Last Friday, Games Workshop hosted a New Year Preview showcase in which it gave Warhammer fans a veritable boatload of news to pore over. While the new Aeldari Corsairs, Age of Sigmar armies, and stunning Red Corsair minis were certainly enough to make headlines, there was something that drew a lot of fans' attention over the weekend.
Namely, the re-affirmed existence of female Custodes. This had been a point of contention in the past, as previous lore and miniatures without helmets implied that the gene-enhanced guards of the Emperor were all male, like Space Marines. However, in a new community post, it's confirmed that Custodes are not just Space Marines in golden armour, and can be females as well as males.
Some fans argue that this steps over the pre-established lore, while it seems on the other hand that this is simply a new development in an ever-evolving universe, one that didn't really have solid lore for the Custodes until arguably the 7th or 8th edition of the tabletop game.
The arrival of female Custodes units coincides with the introduction of a new army arriving for Warhammer: The Horus Heresy, a tabletop wargame set 10,000 years before Warhammer 40,000. However, even if these units are from millennia ago, you can still use them in your 40k games, meaning everyone gets some shiny new gold boys and girls.