Adeptus Ridiculous - ARKS OF OMEN: THE SIEGE OF THE ROCK | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

 https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculous https://www.adeptusridiculous.com/ https://twitter.com/AdRidiculous https://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculous Vashtorr the Arkifane, daemon demigod of the soul forges, has fixed his gaze upon the Rock. Somewhere deep within the spacefaring battle station and fortress-monastery of the Dark Angels lies a prize that the Arkifane will spend countless lives to seize. Gathering a terrifying Balefleet around him, riding to battle aboard the most vast and grotesque Ark of Omen yet, Vashtorr closes his ironclad talons around the heart of the Dark Angels Chapter and prepares to crush it. Yet the Dark Angels are a stubborn and strategically brilliant Chapter. Even in the face of such sudden and calamitous adversity, their grim resolve comes to the fore. Rousing every warrior and weapon at their disposal, the Dark Angels dig in and prepare to fight for every corridor, every echoing chamber, dark oubliette and shadowed stairway. They are led in their defence by Supreme Grand Master Azrael, who will see the servants of the Dark Gods driven from the Rock no matter the cost. As battle rages and the fight grows ever more desperate, neither invaders nor defenders suspect that a third power moves in the shadows, preparing to strike... Support the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky, and we're going to be learning about some. I'm pretty sure it's a Vash Tour deal, but I'll let Bricky talk about that in just a minute. But before I do, if you enjoy today's episode, head over to patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous, where you can get stuff like access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen. there is a primo goal. If we hit $20,000 on the Patreon,

I will be taking the reins for an episode, one episode, and teaching Bricky about Warhammer Fantasy. So if that sounds like something you want, and it's something that gets asked of us a lot, patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous. Also, there's a new poster, and I'm just wondering, how do you feel about what the kids are calling the clutch?

Yeah, I don't really know why it took us this long to do a club thing, though it's already better than what you started the last episode with about wolves and things, and we can keep away from that in general. I mean, it is essentially the same. No. It's just, it's just, but with a different letter. But the vibe is significantly different. The, what it's specifically going for is extremely different.

Is it because the clown isn't as furry and hairy? Yes. That's it? I mean, come on, Ricky. Oh, my God. Don't. Be a god gamer. Always be a goat, not a goddamn sheep.

Not damn. Well, so speaking of, obviously, that poster is now available for sale at the merch site, Orchidate.com. You can snag it, grab it, do whatever you want with it. Just don't post it on Twitter, because I don't know what you've done with it. As it goes. You be careful with that. Other than that, though, yeah, it is up.

All should be wonderful there. Mastermind's your next book club. So, D.K. So, Ricky. So first name D, last name, nuts. That's, how does that what? How does that even work? What is the, is the K silent?

D. Yeah, like knife, you know? I don't. Anyway, um, so today, you, well, you know what today is. You know what this episode is. It's Vashdor! It's Vashdor! Vastor!

Let's go! The cover of that book looks so hype. Everything Vastor so far has been so cool. I'm so ready. Tell me about this Marf-F-or. So this book, I'd say, is pretty good. I would argue that it's my, maybe the weakest. of the three so far.

It's high bar, though. The other two sounded really good, so that's not exactly a knock on the book, to be fair. That is true. I have snapped a few shots from the book.

You might appreciate. This is on page one. Whoa! The most metal thing I have seen in my entire life. Yes, that's so metal. Oh, my God. That could very easily be

a metal cover on like an album, sure. Where mesh the cogs of industry to grind between the ever-turning teeth, the flesh and blood and soul stuff of the mortal and the infernal both? Ware roars the hungry furnace, its flames hope to devour its heat to give life from searing crucible unto molten ore and blood and bile a bubble. Where scratches the quill and clatter the keys by candle-flamed and coal-busing loom and lit, by desperate hand and mind-obsessed,

briban set free by mortal mortality discarded. Where sparks the wire? Where rides the cable? Where blends the flesh and the adamant? Where wakes the engine infernal And where laments the bound and bargained soul? There do you find him. There do you see him?

And in the seeing does he know your heart, Your mind, your price. There waits Vastor the Ark of Fame, and damnation is his gift. Let's go. That's so fun, dude. Man, what an intro. All right, all right, all right, let's go. God, that's just so cool.

Why are his rules so mid? I don't know, because you guess, yes, Grandpa, you'll totally be the fifth chaos gone. Let's get you back in the home, man. Vashdor's story starts with him talking and kind of brooding over the differences between the mortal realms and his soul forges. He's a little bit annoyed that things are just kind of going so, so just, he hates the annoying life of mortality, where you can only see things one after the other constrained by such foolish mortal mechanisms as time. Oh yes, I too hate that foolish mortal construct known as time. Why can't I be everywhere all at once? Or see everything all at once or all the kind of stuff.

