Shield Host: The 11th-Edition Custodes Generalist Detachment

At the start of the battle round, you can select one of the bullet points below. If you do, until the start of the next battle round, that bullet point's effects apply. That opening paragraph is the wording Faction Pack v1.1 rewrites, so play the current version rather than a remembered one.

The two bullets:

• Each time an ADEPTUS CUSTODES model with the Martial Ka'tah ability makes a melee attack, a successful unmodified Hit roll of 5+ scores a Critical Hit.
• Improve the Armour Penetration characteristic by 1 for melee weapons equipped by ADEPTUS CUSTODES models with the Martial Ka'tah ability.

Here is the thing most write-ups miss. The first bullet is not a damage buff on its own. Critical Hits do nothing by themselves. What they do is trigger [SUSTAINED HITS] and [LETHAL HITS], and those are exactly what your army rule grants. So the 5+ Critical bullet takes whichever Ka'tah Stance you selected and moves its trigger from 6s to 5s.

Work that through. Rendax Stance gives melee weapons [LETHAL HITS], which normally converts an unmodified 6 into an automatic wound. Under this bullet it converts every 5 and 6, which is a third of your hits auto-wounding instead of a sixth. Dacatarai Stance gives [SUSTAINED HITS 1], and the same doubling applies to the extra attacks. That is a very large swing, and it is available for free, every battle round, on every model in your army with the ability.

The second bullet is the flat, reliable alternative. +1 Armour Penetration on every melee weapon is worth most against a target whose save you are already close to breaking, and it does not care what stance you pick.

So the decision at the start of each battle round is: am I fighting something where converting more hits into criticals matters, or something where I need to get through the save? Against a big blob with a poor save, take the Critical bullet and Dacatarai. Against Terminators or a vehicle, the Armour Penetration bullet is often the answer, and Rendax on the swing.

One scope note. Both bullets name models with the Martial Ka'tah ability, and Sisters of Silence do not have it. In a mixed list, your Anathema Psykana units are outside this rule entirely. That is not a problem, it just means their contribution is scoring and utility rather than buffed melee.

Six, all 1CP, and two of them are among the best stratagems in the faction.

• Vigilance Eternal (your Movement). Target one Custodes BATTLELINE unit, excluding Anathema Psykana, within range of an objective marker you control; that marker remains under your control even if you have no models within range of it, until your opponent controls it at the start or end of any turn. In an army with twenty models this may be the single most valuable stratagem in the faction. It lets one unit leave a point and keep scoring it, which directly attacks the arithmetic that loses Custodes games.
• Arcane Genetic Alchemy (any phase). Just after a mortal wound has been allocated to a Custodes model, excluding Anathema Psykana, that model's unit has Feel No Pain 4+ against mortal wounds until the end of the phase. Mortal wounds are how competent opponents kill Custodes, because a 2+ save and a 4+ invulnerable do not apply to them. This is the answer, and it should usually be the first command point you spend.
• Avenge the Fallen (start of the Fight). Target one Custodes unit below Starting Strength; +1 Attack on its melee weapons, or +2 instead if it is Below Half-strength. A damaged Custodes unit is still an excellent unit, and this is what stops you writing off a half-dead squad.
• Unwavering Sentinels (the Fight). Just after an enemy selects targets, target one Custodes INFANTRY unit within range of an objective marker you control that was targeted; each melee attack against it subtracts 1 from the Hit roll. Note the objective condition: this defends ground, not a unit that charged forward.
• Multipotentiality (your Movement). Target one Custodes unit that Fell Back this phase; it is eligible to shoot and declare a charge that turn. The escape hatch for a unit tied up by a screen it does not want to spend a turn killing.
• Archeotech Munitions (your Shooting). Target one Custodes unit, excluding Anathema Psykana, that has not shot; select [LETHAL HITS] or [SUSTAINED HITS 1] and its ranged weapons have it this phase. The Ka'tah stances are melee only, so this extends the same idea to shooting for one phase. It also combines with the Critical Hit bullet, since that bullet is melee-only but the ability granted here is not.

The habit to build: hold a point for Arcane Genetic Alchemy every game, and look for the turn where Vigilance Eternal frees a unit to go somewhere it is needed.

Four, and three of them are restricted to a SHIELD-CAPTAIN, so this detachment genuinely wants one.

