Elite/Guardian Squad/Strategy
Stats • Leveling • Weapons • Abilities • Upgrades • Strategy
The Guardian Squad is the basic Eldar infantry unit in Dawn of War II: Retribution multiplayer. Guardians are Eldar who have had military training but do not serve as Aspect Warriors. They are essentially the Eldar military reserve force. The Ulthwé Craftworld is known for employing an especially large force of Guardians.
- Guardians have high ranged damage against infantry.
- They can deploy energy shields and throw granades
- Can be upgraded with a Warlock, a psychic squad leader, which gives them defensive and offensive abilities.
Overview
The Guardian Squad is the Eldar "backbone" ranged unit, essential from Tier 1 to mid-game and still very useful even in Tier 3. It is basically a ranged anti-light-infantry squad that seems to have trouble standing up to heavy infantry units, but has quite a bit of utility.
Health
The un-upgraded basic squad is very fragile, losing models (
30 each) rapidly and often destroying an unskilled player's economy through Requisition bleed. However, upgrading the unit with Battle Equipment yields a passive bonus of +33% health – reducing model bleed in itself – and the Energy Shields, which (with some extra micro) allow the unit to absorb significant amounts of ranged fire without losing any health at all, and Fleet of Foot gets the squad away from danger before losing models. The Tier 2 Warlock squad leader grants a further -17.5% ranged damage mitigation, actually making the "fragile" squad quite durable.
Damage
The basic damage output of a full squad is 43.75 DPS of piercing damage, which equals a Tactical Squad. Of course, the Guardians will lose a 1-on-1 shootout with Tacticals (who have more health and take only 67% of the base damage due to heavy infantry armor). Adding the Warlock will increase the squad's damage to 59.39 DPS, and activating Embolden further enhances this to 74.24 DPS. This makes a group of 2–3 Guardian Squads very bad news to light infantry.
Upgrades
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Gallery
Biel-Tan Guardian, Army Level 60
Ulthwé Guardians led by a Warlock
A squad of eldar guardian supporting a wraithlord
The guardian squad's portrait.
Alaitoc Guardian, using Defender (Army Level 3) armor.
Rear shot of ditto