He's just rather annoyed by it. But as he's talking around, he eventually goes and opens up this little warp portal and arrives on a loyalist ship. surrounding him is a whole bunch of admec guys and he's like he just kind of has this low Vox laden shuckle in which he then basically slams his hammer on the dais of the main bridge and by doing so starts spiking out little tendrils all across the ship

smacks it a couple more times unmakes a couple Skatari does some random stuff to the ship you know He unmakes the Skatari. There is an effect I would love to see in some sort of cinematic or game. Just the Skatari just kind of unraveling and... Yep. I mean, that's kind of what happens.

He basically holds his hand out towards them and then all of their tendrils and stuff just like fly away like a fire hose let loose and just start whipping and shurning all of the meat on the Skatari. Oh, man. That's... Why is he so mid? I don't know, because he's just, he's just been. Anyway, he was then greeted by an entire contingent of Death Watch Space Marines.

Oh, God, okay. Five of them walk up through the main bulk doors to him, and with the icon of the Imperial Fist on the shoulder gar and slammed their fist in their chest plate and say, Hydra Dominozzis. Oh, wow, really? Mm-hmm. And... Oh.

Verily, replied Vastor, know your role at this juncture. Watch Sergeant Leora and the Alpha Legion chuckled and then thumbed the shot selector on his weapon. I do, Dark Artificer, we shall serve. So they sabotage this ship

to get them on board because ha-ha Alpha Legion stuff. Uh-huh, of course. Of course. Hydrodominatus, of course. Yep. And he decided to basically make his way through the ship, smashing apart Skatari,

breaking down mechanisms, the usual kind of thing that he likes to do. Just having a good time. Just... Yeah, you know, just doing classic Vash Store stuff. He's got plans afoot. Okay. He breaks into a room with a half,

like half metal, half human... a tech priest kind of person. And he says, You will tell me what I wish to know. And of course, she replies, Abomination, she hissed. I am blessed with a sight of the Omnisiah,

and I will never impatient. Vashdor drove a talon through the adep's throat. Not you, fleshling, sneered Vastor. Adjusting his gaze on the cogitator banks nearby, in which a lumine light flickered and said, What is it you wish to know? Oh, man. It, uh, well, Vashdor's not, he's not nice.

So, he, so basically what's happening is in this ship, Vashdor's found an extremely dormant and hidden abominable intelligence, an AI. Oh. The, the, the ad mech were transporting around AI? Not knowing, Willie. It has kept itself hidden and underwraps for a very very, very, you know, long time. And what's... And so Vashdor is offering it a bargain.

He says, tell me where I can find the battle station that the mortals call the rock. Which is the current homeworld, so to speak, kind of sort of of the Dark Angels chapter. Okay, okay. Lion is Dark Angels, right? Yep. Lions, Dark Angels. So quick notes on that. Basically, during, we haven't talked about the Dark Angels in totality yet, but basically

in their civil war, their planet basically just gets obliterated. As planets often do in 40K, sure. As they do. And the biggest chunk of the planet that flew away had been taken over and turned into a floating fortress, basically. And they call that the rock. So they just recolonized a big old chunk of their planet that got blasted off. And they just used that as like their home base ship thing.

Pretty much that, yeah. That's so peak 40K. It really is. It's very 40K. Was it the Night Lord's book where they find What's Her Face on a big old chunk of Nistrammo? Like they're just mining this big chunk of Nistrammo and it's like, oh, this is. That definitely activity there. You're doing it.

Yep. Yep. Yep. It's pretty funny. Anywho, so our story takes place on him trying to find this rock. And at the moment, we are heading to this place, a special planet known as Marwint's Reach. Marwin's Reach is being accompanied by a lot of people, Chief Librarian Tigerius from the Ultramarines. You've got a whole bunch of other various.

groups there. But what's happening at Marwin's reach is that they were not doing great with their imperial tithes. And then the reason for that is because a whole bunch of chaos nights have been invading their planets. Oh, yeah, I guess that would put a stop to the tithes. A bunch of chaos nights are storming through the area breaking shit. And they're this weird contingent of chaos nights, really like shadowy, like really kind of like wispy kind of chaos nights, all like black smoke and stuff. So going there, a whole bunch of loyalists have come to help assist them. Also a large contingent of knights as well, because the knights of House Raven,

