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The rules text on that is egregious, the effects are lame, and it's not something literally anyone was asking for. Huge miss for me. More rules is not the answer, better rules is the answer.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I mean, correct me because I'm likely wrong, but it looks like they just face smashed the key board for the names, and gave Custodes SM Doctrines that we HAVE to use.

Also, Calling the Cannon police on the "Custodes are probably the deadliest fighters in the Galaxy" claim. Lilith and whats his name, who sits on a chair made from literal Custodes, would like a word.

I think you mean drazahr? I think GW meant to say like custodes are the most deadly baseline fighters in the galaxy....special characters excluded, dunno...

What seems very cool is that in dacstarai (I'm all for fantasy names, but that sounds dumb) stance 2, you can get +1 Attack but get - 1 dmg on your weapons, BUT it's worded that when a unit fights it CAN use that ability.

So one unit who is engaged with an enemy horde can use it and another unit who is in combat with a multi wound enemy can choose not to use it to get flat2dmg for example. Pretty cool flexibility.

Edit: reducing the enemy pile in and consolidate to essentially 1" can also be really, really powerful.
The more read these, the more I like them honestly....the names themselves are kinda wonky, but oh well...

I like them. It's a bit counter to Custodes fluff to me (we should be more individualized) but they're a cute idea. They're a little underwhelming though. The bonus to advance is the obvious go-to for T1 and then you really would just rather be in the third one forever. An extra 1A per-model isn't really necessary. Our base attacks are plenty high and we have good access to Hurricane Bolters for hordes.

That said, not awful. Note the article doesn't say there are only three. We pick three, but I'm betting there's 6 total. The article also says that certain Shield-Hosts favor certain stances, so expect sub-faction buffs to a stance if your detachment is all a certain Shield-Host.

I dunno, IMO the plethora of "cute ideas" is an example of what's wrong with the game right now. This is a classic example of broad but shallow game design - let's stick some more rules on top of all the other rules, which are very limited in how you can use them and have rather limited effects overall, instead of creating a deep rules system where players can create the complexity themselves. More junk to remember, more mental load, but not ultimately more satisfying gameplay. I don't want to win games because my opponent forgot I had the ability to limit his pile-in once per game if I chose things correctly so that Venus would align with Jupiter during the full moon.

It's also a huge miss for making the rules match the army. Custodes are supposed to be the ultimate individualists. Each one is supposed to fight on his own, and their great strength is the adaptability that gives them, unconstrained by the chain of command or rigid tactical requirements. This is opposite of that, it's an army-wide, turn-specific, ordered set of rules you have to set up before the game starts and then proceed through them. It's closest analogue is the Necron protocols. It's just a total miss for what the army is supposed to be IMO.

I guess I'm just not the intended audience for 40k any more.

Huge miss. Why would we need this? We don't need more rules, just update our stats and strats to be on par with other 9th edition stuff. One of the things I love about Custodes is the simplicity. You win by playing your few models well, not through gimmicks.
I am not looking forward to this level of book keeping for marginal benefits. I'd almost prefer just picking one of these to be my special rule for the whole game.

While I can sympathize with the complaints about rules bloat (though I personally like the amount of rules), you do realize we were known throughout the tournament circuit as the 'gotcha' army already, right? Nick Nanavati even commented on it on stream. Our 8th edition incarnation is basically a bag of gotcha stratagems and a meat wall. It's not guaranteed GW will double down on this, but it's certainly possible.

Ugh. I am NOT impressed with these, and even less impressed with the weird finicky way in which we have to add even more micro-managing into the game.

I don't know why I was hoping for Custodes to somehow magically be the: "Simply strong, simply good, simple" faction within 9th edition... but I really was hoping for just great stats, very few special rules, and enough customization to give us options without making things complicated.

I'm definitely not getting that particular wish this Christmas :-(

Special rules are fine in the abstract. The kind I object to are the ones that are super specific and super fiddly and don't even do that much anyway, while also being completely at odds with the lore behind the army. And this is a prime example of all of those things.

