Adeptus Ridiculous - THE SIEGE OF VRAKS: WELCOME TO THE KILLING FIELDS | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: August 23, 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 Adeptis Ridiculous podcast. As always, my name is D.K., as always, his name is Bricky. And, oh, boy, see Javrax. But before that, if you enjoyed today's episode, head over to the Patreon. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, consider supporting us. You get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen, the $15 tier, gets you all the HD posters you can shake a stick at. And we have the new one, the Inquisitor.

Ooh, love it. It's already on my walls. And, yeah, patreon.com. Slash Adeptus, ridiculous. Bricky, tell them about all of your stuff. See, I am, while the Inquisitor poster is on his walls, I am in it. And I'm here to provide to him excellent amounts of merchandise here, there, and everywhere. Then you can get at Orchidate.com, which is where D.K. got his.

Yeah, yeah, it was. It was actually very fast shipping, too. Well, yeah, we live, like, an hour and a half away. Hey, shut up, man. Just take the compliment. All right. Apparently we're having another poster this month too because Shai wants to do two of them. And look, it's Troy Baker from Death Stranding.

Hey! It is taking every fiber of my being not to spoil this poster. Really? I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's, no, no, it's really, really good. It's really fucking good.

Oh. crap okay uh when will like i'm assuming i'll be ready like next week i don't know shy i'll figure it out next monday sure next monday it is wahoo wowoo where can they get it then you can get at orchidate dot com you can get all kinds of merch there you can get it i'm a tank i'm a tank i'm a tank shirts hoodies you can get tank top version you can get posters it's all you can get dice you can get all kinds of thing. It's very fun. Good story. So, anywho,

well, we don't really have, I don't know, this time, and this time I'm not, I'm not screwing with you. I genuinely do not have a quote for you this time around. Well, yeah, it's Siege of Racks part two. Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, I could still have a quote for you. Oh, oh, okay, but you don't. Okay, that's fine.

I just want to know what happens, because the first salvos have been fired. The Creek have launched their first salvos. They've set up their encampment, and I'm ready to go. I want to know what's going on at Vrax. I'm assuming the Krieg do some pretty, as the kids say, poggers work, because, you know, this is what makes them famous, but let's go. You think that the Kriegsman might, like, adjust their gas masks so that the tube nozzle is just like a big pog?

No, I don't think they do. I think that would be a great idea. I think a World War I Krieg-style gas mask, but instead of the tube coming out of it, just a big pogg mouth would be excellent. And it's like,

Krieg-pog. I agree. I think that would be hilarious. But I don't think they actually did it, and I don't think it exists yet. I mean, that could change artists. I will commission many of artists. Anywho.

Oh, hell yeah. Anywho, yes, so it's Siege of Racks part two. This is where everything starts to go to shit. So the first shots have in fact been fired. It has begun. The war for Vrax has begun. And all morning they shelled the enemy. Like Earthshaker cannons and bombards,

the Kriegsmen shelled down Cardinal Zafin's forces until their gun barrels ran red hot. And naturally, the Cardinal's guns answered back at the same time as a regiment of Kriegsman marched underneath the flying artillery shells

as Krieg sheld the Cardinal the Cardinal sheld Krieg and underneath the arch of flying artillery Krieg's been marched getting their way closer to the position of the enemy Okay

Okay You know I mean Normally in most I mean, in most situations, as far as I can understand, you, before you begin your advanced, you shell the living shit out of them. And then during the shelling, you advance up because you are night,

because they are taking cover, they are suppressed, and then you stop shelling and you attack. Or in the Imperium's case, you attack while you still keep shelling. Oh, yeah, because you have billions upon billions of billions of reserves. So, uh,

who cares if a couple, thousand of our troops get caught in the crossfire. Whatever. Who cares? At least in like a more traditional, like a more meme worthy kind of style. For the most part, the guardsmen don't like to shell their own guys. Yeah, but it happens.

It's been known to happen. Also, after reading Storm of Iron, I'm just like, man, they should dig a, they should, they should dig a tunnel underneath the walls and put bombs under there and stuff. Well, that's funny you say that, because as they were marching forward, they're basically digging trenches the entire way through.

