Custodian Guard

When you're most basic line troops are as tough as the Ork's most powerful leaders, than you know that they are going to hurt a lot.

The Custodian Guard are the most baseline troop of the Adeptus Custodes yet despite being troops, these honored Banana Men of the Emprah are still one of his most powerful warriors short of the Primarchs. Whenever a Sunlight gleams from burnished gold, it is a message that the Custodian Guard are striding from the choking fog of war. These warriors make for a fearsome sight, for each is taller and broader by far than a mortal man, a goliath of battle that can snap an assailant’s neck with a single punch. Bullets and shrapnel ricochet from gilded breastplates as the foe tries in vain to land a telling blow, but each of these warriors is armed and armoured with the finest wargear, and they carry the blessing of the Emperor himself. Even baleful magic washes harmlessly from the steely minds of these paragons. With their guardian spears and sentinel blades, they spin, parry and thrust, cutting the enemy down even as the built-in bolters hammer out death from afar. In their mind’s eye they carry judgement, and in their fists they carry death.

As bodyguards of the Emperor, the Custodian Guard are equipped with the iconic Guardian Spears, a Custodes Vexilla, Storm Shields, Power Knives and a Sentinel Blade. They aren't to be directly fucked with.

Time to lube up your anus, my spear is going in dry....

Tabletop Rules

What do we get after years of waiting? Brutal statlines, plain and simple... First off: this guys have WS/BS/T/S 5 (WS6 on sarge). That's right guys, they are as strong and tough as a Warboss and almost as killy as a space marine captain (in fact, barring having a wound less, the custodes sarge is identical with a bike captain, all while having one more base attack and strength).

In 40k

These beasts rock a 2+ save (and can get stormshields if they don't take a spear), 2 wounds (like grey knights paladins) and Eternal Warrior (not like grey knights paladins, suck on it!) all while being cheaper than a paladin squad in ppm. To cap it off, these giant golden bananas have Adamantium Willand get to Deep Strike, and are Fearless to boot, though it's not really a problem as they are bulky and are Ld10. Their base weapons are the classic Guardian Spear (but you can't have a stormshield with it, Asterion Moloc has the copyright for it) with S+1 (so S6... just like certain chapter master) and AP2 at initiative, which also has a built-in boltgun (NOT a bolt caster, though it can be used in both phases in the same turn) and can be used to negate an incoming melee attack once per assault phase. They can swap it for a Sentinel Blade for free, which is S:user, AP3 and come with a built-in Boltcaster, which is a 12" S4 AP5 Assault 2 weapon, that snap fires at BS2. It may seem like a downgrade to the spear, but Custodians also come with a Power Knife (read, common Power Sword, but probably so small that Custodians consider them kitchen utensils) so they would gain +1 attack for having two weapons. Also by not taking the spear they may also have a Storm Shield. And, lastly, they are ALL characters, meaning you can 'look out, sir' for all of them. yikes.

TL:DR I came, I saw, I tore down in melee.

Alternate view: The custodes are very durable but cost on par with a landraider and lack several rules.

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Despite supposedly having the best gear in the imperium, they dont get master crafting (or any natural rerolls of any kind) on their weapons or even GODDAMN GRENADES! Seriously GW.

In 30k / Horus Heresy

Heresy Era Custodians are an entirely different animal to work with.

They are NOT Eternal Warriors, NOT Fearless and NOT Initiative 5 or Leadership 10. They also don't have Storm Shields and don't the ability to mix and match weapon types. This is a significant downgrade.

Instead, their Armour comes with a 5+ invulnerable save built in to it and also gives them Move Through Cover, their initiative jumps up by +1 whenever their Weapon Skill equals or beats their opponents and their squad coherency is increased to 3" rather than the usual 2. Oh, and they have grenades.

Their Guardian Spears are only S+1 AP2 on the turn they charge, reverting to power swords in following phases (similar to the phoenix spear). But on the plus side they come with straight out 18" Assault type bolters, so there is no ambiguity over whether you can shoot and fight, but the spear cannot parry blows. Instead you add additional attacks whenever a to-hit of 6 is rolled. But those extra attacks cannot confer additional attacks.

If you take the Sentinel Blade option, it is a Specialist Weapon, so cannot be paired with their additional close combat weapon, but it does get the Rending rule to make up. The shield they get us called a Praesidium Shield which only grants a 4+ invulnerable save, but appears to be rerollable in melee. But also counts as defensive grenades if the user is in base contact with another model with a praesidium shield.