 3 – and watch out for that Evisceraxe! The Obsidian Guard / Warden 816 combo can take down many units in two turns.
All of these points consider using the Obsidian Guards on regular terrain. If you have molten lava tiles near your place of ambush, you can take out melee squads with your range of three before they can even reach you.
So much for normal terrain! On a map rife with lava field, your Obsidian Guards enjoy the simple but staggering advantage of not needing to roll for lava damage at the end of each round. This fact alone limits what your opponent will and will not do with his units, even his fliers, for no flying figure remains aloft between rounds! The avoidance of lava field damage will usually force your opponent into one of two strategies. The first is to use either Order Marker #1 or Order Marker #2 to bring in a unit to make attacks on the lava field terrain, then waste a later order marker to bring that unit right back out. The second is to send in a unique hero with medium to high Life and keep it there. This has three potential drawbacks for your opponent. The hero could take wounds just standing there. The hero may not be the ideal unit for the job at hand, being chosen primarily for its ability to withstand lava field damage. An otherwise valuable hero is now within reach of your Obsidian Guards.
What about Warden 816? If you plan on leaving the Obsidian Guards in the lava region of the map, the extra Move is less valuable. Furthermore, keeping him close means putting him in danger of lava field damage. But who says you need to keep him close? He can stand as a guardian over them, sniping from higher ground at opponents who try to take out the Obsidian guards from range, all the while conferring his Move bonus – which, while not as important as when the moltarns are moving long distance, still allows them greater flexibility when climbing from molten lava onto higher ground. The Warden can more than handle himself if engaged with his awesome Evisceraxe.
Brunak is also a natural ally. First off, you will probably draft him just to prevent your opponent from having him. His Lava Resistance, Carry and Blood Hungry Special Attack can combine to devastate your moltarns. However, while your Obsidian Guards can “lava slither” just fine on their own, Brunak lets you Carry them farther, and to place them up on a higher elevation if needed, as his height is 8. Not even Warden 816 gives them the mobility! Your Obsidian Guards complement him well, using Lava Throw when he is engaged with more enemies that he can reliably cut down.
Alternatively, if your opponent drafts Brunak, the Obsidian Guards offer the perfect protection against him. The Obsidian Guards can spread out over the lava to force Brunak into engagement instead of sprinting across the lava into the middle of your army. With a Defense of 4 a single Obsidian Guard can keep Brunak busy for a round or two while your ranged forces snipe at him from an elevated position. Do not let Brunak become engaged with more than one Obsidian Guard at a time. If you can position the two unengaged Obsidian Guards in molten lava you can utilize three attacks of four against Brunak with their Lava Throw.
Speaking of Lava Throw, use it! Many map builds place the “lava pit” at the bottom of a central point on the map. Don’t let that stop you from throwing lava at figures on higher ground at the rim! An Attack of 4, even against a higher ground Defense bonus, will teach your enemies not to peer over the edge. Despite the Range of 3, there is no height limit to how far Lava Throw will reach. If you can somehow get to molten lava on higher ground, that is a mighty Attack of 5 at Range 3.
On maps that have it, lava terrain is probably going to cover a small area from which the Moltarns are not likely to move very far. This fairly static role on lava-centric maps makes cheerleaders like Raelin the Kyrie Warrior and Taelord the Kyrie Warrior perfect choices, assuming you have the points to spare. You will not need to move the cheerleading unit to keep up with Obsidian Guards that lie in wait in their lava for there enemies to come.
Now, for the coup de grace. What if you are playing on aThealenk Tundra style map? Drafting Obsidian Guards on a tundra map may at first seem like madness – especially when you are doing it to counter draft the Dzu-Teh! Aren’t the abominable snowmen gods in their own terrain? Yes, they are; but consider –
• The obsidian Guards suffer no more on ice or snow that any other unit in the game! Slippery ice and heavy snow will slow them as much as any other walking unit besides the Dzu-Teh, but you want your enemy to come to you. Also, with the movement penalty means the Obsidian Guards move just as fast as units with a Move of 5, because their fifth movement point is wasted.
• Once you have the Dzu-Teh engaged, their awesome mobility is useless to them. Even Glacial Traverse can’t protect them from leaving engagement strikes, and it will be your Attack of 4 / Defense of 4 against your opponent’s Attack of 4 / Defense of 3. You will likely win such a slugfest!
