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Went to a tournament the other day to observe some games, since I could find time to commit an entire Saturday, and 6/7 of the imperium players had 3x custodes shield captains zooming around on jet bikes. I usually like to go to tournaments to see the diversity of lists and units, so this made me a little sad.

Did they make these guys too good?

In the context of a pure custodes army, they are balanced out by the rest of the list. In the context of Soup, there's no reason not to take them. They are incredibly good and easily best in role.

Just super inexpensive dollar wise and super easy to use.

For about the cost of a venerable dread - you get more durability - more speed - comparable damage and character protection. It's an auto include. Hilarious to me that GW made a limit on commanders but not these guys. Sure commanders have insane damage but they are more of a suicide unit - Jetbike Captains are an unstoppable wrecking force.

Even a complete moron can win with jetbikes.

 Smotejob wrote:
Went to a tournament the other day to observe some games, since I could find time to commit an entire Saturday, and 6/7 of the imperium players had 3x custodes shield captains zooming around on jet bikes. I usually like to go to tournaments to see the diversity of lists and units, so this made me a little sad.

Did they make these guys too good?

What and where are the tourneys your seeing with a lot of list diversity?

custodes are a newish force so there is some "new shiny" to em, bike captains are effective,you can build the guys from a single pack of bikes so, points to dollars it's a pretty good bang for your buck

 Smotejob wrote:
Did they make these guys too good?

You get them all in a single box of models so it's an easy impulse purchase, they fit into a detachment and are cheaper (cash wise) than running three squads of the normal bikers.

Fast, tough, powerful, good dakka for a melee unit, and all the non-biker units in the codex are slow and expensive - seriously if you took away the two biker units you'd probably never see the custodes. GW needs another swing at the talons of the emperor faction.

Yes, they are chronically undercosted and only people who run 3 in their lists will tell you otherwise.

 grouchoben wrote:
Yes, they are chronically undercosted and only people who run 3 in their lists will tell you otherwise.

...or those who run pure Custodes like me.

In a pure Custodes list, Jetbikes strong but balanced by the rest of their army being slow close combat units with critically low numbers.

The problem, as ever, is that Soup is not balanced; there is no downside to cherry picking the strongest, most complementary units only, whereas a pure army has strengths and weaknesses.

Oh, and that anybody can take absolutely anything in any combination and call it an army. So you can just stock up on strong units without having to take the others. And that the Supreme Command Detachment is legal in Matched Play is just adding insult to injury.

kombatwombat wrote:

 grouchoben wrote:
Yes, they are chronically undercosted and only people who run 3 in their lists will tell you otherwise.

...or those who run pure Custodes like me.

In a pure Custodes list, Jetbikes strong but balanced by the rest of their army being slow close combat units with critically low numbers.

The problem, as ever, is that Soup is not balanced; there is no downside to cherry picking the strongest, most complementary units only, whereas a pure army has strengths and weaknesses.

Oh, and that anybody can take absolutely anything in any combination and call it an army. So you can just stock up on strong units without having to take the others. And that the Supreme Command Detachment is legal in Matched Play is just adding insult to injury.

They realy need a 1 per detachment limit to sort them out, still ok in mono/primary custodes, 3 shield captain of dawneagle supreme comand detachment cheese is gone.

Yeah sure that certainly fixes this particular issue, escpecially with the Beta Rules for Detachment keywords.

Doesn’t address the other issues though, but I guess that’s not the topic of this thread.

Yeah unfortunately as far as I can see soup is here to stay, both GW, tournaments and a section of the player base believe it is the best change ever made to the game.

It's a fast, lethal, extremely durable HQ which comes three to a box for $60 (or $51 shipped on discount sites). They'll lose a small amount of versatility now that they'll be limited to Supreme Command detachments as allies (which I agree is an excellent change to list building and should have been that way from the start).

 Elbows wrote:
It's a fast, lethal, extremely durable HQ which comes three to a box for $60 (or $51 shipped on discount sites). They'll lose a small amount of versatility now that they'll be limited to Supreme Command detachments as allies (which I agree is an excellent change to list building and should have been that way from the start).

