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The behavior and views of the good old golden boys seem to be a popular subject right now so I'm game.

Unless they've retconned it again, as I recall the custodes more or less let Goge Vandire take over the imperium and start a war that has at least 3 chapter of space marines and the Admech Martian home guard assaulting the imperial palace on terra. (Is that still the background?)

Way to keep the emperor safe, guys.

Then, while they were actively in service to the biggest traitor since horus, the custodes went to the Brides of the emperor, more or less stuck their heads and out the shadows and went "PSSST! Hey, c'mere! Got something to show you." and then took like 5 of them into the presence of the emperor himself. While they were still in the service or an active traitor.

Ok it all worked out fine, They went back, gave vandire a power sword haircut, surrendered, ended the reign of blood and went back to being loyal servants of the emperor (Well, with literally one exception.)

But basically, as I see it, the costodes let the biggest heresy since horus spring up in the imperial palace on terra itself, pretty much right under their noses, right? It created a war that tore the imperium apart, resulted in 3 space marine chapters and the forces of the admech basically besieging terra and the palace itself, and all sorts of really deep gak in general to happen.

I have not read the recent fluff on the custodes (Anyone else feel like calling them, "cuss toads?") but I was wondering if their failure to stop vandire from creating a mess that probably literally had admech titans knocking on the imperial palace's doors lead them to become a lot more pro active in latter millennia, which may be why they were so quick to massacre those space marines in that thread on how they can be stupid jerks too.

I'm not really up on them, don't have any desire to collect them, I know thye have a totally obnoxious save and have seen them in some batreps, so I'm just asking about them going from letting vandire more or less tear the imperium in half right under thir noses to killing whole companies of space marines on very shaky grounds. (Look, even if their chapter went rogue, forces of marines that went over to horus during thye heresy remained loyal and worked to save the imperium in 30k. you know.)

So if anyone knows what the current fluff is and if it addresses this i'm interested.

Goge Vandire's Reign of Blood wasn't heresy, as he didn't deviate from the belief that the Emperor was a god, iirc. He carried on worshipping the Emperor, fighting Chaos cults, etc. If anything, his only sin was becoming so insane that he purged innocents as well.

Furthermore, the Custodes didn't fight for Vandire; they stayed neutral while the Brides of the Emperor / Adepta Sororitas fought off the 3 Chapters and the Titan Legion. The Emperor was not in any real danger, given that neither side wanted to hurt him and indeed both sides venerated him.

A whole bunch of things:

Calling Vandire a traitor in the same vain as Horus is rather unfair. Vandire was selfish, crazy ,and paranoid, but nothing we know about him implies he was actually corrupted by chaos. Just that he was leading the Imperium to ruin.

The Custode's interpretation of what it means to "protect the Emperor" has varied dramatically over the millennia. It has waxed and waned depending on how orthodox or progressive the current Captain-General is. It has varied from both extremes, back and forth, from literally just the Inner Palace, to all of the Palace, to all of Terra, to all of the Sol system to the systems with direct warp paths into Sol. The Reign of Blood was one of the more conservative periods for the Custodes and so were not actively defending anything beyond the Palace walls.

Following Vandire's fall, the Custodes had a much more proactive period, sweeping away threats in a fairly big sphere around Sol, but this period didn't last with the change of Captain-Generals.

Guilliman was able to convince them that the Imperium represented the "body" of the Emperor and that it should be defended as well, but only because their current Captain-General, Valoris, was already one of the most outspoken advocates for a return of wider Custodes influence.

The events with Vandire have nothing to do with their mindset regarding Astartes, which predates Vandire by multiple millennia, and which varies across their faction just as much as their beliefs on what their sphere of influence should be. To a Custodes, an Astartes is just as likely to fall as any other human and see them as just as expendable. But there are other Custodes that believe differently. Like all factions in 40k, it's not one singular belief.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Goge Vandire's Reign of Blood wasn't heresy, as he didn't deviate from the belief that the Emperor was a god, iirc. He carried on worshipping the Emperor, fighting Chaos cults, etc. If anything, his only sin was becoming so insane that he purged innocents as well.

