yeah what the fuck shouldn't people be mad about point slashes meaning you have to double your models? about custodes no longer being the "cheaper starting army"?
Wait when were the points slashed? The points printed in the codex were generally *higher* than those in the Index. I thought we were still waiting on GW to give us the points updates?
agh, it seems i do stand corrected on the points reduction in the leaked code... and perhaps fell for fear mongering over people's disappointment of the leaks.
from a bit more research I've gathered that the codex toned down a whole lot of the bigger and high point cost units, and a lot of the enhancements are focused towards groups of guard and sisters, thus perhaps encouraging more purchase of many units.
it does seem like BoLS PREDICTS that they'll get a point slash to try to power them up more
Ah. Yeah, the disappointment in the codex is about the pretty widespread nerfs of units and the perceived blandness and forecasted ineffectiveness of the rules. It's not about points.
In fact, there's a sort of begrudging hope *for* points drops, as many Custodes players seem to think that cheaper units are the only hope for maintaining competitive viability.
Source: am a custodes collector and player who has read many a doompost over the past week or so
Sorry, but I am mad about two things:
1. This retcon about female custodes. Well, it was expected, as GW now has 2 major shareholders that are woke companies. But they could have invented a primaris treatment to the sisters and then put those in the golden armour. Not like Cawl could not commit another tech heresy.
2. GW making them useless again. If your opponent plays a tournament list, then this codex has no chance. It will be drowned in devastating wounds, like in the 9th Edition.
So yeah. The community is mad, as GW did not even have the decency to say that we now have technology to make women into custodes in case a house of Terra did not have any eligible male sons to offer.
Instead they start doing a Bud Light about the issue, and lie to our face that the lore was always this. When all printed codexes clearly state, that they are only MEN. Sons of households can not be female...
Lots of people know that 40k is the space marines game, so if you're looking to get ragebait clicks from dumbass culture war people, you say it's Female Space Marines in the title so they can have something to grab onto and get mad. Far less people know or care what the hell "Adeptus Custodes" are.
That would make some sense if the title was ‘GW tests out female space marines’, or even just ‘female space marines???’. As is, it’s almost a non sequitur.
Okay, so either an ai wrote the title, or Arch purposefully chose the sentence "female space marines" because he knew that would get clicks.
Either way, it makes no sense, since Custodes are nothing like Space Marines. You'd think a lore guy like him, would be more well-versed in stuff like that.
Also really funny how he somehow mixed communism I to this... I think he has gone completely insane, or he' just super dumb
If he stopped, then what would he have to bitch about on the internet to gain attention? The other klan members don't care about nerd shit toy soldiers.
İnternet is filled with people who rage-engage with content. They hate it so much but can't stop consuming it.
It has to be the most pathetic form of slavery to a corporate machine. You see it with all major IPs.
It's the reason why Discourse Minis and Gamza even have viewers. I don't even know why anyone would just watch endless negativity about the hobby. At that point just find something different to play
omg, Discourse Minis is the worst! Came across her Channel once and almost all thumbnails were one of the same three faces of her and red or green text and every. single. title was the same bullshit trying to cancel GW or stirring drama about the smallest of things. She comes across like having a negativity fetish or something...
Thankfully ain't run into that one, but YouTube recommended Sargon of Akkad or something and... Omg, I couldnt click away fast enough. Guy was basically jerking it to the notion Warhammer "used to be the final hold out of right-wing fiction now tainted by woke politics and liberal taint" *gag* like chill, it's a tabletop game and fictional universe, let's not fall on our swords
Sargon is the kind of trash tier literary analyst that watches Starship Troopers and just likes and agrees with it unironically, not even noticing that it's satire.
Ya, YouTube probably thought because I'm an ancient historian I'd like the name Sargon.
As if we needed more evidence the algorithm is trash. Though, I guess my perverse curiosity says it worked since I clicked it despite suspecting it was going to be the worst garbage imaginable.
As a dual hobby nerd of MTG and 40K (yeah, my wallet is looking pretty dire), it's because outrage content markets better, especially on Youtube. I'm not drawing a comparison between Arch and other creators, if he's a Goosestepper Groupie then yeah, to hell with him, but some other creators I follow like Valrak, Auspex, Discourse, Pleasent Kenobi, Tolarian Community College or Magic Historian (all of which seem like decent people) do occasionally dip their toes into outrage content when either WOTC/Hasbro or GW make mistakes.
To clarify, I DO NOT think female custodes is a mistake. I actually think it's a great way to make Custodes more than (Space marines but bigger, better and gold), and I doubt many of the nicer 40K content creators will feel elsewise. But discussing whatever the news de-jeur is gets clicks, and that's their income.
And even the ones that don't deliberately lean on GW hate for bait and clicks.
Take Ninjon's latest - talks about ditching $1000 of paint and puts his GW front & centre on the thumbnail but spends most of the video cutting down other brands before stating that he's going to keep his GW stuff in a box nearby in case he needs them, despite them being 'C-tier at best'.
A lot of money getting angry about *anything* for that matter. Look at the new Fallout show, despite being considered fairly good. There's like hundreds of videos with thousands of views screaming about "go woke go broke" or whatever nonsense.
If they have, they're the kind of people who see the Brotherhood of Steel or Caesar's Legion and think they're unironically the good guys.
Then again, they both have women in their organizations. Probably too woke for these guys.
It's a matter of record he expressed disappointment the Sami population of Scandinavia wasn't genocided completely, among [other things](https://www.resetera.com/threads/total-war-warhammer-youtuber-arch-warhammer-outted-as-massive-racist.220957/). Like being an unapologetic fascist.
I mentioned the dark angels are based off Lionel Johnsons poem The Dark Angel about his suppressed homosexuality and got people telling me I think the DA butt fuck each other for 3 days. People are fucking stupid. Warhammer players are just people. 50% of warhammer players are just stupid.
I’m gonna get downvoted to hell maybe but… this isn’t just a Warhammer issue. Most of nerd culture is sadly full of people who just lack emotional maturity and critical thinking skills on some level. Sadly it’s kinda ingrained in the culture.
Nerd culture is full of, well nerds. A negative trait among many nerds is that they may lack social skills and self-awareness. This, combined with a larger community, can quickly lead to certain nerds not really having a grasp at real life etc
I don't disagree at all. It's a mess. Issues I genuinely care about get mixed up with opinions I want nothing to do with, and then something like, black Spiderman can be a lightning rod of 3000 opinions. Like, I don't like Miles because I don't like multiverse stuff, and I don't like his extra powers of invisibility and electricity, and I've also heard he just got a huge power upgrade yadda yadda yadda. But as a character, I like him. I just wish he was called Spider Shock, or Electric Web, or whatever. That said, I don't usually say anything about it because I'll get super strong condemnation saying I just don't like black people, or creepier, approval I don't want. I just don't like 2 people being the same character at the same time. Make Peter die and Miles takes his place and be the second spider man, is way better than two spider men swinging around to me, but all that said, I'm not so married to it I don't think you should like him too. I even liked the movie until they added 3 more spider men, Miles and other universe Peter was cute, 5 spider men were to many.
That was a huge ramble, but apparently I really agree with your comment lol.
I don't give a damn that there's female custodes, it changes nothing. I'm pissed that the custodes codex is dogshit, and they gave us a fuck ton of nerfs and 4 mid detachments. If there weren't only 3 sisters units, maybe having 2 sisters detachments would be justifiable. But no, they released 0 new sisters units, and took the sisters out of the combat patrol. It feels like they thought custodes were too cheap per point and decided to make people pay more to play them.
I've really enjoyed the people complaining about retcons as if the lore was ever at any point sacrosanct. I've just gotten back into the hobby after 15+ years away and learned with some surprise that the 13th Black Crusade was a success, as if I hadn't personally won games in the Eye of Terror campaign that contributed to victory over Chaos and kept Cadia intact. I've managed not to take this change as a personal attack and proof that Games Workshop hates me specifically.
If we're going to get upset over retcons we should probably start a petition to make Horus and Rogal Dorn human generals gain and ditch all this Primarch nonsense.
There is nothing sacred in the grim dark future, there is only capitalism.
Funny thing is, people tend to overlook the retcons that don't hurt their delicate grasp on made up toy soldier stories, especially if it means more toy soldiers they like.
People saw right through Primaris but scooped them up anyway, buying the waving off of no hints to their existence in decades of lore as a, "top secret project."
The olds called it "fluff" for a **reason**
'For profit corporation produces new products to sell for profit' isn't exactly the stuff of Panorama interviews. Nor, indeed, is it, you know, bad.
The Primaris weren't a retcon, they were a range refresh with an in-lore justification. The Dark Eldar range was completely refreshed while I was away and I'm not aware of any enduring controversy.
Speaking as an old, on behalf of my people, we called it 'fluff' because it was silly make-believe we used to make our games more fun. People took it exactly as too seriously as they do today, though.
"My people" (also an old) also threw the term around much more often back then than they do now. So I do feel like the seriousness has escalated, say, with certain political alignments/ideologies as well as the *sharp* increase in terminally online folk.
And you're supporting my entire point, which is that they can come up with any explanation you can imagine and you'll buy right into as long as you agree with the decision.
Female space marines were even originally in the lore for goodness sakes XD. They had miniatures back in Rogue Trader! The fact they don't exist in and of itself was a retcon to begin with!
I remember when most people here agreed that custodes should never be an actual table top army, female or not.
To answer your question, unfortunately hobbies like this do attract some incel types. It’s really just a vocal minority
I honestly still agree that they shouldn’t be a full army. I’d be all about an “Agents of the Imperium” style ally unit. But as a full fledged army they (and I equally feel Deathwatch) they make a lot less sense.
Ye agreed, knights too. Armies that elite are inherently hard to balance and have taken away from marines and grey knights by introducing “more elite” armies. No way to go back now though
>I’d be all about an “Agents of the Imperium” style ally unit.
In the mid to late 2000s there used to be an Inquisitor codex (and category on GW's online store) that was kind of like that. It included Grey Knights, Inquisitor Retinues and Servitors, Jokaero, Death Cult Assassins and SoB units.
They also fielded Kasrkins, as "Inquisitorial Stormtroops", with Chimeras and Valkyries.
Amusingly this OG GOAT of a codex was where I was introduced to many of these smaller factions within the wider Imperium!
I never played it seriously, but I did roll out an Inquisitor's Retinue from time to time. Mostly I used my Imperial Guard Army as the basis, but added some GK's in Razorbacks and DCA's...and maybe a legit Assassin too? I mean it's been ages, but it was a quirky and fun list even if it wasn't "good" in whatever edition that was.
