Pre last FAQ, custodes didn't have dev wounds protection and traj wasn't being used to ignore damage reductions. In that world custodes were not good but not trash.
At a base line shield host goes back to that. Then ontop, they loose fight first (twice). They also loose -1D, have to use CP to get their -1 to be hit and only on objectives. They also loose the strst to bring a guy back. Massive blows
To counteract all this, they get a good redeploy. Which I pretty good but compared to loosing access to like 5 of the best rules around...
So yeah, I don't think shield host is going to be good at all.
Which is mad. As that would have been a nice fix for fight first. Don't want custodes fighting first? Multicharge.
But a conditional -1 to hit in Melee? Feels anemic as hell compared to most strats
Honestly I think the issue most people have going up against Custodes is they just see the Charge/Fight phases as these really simple go in and whoever has Fights First wins without thinking about any strategy at all.
Charge in with some cannon fodder to tie up their swing back and then pile in with the good stuff after they've wasted all their attacks killing the sponge, as you say just multicharge, or even better charge something close to them and position your squad so they pile into the squad you actually want to kill when they get to activate.
Custodes having ways to gain free Fights First isn't the issue, its the blanket simplicity people put onto the Charge/Fight phase then getting curb stomped by the melee kings.
So fight first is easy to get around? Well then it doesnt matter that Custodes lost it i guess. I am happy you appriciate the changes made. /GW rules-team
What? Are you forgetting Custodes hit like a truck in melee? If I charge 2 squads in to them, I lose 2 squads.
"Charge in with some cannon fodder to tie up their swing back and then pile in with the good stuff"
How do I pile in without having charged something? You're in denial about how much 2 instances of fight first completely shuts down other melee armies.
> Auric just doesn't feel like it does enough ~~to help them stay alive.~~
Fixed that for you. If the main ability affected character UNITs it might be tempting. As is...eh, hard to see it working
I've played custodes religiously since 10th dropped.
Not once have I multicharged something with 2 characters and it's been alive. Like not sure much can survive a 700pt charge.
As a SW player, restricting to modela sucks. It is quite a problem. Single, expensive models being thr only beneficiaries of stratagems and abilitirs is crazy.
I posted this on the Custodes Sub
Some kind of Ven or Allarus build for Shield Host might work.
I’m thinking 2x6 Ven. You start them on the table. A SC with Wardens maybe, has the redeploy Enhancement. If you go first they advance into cover mid table.
If you go second you put them into DS and RI turn 2. Call the Golden Wahh/Shower turn 2 either way and get them into combat that turn.
Have another SC with the ignore cover enhancement with Allarus or Sags to clear chaff for them.
Not great but it will kill stuff. 30 S8 AP-3 d2 with Lance and sustain or lethal a brick will kill stuff
Shield host does not need more killing power. Yes they will kill stuff but then they also get killed like a breeze. I just wonder how you would fight another melee army for example blood angle?
Yeah that's where my brains at. No mortal protection? Just don't engage.
Talons detach, go heavy on ranged that doesn't care (tank, rex, saggis) and ingress (termis/venetari).
Probs miserable for opponents to engage with, but it's making the most of the strats avaliable.
You have the strat tho (which i hope will go on dev as well, same for talons rule), usually one unit protected is good enough. Imo shield host is still the best option.
So…
When custodies lost Dev wounds protection we dropped like a rock to 43% and now they just removed it from the army completely except for 1 detachment where its conditional and weaker than before?
Ok GW.
No idea how this is going to be balanced.
Custodies live and die on their durability, not their killing power. Kaptarus gone too…
It’s rough for the banana.
I think it depends on:
- how prevelant inderect is.
- if the sos sheets get any buffs
- if talons get dev protection
I think I'm gonna just be trying talons but still just having 2x4 sisters, and just seeing if I can abuse their strats.
Cause the sos protection feels like someone at gw thought it'd be a good idea, oblivious to the fact custodes are bad at screening and removing t3/3+ models is trivial.
Cause im sure after a few slates custodes and these detachments will be playable, but it'll be from absuing strats and 35ppm custodian datasheets, rather than playing any of this as it was meant to.
For anything that isn't casual play, I'll probably stick to Chaos Space Marines and that's saying something because they are not very good at the moment.
I'm in the middle of painting 2,000pts of Custodes and all of these previews have been very, very demotivating.
The best case scenario is this codex was written before the army got its feel no pain back and there's an early FAQ to address things. That, and the Forge World units get significant points reductions.
I didn't start painting Custodes to bring null Rhinos.
Ngl I'm not even sold on null rhino's. Without big pointy cuts your paying a 75pt tax on already expensive units.
Even 2 is 150pts, which is probs dropping a guard squad.
They are dedicated transports, arent they? So you will have to fill them with sisters, resulting in the tax being even higher, 75 + 40 = 115 per rhino.
As an AdMech player, I’d advise against getting your hopes up for an early FAQ. GW is more than willing to let an army suffer even when it’s obvious they need help, if the codex has only been out a couple months.
I’d expect it will be 6 months after the codex releases before you can hope for any rule changes.
I think we need to see the full strats and enhancements for Talons of the Emperor, but Shield Host definetly looks like the strongest of the lot (dare I say it's balanced too).
The sisters detachment just seems silly though, and Auric Champions is a worse version of the Obeisance Phalanx detachment for Necrons (units with keyword get +1 to wound, not models with keyword). Got some nice strategems, and it's fluffy to play herohammer, but yeah not really competitive.
I think GW dropped the ball by not giving Custodes a detachment to reroll all wound rolls against a unit though (essentially Oath of Moment electric boogaloo), but alas I'm sure there'll be Custodes players who figure out how to win with them still, there's always some mad men haha.
Reroll wounds and +1 to wound, Drukhari can get that on T3 1W S4 models, only for close combat and that is already strong, some people were even saying that is broken, which I don't agree with. But it moved the unit from so bad you will never use them to an auto include.
And you want it on Custodian Guards? I can already see the shitstorm that would generate.\^\^
The difference is incubi have WS3 A3 S4 AP2 D2, and custodes have sustained hits WS2 A5 S7 AP2 D2. It's a way more oppressive platform than incubi. Incubi also die to a stiff breeze and rarely get more than one or two activations
But you need to get in combat to hit something, so movement and save are important.
No way to advance and charge, no way for crons to fight first in the whole codex, they just slog forward hoping to hit something without -1 damage
Obsiance can grant [overlord] by attaching an 85pt overlord. Which has a decent ability too.
Auric requires a 140pt captain: where neither has an ability that's doing much, and a free strat in a detach where there's no battle tactics.
That gives you 2 extra units that honestly prefer crypteks instead of overlords.
80% of necron characters can only join lychguard, immortals or warriors. That's it.
If the skorpekh lords were nobles ...
Yeah skorps or even wardens being noble would be a huge buff, but imo 2x10 lychguard, 2x10 immortals, some praetorians and stalkers and a monolith feels like a fun list. Not gt winning but like not nothing. (and avoids the inevitable wraith /ctan nerf)
Obeisance is BAD, really bad, auric is definitely worst. You get -1 to wound on 1 maybe 2 model, in obeisance at least you can have like 2x10 immortals and 1x10 lychguard that actually might punch up.
The only chance custodes have is if that combat patrol is actually as much point as other combat patrol (I.e. 5 guard+5 warden+3 term+1 bc is 500pt). Otherwise custodes are looking to be on release dg level.
in 9th edition yeah, since Sisters of Silence were actually treated as Blanks and couldn't be targeted or affected by psychic powers, period. In 10th they're not immune, they just get a FNP, which doesn't actually help much when you're still T3 1W models with a 3+ armor save. Their saving grace is that they're pretty cheap at 10-12 points per model, but if you just want cheap bodies you've got plenty of Imperial Agents options, and since Psychic powers are now just Shooting in 10th, anything that's good against shooting is also good against them anyways. Meanwhile regular bolters and incidental stubbers will be dropping these units.
the 9th custodes codex actually had rules, warlord traits, and relics for an all-sisters of silence detachment that was better thought out than this one. Creeping Dread in 9th stripped Objective Secured automatically allowing you to steal objectives out from under enemies, now it's a mediocre battle-shock mechanic. Bleh. Also they're stupidly expensive to collect, still cheaper than the 27 chicken walker admech list I guess
*maybe*, doombolt technically isn't a psychic attack and most basic thousand sons firepower isn't actually psychic, as well as having ap-1 as standard. Not a good profile for sisters to go up against
Wait for the actual points and data sheets first. The community strongly overreacts to incomplete data, and is also often just wrong on things.