They're just like... Essentially, that is what they're doing, sort of. Not underneath, but just, you know, because you dig a trench to protect yourself from artillery fire because, you know, bombs exploding on the top is fine, the bombs exploding in is bad, but you can... It's a lot better. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, they have a pretty long way

before they reach the first line, as you can tell. Yeah, true, true. They're moving their way forward, and at this point, the first assault had to be really soon. And the way they worked, it was a three-part assault of men. Half a million men would lead this first assault. The first wave, much like most first waves, is not particularly high survival rates. They were there to figure out enemy weak spots and probe to the enemy's weak spots

in the most part. Checking to see the range of the guns, huh? Maybe not that bad, but, you know, like, it's, it's, you got to do probing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the, the second line would be mostly made of creed grenadiers to basically blow open all the areas of those weak spots. And the third wave would arrive to replenish the lines and expand. Then, uh, tanks would roll in and really secure a foothold. The idea often for the breaking through the line is like, all right, you need to, if you can, cut a pinprick into the lime,

then you can kind of hold it, and then slowly like rip open that hole and take out the rest of the line, so long as you can gain any kind of foothold, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, good strategy, good strategy. I like it. So, once the artillery ended, the Krieg then advanced,

and were immediately slaughtered. Oh! The artillery was pre-sighted, heavy bolter foxholes were everywhere, Cardinal was pretty prepped. Only a couple of them made it to the lines and those that did died real quick. Ouch.

Oh, boy. Wave 2 arrived and not much different happens. It's a little tough when you have a tiny little slit in a tiny little dugout foxhole with a goddamn heavy bolter in it. And you really can't get through that. No, you really can't. It's essentially it's a, it's just a, a killing field.

It's just like a, you can't get through that. It's a kill zone. It's a kill zone for Zafin. It's a kill zone for PlayStation 3. Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, I got it. I got it. I liked Killzone. I never played the Killzone games.

Legit and never played them. I, I mean, they're pretty like, like, shooty McShute gun games, but I like them. Oh, that's cool. Anyway. I have no opinion. Actually, I feel like. I feel like, wait, hold on, I feel like Killzone players would really like Krieg because they've got these like bright red.

Yeah, the mask thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have those bright red gas masks. What are those cool dudes on the cover called? Aren't they like hell somethings? Uh, hellgas or something? Hellgast, yeah, hellgast. Yes.

I never played the game, but I had to look up what they were called because I was just like, man, those guys are cool. Oh, man. man, that's dope. And yeah, they're hellguests. Yeah, it's pretty... Awful people. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're a Nazi allegory.

Okay. At least I would assume so. Damn. Like, well, well, I'd say, well, no, that's a... I guess Creek is more the World War I as a... What was it? It's the Armageddon, right, is World War II? Steel Legion. Yeah.

I was going to say this whole siege thing of Rax and the Krieg. It's like, man, this is just like really reinforcing. Like, if you're like a World War II buff or like a World War I buff, man, you must just be creaming at the Krieg. Because, oh, man, this is just everything you love, right? Oh, I'm going to creak. All right. I'm going to creak.

Anyway, so. In the Obama voice, I'm going to creak. I'm going to, my fellow. Americans. I'm going to Krieg. I'm going to Krieg. Mr. Dubois. Are you excited to see me Krieg up in here?

All right. All right. God damn it. We're getting off topic. So, wave three arrived into the front lines and Loll Lamau says Cardinal Zafin. Nothing happened. There was no breakthrough. The enemy lines were

not ruined by the artillery shelling, but in fact improved. And the enemy launched a counter attack, gone to close quarters, and eventually with the large contingent of Earth Shaker cannons that the Kriegsman had, they bombed it into oblivion, Kriegsmen and apostates alike. Yeah, that does sound like a very Krieg move, yeah. For three days, the battle ended in a complete stalemate, and this lasted for weeks. Mines were deployed, and then detonated, and then redeployed. Prisoners were taken and interrogated.

and interrogated. An average of 2,000 men died a day, and yet were refilled at extreme speeds. Wow. So Zafin is really no fool. Like, Zafin isn't some just like, oh, look at me, I'm

booboo. Like, he's actually like a smart, well-to-do, like military leader. I mean, he's got, I mean, it's not obviously not just Zafin. It's not like he's commanding everything. There's other generals and stuff. But yes, with what they've got going on,

they are not as hopelessly outmaneuvered as they would initially assume. Also, they are, you know, fortified as shit. So interestingly enough, in no man's land, the dead could not be buried, as it meant you know, only more dead people. So

on it went and often the artillery would just like vivisect and blow corpses up into more meat and like no man's land basically was true with nothing but bones meat and infection it was just like a mass

of flesh and uniforms well that's pretty grim dark I think that I think that fits the Warhammer 40K theme pretty pretty well actually once you once you climb over the pile of dead, you will find the decomposing bodies of the other dead underneath those bodies.

