Adeptus Ridiculous - GAUNT'S GHOSTS: FIRST AND ONLY | Warhammer 40k book Review and Discussion

Episode Date: July 9, 2021

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Although today isn't really a podcast, it's more of a book club where we discuss a book we've been reading Gaunt's Ghost first and only. But before we start talking about that, if you enjoy today's podcast, have it over to patreon.com slash adeptist ridiculous and consider supporting the podcast. You get tons of stuff like access to the Discord, bloopers, if there are any, some really nice HD posters of maybe wifus. also a comic that is the first two pages of anime and life in the School of Bregenium. So definitely head on over patreon.com slash adeptus Ridiculous.

Thank you all so much for the support. And brickie, merch, and whatever else you do. Degrading you for using wifuos in our opening? Yeah. Yeah. I hate you. Whatever, dude. Chase that bag, dude.

Jesus. What the hell is. Chase that bag. Is that a boomer term I don't know about? It's like a bag of money, dude. Come on. We've replaced that with like, get on the grind and all that crap nowadays.

Oh, okay. I'll update the old man lexicon. Tell them about the merch already. Oh, yeah. Chase that bag. Go to old page.com or awesome merch. We have Dutch ridiculous hoodies. We have short sleeves.

We've got Doge Van Dyer stickers. Awesome stuff. And if you spend overseas. $75 in the U.S. You get free shipping. So there's that. I think it's always been that way, but, you know, it's just, I don't think I ever mentioned it.

Once or twice, I think you did, but that's okay. Did you, do you ever say, in your boomer lexicon, do you ever say, how do you fix for blades? Never. I have no idea what that's even, what is that like, how do you fix your lawnmower blades or something? No, it's, um, I remember my grandfather,

back when I didn't have a beard and then I got a beer and he's like how you fix for blades, kid? I guess that means like you're out of razor blades because you're not shaving. Biggest boomer thing is after you get a haircut or after one of your friends gets a haircut

you go oh, looks like you got your ears lowered. I've never heard that before. Never heard that. Okay, that's my, my, that was something I got from my grandpa is every time I came home from getting a haircut He's like, wow, looks like you got your ears lowered. And I'm like, what?

That sounds like a grandpa thing to say. Yeah. Speaking of the elderly, we're talking about Gant's Ghosts. Good transition. That's a Dean Kamen right there. That's a Dean Kamen. Gantz Ghosts, an extremely popular 40K novel, one of the most popular 40K novels out there.

One of, I'd argue, one of the best opening novels and one of the better written ones as well. Something that I've been really excited. I read this like nine years ago. I read this all like when I was either in high school or maybe like right after high school, I read this a while ago. Damn, when we say Brickie's a veteran, like nine years ago,

he read Gonskos. Give or take. I don't even know if it was out nine years ago, but I'm just imposing upon the fact that it was a while, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I remember absolutely adoring it. Now, D.K., well, let's go, I'll go over the premise first. Okay, go over the premise, yeah. Gaunt's Ghosts follows Colonel Commissar Ibram Gaunt, who is a commissar with his own command of a regiment, which is kind of rare to have a commissar both be a commander.

And he is in command of the Tanneth First and Only, which are a special group of wilderness survival. kind of stealth troops from the homeworld of Tanneth, who after getting their first regiment, was immediately obliterated by chaos, hence why they are the first and the only. And so it's a wonderful story about a, it's a war story, brothers and arms, a little bit, a little bit of spying,

a little bit of espionage, some moral dilemmas, lots of like, kind of back and forth bro moments between the soldiers. And also, it's, It's generally about, you know, a little bit about him earning trust. But that is generally the concept. The overall story involves standard Imperial Guard stuff, but our good friend Gaunt has intercepted a fancy piece of decryption tech

that is extremely high, high classification. And it seems that the people above him, the generals want it. And there is a bit of a political struggle. and that... There is, and we're finding out what is on the cipher, or the, a cipher sign that is... Whatever. It's the Vermilion level crystal

that has some secret stuff on it that everybody but him wants. And so it's him figuring out what it is and a little bit of espionage and some political struggle and DK. You had told me, well, what did you think? Because you've read it once. a bit ago, as in like earlier this month.

Yep, yep, I did. And then you reread it or listened to in like the last like week to be able to kind of be more refreshed. Yeah, in the last three days, I read it again. What were your, oh, go ahead. It's good. It's just like there are, there are a lot of characters to keep track of. And so like there would be a lot of times where I would struggle like, they'd be like, oh yeah, this person said something like, is that, is that, uh, my,

McCaff is that Catherine Is that Ron? And so it's it's a lot of characters to juggle. It is. There are a lot of characters with the first name of D. That's also true.

I liked it and I it's, it feels like it's a really good sort of primer for like the guard and like what the guard stand for. And as I read it, I was like, man,

this has got to be like Brickie's Bible. Like as as, as as, As someone that likes the Imperial Guard, this is gotta be like his go-to text, right? You're goddamn right. You goddamn right.

