Adeptus Ridiculous - IMPERIUM IS IN SHAMBLES: NACHMUND WAR INTENSIFIES | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: March 5, 2025

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Nachmund Rift War is an ongoing conflict being waged by the Imperium in the Nachmund Sub-Sector.Closely connected to the War of Beasts and War of Nightmares on Vigilus, while the Fortress World itself continues to remain largely in Imperial hands the greater Nachmund Gauntlet finds itself besieged by the Forces of Chaos. Vigilus is a world situated within the Nachmund Gauntlet and one of the few passages through the Great Rift. As such, the planet has become strategically vital for the Imperium and has become a target for a wide number of its enemies.As part of the greater War of Beasts, Sangua Terra is under Chaos assault as Abaddon the Despoiler seeks to destroy both it and Vigilus to close the Nachmund Gauntlet. At least 2 companies of the Castellans of the Rift Chapter are fighting on the world. During the Nachmund Rift War, the planet became the linchpin of the new Imperial defensive network dubbed the Sanctus Wall.Due to successive Chaos invasions, Sangua Terra is presently a battle-scarred hellscape overrun by Daemons. Canoness Superior Junith Eruita has arrived on the planet to marshal its defenders.Support the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamantis. His name is Ricky. You know why you're here. Let's get down to it. But before we do, if you enjoy today's episode and maybe you want to support the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash adeptis ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, blooms if they happen.

$15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in their digital form. You should check it out. They're great. It's amazing. Patreon.com slash Adeptus. ridiculous. Wow, I just knocked over everything on my desk doing that because I got very hype about all of the savings on Patreon. Ha ha. Great. Bricky, how's it going, man? Hey, man. It's very funny that the first screw up of the episode was you and not me, despite the fact that I am currently in the Pacific Northwest finding out who killed Laura Palmer.

Oh, I know. You do. I actually found out this week. And me and my sister were doing the Twin Peaks tour. And so we were going to the diner. We're staying at the Salish Lodge, which is the lodge with the waterfall. Nice. And all the fun stuff. And it's very, it's been a great time. And I watched season two of Twin Peaks.

And let me tell you, those first seven episodes, magnificent. We skipped the next 12 because they looked like they were total dog. And then that finale, magnificent. Hell yeah. So is today's episode on Twin Peaks? Honestly, a Twin Peaks 40K style thing would go super hard. Just a little wacky woo-ha detective and the weirdo people in the town solving a murder, that would be great stuff.

Except instead of a murder, it's a demonic incursion. Yeah, I was going to say, like, there's, oh, Warp Storm just happens to show up, and it's all warped shenanigans, and it could be very Twin Peaks-esque, yeah. I'm actually surprised that Warhammer doesn't do more like small towns. style stuff because that like normally we always talk about hive cities but there are so many worlds there are clearly like waste out of in the middle of nowhere type places and so I'm kind surprised we don't like go into that a bit more be kind of fun yeah yeah agreed I wouldn't like that well anyway DK so I am doing this from my from the Salish lodge and I am doing all my microphone

stuff from there so I may sound a little funky that's a future shy problem yeah but good Luckily for us, today's episode probably actually isn't going to be too long. It's, you know, it's its own little update episode. We are continuing some of our prior stories. And so your little mystery quote goes as follows. It is a large and crooked channel of space, light years across and many more in length, that stretches from the vigilis system in the galactic northeast to the sanguine system. in the southwest. Within its bounds are numerous planetary systems, piratical haunts, piratical haunts, whatever, pyrag, Xenos enclaves, and isolated deep void station networks. Where could we possibly be discussing?

Is this what's going on near Bad Dab and the War of Texas? No. A racerhead, I believe, to be my most spiritual film. speak on that no shoot um i feel like we did just talk about this too i can't remember honestly i'm my mind is stuck on on bad dab taxes and stuff that's not the stretch we were literally just talking about no no it's um i'll just give it to you uh this is part three of the knockman gauntlet the Sigma Herald World Claimer. Yeah, yeah.

As soon as you said Nachman Gauntlet, I was like, yep, that's the one. I wouldn't have gotten it. What a shame. Yep, yep. It is the knockman subsector. It is the entire, the tintsy tiny little goatsy

that we have. Holy crap. That was a big truck. They're coming for you, Bricky. Get out of there, man. Get out of there. It's all right. don't you worry.

It is a future shy problem. Definitely. All future shy problems, man. The goat, if you would. Sigma World Claimer, the Knockman Gauntlet Part 3, Capital W World Claimer. So there has been another one of those books that have come out relatively recently. And in doing so, and because of this,

we're back to talking about the new stuff happening in space. Hell yeah. I love Harry World Claimer. Harry. Harold. He's Harry. Harold World Claimer. Good old Harold World Claimer.

Mm-hmm. He's the guy, the man, the mention. He is him, sure. Bricky never mentioned, but Harry is actually Nightlord. Originally, he's part of the Black Legion, but I believe he is originally a Night Lord, as he tends to be a dude who loves a lot of fear and causing problems. He is the herald of the apocalypse.

I don't know why, but whenever I think of raptors in general with like their big jump pack and everything, I always think night lords. Yeah, that's kind of their shtick. Yeah, honestly. So that makes total sense. Anyway, so a little bit of an introduction. So obviously with the fall of Cadia and the splitting of the galaxy, the Imperium has been generally struggling when it comes to getting their foothold back. Gilliman is obviously doing his very best with the Indominious crusade. and the slow bringing in of everyone else from the other side,

despite the big rift in the galaxy, despite that, chaos tends to have the Imperium basically where they want them to be. Like there is no other faction that emphasizes the general carnage and division that the Imperium can cause, right? The traitors need this split in the galaxy to stay in place, and the more division they create, it only adds to the numbers of chaos. Yeah, I was going to say

they need the literal division of the cicatrix maladictum, t-he-he, literally dividing them in half. I mean, and just like having this slice in the galaxy makes it very good for, because then more people fall to chaos, and then they get more numbers, even though they fight each other. But so this is another reason

of why the knockman gauntlet has been such an abundant setting for all the conflicts because it is not only a place that is one of the few ways to get in and out of the galaxy because of the giant secretary's maldictum but it's a really good way to kind of establish a little bit of a zone a sort of like end game conflict area you know the the newest crusade book is simply titled knockman gauntlet that's literally it's not like oh war zone knockman or whatever it's just called knockman gauntlet Oh man, if I had, if I had been following anything about the new books, this would have been such an easy quote to get. God damn it. That's all right. This is like not. You might go like, oh, brand new codex and lore for stuff. But like this is the ongoing world of 40K. It's like not something that everyone jumps the bit for.

