Spartacus wrote: So far I've had the opposite experience, flyers and such are forced to keep their distance if they don't wanna be charged and shredded. Their weapons slowly chip away at bikes but nothing too dramatic
You can tie up leman russes but getting to them is the issue. Doesn't matter how many Guardsmen I mow down I just can't get to them before all my bikes are battlecannoned to death, banner or no banner.
This is exactly my experience. 2d6 S8 vs invul save and d3 damage is extremely painful. Per tank.
The only good thing was when I made a Vexilla praetor my warlord. His mantle + vexilla were so shiny that he single handedly absorbed or dodged about 800 pts of firepower for 3 turns before finally going down.
Game was against a Guard army with 2 Tank Commanders and a Wyvern as their notables. Due to our deployment that we drew, he was set up in the middle of the board. A unit of bikes rapid fires on his bubble wrap on t1 and then charged a Tank Commander and obliterated it. By turn 3, I had tabled him. Feeling really confident with this list, just need to remember to play my strengths.
Additionally, I recently played a game vs another Guard army that had a Shadowsword. He locked up the unit of 3 bikes with his Shadowsword so I couldn’t charge him, and in my defensive combat I hit him for 10 wounds.
Again, very happy with this list. If anyone has any input or questions, I would be happy to hear them.
You can’t with the new matched play rules. 1k Pts only allows 2 units per datasheet. The only options for getting more CP are a Battalion with 12 Guards or a random crappy vanguard detachment. The games that I have played I put Victor of the Blood Games on my shield captain and then had 1 CP left to either save for something random or deepstrike one of my units, which has been good when I have done it.
Is it ever worth upgrading a Custodes Guard squad to carry a Vexilla?
Would it use the index or the codex rules for the Vexilla? I'd guess the index as Custodes Vexilla does not have points in the codex, and the only rules are in the Vexilla Praetor entries, which say to take a specific kind of Vexilla.
Skhmt wrote: Is it ever worth upgrading a Custodes Guard squad to carry a Vexilla?
Would it use the index or the codex rules for the Vexilla? I'd guess the index as Custodes Vexilla does not have points in the codex, and the only rules are in the Vexilla Praetor entries, which say to take a specific kind of Vexilla.
Just don't do it.
It is maybe technically allowed through the GW flowchart but very much goes against the spirit of it and if it became a real thing GW would faq it away as they did with the Tau Stim injector.
What about taking Custodes Guard with only a sentinel blade (no storm shield)?
Saves 3 pts vs a guardian spear, but you have worse shooting and combat. However, you can shoot while you're in combat. Which means a sword with pistol shots every other round is more points efficient vs t3-4 and t7-9. A spear is better against t5 and significantly better against t6. While this doesn't take into account shooting before charging, the spear will be better on the charge as well. It should also be noted that vs t3, while the sword is more point efficient, it's actually very close and the spear actually does slightly more damage per model, just not per point.
Needless to say, the spear is infinitely better at 12.01" to 24", and a bit better (or more than twice as good if shooting at multi-wound models) at 1.01" to 12"
Skhmt wrote: What about taking Custodes Guard with only a sentinel blade (no storm shield)?
I don't have the codex under eyes but it seems to me that it's not allowed to choose not to take the shield : it's either the halberd, or sword + shield.
Skhmt wrote: What about taking Custodes Guard with only a sentinel blade (no storm shield)?
I don't have the codex under eyes but it seems to me that it's not allowed to choose not to take the shield : it's either the halberd, or sword + shield.
Not from the codex, but I suppose using the index rules you should be able to make a sword only guy, seeing as it used to be a wargear option. Don't know why you would, the sword is a huge downgrade to gain you a poultry 3 points.
3++ is no joke. IMO the Storm Shields are too valuable for me to not take in any list. I’ve always seen the Sentinel Blade as the way of balancing Storm Shields out.
I’m curious if we will be getting Solarite Gauntlet/Solarite Power Talons with the Forge World rules. I think those would be sweet options for Custodians (Sentinels/Hetaetron Guard) assuming we see their rules.
++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Imperium - FW Death Korps of Krieg) [43 PL, 574pts] ++
+ HQ +
Death Korps Death Rider Squadron Commander [3 PL, 40pts]: Death Korps Hunting Lance, Laspistol
Death Korps Death Rider Squadron Commander [3 PL, 40pts]: Death Korps Hunting Lance, Laspistol
Death Korps Marshal [3 PL, 47pts]: Chainsword, Grand Strategist, Kurov's Aquila, Laspistol, Memento Mori, Warlord
+ Troops +
Death Korps Infantry Squad [4 PL, 62pts] . 8x Death Korps Guardsman
. Death Korps Watch Master: Lasgun
. DK Guardsman w/Special Weapon: Meltagun
Death Korps Infantry Squad [4 PL, 62pts] . 8x Death Korps Guardsman
. Death Korps Watch Master: Lasgun
. DK Guardsman w/Special Weapon: Meltagun
Death Korps Infantry Squad [4 PL, 62pts] . 8x Death Korps Guardsman
. Death Korps Watch Master: Lasgun
. DK Guardsman w/Special Weapon: Meltagun
+ Elites +
Death Korps Death Rider Command Squadron [6 PL, 68pts] . 4x Death Korps Death Rider Veterans: 4x Death Korps Hunting Lance
Death Korps Quartermaster Cadre [3 PL, 53pts]: 2x Death Korps Medicae-servitor
. Death Korps Quartermaster Revenant: Hot-shot Laspistol, Medi-pack, Plasma Pistol
+ Fast Attack +
Death Korps Death Rider Squadron [5 PL, 80pts] . 4x Death Korps Death Riders: 4x Death Korps Hunting Lance
. Death Korps Ridemaster: Death Korps Hunting Lance, Laspistol
+ Heavy Support +
Death Korps Heavy Weapons Squad [4 PL, 30pts] . Death Korps Heavy Weapons Team: Mortar
. Death Korps Heavy Weapons Team: Mortar
. Death Korps Heavy Weapons Team: Mortar
Death Korps Heavy Weapons Squad [4 PL, 30pts] . Death Korps Heavy Weapons Team: Mortar
. Death Korps Heavy Weapons Team: Mortar
. Death Korps Heavy Weapons Team: Mortar
++ Total: [119 PL, 1993pts] ++
I own DKoK models and it's my preferred way to run them. However, I realize they are better utilized as regular IG regiments.
Long story short. Your list will be fine, you have the strong Custodes core for the list, and the Guard CP Battery is insane. Any extra points you can spend are just icing on the cake.
I'd go with this; the Psykers don't add a lot and access to orders makes your infantry far more effective.
That's what I figured: I just thought that even one or two denies and smites is great.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Aha! Ignore me.
Just remembered the anti-psyker warlord traits and stratagem. And that will give me access to a kurovs Aquila! Perfect! Thanks!
Played a battalion at 1k a couple times yesterday, was basically two captains, 3x3 custodes, and Celestine.
Against Astra Militarum with two russes, two basilisks, a valk, and storm troopers. This same list nearly tabled me last time we played, but I tabled him on turn 5 this time. 3 CP to teleport two of the guard squads is definitely worth it. It's fine to deploy one for objective backfield capping, but taking out screens with the captains and first turn charging with Celestine clears the way for 6 more Custodes to teleport in. While all my bolter fire was ineffective against the russes, a squad of Custodes can take it down over a couple fight phases. The biggest lesson learned is to teleport two squads. I did not take Victor of the Blood Games at all. I somewhat felt the loss, but without the guard cp battery, I could do without it.
Played against Tau, he had a riptide, a couple firewarrior squads, a commander with melta, and suits with triple cyclic ions. The riptide sat on a piece of terrain that I couldn't fit any other models on, so I ignored it and killed the rest of his list. I slow played turn 1 by advancing behind los blocking terrain and just not getting shot. Captain survived the DSing suits and my 3 characters wiped out the suits and commander, then charged into the gun line with the teleporting Custodes. Lost a squad of Custodes, Celestine died once, and had to just sit there shooting guardian spears at the riptide until it finally died.
Then I tried to fight against Magnus. That didn't go well. With an easy death hex, he killed everything. He didn't even need to smite, although he did.
Sounds like you played really well. Another question, what were your guard equipped with as they sound like stars of the show. All spear? Or one sword and board per squad?
Then I tried to fight against Magnus. That didn't go well. With an easy death hex, he killed everything. He didn't even need to smite, although he did.
Just spear. Kept them cheap, they already have a 4++ but sacrifice a lot of shooting and pay more points for the shield. I rolled pretty well for the charge distances, made 3 out of 4 between the two games. I honestly think for the 52 points they are, they're pretty good. I mean they're almost as expensive as a guard squad with a lascannon, but if they can get within 12" they quickly start to earn their points back, and 3cp is a small price to pay to get two of them in that threat range.
Honestly the MVP was probably Celestine. That 24+2d6" threat range is no joke, and while she's easier to kill than bike captains, starting a turn in combat with her basically doubles her attacks.
Skhmt wrote: Just spear. Kept them cheap, they already have a 4++ but sacrifice a lot of shooting and pay more points for the shield. I rolled pretty well for the charge distances, made 3 out of 4 between the two games. I honestly think for the 52 points they are, they're pretty good. I mean they're almost as expensive as a guard squad with a lascannon, but if they can get within 12" they quickly start to earn their points back, and 3cp is a small price to pay to get two of them in that threat range.
Honestly the MVP was probably Celestine. That 24+2d6" threat range is no joke, and while she's easier to kill than bike captains, starting a turn in combat with her basically doubles her attacks.
You got super lucky on charge distances. Without access to re-rolls your likelihood of making a 9+ charge was just 27.8%. You made that 3 times out of 4! Those odds are why I usually don't recommend relying on Deep Struck Guardians. Obviously, if you're gonna make the rolls they'll do great though.
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Has anyone run the numbers on the optimum loadout for a dakka telemon? Have a tournament coming up that's allowing forge world beta rules, and I'm interested in running my telemon along with a guard battery and custodes force.
Looking at the different profiles and costs of the Illastus Accelerator & Arachus las-storm, it seems that despite the volume of shots you pump out with the las storm, the accelerator does more damage against MEQ, T8 vehicles & pretty much everything with a decent enough armor save. I would assume that hurricane bolters on jetbikes are more useful than a telemon against hordes anyhow.
What are your experiences? Are you going with the quality of fire when it comes to the beta rules?
Has anyone run the numbers on the optimum loadout for a dakka telemon? Have a tournament coming up that's allowing forge world beta rules, and I'm interested in running my telemon along with a guard battery and custodes force.
Looking at the different profiles and costs of the Illastus Accelerator & Arachus las-storm, it seems that despite the volume of shots you pump out with the las storm, the accelerator does more damage against MEQ, T8 vehicles & pretty much everything with a decent enough armor save. I would assume that hurricane bolters on jetbikes are more useful than a telemon against hordes anyhow.
What are your experiences? Are you going with the quality of fire when it comes to the beta rules?
So I ran a bunch of them through a calculator previously (no Horde or MeQ calcs though because Hurricane Bolters work fine for that in my opinion) and the TLDR I got was this:
If you're fighting a standard vehicle (T7, 3+, no invuln) the Accelerator will do you noticeably better.
If you're fighting an Imperial Knight or Relic Leviathan, they are about equal (and even more equal if the Knight has access to the +1 invuln Stratagem).
If you're fighting a heavy target with a decent invulnerable save (Mortarion, Tesseract Vault, Magnus) the Las-Storm is better.
So pick based on the type of target you want your Telemon to bring down faster and harder. (Note: I assumed a re-roll 1's aura was around for all calculations).
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Anyway, cue PrimarchG
If you deploy on the table and don't go first you face 2 shooting phases before you can charge (with bikes, more with foot dudes)
If you deepstrike you face 0 to 1 turns of shooting.
Yes the charge is unreliable but it might still the better option when your facing a very shooting army that would otherwise blow you off the table.
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Anyway, cue PrimarchG
If you deploy on the table and don't go first you face 2 shooting phases before you can charge (with bikes, more with foot dudes)
If you deepstrike you face 0 to 1 turns of shooting.
Yes the charge is unreliable but it might still the better option when your facing a very shooting army that would otherwise blow you off the table.
I agree in principle, but I think people have a tendency to over-worry about shooting against Jet Bikes. You can keep your Bikes under a Magnifica in that time. There's not a lot of super heavy gunlines that can seriously threaten T6 4W 2+/4++ with -1 to Hit in 1-2 rounds of shooting.
Of course, I generally advocate taking about 10 bikes minimum if you're fully optimizing so you have a lot of bike power for them to chew through.
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Anyway, cue PrimarchG
I'm not saying regular custodes guard are better than bikes. No one in their right mind would advocate a 52 pt model over a 90 pt model.
But since I'm taking a battalion, I'd rather have the CP and make decent use of the units I need to take.
At 1k, you can't take 3 squads of bikes (rule of two), and that's the points I was playing at. So you'd have to run them in a patrol detachment, and you still have a squad of walking custodes at that point.
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Anyway, cue PrimarchG
I'm not saying regular custodes guard are better than bikes. No one in their right mind would advocate a 52 pt model over a 90 pt model.
But since I'm taking a battalion, I'd rather have the CP and make decent use of the units I need to take.
At 1k, you can't take 3 squads of bikes (rule of two), and that's the points I was playing at. So you'd have to run them in a patrol detachment, and you still have a squad of walking custodes at that point.
You're O.K. Skhmt. I came off more nitpicky than I meant too primarily because I'm on cold medicine and half delirious. Notice how the Telemon post needed like 6 edits.
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Anyway, cue PrimarchG
If you deploy on the table and don't go first you face 2 shooting phases before you can charge (with bikes, more with foot dudes)
If you deepstrike you face 0 to 1 turns of shooting.
Yes the charge is unreliable but it might still the better option when your facing a very shooting army that would otherwise blow you off the table.
I agree in principle, but I think people have a tendency to over-worry about shooting against Jet Bikes. You can keep your Bikes under a Magnifica in that time. There's not a lot of super heavy gunlines that can seriously threaten T6 4W 2+/4++ with -1 to Hit in 1-2 rounds of shooting.
Of course, I generally advocate taking about 10 bikes minimum if you're fully optimizing so you have a lot of bike power for them to chew through.
Guard, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar. All can chew through 10 bikes in 2-3 turns through a -1 to hit.
You can also see it if you watch the London GT games where top players are deepstriking their bikes against gunlines.
Yeah my outrider detachment has never survived past turn 2 against my mates Leman Russ spam. That's including the Vexilla. I doubt my tank heavy Eldar would have trouble removing them that fast either.
Its not that they're ineffective for their cost or anything, the game just promotes that playstyle of castling around a huge battery of guns. Deepstriking a big unit is the best we've got out of a bad lot of options.
How many Russes does he have? Because, assuming hitting on a 4+ (Tank Commander with Magnifica or regular Russ without), the expected damage per Battlecannon shot is...
(1/2)*(2/3)*(1/2)*(2)=1/3, or 12 shots to kill a single Biker. Not that scary.
JNAProductions wrote: How many Russes does he have? Because, assuming hitting on a 4+ (Tank Commander with Magnifica or regular Russ without), the expected damage per Battlecannon shot is...
(1/2)*(2/3)*(1/2)*(2)=1/3, or 12 shots to kill a single Biker. Not that scary.
Thank you for that one. I'll add that I believe Manticores should only average about 1.5 wounds per Manticore as well with a 45% chance of 0 wounds.
Astra Militarum gunline should not do huge amounts of damage to the Bikes before you can respond. I think the same is true of Eldar outside of buffed Dark Reapers.
Tau and Dark Eldar I'm still trying to understand on a deep enough level to give more than a surface comment.
