How are your Custodes doing?

[AstraWlad]

Shield captain x2

Unit of 7 bikes

Unit of 6 bikes

4 guardians

 

Commander

Conscripts

That list looks a bit strange for me. Instead of taking Patrol detachment (0 CP) and 2 big units of bikes he could have and Outrider detachment (+1 CP) and 4 bike units (for more tactical flexibility). Conscripts are also not an optimal choice after their price have been risen in Chapter Approved. Regular infantry costs the same 4 pts per bayonet but is better in every aspect (BS, WS, LD and minimal unit size).

[Deadnaughty]

Friend of mine is current doing well at a 62 person major with this list

 

Shield captain x2

Unit of 7 bikes

Unit of 6 bikes

4 guardians

 

Commander

Conscripts

 

 

That’s it. Super competitive meta. Only lost one of the bike units once in 4 games.

I'm sorry, I don't want to bash a random person on the internet but a Super Competitive meta and only losing 1 biker unit in 4 games seems contradictory to me. They are the only threat, they will die before long (tho going crippling damage in the process).

[Prot]

I agree I mean the list is going to be very typical of competitive Custodes, but it’s one clever Thousand Sons game away from fighting of some serious mortal wound damage.

 

I think that sort of list is going to crush someone who can’t slow it down and I imagine it will hit elite based armies really hard, but on the surface it does seem like when it meets its magic bullet opponent it could be really ugly.

 

What my personal fear would be is that people are going to run the heck out of the bikes , and rather than perk up the rest of the codex GW will nerf the heck out of the bikes.

 

As a side note they need to fix the salvo launcher. There’s almost no reason to take it as written. Perhaps more shots and a discount? Honestly even if it was 10 points, I’d still take the Hurricanes.

 

My game against Chaos I probably would have been sandbagged by Cultists if it weren’t for the hurricanes.

[dtse]

Well. All your opinions are great. But their opinions. And his performance is reality. No offence.

 

Nobody played thousand sons at this tournament. It was all the top current ITC meta lists. Eldar ynnari. Deathguard crawler and poxwalker span. Blood angels. All the usual suspects. Anyway it was mainly an FYI. Make what you will of the information. The list was purely to illustrste how hard it is to kill large biker units. He also deep strikes 1 or both depending on opponent.

[Prot]

His results are no different than my opinion. It’s based on the circumstances. Your report on it is great.

 

Plus I am not disagreeing with anything you said. It was an FYI on what could give this army trouble.... no offense.

 

Actually it furthers my suspicion that you just add bikes to make it click.

 

Going beyond the surface, if you’ve played the biker unit we all know they hit like a truck. They’re no joke. Maybe some players need time to adjust.

 

Interestingly enough maybe this shows us what’s wrong with the current meta?

 

Seriously I think GW has been pushing low end chaff lists to a large degree. This might not be the rule persay but it is prevailant in my area. I have to wonder how this would do against some of the wonky Nid lists I face.... which you would not see in an ITC event.

 

Conversely, does this result just mean the Hurricanes are too potent in numbers? I don’t think so, but on the other hand if I took my Poxwalker army and saw this, I’d be dropping nurglings in my pants at facing all those hurricanes.

Edited February 26, 2018 by Prot

[AstraWlad]

First of all let's not forget that lists do not play themselves but players are. So ones success at a tournament is greatly related to his skill level relative to his opponents. For example we have a guy who could always take 2-nd or 3-rd place at the local tournaments playing Sisters Of Battle (in 6-th and 7-th editions!). His army was not so powerful by itself but he had a lot of experience and skill and was able to make best possible use of it.

 

And as for Bikes and Hurricanes on bikes -- yes, they are way overpowered especially when taken in mass. You can absolutely destroy any regular infantry with them. I have a feeling that GW should change bikes basic load-out to be 1 hurricane bolter and 1 salvo launcher with an option to take 2-nd Salvo launcher instead of HB for free and 2-nd HB instead of SL for some premium price. That will make it's armament options much more balanced.

Edited February 26, 2018 by AstraWlad

[Gentlemanloser]

Bikes living facing Ynarri Reapers?

