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agurus1 wrote:Maybe offing a member of the Council Of Terra would have been too much of an overt political move and been in a contradiction of their agreement with Guilliman post-Heresy?

Yeah probably, but honestly why should they care? They are outside the law anyway and they could have granted the Sisters of Battle and audience with the emperor way earlier and not in the very last second.

w1zard wrote:What about Vangorich? Why didn't the custodes step in when he had all the other highlords assassinated and basically took control of Terra? The space marines had to do the dirty work.

True, but to be fair the whole "the beast arises" saga was very poorly written from a lore perspective in my opinion....but yes, they could and should have done something.

Yet again, the Custodes seem to rarely get directly involved and when they do typically act with a degree of subtly, often simply allowing the Emperor's will to be known. my guess is they stay out of the various feuds, spats and outright wars going on in the IoM for a varity of very good reasons. getting involved would SWIFTLY result in their becoming kingmakers. and likely lead to a degredation of respect for their insisution. best to let the humans deal with their own petty problems and only intervene when the Emperor himself is directly threatened. Was this short sighted and stupid on the part of the custodes, allowing perhaps threats to fester and becomne a dire threat to the emperor himself? Absoltuely, which is why Gulliman and the captain general let the custodes off their leash.

BrianDavion wrote:
Yet again, the Custodes seem to rarely get directly involved and when they do typically act with a degree of subtly, often simply allowing the Emperor's will to be known. my guess is they stay out of the various feuds, spats and outright wars going on in the IoM for a varity of very good reasons. getting involved would SWIFTLY result in their becoming kingmakers. and likely lead to a degredation of respect for their insisution. best to let the humans deal with their own petty problems and only intervene when the Emperor himself is directly threatened. Was this short sighted and stupid on the part of the custodes, allowing perhaps threats to fester and becomne a dire threat to the emperor himself? Absoltuely, which is why Gulliman and the captain general let the custodes off their leash.

Yes, but then they have no right to complain about the state of the imperium and they have no right to be arrogant about how much better they are, hence why I think they are hypocrits.

I'm just really glad with the introduction of custodes nobody will ever say tau don't fit the aesthetic of 40k anymore.

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm just really glad with the introduction of custodes nobody will ever say tau don't fit the aesthetic of 40k anymore.

I am curious, how so? Please elaborate. Is it because the custodes border on mary sues?

Tiberias wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
I'm just really glad with the introduction of custodes nobody will ever say tau don't fit the aesthetic of 40k anymore.

I am curious, how so? Please elaborate. Is it because the custodes border on mary sues?

Mary Sue is kind of a meaningless term at this point, which basically gets applied to everything and anything a person dislikes.

The people who complain Tau have no place in 40k are the people who just look at them and go "Thing looks like Gundam, not covered in skulls, therefore not 40k."

By that metric, Custodes also don't fit - them next to a space marine basically looks like one of those advertisements for mobile games that go "You start as this character, then you LEVEL UP and become THIS CHARACTER!!!"

They're shiny, gold, clean, uniform and uncompromisingly heroic. In terms of "Grimdark aesthetic", they have zero.

But, honestly...that's OK. There are plenty of 40k factions that do not have judge dredd/HR Geiger "Grimdark Aesthetic". Tau don't, admittedly. Eldar most definitely don't. A lot of daemons stuff doesn't. I'm not one of those people that believes that everything in 40k has to have a perfectly unified aesthetic and I'm really glad that it doesn't. What bugs me about Custodes is the fact that they're so dang functional.

Tau fit into 40k's world by being a naive narrative lamb to the slaughter. The fact that they're a small, young, optimistic race engaging with an impossibly hostile and powerful galaxy is basically why they work in 40k's overall narrative. The clean aesthetic of the eldar works because they're a race in massive decline. Tau function their best when they're operating basically like the Federation from Star Trek would within the 40k universe and you see the consequences of that behavior within the 40k universe - getting mired in hideous wars of attrition, sending sphere expansions blindly out into the warp to disappear, sending diplomatic delegations of friendship to the dark eldar to have them come back as monstrous tortured grotesques, that's a good role to have.