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Anyway, cue PrimarchG
If you deploy on the table and don't go first you face 2 shooting phases before you can charge (with bikes, more with foot dudes)
If you deepstrike you face 0 to 1 turns of shooting.
Yes the charge is unreliable but it might still the better option when your facing a very shooting army that would otherwise blow you off the table.
I agree in principle, but I think people have a tendency to over-worry about shooting against Jet Bikes. You can keep your Bikes under a Magnifica in that time. There's not a lot of super heavy gunlines that can seriously threaten T6 4W 2+/4++ with -1 to Hit in 1-2 rounds of shooting.
Of course, I generally advocate taking about 10 bikes minimum if you're fully optimizing so you have a lot of bike power for them to chew through.
Guard, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar. All can chew through 10 bikes in 2-3 turns through a -1 to hit.
You can also see it if you watch the London GT games where top players are deepstriking their bikes against gunlines.
Just quoting this so you know the above was also responding to you.
He has 6 Russes, but 1 is Pask (2+ BS) and 3x commanders (3+ BS). Once a unit is wounded from H bolters he uses the Cadian focus fire stratagem to add a further +1 to hit for the battlecannons. Also uses the Cadian Relic to give all the tanks reroll 1s to wound (and hit if not already). Most/all of the tanks are ordered to reroll the random number of shots so they're usually getting 10+ battlecannon shots each.
Spartacus wrote: He has 6 Russes, but 1 is Pask (2+ BS) and 3x commanders (3+ BS). Once a unit is wounded from H bolters he uses the Cadian focus fire stratagem to add a further +1 to hit for the battlecannons. Also uses the Cadian Relic to give all the tanks reroll 1s to wound (and hit if not already). Most/all of the tanks are ordered to reroll the random number of shots so they're usually getting 10+ battlecannon shots each.
Not much survives that for long.
It's still not adding up. The Relic of Lost Cadia only lasts for one turn. If you have a Magnifica, the 2 normal Russes are hitting on 5's, the Commanders on 4's and Pask on 3's. Each tank should still only be shooting 8-9 times I think with Pound Them to Dust. Overlapping Fields of Fire is only going to effect one unit per round too.
I can't run this many variables through a calculator right now, but consulting JNA's math above with what you're describing here and I think should only lose about 4-5 bikes per enemy turn assuming you had no LoS to hide behind and force those tanks to move to shoot you. Sure it hurts, but you should be able to respond pretty effectively still. Even moreso with terrain forcing movement.
Last game against Guard was Pask in a Plasma Russ with MM sponsons. 2 normal Russ tank commanders, 2 Basilisk, 3 Lascannon infantry squads, 2 auto cannon teams, 2 Valkyries and 3 Plasma gun Special Weapon squads.
That will kill 6 bikes in 1 turn. A bad set of rolls and your losing a lot more. (and ofc on a the flip side you can roll good and lose a lot less)
Spartacus wrote: He has 6 Russes, but 1 is Pask (2+ BS) and 3x commanders (3+ BS). Once a unit is wounded from H bolters he uses the Cadian focus fire stratagem to add a further +1 to hit for the battlecannons. Also uses the Cadian Relic to give all the tanks reroll 1s to wound (and hit if not already). Most/all of the tanks are ordered to reroll the random number of shots so they're usually getting 10+ battlecannon shots each.
Not much survives that for long.
Assuming 1 Pask, 3 Commanders, and 2 Russes, all with Battlecannons and three Heavy Bolters, and that a Commander fires first to get Overlapping Fields of Fire, and the Relic of Lost Cadia is in play...
First Commander fires an average of 8 shots with the Battlecannon and 9 shots with Heavy Bolters, hitting on 4s, wounding on 3s/5s, rerolling 1s to hit and wound.
8 shots are 14/3 hits, which is 98/27 wounds, 49/27 failed saves, and 98/27 damage. Heavy Bolters do 21/4 hits, 49/24 wounds, and 49/72 failed saves/damage.
Total damage from the FIRST Commander? 3.63+.68=4.31 damage, or one biker dead. But, Overlapping Fields of Fire comes on now.
Each subsequent regular Russ does the same damage, so that's three more bikes dead. Assuming you have one giant squad, so OFoF has maximum effect, the second two Commanders each do...
8 shots are 56/9 hits, which is 392/81 wounds and 196/81 failed saves, for 392/81 damage. Heavy Bolters do 7 hits, 49/18 wounds, and 49/54 failed saves/damage.
Total damage from each subsequent Commander? 4.84+.91=5.75 damage, or one and a half bikers dead, about.
Pask then does his deal, for more damage probably.
8 shots are 70/9 hits, 490/81 wounds, 245/81 failed saves, and 490/81 damage. Heavy Bolters do 35/4 hits, 245/72 wounds, and 245/216 failed saves and damage.
Total damage from Pask? 6.05+1.13=7.18 damage, or nearly two dead bikers.
Total damage, assuming you have one giant squad that never gets cover and is never overkilled?
31.61 wounds dealt, or 8 dead Bikers.
Total cost?
1,198 points and 2 CP.
Total damage dealt, in points?
720 points, or slightly less, due to overkill and whatnot.
Now, this is a LOT of assumptions. Such as no cover, everyone has LoS, no one needed to move...
Spartacus wrote: He has 6 Russes, but 1 is Pask (2+ BS) and 3x commanders (3+ BS). Once a unit is wounded from H bolters he uses the Cadian focus fire stratagem to add a further +1 to hit for the battlecannons. Also uses the Cadian Relic to give all the tanks reroll 1s to wound (and hit if not already). Most/all of the tanks are ordered to reroll the random number of shots so they're usually getting 10+ battlecannon shots each.
Not much survives that for long.
It's still not adding up. The Relic of Lost Cadia only lasts for one turn. If you have a Magnifica, the 2 normal Russes are hitting on 5's, the Commanders on 4's and Pask on 3's. Each tank should still only be shooting 8-9 times I think with Pound Them to Dust. Overlapping Fields of Fire is only going to effect one unit per round too.
I can't run this many variables through a calculator right now, but consulting JNA's math above with what you're describing here and I think should only lose about 4-5 bikes per enemy turn assuming you had no LoS to hide behind and force those tanks to move to shoot you. Sure it hurts, but you should be able to respond pretty effectively still. Even moreso with terrain forcing movement.
5 Bikes a turn is about right. An outrider detachment of bikes is 3x3 = 9 bikes. Dead in 2 turns like I said. Adds up fine.
The bikes are too tall to hide from LOS fully in a Ruin, they stick up into the 2nd floor. Getting cover helps of course, but not if it delays you hitting the enemy lines. Even when you do get there theres still 100 Guardsmen plus all the other goodies to screen before you can start tying up the tanks. This is all from repeated experience. I've given up trying to beat it.
Spartacus wrote: He has 6 Russes, but 1 is Pask (2+ BS) and 3x commanders (3+ BS). Once a unit is wounded from H bolters he uses the Cadian focus fire stratagem to add a further +1 to hit for the battlecannons. Also uses the Cadian Relic to give all the tanks reroll 1s to wound (and hit if not already). Most/all of the tanks are ordered to reroll the random number of shots so they're usually getting 10+ battlecannon shots each.
Not much survives that for long.
It's still not adding up. The Relic of Lost Cadia only lasts for one turn. If you have a Magnifica, the 2 normal Russes are hitting on 5's, the Commanders on 4's and Pask on 3's. Each tank should still only be shooting 8-9 times I think with Pound Them to Dust. Overlapping Fields of Fire is only going to effect one unit per round too.
I can't run this many variables through a calculator right now, but consulting JNA's math above with what you're describing here and I think should only lose about 4-5 bikes per enemy turn assuming you had no LoS to hide behind and force those tanks to move to shoot you. Sure it hurts, but you should be able to respond pretty effectively still. Even moreso with terrain forcing movement.
5 Bikes a turn is about right. An outrider detachment of bikes is 3x3 = 9 bikes. Dead in 2 turns like I said. Adds up fine.
The bikes are too tall to hide from LOS fully in a Ruin, they stick up into the 2nd floor. Getting cover helps of course, but not if it delays you hitting the enemy lines. Even when you do get there theres still 100 Guardsmen plus all the other goodies to screen before you can start tying up the tanks. This is all from repeated experience. I've given up trying to beat it.
You need more LoS blocking terrain. If the tanks move, their heavy bolters hit worse, and if they move FAR, they get half the shots with the main cannon.
And 100 Guardsmen plus the tanks listed are 1,600 points. I know Guard is cheap, but how many other goodies can you fit in 400 points?
I mean, I could list his army, take photos of our boards and break down our games step by step, but seems a bit over the top when I just trying to share my experience quickly.
How many IG tank lines have you guys crushed with Custodes?
Spartacus wrote: I mean, I could list his army, take photos of our boards and break down our games step by step, but seems a bit over the top when I just trying to share my experience quickly.
How many IG tank lines have you guys crushed with Custodes?
Army lists actually might help a lot. Battle reports, while cool, are not so much needed.
Spartacus wrote: He has 6 Russes, but 1 is Pask (2+ BS) and 3x commanders (3+ BS). Once a unit is wounded from H bolters he uses the Cadian focus fire stratagem to add a further +1 to hit for the battlecannons. Also uses the Cadian Relic to give all the tanks reroll 1s to wound (and hit if not already). Most/all of the tanks are ordered to reroll the random number of shots so they're usually getting 10+ battlecannon shots each.
Not much survives that for long.
It's still not adding up. The Relic of Lost Cadia only lasts for one turn. If you have a Magnifica, the 2 normal Russes are hitting on 5's, the Commanders on 4's and Pask on 3's. Each tank should still only be shooting 8-9 times I think with Pound Them to Dust. Overlapping Fields of Fire is only going to effect one unit per round too.
I can't run this many variables through a calculator right now, but consulting JNA's math above with what you're describing here and I think should only lose about 4-5 bikes per enemy turn assuming you had no LoS to hide behind and force those tanks to move to shoot you. Sure it hurts, but you should be able to respond pretty effectively still. Even moreso with terrain forcing movement.
5 Bikes a turn is about right. An outrider detachment of bikes is 3x3 = 9 bikes. Dead in 2 turns like I said. Adds up fine.
The bikes are too tall to hide from LOS fully in a Ruin, they stick up into the 2nd floor. Getting cover helps of course, but not if it delays you hitting the enemy lines. Even when you do get there theres still 100 Guardsmen plus all the other goodies to screen before you can start tying up the tanks. This is all from repeated experience. I've given up trying to beat it.
It's not adding up because that's only happening in crazy ideal scenarios for the tanks. Ruins on standard tournament tables I see are 3" tall per floor and usually have at least one jutting arch almost as tall as an Imperial Knight. I hide 3 bikes from them out of line of sight all the time. Standard mountain terrain is also tall enough.
Regarding chaff, you have Fly. You can move and charge over them.
You also should be presenting harder choices for target priority in your lists, right? An Outrider with Magnifica is a bit less than 1,100 points. You've got 900 more for more bikes or some ranged anti-tank, the latter being what a lot of players seem to add. For our purposes though, if you just did 900 more points of bikes you get an extra like 10 bikes.
So you have 20 bikes at the start in a full list like that. I don't believe Russes can fall back and shoot innately so once you make contact with them it should be over I think.
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Anyway, cue PrimarchG
If you deploy on the table and don't go first you face 2 shooting phases before you can charge (with bikes, more with foot dudes)
If you deepstrike you face 0 to 1 turns of shooting.
Yes the charge is unreliable but it might still the better option when your facing a very shooting army that would otherwise blow you off the table.
I agree in principle, but I think people have a tendency to over-worry about shooting against Jet Bikes. You can keep your Bikes under a Magnifica in that time. There's not a lot of super heavy gunlines that can seriously threaten T6 4W 2+/4++ with -1 to Hit in 1-2 rounds of shooting.
Of course, I generally advocate taking about 10 bikes minimum if you're fully optimizing so you have a lot of bike power for them to chew through.
Guard, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar. All can chew through 10 bikes in 2-3 turns through a -1 to hit.
You can also see it if you watch the London GT games where top players are deepstriking their bikes against gunlines.
Skhmt wrote: I used CP on one of them. But even without making the charge, it's better to have them on my have to weather one turn of shooting than 2-3.
Even with Command Re-roll your odds are low. You barely crack 50% with a re-roll aura AND stratagem access.
You'd lose CP, but Bikes would get there about as fast, be tougher and do more damage (costs more though so if you don't got the points then fair enough).
Anyway, cue PrimarchG
If you deploy on the table and don't go first you face 2 shooting phases before you can charge (with bikes, more with foot dudes)
If you deepstrike you face 0 to 1 turns of shooting.
Yes the charge is unreliable but it might still the better option when your facing a very shooting army that would otherwise blow you off the table.
I agree in principle, but I think people have a tendency to over-worry about shooting against Jet Bikes. You can keep your Bikes under a Magnifica in that time. There's not a lot of super heavy gunlines that can seriously threaten T6 4W 2+/4++ with -1 to Hit in 1-2 rounds of shooting.
Of course, I generally advocate taking about 10 bikes minimum if you're fully optimizing so you have a lot of bike power for them to chew through.
Guard, Tau, Eldar, Dark Eldar. All can chew through 10 bikes in 2-3 turns through a -1 to hit.
You can also see it if you watch the London GT games where top players are deepstriking their bikes against gunlines.
Geoff uses Guardians.
This time he didn't. 16 Bikes, a Culexus and Astra Militarum this time I believe.
It wasn't much of a fight. Geoff utilized cover to protect his bikes (and died immediately when he didn't) and the Tau player refused to move, despite not having objectives to his favor.
He played it well. I beat him 20-0 the game before, which meant he learned from his mistakes. The mission and deployment meant I couldn't push forwards and the bike captain just wouldn't die. Gratz to Geoff for a great game. If the captain died a turn earlier I think I would have had him although my Maelstrom sucked donkey balls.
Custodes in that terrain are a lot stronger than usual. Being able to hide them which even with normal BLOS terrain is hard is massive. Tau suck though right?
I wouldn't say the board favors Custodes to be honest.
There is cover in the center of the board but not enough to fully hide a larger unit of bikes because they take up so much space.
After that you spend a turn out in the open as you move to engage. Especially on diagonal deployments which the Finals was played in.
Thats why we saw a lot of players deepstrike their bikes against gunlines. Something I believe Geoff mentioned he changed between the GT game he lost and the invitational Finals.
That is not the say the terrain was bad for a tournament, it was functional LoS denying terrain but there was, imo, to much open space on the left/right side of the boards.
Here is a picture of those who didn't watch the streams. The Brown boxes on the left/right were woods to provide a cover save but don't inhibit LoS.
Spoiler:
In the end I think a lot of it comes down to Custodes being a very binary army. A few good or bad saves have a big swing effect. Like Geoff's captain surviving for a turn in the middle of the Tau army which indeed seemed pivotal.
JNAProductions wrote: How many Russes does he have? Because, assuming hitting on a 4+ (Tank Commander with Magnifica or regular Russ without), the expected damage per Battlecannon shot is...
(1/2)*(2/3)*(1/2)*(2)=1/3, or 12 shots to kill a single Biker. Not that scary.
Remember to reroll ones and hull/sponson weapons.
Russ spam is effective against bike spam, provided there is no where to hide enough bikes. it can take 2 russes to kill a biker, but there will be around 12, they will sit in the very back corner, and force 2 turns of shooting, killing roughly 12 or more bikes before you are in charge range.
What are Adeptus Custodes top tier units in your opinion? I have played them once in a 2 versus 2 and lost and this was before the codex. I was wondering what is best now. Thanks.
BillyN831 wrote: What are Adeptus Custodes top tier units in your opinion? I have played them once in a 2 versus 2 and lost and this was before the codex. I was wondering what is best now. Thanks.
