Codex Adeptus Custodes: By His will alone

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**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Just out of curiosity, what does a DA Bike captain with SS/TH cost? That's the closest model I can think of for stats.

**xerxeskingofking**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Just out of curiosity, what does a DA Bike captain with SS/TH cost? That's the closest model I can think of for stats.

i dont know, i cant find something like that, as the Master of the Ravenwing (ie the captain of the 2nd company of the Dark Angels) is the named character Samael on his special jetbike, and costs 150pts. (t5, w6, 3+, for the record).

a generic Codex: space marine captain on a bike, with SS/TH is 100pts base, plus 20 for the TH and 10 for the SS, so 130pts.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Right, and a TH hits at S8 ap3 d4, where a lance only hits s6, and ap1 dd3. Hardly the same. Our saves are much better though. Hard to justify the bikes costing less?

**JNAProductions**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Right, and a TH hits at S8 ap3 d4, where a lance only hits s6, and ap1 dd3. Hardly the same. Our saves are much better though. Hard to justify the bikes costing less?

AP-2 D3. AP-3 during Assault Doctrine.

**xerxeskingofking**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Right, and a TH hits at S8 ap3 d4, where a lance only hits s6, and ap1 dd3. Hardly the same. Our saves are much better though. Hard to justify the bikes costing less?

yhea, but we have to un-entangle how much of that cost is his captains auras/abilities, "look out sir" character protection, etc, and how much is for the statline, and how much that is worth to a theoretical space marine army. So, its still something of a apples to oranges comparison

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

I thought all thunder hammers were flat 4 now? Is that not a thing? I will admit I am not 100% on all the minutia, but I could have sworn they were flat 4 damage?

Anyway, Would Assault Marine LTs be better? I think our "Re-roll wounds on charge" would offset re-roll 1s by captain, which he can't get anyway, as he's not a Chapter Master.

So I think either a smash captain with TH/SS or a Bike Captain with same is likely our closest competitor to Vertus Praetor. But are we looking at this the wrong direction? Instead of model then up, why not go Character and down. Start with SC on Bike, and once we have that pointed, go from there.

I'll start, SC on bikes with just lance and HB-110 points. Missiles are an extra 5. Miser is 3. (fully expecting a buff to salvo launcher)

**JNAProductions**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I thought all thunder hammers were flat 4 now? Is that not a thing? I will admit I am not 100% on all the minutia, but I could have sworn they were flat 4 damage?

Anyway, Would Assault Marine LTs be better? I think our "Re-roll wounds on charge" would offset re-roll 1s by captain, which he can't get anyway, as he's not a Chapter Master.

So I think either a smash captain with TH/SS or a Bike Captain with same is likely our closest competitor to Vertus Praetor. But are we looking at this the wrong direction? Instead of model then up, why not go Character and down. Start with SC on Bike, and once we have that pointed, go from there.

I'll start, SC on bikes with just lance and HB-110 points. Missiles are an extra 5. Miser is 3. (fully expecting a buff to salvo launcher)

Heavy Thunder Hammers are flat 4.

Regular Thunder Hammers are still 3, and lost AP.

**Thairne**

I think comparing bikes to TWC is a rather close comparison.

Thunderwulves with TH/SS are:

2+/4++ T5 4W 2A 10" move, advance and charge
If they get the charge, they hit on 3s with Thunderhammers, get 1A and add the attacks from the wolves.
If in assault doctrine, they're even nastier with S8 -3 D3 - which explode on 6s!

2+/4++ T5 4W 3A 10", advance and charge
3 S8 -3 D3 on 3+ at least
3 S5 -3 D1 on 3+ at least

Cost: 65 pts

Plus the multitude of buffs you can pile on with chaplains and wolf priest and charge re-roll auras.

Compared to a Vertus Praetor:
2+/4++ T6 4W 4A 14"
4 S6 -3 DD3, reroll wounds on charge

Saves are the same, wounds are the same, in effect 2 less attacks, 1 more T and 4" movement and autoadvance 6" - but cannot advance and charge.
The attacks are of inferior quantity and quality and there's basically no way of buffing them up, except RR1 for the hit rolls.

Cost: 85 pts

Now is less and worse attacks, not being able to advance and charge, more movement and the inconsequential T6 worth 20 pts? I think not.

