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Radikus wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Radikus wrote:
I am pretty sure I am taking Custodes to LVO. Need a bit of advice on which direction to go with them. Looks like truly competitive lists boil down to 2 list:

Heavy bikes list + loyal 32
Custodes Battalion + Bikes + Loyal 32 + Assassin's

Now I definitely lean more towards the Custodes Battalion + Bikes + Loyal 32 + Assassin's list where I can fit in Trajann and the banner fella. Does anyone have much experience running this? I am going to start test games soon, and I have see these kind of lists floating around a lot. What are some of the tricks it provides and what are some weaknesses to look out for.

Alternatively, I am interested in what some of the competitive lists that you, the Dakka custodes community have had success with.

I haven't seen the Custodes Battalion list in a long time. It was kind of displaced by the Imperial Knight meta. Nowadays it's more like this I think:

Bikes + IG CP Battery (and I mean Bikes, all Bikes, look at Shane Watt's "Peace Through Dakka").

Bike Captains + IG Battery with artillery + Imperial Knights

Took a look at that list and holy crapola that is a lot of bikes. Kinda bummed the Custodes Battalion list died a meta death to knights as that was the list I was most excited about. Wouldn't the "Peace Through Dakka" list suffer the same fate? Seems like the 7 man bike squads would just get housed by a castellan. It kinda feels like if I bring the golden boys I will be playing dodge the Knights lists

Peace Through Dakka puzzled me for a long time too, but I *think* the gimmick is to take the losses on the chin and then retaliatorily smash the offending Castellan with Avenge the Fallen to compensate for damage dealt.

There's something to be said for Mass hurricane bolter fire too. He has 216 shots in Rapid Fire Range. Unloading them all into the Castellan (instead of clearing chaff) gets you an average 11.67 wounds despite only wounding on 6's. A 7 Jetbike charge adds another 25.21.

So basically, mass Bolters fire the chaff around it to oblivion then slam it with about 20+ attacks from either a full squad or by using Avenge the Fallen.

EDIT: Regarding the Battalion, I think it can still work but it's an anti-meta list. Meaning it's destined to counter a specific kind of opponent (Captain Slamguinus + Guard). It will have problem with IK because foot sloggers take too much punishment getting in range.

You could ally the much cheaper AdMech in now though. Cawl plus 3 Mars Neutronagers is only like 550 total for a Spearhead. That might do some punishment.

An interesting train of thought is that Knights are on the decline due to the FAQ and now the buffing (points wise) of units while they stayed the same. I think the predicted shift is towards more heavy infantry armies potentially meaning the Custodes battalion could make a come back. However, why do the battalion when more storm bolter shots is the answer .

I kinda like going all in on the bikes anyways. I believe Ad Mech has the cheapest battalions now, basically can run 2 of those for 10 cp, outrider with 2 caps and as many bikes as I can fit and hope for the best? I prefer 2 caps over 1 just for scalpel purposes. They can get to needed objectives, find gaps in the line and in general break away to deal with issues, or just deep strike 1 of them. It feels like getting the 10 cp is fairly critical to have consistent access to the counter charge strat etc.. Playing just bikes hurts me on the insides, because I know we would all prefer to have some Allarus and other cool stuff around.

It's just a shame they put the "all the bullets" guns on the bikes. Mobility and the application of dakka has always been king in 40k. If they made the bikes more formidable in melee and had a chaff clearing foot based squad would have really opened things up in army design.

Radikus wrote:
An interesting train of thought is that Knights are on the decline due to the FAQ and now the buffing (points wise) of units while they stayed the same. I think the predicted shift is towards more heavy infantry armies potentially meaning the Custodes battalion could make a come back. However, why do the battalion when more storm bolter shots is the answer .

I kinda like going all in on the bikes anyways. I believe Ad Mech has the cheapest battalions now, basically can run 2 of those for 10 cp, outrider with 2 caps and as many bikes as I can fit and hope for the best? I prefer 2 caps over 1 just for scalpel purposes. They can get to needed objectives, find gaps in the line and in general break away to deal with issues, or just deep strike 1 of them. It feels like getting the 10 cp is fairly critical to have consistent access to the counter charge strat etc.. Playing just bikes hurts me on the insides, because I know we would all prefer to have some Allarus and other cool stuff around.

