Fire on my Position: Astra Militarum vs Adeptus Custodes

 I’m off the mark for 40k games in 2026!

My home armies didn’t get much of a look in last year, I was done with collecting them and too lost in my Necromunda stuff to play much 40k. 

There’s always time for a game when you look for one, though! Kas and I managed a short Custodes vs Militarun match the other day.

He grabbed 1250 points of Lions of the Emperor, which makes good use of my collection. Two small jetbike units, a trio of Allarus terminators that can split into theee mini-hero teams, a fat squad of Custodians and a couple of small Sisters squads for objective guarding. All led by a pair of extremely violent chaps with many wounds and big armour. Their detachment makes them even more potent when acting at a distance from each other.

Not knowing he’d gone Custodes, I’d gone for another  neglected gem of my 40k collection, the Tempestus regiment. All stormtroopers all the time, driving around in Taurox Primes with a Vulture overhead and a Techpriest to fix up the tanks. This is a Bridgehead detachment, bonuses for getting out of transports or dropping in from above, something Tempestus are very good at.

What they aren’t maybe great at is armoured superhunks who can each individually murder an entire squad of mine without batting a plumed eyelid, but hey ho! If he spreads out, maybe I can focus enough firepower and stay mobile to put them down one by one…

Floorhammer special - an ash waste road map, Dawn of War deployment and a nice simple hold more, kill more game. 

I’ll cut to the chase on this - it was short! 

Highlights of note were as follows:

1. All forty-odd shots from the Vulture causing a single wound to an Allarus Custodes.

2. Three units of tooled-up, order-buffed Stormtroopers concentrating fire on a jetbike unit and nearly bringing down one of them. I had to finish off the damaged one with a round of overwatch, and the survivor still killed a squad by himself.

3. Fire on my Position was my best strat, as it allowed me to kill off that last biker by blowing up my own men, depriving the Custodes of vital VPs.

4. An Ogryn Bodyguard does not trump Precision.

It was all over by turn three, when the Vulture gunship was the only thing left. I’d accounted for two jetbikes, and I’d even made that look hard.

Mistakes were made! I did miss a few unit abilities (Techpriests are good now, I could have stacked some extra ap against the jetbikes) that would have helped me. Once the rust had been kicked off, I could see some pretty potent combos my army could have made use of, if they hadn’t all died so fast. Ah well, I’ll know better for next time! At least I know my Custodes still sing, and it’s always good to start the year as I mean to go on.