The Book of Honor Guard of the Blasted Lands

[lefton4ya]

Copying over discussion from The Book of Warden 816

Originally Posted by Tiamat

Just suggesting an add of the Honor Guard of the Blasted Lands to C3V synergy.

Originally Posted by Shiftrex

Second that, Warden is in all my Honor Guard builds. +1 move is too good, especially when he can clean house after everything is over.

EDIT: Tomb Skeleton Archers also belong on here, they are guards and not archers

Originally Posted by Tiamat

Yes! Totally agree. He's almost a must have when running Honor Guard I think. Really good for clean-up too.

Originally Posted by lefton4ya

Updated using my MOD powers. I still need to do a clean sweep update of all the books.

Originally Posted by Grey Waves

I haven't played the Honour Guard before so admittedly I'm just theoryscaping here, but is the Warden really that essential a figure for an Honour Guard army? +1 move is nice but the jump from 5-6 move isn't nearly as big of a deal as the jump from 4-5 move, and 90 points is a lot to sink into a figure that only provides a modest benefit to your forces. I agree that the Warden is 100% worth running with 4-move units like the Crypt Guardians, Tomb Skeletons/Tomb Skeleton Archers and Granite Guardians (technically not base 4 move but whatever), but to me it doesn't seem like he's nearly as useful when used with the Honour Guard? Again, I've never actually played the Honour Guard though so I'm happy for someone to correct me on this.

Originally Posted by Chris Perkins

It really depends on the map.

There's a fair amount of tournament maps where 5 move can function similarly to 4 move if the height jumps are in the wrong places (i.e. where you can't take the 5th movement because it would require 6 to advance the next space). There's also maps where 5 move instead of 6 doesn't cost you a space forward. Don't have good examples off the top of my head unfortunately though.

So I'd say the level of essential-ness is dependent on the map pool for the given tournament. If close to half of the maps fall into the former category (i.e. bad for 5 move mele figures) then it's often worth it for the Warden, and not if most of the maps fall into the 2nd category.

Also I should note that point total & figure limits obviously have an effect on the Warden's utility in that army as well, but mainly just discussing the map impact here.

Originally Posted by Tiamat

Agree with everything Chris Perkins said. I would also add that I think Honor Guard are a strong squad, but only if you are consistently using Arc Lances. That probably goes without saying, but that's where I think the +1 move is so critical. If you happen to lose a couple of Honor Guard on the front line, that +1 move can make a huge differene in getting reinforcements up to replace them in time to activate Arc Lances.