And this went on for an entire year of just back and forth stalemates. Wow. All right. Cool. Cool. I mean, I'm sure the creek we're having a great time. This sounds like it's just right up there alley, though. So, well, in fact, it was particularly up the alley of one very certain Krieg captain.

This guy was commander of the ninth company Captain Tyborg. Captain Tyborg in this... Yeah, T-Y-B-O-R-C. Tyborg. All right. Yeah. Or, I mean, I don't know if the sea is silent.

Oh, Captain Tybord. I don't know. Maybe it's Tybor's? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. A sea? You know, I don't know.

It could be Tyborch, but that's the sea is. the wrong part of Europe. True, true, fair enough. All right, but Captain Ty Bork. Good old Captain Tybork. Now, looking at the simplified document that I use and read on, they spend more time on this captain than most, which makes me assume that in the

book he's probably the biggest Dick Gigacad out there. Because he came off as quite the gigacad in this little like abridged version. But based on what I've read, I'm kind of in this like, dang, this guy was probably a real baller. Okay, okay. They needed to take a fort.

There's a fort on one, the outer lines called Fort A453. And this fort, fort, fork, fork, fort. Did they have to take this fort at nighttime? Are you going to make a fortnight joke? Maybe. I'm, I, I'm tuned in to your brain cells. Wow, that's, that's good. Because normally, like, why would they take it at nighttime?

That's not a strategic budget. It's because it's Fortnite, dude. Default dance sound effect. I don't know if that's a default dance. I don't play Fortnite. So, in the darkness, actually, oh, wait, shit, it is at night. Damn it. That's go, it's Fortnite!

So in darkness, they, a captain, Tyborg prepped his men in order to have a surprise attack launch to help take this fort. There was a new train that had been excavated only a few hundred meters before the fort's main

anti-tank ditch. And it was still dark as they had their preliminary bombardment, as they usually do, heavy shells, that kind of stuff. And amidst it, they slowly crawled their way up, get it through and through. And once the attack commenced, Mr. Captain Tyborg was the first one to climb the ladder.

He was leading from the front, ran through no man's land first, whipping through the heavy boulter fire, cutting the razor wire, and getting through into the enemy trenches. He was initially wounded in this as a heavy boulter shell caught a Kriegsman in the chest and blew him into, like, giblets and a large chunk of, of bone embedded itself into his, into his leg. Oh, you got the bone shrapnel. Oh, no.

At the bone shrapnel. Ugh. Um, but he was able to make it through to the other side of the trenches and create a small opening for his mem. Hey, okay. As soon as they made to the trenches, he then ran into mines. All kinds of mines. And being the badass captain he was, waded through them moving with speed and

haste wounded again by a shrapnel as he continued pouring grenades into pillboxes and sending a message that they are one they are inside the wire and as the defenders start to wake up they begin gunning them down mercilessly either in close quarters or in melee or sorry like close quarter firearms or in melee yeah yeah yeah um his vox operator was um how do i say this killed dead and so he had to send an an old school runner

to run back with information that they in fact had made it to these trenches and they were able to they had a slight foothold they got a spot for an hour maybe

they fought this battle this really close quarters, brutal brooding battle. After melting a door to slag with a melt a gun, this bleeding, limping captain led his men in to charge with bayonets leveled, which he then took a third wound by being shot in the head by a bullet grazing his temple and saving his life thanks to his helmet. Jeez, he's been through it. Tyborg has been through it.

Inside this enemy bunker now, they were then shelled to absolute oblivion by the enemy, but were safe in this foothold tunnel. Okay, okay, okay, cool. The runner then made it back to the Imperium and began to relay that he needed reinforcements as they held firm in this tunnel, looting the enemies dead all throughout the night.

Inside the tunnel, they start with 40 men, and throughout the course of a day, they were down to 16. Oh, wow. But as the third day came, the general that they got the runner to allowed for three companies of tank regiments to and our good friend,

the Bainblade, to help reinforce. The Bainblade. I got three companies of tank regiments and one Bainblades. One Bainblade. Yeah, that shows you the heavy stock of the Bainblade and how much of a game changer that is. You get one Bainblade and three companies.

