SPECIAL Warhammer 40k Battle Report: Have we fixed Adeptus Custodes?
The Beard May 18, 202454
56
54 Likes
The Custodes – the venerable guardians of the Emperor. So magnificent that mere mortals are brought to tears in their presence – such masters of the martial arts a single custode could defend an entire planet – they are the ultimate warrior and designed specifically by the master of mankind to be his personal bodyguard… except right now they seem to struggle to guard a barn door… So we thought we’d help them out a bit and run a little experiment. We’ve done a bit of arcane genetic alchemy and edited the custode datasheet tuning it ip and adding in a few rules to try and put the “shield” back into the “shield host”.
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Mm, this seems to make the Custodes lean towards a knights army style. Maybe not?
good god i need more narrative stuff. this was one of the funnest episodes ever
Personally enjoy the smaller Custodes lists as they add to the special feel of each model however I am a big fan of narrative and would like to see a Custodes, Imperial guard ,and Sisters mixed army.
Only 8-9 models on the table? GW ain’t got time for that. Unless a custodes model costs the same £ as an Armiger!
Regular Custodes at 150 points per model, Terminators at 200, characters at 300. They will basically be like using all Armigers in a Knights list, or all Dreadnoughts in a SM list.
I reject the premise. It’s not the unit rules that need upgrades, it’s the detachments. Custodes datasheets are bonkers already.
That said, if you wanted to ‘movie marines’ the Custodes to change them into a 5-10 model faction, I don’t think I’d hate it. I wonder if folks who already have armies would be put off though.
Could always remove the rule of three on the character units and just run Blade Champions and Shield captains. However it wont matter too much as Bard rolls as badly as I do. Hits on a 2+ is great if only I didn’t roll more ones than anything else. 😁
Great idea to push the Custodes because just like James said, it fits and it feels like them a lot more. And I can’t wait to see a whole „army“ of them with these rules. Don’t know if you can call it army when there are only 10 models but hey, this is Warhammer! One week ago you guys made a BR with deamons and knights where a total of 14 models were on the board and it was great!
10 Custodes vs 150 Orks would be a great matchup! 💪🏼😎
Yo maybe you could do this with all the units that seem a bit meh. I vote riptide XD
I donated a small amount on YouTube as a token of my appreciation for your fine work the other day but it seems to have been missed. I don’t mind if you acknowledge my donation or not, my only concern is that something went wrong with the transaction as the money has left my account. As I say it was only a small amount anyway, just wondering if you’d received it. There were 3 donations inc mine you should have received from that video.
This was a fun little experiment. I appreciate that Custodes could use a _tiny_ bit of love but I’m not convinced that this is the way to do it. If we go with the mindset that the fluff is written by the victor and these are the Emperors Companions then it makes each member a virtual god made flesh. I think it was mentioned on a prior podcast that if each army just went to the fluff then no army would ever lose to any other as they are all the best! On the tabletop to remove the fluff based… Read more »
LOVE this kind of video. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that it’s just a game of toy soldiers, and really, you can play it however you want!
Sorry to be possibly the only negative comment here guys. But although I agree custodes are in a bad place atm, and really do need a boost. I wasn’t a fan of this type of content. Videos of “I think” or “I wish” are cool as a sit and chat discussion after a hard fought game. But as a stand alone, just dosnt suit me. This is of course my own opinion and from what I’ve seen of the comments many other people like this type of content. For me personally, if you/ everyone think custodes are in a bad… Read more »
Those cultists look cool. Good chaff for a small game.
This would be awesome but unfortunately gw bean counters would never allow small 10 model armies.
They need to sell models! If a customer can make a 2000 point army with 2 troop boxes it would destroy the economy lol
I really enjoy these little experiments you do because its interesting to see, but this one realistically isn’t feasible for 40k games.
If each custodes were to be this strong then they would cost a lot of points. The problem then could be that there are too little of them on the battlefield. They could therefore struggle to score points and still lose a lot of games as a result.
I think Custodes do need a little buff but it’s difficult to balance the stats with the number of models they need to play the game.
I think for home games and the like something like this is awesome. Especially narrative. But I assume something like League you wouldn’t be using these rules. I think going off purely ‘fluff’ is kinda dangerous, because one of the great things about the codexes and even the novels imo is that for the most part they are told from an unreliable narrator point of view imo. Especially the codexes that fluff pieces are almost always written from the Imperium’s point-of-view. Who can forget that Tyranid codex that’s fluff piece was the Tyranid’s *always* losing. 1 custode single-handedly defending a… Read more »
Regular custodes at 185 each and shield captains at 260 a pop would give you 8 custodes and 2 captains for exactly 2,000 points, which seems about right for how murderous and tough these guys are.
That was fun. Do more of these kind of things, please. Loving the experiments!
