Age of Darkness-Warhammer 30k/2.0 Tactics/Legio Custodes Tactics

"The universe has many horrors yet to throw at us. This is not the end of our struggle. This is just the beginning of our crusade to save Humanity. Be faithful! Be strong! Be vigilant!"

– The Emperor

This is the current tactics page for the Legio Custodes in HH 2.0. The 1.0 tactics can be found here

For the generals on how to play the game and the basics on listbuilding (as well as other tactica rules), you may want the General tactics page. You may also find the Horus Heresy general thread as "/HHG/" on /tg/.

Why play the Legio Custodes

Because in an age where Space Marines are the standard troops, you shall stand out as the elite. Because while the Astartes turned traitor, you're loyalty shall never be questioned. Because you are the real "finest Warriors" in this universe. Because gold never goes out of style. Because your Troops put Legion terminators to shame, and your Terminators can kill Space Marine ICs in single combat.

And because you're one of the few 30k factions with a decent amount of your range available in plastic.

Pros

• Your basic Line infantry are M8", WS/BS/S/T 5, 2W, I5, 4A with 2+ armour saves and 6++ Invuln saves.
• Most of your infantry get access to AP2 at initiative weapons BASE.
• You have a fair few plastic kits, and since your army is so points expensive building an army can be pretty cheap.
• WS6 Dreadnoughts.
• Gold is easy to paint and looks good.
• Agents of the Emperor gives you access to quite a few assets, including Assassins, the Silent Sisterhood (though you can't do the old Talons of the Emperor mashup tactic anymore) and the Knights-Errant.

Cons

• In a game where Space Marines can take Horde armies, your cheapest unit is 150 points for 3 models. You'll always be outnumbered.
• Your guns are great, but you'll be outgunned by any dedicated ranged list because you have so few of them. Your basic Custodian having a Melta sounds great, but for the cost of just one such Custodian the Astartes can bring 6 Tacticals, and then there's the Imperial Army. Conversely, your vehicles/Dreadnoughts are cost-effective gun platforms, but you don't get Talons and the only vehicle squadron you get is a Land Speeder analog.
• Your tactics boil down to Step 1: get close to the enemy, Step 2: win the game, with the only variation being in step 1 about whether you Deep Strike (difficult to get en masse), Deep Strike/Flanking Assault in DTs (very expensive) or footslog (with 2W 6++ Troops). Against corner camping opponents, there is no real alternative to a frontal assault and marching into their guns, amplified by...
• Poor objective holding ability. Your two Troops choices are both expensive melee units wasted sitting on a backfield objective, which locks your army into advancing and driving the enemy off the field even more than what your lack of ranged options forces you to do.
• A dearth of synergy. Your HQs don't really offer any help aside from an extra beatstick, and even Valdor's armour won't be of much use unless you take an allied detachment.
• No real analog to the Space Marine Thunder Hammer as a Brutal weapon. You get lots of Instant Death, but this can pose difficulties against Storm Shields and other strong Invulnerable saves, not to mention Eternal Warrior.

Core Warlord traits

• Golden Exemplar: Your only warlord trait and the one you MUST take. All combats within 12" of the warlord add +1 to the wounds caused when calculating combat resolution, and when engaged in a challenge the warlord gains +1 attack and initiative. Extra Reactions are for pussies anyway.
  • Stacks with Nemesis (come on, how many challenges is your Warlord going to fight where the opposing unit doesn't have someone with WS5/5W?) for truly disgusting duelling potential. It does nothing to help with the list's weaknesses (poor ranged output, lack of deployment options), but a. doubling down on a strength is not too bad and b. you don't have a choice.

Special Rules

• The Legio Custodes rule gives your models bonuses when engaged with Nemesis units:
  • +1 attack
  • +1 to charge rolls
  • Always hit on a 4+ unless challenging a Primarch or fighting a unit that is only made up of a Primarch.
• Nemesis units include:
  • units with Primarch, Dreadnought, Monstrous, Reinforced, Bombard, Daemon, Corrupted, Super-heavy, Unique or Knight units
  • Units with the majority of models have a WS, BS, Initiative or wounds equal or higher than 5
  • The enemy Warlord.
• All Custodes infantry/cavalry have Chosen Warriors, Relentless, Stubborn and at least Bulky(3) and all Custodes units have the Loyalist alignment and are always considered the loyalist side for narrative games.

Wargear of the Legio Custodes

Melee Weapons

• Misericord: THEY FINALLY HAVE RULES! Coming standard on pretty much every unit, it's S4, AP-, Instant Death, representing the fact that it was IRL a dagger not meant for open battle, but to kill disabled knights on the battlefield. Is it useful? Not really. Is it funny to stab a Praetor to death with a bunch of attacks? Yes.
  • In some reaaaally niche match-ups, Misericords might actually match or even out-damage some of your shinier weapons. Models with a lot of Wounds and a decent invulnerable save/FNP like Myrmidons, Charonite Ogryns, Daemon Brutes or Gal Vorbak boosted by Argel Tal take a lot of attacks to die, so a single - if hard to land - Instant Death blow will sometimes do better than hacking them with Sentinel Blades or Guardian Spears. That said, for T5 you have Solarite Gauntlets, and you wound everything above that at 6+. Think very carefully about counting on your crappy combat knife.

• Meridian Swords: A strange (and great) new weapon for the Custodes, these are paired swords that count as Two-Handed for the sake of avoiding adding an extra attack. They're also odd because each turn lets you pick out a different fighting style to use in combat. GW doesn't seem to know how good these weapons are as they are free for characters and Hetaeron Guards, while easily being the best melee weapon available to the Custodes by being essentially 3 weapons rolled into one. That said, the whole unit has to use the same fighting style, so you miss out on the some of the versatility of actual mix-and-matching. Moreover, you still don't get Brutal, which can cause headaches against opponents that are not susceptible to Instant Death. In particular, Armiger are too tough for the S5 horde-clearing stance and have Eternal Warrior, making them very resistant to the other two stances.
  • Raptor Spreads its Wings: S:User AP2 with Rampage (3) to take out crowds on his own. Fulfils the same role paired Solarite Talons or even your normal spear do; you don't get the bonuses to wound, but you can get even more attacks. However, Rampage is dependent on being outnumbered and your Custodes are Bulky (3), which can be a problem unlike with Solarite Talons (outright extra attacks) or the spears (Reaping Blow depends on models in base contact).
  • Grasp the Rainbow Serpent: S10 AP1 with a devastating Measured Strike and Instant Death, making it ideal to kill monsters. That said, think carefully about using this, as Measured Strike means you attack once as opposed to the multiple chances to proc Murderous Strike (4+) using the style below. Also not as reliable as the Solarite Fist, as almost everything that's worth using this on (eg. Dreadnoughts) will also have some sort of immunity to ID or will be a vehicle, which means you're left with 1 S10 attack as opposed to however many you could have made with the Fist.
  • Hands Part the Clouds: S+1 AP2 with Murderous Strike (4+). This is your general anti-multiwound model stance, with an even better Murderous Strike roll than the Paragon Glaive to make sure whoever you're challenging dies and dies immediately. However, your S6 attacks will find difficulty wounding the bigger Dreadnoughts, Automata, Armiger, etc. and you won't do anything against vehicles; for those, use the above.

Guardian Weapons
The iconic weapons of the Adeptus Custodes, capable of both shooting and melee. The Sentinel Blade, Guardian Spear and Guardian Axe all share the same ranged profile of 18" Assault 2 S4 AP4 Shred and count as bolt weapons. All weapons count as power weapons when used in melee.

