Adeptus Ridiculous - WAR OF THE BEAST: Rocks fall, Imperial Fists Die | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

https://www.patreon.com/AdeptusRidiculoushttps://www.adeptusridiculous.com/https://twitter.com/AdRidiculoushttps://shop.orchideight.com/collections/adeptus-ridiculousBy mid-M32, the Imperium was in a state of relative peace and prosperity. Having recovered from the devastating Horus Heresy, the Traitor Legions were still reeling from their defeat inside the Eye of Terror, Xenos were relegated to the frontiers of Imperial space, and the stagnation and decay that would define the Imperium millennia later had not yet set in. Confident that humanity had endured its greatest challenge, the Orks in particular were underestimated and judged to have been removed as a threat since the Ullanor Crusade.  This underestimation of the greenskins would prove to be disastrous when an enormous Ork planetoids began to materialize around imperial worlds, the Imperial Fists Chapter was destroyed, entire Sectors were overrun by the Greenskins and billions upon billions perished.Support the show

Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous Podcast. My name is D.K. Diamantez. His name is Ricky. And oh, hello again, Karioth. But before we get into that, if you enjoy the podcast, and maybe you want to support us monetarily, heading over to Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen. $15 tier gets you access to all of our posters in crispy, digital, whatever format you want to call that. They're great. You should check it out. Patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridic. And Brickie, welcome back. Thank you. I have returned to the land of the living. And I am currently very alive. And that's good stuff, good stuff in general.

So hello, hello. It's a good stuff. Being alive is good. Obviously, as per the usual, you can check out our merchandise down in the description. That's, you got dice. You got cool game mats. You got all kinds of neat stuff there, apparel and so on. and some really interesting stuff going on here for some extra notes.

I guess I'll go ahead and read these ones because this is rather interesting. So, good news and bad news for the realm of ridiculous. Possum got codexes for Cathay, or codices, I suppose. And so the next episode is Cathay lore 100%. But Possum is so busy this month writing 40K episodes, so we'll have to skip this month, unfortunately, for the realm of ridiculous. But next month, we will indeed be having Cathay. Also, no Trench Crusader or anything else this month, we are hard-locked to 40K. And if you want to check out Trench Crusader and more variety lore, you can check off the spin-off podcast known as acceptable losses, which they have talked about last week.

Also, most likely linked in the description with all kinds of grim, dark lore with possum, Kiroth, and D.K., their own special brand new project. Yippee. New episode in the works right now. Yeah. It's going to be really fun. I mean, it's already really fun, but even more fun. Hell yeah. But yeah, that's what we got for today.

Kiryov, three peep, my man. Okay. This is going to be a slightly different mystery quote. I'm simply going to read it out. I will also give the author and the rough date in which this was written, because this will give you a bit of a heads up. So, if you don't get this, the way, you fired.

Instantly fired. There's no coming back. I need this job. Look, the pressure's on. So this is by a gentleman known on YouTube as Bricky. And this was said three years ago. What?

Great. War of the Beast will have its own episode. Don't worry. Huh. I mean, this is this. This is Bricky guy. This is Bricky. guys seems like a prick. I gotta be honest.

I don't know. It's, it's so poetic, you know, like, wow. Three years ago, huh? Sheesh. You know, it's, uh, it's been a while coming, but we are actually. We did also say we would do a dedicated episode on Dante, and it'll also take three years.

Mm-hmm. But gosh, darn it that we got there. Consistency is key. That's what the hell? You didn't let me guess. What the episode, what the quote was Oh, sorry. I need these. I need these few dubs, man. I was going to guess the War of the Beast episode.

Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. You're not wrong when you say War of the Beast. I think it's not just this episode because War of the Beast is an absurdly long series in some ways. And so we are, I guess what we're kind of doing is our own version of October. Because we are doing War of the Beast. Then we're doing War of the Beast.

Then for the third episode, we're doing War of the Beast. And I'm going to finish off with a nice. change to the schedule. The last episode of the month, War of the Beast. Four straight weeks of Heriot and War of the Beast, baby. Let's go. War of the Beast tober. Let's go. We're going to get to the story that I never wanted to get to because it seemed so bad. I, look, I read it. I will be totally up front. I didn't read it again for this, but we have a

Possum. We have an amazing researcher and scriptwriter in the form of Possum, and so I felt that I could do that, but oh my God, it's 12 books. It's so long, and the quality is questionable in places. So Possum very kindly shouldered the burden, and has been and is hard at work plowing through a series that is written by no less than six different authors over 12 books. And it ran from December 2015 to November 2016. So actually, in terms of, like, gaps between books, not that many. But then there wouldn't be, because there was a load of people writing them. If you want to know who the authors are, we've got Dan Abnett, Rob Sanders, Gav Thorpe, David Anandale, Guy Haley, and David Geimer. And frankly, quite a few of those authors do not write like the other authors on that list, which it probably contributes to the slightly disjointed nature of that series. but the Beast arises and the war it covers is, it's very heavily discussed and it's made a bit more tricky due to the number of cooks in the kitchen.