Though Gaunt is actually, like his mindset is very sort of like anti-the-usual guard because he doesn't want to just sacrifice his people. Like he really deeply cares about all of his 10th first. And he'll sacrifice to make sure, that they're safe, which is very, um... It's very anti-comasar. Very anti-comasar, very anti-guard.

Especially, there was one part in the book where, uh, man, I, I don't know if the Jantene patrician are a normal thing in 40K or if they're just for this book, but man, they came across this real fucking douchebags. They are, in fact, real fucking douchebags. They are guard to it. T, just send all of them. Eventually somebody's going to get through and get the job done. I will say, actually, while we're discussing this,

I'm going to pull up the image of the Gaunt's Ghosts models. Because now that you can put a face to the group. Oh, right, right, right, right. It might actually be a little bit handy. So here is the image of the new models. Okay, let me open that up. Okay. So in the middle is obviously Gaunt.

Gone right. On the far, we'll go from the left to right actually. Far left is Scout Sergeant McColl. He wasn't in a ton until the end when he was helping them traverse through the little facility. We don't want to spoil too much. On the right of him is Mad Larkin, the sniper. The sniper, right? I got that from the sniper rifle, sure.

To the right of him is Ron with the knife. Oh, that's wrong. Ron, huh? I don't know why, but I imagine Ron looking a lot more menacing and a lot bigger. Well, that would be Bragg. Yeah, Bragg is I always knew what Rag was there.

Bragg's on the right. That's an obvious one. There's this auto cannon. And then the guy pointing next to Bragg is Column Corbeck, the Colonel. Right, right, right, okay. So that's, it gives a little bit better to be able to put a face to all

of the all of the names and I think that actually made it a little bit easier when I reread it because by being able to properly see all of them it's just to me a lot more be like oh yeah okay there's people which reminds me here's an additional image uh gaunt I think it's uh yeah Ron on the left then Larkin and then Corbeck and brag on the right that's definitely more what I imagined Ron to look like is yeah well the models have kind of like arms crossed and kind of like yeah the models kind of make a little bit more of a tough a little tougher to see but sure i think it was also difficult because on audible uh there wasn't a ton of differentiation between like their accents unless it was like brag everybody else's voice aside from

gaunts sounded real similar too so they're all like super scottish yeah they're really scottish if you if you had the book and you were just flipping through page, it might be a little easier because obviously in your head you're going to give them like different voices, different accents and whatever, and you might be able to differentiate it a little easier. Yeah, I mean, Bragg was obvious

because he talked in a really low voice. Yeah, he talked like a brute. He's kind of wonderful. He reminds me a lot of I didn't really watch Game of Thrones, but the Hodor guy. Oh, definitely. He's like the big, dumb one, but everyone loves him. I just, I love how his name is Try Again, Bragg,

he was such a shit shot. Such shit aim. And it doesn't, it doesn't hurt him too much. No, it's just kind of funny because he runs around a corner heaving an assault cannon, which is basically like a warthog gun, into like guardsmen, and he just misses. Like, how do you miss with that?

Speaking of accents, I think it was, yeah, it was Dersius. When Dersias shows up in, in the book, mostly in the flashbacks, obviously. Um, whoever did the reading of it made him sound exactly like, um, Obi-1 Canobi from like the original Star Wars trilogy. He did. Uncle Dersias, you're referring to? Yeah, Uncle Dersias. Exactly like Obi-1. Yeah, he was good. Also, uh, speaking of Star Wars, the Inquisitor was just fucking Palpatine. He was just Palpatine.

Hell Dane. Yeah. Inquisitor Helbae was like, he must stop God to get his take the crystal. The only thing is I could never imagine him as the emperor because like the way they described him he's like, oh yeah, he has this like elongated equine face. And I was like, oh God, it's a furry. Where did you get furry from that? What? Because he has like this, so all I could imagine was like he had this sort of like horse face

that had this really elongated front face. So all I could picture was just this really awkward horse face. dude and I'm just like, ah, no. I think he's just got like a thinner, like, thinner face, not like his face actually long. They specifically said he had an equine-like face. So I was like, oh, it's, it's just a good adjective. It is. That is a, that is a, you very rarely hear that adjective.

So that's fair. But still, uh, Heldane is a furry. Confirmed. All right. Fine. He's a furry. Whatever, man. It's, it's fine.

He's, he was a shithead. way. He was. He was, well, he's an inquisitor. What, is there, are there any good inquisitors that don't try to ruin everything? Okay, so there are, there are significantly more good inquisitors than there are bad. Inquisitors are actually very good at their job. It's just the memes that they're always exterminating everything. And they're always douchebags. And in this situation, obviously, he was, he was the bad guy. But also, I mean, the Lord Generals of the Guard was also a douchebag. Oh, yeah.

Drivir? Drivir, yeah. Lord High Militin, Drevere, who talked in an accent like this? Bring me more caffeine. Yes, I need more grapes. Put the grapes in my mouth. Like, I chew them on my own. It's like, for the emperor, sir.