Custodes (and marine stuff in general) get my goat because they're both aesthetically and narratively dissonant. 40k isn't really a narrative where you're supposed to come up with a special new fancy technology or ancient fighting force that works perfectly and is unstoppable and the day is saved without the shiny heroes having to corrupt themselves or compromise their morals in any way. And that is fundamentally at conflict with the real reason the lore exists - to accompany new plastic model releases by Games Workshop PLC. Games Workshop PLC really likes special fancy new technology that works perfectly because it hypes people up and gets them to buy new models.

I always thought Tau fit because they're the nicest race there is and they're still pretty evil from a modern perspective.

BrianDavion wrote:
Except we know the Custodes occasionally DID get involved. it was rare and often subtle but the did. their hand in getting the sisters of battle to turn on Valdare is proably the most obvious example. It seems clear to me that the Custodes likely acted quietly behind the scenes to address perceived dangers. that said you have to keep in mind where their loyalty falls. Their loyalty is to the EMPEROR, not his Imperium.

This is the key point to understanding Custodes, their loyalty preference is: Emperor >>> Humanity == Imperium
Compare that to Gulliman, who is loyal to: Humanity > Ultramar >>> Imperium > Emperor.

Tiberias wrote:
Yeah sry, but I adressed this exact point in this thread. They took the sisters to the emperor at the very last moment, when vandires quasi dictatorship was already falling apart. They did nothing the main period of time that lunatic was basically at the top of the imperium. And I also pointed out that this is in direct contradiction to the custodes 8th ed codex, where GW gives multiple examples of the custodes intervening in much smaller matters than goge vandire. So you would think having an absolute madman steering the imperium against a wall would make them act earlier.

The Custodes don't care about the political structure of the Imperium, they aren't bound to it and it doesn't affect them. They don't care about any individual human either, except as their existence protects the Emperor. They aren't so blind as to not recognize the state it is in and to not be critical of it, but they have little reason to try to change it so long as it doesn't affect them or the Emperor (or so they think).

Tiberias wrote:

Spoiler:

 Eipi10 wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
[I largely agree with you, changing the imperium as it is now is almost certainly doomed to fail....way too much has gone wrong since the heresy. However, and again that was my original point, had the custodes acted as leaders and advisers right after the heresy and had they continued to do so, I believe they could have made a difference.
Also it's not that important for this discussion, but I would argue that a custodian has a bit more authority and prestige than a inquisitor. I mean I think there is one example in a black library publication where one inquisitor tried to order a custodian around at the risk of losing his head on the spot.

I guess Custodes would outrank inquisitors, not it matters to anyone else. The only problem with asking the Custodes to do stuff right after the herey is that there were basically no Custodes left. The took a 90% casualty rates during the war in the webway and probably suffered even more during the Siege of terra. There were almost certainly less than 100 at the end, not even enough to thoroughly guard the throne room (that takes 300). It would have taken 2000 years to build the Custodes up to 10000 in the first place. I would have taken much longer to build up without the Emperor to train them and having all of their other duties to attend to. Say it took 4000 years to recover their numbers, that would mean they would only have been able to act by the age of apostasy. I doubt the imperium was in much better shape in M34 than it is in M41.

I've made a similar point a few posts up, but 100 custodians could have still made a differnce in the time after the heresy I think....not in a military sense, but as advisers. And yes, their numbers were down and it takes them a considerable time to rebuild them, but at he time of the age of apostasy there would have been enough custodes around to kill vandire themselves. Hell, 100 of them could have just walked up to his palace on terra, demanded an audience and then killed him. Afterwards they only need to tell everyone the emperor directly told them to do so...who would challenge their claims on that?

300 are required to guard the Emperor in the throne room alone and more are needed elsewhere in more important places (fighting particularly bad nasties, watching over corrupted DAoT relics, and training new Custodes are all more much important than the affairs of normal humans). The would not have the men to spare to act as "advisors" for hundreds or thousands of years.

Imagine you believe you are acting through the emperor himself by following Vandire. Then some guys who are sort of related to the Emperor kill they guy you believe, without a shadow of a doubt, is divinely sanctioned with the Emperor's own blessing. What do you think/do? The most logical conclusion is that the Emperor has been betrayed by his own guardians, all for 30 pieces of silver. The Custodes are heretics and must be purged.

I think they made a good move by waiting until Vandire had been discredited before getting his own guardians to kill him. If someone else killed him, the civil war would not have ended and there would be another long war.

