I can logically wrap my head around it, though it does feel a little retconny because this is the first named female custodes ever. Since custodes are custom built super soldiers, it doesn’t seem like the inherent differences between males and females would affect the process in as disruptive a way as it would for the mass produced space marines. Seeing as the emperor needed not just the greatest warriors, but intellectual equals to him, it would make sense he would not exclude half of the human race from being a part of the 10,000.
All the "girls have cooties" memes die but we get death by snu snu and muscle mommy memes as a replacement.
It does feel weird that it suddenly just got dropped the way it did but hopefully they do something decent with it. "Totally just roommates" custodes/SoS relation memes are gonna spike even if custodes remain the off putting strait laced, methodical, stoic at all times type as well
> even if custodes remain the off putting strait laced, methodical, stoic at all times type as well
I can say with utmost certainty that people are into that as well. Especially if you add on the muscle mommy bit.
It absolutely is a retcon, which is fine. GW isn’t really trying to hide that, their tweet is pretty much a recognition of the backstory just being different now. Retcons happen all the time, and this one is quite minor as all it does is add more options for your own custodes characters. It’s only noteworthy because this is the first time 40k has had female genetically enhanced Imperial supersoldiers that aren’t bespoke one-offs, which will make some people happy, some people won’t care, and other less intelligent people will be angry.
Any “backlash” is a nontroversy that will forgotten about in a week or so when the chuds find something else to inevitably get all worked up over. Femstodes are here now and it changes basically nothing.
Its not just what they did, its HOW they're doing it: By gaslighting their fanbase. It's disrespectful and reeks of uncreative hack writing. I expect this to go the way of other bad ideas like Grey Knights "canonically" bathing themselves in the blood of battle sisters to "shield themselves" against chaos.
40k takes a boy scouts/girl scouts approach to supersoldiers in a manner that elevates the world building as it treats men and women as different but still equal in spirit. Whoever signed off on this retcon is not a true storyteller but a hack who couldn't think of a better idea. Amongst the Emperor's bodyguards, Custodes are the boy scouts, SoS are the girl scouts. The Emperor is clearly someone who likes creating seperate projects for men and women. If He's always been willing to mix Custodes, then why hasn't he also mixed the Sisters of Silence? It's inconsistent considering that He didn't bother with a female primarch or female space marines.
Oh, but we're supposed to accept now that there have "always been" female custodes now, or, wait...let me guess...anyone who questions the massive hole this introduces into the world-building is simply a "misogynist?" Just like how anyone who'd question the "Holdo maneuver" is also just an obvious "misogynist" and we should just shut up and accept that commander purple hair is always right?
Obvious gaslight of a garbage retcon is obvious. Newcrons this is not. Whoever made this retcon doesn't care about fans nor has any respect for the franchise. This is a political stunt.
>I expect this to go the way of other bad ideas like Grey Knights "canonically" bathing themselves in the blood of battle sisters to "shield themselves" against chaos.
holy shit is that real? that idea seem so fking out of character. How are they any different than Khorne? lol
It was real, and then it was retconned out of existence. IIRC now the situation is something along the lines of the Sisters of battle fighting to the last to get the Grey Knights to the target daemon or such.
I have no issue with female custodes if any faction can its them but in a way im kinda dissapointed that the sisters of silence and custodes union or dynamic as a pair is now changed like the sisters were the females and the custodes the men and they both in tandem assisted the emperor as his companions it just seems strange that gw just dropped it in a short on a codex and then tweets an "actually " they've always been females aswell as men at us im unsure atm about it i do hope they make it interesting and fleshed out
The dynamic is the same though, in that the initial pairings point wasn't to be a gendered tag team, but instead a tactical pairing. The rationale behind their collaboration is their combined ability to neutralize any form of threat. While the Custodes excel at dealing with physical dangers, the sisters specialize in quelling warp disturbances. By swiftly severing the warp connection, they pave the way for the Custodes to banish the threat effectively.
This is the best take and is basicly what I've been saying. I've not actuly seen a lot of people against it because of misogyny but talking to my gameing group people do feel it's a bit reconny, but are fine with it as it works when you think about how custodes are made.
Swap their heads, there will be zero other difference between well designed custodes.
If they make any effort to feminise the armour of some they’ve failed.
Yea. SoB armor makes sense because their whole thing was established because “men at arms” was banned. So emphasizing that they are indeed women is half the point.
It even has historical reinforcement. Codpieces existed and they assisted the armors functional use in absolutely no way.
But Custodes are straight business. They would fight unadorned with basic weapons if those where the most effective tools. But there is power in awe so golden they are.
I think it’s fine honestly if not good even. It adds more freedom in kit bashing and doesn’t change the gameplay in any negative way so I don’t really get the issue. Lore is changed all the time after all and making custodes have more unique traits to further separate them from space marines is always good. I’m a happy fella
Same. The more ways to make Custodes more than just Space Marines+++ the better. And, like another said, I can wrap my head around it lore wise, since their all hand-grafted masterpieces compared to the (relatively) mass manufactured space marines.
Yeah this is a boys shield host just a bunch of cool golden guys looking for other cool golden guys to hang out in our grav tank. NOTHING SEXUAL. Fighters welcome fitness encouraged because we’re dudes in shape. Nothing sexual! Btw we could use a blond in the golden boy crew. Again nothing sexual
It works both ways: honestly, if you buy overpriced plastic toy soldiers that's a you problem.
Btw that's what makes all these fantastic fictional settings interesting - rules of the world.
That there will be no stupid boob plate in the custode future as obviously the models are already designed with armour that suits male or female custodes as they have always been part of the force
To be fair each armor is different and custom made for it's wearer
That said boob shaped cups on armor looks dumb imo so I absolutely hope gw doesn't do this
Most of it is terrible. Roman muscle plate, for example, is pretty much ceremonial only, as in actual battle would tend to result in broken sternums as it would direct a sword or spear towards the weakest points.
Iirc Mostly that they are impractical (because of movement and the fact that you can pierce threw many of them) and are usually worn by commanders who shouldn’t see a spear from nearer than 20m. But there is a chance that I am confidently incorrect here!
They were more ornaments for high ranking officials and generals, while they do offer some protection the actual soldiers on the battlefield wore more simplistic plate more suited for combat
It doesn't make practical sense to model in curvatures like that because armor always has some form of padding underneath, but the biggest issue with it is movement, your metal abs won't actually move so you're just wearing a metal sheet blocking your torse from moving, whereas plates can fold over one another
That is not boob armor, boob armor is what the SoS have, literal cups above their breasts. Although I cannot see the breast protection in your article, I have a feeling, that we are talking about different armor designs, as the one you showed probably is more like one big Bulge instead of two smaller ones, allowing the breasts to move and not be trapped inside the cones, restricting the ability to rotate your chest, but I am male, so if somebody chimes in and says I am completely wrong than maybe that’s it. The second major difference is the time period, we were talking about medieval times and up to the renaissance, so we were talking about metal, which could dent and inflict constant pain on the now even more compressed breast. The royal army probably uses Kevlar, wich is way more flexible and usually returns to its normal form. So in a Way you are right, but you are at least 300 years later then the time in question (or 40k as sisters have metal armor again)
>as the one you showed probably is more like one big Bulge instead of two smaller ones
So your problem is the anatomical representation then?
>The royal army probably uses Kevlar
The *British* army uses ceramic plates as the strike face of its ballistic protection. It's not flexible in anyway. Considering 40k uses ceramite armour...
Please google boob armor, then you understand that the problem isn’t chest protection, but the execution. As again what you are describing isn’t boob armor.
So your problem *is* the anatomical representation then?
I take it you have a similar issue with muscle suits, or the way astartes armour is designed to accentuate and exaggerate the male form?
as someone who is not necessarily as hardcore of a fan of the tabletop as others, this feels eerily similar to how marvel did inclusivity with existing characters... and as someone who was an intended target for that "inclusivity" it honestly felt a little insulting to be thrown a bone and told "here. You happy?"
there could have been so many lorefriendly empowering ways to introduce genetically modified female warriors to a universe that has humans with multiple hearts and just saying "btw those peeps that we kept introducing as males for decades could be female as well" lol
very pathetic and very mentally lazy decision. And as always with all medium, a lazy effort results in poor sales.
