There’s no Liber yet for the Talons of the Emperor but there’s a PDF with rules for the Legio Custodes, Sisters of Silence and Assassins. You can download it now from Warhammer Community. We expect a full Liber replacing some or all of this content, though not for a few months.
Table of Contents
Who Are the Talons of the Emperor?
This PDF is in three sections. The Legio Custodes have quite a big army list containing a fully-functioning independent army, though it’s been cut down a bit, removing units and wargear that GW doesn’t make. The Sisters of Silence have gone through the same process, meaning their list has been vastly cut down to Jenetia Krole, a generic HQ, “normal” Sister squad and the Kharon. Seven kinds of Assassins can be added to other Imperial armies but aren’t an independent force themselves.
This PDF isn’t for Traitors at all by the way. The Infernus Abomination is not here. But you can’t complain as you’ll get Daemons at some point to balance this out. Or I guess you can complain if you want as you don’t have your Daemons yet. Sorry.
Talon Army List(s) and Faction-Specific Benefits
Custodes are a bit similar to a Legion army in that they get an extra Reaction Point for having Valdor or a Tribune and they have a Legio Tactica. This makes them become Stunned instead of Routed in combat, so they don’t run away. They also can’t Fall Back or Disengage, except if they’re Antigrav. Instead they get their own aftermath option, in which they stab an enemy with a Misericordia if they fall back. There isn’t a unique Prime advantage or Gambit, however
You select a Custodes army using the Detachments from the core book. They don’t yet have any special Detachments. They only have one unit in several of the FOC slots, meaning you might end up with multiples of a single unit a lot of the time, or lots of Commanders to broaden your options. Fortunately a Shield Captain has Officer of the Line 2, so you ought to have enough Auxiliary Detachments without trying too hard. You probably won’t take an Apex Detachment because there are no Elites or Retinues in the list and you have enough Commanders in the Primary Detachment.
An army with Custodes as Primary can only take Allies who are Talons of the Emperor. That’s just Sisters of Silence for now, till we get rules for the Warlord Sinister, I suppose. This is a bit annoying if you have lots of tanks because you can’t ally in a few Tech Priests to fix them.
All Custodes units apart from their Vehicles have at least Eternal Warrior 1, which is amazing. The basic Custodians and their Dreadnoughts are going to be much less affected by multi-damage weapons than comparable units in other factions. Custodes Dreadnoughts are every bit as scary as their second edition versions and will now dominate the weaker Dreadnoughts of the Astartes almost as much as a Custodian dominates a Legionary. Their Vehicles are relatively soft in comparison.
Sisters of Silence are bad news for Psykers and Malefic stuff. They have a Divisio Tactica, giving all of them the “Anathema” rule. Units with an Anathema in can’t be targeted by Psychic blessings or curses and Anathemas themselves can’t be damaged by psychic weapons (i.e. where Psykers throw flames or lightning around). Also, weapons with the Psychic or Immaterial Traits (i.e. Force swords etc.) need at least a 5 or 6 to wound Anathemas.
In addition they all Hate Psykers and Malefic things. Ex Oblivio causes any Psychic or Malefic units in combat with them to suffer Perils of the Warp each time they meet in melee and lets them use the Nullify Advanced Reaction as if they were Psykers – with WP of 10 for normal Sisters and 12 for Characters.
You pick a Sisters of Silence army as usual, though there isn’t much need for extra Detachments as their only unit is Troops. If you take them as allies you’ll probably want a transport Detachment to have a Kharon or two.
Assassins can be added to a Loyalist force in an unusual way. You take the “Clade Operative” Prime advantage for a unit in your Primary Detachment and add three Support slots to that Detachment, each of which can be filled only with an Assassin.
Assassins have a Divisio Tactica called Nemesis. Unless they are the nearest target, all shooting at them has to be Snap Shots. It doesn’t work on Volley fire or against attacks with the Precision rule, so they should watch out for enemy snipers.
Assassins get the “Tactical Displacement” Advanced reaction. It lets them move up to their Intelligence stat, which is usually 7 but 10 for the Vanus Infocyte, when something shoots at them. If they are now out of sight your opponent can pick another target.
