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Evan and the Shadowkeepers guy won in the shadow round so will be in the top 8.

Seigler is still favored to win the whole thing though.



Shadowkeepers seems to hard counter other custodes lists it seems.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
Evan and the Shadowkeepers guy won in the shadow round so will be in the top 8.

Seigler is still favored to win the whole thing though.



Shadowkeepers seems to hard counter other custodes lists it seems.

There's sn Emperor's Chosen in the top 8 with him, but I can see why Shadowkeepers would be strong into a mirror. We do a fair amount with characters, fight last hurts and the -1S hits a lot of break points when we try to wound ourselves.

leerm02 wrote:
Eh, I think the "whining" that most people are complaining about is really just that a lot of us wanted our faction to be different than how they chose to represent it.

I think the thing we got is quite powerful, very nuanced, and absolutely not the style of play that I'm looking for.

Custodes went from being my absolutely simplest faction to play, for when I didn't want to invest a lot of mental energy and just go "pew pew! I'm a bunch of cool dudes!", to now, where it's... well, considerably more complicated than that.

Again: I'm not saying what we have is BAD, I suspect we are going to be seeing a lot of wins out there to disprove that notion, what I'm saying is that it's not the way that I wanted the faction to be represented.

I wanted really simple Star-Wars esque pew-pew, and what I got was really complicated and nuanced Literary Sci-fi esque deep dive into what it means to subvert expectations, foil entrenched systems and tactically achieve "victory."

Not BAD, but definitely different. That's all.

Going to respond to this message, but I’m also going to indirectly hit on on some posts around this as well.
When the codex was first fully leaked the complaints I saw where as follows;

A) Not enough access to non-D2 weapons/ ways to ignore -1 D.
B) Ka’tahs didn’t accurately represent individual fighting styles custodes had/ were too similar to necron protocols. (Underlying these complaints were that Ka’tahs were too weak)
C) lost a bunch of good/flavorful stratagems we used to have.

Bonus D) not really a major complaint because people expected it, but many implied wanting a huge compensation for losing 3++.

First, I’m going to address your main point. Quite frankly, if you are annoyed that your army requires more skill/memorization to play competitively , then please stop playing competitively. Thairne just proved that this army can easily win in a casual setting .Competitive AOS players are in uproar because the “ meta” lists don’t require much thought. Why should 40k be similar? I can’t imagine what more you want from an army besides being able to win at a casual level with proper list building and being able to win at competitive levels with skill and good list building.

As far as addressing the 3 major complaints pre-release;

A) -1 D effects don’t hurt us that much seeing as 2 custodes list made it the top 8 of LVO (where -1 D tyranids and DE are quite common)

B) Ka’tahs are much better in practice than many theory hammer proponents expected. There are a lot of meaningful decisions here and can even be customized further on a more individual basis thanks to the strat.

C) A lot of the “flavorful” strats we lost where either 1) not actually that good outside of gotcha moment (swooping dive, teleport homers) or 2) were OP and boring in certain contexts (double shooting venatari, having terminators ignore -1 and -2 AP against the armies that used them).

D) Yeah we really needed those 3++ units. Now custodes have to settle for 2/8 top spots in biggest tournament of the world rather than the clean sweep of 8/8.

I guess maybe I just liked the “stand near-invincible guys on objectives and hope you survive” style of play less than some of you. Regardless our army is very clearly strong right now

the two top custodes lists rely on dreadnoughts. Which remained the best units in our roster. The shadowkeeper list surprised me by dropping the bikes for a pair of calladius. I hate the calladius and love bikes, so I hope this doesn't stick, but Ean has 3 dreads (a galatus and 2 achilles) while the shadowkeeper has 2 galatus.

Dreadnoughts get around the 2 damage limitation. And so, functionally, do calladius and bike shooting. That 2 damage limit is what holds us back, so as long as forgeworld 3 or more damage choices remain viable, there's a path forward

Tau might shut that down. They kill tanks gud

Salt donkey wrote:

leerm02 wrote:
Eh, I think the "whining" that most people are complaining about is really just that a lot of us wanted our faction to be different than how they chose to represent it.

