Adeptus Ridiculous - THE SIEGE OF VRAKS: PRELUDE TO A NIGHTMARE | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousThe Siege of Vraks was a major campaign waged by the Imperium to reclaim the world of Vraks, first from traitorous forces, and later from Chaos. Trouble on Vraks began when the rogue Cardinal Xaphan established a powerful following on the Departmento Munitorum armoury world of Vraks, proclaiming that he was acting against doubters and heretics that threatened the Emperor's divine rule. Xaphan attempted to organize a War of Faith as he established a stranglehold on Vraks, purging any who spoke out against his zealotry. However his sermons focused on the downtrodden workers and lower of Imperial society, and soon Xaphan became a man of the people. This drew the ire of the Ordo Hereticus, which became concerned that the Cardinal was amassing too much personal power and that his preachings of hope to the lower classes may result in open class warfare on Vraks. Thus the Ordo decided to dispatch the Cardinal, deploying a lone Vindicare Assassin for the job. However the assassination attempt failed, and when the attempted murder of their "savior" at the hands of the Imperial government became known, the citizens of Vraks rose up in open revolt.Support the show

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous Podcast. My name is D.K. Diamantis. His name is Bricky and, oh boy, Warhammer 40K lore. What sort of insidious, horrible thing are we going to learn about today? But before we do, if you enjoy today's episode, head on over to patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, and consider supporting the podcast. You get access to our Discord, bloopers if they happen. At the $15 tier, you get all the HD Post.

you can shake a stick at and oh by the way bricky there's a new poster today and are you ready too smug i'm gonna be upset i don't think you are no no i don't think you're gonna be upset it's it show him shy show show him the poster show him show him what we've got oh that's baller i know wait that looks awesome it's so great there's nothing cursed about it. It's, it's, it's so cool. I am, I am buying this. This is going right up on the wall. Okay, all right, all right.

Shai's got a, uh, shi's got an interesting quote. Here's our new Inquisitor poster. Before you ask, no, it's not a femme boy, nor is it a tomboy. You're so interested at what's in their pants. I can tell you, it's a bolt pistol about to be pointed at you, you filthy heretic. Hey, let's go.

I love some, I love some non-binary representation. That's great. Yeah. Hell yeah. It's a bad. ass poster. It looks great. The lighting, the window, they look like a very intimidating inquisitor that is going to find your secrets and send you to a prison somewhere. Okay, I got to say this. You know what the background really reminds me of? It reminds me of your apartment in the Citadel

DLC and Mass Effect 3 with the big neon sign outside your window. Right, right. Fair enough. I got it getting that vibe. Speaking of, I guess you could grab this at the merch site at Orkidate.com. A link in the description. You want to take this. You want to put it on your wall. You want everyone to see. And by everyone, I mean, it's like just your room, I guess.

Go to Orkidate.com. Grab yourself some cool merch. Also, you hang it on your front wall and everybody could see it. Your front wall? As opposed to your back wall. Then front door. Well, whatever. Yeah, there's a front wall.

I have a front wall on my house and I have a back wall on my house. Okay, you could, you could be weird. D.K., you do know we can hear, like, your cat in the background, like, a lot, right? Yes, I know, but she's just so needy lately, and I can't help it. It's fine. She's so needy. I'm just, I'm just making sure you're aware. I'm just making sure you're aware of the fact that it can be heard.

I am, I am, I am painfully aware, yes. Okay, okay. I wasn't sure if you just didn't know if the mic picked up or not. No, I know. I know. Okay. You know, total side notes,

this actually is a really great time to have this poster because the book club is also going to be the first book of Eisenhorn, Zenos. Oh, that is perfect time. Hey, hey, segue. I bet I would imagine

I actually planned it that way because, you know, she's not stupid. I'm assuming that this poster came, like the idea was before we, yeah, whatever. Non-porn.

Anyway, D.K., are you ready for your quote? I'm really not I I Well lucky you You don't have a quote Oh thank you

Jesus Just kidding I lied Oh you Bitch Bitch Just kidding I lied again There actually is no quote Are you

Hydrodominatus Are you strapped for time Is this a bit Hydrodominatus my guy Are we actually doing an Alpha Legion episode? Is this what's happening? We're just doing deception all day long? You need to strap an extra 10 minutes on to the episode by jabating me into thinking we do or do not have a quote?

I actually do think that we do. I think actually Alpha Legion are involved in this, yes. But no, this is not an Alpha Legion episode. I'm not telling you what this episode is about. I think that this, as I was really, researching and reading about this, it was fascinating to me. And it is a very enjoyable story. And I think I'm just going to tell you the story.

Okay. Let's do it. All right. So out in the deep dark areas of imperial space, there is a world with a cardinal. Cardinal is like your high missionary top dog kind of guy. I wouldn't say it's quite like a saint. You know, you haven't like read sainthood, but like, you know, you're the cardinal. And that makes you a very important religious figure.