On the final day, the fighting was the hardest. They kept trying to flame them out using, well, flamers. No kidding. Is that how you flame someone out with a... Normally I like to use water. It's a good choice, but, yeah. So, shut up.

So, good old Captain Tyborg here with the black asphyxiating smoke that was in the tunnels due to the attempt with the flamer, he was down to his final respiratory filter. He was out of water. His last pistol was empty.

He had more wounds to his legs and torso. but with a few well-placed grenades and a suicidal charge, they were able to kill the man with the flamer, steal it, and then hold off reinforcements by firing it lightly through the tunnel until the flames ran dry. Damn. And then the final night, the Kriegsman had finally arrived to reinforce the position, and Mr. Captain Tobork staggered from his position with two wounded legs,

a right arm, shrapnel to his abdomen, head, and an empty flamer in his one good arm along with eight remaining when. And just like that, they had finally captured the first, um, barricade, blockade, the first area. Dang, Tyborg went crazy. He made the breakthrough. He made the breakthrough. He got his spot. He held it for three. days got his reinforcements and

just like that first front line they got a hold dang he he surely he got some sort of metal or promotion or or something for that or at least a good night's sleep because I

I think he actually got promoted to Colonel as well he should is very obviously a good leader good fighter like promote that man as high as you can Well, you know, first things first. Let's get those. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, get the wounds healed and finish the siege of racks, then worry about all that commendation nonsense. Sure, sure. I'm sure he doesn't look any less ugly than he did when he first arrived. That's fine. He's going to wear a gas mask his whole life anyway. He's a kreysmen. It doesn't matter.

That's very true. Yeah. So, finally, after two years of a stalemate, they finally had their spot. Now they are fully on the attack, which means naturally, things can only get better from here. Oh, yeah, I don't.

I disagree that things ever get better. I do not, I do not believe at all that things are there. Hell yeah, brother. Zafin is time to fight back. Okay, okay, heck, okay. All right, cool. I mean, this one isn't as specific. Basically, the enemy counterattack arrived.

Lots and lots of tanks from the most part. In a sense, it was almost more like a delaying tactic. They fought back against the Kriegsman pretty darn hard, but then at the same time, we're also shelled into oblivion. But at the same time, basically we're like, all right, all we got the front lines, all these Kriegsmen are now ready to push through, to murder and cause all kinds of great power. Oh, crap.

We now have to divert all of our resources to this kind of attack. God damn it. Our timetable is screwed up. Ooh, true. Okay. So pushing them back. Like they finally got a foothold. They started taking more ground.

And then immediately Zafin was like, no, and shoved them back in the closet. Oh, okay. And this shoving, this is like closet shoving match went on for, I don't know, one, two, seven more years. Oh, my God. Seven years of just pushing them back through their

foothold? Oh, my God. Seven years? There's that old Militarum joke where it's like or like Militarum players like in us meme where it's like 20 million days.

dead, two kilometers of ground gained, ultimate imperial victory. This, this I think, is kind of where that may have sprouted, because millions died for genuinely a couple kilometers. That's about it. Crazy. Like, to be at that kind of a stalemate for seven years with nobody getting the advantage one way or the other is crazy to me. Siege warfare takes forever.

ever, dude. Sure, but seven years for that, for like, that spot with nobody, no give or take either way is crazy. It is. I mean, it's kind of, it's a kind of a real thing to know just how hard Vrax is to break. Hmm. I mean, so far, it has indeed been, uh, not easy, sure, but dang, sheesh. Shai said that's pretty embarrassing for the Krieg, actually. It is a little embarrassing for the Krieg.

Though, granted, there might have been some possible reasons for this that we'll determine later. But, you know, after all this time, it is, I mean, it is like just a regular planetary defense force versus the Krieg. But in fairness, this is VRAX. But yeah, it's been. nine years of fighting. You know, you know, you know, you know, one thing I do think is kind of fun about this, this story, though. It's just, it's just, oh, yeah, okay, you can tell me first.

