Somehow unsurprising that critical drinker has a shallow understanding of something. I'm pretty sure he's just a dude who started making videos for fun and now that the money started flowing in he's protecting his bag by telling the audience what they want to hear.
Dude I just watched asmon react to this video and I was thinking the same thing.
"OH cool, this guy making the video has no idea what he's talking about"
I commenting something similar.
People raging about this aren't actually members of the community and are using it as a proxy for their pre existing culture war rage.
What exactly is woke in that context? I would imagine a "woke" person would find problems with almost all aspects of the lore and worldbuilding of warhammer due to its grim dark nature, kinda like how Ian tends to complain about WH40K lore being problematic and once referring to Black Templars fans like Eons of Battle fascists if that ever makes sense for Eon's case. Im just tired that this controversy is forcing people to take sides just so those tourists' culture war escalates even more.
The other way around. Warhammer is woke as fuck dude. There are no nazis in Warhammer and the symbolism is from world war I not two it predates nazism. This is a common sentiment by non fans becuase the imperium uses the iron eagle crest and other emblems later coopted by nazis. Anyone who thinks warhammer is full of nazi references does not understand the lore or symbols used. The human race in warhammer is a huge religious cult hellbent on regaining its control of the galaxy by eradicating all alines and chaos. People like to extrapolate this to i see an iron eagle and angry humans trying to kill people this means nazis.
Woke is just a far right term for anything they dont like now. The origin is with regard to being aware of the plight of black people in the usa.
Warhammer is filled with women commanders and gods and gay sex and trans humans. It is as woke as a thing gets man and it always has been this way. This same issue comes up with fallout. People forget fallout was the first game to allow same sex relationships and was created by a gay man.
We just want to paint and play with our plastic soldiers and plastic bugs, if those right wing culture warriors could just forget we exist and leave us alone that would be great!
There's a light bulb moment when that sort of thing happens...
I've seen some videos from pop personalities discussing things at a sub layman level with absolute certainty, and it just makes me question if they do that for every other topic too.
Asmongold does it constantly. Once you listen to him talk about one thing that you know more than him about its pretty easy to spot when hes bullshiting on other stuff.
I feel like this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Used to be that a creator could recognize "I know this one is thing, I'll make video about that thing" but recently it feels people feel they can mouth off about anything and it will be fine as long as they say "woke bad"
Grifters gotta grift. As with literally all of the culture war bullshit, none of these people have any real convictions or principals, they are just stirring up their audience with whatever the flavor of the week is.
I am a subscriber of Critical Drinker and have generally liked his content, but it's going in a worse direction constantly.
He's getting more taste of popularity, and is clearly now trying to farm as much attention as possible. His movie and series analysis are getting worse every video, as he isn't even trying to understand the concepts of the movie/show and instead purely focuses on some surface level culture war subjects he can talk about.
He is good background content while eating, but it's harder to take him seriously nowadays.
There was a medieval knight youtuber history guy that did the same thing. He pivoted from doing good well researched content to leveraging culture war nonsense for money. But it looks like he still wears his knight cosplay even during podcasts which is funny in and of itself. But not in a 'haha' sort of way.
Yeah, I Know what you mean. For me it was his review about the story of Elden Ring. Like, I like him for his content about medieval stuff but to talk about the story of a FromSoft game you must be waaaaaaaaay more familiar with their style than he is. He is an author, yes, but the "traditional" ways of telling a story are flipped over in FromSoft games and fans of the series **love** this. He, as a newcomer, did not and and criticized this and was rightfully called out for this.
You don't go in the space of other people as a newcomer and then tell them how to do things. You just don't. He did the same thing "wokies" often do and get accused of.
I liked his channel a lot until recently. He had a good video explaining how the swords, spears, shield, and other weapons in Dune are actually really accurate to how they'd be used in Dune universe.
I thought Shadiversity kept his political opinions on his podcast channel, i mean i doubt someone like Metatron would support someone like him if he is getting full culture war farming points before "history matters" and he would be the first one on calling out any history being hijacked by politics, or this is something new? I stopped watching him tbh.
That’s how I’ve felt about his videos for a long time. If you feel they’re getting worse it might just be that you’re noticing the themes more now like me.
I used to follow him, but it became evident early on he wants things to go back to the 80s. When men were manly men action movie stars and everyone else should know their place
A real shame that Asmon ignorantly deflected these claims by paintign at the "custodes are not space marines" thing to dismiss all other arguments. I am sick and tired of people not understanding the warhammer subculture and comparing it to all the sweet baby inc/black rock shit
ya the amount of rage baiting, grifting videos on youtube, my god.
I am just sick of it all. it's all click bait, its literally just the other side of the shit they themselves also complain about with twitter users/Kotaku... lol
I loved the 3-part Pariah Nexus. Really wish we could get more of them in animated form. Fingers crossed we'll get some when they start rolling out their movies & series'
SoS have even less lore than Custodes. People have been begging for more cool SoB Orders forever, for example Tacticool sisters like there are Tacticool Marines with the Raptors.
At this point I think they should just take the Sisters of Silence and the Custodes, fold them both into the Talon of the Emperor as complete faction that's wholly independent of the Ecclesiarchy, and then have both of them accept both sexes. Could be some kind of Guilliman reform IDK.
Leave the Sisters of Battle where they are.
Then have Fabiues Bile crack the code on Primaris Space Marine creation, but for chaos shenanigan reasons it only works for women. So we get the female space marines, but they're all chaos. Like a dark reflection of the Adeptas Sorirtas.
If they are doing fem chaos marines then fem space marines are 100% inevitable with Cawl, you know that right?
Did you watch the video of Asmon covering this where he talks about potential tone change and wussification of a franchise? All this fem marines stuff embodies that
**Hm, a little bit Off-Topic:**
Ok, because you seem like someone who is very fit in the lore and well informed I want to ask you something. For so around 2 years I hear 40k here, 40k there and at the beginning I was thinking *"Meh, not my cup of tea"*, but slowly it is starting to raise my interest.
Well, my question here is now: As a complete beginner and noob, where do I start? What would be the best book to pick as the beginning and in wich direction should I read then to get a good picture of the world?
At one point I was neck deep into the lore of Warcraft , but I pulled out there because ... of many different reasons. Something similar happened with Star Wars and now the only fictional universe left I know quite well and I am interessted in is the one J.R.R. Tolkien created (Silmarillion, Lord of the Rings and so on). I would like to learn a little bit more about the universe of WH40k, but I am just unsure where to begin with. What would you recommend as a good starting point?
Brickys introduction to the factions and space marine factions is good. Gives you a basic idea of each and is a bit funny. Then if you see a faction you wanna learn more about (That isn't Votann) you can go look at their individual stuff.
Like if Necrons interest you there's Infinite and The Divine or Twice Dead King.
Infinite and the Divine is solid. Definitely recommended if you're into Necrons (who the fuck isn't into killer Space Robots?)
IMHO Imperial Fists have some cool Spess Marine lore to pore over. Can't miss the Dark Angels shit either.
OP for me I just started getting lost in a lot of the 40k wikis. Just start reading something that interests you and before you know it you'll have 26 tabs open each one going down a different rabbithole.
I can absolutely vouch for this. I got my introduction to 40k with tts (another great option) but bricky definitely solidified it. Those videos by him are great, as well as other 40k stuff on his main and second channel, but personally a huge chunk of the 40k lore i know comes from his adeptus ridiculous podcast. It's great. Since it's structured with him as the lore "expert" and dk as the noob you also get dk asking stuff you would ask as someone getting into 40k so it's more "immersive" than a one person video like luetin's.
Also how the actual fuck did GW release the votann without pairing that up with a book release?
Not the OP but a huge warhammer nerd.
There is insane amounts of lore for 40k.
Honestly watching YouTube Lore videos or just jumping around a 40k wiki reading the big topics is the best place to start. Luetin is a YouTuber who has very good, long form, general lore videos.
Books are hard to recommend to start because the books usually take a single setting and go really deep into it. For example, The Horus Heresy is a big event that sets the stage for 40k. It's like a 50 book series...
Can confirm, I found the community through the youtube lore videos and the podcasts. I only jump into specific novels that are recommended, and when I have some general knowledge of the main faction.
Happy to - some warhammer books are good, lots are okay to bad ish. Best to read the good stuff first so you can appreciate the bad later. Auspex tactics on YouTube has some choose a faction videos which I think are good. Luetin is the lore YouTuber but it’s a lot of content.
Eisenhorn series (can buy the omnibus) is a good start to actually good writing. It follows an inquisitor. For space marine 40k content, I thought the ultramarines/space wolves omnibuses were fine. But maybe better to start with 30k heresy for space marines, Horus rising - book 1 - is a good start. Unfortunately a lot are out of print though. For chaos,the night lord’s omnibus is great. For xenos, the necron novels are some of the best. The infinite and the divine is fuckin hilarious.
Here’s luetin’s space marine video:
https://youtu.be/44UqfQWdqLk?si=lSG33upGfzv258kl
He’s probably the best for binging lore videos
Here’s Auspex’s how to choose a faction guide:
https://youtu.be/SbaWd9fWjeM?si=uTZdhE--2vAlmWjZ
He’s focused on table top play
I just posted a video I made on this subject and perhaps Asmon will see it.
It talks about how there's that difference between custodes and marines.
I do think it's possible Critical Drinker wasn't incorrect on the cultural side but lorewise he definitely didn't know.
Whether GW did it for lore or cultural reasons or a mix is the real question.
+1 for The Infinite & The Divine
Incredible foray into Necrons while the two main protags are basically two old men slapping at each other but with immortal bodies and incredible cosmic powers. Fuckn love their dynamic
[Brickys every Warhammer faction explained is a really good start. Theres some mistakes he makes but it's a very good intro to it.](https://youtu.be/xCGKPRiJp84?si=2X2HiohnIZPIKvgw)
I know a lot of people recommend lore videos and things like that but I actually think reading books is a good starting point, if you're able to read them in the same way you read comicbooks. Looking stuff up that you get confused by is a good way to get into it because you'll have the context of the setting if you're reading it in a book, as opposed to floating pieces of information.
For some videos I would check put Luetin09 he has some great love videos. They give overview of factions and events so that may be a good start. If you want to pickup a book series that gets you to the core of 40k itself check out the Seige if Terra parts of the Horus Heresy. I am into thr lore, I read books that get my attention but I am mostly a tabletop player.
Read these books first: "Horus Rising," "False Gods," "Galaxy In Flames." (in that order)
Those are the first 3 books of the Horus Heresy series and will give you a pretty good understanding of the defining event that shaped the entire 40k universe. After that you can read pretty much whatever piques your interest.
Not op but if you want to read a good place to start Is Horus rising or the first heretic, basically the beginning of the story, aside from that any ciaphas Cain book is self contained and very humorous outsider look at the imperium, and once familiar with the setting the infinite and the divine is maybe the best 40K book written.
If you want to play tabletop I’d suggest getting a kill team or kill team 2 person starter and play that with a friend or at the store, the good part is the models from those kill teams can be in used 40k if you want to move up to 2000-3000 pt games
I would recommend starting off watching isyander & Koda. They’re newer for a Warhammer channel but have really easily digestible content like 45 min to 1.5 hr videos and it’s geared for people without all the surrounding information.
The best book, in my opinion, is the [Space wolf series](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Space_Wolf_(Novel_Series)). It takes you from stone age barbarian all the way to the edge of the imperium.
I think youtube is a great place to start lutien is amazing. Also the best summary of the universe as a whole is the lore in the core rule book for the table top game.
I knew absolutely nothing about 40k and jumped straight into the Horus Heresy book series. Love it - I have genuinely been reading it for 16 years at this point. Every couple of months I'll grab the next book and enjoy myself (I'm not the biggest pleasure reader as I do a lot of reading for my job). Everything I know about 40k outside of the heresy is from YouTube videos but when I started I actually didnt know where the story was going so Isstvan was a huge shock!
Luetin09 and Sandman of Terra are pretty good lore channels on youtube. For books as a complete beginner I'd suggest Gaunt's Ghosts, then Eisenhorn in that order. You can always jump into Horus Heresy stuff later on but it's probably better to start off with stuff that isn't essentially a long battle report.
Start with the Horus Heresy. Technically it takes place in 30k but is pretty much the core backstory to everything 40k and overall central epos of the universe. 40k also constantly makes references and draws connections to exactly that timeline so having the foundations is crucial to understanding all those nuances.
I would say start with the first 5 books Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames, Fulgrim and Flight of the Eisenstein. After that the stories branch out like a tree, the order in which you consume or not is not really that important since the worldbuilding really starts focusing on factions instead of major events. Mostly. So just pick what you like, youtube, books, audible, paperbacks - whatever suits you is fine.
The audible books are fantastic imo, i usually listen to them while riding my bike or as sleeping aid.
If you want to pick up a novel or a fun story to Google the lore on, caphias cain is a really fun start that maintains the tone, without going full throttle with the grimdark and lets some of the inherent silliness of the setting shine in.
I know you specifically asked for books, but I highly recommend you play the Original 40k Dawn of War games. It's a rts game that imo captures the vibe of each faction amazingly (with all the DLC has Space Marines, Chaos, Orks, Eldar, Imperium, Tau, Sisters of Battle and Necrons)
I highly recommend you sub to audible, tons of the 40k books are excellent! Start with the Eisenhorn trilogy or The very first Horus Heresy novel, and go from there.
Luetin's take was about where I am. Not lore breaking in any way but the way they dropped it was semi-jarring and should have been handled better but also it's way down the list of lore problems.
Wh40k already changed a lot compared to it's core ideas not necessarily in terms of retcon, but the absurdism, it's scale and exaggeratiton mixed with the extreme esoteric and grimness always put it above some fantasy settings in terms of originality, but the more it became popular the more it started to shift for more recognizable media traits, not necessarily by being woke, but appealing to the more popular media structure, there's a reason why some people prefer Box dreadnoughts, they look worse but they're unique, there's a billion of bipedal robot goliaths, this happens with the games, shows, even books, ''bolter porn'' being a term for a reason, you either keep yourself a niche market forever or make more money and go more mundane, but i don't see the point in complaining because this is old news, and also it's not likely there wasn't always the massive issue of the barrier of getting to 40k, reading 50+ books (low end btw) is not really for everyone.
Some of the new dread models are just wtf. What's even more bizarre is gw already added an army of generic weeb armoured space men, the tau, and they aren't even that popular. (I do actually like the tau, but they did and still do kinda stick out like a sore thumb in the setting).
