Codex Adeptus Custodes: By His will alone

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**Audustum**

Tiberias wrote:
stratigo wrote:
Tiberias wrote:
Audustum wrote:
Tiberias wrote:
The nerf to ancient artifice is slightly annoying, but hey...the strat is still decent.

Has anyone given the venatari a spin in 9th already?

I gave them a whirl. I think I got unlucky though. They lost like two models to a Plagueburst Crawler, 1 to another weapon and then a 4th to morale (rolled a 6) after failing to kill a 4 wounds Malignant Plaguecaster with Superior Fire Patterns on their pistols.

Well that's not a great showing, but it seems the dice gods hated you that day.

Do the venatari have any good targets against tau? I have a Friendly game against the space communists coming up and was thinking of bringing venatari.

They do good against crisis suits.

But otherwise, no.

Venatari have a very stong niche which is killing heavy infantry. They are less strong, but still passible at light infantry and armor. Against standard tau nonsense you'll just be killing drones or firewarriors because their big suits have around 30 to 50 wounds

Thanks for the advice...maybe I'll swap them for some allarus.

How would you guys go about actually killing a riptide? My buddy never plays triptide thankfully, but every time I played against even just one of those suckers I felt that I just had to ignore it and play the mission, because I just couldn't kill it. Or it would have taken me way too many resources to take it down.
It just feels unkillable, when you have to weather overwatch, kill all the drones with massed shots and then still have to overcome a 3++ most of the time.

Jetbikes with Hurricane Bolters melt drone screens. Target the drones directly. Then direct Grav-Tank/Telemon fire at the Riptide and/or bring Hector Rex to deep strike in and shut off Overwatch.

**Third_Age_of_Baggz**

nordsturmking wrote:
New faq's are out.
Custodes:

Sadly no excpetion for thr Vindicare to ingore the new character rule so he is still pretty much useless because will just be shot to without a baby sitter unit

I don't think this is necessarily true. Sit him with some Sagittarum in cover and I think he'll still shine. After reading the FAQ, to me it reads that the Vindicare could get a -2 to hit as long as what is shooting at him doesn't have a +1 to hit. The -1/+1 to hit rule is after other modifiers have been taken. Negative stacks seem still possible.

Regardless, I don't think I'll stop using a Vindicare.

**mrhappyface**

Hey, haven't played in about a year or so now, me and a mate are gonna play our first game of 9th ed next week. Don't really know much about 9th, gonna learn it as I play.

I've already made a list from just what I have lying around:

2x Bike Captains
1x Shield Captain

9x Guard

3x Wardens
1x Vexillus
1x Galatus Dreadnought

3x Bikes

1x Telemon Dreadnought

Has anything really changed about any of these guys from 8th? The only thing that I saw was that I can now give my bike captain +2W with a stratagem, which made me squeal a bit.

Anything else about running Custodes I should know that's changed before I play this game?

Cheers.

**JNAProductions**

Third_Age_of_Baggz wrote:
nordsturmking wrote:
New faq's are out.
Custodes:

Sadly no excpetion for thr Vindicare to ingore the new character rule so he is still pretty much useless because will just be shot to without a baby sitter unit

I don't think this is necessarily true. Sit him with some Sagittarum in cover and I think he'll still shine. After reading the FAQ, to me it reads that the Vindicare could get a -2 to hit as long as what is shooting at him doesn't have a +1 to hit. The -1/+1 to hit rule is after other modifiers have been taken. Negative stacks seem still possible.

Regardless, I don't think I'll stop using a Vindicare.

Any modifiers to-hit or to-wound cap at 1.

If you would have a larger number, reduce it to 1.

**slave.entity**

mrhappyface wrote:
Hey, haven't played in about a year or so now, me and a mate are gonna play our first game of 9th ed next week. Don't really know much about 9th, gonna learn it as I play.

I've already made a list from just what I have lying around:

2x Bike Captains
1x Shield Captain

9x Guard

3x Wardens
1x Vexillus
1x Galatus Dreadnought

3x Bikes

1x Telemon Dreadnought

Has anything really changed about any of these guys from 8th? The only thing that I saw was that I can now give my bike captain +2W with a stratagem, which made me squeal a bit.

Anything else about running Custodes I should know that's changed before I play this game?

Cheers.

Terminators and telemons are really good now. Everything else is still solid. You are playing one of the top tier armies of 9th edition so there's not much to say. Take whatever you want.