Oh, no, no, I was just going to say, so far nothing has sounded super fun, you know, with the, with the field of dead meat and bodies and, and skeletons and stuff. And, you know, we've got Zafin, who is just not a, not a good human being at all. the other side that's been dying for 10 years. I don't know. Nothing really sounds fun to me. But please tell me. Please tell me they build a Chucky Cheese

and they'll have pizza together and play in the ball pit. Well, now I don't want to tell you. Does it get worse? Of course. No, okay. I was being genuine here in this thing where it is, what's fun about it is like, despite all the ridiculousness. I'm just saying it's nice that we've,

finally have a guardsman fucking fight. There's no space marines. There's no nothing. It's just nice to have guard on guard. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. I do like that. It's just, it's just the overwhelming power of the Imperium's Guard regiments just title-waving. Yeah. And there's no, there's no

overpowered space marines to come in and just bolter save the day. Yeah. So, some bad news had reached the Lord Commander. Oh. Enemies had been reinforced that looked like space marines.

Oh, okay. Okay, so. It was all a big setup. Okay. Okay, sure. Fine. No, that's cool. That's cool.

All right. It's time for the space marines to join the fight, D.K. Aren't you excited? Damn it. I was kind of hoping you were going to just be like, oh, they did build a Chucky Cheese. They built a 40K version of it. What did you think the VRAX Chucky Cheese would be like? Um, not great.

It would probably taste about the same though. Eat. It'd be four to five with corpse starch. Corps, yeah, yep. Yep, sure. It would probably taste better, actually, than regular chucky cheese pizza. Chucky cheese pizza is, in fact, pretty shit. I've had it once in my life, and all I remember is, wow, I would sure prefer cardboard over this.

Anyway, siege of racks, huh? Space Marines show up? Which chapter shows up? The Alpha Legion. Of course the Alpha Legion shows. All right. Cool. So next thing you know, there are reports of a dark blue color Astardis,

chilling on Vrax. And Lord Commander's like, oh, that's not good. There are no blue-colored space marines in this sector. those are probably Trader of Staris and like, oh God So this begins A long descent of all kinds of shit

This was a Alpha Legion war band Known as the Faithless Led by Lord Arcos Also known as Lord Arcos The Faithless Oh wow They really like giving him that title, huh? Well, that's what the war band is named after, his name after him.

Oh, okay, I was like, Warban is the faithless. He is the faithless. It's like, all right, buddy. Like, did you, did you not learn any other words in fourth grade? He learned Alfarious. Yeah, Omega, Alfarious. Yeah, that's about it. So, some meme on Twitter that was Robute Gilliman trying to sleep. It was like, I get sleep once every 10 years brain, be quiet. And then it was like the picture of the brain going, hey, what is? what if the Alpha Legion's logo is a Hydra because Altharian on Omega were actually triplets and he's like, ah, I can't sleep now.

Oh, God damn, that's horrifying to hear. Right? I get this meme, and it is horrifying. Hooray. Anyway, sorry, go ahead. Hooray. Hooray, says DK. I get this meme. It's horrifying. Hooray. Hooray, but I got it. You did get it.

I got it. With that, or with the Alpha Legion arriving, they have made their way. from the battle barge known as the Anarchy's heart. And they believe, yeah, I know right. They believe that this is an attempt to create a major destabilization from the sector, which will then allow the fortress worlds nearby to come under attack, possibly kickstarted new Black Crusade. So they're taking a real interest in VRAX.

Sure, sure, of course. So they're out and about helping things out, which is really bad because, you know, this slow moving war of attrition is one thing. But the moment you stick some Mastardis in there, that changes the entire game plan. It's really hard to war of attrition, space marines, when you are the guard. Also, you can kind of expect space marines to move in a,

not a space marines, a guard to move in a slow, organized manner, pushing against your gates. The Alpha Legion, especially of all the space Marines, especially the Alpha Legion, will just appear in your fortress, out of nowhere and murder all of you. Yeah, in staggeringly short time, too, because they are very well armed.

And speed. So, Mr. Lord commanders received reinforcements that he asked for. A bunch of new Kriegsmen, a bunch of new guardsmen, all that kind of jazz. But thanks to his very special political family heritage, we mentioned, he received specifically very strong reinforce. reinforcements. Because... Oh, space marines? You boys, the dark angels have come to help.

Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay. So we've evened the playing fields now that the Astardis have showed up, at least. It's not just, you know... I was going to say if it's just the Alpha Legion and Zafin versus the Krieg, the creig. The creak. The creak. The creak of the...