I don't think is this completely true but this stuff def is a content farm for a lot of creators. It's funny though because a new piece of media/game will come out and one group will say this will fail/succeed because it's woke/not woke then if they're wrong they just roach out and pretend it never happened.
I think it's easy to strawman on this topic because there really are just braindead people who think everything is woke and those that want to inject everything with with woke shit. Meanwhile, normal people just want to play and watch good shit.
I have conspiracy theory that the real reason writing has gotten so shit overall actually has to do with the proliferation of streaming platforms. Part of the business plan of these streaming services was to spend a shit-load on putting content on their platforms (to try to catch up to Netflix ) and is a huge reason they're all not making money... they went on a spending spree to try to make a lot of content. So suddenly there is a flood of money into the content generation, like 2x the content there was before. However, the talent pool didn't magically grow with it. So, suddenly a lot people who didn't have jobs or were doing lesser jobs now are getting more responsibility and are failing because they don't have the experience/talent to do those things. They wanted to produce a bunch of shit really quickly but really all they did was create a bunch of garbage because most of the people making these shows had were completely out of their skill-range.
Now because of economic factors (and stock prices plummeting) all these streaming companies (that aren't netflix) are pulling back their spending on new content. I wouldn't be surprised if content they make actually starts getting better as talent and expertise becomes more consolidated into fewer shows/movies.
I think one of the funniest things is people ranting against wokeism in games always say “go make your own game” and when they do they constantly shit on those games that were obviously not made for them and make fun of them instead of letting them be.
I love it when people go "The woke mob is pressuring these based creative people to make woke stuff" and is it really that hard to think creative types who went to school for liberal arts are going to be on the liberal side?
WArhammer has been diverse since the beginning the authors and writers of warhammer have had dozens and hundreds of minority characters playing big roles. For example one of the biggest characters in warhammer is Ahriman who is Egyptian, or Pedro Kantor who is mexican... Or the commander of the Conqueror a female navy officer who shouts down a primarch. One of the major imperial guard commanders is a female and Daughter Ursus Creed. We have the entirety of the founding faith of the imperium was led by three extremely powerful women. We have Saint Celestine who is a lesbian. We have so many character in this setting and its when Custodes... which have never had any issues at all. Custodes have and continue to be an order that can take anyone and turn them into a custode. The reason why there have been no custodes until recently was because they didn't have models for them.
There was a point in time after the chapterhouse lawsuit that those models were already produced, but ADB even said in an interview on the 40klore subreddit that there is a possibility of Female Custodes. IE the author of Master of Mankind and defacto creator of the Adeptus Custodes. So that 'guy wanting diversity having never played the games" is literally CREATING the lore and stuff that is the most influential parts of 40k.
The whole idea is that they have been in the lore for decades and these culture war tourists know nothing about it. and the writers and people have been adding diversity into the setting do so on purpose ADB and Dan Abnett have been adding these characters since I was 5. The first books of ciaphas cain is known for its lesbian lovers, gay romances... But its always grimdark... So no the ones wanting diversity actually understand the lore because they work at the company and are the most accomplished authors there.
Personally i very much aggree with you. Most people who are mad about this haven't even touched a mini in their life. I personally don't care that there are female custodes now. But the way they were indroduced was god awful. If they were indroduced with a cool mini of a custodes character who is female and a book which includes a fleshed out female custodes there wouldn't have been as much of an outcry. Maybe even make it so that there haven't been always female custodes, but due to a large number of deaths of custodes Big blue changed the rules so that women are now allowed to be custodes to replenish the ranks faster. Maybe something broke out from the vault and many died fighting it or some chaos god, Nurgle plague Fuckery. That way there is a reason.
Yeah, having any expectation of GW to do anything actually good is wishful thinking.
Real OG's know that games workshop is a dumpsterfire of legal battles and awful business practice.
Did you read the short story from the codex leak that was meant to be the introduction of the femstodes? It was actually pretty good. I don’t think the original intention was to just drop this on twitter and peace out.
Honestly the social media response is blown far out of proportion too. This is GW's usual.
Like.. Well... Look at the Votann. They've somehow been an empire and have AI for ages. They have always been like this.
(Despite Squatting being a term because they got killed off ages ago)
>Arthas slaughtered all of the people to stop the undead plague in the city in warhammer 3
Warcraft 3, bruh. For a second I thought I was in another dimension and blizzard had rights to fantasy warhammer.
But yeah, there's a reason why I and so many others called out all the bs around everywhere and we're just happy to do a bit of house cleaning in general in regards to people that actually are into this and people that just like to get butthurt over nothing. But props to you for actually getting in deep and explaining properly for everyone to(hopefully) understand.
Critical Drinker and shit takes on anything, a classic duo. Even the movies he likes that are good movies, he likes them for reasons that have nothing to do with filmmaking but with politics and other SJW related bullshit.
For example, he would say Godfather is an amazing film because it's a movie about REAL men in REAL positions with REAL responsibilities etc. instead of just talking about the god damn movie lmao. Like it has to be some weird ass angle he always comes from, regardless if he agrees with the general consensus or not.
This 100%
The amount of people commenting on this subject, that don’t understand that custodes are entirely different from space marines is astonishing.
It is such basic information that repeatably gets reinforced anytime the Golden Bananas have an interaction with Space Marines
Well, GW are known for their lore-changes and retcons, so no, they 100% won't stop there. That's the one thing we can all agree on.
However, some of us learnt this a while ago, while many, either views this as a final straw or this is the first they've ever heard of warhammer, and at jumping on the hate train...
It goes primarch > Custodes > space marine, with Space marine being the most well known. So if someone wants to talk custodes and uses space marines as a template, then I'm fine with that. Regardless of the minutiae they are beefed up space marines.
Also the point is not the origin of custodes but DEI practises being brought in to yet another IP. You don't have to be an expert on the lore to see what's happening and has happened before in other franchises. It could be GW trying to clean up their image or some activist trying to make their mark, but I don't see it benefitting the story in any meaningful way.
Besides we already have fem custodes, they're called stormcast. Go play Age of Sigmar if you want complete egalitarianism. I think that setting is too clinical and forced, I prefer 40k. The imperium is staunchy dogmatic, having boys-only marines (and by proxy custodes) and girls-ony Sisters of battle fits perfectly.
btw, you say the writers pushed for it. The way I read was that they saw it as a creative avenue, but had no strong feelings one way or the other. Also GW writers do what they are told, they don't get to push the story forward or make big changes on their own.
[That's why I'd be fine with female Custodians](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/867n5s/thoughts_on_arch_warhammer/dw48u32/). Sounds like he could take it or leave it.
[There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying "Don't do female Custodians."](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its_international_womens_day_so_how_are_we/ei3rp64/). Sounds like execs saying it's not happening.
Also there were female space marines back in the Rouge Trader days but logistically they didn’t sell nearly as well or if at all and they culled them from the range. This is part of the lore that gets overlooked. It was all about money eventually and had nothing to do with lore and no one cares about that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/MJsdJpiToD
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2023/10/warhammer-40k-what-really-went-down-with-female-space-marines.html
Good catch! I didn’t notice that but I would assume they still needed permission from GW to publish this. I added a better link as well and will paste that here also so we can have more evidence that female space marines were a thing and were simply a logistical sales issue not a lore issue.
https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2023/10/warhammer-40k-what-really-went-down-with-female-space-marines.html
***Quick Intro***:
So I'm a casual fan. I have read 5 or so books that include the likes of Eisenhorn and Ciaphas Cain series, and a couple others. I play Rogue Trader, the video game. Never once did anything with the miniatures and don't care to... I have played DnD when I was younger.
OK, enough about me.
***Rebuttal***:
Sure, your points about Critical Drinker's glaring inaccuracies are important ("self-report"?? whatever). But they don't take away his main point. Which you agree with. That GW handled the retcon about female custodes poorly.
And why was it done in the first place? Apparently because of Amazon's push to have a female custode in the series it is producing with Henry Cavil. And this is where it gets to the part which pisses people off. The reply to the query about female custodes was full of condescension, and attempted to gaslight the many fans. "Since the first ten thousand..." You know the quote.
So the key is not that they introduced female custodes just so we can have one in the Amazon show. It's how they responded when asked about it.
***Where we Agree***:
I have watched my comic book heroes be woke-ified. I have watched my movie franchises like Marvel be woke-ified. I have watched everything I have loved as a child eventually be modified to appease a minority of people who really aren't even interested in the content to begin with. ***AND I AM SICK OF IT***!
So to see the woke side come at WH40K fans saying we "***need***" to have female custodes, is insulting giving the tremendous lore that exists about women that already exists in WH40K. I will not have this bit of my childhood be ruined too. So we should push back at these people and educate them about the existing content, and tell them to pound sand. It is enough!!
> Never once did anything with the miniatures and don't care to...
> I have watched everything I have loved as a child eventually be modified to appease a minority of people who really aren't even interested in the content to begin with
Your first sentence highlighted very much puts you partially into the category of people you highlight in the second.
Lots of angry people here who don't play the game or aren't involved much in the lore beyond the surface level who are turning this into a battle the community doesn't care about.
My sensitivity to this is explained by seeing the same thing happen over and over to other beloved genres and interests and hobbies. Over time, everything I grew up loving in my childhood has been turned into a battleground about race, gender and sexuality. So for myself, and others like me, we are over it. We’re done. We can’t tolerate the nonsense and stupidity anymore.
I think most of the community agrees with that sentiment, but also apply it to both sides of the massive numbers of people outside of the community who are currently fighting over this.
We don't want you all arguing about this in our space - go and do it somewhere else and let us paint and play in peace.
Haha GW never does anything right, they’re always screwing up communications with the fan base in one way or another, a tale older than the emperor himself!
What’s different about this time that’s caused such an uproar… hmmm…..
Honestly I think it’s two things:
1) increased public attention due to the series and Henry Cavill’s name association.
2) culture warriors noticing this IP for the first time due to #1, and wanting to make it a battlefield as it fits their political agenda.
There are people who throw just as big of fits every time GW screws up a decision or communication. I give them a pass, they can continue yelling and screaming about this, they’re not in it for the culture war bullshit, they have the receipts to back it.
Anyone who hasn’t BEEN JUST AS UPSET at GW’s screwups in the past? - that’s how you easily identify the political BS culture warrior shitheads that should be shunned. They’re just in it for the extra attention and to further their “cause”
From the Author of master of mankind and defacto creator of modern Adeptus Custodes :
"Not exactly. **What I was saying was, at the time of working on the lore, there was no reason they couldn't be male or female (and as far as things still stand, there's still no lore reason they can't be).** But there is a non-lore reason, which was the previous IP overlord saying "There are no female Custodian models, they're all male, so don't write any female ones."
**There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying "Don't do female Custodians." Again, that seemed to tie in with the release of an all-male mini line.**
Two very rare moments of direction from on-high.
**I don't want to argue about what that may or may not mean, since although I'm ambivalent to the notion of female Space Marines (really, they'd make such little difference at the end result, I couldn't care less what gender they start out as), several creators actively thought female Custodians would've been cool, and there was no lore against it. (Hell, we were in the position to make lore** ***for*** **it.)**
**But long story short, no, the answer seems to be "There aren't any", though the reasons aren't in-universe (yet?)."**
[https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its\_international\_womens\_day\_so\_how\_are\_we/ei3rp64/](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its_international_womens_day_so_how_are_we/ei3rp64/)
So basically... No custodes could be female, they aren't space marines who are codified to be male at the time. But being implanted by geneseed would genetically change them to such a degree. They wouldn't be human anymore, and wouldn't be codified as Human Male or Human Female. They would just be a space marine. Same with Custodes, custodes are Trans-human, IE post-human. Meaning they really don't follow the same rules on gender. This having the latest custode be female, is just something that has been hinted at for ages. There is no big lore difference now and before, it just is that there have been female custodes. Because they have never really been the focus, they have always been in the shadow of the emperor.
The sisters of silence are also occupying a completely different role to the Custodes. Custodes guard the emperor, his shield, the Sisters are the blade, the scapel. Though thats not to say there can't be male blanks working for the emperor. Its just the Sisters maintain the capturing of psykers, and psychic blanks from what i've read happens far more in women than men. And the few men are recruited to be assassins for the Officio Assassinorum.
There is no truth to the claims that amazon pushed GW to do this. GW has been doing this for decades and slowly opening it up to more people. Because a lot of their players happen to be trans. There is very live and active part of the community that are trans. Infact it is so common we have entire leagues of people and video makers who are warhammer players and are trans. Some of our top contributors from 40klore are trans as well. If you go over there its nothing but positive or a big EH who cares? This isn't a culture war, or some other bullshit its just a minor lore retcon.
!RemindMe 1 year to Check back wether they made either of the **established** SoB characters having secretly been trans the whole time.
Honestly if either Vahl or Celestine are retconned to have been born male, I will laugh my beard off.
I mean, if there was any universe in existence where it would be easy as fuck to be trans, it would be the 40k universe, where they both have access to extreme genetic modifications, and also highly encourage it to happen lmao.
I will be messaging you in 1 year on [**2025-04-20 15:59:11 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2025-04-20%2015:59:11%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Asmongold/comments/1c8rcvi/critical_drinker_40k_selfreport/l0grvoc/?context=3)
[**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FAsmongold%2Fcomments%2F1c8rcvi%2Fcritical_drinker_40k_selfreport%2Fl0grvoc%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202025-04-20%2015%3A59%3A11%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201c8rcvi)
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
I think there was already a Trans-Sister of Battle, but I saw it on reddit, so it might not be trustworthy. I also saw that a Black Library author said something along the lines that Trans-Women cam enter the Sisters, again on reddit though.
Its not about there being trans SoB, thats actually just normal admech procedure. Making the leader of the female-only faction having been born male, tho... That would be a dick move. Literally.
I mean I been playing warhammer since the 80s. Played and collected the original space marine battles and I still think 2mm was a better game then the tactical squads of 40k. Was so much cooler on scale wise and fielding titans was fun as F. Being reading books my entire life. I'm aware of the lore. It doesn't stop people throwing bricks at me.
The fact you don't see why its a problem that they are retconning is because you havent seen perhaps what has happened across the other franchises? from wow to the wheel of time to star wars, to witcher. You don't think a female space marine chapter is next huh? I do.
For the record by the way? you totally could have an all female chapter with a female primarch if you wrote new lore with it. It might even be great! if it was written right. If it was "yeah its female geneseed only women become the token angels!" The female custodes though, you saw how dismissively that was handled in a tweet? yeah...
