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If 9th hits us like it's hit most factions, we will see a massive uptick in damage, and a lowering of costs. Followed almost two weeks later by a reversal and a return to pre-9th codex levels of normality.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If 9th hits us like it's hit most factions, we will see a massive uptick in damage, and a lowering of costs. Followed almost two weeks later by a reversal and a return to pre-9th codex levels of normality.

Yeah, this will happen, so let's all make sure to make the most of those 2 weeks and curb stomp our way to greatness!!

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If you only have 15 troops and a Telemon, That should be enough to make at least a Battalion, 3x3 for troops, 3x Shield Captains, and a Heavy Slot for the Telemon. That's practically a good 2k list right there if you go out and buy a pack of bikes. That's a damn good starter lists for TAC, or just having a good time at your local scene. If you are looking to upgrade:

Don't. Not until the new book drops. Just my own personal advice, but I refuse to give GW any more money until they clearly lay out what my faction will look like for the next few-years at least. Obviously there is likely going to be a Day-1 FAQ, or a week-1 FAQ, but I don't expect GW to drop a ton of radical changes on us; i.e, giving us psykers or making us use the silly phase system.

But they have been known to outright KILL certain units with point cost raises, or just move things to Legends (IE remove them from the store, thus play). We are a fairly new faction so I don't see us losing anything, but they could suddenly decide to make Shields 15 points, which would kill a lot of lists, or make Bike Bolters cost 10 points, and Missiles 20. That would effectively kill bikes.

Don't buy anything until the books drop. Or at least two weeks AFTER the book drops.

I appreciate your advice, but I'm not new to GW/40k

My friend has a 3D printer so all of my minis are 3rd party and quite cheap. So none of the money goes to GW. I do plan to magnetize the arms on the Guardians in case I want to change the weapons with the new book.

I have 30 models that would work for Custodes (I just need to print Custodes weapons for them). Then I have 1 model that is the appropriate size for the Telemon dread and sort of has the correct weapons (chainfist, gatling gun, and twin cannon) but I plan to reprint the weapon/arms to more appropriately represent the Telemon's weapons (power fist, plasma-flamer, and twin cannon that replaces the arm instead of attaches to it).

I'm actually quite excited for the force I'll be putting together! Even though it's sure to change by December, it'll still be fun by then and I'm hoping to magnetize a lot of the stuff just in case. I'm going to print a Galatus and an Achillus, magnetize their arms, and print double the weapons so I can field 2 of either or 1 of each.

Thanks to all of the help I got on here, this is what I'm planning to run (I have a 1k game against my friend's Dark Eldar or Space Wolves this Sunday):

1k:

Shield-Captain on Jetbike w/ Indomitable Constitution, Eagle's Eye, Radiant Mantle
3x3 Guardians w/ Shields & Swords
Achillus w/ Eternal Penitent, x2 Destructors
3 Venatari w/ Destroyers, Bucklers, Misericordias

And then the full 2k list:

Shield-Captain on Jetbike w/ Indomitable Constitution, Eagle's Eye, Radiant Mantle
Shield-Captain in Allarus Armor w/ Axe
3x5 Guardians w/ Shields & Swords
Achillus w/ x2 Destructors
Galatus w/ Eternal Penitent
Praetor w/ Spear, Vexilla Magnifica, Sally Forth
3 Venatari w/ Destroyers, Bucklers
Telemon w/ Caestus, Storm Cannon

We aren't going far in 9th, I'm afraid that DE are still too powerful against us. Also, we have almost zero anti-horde except for bikes, and that is still overpriced and won't earn points back. It's all down to if GW gives us something unreal for the LT's litany ability. Something that knocks down Invulns, or removes Obsec. Otherwise we still get stomped out by hordes and Psykers, which is really odd, because they are combining us with a psyker heavy horde army in the box set.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
We aren't going far in 9th, I'm afraid that DE are still too powerful against us. Also, we have almost zero anti-horde except for bikes, and that is still overpriced and won't earn points back. It's all down to if GW gives us something unreal for the LT's litany ability. Something that knocks down Invulns, or removes Obsec. Otherwise we still get stomped out by hordes and Psykers, which is really odd, because they are combining us with a psyker heavy horde army in the box set.