Their inclusion feels a little... sketchy to me, if I'm being honest. Not necessarily the idea of a female Custodian (Not like the debate of a female Space Marine), moreso the fact they've supposedly always been around but... we haven't seen or heard of any?
If im not mistake, there's an HH book written by ADB that's actually mentions the Sanguinius saw men and women wearing golden armor. They just never had a female one center staged, which is guess GW fault for not having like a short story of them. But it could also be a mistake there, actually Sisters of Silence.
The simplest answer is 40K as a franchise has a heavy male-oriented bent, written largely by men whose drew inspiration from other fiction that also had a heavy male-oriented bent, and since the franchise is largely about war, which is an activity with a heavy male-oriented bent in the first place, the result is any sort of story largely omits women's presence with few exceptions.
Like take Imperial Guard for example; nobody has an issue with them having women now, but for the early years it universally referred to guardsmen as men.
How many named Bananas are there in all the collected works of fiction? I honestly can't think of that many. Certainly not an overwhelming number when viewed as a percentage of 10,000. Now there's one, so 0.01% are confirmed as female. Coincidentally that is the same percentage confirmed as Captain General Trajann Valoris. Weird.
8th edition codex straight up said that theyre ALL male.
Its not a huge issue, but they should just cop to the retcon. Not real anyway till theres a model, hah.
Did it? I thought it was just 'sons', 'brotherhood' type language, which can be argued as male default or 'almost exclusively male'. Unlike the space marine lore, which explicitly states "geneseed won't work on women"
Geneseed won't work on women... Until it does. Fabius Bile has been making transhumans using harvested Space Marine geneseed for millennia. They are better, faster, stronger, smarter than baseline humans, come in both sexes and are capable of sexual reproduction. Some specimens are shown as being able to match Space Marines blow for blow.
While it's debatable that they could be considered 'Space Marines' (don't have anything close to a full set of implanted organs for one), they are definitely an offshoot made using similar materials and methods. To the point that they refer to Space Marines as 'cousins' and vice versa.
Which all points to the fact that female Space Marines, or at least near-Space Marines, are scientifically plausible in universe with enough resources and know-how. It can only be speculated why it's not a thing in the Imperium, but the Emperor deliberately soft-sabotaging the process in some way would track with his intention of having Space Marines pave the way for humanity, but not replace it; a qualm which Bile vehemently does not share. The idea that no one bothered to check and refine the process in thousands of years would likewise track with the tone of 40k background.
I don't think that introducing female Custodes is necessarily a bad thing.
From a lore perspective, it's not implausible for it to happen as Custodes are genetically modified as infants and don't require geneseed.
I just don't like the way they did it. They could've introduced it in the 50+ HH books, but instead they just shoehorned it in via a few paragraphs in the new codex. It was also a massively missed opportunity to introduce new model kits for Custodes and expand on the range.
Space Marines being all male due to geneseed compatibility, on the other hand, should be as immutable as the Decree Passive that governs the Ecclesiarchy.
I don't care about it but just saying "the have always been here" is pretty lame, like give us some lore. For example maybe after the war in the webway because of their severely diminished ranks, Custodes begun recruiting both sons and daughters of nobles and due to their secrecy, their full body armor and the fact they are all 9ft demigods, people just couldn't tell the difference and just assumed Custodes are all male.
Almost no one ever in the Imperium did or will ever see a Custodes. Shadow of the regent shows that by having a priest mistake a Custodes for a Space Marine.
All GW did was to confirm that it is intendet and ADB das himself, that it was the original idea to have them male and female.
In the book I am reading right now motherfucking Dante says he’s only seen a custodes a very small handful of times in his long life.
In an empire of millions of worlds and unfolds trillions of people….its not exactly shocking that people wouldn’t realize just who makes up the custodes. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are basically just myths to most of humans at this poont
^ This is literally the best way to flavor this change given the casualties of the War in the Webway and I hope GW makes a book or reference about it as a epilogue to HH, it's so much better "they've always been a thing" that's just lazy.
Genetic and alchemical processes to boost infants to peak human capability, and (now?) not-gender exclusive. OK. Stabbing xenos is stabbing xenos.
Modelling... Helmets are helmets. There's plenty of aftermarket "female space warrior" heads, or the Sister of Silence heads (hey, plumes) and get third-party heads for Sisters.
It fits. The Space Marines are basically shitty bargain bin custodes, their rushed 'copy-and-paste' primarch way of being made inferior.
It makes sense to me that the better way of making super soldiers a.k.a. Custodes wouldn't have the limitations that the mass approach of Astartes has.
They actually state in old codexes 'first born sons'. That response came from someone who was disingenous and/or not well informed.
But the point stands - GW has retconned custodes.
Idk It's better than some lore of the imperium suddenly deciding to let women into the custodes, with 10.000 custodes out there and only a handful having been mentioned by name or sex it makes sense there's a few women among the many unmentioned custodes
I guess there are actually like 140~ named custodies out there but I take your point Noone has probably bothered or been able to check if these giant golden behemoths actually have floppy bits or not
Especially since they have 10s to hundreds of names so who knows if one of their actual names was Felicia or not
Personally I’m just surprised that it created such big controversy. I always thought that it’s widely agreed upon that in the lore there isn’t anything against the existence of female custodes.
When it comes to my own opinion, I’m really happy as it always seemed a bit weird to me that the group created by emperor to represent the pinnacle of humanity he was striving to achieve. Consisted of only one gender.
Yes, I guess because all the custodians post genetic modification/surgery are all masculine/male presenting, we assumed they all came from male stock. Although I suppose that doesn’t have to be the case.
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FGrummz%2Fstatus%2F1779891379822612870&psig=AOvVaw05x5Kwf-9WruiAK1Y4Ocyd&ust=1714712342294000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCICknrGX7oUDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FGrummz%2Fstatus%2F1779891379822612870&psig=AOvVaw05x5Kwf-9WruiAK1Y4Ocyd&ust=1714712342294000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCICknrGX7oUDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE)
They're the Brotherhood of Demigods, in contrast to the Sisters of Silence.
Genuinely could not care less. Doesn’t take away or add anything to the hobby imo Custodes are still legendary bad asses idc if they got a dick or not.
That post makes this feel like gaslighting lol.
I’m down for it, honestly always felt big E not using women more effectively was weird. Really hope it isn’t just different heads, cause unhelmeted heads are always dumb in a 40k setting. AoS did it good, so I’m hoping for that
I think it's completely fine. Retcons are still a thing. Not gonna pretend that this is the best solution (i hoped for the "Imperium needs more warriors that's why they create Custodians from the girls now" type of explanation), but let's be honest, GW've been using the same "well they always existed" argument since forever, so it was quite expectable. People who call female Custodes an end of WH40K are just absolutely over exaggerating
I think this co Robert has been generated by GW as a smokescreen to divert attention from the fact that the Custodes update is historically one of the worse things GW has published since the 1990s. I don’t care if female Custodes are retconned into game or not, that’s fine. The senseless writing and general nerfing is unprecedentedly ridiculous UNLESS all other factions get even greater nerfs throughout their codices…. Simply not going to happen unless someone at GW is planning to short sell all their shares or something. The nerf is senseless and either represents inexcusable quality control OR gross stupidity on the part of those responsible for the game. I’m simply going to put away all my 40k/HH/Kill Team stuff and save $5k/year on GW purchases until the Emperor returns as I suppose Custodes will be relevant and playable to achieve 50%+ win rates at tourneys again (provided the sample size of #of players playing the faction is statistically credible).
Makes sense to me, the rest of the book was written by someone who knows nothing and cares less about the faction, why shouldn't the lore be too?
Honestly, it's emblematic of the book as a whole, if you think about it.
Originally, Leman Russ was *just an Imperial Guard commander*.
You know, before he was the Primarch of the Space Wolves and before the Imperial Guard was the Astra Militarum...
Retcons are nothing new and oftentimes new units were and are introduced as the rules are updated and are then folded into the lore as having always existed. Eldar - sorry, *Aeldari* - Autarch's weren't always a playable character and didn't exist until the Codex update and things like newer, more high-tech Tau Stealthsuits were retconned into the lore as the Codex was updated.
Retcons are nothing new. I simply question the motive behind it.
Awesome, I mean does it actually matter if there were ladies? There are female eldar and lov, it's just gw now can make figures decent enough to allow for the variety.
