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So, apparrently miscercordia are now a free upgrade and you can use them with storm shields. Even less reason to take spears now.

So since our codex is delayed, but we have the points cost and all the rules for the blade champion, we're in a weird situation where we an play him with the old codex for a short time, right?

So what are the funny combos we can pull off in that short, but glorious time frame?

Blade champion with eagles eye for 3++ invuln, master of melee captain Commander trait for +2 attacks when more than 6 enemies in engagement range? All seeing annihilator warlord trait with +1 attack banner nearby?

So 18 attacks with exploding 6s on the hurricanis profile? Sounds ricidulous and amazing

Please don't pull the great eye down on us! There are no great combos, we completely suck, nothing to nerf, at all. Keep focusing on the DE.

But seriously, I hope we don't get the BC being an exclusive to this box only, like Castellan Crowe was, and still is. It's currently impossible to get that model now without finding one of those boxes. Because that was a timed exclusive model, on a limited release.

I mean, that's why I am asking for size comps. Is this just as big as a SC with a sword? Do we have the same base/height?

Axes being D2 hurts. Its almost as though they forgot everything in this game has -1 damage now.

So nothing has really changed then. Trajann is still our best heavy-anti monster go to. Telemon can still beat the hell out of most anything in melee or ranged, and bikes are still our effective anti-horde. Terminators are still the best anti-character. Forget all the kata stuff, we have a 4+++ against MWs, and fixed damage weapons. We can still do really well until GW gets their head on right and FAQs these Katas to a more understandable version.

Audustum wrote:
On to my actual thoughts:

Are resident leaker is right. Just more confirmation on that.

Without good stratagem support, I'm skeptical of Terminators being great units. Assuming storm shields remain the same, a big blob of Guardians seems great. Dreads + Jetbikes are the better mobile hammer units.

Terminators before existed mostly on the strategems.

I am betting the brain trust will keep axes 10 more points then spears though even though they aren't even remotely that good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Audustum wrote:

 Toofast wrote:
I just hate that we haven't seen a single leak and thought "wow that's gonna be really good." Everything seems overly complicated and/or situational. Can anyone tell me something about these leaks that's going to put us anywhere near the level of Dark Eldar, Orks, etc?

We're already an A tier faction. Even a small buff can throw us into S. And there are some boosts here. That said, we're still waiting on quite a bit. WT's, Relics, Stratagems, the vast majority of our potential power sources are still unknown.

Custodes are not A tier.

They're a gatekeeper, but only with forgeworld.

I dream of a day when the army I play doesn't rely on 300 dollar models that you better be a fething ace hobbyist to put together to compete


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Toofast wrote:

 Thairne wrote:
well I was told by a little bird that Custodes power level is a few steps up almost everywhere.
I dont like the blade champion, the Katas look arse, the other leaks are uninspiring...
Based on what we know I personally dont see it - but I trust my source. So I try to hold the negative feelings back. Cant say I'm uber successful..

Those are my feelings. New blade champ is Captain Useless, katas can't be that strong because they're so situational and only last a turn, even if they are I absolutely hate the way they're implemented and doing extra bookkeeping, and I haven't seen any leaks of buffs that interest me. I bought a bunch of Custodes right before the leaks and they're still in the boxes. If the codex is just more of the same stuff we've seen so far, they will be going on ebay. If 9th continues to go in the direction of more bookkeeping than my CPA during tax season, I will just go back to playing only specialist games.

The blade champ is almost certainly a vehicle for artifacts and traits, and I suspect you'll get some combos that are overwhelming

stratigo wrote:

Audustum wrote:
On to my actual thoughts:

Are resident leaker is right. Just more confirmation on that.

Without good stratagem support, I'm skeptical of Terminators being great units. Assuming storm shields remain the same, a big blob of Guardians seems great. Dreads + Jetbikes are the better mobile hammer units.

Terminators before existed mostly on the strategems.

I am betting the brain trust will keep axes 10 more points then spears though even though they aren't even remotely that good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Audustum wrote:

 Toofast wrote:
I just hate that we haven't seen a single leak and thought "wow that's gonna be really good." Everything seems overly complicated and/or situational. Can anyone tell me something about these leaks that's going to put us anywhere near the level of Dark Eldar, Orks, etc?

We're already an A tier faction. Even a small buff can throw us into S. And there are some boosts here. That said, we're still waiting on quite a bit. WT's, Relics, Stratagems, the vast majority of our potential power sources are still unknown.

