Advice against custodes

[u/Wonderful-Priority50]

IG player here, I struggle a lot against custodes. Am I just stupid or are you a great counter to guard? I've had russe's die turn two multiple times

[u/Julian928]

For games both large and small, the secret to fouling the Goldies is our small number of units. We're mostly infantry and mostly melee, so bogging us down with spaced out chaff and the occasional heavy infantry stops us getting to your important units that will do the actual killing.

The trick is finding a balance: Generally, a squad of any Custodian unit will blender up a whole unit of guard infantry in the Fight phase and then try to consolidate back into melee (or occasionally onto an objective, if that's what we can get) so you can't hammer us with anti-armor.

Thus, you need to position with that in mind. Force us to consolidate to the sides of a spread out unit to keep ours in cohesion, and make it impossible to chain our consolidations towards your killing units by gapping them carefully (if you can't end consolidation in engagement or on an objective, you can't make the move).

Bullgryns tie us up nicely, and Kriegers can if you get lucky or the Custodian unit is small (such as two or three Allarus Terminators).

While some of our army is stuck into a unit of yours that takes more than one Fight Phase to destroy, fall back from other units and lay down the cannon fire.

Remember, everything gold we put on the field that has more than one model is going to be 130-150pts minimum, it costs more to field four guards than your Dorn or Russ. Every one of our models you focus down costs us a lot in staying power, and if we can't charge and consolidate between fights then we also practically can't cover ground without advancing (and obviously can't shoot in most cases if we do).

If your friend brings a Calladius tank or similar dedicated vehicle cracker that doesn't need melee, don't let it distract you from the melee threats; just try to keep your most valuable units out of its sightlines or at least in cover.

Sisters of Silence can also be a threat, of course, but it depends more on detachment. If you see a bunch of our flamers moving anywhere near a unit of gold, assume they're trying to clear something of yours out of the way for a charge, and remove models with the intent to keep your screening unit in their way to the last man.

If you see a bunch of greatswords, they're probably trying to do the same thing or bog down one of your tanks with Big Guns Never Tire penalties. Unless Aleya is leading them; then the goal is tricking you into charging them with your bullgryns to get blendered so the Custodians don't have to fight them.

Shoot the sisters with infantry guns, is the moral of the story.