Cannot beat Custodes.

[Subsided]

I cannot beat Custodes. Not even close. With any list I make. I'm one of the top players at our shop. Only losing a few games. But I cannot, for the life of me, beat that army.

 

Keep in mind it's Imperial soup Custodes. Celestine, 2 cule assassins, 1 each of the other two (cant remember names, not a vindicare). Relic cont dread (-5 5 dmg wep.. what..) the raider.

 

I just can't keep up with the toughness 5, 3 wounds, invun saves all over, feel no pains.

 

Has anyone else played against them? This worries me if I can't come close and they have even more models and a codex coming.

[Karhedron]

If your opponent is running T5 multiwound models then Thunderhammers are a good place to start. We will be wounding them on a 2+ thanks to Red Thirst. Not familiar with Custodes but what provides the FNP and can it be targetted?

 

The next question is what is he using that is doing the damage to your army? If it is multi-wound weapons like the Relic Contemptor you mentioned, just run a lot of 1-wound infantry. Turn his powerful weapons into expensive overkill and drown him in bodies. Multiple Death Company units seem a good place to start as you can put a couple of thunderhammers in per squad and use the other models as ablative wounds. Sheer weight of attacks from the Chainswords should help them to force some wounds through, even on tough targets as he will have to roll some 1s eventually.

 

Also consider running Captain Smash (Captain, Death Visions of Sanguinius, Thunder Hammer (with Artisan of War), Jump Pack (upgraded to the Angel's Wing relic) and Storm Shield). This guy hits like a ton of bricks and can easily one-shot a Land Raider on the charge if you spend a CP to use the Red Rampage stratagem (OK, you might need to soften it up if it has a 5++ as well). He can also take out a Custodian with each save they fail.

 

Assassins are nasty but specialise in taking out specific threats. Again if you just drown them in Death Company, they are just 5W, T4 with a 4++ save. 7 Death Company with Chainswords should kill as Assassin on the charge before they even get to strike back.

 

As for Celestine, she is nasty but cannot win a battle on her own if you take out the rest of the army around her and then just play for objectives.

[Palwatch]

I killed a unit of them last week with a Termy Cappy with a storm shield and hammer of Baal.also was DC. Took3 turns,and I made a tonne of 3ups and clutch 5 up FNP. But the hammer is enough to do them in. Alternatively weight of bolter fire will get them. Hurricane bolters are great. The trick is to make the opponent roll as many saves as possible.

[Panzer]

Spamming Lascannons probably works decently as well. Eventually he has to fail his 3++ saves. :D

[Paladin777]

Would hammernators be a good idea?

[Aothaine]

Beating units with good saves is usually pretty difficult. Use things like lascannons, heavy bolters, plasma guns to soften them up a bit before you charge them. However, if you rock a 15 man death company with chainswords you should be able to make short work of them by shear volume of attacks. You could also try power axes so you wound on 3+.

[Brother Crimson]

I think there is 4 problems you have to deal with

 

1- how to beat custodian guard?

Thunder hammers are a pretty good choice here. A flat 3 damage weapon is perfect to kill those guards. DC captain with a hammer should have fun here.

 

2- how to handle 2+ high toughness vehicle like land raiders and relic dreadnought?

You need to lock the land raider in combat if possible to prevent it from shooting. Again hammers would do a good job here but shooting with lascannon is great too.

Dreadnought are tougher because of their melee weapon and should be engaged mid distance unless you are sure to kill them. Also I assume he is using c-beam cannon? If so force him to move a much as possible as the cannon can’t shoot the round he is moving.

 

3- how do I beat Celestine?

I hate Celestine she is a hell of a pain to deal with. She has one flaw tho: toughness 3. This means she is suceptible to s4 attacks, like you can generate from DC. Also never forget to overkill her unit. Another fun thing is furioso with frag cannon that’s is quite cool against her but they are too easy targets for the land raider so I wouldn’t use it here.

 

4- how do I beat assassins ?

Can’t comment here.

[Brother Crimson]

Would hammernators be a good idea?

Partially, custodian guard have weapons that does D3 (or 2) damage so the extra wound on terminators won’t really matter.

 

I’d rather take a vanguard squad with shields and a hammer on the sergeant, or DC.

[Kallas]

Maybe Hammernators with a Standard of Sacrifice Ancient, as that would help curtail the effectiveness of the Custodes' D2/d3 weaponry?

