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You guys are really doing Dread and Aquilan hosts dirty. Dread is still the top pick when running 3 Telemon lists, which is looking more and more attractive with the leaks, and AS is a great pick if you are running heavy character lists, as it makes any solo model unit untargetable within "6 inches of another unit. It's a great way to get your big fighty characters up the board against things like Tau or any other shooting heavy army, Guard or Admech, or even Knights?

Thing with Dreadhost is that Solar Watch does it better. RR charges is nice, but +1 to advance and charges is more versatile.
The -1AP is situational, but still useful.
Solar Watch is just faster and speed is something that wins you games.
AS does not have a real place... I mean yes, you can do it, but... why? You have to have 2 models nearby to have your character protected.
You give up a LOT of good stuff for something that can be replicated very easily... maybe if you face sniper heavy lists (but historically, snipers suck and Custodes characters are especially not scared of snipers).
Also, if you charge something with Solar Watch or threaten the backline with the speed, they aint gonna have time to shoot down the incoming character and his double counting escort. Heck, just take wardens if you're worried that much and cut down on Guard Troops...

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You guys are really doing Dread and Aquilan hosts dirty. Dread is still the top pick when running 3 Telemon lists, which is looking more and more attractive with the leaks, and AS is a great pick if you are running heavy character lists, as it makes any solo model unit untargetable within "6 inches of another unit. It's a great way to get your big fighty characters up the board against things like Tau or any other shooting heavy army, Guard or Admech, or even Knights?

How is dread host any good for telemons specifically? Especially if you run three.....you get waaay more mileage out of emperors chosen with the rerolls to hit or wound. Where do you need the extra AP with a telemon? Not only that, but if you truly needed the extra AP in some fringe cases, you can make one of your telemons dread host for a turn with the emperors chosen specific strat.

We also really don't have any issue with character protection now that every model counds as two for look out sir. And if you still for some reasons had issues with it, you could just bring wardens instead and benefit from a better shield host.

I still stand by my initial assessment that out of the 6 shield hosts, Emperor's chosen, Shadowkeepers, Solar Watch and Emissaries are the true contenders for the top spot depending on your list.
Aquilan shield and dread host are still very much playable, but they are not as good as the other 4.

Dedit: Thairne beat me by a minute

Dread host has the best Axe in the faction, and a negative 1 to hit strat, as well as the ability to shut down overwatch. Thats great for helping to survive to the fight. Is it a 4+++? No, but it's not the worst thing in the game. Aquilan Shield has the ability to Halve damage. That's massive when running shields against things like Hammerheads or Dark Reapers/Fire Dragons.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Dread host has the best Axe in the faction, and a negative 1 to hit strat, as well as the ability to shut down overwatch. Thats great for helping to survive to the fight. Is it a 4+++? No, but it's not the worst thing in the game. Aquilan Shield has the ability to Halve damage. That's massive when running shields against things like Hammerheads or Dark Reapers/Fire Dragons.

You said it yourself, it's not as good as the 4+++, it's also not as good as the free wound or hit re-roll you get with emperors chosen, especially when running three Telemons like you mentioned.
The Admonimortis relic is good, but who are you going to give it to? A terminator Captain would be the best pick probably, but if you bring a terminator Captain he'll take the Pretorian Plate relic anyway 9/10 times because it's that good.

The ability to halve damage is the Aquilan Shield warlord trait, so it works on one model and that really doesn't justify the shield host especially considering that we have arguably better warlord traits and waay better shield host fighting styles.

Tiberias wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Dread host has the best Axe in the faction, and a negative 1 to hit strat, as well as the ability to shut down overwatch. Thats great for helping to survive to the fight. Is it a 4+++? No, but it's not the worst thing in the game. Aquilan Shield has the ability to Halve damage. That's massive when running shields against things like Hammerheads or Dark Reapers/Fire Dragons.

You said it yourself, it's not as good as the 4+++, it's also not as good as the free wound or hit re-roll you get with emperors chosen, especially when running three Telemons like you mentioned.
The Admonimortis relic is good, but who are you going to give it to? A terminator Captain would be the best pick probably, but if you bring a terminator Captain he'll take the Pretorian Plate relic anyway 9/10 times because it's that good.

The ability to halve damage is the Aquilan Shield warlord trait, so it works on one model and that really doesn't justify the shield host especially considering that we have arguably better warlord traits and waay better shield host fighting styles.