• Guardian Spear: The trademark weapon of the Custodes. The ranged weapon is shown above, the melee profile is S+1 AP2 with Two-Handed and Reaping Blow (1), giving a bit of an edge when fighting with crowds, a common occurrence for your forces. Using this against monsters, however, isn't recommended.
  • Adrasite Spear: The Adrathic attachment for the spear. The spear stays the same, but the gun is now 12" Assault 1 S5 AP3 with Armourbane (Ranged), Instant Death, and Gets Hot. This is all fairly devastating looking, but S5 means that its effectiveness against monsters is limited, let alone any vehicles or dreads. That said, Armourbane (Ranged) lets you reroll to-wound against Automata, so the wounding is not so bad, while AP3 ignores their armour and Instant Death cause D3 wounds, so it's an acceptable weapon against the Mechanicum.
  • Pyrithite Spear: The Melta attachment for the spear. The spear remains untouched, but the gun is now 6" Assault 1 S8 AP1 with Armourbane (Melta). Can help carve tanks open and splat TEQs, but that range is going to drag you down so much.
• Guardian Axe: The heavier Guardian Weapon. Same shooting profile, melee is a decidedly heavier S+3 AP2 with Two-Handed and Unwieldy, so it can more easily deal with monsters and it will inflict Instant Death against marines, but won't mean much against anything smaller.
• Sentinel Warblade: The lightweight Guardian Weapon, being only S:User AP2. This is, however, the only one without Two-Handed, and thus the only one that can actually be used with a Praesidium Shield.

Solarite Weapons

• Solarite Power Gauntlet: The Custodian Power Fist. S10 and AP1 sounds badass, but Unwieldy will hold you back, absurd saves be damned. That said, it's still your premier anti-vehicle/Knight/Armiger weapon, so take it sparingly in all-comers lists.
• Solarite Power Talon: Lightning Claws with gold paint. S5 AP2 with Shred allows you to run through most marines without concern and grabbing two of them lets you gain +2 attacks for dual wielding. It's also an acceptable anti-Dreadnought weapon, as Shred means you always have at least 11/36 chance per attack to wound against anything under T10, and Custodes make a ton of attacks.

Paragon Weapons

• Paragon Blade: The holy grail of weapons for the legions, it's actually a little underwhelming for the Custodes. Such are the high standards of the Emperor's Golden companions. Available to all HQ choices and Hetaeron Guard it's S+1 Ap2 Murderous Strike(6+) it's less effective in combat than a Paragon Glaive or the Meridian Swords. However, it's 1-handed, which lets you use it with a Praesidium Shield in case you needed a 5++.
• Paragon Glaive: The unique Custodes Paragon weapon and just another way they tell marines "everything you can do, we can do better" It's S+1, AP2, with Reaping Blow (1), Two-handed and Murderous Strike (5+). It also has a built in S5 AP4 Shred Bolter. It's an excellent weapon that would be an auto-take in literally any other army list, but you also have Meridian Swords.

Ranged Weapons

• Archaeotech Pistol: A Pistol 1 S6 AP4 Rending (3+) and Master-crafted hand gun, it's available to Custodes ICs for 5 points. Not much, but it's your only ranged weapon if you trade in your spear for something that isn't a better spear or the Guardian Axe.
• Kinetic destroyers: A 12" Pistol 3 S7 AP4 Rending (6+) revolver used by Venatari. Basically a badass one-handed autocannon, with enough volume of fire to saturate your target and force Rending hits and failed saving throws.

Adrathic Weapons
The disintegrators of yore are not to be trifled with. They've got nerfed to AP3 and thus won't wipe out Terminators outright, but they have Armourbane (Ranged) and Instant Death means that any hits you do land will destroy. They also have Gets Hot as well but this isn't too much of a worry for you 2+ armour save troops. Strangely, Space Marines seem to have a better version of this, as their Disintegrators are AP2.

• Adrathic Destructor: 12" Assault 1 S5 AP3
• Adrathic Devastator: 18" Heavy 2 S6 AP3

Las Weapons
Like Space Marines, your Las weapons tend to be of the heavy duty anti-vehicle type because small arms lasers are for mortals. Except yours are better because, you know, the Emperor's Ten Thousand. All of the Arachnus weapons are various flavors of AP1 Lance Exoshock (6+).

• Arachnus Blaze Cannon: Instead of the Meltas Space Marines have, you use this for close-range anti-tank. 18" is pretty good because all of the platforms it comes on are pretty quick, and Lance makes sure your S8 will count. Also good in a pinch as anti-TEQ, as S8 AP1 is S8 AP1.
• Corvae Las-Pulser: A mega-souped up Multilaser, with Heavy 3 24" S9 AP3. Great for killing MEQs and Automata, and can put in work against most vehicles.
• Arachnus Heavy Blaze Cannon: The Blaze Cannon, except S9 and 48".

Lastrum Bolt Weapons
Better-er Bolter variants, in keeping with the rest of the Custodes wargear. They are stronger than their Legion equivalents and have Shred. Great at destroying GEQ, and can be pushed into hurting light tanks if needed.

• Lastrum Storm Bolter: 24", Assault 3, S5, AP4
• Lastrum Bolt Cannon: 36", Heavy 4, S6, AP4
• Twin Lastrum Bolt Cannon: 36", Heavy 8, S6, AP4

Equipment

• Auric battleplate: Gives whoever wears it a 2+ armour save and a 4++ Invuln.
• Auric Warplate: Standard issue on most Custodes units. Gives them a 2+ armour save and a 6++ Invuln.
• Auric Demi-plate: Given to those Custodes who must move faster, it gives the wearer a 3+ armour save and a 6++ Invuln save.
• Atomantic Deflector: The standard 5++ and D3 wounds from ID all Dreadnoughts get.
• Praesidium Shield: Grants a 5++ Invuln that won't stack with the existing one provided by their armor. On top of that, it has the same penalties Boarding Shields do, barring a Custodian from using two weapons in combat or using a Two-Handed weapon.
• Tarsus buckler: The spiky shield used by Venatari. It lowers the Strength of ALL incoming shooting attacks by -2 as long as the majority of the models in the unit are bearing one. Congrats, anything with S4 or 5 now wound you on 6, S10 cannot one-shot you anymore and you're completely immune to S3. Enjoy turning lasguns into literal flashlights.
• Arae-Shrike: Any enemies that roll to Deep Strike or Flanking Assault take a -1 penalty to determine whether or not it's disordered. Not much, but it helps foil any surprise annoyances.
• Flare Shield: Good old -1S from frontal shots, -2S from Blast/Templates. Comes on literally all of your vehicles except for Lords of War, which instead get...
• Eclipse Shield: Same thing, except Shrouded (5+) if you take any Glancing/Penetrating Hits. Available on both Lords of War flyers.
• Magisterium Vexilla: Any units that have this big banner get to re-roll any Leadership checks. On top of this, all units within 12" of this model add +1 to their combat resolution, which can help push the battle in your favor. The effects of multiple Vexillae cannot stack, but re-rolling Leadership checks aren't an issue anyways.
• Teleportation Transponder Array: 125 points to give Deep Strike to its bearer and up to 3 Custodes Infantry squads in the Detachment with no more than 5 models, discounting attached ICs. Said squads must Deep Strike. Only available to Valdor and the Tribune.
  • The 5 model limit means whatever you're Deep Striking will, except for Terminators, generally fit in a Coronus anyway. That said, while 125 points sounds very expensive, you're a) giving to 4 units (consider the Imperial Fists paying 25pt per Terminator squad, 20 per IC and 30 per Infantry squad) and b) not taking Coronus DTs, so you could end up saving lots of points, on top of being able to charge from Deep Strike because you're not in a vehicle.