I was like, oh, yes, yes, of course, whatever. Oh, yeah, that's right. The card is like, for the emperor's like, oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess. Sure, whatever. I did enjoy a couple of the, I enjoyed a couple of the accents. I actually liked a lot how they did like a, kind of like an African thing for the Vitrian Dragoons.

Oh, yes, the Vitrian were real cool. They were cool. I like the Vitrian, yeah. Because they had this kind of like, what's like the Axel they did, where it's like the Vichrian Dragoons, you know, serving the peer god. It has that kind of, that kind of thick accent to it. And I thought, and they were such bros. Oh, yeah.

they were you could not well I guess it'd be spoilers if I explained why they were so bro but yes they are they are right there and there's their culture is really great too with like their oh shoot what's the what's the book called

it starts with a B it's like the Oh the war novel the Art of War thing Yeah it's like the Brynhata Oh yeah the I posted their armor Because like their armor is so cool looking with like

the scales on the front and yeah they have their art of war book where it's like you set lasguns to max power and you one shot only kind of thing um we've no doubt about the first kill

which I must say if there's one thing interesting about Gonskos is that Gonsk Ghost is basically just Fast and the Furious because they like clobber two separate Iron Warrior Space Marines in the first battle they do

I wanted to talk about that. But yeah, go ahead. Yeah. So, like, reading Gond's ghost, I was like, oh, yeah, guardsman, with enough of them can handle Space Marines. Reading the Knight Lord's books and the Comrade Kerr's books, I'm like, no fucking way. Like, Gaunt, like, shanks the Knight Lord with, or not the Iron Warrior with his chainsaw. I'm like, that's not going to go through his armor, bro.

It's going to crack and break. Like, they took out two iron, and granted, a couple people died from, like, the Iron Warrior, sure. but I was like, yo, that's a chaos space marino. Yeah, I mean, he did kill like, he could like 15 guardsmen, but they like kill him with like five or so hot shot Lazz rounds. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like, man, there's a reason they call those Lazz guns like flashlights normally, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they did like put them on full power, but even so.

That's a chaos space marine. That's not a chaos guard. That's not your everyday... What was it? The Shriven! What was the thing they were finding? Yeah. And not like a shriven that has no armor. It's like, that's a fucking space marine.

That's a traitor space marine. You can definitely appreciate the World War II vibes a lot more with when you read this book. Oh, yeah. The whole first battle is just a trench war. Yep. The whole damn thing. Going through the trenches, trying to save Fortis Binary. Fortis B.

That's that Dushabag of the Janeteen patricians with his Tiranid bioscar On his face Oh, right, right What's the name, Dersius, I think? No, that's Uncle Dersias, right? Yeah, that's Uncle Dersius, yeah.

What was his name? So the Janteen had Flenz. It's Fland, that was his name. It was Flandz. And then Brackus under Fledns. You're right, major Brackus and Colonel Fledz, who has.

has face flensed by a tyrannids. Oh, fuck both of them. God. They were real shitheads. Though, I got to say, the overall, like, structure of the book, I think would make a great miniseries because it's, it does, like, set-ups, set-offs, sorry, set-ups and payoffs very well. But, because there's four major ways, or four major avenues or, like, locations that the book

runs. It's the opening fight on Fortis Binary. And then you've got shore leave, which was actually really fun. I really like that one where they're fucking over the locals for booze and porno mags. So they can sell them to their own men to make a profit. And then you had the ship on them on the ship heading to the next area. The abselem, I think it was called. I forget the name of the ship, but whatever it was called.

And then you had the final fight on, remind me. me the name of the planet. Menozoid Epsilon. That's the one. The planet's name just went up one out one-on-one year and left up the other. Yep, yep, yep. But so each of those areas could really probably be done in like a two episode each for an eight-episode miniseries. It would work pretty well because it's got a, it's surprisingly dark and light-toned.

It's quite funny at times. Not as funny as Infinite and Divine. That's hilarious. No. Yeah. But there's still some pretty good, like, we were talking about this. You said that you kind of got spoiled by Infinite and Divine. Oh, I definitely did, because that is just like trolling and, oh, my God, look at all these orcs. Look at us. Be funny about the orcs. Look at us, one up each other. And then you go to Gaunt's Ghost and it's kind of just like, man, like, there's a few quips here and there, but it's like, this is like, this is grim dark. Like, this is like, you know, bros, arm. an arm, our comrades are dying all around us, there's really nothing to joke about, and god,

grim dark. So, it's definitely a big contrast from the hilarity of Infinite and the Divine. It's like, like, Infinite and Divine is our funny spy-R-R-R-Spy movie where Gaunt's Ghosts is our like Black Hawk Down, you're the Pacific,

the Band of Brothers, saving Private Ryan, where those movies have humorily, like, funny things in them, sometimes, but it's to break from the constant, never-ending, just death. Death. Yep. Death and war and bar. Also, I didn't expect the Vitrian armor to look like that, because every time they talked

about their armor, they made it sound like it was like glass. Like it was just translucent and reflective, and it helped them be stealthy. To make it like stealthy, remember? They kind of like walked out of the tree line looking all shimmery. Oh, I missed that they could do that on. I thought that was just how. their armor always looked. No, I think they can like change the folds.