I think. Yeah, House Raven were extremely upset because they had suffered a massive blow by Bellacour, who had snatched away their homeworld in its entirety to defile as they want. So there's a whole bunch of like chaos nights now that have been swayed by Bellacore. And they're like, ooh, that's really annoying. I really want to kill all the people who did that. And so hopefully I can find some answers in these knights down here. So the Dark Angels flotilla on the rock has come over there as well,

along with a couple of their usual void craft escorts and the light. And almost immediately after that of a giant. void portal opens up right next to it and in comes the newest arc of open. That's such bad timing for them. And intentional because Vastor is the god of clockwork and making sure everything is going to he's got quite the going to plan thing just in a more like mechanical way. Oh yeah. being sort of like the way he looks and him being on mechanical,

that makes a lot of sense. And the fact that he's so angry at like, oh man, I can only see in a straight line through time. Why can't I see the whole big picture? That makes sense for Vashore. So basically what has happened is that if you remember, there is a demonic,

like captain on each arc of omen known as the ferryman. Mm-hmm. So what has happened is that this abominable intelligence, this AI, had been hiding for such a long time here. And its name is the oric myriad. That's the name of the AI. And after the illusion, Vashdor signed it as a deal. Serve him and his purposes, and you will become the ferryman of this arc.

Ooh, good deal for the AI. That's a great deal. How do you turn that down? Oh, it certainly didn't. So it became the Ark of Omen known as the Orick Unleashed. And the, oh, it's perfect. It has taken over most to all of the areas that weren't just like outright tiered and infested in the like in the spacehulk. And set it upon the rock, of course.

Now, make it clear, this spacehulk as massive as it is, is still nowhere near the size of the rock. The rock is gigantic. This thing explodes from real space really close to the rock. Intentional, because having all of that warp right there immediately sends demons and shit festering through the various escort ships of the Dark Angel's fleet. It was a pretty good idea to use that against you. Yeah, that's a great idea. Now, Vastor, there's a great little excerpt here that says Vash Stor and Perchirabo.

Demon Primark of the Iron Warriors' Trader Legion had collaborated on many nightmarish projects over the millennia. They maintained a firm, if far-from-friendly alliance. Far from friendly. That's, wow, you don't say perjurabo's a collaboration, far from friendly, huh? Okay. Yep. So he had gotten a solid amount of Iron Warriors to go along. with him, as well as the Black Legion were scenarios from Abadom.

So the beginning of this is lots of naval warfare, just back and forth gunning here and there. But specifically, yes? Oh, I was just going to say, I imagine the Iron Warriors kind of love Vashdor. Like, they seem like they'd be kind of, well, Pritch Raba doesn't like anybody, but it's about saying. Like, Iron Warriors seem like they would mesh with Vashdor just perfectly, aside from Purdy. Yeah, they seem like they would mix really well. I feel as if they have a bit of an in-between thing because Iron Warriors still don't like demons in its own right.

But it almost feels like enemy of my enemy, where it's like, hey, you're putting demons in big packs and crazy contracts. And that's kind of cool. But you're also a demon. so we don't really like you, but we don't like anyone because we're Iron Warriors and we're bitter as shit. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. Anywho, so what Vastor has been specifically hopping towards is creating this fancy kind of weapon by doing all kinds of just ungodly, horrible blasphemy. It's a lot of explanation, but basically,

the Oric Unleashed Ark has a super weapon known as the Unmaker and the rock has a fancy-pancy shield called the Gorgans Aegis. And firing this unmaker thing at it around five times or so was finally able to break and fizzle out this Gorgens. And let me make this clear is that this is a feat to do that. It is like this is the shield of shields. Basically you needed Vashore to make a Death Star like Superwe.

weapon and fire it five times and break, and basically break it. He can't really use it again for a while, but it was able to break the shields of the rock, which is a huge deal. I also love the naming schemes, how like the Dark Angels have something that's very, uh, sort of, um, elegant and the, uh, the Gorgans egress and Cass is just like, yeah, this canon, it un-makes stuff. It's the unmaker. It's the unmacer. This thing will unmake you. And it's like, oh, okay. So with that came the boarding. The boarding of the rock, of course.

With the shield collapsed, it was time for everyone to get their ass on board. And through there came all kinds of stuff, all kinds of demons coming down. The Black Legionaries, you got Zinchean sorcerers. You got all the Iron Warriors dropping in. All attack craft, just never-ending attack craft. Good luck. Good luck, Rock. Vashdor has some really fun moments here where like a stormbird flies overhead, and he just kind of twists his hand and all the components of it just like disappear. They don't just like break apart. They just like they like get reduced to their base components.

That's that sounds so cool. That that is an animation. I would love to see just all of these unmaker Vash Tor effects. where all of the screws just start flying out and all the parts just start unmaking themselves. That sounds like it'd be so cool to watch. Apparently, Vash Store found it incredibly humorous because he was watching Dark Angel Space Marines just floating away in space, not being able to do anything

because their ship is just breaking into bits and he's just like, got him. Yeah, exactly like that clip that Shai just posted, the black and white car falling apart. Yeah, except, you know, space. Space there. Yeah.