All I'm saying is wait for the meta to shake out. Everyone's hot on the 4++ right now, or the shadow keepers, but guess what, FOTM and Tactics are a fickle thing. No one thought the Orks were a top contender until they won out at a major. A 4+++ is great against MW, but completely irrelevant against a faction that deals mostly non MW damage. I just don't think pure defensive is the way to win in 9th. Especially when the Meta shifts on a daily basis around here depending on leaks.

For instance, what good is a 4+++ for MWs against Eradicators or the new Tau Hotness? Defense isn't everything. And for all we've been given, it can be taken away by special rules, as we've seen, in an instant.

IMO Dread Host is a top contender. Putting aside the relic, which can and should be put on a standard Shield-Captain, the boost to AP is a gigantic help. It allows you to bring axes over spears, and getting to S8 is a gigantic break point for this army. Suddenly you’re wounding marines on 2’s, ignoring Ramshackle and unbuffed Wrack toughness, wounding T7 on 3’s (buffable to rerollable 2’s), and crucially wounding T8 on 4’s, or 3’s during Rendax (again, buffable to rerollable 2’s). All of that in addition to the fact that the AP applies to our otherwise anemic shooting within 9”.

The WLT gives out a mathematical +1 to hit for melee and shooting, which is obviously huge. The shooting portion may end up being crucial depending on what is qualified as Auric. +1 to hit at range matters quite a lot more if you can double tap with meltas, after all.

Finally the +1 attack stance is one of our only gateways to dealing with hordes AND damage reduction, and Dread Host can do it twice.

All in all I think Dread Host belongs in the top echelon with the other great ones.

Rivener: Fully agree!

I plan on running my first few games as Dread-host (my Custodes have a custom paint job so I can pretty much just pick my shield-host).

Actually, on that subject: I get the fluff reasons for not including any "custom shield host" stuff, but gameplay wise it's a bit of a let down considering how many other factions have a "custom sub-faction" option.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Dread host has the best Axe in the faction, and a negative 1 to hit strat, as well as the ability to shut down overwatch. Thats great for helping to survive to the fight. Is it a 4+++? No, but it's not the worst thing in the game. Aquilan Shield has the ability to Halve damage. That's massive when running shields against things like Hammerheads or Dark Reapers/Fire Dragons.

You said it yourself, it's not as good as the 4+++, it's also not as good as the free wound or hit re-roll you get with emperors chosen, especially when running three Telemons like you mentioned.
The Admonimortis relic is good, but who are you going to give it to? A terminator Captain would be the best pick probably, but if you bring a terminator Captain he'll take the Pretorian Plate relic anyway 9/10 times because it's that good.

The ability to halve damage is the Aquilan Shield warlord trait, so it works on one model and that really doesn't justify the shield host especially considering that we have arguably better warlord traits and waay better shield host fighting styles.

All I'm saying is wait for the meta to shake out. Everyone's hot on the 4++ right now, or the shadow keepers, but guess what, FOTM and Tactics are a fickle thing. No one thought the Orks were a top contender until they won out at a major. A 4+++ is great against MW, but completely irrelevant against a faction that deals mostly non MW damage. I just don't think pure defensive is the way to win in 9th. Especially when the Meta shifts on a daily basis around here depending on leaks.

For instance, what good is a 4+++ for MWs against Eradicators or the new Tau Hotness? Defense isn't everything. And for all we've been given, it can be taken away by special rules, as we've seen, in an instant.

Most people who read the ork codex went "This is nuts" and were more surprised they weren't turning out for months (it's cause GW delayed all their kits and people were waiting for them before dumping their previously meta ork army which had just become bad)

Dread host is a 1 dreadnought army. Eternal pentient means one dread is dropping in with an 8" rerollable charge and when he gets in gains extra AP. This screams double fist telemon out of anything in our codex.

The telemon then benefits from the extra AP on his shooting the following turns alot.


If your running multiple dreads, you go solar watch. The 8" charge from deep strike or the extra advance on multiple dreads is the way to go.

I don't disagree with you, but it is kinda funny that the one called "Dread host" isn't the best for running a dreadnought heavy army :-)

On a more serious note: what do you guys think of an infantry spam list? I was going over my shiny new codex today and I started thinking about how a lot of things really seem to benefit infantry. Considering that durability is one of our strengths, an all (or mostly) infantry list seems like a pretty viable way to go.

