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Been running custodes in a...not so meta list and been winning about ...60% of my games, not bad, but its a far cry from GOOD. Like i understand the game is balanced around like 48-52%, but man Bikes are bad, the Dreadnoughts feel bad to play and Trajann just cannot duke it out with some of the higher tier singleton models. Feels so bad using him, he's just...so meh. I am painting a Blade Champion or two and I feel so gross doing that lol.

Anyways on to my questions. I want to build a new army and had some questions about the current meta and whats "strong":
1. How're the Guard fairing as a whole? This won't deter my pick it'd be nice to see what a META list looks like.
2. How're Krieg doing? This is my likely pick because i love the lore/models and even if someone says their at a 20% win rate...im still painting them eventually.
3. How would i start with a Krieg list? Last time I checked on them they were FW only and thats....not realllllllllly a thing anymore so I got no clue where to start getting a Krieg army together.
4. I Like the Sniper Assassin and want to play with one, how're they doing as a whole?
5. My second idea was to build a space sharks army, but marines as a whole are doing worse then the golden banana men and like I want a chance to win while looking badass and getting reemed while playing space sharks every game hurts my pride damnit! Should i wait to build a Primaris Sharks army?
6. Anyone got any good Krieg books from the Black Library? I want to catch up on their lore a bit, but feth me their website is atrocious to go through.

Rahdok wrote:
...been winning about ...60% of my games, not bad, but its a far cry from GOOD...

You do know that when an army hits a 55% win rate (based on tournament data, mind you), GW tends to nerf them, right? I wouldn't complain about a 60% win rate.

Yes, but the lists i'm playing against are mostly orks and Tyranids...lists famously weak to custodes. 4 Ork Players, two space Marines, 3 Tyranids and one Knights.

We’re not sure what a Krieg army is going to look like until the codex drops in early 2025. Krieg are going to get some new plastic kits and we’re not sure what impact this will have on the Astra Militarum as a whole.

Will some kits move to Legends to make way for new Krieg kits? Probably. Catachans might be sidelined, though it’s all guess work for now.

As for the Vindicare Assassin, I haven’t used one since the Imperial Agents codex released but 150 points seems a hefty price to pay to ally him into an Imperial army. Not sure he’s worth the points any more.

Rahdok wrote:
Been running custodes in a...not so meta list and been winning about ...60% of my games, not bad, but its a far cry from GOOD. Like i understand the game is balanced around like 48-52%, but man Bikes are bad, the Dreadnoughts feel bad to play and Trajann just cannot duke it out with some of the higher tier singleton models. Feels so bad using him, he's just...so meh. I am painting a Blade Champion or two and I feel so gross doing that lol.

So you feel bad about your 60% win rate because
A) you think you should be winning more?
or
B) you think you're winning too much & need to tone it down? In wich case wouldn't the bikes, dreads, & Trajann be a good fit?

On those bikes/dreads/Trajann feeling bad - you might need to adjust your own playstyle to get better use out of them.

Rahdok wrote:
Anyways on to my questions. I want to build a new army and had some questions about the current meta and whats "strong":
1. How're the Guard fairing as a whole? This won't deter my pick it'd be nice to see what a META list looks like.
2. How're Krieg doing? This is my likely pick because i love the lore/models and even if someone says their at a 20% win rate...im still painting them eventually.
3. How would i start with a Krieg list? Last time I checked on them they were FW only and thats....not realllllllllly a thing anymore so I got no clue where to start getting a Krieg army together.
4. I Like the Sniper Assassin and want to play with one, how're they doing as a whole?
5. My second idea was to build a space sharks army, but marines as a whole are doing worse then the golden banana men and like I want a chance to win while looking badass and getting reemed while playing space sharks every game hurts my pride damnit! Should i wait to build a Primaris Sharks army?

The only meta you should be worried about is the one you expect to play in.
You say you face alot of Orks & Tyranids. You say you want to play a Space Shark SM & have a chance of winning. So, knowing what & how your usual opponents play, build a SM force that can deal with that. It's not that hard.

The Vindicare Assassin (the sniper) - it's mostly a tool for removing characters. Is that tool something you need vs those you play against? If it is, then how do you feel about it's pts? If it isn't, then you're probably wasting pts on the model.

Rahdok wrote:
Been running custodes in a...not so meta list and been winning about ...60% of my games, not bad, but its a far cry from GOOD. Like i understand the game is balanced around like 48-52%, but man Bikes are bad, the Dreadnoughts feel bad to play and Trajann just cannot duke it out with some of the higher tier singleton models. Feels so bad using him, he's just...so meh. I am painting a Blade Champion or two and I feel so gross doing that lol.

I'd just caution how you're framing this, saying you don't consider your 60% win rate to be good makes you sound like the kind of person that like to build meta lists and crush casuals at their FLGS. From the rest of your question, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that's not you, but I just wanted to make you aware of the perception you were giving off.

As for the rest, it seems more that you don't like the feel of your army itself, which irrespective of win/loss, is something that can easily be worked on. One thing that would help though, you've said the parts of your army that you don't like, what have you been enjoying about your Custodies? That would help give an idea of your preferred playstyle and lists that might work best for you.

In my experience, people do better with a list that suits their playstyle rather than one than one that is a typical meta build unless they are competing in the higher levels of competitive tournament play.

