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Too bad the spears dont get the Melta buff, and too bad our contemptor didn't get the buff. Or did it? Is it a Heavy Multi-melta? 2 shots of d6+4?

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Too bad the spears dont get the Melta buff, and too bad our contemptor didn't get the buff. Or did it? Is it a Heavy Multi-melta? 2 shots of d6+4?

My bad, the multi-melta did get the buff. I’ll update. No Forgeworld stuff got updated, my guess is GW is holding off on anything with that until the new Imperial Armor comes out (and it will probably already be included).

It sucks that most of our good stuff is FW, and thus doesn't fall under "Must have these special words" rule. Poor Pythrite Spears and Plasma flame fists.

We need our FW update badly. firepikes need to be free for aquilons and the telemons plasma flamers need 12" range + he needs the -1 damage update other dreads got. Calidius tanks are probably gonna get the same treatment SM grav tanks got so I expect points drops on them or +2 wounds.

Aquilons could even gain a wound for +5pts. They are chonkier than allarus afterall.

Custodes need a full rework that they aren't gonna see for a year or two. But hey, hopefully covid will be over by the time it's out and I can actually play with them again


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What kind of irritates me is that, like, sanquinary guard weapons all got an updated profile including sticking them to damage 2, but GW couldn't spend the effort to just give custodes weapons damage 2? Or make our power swords equal to other power swords?

But we're not marines, so, git fethed I guess.

stratigo wrote:
Custodes need a full rework that they aren't gonna see for a year or two. But hey, hopefully covid will be over by the time it's out and I can actually play with them again


Automatically Appended Next Post:
What kind of irritates me is that, like, sanquinary guard weapons all got an updated profile including sticking them to damage 2, but GW couldn't spend the effort to just give custodes weapons damage 2? Or make our power swords equal to other power swords?

But we're not marines, so, git fethed I guess.

Thats easy. They had a new release they want to sell. No one was buying plastic Custodes before the updates, so why waste rules one them. They wanted people buying the new release, not models from 2017.

GW also had upgraded relic blades to D2 in the main marine codex (which is basically the Sanguinary guard weapon) so the focus is obviously going to be on updating marine factions. They also lost all of their psychic awakening stuff.

There are LOTS of factions that didn’t get similar profiles updated; look at Tau/Eldar players complaining about fusion weapons and grey knights about still having one wound. It’s not a comprehensive update for the game, so acting like Custodes got shafted is pretty short-sighted. Custodes have been a top tier faction so far in 9th and will probably remain that way for awhile; if anything I see the marine codex as a slight nerf to the SM factions (we’ll see how the supplements go). The biggest impact of the broader updates will be a buff to sisters of battle (who were already being talked about as a top tier faction) and the absurd buff to Dark Angels terminators which may get FAQ’d again.

I think saying anyone is a "x" tier faction in 9th is pretty short sighted. It's been the edition for what, 4 months, and all of that has been covid, so there are no real good top GTs to gauge what is or is not top tier. Custodes were top for a hot second, but the recent changes to marines shift that heavily.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think saying anyone is a "x" tier faction in 9th is pretty short sighted. It's been the edition for what, 4 months, and all of that has been covid, so there are no real good top GTs to gauge what is or is not top tier. Custodes were top for a hot second, but the recent changes to marines shift that heavily.

Let me spell this out for you:
Marines
Got
Nerfed.

They may have changed up some wargear options, but the loss of full re-rolls and re-rolls on their characters means they connect with alot less attacks. Their storm shield changes mean the plethora of AP-1/2 D2 weaponry is going to chew them up at range (including the new heavy bolters). Transhuman only works on primaris marines (and Dark Angels) now. They got some new options, but nothing they didn't have at the start of 9th other than Heavy Intercessors.

I'm not saying Custodes are the best army, nor that Marines aren't. Neither is anyone else. But Custodes have had a series of strong showings in the events that have happened and been doing just fine so far, which is frankly where I'd like them to be rather than OP instant win button.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think saying anyone is a "x" tier faction in 9th is pretty short sighted. It's been the edition for what, 4 months, and all of that has been covid, so there are no real good top GTs to gauge what is or is not top tier. Custodes were top for a hot second, but the recent changes to marines shift that heavily.

Let me spell this out for you:
Marines
Got
Nerfed.

They may have changed up some wargear options, but the loss of full re-rolls and re-rolls on their characters means they connect with alot less attacks. Their storm shield changes mean the plethora of AP-1/2 D2 weaponry is going to chew them up at range (including the new heavy bolters). Transhuman only works on primaris marines (and Dark Angels) now. They got some new options, but nothing they didn't have at the start of 9th other than Heavy Intercessors.