Probably not something I would jump for either because I try to stay stupid because of course. Built stupid. I'm built different, baby. But to go along with that. And it should go without saying we do have two more previous episodes on the Docman Gontlet. Highly recommend you watch those first to get antiquated. Not antiquated. What's the other word?

Caught up? Refresh. Yeah. And, and, um, I'm losing it. Antiquated would be like, hey, those videos are antiquated. They're so old. They're antiques. Oh, I think it's just acquainted.

Acquainted. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Had a little bit of a brain fart. It's okay, word hard. If you want to get acquainted with all of the, the Nachman stuff, generally, a little bit of a recap and all that type of jazz, and to see what the heck's going on and how Sigma World Claimers currently doing what he's doing. Also, there's a lot about the planet vigilis and things like that.

But we should go back and kind of double back a little bit to figure out the main players going on here, which is, of course, the Rift. There's the Gauntlet Sanguia Terrar. and also dubbed simply the horrors. As you do when you're that close to the eye of terror, the cicatrix maledictum, the center of all evil. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this clearly does not need to be repeated,

but the cicatrix, well, okay, I was going to say the cicatrix maledictum is pretty bad for business. But one would argue that depending on what business you're in, baby, it can be damn good for business. I was going to say, if you're in the chaos business, business is a boomin. Business is boomim. And so through that, and, you know, obviously making sure that everyone realizes how important the

cicatrix maledictum is through the destruction of Kadia, obviously. But it was the massive destruction of worlds across worlds in the galaxy, slicing everything into, which also means that those on the Imperium crap is Nihilis the other side. get those confused. Nylis is basically blocked off from like the Astronomicon for the most part and it's become a huge problem. Every time I think Nylis, all I hear is that

Saren. Yep. Nylis. Nylis. Shutes him in the back of the head. All you hears the gunshot in the distance. Spoiler alert for a 17 year old game. Nialis dies in the beginning. How could you do this, T.K.

Gasp. God, the game's been really. for me. Though over the course of, over of course the 10,000 years, Abadon has been strategically destroying world full of black stone so that when Kadia fell,

it would then cause a domino effect causing the galaxy to be cut in half. Kadia was the final bit and that was where everything was crazy. However, of course, Abidon wasn't fully successful across the board and that is where the

knockman gauntlet comes into play. So, as we talked about before, this gyraift in the galaxy, there are basically two spots that you can really go through without major problems. And one of them is the Noctman Gauntlet, is the most well-known way to pass from Imperium Sanctus to Imperium Nihilus. Because even though we are a sci-fi space world, you do need to travel in a more natural way. Yeah. Right, because because- Warp jumps everywhere. Right.

And like, you know, it takes, you don't have fashion light travel in the real sense. So you have to take warp jumps. And this is a gigantic rift in the galaxy that stops you from taking warp jumps and et cetera. So because of this, it becomes a very strategic location. And it exists near the remains of Kadia and therefore is located a bit closer to Terra as well. This kind of, the bookends of the gauntlet are two planets that are very rich in black stone. sanguia terra S-A-N-G-U-A-S-A-Sengua Sangu-Tara and Vigilis.

And because those two plants are very rich in Blackstone, which we are aware has an anti-or-positive polarization effect with the warp, this will create a situation where, thankfully, this little slice in the galaxy is currently usable to traverse. And it's covered in like blackstone too, right? So that should help a little. bit. Well, that is why it is currently available to the universe is because of the black stone deposits. Right, right, right. Now, obviously, the planet of Vigilus, you may remember, I think the last book, or the book before that was like Vigilus Burns or something like that. That planet has the short end of the stick due to the fact that it's the one on the other side of the gauntlet, meaning it's pretty much on its own in terms of defense, where Sanguatera has the backing of basically the entire.

empire empire. So if you look at the map, sanguitara is on the left side and Vigilus is on the right. And the right is bad. I was going to say not great to be on Vigilus then. No wonder Vigilus burns. No, yeah. Vigilus is having a tough time because all support to Vigilus has to come through the tiny little little itty bitty goat sea that's gone between the two of them. Right. So because of this, The issue, though, is that the existence of both planets is what keeps the rift open. You need both. It is a link because of the deposits of blackstone and the anti-polarization of that. If you do not have both, you lose the link, which is bad.

So Vigil is super important. Because that's the hard one to defend. That's the one that's having the roughest time. If you lose that and you lose the blackstone there, it closes up and no mas. Yes. Now, it would possibly close

the Rift permanently. There is another way to cross Sigism Maladictum. It was apparently found by a rogue traitor. This is honestly one of the best examples of why rogue traders

are important because they are explorators and this person found it. They found another way to pass called the Adelan Gate, but it's not very stable at all. And it being the only

way through the rift would be very bad. Yeah, you usually want stable passage through something like that. You don't want to get all clever and funky and not have a guaranteed route through, you know, literal hell. So, naturally, the big defensive network we talked about last time was called the Sanctus Wall, which is a series of plants and fortifications kind of close to Dockman gauntlet, and the focus of the wall is incredibly important to the Imperium, because they are basically pulling all stops to keep it fortified,

because of course they are they need to or else. Now, in order to bolster up the world in the sanctus wall, the planets, just like a bit back from the wall, have been almost entirely stripped of all resources possible and brought to the front lines to make it more defensive. The Imperium has also struck up accords with the kin leagues of Voton at this time, and the leagues have promised to aid the Imperium should they be invaded. it because while the kin are known for being grumbly grumpy douchebags at times, they also understand that it would really, really suck if they could only travel through this part as well. Yeah, as long as the Imperium doesn't start asking questions about their stuff.

