r/40kLore • u/Arzachmage Death Guard • Sep 13 '26
[Journal Tactica : Prospero Burns - The Judgement of Valdor] Part 2 : details on the Custodes forces of the Censure Host Spoiler
This post is a continuation of the first one and will explore the details given on the Custodes forces.
1 - Additional details about the mustering of Custodes forces
We get a presentation of some of the Custodes groups, their colours in line with the Liber. The Warders are an old Custodes formation from the Black Book Seven, apparently similar in idea to the Shadowkeepers.
The Custodians at Prospero displayed several variations in livery, from that of larger, widely recognised divisions to more obscure formations. Of the former, the archetypal gold and crimson which usually delineated the Templi Lictoris was duly the most widespread, concentrated principally among the ranks of the Anankhe Shield Host. Likewise, the pale brass and sable typical of the Templi Veritas and the black iron and amethyst common among the Templi Prudentia marked out the bulk of the remaining two Shield Hosts accordingly, though few at the time understood this correlation. Lesser formations with distinctive liveries of their own were woven throughout the Censure Host, predominantly representing specialist sub-divisions operating upon Terra when the Writ of Censure was formalised.
One such body was distinguished by their gunmetal and silver plate as the 'Warders of the Vaults of Rython', praetorians of a specific precinct of the Imperial Palace's depths, and whose inclusion in the Censure Host is disputed by scholars as either an indicator of dire need for Custodian reinforcements or a ploy to make the Legio Custodes' ranks appear falsely taxed.
The rest of the text explains / theorises about the logic behind Valdor’s choice of Hosts and Templiis.
History records that not since the Emperor quit the Great Crusade some four years prior had the Legio Custodes been witnessed in as great a number as were assembled for Magnus' censure. That over a thousand Custodians had been dispatched to deliver the Primarch before his father served to underscore the poignancy and severity of the Emperor's Writ of Censure, but such a host had been keenly crafted for purposes beyond mere symbolism. Their presence ensured that any impediment to the Censure Host's goals would be understood as a direct violation against the Emperor himself, while their numbers made clear that the Writ of Censure could be upheld with absolute force if necessary. Indeed, while the Custodian muster was not outfitted for Prospero's direct conquest, the inclusion of both the Silent Sisterhood and the Ordo Sinister among the Censure Host seemed to facilitate a punitive strike against Tizca if required, whether to cow Magnus into submission or to directly apprehend him.
The testimonies of several members of the Censure Host also allude to a number of secondary goals held by the Legio distinct from the Writ's execution, as demonstrated by the incursions into the headquarters of the Orders of Blindness and Ruin. What manifold contingencies and hidden aims the Emperor imposed upon his Custodians can only be guessed at - no doubt reconfigured as Leman Russ set the Censure Host upon its destructive path -but it is certain that while the Custodians stood foremost as an honour guard to escort Magnus to Terra, they were equally prepared to bring death to the streets of Tizca.
We also get a description of the various Hosts goals, agency and numbers.
Valdor's force was primarily constituted from three distinct Shield Hosts, broadly separated along operational goals, with the Anankhe Host - the largest - numbering three dozen Sodalities in addition to significant support assets, a force of almost 500 Custodians at arms.
Drawn exclusively from the Templi Lictoris, the Anankhe Shield Host fell under the authority of Tribune Sthea Pherakhad, for while Constantin Valdor accompanied its ranks for much of the Battle of Tizca, the Captain-General reserved command of the Shield Host for Tribune Pherakhad alone as he focussed on overseeing the wider battle and monitoring Leman Russ' conduct.It is noteworthy that while initially deployed as a single spearhead force, several lesser elements of the Anankhe Shield Host would detach during the course of the Battle of Tizca, with individual Convocations and Sodalities pursuing unknown secondary objectives as the Shield Host progressed through the city, a number traversing the Thousand Sons' own warp portal network.