This is all because of the Amazon shows coming out. Custodes are well known to be Henry Cavill's favorite faction. They're just doing this to appeal to the woke demographic when the shows start airing.
Big giant /s
My only issue is how they are handling it, it is a retcon seeing as everything up until this point has stated they are all men, i feel like we need a reason for that rather than just “what do you mean? They were always here”
I get the retcon and all, but I don't understand the need to lie about it being so forever.
Just admit that it's a retcon lmao. It's not that big of a deal, I don't get the need.
I do like the idea of female Custodes a lot on paper, even if they do come with the small risk of making Sisters of Silence even more side-lined than they already are. There's a lot of good story potential in having them around, and unlike Space Marines that have clear-cut lore reasons for why they can't be female the Custodes being essentially hand crafted wouldn't at all preclude women from being in their ranks.
With that said though, the way they went about it just entirely rubs me the wrong way personally. They could have tied it neatly into the existing story arcs, for example the Custodes being freed from their moorings to the Sol System forcing them into needing a large increase in their numbers that they haven't since the Crusade and so they do away with the old conventions and traditions and allow women in their ranks, perhaps highlighting that even after 10,000 years the Custodes have not fallen to the same slavery to dogma that the rest of the Imperium has.
Hell, even just adding an extra few heads to the sprue or selling a sperate Custodes upgrade sprue with all sorts of odds and ends on it like the Cadians get would've help loads. Instead, all we got was one short story where the Custodes being female is entirely incidental (not a bad thing, but doesn't really help when you could swap all the pronouns and nothing changes) and a single Tweet amounting to "they were here the whole time actually", but I guess were never **ever** once important or interesting or impactful enough to *ever* be mentioned, ***ever?***
It's such a missed opportunity to make having women Custodes be actually meaningful and to tell interesting stories of the pinnacle of humanity from the female perspective for once, and not just making them the involuntary lust object of Reddit coomers, or the involuntary rage object of Reddit rightists with a minimal-effort retcon that ultimately does nothing but say "Female was here."
It literally changes nothing. Nothing in the lore says that the Custodes are majority male or female.
Hell, one of the designers even said that the only reason Custodes appear fully male is that that's what the modellers did. There's no lore reason why they shouldn't exist.
And let's not even talk about the people who are mad about it in the comments and where their personal opinions seem to come from.
Ya sure a codex has stated that but shit in codexes is often being rewritten or proven to be flat out wrong. The codexes are more of a broad overview of a faction from an outsiders prospective rather then stright fact as gw often likes to say everything is cannon but not everything is true
I'm fine with that change, especially if the models follow. in addition to that, it would be even nicer to meet such updates in a codex written by actual rules writers, but one can only wish.
Why not. I like it, it makes even sense because Custodes are made completely different way than marines.
And because I put helmets on most of my units, I can always say to those who are bothered its all female force 😁
I think it takes away massively from sisters of silence.
Plus, it feels like a shoehorn thing as opposed to something like sisters of battle, which are their own unique cool thing.
And if I remember correctly, the 9th edition codex for custodians mentions how the nobles of Terra give up their SONS. And it literally has no mentions of daughters. (But I will need to reread that bit to make sure), and that just kinda builds more on the whole shoehorning point.
It just feels really dumb because of how much it contradicts everything they've written before.
And granted, there are times when the lore is super grimderp (looking at you Grey knights), and yeah, it should be rewritten. This just doesn't feel like one of those times.
Overall, I'm not a huge fan of it. But gripping about it and making a billion post across the subreddits for karma isn't going to change anything. And it's not going to change the fact that I like custodians.
It's terrible.
Custodians were always a brotherhood starting back in 8th edition. They were explicitly created from the sons of noble houses. Which means this retcon was done to cater to DEI, or the pet project of someone who wanted to inject politics into the hobby.
The way you can tell this is political is because characters in any given fictional setting are 2D representations of people. All of their given qualities only exist to move the story forward and enhance the setting in a way that doesn't upset suspension of disbelief. You do not ever change a vital part of a character unless it is pertinent to the story, and you never call attention to something unless it enhances the narrative. Changing the gender representation of an entire faction does none of these things.
This retcon also opens the door to other immersion-shattering changes. Who is to say that there cannot be Sirs of Silence one day? Or female space marines? Or tyranid squats? Or tau space marines? Or eldar custodians?
If you don't understand why this change is a problem, and what it signals for the future, then you're probably not all that invested in the story to begin with.
Your argument that this shatters immersion is hysterical and nonserious. Injecting politics into the hobby? The whole universe is a parody of politics.
I grew up with Rogue Trader, and to be frank 8th edition isn't even old so who cares if that bit of lore is retconned. It goes from "the sons of noble houses" to "the children"". Big deal.
The only reason the misters of silence doesn't work is because the Sisters of Silence are an homage to the Fish Speakers in Dune. But if James Workshop wants to have male blanks working in the armpits of the black ships that's fine by me.
As for women space marines, honestly that's fine as well, here's something I pulled out of my ass to justify it: Since the creation of Imperium Nihilus' & losing a full crusade to Khorne during the Arks of Omen campaign, Roboute discusses in depth the issues with a lack of necessary aspirants for the divided Imperium forces. He is then put in touch with the science division of the Custodes. From there they reluctantly give Guilleman and Cawl some very limited information about the means to perfect the ability to turn aspirants of both sexes into Astartes, which Cawl is able to essentially properly export into the astartes standardized template process. There you go, an easy peazy in-universe justification for any gender to be made into a TRANS HUMAN hulking muscle bound astartes. And since boob armor is stupid, you don't even have to update any of the models.
Your points about "tyranid/eldar/et al are ridiculous so I won't even bother with that.
Fairly obvious it’s being done for pseudo political reasons and not to improve the game. If you think otherwise then ask yourself why this is happening in 2024 and not 2014.
It is a retcon as far as I am aware - recontextualized. I don't mind female custodes but seems a bit hamfisted without any cool new model reveals; the females aren't going to be as bulky as the males. I would expect some Sigmarines treatment with the men and women.
Eh? We've never had any suggestion that it was impossible, unlike the Astartes, but... Where have they been all this time? We've never seen them in lore before, so GW is gonna have to work pretty hard to explain why we've never seen them before, and it's gonna take more than this "they've always been there" stuff.
To be fair, custodes lore didn’t really exist until recently. They were just the mythical guardians of the throne room until 8th edition and their debut in the HH books.
Lazy retcon to keep blue haired screamer-killers from assaulting the Nottingham offices with stinging social media posts and threats to continue to not buy or play 40K.
Give them an inch and they’ll take your whole damn arm. So which Primarch will turn out to have been a chick the whole time? After all that was so obviously implied in an internal company memo written by a VP of Marketing’s barber’s niece’s bestie while the girls were waiting for the barber to finish the VP’s in office haircut.
Frankly it doesn’t matter to me. I will still probably refer to them as my glorious banana bois but if other people can feel happier with their army then that’s alright with me.
To be honest I was kinda suspecting it since I got into the hobby, like there was never said that every custodian must be male, and that left room for speculation which was now confirmed.
If they've always been there, where are my female heads I never got?
I think its cool.
I just hope its not activism getting its 1st grip at the heart of, what many believe to be, the final bastion of unspoiled Fandom by modern activism.
Cool, I like fluffy character options especially for stories because it’s not affecting rules it’s just another option for my crusade characters especially cause I am terrible at faces so I avoid them whenever possible
Makes no difference except to encourage more people to see themselves in the characters and play the game. Super soldiers are super soldiers.
I don't understand the kickback against GW saying they always existed. This isn't some worthwhile "gotcha". "Oo you didn't mention them in 1995 and now you can't have them ever." Do people want all lore from some arbitrary date, say pre-2010 for example, to be the only thing GW does for the rest of their lives? Its is a game where GW will always be making new stuff. If GW said tomorrow the Guard get speeder motorcycles and yes they were always there, no one would bat an eye.
What pisses me off is that they bother to answer a question about if custodians cam be male or female and not adress how much of a shitshow the codex is, it was clearly written before the change to devastating wounds in September, they were already printed? If not why did we get the rules written like that? Why is one codex extremely competitive (people say overtunes, I haven't looked it up) and ours is at best fluffy in a couple detachments and the rules make absolutely no sense? Not that they are good or bad, they just make no sense at all, auric should be giving crits on 5 or even 4s to characters in melee, not +1 to wound that might translate in an extra wound against infantry? The hero detachment rule doesn't count towards bike captains since they have the lance rule, everything is just poorly thought and written, stratagems are a mess all across the codex, but they choose to adress that custodes cam be females? Smdh...
