Quis Depingit Custodes?

 If you're going to speed paint an army, the Custodians are a good pick. Not a high body count there. 

Bringing my ultra elites up to the 1500 point boundary, here is the contents of the recent Combat Patrol box. I've painted them up over the last three weeks or so, and it's been a fairly intensive burst of work. I blame myself - trying to pick out all that filigree in white was a right ball-buster, and no mistake. 

But first, let's get the grind out of the way. Sisters of Silence again, and if I didn't particularly enjoy the bolter ones, the Witchseekers (the flamer ones) really didn't add anything to the experience. 

The Greatsword ones, though, the Vigilators, these I can get behind! They'd be just as home in a fantasy setting as the grimdark future. The zweihanders they've got are spot on, and their poses come over as a bit more dynamic when they have a sword in hand. 

There's a leader too, the Knight Centura, although she's very likely to be nothing more than a squad leader most of the time. The plan for these two units is (eventually) to have them in a Rhino together. The Witchseekers give their transport a vanguard move, and unless there's a FAQ somewhere, this doesn't seem to stop them sharing the tank with someone else who can also benefit from the extra inches. Five flamers followed by a distinctly mid-tier melee unit might well give something pause, especially if its psychic. 

On to more stirring stuff! First, a trio of Custodian Guard, the highest possible lowly foot soldiers a 40Ker can field. 

From the same set, there is also a Shield Captain. He's got a labrys axe, because the bloody spikes on the backs of their polearms are a ruddy nightmare, always bending and folding and snapping off. After this one broke off twice, I snapped myself and glued a second axehead on instead. 

Next, a Vexilla, the one with a shield who is up at the top of the post. A rather blocky and unattractive shield, in my personal opinion, I'd rather have seen kite shields with eagles than these big barn doors, but they are pretty imposing I guess. 

Here's another one, but he's a bit different. He's got magnets!

There was also a box of Warden Guard alongside this lot, a great box to have for some of the options to customize leaders or units. I didn't want to limit myself to a single build in such a small army, so these have magnet shoulders, at the mere cost of the use of my fingers for half a week. 

As you can see, they haven't come out brilliantly, I'm not amazing with magnets. Some of the attachments are a bit tenuous, and they tend to be sticking out a bit much, which makes them look a bit ratty from certain angles. Easy enough to be selective with my photos, though, you can cover it from the sides!

The main thing is that  I can swap them round from being Elite Wardens to being Sagittarum, the weird shooty unit. Weird because they have a combi-weapon that's either high volume, mid-range, average bolters or shorter range, single-shot anti-elite disintegrators. Or both for less accuracy. To me, having them babysit a mid-field objective and back the rest of the line with a bit of shooting seems fun, and of course they're perfectly capable in hand-to-hand with their shortswords. Nice to have the option, anyway. 

And finally, another set of jetbikes, the unit that drew me to the Custodes in the first place! Nothing unusual to see here, just a single head swap. I don't like Custodes helmets, you might have noticed by the amount of heroic flesh on display, but the Sagittarum helms and jetbike helms are fine by me. One did get a spare head from the Blade Champion, so he could be a biker captain if he fancied it. 

One unit to come for these (and eventually a Rhino), then the army is finished. The rest of the Forge World stuff is beyond me, both financially and interest wise, and I need to actually play the army a couple of times before I'd commit to any other add-ons!