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So I am currently doing a little project where I convert Stormcast Eternals into Custodes. However, the project is losing steam, mainly because I can't establish a good connection with the army. You see, I don't build models simply for the sake of it. I like to personalize them so that they mirror a little bit of myself. I like coming up with storylines, tragic ones about sacrifice and redemption being my favourite, or simply build around a moral lesson or philosophical ideal. Basically, I like the idea of "Your Dudes".
This is proving challenging with Custodes as the army offers little to no freedom in terms of fluff and thus does not seem to offer much space for including my own stories. Their statement of purpose is also much more limiting as they serve only the Emperor and no one else, where as Chapter may have different motifs due to liberal thinking or external influences.

Do you have any idea on how to bring more "Your Dudes" into Custodes? Or should I just go bonkers bananas out of nounds bodacious bodiddly and create an army of imperial angels using the AC rules but make it something unrelated to the actual Custodes?

Cheers

The personality of an Adeptus Custodes army is like the one of a skirmish gang. Give names to all you singular dudes, or at least the captains and some wanabee sargeants, dreadnoughts, etc...

Adeptus Custodes are heroes. Yeah maybe as a force they don't have that much variety (They still have certain room, as it is shown in the codex), but as individuals and heroes you have as much freedom as you want.

An oibvious solution would be to not give any of them helmets and instead give them all differing heads. you could also paint your custodes up as an ad hoc shield company that drew from a number of differant shield companies and didn't bother to recolour their armor, and thus every squad has a differant colour scheme (Custodes is IMHO one of the most friendly armies in the game for this approuch)

 Trade_Prince wrote:
So I am currently doing a little project where I convert Stormcast Eternals into Custodes. However, the project is losing steam, mainly because I can't establish a good connection with the army. You see, I don't build models simply for the sake of it. I like to personalize them so that they mirror a little bit of myself. I like coming up with storylines, tragic ones about sacrifice and redemption being my favourite, or simply build around a moral lesson or philosophical ideal. Basically, I like the idea of "Your Dudes".
This is proving challenging with Custodes as the army offers little to no freedom in terms of fluff and thus does not seem to offer much space for including my own stories. Their statement of purpose is also much more limiting as they serve only the Emperor and no one else, where as Chapter may have different motifs due to liberal thinking or external influences.

Do you have any idea on how to bring more "Your Dudes" into Custodes? Or should I just go bonkers bananas out of nounds bodacious bodiddly and create an army of imperial angels using the AC rules but make it something unrelated to the actual Custodes?

Cheers

Build one as one of the retired 'stealth' Custodes, the ones that act as informants after they get to a certain age (which is awesome, as they are one of the only armies in the game with a semi-guaranteed 'retirement').

A Custodes contingent lost in space, cut off by the great Warp rift post-campaign, desperately fighting to get home through unfamiliar space. Surviving as much as serving, they make questionable choices to stay alive and return to the Emperor’s light. Basically Star Trek Voyager With Gold Dudes. Lots of super-weathered armour, tatter up the edges of robes so they’re not new, and paint them stained and faded.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
A Custodes contingent lost in space, cut off by the great Warp rift post-campaign, desperately fighting to get home through unfamiliar space. Surviving as much as serving, they make questionable choices to stay alive and return to the Emperor’s light. Basically Star Trek Voyager With Gold Dudes. Lots of super-weathered armour, tatter up the edges of robes so they’re not new, and paint them stained and faded.

Great stuff, this gets my vote! Extra points for gaunt cheeks, grizzle features, grey hair and 5 o'clock shadow!

 Trade_Prince wrote:
So I am currently doing a little project where I convert Stormcast Eternals into Custodes. However, the project is losing steam, mainly because I can't establish a good connection with the army. You see, I don't build models simply for the sake of it. I like to personalize them so that they mirror a little bit of myself. I like coming up with storylines, tragic ones about sacrifice and redemption being my favourite, or simply build around a moral lesson or philosophical ideal. Basically, I like the idea of "Your Dudes".
This is proving challenging with Custodes as the army offers little to no freedom in terms of fluff and thus does not seem to offer much space for including my own stories. Their statement of purpose is also much more limiting as they serve only the Emperor and no one else, where as Chapter may have different motifs due to liberal thinking or external influences.

Do you have any idea on how to bring more "Your Dudes" into Custodes? Or should I just go bonkers bananas out of nounds bodacious bodiddly and create an army of imperial angels using the AC rules but make it something unrelated to the actual Custodes?

Cheers

If you are using Stormcast armor, your customers will be wildly different in appearance from the standard. I say, lean into it. Perhaps their armor dates from the earliest part of the war of reunification. What if one of Earth's mightiest warlords used some forbidden DAOT weapon to put them in stasis? (Or perhaps just their withered bodies, their armor and some secret mandate signed by the Emperor?). Tying it all in, Cawl could have been the mangos to discover their stasis prison, or the great rift freed them, or something.

The lore for Custodes has changed, or rather as of late, progressed rather recently. They're no longer confined to Terra, the Custodes are marching forth on their own crusades and such. I haven't finished reading "The Emperor's Legion" a book that seems to lead in to the Custodes decision to send soldiers out from Terra, so I may not have exact details correct...

However, it seems like you could reasonably write up lore for a crusading force on some sort of mission. "Protect the Emperor" could have a very broad meaning, stretched to cover all sorts of things. In my mind, I don't think you're as limited by the lore as you might think!