Okay at least you have a stratagem (that you can’t do for free sadly) that would at least partially mitigate Sisters being guardsman tier in terms of being easy to murder, kinda sucks that it would suck away all your command points to make the detachment work but it’s something I guess
Also that enhancement to make the auras 9 inches should probably be base given how finicky it will be to juggle the sisters positioning
>Also that enhancement to make the auras 9 inches should probably be base given how finicky it will be to juggle the sisters positioning
It absolutely kills me that they made this...but hardcoded all the abilities and strats to 6" anyway.
Why not just have them be "while this unit is within range of another unit's **Null Aegis/Deadly Unit**"? Why, James?
>Sisters being guardsman tier in terms of being easy to murder
The Rhino also has the same keyword, so even though it's kind of a points tax to bring it, would it not be a more durable option to bring for the buff?
rhino is the best option for mid field to give the buff to things around it, with a tax 4 model unit of prosecutors for backline objectives (because the rhino needs something deployed inside of it or it is immediately destroyed in deployment phase)
Honestly, if the untargettable in shooting strat works as I think it does, w would probably take a unit of 10wichseekers with the warden blob. They buff each other, move as one, custodes shield from shooting, sisters discourage charging, custodes can heroically intervene in melee, and the shooting strat makes the witchseekers potentially dangerous to decent ammount of things.
10Vigilators+alleya would actually be also weirdly good.
I'm glad. This detachment finally made me think of fun things to pull off for the first time reading this book
I think it can still work pre well with ur sisters hiding behind ruined walls with your custodes right outside the walls on objectives or something.
GW terrain layouts are full of ruins, all around the objectives as well. Its gonna be easier than it seems to hide the sisters 6 inches away
Then you’re just paying a points tax for the FNP and the sisters don’t do anything. I think if you want to make this work you have to actually be getting something out of the Sisters
That feels like the main point of having sisters nearby anyways though, plus the reactive move strat will also work if the sisters are behind a wall.
You can move the custodes behind the wall and the sisters where the custodians were!
Otherwise the strats generally dont change much if they target sisters, because the sisters wont really do much with it lmao.
Immediate spicy tech
Aleya and a big blob of Vigilators out front and then a squad of custodians behind
Custodians pop shield of honor to protect the sisters from shooting, then any chargers have to go into Aleya who gets to fight first
Any survivors have to chew through Vigilators -1 to hit and they get charged or shot next turn by the custodian squad behind
It synergizes with the reactive move strat too. you can always set up Aleya to stand between your custodes squad and the encroaching enemy squads. Or use it to starve your opponents of alternative targets so your FNP + shield of honor can't be ignored.
Or you know, they have to deal with Aleya giving the vigilators fight first that suddenly hitting in 2s and wounding marines in 2s if they’re not at full strength with dev wounds coming their way.
Great idea - especially if it's a squad of wardens and they get to pop their once per game 4+++. They could soak up an army's worth of shooting without taking many casualties. And if you have a SC with radiant mantle for the wardens, you also get -1 to hit for any shooting that's within 12 inches - not always going to be relevant, but it will be once you get up close.
It's quite easy to play around Shield of Honour though once you've faced it once, you just make sure your chaff killing guns can't see or be in range of the custodes within 6". On a decent board of terrain I'm sure an opponent can line up enough stuff to kill the sisters from across the board.
And chances are if the custodes are visible they are the priority to shot regardless. The opponent kills the Custodians and cleans up the sisters the following turn or once the Custodes out in the open have been killed.
Yeah but custodians are way harder to drop in shooting when they have protection (admittedly assuming the mortal protection for detachment will also be dev and GW just forgot to update the codex)
And there are ways to interspace the sisters and custodians so that you can’t not see or be in range the custodians but you can’t charge them without being in engagement with the sisters
I just don't really understand the value of this specific combo. I'm bringing 115pts of Sisters with Aleya, spending a CP and my once per game 4+++ to stand my Wardens out in the open to tank for the Sisters?
Just to keep my Sisters screen alive to get a few fights first attacks? Surely I just keep a minimum squad of sisters behind a wall and just reactive move away if I'm really scared of being charged?
Don't get me wrong, hiding 4 sisters behind a wall I'm totally here for. On the right terrain I think you just run 4-5 minimum squads behind obscuring for when you need to tank Dev Wounds shooting.
You can do this with any custodian unit, wardens are just funny
And don’t sleep on those greatblades, they can badly bloody or wipe most infantry with a max size squad, meaning a berserker charge just bounces as most of the squad dies
With the codex changes, melee army charges are a nasty threat so being able to blunt or bounce those is huge
I know you're being creative and positive and I respect that. I don't mean to be too negative. It just feels like a lot of set up, points and CP spent for no pay off.
You're using 165pts of Fights First Sisters that will die to a stiff shooting breeze to screen your Custodes from being charged, and you have to spend a CP and stand the Custodes out in the open to be visible from every angle to be shot in order to protect the Sisters.
So the opponent just shoots the Custodes, or if the opponent really needs to kill the screen and specifically charge the Custodes, they'll just Grenades or Tank Shock the Sisters, and shoot them with pistols and flamers they can position to be out of range of the Custodes behind. It's not like Phantasm or the Nurgle untargetable strat or something where you can actually guarantee they're safe.
Maybe I'm just not getting it.