Dig that tunnel, brother. Oh, yeah, I'm going to dig a tunnel, yeah. Oh, yeah, artillery barrage. Oh, that'd be a great, that'd be a great wrestling move. The artillery barrage. Was there an artillery barrage wrestling move? I don't think so. I don't think there was, unfortunately.

No, there wasn't. I don't think so. There's the Camel Clutch, but no, sorry. Damn. I don't remember what I was. I don't honestly remember. Oh yeah, the Dark Angels are here. Oh, yeah.

If it was just the Krieg against Zafin and the Alpha Legion, things probably wouldn't have gone too well for the Creek, right? But now that they've got the Dark Angels, things are evened up, and it's actually like a fair fight. Well, let's see. Do you think Dark Angels particularly care a whole lot about the Kriegsmen? No, probably not, but at least they'll be there to take care of the Alps. Alpha Legion. As long as they can kind of cancel out the Alpha Legion, things should go okay for the Krieg, right? You're going to use your 40K knowledge here. Why do you think the Dark Angels have decided to arrive? Um, because they were told to? No, I think. Or because they just want to kill

everybody? I mean, this is Pre-Lion. Think selfishly. Uh, because they want Vraxal for themselves, because... What do Dark Angels do? What's their stick? What's their thing? I don't know, Fall... I don't remember, all right? You literally said half of it, and you didn't even finish it.

You were right, the fallen! I didn't even know what I wanted. Oh, okay. So, what, they think there's fallen here, and they just want to kill them? There's traitor space marines. Oh. What, that's so they do want to kill the... The Alpha Legion.

Yes, but that's what I'm saying. Specifically, they're there because they're like, oh, shit. Alpha Legion, traitor authorities are here. The fallen might be here. Right, so they're going to go kill them and cancel out to space marines, like I said. It was, we were trying to get more into the reasoning for it. But I was the best kind of right. I was technically right.

Futurama's a good show. It is a great show. Okay, well, that, all right. Now, now, moving on. That was fun. That was like, that was like a replacement for the quote. Yeah. So, Asrael himself is here.

The big, hothead honcho, Asrael has arrived, and they have this self-assigned mission specifically to destroy Vrax's starport. The reason for this is, is pretty simple. It's to draw men from the front lines to assist in defending the strong port, the star port for the Kriegsmen, but specifically they brought themselves interrogator chaplains. There might be fallen on here, and they are going to find out. So they move into low orbit, deploy their thunderhawks, and after eight days of fighting,

they have a combination attack where it is a massive armored spearhead led by Azrael and his Land Raider mixed with Thunderhawk deployments on the other side that had the bomb, circle, and for the most part, devastate the Vrak Starport. It happened very quickly, of course, because naturally the Space Marines do not work slowly. They work very quickly. Also, every time I hear Land Raider, I can't help but chuckle to myself now. Because of Arc and Land. Land Raider!

One of the best parts of that damn book. Yeah. They did manage to lose a few. Wait, they actually didn't lose too many dark angels. They lost, like, I think 15. They lost about 15 dark angels. I think it was 15 Battle Brothers had joined the emperor. That's kind of a lot of space marines, actually.

15 is a pretty solid amount. They specifically also lost their sacred banner bearer, which was kind of a big deal. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's no must. You don't want that happening. But for the most part, I mean, the Dark Angels wanted to take the Starport of Rex. And for the most part, they really did. They went, they went like place by place, building by building, bombed, burned, or ruined it out, or broke it down.

Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, shy. They might be shitty cultists, but an entrenched las canon, is an entrenched las canon? It's true. I mean, look at what happened in Storm of Iron, right? That is true. Well, it's sort of Iron. Hans, who loses his goddamn arm to Acadia of the Stelling, which is some shenanigans. But that's the good thing about 40K is, like, because of how much of a power disparity there is between authors, it's like, well, just look at this book.

Of course the shitty cultists beat up some space marine. Of course, why not? It could happen. Look at a, look at good old, uh, gaunt's ghosts. like four guardsmen just turned their last canons to shoot her and killed space marines

like it all depends. Shooter! Shooter! I don't give that reference. It's a Jurassic Park. Oh shit. Very beginning with the Raptor. Oh God, yeah.

Shooter! That is. The arm is slipping through. Yeah. But, um, Yes, so they did lose about 15 Battle Brothers, but the main thing after taking the Starport was the big battle with Azrael and Lord Arcos, the main Alpha Legion guy. I don't really have much to say on this battle. It's kind of like a really major important duel in the fight, but it's a classic case of Azriel.

