The Shield-Companies

The Shield-Companies are the outward-facing formations of the Adeptus Custodes, the golden guardians of the God-Emperor. For ten thousand years the greater part of the Custodes remained cloistered within the Imperial Palace, their sole charge the protection of the Master of Mankind upon the Golden Throne. Yet in the age of the great rift, that watch has changed, and the Ten Thousand now walk abroad among the stars once more.

Each Custodian is a singular masterwork, forged over decades into a warrior beyond the equal of any Space Marine, individually tempered rather than mass-created. Gathered into Shield-Companies, they range across the Imperium to strike where the threat is gravest: hunting the agents of the Ruinous Powers, reinforcing worlds on the brink, and undertaking missions of such secrecy that even the Inquisition is kept blind to their purpose.

To behold a Shield-Company at war is to witness the Emperor's own will made manifest in burnished gold and spear-point. They fight with a precision and ferocity that beggars belief, each warrior a peerless duellist and tactician. Where they pass, the enemies of Mankind are unmade, and the faithful take heart that the guardians of the Throne still deem their darkness worth the coming.