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I respect your insight, but most OP thing in the game is sensationalism at it's best.

Counters?

Psychic powers in general
Smite
Nurgle mortal wounds
High volume of fire, 2d+ weapons (avenger knights, etc)
Large hordes
Literally any screen
Eldar, specifically denying invulns and dark reapers
Tzeentch Daemons like Flamers and exalted Flamers
I, genuinely, could go on for a very long time.

They're good.
Compared to everything else Custodes have, amazing.

That doesn't mean they're Op because everything else is mediocre.

Yeah they're strong, but they're not close to OP. Still, their lances are currently free so I expect a price bump in March.

That said, what are you guys doing to counter the following:

1. Imperial Guard indirect artillery fire. Specifically mass Mortars and Manticores (2D6 shots at S10 and multi-damage!).

2. Alaitoc Craftworlds with Hemlock Wraithfighters and Dark Reapers.

Agreed, they have a good place considering the meta right now and decent offensive capabilty, but they should still get clobbered by AT weapons, a 4++ isn't infalliable. Not to mention mortal wounds. As I said earlier any small arms fire directed towards them is pretty much wasted, which people may take a little while to realize.

Jetbike spam would play pretty similar to Grey Knight Nemesis Dreadknight spam, which is hardly OP. While they are more mobile they would be far more vulnerable to psychic mortal wounds.

Jetbikes may well be to cheap. Whether they are completely broken I'm not willing to say yet.

2 Dark reaper shots going throw kills one. When you think about it that way, every 6 will kill 1 bike. Playing 19 will kill 3 and the 1 9 man shoots 2x, so thats 4 dead turn 1.

This is without Jinx, Space Marines can as well remove Invuls too.

They are not OP b.c they are close range, you just need the tools, SM with re-move invul and a bunch of Plasma will kill a full unit a turn.

They're not even too cheap. They're just cheap COMPARED to the rest of the options. When everything is bad, the one thing that isn't is amazing.

About how many points should other things drop by? I'd be fine if allarus got dropped by about 6 points.

Oberron wrote:
About how many points should other things drop by? I'd be fine if allarus got dropped by about 6 points.

I think bases are fine, it's equipment that needs to drop. Shields should go down 3-5, spears down to 10, Inceptor Lances up to 8 and axes to 12. Whatever they're pricing balistus internally should drop about 2 too.

Keep bikes the same. Drop everything else by 5-10pts that's on foot, and ignore the land raider and dread because they're pointless and only exist because of the talons box.

Audustum wrote:
Yeah they're strong, but they're not close to OP. Still, their lances are currently free so I expect a price bump in March.

That said, what are you guys doing to counter the following:

1. Imperial Guard indirect artillery fire. Specifically mass Mortars and Manticores (2D6 shots at S10 and multi-damage!).

2. Alaitoc Craftworlds with Hemlock Wraithfighters and Dark Reapers.

Custodes almost certainly will not get a price change next month, their previous updates show GW only change things for balance after the rules have been played with for at least few months. Unless there is something glaring which is covered in the specific FAQ's. We should get one any day now.

1. -1 to hit banner affects IG (a 4+ BS army) significantly. Jetbikes and deepstrike to minimize the time you spend getting to the enemy lines.

2. Wait for the March rule updates

 greyknight12 wrote:
Played my pure bikes list (shield captain, 6xbike squads, vexila praetor w/-1) against chaos/daemons list. He had a bunch of cultists, daemonettes, and horrors.
I tabled him T4. We had a good discussion afterwards (he’s a good buddy of mine) and care to the conclusion that custodes jetbikes may be the most OP thing in the game currently. T6, 2+/4++ 4 wounds is extremely difficult to kill, and they have fly so they can’t be locked down. Hurricanes at BS2+ chew through hordes. The only counters we identified were 1) death guard/nurgle with ranged mortal wounds and 2) a Guilliman gunline maxing out hellblasters. They hit hard, they’re fast, and extremely difficult to kill.

they're not even close.