Oh stop bering so gloomy all the time, first you didn't believe that we'll get a 9th ed codex at all and now you project that we'll suck even after the new codex. Just try to wait until december and if we truly get a bad codex, I'll join you in venting about how bad we are. Btw dark eldar isn't even such a terrible matchup for us.

I'm not worried about a BAD codex, I'm literally worried about a GOOD codex. We are already a top 5 faction in the game. You give us a DE or Ad Mech codex, and suddenly everyone is howling about how broken we are, and I can't even buy a codex because it's on back order for the next months. Which again, leads me back to my main point, don't buy the codex. I am personally going to buy models, and sell the book to whoever wants it. Models don't get invalidated in a Day/week 1 faq. I just like my shiney golden guys, I don't buy anything anymore that will be invalid in a short ammount of time anyway, and can all be read for free on the internet, or Battlescribe. Even the lore and art in the new books, which used to be the only reason I bought them, is going away these days.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Even the lore and art in the new books, which used to be the only reason I bought them, is going away these days.

I know :( it's such a disappointment. But, on the plus side, since I returned to 40k I haven't bought a single codex. They're super easy to download online as a pdf, and, like you said, Battescribe provides almost all of the rules you'd need to actually play.

So just got back from New Orleans GT and took a nap.

Tournament was great, and i really like the way they did the brackets. More people get games against similar skill levels and there were alot more close games overall. Theres also a winner for every bracket so more prizes getting given out.

Its also nice to go to the GW events because you know they will have promotional mini's to give out and they always have FW stock to sell. I picked up a FW jetbike which i will use to make a new Captain Commander on bike model.

I had some really close games over the whole tournament, with only one blowout game against a poor marine player with mixed chapters. He was a nice guy but you could tell he doesnt play competitively often. It was my only 100pt game.

I went 4/2 over the first two days with games as follows:
Game 1 vs Greyknights. I won this, because as I thought, grey knights that arent spamming dreadnights are no problem for custodes. The strike squads and purifiers die far too easy to our attacks and my opponent had opted to use his numerous psychic activations to score his custom secondary instead of smite me.

Game 2 vs Space Wolves. I lost this one. Space wolves arent the most powerful marines, but they get so much extra movement that its hard to hold them back. It didnt help that he made like 5 10" charges into me. Was still a close game.

Game 3 vs Deathwatch. I won this one. Justins list was pretty good, but deatwatch are on the downhill vs custodes. His dreads did work, but not much of the rest of his army unfortunately.

Game 4 vs. Dark angels. I lost this one. Ian had a well built force using both ravenwing and deathwing. Almost unkillable TTL units, a free 15 point faction secondary, and some fast hard hitting units make for a very strong army (who woulda thought). I did roll pretty bad for this, having my 6 venetari come down and kill only 1 and a half of the plasma bikes (ooooph) and trajann dying on overwatch to his talonmaster ~)~.

game 5 vs custodes. I won this one. Ahh first mirror match vs a custodes player at a GT. He stated ahead of time that he was just using models he owned and boy were they beautiful. Way better paint job than my dudes. This was a fun game, and I could have lost due to a bad charge roll early on, but I managed to take control of the board and pull it off. Bad charge rolls are a trend for me (its why i dont play dread host).

Game 6 vs mixed marines. I won this. This game was a feels bad for me. Charles was a very nice guy, but he was running mixed chapter templars and imperial fists. Mostly tac marines with a scout squad and some characters. Had a contemptor with fist and twin bolter and a leviathan with double melee. He kept me off the midboard well with the dreads but I mostly tabled him by the end of the game. My only 100pt game.

Game 7 vs Deathguard. I lost this (of course). This was the first game on sunday and it was a bad luck matchup. Not only death guard, but priority targets. I think i played well as the game basically just game down to 1 or 2 dice rolls. He rolled a 6 to advance his one remaining terminator behind a wall which probably won him the game as it ended at 82-80 and that one hurt termy was a TTL target. Any shorter and I would have killed that termy.

Wife was getting pretty tired of the games and wanted to go home, plus i was out of the winnings so I dropped and missed out on game 8.

Had a blast though.

