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To try before you buy? No. But as a permanent thing? Yes. If you're going to run Custodians on a long-term basis just get the actual models. They aren't that expensive nor particularly difficult to paint. The aesthetic value of 40k is the entire reason I play and I wouldn't be exactly happy facing proxies like that all the time.

I should add this is my own personal opinion and you are free to do whatever you want with your models. I'm not going to demand that you spend your money just to satisfy me. That's ridiculous.

My viewpoint on this is yes in regards to I am curious about this unit and want to try it out, but not for I don't want to buy new models and I am just going to call these other models I already own the models I want but will not buy if that makes any sense. Proxies are fine when it's used to experiment but I would draw the line at somebody who continually uses it and never buys the actual models

 Jaxler wrote:
So right now, I've got them with the proper weapons and load out, including spears that are from custodians, and swords/shield from the custodians from burning of prospero. I'm going to paint them different from the rest of my army, give them some nice bases on top of all the other dodads and cool bits that paladins should have.

I'm hoping this should do well enough to make them stick out.

That would certainly satisfy me.

 Asmodai wrote:

 Jaxler wrote:
So right now, I've got them with the proper weapons and load out, including spears that are from custodians, and swords/shield from the custodians from burning of prospero. I'm going to paint them different from the rest of my army, give them some nice bases on top of all the other dodads and cool bits that paladins should have.

I'm hoping this should do well enough to make them stick out.

That would certainly satisfy me.

That's fine. Its a conversion not proxy.. Different concept
Long as there gold so they are clearly there unit from thr grey knights. Only grey knights are bare ceramite.
Unless they did it to be less a priority tareft among thr army as a fluffy idea.

If i knew you, no problem, if your someone knew i would be hesitate because custodes are pretty strong.

It would be like someone asking can a proxy this forgeworld model.

Make it clear and WYSWYG

So the 'paladins' with guardian spears get some really fancy looking halberbs, the ones with swords and shields get swords and shields, even if they look like GK swords and shields.

give them a fancy paintjob and some conversion, I'd be okay with it.

Having a predominantly FW army I can appreciate your predicament. Tell him to Foxtrot Oscar?

 Jaxler wrote:
So right now, I've got them with the proper weapons and load out, including spears that are from custodians, and swords/shield from the custodians from burning of prospero. I'm going to paint them different from the rest of my army, give them some nice bases on top of all the other dodads and cool bits that paladins should have.

I'm hoping this should do well enough to make them stick out.

That sounds pretty reasonable.

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
Having a predominantly FW army I can appreciate your predicament. Tell him to Foxtrot Oscar?

What exactly does Forgeworld have to do with this?

Ruin wrote:

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:
Having a predominantly FW army I can appreciate your predicament. Tell him to Foxtrot Oscar?

What exactly does Forgeworld have to do with this?

I can't speak for NMwT in particular, but those of us who buy forgeworld (and pay that larger price tag) seem generally (and not universally) disinclined towards those who would dare to avoid that price tag by converting cheaper models (cheaper relative to FW, anyway).

That would be a general characterization, however: Though I've bought quite a few Tau models from FW, I wouldn't begrudge someone going for a cheaper option, so long as it is distinguishable and mechanically sound (i.e. has the right model profile/size so that it interacts with LoS and Cover mechanics).

It probably would put me off a bit

So, this is my test model. He's painted up in a warplock bronze color like some of the team leaders in my army, and I'm planning on trying this out for the rest of my custodians conversions. I chose to start out on my metal guy so I could easily strip him down if this doesn't look like and acceptable conversion.

Nope, sorry. At a glance it still looks like a GKT with a NFH. Losing the Storm Bolter would go a bit of a way to fixing that but to me GKT have such a distinctive silhouette (including the helmet (okay, that would not really be part of the "silhouette" but I digress...)) that people may still get confused.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for counts-as. Maybe if you posted a picture of him next to one of your normal GKT we can make a more informed opinion.

Ruin wrote:
Nope, sorry. At a glance it still looks like a GKT with a NFH. Losing the Storm Bolter would go a bit of a way to fixing that but to me GKT have such a distinctive silhouette (including the helmet (okay, that would not really be part of the "silhouette" but I digress...)) that people may still get confused.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for counts-as. Maybe if you posted a picture of him next to one of your normal GKT we can make a more informed opinion.

Normal terminator
the guy from above
Also, in general the whole grey knights army has a lot of problems with units not looking different from each other. I'm hoping that the black armor and different weapon would be enough, as frankly he's more distinct than the difference between a normal terminator and a paladin. The goal isn't to make a custodian though, it's to make something that stands out from the normal terminators, so that it's a unit that can easily be recognized as something other than normal terminators if I say "Yeah, these guys are supposed to by my stand ins as custodians"

I have to agree that, atm he just looks like a fancy paladin. For me, if you wanted to use them regularly as Custodes then you would need: the top knot (although I can understand why you wouldn't want to give him this), Custodes shield and, personally, I would go for a much brighter gold/bronze because nothing about that model says "I am a custodian not a paladin".

 mrhappyface wrote:
I have to agree that, atm he just looks like a fancy paladin. For me, if you wanted to use them regularly as Custodes then you would need: the top knot (although I can understand why you wouldn't want to give him this), Custodes shield and, personally, I would go for a much brighter gold/bronze because nothing about that model says "I am a custodian not a paladin".

