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Good evening gentlemen!

I am very new to warhammer 40k. I've mainly been playing MTG for the past few years. And am looking at playing either the black templars, or the adeptus custodes

I've seen alot of negativity surrounding the custodes release, so would the templar option be more viable?

Antipsyker8000 wrote:
Good evening gentlemen!

I am very new to warhammer 40k. I've mainly been playing MTG for the past few years. And am looking at playing either the black templars, or the adeptus custodes

I've seen alot of negativity surrounding the custodes release, so would the templar option be more viable?

Welcome to Dakka and 40k.

Take all the negativity with a grain of salt. A lot of people are tournament goers, who play (or aim to play) at the top level where there isn’t a lot of room for things that are not hyper efficient. When the BT got their book, there was also a lot of doom being tossed about.

Marines, being the flagship army, are generally somewhere in the middle of the pack as far as playability. Custodes, doubling down on the super-elite thing are probably going to be more swingy. This will be very dependent on the edition/meta/codex/etc. Generally at the local level, there is a lot more flex on what’s viable on the table.

You should go with what you love. Rules come and go, but models endure.

Also take criticisms of negativity with a grain of salt.

Most of the criticism directed at the new Custodes is how unfluffy the katas are for the faction (individual peerless warriors acting as mindless punch'em clones with no individuality) AND how much of a jumbled word salad the rules are.

Welcome to Dakka! As others have mentioned pick the models / army you like best and have fun with it. The Black Templars are a very fun army to play as right now and I'd say they're doing pretty well.

The Custodes were a perfect beginner army but the latest codex has cranked up the word salad a lot so they will be a bit more complicated than they used to be. They'll still be a good army so pick whichever one you like best.

Voss wrote:
Also take criticisms of negativity with a grain of salt.

Most of the criticism directed at the new Custodes is how unfluffy the katas are for the faction (individual peerless warriors acting as mindless punch'em clones with no individuality) AND how much of a jumbled word salad the rules are.

True. There are a lot of valid criticisms out there. I’ve only been half-heatedly following the custodes rumors, as I don’t play them. On first blush, I agree with what you are saying; the katas seem like a mess and unfluffy. But I’m no expert on the faction, having never seen them on the table or flipped through a codex.

—

There are a lot of people with strong opinions on the internet, Dakka is no exception. It’s good to apply salt to everything you hear, and do your own legwork and research. What’s true for some people might not be true for you, or how people feel about the issues. We also get a lot of hyperbole, where thing might not be ideal, but are not as extreme as they are made out to be.

Good luck and have fun.

Emperors finest? So you have chosen the Imperial Fisters. JK, BT is best. Or Grey Knights

 Manchild 1984 wrote:
Emperors finest? So you have chosen the Imperial Fisters. JK, BT is best. Or Grey Knights

Clearly he is heading towards the Imperial Guard.

Contrary opinion, I think custodes will likely be stronger than Black Templar. Competitively there a few problem matchups (Deathguard, thicc city drukhari) but outside of these we hose most of the meta is doing. If you like the custodes models I’d play them.

Pick GSC, their mining pickaxes are apparently better weapons than master crafted stuff the custodes have. Their rules are also very thematic and interesting.

If you like to play elite units that are very tough, you should rather play death guard or dark angels deathwing terminators. Both are cheaper and tougher than equivalent custodes for some reason.

Custodes get some very powerful characters in the new codex though, so they got that going for them...which is nice.

Edit: in my opinion go for the faction where you like the models best.....power levels change a lot.
Building and painting the models is a big part of the hobby, and imo it's important that you actually enjoy the look and design of the miniatures you spend a lot of time on.

Tiberias is one of the outspoken critic against the new book. He’s probably wrong about the books power , but right about going towards a faction you like the looks of.

Salt donkey wrote:
Tiberias is one of the outspoken critic against the new book. He’s probably wrong about the books power , but right about going towards a faction you like the looks of.

That's very black and white. Not a critic of the book in its entirety. Characters, strats and shield host traits are fine. Weapon profiles are gak, removing the 3++ is fine and expected, giving nothing in return but making things cheaper is not what custodes should be. The Katas are fine, but I still don't understand how a fixed set of movements fits custodes thematically, which kinda stings when you compare how thematic the GSC book is.

 KingGarland wrote:

 Manchild 1984 wrote:
Emperors finest? So you have chosen the Imperial Fisters. JK, BT is best. Or Grey Knights

Clearly he is heading towards the Imperial Guard.

*Astra militarum

Welcome to the hobby and dakka dakka. I wouldn’t care to much about the army criticism. If you’re interested in the big tournaments you might want to look into it. Otherwise all factions are viable to play. I’d suggest deciding based on the armies themes instead. The black Templars have the holy crusade in space theme going on, focused on aggressive infantry and big tanks mostly. The custodes have the fewest models of any army on the field, but they are the most powerfull dudes. The elite bodyguards theme is their schtick. So go with whatever of theese you find most cool.

I recommend looking at the model selection at the GW site, and choose the one which has more models you like. Rules come and go, but models stay.

One extra thing going for BT is that they're marines, and marines are GW's posterboy faction, and are guaranteed to have a steady and constant stream of new releases.

Also, BT and Custodes are bot Imperial factions, so you could in theory get both and ally them, though under current rules that probably is suboptimal.

If you're new to the game I'd always say go with the faction that you like the looks and background of first, as long as they are not the absolute bottom in game terms (just because losing all the time can be frustrating).

But if you're trying to choose between two factions and one of them is a Space Marine faction, I'd say you'll get a much better customer experience playing as Space Marine factions as they get the lion's share of the support and model releases and are front and centre in most of the fiction. Playing more minor faction can lead to a less satisfying experience if new models and rules support is important to you.

 Da Boss wrote:
But if you're trying to choose between two factions and one of them is a Space Marine faction, I'd say you'll get a much better customer experience playing as Space Marine factions as they get the lion's share of the support and model releases and are front and centre in most of the fiction. Playing more minor faction can lead to a less satisfying experience if new models and rules support is important to you.

That does not apply to niche, minor SM factions with specific gameplay, though. Unless he were to abandon BT tactic and play custom successor, most of new SM releases would be not really useful to blind melee no psykers chapter (but then most of his models wouldn't be optimal for tactic shift either).

If I were to recommend BT, it's because they will be probably easier to paint than Custodes. But then again, Custodes can be painted with metallic spray, quick drybrush and coat of contrast pretty quickly if you don't mind the models looking a bit dull, sooo...

Tiberias wrote:
Pick GSC, their mining pickaxes are apparently better weapons than master crafted stuff the custodes have. Their rules are also very thematic and interesting.

So basically, a tool designed to actually function works better than a shiny fancy hoity-toity golden tchotchke. Imagine my shock!