Adeptus Ridiculous - TALLARN DESERT RAIDERS | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThis week on Adeptus Ridiculous, we’re heading into the dunes to talk about the Tallarn Desert Raiders! Originally a lush, Earth-like paradise, Tallarn was turned into a burning wasteland thanks to a "surprise mechanic" (virus bombs) delivered by none other than Mr. Peter Turbo himself. Join us as we discuss how the Iron Warriors accidentally created one of the most vengeful Guard regiments in the galaxy, the absolute insanity of the largest tank battle in human history, and why these guys are riding around on "goofy aaah" alien camels called Mukaali.“We are the desert, and the desert is merciless.”Support the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is D.K. Diamanty's. His name is Bricky. That's it. It's just us today. Crazy. I know, but that's just how it is. If you enjoy today's episode of the podcast and maybe you want to support us, have it over at 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 just the most immaculate digital form ever. It's great. Check it out. Patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous. Bricky, what's up? Um, inflation? Yikes. Yeah, I mean, yeah, probably.

Maybe. I don't even know if cost of living in general. Yeah, that's a little bit better. I don't know if inflation is still rising or not or if it's just, if it's slowed down. But you see, slowing down inflation is not actually a good thing. Well, you want negative inflation? Because at that point, it's already increased the price. I was going to make a Sonic OC.

joke, but I decided not to once you said negative inflation. And it's, you know. Yeah, yeah, no, that's, um, well, isn't negative inflation just giving birth? That depends on how the inflation happened. Very true, D.K., anyway, for our lovely viewers who like our content, you can go check out our merchandise down in the description. It is all kinds of cool things like dice, like Matt. Um, I didn't realize this.

So the arsenal of the angels Matt, the really awesome one with all the weaponry. That one was apparently sold out. It wasn't supposed to be. It's back in stock. Hell yeah. Check it out. It's the desk mat. I literally use myself.

It's great. I'm really proud of the artwork we commissioned for that. Yippie. Hell yeah. And then if you want, so you could check out our last book club. It was on Red Tithe. Our opinions were,

the Carcaryon's your neat, but holy hell, we wish there was less combat and more character development. And we are hoping that the second book will be a bit more interesting in that realm. Yeah, I've heard it will be, but we'll see. I'm damn hoping it will be because it's, the bones are there, but, but the skin, and you would assume that I would be someone who would like less skin, but in this situation,

I would like more skin. Crazy, the night lord fan that had too much night lord in the Carcaron book wants more skin, huh? More skin. Well, I guess that makes sense. You want more skin, more flaying? Yeah, sure. More skin to then remove, I say. Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. Tracks, tracks. So today, D.K, since it's a me episode, we have something simpler for my brain as required. I don't know about that, but I sure, sure, I get it. As somewhat required.

But I unfortunately, so this quote you will not necessarily get because I just know you won't. That's right. We do quotes on Adrick, don't we? We do, we do. That's been the lovely thing about the Karioth episodes is he doesn't usually hit me with a quote that I'm going to look stupid on. So this is great, return to form. Let's go. Yeah, I mean, I can give it to you if you'd like anyway, and you can give it your best shot.

Hell yeah. It wouldn't be a classic Adric episode without me missing a quote. Hit me with it. All right. Like the Sandstorm, we can rise up swiftly to ravage our foes and vanish as swiftly, leaving no track of our problems. leaving no track of our presence, but the damage wrought. We are the desert, and the desert is merciless. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to get this one.

Slight assistance. Slight assistance. The quote was said by someone named Colonel Aram Shayan. Colonel Aram Shayan. This almost feels like a weird guard faction that's on some death world. like just a just i don't know if they're going to be like unknown but it it feels like some off shoot of like uh oh yeah this is like k not katia um like creg or catachin yeah it feels like a creg or a katachan thing where they're just it's just

hardcore guard on the desert world you you know what i did you get that from the from the colonel from the the colonel name uh i mean that's that's that's That's what solidified it. But I was going to guess death the world imperium faction. And it probably would have led me to guard. But Colonel definitely solidified guard. I think we got to give it to you that that's basically what it is. Yeah.

Hell yeah. We got to give you the, I'm giving it to you a desert guard regiment. I will give it to you. You're not fully there, but I'll give me like 80%. Yeah, yo, we take, though. Is that still passing with satisfactory results? Absolutely. Yes.

So today we are talking about the Guard Regiment, the Tallinn Desert Raiders. And Possum's little subtext here is minis deserted by Games Workshop, but doing just fine. Get out, Possum. Just. Yeah, you thought you'd get hit with the one pun, right? But you didn't expect the one, too. I did not. I did not.

after that one. Mm-mm. I didn't know. My chin was left completely vulnerable and I was rocked. So it's an Imperial Guard regiment. If it's going to be a Me episode,

it'll probably be some Imperial Guard regiment. Sure. Now, obviously, most guard are forged from the hardships of their world, right? The nuclear wasteland of Krieg

or the jungles of Katachim. They mold their soldiers in certain ways. Now, the world of Talarn, it's also, it's T-A-L-R-N, Talern. All right.

Makes me pronounce a talern, but whatever. It was originally a lush and beautiful place, much like Earth,

but a surprise attack turned it into a burning desert wasteland. And those that attacked the planet thought they had wiped all the life

from it, but they were in fact wrong. And in fact, they accidentally created one of the most vengeful guard regiments in the galaxy.

They are fueled with a pure desire for vengeance. and the Tallinn Desert Raiders would swiftly rise from the dunes of their homeworld and would embrace the sands as a sort of badge of honor and become masters of this new type of domain. So we're going to go over the history of the Tallorn Desert Raiders and the Battle of Talern that would end up forming them. And also, of course, their real world inspirations, more recent activities, and a very unlikely friendship they have.

So that's the plan for the episode. Notice how their world is a complete desert wasteland? Yeah. Yellow. Sandy. Yeah. You're telling me that there are desert raiders on this planet. Wow.

Ain't no way. And I mean, it's almost like they got hues of green. Like there was a whiff of vegetation at one point or another. Oh, yeah, that just little whisper of like, oh, yeah, this used to be a lush planet. But look at me now, Dad. Well, a little something like that. Um, so the early stories of the Tallinn Desert Raiders begins on the, and you guessed it, D.K., the planet of Tallinn. Uh, it is located in the Segmentum Tempestus and like I said before, beautiful world, right?