The codex contains 3 units.
Bike captains, bikes and Vexilla.
The rest is cool if you want to play a pure Custodes army but none of them are good enough for high level competitive play.
(in before Primark disagrees despite all evidence to the contrary)
BillyN831 wrote: What are Adeptus Custodes top tier units in your opinion? I have played them once in a 2 versus 2 and lost and this was before the codex. I was wondering what is best now. Thanks.
The codex contains 3 units.
Bike captains, bikes and Vexilla.
The rest is cool if you want to play a pure Custodes army but none of them are good enough for high level competitive play.
(in before Primark disagrees despite all evidence to the contrary)
Custodian Guard are a completely serviceable unit. If I remember correctly the reason we likely didn’t see any in Geoff’s list is there was a restriction of 1 of each detachment type so he couldn’t run double Battalion for even more CP.
BillyN831 wrote: What are Adeptus Custodes top tier units in your opinion? I have played them once in a 2 versus 2 and lost and this was before the codex. I was wondering what is best now. Thanks.
The codex contains 3 units.
Bike captains, bikes and Vexilla.
The rest is cool if you want to play a pure Custodes army but none of them are good enough for high level competitive play.
(in before Primark disagrees despite all evidence to the contrary)
BillyN831 wrote: Is mass Misericordia and Salvo Launchers effective? Thanks.
Not really. Misercordia are best used as points filler when you can't fit whole units in or on characters you expect to be slogging through hordes and pseudo-hordes solo. Salvo launchers are generally overcosted for what they do and you should look into a Caladius Grav-Tank or Telemon Heavy Dreadnought (both Forgeworld) instead.
Alright, so I remember discussing this before and I've been seeing a bunch of lists that are running multiple relics across their army. This list from LGT is an example:
Spoiler:
Army Keyword: Imperium
Total Command Points: 8
Total: 2000 pts
I've been doing research since finding this, and found a post about it.
"***Note however if you unlock the strategems to pay 1CP for a relic, this means you can unlock relics outside of your Warlord’s faction, by paying 1CP. I use this while I have the SM Banner relic from my warlord, and then paying 1CP for Kuirov’s Aquilla for Astra Militarum, since I have a separate Astra Militarum detachment."
This means we can pay the 1CP to take Auric Aquilis on top of having the Imperial Guard CP Battery, or any other crazy shenanigans like Slamguinius. Wanted to share this with you all.
Again, if this is incorrect and has been FAQ'd, please let me know. However, it seems that because you are unlocking them with stratagems it works.
It was an FaQ that allowed it in the first place. In the Death Guard codex faq doc i believe. Clarified that the 'extra relic' stratagem is available to all of your detachments, not just your Warlords one.
Theoretically you could have 2 relics for every detachment you take plus your free one, assuming theyre all from seperate codicies and you have the CP.
KampfKrote wrote: Alright, so I remember discussing this before and I've been seeing a bunch of lists that are running multiple relics across their army. This list from LGT is an example:
Spoiler:
Army Keyword: Imperium
Total Command Points: 8
Total: 2000 pts
I've been doing research since finding this, and found a post about it.
"***Note however if you unlock the strategems to pay 1CP for a relic, this means you can unlock relics outside of your Warlord’s faction, by paying 1CP. I use this while I have the SM Banner relic from my warlord, and then paying 1CP for Kuirov’s Aquilla for Astra Militarum, since I have a separate Astra Militarum detachment."
This means we can pay the 1CP to take Auric Aquilis on top of having the Imperial Guard CP Battery, or any other crazy shenanigans like Slamguinius. Wanted to share this with you all.
Again, if this is incorrect and has been FAQ'd, please let me know. However, it seems that because you are unlocking them with stratagems it works.
Yes you can. For further confirmation see the Deathguard Faq which has
Q: If my army is led by a Chaos Space Marines Warlord, and
I have a Detachment of Death Guard, can I use the Gifts of
Decay Death Guard Stratagem to include a Relic on a Death
Guard Character?
A: Yes. The only requirement to have access to
Stratagems is that you have a Detachment of the
appropriate Faction. If you have a Death Guard
Detachment, you have access to their Stratagems.
Every day I am amazed at how many people do not know you can do this, no where does it ever say you are limited to only your warlords faction relics. All codex relic sections merely say you get 1 free relic of your walords faction.
So little people know you can do that because you could never do it before the FAQ and you'd only know of the change if you read the DGFAQ, which most people wouldn't do since they'd have no reason to read the FAQ of an army they don't have.
mrhappyface wrote: So little people know you can do that because you could never do it before the FAQ and you'd only know of the change if you read the DGFAQ, which most people wouldn't do since they'd have no reason to read the FAQ of an army they don't have.
Please quote the relevant rule.
Because it does not exist. The bit in each codex relic section only deals with the free relic for your warlords faction. Nothing has ever limited your ability to get other faction relics through the stratagems.
mrhappyface wrote: So little people know you can do that because you could never do it before the FAQ
No, you could do it forever, FAQ just made a statement about existing rules but not changed them by any mean. It is VERY strange that some people were thinking about that matter in any other way.
We're not going to start this again, we've already discussed that the RAW in the codex take on different meanings in different languages due to the varied meaning of the word extra: in British English the RAW don't work with the FAQ interpretation but in other languages it does work.
Awesome! Thanks for the clarification. Now that I thought back on it, it was some people on Reddit that poopoo’d on a list I had shared and not you guys.
For non-forge world anti tank, is my only option salvo launchers on bikes? My list is finding it hard to cope with tanks and it's the only good option I see.
Obviously I could take some AM stuff, but I want to stay pure (without any FW)
McMagnus Mindbullets wrote: For non-forge world anti tank, is my only option salvo launchers on bikes? My list is finding it hard to cope with tanks and it's the only good option I see.
Obviously I could take some AM stuff, but I want to stay pure (without any FW)
Imo Salvo Launchers aren't even a good answer. Your anti-tank is a stick with a point at the end.
A Land Raider with Wardens in is OK as anti-tank in semi-competitive areas: with the -1 to hit, the LR will be able to soak up enough damage turn 1 that it is either ignored (players with BS4+ or worse will likely do this) or it will draw away enough fire that your opponent won't have enough shooting to take down your bikes.
mrhappyface wrote: A Land Raider with Wardens in is OK as anti-tank in semi-competitive areas: with the -1 to hit, the LR will be able to soak up enough damage turn 1 that it is either ignored (players with BS4+ or worse will likely do this) or it will draw away enough fire that your opponent won't have enough shooting to take down your bikes.
"What are Adeptus Custodes top tier units in your opinion? I have played them once in a 2 versus 2 and lost and this was before the codex. I was wondering what is best now. Thanks."
I have had lots of success with Allurus Custodians and Wardens. They may become more popular after GW nerfs dawneagles. Supposedly ever Imperial army at LGT had a supreme command detachment with three shield captains on dawneagles. The Telemon is looking very promising and gives Custodes what they sorely need which is ranged AT shooting.
"What are Adeptus Custodes top tier units in your opinion? I have played them once in a 2 versus 2 and lost and this was before the codex. I was wondering what is best now. Thanks."
I have had lots of success with Allurus Custodians and Wardens. They may become more popular after GW nerfs dawneagles. Supposedly ever Imperial army at LGT had a supreme command detachment with three shield captains on dawneagles. The Telemon is looking very promising and gives Custodes what they sorely need which is ranged AT shooting.
They might nerf the Captains, but I doubt they nerf the regular bikes besides adding a cost to their lances (currently 0). Astra Militarum, and Eldar made up something like 13% each of the top lists, Dark Eldar 11% and Daemons 8% while Custodes were only 5%, for example (tied with Space Marines, Tau and AdMech). There's definitely bigger fish to fry if you're just looking at aggregate data (almost all Eldar of any stripes took 3 Ravagers, Eldar lists featured lots of flyers, AM are still a massive CP farm for basically all of the Imperium, e.t.c.).
Ordana wrote: I could see a captain price increase in CA 2018 for sure. To many armies are taking 3 ofs as a Supreme Command
I'm not sure a price increase really fixes it. Even making them 200 points a piece leaves them still pretty attractive (while any higher would leave them virtually unusable to majority Custodes forces). It might be better to make the Eagle Eye Relic Infantry only, thus only one Captain gets a 3++, increase points slightly (by making them pay for their lances) and strip Custodes HQ's of ObSec. Now they lose their ability to turbo-advance objectives against opposition, only one of them will have truly massive durability and they'll have a slight price bump. You could even mandate they take Misericordia (like Wardens) just to give them a bit of an extra mandatory minimum price bump too.
These would largely leave them intact for normal Custodes armies which would use normal bikes and units for objective grabbing.
mrhappyface wrote: A Land Raider with Wardens in is OK as anti-tank in semi-competitive areas: with the -1 to hit, the LR will be able to soak up enough damage turn 1 that it is either ignored (players with BS4+ or worse will likely do this) or it will draw away enough fire that your opponent won't have enough shooting to take down your bikes.
Eh... That's a LOT of points.
Perhaps but in the 2 games I've fielded it so far it's done well:
Game 1, VS Nids (horde): due to his big guns having BS4+ base (BS6+ on one of his big monsters after my Lascannon's pounded it turn 1) he basically ignored the T8 24W -1 to hit target, he couldn't effectively shoot it down and I had bubble wrapped it with Custodes Guard which he didn't want to get into CC with. He ended up maneuvering most of his army to deal with my bikes whilst the rest of my army grabbed objectives.
Game 2, VS IG (Shadowsword): turn 1 I dropped a Leman Russ to half wounds and crippled an infantry squad (that later ran away) with it's bolters, his response was to focus the LR down with the Shadowsword and an Annihilator Pask; allowing my Bikes to move up the flanks relatively unscathed (lost 1 bike to an executioner) and wipe out his infantry, heavy weapons squads and Celestine (she got her lights punched out by my Captain without doing any damage to me) and hold two Leman Russes down in cc for 2 turns (destroying one but just holding down the other).
I have another game in a week with the same Land Raider set up against either TS or DG, if he brings either of the Daemon Primarchs it mightn't end well.
Edit: Assuming I'm right and you're wrong, you can get the same number of wounds (16) for 360 points on Bikers. T6 instead of T8, true, but with a 4++ instead of only a 6+++.
Aye, W16, I was thinking about the Shadowsword whilst I typed up the stats for the LR (don't worry, I didn't give the LR 24W in that game).
Aye, bikes are still the better option (as they are when compared to literally any other unit besides the unkillable Bike Captain) but that doesn't make the LR necessarily bad.
mrhappyface wrote: Aye, W16, I was thinking about the Shadowsword whilst I typed up the stats for the LR (don't worry, I didn't give the LR 24W in that game).
Aye, bikes are still the better option (as they are when compared to literally any other unit besides the unkillable Bike Captain) but that doesn't make the LR necessarily bad.
I actually would rate normal bikers better then captains.
near double the cost gives the captain near double the survivability (not counting relics) but no increase in ranged output and only 25% more melee output.
6 bike captains or 9 bikes and a captain. I'd go for the latter every time.
mrhappyface wrote: Aye, W16, I was thinking about the Shadowsword whilst I typed up the stats for the LR (don't worry, I didn't give the LR 24W in that game).
Aye, bikes are still the better option (as they are when compared to literally any other unit besides the unkillable Bike Captain) but that doesn't make the LR necessarily bad.
I actually would rate normal bikers better then captains.
near double the cost gives the captain near double the survivability (not counting relics) but no increase in ranged output and only 25% more melee output.
6 bike captains or 9 bikes and a captain. I'd go for the latter every time.
Survivability is going to vary simply because of the Character keyword existing for them.
A bike captain is more survivable because as SF123 said character keyword, 3++, Superior Creation WLT and VofBG strategem. That is why one fits perfectly into my army... will be building another one too.
mrhappyface wrote: A Land Raider with Wardens in is OK as anti-tank in semi-competitive areas: with the -1 to hit, the LR will be able to soak up enough damage turn 1 that it is either ignored (players with BS4+ or worse will likely do this) or it will draw away enough fire that your opponent won't have enough shooting to take down your bikes.
Eh... That's a LOT of points.
Game 2, VS IG (Shadowsword): turn 1 I dropped a Leman Russ to half wounds and crippled an infantry squad (that later ran away) with it's bolters, his response was to focus the LR down with the Shadowsword and an Annihilator Pask; allowing my Bikes to move up the flanks relatively unscathed (lost 1 bike to an executioner) and wipe out his infantry, heavy weapons squads and Celestine (she got her lights punched out by my Captain without doing any damage to me) and hold two Leman Russes down in cc for 2 turns (destroying one but just holding down the other).
.
Pask and Tank Commanders can't use FW tank variants. Otherwise I'd be rolling with Annihilator Pask every game.
"What are Adeptus Custodes top tier units in your opinion? I have played them once in a 2 versus 2 and lost and this was before the codex. I was wondering what is best now. Thanks."
I have had lots of success with Allurus Custodians and Wardens. They may become more popular after GW nerfs dawneagles. Supposedly ever Imperial army at LGT had a supreme command detachment with three shield captains on dawneagles. The Telemon is looking very promising and gives Custodes what they sorely need which is ranged AT shooting.
This is making me really nervous about buying any more custodes. Seeing them in every imperial list I'm scared they are going to end up getting the Dark Talon or even worse Fire Raptor treatment and end up being relegated to my shelf of non-competitive but cool looking space marines...
The real thing that needs to happen is just the removal of the supreme command detachment. Being able to build a detachment out of just HQs shouldn’t have been allowed to begin with.
Got a tournament coming up in 2 weeks time that has roughly around 100 people and I’m struggling to make the call on my list, I’ve got the standard guard battalion for cp then I’m tossing up between maxing out on bikes unita and some assassins or taking less bikes but more anti tank probably in the form of leman russ tanks
What would be the pros and cons of each list and armies they don’t want to run into?
Shinymarine wrote: Got a tournament coming up in 2 weeks time that has roughly around 100 people and I’m struggling to make the call on my list, I’ve got the standard guard battalion for cp then I’m tossing up between maxing out on bikes unita and some assassins or taking less bikes but more anti tank probably in the form of leman russ tanks
What would be the pros and cons of each list and armies they don’t want to run into?
Can't really help you out without some idea of the mission format. The mission format and any tournament specific restrictions can drastically alter what defines a good list and what to worry about.
mrhappyface wrote: A Land Raider with Wardens in is OK as anti-tank in semi-competitive areas: with the -1 to hit, the LR will be able to soak up enough damage turn 1 that it is either ignored (players with BS4+ or worse will likely do this) or it will draw away enough fire that your opponent won't have enough shooting to take down your bikes.
Eh... That's a LOT of points.
Perhaps but in the 2 games I've fielded it so far it's done well:
Game 1, VS Nids (horde): due to his big guns having BS4+ base (BS6+ on one of his big monsters after my Lascannon's pounded it turn 1) he basically ignored the T8 24W -1 to hit target, he couldn't effectively shoot it down and I had bubble wrapped it with Custodes Guard which he didn't want to get into CC with. He ended up maneuvering most of his army to deal with my bikes whilst the rest of my army grabbed objectives.
Game 2, VS IG (Shadowsword): turn 1 I dropped a Leman Russ to half wounds and crippled an infantry squad (that later ran away) with it's bolters, his response was to focus the LR down with the Shadowsword and an Annihilator Pask; allowing my Bikes to move up the flanks relatively unscathed (lost 1 bike to an executioner) and wipe out his infantry, heavy weapons squads and Celestine (she got her lights punched out by my Captain without doing any damage to me) and hold two Leman Russes down in cc for 2 turns (destroying one but just holding down the other).
I have another game in a week with the same Land Raider set up against either TS or DG, if he brings either of the Daemon Primarchs it mightn't end well.
