Adeptus Ridiculous - LEVIATHAN: AND I LOOKED UPON THE GREAT HIVE BEAST, AND KNEW THAT HOPE WAS LOST | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThere is no time for peace. No forgiveness. No respite. There is only war.Hive Fleet Leviathan had arrived, a new threat greater than anything that had come before. As the Great Rift tore the galaxy in two, Leviathan faced resistance from the Imperium, resurgent heretics, xenos armies, and even the daemons of Chaos. Kryptman’s machinations saw its tendrils slowed – caught in a cordon of exterminated worlds, or lured into a quagmire of Ork warfare in the Octarius Sector – but never stopped.The Tyranids had their sights set on yet another Space Marine home world, this time the Blood Angels – but so too did the forces of Chaos. This ensuing battle between aliens, daemons, and around 30,000 Sons of Sanguinius led by Commander Dante left Baal and its moons even more ruined than before.Here it seemed Leviathan had been stopped in its tracks, and Roboute Guilliman could focus his attention on the Indomitus Crusade. But it turns out Leviathan was far from defeated, as the beast’s maw closes on the beleaguered Imperium once again, from a wholly new direction…Support the show

name is D.K. Diamante's. His name is Bricky and Warhammer 40K everyone. But before we do, if you enjoy today's episode and you want to support the podcast, heading over to patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to our Discord, bloopers if they happen. At the $15 tier, you get all the HD posters you can shake a stick at, which by the way, Bricky, we have a new poster. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. This one is so, oh, it's really good. It's, show it to him shy because this thing is peak.

All right. I don't think I'm over. It's so good. Is it peak? Is it peak? Oh, yeah. It's so peak. I feel like I'm being gaslit.

Never mind. That's your peak. Right? That's peak, bro. That's so good. It is a sister of battle that has been converted to corn. Not that that happens very often or ever. It's so good.

I don't even care about this heresy. Right? It's so good. I'm not even upset about this heresy. This is actually really, really good. This gal got hips wider than a five-lane freeway. I'm impressed. This is one of the few posters where I was like, yo, I don't care what the hips look like.

I don't care that like she's got the boba. It's just, it's, it's amazing. I gotta be honest, she reminds me a little bit of Marisov with the hair and the face. I kind of see it and the glowing eyes. Yeah, that's the other thing. Shai showed me this yesterday or the day before. And she was like, yeah, did you know that Hallis Day before they sent the poster was like, yeah, I have no confidence in this. I think this is my worst thing ever.

And this poster just sucks. And Shai was like, well, you know, let me see it. And she gets sent that. I got to be honest, Imposter syndrome's a hell of a thing because this is one of my favorites. That's what I said. I was like,

this is one of my favorite posters. It's amazing. And this thing is going to sell out like that. When you make it, it's going to sell out so quick. Oh, damn. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Well, I don't know if it'll sell out that quick. Well, I don't know. I love it. I think it's like, I think it's incredible. You know what? filming this on Monday but god damn it i'm going to get this on the shop the day this thing comes out

so that we can actually get it sold day of watching so if you're out there watching this video right now go to the shop at orchidate dot com in the description and snag yourself a new sister of wrath poster damn all right let's go hell yeah in fact actually this month of june we are actually going to be having a ton of new merch. Actually, considering that it's week by week, we might actually spill into July a little bit, but we are going to have a bunch of new merch coming out this month. In fact, we already have a new one.

Kind of, like there's a new shirt on the site and hoodie right now that is just a little celebration of Pride Month. It's a super simple, only the front design of our Adiric shirt, but we got this cool like rainbow vinyl thing. So it's a nice little thing. there. We're donating for every single shirt sold. Five bucks

go to various LGBT charities and for every hoodie it's 10 bucks. So yeah, so we got one of those in the stop as well. Nothing on the back but the rainbows on the front specifically. So it's a lot more I know some people don't, they don't

like the back design because they feel like it's too big so this one's a little bit more like nice and just the front. I love the back design. I would prefer like gigantic cool back design instead of like, you know. So most people don't like it sometimes because they don't, they go out in public and they don't like the giant thing on their back. But you don't go out in public, so it makes sense. Fair.

Fair and valid. Anyway, that's all happening right there. Also, Storm of Iron is the book club. So read it Iron Warriors. Lay Lola Mao. So. So. Let's see.

Today is a special day. Today we have the brand new edition of Warhammer 40K out. Not right. It totally comes out this weekend. But out sort of kind of for good old Forta K. Forta K. And Forta K. Forta K. And this one in particular is a lovely, lovely bit of,

Leviatham. Levithim is here and ready to begin. Let's go. So this is ultramarines and tyrannid story, right? It is not just ultramarines and tyranids. It is basically everyone. It is a lot going on right here. So here's, we'll start it off. The new edition has come out. The Arcs of Omen story has, for the most part, either ended or been relegated to a particular segment. The Vash store got what his got his key. He is now looking for the lock and the lion is pursuing him. However, in the other side of the galaxy towards the segmentum solar, it's actually probably the same side of the galaxy, but whatever.

It starts off with bugs. Ah, bugs. I'm assuming it's the Leviathan hive fleet. You are correct. It is Leviathan. Let's go. I'm learning. He's learning.

I'm learning. Now, much like most invasions of tyrannids, it starts off with nothing. Slowly and slowly certain areas of the segmentum solar go dark. Uh-oh. One by one by one, it is in total silence. Astopathic signals from one world just. Stop arriving. And then the next.

