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 Jidmah wrote:
Slightly off-topic:
I'm looking for an imperial force for 2v2 team games where each side has 1500-2000 points.I want a small, cheap army which I can use to play with people who have factions that usually don't ally with orks or death guard.
Are custodes good allies for marines/admech/guard/GK if I stick with GW plastic? Or do I need to have FW fire support to play them?

Does each person have 1500-2000pts or does each person have 750-1000pts?

I play Custodes with either DW or admech (+ knight), and I'm looking to add guard (+ inquisition) as a possibility. Half my army (1000pts) would be custodes and the rest is one of those 3 in a 2000pt game. The custodes are a shield captain on foot, 8 wardens in two units, a vexilla, and 3 bikes.

The custodes do well with admech. Custodes in an admech army fill the same role as bullgryns in a guard army, tough melee units to protect your gun line. Jet bikes are an excellent fast attack for an army that doesn't have a very good one. Only about 1/6th of my army is below T5, I've never been tabled with that army and I'm not a very good player. My skitarri tend to die fast, but all my custodes have obsec so it's not absolutely crippling (they're still only 13 models). I don't have any psychic powers, but the Custodes have a deny WL trait and stratagem, and I run Graia for their 4+ deny stratagem.

With DW, I had hoped the custodes could act as a kind of distraction carnifex, or even round out my DW's lack of durability while the DW fills in for the Custodes low mobility and poor shooting. Practically speaking, they don't mix together very well, the DW tend to die fast and leave the custodes in the cold. Sometimes the DW can remove a big blob of infantry, which is always welcome, but a loaded blackstar and a few deep striking units are too appealing a target in the face of a 2k point army. The admech's knight is better bait when playing with DW.

I'm still planning my guard + inquistion army but I suspect it will play close to admech when working with custodes. Having more obsec bodies will be nice, but I think guardsmen will be less survivable than skitarri (especially since I play Graia). I will have a good psychic presence (inquistor + primaris psyker), so 3-4 denys per turn, and guardsmen can actually help the custodes in melee with their priest and orders.

I think GK might do better with custodes than DW (at least after their CA points drop). They have similar anti-hoard shooting, good psychic powers, and won't run off and get killed. But they are worse than DW at shooting (what you take them for) and are a less competitive army overall (probably even after CA).

Primaris marines will avoid the durability problems DW suffer from and are a more competitive choice than GK. They won't get doctrines if you take them as allies and without them I think they have the lowest damage output of the three. I'm not sure though, I've never though of playing normal marines alongside custodes.

Thanks for the answer .

Each person has 1500-2000. I imagine custodes to be quite silly at 750.

I think GK might do better with custodes than DW (at least after their CA points drop). They have similar anti-hoard shooting, good psychic powers, and won't run off and get killed. But they are worse than DW at shooting (what you take them for) and are a less competitive army overall (probably even after CA).

the point drops aren't as substential as people may think. Sure the base models droped in points, but the weapons that were free before now cost 1 point. So if your using two falchions, which are the best set up for GK, it costs 2pts. That is why GW used the strange term of "they will cost around" some points.

 Jidmah wrote:
Thanks for the answer .

Each person has 1500-2000. I imagine custodes to be quite silly at 750.

cutodes at 750..

I have a 750 point list for my custodes... its 8 models.

dawneagle jet bike captain

2 units of allarus custodes x3

1 vexillus praetor with vexilla magnifica (-1 to hit bubble)

as for allies or need for FW.. FW stuff is nice but really only needed if you want a full custodes army, imperial guard imo is a better and cheaper solution. with the oints drops of Leman Russes I might try a tnak commander, 3x leman russes, and then a bunch of infantry units for cheap bodies and volume shots/bubble wrap.