TWC are like a tactical nuke. They're fast, durable and kill whatever they come in contact with.
Bikes are the same, but way less offensive power at a higher price.

Therefore I would propose to make them just as deadly, if not more, in melee.
5A, D3 lances.
Advance and charge, fall back and shoot/charge
make the weapons assault.

The flak missile is terrible against anything but...uh... pteraxii? and is a non-factor currently. That one needs help.

**mrhappyface**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I'll start, SC on bikes with just lance and HB-110 points. Missiles are an extra 5. Miser is 3. (fully expecting a buff to salvo launcher)

So right now a Raven Wing Chapter Master on Bike with a 2+/4++/5+++ save, -1 to hit Warlord Trait, can only be wounded on a 4+ and a Thunder Hammer is 190pts.

This has 1 less wound (unless you take captain commander, then it's 3 less wounds), 1 less toughness, and a worse invul save than a Shield Captain. It can't be wounded as easy with high strength weapons and has a -1 to hit. So I'd say comparable survivability.

If the Shield Captain charged the Smash Captain he would do around 1.5 wounds to him.
If the Smash Captain charged our Shield Captain he would do around 2 wounds to him.
This is without spending any stratagems since I don't know what a Raven Wing Captain has access to.

Making the Shield Captain 80pts cheaper than that is a bit too much I'd wager. 175pts for our Captains is fine as is, especially if you plan to give Custodes bikes extra rules.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Thairne wrote:
I think comparing bikes to TWC is a rather close comparison.

Thunderwulves with TH/SS are:

2+/4++ T5 4W 2A 10" move, advance and charge
If they get the charge, they hit on 3s with Thunderhammers, get 1A and add the attacks from the wolves.
If in assault doctrine, they're even nastier with S8 -3 D3 - which explode on 6s!

2+/4++ T5 4W 3A 10", advance and charge
3 S8 -3 D3 on 3+ at least
3 S5 -3 D1 on 3+ at least

Cost: 65 pts

Plus the multitude of buffs you can pile on with chaplains and wolf priest and charge re-roll auras.

Compared to a Vertus Praetor:
2+/4++ T6 4W 4A 14"
4 S6 -3 DD3, reroll wounds on charge

Saves are the same, wounds are the same, in effect 2 less attacks, 1 more T and 4" movement and autoadvance 6" - but cannot advance and charge.
The attacks are of inferior quantity and quality and there's basically no way of buffing them up, except RR1 for the hit rolls.

Cost: 85 pts

Now is less and worse attacks, not being able to advance and charge, more movement and the inconsequential T6 worth 20 pts? I think not.

TWC are like a tactical nuke. They're fast, durable and kill whatever they come in contact with.
Bikes are the same, but way less offensive power at a higher price.

Therefore I would propose to make them just as deadly, if not more, in melee.
5A, D3 lances.
Advance and charge, fall back and shoot/charge
make the weapons assault.

The flak missile is terrible against anything but...uh... pteraxii? and is a non-factor currently. That one needs help.

What we really need is a faction wide nerf of everything that got its codex so far, stop the codex creep rather than adding to it. Cause that's gonna happen is 40k will need gutting again after the ridiculousness has gotten too much.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

I say make it heavy 2 for S8 ap4 4 damage, or heavy 2d6 for s6 ap2 d1. make it an assault launcher with the ability to actually deliver AT rounds.

**Thairne**

@mrhappyface
you and me both know that aint happening. Jump the creeptrain till the next reset or be run over.

@fezzikDaBulgryn
pls no random shots. There is enough variation and rolling snake eyes or low means you basically dont get a shooting phase.

**mrhappyface**

Thairne wrote:
@mrhappyface
you and me both know that aint happening. Jump the creeptrain till the next reset or be run over.

I can dream

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

Quote from Tien Shin Han, DBZA, "The fact that you have any hope left at all, is your most admirable quality."

But honestly, how do you balance Custodes without making them broken? We already pay more than anyone in the game for our base units, our sisters are essentially BL exclusive grade, we have a single named character that isn't hot garbage, and out units ride the line between broken and pointless. I hate to say this, but we need better Forgeworld stuff, if GW can't/Won't engage. Make a Venetari SC. Make a Venerable Telemon, I don't know. Give us some form of FW level silliness like a Dakka boat LR that makes the Repulsor look like a Salamander.

