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It just seems like an odd choice to put a Space Marine faction under Armies of the Imperium, instead of Space Marines. It's as if, in trying to emphasize how So Very Special And Not Like Other Marines they are, GW put them in the same category as the Imperium's less elite armies.

Custeds have less in common with space marines than sisters of battle.

Because they are not Space Marines.

As stated, canonically, Custodes are very much NOT Space Marines. They don't have the same organs, they are created from a totally different process, and their training is entirely different altogether. They are about as similar to a Space Marine as a Dark Eldar is to a Craftworld Eldar - similar in many ways, but remarkably different.

 Yarium wrote:
As stated, canonically, Custodes are very much NOT Space Marines. They don't have the same organs, they are created from a totally different process, and their training is entirely different altogether. They are about as similar to a Space Marine as a Dark Eldar is to a Craftworld Eldar - similar in many ways, but remarkably different.

Very bad analogy, as there are examples of Dark Eldar becoming Craftworld eldar. One of the Striking Scorpions in Gav's Path of the Eldar trilogy, for example.

Custards and Space Marines aren't the same, but honestly the fact that the former are simply 'more better' terminators in their current incarnation makes it possible this isn't just sarcasm.

Voss wrote:
Custards and Space Marines aren't the same

lol, is that an autocorrect thing, or a meme like Rowboat Girlyman?

.

I'd wager most people consider them some form of marines - I mean they wear the same kind of armour; have the same unit breakdown; have the exact same transports (it's just painted in goooooold) etc...

Casual glances would class them as marines even if lore wise they are very different. Much like many would visually count Sisters of Battle as the "female marines" even though, again, in lore they are very different.




Ps remember GW is a UK firm so chances are another reason they don't count as true space-marines is because Custodes are more Dutch (I mean who but a Dutchman would coat everything in gooooooold)

 Overread wrote:
Casual glances would class them as marines even if lore wise they are very different. Much like many would visually count Sisters of Battle as the "female marines" even though, again, in lore they are very different.

Sisters aren't bio-engineered, though. That's really what makes a Space Marine, and why I'm still not convinced the Custodes are all that different. Not the power armor and boltguns, but the bio-engineering.

And now this is turning into a fluff/background discussion...

This is all easily researchable on the lexicanum...

Space Marines are created using gene seed from their respective primarch and implanting them with a multitude of different organs that enhance them and make them hulking super soldiers.

Custodes are hand crafted using gene alchemy and archeotech that alters them on a molecular level. They are rebuilt from the ground up to create something that is far more sophisticated than a space marine, hence the low number of custodes compared to marines. The custodes were also the first enhanced humans created by the emperor before and during the unification wars.
Marines are the more efficient soldiers, custodes are better singular warriors.

They are quite different and were originally intended for very different purposes. The marines being an unstoppable crusade force and the custodes being bodyguards and companions for the emperor. The custodes were meant to guide and protect humanity once the emperor had completed his webway project, which obviously went south pretty badly.

But mostly Custodes stood outside His door. Shirtless. In leather pants.

One last bit of eye candy for the psykers being marched in to have their souls munched.

If the lore and fluff weren't so horribly bungled by the writers, there would still be a VERY GOOD DIFFERENCE. Custodians never leave Terra, they only do one thing and that is take care of the Emperor. Astartes leave and go off and crusade. Astartes build chapters and fortresses, and play hunt the xeno. Custodes dust the golden Mantlepiece, and clean up after the golden palace. Custodes are also to Astartes as Astartes are to basic Conscripts. As in Astartes are untrained violent babies in comparison.

Also it is cannon that Custodes write books, and poetry, and songs. Name the last great poem written by a Space Wolf.

 Overread wrote:
I'd wager most people consider them some form of marines - I mean they wear the same kind of armour; have the same unit breakdown; have the exact same transports (it's just painted in goooooold) etc...

Well they have landraiders and their own brand of contemptors, but not all that much else in common.
Then again they don't have all that much of anything if you don't include the forgeworld line.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Also it is cannon that Custodes write books, and poetry, and songs. Name the last great poem written by a Space Wolf.

Bad example, since it's also canon that Space Wolves write sagas about their great heroes which are recited at their feasts, often with extemporaneous embellishment. Their character traits were literally known as sagas for at least a couple of editions (e.g. Saga of the Bear, Saga of the Hunter).