Custodes are not A tier.

They're a gatekeeper, but only with forgeworld.

I dream of a day when the army I play doesn't rely on 300 dollar models that you better be a fething ace hobbyist to put together to compete


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Toofast wrote:

 Thairne wrote:
well I was told by a little bird that Custodes power level is a few steps up almost everywhere.
I dont like the blade champion, the Katas look arse, the other leaks are uninspiring...
Based on what we know I personally dont see it - but I trust my source. So I try to hold the negative feelings back. Cant say I'm uber successful..

Those are my feelings. New blade champ is Captain Useless, katas can't be that strong because they're so situational and only last a turn, even if they are I absolutely hate the way they're implemented and doing extra bookkeeping, and I haven't seen any leaks of buffs that interest me. I bought a bunch of Custodes right before the leaks and they're still in the boxes. If the codex is just more of the same stuff we've seen so far, they will be going on ebay. If 9th continues to go in the direction of more bookkeeping than my CPA during tax season, I will just go back to playing only specialist games.

The blade champ is almost certainly a vehicle for artifacts and traits, and I suspect you'll get some combos that are overwhelming

I have to disagree strongly on the 'not A tier' line. We get consistent placings of Custodes lists. We don't usually take first, but we're frequently a contender. It's also where Art of War (specifically Siegler and Nick Nanavati) places Custodes. Siegler's exact quote is: "They are 100% A tier" and "If they just kept all the Custodes rules, even the trash 8th edition one...and just added a Codex secondary that was good, they would be in a great spot".

https://youtu.be/xrkMF9BHVAs?t=1071

From the competitive aspect, even though we feel lacking verses some of the 9th edition codex's, we actually are only held back by secondaries.

Out of the GT pack, we only have 2-3 missions we can have a reasonable chance to score 100pts on, which is why we cant win tournaments without alot of luck.

If we get a secondary that gives us max points we are definately A tier even without alot of changes.

The problem is of course, we are going to change. Every 9th codex has changed how its played substantially.

It seems GW is going with a more measured approach with us and just trying to address the major grieviances (bike durability, unreliable damage, not as many free rules).

This is why Ka'tahs are not as overtly powerful as other factions free rules.

It really is a hard codex to go all in on since half our units arent even in the book. The designers had to find rules that were in line with 9th edition direction, could effect all our units, and yet not give us a massive boost.


Im personally gonna make it work. The changes arent as big as I'd hoped for, but thats fine.

Having Sisters units spread out and not just in the Elite role will be nice. I'm disappointed the Blade Champion is a 3+ though.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
From the competitive aspect, even though we feel lacking verses some of the 9th edition codex's, we actually are only held back by secondaries.

Out of the GT pack, we only have 2-3 missions we can have a reasonable chance to score 100pts on, which is why we cant win tournaments without alot of luck.

If we get a secondary that gives us max points we are definately A tier even without alot of changes.

The problem is of course, we are going to change. Every 9th codex has changed how its played substantially.

It seems GW is going with a more measured approach with us and just trying to address the major grieviances (bike durability, unreliable damage, not as many free rules).

This is why Ka'tahs are not as overtly powerful as other factions free rules.

It really is a hard codex to go all in on since half our units arent even in the book. The designers had to find rules that were in line with 9th edition direction, could effect all our units, and yet not give us a massive boost.


Im personally gonna make it work. The changes arent as big as I'd hoped for, but thats fine.

It also surprised me that after all the fw gw department integration(gw now writing rules for fw units), custodes, by the end of day, is still a fw reliant fraction.

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Having Sisters units spread out and not just in the Elite role will be nice. I'm disappointed the Blade Champion is a 3+ though.

Wasn't one of his special rules that he gets +1 to his armor saves? Doesn't that effectively make him 2+?

 cuda1179 wrote:

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Having Sisters units spread out and not just in the Elite role will be nice. I'm disappointed the Blade Champion is a 3+ though.

Wasn't one of his special rules that he gets +1 to his armor saves? Doesn't that effectively make him 2+?

Only in melee AFAIK. Which is probably the most important to be fair, since he shouldn't be targeted by most shooting assuming he stays behind units like he's supposed to be.

 Grimskul wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:

 The Red Hobbit wrote:
Having Sisters units spread out and not just in the Elite role will be nice. I'm disappointed the Blade Champion is a 3+ though.

Wasn't one of his special rules that he gets +1 to his armor saves? Doesn't that effectively make him 2+?

