Adeptus Ridiculous - PENAL LEGIONS: Scum Of The Galaxy | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousA Penal Legion, one of the Legions Penetante, as they are known in Imperial High Gothic, are drawn from Astra Militarum and Planetary Defence Force troops who have committed capital crimes, and had their sentences commuted to life service.In a desperate universe justice is often harsh and instant, with little consideration given to miscreants and misfits. In the struggle for survival there is no room for individuals who transgress the rigid structures of Imperial society. Such people face servitude for life in the Penal Legions.There are a great many capital crimes in Imperial Law, so the supply of potential troops for the Penal Legions is never-ending. The Legions are home to killers and psychopaths, to fraudsters and cheats, and to the insane and the fanatic. Pick-pockets and petty thieves rub shoulders with brutal murderers, cackling madmen, and religious zealots.Support the show

everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamante's, his name is Bricky, and you know why you're here. But before we get into that, if you enjoyed today's episode and maybe you want to support the podcast, head over to patreon.com slash adeptus Ridiculous where you can get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen, $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in a lovely digital format. Also, don't forget that Shy does do sort of Patreon short videos on some cool Warhammer topics. If you've been keeping track with the YouTube, you just saw a compilation of the ones that used to be exclusive,

but are now available. You should check it out. They're great. Shai's great. Patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous. Bricky, how's life? Pretty good, actually, man. It was a solid weekend.

We had a good time. We did the Sageam Slam. We got fourth. I did quite well. I was very happy about that. Captain Airthrow. The three, three, no, that's not three jabs of heavenly fortune. It's an unc bricky.

Many blessings upon you, Airthro. Listen, I showed up late. Please tell me the whole no mind mantra was from Last Samurai. It was from Last Samurai. Let's go. I was like, isn't the Tom Cursing with too many minds? Mind the sword. Mind the crowd.

too many mind. No mind. No mind. Brilliant. No mind. I love that quote so much because immediately after that he gets his ass kicked. Yeah, but he, but he stops being like all regal and proper and he stops worrying about his footwork.

And he's just, he's like, I'm going to grab you by the legs and take you down. I'm going to fight dirty. I'm just doing it to win it, baby. What the crowd thinks doesn't matter. It's, it's, it's great. No mind. No mind. No mind.

But no, it was good. It was a solid time. Also, to our fans, of course, should you be interested in any merchandise from AdRick, you can check it out in the description at Orkidate.com. Great yourself some cool stuff. Dice, hoodies, objective markers, desk mats, posters, all the kind of great stuff. Not kind of great stuff, great stuff. I'm just like all the kind of stuff. Absolutely.

It's good stuff. What's up, Shai? What can I do for you? The fans yearn for a shy plush. You know what? I was kind of considering a little plush of all of us in a way. The R&D that those things take is quite a while. But I think we might consider this.

I think we may have some plans in the future. Yeah, I was unaware you could make plushes. I mean, obviously plushes are a thing that are makeable by companies. I just didn't realize you had the equipment for it. Oh, I certainly do not have the equipment for it. I can't find a plushy maker in the United States state of my life. But, you know, I can still do them. Sure, sure.

Like you could, okay, okay, cool, cool. Hey, awesome. That's, that's good news. We will, Mark, this is good news. We can finally be bees. Not the bees. Not the bees. Not the bees.

We can be good news. Anyway, are you ready for your quote? Am I ever truly ready for my quote, Ricky? I mean, well, mentally, ready, spiritually, morally? I'm ready to give it a shot. All right, all right. You are all here because you are scum, but you're the God emperor scum. You have skills that are useful to him, and whether you wish it or not, they will be made use of.

Oh, boy, so this has got to either be like a commissar talking to his regiment of guardsmen. Um, honestly, I think, I think I'm just going to, instead of trying to overthink it, I'm just going to go with my gut and just say, yep, it's a commissar talking to the guard. This is some sort of guard shenanigans. Maybe it's a cool guard regiment. It could be like engineers or something too or like a common peasant worker people in like a factorium. But I'm just going to go with it's a commissar talking to the guard. It is a guard related episode. Cool guard regiment thing that maybe you want to talk about. What percentage do we give him shy? Like 40%? Like 45%? Oh, we're just doing yes or no. We're just doing wins or loses? I mean, if we're just doing...

If it's 40%, that's a loss then, unfortunately. It's got to be over 50% for me to get the dub. I might have to give you a loss on that one. You're on the right track. Guard are related. But no, this is a, this scum, the God Emperor's scum. This was a quote referred to by a current. Colonel Schaefer, commander of the 13th Penal Legion.

We are discussing penal legions today. Of course the Imperium would have penal legions. Because why wouldn't you just throw your prisoners at a war problem? I mean, throwing your prisoners in all forms of problems is actually really great. Yeah, true, because they're prisoners. Well, in the Imperium, it gets a little dicey because who knows why you're a or you might have just whispered a bad word about the emperor. And they were like, lock him up, put him in the penal legion and servitorize his children.

