I've been joking about this sense the release of the Indexes but now I'm actually sure that GW has 3 different teams making the rules, none of them talk to each other and one doesn't even play the game.

I find it bizarre that the Custodes codex feels like it was written by people who've never touched a Custodes model in their life, whereas the Ork codex feels like some Ork models on a shelf at GW's HQ came to life, got access to a computer, said "Oi, watch this lads!" And proceeded to type out a wildly fun codex and send it to print without GW noticing it

9th ed: Oh my gawd! my codex is coming!!! Imma gunna roflstomp all you fools!!! 10th ed: Oh dear lord! my codex is coming... think I might take a break for a bit...

As an Admech and a Custodes player I cant believe how my two beloved armies have been on the recieving end of two disaster codexes

Turning them into a yet another horde army would fix nothing, they would still be boring and weirdly fragile, you'd just have more of them

Henry Cavill is about 2 days away from driving to Nottingham with a pair of brass knuckles on him.

"Eventually GW will buff them via a future balance pass" *laughs in admech*

A huge missed opportunity to not have the old strategem 'Unleash the Lions' to split up your Allarus Terminator squads in the hero hammer detachment.

While the rules are pretty dreadful (I did laugh seeing the comment "I guess we know what the guy who wrote the Admech codex did next") and remember - it's only half a codex, rushed out without the necessary supporting plastic kits to complete the army (Telemon, melee Contemptor variants, saggitarum, hover transport etc). The same issue as World Eaters - GW's approach of not releasing rules for unreleased kits or FW only kits in their codexes really harms the viability of both forces. Finally - we don't want cheap custodes, we want powerful, expensive custodes...

As a Dark Angels player I sympathize. I do wonder at the wisdom of having every-other codex be one that players wish didn't happen.

Orks: six detachments which are different, thematic, lore friendly, fun and very fitting for the faction. Custodes: four detachments which are lore friendly (but doesn't work so well in game), boring, nerfs across the board and nothing to excite anyone, and are a hyper elite army that feels fragile and weak (the overabundance of Devastating Wounds I think contributes to this). We're in the situation where people seem to be dreading their codex release, rather than getting hyped for it. This isn't a good place for the fan base to be in.

-Just fire the ppl behind the custodes codex design. -Hire more ppl like those behind the ork codex design. /fixed

I love the sentiment of "if they're weak after, they'll get buffs" as if GW hasn't completely ignored Admech players since our release and has been pretty tight lipped about DA. Custodes will be at the back of the queue... So probably about 6 - 9 months away from these supposed buffs. Which will probably just be points drops anyway.

It lacks flavour, we wanted solar watch, dread host. SOMETHING. Instead we got sisters of silence in 2 of our 4 detachments without any new releases. A one phase per game detachment and a very lacklustre character detachment that seems to not work. The fact basically all our units catch at least minor nerfs doesn’t help ether

"Whats playtesting?" -GW team, probably

I would rather have some really good rules for custodes, but than have them cost more points. I think having more custodes with wores rules kind of defeats the point of the army and makes it less fun

Fire everyone who did the Stodes codex, and give the Ork Boyz a raise!

Between the nerfs and heated arguments about sudden introduction of female custodes, it feels like online Custodes groups have imploded over the weekend.

The biggest problem to me is that this codex just feels like a collection of patch notes for the last codex. There is no evolution, nothing is more fun, we are just standing in place and paying to be there.

You missed the fact that the new shield host faction ability is at the start of a round, so if you go second the opponent has an entire round of getting out of the way and making it difficult for you to get a use out of it.

In my crusade group we have two Custodes Mains. They have quit the crusade. ... Yeah people seem to not be happy with the new codex.

All custodes units across the board get a point decrease. You can now field 3 more custodes guards on average. Players: if i wanted to play hords i play tyranids.

Nerfs and buffs come and go But only 4 fucking detachment with 2 of them that need SoS Thats really disapointing

Like I said before, Auric Detachment needed Lone Operative/Stealth for the Characters, Sisters of Silence needed more unit types if they were going to be pushed like this, and stop recycling abilities into Stratagems and come up with new stuff instead of repeating things.

I think the problem is that custodes HAS to be tankier otherwise a bad roll and all of them are dead. Which affects them a lot since they are a small army I mean in the lore, a custodes with his head half bashed in could still hold back an entire horde of daemon in the webway so FNP makes sense???

Just cancelled my order. My army will now be Heresy only.

Really makes me want to stop buying any miniatures at all until my codex comes out.