And then the next. They've got to know that that's probably like a tyrannid thing, right? Because tyrannid just cover up and eat everything. Like they cover up psychic signals and everything, right? Because they're like a dark cloud in the warp or something. The shadow in the warp. Yeah, exactly. So the Imperium has got to have some inkling that like, uh-oh, there's probably bugs over

there if no signals are coming out or I guess also everybody's dead well what is uh you know sometimes they say driving tired is almost as bad as driving drunk wreck poor driving reckless driving because you're tired yes but but the specific quote is for the myriad adepts toiling in vast scriptorum halls of neighboring sub sectors no news from outlying planetary systems meant only that their mountainous and monotonous workloads became fractionally less. Amidst the endlessly clattering keys,

the scratch of quills, and the thump of auto stampers, there was neither time nor desire for rumination on cause and effect. Why would you oh no, my 20-hour back-breaking work days have been reduced to 19 hours.

Yippee! Yippee! But a planet's gone dark, so, you know. Just stop checking in. The workload is less. You know? Hey, we're not concerned about one of our millions of planets going dark. I get to go home early.

So before, as, before this, however, there was a nice little story of an adeptus Arbides, which is the judge dread people. A judge named Herman Krantz, who stood in on his cruise. cruiser. And after leaving, so he had like, he had kind of cool. He had like a purity seal with like 23 worlds on it that he specifically brought to justice as a judge. It's kind of cool. So he's not like dead, not like dead, but like, you know, helped out.

It's just one purity seal, but it has them all written out. It's pretty cool. Oh, wow. So he's got like a ponytail that's just a purity seal. Huh? Just this long 23 list. Fump. Scroll.

Yep. Pretty cool. On this judge dread outfit. Yeah. So as, I gotta be honest, like the, they're obviously just Judge Jed riprofts, but they've gotten just a little bit more visuals to make them properly imperiumed that I think I'm actually really liking the Arbides now. Yeah, the, the one that Shai just posted, it looks like, it is very obviously inspired by Judge Dread,

but it feels like it's also enough of a little variation with like the, the little, the little gold paldron is great. I love that. That pop of gold on an all-black suit is just really cool. Yeah, with the red line. It's really sick. Anyway, they are, they then leave Warp Translation. And as soon as they end Warp Translation,

the Navigator just starts screeching into the speakers across the entire ship, the inhuman howl of pain and psychic talents just ripped across the entire planet, or not the planet, sorry, the entire ship and the bridge crew. Yeah. So they opened the warp shutters. And after opening the warp shutters, they look out into the vast nothingness. And then they realize that the black between stars is in fact not space, but bug. It's tyrannids.

It's so many tyrannids. It looks like darkness. Oh, gross. The world map on the center hololith was, had so, many signatures that it turned into a gigantic, vibrant green ball so bright it hurt his eyes to look at. Oh, man. Like blips on a sonar. That's so many bugs.

Oh. And this is just, how many ships are in this fleet? Is it just the one? It's like a three. It's nothing too big. Oh, no. They're dead. They're so dead.

They're going to get eaten alive. This is no contest. is it? So one of the bridge crew with blood coming out of his nose like was started just to whimper and be like there's so many there's so many as he turned to run away

and one of the judges shot him with a shotgun because of course they do. Of course he's trying to desert. But immediately what happens afterwards is he tried to grab the various astropaths on the fleet and against all possible emperors will send out a signal

even with the shadow and the warp going on any kind of signal. Yeah, just any little blip from that dead space would at least be an indication to someone that, hey, we're here, someone's here, please send help, right? That's funny, that's funny, shy. He tried a dessert. He became dessert.

Well, they didn't eat him. They didn't eat him with a spoon and with the cream. Well, I guess the tyranny. Continuing. You're right, fair. Continuing the story. Eventually, yeah, he does become dessert. Okay, sorry.

So the ship, the aid report that the astrophatic sanctum might have gone a message through as the astrophath had reported to have ruptured every single blood vessel in his body in the attempt. And after that, basically the two other ships got, one got tangled in gigantic nid. tendrils and ripped apart. And the other ship got covered in gigantic boils, which were actually Nid boarding craft as the Nid started to enter the walls of their ship. That's so gross but so cool that they just launch boils that just infect metal ships and have boarding bugs on them.

And through the sobbing bridge crew, they activate their martyrdom protocol to blow the ship up. as a enormous tyrannid vessel slowly flies towards them, mouth agape, pitch darkness full of tentacles and teeth, as their ship flies right on through. Yeah, what are those ships called? Because I saw them in, was it a Dawn of War trailer that showed like all the different faction ships and then it ended on like the necrons? And yeah, like the Niz have these big like ships with these gaping like Leviathan maws. it's just It's um, Battlefleet Gothic,

I think is what you're thinking of. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think they're just called bio-ships. Oh, okay. They don't have like a super spiffy name or anything.

They're just living ships that nom, yum, yum, num, yeah, pretty much. Um, but anyway, as the worlds go dark,

it goes one upon another, upon another, upon another, sometimes it's quite humorous. A world is defending themselves against an orcua, and then, randomly the orcs just don't show up anymore

as if they ran completely out of reinforcements and then cheers and parties are thrown immediately afterwards as then the bugs arrive realizing they ate the rest of the orcs. Yeah, the orcs stopped arriving because the nids

ate them on route to the humans and the humans are celebrating hooray and then the chaos space marines randomly just turned tail and stop Stop their demonic rituals. Even Voton, currently sieging an imperial world

for food and resources and ore, because of course, pack their stuff up and get the hell out of dodge. Because, and then immediately excited defenders, woo-hoo, yay, yeah, oh my God. Oh my God!

I don't know why I found it so strange that chaos turned tail and ran I guess I always figured that chaos are just like completely like psychopaths and they don't really have like higher brain functions and they're just barbarians, which isn't the case. No, Deterans are surprisingly intelligent. Yeah, I was finding it weird when like chaos turns tail from the nids. I would almost think that chaos would want to at least like stand their ground and like die to the last. I like the, well, chaos would do anything they possibly could. to murder the Imperium.