BrianDavion wrote:Yet again, the Custodes seem to rarely get directly involved and when they do typically act with a degree of subtly, often simply allowing the Emperor's will to be known. my guess is they stay out of the various feuds, spats and outright wars going on in the IoM for a varity of very good reasons. getting involved would SWIFTLY result in their becoming kingmakers. and likely lead to a degredation of respect for their insisution. best to let the humans deal with their own petty problems and only intervene when the Emperor himself is directly threatened. Was this short sighted and stupid on the part of the custodes, allowing perhaps threats to fester and becomne a dire threat to the emperor himself? Absoltuely, which is why Gulliman and the captain general let the custodes off their leash.

Only now do the Custodes realize that the walls of the Imperial Palace extend to the very edges of the Galaxy, and that the Emperor and the Imperium are one and the same. Maybe it wouldn't be obvious that the Emperor's physical state is a metaphor for the wider Imperium, but you would think they would figure it out faster. Again, I hope they retcon the Custodes into being more active these past 10,000 years. Perhaps there was a long debate about this, and only now has proactivity been proven to be necessary.

Tiberias wrote:
Yes, but then they have no right to complain about the state of the imperium and they have no right to be arrogant about how much better they are, hence why I think they are hypocrits.

The Custodes are very critical of their own failings too. They even wonder if the GK have more of a claim to be the Emperor's favorite than they do. Arrogance and hypocrisy are not the right words, but pessimism is.

Custodes (and marine stuff in general) get my goat because they're both aesthetically and narratively dissonant. 40k isn't really a narrative where you're supposed to come up with a special new fancy technology or ancient fighting force that works perfectly and is unstoppable and the day is saved without the shiny heroes having to corrupt themselves or compromise their morals in any way. And that is fundamentally at conflict with the real reason the lore exists - to accompany new plastic model releases by Games Workshop PLC. Games Workshop PLC really likes special fancy new technology that works perfectly because it hypes people up and gets them to buy new models.

in other words "the grimdark isn't obvious at a glance so it isn't"?

w1zard wrote:
What about Vangorich? Why didn't the custodes step in when he had all the other highlords assassinated and basically took control of Terra? The space marines had to do the dirty work.

Because they were all inept and corrupt and frankly deserved it. And Vangorich was moderately competent. A better question is why they didn't intervene when the orks parked an attack moon over terra immediately before that....

...A good question is how may there were at that time. They are referred to as the Ten Thousand in 40k but I severely doubt there were anything like that number left after the War in the Web and the Siege; for all we know, only 1,000 years after the heresy they'd basically only rebuilt the Companion Guard...

locarno24 wrote:

w1zard wrote:
What about Vangorich? Why didn't the custodes step in when he had all the other highlords assassinated and basically took control of Terra? The space marines had to do the dirty work.

Because they were all inept and corrupt and frankly deserved it. And Vangorich was moderately competent. A better question is why they didn't intervene when the orks parked an attack moon over terra immediately before that....

...A good question is how may there were at that time. They are referred to as the Ten Thousand in 40k but I severely doubt there were anything like that number left after the War in the Web and the Siege; for all we know, only 1,000 years after the heresy they'd basically only rebuilt the Companion Guard...

except the codex clarifies this, they are indeed ten thousand strong as of 40k. They rebuilt.

locarno24 wrote:

w1zard wrote:
What about Vangorich? Why didn't the custodes step in when he had all the other highlords assassinated and basically took control of Terra? The space marines had to do the dirty work.

Because they were all inept and corrupt and frankly deserved it. And Vangorich was moderately competent. A better question is why they didn't intervene when the orks parked an attack moon over terra immediately before that....

Its best to just forget the fact that the Beast Series ever happened.

...A good question is how may there were at that time. They are referred to as the Ten Thousand in 40k but I severely doubt there were anything like that number left after the War in the Web and the Siege; for all we know, only 1,000 years after the heresy they'd basically only rebuilt the Companion Guard...

Likely back to being Ten Thousand, considering even at current time they are at Ten Thousand.