If they want to give Custodes the ability to trade damage for more attacks...just do that. These famous individualists and paragons of self-reliance and tactical adaptability shouldn't need to write their tactics down on a piece of paper and decide ahead of time when they are going to pull it out of their pockets to remind themselves they can do it, and hope that the time they decided is the time they need it.

It's the literal opposite of how Custodes should work. Pure Custodes should have rules that give them greater flexibility, not greater rigidity. Maybe something along the lines of "Once per turn, when you use a stratagem, you can either chose to reduce the CP cost of that stratagem by 1, or you can choose to use that stratagem even if you have already used it once this phase on a different unit." It's simple, it's powerful, it doesn't add rules bloat, and it allows people to figure out the best way to use it themselves. That's just off the top of my head, there's all sorts of other directions you could go in too that would be better than this direction.

After a quick re-read, it seems like this could be, COULD be, useful. If we are facing a troops only horde of GSC or Nids. Anything with lots of 1W infantry. Otherwise, who cares? I'll keep my 5 attacks with the axe against most 2W infantry, which is like half the imperium now, and several of the Zenos. I wouldn't take the trade of sacrificing damage for 1 extra attack if you gave me an extra Relic. It's so emblematic of absolutely everything wrong with the rules writing staff.

What were the literal things we wanted:

1. Better Horde defense. This is arguably worse now.
2. Better Psyker defense. Nothing yet, remains to be seen.
3. Better Anti-tank, maybe the Multi-attack profiles everyone seems to be getting now? This is the worst possible solution. Crappier attacks, that we have to use, like a Astartes chapter. This is basically the melee version of Devestator, Assault, and Tactical.

I cannot wait to see what we have to trade in return for this Broken down Saturn Mercury of a rules update.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
After a quick re-read, it seems like this could be, COULD be, useful. If we are facing a troops only horde of GSC or Nids. Anything with lots of 1W infantry. Otherwise, who cares? I'll keep my 5 attacks with the axe against most 2W infantry, which is like half the imperium now, and several of the Zenos. I wouldn't take the trade of sacrificing damage for 1 extra attack if you gave me an extra Relic. It's so emblematic of absolutely everything wrong with the rules writing staff.

What were the literal things we wanted:

1. Better Horde defense. This is arguably worse now.
2. Better Psyker defense. Nothing yet, remains to be seen.
3. Better Anti-tank, maybe the Multi-attack profiles everyone seems to be getting now? This is the worst possible solution. Crappier attacks, that we have to use, like a Astartes chapter. This is basically the melee version of Devestator, Assault, and Tactical.

I cannot wait to see what we have to trade in return for this Broken down Saturn Mercury of a rules update.

only 3 martial revealed, there are 6 in total and one of them includes psyky defense, 4+++ against mortal. For anti-tank...i would start grabing some calidius and contemptor. And i think sword and board contemptor would very likely become s8.

It's a hybrid between Necron protocols and combat doctrines lol.

So much book keeping too. This will cause pregame fog and waffling in events for sure.

Why not just "pick 3 of these unique and powerful abilities pregame that can only be used once per battle. You get to decide which one if any you use in your command phase and it lasts until your next command phase."

Done.

Nah, GW decides to make them two modes, which are numbered for some reason when you get to pick them out of numerical order, however the overall Kat'ar isn't numbered but specific ones are used sequentially.... Yea OK, that won't confuse anyone fast.

9th is a dumpster fire with these faction rules, it needs to remove ALL faction specific detachment rules IMHO and just go back to simple overall faction rules. Heck I even wish chapter tactic rules vanished, GW has demonstrated a total inability to balance them anyway so everyone basically plays the same ones in every faction already.

I was happy that GW included one of my ideas for rules (the -2 to pile in and consolidate is in my homebrew codex), and some of these are pretty nice on a select few units.