Furthermore, the Custodes didn't fight for Vandire; they stayed neutral while the Brides of the Emperor / Adepta Sororitas fought off the 3 Chapters and the Titan Legion. The Emperor was not in any real danger, given that neither side wanted to hurt him and indeed both sides venerated him.

Yeah, it was more of an internal power struggle than anything else. And tbh, especially for the long-lived Custodes, Imperial politicking and infighting is sort of the norm, so this one got out of hand largely to their apathy towards the larger Imperium. Remember that depending on how conservative the Captain-General is, that could also be part of the reason why they didn't actively do anything until the actual siege was underway. I mean during the War of the Beast, the Custodes did jack all when the Ork Attack Moon was in orbit above Terra, so it's hard to say when they actually do anything in response to external forces except in recent years.

I think it's partly a problem of justifying what they've been doing for the last 10K years when they've only recently become active.

The Custodes stood apart from the Imperium as they had always done until recent times. They did not "let" Vandire do anything - they played no part in the Imperium - they protected the Emperor thats it.

Same as they did not interfere with the Assasins war or the descent of the Imperium into worshipping the Emperor as a undead god.

I get you hate Custodes - but please read the lore.

killing whole companies of space marines on very shaky grounds

A Inquisitor declared them traitor - the Custodes gave them two chances to surrender - they resisted - so they died, killing many loyal servants of the Imperium in the process of their futile rebellion which exposed them as traitors.

Unless you are Space Wulfs with miles thick plot armour there was only two outcomes - they surrender or they die

Ok, a few things:

I do not "hate" the custodes. I don't want to run an army of them or buy them. hey're not my style. That's it. I don't hate them or people who play them. They're just not an army i want. People who like them don't bother me. I may poke fun at the cuss toads because they are such a high and mighty bunch with their pretentious armor, high hats, etc. That's not hate.

Yes I think their armor save is obnoxious. That doesn't make me hate people who run them, it makes me hate that armor save. At least until I plaster them with MW attacks from some C'Tan

As to vandire, I think Alicia Dominica, fresh from seeing the emperor, pronounced him the ultimate heretic before "taking a little off the top". If he wasn't a heretic he sure did more damage to the imperium than 99.99999% of them ever do. Of course he was probably manipulated into what he did by an Istvaanian inquisitor who thought the imperium needed a little shaking up.

But I'm not going to fight over whether or not he's technically a heretic or not. He was bad, very very bad.

In the end the custodes did pull their thumbs out and ended the reign of blood, it sure took 'em long enough...

I'm not hating on anyone, I'm not trolling, I'm asking questions. The behavior of the custodes does seem kind of erratic at times. Also threads about them seem to be popular (I have not read the story about them ofing the marines but reading the thread seemed to quote every line from it at some point so I get the gist of it.) I would like this thread to be a bit less contentious than that one got.

As to the custodes being forced into action in the galaxy at large, Ok maybe that was guillman's idea given how badly stretched imperial forces were and the custodes had probably been quietly building an army for 10,000 years and storing it for a "just in case" scenario. I don't read every bit of the background.

So I was curious, and looking for answers, and I'm getting some. Can we leave out the flamers and meltas tho? No need for that much heat.

So, for someone who's "just asking questions" (colloquially referred to as 'JAQing off' around my part of the world), what's your question in that post?

It looks like you've got most of it; Vandire wasn't a heretic in most people's eyes until the Emperor said he was, and the first person the Emperor told (other than a Custodian Guard, perhaps) was our glorious Saint, Alicia Dominica. Who promptly slew him with no hesitation.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Ok, a few things:

I do not "hate" the custodes. I don't want to run an army of them or buy them. hey're not my style. That's it. I don't hate them or people who play them. They're just not an army i want. People who like them don't bother me. I may poke fun at the cuss toads because they are such a high and mighty bunch with their pretentious armor, high hats, etc. That's not hate.