I think you're on the right track. Let's look at why the Battalion worked last time and see if we can duplicate it.

1. The Battalion itself was the counter to Captain Slamguinus and Guard camping objectives. Custodians are touch enough to tank the Captain's damage AND punish him for it. Custodes are both ObSec and can clear lots of Infantry off objectives.

2. The Assassins. The Culexus was used to protect you from psyker armies. The Callidus was used to screw up the CP expenditures of your typical smash list T1.

What has changed in the meta since then?

Captains are on the decline and thus so is the CP expenditure T1. Psykers are less prevalent as IK drove down TSons and, to a lesser extent, Ynnari.

So now we need less of the Assassins by a longshot. We also don't need as much touch meat to kill Captains (who can't jump over chaff now either). What do we need?

1. We need anti-armor for IK. They weren't nerfed in CA so I'd still expect to see a lot of them.

2. Still gotta clear lots of hordes.

3. Shooting is still king. We need to tie it up or kill it.

What does our battalion bring to this, at a minimum?

1. We can clear hordes.

So from your other two detachments, you need two things:

1. Anti-armor (in fast charging or shooting form).

2. A way to decapitate shooting.

AdMech can give you 1 in spades and for cheap now plus another 5 CP. You're above 1,000 points now though. So what do we bring for 2?

Audustum wrote:

Radikus wrote:
An interesting train of thought is that Knights are on the decline due to the FAQ and now the buffing (points wise) of units while they stayed the same. I think the predicted shift is towards more heavy infantry armies potentially meaning the Custodes battalion could make a come back. However, why do the battalion when more storm bolter shots is the answer .

I kinda like going all in on the bikes anyways. I believe Ad Mech has the cheapest battalions now, basically can run 2 of those for 10 cp, outrider with 2 caps and as many bikes as I can fit and hope for the best? I prefer 2 caps over 1 just for scalpel purposes. They can get to needed objectives, find gaps in the line and in general break away to deal with issues, or just deep strike 1 of them. It feels like getting the 10 cp is fairly critical to have consistent access to the counter charge strat etc.. Playing just bikes hurts me on the insides, because I know we would all prefer to have some Allarus and other cool stuff around.

I think you're on the right track. Let's look at why the Battalion worked last time and see if we can duplicate it.

1. The Battalion itself was the counter to Captain Slamguinus and Guard camping objectives. Custodians are touch enough to tank the Captain's damage AND punish him for it. Custodes are both ObSec and can clear lots of Infantry off objectives.

2. The Assassins. The Culexus was used to protect you from psyker armies. The Callidus was used to screw up the CP expenditures of your typical smash list T1.

What has changed in the meta since then?

Captains are on the decline and thus so is the CP expenditure T1. Psykers are less prevalent as IK drove down TSons and, to a lesser extent, Ynnari.

So now we need less of the Assassins by a longshot. We also don't need as much touch meat to kill Captains (who can't jump over chaff now either). What do we need?

1. We need anti-armor for IK. They weren't nerfed in CA so I'd still expect to see a lot of them.

2. Still gotta clear lots of hordes.

3. Shooting is still king. We need to tie it up or kill it.

What does our battalion bring to this, at a minimum?

1. We can clear hordes.

So from your other two detachments, you need two things:

1. Anti-armor (in fast charging or shooting form).

2. A way to decapitate shooting.

AdMech can give you 1 in spades and for cheap now plus another 5 CP. You're above 1,000 points now though. So what do we bring for 2?

I spent some time plugging in lists to get an idea of point ranges. Right now, pre-CA for 1199 points we can get:

--Custodes Battalion

Trajann
Shield Cap on Bike

3x3 Guard Squads

1x Banner Boi

--Ad Mech Battalion

2x Engiseer

3x5 Rangers

I tried to hunt down the exact point drops from CA, but it wasn't very easy. We know Trajann is down 65 and I believe the admech min battalion gets us another 20-30 points off, so let's say 20. So, from 1199 = 85 this base setup costs us 1114. Add in a 5x Bike squad and 4x Bike squad and we get to 1924 points. From here we can upgrade Banner Boi to Allarus, get some salvo launchers around (which also dropped I think) that can potentially help with our anti armor problem. Ideally i'd have loved to find the points for another bike captain, doable by cutting another bike (might be worth).

