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So how much stronger are custodians to a normal space marine?

As a force or individually? They have different styles of fighting 1v1 the custodes would likley wipe the floor with your average astartes, but squad v squad the marines are more likely to win.

Like nick said, Custodians are good one on one fighters.

but they individual warriors and can be overwhealmed. they don't fight as a group, covering each other's backs and such.

Nicholas wrote:As a force or individually? They have different styles of fighting 1v1 the custodes would likley wipe the floor with your average astartes, but squad v squad the marines are more likely to win.

Nah, Custodians would wipe the floor with the marines either way, the only real difference is that the Marines would last slightly longer/put up a better fight if they were in a squad. Realize that a Custodian is to a Marine as a Marine is to a Guardsman. Even though Custodians are more able and better prepared to fight individually than a Marine does not mean that they lack ability fighting in a group, while they have a different focus they can, and do, fight together (or at least they did quite often during the Heresy).

Besides, it wouldn't make much sense that the Emperor's bodyguards be experts at holding off a lone assassin but are totally inadequate if there are TWO assassins working together...

Grey Templar wrote:Like nick said, Custodians are good one on one fighters.

but they individual warriors and can be overwhealmed. they don't fight as a group, covering each other's backs and such.

Why is that? Why are they a force focused with individual warfare instead of cooperation?

Blobpie wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Like nick said, Custodians are good one on one fighters.

but they individual warriors and can be overwhealmed. they don't fight as a group, covering each other's backs and such.

Why is that? Why are they a force focused with individual warfare instead of cooperation?

There aren't a lot of them.

Blobpie wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Like nick said, Custodians are good one on one fighters.

but they individual warriors and can be overwhealmed. they don't fight as a group, covering each other's backs and such.

Why is that? Why are they a force focused with individual warfare instead of cooperation?

Because they are Bodyguards, not Warriors.

their purpose is to patrol the Palace and protect the Emperor's person.


While they are capable of fighting in a war and are quite proficient, they are not of the level of organization the Astartes have.

In First Heretic, some Word Bearers are observing the Custodians fighting style and find that there is something wrong with it. then they realize that its that the Custodians are not fighting together as a cohesive unit, but rather as individuals and that their style is 100% geared towards that.

'Adeptus Custodes: The Emperor's Guard or Custodians are the palace guards of the Emperor, and their duty is to protect the Imperial Palace. As the Imperial Palace covers such a large area of the planet the Custodians act as a defensive army. Only a select inner corps of three hundred, called the Companions, actually serve the Emperor as personal bodyguards.'

taken from, Codex Imperialis, page 12

coolyo294 wrote:

Blobpie wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:Like nick said, Custodians are good one on one fighters.

but they individual warriors and can be overwhealmed. they don't fight as a group, covering each other's backs and such.

Why is that? Why are they a force focused with individual warfare instead of cooperation?

There aren't a lot of them.

Compared to Marines and Guardsmen, no they are quite small, but the given number is anywhere from one thousand to ten thousand depending on the author. Usually the Emperor's personal guard (the Companions) is described as being 300 Custodes strong. The Companions are the ones that accompany the Emperor at all times, including his private chambers and are the actual bodyguard, while the rest of the Custodes are guards in general. Remember, the Imperial Palace is described (in Blood Games by Dan Abnett) as being larger than most cities, such a large area is going to need a lot of personnel to guard it.

Because they are Bodyguards, not Warriors.

their purpose is to patrol the Palace and protect the Emperor's person.


While they are capable of fighting in a war and are quite proficient, they are not of the level of organization the Astartes have.

In First Heretic, some Word Bearers are observing the Custodians fighting style and find that there is something wrong with it. then they realize that its that the Custodians are not fighting together as a cohesive unit, but rather as individuals and that their style is 100% geared towards that.