Ultimately though, the War of the Beast has one major purpose which is to serve as a major transitional point from the early post-heresy era of the Imperium to the Hellscape of the Imperium we know and love today. We're going to go over the major events across the book series in a beastly four-episode series over the course. of October. Honestly, I'm... There is nothing more enjoyable than pawning off work you don't want to do to other people. I just did not want to do this. I was so unfathomably

uninterested in doing anything related to War of the Beast that I'm so happy that you're here in POSM is here. Literally waited until a script writer had been hired to go anywhere near it. It's just like, I'm not dealing with this. Listen, you want me to reread Erin Dembski Bowden books? I'll do it in a heartbeat. I'll get you another Nightlord's episode if you want, but I don't want to do this, and I don't want to do

Farsight. Oh, well, hey, we got those taken care of then. Life is good for you then. I can't believe it is 12 books. It's a lot. It's a lot. At some point, I will send you shy the thing I sent to Possum when we talked about doing this, because my breakdown of what I remember from the series was, I believe, described as flawed but accurate, which is one of the weirdest, like, backhand compliments I've ever received, because I was like, flawed how? But also, how can it be flawed and still right? That doesn't seem like two things that go together. but a full 12 bucks we're going to essentially aim for three books per episode so we'll cover the first three in this one right now so if we're going to talk about war of the beast we've got to go back in time way back we find ourselves in roughly 554 m32 we are as short by warhammer standards 1500 years after the conclusion of the horace heresy the traitors have been rushed back to tears in the warb and humanity found it in a very strange predicament. Relative quietness, a rarity after the whole, you know,

galactic inter-humanity war. The first Black Crusade had occurred by this point, but even that was getting close to a thousand years in the past. One thing that was occurring around this time was the formation of the ecclesiarchy. So by this time, the temple of the Saviour Emperor had garnered quite a bit of traction and it was officially denoted as the state religion of the Imperium. In 200 M32, Venaris II, the Ecclesiarch at the time, he was granted the position of a high lord of terror and by 500 M32 this position had become permanent. It is one of those fun but weird things where 40K and the Imperium as a whole is very much dominated by the idea of the god emperor, without ever really thinking about, well, when did that happen then?

So having that a little bit sort of touched on is kind of cool. Just a little after the whole heresy thing, couple thousand years. Yeah, it took a while, but it built up a good amount of steam, good head of steam on it. Just enough time for people to forget what the Imperium was actually supposed to be and sort of deified the person that never wanted to be deified. We were supposed to be authoritarian raiders who crush people under an iron fist. Not the same thing, but with churches.

How dare they? You know, a little bit of the side, but on a Monday morning, after Sunday, you can't just say Raiders and not expect me to fall into a deep, deep depression. Raiders. Go on, Kariah, please. The zealotry was a side effect of the quiet nature of this time.

Humanity by now had fairly confidently stomp out the majority of opposition they faced in the galaxy. The largest threat that they had faced was gone, and the Xenos species that encountered whilst expanding had been pushed further and further away from imperial space. In fact, there was only one constant enemy during this time that impacted the world's further away from terror, and that was the orcs. They never truly went away, and they never do, but their presence wasn't really something that was taken very seriously by the powers that be. And I've got a nice quote for you here, D.K. Let's see.

They menaced and harried the edges of the Imperium like packs of feral dogs. And every now and then broke in through the metaphorical fence and got at the metaphorical livestock. Whoever wrote this quote loves their metaphorical stuff. Once or twice every few centuries, a new and potent bestial war boss arose. Their numbers multiplied in response, and another of their mass onslaughts was unleashed. And that for the last few decades, and that for the last few decades, some of the frontier wars had been especially hot. But even so, they were exactly that. Frontier wars.