And, you know, so, but yeah, I, yeah. Yeah. The alternate quote is, uh, you like chemdags, but, uh, chemdags is a different part we'll get to later. But yeah, penal legions and also two notable penal legions to kind of go along with it. But, uh, yes, the, um, general guard, quote, unquote, made. by criminals, also known as Australia. Ozy, Ozy, Ozy. Hell yeah. But, so yeah, today we're going to do in the Penal Legions.

It's a very simple one, but it's quite fun. Penal planets, I'm sure that you know, exist in Warhammer as well. They often were prominent in the first edition of the game way back when, but they were very much an 80s take on the concept, basically all just like very, very, versions of escape from New York, but in space, which, you know, of course it was. But, uh, we read a book where Abadon

took over a penal planet and turned them very easily against the Imperium, right? That will be, in fact, a soul hunter, the first book of the Night Lord's trilogy. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That is indeed the one.

It is, uh, there's also some of that in the Carcarydon stuff. But obviously as 40K has progressed, the idea of the Imperium, how it handles those deemed unfortunate not to die of a quick death has changed. So obviously, we'll be talking a lot about the penal legions in 40K. We'll get to the core of what a penal world is, how you join a penal legion, and the two most notable being the chem dogs and the last chancers. So how to join a penal legion, do quime. Do quime. Just do a way to quime. Now, if you, for example, have been sentenced to a penal planet, well, so obviously we talked about how we deliver the law and justice in the Imperium.

Have you played the new arbitrator in Dark Tide? I have. Love him. Haven't played a ton of it? I think I'm only at like level 10. Oh, it feels so good. How's the voices? Do they do they do as good as a job as the other dark-tied characters?

You know, I'm not sure because you were like, oh, how's the voice? And I was like, I'm trying to think of a quote. And I'm just like, I don't actually remember a ton of like what they scream during combat. Well, that's all right. It happens. The quote's that I remember the most are the ones where the guardsmen shout really loudly. But I'm glad that the evil male arbitrator who's just Judge Dread is good enough. for me. So obviously

in, obviously, Warhammer, as the quote said, there are some skills that are useful and they will be made use of whether you wish it or not. Some people are, of course, exceptionally useless and they can be really good corpse starch. Some will have the lovely life of, hi, I'm a door automator

now as a servitor. And some who are very able-bodied will be useful to the Imperium if they are kept alive. Now, obviously, if the infrastructure exist. Some planets will have their own prisons and will have systems in place to make usage out of their prisoners. But that's actually a bit of a rarity. It's a very big liability when you think about it. Like you don't really want the person who committed a crime to waste space on your planet,

especially if they gain traction as some kind of like martyr, which could definitely happen. Yeah, definitely don't want that. So if you're not working for the planet, you're in a sense, working against the planet. So instead of having a lot of jails and prisons on a planet outside of, you know, the main area that the Arbis are in, I don't know why I have a hard time remembering the name of it. We just talked about, like the big compound or whatever it's called. I want to say panopticon, but that's not correct. The precinct, the precinct fortress. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. So instead, they basically just go ahead and send you off to a, a penal world because having a dangerous prisoner on their planet when you can send them to a planet full of dangerous prisoners is substantially easier. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Might as well just have all the criminals blocked up on one place because even if, say,

worst case scenario happens and they start a riot, it's like, well, shoot, we lost a penal planet. Whatever. What are they going to do on the penal planet? Just all have a happy, rebellious time. Like, okay, whatever. Worst case scenario, we just, you know, orbital bombard the thing and nothing of value is lost anyway. I mean, pretty much. Also, there are other things keeping it much easier.

So a penal world, of course, has been part of human history in 40K all the way since back during the dark age, because they did have planet-wide prisons back them. And we know, or it's accepted, that the ogren are a mutated version of humanity that were abandoned on these prison planets. And of course, over time and things, there was their general harshness and make the gravity and made them big and chunky and so on. Now, penal worlds in the current time are very similar. They're very harsh and inhospitable planets and are generally a one-way stop. Sometimes they're uninhabited death worlds that are repurposed.

Other times, they're a world that has terraformed specifically to be a penal world. And a penal world are sometimes, or a penal world is sometimes what a planet will become if they fail. fail to keep up with their tithe. So, I mean, if you don't pay the tax man, you're considered a criminal in the eyes of the Imperium. And so if your planet's particularly bad, they might designate your planet as a penal world instead. If you were terraforming a planet specifically to be a prison world, would you give it like a really shitty climate, like a really hot climate just because like, well, it's going to be a prison.

We should make this as uncomfortable for these bastards as we can. I think it's less uncomfortable, more so just a really good atmosphere to make it easier and like just make it barely functional for everybody. Yeah, for sure. You wouldn't want it to have any like usable resources. Like, yeah. But so obviously, you know, if you are designated as a penal world, you can serve as a prison for a couple of nearby sectors. And obviously more densely populated areas will mean more penal worlds or large. larger frequency.