Given they got +1 to their invulnerable and 6+ against motal wounds for being in a pure custodes detachment, I can't remember seeing them as anything other than the supreme shield captain dawneagle detachment.

As well as being very powerful, cheap and fun to play they're also beautiful models. I'm one of the guard players using just three shield captains. I've got them painted up alongside my eagle-themed blood angels force. I'd have bought a box anyway even if the rules sucked just for the looks, but they get included in some of my tournament lists because they're so effective on the battlefield

In my opinion they are very strong, but as a guard horde player is much rather face 3 of those guys in a soup detachment than a full on 18 jetbike list!

 Smotejob wrote:
Went to a tournament the other day to observe some games, since I could find time to commit an entire Saturday, and 6/7 of the imperium players had 3x custodes shield captains zooming around on jet bikes. I usually like to go to tournaments to see the diversity of lists and units, so this made me a little sad.

Did they make these guys too good?

Tourneys generally are the opposite: people spam the best units, stratagems and relics as much as possible.
If you want diversity, look for casual games

It is obviously way too cheap. If people are spamming three it should be clear. It completely overshadows the other HQ choices.

It has been a case for years for many armies that bike/mounted HQ options are a no-brainer choices. It is tiresome, I wish they'd stop doing that.

 Crimson wrote:
It is obviously way too cheap. If people are spamming three it should be clear. It completely overshadows the other HQ choices.

It has been a case for years for many armies that bike/mounted HQ options are a no-brainer choices. It is tiresome, I wish they'd stop doing that.

Bike / Mounted HQs have a number of advantages over a cheaper foot variety, for every faction. The biggest blow to foot characters was when most of them were given a buff aura, and they lost the ability to provide any buffs while mounted in a transport. Same for psychers. So if you want your leader's reroll 1 aura, or you want to cast powers. You often will find yourself taking a Bike, or at least a Jump Pack or Wings so that your character can get into position to provide his support abilities without walking.

The fact that Mounting your HQ typically gives them higher toughness and an extra wound is just icing on the cake. In earlier editions going from t4 to t5 was the difference between a powerfist inflicting instant death or a single wound. Similarly going from t5 to t6 was the difference between an s5 or vehicle power fist inflicting instant death. Thus for Marine equivalents not mounting yourself on a bike was asking to be insta gibbed.

The Shield Captains get everything you'd ever want. Flying rules on the Jetbikes let them assault things in Ruins and fly over screens, the ubiquitous 3++ is a great invulnerable save and combined with a huge number of wounds keeps them going and makes them difficult to bring down for equivalent costs. Flying may be too powerful in 8th edition, just generally speaking.

The only real way to make foot mounted choices viable in anyway, is to allow buffs and psychic powers to work from vehicles, and to take away the extra wound and toughness from mounts. The mobility is enough of an advantage.

Supreme command detachments really needs to die.....

Just remove Supreme Command. The model itself is not the problem.

 akaean wrote:

Bike / Mounted HQs have a number of advantages over a cheaper foot variety, for every faction. The biggest blow to foot characters was when most of them were given a buff aura, and they lost the ability to provide any buffs while mounted in a transport. Same for psychers. So if you want your leader's reroll 1 aura, or you want to cast powers. You often will find yourself taking a Bike, or at least a Jump Pack or Wings so that your character can get into position to provide his support abilities without walking.

The fact that Mounting your HQ typically gives them higher toughness and an extra wound is just icing on the cake. In earlier editions going from t4 to t5 was the difference between a powerfist inflicting instant death or a single wound. Similarly going from t5 to t6 was the difference between an s5 or vehicle power fist inflicting instant death. Thus for Marine equivalents not mounting yourself on a bike was asking to be insta gibbed.

The Shield Captains get everything you'd ever want. Flying rules on the Jetbikes let them assault things in Ruins and fly over screens, the ubiquitous 3++ is a great invulnerable save and combined with a huge number of wounds keeps them going and makes them difficult to bring down for equivalent costs. Flying may be too powerful in 8th edition, just generally speaking.