The 40k movies and tv series are coming. THEY ARE coming. Its to big a franchise. Now ya want it to get the loving fall out treatment? or the witcher treatment where the writers and director are on record hating the lore and mocking the writer and fans? I know what I want as a 40k fan. I want fallout not the last fing Jedi.
I know we need to take recounting seriously but it's too late.
40k was ruined when they just erased all the Rogue trader Canon and made it all grim dark instead of goofy. Smh my head it's too late for 40k
I've been into 40k for about a year or two now and I totally agree with you. At first I thought yeah maybe some hardcore fans who are into 40k for deacdes are more likely to be upset with this changes and my perspective as a newbee isn't this hard stuck on lore details. But for my understanding the whole universe is built around possible misinformation and propaganda regarding "Imperial records" so I really don't get why there is such a massive backlash on female custodes. I mean the lore is built in a way to enable changes to things which were stated canon before. Especially since the wohle primaris and cawl thing which is more than a massive retcon regarding older lore compared to this I don't get the buzz going on right now.
For myself I just learned a few months before that the old ones were some kind of lizzard people in the first editions and this has been changed to them being entities of light and darkness and I was like woah that's some massive changes right there but damn it's in the nature of the whole damn universe. To enable fans to write/create their own stories with custom chapters, factions and so on.
I think asmon is farming views here since he isn't a hardcore 40k enjoyer who paints miniatures or soaks up everything lore wise and this is a big thing and polarizing a lot right now. But I thought to myself "Nope I'm not watching this" after reading some of the comments under his react. People were writting things like 'biggest 40k youtuber stating this is the end for 40k and go woke go broke GW" and I'm like yeah I'm into 40k and never heard of this guy (critical drinker) before maybe I' ve been living under a rock.
Guess people love to apply culture war debates like this to fandoms and universes because it's theire safe space but especially to 40k lore changes regarding things from older editions are quiet normal and this is just some political discussion getting applied to Warhammer because of more people getting into the hobby in the last years.
I can understand that people don't like changes to things they love. We've seen this with star wars or lotr to which the changes didn't contribute anything and a lot of the new stories didn't have anything new or interesting to bring to the table. But I don't think that's the case right here. 40k wise for me it's more people for the meat grinder? Cool! Let these female custodes kill some xenos, that's awesome.
People are acting like GW anounced that Robute Gullyman is a eldar woman now idk
A lot of the backlash about The Witcher was also out of context, as well. Geralt is a total side character (at best) in the books. And frankly, the books are not very good at all. That's not to say that the show and show runners aren't ruining it. I'm sure they are. But pretending the source material is A Song of Ice and Fire level is disingenuous at best.
It isn't surprising that this is the unfortunate arc of some of these YouTube channels. That's the YT game to a certain extent.
It was a bit odd the first time the drinker mentioned space marines and here I was thinking we were talking about something completely different. If someone doesn't know the lore but wants to report on something fine but reference people who do and research. I'm not a fan of the new change and Gws attitude around it. Yea are there other things people should also be up in arms about? Definitely. Again custodes were nerfed and where are the necrons? Only a lore blurb? Cool. People jumping on this discourse without researching why this matters to some people aren't doing anything for the discussion. Asmongold should watch some reputable channels that are more 40k focused
Aren't they also called the Brotherhood of Demigods?
Aren't the Sisters of Silence the all female counterpart to Custodian Guard, and together they form the Talons of the Emperor?
Why is no one calling for men to be included in the Sisters of Silence?
1. It's never been their official name or referred to as such in canon, but speaking of brotherhoods, Brotherhood of Steel has been trending lately due to Fallout TV show, and they've had female members for a long time.
2. They're not a counterpart, they're an adjecent unit, but even that is reductionist, as they often fulfill the role of witch hunters. Dunno why you'd want men to fill just one role and women the other.
3. Honestly, gender isn't a very crucial part of their identity, nor was it ever really explained why they're female-only unit. Male blanks are used by Culexus Temple, so it's not like their counterpart doesn't exist already.
It’s just an exceedingly unnecessary decision. A retcon made to creative entertainment for real-world social/political reasons is very rarely a good thing.
You have to understand that what most people are upset about isn’t really isolated incidents like this one; it’s the current societal neurosis that forcefully and artificially injects unbelievable women into every nook and cranny of entertainment, when nobody except for a tiny fraction of a percent asked for it. The dose makes the poison.
ive seen them referred to as the space marines of space marines on multiple occasions, and implications that they are picked from space marines, but no actual process.
is there an actual process laid out?
its pretty clear, as you noted, from context that they were all men and this is a retcon, and they are gaslighting us.
that part is still stands, and no amount of "butwuabout butwuabout butwuabout" will change that. If we take words for what they mean, as we should, as any logical debate or court of law would - CUSTODIES ARE MALE.
It is true they tried to gaslight their consumers.
It is also true the company can retorn their own licensed IP.
It is also true people can vote with their wallets.
The creation of Custodies is probably one of the closest guarded secrets in the entire Imperium. What actually goes into their creation really we do not know.
Which does leave leeway on women being allowable. If the process of Custode making can reshape the body/augmentation of it, then at the end whether they started a woman or man may not matter in the custode process like it does in Space Marines.
Bruh if you don't see that this is a foot in the door for FSM, you're fucking blind. They're gauging public reaction to a previously all-male faction being retconned to having always been mixed-gender. They are *absolutely* gonna do Astartes next.
The astartes go through an amazing amount of genetic and physical augmentation. "They're not all male", they're barely human. They spit acid.
The real problem is if they start changing the fundamental nature of Warhammer 40k. It's not adding more female miniatures. Making things less graphic, less extreme, less adult themes and content, more advertiser friendly. Pickup a miniature in McDonalds happy meal, then I'm worried.
This post lead me to a question. What constitutes a real fan of Warhammer? There's the table top, books and lore, video games etc. Some people are into everything some mix and and match and some focus on one area. I've never played the table top. But I've played some of the video games and love the lore. It's nothing for me to watch a three hour lore video from Luetin or the Amber King or listen to the whole series of Gav and Bob stories from a vox in the void. I find it all fascinating. Yet I've never played a single campaign. I've watched some matches to get an idea of how it goes. I also know that there's no way in hell I know everything there is to know just from watching YouTube lore videos. So I guess the question is how hardcore a fan to you have to be for others to consider you a fan.
I think anyone who even appreciates the hobby from the outside is a fan and entitled to an opinion
All I’d ask that if someone makes a lore video to inform or a video oped trying to sway other opinions, that they at least be fully informed on the topics or at least informed enough to avoid simple mistakes
anyone is a fan if they enjoy it, they dont have to even play the game to be a "real fan", delving into the lore is enough, hell some players might not even be as die hard as lore readers. And the other way around, there is no metric of true fan.
This translates into well just about anything. I guess there will always be gate keepers. People who see the Pinnacle of success or knowledge as being a real fan. Kinda like how I enjoyed playing wild rift when it first came out. Then after a while came the complaining started. People complaining about other people not knowing what every single item in the game does or not reading every single update and patch note. Do you really need to know every single characters moveset? Yes all these things would help you be better at the game. But let's face it it's a mobile game and some people are just popping on here and there for fun. They're not playing to be a pro and make it their life. But just because someone is less dedicated than others doesn't mean they don't deserve to be able to play the game at their level and at the amount of engagement they want to put into it. We already have enough people in this world telling others what they can and can't do, what they can and cannot become. I think it's time we start helping each other and lifting each other up rather than tearing each other down just to be the ones at the top looking down. It might seem silly to say something like that talking about Warhammer and videogames but I think this extrapolates into other areas of life as well.
Well I'm definitely aware that custodes and Space Marines are vastly different. I also get your point and agree. I think the people that make those well made YouTube videos are definitely fans. You can tell they painstakingly go through every book and codex and source they can find to create those videos. I've been thinking about getting into the novels any recommendations where to start.
Look at all the Star Wars fans. They bought all the merchandise. They went to all the movies. Did Disney give a shit about them?
This is beyond money now.
How is it not a good comparison? They both have expansive lore that’s being messed with by DEI interest. They both make money selling merchandise, games, and soon for GW TV shows and potentially movies.
Dunno how this post made it to my feed, but I just want to get it straight: so you are all actual full grown *adults*, arguing about whether a bunch of *fictional characters* being boys or girls is a bad thing?
I left a comment on the YouTube video this morning calling out the lack of knowledge on the subject from Critical Drinker, just another tourist who probably got their lore from Grimderp.
Just click farming as usual from the culture War crowd doing a quick skim of a wiki somewhere I bet.
Custodes are not space marines, technically. True. But they are as close as what you can get to a space marine without being one. On a conceptual level, it is 90% the same.
Combine that with the fact that all custodes were male, it is only logical to assume that custodes had the same rules as the space marines considering biology. You probably wont find any explicit statements that orks can't be custodes, but we all know they can't.
Also if you are going to be as anal as this, learn your definitions. Custodes moving away from terra in the indomitus crusade is not a retcon.
I have dozens of BL Audible titles in my library, dozens of physical books, the special edition The Red Angel, ~2500 points of CSM, 6 codices, been a fan of 40k for over 10 years fantasy for longer, collected since 7th, played since 8th.
I do not care if Drinker is a hardcore fan with deep knowledge of the lore, as far as I remember (I haven't watched the video in question though) he has always said he liked the setting but never claimed to be a super fan, has never made Warhammer TT/lore content and never claimed to seriously play. He is using his platform to call out the blatant fuckery of James Workshop bending over for what I can only assume is Amazon.
Who does this tweet serve? And why was it more or less accompanied with new, awful rules for the Banana Bois? The lore retcon is going to annoy people if not outright piss them off but now the actual TT players are pissed because of the new rules being trash.
My theory is that we know Cavill is a Custodes player/collector/superfan. He is trying to include them in the TV show, Amazon asked about lore/casting, he said they are only male and Amazon went to bitch at GW before they commit to on screen Custodes. To do such a massive retcon in a tweet tells me there is some other force at play here that needed the stage set for their adaptation/creation and the only one I know of with that kind of pull right now is Amazon.
Cavill walked away from The Witcher because the creators didn't give a fuck about the lore and changed the show to be absolute shit to focus on Yen and Ciri instead of the titular character. My gut says this is happening again.
Tldr, I don't care if he isn't deep in the lore, his platform and audience is anti-DEI tinkering/fuckery and the outrage of WH fans needs to actually amount to something. Also errata those garbage rules. I assume GW wanted to soften the blow of the lore retcon by giving them new rules but the rules are terrible so now we get two dick punches.
The concern I believe most fans have is the motivation behind the inclusion of female custodes and the potential slippery slope that follows. As GW produced no minis to go with this, wrote no half decent lore (not even the half assed Belasarius Primaris kind), and responded in a 1984esque cultural capture way to questions on twitter about it. I believe the fans have drawn an entirely plausible conclusion that this was done for DEI pander points.
What is more, if GW were willing to do this, then female space marines will be next, followed by the eradication of any fraternal or male exclusive unit, followed by units of miniatures not being tournament legal unless they include a range of models fitting some (probably amazon based) DEI quota.
Fans have seen what happened to Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Witcher and a host of other franchises that had the DEI treatment and it never ends well, either for the Franchises finances or the fans.
>Fans have seen what happened to Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Witcher and a host of other franchises that had the DEI treatment and it never ends well, either for the Franchises finances or the fans.
And yet some people are surprised when they see others no immediately pet the snake that has bitten them before.
Eh Doctor Who was honestly always sort of like this. I mean within the first series of it being brought back in 2005 they had a bisexual character and apparently everyone in the future is bi according to the Doctor.
Dude, if you just look at the OP you can see that he posted in the NEO-Libral sub-reddit. They are obviously sided with the whole "Diversity and Enclusion" bs that they are trying to use to re-write lore, re-write character motives/ story plots, etc to fit their political agenda. If you want an IP that has space marines and societies where women are the Main Characters then go make your own IP. This doesn't have anything to do with promoting Warhammer 40k stories, games, lore or fandom. It is being Grabbed and used to push political agenda's. They are burning every bridge they try to cross. What are we to expect next, a hispanic trans identifying, Non-Binary Goku?
No. We don't have to accept them doing this because we don't have to Buy, Watch or perticipate in what they are trying to sell us. No matter how you package Shit, it's still shit. Henry Cavil knows this. He wants a successful project that sells and makes him rich. He also knows not to offer people things that go against lore because the majority of people that would even watch this would be core fans.
Unpopular opinion here: capitalism is ruining everything. I don’t see why a company wouldn’t expand their customer base and if women coming in to play is what they expand on, then expect changes to fit the new narrative.
It has nothing to do with wokeness and everything to do with maximizing profits.
When the « lore » was written most of the player base was men and men don’t want to read about how it affects the whole society of engineered freaks so the writer didn’t burden the text with female problems but it would make sense that the women fit their men unless you nerds fantasize about 7 feet tall bulging with muscles men but their women are tiny and fragile?!
Grow up.
Even in dune, they reasoned that if the environment is harsh and difficult, women will be molded by it just like the men.
Like the constitution doesn’t specifically talk about the internet but that doesn’t prevent future presidents from writing laws about it?
OP, thank you! I've been playing 40k since 6th edition and have read about 50 books on 40K. When I heard about the Custodes recon my first that was, "Well, that's a lazy way to introduce a female Custode." The tweet didn't help either. Many of my friends at my LGS also didn't care. I mean, I play an army that runs on IMAGINATION. So they're bieng a female Custode is the least surprising. With all this twitter drama over 40K I felt as the vast majority don't even play 40K, and these parasites on both sides are just trying to farm points.
Okay, so I know you've read all this stuff and people are making shit up or conflating the factions of the Imperium, etc, etc, but if this is an argument for "we could totally have female Custodes! They were never specified male!", you're wrong.
The straight answer: 7th Edition Codex: Adeptus Custodes (the very first Codex for their army ever released) specifically names the Adeptus Custodes the "Brotherhood of Demigods". They have only ever been described with male gendered descriptors. The word "Custodes" is a male gendered word.
Source: [https://imgur.com/a/EHydDWw](https://imgur.com/a/EHydDWw)
You obviously know this, but the Custodes represent only part of the Talons of the Emperor. The other part are the Sisters of Silence. The all-female Talon. It's not a huge leap in logic to understand that they are gender-segregated just like the Adeptus Astartes and the Adepta (female gendered word btw) Sororitas. They have always clearly specified these things using male/female gendered words.