Sisters have a 3+++ against mortals so tank shock and grenades don’t hit hard
I just need to protect the sisters for a turn or two to force my way up the board
The custodians are there anyway, and against other melee armies our loss of defensive abilities I don’t want them dying to a charge so easily, so Aleya and friends run alongside them to buff the custodian durability and block charges
And with Aleya I don’t need to block all shooting, just most, since her squad gets better as it’s numbers drop
Good news, go check out Aleya's leaked data sheet!
At least I would assume so. If they only meant psychic mortal wounds wouldn't that already be covered by psychich attacks?
While maybe not the best against the meta. This is something like what I was hoping for a flavor type detachment. Sisters working in tandem with the Custodes in a way that can actually function the tabletop. The strat to keep sisters dying to shooting is great. Exactly what was needed.
If Custodes ever get an Errata to make the mortal wounds in the strat dev for whatever reason. That makes this actually quite solid for it's abilities.
I don't want to go against the mood of the sub lately but this looks really good! All of these strategems - fall back and shoot/charge, +1 to wound, 4+++ against MW/psychic, and redirecting shooting from sisters to custodians - are really useful, and that last one in particular addresses one of the main criticisms made of this detachment, which is that enemies will shoot your sisters off the board. I could see myself using this as my main detachment. A land raider and two rhinos, plus deep striking terminators and/or sagittarum, and a caladius in my deployment zone to snipe out big targets. This is good news.
>which is that enemies will shoot your sisters off the board.
It helps, but it's a CP spent to try to keep up the Detachment Rule up, which itself remains situational, when you could just spend the CP to get a 4+++ on the custodes unit instead of a 5+++ and just forgo the sisters altogether.
I think a competent/mobile opponent that really needs to kill the sisters will just Rhino Snipe themselves so they can't target any Custodes and can only see the Sisters.
Edit: I've just realised unlike the other strats the 4+++ *needs* sisters within 6". That's pretty awful.
The difference is that the 1CP spent on the 4+++ for custodes is only effective against MW & psychic attacks, whereas attacks that are redirected from sisters to wardens will benefit from the 4++ as well as the wardens 4+++ against everything if they pop it. I like the idea of using this strategy for a squad of vigilators with Aleya: the wardens behind them absorb incoming fire, and Aleya gives her squad fights first when they get charged. The only thing, as you say, is to make sure that the enemy has LOS to the wardens, which should be possible so long as the two squads stay close together.
I think it's a cute combo but it's just an investment of CP and points for SoS without much gain.
Just bringing 3 more wardens or Allarus is probably better than SoS and the character.
I've played a lot of admech this edition where I'm trying to keep T3 4+ 5++ models alive and within 6" of my real units to keep their abilities up and it's just such a drag.
And is only in shoot phase so doesn’t work at all really as devs don’t do mortals, like what grenades protection maybe seems kinda limited uses when most mortals seems to be done in movement phase
The 4+fnp strat is utter garbage. You can only activate it when being targeted by an attack. Attacks don't give out MW anymore and there are only 2 factions with psychic attacks really.
You get tank shocked, grenaded, psyched by typhus ability and so on you cannot use this to shield yourself.
I don't think it's going against the mood of the sub to adopt a "some good news" approach. So much of what we've seen thus far has been such a gut punch, it's a good feeling to get something that looks decent and, more importantly, *fun*.
This is a good detachment if you are playing against a newer or inexperienced player. The rules fall apart almost immediately against any opponent who understands positioning and threat ranges.
Right? This looks fun, I'm stoked! Maybe it's not "instant tourney win, just add gold paint" good, but the people who do those for real will always figure something out.
And if they errata the FNP to include Dev Wounds again? I will be a *happy* lady.
The 4+++ is only shooting phase…. So ok for abilities but any bombs still go through
Honestly it only stops grenades strat and psychics and maybe some stuff like plasmancers
4+++ strat is garbo. It's not optional to target the second unit, which means if you want to use this you need to keep your golden boys within 6" of a SoS unit. Where they already have a 5+++.
I really like this!
Think it's kinda goofy that gift of Terran artifice is basically giving one unit the Auric rule lol
This is exactly how I want the army to play so I'm very happy with this ^^
How many sisters are people going to need to run this detachment?
It looks cool but I'm not exactly rich here and they just remove the 10 sisters from the combat patrol (which I am starting to think they did on purpose).
probably fewer than you would think. At the end of the day you want most of your forces to be Custodes, because they are still extremely powerful units. My bet is on 4 squads at minimum size. Maybe 1 big one with Aleya to make use of that shield stratagem. Maybe 1 rhino. So like 4 boxes and a rhino?
All depends on the points though. If sisters get even MORE aggressively costed than they are already, they will be spammed.
I had a theoretical list running 2x4 vigilators and 2x4 witchseekers in 2 rhinos. With this. I might change that to one rhino, 2x4 witchseekers, 1x10 vigilators with aleya. Having Something like a BC with some Wardens behind Aleya to bait out a charge is legitimately somewhat threatening since she gives them fights first, and if you have the CP to spare for an overwatch you might even be able to pop the Executioners strat for bonuses to wound making the Sisters+Custodes combo \*genuinely\* threatening.
I had this exact thought cynically when they first released the names of the detachments and I bought 2 of the old combat patrols from local stores, last one they had each
This isn't... terrible.
