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Question about a stratagem:
"INDOMITABLE GUARDIANS
Adeptus Custodes Stratagem
Use this Stratagem in your opponent’s Fight phase after an
enemy unit that charged has fought. Choose an ADEPTUS
CUSTODES unit from your army that is within 3" of an
objective marker and fight with it next."

Does this work like Stooping Dive where I can just attack out of turn, maybe even fight twice with the same unit? I'm not sure about the wording here.

 _SeeD_ wrote:
Question about a stratagem:
"INDOMITABLE GUARDIANS
Adeptus Custodes Stratagem
Use this Stratagem in your opponent’s Fight phase after an
enemy unit that charged has fought. Choose an ADEPTUS
CUSTODES unit from your army that is within 3" of an
objective marker and fight with it next."

Does this work like Stooping Dive where I can just attack out of turn, maybe even fight twice with the same unit? I'm not sure about the wording here.

It's basically the same as Counter-Charge, but cheaper and requires you to be on an objective.

You CANNOT fight twice with just this. It just allows you to fight immediately after an enemy charger has gone.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So we'd be looking at a max 8CP army? What would the Custodes Castle look like?

BN

Valoris, Sh Captain = HQ
3x3 squads of Guard = troops
1x Vexhilla
2x Callidus
2x Telemon

? 1x Pallas Grav-attack bike

1999pts.

Does anyone else not like taking Custodian Guards? They are subpar shooting at 4 Str, slow, and just die all the time. Not to mention they often play as overpriced objective holders.

They don't actually just Die all the time if you give one or 2 storm shields.

I've had a single 3 man squad tank literally all of an opponents shooting for a round.


If your playing Pure custodies, you almost have to take a battalion for CP so hating them does you no good either.

If you ally in guard for CP, then of course you don't need them.

 _SeeD_ wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So we'd be looking at a max 8CP army? What would the Custodes Castle look like?

BN

Valoris, Sh Captain = HQ
3x3 squads of Guard = troops
1x Vexhilla
2x Callidus
2x Telemon

? 1x Pallas Grav-attack bike

1999pts.

Does anyone else not like taking Custodian Guards? They are subpar shooting at 4 Str, slow, and just die all the time. Not to mention they often play as overpriced objective holders.

They are less useful than bikers, for sure. But, they are still a fairly effective unit that is essential to getting that extra 5 CP for use on the Custodes's fantastic stratagems. They are indeed slow, but not cripplingly so, especially if you use the From Golden Light stratagem. Also, from my (limited) experience, the Custodes, especially during Custodes Castle Ops, tend to find themselves on the defensive, and if you can fortify yourself with a layer of 10 guardsmen backed by 3 Custodians on three sides, your big shooty stuff in the middle might survive that Harlequin charge a turn or two extra. Especially if you can put 1 group of Custodians within 3" of an objective, and maybe support them with stooping dive bikers. If you're on the offensive and have sufficient fire support, you won't need to be shooting with them, so you can Advance them up the field, which improves their mobility significantly. They might be in combat turn 3, just as your bikes are starting to give out. Also, From Golden Light will help.

If you're rolling with a mono-faction build, custodian guards are OK. But if I'm souping, I just replace the guards with guardsmen. Easy and cheap command points. Easy and cheap screening and objective holding.

There are a few good players around who post games and lists using a pure Custodes Castle list without any battalion in tournament event and vanilla 40k formats, KhardorStompy in this thread and ShaneWatts over on Bolter&Chainsword come to mind first.

Jetbikes and Caladius tanks are generally the backbone of the army (aside from a few notable variations) and they don't really need that many CP do they? So long as you have the CP to get off a few crucial rerolls, or a crucial Swooping Dive if it comes up. And Valoris' ability to steal a few back can help enough in that regard.

Not going by my own experience here, can't play any 40k this year , just what I read about them.