Gotcha. That makes, that makes sense. That makes sense. They look really cool, man. I would love some third-party models of those guys. Is there no GW official vitrean dragoons? Absolutely not. Oh.

I honestly, well, there are like nine books of Ghosts, so we don't know how they even survive. That's true. I was going to say it's like they probably only show up in Gaunt's ghost and it took this long just to get Gaunt and his ghost some models. Yeah, good point. At least there's some good models though. They are. They are.

There's actually a couple of the parts in the book as like it goes through because I'm, I'm reading it and I'm looking at them on Pyright. And I'm just thinking to myself like if I was a military man and I'm reading this, I bet I'd be chuckling to myself. Like, hey, look at all these enlisted soldiers going on shore leave, uh, looking at women in bars, fucking gambling, drinking, and then causing problems. I'm like, that sounds right. That sounds right. Yep, yep. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta let off some steam, man.

You gotta let up that steam. I like how, spin through hell. I like how bragging the, uh, I think it's bragging the, what's the kid's name against with an M? Uh, Milo. My, Milo. I think it's bragging Milo. No, it wasn't Milo. He was bragging somebody else.

were like gambling and and then they had to they had to get away for something and brag just like smooches the stripper on a lips and it's like bye bye and leaves typical brag typical brag typical brag he was like oh it's a nice goodbye you probably didn't even think anything of it was just throwing dice and get i fucking major ron literally went to the local dudes and was like here's i want to buy a bunch of your porno mags booze and shit it's like show show him show him the stuff man and the guy pulls out of Alaska and starts murdering the people and Ron's like, let's go! We're out of here. It's like, all right, that'll be

2,000 imperial credits. None of this local currency shit. Just give me the money. And Ron's like, okay. And they just take off with the shit. It's like, hey. And then they're being chased the whole time as well. Yep, yep. I do.

And to the warehouse where you never hear from the local thugs again. And it's a myth from Pirate. Yeah, I like, I like how they really incorporated the Tannis stealth ability where they would like walk into a room and they'd have all their cloaks like dusted with the local debris so then they'd just be kind of hiding in the shadows and they just kind of come

out and shank a dude and leave. Yep. They made for some cool stealth troopers. That was their thing on Tanneth, right? It was, but I like the way that there was written where like Gontwood strode up a hill and there were 2,000 ghosts up there but he couldn't see a single one because they've all been like hidden with the,

shirts on their uniforms. Gaunt is, I think it's safe to say that Gaunt's a Chad, right? Gone is a cool guy. I think it's safe to say that Gaunt is like

Omega level Chad. Like where everybody else kind of blended in whenever Gaunt showed up, it was like, oh shit. Now I'm in, you know? Well, his accent helps. True.

But there'd be some moments that's like, oh man, this is kind of, this is kind of boring or whatever. and it's like, I don't know, blah, la. And then Gaunt shows up and it's like, oh, shit, I'm back. I'm back. Let's go.

Get him, Gaunt, get him. I think the only times I was a little bit bored were the flashbacks. And not all the flashbacks were bad, but some of them I was a little bit bored about. Definitely the flashback where he first meets Blenna, his childhood friend. That was a little kind of, because it was just like two kids. They were just, oh. I like that part a little bit because they were in the Scolas. That's true, they were in the Scola.

And it's like, keep watching those tiles, kid. I'm like, ah, we talked about that. Yep, with the little little too much. Yeah, we talked about the Scola. But the other ones are pretty good and very enlightening. Yes. Towards the end of the book, too, it becomes very enlightening. I enjoy setups and payoffs is like storywriting 101.

Set things up and pay it off. And boy, do they. They do a great job. Should we get into spoilers? I think we can get into spoilers. We're almost a half hour in, so. What's your final verdict on the book? Final verdict?

I definitely think it's a thumbs up. If you're a Warhammer 40K fan, there's really no reason you shouldn't read it. If you're a guard fan. Oh, if you're a guard fan, I don't know. You've already read it. Yeah, you can't recommend it to guard fans because they've already read it. They've got a copy hanging in the, you know, in a frame on their wall.

But otherwise, yeah, I think it's real good. I don't know about the other however many books, but first, no one is pretty great. Good introduction to the guard and how they normally work versus a very sort of not typical commissar slash guard regiment. But yeah, this is really good. I'm sold. But I don't know. I feel like it's another one of those books where you can't just be like, oh, yeah, I've heard nothing of 40K ever.