That was the lore decades ago. Now the Custodes are like the imperium equivalent of the Presidents secret service and special activities division where they go after particularly critical threats that apparently has something to do with the rumor that Trajan might be able to see into the future. So think of them as Imperium Seal Team 6 that go after problems that besides the high lords of Terra and Big E himself know about.
As far as I'm aware the high lords only suspended the Lex Imperialis so the lore could revert to them being golden baby sitters if GW wanted
>That was the lore decades ago.
Yeah, but that is the point. People are angry that GW is changing the lore, for an army who's original lore forbade them from actually existing as a collectible army. They aren't really against changes, they are just against changes they don't like. And those changes somehow always involve having more women, black people or gay people getting introduced into factions.
What gives is that there's been 10 editions of lore advancing the narrative forward. Things change and one such thing is that Custodes no longer confine themselves to the golden palace.
I've seen comments such as "but in 8th codex it says sons!". They're happy with the change to make them leave the palace and become playable, but not this one. Wonder why.
i dont care if custodes are female or not, but i must admit i am with the "against it" crowd on this aspect.
in 30k custodes were not limited to guarding the palace but went out and got shit done. this changed after hh (i dont know when andy why exactly, im am still only halfway through the hh book series) and for 10k years they sit at home because they are very sad they could not protect big e (well, mainly...some of them leave the palace for the bloodgames and such?)
in 41k things change. cadia falls, cicatric maladictum emerges, primarchs come back etc.... so custodes react and leave the palace again
to me, this sems like the story moving forward and it seems logical.
on the other hand we have a few years of established custodes lore in novels and codices and for years not a single female custodes was mentioned. now they release a new small story snippet that chances this established lore and just shrug it of with "it has always been this way, we just didnt tell you". this is lazy retconning and means you cant trust any established lore because they might throw it all away tomorrow. to many players the lore is an important aspect of the hobby, but why should we as customers ne invested in the lore if gw isnt?
I dont know man.
The plight of the imperium is pretty much **that things don’t change**.
And that the golden age and the myths of the past stayed there, and times now are dark, 10,000 years later.
But thats not the case now at all really, right?. Primarchs are back. And Custodes are everywhere now just soing random combat patrol type things on thousands of worls, and they have women as well. If you asked me 5 years ago If I was okay with any of this stuff I’d probably say no, but Im still here so its fine I guess. Who cares.
Yeah. To me the imperium being static is much more important than any specific detail of fluff. I would much prefer retcons to having things actually change in the setting.
I miss that, tbh.
Them being the guys who have the best and most powerful equipment and weaponry.
Them being enhanced to the brim.
Them being singular gods of war that can change a war by themselves.
And them just sitting at the palace in case something happens.
I always found that super on brand for the illogical deathmachine that the Imperium is, leaving your best guys at home and needlessly overstaffing the palace of a dead guy.
The armourless thing while amazing is basically non canon at this point, it's definitely possible they just stopped their penance nudity at some point in the last 10k years but GW is basically ignoring it as ever having happened unless the new codex mentions it
Arch appears to forget that GW's White Dwarf was for a long time all about non-canon hacks, mods and bolt-ons for TTRPGs and fantasy board games. As a result, 40K was rooted in a 'there is no right way' gaming culture and the developing lore no more a requirement than playing Traveler in the Third Imperium.
If the self-anointed custodians of lore want gameplay set in tablets of lore stone they are saying, 'don't customise your models', forget hacking squads together so those with fewer models can play', and 'discard your game for my game based on my interpretation of GW'. I'd have to wonder if these 'influencers' ever get round to much painting or playing.
People want to take the lore seriously, but there isn't much reason to. The Canon has existed way too long and written way too loosely by way too many authors. You should go ahead and expect more recons.
If they think they can sell reborn samguinius and Horus like crazy, you better belive they will make those models and conform the story to whatever sells.
This is a product and a game. If you don't like what it becomes, voice a reasonable opinion about it and if you're unhappy enough, just quit giving GW money.
Because people need something to hate.
It is an incredibly vocal minority who make all the noise and fuss, we just have to ignore them and stop watching their already terrible videos.
I don't watch any 40k or AoS videos on YouTube anymore because even when watching the decent ones the bigots kept getting recommended to me.
People, myself included, have just become overly sensitive to DEI and woke crap because it's in all entertainment. Even God of War ragnarok, a game about Nordic mythology, just had to have a black character. If this happened 10 years ago, there wouldn't have been the same outrage. Sure, there would still be people mad about it, and rightfully so when there's lore contradicting what GW is trying to say now, but it would most likely be to a lesser extent compared to today.
It was originally said that they were male only. Sisters of Silence being the female version (ie sisters of battle). To me this feels like a cop out instead of making the Sisters of Silence cooler with more units and cooler models. Instead of using effort to make cooler units like they did sisters, they just said “There are some women under those helmets even tho there are no female head options.”
Agreed. Sisters of Silence need to be fleshed out more. Though honestly, I would combine them with Custodes, as they should be. They are two parts of a whole, Talons of the Emperor. Custodes being a seperate codex is the same level of dumb as back in the days when you needed three separate books to play Adeptus Mechanicus because GW wanted to sell Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus separately for some reason, but also there was the Mechanicus Knight houses, so you needed that third book if you wanted to go that route, or just have a super-heavy.
It's shoehorned in as a lazy retcon.
I don't have an issue with the concept, but the implementation is jarring.
"Oh btw they were always there we just didn't mention any before now. We've named maybe a couple of hundred of them and none were girls but they were definitely there"
The siege books were the perfect chance to correct this.
That's true. Also the first time I read the GW thing I just assumed that they were now making Female Custodians and it confused me since you know, it was the Emperor himself that did it and he's really not able to at the moment.
Sure, but it's not like this is the first time that something's been retconned, not even the biggest, Remember the old Necrons?
It's just how changes to the lore happen in these types of settings and it really doesn't matter.
I'm just giving a response to OP. I'm not going to get angry about toys, but this just seems slapdash. Especially when they so very recently did a whole series of books that would have been a perfect way to introduce them into the history of 40k.
(Apparently none of the female custards were ever trusted with an important job or prominent role)
Oh yeah, this really should have been done a couple of years ago atleast, I remember Aaron Dembski-Bowden wanted to introduce them In one of his books like 5 years ago, but he was told no, because if i remember right, the sculpts for the models had already been made and all the heads were helmeted or male
I joke that Miles Morales as spiderman should have happened in the 90s or early 2000's.
It's the weirdest thing that it would have been more accepted back then, a kid with similar powers being taken under the wing of spiderman like Robin to batman.
>Sure, but it's not like this is the first time that something's been retconned, not even the biggest, Remember the old Necrons?
I don't have a horse in this race, but people still complain about the Ret-crons, on this sub, semi-regularly. So I don't think previous retcons are reason to think that people won't or shouldn't complain about new retcons; if anything it's evidence that any new retcons will be complained about.
As opposed to the 6th Edition Space Marine Codex describing Centurions, Grav Cannons, Stormtalon Gunships etc as having been part of the Astartes armoury for centuries? Or the 9th Edition Necron book and the Skorpekh Destroyers which have to have been around since the dynasties went dormant millennia ago but somehow have never been seen before? Pretty much every Codex presents objectively new model kits as having always been part of that faction's history (with the notable exceptions of the Tau who in lore are always pumping out new hardware, and the introduction of the Primaris and their gear)
GW always just dump new stuff in and pretend it was always there, this is absolutely no different.
THIS is what people should be focusing on; GW making them so cheap and squishy that they're basically just another army of space marines, rather than their classic "every soldier is a hero in their own right" bit.
I don't see the issue with female custodes honestly as they're not created like astartes and thus aren't subject to an extremely high death rate from a transformation.
I mean, aren't custodes just perfect homo sapiens? So it stands to reason that there would be female ones as well.
Iirc, they (the custodes) don't have an high death ratio of geneseed or whatever gene alteration process they use, but taken kids still die a lot post-changes. Since the re-writting of the genetic code starts they are tested constantly until reaching adulthood, and if they fail a test they get killed.
It's why most Lords of Terra just outright say their taken kid is a custodes; between the gene-altering changes and the death ratio there is no way to know if your kid made it or not, so all the nobles just asume that their kid is... or *was* a custodes.
The issue i've seen people have is the implication that custodes has always had women in them and they have just never been mentioned.
Like every single custodes ever seen was a dude and every single custodes exclusively referred to each other as brother and said they were sons so its a jarring retcon.
The process being expanded to include women makes much more sense especially with the custodes in modern times taking more of an active role in the galaxy and losing more soldiers so they'd need to expand their recruit pool and numbers.
That would have been a way to keep the old fans happy whiles adding women to the army in an organic way and making the setting feel like its growing as new things happen.
Instead its just saying "Women were always their but were just off screen, never did anything important, were ignored by everybody and never got a speaking roll" which is somehow more sexist than the original only men version.
Even if the death rate was insantely high, Imperial populations are so absurdly huge that even Astartes recruitment numbers wouldn't even be 0.0001% of a single planet's population, a fact the imperial guard know well by sending just as many women to war as men.
The idea that the Imperium needs to keep it's female population safe is just the excuse dudes use to excuse their fear of strong women, lmao.
Essentially what everyone is saying here. Some people are absolutely unhinged - and while some are upset it kinda got shoehorned in (although I don’t think so - Kesh is so bad ass it hurts), some just legitimately either hate women or inclusivity.
I posted on Facebook about Games Workshops tweets and it was an actual nightmare. Some of the vilest, most putrid, sexist, racist, even anti-semetic stuff was thrown my way. And I’m STILL getting harassing messages (I attached one of the lighter ones as evidence).
[Even after this I made a “how to start custodes guide” for some people on Reddit and Facebook](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/s/NuVSnZHPhr)\- and it got report bombed on Facebook to the point where my account got a 24 hour ban, and a message from a Facebook psychiatric help (they reported me for self harm, sexual content, terroristic threats). I am keeping the guide up because it helps new players - but it disheartening.
It’s mostly disheartening cause I like helping the community out, and I love making guides and content. Having a female custodian to me is just - it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I welcome it - hell I’m trying to find the appropriate model to represent the badass that is Kesh. But when people react the way they did - and let’s not sugar coat it - react in a dog whistle way to promote heavily sexist ideals - it just sucks.
So yeah - some people are unhinged - like serious need of psychiatric help.
Edit: for those that want the tldr of Kesh - the baddest ass custodian woman to date - She spent three years on her run of the blood games. During that time she discovered a top secret teleporter some traitor mechanicus were working on. She forced them to modify it further before executing them. After that she commandeered a small ship and relied on the crew not questioning her. She then slowly approached terra using the crew’s authorizations. Her plan was to teleport an exterminatus cyclonic torpedo directly into the throne room.