This cardinal was named Cardinal Astral Borgia. And they have just recently passed away. They lived to a ripe old age of 400, thanks to the greatness of their personal adeptus, Mechanicus, Biologists, and they were a loved, loved preacher, an orator, order for the Imperium and its worlds in this sector.

But they have finally died of old age, and they now have a replacement. His name is Cardinal Zafin, which is going to be a little difficult to go with because we had a Zafin in the Master of Mankind book. We did, we did. I was going to say already with the, it's like, oh, yeah, we had a Cardinal that we really loved. Oh, they were so great.

They lived to the ripe old age of 400, and they are going to be replaced by Zafin. And it's like, it's just, it reeks of, oh boy, he is going to commit war crimes on high. Well, I'm not going to spoil it for you, so we'll continue. War crimes incoming Well this is a 40K story There will be war crimes Whether it's from him we don't know That's true, that's true, that's true

So Cardinal Zafin Was a strong protege From Borgia really rose Through the ranks quite quickly And with their new leadership position He was now just You know, he's like the new Pope basically Right? Yeah, yeah

And so with this position he decided he was going to do a pilgrimage to the worlds under his domain and so he could see all of the billions of people that was under his overall influence and really kind of like put a pulse to the average imperial citizen now this tour would take five years to complete it would have a huge entourage of thousands of preachers, deacons, servants, menials and he even had his own personal adeptus

sororitus bodyguard. Of course he did. From the Order of the Argenter shroud. Pick unrelated. I was going to say, were his adeptus, sororitus bodyguards barefoot too? Was that something he

also enjoyed Mr. Cardinal guy? Is that? This is not Doge Van Dyer. However, this is simply another high power religious figure. All right. That needs his sister bodyguards. Well, I mean, that's their job, you know? Sisters often do that.

Okay. Okay. Hey. So, anyway, in the next few months, his trips to the other worlds, like, stirred this fanatical devotion, right? Because this was like, you know, the Pope is coming to your city, you know, basically. But we're talking the Pope of. billions of people. Yeah, yeah. He's a big deal.

And for a lot of these people, they have, like, that whole divine right to rule where, like, the God emperor put him in this position. You know, it's like, that's kind of how the imperial people see it. Just like no religion, right? Well, pretty much. Like the Pope. They're like, oh, God, put you in that position. It's, you're his chosen

emissary. Yeah, yeah, I got you. Yeah. A pretty classic divine right to rule. Like, you know, 40K apes real life for a reason. So as he went through here, he actually started getting these little cults that would attach to his entourage, as they deemed his pilgrimage a holy crusade to rid the sector of heresy and purge the impure. In fact, on one world, thousands gathered simply to get a glimpse at him to the point where riots started happening, and the sisters of battle and Adeptus Arbides fought to restore. order, which ended up killing scores of people.

Because eventually you got too close and it's like, I will open fire with my bolter if you get closer. And they got closer. Oh, boy. That's, uh, okay, okay. So it seems like a terrible waste of life to just,

oh, I got to get closer to the pulp and you get my mind. Hey, you know, if you, to lay eyes upon someone appointed directly by the God, emperor himself allegedly. Hey, you know, people, this is the Imperium, remember?

That's true. That's true. But hundreds of citizens pledged themselves to his servants. And soon his entourage grew into like practically the size of a small army. And this was, in his mind was starting to realize like,

wow, I'm seeing like real power that comes with this. rank, with this rank of card. Like the fervor of these people, the devotion they have, this is something I could do real good with. Oh, oh, oh, yeah, real good with. Oh, he wants, so he wants to do good things.

I thought as soon as you said, oh, he's seeing how much power, he's like, ooh, I can do greedy, awful things. I'm shocked that there is, that there is a person in power in 40K that's like, hey, let's do some good. Well, yeah, he, he, I mean, you know, good means to cleanse the world of heretics and stuff. Yeah, sure. Air quotes good. Yeah, he's not actually looking to make life worse for everybody.

He's at least got the Imperium's, you know, best interest at heart, which is better than, you know, Tosh Vandire. Yeah, well, he was just a greedy, a greedy, uh, what's it, narcissistic, sickerant or whatever. Yeah. But along with his entourage of people was another gentleman that rose through the ranks quite quickly to become a deacon. This was Deacon Mammon or a Mammon. M-A-M-O-N. I don't know. Maman, Deacon M-Mamon, whatever.

Deacon Maman. Deacon Maman is one of his new entourage that has risen through the ranks a lot. And they both kind of agreed on this idea of a more. personal use of this devoted army they kind of have. Because in their minds, they say the Imperium does not need another faceless bureaucrat to lead it against actual real dangers, real threats. His job as a cardinal would basically be there to make people happy and stir, and stir people, be like, oh, the God emperor.

