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we wont get a cheap transport. It wouldnt make sense logistically to put 150-300pts worth of models inside something that costed 100pts or less anyway.

If you need mobility, you take bikes or venetari.

Venetari are certainly viable now with the 2+ save however so i might pick some up.

We won’t get a cheap anything, lol. We’re Custodes. Honestly the only thing I want is out of LOS shooting, it’s the one major gap I’ve run into in games.
Had another good game with the Orion fun bus, this time I put my shield captain and vexilla in it and took “while we stand, we fight” for the secondary. Plan was to fly off the board once I dropped the Unleashed Allarus in my opponent’s backfield. Unfortunately had something come up and had to call the game early. I want to try the tactic again, basically if the rest of my army dies slowly enough I can easily get a decent amount of VPs out of the 700 pts that flies off the board every other turn.

IMO

Custodes should get flat 2 damage spears.

Axes should go to flat 3 damage, still AP-2, but no penalty to hit, making them analogous to Thunder Hammers.

Fists are Flat 2 damage, at ap-4, but no penalty to hit.

I'm all kinds of down for my Telemon to have that kind of support. That, and the Achillus no longer degrading is nice to have.

If they do that and keep swords d3 I'd be pumped. I don't want my swordies to loose their danger factor. If they went to flat 1 they'd be practically worthless.

Just throwing this out there, what about a 2D3 Miseracordia strat or relic? I feel like we have these super special awesome totally not combat knives (Seriously don't even say that) and we never use them. I wish there was a way to make them viable and not broken.

well, thinking back to the conversation a few pages ago about how to make wardens more useful, i thought maybe some strats keyed off them specifically. i don't know, maybe a strat that turns their 6+ FNP into a 5+? or even a 4+ in a specific situation? something like

"when face to face and blade to blade with those that seek to kill the God-Emperor, the wardens iron will to fulfil their Oaths to the Emperor Himself lets them fight though wounds that would kill a mere astartes. the wardens Binding Oaths ability works on 5+ against melee attacks for this turn"

Just throwing this out there, what about a 2D3 Miseracordia strat or relic? I feel like we have these super special awesome totally not combat knives (Seriously don't even say that) and we never use them. I wish there was a way to make them viable and not broken.

its mentioned that the custodes have a habit/superstition of using their Miseracordia on chaos marines (page 20 of the current codex, Miseracordia box). maybe a bonus to Miseracordia attacks on Chaos keyworded units?

I dunno, I'm still a fan of making Wardens like a Hoplite unit. Spears and Shields. Screw their current "We're guardians but slightly tougher" schtick.

I wish our dreads hat obsec i would really like to play more of them.
I really hope all custodes units get obsec in the new codex since necrons can have it i don't see any reson why we can't and troops should count as 3 models.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I dunno, I'm still a fan of making Wardens like a Hoplite unit. Spears and Shields. Screw their current "We're guardians but slightly tougher" schtick.

As much as I'd love to have some space hoplites, they would have to redesign the weapons simply from a modelling perspective.
If you carry a shield and a spear, regardless whether you are a oiled up superhuman demigod or a normal bloke, you have to have the ability to grab the spear handle by the midsection to deliver an effective strike.
The guardian spears only have a handle right where the gun part of the spear starts and down near the pommel. If you were to model a warden in a classic hoplite pose, shield up and spear held over the shield, it wouldn't work. It would just look unbelievably stupid.

Now you can say, yeah it's a game where fungus people fight against bdsm elves...you just have to suspend your disbelief. But trust me, modeling a guardian spear with a shield would look really, really stupid in any action pose.

So yeah, simple solution. GW has to give us a new kit! Preferably a companion kit. You know the 300 guys that stand beside the emperor 24/7. Give them a new pole weapon option that can be used with a shield as well as some sort of special custodes power fist that can also be used with a shield. Problem solved....

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I dunno, I'm still a fan of making Wardens like a Hoplite unit. Spears and Shields. Screw their current "We're guardians but slightly tougher" schtick.

nice idea, but it would mean changing the current plastic kits for them, while invalidating the existing purchased models and any kits stockpiled at GW for sale, which adds a lot of expense to the equation. thats a hell of a hard sell, much easier to use a soft change like a strat to boost them than a hard change to the models. might be possible with a upgrade sprue like the GCS brood brothers one, or the various chapter specific "Upgrade" kits they did.

that, and if they have a shield in their off hand, how are they going to fire those their spears? the trigger is at the lower hand placement point.

You can effectively kitbash them easily. A simple google search revealed this.





It's pretty clear GW originally intended it to be possible.

