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Ok you fluff fiends, who do we think is the better Imperial Warrior?

Legiones Custodes
Legiones Astartes
Grey Knights

Answer and reason why.....please

Depends.

Astartes are better at large battles with multiple warriors and working as a team.
Custodes are formidable mano y mano, going toe to toe with some pretty badass guys..
Grey knights are kind of a mix, but they truely show their worth at combatting Daemons.

If we were to put one of each in a battle against each other, i think the Custodes would win..

Grey Knights are stronger then Astartes
And Custodes are supreme over GK.
Custodes are the best.

The Custodes are the premier warriors, individually. One on one, a member of the Adeptus Custodes would murder a Space Marine or Grey Knight.

That said, they don't take to the field at all, and they usually do not fight in large numbers. A squadron of Space Marines against a squadron of Custodians might be something close to an even fight.

They are all equal.

Custodes have the best equipment in the Imperum, but they haven't been in any kind of combat for the last 10.000 years.

Grey Knights also have good equipment and they excel against Daemons, but have rarely fought any other opponent ( xenos ).

Astartes might not have the best equipment or even training as their brothers from Custodes and GK. But they have battled for over 10.000 years and won the most difficult battles and slain the most terrible creatures.

Custodes are supreme, even tough they havent been figting for a long time.

Brother Coa wrote:They are all equal.

Custodes have the best equipment in the Imperum, but they haven't been in any kind of combat for the last 10.000 years.

Grey Knights also have good equipment and they excel against Daemons, but have rarely fought any other opponent ( xenos ).

Astartes might not have the best equipment or even training as their brothers from Custodes and GK. But they have battled for over 10.000 years and won the most difficult battles and slain the most terrible creatures.

The Custodes haven't been in any organized, large-scale fighting in ten millenia. That does NOT mean that individual Custodians don't have plenty of combat experience; the limited fluff on them indicates that they act as enforcers and combat operatives in the political intrigues which surround the High Lords of Terra; in addition, the Adeptus Custodes regularly practice the Blood Games, in which some number of them will actually attempt to penetrate the Imperial Palace and assassinate the Emperor. They are by no means out of practice.

In terms of 1 on 1 duel-style combat, a Custodes would win. Astartes are much more flexible force though.

In a 1v1 the custodes would wipe the floor with the others.

In a large match-up SM would win.

If you are fighting daemons, the Knights would win.

In the First Heretic, Argel Tal describes the Custodes as 'Lions', a group of powerful warriors that each fight on their own, while the Astartes are 'Wolves', soldiers of a slightly lesser caliber but who fight together and support each other. 1-on-1, Custodes would win, against regular marines or Knights, but squad vs squad, Astartes are much more likely to win.

Delephont wrote:Answer and reason why.....please

Funny because we've been through this all before?

Maybe it's funny how everyone's saying Custodes beat Grey Knights and yet no-one can bring forward the proof. And I bet they can't without deducing Grey Knights as being 'just marines'. Off the top of my head, the only times where I've heard of Custodes being compared to Grey Knights through sources of any worth...:

Rogue Trader - Though highly outdated the Custodes in the Rulebook and the Grey Knights in the compilation book had the exact same stats. Except for leadership values where the GKs were better.

Codex: Grey Knights - Where the Emperor considered Custodes for the role initially but deemed them to have a lack of free will.

A BL Author Compares - He generally gives it to the Grey Knights and notes that their psychic powers are the element that elevates them.

The last point makes sense. For example, while Abnett's Blood Games does state that Custodes were slightly stronger than Astartes, (though only significantly so in a few cases) Grey Knights are not normal marines and can psychically enhance their physical attributes far past such minor differences - Hammerhand being an example for this.

I'd take the grey knights because they have the advantage of being psychers.

Slater wrote:In the First Heretic, Argel Tal describes the Custodes as 'Lions', a group of powerful warriors that each fight on their own, while the Astartes are 'Wolves', soldiers of a slightly lesser caliber but who fight together and support each other. 1-on-1, Custodes would win, against regular marines or Knights, but squad vs squad, Astartes are much more likely to win.

Lions or wolves, if Argel Tal and company hadn't been possessed they'd almost certainly have lost.

The First Heretic portrays those Custodes, at least (and they are not necessarily representative of the rest), as superior in one-on-one combat to Astartes (and also against multiple Astartes. Being superior at teamwork doesn't mean much if the opponent outclasses you).

