Thursday 16 February 2017

Inferno Overview: Talons of the Emperor


Heya!

As a kind of a follow on from Atia's Thousand Sons post last week, I'm going to give you all a bit of a taster of the Talons of the Emperor army in Inferno which is due to be released soon. The Talons of the Emperor consists of the Legio Custodes, the Silent Sisterhood and the Ordo Sinister and they are all covered in a single army list (which means you can do a combined Talons force without needing to ally which is quite nice).

The Fluff

Much like the Thousand Sons, there are sections in the book dedicated to the Legio Custodes, Sisters of Silence and Ordo Sinister.


In the Legio Custodes' section you find out more about what really does differenciate a Custode from an Astartes, for example the process for creating a Custode is consists of alchemical genetic manipulation and as a result each Custode is effectively bespoke warrior whereas an Astarte's creation involves various implants to achieve a mass reproducable soldier. You also find out more about the organisation and structure of the Legio Custodes and their role within the Imperium which is a really interesting read.


In the Silent Sisterhood's section, it highlights how mysterious the Sisterhood really is - nobody really knows their origin, just that some time into the Great Crusade they became effectively the Chamber Militant of Diviso Investigates and you'll find out more about their role in the Great Tithe. They have access to a lot of relics from the Dark Age of Technology that nobody else can use to help them harvest psykers from planets within the Imperium - an good example of this are their transports which subdue psykers and lock them away in sarcophagi in their outer hull ready to be taken back to the Black Ships. They even talk about the pariah gene and how some of the Sisters have refined their soulless void into something that they can use as a weapon in addition to its passive effects.

The Ordo Sinister was a surprise to me. This is a special Titan Legio where the Emperor requested the Mechanicum to build him some Warlord titans which He then modified to be powered using psykers like batteries (does this sound familiar to anyone else?). For the most part they have similar armaments to a standard Warlord Titan but they also have access to esoteric weaponry. As these titans are powered by psykers, they project an unnatural aura and can use titan-scale psychic abilities.

These titans still have to be piloted just like any other titan and they are by psychic nulls (so people with the pariah gene - though not members of the Sisterhood) - if the pilot was not a blank, they would just die instantly.

The Army List

It should almost come as no surprise to anyone that the named characters in the army list are none other than Captain-General Constantin Valdor and Sister-Commander Jenetia Krole and that there is a template available for creating a generic captain-esque character for either the Legio Custodes or Silent Sisterhood.

With everything released so far, most of the Legio Custodes army list available and there are only a few more kits that need to be released to cover the remaining units within the army list. If you were keeping an eye on our coverage of the Weekender, you will have seen images of all of the missing units except for Valdor himself.


On the other hand, the Sisterhood just needs some characters, a few upgrade kits and the transport that was previewed at the weekend to be released to be complete also so despite the lack of Sisters of Silence releases you can most of the way make a purely Sisters detachment already which is cool.

The Ordo Sinister's Warlord titan rules are in short "very angry". It costs more to field one of these than a standard Warlord so you are unlikely to play/fight with one of these unless you play Apocolypse. Forge World just need to release the weapon arm kit required for the standard Warlord Titan into an Ordo Sinister one.

Looking at the wargear sections, there appears to be many varieties of guardian spears such as the paragon spear - the event/warhammer world exclusive Custodian Tribune model has one of these (axe head rather than a blade) and the other spear variants have different guns on them which is really cool.


I can't wait to get started on painting up my Custodian Guard detachment - I am planning on painting mine up as the members of the sub-faction of the Legio Custodes called the Warders of the Vaults of Rython. There is a little bit of fluff about them in the book which I really liked and I love the colour scheme.


Until next time,

Hector Cephas.

25 comments:

  1. It's great seeing these elements featuring within the rules & being represented on the tabletop. I had hoped that some of the "Agents of ..." (other than the Knights Errants) would have received official rules by now though.

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    1. I completely agree. I enjoy keeping my armies very fluffy, and was looking forward to incorporating small units in my Imperial Fists. Now I have to have numerous models and ally them =/

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  2. Were the custodes terminators shown at all or are they still missing?

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    1. Oops, you're quite right, they weren't there!

      I'm looking forward to seeing how they look - from what Alan Bligh said about them, they should be like Cataphractii but maybe not look as bulky as they do on Astartes

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  3. If the princeps is a null then the psychic moderati can't use their powers (derp)

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    1. From what I gather, the psychic powers stuff is more of a passive thing. Psykers are being used literally like batteries so it's not really crewed by them if that makes sense.

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    2. They don't use there powers, the Titan sucks them dry like the golden throne for power.

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  4. How would you go about allying with the talons? any restrictions?

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  5. Does anyone else think Jenetia Krole has a look of Anne Robinson on weekest link?

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  6. Great article, I want to make use of these guys, just don't know how.

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  7. Anything new for the Sons of Horus in Inferno? Or just a few tidbits of lore and artwork? Thanks in advance for any reply. :)

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  8. Great choice doing the Warders! They look awesome and quite secretive. Also in Adrian Smiths Throne Room art, they were there when Horus killed the Emperor.

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  9. Odd that they'd reuse the Ordo Sinister name. In the original Adeptus Titanicus rulebook, there was a Divisio Telepathica with psi-titans with presumably its own legios.

    In the 2nd edition Titan Legions rulebook (which introduced Imperator titans), Ordo Sinister was not one of those. It comprised 12 Imperator titans that were used to scare restive worlds back into submission. But I suppose that's in M41, so changing it for the Horus Heresy isn't necessarily a retcon.

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    1. Also you have to think that this is during a period in which psykers were banned, so a secret legion of crazy psyker-powered titans would probably be kept hush-hush.

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    2. It was my understanding that psykers where only explicitly banned within the legions. I could be wrong however.

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  10. Wow great review!!

    Thanks for it! How is the WOLVES review coming?

    Sadly I'll be living vicariously through all of you here.... I won't be getting Inferno until a little more VF comes out. Gotta make a big order for the free shipping!

    Give a little more detail on units for the scions? I k is there are going to be Custodes with bolsters and will they be doing terminators?

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    1. Yeah, they're going to be doing terminators. Unit entry in the book and according to Mr Bligh, the Custodes terminators should be wearing a prototype version of Cataphractii plate :)

      As for the heavy support Custodes - the best description I can give is that they rock up with heavy bolters with underslung disintegrators (think like the limited edition Imperial Space Marine's gun), pretty epic :)

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  11. Thanky ou for the sneak preview. How would be a good start to collecting a small allies detachement of Custodes then?

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    1. HQ - Shield Captain w/ Various Kit
      Troop - Guard/Sential Squad of three guys

      Sans upgrades, will cost you around 350-400pts

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