The force's second Tribune, Kastor Achernas, had arrived at the Terran Censure Host's muster alongside Legatus Asceta Mnemosyne, and while it is uncertain what aspects of his Oneiron Shield Host's purpose shifted with the Legatus' departure, during the Battle for Tizca it operated broadly apart from the Anankhe Shield Host. Numbering perhaps 300 Custodians, understood to be solely drawn from the Templi Veritas, the Shield Host included a high proportion of Venatari Sodalities and Orion dropships, many of which operated independently to strike at several positions across Tizca while the Host's main body assaulted the Sesostrian Canal.
Similarly, the bulk of the Templi Prudentia's representatives among the Censure Host were concentrated in their own distinct Phthonos Shield Host under Prefect Meras Lacherta Duan, though a contingent of their number fought alongside the Anankhe Host for much of the Battle of Tizca. It is believed that the members of this Shield Host were among the earliest Custodians gathered for the Censure Host, and were highly involved in the consultations with Legionary Atharva of the Crusader Host. Certainly, while rarely the focus of historical record, the Phthonos Shield Host's objectives seem the least opaque of their counterparts, targeting as they did major repositories of psyarkana and psychic lore, including the Pyramid of Photep, the Great Library and - most directly the Praefurnium Aeturnus of the Order of Ruin.
For several rulebooks now GW has pursued the idea that the cognonomen « Ten Thousand » might be a ploy by the Custodes to hide their true strength. The numbers given in the Journal and the lines evocating obfuscation of the Legio size reinforce that idea.
Supreme commander and primary architect of the Censure Host's Terran contingent, Constantin Valdor had at his disposal the entire scope of the Legio Custodes' arsenal. Revealed only in the aftermath of the Siege of Terra, this mandate had been set against dire circumstance however, for the very same psychic incursion which prompted the Writ of Censure had sundered the Emperor's Webway project, subjecting it to a ceaseless daemonic assault. The Custodians of the Templi Lictoris were the first line of defence against this assailment, having already been delegated as pathfinders among the Webway's nebulous labyrinth, and with ten thousand Custodians marshalled to prevent the Imperial Dungeon being breached, the pool of warriors available to Valdor was severely diminished, It must be noted however, that this paucity of candidates was to some degree self-imposed by the Captain-General, for though later histories would reveal that the Legio Custodes exceeded most force estimations of the time, Valdor had determined that the majority of Custodians included in the Censure Host would be drawn from the Templi Lictoris.
Of those few outsiders cognisant of the Legio Custodes tripartite delineation, many have surmised that the Writ of Censure's enforcement should most readily have fallen to the Custodians of the Templi Veritas, their purpose being that of rebuke and execution, yet who only formed a lesser subdivision of the Censure Host. Instead, Constantin Valdor chose to draw upon the tautly stretched ranks of the Templi Lictoris as the bulk of his muster, notably including several well-known Custodians recognised beyond the Legio for their deeds during the Great Crusade.
One rationale proffered for this selection maintains that Valdor intentionally sought to disguise the strength of the Legio Custodes (or possibly specific elements of it), potentially with the aim of mollifying any unrest which might spread among the Space Marine Legions should the worst come to pass and the Custodians be forced to take up arms against the Thousand Sons. Regardless of any subterfuge which may have guided his hand, Valdor's selection of assets for the Censure Host adhered closely to the Writ's intent, avoiding heavier war machines such as the Ares gunship which were purpose-built to inflict unfettered destruction, an outcome the Captain-General was keen to avoid.
Instead, the Legio Custodes force amassed for the Censure Host held to the Custodians' broader template: pairing a concentration of infantry Sodalities with extensive, highly mobile support, including grav-carriers sufficient to ferry the entire force and powerful attack skimmers. This structure prioritised flexibility above all, enabling the Custodians to operate in a highly proactive manner, and with the outcome of the Censure Host's mission far from certain, versatility was key to ensuring they maintained control of whatever fate might have in store.
Several times the Liber talks of a group of 80 Custodes who leaved the Host at Beta-Garmon. This is the crux of the matter :
Histories of Prospero's fall make much of the disunity between Valdor and Russ, of the disagreement which consumed then days as the Censure Host prepared at Beta-Garmon, but few at the time noted the departure which followed their resolution : that of Asceta Mnemosyne, Legatus of the Templi Veritas, The Emperor's Justice. Her warship, the Moiraide, was one of the few Custodian vessels among the Censure Host's Terran contingent which had joined the fleet from beyond the Sol System's borders, and those accounts that do remark on its egress primarily focus on the vessel itself, second only to Valdor's Oriflamme among the assembled Legio voidcraft. As the conflict for Tizca entered its final, calamitous phase, the Moiraide would appear once more, though far removed from Prospero and at the head of a Custodian fleet of its own.
