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Right, I mean if we are pitting a named character against any one, they are essentially just a red shirt. So we have to pit named character against named character. Valerian took down a blood thirster, and held back an entire ships worth of black legion with just him and Aleya. Not just Cultists. Like Heretic Astartes.

Named character vs named character is silly though, because fluff is entirely offset by fluff.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Right, I mean if we are pitting a named character against any one, they are essentially just a red shirt. So we have to pit named character against named character. Valerian took down a blood thirster, and held back an entire ships worth of black legion with just him and Aleya. Not just Cultists. Like Heretic Astartes.

Named character vs named character is silly though, because fluff is entirely offset by fluff.

I mean, he mentioned "top tier Custodian duelist", so...though to be fair, Valerian defeated the bloodthirster with the help of grey knights and sisters of silence, not that it isn't impressive though. Weird that Valerian is rarely brought up despite how much of a beast he is.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
Right, I mean if we are pitting a named character against any one, they are essentially just a red shirt. So we have to pit named character against named character. Valerian took down a blood thirster, and held back an entire ships worth of black legion with just him and Aleya. Not just Cultists. Like Heretic Astartes.

Named character vs named character is silly though, because fluff is entirely offset by fluff.

Jesus Christ Fezzik I'm gonna get an aneurysm one of these days. Stop falsely quoting lore. We have had this exact argument before. Valerian did NOT take down a bloodthirster in single combat as you insinuated. He was able to do it with the help of aleya and a full squad of grey knights and still got beat to a pulp.

I'm not very knowledgable in either fluff, but from what I know I immediatly had the image from the fights between Marv (Mickey Rourke) and Kevin (Elijah Wood) in Sin City. Kevin being incredibly fast and messing up the physically superior Marv badly. But when the latter manages to grab him so that can't evade, he gets knocked out immediatly. So my money would be on Lelith, but I would give even a basic Custodes always a chance, since one slip or missstep might be all he needs.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I'm not very knowledgable in either fluff, but from what I know I immediatly had the image from the fights between Marv (Mickey Rourke) and Kevin (Elijah Wood) in Sin City. Kevin being incredibly fast and messing up the physically superior Marv badly. But when the latter manages to grab him so that can't evade, he gets knocked out immediatly. So my money would be on Lelith, but I would give even a basic Custodes always a chance, since one slip or missstep might be all he needs.

From what I've seen, Custodians vary a lot in power, even more so than their Astartes cousins. Like, there was that one time when some random mookstodes got defeated by some Harlequins (originally it wasn't going to be Custodians that those Harlequins fought, however, those things were still printed), and then you got top tiers like Valdor and Valoris.

She has canonically killed daemon princes and hive tyrants in the Commoragh arenas so sure, a generic custodes probably isn't out of the realm of possibility.

Also, in Gathering Storm the Harlequins gak on a fair amount of Custodes in melee combat on Terra, so we know they're not invincible.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Yeah cos Lelith having defeated so many Marines in the arena would not know about the 2 hearts....

Space Marines have been around for 10k years, everybody knows everything about their anatomy, it's strength and weaknesses.

epronovost wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Yeah cos Lelith having defeated so many Marines in the arena would not know about the 2 hearts....

Space Marines have been around for 10k years, everybody knows everything about their anatomy, it's strength and weaknesses.

What you say is true, and maybe means the real serious diversity of space marines is actually a good thing.

Someone who'se spent a thousand years fighting UM successors may have the whole codex astartes thing down, and pretty much know what UM chapters will do.

Now what happens when they run into spacewolves or blood angels?

"What are those marines doing?"

"It sounds like they're...howling, lord."

"What? Howling? We've fought them for centuries and they've never howled. They're completely predictable at this point, they're hopelessly enslaved to an ancient book of dogma! It never says they should howl!"

"Uh, there marines are howling, lord, and, they're smashing thru out defense line!"

"That's impossible, they're totally fanatical about following the same dogma constantly! They can't change...ARGH!"

epronovost wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Yeah cos Lelith having defeated so many Marines in the arena would not know about the 2 hearts....

Space Marines have been around for 10k years, everybody knows everything about their anatomy, it's strength and weaknesses.

I would argue that surprisingly little is known about the Custodes, even by Cawl. And he worked with the Emperor when the Astartes were designed. The Custodes manufacturing process is e pretty strict secret, which is why you don't see Cawl making Primaris Custodes, which again, knowing Cawl, he absolutely would try to do, being a Narcissistic genius playboy philantrobot.