Yes, which they definitely will be. But oh well. Now, due to the planets proximity to the rift, the attempts to fortify it had been extremely difficult. tons of instances where over fortified worlds will experience the taint of chaos. Dr. Khari have been constant right now because they are opportunists. Of course, naturally, there are orcs literally everywhere. And on top, because there's always orcs. There's always orcs.

When won't an or take an opportunity for a good crumpin, right? On top of this, everyone has been like relocated so excessively because of this wall, where the amount of fear in these planets have caused results, or results, revolts, my bad. Civilian revolts, which means that... I was going to say two very different size of the coin.

Yes, negative results for civilian results. But therefore, in quixitorial forces, I've been working overtime with pro-imperium propaganda and blasting auto-hymnals at the problem plans to avoid a full revolution. Or worse, chaos overthrowing the planet. due to internal corruption. Autohymanals is quite the word. Auto hymnals, right?

That's not what I was expected. I mean, I guess that's something you should expect to hear in 40K, right? Just blast those hymns loud as you can. That'll drive chaos off. So the setting of this book in particular takes place on sanguatera. And as you can imagine, things are not going super well. because despite it being ripe with the warp stone and literally serving as they last bashed

of keeping the gauntlet open and the dead center lynchpin for the sanctus wall, it is still utterly surrounded by the warp. And though it allows a path to be open, it is not exempt from the influence of the warp. So while things were going very south over invigilis, the system of sangua, or the system of sanguia is what it's called,

hence why it's sangletera, suffered a massive warp incursion dubbed the sanguice flare and caused the vast majority of the planet to turn demonic. And it even turned sigil, which is called Singuit, which is Singwatera's moon, into a demon world.

Yikes. That's not great. That's not great when the well-fortified one gets hit with the demon incursion and becomes, Demon World. That's Don't love that. Sorry, sniff.

How dare you? How dare you ruin the podcast that way? Yeah, I see I sniff, I smell heresy. So yeah, a lot of it going around. Me when I'm a Bretonian soldier. Also,

Demon World's popping up is Have you at all started the faultless blade? No, I haven't actually. It's crazy. Is it out? Well, I recently bought a Kindle because I've been reading a lot more and you can buy it on Kindle. And there is a there's a demon world that does some funny stuff and it's like, wow, the warp is weird.

Demon world's weird. Being in there, weird. Yep. I mean, you know, to, if a demon is to exist, it must have a link or an incursion into the warp, which is a link into unreality. Yeah. Wait, faultless blade came out in 2018. I thought that was the new Lucius book, or is that just a re-release of the cover? Oh, it's probably just a special edition, right?

Oh, I feel silly. Okay, fair point. Got it. I thought the same thing. Okay, I feel like a doofus. Anyway, unrelated to. So the capital region of the planet of Sangueterra is the epicenter of everything is known as the Urbano Sprawl Alpha.

Urban O sprawl, one word, Urbano sprawl alpha. All right, cool. Yeah, it is a capital location with a 50-mile sprawl that despite being littered with warp taint and radiation spills is somehow still standing, with a massive amount of armaments, shield generators, and basically the last bastion of a consistent and majorly fortified imperialian presence holding the planet. So, basically, the assumption is, can the imperial? reclaim the world while Urbano's sprawl alpha holds on or will the death of sanguatera occur and crush the knockman gauntlet. That's the that's the set of the stage.

Okay. So, some quick preludes. Chaos side. Harkin Worldclaimer is currently double W massive dub man. He just took, he just took out the gestine system and the bastion world of Novovore and is preparing for his next move. While working on this, Harkin is contacted by Abidon, who asks him of his progress. And then after informing him of the upcoming Google Calendar schedule, Abadon

tells him that he is gearing up for a fully-fledged attack on vigilis and is very confident it will be taken by him soon as a means of encouragement. Mr. encouragement to Harkham, Abadon gives him a very special goal and provides him with an even more special gift, but more on that later. Okay. Also, love those images of the three main chaos folk. You have, of course, Hark and World Claimer,

the chain flare and DeVar's Talon, lovely. Yeah, that's a great picture of him, too. Yeah, he's cool, dude. Just wait for the flash. Is it on yet? Ah! The Imperium side, after the nightmare, of a battle on vigilis, the northern end of the gauntlet stands relatively alone, but is still somewhat secured under the presumption that Abidon has moved on and left it to be ravaged

by the horrors of the warp because the vigilus was beaten to shit. Though supplies and aid are still trickling into the gauntlet to vigilis, the priorities the impregime have shifted more to the sanctus wall and the southern end of the gauntlet to reinforce the planets that form it. Specifically doing anything and everything possible to make sure that the planet of sangueia terra still stands. Obviously, the efforts to reinforce the wall come to a head when World Claimers forces potentially preparing for a major assault make their way into that section of the Imperium. So at this point, the Imperium is simply going to need to show their hand somehow.

Yeah, you kind of need all hands on deck to make sure this place doesn't fall. You cannot lose it. Great. So, speaking of the death. of a planet. It was mentioned earlier, but Harkin was granted a bit of a gift from Abidon. Here is the quote. Harkin felt some tremendous presence force its way in the proximity, sweeping aside thoughts of vigil as burning. Behind him, signal indicators flashed for his attention. Abidon lifted his hand, staring hard at Harkham. In the spoiler's giant palm hovered the representation of a

void ship. Harkin could not see D.E. but its silhouette was unmistakable. It was monstrous, a manifestation of the will to conquer the galaxy at any cost. Quote, you will shatter the spirit of the Gorindal subsector. You will break their defenses. You will seize sangueterra and make it a staging point for conquest. You will claim it in my name. Beyond the sealed sanctum, the planet killer emerged from the warp. So, right. Okay, let's go. So Abadon is known, of course, for utilizing the vengeful spirit as the main capacity nowadays, but it is a symbol of the war master. But he has another ship up his sleeve. Now, the origin of the ship is a bit contradictory and muddled. And on one hand, it is found to be a complete ancient abandoned shipyard in the eye of terror.

