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i keep reading how the custodes dex is basically a slap in the face to grey knights and i dont understand why.
they're completely different so why the comparison?

Because they're closest equivalent to the Grey Knights. Both armies can only really play mega elite armies.

Having fought them they feel really similar. Low model count with high durability and deals multiple damage.

Why do people keep posting 40K topics in a section explicitly highlighted as not for 40K?

Who knows

Because, as others mentioned, they are elite armies. High points cost per model and low model count.

Certain degree of salty tears due to Custodes getting it 'more right' than what GW did with GKs.

 AaronWilson wrote:
Because they're closest equivalent to the Grey Knights. Both armies can only really play mega elite armies.

Not only are their play styles similar, they have units with similar stat lines and battlefield roles. Custodian guard have a better stat line than GK Paladins but have been cheaper since 8th started. Additionally their codex contains many rules/strategems/abilities that have either existed at one point in some past iteration of the GK codex or would benefit GK in the same manner as Custodes.

They are similar in some ways but there is also a lot of differences too.

Low model count, high potency (but low true survivablity) power armor, now in gold instead of silver.
Oh but they are better b/c they are new. Sales

Both armies are basically just "Super Marines", although GKs are silver and Custodes are gold.

They are superficially similar, and because of this people can't wrap their heads around the differences (psychic powers being the elephant in the room, as well as Deep Strike) and so they throw up their hands and assume they are the same.

 Galef wrote:
Both armies are basically just "Super Marines", although GKs are silver and Custodes are gold.

Most GK armies seem closer to Imperial Knights than Custodes - 3 to 6 Grandmaster Nemesis Dreadknights, supporting Astra Militarum chaff and the occasional Stormraven.

At the end of the day though, I'd like to see an army with both. DKs and Custodes bikes for the win!

Back when they were metal, before the Matt Ward codex introduced so much superfluous stuff in order to flesh them out into an 'army', the pregame pitch for Grey Knights was more or less the same as it is for Custodes now: "Hey, I've got these five big guys helping out my army, they're super expensive but they're tough and hit hard." or "My army is these sixteen terminators. Actually I'm just over the points limit, is that ok?"

At least, that's how they seem similar to me.

 Galef wrote:
At the end of the day though, I'd like to see an army with both. DKs and Custodes bikes for the win!

Working on it....

Because they're both big space marines+1 wearing ridiculously ornate to the point of looking goofy armor and swinging giant anime weapons, and for some reason the very same group of people who complain about Daemons in 40k being too fantasy and not enough sci-fi are perfectly OK with them.

For me it's all about the rules/fluff coherency.

GK has always been presented as elite of the elite. But this is not the feeling I have in-game, and Custodes units have better profiles for less points.

 Asmodai wrote:

 Galef wrote:
Both armies are basically just "Super Marines", although GKs are silver and Custodes are gold.

Most GK armies seem closer to Imperial Knights than Custodes - 3 to 6 Grandmaster Nemesis Dreadknights, supporting Astra Militarum chaff and the occasional Stormraven.

This is one of the reasons the Custodes book is annoying to some GK players. They may want to have an army of shiny elite infantry, but they've been handed a Codex containing two playable units, and then here comes along this other book that does shiny elite infantry well, after the GK have already gotten a Codex that proved completely useless in making their shiny elite infantry playable but will still have GW saying "well, they got a Codex recently..." and not giving them any kind of update or fix for years to come.

Because Custodes play like Grey Knights, but better. It's making me want to start Grey Knights - I like an underdog.

Grey Knights definitely got a rough codex with a lack of high end competitive play options, but I don't feel that the Custodes and Grey Knights truly match up in comparisons.

Custodes, to me, feel like an elite close combat army with just a hint of shooting mixed in to support them.

Grey Knights, while also elite and having good melee options, are more all-rounder with good shooting options (not to mention they come with Storm Bolters in an edition where quantity of shots can easily trump quality of shots (Rapid Fire 2 > Rapid Fire 1 with good AP), a wider array of unit options, more options to get up the board quickly, and of course being psykers.

There are definitely is some overlap, but the differences are quite wide and basically I feel that's where my confusion stems from: one is clearly strictly an elite Marine army with all the trappings of being Marines (T4, 1 wound on regular guys, 2 for Terminators) and can never fully break away from that baseline. The other is a faction of ten thousand elite bodyguard for the most powerful person in all of humanity who have to be individually crafted instead of trained and converted in mass.

Even if you wanted them to be exactly the same so the Custodes could tromp all over Grey Knights all day, they won't be. The differences are too great to just go "yup, gold is clearly always better".

Actually we would probably be having this discussion less if GW hadn't dropped the ball and put Sisters of Silence into the codex like the lore depicts. That and T3 in regular power armour that shuts down psychic powers (to an extent) is going to feel very different than T4 psykers in an army.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
i keep reading how the custodes dex is basically a slap in the face to grey knights and i dont understand why.
they're completely different so why the comparison?

