Supreme Guardian

Towering above the battlefield, Supreme Guardians were created to guard powerful and important cities in eastern Immoren, animated by the souls of the greatest Tyrants in skorne history. These vigilant stone constructs have stood as a testament to the wealth and might of those few skorne houses that could afford their construction and upkeep. Like all ancestral guardians, a Supreme Guardian is able to gather the souls of worthy skorne slain in battle as sacred companions, using their energies to empower its own devastating assault.

Basic Info

Abilities

• Template:Construct
• Template:Pathfinder
• Template:Defensive Strike
• Template:Direct Spirits
• Template:Divine Inspiration
• Template:Gatekeeper
  • Template:Arcane Vortex
  • Template:Soul-Powered
  • Template:Well of Rage
• Template:Soul Vessel

Weapons

Fires of Rage
File:Gun icon.jpg		RNG			ROF			AOE			POW
		10			1			4			14
Template:Magical Damage Template:Continuous Fire
Obsidian Blade
File:Sword icon.jpg		RNG				POW				P+S
		3				6				18
Template:Magical Damage Template:Siege Weapon Template:Thresher

Theme Forces

• Template:The Exalted. Supreme Guardian gains Immovable Object and starts the game with one soul token in this theme.
• Template:Winds of Death
• Template:Masters of War

Thoughts on the Supreme Guardian

Supreme Guardian in a nutshell

The Supreme Guardian is a mixture of damage-dealer and support piece. Boasting a little-seen melee range of 3" and some quite powerful combat abilities the Supreme Guardian is about the equivalent of a heavy warbeast offensively when fully loaded. With Direct Spirits it provides a way to promote your own soul collection and stymie your opponents. Well of Rage brings a large amount of utility to both Exalted as well as other living themes. There is a perpetual argument about how good it is; some think it's the best battle engine in the game while others don't even think it's the best battle engine in faction (but is still very good).

Any infantry-heavy force that can use revive will appreciate this guy. It's a tough decision when to engage and when to hold back and revive/ use fire of rage, but usually you want to use his impressive melee threats against only the hardest enemies.

Combos & Synergies

Warlocks

• Beast Master Xekaar can keep the Supreme Guardian safe with his feat - and in return one or two will keep both Xekaar and Chiron safe in a Basilisk-spam list.
• Dominar Rasheth really likes infantry brought back to be moved into position and then burned via dark rituals.
• Zaal1 can power it with soul tokens and Zaal's feat interacts very neatly with Well of Rage. Also you can do some very interesting things with Last Stand and then threshering the models that will die to Last Stand while spawning models that won't.
• Zaal2 has waited a lot of time for a worthy model to protect with either his feat or Vision.
• Void Seer Mordikaar has ridiculous synergy with the Supreme Guardian with Direct Spirits enabling him to collect souls as if he were Zaal2

Non-warlocks

• Basilisk Krea and Agonizer - incoming fire, as ever, has right of way. You're safe from spells, but DEF 8 ARM 19 aren't good defensive stats. (Also anything with Shield Guard like the Cyclops Brute, Abidan the Keeper, and Tiberion)
• Siege Animantarax - the more huge bases the merrier, and the Supreme Guardian can keep spells away from the Animantaraxes as well as from themselves. The Animantarax normally goes in before the Supreme Guardian.
• Put a Venator Catapult behind a Guardian. Now you've got a fairly safe base to a gunline.

Drawbacks & Downsides

• It is just about the only huge-based model that can't shoot while in melee ("can shoot while in melee" is not a core rule for battle engines)

Then again, with that 3" thresher, why would you ever want to?

• A bit slow, has among the worst DEF in the game, and has a bullseye on its forehead. It can prove challenging to make survive.
• Its points cost mean you're removing about 8 souls from your army to take it.
• It has a big base, is slow, and wants to be in the middle of a swarm of infantry who are going to trip it up.
• The gun is basically a backup weapon you use to take pot-shots before you throw it into melee.
• Compared to Animantarax, Worse Speed, No slams or tramples, Possibly Worse shooting, Similar melee except vs huge targets. So a guardian has more threats vs swaths (barely used) and huge things (situational) as opposed to the more generalist Animantarax. If you want utility though, This thing's a lot better.

Tricks & Tips

• Thresher
  • You get to thresher everyone in your front arc, it's not limited to one field of fire.
  • You need LOS to all your targets before rolling any attacks.
    Vs densely packed small-based models there's a chance you won't be able to see and attack the back rank, even though they're within 3".
  • Threshering your own models can fuel the Supreme Guardian, giving you all three buyable attacks after a charge.
  • Use Well of Rage at the end of your activation so you don't accidentally thresher the guys you just spawned.
    • Unless you intentionally want to thresher your own troops (because they're near an enemy, for example). In which case you'll use WoR at the start to empty your soul tank, move away from the spawned dudes and towards the poor sods that are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Remember your warbeasts have souls.
• Screen with infantry. You can fight over them, you get souls from them, and they get spell immune. You can also revive them. Good infantry for this are Immortals, Karax, and Cetratii.
• Always leave it with one soul if you're at all worried about incoming spells.

Other

Trivia

• Template:BAHI2
• One of the quickest model turn around from "Show" to "Go" ever: It was spoiled at Lock and Load 2018.06, beta rules were in CID in 2018.07, and the final rules plus the model were released 2018.08.
• PP mentioned that they tried to design an exalted warbeast, and it just didn't work out (whether it was a rules design issue or a physical production issue is unclear, but I suspect the former given it was one of the rules developers who made the comment).

Rules Clarifications

Template:RC Magical Damage Template:RC Continuous Fire Template:RC Siege Weapon Template:RC Thresher