Adeptus Ridiculous - TRAITOR GUARD | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: April 16, 2025

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousMany Astra Militarum troops have turned to Chaos over the centuries, including entire regiments of the Astra Militarum's Imperial Army predecessors that followed the Warmaster Horus into battle against the Imperium during the Horus Heresy.These Traitors represent the primary mortal troops available to the forces of Chaos, now known as the "Traitoris Militarum" in High Gothic to the defenders of the Imperium. Even ten millennia later, Chaos Lords are known to attract these followers of Chaos into their warbands and personal armies, which vary greatly in both size and strength.Traitoris Militarum troops are often better armed than the average Chaos Cultist and have access to a wide assortment of arms at their disposal. Sadly, throughout the last ten millennia, occasionally entire Imperial Guard companies, or even entire regiments, have been known to turn from the light of the Emperor and join the ranks of the Lost and the Damned, taking with them their armouries and vehicles.Support the show

everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous podcast. My name is DK. DiMontes. His name is Bricky. You know why you're here. And if you like why you're here, maybe consider supporting us over at patreon.com slash adeptus Ridiculous. We can get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen. $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in crispy digital form, which by the way, Bricky, guess what? Patreon.com slash adeptis ridiculous, but also new poster. Oh, wow. That is a thing that I'm guessing. Oh yeah, I told you to guess something And I just straight up told you didn't I?

You really did You didn't bury the lead that deep In fact, I won't call it a shallow grave Well You know what You evil dead at it The hands like just jumped out there It sure did

Show him the poster Show him the poster Let's see it Bam Oh wait This kind of bangs It is a very stylized female vashtore.

Wait, that is a legally distinct. Wait, that actually completely bangs. Yeah. Damn. I love the composition of it, actually. Yeah, it's really nice. So, hey, look at that. Pretty cool.

New artist that Shai was working with. So, you know, just a little variety, you know. Yeah, I can see the art styles is a bit different. different than our usual. I really like the background. The, all the gears and stuff is super neat. Yeah,

it's a nice little change of pace. Yeah, I mean, you know, our direction is its own type of, its own stuff. I'm a very big fan of like the, the,

the, the badoar type thing. And this is, this, this is Vash Stor's alter ego, Versacei. And,

and, and this, this is, this is, This is great. This is, I'm very, I'm very on board with this.

This is absolutely not a, a, uh, bricky is sad poster. This is definitely a bricky as happy poster. Yeah, this is not a, uh, Nergel gamer girl,

uh, with the big stomach eating the Doritos and sipping on some well, okay, the, the stomach eating the Doritos was peak. But the, the rest,

yes, I agree. I was not as up for that one. Fair enough. But with that all being said, uh, if you like to check out the brand new versus such. Mooster is down at or Orchidate.com

or you can go ahead and use the specific link down in the description, which will take you directly to Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get all the great stuff. Check it all out. I hate that every time you say, every time I hear Versace now, all I can think of is the Versace Bede, I don't know if you remember that detective ridiculous story,

but that's where I've got, I've got silver on my fingers and boots on my feet. never Always be a goat Not a goddamn sheep Do you remember that? Yes I was actually singing along with you

And I realized I'm muted my microphone Yes Always be a goat Not a goddamn sheep Got sober on my fingers And boots on my feet You brought back Curse the brain rot

Love it Love it So what are we doing today What's the brain rot for for this Monday, Wednesday. Well, let's... Would you like to know my current Stim, D.K.? Of course I would.

All right. Have you seen that guy who, like, is watching an English learning video? And he's like, what do you call this? A cadaver. A skeleton. Mmm. It's just... The Reddeter laugh at the end is so good.

It's very good. Good. Okay. I get it. I get it now. Okay. Okay. An episode. Yes. Of a dep-discid. D.E. What do you call this a start-te's? A space marine. I feel like that's going to be me after missing like every quote. It's like, D.K., what is this very obvious quote for the Ultramarines? Nightlords. Anyway, here's your mystery quotes. Damn it. Shaddle, Lakmuz said, as rank upon rank of mortal warriors climbed aboard a nearby landing barge.

Some sang as they went. Others chanted and danced, spinning in tight circles or twitching and creeping in curious ways. Bells rang and symbols clashed. Great staves topped by steaming sensors were held aloft to sweeten the air. Interspersed in this ecstatic tide were islands of discipline, but there were few and far between. Fellow travelers, Amatim correct him, they worship as we do

and are blessed in their own ways. Their lives are a gift to us, brother, to be used in good cause. He gestured to the mortals. Look at them, brother. Do you truly think they are less faithful than we? They are chattel, anatman, little souls scuttling in the greatness of,

or in the shadow of our greatness. Oh, boy. I am, I am, I am, not going to get this. Um, a lot of worship. At first I thought it was a chaos thing, but then it was like,

oh yeah, there's all these censures going on. And it's, and they're worshipping, and they're faithful. And it doesn't really sound that chaotic. It sounds like some weird imperial festival thingy

for the emperor or something. And I don't think that's a thing that they do, but that's what I'm going with because it just doesn't sound chaotic enough. That is so funny, because it's always hilarious how whenever you discuss anything related to, like, chaos or imperial related, you can use, like, faith and worship, and it's totally interchangeable. Yeah. Yeah.