@ Eipi10

In many parts I do agree with you. Though I think arrogance and hyporcisy still apply as fitting descriptions. You are right the custodes can be very critical of themselves and their failings. The prime example of this is shield captain valerian from watchers of the throne (whom I think you were referencing in regards to his opinions of the grey knights), but we have other examples in black library publications and from the new codex itself where they lament and criticise the state of the imperium, which they did nothing to help fix that. Now as I've said it is probably not accurate to display for example the opinions of valerian as those of the custodes as a whole, because they are such individualists and I also grant you that right after the heresy they did not have the manpower to lead, because their focus probably was on the imperial palace and the golden throne as you said. But lets say a thousand years after the heresy they could have acted as leaders.
I also don't share the opinion that the custodes don't relly care about the political structure of the imperium. Yes they very much stand in a sort of outside position and operate on their own, but they knew of the emperors plans for humanity and for them. They knew that they were originally meant to lead, advise and protect humanity after the webway project was completed. Of course this plan ultimately failed as we all know when magnus accidentally screwed the webway project up big time and because of that whole heresy thing. The emperor even admitted that his plan had failed and everything he can do now is keep this whole thing going as long as he can. Now it seems to me that after the heresy the custodes accepted that the emperors long term plan for humanity had failed and sort of gave up, instead of trying to salvage whatever they could.

Tiberias wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Except we know the Custodes occasionally DID get involved. it was rare and often subtle but the did. their hand in getting the sisters of battle to turn on Valdare is proably the most obvious example. It seems clear to me that the Custodes likely acted quietly behind the scenes to address perceived dangers. that said you have to keep in mind where their loyalty falls. Their loyalty is to the EMPEROR, not his Imperium.

Yeah sry, but I adressed this exact point in this thread. They took the sisters to the emperor at the very last moment, when vandires quasi dictatorship was already falling apart. They did nothing the main period of time that lunatic was basically at the top of the imperium. And I also pointed out that this is in direct contradiction to the custodes 8th ed codex, where GW gives multiple examples of the custodes intervening in much smaller matters than goge vandire. So you would think having an absolute madman steering the imperium against a wall would make them act earlier.

That particular element of background has been around since at least 2nd edition, where it featured in the original Codex: SoB - people would notice if it got changed up too much to be in line with the new material in terms of how hands-on they were.

 Dysartes wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Except we know the Custodes occasionally DID get involved. it was rare and often subtle but the did. their hand in getting the sisters of battle to turn on Valdare is proably the most obvious example. It seems clear to me that the Custodes likely acted quietly behind the scenes to address perceived dangers. that said you have to keep in mind where their loyalty falls. Their loyalty is to the EMPEROR, not his Imperium.

Yeah sry, but I adressed this exact point in this thread. They took the sisters to the emperor at the very last moment, when vandires quasi dictatorship was already falling apart. They did nothing the main period of time that lunatic was basically at the top of the imperium. And I also pointed out that this is in direct contradiction to the custodes 8th ed codex, where GW gives multiple examples of the custodes intervening in much smaller matters than goge vandire. So you would think having an absolute madman steering the imperium against a wall would make them act earlier.

That particular element of background has been around since at least 2nd edition, where it featured in the original Codex: SoB - people would notice if it got changed up too much to be in line with the new material in terms of how hands-on they were.

GW aren't going to stop at that. Exarchs are supposed to be stuck serving Khaine but one toddled off to chase Yvraine for no reason, new kinds of armour magically pop up and whatever else GW wants.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

w1zard wrote:
What about Vangorich? Why didn't the custodes step in when he had all the other highlords assassinated and basically took control of Terra? The space marines had to do the dirty work.

Because they were all inept and corrupt and frankly deserved it. And Vangorich was moderately competent. A better question is why they didn't intervene when the orks parked an attack moon over terra immediately before that....

Its best to just forget the fact that the Beast Series ever happened.

...A good question is how may there were at that time. They are referred to as the Ten Thousand in 40k but I severely doubt there were anything like that number left after the War in the Web and the Siege; for all we know, only 1,000 years after the heresy they'd basically only rebuilt the Companion Guard...

Likely back to being Ten Thousand, considering even at current time they are at Ten Thousand.

They got a kicking in the Beast series, I think it was book six, when a troupe of Harlequins show up and take out dozens if not hundreds of them (while claiming to come in peace..) must have taken a while to rebuild those losses too

 Skinflint Games wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

locarno24 wrote:

w1zard wrote:
What about Vangorich? Why didn't the custodes step in when he had all the other highlords assassinated and basically took control of Terra? The space marines had to do the dirty work.