Points? List? I'm interested in a land raider as ranged anti tank that isn't forge world sooo what was the list?
Shinymarine wrote: Sorry clean forgot to post that stuff it’s 5 games, itc missions with no forgeworld allowed
Ok, ITC so you'll be wanting mortars in your IGCP farm squads to deny Reaper.
You'll likely be offering max Headhunter, so your opponent will likely choose that. They'll probably take old school and maybe Gang Buster's depending on the size of the bike squads.
One thing with bikes being so popular is you might run into a near mirror match. Not sure what you can do to give yourself an edge in bikes vs. bikes.
Russ'/basilisks/Manticores all give solid long range AT, but they are basically shut down by Alaitoc on the field. They also open you up to giving up BGH secondary. The bikes should do alright in mitigating all the -1/-2, but the mortal wounds will hurt when you get that close.
Guard squads are a mixed blessing. You get more board control and objectives, but you give your opponent easy kills for the EoR killed more primary and all but guaranteeing the EoT killed one unit primary. Use the squad merge strat whenever possible to deny unit kills.
I'm asking more upon what would be the most effective pure custodes army at 2000pts that didn't have any dawneagle jet bikes.?
Now, I fully understand that this will not be hyper competitive or be an all winning force, but the meta in my local club is casual with a more narrative feel to missions and no one uses allies at all, so it's very beer and crisps than WIN AT ALL COSTS! At the local!
Now, while casual, were not noobs so there are some tasty armies. A pure death guard, Alderiri, Drukhari, Primaris Marines, space marines, Adeptus Mechanicus, all flavours of DarkbAngel, and Astra Militarum and finally Necrons. A wide array of opponents and as such, we're used to unique rules, stratagems, deep strikes etc. So dakka - how would a potent custodes armyook that didn't ally up it spam jetbikes?
I'm asking more upon what would be the most effective pure custodes army at 2000pts that didn't have any dawneagle jet bikes.?
Now, I fully understand that this will not be hyper competitive or be an all winning force, but the meta in my local club is casual with a more narrative feel to missions and no one uses allies at all, so it's very beer and crisps than WIN AT ALL COSTS! At the local!
Now, while casual, were not noobs so there are some tasty armies. A pure death guard, Alderiri, Drukhari, Primaris Marines, space marines, Adeptus Mechanicus, all flavours of DarkbAngel, and Astra Militarum and finally Necrons. A wide array of opponents and as such, we're used to unique rules, stratagems, deep strikes etc. So dakka - how would a potent custodes armyook that didn't ally up it spam jetbikes?
assuming you didn't want any jet bikes (which BTW would be a sin, they're pretty minis, even if you don't want to spam em, might be worth snagging a box) I think the best combination would be a custodian gaurd heavy list. run in packs of 5 with 3 spears 2 shields, and advance up the board with them. put a velixla preator with a magnfcigenca velixa or two down with your troops to make your line even more durable. then top the army off with a squad or two of Allarus Custodes for deep strike power
A Telemon or other long range shooty thing would also be important without jetbikes, otherwise fast armies would be difficult to touch. At least it allows you to deal to things like hellblasters, devastators and such before they do too much damage.
I'm asking more upon what would be the most effective pure custodes army at 2000pts that didn't have any dawneagle jet bikes.?
Now, I fully understand that this will not be hyper competitive or be an all winning force, but the meta in my local club is casual with a more narrative feel to missions and no one uses allies at all, so it's very beer and crisps than WIN AT ALL COSTS! At the local!
Now, while casual, were not noobs so there are some tasty armies. A pure death guard, Alderiri, Drukhari, Primaris Marines, space marines, Adeptus Mechanicus, all flavours of DarkbAngel, and Astra Militarum and finally Necrons. A wide array of opponents and as such, we're used to unique rules, stratagems, deep strikes etc. So dakka - how would a potent custodes armyook that didn't ally up it spam jetbikes?
Telemon Heavy Dread does wonders. Gives us a source of ranged firepower.
Took this against a guard list with Stormlord, Banehammer and Shadow sword all filled the max with lasguns and plasma.
Trajan, Shield Captain, 3 squads of Guard with 3 spears and 2 shields, Vexilla, Telamon with Illustaus, 4 Jetbikes.
Lost 8 models and killed all his tanks by T4. MVP was Telemon and Trajan (first time running Trajan).
I got lucky getting 1 squad of guard and trajan charging in from DS.
So with the bonus to Invulnerable Saves for pure Custodes Detachments, for basic Custodian Guard, what is the best loadout? I have seen anything from 1-3 Storm Shields and Sword with the rest rocking Spears. Is there any real benefit to going pure Sword and Board or pure Spear?
As of right now, I have three Jetbike Shield Captains with Hurricane Bolters(they augment my Blood Angels army), a Vexilus Praetor with a Guardian Spear, and five unbuilt Custodian Guard. My Custodes aren't going to be a main force for my army. My Captains can swap out their Hurricane Bolters for a Salvo Launcher as well.
casvalremdeikun wrote: So with the bonus to Invulnerable Saves for pure Custodes Detachments, for basic Custodian Guard, what is the best loadout? I have seen anything from 1-3 Storm Shields and Sword with the rest rocking Spears. Is there any real benefit to going pure Sword and Board or pure Spear?
Pure sword is what you put on a group you want to hold ONE SPACE and just never give it up even under WITHERING amounts of fire. All spear is what you do when you want some board presence and damage built in.
Most people do 1-2 Shields from what I've seen so the unit is flexible and can do a bit of both. Think of them in these terms though and they'll serve you well.
casvalremdeikun wrote: So with the bonus to Invulnerable Saves for pure Custodes Detachments, for basic Custodian Guard, what is the best loadout? I have seen anything from 1-3 Storm Shields and Sword with the rest rocking Spears. Is there any real benefit to going pure Sword and Board or pure Spear?
Pure sword is what you put on a group you want to hold ONE SPACE and just never give it up even under WITHERING amounts of fire. All spear is what you do when you want some board presence and damage built in.
Most people do 1-2 Shields from what I've seen so the unit is flexible and can do a bit of both. Think of them in these terms though and they'll serve you well.
That is kind of what I thought. Sword and Board is what you do when you want your opponent to rip their hair out because the dudes refuse to die.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: One Sword/Shield and 2-3 Spears is what I would do depending on how much I'm treating them as a Troop Tax.
They are 100% the Troop tax. So that is why I am more tempted to just use all Spears. Though a bunch of Shields would make for an extremely annoying Troop to squat down on an objective.
I am thinking of doing three squads of 5 rocking 4 Spears and 1 Sword and Board.
I second that. A shield improves your invul by 33% at the cost of both shooting and melee, and costs more too.
The shield made a lot more sense before the codex when guard only had a 5++. But with the free 4++ now, it'd be a tough buy even if it was the same price as a spear.
And against AP -1 or 0 attacks, it does literally nothing.
Primark G wrote: For Guardians I would go all spears if you run 3-man squads.
One of the main reasons I won't be doing that is because the squads have 5 men in the box. I suppose I could make three squads of three Spears and a Shield Captain or Vexilus Praetor (probably the Praetor since I have three bike Captains). That might be my best option, to be honest. That literally runs me the price of one more box of dudes.
I find at least one shield to be absolutely worth it, but I take a lot of bikes when I take Guardians. I don't need the Guardians to shoot and I don't hit many targets with them where S6 makes a difference over S5. In stead want them to sit, survive and score objectives.
If you play SC2, think of it like Siege Tanks (Swords + Shields) and Marauders (Spears). One is mobile and less durable, one is when you want to tell the other player "don't bother attacking here, this spot on the board is off limits".
If you're in the back line, 3 shots is better than 0 at 12.1-24". Against multiple-wound models, spears are more than twice as good at shooting than sentinel blades. Spears also randomly do significantly better against rubic marines than sentinel blades in shooting, they save at 4+ against guardian spear shooting rather than 2+ against sentinel blade shooting.
I did the math on spears vs swords including shooting in combat (but not shooting before charging) and spears are generally close when they lose to swords at T4/7/8/9, but are far better when they win against swords.
As for the storm shield... you'll generally take one less wound every 4 krak missiles from space marines (BS 3+) than a standard custodian guard. Or you'll take 3 less wounds (the total wounds of a custodian guard) every 11.57 krak missiles fired from space marines, on average.
It's good... that's why we give 3++ to bike captains... but it's not THAT good considering the extra cost and the actual detriment to shooting and combat.
And yes, over one battle round in combat, not including initial shooting before charging, a guardian spear armed custodes will do slightly more damage to T3/5+/1W models than a sentinel blade armed custodes, but slightly worse (4.26 vs 4.16 wounds per round per custodian guard, not turn) against cultists with a 6+ save. And even against cultists, although sentinel blades will do slightly more damage, they're less point efficient per kill.
karandrasss wrote: Why would you ever use spears over shields? When does the extremely marginal increase in power ever come into play?
Meanwhile, Sentinel Blades help you shoot out of tarpits, often giving you a critical extra charge.
T3 models-wound on 2s instead of 3s.
T5 models-wound on 3s instead of 4s.
T6 models-wound on 4s instead of 5s.
Better range on the guns, so can offer more from the backfield. Better damage too.
Stratagem access (wound at a +1-swords don't have jack diddly, to my knowledge).
They do have a strat actually: sentinel storm. I don't think it's very good though. Let's you fire your pistols at the end of the enemy shooting phase for 2 CP.
The pistols do help clear tarpits though. If I'm fighting 20 fearless cultists that charged me last turn, getting 6 pistol shots plus my attacks helps a lot.
That said, I also view it as a utility issue.
When building a Custodes list, anything that can take an axe gets an axe over a spear. So now I'm full of 4++ units with axes and my bikes. Do I need the stronger damage of Spears? Not really. Axes and Lances blow them out of the water. So the Shields at least offer the unit something the rest of my list doesn't have.
I don't fault folks taking Spears now though and I generally avoid Custodes battalion for serious games. HQ's and Vexilla get axes, rest lances. Add in a Telemon and Astra Militarum CP battalion.
Blades do little extra against tarpits. a whole 0.3 wounds extra against cultists over your opponents and your own turn. (for a squad of 3).
(18 spear attacks doing 12.5 wounds vs 18 sword attacks doing 10 and 6 shots doing 2.8)
I like the 1 sword/2 spear mix, since having a tank model generally deters people, and the imagery of one Custodian with his shield protecting his two fellows firing over his shoulders is a good one.
What could possibly be game changing - the high upside of Stormshields, or extra bolter shots at 12.1-24" range? IMO Custodes shouldn't be fighting T5-6 units; they're usually too fast, and you should have better options for them.
Ordana wrote: Blades do little extra against tarpits. a whole 0.3 wounds extra against cultists over your opponents and your own turn. (for a squad of 3).
(18 spear attacks doing 12.5 wounds vs 18 sword attacks doing 10 and 6 shots doing 2.8)
My squads of 3 don't get 18 attacks! Haha.
I get a bit more when I do the math. 9 spearb attacks kill 6.25. 9 swords kill 5. 6 shots from pistols do 2.78 for a total of 7.78 to 6.25. About 1.53 wounds per 3 Custodians once you're in the thick of the tarpit.
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karandrasss wrote: What could possibly be game changing - the high upside of Stormshields, or extra bolter shots at 12.1-24" range? IMO Custodes shouldn't be fighting T5-6 units; they're usually too fast, and you should have better options for them.
T5/T6 should usualllllly be handled by Bike squads, yeah.
Ordana wrote: Blades do little extra against tarpits. a whole 0.3 wounds extra against cultists over your opponents and your own turn. (for a squad of 3).
(18 spear attacks doing 12.5 wounds vs 18 sword attacks doing 10 and 6 shots doing 2.8)
My squads of 3 don't get 18 attacks! Haha.
I get a bit more when I do the math. 9 spearb attacks kill 6.25. 9 swords kill 5. 6 shots from pistols do 2.78 for a total of 7.78 to 6.25. About 1.53 wounds per 3 Custodians once you're in the thick of the tarpit.
Please read. If you worry about tarpits your not just in combat on your turn. your in combat on both turns. So for the complete picture you also need to account for your opponents turn where spears will kill more then swords and you don't get to shoot pistols.
karandrasss wrote: What could possibly be game changing - the high upside of Stormshields, or extra bolter shots at 12.1-24" range? IMO Custodes shouldn't be fighting T5-6 units; they're usually too fast, and you should have better options for them.
If you read my post at all... It's not a "high upside" of a stormshield. It's a small increase in invul save by sacrificing some shooting and melee AND paying extra points.
I think the problem is people see "stormshield", remember how good it is in other armies without a natural 4++ or on models with 5+ wounds, and see it as an auto-include. A stormshield is amazing if you have no invul save. It's good if you only have a 5++ too. But next time you use them, see how many 3s you actually roll vs ap-2 or better attacks on your stormshield guys. You might roll one or two, but you probably won't roll any before he dies.
Ordana wrote: Blades do little extra against tarpits. a whole 0.3 wounds extra against cultists over your opponents and your own turn. (for a squad of 3).
(18 spear attacks doing 12.5 wounds vs 18 sword attacks doing 10 and 6 shots doing 2.8)
My squads of 3 don't get 18 attacks! Haha.
I get a bit more when I do the math. 9 spearb attacks kill 6.25. 9 swords kill 5. 6 shots from pistols do 2.78 for a total of 7.78 to 6.25. About 1.53 wounds per 3 Custodians once you're in the thick of the tarpit.
Please read. If you worry about tarpits your not just in combat on your turn. your in combat on both turns. So for the complete picture you also need to account for your opponents turn where spears will kill more then swords and you don't get to shoot pistols.
Ouch, someone's a bit of a grouch today. You actually can shoot on the enemy's turn too if you use the Stratagem, but let's ignore that for now.
Anyway, that's a completely skewed view. Almost all analysis on this board is done in one of two ways: 1. You look at a single turn. 2. You examine the whole fight till a unit is wiped out. You're not doing either. Let's look at 2.
Cultists charge Custodes. For this purpose, I'm just gonna ignore what damage the Cultists do. We're talking about a real tarpit so we'll look at a 40 man unit of Black Guard near Abaddon (so no morale loss).
Custodes 1 (Enemy Phase): 6.25 dead from spear Vs. 5 dead from sword.
After rounding, 34 Cultists left / 35 Cultists left.
Custodes 2 (Hero Phase): 6.25 dead from spear Vs. 7.78 dead from sword.
28 Cultists left Vs. 27 Cultists left.
Custodes 3 (Enemy Phase): 6.25 Vs. 5
22 Cultists left Vs. 22 Cultists left
(After 3 turns, weapon selection ties out, this is the break even point)
Custodes 4 (Hero Phase): 6.25 Vs. 7.78
16 Cultists Vs. 14 Cultists
Custodes 5 (Enemy Phase): 6.25 Vs. 5
10 Cultists left Vs. 9 Cultists left
Custodes 6 (Hero Phase): 6.25 Vs. 7.78
4 Cultists left Vs. 1 Cultists left
Custodes 7 (Enemy Phase): Custodes break free!
So what this tells us is that with a 40-man blob, either loadout breaks free at the same time to resume being useful. If you are fighting a 37-39 man blob (likely weakened due to some other fighting on the board), the swords will break free a turn earlier than the spears.
I'm sure someone better at math could figure out a ration for determining lower levels of Cultists where swords would break free, but that's beyond me.
If you factor in stratagems, the spear Stratagem doesn't change anything (already wounding on 2's). The sword stratagem accelerates things pretty good though. Ignoring WHY you'd blow CP this consistently to shoot these guys again (maybe they're on the relic or something), it's:
Custodes 1 (Enemy Phase): 6.25 dead from spear Vs. 7.78 dead from sword.