1. Anti-armor - This one will be our biggest weakness as it comes down to our bikes getting into melee or the ever unreliable salvo launchers.

2. A way to decapitate shooting - This I think we do much better against than anti-armor with the bikes. Especially if we are smart about using LOS terrain to our upmost advantage. A Tau gun castle is the scariest form of this with their overwatch, but making it in usually ends the game and if we can hit a nice consolidation it's super over (most Tau players will be outside of 3 for the consolidation anyways but not always). Alternatively, we can punish them very hard on objectives, again with LOS or cover, sitting Guard Squads on an objective basically nullifies all small strength no AP guns and anything that could dislodge them from the objective is frantically shooting at our bikes or trying escape their charges. That scenario is even worse for the Tau castle.

I think I am willing to concede the point to the anti-armor problem. Playing those games cagey and objective minded is our best hope. The other thing i'd be concerned with is the low body count not being the IG battalion and potential psyker armies, but as you said, the psyker armies aren't really heavily represented. Overall, it feels very hard to make it all work, I think we are always going to have some area we will be weak to and just have to accept that weakness.

Another decent addon is an Air wing Detachment with 3 Deathwatch Xiphos air superiority fighters. They went down to 680 pnts due to the twin lascannons dropping in cost.

Its 33 wounds t7 3+ hard to hit that carry 12 lazcannons and 3 str6 3 shot missles at ap -2 that deal flat 3 damage.


Very decent fire output. Use deathwatch for their anti-xenos strats on a very mobile unit.

I dont think my list is going to change at all, i only got Custodes for the looks and dont care if they are amazing or not, i also only have 2CP.

++ Total: [106 PL, 1973pts] ++
++ Outrider Detachment +1CP (Imperium - Adeptus Custodes) [70 PL, 1260pts] ++

+ HQ +
Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike: Hurricane Bolter
Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike: Hurricane Bolter

+ Elites +
Vexillus Praetor Terminator Armor: Vexilla Magnifica

+ Fast Attack +
Vertus Praetors x3: Hurricane Bolters
Vertus Praetors x3: Hurricane Bolters
Vertus Praetors x3: Hurricane Bolters


++ Auxiliary Support Detachment -1CP (Imperium - FW Adeptus Astartes) [11 PL, 240pts] ++

+ Flyer +
Xiphon Interceptor 2x Twin lascannon, Xiphon missile battery

++ Super-Heavy Auxiliary Detachment (Imperium - Imperial Knights) [25 PL, 473pts] ++

+ Lord of War +
Knight Crusader [25 PL, 473pts]: Heavy Stubber, Ironstorm Missile Pod, Thermal Cannon
. Avenger Gatling Cannon w/ Heavy Flamer: Avenger Gatling Cannon, Heavy Flamer


Its my Rule of Cool Army

I think the base price of the Xiphon went up by 20 so the price stayed the same (as far as I can tell).

I'd run them as dark angels and include a dark shroud to give them native -2 to hit. If you have room for samuel on sable claw and the xiphons that is a strong anti-armor, hard to kill, very mobile detachment.

Problem is, its not killing a 3++ knight. 12 lascannons hitting on 3s, re-rolling 1s is 9 hits, 6 wounds, 4 saves for 7 wounds with the 9 missiles, 7 hits, 3 wounds, 2 saves so 3 more so a total of 10 wounds. Not nothing but melee does it better. They crush things without invulns though. Also that's like a 1k point detachment that gives you 1 cp...

Radikus wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Radikus wrote:
An interesting train of thought is that Knights are on the decline due to the FAQ and now the buffing (points wise) of units while they stayed the same. I think the predicted shift is towards more heavy infantry armies potentially meaning the Custodes battalion could make a come back. However, why do the battalion when more storm bolter shots is the answer .

