Adeptus Ridiculous - Assassinorum: Kingmaker | Warhammer 40k Book club

Episode Date: June 11, 2023

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Welcome everybody to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous Book Club. I am one of your two hosts. Bricky joined alongside me is D.K. Face first in the parchment pages of history. I guess Black Library history. Whatever. Sure. And we're going to be chatting about the lovely Black Library contributions that are brought about in the world of Warhammer 40K.

Before we start, if you'd like to support our podcast, check out our Patreon at patreon. slash Adeptis Ridiculous, where you can find posters, bloopers, and all kinds of other great stuff, including access to our Discord that has a ton of wonderful community members. And at the 20K mark, we will have a great fantasy episode on the Skaven done by our boy, D.K. So patreon.com slash that's ridiculous. Also make sure to check out the merch at Orchidate.com. Love the merch, baby. if you like to pick up and have not picked up one of the music prints, the music of the third art prints.

They are, of course, still available, as well as the brand new monthly poster, Moment of Peace, where the nice little guardsman thing going on there. So also, for some reason, people have been buying a ton of, like, little guy merch. Oh, good. Yeah, I don't really know why. It's good stuff. It's like, it's just happening. So, I mean, cool.

But, yeah, it's just. I don't know why. I know why it's been very random, but hey, cool. It's just a little merch. Just a little merch. Yeah. But yeah. So, book club.

Book club. Book club. The Cessanoranorm Kingmaker. Arguably one of the lesser than stellar names for a book. Yeah. I mean, it's, it gets the point across, you know. It's nothing too flashy. It is what it is.

It is what it is. It is what it is. No frills. That's just, that's what happens. That's what we try to make happen. But it is true. And written by Robert Rath, who is well known for his other work, the Infinite and the Divine, a exceptionally solid and arguably considered one of the best 40K books written. Justifiably, yep. Yeah, I'd argue justifiably. A Necron book that, well, Necron books being very rare, but incredibly good. And, and yeah.

Go watch our review on it after you're done here. Indeed, yeah, that's right. We have a book club on that one, too. Yeah, yeah. I guess it's not really a review. It's just our thoughts. Oh, yeah, book club or whatever. Whatever.

But besides that, today is, the Assassin-Noram Book Club, and obviously we will be getting into spoilers. It is a book club discussion. Before we get into spoilers, a really quick overall thoughts on the book, D.K.? I quite enjoyed it. I was thoroughly enamored with it. Love the characters, love the introduction to the characters, and all of their... Each one of them is a nice little, like, here's what this temple is all about.

That was good. And then, boy, that final act is an absolute shit show. It is just all over the place. And it is just wild and crazy action that just never stops. And it's, whew. It is something. But you'd say that you thoroughly enjoyed the book? Oh, absolutely.

I thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed the book, for sure. I guess we're both in agreement. I really, really liked this book. I think it is one of Maybe in the top 10 Of Black Library books I've read Um Yeah yeah

Like because obviously we take the Night Lord Trillage We put at the top because that's where it belongs And then And then you have like Infinite the Divine I love the bloodlines a lot First Heretic really good And then uh you know Twice a King

Up there Gond's Ghosts but I put it like a I definitely think Assassin Orm is up there Top 10 maybe I don't know if it breaks the top 5 but it's it's definitely up there in in terms of like nice books

Yeah I honestly say it's a top 10 Robert Rath has I would not say it's as good as Infinite Divine but I think I'm comparing like a 9.5 to like a 9.2 Like it's semantics to that point Yeah It is incredible. And it's interesting too, because, okay, spoilers now. The premise of the book is the

three assassin temples. We have the, well, the vindicare or the vindicare as the VA mentioned. Yeah, I can't remember what the names of the other two temples are. I know what Cone and Cicorax do as those, but I don't remember what their temples names are. There is the Caledis, which is the shape shifting. And then there's the vanis, which is a cyberhacker. Okay, gotcha. And they are tasked with a impossible mission,

which is go to a planet, kill the high monarch of the planet who is permanently intuned in his own night suit and cannot be removed. You are not allowed to harm the night suit in any way. And no one is allowed to know who did it. And you need to appoint a successor monarch to stop civil war. Yeah, to stop civil war and make sure that they actually answer the Imperium summons to go to war.

Kill the guy in the night suit. Don't damage the suit, though. And he also, by the way, he never leaves it. He never leaves it. He is permanently entombed in there. It is a insane requirement. Yeah, it is an absolutely impossible task. And, well, I must say it does take some turns.