My aquillons are gonna love having the extra attack for example, as are any custodes going into DG cept for mabey the galatus.

Getting better advance rolls early on is amazing, and will help Dread host alot.

They also take the army into a a more techniqual skll level compared to previous, which will make the more skilled players stand out a bit more.


I like em.

I'm always coming back to the stance which can limit pile ins and consolidates. Correct me if I'm wrong but it also seems like a really handy tool against fight last abilities.

So, let's say I charge a unit which can make my guys fight last, but I position myself in a way where I put just one or two of my models juust within an inch of one enemy model of the unit.
So my opponent gets to fight first, meaning he'll also pile in first. Only being able to move 1" means that in the best case scenario only one enemy model will be able to hit my guys.

So in addition of being good against hordes and limiting your opponent at getting models towards an objective using pile ins and consolidate, it's also useful against fight last when you manage to position yourself carefully.

Imo this is the most powerful of these abilities.

Tiberias wrote:
I'm always coming back to the stance which can limit pile ins and consolidates. Correct me if I'm wrong but it also seems like a really handy tool against fight last abilities.

So, let's say I charge a unit which can make my guys fight last, but I position myself in a way where I put just one or two of my models juust within an inch of one enemy model of the unit.
So my opponent gets to fight first, meaning he'll also pile in first. Only being able to move 1" means that in the best case scenario only one enemy model will be able to hit my guys.

So in addition of being good against hordes and limiting your opponent at getting models towards an objective using pile ins and consolidate, it's also useful against fight last when you manage to position yourself carefully.

Imo this is the most powerful of these abilities.

Agreed, this seems like a very powerful ability and it has a ton of great uses that aren't obvious at first.

I hate a bunch of extra bookkeeping like these new stances. I also think they make the game harder to balance. 40k is becoming bigger than the ocean but still only as deep as a puddle.

Not gonna lie, with GW just now announcing that Xmas Box sets won't be coming to the US until AFTER xmas, I am not holding out hope of us seeing our box set until Late march/early April.

On the topic of tactics, I cannot for the life of me see how any of these new features would help us unless they apply to bikes/mechs. If you can give my Telemon an extra attack for -1 damage, that's bonkers. same if they make the bike spear flat 3.

I don't see it as vauable if they make the bikes D2. I can't care less about a bunch of 1 damage attacks against space marines or multi-wound infantry.

It’s not “-1 Damage” it’s “Set Damage to 1”.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/30/lead-a-full-sisters-of-silence-army-with-the-powerful-knight-centura/

Latest Warcom article shows that they've finally split the battefield roles for the SoS units. Standalone HQ confirmed besides the SoS special character. Looks like they're trying to set up more standalone detachments for SoS but I'm not if they'll be taken beyond just as min squad troops choices depending on their cost or if there are any limitations if they're in a detachment with Custodes.

 Grimskul wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/30/lead-a-full-sisters-of-silence-army-with-the-powerful-knight-centura/

Latest Warcom article shows that they've finally split the battefield roles for the SoS units. Standalone HQ confirmed besides the SoS special character. Looks like they're trying to set up more standalone detachments for SoS but I'm not if they'll be taken beyond just as min squad troops choices depending on their cost or if there are any limitations if they're in a detachment with Custodes.

Prosecutor Troops. Prosecutor Troops. Prosecutor Troops.

EDIT: Beyond that, if you take a Culexus, the generic Sisters HQ and Aleya, you can have a -5 psychic test aura on the frontlines (where it matters) that's entirely character protected assuming the Sisters still give the -1 aura.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Not gonna lie, with GW just now announcing that Xmas Box sets won't be coming to the US until AFTER xmas, I am not holding out hope of us seeing our box set until Late march/early April.

On the topic of tactics, I cannot for the life of me see how any of these new features would help us unless they apply to bikes/mechs. If you can give my Telemon an extra attack for -1 damage, that's bonkers. same if they make the bike spear flat 3.

