Legio Custodes miniatures arrive as standalone kits for pre-orders

The Legio Custodes range just became much easier to build around piece by piece. Instead of chasing the full Battle Group, painters and collectors can now pre-order standalone kits for the Shield Captain, Custodian Guard Sodality, Sentinel Guard Sodality, Venatari Sodality, Custodian Dreadnought and Coronus Grav-carrier, plus a standard Caladius Annihilator grav-tank that was previously tied to the launch box.

That matters immediately for anyone planning a gold army this weekend. The Shield Captain kit can be built as either a Shield Captain or Tribune, and it comes with two heads and the classic praesidium shield and eternity blade loadout. The Custodian Guard Sodality is the cleanest batch-painting buy in the wave, with six miniatures, 23 interchangeable heads and an option for one model to carry a magisterium vexilla. The Sentinel Guard Sodality also builds six models, but leans harder into squad individuality with 13 heads and six interchangeable shields.

The most dynamic kit in the bunch is probably the Venatari Sodality. It builds six models, gives you 10 interchangeable heads and different wing designs, and lets you arm the unit with either verutum lances for melee or kinetic destroyers with tarsus bucklers for ranged work. For painters who want a centerpiece without going all the way to a character model, that kind of motion and silhouette does a lot of the work before the brush even hits the miniature. The Custodian Dreadnought kit is the other big conversion-friendly buy, building either a Contemptor-Achillus or Contemptor-Galatus with weapon-arm and cosmetic choices that make it a strong display piece or a hard-edged table model.

Warhammer Community first unveiled the new plastic Custodes kits at the New Year Preview 2026, alongside a Liber book packed with new and updated Horus Heresy rules. The standalone rollout now pushes those miniatures beyond the initial reveal phase and into the practical buying stage, which is exactly where list-builders and painters start making real decisions about what to add next. The new wave also goes beyond the box contents, since the Caladius Annihilator grav-tank is now arriving as a standard release rather than a Battle Group exclusive.

The range is getting a proper showcase too. Warhammer World in Nottingham was set to display the new Legio Custodes miniatures, along with individual releases from the Battle Group box, from 14 April 2026. The painting feature behind that display names Ed, Thomas, James G, Connor, Dave, Euan and Ben G. as the studio team behind the Custodes dreadnoughts, which is a useful signal for collectors who care about how the army reads once it is finished: this release wave is being positioned as display-first as much as game-ready.

Black Library is feeding the same momentum. Zardu Layak: The Crimson Apostle, a new Word Bearers novel by Rich McCormick, was announced on 9 March 2026, and the special edition, audiobook and eBook editions were scheduled for 25 April 2026 through the Black Library App. Taken together, the Custodes pre-orders make this feel less like a single launch and more like the point where the whole faction opens up for serious collecting.