 

I call shenanigans! :P

[Prot]

And as for Bikes and Hurricanes on bikes -- yes, they are way overpowered especially when taken in mass. You can absolutely destroy any regular infantry with them. I have a feeling that GW should change bikes basic load-out to be 1 hurricane bolter and 1 salvo launcher with an option to take 2-nd Salvo launcher instead of HB for free and 2-nd HB instead of SL for some premium price. That will make it's armament options much more balanced.

 

"Way overpowered".

 

Why I question this is because of the competitive meta.  I'm not saying I personally think Hurricanes are not powerful, but right now I see gobs of chaff on a lot of competitive tables. Astra, Poxwalkers, nurglings/daemons, even guardian blobs.

 

So taken in that context, yes Hurricanes are mighty good. What if you faced a Knight army? Right now, no one really plays these guys. Once the Armiger Knight is released, I bet we see massed Knight armies again. A lot of T7-T8 stuff. I've also seen some very cool Nid throw back Monster Mash lists that I think play really great... and might prove popular in the long run.

 

Anyway, I'm just throwing that out there as a possibility.

[Deadnaughty]

Before Custodes bikers showed up chaff was a 'safe' investment. You need it to prevent T1 deepstrike/charges and no army had a super easy answer to it. Lists that rely on chaff will have to rethink how they deal with it or hope they don't run into lots of bikers (the 2-3 captains some lists are souping in isn't so bad).

 

Its simply a meta shift. they can happen with any release.

[Ishagu]

I'm completely underwhelmed by regular Custodian Guard and will probably never field them.

 

Wardens, Allarus and Bikes are all great, however. Wardens and Bikes are my favourite combination for the backbone of a force.

[Prot]

I never thought outside of bikes they'd be amazing... I just had to do them. The model line and background is just fantastic.It's not in me to show up at a tournament with 12~ bikes. I'm okay with that though, it's a really fun force to use.

[Lysere]

I'm completely underwhelmed by regular Custodian Guard and will probably never field them.

 

Wardens, Allarus and Bikes are all great, however. Wardens and Bikes are my favourite combination for the backbone of a force.

 

I plan on running some Custodes Guard today for the detachment but the Terminators are what I'm counting on to do some work. 

[CaptainMarsh]

Never been let down by Custodian Guard.

[AstraWlad]

Before Custodes bikers showed up chaff was a 'safe' investment. You need it to prevent T1 deepstrike/charges and no army had a super easy answer to it.

Exactly! And while we have safe and reliable DS mechanic (without reserve rolls, scatter and DS mishaps) I think we will still see a lot of chaff on the tables. Alpha strike lists are just too powerful and scary to not to protect against them. Custodes bikes are a scissors to that paper but rocks are still here waiting to crush you at turn 1 :).

[Prot]

What's funny is if you take what I'm saying in reverse... imagine playing Custodes without any bikes, without any Hurricanes. Chances are you would be gobbled up by the current meta of tons of chaff.

 

When I played against Chaos I only had 3 bikes. By the end of the game I had none, and it was largely because it became clear to my opponent that the bikes were easily the most threatening unit I had on the table. (I took a Landraider too, but it was a joke really... he smoked it in three shots.)

[TheLambert]

What's funny is if you take what I'm saying in reverse... imagine playing Custodes without any bikes, without any Hurricanes. Chances are you would be gobbled up by the current meta of tons of chaff.

 

When I played against Chaos I only had 3 bikes. By the end of the game I had none, and it was largely because it became clear to my opponent that the bikes were easily the most threatening unit I had on the table. (I took a Landraider too, but it was a joke really... he smoked it in three shots.)

 

I only have 3 bikes right now since I haven't had the money for the rest yet. I was smoking dudes with the 3 shield-captains running trains on people and mulching half my opponents army, until my group wised up. Now the lists have changed to have more multi-wound shots, smites, and they focus hard on my bikes. Literally nothing else in the army has any threat since all my friends play gunline after their CC armies got smashed when they tried to fight my Custodes in melee. The lack of any real ranged threat besides bikes, and the useless land raider means they just spend all game trying to kill my shield-captains. It's not easy to kill them, but if they do, they win. 