They also act as assassin's, politicians, spies, internal affairs officers, and envoy's/ambassadors. They are pretty much a mishmash of Delta Force/Seal Team 6, the CIA/NSA, and the Secret Service combined if you put it into real world terms. But just because they guard the palace and the Emperor doesn't mean they operate individually. Blood Games describes security details as being a handful of Custodes, usually two or three, occasionally just a strategically placed lone warrior or a larger group of four. Indeed, Blood Games leads me to believe that, if anything, they are more organized than the Astartes: "It was so telling. They were like visible moons betraying the position of an invisible planet, bright astral bodies pushed into a certain pattern by the gravitational ministrations of an unseen star. By noting where they were, and where they weren't, he could determine the location of his prey." This is after he describes the positions and displacement of his fellow Custodes, who were arranged to protect the target of the Blood Game. Whereas units of Astartes would position themselves to lay down supporting fields of fire, etc. We can only imagine what the positioning of the Custodes was for. Threats can come in various forms, a full on assault by hundreds of personnel, or a lone assassin hiding in the shadows. To mount an effective defense they would have to be prepared to handle a full spectrum of threats, which suggests much more complex posturing than just simple fields of fire. It's also worth pointing out that just because you're part of a squad doesn't mean you can't fight one-on-one. I would imagine that the Custodes being specialized in one on one combat, they would try to leverage that advantage as best as possible. I.E. they would break up the enemy formation (probably via assault) and fight through one by one.

Just going to throw it out there, Blood Games also states that there is no real difference between a Custodes and an Astartes in terms of martial skill and that it would be foolish to try to predict an outcome. Thats all well and good, but it flies in the face of most other fluff about the Custodes, including other works within the Heresy. Given the non-canonical nature of BL, you can choose what you want to believe, I choose to believe the version that has Constantin Valdor defeating Horus in one on one combat in a sparring match and wondering how long he would last against Dorn.

Blobpie wrote:So how much stronger are custodians to a normal space marine?

Like comparing Space Marine and Master Chief.

How about a Custode vs. Grey Knight?

UselessSage wrote:How about a Custode vs. Grey Knight?

Custodes is stronger, but GK has 10.000 years of experience.

Brother Coa wrote:

UselessSage wrote:How about a Custode vs. Grey Knight?

Custodes is stronger, but GK has 10.000 years of experience.

The experience thing is what gets me about the Custodes. Training can only go so far, right?

They would be fools if they do not insist on receiving very detailed information from all branches of the Imperium about all threats

First hand briefings and training from SM chapters, recordings, artifacts, etc.

The Custodes seemed to die pretty easily in A Thousand Sons, honestly.

Granted, the Thousand Sons is a Legion of powerful psykers, which kind of tips the scales a bit.

When did Valdor defeat Horus in a duel? And context plese.

They're extremely well trained, but not a military fighting force.

It's basically like the Pope's Swiss Guard... both dressed fancily and highly trained military commandos (look them up), but they're not equipped for larger scale engagements

UselessSage wrote:

Brother Coa wrote:

UselessSage wrote:How about a Custode vs. Grey Knight?

Custodes is stronger, but GK has 10.000 years of experience.

The experience thing is what gets me about the Custodes. Training can only go so far, right?

They would be fools if they do not insist on receiving very detailed information from all branches of the Imperium about all threats

First hand briefings and training from SM chapters, recordings, artifacts, etc.

Going back to Blood Games (assuming that its still an ongoing event post Heresy), small groups of Custodes are sent out into the galaxy to continually test the defenses of Terra and the Palace (I.E. they remove their armor and pose as normal folk (using displacer fields) and then try to sneak back into the palace and 'assassinate' the Emperor over a period of several months/years) so that they can find security lapses and fix them. Also, the Custodes are depicted in the same book as taking an active role in stopping threats, in other words, they don't wait for a threat to present itself, they monitor potential terrorists/traitors and actively try to eliminate them. Again, this is pre-Heresy era stuff, who knows if they still do it. While most sources would imply 'no' (the fact that they are 'rarely seen outside of the Palace') the fluff indicates that the Custodes are pretty damn good at blending into Imperial society/being adept spies. In Blood Games, a couple Custodes pose as businessmen in order to gain access to one of the more influential former warlords on Terra and determine his allegiance to the Emperor.

Void__Dragon wrote:The Custodes seemed to die pretty easily in A Thousand Sons, honestly.

Granted, the Thousand Sons is a Legion of powerful psykers, which kind of tips the scales a bit.

When did Valdor defeat Horus in a duel? And context plese.