I kinda like going all in on the bikes anyways. I believe Ad Mech has the cheapest battalions now, basically can run 2 of those for 10 cp, outrider with 2 caps and as many bikes as I can fit and hope for the best? I prefer 2 caps over 1 just for scalpel purposes. They can get to needed objectives, find gaps in the line and in general break away to deal with issues, or just deep strike 1 of them. It feels like getting the 10 cp is fairly critical to have consistent access to the counter charge strat etc.. Playing just bikes hurts me on the insides, because I know we would all prefer to have some Allarus and other cool stuff around.

I think you're on the right track. Let's look at why the Battalion worked last time and see if we can duplicate it.

1. The Battalion itself was the counter to Captain Slamguinus and Guard camping objectives. Custodians are touch enough to tank the Captain's damage AND punish him for it. Custodes are both ObSec and can clear lots of Infantry off objectives.

2. The Assassins. The Culexus was used to protect you from psyker armies. The Callidus was used to screw up the CP expenditures of your typical smash list T1.

What has changed in the meta since then?

Captains are on the decline and thus so is the CP expenditure T1. Psykers are less prevalent as IK drove down TSons and, to a lesser extent, Ynnari.

So now we need less of the Assassins by a longshot. We also don't need as much touch meat to kill Captains (who can't jump over chaff now either). What do we need?

1. We need anti-armor for IK. They weren't nerfed in CA so I'd still expect to see a lot of them.

2. Still gotta clear lots of hordes.

3. Shooting is still king. We need to tie it up or kill it.

What does our battalion bring to this, at a minimum?

1. We can clear hordes.

So from your other two detachments, you need two things:

1. Anti-armor (in fast charging or shooting form).

2. A way to decapitate shooting.

AdMech can give you 1 in spades and for cheap now plus another 5 CP. You're above 1,000 points now though. So what do we bring for 2?

I spent some time plugging in lists to get an idea of point ranges. Right now, pre-CA for 1199 points we can get:

--Custodes Battalion

Trajann
Shield Cap on Bike

3x3 Guard Squads

1x Banner Boi

--Ad Mech Battalion

2x Engiseer

3x5 Rangers

I tried to hunt down the exact point drops from CA, but it wasn't very easy. We know Trajann is down 65 and I believe the admech min battalion gets us another 20-30 points off, so let's say 20. So, from 1199 = 85 this base setup costs us 1114. Add in a 5x Bike squad and 4x Bike squad and we get to 1924 points. From here we can upgrade Banner Boi to Allarus, get some salvo launchers around (which also dropped I think) that can potentially help with our anti armor problem. Ideally i'd have loved to find the points for another bike captain, doable by cutting another bike (might be worth).

1. Anti-armor - This one will be our biggest weakness as it comes down to our bikes getting into melee or the ever unreliable salvo launchers.

2. A way to decapitate shooting - This I think we do much better against than anti-armor with the bikes. Especially if we are smart about using LOS terrain to our upmost advantage. A Tau gun castle is the scariest form of this with their overwatch, but making it in usually ends the game and if we can hit a nice consolidation it's super over (most Tau players will be outside of 3 for the consolidation anyways but not always). Alternatively, we can punish them very hard on objectives, again with LOS or cover, sitting Guard Squads on an objective basically nullifies all small strength no AP guns and anything that could dislodge them from the objective is frantically shooting at our bikes or trying escape their charges. That scenario is even worse for the Tau castle.

I think I am willing to concede the point to the anti-armor problem. Playing those games cagey and objective minded is our best hope. The other thing i'd be concerned with is the low body count not being the IG battalion and potential psyker armies, but as you said, the psyker armies aren't really heavily represented. Overall, it feels very hard to make it all work, I think we are always going to have some area we will be weak to and just have to accept that weakness.

This is really good and I think I can fill in some blanks!

The minimum AdMech battalion post-CA is 165 points. Trjann + Jetbike Captain and 3 Spear squads grafted onto that gets us two Battalions for just 978.

In this setup, I would take 1 big squad of Jetbikes instead of two mediums. The reasoning being that we want to capitalize on Avenge the Fallen to overcome our losses. Hurricane Bikes are 90 PPM, so 8 of them brings us to 1,698. You can Deep Strike them for 1 CP with Golden Light. They should only take one round of shooting before being able to reliably charge. Maybe 2 if you don't Deep Strike. With Avenge, you have to lose 5 Jetbikes before their melee capability is actually degraded (32 attacks in melee).

