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Just because I can, I am thinking of dropping a Custodes list on my friends the next time we play. Yes, I know they are VERY limited. Yes, I know I am limited to 3 squads of 10 guys. However, I also know it will be totally unexpected, and thus kind of funny. Any tips on what to do or how to arm them? My main opponent plays elite/ psycher heavy Death Guard, usually a squad or two mounted in Rhinos.

Hahahaha.
I hope he brings a Soul Grinder.
No, no wait - I hope he brings 3.

Pure Custodes are incapable of running against almost any list, because you lack the ability to deal with high Toughness or Armor, fast models, or really anything except melee against models who don't have good Invulns.

Yeah, the moment you run into a Soul Grinder or Ironclad Dread you're stuck forever.

Don't listen to the haters, you can do more than you think.

So first things first, I'm gonna advise foregoing spears or at best not having more than one unit with them. The spears are only useful for three things: 1. Glancing AV12. 2. Having an easier time hurting T6 and T7. 3. Hurting T10.

You're not gonna want to engage anything AV12+ if you can avoid it (and it's not likely if he's usually bringing boys in RHINO's anyway). Similarly, you're not going to find much that's T6, T7 or T10 in that kind of enemy list.

With their normal swords, Custodes can wound up to T9 and glance AV11. That should get you most the mileage you need for this.

At this point, I'm sure someone wants to point out that spears are AP2 while swords are AP3. While this is true, your weight of attacks makes AP2 unnecessary unless you fight a lot of Terminators. Regular Custodes have base 3 attacks with 4 for the sergeant. So 16 right there, 21 if you charge. In a 10-man unit, that's 32 and 42. You'll bury that 2+ armor save in volume of attacks to the point it won't matter.

Most deathstars are also relying on invulnerable saves, so it won't matter against those either.

Speaking of invulnerable saves, not taking spears helps you there too! Sword Custodes can take Storm Shields. I would say have 2-3 Storm Shields for every 5 Custodes. This gives you damage sponges and challenge acceptors (remember, every Custodes is a character, not just the sergeant).

The Custodes without shields will be dual-wielding thanks to their power knives, which gives you even more attacks.

In addition, the gun on the sword is just hands down better. Custdoes can't charge after firing their spear gun but they can after firing the sword gun. The sword gun also Snap Fires at BS2, which helps with invisible enemies and fliers.

As far as actual battlefield tactics, remember, you need to hold objectives. You might want to actually bring two detachments of Golden Legion, not one heavily maxed out detachment. Custodes can't combat squad like marines and you'll want more than three units to snatch objectives.

And that's your real strength. Shield Custodes are not moving off of an objective lightly. They can easily stay camped on it for the entire game. Deep Strike some of these guys in on the far objective and deploy near the close ones. Then just dig in.

Who cares if he has a Soul Grinder in that case? You'll happily stay parked and contest that objective all game. People forget the goal isn't "Eliminate All Enemies" and is instead "Score More Points". If you're contesting every objective, getting line breaker and (hopefully) managing to slay the warlord, you're in good shape. I'd say you're also far more likely to score first blood too.

Or you get tied up with the soul grinder and an ObSec unit takes the objective

If I was your opponant it would be:
1. Hold one Custodes unit down for the whole game with a Soul Grinder.
2. Feed Plague Zombies to another unit until I am ready to deal with them.
3. Use the rest of my army to take down the third.
4. Either keep feeding a unit plague zombies and hold down the objectives (if their aren't many turns left) or send in the big boys to deal with the cultist mincers then take the objectives (if their are still a few turns left).

A good death guard army will out manouver you, bikes, out number you, zombies, and even out punch you in cc, Soul Grinders. Unless you get kicks out of mincing endless hordes of zombies and are not bothered with a victory (I could totally see the appeal ) then you might want to rethink your plan: Custodes are very much an elite force to ally to your regular imperial army rather than to be the backbone.

Should you go for a full Custodes army anyway, good luck to you and have fun.

Audustum, the goal might not be to slay all enemies, but if your ENTIRE army is slow, cant hurt tanks, not objsec and doesn't shoot much-you are not getting anyhting done.

Forget about the fact a mere dread could be a nightmare to deal with, or that AV13 walkers are practically squad wipe you can do nothing about (as they often feature S10 attacks too, so every wound is a kill)

You can get gunned down, because you can't catch up to anything shooting at you, or gun it down back.
You can get locked with objsec units, and some objsec units out there are a nightmare to take down with only custodes tools. (death guard are actually a major example of this. T5 FNP objsec fearless terminators ARE a thing for them.)

The golden boys are nice and all, but as a support element to an army of otherwise weaker allies that are vulnerable to moral, such as guard, sisters or admech.
In an army of their own-they plain don't work. you simply lack the tools to make them do their thing.

An army PRIMARY of them, with support element? maybe. just maybe.
A solo army? na.

I simply can't give you any tips, as there is nothing you CAN do with them to make the scenario work.
Its not the 30k variant that's coming with their own dreads, tanks, speeders and APCs. that one would probably be awesome.

One-trick-pony armies don't really work unless that trick is freaking amazing (see riptide wings), and even then its not that great.
And terrible to play with OR against.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Audustum, the goal might not be to slay all enemies, but if your ENTIRE army is slow, cant hurt tanks, not objsec and doesn't shoot much-you are not getting anyhting done.

Forget about the fact a mere dread could be a nightmare to deal with, or that AV13 walkers are practically squad wipe you can do nothing about (as they often feature S10 attacks too, so every wound is a kill)

You can get gunned down, because you can't catch up to anything shooting at you, or gun it down back.
You can get locked with objsec units, and some objsec units out there are a nightmare to take down with only custodes tools. (death guard are actually a major example of this. T5 FNP objsec fearless terminators ARE a thing for them.)

The golden boys are nice and all, but as a support element to an army of otherwise weaker allies that are vulnerable to moral, such as guard, sisters or admech.
In an army of their own-they plain don't work. you simply lack the tools to make them do their thing.

An army PRIMARY of them, with support element? maybe. just maybe.
A solo army? na.

I simply can't give you any tips, as there is nothing you CAN do with them to make the scenario work.
Its not the 30k variant that's coming with their own dreads, tanks, speeders and APCs. that one would probably be awesome.

One-trick-pony armies don't really work unless that trick is freaking amazing (see riptide wings), and even then its not that great.
And terrible to play with OR against.

Forgive me, but you don't seem to know much about Custodes. S10 is not a kill. All Custodes have Eternal Warrior. They also have Deep Strike to help some of the units start further up the board.

Anyway, no one is saying an all Custodes army wouldn't have serious problems, but the OP asked us to help give him some tactics because he wants to run one in his game because he'd think it'd be fun. The point of the thread isn't to come in a complain to him about that choice, but to fulfill his request and help him out.

 CrownAxe wrote:
Or you get tied up with the soul grinder and an ObSec unit takes the objective

There's no guarantee he's facing an ObSec force so this may or may not be relevant at all. If he is, his goal will be to engage it or block it from the objective while maneuvering with the Soul Grinder. In short, generalship.

 mrhappyface wrote:
If I was your opponant it would be:
1. Hold one Custodes unit down for the whole game with a Soul Grinder.
2. Feed Plague Zombies to another unit until I am ready to deal with them.
3. Use the rest of my army to take down the third.
4. Either keep feeding a unit plague zombies and hold down the objectives (if their aren't many turns left) or send in the big boys to deal with the cultist mincers then take the objectives (if their are still a few turns left).

A good death guard army will out manouver you, bikes, out number you, zombies, and even out punch you in cc, Soul Grinders. Unless you get kicks out of mincing endless hordes of zombies and are not bothered with a victory (I could totally see the appeal ) then you might want to rethink your plan: Custodes are very much an elite force to ally to your regular imperial army rather than to be the backbone.

Should you go for a full Custodes army anyway, good luck to you and have fun.

I'm not sure the zombies would be so bad. Custodes get a fair number of attacks in combat and most of those will end up cleaving down a zombie. I think he could mulch through a horde O.K.

Jetbikes are a real problem though. Mrhappyface is right: they will outrun you and you won't ever catch them for a charge. You may be able to shoot at them but you're only wounding on 5's so it's an uphill fight. If you were fighting a whole jetbike army like White Scars or a Windrider Host I'd say there isn't a lot that can save you. I would fear these substantially more than a Soul Grinder.

Audustum wrote:

I'm not sure the zombies would be so bad. Custodes get a fair number of attacks in combat and most of those will end up cleaving down a zombie. I think he could mulch through a horde O.K.