Yes I think their armor save is obnoxious. That doesn't make me hate people who run them, it makes me hate that armor save. At least until I plaster them with MW attacks from some C'Tan

As to vandire, I think Alicia Dominica, fresh from seeing the emperor, pronounced him the ultimate heretic before "taking a little off the top". If he wasn't a heretic he sure did more damage to the imperium than 99.99999% of them ever do. Of course he was probably manipulated into what he did by an Istvaanian inquisitor who thought the imperium needed a little shaking up.

But I'm not going to fight over whether or not he's technically a heretic or not. He was bad, very very bad.

In the end the custodes did pull their thumbs out and ended the reign of blood, it sure took 'em long enough...

I'm not hating on anyone, I'm not trolling, I'm asking questions. The behavior of the custodes does seem kind of erratic at times. Also threads about them seem to be popular (I have not read the story about them ofing the marines but reading the thread seemed to quote every line from it at some point so I get the gist of it.) I would like this thread to be a bit less contentious than that one got.

As to the custodes being forced into action in the galaxy at large, Ok maybe that was guillman's idea given how badly stretched imperial forces were and the custodes had probably been quietly building an army for 10,000 years and storing it for a "just in case" scenario. I don't read every bit of the background.

So I was curious, and looking for answers, and I'm getting some. Can we leave out the flamers and meltas tho? No need for that much heat.

Part of your question has already been answered, but you should really first read up on some lore about the custodes. Them just sitting on their asses has been retconned some time ago. They have been waging wars in secret for 10milennia, it has just been since gulliman visited the emperor that the custodes acted more publicly.

Now the more interesting question is whether the custodes should have acted as advisers and emissaries to guide the imperium to not descend into such a gak hole. I've made a whole thread about how I believe they are hypocrites in a way, because on the one hand they look down on the current imperium, but on the other they did not guide humanity since the emperor took the golden throne, which they easily could have done.

In my opinion the writers missed a golden opportunity when they wrote the custodes codex. They could have set up their lore in a way that would explain their absence during crucial times like the age of apostasy: so we know that the emperor has to divert a lot of his power to keep the web way gate beneath the golden throne closed...now hear me out, this is how I think they should have written it: the emperor does not manage to keep the web way gate closed all the time, sometimes it opens just a smidge and demons can pour into the palace, which is also why there has to be a contingent of companions at his side at all times. So the custodes have to fight of small demon incursions into the imperial palace itself from time to time. This would have explained their absence during some crucial times in imperial history better.

Also to be logically consistent, every time you call the custodes cuss-toads, you also have to call the astartes ass-tarts...

Edit: grammar

I'd actually have loved the Custodes being used to help keep the Throne shut as what they've been doing. There were better ways of handling why they've been absent IMO.

The whole thing of waging war in secret feels a bit like children arguing. "Your guys don't do anything" and "Nuh-uh they do it SECRETLY" is how their lore feels.

How do they even manage to wage wars in secret anyway? Not once was there a single witness, abandoned corpse or outright defeat?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So, for someone who's "just asking questions" (colloquially referred to as 'JAQing off' around my part of the world), what's your question in that post?

It looks like you've got most of it; Vandire wasn't a heretic in most people's eyes until the Emperor said he was, and the first person the Emperor told (other than a Custodian Guard, perhaps) was our glorious Saint, Alicia Dominica. Who promptly slew him with no hesitation.

Around my part of the word some people would call your post trolling

Some people might call it being a donkey cave.

Some people would call my reaction ignoring you from now on.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
I'd actually have loved the Custodes being used to help keep the Throne shut as what they've been doing. There were better ways of handling why they've been absent IMO.

The whole thing of waging war in secret feels a bit like children arguing. "Your guys don't do anything" and "Nuh-uh they do it SECRETLY" is how their lore feels.

