If you had an army without a Slann, is it ever worth taking the Temple Guard? Are they ever useful on their own when compared against getting reg Saurus instead?
Haven't tried it yet, but une nasty trick they have is the champs ability to take some of the cheap magic items... not something a lot of people will expect.
TG are just double priced saurus with S5 or 2+ save, but no spears. even with the ability of the champion to get the sword of hornet or the blood stautuette of spite [can't find any usefull items form him, maybe the prianha blade but its unlikely he will stand a chance against a fighting character]. basically you get double the saurus for the same points or less. they break just as easly, have the same static res and probably weaker active resolution. the TG are perfect anvils at LD 8 cold blooded + stubborn + ITP with a slann, they can afford to lose half the unit if a steg is in the flank. without the slann they can take as much punishment as the saurus be fore they flee at double the price. 2+ save vs. 4+ save is a big difference but once 5 of your guys are dead [4 if champion is present] you don't have many chances of winning, while saurus need to lose 10 models before they stop attacking. at half the price.
well double points is a slight exaggeration, but yeah without a slann they seem overpriced for what you get. the magic item thing seems like an afterthought on the designers part, even the vaugley useful things like sword of the hornet/BBoC look too much like a waste of points to me. i mean consider its the points of a TG + champ upgrade + magic item, suddenly you're at >50 points for a one wound infantry model... not good...
I think that a couple things are really in the TG's favour. 1. WS 4, not to big of a bonus unless you are fighting ws 3 or 7 things. 2. 2+ AS in CC (with Hand weapon and Shield) and 3+ against shooting, your unit will not drop very easily, it will take a highly concerted effort by your opponent to take even the minimal unit down. 3. Magic Banners, the TG can take any of out solid banners (with the exception of the skaven pelt), so they can be really hard to shoot down. They can pull of a surprise charge that will wreck everything but the hardest units. Or they can play the psychology game and stupify enemy wizards or cause fear. Or they could just have a rock solid SCR. 4. sword of the hornet, nothing like popping off a couple attackers before they get the chance to even try to hurt us. 5. S5 is really nice, especially with some of the combos that can be brought out. In short I think that they are a very viable option BUT with all the other viable options in the special slot plus the saurii already being more than good enough not many people see the need for more infantry. I do not think they are over priced I think if they were any lower people would be calling cheese if we had one unit without a slann.
TG are better than saurus in almost every way and only a few more points, plus they have absolutely fantastic models. That makes me want to take them even without a Slann. Effective for points when the saurus with spears do plenty of damage anyway? No not really. My only potential use for them was a small unit as flankers of for holding flanks, which I think they would be very good at. The only problem is their speed, they are probably too slow to do it.
I can see both sides of the coin here. They definitely are a great unit, but from what I've seen/read they don't seem to be worth their points until they find themselves protecting a Slann. I suppose if you have extra points for your list and need a powerfull unit like TG and want to use them for some of the things that have been listed here, they can be great in that aspect. I can remember reading some discussion about RGs a while back and I'm of the opinion that giving them any kind of magical item will just draw out extra attacks that can potentially cause you to throw away points by getting the RG killed early.
i'm terribly sorry, i was under the imresion that TG cost 23pts/model. i have no ideea where i got that from but it heavly influenced by post. they are cheaper than i thought, but still the same thing as saurus with better armor save and no spears
Yea they are only a point or two more than Spear Saurus, and have Halbreds instead of Spears... and get several special rules. That doesn't seem all that over priced to me?
I think a lot of people see the TG as overpriced due to being a special slot. In that category they are competing with Terradons, Cold One Cavalry, Chameleon skinks, Stegadons, and Kroxigors. That is a very congested place with a lot of very effective models that fill roles that can not be filled via other units, we have no other flying creatures, we have no other cavalry, we have no other scouters. the krox, steg and TG end up getting left behind because we have other ways to field that type of unit, we can get elite infantry from the saurus, we can get stegs as character mounts or as a rare choice and krox can be taken in skrox units. So Temple Guard are not overpriced, just out competed. All that changes when a slann enters the equation.
i would only field my TG with a slann. of course at the moment i don't have a slann so i haven't used my TG yet but man i love the models. but if you were to think, just fielding 10 TG with FC that's already close enough to 200 pts and imagine if you throw a banner in it and also if you give the reverend guard a magic weapon its just too much. it brings the total for just 10 TG past 200 pts. for that you could field about 7 terradons or 2 units of 11/1 skrox units, but for those pts i'd rather use 5 COC with standard and a magic banner. both US10 but more attacks at S4 and the Riders get a 2+ save base while you have choose between S4 2+AS or S5 4+AS. with the riders, they cause fear and don't need a slann to make anything special happen but will become stupid at least once during the game. i do think that the TG can do damage and are intimidating to opponents but to take them alone, i'd pass on that.
I'd go for Venom of the Firefly Frog on the champion. For ten points you get magic attacks, poisoned attacks, and he keeps his HW+SH bonus. I typically wouldn't upgrade a champion, but he does have three attacks. I probably wouldn't give him anything more expensive though. On topic, I'd probably never run them without a Slann. If you're talking about an offensive Oldblood army, spear-saurus are your anvils. You will want air-support, at least one special-slot steg, scouts, etc. The points are just too precious to spend on a slow infantry unit.