That's why, like, faithful, I was like, it's got faith, like, faithful, censures, dancing. This can't be chaos. It's chaos Of course it's So what's today's episode actually on? Trader guard, D.K. Cultists, yippee! The mortals!

They probably would use censures, wouldn't they? They just didn't sound weird enough. I mean, but they're the mortals. They're the regular traitor. That's true. That's true. When you start saying like, oh, the dancing people are chattel and they're lower than us, there's the more.

They're the mortals. Yeah, it does lead more chaos, doesn't it? And more traitor guard. It does. So basically, obviously, as you know, and we know, and I definitely know, there is no denying that when it comes to the Imperium, everything in terms of like 99.9% of the battles and the massive sundering power is entirely displaced by the guard. They are basically infinite in their numbers.

They have a ton of military tactical organization. which is pretty good. And however, of course, even despite all of the greatness of the garb, they are very, very much just regular humans. And because they are regular humans, they will naturally be tempted by the forces of chaos. Of course.

Now, unlike space marines, of course, they tend to retain a little bit of their organization and leadership. Trader Guard is a little bit different and more so just a complete collapse of general understanding and organization. And also, it's a bit more of a grim acknowledgement of what were to happen should the whims of chaos get a hold of said regular people. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, I have heard of the traitor guard. I have seen Trader Guard. I don't think we've ever talked about Trader Guard that in depth.

And I'm like, you know, I don't really know much about them other than it's just the guard that have fallen to chaos. I don't really know how they operate. I don't really know how they get commanded. I don't really know what their organizational structure is like. I don't know anything about the traitor guard other than, you know, their guard that are traitors. Well, organizational stuff might be a bit strong. But I get what you're saying. Now, of course, the traitor guard, you may assume, makes up a substantial portion of the chaos.

forces like how the Imperium is mostly the Imperial Guard. And in sometimes you might actually be correct. They are also very often known as the Lost and the Damned. However, there are various, it's dubious organization in Trader Garb. Sometimes they can be seen as a very substantial Trader Guard presence, like Darktide, the Mobian 8th, or sorry, 6th, yeah. can be very common there.

However, very often, there's not a lot of actual specific effort put on them, because normally when you're discussing chaos, you're putting a lot more effort on the demons and the gods, and then therefore the space marines, of course, and these are just like demonic versions of guards. So you don't actually see a whole lot of them actually out and about in the lore, and despite the fact that they're very, very common. In fact, ironically, one of the best,

dispersions are showing of traitor guard recently was the secret level episode. Though I guess they were maybe a combination of some of guards, some just regular cultists, but those were some Zincian traitor guard, you know? Yeah. And they did, they do great, but you know. Has there ever been, I don't know why I immediately thought of this. I was like, you know, they've made a lot of books from like chaos space marine perspectives. Have they ever done like a traitor guard perspective, like sort of like,

almost maybe like a Caiaphas-Cain except whoops all chaos? That's a good question. I don't think they have. But it's normally small stuff. Or like, you know how whenever we read one of those books, it's like, oh, there's the space Marines, and there's a lot from like a human perspective. You know, Aaron Dembsky-Bowton especially loves to have like this random side character come around for a little bit just to kind of get into their life for a bit.

move on. So things like that. I mean, hell, there was the prison penal colony in the First Night Lord's book, and they were doing Abidon's bidding at that time because they were the ones who freed them. But that was a prison colony, not like a horribly warped, warp version of it all. Yeah. I wouldn't mind getting a book from like a guard's perspective as he goes traitor and then his life is like a traitor guard. I would not mind a. Trader Guard's perspective. The problem is, like I mentioned earlier, their levels of organization are dubious at best. Can be very regimented.

But if you may remember in Storm of Iron, your book on the guard that the Iron warriors use may end quite quickly. Oh, yeah. Maybe just a little bit. So that kind of stuff can occur. But obviously, there's a couple of reasons for this. The meta reason is they don't really have that many models. obviously. So there is that.

Should we ever get a codex for Trader Guard? I'm sure that we would get tons of novels and stuff like that to go along with it, as that tends to be the case whenever a new thing comes out. However, and this is a little bit of a difficult part, Trader Guard sometimes don't operate much differently than the Imperial Guard, not in the sense that they don't necessarily, like, you know, that they have some war. chaos taint and some other weird stuff like that and sacrifices, but, you know, you're using,

you're still using Las Guns. You're still using tanks and Lehman Russes and, you know, like that is what a lot of it does. They just add a little bit more of the chaos flavor to it all. Oh, I, I guess I kind of figured that the Traitor Guard would have much more like chaos mutations to them and they'd have like way different weapons and they'd have like a different arsenal, but they're literally just, yeah, we're still just a sea of dudes using basically Lasguns. We're just a little more. We've just got not as fresh armor and we've got all these ruins painted on us.

Yes. Basically, I mean, don't get me wrong. They're mutated. Like they got, I mean, hell, the human, normal humans are mutated sometimes regularly. True. Yeah. Don't get me wrong. They're weird.