329 BP 4/2 record for the 6 round GT, then 277BP 2/2 for the 4 game final bracket cause i dropped last game. If i had played round 8 I probably would have gotten second best custodes player at the tourny, which isnt bad as there were like 10 custodes players there including some big names.

So everybody is playing dreads these days, me too, but I feel the urge to make a 100 percent infantry list.

something like:

trajan
bike cap
3x3 saggitarum
4x guards
5x guards
6x allarus
vex
5xprosecutors

maybe go from shadow keepers to the sally forth host to get more mobility.

I'll go mastermind on the bike cap to start at 11 cp, produce 2 each turn and have moment shackle for the free vex teleport. Should be able to run most of the good strats every turn.

seems like it would do super good on primaries and secondaries could be to the last, stranglehold and a matchup dependent.

Only problem should be tanks. theres no anti-armor shooting, so I'd have to axe stuff like plague burst crawlers to pieces.

could such a list be viable? I mean, I win a lot with the dreads, but vs some armies I find it very hard to score primaries.

any experience with infantry heavy custodes lists?

Full infantry spam is very competitive atm, but your basically delegated to taking 3, 5 man sword and board squads for TTL, then 4 more 3 man squads to run around and grab objectives/raise banners. Also take the magnifica with the E. Imperatus WL trait for extended range on the banner.

After that i'd go with a basic sword and board cap with the CP refund trait and psychic deny, and trajann.

Any remaining points can be on some sagg guard or mabey a pallas or 2 for some speed.


Or alternatively, make trajann your WL and take some SoS for psychic defence.

ah, ok. So you would go full 3++ as the main theme? no saggitarums. its all about footslogging up and sitting on objectives. if they want to kick you off they'll have to come get it.

Still 5-6 allarus, though, right? I Mean, we need to have a heavy threat.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also, that 5-6 man Termie unit would allow for one less 5man board n sword in regards to TTL, right? Also, do I want MSU for this or big blobs? it seems you prefer big blobs?

Heres the actual list I would run if i was Try-harding in a 3 round RTT or playing some TTS tourny.

Wow! so cool. exactly what I wanted to see.

a few questions:

- Then you say the eversor is a horde counter I guess you're thinking of the killing rampage ability, right? so he can typically kill 10ish chaff models each turn, right?

- what exactly is the vindicares role?

- With no access to the +1 to wound strat due to all swords and no axes (except for Trajans) your max strength in this army is 5. Does this mean you dont really try hard to kill stuff except for opponents obsec units with this? its basically a game of positioning and rolling 3++ saves, right? I love the tactics of such a build but I could see some trouble with it too.

- I only have 10 sisters, so I could see my selv swopping one of the squads (and 2 models in the other two) to upgrade a 5man to 5allarus. Or maybe try to get the points to get a second vex. the plus 1a would be so cool imo as sword n board dudes are actually not very scary. would any of those changes make sense or would they destroy the concept of the army?

You still do have a +1 to wound strat with Slayer of Knightmares, but dont try to do too much with it. I'd only use it into models with a 5++ or worse.

Your CP is almost always going to be on rerolling saves, tanglefoot, Emporer's Auspice, and Arcane Genetic Alchemy.

Vindicare is great against armies with alot of deadly infantry. He also actually helps alot against stuff like hive tyrants and deamon princes since he gets turbo penetrator round.

Eversor is definately the guy you want to take out small 5-10 man chump units that are holding a backfield objective.

Take the allarus if you really want, but if you do i'd just unleash the lions on turn one and use them to hold your backfield objectives and screen for you. They are easier to kill than you think.

yeah, they are. I totally agree. lions t1 is pretty brillant. never thought of that. Thing is, I love to advance deep and export them in to smash a key thing t2. then he HAS to dedicate a round of shooting on them, and between auspice and transhiman they usually dont all die. From there on you can get a mother target in his zone or lions for harder target choices for the opponent.

This buys me time to move the rest of the army uinto a winnin position. I know this is not a brilliant move. its actually pretty prosaic and very basic. but its just so powerful. in my experience No army can ignore 6 allarus in the backfield. But maybe its for another build.