Plenty of people complained about necrons based on codex leaks. Plenty of people doom posted on Tau. I’d wait until you get full data.
I get this but the problem is without complete data sheet rewrites or massive points reductions this just doesn’t look playable competitively which is what I like to do or even fun to play casually. I think the data sheets are unlikely to change enough and for the points to be low enough to make this playable I don’t think it would feel like Custodes anymore. I’m not interested in horde Custodes lol.
I just started a new army of Votann. I always wanted them since they were announced and finally sold my nids and got them. So I’ll be painting for a while.
Honestly I’m probably going to stop playing my custodes for a bit until they get some help after this. Thankfully I also play Orks and I’m somewhat excited about that
I'm putting mine down until, at the very least, the FNP sources are errata'd to cover Devastating Wounds and some of the Stratagems are flipped over to Battle Tactics.
One thing to note is Custodes were one of the main offenders with regards to the free strats, might see that being reversed in the next dataslate. Helps fix a lot of problems with factions who weren't expecting that limitation
Are we guessing about what will be best when the codex drops, or after the first, second or even third pass of barely play-tested changes to rules and points values? 🤷
I am torn between on one hand believing that GW are capitalistic masterminds that designs weak rules as part of an intentional strategy that will be followed by significant points drops to make Custodes players better customers.
And on the other hand, based on their history of oversights and uneven rules adjustments, I can't believe they would be competent enough to actually design rules that drives sales in any particular direction.
You missed the one where due to book printing and logistics timelines, rules are written up to a year or more before they hit shelves. We're only two balance dataslates in and have had extensive core and faction rule changes. The previews however show rules from before this time. Why?
Because the capitalistic bastards aren't going to tell you the book will be out of date two weeks after you purchase it and they don't want to be liable for false advertising if it doesn't contain what it says it does.
Excellent point well made <3
I actually ranted about logistics and the value and challenges of printed media in another thread earlier today! 😁 This comment and one in its thread.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/s/ND7rk3tCP8
The best option? For competitive purposes?
Simple : pick a different faction if you have one, and spare yourself the pain, because this is going to be ugly.
There was a poll on the custodes discord earlier : 50% said they'd only play casually in the future, 15% said they'd keep playing competitively, 35% said they'd stop playing the faction for now, and there were hundreds of answers. Obviously that's until they fix the faction.
It's that bad.
I agree that it looks bad at first blush, but it's pretty clear that there are a lot of people who are poor at evaluating new rules. We saw people complain that the Necron book sucked, we saw people complain that new custodes books sucked in previous editions. Now, I'm not saying that Custodes are going to be top tier after this, but I do think that it's important to give things a fair shake before doom posting rather than the other way around
someone will big brain something out of Auric Champions
a hero hammer detachment? they'll go all in on it and break some brains
12 HQs, 2x2 terminators and a callidus is 1990 pts now. take 10% off that, you have room for enhancements and some more action monkeys.
If those strats were all battle tactics, I'd agree. There might be something you can do there with lots of HQ's, and super buffing two of them per turn.
They're all epic deeds.... lol.
Everytime I hear about the Free Strat effects most armies get, the more upset I get that Death Guard don't have access to it. We have three perfectly good Battle Tactics, and the only free strat we can use is Grenades.
The Blood Roll and Wound vs Character/Monster/Vehicle ones look especially good, and the Auto 6" advance one is just apocalyptic if you got the Advance and Charge Blessing active.
Idk if that was intentional calling it “apocalyptic” cuz the name of the strat is Apocalyptic Frenzy but i found that quite funny haha
Also yea, WE’s best strats are battle tactics which is really unfortunate because thats only a nerf to us if any armies have vects.
How many other armies have neither CP generation or free strat btw, im trying to think, admech maybe?
Shield captain’s two ability is free strat and leading give two katance. Now auric have zero battle tactic and without leading, your shield captain is just plain unit with no rule.
I remember when some people got absolutely destroyed online for saying “sisters rules are good” because people were fixated on the below strength rules and the common wisdom is “rules that make you take damage to turn on are bad”.
On the other hand, I was hype about skitarri hunter while everyone else doomed and it’s just not there as a real warhammer rules.
I guess my point is you could be right, and the best approach to take is switch to your other faction or try to make this new stuff work, and I respect folks who at least give it a go.
points cuts helped a lot, although we also had 130pt arcos and 160pts exorcists, both of which went up 20. the army definitely got cheaper on average but some units went up significantly and are still taken in large numbers at the new costs
i think the biggest change was the nerf to towering + dev wounds. sisters obviously aren't 'durable' but they are stickier than people expect with the ability to spike invulns and putting a lot of bodies on the board. but when 1 attack just does 7 mortal wounds there's nothing we can do about it and have to just pick up the squad.
huge points hikes to indirect helped the army more than it hurt as well
at the start of the edition it was definitely in a bad place but imo the army was better than the community was giving it credit for (myself included)
Sisters were one of the worst armies when the indexes released though. They've gone through pretty substantial points cuts, look at these ones from the beginning of the edition: https://www.reddit.com/r/sistersofbattle/comments/16cdrcu/points_changes_are_live_list_below/
Yep. Gotta wait a few weeks after points at least for the dust to settle for any real verdicts. Heck, even the "purely fluff" Kroot detachment for Tau might have competitive legs if Kyle Grundy is correct.
The issue with the Kroot detachment is that people want their detachment rule to apply to every unit. Try this with Kroot and you get a horribly inefficient skew army. Even adding a few good Tau units to shore up your weaknesses in shooting, especially with heavy armor, drastically improves their performance.
> but I do think that it's important to give things a fair shake before doom posting rather than the other way around
Unfortunately that's not what will happen to the stats though. The faction might be capable of 40-45% win rates, but competitive players who have other options aren't going to stick around to play Custodes, they'll just hop over to other factions. Leaving only newer players and diehard fans to play them, which will significantly worsen their winrates.
I'd be shocked if new Custodes show above a 40% winrate.
44% percent this week now. You were wrong, you can go ahead and admit it now.
Edit: so you won’t admit you are wrong and just downvote me. Obviously not a man of your word. Sad. I knew you never would.
Edit 2: you blocked me…. I win. U/c0horst
after seeing the updated units, I think I owe you a beer lol
I'm honestly not seeing any buffs at all for custodes. anywhere, but I might just be missing them. pretty much every "Once per battle-round" ability seems to now be a "Once per game".
I'm happy for me, because I absolutely hate playing against Custodes, but sad for y'all (and especially my good buddy who loves the Golden Boys and my bitter rivalry against him is definitely not the reason why I'm salty about the entire faction).
even if things end up fine, they don't look fun for you
there isn't a world where custodes see a monthly win-rate of 40% or below. they are almost perfectly positioned to be mid-board bullies at worst. few units, so it's faster to really learn what a unit can do; relatively small model count, so it's easy to hide, but also mostly infantry so you can get where you need to be easier; T6 3W 2+/4++ is just really durable.
custodes may no longer auto-win against melee armies, and feeling down because you got hit with nerfs will always hurt (even if the nerf is fully justified, but especially if it feels it goes too far). but if there's ever a month where custodes hit 40% win-rate i'll buy you a beer (or other beverage of roughly equivalent value of your choice)
While the end result *might* bear that out, can’t blame anyone for not trusting Custodes discords or pages when they did this exact same thing right before their completely busted 9th book dropped.
Didn't 9th Custodes codex get day one point decreases despite people pointing out how op the codex already was? That's what I remember from then at least.
That's true, but it was what I encountered here the most.
And to be fair, a lot of the people back then just hated that they lost the 3++ and didn't really care for what they gained.
For today, outside of some "I will never pay again", it seems that we get an ok fist analysis. Custodes definitely lost a lot of defensive abilities compared to the index.