They're problematic. They got weird symbols all over them. glow with demonic power. You know, there is still, oh, that's an old picture there. Holy. Yeah, I mean, that would be a traitor guardsman there. But that's a dude with a melt a gun and grenades and chaos symbols, you know?

Like, and then, I mean, hell, even in the, even the Secret Level episode, right? Like, they were firing lots of, like, auto guns and very, they had bikes and they had a Lehman-Russ Punisher tank. He just happened to have a bunch of chains on it. Yeah. I guess, I guess for some reason, I just assumed. Trader Guard would be like, I don't know, I would be like, oh, this guy's got tentacles on him,

and, you know, he's 20 feet tall or some crazy chaos abomination. But they're just, they're just chaos guard. They might have some. They're just traitors, you know? Yeah. You got to get a known first before they show you that. That is also true. So, specifically, Trader Guard, a couple of things to make it clear about, like, why the Trader Guard are so, um, on.

I don't know. Tough, important, powerful, et cetera. So obviously, a lot of the reasons, the Imperial Guard does really well to make sure that they are ironclad. They make sure there are no traitor uprising in their ranks because getting into that may or may not be a huge damn problem. Obviously, in the wake of the Horace heresy, there were tons of measures to prevent a full on collapse similar to the heresy. You may remember the not the great scouring. it was what the Codex of Staris do. Basically, they cut them all up into smaller chapters. Oh, yeah, and they limited the amount of space range you could have and stuff like that.

All of that stuff, right? One of the big things was that the Imperial Army was separate them. Before the Imperial Army was a combination of the Guard and the Navy. However, that had been split into the Astromilitarum and the Navis Imperialis. So because of that, and now there's... the two different things. The Navy is obviously firepower, defense, and transport of the Guard. They act independently and often don't like each other much because, you know, there's a lot of, like, decorate naval officers who see guardsmen on their ship, and then they're like,

ah, these foot soldiers ruin them a crap again. Wait, so why exactly did they have to separate the Guard and the Navy for purposes? Is it just? so that the because that Horace was like you know Horace turned large amounts of guard large amounts of Navy

large amounts of like admec all at once so you separate them so there's less power individually and it's not as easy to got you got you got you got you okay but past that

another major division of power is obviously in the guard itself a regiment is very insular which helps with the restructure and making sure that whenever that regiment like doesn't, Regiment not to intermingle as much

because they tend to get angry at each other because there's a lot of like pride put in there. But it also is another way to segment them individually. Also, the numbers and the leadership

of those numbers are separated specifically. So, you know, you have lots of various types of deterrence. You have your ironclad will of the leadership and the generals

that keep themselves away from the actual guardsmen themselves and order them around. But then, of course, you have, and this is the most obvious one, the commissar. Yep. Don't retreat. Otherwise, you're going to get a bullet in the head.

Yeah. And obviously, the commissar is very good at rooting out signs of corruption because laziness is tantamount to heresy. Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. The classic. But so obviously, despite that, the Imperial Guard, despite being so big and a gigantic horde army is very much micromanaged. And the point of this is to weed out all kinds of chaos taint. It's not perfect, clearly.

Obviously. But chaos taint spreads like such a plague. And so you clearly want to make sure you get, you rip the root out at its source or you stomp it to flat before it can grow. Yeah, you get as much of it as you can. You can't get all of it, but you know, you do your best.

shoot the traitors, you know, call them, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like chattel. Yeah, like chattel. Mm. Mm. I've already been infected. Oh, it's so funny.

Mm. In tandem, too. Tratoris. What do you call this? A commissar, an officer. Mm. Mm. Mm.

Mm. Mm. Mm. Now, obviously, Imperium falling into chaos is bad. Only the most powerful statements on this channel. Wow. How could you say something so controversial yet so brave? I know.

Obviously, losing a regiment of Guard of Chaos is, it sucks. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but it does suck. And particularly, it sucks in the way that it's obvious. It's not just the fact that the Guard's regiment is dead. It's the fact that they are now active combatants. Now, for starters, obviously, the regiment itself is structured to be insular and essentially up the creek without a paddle if they fall. A traitor regiment can't really replenish the numbers from a tithe world they are on because, believe it or not, the tithe of the imperial plane does not skim off the top and send them to the eye of terror to replenish their numbers. No kidding.

Shocking. yeah yeah well that's that's a good point because like with with traitor guard like it's it's got to be a lot harder because you're not there's no way to get to replenish the forces like with the imperium it's like you have billions billions of planets all sending tides you have a home planet that's probably sending millions of guard per month so like as traitor guard it's that's that's probably a rough life isn't it because ain't no one gonna replant your stuff unless whatever chaos god you worship sees fit to like, I don't know, send you out with some demons or something. Yeah, I mean, don't get me wrong. Being a traitor guardsman isn't

a great life. But past that, you obviously are, this is the biggest issue for all chaos, right? You are stuck in a situation where you do not have a very easy way to replenish numbers. I mean, I mean, hell, this is second time we're checking off the Bricky Night Lord bingo card. You know, They, like, getting supplies normally involves raiding other areas. But obviously, it's rare that the traitor guard get any ships because the Navy is separated. And so it's true. Very difficult for them to get transport here and there. So because they don't really have ships, they don't have a means to replenish their numbers.

