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So this one should be fairly brief, I just thought I could throw this up as a lesson learned with the new FAQ. I made a few big errors, but the list may have been the biggest one (Watchblade). This was an 1850 Ork game, and I had no delusions of taking my Watchblade list against something higher end in the compete level so I thought this would be a good fun game to try it out with as I was paired against what I consider a mid-level ork list. Orks: 2 Warbosses on Bikes (one was Warlord) 2 squads of 12 Lootas in Battle Wagons 3-4 trukk squads of Boyz (4+saves) 1 squad of boyz on foot Deathwtach Watchblade Task Force: Watchmaster (Warlord) 5 Custodes + Astropath from C:IA 2 x 5 Vets in Pods with various loadouts (one combimelta heavy, the other Frag heavy) 1 x 5 Stalker Vets 4 Bikes, Maul, Axe, PwrWeapon, Meltabomb 2 Terminators w/Assault cannon. Razorback w/Dual assault cannon. BSSF: Libby with Beacon Angelis Aquila with Frag and Hammer+SS. in Pod Dread with Twin Las. The Game was Maelstrom Escalation and the Orks got to go first, and spread out appropriately with dual Loota Wagons spread out. These things are easy to underestimate but I had a lot of juicy targets for him. That's a TON of S7 shots in AV14 wagons. So I set up quite conservatively trying to keep my Razorback very deep, and my Dread completely hidden, and my Custodes with Watchmaster hidden behind a factory. Turn 1: His card was not doable in T1, and he could not get first blood, he just basically hunkered down though and this made me realize I had made a mistake. With my Utlra's I had been used to forcing him up, but he had ObSec, I had none, and he had range, and I had... a Dreadnought with range. So with 2 pods coming in I was extremely aggressive. I knew the Lootas would wreck my list if left unchecked. I took an insane risk but had not chance and put both pods supporting each other, blocking easy movement, but allowing my 3 Combi Melta squad easy shots to his one red loota wagon truck. + The Librarian shouts orders, but has his own target in mind. The dilapidated Loota Wagon has weak side armour, an easy tareget for 3 Combi Meltas... right????!!!!??? + - I picked the Mission tactics for Heavies, re-rolling ones. (The Lootas and Wagons are heavies). The Librarian notes on of the dreaded Warbosses on a Bike has the Lucky stick (the one piece of Xenos wargear I wish the Imperium would steal already!). BUT the Warboss is not joined to a squad. The Librarian Targets the warboss with Psychic Shriek, perils (Loses Psychic Shriek power as a result!!!) but the Warbosses head explodes like a rotten head of cabbage. First Blood + Slay the Warlord for Deathwatch! That netted me 2 points (including Maelstrom), - The Astropath tried to get off Prescience on the Custodes squad so I could re-roll reserves next turn, and failed to pass a single dice, never mind two. - Now the shooting starts.... the 3 Combi melta's look to open up the Lootas in the wagon on side armour 12, re-rolling 1's to hit. I roll 2 x 2, and a 1. So all miss, I re-roll the 1 and get a hit, and score a glance! ugh. Now I'm in big trouble. - The Libby has Beacon Angelis. As per FAQ I can only use it as a Beacon this turn, but cannot pull the Custodes and Watchmaster this turn which I dearly want to do, especially now that the Combi Melta's have failed horrendously. (Ultra Doctrines would have allowed the re-rolls of 2's.. and that stuck with me.) - The Custodes moved to the far side of their shelter building to intercept an advancing Trukk as he wanted an objective point. - The Libby was still in trouble. He was down a wound (perils) and the Lootas were still fine. And they had 2 frag cannons and I had another trukk right beside the Libby squad. This was big trouble as I was heavily surrounded with 50+ dudes in assault range next turn. I decided to shoot the wagon and use the Frag Flamer mode... big mistake, I could not get through the darn truck AV of 10 with the squad's combined shooting! Ugh. + The Custodes on the edge of nowhere need the Beacon to stay alive. I had to take the obvious bait of intercepting this trukk. I needed to deny him the point beside my Custodes and couldn't afford to leave it in such a close game. + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Turn 2: - The Ork player was livid with his mistake of thinking I couldn't access his Warboss and gave me First blood/Warlord. It was also his best CC character but had no defense for Shriek. Well he wanted to make that Libby pay. I really did need the beacon in T1 as there was a clear