I tried out my tournament list last night against a black legion army in one of the missions we will be playing, rush to victory, from chapter approved. This was my first time using the three custodes shield captains, culexus and crusaders in Valkyrie.
I tables my opponent in turn five, but I was behind in victory points at that point. Sorry I didn’t get any pictures.
My thoughts on the list are:
Valkyrie is expensive for what it does. 142 Pts for a rubbish shooting platform. However it does allow a first turn charge with the crusaders which is super useful. Delivered with the priest and primaris psyker they held up and, eventually killed one flank of the chaos army. They get out 9” away, move 6” then can charge. Set up to surround a rhino with 8 berserkers, an exulted champion and a dark apostle (warlord) in. Once surrounded they couldn’t disembark and would of died with the vehicle. However I only rolled two for the charge and only just got in. I ended up charging with primaris and priest as well who got further. However didn’t managed to surround the rhino. I did a couple of wounds to rhino but the passengers got out next turn and berserkers charged and chopped up the primaris psyker, but only killed on crusader due to the 2++. I then interrupted with crusades and killed 6 of the 8 before they could strike again.
I changed in a shield captain to deal with the exulted champion but the crusaders finished off the berserkers, rhino and dark apostle in a couple of turns and three and the priest walked away.
The Valkyrie however got shot down and did nothing more. However it did suck up the fire from a las cannon predator for two turns till the shield captain engaged it after the exulted.
Culexus- didn’t do much. The only psyker on the table was a daemon prince so at the upper end of psyker range. His weapons are average at best, especially if you only roll one for the number of shots for three turns! He did however pop up when i wanted and took an objective and is very hard to shoot, needing 6’s to hit and a 4++.
The shield captains are really good, but not unbeatable. I lost two, both in combat, one to a maulerfiend (he was fighting two of them due to blasted warptime)and one to the daemon prince. Flat three damage weapons are the main threat. I am planing of using a command point to get the 3++ jetbike for one and using him as a counter attack unit for my main line. To scrape threats off the tanks and guard line. Then use the other two in tandem to aggressively attack the enemy line. I feel they will work better like that. They hit with all their attacks due to the 2+ re rolling 1’s, but don’t always wound even with re rolls on charge. S6 is good but it’s 3’s most of the time. Maybe my rolling was bad.
The pair of standard leman russ tanks are great. They kick out so much firepower. I love them. The punisher is good to. But takes lots of time to roll nearly 50 dice, especially with the vengeance for Cadia stratagem allowing the role to grand wound. Not that it’s a bad tactic though.
Trying it again next week against a blood angle force, very much a combat army.