**stratigo**

Tiberias wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I really just need to know how GW plans on keeping up with the power creep when it gets to us. We can't suddenly become S/T:6. Even another wound wouldn't really fix the issues with us. It's either damage, which might have to be pretty insane, in which case we would be broken, or it's just flat out survivability, in which case our games become sit on OBJectives and don't die, which I feel is boring. I don't want to get off into wishlisting, but I feel several people have stated numerous times of making out spears and axes a multi-profile weapon, and I think that's a good direction. I didn't before, but now that everyone has some sort of it, I say why not? Then how do we deal with MW spam. We have to be able to take Sisters in a more meaningful capacity. By which I mean their survivability. Give them an invuln when within 6" of a Custodes SC?

We talked about this fezzik, rather extensively and in multiple threads even. We won't be S/T 6 as you said quite correctly, but our troops going to 4wounds and terminators/bikes going to 5wound would actually be big. It makes a lot of weapons less efficient against as and is also an increase in general survivability against masses small arms fire.

Mortal wounds is an issue, I'm not sure how to fix it, a 5+++ against any mortal wound just might be too good...but I'm not sure. Even if we only get a 6+++ against mortals, it has to be in all phases, not only the psychic phase. On the other hand I fell it has to be said that mortal wounds being a counter to custodes is not by itself a bad thing. We can't be amazing against everything, but it must not be oppressive against us, so if the damage and mortal wound creep continues and most armies can dish out a bunch of mortal wounds each turn, then imo a general 5+++ against mortals for our guys is warranted.

I advocated for multiple weapon profiles for a long time, but I am not very optimistic, that we will actually get them. It would be a very nice design space though, to show that our guys are martial paragons.

And yeah, sisters need to bring more to the table, I'm not sure an invuln would do the trick, but I'm definitely not against it.....like you said, give them a 5++ when they are within 6" of an adeptus custodes unit or something. Would be a nice rule representation of the talons fighting alongside each other.

Edit: maybe also give custodes a benefit when being within 6" of a sisters unit. Idk, like improving their feelnopain against mortal wounds or something.

I mean, incubi trash custodes units so hard it isn't even really funny, so multiweapon profiles might be a thing.

**yukishiro1**

-1D would have been pretty obvious, but DG already has it. Permanent transhuman is another possibility, but DA has that.

One interesting thing you could do that would be a bit different is: each time a custodes unit takes damage per phase, the first point of damage (including MWs) taken per model is entirely ignored, absorbed by the armor and/or shrugged off by the Custodian's incredible physiology. This would make custodes very resilient to chip damage, but comparatively vulnerable to massed damage, which feels like it matches the lore and creates interesting incentives. It's a little clunky, but not that clunky, since you have to keep assigning hits till the end of the phase on the same model till it's dead, so it's unlikely to be difficult to remember whether a given model has already taken a point of damage or not.

**Tiberias**

yukishiro1 wrote:
-1D would have been pretty obvious, but DG already has it. Permanent transhuman is another possibility, but DA has that.

One interesting thing you could do that would be a bit different is: each time a custodes unit takes damage per phase, the first point of damage (including MWs) taken per model is entirely ignored, absorbed by the armor and/or shrugged off by the Custodian's incredible physiology. This would make custodes very resilient to chip damage, but comparatively vulnerable to massed damage, which feels like it matches the lore and creates interesting incentives. It's a little clunky, but not that clunky, since you have to keep assigning hits till the end of the phase on the same model till it's dead, so it's unlikely to be difficult to remember whether a given model has already taken a point of damage or not.

So that ignored dmg is not one per phase and entire unit, but one per model in the unit? I like that idea in general, but it is a bit clunky..aybe too clunky for gw to go for thst

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

I hate to say this, but aside from sweeping attack profiles, and extra wounds, I don't really expect much. Although I do like the thread in the proposed rules, where someone suggested a pre-game strat to make sisters troops and give them Obsec and an invuln.

**Tiberias**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I hate to say this, but aside from sweeping attack profiles, and extra wounds, I don't really expect much. Although I do like the thread in the proposed rules, where someone suggested a pre-game strat to make sisters troops and give them Obsec and an invuln.

Eh, it's all speculation and wishlisting at this point. I think GW will throw us a bone.