For example, a blood letter bomb can easily merc a bike squad for cheaper. And, you know, they're not dark reapers.

Rock up against an army running 5 or 6 plasmacutioners, see how long the bikes last.

The jetbikes are good but not even close to OP. If I ever run jetbikes I would put all those points into shield captains.

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Counters?

That was a bit of hyperbole (which unfortunately I failed to communicate). However, a lot of the so-called "counters" to the bikes actually fall a bit short of what you'd expect. T6/4 wounds is a sweet spot.

Psychic powers in general - Stripping their invul hurts, but with a 2+ they still have a decent save. And that's only one unit that will suffer.
Smite - Not much smite spam after the beta rules, but on average each smite does 2 wounds, so it will take 2 to kill a single bike.
Nurgle mortal wounds - Already identified these as a weakness, no argument there.
High volume of fire, 2d+ weapons (avenger knights, etc) - Avenger cannon @BS3+: 12 shots/8 hits/4 wounds/2 failed saves/4 wounds (1 dead bike). And because knights aren't great right now, there aren't many of those (but at most 4 in a pure list).
Large hordes - BS2+ Hurricane bolters. @12": 12 shots/10 hits, which is 6.67 wounds on T3 and 5 wounds on T4 before saves, And with fly, they will be shooting every turn.
Literally any screen - Fly.
Eldar, specifically denying invulns and dark reapers - You can strip one unit's invul. As for reapers, each successful hit does 1.17 wounds on average (1 hit/0.67 wounds/0.33 failed saves/1.17 average dmg if the invul is up.
Tzeentch Daemons like Flamers and exalted Flamers - Bikes outrange them, and have the volume of fire to power through invul saves.
For fun, I'll add plasma command squad scions (78 points, rapid firing overcharged): 8 shots/5.3 hits/3.55 wounds/1.78 failed saves/3.56 wounds=probably 1 dead bike. And one bike can kill all of them next turn. (3 with shooting alone)

Bloodletters were brought up, so assuming squad of 20 (WS2+): 20 attacks/16.7 hits/5.6 wounds/2.8 failed saves. So if some of those failures were 2 wounds, you can kill a bike. Then the bikes will fly out, and unload 24 BS2+ hurricane bolter shots.

Manticores are handled by utilizing the Vexila Magnifca to make them hit on 5s. But ff you're out of the bubble, you're looking at (average) 7 shots/3.5 hits/2.3/wounds/1.16 failed saves/2.32 wounds. Then you shoot them with melta missiles.

Alaitoc is assulted and shot at within 12', so no negatives to hit. Then you unload hurricanes and flakburst missiles into the hemlocks, and assult the reapers. And remember that you need a 4+ on damage to even kill a full bike.

Custodes are good but just not going to take a big tournament. Maybe with a guard batallion or two, but having so few models and wounds is just too swingy. Sure it works sometimes, but in a 6 round tournament, you’re just going to have a rad h of bad luck. They struggle to overcome bad dice more so than other armies with redundancy.

But the important issue - I’m straying more away from salvo launchers I think. Anyone want to math out possible targets to see which weapon is most efficient vs various targets? I feel like anything short of T8 or 2+ saves is going to be better suited to be tackled by rapid firing hurricane bolters.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Counters?

That was a bit of hyperbole (which unfortunately I failed to communicate). However, a lot of the so-called "counters" to the bikes actually fall a bit short of what you'd expect. T6/4 wounds is a sweet spot.

