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So I'm a long time player and Dakka poster who has been away from the hobby (I moved up a league to refitting a Camaro) and have decided to come back after a long hiatus.

My gaming group have moved onto 30k and while they are all running various Legions, I decided to run Custodes.

I've just bought my army and came up with the following list:


++ The Age of Darkness (Talons of the Emperor) [1247pts] ++

+ HQ +

Legio Custodes Shield Captain [252pts]: Arae-Shrikes, Cyber Familliar, Digital Lasers, Paragon Spear, Praesidium Shield

+ Elites +

Legio Custodes Hetaeron Guard Squad [338pts]: Arae-Shrikes, Melta bombs
. Hetaeron Guard
. . Magisterium Vexilla and a Master-Crafted Power Weapon: Power Sword
. Hetaeron Guard: Guardian Spear, May Take a Praesidium Shield
. Hetaeron Guard: Guardian Spear, May Take a Praesidium Shield
. Hetaeron Guard: Guardian Spear, May Take a Praesidium Shield

+ Troops +

Legio Custodes Custodian Guard Squad [285pts]: Arae-Shrikes
. Custodian Guard: Guardian Spear
. Custodian Guard: Guardian Spear
. Custodian Guard: Guardian Spear
. Custodian Guard: Guardian Spear
. Custodian Guard: Guardian Spear

Legio Custodes Sentinel Guard Squad [186pts]: Arae-Shrikes
. Sentinel Guard: Praesidium Shield, Sentinel Warblade
. Sentinel Guard: Praesidium Shield, Sentinel Warblade
. Sentinel Guard: Praesidium Shield, Sentinel Warblade

Legio Custodes Sentinel Guard Squad [186pts]: Arae-Shrikes
. Sentinel Guard: Praesidium Shield, Sentinel Warblade
. Sentinel Guard: Praesidium Shield, Sentinel Warblade
. Sentinel Guard: Praesidium Shield, Sentinel Warblade

++ Total: [1247pts] ++

This is only a starting point, but where do I go next? Is there anything I need to look out for with Custodes?

Cheers.

With the Haeteron guard, I find 2 x power guantlet and 2 x paragon blade work out nicely. All should have a shield. Run them with your captain and it will be a tough nut to crack. You don't have much AT. You could pick up 3 jetbikes with the Corvus pulse lasers.

I like a power talent on my sentinel guard squads.

Also hetaeron guard should swap out their weapons either for gauntlets or paragon every time.

Anti tank is also huge on your need list either jetbikes with adrathic or corvus both are good. Cladius also do well.

Where are the rules for the Paragon Blade?

I can't find them in Inferno.

There's Paragon Spear, but nothing on Paragon Blade.

The rules for the Paragon blade are in one of the red books.

Consider to take a Caladius with the S10 weapon and some bikes with Adrastic Devastator, is better than the Corvae Las-Pulser. This for the AT part

Maybe you can have instead a 5 man guard squad, 2 3 man squads.

For the HQ maybe Valdor is a good option since you have a lot of custodes walking

I find that custodes have a tough time dealing with AV14. Except for the heavy blaze cannon and the pulse lasers, the rest of the shooting tops out at S8, so you are counting on 6s to glance and the devastators only get one shot each.

 Ifurita wrote:
I find that custodes have a tough time dealing with AV14. Except for the heavy blaze cannon and the pulse lasers, the rest of the shooting tops out at S8, so you are counting on 6s to glance and the devastators only get one shot each.

Bike based adrathic is 2 shots a piece and with armourbane s6 it's definetly very good vs heavy armour. The s10 cannon is okay but stock isn't bad either it does have rending so on a 6 it auto glances and 2/3 are pens. Otherwise you have lots of melee s10 such as gauntlets access to melta bombs and the grenade rules don't hurt you to bad as you get say 1/3 instead of 1/10 also dreads punch the living crap out of everything to.

Good to know. I have 3 coming in the mail.

Custodes do sort of rely on the bikes and the skimmers to get a lot of work done; if you aren't playing Zone Mortalis the other guy can just play keep-away with your infantry and you can't really affect hard targets before exploding (since all your armour-cracking tools on infantry are melee or 12" range). I'd strongly suggest making sure all Custodes infantry models have either a Coronus or teleportation transponders.

I would certainly add Valdor as your Warlord, as the free teleportation transponders will get you where you need to be.
You need anti-tank units now, as most Legiones forces will be supported by armour either as rhino transports or sicarian support tanks.
Stock up on meltabombs as a hail mary for dealing with armour.
I would also consider another squad of sentinels for holding objectives, just for the added flexibility.

Ok, so I may be guilty of necroing a thread here but I feel that this is a good place to put this since it's about helping new players!

I've had a few games with my custodes now so I'll chip in with a few observations.

First, whilst valdor is an absolute killer in cc, he doesn't have the durability you might want. A shield Captain tribune with praesidium shield and cyber familiar means he gets a 3+ rerollable invulnerable save and eternal warrior. This means he can tank anything and can even hold his own against primarchs. It also means that if caught out in the open he can save his squad from s10 weaponry that would otherwise I'D them - or him. And he should be with a unit of hetaeron guard.

