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Has anyone used Custodes much, and if so, how?

I’m thinking of adding a unit of 5 to my marine army, probably with a Land Raider to carry them around. I like how much better their Land Raider is, for only a couple more points than a marine one.

They seem to compare very well to most other melee options I could bring. They are only about 10 points more than a terminator or aggressor, but feature another attack, hit on 2s, and are significantly tougher. So far, so good.

The downside is that 5 guys in a land raider cost ~650 points. The other downside is that they would need to be in their own detachment, so as not to mess up my marines’ chapter tactics.

The land raider can also be charged, and prevented from firing. That’s a significant weakness compared to having a repulsor, which can fly. So maybe I should just have the custodes foot slog. They don’t seem all that easy to shoot dead.

You would lose out on chapter tactics is the main thing.

if you are not utilizing it in the first place then go bananas otherwise you will need to put them in a separate detachment.

nothing a cheap inquisitor cant solve.

Yeah agreed - definitely a seperate detachment.

It's almost annoying that they are troops. If they were elites it would be easier to fit them in along with a cheap HQs.

I'd considering putting them with some scions, as they get cheap HQs. A couple of 5-man troop units in a taurox prime, a tempestor prime or two (or maybe an inquisitor like Greyfax or Coteaz) and a scion command squad with plasma.

The alternative would be just to get 3 squads of Custodes, but that's not cheap! Might look this if there's a codex for them at some point (hopefully not a stand-alone one).

At those points you might as well do an imperium army and a "small" detachment of a space marine chapter.

Yeah, more or less. I had a look at doing two detachments and it's so many points on troops that there's no room for much in the way of AT. Doesn't seem a good idea.

It's worth the bucks tho, their land raider is highly resistant and themselves are monsters. I just wonder how do they do when footslogging.

So, I can't offer much in the way of meta tactics, but I've fielded 2k points of footslog custodes so I can perhaps give you a better idea of what they do.

Pros:
They are durable--At T5, the 2+/5++ goes a long way to shrugging off firepower. Anecdotally, Against IG, it took their entire firing line and artillery to vaporize one squad of custodes. So these units are one of the few units durable enough to footslog this edition against my meta of low-str, high volume shooty spam.

The invulnerable is valuable-- their 3++ invulnerable save with the storm shield offers them enough protection from lascannons and plasma. I'd recommend taking two stormshields in one squad. Two shields seems to be enough to get across the board. Although, if it is your only squad of custodes, consider going sword/shield for all of them, as you may have other tools and won't need the ap -3 or str 6 that the spear provides, so a str 5, -2ap may be decent enough.

They are melee badasses--These goldenrods have yet to fail clearing out infantry. Guardsmen, MEQ, TEQ, it doesn't matter. A large attack pool coupled with good AP and multi-wound potential means that 10-unit squads that meet the custodes in hand-to-hand are gonna die by the spear.

Cons:
They have hard counters --Anti-tank weaponry, Monstrous Creatures, Plasma and anything that deals multi-wound per hit at a decent AP will vaporize these guys. Stormshields can mitigate that somewhat, but one can't roll 3+ forever.

They are limited in use: Custodes clean out infantry and elite infantry very well in melee range. Outside of that, they struggle to justify their cost. Their ranged spears are decidedly okay Primaris-MEQ killers, and they can do decent damage to a vehicle in close combat, but their lack of ranged AP and inability to deploy closer to the enemy means that you will really want them stick to what they are good at for the few turns they get in range.

Low body count: With a squad of only 5, it is possible that these guys get trapped in swarms. While a bunch of conscripts won't kill a custode squad in melee, the conscript squad can tie down the custodes for two turns or so. Plauge zombies/gaunts can do this as well. I've lost objectives just because it was mathematically impossible to cut through a thick swarm.

In TL;DR version: The W3, T5 coupled with the 2+/3++* makes custodes durable enough to footslog against anything that's not a gunline of meltas or guard arty. The catch-22 is that they don't do much until they are stabbing the enemy, have few ways to get there except by sloggin' it, and their high points costs limits the things they can efficiently stab to infantry.