It's like, no, no, no, I have actual devoted followers to the point where I have like a small force. I can actually use this deal with the imperialist enemies. I can create a war of faith to cleanse the sector. Wow. All right. Okay. Cool. Cool. I That's a lot of power for pseudo-cardinal to have. Hey, billions of people. Yeah. I mean, sure, he speaks for the emperor, right? He was he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, anointed by the God emperor himself.

So, I mean, I, I guess it makes sense, sure. So with this, they decide that they, while they wanted to get this dumb, they would need to be a bit cautious, be quiet about this, rival factions in the area would definitely try to steal his power. And also, this bordered really close on violating the decree.

repassive, which was the special decree that was made after Doge Van Dyer to not allow a political figure to have men under arms. Yeah. I imagine after what To Old Goj did, there would be a few limitations

like that put in place. Yeah. Okay. That's the whole point of the sisters, is that you can't have men under arms. Oh. Okay. Yeah, it's kind of stupid, but, you know, it's whatever. Yeah. That's crazy. Because wasn't it, weren't the sisters a big part of the whole Gose Van Dyer thing?

Oh yeah, they were a huge part of it. But it's more the idea that, listen, it's a stupid loophole to allow you to have the thing. Okay, okay, okay, all right, all right, as long as we're all on the same page. Okay. The point is that these are, the sisters are taken from the Scholar Progenium, trained excessively hard, faith in the emperor, but are also known to seek out heresy in any way. shape or form. So, you know, many a time, remember what happened when someone went too far with their power, they had a certain sister cut his head off. Yeah, they sure did. They sure did.

Anywho, uh, the dunch. Um, anywho, uh, this also would bring in other possible people to, to learn about their little war. The Ordo Hereticus would most likely not take too kindly to this. Um, people have been subjected to unimaginable pain by the Inquisition for a lot less. Yeah. So, they needed a world to run their war from, their Holy Crusade. And the Deacon Mamond suggested a world known as Vrax Prime, VR, A-K-S. That sounds ridiculously familiar. I couldn't imagine.

imagine that. Anyway, it's an armory world. It's an armory world full of weapons and equipment in abundance as well as home to the shrine of St. Leonis the blind, the holiest figure in the region.

Okay. It's kind of a shit head world. It's a drab, sandy, and awful. Okay. I mean, that's kind of how it looks from the picture shy posted of it. It looks like it would be sort of barren desert wastelands and yeah. But it has 8 million, only 8 million,

souls on there that are entirely dedicated to the mass production of armaments. Good old militarum tanks, weapons, siege weapons, etc., etc. And so it's a pretty big resupply planet, despite not a ton of people on it. Okay. Yeah, because, you know, it's an armory world. Yeah, that's what they do. It's, yeah.

So the idea, the statement that the Cardinal Zafin himself would visit Vrax Prime stirred the local population into a frenzy, like bringing pilgrims to the planet across the wastelands, all to see him. And the deacon Mamon had the idea to really stir up the populace. So he chose like his outfit. as he stepped out of the drop ship guarded by his sororita's honor guard he walked down the ramp with silks and rosaries and covered in jewels

and holy relics and specifically a golden refractor field energy field that made him literally shine with golden light all right all right that seems a little a little self-centered

a little maybe a little egotistical but I mean again, he is the emissary of the god emperor, I suppose that does afford you some luxuries. But okay, sure. Sure.

Plus, it was also a way to stir the population, to have them believe, like, yes, the emperor's light truly shown through this man. Because this entire population, I've seen nothing but metal and dirt for like their whole lives. And they're seeing

this guy with like more money than their planet in his robes alone golden or glowing gold yeah that refractor field probably costs more than anything they've seen in their entire life and it probably is the most dazzling thing they've seen in their entire life too because you know desert wasteland you're just working on metal all day yeah yeah and you know one would assume that it uh is also for safety oh sure a little bit yeah yeah yeah so the next once they arrive

They opened up these boxes and just a flittering cacophony of servoskulls flew across the city. And he gave a rousing three-hour speech preaching the good word the people had done, their devotion to the emperor, and how they were the true heroes of the Imperium. Not the Astardis, not the militarium, because without them, where would their precious weapons be? All right, we are, that's bordering on heresy right there, isn't it? That's, um, rousing speech about like, A, how is the Astardis? No, it's you, Pete, like, isn't slandering the space marines probably not the most intelligent thing you can do? Yeah, it's, B, it's power to the working class.

It's like, a space marines bolter will never be. be fire without you guys. You guys are great. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. He's not like, ah, space brains are useless. He's just like, oh, they can't do what they do without you wonderful people. Exactly.

