Talons of the Emperor: The 11th-Edition Custodes and Sisters of Silence Detachment

Two auras, and they point at each other. This is the part people reverse, so read the direction of each carefully.

ANATHEMA PSYKANA units from your army gain Null Aegis (Aura): while an ADEPTUS CUSTODES unit is within 6 inches of this unit, models in that unit have the Feel No Pain 5+ ability against Psychic Attacks and mortal wounds.

All other ADEPTUS CUSTODES units gain Deadly Unity (Aura): while an ANATHEMA PSYKANA unit is within 6 inches of this unit, each time a model in that unit makes an attack, add 1 to the Hit roll.

So your Sisters project protection onto your Custodes, and your Custodes project accuracy onto your Sisters. Neither aura helps the unit carrying it. A Sisters squad standing alone gains nothing from Null Aegis, and a Custodian Guard squad standing alone gains nothing from Deadly Unity.

That makes this a positioning detachment above all else. The whole army wants to fight in interlocking 6 inch pairs: one Sisters unit and one Custodes unit, close enough to feed each other, everywhere on the board. A Sisters unit that drifts away turns off both halves at once, because it stops receiving +1 to hit and stops giving Feel No Pain.

Which half matters more depends on the matchup, and the answer is usually Null Aegis. Feel No Pain 5+ against mortal wounds is the single most valuable defensive effect a Custodes army can have, because mortal wounds bypass the 2+ save and the 4+ invulnerable that make these models worth their points. Against a psychic or mortal-wound-heavy army, this detachment's defensive half alone can decide the game.

One note on Deadly Unity: it gives +1 to the Hit roll, which does nothing for a [TORRENT] weapon, because Torrent weapons do not roll to hit. Your Witchseekers with their flamers get nothing from it. Your Prosecutors and Vigilators get a lot.

This detachment carries no Unique Tag in any source. It does not need one; at 3 DP nothing can be taken alongside it.

Six, and four of them share the same restriction, which is the detachment's signature: you can only select two units if one, and only one, of them is an ANATHEMA PSYKANA unit and both are within 6 inches of each other. In other words, everything costs the same whether you buy it for one unit or for a properly paired Custodes-and-Sisters couple. Playing this detachment well means almost never spending a stratagem on a single unit.

• Talons Interlocked (your Shooting, 1CP). Target up to two Custodes INFANTRY units and one enemy unit that is an eligible target for all of them; until the end of the phase your units can only target that enemy unit, but each ranged attack improves its Strength and Armour Penetration by 1. The detachment's best shooting turn, and the cost is that neither unit can shoot at anything else.
• Emperor's Executioners (start of the Fight, 2CP). Target up to two Custodes units; each time a model in one targets an enemy unit below its Starting Strength, add 1 to the Wound roll. The only 2CP stratagem here, and the tell that its melee output is a finisher rather than an opener: it pays nothing against a fresh unit.
• Taloned Pincer (opponent's Movement, 1CP). Just after an enemy unit ends a Normal, Advance or Fall Back move, target up to two Custodes units within 8 inches of it; your units can make a Normal move of up to 6 inches. Faction Pack v1.1 tightened this from 9 inches to 8, so anyone playing off an older printout is measuring the wrong distance. Units within Engagement Range cannot be selected.
• Hunt as One (start of your Movement, 1CP). Target up to two Custodes units; until the end of the turn they are eligible to shoot and declare a charge in a turn in which they Fell Back.
• Empyric Severance (opponent's Shooting or the Fight, 1CP). Target one Custodes unit an enemy just selected, and one friendly ANATHEMA PSYKANA unit within 6 inches of it; your unit has Feel No Pain 4+ against Psychic attacks and mortal wounds this phase. It upgrades the idea behind Null Aegis from a 5+ to a 4+ for a phase, and it is your answer to a psychic alpha strike.
• Shield of Honour (opponent's Shooting, 1CP). Target one ANATHEMA PSYKANA INFANTRY unit an enemy just selected, and one other Custodes INFANTRY unit within 6 inches; until the end of the phase, any attack that targets your Sisters must instead target your Custodes unit, unless it is not an eligible target. This is the stratagem that keeps the aura network alive, because the Sisters are the fragile half and losing them turns off Deadly Unity across your whole army.

The habit to build: budget for Shield of Honour, because the detachment collapses if your Sisters are removed early.