Some people believe that it is built entirely from scratch by the Dark Mechanicus, but regardless of its origin, it's a first emergence was in the 12th Black Crusade, or known as the Gothic War. There are some photos of the ship right there. It's so cool. It is so cool. Oh, my God, that's so. The Armageddon gun projection barrels, that is like a mech shape. design that I am here for. It is.

It is, yes, so you may have seen it from back when in a battle fleet. Battlefleet Galactica, no, what the hell is it called? Balfi Gothic. There it is next to the Blackstone Fortress. So you can tell it is not particularly small. No, it's called a planet. It's called the planet killer. This thing should be justifiably massive.

Yes, absolutely. Um, so the ship itself is marred with impossibilities. For example, it has a very light and minimal crew despite its size. It was a christened with a ritual done by Abadon's most senior advisor, a former thousand son's sorcerer. And in this ritual, he bound demons to the whole of the ship itself, which allows it to operate at full optimal power without the need of anything more than a skeleton crew. and because of its extreme warp taint, it is unlike any ship on Imperial record, and the ad mech are uncertain how it could have been constructed

or can function anywhere outside of the warp. Of course, as you can quite obviously tell, the biggest impossibility of the ship comes from the form of the Armageddon gun. It is a weapon very much like the Death Star, where it is a massive beam that is quite literally, a planet killer. And it says, within the planet killer central cavity, we could take a massive

power surge. Energy crackled from a number of ports on the whole. Then with a blast that blotted the sun from our scanners and opened fire. The beam lasted for about half an hour. The emperor knows how they could generate such energy, linked to the planetary surveyors to see what was happening on its

surface, and that the energy bolt bored its way through miles of the planet's crust and seared through the mantle beneath. As the attack finished, the magma surged forth from its continent-sized wound, breaking apart the planet from within, as the seas boiled into the skies, the ice caps melted, and whole continent sunk beneath the tidal waves. With an unimaginable release of energy, the planet was blown out of her natural orbit and flipped over on her axis. I guess nobody was alive then, but if they were, were they did not last long. Like a rations pack crushed in your fist, it just crumpled in on itself and broke

apart into thousands of fragments. 14 billion people dead in an hour. Wow. I, that's, that's a lot to unpack. Wow, that's, that's, that's very cool, though. I guess, uh, shy says that the plan. Killer in Gothic War was something she really liked. And at one point, they randomly was like, oh, it was destroyed off screen,

don't worry about it, but now it's been reconed and brought back. Hell yeah. And also, did I hear you say that the Armageddon gun lasts for half an hour? The beam just stayed there for a full half hour, just, yeah, no worries. Don't worry about how he powered it. It's chaos nonsense. Half an hour beam? Pretty, pretty much.

She just, like, fires for half an hour and then bores through the planet and then blows it up. Hell yeah, brother. Hell yeah, brother. Now, the planet killer obviously is a terrifying presence, but the biggest issue with the ship, obviously, is that it is comically slow, like the steamroller from Austin Powers. It is ultimately something that is very avoidable,

but as is a chaos ship, it can appear kind of out of nowhere, and if you can see the ship, it's probably too late. Yeah. Um, so, uh, with this, Abidon basically is like, hey man, uh, here you go. Have fun with this. Oh, man. And I bet, I bet I bet, I bet, I bet, I bet old Harold does, does some, some good work with that. Well, so let's find out.

Obviously, we have our key combatants. Uh, we have known to, to love Mr. Harkin world clamor himself. Uh, but there is some other folks as well. You, like, you have. Setherin Nethar, the chain flare, who is a warlord of the night lords, and brings along his war band of the

Fear Rakers, classic. Yep, classic duck, yeah, sure. And then you have Torian Commodore, DeVars Talim, which is the renegade house Mandragor, if you remember them. If you remember Mandragor, the Chaos Knights.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Including their heir, Countess Collegnus, which was sent by the High Queen because she doesn't quite trust Torian, but whatever. It's on board. Yeah, it's fine. For the Imperium side, we have Junith Yeruta of the Blazing Heart. Junet is a character I run on the tabletop quite often. She is a sister of battle canonist superior, commands the order of the Aramard Lady, and has ablazed quite the pre-battle path to establish a foothold.

of the sororidous presence on sanguatera. Sangua, yeah, sanguia, whatever. Then you have Arvin Nardreth, the master of the third, which is the third battle company of the Guardians of the Covenant, which is a successor chapter to the Dark Angels. He is the one flying around,

no, yeah, sorry, Judith is the one flying around on the funny pulpit. Yeah, the little funny bird pulpit. Oh, that's her. Okay. I was like, oh, you run this. I was like, oh, what you're? which, and I was trying to remember which one it was.

Yeah, that's the mini that I kind of sort of hated. I don't want to say I hated, but I wasn't like a huge fan of it. I've grown to love it personally, but I do think it is goofy. Yeah. And so that's the highest ranking space marine present to conflict, which is Arvin Nadrath. And then you have Erasmus Cartavolnes, Ordo Malius Inquisitor. A returning character during the battles of the gauntlet. If you remember, Cartivalness,

managed somehow to get from vigilis to sanguitara without being detected, which God knows why, perfume department, some like that. But arriving on sanguatera, he was appalled at how unprepared defenses were and almost single-handedly worked to regain control of several spaceports and provide aid to Yeruta when she landed. Now, if I am unmistaking, because it actually has been a little bit of time myself, I believe Erasmus Cartavulness has the lovely model where he's stabbing the book

he does I believe if I'm not mistaken this is the gentleman who was like everyone work harder or you'll have to learn about the lovely hospitality of the inquisition Oh that was him okay I believe that was him

and that's when they all were like oh my God and they all started working harder yeah also is there a reason why the Imperium hasn't just uberly fortified this area? Like, I mean, obviously you can't do much with the other side, because it's

on the other side of the cicadicum, but wouldn't you want to just stock up a lot of space marine chapters here and make sure that like you could rally the defenses here or push through and take back vigilis or something? Because it seems like there's not a huge space marine presence here, right?

