Adeptus Custodes Officially Include Women

[Triszin]

This is cool.

 

 

[Remain_Indoors]

11 minutes ago, lansalt said:

But did you get the themes and references in them? Why the Companions of the Emperor are called Companions? Why the SoS were based in Luna? You focus in the technicality of their creation when I have not mentioned it, simply because that's the most irrelevant and easy to retcon part.  The problem is that this breaks the lore crafted for them since twenty years ago to explain how are gender segregated.

But hey, may be there's a new custodian Cawl responsible for this change in universe, or it's somehow related to  whatever Abnett's is planning to do with Valdor in Pandemonioum. But for sure it doesn't matches what was written before about them.

 

Of course I “got the themes”, it’s not exactly subtle hints. And they aren’t changed at all. 

Their creation is mentioned to again try to hammer home the point these are beings that are so altered and engineered that the segregation you seem determined to read into the background isn’t needed. Every cell of their bodies is crafted for one purpose: defend the Emperor. They aren’t even capable of entertaining the idea of excessive fraternisation. 
 

It doesn’t break any lore because at no point has it been said all Custodes are male. We didn’t see any female Custodes before, now we have. We’d never heard of Rogal Dorn tanks before the 9th edition Guard codex. Doesn’t make them lore breaking.

 

It’s such a non-issue it’s frankly getting funny at this point. 

 

 

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I for one welcome this clarification of the lore.

[Marshal Rohr]

7 minutes ago, Trysanna said:

I don't think we have to worry about the Sisters getting squatted. They're a pretty important part of the Heresy and the factions identity, tho it would help if they had a range refresh so they could have more than one plastic kit and be on more equal footing with the Custodes, but alas

They would stay in Heresy, just not in 40K. 

[Marshal Loss]

I remember ADB saying that he'd wanted to introduce female Custodians in Master of Mankind as there was no reason why they couldn't be, but GW knocked him back as the recently created models were male. Interesting that GW has decided to backflip on that close to a decade on, but I have no issues at all with the change

[Marshal Rohr]

Just now, Marshal Loss said:

I remember ADB saying that he'd wanted to introduce female Custodians in Master of Mankind as there was no reason why they couldn't be, but GW knocked him back as the recently created models were male. Interesting that GW has decided to backflip on that close to a decade on, but I have no issues at all with the change

It means new models are coming 

[Remain_Indoors]

27 minutes ago, Lord Marshal said:

 

More that SoS aren't especially popular, so it's not too difficult to imagine a beancounter asking "why do we need the other Sisters when we can can put female heads on the far better selling Custodes?" But I am Worst Case Scenario catastrophising. 

 

I’m doing my best Lord, I’ve bought two hundred of them so far (60 of each unit type, left overs to convert characters and some of the Heresy only units, if anyone’s interested), that’s showing they’re at least a little popular right?

[kamedake88]

I've been in the hobby a long time and the stories etc. Got me through quite a bit of hardship in my life. I find the comments from people who seek to change aspects of the lore quite funny. For me the hobby has been a rock and you know in the 20 odd years I've been huffing plastic cement and reading hundreds of novels I don't remember seismic changes that upended what was generally a internally consistent setting. But whatever, I'm an old man at 36 now and things change, I can accept that. What gets me though is those pushing for change are telling us who have been here forever that the setting as we liked it is no longer relevant and for liking it as it was we are evil or bigoted. Even more so to have scorn heaped on, when we say we've had enough and want to leave a place where we are clearly no longer welcome. I am not saying it is happening here but in the wider internet it is. Hell the divide is happening in real life as I witnessed during a recent visit to flgs. It sucks you know. I fully expect there to be ever more creeping changes and a commensurate measure of scorn and gaslighting to accompany it. Like I said things change, I was just hoping that the last thing I liked that was unsullied would stay free from the all-consuming fires of the culture war. Stay safe out there yawl and paint what you have.

[Astartes Consul]

3 minutes ago, Remain_Indoors said:

I’m doing my best Lord, I’ve bought two hundred of them so far (60 of each unit type, left overs to convert characters and some of the Heresy only units, if anyone’s interested), that’s showing they’re at least a little popular right?

 

200??? You've probably got about half the global supply of them.

[lansalt]

1 minute ago, Remain_Indoors said:

Of course I “got the themes”, it’s not exactly subtle hints.

So you chose to discard them? Or you don't really see how it doesn't make sense to reference Alexander the Great and his Companions if they were a mixed unit from the start?
Just because you don't care about those themes doesn't mean they aren't there. They were added in the first place to add context to the segregated nature of those factions or they don't make sense at all.

 

2 minutes ago, Remain_Indoors said:

It doesn’t break any lore because at no point has it been said all Custodes are male.

At no point before Custodes were called anything else that "sons" or "men", and it was deliberate to give them an all-female counterpart in the SoS, pretty much like the monastic SM vs. SoB.

[Remain_Indoors]

1 minute ago, Trysanna said:

Are the themes of gender segregation present, or was the faction simply gender segregated and that was a fact in the story/setting? I haven't read every 40k book so maybe some authors actually play around with the subject, but I've never encountered it before. It's just been a thing in the story that isn't really expanded or touched on, just a fact of life for these people. I never read gender as being the defining thing that made the Custodes and Sisters different. And yeah, sure those stories have a place, but when so much of the game is focused on factions that explicitly exclude women, I don't think it's a loss to include women in one of the genetically engineered super soldier factions, even if we loose some of the aforementioned themes.