After rounding, 34 Cultists left / 32 Cultists left.
Custodes 2 (Hero Phase): 6.25 dead from spear Vs. 7.78 dead from sword.
28 Cultists left Vs. 24 Cultists left.
Custodes 3 (Enemy Phase): 6.25 Vs. 7.78
22 Cultists left Vs. 16 Cultists left
(After 3 turns, weapon selection ties out, this is the break even point)
Custodes 4 (Hero Phase): 6.25 Vs. 7.78
16 Cultists Vs. 8 Cultists
Custodes 5 (Enemy Phase): 6.25 Vs. 7.78
10 Cultists left Vs. 0 Cultists left (swords are free!)
Custodes 6 (Hero Phase): 6.25 Vs. 7/N/A
4 Cultists left Vs. N/A
Custodes 7 (Enemy Phase): Spears break free!
So does it matter to you to get swords out a turn before spears in some cases (either via breakpoint or stratagem use)? If so, look into this. If not, write the tarpit section as a wash and ignore it. If you factor in return attacks from the Cultists the swords might help a bit more too because the spears will probably lose a model sooner due to swords keeping the Cultist body count lower faster.
karandrasss wrote: What could possibly be game changing - the high upside of Stormshields, or extra bolter shots at 12.1-24" range? IMO Custodes shouldn't be fighting T5-6 units; they're usually too fast, and you should have better options for them.
If you read my post at all... It's not a "high upside" of a stormshield. It's a small increase in invul save by sacrificing some shooting and melee AND paying extra points.
I think the problem is people see "stormshield", remember how good it is in other armies without a natural 4++ or on models with 5+ wounds, and see it as an auto-include. A stormshield is amazing if you have no invul save. It's good if you only have a 5++ too. But next time you use them, see how many 3s you actually roll vs ap-2 or better attacks on your stormshield guys. You might roll one or two, but you probably won't roll any before he dies.
As I've said, it really depends what you want that unit to do (though you should only ever be taking Custodians because you're restricted to a pure army or just really need CP).
That said, take a Dark Reaper's Starswarm as an example (not an uncommon gun). Each model should average .67 wounds against spears and .44 against shield. It takes 4.8 Reapers to kill a single spearman (so 5 after rounding). It takes 6.8 to kill a single shieldbearer (so 7 after rounding). Dark Reapers were commonly fielded in units of 7-9 who would get Soul Bursted to shoot 14-18 times. The full volume of that shooting should wipe three spearmen, but it'd leave 1 shieldbearer still standing.
Use Shields when that kind of thing makes a difference to your plan and strategy.
Yes, if you play with the numbers, there will be specific situations in which paying 21 pts and sacrificing killing ability will benefit you. Dark Reapers happen to be one of the most efficient examples that hurt Spears over Shields, with exactly ap -2, multiple damage per shot, and a whole lot of shots.
No one ever claimed the stormshield has zero effect. That's obviously not true. But you're paying extra points for a little extra survivability against only anti-tank/anti-meq attacks. It's a unit that's usually only taken as a tax, and people are paying for some flexibility and then sacrificing it to limit them to a single battlefield use... which is standing on an objective with about 10% of your points (~180pts, so less at 2k but more at 1750).
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: That said, paying points for one meat shield against units like that isn't exactly a bad deal.
Right, most players take a mix for flexibility.
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Skhmt wrote: Yes, if you play with the numbers, there will be specific situations in which paying 21 pts and sacrificing killing ability will benefit you. Dark Reapers happen to be one of the most efficient examples that hurt Spears over Shields, with exactly ap -2, multiple damage per shot, and a whole lot of shots.
No one ever claimed the stormshield has zero effect. That's obviously not true. But you're paying extra points for a little extra survivability against only anti-tank/anti-meq attacks. It's a unit that's usually only taken as a tax, and people are paying for some flexibility and then sacrificing it to limit them to a single battlefield use... which is standing on an objective with about 10% of your points (~180pts, so less at 2k but more at 1750).
Right, my whole point is to build them for what you need
Running some math on spear shooting vs tactical squad bolters, you get 0.41667 vs 0.11111 wounds per shot vs Primaris Marines. Spear shooting is 3.75x the effectiveness of marine bolters, but cost 4x more points per model. So while a tad less point efficient, a 3 spear squad is doing more shooting damage against Primaris Marines than an 11 bolter bs 3+ squad.
Of course against 1w models, spear shooting is far less efficient, but still about twice as good as a marine bolter.
Skhmt wrote: Running some math on spear shooting vs tactical squad bolters, you get 0.41667 vs 0.11111 wounds per shot vs Primaris Marines. Spear shooting is 3.75x the effectiveness of marine bolters, but cost 4x more points per model. So while a tad less point efficient, a 3 spear squad is doing more shooting damage against Primaris Marines than an 11 bolter bs 3+ squad.
Of course against 1w models, spear shooting is far less efficient, but still about twice as good as a marine bolter.
Marine bolters are pretty useless too. In general, when making effective shooting you want stuff like plasma, lascannons, autocannons, starswarms, avenger gatling cannons, Telemon guns, storm cannons, e.t.c, You either need high rate of fire or good strength so you're not wounding on 5's.
In general, most aren't losing any sleep over how they'll kill Primaris Marines.
Be that as it may, we were only looking at pistol shooting cause you can do it in combat.
EDIT: I may have missed the reason you posted this. If so, I apologize.
Skhmt wrote: Running some math on spear shooting vs tactical squad bolters, you get 0.41667 vs 0.11111 wounds per shot vs Primaris Marines. Spear shooting is 3.75x the effectiveness of marine bolters, but cost 4x more points per model. So while a tad less point efficient, a 3 spear squad is doing more shooting damage against Primaris Marines than an 11 bolter bs 3+ squad.
Of course against 1w models, spear shooting is far less efficient, but still about twice as good as a marine bolter.
Marine bolters are pretty useless too. In general, when making effective shooting you want stuff like plasma, lascannons, autocannons, starswarms, avenger gatling cannons, Telemon guns, storm cannons, e.t.c, You either need high rate of fire or good strength so you're not wounding on 5's.
In general, most aren't losing any sleep over how they'll kill Primaris Marines.
Be that as it may, we were only looking at pistol shooting cause you can do it in combat.
Marine bolters are pretty useless but hurricane bolters are literally 6 bolters. Against multi-wound, 3 spears are about as effective as two bs 3+ hurricane bolters.
Skhmt wrote: Spear shooting is 3.75x the effectiveness of marine bolters, but cost 4x more points per model.
I imagine it costs a bit more because it's an Uber-bolter with a built in melee weapon that will wreck most things.
Yeah, you pay more for much better melee and a 2+/4++ at t5. Custodian Guard really aren't that bad, except that you either need an extremely expensive transport or to spend CP to get them moving faster than 6", and they don't have squad heavy weapons to let them sit in the back line.
Has there been any consensus on the optimal squad size for guard? I've been running 3x3 for the CP, but feel that effectiveness drops off after the squad suffers a casualty or two.
I've been toying with running squads of 5 to make line troops a bit more beefy, and to maximize strategy use (as three doesn't seem to be the best number for, well, anything). This will also help with deep striking. Does anyone have any recommendations?
I've been running an AM battalion for CP, so happy to make Custodes guard a bit more effective, even at the cost of some CP.
Xiboleth wrote: Has there been any consensus on the optimal squad size for guard? I've been running 3x3 for the CP, but feel that effectiveness drops off after the squad suffers a casualty or two.
I've been toying with running squads of 5 to make line troops a bit more beefy, and to maximize strategy use (as three doesn't seem to be the best number for, well, anything). This will also help with deep striking. Does anyone have any recommendations?
I've been running an AM battalion for CP, so happy to make Custodes guard a bit more effective, even at the cost of some CP.
When I eventually do Custodes, I would do x4 in a squad, with one holding a shield and sword.
I dunno... There's more room for modeling creativity with the spear than with the two poses you get out of the board.
Yeah..... But 3 of the spear poses are basically the same, and are really difficult to put on.
I have four sword and board guys with vastly different, all great looking poses rather than the more similar spear guard. Also more apparent poses make it easier for me to remember names (yes I did name them all)
Would it be not legal to decide not to include the top knot/mane on Allarus custodians? I think they look dumb, but not gluing them on might be modeling for advantage.
Skhmt wrote: Would it be not legal to decide not to include the top knot/mane on Allarus custodians? I think they look dumb, but not gluing them on might be modeling for advantage.
I don't think anyone would call you out on it.
On another note, today I realised just how big the gap is between competitive and casual players: I played a game today against an Eldar player after I had told him what my list was and what everything did and he conceded halfway through turn 2, saying that Custodes are just too tough to be used in casual gaming.
After taking stock of my last few weeks playing Custodes, I'm inclined to agree with him since I've been using a list that you all say isn't competitive because it has a Landraider and not enough bikes; yet I've won 4 competitive games with it and ruined a friendly game with it. Is there anyway of making a Custodes list that is good for friendly games?
Well my 1500 pt list is 2 jetbike captains, 3x3 custodian guard, vexilus with axe and magnifica, and a squad of 7 allarus terminators. It's a decent mix and uses a giant squad of "subpar" terminators. The list has weaknesses, which makes it more friendly. Namely, it's slow, there's no firepower longer than 24" nor higher than s4, and doesn't run a guard battalion for cheap CP churning.
The sheer durability of Custodes makes them fairly difficult to deal with if your opponent doesn't have a good list; I did some math several pages back breaking down just how durable jetbikes are (even without -1 to hit). The "right" kind of firepower to deal with Custodes is high ROF, AP-2, multi-damage attacks OR mortal wound spam (and they need to be fairly cheap too). If your list doesn't have that, you simply can't kill enough of them before they hit your lines and start killing things.
I think one of the new knight with the flamer is going to ruin our day. Especially if the building is rumoured to give max shots. 18 (or even 36 if you can take 2) str7 -2 2dmg will HURT.
And then it can snipe the vexilla out with the missile.
A knight army is already a serious struggle for an army with so few serious anti tank or mortal wound options. Honestly you're best to just hunker down and mininise engagement for as long as possible. Try to outscore them by sacrificing the occasional obsec unit.
Unless its significanly more expensive though, I forsee the Volcano/plasma cannon variant to be more popular for the average Knight player bringing a TAC list.
Skhmt wrote: Would it be not legal to decide not to include the top knot/mane on Allarus custodians? I think they look dumb, but not gluing them on might be modeling for advantage.
I don't think anyone would call you out on it.
On another note, today I realised just how big the gap is between competitive and casual players: I played a game today against an Eldar player after I had told him what my list was and what everything did and he conceded halfway through turn 2, saying that Custodes are just too tough to be used in casual gaming.
After taking stock of my last few weeks playing Custodes, I'm inclined to agree with him since I've been using a list that you all say isn't competitive because it has a Landraider and not enough bikes; yet I've won 4 competitive games with it and ruined a friendly game with it. Is there anyway of making a Custodes list that is good for friendly games?
whats your current list? that said, even at the casual range some lists are better then others.
If it was his first game with necrons, I don't think that's enough to draw the conclusion "it's hard to make a casual list with Custodes", especially with the mistakes he made.
Spartacus wrote: A knight army is already a serious struggle for an army with so few serious anti tank or mortal wound options. Honestly you're best to just hunker down and mininise engagement for as long as possible. Try to outscore them by sacrificing the occasional obsec unit.
Unless its significanly more expensive though, I forsee the Volcano/plasma cannon variant to be more popular for the average Knight player bringing a TAC list.
Unless there are massive points drops in the codex, you’re still probably looking at only 4 knights max in a 2k list. Once you get them down to 3 or less they have a hard time claiming objectives. You don’t have to kill all the knights, just 1 or 2. And I think Custodes can manage that.
Hate to say it, but taking a guard battalion for cheap CP and regenerating CP is a very very competitive choice. It's like THE definition of min-max, so much so that if you have the Imperial keyword, you're intentionally making a worse list if you don't spend the less than 200 pts on 5+ CP and 3 more obsec units.
If you want to run casual/friendly games, do pure Custodes.
Skhmt wrote: Hate to say it, but taking a guard battalion for cheap CP and regenerating CP is a very very competitive choice. It's like THE definition of min-max, so much so that if you have the Imperial keyword, you're intentionally making a worse list if you don't spend the less than 200 pts on 5+ CP and 3 more obsec units.
If you want to run casual/friendly games, do pure Custodes.
Aye, that makes sense looking at it now; I just automatically through in the Guard detachment because otherwise you can't make use of all the fun stratagems.
Maybe something like this for a more casual Custodes list:
Had a semi-competitive game today in a local Ladder tournament; I won but was informed by my opponent that he has added Custodes to the list of armies he won't play, along with Guard. The game was going pretty poorly for me at first (lost my bikes, bike Captain and entire Guard battalion pretty quickly) but then my Custodes Guard just sat on the two objectives for the rest of the game and would not die, one Custodes squad took two turns of his entire army shooting them to lose two models.
According to my opponent, it's not fun shooting a unit and doing nothing to it (between poor hit and wound rolls, lucky saves, command re-roll on failed saves and poor rolls for damage, I just would not die) was very de-moralising and wasn't fun to play against. I love my Custodes-Guard heretic force (I loved building them especially) but it's becoming the new Taudar.
I'm now stuck between using the models I love and have fun using, and playing games that I enjoy because me and my opponent are both having fun. What to do?
Crazyterran wrote: Your opponent admitted to only having fun when hes pulling your models off the table.
Tell him to stop being a donkey cave.
Crazy Terran is right. custodes pay for that durability with a high points cost. An Imperial Guard player can have a 1 to ten kill ratio and STILL come out on top vs custodes, just for example
mrhappyface wrote: Had a semi-competitive game today in a local Ladder tournament; I won but was informed by my opponent that he has added Custodes to the list of armies he won't play, along with Guard. The game was going pretty poorly for me at first (lost my bikes, bike Captain and entire Guard battalion pretty quickly) but then my Custodes Guard just sat on the two objectives for the rest of the game and would not die, one Custodes squad took two turns of his entire army shooting them to lose two models.
According to my opponent, it's not fun shooting a unit and doing nothing to it (between poor hit and wound rolls, lucky saves, command re-roll on failed saves and poor rolls for damage, I just would not die) was very de-moralising and wasn't fun to play against. I love my Custodes-Guard heretic force (I loved building them especially) but it's becoming the new Taudar.
I'm now stuck between using the models I love and have fun using, and playing games that I enjoy because me and my opponent are both having fun. What to do?
Your guy he needs to MASSIVELY optimize his shooting. He should have no trouble breaking some stationary Guardians (or even just swarming note ObSec bodies on them).
I've just about dropped Guardians from even 'for fun' play because all I face and mass Daemons (claws hurt real bad), mass Genestealers, mass Guard artillery, Dark Reaper spam and, previously, double Fire Raptors. And that was just in the practice games! Guardians we're putting me in danger of getting tabled.
mrhappyface wrote: Had a semi-competitive game today in a local Ladder tournament; I won but was informed by my opponent that he has added Custodes to the list of armies he won't play, along with Guard. The game was going pretty poorly for me at first (lost my bikes, bike Captain and entire Guard battalion pretty quickly) but then my Custodes Guard just sat on the two objectives for the rest of the game and would not die, one Custodes squad took two turns of his entire army shooting them to lose two models.
According to my opponent, it's not fun shooting a unit and doing nothing to it (between poor hit and wound rolls, lucky saves, command re-roll on failed saves and poor rolls for damage, I just would not die) was very de-moralising and wasn't fun to play against. I love my Custodes-Guard heretic force (I loved building them especially) but it's becoming the new Taudar.
I'm now stuck between using the models I love and have fun using, and playing games that I enjoy because me and my opponent are both having fun. What to do?