path, and he took it with 30+ Boyz, and the Trukk I could not take out... it all got out and annihilated the Libby Squad and the Combi Melta squad beside it. I was severely outnumbered now. My Alpha Strike had essentially failed. I had nothing left to even use the Watchblade's "Hit and Run" rule (which is typically the case). + The Librarian and the Beacon are going to be bacon here. Overwhelmed by greenskin, the anti-xenos elite prey for a miracle. + The Custodes were now stuck walking, and I had only 2 empty pods left on his half of the table. While he was missing his warboss, literally the most damage I did was simply overwatch with Shotguns and Frag Cannons. This was looking really bad. Both Loota wagons being 100% was also a massive problem I did not foresee with my Alpha typically capable of taking at least one down a turn. - The Ork Retaliation netted him 3-4 points. We were tied after my first turn, and I had bottom of 2 to go: Deathwatch TURN 2: - As crazy as this sounds, with one Pod coming in reserves, I felt I had to make a very deep push for one of the Lootas. 75% of his army shifted to kill my two Pods of Deathwatch so this left a TINY bit of breathing room by his OTHER Loota squad in a wagon.... Not much but a bit of space. So the idea was I'd take down the other wagon, and try to get him to turn his army away from me, and go back to rescue his Lootas. In the meantime he turbo'd a Trukk to sit on an objective and my Custodes would have to take care of it there while the rest of my army juggled for a position. - The Dreadnought came out of cover, got off a Lascannon shot and flat out blew up a trukk in a single pen shot! Not bad...at least I hit something. That netted me a point. - The stalkers had no targets all game as his army was predominately far away, the odd shots I could get on his boyz were meaningless to him. So I advanced them, but lost 2 in return fire. - the Pod had come in, to take out the second loota wagon: + When at first you don't succeed... prey for a re-do! The third and final pod comes in with a vet squad targeting the second Loota Wagon. + - Deep in the heart of things that smell like cabbage and look like green carnie folk, I took a huge risk. I also slammed my bikes upward to force him to make a difficult decision.... the bike shot up the 20 man foot squad (I think I must have been outnumbered by about 60 models in this game.. no joke.) The Bikes presented a mild mid table threat, and cut off support from one trukk that just turboed and faced the Custodes. So now the dual Frag Cannon team would NOT use the flamer templates (I made this mistake last time) and take rear/ and side shots on his Loota with Impact S9/AP2 shots. I BARELY wrecked (did not explode unfortunately) the Loota wagon. So good thing I did not use the templates like usual. The Lootas were also pinned from the damage, and that bought me precious time. - The Razorback blew up the turbo'd trukk in my zone, the Custodes swept in and completely annihilated the 12 boyz in the trukk and swept into the mid table to try to threaten the 20 man blob. TURN 3: - The Orks had shifted the army of course... to take on the 5 man squad that podded in. I knew this was going to be ugly. - The score was decidedly in my favour because I could draw up lots of cards, and pick a soft target to complete it. He was sitting on an objective I needed in a loota wagon, and he knew it. The unharmed Loota Wagon unloaded on the Dreadnought with 20+ shots and wasted it. + Well the ol' Dread did wack a little trukk so living to T3 is pretty acceptable for him. He's having a nap now. + - The Orks press hard into the corner where they lost the loota wagon. They take the bait on the bikers (who are doing very little but did take down about 5 orks). The bikes were hit hard with orks, and they almost missed everything. I think I caused one wound. I performed hit and run with the last bike to deny him a victory point. - The Orks in the corner surrounded my last 5 vets. The Custodes... so slowly were coming to mid table but the game was being decided here. Stupid gold armour must weigh a ton. Without the Beacon these guys were just out of the picture too long... Anyway, he calls a Waaagh and sure enough, he rolls a 10 to run with 12 Orks, and makes the 9 inch assault by one inch... to smash into the 5 man squad. he MUST issue a challenge and MUST kill a character. Aside from my Custodes, and the squad I just deep striked in, I had NO other characters so he MUST kill my Sergeant in the challenge. .... of course I accept the challenge. What Deathwatch Sergeant surrounded