Lush, very much like Tara, big continents, large oceans, diverse biome, et cetera. And the only difference between it was that Tallinn had two sons. Um, now, which was, you know, maybe a little tatum. tweeney, but I don't want to I don't want to go too deep into the member Berries currently. I'm going to give them a little bit of credit. Yeah, Tallinn desperately wanted a daughter, but two sons.

All right, not bad. Not bad. That was funny. Fuck you, Shy. That was pretty good. Yeah, if Bricky says it's funny, it must have been funny. Shut up, shy. It was the speed of the delivery. Now, due to how lush the Oh, sorry, it was found back

in the Great Crusade, obviously, and brought back to the imperium without like any issue. Due to how lush the planet was and because of how convenient it was within this segment of the galaxy, it was denoted mostly as an agricultural world, but also served as a storage planet too because it had a lot of strategic importance. Now on the surface, it would provide sustenance for the Imperium, but the planet would become home to networks of tunnels, bunkers, shelters, military armaments, things that could be stored semi-secretely while the surface population could live pretty normal lives. And so in the event of an invasion, you know, people would go into shelters and the bunkers and they would be safe.

You know, pretty solid. Yeah, that good idea. Protects general populace, sure, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, pretty good ideas overall. Now, the importance of this world would begin to fade as the Great Crusade expanded outward. And despite the weapons caches and the tons of food, Talern became one of the ever-growing chains of similar worlds, nothing particularly, like, it became more, more of a backwater world and its importance would end up kind of fading.

But all of its armaments and supplies would still be there, making it still vital to a certain extent. And shy, no, I have never seen an agricultural Lehman Rust before. Oh. So they just remove the weapons and the sponsons and put on a tractor. That's kind of sick, actually. Yeah, and they just covered up the barrel of the tank with a little, little, little sash. Don't worry, guys. There's nothing under here.

It's actually kind of sick. I didn't know. That's actually a really cool way to retrofit that. That is actually. That'd be so surely, because I'm assuming these guys are relatively popular, surely someone must have a Lehman Russ, mini that they've modified to look something like this.

Maybe it doesn't act like it in the tabletop, but surely someone's got the Agra-Lean-Russ, right? A lot of Lehman-Russes can have like dozers in the front. Oh, that's true. They do. don't they? Yeah. So I guess there could be a sort of, a sort of kind of situation where that would be a,

that would end up being like, it's the mixture. Obviously, not the same is a tractor type thing, but you know. Sure. Yeah. But things would obviously change dramatically during the Horace heresy and particularly thanks to Mr. Peter Turbo himself, a little bit by accent and a little bit on on purpose. But so, Fulgram ascended to demonhood, right?

And he left the emperor's children, sorry, him and the emperor's children left the world of Lydris in the eye of terror behind. And they also left the iron warriors on that world too. And Peter Turbo was aware that the world was going to be destroyed. The chrome world was able to hold up the power of the warp, but Fulgram screwed it up so bad, thanks to his ascension, that now the world was going to be consumed by a black hole of like warp chaos shenanigans. Now, Fulgrim's actions made Per Trambo very angry. which is particularly easy to do, but in this situation,

it really pissed him off. Yeah. But so he realized that all of his brothers, except for Horace, were going to selfishly look after themselves, and he couldn't trust any of the other prime marks, but the Warmaster. And it's not entirely wrong.

No, not at all. Maybe Lorgar, but like, not really. Logar is kind of also a selfish brick. Yeah, I was going to say, I wouldn't trust Lorgar. as far as I could throw him and I guarantee you I couldn't throw Lorgar very far. Wouldn't that mean you would trust him a lot?

Or would they mean trust him a little? No, it means you trust him a little. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as I could throw him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a phrase that's been said so many times that I don't always remember.

Yeah, and some people say it's wrong anyway, so. But anyway, so the Iron Warriors were able to escape the world, but the power of the black hole messed with their navigators really badly. So they would shoot out of the warp in the Talern system unexpectedly. Oh, no. And while getting his bearings per trouble would be informed about something on Talleyn itself, which we'll get into a little later. But what he was informed by had him result in his full fleet to begin attacking the planets.

Ah, yeah. That's not, you don't, you don't want Peter Turbo eyeing your planet after he just randomly jumps out of warp and ooh. Yeah, that sucks. Very bad times. Yeah. And so because of how far out the Great Crusade had gotten, Talon hadn't really seen much action in a while. And so when a thousand Iron Warrior vessels appear out of nowhere,

they were quite unprepared and quite outnumbered. So they just, yeah, I was going to say so, they just die, but obviously they don't all die because where do the desert raiders come from? Well, of course. And so I believe this is Peter Turbo's flag. ship called the hammerfall. Pretty sure it's called the hammerfall. It's a fair name for Peter Turbo's main ship, actually.

Yeah. So it would end up firing one single Nova shell that would cause a chain reaction to all the orbital defense networks that protect the talem. And this was, of course, helped because the system was basically derelict. And the surface to orbit weapons were also hardly functioning. So they were easily taken out by the Iron Warriors. And though warnings were broadcast, the like billions of people, on the planet, it was far too late for, again, billions of people on the surface to make

their way underground. Yeah. And though there were bunkers and tunnels, the population had well exceeded the capacity of these tunnels. And so a majority of the population couldn't be protected from the next volley of insane attacks. Yeah, that's unfortunate. Oh. Now, this volley would consist of virus bombs.

Oh, God, of course. Thousands. Thousands. thousands thousands of virus bombs Jesus Christ This is Pre-Protrava, okay

This is all about This is about correct I'm Wow, I was gonna say Wasn't it the The Horacee virus one Why am I drawing a blank On the famous

Oh, the Islam one? Yeah, wasn't that like Two Virus bombs or something? I don't remember I thought they were like I thought they were like Exterminatus virus

bombs and that's what made them so good. Oh, these aren't like, these are just like normal grade virus bombs. Yeah, yeah, these are these are standard virus bombs. Gosh, I didn't realize they were exterminatous levels of the virus bombs. All right, all right. Yeah, yeah, it's a different kinds of virus bomb. But right, these virus bombs will be designed by the Brethren of Thunder within the Iron Warriors, that known as the LaSatra.