The themes aren’t present. The differences between the Sisters and Custodes have little to nothing to do with their gender, and everything to do with their unique perspectives on the Imperium and galaxy: Sisters are barely tolerated outsiders, shunned and neglected by the Imperium but thoroughly human, while the Custodes have a sheltered, vaunted status but are separate from humanity through their transhuman nature.

 

 

[Orange Knight]

Whilst I'm not necessarily against this, it does seem extremely sudden and random after the lore has been a certain way for 20 years.

[Zoatibix]

I don’t think this is GW selling out. ADB asked if it was possible to have female Custodes over five years ago. He was told there was no lore reason against it.

 

As someone said earlier in this thread - they just hadn’t thought to add models at that point.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

1 minute ago, Trysanna said:

That's how I read it, but I didn't want to speak as an authority on the subject as I haven't read every Custodes novel or Codex

I always thought the real difference was that the sisters were blanks?

 

Turns out their gender was the important difference? Who knew!?

[Remain_Indoors]

9 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

Whilst I'm not necessarily against this, it does seem extremely sudden and random after the lore has been a certain way for 20 years.

TBH of all the lore changes over the decades, this has been one of the least impactful for me. Big golden transhumans can be women. Okay, they’re still so far beyond baseline human that it makes no real difference what their sex is beyond their name and possibly haircut.

 

Finding out Grey Knights bathed their armour in the blood of Adepta Soritas was more jarring.

Edited April 13 by Remain_Indoors

[lansalt]

6 minutes ago, Trysanna said:

Are the themes of gender segregation present, or was the faction simply gender segregated and that was a fact in the story/setting? I haven't read every 40k book so maybe some authors actually play around with the subject

Both, and if you are interested in Custodes and SoS, I'd say that The Carrion Throne is a must read as their origin story in the current 40k setting. It's also a great 40k book!
 

9 minutes ago, Trysanna said:

when so much of the game is focused on factions that explicitly exclude women, I don't think it's a loss to include women in one of the genetically engineered super soldier factions, even if we loose some of the aforementioned themes.

I understand the desire for it, but rather that changing well stablished factions that many love as they are with warts and all, I'd prefer that GW focused in new ones or expanding others like SoB that were made too restrictive without the same room for more cultural/aesthetic variety that it's the big draw of marines, IMO.

[Remain_Indoors]

10 minutes ago, Trysanna said:

That's how I read it, but I didn't want to speak as an authority on the subject as I haven't read every Custodes novel or Codex

If you haven’t already, I throughly recommend Chris Wraights Watchers of the Throne novels. They provide a great look at the 40K Sisters and Custodes, and are just great novels in general that are well worth reading.

[Tokugawa]

Could make some conversion with AoS stormcast models, which already male and female.

[lansalt]

16 minutes ago, Remain_Indoors said:

The themes aren’t present. The differences between the Sisters and Custodes have little to nothing to do with their gender, and everything to do with their unique perspectives on the Imperium and galaxy: Sisters are barely tolerated outsiders, shunned and neglected by the Imperium but thoroughly human, while the Custodes have a sheltered, vaunted status but are separate from humanity through their transhuman nature.

Those differences you mention are coded to their genders on purpose with very deliberate themes. There's nothing random in Sisters of Silence having to be silent while seeing the Emperor or primarchs as men without their glamour. Or their whole relationship with Luna.

[Orange Knight]

16 minutes ago, Remain_Indoors said:

TBH of all the lore changes over the decades, this has been one of the least impactful for me. Big golden transhumans can be women. Okay, they’re still so far beyond baseline human that it makes no real difference what their sex is beyond their name and possibly haircut.

 

Finding out Grey Knights bathed their armour in the blood of Adepta Soritas was more jarring.

 

Perhaps.

 

But Custodes aren't like the hyper deformed Astartes. They are perfected super humans. 

 

I imagine a woman would actually look female in the case of the Custodes.

 

Like I said, I'm not against the idea. It just feels like a retcon after 20 years of establishing an identity. 

Edited April 13 by Orange Knight

[Redcomet]

6 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

 

Perhaps.

 

But Custodes aren't like the hyper deformed Astartes. They are perfected super humans. 

 

I imagine a woman would actually look female in the case of the Custodes.

 

Like I said, I'm not against the idea. It just feels like a retcon after 20 years of establishing an identity. 

Some 20 year old lore needs changing. Lore isn’t carved in stone to never change in all of eternity. It needs to update to remain relevant. And this is more of a “of course why hasn’t it always been this” thing than a “they are ruining 40k”.

 

And honestly if it gives us female custodes models as awesome and badass as the female stormcast, bring it on I say

[Scribe]

Lesser of 2 evils. Its not as if they are going to change Marines lore to have female marines.

 

If this causes them to reboot the model line and bring it into scale, all the better I suppose?

[Robbienw]

17 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

 

Perhaps.

 

But Custodes aren't like the hyper deformed Astartes. They are perfected super humans. 

 

I imagine a woman would actually look female in the case of the Custodes.

 

Like I said, I'm not against the idea. It just feels like a retcon after 20 years of establishing an identity. 

 

Yeah it’s a huge retcon, it’s also very abrupt.  It feels odd.

[Waaagh?]

At the end of the day does it prevent you from enjoying building, painting and playing the game?

 

If the answer to that is yes then I'd maybe look at your own issues as the root cause rather than anything GW is doing.

[Magos Takatus]

I've always disliked marines being female as they don't fit into the established lore (as nonsense as that pseudo-science is), but female Custodes? That's a different matter entirely for me. I think it's awesome and as far as I know doesn't involved massive retcons. I think it's a step in the right direction.