Custodes at 750 for me would be a Command detachment 3 Dawn Eagle Capts, 1 Ven Contemptor Dread (Or any 1 of the FW Dreads) and maybe a Shield Capt with Storm shield to hold the backline

 Galef wrote:
Custodes at 750 for me would be a Command detachment 3 Dawn Eagle Capts, 1 Ven Contemptor Dread (Or any 1 of the FW Dreads) and maybe a Shield Capt with Storm shield to hold the backline

yea that's stronger. i just really like the Allarus models.

honestly my 2k list includes a 10 man squad of allarus and a vexillus with allarus in terminator armor with the vexilla magnifica. a dawneagle shield captain and a contemptor dred to fill the detachment. allied with guard and you have plenty of CP. turn 2 drop in 10 allarus under a -1 to hit bubble and turn 3 unleash the lions so its 7-10 termies (they will be a fire magnet turn 2) now individual units. i love playign it, so much fun.

 Jidmah wrote:
Thanks for the answer .

Each person has 1500-2000. I imagine custodes to be quite silly at 750.

Oh, I'm of the opinion that they do better in lower point numbers. As you can see from:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

cutodes at 750..

I have a 750 point list for my custodes... its 8 models.

dawneagle jet bike captain

2 units of allarus custodes x3

1 vexillus praetor with vexilla magnifica (-1 to hit bubble)

as for allies or need for FW.. FW stuff is nice but really only needed if you want a full custodes army, imperial guard imo is a better and cheaper solution. with the oints drops of Leman Russes I might try a tnak commander, 3x leman russes, and then a bunch of infantry units for cheap bodies and volume shots/bubble wrap.

honestly my 2k list includes a 10 man squad of allarus and a vexillus with allarus in terminator armor with the vexilla magnifica. a dawneagle shield captain and a contemptor dred to fill the detachment. allied with guard and you have plenty of CP. turn 2 drop in 10 allarus under a -1 to hit bubble and turn 3 unleash the lions so its 7-10 termies (they will be a fire magnet turn 2) now individual units. i love playign it, so much fun.

They get all the toys they need/have access to at low points levels (as long as you exclude FW), but won't scale up very well for larger games. MOAR TERMINATORS MOAR BIKES is all you can really do. Sure, it's something and can be effective, but it's really just more of the same and other armies can scale up better. That's why I think Custodes do best at 1250 or below. If you ally them with something you might be able to get away with more custodes, but I think it will be suboptimal and they won't be pulling their weight. If you want, you can always make a smaller custodes army and then ally in assassins, SoS, or even inquisition; smaller armies that don't have a real codex.

I consider playing 8 models silly

The general idea is that I can join people who have armies which won't ally with Orks or Death Guard in battle - which already means that there is some sort of fluff intention. From the things I read I deducted that I can use custodes as a shield for basically any imperium army and that bringing a unit of bikes is probably sufficient fire support for that.

So two more noob questions:
1) What's the advantage of bringing terminators over regular custodes?
2) If I take a relic vexilia, does it lose its regular aura? If so, what's the point?

 Jidmah wrote:
I consider playing 8 models silly

The general idea is that I can join people who have armies which won't ally with Orks or Death Guard in battle - which already means that there is some sort of fluff intention. From the things I read I deducted that I can use custodes as a shield for basically any imperium army and that bringing a unit of bikes is probably sufficient fire support for that.

So two more noob questions:
1) What's the advantage of bringing terminators over regular custodes?
2) If I take a relic vexilia, does it lose its regular aura? If so, what's the point?

1: normally when we see terminators we're used to seeing them as the better protected unit, that's obviously not the case with custodes. the big advantage of allarus custodes is their native deepstrike. which does allow you to save on points. they also have a minor little trick that is supposed to make character hunting easier but I don't think it's terriably useful. It's a shame really they're such pretty models but their advantages over custodes guard is so.... situational.
2: they're pretty situational and not really worth it I agree, they do make IMPERIAL units within the radius immune to morale so might be worth it, if you where say... building a small custodes force to act as a lynchpin in a guard army.

 Jidmah wrote:
I consider playing 8 models silly

The general idea is that I can join people who have armies which won't ally with Orks or Death Guard in battle - which already means that there is some sort of fluff intention. From the things I read I deducted that I can use custodes as a shield for basically any imperium army and that bringing a unit of bikes is probably sufficient fire support for that.