And the, um, the quote unquote downside. of the virus bombs used on Isvon 3 was that the rapid breakdown of organic matter but was all in the gas emitted to be flammable. So they tweaked to these bombs so that the byproduct of the life eater virus would not be flammable, meaning that the consuming air of the life eater virus would potentially continue for generations to come. Or ensuing air, I suppose, whatever. Or I guess it would be, no, no, it'll be the consuming air. Yeah, because the air is eating you because it's the life eater virus.

Yeah. Oh, man, that sucks. Within seconds of their detonations, the organic life on Taller began to be eaten. 10 million people died within 10 minutes and in under an hour, all surface life was dead. Yeah. Like all of it. Yeah. Oh, man.

Imagine looking at the virus bomb being like, I can make that better. Brother, like, find out. Get a new hobby. No, that is his hobby. This is for Chirabra we're talking about, okay? Him looking at a virus bomb and being like, I can improve on this is explicitly his job. That is his hobby. Oh, God.

Listen, dude, male autism needs to be, have some kind of hobby. And this is his, all right? So just use the old one and light that shit up. Same effect, basically. So the jungles eventually dissolved and nothing more than rot. The oceans would turn to sludge. And then billions died in agony. I

da-da-da-da-da-da-dun I mean, your typical Imperium story, your typical origin story for crazy guard regiment, yeah, yeah. And so with that,

you know, the atmosphere will be replaced by an awful fog, and those that I managed to successfully escape the bunkers were spared this horrible fate. After I sneeze,

uh-huh. Bless you. Sorry, pre-turbo made a viable bomb and said to my computer. You got the fumes of the virus bomb, yeah. Smoking that perk one, one billion. That you're going to do a Dracula flow there, but all right.

This is, this is, it ain't nothing to me, man. This is the virus bomb. This, this gonja killed Talon. Hell yeah, brother. Anyway, anyway, so about a billion people were able to make it into the network of tunnels. And there they would find all the supplies that were left behind during the Great Crusade, arsenal of weapons, vehicles, resources, etc. And so the survivors of town would be actually surprisingly well armed and ready to defend whatever was left on the world, a world

that was being primed for exploration, courtesy of the iron warriors. So prior to the attack, Per Trow was informed of the existence of an ancient device of incredible power that predated the fall of the Eldar civilization. And it was referred to as the Black Oculus, or the Cursus of Al-Gadar. Basically, it was a device with a portal-like

gateway to the gods that would potentially allow the Iron Warriors to make a direct path with the chaos gods, similar to what the Emperor may have done on Mollick. Now, clearly, Petrabo wanted this device, because it's like a portal

to the chaos gods, is kind of an insane concept. Yeah. And so he would remain basically in his quarters until he found it. Now, the Iron Warriors knew that they had to appease their dad as fast as possible, but the yoked up virus bomb made this a little tricky as the Terminators could only stand on the surface for brief periods of time. So the Iron Warriors had to use much heavier and more intensely sealed armaments to ensure

safe landings. But as far as they were concerned, nothing was alive on the planet. so it should be pretty easy, right? Well. Should be. Yeah. So the Iron Warriors started to suffer some losses, and in orbit, they believe that this was just the planet being a bit more aggressive than expected, right? This went on for a few weeks, but on week eight, the Iron Warriors were able to pick up a faint Vox signal from the dead seas of Tallern and realized they were no longer alone on the planet.

The traitor forces that had died and the surface had been killed by the underground forces. forces of Talar that were now being driven by a doctrine of pure vengeance. Now, even though the planet was pretty far away from the bulk of the fighting of the heresy, there was some awareness that it was happening in the galaxy. And the leadership of Tallinn were aware that the forces that were they were attacking were space marines. And they knew they would not be able to face them head on in a one v. one fight because fighting with the space marine is terrifying, but also is awful. But the surface was also like a literal quagmire.

Giggedy, gigady. Yeah. Well, also, I mean, fighting regular space marines, already tough. Iron Warriors? Are they, they're chaos yoked at this point, right? Um, no. This is heresy era. Not as much.

Like, yes, but maybe, like, not particularly. I don't think they have a ton of, like, mutilators and stuff yet, or at least, not, like, not a ton. Per Shrabba was kind of not a big fan of the whole different thing. Okay. Because I was going to say, if they have, like if they're chaos yoked, it's even worse than just fighting a regular-ass space marine and you got all this chaos nonsense flying around, that's no good.

But, okay. If I had a guess, it probably, but, you know. No, not great. If I had a guess, I probably had some, but like not a lot. Mm-hmm. Probably no, like, demons. Probably just like a demon, maybe like a weird engine or two. I don't know.

Yeah. But anyway, the, with the tanks and the weapons that they found underground, they were actually able to suit up properly and draw out the conflict as long as possible so they can get some help from Tara. Because if they were stomped out right away, Tara wouldn't really bother. So they became really good at the whole hit-and-run tactics thing. Let's see here.

In time, the forces on talent were able to fight an astropath who had survived the attack and eventually call out for reinforcements. And this was their call, if you would like. They heard. Across the star-dotted vaults of space, astrapass woke from their trance with images of iron giants striding through dead. cities in silence.

Shivering, they unraveled the sensations of their dreams, and the allegorical meaning shouted in their minds with the fury of a last dying scream. Come to us, it said. The iron warriors are here. Talarn is dead. Its grave will be the anvil upon which you break them. Yeesh. See?

I see, that's kind of cool. Yeah, that's pretty dope. That's, that's, yep. Damn. So the battle went, as you probably would expect, Imperial forces would eventually arrive, including the white scars, and then traitor reinforcements would then arrive,

and it would go back and forth like this for a few months. Now, all the while, though, the forces of Talon were able to generally impressively hold their own. The real issue they faced was the, like, unbelievable nature of the attack. Like, as far as the Imperium was concerned, the attack on the planet of Talar made no sense. right. Imagine a massive enemy front to not invade the capital, but instead the random gas station that no one cared about anymore.

