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 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Call me wrong, but I don't think your seperate Allarus get Character protection just because they are alone. If you wipe out 9 guys in a 10 man guard squad, that last guy doesn't become a character. OFcourse I may have totally misread your intent, but Characters have to be unique, or carry the keyword. Hence your Allarus are just now very small squads.

Also, I think you can split them once, not 9 times. Can we get a confirmation on this? It's the main reason I've never used it, because it doesn't make them into characters, and it can onlu split a squad into two other squads.

he is talking about using the single man squads to body block while his characters go around. he isn't saying the allarus are characters. Also the startagem clearly says that each model becomes an individual unit.

Yeah that's right. You don't want them to be characters because they are the tanks. They're tough but trying to engage 9 4w terminators before you can shoot anything else would be a pain in the arse for your opponent. Playing with your opponents target selection when your army is half characters is pretty effective as I've found.

Unfortunately for the Allarus they aren't able to divide into 9 on the turn they deepstrike, as it occurs at the start of the phase, so that's off the table unless you don't mind them getting blasted for a turn. Mind you with yet another points drop they are becoming pretty durable for a 71 point model.

Yeah I’m thinking the allarus would start on the board 98% of the time. Depending on deployment/my opponent, I might wait until turn 2 to split them to avoid giving up a kill/first strike turn 1, especially if I can hide the unit.
It really needs so characters who can shoot hard but I’m specially trying to avoid becoming the space marines I hate, lol.

So with the Allarus, even with the points reduction, they won't earn that many points back. I tried to run an heavy Allarus list back in September (?) and it got roflstomped by shooty lists (See: TAU). They are great for character or elite pack hunting, but other than that it's extremely hard to get your points back with them.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So with the Allarus, even with the points reduction, they won't earn that many points back. I tried to run an heavy Allarus list back in September (?) and it got roflstomped by shooty lists (See: TAU). They are great for character or elite pack hunting, but other than that it's extremely hard to get your points back with them.

Your average tau netlist is a rough fight for custodes are the beta nerfs, and was always a rough fight without forge world.

I need some advice regarding a 750p list for a friendly game against tau. What are must haves except the vexilla with magnifica?
Should I bring a telemon? (disclaimer: I don't own any fw tanks so those are out of the question)
I kinda don't even want to bring any dedicated melee units maybe aside from dreadnoughts, because they never worked for me against tau. A couple months back I played against a friendly 1000p tau list without riptide and I still could not kill or even hurt any of his crisis suits (yes he played crisis suits because he's a nice guy) with my warden bomb because of shield drones.

Tiberias wrote:
I need some advice regarding a 750p list for a friendly game against tau. What are must haves except the vexilla with magnifica?
Should I bring a telemon? (disclaimer: I don't own any fw tanks so those are out of the question)
I kinda don't even want to bring any dedicated melee units maybe aside from dreadnoughts, because they never worked for me against tau. A couple months back I played against a friendly 1000p tau list without riptide and I still could not kill or even hurt any of his crisis suits (yes he played crisis suits because he's a nice guy) with my warden bomb because of shield drones.

Jetbikes. Target Hurricane Bolters on the Shield Drones and melt them away.

Audustum wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
I need some advice regarding a 750p list for a friendly game against tau. What are must haves except the vexilla with magnifica?
Should I bring a telemon? (disclaimer: I don't own any fw tanks so those are out of the question)
I kinda don't even want to bring any dedicated melee units maybe aside from dreadnoughts, because they never worked for me against tau. A couple months back I played against a friendly 1000p tau list without riptide and I still could not kill or even hurt any of his crisis suits (yes he played crisis suits because he's a nice guy) with my warden bomb because of shield drones.

Jetbikes. Target Hurricane Bolters on the Shield Drones and melt them away.

So I've been working on two lists and I need some advice which one is better



Or



I am honestly not sure if I need the vexilla at 750p since it will only babysit the saggitarum after turn one. On the other hand, even though I like the venatari a lot, they never performed very well for me....though having the possibility to deepstrike them and the added mobility for grabbing objectives might be really nice.