And then he also had this parts where he's getting like shot by plasma. And like when he's being shot by, he's kind of adjusting the particles of the plasma midair. He absorbed a bunch of plasma. He got shot by after adjusting its, it's like, it's atom structure or whatever. And he turned it into this big like metal comet. that he fired from his hammer, which is not something he can do in game, and I'm very upset about that.

I would love a flaming comet. Wait, so he can readjust, like, atoms of plasma bursts that are fired at him midair, and he can just be like, he can just twist his hand and be like, oh, yeah, now this plasma is metal, and now I'm going to shoot it at you? He does that?

So Vashdor reminded me, reminds me a little bit of, like, a balancing nature of Heimdahl in God of War, where it's not, like, he can do crazy, crazy things, but anyone can still be overloaded by just, like, amount of stuff. Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure, yeah. So he was able to do things like that a few times, and then he was, like, able to unmake a couple bullets on his way,

but then some would, like, clatter against his shield. Plasma Blast would hit him and it scorched his armor, and he got kind of mad, so he, like, turned over and flamored them. Oh, man, that just sounds so cool. I love shit like that. he's uh he's just got all kinds of mechanisms he knows all kinds of stuff like that he is the god of cogitators i love him man i love ashdor i love all this shit so the main thing after all of this is that or the main thing with this whole war for the rock is that the third and final

component for uh the major artifact lies deep in the rock this is and that's why he's here the final piece of his little puzzle or the final main piece. Yeah. Now, if you'll remember, the Dark Angels don't much like people finding things out about them. I've heard this. I've heard that they're not big fans of that, yeah.

So the main group here is, it's all the main Dark Angel players. Asrael, Ezekiel, Belial, Samoyal, Asimadai. They're all here. Azrael is the guy who got the newest mini that you can, oh yeah, that shy posted above there. Azrael is currently going through the Rubicon Primaris to become primarized. They make it seem a lot harder than it is in the,

well, a lot harder in the book. He was pronounced legally dead twice during the procedure. It needed to be resuscitated by electronics. Okay, that's, that sounds awful. What was that book that we read where they went over how to become a primarice and how awful the torture is and how terrible it is even for like

space marine level people right brother we just read it it's literally belisarius call it was the last book shut up it feels like a long time ago all right it was like a week and a half yeah well that's a long time shut up and instead look at these awesome images from the book okay all right you you god damn horror uh that's There's one. Thank you, Shai. You can see Vash Stor is looking in the back right there. I love how ominous Vash Tor is in the back there. That's such a cool shot.

Oh, my God. Just Vash Tor looming. Oh, that's great. There's a couple more of the horrible-looking demons. It's the mechanical demons stuff. Oh, that's so cool. Look, it's your chainsaw man. Oh, he's a little.

so cool. Oh, oh, that is, that is indeed a chainsaw man. Yep. Yep. There are some, some wacky ones in there. Wow, that's, whoever's doing, do we know who the artist is that does all this? Because they, they've been putting in some work. Or is it a group of people? Because who we?

They do a really good job with all that stuff. All of the demons look so gross. Oh, it's horrifically amazing. I love it. So the big battle here mainly comes around this place called the Nameless Gate. Behind the Nameless Gate is where they store all of their secrets. And by that, it's like old weapons, a captives, all kinds of really important things that only the inner circle of the dark angels really understand.

Because... He's calling it the nameless gate. They gave it a name. Ironic, eh? Because it's the nameless gate. It has a name. What is it? It's the nameless gate. It's the nameless gate. You don't go through the nameless gate because the nameless gate is where all the secrets lie. And that's what they want to protect the most. Oh, yeah, definitely. So during the big kind of fight down below, the main battle comes between Azrael and Vashdor. And as they, you know, just fight each other overall. Something to note that's, I think, rather important is, and something that I think people forget is like, okay, so Azrael versus Vastor, Vashdor wins this fight.

This is not a competition. I was about to ask, like, does Vashtar absolutely overwhelm Azrael? Because, like, I get that Azrael is a very important, very strong space marine of the dark angels. But, like, it's Vashtore. Like, he is looking to become a chaos god, if he can. There's no way a space Marine is going to get the one up him, right? Even a Primaris version. There's no way.

Not only was Vastor just gigantic, and the Dark Angels had their backs against the wall to their main gate as like their kind of final stand in this section of the area. Asrael was just off the fucking operating table. Oh, so, okay. He had just come back from his little becoming of a primaris thing. Oh, so that's even worse for him. Yeah, so the fight going through was quite rough for him. And even though he got a couple good hits on Vash Stor, Vastor just like clanged on him pretty hard with his hammer. Yeah.