**Tiberias**

Has anyone of you faced ghazghkull in 9th? I had a friendly game against orks recently and ran into kind of a conundrum with old ghaz. I am not quite sure how I'm supposed to deal with him best.
Since the game now very much focuses on the midboard and having board presence there, you can't really avoid him while trying to score. At least I couldnt manage to do so.
I found it hard to screen him out because of our low numbers and because he just shreds through basically every unit we have because his claw is the perfect custodes killing weapon.
I managed to win that game by points, but it was very close and I felt I couldn't to much against ghaz because we basically only have the shooting phase and the fight phase to damage him, which is not enough. I tried to slow him and his entourage of nobz down with some tanglefoot grenades to prevent an early charge, but I rolled terribly on that one and he made all his charges.
So while I don't have a problem with orks having a character that shreds our golden boys, I'm still left wondering how to handle him best.
Also note that in these kind of friendly games I never soup and almost never tech in an Inquisitor (just out of personal preference and because my group isn't super competitive, thankfully)

**iGuy91**

Only things I can think of would be to shred his screen, plunk the 4 wounds off him in shooting. Clear whatever character heals him each turn, charge a squad with storm shields in, put another 4 wounds on him, and then for the return attacks pop Arcane Genetic Alchemy so he can't wound them any better than on 4s, and hope your saves are good.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Bikes and Sword and Board Guardians melt him down pretty fast, though he is essentially a green Bobby G. He hits like a truck and is hard to put down. Sword and Board groups or Allarus Terminators with Spears and the Spear strat for +1 to wound can drop him relatively quickly I've found, but then you have basically created a weaker squad of expensive elites with basically no purpose till the end of the game.

**Tiberias**

iGuy91 wrote:
Only things I can think of would be to shred his screen, plunk the 4 wounds off him in shooting. Clear whatever character heals him each turn, charge a squad with storm shields in, put another 4 wounds on him, and then for the return attacks pop Arcane Genetic Alchemy so he can't wound them any better than on 4s, and hope your saves are good.

Tried that, didn't work. I'm notoriously bad at making 3++ saves, but the main issue is that ghaz has a shitton of attacks and everything that gets through kills one of our guys, whether it's a guard with storm shield, a terminator or a bike. He shred through a three man unit of shield guys, even though I popped arcane genetic alchemy and emperors auspice so he cant reroll 1s.

**Audustum**

Not to detract from Ghaz, but this list juts took 3rd at a GT for all the Venatari fans:

3rd Place

Adam Shepherd-Jones - Vanguard Tactics Grand Series

+++ 9th Custodes (Warhammer 40,000 9th Edition)
++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Imperium - Adeptus Custodes)

Shield Host: Solar Watch

+ Stratagems
Open the Vaults (1 Relic)

+ No Force Org Slot

Vindicare Assassin

+ HQ

Shield-Captain : Guardian Spear , Misericordia , Sally Forth, The Swiftsilver Talon, Warlord

Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike Captain-Commander Misericordia , Salvo Launcher, Unstoppable Destroyer
. . Auric Aquilis

+ Troops

Custodian Guard Squad
. . Custodian Guardian Spear Misericordia
. . Custodian Guardian Spear
. . Custodian Guardian Spear
. . Custodian Guardian Spear

+ Elites

Allarus Custodians
. . Allarus Custodian: Guardian Spear
. . Allarus Custodian Guardian Spear
. . Allarus Custodian Guardian Spear
. . Allarus Custodian [ Guardian Spear
. . Allarus Custodian ]: Guardian Spear

Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought : Eternal Penitent, 2x Lastrum Storm Bolter

+ Fast Attack

Venatari Custodians
. . Venatari Custodian [ Venatari Lance
. . Venatari Custodian : Venatari Lance
. . Venatari Custodian Venatari Lance
. . Venatari Custodian [: Venatari Lance
. . Venatari Custodian: Venatari Lance

Vertus Praetors
. . Vertus Praetor Salvo Launcher
. . Vertus Praetor Salvo Launcher
. . Vertus Praetor Salvo Launcher
. . Vertus Praetor : Salvo Launcher

+ Heavy Support

Telemon Heavy Dreadnought: Eternal Penitent , Illiastus Accelerator Culverin, Spiculus Bolt Launcher
. . Telemon Caestus ]: Twin Plasma Projector

**Tiberias**

I immediately like that list, simply because he brought an achillus.

Also, allarus with spears?! Consider me shocked!

Edit: also venatari without the pistols? Wasn't their whole point after war of the spider that their pistols got amazing because of the superior firing patterns strat? I'd love to hear the reasoning for the lances....better melee potential?