They were very far away, far too far to act as effective demonstrations of imperial might to the population of the Taron Corps. and the orcs had not been a serious palpable threat since they had been stopped by Ulanor by the beloved emperor himself. So at this point, things aren't too bad. Things are all right. The orcs are a bit of a petting, but no one's really taking them all that seriously. And at this point, like, the battles against them

were just scattered skirmishes, and everything else was tidy and neat. Because of that, the imperial fleet was spread out to the borders of humanity at the behest, of High Admiral of the Imperial Navy Lansung. One of the worlds that was in that area was the planet of Ardermantua, which is one of the worst names. This planet, though in Segmentum Solar,

was roughly six weeks of warp travel away from the throne world, and they had a problem that was not orc related, but a bug problem, which came in the form of a Xenos species known as the Crohms. So this is an insectoid species Robotic They have four limbs That form into digital blades

And they sound like broken computers When they move The description being a tech, tech, tech noise Which I'm assuming like You know, you know when you're getting a really dodgy taxi And all every light on the dashboard is on That's the news they make It's the it's the please

Yeah They sound really dope like that I was like oh bug problem Must be the Nids. It's like, no, it's these weird tech bug things. They sound dope. I mean, Necrons are weird tech bugs also. So, I mean, you know, they are also really dope.

Mm-hmm. Now, I'm not going to fully throw Pottom under the bus here because I've written plenty of scripts in my time. I know what it means to do a typo or to have an auto-correct come up. But I did laugh when I read the line, they are described by a man. goes as not harmless but not naturally aggressive. Fruits did not make that declaration. It was a Majos. It's just that, you know, Google Docs doesn't like the word Majos.

So, sorry, boss, but the declaration of... Do you love a juicy mango, though? The declaration of peaches will come for you swiftly, Curia. Whether this lot are naturally aggressive or not, it doesn't matter. If there's like 88 billion of them spread across 67 worlds, they are a problem and those 67 worlds are humanities by right

so they need to be taken back no matter what happens so the robobugs were being busy on Ardimantua and a shield company of the Imperial Fist was out there to take care of it

and they were dealing with it I'm sorry did you say it was Ardumansua is that the name of the place yes this is gonna screw me up so bad because we just read Flesh and Steel which is Varian Gantua

yeah when you said what a dumb name I was like, it's really close to Varen Genshua, actually. There are some weird names. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

It's going to throw me. Okay. Just continue. No worries. So there's a shield company of Imperial Fist. They've been sent out to take care of it. They were dealing with the books. They were sorting them out left and right.

This company included second captain, Corland, better known as slaughter. But something wasn't right about it. Don't get me started on the whole wall name thing. Quite a nickname. It's a whole thing. It will probably come up in later episodes, but for now we're just going to slide past it. Yeah.

So there was something weird with the behavior of the Crohn's. They were moving as if there was something else bothering them, something that the space marines hadn't noticed. That was until it became kind of unignorable, mid-transmission between slaughter and another imperial fist. So I'm going to give you this bricky. Ooh, okay. His words were drowned out. A sudden and deep noise boiled out of the guts of somewhere, out of space itself. It was brief, but it was immense. It shook the nest. It overloaded the frequencies of their Vox systems for a moment. It hurt their ears. Slaughterers. Visor display took a moment to reboot. What in Thrones name was that?

He asked. Contacting the fleet reported frenzy. Checking. There was another burst about half an hour later. Duration 7.9 seconds. By then, Slaughter's force was locked in a furious hand-to-hand war with dozens of veterans. The noise took them all by surprise. Am I the only one fighting for my life when they say like, oh, it's Slaughter's forces?

Like, it's so edgy tryhard that, like, it is like, make, it's so comically edgy that every time it was just said, I had to, like, move away from the mic to stop myself from, like, just audibly guffawing at it. I mean, let's be honest, the bromance between slaughter and frenzy must have gone immaculate. It's incredible. One of those storytelling decisions where you just look at it and go, yeah, but why? Like what? Just use the man's name. Multiple people signed off on this and to this day

I still don't really understand why they did. I just don't, I don't fundamentally, I don't really get it. But in total, there are four of these bursts that happen over the course of 90 minutes getting longer and longer. Chapter Master Cassus Mirren

grew concerned because these disturbances were like messing his lines up and making the Crohn's more and more violent. A Majos called Laurentis believed that it was like organic in some way. Mirren questioned how it could be organic if it was detected across the planet, but the Majos cut him off and just went, hey, it could just be like a boosted sonic means of the Crohn's trying to tell them something. Meanwhile, in orbit, the data was being analysed and something else was discovered.