Unit Analysis

Primarch

• Constantin Valdor, Captain-General of the Legio Custodes, The Shield of the Emperor, The First of the Ten Thousand: The big boss of the bananas has a lot to show for, as he is a fucking Primarch with 5s to a lot of stats aside from a monstrous WS7, I6 and Ld 10. Being a Primarch not only means that any hiding sergeants will get flushed out in any case, but his stats are now immune to any penalties. Counter-Attack (1) assures that anyone who would dare charge him will regret it. He must be the warlord if he's taken since he is a Primarch and he has to take the same Warlord Trait as other Custodians, but it's a decent trait so that's not too bad. As an added plus, he can grab a Teleportation Transponder Array if you want Deep Striking units.
  • The Corinthine Warplate is an obscenely powerful suit of power armor, giving not only a 2+/3++ save, but also allowing ALL Loyalists who can see him or fight alongside him use his Ld10 for any reason - including Psychic tests! Why yes, let's get Revuel Arvida allied in just to have a shitton of loyalist psykers!
  • The Apollonian Spear is no slouch as a weapon crafted by the Emperor Himself. Up close it's a devastating S+2 AP2 Specialist Weapon with Lightning Blows (6+) and Murderous Strike (4+) to rip apart anything while the Hyper-velocity Bolter strapped onto it fires S5, AP2 shots and comes with Concussive (2) to soften the enemy up.
  • He sounds like a great choice, and that's because he is in a vacuum. The problem is that as a Primarch he competes directly with your Lords of War for points, which also happen to be your only Flyers and your only source of Skyfire in the list. That said, you can take allies for that kind of stuff, or have Fortifications and/or a Vindicare to do that. Still, you don't want your army to be stuck eating Turbo-laser fire from a Thunderhawk just because you forgot to bring AA, so take that into consideration when building your list.

HQ

• 0-1 Custodian Tribune: The absolute big cheese in any detachment, as he is the mandatory warlord of any detachment he is in unless Valdor is also here. While he lacks the fancy gear that Valdor gets, the Tribune is no less impressive, as he has free access to the Custodian armoury, including buying a Teleporter Transponder Array to Deep Strike up to 3 Infantry units. He has Fearless for he has no fear or doubt of his duty and Eternal Warrior, for his service to the Emperor is eternal. He has a ridiculous WS7 and he gets 5 attacks which will allow him to blend his way through most units on his own, and he is pretty much guaranteed to win any challenge he fights unless you do something stupid like challenge a Primarch. Eternal Warrior means you'll almost always survive to use the Unwieldy Solarite Fist, but Meridian Swords do its job for cheaper unless you're fighting vehicles or very tough Dreadnoughts/Automata.
  • As any veteran of HH1.0 may recall, Tribunes were considered one of the most outright busted characters in the game without Psyker, and this is held up here with a condition - You can't field a Tribune unless your main detachment costs 3000 points or you also field Valdor as well. However, the clause about Valdor is GREAT; you need to take a compulsory HQ anyway because Valdor is a Primarch and doesn't count anymore, while being able to take an additional Transponder Array actually saves you points as discussed under the wargear entry.
  • That said, you cannot take this guy without Valdor in any reasonably sized game, and he's superfluous as a combat character in a list with Valdor. As aforementioned he's good simply as a source of Deep Strike for more Custodes infantry, but take the Shield Captain instead and save some points if you don't need more Deep Strike.

• Custodian Shield Captain: The generic HQ for the Custodes, only slightly weaker than the Tribune with WS6 and W3. He loses 1W, Eternal Warrior and Fearless, instead replacing it with Stubborn and he's only 200 points. Aside from that, you can take any of the weapons you see fit with the exception of the Transponder Array, and he is lethal to pretty much all generic characters in the game due to easy access to ID at initiative through Murderous Strike.
  • That said, he is NOT the indestructible machine his bosses are and it shows. Sigismund can and will cut his head off round 1, as will several other named Space Marine ICs with various versions of Murderous Strike and/or Duellist's Edge. That's fair enough considering a. Sigismund actually costs more than this guy and b. it's Sigismund, but it bears reminding that just because you're a Custodian doesn't mean you automatically beat Marines in melee.
  • The above means that you should always think twice before taking a Solarite gauntlet and striking last. You will usually have a whole retinue of bananabros to tank the hits for you, but Custodes aren’t as tough as they used to be and you don’t want your 230pts to be left alone on the battlefield. Meridian Swords will often be the best loadout, unless GW decides to significantly lower the pricetag of the other options in the future.
  • While looking really good and fairly priced in himself, the Shield Captain is a rather "meh" HQ in the context of a Custodes list for the reasons given in the Tribune entry. However, you have to take a compulsory HQ, he's your only choice below 3000pts unless you have Valdor and he's cheaper than the Tribune if Valdor is here, so you'll take him anyway.

Elites

• Hetaeron Guard Squad: The closest you'll ever get to an elite squad in an army of elites. Each model comes with a Meridian sword, but gets free reign to take pretty much any weapon choice you want. Meridian Swords are arguably the best melee weapon available to the unit as their multiple profiles allow them to act as horde blenders or as better Paragon Blades, however they lack any ranged attacks so will be totally reliant on their melee capabilities (but that's not a big deal for Custodes). Another way to equip them is with Praesidium Shields to give them a more reliable Invulnerable save. This does lock out Two-handed weapons like the Meridian Swords, but you can still give them a Sentinel Warblade, Solarite Gauntlets, Solarite Talons or Paragon Blades. On top of that, one model can exchange their weapons for a Magisterium Vexilla and the choice of either a Master-Crafted power weapon or a Sentinel Blade depending on how much you need to shoot things.
  • The stock Meridian Swords are, as discussed in the wargear entry, absolutely insane weapons. You can make concessions to fighting vehicles/Dreadnoughts by taking Praesidium Shield/Solarite Gauntlet models, but the Meridian Swords and their Murderous Strike (4+) are if anything even better than the Gauntlets against most multi-wound models, while everything else is inferior as a melee weapon. If you want Praesidium Shields with other weapons, take Sentinel Guard. Take. the. damn. Swords.
  • That Vexilla is a wonderful support tool. Not only does it let the Hetaeron Guard re-roll Ld checks, but any units within 12" can also use it to add +1 to their combat resolution, letting them potentially get an edge over the enemy in an army where the numbers will tend to be against them. However, both Custodians and Sentinels can provide cheaper Vexilla bearers, and you lose the opportunity to use your most powerful weapons. Worth considering if you still have enough dudes in the squad to butcher your target or expect your Hetaeron to fight alone, but not an auto-include otherwise.

• Aquilon Terminator Squad: The only way to already make the already heavy Custodes heavier is by giving the the Heavy Sub-type and making them Bulky (4). While their inventory is considerably less, the Solarite Power Gauntlet is not something to scoff at and Lastrum storm bolters are equally dangerous with Shred for that re-roll to wound. You can also pick up TL Adrathic Destructors if you really need to ID someone (eg. Automata) or an Infernus Firepike to clear out hordes. You can also get a Solarite talon over the gauntlet for free, and another instead of the Lastrum storm bolter.
  • They don't have a Misericord, despite it being on the model. So much for WYSIWYG...
  • RAW, Aquilons can dual wield Solarite Gauntlet with Talon, which makes them very versatile in melee, though you lose the opportunity to soften you target from afar. It will also increase your damage output since both weapons are Melee and Aquilons don’t have a Misericord. A really good loadout, particularly against Legion lists where none of your ranged weapons are particularly useful against TEQs and Dreadnoughts.
  • Though their resilience and versatility make them look good on paper, Aquilons are costy and take a lot of resources to really shine. Moving 7" without the possibility of running from cover to cover like other Custodes infantry, you will need some kind of transportation if you want them to achieve something in melee. But the Coronus is expensive and isn't an Assault vehicle, and Teleportation Transponders require you to pick a Tribune or Valdor.

• Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought: One WS6 dreadnought carrying a mighty dangerous Dreadspear (S12 AP2 Exoshock (4+)!) and a dangerous S9 AP3 Corvae Las-Pulser along with the customary Gravis Power Fist, now with two inbuilt Lastrum Storm Bolters. The spear is better for fighting Knights because they're statted as traditional 7th Edition walkers (read: are vehicles) as opposed to the pseudo-Monstrous Creature treatment that Dreadnought and Armiger unit types received this edition, so Brutal doesn't work on them while Exoshock does. That said, the Fist's Brutal (3) is truly disgusting for the purposes of deleting anything with a toughness value and does not suffer from the problems with Atomantic Deflector and Eternal Warrior that trying to cause ID with S12 does.
  • This implies you'll rarely use the Dreadspear in melee, so it's tempting to switch to dual Fists for the +1 attack, as the spear being Two-handed otherwise prevents that. However, the in-built Corvae las-pulser is still a nice weapon to have at hands and S12 means you don't have to worry about Gal Vorbak, Myrmidons or Biomancy-boosted Cataphractii that may survive even a S9 Brutal (3) swing. And with the extra attacks from charging and Legio Custodes, you will likely throw a shitload of blows at your target anyway.
  • The Achillus truly shines against Vehicles and models with WS5 your other melee units may struggle against. It isn’t much different from an Astartes Contemptor otherwise, and will die just the same against mass fire and melee units that may survive your assault. Your WS6 will be wasted on anything with WS4 or over WS6, something you definitely want to avoid after paying a premium 75pts over a regular Contemptor. Target units your infantry can’t deal with, like Knights, strong Automata and Armiger.

Troops

• Custodian Guard Squad: The ever-reliable and iconic squad of custodians, each gifted with a Guardian Spear and one of your few Line units. With almost 5s all across the board, W2 and 4 Attacks, you can clearly recognize just how powerful these guys really. Of course, you also realize their great weakness because you start out with only three of them and buying more isn't cheap, as each guy costs 45 points each. Any model of this squad can pick up Pyrithite or Adrasite Spears if you're looking at something spicier to break vehicles or pop Veteran squads, and the Sentinel Axe can be taken for free if you're looking to ID Legion terminators in melee. The whole squad also has Melta Bombs as well, just in case. One member of the squad can take a Magisterium Vexilla and swaps the Guardian Spear for a Sentinel Blade or a Master-Crafted Power weapon.
  • Though expensive, Custodians will mop the floor with most units of equivalent cost. Their basic damage output is impressive, and becomes insane once you start taking Legio Custodes, Reaping Blow (1) and charging into account. From hordes to vehicles, their are few units your golden janitors cannot theoretically deal with, and they will often be quite efficient at the job.
  • Do not skip the axe, especially if you consider fielding big units of those guys. Though drowning your target under an avalanche of S6 AP2 attacks before it can do anything is tempting, the way Wound allocation works in HH 2.0 means that if your opponent removes the models your Custodes are in base contact with, all the remaining Wounds you inflicted are lost as there is no enemy model Engaged with you anymore. This can seriously hinder your damage output, so having a second pool of attacks at Initiative 1 will help mitigating the problem. Also, having a bunch of S8 weapons is always a good thing this edition anyway.
• Sentinel Guard Squad: Sword and Board Custodes, with the same stats and wargear as the Custodian Guard squad, but with the spears swapped out for Sentinel Warblades and Praesidium Shields. These are your other Line unit so you'll probably want to grab a few squads of these guys too. The Sentinel Warblades, while lacking and strength bonuses (not too bad since your infantry are all S5) are still AP2 at initiative and have the same built-in bolter as the Guardian spears, allowing them to poke opposing units with bullets. You can swap the Warblades out for Solarite Talons which lose the ranged weapon for Shred, or the anti-everything Solarite Gauntlets allowing you to tear tanks new asses and ID smaller Automata. But the real draw for these guys is the Praesidium Shield, which ups them to a 5++ invulnerable save allowing them to better survive attacks from Power Fists and Thunder Hammers. One Sentinel Guard can swap his shield for a Magisterium Vexilla as well, and while they're a bit less versatile than the Spear squad, these guys are great in melee and are terrifying for opposing elite infantry from the Legions.

Dedicated Transports

• Coronus Grav-Carrier: The lone transport of the Custodes. Its AV is a rather average AV 13/12/10 and its 18 model capacity will easily get filled up when you consider the Bulky rule all Custodians have. You can even take the termies in this. Don't expect to take many of them however, as each one is 180 points, which when stacked with the squad's cost will run you up by quite a margin. That said, it can Deep Strike (the only way Custodes can do so without Teleportation Array Transponders or Legion allies) and it will not take out its passengers after being destroyed because it's not a Flyer and does not Crash and Burn, which can mean a lot for a melee army like the Custodes. If for some reason you don't want to Deep Strike, you can also Outflank.
  • Remember that this DOES NOT HAVE ASSAULT VEHICLE. It won't matter much if you're using Deep Strike/Outflank because there's a blanket ban against charging out of vehicles from Reserves and you have to wait a turn before you can charge anyway, but you're exposing the Custodes to enemy fire for that 1 turn. Think carefully about starting this on the table and using it to ship your Custodes up the table; you do NOT use it like a Land Raider.
  • The guns aren't bad, as the Twin-linked Blaze Cannon is actually a very strong anti-vehicle weapon and the Twin Bolt Cannon can wipe out anything weaker than MEQ. True, it's not terribly good against the TEQs and Dreadnoughts that dominate this edition, but that's the job of the guys inside the Coronus.

Fast Attack

• Agamatus Jet Bike Squadron: Dick bike return and they're here to fuck your opponent's everything but hordes. They have Deep Strike, Outflank and Hammer of Wrath(1) along with being armed with Solarite Power Lances, which at S10 AP1 Armourbane Sudden Strike (3) is one of the best weapons in the game. Their Gyrfalcon Jetbikes have Lastrum Bolt cannons, but these can be replaced for an Adrathic Devastator or a Twin-linked Corvae Las-pulser. This means they can be fantastic vehicle hunters, flanking a tank, shooting it with their heavy weapons and then charging it to finish it off with their lances. They do have some draw backs as they are wearing Auric Demi-plate so only have a 3+ armour save and one attack, and you don't get any form of Brutal (never mind that the White Scars get BRUTAL (3) LANCES), which can seriously affect their reliability against strong Invulnerable saves or Dreadnoughts/Automata that don't take ID from S10.
  • That said, there's no rule against your Custodes Lancers gaining attacks from other special rules, which means they get up to 3 attacks on the charge against Nemesis units, covering basically everything you're worried about anyway. Moreover, unlike the White Scars, there's no rule against using it in subsequent rounds of combat, so enjoy your S10 AP1 at initiative at all times, even if you lose your bonus initiative. Just watch out for Automata like Castellax, which fall into the sweet spot of being too tough for S10 ID and having too few wounds to trigger Nemesis. Take ranged weapon upgrades for those; the Adrathic Devastator is AP3 ID and is thus perfect for killing Automata, while the Las-pulser also has AP3 and wounds reliably with high volume of fire.

• Pallas Speeder Squadron: For 60 points (cheaper than some infantry models) you get a floating Rhino with some ridiculous movement with a Flare Shield. Armed with a Twin-lined Arachnus Blaze-cannon that can be swapped out for an Adrathic Devastator, a squadron of these can cause a fair bit of havoc for your opponent by getting behind vehicles with Deepstrike and Outflank and shooting them in the soft bits. That said they're not tough (the one unit that can be accused of that in the entire list) and will fall apart under any serious fire power, so don't expect them to survive if you opponent dedicates some fire power to stop them. No, we don't know why they're not Cavalry like Land Speeders either.