What’s New?
Custodes adapt to the new VP scoring system by aggressively disregarding objectives and instead all having Vanguard – apart from the vehicles, which can’t score objectives anyway. All the units including infantry, characters, jetbikes, dreadnoughts and even Valdor have Vanguard 2 or 3. They’ll barely score any VPs for holding objectives but can punish the enemy if they have the temerity to try and win the game.
Most of the weapons Custodian infantry have has the Assault trait, meaning it can be used to make Volley attacks. They also have a new Lightning Blows ability, where if they charge then a 6 to hit causes a Critical.
There’s nothing much new for Sisters of Silence. They have neither Line nor Vanguard so you could potentially bring some as allies to hold objectives, which they can do adequately.
Assassins are even less concerned about whether you win the game or not than Custodes. They all have Heedless, meaning they can’t ever score objectives. Otherwise there’s nothing very surprising or new here. The Vindicare can shoot people dead, the Eversor chops people up and then explodes, and so on. Oh and the Vanus is the most broken model in 30k.
What’s Missing?
Removing stuff that doesn’t have models takes away a few Custodes units but absolutely guts the Sisters of Silence list.
For Custodes probably the only unit lost is the Hetaeron Guard. I don’t know what Meridian Swords were and now I never will, I suppose. Sorry if you converted some. They’ve also lost the ability to issue challenges with every single Custodian to lock down enemy characters. In fact Custodes units don’t have Sergeants so they can’t even use the Master Sergeant Prime advantage to get a Champion.
They also lose some other equipment, which is more impactful. Custodian Guard all used to have Melta Bombs but now they can’t even take them as an option. They’ve also lost the option of giving people Solarite Power Talons and Gauntlets. Their big axes are gone too, which is odd as they used to sell a Tribune with one. Combined, these changes mean your “basic” Custodes are far less of a threat to tough vehicles than before. They’ll have to bring other tools to handle these, and thankfully they’ve got plenty, but it means playing combined arms now, not just a lot of spiky gold men.
As for the Sisters, I don’t really know what to say. They go from having 19 units to four. It was always kind of strange that they released a full army list featuring snipers, jetbikes, crocodiles and so on without any model support. But they did do that, inviting us all to go out and convert whole armies of Sisters of Silence, and now they’ve deleted the whole lot from the game again a few years later. It feels wrong. What was the point in all that stuff with the three Chambers Militant and so on? It just feels like an incoherent approach.
I don’t have a whole army of Sisters of Silence but I had a decent allied contingent including several units I can’t use any more. I went to some trouble to source Escher bits to make units with needle guns and a squad with bows that I counted as Sanctioners with Vratine Nemesis bolters (firing noctilith-tipped arrows, in my headcannon). I can use my Raptora Cadre as a normal squad I suppose, though annoyingly I bought some FW pistols to make the unit look more varied and they don’t have bolt pistols any more.
All the Assassins are here, apart from the Infernus Abomination, as mentioned.
Units of the Legio Custodes
I’ll start with the “basic” Custodians who form the core of your army. A Custodian Guard is a bit like if you took a Legionary and just added +1 to all their stats. Move 8, WS, BS, S and T5. W2, I5 and A3 for the physical stats. LD and CL 10 with WP and In 8 makes them resilient to effects but not all that amazing at special tasks that require Int. They have 2+ saves, 6++ invulnerables, Bulky 2, Eternal warrior 1, Lightning blows and Vanguard 2.
Every Custodes melee weapon is AP2, so they could almost just have ignoring armour saves as a faction rule. Their spears give them +1A on the charge and +1S, whereas sentinel blades just use the user’s basic (amazing) stats at AP2, but come combined with a shield that grants a 5++ and the option for the Shield Wall reaction. Both are D1. The Paragon spear characters can have just gets Critical hits on a 6.
The number of WS5 attacks they have at I5 means these guys are going to casually walk through most enemies they come across, with the possible exception of elite Cataphractii units. A charging Custodian with a spear has 4 attacks at WS5 S6 AP2, doing critical hits on a 6. They come in units of 3-12 for 45 points each or 40 with swords and shields.
