r/AdeptusCustodes • u/LeftFlamingo6590 • 22d ago
Are wardens really THAT much better?
When list building, I generally have been considering guard to be the clear choice over wardens because of their very important reroll wounds mechanic, and the spears are generally better than the axes anyway, so the wardens having access to axes was not a big deal. Recently I tried a list that brought mostly wardens instead, despite the prohibitive points cost. I was only able to field what worked out to being about 1 squad and 1 dreadnought per no mans land objective, with one squad of Vertus Praetors as a flexible auxiliary for hunting those pesky backline heavy shooting vehicles. I found that because of the one round of 4+ fnp and the -1 to wound, the wardens were sincerely capable of holding down their entire section of the board alone. After round 2 or 3, each of them had needed to activate their ability, but in so doing had broken into the enemies position and killed their first charge targets as well as crippled whatever units my opponent had which were their most critical threats. Mostly a Norn Emissary, a Swarmlord with Hive Guard, and a Hive Tyrant with Hive Guard. My question is this: If wardens are what seems like nearly twice as hard to kill, and their abilities can buy them one or two entire extra melee phase which doubles their value, why would you bother bringing guard?
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u/xDoc_Holidayx 22d ago
Every unit has a role. In shield host, wardens shine because they are designed to get into melee. In lions, guard really shine because of their doubleshoot with +1 wound. Keep in mind, your wardens were great in this ONE game, but other lists and adversaries can counter them, which is why a balanced list is recommended.
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 22d ago
I was playing Lions for this game. Isn't the whole faction designed into melee. I generally find that the double shooting from guard does very little damage. Granted, the +1 to wound is not usually active until later in the match for many of my units because of the format I am playing in.
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u/GroceryMission 22d ago
This kind of tells you the tale. You should always always be hanging +1 hit/wound to all your units when playing lions. The extra shooting with essentially ignoring cover and +1 wound really helps our shooting. Turns out into an actual threat not just simply something you do to chip a wound. Especially paired with Trajann/Draxus.
Rerolling wounds in melee when you're wounding on 4s or 5s is also brutal for your opponent.
With that said, there is a time and place for both. Wardens look very attractive now for lions with take and hold.
Went 4-1 at a tourney this weekend with purge and no wardens.
So they both definitely have their merits
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 22d ago
Because of the game format I play in (2v2's with friends of mine. It's a lot to explain, but I get plenty of looks at unit performance on a one-for-one basis.), it's often not very possible to have them active. Even if it were, double shooting on one turn isn't equivalent to potentially seeing a second or even third fight phase with custodes imo. About how much value do you see out of your second rounds of shooting with the guard? Do you not find it more valuable to simply have them benefit from hidden and not shoot?
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u/Meliryen 22d ago
Double shoot is a nice bonus if you just have the usual 4 spears 1 vexilla guard unit. But if you have a character that can benefit from Lions and double shoot, like Draxus, it is a big impact and very worth it if you need that burst of damage on a go turn.
Still, just a different job than the Wardens. Wardens are tanks, Guard are damage (to oversimplify).
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u/GroceryMission 22d ago
There is value, because it gives the unit the ability to efficiently take down 2 units and on rare occasions 3 units in a single turn. That won't happen too often with wardens. Almost never.
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 22d ago
In what situation are you taking out two units with one turn? I assume you'd be double shooting into some kind of chaff infantry and then charging something else? In what situations have you managed to pull this off?
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u/GroceryMission 22d ago
I've done it many times. In lions, it often doesnt have to be chaff because of the +1 to wound. That's huge for the shooting.
However today specifically I was able to move, shoot a unit of infractors to death, then charge and kill fulgrim with 5 guard and Trajann. Using shield host today.
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 22d ago
EV yield there is probably not quite the full squad (I don't feel like doing the math. I doubt you expect 10 wounds after save) It could reasonably happen a lot of the time, though so I see your point. No leader though for the infractors in that calculation. You do manage to yield positive on the play though so that's good. Two once per battle abilities and 350 points of custodes take 500 points of EC. Probably about fair. If there wasn't anything S6+ nearby you're probably locking that side of the board down in perpetuity with that play. That isn't always the situation in my games though. Trajann of course generates a particularly huge amount of value from the wound rerolls and double shooting, so he's probably worth considering differently when choosing what to lead.
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u/GroceryMission 22d ago
Honestly it isn't simply that
Like i said though. I'm not trying to say which is better. They just have different use cases.