So, the funny thing about that question. And it's one of those things I've had to learn how to answer for a lot of people is that, honestly, it's like pick one. Okay, answer one. There is a enormous orc waw on the bottom right-hand side of the galaxy, like four months travel away. And if you don't stop that wa, everything dies.

Like, Gasco is doing something. True. Part two. High fleet behemoth is like destroying 17 systems. and you've got to do something to stop it. Part three, the parchment paper warning in the High Lords of Terra's halls of finance and administration was lost because someone tripped and fell. There's a lot of fires to put out.

Warp storm happened and all of your communications are not going out. Also, the galaxies in half. So all of the people over there are stuck. like honestly pick one. It's fair. I guess there are a lot more fires to put out than I realized. Because even though this seems like it should be high priority, it's like, well, there's also a galaxy ending thing happening here, there, everywhere.

And it's not just this that's on their plate, right? It's literally like the Imperium is so bloated and dysfunctional that the internal bureaucracy and politics could be destroying them as much as at the actual outside. side forces and often arguably more. Like there is a genuinely good chance that maybe they could have like four full chapter of the space marines being here if a planetary governor of an important planet that worked the communication didn't embezzle the funds to like to like buy more concubines. And now the navigator and astrophats don't have the money to get their systems working

again. That is a totally, completely reasonable option that could occur. Happens all the time. All the time. The war on vigilis is called the War of Beasts or the War of Nightmares because the Imperium was attacked by Chaos, Orcs, Dark, Eldar, and Gene Steelers at the same time and the same planetary system. Yeah, that's a sad is a lot.

It's just like, like, when everything is dysfunctional, you know? So another character that isn't actually mentioned on this whole thing is one of of the major warlords, but it is rear Admiral Borkle of the Imperial Navy. His title changes in a little bit in a bit, but for context, context for why is title going to change? Prior to the events of this book, Lord Admiral the Navy was Quirin Prisca. You may remember her, but to refresh in the Nockman Rift War, Prisca's naval strategies in the Battle of the Nero, worked on stalling Harkins' armada from reaching the sanctus wall, and her and her flagship hammer of the emperor went missing and she was declared dead.

She was then posthumously named as an imperial saint by the ecclesiarchy. And then this being said, it is heavily implied and partially confirmed to this, that she is very much alive and likely in a Mason jar on Harkin's ship somewhere. Yummers. Yeah, night lords, buddy. So, the invasion itself. So near Sanguatera, the Imperium has been carefully monitoring the mandible points to intercept and relay any potential chaos sighting or emergence,

which is to be expected, considering the horrors of vigilis, because of this especially, paranoia was at an all-time high, and wouldn't you know, a bunch of loyalists ships suddenly emerged, which was totally normal and great news. The end, thank you.

Hell yeah, let's go. Yeah, yeah, that's great, lovely. The end, thank you. Loyalists show up. Everything is happy, fun times. Yeah, sure, great. Perfect. I really love a happy ending in 40K.

Now what really happens? So dozens of new sigils were suddenly there, more appearing every second. Huge and angular ancient warships burst from the warp, as if from the pages of some historical tract. They barge through the group of damaged vessels, and the damaged ships started ceasing, transmitting, as they were no longer needed.

Basically, Harkin brought in a whole bunch of loyalists ships, and from what I can tell, just yanked through them at them because he captured all of them. They were complete decoys, of course. Of course, of course. Again, you never have a happy ending in 40K, so, you know, that's great.

Just heating loyal ships as if they were, you know, stones to throw, cool. Nice job, Harry. Before the Imperial, like vessels even had time to react, Harkin and his massive fleet just steamrolled through all of the relay ships. with only a few getting away. And he ended this little thing with his classic line,

the herald of the apocalypse has arrived. Hell, yeah. So the Imperium had some time to work through this. Despite the speed of Harkins Armada, the distance between the mandible point in Sangueterra was a few days. So communications eventually reached Sangueterra, and the high-ranking Imperium officers began their preparations and tried to find ways they could get themselves more time.

Now, of course, they had a lot of military offices and areas thanks to Yeruta and Sir Morte's forces were also kind of bolstered. And per her suggestion, the rear admiral was placed in charge of the naval delegation, and his plan was to distract Harkin and hopefully stall him longer. Under his command was Captain Fulvian of the Sons of Medusa, who we just chatted about. Yeah, we sure did. Let's go.

So they specifically went after a group of the fleet that they knew they could destroy, cut a little piece of it off of that kick-cat bar. And to their credit, they did just that. They had a four-hour naval battle, put a sizable dent into a branch of the chaos combatants, and then we're able to somewhat bail a little bit afterwards. but they did realize by doing so how big Harkins fleet was. 57 brand new and unscathed ships from his fleet. So I'm assuming it's a lot bigger than they thought. Right. So instead of actually yanking out and bailing when they possibly come,

the captain of the sons of Medusa realized that they could fight on, destroying a few more ships, but they would be annihilated in return. Such inefficient equations were not to be born, says the iron hands guy. He ordered what was left of the attack fleet to retreat,

and most imperial ships were lost in the extrication, but at least a third of their original number struck out at the system's edge to escape. So they did get away a certain amount of them, what the information needed. Now, as mentioned, earlier, Sangueterra's moon

sigil is effectively a demon world because the warp is funny. Yep, it sure is. And with that, it is ruled over by a demon known as Chorchon. It's got apostrophies and weirdness, but we're just going to call

it Chorcon. It doesn't quite say what kind of demon they are, but they love crystals and mazes, so you can maybe make a guess. Sounds kind of zingch-pilled. A little zing-ch-pilled. In an attempt to help his cause, Harkin struck up a deal with the demon world, which generally striking up a deal with the demon is a pretty bad idea.