Oh, wow. It, oh, boy, it gets so much harder than that. It really does. I think a lot of people described it as Mission Impossible. Oh, yeah. That's pretty much what it is. Yeah. Honestly, it does feel like 40K Mission Impossible.

Because, like, for a majority of the book, they're doing all the prep work. and they're planning and they're trying to make sure they've got every angle set out, you know, that their dupe is going to be just so. And then it just kind of... It's really the first half, right? It's like all just prepering work. Honestly, I feel like it's like the first, almost like 75% of the book feels like it's the prep. And then the last 25% just like balls to the wall like action, right?

I think about halfway through they land though. Oh, okay. And things get a little bit like kind of calm. And then the last 25% is when Rath decides to make his moves. Yeah. Because the tournament, right? The tournaments, yes. There's three, four, four main characters.

There's Epsilon Rath, who is our Vindicare assassin. One kill away from 50 kills, allowing him to, what was it, Sakarian Primus, pick his own targets, choose his own stuff, basically a huge advancement. Then you have Sycatrex, or Sykerax. Sychrex. She's a polymorph.

Yep, the Caldus assassin. Great introduction to her, where you think she's the woman in sleeping with a guy, but turns out the woman is the gene stealer. Yep, she's a gene stealer. and Sycorax is actually the, like, a fat governor or something. And, yeah, just polymorphs out and absolutely slaughters that gene stealer. And then you've got the, then you have Cone, who is your nerdy hacker type.

But she's also like the creepy nerdy hacker who doesn't really view people as people and rather as like, like code. Yeah, she's weird. She's very weird. And then you have, oh, crap. I'm talking with an R. Who's the knight guy again? Rackan.

Racon. Rinalius Rackan. Who is a free blade night pilot who assumed, well, yeah, of the night armature jester, who assumed was attempted

to be assassinated by Yavarius Cow, high monarch of the planet of dominion. and went to go be a free blade and is now kind of just a drunkard. Yep. The book starts off with him.

He was going to beat a knight in his armager. Yeah, he was going to beat like a gallant in his armature. What was it? It was it Typhoon's Teeth or something. It doesn't matter what the knight's name was. It was a cool name. And it was something like the hip joint was malfunctioning and he knew about it.

And he was like taking advantage of it. And he was about to win. They're like, Oh, no, call off the match. Because they didn't want him in a night. They don't want him being, have too much power. Yeah. I must say the, I was, I walked in this book expecting to be like getting, buying all the

assassin models and I left ready to buy all the night models. I was going to say, yeah, I left wanting to buy a bunch of knights and a bunch of armagers and stuff, yeah. This is one of the better night books out there. It was, I was genuinely fascinated by. night politics, which is a feat for a Warhammer book to get me interested in politics. Night politics, yeah. Well, it was a little different.

It is. It is. Politics, but yeah. Because the planet is Dominium, and it is a, what was it? It was Strider was supposed to be the colonization effort. God knows how long ago, like 15,000 years ago. And they got warp screwy and got lost in the warp. Yeah.

And so Rao took over the sub-faction. And then Strider came out of the warp and was like, this is our planet. And they both technically had decrees of ownership of the planet that were technically enforceable. Yeah, because the warp fucker, it was like, well, we've only been gone like a second. Well, but to us, it was like 50 years. But yeah, but we have the thing. Yeah, but we have the thing. And yeah.

So both had claim. And so then they had like a nine-year war. And then eventually I think, I think I like the age of strife happened or something like that. And therefore they called a ceasefire and now live in the northern and southern half. And Strider are a bit more noble, a bit more like calm. And Rao is a bit more like rambunctious and like violent. Yeah. But not like a bad way, more of like Strider is a little bit more like, we must maintain.

chivalry and Rao is like is like the games fight fight you know fight the game yeah tournaments hold another one and so uh rinalius racan is the son of a strider mother and the strider mother right and then a Rao father yes hathaway is his mother right right uh no no not later right not hathaway i thought her name was um oh wait no you're right bear it I think it's, is it half? No, it's not Hathaway, is it? I thought it was. I thought it was Hathaway that was his mother.