I'm not saying Custodes are the best army, nor that Marines aren't. Neither is anyone else. But Custodes have had a series of strong showings in the events that have happened and been doing just fine so far, which is frankly where I'd like them to be rather than OP instant win button.

Marines didn't actually get nerfed.

No really, all the competitive marine lists? They didn't lose power. Salamanders are gonna remain the terror of the table for some time to come.

The only real difference is in casual games a marine player can't be completely ignorant of his strats and not put any effort into list building and still skate to victory against their buddies with ease. But no one competitive is that laize faire about list building, which is where marines are utterly and completely fine and their power hasn't changed at all.

stratigo wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think saying anyone is a "x" tier faction in 9th is pretty short sighted. It's been the edition for what, 4 months, and all of that has been covid, so there are no real good top GTs to gauge what is or is not top tier. Custodes were top for a hot second, but the recent changes to marines shift that heavily.

Let me spell this out for you:
Marines
Got
Nerfed.

They may have changed up some wargear options, but the loss of full re-rolls and re-rolls on their characters means they connect with alot less attacks. Their storm shield changes mean the plethora of AP-1/2 D2 weaponry is going to chew them up at range (including the new heavy bolters). Transhuman only works on primaris marines (and Dark Angels) now. They got some new options, but nothing they didn't have at the start of 9th other than Heavy Intercessors.

I'm not saying Custodes are the best army, nor that Marines aren't. Neither is anyone else. But Custodes have had a series of strong showings in the events that have happened and been doing just fine so far, which is frankly where I'd like them to be rather than OP instant win button.

Marines didn't actually get nerfed.

No really, all the competitive marine lists? They didn't lose power. Salamanders are gonna remain the terror of the table for some time to come.

The only real difference is in casual games a marine player can't be completely ignorant of his strats and not put any effort into list building and still skate to victory against their buddies with ease. But no one competitive is that laize faire about list building, which is where marines are utterly and completely fine and their power hasn't changed at all.

This isn't entirely true. Grav-devs were pretty important, especially to WS, and they lost their strat from what I read.

grav devs werent giving us any problems either since Emporer's auspice completely shut them down.


Aggressors loosing double shoot? Not an issue for us, as even double shooting they were doing like 3 wounds to one of our squads.

As far as custodes go, Marines got a buff. They can now take more eradicators, and they can take more bladeguard.

Not to mention their dreadnoughts dont have to pay CP for the -1 dam strat anymore.




Also, how are we gonna chew through 5 obsec DW outriders? We have nothing efficient for that. Yeah i guess i can throw terminators at it, but thats a bad exchange.

Audustum wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think saying anyone is a "x" tier faction in 9th is pretty short sighted. It's been the edition for what, 4 months, and all of that has been covid, so there are no real good top GTs to gauge what is or is not top tier. Custodes were top for a hot second, but the recent changes to marines shift that heavily.

Let me spell this out for you:
Marines
Got
Nerfed.

They may have changed up some wargear options, but the loss of full re-rolls and re-rolls on their characters means they connect with alot less attacks. Their storm shield changes mean the plethora of AP-1/2 D2 weaponry is going to chew them up at range (including the new heavy bolters). Transhuman only works on primaris marines (and Dark Angels) now. They got some new options, but nothing they didn't have at the start of 9th other than Heavy Intercessors.

I'm not saying Custodes are the best army, nor that Marines aren't. Neither is anyone else. But Custodes have had a series of strong showings in the events that have happened and been doing just fine so far, which is frankly where I'd like them to be rather than OP instant win button.

Marines didn't actually get nerfed.

No really, all the competitive marine lists? They didn't lose power. Salamanders are gonna remain the terror of the table for some time to come.

The only real difference is in casual games a marine player can't be completely ignorant of his strats and not put any effort into list building and still skate to victory against their buddies with ease. But no one competitive is that laize faire about list building, which is where marines are utterly and completely fine and their power hasn't changed at all.

This isn't entirely true. Grav-devs were pretty important, especially to WS, and they lost their strat from what I read.

They did.

The best devs are multi melta devs now, which are suppressed by how good eradicators are. If eradicators get nerfed.... marines will all break out 4 multimelta dev squads for a very minimal change on the meta.

But the very best, salamanders, are gonna stay the very best, and their aggressors continue to rock that anti infantry fire power while they buff the metlas that are the new meta.

So am I still wrong, or did Custodes fall off the Meta shelf for the time being?

Marines still have disgustingly efficient ways of deleting our boys, bikes, and bots, I don't think anything has changed. We will not see any major changes to the Meta until COVID drops off and we can start seeing actual GTs again, and the top lists begin to emerge.