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
If the lore and fluff weren't so horribly bungled by the writers, there would still be a VERY GOOD DIFFERENCE. Custodians never leave Terra, they only do one thing and that is take care of the Emperor. Astartes leave and go off and crusade. Astartes build chapters and fortresses, and play hunt the xeno. Custodes dust the golden Mantlepiece, and clean up after the golden palace. Custodes are also to Astartes as Astartes are to basic Conscripts. As in Astartes are untrained violent babies in comparison.

Also it is cannon that Custodes write books, and poetry, and songs. Name the last great poem written by a Space Wolf.

I can't name fictional pieces of fiction in the fiction of a war game, but I'm actually sure that some space wolves do in fact write eddas and sagas. With or without cannons.

But the even more 'more better' than space marines is part of what makes them so ridiculous and pointless.

I personally equate Wulfen battle Sagas to Klingon Poetry. A lot more of the Slam and a lot less of the Poetry part. Anyone want to try and re-enact a Wulfen singing?

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I personally equate Wulfen battle Sagas to Klingon Poetry. A lot more of the Slam and a lot less of the Poetry part. Anyone want to try and re-enact a Wulfen singing?

Why wulfen, particularly?
And Klingons having a deep and complex culture has been run into the ground at this point, so I'm not even sure why you'd use that as a comparison.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I personally equate Wulfen battle Sagas to Klingon Poetry. A lot more of the Slam and a lot less of the Poetry part. Anyone want to try and re-enact a Wulfen singing?

I'd compare the Space Wolf sagas to epics like Beowulf or the Iliad, where Custodes might do something more like Shakespeare's sonnets.

Voss wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I personally equate Wulfen battle Sagas to Klingon Poetry. A lot more of the Slam and a lot less of the Poetry part. Anyone want to try and re-enact a Wulfen singing?

Why wulfen, particularly?
And Klingons having a deep and complex culture has been run into the ground at this point, so I'm not even sure why you'd use that as a comparison.

It’s almost certainly closer to Anglo-Saxon chronicling - an oral recitation of one’s deeds which, in time, evolved into Bards, the newsmen of their day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfaEGU45lKA

Aelyn wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I personally equate Wulfen battle Sagas to Klingon Poetry. A lot more of the Slam and a lot less of the Poetry part. Anyone want to try and re-enact a Wulfen singing?

I'd compare the Space Wolf sagas to epics like Beowulf or the Iliad, where Custodes might do something more like Shakespeare's sonnets.

I'm trying to picture Custodes writing cheesy and vulgar little snippets about getting into a woman's underthings.
Its amusing, but difficult.

 Overread wrote:
I'd wager most people consider them some form of marines - I mean they wear the same kind of armour; have the same unit breakdown; have the exact same transports (it's just painted in goooooold) etc...

Casual glances would class them as marines even if lore wise they are very different. Much like many would visually count Sisters of Battle as the "female marines" even though, again, in lore they are very different.




Ps remember GW is a UK firm so chances are another reason they don't count as true space-marines is because Custodes are more Dutch (I mean who but a Dutchman would coat everything in gooooooold)

Shmoke and a pancake?
No?
Flapjack and a Cigarette?
No?
Cigar and a waffle?
No?
Then there is no pleasing you.

Custodes share two vehicles with space marines (Both shoehorned to custodes that are rarely used) with a couple special rules, and one weapon (Hurricane bolters in jetbikes, because the rest are the leman russ weapons and the contemptor weapons)

Their weapons are different. Their rules are different. Their statlines are different. They are dudes in power armor, but they are more different from space marines than even sisters of battle (specially before 2wound marines) or chaos space marines, both in fluff and in the table.

Normal Custodes play more like a bullgryn heavy catachan army than any kind of SM list (A core of extremely strong infantry supported by high powered artillery with vehicles)

-Guardsman- wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Casual glances would class them as marines even if lore wise they are very different. Much like many would visually count Sisters of Battle as the "female marines" even though, again, in lore they are very different.

Sisters aren't bio-engineered, though. That's really what makes a Space Marine, and why I'm still not convinced the Custodes are all that different. Not the power armor and boltguns, but the bio-engineering.

And now this is turning into a fluff/background discussion...