Psychic powers change alot. A Grey Knight would likely win due to that.

Draigo with Paladins wins because it's OP.

Brother Coa wrote:They are all equal.

Custodes have the best equipment in the Imperum, but they haven't been in any kind of combat for the last 6.000 years. (reign of blood dude)

Grey Knights also have good equipment and they excel against Daemons, but have rarely fought any other opponent ( xenos ).

Astartes might not have the best equipment or even training as their brothers from Custodes and GK. But they have battled for over 10.000 years and won the most difficult battles and slain the most terrible creatures.

Corrected it for you. Remember the reign of blood? And you call yourself a loyalist black templar player bah!

Custodes win solo.
But Astartes win against both grey knights and custodes with a company,

Asherian Command wrote:
Corrected it for you. Remember the reign of blood? And you call yourself a loyalist black templar player bah!

I am an Imperial in general, not only BT. And if you find me a paragraph that said "Custodes fight against the Sisters to kill the Vandire" I will believe you. In the meantime I will just quote Paragraph from Sisters of Battle 2e codex witch say that Custodes didn't fight at all but instead took Alicia Dominica before the Emperor and after that she killed Vandire.

Mar'tacus wrote:Draigo with Paladins wins because it's OP.

On topic, Custodes. All the way.

Greyish wrote:

Maybe it's funny how everyone's saying Custodes beat Grey Knights and yet no-one can bring forward the proof. And I bet they can't without deducing Grey Knights as being 'just marines'. Off the top of my head, the only times where I've heard of Custodes being compared to Grey Knights through sources of any worth...:

Rogue Trader - Though highly outdated the Custodes in the Rulebook and the Grey Knights in the compilation book had the exact same stats. Except for leadership values where the GKs were better.

Codex: Grey Knights - Where the Emperor considered Custodes for the role initially but deemed them to have a lack of free will.

A BL Author Compares - He generally gives it to the Grey Knights and notes that their psychic powers are the element that elevates them.

The last point makes sense. For example, while Abnett's Blood Games does state that Custodes were slightly stronger than Astartes, (though only significantly so in a few cases) Grey Knights are not normal marines and can psychically enhance their physical attributes far past such minor differences - Hammerhand being an example for this.

I would say that Custodes and Grey Knights are at about the same 'level', honestly; it's just that they have very different training and skillsets.

I would expect a member of the Adeptus Custodes to be a more skilled (or perhaps 'better trained' is what I want to say) individual fighter than a Grey Knight. I would expect him to be a better infiltrator, more accustomed to moving silently and remaining unseen; I would expect him to be more accustomed to fighting without armor and fighting in close quarters.

I would expect a Grey Knight to compensate for slightly inferior physical abilities with the use of his powerful psychic abilities. Furthermore, a Grey Knight would be more practiced and skilled at open-field combat, fighting as part of a unit, long-range skirmishing, and unorthodox methods of attack such as teleportation assaults. Since the Imperial Palace is guarded against teleportation, I would not assume that the Custodes have a great deal of practice defending against such attacks.

All that said; one-on-one, I still give the fight to the Custodian. A Grey Knight has to simultaneously maintain focus on his psychic powers and his hand-to-hand fighting, he probably won't be able to see his attacker until the Custodian chooses to reveal himself, and he is, after all, dealing with the personal guard of the Imperial Palace. However, a squadron of Grey Knights working in concert could very likely defend themselves from an equal number of the Adeptus Custodes.

For those who want to read more on this, except for the GK, the book Outcast Dead may shine a light on the topic

The book starts off slow, but builds momentum towards the middle.

On the topic of custodes, they are the blueprint for the perfect warrior, and all astartes, grey knights and their shadowy heritage included, are based off of the custodes blueprint at a lower level of construction.

The emperor personally created the first custodes and when he set out to create the astartes, the process had to be hastened and made simpler for the ages, and for those not of his superior intellectual capacity.

You're making up stuff. The Emperor then set out to create the superior Primarchs and then later based their respective genetic templates on creating the Astartes legions.

Delephont wrote:For those who want to read more on this, except for the GK, the book Outcast Dead may shine a light on the topic

The book starts off slow, but builds momentum towards the middle.

I'm thankful someone's read it, as there's info regarding Custodes. Seems like people have just read Blood Games and The First Heretic and taken them at face value, because those elite characters are how they always pictured the Custodes to be as at grunt-level. Generally, people tend to forget their appearance in books like A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns for the same reasons...