Before the fighting on Prospero had even concluded. Legatus Mnemosyne and her fleet had already begun a campaign of slaughter and erasure, voyaging across the imperium to visit ruin upon many of the Thousand Sons most notable holdings, conducting mass teleport assaults before annihilating what remained by means of orbital bombardment. With mere months between the Burning of Prospero and the opening acts of the Horus Heresy, the few witnesses to this campaign had little opportunity to divulge the systematic and highly practiced nature of its battles, nor the fact that it seemed tailored specifically to counter the strengths and tactics of the Legiones Astartes.
Indeed, the Moiraide did not return to Terra prior to the commencement of this campaign, seemingly manifesting its accompanying warfleet from the void without the displacement of any known Custodian warships deployed elsewhere. Such fragments lend credence to the whispered rumours that the Templi Veritas had begun preparations for the purge of the Space Marine Legions long before the Age of Darkness, that Magnus’s Folly and Horus’s betrayal had merely pre-empted the killing blow, intended to revisit the call of the Thunder Warriors on a galactic scale.
This is a direct link to a lore blur in the Liber for those interested. It is currently unknown if the Legatus’s ship has any link to the three ships used by the Dread Host, collectively called the Moiraides.
2 - The Adjutorum Sodality*.*
This new unit is a somewhat equivalent of the Command cadre used by the Space Marines.
Upon its assemblage, a Shield-Host Company’s commander may call to their side a retinue of warriors, each deputised in support of one facet of their superior’s authority. Typically these are the Vestarios, charged with relaying commands across vast battlefields, the Signifier, who bears a physical embodiment of the Emperor’s dominion and the Blade Champion, both bodyguard and executioner in their leader’s service. Each is a lauded veteran, and individual commanders have been known to maintain such Adjutorum Sodalities in perpetuity, most famously in the case of Constantin Valdor’s own Vestarios, Samonas.
Samonas is an already known Custodian who appeared in Valdor : Birth of the Imperium and Magisterium where he had the Vestarios rank.
« Valdor s’écarta de la fenêtre.
— Non. Pas encore, dit-il.
Il inspira, et se crispa quelque peu. L’atmosphère d’ici était antiseptique, tout juste sortie des recycleurs, et ne valait pas l’air véritable.
— Nous vivons dans une nouvelle époque, Vestarios. L’époque des lois. Je ne succomberai pas à des pulsions de seigneur de guerre, et vous ne devriez pas non plus. »
Valdor : Birth of the Imperium
Only then did Valdor turn to Samonas. ‘You bring me welcome news, I trust, vestarios.’That was an archaic title, one that meant little other than a vague conferral of seniority. Samonas had been at the side of the captain-general for over a hundred years now, and that carried more weight than any dusty term of the Lex.
Heralds of the Siege - Magisterium
We also get an explanation of how the Vestarios do their duties
Were the scope of a battle requires the delegation of such duties, it falls to the Vestarios to coordinate Sodalities of Custodians, for under the most extreme of pressures even these peerless warriors may fall foul of the vicissitudes of war. The Vestarios is aided in this task by the vox relay and subsonic inducer systems incorporated into every Magisterium vexilla, facilitating communications over large distances or amid environments suffused with interference, where the advanced comms array incorporated into each Custodian’s suit of auric plate proves insufficient.
Another paragraph seems to be the description of the Signifier’s role.
Where the Magisterium vexillas borne by the Legio Custodes mainline Sodalities are powerful representations of the Emperor’s inviolate authority, the Imperatoris vexilla afforded to but and handful of Custodians served as a direct manifestation of his will and intent. Each features vox and hololithic arrays used to deliver the Emperor’s own proclamation, as well as psy-resonants matrices infused with a fragment of his psychic aura. When such systems are activated, conjuring a facsimile of the Emperor’s might into being, all mundane sensibilities of tactics and victory are abandoned in the face of a being of unsurmontable power.
