Dealing With Custodes

I'm getting slapped around by golden jetbikers at the moment and really struggling to think of ways to easily handle them. The combination of movement that can mostly keep pace with ours, rerolls, a 2+/3++ save, 7 wounds, anti-infantry firepower and a melee attack that's fully capable of destroying one of our vehicles in a single turn all for a mere 160 points seems kind of daunting! Even with Doom, I can just about manage to consistently kill one a turn... which isn't great considering that in a supreme command detachment there are going to be three of them and there's still an entire army behind them. I should also note that I'm typically seeing them in Imperium soup lists, paired up with tons of Guardsmen and sometimes other things.

So has anyone had any consistent success against them? What works well for you?

Yea those bikes are absolutely insane for their points cost. Im going to have a game against a similar list next weekend, and I'm just planning on running covens with supporting dissie ravagers. I think a big blob of grots + vexator mask should be able to smash one bike a turn. The only issue is keeping the ravagers safe after turn 1.

I've found PoF Pain Engines to be really effective here. Haemonculus with electrocorrosive whips. I think massed splinter fire/shredders are a good counter weapon

ph4ntron wrote:

The only issue is keeping the ravagers safe after turn 1.

This was a huge issue for me - the jetbikes have a large threat range and if they get a charge off on a Ravager then they're very capable of killing it in a single turn.

Grotesques might be able to kill one a turn, but you'd need some lucky rolling - if you're attacking the tankiest build a unit of ten should only expect to do five wounds to it, even when they're hitting on 2s (although without the Custodes' feel no pain warlord trait it's more like eight wounds dealt out).

My initial thought is that I might just need more chaff to prevent them from charging key targets, but you'd need quite a lot to avoid them getting wiped out by their rapid fire 6 (!) bolters.

Elfric wrote:

I've found PoF Pain Engines to be really effective here. Haemonculus with electrocorrosive whips. I think massed splinter fire/shredders are a good counter weapon

Shredders are something I hadn't considered but they sound like a really good option - anything with -1 AP and lots of shots should be effective against them (although Shredders suffer from losing the anti-Infantry reroll to wound). Splinter fire has a hard time against the 2+ armour save, in my experience.

Mandrakes might also be a good choice, given that in addition to multiple shots with -1 AP they also get a chance for mortal wounds.

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm trying to avoid drawing the conclusion "wait for a nerf to them" and this thread's helped already.

I have played against them twice at the tournament level, both times I wiped them from the board with little to no problem.
You beat custodes during deployment, not any other way. Deploy your raiders/ravagers spread out across the far back line. They will either be out of range or will be hit with minimal shots (don't be afraid to use the -1 to hit stratagem).
They are a small, elite army, and massed fire, even from splinter weapons will drop them. feed them sacraficial units, and if you have grots, throw them into the fray! Win by playing the objectives rather than trying to kill the enemy, and you should have little to no problem.
Also, ravagers with disintegrators will eat them up. Just remember to stay spread out as much as possible. They rely on being able to multi charge. take that away from them.
Good Luck!

Cheers. I do think I need to work on my positioning and target priority quite a bit, so those are helpful suggestions. One point, though;

Skulnbonz wrote:

Also, ravagers with disintegrators will eat them up.

I'm a bit skeptical of this - on average three Disintegrator Ravagers will only deal 4 wounds to a Shield-Captain on a jetbike with a 3++ relic, and that's without considering a potential rerolled save or 5+ FNP save. Being in a Living Muse bubble doesn't help much, either; you get up to just over 5 expected wounds.

I've now started including Eldar allies just for facing Custodes for three main reasons:

1) Mortal wounds from Smite and Executioner and wave serpent. These 3 alone can get up to 5D3 mortal wounds. D3 from Smite, 2DE from Executioner if lucky and another 2D3 from Wave serpent shield with the strategem.
2) Wound generation. A lot of the custodes armies I face are running large groups of Bikes (8-9) and Doom helps out tremendously here. On average: 100 splinter shots = 67 hits = 50 wounds (after rerolls) = around 8 wounds inflicted vs a 2+ save.
3) Jinx - This one is huge in my opinion. Making that 3++ a 4++ on the shield captain or making the 4++ a 5++ on the normal Praetorians is absolutely huge!