It's more lifting than up than bringing them the other. Got you. I thought he was literally just like shit-talking space frames. I was like, buddy, buddy, buddy. That's, well, maybe not the, maybe not the dog you want to poke. A drop pod literally lands on his head. And those stupid space, slam! And it just like turns into a mist.

Space rings walk out. This is the planet where we are trying to resupply. What is this? What is this? Space Marines don't even walk out. They open one of the flaps and they peek out. And they're like, we got him. Closes it back up and flies away.

Flies off. Anyway, he ended his speech with a dark warning. He ended it with a much harsher message That the enemy of the Imperium is close Extremely close One that would bring war to Vrax On an unimaginable scale And soon they would need to bear arms

For their family and for their planet And then he immediately left And held himself away in his new palace Wow, that is ominous If I'm listening to this speech, I'm like, yeah, when's the next transport off world? Oh, no, no, no. You're the savior of the Imperium, you random dock worker guy. Right now, you're maybe you're panicking, most likely, but you're probably also preparing.

You're arming yourself. You're getting as much toilet paper from Costco as you can. I am most certain. Maybe a normal person would. Maybe the normal person, not me, though. I am a coward. I am getting off world ASAP. Well, yes.

Wait, wait, wait. How? How can you afford that? I don't know. I'll figure it out. Oh, yeah? You know how expensive it is to get off world? I'll just steal one of those relics off the Pope.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, man. You're gonna, I can't wait for the cannon nest to put a power fist into your face. I'll be real sneaky about it. I'll be real sneaky about it. Don't worry. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll play a lot of Balders Gates, I'll roll on a stealth check and I'll be fine.

Don't worry about it. If you get a snake eyes and catch a chainsword. I could happen. I could roll critical failure. You took a bolter right to the nose. You're dead. Anyway, so, Deacon Mamon helped him establish his new inner circle, the disciples of Zafim, the closest allies of the Cardinals' militia, as the citizens outside.

scrambled in fear. But it didn't start easy. The sororitus bodyguard did not join. Their canoness expressed suspicions of their actions and accused them of seditious actions and bordering on blasphemy and rescinded her honor guard. The loyal forces of the Adeptus Arbides

also left and resided in their precinct instead on Vrax as they did not wish to be a part of any of this inner circle workings of Zafin and Mamon. Oh, so he's lost, he's lost a lot then. He's lost some important figures. Yeah, he's lost his sisters and the Arbides? Mm-hmm. That's not good for you, Zafin. That's bad.

That's, you don't want that. No, and his confidence wanes. his confidence waned heavily. No kidding. I have lost my most important allies. Boy, I'm sure doing a good job here. All right. But after five long days of deliberation, once again,

Deacon Mamon reminded him that his cause was just. And what they would need to do is find a way to convince him, the people of Vrax that they believed in his role, his power, and arm themselves, the time to come up and arm and defend themselves. And they just had to wait for the enemy to make their first move. And exactly what had happened,

what you thought would happen had indeed happen. The sister superior had shown immense fear about what is currently happening in the violation of the decree passive and sent word out to the Ordo Hereticus about this. And they dispatched a vindicare assassin

to take out Cardinal Astral Zafin. Oh boy. That's so Zafin is going to die. Yeah, if the assassinorum puts out a hit on you, I am sorry, you're going to die. So there on a narrow ledge of the tallest tower, this assassin laid there for three days, camouflaged by this stel suit, waiting for any sign of his target. And on the fourth day, he fired his rifle with a single shot that traversed the distance between him and the far side of the courtyard,

penetrating through a decorative marble barrel, a barrel, marble pillar, and hitting the Cardinal Astral Zafin. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that does sound like the, yeah, that sounds like a Vindicare Assassin's aim, all right, sure. Yep. And with a flash of golden light,

the bullet ricocheted off the relic-mounted refractor field, saving his life. Right, right, right. He has a refract, he has the golden refractor field. Right. Okay, okay. Now, Grant said, I was always wondering this because it was a turbo penetrator round. I thought it would actually take him out.

But I think maybe the distance combined with breaking through the marble pillar slowed it down enough to where the field could launch it away. Or he may need a shield breaker round. I don't know. Yeah, I was going to say, if he had that shield break around from assassinorum that punched through a high, was the Titan, a high castle-night? Knight Valiant. Night Valiant, whatever. Or Nykestellan, yeah. Nikes, yeah, yeah.

It punctured through that thing's Void Shield. Like, you should have used one of those. You would have gotten right through. But immediately after it bounced through, two more shots were immediately fired, quickly killing two of Zafin's disciples, each clean through their head. But unable to get to Zafim,

the assassin left their rifle, and immediately abandoned their equipment and started running for the escape area he obviously pre-planned. Oh, wow, all right. The next few moments were a total frenzy. After seeing the failed assassination attempt on Zafim with the populace riled up that the enemy was at their doorstep,

they all started going into a mad panic. The sniper was running his way through constantly. And I mean like reading this, like he's putting headshots in everyone. He's just running like pop, pop, pop, pop, turn the corner, pop, pop, turn the corner, pop, pop, pop, turn the corner, pop, pop. Well, I mean, we read as Hasanorum. Like, that's a very typical thing for Avindicare to be able to do. It's not unheard of. Oh, absolutely.