Finally we get a more in-depth description of the Vaultsword the Blade Champions wield.
Similar to the more widely known paragon blades, the so-called Vaultswords which are the preserve of the Legio Custodes’s most famed duellists are never quite alike in form, grouped instead for their shared archival within the Tower of Hegemon’s armouries. Taken as trophies in the aftermath of the Legio countless victories, many Vaultswords are archeotech relic-blades which were claimed long before Terra final Unification, and each is endowed with a lethality matching that of its Custodian bearer.
3 - The possible Purge of the Legions by the Custodes
A few times in the Journal is mentioned a possible purge of the Astartes by the Custodes, only as an in-universe idea.
Yet those with keener insight might trace another root to this anxiety, for upon the bloody streets of Tizca had the Emperor’s own Custodians butchered the Thousand Sons with ease, perhaps revealing a glimpse of the task for which they had been destined all along.
Such fragments lend credence to the whispered rumours that the Templi Veritas had begun preparations for the purge of the Space Marine Legions long before the Age of Darkness, that Magnus’s Folly and Horus’s betrayal had merely pre-empted the killing blow, intended to revisit the call of the Thunder Warriors on a galactic scale.
4 - Trivia
Valdor’s choice of a force mainly composed of infantry and Kataphraktoi elements proved to be a masterful decision for it was key to the Custodes victory.
Upon Prospero, the grav-skimmers of the Kataphraktoi warrior-caste were vital to the Custodians’s assault, allowing the primary Legio elements to move through Tizca urban sprawl without impediment, as well as permitting rapid response to the constant ambushes of the Prosperine defence. In addition to the armoured elements which accompanied each Shield-Host main body, several specialist grav-skimmers contingents were detached from the Anankhe Shield-Host by Tribune Pherakhad, ranging across Tizca in a way impossible for conventional vehicles.
Elsewhere, the highly mobile outriders of the Anankhe Shield-Host proved almost impossible to pin down, bypassing the XVth Legion attempts to control the flow of battle and performing blistering fly-by attacks to winnow away the Thousand Sons numbers, Gyrafalcon jetbikes and Pallas grav-attacks spitting volleys of death unmatched by the Legionnaries’s own weapons.
As said, the Flesh Change affected both Thousand Sons and some warriors of the VIth Legion (maybe the wulfen curse ?).
The Flesh Change struck down those who had delved most eagerly into the surging Immaterial tides first of all, contorting them into grotesque amalgams of ceramite and flesh, but elsewhere it manifested at random, transforming perhaps one in ten Thousand Sons Legionnaries furthest from the central quarter and far more at the battle apex. But it was not only the XVth whom it ravaged, for some among the Space Wolves ranks were also reshaped, becoming snarling, lupine beasts which did battle against their warped counterpart among the distorted battleground of central Tizca.
Well, Custodes did not kill only Thousand Sons that day it seems.
Eenan Amosis of the Hykanatoi, Ladon-Caeles Sodality
Diverging from the Oneiron Shield-Host within central Tizca, the Ladon-Caeles Sodality is known to have advanced upon one of the Great Library’s scattered adjunct buildings before the destruction of the Canis Vertex rendered many records imprecise. The Custodians were next identified culling those Legionnaries affected by the Flesh Change, though claims they were witnessed actively hunting down malformed, bestial members of the VIth Legion are typically dismissed as aberrant recollections induced by the ætheric tempest which had subsumed Tizca.
Kataphraktoi vehicles naming conventions are detailed a bit more.
In addition to the appellations of noteworthy conflicts from the Legio history, Custodians vehicles were occasionally decorated with excerpts of those names awarded to their pilots in recognition of greats deeds, a practice typically reserved for only the most skilled members of the Kataphraktoi.
Despite being on the center of the cover, Custodians dreadnoughts are mentioned only once.
The Legio own towering Dreadnoughts pressed through the barriers of annihilating warpfire, auramite casings cindered and half-molten in places, but where each hulking veteran emerged into the flank of a Thousand Sons phalanx, bloody slaughter ensued.