And now I'm going to jump into Gonskhost. You're, you might be a little confused. That's fair. You should need a little bit more passing knowledge. I think it's a little easier on the most people, because you can just kind of imagine it as like a World War II in space. And you can kind of work with it. I think the reason I like to recommend this book so much

is because I'm a guard simp. But also, it's got a lot, well, besides the Necrons and Infinite Divine, that's like an outlier. Most books don't have as much humor and character and motivation and morals and stuff. Because, like, I mean, yeah, it doesn't have a ton of humor in this one. But each character has, like, they have feelings and they express them, you know, as opposed to being like, I serve the emperor, you know, the Avidominus Knox, hails to the Lord of Night, yada, yada. It works out that way and it gives you a good introduction to the guard where not every battle is 40 million dead These are still big battles but they're not like consistent like every battles is Normandy

It's like D-Day yeah you know which is like okay when it comes to the imperial guard but it also it's it's a book that you can follow regardless like the the motivations of people there's like a nice little secret espionage thing to it. Yeah. It's got a lot of good areas. And I think it's a great introduction to the universe. Because I think the universe gets fleshed out better with this than with infinite and divine because that's about just the crons.

This is like, okay, this is what it's like living in the guard. Hell, this is even like what it's like being a civilian sometimes because they talk about, you know, crew on pirates and stuff. It's a good, like, this is the world you're being. part of. Yeah. It's a good branching off point to be like, oh, this is what's in 40K. Now I'm going to go learn about other guard

or learn about the empire or the Imperium and yeah. That's solid. It's solid. Yeah. All right. So, good recommendations for both of us. Yeah. Let's talk about spoilers. Spoilers. Where to begin with the spoilers? Well, is there anything that you'd really like to

mention? As far as spoilers are concerned, I The big payoff of Oh no Flens doesn't get his face blown off by the By the bar brown Does he or does? Oh no that's Farid

Yeah That gets his face blown off The great twist that Farid was actually the pawn and not Ron Yep When we kept thinking that the Inquisar got his filthy horse face into Ron's psyche and in reality he was actually ferret

so when Ron fucking blows his torso into two yeah because all all you know is like Heldane says like oh yeah my my porn is at his side

um so it's like the dark side uh so you could think it was wrong and it was like oh maybe it's wrong and I don't know I was I wasn't super I kind of the whole time

I kind of knew it was ferret. Only because... Because Ron kept on being like, oh, get out of my head, get out of my head. And so that's... I think that that was the obvious misdirection. Yeah. But it was just like,

Gaunt had been so suspicious of ferret. And he was like, oh, why don't I trust Farad? Ooh, he's my friend, or at least I thought he wasn't my friend. Why don't I should trust him? But I don't. And I'm like, mm... Hmm. Yeah, they mentioned it.

Farrid being kind of suss. They meant... Get out of my head. Get out of my head. Yeah. They did mention it a couple times where they were looking at Farad and like, I feel like I should be trusting him, but I'm not. Why aren't I? This is Farad, my buddy.

What the heck? My boy. Yeah. Which did give it away a little bit, but I think they tried to go with that tactical misdirection that Ron was also being like, get on my head, get on my head among a suiose imposter. See, for me, I thought like, I thought Ron was eventually. going to like succumb to it and actually attack gaunt because like ron and gaunt aren't exactly best buds like no ron hates him yeah they kind of tolerate each other and ron will listen to

gont but um they kept alluding like oh yeah at some point there's going to be a reckoning and either ron is going to kill gaunt or gaunt is going to kill ron and ron has maybe tried before and i was like, yo, if Helding gets his grimy little horse paws in Ron's head and just maybe tweaks his desire to like go after Gaunt and kill him, maybe like, I was like, oh yeah, after he kills Farad, maybe he'll like turn it on Gaunt and they'll have to like duke it out and somehow they'll have to save Ron from the grip of Heldane or something.

But I must say, how satisfying was it when Mad Larkin sings bored into Helbane's throat. It was so nice. So satisfying. The only, the only bad thing is he survived it. I mean, well, he was dying.

Survived, air quotes. But yeah, that was very satisfying because fuck Heldane. Fuck, Haldane. Fuck, Javier. Yeah, so my grapes. Yeah, my grapes. Yes, indeed.

It was, it's actually interesting. They don't talk. Apparently the next couple books really solidify the main cast as the main cast. So it's a little bit less of that problem of like trying to remember who's who. But I really like how they apparently, there's apparently just short story where Larkin is sent to a sniper post. And it's like a big angel statue behind him that like talks to him. Oh.

And he's like, if you're friends or really your friends, why they keep sending you out here alone? He's like, shut up, shut up, shut up. And so that's why he's mad larking Because he's kind of he's a little unhinged Yeah Just a little bit A little unhinged He's a little unhinged

Speaking of unhinged I think Gaunt's ghost Has made me realize Why the Imperium And most people Just are a little uneasy around psychers

Yeah Witches are like We keep talking about psychers Like oh just psychers Like no Cycers being around Make you uncomfortable Yeah because like

In my head When I think Sykers okay, that's a normal, well-adjusted person. They just have, like, magic powers. Nope. Nope. Those are the inquisitors that are well-adjusted. There are plenty of just witches that are like, oh, my God.

