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With the over-saturation of T7/8 with 4/5++ units in the Meta today, S4/6 weapons don't really make the cut. On the other hand, the melta missile sucks because an almost 100pt platform isn't a great start for a 1 shot weapon that does D6 damage.

Now, if GW were to say, upgrade the Melta missile to a halfway decent state, then we could talk. Say, Heavy 2, D6+3?

 nordsturmking wrote:

Pestilens wrote:
I see in most list, that the vertus praetors, have been cut down to one unit or none, Can somebody tell me why???

My reason for not including bikes anymore are knights bikes can't deal with them that good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am looking for something to replace my 2 Telemons. They had 2 storm cannons each. I will keep the Caladius because they are still great but i need long range anti knight shooting. So i thought a Castellan wood be a good idea what do you think?

I haven't really had a chance yet to try a new list yet after the nerf regarding the telemons.
But I usually run one with x2 Stormcannons, and one with storm cannon and a fist.

TBH, with -1 to hit, nobody....really ever shoots them.
Losing range means we have to be smarter in objective placement, and be smarter in deployment with them. Probably need to move them into an optimal position turn 1.

A thought I had is a twin-fist telemon will give a knight the business in melee. 5 attacks hitting on 2s, wounding on 2s, AP-4, at flat 4 damage is good odds of 20 damage in a fight phase. Keeping Trajann nearby almost guarentees it. Maybe some Vexilla Teleport homer shenanigans?

Alternatively, the Aquillon Terminators are monsters vs knights as well.

Yes aquillon termis are brutal, but we haven't got a lot of strenght 8 in the army, wanted to run 3x3 of bikes, is IT a bad idea???

 iGuy91 wrote:

 nordsturmking wrote:

Pestilens wrote:
I see in most list, that the vertus praetors, have been cut down to one unit or none, Can somebody tell me why???

My reason for not including bikes anymore are knights bikes can't deal with them that good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am looking for something to replace my 2 Telemons. They had 2 storm cannons each. I will keep the Caladius because they are still great but i need long range anti knight shooting. So i thought a Castellan wood be a good idea what do you think?

I haven't really had a chance yet to try a new list yet after the nerf regarding the telemons.
But I usually run one with x2 Stormcannons, and one with storm cannon and a fist.

TBH, with -1 to hit, nobody....really ever shoots them.
Losing range means we have to be smarter in objective placement, and be smarter in deployment with them. Probably need to move them into an optimal position turn 1.

A thought I had is a twin-fist telemon will give a knight the business in melee. 5 attacks hitting on 2s, wounding on 2s, AP-4, at flat 4 damage is good odds of 20 damage in a fight phase. Keeping Trajann nearby almost guarentees it. Maybe some Vexilla Teleport homer shenanigans?

Alternatively, the Aquillon Terminators are monsters vs knights as well.

Thanks for the idea. I tryed it yesterday and i have to say i am not onvinced it is a viable option in highly competitive games. The Telemon moves only 8" so getting him into melee might not be that easy all the time. And the fist is only AP-3 not -4. I need a highly competitive long range anti knight fire power.

Pestilens wrote:
Yes aquillon termis are brutal, but we haven't got a lot of strenght 8 in the army, wanted to run 3x3 of bikes, is IT a bad idea???

It's not, but when you fight Knights it is the ULTIMATE game of footsie.

You'll also need backline support for them. Something to Hit the 60" guns that park themselves literally on the other side of the table.

I’m probably going to proxy an Ares and/or keep my Orion in lists for the next few games to try and fill that shooting gap. Still see a lot of potential from agmatus bikes.
As far as the Telemon goes, my old loadout was storm cannon+fist hiding in the caladius castle; when knights got close he’d step out and punch them. I don’t think the extra attack is worth trading all your ability to contribute throughout the game with shooting.

There is also a strat that gives all Naughts re-rolls of 1 for hit, so you don't NEED trajan there. Without Trajan, 1 model gets about 10 wounds, 2 drops the knight 20 wounds. With trajan, 1 gets 12 wounds, and 2 hitting the knight kill it.

So, if you don't exclusively put trajan there, you can still drop it to bottom tier, and make it virtually useless for the rest of the game, allowing you to focus on other things.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
There is also a strat that gives all Naughts re-rolls of 1 for hit, so you don't NEED trajan there. Without Trajan, 1 model gets about 10 wounds, 2 drops the knight 20 wounds. With trajan, 1 gets 12 wounds, and 2 hitting the knight kill it.

So, if you don't exclusively put trajan there, you can still drop it to bottom tier, and make it virtually useless for the rest of the game, allowing you to focus on other things.

Fun fact, Machine Spirit Resurgent works in all phases. Never count a Knight out.

Audustum wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
There is also a strat that gives all Naughts re-rolls of 1 for hit, so you don't NEED trajan there. Without Trajan, 1 model gets about 10 wounds, 2 drops the knight 20 wounds. With trajan, 1 gets 12 wounds, and 2 hitting the knight kill it.