Barron. And she rides Greyhound? Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think you're right. Barron, I thought, huh. I think it was Hathaway. Yeah, right. Her mother, known as to be the foulest mouth on dominion,

where if you ever wanted to strip a knight's paint, you would simply get in an arguing match with Hathway. Yeah. It stripped a paint right off of it. Yeah, and she doesn't have, like, some special name because there's just like, oh, yeah, it's Hathaway. Like, there could be any other. Like, you can't confuse her with anyone. She doesn't need any, any fancy schmancy titles.

It's just, it's Hathaway. I could have sworn the nice name or something else. Maybe I'm wrong. Oh, well. Yeah, maybe I'm wrong. Whatever. Someone in chat will tell us. It's fine.

Yeah, probably. But we'll just say Racken's mom. Okay. But, yes, so, strider, row relations are really rough. And so there is always like a back and forth issue. And the thing that we're that we're assuming is that the Rinalius, no, Renolius is him. Oh, crap.

Cow, the High Monarch. What's his beginning name? Oh, yeah. I just said it. I don't know. Yvarnius. Yvarius, you know, Yvarius, cow. It's weird, too, because, like, in the book, they make him, like, every chapter has a

quote from him. And like his reciting of the oaths. And he sounds like a noble, good king. Like, he doesn't sound like a tyrant. And this whole time I'm like, man, what,

why are we assassinating? And he sounds just. He sounds like he's into, like, fair play and fair rule. Treat your people with respect. You're the king. You lead the people. You're supposed to be on. And I'm just like, man, what happened?

And that's all excellent, excellent setup. Oh, yeah. Which is super fun. Because that was the thing, right, is that Gilman requested knights for aid. There's a particular chaos virus going around that is affecting all Skatari and people with like implants and stuff. Yep. And the conqueror worm. The conqueror worm.

And the, in the region. And the knights are not affected by this. because of their, God knows how old dark age tech that these knights are. And so they need the knights to help with this stuff, but they have not answered Gilliman's aid for war. Yep. Several requests. Right.

And so they assume that the secession is being spoken of with the high monarch cow. And granted, there is plenty of secession discussion going on. Oh, yeah. Once they make landfall and they're at that party, it's like, oh, wow, you guys are damn near heretical about this. Some of them are. Some of them kind of argue about it. Yeah. But that was, so that's why they believe that there is a, and then secession would mean civil war, possibly, and they need the knights.

So they need to maintain relations, maintain strider-row relations, and get knights to serve the Imperium. Yep. Because if the knights are going to fall, they should fall at the. at the behest of the Imperium, not a civil war where they're fighting each other. And honestly, like, everything about this entire book

is just really good lore for the knights. I, the whole idea is that Racken is this disgraced knight or whatever, and Sychotrex, or Sychotrix is going to become him. Yeah. Be him and take over the knight, the knight suit,

and has to have a problem. like mentally, you know? And it's a whole thing. It is a whole big thing. Like, she has to, like, you actually learn how, like, the pilots, like, when they first get into the suit, all the stuff they have to go through and talking with the ancient ancestors.

And, and, like, you can pilot a night suit manually. It's stupid, and it's not going to be anywhere near as effective. But it's really fascinating watching the process of trying to, like, get this thing to move and how much you have to pander to the ancestors. It was, what, a nine hour straight, like, debate and questionnaire with the ancestors before she was allowed to move jester? It's crazy. Yep. Basically, basically things like that. And then she got one thing wrong.

One little thing. One thing wrong. And the entire answer was like, stop. And they started like, you're a traitor after all. Yeah. Practically trying to kill her via her neural implant. And yeah, and it's really, because all the old ancestors are like talking in this hushed, whispered voice. But it's fascinating.

People forget that knights are actually like, they don't move like Pacific Rim robots. They move like transformers. Like they are incredibly mobile. Yeah, they roll. They do like, they do jumps. They spin, they dive. Like, knights are fast. They are mobile.

They are extremely quick. And because of that, like, when you think about Pacific Rim robots, you think about, like, Titans. They move more of like the er-ur-thing. The giant cathedral titans. Whereas, yeah, the knights, like, really move quick. But if you want to interface with a knight without the neural interface, then you're going to move it like a Pacific Rim robot. where it's really stunted and poor.

Yeah. If you don't have the ancestors with you, then it might move like a titan. And she was trying to convince the ancestors that she was Rackan stuff. And I remember the last ancestors were like, we don't think he's Rackan. And it's like, well, what is your proof? It's like, we have no proof. It's just a hunch. It's like, well, this court finds you waning if you have no proof. We must continue.

