How are your Custodes doing?

[Deadnaughty]

Am I missing something with Sisters of Silence? They look like plain basic SoB who happen to give a -1 to psychic tests.

 

They can't keep up with your bikes.

Their not going to kill Psykers with bolters.

Their minus to tests is smaller then a Culexus

And they die faster then one.

 

I don't get it.

[Lion El Josh]

I dunno, I think they have their merits vs a psyker heavy army. They make a decent smite screen for the first turn at least. The -1 modifier to psychic tests stacks unlike the culexus’s -2.

 

I plan to walk a couple of squads up with my guards as smite denial and possible chaff clearers. While the culexus, bikes and Celestine do their thing further forward.

[MARK0SIAN]

Yeah, 4 squads of SoS with a Culexus can amount to a -6 to cast. You’d need some great positioning to do it though and sisters die quite easily :( Edited February 10, 2018 by MARK0SIAN

[CaptainMarsh]

Am I missing something with Sisters of Silence? They look like plain basic SoB who happen to give a -1 to psychic tests.

 

They can't keep up with your bikes.

Their not going to kill Psykers with bolters.

Their minus to tests is smaller then a Culexus

And they die faster then one.

 

I don't get it.

They die faster than a Culexus on an individual basis, but in my table experience seeing both the Culexus is removed quicker than a unit of Sisters will be since he is going to be much closer on average and a heavier focus. Don't need them to keep up with Bikes (bikes move, shoot, and charge effectively enough that a psychic screen for them is less vital). Their minus to psychic stacks. It isn't that difficult to get, in my experience, at least three squads in range to have their stacking bonuses give the enemy a -3, and I've seen a -4 twice. They also provide more blanket coverage across the table if you prefer it that way and, seeing as they share the Culexus' ability to be unaffected by powers, provide an even more effective anti-smite shield. They make a superb anti-psyker screen and if you need them to be upfield they have a dirt cheap transport. They have an option for someone with a deep and abiding fetish for flamers and I've seen a charge by Vigilators one-round Magnus. Meanwhile the Bolter lasses do come in handy against Guard psykers.

 

This isn't to say that they're hard to kill or that they're amazing options. They are SoB without an invulnerable in terms of survivability and they will be targeted by the enemy if they care at all about their psychic powers. They won't go away before a Culexus on average, but they will not last much longer, and you're getting them for their screen more than anything. And in my experience with Custodes so far, just one round of fire priorities being changed and/or psychic powers being messed with could prove highly important. I would like to see what they get in a future book before I invest too much into them with my Custodes however, as they lack options. 

Edited February 10, 2018 by CaptainMarsh

[Stoic Raptor]

Am I missing something with Sisters of Silence? They look like plain basic SoB who happen to give a -1 to psychic tests.

 

They also cannot be targeted by psychic powers in any way.  The -1 is for tests withing 18".  so they're not only Psyker-proof, but they make it harder for enemy Psykers to do unto the rest of your army.

The only unfortunate thing is that they aren't part of the Custodes Codex.  I can add them to my army, but I'm not keen about losing The Emperor's Chosen bonus to my Invulnerable saves.

[CaptainMarsh]

I think we'll see them in an Imperial Agents sort of book with Inquisition and Assassins. I would expect that the selling point of the book is you can add anything from it to anything else and not interfere with any benefit you get from being faction focused, like a Regiment Doctrine, Chapter Tactic, or Emperor's Chosen among others. 

[Stoic Raptor]

Once Sisters of Silence have an HQ, I suppose one could make a Patrol Detachment from them and it wouldn't be so bad.  But right now, the only way to include them is as an Auxiliary Detachment, costing you a Command Point.

 

If I'm reading right, as long as the army is Battle-Forged, it doesn't need to be an entirely Adeptus Custodes army for the Custodes detachments to use Emperor's Chosen and Sworn Guardians - is this correct?

[CaptainMarsh]

Just the detachment needs to be Custodes. That is how it works for all others as well.

[Stoic Raptor]

OK, thank you for clairfying.  Still, it's hard to justify the loss of what precious few CPs we have by adding things like Sisters or Culexus, as much as they're needed.

An idea:  Is it possible to do an "Imperium" patrol detachment with 1-3 squads of Sisters and maybe a Culexus or two, providing you had some other Imperium character as an HQ?

If so, who would you recommend as the ideal complement to that Detachment?

 

Ironically, perhaps, your own psyker? :D

Edited February 10, 2018 by Knight of Lupus

[CaptainMarsh]

I like Greyfax as an Inquisitor whenever I just need an Imperium HQ. 