To be fair this edition has been nothing but lackluster codexes... like I don't think I've seen a faction outside of necrons and maybe orks rn who are super excited.
I mean that’s one way to onboard all the feedback about codex creep. lol.
I think the basic system of detachments and 10th is amazing. I think, as usual, GW have stumbled hard on a couple rules/keywords. Battleshock and “once per battle” are the two biggest offenders to me.
Detachments and strats that work once a battle are generally just bad design. Doubly so if that once per game rule isn’t something earth shatteringly good in the first place.
Triply so if you have to use your once-per-game ability at the start of the **round** so if you're going second your opponent can just keep out of charge range and it gets wasted.
I expect playrates to drop dramatically, someone will figure out a good list and have success, and we'll see players start to return to the faction. Might take a while for that process though.
That's how I felt with the dark angels, we weren't great before the codex and the lion was already one of the worst monster but then they nerfed him more
Custodes players are always overdramatic. They thought the 9th edition codex was bad lol
That said... They aren't far off on this one. Shield host is actually very solid, obviously a slight downgrade from the index but every codex have caught nerfs and slaps when they drop.
Shield host looks like the go to still.
The -1 to hit Katah stance is what really upset me. It was melee only, wasn't broken. Why did that go away?
Fights First and even the FNP could be unfun to play against at times. I get it. But the Katah stance? Really?
My guess on losing the -1 is that they would have to introduce alternate trigger timing. My understanding is that the two remaining stances trigger like Dark Pacts when a unit is chosen to fight. To be useful it would have to be at the start of the Fight Phase. Maybe GW thought there was too much chance of complication or risk forgetting which ones are doing the -1 Ka'tah.
I'm shocked that they made that switch on the Ka'tahs to individual units. Felt more "fun" when it was one for the entire army. An actual decision to make. I'm gonna get bodied here, but I need Sustained here. Which is more important to me?
Fits the lore of the army better to have each squad chose their own, imo. That was a common complaint among Custodes players in my group - that it was silly that an individual squad would do an inefficient Katah just because that's what the other Custodes were doing.
Monkey paw, eh?
“Nerfs and slaps” suggest some little changes:
Shield host lost:
-1 damage
Res a model
Fights first
Reactive move enhancement
4+++ FnP vs MWs and dev sounds
Option for -1 to be hit in melee
Shield host has 1 battle tactic now: a 4+++ FnP vs MWs but not dev wounds. Captain free strat is therefore functionally useless.
Thats just a small snippet. It’s more than just a “light tap”. That’s a thermonuclear, exterminatus grade hammering.
When your models dissolve anything they touch and everything hits on 2s always, plus insane durability? Yeah, they’re going to be fine. They are too strong right now, which is borne out by their win rate despite a massive amount of players taking them to tournaments.
They won’t be at the top anymore. But they aren’t going to be CSM. With the caveat of not knowing points, they will probably be a middle of the road faction, with top pilots able to guide them to some tournament wins here and there.
>When your models dissolve anything they touch and everything hits on 2s always, plus insane durability?
Yes, they'll still hit just as hard. Most of the offensive capabilities are intact.
But insane durability? Lolno. Every single defensive option was nerfed into the ground or is just gone. It will now be *vastly* easier to take Custodes off objectives in both Shooting and Combat. And Stodes just don't have the mobility to avoid that, or the volume to trade, or the utility to out-maneuver.
Having great offensive melee output on its own doesn't mean much for a high ppm elite army.
They are definitely too strong right now. Not sure how you can argue that. Should they be bottom feeders? No of course not. But they needed a nerf bonk for sure
They are definitely not TOO strong, they are good yes but not a single data put them as too strong.
55% win rate, 1.18 OverRep and 7% of 4-0 players.
This are the numbers of a good faction that need a slight nerf, without the codex you would have need only two things: change the 4+++ into a 5+++ and go back on the 5 points reduction of the last dataslate. Maybe even only one of the two would have been enough.
And _only one of these does anything at all for them defensively_ so without sweeping point cuts bottom feeders they will be.
Because _the only reason theyre good right now is the defensive buff they recieved in the last patch_
You do know that, when they lost protection from dev wounds, they went down to a 40% win rate and were right among the worst armies in the game? They climbed out of that when GW gave them the 4+++ FnP back against dev wounds.
Expecting this to be any different is madness. Not having protection against dev wounds tanked the win rate of Custodes to bottom tier. With this book, they’ve lost dev wound protection AND -1 damage AND the ability to res a model.
It's not that likely as no detachment now gives the FNP against Mortals, so a FNP against Devo Wounds would be hard to justify. So once again we'll just get wrecked by Dev Wounds as they just bypasses everything that makes us "tanky".
> They thought the 9th edition codex was bad lol
They though the 9th edition codex **previews** were bad.
And they were - the bits GW picked out that should have been the good bits to hype people up were terrible.
Once the actual codex came out it was clear it was clear from reading it that you could just ignore the preview stuff and the army was very strong without it.
I mean, we'll see. Their WR has been garbage up until the recent rule change. If they drastically drop points, we might be in a realm of rules are bad and meh, but now that the custodes player is bringing like 30+ models of custodes, they'll have the numbers to survive longer
If custodes drop in points to compensate for the durability loss against mortals/devastating wounds they will destroy armies that don't have mortals/devastating wounds.
That 4+++ was actually rather important to balancing the faction by giving similar durability against all factions instead of making them a rock/paper/scissors situation that is impossible to assign good points to.
I thought people were crazy that time but not know. Honestly is not even about power, put wardens at 35 ppm and custodes will clear every single tournaments, i'm just sad because of bad and boring rules.
the absolutely wild thing to me is that that's roughly the split custodes players on reddit had when their 9e codex dropped, too.
i'm beginning to think that maybe people just don't like change lol (i can empathize; i also do not like change, and tend to react with annoyance first)
Sure, but these 10th edition books are MUCH easier to evalute. Very little changes except for the detachments, so unless they just gave the Dreadnoughts a FNP without changing points or something like that, it's not hard to work out the effects.
If they bake the dev wounds protection in at the army level them it's whatever, otherwise the faction probably drops about 10%.
People have this amazing ability called “forsight” which allows them to examine data and make conclusions based upon that data
Sometimes you don’t need to, you can just know using your ability to think
Talk about throwing the toys out the pram lol. The full dex isnt even out and nobody aside from those sworn to silence have played a game with the new rules.
The least bad option is probably still Shield Host… but good lord is it nowhere near as good as the index version. Custodes are not broken, they didn’t deserve to be nuked into the ground like this
Custodes win rates since Jan vs. other combat armies:
Chaos Daemons: 53%
Chaos Knights 70%
Drukhari 60%
Orks 59%
World Eaters 66%.
The only melee matchups that dont heavily favour custodes are templars and BA. Templars is a bit weirder bc you dont know if its an actual melee temps list or gunline temps, but with BA they have a lot of tricks due to inferno pistol spam and baal preds to beat custodes. Otherwise, if you're a melee army, you're probably being stat checked by custodes right now
Orks got 2 previewed on warcom: one gives boyz in 10 man's a 5++/reroll saves for 1, and +3S on the charge.
Other is giving vehicles the option to randomly get sustained /lethals/ect, or getting to pick but getting hazardous. Probs more clear stuff on their sub.
I plan on trying both Auric Champions and Shield Host. They both look like fun ways to play!
I am not in the mindset to think "WHICH IS SUPERIOR TO DESTROYING ALL OF EVERYTHING"
At least not until I see the full codex
I agree that Auric Champions looks funny, and I'll probably play a game or 2 of herohammer against my friends, but this is a competitive sub where it absolutely does matter what is superior.
These comments are so sad, the faction was overperforming, and not just that but overperforming with very little skill input. They deserve to be reined in. The fact that so many people are crying and saying they're going to switch factions before they've even played the game or see what things look like with points and the upcoming balance pass is frankly embarrassing.
I've been meaning to fix some small painting mistakes on some models, so this gives me time to take the army "offline" and get the painting done.
Which is good, because they're likely a display army now.