I don't use troops; my list has basically been bikes and tanks though I've recently been playing around with swapping a bike squad for 3 aquilon terminators. My take is that custodian guard simply aren't the best units in the army, and are too expensive to be cheap objective holders. They don't have the volume of fire/attacks to take on hordes nor the strength/damage to kill tough units as well as other units in the codex/beta rules. Don't get me wrong, they are a very solid troops choice...it's just that other units are better. and in my army of points-expensive models I've chosen to focus on killing things.
One of the arguments in their favor is that they are tough and can survive on objectives, unfortunately in a world of plaguebearers and catachan hordes 3 Obsec bodies isn't enough to hold an objective since they'll be out-manned. Furthermore, nothing in 8th edition is truly "survivable"; everything can be killed eventually. You could spam them and it might work, but going partial is tough...if 450ish points of your army isn't contributing to the fight it's putting your other units at a disadvantage. You'd have to go some sort of double battalion of infantry but frankly if the 18-bike list can be tabled then probably so can 30 custodian guard though I've yet to see anyone truly try it.
With command points, you don't really need that many simply because your high WS/BS+innate re-rolls reduces a lot of the normal CP expenditure. And frankly, not a lot of our stratagems are really game-changing, and the ones that are aren't spamable. Put another way, Custodes don't need their stratagems to function, all their units are good and merely get better (with a few exceptions) unlike some other armies whose stratagems turn ok units into great ones.
The last point I'll make is that one of the strengths of the "Custodes Castle" is it's mobility. 14" Fly move on your tanks mean that you can move around the table a lot, and it means that the tanks actually pair really well with bikes and a bunch of hurricane bolters are a welcome addition.

Guard don't have the attacks to take on hordes?
HHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Each one gets three attacks, 4 if you use the vexhilla, 5 if you give them daggers, and then add 2-3 more per model if you lose two in the squad and pop the stratagem. Then they can charge, fight twice.

I have watched a squad of 6 Custodes Guard shoot, charge, and then proceed to tear through Morty and a unit of poxwalkers like a sword through butter. It's kinda disgusting how powerful they are for just "troops".

But if you don't like their shooting, ok. But their attacks can still threaten armor, die slightly easier than a bloat drone, and they have shenanigans slightly more fearsome than Matt Ward in a nighty waiting in your closet.

They can wreck. your. sh!3t.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Guard don't have the attacks to take on hordes?
HHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Each one gets three attacks, 4 if you use the vexhilla, 5 if you give them daggers, and then add 2-3 more per model if you lose two in the squad and pop the stratagem. Then they can charge, fight twice.

I have watched a squad of 6 Custodes Guard shoot, charge, and then proceed to tear through Morty and a unit of poxwalkers like a sword through butter. It's kinda disgusting how powerful they are for just "troops".

But if you don't like their shooting, ok. But their attacks can still threaten armor, die slightly easier than a bloat drone, and they have shenanigans slightly more fearsome than Matt Ward in a nighty waiting in your closet.

They can wreck. your. sh!3t.

I agree with this. Custodian Guard can plow through stuff. The problem for them is always footslogging means they never get anywhere interesting anytime soon. (6 of them cutting through Morty is dumb luck though, haha).

They're great mid-field objective campers.

Audustum wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Guard don't have the attacks to take on hordes?
HHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Each one gets three attacks, 4 if you use the vexhilla, 5 if you give them daggers, and then add 2-3 more per model if you lose two in the squad and pop the stratagem. Then they can charge, fight twice.

I have watched a squad of 6 Custodes Guard shoot, charge, and then proceed to tear through Morty and a unit of poxwalkers like a sword through butter. It's kinda disgusting how powerful they are for just "troops".

But if you don't like their shooting, ok. But their attacks can still threaten armor, die slightly easier than a bloat drone, and they have shenanigans slightly more fearsome than Matt Ward in a nighty waiting in your closet.

They can wreck. your. sh!3t.

I agree with this. Custodian Guard can plow through stuff. The problem for them is always footslogging means they never get anywhere interesting anytime soon. (6 of them cutting through Morty is dumb luck though, haha).