For the most part, people don't really much know or care about penal worlds. They just know prisoners go there, drop them off, and leave. Sure. Now, for those that are on the penal world, they are often considered that servitorization or execution would, in fact, be the luckier option. And they were dealt the worst hand of the three. that the most common penal world comes in the form of a mining gulag quote for dk think of the ice planet rurapenta from star trek six the undiscovered country you know i hate

that i was already thinking of ruripente from star trek six oh you even corrected me on the pronunciation too yeah i sure did i'm sorry i had i didn't i didn't want to specifically say i was like, I'm just going to say it right. I'm not going to say he was wrong because it's a silly Trekkie thing. There's no way you could know how to say it unless you've seen the movie. But yeah, it is essentially where Klingon send their lifelong prisoners. And it's like, yeah, there's, there's no chains, no doors. But if you go outside the mining gulag, it is so cold, you will die like that immediately.

They bring out one guy and he like freezes in less than a minute. and he's just frozen and they're like, yep, that's what happens if you escape. So good luck, Chuck. That was kind of the same vibe with purgatory, the space prison in Mass Effect 2 where you get Jack, you know, it's like, oh, where are you going to leave? You're in space, idiot. Where are you going to go? Now, yeah, love Jack.

Obviously, you know, Rorapenthe, as you call it, is like the subtle version of this type of thing. Clearly, it's far, far worse in the world of 40K, because of course it is. Now, the prisoners' lives are heavily regimented and regulated,

because of course they are. And the general title of planetary governor of a penal world is actually replaced by the title of warden. Because of course. Because of course, it's a prison planet, sure.

So instead of planetary governor, you are the warden of the penal world and you have absolute control over the population. And the warden will employ the use of anything possible to ensure that the order is kept, like sentry turrets, combat servitors, roll out the Arbidis, whatever you have to do.

The prisoners of a penal world are often so horrendously overworked that they actually simply lack the energy to revolt, very much to the delight of the warden, because when a planetary incident happens on a penal world, the imperial concern is so low. Like, oh, God, help us. Everyone is revolting. or they've gotten access to the weapon storage,

we have got issues on this penal world, and the Imperial will be like, yeah, sucks, man. We've got like 14 invasions of other shit going on, like handle it. So overworking the prisoners to near death is very helpful for stopping that. For sure. You know, when you said combat servers,

I was thinking, because Shai was mentioning something before about like, oh, yeah, and like the preferred thing is servitorizing him. Is there a reason that, like, if you're, if you're like, oh, yeah, you're going to go to a penal world, that's where you're going to spend it. Is there a reason they don't just servitorize like everybody so that there's literally no chance of a revolt? Or is it because sometimes you actually need like a fully breathing thinking person for this kind of labor?

So servitors are expensive. Ah. Well, sorry. Let me a phrase it. They're not expensive, but they do cost money. Like you need, you need an ad mech. You need some kind of mechanicus people to do the process, make the process, get everything rolling, add all the wires

and things in the brain do the lobotomy. Like, a regular flesh and blood breathing human is the cheapest thing the Imperium has. That is true. That is true. It's, it's cheap.

You don't have to do anything to it. And it's just, I don't know. I guess I was just thinking, like, they have, like, one story was that they have, like, these big factories where it's just like, they're just rolling them through. Like, they just got this horrific assembly line. And it's just like,

oh, why don't they just do that with every prisoner? But I guess if you can not spend money and not spend resources and still have that prisoner work itself to death, you might as well, right? Yeah. I mean, I hate to like be really dark and dower with this kind of thing. But you look in the times of, yeah, but I mean, like in a real life, like you look at places like, like, like, Docao and like Auschwitz. And like, yeah.

If all you have to do is feed the person, you know, like you can, you know, it's extremely low maintenance and cheap outside of guards, right? And in the world of Warhammer, where clearly a lot of things like Soviet gulags and Holocaust stuff is very prominent in the visual aspects of Warhammer, you know, you can imagine the concept of the penal world and what those. conditions would look like. Yeah. You're not great. Not poggers, dude. No, this is definitely not. No, no.

I mean, it's penal worlds. It's, uh, yeah. So I got you. I got you. Um, now obviously because of the, what the fuck is that shy? Is that actually from a, uh, Buppet movie? What is that?

I, what's mini me doing there? I don't think that's, I think that's a comedian Actually I want to say I don't know But it's apparently that's from Muppets Most Wanted Isn't that the

Isn't that the jackass guy on the bottom left I can't quite tell to be honest with you You know what? I just have like an insane The dude on the far right Looks like Harry de Blois He does And the guy next to him

Is that? Is that Danny Trejo? Danny Trejo, I think it is. Shai, you've done something quite frightening with this image you've created. Kermit is the least interesting part of this. The least interesting. Wow. That's so funny.