Yeah. Nids is like, this is nothing. There's no sport in that. Yeah. Anyway, there's all these lovely little excerpts. I think GW has really found the right blend of Nid lore, which is very much just telling it from the perspective of those dying. I really like that, how that's done.

So on the sides of a lot of these pages, there are little excerpts, like Team Coral of the Adeptus Astardi's Raptor chapter. Xenocultists on Kitsu 7 more numerous than anticipate him. They claim their rapture is coming soon. Their activity is increasing. All routes of egress from their tunnel layers are overrun. We are trapped. They attacked from above, soaring on leathery wings. So we went below.

There it was worse. They were there sneaking, leaping claws and talons. like coiled up in the smallest crevices, the tightest nooks, you could sweep a room for hours and be attacked as you turned your back to leave. Oh, man, that is, that is terrifying. Being on a planet that is being overrun by Tyrannids is just like, oh, boy, that is one of the worst nightmares in 40K, because you are, if there is a high fleet surrounding your planet,

you essentially have no chance. There's no way you're going to fight off all those bugs. you're just consigned to being part of the meal. And it's like, good luck. There is an excellent, excellent piece of artwork in this book that I think is so baller. Not only is it super cool, I love seeing the guardsmen on the bottom right holding their mouths. Oh, wow. Don't breathe.

Don't breathe. Look at this monster above my head. They're eventually going to see you, pal. But yeah, just, and I love the lighting. that just puts him in that like eerie red light where it's like you know he's screwed and it's just really focuses on the terror

and it's just oh that's great and obviously the bugs look phenomenal. Oh yeah oh it looks so good. Oh yeah. With this happening and the slow advance of the tyrannid force voices come from the darkness specifically

in this case from a special ship known as the pinion. The pinion arrives very close to Holy Terra and its area around it. And as every single gun points at it in orbital space, it broadcast its ident codes that have such, this is the funniest thing I've read all day, that have such high clearance, such insane levels of clearance that those who had to process them were immediately lobotomized and classifying deservators. Oh, my God.

Wow. Okay. So just receiving the message gets you lobotomized. Okay. Cool. Because it's just such high level. It's such high level that all the people who managed it were servitorized. It's so funny.

That's wild. But what this was was a ship with three eyes of the emperor. Do you remember who those are? No, I do not. They are the custodians who have gotten a little slow and went off to serve the Imperium in their own hidden ways. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Do you remember that?

Well, I vaguely remember talking about that. I don't remember everything that they do, but I remember about their existence and the fact that they still want to help the Imperium and that they're not. quite, you know. Right. They just don't want to help out, even though they're maybe not the best of the best custodians anymore after like thousands and thousands

of years of service or whatever. Yeah, like a millisecond too slow and it's like, oh, time to put the coat on. Yep. So they moved forward bearing the message of the Astropath from the Arbides guy, the Arbidi's ship,

as they had received it and had came back to see council with Trajan Valoris and the High Lords of Terra to state the incoming imminent threat. All right. And what's going on and what they found out is that High Fleet Leviathan has arrived in two specific ways. Two enormous tendrils have entered from two parts of the actual galaxy, from the above and the below. So we have a

generally flat galactic plane due to the way the gravitational pull works with the Milky Way and the spiral galaxy we have. So they have gone underneath the galactic plane and also above

at the same time and are sending both their tendrils down upon us in two types of fleets known as Nautalon and Promenth Promethor. Yeah, yeah.

I remember the picture of the tendrils actually going up into the galaxy, right? That's freaky. So we're getting

two-pronged attacked from above and below at the moment. We're getting cinched in. And also, not only are you being cinched in, but you're actually well, you're realizing that the Tyrannids planned this, they chose to come from the top and the bottom with these two tendrils

of Leviathem. Oh, that sucks. So they're realizing, uh-oh, the tyranids aren't just stupid bugs. They have, like, higher levels of intelligence. And that hive mind, do be thinking, though. It do be thinking. It do be thinking, though. Also, oh, man, like, are.

these actual like tendrils or are these just swarms of tyranids that look like tendrils? Um, so it is swarms of tyrannids that look like tendrils. Okay, because I was going to say, if those are actual tendrils, what do they attach to? You're right. No, it's more of like, you could argue it's like a fleet. Yeah, gotcha. So with this information, Trajan Volores and, uh, high lords, particularly Lord Soler Leontis, who is kind of our main boy in this chapter, have taken to the defense of the soul system. Lord Solar, I must admit,

Leontis is shown to be quite the man in this book, or in this little chapter. He being the high commander of all Astromilitarum forces in the Samantha Solar, his insane rank, his martial intellect, his tacticians, you know, he is ready to kind of make a name for himself even more so because the last time

there was a major terror defense a bunch of corn demons arrived and he wasn't there to stop it so he's kind of like all right he's like oh I'm a make up for that and more now pretty much he he reminds me a bit

of Jace from Arcane way more intelligent than Jace because Jace is kind of a numb school sometimes but for the example you know he's on the, he's on the major council and he's going around organizing this special type of task force

called the Soul Blades. Soil is an SOL, like, you know, the SOM. Yeah, the Sondades. I like it. They're about two to three ships sized strike forces because Tiranids, while being pretty insane in lots of ways, they are slow. You're basically, if I had to describe the Tiranids, You have a house at the end of a block. And on the other side of the block, there is a tank. And the tank is moving at one-tenth of a mile of an hour. And it's going to hit your house. And it's going to crumble your whole house.

But it's going so slow. Yeah. It's going slow, but it will literally run through that house like a hot knife through butter. No resistance. But very, very slow. So you've got time to run, you can outrun it, you can outpace it, and you've got time to try and deal with it. So what he's doing is he's organizing these tiny little strike forces to go boop, boop, boop, boop, and, you know, like, kind of, like, try to, you know, try to take some chunks off that tank. Try to, try to screw with the wheels.