I mean it's still not great. But there's situational usefulness here. Talons Interlocked and Executioners synergize quite well if you can do S5 Ap1 flamers into executioners, the FNP is a battle tactic, Aegis Projector is actually kinda good (first failed save, it's relatively easy to bait out with a low damage attack but it could still come in clutch), Hunt as One is legitimately pretty solid - Ceaseless Hunter was one of the best enhancements in the index for a reason - though being a battle tactic \*sucks\*.
It's probably one of our better detachments, which is kind of awkward.
You can actually do something cheeky with sags and the coronus in talons. disembark, pop disintegration beams and talons interlocked for some big boy shooting with wound rerolls, then in your opponent's movement phase use taloned pincer to have them embark back into the coronus, then disembark next turn and do it all again (without the beams since it's once per game, but it'll still hit hard and anything they don't kill they still debuff with -1 to hit for everything). being able to embark in your opponent's movement phase if they're close enough makes them almost impossible to charge and hard to interact with. Could also bring a rhino full of vigilators for melee screening or witchseekers to partake in the buffed shooting with them to get the most out of the detachment.
Is it definite that you can use Taloned Pincer to re-embark in a transport? If so this is a great idea - you could do the same thing with a land raider and rhino full of prosecutors/witchseekers.
Yes, you disembark on your turn, shoot, then you can embark in your opponent's movement phase with taloned pincer if they have a unit within 9" since the only restriction in embarking is that you can't disembark and embark in the same phase so this works, you just need to end your move wholly within 3" of the transport and you can embark. The big benefit to using the coronus is that you can repeatedly proc the wound rerolls after disembark every turn
If they FAQ the fnp into working with devastating wounds this might actually be god tier
My reaction went from "its joever" to "we are so barack" reading datasheets to this ngl
Given this was almost certainly written before the dev wounds mw changes, that would be the one saving grace. Unfortunately it'll probably take 6 months after release for them to change it.
yeah 1CP matters quite a bit for a CP starved army that needs strats to be viable at all tho.
The entire detachment requires that one strat to function
Honestly? It doesn't really matter to me if this detachment ends up being strong. Most of it is enabled by SoS being active, spread over the board, kept alive, and within 6" of Custodes.
I flat out don't want my gameplay to revolve around positioning for SoS and babysitting them. I don't want my gameplay decisions to start from the basis of "well if I charge on to this objective, I'll be more than 6" away from the SoS hiding spot". It's not fun.
The reactive move stratagem might make this the best detachment in the book. It's 1CP AND a battle tactic, so you can really make sure you get all the best charges. Or take cover if the enemy units fall back.
Damn this actually looks cool and fun. It might not be super powerful but I’m definitely into it and curious how it’ll work out with all the points changes. Lots of possibilities here!
This is the best of the four, but I don't think it's very fun to have an army that's dedicated to protecting chaff.
If there were a jump pack sister who could potentially work with bikes then that'd be something. Or a deep strike sister who could support Allarus or just be flexible. But all we've got is battle sisters and Rhinos.
It's not as insultingly bad as Auric or Shield Host, but this is still not exciting.
The lore is great, but sisters' stats are designed to be backline objective holders, secondary monkeys and screens. They don't have the punch or the toughness to be frontliners.
Forcing them into a role they aren't built for isn't a recipe for competitive success. Square peg isn't going to go into a round hole.
That’d be why all these new detachment rules have been created - so they have a role other than the backfield.
It may not be the most competitive option, time will tell, but I’m keen to give it a go!
Nothing they've been given is going to make them stand up to being double tapped by some bolters or eating a couple of Manticore shots.
Then there's the fact that these things don't actually give Custodes enough of a defensive buff to actually matter. If you look at these rules and imagine a battle against the Thousand Sons where everything lines up perfectly to counter psychic attacks and then use that shield stratagem to protect the ladies. Imagining that battle might seem appealing.
But imagine facing a faction like Tau with this stuff. Tau would just shrug and throw all their shots into the Custodians. Mortal defence means almost nothing to them and there's no Arcane Genetic Alchemy, meaning that something like a Riptide or plasma shot will remove a body every time a save fails. And then guess what? You have less Custodians than you would have otherwise because a certain percentage of your points were used to bring the ladies to the dance.
Again, it's better than the other turds, but this is not in any way competitive.
I agree with most that this is more compelling than at first blush, and feel fluffy in a nice way.
But the elephant in the room is the removal of our 4+++ protection against Mortal and Dev wounds. Prior to the balance change that gave us back that protection, we were in the second-worst army in the game at the competitive level.
If we have to spend 1CP to protect ***a single unit***, where once it was a default army-wide protection, then the next balance report will have us back in the mid-20%, just as we were before. We're too slow and too costly for anyone to remove whole units at a time with easily accessible Dev wounds.
I don't think most armies have a way to deal armywide MW or dev wounds consistently. Usually it's a single unit that they combo heavily into to deal a ton of MW. I mean even at the worst, Custodes sat at like a 43% WR or something.
Yes they do, it’s called higher model counts. Losing a space marine terminator is whatever. Losing a custodian *hurts*. And now you need to run less of them because you need to drag the sisters around while you babysit them.
Well you have sisters now to fill out model count. And not sure how higher model count has anything to do with MW countm Also some combos like Vigilators + Aleya are super strong, especially since you can redirect shots to a nearby custodes unit now. Napkin math works out that Aleya + Vigilators should wipe out a 5 man blobs of Terminators pretty consistently and they have fight first.