by fist toting Orks wouldn't? I still go first but the vets can only kill 1 bloody Ork. Now the challenge, and he wiffs on two fist attacks with his fist Nob.... One hit, then one wound, the Ork winds up to deliver the killing blow but the Segeant would spin out of the way and the fist would glance off his Stormshield! Oh I laughed.... I had to. This was so ugly, but the Ork player blue screened on me at that point. In this moment I was denying him points he really should have. Now I wanted to use Watchblade's Hit and Run, but guess what? I lost combat badly and ran 11" away and he couldn't catch me. lol Turn 4: - Now I have to get the last of my forces up and running in... the headless Watchmaster and funky Custodes wade through the blizzard looking for anything Green. + Left to explore Hoth, the rebels see no sign of a probe droid.... + - The running Vets auto rally and hit the remaining (now unpinned) Lootas as they pass by. The orks want them dead badly... but the Orks would get flamed hard by dual Frag and then attempt to charge them and die in the process! How? I don't know...living on borrowed time they try to nudge by an objective marker I happen to need. - On the far right side of the table is the Loota wagon I targeted in T1. It was annoying all game... it destroyed the Razorback finally, and put a ton of shots into the Custodes as they crossed the plains of the frozen wasteland, but only took one wound. - The Two Terminators waddled up the side.... + The two termies had no valid targets left and after cleaning out greenskins they went for the Loota wagon + - The Termies would assault the truck, the Lootas inside unloaded overwatch, and killed a Terminator. STILL I rushed in with the last survivor and would fail to take down the truck, only scoring a glance!!!1 - The Orks counter with a few assaults of remnant squads, and kill the Terminator with a fist. The Terminator wipes them as well with his dying blows. It's a complete wipe out on both sides.... - The 'running' squad of Shield Sergeant has his Frag Gunners gunned down by stray Ork bullets. As the last surviving Veteran on the board, he seeks shelter beside the downed Loota wagon, to hold an objective, and deny "kill a character" from the Orks. - By turn 6, my Custodes had made it all the way across the tundra and hit the original Loota Wagon targeted way back in T1, and blew it up!!!!! At that point the Orks conceded with almost nothing left on the table for either side, I had a 4 point lead. Deathwatch win 11-8 points. Warlord intact + line breaker.

So here we go..... I wanted to do another Custodes test. I've used them a few times now and did batrep one of those games before the squad got sold. If you're curious and haven't seen it, the first Batrep with my GK army is here: LINK NOTE: Please excuse the large number of unpainted models. I sold the unit of Custodes and am working on my new squad. Sold a lot of DW so am now rebuilding them from scratch. Sorry for the unpainted stuff... I hate it too. The GAME: Maelstrom: Contact Lost (draw 1 Maelstrom card in T1, but you may only draw additional cards for every Objective you Control! ouch) The Armies (just the basics): Orks: This is a basic Wazdakka dual Bikstar list. Essentially we're talking two max sized Bike squads that become ObSec, both have Fists on multi characters, and both have Apothecary type save guys. The Wazdakka squad gets Skilled Rider as well. It's really a potent list and can do well at some tournaments. Especially if you haven't faced it before. He also had Mega Armoured Nobs in a trukk which is underrated, and annoying as heck. He had the 4+ save boyz in trucks, and 2 squads of Tank Bustas full of rocket launchers. Lots of junk to go with his bikers and armoured nobs, totaling something like 72 models I think.... Deathwatch: Here I take my basic BSSF + CAD. I am proxying an Imperial Bunker with Improved Comms to see if I can correct the horrible delays my army has had in recent games. I also have the Culexus, and a 5 man Squad of Custodes to go with my DW CAD Chaplain. (The idea being RAW that I can use the Terminator Captain's Beacon Angelis to teleport the Chaplain (attached to Custodes on the ground) to my location T1 if necessary.) The Custodes are Experiment number 1. Experiment number 2 comes from forcing myself to use a different load out for a Black Shield! Yes I have not been a fan of them, but I haven't tried one with an Axe and a CC weapon. So I plopped him with my Captain in a pod. NOTE: Until FAQ I'm still not using all Shotguns also have Bolter ruling. DEPLOYMENT + OPENING