Thunder Warriors, Custodes and Space Marines: What came first?

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**locarno24**

Compared to average PDF, who are basically somewhere between guard conscripts and chaos cultists in training and equipment, that's a fair comparison.

But yes, every governor is at liberty to equip their PDF and SDF to whatever standards they see fit and can afford providing it contains no warp capable vessels.

The cadian internal guard was indistinguishable from the cadian guard regiments.

The macragge defence auxiliaries are astartes-trained grenadiers organised at subsector not planetary level.

There will be PDF that look like stormtroopers and PDF that look like skitarii. There's no real rule.

**FezzikDaBullgryn**

I find it odd that someone suggested that Custodes would be called in IF another SM chapter were to "Go rogue". This is untrue.

First, that specific task would fall to the Minotaurs, who were literally designed with the purpose of engaging and destroying other chapters of Space Marines, if they were to go "rogue".

Otherwise, The officio Assasinorum would likely be tasked with executing the traitors. Which was the entire plot line of the Custodes recent book. The minotaurs are called to Terra because the high lords fear a rebellion by Guilliman's new crusade force. Thus is sown the first seeds of heretical/traitorous planning. By the time the Custodes FINALLY got involved, the Grandmaster of Assassins has already put Vindicaire and a few Culexus in place, to effectively kill the entire thing before it gets out of hand. Surprisingly, it's the church, AGAIN, creating traitors on Terra. And no one goes, "Hey, every time wot we got a rebellion 'ere, it's dem prayer boys. I says we go up there and kill the whole lot."

Dumbest ending to a book, ever. They should have done a massive purge of the entire church. But no.

**Tiberias**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I find it odd that someone suggested that Custodes would be called in IF another SM chapter were to "Go rogue". This is untrue.

First, that specific task would fall to the Minotaurs, who were literally designed with the purpose of engaging and destroying other chapters of Space Marines, if they were to go "rogue".

Otherwise, The officio Assasinorum would likely be tasked with executing the traitors. Which was the entire plot line of the Custodes recent book. The minotaurs are called to Terra because the high lords fear a rebellion by Guilliman's new crusade force. Thus is sown the first seeds of heretical/traitorous planning. By the time the Custodes FINALLY got involved, the Grandmaster of Assassins has already put Vindicaire and a few Culexus in place, to effectively kill the entire thing before it gets out of hand. Surprisingly, it's the church, AGAIN, creating traitors on Terra. And no one goes, "Hey, every time wot we got a rebellion 'ere, it's dem prayer boys. I says we go up there and kill the whole lot."

Dumbest ending to a book, ever. They should have done a massive purge of the entire church. But no.

Cmon Fezzik did you really read the book or just some excerpts on reddit? You need to properly read the book.
*SPOILER WARNING* Old man Trajann Valoris orchestrated that whole thing as a setup to root out the traitorous elements within the high lords. You make it sound like the custodes couldn't get of their asses when they actually planned the whole thing with Guilliman and the grandmaster of the assassins.

And why don't they just purge the ecclesiarchy? (which is not what regents shadow is about btw) Because it is a useful tool. This is even addressed by Colquan in the book gate of bones, who is probably the angriest Custodes character ever.
Another Custodes in the book is annoyed by the ecclesiarchy and their fanatical followers for reasons I won't spoil and Colquan tells him that he basically needs to understand that they are useful....for now.

**Gert**

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I find it odd that someone suggested that Custodes would be called in IF another SM chapter were to "Go rogue". This is untrue.

Technically you are correct at this point. The High Lords often use other Chapters to purge renegade or traitor Chapters by framing them as a stain on the honour of all Chapters.

First, that specific task would fall to the Minotaurs, who were literally designed with the purpose of engaging and destroying other chapters of Space Marines, if they were to go "rogue".