- GW changes lore to include female custodes. - Codex is extremely weaker compared to last codex. (What did GW mean by this?)

At least for my local we thought for sure a bike detachment a terminator detachment and a solar guard detachment but gw went above and beyond that somehow missed the easy dub to instead did the classic piss everyone off option

Maybe GW should test-release a faction's codex (like a digital index) before enshrining it in a hardback book.

I hope the Grey Knights codex is written by the same team that wrote the Orks codex. Definitely they have an "A" team and "B" team writing codexes.

Classic "Points have not yet been released". Didn't help Dark Angels or Admech much. I think we can safely assume that's not going to alleviate any pain when it arrives.

“Put a woman in it and make it gay.” -Kathleen Kennedy, codex author.

I think power level is one thing, but removing fun rules and flavour is the worst bit. I don't think people would have minded sidegrades if they were cool different rules and made sense, but they didn't get sidesgrades, they literally got nerfed repeatedly, nothing was given in compensation and the whole codex feels like it is written by someone who doesn't understand how Custodes play and what they need to be fun and competitive. The whole point of them are they are these super elite tanky soldiers, they should feel like characters in their own right and with the FNPs and dev.mortal wound protection they did, removing each Custode was hard, but they only have like 20 guys so losing each one is also meaningful. Reducing points removes the feel of the army. That is my main worry, I can't see them being fixed to being more fun and flavourful, I can't see them adding a new detachment with new stratagems, it'll be a few erratas and points drops at best IMO and they will be stuck like this for the rest of the edition.

The custards have a crap codex because it's the cheapest army to collect and they want you to buy a horde army. That's why the Ork book is good. The next GK book will also be bobbins.

When Femstodes are unironically the main addition of your codex you know somethings up.

My LGS ran out of allocation for the Ork box and still have 7 left for Custodes. Says a lot

We got 4 detachments. 2 of them are unplayable. 1 requires you to run a lot of sisters to get your detachment rule but they removed battleline from prosecutors. And the last only has a detachment rule for 1 round out of 5.

I feel like this is very similar to the Votann at the start of tenth. They just gutted the entire army, gave them nothing to replace what they gutted, and they're probably just going to go crazy on the points decreases once the tournament results show how shit they are.

GW is one of those rare companies that consistently makes it look like writing rules for a game is so hard it's nearly impossible. Give me 2 people to help me write the books and 8 people to play test and I'll write you the best damn 40k rule set you've ever seen in one year.

All the once per game abilities have been the problem I've heard most

I just hate that half of our detachements are based on SOS when, i honestly dont play custodies for them yet GW seems to be trying to push them without giving them any new tools to actually make them intresting

Deliberate nerf to reduce points to increase models to make more money. Custodes were too much in a £ to point value.

Horus was right, let the galaxy burn!

This has really put me off. The way I see GW and factions is the current cycle: Make Faction OP>Form Meta>People buy models to keep up with curve>GW Nerf>Make you chase new meta. Obvioulsy meta chasing isn't what the game is about, but if something is "Cool" and "Strong" people will want to play it. Also the sheer focus on SOS clearly shows that they want people buying the models. I do not want to play Custodes and have 90% of it be a horde of SOS, just turn them into their own faction and be done with it.

I think the Custodes being the “easy and cheap to get into” faction is a contributing factor to the reaction of the Custodes codex being bad. That means it’s disproportionately popular and also disproportionately the only army that some (eg new) players have invested in. As such, their (ie my) options are to have a weak army with maybe one meh option for detachment, to just walk away for a bit, or spend 600+$ on models (not counting the paint and time) for a new army.

I fucking hate the dynamic of buying phyical codices with the next digital change just around the corner. This is such a waste of ressources.

A thing to note about rules changes is that outside of erratas, GW has yet to change any rule that has come out in a codex. To this point, codices have been set in stone and only get points adjustments. Plenty of things in SM and Tyranid desperately need to be changed but it hasn't happened. My money is on the idea that they just become Golden Space Marines at this point. Maybe they go back to hyper elite next edition, but they seem to have given up balancing them as they were.

Even Mia Malkova complained about the Codex What the hell, I would have thought about Henry Cavill reaction instead

The crazy thing is that people are buying this shit. These things have like what 20% of the rules and options they had in 9th and are the same price. If idiots keep buying it they will keep doing it.

As a CSM player, kinda scared atm - please GW just put whoever wrote Orks on the next codex...