But then things get a bit bizarre because Vash Stor is on a bit of a time crunch here. The Rock is slowly moving to assist the planet. I forget the name. They don't say it much. The planet being besieged by the Chaos Nights. And on that planet are the Ultramarines, Nova Marines, Imperial Guard, lots of them that are coming to now assist the rock. So he's got a bit of a time limit.

He doesn't want to get overwhelmed by space marines. But during their fight against Asrael, little wisps of shadow and strangeness there start to kind of curl around as all the lights on the rock go out for a short second. Like pitch black and they come back on with this very light dim and then shadowy little circles and wraps in the in the fabric of reality go through and then more hooded black hooded chaos space marines emerge from this portal word bears and black legion and various other space marines emerge from these shadowy portals having the dark angels mutter their little little statements of the fallen. They say that it's a fallen. The fallen are back.

Now, I don't know if they're actually the fallen. I don't know enough about Dark Angels to determine if they're actually the fallen. But they do contain the mark of Bellacore. Oh, okay. And immediately, these Marines and demons enslaved to Belichor start murdering everybody. as he does, sure. We're no longer on a one v1 thing. We're on a 1v1v.1.

It's time for madness. And so... Are the bellicor ones actually going after like Vash Tors forces too? Or is it just... Oh, yeah. Oh, so they're not there to bolster up Vash Tors forces.

They're just there to kill anything that moves. Oh, yeah. Oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, that makes things way more interesting. I don't know. I doubt that's the original fallen. I don't think so. I don't know enough about the fallen,

but the Dark Angels seem to think that they're the fallen and are very upset about that. Yeah. Because of the Dark Angels. But this whole distraction gave Asrael a bit of time to retreat away from Vashdor's onslaught, which I think Dark Angels players will not be happy about because retreating is like,

Not a dark angels thing They would rather die in battle Than retreat type of thing It's like I would rather die And let the secrets that are hidden in this Rock let out to anything Uh oh You cut out on Discord there for a little bit

Oh I was just saying that the The secrets of the Rock are way too important For anyone else to know Ah okay So them retreating from the Rock is like No we can't do that we have to If we die protecting the secrets So be it we have to

protect the secrets. They're that important. Gotcha. Yeah, it's important enough to like death is preferable in this situation. And I would never want to have to have new Dark Angels recruits go and protect the vaults. Yeah. But so you think Dark Angels players a little, little, little upset about that, little, um, copseed mold? Uh, I mean, I don't think they're crazy enough to assume that Azriel could one V1 Vastor any better than the Azro one v1 bellicor.

But at the same time, falling back is definitely not really in their MO. Granted, you could argue they're falling back to help reinforce the nameless gate, which he was. Okay. And that's really,

really important. But it's definitely, like, like even in game, the, that unit, that inner circle, like,

I don't think they can fall back at all. Like, they're not allowed to. Right. Gotcha. And so that's, it might be a little bit, but despite that all,

Bellacour whisks away Vashdor back to the surface of the rock, in which he starts to basically taunt him. He just, he hates everything and everyone, and he's entirely here to tell Vastor that he belongs lower on the totem pole of the chaos gods, and I'm going to put you back in your place. Okay, so, so is Belichor mad that Vash Tor is rising up in the ranks so quickly, quickly it seems since it's got all these arcs and everything and bellicor is just like

nah dude this is this is my realm this is my shit you are you are two you will never become a fifth chaos god i won't allow it get back in your place go home and i'm gonna send you home also so would bellicor beat the shit out of ash torr in like if they won v1 bellicor would probably destroy Bastor, maybe? Yeah, Bellacorp is a far stronger fighter

overall and he would, I mean, in game, it's not even a goddamn contest, bellicor will whoop his ass, but Belacor would definitely beat Vastor's butt. He is very powerful. Yeah, it's the most powerful and greatest of all demon princes.

Now, Vashdor is not a demon prince. He is technically a demigod, a mini god, but bellicor is a strong he's like a form of shadow it's a little hard to fight that wow yeah have we talked much about bellicor i don't think we have have we

no not really he got a recent minion's kind of coming back to the fold a bit more you got that really swole model right yeah yeah he's both swellacore swallacore swolacore

swolacore but uh this is where things kind of devolve into absolute chaos uh Literally, boom, damn it, let's go. Bellacour is fighting Vashtore. They're both fine on the surface.

All of Belichor's minions and Vashor's minions are fighting. The Dark Angels now through this three-way combat, have an ability to reinforce and bolster their defenses and get back into prime fighting shape. The fight between Belichor and Vastor go about as it seems. He wisps away into weird little bits of shadow. and then blocks with the hammer and then smashes back and misses because it's shadow and getting cuts and stabs. And Bellocor really kind of stunts on Vastor for a bit.