But in this case, it was justified because Chorkins offered his aid so long as some of the world claimers' lords took up his sigil. Mainly, yeah, just like, I mean, he's striking a deal with a Zincian demon. So, like, fair trade. Well, you know, maybe. Let's try to zinge. Who knows how it's going to backfire on you, right? Yeah.

And like some of the more divisive and problematic lords took up the sigil without much questioning. But Harkin requested that all of his lords who took the sigil go out and prove their worth by facing some of the more entrenched and defended parts of the planet. His other commanders found us to be annoying, but Harkin certainly knows something they don't. So with the demonic aid on his side, side, they begin to attack

Sanguateras capital. Because they've got like a demonic moon on their side. That's a great benefit. So, the real way to go about this, of course, would be to go point for point to different locations and the various things of assaults, but it would be a little bit easier than just going back and forth and all

the stuff. Because, you know, we will have a, what the hell did he write here? As it might be a little easier than going back and fourth over the minor ones before the one that will have Bricky all bricked up. Oh my. Why am I getting bricked up? Brickie's getting bricked up over demon incursions and point by point.

Oh, wow, Bricky. I am goodness gracious, apparently the big one that'll get me all bricked up apparently. I don't know what he's talking about. Anyway, so the world claimer, of course, led his gloom talons to multiple precision strikes down there on the planet. The fear rakers and the Commodore dreadlands of Chaos Knights deployed as well on Urbano Spraw Alpha. They hit the spaceport.

They did all the usual stuff you do when you start a combat like this, right? The first and the easiest of the conflicts was the Arcindore spaceport. It was basically like an and it's gone moment. No characters, no plot armor. It arrives and it just dies. All right. Cool. Yeah, whatever.

The second conflict was the Tower of Murmuration. Love that. It is an astrophopath tower and is being defended by not only guardsmen and inquisitorial stormtroopers, but also the Inquisitor, Cartavolness and his black iconic clasts as well. Which, if I not, am not mistaken, I think they're inquisitorial stormtroopers. They're like, like, um, like, um, Militarim tempestis, like Sions. Oh, okay. You're pretty cool. I love that hot, I love those hot shot Lasgums, man.

Love them. Now, obviously, they just said upon the tower in their usual night lord's way. However, they have a prized weapon that the Imperium was not anticipating, which was the, and frankly, I wasn't either until I read this wild description of, quote, the dead missiles. Oh, no. Crafted by warpsmiths of the night lords, a combination of dark age technology, Eldrick Zenos lore, and, quote, the expertise. in torture amongst the fear rakers can only be found in the flagship known as hollow a quote from the book several shrieking coils are at the core of these weapons each an analyst or biological matter stitched together from the brain stems of captured cykers these individuals are subjected to untold empiric torment while chirgic servitors peel their bodies bodies apart in agonizing surgeries lasting days.

Delivering cerebral tissues are linked to those other victims, and neurological pulses flicker in cycles between them. The specific fears of one individual are shared and magnified until the trembling ring of gray tissue

radiates waves of palpable terror. Dozens of shrieking coils are fitted into each dread missile. They are stepped Stere, steeped in a brine of engineered hormones and viral scrapcomb and threaded with a core of the ashy material left after warp translations. Surrounded with explosives, these payloads are finally built into the shell of a void torpedo and sealed in stasis vault to retain piquancy. Editor's note, think fast, chuckle nuts, anxiety bomb upon thee.

Yeah, I was going to say, this is, they made a job. giant psyched terror bomb. They literally made a terror bomb. They tortured a bunch of people, put them in a bomb, and threw it at you to then have their torture and fear explode. That is the most nightlords coded thing I think I've ever heard in my life. I don't, I don't, I think they may have peaked. Yeah, that may be peak nightlords.

Even more so than like, in the book, the psychic shriek that just blows everybody. everybody's head up from the torture? That's pretty nightloor. It's on wall. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's, it's between that and the terror bomb. So unbeknownst to those he fought alongside, Cartes of Allness had come to the difficult conclusion that Knockman Gauntlet could not be allowed to remain open, lest it drowned the Imperium Sanctus in traitor

filth. This, of course, is presented with a massive dose of foreshadowing, and we'll likely have to wait for the next point to see what that means. Some, I guess, Card of Volunus, thinks that the knockman gauntlet can't be open or else traders will do nothing but just fly through it. And so there's a possibility that Mr. Cart of Olness may start doing some particular actions in the next book. Oh, so they're thinking, you know what, the Nachman Gottman is important, but it's not that important. Like, this is just a way for chaos to get to us.

Let's just close this mother ever. Yes, which if there's anything the Imperium loves, it's, fighting. So I'm a little bit worried about what Cartavolness might be considering next book around. Now, after the anxiety bombs were thrown, the next location was something called the Emperor's Voice Grand Battery. This was a direct assault by the Knights of House Mandragor,

but luckily, Master Nadreth and his men, and three Legio Tempester Titans, were giving them some pretty good hell, which unfortunately does be rather futile as the Commodore pushes the line with his knights and a fleet of demons swarm down the Titans. And he simply

could not hold the line any further and the Emperor's voice grand battery began to burn. So so far, we appear to be 0 for 3. Yeah, so far this is a massive chaos dub. Yes,

because, I mean, hell, the dread missiles made all of the guardsmen go catatonic with fear, and they just couldn't handle the flying night lord raptors coming down on them. It's fair. That's fair. That's a tough one. So finally, you have the War of Angels, which is the largest part of the Urbano sprawl Alpha. It takes place in the center of the Primus district, mainly with Junith Yeruta and the sororitus holding the location, as Harkin decides that of all the places he's going to attack personally, this is the one. And that's where you get this

awesome artwork of all of the Night Lord Raptors swarming the Bastion in the skies, that image that Shai posted. Love that. It is a phenomenal image. And then you get all like the sisters and their jump packs like kind of dueling them in the skies and it's great

stuff. That is a great juxtaposition of like Night Lord Raptors versus like the angels. That's such a good, like, back and forth between angel and demon. I love it. It's lovely. It also just like the lightning and the warp stuff in the background.