SALVO! + Orks win first turn deployment and opt for Night fight, and get it! (Not fun considering Jink + Night + Skilled Rider = 2+ cover saves on ObSec troops!) + I deploy my Bunker safely within my Zone and I put 5 Stalker Bolter guys in the bunker to secure it, and I plop that thing 3" away from a Marker to ensure (?) I get a card going forward.... My Culexus has no real target, so in this game he will play the wild card trouble maker. I deploy him near my bunker for now, beside an Assault Cannon Dreadnought. + I fail to steal the initiative. His first turn is fairly basic....he turbo's up everything. I kept the Custodes with the DW Chaplain and hold on for the firepower, but only 2 shots wound my Custodes and they laugh it off..... The good news is I don't give up First Blood. The bad news is he has total board control and outnumbers me more than 2-1 and he has blobs of ObSec all over the markers making it almost impossible for me to get cards in the future. +++ The Deathwatch wait patiently. The motive of the Beast is as obvious has his body odor. The Custodes lie in wait. Their time will come..... +++ + The massive wall of bikers and trukks all zoom full forward. (I can't fit it all in the picture. In some situations terrain forces some of his trukks to slow down.) + I draw a card that requires me to get an Objective in his backfield! A big challenge since it will definitely leave the Deathwatch on their own, unsupported but I need points. + I deployed my entire force on the table because of the army I ended up playing against... except for 2 pods. One was empty, one had my Termie Captain, and an Aquila including the Black Shield. I decide to go after the Objective in my T1 with this unit.... +++ It's a dire situation. I need to distract the horde and grab this objective. The Captain makes the call and the Pod is left unsupported, deep in the Ork back lines. +++ + The picture above paints a bleak picture. I did have the option of Beaconing over my Custodes and Chaplain but elected to do something else with the Custodes. The Captain's squad has no ObSec so I must blow away this Trukk full of Tank Bustas. Now they hurt Power Armour pretty badly so I elect to start with the Frag Cannons and Template them over and over, roasting the contents until the trukk is a burning pit of rotten green skin. Now the really bad part, because hey, it's Watch Master Prot, and things can never go off cleanly! The I still need to get one hullpoint off the trukk, he keeps making these stupid 6+ Nightfight saves. So I reluctantly fire off the Assault Cannon on the termie and I get my first 6! The explosion radius is also a 6! D'oh.... In the explosion I lose the front 3 guys.... the Frag Cannon included, and my Shotguns (I rolled 1,1,2 for saves.) .... and now I face an angry, smelly green horde... with no templates now. lol. + The Custodes decide to make things happen.... a massive cloud of bikes and trukks advance the ruins, and Storm Bolters fire them up and somehow kill 2 bikes! (Custodes mean business) +++ The Custodes use Hatred to full advantage. The Warlord Wazdakka bellows in disgust as he watches the Custodes hack down his entire Bike squad +++ + The Custodes perform way above my expectation. Even with FnP the bikes go down hard, and the Hatred re-rolls are quite punishing. The Shield Captain in particular is brutal, severing a Nob's bike in half, and lopping his head off with a backhand. He eyes Wazdakka up for the next round.... + I get one point for the objective, but I know a world of hurt is coming my way. Above the Bikes are dead, but now two full squads of Nobs rush my Custodes to get revenge.... The Custodes take wounds, but hold their ground. Things are slower now but the butchery is decidedly in the Custodes favour. Ork blood stains the ground, Wazdakka is destroyed. + Without breaking pace the Custodes continue to butcher the green horde to the degree I've never seen before.... Nob Fists do hit home this time, but at T5, and Eternal Warrior I make sure they only lose one model, and the rest hold on for dear life. Some are now wounded, but fight on with the Emperor's Will. + North of this butchery the scene is much more grim for Deathwatch.... +++ The Captain is alone. The vehicle explosion and 20 bike shots (snap firing) manage to take down another Deathwatch and a Terminator. The Ork Nobs run in, but the Black Shield exposes an ancient blade of hate, and attempts to protect the Captain.... +++ + I did try to thin the secondary biker unit, but I stood further away with my back line, and did not want to get overwhelmed so soon, I