Sure, only works in idle positions though, and they can't fire their spear, which is dumb even by 40k standards

Tiberias wrote:
Sure, only works in idle positions though, and they can't fire their spear, which is dumb even by 40k standards

Not sure what you mean by this? As in you can only model them in idle? Or the 12' super giant human is incapable of shooting it's fluff gun? I'm not sure where you are pointing the dumb sign at? It's literally a game of space soldiers of the space god. I'm sure we can fluff up the shooting of their space spears 1 handed.

Tiberias wrote:
Sure, only works in idle positions though, and they can't fire their spear, which is dumb even by 40k standards

The swords can be fired with one hand so it would only take a little remodeling to put the trigger to another position.

See my point is that when the spear is grabbed at the front and held above the shield like in the Pic it has basically the same reach as the sentinel blade. If it is grabbed in the back it would increase the reach but would look absolutely moronic.
Grabbing the spear by the midsection like in historic equivalents would be the optimal modeling choice, but that is not possible due to the design of the guardian spear.

maybe, but the other problem is that the guardian "spear" isnt actually very spear like. its much more of a glaive, or halberd, or bill hook (theirs a lot of historical names for fairly similar weapons, all of which would be fairly similar in actual use). Its not a stabbing weapon, which tend to have small, narrow heads to focus the energy behind the point to push through armour (like the lances on the jetbikes), much more of a cutting weapon, a axe on a stick (though obviously you can stab a bit with it, just its not designed for that as the main use), and every historical method of fighting with a glaive type weapon is two handed, to make proper use of the reach and to actually manoeuvre such a long weapon effectively. historical shield and spear armed people almost always used the spear to stab with.

I think you could effectively manage to wield the spear by the middle of the haft, as a stabbing or chopping weapon.

The other thing about making the shields usable by other models is that we can make all sorts of cool stratagems based off "shield combat".

1CP - Lock together - If two or more models in the unit have shields, they form an impenetrable wall of defense. Any models in this unit count as in dense cover if two or more models are equipped with shields.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think you could effectively manage to wield the spear by the middle of the haft, as a stabbing or chopping weapon.

The other thing about making the shields usable by other models is that we can make all sorts of cool stratagems based off "shield combat".

1CP - Lock together - If two or more models in the unit have shields, they form an impenetrable wall of defense. Any models in this unit count as in dense cover if two or more models are equipped with shields.

Sorry but how? In the midsection there is this wider are with the trigger, how would you even hold that?
Getting benefits based how your squad is equipped I really like. I proposed something similar some time ago but people didn't like the idea because custodes are described as singular warriors in the lore, everyone fighting for themselves. I personally like your idea though, not sure if dense cover is worth 1cp though.

See i'd like the "Hoplite Wardens" to get a spear thats like a shotgun or simply make it a pistol OR have them have a special like THERMAL lance that plants into an enemy and then explodes dealing 2d3 mortal wounds to that squad and every squad within 3 inches of it. They could have ability called "Shields Held High" that protects them from explosive damage from vehicles/explosives.

Tiberias wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think you could effectively manage to wield the spear by the middle of the haft, as a stabbing or chopping weapon.

The other thing about making the shields usable by other models is that we can make all sorts of cool stratagems based off "shield combat".

1CP - Lock together - If two or more models in the unit have shields, they form an impenetrable wall of defense. Any models in this unit count as in dense cover if two or more models are equipped with shields.

Sorry but how? In the midsection there is this wider are with the trigger, how would you even hold that?
Getting benefits based how your squad is equipped I really like. I proposed something similar some time ago but people didn't like the idea because custodes are described as singular warriors in the lore, everyone fighting for themselves. I personally like your idea though, not sure if dense cover is worth 1cp though.

Considering a Shielded Guardian is already 1+3++, it would make them effectively able to negate anything less than a Melta/Lascannon shot to the face. Which is slightly hilarious.

I don't think we need more durability right now. The buffs to our storm shields right now, make that good.
Right now our issue is more the reliance on that blasted d3 damage roll everywhere. Moving away from that, and into a more consistent state, is a good thing. (Also means, less dice rolling in the game)

I guess my concern is what is the "flat damage" rate for the individual weapons where they still maintain some distinctness?

Do spears, axes, swords, and lances all do flat 2 damage? Certainly axes and spears should do more than spears and swords?

Maybe D+1 on the charge?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I guess my concern is what is the "flat damage" rate for the individual weapons where they still maintain some distinctness?

Do spears, axes, swords, and lances all do flat 2 damage? Certainly axes and spears should do more than spears and swords?

Maybe D+1 on the charge?

I think, like power weapons, we can distinguish with stats other than damage. Make them all flat 2. Swords are S+1 AP-3, spears S+2 AP-2 and axes S+3 and AP-1.

That makes no sense, that an axe is worse at chopping through armor than a sword. I'd say reverse all those APs and you have it.

Audustum wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I guess my concern is what is the "flat damage" rate for the individual weapons where they still maintain some distinctness?