Jetbikes are a real problem though. Mrhappyface is right: they will outrun you and you won't ever catch them for a charge. You may be able to shoot at them but you're only wounding on 5's so it's an uphill fight. If you were fighting a whole jetbike army like White Scars or a Windrider Host I'd say there isn't a lot that can save you. I would fear these substantially more than a Soul Grinder.

Zombies can be easily mulched through but they are fearless, you can take a lot of them and in the LatD(?) detachment they come back in on a 4+, so the meat grinder is endless.

Also Death Guard can only take bikes, not jetbikes.

If you're going to do this, then listen up:
The Spears are critical. S6 is so much more important than Audustum claims. Against any T value except 1, 2, or 8, S6 will be superior to 5. You ID against T3, and wound better against everything else. Let's just try 31 S6 hits versus 41 S5 hits against something easy, like Tactical marines. The S6 gets 25.84 wounds. The S5 gets 27.3 wounds. That's it - A difference of less than two wounds. The Spear also gives a defensive buff, and looks cooler.

Now, to be fair, the sword does offer marginally better shooting at short range, but you still get that if you take a SS, so do that - The SS is less necessary if you have the 5+ armywide invuln, but it's still good.

I'd reccomend two shields per five Custodes. Take a banner in one squad, give him a shield too. Do not take swords unless you're also bringing a shield.

My thoughts are, in a 10-man squad, 3 normal guys with spears, Sargent with spear, 3 guys with sword and knife, 2 guys with sword and shield, and one guy with shield/banner/knife. The Sargent and 2 CCW guys will be getting 6 attacks each on the charge, and the spears and shields will be getting 5. That's enough to kill 30 zombies in one turn of combat.

You guys are right though. Fast units or heavy armor is going to be tough. I wish that those Forge World units had 40k rules. A Caladius would cover the shooting. Heck, I'd even take a Contemptor Dreadnought. Gets me thinking though, what would a Custodes HQ look like?

Audustum wrote:
At this point, I'm sure someone wants to point out that spears are AP2 while swords are AP3. While this is true, your weight of attacks makes AP2 unnecessary unless you fight a lot of Terminators. Regular Custodes have base 3 attacks with 4 for the sergeant. So 16 right there, 21 if you charge. In a 10-man unit, that's 32 and 42. You'll bury that 2+ armor save in volume of attacks to the point it won't matter.

Don't just make claims.

Do some math. For starters 41 on the charge. 9x4+5. 41.

Vs terminators
W/ spears 41 attacks, 27 hits, 23 wounds, assuming 3++ from storm shields 7.6 unsaved wounds. Or with a 5++ 15.2.

W/ sword and shield 41, 27 hit, 18 wounds, 3 unsaved. Or with a 5++, still 3.

w/ sword and knife 3.7 wounds.

Assuming all 10 are still alive. If 5 guys that's 3.9 w/ spear, 1.5 w/ sword/shield, 1.9 w/ sword/knife.

That's over twice as many wounds, the difference between wiping a squad and getting beat on for a round (where your 5++ or less isn't as reliable as a 2+).

That aside, other things you said are good advice. You'll likely have to play for objectives if you want to win. You just don't have the power to take some out things, mainly due to lack of shooting. It's not a fun game, but your best bet is to sit on objectives with shield guys (unless your opponent is bringing obsec) while a squad or two tries to kill stuff. A mix of spears and shields, depending on what you expect to hit. If it's a psyker heavy army shields will save you from psychic shriek (although adamantium will helps). Do you expect to hit much AP2? Remember, once you start losing squads you lose the invuln, so again, a couple shields come in handy.

While it's a cool concept I really don't expect this to be an enjoyable game for either party. I played against a majority custodes army (had a knight in it and some inquisition) but most of the game nothing happened. I was running mechanized guard, wiped the inquisition and knight early and then just cruised around in chimeras taking potshots at custodes. I had everything spread out so they only got in 2 melees and didn't accomplish much in either of them. They beat down a wyvern (65 points) that had killed 2 (heavy flamer and mortars) the turn they deep struck. Barely got through the bubble wrap to the baneblade (which killed 4 and another 2 died to vets w/plasma turn they came in), only 1 even made it to the tank. Other squad never caught up with the 2 chimeras that were just driving circles, didn't have enough squads to hold all the objectives that the chimeras could just jump between. Pask punisher killed 5 before they caught it. Sure, they plowed through the guard squads and tanks they got in with, but that was about all they did. Just not enough of them to do major damage to me. He was lucky I wasn't running bikes (w/grav or plasma talons).

If he's playing against Death Guard, I'm assuming a Vectorium as there's very little reasons not to have one, at which point you're in a fair crack of trouble.

I'm really not sure about the advice you've been given here as IMHO, there's no reason to ever take a sword/dagger custode. I'd have mixed units with a 3:2 mix of Sword/Shield to Spear personally in much the same way that I'd run a squad of wulfen (if I suddenly had a massive brain haemorrage and decided spess woofs were cool). You need the spears to push though wounds and not be tarpitted by a squad of termies while you need the shields to stop getting mulched by anything with even a token amount of AP2.

Other than simply standing on objectives and making rude hand gestures daring him to come close enough to take it from you, there's not a huge amount you can do and that means taking ranged fire that's going to prove hard to retaliate against. I'd probably deploy on a relatively wide front and sweep forward engaging pretty much anything that will get you locked in combat and immune to shooting. but you're going to have a relatively tough time making sure nothing gets behind you to camp objectives. and there's not going to be much you can do about him getting any buffs off if he's running psycher heavy either. I'm not really sure how you can win this one, but please do let us know how the game turns out.

 mrhappyface wrote:

Audustum wrote:

I'm not sure the zombies would be so bad. Custodes get a fair number of attacks in combat and most of those will end up cleaving down a zombie. I think he could mulch through a horde O.K.

Jetbikes are a real problem though. Mrhappyface is right: they will outrun you and you won't ever catch them for a charge. You may be able to shoot at them but you're only wounding on 5's so it's an uphill fight. If you were fighting a whole jetbike army like White Scars or a Windrider Host I'd say there isn't a lot that can save you. I would fear these substantially more than a Soul Grinder.

Zombies can be easily mulched through but they are fearless, you can take a lot of them and in the LatD(?) detachment they come back in on a 4+, so the meat grinder is endless.

Also Death Guard can only take bikes, not jetbikes.

Fair point on the bikes, but even normal bikes are problematic.

Coming back on the 4+ is the real problem for him. I don't think being unable to sweeping advance or morale break them would change too much with how easy he'd kill them. That said, they're about as slow as the Custodes so he's got room to maneuver.

Waaaghpower wrote:
If you're going to do this, then listen up:
The Spears are critical. S6 is so much more important than Audustum claims. Against any T value except 1, 2, or 8, S6 will be superior to 5. You ID against T3, and wound better against everything else. Let's just try 31 S6 hits versus 41 S5 hits against something easy, like Tactical marines. The S6 gets 25.84 wounds. The S5 gets 27.3 wounds. That's it - A difference of less than two wounds. The Spear also gives a defensive buff, and looks cooler.

Now, to be fair, the sword does offer marginally better shooting at short range, but you still get that if you take a SS, so do that - The SS is less necessary if you have the 5+ armywide invuln, but it's still good.

I'd reccomend two shields per five Custodes. Take a banner in one squad, give him a shield too. Do not take swords unless you're also bringing a shield.

The banner is a good addition, but the spears are really situational. With the opponent he described, he's not facing many multi-wound T3 models so instant-deathing is a pointless feature to the spears for this scenario. Against something like tactical marines, as you noted, there's no real difference between the two in the combat but the swords let him shoot and assault while the spears force him to choose. That's a big difference.

I also used to think the 'Block' power was neat until I tried using it a couple times. RAW, he's got to assign a number of dice to stopping an attack prior to rolling to see if the attack is stopped. So if his opponent has two 4's and two 5's he has to divvy up his block dice first and then roll them praying he doesn't overkill one and under kill another. It's not terribly useful in practice.

As I said before, spears can be useful and maybe he should take one unit of them, but with what he's expecting to fight he's not likely to face hordes of 2+ armor and he'll want to be able to shoot and assault (whenever possible).

 kingbobbito wrote:

Audustum wrote:
At this point, I'm sure someone wants to point out that spears are AP2 while swords are AP3. While this is true, your weight of attacks makes AP2 unnecessary unless you fight a lot of Terminators. Regular Custodes have base 3 attacks with 4 for the sergeant. So 16 right there, 21 if you charge. In a 10-man unit, that's 32 and 42. You'll bury that 2+ armor save in volume of attacks to the point it won't matter.

Don't just make claims.