Because they were all inept and corrupt and frankly deserved it. And Vangorich was moderately competent. A better question is why they didn't intervene when the orks parked an attack moon over terra immediately before that....

Its best to just forget the fact that the Beast Series ever happened.

...A good question is how may there were at that time. They are referred to as the Ten Thousand in 40k but I severely doubt there were anything like that number left after the War in the Web and the Siege; for all we know, only 1,000 years after the heresy they'd basically only rebuilt the Companion Guard...

Likely back to being Ten Thousand, considering even at current time they are at Ten Thousand.

They got a kicking in the Beast series, I think it was book six, when a troupe of Harlequins show up and take out dozens if not hundreds of them (while claiming to come in peace..) must have taken a while to rebuild those losses too

Which is such crappy writing in my personal opinion....sure harlequins are extremely deadly, but them slaughtering hundreds of custodes? Inside the imperial palace?!?!?! No freakin way.....as someone in this thread already said, let's forget this series exists...

Edit: Just had to add this, becaus it bugs me since forever. Black library writers often have a really hard time to portray power levels in their own lore accordingly. Yes this is a universe where green fungus people fight space elves, but if you as a writer never adhere to the rules of the universe you yourself set up, readers will stop suspending their disbelief and nothing you write carries any weight any more. It's sensible that Harlequins could on take some custodians, given that they are extremely deadly themselves, but not dozens or hundreds of them and again, not in the imperial palace! The Custodes have to know that place better than any other living being in the galaxy, there is no freakin way that a troupe of harlequins just walzes in there and almost gets to the golden throne...it's freaking ridiculous.
Also there is a scene in a horus heresy book where a world eater I belive punches through a custodians armor with his bare hands, killing him. I mean what the hell is this bogus writing? It makes no freaking sense in any way shape or form.

Tiberias wrote:
Which is such crappy writing in my personal opinion....sure harlequins are extremely deadly, but them slaughtering hundreds of custodes? Inside the imperial palace?!?!?! No freakin way...

Absolutely agreed. I can see a harlequin taking on a custode 1v1 and having it go either way. But dozens of custodes vs 3-4 harlequins is only ever going to end one way. Was the Beast series written before the custodes got their revamp? That would make total sense, because before the revamp the custodes were only portrayed as slightly better than normal space marines, like on the level of deathwatch.

w1zard wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
Which is such crappy writing in my personal opinion....sure harlequins are extremely deadly, but them slaughtering hundreds of custodes? Inside the imperial palace?!?!?! No freakin way...

Absolutely agreed. I can see a harlequin taking on a custode 1v1 and having it go either way. But dozens of custodes vs 3-4 harlequins is only ever going to end one way. Was the Beast series written before the custodes got their revamp? That would make total sense, because before the revamp the custodes were only portrayed as slightly better than normal space marines, like on the level of deathwatch.

It was written after they were revamped. The problem is that Guy Haley is only capable of writing his protagonists completely stomping the NPCs.

If your asking if anything involving the Imperium is hypcritical the awnser is almost always yes

Tiberias wrote:
In many parts I do agree with you. Though I think arrogance and hyporcisy still apply as fitting descriptions. You are right the custodes can be very critical of themselves and their failings. The prime example of this is shield captain valerian from watchers of the throne (whom I think you were referencing in regards to his opinions of the grey knights), but we have other examples in black library publications and from the new codex itself where they lament and criticise the state of the imperium, which they did nothing to help fix that. Now as I've said it is probably not accurate to display for example the opinions of valerian as those of the custodes as a whole, because they are such individualists and I also grant you that right after the heresy they did not have the manpower to lead, because their focus probably was on the imperial palace and the golden throne as you said. But lets say a thousand years after the heresy they could have acted as leaders.
I also don't share the opinion that the custodes don't relly care about the political structure of the imperium. Yes they very much stand in a sort of outside position and operate on their own, but they knew of the emperors plans for humanity and for them. They knew that they were originally meant to lead, advise and protect humanity after the webway project was completed. Of course this plan ultimately failed as we all know when magnus accidentally screwed the webway project up big time and because of that whole heresy thing. The emperor even admitted that his plan had failed and everything he can do now is keep this whole thing going as long as he can. Now it seems to me that after the heresy the custodes accepted that the emperors long term plan for humanity had failed and sort of gave up, instead of trying to salvage whatever they could.