And even the ancestors were like, this isn't the first time you've done this. Shut up. Like, you do this all the time. I think it was like, because it was like a row group. And so the strider group was like, be gone. I did, I did like that where it started moving the night and they whispered in her ear like, he stumbles. It's like, he has a head injury. Look at his dumb leg.

He's broken. He's broken. Of course he's moving weird. It was pretty funny in a weird way. But, um, yeah. I will say something to be noted. the assassins in this book are very nerfed. Oh, wow.

Those three are nerfed? 100%. They are very nerfed. Remember the fighting that Sychicotrix had to do? She is the same assassin that fought Talos. Oh, yeah, she would be, wouldn't she? Yeah. So the assassins...

I guess somebody that could duel with Talos. Yeah, I guess she is a little nerd, isn't she? Yeah. And like, and like even, even the vindicare assassins. Like, like a one punch would, would break someone's throat. You know, like, like, shatter all their ribs. You know, they are tough. They are far and above incredibly fast.

Like, basically, because, um, Rath was more of just a really good sniper. Yeah. And, you know, he was very quick. There's that, uh, ending scene where he like, uh, was it, like, like, bombs his entire stairwell full of like mines and traps and claymores like he has cool stuff

like that he's a really good shot and everything but there's that time when he got like crowded by by people like they were all jumping on him I'm pretty sure a real vindicare assassin would just like bust out of that and break throats wow that's that's crazy

because the whole time I was like man Absalom Ray this is kind of OP he seems like damn, like, these Vindicare are crazy. And he's a weak one? I think the assassins in this book, I think are nerfed. For the most part

when the assassins are talked about in the real lore, the ones here are a bit nerfed. And I think it's acceptable because... For the book. Yeah. Although I did like that one where it was like because there were several times where I thought Rath was dead. He was like, they had him

dead to rights. Like what was it what was the name Drask had a gun to him I was like okay and they were like oh yeah the gun fired

and I was like well that's it for him he just took a bullet to the brain and it's like nope he's fine set off the explosion

everything's cool and then when he was getting swarmed it was like oh yeah there's his mask oh he just got

liquefied by a night lance he's dead it's like oh no he put the mask on someone else it's like

you can't kill him I was I was I read like the part where Cigatrix shot or Cicot

shot him with the night lance because the uncle was like bondsman linked and was like practically forcing her hand yep that was um no choice because they were armager and knight are so heavily linked that he dominated her will

pretty much I do like that because that's a very um that's a very in game thing as well if you run a big knight you give buffs to small knights oh yeah yeah yeah okay it's it's pretty fun the bonds and abilities, but they were a bit

Nerfed. Though, I will say, Rayth's aiming was not nerfed. His accuracy was very much proper. I think it was more his physical strength that was actually brought down a little bit. Yeah, his aim

was top notch. We shot the guy in the head through two bulk heads. Yeah, that was pretty fun. Woo! She! There was a lot of good stuff like that. Yes. But I really, I really,

liked the night stuff, dude. One of my favorite parts of the book is the party. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're just chilling. They have such fun, like, little banter and discussion. Like, whenever they're arguing about something and they want to, like, put it behind them, they always say, banish it with a tap. And they, like, clink their glasses together.

There's a part where when they're discussing, like, secession, some dude's, like, eating quail. And he just throws the bones on the ground. And then some surf, like, crawls up, grabs the bones and removes them. I'm like, thank you, my lord. Very, very nobility party, yeah. Oh, yeah. Someone always dies at these parties, too. Make sure it's not you.

Yep, they always, they got in like a duel or something. Yep. There's some people got into a duel and someone died. There was a cousin and, yeah. Actually, at that party, nobody actually did die. They died after the party. After the party, yes, they did. But pseudo-rachan stopped the duel before anyone could die

because they thought it would be a, oh, yeah, You know, you make yourself more visible and you put yourself higher up in the list. Yeah. I also, I liked them. I will say the, the audio book had some kind of poor editing. Did you notice, did you notice any part where like it skipped or like the lagged or there was issues like that? None that jumped out at me. It, okay, maybe it's just me, but it felt like there will be a, there was a little bit of poor.