For shooting the Guardian Spear is a lot less spectacular, with a couple of S4 AP4 shots at 18” range, though Assault means they’ll be able to volley. Sentinel Warblades get 3 shots at just 8” range, also with Assault. Custodian Guard can pay 15 points to upgrade their guns to far more scary Adrasite (1 shot, 12”, S5, AP2, D2) or Pyrithite (1 shot, 6”, S8, AP2, D2, Melta 3) spears, also with Assault and likely to do much more damage if given the chance
Sagittarum Guard might be a more interesting option in third edition. Vanguard looks like it’ll be very good on ranged units that won’t allow enemies to just react away from the objective to deny you the points. Their Adrastus Bolt Calivers aren’t all that spectacular, with a couple of S6, AP4, D2 shots, but they have a one-off Adrathic beam at S6, AP2, D2 with Rending 6+.
The leaders of the Legio Custodes are truly fearsome, as are their points costs. A Tribune, in the High Command slot, costs 250 points. For that you get WS7, 5 wounds, 6 attacks, LD12 and a 2+/4++. Tribunes also carry an Arae-shrike which allows them and their unit of Custodians to Deep Strike and gives the enemy -1 to their first reserve roll each turn. The Shield Captain at 175 is a bit less spectacular but still very powerful. They have Officer of the Line 2, so you’ll probably need a couple of them to unlock the rest of your army. And then you have Valdor, who is a Primarch in all but name and can give some of them a decent duel.
Aquilon Terminators are absolute monsters, admittedly for a monstrous cost of 85 points each. They’re like Saturnine Terminators (T6, W3, 2+/4++) but with M7, WS5, A3, Eternal Warrior (1) and Vanguard (3). They come with Solarite power talons that use pretty much their base stats, but with AP2, Critical Hit (6+) and Reaping Blow (2). They’re Bulky (3) so if three of them charge a 10-man unit they’ll be outnumbered and get 5 attacks each. The talons can be swapped for Solarite power gauntlets with I-3, S+4 (so striking at I2, S9), AP2, D2 and Critical Hit 6+. They come with Infernus firepikes, which are S6 AP4 flamers with Panic (2). These can be swapped for Lastrum storm bolters with FP4, S5, AP4, D1 and Shred (5+) or the devastating Adrathic combi-disintegrators with FP2, S5, AP2, D2 and Rending 6+.
Custodes Dreadnoughts are fantastic. They’ve kept their WS and BS5. They have Eternal Warrior 1 and Vanguard 2. They’re armed with all sorts of horrible things. The nastiest melee option is the Achillus Dreadspear with 6 attacks on the charge, at S11 AP2, D3 Armourbane. The Galatus “only” strikes at S7 for 2 damage but it has Reaping blow 3 so the Bulky 6 Galatus will often count as outnumbered and get to swing it 8 times.
The Telemon can ruin your day from far away with a choice of Arachnus storm Cannon (with Concentrated mode for killing tanks and a burst mode for infantry), Iliastus Accelerator culverin with 4 S9 AP3 D2 shots with Breaching 5+ and Rapid Tracking – which is terrible news for aircraft. The Spiculus missile launcher is like a twin heavy bolter but with breaching 6+ and suppressive 2, which is a nice back up but no use against the hard targets is main guns are meant for. Alternatively it can take one or two Telemon Castus if it would prefer to hand out S12 D3 Armourbane attacks with Shock (Pinned). It does only have 3 attacks in melee though, or 4 if given two fists, so the Contemptors are probably best for this.
Venatari are unusual as they have “only” 3+ saves, though their jump packs give them a 14” move, Deep Strike and Outflank. They have Firestorm and their Kinetic Destroyers are like little pistol Autocannons, firing 3 S7 AP4 shots with Breaching 5+. They’re 12” range but Assault, so Venatari can volley fire very effectively – and their bucklers reduce the strength of enemy volley fire and overwatch by 1. Or you can just give them lances, losing the protection from enemy fire but gaining an AP2 melee weapon with +1A on the charge and Precision 5+. I’d definitely go for the lance.