BeRzErKeR wrote:I would say that Custodes and Grey Knights are at about the same 'level', honestly; it's just that they have very different training and skillsets.

I would expect a member of the Adeptus Custodes to be a more skilled (or perhaps 'better trained' is what I want to say) individual fighter than a Grey Knight. I would expect him to be a better infiltrator, more accustomed to moving silently and remaining unseen; I would expect him to be more accustomed to fighting without armor and fighting in close quarters.

I would expect a Grey Knight to compensate for slightly inferior physical abilities with the use of his powerful psychic abilities. Furthermore, a Grey Knight would be more practiced and skilled at open-field combat, fighting as part of a unit, long-range skirmishing, and unorthodox methods of attack such as teleportation assaults. Since the Imperial Palace is guarded against teleportation, I would not assume that the Custodes have a great deal of practice defending against such attacks.

All that said; one-on-one, I still give the fight to the Custodian. A Grey Knight has to simultaneously maintain focus on his psychic powers and his hand-to-hand fighting, he probably won't be able to see his attacker until the Custodian chooses to reveal himself, and he is, after all, dealing with the personal guard of the Imperial Palace. However, a squadron of Grey Knights working in concert could very likely defend themselves from an equal number of the Adeptus Custodes.

Your entitled to your opinion but where's the proof that the OP asked for?

If anything, what puts a grunt-level Custodian ahead of your average Astartes in battle is his wargear. That they're trained to use Guardian Spears foremost, rather than a boltgun and it obviously gives them strong advantages in close combat. They must take pride in using them because as Aquillon sums up in The First Heretic they were gifted for their use alone by the Emperor. No chapter is outfitted with such a powerful set of arms, aside from yup, the Grey Knights. Without the wargear a fight between a normal Astartes and a normal Custodian would be much more even. In Blood Games, Abnett states that no one would like to predict the outcome between the two...

Also why are so many people on the internet always willing to dismiss the Grey Knights as incompetent by comparison because they're ignorant of their fluff. Yes, they specialise in killing daemons but don't forget that they really do bring the pain against everyone else too. There are a few examples of chapters that opposed the Grey Knights and/or the Inquisition that they ended up getting thrashed in a manner that puts the sacking of Propsero to shame, see the Flame Falcons, Mortifactors and the Relicators. And if you think Aquillon is a tough-nut for kicking in Angel-Tal in cage-matches you should read The Killing Ground. The way the Grey Knight Leodegarius takes on both Uriel Ventris and Pasanius Lysane in a similar situation bares some similarity. Goes to show that killing daemons is just the day job for the Grey Knights, afterwards they go home and kick the house into order too.

Ok, I never asked for "proof" per se, because, let's be honest, there isn't any.

Having read The Outcast Dead, and the other texts which discuss Custodes, I actually get the impression that GW (via the Black Library) are actively trying to "dillute" the earlier proposed superioty of the Custodes over Astartes warriors. In The Outcast Dead, they also bring into play the remnant of the Thunder Warriors, who are actually superior to Marines......

For all intents and purposes it appears that from a fluff perspective, GW is trying to remove the specific hierachy that was once there, but to what ends?

Looking at what is written, the Emporer recalled the Imperial Fists back to Terra to garrison his palace and also help to fortify the place.....remember, this is before Horus became a renegade! So that in itself draws question marks over the supposed superioty of the Custodes over the Marines, why not request a few advisors from the Imp Fists and garrison the Palace with Custodes??

Looking at the books mentioned, Custodes were previously supposed to hold a place somewhere between a Marine and a Primarch, yet these guys die easily.....and show no more intellect than an average Marine.

Ultimately, it seems that the "issue" with the BL wins through again, and how effective a Custode really is depends greatly upon the writer and how they are used in the storyline. WH40K does not have any place for ultimate warriors it seems, outside of the Primarchs perhaps.

Greyish wrote:You're making up stuff. The Emperor then set out to create the superior Primarchs and then later based their respective genetic templates on creating the Astartes legions.

Delephont wrote:For those who want to read more on this, except for the GK, the book Outcast Dead may shine a light on the topic

The book starts off slow, but builds momentum towards the middle.