Only in melee AFAIK. Which is probably the most important to be fair, since he shouldn't be targeted by most shooting assuming he stays behind units like he's supposed to be.

Correct. Honestly him being a 3+ save native really isn't as big of a deal as people are making it out to be, they're putting waaaaay too much weight on it. He has a 2+ save in melee which is what matters most and if he's in a position where he's actually getting shot at and not getting some kind of character protection, you misplayed pretty badly somewhere.

I think it's kinda hilarious that even with all the new changes, our faction is literally still mostly the same. Telemon, Trajann, Aquillons. Maybe Shield Guardians. Sprinkle in some bike captains for flavor.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think it's kinda hilarious that even with all the new changes, our faction is literally still mostly the same. Telemon, Trajann, Aquillons. Maybe Shield Guardians. Sprinkle in some bike captains for flavor.

I think this will still work, yeah. I also think that one thing we've seen so far is you could replace the Aquilons with Jetbikes and probably get a similar result but different playstyle. So a little flexibility added.

Still way too much we don't know about the codex to say anything like that with 100% certainty, IMO. New codexes tend to turn internal metas on their head one way or another, so I'm on the side of reserving that kind of judgment until we've seen everything.

And don't forget that the troop sister squad (even with a limit on them) can immediately decrease our troop tax almost 100 points.

KGYM wrote:
And don't forget that the troop sister squad (even with a limit on them) can immediately decrease our troop tax almost 100 points.

Most likely even more than that. The limit rules in the tsons for their tzaangor units is one tzaangor unit per Rubic OR Scarab terminators unit. So its possible, if not easy or sensible, to make detachments with zero Rubic marines. By the same logic (and, again, looking at the box set contents) assuming you have enough allarus and warden units, you could have zero custodes guard units and rely on persecutor sisters for troops. Again, not in itself a great idea, but it could enable some rather interesting list designs if you can leverage those extra points not "sunk" into troops.

for example, you could have 3 prosecutor units, and 3 allarus terminators along with 2 SoS HQ's for a very cheap battalion using the Tsons rule.

450ptsish actually and still have one HQ slot, 3 troop slots, 3 FA slots, 3 Elite slots, and 3 HS slots available.

That would be great if there was a reason to play cheap battalions in 9th. But in all honesty, I don't see the sisters doing much good at all in 9th. Maybe if they were 2W or had some 4++level of cheese, but for right now, I don't want to spend any points for a kinda pointless objective holder. I was really hoping they would get some form of innate deny ability, not dependent on CP, but that was pie in sky thinking.

Considering that SoB get an autodeny on every unit on a 5+... you'd think that ACTUAL BLANKS would be a bit better at that.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
That would be great if there was a reason to play cheap battalions in 9th. But in all honesty, I don't see the sisters doing much good at all in 9th. Maybe if they were 2W or had some 4++level of cheese, but for right now, I don't want to spend any points for a kinda pointless objective holder. I was really hoping they would get some form of innate deny ability, not dependent on CP, but that was pie in sky thinking.

Lol what are you talking about? There's a reason people were begging GW to make Sister troops for us, we would absolutely love cheap battalions for the slots alone. Cheap objective holders was really something we needed, better than leaving a 150+ pt unit on the backline not doing much since somebody has to do it unless you always abandon your own backline objective. Leaving a unit of 5 ob sec sisters back there, especially if it's behind obscuring or LOS blocking terrain has a crazy amount of value for us because that frees up Shield Guard/Sags/etc to actually be aggressive and move up the board to contribute more offensively instead of just sitting back. They're also a great cheap action monkey for us now to do things like banners, and opens up RND or even deploy teleport homer as viable action secondaries for us now especially since they're troops. Also we have no idea what their new Daughters of the Abyss ability does, why are you talking as if you've seen the entire codex already?

Mr. Funktastic wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
That would be great if there was a reason to play cheap battalions in 9th. But in all honesty, I don't see the sisters doing much good at all in 9th. Maybe if they were 2W or had some 4++level of cheese, but for right now, I don't want to spend any points for a kinda pointless objective holder. I was really hoping they would get some form of innate deny ability, not dependent on CP, but that was pie in sky thinking.

