Tharanatoi Hammerblow: The 11th-Edition Custodes Terminator Detachment

One sentence: if a friendly ADEPTUS CUSTODES TERMINATOR unit made an ingress move this turn, that unit can re-roll charge rolls.

Read the trigger exactly, because it is commonly widened in write-ups. It names an ingress move, and it applies to a unit that made one this turn. Older summaries describe it as covering units that arrived by ingress or Deep Strike, or as a permanent charge re-roll for Terminators. It is neither. The unit has to have made an ingress move, on the turn it charges.

What it removes is arithmetic that decides games. A charge of 9 inches on 2D6 succeeds a little over a quarter of the time. Re-rolled, it succeeds closer to half the time. In an army with three or four units that matter, converting a coin-flip you lose into one you win about as often as not is worth more than any damage buff on the same page, because the failure case is not slightly less damage, it is an Allarus block standing in the open in front of the enemy having done nothing.

The consequence for how you play is that you can commit. Without a re-roll, dropping Terminators in the open is a gamble you take when you are behind. With it, it is a plan you build a list around, and your opponent has to screen accordingly from the first turn.

The rule text also states that this detachment has the LIONS tag and cannot be taken with another LIONS detachment. The other LIONS detachment is Lions of the Emperor.

Three, all 1CP, and the shape of them tells you what the detachment expects to happen.

• Hardened Resolve (your opponent's Shooting or the Fight). When an enemy unit targets a friendly ADEPTUS CUSTODES TERMINATOR unit, your unit has +1 Toughness. This is the one the detachment is built to spend, and the reason is timing: your Terminators arrive, they do not fight until the following turn, and the enemy shooting phase in between is where the plan lives or dies. On a Toughness 7 Allarus block, going to 8 pushes a lot of common weapons from wounding on 4s to 5s.
• Unleash the Lions (your Command). Target one friendly ALLARUS CUSTODIANS or AQUILON CUSTODIANS unit on the battlefield; that unit is split into separate units, each containing one model, each with a starting strength of 1. It converts one blob into several independent scoring pieces, which is how a twenty-model army covers a board. Note that Lions of the Emperor prints this exact stratagem with the same name and effect, which is a strong hint about why the two detachments share a Unique Tag.
• Electroexorcist Saturation (your Shooting). When a friendly ADEPTUS CUSTODES TERMINATOR unit is selected to shoot, its Ballistus Grenade Launcher weapons have D3+3 Attacks. The only damage stratagem here, and it is locked to one weapon, so it is worth exactly as much as the number of grenade launchers in your unit.

The habit to build: budget a command point for Hardened Resolve on the enemy turn after your drop, every time. Everything else is optional; that one is the detachment.

Two, both 25 pts, and both restricted to an ADEPTUS CUSTODES TERMINATOR model, so you need a Terminator character to carry either. The Shield-Captain in Allarus Terminator Armour is the model that makes them legal.

• Mnemo-locked Shrine Cipher (25 pts). ADEPTUS CUSTODES TERMINATOR model only. In your first Movement phase, this unit can make an ingress move. This is the enabler that makes the detachment aggressive rather than reactive: it moves the teleport assault forward to the opening turn, and the detachment rule then re-rolls the charge that follows. Your opponent has to screen the whole board from the first turn or lose something to it, which is pressure you get before you have rolled a dice.
• Efficient Aggression (25 pts). ADEPTUS CUSTODES TERMINATOR model only. Once per turn, per army, in your opponent's Shooting phase, when an enemy unit has shot, if this unit lost a wound as a result of those attacks, this unit can make a surge move of up to D6+1 inches. Note the wording carefully: once per turn per army, not once per bearer, so a second copy would not double it. It pairs naturally with Hardened Resolve, since you weather the shooting and then close the distance on the way out of it.

If you can only take one, take Mnemo-locked Shrine Cipher, because it changes what your list does rather than improving what it already did.