Other sources of Mortal wounds that we can use:
Mandrakes
Lhamaeans
PGL
Void Raven Bomber
Cult flyover strat
Reaver grav-talons

Burnage wrote:

I'm a bit skeptical of this - on average three Disintegrator Ravagers will only deal 4 wounds to a Shield-Captain on a jetbike with a 3++ relic

Why on earth would you be shooting 3 ravagers at that model?

the norm in tournaments have units of three bikes. Shooting ravagers at them is far better. For the shield captain, thats where blasters come in. he will fail 1 out of 3 wounds, and they do d6 damage.
or, alternatively, ignore the captain all together. Run around, grab objectives and win that way.

Our army really should not struggle to much with Custodes.

Mandrakes and haywire Talos are good for the bikes and Wyches work very well on their footies, including the characters. Don't forget the blast pistols.

The bikes don't have the Vehicle keyword, so Haywire will be very limited against them

Heh, my Custodes opponent has it backwards, thanks.

20 hellions with eviscerating fly-by, 1/3 of that becomes mortal wounds so 6 mortal wounds, 40 poison shots, 26 hits, 13 wounds, 4 unsaved wounds 4 damage done, 41 cc attacks, 27 hits, 9 wounds 3 unsaved 6 damage done - total damage 16 damage, enough to take out 4 praetor before turn 3, this will probably go up a little but after turn 3 and using the red grief obsession.

Archon_91 wrote:

20 hellions with eviscerating fly-by, 1/3 of that becomes mortal wounds so 6 mortal wounds, 40 poison shots, 26 hits, 13 wounds, 4 unsaved wounds 4 damage done, 41 cc attacks, 27 hits, 9 wounds 3 unsaved 6 damage done - total damage 16 damage, enough to take out 4 praetor before turn 3, this will probably go up a little but after turn 3 and using the red grief obsession.

An experienced player will focus units that deal mortal wounds first. Your hellions won't survive more than 1 turn. Still not a bad option, though.

That's a good point about beating them during deployment and using grots as roadblocks. However how do you deal with the rest of the list. If I were to make a "I hate people" list, it'd be a guard battalion, 9 bikes with captain + 2 armigers and big knight.. This is around 2k points. The bikes and armigers can easily keep up with our speed, whilst the knight just advances through the middle. Not sure how you would deal with this.

We just don't have enough fire power to deal with this in 5 turns :/

Basically if you dont have autocannons, then MW's.

CWE destroys the army stupidly fast, Doom, Jinx, Guide, with almost anything they bring

Skulnbonz wrote:

Burnage wrote:

I'm a bit skeptical of this - on average three Disintegrator Ravagers will only deal 4 wounds to a Shield-Captain on a jetbike with a 3++ relic

Why on earth would you be shooting 3 ravagers at that model?

the norm in tournaments have units of three bikes.  Shooting ravagers at them is far better. For the shield captain, thats where blasters come in. he will fail 1 out of 3 wounds, and they do d6 damage.
or, alternatively, ignore the captain all together. Run around, grab objectives and win that way.

Our army really should not struggle to much with Custodes.

What's also popping up very frequently is just a three Shield-Captain on jetbike supreme command detachment slotted into a general Imperium army. This in one sense makes them easier to deal with - they're just three models in an entire army - but it does mean that they're not going to have the weaknesses of a primarily Custodes army. Being three single characters also means Doom and Jinx (or Executioner!) aren't as effective as they would be against a single larger unit.

One thing I'm beginning to wonder about is whether the 1500 points level of most events near me is affecting how difficult I'm finding them to deal with; an extra 250 or 500 points of firepower to take them out would make things hugely easier.

One of my local player loves doing the 3 shield-captain on jetbike thing.. adds it to a lot of his imperial lists. Even when I was playing Eldar, they were difficult... T6 with a 2+ 3++ (on two of em) made it difficult (not impossible, mind you). If I was to give any advice, it would be if they get close, feed them units they can't kill in one turn in melee. They are jetbikes so they can get out of combat and shoot, but most of their damage is in melee IMO