Get stunted on. He does get a good couple hits in. I know one, he like cracks Bellocor's jaw with the hammer, good upswing. Ooh, nice, nice. But basically that his little shadow form makes him so damn hard to take down. And so, you hit a shadow, right? Yeah. And so with that, Belichor's attacks and warriors were really just causing all kinds of problems.

And at the end, the ultramarines and various groups coming up from the planet were about to arrive. And most of Belichor's forces had been killed at this point. But he's like, I've done my job. Idiot. Loser. Dumb, dumb ahead. Stupid head I've

Remind you of your place He was just there to ruin Vash Tor's plan So Vash Tor couldn't get a leg up with the chaos gods and everything And ah What a f***er It's pretty funny It says you are You are the lick spill of this spoiler

Growd Bellacor Appropriate perhaps That the oil grub king of soot and scraps Should serve as a mere tool in a mortals hands. Ooh, that's some vitriol. Oh. Mm.

Bellacour, you got away with words. It's pretty good. Vashtar has this fun little, a spiteful thing you are with little purpose and less wit. It's fun. I don't know, man. That was a pretty great line. That sounds like Vastor just huffing the copium after getting owned in a fight and getting owned in the verbal joust.

is a that Velikor basically states no not to gloat but to humble one who needs reminding of their lowly place in the Pantheon damn

so I'm man I'm like in Belichore more and more like I came into this like oh Vashtore Vastor I'm now I'm like damn Belichor

kind of a Chad though Belacor kind of like Purdy where Very petulant extremely petulant very spiteful very spiteful

Very petty, yeah No one gets to be player one Except for me That's my color You don't get to be color too That's my color I want to play as Mario You have to play as Mario

So All right And to end their major fight Vastor in this kind of fit of rage Basically slams the ground with his hammer And grabs most two all guns, tower emplacements, turrets, tanks, and all in the vicinity and turns them directly onto Bellacour.

In which, because he's like, God damn it, all right, that's it. Every gun in this last half square mile is going on your face. They all just start to gun down Bellacore as Belichor whips himself away with multiple holes in his I was going to say if he just goes into his little shadow form or whatever, it doesn't even matter if all the guns are pointed at him. Who cares? You

basically stopped Vash Tori. He's just temper tamper. Just GtFO, dude. A shadow can still be dispersed to an extent. It's hard to hit. He needs to bring a floodlight with him next time so there can be no shadows, right? You know, just

that's stupid, but you know what, effective. Shut up. Just bring a light. Yeah, bring lots of, just bring floodlights, you know. Bring a loom in. Yeah, just attach them to like your shoulders, just these big lights to your shoulders and just no more shadows. So with that, and Belichor's purpose mainly done, a good portion of the battle at this point

is not working out for our boy. The dark angels are getting back into strength. The ultramarines are coming. Vastor surprisingly calls for evacuation. Actually brings down stormbirds and stuff to pick up. iron warriors and black legionaries that have been you know, they evacuate.

He gets them out of there. They retreat, yeah. Which is, normally he would just fuck off. Yeah, what do I care about these lowly warriors? Screw it, I'm out. He said to him, he said he would prefer a

defeat as opposed to a massacre in the eyes of Abidon. All of his men to be dead. Sure, sure. You don't want to lose all your ranks, yeah, I guess. Oh, yeah, sure, sure. So he has to end up bailing overall.

It was messy drawn out, but he was able to pull a good portion of them out. However, with that, the Dark Angels route and start reclaiming the rock. They get their shield back up, and they start rooting out the heretic Astardis all around that were left behind, dragged in chains to cells normally reserved for the Dark Angel's own fallen. Quote, though they did not know it yet, the chaos worshippers would soon endure

horrors beyond even their own twisted imaginings at the hands of the interrogator chaplains of the dark angels. Ooh, man, if it's horrific even for a chaos space marine, that's got to be some gnarly stuff that's about to happen. They're pretty rough.

There's a funny little excerpt in here about how the librarians are trying to go assist them in this specific part of the rock. And after a large volume of angry back-and-forth vox messages, they decide to go somewhere else. It's like, don't worry, Dark Angels, I'll help you in your sanctum. No, you won't.

You're not getting anywhere near this sanctum. Go over there. Dark angels are like Spanish Inquisition, except way worse. So after this there are two excerpts, one from a prisoner and one from a, from Vashtar and Abadom. The prisoner, I think it was a Black Legion area or whatever, was held in pitch darkness. And I mean pitch. If you were like a night lord, maybe you could see it.