Psychic powers in general - Stripping their invul hurts, but with a 2+ they still have a decent save. And that's only one unit that will suffer.
Smite - Not much smite spam after the beta rules, but on average each smite does 2 wounds, so it will take 2 to kill a single bike.
Nurgle mortal wounds - Already identified these as a weakness, no argument there.
High volume of fire, 2d+ weapons (avenger knights, etc) - Avenger cannon @BS3+: 12 shots/8 hits/4 wounds/2 failed saves/4 wounds (1 dead bike). And because knights aren't great right now, there aren't many of those (but at most 4 in a pure list).
Large hordes - BS2+ Hurricane bolters. @12": 12 shots/10 hits, which is 6.67 wounds on T3 and 5 wounds on T4 before saves, And with fly, they will be shooting every turn.
Literally any screen - Fly.
Eldar, specifically denying invulns and dark reapers - You can strip one unit's invul. As for reapers, each successful hit does 1.17 wounds on average (1 hit/0.67 wounds/0.33 failed saves/1.17 average dmg if the invul is up.
Tzeentch Daemons like Flamers and exalted Flamers - Bikes outrange them, and have the volume of fire to power through invul saves.
For fun, I'll add plasma command squad scions (78 points, rapid firing overcharged): 8 shots/5.3 hits/3.55 wounds/1.78 failed saves/3.56 wounds=probably 1 dead bike. And one bike can kill all of them next turn. (3 with shooting alone)

Bloodletters were brought up, so assuming squad of 20 (WS2+): 20 attacks/16.7 hits/5.6 wounds/2.8 failed saves. So if some of those failures were 2 wounds, you can kill a bike. Then the bikes will fly out, and unload 24 BS2+ hurricane bolter shots.

Manticores are handled by utilizing the Vexila Magnifca to make them hit on 5s. But ff you're out of the bubble, you're looking at (average) 7 shots/3.5 hits/2.3/wounds/1.16 failed saves/2.32 wounds. Then you shoot them with melta missiles.

Alaitoc is assulted and shot at within 12', so no negatives to hit. Then you unload hurricanes and flakburst missiles into the hemlocks, and assult the reapers. And remember that you need a 4+ on damage to even kill a full bike.

I have to take issue with your analysis of the Manticores. The Vexillia is hopefully going to help, but the Manticore has a 120" range and doesn't need line of sight. The group of them your opponent took will be on the exact opposite side of the board (since he has more drops he can see where your bikes go first) and it will take you 2-3 turns to get over there even jumping over chaff and ignoring everything in your way. A LOT can go wrong before Custodes can reach those things.

The danger of the Hemlocks is that they will: A) Always hit you first due to superior movement and B) Are psykers in addition to excellent shooters so you're gonna get smacked in the face when they do. We also don't have enough units to hit the Hemlocks and the Reapers simultaneously (the Reapers also outrange our bikes).

You need to clarify what kind of game you are playing before talking about the efficacy of bikes. At 1500 points in maelstrom they will be too tough to stop. In a 2000 point ITC game your opponent will have the firepower to bring them down and they cost far too much to be holding objectives.

Custodes FaQ is here:
https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/warhammer_40000_adeptus_custodes_en.pdf

no 5++ for our LR

 nordsturmking wrote:
Custodes FaQ is here:
https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/warhammer_40000_adeptus_custodes_en.pdf

no 5++ for our LR

and no correction to allarus custodes invul save, a pity

 nordsturmking wrote:
Custodes FaQ is here:
https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/warhammer_40000_adeptus_custodes_en.pdf

no 5++ for our LR

Well... that FAQ didn't inspire me to renew my faith in humanity and their ability to ask reasonable questions....

Still holding off until after the March FAQ though just in case, before i dive in.

Wow.. so they made the VLR useless and then kept it useless. Does not bode well. Is that thing ever going to get used @ 400pts?

I thought it was clear by now they dont want people playing with LR's?

I don't get why people would expect unit changed in this faq. Its for clearing up questions and the only 'fixes' are big blatant abuse situations.

Actual unit changes won't come until the September update.

Anyone else have an opinion on Salvo Launchers? Looking back at them I can see maybe sticking 1 launcher in a unit of 3 or even give the SC one since even though he hits on 3+ he'll reroll 1's anyway to help mitigate it. 1 launcher and 2 Hurricane Bolters in a 3 bike unit sounds fairly balanced especially in a TAC pure Custodes list. Curious to hear people's opinions on this.