Hetaeron guard are amazing. Give them paragon blades and they will annihilate anything. However, you want to give them melta bombs and/or make sure one of your Hetaerons at least has a solarite gauntlet so they can't get stuck in combat against av13 dradnoughts. With a tribune in front of them they can walk upto whatever they want and kill it, unless it's something like Horus and 10 justaerin terminators which you will probably never see but there are units out there that can hurt them or at least bog them down all game. However, you should never be in a position where you get caught out in the open and are vulnerable to a charge from a unit like that because they should be in a coronus grav carrier.

The tribune can choose his warlord trait which, since HH is sticking with 7th ed for now, means he can choose to give himself and three non vehicle units infiltrate. So, he can give his hetearon guard infiltrate, join them and either deploy far up the board or outflank in the coronus. The coronus with av13 in front and a flare shield will tank a lot of damage meaning that your tribune and hetaeron guard will probably have to disembark from their wrecked transport after your opponent has wasted all available firepower destroying it. They can't be pinned so will be ready to charge next turn. This one unit will draw so much hate and survive almost everything meaning the rest of your stuff is free to do what it wants. But only for so long. You will have a smaller army than your opponent so you need to make your time count.

Looking at what's good at taking out infantry and what's good at taking out armour, it's not clear cut. I would say - and this is only my experience - the caladius is a fantastic infantry killer but, despite it's weapon options, is only so so against armour. A competent opponent will present his av13 fronts to you meaning you will be left fishing for high rolls with your main gun whether that's the illiastus accelerator cannon or heavy blaze cannon. A 1 shot s10 gun isn't something you want to be relying on either. However, the 3 shot s7, ap2 rending gun and 3 shot s6, AP3, heliothermic detonation secondry weapon is great against any type of infantry.

But where does the anti tank come from? I would say: jetbikes with adrathic devastators are one option. These guys can benefit from the tribune's infiltrate option which grants them outflank so can come on and attack side armour. But, having used them a few times now, even against av14 they do a fantastic job. They are also only so so in CC so as anti armour they really shine. They can take the d3 shot Las pulsers but I've always stuck to the adrathic option and have never been disappointed.

Another anti tank option is the achilles dreadnought. He can take the d3 shot Las pulser and is durable enough to be a problem but I've found that it's better to take more than 1 as they are footslogging. However, it's in cc that they really shine. They get a s D attack for each 6 they roll on the charge and with 6 attacks on the charge you should statistically get 1 6 each time - I have always got at least 1 six so far but it's obviously not a guarantee. Still, they are s10 anyway and are absolute beasts.

Another option is deep striking spear wielding custodes into rear armour arcs. Equip them with s5 adrathic destructors and they can make short work of rhino chassis vehicles. Two or three of these squads will cause your opponent a big headache and they will have to deal with them, again leaving the rest of your army free from having to wither firepower for a turn.

The shield custodes are extremely durable, especially in cc. These guys can also be infiltrated onto objectives and can survive a surprising amount of firepower with their rerollable 5+ invulnerable but, as with any small squad will go down. Get them into cc however and your opponent will usually be hitting on 5s, usually be wounding on 5s and will struggle to get past your 2+/5++ armour. They can hold up all but the best dedicated cc units.

Custodes are surprisingly resilient but they do go down to dedicated fire and since you have a small army, you won't be able to withstand losing units after a couple of turns. Used well however, and by sacrificing the units you choose to lose, there isn't an army out there that will enjoy facing them. In zone mortalis in particular, your infantry and dreadnoughts will make short work of most threats you face.

What the best units for anti infantry and anti tank are, I think switched from what you would normally expect though. Use your tanks to take out very light armour and infantry and use your infantry and dradnoughts to take down armour. Jet bikes are for armour exclusively imo.

One thing I've yet to use is an achilles dreadnought without the spear but with the adrathic destructors. This may be a good choice since it is one of the few options you have to get twin linked on the adrathic destructor and it's still s10 on cc. The d3 shot Las pulsers have been hit or miss for me.

Hope this helps - custodes are a lot of fun to use and used well they can be devastating bit they do lose and if you lose units you can't afford to lose early on it will be an uphill battle.

A quick quibble with the above, Even if your transport is destroyed, you cannot assault from it unless it's open topped or an assault vehicle. Otherwise a great read, thanks for the input! So aside from the dreads, how do Custodes deal with Spartans?

 Kraytirous wrote:
A quick quibble with the above, Even if your transport is destroyed, you cannot assault from it unless it's open topped or an assault vehicle. Otherwise a great read, thanks for the input! So aside from the dreads, how do Custodes deal with Spartans?

Oops! What an error! Thanks.

For Spartans, other than dreads I would say jetbikes. But to do a spartan in 1 turn you'd need 2 squads unless you got lucky. 1 squad will put out 6 s6 armour bane shots. The Las pulsers may be better as they have a longer range - 36" - so you can probably start hitting that spartan from turn 1 but I don't like the d3 shots as it's too unreliable. The caladius with an arachnus heavy blaze cannon has a 1 s10 shot option but I also think that's too unreliable - although it's BS5, twin linked and has exoshock which grants a second pen on a 4+ it's still only 1 shot.

Of course, who know what the telemon dread or the orion gunship will do but for now, for spartan killing, I can't see past the jetbikes which are well worth their points. On that note, an adrathic armed squad is 75 points cheaper than a Las pulser armed squad which, in such an expensive army can make a big difference. 2 squads minimum I would say.