That is not confirmed. They are the attack dogs of the High Lords but they are not explicitly "designed" to wipe out other Chapters, in fact, they've never actually done the deed. They came close with the Inceptors and Lamenters but they failed to destroy much of the Night Reapers. In fact the Pentarchy of Blood (Carcharadons, Charnel Guard, Death Eagles, Flesh Eaters and Red Talons) did destroy 11 Chapters during the War of the False Primarch so one could say the Carcharadons hold a better position of Chapter killers than the Minotaurs.

Otherwise, The officio Assasinorum would likely be tasked with executing the traitors. Which was the entire plot line of the Custodes recent book. The minotaurs are called to Terra because the high lords fear a rebellion by Guilliman's new crusade force. Thus is sown the first seeds of heretical/traitorous planning. By the time the Custodes FINALLY got involved, the Grandmaster of Assassins has already put Vindicaire and a few Culexus in place, to effectively kill the entire thing before it gets out of hand. Surprisingly, it's the church, AGAIN, creating traitors on Terra. And no one goes, "Hey, every time wot we got a rebellion 'ere, it's dem prayer boys. I says we go up there and kill the whole lot."
Dumbest ending to a book, ever. They should have done a massive purge of the entire church. But no.

Yeah, that's not what happens at all.
A group of High Lords helps destabilise Terra by secretly funding Cults and dissident groups. These Lords (known as the Hexarchy) intended to end Guilliman's reforms and ensure the "Static Tendency" (the idea that the Imperium was fine the way it was and would keep being fine without reform) would endure. Their leader was the deposed Master of the Administratum and he used his rank to command the Minotaurs to aid the Hexarchy. The Minotaurs saw the Hexarchy as High Lords, and as such took orders from them. When the Hexarchy were revealed as traitors and the new Master of the Administratum showed up, the Minotaurs left Terra because they had been ordered to do so by the High Lords.
As for the Custodes, they didn't need to intervene because the Grand Master of the Assassins and Valoris were in on the plan. Valerian wasn't and he (among others) found out about the conspiracy anyway. Either way those loyal to Guilliman, and therefore the Emperor, would come out on top.
The Ecclesiarchy on the other hand is a different matter. Guilliman hates it and can't get rid of it, and neither can the Custodes. Removing the ruling faction of the Ecclesiarchy just means another one takes its place and enacting a galaxy-wide purge is a laughable task. To fully eradicate religion in humanity, they'd have to wipe out humanity. As Life of Brian goes:

Spoiler:

**Haighus**

PDF are definitely very variable, although the suggestion from existing lore is that the majority of planets struggle to generate a PDF where the quality uniformly meets that of the Guard minimum standard- most planets tithe their best formations to the Guard, with substandard troop tithes treated as a punishable offence for planetary governors. This is certainly not universal and the PDF on some planets is far better equipped than standard Guard formations (these units would not necessarily make good Guard units, as resupply is likely to be very poor for exotic equipment). I suspect Necromunda is an example of the latter, and I am hoping this will be confirmed in the near future with models for the Spiders.

Arbites would therefore be better equipped than PDFs on most planets, but not all.

morganfreeman wrote:

Spoiler:

Haighus wrote:

Obviously the Custodes lose on the ground against the entire Guard, they would just never do that. This is some weird hypothetical where Guard is vs Custodes without outside factors. The Navy isn't a factor because they have an entirely separate command structure to the Guard, whereas the Custodes fleet is fully under their control and part of their organisation. Holding ground is also not really a consideration in such a stupid scenario, but if it was, the Guard win if the Custodes try.

Also, the idea you can throw corpses at an Imperial fleet to clog it up is laughable. There are a lot of Guardsmen, trillions probably, but space is enormous and that number would struggle to make a cloud between Earth and the moon, let alone something dense enough to affect kilometres-long ships around an entire planet. Orbital defenses do exist, but the planets with the strongest defenses are typically not self-sufficient in resources like food, so besieging them by blockading supply routes is an option.

Again, this scenario is very abstract- obviously there are tons of outside factors in the actual setting that would affect this, but the base scenario is outlandish to begin with.