Only the ones with swords can take a shield, and I do plan on putting a custodian shield on the ones who'll be having custodian swords, or a banner. Ill try and get them to have a top knot though. I'm trying to figure out a way to give them more gold though, and right now I'm considering maybe giving them golden helmets with some silver. I could invert the color scheme too, or do some other things to make them stand out. The top knot wont work though, due to the bit terminator armor that hangs over the back of the head, and the book things you usually having sticking up from the terminator's backs that I'm running on the other models.

Not a fan. Like someone else said, it just looks like a fancy paladin, not a Custodian.

I'm 100% behind people learning and trying new things.

This kind of proxying would probably be a no-no in a tournament, but if you were playing me, I would be 100% behind you doing it. Just please, have all of the documentation that go with your new units.

A decent backstory for why they look like Grey Knights would be cool, too.

For instance, I plan on proxying deathwing knights as Grey Knights / Terminators. I actually don't play any Dark Angels, i just love those models so i bought them specifically to use in place of other terminators. The challenge here is that they come with shields, not storm bolters, and hammers, not swords. I'll do some converting but there will also be some proxying involved. Will some people get upset? Sure. Do I care? Nah.

Absolutely love what you've done with the model, it looks brilliant. But it doesn't look like a Custodian to me. And if I'm judging it on it's Custodian-ness, it's a no from me.

It definitely looks like a Paladin to me (albeit a very good looking one), but it has nothing that, to me, would insinuate it's a Custodes beyond the Custodian Spear.

Perhaps I'm in the minority, but it would depend on how the other Grey Knights are painted. Can you give us one of your normal Grey Knight terminators so we can compare and contrast?

(As long as the Red on the halberd was distinct, honestly, I wouldn't have an issue).

I would be annoyed.

Sorry, that's definitely a fine effort on the paint job (I don't want to detract from that or the conversion), but, if that were being fielded alongside GKs, I'd be confused. Looks more like a character than a different type.

 Unusual Suspect wrote:
Perhaps I'm in the minority, but it would depend on how the other Grey Knights are painted. Can you give us one of your normal Grey Knight terminators so we can compare and contrast?

(As long as the Red on the halberd was distinct, honestly, I wouldn't have an issue).

There is one.

What are the issues people are having? That is a nice mini. Why can't it be used as a Custode? I have no issues with that. I might have missed something though. Is he playing the "custodes" with Grey Knights as well?

Davor wrote:
What are the issues people are having? That is a nice mini. Why can't it be used as a Custode? I have no issues with that. I might have missed something though. Is he playing the "custodes" with Grey Knights as well?

Well unless he is going unbound, running Draigo and Custodes only, then he'll need a GK detachment.

As others have said, it really looks like a GKT or GKPaladin still. I'd suggest the following: If you chopped off the storm bolter from the arm and then modified the torso(removed the Aegis portion of the backplate), it may start looking distinct. You could also try a head swap if the head from a custodes will fit.

It generally seems to me though that you want to use paladins, and just don't like the rules. If that's the case you're not likely going to get anywhere without enough conversion that it doesn't look like a paladin or GKT anymore.

Wow, I didn't even realize he'd posted a "regular" Grey Knight in comparison, and that was with a close-up of the models.

That falls, unfortunately, in the category of difficult to distinguish, so I would be less happy about playing against it (I still would play against it, I'd just be less happy about it).

OP really needs to make the models more visually distinguishable beyond "slightly different halberd", in a way that is noticeable from up to 3 feet away.

Other than that, though, it is a lovely model, and if you weren't playing them with other Grey Knights, I'd be happy to play against them.

I wouldn't mind; there aren't going to be enough Grey Knight Terminators on the field to get really confused, and they aren't going to need to be intermingled with each other to the point anyone's about to get lost.

That said if you wanted to run them in a competitive environment or wanted to achieve more clarity a few suggestions:

You might paint the Custodes-Paladins gold and take the wrist storm bolter off entirely (and greenstuff in the rest of the vambrace, or use it as a mounting point for the shield). If they're a dramatically different colour from the Grey Knights and the colours are broken up differently (without the big chunk of different-colour that is the storm bolter) they should stand out more.

A different spot colour on the shoulder pad/halberd could also help. And I'm not sure if you've got any particular attachment to the helmet and the psychic-circuitry backboard for lore/visual consistency reasons, but if you shaved that off you could put in some tall hats in (the plastic High Elf White Lions are the classic choice, not sure how they'd look on a Terminator body but a bit of minimal greenstuffing will produce a mask inside the helmet instead of a face) to differentiate the silhouette more and drive home the 'these are the Adeptus Custodes' point.

This is a bit further afield, but you could try replacing the shoulder pads entirely with something pointy (akin to the left pads on the Sanguinary Guard)? The rounded pads on 40k-pattern Terminator armour don't offer a lot of variety and do sort of dominate the design, and the actual Custodes models are a very different shape.

(That does raise a tertiary suggestion, what would happen if I put White Lion helmets on Sanguinary Guard and found Guardian Spears in the right scale for them? I know the Custodes are supposed to be taller than normal Marines but somehow I'd always imagined them as skinnier than the Terminator-sized Sigmarines we've gotten. Maybe take a leaf out of the truescalers' book and extend the limbs a bit too.)

you could write "custodies" on a base in white out without a model and I'd play it if you wanted to try the army out.

as said otherwise I would hope to start seeing conversions and actual models working their way in every few weeks even if it is a model at a time

They look really impressive I would gladly face them at the battlefield. They do not really look like custodians however they look good enough for me to ignore it.


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just don't ruin it by using them in a cheesy deahtstar ; )