From here you have 302 points to spruce up AdMech or add something else. Another Jetbike Captain, add a Vexillus (124 points for one with axe and Magnifica) some heavy guns on the AdMech, e.t.c.

If we turn Trajann into a normal Shield-Captain or even an Allarus or Bike one, we'd save an addition 50-60 points and be around 350-370 for sprucing.

I think my only disagreement here is putting all 9 bikes in one group. Even though we are deep striking them they account for such a large investment that missing a charge out of DS might lose the game on the spot. The 5/4 split allows tactical flexibility, start the 4 on the board if sufficient LOS and the 5 in DS, or vice-versa, whichever seems appropriate given the circumstance. I think if the 5/4 split is used then the vexilla is required to weather a first turn (even with LOS we must except some shots to see a pointy spear ).

However, I am not inclined to dismiss the 9 bike star with out trying it, I have a game or potentially 2 games time permitting this weekend and I plan to run the 9 bike group first. Going with one big group I think cutting the vexilla is correct. If I get the second game I will run the 4/5 with vexilla. My final thoughts is if going with a 2nd shield captain to add an outrider and go 3x3 bike squads. The 3x3 is more to see how it goes rather than any additional benefits that doing the 4/5 or the 9 would provide.

Radikus wrote:
I think my only disagreement here is putting all 9 bikes in one group. Even though we are deep striking them they account for such a large investment that missing a charge out of DS might lose the game on the spot. The 5/4 split allows tactical flexibility, start the 4 on the board if sufficient LOS and the 5 in DS, or vice-versa, whichever seems appropriate given the circumstance. I think if the 5/4 split is used then the vexilla is required to weather a first turn (even with LOS we must except some shots to see a pointy spear ).

However, I am not inclined to dismiss the 9 bike star with out trying it, I have a game or potentially 2 games time permitting this weekend and I plan to run the 9 bike group first. Going with one big group I think cutting the vexilla is correct. If I get the second game I will run the 4/5 with vexilla. My final thoughts is if going with a 2nd shield captain to add an outrider and go 3x3 bike squads. The 3x3 is more to see how it goes rather than any additional benefits that doing the 4/5 or the 9 would provide.

Oh yeah, you make that deepstrike charge or you lose against knights.

I've done the matchup plenty, knights are super common in my meta.

Radikus wrote:
I think my only disagreement here is putting all 9 bikes in one group. Even though we are deep striking them they account for such a large investment that missing a charge out of DS might lose the game on the spot. The 5/4 split allows tactical flexibility, start the 4 on the board if sufficient LOS and the 5 in DS, or vice-versa, whichever seems appropriate given the circumstance. I think if the 5/4 split is used then the vexilla is required to weather a first turn (even with LOS we must except some shots to see a pointy spear ).

However, I am not inclined to dismiss the 9 bike star with out trying it, I have a game or potentially 2 games time permitting this weekend and I plan to run the 9 bike group first. Going with one big group I think cutting the vexilla is correct. If I get the second game I will run the 4/5 with vexilla. My final thoughts is if going with a 2nd shield captain to add an outrider and go 3x3 bike squads. The 3x3 is more to see how it goes rather than any additional benefits that doing the 4/5 or the 9 would provide.

So my view on it is that you WOULD fail the deep strike charge. You're not getting a reliable charge off till the second turn your Jetbikes are on the table (Round 3). Avenge the Fallen would be used to mitigate any losses since you are highly unlikely to lose 5 or more Jetbikes before their second turn of action.

For instance, a Gallant with 5A when stomping should only kill about 2 Jetbikes. Hurts, but Avenge the Fallen retaliation (on the turn the Gallant charged YOU after you arrived from Deep Strike) would average 19.43 wounds back on the Gallant. He definitely takes the worse of it. Even if your opponent tries to shoot you off the table the turn you arrive, taking out 5+ Jetbikes is a tall order. Assuming a Space Marine statline with re-roll 1's on a magic autocannon with -2 AP (basically the best profile for killing Jetbikes), it would take a whopping 40 shots to destroy 5 Jetbikes on average. Cawl's Wrath with re-roll everything from House Raven only averages 1 destroyed Jetbike and 1 wounded Jetbike, for example.

