Tales from the Tabletop - Getting ready for the Fun'N'Fluff 1500pts Tournament

With my Custodes Tale done for the year I find myself wanting to continue painting the army I've really enjoyed working on and there's no better motivator than a tournament. It gives me a hard deadline to work to and a list of units that all need to be done.

But which tournament? 

We're quite lucky in that there's a few places nearby that host regularly scheduled events but I've never been one to want to play at the cutting edge of the 'meta'. I like my games with a bit of narrative weaved in and I've always shied away from playing the Custodes to the most competitive version they can be. Which means I'd end up invariably struggling to win a single game at a standard tournament. After having a look around the local scene I found an event that's perfect for my style of play - The LWGG Fun'n'Fluff Tournament.

The event puts a real focus on bringing a much softer list full of lesser seen units built around a central theme. In fact over half the points you score from the weekend have nothing to do with your game results and are based purely on the theme of your list, how well it's painted and how much fun you are as a player! An ideal intro into the world of tournament 40k. 

With my attendance decided I wanted to see if any of my fellow warlords would like to join and fortunately I had two intrepid volunteers to join me in Medge (you can see his progress on a force here and here) and Tim. Now I needed to get on and decide what I was going to bring!

As the tournament is emphasizing trying to balance out the armies and encourage fluffy picks there are several restrictions in place around list building. The first is that every army is only allowed to take a single battalion detachment to build their army around, which for Custodes means nothing changes for me because I'm usually only ever running a battalion anyway. The second major one is the Highlander rules are in effect for everything but troops and dedicated transports, meaning that you can only include each datasheet once in your army. Again this doesn't have a huge impact on my Custodes as I'm usually only taking one of each unit due to point costs. 

So what does my list look like then with all these restrictions?

+ HQ +

Shield Captain Achillus Navaran in Allarus Terminator Armor - Castellan Axe, Misericordia
Relic - Praetorian Plate

Shield-Captain Diocletian Amun on Dawneagle Jetbike - Hurricane Bolter, Interceptor Lance
Warlord - Champion of the Imperium 

+ Troops +

Custodian Guard Squad - 2x Guardian Spear, 1 x Sentinel Blade, Storm Shield

Custodian Guard Squad - 2x Guardian Spear, 1 x Sentinel Blade, Storm Shield

Custodian Guard Squad - 2x Guardian Spear, 1 x Sentinel Blade, Storm Shield

+ Elites +

Allarus Custodians - Castellan Axe, Ballistus Grenade Launcher, Misericordia

Vexillus Praetor - Castellan Axe, Vexilla Magnifica

+ Fast Attack +

Vertus Praetors - Hurricane Bolter, Interceptor Lance

I've tried to keep the list built around the standard set up of a Custodes Shield Host as shown in the Codex. The core of a Custodes Shield Company is built around the sqauds of Custodian Guard paired up with a single Shield Captain and his preferred method of war. In my case that is Diocletian on his Dawneagle jetbike and the Vertus Praetors. All Shield Companies also have a Vexillus Praetor to advise the Shield Captain of any military and strategic needs. I wanted to theme the Custodes around an execution force sent to cull those enemies of the Imperium that have now become emboldened by the opening of the Great Rift. To this end I've added in a small detachment of Allarus Terminators and their Shield Captain Achillus Navaran as they specialise in beheading warlords from enemy forces. I'm hoping that this will allow me to score a decent amount of points for having a force built around fluff and I'll also include a background story detailing what the force has been assembled for. 

However I still need to paint a few models for this force before the tournament at the end of October. I'll need to paint another 3 Custodian Guard to round out my troops choices, as well as another 2 Allarus Custodians and my Shield Captain in Allarus Armour. 

These are the models left that I need to get painted. As you can see there's only the Allarus Shield Captain left to paint for the Terminators. That's because I've managed to get one painted, as you can see below, and the other Terminators is currently on my painting desk ready to get painted this week.

So that's where I'm at at the moment with my Fun'n'Fluff army. I'll look to get another update out at the end of the month with the Allarus all completed. That will just leave me with the 3 Custodian Guard to get done in October before the tournament at the end of the month. Though I'll also probably look to tidy up all of the bases on my older models as well as a few of the blades.

Until next time,

James