How do they even manage to wage wars in secret anyway? Not once was there a single witness, abandoned corpse or outright defeat?

Well, the emperor's throne is supposedly right next to the ruins of his webway project. Is it possible that the custodes can in some limited way use the ruins of the webway to get where they need to be secretly?

As to no bodies, their armor could have self destruct systems that leave nothing but a crater behind.

Also, possibly the emperor directs them on their crucial missions using his knowledge.

Hell, cawl could build a huge army on supermarines and vehicles and keep it secret for 10,000 yeard, the custodes going on secret missions now and then is a lot easier to believe.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So, for someone who's "just asking questions" (colloquially referred to as 'JAQing off' around my part of the world), what's your question in that post?

It looks like you've got most of it; Vandire wasn't a heretic in most people's eyes until the Emperor said he was, and the first person the Emperor told (other than a Custodian Guard, perhaps) was our glorious Saint, Alicia Dominica. Who promptly slew him with no hesitation.

Around my part of the word some people would call your post trolling

Some people might call it being a donkey cave.

Some people would call my reaction ignoring you from now on.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
I'd actually have loved the Custodes being used to help keep the Throne shut as what they've been doing. There were better ways of handling why they've been absent IMO.

The whole thing of waging war in secret feels a bit like children arguing. "Your guys don't do anything" and "Nuh-uh they do it SECRETLY" is how their lore feels.

How do they even manage to wage wars in secret anyway? Not once was there a single witness, abandoned corpse or outright defeat?

Well, the emperor's throne is supposedly right next to the ruins of his webway project. Is it possible that the custodes can in some limited way use the ruins of the webway to get where they need to be secretly?

As to no bodies, their armor could have self destruct systems that leave nothing but a crater behind.

Also, possibly the emperor directs them on their crucial missions using his knowledge.

Hell, cawl could build a huge army on supermarines and vehicles and keep it secret for 10,000 yeard, the custodes going on secret missions now and then is a lot easier to believe.

The custodes would not be able to use the webway to travel from the throneroom to other worlds because the wards the emperor set up during his webway project were shattered by magnus psychically when he tried to warn the emperor of the horus heresy. This is also the reason why the custodes were abstent during most of the heresy, they were fighting massive demon legions inside the webway to keep them from invading and destroying terra through the throneroom itself. So the emperor keeping said gate closed is arguably even more important than the astronomican.
The custodes having to fight small to mid scale demon invasions within the palace throughout history would make sense in the scenario I proposed, but it would be impossible for them to use it for travel, because demons....lots and lots of demons.

Vandire was ultimately only the final act of events that had been going on for thousands of years, and one which broke the back of the churchs attempts to take over the imperium.

For all the chaos Vandires beheading was a very clean and permanent end to the ecclesiarchys military adventures.

As to how the ecclesiarchy rose to a position of such power to begin with - see the nova terra interregnum in m35.

Tiberias wrote:
Also to be logically consistent, every time you call the custodes cuss-toads, you also have to call the astartes ass-tarts...

Alan Merrett actually banned the use of the word Astartes on its own after learning this was a thing among fans. Apparently it's almost never found in anything BL published from 2011 to 2014.

pm713 wrote:
I'd actually have loved the Custodes being used to help keep the Throne shut as what they've been doing. There were better ways of handling why they've been absent IMO.

The whole thing of waging war in secret feels a bit like children arguing. "Your guys don't do anything" and "Nuh-uh they do it SECRETLY" is how their lore feels.

How do they even manage to wage wars in secret anyway? Not once was there a single witness, abandoned corpse or outright defeat?

Well, the emperor's throne is supposedly right next to the ruins of his webway project. Is it possible that the custodes can in some limited way use the ruins of the webway to get where they need to be secretly?

As to no bodies, their armor could have self destruct systems that leave nothing but a crater behind.

Also, possibly the emperor directs them on their crucial missions using his knowledge.

Hell, cawl could build a huge army on supermarines and vehicles and keep it secret for 10,000 yeard, the custodes going on secret missions now and then is a lot easier to believe.