editing or poor adjustments to it. That kind of bugged me. I thought the audio book could have been a little better. Yeah, maybe it's just me. Maybe. Or maybe I didn't, wasn't looking out for it either. Either or, but I will say, I just always I find it hilarious when, whenever there's a VA

for a audiobook, because, you know, most VAs that do this stuff are British. Yes, yes, they are. They all, and then, you know, they have like a pretty classic, like flat accent for most. characters. And then eventually Rackan is getting like tortured by some Militarum guy and he or like some ex-militarum guy. He goes full stop hard into the the Militarum 40s British accent. I mean, you got to. You got to hit it. It's, it's really fun. I like that part too. It kind of

gave me more respect for Rackan. He was a trying to get information out from the mercenary guy and he was like really holding his own. Oh yeah. And he was what was he? What was he? dropped like hot coals on his nuts on his nuts yeah it's like damn dude easy easy there's a lot of that like Gwen

Gwen was pretty cool his like a best girl Gwen she was fun she's the the the Mechanicus the little tech ad app person that helps with the thing

yeah yeah I like the I like that a lot I like that a lot. That was a, she was a fun character, kind of added a bit, a bit to it.

Yeah, she was all right. I don't know why. She kind of faded into the background for me a little bit. Yeah, she's a side character.

Yeah, I didn't really know, I didn't really remember too much about her, well, except the, the big twist at the end. Right.

When she kind of pops back into being, hey, guess what I found out. Well, we might as well with that. So, the last act is just like pure action, like hardcore action movie action, which is, you know, the point.

I would have loved to have watched a series that just made that into a big brawl. Oh, man. We did have a little bit of a difficulty keeping up with certain bits of the last act. I won't lie. Yeah, it was, particularly the night fights. It was, it was, there was, it switched so many times. Like, it would go from Racken trying to find his vantage point. A race.

Race, right. To sick a sickerick's, uh, doing her thing. Uh, uh, uh, cone is off doing her thing. And, and Rackan is in the catacombs learning about his dad. And it's, it's just, it shifts between all four of them so often that it's like, okay. All right. This is great, but holy. What is the duty of a wounded night?

What is the duty of a wounded night? I love how he finds out just by ranting at his dad. Like, you left me in dishonor. What is a, what should, I don't know. What am I supposed to do? Rise from my name. Rise from my blood. Rise from your blood.

That's right. It's like, what? What? Bada bing he found out. Yeah, just by ranting at his dad for leaving him with no answers. For dying, for drowning his own blood. Yep. Well, to be fair, his dad died an honorable death,

protecting the crown of dominion? Kind of. He died a slightly dishonorable death because he interfered with the duel. Oh, that's true. That's true because the crown of dominion was technically dueling with dawn of slaughter. I love how his mom bitched about that. I was like, you're a stupid father. Dyes a hero and now I can never complain about him.

That's right. What a bitch. Yeah, she, well, you know, yeah. for a couple reasons. But we, so we find out. So, Wraith is out and about and destroying the games. And he just kind of goes,

fuck it. And he runs up onto the Crown of Dominion, shoots six rounds into like the capsule holding the holding cow and pull, and runs out of bullets, but breaks the glass and decides to just pull him out by his throats and strangle him to and strangle him. And he. just pulls out this wet, purple,

fleshy, dead mass of nothing. Yep. Yep. He pulls out the... He basically just pulls out a corpse that's been stewing in there. Because he's like, uh, huh. This thing's actually been dead a long time. I didn't...

I didn't do this. I didn't kill this guy. Oh. So there's... It's a bit... It's a bit of an exposition dump at the end. And that's one of my few complaints about the book is I think the... Yeah.

happened, it takes a while. Cohen's doing like the interrogation and all that. But the overarching thing is that fighting dawn of slaughter and almost losing infected him, the crown of dominion with the conqueror worm virus. Yep. And Evarious Cow, high monarch of dominion, is what we realized is actually a really good leader, a great guy. Extremely good leader, supremely good guy, and he was actually fighting off the conqueror's worm to make sure it didn't take control.

Right. The whole time until his death. Yep. And so in reality, there was actually a succession. What was the traitor house called again? Morvane. House Morvane. There was a trader house kind of in their midst.

And that was like the secessionist kind of sort of. And in reality, there was accidentally a, they tried to fix the crown dominium with the tech adept who thought she was working with an iron hands. It was probably working with an iron warrior. Yep, because these backwater folks have probably never seen Anastardis, so they wouldn't know iron hands from iron warriors, which I always get mixed up too. In fairness, I can't even, I can't call them backwater because they're far from backwater. True, they're not, but they've probably never seen the starties. Right. As most people probably haven't in 40K.