Do some math. For starters 41 on the charge. 9x4+5. 41.

Vs terminators
W/ spears 41 attacks, 27 hits, 23 wounds, assuming 3++ from storm shields 7.6 unsaved wounds. Or with a 5++ 15.2.

W/ sword and shield 41, 27 hit, 18 wounds, 3 unsaved. Or with a 5++, still 3.

w/ sword and knife 3.7 wounds.

Assuming all 10 are still alive. If 5 guys that's 3.9 w/ spear, 1.5 w/ sword/shield, 1.9 w/ sword/knife.

That's over twice as many wounds, the difference between wiping a squad and getting beat on for a round (where your 5++ or less isn't as reliable as a 2+).

Math in a void is limited in helping us. Don't let it blind you. I never said he's wipe them out in a turn. I said the amount of 2+ armor he's running into isn't so much that he can't just runover what he does find with volume of attacks. Will spears get through 2+ armor better than swords? Absolutely, no question, but he's not likely to face a Terminator list or even a half-Terminator list. If he just finds a small amount of 2+ armor the swords are more than sufficient for burying it and they provide more versatility and better use the rest of the board to boot.

That aside, other things you said are good advice. You'll likely have to play for objectives if you want to win. You just don't have the power to take some out things, mainly due to lack of shooting. It's not a fun game, but your best bet is to sit on objectives with shield guys (unless your opponent is bringing obsec) while a squad or two tries to kill stuff. A mix of spears and shields, depending on what you expect to hit. If it's a psyker heavy army shields will save you from psychic shriek (although adamantium will helps). Do you expect to hit much AP2? Remember, once you start losing squads you lose the invuln, so again, a couple shields come in handy.

I want to echo much of this advice but remind that if you have spears in the same units as swords you lose the ability to charge after shooting. Keep the spears in their own unit and use them to counter-assault if you take them. Keep the mobile units mobile and use the spear units as an anchor.

 Drasius wrote:
If he's playing against Death Guard, I'm assuming a Vectorium as there's very little reasons not to have one, at which point you're in a fair crack of trouble.

I'm really not sure about the advice you've been given here as IMHO, there's no reason to ever take a sword/dagger custode. I'd have mixed units with a 3:2 mix of Sword/Shield to Spear personally in much the same way that I'd run a squad of wulfen (if I suddenly had a massive brain haemorrage and decided spess woofs were cool). You need the spears to push though wounds and not be tarpitted by a squad of termies while you need the shields to stop getting mulched by anything with even a token amount of AP2.

Other than simply standing on objectives and making rude hand gestures daring him to come close enough to take it from you, there's not a huge amount you can do and that means taking ranged fire that's going to prove hard to retaliate against. I'd probably deploy on a relatively wide front and sweep forward engaging pretty much anything that will get you locked in combat and immune to shooting. but you're going to have a relatively tough time making sure nothing gets behind you to camp objectives. and there's not going to be much you can do about him getting any buffs off if he's running psycher heavy either. I'm not really sure how you can win this one, but please do let us know how the game turns out.

Again, mixing spears with swords is a good way to bog down all your stuff.

Swords + Daggers become a necessity just to save points. A sword + dagger Custodes can still charge after shooting and is 50 PPM. A sword and shield Custodes is 60 PPM. Scratch 5 shields across your whole army and you can fit an entire extra model. It's not always feasible to have shields on everyone in a sword unit so you go with the dagger. The point is to make sure you hold off on the spears unless they're in their own unit.

Audustum wrote:
Keep the spears in their own unit and use them to counter-assault if you take them. Keep the mobile units mobile and use the spear units as an anchor.

Swords + Daggers become a necessity just to save points. A sword + dagger Custodes can still charge after shooting and is 50 PPM. A sword and shield Custodes is 60 PPM. Scratch 5 shields across your whole army and you can fit an entire extra model. It's not always feasible to have shields on everyone in a sword unit so you go with the dagger. The point is to make sure you hold off on the spears unless they're in their own unit.

You do realize that you can just opt to not fire the spears, just the swords, right? A unit of shields on their own can't deal with 2+ or AV12, a unit of spears on their own falls over to AP2. Regardless of weapon custodes are meant to kill stuff in CC, so losing 4 bolter shots prior to charging because you put in 2 spears isn't going to make a difference against a majority of foes, especially if they have a 2+. Plus, you can make spear guy be the one that issues challenges to models with a 2+.

 kingbobbito wrote:

Audustum wrote:
Keep the spears in their own unit and use them to counter-assault if you take them. Keep the mobile units mobile and use the spear units as an anchor.

Swords + Daggers become a necessity just to save points. A sword + dagger Custodes can still charge after shooting and is 50 PPM. A sword and shield Custodes is 60 PPM. Scratch 5 shields across your whole army and you can fit an entire extra model. It's not always feasible to have shields on everyone in a sword unit so you go with the dagger. The point is to make sure you hold off on the spears unless they're in their own unit.

You do realize that you can just opt to not fire the spears, just the swords, right? A unit of shields on their own can't deal with 2+ or AV12, a unit of spears on their own falls over to AP2. Regardless of weapon custodes are meant to kill stuff in CC, so losing 4 bolter shots prior to charging because you put in 2 spears isn't going to make a difference against a majority of foes, especially if they have a 2+. Plus, you can make spear guy be the one that issues challenges to models with a 2+.

This. I have no idea why Audustrum is so adamant that 1 extra attack on a model with 4 base is going to matter while being so opposed to not only getting some defense against AP2 but also covering one of their glaring offensive weaknesses (AP2). Nobody cares about 4 boter shots when you've twice that in AP2 Str 6 CC attacks on offer from the same models. In fact, nobody cares about 4 bolter shots full stop. Bolters are irrelevant in the current environment where multi-wound T5 3++/5+++ is the new MEQ and MC's are more prevalent than ever.

I'm not nor have I ever been saying 1 extra attack is always better than the spear's AP2. What I'm saying is that, based on his opponent, he's going to want to maximize what shooting he has and his own mobility. Both of those will serve him better than the spear's AP2 and +1 strength. Against Death Guard he is not likely to run into much 2+ armor, he will have almost no need to instant death T3 models and he will actively be trying to avoid AV12+.

Swords and spears are both useful and both have a place. Unlike with some other Imperium forces, however, Custodes need each of their units to specialize in something. The army as a whole can be TAC, but it needs to do that by having diverse units and not lumping them together. It just so happens that his likely opponent would be better faced with swords than spears.

Here, let's look at some meta and compare. You'll find that sometimes a majority sword loadout will be better and sometimes a spear loadout will.

At this year's NovaOpen, these 4 armies took the top 4 spots (5 was not available for viewing online).

In first we have Brad Chester's Taudar:

http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Brad-Chester-1st-Overall-NovaOpen-2016.pdf

So what are we facing here? Windriders, Warp Spiders, a Skathach Wraithknight, 3 Riptides and the Culexus. All the T3 models are 1W so the instant death bonus from a spear's S6 is useless. The only 2+ armor save is on the 3 Riptides so you might want to have 1 spear unit Deep Strike and try to catch those (not likely but not much else you could do to hinder them).

Conversely, against the Wraithknight, swords will outperform spears. Both spears and swords wound on a 6+ and the Wraithknight is 3+ armor so both will cut through it. Only 1 in 6 attacks will hurt and you've got to beat through a 5+ Feel No Pain too. You're not likely to catch this monster, but when you do the more attacks the better.

Similarly, you're not likely to catch Windriders or Warp Spiders. Neither of them is 2+ armor, however, so the AP on spears would be wasted again. The spears would have a slightly easier time wounding the Windriders, but you're most likely going to be relying on ranged as much or more than assault. Limiting your shooting (so you can charge) or limiting your charging (so you can shoot) is just needlessly taking away options.

Verdict: Except for hunting Riptides, the swords and their shooting is likely to help you out more here. Especially against the Wraithknight.

In second we have Brett Perkins' Renegades and Heretics.
http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Brett-Perkins-2nd-Overall-Nova-Open-2016.pdf

Here a majority spear army is definitely going to serve you better. Those Plague Zombies are T3 with Feel No Pain on a 4+. The S6 of a spear happily takes that away and lets you turn them into fodder. This same Feel No Pain makes the shooting on the sword-gun much less attractive.

Similarly, the Artillery is T7 so if you get up to it you're more likely to quickly dispatch it's 2W and take it out.

The only spot the sword-guns actually would help more is for Kairos and that's only because they snap fire at BS2 (and thus can hit him more).

