Detachment Focus: Solar Spearhead (Updated January 28, 2025)

Merry Grotmas! Games Workshop is releasing a new series of detachments – one per army, every day until Christmas. In this series we’re looking at these new detachments, covering what’s in them, how they play, and how they’ll fit into the broader meta and your games.

The Adeptus Custodes have experienced quite the tumultuous edition so far. They came out of the gate with a fairly strong performance in a meta dominated by Aeldari, won the first US Open of the edition in Tacoma, and continued to be quite strong up until the first major balance dataslate. Their codex release was met with mixed feelings, most negative from the playerbase, but they have continued to put up considerably good results in the competitive sphere with two strong detachments over the last several months. This new detachment, the Solar Spearhead, brings a whole new way to play the army by asking the question “but what if I wanted more dreadnoughts?” and answering it forcefully.

Changelog

• January 28, 2025: Updated with dataslate changes and a new list
• December 8, 2024: Initial Publication

Detachment Overview

This detachment flips the script for Adeptus Custodes, by making their already fearsome vehicles into battlefield juggernauts, featuring escalating buffs, lots of re-rolls, and movement tricks that make out-maneuvering them nearly impossible. Whether you’re in it for the thematic march of dreadnoughts or just want to crush your enemies under a tide of invincible war machines, this detachment delivers both style and substance – with a bit of cheeky overkill thrown in for good measure. As the Detachment which does the most for Forge World units – in particular the sick dreadnoughts – the Solar Spearhead immediately became the way to play Custodes competitively, and it’s got (big, golden) legs.

The Video Version

If you’re looking for a video version of this article, you can find it here:

Detachment Rule: Auric Armour

As with many other Grotmas detachments, this detachment rules comes in two parts:

• First, we have an escalating set of buffs to VEHICLE units in Custodes armies:
  • When they’re not battle-shocked and at Starting Strength, all VEHICLE units gain 2 OC.
  • When they’re below Starting Strength, they can re-roll hit rolls of 1.
  • When they are below Half-strength, they can re-roll hit rolls of 1 and wound rolls of 1.
• Lastly, we have a WALKER-specific buff that gives them all a permanent +2 to their movement characteristic and adds 1 to all Advance and Charge rolls.

This is “what if Crusher but with Custodes dreadnoughts” and it is terrifyingly fun. It is harder to shift objectives from them when they’re at full strength, and they hit harder the lower their wound pool becomes. Custodes tend not to have very many re-rolls for their vehicles so this detachment is going to definitely have quite the large impact on the meta. Maybe we’ll even see a full dreadnought list, because of the keyword rules – up to two Custodes WALKER models can be given the Character keyword during the Muster Armies step, which means they can be given enhancements and be your warlord. Get ready for a proper march of the ancients!

Enhancements

These enhancements focus on buffing Vehicle and Mounted units, in line with the rest of the Detachment. Two are very strong picks, while the others are fairly situational.

• Adamantine Talisman [25 pts]– Improve the Attacks, Strength, and Damage characteristics of the bearer’s melee weapons by 1. This is a great upgrade, and you want to slam it into every list you have the points to fit it. It’s great on a Blade Champion or Dreadnought and when you combine it with the Stratagems this Detachment has, delivering the golden fist of god to your opponent’s throat has never been easier.
• Augury Uplink [25 pts] – The bearer has a 5+ Feel No Pain. This is a nice, simple upgrade that amounts to an effective 50% increase in wounds. It’s a bit expensive even for a Dawneagle Jetbike but where you really want this is on the Telemon, where you’re creating a 2+/4++/5+++ monster (with -1 incoming damage) who can frustrate opponents and potentially shake off mortal wounds. 
• Honoured Fallen [15 pts] – Vehicle model only, gives a 6” aura of re-roll hit rolls of 1 to all Custodes Infantry and Mounted units. Solid, but I think that the first two enhancements take priority over this and you can only make 2 dreadnought characters. Falcon: There is probably a solid argument here for this enhancement if they ever made Custodes bikes worth taking. They are so expensive right now for what they bring to the table that every miss is a dagger to the heart.
• Veteran of the Kataphraktoi [10 pts] – Infantry or Mounted model only. In your Command phase you can give a Vehicle or Mounted unit within 6″ the ability to Fall Back and still be eligible to shoot. Much more situationally useful, but still very nice as it prevents your Caladius Grav-tanks from being bad-touched and allows Dreadnoughts to still shoot at full profile if they get tar-pitted. The last dataslate/errata update move this from the Movement phase to the Command phase, which means you’ll need to plan ahead in order to use this effectively.

The auto-take options here are Adamantine Talisman and Augury Uplink, with a situational third in Veteran of the Kataphraktoi if you have 10 points to spare at the end of list building (quite common in Custodes builds).

Stratagems

As with every other detachment, there are six brand spanking new stratagems for the faction here, and these as expected are predominantly focused on buffing up your Vehicle units, especially Walkers. Every time you see Walker, just replace it with Dreadnought in your head. Falcon: And just like the titular Texas Ranger, these don’t mess around.