Try to do whatever you can. Anything to further slow it down or just put a little nix in the armor. So with Leontes's enormous retinue of Stratio's priests, adepts, and aides, he was everywhere. And then he bargained, threatened, or charmed his way through all of the high lords of Terra and the various people to get what he needed for his SoulBlades. Oh, so our boy, Soler has a little bit of the old Riz, huh? Uh, you know, considering how he looks, yeah. The dude's like the picture perfect, perfect like gruff soldier man. He's a good looking guy.

Okay. All right. Hey, good for him. He's doing what he's got to do for the preservation of the imperialium, for the preservation of mankind. Good for him. So he made his way out and got his soul blades prepped and ready. We're talking all kinds of things. A chapter master cave and strike of the ravengard.

You've got inquisitors going around. Yep, your boy. You got skills of death watch, miltarm, tempestus sions, high nobles of nighthouses, cannoneses of adeptus, c'erortes, et cetera, and set, et cetera, all moving out as these major strike forces. Even Captain General Trajan Valoros and his custodians sent out to do the harassment as well. You know it's serious if you're sending out custodians, especially like Trajan, too. Like that's a, and it is a justifiably good reason to send custodians too, because that's a lot of nits.

And we have more transmissions. If anyone can hear this, if anyone receives this message, know that we did all we could. We fought to the last soldier, the last last pack, and our faith in the God Emperor never wavered. They are breaking in and we will fight them one last time. Commend our souls to the master of. Oh, wow. And I like this one right here. swear to you, I know what I damn well saw.

Zenos aboard flying vessels, snatching up tyranids and barb nets as though they were game. I like how, no matter whatever happens, the Drukari will always find their stupid animals. Of course, of course, of course. But yes. The fourth tyrannic war has, yeah. The fourth tyrannic war has begun. Oh, boy. into the mall

we begin Lord Solar Leontes has decided his best plan is to create an anchor of various worlds the main one to surround

a specific planet known as sanctum sanctum is where the main battle force will begin everything around there who will anchor

the worlds down forge worlds triple your production you know militarum people get in there train them new soldiers just give a lasgun to that 14 year old kid we we got to go yeah you got to go and you got to go in mass numbers because it's the tyrannids like there's a lot of them coming in so yeah

you got production all hands on deck yeah production stores everything that can be moving uh i mean leontis is a heavily impressive leader this guy is going to do night houses and and like speaking to them plainly bargaining taught like and you know what what do you guys want i will make it happen we need you there's there's no no kind of i mean you know no hate to gilliman gilliman is a primark for god's sake but he did gilloman seems like he dem yeah he's gilliman seems like he demands oh yeah as opposed to as opposed to sway's yeah a primark would probably never bargain with anyone in the Imperium because they're a primark and who's going to say no to a primark.

Better yet, I don't think Gilliman has time to bargain. I think Gilliman's like, so Avedon broke the universe in half. We need to help go, go, go, as opposed to Leontas trying to take more of a deaf touch, a bit more, you know, throw that, throw that Riz out there. And honestly, you might as well barter anything you have because if you don't, like, if the knights don't show up and you lose, everything's toast anyway. So, like, sure, give them whatever they want. If they want, like, a ton of money or they want, you know, more status. Sure, give it to them.

We need you. Like, if we don't get you, all that stuff I didn't give you, doesn't matter because it's all going to get eaten. Um, emperor save us, parentheses with Riz. with Riz indeed. Also, what is Gilliman doing at the moment? I think he's dealing with the Indominious Crusade and the other chaos issues. Okay, so he literally can't

help with this fourth Tyrannic war. 90% of the time when the Tyrannids arrive, you have a time issue. Because by the time you realize they're there, they've already gotten to some critical mass. Yeah. It's like you just woke up one day and you look outside and then you see the tank and you're like, what? It's already like on your door's

It's like, no, how did I not see this? I was prepared. A ton of the worlds in this area were under all kinds of restrictions and jurisdictions. As the, you know, it was bunker down, build your trenches, pray to the God emperor and hold out sometimes. Some people evacuated. Some, they went in all kinds of craziness. There is one, though. For a while, it seemed like they were doing pretty good, holding off these two swarms.

you know, keeping the strong worlds contained. But much like most Imperium issues, it always gets worse. Of course, it became... Of course it got worse. And two, Tyrannid swarms is not bad enough. Let's add a third. Oh, no. We now get hive tendril grendelis arriving from a totally brand new side of the campaign

as a pincer move with the other two, and then immediately bucking a giant hole in all of Leontas's plans. Oh boy, that is unfortunate timing. Now, Leontes himself is a smart guy and planned for this. So he creates something called the Sanctuary Protocol, which is basically everyone hunker down,

armor up, evacuate if you can, and if you can't, Godspeed for the emperor, kill as many as you can before you die. Yeah. Keeping, make sure you... Another, another hive to show up? Yeah, he's a good tactician. Oh, wow.

Yes, very smart. Good for him. This, obviously, with the arrival of the new tendril, immediately caused mass hysteria to the worlds that were in its path, not just with the shadow in the warp, but also with just the level of power of another tyrannid fleet arriving. Yeah. I won't lie.

there is a part here that is really funny. Gdubs, Gdubs is a, is a, being a little cheeky here. Okay, a little cheeky, bricky, all right. On a, on a specific world in a called Gallospire, in the Gallospire system, there was high fratter nihilis, Nielis, I forget, said that speaking of the grendelous tendril, was considered heresy. And to prepare for its arrival would be ridiculous because the God emperor would never allow Zenos on our planet.

What? What? Really? If you think that the God emperor would ever harm you in such a way, you are speaking heretical and we will not allow it. What? This escalated tensions incredibly rapid. and would become to be known as the War of Closed Eyes as the entire planet fell under Civil War over those who deemed the alien invasion a heretical conspiracy and those who are like, no, it's not.