[Brother Captain Ed]

Vanguard detachment: Greyfax and three units of bolter babes.  Costs about as much as squad of space marine terminators.

[banis]

Just got blasted off the board last night.  Faced a coalition of Nids and TSons.

 

All over by turn 2.

 

Just could not deal with the number of Mortal Wounds being spammed at me.  Full Smites, Super Smites, Three disciplines of Powers, the OP broken FW Soulburner Contemptors, Biovores.

 

Ugh.

 

I don't think there's anything I can change to give me a chance versus an army like this.

Have you looked at that those OP broken FW soulburner comtemptors cost in points?.. You can get alot of dakka for those points that will do more damage to custodes, :)

[Gentlemanloser]

No you cannot.

 

Nothing else for thier 250 odd points will outright ignore T5, 2+/4++ saves.

 

I'd take Lascannon shots over Soulburners.

 

Edit

 

Vanguard. Greyfax for HQ, then any mix from 3 to 5 of Sisters of Silence and Culexes Assassins.

Edited February 10, 2018 by Gentlemanloser

[Ishagu]

Soulburners are amazing because they outright ignore a lot of dice. No rolling to wound, no saves.

[Stoic Raptor]

Vanguard detachment: Greyfax and three units of bolter babes.  Costs about as much as squad of space marine terminators.

 

That's a good idea, I hadn't thought of a Vanguard.  And there are still slots for Culexus Assassins if I wanted.

 

You and CaptainMarsh are on the right track with Greyfax.  She's probably the best fit - though part of me thinks Coteaz would look great alongside all that other Auramite armor too.

[Gentlemanloser]

Ishagu on top they are coupled to a single 2+ roll that can benefit from reroll misses/1s auras.

 

They are staggeringly broken.

[Hellex_The_Thanatar]

Ok! Had a first game with them since release (I apologize I haven't had time to finish painting the bikes!) https://imgur.com/a/p7Bdc

This was a ~3k points open war mission! This open war had only two objective markers, if any one person controlled both at the end of their OPPONENTS turn, it was game over to the controller!

Deathguard VS Pure custodes

Deathguard list was roughly:

Mortarion
2 great unclean ones (one the character) 
2 plaugeburst crawlers
3 sets of 3 drones
3 bloat drones
2 daemon princes
3 sets of 3 beasts of nurgle


I had

3 jetbike shield captains
1 allarus captain and 1 regular captain (took deny warlord trait on the allarus)
1 vexilla with the deny the witch banner 
10 allarus termies
3x3 custodians 

2x4 uints of bikes

Was an absolute blast of a game that we both got to show case our armies new stuff. The splitting 10 man allarus is amazing (be warned not to use it against vehicle exploding armies and great uncleanones that deal out mortal wound powers and of course mortarion who is dripping in mortal wounds at the start of the combat phase).

His prince and bloat drones won the game! I thought for sure a shield captain with axe could finish him off (he was down to 2 wounds) and FAILED EVERY WOUND! UHHHG. 

Also the plague crawlers with the flamers are a pain to kill they are just so tough. 

Anyways, I was super disappointed I didn't kill morty, I got a first turn charge off with THREE shield captains, and only dealt like 6 wounds. I rolled so bad even with the re-roll on the bikes lances. I think he only took 2 wounds from 2 captains after he interrupted? It was nuts. He was on one wound by end of game. He is friggen hard to kill.

Edited February 11, 2018 by Hellex_The_Thanatar

[banis]

No you cannot.

 

Nothing else for thier 250 odd points will outright ignore T5, 2+/4++ saves.

 

I'd take Lascannon shots over Soulburners.

 

Edit

 

Vanguard. Greyfax for HQ, then any mix from 3 to 5 of Sisters of Silence and Culexes Assassins.

I never said anyhing about ignore..I said it would do more damage... but for 250pts you can easily get units that will do more damage .the comptemper only has 2d3 shots.. so 4 shots on averge that have to hit aswell. So 3,3wounds. And against most other targets that does not pay alot for saves that is almost no damage at all.. 

 

eidt:

 

Comparing them to lascannons is very biased as that gun pays alot for high ap, d6wounds and str 9. 

 

Against custodes you would want gun with str around 6-7 and ap around -2. So assault cannons, autocannon, plasmaguns. etc. 

 

Not even taking strategems into account.

there are plenty of normal GW units that out damage the mighty soultemptor.:)

Edited February 11, 2018 by banis

[TheFinisher4Ever]

I got my second game with Custodes in. It was facing off against a fairly new Nid player. I adjusted my list from last time to add in a unit of bikes and the -1 to hit banner. It was a much better game than the first one I played and I learned a ton.