I wouldn't doubt that Lelith has studied what is known about their inner workings (guts) and their armor and weapons. But even those aren't widely known. When Guilliman gives whats his name that Custodes Auramite Powerfist, he mentions how the tech of it's making is lost, not even Cawl can duplicate their craftsmanship of weapons.

Again, none of this matters though. If Lelith meets a standard Custodian guard fresh off the line, yeah, he's toast. If she meets a Custodians of the OLD days who's got more names on his armor than the Imperial Fists have bolters, then she's likely in for a rough fight. Trajaan wouldn't even waste time making trying to learn from her. He'd just end the fight as soon as possible.

Forget custodes, I want to see her take on Sly Marbo!

(And not the fanfic version where after over an hour of intense fighting the two are both sweaty, exhausted, breathing heavily, stop and stare long at each other, then lunge into a furious frenzy of hate sex that leaves both refusing to kill the other as neither can bear to lose such a perfect enemy. I haven't read that one but I just know it exists somewhere! If you have the link to it please don't post it...)

But yeah, a good story revolving around a fight between those two, perhaps several times of the course in a novel, could be interesting with both seeing each other as the perfect enemy that they just need to have, kinda like how thrakka sees yarrick. Maybe lilith kills a custode, and Marbo kills the biggest baddest DE lord on the planet, leading both to seek each other out as worthy opponents, it could work.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:


I wouldn't doubt that Lelith has studied what is known about their inner workings (guts) and their armor and weapons. But even those aren't widely known. When Guilliman gives whats his name that Custodes Auramite Powerfist, he mentions how the tech of it's making is lost, not even Cawl can duplicate their crafts.
Again, none of this matters though. If Lelith meets a standard Custodian guard fresh off the line, yeah, he's toast. If she meets a Custodians of the OLD days who's got more names on his armor than the Imperial Fists have bolters, then she's likely in for a rough fight. Trajaan wouldn't even waste time making trying to learn from her. He'd just end the fight as soon as possible.

So, in short, she’d be toast if she’s ever put against a Custodian veteran, or are you portraying it as a toss up?

You know these "could x beat y" posts are largely hard to answer because in some editions x might wipe the floor with y and in others it could go the other way.

if you do play these one on one battle out on a tabletop do you use stratagems? Give each side some CPs to use for them or just straight up no strats?

 Cognitive wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:


I wouldn't doubt that Lelith has studied what is known about their inner workings (guts) and their armor and weapons. But even those aren't widely known. When Guilliman gives whats his name that Custodes Auramite Powerfist, he mentions how the tech of it's making is lost, not even Cawl can duplicate their crafts.
Again, none of this matters though. If Lelith meets a standard Custodian guard fresh off the line, yeah, he's toast. If she meets a Custodians of the OLD days who's got more names on his armor than the Imperial Fists have bolters, then she's likely in for a rough fight. Trajaan wouldn't even waste time making trying to learn from her. He'd just end the fight as soon as possible.

So, in short, she’d be toast if she’s ever put against a Custodian veteran, or are you portraying it as a toss up?

Lelith has taken more than her share of trophies from some of the best warriors in the galaxy. I think named Custodians (Speaking in the lore sense here where they earn names, not special character meaning) are a breed apart from say, just off the school bus ones. I still don't think it would be close but Trajaan, Valdor, and likely Valerian would likely win. But this is like calling the superbowl during training camp. Impossible to say. I think we are making Lelith out to be something she's not. She's not Angron the Primarch here. She's just a really good knife fighter.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 Cognitive wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:


I wouldn't doubt that Lelith has studied what is known about their inner workings (guts) and their armor and weapons. But even those aren't widely known. When Guilliman gives whats his name that Custodes Auramite Powerfist, he mentions how the tech of it's making is lost, not even Cawl can duplicate their crafts.
Again, none of this matters though. If Lelith meets a standard Custodian guard fresh off the line, yeah, he's toast. If she meets a Custodians of the OLD days who's got more names on his armor than the Imperial Fists have bolters, then she's likely in for a rough fight. Trajaan wouldn't even waste time making trying to learn from her. He'd just end the fight as soon as possible.

So, in short, she’d be toast if she’s ever put against a Custodian veteran, or are you portraying it as a toss up?

