Combat patrol tournament report

[Wrath of Bruinen]

Hi everyone,

 

Today I took the golden boys (and girls) to a local combat patrol tournament and thought I'd give a quick run-down of how it went.

 

In terms of unit selection, I took the compulsory shield captain and 2 sisters squads. I chose to take the custodian guard squad instead of the vertus praetors so the captain would have a little bodyguard. 

 In every game I kept the reroll advance and charge enhancement, and took the secondary objective where you get a point per phase where the shield captain kills a model.

 

 

Game 1 was against Tyranids in the basic take and hold mission. I was able to camp my bolter squad of sisters in cover on an objective all game while my custodes and sword sisters ran around squashing bugs. The sword sisters ended up in a bit of a pickle against some cheeky respawning termagants, but they were able to hold out long enough for my custodes to run in and save them. All up a pretty convincing win 48-25

 

Game 2 was against Tyranids as well, this time playing sweeping raid. The long board was tricky, so I decided to try putting my custodes in deep strike. In hindsight I think that was a mistaken my sisters squads were very vulnerable and exposed, and my opponents leapers were able to swoop in and wipe them out over a couple of turns. When my custodes did come in, they got peppered by the barbgaunts, slowing them down which made things even trickier. I managed to pull things back in the final few turns, but by then my opponent had already racked up a big lead, and I lost 28-55

 

Game 3 was against necrons in scorched earth. The sisters again died early and cheaply, but the objectives are all deployed so close together that my custodes were able to bounce around the board just deleting units each turn. My poor opponent had some appalling luck and my invulnerable saves were hot, and I managed to pull in a 43-20 win.

 

Overall I came 3rd for the tournament, which I'm very happy with. I hadn't played any games of 10th before today so it was a great chance to try the new rules out.

The combat patrol format is very enjoyable. The smaller boards were able to be packed with terrain for really dynamic games, and I didn't feel like I'd missed out on any of the tournament experience compared to the usual 2000 point affairs. 

The custodes combat patrol itself is a really interesting one. The guards + captain we're by far the workhorse of the roster and the sisters felt very much like a weak link. Maybe with more experience I'll use them better. I felt like they were best used for objective capturing (realistically, with so few units the whole army has to be constantly trying to get on objectives) but I found the sisters just died to anything that looked at them the wrong way so they didn't even fulfil that role. Perhaps if I'd come up against armies with psykers I'd feel differently, but even then they don't seem to offer much. Without a metal box to hide in and next to the amazingly durable custodes they're just such a soft target. Maybe in future games I'll experiment with hiding them for a turn or two before starting to move out and get objectives.

 

The custodes and captain were a great combo. Reroll charges (advances never came up) and reroll wounds from being on an objective (which I did as much as possible) gave them all the tools they needed to get the job done. Over the course of the tournament they blended through 30 termagants, 2 psychophages, 10 barbgaunts, 3 leapers, 3 skorpeks, 10 necrons warriors, 3 scarab swarms, and a necron overlord.....all for the loss of only 2 custodes.

 

All in all it was a great experience and it has made me keen to try and get the custodes on the table again in the future

Edited July 16, 2023 by Wrath of Bruinen