So, if you don't exclusively put trajan there, you can still drop it to bottom tier, and make it virtually useless for the rest of the game, allowing you to focus on other things.

Fun fact, Machine Spirit Resurgent works in all phases. Never count a Knight out.

Ok, so I didn't even think about the fact that the second unit would be punching at a significantly weakened knight. Also, if he pops the strat then, he'd be saving the Knight, but he'd have to pop it AGAIN on his turn to be able to do anything. So, I mean, right there we cost him 2CP he could have used on rotating shields, So my plasma shots just dropped him.

Knights are the equivalent of a kid on the playground going "I have infinite shields!" They are lamely designed meta breakers that don't belong, and the fact that we have to have a strategy in every army to deal with knights or we completely suck, is dumb. Because god forbid we get lucky enough to devote 700pts and the 3CP to take this thing down, it's got a 1CP move that totally invalidate everything.

Question about using the Praetorian Plate. If I put it on an Allarus SC and wanted to use it to teleport him down to a Dawneagle SC I nominated, could I use it while he's in deep strike reserves or does he need to be on the battlefield for it to work?

Had two good games (wins) yesterday with my Solar Watch.
2.5k vs Raven Guard Successors
2k vs Necrons

The telemon....honestly didn't lose much of a step. It was still deleting whatever I was having it shoot at with reroll 1s to wound from Trajann.

I'm not too surprised, the range being cut in half on the Storm Cannons is a big deal but it mostly means you might need to spend a turn walking him up 8" to get better range instead of parking him somewhere and cheesing it. STR8 rerolling failed wounds is still formidable so even with some of the changes I still expect the Telemon to put in some solid work, just not as great as it used to. What loadout did you use?

Mr. Funktastic wrote:
Question about using the Praetorian Plate. If I put it on an Allarus SC and wanted to use it to teleport him down to a Dawneagle SC I nominated, could I use it while he's in deep strike reserves or does he need to be on the battlefield for it to work?

Yeah you could do that as it says ‘you can remove the bearer from the battlefield (if they are on the battlefield) and, even if they were not on the battlefield, set them up within 3” of that character and within 1” of an enemy model’.

I am going to try and pull off the following. Take a Vexilus Praetor in Allarus with this relic. Send my Dawneagle Shield Captain into combat (either get charged or use Swooping Dive) to drop my Vexilus down next to him. Then in my turn I can drop my Warden bomb on the enemy using Vexila Teleport Homer. Take the Vexila Imperius and those Wardens will have 6 attacks, 5 with axes and 1 with Misericordia. Could be brutal enough to swing the game right there.

Thanks for the reply. Sounds brutal but a really expensive strategy, we're talking about potentially 7 CP spent (+1 if you're taking an additional relic, +3 for possibly using Stooping Dive, +3 for the Vexilla Teleport Homer) which is pretty much all our CP if you're rolling with a Custodes Battalion. It could very well swing the game but I feel like a savvy enough opponent could play around it.

Mr. Funktastic wrote:
Thanks for the reply. Sounds brutal but a really expensive strategy, we're talking about potentially 7 CP spent (+1 if you're taking an additional relic, +3 for possibly using Stooping Dive, +3 for the Vexilla Teleport Homer) which is pretty much all our CP if you're rolling with a Custodes Battalion. It could very well swing the game but I feel like a savvy enough opponent could play around it.

Yeah possibly. Also remember that some times you’ll not need to use Swooping Dive, say against Orks or GSC. In addition there will be games where you just get chance to drop in without needing the teleport homer strat also. I’m always using FGLTC on my Wardens anyway so it’s just a little trick to have up your sleeve if you take an Allarus Vexila. Right now I bring 13-14 CPs (Custodes battalion & Ad mech battalion) as any less than 8 CPs and I feel Custodes are not playing to their strengths, almost always paying 2CP for the reroll strat on my Dawneagle SC with 3++ and 1CP for Praetorian Plate too.

Mr. Funktastic wrote:
I'm not too surprised, the range being cut in half on the Storm Cannons is a big deal but it mostly means you might need to spend a turn walking him up 8" to get better range instead of parking him somewhere and cheesing it. STR8 rerolling failed wounds is still formidable so even with some of the changes I still expect the Telemon to put in some solid work, just not as great as it used to. What loadout did you use?

One game i used a twin storm cannon
The other game i used a storm cannon and a fist, and a twin storm cannon.

So, I TOTALLY missed the Melta Missile update. Instead of 2d3, it's now a flat 4 shots. Anyone see this as having a large impact on their loadouts? I'm thinking at least 2 squads, 2x3, with 2/1 hurr/melta load out. 4 Melta shots per bike is a pretty good start for making bikes actually worth throwing against tanks now.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So, I TOTALLY missed the Melta Missile update. Instead of 2d3, it's now a flat 4 shots. Anyone see this as having a large impact on their loadouts? I'm thinking at least 2 squads, 2x3, with 2/1 hurr/melta load out. 4 Melta shots per bike is a pretty good start for making bikes actually worth throwing against tanks now.