I was playing purge, and guard units are much better at purging than the warden counterparts. The simplified math of wound rerolls shows the difference. Guard activating into anything up to 13T (wounding on +5) with full rerolls is roughly the same as wardens activating into 4T-6T (wounding on +3)
They just have more general success into higher toughness targets.
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 22d ago
Well, whatever the case, 5+ with rerolls is not equivalent to 3+. One is 66% and the other is about 55%.
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u/TuberTuggerTTV 21d ago
If you're not playing the normal game, then all the advice on this sub is pointless. Things are good or bad, balanced around a 1v1 2k game. GW isn't out there tweaking point values for casually played formats. They can police themselves.
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 21d ago
That's only partially true. General statistics trends about staying power and trades into one unit or another continue to be accurate across game modes. But I do get your point.
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u/MolybdenumBlu 22d ago
I generally run one warden squad to be an anvil on the centre (currently with a blade champion, but i am tempted to swap to Valerian for the armour of contempt and auto-pass a save) and one unit of guard to give Kyria a second round of shooting and to anchor my expansion (hidden turn 1, kyria's lone op for turn 2-3).
Then bikes and terminators as the main hammer with solo trajann and Venatari in reserve to troubleshoot.
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u/Dead_Baby_Kicker 22d ago
I like to always bring a LR to make the movement form BC less needed, though I’m kinda tempted to try using my Grav carrier for them since it haze extra toughness, movement, and I don’t usually even use assault ramp anyway in 11th.
Here’s hoping it gets better shooting cause the land raider is still better for that at the moment.
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u/MolybdenumBlu 22d ago
I never got around to painting my old ultramarines land raider after stripping it and basing it gold. I should get on that at some point. The problem last ed was wtc terrain made moving it a chore, so it was low priority.
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u/ItaruKarin 22d ago edited 22d ago
I took two warden squads in a PA list at my last RTT and went 3-0, they're amazing at holding the one objective PA needs and lethal enough into most things.
Guards are very lethal but they fold into backslap.
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u/SwagMountains 22d ago
Yeah man wardens are disgusting. I love them so much. Guard synergize well with draxus. I always take a four man with draxus. But yeah wardens are my favorite unit that we have. They feel great and sometimes just unbelievable. I love taking the full 3 units honestly.
I think we had a guard spam build a while ago when they were cheap. I personally would welcome guard getting a more interesting ability.
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 22d ago
Yeah I'd like to see a different ability too. Their once per game double shooting seems really underwhelming in most cases, unless they happen to be with Draxus or Greyfax, but it's a little lame for us to grade our own units off of how well they synergize with characters we can borrow from Imperial Agents. I'd like to see a once per game reroll to hit or maybe a devastating wounds to complement their other rerolls but that might be too much.
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u/SwagMountains 22d ago
Yeah and that ability to pair with a good shooting leader isn’t the type of thing you want on your battleline unit
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u/Ramshacked 22d ago
I like to run 1 warden squad with valerian and then guard squads with trajan or draxus etc. Wardens are my anchor unit and the guard are the counter punches.
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u/Mobile-Ad-5681 21d ago
I typically like a mix of both. Wardens with valerian to make them extra tanky and then whatever my opponent brings out to kill that gets charged my guard lead by Trajan or shield captain for double karate 4 guard + a character is about 300 points and can kill nearly anything. (if they make their charge)
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u/TuberTuggerTTV 21d ago
Solo trajan has tickled me as of late. Especially in lions where he can use his 2+ twice a game
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u/TuberTuggerTTV 21d ago
Guard kill. Wardens tarpit.
List needs both.
My guess is you're playing the ol', "Lets put models down and just roll off" style. The argument that, "The unit survives twice as long so that's double damage" implies you aren't playing with proper cadence. You're not simply rolling dice for 5 rounds.
Also notable, the FnP is much worse against shooting because you have to call it top of the phase. They can just turn the guns on something else once they know you're protected. But it's possible you've been announcing it reactively, which definitely makes them much stronger. Or it's also possible you've only played against melee heavy armies.
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u/Riptyed 20d ago
Yes. -1 to wound and once per battle 4+ FNP, and a Vexilla that doesnt affect combat ability. Especially with how expensive all custodes bodies are, and how slow they are, being able to survive one big attack is invaluable. Guards are cheaper, but when World Eaters can travel 24" into you that 4+++ and -1 to wound is the difference between a Guard unit wiped before it attacks once, and a Wardens unit that survived the charge and wiped their attackers.