With some careful positioning and move+advance, you can actually keep the vexilla in range of your bikes for at least a couple turns. Additionally, you're going to want to be pushing your sag guard forward because if you give them misericordias (cut the spear from the vexilla if you have to) they are pretty decent in CC, and even without it they are decent against tau. You ultimately want the vexilla in CC too, at that points points limit.

That said, I had an idea of what I thought when I started typing but now I'm not so sure. I normally default to always vexilla, but yeah I think your guys are durable enough without it and the ventari have some utility in the list. So I'd go with list #2, but either way isn't bad.

 greyknight12 wrote:
With some careful positioning and move+advance, you can actually keep the vexilla in range of your bikes for at least a couple turns. Additionally, you're going to want to be pushing your sag guard forward because if you give them misericordias (cut the spear from the vexilla if you have to) they are pretty decent in CC, and even without it they are decent against tau. You ultimately want the vexilla in CC too, at that points points limit.

That said, I had an idea of what I thought when I started typing but now I'm not so sure. I normally default to always vexilla, but yeah I think your guys are durable enough without it and the ventari have some utility in the list. So I'd go with list #2, but either way isn't bad.

Yeah, I'm gonna go with list 2, also because the vexillus with his magnifica has been present in virtually every game I've played so far. It's kinda refreshing to try something a little bit different for once. I'll give a small report of how the game went down afterwards.

Edit: when going against tau at 750p would you consider taking radiant mantle as your warlord trait, or is superior creation always better, even against tau?

Superior creation is always better, unless you’re going against BS/WS 5+. SC always blocks 1/3 of incoming damage, while RM is going to depend on your opponent’s weapon/ballistic skill.

 greyknight12 wrote:
With some careful positioning and move+advance, you can actually keep the vexilla in range of your bikes for at least a couple turns. Additionally, you're going to want to be pushing your sag guard forward because if you give them misericordias (cut the spear from the vexilla if you have to) they are pretty decent in CC, and even without it they are decent against tau. You ultimately want the vexilla in CC too, at that points points limit.

That said, I had an idea of what I thought when I started typing but now I'm not so sure. I normally default to always vexilla, but yeah I think your guys are durable enough without it and the ventari have some utility in the list. So I'd go with list #2, but either way isn't bad.

So the 750p game against Tau was fun. Wie tried the new chapter approved maelstrom of war missions and really liked the one we played (was the one with disruptive tactics). I won the roll-off and chose to be the attacker. He played a coldstar commander, a bigger squad of crisis suits with a lot of shield drones, stealth suites and fire warriors, so not a very strong list, which in turn made me feel a bit bad that I brought jetbikes. He deployed all the way back and hid his guys. In my first turn I parked my saggitarum and venatari on two different objectives I had to secure and advanced my bikes and bike-captain up the board into cover. In his turn he came up the board a bit to be able to shoot at my bikes, but made sure to stay in cover. His shooting did nothing basically except take a wound off one bike, cause I was rolling hot on my saves.

In my second turn I got my captain and bikes near enough to shoot at the shield drones of the crisissuit squad and then try an 8" charge. The hurricane bolters melted the drones and my captain managed to make the charge, the bikes failed even with a reroll. The captain proceeded to kill two crisis suits. The venatari also shot at the crisis suits in this turn but did nothing. In his turn he flew out of combat with his cisis and blitzed his commander up the field to target my venatari, cause he neeed to kill a unit with fly and figured the venatari were the easiest targets between them and the jetbikes. His commander killed two venatari in shooting and his stealth suites killed one jetbike.

In my third turn my captain chased his crisis suits and proceeded to murderize them. My other bikes got near his commander and had to make a 5" carge, which they failed...with a re-roll.... My remaining venatari also charged his commander, and took a wound off him or something, nothing special. In his turn he flew his commander to an objective and generally shifted his remaining army to score as much from objectives as possible.

In my fourth turn I managed to kill his commander in shooting because he came in range of my saggitarum and rolled really, really crappy on his saves. He forfeited the game at that point because I was leading on points and I had killed is hardest hitting units and the rest of his army couldn't really hope to kill my captain or the jetbikes.