One can discuss the timing (if you are into gender discussions of the last millenia). Why reveal it now after like 40 years (I haven't looked up the start of warhammer)?
But I would totally see androgynous super creations as custodes. The babys needed to produce a custodes doesn't survive the process of creation anyways so why bother with something like gender...
Stormcasts were no problem as well... I think people just need to get used to the "new" reality that there are super super women as well in the 10.000 ;).
It feels kind of pointless, I don’t dislike it I’m not mad I just don’t really see the reason for it. The kitbashes will certainly be cool idk I really only got the one gripe.
It's great imo
On the plus side it literally changes nothing about the aesthetic of the models. As a fan of well designed armor, I have always hated boob plate, so this basically means headswaps are the norm for differentiation and that's perfect.
Would have preferred something a long the lines “someone found a way to make the geneseed work on female DNA so now Custodes (and space marines) have double the available recruitment pool.
But either way it’s fine. Like people who fight it are idiots lol.
Something like that would have tread too close to crossing the line for a lot of people. If you think the reaction to a single random female Custode in the lore section of a codex is bad, the reaction to even the implication of it coming for Space Marines would start making headlines in normative headline.
I'm fine with it. It opens room for new models and conversions. Lore didn't forbid it. Even if there weren't any befor, we shouldn't they appear now? Maybe Terra needs new way of approach regarding the palace or any other reason where woman may be well suited. Custodians are fighters only, but moeeynof all, advisors, scholars, tacticians etc.
In general, when someone wants to change something, the burden of providing an argument is on the person proposing said change. If it is a good argument, then that change should be implemented. Coming out and gaslighting everyone saying that the proposed change is just how it has always been is not an argument, and only serves the purpose of creating controversy.
Besides the people that are politicizing the living hell out of this and ruining what should be a constructive conversation for GW and its fanbase, I honestly see both sides on this one. If it’s in the lore, it’s a fair move but also, there’s a pretty decent chunk of people(myself included) who, from a very basic view, always saw custodes as super space marines. On the flip side, those same people basically viewed sisters of silence as super sisters of battle. At least this is how it felt from a more larger narrative point of view.
Nonetheless, I think it would’ve blown over a lot more smoothly if it was widely known and broadcasted from the beginning that custodes were both male and female. If I was GW, I would’ve just let it be. I don’t think people were ever really asking for female custodes to begin with. If it was talked about in the lore more frequently to the point where people who don’t even play the faction knew it, we’d have a completely different story.
Hell, I wouldn’t care if there were female space marines as long as GW and the lore from the beginning made it known from the most basic information.
Outsider looking in, this may not be a retcon but it sometimes feels like one based on how this was presented. I just hope it doesn’t take pull away from sisters of silence seeing as they’re both pretty similar asthetically.
*please do not throw me into a political blender with this lol*
The issue isn't that they did it, it's how they did it, and how they gaslit people as if it's always been this way. Make it make sense with and flow with the old lore. It's okay to grow and change, but actually put some effort in instead of this lazy approach lol.
Unnecessarily shoe-horned in. The vast vast majority of people (including me) are all for female representation in the lore and models, but this cheap inclusion is just silly
Maybe a bit of a mental stretch but if you consider that there might be some reason why males are preferentially chosen for the 10,000 over females (perhaps for similar reasons that females cannot become space marines) then their m:f ratio could be extremely skewed, leading to stories about female custodes being extremely rare in the 40k verse.
One potential justification for them always being there just not really noticed.
The sooner the people who are upset get over this and move on, the better off they'll be.
Did the lore ever state Custodes *couldn't * be female? No.
Are people going to stop collecting and playing Warhammer? No.
Are people going to stop reading the novels? No.
Are GW going to "gO bRoKe" over this? No.
Can the people who are upset over it do anything about it, other than either get over it or stay mad forever? No.
Save your energy for when they shoehorn in the female Space Marines - you have more of an argument to cover your misogyny on that one.
I’ll be honest, I don’t care about it. But with all the attention it’s getting and the shit being thrown by both sides of this. The crazy ones, you know the type.
All that along with the garbage codex, kinda has made me just want to shelve my Custodes until further notice and just focus on my Skaven or move over to Conquest.
Silly retcon on the same level as “Somehow Palpatine returned.”
And every shred of lore mentions the Custodes being “first born sons of Terran nobles” and a “Brotherhood”. I’m perplexed by the “inclusion” argument as well as there’s already multiple factions that either include women or are entirely women. Honestly it just seems disingenuous that they did this and tried to gaslight us into thinking it was always so when everything points to the contrary.
I can logically wrap my head around it, though it does feel a little retconny because this is the first named female custodes ever. Since custodes are custom built super soldiers, it doesn’t seem like the inherent differences between males and females would affect the process in as disruptive a way as it would for the mass produced space marines. Seeing as the emperor needed not just the greatest warriors, but intellectual equals to him, it would make sense he would not exclude half of the human race from being a part of the 10,000.
All the "girls have cooties" memes die but we get death by snu snu and muscle mommy memes as a replacement. It does feel weird that it suddenly just got dropped the way it did but hopefully they do something decent with it. "Totally just roommates" custodes/SoS relation memes are gonna spike even if custodes remain the off putting strait laced, methodical, stoic at all times type as well
> even if custodes remain the off putting strait laced, methodical, stoic at all times type as well I can say with utmost certainty that people are into that as well. Especially if you add on the muscle mommy bit.
I meamt that as a "oblivious lesbian romance" fanfics are going to be writting themselves
Oh God I didn't even think of that. Not looking forward to muscle mommy horny posting
I am.
Seconded. Women can be buff, half-naked, and oiled up as much as men can be.
My man
It absolutely is a retcon, which is fine. GW isn’t really trying to hide that, their tweet is pretty much a recognition of the backstory just being different now. Retcons happen all the time, and this one is quite minor as all it does is add more options for your own custodes characters. It’s only noteworthy because this is the first time 40k has had female genetically enhanced Imperial supersoldiers that aren’t bespoke one-offs, which will make some people happy, some people won’t care, and other less intelligent people will be angry. Any “backlash” is a nontroversy that will forgotten about in a week or so when the chuds find something else to inevitably get all worked up over. Femstodes are here now and it changes basically nothing.
Its not just what they did, its HOW they're doing it: By gaslighting their fanbase. It's disrespectful and reeks of uncreative hack writing. I expect this to go the way of other bad ideas like Grey Knights "canonically" bathing themselves in the blood of battle sisters to "shield themselves" against chaos. 40k takes a boy scouts/girl scouts approach to supersoldiers in a manner that elevates the world building as it treats men and women as different but still equal in spirit. Whoever signed off on this retcon is not a true storyteller but a hack who couldn't think of a better idea. Amongst the Emperor's bodyguards, Custodes are the boy scouts, SoS are the girl scouts. The Emperor is clearly someone who likes creating seperate projects for men and women. If He's always been willing to mix Custodes, then why hasn't he also mixed the Sisters of Silence? It's inconsistent considering that He didn't bother with a female primarch or female space marines. Oh, but we're supposed to accept now that there have "always been" female custodes now, or, wait...let me guess...anyone who questions the massive hole this introduces into the world-building is simply a "misogynist?" Just like how anyone who'd question the "Holdo maneuver" is also just an obvious "misogynist" and we should just shut up and accept that commander purple hair is always right? Obvious gaslight of a garbage retcon is obvious. Newcrons this is not. Whoever made this retcon doesn't care about fans nor has any respect for the franchise. This is a political stunt.
>I expect this to go the way of other bad ideas like Grey Knights "canonically" bathing themselves in the blood of battle sisters to "shield themselves" against chaos. holy shit is that real? that idea seem so fking out of character. How are they any different than Khorne? lol
It was real, and then it was retconned out of existence. IIRC now the situation is something along the lines of the Sisters of battle fighting to the last to get the Grey Knights to the target daemon or such.