In third we have another Taudar, this one from Andrew Gonyo:
http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Andrew-Gonyo-3rd-Overall-Nova-Open-2016.pdf

A lot of the same analysis goes here. The big difference in this army is there is a Piranha Wing. The swords will probably help you more against the Eldar while the spears will help against the Riptides. I'd say you'd want balanced Custodes divisions for this one.

In fourth we have another Renegade army, this one from Austin Wingfield:
http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Austin-Wingfield-4th-Overall-Nova-Open-2016.pdf

This is very different than the other one though. This army only has a token amount of zombies and is instead swimming in Wyverns and Earthshakers. This is paired with 2 Chaos Knight Paladins and a Cyclopia Cabal.

Spears definitely help with the Earthshakers and Wyverns (as they can penetrate the AV easier and potentially explode it).

The swords are likely to help you more against the Cyclopia Cabal, however, unless you're unlucky and he gets Iron Arm on 2 or 3 of them. These guys are relying on invulnerable saves so number of attacks is greater than lower AP. You're also going to want invulnerable saves yourself (better than the formation 5+) unless you want to get torn apart in melee with these guys. Further, if the Cabal gets Invisibility, the sword-gun's ability to Snap Fire at BS2 will help you chip wounds much better than the spear-gun.

Some spears are advisable here to Deep Strike in, but you'd want swords too if you want to engage the Cabal.

So as I've been saying, they both have a place. For his likely opponent, however, we want to up his shooting and maximize his mobility and flexibility rather than maximize the amount of S6 and AP2 at our disposal.

But again. Having an all spear unit is asking your opponent to wipe them out with AP2. The riptides, the monofilament, the scorpion, the laser destroyers, the psychic shriek of all the psykers, even though you'll just lock them down in CC for the game the reaper chainswords... you almost never want a squad of just spears, but you still want some spears in your army. You need some shields in a spear squad to keep them alive.

Well, the shields lose a lot of their charm in big formations of them, due to the 5++ you are getting...

3++ is far better, but the difference between 5++ to 3++ is far smaller than - to 3++.

Audustum wrote:
I'm not nor have I ever been saying 1 extra attack is always better than the spear's AP2. What I'm saying is that, based on his opponent, he's going to want to maximize what shooting he has and his own mobility. Both of those will serve him better than the spear's AP2 and +1 strength. Against Death Guard he is not likely to run into much 2+ armor, he will have almost no need to instant death T3 models and he will actively be trying to avoid AV12+.

Swords and spears are both useful and both have a place. Unlike with some other Imperium forces, however, Custodes need each of their units to specialize in something. The army as a whole can be TAC, but it needs to do that by having diverse units and not lumping them together. It just so happens that his likely opponent would be better faced with swords than spears.

Here, let's look at some meta and compare. You'll find that sometimes a majority sword loadout will be better and sometimes a spear loadout will...

That you were advocating sword/dagger at all is the point - It's a terrible option that forgoes the main advantages of both the spear and the shield for a +1 attack bonus that is quite minor in the grand scheme of things on models that already have 3 attacks base and AP3 coming out their ears. As for being based on his opponent, he's playing death guard so the assumption of little to no 2+ armour or T3 fnp is quite absurd considering that terminators or obliterators are both solid options and typhus is easily accessed to turn cultists into zombies regardless of if a CAD or loast and the damned, not to mention the prevalence of T6 bikes.

Sword/Shield and Spears both have a place, Sword/Dagger has no place at all seeing as how it's the same price as a Spear but offers nothing that the Sword/Shield isn't already doing (unlike the Spear). Again, if you think that he's better off with units full of swords, I think you're misjudging army composition quite badly. Against a death guard army, where everything is +1T, the best case for the Sword/Dagger combo is against non-zombie cultists (HAH!) where there's a 1/3rd increase in wounds inflicted. After that, even against regular marines it's dead even with the Spear and gets worse from there. How often do you think you will see non-zombie cultists in a death guard army?

As for the Nova examples 1) None of those are death guard and 2) the 2 chaos lists are both better off with some spears.

If it is stereotypical Death Guard, I'm willing to bet they'll be like me and use Termicide a lot, except now the Terminators are much less likely to die thanks to that very new and tasty FNP they all get.
For the record, 130 points will give you three T5 Terminators with FNP, Combi-Plasmas, and Power Axes. Let us put this in a scenario, shall we?

1. The first one is just a basic one in the Legion Warband, where they'll have OS. You'd have to wipe off three off the objective, so let us just say for simplicity's sake that they missed literally every plasma shot for some reason, and your Custodes are unharmed. All five charge at three Terminators and get maybe 25 attacks? You know how much that inflicts with the swords and daggers? MAYBE one Death Guard Terminator because FNP goes in. So let us assume the Terminators survived the initial charge, and with 6 attacks they inflict 1 wound back thanks to the 5++. Isn't that something?
2. They're in the Annihilation Force. So that means one is a target to be fired at and then they can do whatever in the Shooting Phase, but how about we shoot the Bolters too? Assuming Rapid Fire range, that's 2.5 wounds inflicted, unless they elected to not shoot the Bolters and run and cower in cover, which helps thanks to the Custodes not having grenades.

How about the Power Armor guys though? Is weight of attacks necessary? No. According the Mathhammer 40k, against T5 targets (because everyone in a Death Guard detachment will be) the Spears pull out mildly ahead. Against T4, you already inflict so many wounds (Spears have 8 compared to the Swords having 9) you're going to win and sweep anyway. Factor in Block and it is no contest. The Spears have much more flexibility to them too once you factor in the odd AV12 Walker you bump into.

So even against Swarms I'd rather have the Spears with Block to ensure I'm winning the combats.

 kingbobbito wrote:
But again. Having an all spear unit is asking your opponent to wipe them out with AP2. The riptides, the monofilament, the scorpion, the laser destroyers, the psychic shriek of all the psykers, even though you'll just lock them down in CC for the game the reaper chainswords... you almost never want a squad of just spears, but you still want some spears in your army. You need some shields in a spear squad to keep them alive.

Monofilament is more iffy since it's only AP2 on 6's, but I'd agree having a shield or two in a predominantly spear unit isn't a bad thing. I'm arguing against having a spear or two in a predominantly sword unit (and then from there arguing that sword units have usefulness over spear units in certain scenarios).

So yeah, you and I are largely in agreement there.

 Drasius wrote:

Audustum wrote:
I'm not nor have I ever been saying 1 extra attack is always better than the spear's AP2. What I'm saying is that, based on his opponent, he's going to want to maximize what shooting he has and his own mobility. Both of those will serve him better than the spear's AP2 and +1 strength. Against Death Guard he is not likely to run into much 2+ armor, he will have almost no need to instant death T3 models and he will actively be trying to avoid AV12+.

Swords and spears are both useful and both have a place. Unlike with some other Imperium forces, however, Custodes need each of their units to specialize in something. The army as a whole can be TAC, but it needs to do that by having diverse units and not lumping them together. It just so happens that his likely opponent would be better faced with swords than spears.

Here, let's look at some meta and compare. You'll find that sometimes a majority sword loadout will be better and sometimes a spear loadout will...

That you were advocating sword/dagger at all is the point - It's a terrible option that forgoes the main advantages of both the spear and the shield for a +1 attack bonus that is quite minor in the grand scheme of things on models that already have 3 attacks base and AP3 coming out their ears. As for being based on his opponent, he's playing death guard so the assumption of little to no 2+ armour or T3 fnp is quite absurd considering that terminators or obliterators are both solid options and typhus is easily accessed to turn cultists into zombies regardless of if a CAD or loast and the damned, not to mention the prevalence of T6 bikes.

Sword/Shield and Spears both have a place, Sword/Dagger has no place at all seeing as how it's the same price as a Spear but offers nothing that the Sword/Shield isn't already doing (unlike the Spear). Again, if you think that he's better off with units full of swords, I think you're misjudging army composition quite badly. Against a death guard army, where everything is +1T, the best case for the Sword/Dagger combo is against non-zombie cultists (HAH!) where there's a 1/3rd increase in wounds inflicted. After that, even against regular marines it's dead even with the Spear and gets worse from there. How often do you think you will see non-zombie cultists in a death guard army?

Non-spear units are good for maximizing your mobility and flexibility, as I've set forth repeatedly. That is there place and sometimes that is more valuable than void based mathammer. In this case, it is since he will need to keep his options open to have a chance.

As for the Nova examples 1) None of those are death guard and 2) the 2 chaos lists are both better off with some spears.

Nice throwaway, but it's pretty clear you want a more balanced approach for #4 (as I elaborated on above).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
If it is stereotypical Death Guard, I'm willing to bet they'll be like me and use Termicide a lot, except now the Terminators are much less likely to die thanks to that very new and tasty FNP they all get.
For the record, 130 points will give you three T5 Terminators with FNP, Combi-Plasmas, and Power Axes. Let us put this in a scenario, shall we?

