Games Workshop has revealed new plastic miniatures for almost the entire Horus Heresy Adeptus Custodes miniature range, and I’m frankly astonished that they’ve been able to keep so many incredible kits totally under wraps. Not only has the Warhammer design studio adapted a vast number of the hugely expensive resin Custodes vehicles into plastic kits, it has totally overhauled the basic Custodian infantry design to such a high standard they hardly look like they came from the same company.
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The first wave of new Custodes models will be available in a battlegroup box, and it’s stacked. The kit contains: two ‘sodalities’ of six Custodians, one of Custodian Guard with guardian spears, another of Sentinels with warblades and praesidium shields; a new Shield captain; a Contemptor dreadnought that can be built as an Achillus variant with spear or Galatus variant with sword; and the versatile Caladius Annihilator Grav-Tank.
More models are coming after this initial launch: plastic versions of the existing Caladius Grav-Tank, the massive Coronus Grav-Carrier, and the jetpack equipped Venatari. Updated rules for the Custodes in the Horus Heresy will arrive in a new Liber Custodes book, along with rules for the Assassinorum and the Anathema Pskyana (aka the Sisters of Silence).
Games Workshop has confirmed that these models can also used in the Custodes Warhammer 40k faction – as if they could stop Custodes players from upgrading to these kits. Holy shit these new figures look dope. The new infantry draws extensively from the incredible art of the Custodes during the Horus Heresy, particularly John Blanche’s early artwork that featured in the Horus Heresy card game in the ’00s and became the de facto concept art for the range, and Neil Roberts’ peerless cover illustrations for the novel series.
The new models are far more detailed than the previous version, far more ornate and baroque, pulling in more of the classic Rembrandt and Dürer influences that make the most iconic Heresy artwork both epic and timeless. The proportions are simply better – and the first person to complain about ‘scale creep’ gets a novelty gold banana. They’re Custodes, they’re supposed to be freaking massive.
The trade off will, I assume, be in the complexity of the kits – you don’t get this much detail onto a plastic model without breaking it into more pieces. But what price beauty?
As you can probably tell, I’m rather excited by these figures. If you want to share my hype, join me in the Wargamer Discord community!