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Amalgram was going to get nerfed hard, anyone who believed otherwise was head in sand. Obsec going to troops only seems odd, unless I am misunderstanding that.

The Infantry only Strategem is something I didn't see coming, but frankly shouldn't matter. Aside from a few units, it's not really THAT major.

Ok, so our bike Captain is slightly less tanky, oh well. My "all Bikes" gimmick list is likely less capable now, but be honest.

I'd trade these nerfs 3 times a day to keep the stuff that keeps us on top right now. Major damage bikes alpha striking, and hilariously cheap death squads of infantry, backed up by the single most miscosted unit in GW history. Our Faction Leader.

I try to stay measured when posting, but I expect these changes to make Custodes all but non-existant as a competitor to win tournaments.

HOW? Please explain how a nerf to our ability for a once per turn strat now makes us the Imperial Guard?

Guys, this is me. Fezzik. King of Hyperboletopia, saying Hakuna your Tatas.

Since almost all weapons have -1AP a normal marine has the same armor as custodes... makes sense. SM termis with SS have a better armor than cutodes termis now... makes sense. put them in cover and they ignore -3 AP

I will just switch to my Nids and play custodes in 30k where the rules still match the fluff most of the time.

Auspice ONCE per game? Cmon that's a bit harsh...only obsec on troops is annoying for sure.

Why are we excluded from armor of contempt? That doesn't make a lot of sense....people will soon learn that custodes were not tough because of their statline....

I'm pretty sure these nerfs won't kill us, but it is the end of our superiority. I expect we'll find ourselves back at the ~50% win rate and severely struggle against any future metas.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
HOW? Please explain how a nerf to our ability for a once per turn strat now makes us the Imperial Guard?

Guys, this is me. Fezzik. King of Hyperboletopia, saying Hakuna your Tatas.

From the Art of War stream:

Jack Harpster

Blasted crater where they once were.
...
Adeptus custodes went from one of the best armies in the game to one of the worst.

Our durability was basically all tied to our strats. We can shut off re-rolls now only once per-game and only for infantry. We can't transhuman our bikes at all. We can only switch Katas once per-game.

I said it before the dataslate and I'll say it again now: we are squishy. Our durability was the strats. No strats, no durability. I believe Lennon said this on stream:

John Lennon

They're not durable for their points

And that's the crux. Without strat support, we fold like wet paper.

Audustum wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
HOW? Please explain how a nerf to our ability for a once per turn strat now makes us the Imperial Guard?

Guys, this is me. Fezzik. King of Hyperboletopia, saying Hakuna your Tatas.

From the Art of War stream:

Jack Harpster

Blasted crater where they once were.
...
Adeptus custodes went from one of the best armies in the game to one of the worst.

Our durability was basically all tied to our strats. We can shut off re-rolls now only once per-game and only for infantry. We can't transhuman our bikes at all. We can only switch Katas once per-game.

I said it before the dataslate and I'll say it again now: we are squishy. Our durability was the strats. No strats, no durability. I believe Lennon said this on stream:

John Lennon

They're not durable for their points

And that's the crux. Without strat support, we fold like wet paper.

Yeah I agree, I've been saying this since our release. No strats, no toughness...our statline is a joke in today's meta

Ok, so 3 wound 5/5 2+4++5+++ with a S8AP2 D2 melee Profile for 45 points is now GARBAGE? You guys need to pass that smoke over here because it seems wicked dank.

Yeah, we aren't king of the hill anymore, but be honest, were any of you actual top tier competitive players? I sincerely doubt it. Custodes are still able to destroy most things with bikes, which are still OP, Trajann is still horrifically under costed, and we are still a force that requires extremely dedicated firepower to move. A squad of 4 guardians counts as 8 bodies, and is next to impossible to shift without a hilarious amount of dedicated resources.

Now lets all go back to our meth pipes and declare custodes Dead. Can I have your Allarus models please?

Knights and nids having an army with -1D on almost everything mean our 2 dmg weapons are not going to cut it. so dreads are our only hope.