Yeah, yeah. When at the beginning of the book on Darandara, and then at the end of the book with the witch where he, like, interviews her and they're like face-to-face for a while, I was like, oh, God. Oh, and she starts doing extra-and-a-law. There's this shit and, like, crawling on the ceiling and crap. Yeah. They're like, oh, my God.

I was like, this is why they don't like psychers. Oh, my fucking God. Yeah, I get it now. Granted, that was one of the best voice acting parts of the book. The guy did a great job speaking like a devil. Oh, it was so good. He nailed that he killed that. But yeah, but yeah, psychers are, no, psychers are hated.

They're witches. They're frightening. I get why. No, no, because before I was like, oh, they're just mages, basically. And it's like, I don't know why everybody hates psychers. And now I'm just like, oh, God, burn it. Burn it. Kill them all with fire. Oh, shit.

Now you know why the Sisters of Battle hate witches so much. Yeah. Or why anybody hates witches. Good God. I like, I think a couple, oh, dude, the opening with the drums. Oh, the drums. That was so cool. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. and it was a scare tactic. The drums didn't even really do anything. It was just a scare tactic to draw them out and get them to go after the drums so they would give away their position and the shriven could just bombard them, right? That dude did turn to chaos.

That dude did have his mind screwed up and he shot the dude in the head with the last gun and then he turned it's like a giant, like creepy demon. That's true. Was that specifically the drums that did that? Well, he had like a weird amulet thing, I think, on him, which was, I think, slowly turning him, and then all the drums

beat at one time, and that's when the other guy died. That's true. He, uh, he had a bit of like shrapnel from, like, one of the statues that... Something like that. Corbeck blew up. It was either... I think it was Corbeck might have blown up a statue, because he was like, ah, fuck this chaos shit. And then he blew up the statue, and a piece of shrapnel

got, like, caught in his neck. And I, I think he was like, oh, my God, this is my fault, because I fucking blew up the statue, like, an angry rager. And then, oh, my, everybody loved him what was his name Dreel? Oh, who? The one that turned into the big

fucking chaos I don't know his he was just random soldier I don't remember Yeah, they made it sound like He was like the comic relief He's the one that held

Everybody's moral morale in check And everybody loved him And no, that's different That due in the beginning Who turned was like Crazy guy And he died

It was sad and all But no It was the guy who got blinded at the end that was the nice guy remember because he was the dude who decided like the sweeper in the Egyptian tomb Thelio. Right, Domen or

Domum, Domen? I only care about the six ones from the fucking model box and like Milo. That's all I give a shit about. I was actually shocked that Domen survived. Oh shit, that's right, did he? Yeah, he survived all that.

He loses his eyes and then the doctor is like to go and like, yeah, this fucker's dead. Like, unless I get him to a hospital now, this motherfucker's dead, dead. I think I forgot about that because because he had to go back for the doctor because stupid fucking Flens, which twist Uncle Dersius was Flens's father. Father, yep. And they had to have their duel. Kild Dersius's father because Dersius left Gaunt's father to die on Kentor. Oh, yeah, on Pons. planet whatever, I don't care.

Yeah, yeah. The names don't matter, but he left. He was, he showed extreme cowardice, left Gond's father to the orcs. And, uh, you don't, you don't do that in the god. That's a big new, no, no. And as a commissar, it is his right to punish deserters. I must say that it was wildly interesting to see the stakes that were present in this book. when the fact that the big prize at the end is an STC fabricator for the men of iron yep which is like unheard of

like when they first went in and they were like oh yeah it's a it's a standard template converter I was like oh sweet good for them that's that's great STCs all the adeptus mechanicus are going to love that and then they were like yeah it makes soulless men of iron I was like uh oh Uh-oh. Uh-oh. And then, and Gant was like, yeah, I'm going to destroy this thing. This is unholy. And the other one of the other one goes, what's his name? Ferris was like, no. Yeah. And then he made that really good statement, though, where it's like, remember the last time five-man scout team found an SDC? And they were all given an entire world for their fines. And it's because they got some that made knives.

Yeah, it made the best knife ever. It was like five-folded steel. everyone uses it on bayonets, everyone has one of these knives. The Astardis used them. Yeah. And he was like, they got all these riches for a knife. We found men of iron. He's like, take what that STC made and then fight one of these iron men, and you'll see how little that matters in comparison to this motherfucking thing.

But naturally Gott was like, No, I blow it up. Mm-hmm. Which obviously, like, which, interestingly enough, I kind of wish that maybe they didn't do this because the STC turned on and started pumping out new men of iron, but they were like chaos corrupted. They were all like deformed and fucked up and shit. And I kind of wish it didn't, because I would kind of prefer the moral concept that it's a perfectly fine, well-working machine. Yeah.