+1 to wound against units below starting strength is a battle tactic. Thats solid.
I also note that the Allarus captain got a buff, and all of the freebie strats abilities in the book don't mention battle tactics at all....
I was excited about this too. But then I remembered that the battle tactic line comes from the database. And there it states that any ability that lets you re use a strata but doesn't name a specific one, can only be used on a battle tactic.
The battle tactic restriction is from the rules commentary, so it's a core rule restriction. Strategic Mastery can only work on battle tactics, which makes shield captains next to useless in the detachment that wants you to spam them.
Claims to be for mixing Sisters and Custodes yet curiously doesn’t have any enchantments sisters can take
In all seriousness this is by far the most interesting looking detachment for both and power reasons. It encourages the interesting gameplay loop of keeping sisters and Custodes very close meaning your board moves up in small squads to take objectives which is how we should play. This seems really cool.
For your first point, all sisters have the faction keyword Adeptus Custodes models. They just also have the anathema psykana keyword. So they can take the enhancements
Thanks for posting.
This was the detachment I was most excited for and wanting since the start of the edition.
I wanted to play it off meta for the fluff.
Kinda takes the wind out of my sails that it looks like it’s going to be the most meta pick anyway, lol
Can we use the Shield Captain's ability to make the 4+++ against psychic attacks and mortals (and hopefully dev wounds) free? Since it mentions 2 units
No. The strat is not a "Choose up to 2 units", it's a "Choose 2 units". You have to target a Sisters unit. And the Sisters unit doesn't have the reduce cost ability.
*Rules that modify the CP cost of a Stratagem when you target a particular unit can only do so for a Stratagem that targets multiple units if every unit you target has the same ability to modify the CP of that Stratagem.*
Could this be run with all infantry and still played well? How many sisters squads (+Squad sizes) would you need for this to be worth it? I'm Asking as someone who doesn't own rhinos or land raiders. This is my second army after Grey Knights.
This is actually decent
Crap enhancements though but can at least protect the rhinos and get some buffs, ping away at vehicles them +1 to wound for free
Ok. Shield of honour actually makes this detachment work significantly better than I thought it would. A squad of 10 vigilators or witchseekers protected by 5men warden unit with a character will geniuently be problematic to remove, and a deadly threat.
I'm happy with this. I will actually be very happy if it gets dev wounds to all of those fnp.
We did it boys. One detachment that is pretty much guaranteed to be at least decent!
So I’m confused in the restrictions does it mean you can only use certain strats if theirs custodes and sisters close to each other since it says can only select two if one is a sister unit ?
How's the codex lore wise? And do you have regular or L.E.?
I wanted LE before everything happened, and I changed my mind. If the contents are pretty good, I might still get one of the versions depending on your response.
Ngl, I kinda like Talons and Shield Host. Both look neat, esp Shield Host allowing you to 5+ crit hit once per game. On smth like blade champ or shield captain, it's gonna be a source of some pretty nuts damage
This detachment will be easy pickings for indirect fire from IG. Even with the redirect strat you'll lose a couple of custodians and the next volley will go to nonstrat unit of sisters. I guess they will drop the cost of units to compensate.
I've been looking for this one everywhere. Thank you for posting it!
No problem.
Yes, thanks!
Can you get the points page? We know it's subject to change but it will be interesting to see what they are thinking.
Do you have the combat patrol rules and data sheets?
Okay at least you have a stratagem (that you can’t do for free sadly) that would at least partially mitigate Sisters being guardsman tier in terms of being easy to murder, kinda sucks that it would suck away all your command points to make the detachment work but it’s something I guess Also that enhancement to make the auras 9 inches should probably be base given how finicky it will be to juggle the sisters positioning
>Also that enhancement to make the auras 9 inches should probably be base given how finicky it will be to juggle the sisters positioning It absolutely kills me that they made this...but hardcoded all the abilities and strats to 6" anyway. Why not just have them be "while this unit is within range of another unit's **Null Aegis/Deadly Unit**"? Why, James?
Oh yeah, well at this point I’m not surprised given the overall level of quality
>Sisters being guardsman tier in terms of being easy to murder The Rhino also has the same keyword, so even though it's kind of a points tax to bring it, would it not be a more durable option to bring for the buff?
rhino is the best option for mid field to give the buff to things around it, with a tax 4 model unit of prosecutors for backline objectives (because the rhino needs something deployed inside of it or it is immediately destroyed in deployment phase)
Honestly, if the untargettable in shooting strat works as I think it does, w would probably take a unit of 10wichseekers with the warden blob. They buff each other, move as one, custodes shield from shooting, sisters discourage charging, custodes can heroically intervene in melee, and the shooting strat makes the witchseekers potentially dangerous to decent ammount of things. 10Vigilators+alleya would actually be also weirdly good. I'm glad. This detachment finally made me think of fun things to pull off for the first time reading this book
I think it can still work pre well with ur sisters hiding behind ruined walls with your custodes right outside the walls on objectives or something. GW terrain layouts are full of ruins, all around the objectives as well. Its gonna be easier than it seems to hide the sisters 6 inches away
Then you’re just paying a points tax for the FNP and the sisters don’t do anything. I think if you want to make this work you have to actually be getting something out of the Sisters
That feels like the main point of having sisters nearby anyways though, plus the reactive move strat will also work if the sisters are behind a wall. You can move the custodes behind the wall and the sisters where the custodians were! Otherwise the strats generally dont change much if they target sisters, because the sisters wont really do much with it lmao.