Four, all restricted only to an ADEPTUS CUSTODES model, so they fit whichever Characters you field.

• Radiant Mantle (30 pts). Each time an attack targets the bearer's unit, if the attacking model is within 12 inches, subtract 1 from the Hit roll. Faction Pack v1.1 answers the important question in its FAQ: if an enemy model is within 12 inches of any part of the unit the bearer is leading when it selects targets, those attacks do take the penalty. That is a much wider reading than most people assume, and it makes this the strongest defensive enhancement in the faction.
• Champion of the Imperium (25 pts). The range of the bearer's Null Aegis or Deadly Unity ability is increased to 9 inches. Faction Pack v1.1 rewrites this enhancement. It is the detachment's own rule turned into a relic, and 9 inches instead of 6 is a large loosening of the positioning constraint that otherwise defines this army. Note that Wahapedia files this erratum under Auric Champions; the pack's page layout and the Munitorum Field Manual both put the enhancement here, and its text modifies the Talons detachment rule, so this is where it belongs.
• Aegis Projector (20 pts). Once per turn, the first time a saving throw is failed for the bearer's unit, change the Damage characteristic of that attack to 0. Once per turn, not once per battle, so across five battle rounds it absorbs the single worst hit of each of your opponent's turns. On a multi-wound unit that is a lot of value for 20 points.
• Gift of Terran Artifice (15 pts). Each time the bearer makes a melee attack, add 1 to the Wound roll. The cheapest and simplest, and the one to take when the other three do not fit your Characters. It stacks with Emperor's Executioners against a damaged unit.

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

• Prosecutors are the cheapest ANATHEMA PSYKANA unit, and this detachment needs several of them, because the auras are what the army runs on and every Sisters unit is a node in that network. Deadly Unity's +1 to hit is a large upgrade on a basic bolter profile.
• Vigilators are the melee Sisters and the unit that gains most from Deadly Unity, because their attacks are numerous and their accuracy is the worst thing about them.
• Witchseekers carry flamers, which use [TORRENT], so Deadly Unity's +1 to hit does nothing for their main weapon. Bring them for anti-horde output and pair them with a Custodes unit for the Null Aegis protection instead.
• Custodian Guard are the Custodes half of every aura pair. Their job here is as much to stand within 6 inches of a Sisters unit as it is to fight, which is a genuinely different way to play them.
• Custodian Wardens are the tougher infantry anchor and the better Shield of Honour target, because a stratagem that redirects attacks onto a unit is only good if that unit survives them.
• Valerian and Aleya are the detachment's namesake pair, and Faction Pack v1.1 adds Deep Strike to Valerian. Our catalog sells them in one box, which is the efficient way to buy into this detachment's theme.
• Knight-Centura is the generic Sisters character for a list wanting more than one Anathema Psykana leader. Our catalog has no entry for her, so we link no box.

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

Take it when you own a real Sisters of Silence collection alongside your Custodes and you want both halves to matter, when you expect psychic and mortal-wound-heavy opponents, and when you are content to field one detachment and no partner.

That last point is the one to be honest about. At 3 DP this fills the Strike Force budget. You cannot add Silent Hunters for the action economy, and you cannot add Null Maiden Vigil for the Battle-shock pressure, even though both are thematically adjacent and both are things this detachment would like. If your priority is Sisters supporting Custodes with a partner detachment, take Null Maiden Vigil (2 DP) plus a 1-DP specialist instead, which is legal and leaves you a point to spend.

Be clear-eyed about the other limits. The auras are 6 inch and they only pay the other half of the pair, which means your movement phase is a constant bookkeeping exercise and a single bad turn can turn the whole army rule off. Your Sisters are fragile and are the load-bearing half. And Deadly Unity does nothing for Torrent weapons, so a Witchseeker-heavy list is buying less of the rule than it looks.

Sample gameplan: deploy in pairs, one Sisters unit to one Custodes unit, and treat 6 inches as a hard constraint rather than a preference. Put Champion of the Imperium on a Character to loosen one of those pairs to 9 inches, which is usually the pair doing the most moving. Spend Shield of Honour the first time an opponent targets your Sisters seriously, hold a point for Empyric Severance against psychic damage, and use Talons Interlocked on the turn you can get two Infantry units onto one target worth deleting.

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