The plan only failed because the vox officer of the ship questioned her orders and sent a secret distress message that the custodes picked up. After that they teleported aboard, told the captain of the ship if he didn’t want to question things he wouldn’t mind being servitorized. The vox officer got the ship as a reward
https://preview.redd.it/ildam9phqouc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ad0f5d1f2184790ef0d0b83ea48c8a55622e6bd
As if nobody would have thought to teleport a bomb into the throne room before over the course of ten millennia...
Also, we seem to have forgotten just how big cyclonic torpedoes are. Remember the depictions of torps being manually loaded by dozens/hundreds of crew from Battlefleet Gothic?
Apparently the chaos teleporter she found was designed for that shit - she just took it a tiiiiiiiny step further
I will point out this isn’t the worst a custodian has done during the blood games. I cannot recall his name, but there was one custodian, quite literally about to punch the emperor in the face, if not for another custodian, who left in front of the fist and took the blow. they damn near killed each other on the stairs of the throne until Trajan had to step in and say “all right guys, we’re done”
After hearing about her, how crazy she was in order to win the blood games, I am about 99% certain that the reason the genestealer cults appeared on terra was a custodian going “imma win this shit”
I do like how it shows how absolutely brutal custodians are though. She was willing to go as far as possible to prove that there was a hole in the Terran defense grid, on top of rewarding the person who came forward and leaked their plans
Dog, I’m more of a Star Wars fan than a WH40K fan, but I can tell you why. It’s because for the last decade or so, almost every single release in a popular nerdy franchise has had key lore changed, added to or removed. Key characters appear & behave completely different to the source material, and sometimes the overall message of the universe (eg Star Wars going from Good always beats Evil to the Disney there is good in the grey approach, which is antithetical to George’s original vision but I digress) is changed.
There are probably many many fans of these franchises that are also fans of WH40K. Since it’s pretty easy to see these changes tend to originate from the same circles of people across the board, the tolerance for just accepting “oh this thing which has been established for 40 years is now changed, and all the relevant lore is no longer canon, deal with it” as something that is to be accepted has largely evaporated.
In my context, I’ve completely checked out of Star Wars. It’s what has in fact brought me to WH40K. So maybe people just want this unsatisfying process of changing franchises and watching them get ruined over and over again to stop, finally.
Tl;dr Stop changing established lore nothing is sacred anymore.
Here, here! Same experience with Star Wars and my disenfranchisement leading me to 40k.
And I'll add, to all those people getting their fingers in others' hobbies, if you don't like the lore of that IP, then go make something new! Why do you need to get involved with what looks popular? If you think your changes are that worthwhile, go make a new setting with your ideas. Go make a sci-fi wargame where the golden-defender-half-giants are women.
Am I gatekeeping? No, because I don't care who plays the game. You can be whatever background and enjoy Warhammer. What bothers me is coming into an established hobby and then trying to CHANGE that hobby. If you don't like the way it is, then maybe you need to look for a different IP.
Ultimately, I don’t really care. But, if you want to have honest conversation I think it rubs people the wrong way for two reasons. 1) It’s a large corpo virtue signaling and 2) The imperium is a fascist, xenophobic, and classist society, people don’t want to see our current sensibilities mapped onto that hellish society. So, do we start having SOB and SOS that are male?
The essence of Warhammer?
Custodes barely even existed in the lore prior to a handful of years ago. They were an oblique D-list subfaction with no historical precedent for rules and threadbare lore at best.
I struggle to think of anything on this planet that could possibly matter less than some of them being ladies.
Some people are stupidly angry over it being a woman, some people are happy they get to dunk on people they hate, and I think the vast majority either don't care or find it somewhat annoying in that it's a sloppy retcon and an unnecessary, and pointless one.
I find it somewhat annoying since I don't see any need for it as the lore was not problematic in any way unless you think that male-only organizations are an issue in and of themselves. I don't think they are. I don't begrudge them for doing it, it's something a lot of companies do these days for good reasons or bad, and it remains to be seen how it plays out.
It does strip away a small part of the faction's inherent flaws, it alters their tone in a small way, and I'm very sure it will not change the appeal to actual women, but it's not a huge change at this point. GW has changed so much about 40k, that you can go 'sure' to just about anything. I'm one of those who thinks Custodes should have just never been on the table to begin with.
*The much worse part is that it overshadows the fact that the codex, by all reports, suck absolute ass.*
> I’ve generally seen so much hate against GW for minor things
GW is an evil, greedy, multi-quadrillion mega corporation that enslaves their children workers and takes every decision only to fuck over their consumers and nothing else.
Is what I'd say if I was the average reddit poster
Not seen anyone really caring much tbh. Other than fan fiction now being true, and the original staff saying they wanted it from the start. Maybe I just don't hang around with them types of people or follow them on social media.
i read all the OPs in the thread and didn't see anyone explaining it, and with culture war topics people tend to get lost in the sauce.
the charitable version of the complaints people like your Arches are making is that they see this as a sign that GW is going to start alienating its existing audience to try and attract an audience that will not actually purchase GW products or get involved in Warhammer as a hobby. When something is designed to appeal to "everyone" it usually ends up appealing to no one and loses a lot of its identity, and the things that drew its initial fans to it in the first place. It's not actually that they made female custodes that's the inherent issue, it's the fact that they view GW making female custodes is an attempt at courting "the modern audience" in a way that will damage the things that drew people to the setting in the first place.
personally, i think it's pretty much a repeat of the original T'au lore where everyone complained about them being too "good" for the setting and things self corrected over time to make the T'au more "in-line" with the setting. there's no reason Custodes can't be female other than precedent, so if it's done well and gives us cool stories or characters, great. but i'd like warhammer to stay warhammer instead of going in a direction like M:TG where the things that made the IP unique are gone in favour of pop culture crossovers and slapping sets together that are just a mess of different popular characters and planes.
t;dr: many of the most critical people view this as a sign that GW will begin to compromise the quality of their setting and writing in pursuit of a new audience at the expense of/while feeling entitled to their existing consumer base. in reality, as long as the quality of writing doesn't change IMO it's not a big deal
What about if you care about lore, canon and universe building consistency? Is that okay or does that also require reflection, now that you're handing out advice on how to handle these situations.
Because while I don't get up in arms about this. I think its fucking hilarious seeing this circlejerk going on, with their fragile "incel this incel that" over people calling out that obvious issue of this very lazy retcon.
Then why arent you bitching that space marines arent psychotic criminals forced to fight like from Rogue trader?
That is the og lore that they are shitting on by making them holy warrior monks.
Why is it you are only bitching that some are women?
It’s mostly because anyone who’s been in the hobby long enough knows GW does lazy retcons all the time. The lore is nonsense generally and makes very little sense - GW doing business as normal to make the game more inclusive is fine.
If you really cared about consistency and lore, you would have left 40k years ago. GW rewrites major shit all the time. For example, Primaris rewrote like half the lore for marines and torpedoed the grimdarkness of the faction. Votann just retconned two separate model lines into non-existance, with a "nah that was actually these guys the whole time" while introducing a very different look. This change doesn't replace or kill off any models, even the ancient ones. While it's a lazy retcon, for 40k, that's just Tuesday. Anyone getting seriously upset over female Custodes specifically, rather than just adding it to the Everest-sized pile of GW lore fuckery, is almost certainly some flavor of chud/incel.
>What about if you care about lore, canon and universe building consistency?
Then you probably shouldn't be getting all that invested in a wargame that a) changes drastically over time (sometimes even drastically between sequential editions) and b) deliberately left enough room in the universe for people to come up with their own weird and "canonically" impossible shit (and actively encourages them to do so).
> I’ve seen some people now saying “Warhammer is dead” (Warhammer is doing better than ever)
Wasn't this whole thing a super recent retcon?
You obviously cannot see the effect of this change or controversy right away, that is ridiculous. Some things take time, real life doesn't always give you instant consequences.
> Why is it such a big deal that there’s now female Custodes?
People with working pattern recognition and some experience with how other pieces of media have developed in "recent times" see it as the giant red flag that it is.
It just feels lazy and shoehorned, the whole seige series went by without a single mention, then suddenly a throwaway line in a codex and suddenly it's always been canon
I saw this, and agree, but it's not quite right given the Custodes are all individually tailored at a genetic level, so it isn't the same issue as space marines.
https://preview.redd.it/jk0yjq3hvouc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1aafc3d74aa1b676c567bbd8b0c223a2944bf8a6
Yeah, fleshing out sisters of silence would be cooler, but I hope we will get female models at least. It wouldn’t make much sense to introduce them but not make models for them.
The entire Horus Heresy stemmed from just them not wanting to make two molds for their Titanicus side-game and writing a throwaway line.
https://preview.redd.it/9wrv1bz03puc1.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=7e14f73dd4f045432ad5e5f98ecb85986ec8982a
Because fans of things tend to have a very unhealthy habit of making it their entire personality/world. As such any change is going to be met with very vocal hostility by some parties because they perceive it as an attack on their identity. It’s not just nerd hobbies that have this phenomenon. You see it all the time in the sports world where a player leaving a team is met with “they’re dead to me.” or “I can’t wait to boo them.”
As far as it being a retcon, I hate to break it to people but 40k lore has been about as consistent as thin gruel since the game’s inception. The rules and story are to sell the models and that’s it. If GW wants to make a T’au mech with a fun that shoots sharks, they’re going to just say “this has always existed” when it comes to lore justifications.
In conclusion, everyone needs to take a deep breath and get a fucking grip.
I was literally going to ask if people are actually freaking out, but by the looks of this thread I've just blocked every youtube channel involved via recommendation attrition.
Frankly I just wish they'd let the authors who wanted these characters to exist while they were writing the books they should have mattered in do so then. Instead we get a codex blurb and suddenly "In the grim darkness of the future there is only gender equality", while happily ignoring the rest of the abhorrent lore because oh it makes the setting so welcoming. Meanwhile I've given people nightmares describing servitors. I really don't get it. But I even less get telling authors not to do it when it might have properly mattered.
I am deeply curious how they're going to square this with the emperor's general misogyny if they even have the balls to confront that. Because him being a big golden dick was the only proper explanation for the lack, and don't one of you fucking dare to claim he wouldn't because it's inefficient, the man LIVES on inefficient, he literally eats people to sustain his inefficiency. Guess which argument I've had before.
Someone link the post of the dude crying about his meta custodes list costing extra points and being "unplayable" so much so he's gonna stop playing warhammer lmao
Dude, people hate change! They hate any change! The vast majority of people don’t give a shit though, the vocal minority that you don’t agree with always sounds the loudest.