They don't really have any kind of direction from the administratum, like organization to relegate deployment and tactics. So instead of the like tactical horde of the imperial guard, traitor guard are like groups of roving war bands, with their big unifying force being whatever deity they serve under. And even then there is the inherent problem of the corruption of chaos. Yeah, I was going to say it's probably even harder because, um, so I started reading Lucius the faultless blade. And the start of it is just like, oh, yeah, we are, we're emperor's children.

But man, we've plumb run out of slaves. We need more grunt work. We need more stuff. Let's just go kill a bunch of corn worshippers. Let's go kill a bunch of world eaters. Let's go gaffed off of their ship and we'll go steal their slaves. And it's like, even in chaos, it's like you're not even safe from other chaos baserings. You're not even safe from other traitor guard that want to just.

skim your shit and take your numbers. Yeah, and not even just that part. Like, obviously chaos infighting is a huge issue. But the corruption physically of chaos is quite twisted. Space Marines have all of their biological enhancements. And, you know, they can kind of sustain chaos corruption for a while. Because, like, oh, they grow a big tentacle out of their left eye. I mean, there's still like a space marine body, right?

Yeah, basically, yeah. They're still big and tough and strong and all those usual things. And their biology is so enhanced that it makes them very, you know, well suited for this situation. But what happens if you're like a human? You're like a human. A human. Well. A homo sapian.

A human. So because of that, obviously, like corruption of the mind is unavoidable. but what the hell happens to your body? I mean, you may just turn into like an insane, like bubbling mess, completely mentally insane and you start like shanking your body and start screaming longer than you think and rip your eyes out. Or secondarily from there, you might just end up sprouting a bunch of tentacles and turning into a chaos spawn and then beating the shit out of Bob. Yikes. Yeah, not.

It doesn't sound like it's a very. easy life to be a traitor guard. It doesn't really sound like the ideal retirement plan for someone in the regular Imperial Guard. No, the 401K options are low. Very limited. Yeah, you don't want to go in on the tentacle package in your 401K. No, absolutely not.

And so, especially from there, even the worst part past that, is chaos doesn't really like humans. They can see humans basically as just pure fuel for their ruinous powers. because humans, a lot of humans worship chaos. Yeah, they're the most easily corruptible. That's the food source. That's the power. Yeah.

While obviously the Iron Warriors probably treat their humans, maybe the worst, or at least like the most, like, anyone who believes that Trader Guard are like not worth the title of human, probably is Iron Warriors, as they are literally just sacrificial lambs for the, the slaughter to protect themselves and also their demon engines, but doesn't mean that they will not use the humans as a force to help with their demonic ranks. You know, like, even if traitor guard are horrifying, undisciplined, and sprouting tentacles, you know, 40 of them can still take a bunker. True. Or at least make it a lot easier to take the bunker.

Yeah, I mean, you know, they could just... You always need cannon fodder, right? You always need a can of fodder, like, an absolute, a regular Imperial Guardsman doing the, the Halo 3 grunt thing, and just like priming the pin on two plasma

grenades and running at you. Like, that's probably, like, not the most unthought of thing in the regular Imperial Guard, let alone the traitor guard. Yeah, let alone the guard that have lost their minds to chaos. Yeah, they're probably doing that all the time. Just, yeah, yeah.

So obviously, clearing out all of the regular riffraff of the guards, you'll generally need more cultists than you'll need guardsmen because guardsmen are better trained and better disciplined. But, I mean, you know, you get enough of them. Yeah, you know, cannon fodder is still cannon fodder,

like we said, you know, troops are still troops. Absolutely. So, like, regardless, though, once you're a traitor, you're a traitor. And once you are like a full-on traitor, traitor, traitor, there is no returning ever. There is a very interesting little quote here that is specifically showing that a group of traitor guardsmen surrendered to the sisters of battle.

And naturally, they shot them all in the face with bow pistols. Of course. I was about to ask, has there ever been an instance where a traitor guard was for some reason pardoned and let back? There's no way you could let them back in to the. Imperium. There's no way you could let them ever back into like a regular guard unit. Like it's never happened, I'm assuming.

I will never say no only because what we classify as a trader is so uncertain. If you're referring to like a guy, a guy who thought his leader had turned to chaos and was accidentally in league with some traders and then got pardoned for me. misjudging, et cetera, 95% of time, even that would get you kill. But, like, I,

no, if you ever serve the dark powers once, or ever in your mind, we're like, yeah, chaos is right. And then change your mind later, I'll give you a pretty solid hell.

No, that ain't happening. Imperium, not usually known for their forgiveness of anything chaos related. I mean, I would imagine. Like there's some book situation, some, like, someone will have some kind of like deep lore where it happened once for some.

Yeah. Because of like a requirement because they were all being killed by tiernors or something like that. I'm sure. But also, if you're in leagues with chaos, you know, chaos doesn't like it when you go back on your packs. Oh, that's fair too, actually. Yeah, that's, that's probably the harder one to convince actually. Yeah. That would be a big toughie.

Yeah. But from there, obviously we can go a little bit more into some named trader guard regiments. And there are a couple, actually. Not many, but most are throwaway lines. But there are a few. Now, most of them have just really cool names. And that's what matters the most. So, you know, there are some trade regiments that don't have a clear following in terms of a chaos god, like a undivided.