Admech, Dark Angels, now Custodes. Not looking good for Imperium players. Jump into the biofurnaces with me my friends, become dynast partisans and become one with the infinite empire.

Frankly I don’t want our points cut, having custodes cost less than 50 points per model feels gross and wrong, they are supposed to be a host of heroes. This also leads into my disappointment with the auric champions, I was so hyped when I saw that other factions gave once per battle abilities to all their characters at the start of tenth, and that the same was given to EVERY custodes. Really made it feel like every custodian was a champion. And then auric champions comes along and says ‘actually these other custodes are chumps’. It would have been so cool if it leaned even furthur into the ‘everyone is a hero’ custodes fantasy.

It just occurred to me. Between these nerfs and the retcon, GW is trying to turn the Custodes into 40k's answer to Stormcast Eternals. If they tried pulling any of this with Space Marines, it'd end in diaaster and GW knows it. But hey, SCE fans have something to do with their newly squatted minis.

GW sending a clear message to Cavill

Getting an extra unit of guard in a 2k point game doesn’t make the rules feel less boring. The Orks have cool and different detachments that look viable and fun. Custodes look boring AND bad.

It feels especially bad since custodes index was the one that felt the most accurate in playstyle and flavour to hiw it should feel and look to play Custodes. Now... Now we feel like someone heard what custodes are supposed to be, but didn't think through the consequences of what it means

I think I’m just going to use the index now. Thanks GW, you ruined Custodes for the rest of the edition.

Null Maidens could of been so much fun. The stratagems and design of the support is laughably pitiful. In fact, I'll do it in like 20 minutes. - The Eagle Takes Flight - 1 CP. End of Shooting. One Psykana unit within 3 inches of a Psykana transport that has capacity for the unit. That unit embarks the transport. If this unit shot a Psyker or Battle Shocked unit this phase, refund 1 CP. - Immense Abhorrence - 1 CP. Charge Phase. One target Psykana unit that is the target of a charge. The enemy unit attempting to charge the Psykana unit must make a leadership test. On success, that unit is Battle Shocked. On failure, that unit is Battles Shocked and unable to include the target Psykana unit as part of a charge. - On Blackest Wings - 1 CP. Charge Phase. One target Psykana unit. This unit may advance and charge. If this unit successfully charges a Psyker or Battle Shocked unit, roll 6d6. On each +4 the charged enemy unit takes 1 mortal wound. - Purifying Blades - 2 CP. Start of the Fight Phase. One target Psykana unit. That unit gains Fights First. If that unit is in combat with a Psyker or Battle Shocked enemy unit, it also gains Reroll Wounds. - Tithe Secured - 1 CP. Start of the Command Phase. One target objective you control. This objective has now been "Tithed" to the Emperor. You retain control of the objective until an enemy unit gains control at the start or end of any phase. While this objective is "Tithed" all Psykana units within 3 inches of the center of the objective count has having +1 Objective Control and having a +5 Invulnerable Save. - Somnus Armory - 1 CP. Shooting Phase. One target Psykana unit that has not shot yet. All ranged weapons gain +2 AP until end of phase. Choose one enemy unit that suffered lost wounds as a result of target Psykana unit' shooting. That enemy unit must take a Battle Shock test and if it fails, 1d3 additional mortal wounds.

I liked Custodes because they’re an elite army. Don’t need to paint and move about a larger number of models. I don’t want points cuts, I want better rules.

Welcome to the club! That's how Dark Angels players feel after getting screwed by our codex

My biggest complaint about the Codex is that nearly all the buss we got are ones we did not need and should not have gotten. Axes getting buffed is good for flavor reasons, and the allarus captain's new special rule is more useful than the old fight-on-death. The thing is, most of the buffs we got are some form of damage increase, and primarily a melee one. For any other army, that would be great. But we already kill everything in melee. We need shooting and durability, the latter of which the codex very specifically takes away.

Really glad I dropped out for 10th Edition. Appears its very underwhelming, was annoyed when my Raven Guard and Crimson Fists lost their codex (Crimson Fists used imperial fist one). I think GW has focused on stripping back rules and simplification too much.

Auric exemplars is on the right track towards what they SHOULD be, but obviously still far from the mark. Custodes legitimately should play like infantry knights in a way. Maybe if they made the detachment rule "double a characters attacks and wounds profile if it is not attached to a unit" that would be solid.

GW: We are realising a new custodes codex. Commuinty: Wonderfel! Do we get better detachemts? New units? GW: NO Commuinty: So what do we get? GW: Well now we have women custodes

To charcterise the shield host rule as a side grade is way off the mark. You have to call it at the start of the battle round which means it is useless unless you go first.