• Venatari Squad: A Custodes Assault squad. They have Deep Strike allowing them to fall from the heavens (like lighting) and they come with a Venatari jump harness, Tarsus Bucklers and Kinetic Destroyers (functionally 12" 3-shot Autocannons) making them decent surprise shooting units, but at the cost of being limited in melee because you have to use the Misericord (though you get 5 attacks per model due to +1 from the Kinetic Destroyer being a pistol). They also only have Auric demi-plate meaning they are stuck with 3+ saves. But wait! Those Bucklers actually reduce the strength of all attacks they take by -2, making Plasma a lot less effective on them. They can also swap the Bucklers and pistols for Venatari Lances; you get the same gun, but you get a Guardian Spear without Reaping Blow (1) for actual killing power in melee. Like most other Custodes units, they also get free Melta bombs for cracking vehicles open.
  • Using Venatari as a pure shooting unit is likely to fail. The Kinetic Destroyers' damage output isn't too bad, but being 12" means you that the target will often be able to use the Withdraw Reaction to stay out of range unless you're using Deep Strike, which leaves you open to Interceptor.
  • A mixed range + melee approach won't be easy either. The Bucklers make you more or less immune to small-arms, but Misericords are terrible against anything with a decent armour save, and you will be lucky if your 3 Venatari on the charge manage to kill more than 2 or 3 Marines in melee. The spears may dramatically increase your melee potential here, but they aren't free and your relatively fragile dudes are quickly going to cost an unreasonable amount of points for what they do.
  • All in all Venatari will have a hard time finding a place in most Custodes lists. They will do fine against isolated units or vehicles they can severely cripple or destroy without taking too much damage, but not much. Adding spears to the mix will turn them into a highly mobile but extremely expensive glasscannon, able to quickly engage and destroy key targets but still unlikely to survive retribution. However, their mobility, high volume of Attacks and near invulnerability to small firearms make them pure gold to deal with SA or Militia lists using blobs of infantry to protect their heavy guns. Jump over the meatshields, shoot down those Weapon teams and Rapiers or blast those tanks with your Melta bombs.
    • You can consider taking a large unit (7-9 models) and giving a minority Lances. You still get the -2S from shooting (read: Overwatch) as long as the Buckler men are in the majority, while the 3-4 guys with Lances should have enough attacks to kill anything that isn't a Terminator squad. But then you're spending an awful lot on something that at the end of the day has T5 3+/6++ in melee, and will thus get badly mauled by something as simple as Power Maul Veterans, not to mention Dreadnoughts. It's workable, but think carefully.

Heavy Support

• Sagittarum Guard Squad: A Custodian Guard armed with what are basically combi-Heavy Bolters. The Emperor and Games Workshop only knows why the unit is here instead of Troops, but anyway. They are all equipped with Adrastus Bolt Calivers which are pretty nasty on their own before the ability to fire Disintegrator rounds is factored in, but they are a shooty unit in a stabby army. One model in the unit can swap his Adrastus Bolt Caliver for a Magisterium Vexilla and Adrathic Destructor. All in all these guys are great at clearing out Solar Auxilia squads, and if you feel like risking a 50+ point model every shooting attack, they can deal some damage with Terminators at range, but that's about it.
  • The Calivers' AP4 makes Sagittari quite inefficient against anything with a 3+ save, which is... well, most of the models in the game. That said, there are some units they will prove useful against. Thallaxii jumping away from your melee units, blobs of Solar Auxilia infantry screening tanks, Militia Field gun batteries and their S10 heavy lascannons, etc are all perfect targets for your gunstodes. They will rarely earn their points back by killing models, but weakening units that would threaten or distract your precious melee units is a valuable contribution not to be overlooked.
  • Though units with Lastrum Storm Bolters, Melta Guns, Adrathic Destructors/Devastators or Custodes Las-Weapons can often do the job better, those weapons are all medium to short-ranged or mounted on expensive models. Also, remember you cannot charge a unit if you shot another one during the Shooting phase. Using your expensive Aquilons, Achillus or Custodians with Adrasite spears to shoot down a target they can't charge afterward is basically a waste of points, since they are melee units first and foremost whose firepower is best used at softening the unit they are about to engage. Sagittari are here to deal with those units you don't want to waste your melee specialists on, and their comfortable 36" ensures they will have the capacity to strike where they are needed.

• Caladius Grav-Tank: A floating golden Sicaran. Coming with AV 13/13/11 it also has a Flare Shield and is armed with a Iliastus Accelerator Cannon (Heavy 3 48" S8 AP3 Rending (6+) Brutal (2) Twin-linked) and a twin Lastrum Bolt Cannon giving it some pretty decent all-rounder fire power, but you can also exchange the Accelerator Cannon for an Enhanced Arachnus Blaze Cannon (24" S9 4-shot Arachnus weapon) for a more specialised anti-tank role. It's a pretty quick vehicle as it has M16" and the Antigrav sub-type as well as having Outflank and Deep Strike allowing you to position it where you want and Power of the Machine Spirit allows you to split fire at any units you want.

• Contemptor Galatus Dreadnought: Same stats as the Contemptor-Achilius, but with the Dreadspear swapped for a Giant Sword and Board. The Gravis Praesidium Shield gives him a 4++ Invulnerable save and the Galatus Warblade has seen a change from it's HH1 incarnation as it is now only S8, AP2. The Warblade has lost Rampage and Shred but instead it has gained Instant Death making it great against practically anything with a Toughness value. While the Atomantic Deflector on basically every single Dreadnought/Automata in the game prevents actual Instant Death, each Instant Death wound instead becomes D3 wounds, meaning a couple of swipes of the Warblade with the Galatus' superior WS should drop marine Dreadnoughts and Mechanicum Thanatars quite easily, while tanking any return attacks with his 4++ Gravis Praesidium Shield. It's not as good as the Achilius' bog standard Brutal (3) Gravis Power Fist against Dreadnoughts if only because 3 is better than D3, but it's still not bad, and flat ID means you can ignore Feel No Pain on tougher enemies like Gal Vorbak and splat them outright. The Warblade also has a built in Twin-linked Infernus incinerator, giving the Galatus anti-horde capabilties.
  • Just remember that S8 isn't much good against vehicles, Knight Armiger units get actual Eternal Warrior and the lack of Brutal will give you headaches against strong Invulnerable saves (read: TEQs), so the Galatus isn't an instant solution to everything you fight in melee. For those, consider taking the Achillus or using your infantry.