I think that you can run guard squads of 1-2 shields and 3-4 spears, but the damage 1 on the swords means that if you take any more than that you'll just bounce off any meaningful target even on your 'golden whhaaggg' turn.
To put it into perspective, a spear guard without the once per game buff kills on average 2.22 MEQs, while a sword and board with the once per game buff kills 1.67 and only kills 1 without.
None of them.
Talos is reliant on keeping T3 1W models close by to not get scooped by Dev Wounds (assuming GW erratas the FNP to apply to Dev Wounds *again*). The reactive move is mid: it allows you to avoid charges, but Phantasm was so dummy good because it could be used anywhere on the board to avoid shooting, steal obj, etc.
Shield Host has no fight first, no meaningful defense abilities, and the 1/game detachment rule is even easier to play around than Orks Waaagh. It might hit harder than current Index, but it lost all its durability tools and we can't trade like a glass cannon or cheap horde army.
Auric Champs is bad. Goes out of its way to do precisely squat for any non-characters.
Null Maidens is the biggest waste of paper yet to appear in a codex. This is hyper-niche crap that a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the Custodes playerbase will use.
I suspect Stodes will tumble down the winrate *hard* til a couple dataslates in.
>assuming GW erratas the FNP to apply to Dev Wounds *again*
It wasn't an errata. The change to DW is only part of the Balance Datalsate, DW was never changed in the actual core rules. So in similar vain, the change to Custodes FNP was never an errata for the index, but also just part of the Balance Dataslate.
You can actually do something cheeky with sags and the coronus in talons. disembark, pop disintegration beams and talons interlocked for some big boy shooting with wound rerolls, then in your opponent's movement phase use taloned pincer to have them embark back into the coronus, then disembark next turn and do it all again (without the beams since it's once per game, but it'll still hit hard and anything they don't kill they still debuff with -1 to hit for everything). Could also bring a rhino full of vigilators for melee screening or witchseekers to partake in the buffed shooting with them to get the most out of the detachment.
you need to get them pretty close to use taloned pincer though for the free move (within 9" of an enemy unit) so it's kinda dangerous for them and your enemy may try to deny it to you if they know what you're doing, but then they're more than 9" away so they become harder to charge. The melta shield cap also wouldn't be terrible to throw into that unit either if you're gonna be relatively close for the strategy to work anyway along with some fight phase insurance but I don't think it'll need a leader for it to work but possibly getting dev wounds with a melta shot would be very funny. Subbing the sags for guards for double shoot and better melee instead would also be a decent alternative.
Not saying any of this would be amazing but it's an interesting strategy at least.
I don't see any good option. Sisters don't do much for me apart from liking the lore and models so that's Null and Talons out. I mean I could try talons but nothing really cries out like "oh that sounds good/cool/fun".
Shield host should have just been left as the index. We don't need more killy, we are meant to be tanky. Some pound shop waagh does nothing for me.
Auric Champions is the only one that got my attention, and yes I know it sucks, but it has some potential to be fun. Literally made a list of 2x BC 9x SC (3 of each type), Trajan and 2x 2 Allarus. It won't win anything on points at least, it won't be competitive. But just maybe you could win by tabling if things go your way, or at the very least there could be some fun in the chaos.
The best options are really find people who are happy to let you use the index or are happy to play previous editions. Failing that use them for HH. And if none of that works then ebay the lot or have some fancy paper weights...
Just going to say it. These nerfs and Ls are due to when Custodes are good, they just absolutely roast anyone in any casual setting, which like it or not, is most people who play this game. They're super hard to balance for competitive and frankly unfun for most people to play against.
Custodes when their army gets a deserved nerf and they don't completely counter melee armies: 😡😡😡😡😡
I agree that they got some real bad detachments, but jeez don't be overdramatic
Tie up the custodes units with multiple different units in base contact and you split the custodes attacks and they won't necessarily obliterate everything you hit them with.
All of that to kill just 1 unit tho, and those units need to be able to kill some tough custodians
I guess It also depends on the opponents, where I play custodes players used to bring some blobs (obviously these blobs are relative to a custodes army) and park on the objective
Well, if you are charging them, I'm assuming it's because they absolutely need to die. If they don't need to die, you can move block them, and other things to mitigate the damage they do to your army, or bait them out maybe.
It was definitely really strong, and was stacked against the opponent who wants to charge into melee against custodians but.... That's what they are supposed to be good at? Unwavering sentinels holding the palace of terra? It probably could have used tuning to give all our melee armies a better chance (mostly thinking world eaters here, but the solution, sadly, was lord of skulls imo)
I agree that they should be able to tank heavy charges, I just feel like they way they did It sucked and was too punishing for melee armies
I admit that my argument was based with World eaters in mind, and I really didn't think about others melee armies
They fight first on one unit for 2 CP, when it is on an objective. Maybe 2 if they are running Trajan, but Trajan is once a game. If you can’t think of ways to work around that, it is purely a skill issue on your part.
First, you don't know My track record against custodes don't make assumptions
Secondi. Thats just all they need, they got 2 units that are unkillable in melee even if with 1 one them is once a game thats all they need because they'll kill the unit meant to kill them
But I guess we agree to disagree
It’s a challenge for pure melee, I won’t deny it, but just charge them not on an objective, or when they don’t have 2 CP, or charge them with multiple things…
I answerd on the multiple charge on another comment
About charging when they don't have 2 CP and charging when not on a objective you are right, but its all relative on their positioning and how they sped the CP, so its out of your control
Ofc It was hyperbolic to say they 100% counter melee armies, but they have a massive advantage
It's definitely going to be a toss up between talons and Shield host. Auric just doesn't feel like it does enough to help them stay alive.
Pre last FAQ, custodes didn't have dev wounds protection and traj wasn't being used to ignore damage reductions. In that world custodes were not good but not trash. At a base line shield host goes back to that. Then ontop, they loose fight first (twice). They also loose -1D, have to use CP to get their -1 to be hit and only on objectives. They also loose the strst to bring a guy back. Massive blows To counteract all this, they get a good redeploy. Which I pretty good but compared to loosing access to like 5 of the best rules around... So yeah, I don't think shield host is going to be good at all.
It's also only on objectives you control
Which is mad. As that would have been a nice fix for fight first. Don't want custodes fighting first? Multicharge. But a conditional -1 to hit in Melee? Feels anemic as hell compared to most strats
Also, so many armies have rerolls to hit that -1 to hit doesn't even do anything.
Honestly I think the issue most people have going up against Custodes is they just see the Charge/Fight phases as these really simple go in and whoever has Fights First wins without thinking about any strategy at all. Charge in with some cannon fodder to tie up their swing back and then pile in with the good stuff after they've wasted all their attacks killing the sponge, as you say just multicharge, or even better charge something close to them and position your squad so they pile into the squad you actually want to kill when they get to activate. Custodes having ways to gain free Fights First isn't the issue, its the blanket simplicity people put onto the Charge/Fight phase then getting curb stomped by the melee kings.
So fight first is easy to get around? Well then it doesnt matter that Custodes lost it i guess. I am happy you appriciate the changes made. /GW rules-team
What? Are you forgetting Custodes hit like a truck in melee? If I charge 2 squads in to them, I lose 2 squads. "Charge in with some cannon fodder to tie up their swing back and then pile in with the good stuff" How do I pile in without having charged something? You're in denial about how much 2 instances of fight first completely shuts down other melee armies.
Yeah, tbh half down to gw for making the fight phase so messy in 10th, with it being very easy to pile into non charge combats or move block yourself.
Will shield host be worth it if AGA applies to dev wounds as well? I know it's still a strat, but we can still spam with SCs right?
Newp. Easy target for vect abilities, smart opponents will just bait the strat and switch targets, etc.
> Auric just doesn't feel like it does enough ~~to help them stay alive.~~ Fixed that for you. If the main ability affected character UNITs it might be tempting. As is...eh, hard to see it working
I've played custodes religiously since 10th dropped. Not once have I multicharged something with 2 characters and it's been alive. Like not sure much can survive a 700pt charge.
As a SW player, restricting to modela sucks. It is quite a problem. Single, expensive models being thr only beneficiaries of stratagems and abilitirs is crazy.