The difference between a marine and a custode is more like the difference between an AK-47 and an M16. A space marine has a more rugged construction but more or less the end product is the same except the custode is a little more a precision instrument. Realistically there is no reason why a custode would be much better than the difference between an m16 and an ak-47 but in the 40k universe a custode is a lot better than a space marine.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I personally equate Wulfen battle Sagas to Klingon Poetry. A lot more of the Slam and a lot less of the Poetry part. Anyone want to try and re-enact a Wulfen singing?

How about Space Wolf Haiku?

My axe stands ready
This day I shall feast with wolves
That bone tasted bad

Brief explanation of the difference: The Custodes were the Emperor's first super-soldier project; they're big and scary, but also incredibly resource-intensive to produce. The process is purely gene-editing rather than the bio-augmentation/cybernetic hybrid of the Space Marines, has to be individually tailored to the subject, and takes much longer.

One of the Emperor's challenges working through his unification of humanity was figuring out how to mass-produce super-soldiers like the Custodians since there was no way he'd be able to make enough Custodians to manage the Great Crusade or defend a galaxy-spanning Imperium. The first version were called the Thunder Warriors; they were unstable, difficult to control, and ended up getting purged as one of the first tasks of the fledgeling Astartes Legions. The Astartes and the Primarch Project appeared successful initially, but proved too vulnerable to the manipulations of Chaos. The Grey Knights and the Primaris are both further refinements of the process that attempt to plug holes in the initial process through more stable/tightly-controlled gene-seed, and in the case of the GK personality wiping.

One other major difference stressed by the Heresy works is that the Custodians are individual warriors trained and optimized for lone action, while the Astartes are built and trained from the ground up as soldiers who coordinate with each other and act together as a unit; you'll note that no version of the game gives the Custodes any kind of protection against morale checks other than high Ld and small squad size.

All thumbs are fingers but not all fingers are thumbs.

All Space Marines are genetically engineered superhumans, but not all genetically engineered superhumans are Space Marines.

Marines are augmented humans created using a repeatable process.

Each custodes is hand made and unique

-Guardsman- wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Casual glances would class them as marines even if lore wise they are very different. Much like many would visually count Sisters of Battle as the "female marines" even though, again, in lore they are very different.

Sisters aren't bio-engineered, though. That's really what makes a Space Marine, and why I'm still not convinced the Custodes are all that different. Not the power armor and boltguns, but the bio-engineering.

And now this is turning into a fluff/background discussion...

Well, GW has told you they aren't the same thing. They've done this in both the rules and the fluff.
Why isn't that enough to satisfy you that they aren't the same thing?

 MinscS2 wrote:
All thumbs are fingers but not all fingers are thumbs.

Except thumbs aren't fingers. Both are digits, but fingers and thumbs are classed separately from one another.

What you MEANT to say is "All fingers are digits, but not all digits are fingers".

 Galas wrote:
Custodes share two vehicles with space marines (Both shoehorned to custodes that are rarely used) with a couple special rules, and one weapon (Hurricane bolters in jetbikes, because the rest are the leman russ weapons and the contemptor weapons)

Their weapons are different. Their rules are different. Their statlines are different. They are dudes in power armor, but they are more different from space marines than even sisters of battle (specially before 2wound marines) or chaos space marines, both in fluff and in the table.

Normal Custodes play more like a bullgryn heavy catachan army than any kind of SM list (A core of extremely strong infantry supported by high powered artillery with vehicles)

I don't normally chime in, but I think my perspective can be useful here.

As a new 40k player, I can say quite confidently that I consider the Custodes to just be "advanced Space Marines." Obviously they have different lore and weapons and such, but from everything I personally know about them, they're just the Super Marines™ with their Super Tanks™ and Super Dreads™ and Super Bolters.™ In fact, they are so Super™ that they are also Super Hard to Make,™ which means they're all somewhere in the region of 4000 points apiece. I assume most other new players think the same way.

Voss wrote:
I'm trying to picture Custodes writing cheesy and vulgar little snippets about getting into a woman's underthings.
Its amusing, but difficult.

Why would Custodes contemplate a concept hypothetical?
T'would be the very model of a sonnet most heretical!

I think Flipsiders has hit the nail on the head here. They are different, sure, but you need to know sufficient lore in order to know that. The less of that lore you've been exposed to? The more they're going to just look like Super-de-Dooper-humans as opposed to just Superdooperhumans.