fired 12" shots, and he jinked, only losing a few bikes. The Dreadnought tried to help but the Jinks were really good, compounded with Feel No Pain. + The Bikers turn their attention to the Captain. The cowards see an easy kill... but after shooting down the Terminator the Mega Armoured Nobs figure this is an 'easy' job and bark at the bikes to turn around and face the Deathwatch front lines..... + The 3 Nobs rush into the captain, brandishing clunky fists that look like crude toasters mounted to forearms. The Captain steps up with his relic blade, and using his unique Warlord Trait (I have never rolled this one before) he ends up with Five Re-rolls. I use them all as this might be his swan song.... The Relic blade hits all, and wounds all with the assistance of Aquila rules.... BUT the crude looking Mega Armour passes all on a 2+. Going at the same time as the Nobs, the Black Shield thumbs the activator on his power Axe, and with 5 attacks he needs to use only one of the Warlord Trait dice, to get 5 hits! The Axe only wounds 3 times though, but this is enough to send two of the Nobs to their graves. (One Nob had a wound from over watch oddly enough.) But now all Nobs strike back, the first wound is taken by the Black Shield who instantly dies, the next 5 are taken by the Captain.... he fails his first Halo save and is killed outright. The Mega Armoured Nobs claim Warlord Kill, but as useless as the Captain was, the Black Shield took them down to one model.... + The Orks draw several cards, and are now clearly in the lead with on card coming up to kill a Bunker! We normally have a House rule: Any incompletable card from the start of the game, is a free discard, but since I actually has the bunker he had to keep it. Also the marker in front of the bunker was being contested by my ObSec Stalker Bolter crew.... speaking of which.... +++ Meanwhile on the Eastern Deathwatch front lines, all hell breaks lose. The Culexus breaks from the shadows as all other forces fail miserably. Can he hold the beast back long enough? +++ + The objective in front of the bunker is hotly contested and means points for both of us, but I haven't' been able to draw a single card for 2 turns! He is up 4 points to my 2 points and he is drawing up to his max of 6 cards a turn by just parking ObSec trukks on markers all over the table. + In this eastern line, I have an Aquila fail to do anything to the trukk in front of them. Now the desperate actions of the Stalker Bolter team in the bunker try and Fail as well to glance the AV10 trukk. + In pure desperation I force my Dreadnought to fire into the trukk with Assault Cannon and gets ONE glance that takes the Trukk down to a wreck. Wow. I couldn't believe how many 1's + 2's I rolled that entire turn. + Desperation reaches a new high as I must assault the Nob squad as they passed the pin check.... so my 2 Bikers (above) ignore terrain and we calculate I needed a 3 to assault the Nobs... Snake eyes! So I look at the Dread... he needs an 8, rolls a 7. Now I'm worried, I can't leave the bunker, so I throw the Culexus in... he makes it... + The Culexus goes first, and the Orks fail the fear test and are hitting on 5's anyway.... he hits about 8 times!!! The Culexus only hits 1 time, and fails to kill anything. The Culexus takes 5 wounds, fails all saves, dies outright. Wow. Thanks Assasinorium! Maybe send a guy with a smaller head next time so it doesn't get hit so easily!!! +++ The dire news of the state of the attack reaches the Custodes and the Chaplain. Instead of folding, they dig deeper and push even harder in the Ork lines. The Custodes' Guardian Spears effortlessly block 2 attacks adding insult to injury as they dice up another squad. +++ + The situation is very bleak. I draw my first card since Turn 1 (having even limited ObSec really blows) I am behind 5-2 but I can now grab an objective with my empty "ObSec" pod. I take the chance, and get a bullseye. + A remnant squad of Orks is running, along with a solo Nob Biker with FnP. He hopes to rally the Boyz with the Nob Biker and give them all Feel No Pain, but the Deathwatch Chaplain knows the beast all too well, and Pain will be Felt! He steers the Custodes into a multi assault, blowing up a Truk, while the Custodes dice up the rest of the Trukk Boyz and Nob Biker. + He still wants the objective #6 and my bunker. He gets his remaining squad of Tank Bustas up on a tower building and with S8 he needs to hit on 5's and then roll 6's on my bunker to glance.... he glances the bunker 3 times!!!! Wow. I have one hullpoint on it. I want to get the Stalker Bolters OUT