Which has expanded the Conqueror Worm worse because of the bondsman abilities. They even try to force Rackan into an infected armager, which was horrifying to read. Oh yeah, and the red sky. It was almost like the connection tender was alive and it was like strangling him and trying to force its way into him. Yeah, it was icky. It was really nasty. Did not like that.

But, yes, so that was the whole point was that the conqueror worm would then spread across the way. And so then it became like a three-way war between the loyalist knights, the conqueror worm knights, and then a successionary group of like serfs and slaves as well, all at the same time attacking at the end. And so that was what happened is the crown of dominion eventually when, Kyle was dead, they put in a new guy, a fine guy into the new knight who eventually was then corrupted by the conquer worm and then just started murdering everybody. Immediately once he went in, it was during like the coronation, right? He gets into the knight soon and he's like, oh, all this, this. And by the way, we're going to war with the Imperium and Gilliman can eat a fat one.

And it's like, uh-oh. Uh-oh, and then he just opens fire on civilians with a Castellan night, right? Right, which is a gigantic volcano lance and goddamn plasma decimator cannon. Yep. And then apparently, like, it's like every night. What was it? Like, every night is actually infected by the Conquerous worm and they're actually traitors? A lot of them are.

Not everyone, but a lot of them, yeah. If they were, like, bonded to cow or something, they turned out. infected or yeah or they were just traders anyway because they saw morvane is the better option um because they were secessionists it's like it's like a combination of both like the traders and sessionists kind of are together yeah um but uh rackand's mom is one of the main traders as well as his uncle uh two and so the the final act of the book is a crazy crazy situation where Oh goodness, it's so many things at once. It's Rackan going down and finding the old folklore night, the Leviathan night, the, like the storybook.

Yeah. Which is. The mystical Leviathan that was actually piloted by his dad. Or something like that. I think it was piloted by his dad because he had to do the rise from your bloodline. And then it was like, oh, hey, guess what? And it's like there's Leviathan. Which is so baller, because it's my favorite night ever.

It's a night valiant with the giant thunder coil harpoon, which is so fun. So then he comes out stomping around with that. And then Raith is up at a super high vantage point who has mined like the entire stairwell and is aiming his gun down the range in which Sycorax is using her knight. to fight the crown of dominion as the tiny little armager jester. Yep. And she's doing well. But she can move jester like perfectly at this point, right?

So she is just bobbing and weaving. She's quick. She's fast. She's hitting it from every angle she can. And so. And there's also after that there's like the, because I think she kills the new guy by basically like grabbing him and lifting them up into range to have,

uh, Raith fire like a three mile away shot. Yep. And Ray is so proud of that shot, too. He's like, oh, yeah, I know this is going to hit. Let's just, let's just all take a moment to watch this. Poof. And it's like number 50. Yep. And his head just mystifies. It just turns into a mist at this bullet. He has some crazy bullets, by the way. Oh, the turbo penetrator rounds and stuff. Like, he, he broke the high castellan's ion shield. Well, he, okay, he, uh, I don't think he broke the shield. He disrupted it, I guess. Yeah, well, yeah, it was already hurt.

Yeah, but still. Right, because he had shield breaker rounds, I think. Yeah. I didn't realize that was the thing. I'm like, oh, okay, come on. There's no bullet that's going to penetrate the night's eye on shield, right? And he's like, oh, bet. Actually, that was the thing is he loaded his mag in a certain way where it was like,

break the shield. And then, because the castle has four melta guns on its, chest and they needed to get rid of them to let um siga-tricks get close so he was like shooting off melta guns off a moving night from like three miles away just pop pop pop got him it was now that's the one part that I will say was not a nerfed his reign was perfectly fine

I thought he was so OPE he did so many crazy things in this book like damn but um the four Vindicare once they once they because that was also a big part was the temples thing cicatrix is a person who understands humans cares about humans in a sense like

it gets the social aspects Cone could care less Cone is just learning and and Rath is a very like we do it this way or we do it no other way he's very like close-minded very plan oriented

we got to stick to the plan it has to be planned out we can't just you know go by the seat of our pants or anything, yeah. Which is why the little end gauntlet they have is kind of a great moment where Cicorax is fighting through a hallway of like mutated

admec from the conqueror worm. And she's just doing all kinds of wild and crazy shit. She's like flattening herself to the size of like a pancake and crawling like a like a like the exorcist crab like across the walls and doing flips and

intortions and all the while, Raith is on this perch, like bang, bang, and they're working together, which is what they weren't doing before. They were like having a together fight and it was like this nice, like, hey, here we go. It's all coming to head, you know? And what was the artificer's name? I think it was an artificer that was the head lady. Yeah, yeah, the cone found all this stuff out. It was like teloran, telos.