Gyrfalcone Jetbikes are missiles, basically. Solarite power lances have a profile with no attacks, which is unusual, but it gains one on the charge – at I9, S10, AP2, D3 with Crits on a 6 and Armourbane. They also have a more normal defensive strike with 2 attacks each for use against units and can take a variety of scary guns.
I’m not totally sure about Custodes vehicles. They’re certainly armed with powerful guns, with various powerful lasers or Iliastus autocannons that will tear up vehicles and infantry, backed up with Lastrum bolters that give you a bit of extra AP4 dakka. But the Pallas is only armour 12 on the front with 4 HP, which is very soft. The Coronus and Caladius have 13 front and 8 and 7 HP respectively, but I think they could suffer if opponents have come tooled up to handle armour 14 stuff. That said, given that your basic infantry have T5 and 2+ saves, maybe the enemy’s Anti-tank weaponry will be busy elsewhere. All these vehicles have Auto-repair 3+, so even though you don’t have any Tech priests (and can’t bring allied ones) they ought to recover from statuses after a turn.
The Coronus is worth calling out because it can carry 6 Custodians and is an assault vehicle. With a 12” Antigrav move and respectable firepower too this gives you the very real prospect of launching T1 assaults. You can have infantry move 20” in the movement phase – significantly further than one of your Jetbikes. It’s a Heavy Transport so you have to take an Armoured Fist detachment if you want these.
I don’t know if I can recommend spending 600+ points on one of the Lord of War flyers, the Orion dropship or Ares gunship. It’s awesome if you do, and the Orion is even better for turn 1 assaults… if it turns up. Either of these is likely to make two brief appearances on the board and that’s not almost certainly not worth it.
Units of the Anathema Psykana
Though we only have four units now for the Sisters of Silence, they’re all pretty useful. It’s not enough to make an army out of but you can make a nice allied force out of them. They all have S and T3, Fear 1 and Hatred of Psykers and Malefic units. They’re also all Light, so they can snap fire after dashing, though not all of them actually have guns of any kind. Frag and Krak grenades don’t appear here either, meaning they’ll struggle a bit to hurt vehicles.
Jenetia Krole is the Knight-Commander of the Silent Sisterhood and a very good melee fighter. She’s got WS6, I5 and 5 attacks with The Sword of Oblivion, hitting at S5 AP2 D2 with Critical Hit 6+ and Duellist’s Edge 2. She’s also got Eternal Warrior 1, a 2+/4++ save and 4 wounds, so she isn’t at all easy to kill. Her Gambit is to add the difference between her Willpower stat (of 12!) and her opponent’s to her Focus roll – which she’s already adding 2 to from Duelist’s edge. She’s also got an Archeotech Pistol. She’s pretty reasonably-priced at 125 points.
It’s a bit awkward that Krole’s a High Command choice. In an allied detachment she has to fill the Prime Command slot as a Special Assignment, but then she doesn’t unlock any other detachments. You almost certainly want a Kharon to move her around, and there are no transport slots in the Allied Detachment, so that means taking a Knight-Centura to unlock an Iron Fist detachment.
Knight-Centuras are your basic Command choice and they’re fine for their 75 point cost. That includes a Paragon blade, 2+5++, WS5, 3W and 3A. No gun of any kind and no Officer of the Line but that’s ok as there’s nothing much to unlock, except for transports.
The Anathema Cadre is your main (and kind of only) unit. Four Sisters for 65 points, plus up to 5 more for 10 each, armed only with bolters. They can swap the bolters for two bolt pistols for free, allowing volley fire costing range. For 5 points they can have Flamers, which are great for firing while rushing as they still get their templates, causing Panic tests with Fear 1 built in. For 10 they get Execution Blades, which give them +1S. Unfortunately they’ve only got WS4 but they have A2. They’re AP3 D1 but Rending 6+ and Breaching 6+. They’d do very well against basic Legionaries in assault but are vulnerable to the being shot by overwatch if they can’t make the charge with just a set up move.