Lol what are you talking about? There's a reason people were begging GW to make Sister troops for us, we would absolutely love cheap battalions for the slots alone. Cheap objective holders was really something we needed, better than leaving a 150+ pt unit on the backline not doing much since somebody has to do it unless you always abandon your own backline objective. Leaving a unit of 5 ob sec sisters back there, especially if it's behind obscuring or LOS blocking terrain has a crazy amount of value for us because that frees up Shield Guard/Sags/etc to actually be aggressive and move up the board to contribute more offensively instead of just sitting back. They're also a great cheap action monkey for us now to do things like banners, and opens up RND or even deploy teleport homer as viable action secondaries for us now especially since they're troops. Also we have no idea what their new Daughters of the Abyss ability does, why are you talking as if you've seen the entire codex already?

Just ignore him. I was given that advice before and I should have followed it sooner. A lot less headache.

And again, I fully agree. Pointless to condemn or hype sisters until we really know what they do within the context of the full codex.

Our army wide two damage is looking even worse after seeing the new nid monster army rules. Guess what they got....... army wide invulnerable and -1 damage!

Such rubbish rules writing, use the Wound and AP system as written damn it!

 WisdomLS wrote:
Our army wide two damage is looking even worse after seeing the new nid monster army rules. Guess what they got....... army wide invulnerable and -1 damage!

Such rubbish rules writing, use the Wound and AP system as written damn it!

I'm hoping there is a good +1 damage strat, or a special rule that Custodes damage can never drop below 2.

 cuda1179 wrote:

 WisdomLS wrote:
Our army wide two damage is looking even worse after seeing the new nid monster army rules. Guess what they got....... army wide invulnerable and -1 damage!

Such rubbish rules writing, use the Wound and AP system as written damn it!

I'm hoping there is a good +1 damage strat, or a special rule that Custodes damage can never drop below 2.

That would be nice but it would again be a rule written to counter a rule that is written to counter a rule - its just rock paper scissors game design where one player is screwed if they come up against an army whos rule trumps theirs. Dam 2 weapons are great vs marines but come up against DG and you've wasted a load of points - smae with AP and invulnerable saves.

If they just stuck with the base armour save rules and controlled the inflation of AP - i.e. AP3 is very good and AP4 is super rare then we wouldn't be in a situation where 2+ save models are considered trash unless they have a 5++ as well - at the moment the following can have army wide invulnerable saves - Orks, Drukharii, Harlequins, Custodes, Sisters, mechanicus, Daemons, Knights, Dark Angels, Black Templars, Grey Knights, Thousand Sons, and now Nids with rumors pointing to craftworlds getting one as well - what is the point of the AP system when it doesn't apply to over half the armies in the game.

The same is true for weapon damage - they put marine wounds up (a great decision that adds more variety to the game) and then set about increasing weapons damage to counter them (again fine, makes different weapons good against different targets) but then they decided that they thought certain targets would be hampered by this extra damage so they are now adding -1 damage to a great many units. This has a massive impact on 2 damage weapons making them completely pointless. A far better solution would have been upping the wounds of lots of models to better fit the new dynamic created by having two wound marines.

I suspect I feel so annoyed by this due to having Blood Angels and now Custodes as two of my main armies - both factions pay through the nose for high AP 2 damage weapons which are often pointless and becoming more so with every army release.

I had such high hope for the custode weapons, just looking back through these pages you can see so many great ideas - sweep profiles, high damage axes, bonuses against monsters/vehicles but they just weapon for a flat profile that is slightly changed on each weapon so giving no variety of choice.

I'm still hopeful and pretty upbeat for our coming codex just really annoyed by GWs continued lazy approach.

I would point out that our models all get at least 3-5 attacks. And aside from Orks and SM, there are very few 2 wound troops. So I'm not as butt hurt over the battle there. I am more worried about our anti-tank weapons being glorified noodles. I would hope that our axes get a Strat that basically makes Castellan Strike do +d3 or something. I'd pay 2CP to give all my terminators 3-5 damage range on axes.

Orks don’t have W2 Troops.

Ich completely agree that the extreme proliferation of high AP weapons across all armies in 8th and 9th was very foolish. Counteracting this with the extreme proliferation of invulns and - 1dmg rules is probably necessary, but equally bad game design.

The thing is the power creep train is already at full speed and imo there is no way of slowing that thing atleast during 9th ed.

If they keep this going I don't see how they can do without a hard reset in 10th ed.

Having said all that I don't think 9th is a terrible edition, but it could have been so much better.

Completely agree, i think the base rules 9f 9th are awesome they just have expanded out of them far to far.
The codexs are very flavourful but the rules are cranked up to hard as to make anything baseline pretty unplayable