Yeah, that is, that is a very strange thing. So surely the Imperium must have been like, okay, there's more to this planet than meets the eye because there ain't no goddamn reason to be attacking the rundown shell station, right? Yes, exactly. And so that was just very confusing. And so because of how weird it was, the Imperium was a bit haphazard about sending two. much support to the front lines. But as the reinforcements begin to snowball on one side, they would become snowballing on another. And then the Battle of Talon would have become one of the largest armored battles in not only the Horace heresy, but potentially the entirety of human history. We're talking like 10 million armored units would participate in this one because the surface was so toxic, right? Now, particularly on the side of the Iron Warriors, they actually had called. quite a lot of casualties, so much so that it became pretty difficult for the other traders to ignore.

And it was a huge resource drain for inexplicable reasons, which would eventually catch Horace's attention. And in a very short summary of the long war, the truth of Per Chirabo's selfish goal for the alien device would be found out by the Alpha Legion. And then the Alpha Legion would in turn tell Horace about it. And Horace would have an astropath basically say, dude, what the fuck, man? Why did you tell me about this thing? What the... Well, no, no, not just that, but like, why are you wasting so many more resources on it? Like, hey, you want to prove your loyalty to the cause and me, the warmaster?

Withdraw your forces now. What are you doing? We need those. So during the battle, the governor-militant of the Talern would die and be replaced by a man named Susada Sin. And after the middle concluded, he would board the last. fast titan left on the planet and would survey what had happened to the world. Until that moment, the battle was so focused that it was impossible to see the full extent of what happened to the surface.

And though the viral agents still loomed in the air and the soil, the sky was blue and exceptionally bright. And the surface was almost completely unrecognizable. The atmosphere had actually thinned because of the virus. And all that was left was generally dust and sand. And the dust was hiding the extent of the damage that the war had wrought, as it was was starting to settle. So, here is another quick little

thing if you'd like. Also, I'm assuming they brought in Titans because this turned into like a gigantic, like 10 million person affair. Most likely. They got Titans on talent. And then it was like, oh no, like, since it turned into such a big hullabaloo,

they probably were bringing all the big guns. Anyway, uh, the Plains of Cadive, muttered Caligol, Susada heard General Gorn take a slow breath. but he said nothing. Kedive, Susada thought.

I must have stood almost on this very spot. There had been rain in the air that day. Warm rain blown in from the south, so that the grasslands swayed and flowed like the tides of the sea. It had been the last time he had been seen on the surface of Talon, the last time he had breathed its air. Now he could never do either again. What is this? he asked at last,

his voice dry in his throat. He looked at gorn, but the general's scarred face had become a fixed mast, his eyes distant. This, said Caligol, turned his gray gaze on Susada for a long moment. Then the white scar turned back to the plane of machine carcasses. It spread all the way to the horizon. This is victory, he said. Yeah.

Love that Imperial Pyrrhic victory, eh? Literally not just say that. Actual words out of my mouth. Happens so often. love the Pyrrhic Imperial dove around here. So the once lush service at Taller was now a desert pole to pole. And in that desert, giant mechanical corpses in the millions littered the landscape. It was just an impossibly large junkyard after, you know, the largest tank battle

in history. Now, over the next few centuries, the remnants of the virus would eventually fade, but the surface would never recover. The heat of the twin sons would keep the same. sands hot and the unencumbered winds would keep them violent. Sandstorms would with the strength to strip skin from the bone would become a permanent fixture on the planet and the people on the surface would come to the surface slightly in doomed towns, but they'd spend most of their life underground and in domes. Though life would be stripped from the planet, the victory would ring loudly in the eyes and minds of the people of Talon, and their combat doctrine that was manifested through these impossible odds would result in the creation of their sole planetary export. recruited from the various tribes on the planet known as the Talley and Desert Raiders.

There they are. There they are. There they are. So small, brief thing about inspirations. Now, we really can't talk about them without going to the real word inspiration, sorry, a bit gingerly. Now, aesthetically, they are definitely partially inspired by the T.E. Lawrence, or by T. Lawrence during the Arab revolt in the middle of World War I, which was what year or K?

1914, 1914, 1914, 1914, 1914, 1914. 1914, it was 1914. Someone's going to make some statement about like, well, actually, that was, that only happened in 1960 during the Arab Revoltram. It's fine. B plus. It's the joke. It's joke, chat.

Don't worry. We get it. Now, this aesthetic, of course, would be combined with the, at the time, very contemporary events of the Soviet-Afghan War at the time of, um, the, the, the, creation of this stuff that is. Um, particularly the Western press, the focus on the Afghan Mujahideen. Oh boy. Yeah, I, I, sure.

I, that's the best I got. Yep. They were, they were fighting against the Soviet Union and they received heavy funding from the US during Operation Cyclone. And so these two inspirations would generally go beyond general aesthetics and also focus on the tactics used in the both of these conflicts, which we'll get into. but they did a bit of expanding of their lore in 2007 with some clarification regarding their societal structure and their faith

but we're going to kind of travel past that do a bit of considering us to do with like a bit of a melding of it's a melding of Islamic beliefs and the imperial cult you know it's like hey how do you do the imperial cult mixed with like you know more Islamic style thing yeah now some degree of care was taken with its presentation but it's also very much like an early 2000s presentation of Islam, which can come off a bit, you know, early 2000-e's. I was going to say slightly disrespectful, you mean?

I'm also slightly caricatureized, maybe. Maybe a little bit. I would not be generally surprised if they kind of push themselves lore-wise to be a little bit less like that, maybe a little bit more Lawrence Arabia for the, future. They are, I mean, this, the, the depiction of them is very clearly like a Middle Eastern type fighting.

Oh, for sure. You know? Yeah. And they do look sick. I won't lie. Oh, yeah. That, that aesthetic is, is timeless, right? That's, that's always going to be dope.

Yeah. Plus, you know, they also, like, they have a lot of the usual types of things, like, they have kind of the curved swords or the, I think it's, as a bit of Matar is what they are. And then, like, they kind of turbine type things are, like, they're like, they kind of, various types of shawls to cover their eyes and face because of the sand in the desert and yada yada yada yada yeah uh-oh you said simitar now everyone in the comments is gonna be talking about how you actually pronounce how is it supposed to be pronounced i don't know i i've never found out how to actually say it because if i say simitar someone's like um actually it's shimitar and it's just uh i i don't think i've ever seen anyone actually agree on how to say the damn word i thought was simitar a lot of it's

like SIA. I get too. I don't know. I'm always told I say it wrong. And I feel like I say it like that. Whatever, man. It's the curve. It doesn't matter.