They're great mid-field objective campers.

Yeah, the Custodes player dropped 3 models off a 6 man unit, and popped the strat, giving 3 models 7 attacks each, hitting on 3/4s. Doing d3 damage. He failed 14 out of the 20ish hits, and those did about 26 damage to him. With DR, he whittled that down to 19. Still dead.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Yeah, the Custodes player dropped 3 models off a 6 man unit, and popped the strat, giving 3 models 7 attacks each, hitting on 3/4s. Doing d3 damage. He failed 14 out of the 20ish hits, and those did about 26 damage to him. With DR, he whittled that down to 19. Still dead.

21 attacks (assuming none are misericordias) hitting on 2's does 17.5 hits, 5.83 wounds, Morty saves 2.92 (with no re-rolls) and you do 5.83 dmg on average, 3.89 after DR. You're wounding on 5's and he has a 4++, not to mention a potential -1 to hit (which I didn't include). What you saw was insane luck, or you mistook wardens with axes for guard (which would still only do 7.78 damage even without the -1).
All the things you mentioned can also be done to Wardens, bikes, or aquilons...they can take misericordia and benefit from the banner and the strat. But all those units hit harder or are faster. We've re-hashed the bikes vs other stuff ad nauseum, but I'll give a quick rundown again: 3 bikes (270 points) vs 5 guard
Bikes: 12 wounds T6, 12 attacks S6 re-roll wounds, rapid fire 18 boltguns, 14" move. 2+/4++
Guard: 15 wounds T5, 15 attacks S5/6, rapid fire 5 -1AP 2dmg, 6" move, 2+/4++ (a couple 3++ if you take a shield).

If you want to take them as objective holders fine, just realize that other stuff is more lethal and still capable of doing that mission (everything is obsec!), and really consider what your army needs to win the game before prioritizing CP over unit choices.

You make a good argument, unfortunately, greyknight12.

What is the best way to use a Galatus Contemptor Dread? I really want to use it because I love the model, though I know it is not as good as the Achillus or the Telemon.
Do you just go for "from golden light they come" into the enemy backline and hope he makes the charge?

Tiberias wrote:
What is the best way to use a Galatus Contemptor Dread? I really want to use it because I love the model, though I know it is not as good as the Achillus or the Telemon.
Do you just go for "from golden light they come" into the enemy backline and hope he makes the charge?

Not going to lie, with the exception of our tanks and giant Gundam, that is literally the strat for most everything in our codex. Get close, charge, wreck face. Very little is hang back and shoot. You "could" also use them for bullying tanks but they are mostly good for heavy infantry munching, T6 or less. Attacks against T7 is just wasted.

Otherwise, the problem with the Galatus is it's a giant lump of crap until you can get it into melee range. It's designed purpose is to scare the crap out of the back field, but Aqullion Custodes do they 50x better. I'd rather be punching at S12 than S6, and they can shoot at 24".

Regarding Aquillon Custodes, I assume the optimal loadout is stormbolter and fist?

Is it worth mixing the firepikes in there? The destructors seem really expensive for what they do at str 5.

So i was thinking squad of 3 with 2 stormbolters, 1 firepike to hopefully help deter people from charging chaff at them to tie them up.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Guard don't have the attacks to take on hordes?
HHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Each one gets three attacks, 4 if you use the vexhilla, 5 if you give them daggers, and then add 2-3 more per model if you lose two in the squad and pop the stratagem. Then they can charge, fight twice.

.

Just checking, how do they fight twice? Did I miss a stratagem?

 iGuy91 wrote:
Regarding Aquillon Custodes, I assume the optimal loadout is stormbolter and fist?

Is it worth mixing the firepikes in there? The destructors seem really expensive for what they do at str 5.

So i was thinking squad of 3 with 2 stormbolters, 1 firepike to hopefully help deter people from charging chaff at them to tie them up.