Anyway, tangent. Obviously, due to their structure, the penal worlds can't really provide a normal tithe to the Imperium. And the Imperium will obviously prioritize a planet that has a larger tithe compared to one that doesn't. Um, though their exports are also limited. Prisoners are expected to work and extract as much useful stuff as they can while they're not in total isolation, which then wears them down to the bone, uh, which will then harden them clearly if they end up being hardened in that way. Uh, you know, like very, like most high intensity prisons, gangs will eventually form and

there will become a hierarchy within the prisoners and prisons as well. These hierarchies are of course very closely monitored by the warden for two main reasons. One, stuffing out insurrection and two, possible recruitment for the Penal Legion itself, which then obviously brings us to Penal Legions. So Penal Legion recruitment is a bit strange. It depends on what kind of world you have, as they can very much see themselves being forcefully conscripted or see themselves as a possible way to redeem yourself in the emperor's eyes, which helps a lot more.

Yeah, definitely. Is this a situation where if you serve well enough in the Pina Legion, you can like literally fight for your freedom? Or is it just like, no, man, you're probably going to die. And even if you do really well, you're going back to prison. We will get to that. Okay, doke. Now, obviously you might ask difference between a guardsman and a penal legionary.

As both soldiers, the main difference is that if you had to use a particular word for it, you can say that guardsmen are expendable and penal legionaries are disposable. If the expectancy of a guardsman is 15 hours, a penal legionary is substantially lower and most will not be expected to survive their first encounter. Just straight up. That's fair. Yeah. I'm also assuming that Penal legions are not given great, like, equipment, because why would they be?

They're a bunch of prisoners. Like, they probably get, yeah, they might get, like, some malfunctioning guns, no armor, if any, and just thrown in. I mean, that might be the, a little bit, like, too much stuff. Oh, wow. So the members of the Penal Legion will have their head shaved upon joining. they are tattooed with the insignia of their unit, and they are also given a non-removable collar. Can you guess what's in the collar?

A bomb. A bomb! Now, the trigger of the bomb collar is held by a penal custodium, which is either a commissar or often a member of the Mechanicum, like an engineer, and it will detonate if they have any sense of hesitation or insupport a nation, but it detonates in a weird inward trajectory. So he won't blow the absolute crap out of his neighbor. Oh, man.

So it's like, oh, that's interesting. That's an interesting bomb that it goes inward instead of outward. So it's not, it's only devastating to the jerk that decided to not obey, which was going to be another question that I had. It's like, well, with penal agents, how you get everybody and not just turn on the commissar and go rogue? And it's like, well, bomb collar.

Yeah, bomb. You need this bomb. Keep them safe by bomb. Now, sometimes the detonation of the collar is often used to get the attention of other members of the legions so that they can clearly be shown this is what's going to happen to you. For sure. Yep. Soy boy Imperium of Man, forcefully putting collars on their soldiers while the Helldivers put their suicide vest on for the glory of Super Earth. I mean, I still need to play Hell Divers.

I haven't played since the new updates. There's some good ones. The updates have been peak. Now, serving in a Penal Legion is a life sentence, of course. There's no retirement, no option to go back to the penal world, and no advancement in any kind of rank. You are the most cannon fodder of Guard cannon fodder. I do not think that there is a more cannon fodder thing than being a penal legionary. Often, the Penal Legion is actually not a regiment in itself.

It is assigned to a regiment of guardsmen as a tool to be utilized by that regiment. So, for example, if like the 512 Cadians are on a planet, they might be given three battalions of penal legionnaires to use how they see fit. Is this place minefielded? Send the Legionnaires in. draw distance of their guns. Very iron warriors style. Yeah, or like use them as a distraction so that they can do like a flank or something.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Now, that's what you'd expect from a Penal Legion. It is, very much so. Now, obviously, those kinds of like environmental, traversal, things like that, trenches, that's the full disposability of it all. Now, the bomb caller is a pretty good motivator, but sometimes they're also presented liquid courage. It's a thing called friends on.

Friends on is a lot like psycho in Fallout. Reckless, less afraid to face inevitable death, and, you know, frenzy. Okay, okay. Drugs. Drugs. Command is pretty aggressive, aggressive on. Penal Legions, they have a aggressive oversight because there's not this usual kind of rank in leadership.

And because even though they are drugged up and have a bomb strapped to them, they're still kind of a flight risk. So it's good to be a little aggressive with your oversight. Yeah, definitely. Has there ever been a Penal Legion that has successfully managed to like, well, I guess not, because you said it was a, who has the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, You said it was like a custodian or something. No, God, not custodian.

A commissar or like an engine seer. Oh, oh, okay. I don't know why I thought custodian. I don't know why I thought I heard that. But has there ever been a case where they successfully, like, rebelled and, like, killed the commissar, took the thing and were able to take the collars off? I don't know.