If i bring a knight with my custodes i only lose katahs right?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Ok, so 3 wound 5/5 2+4++5+++ with a S8AP2 D2 melee Profile for 45 points is now GARBAGE? You guys need to pass that smoke over here because it seems wicked dank.

Yeah, we aren't king of the hill anymore, but be honest, were any of you actual top tier competitive players? I sincerely doubt it. Custodes are still able to destroy most things with bikes, which are still OP, Trajann is still horrifically under costed, and we are still a force that requires extremely dedicated firepower to move. A squad of 4 guardians counts as 8 bodies, and is next to impossible to shift without a hilarious amount of dedicated resources.

Now lets all go back to our meth pipes and declare custodes Dead. Can I have your Allarus models please?

We don't have a 5+++. For our points, that stat line is weak yes. As Lennon said: we're not durable for our points.

I agree this pretty much sinks us, remove the strat and we are not much more durable than marines for a whole load of more points.

This is such a poorly thought out "balance" update, bikes, trajan and dreads were the spammed over performing units along with some shield guard and guess what thats still hat will be taken - dreads even more so!

Once per game EA is a massive hit, upping its CP would have been one thing but just removing it is really harsh and such a poor way of handling stuff.

Turning our two Strats that let us change abilities to single use is again taking a sledgehammer to a nail but worse than that it removes a whole lot of interesting plays and tricks which made us fun to play. Now we just have to sit there and tank shots badly whilst having little damage output other than bikes as half the game just got increased armour saves.
Time to hit the shelf again :-(

Agreed. I've been feeling this since our stuff was previewed. I don't want my resilience to rely on tricks and starts, I just want strong units.

 WisdomLS wrote:
I agree this pretty much sinks us, remove the strat and we are not much more durable than marines for a whole load of more points.

This is such a poorly thought out "balance" update, bikes, trajan and dreads were the spammed over performing units along with some shield guard and guess what thats still hat will be taken - dreads even more so!

Once per game EA is a massive hit, upping its CP would have been one thing but just removing it is really harsh and such a poor way of handling stuff.

Turning our two Strats that let us change abilities to single use is again taking a sledgehammer to a nail but worse than that it removes a whole lot of interesting plays and tricks which made us fun to play. Now we just have to sit there and tank shots badly whilst having little damage output other than bikes as half the game just got increased armour saves.
Time to hit the shelf again :-(

Don't get me started on how neither us nor the Sisters of Silence got the power armor boost. Ugh.

Well boys it was fun while it lasted. 3 months of being OP to being worse than what we were pre- PA. Stuff like this is why I haven’t been playing this game much recently.

Yeah don't worry guys. Custodes players are just overreacting as always. Everything is fine and if you argue otherwise, you either don't know what you are talking about and/or are a spoiled custodes player who only wants to play a broken faction...is basically what's going to be said on here and on the competitive subreddit.

An adjustment was needed, but this is just over the top. Which is kinda annoying because both the Harlequin and Tau changes are actually kinda sensible.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Ok, so 3 wound 5/5 2+4++5+++ with a S8AP2 D2 melee Profile for 45 points is now GARBAGE? You guys need to pass that smoke over here because it seems wicked dank.

Yeah, we aren't king of the hill anymore, but be honest, were any of you actual top tier competitive players? I sincerely doubt it. Custodes are still able to destroy most things with bikes, which are still OP, Trajann is still horrifically under costed, and we are still a force that requires extremely dedicated firepower to move. A squad of 4 guardians counts as 8 bodies, and is next to impossible to shift without a hilarious amount of dedicated resources.

Now lets all go back to our meth pipes and declare custodes Dead. Can I have your Allarus models please?

Bikes aren’t even close to OP anymore. Don’t want to be too harsh man, but it doesn’t seem you like you played the army much. First off there’s no unit in the book that costs 45 points and has a 5+++. Wardens are 50 and have a 6+++. Also you should realize that while bikes may still hit as hard, their durability dropped from nearly unkillable to being made of wet tissue paper.