He was blindfiring over his shoulder, killing more guards, sliding between areas of corridors, looking for alternate escape routes. But eventually he was cornered by a vast amount of militia men into the, a stuck inside of a single room in which them, once the only door exit that was there, was blocked, a volume of fire riddled into the entire room, eventually killing the assassin. Yeah, the numbers got him. The numbers got him. I mean, yeah, I keep going back to assassins. But the same thing happened to our boy in an assassin arm. Well, not exactly, but he did get overwhelmed by numbers until he put his mask on somebody different.

But yeah, even, even an assassin in the Imperium can get overwhelmed by just sheer force of numbers. Especially when, you know, like a bunch of them are just spraying bullets into you. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yep, yep. The sniper's corpse was then taken and paraded through the streets. Oh, boy. images of it were linked around the planet Here was the man who tried

Yet failed to kill the cardinal No doubt A real fact that the god emperor truly Protects this man Oh boy I don't think that bodes well for this planet But But says Zafin's disciples

He was yet a puppet Simply a puppet of the greater foe traitors and heretics had infiltrated the highest level of the Imperium and would now be sending the full measure of their forces against them. And this sparked planet-wide rioting and uprisings. Yeah, I imagine it would. So nothing good has happened here. This story seems like a perfect example of the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

and I'd say Meglamaniac power trip Fair enough Fair enough, yeah A little bit of A wee bit of the old megalomaniah, sure And then So Vrax armories were then

Just looted entirely By all of the various angry mobs Weapons and ammunition In droves were taken And as expected The Arbides Quickly attempted to reimpose their order moving out there, police patrols,

kidding the masses, kept, you know, pushed down. Soon though, battles were fought throughout the streets as rioting got to, like, you know, there's millions of people. And were sent back to their precinct while they were waiting for aid.

Just for confirmation, the Arbides are the Judge Dread-looking guys, right? Yeah. Okay, yeah, they're like the police force, essentially. Okay. Just make it wrong on the same age. they couldn't fully restore order, so they had to make their way back

to their precinct on Vrax. Oh, yeah, yeah. At this point, it has gotten to too much of a, you know, boiling point that there's no way that you can bring order back here. The aid was obviously requested from the garrison, but under their instructions was denied. Deacon Mamond's instructions was denied.

So instead, the battle sisters will be the one to help heed their call. However, unknown to the deacon, once the sniper had died, it triggered a comms device hidden among the equipment that sent a message to the canadest that simply said, kill the heretic. Oh, blam-blum. Blom-blum.

Blom-blum. So, the cannon nest and her contingent of battle sisters marched along up, moving to the deacon and his disciples. And most of the pilgrims and people were like, oh, God, the emperor's chosen, his bodyguards, cool. And they were chilling. They were fine with their arrival. But about 100 meters from the gates, things started changing.

I bet. Go on. The disciples of Zafin moved their way to attack the battle sisters, infiltrating their way through the crowd. and rushing to the front lines. At this point, many of them just immediately were shot down by the Battle Sisters

or their guns were ricocheted off their power armor with the exception of one of them getting a lucky shot across a Battle Sisters head by splattering her armor with blood. And from there, the Battle Sisters turned on the crowds and the crowds turned on the sisters. Oh, okay.

So we are just full-blown at war here. We're just full-blown chaos. Not chaos, air quotes. We are in chaos. We are in chaos. Yes, yes, yes. Everything has just flipped on its head, and we are just everybody's shooting everybody. Yep.

Everyone started clamoring against the Battle Sisters and hundreds died as the battles were just open-fired mass into the crowds as they started rushing out. them and these militia men with just pure hate in their eyes seeing them as like heretics that have infiltrated even the battle sisters um sounds about right

I'm shocked that it's only hundreds that died from the battle sisters you know you only have so much ammo that's true but they well I guess they have they don't have the same bolters that a space marine has so there's not as big of an explosion when those things

raddle off but still Ironically, backing them up Were the Adeptus Arbides Trying to provide covering fire Bolter rounds, frag grenades, tear gas The judge

Shotguns All keeping them back And trying to Trying to get the sisters Back into the precinct Only half of the battle sisters Were able to make it As the others were dragged down

And trampled and bludgeoned And stabbed and killed Well the other half ripped apart the rest as they ran out of ammo with chainswords and eviscerators. I mean, one thing this is a perfect example of is just like, Sisters of battle and stuff might all be great, but it's like overwhelming numbers, even the fiercest warrior is just like, nope. You've only got so much ammo.