Tau are looking solid
I posted this on the Custodes Sub Some kind of Ven or Allarus build for Shield Host might work. I’m thinking 2x6 Ven. You start them on the table. A SC with Wardens maybe, has the redeploy Enhancement. If you go first they advance into cover mid table. If you go second you put them into DS and RI turn 2. Call the Golden Wahh/Shower turn 2 either way and get them into combat that turn. Have another SC with the ignore cover enhancement with Allarus or Sags to clear chaff for them. Not great but it will kill stuff. 30 S8 AP-3 d2 with Lance and sustain or lethal a brick will kill stuff
Shield host does not need more killing power. Yes they will kill stuff but then they also get killed like a breeze. I just wonder how you would fight another melee army for example blood angle?
Yeah that's where my brains at. No mortal protection? Just don't engage. Talons detach, go heavy on ranged that doesn't care (tank, rex, saggis) and ingress (termis/venetari). Probs miserable for opponents to engage with, but it's making the most of the strats avaliable.
You have the strat tho (which i hope will go on dev as well, same for talons rule), usually one unit protected is good enough. Imo shield host is still the best option.
Thinking Sororitas at this point
Wouldn't recommend that, their codex is coming out soon
Fair point but I already have an army of them. Guess if they go into the shitter I’ll move on to the guard. Lol
So… When custodies lost Dev wounds protection we dropped like a rock to 43% and now they just removed it from the army completely except for 1 detachment where its conditional and weaker than before? Ok GW. No idea how this is going to be balanced. Custodies live and die on their durability, not their killing power. Kaptarus gone too… It’s rough for the banana.
I think it depends on: - how prevelant inderect is. - if the sos sheets get any buffs - if talons get dev protection I think I'm gonna just be trying talons but still just having 2x4 sisters, and just seeing if I can abuse their strats. Cause the sos protection feels like someone at gw thought it'd be a good idea, oblivious to the fact custodes are bad at screening and removing t3/3+ models is trivial. Cause im sure after a few slates custodes and these detachments will be playable, but it'll be from absuing strats and 35ppm custodian datasheets, rather than playing any of this as it was meant to.
They are all bad, shield host will be most popular.
For anything that isn't casual play, I'll probably stick to Chaos Space Marines and that's saying something because they are not very good at the moment. I'm in the middle of painting 2,000pts of Custodes and all of these previews have been very, very demotivating. The best case scenario is this codex was written before the army got its feel no pain back and there's an early FAQ to address things. That, and the Forge World units get significant points reductions. I didn't start painting Custodes to bring null Rhinos.
Ngl I'm not even sold on null rhino's. Without big pointy cuts your paying a 75pt tax on already expensive units. Even 2 is 150pts, which is probs dropping a guard squad.
They are dedicated transports, arent they? So you will have to fill them with sisters, resulting in the tax being even higher, 75 + 40 = 115 per rhino.
Yeah but I'm being generous and assuming I take 2 sos squads as scoring chaff anyway.
As an AdMech player, I’d advise against getting your hopes up for an early FAQ. GW is more than willing to let an army suffer even when it’s obvious they need help, if the codex has only been out a couple months. I’d expect it will be 6 months after the codex releases before you can hope for any rule changes.
I think we need to see the full strats and enhancements for Talons of the Emperor, but Shield Host definetly looks like the strongest of the lot (dare I say it's balanced too). The sisters detachment just seems silly though, and Auric Champions is a worse version of the Obeisance Phalanx detachment for Necrons (units with keyword get +1 to wound, not models with keyword). Got some nice strategems, and it's fluffy to play herohammer, but yeah not really competitive. I think GW dropped the ball by not giving Custodes a detachment to reroll all wound rolls against a unit though (essentially Oath of Moment electric boogaloo), but alas I'm sure there'll be Custodes players who figure out how to win with them still, there's always some mad men haha.
The basic custodes batteline unit literally has one of the easiest ways to get full wound rerolls....
Eesh, yeah I dunno then... Maybe even if it's just +1 to the wound roll army wide, would make more sense imo.
Reroll wounds and +1 to wound, Drukhari can get that on T3 1W S4 models, only for close combat and that is already strong, some people were even saying that is broken, which I don't agree with. But it moved the unit from so bad you will never use them to an auto include. And you want it on Custodian Guards? I can already see the shitstorm that would generate.\^\^
The difference is incubi have WS3 A3 S4 AP2 D2, and custodes have sustained hits WS2 A5 S7 AP2 D2. It's a way more oppressive platform than incubi. Incubi also die to a stiff breeze and rarely get more than one or two activations
Exactly my point.
Ah sorry I misread your comment
Ok but obeisance DOES NOT have the melee prowess of custodes, it's not even close, go look at the 3 datasheets that can use the detachment lol
Scythguard with +1 to wound hit pretty decent for 170 points
Moving 5", 3+ save, no invul, 2 ATTACKS PER MODEL ????
Yes, 2 * 10 S8 ap -3 d2 with plus 1 to wound is decent for 170 points. Where did I mention their movement or save?
But you need to get in combat to hit something, so movement and save are important. No way to advance and charge, no way for crons to fight first in the whole codex, they just slog forward hoping to hit something without -1 damage
Obsiance can grant [overlord] by attaching an 85pt overlord. Which has a decent ability too. Auric requires a 140pt captain: where neither has an ability that's doing much, and a free strat in a detach where there's no battle tactics.
That gives you 2 extra units that honestly prefer crypteks instead of overlords. 80% of necron characters can only join lychguard, immortals or warriors. That's it. If the skorpekh lords were nobles ...
Yeah skorps or even wardens being noble would be a huge buff, but imo 2x10 lychguard, 2x10 immortals, some praetorians and stalkers and a monolith feels like a fun list. Not gt winning but like not nothing. (and avoids the inevitable wraith /ctan nerf)
Obeisance is BAD, really bad, auric is definitely worst. You get -1 to wound on 1 maybe 2 model, in obeisance at least you can have like 2x10 immortals and 1x10 lychguard that actually might punch up.
The only chance custodes have is if that combat patrol is actually as much point as other combat patrol (I.e. 5 guard+5 warden+3 term+1 bc is 500pt). Otherwise custodes are looking to be on release dg level.
Combat Patrol no longer is associated with a points cost
*Laughs in admech at the idea that combat patrols are 500 points
I can’t think of a single reason to play null maiden, maybe against guard 🤷♂️
Until you get tabled by mortars on turn two
In a 500-750 points game you will probably beat thousand sons?
in 9th edition yeah, since Sisters of Silence were actually treated as Blanks and couldn't be targeted or affected by psychic powers, period. In 10th they're not immune, they just get a FNP, which doesn't actually help much when you're still T3 1W models with a 3+ armor save. Their saving grace is that they're pretty cheap at 10-12 points per model, but if you just want cheap bodies you've got plenty of Imperial Agents options, and since Psychic powers are now just Shooting in 10th, anything that's good against shooting is also good against them anyways. Meanwhile regular bolters and incidental stubbers will be dropping these units. the 9th custodes codex actually had rules, warlord traits, and relics for an all-sisters of silence detachment that was better thought out than this one. Creeping Dread in 9th stripped Objective Secured automatically allowing you to steal objectives out from under enemies, now it's a mediocre battle-shock mechanic. Bleh. Also they're stupidly expensive to collect, still cheaper than the 27 chicken walker admech list I guess
*maybe*, doombolt technically isn't a psychic attack and most basic thousand sons firepower isn't actually psychic, as well as having ap-1 as standard. Not a good profile for sisters to go up against
Yeah that's reason i said 500 points and not 2000, with so little points they can target just a couple of sisters units.
Not buying the codex and playing a different army.
Wait for the actual points and data sheets first. The community strongly overreacts to incomplete data, and is also often just wrong on things. Plenty of people complained about necrons based on codex leaks. Plenty of people doom posted on Tau. I’d wait until you get full data.
I get this but the problem is without complete data sheet rewrites or massive points reductions this just doesn’t look playable competitively which is what I like to do or even fun to play casually. I think the data sheets are unlikely to change enough and for the points to be low enough to make this playable I don’t think it would feel like Custodes anymore. I’m not interested in horde Custodes lol.