In fact the date-slate itself makes this pretty clear. For example 2 Deathwing terminators; A) have 6 wounds split across 2 guys B) have perma transhuman which by in large is better than T6 C) cost less than 1 bike and D) can get -1 D. DG and Tson terminator are in similar positions to Deathwing with some various tradeoffs. Despite all this, GW (likely correctly) made the decision that all these should get an effective +1 to their armor save. This was the correct decision because the game is now at that level of lethality where these units needed some help to actually be durable.

Point being our bikes will disappear the moment they come into LoS. Which for how much they cost is unacceptable, no matter what their offensive output might be.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tiberias wrote:
Yeah don't worry guys. Custodes players are just overreacting as always. Everything is fine and if you argue otherwise, you either don't know what you are talking about and/or are a spoiled custodes player who only wants to play a broken faction...is basically what's going to be said on here and on the competitive subreddit.

An adjustment was needed, but this is just over the top. Which is kinda annoying because both the Harlequin and Tau changes are actually kinda sensible.

It’s especially annoying because not all of us where saying the codex was bad on preview. And even if you did, we’ve all played the army enough to know what made it too good. Nerfs where of course needed, but being reduced to Trajann with FW dreads isn’t fun.

I'm sure most custodes players would have preferred to be less reliant on stratagems for survivability, having more expensive infantry and getting +1wound on all infantry, not only on characters.
Having 4 wounds on basic Infantry and 5 wounds on terminators would also distinguish us more from space marines, since armor saves are no longer that much of a big factor in that comparison.

see you in 10th edition boys.

was nice having a functional codex while it lasted.

So we got hit pretty hard, no doubt about that. Aside from abandoning the army, which is no option for me personally, this leaves the question where we go from here.

In my opinion Telemons are going to come back in style. They are still plenty tough without stratagems and benefit greatly from both the Emperor's Chosen and Shadowkeeper fighting style. I also think we are going to see even more Galatus and Achillus dreads.

As for Shield Hosts, I think Emperor's Chosen are still relevant since Tyranids can dish out a lot of mortal wounds, but I also think we are going to see a lot more Shadowkeeper lists since Grim Responsibility presents us with a durability boost we are desperately going to need.
With the advent of the general "Armor of Contempt" rule, Dreadhost might also be a very interesting option depending on how the meta shakes out.

Trajann is still going to be an auto include. The bike captain, who was a staple in most lists, really lost a lot of toughness now he no longer has access to durability stratagems. The Praetorian Plate terminator captain losing obsec is also really annoying.

I think I'm going forward with a Shadowkeepers list featuring a Blade Champ with Lockwarden and the Stasis Oubliette. Marines and Marine characters are going to come back swinging and this guy still carves them up pretty good. Maybe I'll even bring two Bladechamps just for the lulz.

I'm not sure on bikes being completely dead now, you just have to hide them really well and bank on them making their points back in one turn of engaging the enemy because afterwards they are going to be dead 100% of the time.

Edit: on a more positive note, all the bandwagon Custodes players are definitely going to jump ship now.

I'm going to pivot to heavy Sagittarum spam (6x unit of 3) with emissaries imperatus, a vexilor with the emissaries warlord trait, the ignore cover relic and dense cover banner (so 9" auras on him), shield captain with the 3" extra range on his reroll 1s aura upgrade.

Fill the rest up with Trajann, 2 achillus dreads, a galatus dread with eternal penitent.

Leaves me with 225 points, for now Ive spent that on Inquisitor Greyfax and a patrol detachment of aleya + 5 prosecutors, but I'm probably gonna swap those out since the 2 CP aint worth it (Id still like prosecutors in the list to hold the backfield objective and plant a banner on it etc.)

Lots of obsec still in this list and 2 9" aura bubbles for 3 very strong buffs, combined with emissaries and sagittarum who can advance and shoot both profiles still at 2+ is a lot of value.

I think the big thing I'm going to miss is the salvo launchers, but I'm hoping the dreads can compensate.

 M0ff3l wrote:
I'm going to pivot to heavy Sagittarum spam (6x unit of 3) with emissaries imperatus, a vexilor with the emissaries warlord trait, the ignore cover relic and dense cover banner (so 9" auras on him), shield captain with the 3" extra range on his reroll 1s aura upgrade.