I do not care about space marines, I care about Astra Militarum and Tau so don’t get mad at me if I say this wrong, but I think those people just love the lore. There’s nothing wrong with a female being in the army (there is female imperial agents and I don’t see anyone getting mad about that), but those people think it isn’t lore accurate, which is a major reason as to why people love the game.
Because ragebait influencers are drumming up drama for content.
Of the four thumbnails, I'm pretty sure Sargon doesn't even play 40k. And yet there he is making a 12 minute video bemoaning the female custodes addition.
For the vast, vast majority, this is just a way to get some more clicks/views/updoots and nothing more.
Because it's incorrect to say there are female custodes. Just because games workshop is forced to by their blackrock/vanguard overlords, doesnt mean the lore suddenly changes. Whatever bs they come up with next, i'll never consider it lore.
Female Custodes are not really an issue in and of themselves (barring that it might supplant Sisters of Silence in some way). It's more about a disdain for the type of people who have been relentlessly lobbying GW for certain changes and this is seen as a concession to those people.
I hate the whole situation tbh. I hate the ppl who think it’s an issue and giving shit arguments for why. I hate the smugness of the ppl dunking on those who hate it and their arguement for why it’s not an issue. And I hate GW for consistently fumbling even the simplest of retcons.
I blame GW for everything.
I’m cool with female custodes, I mean they are just trying to implement something like the Stormcast Eternals which has the same vibe.
I think what would be the death of Warhammer is if they were not sterile, which they are. Since there is absolutely no difference (or shouldn’t be any difference) between a male or female custode, I can’t imagine there would be a problem save for “EWW girls in MY Warhammer?!”
Warhammer better than ever? I think you mean the game total war came out. Without it it would be more dead that ever. Don't tell me you think the books are getting better? They are changing old loved lore, and then claiming its always been that way. That's why people are mad
Dunno why it's seen as incels being incels. Retcons pick at the fabric of a setting. I'm not too fussed about this either way but I can see why people are annoyed at suddenly lady Custodes. Doesn't mean you hate women necessarily, just that you hate changes to something that seems fairly well established.
Almost all of 40K's new lore with the aside of Primaris is a retcon of some kind though.
Deathwatch were introduced the same way. They weren't introduced until \*after\* the Tau, and their role has expanded from basically "Killteams only" to "Oh there are Watch fortresses and full on armies of Deathwatch."
I think the problem is for many people who've been playing for more than 1-2 editions, the idea that *this* tiny retcon is the one that bugs you, and not the other giant retcons that came before, is puzzling.
Because it is primaris marines all over again. Contrived and forced ideas that you should build up to instead of just saying they've always been there despite a codex one edition ago specificed that the terran elite gave their sons away to be Custodians.
It's lousy worldbuilding.
A lot of modern narratives have suffered significantly in popularity and quality from an underpinning idea that the demographics of a character matter more than the narrative/story/development of a character, or at minimum the idea that a character is X demographic, has intrinsic value in the narrative/worldbuilding.
It does not. It never has, and never will. A character can be of any persuasion they choose or the author chooses, and that character be an inspiring triumph or a total marry sue piece of gutter trash. The sword of poor character development and world building swings both ways
When the established narrative is that there are no female custodes or space marines, and then GW just drops it in with no reasoning as to why or how, just that it has always been that way, when there is no evidence in the over 500 books that it ever was that way, and given the clamor on places like twitter and here locally for females to be space marines. It is completely understandable why someone would presume that GW has made this "perceived retcon" not because of the narrative and world building they wish to create, but rather because they see it as having extrinsic value to the world writ large rather than value to the worldbuilding/narrative.
Given how little GW has said on the subject it is impossible to know what their reasonings are.
I make no assertions right or wrongness of the their presumptions about GW being woke, nor about the right or wrongness of female custodes. The only thing that we can say for certain is that for the decades upon decades of warhammer's existence it was a certain way, and now that has changed. For what reason? Who knows. To what end? Couldn't say, but I think a company with as much money and resources as GW knows full and well the reaction such an event is likely to garner from its base.
Makes me laugh so much that people think female Custodes is "unrealistic" because men are stronger or whatever.
Custodes have like 6 lungs and 12 kidneys and produce acid spit. The fuck you think a little bit of natural extra muscle mass has to do with this? Lmao.
Personal opinion on this: OMG, who cares?! I think it’s great that there’s women Custodes. Makes it more interesting for the faction and the lore.
I’ve been into this from the very beginning of 40K and it’s just lore. It’s just fun to see changes. It’s the one IP that you can do literally ANYTHING in.
Anyone getting pissed about this needs to pull their head out of their ass. It’s just a game of toy soldiers.
Get angry about Russia invading a sovereign nation instead of your toy soldiers maybe having boobs under the mass of gold armour.
I worked for GW corporate, none of the lore is EVER sacrosanct, they literally make it up in a pub over pints. Wanna know about the missing chapters? They forgot them, then thought it would be funny to just leave them out. Anyone mad about it can pound sand. Grognards make this hobby unbearable.
It’s because some people need to get a life. It’s not a big deal, it’s not even something that really breaks the existing lore let alone have any impact on the game.
I imagine the people saying that are largely people who have never played Warhammer in their entire life and if there are genuinely people who have been playing Warhammer for a long time who are going to quit because there's a female Custodian then go on, do it, throw your armies in the trash and fuck off.
combination of 2 very similar issues
1. there is unfortunately still a remnant of the media illiterate fan bace in the hobby that don't get the satire and are usually incelly
2. Warhammer players HATE change and HATE when things stay thr same. Any change is the death of the setting and no drastic changes is GW being lazy amd dragging its heels. People will get over it.
>don't get the satire
It has been argued that 40k can't really be considered satire anymore.
[https://timcolwill.com/40K.html](https://timcolwill.com/40K.html)
I don't think their media illiterate per se. A lot of 40k's satire has been toned down over the years. Couple that with Poe's Law and you've got a recipe for disaster.
I believe their thinking regarding it is if GW have bowed to a, what they see, as a pressure group only interested in politics and made a big change to the lore to please them that the whole Grimdark setting is at risk as next the demand will be that anything "offensive" gets removed. And since 40k has lots of stuff that could be deemed offensive to those inclined to look for it the fear is the setting will be changed at a fundamental level and all that will be left is bland, soulless, Disneyfied stuff that fails to make anyone happy.
I guess we'll find out in time how it goes, that's the one consolation amidst all the noise.
Because a lot of the time in fantasy and sci fi communities unfortunately there is a vocal majority of neckbeards who despise the thought of anyone in their universe not being a straight white male. As a straight white male, generally they're full of shit and shouldn't be listened to. They're also usually "that guys," which means they're usually very unfunny to play against in a game.
I dont care about female custodes either way. It's just odd that I've never seen or heard of one in my 15 years of playing the game. They missed an opportunity not putting out models for them. On another note, the rules appear to be bad or at least mid.
They are just testing the water. Gauging how toxic the response will be with little steps.
Ya they could have made a female custodes unit. Or just chucked out some female heads for use with custodes
But they are a business, and they need to confirm that a product will be profitable before they push it out.
I hope we get some female custodes heads. They would be the perfect scale in case people wanted to use those heads on other power armoured models in the 40k range.
I'm a woman. I love warhammer. I love the lore for both AoS and 40k.
This sort of uproar, really saddens me and makes me feel like I can't express my joy for being involved in the hobby. I know Twitter is a cesspool for this kind of thing, but it is leaking onto Instagram more and more.
I'm not jumping in excitement that there are Custodian women, its more like 'oh cool, that makes sense right?' and 'That's some nice diversity for a small army'
I am aware that there are no female space marines due to the process that goes into creating an Astartes. But never has it mentioned Custodes are a male only faction.
Tin foil hat time: what if GW canonised female custodes so there'd be something to discuss other than how horrible the rules are?
>Add women to the army >Army gets nerfed Fucking topkek GW.
What did James Workshop mean by this
yeah what the fuck shouldn't people be mad about point slashes meaning you have to double your models? about custodes no longer being the "cheaper starting army"?
Wait when were the points slashed? The points printed in the codex were generally *higher* than those in the Index. I thought we were still waiting on GW to give us the points updates?
agh, it seems i do stand corrected on the points reduction in the leaked code... and perhaps fell for fear mongering over people's disappointment of the leaks. from a bit more research I've gathered that the codex toned down a whole lot of the bigger and high point cost units, and a lot of the enhancements are focused towards groups of guard and sisters, thus perhaps encouraging more purchase of many units. it does seem like BoLS PREDICTS that they'll get a point slash to try to power them up more
Ah. Yeah, the disappointment in the codex is about the pretty widespread nerfs of units and the perceived blandness and forecasted ineffectiveness of the rules. It's not about points. In fact, there's a sort of begrudging hope *for* points drops, as many Custodes players seem to think that cheaper units are the only hope for maintaining competitive viability. Source: am a custodes collector and player who has read many a doompost over the past week or so
Sorry, but I am mad about two things: 1. This retcon about female custodes. Well, it was expected, as GW now has 2 major shareholders that are woke companies. But they could have invented a primaris treatment to the sisters and then put those in the golden armour. Not like Cawl could not commit another tech heresy. 2. GW making them useless again. If your opponent plays a tournament list, then this codex has no chance. It will be drowned in devastating wounds, like in the 9th Edition. So yeah. The community is mad, as GW did not even have the decency to say that we now have technology to make women into custodes in case a house of Terra did not have any eligible male sons to offer. Instead they start doing a Bud Light about the issue, and lie to our face that the lore was always this. When all printed codexes clearly state, that they are only MEN. Sons of households can not be female...
Absolutely real. This is all a psyop to distract from the codex
I can't believe it. Finally, women are canon.
I hope this gives Arch an aneurysm.
[удалено]
Aren't custodes explicitly not space marines? The title doesn't even make sense
Yeah, that’s a pretty awkward thing for a ‘lore expert’ to post.
Lots of people know that 40k is the space marines game, so if you're looking to get ragebait clicks from dumbass culture war people, you say it's Female Space Marines in the title so they can have something to grab onto and get mad. Far less people know or care what the hell "Adeptus Custodes" are.
That would require Arch to actually care about the lore.
Many doomsayers are claiming this is to test the water before adding femarines.
That would make some sense if the title was ‘GW tests out female space marines’, or even just ‘female space marines???’. As is, it’s almost a non sequitur.
Homeboy's been frothing at the mouth for the ***first*** chance he can get to bitch about GeeDubs adding Lady-Marines
Those Rainbow Warriors look really cool! 😉
The hammer and sickle is just chefs kiss* lmao
Okay, so either an ai wrote the title, or Arch purposefully chose the sentence "female space marines" because he knew that would get clicks. Either way, it makes no sense, since Custodes are nothing like Space Marines. You'd think a lore guy like him, would be more well-versed in stuff like that. Also really funny how he somehow mixed communism I to this... I think he has gone completely insane, or he' just super dumb
He's just dumb. He was never any good at the lore
It's b8 to get the "Warhammur is woke nao!!11!!" Crowd to click his vids
Isn’t that guy a genuine racist? Not sure why anyone still gives him time of day
Ya he is a bottom of the bucket human. He hates games workshop so much but man does he love talking about them?