of the Bunker but if I do (it's a back door) I lose the 3" I need to stop him from scoring a point he's been trying to get forever..... I stay inside, and fire all Stalkers at yet another ObSec Truck he has parked in front of the Bunker. I glance it to death. +I take an Aquila out of the ruins with a solo Cyclone Termie and mince this squad up which had wanted to assault me: +++ Split by indecision and typical faulty Xenos leadership, the thick headed Beast is ripped to shreds by the Deathwatch, but the Orks have another plan... +++ + The Orks are shot up badly above, even with Jink they are down to 3 Bikes, and all are Independent Characters. He drew a card needing 3 units in my zone, he splits these bikes up and rushes deep er in my zone to score 2 points.... Orks are now in a strong lead of 7-3. + Deathwatch forces are depleted, but I get to finally pull 3 cards. One for Objective 6 (in front of my bunker), one Primus DW card for killing characters, and one for shooting a unit to death. + The Orks are spread out. Their leadership is gone, but the Deathwatch are too slow. Both bikers are dead, and the Stalker Bolters have under performed immensely. The Custodes have 10 pounds of dried Ork entrails on their blades and seem to move slowly as a result, but in their travels the Chaplain points out an objective marker and orders the Custodes to chase down the loan Mega Armoured Nob who fatally wounded the Watch Captain. They destroy him without thought, and recover the Watch Captain's body. + The Independent Characters the Orks drove deep into the Deathwatch zone are mutilated by Dreadnought assault cannons, Terminator fire, and Frag Cannon shots. + Looking around the field all Orks are somehow dead... debris everywhere, smoking antiquated trukks litter the battlefield... in the distance only a squad of Ork Tank Bustas remain. They cling to their abandoned tower for refuge. The Deathwatch Captain runs as hard as his power armour will let him, and reaches the Ork zone, but well short of the last squad on the table..... + I score a few points. Orks are winning 7-6. We are in Turn 5, he rolls to end the game. I need one more turn... one more, but the game ends. We tally the score and realized my Chaplain had secured his zone for Line Breaker making the game 7-7. Incredible. Somehow a tie is eked out. Conclusion: - My opponent couldn't believe the Custodes. I couldn't either. They'd been good, but this was a very good match up for them. No AP2 shooting makes a massive difference. My Opponent estimates he threw 30 guys at the Custodes and Chaplain, and that includes his Warlord, and FnP saves in there, as well as about 4-5 power fists. They stalled the green flood, and bought the Deathwatch time to position and fire. They were definitely the best aspect of my army. - The captain held the beacon, but as usual did little else. The Beacon did not get used in this game, but rarely am I seeing such a fast army that wants to assault. The Black Shield did very good.... it's too bad I couldn't have kept him alive somehow but without a competent tank HQ it puts a lot of stress on the squad. - The Culexus... he was a total throw away, non-factor in this game. I wanted to keep using him in more games because not everyone has a broken pskyer formation to defend against and it turns out this was a good test for him. I kept him back with defense in mind, and he just whiffed and died. Even his special gun only killed an Ork. Thanks for reading this. Hope you found it entertaining.

I just played another Tau game, but it was against a 'fun list'. Tons of vehicles, lots of tanks so very few saves for me. I took so much damage from AP 3 or better it was insane. I lost my two biggest squads the turn after their arrival, but before I did I used the Beacon Angelis to flip a Chaplain and 5 Custodes across the table. My HQ being wiped and two fair sized pod squads was typically Tau, but I think the worst part was I could only cause 2 Tau vehicles to jink on arrival (they still lived even after being targeted with an Auspex each.) In his ensuing turn he moved tanks slightly (I couldn't get all his hammer heads in the picture below), but the Breacher squads are just so gross.... they are incredibly anti-drop pod , basically cleaning up anything that Interceptor couldn't. About halfway through my opponent's turn I realized I was hardly rolling any dice. It came to me that most of what was targeting me doesn't allow me a save.... moments like these the game feels so anti-marine right now. At the end of the day he had a heck of a time trying to get rid of my