I'm thankful someone's read it, as there's info regarding Custodes. Seems like people have just read Blood Games and The First Heretic and taken them at face value, because those elite characters are how they always pictured the Custodes to be as at grunt-level. Generally, people tend to forget their appearance in books like A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns for the same reasons...

BeRzErKeR wrote:I would say that Custodes and Grey Knights are at about the same 'level', honestly; it's just that they have very different training and skillsets.

I would expect a member of the Adeptus Custodes to be a more skilled (or perhaps 'better trained' is what I want to say) individual fighter than a Grey Knight. I would expect him to be a better infiltrator, more accustomed to moving silently and remaining unseen; I would expect him to be more accustomed to fighting without armor and fighting in close quarters.

I would expect a Grey Knight to compensate for slightly inferior physical abilities with the use of his powerful psychic abilities. Furthermore, a Grey Knight would be more practiced and skilled at open-field combat, fighting as part of a unit, long-range skirmishing, and unorthodox methods of attack such as teleportation assaults. Since the Imperial Palace is guarded against teleportation, I would not assume that the Custodes have a great deal of practice defending against such attacks.

All that said; one-on-one, I still give the fight to the Custodian. A Grey Knight has to simultaneously maintain focus on his psychic powers and his hand-to-hand fighting, he probably won't be able to see his attacker until the Custodian chooses to reveal himself, and he is, after all, dealing with the personal guard of the Imperial Palace. However, a squadron of Grey Knights working in concert could very likely defend themselves from an equal number of the Adeptus Custodes.

Your entitled to your opinion but where's the proof that the OP asked for?

If anything, what puts a grunt-level Custodian ahead of your average Astartes in battle is his wargear. That they're trained to use Guardian Spears foremost, rather than a boltgun and it obviously gives them strong advantages in close combat. They must take pride in using them because as Aquillon sums up in The First Heretic they were gifted for their use alone by the Emperor. No chapter is outfitted with such a powerful set of arms, aside from yup, the Grey Knights. Without the wargear a fight between a normal Astartes and a normal Custodian would be much more even. In Blood Games, Abnett states that no one would like to predict the outcome between the two...

Also why are so many people on the internet always willing to dismiss the Grey Knights as incompetent by comparison because they're ignorant of their fluff. Yes, they specialise in killing daemons but don't forget that they really do bring the pain against everyone else too. There are a few examples of chapters that opposed the Grey Knights and/or the Inquisition that they ended up getting thrashed in a manner that puts the sacking of Propsero to shame, see the Flame Falcons, Mortifactors and the Relicators. And if you think Aquillon is a tough-nut for kicking in Angel-Tal in cage-matches you should read The Killing Ground. The way the Grey Knight Leodegarius takes on both Uriel Ventris and Pasanius Lysane in a similar situation bares some similarity. Goes to show that killing daemons is just the day job for the Grey Knights, afterwards they go home and kick the house into order too.

I am not "making stuff up" thanks.

Just because you can question my statement doesn't give you solid proof in equal respect for simply denying.

With the exception of maybe The Outcast Dead, one of BL's newest publications, I still maintain that the custodes were made before the primarchs. In one of the first 3 HH books, can't remember specifically, when the primarchs are still barely infantile in the gene lab, when Horus is shown the lab, he's confronted by a custodes. There's another reference too about the time before even the primarchs, and the custodes were well into maturity as an order.

So no, I am not making stuff up. The emperor created the custodes by hand to be his personal guardians, then set to work on the primarchs and the astartes as conquerors.

And to the OP. The reason the Emperor called the fists back to terra was because there simply aren't enough custodes to match the fists for legion strength at that time. In addition, the fists were highly experience with siege warfare and defence on a massive scale, something the custodes simply weren't made to do. The emperor never thought he'd have to defend his home from a handful of his wayward sons and their legions + gods.

That's all fine/agreeable, but that's not the part that's in contention. Your original statement comes across to me as the Astartes being direct throwbacks to the Custodes, cutting out the middleman in the Primarchs. That would be misinforming.

Delephont wrote:Ok, I never asked for "proof" per se, because, let's be honest, there isn't any.

Having read The Outcast Dead, and the other texts which discuss Custodes, I actually get the impression that GW (via the Black Library) are actively trying to "dillute" the earlier proposed superioty of the Custodes over Astartes warriors. In The Outcast Dead, they also bring into play the remnant of the Thunder Warriors, who are actually superior to Marines......

