The Adeptus Custodes Have Been Bloodied
Finally got a chance to get some table time with my shiny new Adeptus Custodes at the Toy Soldier Cartels invitational doubles tournament.
Quick Rundown of the Day
After arrival, the 20 invited players were randomly paired together in teams of two. I was lucky enough to be paired with a really good Tyranid player, Vincent. Vincent brought along an army consisting of The Swarmlord, a Flyrant, 20 Genestealers and 3 Venomthropes and plenty of Hormagaunts. Our armies together looked quite strong and played well together over the day. Whatever the Genestealers would struggle with, my Vertus Praetors would deal with and vice versa. The Swarmlord and Flyrant worked well with the Shield Captain and both armies had -1 to hit modifiers too. We did lack ranged firepower, and that showed in some games.
The Games started slowly as everyone got used to having a random game partner and battle plans were dawn up quickly. Short game times meant that most of the first games seemed to struggle to get past turn 3, so the TO’s wisely shifted to 4 games rather than the scheduled 5 giving the 3rd and 4th rounds more time to finish.
Our games were fun and relaxed, in fact the whole day was. The TSC are a bunch of fun gamers who build some great lists and play hard…also party hard after seeing yesterdays alcohol consumption!
Game 1 was against a Daemons/Guard team, we got first turn and managed to get right up close and personal and really restrict their movement and scoring abilities. Unfortunately because of time restrictions, we only just got through turn 3. We won comfortably though 15-5, a great start to the day!
Game 2 was against a Drukhari/CSM (Iron Warriors) team. This was going to be a tough game, they had so much ranged firepower with ML Havocs, Obliterators and two Ravagers. they also packed 10 Bezerkers and a few other nasty’s. We didn’t get first turn, and they made us pay for it. However, we did hit back pretty hard. Again we only just got through 3 turns and managed to pull out a draw.
Game 3 saw us face down a Daemons/Death Guard team. This was a tough game, the Daemons half was very quick and would tear through us. The Bloodthirster was brutal in this game. The Death Guard would be tough to chew through too and we knew if we got too close too soon they would pick us apart quickly, so we had to move and assault as one with as much as our armies as one. As it happened, we misjudged our first turn movement and lost our Hormagaunt screen and then their Bloodthirster managed to get a 7″ charge off against the Vertus Praetors and promptly did a number on them killing 4 in one round of combat! (and lost another to morale). From there it was an uphill battle and we eventually managed to pull off a 20-0 win. This was a tough game, combined with the heat in the building and the concentration required, it was probably our best game.
Game 4 and the final round saw us face a Mechanicus/Ork biker team. Locky was of course running his usual 4 Terrax termites with accompanying Fulgarite Priests and infantry. Alex was running a massed Ork biker list that put out so much Dakka. We were lucky in this game, the tables terrain was made up of 6 very big buildings that we knew we could restrict the Termites movement along with the Ork bikes. It was always going to be an uphill battle and luckily we got first turn that allowed us to screen with the Hormagaunts to stop the Terrax moving and disembarking their troops to charge us. We eventually finish 4 turns and by the end of turn 4 we’d killed all the Ork bikes and shut the Terrax down too. It was a very tense game, with both teams trying to get the upper hand. We ended up loosing, but only by 1pt! Literally a D3 for a Maelstrom card or one more unit going down would’ve seen us draw or win!
The Custodes Performance
Overall, I liked the list. The Vertus Praetors killed almost everything they shot at or charged. 6 In one unit is nasty, especially with their 4++ Invulnerable Save. I’m still getting over the fact they move 14″ standard and with the Captain nearby the rerolls just tip them over to be incredibly efficient killers. The game against the Iron Warriors they easily opened up a Rhino then three of them accounted for the entire 9 man Berserker unit that piled out (they lost one in the Rhino’s explosion). Having the unit with mixed weapons was useful too. I split mine to have two with Salvo Launchers and 4 with Hurricane Bolters. I liked the Salvo and I’m glad they dropped so much in CA18. It gives the army some S8 or S7 shots that can really help out popping tougher units.
If anything the Custodes lack ranged firepower, something a Telemon would help with. Although dropping in a Telemon does seem a bit too obvious, so I’m going to hold off for now.
The Custodian Guard and the Vexilus Praetor were handy. The Vexilus Praetor’s -1 to Hit from the Vexilla Magnifica kept some nasty guns at bay in most games. He is pretty slow though and in most games he struggled to keep up beyond T2. The Custodian Guard were helpful, having three sitting on objectives proved tough to shift and they struggled to get into any combat, but when they did they chipped away at units, nothing impressive though.
The Vertus Praetors managed to chew through quite a few models, over all they accounted for;
- 30 Conscripts
- A Lord Commissar
- Rhino
- 9 Beserkers
- 3 Obliterators
- 5 Havocs
- A handful of Poxwalkers
- 8 Ork Bikers
- And a few other models here and there
Not a bad hall considering we only played 12 turns over 4 games. And in one of them they got torn apart from a Bloodthirster T1 without me getting to fire with them or assault anything.
Where Do The Custodes Go Now?
With First Blood rapidly approaching (and already sold out), it’s going to be the armies first big challenge. A tournament with 70 players over 5 games will really start to give an impression of what they can do. Interestingly too, FB19 will be running CA18 missions and deployments, something that’s going to be really interesting as some if not most of the missions have cumulative scoring, so having a brick unit camping on an objective makes sense while the bikes fly off to score elsewhere and generally get stuck in.
A few other things I picked up. One, I’m woefully lacking knowledge of their stratagems and what they can do. In some of the earlier games I missed opportunities to really exploit them. The Custodes hate Mortal Wounds or D6 damage weapons, they have a few options to stop MW psychically and stopping high damage weapons comes down to well I can roll 4++ saves.
Right now though, I have to get them painted and based. I want to try something new for their bases, but time is against me. Same for doing a display board too, I’ve got some ideas, but I’m lacking time…
Few images from the day, not the best images, but they capture the madness!
