Video games Workshop Is Lastly Making Feminine Custodes Fashions

On Friday, Video games Workshop unveiled new fashions for Warhammer 40K, and in doing so, made historical past for the tabletop recreation.

Through the “New Year Preview” livestream, the corporate confirmed off a spread of fashions for the Legio and Adeptus Custodes, a few of which featured female-presenting heads. It’s a marked departure from earlier Custodes fashions, which have all the time given male-presenting heads to the Emperor of Man’s private guard.

Warhammer 40K’s feminine equal to the Custodes has all the time been the Sisters of Silence, first launched in 40K’s Seventh Version again in 2017. However in 2024, Video games Workshop steadily started rolling again a few of these restrictions: that year’s rulebook featured a brief story centered on a lady Custodian named Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh, on the time their solely consultant inside the group. Afterward, the animated collection Tithes debuted a feminine Custodian named Tyrith Shiva Kyrus in its second episode, and each situations spurred reactions from the right-wing a part of the Warhammer neighborhood (and that common sect of customers on-line.)

However the inclusion of feminine Custodes right here reveals they’re not going anyplace. Within the stream, Games Workshop mentions the Defend Captain’s unhelmeted head having “golden leaf woven into her hair,” (emphasis ours) as a way of tamping down any potential debates over whether or not this was a lady or a long-haired man. Additionally they confirmed this isn’t a lore change: first-born sons aren’t the one method to get Custodes, and “noble daughters might even have been taken. And sooner or later, you run out of noble homes – even after you’ve conquered all of Terra, the inexorable conflict machine of the Imperium nonetheless requires a relentless churn of recruits.”

The inclusion of feminine heads right here marks a significant step for the corporate placing its foot down in opposition to its unhealthy religion, right-wing base, and helps the followers who’ve been asking for such an choice. And for these followers, the brand new Legio Custodes fashions—which can be utilized in each Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40K—can be out there later this yr.

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