• By taking out the Dzu-Teh on a glacial map, you do more than take out his 75 point squad – you also disrupt his overall strategy, which will almost certainly involve keeping the Dzu-Teh alive and available for loftier purposes than slugging it out with Moltarns in the snow! Their effective point cost will make the sacrifice of one or two of your Obsidian Guard figures a more than fair exchange. Even in terms of actual points, this works regardless, as your two Obsidians cost 67 points, while his entire Dzu-Teh squad costs 75 points.
• Glaciers, aside from single-spacers, work better than trees or ruins to block line of sight, protecting you from range attackers while you send in your moltarns to meet his snowmen.
• Water Weakness is moot, as neither snow nor ice confers the Defense penalty.
Optional Strategies
Smashing On All Fronts
You can count on even a lone Obsidian Guard to wreak havoc where it goes, especially since its survivability is so high for a figure with such a high Attack. The omnipresent Theracus can take one of your Moltarns wherever you want to smash heads, without singing his feathers. Saylind can summon one to a remote part of the battlefield, while Brunak can speed one over the dangerous single space water areas that slow down and lower survivability of Obsidian Guards. Even Jotun can place one safely on top of a castle wall. Once you have several of your moltarns spread over the map, you can activate any three of them, delivering death from several locations at once.
Wall of Stone
Few barriers are more formidable than a wall of Obsidian Guards backed up by Raelin the Kyrie Warrior from The Rise of the Valkyrie. If you can place a squad or two of Obsidian Guards in the way of your opponent's progress, enemy ranged units will likely waste their ammunition by bouncing it off of your Defense of 6. Your opponent will be obliged to send in melee units to clear the roadblock, which will then be subjected to your three Attacks of 4. Keep them spread out to increase the protected area and to avoid making them sitting ducks for area attacks like Explosion.
Use this tactic near any natural choke point. You may also use it if your opponent has found a "blind spot" where your ranged units cannot snipe, such as behind a ruin or under an overhang. This will limit his tactical movement through otherwise safe areas of the battlefield. Further, the wall can be placed on a step-wise elevation to prevent enemy units from reaching your own ranged units with on higher elevation. Unless they have Stealth Flying, even your opponent's fliers will have to stop and engage your Obsidian Guards on the way up a long slope.
Units to Avoid:
Dead-eye Dan, Me-Burq-Sa. Given the threat range of each of these figures, you will really need to fear their ability to take away your Defense dice. Try to use Warden 816 or other units with high Range like Omnicron Snipers and various Vydar agents to take them out. Similar figures, such as James Murphy and Retarius, are less of a threat as they have to engage figures in order to use their Defense-nullifying powers.
Full Strength Squad Killers: When huge figures like Braxas, Grimnak and Tor-Kul-Na are at full Life, they can easily take out one or more Obsidian Guards. When you have softened these units up with range or with melee Pawns, send in the Obsidian Guards to finish them off. Their three Attacks of 4 will quickly take down a wounded giant.
For additional information see the Book of Obsidian Guards (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=8117)
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Unit Strategy Review
Unit: Obsidian Guards
Author: Taeblewalker (with thanks to my sewing circle)
Ever since terrain packs started coming out, the units therein have been seen as niche figures. The Obsidian Guards are a quintessential example. Most of the powers require either molten lava or lava field terrain, and to make it worse, among “normal” terrain, water takes away from their Defense! However, with a high Attack and Defense, equivalent to that of the Dumutef Guard, these units are still nothing to laugh at, even outside their habitat. When placed in their natural habitat, few would wish to tangle with them.
We will begin with their stats.
Vital Statistics
Cost – 100 – Bishop Class
Size – Medium 5 – Vulnerable/Visible
Squad – 3 Average
Move – 4* – Slow
Range – 1 – Melee
Attack – 4 – Good
Defense – 4 – Average
*Lava Resistant – Obsidian Guards don’t roll or lava damage or lava field damage and they do not have to stop on molten lava spaces.
Lava Throw – When an Obsidian Guard is on a molten lava space it may add 2 to its range.
Water Weakness– An Obsidian Guard on a water space rolls two fewer defense dice.