I think the thing we got is quite powerful, very nuanced, and absolutely not the style of play that I'm looking for.

Custodes went from being my absolutely simplest faction to play, for when I didn't want to invest a lot of mental energy and just go "pew pew! I'm a bunch of cool dudes!", to now, where it's... well, considerably more complicated than that.

Again: I'm not saying what we have is BAD, I suspect we are going to be seeing a lot of wins out there to disprove that notion, what I'm saying is that it's not the way that I wanted the faction to be represented.

I wanted really simple Star-Wars esque pew-pew, and what I got was really complicated and nuanced Literary Sci-fi esque deep dive into what it means to subvert expectations, foil entrenched systems and tactically achieve "victory."

Not BAD, but definitely different. That's all.

Going to respond to this message, but I’m also going to indirectly hit on on some posts around this as well.
When the codex was first fully leaked the complaints I saw where as follows;

A) Not enough access to non-D2 weapons/ ways to ignore -1 D.
B) Ka’tahs didn’t accurately represent individual fighting styles custodes had/ were too similar to necron protocols. (Underlying these complaints were that Ka’tahs were too weak)
C) lost a bunch of good/flavorful stratagems we used to have.

Bonus D) not really a major complaint because people expected it, but many implied wanting a huge compensation for losing 3++.

First, I’m going to address your main point. Quite frankly, if you are annoyed that your army requires more skill/memorization to play competitively , then please stop playing competitively. Thairne just proved that this army can easily win in a casual setting .Competitive AOS players are in uproar because the “ meta” lists don’t require much thought. Why should 40k be similar? I can’t imagine what more you want from an army besides being able to win at a casual level with proper list building and being able to win at competitive levels with skill and good list building.

As far as addressing the 3 major complaints pre-release;

A) -1 D effects don’t hurt us that much seeing as 2 custodes list made it the top 8 of LVO (where -1 D tyranids and DE are quite common)

B) Ka’tahs are much better in practice than many theory hammer proponents expected. There are a lot of meaningful decisions here and can even be customized further on a more individual basis thanks to the strat.

C) A lot of the “flavorful” strats we lost where either 1) not actually that good outside of gotcha moment (swooping dive, teleport homers) or 2) were OP and boring in certain contexts (double shooting venatari, having terminators ignore -1 and -2 AP against the armies that used them).

D) Yeah we really needed those 3++ units. Now custodes have to settle for 2/8 top spots in biggest tournament of the world rather than the clean sweep of 8/8.

I guess maybe I just liked the “stand near-invincible guys on objectives and hope you survive” style of play less than some of you. Regardless our army is very clearly strong right now

People underestimated the Codex before release, but isn't it quite a bit hypocritical of you to call for nerfs based on one tournament that isn't even over yet? The Codex is out what? 3 weeks? And you presume to know how the meta is going to settle based on one event? When we don't even know how the new missions might shake up the meta and how Tau and eventually Eldar are going to play into the metagame? Talk about premature judgment....

actually, looking straight at the results, you would want to buff custodes. we were one of the 2 most populous armies and currently have a far weaker win rate than the notorious boogy man Drukari still. This means that as long as Druk's have been out and nerfed/changed they STILL are at the top of the pack.

Us being good doesnt change that. Its also too soon to touch custodes in general, as we need results from the points changes.

With tau fixing to enter the meta, it is likely that we wont get changed much, as they will be tabling armies soon and will get much more vitriol thrown their way.

 Eihnlazer wrote:
actually, looking straight at the results, you would want to buff custodes. we were one of the 2 most populous armies and currently have a far weaker win rate than the notorious boogy man Drukari still. This means that as long as Druk's have been out and nerfed/changed they STILL are at the top of the pack.

Us being good doesnt change that. Its also too soon to touch custodes in general, as we need results from the points changes.