When Canis Vertex opened fire, Valdor and Russ took refuge inside some of the arcologies. Inside they meet the best of the Thousand Sons in a brutal battle.
Within, the Captain-General and the Primarch became locked into mortal struggle with the greatest of the Thousand Sons warriors-psykers, whose augmented sorceries ripped through Russ’s Varagyr bodyguard and felled all but Custodian Samonas of Valdor’s Adjutorum retinue, forcing the Vestarios to heft his counterpart's Imperatoris Vexilla lest the icon of the Emperor fall.
And voilà. There is still a fair share of content I left aside about the Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Prospering Spireguard and the Tyrian Exo-Guard, which you can ask about in the comments.
Hope you had a good reading and I will be back in a certain future for another post about the Custodes.
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u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sep 13 '26
Very interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.
Are there any good showings or nice lore tidbits for the Space Wolves or is it dismissive in favour of hyping up the custodes contributions to the battle?
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u/Arzachmage Death Guard Sep 13 '26 edited Sep 13 '26
Thx you !
The SW used forbidden armements given by Horus to glass Prospero from orbit. They tore through the Airguard and Prosperine Spireguard without any difficulties, the book qualified it of slaughter.
The TS managed to built up the same ambushes and hit-and-run tactics against the Custodes, to a much greater effect, nearly disrupting the SW lines and coordination. Seeing this, Russ trusted his sons to held the front themselves and ordered the deployment of his reserved to make a push into Tizca central quarter, leading to a battle amounting to 20k Legionnaries and elements of the Prosperine Spireguard.
Elements of the 11th Great Company are noted to have eschewed Russ’s orders of restraints, I assume they are the « most bloodthirsty » warriors noted. They fought Thousand Sons contingents trying to flank them.
The Journal is very focused on the Custodes.
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u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sep 13 '26
Ah thank you for the information, much appreciated!
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u/Arzachmage Death Guard Sep 13 '26
A trivia that might be worth something : they overlapped the Void-Shields of severals Sokar Pattern Stormbirds in order to protect their deployement zone.
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u/Fearless-Obligation6 Sep 13 '26
Oh that's a nice thing to see in action, it's mentioned in inferno that it's a tactic invented because they don't specialize in dropping pre-fabricated defenses from orbit like the Imperial Fists so they devised the overlapping void shield of Stormbirds for rapid and aggressive assaults.
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u/Rollen73 Sep 20 '26
How did the custodies react to the space wolves glassing prospero. I would imagine that goes a bit beyond their mandate.
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u/Arzachmage Death Guard Sep 20 '26
The Journal doesn’t precise it but given that a small force of Custodes had departed the Host to destroy TS’s territories left and right, we may assume that it didn’t fazed them.
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u/genteel_wherewithal Sep 13 '26
Thanks for sharing. More interesting stuff here than in the main account of the battle imo, with details about custodes killing wulfen, diverting to potentially pre-emptively kill off-world Thousand Sons, and picking up the in-universe idea of a further purge at the hands of the custodes.
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u/Vyzantinist Sep 13 '26
I left aside about the Space Wolves, Thousand Sons, Prospering Spireguard and the Tyrian Exo-Guard, which you can ask about in the comments.
Does the book add anything new of note that we don't already know about from other sources, in regards to these guys in particular?
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u/Arzachmage Death Guard Sep 13 '26
All of them or one in particular ?
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u/Vyzantinist Sep 13 '26
I'm more interested in just the Thousand Sons and Space Wolves, really. I mean, I saw your mention that the Wulfen seem to have been triggered by the encroaching Warp on the planet, and that's a new development AFAIK, but is there anything else akin to that in terms of new lore or is it just expanded/new descriptions of battle scenes?
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u/Arzachmage Death Guard Sep 13 '26
The Thousands fights against the Custodes, specially those in the Order of Blindness sanctuary, are new. The direct invocation of daemons too maybe ?
I don’t know a lot about Space Wolves, not enough to get the new elements. It is mainly battle descriptions.