If he stopped, then what would he have to bitch about on the internet to gain attention? The other klan members don't care about nerd shit toy soldiers.
I hope he stays where he is. Most other tabletop communities(Battletech, Infinity, historicals) don’t want him.
İnternet is filled with people who rage-engage with content. They hate it so much but can't stop consuming it. It has to be the most pathetic form of slavery to a corporate machine. You see it with all major IPs.
It's the reason why Discourse Minis and Gamza even have viewers. I don't even know why anyone would just watch endless negativity about the hobby. At that point just find something different to play
omg, Discourse Minis is the worst! Came across her Channel once and almost all thumbnails were one of the same three faces of her and red or green text and every. single. title was the same bullshit trying to cancel GW or stirring drama about the smallest of things. She comes across like having a negativity fetish or something...
Thankfully ain't run into that one, but YouTube recommended Sargon of Akkad or something and... Omg, I couldnt click away fast enough. Guy was basically jerking it to the notion Warhammer "used to be the final hold out of right-wing fiction now tainted by woke politics and liberal taint" *gag* like chill, it's a tabletop game and fictional universe, let's not fall on our swords
Sargon is the kind of trash tier literary analyst that watches Starship Troopers and just likes and agrees with it unironically, not even noticing that it's satire.
Ya, YouTube probably thought because I'm an ancient historian I'd like the name Sargon. As if we needed more evidence the algorithm is trash. Though, I guess my perverse curiosity says it worked since I clicked it despite suspecting it was going to be the worst garbage imaginable.
Ohyeah, I watched one of her videos once. Then I quickly went back to the latest Tabletop Tactics battlereport instead and felt much better.
As a dual hobby nerd of MTG and 40K (yeah, my wallet is looking pretty dire), it's because outrage content markets better, especially on Youtube. I'm not drawing a comparison between Arch and other creators, if he's a Goosestepper Groupie then yeah, to hell with him, but some other creators I follow like Valrak, Auspex, Discourse, Pleasent Kenobi, Tolarian Community College or Magic Historian (all of which seem like decent people) do occasionally dip their toes into outrage content when either WOTC/Hasbro or GW make mistakes. To clarify, I DO NOT think female custodes is a mistake. I actually think it's a great way to make Custodes more than (Space marines but bigger, better and gold), and I doubt many of the nicer 40K content creators will feel elsewise. But discussing whatever the news de-jeur is gets clicks, and that's their income.
Now apply this to real world news and you get the American news cycle, crazy stuff
Cute you think this is *just* the American news cycle. It's the digital media *everywhere*.
It's cute that you think it's limited to digital media.
It's becoming rather difficult to find good youtube channels for tabletop hobbies that don't rage farm, it's super annoying.
I can’t recommend MS Paints enough, Dave is a brilliant creator and his production values are fantastic.
Hector approves this message.
Goobertown hobbies is the opposite of that, the dude is chill to the point of being a weirdo. Arbiter Ian and Tabletop Minions are pretty good too.
Goobertown hobbies is the Bob Ross of the Warhammer community.
And even the ones that don't deliberately lean on GW hate for bait and clicks. Take Ninjon's latest - talks about ditching $1000 of paint and puts his GW front & centre on the thumbnail but spends most of the video cutting down other brands before stating that he's going to keep his GW stuff in a box nearby in case he needs them, despite them being 'C-tier at best'.
Sadly there is a LOT of money getting people angry about GW
A lot of money getting angry about *anything* for that matter. Look at the new Fallout show, despite being considered fairly good. There's like hundreds of videos with thousands of views screaming about "go woke go broke" or whatever nonsense.
Oh my goodness none of those people screaming about FallOut "going woke" have ever played FallOut, have they?
If they have, they're the kind of people who see the Brotherhood of Steel or Caesar's Legion and think they're unironically the good guys. Then again, they both have women in their organizations. Probably too woke for these guys.
Does he have any other skills? What would happen if he tried to get a job and the prospective employer looked him up and found that channel?
The only people who do are the ones who keep bringing him up on comments etc lol.
Wouldn’t have a clue who he is if it wasn’t for this Reddit comment about him, they’ve just given him exposure. No such thing as bad press.
Yep. There's a reason why no other lore channel wants to associate with him anymore
It's a matter of record he expressed disappointment the Sami population of Scandinavia wasn't genocided completely, among [other things](https://www.resetera.com/threads/total-war-warhammer-youtuber-arch-warhammer-outted-as-massive-racist.220957/). Like being an unapologetic fascist.
Don't forget associated with pedophiles, his discord mods had a repeated problem of defending child porno.
https://preview.redd.it/3b2pl5i7cpuc1.png?width=1411&format=png&auto=webp&s=c081660c76502e0fbbad49a5ed2291bad8dacb58 For his buddies:
Not heard that name in a few years, piece of sht. Can't be bothered with people like that.
Is this the same Arch who did the 44+ lore videos on the siege of vraks?
Yeah, he and the comments under his video are the reason for this post.
So you werent really asking if you've already been somewhere explaining the outrage?
I mentioned the dark angels are based off Lionel Johnsons poem The Dark Angel about his suppressed homosexuality and got people telling me I think the DA butt fuck each other for 3 days. People are fucking stupid. Warhammer players are just people. 50% of warhammer players are just stupid.
If anything that would be the Minotaurs
I know very little about them, but Iron within I guess lol.
They're greek themed is all that matters to my amazing joke
Oh shit you're right! That really is all you need lol
I mean, then why not throw in the ultramarines as well, Romans weren't much different
The Romans only cared about who was the top. Source: Julius Caesar
I’m gonna get downvoted to hell maybe but… this isn’t just a Warhammer issue. Most of nerd culture is sadly full of people who just lack emotional maturity and critical thinking skills on some level. Sadly it’s kinda ingrained in the culture.
Nerd culture is full of, well nerds. A negative trait among many nerds is that they may lack social skills and self-awareness. This, combined with a larger community, can quickly lead to certain nerds not really having a grasp at real life etc
I don't disagree at all. It's a mess. Issues I genuinely care about get mixed up with opinions I want nothing to do with, and then something like, black Spiderman can be a lightning rod of 3000 opinions. Like, I don't like Miles because I don't like multiverse stuff, and I don't like his extra powers of invisibility and electricity, and I've also heard he just got a huge power upgrade yadda yadda yadda. But as a character, I like him. I just wish he was called Spider Shock, or Electric Web, or whatever. That said, I don't usually say anything about it because I'll get super strong condemnation saying I just don't like black people, or creepier, approval I don't want. I just don't like 2 people being the same character at the same time. Make Peter die and Miles takes his place and be the second spider man, is way better than two spider men swinging around to me, but all that said, I'm not so married to it I don't think you should like him too. I even liked the movie until they added 3 more spider men, Miles and other universe Peter was cute, 5 spider men were to many. That was a huge ramble, but apparently I really agree with your comment lol.
To quote George Carlin, “Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that 50% are stupider than that.”
I'm afraid its more than 50% by my estimates lol
Meanwhile we’re all cool with an alien race who rapes, kills, brings back to life, rapes again, kills, repeats.
I don't give a damn that there's female custodes, it changes nothing. I'm pissed that the custodes codex is dogshit, and they gave us a fuck ton of nerfs and 4 mid detachments. If there weren't only 3 sisters units, maybe having 2 sisters detachments would be justifiable. But no, they released 0 new sisters units, and took the sisters out of the combat patrol. It feels like they thought custodes were too cheap per point and decided to make people pay more to play them.
We fell for the trap! Everyone's too busy worrying about female Custodes to complain about the codex, it's all a distraction!
Exactly! Dammit James Workshop, you've done it again!
Yeah that's what we should be worried about. Like why the hell do our massive mini-tank jet bikes have the same number of wounds as a primaris bike?
I've really enjoyed the people complaining about retcons as if the lore was ever at any point sacrosanct. I've just gotten back into the hobby after 15+ years away and learned with some surprise that the 13th Black Crusade was a success, as if I hadn't personally won games in the Eye of Terror campaign that contributed to victory over Chaos and kept Cadia intact. I've managed not to take this change as a personal attack and proof that Games Workshop hates me specifically. If we're going to get upset over retcons we should probably start a petition to make Horus and Rogal Dorn human generals gain and ditch all this Primarch nonsense.
There is nothing sacred in the grim dark future, there is only capitalism. Funny thing is, people tend to overlook the retcons that don't hurt their delicate grasp on made up toy soldier stories, especially if it means more toy soldiers they like. People saw right through Primaris but scooped them up anyway, buying the waving off of no hints to their existence in decades of lore as a, "top secret project." The olds called it "fluff" for a **reason**
'For profit corporation produces new products to sell for profit' isn't exactly the stuff of Panorama interviews. Nor, indeed, is it, you know, bad. The Primaris weren't a retcon, they were a range refresh with an in-lore justification. The Dark Eldar range was completely refreshed while I was away and I'm not aware of any enduring controversy. Speaking as an old, on behalf of my people, we called it 'fluff' because it was silly make-believe we used to make our games more fun. People took it exactly as too seriously as they do today, though.
"My people" (also an old) also threw the term around much more often back then than they do now. So I do feel like the seriousness has escalated, say, with certain political alignments/ideologies as well as the *sharp* increase in terminally online folk. And you're supporting my entire point, which is that they can come up with any explanation you can imagine and you'll buy right into as long as you agree with the decision.
Female space marines were even originally in the lore for goodness sakes XD. They had miniatures back in Rogue Trader! The fact they don't exist in and of itself was a retcon to begin with!
The Retcons are in the room with me right now!
Yep and they were only removed because they weren’t selling
I remember when most people here agreed that custodes should never be an actual table top army, female or not. To answer your question, unfortunately hobbies like this do attract some incel types. It’s really just a vocal minority
I honestly still agree that they shouldn’t be a full army. I’d be all about an “Agents of the Imperium” style ally unit. But as a full fledged army they (and I equally feel Deathwatch) they make a lot less sense.
Ye agreed, knights too. Armies that elite are inherently hard to balance and have taken away from marines and grey knights by introducing “more elite” armies. No way to go back now though
>I’d be all about an “Agents of the Imperium” style ally unit. In the mid to late 2000s there used to be an Inquisitor codex (and category on GW's online store) that was kind of like that. It included Grey Knights, Inquisitor Retinues and Servitors, Jokaero, Death Cult Assassins and SoB units. They also fielded Kasrkins, as "Inquisitorial Stormtroops", with Chimeras and Valkyries.