I saw the math a long time ago. The Bolters do equivalent damage or better damage than the Firepikes EXCEPT against: T3, T5, T6, T10, T11 and Overwatch. Aside from Overwatch, the difference in damage between the two was fairly negligible, however.

Basically: if you're planning to GET charged, load up on Firepikes. If you're not anticipating your opponent slamming into you, take Bolters.

Aqulion Custodian with Storm Bolter and Fist is 78 points.
Replace the Bolter with a Firepike, and it jumps to 88.

They have the same AP and damage, so it's just Strength and number of hits that differ.

Even without a Captain, you average 3.33 hits in Rapid Fire, whereas the Infernus averages 3.5 but ONLY within 12", cannot fire further. Add a captain and that jumps to 3.89, making it better in number of hits.

The main reason I think the Pikes ain't so worth it is that what chaff unit is gonna survive contact with even just 3 Aquilons?

They have 12 S10 AP-4 Dd3 swings, plus Misericordias if you want. I could see Plaguebearers surviving that, but they generally multicharge a bunch of stuff to try to tie it all up. If they do do that, kill your way out. If they don't, fall back and cream 'em with shooting.

Edit: Math, for fun. This is the number of wounds assuming 3.5 shots with the Pike, 3.33 hits with the Storm Bolter, and 3.89 with Captain-aided Bolters.

Target Toughness......Firepike.........Storm Bolter............Storm Bolter with Captain Rerolls
T2................................2.92................2.78...........................3.24
T3................................2.92................2.22...........................2.59
T4................................2.33................2.22...........................2.59
T5................................2.33................1.67...........................1.95
T6................................1.75................1.11...........................1.30
T7-T9..........................1.17................1.11...........................1.30
T10-11.........................1.17................0.56...........................0.65
T12+.............................0.58................0.56...........................0.65

Overwatch has the numbers stay the same for the Firepike, but divided by 5 with the Bolters.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Aqulion Custodian with Storm Bolter and Fist is 78 points.
Replace the Bolter with a Firepike, and it jumps to 88.

They have the same AP and damage, so it's just Strength and number of hits that differ.

Even without a Captain, you average 3.33 hits in Rapid Fire, whereas the Infernus averages 3.5 but ONLY within 12", cannot fire further. Add a captain and that jumps to 3.89, making it better in number of hits.

The main reason I think the Pikes ain't so worth it is that what chaff unit is gonna survive contact with even just 3 Aquilons?

They have 12 S10 AP-4 Dd3 swings, plus Misericordias if you want. I could see Plaguebearers surviving that, but they generally multicharge a bunch of stuff to try to tie it all up. If they do do that, kill your way out. If they don't, fall back and cream 'em with shooting.

The Firepikes are brutal for Deepstriking back lines and character hunting. They ignore all the negatives to hit that a lot of HQs put out now.

I've had some do good work against sorcerers and Company commanders, etc. Then again, they should ONLY be shooting that one phase. After that they should be in melee or dead. So quiblling over the one shooting round they get isn't really that important. Go SBs and spend the points elsewhere. It's like a 11B Lieutenant worrying about what pistol he carries. It only matters if your main weapon stops working.

Why are they brutal for Deepstriking and Character hunting? The Bolters perform nearly as well even without a captain against most Toughnesses.

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why are they brutal for Deepstriking and Character hunting? The Bolters perform nearly as well even without a captain against most Toughnesses.

sorry, I edited after the post. Because a lot of HQ's have negatives to hit. Hell, hunting assassins, Space Elves, Space Murder clowns, Rapey Space Elves, Pestilence of somethingorother....etc. It goes on and on. Redo the math with the Lastrums hitting on 3's and 4's.

Whereas the Pikes autohit, and you can re-roll the shots with a CP.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why are they brutal for Deepstriking and Character hunting? The Bolters perform nearly as well even without a captain against most Toughnesses.

sorry, I edited after the post. Because a lot of HQ's have negatives to hit. Hell, hunting assassins, Space Elves, Space Murder clowns, Rapey Space Elves, Pestilence of somethingorother....etc. It goes on and on. Redo the math with the Lastrums hitting on 3's and 4's.

