Adeptus Custodes Codex and Combat Patrol Box Review

When starting a new army the best way is the codex and combat patrol box, you get the army's rules and a decent start to your army at a discounted price. With the release of a new codex, they usually get their own combat patrol box, except chaos and imperial knights obviously.

The Adeptus custodes codex is only 104 pages, with only 35 pages of lore and background fluff. With a mix of new and old art, including the classic art from the second edition of the custodes. One of my favourite pieces of art in the custodes codex is the imperial palace map. Seeing the full imperial palace is really cool as I have only read about it in the horus heresy and other novels.

The new addition to the 9th edition codex is the sisters of silence, with brand new lore and artwork too. From their persecution because of the inquisition, to their reformation because of Ultramarine primarch Roboute Guilliman. The sisters of silence bring in much-needed diversity to the talons of the emperor, adding three more units. Having more than one choice in unit types, excluding vexilus praetors, as these use the same armour as the other custodes; is fantastic as now you can think more about tactics. I would say it means painting less of the same model, but the sisters of silence box come with all the bits for the different units. Tactically diverse yes, visually well not so much. But it does mean psykers are going to have a hard time against these blanks.

With the addition of the sisters of silence, there is also two new HQ choices, the blade champion an adeptus custodes HQ, and the knight centura for sisters of silence. The blade champion is a unit that comes in his own blister pack, the knight centura however needs to be made from the sisters of silence box. Unlike the adeptus custodes shield captain, which you make from the box the custodes box of choice, but still gives you a legal unit except the vertus praetors. If you make a knight centura you leave a useless box, as you still need all five of the sisters of silence in the box, for each unit.

With the adeptus custodes codex you can create on of three armies, only custodes, only sisters of silence, or talon of the emperor which is a mixture of both. For talon of the emperor you need at least one custodes unit for every sisters of silence unit.

How does the codex pair with the combat patrol box?

In the combat patrol box, you get ten sisters of silence, 5 custodian guards, and three vertus praetors. It is a good mix of units and can make a sizable 1000-point army. The first problem is no individual hq unit, you have to make a shield captain out of the custodian guards. With the sisters of silence you can make two out of their three units, to make a more rounded force. I chose to make witch seekers, that way I had two troops, one elite, and a fast attack. Sorry for clarity I got myself a blade champion as my HQ, so I could make a 5 man custodian guard squad. With the adeptus custodes, you can make one of two HQ choices. Making a shield captain out of the vertus praetors means two of the jetbikes are no longer useable, you would have to purchase a second box to make a full sqaudron. It would be preferable to purhase a seperate hq to have bigger squads.

Apart from all that, the combat patrol box is a really good companion to the codex. At worse it only uses three datasheets, at best the combat patrol box uses a whopping six datasheets. That would be 1 HQ, two troops, two elites, and a fast attack. You can build third troop, or fast attack choice. It also means two purchases, builds different units, and different forces. Taking full advantage of the codex, making just under half the unit choices in the codex, excluding named characters.