Launchers aren't very efficient. Let Bikes shoot screens with bolters and slap things with spears, use other units for anti-armor.

True, I do have at least 4-5 axes on my list that can do well in anti armor plus with the sheer weight of shots from Hurricane Bolters, I'm likely to strip off a couple of wounds before charging in with lances. And with rerolling wounds the lances are decent anti armor as well.

 greyknight12 wrote:

 Cephalobeard wrote:
Counters?

That was a bit of hyperbole (which unfortunately I failed to communicate). However, a lot of the so-called "counters" to the bikes actually fall a bit short of what you'd expect. T6/4 wounds is a sweet spot.

Psychic powers in general - Stripping their invul hurts, but with a 2+ they still have a decent save. And that's only one unit that will suffer.
Smite - Not much smite spam after the beta rules, but on average each smite does 2 wounds, so it will take 2 to kill a single bike.
Nurgle mortal wounds - Already identified these as a weakness, no argument there.
High volume of fire, 2d+ weapons (avenger knights, etc) - Avenger cannon @BS3+: 12 shots/8 hits/4 wounds/2 failed saves/4 wounds (1 dead bike). And because knights aren't great right now, there aren't many of those (but at most 4 in a pure list).
Large hordes - BS2+ Hurricane bolters. @12": 12 shots/10 hits, which is 6.67 wounds on T3 and 5 wounds on T4 before saves, And with fly, they will be shooting every turn.
Literally any screen - Fly.
Eldar, specifically denying invulns and dark reapers - You can strip one unit's invul. As for reapers, each successful hit does 1.17 wounds on average (1 hit/0.67 wounds/0.33 failed saves/1.17 average dmg if the invul is up.
Tzeentch Daemons like Flamers and exalted Flamers - Bikes outrange them, and have the volume of fire to power through invul saves.
For fun, I'll add plasma command squad scions (78 points, rapid firing overcharged): 8 shots/5.3 hits/3.55 wounds/1.78 failed saves/3.56 wounds=probably 1 dead bike. And one bike can kill all of them next turn. (3 with shooting alone)

Bloodletters were brought up, so assuming squad of 20 (WS2+): 20 attacks/16.7 hits/5.6 wounds/2.8 failed saves. So if some of those failures were 2 wounds, you can kill a bike. Then the bikes will fly out, and unload 24 BS2+ hurricane bolter shots.

Manticores are handled by utilizing the Vexila Magnifca to make them hit on 5s. But ff you're out of the bubble, you're looking at (average) 7 shots/3.5 hits/2.3/wounds/1.16 failed saves/2.32 wounds. Then you shoot them with melta missiles.

Alaitoc is assulted and shot at within 12', so no negatives to hit. Then you unload hurricanes and flakburst missiles into the hemlocks, and assult the reapers. And remember that you need a 4+ on damage to even kill a full bike.

Here's what a bloodletter bomb is. 30 bloodletters with a herald in support. It will kill, statistically, a jetbike squad.

Leman russes are extremely cost efficient at nuking custodes, especially on the actual battlefield where you have mutually supporting elements.

Custodes have rather limited support. YOu have your reroll ones, and your vexilia, but the vexilia is difficult to keep up, so you realistically want 2, one that can deep strike, but then you're tying up 250 points of models that will do something for 2 turns before your bikes have outrun their auras. And it forces you to hump a 6 inch bubble, which is bad for, say, ITC. If you're rocking an objective game, usually you have to seperate your elements to score, which means that... well the enemy isn't going to shoot at the guys still in the bubble. Bikes and a foot based minus one do not mix well. If you are going full bikes, it is legitimately hard to fit all of them IN 6 inches of a bubble.