Theyre almost an identical army concept. The ultra elite of the most ultra elite, better and more mysterious and bigger and special-er than anyone else. GK's had always been the default go-to for Custodes counts as armies in the past for a reason.

Yeah, there are differences in nuance, but the basic faction concept is identical, hence the comparisons.

They are very different in many ways, for example Custodes are not even Space Marines.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
i keep reading how the custodes dex is basically a slap in the face to grey knights and i dont understand why.
they're completely different so why the comparison?

Theyre almost an identical army concept. The ultra elite of the most ultra elite, better and more mysterious and bigger and special-er than anyone else. GK's had always been the default go-to for Custodes counts as armies in the past for a reason.

Yeah, there are differences in nuance, but the basic faction concept is identical, hence the comparisons.

One is an elite Marine army full of psykers, the other are like half a step below Primarchs in terms of development.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
i keep reading how the custodes dex is basically a slap in the face to grey knights and i dont understand why.
they're completely different so why the comparison?

Theyre almost an identical army concept. The ultra elite of the most ultra elite, better and more mysterious and bigger and special-er than anyone else. GK's had always been the default go-to for Custodes counts as armies in the past for a reason.

Yeah, there are differences in nuance, but the basic faction concept is identical, hence the comparisons.

One is an elite Marine army full of psykers, the other are like half a step below Primarchs in terms of development.

Aye, there are differences, but the same kinds of weapons (lets be real, the differences between a Nemesis Force Staff and a Custodian Spear are no wider than the differences between different edition's iterations of Nemesis Force Weapons) and tactics are broadly employed by and against both, and GKT/Paladins were about the closest things to Custodes until their recent release.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
i keep reading how the custodes dex is basically a slap in the face to grey knights and i dont understand why.
they're completely different so why the comparison?

Theyre almost an identical army concept. The ultra elite of the most ultra elite, better and more mysterious and bigger and special-er than anyone else. GK's had always been the default go-to for Custodes counts as armies in the past for a reason.

Yeah, there are differences in nuance, but the basic faction concept is identical, hence the comparisons.

One is an elite Marine army full of psykers, the other are like half a step below Primarchs in terms of development.

Aye, there are differences, but the same kinds of weapons (lets be real, the differences between a Nemesis Force Staff and a Custodian Spear are no wider than the differences between different edition's iterations of Nemesis Force Weapons) and tactics are broadly employed by and against both, and GKT/Paladins were about the closest things to Custodes until their recent release.

Same kind of melee weapon, but differences in shooting weapons. Grey Knights throw a lot more shots out than Custodes do for the same model counts.

Sure, though to me at least, thats a nuance thing. Neither are really shooting armies, many GK armies through the history of the game have had practically no shooting, and the HH Custodes stuff hasnt been ported over which is where lots of their shooty stuff (and rifle equipped infantry) is.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Sure, though to me at least, thats a nuance thing. Neither are really shooting armies, many GK armies through the history of the game have had practically no shooting, and the HH Custodes stuff hasnt been ported over which is where lots of their shooty stuff (and rifle equipped infantry) is.

My point is that Custodes are almost completely a melee only army while GK are more all rounder due to having more tools for dealing with stuff at range while not being bad (though not exceptional because Space Marines) at melee.

I mean, Grey Knights are Psykers and Custodes are not.

Personally, I'd deploy and play a game completely differently depending on if it was against GK or Custodes. (Mostly surrounding the deployment of my psychic defense, which, because I run a Graia Forge World battalion, is a good chunk of my army).

Both armies can generate a lot of fire power but it’s mostly short range.

I think I compare due to fluff reasons. In the fluff the Emperor sets out to make the ultimate marine via GKs. They are supposed to thrive and defeat the most difficult of enemies. When a daemon incursion happens send in a handful of GKs and sit back and relax you've taken care of it.

Custodes are supposed to guard the Emperor (and Earth) from whatever. I don't know their fluff so I don't know if they're genetically tinkered with or not.

The big issue to me, equipment. Why are GKs getting equipment obviously inferior to Custodes but paying more. The same with troops, GKs get inferior statlines but pay more. Psychic be darned with the nerf that GKs suffered and the pathetic list of other abilities it doesn't even out between GK and Custodes.

/rant

 Primark G wrote:
Both armies can generate a lot of fire power but it’s mostly short range.

Grey Knights will generate twice or more than the Custodes. Custodes have Rapid Fire 1 guns, while Grey Knights have Rapid Fire 2 guns. Add in the other weapons the Grey Knights have (Psilencers for example) and Grey Knights will do more damage in shooting than Custodes do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
The big issue to me, equipment. Why are GKs getting equipment obviously inferior to Custodes but paying more. The same with troops, GKs get inferior statlines but pay more. Psychic be darned with the nerf that GKs suffered and the pathetic list of other abilities it doesn't even out between GK and Custodes.

/rant

I don't know about the equipment exactly, but for bodies it's definitely the psyker tag causing the most problems. Hopefully they see a points drop this year.