Lelith has taken more than her share of trophies from some of the best warriors in the galaxy. I think named Custodians (Speaking in the lore sense here where they earn names, not special character meaning) are a breed apart from say, just off the school bus ones. I still don't think it would be close but Trajaan, Valdor, and likely Valerian would likely win. But this is like calling the superbowl during training camp. Impossible to say. I think we are making Lelith out to be something she's not. She's not Angron the Primarch here. She's just a really good knife fighter.

Nah, I think you’re missing my point here, as far as Valerian (who’s a “named” veteran custodian) and his feats goes, he actually considered himself more of a “scholar” type iirc. The thing is, if he’s indeed the standards of what you classify as “custodians of the OLD days”, then I really fail to see why you say “she’s in for a rough fight” rather than “she’d probably lose”. Valerian is just too damn durable ,has superior gear, and possesses relatively comparable speed. The thing is, Custodians aren’t SMs, and they could vary a lot in power.

I think you haven't read my posts in this thread. I'm on the side of the Custodes here. My point is it's all fluff. In her fluff, she's defeated Custodes before. 3 of them. At the same time I think. Fully armored. Valarian is good, but he's not THAT good. Aside from Trajaan or Valdor, she'd be on top at the end.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think you haven't read my posts in this thread. I'm on the side of the Custodes here. My point is it's all fluff. In her fluff, she's defeated Custodes before. 3 of them. At the same time I think. Fully armored. Valarian is good, but he's not THAT good. Aside from Trajaan or Valdor, she'd be on top at the end.

Where has Lelith Hesperax actually gotten into fights with anybody in the fluff? Other than Yvraine, I'm struggling to find actual fight examples of her, mostly authors tend to put in characters who are TECHNICALLY not lelith, but are still like "THE DEADLIEST SUCCUBUS EVAR" and then they have some space marine stomp their head in using Kewl Spess Mehrine Skillz.

Like the example someone brought up above of "oh ho ho, but she forgot SPESS MEHRINES HAS 2 HERAT!?!?!"

 the_scotsman wrote:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I think you haven't read my posts in this thread. I'm on the side of the Custodes here. My point is it's all fluff. In her fluff, she's defeated Custodes before. 3 of them. At the same time I think. Fully armored. Valarian is good, but he's not THAT good. Aside from Trajaan or Valdor, she'd be on top at the end.

Where has Lelith Hesperax actually gotten into fights with anybody in the fluff? Other than Yvraine, I'm struggling to find actual fight examples of her, mostly authors tend to put in characters who are TECHNICALLY not lelith, but are still like "THE DEADLIEST SUCCUBUS EVAR" and then they have some space marine stomp their head in using Kewl Spess Mehrine Skillz.

Like the example someone brought up above of "oh ho ho, but she forgot SPESS MEHRINES HAS 2 HERAT!?!?!"

To pretend as somewhat a thread starter with a neutral attitude, I’d provide some of her feats for you: She defeated the space marine company champion Cadulon who won several times the feast of blades while only suffering one scar, and she was able to end an archon in 6 minutes after that. Cadulon on the other hand, managed to fight an entire kabal before being abducted and put into the arenas. In more recent story lines, she oneshotted a chaos lord from the alpha legion, and in another arc she was about to bring in Highmarshal Helbrecht after beating him up on the battlefield, however, she was stopped by the legion of the damned because her blades could not lay a hit on their spectral form. In her most recent appearance in the Silent Hunters, she was taking on and stomping some high ranking marine protagonists including a librarian while playing around like carving her sigil on their face and stuff.
So there’s that, oh and she managed to not get tagged when fighting with some eldar champions against shalaxi helbane, whereas Jain Zar still got cut iirc. But..Jain Zar still has more impressive feats, at least to my knowledge.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
My point is it's all fluff. In her fluff, she's defeated Custodes before. 3 of them. At the same time I think.

THAT, my guy, is DRAZHAR aka evil Phoenix lord Arhra.

Thank you for clearing that up. I don't think GW ever spent a large ammount of time on building Custodes Fluff, because it's ingrained? Like, they were designed by the Emperor. They slaughtered the entirety of the Thunder Warriors Legion, which I'm told were some pretty tough dudes. Aside from Valarian and Valdor, it never really goes into how GOOD they really are. I mean Valdor beat up on Primarch who didn't have his armor or weapons, and frankly, was one of the weaker primarchs, and Valdor ambushed him, but still.

It never goes into how strong Trajaan is other than to say he is regarded as "one of the greatest warriors in the imperium". Valerian helps take down a blood thirster with some Sisters and a squad of GK, and held off an entire company of black legion with just him and Aleya and no bolters, just melee. That's basically their recent fluff. There might be a ton of stuff in the 30k books, but I'm not exactly sure.