Till then we are still stuck fielding stupidly expensive FW lists just to break into the competitive brackets. Ares, Aquillons, and Telemons.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So am I still wrong, or did Custodes fall off the Meta shelf for the time being?

Marines still have disgustingly efficient ways of deleting our boys, bikes, and bots, I don't think anything has changed. We will not see any major changes to the Meta until COVID drops off and we can start seeing actual GTs again, and the top lists begin to emerge.

Till then we are still stuck fielding stupidly expensive FW lists just to break into the competitive brackets. Ares, Aquillons, and Telemons.

I mean, your third line kind of answers your first. We do, indeed, do well in the meta, but only if we're primarily forgeworld and jetbikes (as the one list I posted that podium'd a GT shows). The new storm shield change is great for us and make sword+board the clear winner of troops in my opinion.

Both an Astra Militarum infantry list and a Tyranid horde list did well in GT's recently too. The marine list that got 1st (WS) used two squads of grav-devs he can't rely on anymore. Impulsors were also important and got smacked. So marines are going to have to adjust and we'll see what happens from there. Chaos is still strong with both a mass nurgling (40+) variant for Death Guard and a monster mash list for daemons. Harlequins+Dark Eldar are still tearing up. AdMech/Imperial Knight combos leaning heavily on Cerbrys Raiders, or however you spell it, are also doing well.

So end result is the podium placing factions look something like:

Astra Militarum
Tyranids
Space Marines
Custodes
Death Guard
Chaos Daemons
Harlequins
Dark Eldar
AdMech
Imperial Knights

Making soup lists with each other or standing solo. The meta is actually shaping up to be pretty healthy at this point.

Can we really trust GT's in COVID right now? I mean, yes, they are GT's, but are the top players really leaving to go to GT in California right now? Or Europe?

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can we really trust GT's in COVID right now? I mean, yes, they are GT's, but are the top players really leaving to go to GT in California right now? Or Europe?

Sure, there are top players still sheltering (and I don't look down on that as I am too), but it's the data we have. There are people going, some of them are quite good and these are what are doing well at those. It's more concrete data than forum speculation so it's the most likely of what we've got available to us in terms of information.

Audustum wrote:

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Can we really trust GT's in COVID right now? I mean, yes, they are GT's, but are the top players really leaving to go to GT in California right now? Or Europe?

Sure, there are top players still sheltering (and I don't look down on that as I am too), but it's the data we have. There are people going, some of them are quite good and these are what are doing well at those. It's more concrete data than forum speculation so it's the most likely of what we've got available to us in terms of information.

Good point.

The main issue is, as stated before, while everyone used to be able to tech to kill a knight in one turn, everyone has teched to kill a squad of custodes terminators in a turn.

For space marine you can even do both with the same unit .

Yeah i dont know who was the moron at GW that looked at the rules and said "Thunder hammers on characters is a bit broken. Lets nerf those and then give the new space marines a unit that can throw 12 of them at 24". Since they dont have character protection its way more balanced."

You know it's actually funny. Harlequins and Eldar(both Colors) have been able to wipe us out almost since the start of their factions. We die very easy to Psykers. Something tells me GW doesn't like Psykers any more. Everything has to be shooty as all get out.

stratigo wrote:
Marines didn't actually get nerfed.

No really, all the competitive marine lists? They didn't lose power. Salamanders are gonna remain the terror of the table for some time to come.

Let's see. They lost rerolls to vehicles bar dreadnoughts. Funny thing you mention salamanders since their trait got hit by nerfbat itself. Aggressors lost twin shooting, centurions no more rerolls. No more 3++ period(unlike custodians who still enjoy 3++. Not many other armies in the game that can go to 3++ anymore. Necrons also lost all access to 3++ plus obviously their trick to get 2++)

Aggressors getting nerfed brings them not into D tier, but from S tier down to maybe A+ tier. They still put out a disgusting ammount of shots for the cost, and they are easily one of the most points effective units in the game.

SM dreads are still a major threat with the right chapter. IH still has UGLY Dread options. If you think SM are "nerfed" then I'd love to know what you considered a buff.

tneva82 wrote:

stratigo wrote:
Marines didn't actually get nerfed.

No really, all the competitive marine lists? They didn't lose power. Salamanders are gonna remain the terror of the table for some time to come.

Let's see. They lost rerolls to vehicles bar dreadnoughts. Funny thing you mention salamanders since their trait got hit by nerfbat itself. Aggressors lost twin shooting, centurions no more rerolls. No more 3++ period(unlike custodians who still enjoy 3++. Not many other armies in the game that can go to 3++ anymore. Necrons also lost all access to 3++ plus obviously their trick to get 2++)

Salamander aggressors can still double shoot with a stratagem

Their trait nerf was extremely minor. And never Really mattered anyways.