It's not in the notes that I was given from Possum, so I'm not sure. If it's happened, it's probably happened, like, one time in, like, a book, 50 years ago or something. I mean, yeah, I could see it happening. in a random book like that was made in 2005, yes.

Yeah, yeah. But I can't think of one right now. Maybe it happened like a Gonsko's book or something. I don't know. Maybe, but probably not a regular occurrence, if ever. Now,

normally a Penal Legion squad is under the direct command of an arbitrator. But if not, then you might find them under the command of a particularly ruthless commissar that is trying to rise ranks, or one that was a little too trigger happy with a prior guard regiment. You know how there's the meme version of commissars that are like someone looked at them funny and they shoot them in the head? Yep.

That is true in a penal legion. If you, like, not every inquisitor is like inquisitor cryptman, but inquisitor crimpment is inquisitor crimpment. These commissars that are like, look at you funny, bang, shaw in the head, that is the commissar you find in a penal legion, not a normal commissar. I was going to say If you are put in charge Of leading a Penal Legion I would imagine as a commissar

You probably goofed Like you probably did something That you weren't supposed to And like you said Little too trigger happy Killed a few too many Guard that shouldn't have died And it's like yeah

Send that fool to the Penal Legion Let him deal with that nonsense And if he kills too many of them Oh no we lost a couple prisoners Yeah oh well who cares Now when it comes to their weapons that Pina legions tend to be equipped with. The answer is almost nothing.

You get, I mean, Shia put it perfectly. Here is one Las gun with two charge packs for 10 of you. When your buddy dies, pick his gun up. Full stop, Soviet Red Army, World War II era type stuff, right? Yeah. Here's a bunch of guns to share among all of you, take it off of your dead buddy. If it's not that, they are given shovels this time, like actually. Oh.

And not the meme? So they're Kriegsmen. God damn you. Sorry, couldn't help it. God damn you. You said the magic word and I, my, my, my body reacted the way it reacted. I'm sorry. You do it because you know I hate it.

I sure should do. I say it was such pride. If anyone ever is like, yeah, I don't really like Adric. they keep repeating dead memes like creak shovels i'm gonna like i'm gonna look at you with like a burning glare what's that what's that meme where stewie looks at brian very slowly in his head turns like 90 degrees i don't even remember what episode or what he said but yes i know the meme but anyway yes so often it's some kind of like lascarbine or something very quickly depleted not particularly great improvised weapons shivs hammers so on and so

forth. One other thing that's also kind of interesting is that the Penal Legion often has a lot of mutants, things like beastmen and stuff, weird genetic modifications, because being a mutant is a crime. Unless you're sanguineous. That's the God Emperor's creations, bro. Why is the God Emperor making mutants, brother? Anyway, go ahead. It's like you say sanguineous. Like not every Primarch is a test tube.

baby of crazy shit. That's true. It's just he's the only one that has wings. And I, hey, this is coming from someone that loves sanguineas and the, you know. I mean,

when you think about it, when you think about space marines are all just barely human, mutated, disgusting abominations. Me, you playing sisters of battle. But anything, all that to be said,

obviously in Warhammer, Having an old guardsman is a very rare feat and someone to be genuinely feared. Oh, yeah. Now, to be an old guardsman is crazy. To be an old penal legionary is nigh impossible. But it doesn't mean they aren't around. I was going to say that happens? Occasionally, it does.

I mean, the world is so vast, right? Everything happens at least once. True, true. Millions of planets. It's got to happen eventually, right? Statistically. Sometimes an inquisitor or just the inquisition in general might come looking. They might come around and find those really veteran people and kind of offer them a little bit of a chance and be like, all right, here's this insanely hardened peneligionary kind of guy who has survived as many battles.

Something is obviously decent here. Kind of similar to what happens in Dark Tide. Yeah, except you're not really like a veteran. you're just kind of like a dude who got, you know, you're just like a prisoner at the time because you're a rival rouser or whatever happened. But you do survive a bad situation in that. It's not quite the same as surviving a long time

as a penal legionaire though, right? No, God no. But obviously, like, these veterans can in a sense be shown such a degree of honor on the battlefield that they can be redeemed in the eyes of the Imperium. and by being redeemed in the eyes of the emperor, they might be given the chance of a lifetime, which is actually joining the Imperial Guard,

which is pretty funny to say out loud, right? That's like, ah, yes, you've gained the honor after surviving millions of battles as a penal legionaire now. You get to be the guard, and we're still going to throw you at the enemy with little regard for human safety. Like, great. My situation is improved.

I get my own gun now. I mean, I feel like the best case scenario would be an inquisitor if someone takes notice of you and brings you to their retinue or like a rogue traitor. But on the other end of the spectrum, there are Penal Legion members who view themselves totally unredeemable, who have done the worst things they possibly could in life. And so they wish to repent by being in a different kind of danger in the Penal Legion, which, which is a human bomb. That's the, is that the technical term that they use? I mean, look, it says human bomb. Oh my God, there's, yep, that, that just says human bomb.