Fill the rest up with Trajann, 2 achillus dreads, a galatus dread with eternal penitent.

Leaves me with 225 points, for now Ive spent that on Inquisitor Greyfax and a patrol detachment of aleya + 5 prosecutors, but I'm probably gonna swap those out since the 2 CP aint worth it (Id still like prosecutors in the list to hold the backfield objective and plant a banner on it etc.)

Lots of obsec still in this list and 2 9" aura bubbles for 3 very strong buffs, combined with emissaries and sagittarum who can advance and shoot both profiles still at 2+ is a lot of value.

I think the big thing I'm going to miss is the salvo launchers, but I'm hoping the dreads can compensate.

Sounds really cool, I've been saying since our release that Emissaries are a sleeper hit. I would only argue that Eternal Penitent is maybe more valuable on one of the Achillus dreads since the Achillus attacks are much more high quality than those of the Galatus, so one extra on an Achillus can go a long way.

Tiberias wrote:

 M0ff3l wrote:
I'm going to pivot to heavy Sagittarum spam (6x unit of 3) with emissaries imperatus, a vexilor with the emissaries warlord trait, the ignore cover relic and dense cover banner (so 9" auras on him), shield captain with the 3" extra range on his reroll 1s aura upgrade.

Fill the rest up with Trajann, 2 achillus dreads, a galatus dread with eternal penitent.

Leaves me with 225 points, for now Ive spent that on Inquisitor Greyfax and a patrol detachment of aleya + 5 prosecutors, but I'm probably gonna swap those out since the 2 CP aint worth it (Id still like prosecutors in the list to hold the backfield objective and plant a banner on it etc.)

Lots of obsec still in this list and 2 9" aura bubbles for 3 very strong buffs, combined with emissaries and sagittarum who can advance and shoot both profiles still at 2+ is a lot of value.

I think the big thing I'm going to miss is the salvo launchers, but I'm hoping the dreads can compensate.

Sounds really cool, I've been saying since our release that Emissaries are a sleeper hit. I would only argue that Eternal Penitent is maybe more valuable on one of the Achillus dreads since the Achillus attacks are much more high quality than those of the Galatus, so one extra on an Achillus can go a long way.

It's a toss up in my eyes, the attacks on the Achillus are more valuable, but the Galatus only really does good damage in melee so having that charge reroll on him for free is valuable. I was thinking of also spending a CP to have him deepstrike with from the golden light they came so having 2 shots at that 9" charge without spending even more CP seems good.

Again, I said this before our codex, and I'll say it now. Our strength has to be offense, not defense. 8th was about camping on objectives and rolling 3++ for everything. You can't survive that was now. A Blob of Conscripts with FRFSRF can delete us now in a single round of shooting.

I agree with the person that said Telemons. Telemons, backed up by other dreads, and Bike squads, make for a very destructive offense.

That being said, I feel odd saying this, but what good is Trajann if he's not in the middle of the board taking out big T8 targets? None. I agree his buffs give him great use, but otherwise aren't we just paying for a 165 pt auto-warlord, that will get killed before he earns his cost back?

 M0ff3l wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

 M0ff3l wrote:
I'm going to pivot to heavy Sagittarum spam (6x unit of 3) with emissaries imperatus, a vexilor with the emissaries warlord trait, the ignore cover relic and dense cover banner (so 9" auras on him), shield captain with the 3" extra range on his reroll 1s aura upgrade.

Fill the rest up with Trajann, 2 achillus dreads, a galatus dread with eternal penitent.

Leaves me with 225 points, for now Ive spent that on Inquisitor Greyfax and a patrol detachment of aleya + 5 prosecutors, but I'm probably gonna swap those out since the 2 CP aint worth it (Id still like prosecutors in the list to hold the backfield objective and plant a banner on it etc.)

Lots of obsec still in this list and 2 9" aura bubbles for 3 very strong buffs, combined with emissaries and sagittarum who can advance and shoot both profiles still at 2+ is a lot of value.