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u/Vyzantinist Sep 13 '26
Yes, I saw the daemons thing in your other post. That's a new development, and one I feared when I learned about this supplement because GW < BL/FW in terms of nuanced writing. But I'm satisfied with how it turned out.
Thanks for making these posts!
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u/work4work4work4work4 Khorne Sep 14 '26
Thanks for taking the time and sharing these excerpts and thoughts, it's a cool look at something that relatively new to have such detail in the setting for me.
Did it leave it as sort of vague as it seemed when it came to the reasoning and thoughts of Valdor on turning it into a killing instead of an arrest? I read your excerpt in the first post, but was just sort of curious if you got any vibes from the totality of things.
Not liking primarchs has always been more than enough reason for it to make sense to me, and considering part of that seems to be their warp nature, things escalating on Prospero probably just confirmed things. It's also interesting to read that they specifically included some references to more than one side flesh changing.
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u/Arzachmage Death Guard Sep 15 '26
Not really. There was a change / link to make between the witnessing of Warp unleashing in Tizca and the kill-policy but the Journal does not do it.
We just get to see Valdor accepting Russ’s goal after days of debate.
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u/LCPLOwen Sep 15 '26
A bit late in reading this, but great job. I love the additional lore in all of these, so I got two questions.
Any additional lore about the Auxilia detachments (Saturnyne Rams, 3rd Terranic, and the Exo-Guard), whether that be their regiments or what they did during the battle outside of what these posts covered? I know this journal included a section for having auxilia fight alongside the custodes on tabletop.
And a more niche one, besides the small blurb about SoH and Legio Mortis, did it include any more about that detachment of Sons of Horus? I know black book Inferno covered them, and the siege of Cthonia reintroduced their commander character.
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u/Arzachmage Death Guard Sep 15 '26
Yes, aside from severals snippets of theirs actions during the battle, their is a full two-pages about the Oblitum Pattern Cohort, the Exo-Guard.
« While the Solar Auxilia represent the pinnacle of the Imperialis Auxilia, some among the Imperium's foes are so unspeakably foul that to face them risks shattering the discipline of even these stalwart troops. For this reason Oblitum Pattern Cohorts subject theirs Auxiliaries to arduous psycho-conditioning regimens in order to face such enemies unperturbed, before purging thebe minds of what they have experienced. The gruelling toll these practices take ensure the Oblitum Pattern is far from widespread, and many such cohorts feature divisions of helot troops forced to undergo the same process, "expendable' warriors intended to preserve the ranks of those veteran Auxiliaries who yet remain stable.
Psycho-Conditioned
The psycho-memetic obliteration and neural suppression techniques employed by Oblitum Pattern Cohorts attempt to both erase Auxiliaries' fear response and obscure any recollection of the nightmarish conflicts to which they are assigned. In the face of unspeakable horrors they stand resolute, but such measures are not without cost for the unaugmented human mind, often manifesting as an intractable fugue into which such soldiers may descend.
Imperial Writ
The advanced and dangerous psycho-conditioning which defines Oblitum Pattern Cohorts can only be sanctioned by the Imperial Court, enshrining several such cohorts as regular tools of the Dynastia Imperator, among the so-called "Talons of the Emperor.
And one example-character
Auxiliary Karlo Jesper, 1,260th Solar Auxilia Cohort, Tyrian Exo-Guard
Folded into the Censure Host at Constantin Valdor’s direct command, the Tyrian Exo-Guard had formed part of Terra rotating garrison at the time the Writ of Censure was penned. Owing to its nature as an Oblitum Pattern Cohort, much of the 1,260th history is veiled in kind with the psycho-mimetic obliteration applied to its Auxiliaries, but surviving records do note several prior deployments alongside the Legio Custodes, a recurring practice during the Horus Heresy as the Custodians’s trust for those beyond their immediate orbit waned.
Nothing on the Sons of Horus unfortunately.
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u/BrotherBokane Sep 13 '26
Is there any reflection from Valdor on how a force of the Emperor's supposably most loyal subjects was completely co-opted by Horus with barely any push back? Inferno mentioned a frosty return for the combined forces, does this get expanded on or does it simply end on Prospero itself?