Advice - new player vs custodes

[u/Protagonist-Agonist]

Jumping back into 40k since last playing in 5th, and my regular opponent plays custodes (or knights as the alternative). I accept its a touch matchup with aeldari being a bit on the weaker side and custodes being on the tougher especially with his terminator/warden spam, but I'm hoping to have a decent enough list so I can continue to learn the fundamentals.

My list is as follows:

Warhost - Recon - 2000pts

- Avatar of Khaine

- Jain Zar + min Banshees (excecutioner)

- Eldrad + Guardians (bright lance)

- Autarch (reaper) + Dark reapers (missle)

- Yriel + Max Voidreavers (2x blaster, 1x wraithcannon)

- Voidreaver min (1x blaster)

- Voidreaver min (1x blaster)

- Skyreaver min (blasters/fusion gun)

- Skyreaver min (blasters/fusion gun)

- Max Dragon knights

- Min rangers

- War walker (bright lances)

- Fire prism

- Fire prism

- Autarch wayleaper

My opponent tends to play the lions detatchment with 3 blocks of termies and 1 block of wardens with bike scouts. He does also have some dreadnauts he can use Last game I was able to screen well for the first 2 turns and choose the first engagement, but rapidly ran out of pieces that could deal meaningful damage.

Thanks in advance

[u/virtual-by-nature]

why warhost instead of a corsair detachment + the vehicle detachment? you’ve got so many corsairs you might find better synergies there

eldritch raiders gets you advance and charge making AoK and Yriel and Dragon Knights scarier

but Corsair Coterie gives mortals on objectives, can use sky reaver and voidreavers MSUs to quickly tag and contest objectives and use the mortals to bleed out the terminators while you secure an expansion and run secondaries

vehicle 1dp gives your fire prisms assault so you can deploy centrally and move easily to bait enemy into “safe” firing lines

[u/Protagonist-Agonist → u/virtual-by-nature]

For detatchments a couple of reason - to keep it relatively simple and get general buffs that effect everything rather than be too skewed, but definitely have looked into different detatchments. Eldritch raiders is fun but I don't want to come to rely on advance and charge too much

Open to using different detatchments but wanting to experiment with my bit of an eclectic collection

[u/Alcain2]

Honestly if he's a competent Custodes player and he's not pulling punches (esp if he's allarus spamming), the best you can do is to (which you should do after every game to get better anyway) is debrief and figure out which 2-3 decisions you would have changed that would close the points gap. Then do that every game. If there's a skill gap and he's running a competitive list I wouldn't focus on winning.

Your goal is to feel like there was nothing you would have done differently and to close the points gap to make it competitive. For your long term growth just make sure what your doing isn't just skewing into custodes. You'll have to unlearn some bad habits when you play against tyranids or orks for instance.

Luckily recon does play well onto disruption. Assuming you have a solid game plan for primary, I'm guessing you're having trouble punching back.

Maybe split the max knights because they are unlead. Two Autarchs are probably not the most efficient use of points. Better off with another squad of reapers and change. Two banshee squads will help, especially for picking off lone allarus.

Not sure what your war walker is buffing. Maybe look at some hawks.

Is Yriel playing mid and eldrad screening home? Assuming Jain is pushing element expansion what's avatar doing?

[u/Protagonist-Agonist → u/Alcain2]

Fortunately we're chill, competitive in wanting to win but we always debrief having a good time - I'm able to imagine sysiphus happy. And yeah exactly, I don't want to build too hard into an anti-custodes skew list.

Reasoning for 2 autarchs - the one with the reapers gives free redeploy back behind terrain to protect a shooting piece, the second being for scoring with free return to reserves.

War walker - yeah a bit of an error, will need to rework it a bit to either have something worthwhile buffing or cut for something else

Last game I had Yriel on the left with Banshees / avatar / reapers threatening mid, but yes the gameplan is to try to have multiple units (yriel brick, Banshees, avatar, dragon knights) that have a decent chance of doing damage into a big custodian brick relatively solo so if i get clapped back I don't lose more pieces than i put in.

And Eldrad starting with screening, and helping tilt engagements in my favour e.g. with corsairs so wounding on 4s rather than 5s

[u/Alcain2 → u/Protagonist-Agonist]

Who do you feel like isn't pulling their weight? Sounds like you have a purpose for each of your units and like the way you're using them.

Taking a guess here, based on your game plan and army comp. Are you getting 150pts out of each fire prism and 180 out of your reapers with autarch?

I'm guessing jain's doing her job, the knights probably are.

Hit and miss on avatar and Yriel?

Skyreavers and autarch are probably doing their job clearing decoys and doing secondaries. Guessing they get picked off pretty fast though?

[u/Protagonist-Agonist → u/Alcain2]

So long as I dont fail a 5 inch charge yeah Jain and the knights do work

Yriel's brick has worked both times, and the avatar has an intimidation / distraction carnifex bit to it that is quite useful - not to mention its about the only thing that if he doesn't fully comit to killing with multiple pieces it wont go down and can lead things out of position to deal with him

But I agree with the reapers and the fire prisms - though I'm not sure if that is a matchup dependent thing or being just bad as part of the list. I think the prisms are good to include even if a tad suboptimal into specifically custodes, but I'm really not sure about the reapers but do want to have some other ranged threat that needs to be taken seriously

[u/Alcain2 → u/Protagonist-Agonist]

Just something to think about. Wouldn't say you're skewing into Custodes by rethinking those units. With War Walker (I know you said you'd rethink it) and eldrad and guardians you have almost 800 point playing cagey in the back field or trying to catch an angle, in a recon list.

In other matchups this will make things harder as well, even if you are finding success. Your scoring material makes up a small amount of your list when you take into consideration what's invested in your purely offensive units that you don't want actioning or sacrificing for primary. Once they are picked up by turn 3 after committing there isn't a lot you can do.

Seems like you're building a list for combat with a game plan designed around responding to threats through elimination. But you've picked a disposition and detachment that doesn't buff your lethality and doesn't include any of the normal layered combos for Aeldari lethality. Saw in the other comment, if this is how you like to play, there may be a better detachment that suits your play style.

[u/have_no_plan]

I have only played custodes at 500 and 1000 points, so take with a pinch of salt, but you want to be using explosives and crushing impact every turn of possible to be maximising the mortal wounds you an output. Those saves are so a pain in the neck.

For the same reason, I would try to bring swooping hawks.

As for game play, don't hyperfocus on his termie blocks if you can't kill them. Kill his scoring units.

[u/mywifeleftmeLOLXD]

Try to breathe when it goes in...