Who care? Yeah. Who cares? Now, tactics and uniforms. It shouldn't be surprised that the Desert Raers are known for a grill of tactics and their ability to maintain operating tanks. Now, outside of lines of tanks and other armored vehicles, they are not adept at more entrenched forms of warfare.

So they're sent out to move fast, hit hard, and vanish. That's their main goal. Now, their home world obviously offers two distinct extremes when it comes to combat training. On the surface, it's impossible to hide in the barren service of Towern. So they're trained to hide in plain sight while being devastating. So that could be maybe a little bit of the Fremen style. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe covering yourself in sand and things like that and then pop around cause problems.

Yeah, I guess if you're a desert raider, that's kind of, kind of how you have to be because it's not like there's a whole lot of cover for you to entrench yourself in. You kind of have to hit and run and use the sand as best as you can to cover your tracks, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so, like, I imagine that kind of hiding in plain sight makes a lot of sense of that one. But there's also, of course, the underground environment, which makes them very good in tight quarters and mastering a stealth manner in the, you know, underground, things like that. Yeah. So the members of the deserators are fiercely independent and very resourceful.

And so because of this, the more basic of their units tend to be utilized in a recon sense, like a vanguard fleet. They're very, very independent. And so they're not really in the market for new pals. And they try to avoid co-mingling with other guardsmen as much as they can. Which, you know, it just makes them, they're kind of key to themselves.

Oh, yeah. Isolationist. All right. Yeah, well, they know they can rely on other people. Well, they can rely on the members of the Desert Raiders, at least. but self-reliance is a thing that really helped them in the main battle of Taller. And so they serve to prove themselves to the Imperium, not really to like other guardsmen. Okay.

So they love the Imperium. They don't really give a shit about other guard units, though. Yeah, they're loyal to the Imperium. Who needs co-mingling? I don't want to rely on someone I don't trust type thing, you know? Now, your most basic Deserator's uniform is the classic. desert smock and it tends to have long sleeves, no pockets, dyed in the color that's most applicable to their deployment, often like a desert chick like browns, yellows.

Sure. The looseness of the uniform makes them move a bit more freely and be a little bit faster, but just because it's looseness, I mean that it doesn't have any more effects than the normal imperial uniform. It's combat ready and, of course, is really good withstanding the brutal aspects of the taleran surface, you know, like the horrifying sandstorms and things like that. Not sure why, but I found it weird that it has no pockets. Like, you would think a guard regiment would want plenty of pockets for just, like, random supplies, extra clips, any sort of stuff, you know?

Maybe, like, the actual, like, garb doesn't have pockets because, like, like, a big, like, kind of, like, not like a dress, but, like, you know, it's like a really big thing that covers the whole body, so you don't get hit by the sand and the sun. But then you would wear like straps and belts and bandaliers and things like that. Under it. Right. So it's more like a, I don't want to say a parka, but like a big cape that you wear almost. I unfortunately am not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to this stuff. But like very often I'll see videos or things like that about people in Dubai and stuff. And they wear like that head to toe like white, flowy, dred.

Oh, yeah. Once Shai posted the picture of him, it was like, okay, that make, because he's got kind of, I don't want to call it, it's not really a robe per se, but like, yeah, but he's still got like the shoulder pads and it's still got the bandolier. It's still got like the sort of supply pockets

going down the side. There's still like an attachment pouch on his arm for like whatever. So, okay, that makes more sense. Like actually seeing it helps that image a lot more. Yeah. Yeah, like I don't know. other name for that kind of stuff, but they do just have a lot of stuff on them, right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, obviously, to go along with that, they also have other bits of tactical gear. They have a shemog or shumog as an identifier of their customs, but also it helps them, you know, cover their face, have wind goggles, protect their face from things on Talarm. They also wear things like plastial shoulder pads, light flak vests. They don't wear a full set of flack armor as it would be willing. way too hot and heavy for a desert raider. Yeah.

So they tend to wear things that are a lot more light and a lot more maneuverable on their kit. But tanks and various types of other tanks also are marked with like silk sashes and decorations, things like that. Mm-hmm. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Shai. It's called a thob. T-H-A-W-B. That's exactly the thing I was referring to, yeah, the long white garment.

Yeah, I didn't know what it was called either. that, hey, we're all learning today. That's, I always imagine it like they have a tough, a tough imperial style version of that. Yeah. Now, as you may figure out by now, the deserators are pretty good marksmen, and they have specialized guns that were made to handle the service of talent.

So they have a special variant called the M-36 pattern Lasgum, which is a much longer barrel to allow for longer shooting. And the design helps stop getting covered with sand and messing with the internal mechanisms, which is honestly, most Lasguns don't deal with too much anyway, but this is even more so. Yeah, especially when you were on a desert world,

you want to really make sure it doesn't affect it at all. And yeah, they would probably be perfect for like snipers and stealthy, like, get into position and yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it's kind of hard to see the barrel of a gun when you're covered in sand almost head to toe and then you just blasted, you know? Also, of course, they have other things like plasma guns, missile launchers, all the usual kind of stuff.

But the main thing that they need the most is to be able to fire, pack up and move, fire, pack up and move, right? Yep. And so all members of Deserators also carry their curbed mono knife. They call a Kellig, C-H-A, or sorry, K-H-A-L-G-G-Kallig. It tends to be pretty ornate and more decorative, but you will stab a motherfucker with it, you know. It might be decorative, but it is very usable. It is the more decorative of their stuff

And the more combat victories they see Or the more heroic honors they receive The more decorative it will become So like if you seem like a really bejeweled Sore then like oh shit This guy means business They got their little bedazzled dagger Hell yeah

Most of their male weapons have a curve to them Even the chainswords So you know it's the classic Oh curved chainsaws sounds dope as hell actually I mean, curved swords in general, cool, but curved chainsword? Hell yeah. I mean, chainswords are sick in general, so. Yeah, they are.