The Kharon Pattern Acquisitor might be the best thing about Sisters of Silence. It’s a M12 assault transport with 13/12/11 armour, 5 Hull Points and 12 capacity. It’s got Fear , Outflank and Shrouded 5+. Its Hellion Heavy Cannon Array has 6 shots at S6, AP4, D1, Suppressive 1, which is fine but not exciting. It also gets Vratine Heavy Missiles ,which give you a 3” blast with Panic 1, Psy-Shock and Limited 1. Psy-shock forces the enemy to make a Perils of the Warp test if they have any Psykers or Malefic models, either getting Stunned (which will usually do D3 wounds to malefic Legionaries instead ) or potentially taking a few hits from a Warp Rupture.
The Assassins
Loyalists can take the new “Clade Operative” Prime Advantage for a unit in your Primary detachment. This adds three Support slots to the Detachment, which can only be filled by Assassins. You have seven to choose from. Some of their stats vary depending on their specialism but they all have M8 (or 7 for the Vanus), S4, T4, W3, I5, LD and CL10. They mostly have WP and In 7, though there’s some variety there. They all have saves of 4+/4++.
Assassins have various special rules but all get Heedless, meaning they can’t score objectives, Infiltrate (9), Move Through Cover and Shrouded (5+). They are Infanty (Light), meaning they can rush around 13” and still snap fire their guns, with great BS scores and sometimes Templates. Most Assassins are Champions so they can challenge in melee but the Vindicare and Vanus aren’t, so can’t.
The Divisio Tactica is Nemesis. Attacks against Assassins are always Snap Shots if they aren’t the closest target, except for Precision weapons. It also doesn’t affect Volley attacks, which are usually Snap Shots anyway – but think twice before charging big units of Sons of Horus.
Assassins aren’t really intended for mass battles and so they’re tricky to use. I think it’s fairly unlikely that they’ll succeed in assassinating many Traitors, though they can certainly be a nuisance and disrupt your opponent’s plans. That may be worth their price, and they’re also just kind of cool anyway.
The Vindicare has an Exitus rifle and Pistol and they’re both really nasty. The rifle has AP- but Ordnance AP, so it’s AP2 while stationary. It’s S7, D2 with Precision 2+ and Pinning 1. The pistol gets 3 shots and they’re S6 AP3 D1. The Vindicare is BS7 so will get critical hits on a 5+ to hit, doing 3 damage. They carry an AP3 D1 Breaching 6+ melee weapon too, though they only get 2 attacks.
Vindicare’s benefit a lot from Nemesis as they ought to be far away from the enemy. The Deadshot rule lets them ignore Shrouding and never have to fire Snap Shots if stationary. They can also choose between Shred 5+, Shock (Pinned, Suppressed) or Murderous 5+, which cancels out Eternal Warrior. These will all trigger on a 5+ to hit, as those will be Critical hits.
The Eversor is a melee monster with WS6 and A4, plus Reaping Blow 3 meaning they’ll very often get 7 or more attacks. They have a power sword and a Neuro Gauntlet that adds yet another attack, also +1 initiative and hits at AP3 D2, with Rending 4+ and Poisoned 4+. No breaching though, so an Eversor might bounce off 2+ saves. In a challenge they have to pick a gambit that makes them take an AP2 wound (which it has a 4++ save against) in exchange for +3 to its focus roll and +3 attacks. It’s got Eternal Warrior 1 and Explodes 2+.
The Callidus Assassin’s Polymorphine means the enemy can’t shoot or charge them until they give themselves away by shooting or charging or if the enemy gets within 3” and passes an Int check. The first time they charge, their target immediately gets stunned and won’t be able to overwatch. Their Neuro Shredder is really nasty, firing a S4 AP2 D1 Template that causes Pinning 3. Infiltrate 6 means the Callidus can easily get to a position to unleash the Shredder, though that’ll tend to leave them exposed to the rest of the army.