I honestly don't understand people who use the lions strat. It's like why even pay for the unit if you are going to reduce it's effectiveness by making it a fraction of what it's supposed to be, and basically a easy to kill 4 wound 75 point objective holder? Nah, I'll pay double and just use the 150 point shield squad that's almost impossible to move.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I honestly don't understand people who use the lions strat. It's like why even pay for the unit if you are going to reduce it's effectiveness by making it a fraction of what it's supposed to be, and basically a easy to kill 4 wound 75 point objective holder? Nah, I'll pay double and just use the 150 point shield squad that's almost impossible to move.

Well it depends on the situation and what faction you are facing I guess. Having 5 singular terminators can force your opponent to overcommit their shooting assets to kill one terminator at a time instead of dumping all shooting into one big, juicy squad.

Quick interlude - whats the current take on the Calladius?
While its by far not as durable as a Telemon... I fought a Tyranid list that can easily swamp you in bodies, even at 1500 pts. 80+ obsec plus a swarm of genestealers make it tough.
One needs all the anti horde shooting one can get and the calladius has the added benefit of being able to really hurt big nids too.

For 205 pts he's not SUPER efficient, but quite versatile.

The caladius is fine atm, but remember it doesnt have core so when we get our new Dex its loosing re-rolls.

What I dont like atm is that they took away our -2 to charge on the tanks, but didnt give us the repulsor strat for the -2 back.

Also, since we are loosing re-rolls, when we get our new codex it will need a buff or a points reduction. Especially the blaze cannon. Compare it to admech chickens and you see how grossly overcosted it is.

Until we get our new codex they are perfectly fine though. Just remember the weakness's. Autocannon is bad against deathguard and new orks, blaze cannon is bad against invuns.

Im playing vs. Necrons tomorrow in a warm up game for an upcoming tourney.

The list has 2x4 vertus preators as we dont have admech or darklances In our local meta.

Trajan
Bike cap
2x3 saggitarum
3x sword n board
2x galatus
2x5 prosecutors
2x4 bikes. One squad bolters, one salvo.

Thing is I have no clue On how to Approach the matchup. I’ve played vs them with marines and I can’t see how custodies can beat them. We don’t have the volume of shots or melee attacks to take out a complete warrior blob easily.

My prediction is he putts 20 warriors on each mid field obj and buffs one for 5++ and 4+ reanimate. Then the rest of his army just shoots it out with me.

I guess my plan is to lure him forward and hope i Can isolate something and kill it. Then maybe try to contest an objective somewhere.

I could also try to just spearhead him. Go hard for the center and block it out with bodies and big bases so he can’t flood it with regenerating obsec. But that seems rather impossible.

Any tips?

A squad of bolter bikes with trajann rerolls will likely kill alot of them and can kill a whole squad if they also get the charge.

48 shots hitting on 2's with rerolls is only 2 miss's on average and then 25 wounds. So your killing about 8 after reanimates. Then you charge and kill the other 12.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
The caladius is fine atm, but remember it doesnt have core so when we get our new Dex its loosing re-rolls.

What I dont like atm is that they took away our -2 to charge on the tanks, but didnt give us the repulsor strat for the -2 back.

Also, since we are loosing re-rolls, when we get our new codex it will need a buff or a points reduction. Especially the blaze cannon. Compare it to admech chickens and you see how grossly overcosted it is.

Until we get our new codex they are perfectly fine though. Just remember the weakness's. Autocannon is bad against deathguard and new orks, blaze cannon is bad against invuns.

That's true. The -2 to charge really sucks. I just hope we get that back, since we cannot tanglefoot from vehicles...
I pts reduction would be really nice, but comparing it to chickens is a bit like apples and oranges.
Yes, compared to 2 chickens it has a LOT less firepower, but more wounds, higher T, farther movement, a lastrum bolter and the versality of the unfocused mode of the weapon.
It honestly right now could drop another 30 points and noone would bat an eye if you compare it to chickens... Then if you remove CORE, which it absolutely will not get, it could go down even further. But RN it can fill the role a fire support telemon could if I just dont have the extra 105 points for a comparable loadout.
Now, to print a proxy...

lol you dont compare it to 2 chickens, but 3. They are like 70pts apiece.


Buggies too, are just soooo much more points efficient, but it should be obvious that we could look forward to some of that efficiency increase in our new dex.