• Telemon Heavy Dreadnought: Dreadnought supreme. Bigger than a Leviathan Dreadnought and with 8 wounds, this is a very meaty unit even though he's seen a bit of a nerf this edition. He has the Move Through Cover and Hammer of Wrath(3) rules as well as the Heavy sub-type allowing him to re-roll failed armour rolls against blast weapons, and he comes equipped with two Telemon Cestus which are S10, AP2 Sunder fists which give him an extra attack for dual wielding, upping him to 6 attacks. The Cestus come with in-built Plasma Projectors which are giant Plasma Flamers for annihilating any sort of infantry. He can swap one or both of the Cestus for an Iliastus Accelerator Culverin (24" S8 AP3 Heavy 4 Rending (6+) Brutal (2)) to delete Automata, or Arachnus Storm Cannon (12" 3 shot Arachnus Blaze Cannon) for killing tanks and Dreadnoughts. He's very expensive but can be effective if used well.
  • The Cestus lacking Brutal is a huge drawback that WS6 alone cannot fully compensate, making the Telemon bafflingly inefficient for his cost compared with other melee Dreadnoughts when pitted against models with a Wound value. Lack of Brutal doesn't matter against Vehicles though, and Sunder will do marvels at making your hits a bit more reliable. Overall your giant dread WILL kill things for sure, but the cheaper Achillus will almost always be a better choice.
  • The ranged options are worth considering. A 6" movement Heavy model will take forever to get into melee with anything useful, and the Contemptor models are already perfectly good melee options. You could get more or less the same guns on the Caladius for cheaper, but the Telemon is a heck of a lot harder to kill. However, the 12" range of the Arachnus storm cannon means you will have to move forward the enemy anyway while doing nothing for a few turns, and ending your turn within charge range of the enemy is never good for a gunrig. If you go 100% shooty, the Iliastus culverin will probably be your best friend here.
  • It's also worth underlining that the Spiculus bolt launcher is one of our only 2 weapons with Pinning. Its 36" range, S6 and very high volume of fire coupled with the Telemon's BS5 mean you have a decent chance of saturating a target and inflicting a wound, forcing an always welcome Pinning test.

Lords of War

The only Flyers in the list. If you have the points allowance, strongly consider taking them as AA, as nothing else in the army can get Skyfire and you arguably don't need Valdor/Tribune because the Shield-Captain can handle most generic HQs in melee. If you don't take Valdor, you might just be able to squeeze it into a reasonable game, with the Ares' 650pts "only" requiring a 2.6k point army.

• Orion Assault Dropship: Basically a flying Coronus. It has Assault Vehicle, but as a Flyer it will always arrive from Reserves and therefore bound by the blanket ban against charging out of vehicles arriving from Reserves, so you must wait a turn regardless. Mounted weaponry (2 Heavy Blaze Cannons, 2 Twin Bolt Cannons and 2 S6 AP4 Pinning Heavy 8 Bolt Launchers) sounds good, until you realize it's just more shots of what the Coronus had. That said, it is pretty tough (frontal AV13 with Eclipse Shield), puts out enough Dakka with its S6 weapons to threaten most aircraft and is your only way to Deep Strike Dreadnoughts. Not a bad choice, particularly as some of your infantry can ride with the Dreadnought, alleviating the lack of Teleportation Transponders in most lists taking a Lord of War. Moreover, since you cannot charge out of it from Reserve anyway, you can use that turn to take out enemy Flyers with its guns.

• Ares Gunship: The flying Caladius to the Orion's flying Coronus. Has 2 Arachnus Heavy Blaze Cannons and a Magna-Blaze Canon (S10 AP1 Destroyer 2 Lance Exoshock (4+)) for anti-vehicle, and 2 S6 AP4 7" blast bombs for burning mortal infantry. Its rate of fire is too low to be useful against MEQs/TEQs, but that's what the rest of your army is there for. Its Eclipse Shield AV13 is fairly tough from the front, but rear AV10 will cause serious headaches because the Arachnus weapons being centreline-mounted and compulsory Zoom as a Flyer will force you to at some stage expose rear armor to your opponent, while Hover is impractical because the Ares is simply too frail for its cost. It's arguably not as good as the Orion for anti-air, as most Flyers have poor enough armor that spamming S6 bolts at them is better than Arachnus weapons, while not being as cost-effective at anti-vehicle as taking a Arachnus Cannon Caladius. That said, you literally have no substitute other than AA emplacements and/or a Vindicare for shooting down Thunderhawks/Assault Rams, so think about it.

Allies

Agents of the Emperor

Sisters of Silence

Sadly, this is no longer the fun, viable option it used to be last edition. The Anathema subtype makes being near them a bit troubling with their -1 Ld aura. Granted, the Custodes have good Leadership, but it's not worth risking them joining the same fight. Moreover, both of your lists have next to no AA options, which can make things very risky. The Custodes and Sisters cannot embark on each other's transports, requiring mixed units to footslog. This does not make them absolutely unusable, however. For one, the Custodes have no way to block psychic powers, so a few sisters can provide a bit of insulation as well as inconvenience them with Vratine Bolters. Some sisters can also be usable as cheaper special weapons.

• Remember that both armies are Sworn Brothers (and Sisters), meanning SoS HQs can join Custodes units. Since you can use their Leadership value for most tests - and they are all Ld9 at the very least - it effectively negates the debuff from the Anathema sub-type for the unit. Other Custodes models at 6" of an Anathema will still suffer a -1 malus to their Ld, but having a few Vexila around can easily compensate for that. Fielding Valdor is another great solution as the Corinthine warplate allows friendly models to use his Ld value of 10, which cannot be modified by any means since he has the Primarch sub-type.
• Jenetia Krole can make a great leader for a Custodes unit. Being an Eternal Warrior with a 4++ save, she can tank attacks that would inflict Instant Death on your expensive bananamen, while Fearless means you will never run away and don't need to trade your precious Meridian swords for a Vexilla. Precision Strike (5+) also provides a small chance to snipe a Character or a model with some nasty piece of wargear, and Ex Oblivio will ruin the day of any model that isn't a Primarch. The downside to this is being stuck with a 6" Movement value and losing the +1 bonus to your Charge distance against Nemesis units, so plan your bloody trip accordingly.
• You can join Knight-Vestal models to your Custodes for Feel No Pain, which is not available to the Custodes list and which cannot be provided by allies other than taking one Primus Medicae from an allied Legion detachment. Considering your Custodes are T5, you'll get to use it a lot.
• Sanctioner Cadres are snipers, which Custodes do not have. You don't generally need to kill particular models at range because your Custodes are very very good at doing so in close combat, but it's worth considering if you're taking a Sisters detachment anyway. In particular, you can use snipers to kill Augury Scanners if you're running a Deep Strike list with Valdor.

Divisio Assassinorum

Probably the last army that'd need an assassin. Sure, you don't really need to fill every HQ slot, and having two shield captains/a tribune + shield captain will tide you over more than enough, the assassins aren't actually any more effective than the custodians in a fight. As a reminder, your lowliest custodian can hit at S6 AP2 at initiative with a standard guardian spear. By comparison, the majority of your assassins rely on AP3 weapons with Rending to potentially take down AP2 weapons, often with a less than stellar strength. When you're up against a Praetor or even a Primarch, which would you rather rely on?

• One exception can be made for the Vindicare, as the Custodes list has no snipers. Further, he himself never takes BS penalties and is therefore a half-decent AA option, and can also man any AA guns on your Fortifications for improved accuracy.
• The Callidus might also have a niche. With Overwatch being done at full BS in HH2.0 and the baseline invulnerable save of our bananamen being reduced to 6++, there are a some shooting units in the game you really don't want to charge head first. And since shooting isn't really the strong point of the Custodes either, destroying or simply softening those targets before assault may prove very expensive. The Callidus offers an alternative, as Polymorphine allows her to wander around enemy units without being threatened untill she opens fire. It is therefore possible for her to safely charge an enemy unit and make it unable to Overwatch your incoming golden boys, which will most likely demolish their target before it retaliates, giving the Callidus a decent chance to survive the fight and keep messing with your opponent.

Knights-Errant

With only 2 characters to pick, Knight Errants don't feel like the deepest pool of strategic opportunities. That would be an error though, as you may get some strong benefits from them. Well, one of them at least. As a Psyker with both the Telepathy and Divination disciplines, Tylos Rubio can solve a lot of your problems while costing as much as your cheapest Infantry unit. Also, remember that the Ld reroll granted by your Magisterium Vexillas works on Psychic tests, making Rubio a very reliable buffer, and while short-ranged and not as effective as the null-field of an Anathema unit, his psychic hood is still a nice debuff to have against enemy Psykers. He is not very tough though, so watch for those Sniper shots. Don't bother with Garro; your compulsory HQ is better than him.