So you got like, the beasts of Cargore, the Ferrisk Truthsayers, the Gagric Iron Spines, the Priests of Filth, though you can probably assume that one. And then the Carion Guard. Carrying guard sounds cool. What do you call this? Carion, a dead body. Mmm. Mm. This is what happens when Shai's not around.

Oh, we do it even if she was here. You know we would. Yeah, that's true. There are obviously others that clearly align with specific deities. You have the 14th Volpon Blue Bloods, which are Nergel, the 99th Vivicune Guard that fight for corn. You have the Benedictian Guard, which were the Zinch, and the Venetine hedonites.

And that one's obviously pretty straightforward. Ooh. Yeah, that one's a... Veteran. No, Possum, you cannot stop. I don't know. He's pretty shit. Can't with that picture. It's pretty chad.

Yeah. Oh, you don't know who that is. Is that Johnny Sins? That is Johnny Sins. Your favorite astronaut, dentists, humanitarian, soldiers, space. Yeah, that's all Johnny.

The way you glossed over that, we're like, oh, yeah, that's just the chat. I'm like, oh, no, Bricky, to understand why he's part of the Vanatine hedonize, you need to know who's in that picture. is so good. Who is this?

A Chad. Johnny Sins. Obviously there are the guard that are allied more with Abadon specifically. That's the Herodny 13th Heavy Armor Regiment, the 666th, ha ha, regiment of foot. and also hilariously there's a Cadian 666th for whatever reason. And then there are a couple in terms of actual boxes. They do have a few miniatures on the table,

particularly the Trader Command Box from Blackstone Fortress and the Bloody Kill Team, which actually just recently launched. Hey, okay, okay. Is it dope? It is. The Bloody Game, for one thing alone, and that is personal glory.

They are concerned only about standing higher than their fellows and are quite content to do so, perched atop a heap of corpses of friend and foe alike. Nice. Yeah, it's pretty good. Nice. Let's go. They actually are a brand new kill team that got released for the World Eaters. And I'm very happy about that because all of the chaos space marine codexes got shafted out of their minds.

which is very... All of them? Yeah, they all got like one model, and then their ranges are way too small. Oh, I'm a stupid, dumb idiot, stupid head. It's not... They're not called the Bloody Kill Team. It's the goremongers.

Oh, let's go. Oh, damn. The goremongers. Okay, well, okay. Nice. In that case, then they do have the goormongers that are a new kind of cultist World Eater Kill team. I was going to say, that's got to be, that's got to be corn, that's got to be World

Heaters, right, the goormongers. The goormongers and their blood herald. That's cool. So they are pretty cool. Actually, World Year players really like them because they get a move called Infiltrate, which is just really handy. Hell yeah, hell, yeah. World Year's issue is that they can't get in the center fast enough and they get shot.

and so these guys can get in the center. Oh, so they're thrilled with these goremongers. True. True, true, true. Too true. Too true. But for the bloody kills team specifically, you get a little bit of insight into the organizational structure of the bands of traitor gar.

The teams are tended to be overseen by a traitor chieftain, who tends to be an iron fist like warlord, and they rule their team straight through force. There is obviously the second in command, which are the traitor enforcers, and are basically, you know, traitor commissars there. And they get those traitor commissars

the same way you would normally expect. They're either corrupted commissars, which are very rare due to the fact that commissars are hard to corrupt, or they're traitor guardsmen that are so brutal and risen up the ranks that, yeah, they got the opposite. opportunity. So, so I would imagine most of them are just traitor guard that have risen up the ranks.

Because like you said, commissars, you don't, you don't convert too many of them. You'd probably need a bunch of these guys. So probably most of them were born, not I want to say born in bread and chaos, but as a traitor guard that just worked their way up to it. Pretty much. Okay. Okay. Also, that min is, that min looks, looks old, but not bad, not bad. I think it's a little bit new, isn't it? I think it's actually. Oh, no, really? It looks like it's, I don't know why it looks so old-coded. I think it's old-coded because, honestly, I think it's the pistol. It might be. It looks kind of funny.

Also, humans with power fists always look kind of funny. Yeah, it might be because it's a human with a power fist. And so, like, the proportion looks weird to me and it's got the pistol. And so, yeah, that might be what's doing it. I may be part of it. But regardless from that, obviously from there, you can have, you can have, have your more general units. You get your gunners,

troopers, sharpshooters. The sharpshoers look super cool, big coat. I was going to say, that sharpshooter looks great. You have a grenadier kind of guy. And close quarters,

you have the notably vegan trader butcher and the flenser. The notably vegan trader butcher was not on my bingo card for today's episode of Adray. You can, you can think that. You can think that is a possumism. Apossism.

Also, look at his smile. Yeah, that is, that is, um, do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life. I was about saying he's got some opinions,

but yeah, I like yours better for sure. God. Warhammer. Um, there's also, uh, Corpson,

which is a combat medic, of course. And, uh, naturally, you have to always include the use of the traitor ogren. because of course you do. Oh, hell yeah.

It's Trader Ogrin. Wow. That's a mini and a half. Trader Ogrins. Good Lord. Trader Ogrins looks sick as hell. That is so dope. What happened to his arm?