The Culexus is another Pariah like the Sisters of Silence, so they get Ex Oblivio, Anathema and Fear (1). Their Animus speculum fives a S5 AP4 D1 Template with Breaching (5+), Panic (1) and Psy-shock to cause the Warp Rupture result of Perils of the Warp on any unit it hits that contains Psyker or Malefic models. They’ve got Firestorm so you can volley fire at full BS… with this template weapon. Useful to get two shots on a unit you don’t want to charge, I suppose. Weirdly, their Psyk-out bombs are a melee weapon, with A3, S5, AP3, D2, Aflame (2) and Limited (3) – making it the only melee weapon I’m aware of that can run out of ammo. Also weirdly, they reduce the AP stat of incoming fire but I’m not sure why that matters, as they have a 4+ invulnerable save.
Adamus Assassins get a one-shot Needlespine launcher attached to a bolt pistol. It’s kind of fun with Precision (2+), Breaching (5+), Phage (T) on it’s 3 S6 AP4 D1 shots. The main news for these guys is their Nemesii Blades though, which strike at AP2 D1 but with Critical Hit (5+) and Shred (5+), meaning they do 3 damage on a 5+ to hit or 2 on a 5+ to wound. Their Nemesii Grenades mean any charges against them are Disordered, and count as moving through Dangerous Terrain. They also have a Gambit, which they always have to use, making them strike on an unmodified 4+ and still get their attacks if they go second in a round of the challenge and die.
The Venenum Assassin likes to poison things, which sadly isn’t hugely effective against Astartes, though as a result of their Unnatural Conditioning they aren’t affected by Phage or Poison themselves. Toxin Ejectors fire yet another Template, this time with S5, AP4, D1, Breaching 5+, Poisoned 3+ and Armourbane – which is bizarre on a S5 D1 weapon but ok. Alternatively they’ve got a single Poison Globe to throw, With 8” range, AP3, D2, 3” Blast, Poisoned (3+), Panic (1) and Assault. In Melee their Hookfangs give +1I, AP3, D1, Rending 6+, Precision 2+ and The Venum. This makes a target that it wounds take a Toughness Test at the end of each of their turns or take a wound… which probably won’t do anything to be honest.
Last, and most complicated, irritating and fun-killing due to their two unique reactions for messing with enemy reserves, is the Vanus Infocyte Assassin. They have two harmless laspistols for decoration and Sympatic Dataspikes if they get caught in melee, which give them 5 attacks in melee at I6, S4, AP3, D1 with Rending 6+, Precision 6+ and Shock (Stunned). It can use its Autonomic Servo-limbs to disengage regardless of who wins a combat. But instead of using that stuff you’ll probably have a Vanus hide behind a rock somewhere out of danger, ready to use its reactions.
The first of these, Auspectre, lets you place an enemy flyer, rather than the person who owns it. Stick it on the flank pointed back towards the enemy lines, I guess, which will make the plane totally useless. Do this to a Thunderhawk and your opponent will remember you forever. Signum Shunt lets you instead give a unit arriving from Reserves the Suppressed or Pinned Status, which is also devastating. These reactions are free by the way, though the Vanus has to pass an Intelligence check, with IN 10, to make them happen. People with Deep Strike have suffered enough already and this is not ok.
Final Thoughts
We know that this is a temporary list that’s only going to be live for a few months until the Liber is released. If you’re thinking of starting up a new Custodes army I’d suggest holding off for now. We don’t know what kits to expect in future but we’ve seen a tantalising hint of new Custodians, with an image of what’s clearly a Guardian Spear. We’ve seen GW make loads of Auxilia and Mechanicum resin kits into plastic and they might possibly do that with the Custodes too, so this probably isn’t the moment to invest in a lot of heavy resin tanks and Dreadnoughts.
Hopefully people with existing Custodes armies will be able to use this list until then without too many changes. It’s a shame if some conversions have been written out of the rules but at least most of your models should still work.
If, like me, you’ve converted some Sisters of Silence to suit the old rules then I don’t really know what to tell you. RIP your army. Krole is great, I suppose.
Assassins are fine except for the Vanus, which will ruin games. I can see those potentially getting banned.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