I think the big thing I'm going to miss is the salvo launchers, but I'm hoping the dreads can compensate.

Sounds really cool, I've been saying since our release that Emissaries are a sleeper hit. I would only argue that Eternal Penitent is maybe more valuable on one of the Achillus dreads since the Achillus attacks are much more high quality than those of the Galatus, so one extra on an Achillus can go a long way.

It's a toss up in my eyes, the attacks on the Achillus are more valuable, but the Galatus only really does good damage in melee so having that charge reroll on him for free is valuable. I was thinking of also spending a CP to have him deepstrike with from the golden light they came so having 2 shots at that 9" charge without spending even more CP seems good.

If you go the deepstrike route I'd seriously consider Dread Host and putting Eternal Penitent on the dreadnought you plan on deepstriking. An 8inch re-rollable charge is way better than a 9inch re-rollable charge and I feel that improved consistency is worth a lot if you plan on relying on an asset actually doing something the turn it comes down. The extra Ap Dread Host gets, also gained more value now that Armor of Contempt is a thing.

And to be fair, im still gonna play custodes. I just wont be attending tournaments since my chance of winning said events are basically nill.


I played into new deathwing last night and boy do they outpreform us now.

permanent transhuman plus the new armor of contempt makes them more durable than we ever where.

Tiberias wrote:

 M0ff3l wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

 M0ff3l wrote:
I'm going to pivot to heavy Sagittarum spam (6x unit of 3) with emissaries imperatus, a vexilor with the emissaries warlord trait, the ignore cover relic and dense cover banner (so 9" auras on him), shield captain with the 3" extra range on his reroll 1s aura upgrade.

Fill the rest up with Trajann, 2 achillus dreads, a galatus dread with eternal penitent.

Leaves me with 225 points, for now Ive spent that on Inquisitor Greyfax and a patrol detachment of aleya + 5 prosecutors, but I'm probably gonna swap those out since the 2 CP aint worth it (Id still like prosecutors in the list to hold the backfield objective and plant a banner on it etc.)

Lots of obsec still in this list and 2 9" aura bubbles for 3 very strong buffs, combined with emissaries and sagittarum who can advance and shoot both profiles still at 2+ is a lot of value.

I think the big thing I'm going to miss is the salvo launchers, but I'm hoping the dreads can compensate.

Sounds really cool, I've been saying since our release that Emissaries are a sleeper hit. I would only argue that Eternal Penitent is maybe more valuable on one of the Achillus dreads since the Achillus attacks are much more high quality than those of the Galatus, so one extra on an Achillus can go a long way.

It's a toss up in my eyes, the attacks on the Achillus are more valuable, but the Galatus only really does good damage in melee so having that charge reroll on him for free is valuable. I was thinking of also spending a CP to have him deepstrike with from the golden light they came so having 2 shots at that 9" charge without spending even more CP seems good.

If you go the deepstrike route I'd seriously consider Dread Host and putting Eternal Penitent on the dreadnought you plan on deepstriking. An 8inch re-rollable charge is way better than a 9inch re-rollable charge and I feel that improved consistency is worth a lot if you plan on relying on an asset actually doing something the turn it comes down. The extra Ap Dread Host gets, also gained more value now that Armor of Contempt is a thing.

I think a dread host dreadnought heavy list can definitely work, but I don't think it's worth it for me to switch hosts and lose out on my sagittarum shooting benefits just so my deepstriking dread can charge better.

M0ff3l wrote:

Spoiler:

Tiberias wrote:

 M0ff3l wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

 M0ff3l wrote:
I'm going to pivot to heavy Sagittarum spam (6x unit of 3) with emissaries imperatus, a vexilor with the emissaries warlord trait, the ignore cover relic and dense cover banner (so 9" auras on him), shield captain with the 3" extra range on his reroll 1s aura upgrade.

Fill the rest up with Trajann, 2 achillus dreads, a galatus dread with eternal penitent.

Leaves me with 225 points, for now Ive spent that on Inquisitor Greyfax and a patrol detachment of aleya + 5 prosecutors, but I'm probably gonna swap those out since the 2 CP aint worth it (Id still like prosecutors in the list to hold the backfield objective and plant a banner on it etc.)

