#forge world

A great deal of hay has been made over the initial instant sellout of the Legio Custodes Battle Group on warhammer.com, and the concomitant "logistics issue" that allegedly resulted in some independent retailers' allocations being cut. I don't know how much of that is true because most of it is from Reddit and Redditor is a synonym for liar in my dictionary, and I don't know how much faith can really be put into anecdotal experiences, anyway. The real measure will be in sales performance and Games Workshop does not disclose that, but there are ways to tell.

As has been previously observed, Games Workshop is in the process of forking the Warhammer 40,000 and Horus Heresy ranges so that there are no shared kits between them. Believe it or not, even with the consolidation of Forge World into the Warhammer Design Studio there's actually a great deal of differentiation between products and product teams, which manifests in the micro (despite being 100% CAD rendered and 3d printed, 30k Space Marines are still out of scale with their 40k counterparts) and the macro (despite nominally being the same faction, 40k Adeptus Mechanicus and 30k Cult Mechanicum have completely separate ranges of miniatures). We are in the process of observing one of the macro manifestations occurring in real time.

This isn't exactly new, though, as we've seen the 30k and 40k Custodes lineups moving in different directions since 2018 when the Dawneagle Jetbikes and Allarus Terminators came out in support of the first Codex: Adeptus Custodes, parallel to the Gyrfalcon Jetbikes and Aquilon Terminators already available from Forge World. Different units, yes, and featuring different wargear, but still Jetbikes and Terminators. Different products for different product lines.

Now, here's the part you're going to find objectionable; I don't care what you think about gender politics and female Custodes, it makes no difference to me as long as the models are good and players have a choice in what they build; but I think GW screwed up by giving the female Custodians visually distinctive feminine physiques because now it's not a matter of personal preference, as it is with Cadian Shock Troops and Hearthkyn Warriors where you can choose to use a male or female head and you can't tell one from the other if their visor's down.

That choice has been taken away. You will field a diverse Sodality of half male and half female Custodians and if you have a problem with that, too bad. Don't buy them if you don't like it.

And I think that's exactly what we're going to see happen, now that the issue has been forced. People won't buy them. Certainly, some Custodes players will be excited for the newly gender equitable kits. Others may not care. Do they significantly outnumber the ones that do? We're going to find out.

Are you, reader, going to buy these models because they align with your ideology? Or are you just here because it's an easy virtue signal to make, supporting Games Workshop alienating a portion of their fanbase without actually buying the product? Because Games Workshop is, at the end of the day, a business and they make products that sell, and if they can't sell them to you then why make them at all?

To wit, the extant Custodian Guard squad - which is perfectly capable of representing both Custodian Guard Sodality and Sentinel Guard Sodality - does not appear to be going anywhere, it's still available to buy right now. Ditto the 40k Shield-Captain, as much as that model was clowned on; you can still get Shield-Captain Valerian or the old Forge World Shield-Captain if you'd prefer one that isn't wider than he is tall.

It's telling that despite crowing about how quickly the Legio Custodes Battle Group sold through - conveniently ignoring that it also contained the highly anticipated plastic Caladius Annihilator Grav-Tank and Contemptor-Achillus/Galatus dual kit which together accounted for half the cost of the box - only the Venatari Sodality (which I dislike for unrelated reasons) have so far sold out this weekend, and then only in North America where the old Forge World kit was prohibitively expensive.

But you know what is currently sold out?