**xerxeskingofking**

Tiberias wrote:
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I hate to say this, but aside from sweeping attack profiles, and extra wounds, I don't really expect much. Although I do like the thread in the proposed rules, where someone suggested a pre-game strat to make sisters troops and give them Obsec and an invuln.

Eh, it's all speculation and wishlisting at this point. I think GW will throw us a bone.

eventually, but i dont expect to get a new codex this year, frankly, even if their are no more holdups.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

I don't see how we are supposed to even have a fun game, the way Deldar are shaping up. They carve through us like butter, and that's not "Fezzik being hyperbolic" it's kinda hilarious.

**Tiberias**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I don't see how we are supposed to even have a fun game, the way Deldar are shaping up. They carve through us like butter, and that's not "Fezzik being hyperbolic" it's kinda hilarious.

Dark Eldar are a big problem for us, absolutely. Maybe we can take solace in the fact that they carve through everyone else also....shared suffering and all that

**mrhappyface**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I don't see how we are supposed to even have a fun game, the way Deldar are shaping up. They carve through us like butter, and that's not "Fezzik being hyperbolic" it's kinda hilarious.

That's not a Custodes problem though, that's a "GW accidentally knocking the whole container of power creep into one army" problem and it's affecting everyone: everyone is getting gak on by DEldar. I imagine that with the massive community backlash DEldar will get nerf hammered.

Then we can go back to grumbling about our usual gripes.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

I honestly wonder if giving spears or Axes better shooting wouldn't be amiss. Making them all assault 4, and pistol 3 in the case of swords. I also think we can make Miser's a bit more attractive by making them ignore invuln saves.

**cuda1179**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I honestly wonder if giving spears or Axes better shooting wouldn't be amiss. Making them all assault 4, and pistol 3 in the case of swords. I also think we can make Miser's a bit more attractive by making them ignore invuln saves.

I agree with increasing the shooting profiles. I like Swords at pistol3, but I think I'd prefer spears to be Rapid Fire 2, just to keep them from OP levels.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

I mean, if they keep their Relic Bolter damage, that's still 8 potential wounds for a target? Terminators with spears would be able to 1 round most T4 characters without even trying.

**iGuy91**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I mean, if they keep their Relic Bolter damage, that's still 8 potential wounds for a target? Terminators with spears would be able to 1 round most T4 characters without even trying.

Considering a certain codex has a 65 point character that will 1 round almost anything in any army, meh?
I'd say Spears Axes go to 24" Rapid Fire 2, or Assault 3, AP-1, d2 and call it a day.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

I mean, if we go by that metric, we will all end up broken. We can't base ourselves off one broken faction. It's the same with the Knights of 8th. Everything became (Must be able to kill a knight in one turn) or else it was crap. I'm fine with Assault bolters, or better yet, double shooting if the unit remains stationairy. Make it Assault 3 or assault 6 if not moving during the entire turn.

**Eihnlazer**

So yeah, the Dallas Open proved without a doubt the Drukari problem.

I faced John Lennon in round 4 and there was litterally nothing i could have done to win that game except for rolling only 5's and 6's the whole time.

I actually held him to 10 primary and 4 data intercept for the first 2 turns of the game.

Then he went super saiyan and score 57 points on turns 3 and 4 by basically tabling me and litterally charging from his deployment zone to my backfield objectives in said 2 turns, on foot, because i had destroyed or crippled all his raiders.

Our faction cannot beat them if they are piloted by a competent player. I find that pretty sickinging as far as a competitive player.

There are pretty much only 3-5 lists that have the edge up on Drukari, and most of those are countered out by marines or chaos (so unlikely to knock out stuff on top tables unless lucky with matchups).

We'll see if anything happens, but atm im just glad i went 5/1/2 and got a good chunk of points for faction.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

This is exactly why I want to buff bikes. I feel like a all Bike list is the perfect foil to so much of what Drukhari are. Super fast, hard hitting Elite units zooming all over. I was thinking, what about a 2cp strat to allow character targeting for any unit for an entire round?

**mrhappyface**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
This is exactly why I want to buff bikes. I feel like a all Bike list is the perfect foil to so much of what Drukhari are. Super fast, hard hitting Elite units zooming all over. I was thinking, what about a 2cp strat to allow character targeting for any unit for an entire round?

So 2CP to delete an enemy character? Not a fan.