• Telepathy is pure gold as it focuses on Pinning the enemy and preventing Reactions, 2 things Custodes lack in order to safely reach melee and survive Return Fire or Overwatch. Both Telepathic Fugue and Telepathic Hallucination have decent range, so you can simply leave Rubio far from melee alongside a support unit or your objective keepers.
• Divination is far from useless either. The Precision Strikes/Shots (5+) provided to a friendly unit by Divinatory Aegis can turn one of your unit into powerful snipers, especially in melee given the high volume of attacks Custodes can throw at the enemy. Need to get rid of this unit with augury scanner waiting for your Agamati to deep-strike? Boom. Those Terminators with thunder hammer shielded by their buddies? Fwoosh. Diviner's Dart may act as a useful sniper weapon too, but you will get more benefits from buffing your Custodes units most of the time.

Legiones Astartes

Generally a good choice. The Space Marine Legions have access to a lot of firepower, which allows you to focus on taking melee Custodes units. In particular is their ability to take (relatively) cheap Line troops in Tactical Squads/Recon Snipers, which can claim home objectives while your Custodes advance into melee, as well as their widespread access to AA options. This is particularly pertinent for ranged Legions, but melee Legions can also be useful.

• While taking a Praetor is generally redundant because your Shield-Captain is already a superlative melee combatant, there are various consuls that provide buffs and/or other perks you normally cannot access. Attaching a Chaplain can confer Hatred so you hit everything on rerollable 4+ at the very least (your WS5 Custodes hit <WS5 on 3++, while Nemesis means you hit on 4+ against everyone at WS5 or above), Primus Medicae gives otherwise unavailable Feel No Pain to your T5 Custodes... you get the idea.
• As noted in Valdor's entry, his armour allowing everyone in LoS to use his Ld10 also applies to Psychic tests and that you can therefore take tons of Psykers. So take Thousand Sons allies! They have to take Psychic Tests for practically every single one of their Legion-specific choices, which become a lot more reliable when you use Valdor's Ld10 as opposed to their native Ld8/9. Look at their own tactica for details on what they can do.
  • The Thousand Sons compulsory HQ is an excellent tool for supporting your Custodes. He's basically a Librarian on top of whatever consul you made him, and then you can use his Minor Arcana on whatever unit he joins. There are so many potential combos to be found when the Psychic test is basically an auto-pass because being in LoS of Valdor lets you test on Ld10 and you can reroll it with a Magisterium Vexilla (yes, it works with all Leadership tests) every last one of your squads can take. It's doable even without Valdor; Chaplains are also Ld10, and rerollable Ld9 on other Consul types is nothing to sniff at. Take a Primus Medicae with Biomancy for S6 T6 Hetaeron Guard with Feel No Pain?
• If you're not taking Valdor (which also generally means you can't take the Tribune) and thus don't have Teleportation Transponder Arrays, the Legion Warmonger Consul can confer Deep Strike to whatever unit he joins, at the cost of 1/6 chance per model in the Deep Striking Squad taking 1 wound. As your Custodes elites are 3W, this won't hurt as much as it would for Space Marines.
  • The Imperial Fists can take Alexis Polux instead and outright confer Deep Strike without any of the limitations of the Warmonger. He's also a Praetor and can unlock Rites of War for the allied detachment, and the Imperial Fists are themselves well suited for ranged support because of their widespread +1 to hit on ranged weapons. However, him being a Master of the Legion will require you to take a 1000pt allied detachment to unlock him, which can be difficult considering how points-expensive a Custodes army is in the first place.
  • The Legion list also has a lot more variety in deployment methods with various Rites of War, which can make up for the fact that all of your infantry are limited to footslogging, Deep Strike (requires Valdor/Tribune) or Coronus DTs (a 180 point vehicle that transports 6 of your models). This also reduces the overlap between your Custodes and melee Legion allies, as they can attack from different directions (Outflank) or at different times (Deep Strike in ahead of your Custodes advance).

Solar Auxilia

"Elite" mortals. Have tons of bodies and small guns and vehicles and big guns, which is great because as mentioned you don't generally want Custodes not in combat with the enemy. Lasrifle Sections are perfect for standing on backfield objectives because they're cheap and have decent firepower at long range, and that alone is a great reason to take Auxilia instead of Space Marines or Sisters. However, you have even more reasons.

• Veletaris are also good for clearing out chaff/tarpits, which would otherwise be overkill for the Custodes. You would normally have to charge those Tacticals to get them off the objective, and then risk being countercharged by that Dreadnought behind them. Eliminate that risk by killing the Tacticals with Volkite Chargers, and charge the Dread directly.
• If you have Valdor, everyone in LoS of him gets Ld10, so you can skip the Legate Marshal and take a Tactical Command Tercio instead if you don't want a Cohort Doctrine. That said, it's not a no-brainer, as the necessity of having Command Sections as sources of Plasma/Melta is mitigated by the abundance of AP2 melee on Custodes, while Cohort Doctrines are pretty useful.
• Take an Auxilia Thunderbolt. It can take Skyfire missiles. It has an Advanced Reaction to come in from Reserve when the enemy brings a Flyer onto the board, and then immediately shoot it. It's an excellent source of AA in an army where your Primary detachment has practically no AA. Unless you're absolutely sure the enemy will not bring a Flyer (eg. your opponent is playing Mechanicum), always bring the Thunderbolt.
• Armoured Fist and Siege Pattern both let you take more tanks and artillery, while Iron Pattern lets Auxilia take Automata. Any of these are good for bringing more guns onto the field, which are always in short supply with a Custodes Primary detachment. Not happy with that Typhon wiping your units with its 5" Blast S12 Brutal (4) cannon? Tag it with Laser Destroyer Rapiers. Don't like how that Contemptor is looking at your Hetaeron? Bring in the Vanquisher Russes. Irritating Plasma bikers shooting your 6++ save Custodians and then using Withdraw to run away? Let them try and Withdraw from an Executioner Russ. Big guns solve problems.
• Consider Penal Pattern and spamming Lasrifle Sections with Concussive (1) shotguns to help out your Custodes by nerfing WS5 enemies to WS4 so they can hit on 3+. That said, it could potentially turn off Nemesis because the enemy is no longer WS5, so consider carefully.

Imperialis Militia

Bad mortals, who are strangely By the Emperor's Command. Is it because Custodes mistrust the fact that the Militia are a bunch of undisciplined scrubs, or because the Militia are scared shitless of the Ten Thousand? No one knows. In any case, this prevents close cooperation; the Custodes themselves are fine, but the absolute garbage that is Militia leadership takes another -1, which makes them unusable because they already take Morale tests whenever they get hit by anything. If you want massed Assault Needlers, take Sisters. If you want massed infantry, take Auxilia. No, don't think of doing something clever with Valdor; By the Emperor's Command, remember?