I personally do like the 3x3 setup though and use it myself. 1 Outrider, 1 CP Battery, then usually 1 detachment of heavy shooting from somewhere.

9 jetbikes is just under half your army. If every knight in the enemy army gets on target, and they will, you’ll probably lose the squad, or have it crippled

stratigo wrote:
9 jetbikes is just under half your army. If every knight in the enemy army gets on target, and they will, you’ll probably lose the squad, or have it crippled

8 Jetbikes* is 720, so it's 36% of your army. It really depends on comp from there. If you're fighting another assault army, you can likely easily deep strike somewhere your 14" Move will get you into position next turn and most of his stuff can't assault you. If it's a heavy shooting army, daisy-chain out to get a toe into the Vexillus and hang on. You'd be hard pressed to lose the squad though. An entire Castellan Knight with Cawl's Wrath and Raven Stratagem only averages about 12 wounds and that's if he also fires the Oathbreaker Missile at the Jetbikes. That's 604 points and 3 CP of your opponent's army to kill 3. He'd still have to kill 2 more to get you at your break even point and then 3 more beyond even that to wipe the squad (effectively, it would take 3 Knight Castellan's all with Cawl's Wrath and all using the House Raven strat to 1-round the Jetbikes with shooting).

Re: the discussion on the Big Bike Sqaud; Avenge the Fallen functions based on casualties sustained in that turn only.

As I understand the term 'turn', that basically means overwatch casualties only, unless your opponent foolishly decides to charge your half dead squad. Doesn't seem like something to be relied on.

However one other stratagem I've used to great effect in bikes is Unflinching: over watch on 5+. Used on even a min squad of bikes it makes them very difficult to charge with chaff squads and tarpit, and a big squad of 8+ might be almost immune. Doesn't help much vs knights, but might help prevent that bike star from being unable to charge on your next turn, especially in the age of 30 strong squads of Boys.

Spartacus wrote:
Re: the discussion on the Big Bike Sqaud; Avenge the Fallen functions based on casualties sustained in that turn only.

As I understand the term 'turn', that basically means overwatch casualties only, unless your opponent foolishly decides to charge your half dead squad. Doesn't seem like something to be relied on.

However one other stratagem I've used to great effect in bikes is Unflinching: over watch on 5+. Used on even a min squad of bikes it makes them very difficult to charge with chaff squads and tarpit, and a big squad of 8+ might be almost immune. Doesn't help much vs knights, but might help prevent that bike star from being unable to charge on your next turn, especially in the age of 30 strong squads of Boys.

Ah, you are right and I had neglected that restriction. That said, with Swooping Dive you can use it on a turn you were shot.

That said, Swooping Dive is a good reason to take 2 squads. Your opponent will have to entangle both or risk getting alpha struck by the other.

Audustum wrote:

stratigo wrote:
9 jetbikes is just under half your army. If every knight in the enemy army gets on target, and they will, you’ll probably lose the squad, or have it crippled

8 Jetbikes* is 720, so it's 36% of your army. It really depends on comp from there. If you're fighting another assault army, you can likely easily deep strike somewhere your 14" Move will get you into position next turn and most of his stuff can't assault you. If it's a heavy shooting army, daisy-chain out to get a toe into the Vexillus and hang on. You'd be hard pressed to lose the squad though. An entire Castellan Knight with Cawl's Wrath and Raven Stratagem only averages about 12 wounds and that's if he also fires the Oathbreaker Missile at the Jetbikes. That's 604 points and 3 CP of your opponent's army to kill 3. He'd still have to kill 2 more to get you at your break even point and then 3 more beyond even that to wipe the squad (effectively, it would take 3 Knight Castellan's all with Cawl's Wrath and all using the House Raven strat to 1-round the Jetbikes with shooting).

Don't get me wrong, bike armies will beat MOST enemies. It just WON'T beat a knight based army. Knights trade more effectively against you than you against them.