Maybe it was arrogance in the sense that if they were so great and still failed, what hope is there for the rest of us (a bit of pessimism too). They could then be called hypocrites for not giving us the chance. That would be why they gave up and are forget so much of the old crusade tenants, as Valdor says in Two Metaphysical Blades.

But after Lion's Gate their attitude has completely changed. Was that event so traumatic for them (maybe, they lost several thousand, but if they thought everything was done why would they try to fight back even after something like that) was Gulliman so convincing (I doubt it) or were they always debating taking a more active role and this tipped it to one side (we know they like to debate). GW seems to be writing Custodes lore in reverse right now, so anything could happen. Door 3 would be the most interest, ideally with many sides. Maybe having to do with the Shield Hosts, where each emerged as a response to what the Custodes should do next.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
Which is such crappy writing in my personal opinion....sure harlequins are extremely deadly, but them slaughtering hundreds of custodes? Inside the imperial palace?!?!?! No freakin way...

Absolutely agreed. I can see a harlequin taking on a custode 1v1 and having it go either way. But dozens of custodes vs 3-4 harlequins is only ever going to end one way. Was the Beast series written before the custodes got their revamp? That would make total sense, because before the revamp the custodes were only portrayed as slightly better than normal space marines, like on the level of deathwatch.

It was written after they were revamped. The problem is that Guy Haley is only capable of writing his protagonists completely stomping the NPCs.

We could also take a second to look at what actually happened. Standard Harlequins butchered their way through normal humans but went down fast to Custodes. The ones who did most of the killing were a Shadowseer and a Death Jester who got most killing done with the bio rounds of the shrieker cannon and it was nowhere near hundreds of kills.

pm713 wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
Which is such crappy writing in my personal opinion....sure harlequins are extremely deadly, but them slaughtering hundreds of custodes? Inside the imperial palace?!?!?! No freakin way...

Absolutely agreed. I can see a harlequin taking on a custode 1v1 and having it go either way. But dozens of custodes vs 3-4 harlequins is only ever going to end one way. Was the Beast series written before the custodes got their revamp? That would make total sense, because before the revamp the custodes were only portrayed as slightly better than normal space marines, like on the level of deathwatch.

It was written after they were revamped. The problem is that Guy Haley is only capable of writing his protagonists completely stomping the NPCs.

We could also take a second to look at what actually happened. Standard Harlequins butchered their way through normal humans but went down fast to Custodes. The ones who did most of the killing were a Shadowseer and a Death Jester who got most killing done with the bio rounds of the shrieker cannon and it was nowhere near hundreds of kills.

We could also just pretend the series was never dribbled onto the page, even by BL’s low standards it is terrible.

SeanDrake wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
Which is such crappy writing in my personal opinion....sure harlequins are extremely deadly, but them slaughtering hundreds of custodes? Inside the imperial palace?!?!?! No freakin way...

Absolutely agreed. I can see a harlequin taking on a custode 1v1 and having it go either way. But dozens of custodes vs 3-4 harlequins is only ever going to end one way. Was the Beast series written before the custodes got their revamp? That would make total sense, because before the revamp the custodes were only portrayed as slightly better than normal space marines, like on the level of deathwatch.

It was written after they were revamped. The problem is that Guy Haley is only capable of writing his protagonists completely stomping the NPCs.

We could also take a second to look at what actually happened. Standard Harlequins butchered their way through normal humans but went down fast to Custodes. The ones who did most of the killing were a Shadowseer and a Death Jester who got most killing done with the bio rounds of the shrieker cannon and it was nowhere near hundreds of kills.

We could also just pretend the series was never dribbled onto the page, even by BL’s low standards it is terrible.

You can but much like me ignoring newcrons you're just ignoring canon at that point.

Nah in universe it's ancient history with little in the way of records and it turns out that the information they did have was bad fanfic written by a malfunctioning servitor that should have been cleaning the lavatories.

pm713 wrote:

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

w1zard wrote:

Tiberias wrote:
Which is such crappy writing in my personal opinion....sure harlequins are extremely deadly, but them slaughtering hundreds of custodes? Inside the imperial palace?!?!?! No freakin way...