Lots of obsec still in this list and 2 9" aura bubbles for 3 very strong buffs, combined with emissaries and sagittarum who can advance and shoot both profiles still at 2+ is a lot of value.

I think the big thing I'm going to miss is the salvo launchers, but I'm hoping the dreads can compensate.

Sounds really cool, I've been saying since our release that Emissaries are a sleeper hit. I would only argue that Eternal Penitent is maybe more valuable on one of the Achillus dreads since the Achillus attacks are much more high quality than those of the Galatus, so one extra on an Achillus can go a long way.

It's a toss up in my eyes, the attacks on the Achillus are more valuable, but the Galatus only really does good damage in melee so having that charge reroll on him for free is valuable. I was thinking of also spending a CP to have him deepstrike with from the golden light they came so having 2 shots at that 9" charge without spending even more CP seems good.

If you go the deepstrike route I'd seriously consider Dread Host and putting Eternal Penitent on the dreadnought you plan on deepstriking. An 8inch re-rollable charge is way better than a 9inch re-rollable charge and I feel that improved consistency is worth a lot if you plan on relying on an asset actually doing something the turn it comes down. The extra Ap Dread Host gets, also gained more value now that Armor of Contempt is a thing.

I think a dread host dreadnought heavy list can definitely work, but I don't think it's worth it for me to switch hosts and lose out on my sagittarum shooting benefits just so my deepstriking dread can charge better.

Fait point, Sagittarum are a very valuable asset in Emissaries. I hope you have fun with your list despite nerfs, I'm gonna rock my double Blade Champ Shadowkeepers and go down in style.

Eihnlazer wrote:And to be fair, im still gonna play custodes. I just wont be attending tournaments since my chance of winning said events are basically nill.


I played into new deathwing last night and boy do they outpreform us now.

permanent transhuman plus the new armor of contempt makes them more durable than we ever where.

I got flamed to heck on the competitive subreddit for arguing the Custodes nerfs were over the top. Now the goonhammer guys say the same in the latest round table and suddenly everyone agrees. People have no clue what they are talking about.

Deathwing feel and play like Custodes should feel like, which kinda stings. I think it's fine Deathwing gets perma transhuman, good for them, but in light of the recent nerfs it really hurts.

Stay away from tournaments for a while gents, whip out the tempest of war deck with a few friends, it's really great fun....possibly even with these harsh nerfs.

Custodes NEED access to Armor of Contempt, and let's face it, there is no reason they shouldn't have it. Hell, it might make their LandRaiders an interesting choice.

Compare Sagittarum to Heavy Intercessors. Heavy Intercessors are half the cost, and damned near the same defensively. Sags take out heavy infantry better, but Heavy Intercessors take out hordes better.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Custodes NEED access to Armor of Contempt, and let's face it, there is no reason they shouldn't have it. Hell, it might make their LandRaiders an interesting choice.

Compare Sagittarum to Heavy Intercessors. Heavy Intercessors are half the cost, and damned near the same defensively. Sags take out heavy infantry better, but Heavy Intercessors take out hordes better.

Agreed, couldn't work out why they didn't also get access to it after the heavy stratagem nerfs.

I think DG and TS matchups are even tougher than they were before - they have both gained significant durability over us and they have access to heavy psychic shenanigans which is gonna mess us up. It seems to me that the SoS rules need updating - a -1 to cast bubble doesn't seem that powerful now that you have squads of 6 zoanthropes running around with a +6 to cast!!

I have only just really started collecting custodes, not for competitive reasons more for the fact that the low model count provided a nice way to get back into the hobby after probably a year or so on the sidelines. For me, even if they are less competitive I don't mind that so much - it will be interesting to work out how to get the best of them!

Also I happen to live close to WHW and I kid you not saw a lot of new custodes players there recently, if they're just on it to powergame hopefully they will move onto nids or something else, definitely don't want to be perceived as jumping on the bandwagon. Will have to see how it plays out, but personally I don't think it'll make me stop pursuing custodes as an army.