So two more noob questions:
1) What's the advantage of bringing terminators over regular custodes?
2) If I take a relic vexilia, does it lose its regular aura? If so, what's the point?

on the terminators they have a few things. other than just deep striking they come with a ballista grenade launcher. so a assault D3 str 4 ap-3 D1 marine/chaos marine dissolving weapon. plus as stated not needing to spend CP on deep striek is a nice bonus considering pure custodes really lack for CP.

on vexilla... really only for a guard blob as said above

You might also mention their concussion strat that shuts down overwatch and gives a -1 to hit. Great for DS charging Tau back fields and generally causing chaos in your opponent's objectives. They do surprisingly good work as character hunters with their shooting strat as well. All in all, it's a great way to get free charges off.

If nothing else, it forces your opponent to respect their back field.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You might also mention their concussion strat that shuts down overwatch and gives a -1 to hit. Great for DS charging Tau back fields and generally causing chaos in your opponent's objectives. They do surprisingly good work as character hunters with their shooting strat as well. All in all, it's a great way to get free charges off.

If nothing else, it forces your opponent to respect their back field.

Concussion grenades is a cool stratagem, but it only works against infantry. So most tau backlines will still be able to overwatch against you, because tau nowadays is just basically all the gundams. Also the native deepstrike the allarus terminators have is nice, but you still need to make a 9" charge and we have no help charging at all. I stopped playing them because I am so sick of failing deepstrike charges even with rerolls, might as well not have bothered, because most armies will just shoot you off the board in their next turn. The vexilla teleport homer is a nice trick to get one deepstrike unit into melee, but its super expensive and it's hard to pull off against a competent opponent.

So yeah, you can play mono custodes if you play forgeworld stuff, cause shooting is king in 8th an forgeworld gives you decent heavy firepower. The only good units from the codex are the vertus praetors and the vexillus praetor. Trajann is also good since he got cheaper again.

Terminators definitely have a lot of tactical options, they are very good in the hands of a skilled player. If you aren't familiar with the army and don't know how to use their tricks, then they are just much less points efficient wardens with a native deep-strike. I would say you could skip them, but it looks like you will be playing on a big table where it would be nice to have that extra mobility.

Ideally you would purchase one pack of allarus terminators and make one the Vexilla and 2 shield captains with the box.

The +1 attack vexilla in allarus is now a decent model with the points drops and strats he can use.

Terminator shield captains are also pretty good for their points, even though everyone would rather take the biker captains.

I'm fine with skipping biker captains, as I don't intend to ever run the army in competitive games.
So something like Trajan+shield captain, one or two vexillas, 3 units of wardens, a unit of bikes and a unit of terminators should work, assuming I always have some imperial ally, right?

I don't think a unit of one, of anything, works that well in w40k. Maybe if it is something like an old school castellan. If you take one unit of bikers they will just get shot off the table real quick. Running two or better yet 3 captins would just be better.

I don't think you can fit two units of bikes in 1500 when you want to have a battalion.
As for tripple captains, this will be an army I exclusively run in games where my ally wants to play with an Imperium-army for fluff reasons. You don't bring that kind of stuff to such a game.

Anyways, as far as I understand, the difference between the regular bikers and the captains is telling your opponent that the model is a captain now. I can switch between them at any time.

BrianDavion wrote:
will confirm, that's the custodes symbol. every codex is on that chart save one. and the one in this question is sisters of battle.

Well, a few others such as Space Wolves or AdMech also aren't on that version of the graphic.

GW quickly put out a new one after that oopsie though.

for you custodes players or anyone with knowledge of the army, how are they doing currently?, and can they work as a pure force?

I've been playing Custodes competitively as mono faction for nearly the past year, but it does require at the very minimum an Assassin or even better Inquisitor Rex.

Despite the lore on the table top they have little to no pysker defense, and mortal wound spam is the bane of your existence. The good news is there is precedent for Custodies Assassins, so if your trying to theme your army it should be relatively easy.
Surpassing Assassins in almost every meaningful way i'd highly suggest fielding an Inquistor instead. The new rules in WD means for 110 points and 2 CP you get 3 casts 4 denies on a 2+/3++ DS platform thats mostly CP independent, that last bit is a big deal in a an army that has tons of great stratagems but low starting CP (Assassins require CP to be truly effective).