The most important thing though is - while some shield hosts appear to be better for the most of us, everyone has SOME use.
There's no total duds you can never see yourself play, and that in itself is a win.
Now, will I ever play dreadhost? Probably not.
Not convinced of it (yet) especially with Emperor's Chosen basically giving it to you whenever you REALLY need it.
But there are arguments for it to be made although AS still is a swing and miss. Not because the host in itself is bad, but because what it does just isn't needed. But with herohammer being probably THE playstyle...
I can see Aquilan Shield be used if you take a few SoS characters that need protecting.

Well it all depends on how the meta shakes out after Tau come out. Tau have some serious anti tank, if that forces people to not bring vehicles then in a weird way it solves our biggest weakness with our infantry. If that happens we will definitely be on top.

Azuza001 wrote:
Well it all depends on how the meta shakes out after Tau come out. Tau have some serious anti tank, if that forces people to not bring vehicles then in a weird way it solves our biggest weakness with our infantry. If that happens we will definitely be on top.

most vehicles aren't our biggest weakness. It's -1 damage.

Talos aren't going anywhere from tau shooting. They might get nerfed out of the meta. But grotesques, abberents, the ork on a big squig. Those things mess us up.

Yeah, we still get wrecked by big things with damage reduction abilities, things that can do a ton of -1 damage, and things that can dish out easy high strength high AP shooting, Ala Guard tanks and basilisks/mortars. I agree with the

"We don't have any duds" view. I just think we hakuna our tatas before we see which is the TOP because we have no idea what the Meta is going to throw at us. If GW turns around and makes Defilers ignore invulns or something stupid, the EC won't be that helpful.

Hey folks, what do you think of my infantry spam list I'm going to (hopefully) try out today:

(Dreadhost)

HQ:
Shield Captain (spear)
Allarus Captain (axe)
Blade Champion

Troops:
x3 Shield Custodes
x3 Shield Custodes
x3 Shield Custodes
x3 Sagittarum w/dagger
x3 Sagittarum w/dagger
x3 Sagittarum w/dagger

Elite:
x2 Contemptor Achillus Dreads w/Adrathic Destructors

Fast attack:
x3 Venatari w/bucklers
x3 Venatari w/bucklers

=
1990pts

Strategy:
Basically cover the board with durable obsec infantry, with the HQ sticking close by for cover. I plan to use deep strikers to tie up the opponent's responses. The Contemptor's should probably stick together and try to go after whatever the big threat on the board is. I still need to work out things like warlord traits / relics etc.

Thoughts?

leerm02 wrote:

Hey folks, what do you think of my infantry spam list I'm going to (hopefully) try out today:

(Dreadhost)

HQ:
Shield Captain (spear)
Allarus Captain (axe)
Blade Champion

Troops:
x3 Shield Custodes
x3 Shield Custodes
x3 Shield Custodes
x3 Sagittarum w/dagger
x3 Sagittarum w/dagger
x3 Sagittarum w/dagger

Elite:
x2 Contemptor Achillus Dreads w/Adrathic Destructors

Fast attack:
x3 Venatari w/bucklers
x3 Venatari w/bucklers

=
1990pts

Strategy:
Basically cover the board with durable obsec infantry, with the HQ sticking close by for cover. I plan to use deep strikers to tie up the opponent's responses. The Contemptor's should probably stick together and try to go after whatever the big threat on the board is. I still need to work out things like warlord traits / relics etc.

Thoughts?

I like it! I am hesitant to use Venetari yet, until we know they get "auric", or even Obsec. But until then, go nuts, because you're playing them with pre-rules. I don't know if Shield custodes are worth their cost now with the nerfs, especially as dread host. I'd at least throw in a single spear guy in each squad.

Otherwise looks great!

Rumor is that both Harpster and Lennon are considering taking Custodes to LVO. I do not understand the pessimism in this thread. Jetbikes are -amazing-. Trajann's basically an auto take. We have 3ish incredible shieldhosts, minimum.

Yeah, it's not the old style where you take 2-3 Telemons, Venatari and Shields. It's actually more flexible now. I fought Death Guard, the king of -1. I didn't come close to tabling him. I -did- outscore him on primary though because we're fast and we can hold deep objectives. We're looking great.

Really curious about the results from LVO for custodes.

I was able to try out shadowkeepers against black templars and they feel really strong.
Brought a lockwarden bladechampion, every character that guy touches just instantly evaporates....it's great.
I will say though, that the bike captain/lockwarden combo is probably still better because of the sheer mobility it provides. The -1 attack from shadowkeepers really feels oppressive against combat armies.