Wot?

Standard bikes didnt get touched. The Agamatus pulse laser was updated to be less streaky. They're not melta weapons and they cant be taken in the same squad as Vertus bikes.

Salvo launchers as I see are still heavy 1 for Vertus Praetors.
Is this for the FW bikes?

Yup, I made a mistake based off bad info.

I wanted to give my opinion of the galatus contemptor dread after the FW rules update:
In my opinion the d3 extra attacks everytime he fights, were a slight buff. The sword is still not great against T7 or above, but hey, better than nothing.
I tried him with the "from golden light they come" strategem and also as a footslogging distraction carnifex against my buddies necrons and tau. Also played him once against a more melee heavy chaos space marine army, which was fun.

This is basically just anecdotal, because I did not play enough games to give meaningfull numbers, but in my biased opinion he is reather good against medium and heavy infantry. He is also not that bad as a rock against melee hordes either, because the -1 to hit shield and his 4++ make him quite tough to take down....at least in melee.
When you play against shooting armies like I did with Tau and Necrons, he did not perform very well, at least for me. If you deepstrike him with the stratagem and he makes the charge he can make back his points if he gets to hit a unit of necron destroyers for example, but if he doesn't make the charge he's dead most of the time before he can do anything.

The other thing you can do with him against shooting armies of course is to just play him as a distraction carnifex and walk him as far up on the board as you can with the vexilla until he eventually dies (and most of the time he will), but if he draws enough fire your other units might get up the board faster without losing to many models.
I tried this in two games and it worked to some extent, but it was really no fun. Just my opinion, but I dislike playing a unit that I know will be dead no later than turn 2, especially with a low model count army.

I honestly don't understand the purpose of an entirely melee based dreadnaught with weaker than normal attacks. I get it's more defensive, but still. Units like this tend to get focused down, due to their inherent risk. So something that has a harder time earning points back seems pointless. The spear version looks better in every respect except the 4++ vs 5++. I mean, I guess it's a pretty effective bully unit for tieing up mobs, but I don't feel like paying 200pts for something that I could just as easily do with bikes, terminators, or wardens...the last two of which are getting S8 attacks

Aquilons are better than both the Galatus and the Achillus if you want to kill something in melee for sure.
I play the Galatus mainly because I like the model very much and because I don't play tournaments.

But yeah...compared to other stuff it has a hard time to make its points back, I'm just saying it's not completely useless.

I can see it as a valuable and durable base for Re-roll ones to hit, and I can see it as a fairly good heavy infantry stabber, like you said. But the main issue is the cost. It just needs to up that attack to S8 and then it would be pretty hard to pass up.

Best bet though is still to air drop it on turn 2 with an Orion. The Teleport drops it outside shooting range, and too far out of charge to be reliable.

Sword should be +1S.

So is there ever any reason NOT to run Saggitarum Guard as your troops choices now? The fact that they can fire their weapons on both profiles (-1 to hit), and take a misericordia to give them 4 attacks each, makes them a lot more versatile than standard Custodes. I notice they're sold out on Forgeworld, and for good reason... I think this might make pure Custodes a lot more viable now.

I’ve used Sag Guard a few times and they are good. Their guns do well against most troops, hitting on 2s and wounding on 3s. But I wouldn’t rule out spear or shield guard too quickly. We are an army that does its best work in melee and the damage output spears can do in melee is far superior to the shooting of sag guard. Incidentally I put misericordia on my sag guard and they never got into melee due to them sitting on objectives shooting all game. I think we now have 3 troops that do 3 jobs well. Sag camp backfield objectives and add a dozen heavy bolter shots, spears are superb melee, and sword/shield tank anything and do better melee against hordes. What still hurts us is the price tag we pay for a battalion, even 3x3 sag guard is a touch under 500 pts.

Anyone here opposed to the idea of "mixed" weapons in Custodian Guard squads? Regular spears, Melta spears, Andrathic Spears?

If all the troop choices are the exact same troop just different weapons, is there a major reason why they shouldn't be mixable?

I would love to see a squad of 2 regular spears, 1 shield, and 1 melta spear. That would be a hot little murder squad to drop around the field turn 2

 grouchoben wrote:
So is there ever any reason NOT to run Saggitarum Guard as your troops choices now? The fact that they can fire their weapons on both profiles (-1 to hit), and take a misericordia to give them 4 attacks each, makes them a lot more versatile than standard Custodes. I notice they're sold out on Forgeworld, and for good reason... I think this might make pure Custodes a lot more viable now.

I think there's a case to be made for taking some Guardians with at least 1 storm shield for midfield objective defending and a squad of 3-5 Pyrithite Spears for some tank busting as we can use any anti armor we can get. I think any Custodes Battalion should have at least 1 unit of Sagittarum though for sure.

What we should play now with custodes, footodes or bikes???

Pestilens wrote:
What we should play now with custodes, footodes or bikes???

I'm usually running a pure force, so I get a mix of both. It seems to work well enough for non-tournament play.