It's so good. Oh, it's very peak. So, obviously, while attempting to fight back, Harkin, you know, predicted a lot of the moves of Yerud and the sisters, cutting off their attempts to, you know, go back. And no matter how many times you were to try to rally, Harkin is like kind of a Chad and just consistently holds them down. Um, you'reuta's focus mainly is the usage of heavy flamers, uh, which actually makes quite a bit of a sense due to the shock tactics of the night lords attempts to literally scorch the very

sky that they're using to their advantage as a way to kind of get a one up on them, um, which is why the flames were roaring so hot that they began to seemingly swallow the surface of the cathedral and emit great white lights, uh, a flash abam and ala Kazan. into the orange-colored sky. But this, my young Padawan, was in fact not simply just the flames flicking and licking into the sky. For in reality,

the bright lights and the orange flashing above the cathedral were then detonated in a glowing orb of a concussive blast. And as you are very clearly conceived from the image that was posted, you know who's showing up. I have no idea who's showing up. Who is it?

Of course, wherever she is needed us. Mrs. Celestine, the living saint herself. This would be one of those moments where it's like, this is our greatest hour of need. Please, oh God, send us an angel and she should justifiably show up. I mean, as far as like greatest hours of need, this is pretty up there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, she could be fresh from just being murdered by Corrin. That's also true.

Not now. This is an epic entrance for her. Yep. It was literally like Sisters of Battle, seraphim and Zephyrham as well as flocks of winged servo cherubs and snow feathered doves at their head leading the charge, Celestine the Living Saint. What follows is an airborne battle that you, quote, Bricky, have probably probably recreated multiple times with your nightlords and sisters minis while making airplane noises and sitting cross-legged on one of those play mats with all the cars and streets on them. Editor's note, add a propeller hat too for good measure. Oh, man, can you can you make that happen?

Shire like surely you have enough skill with photo editing software that you can actually make that little image happen because I need to see it because that's just, um, mm-mm. I'm going to shit you, so hard since so. So this had turned so. Ah!

Um, so this had turned the battle into a bit more of an attrition-based conflict. Take a shot. And instead of making forward movement, it was more or less about holding the line. Take a shot.

Um, because it's all that ever happens with these battles. Yep. Yep. So basically. Celestine herself was looking at Junethe. And of course, Junethe was odd because it's Celestim, but she was like, hey, hey, listen, Mar-Dom would be rightly praise and awesome, but that would be a wasteful death,

and it would basically just do the enemy's work for them. You know, you need to call it an extraction so that Celestine can go and reap a tally of traitor heads, but for now, things got to move on. We got to adjust. Now, the remnants of the Guardians of the Covenant work directly with Yerut to planet evacuation methods. And since they could not make it to the extractions, the remaining Titans act almost as an abandoned line to distract from the hordes of chaos moving forward and disrupting the evacuations. This distraction working very well as a Titan being a distraction is a very good distraction. I was going to say, like, it's crazy.

In what world is a Titan just used as a distraction? Like, damn, that's how bad things have gotten here. It's crazy. It says, the fallen nobles unleashed a thunderous firestorm on the Titans as they closed with them. Chorchon's demons had swamped the God engines, weakening them with blades and supernatural energies and bringing down their few remaining void shields. the chaos knights blew their warhorns, warning their demonic allies away from a kill they saw as theirs, but they were ignored.

A huge bloodthirster flew through Thunderlord Leaxi's point defense cannons to crash into its head section, hacking through its armor to get to those inside. Princeps Drentor ordered the warlord's reactor to maximum and unshackled its shielding, with a curse at the demon as it reached for him, he detonated the titan's core as the ships began to take off and a severely injured celestine who was acting as rearguard for the evacuees is the last to board the ship relocating the surface the imperium holdouts exist on the planet likely engage in some crusade during the giant detonation of the titans plasma core yeah um basically though the final holdouts on the planet are engaged in some kind of trench crusade, wink, wink, as the capital itself of the planet has fallen,

and basically sanguatera is more or less a lost cause. Oh, wow. I, you know, when this started, I wasn't expecting sanguatera to like fall, but damn, it got absolutely worked. They, they got, Celestine arrived for the fight and they still worked her back. That's crazy. She appeared like and the bunch of Titans, you know, demonic planet, etc. Mm-hmm.

That massive chaos dub. So they, chaos controls the knockman gauntlet right now. Chaos is taking the final ending bits on sanguine terra right now, while Abidon, I believe, is moving towards vigilist to finish it off. Oh, wow. So at this point, actually closing the knockman gauntlet is probably like, Like, if what's his face can do it, do it. Like, you've lost, you've lost vigilis, you've lost sangueterra.

If you can close that shit, close it. Like, that's as much of a win as you can garner from this, right? Absolutely. So, uh, the last bit as the Imperium vacates the planet, uh, world claimer takes a slow and nice little victory lap around the militarum fortresses that once acted as the command center for Judith. He is told that repairs are underway to have. help continue his conquests while his surviving commanders sit around a shattered hollow table.

He has asked what happened to the commanders that took the sigil of Chorkham, who were strangely missing from the meeting. You gave them to this demon. Nathar's whisper was like a hiss, but Harkins saw a half smile behind the affront. All of them? They gave themselves, he roared back, when they dared put their wills before the warmaster. with his point made the price for Chorchon's A revealed, and Harkin hoped a lesson that would be hard to forget etched into the warlord's memories.

Basically, he just kind of sold them to the chaos demons. He sure did. He sure did. But hey, he won. Big dub. Big dub. Damn. Without much further discussion, he's on to his next thought.

Abinan wanted him to claim sanguitara for him, but Harkin, the dude who always needs more, wants to give him more. So he wishes to grant the war master the whole sector. The prize of Sanguiterra is his, but he reveals one last prize that he had kept for quite a while. An abomination of machine and man is revealed that the world-claimer has kept unintentionally secret for quite some time, as the abhorrent appearance of this thing is too distracting for his commanders to see, Plus, his usage for the strange monstrosities for him and him alone revealed in the closing lines of the book. You will help me reach inside sector command.