Absolutely agreed. I can see a harlequin taking on a custode 1v1 and having it go either way. But dozens of custodes vs 3-4 harlequins is only ever going to end one way. Was the Beast series written before the custodes got their revamp? That would make total sense, because before the revamp the custodes were only portrayed as slightly better than normal space marines, like on the level of deathwatch.

It was written after they were revamped. The problem is that Guy Haley is only capable of writing his protagonists completely stomping the NPCs.

We could also take a second to look at what actually happened. Standard Harlequins butchered their way through normal humans but went down fast to Custodes. The ones who did most of the killing were a Shadowseer and a Death Jester who got most killing done with the bio rounds of the shrieker cannon and it was nowhere near hundreds of kills.

They still killed "dozens" and Death Jesters and Shadowseers arent that good.

Define not that good. I can easily just say Custodes aren't all that.

Dozens dying almost entirely to their body rapidly mutating then exploding seems reasonable to me.

 Eipi10 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
there's actually a lot of evidance custodes hold the astartes in partiuclar contempt

They hold the GK and primarchs in contempt, or some other negative emotion. I don't think they have any more contempt towards normal Astartes than they do towards normal humans. In MoM a Custodian was able to have a conversation with a BA, for a while. That's better than the interaction he had with some children, almost killing them.

I don't understand why the GK? The GK are closer to Custodes than any other force, being made from the Emperor's genes, being utterly pure, sanctioned by the Emperor himself and fighting the good fight against Daemons for 10k years.

Space Marines on the other hand, they actively distrust. 9 traitor legions fethed everything up and any given astartes could try the same now.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Eipi10 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
there's actually a lot of evidance custodes hold the astartes in partiuclar contempt

They hold the GK and primarchs in contempt, or some other negative emotion. I don't think they have any more contempt towards normal Astartes than they do towards normal humans. In MoM a Custodian was able to have a conversation with a BA, for a while. That's better than the interaction he had with some children, almost killing them.

I don't understand why the GK? The GK are closer to Custodes than any other force, being made from the Emperor's genes, being utterly pure, sanctioned by the Emperor himself and fighting the good fight against Daemons for 10k years.

Space Marines on the other hand, they actively distrust. 9 traitor legions fethed everything up and any given astartes could try the same now.

Source for that?

The Primarchs were made like that and most of them went traitor in some way. Considering Custodes are fanatics they're not going to say "hold up, maybe the reason everyone goes traitor, fails or somehow sucks is because the Emperor does not everyone except up."

pm713 wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Eipi10 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
there's actually a lot of evidance custodes hold the astartes in partiuclar contempt

They hold the GK and primarchs in contempt, or some other negative emotion. I don't think they have any more contempt towards normal Astartes than they do towards normal humans. In MoM a Custodian was able to have a conversation with a BA, for a while. That's better than the interaction he had with some children, almost killing them.

I don't understand why the GK? The GK are closer to Custodes than any other force, being made from the Emperor's genes, being utterly pure, sanctioned by the Emperor himself and fighting the good fight against Daemons for 10k years.

Space Marines on the other hand, they actively distrust. 9 traitor legions fethed everything up and any given astartes could try the same now.

Source for that?

The Primarchs were made like that and most of them went traitor in some way. Considering Custodes are fanatics they're not going to say "hold up, maybe the reason everyone goes traitor, fails or somehow sucks is because the Emperor does not everyone except up."

Source for what? That the GK are closer to Custodes because they're made out of Emperor geneseed? Well, the truth of Emperor geneseed is debated long and hard on these forums even though its been explicitly stated in multiple GK codices, but if you take it to be true, then yes, the GK are closer to the Custodes who are also rumoured to use some of the Emperor's genes in their making (although not Geneseed), and at the very least, each GK is therefore at least 1% Emperor so therefore, closer to the Custodes.

The other parts, being sanctioned by the Emperor as his dying wish, being incorruptible, etc, likely means that the Custodes look at GK with less contempt or suspicion than most other forces. They still look at them with suspicion, as they'd be terrible bodyguards if they didn't, but less/

I'm not sure what you mean by your last line. Primarchs were Primarchs, but the Grey Knights were chosen and made to be pure, with the express purpose of purity, and in 10,000 years, only the GK and the AC have yet to have a member fall to Chaos or betray the Imperium. Both have equally rigorous selection and training. That counts for something.