UPDATE
I’ve since found a good role for Eternal Guard, check out this article!
If you want to keep reading, by all means. However, my opinion is quite different since first writing this!
It’s taken me a while to figure out the role for Eternal Guard, and actually it’s only really been as I’ve tried to write this article that I think I’ve figured it out. However, I’m not convinced it makes them worth taking.
Eternal Guard are the other melee infantry Core choice for Wood Elves (after Dryads). With Light Armour and optional Shield for a point, they can have a 5+ Armour Save, which is as good as it gets for the Wood Elves (who apparently just hate the idea of living long enough to make Heavy Armour). At Weapon Skill 5, they are a little harder to hit in close combat than your average Core unit in any army, but they start at the pricy 13 points per model.
Like they Dryads, they are Stubborn and have the usual Wood Elf rules of Elven Reflexes and Move Through Cover. They are a Close Order unit, also get Martial Prowess, allowing them to make supporting attacks no matter which arc they are fighting in – a minor and situational buff. They have Asrai Spears, which are just like regular spears but with AP -1, so they are fighting at Initiative 6 when charged in the front (4 base, +1 from Spear, +1 from Elven Reflexes), meaning they’ll be simultaneous with I3 models such as Boar Boyz, Knights of the Realm, etc.
For an extra point per model, you can give them Veteran and/or Drilled, both having the restriction of only one unit per 1k points. All of this sounds great, until you remember a couple of points, and those points are Strength and Toughness 3. All of this leaves me asking: what role do they play?
They aren’t strong enough to be a hammer unit, that’s for sure (with only 1 attack each at S3 AP -1, even WS 5 isn’t really helping that much). So, are they an anvil? Spearmen often are, and being Close Order they can get some decent static combat resolution. But as soon as I start doing any of the math against common units I’d expect to take a charge from, it seems like they’ll get ripped apart pretty quickly. The one saving grace is Stubborn, so at least they will Fall Back rather than Flee. Here’s a quick peak at the math.
If I’ve 15 Eternal Guard (5×3) with full command, and no upgrades, it’ll cost me 210 points. Let’s say they take a charge from 6 Knights of the Realm (165 points, with FC). Everybody goes simultaneously, and I’ll ignore challenges for ease of math (it wouldn’t make much difference anyway). The Eternal Guard will inflict ~1.5 wounds on average (assuming the Knights have the Blessing of the Lady). The Knights will inflict ~3.5 (including 1 from the horses), giving them +2 combat resolution making the combat a draw (each have +1 for standard, +1 for close order/lance formation, and the Guard have +2 rank bonus)–except they don’t have that bonus any more because the Knights have First Charge, disrupting the unit. Oops!
And the math gets worse if you’re taking on something at WS5/I4 that’s charging you. Let’s look at a Lance of 6 Questing Knights, only 177 points with FC. The Knights attack first doing ~2.5 wounds, then horses and Eternal Guard go simultaneously, with horses doing another 1 wound and the Eternal Guard doing … wait for it … ~0.95 wounds back! There are two factors at work here – having fewer attacks back, and only hitting on 4s.
(If you’re curious, and I was, a Lance of 6 Grail Knights at 249pts with FC do ~6.1 wounds against the unit, +1 for the horses, and the EG would do a measley ~0.27 wounds back! Chaos Chosen Knights with Mark of Khorne, same price, 7.9 wounds, +2 for the horses, and ~0.16 wounds back).
So, you have to assume that any charge you take you’re going to lose the combat, and then Fall Back. Note that this only counts for the first combat, due to how Stubborn works. If you want to survive a charge from the big boys (like those Chosen Knights), you need to have more than 10 models, so that block of 15 is really the minimum you need.
However, now that you know what will happen, you can start to use this to your tactical advantage. A block of T3 Elves with a 6+ Armour Save are a very juicy target for your opponent, so if I were to use them, it would be in a way to try to encourage a charge from a unit that I want to then counter charge in the flank with (presumably) Wild Riders.


(Again, I got math curious – Wild Riders will kill ~3.5-4.9, depending on whether the Knights have a 2+ or a 3+ armour save).
So, it’s not the traditional sort of Anvil, where you can just stay put because you’re so dang tough, but it is a very Wood Elven Anvil, where you can run away and come back again because you’re so disciplined. However, it’s an expensive unit for so few wounds, and it’ll also die very easily to shooting due to how easy it is to wound and how poor the armour save. I think the army roster has better options for an Anvil unit.
Therefore, and it pains me a little to say it, I think Eternal Guard are the worst choice Wood Elves have in Core, and the only reason to run them is if you already have the models and want to see them on the battlefield. Rank 5th of 5 for Core Choice.
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