Recently I had a matched play game with my Orks against Nick (previously seen piloting Iron Hands) and his new Codex Custodes. It was part tournament practice for an upcoming Grim Dice event, and part excuse to field Mozrog Skragbad for the first time.
I ran a 'Green Tide' variant with a bit less Tide and a bit more Toys. A single Snakebite Battalion, around half the points were invested in about 100 Boyz, including Beast Snaggas, a couple of small units of Shootas for objectives. They were led by Mozrog himself and a couple of Weirdboys, and accompanied by a mix of 'killy' units; some Deffkoptas, Killa Kans, Squighog Boyz, Flash Gitz and five Meganobz in a Trukk.
For my secondaries I took Retrieve Nachmund Data, Engage On All Fronts and, not really knowing what else, No Prisoners.
Nick was running his Custodes as the Emissaries Imperatus, a Battalion led by a Bike Shield Captain with a load of upgrades and the CG himself, Trajann Valoris. Three Guardians with shields and five with spears, and five Sagittarum made up the troops, and they were supported by four Allarus Terminators, a Contemptor-Achillus and two units of Vertus Praetors. Amusingly there was also a Vexilus Praetor in the list but he got a bit lost on the way to the battlefield.
Nick's secondaries were Investigate Signal, Grind Them Down and Assassination.
The mission was Death and Zeal, and here's deployment. The Terminators and the Dreadnought were in the teleporter, Deffkoptas were flying high and the Killa Kans were in the tellyporta. We rolled and Custodes got first turn.
Using the Emissaries strat to fling the jetbikes up the board turn one, the Custodes were right in my grill. The melta missiles blew up the Trukk with ease, and the Sagittarum got some shots at the rather lazily positioned Flash Gitz and killed them with a strong opening volley. The bikers then got the turn one charge but thanks to the Snakebite trait they were wounding on 4s rather than 2s so didn't wipe a Boyz mob.
In my turn one the Orks spread out to try and get some points and get some krumpin. Mortal wounds from the Weirdboyz and some poor armour saves caused the forward biker unit to drop to one model, who then got charged and finished off by the Meganobz. I also got a Boyz mob to charge forward at the Shield Captain and try to stop any investigation of the signal and tie him up a bit, but the nearby bikers heroically intervened in and took a bit of a toll. The Boyz stuck around to tie them up for a turn but I think it was probably a bit of a mistake.
Custodes turn two, the reserves popped in on the left flank. Their shooting took out the Squighogs and several other Beast Snaggas, but luckily they all failed their charges. On the other side of the board though the Custodes cut through many boyz, and I was already starting to look a bit thinner on the ground.
Turn two for the Orks involved lining up a load of charges and declaring the WAAAGH! The Koptas and Kans dropped in at the rear to target the three Guards on the back objective, while my remaining Boyz swung around for a charge on the five man unit and Mozrog got ready to get involved with the Shield Captain. I did basically ignore the teleported units, running away from them where possible!
The Kans and Koptas did a great job for me, removing those Guardians and claiming the objective. The Boyz bounced somewhat, as did the Meganobz on the Sagittarum - both assisted by defensive stratagems.
Mozrog decided the smart thing to do would actually be to fight the bikers to help the Boyz, rather than go for the Captain just yet - however he heroically intervened and I just couldn't resist a heroic showdown. However thanks to Custodes 4++ it was a pretty underwhelming duel, with Mozrog taking some minor damage in return - though that did increase when the bikers rudely decided to stab him as well.
At this point I felt things were going ok in terms of killing stuff, but I had somewhat ignored the objectives - and a significant chunk of the Custodes army.
At the end of the phase Mozrog got back up yelling "I didn't hear no bell!", being as Surly as a Squiggoth. However I was rapidly losing units that I could score with, most of my remaining Mobz now below or on the cusp of counting for Engage and being unable to contest objectives from double obsec Custodians.
There was time for one more big bash in the middle, with the Killa Kans coming round the corner to attempt to finish that Shield Captain. Trajann got involved, and the pair battered their way through the Kans after surviving the attacks. Mozrog had another go at the bikers, killing one of them but once again the Custodes invulnerable saves proved too good for him, and they knocked him back down again.
In turn four the Custodes cleared most of the board, racking up a bunch of points, and then in turn five the damaged Shield Captain made a run for my Deffkoptas - the last Ork unit on the field. Thanks to being Snakebites and Ramshackle they shrugged off a lot of his damage and at the bottom of my turn five, finally finished him off with their spinnin' blades!
In the end I'd cut down a fair number of the Custards but most of my forces were gone and I hadn't been scoring much along the way. The final score was 84 - 44 to the Custodes.
Well, those Custodes sure are tough! I think I got a bit unlucky with their invulnerable saves, but I also made plenty of mistakes early on and I was unable to take advantage of my numerical superiority to get board control and focus on the objectives. I was very pleased with how much the Snakebite transhuman for strength 7 or less rule helped me - if there's going to be a lot of Custodes about (and judging by recent tournament results, there will be) Snakebites might suddenly become a strong shout for those meta-inclined. Of course I was always going to run them anyway!
Regardless of result, it was a good fun game and valuable learning. I hope you've enjoyed reading, thanks, and stay safe!
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