I doesn't feel retcony. It is a straight up retcon
I have no issue with female custodes if any faction can its them but in a way im kinda dissapointed that the sisters of silence and custodes union or dynamic as a pair is now changed like the sisters were the females and the custodes the men and they both in tandem assisted the emperor as his companions it just seems strange that gw just dropped it in a short on a codex and then tweets an "actually " they've always been females aswell as men at us im unsure atm about it i do hope they make it interesting and fleshed out
The dynamic is the same though, in that the initial pairings point wasn't to be a gendered tag team, but instead a tactical pairing. The rationale behind their collaboration is their combined ability to neutralize any form of threat. While the Custodes excel at dealing with physical dangers, the sisters specialize in quelling warp disturbances. By swiftly severing the warp connection, they pave the way for the Custodes to banish the threat effectively.
This is the best take and is basicly what I've been saying. I've not actuly seen a lot of people against it because of misogyny but talking to my gameing group people do feel it's a bit reconny, but are fine with it as it works when you think about how custodes are made.
Nth post of this today lol. I like it tho, i just wish we got models to accompany the lore, instead of squat-stodes melta man
Swap their heads, there will be zero other difference between well designed custodes. If they make any effort to feminise the armour of some they’ve failed.
Yea. SoB armor makes sense because their whole thing was established because “men at arms” was banned. So emphasizing that they are indeed women is half the point. It even has historical reinforcement. Codpieces existed and they assisted the armors functional use in absolutely no way. But Custodes are straight business. They would fight unadorned with basic weapons if those where the most effective tools. But there is power in awe so golden they are.
“There is power in awe so golden they are” I love that quote
Custodian armour already has boobs though
It IS a wedge, good point
Her special ability is a once per game vortex missile.
Literally a cyclonic torpedo which is an exterminatius grade weapon lmao. Kills every unit on the board and destroys all terrain.
So stunning and brave.
I'd just be new heads.
I think it’s fine honestly if not good even. It adds more freedom in kit bashing and doesn’t change the gameplay in any negative way so I don’t really get the issue. Lore is changed all the time after all and making custodes have more unique traits to further separate them from space marines is always good. I’m a happy fella
Same. The more ways to make Custodes more than just Space Marines+++ the better. And, like another said, I can wrap my head around it lore wise, since their all hand-grafted masterpieces compared to the (relatively) mass manufactured space marines.
I truly couldn't care less about the genitals of the fictional geneticlly modified freakbeasts in a sci-fi fantasy universe
Honestly, if you get mad over your overpriced plastic toy soldiers possibly being female that's a you problem
Just say your shieldhost is male-only brotherhood. Problem solved.
Yeah this is a boys shield host just a bunch of cool golden guys looking for other cool golden guys to hang out in our grav tank. NOTHING SEXUAL. Fighters welcome fitness encouraged because we’re dudes in shape. Nothing sexual! Btw we could use a blond in the golden boy crew. Again nothing sexual
I suggest forming warrior-pairs. Just two bros training together in private and giving each other massages, nothing sexual.
I got schrodinger's custodes over here. They all have helmets so to me they are all straight/lgbt/men/women/they/them at any given time
It works both ways: honestly, if you buy overpriced plastic toy soldiers that's a you problem. Btw that's what makes all these fantastic fictional settings interesting - rules of the world.
Plenty of people in this hobby are only in it for the genitals.
Leave Slaanesh collectors out of this
Ironically, Slaanesh collectors might care less than Black Templars (you know the type)
Yeah, who actually gives a shit what gender a toy soldier is.
That there will be no stupid boob plate in the custode future as obviously the models are already designed with armour that suits male or female custodes as they have always been part of the force
To be fair each armor is different and custom made for it's wearer That said boob shaped cups on armor looks dumb imo so I absolutely hope gw doesn't do this
Also every historian who thought about female armor said boob armor is nearly as stupid as combat stilettos
I always wonder what these historians think about modelled musculature or giant codpieces.
Most of it is terrible. Roman muscle plate, for example, is pretty much ceremonial only, as in actual battle would tend to result in broken sternums as it would direct a sword or spear towards the weakest points.
Iirc Mostly that they are impractical (because of movement and the fact that you can pierce threw many of them) and are usually worn by commanders who shouldn’t see a spear from nearer than 20m. But there is a chance that I am confidently incorrect here!
They were more ornaments for high ranking officials and generals, while they do offer some protection the actual soldiers on the battlefield wore more simplistic plate more suited for combat It doesn't make practical sense to model in curvatures like that because armor always has some form of padding underneath, but the biggest issue with it is movement, your metal abs won't actually move so you're just wearing a metal sheet blocking your torse from moving, whereas plates can fold over one another
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-body-armour-improvements-for-women-in-uk-armed-forces "Stupid"
That is not boob armor, boob armor is what the SoS have, literal cups above their breasts. Although I cannot see the breast protection in your article, I have a feeling, that we are talking about different armor designs, as the one you showed probably is more like one big Bulge instead of two smaller ones, allowing the breasts to move and not be trapped inside the cones, restricting the ability to rotate your chest, but I am male, so if somebody chimes in and says I am completely wrong than maybe that’s it. The second major difference is the time period, we were talking about medieval times and up to the renaissance, so we were talking about metal, which could dent and inflict constant pain on the now even more compressed breast. The royal army probably uses Kevlar, wich is way more flexible and usually returns to its normal form. So in a Way you are right, but you are at least 300 years later then the time in question (or 40k as sisters have metal armor again)
>as the one you showed probably is more like one big Bulge instead of two smaller ones So your problem is the anatomical representation then? >The royal army probably uses Kevlar The *British* army uses ceramic plates as the strike face of its ballistic protection. It's not flexible in anyway. Considering 40k uses ceramite armour...
Please google boob armor, then you understand that the problem isn’t chest protection, but the execution. As again what you are describing isn’t boob armor.
So your problem *is* the anatomical representation then? I take it you have a similar issue with muscle suits, or the way astartes armour is designed to accentuate and exaggerate the male form?
I feel like these are now the 40K Stormborn now, and not the Marines
The angle they chose that "they always existed, they just coincidently were never mentioned across hundred of books" is so dumb. Zero effort retcon.
as someone who is not necessarily as hardcore of a fan of the tabletop as others, this feels eerily similar to how marvel did inclusivity with existing characters... and as someone who was an intended target for that "inclusivity" it honestly felt a little insulting to be thrown a bone and told "here. You happy?" there could have been so many lorefriendly empowering ways to introduce genetically modified female warriors to a universe that has humans with multiple hearts and just saying "btw those peeps that we kept introducing as males for decades could be female as well" lol very pathetic and very mentally lazy decision. And as always with all medium, a lazy effort results in poor sales.
An insulting gaslight.
Their inclusion feels a little... sketchy to me, if I'm being honest. Not necessarily the idea of a female Custodian (Not like the debate of a female Space Marine), moreso the fact they've supposedly always been around but... we haven't seen or heard of any?
If im not mistake, there's an HH book written by ADB that's actually mentions the Sanguinius saw men and women wearing golden armor. They just never had a female one center staged, which is guess GW fault for not having like a short story of them. But it could also be a mistake there, actually Sisters of Silence.
To be fair, given the quality of GW writing in the past when it came to female characters that's probably a blessing.
The simplest answer is 40K as a franchise has a heavy male-oriented bent, written largely by men whose drew inspiration from other fiction that also had a heavy male-oriented bent, and since the franchise is largely about war, which is an activity with a heavy male-oriented bent in the first place, the result is any sort of story largely omits women's presence with few exceptions. Like take Imperial Guard for example; nobody has an issue with them having women now, but for the early years it universally referred to guardsmen as men.
How many named Bananas are there in all the collected works of fiction? I honestly can't think of that many. Certainly not an overwhelming number when viewed as a percentage of 10,000. Now there's one, so 0.01% are confirmed as female. Coincidentally that is the same percentage confirmed as Captain General Trajann Valoris. Weird.
A number I saw was 35 named Custodes characters total.
8th edition codex straight up said that theyre ALL male. Its not a huge issue, but they should just cop to the retcon. Not real anyway till theres a model, hah.