I can't recall which book it was in, but it was simply a practice sparring match. It earned Valdor the respect of Leman Russ.

As for A Thousand Sons, as I recall precisely three Custodes were killed. When you consider that the book seems to present the Sisters of Silence and the Space Wolves as dieing in scores, I would say they did pretty well for themselves...

They're extremely well trained, but not a military fighting force.

It's basically like the Pope's Swiss Guard... both dressed fancily and highly trained military commandos (look them up), but they're not equipped for larger scale engagements

See, thats the part that I'm having trouble reconciling. The artwork that exists for the Custodes depicts them having access to Terminators, Contemptor Dreadnoughts, Jetbikes (as I recall these were even mentioned in A Thousand Sons), Rhinos (that seem to have anti-grav tech), and specialist weapons such as flamers. Seems like a lot of stuff that shouldn't necessarily exist for a force that isn't really meant to go about crumping heads... Then there is also the fact that the artwork and the fluff (Atlas Infernal most recently) mention that during the Crusade era the Custodes were sent into the webway to scout its paths and clear sections out for human use.

The custodian in the First Heretic certainly thought he was able to subdue a Primarch all on his own.

chaos0xomega wrote:I can't recall which book it was in, but it was simply a practice sparring match. It earned Valdor the respect of Leman Russ.

As for A Thousand Sons, as I recall precisely three Custodes were killed. When you consider that the book seems to present the Sisters of Silence and the Space Wolves as dieing in scores, I would say they did pretty well for themselves...

That's kind of sad, in my honest opinion.

Phosis T'kar killed four Custodes. At once. With one attack. And destroyed their jetbikes with said attack.

Hathor Maat went on to casually kill three Custodes with a single attack as well.

The only other Custodes really talked about were the ones with Leman Russ, and, well, nothing Leman Russ came across before Magnus himself showed up could impede him, being a Primarch and all.

Those casualties aside, didn't the Custodes go 5-to-1 in one particular battle on Prospero?

Brother Coa wrote:

UselessSage wrote:How about a Custode vs. Grey Knight?

Custodes is stronger, but GK has 10.000 years of experience.

Stronger how? Physically, Custodes are likely slightly stronger but insignificantly so in most cases. However this physical strength is eclipsed by a Grey Knight whenever he psychically enhances his physical strength (among other attributes).

Strength in numbers, the Custodes definitely win considering the recent retcon in GK numbers. The following numbers maybe wrong but I believe they held 10,000 Custodians in their organisation before the Heresy, 1,000 of which were Companions. Those numbers were somewhat diminished afterwards (as chaos0xomega states there are now roughly 300 Companions) and it's currently under speculation whether they were ever able to replenish their force.

This also ties in with their experience. If the current crop of Custodes are survivors of the Heresy then they'll still maintain some true battle experience. This is quite likely considering that they haven't been involved in major warfare since the Heresy.

In First Heretic, 3 Custodes get their asses handed to them by 10 posessed marines. Posessed who had been already killed by Corax and then came back to life.

Grey Templar wrote:In First Heretic, 3 Custodes get their asses handed to them by 10 posessed marines. Posessed who had been already killed by Corax and then came back to life.

That was after they killed a giant robot and a ship full of guardsmen.

Greyish wrote:Those casualties aside, didn't the Custodes go 5-to-1 in one particular battle on Prospero?

Brother Coa wrote:

UselessSage wrote:How about a Custode vs. Grey Knight?

Custodes is stronger, but GK has 10.000 years of experience.

Stronger how? Physically, Custodes are likely slightly stronger but insignificantly so in most cases. However this physical strength is eclipsed by a Grey Knight whenever he psychically enhances his physical strength (among other attributes).

Strength in numbers, the Custodes definitely win considering the recent retcon in GK numbers. The following numbers maybe wrong but I believe they held 10,000 Custodians in their organisation before the Heresy, 1,000 of which were Companions. Those numbers were somewhat diminished afterwards (as chaos0xomega states there are now roughly 300 Companions) and it's currently under speculation whether they were ever able to replenish their force.

This also ties in with their experience. If the current crop of Custodes are survivors of the Heresy then they'll still maintain some true battle experience. This is quite likely considering that they haven't been involved in major warfare since the Heresy.

