Editing Adeptus Custodes (section)

==Combat Effectiveness==
[[File:War in the Webway.jpg|350px|thumb|right|Custodians getting shit done during the 5 years spanning War in the Webway, giving the [[Death Guard]] and [[Iron Warriors]] resilience envy.]]
How effective Custodes are, especially in relation to Space Marines has varied. Generally their depictions have come in 3 flavours as weaker than Astartes, superior warriors but worse soldiers or flat-out superior to the Astartes, mostly because for the longest time the writers couldn't get their shit together on what to go with. As a rule of thumb however, Custodes have been established as the far superior to a Space Marine.

When they're portrayed as weaker than Astartes you get events where a Harlequin troupe (mainly the Shadowseer and Death Jester) were able to slay dozens deep in the Imperial Palace itself in a fight. Not to say that ''anything'' in that fucking [[fail|Horus Heresy wannabe series]] was grade-A material; [[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-|Prime-Orks]] come to mind. [[TTS|The War of the Beast was weird.]] Returning to the point however, you'll also see a World Eater was able to kill a Custodes by punching through his armour while being unarmed and unarmored (considering an Astartes cannot punch through power armour this is Goto levels of stupidity). It should be noted that the Custodes was a cripple in that fight, but a bare hand through Auramite? Come on now. [[Brother-Captain|Captain]] [[Nathaniel Garro]] was also able to defeat a Custodes during a training duel though unlike other examples the Custodes was portrayed as been extremely skilled; Garro outwitted him and won by playing to his overconfidence (Garro being awesome helped).

Many of the novels in the heresy, especially those from a space marine PoV, see the Custodes as individually superlative warriors but without the cohesion or unity of Astartes, being "tigers" to the Astartes "wolves". Essentially the Custodes are portrayed as having a different skill set and role than the marines as they were better warriors individually but did not work together as soldiers like the Astartes. Some events indicate this is an incorrect assumption from the Astartes, as Custodians fight as an organized force in the webway and on Prospero and a Custodes called Aquillon also fought in perfect lockstep with Argel-Tal showing they are capable of fighting alongside others. The marines making this assumption is understandable as they were seeing very small groups of Custodes rather than the hundreds deployed on Prospero and the thousands fighting in the webway.

In most of the fluff though, especially the more recent-ish output (now that the authors seem to have arrived at a rough concensus on the matter) they're portrayed as being among, if not THE most powerful group of warriors in the setting. And though your mileage may vary from user to user, /tg/ as a whole seems to largely be of or near this assessment as well, it having coalesced over the decades of lore and making us all feel old. During the invasion of Prospero, the Custodes were capable of taking on multiple marines and come out on top, a squad of 10 led by Valdor taking on a thousand members of the [[Thousand Sons]] legion didn't suffer a single injury and Custodes were shown to be able to fight 4 marines at once and win (while a different novel portrays single TS able to kill multiple Custodes with a flick of the wrist, thanks to their psychic powers). A Custodes has also been shown killing 3 Heresy era Chapter Masters in a second and 3 Custodes killed 7 of the original Gal-Vorbak before been killed themselves.

This is typical GW/BL, with different authors having different interpretations (the 8E SM codex claims a SM is worth an entire IG regiment, while the 8E custodes codex claims a Custodian is worth a mere few thousand men). Overall they seem functionally similar to the ''[[Grey Knights]]'', the militant arm of the [[Ordo Malleus]] branch of the [[Inquisition]], in that both are elite, secret organizations with close ties to the [[Emperor]] and have a skill set as well as resistance to corruption that elevates them beyond Astartes, with the Custodes possessing the edge, though again, the extent can vary from author to author. Generally, the depictions of the prowess of the Custodes and [[Sisters of Silence]] in “Master of Mankind” and “Book 7: Inferno” should be taken as most accurate; Dembski-Bowden was tasked with really defining the Custodes on a detailed level and the HH campaign books (being proper lore guides like Imperial Armour) take precedence over any codex or novel (excusing the aforementioned HH41) and indeed, this seems to have carried through to the more recent fluff set in the current Dark Imperium era.

Funnily enough, their tabletop counterparts in 7th edition showed even better teamwork than any of the Astartes rules, contrary to the typical Custodes style of fighting as individuals. Custodes could team up with one another using their block rule to practically guarantee that whatever attacks did hit would be nullified, and there were no restrictions on it. This rule also allowed them to cheat in challenges, as you'd have beings like Chaos Lords and Ork Warbosses failing to cause even a single wound in a challenge due to the assholes outside of the challenge blocking all of their successful hits on the challenger.

With the introduction of Primaris being better than space marines overall, we got to see one interaction between Shield Captain Valerian & a Primaris Minotaur. Valerian locks blades with the Primaris and detects that a Primaris is definitely stronger than a space marine. The Primaris is able to throat punch Valerian during the scuffle (which is a feat for Space Marines worthy of mead hall song). Due to time constraints Valerian isn't able to extend the duel to learn more about fighting Primaris, and so rams his bolter into the helmet of the Primaris faster than he can react and blows his head off. Valerian's conclusion: ''Not so very different''. Given the timeline it's probable that Valerian was fighting a Primaris fresh from hypnotraining with combat experience limited to mopping up baseline heretics, so the comparison is still in a grey area. Though it is probably safe to say a Primaris is no real match for an able-bodied Custodes barring special cases.

===In the 41st Millennium===
[[File:Regretting_His_Life_Choices.jpg|600px|right|thumb|The face of a Black Legionnaire regretting every single decision he has made in his lifetime.]] 
Occasionally you see questions raised on forums regarding their effectiveness after apparently spending 10,000 years on guard duty, suggesting that despite their biological augmentations; without any actual combat experience they might have simply become a symbolic organization since Terra is so well defended by other means. In fact, the Custodians sat through most of the [[Age of Apostasy]], not participating until the last moment to bring order when the fighting made it to the Imperial Palace. They also were mysteriously absent during [[The Beheading]] when the [[Officio Assassinorum]] started leveling city blocks. Added to the fact that the ''admittedly'' very old pictures of Custodians show them not even bothering to wear their armour any more indicates that they don't have very much to do these days.

That being said with the massive retcons to the Custodes lore it is now apparent they have been secretly fighting for the last 10,000 years. Expanding their mandate to cover anything that might think of attacking the Imperial Palace. Even GW might not know what's going on with them anymore.

For all that, they have grown detached from the greater Imperium, something which they believed was part of their duty (their function is to serve the Emperor rather than the Imperium) but ends up proving to be a problem nonetheless. When Guilliman returned, he ordered the old orders rescinded, and the Adeptus Custodes started to be dispatched to various war zones, including Guilliman's own [[Indomitus Crusade]]. It's shown some Custodes such as Colquan are incredibly angry about the state of the Imperium and seem to be somewhat ashamed they did so little. Doing nothing with “we serve the Emperor not the Imperium” doesn’t fly, even for them, when they see the Emperor’s entire reason for BEING Emperor twisted and broken and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that they could have prevented it...but explicitly and willingly chose not to.

'''Technology and Equipment'''

It seems the 10,000 have not lost any technology, retaining all their units from 30k in 40k. Although the fact they are using Contemptors is weird and implies a lack of resources as the 10,000's own dreadnoughts are superior. Notably when introducing the 30k range to 40k FW did not decide to include the new 40k units in their 30k rules update. This suggests the Dawneagle Jetbikes and Allarus terminators were created after the heresy. This would explain why the Codex describes them as each the best equipment in their class, and why their users are given special titles not awarded to the Aquillion Terminators or Gryfalcon pilot Custodes.