Wow. It got really big and stabbing. Yeah, it sure did. It's, Obviously, you got traitor guards that aren't throwaway lines. The biggest one that you may know, obviously, is the Mobian 6th. Maybe. The good old dark tide.

They do have a killer aesthetic, I cannot deny. Oh, yeah. The green three-eye thing is very dope. Now, obviously, the Mobian 6 were raised in the Mobian domain and recruited from Atoma Prime, and they were tasked to be the defensive force against, you know, know, John Darktide. Though, of course, they were forced to wear the nightmare vision goggles for a bit too long and succumb to chaos and then lit a uprising on Hive Tertium, reveal themselves to be worshipping Nurgel. And then they worked in hand-in-hand with the cult of admonition to spread dark truths that they found while fighting against Darktide under the command of Captain Wolfer, which is the big captain guy.

Yay, all the stuff. Yay. Most notably, our other major traitor guard regiment is the Volscani Catafrax, which were the most hardened groups in the Acadian sector, but their allegiances were made revealed during the 13th Black

Crusade. And then due to that, despite presenting themselves as one of the more reliable regiments in the region, they joined a coronet armada known as the color cost blood Crusade.

Yikes. Love that one. Yeah, love that for them. Sheesh. Oof. Yeah, I hate to lose a squad like that. He's just, mm-mm. Yeah, they play bingo on Sundays.

As they do. Yeah, and do a lot of charity work. Other branches of the catafracts also arrived with Abadon himself as they entered the system. And that was a big amount of shock force because then you add your uprising immediately your disableization and then this big ruthless Cadyan traitor guard regiment

slammed into the battle of Cadia. And a lot of them died when Avedon skidded his Blackstone Fortress into the planet, but we both know he could not give a shit about that. Of course not. Of course not.

Of course, he heeded a damn Blackstone Forte. You don't give a fuck. He won. He finally won. He absolutely did. at any cost. Now, the most significant example of a traitor guard regiment would be the Vraxian renegade militia. Those were the garrison guard auxilia on Vrax, if you remember. Oh.

Which are some hardcore dudes with that sick-ass skull helmet. Ooh, yeah, that is an aesthetic and a half for sure. That's a good one. But from that, of course, they were the major one with thanks to Cardinal Zafans, fall of chaos, and they were the major fighting force, fighting against the Imperium on Vrax.

Also, of course, the chaos taint was super easily spread, because you remember they seceded from the Imperium, which meant they also had a ton of armor and arms that were no longer being given to other people, and then were able to be given to people from the eye of terror. So not only were they heretics, but they were armed to the absolute teeth. Nice.

I mean, if you're going to turn traitor, that's the time to do it, is when you have an absolute gobshite of, you know, arms. Is that the technical term? Yes. Yes, it is a technical term. But gobshite of arms and weapons and, yeah, yeah. Incredible. Exactly what I was hoping for. Mm-hmm.

A gobshite. Mm-hmm. A paltry. A cornucopia of weaponry. Now, when it comes to the actual weapons on guard, there's not a lot of crazy stuff. You have your Las guns, your melas, your plasmas, your flamers, your snipers, your battle tanks, basilists.

You get horse riders, though I will say they probably look a little bit weirder than the ones in the regular guard. You do have occasionally mutants and abominations. beastmen and chaos hounds join you. There's always the possibility that the guardsmen create a summoning circle and they bring out a blood letter which kills half of their friends and then runs and kills the enemy. So essentially the same armaments as just the regular guard. And whatever they can get their hands on.

If they can loot a space marine rhino, then they'll absolutely do so. Sure, sure. Because why the heck would they ever not? Yeah. So I guess that's a little different because it's not like the, it's not like the, regular guard would loot a chaos thing, right? They wouldn't even touch that shit.

They would just burn it all. Well, yeah, I mean, you only have so many armaments. You need to take what you can. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then other things, what else? I'm trying to think of the specific little extra bits. A few little notable, notable bits.

Noble chaos faction. Trader Guard likes that might be somewhat, interesting due to the general mindless chaos babbling, you know? Sure, sure. Like, they're essentially traitor guard, but they're like not traitor guard. It's an example. Jericho reach system, stigmardous. That's what they're called, the stigmatis.

They are a chaos cult that acts as a unified war band that also includes rogue psychers and various mutants. Now, their name comes from the initiation ritual, which involves branding themselves with the chaos sigil. But unlike most chaos cults, they are more of a religious organization. They are extremely militant and are disciplined in a means

that is very similar to the Imperial Guard. So you may look at these folks, the Stigmardis, and realize, oh, they are clearly far more classic discipline. They still look like Trader Guard, what with their weird masks and chaos branding, but they are, you know, organized.

Organized. Exactly, which is terrifying. Yeah, organized traitor guard and psychers and shit. Yeah, nope,

don't want that. They're also led by someone named Elek Sarda, who is bound to some unknown and nameless demonic entity

that is located somewhere within the Karon stars around Jericho reach. We don't know who, don't know where, doesn't matter, that's the leader.

Oh, love that. So there's just an unnamed, unknown entity that they worship that just fuels them? Is that the one I'm hearing? Well, one person is being talked through them, but yes.