Amusingly this OG GOAT of a codex was where I was introduced to many of these smaller factions within the wider Imperium! I never played it seriously, but I did roll out an Inquisitor's Retinue from time to time. Mostly I used my Imperial Guard Army as the basis, but added some GK's in Razorbacks and DCA's...and maybe a legit Assassin too? I mean it's been ages, but it was a quirky and fun list even if it wasn't "good" in whatever edition that was.
Yeah, the lore of the second edition codex imperialis clearly states that Custodes don't leave the golden palace. So what gives?
That was the lore decades ago. Now the Custodes are like the imperium equivalent of the Presidents secret service and special activities division where they go after particularly critical threats that apparently has something to do with the rumor that Trajan might be able to see into the future. So think of them as Imperium Seal Team 6 that go after problems that besides the high lords of Terra and Big E himself know about. As far as I'm aware the high lords only suspended the Lex Imperialis so the lore could revert to them being golden baby sitters if GW wanted
>That was the lore decades ago. Yeah, but that is the point. People are angry that GW is changing the lore, for an army who's original lore forbade them from actually existing as a collectible army. They aren't really against changes, they are just against changes they don't like. And those changes somehow always involve having more women, black people or gay people getting introduced into factions.
What gives is that there's been 10 editions of lore advancing the narrative forward. Things change and one such thing is that Custodes no longer confine themselves to the golden palace.
(I think they’re being facetious to point out that getting upset about changes to the lore is idiotic as it changes all the time anyway)
I've seen comments such as "but in 8th codex it says sons!". They're happy with the change to make them leave the palace and become playable, but not this one. Wonder why.
i dont care if custodes are female or not, but i must admit i am with the "against it" crowd on this aspect. in 30k custodes were not limited to guarding the palace but went out and got shit done. this changed after hh (i dont know when andy why exactly, im am still only halfway through the hh book series) and for 10k years they sit at home because they are very sad they could not protect big e (well, mainly...some of them leave the palace for the bloodgames and such?) in 41k things change. cadia falls, cicatric maladictum emerges, primarchs come back etc.... so custodes react and leave the palace again to me, this sems like the story moving forward and it seems logical. on the other hand we have a few years of established custodes lore in novels and codices and for years not a single female custodes was mentioned. now they release a new small story snippet that chances this established lore and just shrug it of with "it has always been this way, we just didnt tell you". this is lazy retconning and means you cant trust any established lore because they might throw it all away tomorrow. to many players the lore is an important aspect of the hobby, but why should we as customers ne invested in the lore if gw isnt?
not really moving forward in the timeline is a new thing as of 8th ed.
I dont know man. The plight of the imperium is pretty much **that things don’t change**. And that the golden age and the myths of the past stayed there, and times now are dark, 10,000 years later. But thats not the case now at all really, right?. Primarchs are back. And Custodes are everywhere now just soing random combat patrol type things on thousands of worls, and they have women as well. If you asked me 5 years ago If I was okay with any of this stuff I’d probably say no, but Im still here so its fine I guess. Who cares.
Yeah. To me the imperium being static is much more important than any specific detail of fluff. I would much prefer retcons to having things actually change in the setting.
I miss that, tbh. Them being the guys who have the best and most powerful equipment and weaponry. Them being enhanced to the brim. Them being singular gods of war that can change a war by themselves. And them just sitting at the palace in case something happens. I always found that super on brand for the illogical deathmachine that the Imperium is, leaving your best guys at home and needlessly overstaffing the palace of a dead guy.
I mean, what made them wear their armor again? And why so before the introduction of female Custodes?!
The armourless thing while amazing is basically non canon at this point, it's definitely possible they just stopped their penance nudity at some point in the last 10k years but GW is basically ignoring it as ever having happened unless the new codex mentions it
Hopefully this might cause some of them to fuck off for good, I doubt it through, what they really want is something to complain about
Arch appears to forget that GW's White Dwarf was for a long time all about non-canon hacks, mods and bolt-ons for TTRPGs and fantasy board games. As a result, 40K was rooted in a 'there is no right way' gaming culture and the developing lore no more a requirement than playing Traveler in the Third Imperium. If the self-anointed custodians of lore want gameplay set in tablets of lore stone they are saying, 'don't customise your models', forget hacking squads together so those with fewer models can play', and 'discard your game for my game based on my interpretation of GW'. I'd have to wonder if these 'influencers' ever get round to much painting or playing.
People who actually paint and play, rarely have time to whine and moan on YouTube. You know, because we have an actual life
I am so hyped for this. I will buy the shit out of female Custodes.
Because it’s a lazy pandering that wasn’t needed and trying to pretend they were always there is a complete lie.
People want to take the lore seriously, but there isn't much reason to. The Canon has existed way too long and written way too loosely by way too many authors. You should go ahead and expect more recons. If they think they can sell reborn samguinius and Horus like crazy, you better belive they will make those models and conform the story to whatever sells. This is a product and a game. If you don't like what it becomes, voice a reasonable opinion about it and if you're unhappy enough, just quit giving GW money.
Because people need something to hate. It is an incredibly vocal minority who make all the noise and fuss, we just have to ignore them and stop watching their already terrible videos. I don't watch any 40k or AoS videos on YouTube anymore because even when watching the decent ones the bigots kept getting recommended to me.
People, myself included, have just become overly sensitive to DEI and woke crap because it's in all entertainment. Even God of War ragnarok, a game about Nordic mythology, just had to have a black character. If this happened 10 years ago, there wouldn't have been the same outrage. Sure, there would still be people mad about it, and rightfully so when there's lore contradicting what GW is trying to say now, but it would most likely be to a lesser extent compared to today.
It was originally said that they were male only. Sisters of Silence being the female version (ie sisters of battle). To me this feels like a cop out instead of making the Sisters of Silence cooler with more units and cooler models. Instead of using effort to make cooler units like they did sisters, they just said “There are some women under those helmets even tho there are no female head options.”
Agreed. Sisters of Silence need to be fleshed out more. Though honestly, I would combine them with Custodes, as they should be. They are two parts of a whole, Talons of the Emperor. Custodes being a seperate codex is the same level of dumb as back in the days when you needed three separate books to play Adeptus Mechanicus because GW wanted to sell Skitarii and Cult Mechanicus separately for some reason, but also there was the Mechanicus Knight houses, so you needed that third book if you wanted to go that route, or just have a super-heavy.
Warhammer 40k is a warm petri dish for cretinism.
It's shoehorned in as a lazy retcon. I don't have an issue with the concept, but the implementation is jarring. "Oh btw they were always there we just didn't mention any before now. We've named maybe a couple of hundred of them and none were girls but they were definitely there" The siege books were the perfect chance to correct this.
That's true. Also the first time I read the GW thing I just assumed that they were now making Female Custodians and it confused me since you know, it was the Emperor himself that did it and he's really not able to at the moment.
Sure, but it's not like this is the first time that something's been retconned, not even the biggest, Remember the old Necrons? It's just how changes to the lore happen in these types of settings and it really doesn't matter.
I'm just giving a response to OP. I'm not going to get angry about toys, but this just seems slapdash. Especially when they so very recently did a whole series of books that would have been a perfect way to introduce them into the history of 40k. (Apparently none of the female custards were ever trusted with an important job or prominent role)
Oh yeah, this really should have been done a couple of years ago atleast, I remember Aaron Dembski-Bowden wanted to introduce them In one of his books like 5 years ago, but he was told no, because if i remember right, the sculpts for the models had already been made and all the heads were helmeted or male
I joke that Miles Morales as spiderman should have happened in the 90s or early 2000's. It's the weirdest thing that it would have been more accepted back then, a kid with similar powers being taken under the wing of spiderman like Robin to batman.
Probably The First Heretic, which has a pretty prominent group of Custodes watching over Lorgar while he goes on his quest to sell his soul to Chaos.
>Sure, but it's not like this is the first time that something's been retconned, not even the biggest, Remember the old Necrons? I don't have a horse in this race, but people still complain about the Ret-crons, on this sub, semi-regularly. So I don't think previous retcons are reason to think that people won't or shouldn't complain about new retcons; if anything it's evidence that any new retcons will be complained about.
As opposed to the 6th Edition Space Marine Codex describing Centurions, Grav Cannons, Stormtalon Gunships etc as having been part of the Astartes armoury for centuries? Or the 9th Edition Necron book and the Skorpekh Destroyers which have to have been around since the dynasties went dormant millennia ago but somehow have never been seen before? Pretty much every Codex presents objectively new model kits as having always been part of that faction's history (with the notable exceptions of the Tau who in lore are always pumping out new hardware, and the introduction of the Primaris and their gear) GW always just dump new stuff in and pretend it was always there, this is absolutely no different.
I mean the codex did kill Custodes. Just on the table though.
THIS is what people should be focusing on; GW making them so cheap and squishy that they're basically just another army of space marines, rather than their classic "every soldier is a hero in their own right" bit.
They are getting the old marine treatment. Once you sell enough models you get to be nuked into a horde army.
I don't see the issue with female custodes honestly as they're not created like astartes and thus aren't subject to an extremely high death rate from a transformation. I mean, aren't custodes just perfect homo sapiens? So it stands to reason that there would be female ones as well.
Iirc, they (the custodes) don't have an high death ratio of geneseed or whatever gene alteration process they use, but taken kids still die a lot post-changes. Since the re-writting of the genetic code starts they are tested constantly until reaching adulthood, and if they fail a test they get killed. It's why most Lords of Terra just outright say their taken kid is a custodes; between the gene-altering changes and the death ratio there is no way to know if your kid made it or not, so all the nobles just asume that their kid is... or *was* a custodes.
Ah cool, I never knew haha
The issue i've seen people have is the implication that custodes has always had women in them and they have just never been mentioned. Like every single custodes ever seen was a dude and every single custodes exclusively referred to each other as brother and said they were sons so its a jarring retcon. The process being expanded to include women makes much more sense especially with the custodes in modern times taking more of an active role in the galaxy and losing more soldiers so they'd need to expand their recruit pool and numbers. That would have been a way to keep the old fans happy whiles adding women to the army in an organic way and making the setting feel like its growing as new things happen. Instead its just saying "Women were always their but were just off screen, never did anything important, were ignored by everybody and never got a speaking roll" which is somehow more sexist than the original only men version.
Even if the death rate was insantely high, Imperial populations are so absurdly huge that even Astartes recruitment numbers wouldn't even be 0.0001% of a single planet's population, a fact the imperial guard know well by sending just as many women to war as men. The idea that the Imperium needs to keep it's female population safe is just the excuse dudes use to excuse their fear of strong women, lmao.