So yeah, custodes are quite good at low point games, though as I said in the beginning my buddy played a rather weak list. He likes crisis suits and likes to play them even though he knows they are not the best unit in the tau codex. Had he brought a riptide, it would have been considerably more difficult. The jetbikes and the jetbike captain carried the game as was to be expected, the saggitarum were awsome to hold backfield objective and provide some firepower....they are just so much better that our regular guard squad in this shooty edition...it really breaks my heart.
The venatary however underperform in every game I play them. I really like them, but their shooting with their pistols isn't good enough for how much they cost....it's just too few shots.....I don't know maybe I am using them wrong, but in my experience they are just not worth it....which also kinda breaks my heart, because the models are quite awsome.

Tiberias wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:


So yeah, custodes are quite good at low point games, though as I said in the beginning my buddy played a rather weak list. He likes crisis suits and likes to play them even though he knows they are not the best unit in the tau codex. Had he brought a riptide, it would have been considerably more difficult. The jetbikes and the jetbike captain carried the game as was to be expected, the saggitarum were awsome to hold backfield objective and provide some firepower....they are just so much better that our regular guard squad in this shooty edition...it really breaks my heart.
The venatary however underperform in every game I play them. I really like them, but their shooting with their pistols isn't good enough for how much they cost....it's just too few shots.....I don't know maybe I am using them wrong, but in my experience they are just not worth it....which also kinda breaks my heart, because the models are quite awsome.

I agree with the low points games comment. The Venatari don’t do a bad job for me. They’re more of small vehicle and character hunting type unit for me. They really do a good job of clearing out forward scout squads and Primaris Infiltrators/Incursors.

To be brutally honest, there is no use for Venatari. They barely do the jump troops slot well, because they cost so much and are too damn fragile for the cost. The point of jump pack troops is that you can bully and harass the flanks. They aren't character hunters or tank busters. They are there to tie up elite units on the early turns and force your opponent into changing their game plan.

They attempt to do the same thing as bikes do, but they completely fail, and for roughly the same points. They need to make them an equipment option for HQ and kill off the entire unit. OTherwise they are a completely bonkers unit that is a waste of money.

As in all things Custodes, just use bikes.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
To be brutally honest, there is no use for Venatari. They barely do the jump troops slot well, because they cost so much and are too damn fragile for the cost. The point of jump pack troops is that you can bully and harass the flanks. They aren't character hunters or tank busters. They are there to tie up elite units on the early turns and force your opponent into changing their game plan.

They attempt to do the same thing as bikes do, but they completely fail, and for roughly the same points. They need to make them an equipment option for HQ and kill off the entire unit. OTherwise they are a completely bonkers unit that is a waste of money.

As in all things Custodes, just use bikes.

I thought they had some decent shooting profile on one of their weapons? Otherwise yeah why not just use Bikes?

They don't have bike shooting, that's for sure. But they have S5/6 pistols, at 18 inch range, with 3 shots. Or did that get changed? I may be going off old info. Otherwise they have Lances, which no one takes because the Buckler is so much better.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
They don't have bike shooting, that's for sure. But they have S5/6 pistols, at 18 inch range, with 3 shots. Or did that get changed? I may be going off old info. Otherwise they have Lances, which no one takes because the Buckler is so much better.

They have S6 AP-2 D2 pistol 2, 18" range.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
They don't have bike shooting, that's for sure. But they have S5/6 pistols, at 18 inch range, with 3 shots. Or did that get changed? I may be going off old info. Otherwise they have Lances, which no one takes because the Buckler is so much better.

They have S6 AP-2 D2 pistol 2, 18" range.

Yeah, not that impressive. I'd rather take the extra guardian squad, or even a allarus terminator squad, over this. In a army that has enough melee threat, pistol weapons are practically useless. They are worse than useless as a unit, they are a negative on an army. They do nothing well. And their primary job is done better by roughly everything else, including troops.