Okay, Asriel and his little helper watcher fight him. They start to lose. The Alpha Legion guy beats him down. is about to kill him. The death wing arrive, force him away, but then the Coltis guy, or the Alpha Legion guy escapes, and then they leave.

Classic Space Marine duel. Classic. Pretty classic for Alpha Legion 2 to just be, I'm going to get away. If I had a nickel for every single time, there was a major Space Marine duel, and one of them nearly dies is reinforced and the other escapes,

I would have enough to buy a Forge World Thunderhawk. How much is a little? a forge world thunderhawk. Too much. I mean, it is Forge World, so it's always going to be too much, but Thunderhawks are, you know, pretty chunky minis. So I imagine it's just an

outlandish number. Yes, so this little dual thing happened, but at this point, with the Vrak Starport pretty much fully crippled, they, oh yeah, should I beat me to the punch?

They, they left. Oh, really? That's it? They just left? Yeah. Just, we're done here. And they just go?

They landed, destroyed the spaceport, lost some dudes, did not capture any Alpha Legion fallen. They did destroy the spaceport instead of allowing it to be recaptured, which I guess is like, I don't, I mean, that could be either. or. You could argue the Imperials would like that to land more reinforcements, but at the same time, destroying something is much faster and easier than capturing it for yourself. Well, the Dark Angels are not known for being particularly nice or caring. Well, I mean, think about it. They didn't capture any fallen.

Darn. Yeah, that's true. Why? Yeah, I guess they would have only assumed that there would just be fallen in the Alpha Legion, because why would there be any fallen? anywhere else. So I guess once the Alpha Legion is gone, the Dark Angel is like, well, I'm out.

Pretty much. They're not going to be like, oh, well, let's stay and help the Krieg. And maybe there's something in Zafin's fortress that we want, because there's not. They just want the fallen. So, yeah, I guess. The Alpha Legion could most definitely have stuck around. Not the Alpha Legion, sorry. The Dark Angels could definitely

stuck around and continued to help and probably just turn the entire siege of racks, like, be done within like six months. Yeah. But that's just not the Alpha Legion way, right? No, no, no, the Dark Angels way. That's not the Dark Angels way, yeah. Dark Angels did not capture any Alpha Legion, so that means they didn't capture any

fallen, and so they're like, all right, well, that's that, bye. Wow. Yeah, this is why no one likes you, Dark Angels. Space Marines are not always known to be particularly great oftentimes. So, you know, it's, space marines are known for doing what they want and only what they want. Yeah, it's not like they're the salamanders or something. Salamanders probably would have stayed and helped. Salamanders would definitely stayed and helped.

Ultramarines probably would have stayed and helped as much as I like to rag on them. They probably would have stayed and helped. Yeah. The only people who, I mean, Iron Hands probably, actually, Iron Hands probably would have because they're probably like, ooh, the logistics. of this are very important. You know, Dark Angels might have been the worst chapter to show up for the Cree, because that's probably the only chapter that would have been like,

nah, I'm out and not helped. Like, most other Space Marine chapters probably would have. Except, like, the... Um... Actually, most of them would. But most would have helped. But, uh... But Dark Angels were like the worst ones to show up.

I mean, maybe we're not giving Dark Angels enough credit here. But in this situation, they did not do particularly very much. That is correct. Speaking of Alphalegian stuff, at this point, the Kriegsmen have now made their way through to take the second line. With the Vract Starport theirs, it had been nine years and the timetable was slowly, coming to a close. After the

Dark Angels departure and the reinforcements of the Kree, they were able to take the second lime really opened up a good spot there. And that means the Citadel of Vrax, the main area, was now in Earth Shaker Cannon Range.

Ooh, it's time for a heavy bombardment. Let's go. Now, it is time to just go into it. In fact, I keep saying, I keep saying Earthshaker canon. I'll make it very clear.

That's the basilist. That's this thing. Okay. Just because I keep saying it, but that's the name of the canon is the basilist's Earthshaker. Okay. That's kind of what I was imagining, sort of that very World War I-ish artillery canon, World War I, World War II sort of artillery. So yeah, yeah, yeah. They also have the bombards.