That's a bad bet. Terminators are in a bad place and most lists will avoid them. As some evidence, go ahead and search these very boards for threads on 'saving' and/or 'redesigning' terminators. He may be using Death Guard, but there's no reason to assume he's likely to encounter Termicide or a player who plays like you do (and indeed, he's more likely to see the opposite).

1. The first one is just a basic one in the Legion Warband, where they'll have OS. You'd have to wipe off three off the objective, so let us just say for simplicity's sake that they missed literally every plasma shot for some reason, and your Custodes are unharmed. All five charge at three Terminators and get maybe 25 attacks? You know how much that inflicts with the swords and daggers? MAYBE one Death Guard Terminator because FNP goes in. So let us assume the Terminators survived the initial charge, and with 6 attacks they inflict 1 wound back thanks to the 5++. Isn't that something?
2. They're in the Annihilation Force. So that means one is a target to be fired at and then they can do whatever in the Shooting Phase, but how about we shoot the Bolters too? Assuming Rapid Fire range, that's 2.5 wounds inflicted, unless they elected to not shoot the Bolters and run and cower in cover, which helps thanks to the Custodes not having grenades.

This entire spot is a fallacy as we have no evidence for your preposition. I said, I think even at the outset of this thread, that if facing mass 2+ armor you want spears but that facing such an army is unlikely.

This is part of the problem with how this thread was approached. If you want to just theorycraft counters in a void you can literally counter everything in the game. Unless/until the OP gives us more detail, all we can do is provide him with advice based on likelihood. If you want to say: "OP, if you face a lot of terminators, use more spears than swords" that's perfectly accurate. Note again my own statement that the advice was conditioned on him not facing a lot of 2+ armor.

How about the Power Armor guys though? Is weight of attacks necessary? No. According the Mathhammer 40k, against T5 targets (because everyone in a Death Guard detachment will be) the Spears pull out mildly ahead. Against T4, you already inflict so many wounds (Spears have 8 compared to the Swords having 9) you're going to win and sweep anyway. Factor in Block and it is no contest. The Spears have much more flexibility to them too once you factor in the odd AV12 Walker you bump into.

So even against Swarms I'd rather have the Spears with Block to ensure I'm winning the combats.

You've obviously not used block much. Note this when blocking:

1. You must assign each block to a specific To-Hit die from your opponent.
2. You must assign all blocks before rolling any dice.
3. You lose ties.

That means for a single To-Hit roll of 5 from your opponent, you have to throw 6 dice (more than there are in a 5-man squad even if it's made of all spears) to negate it. It's not a very good ability.

Now for Power Armor. The Swords actually come out better. A squad of 3 spears and 2 shields will shoot with only the shield-bearers before charging. 4 shots hitting on 2+ means probably about 3 hits and 1 wound which is then likely to be saved. In assault, you get 13 S6 attacks and 8 S5 attacks. They all hit on 3+ so with rounding 9 S6 attacks hit and 5 S5 attacks hit. Wounding, you should have 6 S6 wounds and 3 S5 wounds just based on toughness for 9 wounds total.

The sword squad, also with 2 shields, gets 10 shots before assaulting. 8 hit with rounding. 5 wound. 2 are unsaved. In assault, the unit gets 24 S5 attacks. 16 hit. 8 wound. Add in the 2 from shooting and the sword squad actually scores one more wound than the spear squad or ties it with a little bad luck.

If the enemy was invisible or flying, as examples, the sword squad would also tend to do better. Same if you were plowing through a horde or fighting a Wraithknight. Different scenarios want different things. That's been my point. Here, I think he'd be better off maximizing mobility and flexibility than springing for S6. That's all.

Audustum wrote:

 kingbobbito wrote:
But again. Having an all spear unit is asking your opponent to wipe them out with AP2. The riptides, the monofilament, the scorpion, the laser destroyers, the psychic shriek of all the psykers, even though you'll just lock them down in CC for the game the reaper chainswords... you almost never want a squad of just spears, but you still want some spears in your army. You need some shields in a spear squad to keep them alive.

Monofilament is more iffy since it's only AP2 on 6's, but I'd agree having a shield or two in a predominantly spear unit isn't a bad thing. I'm arguing against having a spear or two in a predominantly sword unit (and then from there arguing that sword units have usefulness over spear units in certain scenarios).

So yeah, you and I are largely in agreement there.

 Drasius wrote:

Audustum wrote:
I'm not nor have I ever been saying 1 extra attack is always better than the spear's AP2. What I'm saying is that, based on his opponent, he's going to want to maximize what shooting he has and his own mobility. Both of those will serve him better than the spear's AP2 and +1 strength. Against Death Guard he is not likely to run into much 2+ armor, he will have almost no need to instant death T3 models and he will actively be trying to avoid AV12+.

Swords and spears are both useful and both have a place. Unlike with some other Imperium forces, however, Custodes need each of their units to specialize in something. The army as a whole can be TAC, but it needs to do that by having diverse units and not lumping them together. It just so happens that his likely opponent would be better faced with swords than spears.

Here, let's look at some meta and compare. You'll find that sometimes a majority sword loadout will be better and sometimes a spear loadout will...

That you were advocating sword/dagger at all is the point - It's a terrible option that forgoes the main advantages of both the spear and the shield for a +1 attack bonus that is quite minor in the grand scheme of things on models that already have 3 attacks base and AP3 coming out their ears. As for being based on his opponent, he's playing death guard so the assumption of little to no 2+ armour or T3 fnp is quite absurd considering that terminators or obliterators are both solid options and typhus is easily accessed to turn cultists into zombies regardless of if a CAD or loast and the damned, not to mention the prevalence of T6 bikes.

Sword/Shield and Spears both have a place, Sword/Dagger has no place at all seeing as how it's the same price as a Spear but offers nothing that the Sword/Shield isn't already doing (unlike the Spear). Again, if you think that he's better off with units full of swords, I think you're misjudging army composition quite badly. Against a death guard army, where everything is +1T, the best case for the Sword/Dagger combo is against non-zombie cultists (HAH!) where there's a 1/3rd increase in wounds inflicted. After that, even against regular marines it's dead even with the Spear and gets worse from there. How often do you think you will see non-zombie cultists in a death guard army?

Non-spear units are good for maximizing your mobility and flexibility, as I've set forth repeatedly. That is there place and sometimes that is more valuable than void based mathammer. In this case, it is since he will need to keep his options open to have a chance.

As for the Nova examples 1) None of those are death guard and 2) the 2 chaos lists are both better off with some spears.

Nice throwaway, but it's pretty clear you want a more balanced approach for #4 (as I elaborated on above).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
If it is stereotypical Death Guard, I'm willing to bet they'll be like me and use Termicide a lot, except now the Terminators are much less likely to die thanks to that very new and tasty FNP they all get.
For the record, 130 points will give you three T5 Terminators with FNP, Combi-Plasmas, and Power Axes. Let us put this in a scenario, shall we?

That's a bad bet. Terminators are in a bad place and most lists will avoid them. As some evidence, go ahead and search these very boards for threads on 'saving' and/or 'redesigning' terminators. He may be using Death Guard, but there's no reason to assume he's likely to encounter Termicide or a player who plays like you do (and indeed, he's more likely to see the opposite).

1. The first one is just a basic one in the Legion Warband, where they'll have OS. You'd have to wipe off three off the objective, so let us just say for simplicity's sake that they missed literally every plasma shot for some reason, and your Custodes are unharmed. All five charge at three Terminators and get maybe 25 attacks? You know how much that inflicts with the swords and daggers? MAYBE one Death Guard Terminator because FNP goes in. So let us assume the Terminators survived the initial charge, and with 6 attacks they inflict 1 wound back thanks to the 5++. Isn't that something?
2. They're in the Annihilation Force. So that means one is a target to be fired at and then they can do whatever in the Shooting Phase, but how about we shoot the Bolters too? Assuming Rapid Fire range, that's 2.5 wounds inflicted, unless they elected to not shoot the Bolters and run and cower in cover, which helps thanks to the Custodes not having grenades.

This entire spot is a fallacy as we have no evidence for your preposition. I said, I think even at the outset of this thread, that if facing mass 2+ armor you want spears but that facing such an army is unlikely.

This is part of the problem with how this thread was approached. If you want to just theorycraft counters in a void you can literally counter everything in the game. Unless/until the OP gives us more detail, all we can do is provide him with advice based on likelihood. If you want to say: "OP, if you face a lot of terminators, use more spears than swords" that's perfectly accurate. Note again my own statement that the advice was conditioned on him not facing a lot of 2+ armor.

