Guardian Defenders

When a craftworld goes to war, it summons its citizens to the Path of the Warrior, and those who answer become Guardians. These are not lifelong soldiers in the manner of the Aspect Warriors but rather ordinary Aeldari, poets and engineers and scholars, who take up arms in their home's defence before returning to gentler callings once the danger has passed. This militia tradition means that a Guardian squad may contain minds of astonishing brilliance turned briefly to the grim business of killing.

Guardian Defenders wield the shuriken catapult, an elegant weapon that flays its targets with a hail of monomolecular discs capable of shearing through armour and flesh alike. Massed together and firing in disciplined volleys, they lay down a withering storm of fire, and their formations are often anchored by grav-mounted heavy weapon platforms that a pair of Guardians guide into position. Though they lack the honed lethality of the Aspect Shrines, the Defenders provide the numbers a craftworld host so often needs, standing as the living wall behind which their more specialised comrades manoeuvre.