Oh, my God. That's so America. Oh, my, like, I, oh, that's, mm-hmm. I love this. It's called the War of Closed Eyes, too, because they just don't want to, they don't want to see it. They don't want to imagine. Of course, the Emperor won't let it here in his, us because he never lets the tyrannids eat anybody, right? We're fine. Oh, that's so stupid. Once the grendel or grendel and whatever it's called, a grendelous hive fleet arrived

or hive tendril, the spores started to get launched onto the planet and even as the spores were landing, the priesthood still declared it a heretical statement and die. And the planet

died the fastest out of all in the system. Oh, man. Yeah. As the militarim defenders were firing at the spores, they were like, it's heresy. Don't talk about it. It's harassing. Stop shooting those bugs. That's heresy. The emperor will take care.

That's, oh boy, that's, that is hilarious, but also, oof. I love when GW plays into their satire that they, uh, that they have sometimes. Like, Sometimes they still could find a good way to throw it in there. Although it sounds like even if they didn't think it was heretical, that planet was going to fall anyway. Yeah, but they felt quick. Yeah.

I mean, at least this way, it's amusing. It's a funny story to tell as they get. So a couple other things happening. This whole place is totally under siege. There's an area called the Accursed Paradise, which has. had all kinds of fancy world of fauna, much like Katachim, and the tyranids arrived on it, and all the fauna started killing them. And so they got slowed down pretty heavily over there.

In the frozen tiers section of this area, there were established a large amount of mining facilities for the League of Voton guilds in this massive asteroid belt, in which they eventually had to start fighting off the tyrannids and the Voton even allowed humans to join their fight under the fact that the humans were pissed off that the Imperium abandoned them from the Nids so kin and the clone the clones in the kin were like yeah fine whatever I guess this works yeah I mean when you're fighting the tyranids you need all the help you can get so even a a special planet that was

deemed completely off limits to enter by the Imperium centuries ago, was then reintroduced on why it's off limits as the tyrannids landed on that and enormous phalanxes of green metal men came out of the ground and started to gun them down as the, oh, Necrons. Oh, okay, so they landed on a tomb world. Yep, and then after that, an Eldar Webway gate opened, and the Eldari started fighting with the Crohn's, the humans, and the Nids in a four-way war. Oh, my God, Eldar. Why? Go home, Eldar, we don't need you here.

Things are screwed up enough as it is. Look around. Get out of here. More and more the Tyrannids arrive and sink their teeth into the fleshy underbelly of the Imperium and all those around them. Drucari catching game Guild Masters of the Leagues of Voton moving their supply and mining of rocks

The Necron Tomb Worlds and Eldar Paradise Worlds all one after the other after the other Yeah you're right this is like the Super Smash Brothers of 40K Everyone's here Everyone's fighting Like God

I Yeah you were right I thought it was just because the Leviathan box had Ultramarines and Tyrannids that that was the main thing. But no, it's literally everyone. Sheesh. Sheesh. There's a little excerpt of some space marine terminators fighting off some nids.

It's basically showing off the one in the box. Yeah, that's the picture of Shaias right there. It was rather... It was rather interesting because one of their Gravis apothecaries had taken some fancy-pancy tyranid like hive gland and the tyranids were trying to kill him very badly they were swarming them with tons and tons of bugs

but a lot of the bugs were sometimes even running past the other terminators to try to get to the apothecary with the gland with the gland so there's something going on about that okay so they haven't said what's up with the gland just that the tyranids really don't want the hume's to have it and or if they break it something bad happens happens. Yeah, it says our acquisition of the node B cerebral core certainly seems to have agitated them. I find myself the unwilling focus of their attention. It's like such monomania leaves

the faux vulnerable, brother. Ah, gratifying that... Unjustifiably in a position that I'd rather not be in. Let me point at you, present the queen. gratifying that my heighten peril provides a tactical advantage first captain But they have been I love that picture of The Ultramines fighting off the Tyrannins

Because they are literally All sides, it's Tyrannins It's tentacles, it's bugs Like you can barely see the light From the sky shining through all those bugs Like that is the most tyrannid picture I've ever seen The Ultramines,

Terminaries actually do look pretty good too, I won't lie. Yeah, they do. So finally, it's time for the big chunk. The tyranids have found their way to push past the defenders of the system and made their way to sanctum itself. There is a fleet war going on in the sky. Even the Imperial Fis phalanx is here with Tor Garadon and a retinue of Imperial. 300 imperial fists actually, all there to assist Lord Solar. But the Tyrannids in their hyper-cunning and, well, the hive mind is deemed it fit to

respawn the Swarm Lord for this fight. Oh, let's go. So Swarmie is back, or as they called it, a enormous beast with four bone swords, which we know who that is. I love the Swarm Lord. Let's go. And their tactical retinue is deemed it fit to slowly encroach upon sanctum until every side has been surrounded and then launch their attack. Because even the nids are smart sometimes.

Yep, they're going to completely surround them and then everybody just converge. And, ooh, that's a scary thought with nids, just being like, I'm just imagining like this giant bubble of nids around them, just kind of converging like the atmosphere of bugs and just, slowly vice-gripping a planet. That's scary. I don't like that. So it started off with something known as the Dorn Wall. The Dorn Wall is an asteroid belt and field surrounding sanctum that they've stationed an enormous amount of listening posts,

orbital batteries, and various other things in the asteroids to slow the nids advance. For most of the time, those four vacations were very evidently not going to stop the tyrannids advance. And so we're mainly meant to be entirely filled up with the kinds of people who would be okay with death. Penitents, penal troops, servitors, and those who swore themselves to a martyr's death for this claustrophobic kind of redemptionist fight. Yeah.