For all intents and purposes it appears that from a fluff perspective, GW is trying to remove the specific hierachy that was once there, but to what ends?

Looking at what is written, the Emporer recalled the Imperial Fists back to Terra to garrison his palace and also help to fortify the place.....remember, this is before Horus became a renegade! So that in itself draws question marks over the supposed superioty of the Custodes over the Marines, why not request a few advisors from the Imp Fists and garrison the Palace with Custodes??

Looking at the books mentioned, Custodes were previously supposed to hold a place somewhere between a Marine and a Primarch, yet these guys die easily.....and show no more intellect than an average Marine.

Ultimately, it seems that the "issue" with the BL wins through again, and how effective a Custode really is depends greatly upon the writer and how they are used in the storyline. WH40K does not have any place for ultimate warriors it seems, outside of the Primarchs perhaps.

Apologies on my assumption to all, though it would have been nice to actually gain other opinions based deductions from the fluff and other authors. Instead, we can probably expect a lot more of the same rhetoric from members - The Custodes to win by a landslide.

As for your view, the problem isn't just a shift in the fluff - arguably there has been little change in it in regards to how powerful Custodes are. The problem is also the general community perception of them. The Custodian mythos has grown out of the desire to make them the best because they are the Emperor's golden guardians that they should be the best regardless. Before the Horus Heresy series we had little information to back this up and so generally people proposed that this logic must be true. Perhaps the biggest assist was that the Custodes were better than average marines in RT, so it seemed plausible...

With the advent of the Heresy series, GW began releasing more information about them and it's slowly dawning upon some that their widely-believed superiority holds less truth now. But rather than changing their original belief on how good the Custodes some people would rather stand by it and keep up with the charade. It's often led to a slanted allegations based on a combination of unfounded, escalating factoids about them (Valdor duels Horus... Valdor beats Horus... all Custodians can rival Primarchs... ) and misconstrued assumptions (all Custodes are like Vendatha, or Amon). In the last one for example, The First Heretic is often used as an excuse to state that the characters prove that all Custodes are vastly superior to Astartes. True enough we do see Vendatha effortlessly cut his way through three ranked. But according to the Author's discussions about Vendatha, he was "incredible skilled for a Custodian" and this is likely to be true for the rest of his Aquillon and the rest of the unit. It makes some sense when you take the time out to think about it. For such an important duty as the Custodes had in The First Heretic, I'd expect Aquillon and his lot must at least have ranked as Companions. The Companions are the Emperor's Honour Guard if you will, they are the ones that follow him into battle and protect him personally, whereas most Custodes guard the palace itself. In my beliefs, Companions are at least the equivalent to a Captain rank in comparative terms and all frightfully deadly experts with their arms. It makes sense that these Custodes were able to dispatch grunt-level Astartes and even equivalent ranked marines so easily. These are the archetypal Custodes most know them as but they are not the standard. Fans rarely care to make the distinction between a Companion and a normal Custodian and often their feats get confused and fused together. The differences and ranks were also never notable in the novel so it didn't help to dispel the myth and instead only boosted it despite the possible author's intentions. It's also no wonder why fans were so confused by the difference in Custodian abilities within novels that were later released.

It all depends on their level of experience and what equipment they have. Thats it.

Custodes. There is no contest. It's like you took SM training and combined it with Assassin training, then gave them the best wargear in the Imperium.

Are Grey Knights well trained? Yes. But while a squad of GKs would try to maintain coherency and fight as a unit, the Custodians would split up and attack separately, most likely surrounding the unit and forcing each GK into a one on one fight, which the Gk would lose. Custodians have the most intense hand-to-hand/CQC training in the Imperium, and are trained to fight as an individual, not as a unit. They don't worry about their brothers, they just go forth and lay waste to their enemies.

I'm just reading Deliverance Lost, the latest in the HH series....and actually, according to this book, the Custodes are significantly better than Marines....I won't do any spoilers here, but there are numerous statements by various key individuals that out right state that Custodes are superior to Marines (regardless of rank!)

Looks like WH40K has it's super soliders after all.

By the way, people should be careful when stating that Custodes came before Primarchs. In terms of physical manifestation, maybe, but it seems that Custodes are a by product (same as Marines were) of the Primach project...again, see Deliverance Lost for more detail

The Grey Knights, no contests really. They wipe the floor with the Custodes in any situation.

Grots.