But this guy, even with space marines gear, he couldn't see a thing. And he has been starved. for a long time. Because space marines still do need to eat at a point. Oh, yeah. At some point, yeah, yeah. So he is being starved for a large period of time and going so that each time the interrogator arrives to question him,

the intervals have been getting more and more erratic, specifically, to always arrive at a time you could never guess. Mm-hmm. And as the interrogator arrived, it immediately was blinding pitch white light. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then a roar of static that like would like rake through his ears. And the interrogation was pretty pretty like straight forward.

How did you know where the rock would be? And they says, and you know, the demon knew. How was the gorgas each disabled? The demon knew. And then pain would rip through his body like it poured sulfur acid on his, on his organs is what it was described as. Jesus. What is the device?

I don't know. Torture. What is nature of the demon? I don't know torture. And he probably doesn't know the nature. I mean, he's just, it's a chaos base ring. What the hell does he know other than I'm,

I was sent here to kill shit. So, yeah. Though actually, he ends up actually telling them information that he randomly just found out. Turns out Vastor has fed some info into the captives And forced them to say it So like false info I assume to sort of throw them off

Info nonetheless that all the captives are saying together Now the dark answers are like that's weird We've been interrogating them for weeks and they all know the answer right now Yeah and it's all the same answer Mm-suzz Yeah very suss nevertheless Still something to go by and Vastor and Abadon chat for a little bit.

In a pretty crazy exchange, Abadon is not happy, so he's going through an admec ship, just tearing apart things with his legionaries. And they throw all of the admec bodies into this giant carnal pit in which a bunch of sorcerers are casting a spell. And this pile of mass of bodies and electronics

forms into a big face on the ground and it's Vashdor's fucking face. Oh! And so he's speaking and he's like, his lips are like, are like so discarded swords and flesh and meat. So when he talks, he spits in burbles blood and like eye lenses and stuff. It's so awful. That, that is awful, but that is, that would be some great imagery. Like, I can't believe nobody did like an illustration of that for these books because that is,

who that is that's that's that's a lot that's that's that's a hellscape it's uh they have a bit of interesting conversation um they are uh rather he's rather upset and Vash Stor is like like don't talk down to me you dickhead it's probably a good idea

probably good I am not to talk shit to Vashdor main thing is that Abadon and Bellacor are like allied to an extent. Oh, really? I didn't realize Bellacour and Abadon were allied. I thought Belichor was just out on his own? What? He mostly is.

It says Abadon said he had long known that permitting Belichore within his inner circle of lieutenants was a gamble. Better to have such a duplicitous being close, duplicitous being close than leave him free to run amok. And so Vastor was like, your boy fucked my day she sure did so for Abadon

and Bellacourt sort of keep your friends close but your enemy's closer kind of deal where it's better to have him close and you know what he's doing rather than to just be like I don't know where fuck he is so the end of this basically goes to the

point where Vastor is like I decided to go ahead and let them know basically where we were in this area. And Abidon said, Abadon said, even if you are right, why would they bring the rock? Why not simply send warships?

It's all the better if they do, said Vastor. I still have the oric Miriam. Its talent for locating the rock remains undimmed. If they seek to conceal their stone haven, I shall fall upon it while they writhe in the jaws of the trap. You would have no way of bringing down their shield a second time, said Abidon. I am the warp god of the forges. No device fashioned by mortal hand I cannot undo.

But it will not come to that. They will guess too that I might return. They will clutch their secrets close. Keep them in sight and surround them with strength. Only be ready to spoiler. In your linear terms, the end hastens closer. also what's what's to stop vash tor from breaking the gorgans egress again uh well his super weapon got f*** up because it got fired five times well yes but like it seems like i'm is that something

that just the arc had i guess vash tor didn't necessarily build that did he or did he he built it for that arc well it could be the things that he exhausted to do it maybe art is available. Pull a, pull a Star Wars sequel trilogy and make a bunch of star destroyers that all have unmakers on them. So there's two things. One, as Shai said, Vastor clearly doesn't think it's going to be an issue. That's true.

He doesn't seem that concerned with it. He doesn't seem like he's, yeah, that's fair. And two, it's like, you know, like, you got to remember this stuff in 40K terms. often when they say they brought together the the components to do a super weapon it took like 50 years sometimes you know

like this is 40K terms that's that's true I do often forget how quickly 40K timelines run and it's like oh yeah we made a super weapon hooray and it's like yeah that was a hundred years ago that we started it's like oh

it gets very much back and forth of this thing but Vastor obviously doesn't seem like it's going to be a problem and the AI it knows where the rock is at all times, because this is an old abominable AI. So basically, it's like, oh, if they send their giant fleet to go attack us, cool, we'll just translate next to the rock. It's less defended situation. Yeah, it'll be much less defended because they'll be busy

trying to, you know, send a full attack force at the arcs or whatever. So that's the end of this book. It's not quite as good for me. Mainly because it feels like bellicor just kind of shows up to make chaos have a setback and not get their prize. He shows up to literally cause chaos. Yeah. And it's like that's in terms of lore accurate, it's extremely lore accurate. That's a total bellicor thing right there. But it's a little bit like how do we have the dark angels survive this?