If you die, then you will be redeemed by the emperor. Yeah. Their guns fired until all ammunition ran dry. The asteroids were thrown into the tyrannids, really trying to slow the advance, despite the fact that sometimes some of the tierid ships just, oh, I don't know, ate the rock because why not? I mean, sure, it's biomass, technically.

I mean, sure, why not? You know, if you need a planet, why not eat an asteroid? Sometimes little nid chips would, like, send giant tendrils just spiking through the asteroid. Sometimes they would fill it up with toxicines and venomthropes to have spores choke the survivors inside if they didn't get already hit by explosive decompression. Some just ate the rock.

God damn shy. That is a horrifying picture. Oh, my God. Is that one of their bio ships? I'm assuming it is, right? Because, oh, my. See all the little gargoyles swimming around it that look like little, that look like flies?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Man, that, that, is that like a, is that a little alien inspiration with a little, with a little, with a little face. Mouth and mouth. Mouth and mouth. With no eyes, perhaps, perhaps. Yeah, yeah.

There's a lot of alien inspiration there. Sure. Well, there's a lot of inspiration taken for every faction, but that's neither here nor there. But for sanctum, Lord Soler Lianus prepped himself and realized something very important. the matter of morale. And so for a large, once the actual Tyrannids fully arrived, the shadow in the warp was pretty heavy, really pushing the mental strain of the defenders of sanctum.

However, he had specifically personally filmed like inspirational videos for the various groups. Like he himself was out there like, hey guys, this video is sponsored by Manscaped. I was going to say, So Solar's a content creator, huh? He's an influencer. He is a full on.

He's a full of influencer. He is influencing them to be powerful. He's influencing their morale. He's a 40K influencer. Good for him. Whether it's Ezekielarchal sermons or just a guardsman to a guardsman heart. You know, really just making sure he keep the hope up. Now, commissar bolt pistols barked a few times, but you know,

It's cool. It's cool. It's cool. Yeah. I imagine there probably would be a few times where a commasar would have to be like, are you running? Yeah, because this is,

this almost, this has to feel like an unwinnable situation for like just a lowly guards. And like they have to feel so like, oh my God, I'm dying. Get me out of here. I have to survive and, yeah.

I thoroughly like that after this, he was on the battlements of the high spire of, that they were fighting on. And even as ungodly amounts of tyrannid bioforms slammed into the void shields covering the spire on the top of the of the snow-covered mountains of sanctum, he rode on his steed from battlement to battlement, from defender to defender, aircraft gun to aircraft gun, giving exactly what they needed, arousing speech, determination, ecclesiarchal sermons. prayers to the Omnisiah, whatever they needed to keep spirits up. He and his like 300 bodyguards, tech priests, scribes and adepts that followed him on his steed went to the common man and rouse them up. Wow.

An actually good leader in 40K? What, that's the heresy? Like, geez. He's the working. He sounds like a good leader. He's a good man. He's the working man's leader. He is a, he is like, he's a guardsman at heart and he knows what it's like.

He knows how to give them what they need. And I imagine they fight hard for him because why wouldn't we? Also, you're a leader. He cares about us. Yeah, I mean, you're next to the Lord Solar. Yeah. Like, he's a high lord of terror and he's coming to talk and influence and keep the morale up of us. guardsmen? What?

Like, I can't imagine how it must feel to be a lowly guardsman. Seeing the sky. Oh, yeah, I should remind this. The Tyrannid's fleet was so thick, it could be seen from the ground. Like, if you're on the planet, you could look up and you can see the tyrannids moving in the skies. I thought you were going to say they just straight up like 300 blotted out the sun and just like it was perpetual night because there were so many nids, sunlight couldn't get through. There's a little bit of that for parts of it, yeah. But also, but it's like, you know, you look up and you see the moon.

And then like right next to it, you see the writhing mass of a moon except 50 times larger. And it's not a moon. It's just bug. Oh, yeah, that's got to be very demoralizing. Oh, God. But then after that, Mr. Lourner. Solar Leontis walks up to you and shakes your hand and is like, you've goddamn got this. Just keep doing your part, guys.

Wow. Goddam, I hear he signed a contract with Kik. No, please, don't let him go there. That's a bad place. They gave him $100 million to do his sermons on Kik. Imagine getting paid $100 million and you're not even exclusive. I can't. You're given LeBron his full salary to play on your team sometimes.

Sometimes. Every now and then you play for us. Jeez. But anyway, with the rousing speech and the defenders doing a surprisingly good job at holding everything off, there arrived three new tyrannid bioforms. No way. These are known as the Norn emissaries. And they slowly, with a dancer's grace,

slide their way through the various tyrannid hordes, skulking and stalking. And I'm talking like these things look like they're going to have a new model. They're not a model in the game yet, but I think they're going to add it. Oh, yeah? They're gigantic. But they move lithe.

One of them squished its mass down into an elevator shaft and climbed up. Oh, no, that's the, that's the Nero tyrant, shy. Oh, man, are we going to talk about them because they look so cool? There's just giant, scary brain bugs that murder your minds. they kind of look like Genova from Final Fantasy 7. Sorry to be a dork, but they kind of do. I actually know, I get that reference, actually. Yes.

I didn't realize you played. I played the remake. Oh, oh, that's right. We've had a conversation about this. Yeah, okay, gotcha. No, this is the image they have in the book about it. Whoa. Wow, that is.

Think about how big a custodian is. Is that just a custodian or is that a named one? That's Trajan Valoris. That's the guy. I was going to say, if they've got an unhelmeted custodian, it's got to be a pretty important one. And actually, I kind of forgot that Trajan was here. But yeah, that's a big scary bug.