With tau fixing to enter the meta, it is likely that we wont get changed much, as they will be tabling armies soon and will get much more vitriol thrown their way.

Nah, after the points drops another buff would be really questionable.

Let's assess that again after the balance dataslate and after tau have settled in the meta.

and after CA2022 made actions/most missions a good bit more harder for custodes to accomplish.
A single model lost means no Engage e.g., that is quite significant.

What about the theory that no one in the top meta has learned our foils yet? And we're so new that we essentially haven't been figured out yet? We have some pretty glaring weaknesses, and some of them we had pre-9th.
- Extremely low model count (Maybe 30-40)
- Weak to Psyker heavy lists (GK/TS)
- Weak to massed high strength shooting (HBs)
- Our shooting is kinda pathetic.

Now they have introduced this Kata system, which is extremely flexible, and gives players a lot of control over how the battle goes. It's hard to prepare against that. I do think we deserve nerfs (Trajann) but I think we also deserve something stronger in damage output for our main units.

Goonhammer is starting already.

There are more raw win percentages to consider, but it seems clear that Custodes are on par with the game’s top factions, and that’s with players having limited experience playing them, and before a major points drop coming up in a couple of weeks. This faction might be an issue.

brace yourself for torches and pitchforks.

Do we know what the lists look like? I had heard it’s a lot of FW

Rivener wrote:
Do we know what the lists look like? I had heard it’s a lot of FW

I wouldn't say a lot. One has triple A hills Dreads and the other has two Galatus and one or two Caladii. One has a bunch of Guardians (including a 10 man squad). Ateast one had jetbikes too.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
What about the theory that no one in the top meta has learned our foils yet? And we're so new that we essentially haven't been figured out yet? We have some pretty glaring weaknesses, and some of them we had pre-9th.
- Extremely low model count (Maybe 30-40)
- Weak to Psyker heavy lists (GK/TS)
- Weak to massed high strength shooting (HBs)
- Our shooting is kinda pathetic.

Now they have introduced this Kata system, which is extremely flexible, and gives players a lot of control over how the battle goes. It's hard to prepare against that. I do think we deserve nerfs (Trajann) but I think we also deserve something stronger in damage output for our main units.

Look it’s not like I think we need heavy nerfs, but some make sense at this point. From a factual perspective:

A) Custodes had a 60% win rate and 2 top 8’s at LVO. This is the most WAAC tournament of year/in the world. People expected to play/practiced against custodes plenty before this.

B) Chapter approved gave us points drops. Bike captains and Trajann were staples of most lists. Bikes and single terminators where also quite common. These drops will objectively help those lists even more. Everyone is speculating the new missions/Tau will hurt us. People also speculated our book would be weak and look how that’s turning out.

C) All your points are speculative and don’t mean much in the face of a 60% LVO win-rate (where they would matter if they where real issues.) Emperors chosen + our other psychic defenses are more than enough to handle psychic armies. Low model counts don’t matter if our guys die slowly enough to win the mission. FW options + bikes gives us plenty of viable shooting (especially when added to our incidentally shooting). Heavy bolters, autocannons etc are usually overcosted and can still get countered by something like the shieldwall spam.

Again things like DE and tyranids are clearly worse for the game, and there’s a good chance Tau and eldar will be as well. All these deserve nerfs, but let’s sit here and pretend that means there’s nothing wrong with us either.

Custodes are the new DE.

DE got knocked out in the quarter finals. Two of the four lists going into the LVO semi-finals are Custodes. And they're both different. And remember this is before the CA buffs.

The pre-release whining must feel pretty silly now!

@Salt donkey
Where can i get the actual input data for your Statistic, you know because Statistics are known to be always trustworthy.... .
Even if this event is the most WAAC tournament, to use the raw data provided by one tournament alone says not that much in the end.

But you are right, they are in good position and that can't be denied at least for the moment.

@artific3r
Not really, most people didn't complain from a actual competitive point but more from their personal opionen about the style which Custodes have with the new codex but that's a point the competitve guys won't get in their head.

artific3r wrote:
Custodes are the new DE.