But, and therefore blowing it up with like, hey, and maybe in like with you and me in our real life, that might be something cool because we don't hate AI in the 21st century. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, I almost wish that it didn't confirm his suspicions about it being chaos tainted. Yeah. Because then it would have like a cooler moral thing. Yeah. Having that dilemma of, uh-oh, no, this thing makes perfect metaviron. We could totally use this.

they're not inflicted by chaos. It's like, uh, and maybe if Gunt hesitated for just a minute, being like, oh, I actually could use this for to do some real good. And I still blows it up. I think Gant shouldn't hesitate

because he's gone, but I'm glad that, like, that, like, Ron was like, are you, are you sure? Like, positive man? Also, how exactly does an STC become, like, corrupted by chaos? Is it just because it was on a chaos work?

Because, I mean... Maybe, because they have a bunch of shrines and crazy shit. I mean, Chaos does... Chaos does anything. It can put its fucking tendrils in anything. True. I just... I guess I didn't realize that chaos could infect, like, machinery.

Like, I assumed it had to be, like, some sort of, like, living entity that was, like, you know, offering something to chaos that... Well, chaos have, like, demon engines and shit. That's true. I guess they... Like, demon. machines and all that crap. Yeah, and they have like juggernauts and shit like that too. Hell brutes.

Yeah, that's fair. And, you know, they have like the demon titans and stuff. But I mean, it's, it's cool to see such a monumental discovery. Like, what a crazy thing for guardsmen to be dealing with. That whole ending bit where they're going through the caverns, I love that part. I love that a whole section. It's really interesting. and then the big

square off with Fland's as they're retreating and they're trying to get out, the bombs have been planted you don't know if there are any new chaotic men of iron chasing you and Flandz is out here just looking for his shithead being an absolute

fucking shithead and just, oh. It was horrendously satisfying to see the Jant team patricians get gunned down by the vitrians oh my God. And Brockus was like screaming like kicking corpses like get up you fucking

coward fights and he's like grabbing guns and crap he's so angry because they and it's great because he Brockus was sure he's like oh the vitrean dragoons are here oh man gone has no chance if my enforcers are what do you mean

they're shooting me like Las gun fire blah blah blah blah what do you mean they're not on my say damn it I'm so satisfying to see the Jantin get fucked it was so so satisfying And also not just that, but with when Helbane, when Memper Palpatine's clone, or when his dude, Ferris, whatever's name is, what's his name? Is it Ferris? Ferrid. Ferrid. Ferris is the primark of the iron hands, Ferris Manis. When you-Hard, right? Was his code name?

Yeah, that's how you knew it was me. Because he's a master of deception. When he gets blasted and we realized the twist that Helbane was actually his point. and he didn't pull out fast enough. And then he just like fucking explodes in a giant torrent of psychic energy and then Lord Militant whatever Diverr

Dravier just gets like atomized Pliads. At first he feels like a rumbling from underneath he's like what's what's that? Oh, I'm a little gassy and then just Lord Treveer just shits himself to death. Exactly. And then the whole Leviathan just gets fucking atomized. I was like, damn. These, again, psychers, man, Jesus. And that's a well-adjusted psycher. That's an inquisitor.

Like, oh, shit. Well, he died and he didn't pull out of his surrogate cook enough. Right, right. So, yeah, that would definitely be a problem. But also, did you like the really obese Mechanicus Captain? in his command hammock Yeah his command hammock And he's getting up He's like What did you say to me you son of a bit Why is cargo talking back to me

Yeah And yeah I was I was not expecting an obese Sort of mechanical adeptus Deal But they they They use his pride against him

And they distract him by telling him how, like, useless he is and how he can't control anybody on the ship. After Gaunt punches the kernel of the vitreans in the face. Report that. You know what I really like is the part when he's running away from the Janteen on Pyrite, and he ends up meeting up with Ron and the boys,

and he jumps out, grabs a swig of brandy, pops the cap, drinks it points behind him, and he's like, I could use some help lads And the jantine guy's like Oh balls Yeah Brackus was like chasing them And then he's like

Aha they stopped Now we've got them And then like um there's like a hundred ghosts there And he's like Faf Fucking Jesus No he says balls because he doesn't say Oh that's right he does say balls

That's right that's the tannet thing Yeah sacred feth Yeah they just a place fuck with feth Motherfeffer It sounds wrong Mother Pfeffer Saying it Whenever you heard in the beginning of the book

When they said Feth It kind of threw you off a little bit But the more they said it The more you kind of appreciated it It was also cool I specifically liked at the end When he's interviewing the witch And he's very confused

About how she knows stuff And then she's, I forget what she says But he's like Oh what the Feph is that And she's like What's a Feph? And he's like It's a

Forget it. No, no, he doesn't know why he said it. Yeah, he's just, he's never, because it's before the ghosts. And so he's like, sacred feth, let me out of here. He's like, feth, why the fuck did I say that? What the fuck does that mean? What's a theft? It's the whole witch part, I would normally feel would be tacked on, but I think they did it

just enough. Like, she started explaining her, his father thing, and the book just ends. And I was like, that's good. That's all you needed. Good job. You just needed that confirmation that the witch did indeed. give him all the information. At the very beginning, he has all the information.