Space marine vehicles had been out of meta for almost half a year through repeated nerfs, and centurions ate enough nerfs at the same time to kick them out of the top meta, this is more rubbing salt into the wound of centurions.

Any ideas about going up against Grey Knights nowadays with Custodes? I'm not sure what to expect at 1500, but I've been told its not a paladin bomb.

They are all still 1W correct? Bikes and Dakka Bots. Hell, even a punch bot would do well if they decide to go heavy on the GMNDKs

 iGuy91 wrote:
Any ideas about going up against Grey Knights nowadays with Custodes? I'm not sure what to expect at 1500, but I've been told its not a paladin bomb.

Right, they're not Paladin bombing anymore. Probably not optimal to do so at 1,500 anyway, but that doesn't mean you won't see it, just that it's unlikely.

I -think- nowadays it's swung to Terminator spam. You get most of the same benefits as a Paladin bomb, but ObSec. It's just a bit less shooty and durable (though cheaper). They did get some ranged weapon upgrades so watch out for Astral Aim on a Purgation Squad or 10 man Terminator Squad. GMDK's aren't too favored so not likely to be seen.

Hemming and hawing my way through that I realized I can really just sum it up like this. Your opponent is likely to do one of two things:

Old Meta: Paladins/Terminators in big squads making use of stratagem buffs and astral aim. This army can charge and it does hurt, but that's not the focus. The focus is on shooting and Smite'ing you down while holding objectives. Gate and Deep Strike are used for positioning.

Assault: If their warlord has First to the Fray then expect this. The focus is melee and using re-rollable charges on as many units as possible to connect as much as possible on a massive strike.

Some time ago people in this thread thought wounding a whole army only on 4+ would be totaly broken. Well you can now field an army where almost all units have transhuman active all the time.

and then there is this:
Deathwing knights now have 3 wounds.
Hit on 2's, can only be wounded on a 4+, have weapons with strength 8 -2 ap and flat 3 damage.
4+ invulnerable saves with 2+ armour saves ignoring -1 AP.
On top of doctrines and shock assault all for 47 points.
When a custode has less than that for 2 more points

So i think with marines and necrons getting a boost in toughness custodes will fallow.
GW tries to make units tougher but also increases the damage output of a lot of units. This makes little sense to me. the games needs to be less deadly IMO.


On another note, what secondaries do you pick? Do you built your army with some sceondaries in mind? Since most action-secondaries are not easly done by custodes and we don't have psykers 40% of the secondaries are not doable for us. I used to go for engage on all fronts grind them down and either assassinate or bring it down. But engage is really hard to max. and not all lists have a lot of monsters or vehivles and/or characters
Do you use sisters to hold objectives?

 nordsturmking wrote:
Some time ago people in this thread thought wounding a whole army only on 4+ would be totaly broken. Well you can now field an army where almost all units have transhuman active all the time.

and then there is this:
Deathwing knights now have 3 wounds.
Hit on 2's, can only be wounded on a 4+, have weapons with strength 8 -2 ap and flat 3 damage.
4+ invulnerable saves with 2+ armour saves ignoring -1 AP.
On top of doctrines and shock assault all for 47 points.
When a custode has less than that for 2 more points

So i think with marines and necrons getting a boost in toughness custodes will fallow.
GW tries to make units tougher but also increases the damage output of a lot of units. This makes little sense to me. the games needs to be less deadly IMO.


On another note, what secondaries do you pick? Do you built your army with some sceondaries in mind? Since most action-secondaries are not easly done by custodes and we don't have psykers 40% of the secondaries are not doable for us. I used to go for engage on all fronts grind them down and either assassinate or bring it down. But engage is really hard to max. and not all lists have a lot of monsters or vehivles and/or characters
Do you use sisters to hold objectives?

I guess that raises the questions:

How far can you fairly buff custodes? Right now we are all Character level infantry. Top that off with our cheapest unit is 3w a model. Give us more wounds and bikes become pointless. Give Bikes more wounds and tanks/dredds become pointless. Lower the cost and our entire faction becomes broken.

How can you possibly buff what is already a borderline "everything is a chapter master" army?

Space Marines creep on everyone's design space.. well, except hordes maybe.

They won't buff custodes.

Just looking at what TWC got - +1A, +1W, Move and Charge and a price drop, e.g.

The aforementioned Deathwing Knights.

I got into Custodes because I wanted the marine itch scratched, but not delve into the bloated mess that are SM and support that further after dropping my DA years ago. I wanted the biggest and baddest... but when has lore ever mattered to the rules team?

There is no espace from Marines.