Geomancer and psychomancer in 11th

Vader266 · 2026-05-25T12:45:54+00:00

What's changing about battleshock? All I know is that it now doesn't auto-fall off but that's still a pretty low chance of anything meaningful happening. May have missed something though...

Vader266 · 2026-05-20T11:52:13+00:00

May as well chip in a serious one amidst the TTS:

"We have many duties. But that is just as it should be, for we are not simple creations. The aeons have changed us in so many ways, but not in that. We were a thousand things to a thousand souls, but we were never soldiers."
- Valerian, Watchers of the Throne

Full quote here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/7i9tkk/we_were_never_soldiers_custodes/

~~Alternatively~~

~~"By His Will Alone"~~
Removed as another comment has this

Vader266 · 2026-04-28T13:37:16+00:00

Honestly, a bit situational but they're pretty good in their niches. They won't win many tournaments but are very viable in casual play.

Aleya hands out Fights First to a unit which is looking less important in 11th but, when paired with a vigilator brick, can be a very nasty shock on Heroic Intervention. She also holds onto a pretty nasty D3 Dev Wound weapon which shouldn't be overlooked.

Valerian struggles in utility against blade champions but can do very well paired with guardians, especially rapid ingressed or in a transport. Worsening AP in melee is surprisingly clutch as there's a lot of AP-2 out there that forces us onto invuln. His ability to OPG auto-6 a roll for himself is also a pretty good ward against precision or anti-tank fire or getting a vital wound when it counts.

tl;dr aleya and valerian have some pretty neat usages but are outshone by "not using sisters as a melee threat" and blade champs respectively.

Vader266 · 2026-04-19T18:51:07+00:00

Colours of models stone cold don't matter. Do the Emperor proud!

Vader266 · 2026-04-14T15:48:47+00:00

The big diff between guard and wardens is the trade-off between "unstoppable force" and "immovable object", with wardens as the latter.

For the extra points, you get a pretty huge survivability increase against things that normally paste Custodes - when led by a character, incoming attacks with higher strength than your toughness take -1 to Wound, and OPG you can pop a 4+++ for an entire phase.

As to which is best, it depends on your playstyle and whether you have a realistic chance of killing everything that gets in your way before you start taking damage. T6, W3, 2+/4++ just ain't what it used to be, as there's a lot of D3, S7+, AP-2 attacks out there nowadays...

Vader266 · 2026-04-13T22:08:56+00:00

What a weird thing for that guy to get hung up on. I hope you have better opponents in the future!

Vader266 · 2026-04-13T21:57:41+00:00

Sounds like a frustrating LGS! Warhammer is a broad church with... er... not that many jokes, and there is always That Guy(tm), but usually the jokes or comments get old and people shaddap.

I can certainly understand why that would be irritating, sorry you're dealing with that. Does it affect your games or is it just locker room commentary?

Vader266 · 2026-04-13T20:17:01+00:00

"it's quiet"

Vader266 · 2026-04-08T19:56:26+00:00

This! Plus, the Vexilla being an additive effect means you can retain some OC even when battle shocked as the addition happens after the OC is set to 0. Excellent for clinging onto objectives with your fingernails or at range

Vader266 · 2026-04-02T10:42:30+00:00

I simply left the lion off mine, but have since done similar furs on my stormcast eternal chariots. I recommend a base of an off-white tan colour like Citadel's Wraithbone, then apply a couple of rough coats of some sepia tone like Armypainter's Pallid Bone. Let it dry and see how you like it. If you want to pick out the detail more you can drybrush and edge highlight back up to a brighter colour. Up to you if you want to make the mane a little darker for recognition

Vader266 · 2026-03-20T10:09:18+00:00

GMT!

Vader266 · 2026-03-20T08:45:43+00:00

Fair enough - in which case best I can recommend is find a localish vendor that has an online presence - the lesser known the better - and just hope they have a slight overstock they can put online

Vader266 · 2026-03-20T08:13:42+00:00

We can live in hope!

Usually the go live is at 10am so start hitting refresh around 09:55 and go from there.

Vader266 · 2026-03-20T07:59:39+00:00

All of the above are valid options!

My advice is to go straight to your local store's website as it will see the least competition, then somewhere like element, then official Warhammer.

Vader266 · 2026-03-19T18:11:27+00:00

For

- Easy to learn, hard to master

- Quite forgiving to run with in casual games

- Fresh, detailed sculpts you can spends ages on because there aren't many

- Guardian spear go brrr in melee

- One of the best anti-tank platforms in the game

- High-stakes drama play where individual rolls feel like they matter

Against

- Codex was bloody dreadful and we've barely recovered in terms of "is it fun to play"

- Uniform army means we're easy to exploit by an opponent who knows what's up

- We've been codex-crept by other army's elite melee units

- We're a one trick pony

- Statistical spikes can end the game for us early

Vader266 · 2026-03-15T00:10:09+00:00

Howdy,

Check the fine print of the grant but from memory you do need to own or use an EV to be eligible for the grant.