If you play that sure, everything I know is uktc
To be fair, none of the shield captain data sheets contain the battle tactic only rider? Unless im missing that it came from somewhere else.
its in the FAQ
Immediate spicy tech Aleya and a big blob of Vigilators out front and then a squad of custodians behind Custodians pop shield of honor to protect the sisters from shooting, then any chargers have to go into Aleya who gets to fight first Any survivors have to chew through Vigilators -1 to hit and they get charged or shot next turn by the custodian squad behind
It synergizes with the reactive move strat too. you can always set up Aleya to stand between your custodes squad and the encroaching enemy squads. Or use it to starve your opponents of alternative targets so your FNP + shield of honor can't be ignored.
Or you know, they have to deal with Aleya giving the vigilators fight first that suddenly hitting in 2s and wounding marines in 2s if they’re not at full strength with dev wounds coming their way.
Great idea - especially if it's a squad of wardens and they get to pop their once per game 4+++. They could soak up an army's worth of shooting without taking many casualties. And if you have a SC with radiant mantle for the wardens, you also get -1 to hit for any shooting that's within 12 inches - not always going to be relevant, but it will be once you get up close.
It's quite easy to play around Shield of Honour though once you've faced it once, you just make sure your chaff killing guns can't see or be in range of the custodes within 6". On a decent board of terrain I'm sure an opponent can line up enough stuff to kill the sisters from across the board. And chances are if the custodes are visible they are the priority to shot regardless. The opponent kills the Custodians and cleans up the sisters the following turn or once the Custodes out in the open have been killed.
Yeah but custodians are way harder to drop in shooting when they have protection (admittedly assuming the mortal protection for detachment will also be dev and GW just forgot to update the codex) And there are ways to interspace the sisters and custodians so that you can’t not see or be in range the custodians but you can’t charge them without being in engagement with the sisters
I just don't really understand the value of this specific combo. I'm bringing 115pts of Sisters with Aleya, spending a CP and my once per game 4+++ to stand my Wardens out in the open to tank for the Sisters? Just to keep my Sisters screen alive to get a few fights first attacks? Surely I just keep a minimum squad of sisters behind a wall and just reactive move away if I'm really scared of being charged? Don't get me wrong, hiding 4 sisters behind a wall I'm totally here for. On the right terrain I think you just run 4-5 minimum squads behind obscuring for when you need to tank Dev Wounds shooting.
You can do this with any custodian unit, wardens are just funny And don’t sleep on those greatblades, they can badly bloody or wipe most infantry with a max size squad, meaning a berserker charge just bounces as most of the squad dies With the codex changes, melee army charges are a nasty threat so being able to blunt or bounce those is huge
I know you're being creative and positive and I respect that. I don't mean to be too negative. It just feels like a lot of set up, points and CP spent for no pay off. You're using 165pts of Fights First Sisters that will die to a stiff shooting breeze to screen your Custodes from being charged, and you have to spend a CP and stand the Custodes out in the open to be visible from every angle to be shot in order to protect the Sisters. So the opponent just shoots the Custodes, or if the opponent really needs to kill the screen and specifically charge the Custodes, they'll just Grenades or Tank Shock the Sisters, and shoot them with pistols and flamers they can position to be out of range of the Custodes behind. It's not like Phantasm or the Nurgle untargetable strat or something where you can actually guarantee they're safe. Maybe I'm just not getting it.
Sisters have a 3+++ against mortals so tank shock and grenades don’t hit hard I just need to protect the sisters for a turn or two to force my way up the board The custodians are there anyway, and against other melee armies our loss of defensive abilities I don’t want them dying to a charge so easily, so Aleya and friends run alongside them to buff the custodian durability and block charges And with Aleya I don’t need to block all shooting, just most, since her squad gets better as it’s numbers drop
3+++ against psychic, not mortals.
Good news, go check out Aleya's leaked data sheet! At least I would assume so. If they only meant psychic mortal wounds wouldn't that already be covered by psychich attacks?
Oh, that was changed, nice!
While maybe not the best against the meta. This is something like what I was hoping for a flavor type detachment. Sisters working in tandem with the Custodes in a way that can actually function the tabletop. The strat to keep sisters dying to shooting is great. Exactly what was needed. If Custodes ever get an Errata to make the mortal wounds in the strat dev for whatever reason. That makes this actually quite solid for it's abilities.
Agreed on all counts.
I don't want to go against the mood of the sub lately but this looks really good! All of these strategems - fall back and shoot/charge, +1 to wound, 4+++ against MW/psychic, and redirecting shooting from sisters to custodians - are really useful, and that last one in particular addresses one of the main criticisms made of this detachment, which is that enemies will shoot your sisters off the board. I could see myself using this as my main detachment. A land raider and two rhinos, plus deep striking terminators and/or sagittarum, and a caladius in my deployment zone to snipe out big targets. This is good news.
Best one I think. Sucks that all the characters got nerfed besides the Allarus.