Fair, i think my mindset is more competitive, but when i play very often I win because i'm playing the objective and not my army. Most of the Custdoes models just cannot compete with their equivalence in points costs. The Bikes are very often just sitting on objectives or charging something to distract it before they get wiped out. Trajann cannot fight anything that is his points cost or greater at all, the Dreadnoughts (spear and Sword/Board) are good at dealing with things that are worth less then them, but if they fight anything around theur own points cost, just get DOMINATED. Because of this I realized that most of my army just makes a good distraction carnifex while i hold objectives and....that just FEELS BAD. I'm not running into melee and rolling dice, im sitting back and holding an objective. I'm not playing the game most of the time and I don't like that.

Yay I was able to diagnose your problem.

The way 10th is structured is to blame for your feelings. Making the missions about standing on circles of dirt for 5 turns means you can bring useless models and still "win". Was it fun? NO. Was there tactical trading? NO. Maneuvering outside of hiding? NO.

The model rules themselves are uninspired making them bland to field. 50% of the codexes were designed by self loathing mobile gamers. Options for dealing with enemy big scary stuff? NO. "Just hide and win on points because that's FUN!!!" says the intellectually challeneged designers of 10th.

Yeah i agree, so i wanted an army that shoots a lot or charges and does things and is new and plays differently to custodes (hence guard, hence krieg) also krieg are badass

Rahdok wrote:
Yeah i agree, so i wanted an army that shoots a lot or charges and does things and is new and plays differently to custodes (hence guard, hence krieg) also krieg are badass

While I disagree with some of his sentiment, I do think Gibblets is onto something, it does seem like a combination issue of army and gametype.

As for army wise, it's hard to say what kind of playstyle the various Gaurd detachments will have post codex, however, I've found when I play guard, either infantry or tank heavy, they play into a very move onto the point and stand there kind of lists which I don't find all that fun. This will likely change with the codex and it will likely be only one faction that leans heavily into this playstyle, but it's impossible to say at the moment.

Space Marines loss percentage I've always thought to be a bit more inflated because of how common an army it is at the more casual level so it tends to skew the numbers by being newer players to the tournament scenes that don't do as well. The upside to Space Marines is their flexibility in that you can play NEARLY any style of army you want with them. If you don't like how it's playing, it's a lot easier to switch to another detachment/successor to wildly varry your play patters. I actually got rid of my Custodes army recently because I just found that my Space Marines did more-less the same things but with more models and army flexibility, which I find more engaging and fun. So that could be a route for you.

However, to take a moment to shill for my favourite army, it shoots, it charges, it does things in a new and interesting ways and all its models just got a big glow up. Kroot are a very fun and interesting army to play, and I don't mean some Kroot with Tau, I mean full Kroot, no Tau. While we only have 9 datasheets (11 if you count Legends), the same list feels wildly different to play in almost every matchup. This is because Kroot play the battle in their matchups and not the objectives. What I mean is that with the base carnivores having 7" move, Scout 7" and sticky objectives, it's a simple matter to tap any relevant objectives and move on quickly to actually fighting the battle. This is also a very different style of combat than most armies as while Kroot are fantastic at mowing down line infantry, they need to work together with key positioning and overlapping buffs to take down larger targets, if they end up in a 1v1, they'll get rolled. So you basically play ambush / hit and run style tactics, move in on a key target, take it out, and escape before a counterattack, all the while, waylaying them from your objectives while harassing their attempts to secure their own. Very few games will you end up having solidly defeated your opponent, but at the end, you've bled them, slowed them, and likely made off with far more victory points. To me, this is the kind of win that feels earned from tactical effort rather than just standing on points and waiting it out.

As for the issue with the actual kind of gameplay in 10th, I'd recommend looking into either the more unique Crusade missions, or finding older missions and just adapting them to current rules. My favourite GW supplement is still the Battle Missions book from... 5th I think? I still play many of those missions to this day because they are so interestingly designed, with most being tailor made for certain factions. For example, there is a convoy defense one where a player starts in the center of one of the short table edges and their opponent can deploy along both long table edges. Their convoy's goal is to get at least half their army off the opposite board edge. There's another where a single objective is placed in the center of the table, and one player deploys their entire army within 12" of it. The opponent can then deploy anywhere over 6" away (before knowing who gets first turn) and can bring reserves in from any table edge. Whomever controls the objective at the end of the turn limit wins. Simple, but lots of fun. There's another where the table is sectioned off into 6 equal parts and each unit rolls randomly to see what table square they have to deploy into making the game a crazy mess of small skirmishes, with each section of the table secured netting you a single point.

I take your rightful pointing out of my salt. The rest of your post is also spot on. That's why I loved playing my Dark Eldar army after 5yrs of guard/SMs. They have movement tricks to catch your opponent off guard. When the tables were 6x4 you could maneuver the flanks and whittle your opponent down until going into melee engagements your glass cannons could cope with. The army relied on knowing your opponents army and figuring out how to chip out the most important parts of it before full engagement, usually by turn 3 my full army was in melee. So satisfying to earn those victories vs stacking buffs until simply rolling 6s deletes everything in front of you; there's no counter pay to that besides hiding.

Right on brother and that is a good point you made about the Militarum. I'll probably wait a bit then until the book drops (i thought it was November that it dropped, alas i was wrong). And yeah I thought about Kroot, but im just not a fan of the models. My BIG loves in 40k are:

1. Lamenters/Custodes - I can't paint the shoulders on Lamenters so i went Custodes.
2. Space Sharks
3. Death Guard (really love Horus heresy DG)
4. Krieg
5. Iron Warriors
6. Harlequinns
7. Grey Knights

No particular order there, i like them all equally. The Lore is fun (I wish Harlequinns had MORE, same with Krieg and IW). But those were the armies i looked into for what I wanted to build. As much as I really love the Harlequinn models, my god those checkerboard patterns just make my life hell, It's one of those things I as a person/painter need to work on.