In-Depth Analysis
We shall now look carefully at the Obsidian Guards’ statistics, and draw strategies from our conclusions. Let us start with cost. Below is an explanation of Agatagary's cost classification:
Pawn class (expendable, units that can be useful, but are not worth enormous trouble to protect)
Bishop class (more useful than a pawn, but still somewhat expendable)
Knight class (units that are interestingly powerful and can have a significant impact on the game in of themselves. It is advisable that they be kept alive, but if absolutely necessary they may be sacrificed)
Rook class (units that almost inevitably have a significant impact on the game, and whose death should be avoided as much as possible)
Queen class (devastatingly powerful or important units that should be protected at all costs)
Class
The Obsidian Guards are a Bishop class unit. On non-lava terrain, they are powerful enough to take out many units, and expensive enough to be protected for a time. On lava terrain, they are key – although being a common squad, they are not sufficiently importantly individually to be considered Knights.
To examine the Obsidian Guards’ core stats, we will break them up into two categories—offensive ability and survivability.
Offense:
Only a handful of squads have an Attack of 4. The Dzu-Teh, while less expensive, also have a lower Defense. The Minions of Utgar and the Ninjas of the North Wind are more expensive, while other units like the Anubian Wolves, Marro Stingers and Templar Cavalry all have lower base Attacks and can only unreliably reach or exceed an Attack of 4. Only the Kozuke Samurai have a higher Attack for the same price, and in spite of Counterstrike, a lower Defense. Plus, the Kozuke are a unique squad. Add to this one thing that all of the aforementioned units lack – a chance at range! Lava Throw is the single example in Heroscape of a melee unit being able to increase its range with its normal attack.
Finally, their threat range - their Movement across flat terrain plus their Range - is 5. This becomes more important on molten lava, which would not only stop other units from moving, but likely destroy them as well -and on lava fields, which can do damage to a unit should it be left there at the end of its move between turns.
Survivability:
Their Defense of 4 gives them average survivability. On water, this drops down to poor, but you won’t be putting them in water unless you have no choice or have made a serious tactical error. Their survivability increases to above average if most of the action in a game takes place on lava field terrain, as they need not roll to take a wound at the end of each round.
Strategy:
A unit that doesn’t move very well is essentially an ambush unit. Essentially – but not in every case! We shall explore the Obsidian Guards’ primary roll as a unit that waits for the enemy to come to it. However, in the end, we will also explore ways that will utterly surprise your opponents with their very audacity.
Before talking about any strategy, however, understand that even one squad of Obsidian Guards is likely to be highly useful. If you can afford to draft two or three, so much the better. Their stats allow them to take and give out punishment well enough that one squad should be enough.
On normal terrain, where all of their bonuses are gone, remember that the Obsidian Guards have an Attack of 4 and a Defense of 4. Few Life 1 figures in the game have this for the cost. Only the Dumutef Guard does – and he does not give you three activations per turn! Therefore, before we even talk about Volcarren Wasteland terrain, we will consider the use the Obsidian Guards on any map.
The Obsidian Guards can strike from ambush. They can hide behind ruins, trees and castle walls, as well as elevations of five of higher. When an enemy unit comes close, send them out! Use your order markers to anticipate when the enemy will draw near. When your opponent comes to expect this maneuver, place the X Order Marker on them occasionally, just to keep him guessing.
A variant of this strategy is to have the Obsidian Guards waiting just inside the castle door. In this case, you will want to anticipate when the door is likely to give way and have an order marker waiting to activate your Obsidians.
When you do send them out to ambush figures, choose your targets well. This is where their Bishop status comes into play. With three attacks of 4 a single Obsidian Guard squad can take out low Defense heroes or several low Defense squad figures in one turn. Higher Defense or high Life heroes can be beaten down significantly. If you wait for a queen figure, such as Braxas, to be worn down to low Life by another unit, the Obsidian Guards can reliably finish such figures off. With their Defense of 4, they are also likely to be able to withstand the attacks from those figures they don’t destroy in one turn.