In my opinion in a competitive environment if your sitting on an objective with Custodes your doing it wrong. They are way to expensive for that.
Bring a detachment of something cheap (IG obviously, but AdMech, SoB or Marines can do it aswell) to sit on Objectives while your Custodes go balls to the wall and force your opponent to deal with them rather then your softer Objective units.

Ordana wrote:
In my opinion in a competitive environment if your sitting on an objective with Custodes your doing it wrong. They are way to expensive for that.
Bring a detachment of something cheap (IG obviously, but AdMech, SoB or Marines can do it aswell) to sit on Objectives while your Custodes go balls to the wall and force your opponent to deal with them rather then your softer Objective units.

Sure. You can do that. But not all objectives are just there for you to sit on. You have to go OUT and get them. It's, far as I have played, never a better choice to run your bikes in one mob forward. They split up, naturally. Running 10 bikes to one place in a 6 inch bubble is drastic overkill for almost anything in the game. You have to hope you're playing, say, a gman gunline who is doing the same thing

Ordana wrote:
In my opinion in a competitive environment if your sitting on an objective with Custodes your doing it wrong. They are way to expensive for that.
Bring a detachment of something cheap (IG obviously, but AdMech, SoB or Marines can do it aswell) to sit on Objectives while your Custodes go balls to the wall and force your opponent to deal with them rather then your softer Objective units.

Depends on your format. With all bikes/infantry having Obsec, advancing 20" onto an objective and stealing it from a min-man squad of something random from a soup detachment is a real threat you can absolutely do, and may very well win you a game. Not only that, but thinks like the ITC format don't award max points if you table an opponent, so being able to quickly take objectives is a powerful ability.

stratigo wrote:
Here's what a bloodletter bomb is. 30 bloodletters with a herald in support. It will kill, statistically, a jetbike squad.

Now we're talking a 294 point (minimum) unit dedicated to CC, so you cost more than the bike squad. Lets assume that they summon/deepstrike in, and make the charge (+1 attack):
30 Bloodletters (WS2+): 60 attacks/50 hits/16.7 wounds/8.33 unsaved. That ups to 12 wounds if we assume that half of the unsaved wounds were 6's to wound.
Herald: 5 attacks/4.2 hits/1.4 wounds/0.46 unsaved.
So yes, on average you can get 13 wounds on a 12 wounds squad, assuming you make the charge and didn't take excessive casulties (on average you lose 2.7 from overwatch, meaning you do 0.38 less unsaved wounds).
For comparison, lets do a squad of 3 bikes shooting hurricanes at the bomb: 36 shots/30 hits/20 wounds/13.3 unsaved
Then, assuming they charge: 12 attacks/10 hits/9.72 wounds/6.5 unsaved. 19.8 dead bloodletters in total. In CC you'll probably kill a bike in return, but that's assuming they charged you at all and didn't just shoot with another squad.

@Audustum
Manticores/Hemlocks

The farthest your opponent can keep a manticore from you T1 is 55 inches, in vanguard strike (actually, more like 49 cause the tank is about 6" long). So if you advance T1, you'll be able to shoot T2 assuming you deploy forward. Hemlocks do 2xD3 hits, average 4, for 3.33 wounds which becomes 3.33 damage. If it also successfully smited, it killed a single bike.
Leman russes are the same as manticores regarding damage to bikes on their battle cannon, if they have plasma sponsons they do an additional 0.67 wounds (1.33 if they overcharged).

The reason why the bikes are nasty when is because their counters are unlikely to be spammed by your opponent in a TAC list. There is a limit to how many bloodletter bombs you can take. How many manticores did your opponent take and still be able to screen their tanks? The ideal weapon to kill our jetbikes is is a S7+ 4 dmg weapon with at least -2 AP. There aren't many of those that can be spammed while also being able to deal with green tide or cultists. And while those counters to bikes definitely exist, the rest of the army isn't doing meaningful damage at all (rapid-firing guard squad w/FRFSRF does 0.5 wounds).