Now, as you know from the Battle of Talern and stuff, they are experts with armored vehicles. And despite the status of the planet's surface, it certainly helps with, like, mastering the arts of tank operation. Despite being on the surface for short periods in the combat gear, navigating the surface on Talarine, it's still pretty hard. the only way you can really do this is in some form of armored vehicle but like some life has returned to the surface courtesy of some imports and so the desert raiders are also often known

for their rough riders which would be horseback oh nice nice I was going to say it's got to be kind of hard for like these big chunky tanks to like maneuver well I guess it wouldn't be that difficult to get them through the sand but I got to imagine

it got to be kind of tough Like if you got those like big like sand hills, it's kind of be kind of rough for like a Lehman Rust to just like plow through, right? Um, I mean, obviously the, I would assume the Lehman Russes have been modified in a way that makes them better at this. True. Yeah. I imagine the rough riders are a lot better option, just those horseback riders. Yeah. And, um, you know, it just obviously, you know, the horseback type thing is, it's very low at Arabia. It's very classic uses there. It fits the aesthetic, yep. Now, they do have a funny, goofy-a-alian as well. Specifically, Possum states this for Gloup Shido enthusiasts.

Let's go, Glob Shitto. What's the goofy alien? So it's originating on the planet of Guru Prime. It's called the Mukali. They're also known a sand pacers by the Raiders. They're tank-like camels. They look like extinct, long-necked rhinos on Earth. Oh, yeah, known as the paraceratherium.

Oh, geez. Oh, man, it looks like a rideable dinosaur. It's a long neck, like thick-ass camel, and they're very capable of surviving in the desert for very long periods of time without food or water. Mukali is a very aloof and non-combat species that tends to flee the side of conflict or when it's roaming on its own,

but under the command of a town rider, they have many, many advantages for starters. They have insane endurance. It can carry a shitload of gear. And they also have really adapted feet that help them kind of keep themselves in the sand pretty well without sinking. Okay. Okay. So yeah, alien camel.

Giant alien camel. They just don't have a really good tolerance for the cold, but they don't have to worry about that much. I was going to say on Talon, why would they care? So there's a few notable battles. obviously due to how long it took for town to even slightly recover from the events of the first battle, their battle history after the heresies relatively limited. Their first and most famous major involvement

is something called the Camos Rebellion in M38. Basically, the planet was thrown into a really bad stay after the governor was overthrown by a subordinate called Duke Mormont. And the Imperium responded with six regiments of Deseroyers that were led by a guy named General Akir. And they were ordered to completely wipe out Mormon and all of its, all of its forces. But by the time they got there, the Duke had a pretty sturdy defenses, like 30,000 men in an area of the planet known as the broadsword.

So the Duke would attack Akir's men with artillery, pushed them back with infantry for hours. But this is what the deserator general want him as the constant pushing back meant that the opposition forces were thinned out over a long distance and weren't ready for rough riders. So he sent him two batches of 3,000 horseback rough riders to flank, take out the artillery, and then Pinscher attacked them all through. And then within a few days, the battle of the broadsword was over and all of the Duke's men were wiped out. Hell yeah. There was also a pretty interesting one on the defense of Ballet Alpha against the orc warlord, Ogg Scrada de Mighty. The main, of course, classic orc stuff. the main capital city of Bali Prime or Bali Alpha was facing a heavy assault from the orcs

and the regiments of guardsmen were working on protecting the city while the Tallinn third armored, also known as the Desert Storm humorously, led by General Haso Ross Aziz, the very long name, held back in the event of the, or sorry, held were held back in the event the defenses fell so they could lead a counterattack. Now, naturally, the orcs didn't like waiting around. So they attacked the city simultaneously in the north and the east in a conflict that be known as the Akkar Basin Massacre. But due to the severity of the orc attack, Razaziz deployed a company of tanks

and not just any tanks, but the Lehman Rus Vanquisher tank, which is the equivalent of the Tao Railgun, at least in terms of tabletop stuff, it's a longer barrel that is meant to hunt very, very powerful stuff from a very long range. we do love a good tow rail cannon around here we made that joke on that poor hammer episode maybe now these tanks were supported by the chimeras and the barrage from the vanquishers

took out a ton of battle wagons and a stompah before the orcs knew what had hit them the orcs would then turn to rush the tanks but of course he was once up ahead as he had laid a minefield prior and then another tank squadron would navigate in the opposite side forcing the orks into a basin

and they would then be massacred. Damn. Very much like pincers, flanks, fast movement, etc. Very major and important stuff for all the

Desert Raiders. Very tactical, too. They know when to flank, they know when to pincer, they know when to set up a minefield, they know when to hold them, they know when to fold them. Like, damn,

desert raiders are kind of cracked. They were, they're kind of like, I mean, guard is always about tactics, right? The Imperial Guard is like, okay, this is one of the few areas of warfare where 40 billion men doesn't always win. And so they do have to think really heavily about it. And so obviously, quick, hidden run outflanks, things like that are really important. I mean, sometimes the Imperium is just like, yeah, we're just going to throw a billion guys at you.

Are we going to put any thought into it? Nah, but like there's a sea of Lasguns coming at you. Good fucking luck, dude. Yes, sometimes quantity is a quality all its own. Yeah. But for the deserators, they're obviously more on the maneuverability sentence. Now, we do have to address the McCauley in the room. The Talon's history began with the curses of Algernar, right?

The weird thing that Peter Turbo wanted, but he actually never found. So I'm sure you're wondering if it was ever found. Actually, I was wondering that. I was kind of wondering what the hell happened to our little McGuffin. So as the planet was reestablished, it would be found by the Tallinn Desert Raiders themselves by accident. During the construction of an arterial tunnel, the giant Eldar artifact would be uncovered and it would spring to life with a burst of energy. This activation would catch the attention of an Eldar in the Black Library. And he would call an emergency meeting with the Farseers in which the Eldar would then fling into Tallinn in space to put a stop to it.