How about the Power Armor guys though? Is weight of attacks necessary? No. According the Mathhammer 40k, against T5 targets (because everyone in a Death Guard detachment will be) the Spears pull out mildly ahead. Against T4, you already inflict so many wounds (Spears have 8 compared to the Swords having 9) you're going to win and sweep anyway. Factor in Block and it is no contest. The Spears have much more flexibility to them too once you factor in the odd AV12 Walker you bump into.

So even against Swarms I'd rather have the Spears with Block to ensure I'm winning the combats.

You've obviously not used block much. Note this when blocking:

1. You must assign each block to a specific To-Hit die from your opponent.
2. You must assign all blocks before rolling any dice.
3. You lose ties.

That means for a single To-Hit roll of 5 from your opponent, you have to throw 6 dice (more than there are in a 5-man squad even if it's made of all spears) to negate it. It's not a very good ability.

Now for Power Armor. The Swords actually come out better. A squad of 3 spears and 2 shields will shoot with only the shield-bearers before charging. 4 shots hitting on 2+ means probably about 3 hits and 1 wound which is then likely to be saved. In assault, you get 13 S6 attacks and 8 S5 attacks. They all hit on 3+ so with rounding 9 S6 attacks hit and 5 S5 attacks hit. Wounding, you should have 6 S6 wounds and 3 S5 wounds just based on toughness for 9 wounds total.

The sword squad, also with 2 shields, gets 10 shots before assaulting. 8 hit with rounding. 5 wound. 2 are unsaved. In assault, the unit gets 24 S5 attacks. 16 hit. 8 wound. Add in the 2 from shooting and the sword squad actually scores one more wound than the spear squad or ties it with a little bad luck.

If the enemy was invisible or flying, as examples, the sword squad would also tend to do better. Same if you were plowing through a horde or fighting a Wraithknight. Different scenarios want different things. That's been my point. Here, I think he'd be better off maximizing mobility and flexibility than springing for S6. That's all.

You aren't actually serious are you? Here's why you're wrong:
1. Loyalist Terminators are bad. Chaos ones are good. We aren't talking Loyalist, we are talking Death Guard Space Marines. All the redesigning of Terminators is always about Loyalist Marine versions. You clearly didn't notice that when you made your supposed argument.
2. Termicide is good. Nobody once said it was bad outside you, the lone person claiming that the Sword loadout is better in the long run (which is simply flatout wrong).
3. That's the way Chaos Terminators, and many CSM's are now, in fact, are being ran now, so yes my theory is pretty darn accurate.
4. That doesn't make Block bad at all, and if anything it is at least reasonable. The extra defense, along with a shield or two (probably just one), matters a lot more because they're in melee. They're still only two wounds. They don't have grenades.
5. You're planning to shoot at a squad you plan to charge with a unit that's not very mobile to begin with? As if you feel two Bolter shots are super good? You know what 10 of those Bolter shots will do to Death Guard PA? .6 wounds. PLEASE don't pretend that is a bonus if you don't think Block is a bonus.
6. The Spears will still be winning against Invisible units because the things people are casting Invisibility on are things like Centurions and giant squads of Wolves where the problem units have a 2+ or things with T5 where the Spear ended up doing better.
7. Spears are infinitely more useful against the Wraithknight because of Block helping limit damage potential. That's the same reason they're still better against a horde.

Also: If you face the ideal target for swords, the damage is nigh-identical with a TINY boost towards swords, but it's marginal at best.
If you face the ideal target for spears, the spears will do an order of magnitude more damage than swords.

Even accounting for the shooting, let's compare five Custodes with swords to five Custodes with spears, trying to kill Death Guard Marines, Death Guard Bikes, and Death Guard Terminators.

The swords will shoot then charge, the spears will just charge.
Against the Marines, the swords will get .6 wounds. They will then charging, getting 5 attacks per model. 5.4 wounds. Or, 6 wounds in total.
Spears will get no wounds by shooting. With 4 attacks per model, they will get 5.7 wounds, which is still 5.7 wounds in total.
Difference? Marginal.

Against bikes, the swords will get .3 wounds, charge, and get 3.5 wounds. That's 3.8 wounds in total.
Spears will get 4.3 wounds in total. Against bikes, the spears win, though the difference is still marginal.

Against Terminators, the swords will get .3 wounds, charge, and get .9 wounds, for a total of 1.2 wounds.
Spears get 3.8 wounds.
Difference? Over three times the damage.

Oh, and just for fun, against Plague Zombies as a bonus round:
The swords get 3.6 wounds with shooting, charge, and get 9 wounds, for 12.6 wounds in total.
The spears get 11.1 wounds in total. So, about the same with a marginal advantage for the swords - Unless, that is, the zombies have a cover save. Or, if they're zombies from the Renegades book and have 4+ FNP instead of 5+ FNP.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 kingbobbito wrote:
But again. Having an all spear unit is asking your opponent to wipe them out with AP2. The riptides, the monofilament, the scorpion, the laser destroyers, the psychic shriek of all the psykers, even though you'll just lock them down in CC for the game the reaper chainswords... you almost never want a squad of just spears, but you still want some spears in your army. You need some shields in a spear squad to keep them alive.

Monofilament is more iffy since it's only AP2 on 6's, but I'd agree having a shield or two in a predominantly spear unit isn't a bad thing. I'm arguing against having a spear or two in a predominantly sword unit (and then from there arguing that sword units have usefulness over spear units in certain scenarios).

So yeah, you and I are largely in agreement there.

 Drasius wrote:

Audustum wrote:
I'm not nor have I ever been saying 1 extra attack is always better than the spear's AP2. What I'm saying is that, based on his opponent, he's going to want to maximize what shooting he has and his own mobility. Both of those will serve him better than the spear's AP2 and +1 strength. Against Death Guard he is not likely to run into much 2+ armor, he will have almost no need to instant death T3 models and he will actively be trying to avoid AV12+.

Swords and spears are both useful and both have a place. Unlike with some other Imperium forces, however, Custodes need each of their units to specialize in something. The army as a whole can be TAC, but it needs to do that by having diverse units and not lumping them together. It just so happens that his likely opponent would be better faced with swords than spears.

Here, let's look at some meta and compare. You'll find that sometimes a majority sword loadout will be better and sometimes a spear loadout will...

That you were advocating sword/dagger at all is the point - It's a terrible option that forgoes the main advantages of both the spear and the shield for a +1 attack bonus that is quite minor in the grand scheme of things on models that already have 3 attacks base and AP3 coming out their ears. As for being based on his opponent, he's playing death guard so the assumption of little to no 2+ armour or T3 fnp is quite absurd considering that terminators or obliterators are both solid options and typhus is easily accessed to turn cultists into zombies regardless of if a CAD or loast and the damned, not to mention the prevalence of T6 bikes.

Sword/Shield and Spears both have a place, Sword/Dagger has no place at all seeing as how it's the same price as a Spear but offers nothing that the Sword/Shield isn't already doing (unlike the Spear). Again, if you think that he's better off with units full of swords, I think you're misjudging army composition quite badly. Against a death guard army, where everything is +1T, the best case for the Sword/Dagger combo is against non-zombie cultists (HAH!) where there's a 1/3rd increase in wounds inflicted. After that, even against regular marines it's dead even with the Spear and gets worse from there. How often do you think you will see non-zombie cultists in a death guard army?

Non-spear units are good for maximizing your mobility and flexibility, as I've set forth repeatedly. That is there place and sometimes that is more valuable than void based mathammer. In this case, it is since he will need to keep his options open to have a chance.

As for the Nova examples 1) None of those are death guard and 2) the 2 chaos lists are both better off with some spears.

Nice throwaway, but it's pretty clear you want a more balanced approach for #4 (as I elaborated on above).

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
If it is stereotypical Death Guard, I'm willing to bet they'll be like me and use Termicide a lot, except now the Terminators are much less likely to die thanks to that very new and tasty FNP they all get.
For the record, 130 points will give you three T5 Terminators with FNP, Combi-Plasmas, and Power Axes. Let us put this in a scenario, shall we?

That's a bad bet. Terminators are in a bad place and most lists will avoid them. As some evidence, go ahead and search these very boards for threads on 'saving' and/or 'redesigning' terminators. He may be using Death Guard, but there's no reason to assume he's likely to encounter Termicide or a player who plays like you do (and indeed, he's more likely to see the opposite).