Your opponent sounds like a jackass. Anybody who refuses to play multiple entire armies is a garbage player who just thinks they're entitled to easy wins. Do yourself a favor and stop playing that guy even if you aren't bringing Custodes.
Yeah Mr HappyF it sounds like that opponent was a bit of a shnozzle. I would not let it bother you. TBH you are running a good list that is not super tweaked. /thumbs up
Against Tau, it depends on the list. The sorts of list I tend to run in to hard counter multi-wound melee, so tailoring a Custodes list to be more of a balance between shooting and melee may be for the best. As usual, Jetbike and Jetbike captains are your best friend. Clear out chaff and bigger targets, charge in to mop up. Hope you cleared out enough and don't die horribly to FTGT.
A Telamon Dreadnought, maybe even a Contemptor Dreadnought for some ranged firepower may be decent.
Riptides with Heavy Burst cannons will ruin your day. It has the balance between strength, rate of fire, a bit of AP, and multi-damage that makes Custerds cry.
Played a game with a 7 man Allarus squad against IG with three tanks, two basilisks, two flyers, and some infantry.
Wiped out the bubble wrap, dropped in the terminators, they weathered a turn of shooting, then unleashed the lions. The (now) 6 terminators spread out, getting charges off on the entire army.
jotace wrote: Any tips or lists against Tau at 1750?
being honest, I wouldn't play tau unless you are in a tourny. You can beat them, and most tau players are actually just straight bad at winning games. But winning requires you to simply never try to engage the tau castle (most games will have a tau castle) and sit on objectives as your army is shot to gak. In the end you'll have won the objetive, and done minimal damage, and it's not a game I find very fun to play.
So the Knight Codex is on it's way and I'm becoming more and more attracted to the idea of running a Knight: either the big one with the death spear and Character killing Rocket or one of the medium ones with a Gauntlet (that stratagem, damn!).
But, as I'm sure you're all aware, Custodes are a very points and CP draining army; is it too much to try and run Custodes and Knights together?
I have 3 armies: GK, IK, and Custodes (bought in that order)...yeah I’m an elitist.
From my IK experience, I’ll give you the cliche advice: wait for the codex. Simply put, with detachment and CP manipulation caveats I would wait and see how other players are using solo knights. I’ve seen talk of a couple ideas that make your knight awesome...but for 3-4 CP a turn. So I’d wait just a couple more weeks, unless you alread have the model.
That said, the main thing you’re doing with a knight is killling other knights, or knight-like things. Custodes already have chaff-clearing and basic melee covered, so any ally is going to fill either a need for CP, numbers, or high-strength damage. Knights fill the latter of those requirements. From my GK experience I’ll tell you that I’d take 2 grandmaster dreadknights over a single imperial knight any day; they have knight-killing melee and better invul saves. I’m just not sure yet if a knight is going to be better than a couple contemptors.
Spartacus wrote:Apparently you wont get access to the stratagems if you just take a single SH Auxiliary Detachment, just like in some other codexes like Guard.
You'd need to take 1 plus 2 Armigers minimum, and that also won't earn you the 3 CP bonus either.
Didn't someone say something about a special knight detachment where you can take a single knight and get their special rules?
greyknight12 wrote:I have 3 armies: GK, IK, and Custodes (bought in that order)...yeah I’m an elitist.
From my IK experience, I’ll give you the cliche advice: wait for the codex. Simply put, with detachment and CP manipulation caveats I would wait and see how other players are using solo knights. I’ve seen talk of a couple ideas that make your knight awesome...but for 3-4 CP a turn. So I’d wait just a couple more weeks, unless you alread have the model.
That said, the main thing you’re doing with a knight is killling other knights, or knight-like things. Custodes already have chaff-clearing and basic melee covered, so any ally is going to fill either a need for CP, numbers, or high-strength damage. Knights fill the latter of those requirements. From my GK experience I’ll tell you that I’d take 2 grandmaster dreadknights over a single imperial knight any day; they have knight-killing melee and better invul saves. I’m just not sure yet if a knight is going to be better than a couple contemptors.
I already have a couple of knights (Though one is the regular sword +cannon knight and the other is the pretty useless Lancer). So maybe I will wait a while and then maybe buy either the character, the renegade set or the big knight.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I could do a 2000pt list like this:
- Guard CP battery
- Custodes bike spam (3x bikes, 2x bike captains and a Vexilla)
- A knight (this list gives me about 580pts spare so we'll have to see which knight is best, I'm liking the harpoon one though because I want any vehicle/monster with 11 wounds or less and no invul to die)
So I am working o a Custodes/AdMech/Knight list. I run an Custodes AdMech list at a recent GT and since we got the knights now I want to take at least one unkillable Gallant to rock around. I will take a Battalion of AdMech (Stygies) and I am thinking on taking some Custodes as well. Question is if I do the boring thing and take 3 Captains or if there is another, cooler way like a Custodes Battalion. I havent seen many people using those though, Or should one just spam some Bikes? Since I am fairly new to Custodes I would like to hear some opinions what you think would be a good addition to a knight (and some AdMech Dragoons )
The vigilant is a REALLY good anti custodes platform, but really wants to have access to traits and artifacts and strategums to make it work, and I figure it'll be the same for most knights.
Since we’re talking about knights, it’s probably worth revisiting the discussion of how to beat them. With their feet and shooting they have specifically anti-custodes offense, and outside of melee and FW beta rules we don’t have phenomenal anti-vehicle. My initial thoughts are:
1. If there’s only one (as an ally), probably ignore it. You’re more efficient against whatever else your opponent has.
2. If there are several (or only/majority knights), the key will be to focus down i.e. outright kill one or two early. En masse we can kill them, and the loss of 25% of their models will hurt a knight list. Once we’ve reduced them a bit, just hang out on objectives and outlast/outmaneuver them. Alternatively you ignore camping, and systematically kill them one at a time using the bulk of your army.
stratigo wrote: The vigilant is a REALLY good anti custodes platform, but really wants to have access to traits and artifacts and strategums to make it work, and I figure it'll be the same for most knights.
I thought this originally too but a little more thought seems to make it not so bad. You have Fly on your Bikes and it doesn't, so you should be able to use terrain to get yourself within a charging distance. Once there, simply charge first with your Dawneagle Captain. With the 3++ relic he should survive with a little less than half HP. Then your squishier, normal Jetbikes can charge it with impunity.
Since the Valiant costs about 600 fully kitted out, that means a Custodes approximate would be about 5 Bikers and the Captain. All together that's about 18 wounds, plus an additional 3-4 from the Hurricane Bolters pre-charge. The Valiant should only have about 6-7 wounds left when it wants to retaliate.
Alternatively, just bring the thing down with anti-tank allies and only finish it off with a Bike charge as necessary.
Primark G wrote: Is going to be tough charging Castellans with the flamer weapon.
Valiant*, but that's why I math'd it's damage! It'll do about 4.5 wounds to a Jetbike Captain with the 3++ on average. Add in Victor of the Blood Games or FNP if you made him your Warlord and it becomes quite survivable.
Primark G wrote: Is going to be tough charging Castellans with the flamer weapon.
Valiant*, but that's why I math'd it's damage! It'll do about 4.5 wounds to a Jetbike Captain with the 3++ on average. Add in Victor of the Blood Games or FNP if you made him your Warlord and it becomes quite survivable.
It's 4.7 wounds and that is only from the big flamer (and not even the relic one, god forbid), if any other of it's 7 guns does any damage you could lose the Captain on the charge. If a shield breaker hits then it's goodbye Captain.
Primark G wrote: Is going to be tough charging Castellans with the flamer weapon.
Valiant*, but that's why I math'd it's damage! It'll do about 4.5 wounds to a Jetbike Captain with the 3++ on average. Add in Victor of the Blood Games or FNP if you made him your Warlord and it becomes quite survivable.
Oh I didn't catch that and it's great news!!! Thanks for doing the math. /thumbsup
Have to try and charge out of LoS if possible. My Shield-Cpt has come out without taking one wound versus a SS when it was shooting it full BS so it is possible.
Primark G wrote: Is going to be tough charging Castellans with the flamer weapon.
Valiant*, but that's why I math'd it's damage! It'll do about 4.5 wounds to a Jetbike Captain with the 3++ on average. Add in Victor of the Blood Games or FNP if you made him your Warlord and it becomes quite survivable.
It's 4.7 wounds and that is only from the big flamer (and not even the relic one, god forbid), if any other of it's 7 guns does any damage you could lose the Captain on the charge. If a shield breaker hits then it's goodbye Captain.
Assuming the Valiant has 3 Siegebreakers and the Harpoon, it is statistically only likely to do 1 or less wounds with all of them combined (I think the Harpoon alone has a 62% chance of doing nothing or something like that). The flamer is the only Overwatch of note.
The Relic Flamer just gives it re-rolls, right? If so, a 3++ Captain SHOULD still survive albeit with 1HP. That's WITHOUT Victor of the Blood Games re-rolling a failed Invuln or the 5+++ Warlord Trait. Even without them, he's more likely to make it in and survive than not with no loss of effectiveness.
Primark G wrote: Is going to be tough charging Castellans with the flamer weapon.
Valiant*, but that's why I math'd it's damage! It'll do about 4.5 wounds to a Jetbike Captain with the 3++ on average. Add in Victor of the Blood Games or FNP if you made him your Warlord and it becomes quite survivable.
Oh I didn't catch that and it's great news!!! Thanks for doing the math. /thumbsup
Have to try and charge out of LoS if possible. My Shield-Cpt has come out without taking one wound versus a SS when it was shooting it full BS so it is possible.
Nice! Yeah, IF terrain allows it you can charge him with no Overwatch. All the better in that case.
Primark G wrote: Is going to be tough charging Castellans with the flamer weapon.
Valiant*, but that's why I math'd it's damage! It'll do about 4.5 wounds to a Jetbike Captain with the 3++ on average. Add in Victor of the Blood Games or FNP if you made him your Warlord and it becomes quite survivable.
It's 4.7 wounds and that is only from the big flamer (and not even the relic one, god forbid), if any other of it's 7 guns does any damage you could lose the Captain on the charge. If a shield breaker hits then it's goodbye Captain.
Assuming the Valiant has 3 Siegebreakers and the Harpoon, it is statistically only likely to do 1 or less wounds with all of them combined (I think the Harpoon alone has a 62% chance of doing nothing or something like that). The flamer is the only Overwatch of note.
The Relic Flamer just gives it re-rolls, right? If so, a 3++ Captain SHOULD still survive albeit with 1HP. That's WITHOUT Victor of the Blood Games re-rolling a failed Invuln or the 5+++ Warlord Trait. Even without them, he's more likely to make it in and survive than not with no loss of effectiveness.
A base Valiant will do about 6.5W to a Captain in Overwatch with all it's weapons, without the use of relics, House Tactics or Stratagems.
Primark G wrote: Is going to be tough charging Castellans with the flamer weapon.
Valiant*, but that's why I math'd it's damage! It'll do about 4.5 wounds to a Jetbike Captain with the 3++ on average. Add in Victor of the Blood Games or FNP if you made him your Warlord and it becomes quite survivable.
It's 4.7 wounds and that is only from the big flamer (and not even the relic one, god forbid), if any other of it's 7 guns does any damage you could lose the Captain on the charge. If a shield breaker hits then it's goodbye Captain.
Assuming the Valiant has 3 Siegebreakers and the Harpoon, it is statistically only likely to do 1 or less wounds with all of them combined (I think the Harpoon alone has a 62% chance of doing nothing or something like that). The flamer is the only Overwatch of note.
The Relic Flamer just gives it re-rolls, right? If so, a 3++ Captain SHOULD still survive albeit with 1HP. That's WITHOUT Victor of the Blood Games re-rolling a failed Invuln or the 5+++ Warlord Trait. Even without them, he's more likely to make it in and survive than not with no loss of effectiveness.
A base Valiant will do about 6.5W to a Captain in Overwatch with all it's weapons, without the use of relics, House Tactics or Stratagems.
But that's not that accurate, is it? Because one of those weapons is the HARPOON OF DOOM. Which is very likely to whiff, but if it hits and you fail your save, you just die.
Primark G wrote: Is going to be tough charging Castellans with the flamer weapon.
Valiant*, but that's why I math'd it's damage! It'll do about 4.5 wounds to a Jetbike Captain with the 3++ on average. Add in Victor of the Blood Games or FNP if you made him your Warlord and it becomes quite survivable.
It's 4.7 wounds and that is only from the big flamer (and not even the relic one, god forbid), if any other of it's 7 guns does any damage you could lose the Captain on the charge. If a shield breaker hits then it's goodbye Captain.
Assuming the Valiant has 3 Siegebreakers and the Harpoon, it is statistically only likely to do 1 or less wounds with all of them combined (I think the Harpoon alone has a 62% chance of doing nothing or something like that). The flamer is the only Overwatch of note.
The Relic Flamer just gives it re-rolls, right? If so, a 3++ Captain SHOULD still survive albeit with 1HP. That's WITHOUT Victor of the Blood Games re-rolling a failed Invuln or the 5+++ Warlord Trait. Even without them, he's more likely to make it in and survive than not with no loss of effectiveness.
A base Valiant will do about 6.5W to a Captain in Overwatch with all it's weapons, without the use of relics, House Tactics or Stratagems.
But that's not that accurate, is it? Because one of those weapons is the HARPOON OF DOOM. Which is very likely to whiff, but if it hits and you fail your save, you just die.
Right, it gets swingy here because the Harpoon is SUCH an all or nothing weapon. I was actually wrong on it's probably to hurt you too. I just checked again and the Harpoon has a 95% chance of doing 0 damage to a Captain with 3++ on Overwatch. It has a 5% chance of doing 10+1D3 Mortal Wounds.
So I would say it's largely safe to discount it if you're playing to averages and probabilities. Each Siegebreaker turret also has a 86% chance to deal 0 damage.
JNAProductions wrote: But that's not that accurate, is it? Because one of those weapons is the HARPOON OF DOOM. Which is very likely to whiff, but if it hits and you fail your save, you just die.
That's the mean average of Damage taken by your Captain (which is actually 8.5W because I forgot to count the mortal wounds), yes 95% of the time you'll only take an average of 6W.
For the FW options:
Caladius does 4 wounds from accelerator cannon+1.1 from bolt cannon (against a 5++)
Telemon does 2.8 from the Las storm, 3.3 from the accelerator culverin, 0.7 from bolt launcher,1.6 per plasma ejector and 8.1 damage in melee
Achillus does 1.7 from dreadspear+0.56 from the lastrum, 8.3 in melee assuming 4.5 damage avg (5.6 minimum, maybe a mortal wound)
For reference, a hurricane bolter does 0.56 wounds at rapid-fire, an axe or spear does 0.28.
Well brute forcing it would involve calculating every possible outcome that could have caused a Death to the Captain, which would involve a disgustingly large probability tree due to how many guns the Client has and the number of random variables involved. If he did do that then your mate is more patient than I.
With effectively 2 re-rolls for a 3++ and a 5+++ it’s the best we’ve got, if you decide you need to kill it. But you’ll need to kill it that turn, because otherwise it’s going to back right out of combat and blast you again on it’s turn.
so i have a question a little off topic of what you guys are talking about
why pick superior creation over radiant mantle? i have play tested both and it seems radiant mantle is the better pick. better to stop the hit from ever landing then trying to live through the damage.
also with a vexilla it stacks to -2 to hit. so i can have him stand right our front and really not worry about getting shot.
so tell me, why pick superior creation? is it really better?
Spartan117xyz wrote: so i have a question a little off topic of what you guys are talking about
why pick superior creation over radiant mantle? i have play tested both and it seems radiant mantle is the better pick. better to stop the hit from ever landing then trying to live through the damage.
also with a vexilla it stacks to -2 to hit. so i can have him stand right our front and really not worry about getting shot.
so tell me, why pick superior creation? is it really better?