I'd like to see when the balance dataslate comes up, if a rule applys protection against mortal wounds, it protects against dev wounds as well

I think I made a mistake getting into this hobby. 😢 Im feeling the sunk cost fallacy pretty hard lol

After knights these should be the most elite of all Armies...instead we got the same problem as with everything: Buy as much stuff as possible to get to your points.

They will become an horde army as many others, just to sell more models. The company that only cares about making good minis, has to sell even more somehow...

I think the better question is why are the overwhelming majority of codexes dissapointing? Space Marines and Tyranids were ok, but Necrons have such disjointed rules that they can only take a couple detachments because the other work (I'm currently debating getting rid of my Crons because I like Vehicle heavy lists and vehicles do not get detavhment rules). Dark Angels was AWFUL, almost zero fluff, Azrael is the only usable character, and the Primarch is an in-lore Avatar of Khaine (absolutely useless because a grot can kill him). Ad Mec who? They were praying for something after a bad index and were given a horde aemy points with kits that are more expensive in dollars than points. Cutodes are just a drop in the bucket of AWFUL rules in 10th. Making rules be paid has only made the lackluster indexes even worse.

I don't want a golden Deathwing Army...

I feel like they're going to errata the mW saves into dev wounds saves, which will probably make Talons of the emperor quite good, but like still left with 1 ok detatchment and 2 bad ones.

It was probably meant as a sacrifice. Admech and Necrons came. Admech lame, Necrons yeah!, much funny stuff! Now Custodes and Orks came, again the Xenos got a funny and nice Codex. So I hope when my beloved Aeldari come, there will be another imperial Codex along with them as a sacrifice, so they will have a nice codex.

Hello Auspex Tactics, thank you for the bulletpoint presentation in your videos. It is immensely helpful to catch up with what is going on, even when there is no time/place to watch a video.

The problem with pulling armies out of the "underpowered" zone is that they try doing this mostly by points decreases and very rarely by actual datasheet/rules changes. It worked for Drukhari, Death Guard and Votann because they got both rules changes and points decreases. Admech on the other hand haven't gotten any rule/datasheet changes that I'm aware of since their codex was released and are now so cheap pointswise, that you basically have to sell a kidney and your firstborn to get an army that then only works because it just has more stuff than your opponent can deal with. What they actually need is to have every datasheed re-evaluated, re-written and then have their poinst increased back to a level were you can sensibly collect the army without being a CEO in a major business. That would kinda defeat the point of Custodes, who are supposed to be the most elite of elite forces in the 40K universe. Plus, I think a huge selling point for Custodes apart from the lore and the models is the fact that they are by far the cheapest army to collect and one of the easiest to paint, which makes them a great starter or secondary army. I get that it's in the interest of GW to sell as many models as possible but I think there should be at least one army that is somewhat affordable.

I had a look and it's like they literally just put some "S" infront of "he" and like a mini paragraph shoved in there. And there you go, that'll be 45€ plus shipping.

Somewhere I heard the rules are about 6 months from design to print. So I assume the rules were written back at the beginning of 10th when them and Aldary were at the top. Not sure if this is true though.

Losing ASF and -1 damage strats has changed this factions play style. Even if the damage output was doubled, it won't feel the same playing them now.

Can't believe they did Henry Cavil dirty like this

Still baffles me why they won't give the Venerable Contemptor access to all the weapon options the plastic Contemptor kit has. It was based on the old easy to build one that only came with those 2 weapon options, but now... Feels like they just copy/paste the datasheet from older codexes and call it a day :(

Sorry for the rant in advance. "Even if they do end up releasing super weak...considering them a right off for the rest of 10th edition is very premature indeed." I don't disagree with your logic and I'd like to share that sentiment as someone who typically hates cynical behavior. But all that said, editions tend to last about 3 years and if 10th is the same then it's already 1/3 over. The codex doesn't get into peoples hands with the launch box for like another 2 weeks and they codex probably won't go live till another 2 weeks after that. Meaning that custodes won't get a balance update for another 3-4 months in the one after the upcoming one at the earliest. If they did what they did with admech and necrons, they'd probably wait till the balanced data-slate after even that to attempt to fix them. GW also tends to be subtle with their changes and that usually means it takes a few balance passes to actually get things right. Assuming custodes only need two of them, that would be yet another 3 months to fix them properly. Meaning that the army is going to be in a not great spot for 10 months or almost a whole year. Or in other words, another 1/3 of the edition. This means the best realistic scenario is that custodes players only will actually get to enjoy their codex for the last year in the entirety of 10th edition.