• Flawless Construction (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – In your opponent’s shooting phase, or the fight phase, after an enemy unit has selected targets, you can make a Vehicle unit -1 to be wounded when the strength of the attack is higher than its toughness. This is very silly – Custodes vehicles are already very durable, with high toughness, 2+ armour saves, and invulnerable saves on every model. Now they can also make it so you’re only wounding them on 4’s or better with all but the most fearsome weapons.
• Emperor’s Vengeance (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – In the fight phase, after an enemy unit has selected its targets, this imparts a 4+ fight-on-death to the unit being targeted, adding one to the roll if it is a Walker unit. 4+ fight-on-death on pretty much any Custodes unit, also triggering on a 3+ for Walkers is very funny. Please make it stop. Falcon: The beatings will stop when morale improves. The fact that these beatings may be made with damage 4 weapons just means morale will improve faster.
• Wrathful Advance (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Gives a d3+3” pile-in instead of 3” to a Custodes unit. Simple, solid, and probably not going to be used that often since it only benefits pile-in moves and the other stratagems here will keep you light on CP.
• Unstoppable (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Start of your Movement phase you can give a Vehicle or Mounted unit the ability to phase through models and terrain features. Right when you thought this detachment was going to be held back by how easy it is to move-block a March of the Ancients, they drop this one on us. Okay. Falcon: That we restrained ourselves from making a Kool-Aid man joke here is absolutely medal-worthy. In a world where the most insignificant units can hold back a torrential force of auramite and power simply by standing the right distance away from a wall, you can now be the change you want to make in the world and walk right through it. Oh Yeah!
• Relentless Persecution (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – Your Movement phase, just after a Vehicle unit has advanced; that unit can shoot and charge in this turn despite it having advanced. This combos nicely with the +1 to advance and charge rolls inherent in the detachment and can lead to some extremely potent assault turns when combined with Unstoppable. A previously 6” moving dreadnought goes from an 18” threat range to 27” threat range allowing them to drive deep into enemy territory with reckless abandon.
• Punishment Inescapable (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP) – In your Shooting phase, you can give a Custodes unit IGNORES COVER and ignore any modifiers to their ballistic skill and/or to the hit roll. TheChirurgeon: This is pretty big, given how easy it can be to get cover this edition. Makes the Twin illastus a lot more viable, though it’s equally good on the Arachnus.

There’s really no misses here, with the weakest stratagem probably being Wrathful Advance, followed up by Punishment Inescapable. Both of these stratagems would be quite good in almost any other army, here they feel like an after-thought in the context of the rest of the Stratagems.

Playing This Detachment

If you love Custodes Dreadnoughts – and they’re some of the coolest-looking models in the game – and want to push massive golden war machines down the battlefield towards your enemy, this is the Detachment for you. Most successful Custodes armies running the Solar Spearhead run at least three dreadnoughts and usually four to five, with a Character Telemon running the Augury Uplink Enhancement. Most lists also run a pair of Caladius Grav Tanks. That soaks up a lot of your points but gives you a good mix of mid-and-close-range threats (dreadnoughts) and ranged threats to take out your opponent’s anti-vehicle threats (Caladius Grav-Tanks). The recent upgrades to Vertus Praetors make them much better, and so they’re worth consideration as fast threats which can body elite infantry and vehicles. For your scoring support, Witchseekers and Prosectors make fine, cheap units of action goobers, and if you can fit one, the Callidus Assassin is a solid help on that front too.

Your biggest challenge with Solar Spearhead is going to be model counts – even for Custodes, you’re going to run light on unit counts, and 13-14 units is going to be the absolute high end if you’re running 4+ dreadnoughts and two tanks – and it’s not like Prosecutors are real threats to do anything but stand in the correct spot. While your dreadnoughts are tough, they’re far from invincible, and any player capable of taking down knights is going to be able to handle your threats. For that reason, you’ll need to play a bit cagey with your threats, using the combination of fast threats like the Vertus Praetors or Blade Champion unit to sweep around enemy units and tie up anti-tank threats while your dreadnoughts can act more as mid-table bullies (give the Blade Champion the Adamantine Talisman). And don’t be afraid to put one or two in reserves as needed.

Strengths

• Already powerful vehicles become even stronger
• When you get hurt you gain re-rolls – someone failing to kill a dreadnought turns it into a terrifying murder machine
• Absolutely banger of a Stratagem suite

Weaknesses

• Near-zero protection against Devastating Wounds, which has historically been Custodes’ greatest weakness this edition.
• You’re gonna want a lot of CP, and Custodes don’t have access to easy CP generation
• Similar to Starshatter Arsenal, this detachment feels a little too good and will probably be adjusted soon.

A Sample List

While the Talons of the Emperor still have plenty of comp play, there has been no shortage of successful Solar Spearhead lists in competitive play, particularly in Teams events, where the ability to create nasty, vehicle-heavy “stat check” lists can be a huge advantage and you can avoid bad matchups for the army. That said, we’re looking at a singles list – this list was run by Carlos Moreno at the 2025 Las Vegas Open, and he took it to a 5-1 finish, losing in the fifth round to Anthony Fung’s Talons of the Emperor Custodes list. Along the way it beat Blood Angels twice, Daemons, another Custodes list (that one solar spearhead), and Aeldari.

Carlos' List - click to expand

This is pretty typical for Solar Spearhead, though it’s worth pointing out that Carlos decided to just eschew the Blade Champion and his unit of Wardens for a trio of Vertus Praetor units, which give it a ton of speed to outflank enemies. The list has four units of Sisters here for action secondaries and objective holding, and I really like the Witchseekers as a home objective guard piece, where they can effectively threaten a lot of weaker 6″ deep strike threats with their flamers – something you don’t normally get on cheap backfield units.

Final Thoughts

The Solar Spearhead detachment brings a fresh and thematic take to Adeptus Custodes, turning their vehicles – especially their dreadnoughts – into even more terrifying engines of destruction. With powerful buffs, potent stratagems, and enhancements that lean into the resilience and lethality of Custodes walkers, this detachment feels tailor-made for those who want to march ancient, golden war machines into battle and dominate the battlefield with unyielding force.

On the competitive front, this detachment has essentially made Custodes vehicles a more prominent feature of the meta, especially as it shored up some of their previous weaknesses. The flexibility in enhancements and stratagems ensures that this isn’t a one-trick pony, but rather a versatile option for players who want to experiment with different playstyles. So polish your golden dreadnoughts and get ready to make war.

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