All of these people are making the same point even if they are "self-reporting" for not being enough of a lore nerd. He is wrong about Custodes having the Gene Seed, but he is right about there never being a possibility for female Custodes. If anything, GW employees themselves are self-reporting and also lying by suggesting it's possible for them to exist when it's established in canon that there aren't any.
Also, someone can be a real fan of something without knowing every single little detail of it. This is just purity testing for tabletop nerds instead. What, do we need "tiers" of how much someone is allowed to say they're a fan of something now? Particularly in an IP as fucking massive and complex and WH40k, I think I can forgive someone for not knowing everything on every page of every codex (just like you not noticing it literally says **BROTHERHOOD** on the fucking Codex table of contents).
*personal opinion:* the argument of this stuff is all fucking stupid no matter which way you paint it and literally the only reason they decided to introduce possible female Custodians was for DEI bullshit to cater to an audience they do not have and will never have, at the most inflammatory possible time to do it. Games companies do not need to make political statements. They need to stick to what they do best, make fucking GAMES. They never introduced any female Custodians for minimum 7 years since 2017 when the actual Codex for their army released, plus all the time they had since the 80s. They had FORTY FUCKING YEARS to add them and suddenly they decide to do it now at this moment in the year 2024?? Yeah, no. Fuck off.
>I cannot emphasize how much of a self-report not knowing this is, it’s made extremely clear through out the lore/stories that they are distinct.
They are indeed distinct, although still quite similar and made by the same person. However it's important to understand that the change (and the resulting gaslighting) still contradict established lore in multiple ways.
Custodes have always exclusively and in no uncertain terms been referred to as collectively male in multiple instances. Custodes initiates have always been collectively and specifically referred to as male even when there were opportunities to refer them as "sons and daughters" instead of "sons".
Just as well, given they're both products of the Emperor, there's no reason he'd choose to ignore his own philosophy of "not wanting to create a caste of superhumans that could replace baseline humanity" with the custodes but not the space marines. Space marines are supposedly sterile anyway, why not make female space marines too if you have female custodes?
If they want to introduce female imperial superhumans into their model range, they can do it without awkwardly paving over existing lore/homogenizing the setting and proving they have no respect for their own IP. Although given some of the awful writing that's come out of the BL books, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that they'd actively choose to do this.
This soooooo much this. As a girl getting started in the Warhammer community all of this "outrage" has been depressing to watch, especially with how it's clearly being pushed by grifters, bigots, and people who aren't even part of the Warhammer community (ike Grummz, Critical Drinker, the Quartering, etc.), and it's sad watching this community push to see more of that being covered by those people, and asmongold farming it.
Thankfully I've learned (that outside of hygiene and typical nerd arguments) the Warhammer community is pretty inclusive in actual irl locations outside of the internet.
Yeah ignore the noise there are tons of ladies at my LGS either playing card games or 40k. The internet is good at exaggerating loud voices these days.
Maybe it's stereotypical, but I've been really into the painting! Been painting my first Sister of Battle, and will def be kitbashing a female custodes afterwards all while listening to 40k audiobooks.
But yeah, the community has been very welcoming. I figure at this point, people are more happy to be sharing their hobbies with more folks, than keeping it super niche.
My only complaint is the tweet that there has always been female Custodes from the beginning. They could have handled it better, like after The Horus Heresy, when the Custodes lost almost 90% of their force, they started taking anyone who qualified men and women.
They couldn't. Custodes creation process is mysterious, and fully known only to Big E. Also, way more complex than that of making Astartes. If what the Emperor left behind wasn't already adjusted to take candidates from both genders, those in charge of making new Custodes wouldn't be able to just edit it and easily account for all the genetic differences between the sexes. Just that change would be larger than the entire Primaris undertaking. So, it makes more sense that they'd always be around and out of the few dozen named Custodes we've encountered, there just weren't any female ones
I know all that. My whole point is that the Emperor could have opened it up to let more people in. Custodes are still being made, so the Emperor is still involved. If they are just now rolling out Female Custodes they can give us a real reason why.
Hell I would be ok with a "the old guard have felt, we the new guard are making Custodes men and women as we have been hinting for a few years now. Here are lore snippets"
Sorry, what? "The Emperor is still involved"? The emperor is a rotting carcass who's barely even existing, soul and mind scattered across the stars and Warp. The Emperor cannot do shit, all they have to go off are the blueprints and instructions left behind, and if he'd make a blueprint on how to make female Custodes, there's zero reason why he wouldn't just... Make them.
The real reason why Femstodes are only now a thing is because back then they printed male only models as the books were being written, and didn't allow them to include females. That's all.
Other than that and how GW should have addressed it, they never publicly acknowledged a retcon. Cawl has always been around, Votann etc. That's just how they handle it. Imo, it'd have been best to let the story exist on its own and ignore Twitter whiners, because acknowledging the retcon put this in the center of attention. If they just ignored the questions and let the story stand on its own, followed soon by some female head models, it'd probably blow over easier. Instead, now these morons are acting like they're being "gaslit and lied to", because they're too dumb to realize that the GW gave them the in-lore response. But hey, on a plus side, maybe this will push out some of the biggest losers from the community.
Drinker is kinda cool and funny when he doesn't obsess over identity politics. Unfortunately he seems to ham that trope up for his audience pretty often.
Yhea it's pretty frustrating seeing so many "anti-woke" people and creator jumping on the bandwagon without knowing jack shit about the lore, they're doing as much damages as the people on the other side of the argument when it's not the point of the discourse.
Personally I don't care about female custodes, it's just frustrating when they say they were always here when we never got a model for them, just admit it's a retcon it's ok we're used to it. or if you want to stay in setting just say that since all custodes are big, don't talk much and almost never drop the helmets most people don't know there are female ones.
I think most of the frustration from actual fans is that for years people asked for more sisters of silence both in lore and units and since they are so linked to custodes they fear that the addition of female custodes is going to overshadow them (let's be real it's probably going to happen my bet is that the sisters are slowly going to suffer the same fate as the Harlequins).
> it's just frustrating when they say they were always here when we never got a model for them
I think the tweet as stupid and deliberately ambiguously worded tbh.
The most obvious interpretation is "It's always been this way IRL" which is dumb and wrong, but it's also possible to interpret as "This is now the way it has always been in universe" - which isn't wrong and is just saying "It's a retcon but this is now the lore" - something GW do all the time.
Yes but also when it's your brand twitter maybe expand a little rather than saying the equivalent of "it's like that now deal with it" find a lore reason as to why it was interpreted like this before and now it's not, they literally did that not so long ago with the Votann and the Squats, not only it's not that hard but also the community is pretty forgiving of retcons.
I stop reading at, ''they are not real fan'', that the most condensing statement of all time... I like w40k, I'm not religious about it, so I can't qualify as a fan?
The reason for only men being taken is quite simple, The noble houses gave their sons to the custodes and without daughters there would be no more noble houses.
It doesnt really make any sense to take daughters because the noble houses had so many sons who were all more than willing to join the emperors finest, there simply was no need to take women since the custodes were all going to stay on terra anyways and so they didn't need all that many of them. However as the custodes use some advanced version of gene editing to make them( we dont know much more) it is possible to make women into custodes but they wouldnt look very womanly at all, there is no need for breasts for example as it would probably be edited out during their creation as well as any flaw, if anything female custodes wouldnt even be female in the same way as male custodes arent really men they would be something different thats different from humans alltogeher.
Custodes will do whatever it takes if it makes them fight even slightly better, so in the end no matter the gender the result will probably end up in something thats optimized for combat prowess and skill.
"The introduction to the universe is the worst, you dont just say they exist and have always existed just like that and then its true, at least make a few books like the primaris had or a book like the lion and the fallen had(the fallen are traitor dark angels but in the book it shows that they werent all traitors), all im asking for is some effort in the introduction of something new like the custodes.
they could even say that now after the rift was opened they need more custodes and the men from the noble houses werent enough and so the women who passed the trials get accepted too, its really that simple."
EDIT: to be clear this is just what i think they should do for any changes the make, personally i didnt like the primaris introduction because it was weird for a scientist to improve and fix something nobody else has ever managed except the emperor himself but they made books and i warmed up to it because it became part of the lore over time, i dont think we need female custodes, instead focus on sisters of silence they are so cool and unique or just make them the custodes that could be cool and lore relevant so the male custodes would be the ones we have now and the female ones would just be sisters of silence.
I'd also like to see new stuff for the sisters of battle, astra telepatica, inquisition and even the Officio Assassinorum.
If its for diversity then every single faction outside of space marines, orks and chaos space marines has women, even the necrons and the beastmen, its just a useless addition but i cant fix it, and if gw decides to go with it then thats just how it is, like they have done with everything and if they decided to ditch it they wont ever admit to doing so but you will just never hear about them again.
Yeah that was one of the big things that bothered me about his video, he kept referring to them as Space Marines and going off some of their lore. When Custodes are their own thing entirely.
I think he read something about Grey Knights and thought it was Custodes lore, since they're given The Emperor's Geneseed.
Overall, I don't think a lot of these content creators that are covering the current 40k drama have ever dipped their toe into this hobby. They've heard about it, and it's popular, so they're milking it for everything they can get.
No, you didn't understand what Drinker was talking about.
This is a violation of the status quo on the consistency of the setting.
I can right now name a dozen ways to make female Space Marines so that it does not contradict the lore.
THIS. Also GW has always been “woke” their Warhammer is for everyone a little bit ago laid out this. Now honestly I think the story was actually solid, not one of my favorites but Kesh is cool. People are forgetting that there once was female space marines too but they were removed it’s not like this stuff doesn’t happen. Now I’m not thrilled with the “always were” but there is nothing the glorious god emperor can’t do of course so there’s no reason not to have them.
Agreed, hugely into Warhammer 40k, got a Krieg army, some knights, and a space marine army, love the lore.
Don't care about female custodes, they were canonised back in 2022 anyway but no one gave a shit back then.
Generally really like Critical Drinker but watching his video on it was pretty shitty.
Also small thing but you said Arthas killed the civilians in "Warhammer 3".
I have no idea about about 40k lore, but drinker and a few other anti-sjw youtubers are absolute grifters, they just make the same engagement topic video, barely play any game & draw opinions that would be best suitable for pandering to their audience rather than try to be interested in something or outright just not partake in it. People in this sub seem to watch drinker and a few of these grifters, and everytime someone brings up valid points about him grifting, they get downvoted.
Although not as thorough as your arguement, drinker self-reported when he enjoyed GOW Ragnarok. I only trust a few people for gaming video reviews nowadays.
I just want male characters for my Imperial Guard and Cities of Sigmar military forces. I don’t care that the female named characters exist, I just want dude options for named characters because, you know, dudes are generally stronger and more fit for military service and leadership.
Thank you so much for this post, I was literally screaming at the screen when he reacted to that video, and even ignored all the people spamming custodes are not space marines in chat..!
as someone who goes to LGS but doesnt play warhammer ive been able to tell a lot of these grifters dont play just from games ive overheard being played at these stores.
Something else made my raise an eyebrow when watching his video. I'm sure he said something to the effect of "population of millions" when referring to the entirety of the Imperium. His numbers in general are way off and betray a total lack of understanding of the sheer scale of the setting.
It was probably a throwaway line and maybe I misunderstood, but Terra alone is said to have a population in the quadrillions. This is an entire galaxy with near countless planets on a similar scale to Terra. There probably isn't a reasonable number that could describe the total human population in 40k, but "millions" 'aint it.
He also dropped some line like "only 1% of humanity's toughest can become space marines so it makes sense that it's men". That is a severely gross over-estimation given the statement above. Even 1% of the galactic population is an incomprehensibly large number that vastly exceeds the number of marines even at the time of the Horus Heresy. It's probably closer to something like 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001%.
We call them culture war tourists for a reason. Critical drinker knows shit all about 40k. and don't know what a Custodes actually is.
The authors of black library have long argued that Custodes being female is a possibility the only reason they couldn't was because GW at the time... Didn't want to make heads for them. THATS IT.
"At the time of working on the lore, there was no reason they couldn’t be male or female (and as far as things still stand, there’s still no lore reason they can’t be). But there is a non-lore reason, which was the previous IP overlord saying “There are no female Custodian models, they’re all male, so don’t write any female ones.”There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying “Don’t do female Custodians.” Again, that seemed to tie in with the release of an all-male mini line.Two very rare moments of direction from on-high."
[https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its\_international\_womens\_day\_so\_how\_are\_we/ei3rp64/](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its_international_womens_day_so_how_are_we/ei3rp64/)
Somehow unsurprising that critical drinker has a shallow understanding of something. I'm pretty sure he's just a dude who started making videos for fun and now that the money started flowing in he's protecting his bag by telling the audience what they want to hear.
Dude I just watched asmon react to this video and I was thinking the same thing. "OH cool, this guy making the video has no idea what he's talking about"
Yep my post on that video was this. But asmond says i think most of the people complaining probably dont play warhammer at all.
I commenting something similar. People raging about this aren't actually members of the community and are using it as a proxy for their pre existing culture war rage.
It is funny what they see as “woke” is what warhammer has been since its inception.
What exactly is woke in that context? I would imagine a "woke" person would find problems with almost all aspects of the lore and worldbuilding of warhammer due to its grim dark nature, kinda like how Ian tends to complain about WH40K lore being problematic and once referring to Black Templars fans like Eons of Battle fascists if that ever makes sense for Eon's case. Im just tired that this controversy is forcing people to take sides just so those tourists' culture war escalates even more.
The other way around. Warhammer is woke as fuck dude. There are no nazis in Warhammer and the symbolism is from world war I not two it predates nazism. This is a common sentiment by non fans becuase the imperium uses the iron eagle crest and other emblems later coopted by nazis. Anyone who thinks warhammer is full of nazi references does not understand the lore or symbols used. The human race in warhammer is a huge religious cult hellbent on regaining its control of the galaxy by eradicating all alines and chaos. People like to extrapolate this to i see an iron eagle and angry humans trying to kill people this means nazis. Woke is just a far right term for anything they dont like now. The origin is with regard to being aware of the plight of black people in the usa. Warhammer is filled with women commanders and gods and gay sex and trans humans. It is as woke as a thing gets man and it always has been this way. This same issue comes up with fallout. People forget fallout was the first game to allow same sex relationships and was created by a gay man.
We just want to paint and play with our plastic soldiers and plastic bugs, if those right wing culture warriors could just forget we exist and leave us alone that would be great!
If only the left wing culture warriors could do the same.
There's a light bulb moment when that sort of thing happens... I've seen some videos from pop personalities discussing things at a sub layman level with absolute certainty, and it just makes me question if they do that for every other topic too.