Now go ahead. Oh, in consequential, I was wondering how huge is this thing exactly? Because like it's potentially a gateway to chaos. So this has got to be like a monumental like I'm almost thinking like a Stargate deal or yeah, like a Stargate type of thing. I'm assuming it probably is of a similar size to like a Webway gate or something like that. or at least maybe that would be the way I would put it. I don't really know. I don't know if I would call it anything,

maybe bigger than that, but it's hard to tell because every freaking, like, building in Warhammer is way bigger than it should. Mm-hmm. Possessing a curved black surface, the relic was almost half a mile long with elder images on the skin.

Okay, so pretty big. That's a big one. That's bigger than I thought. Yep, that's bigger than I thought. All right, fair point. I guess this was just hiding under the surface of talon somewhere, because if it was on the surface, somebody would have noticed.

Well, you know how Eldar are. They had the galaxy for so long. They put random stuff everywhere. Yeah, true, true, true. Now, though, along with that, of course, the Eldar making their way in, they didn't much care whether other people on the planet were in league with chaos or not. The only thing they cared about was to stop the port of them activating.

But unfortunately for the Eldar, they didn't really know what the hell had happened. the taloran says the device was first put there. And so the heat and the sulfuric nature of the desert just killed the aspect warriors outright. Really? Oh, yeah, the Eldor got there. And then they were like, holy, they look like Patrick when he's, you know, I understand this matter of reference. But he's like, he's like coughing in the air dome of Sandy's place.

And he's like, what kind of place is this? It's like that. Thank you. Thank you. I knew you would have it on deck. I knew you would have it on deck. Yes, I get it now. I get it now.

So the Eldar was unfortunately not able to stop the curses from activating, and the forces of chaos would begin to pour through it. Now, the Raiders would eventually realize what the Eldar were doing, and they would call a truce, a truce that was agreed upon by the Eldar, and they would combine their forces, and a combination of the guerrilla tactics of the Desert Raiders, and the speed of the Eldar jet bikes would cause the forces of chaos to become very disorganized,

which would then cause the power of the artifact to fade and then eventually close. Oh, man, the Talon Desert Raiders with those speedy Eldar bikes is such a cool image, actually. And being able to zip at that speed. Oh, man, hell yeah. I can totally see some kind of, like, ridiculous, marvelous moment of them riding out their tanks at full throttle and then an Eldar jet bike zips by them at triple the speed and then just being like, ah, showoffs. They fly now? Yeah. God, that's so cool.

I hope someone's done like a kit bash of just like, just for fun because they like the Talarn Desert Raiders. There's just regular Talarn Desert Raider riding on like an Eldar bike on like a mini diorama or something. I'd be kind of neat. Also, God, quick final little quote thing for you from one of the books. All right. Once the Eldar had departed in peace and the people,

of both races had exchanged their promise of friendship, wink, wink, the Talarn returned to the curses. They found the black stone cold and lifeless once more, just as it was when they had first uncovered it. Uncovered it. However, they knew now that the stone was not dead, but merely sleeping, awaiting its time again, waiting for the call of its evil masters. The Talarn buried the curses beneath the sulfur sands once more and placed within its circles the mysterious device that the Eldar had given them for that purpose. Then they sealed the surface with Plascrete and turned

their backs on it. Yeah, you know, sometimes the best thing to do when you got something scary and powerful is to submerge it in massive amounts of concrete and leave. Yeah, turn your back on it, bury it with, I'm assuming was a,

what did the Eldar give them exactly? It's just mysterious devices. I'm just like, are those just like Eldar landmines or something? Whereas anyone, tries to touch it, it just eradicates them. Or maybe they're informed. I don't know, one or the other. Yeah, yeah, could be just a beacon.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, just bury that fucker and conk. Now, the only recent history that Talon have is that the Great Rip would open and would face an onslaught of demonic invasions. This would be stopped by the Indominus Crusade, and the Desert Raiders would become a major asset to the Crusade's reclamation efforts to this day, because Gillumann would make sure that their deployments would play to their strengths. Now, the Desert Raiders will go in, kick the beehive, force reinforcements to pop out, and then vanish to attack the enemy on another flank, causing more disarray and then letting the crusade. Classic Desert Raiders type stuff. Hell yeah. Now, you're probably wondering to yourself, how are the Desert Raiders shown up on the tabletop? Yes, I am wondering that.

I do have terrible news for you. The miniatures that they have are the ones that you see here, which are extremely old and no longer, I think. sold or if they are, I wouldn't buy them. Yeah. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, those are those, those, those are rough. Those are very, mm. So with that, however, um, there, there's always, of course, the question of, well, how, how, how, how, how

they represented? And unfortunately, I have generally pretty, um, poor, uh, things when it comes to how, the desert raiders are generally represented in this place. Now, for the most parts, when it comes to the factions, there are some horseback things. There are two. There are Death Riders and Adeline Ruff Riders. Now, Adeline Ruff Riders are from, I believe, Attila, and they are not Taller Desert Raders. They look more, um, uh, geez, Attila 40K.

This is, it's, it's a feudal world. It's like more, um, uh, like, uh, is it like Mongolian, Tibetan? Oh, so there's, there's no Talarn, uh, rough riders. There's no many for them at all, period. So this is Attila or Adeline. Atila, yeah, it is this, I imagine it's more Mongolian.

I'm not sure exactly. Maybe it's Tibetan. I, I'm, I'm bad at this. I'm very bad at this. It's, it's that area. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But, so they have Adalin Rough Riders, which is a horseback riding unit. They also have death riders, which are a Krieg version of it. So when it comes to horses in the game, you've got Krieg and you've got Adela or Attila, whatever. Now, obviously, a lot of the desert raiders are meant for, you know, tanks and things of that. nature, however, naturally. It's about the speeds, it's about outflank, it's about movement. And so while there are a couple of things, I think the only one that can come close is an attachment called Hammer of the Emperor, which is all about spearheads of tanks,

which I still don't think is perfect. So right now we have combined arms, which is Cadians, siege regiment, which is Krieg, mechanized assault, which is most likely Armageddon Steel Legion, but you could argue there might be a little of the, a little of the tower in there, but it's mostly the Steel Legion. You have Recon Element, which is Katachin slash Taneth, bridgehead strike, which is Sions, and Grizzled Company, which is Mortium. Hammer of the Emperor is all about just lots of vehicles,

lots of tanks, and moving really fast. But it's not a ton about, like, outflanking. So, so like maybe, but like if I was going to do a Deserator situation, I would not say that like this detachment is the one that's, maybe it's the closest, but it doesn't feel like it's made with this in mind. So there's really no good detachment to run with them and it's just never quite feels right to run them? I mean, it's, you know, make, make what you want, obviously. Sure, sure. You could, you could, without, there is no doubt a 3D print of Talley Raiders somewhere out there you can do. Cromleck apparently has some good proxy minis formula, kind of sick.