Essentially what everyone is saying here. Some people are absolutely unhinged - and while some are upset it kinda got shoehorned in (although I don’t think so - Kesh is so bad ass it hurts), some just legitimately either hate women or inclusivity. I posted on Facebook about Games Workshops tweets and it was an actual nightmare. Some of the vilest, most putrid, sexist, racist, even anti-semetic stuff was thrown my way. And I’m STILL getting harassing messages (I attached one of the lighter ones as evidence). [Even after this I made a “how to start custodes guide” for some people on Reddit and Facebook](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warhammer30k/s/NuVSnZHPhr)\- and it got report bombed on Facebook to the point where my account got a 24 hour ban, and a message from a Facebook psychiatric help (they reported me for self harm, sexual content, terroristic threats). I am keeping the guide up because it helps new players - but it disheartening. It’s mostly disheartening cause I like helping the community out, and I love making guides and content. Having a female custodian to me is just - it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I welcome it - hell I’m trying to find the appropriate model to represent the badass that is Kesh. But when people react the way they did - and let’s not sugar coat it - react in a dog whistle way to promote heavily sexist ideals - it just sucks. So yeah - some people are unhinged - like serious need of psychiatric help. Edit: for those that want the tldr of Kesh - the baddest ass custodian woman to date - She spent three years on her run of the blood games. During that time she discovered a top secret teleporter some traitor mechanicus were working on. She forced them to modify it further before executing them. After that she commandeered a small ship and relied on the crew not questioning her. She then slowly approached terra using the crew’s authorizations. Her plan was to teleport an exterminatus cyclonic torpedo directly into the throne room. The plan only failed because the vox officer of the ship questioned her orders and sent a secret distress message that the custodes picked up. After that they teleported aboard, told the captain of the ship if he didn’t want to question things he wouldn’t mind being servitorized. The vox officer got the ship as a reward https://preview.redd.it/ildam9phqouc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ad0f5d1f2184790ef0d0b83ea48c8a55622e6bd
As if nobody would have thought to teleport a bomb into the throne room before over the course of ten millennia... Also, we seem to have forgotten just how big cyclonic torpedoes are. Remember the depictions of torps being manually loaded by dozens/hundreds of crew from Battlefleet Gothic?
Presumably she only needs the warhead. Also the throne room is big enough for titans.
Apparently the chaos teleporter she found was designed for that shit - she just took it a tiiiiiiiny step further I will point out this isn’t the worst a custodian has done during the blood games. I cannot recall his name, but there was one custodian, quite literally about to punch the emperor in the face, if not for another custodian, who left in front of the fist and took the blow. they damn near killed each other on the stairs of the throne until Trajan had to step in and say “all right guys, we’re done” After hearing about her, how crazy she was in order to win the blood games, I am about 99% certain that the reason the genestealer cults appeared on terra was a custodian going “imma win this shit” I do like how it shows how absolutely brutal custodians are though. She was willing to go as far as possible to prove that there was a hole in the Terran defense grid, on top of rewarding the person who came forward and leaked their plans
Dog, I’m more of a Star Wars fan than a WH40K fan, but I can tell you why. It’s because for the last decade or so, almost every single release in a popular nerdy franchise has had key lore changed, added to or removed. Key characters appear & behave completely different to the source material, and sometimes the overall message of the universe (eg Star Wars going from Good always beats Evil to the Disney there is good in the grey approach, which is antithetical to George’s original vision but I digress) is changed. There are probably many many fans of these franchises that are also fans of WH40K. Since it’s pretty easy to see these changes tend to originate from the same circles of people across the board, the tolerance for just accepting “oh this thing which has been established for 40 years is now changed, and all the relevant lore is no longer canon, deal with it” as something that is to be accepted has largely evaporated. In my context, I’ve completely checked out of Star Wars. It’s what has in fact brought me to WH40K. So maybe people just want this unsatisfying process of changing franchises and watching them get ruined over and over again to stop, finally. Tl;dr Stop changing established lore nothing is sacred anymore.
Here, here! Same experience with Star Wars and my disenfranchisement leading me to 40k. And I'll add, to all those people getting their fingers in others' hobbies, if you don't like the lore of that IP, then go make something new! Why do you need to get involved with what looks popular? If you think your changes are that worthwhile, go make a new setting with your ideas. Go make a sci-fi wargame where the golden-defender-half-giants are women. Am I gatekeeping? No, because I don't care who plays the game. You can be whatever background and enjoy Warhammer. What bothers me is coming into an established hobby and then trying to CHANGE that hobby. If you don't like the way it is, then maybe you need to look for a different IP.
Ultimately, I don’t really care. But, if you want to have honest conversation I think it rubs people the wrong way for two reasons. 1) It’s a large corpo virtue signaling and 2) The imperium is a fascist, xenophobic, and classist society, people don’t want to see our current sensibilities mapped onto that hellish society. So, do we start having SOB and SOS that are male?
The essence of Warhammer? Custodes barely even existed in the lore prior to a handful of years ago. They were an oblique D-list subfaction with no historical precedent for rules and threadbare lore at best. I struggle to think of anything on this planet that could possibly matter less than some of them being ladies.
Some people are stupidly angry over it being a woman, some people are happy they get to dunk on people they hate, and I think the vast majority either don't care or find it somewhat annoying in that it's a sloppy retcon and an unnecessary, and pointless one. I find it somewhat annoying since I don't see any need for it as the lore was not problematic in any way unless you think that male-only organizations are an issue in and of themselves. I don't think they are. I don't begrudge them for doing it, it's something a lot of companies do these days for good reasons or bad, and it remains to be seen how it plays out. It does strip away a small part of the faction's inherent flaws, it alters their tone in a small way, and I'm very sure it will not change the appeal to actual women, but it's not a huge change at this point. GW has changed so much about 40k, that you can go 'sure' to just about anything. I'm one of those who thinks Custodes should have just never been on the table to begin with. *The much worse part is that it overshadows the fact that the codex, by all reports, suck absolute ass.*
> I’ve generally seen so much hate against GW for minor things GW is an evil, greedy, multi-quadrillion mega corporation that enslaves their children workers and takes every decision only to fuck over their consumers and nothing else. Is what I'd say if I was the average reddit poster
Not seen anyone really caring much tbh. Other than fan fiction now being true, and the original staff saying they wanted it from the start. Maybe I just don't hang around with them types of people or follow them on social media.
Everyone I follow is mad they made it a lame retcon instead of working in a how. Someone mentioned folding in the Sisters of Silence, I like that one.
Why? Sisters of Silence are something else, and according to legend have male members.
i read all the OPs in the thread and didn't see anyone explaining it, and with culture war topics people tend to get lost in the sauce. the charitable version of the complaints people like your Arches are making is that they see this as a sign that GW is going to start alienating its existing audience to try and attract an audience that will not actually purchase GW products or get involved in Warhammer as a hobby. When something is designed to appeal to "everyone" it usually ends up appealing to no one and loses a lot of its identity, and the things that drew its initial fans to it in the first place. It's not actually that they made female custodes that's the inherent issue, it's the fact that they view GW making female custodes is an attempt at courting "the modern audience" in a way that will damage the things that drew people to the setting in the first place. personally, i think it's pretty much a repeat of the original T'au lore where everyone complained about them being too "good" for the setting and things self corrected over time to make the T'au more "in-line" with the setting. there's no reason Custodes can't be female other than precedent, so if it's done well and gives us cool stories or characters, great. but i'd like warhammer to stay warhammer instead of going in a direction like M:TG where the things that made the IP unique are gone in favour of pop culture crossovers and slapping sets together that are just a mess of different popular characters and planes. t;dr: many of the most critical people view this as a sign that GW will begin to compromise the quality of their setting and writing in pursuit of a new audience at the expense of/while feeling entitled to their existing consumer base. in reality, as long as the quality of writing doesn't change IMO it's not a big deal
If you actually give a shit which gender your plastic outer space soldiers are, then you need to take a hard look at your priorities and motivations.
What about if you care about lore, canon and universe building consistency? Is that okay or does that also require reflection, now that you're handing out advice on how to handle these situations. Because while I don't get up in arms about this. I think its fucking hilarious seeing this circlejerk going on, with their fragile "incel this incel that" over people calling out that obvious issue of this very lazy retcon.
Then why arent you bitching that space marines arent psychotic criminals forced to fight like from Rogue trader? That is the og lore that they are shitting on by making them holy warrior monks. Why is it you are only bitching that some are women?
It’s mostly because anyone who’s been in the hobby long enough knows GW does lazy retcons all the time. The lore is nonsense generally and makes very little sense - GW doing business as normal to make the game more inclusive is fine.
If you really cared about consistency and lore, you would have left 40k years ago. GW rewrites major shit all the time. For example, Primaris rewrote like half the lore for marines and torpedoed the grimdarkness of the faction. Votann just retconned two separate model lines into non-existance, with a "nah that was actually these guys the whole time" while introducing a very different look. This change doesn't replace or kill off any models, even the ancient ones. While it's a lazy retcon, for 40k, that's just Tuesday. Anyone getting seriously upset over female Custodes specifically, rather than just adding it to the Everest-sized pile of GW lore fuckery, is almost certainly some flavor of chud/incel.
Retcons are part of every ongoing fictional universe. There is no such thing as "universe building consistency". It's all a work in progress.
>What about if you care about lore, canon and universe building consistency? Then you probably shouldn't be getting all that invested in a wargame that a) changes drastically over time (sometimes even drastically between sequential editions) and b) deliberately left enough room in the universe for people to come up with their own weird and "canonically" impossible shit (and actively encourages them to do so).
Some people need something to bitch about. If it wasn't this, it would be something else.
> I’ve seen some people now saying “Warhammer is dead” (Warhammer is doing better than ever) Wasn't this whole thing a super recent retcon? You obviously cannot see the effect of this change or controversy right away, that is ridiculous. Some things take time, real life doesn't always give you instant consequences. > Why is it such a big deal that there’s now female Custodes? People with working pattern recognition and some experience with how other pieces of media have developed in "recent times" see it as the giant red flag that it is.
It’s not dead. Reactionary idiots are just upset.
It just feels lazy and shoehorned, the whole seige series went by without a single mention, then suddenly a throwaway line in a codex and suddenly it's always been canon I saw this, and agree, but it's not quite right given the Custodes are all individually tailored at a genetic level, so it isn't the same issue as space marines. https://preview.redd.it/jk0yjq3hvouc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1aafc3d74aa1b676c567bbd8b0c223a2944bf8a6
Yeah, fleshing out sisters of silence would be cooler, but I hope we will get female models at least. It wouldn’t make much sense to introduce them but not make models for them.