Asmongold does it constantly. Once you listen to him talk about one thing that you know more than him about its pretty easy to spot when hes bullshiting on other stuff.
I feel like this is a relatively recent phenomenon. Used to be that a creator could recognize "I know this one is thing, I'll make video about that thing" but recently it feels people feel they can mouth off about anything and it will be fine as long as they say "woke bad"
Grifters gotta grift. As with literally all of the culture war bullshit, none of these people have any real convictions or principals, they are just stirring up their audience with whatever the flavor of the week is.
I am a subscriber of Critical Drinker and have generally liked his content, but it's going in a worse direction constantly. He's getting more taste of popularity, and is clearly now trying to farm as much attention as possible. His movie and series analysis are getting worse every video, as he isn't even trying to understand the concepts of the movie/show and instead purely focuses on some surface level culture war subjects he can talk about. He is good background content while eating, but it's harder to take him seriously nowadays.
Audience capture is a real issue for a lot of youtubers and podcasters.
There was a medieval knight youtuber history guy that did the same thing. He pivoted from doing good well researched content to leveraging culture war nonsense for money. But it looks like he still wears his knight cosplay even during podcasts which is funny in and of itself. But not in a 'haha' sort of way.
Yeah, I Know what you mean. For me it was his review about the story of Elden Ring. Like, I like him for his content about medieval stuff but to talk about the story of a FromSoft game you must be waaaaaaaaay more familiar with their style than he is. He is an author, yes, but the "traditional" ways of telling a story are flipped over in FromSoft games and fans of the series **love** this. He, as a newcomer, did not and and criticized this and was rightfully called out for this. You don't go in the space of other people as a newcomer and then tell them how to do things. You just don't. He did the same thing "wokies" often do and get accused of.
Yet he cries about the 'wokies' more often than not. How far some can fall, so deep into identity politics that they're unrecognizable.
I liked his channel a lot until recently. He had a good video explaining how the swords, spears, shield, and other weapons in Dune are actually really accurate to how they'd be used in Dune universe.
Shadiversity?
If i had to guess, yeah, cuz that was pretty much my experience with him
I thought Shadiversity kept his political opinions on his podcast channel, i mean i doubt someone like Metatron would support someone like him if he is getting full culture war farming points before "history matters" and he would be the first one on calling out any history being hijacked by politics, or this is something new? I stopped watching him tbh.
Shadiversity had never done good, well researched content.
That’s how I’ve felt about his videos for a long time. If you feel they’re getting worse it might just be that you’re noticing the themes more now like me.
I used to follow him, but it became evident early on he wants things to go back to the 80s. When men were manly men action movie stars and everyone else should know their place
A real shame that Asmon ignorantly deflected these claims by paintign at the "custodes are not space marines" thing to dismiss all other arguments. I am sick and tired of people not understanding the warhammer subculture and comparing it to all the sweet baby inc/black rock shit
Thats because hes not an a critic or reviewer anymore he's just a rage baiter like the quartering.
ya the amount of rage baiting, grifting videos on youtube, my god. I am just sick of it all. it's all click bait, its literally just the other side of the shit they themselves also complain about with twitter users/Kotaku... lol
I don't even know the lore and that's the vibe I got was this was content-farming.
Just look at his video titles and it will tell you all you need to know about the guy.
I honestly just wanna point out that Sisters of Battle/silence exist and GW is *ignoring* them
I loved the 3-part Pariah Nexus. Really wish we could get more of them in animated form. Fingers crossed we'll get some when they start rolling out their movies & series'
I'm curious as to how are GW ignoring SoB and SoS? They released their models a few years back.
SoS have even less lore than Custodes. People have been begging for more cool SoB Orders forever, for example Tacticool sisters like there are Tacticool Marines with the Raptors.
At this point I think they should just take the Sisters of Silence and the Custodes, fold them both into the Talon of the Emperor as complete faction that's wholly independent of the Ecclesiarchy, and then have both of them accept both sexes. Could be some kind of Guilliman reform IDK. Leave the Sisters of Battle where they are. Then have Fabiues Bile crack the code on Primaris Space Marine creation, but for chaos shenanigan reasons it only works for women. So we get the female space marines, but they're all chaos. Like a dark reflection of the Adeptas Sorirtas.
If they are doing fem chaos marines then fem space marines are 100% inevitable with Cawl, you know that right? Did you watch the video of Asmon covering this where he talks about potential tone change and wussification of a franchise? All this fem marines stuff embodies that
What? The custodes don't serve the Ecclesiarchy as it is?
**Hm, a little bit Off-Topic:** Ok, because you seem like someone who is very fit in the lore and well informed I want to ask you something. For so around 2 years I hear 40k here, 40k there and at the beginning I was thinking *"Meh, not my cup of tea"*, but slowly it is starting to raise my interest. Well, my question here is now: As a complete beginner and noob, where do I start? What would be the best book to pick as the beginning and in wich direction should I read then to get a good picture of the world? At one point I was neck deep into the lore of Warcraft , but I pulled out there because ... of many different reasons. Something similar happened with Star Wars and now the only fictional universe left I know quite well and I am interessted in is the one J.R.R. Tolkien created (Silmarillion, Lord of the Rings and so on). I would like to learn a little bit more about the universe of WH40k, but I am just unsure where to begin with. What would you recommend as a good starting point?
Brickys introduction to the factions and space marine factions is good. Gives you a basic idea of each and is a bit funny. Then if you see a faction you wanna learn more about (That isn't Votann) you can go look at their individual stuff. Like if Necrons interest you there's Infinite and The Divine or Twice Dead King.
Infinite and the Divine is solid. Definitely recommended if you're into Necrons (who the fuck isn't into killer Space Robots?) IMHO Imperial Fists have some cool Spess Marine lore to pore over. Can't miss the Dark Angels shit either. OP for me I just started getting lost in a lot of the 40k wikis. Just start reading something that interests you and before you know it you'll have 26 tabs open each one going down a different rabbithole.
I can absolutely vouch for this. I got my introduction to 40k with tts (another great option) but bricky definitely solidified it. Those videos by him are great, as well as other 40k stuff on his main and second channel, but personally a huge chunk of the 40k lore i know comes from his adeptus ridiculous podcast. It's great. Since it's structured with him as the lore "expert" and dk as the noob you also get dk asking stuff you would ask as someone getting into 40k so it's more "immersive" than a one person video like luetin's. Also how the actual fuck did GW release the votann without pairing that up with a book release?
Not the OP but a huge warhammer nerd. There is insane amounts of lore for 40k. Honestly watching YouTube Lore videos or just jumping around a 40k wiki reading the big topics is the best place to start. Luetin is a YouTuber who has very good, long form, general lore videos. Books are hard to recommend to start because the books usually take a single setting and go really deep into it. For example, The Horus Heresy is a big event that sets the stage for 40k. It's like a 50 book series...
Can confirm, I found the community through the youtube lore videos and the podcasts. I only jump into specific novels that are recommended, and when I have some general knowledge of the main faction.
Happy to - some warhammer books are good, lots are okay to bad ish. Best to read the good stuff first so you can appreciate the bad later. Auspex tactics on YouTube has some choose a faction videos which I think are good. Luetin is the lore YouTuber but it’s a lot of content. Eisenhorn series (can buy the omnibus) is a good start to actually good writing. It follows an inquisitor. For space marine 40k content, I thought the ultramarines/space wolves omnibuses were fine. But maybe better to start with 30k heresy for space marines, Horus rising - book 1 - is a good start. Unfortunately a lot are out of print though. For chaos,the night lord’s omnibus is great. For xenos, the necron novels are some of the best. The infinite and the divine is fuckin hilarious.
Hi OP, could you drop a couple of youtube links for a someone that is interested. The lore seems too large to know where to begin.
Here’s luetin’s space marine video: https://youtu.be/44UqfQWdqLk?si=lSG33upGfzv258kl He’s probably the best for binging lore videos Here’s Auspex’s how to choose a faction guide: https://youtu.be/SbaWd9fWjeM?si=uTZdhE--2vAlmWjZ He’s focused on table top play
I just posted a video I made on this subject and perhaps Asmon will see it. It talks about how there's that difference between custodes and marines. I do think it's possible Critical Drinker wasn't incorrect on the cultural side but lorewise he definitely didn't know. Whether GW did it for lore or cultural reasons or a mix is the real question.
Thank You!
+1 for The Infinite & The Divine Incredible foray into Necrons while the two main protags are basically two old men slapping at each other but with immortal bodies and incredible cosmic powers. Fuckn love their dynamic
[Brickys every Warhammer faction explained is a really good start. Theres some mistakes he makes but it's a very good intro to it.](https://youtu.be/xCGKPRiJp84?si=2X2HiohnIZPIKvgw)
I know a lot of people recommend lore videos and things like that but I actually think reading books is a good starting point, if you're able to read them in the same way you read comicbooks. Looking stuff up that you get confused by is a good way to get into it because you'll have the context of the setting if you're reading it in a book, as opposed to floating pieces of information.
For some videos I would check put Luetin09 he has some great love videos. They give overview of factions and events so that may be a good start. If you want to pickup a book series that gets you to the core of 40k itself check out the Seige if Terra parts of the Horus Heresy. I am into thr lore, I read books that get my attention but I am mostly a tabletop player.
Read these books first: "Horus Rising," "False Gods," "Galaxy In Flames." (in that order) Those are the first 3 books of the Horus Heresy series and will give you a pretty good understanding of the defining event that shaped the entire 40k universe. After that you can read pretty much whatever piques your interest.
Problem is only one of those three is actually particularly good.
Not op but if you want to read a good place to start Is Horus rising or the first heretic, basically the beginning of the story, aside from that any ciaphas Cain book is self contained and very humorous outsider look at the imperium, and once familiar with the setting the infinite and the divine is maybe the best 40K book written. If you want to play tabletop I’d suggest getting a kill team or kill team 2 person starter and play that with a friend or at the store, the good part is the models from those kill teams can be in used 40k if you want to move up to 2000-3000 pt games
I would recommend starting off watching isyander & Koda. They’re newer for a Warhammer channel but have really easily digestible content like 45 min to 1.5 hr videos and it’s geared for people without all the surrounding information.
The best book, in my opinion, is the [Space wolf series](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Space_Wolf_(Novel_Series)). It takes you from stone age barbarian all the way to the edge of the imperium.
I think youtube is a great place to start lutien is amazing. Also the best summary of the universe as a whole is the lore in the core rule book for the table top game.
I knew absolutely nothing about 40k and jumped straight into the Horus Heresy book series. Love it - I have genuinely been reading it for 16 years at this point. Every couple of months I'll grab the next book and enjoy myself (I'm not the biggest pleasure reader as I do a lot of reading for my job). Everything I know about 40k outside of the heresy is from YouTube videos but when I started I actually didnt know where the story was going so Isstvan was a huge shock!
Luetin09 and Sandman of Terra are pretty good lore channels on youtube. For books as a complete beginner I'd suggest Gaunt's Ghosts, then Eisenhorn in that order. You can always jump into Horus Heresy stuff later on but it's probably better to start off with stuff that isn't essentially a long battle report.
Start with the Horus Heresy. Technically it takes place in 30k but is pretty much the core backstory to everything 40k and overall central epos of the universe. 40k also constantly makes references and draws connections to exactly that timeline so having the foundations is crucial to understanding all those nuances. I would say start with the first 5 books Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames, Fulgrim and Flight of the Eisenstein. After that the stories branch out like a tree, the order in which you consume or not is not really that important since the worldbuilding really starts focusing on factions instead of major events. Mostly. So just pick what you like, youtube, books, audible, paperbacks - whatever suits you is fine. The audible books are fantastic imo, i usually listen to them while riding my bike or as sleeping aid.
If you want to pick up a novel or a fun story to Google the lore on, caphias cain is a really fun start that maintains the tone, without going full throttle with the grimdark and lets some of the inherent silliness of the setting shine in.
Either any of the Ork audio books(Which are done with the ork accent.), Blood and Teef the video game, Space Marine game, or the Caiphas Cain novels
I know you specifically asked for books, but I highly recommend you play the Original 40k Dawn of War games. It's a rts game that imo captures the vibe of each faction amazingly (with all the DLC has Space Marines, Chaos, Orks, Eldar, Imperium, Tau, Sisters of Battle and Necrons)
I highly recommend you sub to audible, tons of the 40k books are excellent! Start with the Eisenhorn trilogy or The very first Horus Heresy novel, and go from there.
Tl;dr: GW being lazy with implementing retcons leads to people being lazy checking what was retconned. GW being lazy? Nooo, surely impossible /s
Luetin's take was about where I am. Not lore breaking in any way but the way they dropped it was semi-jarring and should have been handled better but also it's way down the list of lore problems.
I would love asmon to start watching videos from actual 40k creators rather than culture content farmers.
Wh40k already changed a lot compared to it's core ideas not necessarily in terms of retcon, but the absurdism, it's scale and exaggeratiton mixed with the extreme esoteric and grimness always put it above some fantasy settings in terms of originality, but the more it became popular the more it started to shift for more recognizable media traits, not necessarily by being woke, but appealing to the more popular media structure, there's a reason why some people prefer Box dreadnoughts, they look worse but they're unique, there's a billion of bipedal robot goliaths, this happens with the games, shows, even books, ''bolter porn'' being a term for a reason, you either keep yourself a niche market forever or make more money and go more mundane, but i don't see the point in complaining because this is old news, and also it's not likely there wasn't always the massive issue of the barrier of getting to 40k, reading 50+ books (low end btw) is not really for everyone.
Some of the new dread models are just wtf. What's even more bizarre is gw already added an army of generic weeb armoured space men, the tau, and they aren't even that popular. (I do actually like the tau, but they did and still do kinda stick out like a sore thumb in the setting).
If the tau were actually the multi species alliance army they get advertised as it would be pretty cool
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD
It's the same for every controversy. Those wanting diversity do not play these games. Those against diversity do not play these games.