That pistol also has tesla effect.


They are one of our better shooting units actually. A full squad of 9 with a captain is landing 20.66 hits. Againgst anything T5 or lower that's 14.55 wounds. -2 AP means most of those get through and at 2 damage a pop they shred even primaris infantry.

They even do work againgst knights doing as much damage as one of our tanks.

Yes, it blows having only a 3+ save but most of the targets giving us problems were going againgst our 4++ anyway.

I don't think you take more than the min 3-man unit. It puts out enough shots to kill an eliminator unit or an unscreened character. The pistol means that you can shoot into the unit you charged,and flat 2 dmg is perfect against primaris marines.

I hate Venetari because they don't have a 2+ save. But they are definitely ok.

The fact that you have to theory craft a potential niche enemy unit for it to take down shows how crap it is. There is literally nothing it does that is not done better by Bikes.

Also, if you are taking a 9 man unit of these, that's almost 600pts. 750 if you include the captain. For a bully unit that hunts a specific type of elite unit in a specific army. I wish we didn't have an army where we had to justify using crap like this.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
The fact that you have to theory craft a potential niche enemy unit for it to take down shows how crap it is. There is literally nothing it does that is not done better by Bikes.

Also, if you are taking a 9 man unit of these, that's almost 600pts. 750 if you include the captain. For a bully unit that hunts a specific type of elite unit in a specific army. I wish we didn't have an army where we had to justify using crap like this.

This is a good point. It's a very bizarre niche for shooting, and it isn't like 12 Bolter shots is going to be THAT much worse at the job, right? Now if they had some additional rules they might be useful, like if they could advance and charge and still fire with their stuff, but as is there is little point.

I don’t take them because I like them. I take them because I have 175 points and need to fill out an outrider detachment. Again, you definitely don’t take more than a few, 9 is absurd. Their innnate deepstrike and being fly infantry makes them a niche unit but they can be useful against the right targets.
Here is the math on their shooting against primaris marines:
3-man Ventari with pistols: 6 hits / 4 wounds / 2.67 unsaved / 5.33 dmg. 174 pts, 32.6 pts/dmg
2-man Vertus Praetor (rapid-fire): 20 hits / 10 wounds / 3.33 unsaved. 180 pts, 54 pts/dmg

The math gets worse for the bikes if you’re outside 12” cause of the double-whammy of stealthy and no rapid-fire. Obviously the bikes will be better in combat, but you can’t charge into an enclosed building with them. The Venetari also can benefit from cover more easily so they can also be a 2+.

I don’t really like them all that much, and I wish they had a 2+ save or pistols+multi damage CC in the same loadout. But I’ve used them a bit a now and they don’t suck as bad as I thought they would.

Honestly, I've never had much concern for Primaris Infantry, but I play on mostly standardized terrain so there's usually no more then 2 enclosed buildings (0 on NOVA format). You can fairly easily hold more if they're just camping objectives by the buildings (one of which should be in your deployment zone).

If I was playing on a table with a bunch of magic boxes I could see some use for them, but otherwise I agree with all Jetbikes all the time.

 greyknight12 wrote:
I don’t take them because I like them. I take them because I have 175 points and need to fill out an outrider detachment. Again, you definitely don’t take more than a few, 9 is absurd. Their innnate deepstrike and being fly infantry makes them a niche unit but they can be useful against the right targets.
Here is the math on their shooting against primaris marines:
3-man Ventari with pistols: 6 hits / 4 wounds / 2.67 unsaved / 5.33 dmg. 174 pts, 32.6 pts/dmg
2-man Vertus Praetor (rapid-fire): 20 hits / 10 wounds / 3.33 unsaved. 180 pts, 54 pts/dmg

The math gets worse for the bikes if you’re outside 12” cause of the double-whammy of stealthy and no rapid-fire. Obviously the bikes will be better in combat, but you can’t charge into an enclosed building with them. The Venetari also can benefit from cover more easily so they can also be a 2+.

I don’t really like them all that much, and I wish they had a 2+ save or pistols+multi damage CC in the same loadout. But I’ve used them a bit a now and they don’t suck as bad as I thought they would.