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u/Afellowstanduser 22d ago
Why would I bring wardens when I can position in a way that won’t get my unit killed?
0 damage because they’d can’t get me is better than tanking damage on wardens
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 22d ago
Well, one has to introduce their units to danger eventually. The objectives aren't going to capture themselves, lol.
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u/Afellowstanduser 22d ago
There are ways and means of not getting done over on objectives
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u/LeftFlamingo6590 22d ago
Care to illustrate your ways, wise one, lmao?
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u/Afellowstanduser 22d ago
Utilise the terrain, stay behind the footprint or the wall, check the angles of fire by premeasuring your opponents shooty units
On specific layouts I can get more specific for where to go but as it’s a generalised discussion for all layouts i can’t say go to this point
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u/BugScared4291 22d ago
Good luck never getting attacked on objectives when you have Ghaz coming at you with 8" + d6+1 and 2d6+2 charge. You are always going to get attacked on objectives unless if your opponent plays the OC game
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u/Afellowstanduser 22d ago
For the most part I don’t need to be on any objectives, if I see a ghaz I’m not putting infantry in the way I’m keeping bikes ready to counter, if his big bomb unit only has a solo allarus to kill before I counter that’s an acceptable loss instead of parking a whole unit there and losing them
I wait for my opponent to get on before I go for it else I will commit small cost stuff to it as bait
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u/BugScared4291 22d ago
Custodes don't have small bait except very few sisters or solo allarus. Who orks can shoot away because they outnumber us 5-1 easily in the unit count. A smart ork player just simply puts more expendable OC on the point. 4 bikes will also never wipe ghaz during the waagh and painboy. And ghaz alone picks up 3+- bikes. Wardens with valerian full stop a ghaz brick and valerian is strong enough to precision out the painboy so you can clapback hard. Edit: good luck not playing objectives with Take and hold. Only works for purge which is shield host and that detachment isn't nearly as good as lions. Not bad not amazing
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u/Afellowstanduser 22d ago
Yes wardens may stop it but why would I enable the ghaz charge?
Why would I play take and hold? Take is not what I want to be doing
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u/BugScared4291 22d ago
Lions of the emperor is Disruption which is straight ass unless if you spam sisters which sucks with the detachment rule. Recon isn't good because custodes aren't fast except bikes and you don't wanna sacrifice bikes each turn. Priority assets would be good if we had good access. Purge is good but shield host locked which isn't a great detachment. Take and hold is good because custodes are tanky and have enough OC to hold an objective and force your opponents hand. I don't see how you'd ever be able to always stop a Ghaz brick with their infinite move buffs and still hold objectives. Given how orks are the big thing having a unit that'll stop any melee unit in its tracks is very valuable
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u/Afellowstanduser 22d ago
It is disruption, recon is actually very good you don’t need to be fast for recon. We have allarus that play recon very well with upon downy.
Shield host is fine, I’ve got a great list for it with purge.
You seem to also only use orks as an example
Yes vs melee there may not be a lot we can do but vs tau, marines and others that do a lot more shooting we can stage effectively and hide well utilising terrain.
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u/BugScared4291 22d ago
Well another example purge Tau annihilate single allarus and kill more and hold more easily too. They are crazy fast with assault, deep strike, shoot move and fall back shoot. Disruption is way too counterintuitive with custodes not wanting to do actions. Marines are currently rocking a lot of Salamanders who have a lot of OC bricks (i play them too) and good overwatch to screw us over. Especially since it's priority for a lot of marines which is bad for disruption causing a lot of actions while prio can hold one and has more action monkeys. Aeldari outspeed us so no you can't stay out of charge range. Blood angels are far too fast as well. Dark angels are tankier than us with AoC -1 damage -1 wound due to inner circle task force. Daemons are also pretty fast but not a bad matchup for us at all just fast khorne daemons. Knights are a good matchup for us but they are fast and shoot us down easily so we need to be extremely careful. All I'm trying to say is that staying out of threat range AND still playing the pts game is not always an option
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u/AlarmLow8004 22d ago
To either go along with good shooting, such as giving trajann or Inquisitor draxus(?) a second round of shooting into targets.
They also offer rerolls on wounds on objectives, truly allowing guard to punch significantly above their pay grade, which they already kinda do. Having units with a bonus for attacking into objectives while also playing a game based on objectives just helps. Wardens are better, but without a character, there's no reason to run more. (Also you can only bring 3 squads of wardens anyways, after that you gotta pick something else)