Even the maddeningly high Defense units like the Minions of Utgar, the Zettian Guards and various the Deathwalkers will quake with fear at three attacks of 4. There is a threshold in Heroscape, before which units with high Defense feel confident that they can shrug off an attack and after which those units get nervous. That threshold is the transition from an Attack 3 to an Attack of 4, all the more so in this case because the Obsidian Guards have three possible activations per round. What’s more, their Defense of 4 again gives the Obsidian Guards a reliable chance to survive return attacks.
This threshold of an Attack of 4 is one reason to gladly pass on two squads of the Roman Legionnaires or the Sacred Band. Even four Attacks of 3 with a replacement squad waiting in the wings can be maddening ineffective if your opponent has several units with average Defense or higher. The Obsidian Guards' greater survivability is another reason, as their Defense of 4 is far more reliable than a possible Defense of 3 or 4 for the Romans, or the limitations on drafting and tactics imposed by Disciplined Army Defense and Death Defy, respectively.
The ambush strategy outlined above becomes even deadlier when you draft Warden 816. This scary soulborg gives the Obsidian Guards 1 extra Move. Furthermore, if you keep an order marker of him as well (even an X to keep your opponent guessing), you threaten at a Range of 7 with an Attack of 3 – and watch out for that Evisceraxe! The Obsidian Guard / Warden 816 combo can take down many units in two turns.
All of these points consider using the Obsidian Guards on regular terrain. If you have molten lava tiles near your place of ambush, you can take out melee squads with your range of three before they can even reach you.
So much for normal terrain! On a map rife with lava field, your Obsidian Guards enjoy the simple but staggering advantage of not needing to roll for lava damage at the end of each round. This fact alone limits what your opponent will and will not do with his units, even his fliers, for no flying figure remains aloft between rounds! The avoidance of lava field damage will usually force your opponent into one of two strategies. The first is to use either Order Marker #1 or Order Marker #2 to bring in a unit to make attacks on the lava field terrain, then waste a later order marker to bring that unit right back out. The second is to send in a unique hero with medium to high Life and keep it there. This has three potential drawbacks for your opponent. The hero could take wounds just standing there. The hero may not be the ideal unit for the job at hand, being chosen primarily for its ability to withstand lava field damage. An otherwise valuable hero is now within reach of your Obsidian Guards.
What about Warden 816? If you plan on leaving the Obsidian Guards in the lava region of the map, the extra Move is less valuable. Furthermore, keeping him close means putting him in danger of lava field damage. But who says you need to keep him close? He can stand as a guardian over them, sniping from higher ground at opponents who try to take out the Obsidian guards from range, all the while conferring his Move bonus – which, while not as important as when the moltarns are moving long distance, still allows them greater flexibility when climbing from molten lava onto higher ground. The Warden can more than handle himself if engaged with his awesome Evisceraxe.
Brunak is also a natural ally. First off, you will probably draft him just to prevent your opponent from having him. His Lava Resistance, Carry and Blood Hungry Special Attack can combine to devastate your moltarns. However, while your Obsidian Guards can “lava slither” just fine on their own, Brunak lets you Carry them farther, and to place them up on a higher elevation if needed, as his height is 8. Not even Warden 816 gives them the mobility! Your Obsidian Guards complement him well, using Lava Throw when he is engaged with more enemies that he can reliably cut down.
Alternatively, if your opponent drafts Brunak, the Obsidian Guards offer the perfect protection against him. The Obsidian Guards can spread out over the lava to force Brunak into engagement instead of sprinting across the lava into the middle of your army. With a Defense of 4 a single Obsidian Guard can keep Brunak busy for a round or two while your ranged forces snipe at him from an elevated position. Do not let Brunak become engaged with more than one Obsidian Guard at a time. If you can position the two unengaged Obsidian Guards in molten lava you can utilize three attacks of four against Brunak with their Lava Throw.
Speaking of Lava Throw, use it! Many map builds place the “lava pit” at the bottom of a central point on the map. Don’t let that stop you from throwing lava at figures on higher ground at the rim! An Attack of 4, even against a higher ground Defense bonus, will teach your enemies not to peer over the edge. Despite the Range of 3, there is no height limit to how far Lava Throw will reach. If you can somehow get to molten lava on higher ground, that is a mighty Attack of 5 at Range 3.