DE got knocked out in the quarter finals. Two of the four lists going into the LVO semi-finals are Custodes. And they're both different. And remember this is before the CA buffs.

The pre-release whining must feel pretty silly now!

Yep the top 4 of LVO is now 1) best player in the world 2) Best hivemind player of all time and 3) 2 custodes players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Torgroll wrote:
@Salt donkey
Where can i get the actual input data for your Statistic, you know because Statistics are known to be always trustworthy.... .

Taken from the competitive Reddit thread. Doesn’t include things like mirror matches and drops in the calculation, but has all the numbers there else-wise. Tyranids and DE had a 62% win rate for those curious.

There is theory too that the 2022 missions will be bad for us or change us since they're so action oriented. That is something to put a star by and check later.

Audustum wrote:
There is theory too that the 2022 missions will be bad for us or change us since they're so action oriented. That is something to put a star by and check later.

Can someone explain this theory to me as aside from changes to engage on all fronts and retrieve Octavius data I see no major issues for us in the new book. We still have stranghold and behind enemy lines as good options (especially with boosting bike captains and single terminator units). Raise banners and now investigate sites are also fine options to replace retrieve. Outside of these all the new mission designs seem to benefit us more than hurt. Just remember that new missions need to be evaluated from an opportunity cost perspective. Even though engage and retrieve Octavius data may be much worse us now that doesn’t matter if we are better at doing “replacement” secondaries than most armies.

Salt donkey wrote:

Audustum wrote:
There is theory too that the 2022 missions will be bad for us or change us since they're so action oriented. That is something to put a star by and check later.

Can someone explain this theory to me as aside from changes to engage on all fronts and retrieve Octavius data I see no major issues for us in the new book. We still have stranghold and behind enemy lines as good options (especially with boosting bike captains and single terminator units). Raise banners and now investigate sites are also fine options to replace retrieve. Outside of these all the new mission designs seem to benefit us more than hurt. Just remember that new missions need to be evaluated from an opportunity cost perspective. Even though engage and retrieve Octavius data may be much worse us now that doesn’t matter if we are better at doing “replacement” secondaries than most armies.

So they're referring to the new primaries. You only score 4 8 12 now and the bonus missions on each map are mostly action based and score primary points. The theory is it'll skew more infantry thus we can't take as many Dreads or bikes. Also, since we have fewer units our action economy is tighter.

Audustum wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:

Audustum wrote:
There is theory too that the 2022 missions will be bad for us or change us since they're so action oriented. That is something to put a star by and check later.

Can someone explain this theory to me as aside from changes to engage on all fronts and retrieve Octavius data I see no major issues for us in the new book. We still have stranghold and behind enemy lines as good options (especially with boosting bike captains and single terminator units). Raise banners and now investigate sites are also fine options to replace retrieve. Outside of these all the new mission designs seem to benefit us more than hurt. Just remember that new missions need to be evaluated from an opportunity cost perspective. Even though engage and retrieve Octavius data may be much worse us now that doesn’t matter if we are better at doing “replacement” secondaries than most armies.

So they're referring to the new primaries. You only score 4 8 12 now and the bonus missions on each map are mostly action based and score primary points. The theory is it'll skew more infantry thus we can't take as many Dreads or bikes. Also, since we have fewer units our action economy is tighter.

All the mission secondaries don’t require a certain number of models. That makes single terminators units one of best option to preform them. They are obsec and are very hard to screen out, which allows them preform these actions very effectively. They are particularly good in the bomb mission, as you can drop them into a corner and place an objective at the end of the turn. Now you’re opponent has to deal with a hard to reach objective with a terminator guarding it in order to deny you points.

Salt donkey wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:

Audustum wrote:
There is theory too that the 2022 missions will be bad for us or change us since they're so action oriented. That is something to put a star by and check later.