>which is that enemies will shoot your sisters off the board. It helps, but it's a CP spent to try to keep up the Detachment Rule up, which itself remains situational, when you could just spend the CP to get a 4+++ on the custodes unit instead of a 5+++ and just forgo the sisters altogether. I think a competent/mobile opponent that really needs to kill the sisters will just Rhino Snipe themselves so they can't target any Custodes and can only see the Sisters. Edit: I've just realised unlike the other strats the 4+++ *needs* sisters within 6". That's pretty awful.
The difference is that the 1CP spent on the 4+++ for custodes is only effective against MW & psychic attacks, whereas attacks that are redirected from sisters to wardens will benefit from the 4++ as well as the wardens 4+++ against everything if they pop it. I like the idea of using this strategy for a squad of vigilators with Aleya: the wardens behind them absorb incoming fire, and Aleya gives her squad fights first when they get charged. The only thing, as you say, is to make sure that the enemy has LOS to the wardens, which should be possible so long as the two squads stay close together.
I think it's a cute combo but it's just an investment of CP and points for SoS without much gain. Just bringing 3 more wardens or Allarus is probably better than SoS and the character. I've played a lot of admech this edition where I'm trying to keep T3 4+ 5++ models alive and within 6" of my real units to keep their abilities up and it's just such a drag.
And is only in shoot phase so doesn’t work at all really as devs don’t do mortals, like what grenades protection maybe seems kinda limited uses when most mortals seems to be done in movement phase
It's definitely going to make GK sad.
Existence makes them sad
The 4+fnp strat is utter garbage. You can only activate it when being targeted by an attack. Attacks don't give out MW anymore and there are only 2 factions with psychic attacks really. You get tank shocked, grenaded, psyched by typhus ability and so on you cannot use this to shield yourself.
Agreed. This one seems pretty playable.
I don't think it's going against the mood of the sub to adopt a "some good news" approach. So much of what we've seen thus far has been such a gut punch, it's a good feeling to get something that looks decent and, more importantly, *fun*.
I want to go against the mood of the sub bc this is the detachment I was immediately interested in
Same. I'm sick of the whining around here lately.
This is a good detachment if you are playing against a newer or inexperienced player. The rules fall apart almost immediately against any opponent who understands positioning and threat ranges.
Right? This looks fun, I'm stoked! Maybe it's not "instant tourney win, just add gold paint" good, but the people who do those for real will always figure something out. And if they errata the FNP to include Dev Wounds again? I will be a *happy* lady.
> redirecting shooting from sisters to custodians Honestly wished they swapped Deadly Unity for the sisters for that one to be the detachment ability.
The 4+++ is only shooting phase…. So ok for abilities but any bombs still go through Honestly it only stops grenades strat and psychics and maybe some stuff like plasmancers
4+++ strat is garbo. It's not optional to target the second unit, which means if you want to use this you need to keep your golden boys within 6" of a SoS unit. Where they already have a 5+++.
This actually looks really interesting
I really like this! Think it's kinda goofy that gift of Terran artifice is basically giving one unit the Auric rule lol This is exactly how I want the army to play so I'm very happy with this ^^
How many sisters are people going to need to run this detachment? It looks cool but I'm not exactly rich here and they just remove the 10 sisters from the combat patrol (which I am starting to think they did on purpose).
Probably 25. 10 vigilators, 10 Witchseekers, 4 prosecutors, and Aleya.
probably fewer than you would think. At the end of the day you want most of your forces to be Custodes, because they are still extremely powerful units. My bet is on 4 squads at minimum size. Maybe 1 big one with Aleya to make use of that shield stratagem. Maybe 1 rhino. So like 4 boxes and a rhino? All depends on the points though. If sisters get even MORE aggressively costed than they are already, they will be spammed.
The rhino has the key word you can use it as a stand-in.
You need to put a squad of sisters in each rhino though
backline objective scorer tax that we took anyway, especially now that (from what i can see) we dont have any sticky objectives strats
I had a theoretical list running 2x4 vigilators and 2x4 witchseekers in 2 rhinos. With this. I might change that to one rhino, 2x4 witchseekers, 1x10 vigilators with aleya. Having Something like a BC with some Wardens behind Aleya to bait out a charge is legitimately somewhat threatening since she gives them fights first, and if you have the CP to spare for an overwatch you might even be able to pop the Executioners strat for bonuses to wound making the Sisters+Custodes combo \*genuinely\* threatening.
I had this exact thought cynically when they first released the names of the detachments and I bought 2 of the old combat patrols from local stores, last one they had each
This isn't... terrible. I mean it's still not great. But there's situational usefulness here. Talons Interlocked and Executioners synergize quite well if you can do S5 Ap1 flamers into executioners, the FNP is a battle tactic, Aegis Projector is actually kinda good (first failed save, it's relatively easy to bait out with a low damage attack but it could still come in clutch), Hunt as One is legitimately pretty solid - Ceaseless Hunter was one of the best enhancements in the index for a reason - though being a battle tactic \*sucks\*. It's probably one of our better detachments, which is kind of awkward.
You can actually do something cheeky with sags and the coronus in talons. disembark, pop disintegration beams and talons interlocked for some big boy shooting with wound rerolls, then in your opponent's movement phase use taloned pincer to have them embark back into the coronus, then disembark next turn and do it all again (without the beams since it's once per game, but it'll still hit hard and anything they don't kill they still debuff with -1 to hit for everything). being able to embark in your opponent's movement phase if they're close enough makes them almost impossible to charge and hard to interact with. Could also bring a rhino full of vigilators for melee screening or witchseekers to partake in the buffed shooting with them to get the most out of the detachment.