1. The first one is just a basic one in the Legion Warband, where they'll have OS. You'd have to wipe off three off the objective, so let us just say for simplicity's sake that they missed literally every plasma shot for some reason, and your Custodes are unharmed. All five charge at three Terminators and get maybe 25 attacks? You know how much that inflicts with the swords and daggers? MAYBE one Death Guard Terminator because FNP goes in. So let us assume the Terminators survived the initial charge, and with 6 attacks they inflict 1 wound back thanks to the 5++. Isn't that something?
2. They're in the Annihilation Force. So that means one is a target to be fired at and then they can do whatever in the Shooting Phase, but how about we shoot the Bolters too? Assuming Rapid Fire range, that's 2.5 wounds inflicted, unless they elected to not shoot the Bolters and run and cower in cover, which helps thanks to the Custodes not having grenades.

This entire spot is a fallacy as we have no evidence for your preposition. I said, I think even at the outset of this thread, that if facing mass 2+ armor you want spears but that facing such an army is unlikely.

This is part of the problem with how this thread was approached. If you want to just theorycraft counters in a void you can literally counter everything in the game. Unless/until the OP gives us more detail, all we can do is provide him with advice based on likelihood. If you want to say: "OP, if you face a lot of terminators, use more spears than swords" that's perfectly accurate. Note again my own statement that the advice was conditioned on him not facing a lot of 2+ armor.

How about the Power Armor guys though? Is weight of attacks necessary? No. According the Mathhammer 40k, against T5 targets (because everyone in a Death Guard detachment will be) the Spears pull out mildly ahead. Against T4, you already inflict so many wounds (Spears have 8 compared to the Swords having 9) you're going to win and sweep anyway. Factor in Block and it is no contest. The Spears have much more flexibility to them too once you factor in the odd AV12 Walker you bump into.

So even against Swarms I'd rather have the Spears with Block to ensure I'm winning the combats.

You've obviously not used block much. Note this when blocking:

1. You must assign each block to a specific To-Hit die from your opponent.
2. You must assign all blocks before rolling any dice.
3. You lose ties.

That means for a single To-Hit roll of 5 from your opponent, you have to throw 6 dice (more than there are in a 5-man squad even if it's made of all spears) to negate it. It's not a very good ability.

Now for Power Armor. The Swords actually come out better. A squad of 3 spears and 2 shields will shoot with only the shield-bearers before charging. 4 shots hitting on 2+ means probably about 3 hits and 1 wound which is then likely to be saved. In assault, you get 13 S6 attacks and 8 S5 attacks. They all hit on 3+ so with rounding 9 S6 attacks hit and 5 S5 attacks hit. Wounding, you should have 6 S6 wounds and 3 S5 wounds just based on toughness for 9 wounds total.

The sword squad, also with 2 shields, gets 10 shots before assaulting. 8 hit with rounding. 5 wound. 2 are unsaved. In assault, the unit gets 24 S5 attacks. 16 hit. 8 wound. Add in the 2 from shooting and the sword squad actually scores one more wound than the spear squad or ties it with a little bad luck.

If the enemy was invisible or flying, as examples, the sword squad would also tend to do better. Same if you were plowing through a horde or fighting a Wraithknight. Different scenarios want different things. That's been my point. Here, I think he'd be better off maximizing mobility and flexibility than springing for S6. That's all.

You aren't actually serious are you? Here's why you're wrong:
1. Loyalist Terminators are bad. Chaos ones are good. We aren't talking Loyalist, we are talking Death Guard Space Marines. All the redesigning of Terminators is always about Loyalist Marine versions. You clearly didn't notice that when you made your supposed argument.
2. Termicide is good. Nobody once said it was bad outside you, the lone person claiming that the Sword loadout is better in the long run (which is simply flatout wrong).
3. That's the way Chaos Terminators, and many CSM's are now, in fact, are being ran now, so yes my theory is pretty darn accurate.
4. That doesn't make Block bad at all, and if anything it is at least reasonable. The extra defense, along with a shield or two (probably just one), matters a lot more because they're in melee. They're still only two wounds. They don't have grenades.
5. You're planning to shoot at a squad you plan to charge with a unit that's not very mobile to begin with? As if you feel two Bolter shots are super good? You know what 10 of those Bolter shots will do to Death Guard PA? .6 wounds. PLEASE don't pretend that is a bonus if you don't think Block is a bonus.
6. The Spears will still be winning against Invisible units because the things people are casting Invisibility on are things like Centurions and giant squads of Wolves where the problem units have a 2+ or things with T5 where the Spear ended up doing better.
7. Spears are infinitely more useful against the Wraithknight because of Block helping limit damage potential. That's the same reason they're still better against a horde.

We might want to make a new thread because we're starting to move really off-topic.

I'm afraid to break it to you, but Chaos Terminators are not 'good' in a meta sense. You're not likely to see lots of them deployed and winning tables at tournaments. They're a step up from Loyalists but the general consensus still seems to be that they're too expensive at what they do. Terminators/Termicide are just fine in a casual setting and if you want to take them to a tournament and astound with your revelations than knock 'em dead, but right not there's no real basis for your assertion. That said, the original point was that he's not necessarily going encounter the same kind of list you play just because his opponent also plays Death Guard.

Block stops attacks, not stomps. Most Wraithknights don't run the D-sword. Stopping a one or two of the S10 attacks is just not that big a deal. When you fight a Wraithknight in melee, you want to kill it ASAP. Offense is more important than defense (especially with Forgeworld ones that will just teleport jump out of combat anyway).

Waaaghpower wrote:
Also: If you face the ideal target for swords, the damage is nigh-identical with a TINY boost towards swords, but it's marginal at best.
If you face the ideal target for spears, the spears will do an order of magnitude more damage than swords.

Even accounting for the shooting, let's compare five Custodes with swords to five Custodes with spears, trying to kill Death Guard Marines, Death Guard Bikes, and Death Guard Terminators.

The swords will shoot then charge, the spears will just charge.
Against the Marines, the swords will get .6 wounds. They will then charging, getting 5 attacks per model. 5.4 wounds. Or, 6 wounds in total.
Spears will get no wounds by shooting. With 4 attacks per model, they will get 5.7 wounds, which is still 5.7 wounds in total.
Difference? Marginal.

Against bikes, the swords will get .3 wounds, charge, and get 3.5 wounds. That's 3.8 wounds in total.
Spears will get 4.3 wounds in total. Against bikes, the spears win, though the difference is still marginal.

Against Terminators, the swords will get .3 wounds, charge, and get .9 wounds, for a total of 1.2 wounds.
Spears get 3.8 wounds.
Difference? Over three times the damage.

Oh, and just for fun, against Plague Zombies as a bonus round:
The swords get 3.6 wounds with shooting, charge, and get 9 wounds, for 12.6 wounds in total.
The spears get 11.1 wounds in total. So, about the same with a marginal advantage for the swords - Unless, that is, the zombies have a cover save. Or, if they're zombies from the Renegades book and have 4+ FNP instead of 5+ FNP.

Strictly speaking, the ideal target for swords is a Guard Conscript blob of considerable size (multi-round combat).

That technicality done, as I've been saying, mathhammer in a void only gets you so far. The power of swords is in their flexibility and ability to do two things at once.

I'm not sure how you are feeding your numbers though, even if we were doing pure mathammer. Take squads of 10 with 3 shields each (since he's running a full Custodes list).
(Standard rounding conventions apply)

Against Marines:

Spears: 28 S6 attacks and 13 S5 attacks. 19 S6 hit, 9 S5 hit. 16 S6 wounds and 6 S5 wounds.

Swords: 20 shots, 17 hits. 9 wounds, 3 after saves. 48 attacks on the charge. 32 hit, 21 wound.

Total: Spears have 16 S6 wounds and 6 S5 wounds for 22 wounds. Swords have 3 wounds from shooting and 21 from assault for 27 wounds. That's a difference of 3 wounds. Even with Ruins cover the swords are still about 1.5 wounds ahead of the Spears.

Now look at something like a Wraithknight:

Spears: 28 S6 attacks and 13 S5 attacks. 19 S6 hit, 9 S5 hit. 1 S6 wounds and 0 S5 wounds after rolling and Feel No Pain (assuming not Sword+Board Wraithknight).

Swords: 48 attacks, 32 hits. 3 wounds.

Total: The spears struggle to do a single wound to a Wraithknight. The swords take off 3-4 wounds or about half its HP.

Anyway, that's about how my math looks. It's passed midnight here and I'm sleep deprived so I'll apologize in advance for any mistakes in this post.

@Audustum, I'm not gonna join the quote chain 'cause it's getting huge, so I'll just say it in a fresh post:
Your math is straight-up terrible.