There's always options out there. You can always paint your stuff, desert camo, et cetera, et cetera. You can just run lots of horses and change out their heads and stuff to make it have more of the, the Taller and stuff. But for the most part, I would say that they're pretty underrepresented, both in terms of the tabletop, miniatures and in terms of rules. Unfortunately. Until now, once this episode hits the airwaves, new sensation sweeping the nation. God, I wish. But, uh, but no, I mean, if I, if you were to run something like this, I would run either mechanized assault or hammer of the emperor.

Um, you know, there's a hammered the emperor might be, might be the one. But it is still like, because it's all tanks. Yeah. That's unfortunate. it. Yeah, but they are pretty cool. They're very neat. They have cool, they have cool style. Hey, if you're looking for your classic Lawrence of Arabia slash like desert storm type look of soldiers, but in 40K, this is the one, right? Hell yeah. This is your one. This is for you. Yeah, you, you want World War I Germans, you got Krieg. You want, you want Rambo, you got Katachin, you know, you got all the options out there roll and this is, this is, you want World War I Germans, you got Krieg. You want, you want, you got all the options out there, roll. And this is, you want, you want, you want, you got war. You want, you got all the options out of you. You got. You got all the options out their role and this is that kind of style. Yeah.

Yeah. Some people think Games Work does want to make a deserable as a thing because they are afraid to do with something racist. But my counterpoint is the new Dune movies and the Fremen. I don't even know if it's necessarily about that. I think they're just not as loved as the other factions. Yeah. They, I would imagine with GW, it feels like it's always just more of a, how well will it sell?

And they don't think it'll sell very well. So they just don't care. even if there's like an outcry for people being like, give us more Eldar for the last 40 years, you know. I'm not particularly worried about the cultural side of things like that, at least not so much. I think it's more just the fact that right now, like Games Workshop did expand regiments in this edition for Guard.

They released a bananza amount of new Krieg. And they also released the Adeline Rough Riders, which is from Attila, right? So, I mean, there's only a lot. the one, but it probably could release more stuff from other factions and things of that nature. However, I would imagine that the

Taller Raiders might be a bit lower on the list. But Bricky, we need more ultramarines. Dude, we only have more ultramarines. We need more. We need more ultramarines. I can't believe... We need another Titus Mini.

Lieutenant Titus lasted like a year. And then they made Captain Titus. They like, he lasted a year, dude. And I don't, I don't have any Morty and Iron Guard. I don't got any, any Tandas or Raiders. No Armageddon. I mean, Armageddon Steel Legion look like literally like the World War II German fighting force.

That might be a little bit worrying if they're actually worried about doing something like that. But I don't know. They are, I don't know. I think, I think it's just a fact that the general aesthetic So long as you do a homage, I think it's more important. Like if you're going to base a unit on like a real life military, they just base stuff a real life military. I don't think it's particularly that hard.

Just doing, yeah, like you said, just doing homage. I'd be more frightened about the players. Yeah. I'd be, I'd be more frightened. If I was running town desert raiders and I went to my local LGS and I decided to run them, I'd be more worried about the person I play of making off comments that are way off kilter. that's what I'd be more worried about Yeah, definitely

definitely more worried about that for sure Yeah Yeah Just rip up to Yeah listen in Games Workshop You've ripped off Dune a ton already You've ripped off so much of Dune All you need to do is do it again

But this time with the new Dune movies And you're chilling They need to do Dune again Doing it No, it sounded good in my head And then it just flopped I tried something. It didn't work.

Anyway, I mean, every sci-fi... My mother is a lovely woman. I believe you. But yeah, I mean, every franchise is ripped off, too. Sure, do it again. Do it again. Why not? Yeah, do it again.

Why not? Or if you want to give me Death Watch Titus, I'll take that, too. I mean, I'm literally making Death Watch Titus. Let's go. As much as I bitch and complain about Titus, I got the new... dudes for a good deal and I'm paying them like death watch and they're going to look sick. Let's go. I'm still pissed about it.

I'm mad about it, but I am still going to pay for it. You know what I find enjoyable? When there comes to guard regiments, there's like a bajillion dillion, right? And there's always going to be that one person who's like, I can't believe game workshop hasn't made any minis for the 47th shit fuck ass canons. Why have they not made any minis for the shit fuck ass canons regiments? on planet suck dick. And the reason, and like, I don't care about those people.

But the Desert Raiders are pretty up there in terms of intrigue. And I do feel like they should have like at least a kill team kit or something. Yeah, something. Bricky revealing his homebrew guard, Richard, and over here. Listen, you, this is, this is why I want to make a Death Watch army. Because whenever I deal with anyone, it's like, oh, but this faction is so cool because their origin story is so great. And I'm like, yeah, my Death Watch Origin story is part of the worst

series of books I've ever heard. We watch from death. You can't beat me. I play Nightlord. You can't beat me in a sucking competition. You really can't. You can't beat me in a cowardice running away. Don't get enough attention off. Yeah.

Absolutely. Anyway, yeah, Dowland Desert Raiders, I think they should make a kill team or something of that nature. Or some kind of cool, like, move, shoot, move squad. it would be a lot of fun. Agreed. Horseback Rough riders, please.

That would be, love the Talon. Maybe like an upgrade spruce for like the Attilaun ones. Personally, I would like, I would like a move, shoot, move sniper thing or maybe like a tank variant or something. That'd be cool.

Sure. I'm down with that. Hell yeah. Let's go, Talon. Heck yeah. All right. Um, what's,

oh, crap. Uh, give me, give me a desert. Uh, uh, give me a desert. fucking um pun uh man just just finished dinner guess it's time for desert that's so i was good dessert deserts this podcast man fuck this i'm out of you