All true.

The only real way to make foot mounted choices viable in anyway, is to allow buffs and psychic powers to work from vehicles, and to take away the extra wound and toughness from mounts. The mobility is enough of an advantage.

Or, you know, points. Mounted versions of characters are often just too cheap compared to the foot-slogging ones.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Just remove Supreme Command. The model itself is not the problem.

the model is the problem paying a measly 28 pts for 8inchs of movement, Fly, +1T, +1W and gaining the ability to reroll failed wounds on a turn they charge is silly underpriced.

And just to spell it out that +1T and +1W is from T5 toT6, and 6W to7W with a 2+, 4++

Ice_can wrote:
the model is the problem paying a measly 28 pts for 8inchs of movement, Fly, +1T, +1W and gaining the ability to reroll failed wounds on a turn they charge is silly underpriced.

I recall index character models were paying fixed % of their base cost for upgrades (i.e. 25% for a jump pack). I wonder where that idea all went wrong.

At least now Supreme Command is a bigger CP tradeoff.

They're super good. I do wonder how much of their ubiquitous nature comes from just how easy they are to purchase and field, but there's little doubt they're worth taking.

Ice_can wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Just remove Supreme Command. The model itself is not the problem.

the model is the problem paying a measly 28 pts for 8inchs of movement, Fly, +1T, +1W and gaining the ability to reroll failed wounds on a turn they charge is silly underpriced.

And just to spell it out that +1T and +1W is from T5 toT6, and 6W to7W with a 2+, 4++

I will observe that while the Dawneagle Shield-Captain is quite a lot better than the foot Shield-Captains, he's also not better than getting more normal bikes in a pure Custodes army. He's 160pts, for 180pts you can get twice the bolter attacks, three extra melee attacks, an extra wound, and the ability to make use of character protection for the Shield-Captains you do take.

Biker Shield-Captain spam is a problem in the context of allied Supreme Command detachments, it isn't really a problem in the context of a Custodes army.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Hilarious to me that GW made a limit on commanders but not these guys..

...rule of 3?

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Just remove Supreme Command. The model itself is not the problem.

Well 1 of them wouldn't be a problem but it is still under-costed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Hilarious to me that GW made a limit on commanders but not these guys..

...rule of 3?

3 max - but in 1 detachment - it's still spam.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Ice_can wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Just remove Supreme Command. The model itself is not the problem.

the model is the problem paying a measly 28 pts for 8inchs of movement, Fly, +1T, +1W and gaining the ability to reroll failed wounds on a turn they charge is silly underpriced.

And just to spell it out that +1T and +1W is from T5 toT6, and 6W to7W with a 2+, 4++

I will observe that while the Dawneagle Shield-Captain is quite a lot better than the foot Shield-Captains, he's also not better than getting more normal bikes in a pure Custodes army. He's 160pts, for 180pts you can get twice the bolter attacks, three extra melee attacks, an extra wound, and the ability to make use of character protection for the Shield-Captains you do take.

Biker Shield-Captain spam is a problem in the context of allied Supreme Command detachments, it isn't really a problem in the context of a Custodes army.

The big difference here is character protection which basically makes it immune to alpha strike - so when combined with it's speed - is almost guaranteed assault and destruction of multiple units. Also - access to relics.

 Crimson wrote:
It is obviously way too cheap. If people are spamming three it should be clear. It completely overshadows the other HQ choices.

It has been a case for years for many armies that bike/mounted HQ options are a no-brainer choices. It is tiresome, I wish they'd stop doing that.

It's more that they're not targetable and also very durable. It's the armies with no melee elements that can take a hit that suffer against them. Tzeentch Daemon Princes outclass them in a few areas and can win combats. And for me personally with only 5 attacks they're hard pressed to kill a unit of rubrics in a round of combat.

I'm much more scared of their regular bikes.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Just remove Supreme Command. The model itself is not the problem.

Yep, Tournament I'm going to in a bit over a month has banned Supreme Commands.
Its only used for cheese anyway.