Something like that. She spoke like an old woman. Yeah. And she like transformed in. into some real chaosy stuff. Like, didn't she turn into like a literal robotic centipede? Because she was the one that, I guess, the Iron Warrior worked with. Yeah, something like that.

And then Gwyn attached herself to an Armanger and fired the auto cannon at her until the barrels spun dry. Well done. Just bop, bop, bha. That'll do. That'll do, pig. I'll do. That'll do. The only part that was really difficult for me to keep track of was Rackan fighting all the knights.

mainly because I couldn't remember which knight name belonged to who. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think there was one that was like the shield of dominion. I always got that one confused with, I was like, oh, why is he fighting, why is he fighting Dagger Crane? It's like, oh, no, shield of Dominion is the one that Yuma's in. The crown of Dominion is the one that Dagger Crane got corrupted in. And yeah, I had a hard time keeping up with the night names too.

Oh, my God. I forgot about that part. There's a part when they were trying to get rid of successors to the throne line. And then Sychakrix just kicked a dude, like, into a cage of a fucking, like, giant snake. Oh, that's right. That's right. Yep. Giant big old snake and just eats everything.

That was really funny. I forgot about that when their plan, like, kind of fell apart. And they were just like, ah, damn. Well, you know what? We want this dagger crane guy in. So let's just kill everybody until they pick him. And they just go on a murder spree. That was pretty hilarious.

It was actually kind of a funny little point of comedy of them just going back and forth. Also, did you get a little bit of like sexual tension between Wraith and Cicatrix? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, okay. I was about to say, like, particularly when they were smoking cigars in like the truck after murdering another guy, it was kind of like, eh, this is kind of fun. I mean, I knew they probably wouldn't end up together. because no way with two temples, you know, no way would a Vindicare get it on with the

Caledus? I disagree. I think if I'm going to get it on with anyone, I'm going to get it on with the person who's shapeshifts. Well, you've got to be careful, though. You've got to be careful with that because, you know, if you make her upset, she can make your life a nightmare. Well, yeah, but she's like, oh, yeah, look.

She's an assassin. She can make my life a nightmare no matter what. But, um, no, I mean, the only, you know, the only thing. That's really the only part that kind of threw me was figuring out everything going on. But the book ends relatively well. Yeah, everything's tied up with a nice little bow. Good old rackhand becomes the new high monarch. But there is a, it's not longer a high monarch.

It's like a high monarch couple, a wife and spouse. Yeah, so you have a representative strider and a representative row. And they each keep each other in check so that no one ever take. takes too much power or no one ever leans too far in the interest of their house. Exactly. And so you keep that up. And they're sending knights to war for Gilemon. Oh, I totally forgot.

There was a part when Sycorax had not had her polymorphine for a while. And she yells like, damn, that blue bastard. And then she swast back. And I was like, you did it. You did it, Gabe's workshop. You called Gillum and a blueberry. We've done it. A blueberry.

Yep, yep. Well, doesn't she, she's about to call him a blue bastard. but then doesn't she stop and be like, damn this galaxy? Because she's afraid that, you know, since there's always recording devices, if somebody hears her, uh,

talking stink about a primark, uh, she might get into a little bit of trouble. Yeah, but it was kind of funny. She's definitely pissed at Gilliman, yeah. It was hilarious the use of the word blue. Yeah,

you blue bastard. But, um, I mean, other than that, I'd say that the real strength of this book is just the, lore building on all the temples. And I think Robert Rath has a really good job at making his characters. The assassins are supposed to be like stone cold killers that are mostly emotionless,

which is why I think that they've been maybe nerfed in a slight way, because you have to give them a little bit. There's got to be some emotion. Yeah. Has to be some emotion. They can't be all powerful. They have to have some weakness so that the plan can kind of fall apart and they have to like piece it back together.

Yeah. But this would be, it is another one of the incredible, incredibly good 40K books that shows off all kinds of awesome stuff. It provides a great deal of, um, of a visual, or like visual fidelity with like the knights and lore. And I just, I really, really like this book. This could be a 40K movie. I feel like you could make a mini series out of this and it would be perfect.