First off, you leave out the 6 Bolter shots that the spear-custodes would get, from the guys with the shields. That gets 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, or slightly under (.83) one marine wound.
Second... How in the hell do you calculate saves? Because you claim that NINE 3+ saves would result in SIX dead Marine. That's literallt the opposite of what would happen.
So, NO. The sword Custodes get barely two more wounds than the spears.

You also make the baffling decision of giving a Sword the +1 attack instead of a Spear, when a Spear is clearly the better choice to take advantage of the bonus.

Moving onto the Wraightknight, though, your math goes from 'Weird errors and forgetfulness' (which isn't that big of a deal, even if it completely changes the results) to 'Absolute nonsense.'

Boltguns cannot hurt Toughness 8. Period. You aren't getting a free wound from those guns, because a million Bolters still wouldn't be able to hurt him - He's immune.
Second, how - Out of 28 hits that wound on 6s and penetrate armor - Do you get one wound? 28 hits should get around 4.6 wound that, after Feel No Pain, round down to 3 wounds. Now, the Swords still do four wounds total - Your math was wrong with them as well, but that means against Wraightknights (One of the two "Ideal" targets for swords, where they do effectively the same damage as Spears,) you're only getting one extra wound. It's the difference between 3 and 4, not 1 and 4.


Maybe stick to doing math pre-midnight, or use a calculator. Either way, my point stands.


Oh: And while you are TECHNICALLY correct that math in a void only goes so far, that usually refers to how model placement, counter-tactics, terrain, and supporting units make mathhammer inaccurate. This is different. The math here is pretty unequivocally showing that, given identical circumstances, Swords will never significantly outperform Spears, while Spears have the potential to significantly overwhelm the damage of Swords in certain contexts. Even though you're true that Swords will show a fairly noteworthy advantage against units like Gaurdsmen and such, you do not want your 540+ pt unit fighting Guardsmen, so that's not an ability you should want.

Waaaghpower wrote:
@Audustum, I'm not gonna join the quote chain 'cause it's getting huge, so I'll just say it in a fresh post:
Your math is straight-up terrible.

First off, you leave out the 6 Bolter shots that the spear-custodes would get, from the guys with the shields. That gets 5 hits, 2.5 wounds, or slightly under (.83) one marine wound.
Second... How in the hell do you calculate saves? Because you claim that NINE 3+ saves would result in SIX dead Marine. That's literallt the opposite of what would happen.
So, NO. The sword Custodes get barely two more wounds than the spears.

I just wrote that backwards because I'm tired. Edited. It's supposed to be 6 are saved not unsaved. Though I have to say, if that's the only issue the math itself is fine and on the melee combat which kind of proves the point.

You also make the baffling decision of giving a Sword the +1 attack instead of a Spear, when a Spear is clearly the better choice to take advantage of the bonus.

That's completely subjective. Some people will want the shield on the sergeant to use his higher weapon skill and initiative in challenges where they need the invulnerable save. I applied the shield to the sergeant in both squads for consistency.

Moving onto the Wraightknight, though, your math goes from 'Weird errors and forgetfulness' (which isn't that big of a deal, even if it completely changes the results) to 'Absolute nonsense.'

You're quite the hyperbole machine when it's late.

Boltguns cannot hurt Toughness 8. Period. You aren't getting a free wound from those guns, because a million Bolters still wouldn't be able to hurt him - He's immune.

Yeah, that's bleary mind remembering a To-Wound chart. That said, it was 1 wound difference so it doesn't change very much.

Second, how - Out of 28 hits that wound on 6s and penetrate armor - Do you get one wound? 28 hits should get around 4.6 wound that, after Feel No Pain, round down to 3 wounds. Now, the Swords still do four wounds total - Your math was wrong with them as well, but that means against Wraightknights (One of the two "Ideal" targets for swords, where they do effectively the same damage as Spears,) you're only getting one extra wound. It's the difference between 3 and 4, not 1 and 4.

Let's walk through it again. 28 S6 attacks and 13 S5 attacks. Since you're hitting 2/3 of the time, you should miss with 9 spears (rounding down since it was .3) and 4 swords (again rounding down). This leaves you with 19 spear hits and 9 sword hits. Both only wound 1/6 times. That means 3 spear wounds and 1 sword wound. Now Feel No Pain kicks in and the Wraithknight negates 1/3 more from each. 2 spear wounds and 0 sword wounds.

In the previous post, we just had the fault lines for rounding go a different way. If you want to introduce a range rather than a single number you can accurately state that a spear squad will do 1-2 wounds to a Wraithknight reliably.

Swords: 48 attacks. Hitting on 3+ is 2/3 so 32 hits. 1/6 wound so 5 wounds. Feel No Pain removes 1/3 so 3 wounds (3.5 really).

You call this marginal, but it's huge. A sword squad can expect to kill a Wraithknight in 2 rounds of combat (assuming no losses). A spear squad will take 3 (assuming no losses) and has much higher odds of taking 4 compared to the lower odds of a sword squad taking 3. That's an entire extra round of stomping and if it's a Forgeworld Wraithknight (that we're somehow reliably catching and charging every turn) it's an entire extra round of shooting with Deathshroud/Inferno weapons. That's massive. Even just tying down the Wraithknight in melee combat without killing it isn't a beneficial trade because a 10-man Custodes squad costs more than Wraithknight.

Oh: And while you are TECHNICALLY correct that math in a void only goes so far, that usually refers to how model placement, counter-tactics, terrain, and supporting units make mathhammer inaccurate. This is different. The math here is pretty unequivocally showing that, given identical circumstances, Swords will never significantly outperform Spears, while Spears have the potential to significantly overwhelm the damage of Swords in certain contexts. Even though you're true that Swords will show a fairly noteworthy advantage against units like Gaurdsmen and such, you do not want your 540+ pt unit fighting Guardsmen, so that's not an ability you should want.

You don't always get what you want and sometimes you'll need to chew through a tarpit to reach a target. That said, your idea of 'marginal' is vastly different than mine (see the Wraithknight example) so I would say the differences are not so slight.

Your rounding errors are hugely noteworthy once added together.
You round 28 sword attacks from 18.64 hits to 18, but then round 13 sword attacks from 8.65 hits to 9, so that's fine - Only off by .2 hits.
But, then, you round 19 Spear hits from 3.16 wounds to 3 wounds (not a big deal) and 9 Swords hits from 1.5 wounds all the way down to 1 - And that IS a huge deal. Especially since, a moment later, you round .66 wounds down to 0.
The swords deal an entire wound that you're not counting.

Your math on the pure swords, though, is very accurate, with no errors - It does result in 3.5 wounds. (3.53, to be precise.)


So, unless you make very large rounding errors in order to intentionally screw up the results in your favor, the difference is by half a wound. Barely anything.


And by the way, this isn't hyperbole: When we're comparing small variables in order to determine the results, a 50-60% difference is massive. Claiming it's 1 wound against 4 when it's really 3 wounds against 3.5 is a very, very large difference. Claiming 21 wounds to 27 when it's really 22 to 24 is also a pretty huge gap.

I also wouldn't mind your mistakes so much if every single error didn't lean in your favor. Regularly leaving off wounds for the spears while giving extras to the swords doesn't look like random mistakes, it looks like you took a dive and asked to end the game just after your team took the lead.



(Also, on a minor note: You're wrong about the captain. Anyone in the custodes squad can issue and accept challenges. Winning a challenge gives no specific benefits, so nine times out of ten you want your tank to accept, but your stronger model to be fighting elsewhere. I can't think of any instance where you'd have a need for someone with I5 Ap3 while facing an enemy who threatens you with AP2 and couldn't be dealt with by a regular shield custodes at I4.)

Audustum wrote:
You call this marginal, but it's huge. A sword squad can expect to kill a Wraithknight in 2 rounds of combat (assuming no losses). A spear squad will take 3 (assuming no losses) and has much higher odds of taking 4 compared to the lower odds of a sword squad taking 3. That's an entire extra round of stomping and if it's a Forgeworld Wraithknight (that we're somehow reliably catching and charging every turn) it's an entire extra round of shooting with Deathshroud/Inferno weapons. That's massive. Even just tying down the Wraithknight in melee combat without killing it isn't a beneficial trade because a 10-man Custodes squad costs more than Wraithknight

Why, that's an excellent point you've made! As you've pointed out we're never going to catch the wraithknight to begin with, so the one time that swords are marginally better won't ever happen anyways. The only thing we'll ever catch up with are slow slogging troops, where the spear is about the same (tacticals) or better (plague zombies, any 2+).

Just ally in triumverate and forget about any problems.