Whoa. Got a problem with that? Nope. It's just a massive fucking earthquake happened here. Oh, shit. I just got an emergency alert that said earthquake detected as well. Yeah, it just happened here. Drop cover and hold on.

Wow. Oh, that was a big shake. I just got hit by it. Damn. There it is. That was a big one. Wait, we just felt the effects of an earthquake in real time. It was a medium-sized one for me, but it hit you and it traveled from San Diego to Orange County in real time.

In real time over the course of five to ten seconds. Wow. I love science. I love science. I love science. Oh man That's freaky Dang, that's super cool, man

I don't know about you, but that's fucking awesome Yeah, I wish we didn't have to learn it like this I mean, you're I mean, are you good? Oh yeah, I'm fine Okay It's just, you know, a little freaky You know, a little freaky

All right Keep this in shy, this is fascinating A little shaking up, sure Yeah, sure Well, nothing can stop Warhammer. And also us Californians are extremely used to earthquakes. So we're just going to move right along. So another notable organization is the Sons of S-E-K, not the other.

And they were created during the Imperial Crusade of the Sabbath worlds. They were the result of an insurrection against a specific leader of an organization that we'll talk about a little shortly. and have mauled themselves after said organization. They're very disciplined, a group of chaos cultists, and utilize their very own version of a commissar. But the main thing they carry around is the mark of their magister, Anak Winar Sec, on their armor.

The mark being a sex hands over their mouths. Oh, that's kind of cool. That's a cool little, like, mask detail. A little mask hand thing. these serfs of the war band wear this mark as a cloth while the actual sons have a badge made out of flesh Oh

Very very chaosy Very that's kind of a nice Like chaos Aesthetic actually Nice little Signifier for them True Lastly

We have the blood pact Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm The blood packed and mainly they said the size like mushrooms. I think our audience is finally caught on. There's no way they haven't. There's no way they haven't caught on to your act. I don't know, man.

Like the first time it was like, oh, or orcs are, you know, they're like, they photos of the size, you know, they're like this weird like planish mushroom type thing, 40K, whatever. And I'm like, ah, you, whatever. And then like we had so many people so upset. Like, oh, they're mushrooms are photos and the size. And I could- I could help but poke them day an episode in and episode out.

And every single time there's like one or two people being like, I think Ricky's doing this on purpose. I think he's doing something. But it's been going on for like a month too. Like it's always hidden in the comments. It's always someone being like, stop it. And then someone in there being like, I'm pretty sure it's a bit. And it's every single week, we look at the comments and we're just laughing.

Always someone. We're just laughing our asses off because it's just like, Bricky, why won't someone tell him? Why wants someone tell him? Tell him. It's not how it works. It's so funny. So the blood packs do not photosynthesize like mushrooms, but their origins are unknown. What is known about their early history is that they were, once the personal leader of their guard,

or the guard their leader known as the G-R, G-A-R, G-A-U-R. Okay. Yeah, you know. Each and every initiative is overseen directly by the Gaurr himself. And in order to join the ranks of the blood pack, they must make a little blood pact with the Gaurur and their patron deity of, can you guess? I would guess, Corn.

Damn right. Yep. Which they would do by rubbing their hands ritualistically on the spiked armor of the Gaurer, and coating the armor with their blood. That's also what the garer looks like, and he's a baller. Oh, yeah. Who could have thought that they would worship corn, right? No, no, I would never guess.

Big surprise. The appearance on their surface may seem like the more or less ragged version of Guardsmen, but when you get up close, it's pretty horrifying. The armor and clothing is a very deep red, which looks like dried blood. This is because, believe it or not, it is dried blood. Shocking. It is what it is, as the kids say. They ritualistically dye their clothes with the blood of their uniform,

and the repeated act of doing this causes their clothes to almost look uniform. Their hands are always bare in the field of battle to show their devotion to Gar-X-D and corn, but the scars they have are almost a show of honor and prestige. Oh, wow, that's... I don't know why that just seems so weird to go just in bare-handed. You're all armored up. They've got really cool armor. And then just, we're just going in barehanded because God, I love God.

Oh, that's freaky. They also have, they also got their really, really cool masks. They too have their really cool masks. D.K. looks at the fucked up mask goes, hate those hands. Yeah. The masks are cool. Like the armor and the masks are cool, but there's something so off-putting about the fact that they just willingly choose to go in bare-handed. I mean, it's because.

their hands are all bloodied and rubbing stuff. Is that right? Yes. Their hands are bloody from rubbing stuff, huh? Hey, listen, that shit shafes. That's why you got to have lotion on hand. Me, me, me, weightlifting too much and now I can't jerk off because my calluses turn into sandpaper.

Oh, no. All right. Okay. This is taking a turn. Yeah, Shai's going to hate this episode. She's going to hate this episode. She's never letting you do this again, Possible. It's all right.

Oh, I totally forgot to mention. Oh, to our viewers, I might be gone for like a whole month. Oh, yeah, you might be. I should probably mention that. Oh, we're so good at this episode. We're so good. Oh, man. Yeah, we're killing it.