You've only got so many people you can shoot at when there is a whole planet of millions of people. bum rushing you, there's only so much you can do, even if you're, even if you're a sister of battle. The, um, and during this time after this giant mob as they're making their way back to the precinct, the citadel above had the main gunners on the top, the main top level like gunners from the, the, um, the towers. And we're then told that all of the people in this crowd were heretics and must and then and them they were ordered to fire onto the square without question oh boy all right okay we uh we're we're okay all right so for three full relentless minutes

they fired into the crowd with giant like it's like it's like turrets they're like giant grenade turrets only then when it was when it was when it had had stopped and they were given the order to stop firing. The smoke had cleared and there was almost nothing left of the mob besides just a wet mess. I was going to say, just a tidal wave of gore at that point. Geez. All of the Arbides were dead.

Their precinct was now a smoldering grave and only six battle sisters had survived. How many? Out of the rest of them, I think there was like maybe 12 to 20. Ooh, that is a lot of loss of sisters. Oh, my God. And, well, the power armor took most of the impacts.

Sure. But the ones that were, that did survive, were then grabbed by Zafin's disciples through hands and chains and dragged off to who knows what. Oh, I would rather not imagine what they got dragged off to. So with that, the sisters of battle had been neutralized. The Arbides were all dead. The entire planet was now under the brilliant fervor of Cardinal Zafin.

And giving a rousing speech to the faithful mast outside of the basilica to rise against those who claimed to follow the emperor, but were in fact not. These heretics at the highest level. Okay. All right. Okay. So, okay.

All right. That's a little bit of the old heresy. All right. Cool. Cool. Cool. This, this. So far, this sucks.

This sucks. This kind of sucks. Sure. Yeah. This really gives me, like, Argo vibes. The Ben Stiller movie. No, not Ben Stiller. Ben Affleck movie.

I don't believe I've seen. Argo. I have heard of Argo. Yeah, the Iranian emissary, I think, where they were killing, like, Americans. I've seen Fargo. Oh, yeah. Don't you know? Don't you know? I got to give you a great deal on this here, car, eh? I'm sorry, I don't want to keep going on bad at this. It's okay. So tell me more about, uh, yes, about the, the, the person that rise to power, Zafin's rise to heretical power.

We've never seen an example of this type of power corrupting before, have we never? So, now as shy posted, the Cardinal has 50,000 disciples of Zafem, 10,000 of the Vraxian Guard, 500,000 palanaffirity defense force, 1.5 million militia, 1.25 fraterness militia, 1.5 labor corpsman, and 500. thousand armed civilians, not even including the penal colony, the excessively large amount of Ogrin that are used for labor there, and the unsanctioned, locked up psychers that were meant to be taken by the Sisters of Silence Black Ships. Whoa.

Okay. All on a gigantic world that is basically an arms bunker. Okay. I did not realize just exactly how many troops this guy had. Like, I knew the planet had, what do you say, like, 6 million people on it or something? 8 million, but yeah. 8 million. I did not realize the scope of his forces and how fervent an army he had.

That's crazy. That is an absolutely nutty amount of troops to have on a armory world that's built like a And now I can finally give you my quote. At my word, the maelstrom shall come, and Vrak shall drown in blood. Even the dead shall find no peace. I shall be the herald of the oncoming apocalypse and the true gods shall know my name. Lord Zafin, apostate cardinal, arch heretic, and the... The Despot of Vrax.

The episode today is on the Siege of Vrax. Let's go. Tidal drop. Boom! The Siege of Vrax. That is after everything we learned about Vrax, just like, that is a great quote. See, it kind of would ruin it if I gave you the oncoming apocalypse, drowning in blood statements.

That's a good time to drop it. I like it. I like it. So Zafin started off okay. He started off just kind of megalomaniac, a little crazy in that sense, but he didn't, he wasn't chaosy. He was trying to do good.

He was the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So with their assassination attempt failed, we pan the camera over to the imperial. The Imperium has seen Vrax's fall and must determine a response. Vrax is a massive armory world for the Militarum, and it cannot be destroyed.

It must be retaken. I was going to say you can't exterminate out of that planet. It's too important as an armory world. Like you can't just blow it up and be like, well, start over somewhere new. It's like, bro, that's 8 million people and an armory. You got to retake it, right? absolutely you really need to retake it because the defenses around the eye of terror

especially like you need to bring it back to the fold soon or else dark power specifically might strike farther out to the eye of terror and then more war bands would gather and then the bloodshed slaughter so on said in 10 years from now perhaps the loss of racks might even be the spark that ignites a new black crusade like it must it must be retaken Yep, yep, yep.