**slave.entity**

Seeing Venatari at all is pretty awesome. That is a nice, balanced list.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Balanced for what though? It's all over the place. Nothing here is really great for locking down objectives, the bikes won't earn their points back unless they are hunting large T7+ flyers, and the Allarus won't actually see much use outside of maybe character hunting? I really don't see the purpose of a list like this. It's not really great at anything, and doesn't use the real strengths of the army.

**Sterling191**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Balanced for what though? It's all over the place.

That's precisely the point. This is a very tactically flexible and mobile list. 9th edition matched play games are won or lost on secondaries and point denial, and every pick in this list has multiple ways to contribute to both functions.

**Eihnlazer**

That may be true, but I certainly wouldnt use venetari with the spears personally.

The pistols are good all the time and they get the benefit of ignoring AP-1 with the bucklers.

Litterally the only target i'd rather the spears againgst is Bullgryns with the +2 save shield.

**Tiberias**

Eihnlazer wrote:
That may be true, but I certainly wouldnt use venetari with the spears personally.

The pistols are good all the time and they get the benefit of ignoring AP-1 with the bucklers.

Litterally the only target i'd rather the spears againgst is Bullgryns with the +2 save shield.

I'd agree with that. I used the venatari once in 9th with their pistols and they really did some work and presented quite a threat for my opponent with the superior firing patterns strat.
I'm not a top placing competitive player though....so maybe I'm missing the bigger picture.
The spears look way cooler though, maybe that's the reason

**stratigo**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Balanced for what though? It's all over the place. Nothing here is really great for locking down objectives, the bikes won't earn their points back unless they are hunting large T7+ flyers, and the Allarus won't actually see much use outside of maybe character hunting? I really don't see the purpose of a list like this. It's not really great at anything, and doesn't use the real strengths of the army.

With equalized points to hurricanes, salvo launchers are quite useful for plinking tank wounds off.

Spears are actually a contention now, especially with all space marines and now custodes having access to transhuman meaning wounding on 2s is less useful and it's half the points of an axe. It's not so clear cut as it used to be

**WisdomLS**

With the current prevalence of vehicles and other high toughness models combined with the nerf to hordes and our other anti infantry weapons on most models I think the salvo launcher is a good choice.

No -1 for moving now, same cost as a hurricane with better optimal range and it has blast if you really need to fire at a horde so not a total waste.
The ability to put some very accurate re-roll wounds, -4 Ap shots into something with the strat for rolling 2D6 and choosing the highest makes for a solid anti tank option which we lack outside of forgeworld.

**stratigo**

WisdomLS wrote:
With the current prevalence of vehicles and other high toughness models combined with the nerf to hordes and our other anti infantry weapons on most models I think the salvo launcher is a good choice.

No -1 for moving now, same cost as a hurricane with better optimal range and it has blast if you really need to fire at a horde so not a total waste.
The ability to put some very accurate re-roll wounds, -4 Ap shots into something with the strat for rolling 2D6 and choosing the highest makes for a solid anti tank option which we lack outside of forgeworld.

They are quite solid.

**Tiberias**

Since I brought up Ghazghkull....there is another unit I wanted to discuss, that is similarly annoying to deal with, namely the wulfen.
Their 3++ and 5+++ makes it rather difficult to just shoot them off the board and it seems to me that there is not point in getting into melee with them with any of our units, since we would probably fight last anyway. And even if you manage to wipe the wulfen squad, they will most likely take a large chunk of your unit with them.
Since they are quite fast and can advance and charge, it's also rather difficult to keep them at a distance. Even if you keep throwing tanglefoot grenades at them.
They seem like the perfect unit to bully our guys. What are you pro tips when facing them?

**Balerion**

WisdomLS wrote:
.
The ability to put some very accurate re-roll wounds, -4 Ap shots into something with the strat for rolling 2D6 and choosing the highest makes for a solid anti tank option which we lack outside of forgeworld.

Would just like to point out, that you don't have to pick the. highest die with the strat. It allows you to pick any die, just like Eradicators. I know you always want to pick the highest, but if you have to shoot at Necrons with QS, this small change can be useful

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Tiberias wrote:
Since I brought up Ghazghkull....there is another unit I wanted to discuss, that is similarly annoying to deal with, namely the wulfen.
Their 3++ and 5+++ makes it rather difficult to just shoot them off the board and it seems to me that there is not point in getting into melee with them with any of our units, since we would probably fight last anyway. And even if you manage to wipe the wulfen squad, they will most likely take a large chunk of your unit with them.
Since they are quite fast and can advance and charge, it's also rather difficult to keep them at a distance. Even if you keep throwing tanglefoot grenades at them.
They seem like the perfect unit to bully our guys. What are you pro tips when facing them?