How do we have our special fancy dark angels that never, the space marines that don't, lose ever kind of thing, get away. And this would be the one. Yeah, definitely. Or at least your name Space Breeds. Plenty of Space Marines have died recently, but... Oh, sure. Sure.

Compare this to the massive Angron dub of last book. Which I guess that might be the reason you had the huge Chaos W and then you have the Chaos L. Yeah. I was going to say, well, I guess it is an L because they didn't get the artifact. But I mean, they did some stuff. You know, they put up a fight. They killed some space marines, you know. And obviously, like, man, can you imagine how pissed off the fan base would be if they were just like, yeah, the dark angels are dead.

Yeah, well, yeah. That would be, ooh, that'd be a yikes. I mean, obviously not that level, but getting their art, you can still get your artifact. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a... So at some point, it's got to come to a head where Vash Tours got to make another attack run on the rock to get this artifact, because that's the end goal for them. Get all these artifacts and do they thing.

And is this... I'm assuming one of these books people think is going to be on good old lion? Dwayne the Rock. I'm about saying. Hey. You know who's asleep on the rock? He's looming. The lion looms.

Yep. You got to go back to the rock. And going back to the rock means, uh, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So do you think the line is going to, like, fight off Vashtar? Because, like, if they, if they wake up the lion, it's like, oh, hey, there's a prime mark.

They're not going to like, hey, he's up. Vashdor kills him. There's no way, right? No, no, the lion will wake up. and get Vastor and Abadon to flee from the fight. That's 100% it's going to happen. Yeah, it has to be. No way the line doesn't come out of this looking like just the biggest hero of all time, right?

Probably. That seems almost entirely what it's going to be. It's like, hey, I'm up. Hello, it's me. And get out of here. Now, the next book is Farsight, interestingly enough. Ooh, the eight come back, right? Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

Left, right, right, right. Excited, though. These books have been really great so far. I do, I do like everything that's going on. Shai has a note. Shai says, I will note, chaos broke into the rock, which is heart of the main base of one of the main space marine chapters. It's super secretive and insanely fortified since it's in many ways of prison. So Vashdor finding it, breaking in and murdering a shitload of people in there is a big kick in the ass for the dark angels.

That is really true. The simple fact that he broke down the Gorgans Aegis and got onto the rock is actually quite a substantial feat. He was going to win until Bellacor showed up. Well, win not 100% sure, but certainly won. was making his path to win. Yeah. He was doing a good job. It seemed like the tides were turning in Vash Tor's favor, and if Belichord didn't show up,

he was going to get his artifact. The, I mean, maybe it's certainly possible. Belichord definitely ruined his day, whether other Dark Angel stuff could have been the way to deal with it, who knows. But it was, it was pretty neat. There was one cool part in the fight with Belichord. when Vastroar grabbed a whole bunch of missiles flying over him and launched them on the ground next to Belacour

and specifically left one open space to allow him to manifest that was not going to get hit by a missile in which when Belichor manifested he immediately took a fucking upswing to the hammer or from the hammer which is pretty goddamn baller that's a move oh that's so cool

there's so many fights like I want to see them animated and I want to see them in like a trailer or something, but it's like, uh, GW is so bad about making like animations or episodes a thing. And there's that Warhammer Plus nonsense and it's like, uh, uh, or Warhammer Plus is not great. So, but, uh, yeah. Um, God damn it.

Shy. Sorry if it's on Warmer Plus going to be animated in black and white at two FPS. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yuck. You know, I'm honestly shocked that GW didn't jump into cryptocurrency considering how quick they want to chase trends.

Oh, yeah. It's, ah. Or, or Hammer 40K NFTs or something. Oh, God. Could you imagine you could get, like, mint a character as, oh, God. I have a living in Avadonna's a spoiler. Oh, I'm, it's almost shocking that they didn't. I'm gonna give myself fucking

As soon as you say it and have that guttural reaction I'm like oh god that sounds like something they would totally do You know On one side though Like despite all the problems They still write really good books And their art team is still top Fucking notch

Oh yeah These books have been some of my Like these have been some of my favorite episodes that we've done because they are just, I love them. I love where this current story is going. And I can't wait for like the Farsight and Lion Books and see how this all progresses. It's been great. Farcy.

Clips of those Geigeresca, Shai called them, Gygresca aliens. Mm-hmm. Next book should be Farsite apparently. So, uh... Hell yeah. We're going to see how that turns out. Until then, um, Bellacor, suck my... That's the.

ending.