The knowledge still inside you, your ciphers, numo codes, names, numbers, and plans will unlock one door after another until this sector serves the warmaster. What was left of Lord Admiral Prisca's mind understood little of what Harkin had said. The moment of air as the world Claimer left rippled through a flap of skin and passed what was left of a larynx, drawing forth the echo of a moan. Oh, man. There's a flap of skin in a larynx in a jar or some crap like that

in this horrifyingly murdered admiral that he is going to, you know, find a way to learn everything about. Oh, boy. that's that's brutal sheesh so that's about the end of the

of the book um okay we now return to the third massive ruleclaimer chaos dub apparently just don't step to him abidon is off to go take

vigilis uh harold warclaimer is just doing a victory lap taking the other important planet in the gauntlet Card of Volness is looking to close the gauntlet or something? The capital has fallen? I,

yeah, the best they can hope for now is that, is that he closes the gauntlet. That's the best you can hope for. And even then, you've still lost sanguitara, and Harold is still there with a formidable force, and it's still effed.

I have, I have no clue. see this is the thing right chaos or chaos dubs in warhammer always end with some major character arriving in the end to win somehow like the lion has returned and i'm going to beat you up or something um but i mean celestein showed up and got body solstine showed up and then got walloped i i mean i don't know man like it's It's bizarre. I just have something. Yeah, we're,

we're cleaning, we're cleaning house today. But good luck, Imperium, good, good luck trying to salvage this, I guess. I have no,

I have no clue. I mean, because that's the funny thing, right? Like, oh, Gilliman shows up, yippee,

and it's like, oh, that's cool. Here's Fulgram, by the way. Or, you know, oh, I have a planet killer.

Like, oh my God. I mean, Vashtore is still out there. Like, what's he going to do? He's still got, they still got the key that they're trying to find the door to, right? Yeah, he's actually out looking for locks and stuff. So he's kind of got his own quest.

Yeah, but still, jeesh. Chaos is eating good in the neighborhood. It is a consistent, a consistent chaos dub. It just, normally the imperial dubs arrive, and we have had three straight books of, pure chaos dubs. And I'm waiting for when, when inevitably some named

character is going to show up and stop chaos because they have to. But I don't know when. They're on a roll. Yeah, I was going to say, who, who do you think can show up and turn the tides for the Imperium? Like if,

if a character was going to show up out of nowhere, who would it be? Vulcan. Vulcan? Okay. So there is, is a salamanders image in the upcoming codex maps. Also, we just got fulgrim. And now we're four demon primarks to two imperial primarks.

And so I'm just kind of like, there's a, the easy answer is Vulcan. There's a salamander's photo on this future thing. Maybe they get their own codex, kind of like the blood angels or dark angels, and then we get Vulcan. Stop, stop. Stomp, but I honestly have no idea. Perfectly honest, you know what I would prefer? I'd prefer if chaos just like won. They just, they took the gauntlet, they smashed the plants into bits,

and now the, the next story is the Imperium desperately trying to find a different pathway. Yeah, sure. I go with that. Yeah. It would be humorous. Absolutely. So we'll have to see. Absolutely walloped.

Actually walloped. Sigma World Climb. has returned. And he's got the coolest ship I've ever seen in my life. They didn't even use the ship. That's true. They didn't even use the planet killer. They didn't even have to.

No, they really didn't. I mean, they made it in a bit after he's doing the victory lap and maybe like the next one, he'll use to blow up some more stuff. But he just, he's like, ah, hold it in my back pocket. Yeah, it'd be great if he did a victory lap and you just starts blowing up random planets as like a fireworks display and that's just how he celebrates. I think it would be hilarious if he used it as like, he like blew up the demon world.

It just blows up the moon because F you, I'm the world clamor, baby, you took some of my troops. Or it'd be kind of funny. It's like, hey, these demon dudes are assholes. I'm going to fire it at the demon world and then those rocks will blow up and then land on the other planet and then break it apart. Let's go. That's such a cool ship.

Oh my God. I can't believe they had that just sitting around and they never used it before now. I don't know. Everyone's got some cool dark age tech that they got chilling in the background. Me waiting to see the next Necron Death Star. Fair.

They probably do have several. I mean, they have the Celestial Orere that just, boop, you don't exist anymore. Why not a Death Star, right? So I actually was curious for the Celestial Orri a bit because I kind of was like, you know what, this just seems so ridiculously overpower. Like, I'm going to go look it up.

So I looked up a bit more. It's actually really funny because you blow up the star, but because you have to blow up the star, you blow it up in a way that requires like changing time and weirdness in the world. And so the necrons will then have to like painstakingly spend a thousand years adjusting timelines to make sure that everything is correct to make sure the star blows up and there are no knock on consequences for the rest of the universe. And so it's like, it's just not worth it, man.

It's just like not worth doing it. So they literally will not use the Celestra ori because it's too much of a chore to make sure that it doesn't affect time in a crazy ass way. If you blow up the star, like, how will this have a horrible knock on effect to everything else in the galaxy? You're like, you have to fix that, which is why it's like, goodness gracious. Okay. I like the cope in the description. Destruction of the whole world is what Abidon only does in extreme circumstance because it doesn't want to squander valuable resources.

That's why he didn't use it for a thousand years. Uh-huh. Sure, sure. Okay, sure. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Whatever. So, I'm glad they brought it out, though.

If that's something they've had in their little, like, recycle bin for a while, I'm glad they brought it out. So cool. The recycle bin. But, um, but yeah, another, uh, another lovely chaos dub. Uh, please return into the next knockman, gauntlet for the next one. Hell yeah. We now return to book four of Harold Bagtaker. And hey, as is tradition with Adeptus Ridiculous.

At the beginning of this, Bricky was like, hey, man, I think this is going to be a pretty short episode. Really? Really. How long was it? Oh, crap. Hour and ten. God damn it. See you next time for another short episode, folks.