Let’s have a ramble about female Custodes

For those not in the know, Warhammer (or Games Workshop) recently showed off some new Custodes models. This is largely a range refresh, and I’m quite a fan of the newer Custodes look, even if the refresh feels a little unnecessary as there are ranges begging for some new stuff!

Here’s the YouTube trailer:

If you’re not the sort of cretin that buys Warhammer (I am unfortunately) then you may not be aware of the current fallout from the new Custodes release. The fallout being that there are now female Custodes in the box. I found the complaints rather strange as the (now) old Custodes codex had female Custodes in the fluff. So it’s been a thing for a while, now Warhammer are just providing the modelling options to match the fluff. Which seems fair enough.

I was curious about the complaints, so I watched a few YouTube videos. Which after not that long I had to stop. I won’t name names, but let’s just say they weren’t ‘healthy’ takes on the situation, largely sexist and unfortunately one video devolved into a rant about the decline of western civilisation due to immigration. I failed to see the connection between all of that and some female head options on a sprue. I was rather depressed after all that, so I ate some chocolate covered bourbon biscuits and Tunnock’s teacakes.

So what are the complaints.

I may just be rehashing Arbitor Ian’s video here on female Space Marines…

It breaks the lore (I really am rehashing Arbitor Ian). There weren’t female Custodes before, there never have been, the previous codex was the first mention. This is essentially a retcon. I think this is probably the ‘best’ complaint I heard, and can totally accept, with a few caveats. Mainly, if a certain person didn’t complain when Space Marines, or other Imperial faction, got some new gear (prior to 8th and the whole Primaris thing), that gear was essentially a retcon. So if that didn’t bother you, maybe you need to ask deeper questions about why this particular retcon did? Of course Space Marine Centurions already existed, we’d just never seen them before, of course Sisters of Battle always had Paragon Warsuits, you see what I’m getting at. Models aside, there’s a long laundry list of previous 40k retcons (including Ork reproduction). So what gives, what’s worse about this one? I understand for those who are big into the lore, there seems to be a consensus that since the story line started progressing (8th Edition onward) there has been a downturn in the quality of the fluff but I doubt keeping all the Custodes male would really help that, or that now including female Custodes will be the reason it gets worse. A good story is a good story and a bad story is a bad story, the genders of the people involved are kind of irrelevant (unless it’s a story about gender of course).

The actual ‘best’ argument in my opinion is that the Imperium of Man is meant to be kind of backward, and I don’t mean very politically conservative, I mean medieval. The Imperium shouldn’t appear progressive in any sense, because progression is heresy. So female Space Marines and I guess by extension Custodes shouldn’t exist (although I’m not that familiar with the finer points of the lore, I understand that Custodes and Marines aren’t exactly the same thing).

Maybe none of this is really about feminine head options… maybe there’s deeper stuff at play, and for some folks this was just the straw that broke the camels back.

Many folks have commented on a crisis in masculinity, men increasingly find themselves lacking purpose or meaning as older generations of men tell them ‘manhood’ means working and providing for a family. Unfortunately for most men this isn’t a viable option, your average job doesn’t provide enough money for a man to support a whole family (sometimes barely themselves). So it’s understandable that many men would retreat to hobby spaces to find something of that purpose or meaning. So how do you find that meaning as a man in a space that is increasingly invaded by women? And I wonder if this is what the angry ranters or the quietly uncomfortable, are really struggling with, and that’s definitely not something easily fixed, or something you can really have a go at them for. Boycotting Games Workshop (sorry, ‘Warhammer’) won’t help, well you’ll have more money at least, so if you’ve got a family to support that’ll make things easier. But maybe retreating to hobby spaces was the wrong move in the first place, and maybe that ultimate sense of meaning can, or should be found elsewhere.

I could give a plug now for some kind of religion… Have you heard of our Lord and Saviour (insert name of Lord and Saviour here). But I won’t (hope my Vicar doesn’t read this). I don’t think, if you’re experiencing some of this male crisis, this is something you can have someone else fix for you, and the Church of England in its current state is more likely to just kick that can down the road a little bit more (but that’s a ramble for a different blog). Or if you walk into the wrong kind of Church turn you into a fundamentalist (which you may be primed for already), trust me that doesn’t work either.

I dunno… I dunno how to ‘fix’ masculinity… I just paint toy soldiers…

But maybe the realisation that this isn’t really about female Custodes is enough to help some folks.

Thoughts?