Just gonna note here, if you want to be taken seriously in a discussion about something, use the proper name, not "cute" pet names like Rowboat Gilryman, Cuss toades etc. it immediatly undermines you as people assume you have an axe to grind

BrianDavion wrote:
Just gonna note here, if you want to be taken seriously in a discussion about something, use the proper name, not "cute" pet names like Rowboat Gilryman, Cuss toades etc. it immediatly undermines you as people assume you have an axe to grind

It's just a minor thing but what personally really grinds my gears apart from when people pronounce it cuss-toads or ass-tarts, is when they refer to a single custodian as "custode" I don't know why this bothers me so much, but just either use custodes for both singular and plural or use custodian...

Tiberias wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Just gonna note here, if you want to be taken seriously in a discussion about something, use the proper name, not "cute" pet names like Rowboat Gilryman, Cuss toades etc. it immediatly undermines you as people assume you have an axe to grind

It's just a minor thing but what personally really grinds my gears apart from when people pronounce it cuss-toads or ass-tarts, is when they refer to a single custodian as "custode" I don't know why this bothers me so much, but just either use custodes for both singular and plural or use custodian...

I have that when people say Eldars. The word Eldar is both plural and singular like sheep. There is one Eldar, there are several Eldar.

pm713 wrote:
Eldars

Space Elfs

 Lord Damocles wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Eldars

Space Elfs

That bothers me much less really. They are basically elves - pointy ears, long lived and seem to be genetically compelled to be arseholes.

pm713 wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Eldars

Space Elfs

That bothers me much less really. They are basically elves - pointy ears, long lived and seem to be genetically compelled to be arseholes.

Thats how they were orginally sold

Tiberias wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Just gonna note here, if you want to be taken seriously in a discussion about something, use the proper name, not "cute" pet names like Rowboat Gilryman, Cuss toades etc. it immediatly undermines you as people assume you have an axe to grind

It's just a minor thing but what personally really grinds my gears apart from when people pronounce it cuss-toads or ass-tarts, is when they refer to a single custodian as "custode" I don't know why this bothers me so much, but just either use custodes for both singular and plural or use custodian...

Well, if people making jokes about 40k and some humorous reffs to some of the names grinds your gears, my general response is a colossal shrug.

I Mean a new 40k player may take a month of more to realize what the ultramarine primarch's official name is, partially as the official one is so hard to figure out how to pronounce people tend to make fun of it just for that reason. I personally call him "Reroll" as that's mostly what he's known for.

Yes doing it constantly or for everything can be tiresome, but if you're going to get mad whenever people do it that's not really anyone else's problem.

Speaking of the custodes, I wonder how they reacted when the night lords were able to slip the severed heads of multiple imperial assassins sent after "Alpharius" into the food storage lockers of the high lords of terra, which one assumes may have been in the imperial palace. I bet some more heads rolled over that.

 Matt Swain wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Just gonna note here, if you want to be taken seriously in a discussion about something, use the proper name, not "cute" pet names like Rowboat Gilryman, Cuss toades etc. it immediatly undermines you as people assume you have an axe to grind

It's just a minor thing but what personally really grinds my gears apart from when people pronounce it cuss-toads or ass-tarts, is when they refer to a single custodian as "custode" I don't know why this bothers me so much, but just either use custodes for both singular and plural or use custodian...

Well, if people making jokes about 40k and some humorous reffs to some of the names grinds your gears, my general response is a colossal shrug.

I Mean a new 40k player may take a month of more to realize what the ultramarine primarch's official name is, partially as the official one is so hard to figure out how to pronounce people tend to make fun of it just for that reason. I personally call him "Reroll" as that's mostly what he's known for.

Yes doing it constantly or for everything can be tiresome, but if you're going to get mad whenever people do it that's not really anyone else's problem.

