Warhammer 40Kfans are engaged in yet another brutal civil war, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Horus Heresy. Except, it keeps happening. The loud, right-wing voices in the hobby are, yet again, arguing thatGames Workshophas broken its own lore, is pandering to the woke mob, and that the hobby is burning on a pyre of its own making. Yep, that’s right, Games Workshop has mentioned women again.
This particular flavour of misogyny comes in shiny, gold packaging. Yes, the new 10th Edition Adeptus Custodes Codex has got everyone frothing at the mouth, thanks to a story about a Custodian Calladayce called Taurovalia Kesh. The story is a double-page spread of juicy lore about the Blood Games, a competition in which members of the Adeptus Custodes attempt to assassinate the Emperor of Mankind in order to test Terra’s defences. Kesh’s plan is to teleport a planet-levelling Exterminatus explosive right into the Emperor’s throne room. It’s a bold move, Cotton.
However, most people have read this and looked past the great writing. It’s a story that humanises the Custodes to some extent, gives nuance to their orders, and moves away from depicting them as robotic servants, AI automata, or pompous Servitors clad in the Emperor’s finery. It’s tense and exciting, but all people can think about is the fact that Kesh uses she/her pronouns.
“Custodian Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh stood upon the bridge of a Cobra-class destroyer. Named Vigilant Flame, the warship belonged to the mighty Battlefleet Solar. She lingered at the shadows at the back of the bridge, positioned at a spot where she could observe the actions of every crew member be they in the instrumentation pits, at the armament shrines or – in the case of Shipmaster Lethwyck – stood ramrod straight before his command throne.”
This was enough to getthose typeslivid, but Warhammer doubled down on it on social media. Warhammerpostedon the website formerly known as Twitter: “In regards to female Custodians, there have always been female Custodians, since the first of the Ten Thousand were created.”
Taken literally, this means that thevery firstCustodian was a woman, and those that followed were a mix of different genders. However, I suspect that Warhammer means that there were female Custodiansamongthe first Ten Thousand. Either way, it’s a big retcon that some people are mad about. The same quote as always is thrown around, which says that Custodians are made from the “sons” of nobles. But none of these people know why the lore, up until this point, has been male-centric.
Prolific Warhammer author Aaron Dembski-Bowden broached the subject ona Reddit post six years ago. Presumably in preparation for his novel Master of Mankind, which focuses on the Adeptus Custodes a lot, he was in talks with designers at Games Workshop about what he could and couldn’t write in his the Horus Heresy book.
“There is no lore saying Custodians are X, Y, or Z, because until very recently, there was no Custodian lore at all,” he explains. “That’s why I’d be fine with female Custodians (and the models would look badass). Anyone saying it breaks the lore is lying and/or wrong, because we were actually in the meetings and sending the emails discussing the invention of said lore, and there was literally nothing in the old lore that weighed comprehensively (or at all) either way. I can think of reasons it would make sense. I can think of reasons it wouldn’t. But it’s a very minor point.”
While his last sentence is worth dwelling on – we’re talking about toy soldiers here, no matter how much you try to wage a culture war on their behalf – Dembski-Bowden also explained,in another Reddit reply, why, seeing as it’s canonically possible, his book and the wider Custodes lore hasn’t include any women before now.
“Some of us had this discussion behind the scenes since, lore-wise, there was no reason why it wouldn’t be possible. It came down to a former IP overlord saying ‘No, because the minis are finished and they’re all male.’”
Games Workshop famously had a long period where everything mentioned in the lore had to have representation on the tabletop. Whether it was the weapons an Inquisitor picked up on their travels or a flying vehicle used to briefly transport the protagonist, if it didn’t have a corresponding plastic toy to make money from, you couldn’t include it. I dread to think how much this hamstrung the writers' creativity, but the Adeptus Custodes Codex proves that this time is truly over.
Games Workshop isn’t releasing any female Custodian models. There’s no upgrade sprue with female heads. In fact, there are no new models at all. All the company has done is add to the lore, expanding on it and making the well of inspiration deeper so that players can draw from it more liberally (pun intended).
But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. None of it does. It doesn’t matter that Custodes can far more easily be women than Space Marines. It doesn’t matter that every single Custodian is a bespoke Stradivarius violin tailored to exact personal specifications compared to the mass-produced factory line creating Space Marine after Space Marine.
You’ve always been able to convert female Custodians for your army, because it’syourarmy. You can still field an all-male force of Custodians (and the model range encourages this) if you don’t like the retcon. Nothing has changed. Play with your toy soldiers however you want. But if you’re arguing against female Custodians and not for female Adeptus Mechanicus, I don’t think lore accuracy is at the forefront of your mind.