I don't see it as vauable if they make the bikes D2. I can't care less about a bunch of 1 damage attacks against space marines or multi-wound infantry.

I'd be shocked if this didn't apply to Bikes/Dreads. So there's some fun use there for the Bikes (though I agree, they don't care about the 1 damage/extra attack mode).

 Grimskul wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/30/lead-a-full-sisters-of-silence-army-with-the-powerful-knight-centura/

Latest Warcom article shows that they've finally split the battefield roles for the SoS units. Standalone HQ confirmed besides the SoS special character. Looks like they're trying to set up more standalone detachments for SoS but I'm not if they'll be taken beyond just as min squad troops choices depending on their cost or if there are any limitations if they're in a detachment with Custodes.

This seems....good? I like that we finally have a sisters hq and that prosecutors are troops. But are they troops in any talons detachment or only in a pure sisters detachment?

Edit: I wouldn't see why the katas and stances wouldn't affect dreadnoughts and bikes. It clearly states "unit".

Also the +1attack, -1 dmg stance is very good on the achillus. His spear attacks are very high quality, so every extra attack is valuable and losing one dmg on 3+D3 dmg is not as bad.

So if eternal penitent isn't removed (which I really hope) the achillus could have 7 attacks with that stance, which seems really good.

Tiberias wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/30/lead-a-full-sisters-of-silence-army-with-the-powerful-knight-centura/

Latest Warcom article shows that they've finally split the battefield roles for the SoS units. Standalone HQ confirmed besides the SoS special character. Looks like they're trying to set up more standalone detachments for SoS but I'm not if they'll be taken beyond just as min squad troops choices depending on their cost or if there are any limitations if they're in a detachment with Custodes.

This seems....good? I like that we finally have a sisters hq and that prosecutors are troops. But are they troops in any talons detachment or only in a pure sisters detachment?

Edit: I wouldn't see why the katas and stances wouldn't affect dreadnoughts and bikes. It clearly states "unit".

Also the +1attack, -1 dmg stance is very good on the achillus. His spear attacks are very high quality, so every extra attack is valuable and losing one dmg on 3+D3 dmg is not as bad.

So if eternal penitent isn't removed (which I really hope) the achillus could have 7 attacks with that stance, which seems really good.

The Achillus would change from 3+d3 dmg to 1 dmg. It's not a negative to damage, it's a substitution.

You could be damage 6d6 and Dacatari would still change it to a flat 1 damage.

The SoS changes are much better. Letting you take cheap(ish) troops changes the army on a fundamental level and will be really interesting. The character looks boring right now and the relic is pretty terrible but who knows, maybe the character has some interesting rules they haven't shown yet.

 Asmodai wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

 Grimskul wrote:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/11/30/lead-a-full-sisters-of-silence-army-with-the-powerful-knight-centura/

Latest Warcom article shows that they've finally split the battefield roles for the SoS units. Standalone HQ confirmed besides the SoS special character. Looks like they're trying to set up more standalone detachments for SoS but I'm not if they'll be taken beyond just as min squad troops choices depending on their cost or if there are any limitations if they're in a detachment with Custodes.

This seems....good? I like that we finally have a sisters hq and that prosecutors are troops. But are they troops in any talons detachment or only in a pure sisters detachment?

Edit: I wouldn't see why the katas and stances wouldn't affect dreadnoughts and bikes. It clearly states "unit".

Also the +1attack, -1 dmg stance is very good on the achillus. His spear attacks are very high quality, so every extra attack is valuable and losing one dmg on 3+D3 dmg is not as bad.

So if eternal penitent isn't removed (which I really hope) the achillus could have 7 attacks with that stance, which seems really good.

The Achillus would change from 3+d3 dmg to 1 dmg. It's not a negative to damage, it's a substitution.

You could be damage 6d6 and Dacatari would still change it to a flat 1 damage.

