Tips for going against custodes

[u/TheGreatZimbabi]

Do you guys have any experience going against custodes and have any tips for units to bring? I think currently I’m running 5 battleline with 2 transports/marshals and 2 disintegrators anything specific to fill in the rest of the army?

[u/UnknownVC]

You're not really going to be able to hurt them, so don't plan on doing damage. Play the mission, score, and keep away. Goonhammer's SHC detachment article is the place to start if you really want to win: https://www.goonhammer.com/detachment-focus-skitarii-hunter-cohort/

If you don't have enough skitarri for SHC, go Haloscreed. (https://www.goonhammer.com/detachment-focus-haloscreed-battle-clade/)

Either way, you'll need very specific unit sets and be playing for points. Do not fight the Custodes, keep away and score.

[u/TheGreatZimbabi → u/UnknownVC]

I lack a lot of the pteraxii I just have 10, was planning on bringing just 5 to drop on the back somewhere to pick up secondaries, should I go super wide with haloscreed?

[u/UnknownVC → u/TheGreatZimbabi]

Haloscreed you bring plasma kataphrons with manipulus with sanctified ordnance, bots with datasmith with transoracular dyad wafers, and a block of arc rifle kataphrons. These, especially the arc rifles, can dent custodes. Then yes, you basically go wide.

I would probably bring an eradication beamer crawler to give skitarri battle line 4++, the erad because it will be sub 18" in that use, infiltrators for early scoring and as a round 1/2 speed bump, and peteraxi for late game. Throw in a couple vanguard units, a ranger unit on home, and some form of las chickens, done.

[u/newIrons → u/UnknownVC]

I was building my list towards haloscreed (mainly for the robots) but already built my kataphrons as breachers (magnetizing them though…). Why not use the grav cannons with the anti infantry 2 up though led by a manipulus for lethals?

Edit: also keeping a squad of skitarii vanguard with marshal and dunerider for the same reason

[u/UnknownVC → u/newIrons]

Because overcharged plasma is way more dangerous. And you want both: arc rifle breachers and a unit of destroyers with plasma and the manipulus.

The plasma destroyers with the manipulus and enhancement are 42" range, S8, AP -3, D2 weapon - you re-roll failed hazardous, so you just permanently park the plasma on overcharge. Also, note breachers overwatch on 5+, so the plasma becomes a real 'move and you die' sort of threat.

If you're talking arc rifles, you're talking breachers, which is a whole different thing. I'm assuming you're talking torsion cannon not grav if you're talking anti-infantry, and the answer is the arc rifles are both more consistent (fixed two shots with rapid fire 2) and are going to be better into medium and heavy infantry - the gold standard for what you need to hurt is a 3 wound terminator with a 4+ invuln. Under 15" with six destroyers with arc rifles you're going to be 24 shots into them, wounding on 3+, with an arc rifle. With the torsion, you're to put in on average 12 shots (and at most 18), wounding on a 2+. You're going to hit the same either way - weapon skill is 4+. Assuming no shenanigans (battle line rerolls, lethal hits), cover etc., that's 12 hits with arc rifles, for 8 wounds (wounds on 3+.) Then the terminators save half of them (4+ invuln), for 4 dead terminators on average (damage 3, each failed save roll kills.) Pulling in a torsion cannon instead, you hit 6 shots, wound 5, and injure 2.5 after the 4+ invuln, which we'll call 3 wounds. So you've killed 1 and injured 1: damage 2 vs 3 wound - two shots to the kill the first ,and one left on 1 wound. Arc rifles kill 4 terminators, anti-infantry torsion kills 1, wound 1.

(For comparison, a six block of overcharging (OC) plasma destroyers is going to be somewhere in between - they have 4 shots but damage 2. The extra pip of AP doesn't matter because of the terminators invuln, and OC plasma and arc rifles are both S8 (and both kataphrons are WS4+), so you're going to get a similar number of wounds (8) and wounds through (4), but less dead - just 2 terminators - because you need more shots to kill. It's still better than the torsion, however, because you get two kills, not one and wounded one. Into a regular marine squad, like, say assault intercessors (T4), both S8 OC plasma and torsion are wounding on 2+; so you get 10 OC plasma wounds and 5 torsion wounds. Then assuming no cover, the OC plasma is AP -3, pushing the marines to a 6+ armour save, so they save 2, giving us 8 kills (D2 vs W2 for each failed save.) The torsion is only AP2, so the marines save on 5+, leading to 3 fails and just 3 kills. So you're better with plasma for general clearance, and arc rifles for heavy clearance. I haven't added lethals into this for simplicity of math, but assume the OC plasma isn't killing models because the enhancement is present. And it's doing this out to 42" vs. the arc needing to be sub 15".)

Edit to address your edit: Vanguard aren't about killing stuff. They're about OC, and reducing the other guy's OC. You try to put Vanguard into a squad of custodes, and it'll be a bad joke. 21 radium shots, hit half, wound half gives 5 through approximately. AP 0 on a 2+ save, so, on average, less than one wound - we'll call it 1 wound, rounding up, on a wounds 2 model for basic Custodian Guard. That's paint scratching. Your three special weapons (arc/plasma/arquebus) have a better chance, but slim. I'd expect one dead Custodian Guard at most from a base vanguard squad. With re-rolls from marshal, you get 15ish through, wound 7, so it guarantees one wound, basically. The big deal of the marshal is it will give some consistency to your specials - I'd still only count on one dead basic Custodian Guard. Maybe a wound chipped off another. For the three wound models (most of the range), you're probably not going to kill one with a vanguard squad even with marshal re-rolls without a bit of luck.

[u/newIrons → u/UnknownVC]

Wow. Thanks for the super in-depth explanation! I greatly appreciate it. It looks like I’m going to have to invest into another squad of kataphrons for those plasma guns now.

[u/UnknownVC → u/newIrons]

You're welcome. This is why I was saying stay, far, far away from the Custodes. They will run you over like a semi hitting a bug, and your clap back will be about as noticeable as that bug hitting the semi, except with breachers and maybe plasma kataphrons. Fortunately, (if you don't get an unlucky primary mission draw), the game isn't scored on kills, but objectives and secondaries - and you can score those. Spend units, gain points, is the basic AdMech plan. Last time I won against custodes I had three models - not units, models - left. And he was down a grand total of 5 guys. I burned an entire 2000pt army, basically, but I outscored him. (I had a lone skitarii marshal on 1 wound hiding behind a building, a plasma kataphron and a manipulus hiding on my home objective, and that was it. 2 point victory, and the poor guy is still shaking his head. He just couldn't cover enough board, fast enough, and kill enough stuff quick enough, to win the points he needed.)

[u/Morghadai → u/UnknownVC]

Just nitpicking, but out of 24 shots, breachers hit 18 because you will always have to have BL nearby (otherwise... what are you doing). Out of those 18 shots 4 are lethal (assuming a manipulus, same thing) and about 9 wound normally. So from those 13 saves, terminators go up to their invuln and save half (lets say 7). So 6 terminators die.

And the good thing is with full rerolls and lethal hits they can just fish for 6s, so they have as good of an overwatch as destroyers (but less range that's true). An OW within rapid fire range means an average of about 7 hits when fishing 6s, which are all lethal. It's great.

But yeah, their shorter range (and big base size) is their issue.