Can someone explain this theory to me as aside from changes to engage on all fronts and retrieve Octavius data I see no major issues for us in the new book. We still have stranghold and behind enemy lines as good options (especially with boosting bike captains and single terminator units). Raise banners and now investigate sites are also fine options to replace retrieve. Outside of these all the new mission designs seem to benefit us more than hurt. Just remember that new missions need to be evaluated from an opportunity cost perspective. Even though engage and retrieve Octavius data may be much worse us now that doesn’t matter if we are better at doing “replacement” secondaries than most armies.

So they're referring to the new primaries. You only score 4 8 12 now and the bonus missions on each map are mostly action based and score primary points. The theory is it'll skew more infantry thus we can't take as many Dreads or bikes. Also, since we have fewer units our action economy is tighter.

All the mission secondaries don’t require a certain number of models. That makes single terminators units one of best option to preform them. They are obsec and are very hard to screen out, which allows them preform these actions very effectively. They are particularly good in the bomb mission, as you can drop them into a corner and place an objective at the end of the turn. Now you’re opponent has to deal with a hard to reach objective with a terminator guarding it in order to deny you points.

A fair number of them are about being in the middle or holding things in the middle. The bomb is a bit of a unique one. The point also is that if we start loading up on more infantry to do these things we can't take 3 Achillus or 2 Galatus and 2 Caladii or 9 jetbikes, e.t.c. (i.e. our composition gets weakened on raw power).

artific3r wrote:
Custodes are the new DE.

DE got knocked out in the quarter finals. Two of the four lists going into the LVO semi-finals are Custodes. And they're both different. And remember this is before the CA buffs.

The pre-release whining must feel pretty silly now!

I really don’t think custodes are dark eldar, but so far they have had a surprisingly strong matchup into dark eldar thicc city, which really surprised me. Though I think the cheema all wracked beats custodes pretty thoroughly just swarming objectives, but he got taken down by nids

Salt donkey wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:

Audustum wrote:
There is theory too that the 2022 missions will be bad for us or change us since they're so action oriented. That is something to put a star by and check later.

Can someone explain this theory to me as aside from changes to engage on all fronts and retrieve Octavius data I see no major issues for us in the new book. We still have stranghold and behind enemy lines as good options (especially with boosting bike captains and single terminator units). Raise banners and now investigate sites are also fine options to replace retrieve. Outside of these all the new mission designs seem to benefit us more than hurt. Just remember that new missions need to be evaluated from an opportunity cost perspective. Even though engage and retrieve Octavius data may be much worse us now that doesn’t matter if we are better at doing “replacement” secondaries than most armies.

So they're referring to the new primaries. You only score 4 8 12 now and the bonus missions on each map are mostly action based and score primary points. The theory is it'll skew more infantry thus we can't take as many Dreads or bikes. Also, since we have fewer units our action economy is tighter.

All the mission secondaries don’t require a certain number of models. That makes single terminators units one of best option to preform them. They are obsec and are very hard to screen out, which allows them preform these actions very effectively. They are particularly good in the bomb mission, as you can drop them into a corner and place an objective at the end of the turn. Now you’re opponent has to deal with a hard to reach objective with a terminator guarding it in order to deny you points.

Again, you called out people who underestimated the codex before release (and rightly so). How about we wait and see how the new missions and the balance dataslate that's coming in february are going to change the meta before passing any judgment (tau and eldar are going to shake things up quite a bit as well).

Trajann at 160 was absolutely unnecessary though, I don't this anyone will argue about that. He was already amazing at 170.

Audustum wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:

Audustum wrote:
There is theory too that the 2022 missions will be bad for us or change us since they're so action oriented. That is something to put a star by and check later.

Can someone explain this theory to me as aside from changes to engage on all fronts and retrieve Octavius data I see no major issues for us in the new book. We still have stranghold and behind enemy lines as good options (especially with boosting bike captains and single terminator units). Raise banners and now investigate sites are also fine options to replace retrieve. Outside of these all the new mission designs seem to benefit us more than hurt. Just remember that new missions need to be evaluated from an opportunity cost perspective. Even though engage and retrieve Octavius data may be much worse us now that doesn’t matter if we are better at doing “replacement” secondaries than most armies.