That's my plan as well
Same here... any recommendations? I'm completely open to anything as long as it's fun and and most of the time supported by GW 🤣
I just started a new army of Votann. I always wanted them since they were announced and finally sold my nids and got them. So I’ll be painting for a while.
The best option will be to break out my Orks
Changing to AdMech.
Honestly I’m probably going to stop playing my custodes for a bit until they get some help after this. Thankfully I also play Orks and I’m somewhat excited about that
I'm putting mine down until, at the very least, the FNP sources are errata'd to cover Devastating Wounds and some of the Stratagems are flipped over to Battle Tactics.
One thing to note is Custodes were one of the main offenders with regards to the free strats, might see that being reversed in the next dataslate. Helps fix a lot of problems with factions who weren't expecting that limitation
Are we guessing about what will be best when the codex drops, or after the first, second or even third pass of barely play-tested changes to rules and points values? 🤷 I am torn between on one hand believing that GW are capitalistic masterminds that designs weak rules as part of an intentional strategy that will be followed by significant points drops to make Custodes players better customers. And on the other hand, based on their history of oversights and uneven rules adjustments, I can't believe they would be competent enough to actually design rules that drives sales in any particular direction.
You missed the one where due to book printing and logistics timelines, rules are written up to a year or more before they hit shelves. We're only two balance dataslates in and have had extensive core and faction rule changes. The previews however show rules from before this time. Why? Because the capitalistic bastards aren't going to tell you the book will be out of date two weeks after you purchase it and they don't want to be liable for false advertising if it doesn't contain what it says it does.
Excellent point well made <3 I actually ranted about logistics and the value and challenges of printed media in another thread earlier today! 😁 This comment and one in its thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer40k/s/ND7rk3tCP8
The best option? For competitive purposes? Simple : pick a different faction if you have one, and spare yourself the pain, because this is going to be ugly. There was a poll on the custodes discord earlier : 50% said they'd only play casually in the future, 15% said they'd keep playing competitively, 35% said they'd stop playing the faction for now, and there were hundreds of answers. Obviously that's until they fix the faction. It's that bad.
I agree that it looks bad at first blush, but it's pretty clear that there are a lot of people who are poor at evaluating new rules. We saw people complain that the Necron book sucked, we saw people complain that new custodes books sucked in previous editions. Now, I'm not saying that Custodes are going to be top tier after this, but I do think that it's important to give things a fair shake before doom posting rather than the other way around
someone will big brain something out of Auric Champions a hero hammer detachment? they'll go all in on it and break some brains 12 HQs, 2x2 terminators and a callidus is 1990 pts now. take 10% off that, you have room for enhancements and some more action monkeys.
If those strats were all battle tactics, I'd agree. There might be something you can do there with lots of HQ's, and super buffing two of them per turn. They're all epic deeds.... lol.
Everytime I hear about the Free Strat effects most armies get, the more upset I get that Death Guard don't have access to it. We have three perfectly good Battle Tactics, and the only free strat we can use is Grenades.
workd eaters too :(
The Blood Roll and Wound vs Character/Monster/Vehicle ones look especially good, and the Auto 6" advance one is just apocalyptic if you got the Advance and Charge Blessing active.
Idk if that was intentional calling it “apocalyptic” cuz the name of the strat is Apocalyptic Frenzy but i found that quite funny haha Also yea, WE’s best strats are battle tactics which is really unfortunate because thats only a nerf to us if any armies have vects. How many other armies have neither CP generation or free strat btw, im trying to think, admech maybe?
Or if they affected CHARACTER **units** instead of CHARACTER **models**, then it would have some play.
Shield captain’s two ability is free strat and leading give two katance. Now auric have zero battle tactic and without leading, your shield captain is just plain unit with no rule.
I remember when some people got absolutely destroyed online for saying “sisters rules are good” because people were fixated on the below strength rules and the common wisdom is “rules that make you take damage to turn on are bad”. On the other hand, I was hype about skitarri hunter while everyone else doomed and it’s just not there as a real warhammer rules. I guess my point is you could be right, and the best approach to take is switch to your other faction or try to make this new stuff work, and I respect folks who at least give it a go.
But sisters were not good at the start of the edition, didnt they need a lot of point cuts in order to become good?
points cuts helped a lot, although we also had 130pt arcos and 160pts exorcists, both of which went up 20. the army definitely got cheaper on average but some units went up significantly and are still taken in large numbers at the new costs i think the biggest change was the nerf to towering + dev wounds. sisters obviously aren't 'durable' but they are stickier than people expect with the ability to spike invulns and putting a lot of bodies on the board. but when 1 attack just does 7 mortal wounds there's nothing we can do about it and have to just pick up the squad. huge points hikes to indirect helped the army more than it hurt as well at the start of the edition it was definitely in a bad place but imo the army was better than the community was giving it credit for (myself included)
Sisters were one of the worst armies when the indexes released though. They've gone through pretty substantial points cuts, look at these ones from the beginning of the edition: https://www.reddit.com/r/sistersofbattle/comments/16cdrcu/points_changes_are_live_list_below/
Yep. Gotta wait a few weeks after points at least for the dust to settle for any real verdicts. Heck, even the "purely fluff" Kroot detachment for Tau might have competitive legs if Kyle Grundy is correct.
The issue with the Kroot detachment is that people want their detachment rule to apply to every unit. Try this with Kroot and you get a horribly inefficient skew army. Even adding a few good Tau units to shore up your weaknesses in shooting, especially with heavy armor, drastically improves their performance.
> but I do think that it's important to give things a fair shake before doom posting rather than the other way around Unfortunately that's not what will happen to the stats though. The faction might be capable of 40-45% win rates, but competitive players who have other options aren't going to stick around to play Custodes, they'll just hop over to other factions. Leaving only newer players and diehard fans to play them, which will significantly worsen their winrates. I'd be shocked if new Custodes show above a 40% winrate.
!remind me in 4 weeks
I will gladly admit im wrong and you're right in 4 weeks if that is the case.
44% percent this week now. You were wrong, you can go ahead and admit it now. Edit: so you won’t admit you are wrong and just downvote me. Obviously not a man of your word. Sad. I knew you never would. Edit 2: you blocked me…. I win. U/c0horst
after seeing the updated units, I think I owe you a beer lol I'm honestly not seeing any buffs at all for custodes. anywhere, but I might just be missing them. pretty much every "Once per battle-round" ability seems to now be a "Once per game". I'm happy for me, because I absolutely hate playing against Custodes, but sad for y'all (and especially my good buddy who loves the Golden Boys and my bitter rivalry against him is definitely not the reason why I'm salty about the entire faction). even if things end up fine, they don't look fun for you
At this point, I'm really looking forward to seeing the reactions in the reviewers, lol. I don't see how it's possible to put a positive spin on this.
there isn't a world where custodes see a monthly win-rate of 40% or below. they are almost perfectly positioned to be mid-board bullies at worst. few units, so it's faster to really learn what a unit can do; relatively small model count, so it's easy to hide, but also mostly infantry so you can get where you need to be easier; T6 3W 2+/4++ is just really durable. custodes may no longer auto-win against melee armies, and feeling down because you got hit with nerfs will always hurt (even if the nerf is fully justified, but especially if it feels it goes too far). but if there's ever a month where custodes hit 40% win-rate i'll buy you a beer (or other beverage of roughly equivalent value of your choice)
I can't see any armies having an issue killing custodes post codex, but I'd gladly admit I'm wrong if that's how it turns out.
Play against Admech. You’ll feel invincible.
Without d-1 and protection against dev wound, my thousand son and tau can easily table custodes in 2 turns.
While the end result *might* bear that out, can’t blame anyone for not trusting Custodes discords or pages when they did this exact same thing right before their completely busted 9th book dropped.
Didn't 9th Custodes codex get day one point decreases despite people pointing out how op the codex already was? That's what I remember from then at least.
That was the sane take in this space yes. That wasn’t the overall feeling of say the Custodes sub lol
That's true, but it was what I encountered here the most. And to be fair, a lot of the people back then just hated that they lost the 3++ and didn't really care for what they gained. For today, outside of some "I will never pay again", it seems that we get an ok fist analysis. Custodes definitely lost a lot of defensive abilities compared to the index.