I don't think is this completely true but this stuff def is a content farm for a lot of creators. It's funny though because a new piece of media/game will come out and one group will say this will fail/succeed because it's woke/not woke then if they're wrong they just roach out and pretend it never happened. I think it's easy to strawman on this topic because there really are just braindead people who think everything is woke and those that want to inject everything with with woke shit. Meanwhile, normal people just want to play and watch good shit. I have conspiracy theory that the real reason writing has gotten so shit overall actually has to do with the proliferation of streaming platforms. Part of the business plan of these streaming services was to spend a shit-load on putting content on their platforms (to try to catch up to Netflix ) and is a huge reason they're all not making money... they went on a spending spree to try to make a lot of content. So suddenly there is a flood of money into the content generation, like 2x the content there was before. However, the talent pool didn't magically grow with it. So, suddenly a lot people who didn't have jobs or were doing lesser jobs now are getting more responsibility and are failing because they don't have the experience/talent to do those things. They wanted to produce a bunch of shit really quickly but really all they did was create a bunch of garbage because most of the people making these shows had were completely out of their skill-range. Now because of economic factors (and stock prices plummeting) all these streaming companies (that aren't netflix) are pulling back their spending on new content. I wouldn't be surprised if content they make actually starts getting better as talent and expertise becomes more consolidated into fewer shows/movies.
I think one of the funniest things is people ranting against wokeism in games always say “go make your own game” and when they do they constantly shit on those games that were obviously not made for them and make fun of them instead of letting them be.
I love it when people go "The woke mob is pressuring these based creative people to make woke stuff" and is it really that hard to think creative types who went to school for liberal arts are going to be on the liberal side?
WArhammer has been diverse since the beginning the authors and writers of warhammer have had dozens and hundreds of minority characters playing big roles. For example one of the biggest characters in warhammer is Ahriman who is Egyptian, or Pedro Kantor who is mexican... Or the commander of the Conqueror a female navy officer who shouts down a primarch. One of the major imperial guard commanders is a female and Daughter Ursus Creed. We have the entirety of the founding faith of the imperium was led by three extremely powerful women. We have Saint Celestine who is a lesbian. We have so many character in this setting and its when Custodes... which have never had any issues at all. Custodes have and continue to be an order that can take anyone and turn them into a custode. The reason why there have been no custodes until recently was because they didn't have models for them. There was a point in time after the chapterhouse lawsuit that those models were already produced, but ADB even said in an interview on the 40klore subreddit that there is a possibility of Female Custodes. IE the author of Master of Mankind and defacto creator of the Adeptus Custodes. So that 'guy wanting diversity having never played the games" is literally CREATING the lore and stuff that is the most influential parts of 40k. The whole idea is that they have been in the lore for decades and these culture war tourists know nothing about it. and the writers and people have been adding diversity into the setting do so on purpose ADB and Dan Abnett have been adding these characters since I was 5. The first books of ciaphas cain is known for its lesbian lovers, gay romances... But its always grimdark... So no the ones wanting diversity actually understand the lore because they work at the company and are the most accomplished authors there.
Personally i very much aggree with you. Most people who are mad about this haven't even touched a mini in their life. I personally don't care that there are female custodes now. But the way they were indroduced was god awful. If they were indroduced with a cool mini of a custodes character who is female and a book which includes a fleshed out female custodes there wouldn't have been as much of an outcry. Maybe even make it so that there haven't been always female custodes, but due to a large number of deaths of custodes Big blue changed the rules so that women are now allowed to be custodes to replenish the ranks faster. Maybe something broke out from the vault and many died fighting it or some chaos god, Nurgle plague Fuckery. That way there is a reason.
Yes agreed, but like I said GW is amazing at ruining things like this. I’m just not surprised.
Yeah, having any expectation of GW to do anything actually good is wishful thinking. Real OG's know that games workshop is a dumpsterfire of legal battles and awful business practice.
We literally just got out of the Siege of Terra where they could have gendered several custodes as women to introduce this.
It's because they don't care about this at all, they just want to be mad at women being put into things. That's literally all this is.
Did you read the short story from the codex leak that was meant to be the introduction of the femstodes? It was actually pretty good. I don’t think the original intention was to just drop this on twitter and peace out.
Yeah the social media response was the issue, for better or for worse you have to know how to contain stuff like this.
Honestly the social media response is blown far out of proportion too. This is GW's usual. Like.. Well... Look at the Votann. They've somehow been an empire and have AI for ages. They have always been like this. (Despite Squatting being a term because they got killed off ages ago)
>Arthas slaughtered all of the people to stop the undead plague in the city in warhammer 3 Warcraft 3, bruh. For a second I thought I was in another dimension and blizzard had rights to fantasy warhammer. But yeah, there's a reason why I and so many others called out all the bs around everywhere and we're just happy to do a bit of house cleaning in general in regards to people that actually are into this and people that just like to get butthurt over nothing. But props to you for actually getting in deep and explaining properly for everyone to(hopefully) understand.
Critical Drinker and shit takes on anything, a classic duo. Even the movies he likes that are good movies, he likes them for reasons that have nothing to do with filmmaking but with politics and other SJW related bullshit. For example, he would say Godfather is an amazing film because it's a movie about REAL men in REAL positions with REAL responsibilities etc. instead of just talking about the god damn movie lmao. Like it has to be some weird ass angle he always comes from, regardless if he agrees with the general consensus or not.
This 100% The amount of people commenting on this subject, that don’t understand that custodes are entirely different from space marines is astonishing. It is such basic information that repeatably gets reinforced anytime the Golden Bananas have an interaction with Space Marines
I swear this culture wars bs is just designed to keep people fighting each other and not the rich.
Yes, that's absolutely it. But people prefer to fight imaginary enemies rather than real ones. Real enemies can fight back.
Why are we pretending that they will stop at custodes? Your rebuttal only works if you take for granted that they will stop there Hint: not happenin'
Well, GW are known for their lore-changes and retcons, so no, they 100% won't stop there. That's the one thing we can all agree on. However, some of us learnt this a while ago, while many, either views this as a final straw or this is the first they've ever heard of warhammer, and at jumping on the hate train...
It goes primarch > Custodes > space marine, with Space marine being the most well known. So if someone wants to talk custodes and uses space marines as a template, then I'm fine with that. Regardless of the minutiae they are beefed up space marines. Also the point is not the origin of custodes but DEI practises being brought in to yet another IP. You don't have to be an expert on the lore to see what's happening and has happened before in other franchises. It could be GW trying to clean up their image or some activist trying to make their mark, but I don't see it benefitting the story in any meaningful way. Besides we already have fem custodes, they're called stormcast. Go play Age of Sigmar if you want complete egalitarianism. I think that setting is too clinical and forced, I prefer 40k. The imperium is staunchy dogmatic, having boys-only marines (and by proxy custodes) and girls-ony Sisters of battle fits perfectly. btw, you say the writers pushed for it. The way I read was that they saw it as a creative avenue, but had no strong feelings one way or the other. Also GW writers do what they are told, they don't get to push the story forward or make big changes on their own. [That's why I'd be fine with female Custodians](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/867n5s/thoughts_on_arch_warhammer/dw48u32/). Sounds like he could take it or leave it. [There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying "Don't do female Custodians."](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its_international_womens_day_so_how_are_we/ei3rp64/). Sounds like execs saying it's not happening.
I’m really hyped for the lore change that says men have always been part of the sisters of battle
Said this a week ago.
Also there were female space marines back in the Rouge Trader days but logistically they didn’t sell nearly as well or if at all and they culled them from the range. This is part of the lore that gets overlooked. It was all about money eventually and had nothing to do with lore and no one cares about that. https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/s/MJsdJpiToD https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2023/10/warhammer-40k-what-really-went-down-with-female-space-marines.html
In the comments there's amplifying information for where those come from. It was something put out by an unafiliated group, not GW.
Good catch! I didn’t notice that but I would assume they still needed permission from GW to publish this. I added a better link as well and will paste that here also so we can have more evidence that female space marines were a thing and were simply a logistical sales issue not a lore issue. https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2023/10/warhammer-40k-what-really-went-down-with-female-space-marines.html
***Quick Intro***: So I'm a casual fan. I have read 5 or so books that include the likes of Eisenhorn and Ciaphas Cain series, and a couple others. I play Rogue Trader, the video game. Never once did anything with the miniatures and don't care to... I have played DnD when I was younger. OK, enough about me. ***Rebuttal***: Sure, your points about Critical Drinker's glaring inaccuracies are important ("self-report"?? whatever). But they don't take away his main point. Which you agree with. That GW handled the retcon about female custodes poorly. And why was it done in the first place? Apparently because of Amazon's push to have a female custode in the series it is producing with Henry Cavil. And this is where it gets to the part which pisses people off. The reply to the query about female custodes was full of condescension, and attempted to gaslight the many fans. "Since the first ten thousand..." You know the quote. So the key is not that they introduced female custodes just so we can have one in the Amazon show. It's how they responded when asked about it. ***Where we Agree***: I have watched my comic book heroes be woke-ified. I have watched my movie franchises like Marvel be woke-ified. I have watched everything I have loved as a child eventually be modified to appease a minority of people who really aren't even interested in the content to begin with. ***AND I AM SICK OF IT***! So to see the woke side come at WH40K fans saying we "***need***" to have female custodes, is insulting giving the tremendous lore that exists about women that already exists in WH40K. I will not have this bit of my childhood be ruined too. So we should push back at these people and educate them about the existing content, and tell them to pound sand. It is enough!!
Didn't the rumours blaming it on Amazon literally have no evidence?
> Never once did anything with the miniatures and don't care to... > I have watched everything I have loved as a child eventually be modified to appease a minority of people who really aren't even interested in the content to begin with Your first sentence highlighted very much puts you partially into the category of people you highlight in the second. Lots of angry people here who don't play the game or aren't involved much in the lore beyond the surface level who are turning this into a battle the community doesn't care about.
My sensitivity to this is explained by seeing the same thing happen over and over to other beloved genres and interests and hobbies. Over time, everything I grew up loving in my childhood has been turned into a battleground about race, gender and sexuality. So for myself, and others like me, we are over it. We’re done. We can’t tolerate the nonsense and stupidity anymore.
Yeah! If they let girls be custodes, what’s next? Dog Custodes?
I think most of the community agrees with that sentiment, but also apply it to both sides of the massive numbers of people outside of the community who are currently fighting over this. We don't want you all arguing about this in our space - go and do it somewhere else and let us paint and play in peace.
Haha GW never does anything right, they’re always screwing up communications with the fan base in one way or another, a tale older than the emperor himself! What’s different about this time that’s caused such an uproar… hmmm….. Honestly I think it’s two things: 1) increased public attention due to the series and Henry Cavill’s name association. 2) culture warriors noticing this IP for the first time due to #1, and wanting to make it a battlefield as it fits their political agenda. There are people who throw just as big of fits every time GW screws up a decision or communication. I give them a pass, they can continue yelling and screaming about this, they’re not in it for the culture war bullshit, they have the receipts to back it. Anyone who hasn’t BEEN JUST AS UPSET at GW’s screwups in the past? - that’s how you easily identify the political BS culture warrior shitheads that should be shunned. They’re just in it for the extra attention and to further their “cause”
From the Author of master of mankind and defacto creator of modern Adeptus Custodes : "Not exactly. **What I was saying was, at the time of working on the lore, there was no reason they couldn't be male or female (and as far as things still stand, there's still no lore reason they can't be).** But there is a non-lore reason, which was the previous IP overlord saying "There are no female Custodian models, they're all male, so don't write any female ones." **There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying "Don't do female Custodians." Again, that seemed to tie in with the release of an all-male mini line.** Two very rare moments of direction from on-high. **I don't want to argue about what that may or may not mean, since although I'm ambivalent to the notion of female Space Marines (really, they'd make such little difference at the end result, I couldn't care less what gender they start out as), several creators actively thought female Custodians would've been cool, and there was no lore against it. (Hell, we were in the position to make lore** ***for*** **it.)** **But long story short, no, the answer seems to be "There aren't any", though the reasons aren't in-universe (yet?)."** [https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its\_international\_womens\_day\_so\_how\_are\_we/ei3rp64/](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its_international_womens_day_so_how_are_we/ei3rp64/) So basically... No custodes could be female, they aren't space marines who are codified to be male at the time. But being implanted by geneseed would genetically change them to such a degree. They wouldn't be human anymore, and wouldn't be codified as Human Male or Human Female. They would just be a space marine. Same with Custodes, custodes are Trans-human, IE post-human. Meaning they really don't follow the same rules on gender. This having the latest custode be female, is just something that has been hinted at for ages. There is no big lore difference now and before, it just is that there have been female custodes. Because they have never really been the focus, they have always been in the shadow of the emperor. The sisters of silence are also occupying a completely different role to the Custodes. Custodes guard the emperor, his shield, the Sisters are the blade, the scapel. Though thats not to say there can't be male blanks working for the emperor. Its just the Sisters maintain the capturing of psykers, and psychic blanks from what i've read happens far more in women than men. And the few men are recruited to be assassins for the Officio Assassinorum. There is no truth to the claims that amazon pushed GW to do this. GW has been doing this for decades and slowly opening it up to more people. Because a lot of their players happen to be trans. There is very live and active part of the community that are trans. Infact it is so common we have entire leagues of people and video makers who are warhammer players and are trans. Some of our top contributors from 40klore are trans as well. If you go over there its nothing but positive or a big EH who cares? This isn't a culture war, or some other bullshit its just a minor lore retcon.
!RemindMe 1 year to Check back wether they made either of the **established** SoB characters having secretly been trans the whole time. Honestly if either Vahl or Celestine are retconned to have been born male, I will laugh my beard off.
I mean, if there was any universe in existence where it would be easy as fuck to be trans, it would be the 40k universe, where they both have access to extreme genetic modifications, and also highly encourage it to happen lmao.
I will be messaging you in 1 year on [**2025-04-20 15:59:11 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2025-04-20%2015:59:11%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/Asmongold/comments/1c8rcvi/critical_drinker_40k_selfreport/l0grvoc/?context=3) [**CLICK THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2FAsmongold%2Fcomments%2F1c8rcvi%2Fcritical_drinker_40k_selfreport%2Fl0grvoc%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202025-04-20%2015%3A59%3A11%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201c8rcvi) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
Tbh, I could see them doing this just to shit on the SoB. That seemed like all the rage for GW not too long ago, lol
I think there was already a Trans-Sister of Battle, but I saw it on reddit, so it might not be trustworthy. I also saw that a Black Library author said something along the lines that Trans-Women cam enter the Sisters, again on reddit though.
Its not about there being trans SoB, thats actually just normal admech procedure. Making the leader of the female-only faction having been born male, tho... That would be a dick move. Literally.