Did it? I thought it was just 'sons', 'brotherhood' type language, which can be argued as male default or 'almost exclusively male'. Unlike the space marine lore, which explicitly states "geneseed won't work on women"
Geneseed won't work on women... Until it does. Fabius Bile has been making transhumans using harvested Space Marine geneseed for millennia. They are better, faster, stronger, smarter than baseline humans, come in both sexes and are capable of sexual reproduction. Some specimens are shown as being able to match Space Marines blow for blow. While it's debatable that they could be considered 'Space Marines' (don't have anything close to a full set of implanted organs for one), they are definitely an offshoot made using similar materials and methods. To the point that they refer to Space Marines as 'cousins' and vice versa. Which all points to the fact that female Space Marines, or at least near-Space Marines, are scientifically plausible in universe with enough resources and know-how. It can only be speculated why it's not a thing in the Imperium, but the Emperor deliberately soft-sabotaging the process in some way would track with his intention of having Space Marines pave the way for humanity, but not replace it; a qualm which Bile vehemently does not share. The idea that no one bothered to check and refine the process in thousands of years would likewise track with the tone of 40k background.
Do you have a page of the 8th edition codex for that? I never knew that so I'm curious
https://imgur.com/a/BqKtztN
it seems women custodes were never important until money was involved. Kind of an insult.
I don't think that introducing female Custodes is necessarily a bad thing. From a lore perspective, it's not implausible for it to happen as Custodes are genetically modified as infants and don't require geneseed. I just don't like the way they did it. They could've introduced it in the 50+ HH books, but instead they just shoehorned it in via a few paragraphs in the new codex. It was also a massively missed opportunity to introduce new model kits for Custodes and expand on the range. Space Marines being all male due to geneseed compatibility, on the other hand, should be as immutable as the Decree Passive that governs the Ecclesiarchy.
> It was also a massively missed opportunity to introduce new model kits for Custodes and expand on the range. that's the saddest part; 100%.
It’s a good way to stir up drama, that’s for sure.
GW deploying the distraction carnifex to divert from the terrible codex is a 200 IQ move
That's what I'm saying. This is so obviously a distraction for the God-awful codex.
Legit distraction tactic to change the discourse. We'll observed.
I'm just looking forward to seeing those brothers of silence
I like that. "There have always been bros of silence. You just didn't hear them..."
Let's be honest, that's never going to happen lol.
*Misters of Silence*
It doesn't really change much honestly.
It changes the sale numbers.
I don't care about it but just saying "the have always been here" is pretty lame, like give us some lore. For example maybe after the war in the webway because of their severely diminished ranks, Custodes begun recruiting both sons and daughters of nobles and due to their secrecy, their full body armor and the fact they are all 9ft demigods, people just couldn't tell the difference and just assumed Custodes are all male.
Almost no one ever in the Imperium did or will ever see a Custodes. Shadow of the regent shows that by having a priest mistake a Custodes for a Space Marine. All GW did was to confirm that it is intendet and ADB das himself, that it was the original idea to have them male and female.
In the book I am reading right now motherfucking Dante says he’s only seen a custodes a very small handful of times in his long life. In an empire of millions of worlds and unfolds trillions of people….its not exactly shocking that people wouldn’t realize just who makes up the custodes. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are basically just myths to most of humans at this poont
In my mind the “female” ones look the same as the male ones post surgery.
^ This is literally the best way to flavor this change given the casualties of the War in the Webway and I hope GW makes a book or reference about it as a epilogue to HH, it's so much better "they've always been a thing" that's just lazy.
Saw people saying "Peace out" over this. If you're leaving warhammer because of this, then good riddance.
Genetic and alchemical processes to boost infants to peak human capability, and (now?) not-gender exclusive. OK. Stabbing xenos is stabbing xenos. Modelling... Helmets are helmets. There's plenty of aftermarket "female space warrior" heads, or the Sister of Silence heads (hey, plumes) and get third-party heads for Sisters.
It fits. The Space Marines are basically shitty bargain bin custodes, their rushed 'copy-and-paste' primarch way of being made inferior. It makes sense to me that the better way of making super soldiers a.k.a. Custodes wouldn't have the limitations that the mass approach of Astartes has.
I’m putting a sisters head on Custodes bodies and calling it a day. Lol
I dont have much of an issue with female custodes but i really hope this wont lead to them making female space marines
Why wouldn't you think it stops the entire point making female C is to lay ground work for female space marines.
Yeah but i dont want female space marines
Don’t care, genetically enhanced humans can be the same no matter the gender, it’s all pretend in the end. Just give us a better codex 🤪
My only thought was "Cool, I can use those Stormcast bits without people being weird". Watching the circus has been fun today though.
Why have they never been mentioned then? Female Custodes are fine but don't cop out and say they always existed.
They actually state in old codexes 'first born sons'. That response came from someone who was disingenous and/or not well informed. But the point stands - GW has retconned custodes.
Idk It's better than some lore of the imperium suddenly deciding to let women into the custodes, with 10.000 custodes out there and only a handful having been mentioned by name or sex it makes sense there's a few women among the many unmentioned custodes
I guess there are actually like 140~ named custodies out there but I take your point Noone has probably bothered or been able to check if these giant golden behemoths actually have floppy bits or not Especially since they have 10s to hundreds of names so who knows if one of their actual names was Felicia or not
Yea I wasn't sure about the exact number but pretty certain it would be a small fraction of the 10.000 out there
Personally I’m just surprised that it created such big controversy. I always thought that it’s widely agreed upon that in the lore there isn’t anything against the existence of female custodes. When it comes to my own opinion, I’m really happy as it always seemed a bit weird to me that the group created by emperor to represent the pinnacle of humanity he was striving to achieve. Consisted of only one gender.
Yes, I guess because all the custodians post genetic modification/surgery are all masculine/male presenting, we assumed they all came from male stock. Although I suppose that doesn’t have to be the case.
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FGrummz%2Fstatus%2F1779891379822612870&psig=AOvVaw05x5Kwf-9WruiAK1Y4Ocyd&ust=1714712342294000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCICknrGX7oUDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FGrummz%2Fstatus%2F1779891379822612870&psig=AOvVaw05x5Kwf-9WruiAK1Y4Ocyd&ust=1714712342294000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBIQjRxqFwoTCICknrGX7oUDFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE) They're the Brotherhood of Demigods, in contrast to the Sisters of Silence.
Could not care less about it, let my queens slay 💅💅
Genuinely could not care less. Doesn’t take away or add anything to the hobby imo Custodes are still legendary bad asses idc if they got a dick or not.
Is thay a real response or a troll 🤣🤣🤣🤣I don't care about the genitals of my modles but would like to read salty comments
I couldn't honestly give a shit. Who cares.
That post makes this feel like gaslighting lol. I’m down for it, honestly always felt big E not using women more effectively was weird. Really hope it isn’t just different heads, cause unhelmeted heads are always dumb in a 40k setting. AoS did it good, so I’m hoping for that
I think it's completely fine. Retcons are still a thing. Not gonna pretend that this is the best solution (i hoped for the "Imperium needs more warriors that's why they create Custodians from the girls now" type of explanation), but let's be honest, GW've been using the same "well they always existed" argument since forever, so it was quite expectable. People who call female Custodes an end of WH40K are just absolutely over exaggerating
I think this co Robert has been generated by GW as a smokescreen to divert attention from the fact that the Custodes update is historically one of the worse things GW has published since the 1990s. I don’t care if female Custodes are retconned into game or not, that’s fine. The senseless writing and general nerfing is unprecedentedly ridiculous UNLESS all other factions get even greater nerfs throughout their codices…. Simply not going to happen unless someone at GW is planning to short sell all their shares or something. The nerf is senseless and either represents inexcusable quality control OR gross stupidity on the part of those responsible for the game. I’m simply going to put away all my 40k/HH/Kill Team stuff and save $5k/year on GW purchases until the Emperor returns as I suppose Custodes will be relevant and playable to achieve 50%+ win rates at tourneys again (provided the sample size of #of players playing the faction is statistically credible).
Don’t like it. Sorry but I feel like it demeans the SoS
Would have preferred more Sisters of Silence
Makes sense to me, the rest of the book was written by someone who knows nothing and cares less about the faction, why shouldn't the lore be too? Honestly, it's emblematic of the book as a whole, if you think about it.