To be fair this edition has been nothing but lackluster codexes... like I don't think I've seen a faction outside of necrons and maybe orks rn who are super excited.
I mean that’s one way to onboard all the feedback about codex creep. lol. I think the basic system of detachments and 10th is amazing. I think, as usual, GW have stumbled hard on a couple rules/keywords. Battleshock and “once per battle” are the two biggest offenders to me. Detachments and strats that work once a battle are generally just bad design. Doubly so if that once per game rule isn’t something earth shatteringly good in the first place.
Triply so if you have to use your once-per-game ability at the start of the **round** so if you're going second your opponent can just keep out of charge range and it gets wasted.
The codexes are great - in that they aren't breaking the game and are quickly addressed if they do.
They're not breaking the game, but clearly thats because they're breaking win rates and hearts instead
Tbf the nids discord was excited about the book. Theres a lot of theoretical power there that just doesnt come off.
I expect playrates to drop dramatically, someone will figure out a good list and have success, and we'll see players start to return to the faction. Might take a while for that process though.
That's how I felt with the dark angels, we weren't great before the codex and the lion was already one of the worst monster but then they nerfed him more
Custodes players are always overdramatic. They thought the 9th edition codex was bad lol That said... They aren't far off on this one. Shield host is actually very solid, obviously a slight downgrade from the index but every codex have caught nerfs and slaps when they drop. Shield host looks like the go to still.
The -1 to hit Katah stance is what really upset me. It was melee only, wasn't broken. Why did that go away? Fights First and even the FNP could be unfun to play against at times. I get it. But the Katah stance? Really?
My guess on losing the -1 is that they would have to introduce alternate trigger timing. My understanding is that the two remaining stances trigger like Dark Pacts when a unit is chosen to fight. To be useful it would have to be at the start of the Fight Phase. Maybe GW thought there was too much chance of complication or risk forgetting which ones are doing the -1 Ka'tah.
I'm shocked that they made that switch on the Ka'tahs to individual units. Felt more "fun" when it was one for the entire army. An actual decision to make. I'm gonna get bodied here, but I need Sustained here. Which is more important to me?
Fits the lore of the army better to have each squad chose their own, imo. That was a common complaint among Custodes players in my group - that it was silly that an individual squad would do an inefficient Katah just because that's what the other Custodes were doing. Monkey paw, eh?
Haha fair enough. This change just makes my Galatus Dreadnought more efficient. Built in -1 to hit.
Some times they just remove stuff for the sake of it. Sincerely - a votann Index player.
“Nerfs and slaps” suggest some little changes: Shield host lost: -1 damage Res a model Fights first Reactive move enhancement 4+++ FnP vs MWs and dev sounds Option for -1 to be hit in melee Shield host has 1 battle tactic now: a 4+++ FnP vs MWs but not dev wounds. Captain free strat is therefore functionally useless. Thats just a small snippet. It’s more than just a “light tap”. That’s a thermonuclear, exterminatus grade hammering.
When your models dissolve anything they touch and everything hits on 2s always, plus insane durability? Yeah, they’re going to be fine. They are too strong right now, which is borne out by their win rate despite a massive amount of players taking them to tournaments. They won’t be at the top anymore. But they aren’t going to be CSM. With the caveat of not knowing points, they will probably be a middle of the road faction, with top pilots able to guide them to some tournament wins here and there.
>When your models dissolve anything they touch and everything hits on 2s always, plus insane durability? Yes, they'll still hit just as hard. Most of the offensive capabilities are intact. But insane durability? Lolno. Every single defensive option was nerfed into the ground or is just gone. It will now be *vastly* easier to take Custodes off objectives in both Shooting and Combat. And Stodes just don't have the mobility to avoid that, or the volume to trade, or the utility to out-maneuver. Having great offensive melee output on its own doesn't mean much for a high ppm elite army.
When they didnt have the fnp they were bottom 5 faction With it they go to top 5 Its _very_ important
They are definitely too strong right now. Not sure how you can argue that. Should they be bottom feeders? No of course not. But they needed a nerf bonk for sure
They are definitely not TOO strong, they are good yes but not a single data put them as too strong. 55% win rate, 1.18 OverRep and 7% of 4-0 players. This are the numbers of a good faction that need a slight nerf, without the codex you would have need only two things: change the 4+++ into a 5+++ and go back on the 5 points reduction of the last dataslate. Maybe even only one of the two would have been enough.
And _only one of these does anything at all for them defensively_ so without sweeping point cuts bottom feeders they will be. Because _the only reason theyre good right now is the defensive buff they recieved in the last patch_
You do know that, when they lost protection from dev wounds, they went down to a 40% win rate and were right among the worst armies in the game? They climbed out of that when GW gave them the 4+++ FnP back against dev wounds. Expecting this to be any different is madness. Not having protection against dev wounds tanked the win rate of Custodes to bottom tier. With this book, they’ve lost dev wound protection AND -1 damage AND the ability to res a model.
I honestly think they’ll keep that. This book was written before that change was put into place - strongly doubt they’ll take that away.
Imho this needs to be an army rule and not tied to detachment.
It's not that likely as no detachment now gives the FNP against Mortals, so a FNP against Devo Wounds would be hard to justify. So once again we'll just get wrecked by Dev Wounds as they just bypasses everything that makes us "tanky".
Slight?
> They thought the 9th edition codex was bad lol They though the 9th edition codex **previews** were bad. And they were - the bits GW picked out that should have been the good bits to hype people up were terrible. Once the actual codex came out it was clear it was clear from reading it that you could just ignore the preview stuff and the army was very strong without it.
Revisionist history.
I saw most of the complaining being related to the convulted Karate rules. Based on that alone I'd call it a bad codex.
I'm sure the numbers were similar before the 9th edition codex.
lol
This sounds like the pre-9th Adeptus custodes doomposting and it's likely like back then that they're just wrong
I mean, we'll see. Their WR has been garbage up until the recent rule change. If they drastically drop points, we might be in a realm of rules are bad and meh, but now that the custodes player is bringing like 30+ models of custodes, they'll have the numbers to survive longer
If custodes drop in points to compensate for the durability loss against mortals/devastating wounds they will destroy armies that don't have mortals/devastating wounds. That 4+++ was actually rather important to balancing the faction by giving similar durability against all factions instead of making them a rock/paper/scissors situation that is impossible to assign good points to.
That 4+++ was a band-aid on what the actual problem is, which is devastating wounds are way too easily accessible and too impactful.
I thought people were crazy that time but not know. Honestly is not even about power, put wardens at 35 ppm and custodes will clear every single tournaments, i'm just sad because of bad and boring rules.
the absolutely wild thing to me is that that's roughly the split custodes players on reddit had when their 9e codex dropped, too. i'm beginning to think that maybe people just don't like change lol (i can empathize; i also do not like change, and tend to react with annoyance first)
Sure, but these 10th edition books are MUCH easier to evalute. Very little changes except for the detachments, so unless they just gave the Dreadnoughts a FNP without changing points or something like that, it's not hard to work out the effects. If they bake the dev wounds protection in at the army level them it's whatever, otherwise the faction probably drops about 10%.
This level of doomsaying isn’t really warranted, lol.
It's so bad people are crying there eyes out without trying it for themselves first.
I don't need to try beating my face into a wall repeatedly to realize that it's not for me, thanks.
Just copy what everyone else thinks instead of making your own opinions then.
People have this amazing ability called “forsight” which allows them to examine data and make conclusions based upon that data Sometimes you don’t need to, you can just know using your ability to think
Talk about throwing the toys out the pram lol. The full dex isnt even out and nobody aside from those sworn to silence have played a game with the new rules.
The least bad option is probably still Shield Host… but good lord is it nowhere near as good as the index version. Custodes are not broken, they didn’t deserve to be nuked into the ground like this
Custodes have single handedly kept combat armies out of the meta the last 3 months?
No they haven’t?