Whereas the Pikes autohit, and you can re-roll the shots with a CP.

One assassin has a neg to-hit (Vindicare) and another is useless against Custodes (Culexus) but does make you hit on 6s. There's not that many characters with negatives to-hit, and moreover, any competent player SCREENS. So you CAN'T shoot them at all.

And three Aqulion Custodes with Pikes average 10.5. I'll be generous and say they roll a 1, 5, and 5. Rerolling the 1 nets you 2.5 extra, so call it 13 hits.

Against a Vindicare, that's 8.67 wounds, or with their 4++, a live Vindicare. Especially since THEY can CP reroll a save.

Edit: With a slightly more likely 12 shots, you have (assuming they don't bother with a CP reroll) a 36.85% chance of killing a Vindicare.

Again, assuming no screens.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
Why are they brutal for Deepstriking and Character hunting? The Bolters perform nearly as well even without a captain against most Toughnesses.

sorry, I edited after the post. Because a lot of HQ's have negatives to hit. Hell, hunting assassins, Space Elves, Space Murder clowns, Rapey Space Elves, Pestilence of somethingorother....etc. It goes on and on. Redo the math with the Lastrums hitting on 3's and 4's.

Whereas the Pikes autohit, and you can re-roll the shots with a CP.

One assassin has a neg to-hit (Vindicare) and another is useless against Custodes (Culexus) but does make you hit on 6s. There's not that many characters with negatives to-hit, and moreover, any competent player SCREENS. So you CAN'T shoot them at all.

And three Aqulion Custodes with Pikes average 10.5. I'll be generous and say they roll a 1, 5, and 5. Rerolling the 1 nets you 2.5 extra, so call it 13 hits.

Against a Vindicare, that's 8.67 wounds, or with their 4++, a live Vindicare. Especially since THEY can CP reroll a save.

Edit: With a slightly more likely 12 shots, you have (assuming they don't bother with a CP reroll) a 36.85% chance of killing a Vindicare.

Again, assuming no screens.

I'm not going to argue with your math, and you are one of the people to trust on these boards. That being said, a lot of HQ's have the ability to make negatives to hit. Libbys, or any psyker in general has a negative to hit spell, Eldar have eldar stuff, I think GSC have a spell or an ability, I'm not sure, Necrons have an ability, Death guard can be negative 2 to hit, I mean, it's not UNCOMMON. And if you are wasting deep striking Aquillons on chaff, what is the point of the attack?

DSing any Custodes into the backfield is done, in my (admittedly less experienced) view, to take down characters or to take out heavy support. I don't want to waste aquillons as objective grabbers, or chaff shooters. I'd rather then punch the tank, or kill the Captain behind the lines.

It doesn't ALWAYS go as planned, but I don't see the value of including them in a list if not to use them in this fashion. Not being a smart-ass, but can you please give some wisdom here, what do you use aquillons for?

Space Marine Librarians do not have a -1 hit spell, except maybe the Phobos one.
CSM Sorcerers only have it if they're Nurgle.
Eldar have one power, one stratagem, and one relic, I believe-they can (in theory) all be stacked on the same model, but then just shoot something else.
GSC can inflict hit penalties on enemy units and have one -1 hit Warlord Trait, if I recall correctly.

The main point is that, if you have Deep Strikers, your foe will screen their characters from Deep Strike if at all possible. Punching a Leman Russ to death is a great use of them-going character hunting is not. Take a Vindicare if you want characters dead.

Negatives to hit arent used to keep characters alive. <CHARACTER> is used to keep characters alive. Those accuracy maluses are instead used to protect big heavy hitters that cant hide behind screens from massed fire.

Aquilons are there to murderize T8+ centrepiece models. Everything else is secondary.

The firepikes are there for if the Aquilons fail the 9" and get counter-charged. Are they worth the extra 10 points? Why not? Custodes just gobble up the points up anyway lol.