Thinking about trying my hand at a pure Custodes army, but want to avoid bike spam. Thinking along the lines of:


++ Battalion Detachment +5CP (Imperium - Adeptus Custodes) ++

+ HQ +

Captain-General Trajann Valoris

Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike: Auric Aquilis, Hurricane Bolter, Superior Creation, Warlord

+ Troops +

Custodian Guard Squad
3x Custodian: Guardian Spear

Custodian Guard Squad
3x Custodian: Guardian Spear

Custodian Guard Squad
3x Custodian: Guardian Spear

+ Elites +

Vexillus Praetor: Misericordia, Vexilla Magnifica

+ Fast Attack +

Vertus Praetors
5x Vertus Praetor: Hurricane Bolter

++ Vanguard Detachment +1CP (Imperium - Adeptus Custodes) ++

+ HQ +

Shield Captain in Allarus Terminator Armor: Castellan Axe

+ Elites +

Custodian Wardens
3x Warden: Castellan Axe, Misericordia

Venerable Contemptor Dreadnought: Combi-bolter, Dreadnought Combat Weapon, Kheres Pattern Assault Cannon

Venerable Contemptor Dreadnought: Combi-bolter, Dreadnought Combat Weapon, Kheres Pattern Assault Cannon

I’d pull for forge world dreads over contemptors if that’s in the budget.

stratigo wrote:
I’d pull for forge world dreads over contemptors if that’s in the budget.

The rules on the Examplar shooty variant FW dredd say because it doesn’t have a model yet, you can use any Contemptor Dreadnought as one, right? So budget-wise doesn’t have to be any different- buy the GW one and run it as an Examplar.

Pomguo wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I’d pull for forge world dreads over contemptors if that’s in the budget.

The rules on the Examplar shooty variant FW dredd say because it doesn’t have a model yet, you can use any Contemptor Dreadnought as one, right? So budget-wise doesn’t have to be any different- buy the GW one and run it as an Examplar.

I suppose. But a big part of the forge world benefit is ascetic. Specifically plastic contemptors do not look like custodes vehicles (neither do land raiders). Custodea are conspicuously lacking exhaust ports or power packs. If you're gonna rock a dread, the forge world dreads look like custodes stuff while the plastic looks like a space marine dread painted gold. And going pure custodes while avoiding bike spam is pretty firmly into the territory of not worrying too much about shaving a couple points of efficiency in your list.

So with the Christmas money I got this year I'm finally able to jump in and start a Custodes army. I'm thinking:

4 boxes of regular custodes

4 boxes of Vertus Praetors

3 boxes of Allarus Terminators

2 boxes of wardens

Captain-General Trajann Valoris

I'd like to get the telmon dread but its sold out at FW right now. Also not sure about LR or Contemptor Dreads since reading here everyone says to go big on the jetbikes.

What would you guys recommend?

Had a fun game with my 3 jetbike captains they blew up a knight titan!

I can attest they seem a bit too powerful.

4 boxes of regular custodes

4 boxes of Vertus Praetors

3 boxes of Allarus Terminators

2 boxes of wardens

Captain-General Trajann Valoris

recommendations?

Seems about right, but honestly pure custodes lists are kind of eh but thats up to you!

For recommendations: Allarus Terminators are great, so are wardens, but bikes are your bread and butter for any custodes list.

Wardens got a cost decrease but lack deepstrike. Bikes are a bit of a pain to build but their weapon utility cannot be underestimated they are some of the best bike units in the game.

You need some banner carriers and some Captains for supreme command detachments to give most of your army aura buffs.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Had a fun game with my 3 jetbike captains they blew up a knight titan!

I can attest they seem a bit too powerful.

4 boxes of regular custodes

4 boxes of Vertus Praetors

3 boxes of Allarus Terminators

2 boxes of wardens

Captain-General Trajann Valoris

recommendations?

Seems about right, but honestly pure custodes lists are kind of eh but thats up to you!

For recommendations: Allarus Terminators are great, so are wardens, but bikes are your bread and butter for any custodes list.

Wardens got a cost decrease but lack deepstrike. Bikes are a bit of a pain to build but their weapon utility cannot be underestimated they are some of the best bike units in the game.