Which are these? That stubby little cannon Let's not And they also remade that one in a plastic kit The Morbius Bombard Oh man, that thing's morbin For sure It's actually called the Morbis bombard

But it's so close It's still Morbin It's morbon That's stubby little A stubby little cannon on the back Is just like stop it Stop it The Morbin bombard

Oh I'm gonna morb I'm going to morb. Anyway, morbin aside. Here, at this point, it's been, how do you say? Cardo Zafin is not doing great right now. He's kind of just sitting there in his tower,

getting casually reports constantly. But at this point, Zafin's mind was really twisted and a bit insane. Remember? Remember Deacon Maimon, the guy who kept telling him to do stuff? Uh-huh. Can you guess what's up with Deacon Maimon?

Is Deacon Ma'an, I mean, he's obviously not a good person. So you actually had the right answer. I heard it coming out of your lips, but then you stopped. Does he have the stink of chaos on him? Oh, yeah. He is a corrupted boy. Yeah, I was kind of thinking that, yeah. Okay, all right.

He was super duper corrupted, and that corruption has spread its way through basically all of the area of the forces, which is why you see them also chaotic. But at this point, he's been kind of replaced by the Lord Arcos of the Alpha Legion, understandably. Normally when you're the second in command to the main person, a chaos corruption, you just find someone who's even more chaos corrupt. to take your place. You can't really argue with a chaos lord. Yeah, that's a tough one. But the Zafan has gone so far out of his own mind that he basically believes that the emperor is the ultimate threat to the Imperium. The emperor is false, fake, all the Horacee classic statements and is totally rot it.

this point his mind was just broken. Not even from like a chaos corruption standpoint. Just like he would just sit. Oh yeah, he would just sit there for like hours staring blankly at the wall. Like like almost like in shock. So he has been completely broken. He did not even care about the casualties happening outside. He was oblivious to the bombing and everything.

If the emperor turning their back on him, why would he even care? Why should he even go on? Oh, wow, that sucks. But our good friends... He did it himself, though. A little bit of megalomania, a little bit of chaos, corruption, a little bit of insinuous plots from his inferiors. Just a wee bit of the old megalomania.

The orcs aren't here. That's true. I'm sorry. But they should be. They should be. Orks being in here would make for a great time. Yeah. But Lord Arcos have convinced him that there were still ways to help his people. In fact, there were many, many other allies that could help him.

Oh, no. All he's got to do is accept their offer. And those allies might turn the tide and save the men and women of women of Vrax that he so wanted to protect. Oh, boy. All right. All right. Here comes chaos.

Just is like a wrecking ball here. Comes chaos. Oh, boy. Oh, and Zafin was just, he said, okay. And he went, he accepted and went right back to his personal hell. Yep. Mr. Arcos grabbed his sorcerers and prepped for a lovely blood sacrifice ceremony. and it was time for the Kriegsman to see their first ever

manifestations of the warp Oh boy yeah chaos came in it came in like a wrecking ball Oh my god The warp spawned presence is here and the gods the dark gods of their followers on Vrax And that's where we'll end this one All right oh boy I I don't That is an ominous place to leave off, but fitting. Third episode is going to be pretty, pretty great.

Looking forward to seeing what the stink of chaos brings to the table. So, yeah, cool, cool. Do we need an extra episode brickie? I feel like we are going at a four-episode pace. I think we could kind of scoot through a lot of the naval battles, not too tough. The naval battles aren't... Navel battles? Oh, that's true.

Okay, so I'm stupid. Not water. I immediately was like, how though are there naval battles on this desert wasteland? It's the naval battles in space, of course, because I am an idiot. Great, glad we've all established how smooth my brain is. I don't think there's too much needed in terms of the naval battles. We can probably move through those pretty quick.

But you know, you know, shy, when I read the next. part, if this looks like a four episode one, then I'll let you know and it'll be a four episode one. Yeah, cool. I'm enjoying it so far. I'm loving the Siege of Rack, so if it is four episodes, I'm down. I'm cool. It's too good to end, to not end this on the summoning of demons.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And then demons were summoned. To be continued. See the Q Roundabout. Is that the, oh, I know what that right. The Jojo-N theme, you know? Chai told me that I had to do this for the end of the episode, so I'm sorry. You're going to do the pipes, aren't you?

Why isn't it going? There it goes. All right, I'm out of here. This is the stupid. This is fucking dumb. You're still doing it.