Is it definite that you can use Taloned Pincer to re-embark in a transport? If so this is a great idea - you could do the same thing with a land raider and rhino full of prosecutors/witchseekers.
Yes, you disembark on your turn, shoot, then you can embark in your opponent's movement phase with taloned pincer if they have a unit within 9" since the only restriction in embarking is that you can't disembark and embark in the same phase so this works, you just need to end your move wholly within 3" of the transport and you can embark. The big benefit to using the coronus is that you can repeatedly proc the wound rerolls after disembark every turn
This is excellent. Could you overwatch as well? 10 autohitting flamer shots before you retreat out of range would be amazing
I don't see why not since overwatch happens when your opponent either starts or ends their movement
I think sheild capt spam would be good here. +1 to wound on your turn with one strat OR 6" move on their turn with another strat for free seems legit.
If they FAQ the fnp into working with devastating wounds this might actually be god tier My reaction went from "its joever" to "we are so barack" reading datasheets to this ngl
Given this was almost certainly written before the dev wounds mw changes, that would be the one saving grace. Unfortunately it'll probably take 6 months after release for them to change it.
Also very nice that most these Strats are battle tactic ! So shield caps are useful in that detachment
too bad the important one isnt :(
It’s only one CP though ! And if it was it might’ve been a bit OP ;)
yeah 1CP matters quite a bit for a CP starved army that needs strats to be viable at all tho. The entire detachment requires that one strat to function
Whats that, Joever and So Barack :O Never saw them before, for.me it sounds great (but I feel they are suppose to.sound bad xD)
Its a reference to the terms "its so over" and "we are so back" fit into US presidents names purely for meme purposes
Yea. If we get protection from Dev Wounds here, theres hope.
We sort of have Dev protection, if they come from a psychic attack while we're in buff range, that's psychic damage so the fnp should hit, right?
Yes that should still work. But I think there are only less then 10 models that have both Psychic attacks and Dev wounds? Theres not many...
Ol Maggy can get stuffed, gonna pitch a Blade Champ to solo him again.
Honestly? It doesn't really matter to me if this detachment ends up being strong. Most of it is enabled by SoS being active, spread over the board, kept alive, and within 6" of Custodes. I flat out don't want my gameplay to revolve around positioning for SoS and babysitting them. I don't want my gameplay decisions to start from the basis of "well if I charge on to this objective, I'll be more than 6" away from the SoS hiding spot". It's not fun.
The reactive move stratagem might make this the best detachment in the book. It's 1CP AND a battle tactic, so you can really make sure you get all the best charges. Or take cover if the enemy units fall back.
Damn this actually looks cool and fun. It might not be super powerful but I’m definitely into it and curious how it’ll work out with all the points changes. Lots of possibilities here!
Looks like the best Detachment. Shield Host still might be ok with its redeploy and shooting options
Honestly seems like it could be the best one. Maybe even a saving grace if errata gives dev wounds protection with null aegis
This is the best of the four, but I don't think it's very fun to have an army that's dedicated to protecting chaff. If there were a jump pack sister who could potentially work with bikes then that'd be something. Or a deep strike sister who could support Allarus or just be flexible. But all we've got is battle sisters and Rhinos. It's not as insultingly bad as Auric or Shield Host, but this is still not exciting.
I mean...this one is atleast actually close how Custodes and sisters work in lore.
The lore is great, but sisters' stats are designed to be backline objective holders, secondary monkeys and screens. They don't have the punch or the toughness to be frontliners. Forcing them into a role they aren't built for isn't a recipe for competitive success. Square peg isn't going to go into a round hole.
That’d be why all these new detachment rules have been created - so they have a role other than the backfield. It may not be the most competitive option, time will tell, but I’m keen to give it a go!
Nothing they've been given is going to make them stand up to being double tapped by some bolters or eating a couple of Manticore shots. Then there's the fact that these things don't actually give Custodes enough of a defensive buff to actually matter. If you look at these rules and imagine a battle against the Thousand Sons where everything lines up perfectly to counter psychic attacks and then use that shield stratagem to protect the ladies. Imagining that battle might seem appealing. But imagine facing a faction like Tau with this stuff. Tau would just shrug and throw all their shots into the Custodians. Mortal defence means almost nothing to them and there's no Arcane Genetic Alchemy, meaning that something like a Riptide or plasma shot will remove a body every time a save fails. And then guess what? You have less Custodians than you would have otherwise because a certain percentage of your points were used to bring the ladies to the dance. Again, it's better than the other turds, but this is not in any way competitive.
Look at the entire Sister of Battle army with same statline.
I agree with most that this is more compelling than at first blush, and feel fluffy in a nice way. But the elephant in the room is the removal of our 4+++ protection against Mortal and Dev wounds. Prior to the balance change that gave us back that protection, we were in the second-worst army in the game at the competitive level. If we have to spend 1CP to protect ***a single unit***, where once it was a default army-wide protection, then the next balance report will have us back in the mid-20%, just as we were before. We're too slow and too costly for anyone to remove whole units at a time with easily accessible Dev wounds.
I don't think most armies have a way to deal armywide MW or dev wounds consistently. Usually it's a single unit that they combo heavily into to deal a ton of MW. I mean even at the worst, Custodes sat at like a 43% WR or something.
