Female Custodes.

 

As my last gaming day was cancelled, so I can't bring you a second Tenth edition 40k battle report, I figured I'd talk about the biggest controversy in the GW Hobby at the moment.

FEMALE CUSTODES!

DUNDUNDUNNNNNN....

I'm not going to sit here and spout on about how most of the stuff we love in life is aimed at "Straight White Dudes", because i can't be arsed arguing the ins and outs of historical marketing and economics.

What I am going to say is that I think it's a cool idea, but poorly executed on GWs part.

GW lore gets "retconned" all the time, not an unusual occurrence given that for most of the lifespan of 40k the lore was stuck at One Minute to Midnight, right before the 13th Black Crusade*.

I say this not as a way of saying that they shouldn't change things, it's their universe and we just play in it. I say this because GW actually moved the timeline forward now with each edition since 8th.

They could have had a full story segment building up to Custodes reinforcements and some being super-soldier women.

What did we get?

A two page fiction spread in the (admittedly mediocre) Codex and a TWEET of all things saying:

Now, the two page fiction is great, the Blood Game** she is playing is really well done and her end game move is brilliant, only thwarted by a naval officer who defies orders and informs on her!

I for one would have read an entire novel based on introducing her to the universe. The newest generation of the Emperor's Guardians.

Genetically altered and uplifted to Custodes status due to losses suffered by the Ten Thousand Robute Guilliman took from Terra during his Indomitus Crusade.

Something like that.

Personally, rather then female Custodes, like a lot of people I would have loved to have seen the Sisters of Silence and the Adeptus Psykana expanded upon and given some love.

Or even, and this was a discussion between myself and Chris many moons ago, maybe expand the Sisters of Battle range to give them some more options if you're that desperate for women in power armour***.

Naomi from Sword n Steele has a great video outlining everything here, I agree with her points. I disagree with parts of the community now targeting her as being "anti-woke" simply for stating her opinion.

Things are getting too heated with real world identity politics getting involved with the little plastic soldiers.

The point is that GW were lazy when introducing a new aspect of the Custodes army and it upset a lot of neck beards.

It was so serious it even made the Guardian newspaper!! 

That article is a bit "baity" just giving you a heads up, but what do you expect from mainstream journalism.

I expect a lot more of this sort of thing to come, especially given that Amazon is now tied to the company to make a TV series (you don't want to know my feelings about Rings of Power).

I'm not sure where I was going with this post, just a bit of a rant about the hobby space and what's happening really.

Until next time, have nice day...

*God the Eye of Terror campaign book was SO good at building the atmosphere leading up to the war. Just a shame GW retconned that as well with the shitty Marvel-esque crap then pump out now.

**Blood Games are an interesting thing. A Custode goes outside the Imperial Palace wire and has to attempt to assassinate the Emperor by any means necessary. The Custodes still stationed on Terra defend and then they analyse the data from the "game" afterwards and improve the already formidable defences of the Palace.

***Hell, I'd like to see female Catachan warriors to mix in amongst my Catachan company.