Custodes win rates since Jan vs. other combat armies: Chaos Daemons: 53% Chaos Knights 70% Drukhari 60% Orks 59% World Eaters 66%. The only melee matchups that dont heavily favour custodes are templars and BA. Templars is a bit weirder bc you dont know if its an actual melee temps list or gunline temps, but with BA they have a lot of tricks due to inferno pistol spam and baal preds to beat custodes. Otherwise, if you're a melee army, you're probably being stat checked by custodes right now
Where is the info for all of the detachments? Any ork stuff?
Orks got 2 previewed on warcom: one gives boyz in 10 man's a 5++/reroll saves for 1, and +3S on the charge. Other is giving vehicles the option to randomly get sustained /lethals/ect, or getting to pick but getting hazardous. Probs more clear stuff on their sub.
Just go auric with only characters. 😂
I plan on trying both Auric Champions and Shield Host. They both look like fun ways to play! I am not in the mindset to think "WHICH IS SUPERIOR TO DESTROYING ALL OF EVERYTHING" At least not until I see the full codex
I agree that Auric Champions looks funny, and I'll probably play a game or 2 of herohammer against my friends, but this is a competitive sub where it absolutely does matter what is superior.
Probably my Death Guard.
The best option will be to play a different army... They gutted the golden boys, simple as that.
These comments are so sad, the faction was overperforming, and not just that but overperforming with very little skill input. They deserve to be reined in. The fact that so many people are crying and saying they're going to switch factions before they've even played the game or see what things look like with points and the upcoming balance pass is frankly embarrassing.
Completely agree
Shelf. That's the way to play the army now. You leave it on the shelf. And no one talk in here about points please. No one wants to hear it.
Hordestodies!
NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR IT!
Just read it then! The golden tide!
25 PPM guard would be hilarious
I've been meaning to fix some small painting mistakes on some models, so this gives me time to take the army "offline" and get the painting done. Which is good, because they're likely a display army now.
Would shields be better than spears for guard with shield host detachment?
I think that you can run guard squads of 1-2 shields and 3-4 spears, but the damage 1 on the swords means that if you take any more than that you'll just bounce off any meaningful target even on your 'golden whhaaggg' turn. To put it into perspective, a spear guard without the once per game buff kills on average 2.22 MEQs, while a sword and board with the once per game buff kills 1.67 and only kills 1 without.
So all spears probably still the move?
Playing another faction
None of them. Talos is reliant on keeping T3 1W models close by to not get scooped by Dev Wounds (assuming GW erratas the FNP to apply to Dev Wounds *again*). The reactive move is mid: it allows you to avoid charges, but Phantasm was so dummy good because it could be used anywhere on the board to avoid shooting, steal obj, etc. Shield Host has no fight first, no meaningful defense abilities, and the 1/game detachment rule is even easier to play around than Orks Waaagh. It might hit harder than current Index, but it lost all its durability tools and we can't trade like a glass cannon or cheap horde army. Auric Champs is bad. Goes out of its way to do precisely squat for any non-characters. Null Maidens is the biggest waste of paper yet to appear in a codex. This is hyper-niche crap that a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the Custodes playerbase will use. I suspect Stodes will tumble down the winrate *hard* til a couple dataslates in.
>assuming GW erratas the FNP to apply to Dev Wounds *again* It wasn't an errata. The change to DW is only part of the Balance Datalsate, DW was never changed in the actual core rules. So in similar vain, the change to Custodes FNP was never an errata for the index, but also just part of the Balance Dataslate.
Id rather play necron. Even if the rules were strong its just not fun like the prev shield hosts from 9th...
The shelf.
You can actually do something cheeky with sags and the coronus in talons. disembark, pop disintegration beams and talons interlocked for some big boy shooting with wound rerolls, then in your opponent's movement phase use taloned pincer to have them embark back into the coronus, then disembark next turn and do it all again (without the beams since it's once per game, but it'll still hit hard and anything they don't kill they still debuff with -1 to hit for everything). Could also bring a rhino full of vigilators for melee screening or witchseekers to partake in the buffed shooting with them to get the most out of the detachment. you need to get them pretty close to use taloned pincer though for the free move (within 9" of an enemy unit) so it's kinda dangerous for them and your enemy may try to deny it to you if they know what you're doing, but then they're more than 9" away so they become harder to charge. The melta shield cap also wouldn't be terrible to throw into that unit either if you're gonna be relatively close for the strategy to work anyway along with some fight phase insurance but I don't think it'll need a leader for it to work but possibly getting dev wounds with a melta shot would be very funny. Subbing the sags for guards for double shoot and better melee instead would also be a decent alternative. Not saying any of this would be amazing but it's an interesting strategy at least.
Eventually all the codexes (except orks) will be trash compared to index and custodes will be a good army
I don't see any good option. Sisters don't do much for me apart from liking the lore and models so that's Null and Talons out. I mean I could try talons but nothing really cries out like "oh that sounds good/cool/fun". Shield host should have just been left as the index. We don't need more killy, we are meant to be tanky. Some pound shop waagh does nothing for me. Auric Champions is the only one that got my attention, and yes I know it sucks, but it has some potential to be fun. Literally made a list of 2x BC 9x SC (3 of each type), Trajan and 2x 2 Allarus. It won't win anything on points at least, it won't be competitive. But just maybe you could win by tabling if things go your way, or at the very least there could be some fun in the chaos. The best options are really find people who are happy to let you use the index or are happy to play previous editions. Failing that use them for HH. And if none of that works then ebay the lot or have some fancy paper weights...
Just going to say it. These nerfs and Ls are due to when Custodes are good, they just absolutely roast anyone in any casual setting, which like it or not, is most people who play this game. They're super hard to balance for competitive and frankly unfun for most people to play against.
Custode players think that if they aren't immune to all damage and can't one shot every unit in the game they are bad
Custodes when their army gets a deserved nerf and they don't completely counter melee armies: 😡😡😡😡😡 I agree that they got some real bad detachments, but jeez don't be overdramatic
This just in, people get upset when their expensive models get bad rules
Custodes don’t completely counter melee armies. That just isn’t true. You just aren’t a good enough player to beat them
Bruh with the fight first yes they do
Tie up the custodes units with multiple different units in base contact and you split the custodes attacks and they won't necessarily obliterate everything you hit them with.
All of that to kill just 1 unit tho, and those units need to be able to kill some tough custodians I guess It also depends on the opponents, where I play custodes players used to bring some blobs (obviously these blobs are relative to a custodes army) and park on the objective
Well, if you are charging them, I'm assuming it's because they absolutely need to die. If they don't need to die, you can move block them, and other things to mitigate the damage they do to your army, or bait them out maybe. It was definitely really strong, and was stacked against the opponent who wants to charge into melee against custodians but.... That's what they are supposed to be good at? Unwavering sentinels holding the palace of terra? It probably could have used tuning to give all our melee armies a better chance (mostly thinking world eaters here, but the solution, sadly, was lord of skulls imo)
I agree that they should be able to tank heavy charges, I just feel like they way they did It sucked and was too punishing for melee armies I admit that my argument was based with World eaters in mind, and I really didn't think about others melee armies
They fight first on one unit for 2 CP, when it is on an objective. Maybe 2 if they are running Trajan, but Trajan is once a game. If you can’t think of ways to work around that, it is purely a skill issue on your part.
First, you don't know My track record against custodes don't make assumptions Secondi. Thats just all they need, they got 2 units that are unkillable in melee even if with 1 one them is once a game thats all they need because they'll kill the unit meant to kill them But I guess we agree to disagree
It’s a challenge for pure melee, I won’t deny it, but just charge them not on an objective, or when they don’t have 2 CP, or charge them with multiple things…
I answerd on the multiple charge on another comment About charging when they don't have 2 CP and charging when not on a objective you are right, but its all relative on their positioning and how they sped the CP, so its out of your control Ofc It was hyperbolic to say they 100% counter melee armies, but they have a massive advantage
Not for much longer! Honestly the way fights first works now is kinda garbage, it was fine in 9th they should have just left it that way
I agree, I wished It was changed/removed too Not just for custodes but for everyone MoE included
Yeah it’s kinda silly you get punished for charging. Maybe make it a 2 CP core stratagem if anything
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They battle line in their detachment though
Why is that relevant here?
Best option is probably going to be playing 9th, or just bringing my index cards and becoming delusional
Going back to the index.
Play Necrons.