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Guardsmen are a great option. I like Scouts for their ability to deploy forward, which will allow your bikes to push the borders of your DZ.

 Primark G wrote:
What about guardsmen and conscripts?

Those work too, but the scouts have the added benefit of additional board control and better deep strike denial. i can see myself maybe using both options in a competitive Custodes list. Depends on the point values and detachment restrictions.

You can get two Company Commanders and three IG squads for 180 points.

 Primark G wrote:
You can get two Company Commanders and three IG squads for 180 points.

Then add the Slamguinius twins and three units of 5 scouts. After that you can pick any Custodes stuff you like (read bikes) to fill out the rest and pretend you care about fluff.

On a more serious note, I don't have any problem, at any level of competitiveness or fluff-consciousness, with Custodes rolling with AM allies. Or Marine allies for that matter. Either makes fine sense, and I don't think anyone should be held back by the notion that they somehow aren't playing their army if they aren't fielding a mono-Custodes list.

Bikes for days.

Slamguinius twins? I’ve been out of the loop with BA

 luke1705 wrote:
Slamguinius twins? I’ve been out of the loop with BA

Slamguinus is the nickname for a BA Captain with a Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer. He wounds almost everything on a 2+, including T7, thanks to Red Thirst and being S8, has a 3++ for resiliency and let's himself re-roll 1's. And there's a relic to re-roll charges and ignore overwatch.

Taking two of him is 'twins', but that's rarer. Most people seem to rely on a BA strat to let a unit roll 3D6 for a charge to get him into combat. Since you can only use it once, the other Slamguinus would be left floundering. You could split the relic and the strat, but then the one likely charge has to eat overwatch and the other is only 50/50 to make it or not.

The name is a joke on mixing Captain Smashfeather with Sanguines..

Audustum wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
Slamguinius twins? I’ve been out of the loop with BA

Slamguinus is the nickname for a BA Captain with a Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer. He wounds almost everything on a 2+, including T7, thanks to Red Thirst and being S8, has a 3++ for resiliency and let's himself re-roll 1's. And there's a relic to re-roll charges and ignore overwatch.

Taking two of him is 'twins', but that's rarer. Most people seem to rely on a BA strat to let a unit roll 3D6 for a charge to get him into combat. Since you can only use it once, the other Slamguinus would be left floundering. You could split the relic and the strat, but then the one likely charge has to eat overwatch and the other is only 50/50 to make it or not.

The name is a joke on mixing Captain Smashfeather with Sanguines..

Or you run 2 of them and throw one in turn 1 and the other turn 2. Preferably backed up by Celestine or some Eversor assassins for another T1 charge.


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bananathug wrote:
How do you guys plan on first turn charging CqC units?

Zerkers, letters, gores and stealers (just to name a few) seem like they will obliterate any custode unit they touch (see GW heat 3) without proper screening.

It seems those units alone will require allies of some sort unless there is something I'm not thinking of.

We don't take up enough board space to really prevent them from picking whatever target they want and our units are so expensive that even if they are trading 1 for 1 we are in a bad spot. Not to mention that getting charged really hurts the bikes (capts and dudes).

This is part of why some of us are saying that pure Custodes will never be a competitive force. Charge screens and deepstrike denial are essential components to any tournament list. And Custodes have neither.

Yeah, a lot of armies are missing one or the other in any quantity without allies. I'm just going to stop worrying about it. Ir you;re going to a tourney, field what you need to to do well.

In other news, if I were being a little more serious about the BA drizzle on top of my Custard cake I'd probably take Slamguinius and Mephiston (or another psyker) rather than literally the twins.

Mephiston is awesome with Wings and gives you some psychic denial in your opponent's face too.

I'll be running my banana blokes for fun mostly, either with an Inquisitor, Sisters and Assassins or some Tempestus Scions.

How do we feel about Scions with Melta filling an anti-vehicle role for Custodes? Is Plasma still the go-to?

 Dedwoods42 wrote:
Mephiston is awesome with Wings and gives you some psychic denial in your opponent's face too.