Custodes.... again. + Tau 'fun' deployment: squads of Breachers, and a long tank line with a Drone Commander in the middle and lots of marker lights. + So here's me dropping in.... shockingly in this game there was no Interceptor!!! I was shocked.... however with 90% of his army in boxes, I couldn't kill anything. + - I'm picking up a lot of models and just putting them away with no saves.... but the Custodes did pop his throwaway squad of ObSec Kroot. - He is ramping up the score bigtime.... I have a squad in the background (see top picture) to continue the IHB (Infernus Heavy Bolter) experiment. They are in that Grey Rhino.... T1, even with dozer blades, I move the rhino 2 inches, I roll snake eyes and the thing is immoblized. o_0 - I give up Warlord, and two of my best Aquila squads, my Libby (dead) failed to kill anyhting with Psychic Shriek. - I now have 4 Custodes, an Aquila of 5 Stalker Bolters (never killed a thing, it's all in tanks) with a Cyclone Terminator (maybe he got a hullpoint off a vehicle all game? Caused some jinks mostly. - The IHB squad got out of their dead rhino. All game they maybe killed 3-4 Kroot caught in the open. He saw that they were only Infernus Heavy Bolters, so he flew his vehicles right into them, shocking them off of objectives, knowing I could not even glance the front armour of his transports. + Tau coasting to a win.... I am playing magic wound time with these Custodes..... and they're angry. + - Custodes play magic friends, get into CC smoke a squad. He's having trouble getting past my 2+ saves and 3++ shields. Custodes kill a tank, marker drones, Drone Commander, a full breacher squad, a Pathfinder squad (top of buliding), and a Hammerhead Tank.... THEN leave the runes near end game with 3 models left!!!! - My BSSF Ancient comes firing in automatically on T4 (he failed all reserve rolls) and I have to kill a vehicle with him... that's all he has to do. He lines up the back of a transport with his Assault cannon, misses 3 shots, fails to pen/glance on fourth shot. He is annihilated by Breachers in the next turn. - He was running away with this. He drew good cards, and while I had solvable cards, they were hard... kill this, grab that... nothing I was sitting on. - My IHB squad is so innefective he is just dancing around it knowing I can't damage anything in range. He gets out of his transport to grab a big point turn and quickly ramps up 13 points on me. - My Custodes take some serious tank shots but the Tau are used to me just putting models in the case... but not the Custodes. Everyone, including the Chaplain has a wound on them, but 3 models still live. I get out to mid field with the Custodes, they wipe up some remnant Kroot, and the Custodes smash into the Transport my Dreadnought could not hurt. - Custodes destroy the Transport, the IHB squad fails to do anything again. - The Stalker team which has literally done nothing (lack of soft targets, out ranged) decides they mush break from the building to get to mid table... they die a horrrendous death trying to get there. The Cyclone Termie fails his first save of the game (needed invuln from Hammer head), and the squad melts with him. - The game goes to T6 and I concede. Ironically I have 2 Custodes with the single Chaplain, 4 members of the IHB squad, and the Rhino JUST repaired itself... and then gets destroyed. Amazingly enough I manage 12 points to his 13. End Game Thoughts: - I tried hard to make it a game. I was thoroughly demoralized at the mass loss of troops and how much my army struggled against armour. Also having so few saves against Eldar and Tau gets pretty old, pretty fast. Add in Admech/Grav and it's enough to make someone go to Daemons or something where you're better off running around the battlefield with a loin cloth for protection. - This is the continuation of some heavy experimentation. Obviously this is not my idea of an optimized list but after some consideration I've made some final decisions on some units: - BSSF as a stand alone Detachment is terrible. - Watch Company is 'good', but too tax heavy - Dreadnoughts are still terrible in mildly competitive meta's, but even more so when it's nearly the only armour your opponent has to focus all his melta/plas/las/Stealth Cadre at. - Infernus Heavy Bolter. I'm not going to bother debating this any further. In my mind ,this is the worst weapon in the codex at a melta cheaper than a Frag. I won't say I'll never, ever field them again, because there's always a chance my wife will drive over all my Frag Cannon models and I'll have to proxy IHB's as Frag. Custodes save the day!