These sound bursts were masking something different. On a separate wavelength, there were strange gravitational pulses occurring in the upper and outer orbital zones of the planet. This is when one of the strike cruisers, the Amculon, began to fall out of formation. A gravitational anomaly spontaneously opened in their reactor core, and as it fell and everyone evacuated, the battle barge anterax just detonated in orbit. It was like the sky was weeping light. and the people on the ground, including slaughter, believed it was an orbital strike by the Crohms, but there was no time to react to it.

Survivors were landing planet-side from the destroyed ships, and the Crohn's were going absolutely bananas. There was still a water fight. But fortunately, reinforcements were on the way. Word had reached terror about the difficulty with the Crohn's, because the conflict had been going on for a hot minute at this point, and the remaining imperial fists were sent out. when we say the remaining imperial fists, we mean the remaining all of them. All the imperial fists. A thousand imperial fists.

Yep, they were sent to sort this mess out. It had gone on for too long. Full chapter deployment. Let's go. That has never, ever gone badly before. Oh, no. It's never been an issue in the past. So the scale of the conflict was known

to these reinforcements, but they didn't know what the current situation was because they were, you know, mid-transit. Sure enough, two aggressor-class cruisers arrived, one of which included the Lord Commander-Militan of the Imperial Guard. When they arrived, they were briefed on the very recent ship explosions and the continuing damage that they caused. Radiation was pouring through the remaining ships, and the remaining crew on those ships refused to be helped, because they knew that it would be a death sentence for any boarding party. As for the cause, it kind of seemed like it was just natural space fucky-wucky going on, but that was not correct.

It was explained to Heth that this was not natural. Upon reviewing the data, it was clear that this was some sort of attack, and the source was just over the horizon. So there's a nice little quote here, which I'll read you. By what? By the Crohams? the xeno forms I don't believe so sir

there are alien voices in the noise bursts listen to them and watch the rising moon Ardimansua has no moon it does now oh ah is this the wait hold on

is this the orc attack moons I'm familiar with it might well be an ork attack moon god damn I love this we're just got like thrusters on the back of a big-ass asteroid.

Yeah, and then you crash it into a mass relay to kill about 600,000 Batarians. Let's go. Love that DLC. Yeah, I mean, maybe if Batarians had rights, did you really have to kill 600,000 Batarians, Shepard? Batarians. What do you mean? It's for the creator good.

He's a town supporter. Reapers, what do you mean? Air quotes, Reapers? I thought we've dismissed their claim. Mm-hmm. So, a thing, a thing was hanging. A distortion in space and time in the shape of something huge and spherical was lingering over the planet.

But it wasn't there yet. If it was there, the location and size of it would cause catastrophic damage to the surface. The distortions, however, implied that something was trying to appear. that is a badass me. That is great. Oh, that's, that's,

that's like an org version of Unicron. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. It literally, it literally is. It's literally called orchicron. Orchicron.

Yeah, that's really cool. As someone that loves Transformers and 40K, nice one who ever did that. Shout out to dead Dave. That's the, the handle for the person who made this is dead Dave. Orchicron is a hilarious name

for that. Absolutely great. Love it. Love it. So on the planet, the conflict was taking a brutal and violent toll on the fist, and the casualties were heavy. The chapter master was dead, and the lines had been struggling to reform in the hopes that daylight would bring some clarity. However, the clarity that came wasn't great as the ominous black sphere in the sky

was about to change dramatically. In a violent flash, all the remaining ships in orbit were rocked by a massive gravitational burst. When visual was restored, the imaging artifact had resolved itself. It was a massive sphere that despite being smaller than Ardimantua was so close to the surface that it looked like a conjoined twin of a moon. And worst of all, objects were scattering from this orb in droves. There were warships coming out of it. thousands of them, and they were spreading across and above the planet like locusts.

Imagine being just a random guardsman on the surface seeing that. I mean, all conflicts are above your pay grade, but that? No, thanks. No. Yeah, I was literally about to say, Willem Defoe looking up GIF is apt in this scenario. I will also say that I find the, I find the, oh, God, are you, are you, are Are you familiar with that terrible Rowland Emrick film that recently came out called Moon Crash? No? Moonfall.

Was that it? Moonfall? Was it a Moonfall? Yeah, it's got Samwell Tarley in it. Yeah, Moonfall. That's the one. I love that film in a This Is Hot Garbage and I shouldn't be watched. You know when some films are just so bad that they loop all the way?

back around to being enjoyable again. Oh, absolutely, yes. It's one of them. It's 100% one of those. Okay, because I am immediately thinking about the scene where the moon is scraping over the top of the city and just flying everywhere. I'm imagining that, but green. Yeah, yeah. Same.