Anyway, long story, sure. I'll mention that at the end of the episode more so. With the garer, and they have their really weird masks, of course, that are really, really cool. Higher rank members have silver gold masks, which are neat. But they actually do their best to actively recruit members and absorb lesser war bands into their ranks. So they actively train members in a whole, a general kind of chain of combat, which helps them with a tactical sense, obviously. And they've been able to actually utilize lots of assets, including old like Chaos Forge worlds for rearming and, you know, obviously a certain level of the Navy. Yeah.

brother, this guy stinks. What do you mean? Yeah. Don't yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Past that, of course. You know, they obviously do have a few shortcomings,

being the fact that their weapons and stuff are a little bit inferior from what is standard because it's a lot of recaptured and reprocess stuff. And naturally, a melee combat with a lot of traitor guard isn't always the greatest of options. But what's really funny, though, is that they have a very ironically, considering its quorum, they have a special kind of disposable,

specialized psychor known as a gore mage. Oh. That sounds really dope. And a gore mage can allow you to lure a demon into a blood-packed member and then become like a blood wolf

and go absolutely berserk and murder people. Oh, that sounds really cool. They are. So goormages can turn people into just blood wolves and then they just like a giant monstrosity and it just murders everybody oh hell yeah

it's pretty cool I like it a lot agreed that sounds dope um other than that though the uh the blood gore what the hell where they're I got mixed with the gore mongers gore mages the blood packed I was like the gore mages

with the blood packed and the goormongers and the it is so much of this It's, and then, oh, sorry, there's the bloodied kill team and then the gore mongers with their, with the blood pact and the gore mages. I'm losing my mind. Image of Peter Griffin screaming in the, in the straight jacket. Straight jacket.

Mm-hmm. Outside of the-hmm. He does love his blood, gore, blood, gore, blood gore. He does. The blood pact were also a big member. members of the Sabbath World Crusades way back webb. And that was kind of of the major devastating blows

of the Imperium. And despite all the other commanders and leaders of chaos in that crusade dying by the Imperium, good old Erlock Gower X-D still lives. And he still is dripped to the nines. Good for him. He's very cool.

So I'm happy that he's still kicking. Absolutely. Hell yeah, brother. But besides that, I mean, Trader Guard are, we chose this episode to be a relatively simple one because I just walked in from a flight just a bit ago. You just landed. And other than that, I mean, it's Trader Guard, you know? It's Trader Guard. Hell yeah.

Other than that, I mean, they do what they do. They murder stuff. They have their chaos things. But it is, I have fought at tournaments and played against people who, are playing regular Imperial Guard, but with their stuff modeled as traitor guard. And honestly, I almost wonder if that's the reason why we're not going to,

probably never going to get a traitor guard codex, because they're just a little too similar. Right. There's not enough to define them other than, well, they sure are guard that fell the traitor. Otherwise, they're the same.

Yeah. It'd be kind of tough to make them into their own, like, unique thing. Yeah. I mean, Yeah, they're mainly guard, but they're just unorganized guard. And they occasionally have demons and other horrifying stuff going along with them.

Or are served as mortal thralls for space marines who just could not care less. Trader guard. Trader guard. We learned about unorganized guard, basically. Basically. That is basically traitor guard, unorganized, murderous, deadly guard that could honestly use a lot more lore about them. even if they do not necessarily have anything fancy-pancy in terms of a codex and things like that. So as far as I'm concerned, it's all right.

It's traitor guard. Yeah, there'll be more traitor guard likes, more kill teams most likely. But past that, you want guard, but you want chaos? You got traitor guard. There you go. Hell you go. So before we end, I may be gone for the next while. I am working on a massive Warhammer video project

that is probably going to be three separate feature length episodes unrelated to the every faction slated for a July release and therefore I'll be traveling pretty much for the rest of April and all of May. So I'm going to try to tune in and record ad brick as often as I get the opportunity to do

mobily, that is. If I am unable to, Kiryoth and DK will be taking up the mantle, obviously backed by Possum's writing and text, and doing a lot more of that in my stenn. So I would leave it up to them. And if it all burns down by the time I get back, well, it was a long time coming. Good luck with traveling for two months. Thank you, thank you. Best of luck with three feature-length Warhammer episodes that need you, traveling for a whole month.

I'm finally going to Warhammer World. I'm going to the UK. All of our British fans don't kill me for saying things about Britain. For slandering beans on toast, I guess. Yeah, beans on toast sucks ass, though. It's whatever. When you go, you need to try some jelly deals, my friend. I've had those already.

Have you really? Yeah, they're not good. No kidding Yeah, no, have you seen them? Why would you say you gotta try them? You know they suck. Yeah, well, I mean, come on. Like, what kind of friend would I be if I didn't tell you to try something just outlandishly awful?

I will say, I don't mind Hagus. I actually kind of like Hagas. Never had it. It's good with a shot of McCallin. I mean, fair, I guess. If you didn't tell me what it was, I'd be willing to try it and I'd probably be okay with it. Hell's to the year. Hell yeah, brother.

All right. That's all I got for us today. See y'all later. Maybe in like literally months. Yep. Aloha. There's Aloha also like a goodbye. Yep.

Aloha's hello goodbye. Aloha can be whatever you want it to be, I feel like. Oh.