On maps that have it, lava terrain is probably going to cover a small area from which the Moltarns are not likely to move very far. This fairly static role on lava-centric maps makes cheerleaders like Raelin the Kyrie Warrior and Taelord the Kyrie Warrior perfect choices, assuming you have the points to spare. You will not need to move the cheerleading unit to keep up with Obsidian Guards that lie in wait in their lava for there enemies to come.
Now, for the coup de grace. What if you are playing on aThealenk Tundra style map? Drafting Obsidian Guards on a tundra map may at first seem like madness – especially when you are doing it to counter draft the Dzu-Teh! Aren’t the abominable snowmen gods in their own terrain? Yes, they are; but consider –
• The obsidian Guards suffer no more on ice or snow that any other unit in the game! Slippery ice and heavy snow will slow them as much as any other walking unit besides the Dzu-Teh, but you want your enemy to come to you. Also, with the movement penalty means the Obsidian Guards move just as fast as units with a Move of 5, because their fifth movement point is wasted.
• Once you have the Dzu-Teh engaged, their awesome mobility is useless to them. Even Glacial Traverse can’t protect them from leaving engagement strikes, and it will be your Attack of 4 / Defense of 4 against your opponent’s Attack of 4 / Defense of 3. You will likely win such a slugfest!
• By taking out the Dzu-Teh on a glacial map, you do more than take out his 75 point squad – you also disrupt his overall strategy, which will almost certainly involve keeping the Dzu-Teh alive and available for loftier purposes than slugging it out with Moltarns in the snow! Their effective point cost will make the sacrifice of one or two of your Obsidian Guard figures a more than fair exchange. Even in terms of actual points, this works regardless, as your two Obsidians cost 67 points, while his entire Dzu-Teh squad costs 75 points.
• Glaciers, aside from single-spacers, work better than trees or ruins to block line of sight, protecting you from range attackers while you send in your moltarns to meet his snowmen.
• Water Weakness is moot, as neither snow nor ice confers the Defense penalty.
Optional Strategies
Smashing On All Fronts
You can count on even a lone Obsidian Guard to wreak havoc where it goes, especially since its survivability is so high for a figure with such a high Attack. The omnipresent Theracus can take one of your Moltarns wherever you want to smash heads, without singing his feathers. Saylind can summon one to a remote part of the battlefield, while Brunak can speed one over the dangerous single space water areas that slow down and lower survivability of Obsidian Guards. Even Jotun can place one safely on top of a castle wall. Once you have several of your moltarns spread over the map, you can activate any three of them, delivering death from several locations at once.
Wall of Stone
Few barriers are more formidable than a wall of Obsidian Guards backed up by Raelin the Kyrie Warrior from The Rise of the Valkyrie. If you can place a squad or two of Obsidian Guards in the way of your opponent's progress, enemy ranged units will likely waste their ammunition by bouncing it off of your Defense of 6. Your opponent will be obliged to send in melee units to clear the roadblock, which will then be subjected to your three Attacks of 4. Keep them spread out to increase the protected area and to avoid making them sitting ducks for area attacks like Explosion.
Use this tactic near any natural choke point. You may also use it if your opponent has found a "blind spot" where your ranged units cannot snipe, such as behind a ruin or under an overhang. This will limit his tactical movement through otherwise safe areas of the battlefield. Further, the wall can be placed on a step-wise elevation to prevent enemy units from reaching your own ranged units with on higher elevation. Unless they have Stealth Flying, even your opponent's fliers will have to stop and engage your Obsidian Guards on the way up a long slope.
Units to Avoid:
Dead-eye Dan, Me-Burq-Sa. Given the threat range of each of these figures, you will really need to fear their ability to take away your Defense dice. Try to use Warden 816 or other units with high Range like Omnicron Snipers and various Vydar agents to take them out. Similar figures, such as James Murphy and Retarius, are less of a threat as they have to engage figures in order to use their Defense-nullifying powers.
Full Strength Squad Killers: When huge figures like Braxas, Grimnak and Tor-Kul-Na are at full Life, they can easily take out one or more Obsidian Guards. When you have softened these units up with range or with melee Pawns, send in the Obsidian Guards to finish them off. Their three Attacks of 4 will quickly take down a wounded giant.
For additional information see the Book of Obsidian Guards (http://www.heroscapers.com/community/showthread.php?t=8117)