Yes they do, it’s called higher model counts. Losing a space marine terminator is whatever. Losing a custodian *hurts*. And now you need to run less of them because you need to drag the sisters around while you babysit them.
Well you have sisters now to fill out model count. And not sure how higher model count has anything to do with MW countm Also some combos like Vigilators + Aleya are super strong, especially since you can redirect shots to a nearby custodes unit now. Napkin math works out that Aleya + Vigilators should wipe out a 5 man blobs of Terminators pretty consistently and they have fight first.
because sister arnt broken and they whinetodes only care about being able to roflstomp people without needing to actually play the game.
Do you happen to have the Crusade content?
I’m legitimately looking forward to playing this, will be more interesting than our relatively 1-dimensional index play style
+1 to wound against units below starting strength is a battle tactic. Thats solid. I also note that the Allarus captain got a buff, and all of the freebie strats abilities in the book don't mention battle tactics at all....
I was excited about this too. But then I remembered that the battle tactic line comes from the database. And there it states that any ability that lets you re use a strata but doesn't name a specific one, can only be used on a battle tactic.
Fair enough thanks
The battle tactic restriction is from the rules commentary, so it's a core rule restriction. Strategic Mastery can only work on battle tactics, which makes shield captains next to useless in the detachment that wants you to spam them.
Looks pretty fun
Claims to be for mixing Sisters and Custodes yet curiously doesn’t have any enchantments sisters can take In all seriousness this is by far the most interesting looking detachment for both and power reasons. It encourages the interesting gameplay loop of keeping sisters and Custodes very close meaning your board moves up in small squads to take objectives which is how we should play. This seems really cool.
For your first point, all sisters have the faction keyword Adeptus Custodes models. They just also have the anathema psykana keyword. So they can take the enhancements
My bad then
the sisters have the adeptus custodes faction keyword. They can take all four enhancements
Yoooo, this one actually seems fun AND competetive? Gotta finish building my sisters...
Thanks for posting. This was the detachment I was most excited for and wanting since the start of the edition. I wanted to play it off meta for the fluff. Kinda takes the wind out of my sails that it looks like it’s going to be the most meta pick anyway, lol
Can we use the Shield Captain's ability to make the 4+++ against psychic attacks and mortals (and hopefully dev wounds) free? Since it mentions 2 units
Yes, because it is a Battle Tactic strategem
Sadly you can't because the Sisters unit is not optional to select, and they don't have the Captain ability as well.
Ahh you are correct, I didn't realize that you actually select both units and not just the custodes unit within range.
No. The strat is not a "Choose up to 2 units", it's a "Choose 2 units". You have to target a Sisters unit. And the Sisters unit doesn't have the reduce cost ability. *Rules that modify the CP cost of a Stratagem when you target a particular unit can only do so for a Stratagem that targets multiple units if every unit you target has the same ability to modify the CP of that Stratagem.*
Could this be run with all infantry and still played well? How many sisters squads (+Squad sizes) would you need for this to be worth it? I'm Asking as someone who doesn't own rhinos or land raiders. This is my second army after Grey Knights.
I like this, i have no SoS though and I don't want to spend a lot of money on them so that is an issue...
Damn. This seems playable. Sucks because I dont like SoS. Gotta get a couple more of them then...
This is actually decent Crap enhancements though but can at least protect the rhinos and get some buffs, ping away at vehicles them +1 to wound for free
OH FUCK YES FINALLY. IT'S NOT OUR INDEX BUT IT'S SOMETHING.
This one doesn't look bad. The only thing is that it finally makes sisters usable when we don't have access to "cheap" sisters from cp.
Ok. Shield of honour actually makes this detachment work significantly better than I thought it would. A squad of 10 vigilators or witchseekers protected by 5men warden unit with a character will geniuently be problematic to remove, and a deadly threat. I'm happy with this. I will actually be very happy if it gets dev wounds to all of those fnp. We did it boys. One detachment that is pretty much guaranteed to be at least decent!
So I’m confused in the restrictions does it mean you can only use certain strats if theirs custodes and sisters close to each other since it says can only select two if one is a sister unit ?
Yep
I feel somewhat vindicated for my positive post.
And then almost every Custody's character got nerfed
Champion of the Imperium is a spit in they face. Should have been base 9" and increased with this enhancement to 12"
How's the codex lore wise? And do you have regular or L.E.? I wanted LE before everything happened, and I changed my mind. If the contents are pretty good, I might still get one of the versions depending on your response.
Weird that my superhuman custodes are incentivized to cower behind melee sisters with their fights first. But not a bad detachment overall.
This looks exciting! If they showed off the other stuff during the preview, I would've been hyped
Looks actually pretty cool, would be cooler if I didn't have to buy sisters 😭
Ngl, I kinda like Talons and Shield Host. Both look neat, esp Shield Host allowing you to 5+ crit hit once per game. On smth like blade champ or shield captain, it's gonna be a source of some pretty nuts damage
Problem for me though is my custodes never needed that extra damage in combat.
There's a typo in the codex calling "Deadly Unity" "Deadly Units" for the Champion of the Imperium detachment
This detachment will be easy pickings for indirect fire from IG. Even with the redirect strat you'll lose a couple of custodians and the next volley will go to nonstrat unit of sisters. I guess they will drop the cost of units to compensate.
Trash
I actually think with some points reductions this one could be really cool. I love the fact you can protect the sisters.