Are Custodes viable now?

[Waaaghpower]

With the new release of Custodes and Sisters of Silence rules, there's a lot of new things that can be tried. Sisters of Silence, a unit that was viable but a bit lackluster due to lack of transport options, became vastly more useful with the ability to take Rhinos, and a large increase to the radius of their ability. (Being locked into a single weapon type is a disappointment, but one that I can live with, especially since the sword variety is now 1ppm cheaper.)

Custodes, though... They got better, but differently. It's the same statlines and the same gear, but they now have a built in 5++, and their Deep Strike is far, far more reliable - Only scattering d6", and re-rolling bad results if they do still suffer a mishap. Their Land Raider is vastly better than a regular Raider as well, getting a 5++, BS5, and freakin' Venerable to all-but guarantee it won't explode and help considerably with being glanced to death, for a mere 25 point increase.

The question is... Are they worth it yet? They're definitely going to put most Terminators out of business, but the niche that they fill  (extremely durable melee units with mid-strength AP2 at volume) just doesn't seem like a particularly valuable one. They can shake down just about anyone for their lunch money except the toughest invuln-based Deathstars, but those invuln-based Deathstars were just about the only viable close combat units to begin with, and at 50ppm with a mandatory 10pt captain upgrade (plus the cost of any Storm Shields or whatever else you take) these guys are going to be taking up a huge chunk of your army.


So what are your thoughts? Are they worth the cost?

[Humanatee]

Sisters are definitely a viable unit even without transport. Especially without since psychic abomination doesn't even work in a transport.

As for the custodes, I honestly thought they were playable before the change, so now they definitely have their place. I'm not sure how competitive they are as a standalone force, but with access to all the tools of the imperium there is a lot of potential to break them. I feel like they'd be a good base for a death star blob of you don't care about mobility so much. I doubt there's a better unit to fill full of librarian terminators for example.

[Waaaghpower]

Sisters are definitely a viable unit even without transport. Especially without since psychic abomination doesn't even work in a transport.

As for the custodes, I honestly thought they were playable before the change, so now they definitely have their place. I'm not sure how competitive they are as a standalone force, but with access to all the tools of the imperium there is a lot of potential to break them. I feel like they'd be a good base for a death star blob of you don't care about mobility so much. I doubt there's a better unit to fill full of librarian terminators for example.

You haven't seen the new Sister rules, have you?
Their rhinos ALSO have the Psychic Abomination rule. And for every unit from their detachment, the radius of that rule is increased by 3".
They were okay before, but since they had to start in your deployment zone and had no good way of moving quickly, it was not hard to kill them before they were a real threat to Psykers, so compared to the Culexus - Who could start on your opponent's front door - You were denying yourself the ability to take any psykers while only putting a mild hindrance to your opponent, who could usually kill them pretty easily due to their low Toughness.

Now, though, they can speed across the board and then pop out with a much larger threat radius - A whopping 27", meaning that you have a bubble that's 54" across where no Psykers can really do any work, and that bubble is emanating from six different units. You still can't use Psykers yourself, but it's much, much better at shutting down an opponent.

[Humanatee]

Damn that's good. I was relying on battlescribe to check rules and it only updated for me today. It does seem pretty strong for its cost. Either way they're still great protection for gunlines even on foot.

I guess i don't have to feel as bad about running a zero psyker iron warriors list now.