A Single squad of Wulfen can be treated like a Distraction Carnifex. If you simple must destroy them, treat them like other heavy Elites. Bikes or Wardens back up with a flag. They should fight first, and handily wipe them off the table. As with literally everything else vs. Custodes, our answers seem to be bikes or Allarus. They would rip through our troop choices unless you get lucky with the blaster sags and they fail their invuln. Still a single Wulfen would tear through sag guard alarmingly fast.

My bikers have had really good luck in the past shooting enough off the board, then charging. If you didn't bring bikes, just try to play keep away with terrain. Anyone who brings multiple squads of 10 man Wulfen Packs is just asking to be gunlined.

**Tiberias**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Tiberias wrote:
Since I brought up Ghazghkull....there is another unit I wanted to discuss, that is similarly annoying to deal with, namely the wulfen.
Their 3++ and 5+++ makes it rather difficult to just shoot them off the board and it seems to me that there is not point in getting into melee with them with any of our units, since we would probably fight last anyway. And even if you manage to wipe the wulfen squad, they will most likely take a large chunk of your unit with them.
Since they are quite fast and can advance and charge, it's also rather difficult to keep them at a distance. Even if you keep throwing tanglefoot grenades at them.
They seem like the perfect unit to bully our guys. What are you pro tips when facing them?

A Single squad of Wulfen can be treated like a Distraction Carnifex. If you simple must destroy them, treat them like other heavy Elites. Bikes or Wardens back up with a flag. They should fight first, and handily wipe them off the table. As with literally everything else vs. Custodes, our answers seem to be bikes or Allarus. They would rip through our troop choices unless you get lucky with the blaster sags and they fail their invuln. Still a single Wulfen would tear through sag guard alarmingly fast.

My bikers have had really good luck in the past shooting enough off the board, then charging. If you didn't bring bikes, just try to play keep away with terrain. Anyone who brings multiple squads of 10 man Wulfen Packs is just asking to be gunlined.

Thanks for the advice. But I don't think I'd agree that wulfen can be treated as a distraction carnifex. Correct me if I'm wrong here but a distraction carnifex by definition is something that looks scarier than it is and is therefore used to draw attention away from more important units. Well, wulfen are scary. They hit harder then we do and even if you manage to kill them, they are going to take a massive chunk of your, probably more expensive, unit with them.
Also how do you recon we do in fact fight first when we choose to charge a squad of wulfen with our bikes for example? Things like the armor of russ and the new judicar can turn off your charge quite easily.

But let's say no judicar and no character with the relic is near the wulfen unit and you decide to charge them with a 5man bike squad. Even if you manage to wipe the wulfen squad, chances are you are going to lose multiple bikes in return. I don't get how that could ever be a desirable exchange considering our low model number and expensive units.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Tiberias wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Tiberias wrote:
Since I brought up Ghazghkull....there is another unit I wanted to discuss, that is similarly annoying to deal with, namely the wulfen.
Their 3++ and 5+++ makes it rather difficult to just shoot them off the board and it seems to me that there is not point in getting into melee with them with any of our units, since we would probably fight last anyway. And even if you manage to wipe the wulfen squad, they will most likely take a large chunk of your unit with them.
Since they are quite fast and can advance and charge, it's also rather difficult to keep them at a distance. Even if you keep throwing tanglefoot grenades at them.
They seem like the perfect unit to bully our guys. What are you pro tips when facing them?

A Single squad of Wulfen can be treated like a Distraction Carnifex. If you simple must destroy them, treat them like other heavy Elites. Bikes or Wardens back up with a flag. They should fight first, and handily wipe them off the table. As with literally everything else vs. Custodes, our answers seem to be bikes or Allarus. They would rip through our troop choices unless you get lucky with the blaster sags and they fail their invuln. Still a single Wulfen would tear through sag guard alarmingly fast.

My bikers have had really good luck in the past shooting enough off the board, then charging. If you didn't bring bikes, just try to play keep away with terrain. Anyone who brings multiple squads of 10 man Wulfen Packs is just asking to be gunlined.