Oh dang, yeah I got that very wrong. Never mind then, thanks for correcting me.

yukishiro1 wrote:
The SoS changes are much better. Letting you take cheap(ish) troops changes the army on a fundamental level and will be really interesting. The character looks boring right now and the relic is pretty terrible but who knows, maybe the character has some interesting rules they haven't shown yet.

Just having mini-Culexi protected by the CHARACTER rule is a big boost. Seed 1 or 2 into your frontline golden boys with a Culexus and now you actually can impact the psychic phase in a meaningful way.

Im actually hoping SoS reduce Ld and psychic stuff since our boys are going to 11 on Ld.

A semi-permanent -2 or 3 to Ld is actually pretty strong even if morale isnt super important.

Audustum wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
The SoS changes are much better. Letting you take cheap(ish) troops changes the army on a fundamental level and will be really interesting. The character looks boring right now and the relic is pretty terrible but who knows, maybe the character has some interesting rules they haven't shown yet.

Just having mini-Culexi protected by the CHARACTER rule is a big boost. Seed 1 or 2 into your frontline golden boys with a Culexus and now you actually can impact the psychic phase in a meaningful way.

I dunno, I'd probably just take a Culexus at that point unless this one is crazy cheap. I can't see taking a Culexus and a couple of those just for psychic debuffs, that's spending a lot of points on something that does nothing in a lot of matchups as well potentially as giving up a lot of assassinate points if you use them as aggressively as you need to to actually get the benefit.

I guess one interesting thing is that if the SoS debuff stays as it is currently, it only impacts enemy psykers, unlike the Culexus, and it also frees up that slot for an Inquisitor instead. Though in the current secondary environment it's hard to see people taking single psykers no matter how effective they might be, because it punishes you so hard.

yukishiro1 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
The SoS changes are much better. Letting you take cheap(ish) troops changes the army on a fundamental level and will be really interesting. The character looks boring right now and the relic is pretty terrible but who knows, maybe the character has some interesting rules they haven't shown yet.

Just having mini-Culexi protected by the CHARACTER rule is a big boost. Seed 1 or 2 into your frontline golden boys with a Culexus and now you actually can impact the psychic phase in a meaningful way.

I dunno, I'd probably just take a Culexus at that point unless this one is crazy cheap. I can't see taking a Culexus and a couple of those just for psychic debuffs, that's spending a lot of points on something that does nothing in a lot of matchups as well potentially as giving up a lot of assassinate points if you use them as aggressively as you need to to actually get the benefit.

I guess one interesting thing is that if the SoS debuff stays as it is currently, it only impacts enemy psykers, unlike the Culexus, and it also frees up that slot for an Inquisitor instead. Though in the current secondary environment it's hard to see people taking single psykers no matter how effective they might be, because it punishes you so hard.

It may only be a few matchups in an absolute sense (in terms of all factions) but we've got enough GK in top tables that you need an ace (they're currently third with a 54.9% win percentage). Thousand Sons and Chaos (both of which feature psykers) also are not totally uncommon up there (being 8th and 5th, respectively). If you're aiming to make it to the upper chunk of your tournament, these are a great add.

They make a risk for assassinate for sure but they can also be a bait pick. They're fast, the Culexus can be hard to snipe without auto-hits and the golden HQ's are tough (especially if a major MW source is getting shut down). You can maneuver around the assassinate issue against many contenders. Drukhari would be the scariest but you can generally get an easy 9 off assassinate against them too if they want to play that game (so just try to make sure they don't trade for more than 3 of yours and break them on other metrics).

So if Custodes do get Prosecutor troops, that means they will likely not get full Talons buffs, or at least we will lose the All Custodes List rules.

Over under on sisters troops messing up our faction?

I'm sure they won't, they don't currently. I wouldn't be surprised by a "you can only take 1 per 1 unit of custodes" limitation like DG and some other factions have for their cheap troops, unless you run them as a pure detachment.

So, would a full sisters of silence force make use of land raiders in addition to rhinos?

Do they have any armor other than the basic rhino? Do sisters of silence get put in dreadnoughts?