There is no remote trigger. They have an explosive bomb harness. They are blessed by a confessor. They are literally a ticking time bomb, and they run at a full sprint to be forgiven by the emperor upon death. Oh, boy. That's, that's, that's, that's pretty heavy. Yep. I, as sure I said, during the Battle of Cadia, there was a, a penal legionary wrapped himself in

melta bombs and blew up a titan to clear a road for creed. Because sometimes the only thing more powerful than someone that kills a titan is a dude strapped with bombs going to kill a titan. I mean, that, for the Imperium, it's like, wow, what a great trade. Right? We lost one penal, legionaire, huge. human bomb and he took out a titan. The, the, that's a good trade.

The melta bombs are substantially more expensive than the penal legionary that ran with them. Oh, hell yeah. Like, that's, if you can get one that's willing to do that, man. And they start running up and they start yelling, our lives for Kane. And then I get all excited because of, uh, you know, Good old command and conquer. Oh, yes, of course. The Legionnaire is forgiven and the sinner's soul is free to join the Emperor in peace.

So while we're in like a great moon, let's talk about the planet of Salvar. Sorry, Savilar. Okay, okay. So Savlar was a prosperous place due to the abundance of chemical deposits in the moons orbiting it. However, despite the great prosperity of the moons, the world itself was an absolute living hell. Noxious, thick atmosphere, very hard to live on the planet. And because it's hard to live on the planet, they found relief in the form of crime and drugs, as you do. As you do.

Life got much worse on Savlar when they failed to pay the tax man their tithes. And the punishment for the crime against the Imperium was that Savlar became a penal world. and the prisoners in the sector were dumped there in droves, along with a huge contingent of Arbides to oversee the population. Now, Savilar system is very close to the Armageddon system, and they receive prisoner shipments from that sector in particular, which bolsters the population of Savilar to have a massive uptick in exports from the planet itself. Savilar became a pretty good exporter of not only, or sorry,

exporter to not only civilized worlds, but a major supply. in two separate forge worlds due to the abundance of new manpower and great deposits. Now, eventually, there was a huge rebellion on the planet that was so big that the judges needed assistance in putting it down. And eventually on the command of Judge Callistar, they formed a new legion called the Salvar Chemdogs to stop the rebellion. This quote-unquote penal legion was so successful that the judge saw the riding on the wall and realized it could be an insanely good off-world fighting force. So there was a call to arms to join the Savilar chem dogs and fight for the Imperium off-world while taking whatever you can find.

But if you screw up, you're coming back to Savilar. And coming back to Savilar sucks ass. so a lot of people signed up. Also, I'm assuming that is a picture of a chem dog. That's cool. I like that a lot. That's a bad looking dude. Yeah, they also got armor and dark tied.

Notice they all have the cool gas masks. Oh, I didn't realize they had armor in dark tide. I'm, mm, capitalism is tugging at my wallet. I mean, it's pretty cool. I like the ogreys, specifically. The ogre is really, really cool. Really, really good.

Yeah. And the guard. Yes. Or the, yeah. But of course, it should be obviously stayed. The Savlar Khem Dogs are a lot more unique than your normal penal legion. They're a lot more like a guard legion than a penal legion.

They are still a penal legion, but they are definitely like not your average penal legionaries. Yeah. They're not. They're, they're, I don't want to say they're an exception to the rule, but that's not. going to happen very often where you get turned into something like the chem dogs. That's a rare occurrence indeed. Yeah. And quote, we Savlar are sent everywhere to the worst places. People where people, places where people like you don't go. We are scum. Nobody cares about the scum. Thing is, when you're scum, you learn to survive. We can survive anything. We can

survive Savlar itself. And it gives you the knack to keep from death until it can't be kept no more. I like that. I kind of like that. We're scum, but because we're scum, we're hardy, right?

I like that. That's cool. I want to read that quote. That's a fun one. You can keep that, mate, won't fetch me more than a few credits on the market anyway.

All this death and glory crap isn't really my business. I'm in it for the loot. Sergeant Joto of the 22nd Savlar upon receiving a medal for bravery. Love it. it. Love it.

Metal for bravery. Scum dog. Yep. Yep. Scum dog millionaire, baby. Scumdog millionaire. Except they don't want them millions. They just, you know. Now, obviously, because of their lives on Savilar, they thrive in very dangerous places, noxious fields, cramped and difficult to access places, all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, they're very easy to fight in terrible spots, much like,

Kriegsman, for example. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Especially in places with, like, really bad chemicals and fumes and things. Um, these Savillars often have very heavier breathers due to their body's difficulty adjusting on the atmosphere of Savlar. But, uh, the rebreather also dispenses tons of nitro chems and other psychoactive fumes capable of killing Saw Guerrera, which is a reference I appreciate.