Lelith on the other hand has LOTS of fluff about how baddassed she is. Sly Marbo doesn't, but his fluff is that no one ever survives to relay any accounts of his awesomeness. Are we counting it as canon that he shouted an Archon fleet into destruction? jk.

Yeah, based off of fluff alone, Lelith has to take it against a standard Custode.

The fluff has nothing to do with the rules tho. I mean i read 40k novels and i see a chaos dreadnought destroyed by an overloading imperial lasrifle, like a phaser set on overload on star trek.

I see a battlecannon shot from a stock leman russ killing 'dozens' of orks.

if someone here has the right codexi, just run a few battles between lelith and a custodes and tell us how they went. maybe assign each one like 3 cp for strats.

This is background, you are literally breaking the rules. we don't apply table top to this. And yes, she'd kill custodes on the table as well.

GW has made it pretty clear that named characters with miniatures in 40k won't ever be perma-killed.

That's why we get those fizzer stories of 2 characters getting into punch ups but stuff gets in the way and they never get a resolution.

Death is only possible for characters with resurrection capability, so Phoenix lords, tyranids, necrons, daemons, marines being rubiconed to avoid dying.

Technically Lelith could be resurrected via cloning like other dark eldar, so she's higher on the list of possible kills than other characters.

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has made it pretty clear that named characters with miniatures in 40k won't ever be perma-killed.

That's why we get those fizzer stories of 2 characters getting into punch ups but stuff gets in the way and they never get a resolution.

Death is only possible for characters with resurrection capability, so Phoenix lords, tyranids, necrons, daemons, marines being rubiconed to avoid dying.

Technically Lelith could be resurrected via cloning like other dark eldar, so she's higher on the list of possible kills than other characters.

She’s now Yvraine’s bodyguard or something, and knowing Vect and how much he hates the ynnari,, I doubt they would get access of DE tech in the perceivable future.
But how does this have anything to do with the topic? The topic is about putting a custodian guard against Hesperax in a duel, fluff wise.

 Cognitive wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has made it pretty clear that named characters with miniatures in 40k won't ever be perma-killed.

That's why we get those fizzer stories of 2 characters getting into punch ups but stuff gets in the way and they never get a resolution.

Death is only possible for characters with resurrection capability, so Phoenix lords, tyranids, necrons, daemons, marines being rubiconed to avoid dying.

Technically Lelith could be resurrected via cloning like other dark eldar, so she's higher on the list of possible kills than other characters.

She’s now Yvraine’s bodyguard or something, and knowing Vect and how much he hates the ynnari,, I doubt they would get access of DE tech in the perceivable future.
But how does this have anything to do with the topic? The topic is about putting a custodian guard against Hesperax in a duel, fluff wise.

I agree it's a sidetrack to the main question but.....not only do we not know that she's not an Agent of Vect, but Vect doesn't 'control' the Haemoculus Covens. Lelith could make a deal with any one of a number of them, the only issue being that they hate the Ynnari, but they are nonetheless very mercenary.

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has made it pretty clear that named characters with miniatures in 40k won't ever be perma-killed.

That's why we get those fizzer stories of 2 characters getting into punch ups but stuff gets in the way and they never get a resolution.

Death is only possible for characters with resurrection capability, so Phoenix lords, tyranids, necrons, daemons, marines being rubiconed to avoid dying.

Technically Lelith could be resurrected via cloning like other dark eldar, so she's higher on the list of possible kills than other characters.

Yeah, i read a AL novel where

While we're on a "Who could lelith kill' talk, how about lelith vs st. celestine and her guards?

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
GW has made it pretty clear that named characters with miniatures in 40k won't ever be perma-killed.

That's why we get those fizzer stories of 2 characters getting into punch ups but stuff gets in the way and they never get a resolution.

Death is only possible for characters with resurrection capability, so Phoenix lords, tyranids, necrons, daemons, marines being rubiconed to avoid dying.

Technically Lelith could be resurrected via cloning like other dark eldar, so she's higher on the list of possible kills than other characters.

Yeah, i read a AL novel where

Spoiler:

Saint celestine got killed by Kharne, but she's basically Taarna from heavy metal. She mourned the loss of her 'host' or 'incarnation" as she died, but apparently when celestine buys it i guess her and her gemini guards do a jedi style fade out. Later there's some pure faithful brave and of course beautiful woman in the imperium and a golden glowing rift in the warp opens, out fly the gemini guards holding celestine's armor and weapons, and a new Saint Celestine is born, like Taarna pretty much.