I really liked this video. Would love to see you figure out where the points are at and would love to see a battle report to truly see if it can work. I have some custodes models I need to finish painting. The less models I need to paint the better, lol.
So good!!!! Please run more and more of these experiments!!!
First off, this was amazing. Just like with your 120 Boyz experiment last week, this was so much fun and really great to see a new twist with some homebrew rules to boot. Look forward to seeing more of this kind of content, great job everyone! Second, I think the stat lines make sense. A custode being as tough as an old style dreadnought, but having that fnp and weight of attacks feels right. Each model could easily be 160-200 points, with maybe just 3 man’s as a highest squad (or 2 with a character). Could give more play to… Read more »
I think you’re along the right lines, custodes would be fine if they were just a little more killy. I don’t think they need to be significantly more tough in the current version of the game. A couple more shots and attacks on their weapons and a rule that says they always hit on 2’s in melee and have 1 to wound anything with higher toughness than them and that this can’t be modified. Job done.
I literally just use the old points and index. It was perfectly decent and my opponents are happy for me to do so
This reminds me a lot of the old Movie Marine rules that we in a White Dwarf back in like 4th or 5th edition. I think this is a really cool idea and would be a very fun way to play the army, not sure on the points but i would think they might need a little bump in the power of their shooting attacks especially since their would be so few on the board. Also this would give the sisters of silence more use as they could be much cheaper chaff units that could be board control while the… Read more »
If these were the custodian rules six months ago I might have a golden army as my second army instead of Votann.
Love the custodes. They brought me back into the game in 8th after having some 7th edition burn out . Love the idea that you don’t send the custodes to solve the conflict. You send them to send a message. They feel much more thematically appropriate tooled up. However. The base problem with custodes is they don’t belong in a skirmish level game. Can they be thematically appropriate and still be able to function within the limits of how long an are scored? They’d work better for either one or two on a boarding action/ kill team or as an… Read more »
I think the number of units you’re trying for it too close to a Knights army, considering the army is primarily infantry in spite of being the best of the best of the best. Personally I’d aim for the total number of models being 15 to 20 (maybe even up to 30), rather than the 8 the TT team are suggesting.
I have thought for some time that their stances really should be sweeping and strike damage profiles. Maybe add a 3rd option like “stab”.
This way they could have an option for hordes, marines and tanks/monsters.
Yeah kinda what i did my last two games with custodes. Both where part of a 2v2 so i just ran 7 characters with the character detachment. Its not the perfect way to run them because you dont get the leader abilities, but it felt so right. Each of the 7 felt like the individual super hero they are. Custodes just should be like mini knights.
At my game group the host runs Custodes and I run Harlequins, at least I did until 10th where they lost all their flavor. Anyways, he and I are planning on playing a game of my Clowns vs his golden boys and calling it, “The Race to the Bottom.”
Thank you for making this. Love the experiments. As a Custodes player, this is much closer to how I’ve always envisioned them. Hope GW is watching!
110 per guard
140 per Allarus
Make them OC 6 each
160 per captain guard
190 per allarus guard
I’m debating running this with points in the week and seeing how it goes 🤔
I haven’t a clue with points but if you do reach a figure you like, will you run the 120 ork boyz against however many custodians that turns out to be?? Love to see it! Awesome fun video, I was right there sweating with Bard 😅😅
Your stat set would be a lot of fun for 1 shield captain and 1 guard in a boarding action.
No, just please no. I can’t think of anything more boring to play against, far too easy for someone to spike their defenses with these and never lose anything, and you feel completely powerless. If you want one man armies, just play all the characters in the book, three shield captains, three captains on jet bike etc etc
That was excellent, as a Custodes player I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them super charged. I loved how nail-bitingly close it was at the end 👨🍳💋
Great video My one concern with this is with movement. If I compare the limited model (elite) army style to Knights it seems like the Custodes have a clear disadvantage. with most of them moving at 6″ while most knights are 10″. This is then compounded with the difference in base size. while you might only have 4 knights on the board, there bases are large enough to make good use of that 10″ These new Custodes data sheets are brutal (glad to see it) but unless they can get into charge range they will just get shot of the… Read more »
Cool!
But against the Terminators, how did the Custodes go first in their turn?
This was short and schweeet.
This would be alot better for Custodes. Plus this board is still truly unbelievable.
What are the stats for the others units?
This was excellent! I had a conversation with someone in a GW store about how there’s so so many models to build and paint for even a 1k list and this feels perfect!
They are tough as old boots but not above being kicked to the ground. As was said, there’s only say 2 squads of 4 and a leader so they will get bogged down so they will find getting to the objectives difficult but they feel like they should!
Much better than my 33 marines for a 1k list!
Custodes are cool but Lawrence jabba the hit laugh takes the cake as the best moment of this video 😂