I hope that helps!

*3++ with stormshield, 5++ without.

Really helpful kestril. Thanks.

Just a quick correction to kestril's comprehensive post:

Sentinel blades are are -3 AP not -2, so the same as the Guardian Spear. All you get out of the spear is +1S and better shooting.

With that said I would heartily recommend Sword and Board for all members of the squad in 99 percent of cases. Perhaps a Spear on the Shield Captain only (how ironic) to give his 4 attacks a little more punch.

So I use Custodes with allies and here are my thoughts:

1. They're tough enough and fast enough to foot slog UNLESS you want a reasonable chance of getting in an opponent's deployment zone. For your side or center board control I think you're O.K. though.

2. They can actually clear many horde units O.K. with base 16 attacks. I recommend taking the swords over the spears for this too. The swords are pistols so you can add 2 shots per Custodes on top of all those things attacks.

3. A 5-man squad can go toe-to-toe with many scary things like 20 Purestrains. They can handle MC's and vehicles O.K. too. I had a 5-man squad take out about the second half of Magnus' life (1 Custodes survived).

4. The spear is fairly meh. Compared to the sword you wound T3 on 2's, T5 on 3's, T6 on 4's and don't start wounding on 6's till T12, but those aren't really critical thresholds. MC's and vehicles, which are usually T7-T8, are wounded on 5's by both and the plethora of T4 is wounded on 3+ by both. With how cheap the Storm Shields are I think you're best off always taking 5 swords.

5. Use the Dreadnoughts too if you want to stay pure and have some shooting power. Otherwise pull in Space Marines, AdMech or Astra Militarum to provide shooting. If you want to stay elite consider even a Knight Crusader.

Spartacus wrote:
Just a quick correction to kestril's comprehensive post:

Sentinel blades are are -3 AP not -2, so the same as the Guardian Spear. All you get out of the spear is +1S and better shooting.

With that said I would heartily recommend Sword and Board for all members of the squad in 99 percent of cases. Perhaps a Spear on the Shield Captain only (how ironic) to give his 4 attacks a little more punch.

Yes, it is ap -3, when I was looking the stats up I mixed the AP of the sword with that of the power knife. Thank you for correcting me!

And, yes, go sword. the only reason I get away with spears is because I field so many custodes on the table at once. (and my army needs some range, dangit) If you're only going to have one-or-two squads that are meant to be tanky melee deathstars, sword/shield is the proper choice.

That said, if you want to get tricky, play a few games with different amounts of stormshields to see how many you'll actually need to soak damage. The spear does have a nice 2 damage ranged attack and is a little more stabby then the sword. So the idea is to add just enough stormshields so the squad is maximized on both survivability and firepower.

My thinking is that it probably makes sense to give a spear to the sergeant. He's not going to be making saves until he's the last guy left anyway, and his extra attack benefits more from the spear. Shield and sword for everyone else (or shield and knife for standard bearer).

Unfortunately the difference between s5 and 6 just isn't enough. It's nowhere near as good as having a 3++. I can see that an army with more custodes would want more spears for their guns but that doesn't really apply in my case.

Thanks for all the input so far.

Mandragola wrote:
Has anyone used Custodes much, and if so, how?

I just started putting together my Custodes from the ToE and BoP sets and I'm excited to try them out. Too bad the list is so limited, esp compared to the fun toys they get in 30K. I guess the Golden Boys were so excited to finally leave Terra and show those Astartes wannabes how it's done that they forgot to bring anything other than stock-pattern Land Raiders and Contemptor Dreadnoughts. (Maybe the Mom-Emperor won't let them take the really expensive toys to friends' Warzones) They also apparently lost the remote control to the teleportarium during the move into the 8th-edition dorms and the Teleport-console just has a "power" button on it. Now they're trying to convince one of those Primaris newbs to try it out and see where it goes, but so far no takers.

I've been struggling with the idea of taking them with my Grey Knights. They're kind of the same, except they put our troops to shame. Tragic that paladins can't wear StormShields, and that a GK terminator costs 48 pts compared to the vastly superior Custodes.