While we're on a "Who could lelith kill' talk, how about lelith vs st. celestine and her guards?

The thing is, could Lelith's super sharp but NORMAL blades even hurt Celestine? Last time when she beat up Helbrecht and was about to bring him back to Commorragh, the Legion of the Damned happened, and it was pretty clear her blades could not harm them.

As for named characters with models on the table not dying, I refer you to Try again Bragg, Color Sgt. Kell, and Aun'va. Who still has rules and can be purchased.

 Cognitive wrote:

The thing is, could Lelith's super sharp but NORMAL blades even hurt Celestine? Last time when she beat up Helbrecht and was about to bring him back to Commorragh, the Legion of the Damned happened, and it was pretty clear her blades could not harm them.

Lelith has access to an extensive armory. She's the leader of the most powerful wytch cult and is the greatest duelist of Commorragh. Hell, she even has a museum filled with the trophies and weapons of her most interesting kills (in that she is a bit of a Trazyn). She chooses to fight with simple knives because of the challenge, but she could easily get herself a powerful archite glaive with some magical property without much trouble if needs be. Once upon a time, she had an agoniser.

epronovost wrote:

 Cognitive wrote:

The thing is, could Lelith's super sharp but NORMAL blades even hurt Celestine? Last time when she beat up Helbrecht and was about to bring him back to Commorragh, the Legion of the Damned happened, and it was pretty clear her blades could not harm them.

Lelith has access to an extensive armory. She's the leader of the most powerful wytch cult and is the greatest duelist of Commorragh. Hell, she even has a museum filled with the trophies and weapons of her most interesting kills (in that she is a bit of a Trazyn). She chooses to fight with simple knives because of the challenge, but she could easily get herself a powerful archite glaive with some magical property without much trouble if needs be. Once upon a time, she had an agoniser.

SSSSSHHHHHHHH!

You'll have trazyn wanting to collect her!

As to celestine, well in one story she was hurt by what i guess would be 'normal', i,.e. not warp powered or psyker, weapons, like in the one i spoilered above. I mean we can assume he would not use psyker shenanigans.

 Matt Swain wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Cognitive wrote:

The thing is, could Lelith's super sharp but NORMAL blades even hurt Celestine? Last time when she beat up Helbrecht and was about to bring him back to Commorragh, the Legion of the Damned happened, and it was pretty clear her blades could not harm them.

Lelith has access to an extensive armory. She's the leader of the most powerful wytch cult and is the greatest duelist of Commorragh. Hell, she even has a museum filled with the trophies and weapons of her most interesting kills (in that she is a bit of a Trazyn). She chooses to fight with simple knives because of the challenge, but she could easily get herself a powerful archite glaive with some magical property without much trouble if needs be. Once upon a time, she had an agoniser.

SSSSSHHHHHHHH!

You'll have trazyn wanting to collect her!

As to celestine, well in one story she was hurt by what i guess would be 'normal', i,.e. not warp powered or psyker, weapons, like in the one i spoilered above. I mean we can assume he would not use psyker shenanigans.

Well, I only remembered the time when she fell at the hands of Kharn and in another arc where she dueled failbaddon. The point is, failbaddon's sword is definitely not "normal", and Kharn is THE champion of Khorne, and iirc his chainaxe had something to do with the dark mechanicus, therefore I wouldn't necessarily call it normal either...besides, Celestine was likely kinda drained when Kharn slew her.
But fine, if we're going off-topic and purely hypothetical, let's roll with what the both of you are suggesting and say that Hesperax has what it takes to harm Celestine, how would their fight go? Lol

Hmm, Ok. Since celest has her guards, bigfoot brings a couple of her best followers to engage them.
During the fight it seems that lilly is winnin and celest in down, when lilly is struck from behind by one of her henchmen who brags will will claim hesperax was killed by celestine, then he killed the monkeigh and become a great champion.

While he's doing his bond villain reveal, the spirits of the fallen gemini infuse Celestine with their power and she strikes down the villain in mid maniacal laugh.

Lilly, wounded badly, summons her skyboard and grabs onto it as celestine steps in the deliver the killing blow, flying off vowing "Another day, Mon keigh!"

Celestine then mourns her fallen gemini and buries their bodies in a pair of deep depressions made in the ground by lelith's feet.