Why does everyone forget about the Reign of blood?
And the Blood Games?
The Custodes have fought in lots of battles since the hersey. And their Companion numbers have dwindled only because they are chosen by the emperor to serve him. Sadly they can't be chosen if he is stuck on a chair.

Custodes would order the grey knights to stick it because this isn't their domain. And they have the power to call them traitors have them wiped out and replaced as a new grey knight order that doesn't use daemon weapons.

Grey Templar wrote:In First Heretic, 3 Custodes get their asses handed to them by 10 posessed marines. Posessed who had been already killed by Corax and then came back to life.

Close, there were eleven of the Gal Vorbak left and the Custodes still went out claiming 2-for-1 against them, with only five of the Word Bearers surviving. Not so much of a bad tally when you know your days are numbered, huh?

Asherian Command wrote:Why does everyone forget about the Reign of blood?
And the Blood Games?
The Custodes have fought in lots of battles since the heresy. And their Companion numbers have dwindled only because they are chosen by the emperor to serve him. Sadly they can't be chosen if he is stuck on a chair.

Custodes would order the grey knights to stick it because this isn't their domain. And they have the power to call them traitors have them wiped out and replaced as a new grey knight order that doesn't use daemon weapons.

Regular Blood Games hardly qualify as full-out warfare and their role in the Reign of Blood was purely diplomatic - They didn't actually fight the Brides.

As for the last part... ...well, there's more likelyhood that a Custodian and a Knight would teleport into your livingroom and perform a tango for you. While they do have unparalleled authority, calling out heretics has long since been the job of the Inquisition, leaving the Custodes to do their primary responsibility in peace. Besides, as a chapter whose development and practices were one of the last things the Emperor ordained the Grey Knights are probably one of the few imperial organisations they would least have issues with.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:In First Heretic, 3 Custodes get their asses handed to them by 10 posessed marines. Posessed who had been already killed by Corax and then came back to life.

That was after they killed a giant robot and a ship full of guardsmen.

said robot took a custode out with it and the Guardsmen weren't hostile at that point IIRC

So far as I recall, Custodes are engineered to be more than an Astartes but less than a Primarch. This would mean that all things being equal in regards to training and gear, they would be superior to Astartes... what it really comes down to is numbers and tactics. The Astartes can call on brother chapters, diverse in strategy and tactics, whereas the Custodes presumably train and fight in a a single style, or possibly a number of styles, but their training can't possibly be as diverse as a thousand chapters of marines.

One on One, I've got to give it to the Custodes. In a civil war scenario, it all depends on what forces line up behind whom.

Its not that Custodes are more or better then Astartes, its that they are different.

Custodes are grown in Test Tubes, something the Space Marines find apalling.

Custodes are Warriors, Astartes are soldiers.

Exactly, In a sense, custodes are to astartes as ninja are to samurai.
Lethal training, self sufficient.

Magtherion_Soulsaver wrote:Exactly, In a sense, custodes are to astartes as ninja are to samurai.
Lethal training, self sufficient.

Er no.

"Ninja" are spies, assassins, and saboteurs.

To correct your comparison:
The Custodes would be samurai, while the Astartes would be spearmen.
One trains to fight in small groups, but with a focus on the individual and his contribution to the battle(the Custodes).
The other trains to fight as a coherent unit, with no emphasis on one individual over another. Each member has an important role to fulfill, and the machine breaks down if anyone's out of sync.

Kanluwen wrote:

Magtherion_Soulsaver wrote:Exactly, In a sense, custodes are to astartes as ninja are to samurai.
Lethal training, self sufficient.

Er no.

"Ninja" are spies, assassins, and saboteurs.

To correct your comparison:
The Custodes would be samurai, while the Astartes would be spearmen.
One trains to fight in small groups, but with a focus on the individual and his contribution to the battle(the Custodes).
The other trains to fight as a coherent unit, with no emphasis on one individual over another. Each member has an important role to fulfill, and the machine breaks down if anyone's out of sync.

Ninja were also used for security. I.E. Tokugawa employing the Hattori clan. Ninja are better trained, but not meant for open war.