 

First off, when facing a primarily melee army, Valoris' warlord trait is pretty awesome. I got first turn charged by a giant Genestealer squad but I was able to heroic intervention with a regular Custodes sqaud, Valoris, then I used the 3 command points to swooping dive with my bikes. I cleaned up all but 1 of the stealers, which left me to act normally with everything else on my turn.

 

Second, the tanglefoot grenade is amazing for stopping deepstrike charges. My opponent also dropped in a Trygon Prime for first turn charge, but I hit him with a -3 to his charge from a tanglefoot which let me focus on the stealers.

 

Third, Custodes put out a TON of attacks. I had my bikes all set up with hurricane Bolters, but I'm now not sure it's necessary. I was able to clear out 30 gaunt blobs in combat pretty easily. You cant tarpit 5 Wardens when they are putting out 25 AP -2 attacks per combat phase. Since long range anti-tank is still an issue, I'm thinking about switching my bikes to the salvo launchers. I'll try it next time I think.

 

And finally, mortal wounds are still easily our biggest weakness. My opponent only had a couple mortal wound dealing things (swarmlord, broodlord, neurothrope) but those 3 managed to do incredible amounts of damage from smiting things. Killed my Allarus Terminators, most of my Custodian Guard, and a bike, in addition to doing a bunch of wounds to characters. I saved a grand total of 1 wound with our 6+ save against it. I think that Nids and Mars Ad Mech are going to be our natural predators.

 

Overall, I still won pretty decisively and I had a blast. I love how fast my turns are with my Custodes.

Edited February 11, 2018 by TheFinisher4Ever

[Hellex_The_Thanatar]

Critiques for custodes:

The random damage on the axe is stupid.

The lack of any ranged fire power besides the melta dread and missiles that are not cost effective and the abhorrent land raider is a pain. 

[Gentlemanloser]

Ok...

 

Let's look at the Heavy Psycannon. The GK best ranged weapon.

 

Heavy 6, S7, AP-1, D2

 

Hitting on 3+, no rerolls as the Soulburner didn't have any.

 

6 shots

4 hits

2.7 Wounds

0.9 Unsaved

1.8 damage

 

It would take 1.7 Heavy Psycannons to deal 3W.

 

The cheapest platform for them is the Doomglaive at 168 points.

 

So 285 points in total.

 

More expensive with less output. And no where near as globally effective versus all targets (try killing a LR with them) as the soulburner.

Edited February 11, 2018 by Gentlemanloser

[Ishagu]

Critiques for custodes:

 

The random damage on the axe is stupid.

 

The lack of any ranged fire power besides the melta dread and missiles that are not cost effective and the abhorrent land raider is a pain.

Random damage isn't as much an issue when you're doing lots of attacks. Over multiple hits the average will be 2 damage per wound. Of course if units are depleted there's opportunity for disappointment.

[Hellex_The_Thanatar]

 

Critiques for custodes:

 

The random damage on the axe is stupid.

 

The lack of any ranged fire power besides the melta dread and missiles that are not cost effective and the abhorrent land raider is a pain.

Random damage isn't as much an issue when you're doing lots of attacks. Over multiple hits the average will be 2 damage per wound. Of course if units are depleted there's opportunity for disappointment.

 

 

yeah happened twice with shield captains yesterday against daemon princes (one had the relic plate so I don't blame that for being hard to get through and being nurgle the disgustingly resilient. but the wounds that did get through, only rolling 1's and 2's was horrendous. 

[Charlo]

Am I missing something with Sisters of Silence? They look like plain basic SoB who happen to give a -1 to psychic tests.

 

They can't keep up with your bikes.

Their not going to kill Psykers with bolters.

Their minus to tests is smaller then a Culexus

And they die faster then one.

 

I don't get it.

Plant them infront of your Custodes and now your Bananas can't be hit with Smite or any "closest enemy model" spells. Just like in the fluff.

[Deadnaughty]

 

Am I missing something with Sisters of Silence? They look like plain basic SoB who happen to give a -1 to psychic tests.

 

They can't keep up with your bikes.

Their not going to kill Psykers with bolters.

Their minus to tests is smaller then a Culexus

And they die faster then one.

 

I don't get it.

Plant them infront of your Custodes and now your Bananas can't be hit with Smite or any "closest enemy model" spells. Just like in the fluff.

 

Yeah but they only do that during deployment. After that your bikes leave them in the dust as they have to run up the table.