• One exception can be made for Industrial Stronghold lists; you can bring more and cheaper Russes than even the Solar Auxilia, while vehicles don't have Ld to begin with and thus don't care about -1 Ld. As mentioned Custodes don't really mind -1Ld because they're all Stubborn/Fearless, so you can skip the downsides of By the Emperor's Command while still bringing tons of fire support. Use it like you would an Armoured Fist Auxilia list.
  • Consider taking Kinfolk Helots to repair your Russes. Militia squads can't take objectives anyway, so take Levy squads. True, they run from anything and everything, but that requires the enemy to actually do something to them. So here's the deal; your opponent focuses on the Custodes and leaves the Russes alone as they wipe his army in a hail of Vanquisher/Executioner fire, tries killing Russes that are invincible because they're being repaired by 5 Battlesmith (6+) Levy sergeants every turn while Custodes are sprinting straight for his frontline, or he puts the firepower in to break the Levy squads, in which case you thank him for targeting 40pt Levy squads rather than either the tanks blasting his army to pieces or the superhumans preparing to cut his army to pieces. That said, don't overdo it; you're playing Custodes in the first place because you want to take giant golden warriors who can kill supermen in melee. If you want to take 18 Russes, play a Militia list instead where you can actually do something about Levy squads breaking when something farts in their general direction.
• Survivors of the Dark Age sounds like a decent alternative to Industrial Stronghold to take Land Raiders instead of Russes, but it's a trap. The Land Raider you get is just as expensive as taking one from the Space Marine list, except you get it at BS3 Third-line. Even with Warrior Elite you can take at most 5 as Militia DTs, while you could already take more as Space Marine DTs and get useful units in the bargain, not to mention simply taking it in a squadron as a Heavy Support choice. Point being, if you want Land Raiders, take Space Marine allies.

Building your army

For price, Custodes are probably the cheapest armies to build since they have the core of their army in plastic, and since the models are so points expensive it's not hard to build a lot of points very quickly. Both of your line troops come from the same kit and the box will provide you with at least 240 points (for both Guardian Spears or Sword and Board). While some of the important units, like Aquilon Terminators and Dreadnoughts, are FW resin you don't have to buy many to have a functional army and a few of the units and weapons are simply upgrade kits for the standard Custodian guard models so are not too expensive to get hold of.

In addition a lot of the 40k custodes models are also very easy to convert and use in 30k armies. Trajann Valoris, Valerian and the Blade Champion are all usable and give you ready made, easy to convert Tribune/Shield Captain with Paragon Glaive/Blade/Meridian Swords. There is also the FW Custodes Shield Captain who also looks great so your choice of models will simply come down to personal taste. The Custodian Warden kit is also a perfect base to create Hetaeron Guard, though you will need to figure out how to convert some Meridian Swords to give them (or you can just give them Guardian spears/axes that come in the box).

Army Tactics

As stated in the Pros and Cons at the beginning of the page, the Legio Custodes are an army of elites in an era where Space Marines can play horde armies. A lot of your advantages lie in the frankly insane combat potential that basically every single one of your models possess at baseline. However, you have no way of buffing your army by attaching characters like Space Marines, so you'll need it. Moreover, elite Legion lists aren't really that much worse than yours, except they can buff their units further. Don't overestimate your army.

• Auric Warplate is not Invulnerable: Having T5 2+ sounds great, but the basic Auric Warplate's terrible Invulnerable save actually means you're not that much tougher than Terminators. To elaborate, Cataphractii Armour offers Terminators 25% chance of surviving a Thunder Hammer (Brutal (2) weapon) wound (passing 2 4++ saves, thus 50% x 50%), while Auric Warplate offers your Custodian Guard 33% chance (chance of not failing 2 6++ saves, thus [1 - (1 - 16.6%)²]). Worse, your S8 Guardian Axe and S10 Solarite Gauntlet don't get Brutal, so a straight fight really becomes enemy Cataphractii having 50% chance of surviving a wound, while your Custodian Guard have 33% and Sentinel Guard have 55% ([1 - (1 - 33.3%)²]) of surviving Thunder Hammer wounds. The same applies to fighting Dreadnoughts; you don't suffer ID from S9 attacks, but that doesn't mean AP2 Brutal (3) won't rip right through your 2W Custodes and their flimsy 5++ and 6++. If you do want Solarite Gauntlets, try to take them on your 3W Elites, who can also get improved Invulnerable saves to survive Thunder Hammers.
  • While the the of Brutal is going to be a problem against the nastiest targets around (Primarchs, Dreadnoughts...), Custodes Troops don't need it against most units. Your Troops have at least TWICE more attacks and the advantage of WS5 over the WS4 of Legion Terminators, cost as much as a Cataphractii with Thunder hammer and are often cheaper than elite WS5 units with Thunder hammer. In a 1V1 fight a Custodes with axe will likely inflict 2 wounds on a Terminator, which is equivalent to being wounded by a Thunder hammer. The big difference here being that Wounds from Brutal don't spill over, so a single Thunder hammer attack will NEVER kill more than a single Custodes, and even a single save passed means your opponent has to waste another Brutal swing to finish you. In this regard multiple attacks with a guardian axe are way more powerful, since every wound can potentially kill a Terminator.
  • Simply going first is a great way of making sure the enemy doesn't have enough models left to hurt you at I1. Your basic Custodian Guard already has S6 AP2, up to 7 attacks on the charge and is guaranteed to hit on at least 4+ against Terminators (Nemesis so 4+ to hit against anything at or above WS5, WS5 so 3+ on WS3-4), while your Elites can take Meridian Swords for Murderous Strike (4+) or dual wield Solarite Talons for up to 8 S5 Shred AP2 attacks per model. You don't want to trade models, so make the trade as unfair as possible by going first and removing enemy models before they attack.
  • Again, it's worth underlining that the way Wound allocation works in HH 2.0 may serioulsy hinder your effective damage output when trying to alpha-strike your ennemy with quadrillions of Ini 5 attacks. Scoring 10, 20 or 100 wounds on your target doesn't matter if you're only in base contact with 3 models your opponent will remove first, preventing you from allocating further wounds. Adding an extra Pile-in move within your units will mitigate that, so do not sleep on guardian axes or Solarite gauntlets.
  • Another way of preventing Thunder Hammer attacks is by shooting the Terminators in the face. This mainly applies to Custodian Guard, who can take Meltas spears to ID TEQs and very reliably wound Dreadnoughts. No one wants to face 10 Meltas on Overwatch, particularly when there's 6 S6 AP2 attacks per model waiting on the other side. That said, you're paying 15pts/per model for a weapon with a 6" range, which is a lot for a trick that won't work if your opponent decides to charge you from over this distance unless you use the Advance Reaction in order to close the gap, so don't go crazy with it.
• Demi-plate, demi-protection: Auric Demi-plate is literally "Demi" because it offers half the protection of normal Warplate (3+ vs 2+) against most weapons and offers no protection against AP3 weapons beyond 6++. Worse, you can't do anything about it because there's no Artificer Armour sergeant like in the Space Marine Legions, nor are there sources of Feel No Pain. Both of your non-vehicle Fast Attack options wear this, and they also happen to be the only non-Vehicle models in your army to have more than 8" movement. However, they also hit like trucks, so try to get your opponent to shoot other things.
• From Golden Light They Come: The Legio Custodes have very widespread Deep Strike, with all vehicles (including Coronus DTs) and both non-vehicle Fast Attack options having it by default, while other Infantry can get it with Teleportation Transponder Arrays. As a melee army, this can be a very convenient way of skipping the part where your models slog through the entire enemy army's guns and getting straight to the Rip and tear part. However, this army list has no way to reroll Reserves and, barring Valdor and the Vindicare, has no way of sniping Augury Scanners to deny Interceptor. Consider taking allies to remedy these problems, or bring Tylos Rubio for some Precision Strikes/Shots (5+) sweetness under Divinatory Aegis.

Warhammer 30,000 Tactics Articles
General Tactics	General (7E) Movement (7E) Psychic (7E) Fortifications (7E)
Imperium	Legiones Astartes (7E)
	Legio Custodes (7E) Sisters of Silence (7E) Mechanicum (Legio Mechanicum • Taghmata Omnissiah)
	Questoris Knights (7E) Solar Auxilia (7E) Imperialis Militia (7E)
Chaos	Ruinstorm Daemons (7E • 7E Codex) Warp Cults(7E)