So one of the Nort emissaries found its way to somehow fit itself in an elevator shaft. And it crawled up for hours upon hours and hours. it burst into the high sanctum and killed a whole lot of navigation and relay people. Oh, that's bad. It specifically went for that. The other non-animacy snuck its way down into the gene seed vaults of the Astardis chapter there

in which it fought like 10 dreadnots and killed most to all of them before being brought down. by the chapter master and its various groups down below. Whoa, one of these things killed ten dreadnots? A lot of dreadnots. It was a score of White Templars dreadnots. Maybe like five or six.

It's still a lot. That's a ton. Just beating one dreadnought is kind of a feat, but what? Yep. It says here, almost all of the ancient warriors were slain. And that's a heavy blow. To lose that many dreadnots,

that is a serious, I mean, it's better than losing the gene seat, I guess. But, oh. The, um, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

fiend of hag rift. Oh, my God. So this is, uh, are not only smart, they are brutal in a fight. This seems to, be a new Tyrannid bioform that's not technically new from a lore perspective. The way it's written, it sounds like these things who have been around. Um, but, but, the Imperium has seen them. No,

no, it doesn't seem that way either. It's written as if they've seen them before. But for us as viewers, as new people, we have not. You and I don't, have never seen these things before. Um, but they appear to be enormous bugs that are like a hybrid between a type of. Titan-sized bug and like just a big bug, like a middle ground between the two of them, that are shockingly lithe and incredibly intelligent. This is interesting. You want to read what Shai says? Sure.

Also, Norn queens are the makers of tyranids. They never take the battlefield, but they are basically living bioengineering chambers of tyranids that design, adapt, and birth tyrannid bioforms. Every tyranton that exists is linked to Norn. queens. So their emissaries are probably a big deal. Ah. So these are emissaries of the thing that literally makes every tyrannid. No wonder they're so cunning, smart, and lithe, but also big.

So these are essentially the norns are to the tyrannids, what the custodians are to the Imperium. I might even argue that what the primarks are to the Imperium. and the queens are like the emperors. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's the better one, especially with how hard these few norns have gone with killing dread.

Yeah, they might be more, yeah, closer to primarks. Oh, you, you, so the third one, scaled the mountain, taking also hours to get up the mountain, and then contoured itself into a tiny little hole on the side of the mountain and waited. And then Lord Solar Leontes strode his way past the battlements

and the Norn's black eyes stayed fixed on him until the perfect time in which it sprung out and jumped flying in the air directly upon the Lord Solar. But before it could land on him, a streak of missiles from a golden gunship hits it in the side and launches it across.

where it immediately slams and kills like 50 of his bodyguards and, um, and various aides and adeps. He, uh, he, I was worried for solar for there a little bit, but good,

good, good, good, good. He was thrown off of his horse, uh, and landed on the, on the ground. Uh, as the golden gunship jumps,

uh, flies off a whole bunch of custodians are unlaunched or unleashed from the gunship and land onto the ground, including Captain General Trajan Valores. That picture is what. happens next. That picture. Gotcha, got you, got you. The emissary immediately gets up, views the various custodians, and fix his eyes again on the Lord's solar, immediately jumping to pounce on him again, but is then forced off by a hail of bolt-bolter fire from the various

axes and spears of the Stodys. I was going to say, imagine the gall to be surrounded by custodians and be like, nah, I'm going to go after solar. Damn. Well, it's interesting because this Norn emissary looks at Captain General Tracian Valoros and the custodians and says, no, the more important target is this little guy here. Yeah. Which is not like it being stupid. It's it being probably smarter.

Yeah, it's probably smart because it realizes that that's the higher priority target. because he's the one that's like fortifying the defenses and keeping the morale up. And if they lose him, it's all over for their defenses. Well, when you think about it, it climbed that mountain and waited to pounce specifically. Specifically. Yeah, that's true. So it's, it's, this emissary knows that its priority target is something it hasn't even seen yet. Wow. It knows it's the general.

It's just so crazy to think about a tyrantid that has that level of planning and like foresight and thinking. Because like normally it's just, oh, it's a high fleet that's just going to overrun you, period. Do they need strategy? Not really, because they have just overwhelming numbers. And like to know that there are tyrannids that can plot and have higher level intelligence like that is like they needed the extra help, right? So interesting, the Norn emissary then jumps and rips out all the people in the cockpit of the golden gunship, tearing it apart and sending it spiraling to the ground. In which he then, after attempting to go for Leontis, Leontes, was bleeding badly from a scalp wound with blood running down his face. And I kind of like this

When the emissary tried to jump on him He kind of like reached for his blade But he kind of fumbled it Like he really couldn't grab it Because of his head wound Yeah yeah And it's just I don't know It's kind of cool

To see him like Screw up You know Like he was Completely perfect Whatever Yeah like he's a normal guy Right

So him just kind of fumbling his blade is I don't know It kind of gives him a bit more character It's so relatable. But from here on out was the giant fight between the custodians and the emissary. The poor aides that were not fast enough to get out of the way were then shoulder-checked by custodians as they ran through them to attack the beast. As it was flying and smashing and snatching each other, a lot of custodians died. Yeah, I mean, the way these are.

emissary sound, it does not shock me that a bunch of custodians are getting absolutely decked. I was impressed. One was grabbed with its arm, ripped from its body and then thrown across. One had the tail coil around his neck and break it.

One got kicked by the emissary in the head so hard, his head flew across the battlement and his body just spurted blood before toppling over. Oh my God. These emissaries are no Joe, God damn.

It killed like, it killed like six, which is insane for custodians. Yeah. In lore six custodian kills is massive. Yeah. It tore them apart this thing. Damn. I'm assuming that, problem. I'm assuming this thing is going to basically be like running a prime mark in your, in your army.