Speaking of the custodes, I wonder how they reacted when the night lords were able to slip the severed heads of multiple imperial assassins sent after "Alpharius" into the food storage lockers of the high lords of terra, which one assumes may have been in the imperial palace. I bet some more heads rolled over that.

Oh boy, you like building strawmen don't you? I don't berate people nor do I get mad when they mispronounce something, nor have I ever met any 40k player who does, I just don't like it when people do it constantly....that doesn't mean I'll constantly call them out on it. It's the same thing when a non native speaker tries to speak your language and completely botches a pronounciation, it might roll up your toenails because it sounds terrible, but you don't get angry about it, at least you shouldn't. In my gaming group I refer to my own custodes as golden bananaboys more often than not.

Edit: also there is a massive difference if someone has trouble pronouncing something or mispronounces someting constantly to piss you off, which is what would grind my gears.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Eldars

Space Elfs

Space Elves.

Long live Tolkien!

 Matt Swain wrote:

Tiberias wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
Just gonna note here, if you want to be taken seriously in a discussion about something, use the proper name, not "cute" pet names like Rowboat Gilryman, Cuss toades etc. it immediatly undermines you as people assume you have an axe to grind

It's just a minor thing but what personally really grinds my gears apart from when people pronounce it cuss-toads or ass-tarts, is when they refer to a single custodian as "custode" I don't know why this bothers me so much, but just either use custodes for both singular and plural or use custodian...

Well, if people making jokes about 40k and some humorous reffs to some of the names grinds your gears, my general response is a colossal shrug.

I Mean a new 40k player may take a month of more to realize what the ultramarine primarch's official name is, partially as the official one is so hard to figure out how to pronounce people tend to make fun of it just for that reason. I personally call him "Reroll" as that's mostly what he's known for.

Yes doing it constantly or for everything can be tiresome, but if you're going to get mad whenever people do it that's not really anyone else's problem.

Speaking of the custodes, I wonder how they reacted when the night lords were able to slip the severed heads of multiple imperial assassins sent after "Alpharius" into the food storage lockers of the high lords of terra, which one assumes may have been in the imperial palace. I bet some more heads rolled over that.

it doesn't grind my gears, I just tend to dismiss it because 90% of the time their post is just an endless stream of disproven memes.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Speaking of the custodes, I wonder how they reacted when the night lords were able to slip the severed heads of multiple imperial assassins sent after "Alpharius" into the food storage lockers of the high lords of terra, which one assumes may have been in the imperial palace. I bet some more heads rolled over that.

The Imperial Palace covers all of Asia and the Custodes aren't responsible for all of it (they're mostly confined to the Sanctum Imperialis). IIRC the Lucifer Blacks provide security for the High Lords.

beast_gts wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
Speaking of the custodes, I wonder how they reacted when the night lords were able to slip the severed heads of multiple imperial assassins sent after "Alpharius" into the food storage lockers of the high lords of terra, which one assumes may have been in the imperial palace. I bet some more heads rolled over that.

The Imperial Palace covers all of Asia and the Custodes aren't responsible for all of it (they're mostly confined to the Sanctum Imperialis). IIRC the Lucifer Blacks provide security for the High Lords.

Hmm, thank you. I had once thought to ask about the imperial palace and imagined it quite large, but you answered my question before I was curious enough to ask it.

I have been into 40k off and on for a while yet never heard of Lucifer blacks. Time to bing it.

beast_gts wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
Speaking of the custodes, I wonder how they reacted when the night lords were able to slip the severed heads of multiple imperial assassins sent after "Alpharius" into the food storage lockers of the high lords of terra, which one assumes may have been in the imperial palace. I bet some more heads rolled over that.

The Imperial Palace covers all of Asia and the Custodes aren't responsible for all of it (they're mostly confined to the Sanctum Imperialis). IIRC the Lucifer Blacks provide security for the High Lords.

To be completely honest, given the Custodes's legion of counter-infiltration systems, training, information networks and intelligence etc, they probably knew outright but deemed it not a threat to the Emperor so ignored it.