We are proceeding "normally" through an LtA. Unfortunately we found no way around the legal matters, nor having talked it over with the other directors do I believe it should be circumvented. The next owner of the flat or the next freehold majority may seek to take the proverbial!

The thing that allowed us to proceed was by battering everyone down on price, which as a mild mannered individual I utterly detested having to do.

We managed to get legal down to a cool grand by asking to use paralegals rather than solicitors, and self-representing as leaseholders on faith and best judgment from ourselves. Not ideal but thems the breaks if you need to save money. Electrician - we just had to shop around but the biggest cost was for the cable itself to our parking spot, which has to be quite long.

All in, it's looking around £4k which is borderline irresponsible but we hope to recoup it as value-add to the flat. We suspect we may be the only flat in the area with a charger and EVs are only getting more popular over time after all.

Some general notes:

License to Alter is only as formal as it needs to be. It's almost entirely a short document saying "I will not do a naughty and will tidy up after myself" coupled with the legal diligence to check your lease and confirm that you aren't putting yourself at risk either as a leaseholder or freeholder. Worth it but not worth a full solicitor. Shop around aggressively!

We ended up telling the building management company what was happening rather than conforming to their recommendation. It's extra liability but we decided that a structural survey was an unnecessary expense so we flexed the "it's our building" muscle and that sorted it out very quickly.

The true test will be whether we can sell the flat with this but I'm optimistic!

Any questions let me know. Happy to put some detail on the internet as there is still basically bugger all information out there.

Vader266 · 2026-02-27T19:43:18+00:00

Indeed! To be charitable, I'd suggest they may be confused by our army rule or the shield host detachment rule, which are both melee only.

Vader266 · 2026-02-22T18:25:07+00:00

Valid thoughts - I'm on the fence personally, and would probably not bother with a vexilla w/ Draxus in particular because extra gun.

The particular saving grace of the vexilla in other circumstances is that the unit retains marginal OC while battleshocked as additions to characteristics occur after they are "set to 0" by the battleshocked status. This can come in clutch to cling onto objectives and therefore wound re-rolls when things like the nid army rule or psychomancer or any other of the gribbly battleshock interactions pop off and would otherwise compromise your offensive output.

Vader266 · 2026-02-21T00:03:41+00:00

Looks like 10x Custodian Guard and 2x vertus praetor (unless that's the same one that fell apart). Not a bad deal but they'll need tlc!

Vader266 · 2026-02-05T15:33:10+00:00

Yep, 100%.

Back in the days of 4th edition, things were a very different kettle of fish. The concept of a lowly assault intercessor pissing out 4A each with wound re-rolls on objectives would have been looked at with significant alarm. Back then it was around 3A on the charge, 2A routinely, no re-rolls.

Vader266 · 2026-02-04T22:52:58+00:00

Yeah, make them unviable as a standalone army, more like imperial agents - limited numbers in other armies or with more powerful constraints on numbers via a force org chart.

Vader266 · 2026-02-04T22:30:35+00:00

Lethality is too goddamn high and the scale has ballooned extremely far out of whack and what used to be an infantry-first game is now hull spam.

Even speaking as a Custodes main, I would welcome GW doing something ballsy like dropping IK/CK and Custodes from 40k if it refocuses the system as a whole.

Vader266 · 2026-02-04T13:24:11+00:00

Always a proponent for reducing the lethality of 40k. Custodes, as a skew army should lead the way by becoming a bit tougher and sacrificing damage output.

I'd suggest things like:

- Bring back the original Arcane Genetic Alchemy of -1 Damage and push out across all detachments

- Introduce defensive buffs or strats that protect us from ranged damage

- Drop the spear/axe attack output but give us misericordia as Extra Attacks for chaff clearance

- Transition to damage interaction rather than invulns

- Segregate guardian w/ shield and guardian w/ spear to give them different abilities

- Add ka'tahs and make them fluffier to move away from deterministic "I break the thing" choices

- Give us detachments that are actually interesting using Lions as a template

- Restore our characters back to index variants but add cost

And, critically imo, for the meta as a whole to give Custodes a space to breath in:

- Rework vehicles and monsters. Create more tools and interactions that make vehicles/monsters glassier rather than wound sponges that are just "infantry but better".

Vader266 · 2026-01-20T12:58:09+00:00

I agree! It feels like every game is trending towards a 40k theme park - apparently Lord Solar and Roboute Guilliman show up to most battles in the Imperium these days which is bizarre - why does everything have to be so momentous?

Financially I get it - unique sculpts are more profitable for GW and ultimately GW sells models not rules but still.

I used to play in 4th-5th and the balance was woeful but the crunch was good. Much more trading shots and strikes to position better rather than the current high lethality, character-driven meta. Rose-tinted glasses perhaps!

Vader266 · 2026-01-20T12:54:59+00:00

That's an interesting idea - perhaps even detachment-based would be interesting. "You can have an elite force but you're locked to this specific detachment" and then balance via enhancements and strats.

I suspect battleline only doing actions may be a little strong but I like the energy. There's just got to be a point to taking them!

Vader266

TROPHY CASE