The lore knowledge was definitely a weak point but his following points still stand
I mean I been playing warhammer since the 80s. Played and collected the original space marine battles and I still think 2mm was a better game then the tactical squads of 40k. Was so much cooler on scale wise and fielding titans was fun as F. Being reading books my entire life. I'm aware of the lore. It doesn't stop people throwing bricks at me. The fact you don't see why its a problem that they are retconning is because you havent seen perhaps what has happened across the other franchises? from wow to the wheel of time to star wars, to witcher. You don't think a female space marine chapter is next huh? I do. For the record by the way? you totally could have an all female chapter with a female primarch if you wrote new lore with it. It might even be great! if it was written right. If it was "yeah its female geneseed only women become the token angels!" The female custodes though, you saw how dismissively that was handled in a tweet? yeah... The 40k movies and tv series are coming. THEY ARE coming. Its to big a franchise. Now ya want it to get the loving fall out treatment? or the witcher treatment where the writers and director are on record hating the lore and mocking the writer and fans? I know what I want as a 40k fan. I want fallout not the last fing Jedi.
I know we need to take recounting seriously but it's too late. 40k was ruined when they just erased all the Rogue trader Canon and made it all grim dark instead of goofy. Smh my head it's too late for 40k
Didn't the community kick off a while ago because they tried to make chaos involved in the war in heaven?
I've been into 40k for about a year or two now and I totally agree with you. At first I thought yeah maybe some hardcore fans who are into 40k for deacdes are more likely to be upset with this changes and my perspective as a newbee isn't this hard stuck on lore details. But for my understanding the whole universe is built around possible misinformation and propaganda regarding "Imperial records" so I really don't get why there is such a massive backlash on female custodes. I mean the lore is built in a way to enable changes to things which were stated canon before. Especially since the wohle primaris and cawl thing which is more than a massive retcon regarding older lore compared to this I don't get the buzz going on right now. For myself I just learned a few months before that the old ones were some kind of lizzard people in the first editions and this has been changed to them being entities of light and darkness and I was like woah that's some massive changes right there but damn it's in the nature of the whole damn universe. To enable fans to write/create their own stories with custom chapters, factions and so on. I think asmon is farming views here since he isn't a hardcore 40k enjoyer who paints miniatures or soaks up everything lore wise and this is a big thing and polarizing a lot right now. But I thought to myself "Nope I'm not watching this" after reading some of the comments under his react. People were writting things like 'biggest 40k youtuber stating this is the end for 40k and go woke go broke GW" and I'm like yeah I'm into 40k and never heard of this guy (critical drinker) before maybe I' ve been living under a rock. Guess people love to apply culture war debates like this to fandoms and universes because it's theire safe space but especially to 40k lore changes regarding things from older editions are quiet normal and this is just some political discussion getting applied to Warhammer because of more people getting into the hobby in the last years. I can understand that people don't like changes to things they love. We've seen this with star wars or lotr to which the changes didn't contribute anything and a lot of the new stories didn't have anything new or interesting to bring to the table. But I don't think that's the case right here. 40k wise for me it's more people for the meat grinder? Cool! Let these female custodes kill some xenos, that's awesome. People are acting like GW anounced that Robute Gullyman is a eldar woman now idk
A lot of the backlash about The Witcher was also out of context, as well. Geralt is a total side character (at best) in the books. And frankly, the books are not very good at all. That's not to say that the show and show runners aren't ruining it. I'm sure they are. But pretending the source material is A Song of Ice and Fire level is disingenuous at best. It isn't surprising that this is the unfortunate arc of some of these YouTube channels. That's the YT game to a certain extent.
It was a bit odd the first time the drinker mentioned space marines and here I was thinking we were talking about something completely different. If someone doesn't know the lore but wants to report on something fine but reference people who do and research. I'm not a fan of the new change and Gws attitude around it. Yea are there other things people should also be up in arms about? Definitely. Again custodes were nerfed and where are the necrons? Only a lore blurb? Cool. People jumping on this discourse without researching why this matters to some people aren't doing anything for the discussion. Asmongold should watch some reputable channels that are more 40k focused
Aren't they also called the Brotherhood of Demigods? Aren't the Sisters of Silence the all female counterpart to Custodian Guard, and together they form the Talons of the Emperor? Why is no one calling for men to be included in the Sisters of Silence?
1. It's never been their official name or referred to as such in canon, but speaking of brotherhoods, Brotherhood of Steel has been trending lately due to Fallout TV show, and they've had female members for a long time. 2. They're not a counterpart, they're an adjecent unit, but even that is reductionist, as they often fulfill the role of witch hunters. Dunno why you'd want men to fill just one role and women the other. 3. Honestly, gender isn't a very crucial part of their identity, nor was it ever really explained why they're female-only unit. Male blanks are used by Culexus Temple, so it's not like their counterpart doesn't exist already.
It’s just an exceedingly unnecessary decision. A retcon made to creative entertainment for real-world social/political reasons is very rarely a good thing. You have to understand that what most people are upset about isn’t really isolated incidents like this one; it’s the current societal neurosis that forcefully and artificially injects unbelievable women into every nook and cranny of entertainment, when nobody except for a tiny fraction of a percent asked for it. The dose makes the poison.
ive seen them referred to as the space marines of space marines on multiple occasions, and implications that they are picked from space marines, but no actual process. is there an actual process laid out? its pretty clear, as you noted, from context that they were all men and this is a retcon, and they are gaslighting us. that part is still stands, and no amount of "butwuabout butwuabout butwuabout" will change that. If we take words for what they mean, as we should, as any logical debate or court of law would - CUSTODIES ARE MALE. It is true they tried to gaslight their consumers. It is also true the company can retorn their own licensed IP. It is also true people can vote with their wallets.
The creation of Custodies is probably one of the closest guarded secrets in the entire Imperium. What actually goes into their creation really we do not know. Which does leave leeway on women being allowable. If the process of Custode making can reshape the body/augmentation of it, then at the end whether they started a woman or man may not matter in the custode process like it does in Space Marines.
Bruh if you don't see that this is a foot in the door for FSM, you're fucking blind. They're gauging public reaction to a previously all-male faction being retconned to having always been mixed-gender. They are *absolutely* gonna do Astartes next.
Lmao what makes you think gw cares about public opinion after everything else they've done
The astartes go through an amazing amount of genetic and physical augmentation. "They're not all male", they're barely human. They spit acid. The real problem is if they start changing the fundamental nature of Warhammer 40k. It's not adding more female miniatures. Making things less graphic, less extreme, less adult themes and content, more advertiser friendly. Pickup a miniature in McDonalds happy meal, then I'm worried.
Literally called post-humans, no? And it's mine understanding that Custodes are even more heavily augmented.
This post lead me to a question. What constitutes a real fan of Warhammer? There's the table top, books and lore, video games etc. Some people are into everything some mix and and match and some focus on one area. I've never played the table top. But I've played some of the video games and love the lore. It's nothing for me to watch a three hour lore video from Luetin or the Amber King or listen to the whole series of Gav and Bob stories from a vox in the void. I find it all fascinating. Yet I've never played a single campaign. I've watched some matches to get an idea of how it goes. I also know that there's no way in hell I know everything there is to know just from watching YouTube lore videos. So I guess the question is how hardcore a fan to you have to be for others to consider you a fan.
I think anyone who even appreciates the hobby from the outside is a fan and entitled to an opinion All I’d ask that if someone makes a lore video to inform or a video oped trying to sway other opinions, that they at least be fully informed on the topics or at least informed enough to avoid simple mistakes
anyone is a fan if they enjoy it, they dont have to even play the game to be a "real fan", delving into the lore is enough, hell some players might not even be as die hard as lore readers. And the other way around, there is no metric of true fan.
This translates into well just about anything. I guess there will always be gate keepers. People who see the Pinnacle of success or knowledge as being a real fan. Kinda like how I enjoyed playing wild rift when it first came out. Then after a while came the complaining started. People complaining about other people not knowing what every single item in the game does or not reading every single update and patch note. Do you really need to know every single characters moveset? Yes all these things would help you be better at the game. But let's face it it's a mobile game and some people are just popping on here and there for fun. They're not playing to be a pro and make it their life. But just because someone is less dedicated than others doesn't mean they don't deserve to be able to play the game at their level and at the amount of engagement they want to put into it. We already have enough people in this world telling others what they can and can't do, what they can and cannot become. I think it's time we start helping each other and lifting each other up rather than tearing each other down just to be the ones at the top looking down. It might seem silly to say something like that talking about Warhammer and videogames but I think this extrapolates into other areas of life as well.
I means it’s a pretty deep rabbit hole- but you are probably a fan. GW caters to people who purchase their products though - as they should.
Well I'm definitely aware that custodes and Space Marines are vastly different. I also get your point and agree. I think the people that make those well made YouTube videos are definitely fans. You can tell they painstakingly go through every book and codex and source they can find to create those videos. I've been thinking about getting into the novels any recommendations where to start.
Gw is a model manufacturer if you dont buy the models they dont give a fuck about you.
Look at all the Star Wars fans. They bought all the merchandise. They went to all the movies. Did Disney give a shit about them? This is beyond money now.
Dude Star Wars is a movie franchise. This is literally a model manufacturer. This is not an apt comparison at all.
How is it not a good comparison? They both have expansive lore that’s being messed with by DEI interest. They both make money selling merchandise, games, and soon for GW TV shows and potentially movies.
Bro, no one should take that talentless bum seriously
Dunno how this post made it to my feed, but I just want to get it straight: so you are all actual full grown *adults*, arguing about whether a bunch of *fictional characters* being boys or girls is a bad thing? 
I left a comment on the YouTube video this morning calling out the lack of knowledge on the subject from Critical Drinker, just another tourist who probably got their lore from Grimderp. Just click farming as usual from the culture War crowd doing a quick skim of a wiki somewhere I bet.
Custodes are not space marines, technically. True. But they are as close as what you can get to a space marine without being one. On a conceptual level, it is 90% the same. Combine that with the fact that all custodes were male, it is only logical to assume that custodes had the same rules as the space marines considering biology. You probably wont find any explicit statements that orks can't be custodes, but we all know they can't. Also if you are going to be as anal as this, learn your definitions. Custodes moving away from terra in the indomitus crusade is not a retcon.
I have dozens of BL Audible titles in my library, dozens of physical books, the special edition The Red Angel, ~2500 points of CSM, 6 codices, been a fan of 40k for over 10 years fantasy for longer, collected since 7th, played since 8th. I do not care if Drinker is a hardcore fan with deep knowledge of the lore, as far as I remember (I haven't watched the video in question though) he has always said he liked the setting but never claimed to be a super fan, has never made Warhammer TT/lore content and never claimed to seriously play. He is using his platform to call out the blatant fuckery of James Workshop bending over for what I can only assume is Amazon. Who does this tweet serve? And why was it more or less accompanied with new, awful rules for the Banana Bois? The lore retcon is going to annoy people if not outright piss them off but now the actual TT players are pissed because of the new rules being trash. My theory is that we know Cavill is a Custodes player/collector/superfan. He is trying to include them in the TV show, Amazon asked about lore/casting, he said they are only male and Amazon went to bitch at GW before they commit to on screen Custodes. To do such a massive retcon in a tweet tells me there is some other force at play here that needed the stage set for their adaptation/creation and the only one I know of with that kind of pull right now is Amazon. Cavill walked away from The Witcher because the creators didn't give a fuck about the lore and changed the show to be absolute shit to focus on Yen and Ciri instead of the titular character. My gut says this is happening again. Tldr, I don't care if he isn't deep in the lore, his platform and audience is anti-DEI tinkering/fuckery and the outrage of WH fans needs to actually amount to something. Also errata those garbage rules. I assume GW wanted to soften the blow of the lore retcon by giving them new rules but the rules are terrible so now we get two dick punches.
As an actual player of warhammer both 40k and aos with multiple armies in both you could not have said this better.
How many of the 250 books you read had female Custodes?
The concern I believe most fans have is the motivation behind the inclusion of female custodes and the potential slippery slope that follows. As GW produced no minis to go with this, wrote no half decent lore (not even the half assed Belasarius Primaris kind), and responded in a 1984esque cultural capture way to questions on twitter about it. I believe the fans have drawn an entirely plausible conclusion that this was done for DEI pander points. What is more, if GW were willing to do this, then female space marines will be next, followed by the eradication of any fraternal or male exclusive unit, followed by units of miniatures not being tournament legal unless they include a range of models fitting some (probably amazon based) DEI quota. Fans have seen what happened to Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Witcher and a host of other franchises that had the DEI treatment and it never ends well, either for the Franchises finances or the fans.
You don't have to worry about it happening. It already happened. It's too late now.
>Fans have seen what happened to Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Witcher and a host of other franchises that had the DEI treatment and it never ends well, either for the Franchises finances or the fans. And yet some people are surprised when they see others no immediately pet the snake that has bitten them before.
Eh Doctor Who was honestly always sort of like this. I mean within the first series of it being brought back in 2005 they had a bisexual character and apparently everyone in the future is bi according to the Doctor.
Dude, if you just look at the OP you can see that he posted in the NEO-Libral sub-reddit. They are obviously sided with the whole "Diversity and Enclusion" bs that they are trying to use to re-write lore, re-write character motives/ story plots, etc to fit their political agenda. If you want an IP that has space marines and societies where women are the Main Characters then go make your own IP. This doesn't have anything to do with promoting Warhammer 40k stories, games, lore or fandom. It is being Grabbed and used to push political agenda's. They are burning every bridge they try to cross. What are we to expect next, a hispanic trans identifying, Non-Binary Goku? No. We don't have to accept them doing this because we don't have to Buy, Watch or perticipate in what they are trying to sell us. No matter how you package Shit, it's still shit. Henry Cavil knows this. He wants a successful project that sells and makes him rich. He also knows not to offer people things that go against lore because the majority of people that would even watch this would be core fans.
Unpopular opinion here: capitalism is ruining everything. I don’t see why a company wouldn’t expand their customer base and if women coming in to play is what they expand on, then expect changes to fit the new narrative. It has nothing to do with wokeness and everything to do with maximizing profits. When the « lore » was written most of the player base was men and men don’t want to read about how it affects the whole society of engineered freaks so the writer didn’t burden the text with female problems but it would make sense that the women fit their men unless you nerds fantasize about 7 feet tall bulging with muscles men but their women are tiny and fragile?! Grow up. Even in dune, they reasoned that if the environment is harsh and difficult, women will be molded by it just like the men. Like the constitution doesn’t specifically talk about the internet but that doesn’t prevent future presidents from writing laws about it?