He did get it from the witch and her prophecies rung true to the last. And it's very, it was very nice. This book makes you want people to party. It makes you want the tannis to go out to shore leave and drink for their victories because it's so hard fought and rough that at the end of the book, the little flashback of them partying and then. he's like eating up giant fruit and stuff and drinking brandy and you're kind of like this is nice this makes me happy yeah i pictured it as a watermelon whatever that fruit was i don't know

if it actually was it was it was some alien or some like other planet fruit whatever it did hell yeah they're like oh yeah it's cool and sweet and we got to spit out the seeds i was like look you might pretend like that's alien fruit but that's a fucking watermelon and you know it could make a mango or like a papaya i don't know what what It's a fucking water. It's all big cherry. A really big cherry. This is a giant cherry.

Cracks it open. That's fair. Okay, cool. Cool. But Gaunt's ghosts. Gons ghost. Were you a little bit bigger on it after your second listen? Much more so on the second listen.

Because like the first listen I was like, I got the gist of it, but I need a second read. And once the second read happened, I was like, okay, now I got it. it. Now I understand. Good, good, good, good. I could differentiate the characters a little easier and, yeah, it made a lot more sense the second time through. Did you like the fact that the young kid Milo literally had

bagpipes? That's right, I forgot. He did it. In actual bagpipes. Yeah, and in the trenches he was like, oh, I think this is a good time for some tunes and he just starts blowing the bagpipes and then Bragg starts singing along as he's murdering

people and it's just, oh, let's all have a nice song and dance and while we're fighting off chaos in these fucking muddy, decrepit Bragg's just like, oh, get down, he pulls out of fucking rocket launch with one arm.

It's like, woo. Hooray. Jesus. But in that case, obviously, you know, you said you like it. It's not your favorite, but you liked it.

I think it's the greatest thing ever, but I'm a guard simp. Now, here's a question then, D.K. Because we need to, to read a new book. Oh, we do need a new book, don't we?

I was going to ask what the next thing is. I know what my options are. Okay. Now, but I'm going to ask you, do you want something a bit more lighthearted, infinite and the divine style? Mm-hmm. Or do you want something a little bit more darker,

a little more 40K grim darky? Ooh, man. Hmm. That's tough. I almost want... Yeah, let's go grim dark. Let's go dark. Let's really 40-k'd this shit up.

And then we can, like, go light-hearted and sort of just palate cleanse. Because Garn's Coast wasn't super grim dark. It was, you know, there was a lot of hope at the end of it, a lot of celebration, a lot of, you know, hard-fought victories. So, yeah, let's grim fucking dark it down. Good. I'm glad you said that. I'm going to force everybody to enjoy the night lords like I do now. Yes!

Are we doing the Nightlord books? I would like to do the first of the Nightlord books of the Nightlord Obnibus. I guess I could recommend the entire thing, but there's so much. And I want to respect people's time. So we'll do the first book of the Nightlord's trilogy of Talus Valcoran of First Claw 10th Company, 8th Legion It is called Soul Hunter.

Soul Hunter. Soul Hunter, the story of First Claw of our good men's Talos, Zarl, macutium, Syrian, and Usas. And we will have the Soul Hunter

be the next book in the book club. I'm actually super hype about that because these are the books that made you actually want a night lord Army, right? And you've been talking about these books for a while, so I'm like, I have. I honestly, part of me wants

to recommend all of them, because I think the first book is incredible, and it's the, it's the, the worst. Okay. I think the second book is the best, and the third is better than the first. So it's, they're really good. Stroke cloths, let's go. They're long books. They're like 12

hours. So they're pretty long each. So I didn't want to do all of them. because that's like two full days of reading oh no not two whole days I respect people's time I don't fuck them all Soul Hunter is the first

there's next book club book thank you all very much for listening to this Gons Ghost book club to the DK to the first and last to the first and only First and last. No, Tana's first and last?

Tann's first and only. That's what they clinked their glasses to in the bar and pyrites. That's fair. First and last, first and only. I also did, like, I don't remember if it was the witch or whoever said it, but they were like, oh, yeah, you're your father's only son. You're the first and only child he had. And I was like, oh, that's a different spin on the title instead of just like it being about

the regiment and then being the first. first and only from Tanneth. It's like, oh, gone is the first and only child of his father. And he's probably the only one in his bloodline. It's their exorfin and all that. But for all of you, my name has been Bricky. Thank you so much for listening. You can find me Bricky everywhere.

D.K., where can they find you? D.K. Diamanty's everywhere that matters. Yeah, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube. Don't talk about my Instagram. Obviously, our fantastic editor and Overlord Supreme, shy, you find her quite shy, quiet, shallow. We will see you soon for the next, well, we'll see you next month for next book club,

but you'll see another episode of Desmond Equalus soon. Soon. Soon. Scotland, forever.