So they're referring to the new primaries. You only score 4 8 12 now and the bonus missions on each map are mostly action based and score primary points. The theory is it'll skew more infantry thus we can't take as many Dreads or bikes. Also, since we have fewer units our action economy is tighter.

All the mission secondaries don’t require a certain number of models. That makes single terminators units one of best option to preform them. They are obsec and are very hard to screen out, which allows them preform these actions very effectively. They are particularly good in the bomb mission, as you can drop them into a corner and place an objective at the end of the turn. Now you’re opponent has to deal with a hard to reach objective with a terminator guarding it in order to deny you points.

A fair number of them are about being in the middle or holding things in the middle. The bomb is a bit of a unique one. The point also is that if we start loading up on more infantry to do these things we can't take 3 Achillus or 2 Galatus and 2 Caladii or 9 jetbikes, e.t.c. (i.e. our composition gets weakened on raw power).

Of the 9 missions; 1 cares about scoring the center objective, 3 care about holding no-man’s land objectives, 1 cares about objectives not under your control, 1 cares about kill points, 3 are action secondaries, where 1 (the scouring) requires you to preform actions on an objective. That 1 is the one I worry about most, but it’s hard to do/bad for everyone. All other 8 seems easy for us even by just running 3 independent terminators and some sisters (you’ll have guardians, characters, and likely 1 warden squad to help as well).

I do think the two top 8 custodes players have majorly lucked out by dodging our worst match up in crusher stampede.

Crusher stampede, ironically, looks to mostly have taken itself out of the top 8, with the stampede that just last to a non stampede nid having gone through two mirrors on the way there.

I think Custodes results at LVO really show that with limited experience, and pre-buffs, the codex is competitive. Beating Siegler's admech for the championship was going to always be a tall order.

Yes, as we all knew, Drukhari still need nerfs.

Anyone wanna even hazard a guess at the first nerf we have incoming?

I'm gonna say our Dreads cost. There is zero chance in hell that the Gee Dubs nerfs DE. They haven't for the past three majors and CA, why would they start now? No, I'm putting 20 on the sheer whinging about how powerful Custodes are sees us go back to pre-codex points costs for units, Bike Captains get further nerfs, and dreads either go up in cost, or lose something. This is exactly what we didn't need to see. FW dread lists winning majors a month after a codex drop. Now our best units will get nerfed, and likely the entire faction.

What you have to remember is anything printed is 6 months behind DE are due for a nerf next time. Custodes might get a little leeway. As to immediate changes their needs to be data with the new missions and I think that will determine it. Its also not all about how this faction adapts to the new mission structure and sub detatchment rules but how others do and some like SoB got nuked.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Anyone wanna even hazard a guess at the first nerf we have incoming?

I'm gonna say our Dreads cost. There is zero chance in hell that the Gee Dubs nerfs DE. They haven't for the past three majors and CA, why would they start now? No, I'm putting 20 on the sheer whinging about how powerful Custodes are sees us go back to pre-codex points costs for units, Bike Captains get further nerfs, and dreads either go up in cost, or lose something. This is exactly what we didn't need to see. FW dread lists winning majors a month after a codex drop. Now our best units will get nerfed, and likely the entire faction.

Doom and Gloom. The book just dropped. That’s a pretty pessimistic look on life you have there.

U02dah4 wrote:
What you have to remember is anything printed is 6 months behind DE are due for a nerf next time. Custodes might get a little leeway. As to immediate changes their needs to be data with the new missions and I think that will determine it. Its also not all about how this faction adapts to the new mission structure and sub detatchment rules but how others do and some like SoB got nuked.

Yeeeeaaah, I don't buy the doom and gloom. I'm pretty happy with where this has all ended up. You may as well enjoy what we have for now.
The meta hasn't adjusted for the book yet, and Tau are due to shake things up in a big way as well. Even if we get nerfed, it would probably be a points rollback to their original values.