{"id":526370,"date":"2026-01-19T01:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T01:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/526370\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T01:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T01:24:09","slug":"games-workshop-is-finally-making-female-custodes-models","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/526370\/","title":{"rendered":"Games Workshop Is Finally Making Female Custodes Models"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, Games Workshop unveiled new models for\u00a0Warhammer 40K,\u00a0and in doing so, made history for the tabletop game.<\/p>\n

During the \u201cNew Year Preview<\/a>\u201d livestream, the company showed off a range of models for the Legio and Adeptus Custodes, some of which featured female-presenting heads. It\u2019s a marked departure from previous Custodes models, which have always given male-presenting heads to the Emperor of Man\u2019s personal guard.<\/p>\n

Warhammer 40K\u2019s female equivalent to the Custodes has always been the Sisters of Silence, first introduced in 40K\u2019s\u00a0Seventh Edition back in 2017. But in 2024, Games Workshop gradually began rolling back some of those restrictions: that year\u2019s rulebook<\/a> featured a short story centered on a woman Custodian named Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh, at the time their only representative within the organization. Later on, the animated series Tithes\u00a0debuted a female Custodian named Tyrith Shiva Kyrus in its second episode, and both instances spurred reactions from the right-wing part of the Warhammer\u00a0community (and that general sect of users online.)<\/p>\n

\"Image\u00a9 Games Workshop <\/p>\n

But the inclusion of female Custodes here shows they\u2019re not going anywhere. In the stream, Games Workshop<\/a> mentions the Shield Captain\u2019s unhelmeted head having \u201cgolden leaf woven into\u00a0her hair,\u201d (emphasis ours) as a means of tamping down any potential debates over whether this was a woman or a long-haired man. They also confirmed<\/a> this isn\u2019t a lore change: first-born sons aren\u2019t the only way to get Custodes, and \u201cnoble daughters could also have been taken. And at some point, you run out of noble houses \u2013 even after you\u2019ve conquered all of Terra, the inexorable war machine of the Imperium still requires a constant churn of recruits.\u201d<\/p>\n

The inclusion of female heads here marks a significant step<\/a> for the company putting its foot down against its bad faith, right-wing base, and supports the fans who\u2019ve been asking for such an option. And for those fans, the new Legio Custodes models\u2014which can be used in both Horus Heresy<\/a> and Warhammer 40K\u2014will be available later this year.<\/p>\n

\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, Games Workshop unveiled new models for\u00a0Warhammer 40K,\u00a0and in doing so, made history for the tabletop game.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":526371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[232511,158,67,132,68,233736,232510],"class_list":{"0":"post-526370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-games-workshop","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-warhammer","14":"tag-warhammer-40k"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115919157396634642","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=526370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}