You know what else kills Primaris? Regular Custodes shooting! I will make note the enclosed buildings bit though.

 greyknight12 wrote:
I don’t take them because I like them. I take them because I have 175 points and need to fill out an outrider detachment. Again, you definitely don’t take more than a few, 9 is absurd. Their innnate deepstrike and being fly infantry makes them a niche unit but they can be useful against the right targets.
Here is the math on their shooting against primaris marines:
3-man Ventari with pistols: 6 hits / 4 wounds / 2.67 unsaved / 5.33 dmg. 174 pts, 32.6 pts/dmg
2-man Vertus Praetor (rapid-fire): 20 hits / 10 wounds / 3.33 unsaved. 180 pts, 54 pts/dmg

The math gets worse for the bikes if you’re outside 12” cause of the double-whammy of stealthy and no rapid-fire. Obviously the bikes will be better in combat, but you can’t charge into an enclosed building with them. The Venetari also can benefit from cover more easily so they can also be a 2+.

I don’t really like them all that much, and I wish they had a 2+ save or pistols+multi damage CC in the same loadout. But I’ve used them a bit a now and they don’t suck as bad as I thought they would.

I'm sorry, but the best use for them, that I can see, is as building clearing infantry with fly. Since the new rules basically make it impossible to clear out ruins with bikes now in ITC missions, these are the next best thing with fly and still infantry. I would love to see them just be able to either A. Take the Sag guard bolters, or B. take some form of heavy flamer. Then we'd have a great bully unit, that can take down hordes/elites in ruins. The current shooting loses to ruins rules, so the heavy flamer would basically be the fix. I would take them if they could take a flamer.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
I don’t take them because I like them. I take them because I have 175 points and need to fill out an outrider detachment. Again, you definitely don’t take more than a few, 9 is absurd. Their innnate deepstrike and being fly infantry makes them a niche unit but they can be useful against the right targets.
Here is the math on their shooting against primaris marines:
3-man Ventari with pistols: 6 hits / 4 wounds / 2.67 unsaved / 5.33 dmg. 174 pts, 32.6 pts/dmg
2-man Vertus Praetor (rapid-fire): 20 hits / 10 wounds / 3.33 unsaved. 180 pts, 54 pts/dmg

The math gets worse for the bikes if you’re outside 12” cause of the double-whammy of stealthy and no rapid-fire. Obviously the bikes will be better in combat, but you can’t charge into an enclosed building with them. The Venetari also can benefit from cover more easily so they can also be a 2+.

I don’t really like them all that much, and I wish they had a 2+ save or pistols+multi damage CC in the same loadout. But I’ve used them a bit a now and they don’t suck as bad as I thought they would.

I'm sorry, but the best use for them, that I can see, is as building clearing infantry with fly. Since the new rules basically make it impossible to clear out ruins with bikes now in ITC missions, these are the next best thing with fly and still infantry. I would love to see them just be able to either A. Take the Sag guard bolters, or B. take some form of heavy flamer. Then we'd have a great bully unit, that can take down hordes/elites in ruins. The current shooting loses to ruins rules, so the heavy flamer would basically be the fix. I would take them if they could take a flamer.

If they're going to have the ONE melee weapon that isn't multi-damage, they should at least have rerolling to wound in some form on them.

Are Sags the new go to when building a battalion?

They are good, but I would take at least one unit of guard with storm shield in every battalion.

That storm shield can really soak up a lot of damage for your guys on occasion and can even win a game single handed if your lucky.


I honestly like having 2 3x3 guard with shield and one full 5 man sag guard squad to camp homefield objective with.

We get some useage out of the overwatch strat with a full squad (hit on 5's).

Yep can't wait to try that kind of list composition when my Sagg conversion bits turn up. Theyre a decent option for the anti deepstrike strat too.

It just pains me to put Custodian guard with Spears into a list when Wardens are so much more powerful for just 6 ppm more. I've found I can get by without the CP lately when you just take more effective models.