Edit: also played Trajann. The old man slaps, he's an auto-include for sure.

Tiberias wrote:
Really curious about the results from LVO for custodes.

I was able to try out shadowkeepers against black templars and they feel really strong.
Brought a lockwarden bladechampion, every character that guy touches just instantly evaporates....it's great.
I will say though, that the bike captain/lockwarden combo is probably still better because of the sheer mobility it provides. The -1 attack from shadowkeepers really feels oppressive against combat armies.

Edit: also played Trajann. The old man slaps, he's an auto-include for sure.

One thing to keep in mind for LVO results is they have ruled that FW stuff doesn't get Martial Katahs. I am interested to see it too though.

Audustum wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
Really curious about the results from LVO for custodes.

I was able to try out shadowkeepers against black templars and they feel really strong.
Brought a lockwarden bladechampion, every character that guy touches just instantly evaporates....it's great.
I will say though, that the bike captain/lockwarden combo is probably still better because of the sheer mobility it provides. The -1 attack from shadowkeepers really feels oppressive against combat armies.

Edit: also played Trajann. The old man slaps, he's an auto-include for sure.

One thing to keep in mind for LVO results is they have ruled that FW stuff doesn't get Martial Katahs. I am interested to see it too though.

Oh, I did not know that. But it won't make that much of a difference right? So your achillus dreadnought can't do Karate for example, that's not an extreme handicap.
Since our shield hosts are that good, it might even be viable to just skip Karate entirely and go for two detatchments of different shield hosts.

The dreads arent gonna get Ka'tah's anyway so I doubt that taking them or not will make a difference. It only matters for FW infantry like venetari and saggitarum.

Tiberias wrote:

Since our shield hosts are that good, it might even be viable to just skip Karate entirely and go for two detatchments of different shield hosts.

I would like to do that just because of how much of a word salad the karate moves are.

Audustum wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
Really curious about the results from LVO for custodes.

I was able to try out shadowkeepers against black templars and they feel really strong.
Brought a lockwarden bladechampion, every character that guy touches just instantly evaporates....it's great.
I will say though, that the bike captain/lockwarden combo is probably still better because of the sheer mobility it provides. The -1 attack from shadowkeepers really feels oppressive against combat armies.

Edit: also played Trajann. The old man slaps, he's an auto-include for sure.

One thing to keep in mind for LVO results is they have ruled that FW stuff doesn't get Martial Katahs. I am interested to see it too though.

Oof. That's going to be a limiting factor for the folks running Sagittarum and Venatari

Toofast wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

Since our shield hosts are that good, it might even be viable to just skip Karate entirely and go for two detatchments of different shield hosts.

I would like to do that just because of how much of a word salad the karate moves are.

Not gonna lie, adding trash complexity for the sake of complexity is never a good sign. It's like they literally redesigned Custodes away from what made them great.

What are you on, katah are making the codex great. I guess people want an entire dex relying on rolling 3+ at crutch timing and ordering stuff from forgeworld.

I don't want to have to play jenga while making dice rolls. Some people want more complexity I guess. Many people don't. If it takes more than 5 minutes to explain how to use a basic class feature to a new player, then it's a bad design. If it takes more than fifteen minutes to understand how to use said feature in playing the game, it's even worse design. Custodes have always been: Role dice, punch faces.

No one asked for, "Before game starts pick a bunch of dual purpose, but only single use abilities, that you have to remember throughout the game, because you can't use them twice, or you can, if you pick the right faction sub class, but also, you should write them down, so your opponent doesn't think you are cheating. But don't forget, each sub faction is tied to a specific ability, so make sure you pick the right sub faction. Here's a handy excel spreadsheet to understand this BASIC CONCEPT of your faction.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I don't want to have to play jenga while making dice rolls. Some people want more complexity I guess. Many people don't. If it takes more than 5 minutes to explain how to use a basic class feature to a new player, then it's a bad design. If it takes more than fifteen minutes to understand how to use said feature in playing the game, it's even worse design. Custodes have always been: Role dice, punch faces.

No one asked for, "Before game starts pick a bunch of dual purpose, but only single use abilities, that you have to remember throughout the game, because you can't use them twice, or you can, if you pick the right faction sub class, but also, you should write them down, so your opponent doesn't think you are cheating. But don't forget, each sub faction is tied to a specific ability, so make sure you pick the right sub faction. Here's a handy excel spreadsheet to understand this BASIC CONCEPT of your faction.