I didn't expect to see Auspex take a dig at the "Femstodes" thing but holy crap, my day is made. It really does put into perspective how utterly worthless a change that is. The entire codex sucks, but hey, Custodes can also be girls now because that's what we really needed. Never change.

I feel the person or persons who wrote the Custodes codex wrote them sometime early in 10th when they were strong, just after they had their areses handed to them in game. The rule changes feel bitter to me, like vindictive towards Custodes players, taking away all their best rules and fun stuff.

There is no point in discussing the Custodes Codex without addressing the female Banana in the room. Instead of writing a book where SoS could be effectively Custodes-ized to create a female Custodes and buff the sisters side they decided it was better to just lie and call their core fanbase slurs. You can’t compare the negativity around this codex with any other.

I will just port my Custodes to Horus Heresy! GW has mess up Custodes 3 damn times.

The crazy thing is we've seen how much the custodes strength in this edition relies on them being able to endure the volume of dev wounds available in 10th. Having it they were amongst the top armies in the game, when removed the sunk to the bottom. To take that away and also cut or nerf a fair amount of the rules from their units and stratagems whilst giving them weak detachments is going to make the drop worse than just taking away the fnp. Just slashing points costs for the army is an incredibly lazy way to attempt to rebalance an army they just dumpstered and would just stink of a blatant attempt to try to get people spending more money, the SoS detachment already looks that way as it would be incredibly expensive to build and would still be terrible. If the fnp was such a big deal in terms of making custodes a top army change it from 4+ to a 5+ and see what changes, going from 50% to 33% success chance is not insignificant.

It's just SO BORING! When i looked at the subfactions in the 9th ed codex, there were interesting rules and combos that gave me ideas for trying new army comps or strats. These are just... Boring. Sure you can just adjust with power, or add Deva wound protection to the MW ones, but so what? I don't look at these and think "okay, so now i can do XYZ which i couldn't otherwise, that opens new posibilities". Add to that: If GW is just gonna rubberband my armys pts cost and size all over the place, then i cba buying their stuff. It's just such a cheap and transparent sales strategy, like wth do I do when you fix it back in the future and I have ten times more models than I will ever Field? Sadbadstodes.

Watched the GW battle report between new custodes and Orks and the custodes got owned. I was surprised by how lame they were.

As a deathwatch player I pray I get the codex last. Even this index is preferable to the turd that DA and custodes have been

The key here is, as Auspex stated, the lack of new interesting things. Whether its strong or not, I'm not excited by any of the stuff here. The new model wasn't even really new. It was just a new wargear option.

What kit does the model from the thumbnail come from?

The problem with cutting their points is that they stop being an elite army. I want my Custodes to cost 60 points per model. I also want them to PERFORM like a 60 point model.

The null maiden task force is so disappointing - it’s a great idea. I’m always for giving the lesser part of a faction something to give them a sense of identity to somewhat stand as their own thing but this was just so badly thought-out. It was one of those rare times when they went too hard into fluff maybe?

"Atleast we got female custodes" Auspex coming in with that bucket of petrol for the housefire that is the codex ^^ .I'am starting to dread for when my armies get their codexies >.> . Who would have thought you would kinda want them to stay on index xD

"put a chick in it and make it lame" - Carmen 😂

> adds female custodies > nerfs them What does GW mean by this?

The real issue for me is we waited this long for our codex using 10th edition datasheets.... And now we FINALLY GOT OUR CODEX! And all they did was nerf, and take away alot of stuff.. which sure cool but you didnt really add anything except sisters support.. NOBODY PLAYS CUSTODES FOR SISTERS OF SILENCE!! But to my point NOW were stuck with this awful codex for probably another 2-3 years after we just waited over a year for this codex. Also saying custodes are coming off a 55% win rate is misleading as hell to me. Just take away their 4+FNP to Dev. Wounds keep what was fun so we can drop back to 38% but have our fun. And we can be left alone.. Rather have that.

I really hope for a errata or FAQ like the drukhari and give Custodes a new detachement (just pick the index one or something similar and we are good).

Would love if they reversed it. Un-horded. Fewer modells with tankier stats and FNP. Then some sisters for objectives. We don't want another spacemarine with gold paint. The guards should be stronger and better then standard terminators, and allarus should be almost at a dreadnought level. And ofcourse points should follow.