I'll be running my banana blokes for fun mostly, either with an Inquisitor, Sisters and Assassins or some Tempestus Scions.

How do we feel about Scions with Melta filling an anti-vehicle role for Custodes? Is Plasma still the go-to?

Yes plasma is still better or roughly equal to melta at 6-12", even against tanks.

The Taurox Prime is really good if you go with the Scions and I’d take plasma.

So in my quest to continue experimenting, I took a pure Custodes battalion force with the Caladius. We had 3 infantry, 2 bikes, 2 Captains and a Vexilla too. I fully acknowledge this is not an optimized force, but we're experimenting.

I went against a list of Space Marines allied to Guard. The Space Marines were Raven Guard with 2 Fire Raptors parked next to Shrike for re-rolls to all failed hits. He had other stuff too but it isn't relevant to this post.

Let me just say, you might as well paint a giant "No Custodes" sign on Fire Raptors. The Caladius actually almost killed 1 in a single volley, but with the massive amount of firepower it didn't matter. They're too fast for the Bikes to catch and 1 Fire Raptor 1 rounded the Caladius in return. The second, wounded, one still mulched Bikes.

To give some perspective, sitting next to a Chapter Master a Fire Raptor does the following damage to a Bike squad:

24 Shot Bolter (S5 AP-1): 2.37
10 Shot Medium Gun (S7 AP-2 2D): 5.93
4 Shot Lascannon (you know the stats): 4.17
Total Average: 12.47 (which is good bye minimum Bike squad).

The Fire Raptors are T7, Supersonic and have 16 wounds I believe.

Trying to hunt down two of these things without ranged firepower was an exercise in brutality.

Usually you only see one Fireraptor, that is just brutal but is it legal?

Why would it not? they are just Flyers


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PS, isnt the Caladius kinda cheap in the beta rules for PL points?

Its not a LoW?

 Primark G wrote:
Its not a LoW?

nope, just a flier.

They are bad news bears.

They will get a points change most likely.

Lol, just one fire-raptor?

There was at least one list at LVO that had 3. (psst they work even better in chaos lists).

I've played 2 games so far with my bikes and I just can't make them worth it. s6 isn't enough (even with re-rolling failed wounds). Failing charges has caused my problems (even 8" charges are a 50/50 chance) and having to succeed 3 of them with my supreme command detachment has left me out in the cold more often that I thought.

Without some charge re-rolls or s8 I'm having a hard time keeping them in my list.

What am I doing wrong?

Pure Custodes is hard versus competitive armies IMO. If someone has 2-3 FR I would focus on killing their ground units.

 Primark G wrote:
Pure Custodes is hard versus competitive armies IMO. If someone has 2-3 FR I would focus on killing their ground units.

If someone has 2-3 Fire Raptors then killing their ground units should be a breeze because they won't have many.

Exactly.

Finished assembly of mine here, need a bit more work but will be 2k of them, but also have 15 Sisters of Silence (5 of each), a pair of Rhinos and a pair of Inquisitors just about ready (love the Greyfax model).

Wondering how to use the Sisters, figure as the "other talon" they are fitting, thinking they are going to be useful against psi heavy armies, and the flamers may be useful against hordes - the rest of the time they are perhaps useful for holding objectives (e.g. follow up behind the bananananannnananaas to hold what they take while they move on)

brings more CP which is useful, one bunch of six bananananaas in deep strike, optionally with either a character of banner to drop in alongside them if the situation looks like it needs it.

The Flamers are actually terrible for hordes. Save the points and don't use them.

r Fire Raptors is only 1000pts (more like 1030?) so you need to kill 1/2 an army and if you dont those Fire Raptors will do enough damage so you cant kill the rest.

Its not hard to have a few Scouts out of LoS in cover.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Why would it not? they are just Flyers


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PS, isnt the Caladius kinda cheap in the beta rules for PL points?

I actually don't have the PL for it.