The Guard are still more important than the Custodes to the integrity of the Imperium as a whole, they just rely on the Navy to do it (the Navy, in turn, relying on them).

The entire custards vs the entire guard (a frankly silly comparison, yet one people are making here) always results in the custards being genocided. There is no combat-scenario (of any type) where this goes well for the banana-boys. With singular exception of weird scenarios where the custards are still fully supported by "outside factors" but the entire imperial guard is, for whatever bizarre reason, not.

This basically boils down to the ship ammunition argument.

In the scenario of the custards being entirely on their own they eventually run out of exterminatus-class weaponry and have to turn their campaign into boots-on-the-ground. If they lose so much as 1 custard per planet (a pretty generous estimate for them tbh, considering each planet would easily have a million + guard), they're fully wiped out before they even make a dent in the IG numbers.

In the scenario of the custards being replenished and resupplied (which means that it's not guard vs custards; it's guard vs custards + mechanicus + navy) the custards still lose. Even the most sedentary agri planet has void defenses in the form of a handful of defense platforms and non-navy planet-bound ships in the same way that they all have PDF; they need to be able to defend themselves against minor threats / have a hope of holding out against larger ones. So the guard are again massacred in individual engagements, but the custards eventually lose to the pure attrition of minor losses before they've have a noticeable impact on the guard's numbers.

Custards don't even win if they sit back for a few thousand years to let old age and famine do the work for them. Guardsmen are unisex and drawn from all walks of life across a million worlds. While some planets would be entirely incapable of sustaining life without outside intervention there are hundreds of thousands which are not. Meaning that even a bunch of naked guardsmen dropped across bunches of planets will eventually colonize said planets, reach space-worthy levels of tech, and take the fight to custodes where they eventually win from attrition. There's an argument to be made for the IG getting wiped out over time via psykers being born and all that gak, but in that case it's not guard vs custards it's guard vs custards + demons.

Custards can win in situations like taking every guardsmen, packing them shoulder to shoulder on as few planets as possible, and then giving the custards a hack for unlimited exterminatus ammo. Or where the entire guard is stripped of any form of fighting capability other than bare fists, but the custards are allowed to take as long as they want and able to fully replenish any losses whilst the guardsmen are rooted in place and incapable of moving or acting until the custards enter orbit.

While the entire concept is silly and weird to begin with, the custards only beat the entirety of the guard in truly farcical situations.

This is fair. Lack of ammunition would likely make for a stalemate after a number of planets.

**Gert**

Yeah the PDF is just whatever local military forces are present. Could be some peasant levy with halberds and crossbows or it could be Carapace armoured cyborgs with high powered lasers. Obviously the more culturally "advanced" (i.e. planets with an ability to manage space flight) are a lot more similar and have more professional formations that are similar to untested Guard Regiments. The Vervun Primary or North Col forces had Las weapons and vehicles like Chimeras, for example. A career in these organisations was also considered just as honourable as one in the Imperial Guard, even if certain officers had problems with actual Guard soldiers and officers when they showed up to defend Vervunhive.

**Iracundus**

Tiberias wrote:

And why don't they just purge the ecclesiarchy? (which is not what regents shadow is about btw) Because it is a useful tool. This is even addressed by Colquan in the book gate of bones, who is probably the angriest Custodes character ever.
Another Custodes in the book is annoyed by the ecclesiarchy and their fanatical followers for reasons I won't spoil and Colquan tells him that he basically needs to understand that they are useful....for now.

Faith in the Emperor as god has its uses and advantages. That was something shown in Gate of Bones by:

Spoiler:

The powers of faith have objective greater efficacy against Chaos in the 40k universe. Whether it comes from latent unconscious psychic power or intervention by the Emperor as warp god, it is something that the Sisters of Battle and the Ecclesiarchy (as shown by the example of Militant-Apostolic Mathieu in Godblight) have access to, that the Custodes don't.