 _SeeD_ wrote:
The firepikes are there for if the Aquilons fail the 9" and get counter-charged. Are they worth the extra 10 points? Why not? Custodes just gobble up the points up anyway lol.

So what I've been doing for that is taking a Culexus and deep striking it in with them. Then I pop Soul Horror if someone charges them.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Guard don't have the attacks to take on hordes?
HHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA

Each one gets three attacks, 4 if you use the vexhilla, 5 if you give them daggers, and then add 2-3 more per model if you lose two in the squad and pop the stratagem. Then they can charge, fight twice.

I have watched a squad of 6 Custodes Guard shoot, charge, and then proceed to tear through Morty and a unit of poxwalkers like a sword through butter. It's kinda disgusting how powerful they are for just "troops".

But if you don't like their shooting, ok. But their attacks can still threaten armor, die slightly easier than a bloat drone, and they have shenanigans slightly more fearsome than Matt Ward in a nighty waiting in your closet.

They can wreck. your. sh!3t.

It is all relative. Like a horde is 100 to 200 models. Back before the guard commissar nerf (and the custodes codex) I've have a squad sucked into a unit of conscripts for 2 turns, and that was it for them, they did nothing that game.

For true horde armies, actual custodes guard will struggle to kill their points back, and sometimes struggle to survive against, say, a supported boyz squad.

Custodes guard are a fine unit against an enemy melee army though. I actually prefer a second shield per unit to up the survivability though, mostly as I use them to pin an enemy melee unit down. They're a bit wasted if you line up against tau and go "Well they're never going to do anything but eat firepower."




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 greyknight12 wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Yeah, the Custodes player dropped 3 models off a 6 man unit, and popped the strat, giving 3 models 7 attacks each, hitting on 3/4s. Doing d3 damage. He failed 14 out of the 20ish hits, and those did about 26 damage to him. With DR, he whittled that down to 19. Still dead.

21 attacks (assuming none are misericordias) hitting on 2's does 17.5 hits, 5.83 wounds, Morty saves 2.92 (with no re-rolls) and you do 5.83 dmg on average, 3.89 after DR. You're wounding on 5's and he has a 4++, not to mention a potential -1 to hit (which I didn't include). What you saw was insane luck, or you mistook wardens with axes for guard (which would still only do 7.78 damage even without the -1).
All the things you mentioned can also be done to Wardens, bikes, or aquilons...they can take misericordia and benefit from the banner and the strat. But all those units hit harder or are faster. We've re-hashed the bikes vs other stuff ad nauseum, but I'll give a quick rundown again: 3 bikes (270 points) vs 5 guard
Bikes: 12 wounds T6, 12 attacks S6 re-roll wounds, rapid fire 18 boltguns, 14" move. 2+/4++
Guard: 15 wounds T5, 15 attacks S5/6, rapid fire 5 -1AP 2dmg, 6" move, 2+/4++ (a couple 3++ if you take a shield).

If you want to take them as objective holders fine, just realize that other stuff is more lethal and still capable of doing that mission (everything is obsec!), and really consider what your army needs to win the game before prioritizing CP over unit choices.

Having played extensively with both troops and bikes and just bikes, troops and bikes are the better list. The CP is really that valuable, Bikes aren't appreciably more durable than storm shield guard for cost, and if you are setting up your entire army on the battlefield, against any enemy, a large chunk of it is going to be dead before it is in combat no matter what you do, or you'll be charged first (or you're not fighting a very optimal list).

Audustum wrote:

 _SeeD_ wrote:
The firepikes are there for if the Aquilons fail the 9" and get counter-charged. Are they worth the extra 10 points? Why not? Custodes just gobble up the points up anyway lol.

So what I've been doing for that is taking a Culexus and deep striking it in with them. Then I pop Soul Horror if someone charges them.

Not a bad idea though I tend to find my Aquilons more in shooting then anything else.