Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Metawatch – Custodes, Tau & the Aeldari
Goatboy here to talk about the 40K meta and how the Custodes, and T’au are on top… for now. I see you Aeldari!
Overall the game is in a weird place with the points update, some new books, and a whole lot of issues trying to get all the pieces together. This leads me into the first major thought on armies – to get the best list you are going to have to throw down a decent amount of cheddar.
Custodes Are In the Sweet Spot
So what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Well it makes me think that the army you are going to see a lot of due to the nature of it being one of the cheaper builds, easy to paint, and plays pretty well. That would be the new Custodes army. It got its points updated to be a bit more aggressive mixed with some FW updates to help out. Of course if you add in FW the army isn’t nearly as cheap. But it is still cheaper than the “best” other armies out there. Let’s just sit down and price it out based on the new combat patrol.
Custodes – Using Most Likely New Prices
New Custodes Combat Patrol – $150.00
Trajaan – $38.00
Custodes Guardian Squad – $65.00
Allarus Custodians Box – $65.00
Vertus Praetors Box – $65.00
This gets you enough bodies for 3 Guardian Troop units, Pieces for all your characters, Sisters for some basic troops, and some random Allarus Terminators as needed. This sits at right under 400 bucks. If you want, feel free to throw in an extra Bike squad plus discounts you can find. You can easily make this fit under 400 bucks and be a decent list you can quickly paint up and get ready. There isn’t any other army that is this cheap bar some crazy local specials you might find. This is why you can expect to see a lot of Golden boys. Simply due to the nature of being cheap, being effective, and letting you play the game quickly.
Eldar Are Looming
Of course this isn’t what will end up being the most frustrating list to try and play with. The new Tau are looking to be rough as heck right out the gate. I don’t know how long they will run the yard as Eldar are right on their heels. We all know how any new Craftworld book for a new edition is always a bit aggresive. The guiding hands of Phil Kelly brings all the Eldar to the yard to steal your milkshakes and make you curse your dice. Still we haven’t seen the book yet so maybe will be in for just a slightly rough time and not the year plus of Dark Eldar pain.
T’au BANG BANG!
But we’ll ignore that for now and talk about the T’au Empire. The bigger issue in all of this is the sheer cost of getting all the guns ready on the suits. Thankfully the suits are good but thankfully again they are not cheap. Trying to get those sweet 5+ man units to power up Prayers, Stratagems, and Auras will be a pain for any new player to jump into. A box is 80+ bucks new without discounts. While it does give you a ton of drones and kung fu poses – it doesn’t help your wallet out at all to try and build the list of your dreams.
Then note that a lot of weapon systems are not set up in the box sets to be 3 of a kind for each model. It will leave you wondering how are you going to get all those Air Frag Burst Cannons on your guys? I am sure a lot of you will look at some 3d printing or other options to build it all out. But I wonder if we’ll see some kind of heavy handed “nerf” like the Ork Buggies or the old Gold Loving Sky Dwarves in AOS and their devastators of doom.
Where is the Game Headed?
It will be interesting to see as the year goes on and new books are released if they continue to throw out so much damage onto the battlefields. That seems to be the biggest thing is the only way to make sure your army is good.It has to have access to some kind of massed protection option like board wide Invulnerable saves plus damage ignoring abilities. Or it has to be just cheap as crap so the board is covered in bodies. It is one of the weird things in this edition and I don’t know how I feel about it. On one hand it makes games decided faster. But it also gives you some not good feels if going second cripples you so bad.
We’ll see as it goes on especially with Knights and the idea of big things that might not survive all this shooting. I worry if they have to figure out ways to toughen them up too much. Fe example, “only take x amount of wounds a phase” or some kind of super protection on a big fat body of doom. Soon well be talking about how the sky is falling due to the evil that will be unleashed by the Ghost worshiping Eldar. So buckle up and get mad at the cheap golden boys of doom.
The meta is ever changing, like the turning of the seasons.