Do the math and you will see ^^
Yes Superior creation is often better. Its a 33% reduction in damage taken (on average) regardless of what it is that is hitting you.
Radiant mantle is just as good if your going from 4+ to 5+ to hit (33% reduction in number of hits), better when the to hit is worse then that and worse if its better.
Most dangerous things tend to hit on 2's (for melee) or 3's where the -1 to hit is statistically worse.
Plus Radiant Mantle does nothing against Mortal Wounds.
Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
But Superior Creation will help you survive the death grip.
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
Thunderhammer captain hits on 3's. taking it to 4's is less good then ignoring wounds on a 5+.
Against Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights (hitting on 4's. becoming 5's) its in theory equal. In practice Mantle here purely because 1 hit can't kill a bike captain from full wounds and 2 hits is to many wounds that your not going to save enough anyway.
Primark G wrote: -1 to hit sounds good in theory but if the opponent sprays you with lots of shots it doesn't really matter.
Ofc it still matters. You will suffer less hits then you would otherwise.
Even if it is still enough to kill you it requires more shots then it would have taken without the -1 to hit.
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
Thunderhammer captain hits on 3's. taking it to 4's is less good then ignoring wounds on a 5+.
Against Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights (hitting on 4's. becoming 5's) its in theory equal. In practice Mantle here purely because 1 hit can't kill a bike captain from full wounds and 2 hits is to many wounds that your not going to save enough anyway.
Just a heads up, certain knights with a relic hit with the thunderstrike on a 2+. So with the mantle, you make it a 3+. And if he hits, he will spend 1 cp and kill the shield captain.
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
Thunderhammer captain hits on 3's. taking it to 4's is less good then ignoring wounds on a 5+.
Against Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights (hitting on 4's. becoming 5's) its in theory equal. In practice Mantle here purely because 1 hit can't kill a bike captain from full wounds and 2 hits is to many wounds that your not going to save enough anyway.
Just a heads up, certain knights with a relic hit with the thunderstrike on a 2+. So with the mantle, you make it a 3+. And if he hits, he will spend 1 cp and kill the shield captain.
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
But Superior Creation will help you survive the death grip.
I'm not saying it's always better, I'm just saying it has it's uses if you're anticipating being in certain situations.
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
Thunderhammer captain hits on 3's. taking it to 4's is less good then ignoring wounds on a 5+.
Against Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights (hitting on 4's. becoming 5's) its in theory equal. In practice Mantle here purely because 1 hit can't kill a bike captain from full wounds and 2 hits is to many wounds that your not going to save enough anyway.
You're forgetting shutting off re-rolls too. If Captain Slammy has access to re-rolling all hits, the Radiant helps negate a lot of those (same for ANY unwiledly enemy with re-roll access, which was part of my point).
Against Slammy specifically (just calculating 5 attacks) it's 1.73 vs. 1.94 so I guess less good but pretty negligible in all honesty (slightly better if Captain Slammy is the Warlord).
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
Thunderhammer captain hits on 3's. taking it to 4's is less good then ignoring wounds on a 5+.
Against Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights (hitting on 4's. becoming 5's) its in theory equal. In practice Mantle here purely because 1 hit can't kill a bike captain from full wounds and 2 hits is to many wounds that your not going to save enough anyway.
Just a heads up, certain knights with a relic hit with the thunderstrike on a 2+. So with the mantle, you make it a 3+. And if he hits, he will spend 1 cp and kill the shield captain.
You don't even need a Relic, actually.
House Mortan Gallants hit on a 2+ anyway.
The best option with Mortan OR a relic is to NOT let it swing at you
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
Thunderhammer captain hits on 3's. taking it to 4's is less good then ignoring wounds on a 5+.
Against Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights (hitting on 4's. becoming 5's) its in theory equal. In practice Mantle here purely because 1 hit can't kill a bike captain from full wounds and 2 hits is to many wounds that your not going to save enough anyway.
Just a heads up, certain knights with a relic hit with the thunderstrike on a 2+. So with the mantle, you make it a 3+. And if he hits, he will spend 1 cp and kill the shield captain.
You don't even need a Relic, actually.
House Mortan Gallants hit on a 2+ anyway.
True, but Gallants are kinda bad.
In any case, a lot of ways to deathgrip on a 2+ before radiant mantle, and a shield captain only has a 1/6th chance to escape each deathgrip roll-off.
Rule of thumb is basically: don't charge any custodes character into a knight with a gauntlet if your opponent has 1cp free.
Audustum wrote: Where Radiant Mantle will.shinr is if you're trying to duel Captain Slamguinus's, Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights and the like (since they'll be forced to -2) or if you're trying to help neutralize re-rolls.
Thunderhammer captain hits on 3's. taking it to 4's is less good then ignoring wounds on a 5+.
Against Thunderstrike Gauntlet Knights (hitting on 4's. becoming 5's) its in theory equal. In practice Mantle here purely because 1 hit can't kill a bike captain from full wounds and 2 hits is to many wounds that your not going to save enough anyway.
Just a heads up, certain knights with a relic hit with the thunderstrike on a 2+. So with the mantle, you make it a 3+. And if he hits, he will spend 1 cp and kill the shield captain.
You don't even need a Relic, actually.
House Mortan Gallants hit on a 2+ anyway.
The best option with Mortan OR a relic is to NOT let it swing at you
Although a quick note-the Relic Fist does 8 damage. So, that gives the following odds of being killed, assuming a 3+ Invuln:
Non-Gallant vs. SC Warlord
55.92% chance of at least one wound
15.85% chance of at least two wounds
Added together, that's a 10.91+15.60=26.51% chance of death
Gallant vs. SC Warlord
73.19% chance of at least one wound
32.82% chance of at least two wounds
Added together, that's 14.28+32.30=46.58% chance of death
Non-Gallant vs. RM Warlord
45.02% chance of death
Gallant vs. RM Warlord
64.08% chance of death
So, if you're up against the Paragon Gauntlet, Superior Creation is the clear better choice.
Again, you really shouldn't base your choice of SC or RM on how well you can survive against a paragon gauntlet. Neither will do a great job of saving you. With SC, you're almost guaranteed to die against deathgrip. With RM, you have a slightly less chance of dying against deathgrip, but the first attack might do you in anyway.
Against something with a 2+ (gallant with a paragon gauntlet, Mortan gallant with a thunderstrike, or any Mortan knight with a paragon gauntlet):
SC has a 68.8% chance of surviving deathgrip from full health.
RM has a 66.6% chance of surviving deathgrip from full health.
No relic has a 58% chance of surviving
Against something with a 3+ (Canis Rex, normal knight with paragon gauntlet, mortan knight with thunderstrike gauntlet, or a gallant with a thunderstrike gauntlet):
SC is 75.0% survival rate from full health
RM is 74.9% survival rate from full health
No relic has 66.6% chance of surviving
Against something with a 4+ (normal knight with thunderstrike gauntlet):
SC is 81.3% survival rate
RM is 83.3% survival rate
No relic has a 75.0% chance of surviving
All of the above includes the initial hit roll necessary.
Against the death grip stratagem, yes. Both are significantly better than not taking a Warlord trait, but between the two there's not much of a difference.
Since we're taking chaff detachments anyway, what about an Inquisition one for Dominate? Suddenly the shooting knights become a liability, or at least are forced to use their character-hunter missiles (and CP) on them instead of buffing themselves or snipping our shield captains.
The telemon looks awesome, hits on 2+, is elligable for rerolls 1 hit and wounds, -1 to hits, +1 attacks etc. It also helps stay pure custodes, which is nice. At most expensive, its just cheaper than one of the errant/paladin/warden. At cheapest, you will be saving a substantial amount, enough to consider running just for points savings. Obviously also, it would be awesome to teleport one into the opponent's face.
The knight on the other hand does the job better- for only a little more. You can take a errant/paladin/warden for the same ish as a CC dread, and the knight does it better with 6dmg and a big ass extra gun. The gallant is cheaper than a CC dread, and also then does its job better.
So, what do you think? I'm drawn towards the options with the Knights (in form of magnetising etc) with WT and relics, but the telemon looks cool and also does the job as a custodian.
The telemon looks awesome, hits on 2+, is elligable for rerolls 1 hit and wounds, -1 to hits, +1 attacks etc. It also helps stay pure custodes, which is nice. At most expensive, its just cheaper than one of the errant/paladin/warden. At cheapest, you will be saving a substantial amount, enough to consider running just for points savings. Obviously also, it would be awesome to teleport one into the opponent's face.
The knight on the other hand does the job better- for only a little more. You can take a errant/paladin/warden for the same ish as a CC dread, and the knight does it better with 6dmg and a big ass extra gun. The gallant is cheaper than a CC dread, and also then does its job better.
So, what do you think? I'm drawn towards the options with the Knights (in form of magnetising etc) with WT and relics, but the telemon looks cool and also does the job as a custodian.
Yeah that is a good question. If you just need shooty, I'd go Telemon with the autocannons. As well as being pure Custodes/cheaper it integrates better, benefitting from things like a -1 to hit banner etc.
Sounds like you're after choppy though, in which case the Gallant would be a better option I think. The CC dread is just a bit overpriced for what it offers I think, in its current iteration of course. If you can stand to wait a bit longer until the final publication comes out that may change things.
The telemon looks awesome, hits on 2+, is elligable for rerolls 1 hit and wounds, -1 to hits, +1 attacks etc. It also helps stay pure custodes, which is nice. At most expensive, its just cheaper than one of the errant/paladin/warden. At cheapest, you will be saving a substantial amount, enough to consider running just for points savings. Obviously also, it would be awesome to teleport one into the opponent's face.
The knight on the other hand does the job better- for only a little more. You can take a errant/paladin/warden for the same ish as a CC dread, and the knight does it better with 6dmg and a big ass extra gun. The gallant is cheaper than a CC dread, and also then does its job better.
So, what do you think? I'm drawn towards the options with the Knights (in form of magnetising etc) with WT and relics, but the telemon looks cool and also does the job as a custodian.
Yeah that is a good question. If you just need shooty, I'd go Telemon with the autocannons. As well as being pure Custodes/cheaper it integrates better, benefitting from things like a -1 to hit banner etc.
Sounds like you're after choppy though, in which case the Gallant would be a better option I think. The CC dread is just a bit overpriced for what it offers I think, in its current iteration of course. If you can stand to wait a bit longer until the final publication comes out that may change things.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm kinda hoping the CC dread gets dropped a little in points, 400 for 5 3dmg attacks isn't that great.
Another question, would it be better to BUY a knight or get a telemon?
The knight gives me lots of options, but the telemon is cool. I am wary however of only d3 dmg on the guns, I never roll well for that.
The telemon is FW, I've never bought or worked with FW resin, I feel safer with the Knights. If I buy Knights I can get two for not much more than a dread with both sets of weapons, (only like £30 more for another knight)
I shouldn't be asking this- I need to focus on AOS and keep getting drawn by cool stuff! Ugh.
Thanks for the reply
Obviously this doesn't consider any relics/warlord traits the knight may have or any auras the bikes may benefit from. It also doesn't break down say 2 bikes vs a 7-12 wound knight.
Totally silly question here. When the FW index comes out, what do you guys think the chances are that we will be seeing that 30k Beasts unit? I think is was called the Pursuer Cadre?
Would a unit that is cheap-ish, fast moving, and still able to be taken in a Custodes detachment be worthwhile?
The telemon looks awesome, hits on 2+, is elligable for rerolls 1 hit and wounds, -1 to hits, +1 attacks etc. It also helps stay pure custodes, which is nice. At most expensive, its just cheaper than one of the errant/paladin/warden. At cheapest, you will be saving a substantial amount, enough to consider running just for points savings. Obviously also, it would be awesome to teleport one into the opponent's face.
The knight on the other hand does the job better- for only a little more. You can take a errant/paladin/warden for the same ish as a CC dread, and the knight does it better with 6dmg and a big ass extra gun. The gallant is cheaper than a CC dread, and also then does its job better.
So, what do you think? I'm drawn towards the options with the Knights (in form of magnetising etc) with WT and relics, but the telemon looks cool and also does the job as a custodian.
Yeah that is a good question. If you just need shooty, I'd go Telemon with the autocannons. As well as being pure Custodes/cheaper it integrates better, benefitting from things like a -1 to hit banner etc.
Sounds like you're after choppy though, in which case the Gallant would be a better option I think. The CC dread is just a bit overpriced for what it offers I think, in its current iteration of course. If you can stand to wait a bit longer until the final publication comes out that may change things.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'm kinda hoping the CC dread gets dropped a little in points, 400 for 5 3dmg attacks isn't that great.
Another question, would it be better to BUY a knight or get a telemon?
The knight gives me lots of options, but the telemon is cool. I am wary however of only d3 dmg on the guns, I never roll well for that.
The telemon is FW, I've never bought or worked with FW resin, I feel safer with the Knights. If I buy Knights I can get two for not much more than a dread with both sets of weapons, (only like £30 more for another knight)
I shouldn't be asking this- I need to focus on AOS and keep getting drawn by cool stuff! Ugh.
Thanks for the reply
There is no reason be afraid of building FW stuff. I finished building my Telemon yesterday. Working with resin is not that hard. It may not be as easy as building a plastic kit. But you have way more options for poses. and the FW stuff is really awesome looking when its finished It took me about 3-4 hours including magnetising.
Got a local 1250 tournament coming up, everything through the IK codex will be allowed. Thinking about giving my golden guys a go, what do ya’ll think of the following list?
Outrider Detachment - 1248pts
2x shield captain on jetbike (one has misericordia to fill points)
1x Vexilla with misericordia
3x 3-man Vertus Praetors, hurricane bolters
Plan is to get both of the captains a 3++, warlord trait will be threat-dependent
My teammate:
Punisher tank commander
Shadowsword
Salamander support vehicle
Trojan support vehicle
2x company Commanders
Primaris psyker
We came 25th out of 72 with 2 crushing victories, a draw, a minor defeat and a crushing defeat.
Game 1 (minor defeat):
Vs Tyranids + GSC Not much to report, we got some pretty poor maelstorm and lost by 4 points.
Game 2 (crushing defeat):
Vs Cadian IG Nothing we could do, 4x Basilisks + Pask + LRBT made short work of the Shadowsword and some allied in devastators did mortal wounds to the bikes followed by about 8d6 morters. On our turn we couldn't really do much to their entrenched gunline, next turn we lost the tank commander to a smash captain, the bike Captain to Celestine and all of the IG. By turn 4 we were tabled. That team went on to come second in the tournament (they lost one game because of a slow playing team).
Game 3 (draw):
Vs Orks
An interesting one, they spammed boys and KMKs; we could handle the boys but there were too many kannons to do much about.
Game 4 (crushing victory):
Vs Tau + Eldar
Shadowsword, meet Riptide and 2 wraithlords. Bikes, meet lots of firewarriors. It was a match-up made in heaven, nuff said.
Game 5 (crushing victory):
Vs Nids + GSC They through everything they had into the Custodes with a turn 1 charge from 40 Genestealers but, unfortunately for them, they only killed two bikes. After that it was a slaughter of Genestealers after Genestealers being gunned down or even trampled by the Shadowsword.
Overall, I think we did quite well, just a shame about the second game match up. Definitely recommend Battlefield Birmingham if anyone's in that area.
I've got a 1,500pts 16 man tournament on July 7th, with an emphasis on "chilled competitive" as this particular tournament has finally been resurrected after a 10 year hiatus as 8th has brought back a surprising amount of players to my local scene.
So my list for it is as follows. I can't realistically add units to it due to time/money factors and the only spare models I have is 6 custodian guard with spears.