Their first attempt was an orbital blockade, or their first idea was an orbital blockade. Because exterminatists does not work. No, can't do it. Bombing it from orbit doesn't also work either. There are a couple defenses on the planet, for one, but also the defensive batteries are so entrenched. It's just really difficult to properly get that set up. So if they did an orbital blockade, it would say they would be able to starve them out

in about 500 years. Not worth it. Not worth it. That was their first attempt. Their first idea was let's starve them out for the next 500 years. This is them thinking of ideas. Okay.

That's going to be like bad idea. Next. So the other idea they had was a siege. Land large scores of people on the planet and slowly break them down to take maybe

12 or so years to take it back. That's better than 500. So that's what they decided to go with. With this, they made the 88th siege army. This was formed almost entirely from our boys

the Death Corps of Krieg. Hey. Let's go. A ran by Lord Trenches, man. Oh, yeah. It's all about long, grinding, attrition

warfare, artillery and trenches. And that is... And they'll probably die in the process, so they're just like, cool. As is, man. Krieg's specialty. Mm-hmm.

Unwinable fight. And this was given in command to, by Lord Commander Zulka, whose great-grandfather once served with the Lord Commander of the Imperium. Oh. Or sorry, Lord Commander Solar of Terra, what Leontas's position is.

He wasn't the most experienced of generals, but he had a great family name, and with a little political pressure, he had a large staff assigned to him to prep for the siege of Vrax. And yes, as Shai said, a lot of Kriegson fame came from this story. This is like the Creed story.

The Krieg. Oh, sorry. Wrong. The Cree. Oh, yeah. Build the trenches. The trenches. Yeah, I'm going to dig them.

Dig them. Oh, even if I die, it makes me happy. No one can judge me but the God Emperor himself. So most Craig fanboys, I don't know if I want to say fan boys. Most people that enjoy, most Creege enjoyers, found this to be like the story that was like, oh yeah.

Oh, yeah, babe. Oh, yeah. Pretty much. This is like one of the stories that really popularized Krieg and made them like if you are a fan of the death core of Krieg, there's a good chance you have heard or read this story before.

Much like if you were like me, who is a fan of the night lords, there's a good chance you got that way because of the trilogy. The trilogy, right. So the creg are going to go hard here And they're going to do work, apparently This is their specialty Yeah, I was going to say If this is the story that makes everybody

Fall in love with the Krieg They must go absolutely ham So Then came the logistics, right? It was actually rather simple How many men to dig this trench? How many meters of ground to capture the stronghold? How many guns need to destroy an enemy trench line?

You know, just you're going to need more manpower than that's on Vrax overall, just because of the nature of how siege is work. But give me the right number of men and I'll take it and how much time I need. Yeah, they're mathing it out. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So the Vrax army down on Vrax, mob violence escalated planet wide. Most turncoats from the Imperium were given high ranks in the Cardinals' new army.

to, you know, enforced obedience. Deacon Mamam oversight led to the training of their new army. Because they need to learn how to defeat the Imperium's return attacks, the traitors of the god emperor in order to strike out against the true enemy. That's the whole thing is they still believe they're doing this for the emperor. Eish, man. All right. They believe the Imperium have become corrupted by chaos or like by dark powers.

All right, all right, all right. Sure, that's okay. It's, yeah, it's Civil War. Um, so immediately, minefields were laid. Razor wire was rolled out. Artillery was practiced, ranges, bill, you know, Vrax was well prepared and well armed. Oh, yeah, they're armed to the teeth because that's what they do. And Cardinal Zafin was basically saying, I brought the word.

of the emperor to Vrax and anyone who takes issue with my interpretation of those words will find only death. Oh God. He just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn't he? All right. I was

almost a killed once. I will not happen again. As for the Kriegsman, as for the Kriegsman in the Army of the Imperium, it was mostly long range weaponry. Small mortars, medium mortars,

Big mortars, Medusa siege guns, quad launchers, earth shaker cannons and bombards. Lots of infantry and tanks were brought along in case needed, but for the most part, it is cannons. And a lot of them. So what you're saying is this story is canon? To the 40K? It's a canon story. See what I did there? Me, me, me, when D.K. makes jokes.

It's a funny joke. Continue telling me about this canon story. There were many canons. And Vrax as a planet was a barren drab planet, even before imperial occupation. It had a layer of ancient volcanic dust, was bare and rocky, quite warm, but with violent electrical storms that happened often daily, immediately followed by sudden downpours of rain. So you now have one of the most ashen drab rocky planets that will then often daily become a mud fest that will make you incredibly slow to move. It's strange because like as soon as you said that, I was like, oh man, this planet sounds like it sucks. And then my next thought was like, oh, this is like a Kriegsman's wet dream.