Do spears, axes, swords, and lances all do flat 2 damage? Certainly axes and spears should do more than spears and swords?

Maybe D+1 on the charge?

I think, like power weapons, we can distinguish with stats other than damage. Make them all flat 2. Swords are S+1 AP-3, spears S+2 AP-2 and axes S+3 and AP-1.

I agree with you in general, but I think you can distinguish them even more without just relying on chaning AP and S around. Everybody says our sentinel blades need to get S+1 to be in line with space marine power swords, but I disagree that you can only bring our power swords in line by giving them S+1. We are already S5 base, which is a sweet spot as we all know, so you could instead do something like this:

Sentinel Blade:
S user; AP-3; D D3 abilities: every time the bearer fights he can make d3 additional attacks with this weapon.
What this would do is make our sword and board guards into a mini galatus. Yes the dmg is only D3, but the swords arent our main damage dealers anyway, and giving them more attacks would give them an additional role other than just being tough: clearing hordes.

Give the Spear S +2; AP -3 and flat 2 dmg and were golden. I'd personally even go further and give the spear two profiles, one with high strength and damage and one with more attacks, but that won't ever happen probably.

To make the axes feel more special I'd give them S +3;AP-2 and flat 2 dmg, but on the charge I'd change it to S x2 and damage D3+1.

That way our 3 weapon option all can fill a specific role and feel more unique in comparison.

It's funny, everyone is always trying to add attack profiles to our weapons. Swords shouldn't be great at clearing hordes, They already get pistol attacks and melee attacks in combat, they are insane as they are for hordes.

Your problem with the axe is it's going to completely invalidate bikes for attacking big things? One thing I love about my Custodes is they each have a purpose. The bikes are for hordes or big targets, the Terminators/wardens are for Big things and characters, the Guardians are the objective holders. The FW is just there for cheese.

I say keep the axes S+3 but make them AP4 3 damage, and bump the cost to 15. Make the spears 10 points and S+2 ap3 d2. Make swords S+1 AP2 D2. with a shooting profile that does S5 AP1 d2 per shot = cost 5

Biker spears leave as is.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
It's funny, everyone is always trying to add attack profiles to our weapons. Swords shouldn't be great at clearing hordes, They already get pistol attacks and melee attacks in combat, they are insane as they are for hordes.

Your problem with the axe is it's going to completely invalidate bikes for attacking big things? One thing I love about my Custodes is they each have a purpose. The bikes are for hordes or big targets, the Terminators/wardens are for Big things and characters, the Guardians are the objective holders. The FW is just there for cheese.

I say keep the axes S+3 but make them AP4 3 damage, and bump the cost to 15. Make the spears 10 points and S+2 ap3 d2. Make swords S+1 AP2 D2. with a shooting profile that does S5 AP1 d2 per shot = cost 5

Biker spears leave as is.

I think we just kind of have to disagree there. I would not consider them insane against hordes as they are.
Giving the axes Ap -4 would make allarus contest even more with aquilon and maybe even push them out of viability, which is never a good thing. I think the axes having AP -2 is a good thing.
Giving the axes more strength on the charge and the potential of more dmg with d3+1 would not invalidate bikes in my opinion. The bikes speed and toughness is their main asset in comparison, as well as their re-roll wounds on the charge. No unit would lose its purpose with those changes, it would open up new niches.

So a Custodes Guardian squad with swords, shields, and misers, gets in combat:

6 pistol shots at S4 AP0 D1 (Meh but still) 9x attacks at S5 AP3 D3, and 3 attack at S5 AP 2 D1.

That's still 18 attacks in combat, if they have a flag they get another 3x sword attacks. That is insane for 150ish points per squad against most "hordes" which are usually T3/4 1W.

Toss in Superior Fire patterns and that's now 12 pistol shots. Make it a unit of 5 and give them BL Vets, then any 6s auto wound. We really don't have the horde problem we think we do.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
That makes no sense, that an axe is worse at chopping through armor than a sword. I'd say reverse all those APs and you have it.

Haha, I just copied what GW does for power. So, you know, GW logic.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
That makes no sense, that an axe is worse at chopping through armor than a sword. I'd say reverse all those APs and you have it.

maybe*, but we arent trying to model reality, but are trying to create a viable niche for every weapon to sit in. having the big axes give high str bonus but poorer AP, and he swords a low str bonus but better AP, with the spear as a "happy medium", creates a range of options that work better against different targets, giving you choices in your selection.

xerxeskingofking wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
That makes no sense, that an axe is worse at chopping through armor than a sword. I'd say reverse all those APs and you have it.

maybe*, but we arent trying to model reality, but are trying to create a viable niche for every weapon to sit in. having the big axes give high str bonus but poorer AP, and he swords a low str bonus but better AP, with the spear as a "happy medium", creates a range of options that work better against different targets, giving you choices in your selection.

^this basically.