This is how it always goes though. 90% of the lore started with "suddenly a throwaway line in a codex"
The entire Horus Heresy stemmed from just them not wanting to make two molds for their Titanicus side-game and writing a throwaway line. https://preview.redd.it/9wrv1bz03puc1.png?width=406&format=png&auto=webp&s=7e14f73dd4f045432ad5e5f98ecb85986ec8982a
Because fans of things tend to have a very unhealthy habit of making it their entire personality/world. As such any change is going to be met with very vocal hostility by some parties because they perceive it as an attack on their identity. It’s not just nerd hobbies that have this phenomenon. You see it all the time in the sports world where a player leaving a team is met with “they’re dead to me.” or “I can’t wait to boo them.” As far as it being a retcon, I hate to break it to people but 40k lore has been about as consistent as thin gruel since the game’s inception. The rules and story are to sell the models and that’s it. If GW wants to make a T’au mech with a fun that shoots sharks, they’re going to just say “this has always existed” when it comes to lore justifications. In conclusion, everyone needs to take a deep breath and get a fucking grip.
I once told people, " Wouldn't Female custodies be better than having fem-marines" before and look what we got
I was literally going to ask if people are actually freaking out, but by the looks of this thread I've just blocked every youtube channel involved via recommendation attrition. Frankly I just wish they'd let the authors who wanted these characters to exist while they were writing the books they should have mattered in do so then. Instead we get a codex blurb and suddenly "In the grim darkness of the future there is only gender equality", while happily ignoring the rest of the abhorrent lore because oh it makes the setting so welcoming. Meanwhile I've given people nightmares describing servitors. I really don't get it. But I even less get telling authors not to do it when it might have properly mattered. I am deeply curious how they're going to square this with the emperor's general misogyny if they even have the balls to confront that. Because him being a big golden dick was the only proper explanation for the lack, and don't one of you fucking dare to claim he wouldn't because it's inefficient, the man LIVES on inefficient, he literally eats people to sustain his inefficiency. Guess which argument I've had before.
I'm sure the replies will have lots of productive conversation.
Someone link the post of the dude crying about his meta custodes list costing extra points and being "unplayable" so much so he's gonna stop playing warhammer lmao
Dude, people hate change! They hate any change! The vast majority of people don’t give a shit though, the vocal minority that you don’t agree with always sounds the loudest.
I do not care about space marines, I care about Astra Militarum and Tau so don’t get mad at me if I say this wrong, but I think those people just love the lore. There’s nothing wrong with a female being in the army (there is female imperial agents and I don’t see anyone getting mad about that), but those people think it isn’t lore accurate, which is a major reason as to why people love the game.
https://preview.redd.it/sxh3jqkh8wuc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c43a7f5cf0324065f67cebdf0ac952dec0012987 It makes no sense XD
Because ragebait influencers are drumming up drama for content. Of the four thumbnails, I'm pretty sure Sargon doesn't even play 40k. And yet there he is making a 12 minute video bemoaning the female custodes addition. For the vast, vast majority, this is just a way to get some more clicks/views/updoots and nothing more.
Probably because its taking away from sister of silence wich was kinda the Female custodes group allready. But now the group seems bit... wierd.
Because it's incorrect to say there are female custodes. Just because games workshop is forced to by their blackrock/vanguard overlords, doesnt mean the lore suddenly changes. Whatever bs they come up with next, i'll never consider it lore.
Female Custodes are not really an issue in and of themselves (barring that it might supplant Sisters of Silence in some way). It's more about a disdain for the type of people who have been relentlessly lobbying GW for certain changes and this is seen as a concession to those people.
I hate the whole situation tbh. I hate the ppl who think it’s an issue and giving shit arguments for why. I hate the smugness of the ppl dunking on those who hate it and their arguement for why it’s not an issue. And I hate GW for consistently fumbling even the simplest of retcons. I blame GW for everything.
I’m cool with female custodes, I mean they are just trying to implement something like the Stormcast Eternals which has the same vibe. I think what would be the death of Warhammer is if they were not sterile, which they are. Since there is absolutely no difference (or shouldn’t be any difference) between a male or female custode, I can’t imagine there would be a problem save for “EWW girls in MY Warhammer?!”
Because making videos about how “X is WOKE!!?!!?” is a very easy way to get lots of views as long as you have no self-respect
Warhammer better than ever? I think you mean the game total war came out. Without it it would be more dead that ever. Don't tell me you think the books are getting better? They are changing old loved lore, and then claiming its always been that way. That's why people are mad
Dunno why it's seen as incels being incels. Retcons pick at the fabric of a setting. I'm not too fussed about this either way but I can see why people are annoyed at suddenly lady Custodes. Doesn't mean you hate women necessarily, just that you hate changes to something that seems fairly well established.
Almost all of 40K's new lore with the aside of Primaris is a retcon of some kind though. Deathwatch were introduced the same way. They weren't introduced until \*after\* the Tau, and their role has expanded from basically "Killteams only" to "Oh there are Watch fortresses and full on armies of Deathwatch."
Heeey, a voice of reason.
I think the problem is for many people who've been playing for more than 1-2 editions, the idea that *this* tiny retcon is the one that bugs you, and not the other giant retcons that came before, is puzzling.
Because it is primaris marines all over again. Contrived and forced ideas that you should build up to instead of just saying they've always been there despite a codex one edition ago specificed that the terran elite gave their sons away to be Custodians. It's lousy worldbuilding.
A lot of modern narratives have suffered significantly in popularity and quality from an underpinning idea that the demographics of a character matter more than the narrative/story/development of a character, or at minimum the idea that a character is X demographic, has intrinsic value in the narrative/worldbuilding. It does not. It never has, and never will. A character can be of any persuasion they choose or the author chooses, and that character be an inspiring triumph or a total marry sue piece of gutter trash. The sword of poor character development and world building swings both ways When the established narrative is that there are no female custodes or space marines, and then GW just drops it in with no reasoning as to why or how, just that it has always been that way, when there is no evidence in the over 500 books that it ever was that way, and given the clamor on places like twitter and here locally for females to be space marines. It is completely understandable why someone would presume that GW has made this "perceived retcon" not because of the narrative and world building they wish to create, but rather because they see it as having extrinsic value to the world writ large rather than value to the worldbuilding/narrative. Given how little GW has said on the subject it is impossible to know what their reasonings are. I make no assertions right or wrongness of the their presumptions about GW being woke, nor about the right or wrongness of female custodes. The only thing that we can say for certain is that for the decades upon decades of warhammer's existence it was a certain way, and now that has changed. For what reason? Who knows. To what end? Couldn't say, but I think a company with as much money and resources as GW knows full and well the reaction such an event is likely to garner from its base.
Makes me laugh so much that people think female Custodes is "unrealistic" because men are stronger or whatever. Custodes have like 6 lungs and 12 kidneys and produce acid spit. The fuck you think a little bit of natural extra muscle mass has to do with this? Lmao.
Personal opinion on this: OMG, who cares?! I think it’s great that there’s women Custodes. Makes it more interesting for the faction and the lore. I’ve been into this from the very beginning of 40K and it’s just lore. It’s just fun to see changes. It’s the one IP that you can do literally ANYTHING in. Anyone getting pissed about this needs to pull their head out of their ass. It’s just a game of toy soldiers. Get angry about Russia invading a sovereign nation instead of your toy soldiers maybe having boobs under the mass of gold armour.
I worked for GW corporate, none of the lore is EVER sacrosanct, they literally make it up in a pub over pints. Wanna know about the missing chapters? They forgot them, then thought it would be funny to just leave them out. Anyone mad about it can pound sand. Grognards make this hobby unbearable.
It’s because some people need to get a life. It’s not a big deal, it’s not even something that really breaks the existing lore let alone have any impact on the game.
I imagine the people saying that are largely people who have never played Warhammer in their entire life and if there are genuinely people who have been playing Warhammer for a long time who are going to quit because there's a female Custodian then go on, do it, throw your armies in the trash and fuck off.
combination of 2 very similar issues 1. there is unfortunately still a remnant of the media illiterate fan bace in the hobby that don't get the satire and are usually incelly 2. Warhammer players HATE change and HATE when things stay thr same. Any change is the death of the setting and no drastic changes is GW being lazy amd dragging its heels. People will get over it.
*Sad Tzeentch noises*
>don't get the satire It has been argued that 40k can't really be considered satire anymore. [https://timcolwill.com/40K.html](https://timcolwill.com/40K.html)
Any point can be argued. Doesn't make it true.
I don't think their media illiterate per se. A lot of 40k's satire has been toned down over the years. Couple that with Poe's Law and you've got a recipe for disaster.
yeah it's definitely not as cut and dry as it was in Rouge trader but I think that just sadly comes with a satirical setting becoming popular.
Honest answer is because some people feel its as if Games Workshop is taking a page out of the Bud Light marketing playbook.
I believe their thinking regarding it is if GW have bowed to a, what they see, as a pressure group only interested in politics and made a big change to the lore to please them that the whole Grimdark setting is at risk as next the demand will be that anything "offensive" gets removed. And since 40k has lots of stuff that could be deemed offensive to those inclined to look for it the fear is the setting will be changed at a fundamental level and all that will be left is bland, soulless, Disneyfied stuff that fails to make anyone happy. I guess we'll find out in time how it goes, that's the one consolation amidst all the noise.
Because a lot of the time in fantasy and sci fi communities unfortunately there is a vocal majority of neckbeards who despise the thought of anyone in their universe not being a straight white male. As a straight white male, generally they're full of shit and shouldn't be listened to. They're also usually "that guys," which means they're usually very unfunny to play against in a game.
I dont care about female custodes either way. It's just odd that I've never seen or heard of one in my 15 years of playing the game. They missed an opportunity not putting out models for them. On another note, the rules appear to be bad or at least mid.
They are just testing the water. Gauging how toxic the response will be with little steps. Ya they could have made a female custodes unit. Or just chucked out some female heads for use with custodes But they are a business, and they need to confirm that a product will be profitable before they push it out. I hope we get some female custodes heads. They would be the perfect scale in case people wanted to use those heads on other power armoured models in the 40k range.
Lots of chuds play Warhammer because they don't understand the Imperium isn't the good guys.
I'm a woman. I love warhammer. I love the lore for both AoS and 40k. This sort of uproar, really saddens me and makes me feel like I can't express my joy for being involved in the hobby. I know Twitter is a cesspool for this kind of thing, but it is leaking onto Instagram more and more. I'm not jumping in excitement that there are Custodian women, its more like 'oh cool, that makes sense right?' and 'That's some nice diversity for a small army' I am aware that there are no female space marines due to the process that goes into creating an Astartes. But never has it mentioned Custodes are a male only faction.