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the_scotsman wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Scotsman in with his normal witty view. I don't think they are an evolution of the stupid GW power creep ethos. They existed long before the Astartes, and as many have pointed out, they are not even supposed to be on the table. They fell victim to the Indomitus Curse, where everyone caught in it succumbs to the worsening of their respective fluff/lore.

...I feel like the real 'thing people aren't aware of so we need to have a 20 page thread about it' is that "The Lore" isn't this magic sacred document that GW's writers are loathe to ever change to suit their needs...it's just a thing some guy made up to sell toys. It's always gonna be that. If GW wants to sell a new toy and that new toy conflicts with the existing lore, the existing lore will ALWAYS change. GW could decide tomorrow that the whole cawl situation didn't happen, Primaris are from an ancient STC that predates custodes and regular marines and were hand-crafted by the emperor secretly in the year 200 BC.

I just want to say before I read anything else in this thread, that I am sorry if what I said felt like an attack. I really do value your wit on what is otherwise a boring forum. Your posts are usually hilarious and insightful. My point was that I was trying to draw a more sophisticated point than "HUR DUR GOLDEN ASTARTES". And it took your post and all of several lines before I realized how dumb I sounded trying to "Lore Monocle" my way into this thread in the first place.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Scotsman in with his normal witty view. I don't think they are an evolution of the stupid GW power creep ethos. They existed long before the Astartes, and as many have pointed out, they are not even supposed to be on the table. They fell victim to the Indomitus Curse, where everyone caught in it succumbs to the worsening of their respective fluff/lore.

...I feel like the real 'thing people aren't aware of so we need to have a 20 page thread about it' is that "The Lore" isn't this magic sacred document that GW's writers are loathe to ever change to suit their needs...it's just a thing some guy made up to sell toys. It's always gonna be that. If GW wants to sell a new toy and that new toy conflicts with the existing lore, the existing lore will ALWAYS change. GW could decide tomorrow that the whole cawl situation didn't happen, Primaris are from an ancient STC that predates custodes and regular marines and were hand-crafted by the emperor secretly in the year 200 BC.

I just want to say before I read anything else in this thread, that I am sorry if what I said felt like an attack. I really do value your wit on what is otherwise a boring forum. Your posts are usually hilarious and insightful. My point was that I was trying to draw a more sophisticated point than "HUR DUR GOLDEN ASTARTES". And it took your post and all of several lines before I realized how dumb I sounded trying to "Lore Monocle" my way into this thread in the first place.

Pfff, no worries. The OP is wildly gesticulating between saying "on the tabletop" but then also talking about stuff that's clearly lore-based....like how Sisters of Battle are very different from space marines (let's see... 9pts per wound vs 9 pts per wound, same number of melee attacks, -1s -1WS -1T, but double the number of the exact same gun. Yep, that's a Very Extremely Distinct Unit right there! But a custode is almost identical to a marine - it's just +1WS +1BS +1T +2A +1S +1W +1AP +1Sv 4++ invuln twice the points cost and has a quasi powerfist melee weapon )

If a custode is the same as a marine "on the tabletop" then a nob is the same as a grot.

Sisters of Battle are either Guard++ or Space Marines-, and they were underserved fo so long nobody's going to beef about them.
Either way they don't come off as yet another Space Marines+, ++, or +++.

This reminds me of the thread where someone claimed that a Sister of Battle is the equal of an Astartes. Dead stop, no extra modifiers, the flat out equal. (Faith made up for a lot apparently)

But it was in Background, not General. Man did that get ugly.

Custodes are to Astartes what Captains are to Scouts. Almost exactly.

To the OP's question initial question.

Custodes are the most elite of the imperium's warriors, and if most-elite means more "marine" then sure, they are more super than the normal marines.

Fluff wise and rule-wise they are not Astartes, anymore than any other highly elite units share similarities with astartes (like higher toughness or armor saves).

Their codex formally goes back to 7th edition, but they've existed as standalone unit going waay back (1st edition IIRC). Obviously their depiction has changed overtime.

I'd be curious to see what their RT era statline was, if any. I couldn't find them in my 2nd ed material.

Statlines were a bit weird back then, too. An Inquisitor lord was the highest stated Imperial character, outdoing a level4 Librarian.

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'd be curious to see what their RT era statline was, if any. I couldn't find them in my 2nd ed material.

Statlines were a bit weird back then, too. An Inquisitor lord was the highest stated Imperial character, outdoing a level4 Librarian.

For Custodes? RT was
M-4, Ws-5, BS-5, S-4, T-4, W-2, I-5, A-2, Ld/Int/Cl/Wp- 8. Gear was a knife/sword, a random weapon of lasgun(75%), laspistol(5%), bolter(5%), bolt pistol (5%), handflamer (2%), plasma pistol (2%), webber (1%), and a 50% chance of a second roll.
Keep in mind that Marines were t3 and power armor was a 4+ save in RT.

Inquisitors in RT defaulted to the normal human 'minor hero' profile (which is actually the same as the Custodes profile above). Alternately they could have a random number of advancement points (max of 23, which took them to the human maximum)
By contrast, a space marine minor hero would have a 6 in WS, BS and I, 9s in the mental stats and otherwise the same. A major hero is +1 W and A for SM, for normal humans it brings them up to 6s in WS, BS and I, and 9s in mental stats.

RT must have been different from the 2E profile then. I remember running around with a WS8 BS8 S5 T5 Inquisitor all souped up with Nemesis Force weapon, Displacer Field and Inqisition psychic discipline etc. The Librarians capped at WS7 BS7.

Named Euphrateus to go with Librarian Tigurius. . .

 Insectum7 wrote:
I'd be curious to see what their RT era statline was, if any. I couldn't find them in my 2nd ed material.

Statlines were a bit weird back then, too. An Inquisitor lord was the highest stated Imperial character, outdoing a level4 Librarian.

I'm pretty sure Custodes were not superhuman in RT or even in 2nd edition. I don't know when that started. I blame Black Library...

And yes, everyone knows that Custodians are not technically Marines, but narratively they are very similar. They both are venerated and semi-divine superhuman soldiers created by the Emperor. Narratively Custodes are just shinier marines.

And ironically even though Custodes were not superhuman in RT, I think having both superhuman Marines and Custodes would have worked better had marines kept their Rogue Trader fluff, where they were gritty penal legionaries. Then Custodes could have been the venerated shiny ones and Marines be gritty and despised ones. But now marines are venerated and shiny too, not just as much as the Custodes...

Matt Swain wrote:Well, let's see.

SoBs have the same WS, S,T, W and A as a vanilla guardsman. They are better shots possibly due to superior quality and more accurate weapons. They have a much better save due to better armor.

They are not weak space marines, they're elite human forces. Space marines are enhanced humans, with all sorts of biotech implants but i think their DNA is still baseline human, i'm not sure if the implants change their DNA.

You're right, but Custodes have higher WS, BS, S, T, W, and A than Space Marines. If having a different WS, S, T, W and A is enough to differentiate Sisters from Astartes (rightfully so), then why on earth would you equate Astartes and Custodes when there's even more of a power gap between them?

Basically, by your own metric of "their stats are too far removed to call these related" which you apply to Sisters, there's no way Custodes are related to Space Marines either.

Both Primaris and Custodes are part of the same trend of elitification that can be seen in the game. After all, they're even more elite than the already elite space marines (who have also had quite some inflation in their elites, if only to make space for all the fancy ultraveteran units and ever better kinds of dreadnought. But then again, elites are one of the few directions you can go into when expanding a range. There isn't much space to introduce lesser space marines in space marine armies.