Hey, there you go. go, you got one. Save the rebellion. Save the dream. Nobody talks like that. Have you come to kill me? Yeah, he does. He does talk.

Maybe is that supposed to be like, oh, yeah, that's, you know, because by the time he starts talking like that, he's kind of, in his advanced years, he's getting ready to go. Yeah, he's just a quirky guy. You have no idea where I am. Fucking weirdo. But anyway, obviously, they have lots of drugs in there. which make them really angry and do better in battle, clearly.

Oh, yeah, for sure. They also have other weird things like ogrens, and they have rough writers. We don't know what these look like. They're steeds known as chem beasts and described as graceless and hideous. But they basically are horribly mutated, chemically burned horses.

They need to make a many of those soon or do some artwork of them. Come on, man. I mean, death riders are probably the closest we're going to get to that for a while. But they often have a look like a messed up steed. It says a messed up version of the mutie steed from Gorka morca is what is described. Okay.

I don't know. But yeah, they're weird. They're very, very weird. They're apparently just absolutely horrendous. And as mentioned before, they are often known around Armageddon and they got some cool drip for dark time. Hell yeah. Now, the last thing I really want to discuss after this whole.

whole bit is my new favorite character ever. This is my new hyperfixation for the next whatever. Colonel Schaefer and the last chanceers. Oh, cool name, actually. So his quote is, you will atone for your sins and when you die, you will thank me for allowing you to. Colonel Schaefer. Classic.

is personally it sees the induction of each member of the 13th Heidel Legion. And all of the members are given one last chance at redemption for their crimes against the Imperium. This last chance comes in the form of an unspecified number of deployments in some of the most horrific combat zones across the galaxy. Now, surviving this last chance, what are we some kind of suicide squad? borders on that's Colonel Schaefer by the way What a baller Wow that is like the classic drill sergeant look He looks so sick

Now obviously it's nearly impossible For them to survive this It's a complete suicide mission However if you pull it off You will be redeemed For your crimes against the emperor And fully pardoned Wow I mean

Last chanceers right That's the point If you die on duty, Colonel Schaefer sees to it personally that they are parted into posthumously as well. Now, due to the battle-hearted nature of this dedication and the lie of the emperor, Colonel Schaefer has never failed a mission before. Now, this does not mean the people who join don't die horribly. It's just he's never failed. He has not yet failed a mission. Now, because of that and his reputation, the amount of people joining the 13th Penal Legion to work with Colonel Schaefer is exceumingly numerous.

He has fought... It's got to be astronomical. Oh, he's fought orcs, Eldar pirates, Gene Steelers, Tyrannids, a demon prince incursion. Like, he's done all kinds of stuff with his Legion. One time, or two of the big significant missions were on Armaged. during the third war, where he took a group of only 30 penal troopers to fight and assassinate Herman von Straub, the former overlord of Armageddon. When this happened, one of the last chancers, a lieutenant was actually possessed by a demon,

but was able to fight it off and fought Herman von Straub by grabbing him and jumping off into a volcano, into like a lava cavern. Oh, hell, yeah, that's one way to do it. But, jeesh. Also, it's kind of crazy that he's been this successful against those type of enemies, the colonel, when he's just got

you know, more or less a handful of penal legionnaires. Like, this dude must be cracked as hell. Like, he must be like the baddest of the bad if he is surviving all this and all he's got are like prisoner soldiers.

Yeah, they're old, their old minis are not great. Warrior Woman is quite the look kind of, oh, the 80s. That is a rough mini. Holy shit. I also like how

you have Shiv, and he's the dude just with a knife. That's a knife, mate. Yeah. Fitting. Fingers. Animal. It's brains. What a demolition man. My favorite

favorite movie. Oh, so goofy. Um, but like, I mean, all the other people in that 30 person mission basically died for the most part. But, you know, like, he still completed his mission. Him and Straub jumped in the lava. Uh, you know, like there were a bunch of last chancellors that were also, you know, kind of came through with a other contingence of sisters of battle and salamanders during another major battle of Armageddon. And, uh, you know, like there was a, a crazy weird boy Warboss and they had a good blank on hand. So it worked out really well and the last chance has managed

to capture a weird boy war boss and bring him onto a drop ship and flew the drop ship directly into the warp and then let him explode. That'll do it. Yeah, that'll do it. I mean, still, that like he's able to accomplish and kill these

big baddies and all he's sacrificing is just some some of his last chanceers. That's nuts. He's kind of a ball. He really is. I can see why you would hyper fixate on this guy. Well, no, I hyperfixing on this guy because of the next quote, which is due to the weirdness of the warp,

they were finding in like a warp rift and all kinds of things were happening. The drop ships have heard a ton of damage. And so Colonel Schaefer and the lieutenant that was originally possessed by the demon survived. You became known as the burned man. Kind of reminds me of Joshua Graham from New Vegas. But because of this, they had an issue with the warp rift and they got exiled 50 years later into the future. And so by this time, the Great Rift had opened and the Salamander's librarian was talking to the

colonel. And the colonel, this is the quote from it. It was, it's a lot to take him. And I stand there swaying for a while, just trying to keep upright. The colonel clears his throat and wipes blood from his face with his fingertips. He looks at the red for a moment. And then, then at me. That sounds very bad, librarian Afahiva, he says, very bad indeed. My thoughts come back together from various confusing journeys, forming a concerted idea in my head. I meet the colonel's gaze. Sounds to me like the last chanceers are needed more than ever. And then he puts on sunglasses and you hear, da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-cha-chaus. And then the der-de-roll credits. Let's go.