Like this is the, this is the nid primar. mark, you know? Mm-hmm. It has, like, the way these things are going, like, just slicing through dreadnots and slicing through custodians, that's Primark level, right? These have got to be, like, these special ones where if you're a Nid player, you can run maybe one. So, after this, even during its fight with custodians, even as it attacks the custodians,

it still swings at Leontas. It still makes attacks. But at this point, one time it even tried to just bite him in half, but this time he regained his composure and was able to like to jump back far enough away to not get killed. And Valoris then at a very important moment, swung his axe and embedded itself with the side of its skull, smashing it to the ground. And as it fell, it crushed more of Leontas's AIDS. Oh, no.

Which is always really funny. It's just like little people getting it. getting smashed on every so often. His poor bodyguards and AIDS are just kidding. But the remaining custodians hacked away at it and eventually with enough of it,

enough smashes and enough cracks and crumbles, it did fall to the ground, spitting out I-Corps and blood and then ceased moving. Sheesh. Sheesh! Those are a problem. Those are a,

a massive problem. I'm assuming there aren't a ton of norns in existence because that would be just too much. But oh my God. It's pretty nasty. Yep, agreed. I love them though. I love that. I love that shit. But after that, the astrophatic choirs call for AIDS and stuff, the Soul Blades that were sent out all finally ended up returning. to the system, slowing the tiernid advance and buying a large amount of time for the defenders, the imperial fists,

known quite well for their defense, using their phalanx pushed back upon the nids. And for now, it appears that we have successfully defended sanctum for a period of time, a decent period of time to keep ourselves back for a little longer. And that's kind of where it ends.

I am actually shocked that the defense was successful. With how many tyrannids it sounded like were swarming this area, the fact that they eventually pushed them back is crazy. Like I thought it was going to end with like solar having to just retreat and be like, well, we held them off a little bit, but that area is... Well, remember, they are like a stalemate now. Like they're holding, but it's not like they've pushed them back. They are holding.

Yeah, but even just holding them off with the numbers the nits have is kind of nuts. You know, I will say that it is kind of funny to think that kind of nuts is, um, kind of nuts is not all of them dying. Well, I mean, like you said, like there, there was like, what, a moon-sized battlement of tyrannism. just looming and you're telling me you're putting that in a stalemate? Well, yeah,

they have a lot of guns. True, but... Also, don't forget they have their own moon. The phalanx is there. True enough, the phalanx does show up and the phalanx is planet-sized, I suppose, isn't it? That's okay.

It's pretty big. That's what she said. Wow. One would argue that this is barely even an imperial victory. It's a stalemate after they've lost how many worlds? Oh, well, I guess that's true. Good guys, we did it.

We held them off of a world. Sergeant, what about the other 70? Shut up. Don't worry about them. One of those idiot Ecclesiarchy guys said that they were heresy. Yeah. Come. Well, we only lost 70.

Ah, it's fine. We've got 999,950 more to go. We're good. We stopped them. That's all the castles. I guess not really a victory is it after all. Okay. He got me.

However, it does end with an excerpt from Shadow Captain Garon. Shadow captains are the names of the Ravenguard ones. He went, a person went to him and said, it is best you see for yourself, Captain. I have not the words. The moment Garron stepped onto the bridge, he sensed the strategic equation altering about him. The flight and their part in it had changed.

He felt it in the tense quiet, saw in the wide-eyed focus of bridge officers that failed to conceal the fear that they were suppressing. The shadow captain did not yet know what had occurred, but he suspected that by the time he did he would be ordering Olga. It's like a, they don't worry about it, awakened after all.

The image was grainy, a deep void capture, direct from the acid scorched prow of the pinion blade. Garron's post-human cerebrum swiftly accounted for static warping and image degradation. He identified Stangelaide's distant star, several of its worlds, long overrun by rapacious Zenos, and the dark clouds against the star field that were the nearest enemy fleet swarms. He became very still as he registered something else, just off-scent. center of the image, something that at first his mind had insisted on categorizing as a visual artifact or feed error. It was surely too large to be a tyrannid biovessel by an almost absurd degree. Yet there was no moon in that region of the void. Garron's idetic memory assured him of that.

He gazed at the colossal shape, and as he did so, he began to discern details and hints, of squirming biological motion that disturbed him on even a primal level. Oh, no. That is not natural to this system, he said. Oh, no. It is not, Shadow Captain, almost managing to keep the tremor from his voice, nor is it anything even our most advanced augurs can make sense of. The machine spirits are driven close to madness by the mere sight of it.

That is a tyrannated nature. That is, the Tyrida nature is beyond doubt, my lord, but the sheer scale of that thing. So, the Tyrannids have a death star. Yeah, the Tyrannids have a death star. And we, and do we, we don't even know what it does. It's just this giant looming, squirming, death star mass of Tyrannid. It is a flesh planet. And it is going somewhere.

Oh, no. I hate it. but I'm so curious too. I want to know what this like fleshy tyrant-planet biomass is and what it does. Oh, that's so gross, but so great. I love it.

I am literally imagining a gigantic ball of tentacles and mouths that just go and eat stuff. I'm literally imagining the Leviathan. Yeah, tyrannid ball that has a giant mouth that literally eats it. Like it goes unicron and just the tendrils just open up and there's just fangs and claws and teeth in there and er. So that's where we end.

It is the, it's like the first book of the, it was about the same length of an arcs of omen book. It's, you know, it's the first one. Hmm. I mean, I, sounds pretty interesting. Sounds pretty dope, honestly. It sounds, I like it and I want to know what happens next. So, man, GW's been doing good with these books lately. Mm-hmm.

So the fourth tyrannic war is here. Defense is beginning, and we've got problems. You're big problems, especially with the norns involved, with the tentacle planet. Oof. It's the time, all right. I would not want to be in the Imperium right now. Neither would I. Or ever, really, I suppose.

Well, that's that. Buy our new poster. Have fun. It's a problem. And we'll see you next time to see how though if we get out of this one.