 

If you're putting that many eggs into the Hammernator basket (they're 47pts a pop already!) then you might as well make an omelette with them! Wait...no... 

[Charlo]

Man, you're not going to like what their codex will bring!

[Panzer]

The only thing about the coming Codex I don't like is that I picked Primaris so I could have a very elite Space Marine army and then GW releases a Codex that turns the elite-ness to 11 with a mostly infantry army. I feel robbed. :D

Then again I like Marines and especially BA lore a lot more than Custodes lore so I'm still happy with my decision. Can't wait to have games against Custodes tho!

[Pendent]

Given the news from today that in a Custodes detachment everything will have at the very least a 4++ my feeling is that depending on assault units to kill them is going to be a mistake. I would say we'll be much better served by high-volume mid strength ap-1 or ap-2 shooting. A lower number of more powerful attacks from thunder hammers etc means the rolls for those invulns will be relatively swingy due to the smaller number of dice in play- against a 4++ save theres an entirely reasonable chance you'll fail to kill them off on the charge and then you're very likely losing your own assault units in reply.

[Panzer]

Depends on how many models they can field to be honest. If they are low in number mass DC will still work decently.

[Paladin777]

Given their stat line i’d imagine that they are probably looking at 30+ ppm base without war gear. I can’t see them being very numerous. My first army is Thousand Sons and without tzaangors it’s hard getting more than one battalion in a 2000 pt list and Custodes are bound to be pricier that that!

[ed72]

Agree with the DC TH strat, but possibly a handful of pred autocannons? -1 gets you to the same place, and that flat damage helps as well.

[Paladin777]

Yes on the Pred autocannons!!!!!!!!’

[Panzer]

Mortal wounds should work well against Custodes too. Something like the Heavy Bolter Stratagem or the Linebreaker Bombardement is bound to hurt them more than they'd expect.

[Pendent]

Predator autocannons are a good bet, heavy bolter equivalents (read: Inceptors) and assault cannons will probably be the most cost efficient option. Grav cannons will very likely eat anything they can take for lunch it's obviously hard for us to hit that critical mass.

 

Death Company with power axes are actually a really interesting choice- still relatively cheap and should still be able to dish out a fair amount of damage. 15 T5 wounds is still a hell of a lot to chew through in a single round though.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Have you tried Grav? I've found grav is still vicious against T4/5 3+ multi-wound models.

[Morticon]

Some incredible community support here, in this thread. And good tactics/ideas to boot. 

Well done, guys. 

[Karhedron]

Have you tried Grav? I've found grav is still vicious against T4/5 3+ multi-wound models.

Grav Cannons might work well here due to rate of fire. I suspect that normal grav guns/pistols will still be out-performed by their plasma equivalents on a point-per-point basis. It is the Heavy 4 of the Grav Cannon that puts it well ahead of the Plasma Cannon's Heavy D3.

 

Put 2 5-man squads of Devs with 4 Grav Cannons each in a single pod and drop them down in a good firing position. Add JP Captain (or even Dante) for rerolls and that is a lot of multi-wound shots at Ap-3 coming out of those squads.

[Charlo]

Very amusing to see Grav as the niche and random selection.

 

For sure think it's the way to go though. While it only wounds on a 4+, the D3 damage will be useful.

 

If you aren't too adverse, an allied SM librarian could cast Nullzone too. That would really russle their jimmies by getting rid of all invulnerable saves.

 

Due to how the new Custodes rules will work means that all units will have at least a 4++.

 

To circumvent this weapons with -2AP and multiple damage are best.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Charlo

[Panzer]

Especially because mathhammer has shown us that Grav isn't niche weapon, it's the allrounder among the special/heavy weapons. :D

[Paladin777]

For anyone who wants a preview of Custodes, they are doing a match of them vs Thousand Sons today on their twitch account. I won’t be able to watch, it I thought I’d let y’all know it was going on.

[Huggtand]

The twitch is tomorrow Thursday https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/01/16/week-warhammer-live-9/

 

 

Mortal wounds should work well against Custodes too. Something like the Heavy Bolter Stratagem or the Linebreaker Bombardement is bound to hurt them more than they'd expect.

 

They thought of that, in today's preview they show that Custodes get 6+ save against mortal wounds in the psychic phase.