[Prot]

Yes there's so much power in the shield captain.

 

I don't put mine on bikes yet. I think it's easy to go there, but might not be easy to go back to non-shield captain bikers, so I'm trying to stay away from it for some cool modeling opportunities.

 

Last game I put "Blood Games" on my Allarus SC and sure enough he got picked out pretty quickly without his buddies.... and as you say my stuff is being targeted heavily with multi damage units... Oblits in particular might be the bane of a Biker army from Chaos' perspective. My opponent kept getting '3's for the random damange Obliterator roll, that was brutal.

 

The only time I exposed my Allarus SC was because of casualties I had, and sure enough I fail 2 saves at 3++ for my Warlord....with 3 Damage a piece, this is enough to kill my Warlord... I remember Blood Games, re-roll the invuln, and thankfully save it.

 

Funny thing is that probably saved me the game because so many points were hinging on it. And ironically my Warlord never did a thing all game. lol

[TheFinisher4Ever]

I actually don't think hordes are as big of a deal for Custodes as everyone thinks mainly due to the high amount of attacks we get. A unit of 5 Allarus puts out 10 bolter shots, 10 grenade shots, then can charge in for 20 (or 25 with knives) attacks on the charge. All of this hitting on 2s and with at least AP-1. The Wardens are blenders as well, putting out 5 attacks per model. I've chewed through 50 Nid infantry in a single turn with 0 effort.

 

Meanwhile, with the -1 to hit banner, most hordes will struggle to kill even a single model of ours. A 20 man blob of devourer gaunts will do 1 wound on average to a Custodian. Likewise, a 30 man conscript blob with FRFSRF does 3 unsaved wounds.

 

Smite Spam and Ad Mech seem to be our natural predators right now. Neutron Laser Onagers and Wrath of Mars dakka Kastellans are like Custodes Kryptonite. The Neutron Laser's strength 10 and minimum damage 3 hurts like hell against our infantry and shield captains. Meanwhile, every turn the robots use Wrath of Mars, at least 2-3 things die. Last game they killed my Bike Captain, a squad of 3 bikes and 2 Custodian Guard in 1 turn. Those things are insane.

[Deadnaughty]

I think you need to re-read. No one has been talking about hordes being hard for custodes.

[Hellex_The_Thanatar]

Yup haven't had an issue with hordes besides marine spam in a map with to much cover and their plasma everywhere.

 

How are people killing back line tanks? I can't seem to reach them with anything good fast enough. Double predators with auto cannons and sponson law cannons uhggg.

[CaptainMarsh]

Yup haven't had an issue with hordes besides marine spam in a map with to much cover and their plasma everywhere.

 

How are people killing back line tanks? I can't seem to reach them with anything good fast enough. Double predators with auto cannons and sponson law cannons uhggg.

I have used the bikes with Salvo Missile Launchers. They also work wonders against every other armored vehicle the Space marines have as well as dreadnoughts. Have had good times blowing up back line with Salvo Launchers and then charging closer vehicles.

[Ishagu]

Landraider...

I Park the -1 to hit vexilla next to it and push other units forward to distract away from it.

[ashc]

I still have an agents of the imperium box unopened from Gathering Storm; worth putting together as Custodes or use the contemptor and land raider for another army and kit the custodes as an allied unit? What setup have you found works well for 5 custodes guard like this?

[MeatGrinder]

I still have an agents of the imperium box unopened from Gathering Storm; worth putting together as Custodes or use the contemptor and land raider for another army and kit the custodes as an allied unit? What setup have you found works well for 5 custodes guard like this?

 

The raider is mostly useless and so is the contemptor. Plus the contemptor is an awful model.

[Sanul]

What setup have you found works well for 5 custodes guard like this?

I have my units set up like this so far and I love it:

- 3 guards with spears

- 3 guards with shields

- 5 guards with spears

 

The small teams are for objectives or area security (especially the shields, because the 3+ is noticeable and the swords are not so bad!). The bigger team (I have two more guards with spears just in case) is my shock team for 1 CP and works really well! Not too costly, but enough bodies to be a big danger to anything, except the biggest tanks! But for that I also have a unit of 3-5 Allarus to teleport into battle.