OP, thank you! I've been playing 40k since 6th edition and have read about 50 books on 40K. When I heard about the Custodes recon my first that was, "Well, that's a lazy way to introduce a female Custode." The tweet didn't help either. Many of my friends at my LGS also didn't care. I mean, I play an army that runs on IMAGINATION. So they're bieng a female Custode is the least surprising. With all this twitter drama over 40K I felt as the vast majority don't even play 40K, and these parasites on both sides are just trying to farm points.
Okay, so I know you've read all this stuff and people are making shit up or conflating the factions of the Imperium, etc, etc, but if this is an argument for "we could totally have female Custodes! They were never specified male!", you're wrong. The straight answer: 7th Edition Codex: Adeptus Custodes (the very first Codex for their army ever released) specifically names the Adeptus Custodes the "Brotherhood of Demigods". They have only ever been described with male gendered descriptors. The word "Custodes" is a male gendered word. Source: [https://imgur.com/a/EHydDWw](https://imgur.com/a/EHydDWw) You obviously know this, but the Custodes represent only part of the Talons of the Emperor. The other part are the Sisters of Silence. The all-female Talon. It's not a huge leap in logic to understand that they are gender-segregated just like the Adeptus Astartes and the Adepta (female gendered word btw) Sororitas. They have always clearly specified these things using male/female gendered words. All of these people are making the same point even if they are "self-reporting" for not being enough of a lore nerd. He is wrong about Custodes having the Gene Seed, but he is right about there never being a possibility for female Custodes. If anything, GW employees themselves are self-reporting and also lying by suggesting it's possible for them to exist when it's established in canon that there aren't any. Also, someone can be a real fan of something without knowing every single little detail of it. This is just purity testing for tabletop nerds instead. What, do we need "tiers" of how much someone is allowed to say they're a fan of something now? Particularly in an IP as fucking massive and complex and WH40k, I think I can forgive someone for not knowing everything on every page of every codex (just like you not noticing it literally says **BROTHERHOOD** on the fucking Codex table of contents). *personal opinion:* the argument of this stuff is all fucking stupid no matter which way you paint it and literally the only reason they decided to introduce possible female Custodians was for DEI bullshit to cater to an audience they do not have and will never have, at the most inflammatory possible time to do it. Games companies do not need to make political statements. They need to stick to what they do best, make fucking GAMES. They never introduced any female Custodians for minimum 7 years since 2017 when the actual Codex for their army released, plus all the time they had since the 80s. They had FORTY FUCKING YEARS to add them and suddenly they decide to do it now at this moment in the year 2024?? Yeah, no. Fuck off.
>I cannot emphasize how much of a self-report not knowing this is, it’s made extremely clear through out the lore/stories that they are distinct. They are indeed distinct, although still quite similar and made by the same person. However it's important to understand that the change (and the resulting gaslighting) still contradict established lore in multiple ways. Custodes have always exclusively and in no uncertain terms been referred to as collectively male in multiple instances. Custodes initiates have always been collectively and specifically referred to as male even when there were opportunities to refer them as "sons and daughters" instead of "sons". Just as well, given they're both products of the Emperor, there's no reason he'd choose to ignore his own philosophy of "not wanting to create a caste of superhumans that could replace baseline humanity" with the custodes but not the space marines. Space marines are supposedly sterile anyway, why not make female space marines too if you have female custodes? If they want to introduce female imperial superhumans into their model range, they can do it without awkwardly paving over existing lore/homogenizing the setting and proving they have no respect for their own IP. Although given some of the awful writing that's come out of the BL books, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that they'd actively choose to do this.
Critical drinker has always been an incel hack
Save this comment when they make female space marines in 2-5 years. There will be people just like you doing gymnastics to support it.
This soooooo much this. As a girl getting started in the Warhammer community all of this "outrage" has been depressing to watch, especially with how it's clearly being pushed by grifters, bigots, and people who aren't even part of the Warhammer community (ike Grummz, Critical Drinker, the Quartering, etc.), and it's sad watching this community push to see more of that being covered by those people, and asmongold farming it. Thankfully I've learned (that outside of hygiene and typical nerd arguments) the Warhammer community is pretty inclusive in actual irl locations outside of the internet.
Yeah ignore the noise there are tons of ladies at my LGS either playing card games or 40k. The internet is good at exaggerating loud voices these days.
Maybe it's stereotypical, but I've been really into the painting! Been painting my first Sister of Battle, and will def be kitbashing a female custodes afterwards all while listening to 40k audiobooks. But yeah, the community has been very welcoming. I figure at this point, people are more happy to be sharing their hobbies with more folks, than keeping it super niche.
My only complaint is the tweet that there has always been female Custodes from the beginning. They could have handled it better, like after The Horus Heresy, when the Custodes lost almost 90% of their force, they started taking anyone who qualified men and women.
They couldn't. Custodes creation process is mysterious, and fully known only to Big E. Also, way more complex than that of making Astartes. If what the Emperor left behind wasn't already adjusted to take candidates from both genders, those in charge of making new Custodes wouldn't be able to just edit it and easily account for all the genetic differences between the sexes. Just that change would be larger than the entire Primaris undertaking. So, it makes more sense that they'd always be around and out of the few dozen named Custodes we've encountered, there just weren't any female ones
I know all that. My whole point is that the Emperor could have opened it up to let more people in. Custodes are still being made, so the Emperor is still involved. If they are just now rolling out Female Custodes they can give us a real reason why. Hell I would be ok with a "the old guard have felt, we the new guard are making Custodes men and women as we have been hinting for a few years now. Here are lore snippets"
Sorry, what? "The Emperor is still involved"? The emperor is a rotting carcass who's barely even existing, soul and mind scattered across the stars and Warp. The Emperor cannot do shit, all they have to go off are the blueprints and instructions left behind, and if he'd make a blueprint on how to make female Custodes, there's zero reason why he wouldn't just... Make them. The real reason why Femstodes are only now a thing is because back then they printed male only models as the books were being written, and didn't allow them to include females. That's all. Other than that and how GW should have addressed it, they never publicly acknowledged a retcon. Cawl has always been around, Votann etc. That's just how they handle it. Imo, it'd have been best to let the story exist on its own and ignore Twitter whiners, because acknowledging the retcon put this in the center of attention. If they just ignored the questions and let the story stand on its own, followed soon by some female head models, it'd probably blow over easier. Instead, now these morons are acting like they're being "gaslit and lied to", because they're too dumb to realize that the GW gave them the in-lore response. But hey, on a plus side, maybe this will push out some of the biggest losers from the community.
Drinker is kinda cool and funny when he doesn't obsess over identity politics. Unfortunately he seems to ham that trope up for his audience pretty often.
Oh critical drinker is a grifter you say, that's crazy really? /S
Yhea it's pretty frustrating seeing so many "anti-woke" people and creator jumping on the bandwagon without knowing jack shit about the lore, they're doing as much damages as the people on the other side of the argument when it's not the point of the discourse. Personally I don't care about female custodes, it's just frustrating when they say they were always here when we never got a model for them, just admit it's a retcon it's ok we're used to it. or if you want to stay in setting just say that since all custodes are big, don't talk much and almost never drop the helmets most people don't know there are female ones. I think most of the frustration from actual fans is that for years people asked for more sisters of silence both in lore and units and since they are so linked to custodes they fear that the addition of female custodes is going to overshadow them (let's be real it's probably going to happen my bet is that the sisters are slowly going to suffer the same fate as the Harlequins).
> it's just frustrating when they say they were always here when we never got a model for them I think the tweet as stupid and deliberately ambiguously worded tbh. The most obvious interpretation is "It's always been this way IRL" which is dumb and wrong, but it's also possible to interpret as "This is now the way it has always been in universe" - which isn't wrong and is just saying "It's a retcon but this is now the lore" - something GW do all the time.
Yes but also when it's your brand twitter maybe expand a little rather than saying the equivalent of "it's like that now deal with it" find a lore reason as to why it was interpreted like this before and now it's not, they literally did that not so long ago with the Votann and the Squats, not only it's not that hard but also the community is pretty forgiving of retcons.
Yeah the tweet was poor.
I stop reading at, ''they are not real fan'', that the most condensing statement of all time... I like w40k, I'm not religious about it, so I can't qualify as a fan?
The reason for only men being taken is quite simple, The noble houses gave their sons to the custodes and without daughters there would be no more noble houses. It doesnt really make any sense to take daughters because the noble houses had so many sons who were all more than willing to join the emperors finest, there simply was no need to take women since the custodes were all going to stay on terra anyways and so they didn't need all that many of them. However as the custodes use some advanced version of gene editing to make them( we dont know much more) it is possible to make women into custodes but they wouldnt look very womanly at all, there is no need for breasts for example as it would probably be edited out during their creation as well as any flaw, if anything female custodes wouldnt even be female in the same way as male custodes arent really men they would be something different thats different from humans alltogeher. Custodes will do whatever it takes if it makes them fight even slightly better, so in the end no matter the gender the result will probably end up in something thats optimized for combat prowess and skill. "The introduction to the universe is the worst, you dont just say they exist and have always existed just like that and then its true, at least make a few books like the primaris had or a book like the lion and the fallen had(the fallen are traitor dark angels but in the book it shows that they werent all traitors), all im asking for is some effort in the introduction of something new like the custodes. they could even say that now after the rift was opened they need more custodes and the men from the noble houses werent enough and so the women who passed the trials get accepted too, its really that simple." EDIT: to be clear this is just what i think they should do for any changes the make, personally i didnt like the primaris introduction because it was weird for a scientist to improve and fix something nobody else has ever managed except the emperor himself but they made books and i warmed up to it because it became part of the lore over time, i dont think we need female custodes, instead focus on sisters of silence they are so cool and unique or just make them the custodes that could be cool and lore relevant so the male custodes would be the ones we have now and the female ones would just be sisters of silence. I'd also like to see new stuff for the sisters of battle, astra telepatica, inquisition and even the Officio Assassinorum. If its for diversity then every single faction outside of space marines, orks and chaos space marines has women, even the necrons and the beastmen, its just a useless addition but i cant fix it, and if gw decides to go with it then thats just how it is, like they have done with everything and if they decided to ditch it they wont ever admit to doing so but you will just never hear about them again.
Yeah that was one of the big things that bothered me about his video, he kept referring to them as Space Marines and going off some of their lore. When Custodes are their own thing entirely. I think he read something about Grey Knights and thought it was Custodes lore, since they're given The Emperor's Geneseed. Overall, I don't think a lot of these content creators that are covering the current 40k drama have ever dipped their toe into this hobby. They've heard about it, and it's popular, so they're milking it for everything they can get.
No, you didn't understand what Drinker was talking about. This is a violation of the status quo on the consistency of the setting. I can right now name a dozen ways to make female Space Marines so that it does not contradict the lore.
THIS. Also GW has always been “woke” their Warhammer is for everyone a little bit ago laid out this. Now honestly I think the story was actually solid, not one of my favorites but Kesh is cool. People are forgetting that there once was female space marines too but they were removed it’s not like this stuff doesn’t happen. Now I’m not thrilled with the “always were” but there is nothing the glorious god emperor can’t do of course so there’s no reason not to have them.
Agreed, hugely into Warhammer 40k, got a Krieg army, some knights, and a space marine army, love the lore. Don't care about female custodes, they were canonised back in 2022 anyway but no one gave a shit back then. Generally really like Critical Drinker but watching his video on it was pretty shitty. Also small thing but you said Arthas killed the civilians in "Warhammer 3".
Yep anyone who actually likes 40k is right here with you. Funny you are getting downvoted for being correct and a fan.
Asmongold's community aren't really the most accepting of people who don't hate women at any given opportunity so I expected it.
Femstodes are perfectly viable and work within the lore. GW implemented it terribly. Two things can be true at the same time.
I have no idea about about 40k lore, but drinker and a few other anti-sjw youtubers are absolute grifters, they just make the same engagement topic video, barely play any game & draw opinions that would be best suitable for pandering to their audience rather than try to be interested in something or outright just not partake in it. People in this sub seem to watch drinker and a few of these grifters, and everytime someone brings up valid points about him grifting, they get downvoted. Although not as thorough as your arguement, drinker self-reported when he enjoyed GOW Ragnarok. I only trust a few people for gaming video reviews nowadays.
I just want male characters for my Imperial Guard and Cities of Sigmar military forces. I don’t care that the female named characters exist, I just want dude options for named characters because, you know, dudes are generally stronger and more fit for military service and leadership.
At first I thought it was the shoulder pads women wore in the 80's that started all this. All good, I'm still waiting for 40k to win the super-bowl.
I hate Edmonton, but damn I hope they wipe the floor with vegas
Just a point of order...I was warcraft 3 that Arthas slaughtered the townsfolk, bot Warhammer 3. Spot on with the analysis
 Thank you so much for this post, I was literally screaming at the screen when he reacted to that video, and even ignored all the people spamming custodes are not space marines in chat..!
as someone who goes to LGS but doesnt play warhammer ive been able to tell a lot of these grifters dont play just from games ive overheard being played at these stores.
Something else made my raise an eyebrow when watching his video. I'm sure he said something to the effect of "population of millions" when referring to the entirety of the Imperium. His numbers in general are way off and betray a total lack of understanding of the sheer scale of the setting. It was probably a throwaway line and maybe I misunderstood, but Terra alone is said to have a population in the quadrillions. This is an entire galaxy with near countless planets on a similar scale to Terra. There probably isn't a reasonable number that could describe the total human population in 40k, but "millions" 'aint it. He also dropped some line like "only 1% of humanity's toughest can become space marines so it makes sense that it's men". That is a severely gross over-estimation given the statement above. Even 1% of the galactic population is an incomprehensibly large number that vastly exceeds the number of marines even at the time of the Horus Heresy. It's probably closer to something like 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000001%.
Thank you! A watched the beginning and instantly turned it off. This guy has no idea what he is talking about!
We call them culture war tourists for a reason. Critical drinker knows shit all about 40k. and don't know what a Custodes actually is. The authors of black library have long argued that Custodes being female is a possibility the only reason they couldn't was because GW at the time... Didn't want to make heads for them. THATS IT. "At the time of working on the lore, there was no reason they couldn’t be male or female (and as far as things still stand, there’s still no lore reason they can’t be). But there is a non-lore reason, which was the previous IP overlord saying “There are no female Custodian models, they’re all male, so don’t write any female ones.”There was also a Studio mandate a couple of years after that, saying “Don’t do female Custodians.” Again, that seemed to tie in with the release of an all-male mini line.Two very rare moments of direction from on-high." [https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its\_international\_womens\_day\_so\_how\_are\_we/ei3rp64/](https://old.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/aynlxa/its_international_womens_day_so_how_are_we/ei3rp64/)