The biggest issue with the current state of our codex is we have no real AT options outside of FW, Our best two options in that department are the Pallas (light tank) and the Caladius that just got roped in (formerly the God-Killer, now it's just a Primaris Murder Machine).

I came up with the following list, just after a quick run through of the book and battlescribe, apologies if this can't be posted in this thread, feel free to delete it if so.

Not a bad start, a few suggestions to make it a little more competitive:

Replace your Guard with Sagittarum, they solve one of the biggest issues we have - lack of good backfield objective humpres. These guys are aces, 36" assault bolters that have a "free" melta type shot at 15", you don't get the 3++ save lacking a SS but these are just better overall troops for mission play or general combat.

Drop the Allarus, even with the points reduction they aren't good, they have a few good stratagems but that doesn't compensate. You have better options just in terminators alone, Aquilion still have access to the most powerful stratagems (Teleport Homer, Tanglefoot Grenade ect).

It pains me to say this, but the Telemon went from being good to bad real quick, and with the release of the new SM codices by comparison they just plain suck. It's a shame, i owned 3 at one time (currently terrain) and they are one of the coolest looking models in the game.

Everything else looks solid, the Pallas are about $1 per point (thats Orky prices) but are totally worth it.

Custodes are not really Custodes in competitive play. Not as a mono-faction.

They have 5 units you'll see in competitive play.

Now, for more casual game play, the book opens up, and you can field a cool variety of units.

1. Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike
2. Trajann Valoris
3. Vertus Praetors
4. Sagittarum Guard
5. Caladius Grav-tank
6. Pallas
7. Vexillus Praetor
8. Orion

On these 8 pillars i will build my temple.

Since Custodes don't have any psychers I wasn't expecting too much from psychic awakening, but it would make sense to get some sort of psychic defense buff during this release.

I expect Sisters of Silence to play a role, and we know we are getting one new unique HQ unit at the very least.

The only good way to play footstodes is to teleport homer your terminators 3" away from your enemy using an advancing Vexilla Magnifica. 3 Command Points. Custodes bikes and tanks are very mobile and have the FLY keyboard, which opens he game up for a lot of shenanigans.

This is a very outdated mindset, footstodes got a real shot in the arm with the movement of Sagittarum from elite to troop. If your entire plan revolves around pulling off a Teleport Homer you've already lost half your games.

Ideally you would purchase one pack of allarus terminators and make one the Vexilla and 2 shield captains with the box.

Side note i had a lot of success last week with a squad of Aqulion wielding the S5 -3AP 3DMG assault bolters, i straight up wrecked the IH player i was facing. I wouldn't recommend Allarus in a competitive environment.

I'm sorry, but if you think pure Custodes Foot is viable against any sort of competitive list, I think you are wrong. Custodes have all the worst cons of an all Elite Army, paired with extreme cost, lack luster shooting, zero psychic defense or abilities, and no back field game for defending objectives.

Are custodes fun? Do I love them? Yes.

Are they competitive? Hard no.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I'm sorry, but if you think pure Custodes Foot is viable against any sort of competitive list

I don't think anyone is arguing that, especially in the current meta. In fact i don't think i've seen an all foot list even place top 3 (at anything) in the last year.

I think Custodes are more competitive than many people think. But Custodes are not that easy to play because you have so few units.

Look at these stats



those games were played between the 28.Sep.19 and 09.Nov.19 So long after the Caladius nerf. The data is a mix from good and bad players.
big thanks to 40kstats.com for providing all this awesome data.

Pure Custodes are less competitive but thats the case for almost every non SM army that could soup but is not. And Marines are OP right now.
The Mono winrate is in time window from above is 49.5% soup win rate is 51.30

No, that shows that of all the games played, 22,244, Custodes was 488 of them. They won roughly 50% of their games, or 243.

That list does not show what opponents they faced, or how far they made it. In the entire history of 8th, I can think of one list that made it to top 8 in a tournament.

Play that against say....Eldar or Drukari, or Knights, which have been top 8 for the entire edition.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
No, that shows that of all the games played, 22,244, Custodes was 488 of them. They won roughly 50% of their games, or 243.

That list does not show what opponents they faced, or how far they made it. In the entire history of 8th, I can think of one list that made it to top 8 in a tournament.

