Custodes rumors are making the rounds with T10 Terminators on five wounds. That’s Dreadnought territory for golden infantry, so we’re pretty skeptical.
Somewhere between two Discord servers, Reddit, and the Bolter & Chainsword forum, Custodian Guard supposedly picked up three points of Toughness. That’s a long game of telephone for a claim this big, so treat everything here as rumors and not a confirmed leak. The story goes that the Adeptus Custodes codex for 11th Edition is already finished, physically printed, and currently with playtesters. Why print the book, then give it to playtesters, you ask? We have no idea, honestly.
Either way, the printed-book claim is where this starts getting odd, especially once you see the rumored stats.
- Rumored profiles: Custodian Guard at T9 with 4 wounds, Custodes Terminators at T10 with 5 wounds.
- Rumored units: guardian spears split from sword-and-shield squads like Horus Heresy, with a possible three-model squad cap.
- Rumored timing: a late October or early November 2026 codex, next to the plastic Custodes Support Battle Group.
T9 Guard and T10 Terminators Would Put Dreadnought Numbers on Infantry
Right now in 11th Edition, Custodian Guard sit at T6 with 3 wounds, while Allarus Custodians are T7 with 4. The rumor adds three Toughness and a wound to both. Compare that with the official Custodes faction pack, and you’re suddenly putting infantry roughly where Custodes Dreadnoughts live today.
It would certainly lean harder into the demigod fantasy Custodes have always promised, where a handful of golden warriors make enemy guns feel pointless, and every casualty hurts. Anyone who’s been playing Allarus out of the current Custodes detachments already knows how annoying they can be to deal with at T7. Making opponents point anti-tank weapons at regular infantry is a much bigger balancing problem, so we’d expect plenty of back-and-forth before anything like this reaches the Custodes as a confirmed rule.
Five Wounds Might Matter as Much as T10 Does
Honestly, the extra wound may matter almost as much as the Toughness bump once dice start rolling. A five-wound Allarus takes three unsaved Damage 2 hits to drop instead of two, while a single Damage 4 shot no longer finishes one off. So if these rumors are true, and you’re building an 11th Edition list to deal with Custodes, you’d better have plenty of heavy weapons.
And once you start looking at the rest of the current datasheet, there are a lot of unanswered questions. Do the 2+ save and 4+ invulnerable save stay? Can Hardened Resolve still stack another point of Toughness on top of T10, because that would be something? Do mortal wounds and Lethal Hits turn into mandatory tools for every army? And what does a T10, five-wound Terminator even cost? We’d guess a lot, but none of the latest Custodes leaks have put a number on it yet.
The Spear and Shield Split Already Lives in Horus Heresy
The spear-and-shield split is a lot easier to buy, mostly because GW is already doing exactly that in Horus Heresy. The newest Heresy range sells Custodian Guard with guardian spears and Sentinel Guard with swords and shields as separate six-model units, and those plastic Legio Custodes kits could slot straight into a 40k codex organized the same way.
It also gives the two squads pretty obvious jobs on the table. Spears could stay the aggressive, do-everything option, while Sentinel Guard lean into holding objectives. Shields could even get a full datasheet ability instead of just handing out a bonus wound.
If GW does split the datasheets, mixed squads may stop being legal. Anyone who kitbashed spear-and-shield units years ago probably won’t be thrilled about rebuilding them, but the extra stats might soften the blow.
Three-Model Squads Would Explain the Stat Jump, If That’s What It Means
If every Custodian really gets that much harder to kill, smaller squads would at least help keep all that durability under control. Three-model squads also split those six-model Legio Custodes Battle Group kits right down the middle, which is either tidy design or one very convenient coincidence.
The wording gets a little fuzzy once you ask what “three-model squads” actually applies to. Does the cap hit Custodian Guard, Terminators, or every infantry unit? Are units of one or two legal? What happens to the five-model Guard squads already sitting on your shelf, and can characters still join units that small? Smaller squads could even mean more units and better board coverage, which isn’t much of a NERF at all.
The Release Window Actually Holds Up
GW already released the plastic Custodes Support Battle Group this year with a Telemon Heavy Dreadnought, Gyrfalcon Jetbikes, and a Pallas Grav-attack, which cleaned up most of the remaining resin. Putting a codex beside that box in late October or early November would make plenty of commercial sense.
None of that proves the codex date, but late October or early November doesn’t sound nearly as wild as T10 infantry.
The printed-book story gets stranger once you add the claim that it’s still being playtested. GW’s 11th Edition codex format includes app access and ongoing digital updates, so points can still move after the physical book is printed.
But points still moving at that stage wouldn’t surprise anyone at this point; core datasheet stats changing after the books are already printed, though, is a different story.
Final Thoughts on the Custodes Rumors
For now, we’d watch GW’s own previews before rebuilding lists around any of these numbers. If the codex turns up in the Warhammer Autumn Preview, then the rumored timing starts looking pretty solid. And if GW actually shows Allarus at T10, we’ll happily eat our words.
Either way, we’ll keep tracking the 2026 codex release schedule as those dates firm up.
🔗 Related Reads:
- All the New 40k Adeptus Custodes Model & Rules Rumors
- New Custodes 11th Edition Detachments Hand Telemons 36 Shots and Drop Allarus on Turn 1
- Custodes Support Battle Group Brings Telemons in Plastic
- New Legio Custodes Battle Group Box: Review Breakdown
- New 40k Codex Release Schedule: 2026 Roadmap for 11th Edition
- Adeptus Custodes News, Rumors, Articles & Updates
Would players accept three-model Custodes squads if every warrior became tough enough to bully light vehicles?
