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Hi all,
I'm forming a new army for 8th that has a bit of a wonky narrative, and one of the roles I need to fill is that of a powerful and elite guard for my HQ, so to speak. This unit is essentially a 40k equivalent of a Sekhmet Terminator cabal from the Thousand Sons' pre-heresy days, and I will model them as such. To that end I need some help figuring out which unit's rules to use for an astartes detachment, sticking to WYSIWYG of course when I model them. My options that I'm looking at as it stands are:

Grey Knight Paladins - Fits the narrative nicely as a brotherhood of psykers, and packs force weapons for D3 damage. Will likely teleport into battle or ride in a Stormraven.

Custodes - Less narrative-driven than the Paladins, with the potential to take Storm Shields. Not sure how they will move about the field, but I believe they pack Strength and Toughness 5 and their Spears are slightly more choppy than the Force weapon alternatives.

Both are crazy expensive which I am willing to account for in the army, but which do you guys think will be better on the tabletop? I could go either way at this point.

*Was also considering Cataphractii but elected to stick with these slightly beefier options*

Penitent Engines are 55ppm, too, only are fast close combat vehicles with two heavy flamers that come in squads of 1-3.

Focusing on why Custodes have better states than Paladins at a lower cost ignores the fact that there are more than just Paladins and Custodes.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Penitent Engines are 55ppm, too, only are fast close combat vehicles with two heavy flamers that come in squads of 1-3.

Focusing on why Custodes have better states than Paladins at a lower cost ignores the fact that there are more than just Paladins and Custodes.

SJ

Thanks for the plug for Penitent Engines! Not exactly sure they're what I'm looking for as they're practically lite* dreadnoughts though. I'm not sure I follow your logic by ignoring other options; I'm open to considering them and welcome the input. The purpose of the above post, however, is to gauge which of the two aforementioned units would be better on the tabletop at filling their similar role (essentially what is the best option I can pick for an elite Terminator unit from the armies of the Imperium?)

So as a GK and Custodes player, my opinion is that it basically comes down to this: if you want another source of Deny the Witch or access to melee S8, snag the Paladins. The Custodes are better if you want an all comers tank and infantry slayer.

Audustum wrote:
So as a GK and Custodes player, my opinion is that it basically comes down to this: if you want another source of Deny the Witch or access to melee S8, snag the Paladins. The Custodes are better if you want an all comers tank and infantry slayer.

Thanks for the input! Out of curiosity, do you find that running Hammerhand with the Paladins would compensate for the greater strength of the Custodes? That's something I've been debating...

 Aetare wrote:

Audustum wrote:
So as a GK and Custodes player, my opinion is that it basically comes down to this: if you want another source of Deny the Witch or access to melee S8, snag the Paladins. The Custodes are better if you want an all comers tank and infantry slayer.

Thanks for the input! Out of curiosity, do you find that running Hammerhand with the Paladins would compensate for the greater strength of the Custodes? That's something I've been debating...

It basically does. Your Paladins are wounding T5-7 on 5+, but 4+ with Hammerhand. The Custodes are wounding T5 on 4+ naturally with the swords, T6 with the spears. So Hammerhand actually ends up being better for T7 and ties out with the rest I think. That said, the Rule of 1 in Matched could make it so there are more than 1 Paladin unit or some other GK unit in your army that wants that Hammerhand.

That's true... The rule of 1 hopefully won't be an issue here as the Paladins will likely be one of only two grey Knights units in the force, allied using the Adeptus Astartes keyword.

Paladins can also carry staves now, giving them S7 with hammerhand and no extra points cost. Not sure if it's worth it with the staves' weak AP, but they'd have 4+ invul saves in melee so that's something.

I probably won't end up remodeling my army to carry staves anyway, since any new codex is likely to change things up again.

they also have smite which is quite big