You need some banner carriers and some Captains for supreme command detachments to give most of your army aura buffs.

Yeah, I'll be using the wardens boxes to make my captains/banner guys (thought I'm tempted to make at least one banner guy with a storm shield). Also gonna make one of my bikes a captain.

How would you arm the jetbikes? I was thinking for every 3 bikes, you have two with hurrican bolters and one with a salvo launcher.

How would you arm the jetbikes? I was thinking for every 3 bikes, you have two with hurrican bolters and one with a salvo launcher.

Seems good. Be wary those bikes are a complete bitch to build do not glue the biker to the model!

Pin his damn hair thing onto his head, and pin his arms! They are notoriously hard to glue!

He's a good choice for HQ I don't know if Valoris is as good, but the captains can get relics and there is the auric shackles or any of the other bike ones that give a FEEL NO PAIN ability to them which makes them very powerful.

Jury is still out on the salvo launchers with the recent price cut, but they stick in well enough that as long as you don’t glue them they can easily be swapped. Overall, the bikes are not hard to build IMHO, the lance arm can be a bit tricky but that’s about it

 Asherian Command wrote:

How would you arm the jetbikes? I was thinking for every 3 bikes, you have two with hurrican bolters and one with a salvo launcher.

Seems good. Be wary those bikes are a complete bitch to build do not glue the biker to the model!

Pin his damn hair thing onto his head, and pin his arms! They are notoriously hard to glue!

Alternatively, use magnets! Magnetise the armourments to allow you to swap them out and magnetise the spear arm to make them easier to transport and make it less likely that a spear will break off.

(Side note: I used to not bother with magnets and get annoyed at people always suggesting them because I thought they'd be a pain to do but I eventually tried them when I started Custodes and now I use them all the time. They are so easy to do, are very useful for list building and transportation reasons and it's satisfying to actually be able to pose models after they've been built!)

 greyknight12 wrote:
Jury is still out on the salvo launchers with the recent price cut, but they stick in well enough that as long as you don’t glue them they can easily be swapped. Overall, the bikes are not hard to build IMHO, the lance arm can be a bit tricky but that’s about it

+1 for leaving the weapons out - Don't follow the instructions, just leave the Bolters/MIssiles out of the bike until the very end. After you painted it all even. Then push them in once the model is finished. They pop out easily enough when you pry it with a fingernail, almost as if the model was made for it.

 Asherian Command wrote:
Had a fun game with my 3 jetbike captains they blew up a knight titan!

I can attest they seem a bit too powerful.

4 boxes of regular custodes

4 boxes of Vertus Praetors

3 boxes of Allarus Terminators

2 boxes of wardens

Captain-General Trajann Valoris

recommendations?

Seems about right, but honestly pure custodes lists are kind of eh but thats up to you!

For recommendations: Allarus Terminators are great, so are wardens, but bikes are your bread and butter for any custodes list.

Wardens got a cost decrease but lack deepstrike. Bikes are a bit of a pain to build but their weapon utility cannot be underestimated they are some of the best bike units in the game.

You need some banner carriers and some Captains for supreme command detachments to give most of your army aura buffs.

In the edition of knights I feel like my too powerful scale has broken. It’s pretty much a super castellen and then, eh, whatever, it’s not a castellen with Cawl’s wrath that never dies.

But generally shield captains are in the same tier as demon princes and slam captains

Dear custodes,

I want to ally a Vanguard Detachment to my Deathwatch and have questions regarding the elite units you have.

First of: I dont want to use or spam bikes as they seem a bit too strong to me. Also Im already using a SmashCap and he is capable of winning me a game on his own so yea...

Im a big fan of elite style armies and elite style play. Thats why Ive thought about a Vanguard Detachment with the named Character as HQ for reroll 1s for hitting and wounding. Then a Vexilla Magnifica for the -1 to hit.

Now Id like to run the Custodes terminators but Ive also seen the Wardens wield the same weapons and are cheaper?

What are the differences between those units and whats the „most“ efficient way of running them? Any synergies, tactics, stratagems? Whats the best unit size? Is there a way of improving the terminators to a 2+/3++ ?

Any answers are helpful and I thank you all in advance!