I've played some practice games, and the storm Shields block so much damage its beyond crazy. With the reduction to 1500pts I'm hoping I won't run into too much silliness, but any advice would greatly be received!
The Wardens and Contemptor would stick out to me If I was facing this. They are the only things without a 3++ and are also more ounchy than the rest of your non-character targets, so will be focussed first. Will you be deepstriking these?
If so I would probably recommend Allarus Termies instead since youre going for Relaxed level of competitiveness, but you don't have them, so nevermind.
The Wardens and Contemptor would stick out to me If I was facing this. They are the only things without a 3++ and are also more ounchy than the rest of your non-character targets, so will be focussed first. Will you be deepstriking these?
If so I would probably recommend Allarus Termies instead since youre going for Relaxed level of competitiveness, but you don't have them, so nevermind.
The Wardens and Contemptor will be deepstruck - it always catches people out I can do that to a Dread! The mad scramble I see some of my opponents do is beyond silly to stop them once deployed, they are the perfect psychological terror...
I've got a 1,500pts 16 man tournament on July 7th, with an emphasis on "chilled competitive" as this particular tournament has finally been resurrected after a 10 year hiatus as 8th has brought back a surprising amount of players to my local scene.
So my list for it is as follows. I can't realistically add units to it due to time/money factors and the only spare models I have is 6 custodian guard with spears.
I've played some practice games, and the storm Shields block so much damage its beyond crazy. With the reduction to 1500pts I'm hoping I won't run into too much silliness, but any advice would greatly be received!
You REALLY need to make more of those dudes with Spears. From my proxying, 3 Spears to 1 Shield is a good ratio. You lose way too much damage potential with the Swords.
I've got a 1,500pts 16 man tournament on July 7th, with an emphasis on "chilled competitive" as this particular tournament has finally been resurrected after a 10 year hiatus as 8th has brought back a surprising amount of players to my local scene.
So my list for it is as follows. I can't realistically add units to it due to time/money factors and the only spare models I have is 6 custodian guard with spears.
I've played some practice games, and the storm Shields block so much damage its beyond crazy. With the reduction to 1500pts I'm hoping I won't run into too much silliness, but any advice would greatly be received!
You REALLY need to make more of those dudes with Spears. From my proxying, 3 Spears to 1 Shield is a good ratio. You lose way too much damage potential with the Swords.
Really depends what he's up against. Lots of Space Marines? Won't matter in close combat. Lots of close combat armies? Lost shooting isn't a huge deal (pistols might even be better).
If you have no clue what you're fighting than probably best to do 2 spear / 1 sword. I don't get everyone adding fourth and fifth Guardians to these units. They're a tax: don't take more than you have to.
I've got a 1,500pts 16 man tournament on July 7th, with an emphasis on "chilled competitive" as this particular tournament has finally been resurrected after a 10 year hiatus as 8th has brought back a surprising amount of players to my local scene.
So my list for it is as follows. I can't realistically add units to it due to time/money factors and the only spare models I have is 6 custodian guard with spears.
I've played some practice games, and the storm Shields block so much damage its beyond crazy. With the reduction to 1500pts I'm hoping I won't run into too much silliness, but any advice would greatly be received!
You REALLY need to make more of those dudes with Spears. From my proxying, 3 Spears to 1 Shield is a good ratio. You lose way too much damage potential with the Swords.
Really depends what he's up against. Lots of Space Marines? Won't matter in close combat. Lots of close combat armies? Lost shooting isn't a huge deal (pistols might even be better).
If you have no clue what you're fighting than probably best to do 2 spear / 1 sword. I don't get everyone adding fourth and fifth Guardians to these units. They're a tax: don't take more than you have to.
It matters for multi-wound models and T3. Spears are a better all-comer and you only ever need the one meat shield. Plus units with Spears get a better Strategem.
Theyre a tax vs gunlines, compared to more bikes, but even then theyre better than the majority of the codex at surviving long enough to get there.
Discard the opinion of anyone who rubbishes the need or effectiveness of a 3++, its a clear upgrade over the spear and each sqaud should have 1 or more.
mrhappyface wrote: I don't get this rubbish about Guard being a tax, in every game I've taken them in they've done great (in some cases more than the bikes).
Let's not be THAT absurd. Bikers are always the better choice, but yes Guard are pretty great for troops.
Thanks for the input gentleman, I will and some explanation of my choices for full sword and board over some spears:
The 3++ save has proved more valuable than having a S6 close combat weapon. Due to the lack of transport and quality rather than quantity of shooting from guard squads, I've continuously found myself advancing to cut down the distance and so the vast majority of my shooting has been at 12" or less.
The swords offer continuous shooting as well, allowing me to clear blobs in both shooting and combat meaning I'm continuously fighting rather than missing out on the shooting phase while locked in CQB. Squads of 4 give me grater area of effect for vexilla usage = I stagger my units, so as long as one model from a group is within range, they all get the -1 to hit. Also, 4 models still give you more or less complete immunity to morale tests, as the whole 4 man squad would have to be killed before morale casualties would be in effect, unless some -1 Ld effects are in play, which is rare outside of certain armies.
Feels very solid, enough chaff clearance to get where I want, enough wounds on the table considering everything has a 4++ or better. 12CP to use after buying the extra relic. I can pay 2 more to get another 3++ on a bike if I feel the need.
Its not the fastest army, but if you keep your biker captains together and utilize the allarus captain's praetorian plate you can cover a lot of ground.
No ranged AT is the only real issue. If againgst a vehicle heavy turtle army you either hide out of LOS (since mortar weapons wont really bug you with the 1+ armor from cover) or you use "from golden light" to deep strike one of the 4man custodian guard squads to back up your biker captains charge.
I'd personally swap the Allarus Captain for a regular Captain and switch the Guard units to 2 Shields - 2 Axes, it really helps them to keep them alive longer. Plus, I don't think any of your Characters needs an Allarus Captain to come and save them.
mrhappyface wrote: I'd personally swap the Allarus Captain for a regular Captain and switch the Guard units to 2 Shields - 2 Axes, it really helps them to keep them alive longer. Plus, I don't think any of your Characters needs an Allarus Captain to come and save them.
mrhappyface wrote: I'd personally swap the Allarus Captain for a regular Captain and switch the Guard units to 2 Shields - 2 Axes, it really helps them to keep them alive longer. Plus, I don't think any of your Characters needs an Allarus Captain to come and save them.
Its not that they need saving; its that he can come in and hit something high toughness one turn, and then with proper placement of biker captains move on somewhere else, forcing your opponent to possibly make bad moves to try and deal with him.
I knew from day one that the praetorian plate was a top teir relic. It's definitely one that takes more thought and skill to use properly, but he's like a ninja assassin that can just disappear and reappear somewhere else, making him really hard to deal with while at the same time causing stress to your opponent and making him misplay.
Skill and competitiveness is not cut up in blocks. Its a giant scale and where people are on it changes from person to person and group to group.
Only you can decide if its friendly enough for your local environment.
Eihnlazer wrote: Its not that they need saving; its that he can come in and hit something high toughness one turn, and then with proper placement of biker captains move on somewhere else, forcing your opponent to possibly make bad moves to try and deal with him.
I knew from day one that the praetorian plate was a top teir relic. It's definitely one that takes more thought and skill to use properly, but he's like a ninja assassin that can just disappear and reappear somewhere else, making him really hard to deal with while at the same time causing stress to your opponent and making him misplay.
It's an OK relic. The only problem is that you have to choose the specific character that the praetorian plate can teleport to when you set up the character. If it could teleport to any Custodes Character, it would be good. If it could be used at any time, it would be good. But because it has to go to only one specific character and only if that character is in combat at the end of an opponent's charge phase, it's only OK. And since it has to compete with Auric Aquilas, Eagle Eye, and even Faith Absolute, it'll only ever be extremely situational.
I played with using the praetorian plate on a vexilla in allarus armour. Teleport him into combat next to a bike captain, then use his teleport homer to bring in another huge squad. But that's like 3 turns.
Is it a thing to put few models with shield in front row when charging the enemy, just to neglect his anti-Custodes heavy weapons with high S and multiple D?
When shooting the unit, the models closest to the enemy get shoot first - shield holders?
Filq wrote: Is it a thing to put few models with shield in front row when charging the enemy, just to neglect his anti-Custodes heavy weapons with high S and multiple D?
When shooting the unit, the models closest to the enemy get shoot first - shield holders?
No that's from last editions rules. Now you can allocate wounds to whatever model you like first, so as long as there is a shield somewhere in the unit, you're fine.
Filq wrote: Is it a thing to put few models with shield in front row when charging the enemy, just to neglect his anti-Custodes heavy weapons with high S and multiple D?
When shooting the unit, the models closest to the enemy get shoot first - shield holders?
Thanks Spartacus, that makes life even easier for me. And yeah - habit from old ed to look at shooting phase this way.
Have you found guys deeps striking with "FROM GOLDEN LIGHT THEY COME" big units of guards effective? It looks like safest way to deploy them into the CC action.
Filq wrote: Thanks Spartacus, that makes life even easier for me. And yeah - habit from old ed to look at shooting phase this way.
Have you found guys deeps striking with "FROM GOLDEN LIGHT THEY COME" big units of guards effective? It looks like safest way to deploy them into the CC action.
Guard don't have to worry about safety, if you have two shields in a unit then it becomes almost impossible to shift.
After the DS nerf in the FAQ, FGLTC is only really useful for keeping a unit off the board during your opponents first turn of shooting.
I think its rather hard to create a "soft" custodes list. A casual player who has never played custodes before would have lots of issues with any typical list because he or she would just have never encountered such a hard hitting army with army wide invulnerable saves (and where 3++ is actually quite common) before.
It makes a huge difference if you're taking an actual custodes battalion and not just an astra militarum cp battery.
In what way?
Walking a couple 150+ pt squads up the table with little more than master crafted bolters just doesn't seem to work for me. Sure, you can leave one or two in or near your deployment zone to grab objectives, but all three?
If you're going to take a custodes battalion, its really worth having one or two of the guard squads in reserve to avoid as much firepower as possible and maybe get off a charge without taking long ranged anti-tank shooting. It's not like you'll miss their firepower on turn 1.
Now, if the enemy is coming to you, then it doesn't really matter. I mostly play against shooty armies, so I'm usually the one that has to venture out and break down castles.
It makes a huge difference if you're taking an actual custodes battalion and not just an astra militarum cp battery.
In what way?
Walking a couple 150+ pt squads up the table with little more than master crafted bolters just doesn't seem to work for me. Sure, you can leave one or two in or near your deployment zone to grab objectives, but all three?
If you're going to take a custodes battalion, its really worth having one or two of the guard squads in reserve to avoid as much firepower as possible and maybe get off a charge without taking long ranged anti-tank shooting. It's not like you'll miss their firepower on turn 1.
Now, if the enemy is coming to you, then it doesn't really matter. I mostly play against shooty armies, so I'm usually the one that has to venture out and break down castles.
Yeah it doesn't take many games against them to figure out how one dimensional Custodes are, in terms of engagement distance. Even my friends melee oriented armies keep their distance for a turn or 2 vs pure Custodes now. You have to abuse deepstrike and jetbikes wherever you can.
It makes a huge difference if you're taking an actual custodes battalion and not just an astra militarum cp battery.
In what way?
Walking a couple 150+ pt squads up the table with little more than master crafted bolters just doesn't seem to work for me. Sure, you can leave one or two in or near your deployment zone to grab objectives, but all three?
If you're going to take a custodes battalion, its really worth having one or two of the guard squads in reserve to avoid as much firepower as possible and maybe get off a charge without taking long ranged anti-tank shooting. It's not like you'll miss their firepower on turn 1.
Now, if the enemy is coming to you, then it doesn't really matter. I mostly play against shooty armies, so I'm usually the one that has to venture out and break down castles.
In my experience, the Guard never take any fire until at least turn 3 due to things like bikes/Dreadnoughts being on the board.
I use the Guard as area denial most if the time because no one wants to go anywhere near 9 Custards and a Character or two.
So I know allarus custards aren’t very competitive. But what all exactly do you suggest to use them? I use a 4 man squad, a captain, and a -1 banner to deepstrike. But it’s been really hit or miss. Mostly becuse only part of that neat little Death Star will make it and then they get picked off. Plus IMO they need a 3++ to really be worth their points. Their 4++ can be amazing. But one or two failed and then their pretty much done. I have thought about using the unleash the lions strat to make them harder to target. But I havnt tried it to much yet. What do you guys think? Are they worth using at all? And if so how do you guys use them?
A large squad 5+ with unleash the lions is pretty amazing.
Turn 2 they dropped in and managed to get a charge off, they won the combat but were in the middle of the enemy gunline. They took a couple casualties, I used unleash the lions, and tied up everything else in combat for the rest of the game.
Skhmt wrote: A large squad 5+ with unleash the lions is pretty amazing.
Turn 2 they dropped in and managed to get a charge off, they won the combat but were in the middle of the enemy gunline. They took a couple casualties, I used unleash the lions, and tied up everything else in combat for the rest of the game.
Which is amazing if you don't happen to be fighting an enemy that has pretty much all fliers. So, not tau, or eldar.
Or the person you playing knows how to screen properly. A hocking amount of people don't to be fair.
It's really disheartening when you compare any Custodes unit to dawn eagle bikers. Outside of niche scenarios most commentary boils down to "just use bikes" Battalions and command points can be grabbed via other sources and you can still bring a solid amount of bikes.
For example you could just run the following
-Battalion-
195 point IGcp farm
-Battalion-
2 slam captains (one doesn't take a shield) 3x5 scouts
You can take the vitae if you want, it does work with the IG relics as well.
-Patrol-
Shield Captain on bike
3 Custodes guard
6 Jet Bikes
6 Jet Bikes
You have 13 command points out the gate which can grow exponentially throughout the game.
I'm trying to find a reason to play a battalion, but the custodian guard honestly feel like a tax.
From wrote: It's really disheartening when you compare any Custodes unit to dawn eagle bikers. Outside of niche scenarios most commentary boils down to "just use bikes" Battalions and command points can be grabbed via other sources and you can still bring a solid amount of bikes.
For example you could just run the following
-Battalion-
195 point IGcp farm
-Battalion-
2 slam captains (one doesn't take a shield) 3x5 scouts
You can take the vitae if you want, it does work with the IG relics as well.
-Patrol-
Shield Captain on bike
3 Custodes guard
6 Jet Bikes
6 Jet Bikes
You have 13 command points out the gate which can grow exponentially throughout the game.
I'm trying to find a reason to play a battalion, but the custodian guard honestly feel like a tax.
I tend to find bikes get focused down pretty quickly, however, a couple of Custard Guard with a Vexilla will most likely survive the whole game; I've only had one game where my opponent was able to kill all of my Custodes Guard, and that was after they murdered a Slam Captain and capped several objectives.
@ From in that list I’d reccomend breaking the bikes down into 3-man squads. A squad of 3 bikes is still potent enough to deal with most stuff and gives you more threats and board coverage (especially since you’re running the BA captains as well). And then you can do an outrider for another command point
Automatically Appended Next Post: @mrhappyface I think it’s worth noting that Spear guard are 17.3 pts/T5 wound, and bikes are 22.5 pts/T6 wound. Basically, bikes pay 5 more points for +1 toughness (disregarding the hurricane bolters+melee). You pay 19.7 pts/T5 wound with a 3++ if you go with the shields.
Anecdotally, I played a game awhile back where I had 295 points of GK allied with bikes (testing out some lists for psychic defense) against tau. I won because my GKHQ hid until the game ended cause I had more objective points...but if I had another squad of bikes I probably would have tabled my opponent; I was just a few short of being able to finish it once I made it through the tau castle firestorm.
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