• Panoptispex (5 pts). SHIELD-CAPTAIN or BLADE CHAMPION model only. While the bearer is leading a unit, ranged weapons equipped by models in that unit have [IGNORES COVER]. Five points. In an edition with dense terrain this is frequently the best value enhancement in the faction, and there is almost no list where it is wrong. Put it on the Character leading your main shooting block.
• Castellan's Mark (20 pts). SHIELD-CAPTAIN model only. After both players have deployed, select up to two Custodes units, excluding Anathema Psykana, and redeploy all of them, and any of those units can go into Strategic Reserves regardless of how many units are already there. Faction Pack v1.1 rewrites this enhancement in full. Redeploying after seeing the enemy on the table is worth a great deal in an army that cannot survive a bad matchup, and the reserves clause turns it into a threat rather than just a fix.
• From the Hall of Armouries (20 pts). SHIELD-CAPTAIN model only. Add 1 to the Strength and Damage of the bearer's melee weapons. The straightforward offensive pick, and it works particularly well under the Armour Penetration bullet, since together they improve three of the four melee characteristics that matter.
• Auric Mantle (15 pts). SHIELD-CAPTAIN or BLADE CHAMPION model only. Add 2 to the bearer's Wounds characteristic. Simple durability on a model that is already hard to remove, and the cheapest way to make a Character survive a round of focused fire.

If you take one, take Panoptispex, because five points for army-relevant [IGNORES COVER] is a rate nothing else in the faction matches. If you take two, add Castellan's Mark.

(Points come from the Munitorum Field Manual and move with updates; confirm in the app.)

• Custodian Guard are the BATTLELINE unit Vigilance Eternal names, and the backbone of the list. Everything Martial Mastery does applies to them in full.
• Custodian Wardens are the heavier melee infantry and the unit that gains most from the 5+ Critical Hit bullet, because they throw more attacks than a Guard squad. Pair that bullet with Rendax Stance for [LETHAL HITS] on 5s.
• Allarus Custodians are the Terminator block and a natural Castellan's Mark target: putting them into Strategic Reserves after deployment creates a threat your opponent has to respect for the rest of the game.
• Vertus Praetors provide the mobility a generalist list needs to reach objectives it did not deploy near. Faction Pack v1.1 raises them to Toughness 7 and Wounds 5 and rewrites Quicksilver Execution, so they are notably better than the datasheet most people remember.
• Shield-Captain carries three of the four enhancements. In this detachment he is the most important non-Battleline model you own.
• Blade Champion is a legal bearer of Auric Mantle and Panoptispex, and a cheaper way to get the five-point enhancement onto a second unit.
• Trajann Valoris fits a detachment with no narrow theme. As an Epic Hero he cannot take an Enhancement.
• Custodian Guard with Adrasite and Pyrithite Spears is the shooting variant, reprinted in full in Faction Pack v1.1, and the unit that most wants Panoptispex and Archeotech Munitions. Our catalog has no separate entry for it, so we link no box; the models come from the Custodian Guard kit with the alternative weapon options.

See current boxes on the boxes page and the full roster on the army page.

Take it when you want to field the models you own rather than the models a theme demands, when you are new to the faction, or when you want a stable core to hang a specialist off. It is our default recommendation for a first Custodes list.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. It has no unique trick. It will not teleport your Terminators, speed up your Dreadnoughts or give your Sisters a job. Its rule affects melee only and only models with the Martial Ka'tah ability, which excludes your Sisters of Silence and your vehicles. What it gives you instead is an army-wide improvement that never sits idle, six broadly useful stratagems, and no legality problem of any kind: it carries no Unique Tag in any source, so it pairs with all three 1-DP detachments.

Sample gameplan: pair it with Silent Hunters (1 DP), which is our recommended first Custodes army. Shield Host handles the fighting and Silent Hunters handles the scoring, and because Sisters do not have the Martial Ka'tah ability the two detachments never compete for the same models. Put Panoptispex on your Shield-Captain, hold a point for Arcane Genetic Alchemy, and get into the habit of asking two questions each battle round: which bullet at the start of the round, and which stance each time a unit swings.

If you would rather add a threat than a scorer, Might of the Moritoi (1 DP) gives the same core a walker that arrives, and Tharanatoi Hammerblow (1 DP) gives it a Terminator hammer whose charge Martial Mastery then improves.

For the fundamentals underneath all of it, read the Adeptus Custodes army guide.