You know who I would use to? I would 100% think that the Arcane Studio. I don't think it's typically right games. I'm assuming it's contracted. But whoever is the animation studio of Arcane, I think would do incredible with a five episode, hour long each miniseries on this book. It would be perfect.

Oh, yeah, be so good too. I mean, you wouldn't get any Astardis or anything, but like, man, all the knights and all the assassins you'd get, it's just, oh, this'd be great. Oh, perfect. I mean, it's, I would much rather it be that way anyway. Give me something different. Yeah. Also, were you, as soon as they introduced Rackan and they told a little bit about him,

did you see it coming from like the beginning of the book? I was like, they're going to, they're going to find some way to finagle him into being the monarch. I wasn't sure about that. I was actually genuinely positive. They were going to kill him. I kind of figured they weren't going to kill him. I mean, they said they were going to. Once they reached a minion, it's like, well, we can't have two rack cans.

That'd be stupid. That's inefficient. But I don't know. As soon as they introduced him and I was like, man, he was at the very start of the story. And he seems too important. Man, he's, they're going to, something's going to happen. Something's going to go wrong. And he's going to be the only candidate left and he's going to get the job.

I feel like they telegraph that a little hard. Maybe let me phrase that. Maybe I thought that Racken would turn on them. I thought that once Racken would get his spot back down, he'd be like, screw these guys. They're awful and terrible. I'm going against them. But of course, the way the entire thing turned out, it didn't work that way. But I'm glad that Racken lived because the more I learned about him, the more I was hoping he wouldn't die.

But I thought he would. Yeah. Yeah. And sort of a tragic turn. I could see what you mean, though, him becoming the next high monarch. I thought that would be what they would do too. But once certain situations started happening, I wasn't sure anymore, like the last act. Yeah.

But then it then it worked out for his favor anyway. Once he got into Leviathan, it was pretty obvious, though. Yeah, once that happened, I was like, all right. And he was like, oh, what do you mean? All the other candidates are dead or corrupted? I wonder what he's going to do at the end of the book. Because there are three types of knights. There's armagers.

Quistorus and Dominus, and Dominus class were the Chronna Dominion and Leviathan. So when he got in the other Dominus class up, I was like, oh, okay, all right. Well, okay, gotcha. Now I get it. And there's two crowns now, but yeah, go ahead. There is. You know, actually, funny enough, this book has a quote, and I think I already mentioned once, but it has a quote that I find really prolific, and I might even, like, hang on my

wall at some point. Oh. What was that? It was the start of one of the chapters. And it was a serf serves a house, a house serves a baron, a baron serves a knight, and a knight serves a monarch. So who does the monarch serve? He serves each and every subject because the crown is not a pyramid, but a circle. Ah, yes, that was a good one. Yep. Yvarnius Cow, high monarch of dominion on his teachings on the code Chevalric. Man, he was a good king,

too. Like, he was a good guy. He was the best king. Like, his people loved him. Drask loved him. Everybody loved him. But Don of Slaughter messed it all up. Mm-hmm. I wonder, what was it? I don't know what, you had the same

thing, but the beginnings of these chapters reminded me a lot of Soul Hunter, where was the war sage Malkyarion exerted from his work the tenover's path and I was like this kind of gives me

the same vibe It is the same vibe isn't it Yeah I kind of forgot about the those quotes at the beginning of the trilogy books

Yeah Well Huge going recommendation From both of us Hell yeah Hell yeah Are we going out of ten Or we're just saying

Nah go read it It's really good I'd give it Minimum 9 Probably 9 point something But I'd say At the bottom end of 9 I would probably give it a solid eight.

Not because it wasn't great, just because, like, nines and tens are, like, otherworldly phenomenal. And this was really, really good. But I don't know, I want to reserve those nines and tens for just, like, bombastic stuff, you know? You know me and how much I love regular stories told with Warhammer paint because of the ones that often do the best.

And so, much like Bloodlines, this one for me is a solid nine. That's fair. All right. A solid eight recommend highly. Glowing recommendation regardless. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

All right. Next book we have is Storm of Iron. Ooh, yeah. This is Shai's recommendation. She told us this one was an absolute kook fest, and we were going to really enjoy some traitor shenanigans. And I wanted more chaos. Hell yeah, brother.

Hell yeah. All right. Take us home, D.K. Just King of Already had a mic recording, idiot.