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

• Allarus Custodians are the centre of the detachment: the TERMINATOR unit the rule is written for, and one of the two datasheets Unleash the Lions can split. Build two blocks if you can. One is a single point of failure for the entire plan, and this detachment is a plan.
• Aquilon Custodians are the other Unleash the Lions target and the other Terminator option. Faction Pack v1.1 reprints their datasheet in full.
• Shield-Captain in Allarus Terminator Armour is the model that makes both enhancements legal, since both are restricted to a TERMINATOR model. Without him you have a detachment with no enhancements.
• Blade Champion adds melee punch to the block that is going to charge, which matters in a list whose whole plan is one assault landing well.
• Custodian Guard hold the home objective. If your Terminators are in reserve and nothing is scoring, you have traded the first two turns for one good charge.
• Vertus Praetors cover the board while the hammer is off the table, and punish an opponent for spreading thin to deny your landing zone. The pack raises them to Toughness 7 and Wounds 5.
• Trajann Valoris gives the rest of the army something to do in the meantime. As an Epic Hero he cannot carry either enhancement.

On boxes: Aquilon Custodians and the Allarus Shield-Captain have no catalog entries, so we link no box for them. See current Allarus and Custodes boxes on the boxes page and the full roster on the army page.

Lions of the Emperor (3 DP) + Tharanatoi Hammerblow (1 DP) is illegal for two separate reasons, and it is worth understanding both because each catches a different reader.

Reason one: Detachment Points. Lions of the Emperor costs 3 DP in the Munitorum Field Manual v1.3, which is the entire Strike Force budget. Nothing can be added to it. That is subtraction, not a tag question.

Reason two: the Unique Tag. Both detachments carry the LIONS tag, and no two detachments in your army may share one. Faction Pack v1.1 states the tag inside this detachment's own rule text, and the Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 and Wahapedia record it on both.

Why anyone reaches for it: both detachments print an identical 1CP stratagem called Unleash the Lions, with the same target and the same effect, splitting an Allarus or Aquilon unit into single-model units. Seeing the same stratagem on two pages reads like a designed synergy rather than a signal that the two are alternatives.

And there is a second trap layered on top, which is specific to this moment. Wahapedia still lists Lions of the Emperor at 2 DP. A reader working from the mirror computes 2 plus 1 and gets a total that looks like it fits the budget exactly, which is the most convincing kind of wrong. The official Munitorum Field Manual v1.3 lists it at 3 DP with an explicit increase marker and flags the detachment as updated. At the current official cost the list does not fit, and the shared tag would block it even if it did.

We never suggest this pairing anywhere on this site, in either direction. If you want Terminators inside a champion-flavoured list, take Auric Champions (2 DP) plus this detachment, which is legal at exactly 3 DP and puts a Character-buffing rule on the same target your Allarus are about to land on.

Take it when you own a real Allarus collection and you want an aggressive list that dictates where the game happens. As a 1-DP booster it pairs with all four of the 2-DP anchors and with both other 1-DP detachments, so it is one of the most flexible picks in the faction.

Be clear-eyed about the limits. The rule covers TERMINATOR units only, and only after an ingress move. It does nothing for your Custodian Guard, your walkers or your Sisters. It adds no damage except through one weapon-specific stratagem. And the plan has a cost the rule cannot pay: while your Terminators are in reserve, they are not scoring, so your anchor detachment has to carry the mission for two turns.

Sample gameplan: pair it with Null Maiden Vigil (2 DP). A Battle-shocked unit cannot use stratagems, and Creeping Dread forces Battle-shock tests in your opponent's Command phase on enemy units within 12 inches of your Sisters that are psykers or below Starting Strength. Suppress the target, ingress onto it, re-roll the charge, and swing into a unit that has no reactive stratagem available to save itself. Put Mnemo-locked Shrine Cipher on your Allarus Shield-Captain so the whole sequence starts on turn one, and hold a command point for Hardened Resolve.

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