What? I mean, man, he's, okay. What a badass. So there's the last chance there's missions, by the way.

Effective is the, I believe, the, remaining people by the end of it. Okay. So you got like, he's battled so much stuff. Yeah,

there's a lot. There's the 4,000 that's started to the tyrannids, 250 tyrannids. hunted down and killed the demon prince. Not only did he, not only did they fight one, he killed a demon prince with any,

and two of the legionnaires survived. What the hell? I mean, the dude's kind of a baller. How the hell did he kill a demon prince and have guys to spare? I, you know, it doesn't matter,

it's Colonel Schaefer. He's the guy. Also, if we remember, um, way back in the day, power levels were a little bit different, uh, considering how low,

I don't know how to describe it. Um, considering how like different things were back when in the 80s. Because I remember Gaunt's ghosts. They kill things. They probably never should. Yeah, I was going to say the, the, like we said, the power scaling in books is as the author needs it, right?

Like there's no way in Gaunt's ghost should that guard regiment kill a chaos space marine, right? But it's like, well, the book kind of needs it. author kind of needs it power scaling that way and yeah yeah i mean it's also just back in the day it's just kind of how that stuff was and uh yeah like the last chanceers are are pretty sick i want to kind want to read the book because this this dude seems like a baller yeah he really does being able to do so much with essentially so little and just making it so effective is like man even if it is just like 30 guys that are willing to die it's like man you're still like

you're really utilizing that force like crazy. Yeah. Also, you know, it's just kind of fun to do, you know, usual guard stuff. What's up,

shy? What do you got? What crazy thing do you have going? I hope. I hope he's also killed. Oh, for last chance. His book came out in 1998.

Last last chance's book came out, 2019. Wow. So the first one was 98 and the last one was 2019. Okay. So there's still like, there's still kind of, it around, aren't they?

Yeah, that's relatively recent. So I guess they must be pretty popular if they've lasted this long and they're still getting books and stuff. That's pretty fun. I mean, it's just cool to see so much of this kind of like, you know me and my guards,

my guard simp. Oh, yeah, I'm going to be sarcastic about it. Yes, yes, I do know that. That's a sick cover too. Oh, perfectly placed explosion back there. Yep. That's a, that's a keeper. Yep. I got, maybe I got to start reading these. I like these.

But, uh, but yeah, I mean, that's kind of a lot of the penal legion stuff. Um, there's a bunch of other, like, smaller penal legions for the most part. Um, you've got literally got one called like the ex, uh, there's the expendables. Obviously, you've got, uh, you got a lot of like really weird old school veterans and some other crazy folks. But I mean, those, are all a lot of like the one worders. Yeah. The two big ones are definitely the last chance is in the, the chem dogs.

So is there a special penal, well, I was going to say there's a special penal legion for like guardsmen that have been like dishonored or something. But if you're a dishonored guardsman, you're probably getting a bullet in the back of the head from a commissar. So like, you're not to worry about getting sent to prison.

I mean, you might be a guardsman that like goes to prison and then is sent to a Penal Legion because of your prison sentence or whatever. Mm-hmm. So, like, I can do pretty good. I can see it happening. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. I like this. I like the, the, the, the Penal Legion stuff. I like, I love the last chanceurs. Love that. Mm-hmm. That, that stuff. Enjoyable.

Just fun. It's just fun. It's good old-fashioned 40K fun. Yeah. Yeah. Good old fashion 40K fun. fun with the bomb callers and the prison planets and the overworking and I mean I kind of be honest the idea of like a whole prison planet is a great setting that I think should

be explored a little bit more often that would be a lovely spot to kind of get into that kind of stuff you could you could make some real crazy like games if you like started it or had that as like one of the big backdrops for your game. Just a penile planet. Hell yeah. All right. Well, with that episode out of the way,

we're going to find out how many times YouTube will flag this video for us saying penis and incorrectly assume what we're talking about the entire video. They'll hear penal and be like, oh, this is an NC17 video, too much penis. Betts on how long until we get the,

the yellow dollar sign. Starting now, smoking duck gift. Classened. All right. Well, to end this episode, you want to hear my new soundbite? Your... Cheesh.

Cheeep. Goodbye, everyone.