Like this is, they love this shit. Like they must be so happy about it. Yeah, all you need is some, some just earth-shattering radiation, and they're right at home. So the landing began shortly after. 200,000 Kriegsmen marched on the Vrax with the heavy artillery they brought with them. Cardinal Zafin actually had no real ships, so he couldn't really challenge the new fleet. And they landed with no issue. They created many bases of operation, dug trenches, added minefields, and all,

went unanswered. Zafin's forces did not attempt to stop them. They simply dug themselves in deeper. The required resources for a full 12-year war were then deployed, and it took almost a year of setup and preparation before they were genuinely ready to fight, including dropping half a million laborers and penal colony men to allow for building transport systems, railways, and other large vessels. Wow.

An entire year they were just doing setup and prep work. Hey man, siege just take a while. That's true. You basically need to build a base. True, and this is a massive siege on a, on a planet that has how many eight million infantry people that are armed to the teeth with tanks. So, okay, yeah. Actually, I guess it's kind of surprising that it.

only took a year to prepare for something like that. So then the first locomotive set off carrying men and guns to the first forward depot. And now that they were a little bit under 100 kilometers away, they would march the rest. Logistics were ready, and the plan was simple. A repeated offensive on two separate fronts. There are three defensive lines outside of the Citadel of VRAX. I need to grab the first. photo of this real quick.

Didn't shy just put up the photo of Rax? Different. That is the Citadel of Rax. Oh, okay. This one would be, here we go. This is the general concept. The Citadel is that tiny thing in the center. Oh, right. Oh, okay.

So the idea is that you needed to get through that first red defensive line because that would be the best way for the enemy to hit you with counterattacks, flank you, go around the sides, et cetera. If you move through that first line, quick, very fast, Blitzkrieg style, you can mainly not deal with too many counterattacks. Then you can really take your time with that second defensive line, moving your way through, slowly grinding forward to force them into their hole. And then when you're at that third defensive line, you set up 10,000 Earthshaker cannons

and you just do your work. I was going to say once you're close enough, you can just, you set up shop and you just go, and you just go to town on them. You just slow, grind them out and yeah. Because at that point, like, they're not going anywhere. You've got the upper hand on them, so blast them out. And really, that was the end goal of the siege. Fast through the first, slow through the second, turn them into a crater.

It ought that, yeah, sure. Good plan, good plan, good plan. I like it, I like it. And with that, at the dawn, the first light of dawn on the horizon, all the men and women of Krieg, it's mostly men because of the cloning thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But regardless, they all prepped themselves up.

And the Vox crack good to life, that signal is authentic, sir, message reads, proceed. all gunnery crews open fire and that will end today's episode no shot this is going to be like a trilogy man

there's a lot I was anxiously waiting for the next part it was all set up the first shot has been fired the first shell has been loaded the first salvo Oh, man.

The setup is important. The Zafin's thing. You have. You have been blue-bald. I have been blue. The balls, they are blue. Damn it. Owie.

Ow-y-O-W-I. Ow-y. Also, I'm trying to remember, what was the name of the Krieg guy that got cloned in the Craig book? I want to say Yergan, but I don't think that's right. Because I think Yergan is Keynes,

Cain's guy. Yeah, yeah, I think you might be right. Because that's what they imply at the end of the Krieg book, right? Is that every Kriegsman is a clone of that one really important Krieg dude, right? Or something? That was the thing, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So the, it's, yeah, I mean, this is, I mean, I think that a cregge book came on after the Siege of Racks. The Siege of Racks books don't have. Eurton, thank you. Your turn, not your good. Right, right, right, right, right. Gotcha. I was close.

Yeah, yeah. And it sounded right, too, but yeah, yeah. But, yes, that is all after. Right now, we're in full-on, full-on siege of murder mode. Hell yeah. Love me some good Krieg stuff. Love those Krieg. All right, cool.

I'm excited for the next episode. Also, oh, man, love it when we do trilogy episodes, because I don't have to worry about quotes for two more weeks. You didn't have to worry about a quote for this week either. Well, yeah, but this week is over. So now the next two weeks, I don't know what to, Also, I got to say that quote drop right in the middle was, that was the cream. That was great.

The cream. That was great. I don't know. I love that. Oh, so this is like a full-on book? This isn't just like a- I think this is multiple books. Oh, I thought it was just like one of those stories that they put in like the codexes or something.

Like I thought it was just like a long story that would be in like the creed codices or something. I believe that this is multiple books. Shai gave me an Imperial Armory Compendium that is like 150 pages of all of it condensed into 150 pages. So I'm basically, I am giving you the condensed version of the condensed version and we're still doing three episodes. Whoa. All right, cool. I mean, so far, I am at the edge of my seat wanting four more. Well done.

Yay us. With that being said, ah shit. Wow. See you next week, everybody. Yeah, see you next week, everybody. Wow. Bye.