Warhammer 40K Makes Big Lore Update to Henry Cavill’s Favorite Army

Warhammer 40K has confirmed that the Adeptus Custodes can have female members, a first for the franchise.

Warhammer 40K fans are buzzing about the soon to be released Adeptus Custodes codex, although mostly due to a surprising new update to the faction’s lore. This weekend, Games Workshop launched pre-orders for the Adeptus Custodes and Orks codexes, which come with rules updates for both factions for Warhammer 40K’s 10th Edition. However, the Adeptus Custodes codex also contains an update of sort to that army’s lore, thanks to a short story focusing on a new character – Calladayce Taurovalia Kesh. Kesh is explicitly said to be a female Custodian, a first in Warhammer 40K lore. 

For those not familiar with the Adeptus Custodes, the army serves as the bodyguards for the functionally undead Emperor of Mankind. They are superhuman soldiers that are far more powerful than Space Marines – in fact, they are often compared to being to the Space Marines what Space Marines are to regular humans. While Warhammer 40K has revealed some of the basics of how Space Marines are made, the “making” of a Custodian is still shrouded in mystery. It’s known that they are taken as infancy and functionally rewritten at a genetic level to give them superhuman powers, but Warhammer 40K lore is deliberately vague as to what this entails. Notably, the Adeptus Custodes are also Henry Cavill‘s favorite army faction, even if he hasn’t had a chance to use them in the current version of the game. 

While the Adeptus Custodes have traditionally been depicted as being male, there’s nothing within Warhammer 40K lore that says they can’t be female; as mentioned above, each Custodian is reworked at a genetic level to become a supersoldier. Hilariously, some fans have remarked that the reveal fulfills a longstanding wish of a popular character in Warhammer 40K lore – Malcador had asked the Emperor to create female Primarchs (demigod-like “sons” of the Emperor meant to lead Space Marine chapters) in the lead up to the Horus Heresy, but the Emperor never got around to it before the galaxy-shattering civil war broke out. However, some fans are upset about the change, simply because it seemingly contradicts how the faction has been depicted in the past. 

You can pre-order the Adeptus Custodes Codex from Games Workshop’s website and check out their full army line of miniatures.