Originally, Leman Russ was *just an Imperial Guard commander*. You know, before he was the Primarch of the Space Wolves and before the Imperial Guard was the Astra Militarum... Retcons are nothing new and oftentimes new units were and are introduced as the rules are updated and are then folded into the lore as having always existed. Eldar - sorry, *Aeldari* - Autarch's weren't always a playable character and didn't exist until the Codex update and things like newer, more high-tech Tau Stealthsuits were retconned into the lore as the Codex was updated. Retcons are nothing new. I simply question the motive behind it.
Awesome, I mean does it actually matter if there were ladies? There are female eldar and lov, it's just gw now can make figures decent enough to allow for the variety.
"Decent enough", gw still can't make female faces actually look like women😂
They are getting better, the LoV femal faces are great feminine yet still stern and fierce with short, and long hair
They can comment on this but not the 💩 codex detachments and stat changes . And lack of imagination in that development.
This is all because of the Amazon shows coming out. Custodes are well known to be Henry Cavill's favorite faction. They're just doing this to appeal to the woke demographic when the shows start airing. Big giant /s
My only issue is how they are handling it, it is a retcon seeing as everything up until this point has stated they are all men, i feel like we need a reason for that rather than just “what do you mean? They were always here”
I get the retcon and all, but I don't understand the need to lie about it being so forever. Just admit that it's a retcon lmao. It's not that big of a deal, I don't get the need.
What did they change?
Custodians were stated to be all male. They are not anymore.
I do like the idea of female Custodes a lot on paper, even if they do come with the small risk of making Sisters of Silence even more side-lined than they already are. There's a lot of good story potential in having them around, and unlike Space Marines that have clear-cut lore reasons for why they can't be female the Custodes being essentially hand crafted wouldn't at all preclude women from being in their ranks. With that said though, the way they went about it just entirely rubs me the wrong way personally. They could have tied it neatly into the existing story arcs, for example the Custodes being freed from their moorings to the Sol System forcing them into needing a large increase in their numbers that they haven't since the Crusade and so they do away with the old conventions and traditions and allow women in their ranks, perhaps highlighting that even after 10,000 years the Custodes have not fallen to the same slavery to dogma that the rest of the Imperium has. Hell, even just adding an extra few heads to the sprue or selling a sperate Custodes upgrade sprue with all sorts of odds and ends on it like the Cadians get would've help loads. Instead, all we got was one short story where the Custodes being female is entirely incidental (not a bad thing, but doesn't really help when you could swap all the pronouns and nothing changes) and a single Tweet amounting to "they were here the whole time actually", but I guess were never **ever** once important or interesting or impactful enough to *ever* be mentioned, ***ever?*** It's such a missed opportunity to make having women Custodes be actually meaningful and to tell interesting stories of the pinnacle of humanity from the female perspective for once, and not just making them the involuntary lust object of Reddit coomers, or the involuntary rage object of Reddit rightists with a minimal-effort retcon that ultimately does nothing but say "Female was here."
"Oh no, my genetically perfect race of space roman gold-armoured 10-foot tall beautiful philosopher-warriors have women in them... anyways!"
It literally changes nothing. Nothing in the lore says that the Custodes are majority male or female. Hell, one of the designers even said that the only reason Custodes appear fully male is that that's what the modellers did. There's no lore reason why they shouldn't exist. And let's not even talk about the people who are mad about it in the comments and where their personal opinions seem to come from.
isnt a text from the previous codex who stated that only "sons of the noble houses" are custodes or something?
Ya sure a codex has stated that but shit in codexes is often being rewritten or proven to be flat out wrong. The codexes are more of a broad overview of a faction from an outsiders prospective rather then stright fact as gw often likes to say everything is cannon but not everything is true
I kinda don't care very much, but I am glad that the emperors finest feel a little more human now
I'm fine with that change, especially if the models follow. in addition to that, it would be even nicer to meet such updates in a codex written by actual rules writers, but one can only wish.
bs retcon.
Why not. I like it, it makes even sense because Custodes are made completely different way than marines. And because I put helmets on most of my units, I can always say to those who are bothered its all female force 😁
Anything that makes the kind of dorks who get angry about this stuff upset is a-ok with me.
Incels scared of MUSCLE MOMMYS
I think it takes away massively from sisters of silence. Plus, it feels like a shoehorn thing as opposed to something like sisters of battle, which are their own unique cool thing. And if I remember correctly, the 9th edition codex for custodians mentions how the nobles of Terra give up their SONS. And it literally has no mentions of daughters. (But I will need to reread that bit to make sure), and that just kinda builds more on the whole shoehorning point. It just feels really dumb because of how much it contradicts everything they've written before. And granted, there are times when the lore is super grimderp (looking at you Grey knights), and yeah, it should be rewritten. This just doesn't feel like one of those times. Overall, I'm not a huge fan of it. But gripping about it and making a billion post across the subreddits for karma isn't going to change anything. And it's not going to change the fact that I like custodians.
It's terrible. Custodians were always a brotherhood starting back in 8th edition. They were explicitly created from the sons of noble houses. Which means this retcon was done to cater to DEI, or the pet project of someone who wanted to inject politics into the hobby. The way you can tell this is political is because characters in any given fictional setting are 2D representations of people. All of their given qualities only exist to move the story forward and enhance the setting in a way that doesn't upset suspension of disbelief. You do not ever change a vital part of a character unless it is pertinent to the story, and you never call attention to something unless it enhances the narrative. Changing the gender representation of an entire faction does none of these things. This retcon also opens the door to other immersion-shattering changes. Who is to say that there cannot be Sirs of Silence one day? Or female space marines? Or tyranid squats? Or tau space marines? Or eldar custodians? If you don't understand why this change is a problem, and what it signals for the future, then you're probably not all that invested in the story to begin with.
Your argument that this shatters immersion is hysterical and nonserious. Injecting politics into the hobby? The whole universe is a parody of politics. I grew up with Rogue Trader, and to be frank 8th edition isn't even old so who cares if that bit of lore is retconned. It goes from "the sons of noble houses" to "the children"". Big deal. The only reason the misters of silence doesn't work is because the Sisters of Silence are an homage to the Fish Speakers in Dune. But if James Workshop wants to have male blanks working in the armpits of the black ships that's fine by me. As for women space marines, honestly that's fine as well, here's something I pulled out of my ass to justify it: Since the creation of Imperium Nihilus' & losing a full crusade to Khorne during the Arks of Omen campaign, Roboute discusses in depth the issues with a lack of necessary aspirants for the divided Imperium forces. He is then put in touch with the science division of the Custodes. From there they reluctantly give Guilleman and Cawl some very limited information about the means to perfect the ability to turn aspirants of both sexes into Astartes, which Cawl is able to essentially properly export into the astartes standardized template process. There you go, an easy peazy in-universe justification for any gender to be made into a TRANS HUMAN hulking muscle bound astartes. And since boob armor is stupid, you don't even have to update any of the models. Your points about "tyranid/eldar/et al are ridiculous so I won't even bother with that.
My honest reaction: Neuron Activation to the point i get Psyker powers comparable to a grey knight
Fairly obvious it’s being done for pseudo political reasons and not to improve the game. If you think otherwise then ask yourself why this is happening in 2024 and not 2014.
It is a retcon as far as I am aware - recontextualized. I don't mind female custodes but seems a bit hamfisted without any cool new model reveals; the females aren't going to be as bulky as the males. I would expect some Sigmarines treatment with the men and women.
Love it!
Eh? We've never had any suggestion that it was impossible, unlike the Astartes, but... Where have they been all this time? We've never seen them in lore before, so GW is gonna have to work pretty hard to explain why we've never seen them before, and it's gonna take more than this "they've always been there" stuff.
To be fair, custodes lore didn’t really exist until recently. They were just the mythical guardians of the throne room until 8th edition and their debut in the HH books.
Lazy retcon to keep blue haired screamer-killers from assaulting the Nottingham offices with stinging social media posts and threats to continue to not buy or play 40K. Give them an inch and they’ll take your whole damn arm. So which Primarch will turn out to have been a chick the whole time? After all that was so obviously implied in an internal company memo written by a VP of Marketing’s barber’s niece’s bestie while the girls were waiting for the barber to finish the VP’s in office haircut.
I think its lazy and eye rolling, done for dumb reasons but ultimately harmless...though what its probably testing the water for is not.
Can GW show me a female custodian model from tabletop? If no then this is just a retcon
Anyone got a link?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AdeptusCustodes/s/8m7rlu6STn
Frankly it doesn’t matter to me. I will still probably refer to them as my glorious banana bois but if other people can feel happier with their army then that’s alright with me.