Thanks for the advice. But I don't think I'd agree that wulfen can be treated as a distraction carnifex. Correct me if I'm wrong here but a distraction carnifex by definition is something that looks scarier than it is and is therefore used to draw attention away from more important units. Well, wulfen are scary. They hit harder then we do and even if you manage to kill them, they are going to take a massive chunk of your, probably more expensive, unit with them.
Also how do you recon we do in fact fight first when we choose to charge a squad of wulfen with our bikes for example? Things like the armor of russ and the new judicar can turn off your charge quite easily.

But let's say no judicar and no character with the relic is near the wulfen unit and you decide to charge them with a 5man bike squad. Even if you manage to wipe the wulfen squad, chances are you are going to lose multiple bikes in return. I don't get how that could ever be a desirable exchange considering our low model number and expensive units.

I will fully admit that losing bikes to what is essentially one of the single best melee units in the game is going to be inevitable. But honestly, how many SW players do you have at your store. I have exactly 0, it's somewhat rare to see them, but if an opponent throws 30 Wulfen backed up by Ragnar and a captain, with Storm shields and thunder hammers, Just go BOHICA mode. We don't have the perfect counter to them, which is hordes. We also don't have useless cheap screen units, unless you are taking a bunch of sisters with flamers/bolters. Our best option, of the few we have is to shoot them off the board. Unless you plan on using tanks and dreads with the Long Range d2 guns, you are basically hoping for lucky bike shooting. The Aquilons with Flamers and Powerfists might work too, but that is a lot of points to dedicate to eliminating a single unit, which he will likely kill on the fight back.

Like I said, it's one of the best units in the game at melee. which is basically our entire game. They are hard to kill and hit like a coked up dumptruck.

When I said treat them like a carnifex, I mean don't plan your list around them, because thats going to lose you points on objectives.

**Tiberias**

Gotcha, thanks for the advice. I believe that venatari with their pistol load out are our best option to deal with Wulfen. With the new strat a 6man squad should dish out enough d2 shots to at least severely cripple a Wulfen unit.

Your argument about the frequency of playing space wolves players is fair. My personal case is different though, because I don't play at stores. I always play with the same 4 buddies of mine and one just started space wolves as his second army with the indomitus Box, so I am going to face them and Wulfen quite often.

I'll try the venatari angle against them and report back whether it worked at all.

**Gorath12**

Tiberias wrote:
Gotcha, thanks for the advice. I believe that venatari with their pistol load out are our best option to deal with Wulfen. With the new strat a 6man squad should dish out enough d2 shots to at least severely cripple a Wulfen unit.

Your argument about the frequency of playing space wolves players is fair. My personal case is different though, because I don't play at stores. I always play with the same 4 buddies of mine and one just started space wolves as his second army with the indomitus Box, so I am going to face them and Wulfen quite often.

I'll try the venatari angle against them and report back whether it worked at all.

Yeah I played the 2nd place Space wolf player in the Adelaide GT and his Wulfen basically invalidated my entire list. I've already ordered a unit of Venatari to hopefully fix that problem. With the seeming growing meta of elite infantry, bikes and (Depending where you play) the higher prevalence of light cover Venetari are looking to be a very solid choice even if its just a single unit of 5.

**Audustum**

The Telemon with Illiastus Accelerator Culverins or the Grav-Tank with the same are also good options, but watch out of the psyker power to make the Wulfen untargetable to shooting.

Another option would be to put a Culexus assassin in with a big melee squad. The assassin can force the Wulfen to fight last, hopefully allowing you to do enough damage.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

So It may not surprise anyone here, but I completely forgot about assassins. A single Eversor backed up with a Calidus will wipe the smile off any Wulfen Squad. If the Callidus doesn't kill them, the resulting 16 attacks from the Eversor will, and if that doesn't the Frenzon pop will kill any stragglers.

**Sterling191**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So It may not surprise anyone here, but I completely forgot about assassins. A single Eversor backed up with a Calidus will wipe the smile off any Wulfen Squad. If the Callidus doesn't kill them, the resulting 16 attacks from the Eversor will, and if that doesn't the Frenzon pop will kill any stragglers.

That combination kills precisely two Wulfen protected by storm shields. Including the fight twice.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Where am I messing up the math? Am I missing that the Callidus melee ignores all invuln saves, and is AP3 D2. If it touches a wulfen that wulfen dies. So on average with 5 attacks hitting on 2+ thats 4 dead wulfen. Then it gets a D1 attack against another wulfen that hits on 2+ and wounds on a 3.

Then the Eversor fights and gets possibly 16 attacks at S5 AP1 that gets to reroll all wound rolls. If they shoot first or the Eversor throws his Melta bomb that is way more than 2 dead.