Kindly Quit Talking About 40K Female Custodes.

Fans of Warhammer 40K are fighting one other in a bloody civil war unlike anything that has occurred since the Horus Heresy. However, it persists. Once more, the hobby’s loud, right-wing voices are complaining that Games Workshop is breaking its own tradition, caving in to the woke crowd, and burning on a pyre of its own design. Yes, indeed, Games Workshop has brought up the subject of women once more.

This specific misogynistic flavor comes with glistening gold packaging. Yes, a narrative about Taurovalia Kesh, a Custodian Calladayce, in the new 10th Edition Adeptus Custodes Codex has everyone salivating. The tale is a double-page spread of delicious information about the Adeptus Custodes, a competition in which participants try to kill the Emperor of Mankind to see how strong Terra’s defenses are. Kesh intends to transfer an Exterminatus bomb that can level entire planets straight into the Emperor’s royal chamber. Cotton, that’s a brave move. Sadly, most readers have ignored the excellent writing in favor of the plot. The narrative shifts away from portraying the Custodes as robotic servants, AI robots, or haughty Servitors dressed in the Emperor’s finery and instead attempts to humanize the characters to some level. Though it’s tense and intense, Kesh’s usage of she/her pronouns is all that’s on people’s minds.


Custodian Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh was standing atop a destroyer of the Cobra class. The warship, called Vigilant Flame, was a part of the formidable Battlefleet Solar. She hovered in the shadows at the back of the bridge, where she could see every crew member in operation, whether they were in the armament shrines, the instrumentation pits, or, in Shipmaster Lethwyck’s case, standing ramrod straight in front of his command throne.

That was enough to get those people angry, but Warhammer intensified his criticism on social media. “In regards to female Custodians, there have always been female Custodians, since the first of the Ten Thousand were created,” wrote Warhammer on the website that was formerly known as Twitter.

If this is to be taken literally, it indicates that there was a mix of genders among the Custodians who came after the first, who was a woman. But I believe Warhammer is implying that some of the initial Ten Thousand included female Custodians. In either case, some people are furious since it’s a major scam. Every time, the same remark is presented, claiming that Custodians are the “sons” of nobility. However, none of these individuals understand why the narrative has been male-centric up to this point.

Six years ago, prolific Warhammer author Aaron Dembski-Bowden brought up the topic in a Reddit post. He was discussing what he could and could not write in the Horus Heresy book with designers at Games Workshop, presumably in preparation for his next novel Master of Mankind, which heavily centers on the Adeptus Custodes.

He clarifies, “Until very recently, there was no Custodian lore at all, therefore there is no lore stating Custodians are X, Y, or Z. I could deal with female Custodians because of this (and the models would look awesome). Anyone claiming that it violates the lore is either lying or incorrect, as we were there during the meetings and emails discussing the creation of the aforementioned lore, and there was nothing in the old lore that supported the claim in a thorough or meaningful sense. There are a few explanations that come to mind. There are several reasons why it wouldn’t. It’s a very small point, though.

While his last statement is important to consider—we’re talking about toy soldiers here, no matter how hard you try to fight for them in society—Dembski-Bowden also clarified in another Reddit reply why his book and the larger Custodes lore haven’t included any women up until this point, given that it is canonically possible.

As there was no reason why that couldn’t be viable lore-wise, some of us had this conversation behind closed doors. The ex-IP boss ultimately had to respond, “No, because the minis are finished and they’re all male.”

There was a renowned moment at Games Workshop when every reference in the lore had to be represented on the tabletop. Anything that didn’t have a matching plastic toy to generate revenue, such weaponry an Inquisitor discovered during their travels or a flying aircraft that was utilized to briefly transfer the main character, couldn’t be included. I fear to think how much this stunted the imagination of the writers, but the Adeptus Custodes Codex confirms that this is officially over.


There won’t be any female Custodian models released by Games Workshop. A female head upgrade sprue does not exist. There aren’t really any new models. The only thing the firm has done is deepen the pool of inspiration and add to the lore, allowing players to take more liberal (pun intended) inspiration from it.

However, in the end, it is irrelevant. Nothing about it does. The fact that Custodes are much more likely to be female than Space Marines is irrelevant. The fact that each Custodian is a custom Stradivarius violin made to order according to precise personal requirements is irrelevant in comparison to the mass-produced production line that produces Space Marine after Space Marine.

Since it’s your army, you’ve always been allowed to convert female Custodians for it. If you are not fond of the retcon, you can still field an all-male force of Custodians (and the model range promotes this). Nothing is different. You can play any way you choose with your toy soldiers. But I doubt lore accuracy is in the forefront of your thoughts if you’re arguing against female Adeptus Mechanicus and not for female Custodians.