Honest question: have you ever actually used the Katas in practice? Because they really sound more complicated than they actually are ingame.

And you don't have to use them. Just play two detachments of different shield hosts and voila, your guys no longer know Karate.

Tiberias wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I don't want to have to play jenga while making dice rolls. Some people want more complexity I guess. Many people don't. If it takes more than 5 minutes to explain how to use a basic class feature to a new player, then it's a bad design. If it takes more than fifteen minutes to understand how to use said feature in playing the game, it's even worse design. Custodes have always been: Role dice, punch faces.

No one asked for, "Before game starts pick a bunch of dual purpose, but only single use abilities, that you have to remember throughout the game, because you can't use them twice, or you can, if you pick the right faction sub class, but also, you should write them down, so your opponent doesn't think you are cheating. But don't forget, each sub faction is tied to a specific ability, so make sure you pick the right sub faction. Here's a handy excel spreadsheet to understand this BASIC CONCEPT of your faction.

Honest question: have you ever actually used the Katas in practice? Because they really sound more complicated than they actually are ingame.

And you don't have to use them. Just play two detachments of different shield hosts and voila, your guys no longer know Karate.

No, I still don't have a codex. I've theory crafted only at this point. And I still dont understand how you can keep this style of play honest? Do you have a whiteboard constantly displaying which parts you've used, and have yet to use, because it seems like upgrading to C+ when you were doing Python before.

Katas are incredibly simple once you put them in practice. I purchased the cards (though you could make your own index cards that do the same thing) and it's very easy to keep track of and understand.

For example in my game I wrote about

T1. Rendax - 6's to hit autowound. Since I was playing big monsters this made sense to get some use from all the str 4 guns I had.

T2. Went to Kaptris and picked no cc rerolls. My opponent was already in move up and charge range of me so I picked remove rerolls to hit me to try and get as few wounds to me as possible.

T3. Stayed in kaptris and picked both abilities as shadowkeeprs let's me do. This again kept my opponent from rerolling hits vs me. Very good.

T4. Moved to Dacatari and picked +1a for switching to 1d attacks, this was the turn I planned on finishing this game and now was the time to do max damage since all my attacks were at 1d anyways due to damage reduction. This allowed more dmg to move oh thru.

T5. Would have ended in reducing pile ins and consolidation but game was over at this point and it didn't matter.

I would have loved to use the +4" range one and if he hadn't been playing big bugs that would have been my opening katas.

It's not hard. Doctrines for marines and what docrine is their super doctrine is harder than this system. It's wordy because gw is doing their best to try and stop people from figuring out a secret "broken" interpretation of the rules that on the 5th Sunday of every month allows custodes to get a 2++ save..... you know what I mean. Word lawyers who fight interpretation to get what they want make the game difficult.... i had one the other day that told me that "an extra attack to a dakka weapon when shooting could mean it gets to fire twice...."


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Katas are incredibly simple once you put them in practice. I purchased the cards (though you could make your own index cards that do the same thing) and it's very easy to keep track of and understand.

For example in my game I wrote about

T1. Rendax - 6's to hit autowound. Since I was playing big monsters this made sense to get some use from all the str 4 guns I had.

T2. Went to Kaptris and picked no cc rerolls. My opponent was already in move up and charge range of me so I picked remove rerolls to hit me to try and get as few wounds to me as possible.

T3. Stayed in kaptris and picked both abilities as shadowkeeprs let's me do. This again kept my opponent from rerolling hits vs me. Very good.

T4. Moved to Dacatari and picked +1a for switching to 1d attacks, this was the turn I planned on finishing this game and now was the time to do max damage since all my attacks were at 1d anyways due to damage reduction. This allowed more dmg to move oh thru.

T5. Would have ended in reducing pile ins and consolidation but game was over at this point and it didn't matter.

I would have loved to use the +4" range one and if he hadn't been playing big bugs that would have been my opening katas.

It's not hard. Doctrines for marines and what docrine is their super doctrine is harder than this system. It's wordy because gw is doing their best to try and stop people from figuring out a secret "broken" interpretation of the rules that on the 5th Sunday of every month allows custodes to get a 2++ save..... you know what I mean. Word lawyers who fight interpretation to get what they want make the game difficult.... i had one the other day that told me that "an extra attack to a dakka weapon when shooting could mean it gets to fire twice...."