Putting my thoughts on the Caladius down more, I think it has a lot of potential. The main gun is great, but the whole thing is bogged down by a lack of Power of the Machine Spirit. I have this great, flying tank that I was terrified to move anywhere because of the -1 penalty. It could use 2-4 more wounds for it's price level too.


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 Fenris-77 wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
Pure Custodes is hard versus competitive armies IMO. If someone has 2-3 FR I would focus on killing their ground units.

If someone has 2-3 Fire Raptors then killing their ground units should be a breeze because they won't have many.

The ones I fought we're about 362 points each. So he still had almost 1300 points for the rest. There were PLENTY of Infantry Squad bodies to keep him from getting sudden death'd.

bananathug wrote:
Lol, just one fire-raptor?

There was at least one list at LVO that had 3. (psst they work even better in chaos lists).

I've played 2 games so far with my bikes and I just can't make them worth it. s6 isn't enough (even with re-rolling failed wounds). Failing charges has caused my problems (even 8" charges are a 50/50 chance) and having to succeed 3 of them with my supreme command detachment has left me out in the cold more often that I thought.

Without some charge re-rolls or s8 I'm having a hard time keeping them in my list.

What am I doing wrong?

How are you using them? Move 14" turn one. move 14" turn 2 should not see you making 8" charges. And if he is that far back (which means the back line of his deployment zone) you can advance turn 1 instead.

The Custodes grav tanks all actually have Power of the Machine Spirit in 30k which is very powerful with 7th edition jink rule. FW is actively taking feedback from the community so we need to let them know.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I just reviewed the stats for the two grav tanks. My first pick would be the Coronus Grav Carrier since it has good ranged weapons, is more durable and is a transport. It currently clocks in at 370 points and can transport up to six Custodes. I think that it needs the following upgrades:

2+ armor save
5++ invulnerable save
Power of the Machine Spirit

Note it is T8 and has 18 wounds.

This was @ 1750 points
Vanguard
celestine
3x eversor
culexus

supreme command
3x bike captains
-warlord,5++, victor, 3+ bike

Ravenguard battalion
3x scouts
1x intercessors (SftS)
2x hell blasters (SftS)
Capt w/ jump pack
Lt w/ jump pack

vs

catchacan battalion
tank command lrbt + bc
commander w/ power fist
psycher
4x infantry
3x manticores
1x lrbt + bc
2x lrbt + gatling

tempest vang
2x tempest commanders
2x tempest command squads
ratlings

Celestine and assassins went after manticores + wrap. Hellbalsters killed one LRBT before scions + manticores removed them. Mants only got one round of shooting but damn did they make it worth it (2 eversors and 4 hellblasters in one round for 3 mants)

Captains failed 2/3 8" (so needed 7s) charges on LRBTs and ate 2-3 wounds a piece of overwatch. One captian makes it in, doesn't even degrade it. 2 LRBTs kill 2 wounded captians, charge again, eat 2 more wounds, degrade it. Fall back, one LRBT finishes him off, the other finishes celestine (after she finished the manticores). She comes back, eats overwatch, finishes wounded LRBT dies to the other 2 tanks.

She killed 3 manticores, a squad of infantry and finished a LRBT, 3 captains kill most of 1 LRBT and some scions...

If I had it to do over again I'd replace the captains with actual anti tank stuff (las-cannons on something).

Having to chase down the LRBTs left too many gaps in my lines (how the scions dropped on my hellblasters) and not being able to charge them as a unit (easier to make one charge with a re-roll than to make 3 separate charges with only one re-roll) meant I ate overwatch and then more shooting even though one of them had to fall back and couldn't shoot.

Not getting them into combat until turn 2 and then only piecemeal seems to be the deal breaker. Deploying them out of LOS and screened really reduced my ability to push up the board turn 1 and get that 4-6" charge turn 2.

It was worse against eldar (wraiths + cannons + webay = dead custodes) Ynarri reapers = dead hellblasters and there's only so much celestine can do.

I may try paring them with some grey knights (GMNDKs + strike squads) but after seeing those LRBTs for the 4th time I think my points would be better spent getting some of those in my army vs the bikes...