Play that against say....Eldar or Drukari, or Knights, which have been top 8 for the entire edition.

On blood of kittens alone I found these PURE Custodes lists that placed in the top 3. And i know a few very successful players here in germany playing pure Custodes but most not in ITC format
http://bloodofkittens.com/8th-edition-top-army-list-compendium/

Erik Wrisemo 3rd Overall Games of Westeros VII 2019
3 Calasdius 2 Telemon.

Jake Hilleard 2nd Overall Dark Artisans 2019
An all codex list except for one pre nerf telemon.

Richard Martin 3rd Overall Super Secret GT 2019
2 Caladius 2 Orion

Erik Trock 2nd Overall Capital City Bloodbath 2019
FOOT Custodes list. 10 Guard, 11 Aquilon

Carlos Kaiser 1st Overall Hammer of Wrath 2019
3 Caladius, Orion, 2 pallas, 5 Aquilon

Bridger Hahn 2nd Overall GK Open: The Uno 2019
3 Caladius, 8 bikes,

Andrew Bartosh 3rd Overall Monkeycan 2019
pure mono codex 9 Guard 9 bikes

Jeremiah Petit 1st Overall Bugeater GT 2019
9 guard, 3 Pallas, 3 Caladius

Luke Archbold 2nd Overall Maelstrom XII 2019
9 Guard, 3 bikes, Telemon

Thanks to blood of kittens for this data

 Jidmah wrote:
I don't think you can fit two units of bikes in 1500 when you want to have a battalion.
As for tripple captains, this will be an army I exclusively run in games where my ally wants to play with an Imperium-army for fluff reasons. You don't bring that kind of stuff to such a game.

Anyways, as far as I understand, the difference between the regular bikers and the captains is telling your opponent that the model is a captain now. I can switch between them at any time.

Yes you can. Three squads of CGuard, a couple of Shield Captains, and a min Dawn Eagles squad fits into 1000 points with room to spare. I'm almost sure you could squeeze three min squads of DAs in at 1500.

Note that I'm not claiming it's a good idea, just that it fits.

You are ignoring my point. Show me the opponents those lists faced. Show me the skill levels. Show me those lists didn't get to top brackets because their opponents knew next to nothing about bleeding edge meta.

Also, none of the lists you provided are 2k lists. Am I reading this wrong, or are they soup lists? To be a competitive faction, I thought the rule was you needed to be competitive as mono-dex.

**Just reviewed BloodofKittens

All the "Custodes" lists that have placed top 3 at majors in 2019 are HEAVY soup lists with either Loyal/Rusty 32, or Amigers, or a Knight. Custodes FW is competitive. Custodes from the store, are not.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Also, none of the lists you provided are 2k lists. Am I reading this wrong, or are they soup lists? To be a competitive faction, I thought the rule was you needed to be competitive as mono-dex.

Yes. Erik Trock's win specifically (foot) was 2,000 points of post nerf (Aug 16th) awesomeness.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Custodes FW is competitive. Custodes from the store, are not.

I honestly can't understand why you're arguing agasint something no one is advocating.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
You are ignoring my point. Show me the opponents those lists faced. Show me the skill levels. Show me those lists didn't get to top brackets because their opponents knew next to nothing about bleeding edge meta.
You arguments make no sense. How do you know any of that for any other faction? Or do you just assume that Custodes players have easier games than others? If a list makes it to the top 3 in a tournament it is probably not a bad list. Player skill is of course more importat than the list but that is ture for very faction.

Also, none of the lists you provided are 2k lists. Am I reading this wrong, or are they soup lists? To be a competitive faction, I thought the rule was you needed to be competitive as mono-dex.
6 of those 9 lists are 2000 points. I just did not list alls units. I thought if i sayed PURE (in all caps) that would make in clear that its NOT soup lists.

**Just reviewed BloodofKittens

All the "Custodes" lists that have placed top 3 at majors in 2019 are HEAVY soup lists with either Loyal/Rusty 32, or Amigers, or a Knight. Custodes FW is competitive. Custodes from the store, are not.
If you say "competitive" do you mean top tier list best of the best or a list that can compete with other lists in a tournament? Is it only competitive if it goes top 3 in a major?