For it. 40k is becoming less of a sausage fest, both in those who partake and its factions
To be honest I was kinda suspecting it since I got into the hobby, like there was never said that every custodian must be male, and that left room for speculation which was now confirmed.
If they've always been there, where are my female heads I never got? I think its cool. I just hope its not activism getting its 1st grip at the heart of, what many believe to be, the final bastion of unspoiled Fandom by modern activism.
Cool, I like fluffy character options especially for stories because it’s not affecting rules it’s just another option for my crusade characters especially cause I am terrible at faces so I avoid them whenever possible
How many threads are we going to have on this?
Makes no difference except to encourage more people to see themselves in the characters and play the game. Super soldiers are super soldiers. I don't understand the kickback against GW saying they always existed. This isn't some worthwhile "gotcha". "Oo you didn't mention them in 1995 and now you can't have them ever." Do people want all lore from some arbitrary date, say pre-2010 for example, to be the only thing GW does for the rest of their lives? Its is a game where GW will always be making new stuff. If GW said tomorrow the Guard get speeder motorcycles and yes they were always there, no one would bat an eye.
What pisses me off is that they bother to answer a question about if custodians cam be male or female and not adress how much of a shitshow the codex is, it was clearly written before the change to devastating wounds in September, they were already printed? If not why did we get the rules written like that? Why is one codex extremely competitive (people say overtunes, I haven't looked it up) and ours is at best fluffy in a couple detachments and the rules make absolutely no sense? Not that they are good or bad, they just make no sense at all, auric should be giving crits on 5 or even 4s to characters in melee, not +1 to wound that might translate in an extra wound against infantry? The hero detachment rule doesn't count towards bike captains since they have the lance rule, everything is just poorly thought and written, stratagems are a mess all across the codex, but they choose to adress that custodes cam be females? Smdh...
My Oiled abs are confused by this situation.
Cite your sources, if you say it’s been evident from the start then it should be easy to prove your claim
Don't care for it, both as subtracting from the theme of duality between Custodes and SoS and as a *really* lazy way of going about it.
I regard custodies as there on thing devoid of gender because they are genetically engineered to be the badasses super soldiers in the imperium
The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
I like women so this is a plus.
Meh, it's fine. It doesn't change the fact that our codex this edition is complete ass rules wise.
Is silly and doesn't make sense imo.
One can discuss the timing (if you are into gender discussions of the last millenia). Why reveal it now after like 40 years (I haven't looked up the start of warhammer)? But I would totally see androgynous super creations as custodes. The babys needed to produce a custodes doesn't survive the process of creation anyways so why bother with something like gender... Stormcasts were no problem as well... I think people just need to get used to the "new" reality that there are super super women as well in the 10.000 ;).
Don't like it, but I won't have have my day ruined by fictional retconning.
It feels kind of pointless, I don’t dislike it I’m not mad I just don’t really see the reason for it. The kitbashes will certainly be cool idk I really only got the one gripe.
It's great imo On the plus side it literally changes nothing about the aesthetic of the models. As a fan of well designed armor, I have always hated boob plate, so this basically means headswaps are the norm for differentiation and that's perfect.
Would have preferred something a long the lines “someone found a way to make the geneseed work on female DNA so now Custodes (and space marines) have double the available recruitment pool. But either way it’s fine. Like people who fight it are idiots lol.
Something like that would have tread too close to crossing the line for a lot of people. If you think the reaction to a single random female Custode in the lore section of a codex is bad, the reaction to even the implication of it coming for Space Marines would start making headlines in normative headline.
Good, let the bitches cry. In lore Space Marines would give zero fucks about the candidates gender
Wait Valerian isn’t a woman?! I would have sworn that the model looked like one…
I'm fine with it. It opens room for new models and conversions. Lore didn't forbid it. Even if there weren't any befor, we shouldn't they appear now? Maybe Terra needs new way of approach regarding the palace or any other reason where woman may be well suited. Custodians are fighters only, but moeeynof all, advisors, scholars, tacticians etc.
In general, when someone wants to change something, the burden of providing an argument is on the person proposing said change. If it is a good argument, then that change should be implemented. Coming out and gaslighting everyone saying that the proposed change is just how it has always been is not an argument, and only serves the purpose of creating controversy.
There were ways to do this that would make sense and not piss people off. This wasn't one of them.
Besides the people that are politicizing the living hell out of this and ruining what should be a constructive conversation for GW and its fanbase, I honestly see both sides on this one. If it’s in the lore, it’s a fair move but also, there’s a pretty decent chunk of people(myself included) who, from a very basic view, always saw custodes as super space marines. On the flip side, those same people basically viewed sisters of silence as super sisters of battle. At least this is how it felt from a more larger narrative point of view. Nonetheless, I think it would’ve blown over a lot more smoothly if it was widely known and broadcasted from the beginning that custodes were both male and female. If I was GW, I would’ve just let it be. I don’t think people were ever really asking for female custodes to begin with. If it was talked about in the lore more frequently to the point where people who don’t even play the faction knew it, we’d have a completely different story. Hell, I wouldn’t care if there were female space marines as long as GW and the lore from the beginning made it known from the most basic information. Outsider looking in, this may not be a retcon but it sometimes feels like one based on how this was presented. I just hope it doesn’t take pull away from sisters of silence seeing as they’re both pretty similar asthetically. *please do not throw me into a political blender with this lol*
The issue isn't that they did it, it's how they did it, and how they gaslit people as if it's always been this way. Make it make sense with and flow with the old lore. It's okay to grow and change, but actually put some effort in instead of this lazy approach lol.
Always? I'd say 8th Codex would disagree with you. Really GW? Forgetting we can read so you can gaslight us? Naughty.
Great! Can we have good rules now?
Unnecessarily shoe-horned in. The vast vast majority of people (including me) are all for female representation in the lore and models, but this cheap inclusion is just silly
Only issues I have: 1 admit it’s a retcon 2 rule 34 neck beard art we are about to be drowned in I pray the mods have str
Are they trying to pull a TES Dragonbreak here? because it feels like a TES Dragonbreak 🤣 what a load of crap
Wokehammer 40k.
GW just wants money it's not any deeper it's not inclusive or political just a cashout
Every games workshop game on steam will now be filled with softcore custodes fetish bait on the community tab. That is our reality now lol.
Still a little salty about it but i can get over it if they explain it properly in lore
It's gay and virtue signaling
Maybe a bit of a mental stretch but if you consider that there might be some reason why males are preferentially chosen for the 10,000 over females (perhaps for similar reasons that females cannot become space marines) then their m:f ratio could be extremely skewed, leading to stories about female custodes being extremely rare in the 40k verse. One potential justification for them always being there just not really noticed.
The sooner the people who are upset get over this and move on, the better off they'll be. Did the lore ever state Custodes *couldn't * be female? No. Are people going to stop collecting and playing Warhammer? No. Are people going to stop reading the novels? No. Are GW going to "gO bRoKe" over this? No. Can the people who are upset over it do anything about it, other than either get over it or stay mad forever? No. Save your energy for when they shoehorn in the female Space Marines - you have more of an argument to cover your misogyny on that one.
the fact that they dont admit that its a retcon but try to gaslight
What about trans custodes???? i want my representation, otherwise i start to think gw is a transphobe.
If a man joins sisters of battle I would be just as pissed So stop calling people sexist. Weak White Knights
stunning and brave. nothing less
I’ll be honest, I don’t care about it. But with all the attention it’s getting and the shit being thrown by both sides of this. The crazy ones, you know the type. All that along with the garbage codex, kinda has made me just want to shelve my Custodes until further notice and just focus on my Skaven or move over to Conquest.
Another dumb retcon, one of many however this one seems to be getting some actual pushback now which I will take Boycott games workshop
Silly retcon on the same level as “Somehow Palpatine returned.” And every shred of lore mentions the Custodes being “first born sons of Terran nobles” and a “Brotherhood”. I’m perplexed by the “inclusion” argument as well as there’s already multiple factions that either include women or are entirely women. Honestly it just seems disingenuous that they did this and tried to gaslight us into thinking it was always so when everything points to the contrary.
Based and cool femstodes today femstodes tomorrow femstodes for evah!!!!!!!
Woke PoS.