I really just want some form of flamer weapons that aren't tied to our flags/FW terminators. it would be easy to say our Pythrite spears can now shoot flamer bursts, auto-hitting, d6 shots. I just want easy to get anti-horde shooting.

I second the addition of good flamers on some basic units. Honestly, would it be too much to have the standard spears be auto-hit for d6 hits?

It would have to be op I think though, because just giving out S4 ap0 d1 flamers isn't helping any more than the current RF1 AP1 D2 bolters.

I like Einlazer's (SP?) suggesting about making our bolters all Assault 3. That would fix a lot.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
A squad of bolter bikes with trajann rerolls will likely kill alot of them and can kill a whole squad if they also get the charge.

48 shots hitting on 2's with rerolls is only 2 miss's on average and then 25 wounds. So your killing about 8 after reanimates. Then you charge and kill the other 12.

yeah, they were amazing. I played very conservatively on t1 as he covered all angles with those doomsday walkers. I plink fired into some warrior but couldn't get anything done at first. then he came out swinging and I just annihilated him after t2. I thought it would be a near impossible matchup but it wasn't. I did roll a lot of 4+ to save my bikes, though, so as some one said in the above, they are a liability for sure. I just feel they offer so much offense. And yes, I know venatari do too thing is its the only unit I dont own. Are they MUCH better or just a little better?

venetarii are nice, but they overkill many things due to D2.
So for horde clearing, you get 20 shots out of a 5 man IF you spend CP on Superior Firing patterns.
Superior strength, ap and damage, but they cant beat the pts "efficiency" of a rapid firing hurricane bolter bike for horde clearing.
A buffed shot from a venetarii costs 14 pts, a shot from a hurricane bolter in rapid fire range is 7pts...
Bikes are pretty much the only anti horde we have.
A Calladius comes in at the same price/shot, but has some more versatility with the arachnus blaze cannons.

also, the melee from the bikes is just straight up bonkers. Even wth d3 dam. I run mesericordias as well so its 5 good attacks each. They all hit and s6 is decent, ap3 is good. Mobility is great, shooting is good but what really sets them apart, Imo, is the t6. With the shadow keepers strat boltrifles, shurikens and stuff like that wound them on 6s. Thats just so good. and then theres transhuman and auspice.

I used to run a big blob of 5-6 models, but I've found, that 2x4 is the sweet spot. super good for engage, plus its 2 squad/tank clearing threats with a big engagement radius. Often they will be the first targets that your opponent can shoot at. and while everyone lost is a huge blow they always seem to do their points worth of dam for me.

actually, they might be the unit that wins the most games for me. either by drawing and surviving a lot of fire or just by bloody annihilation. seriously. they just smash through troops and elites like it was nothing.

also, they often straight up snipe an important vehicle t1 with 4 meltas and archeotech. Other times you play them super slowly and avoid all LOS. And then theres stooping dive. I just find they have so much utility.

Hey friends,

So, tomorrow is my very first game with Custodes!!! I'm excited, but also, it's going to be an asymmetrical battle. I'll be using 1k points of Custodes with my friend's 1k points of Space Wolves against another friend's 2k points of Death Guard.

I'm almost certain my DG friend will be bringing a Knight as he usually plays his 1.5k list and just adds a Knight to hit 2k.

I was told (on here) that bringing a Telemon in a 1k point casual game would be a little cheeky / no fun, but I'm thinking in a 2k point game I might put it in my list even though I'm only bringing 1k points. Would that be a bad idea? I mean, would the Knight just annihilate it or would the Telemon be a useful way to combat the Knight?

My Space Wolves friend is bringing Arjac, Njal, Ragnar, 3 units of 5 Blood Claws lead by Wolf Guards, 6 Fenrisian Wolves, and 3 Eliminators w/ Las Fusils. I'm not sure how much y'all know about Space Wolves; I know very little.

If I take the Telemon, I'll only be able to include a Shield-Captain on a bike w/ 3 units of 3 Guardians.

This'll be both mine and my Space Wolve's friend's first time playing our forces so if anyone could suggest some basic strategies that'd be wonderful. I don't need to win, but just hoping to play competently.