Absolutely same. Also, one of my favorite things in any film for a while was the idea of a space shuttle taking off. using the moon's gravity to assist because it's so close to the earth that it's touching mountains. It's just like, what is happening? Whose idea was this? The moon is helping us. Yeah, totally, totally. Oh my God, it's so good.

Yeah, the moon jump as scares characters and that film. It's great. Watch it for free. Don't pay for it. So those on the surface, like they felt the burst like a massive bomb going off. destroying structures, knocking space marines over. In almost an instant, the skies went black, but it wasn't ash. It was ships, and all of them were opening fire. Out of the smoke from the absolute littering of bombs and munitions marched a familiar foe. Orcs. To some, the orcs had been

almost a joke in the past, and some had never seen an orc before. To most, the orcs weren't even a threat. But these orcs were very real, very much a threat. And also surprisingly big. Like abnormally big. So I'm going to give you something to read there, D.K. I love the classic underestimation of the orcs. Even in their little guidebook, it's just all stupid. Don't worry about it.

Anyway, he understood now. Laurentis understood. He understood. I think he understands, guys. He understood why past eras of mankind had lived in fear of the greenskin for centuries, why the frontier wars had raged forever, why the periodic wares had been threats that had caused the entire population of colonized systems to evacuate and flee, why the prospect of a credible war boss in his hoard was something that could make a sector governor or a warmaster

quake. He understood why the orcs were an eternal menace that could never be ignored. He just didn't understand how they could be six warp weeks of, wait, he just didn't understand how they could be six warp weeks from the Taryn Corps. That is not a lot of a barrier between a horrible invasory threat and the home world. That's not great. Yeah, that's a big fleet that's not very far from home. Yeah.

I mean, kind of sick, though. I mean, the best way, who needs a dry dock, truly, though? Like, who needs a dry dock when you can just take the planet with you, you know? That's true. Yeah. Shai also said, no, that during this time, as Kureth mentioned, at this point, orcs were a meme, because Horace almost wiped them out during his Ollonore campaign, and they were almost a non-issue for 1,500-plus years.

So it figures why they'd be like, oh, orcs not a threat, whatever. Like, we haven't seen them in 1,500 years. There have just been little, you know, small outbreaks here and there, but... It's literally gone from small skirmishes nowhere near home to, oh, dear God, there is a moon spewing out or battleships six weeks from home. What the hell is this? Literal planetary dry dock shooting through space and just overflowing this planet that's only six warp weeks away. Not to put the cart before the fleet, but. What, um, is there like, do they explain how it got here so quickly, or is that just like, uh, the orcs are here deal with it kind of thing?

So that will most likely come up. Okay, eventually we'll talk about that. Yeah. Okay. It's, it's different to how you might envision things normally. Gotcha. I just, you know, it's one of those things where like, if they were just like, the orcs of a moon now, that's like not abnormal for what, they do for that kind of stuff.

So I was just curious if we ever will get there, but I guess we do. Yes. Yeah. Don't worry. Don't worry. We'll get to it. You'd think someone would have noticed the flying moon by now. You'd think.

You've seen the bureaucracy of 40K. Someone submitted a report and then a servitor delivered it to a shelf in a library, 5,000 feet below sea level. and no one ever read it 800 years after the War of the Beast there's an ecclesiarchy somewhere in the administratum that's like Guys there's an orc moon that's been Oh

Looks at the date on the bottom Shit A little late Reads the note Then reads the date at the top That you skipped It goes now for God Damn it's not again

So many lives could have been Oh no we don't care That's the most of Cleese-y-Argy thing ever. So many lives could have... Oh, wait, we don't care. Yeah, whatever. It all worked out on the end.

Who cares? Billion's dead. Yeah, we got billion more. Whatever. So, as all of this occurred, those in space knew what this massive object was. It was an orc attack moon, and it was currently attacking the surface

of Ardimantua in more ways than one. Not only was it just vomiting ships out, but it had begun firing gravitational beams on the surface to begin stripping it of its resources. It was harvesting the mass of the planet, but it wasn't keeping the minerals for itself. It didn't need it. So instead it was doing something else.

It was launching those minerals at the fleet in orbit, and it was landing hits. So a massive chunk of quartz and iron traveled at six times the speed of south and tore one of the grand cruises in half. most of the ships felt like they were ready for the orcs, especially considering all and all, but the amount of damage and the improbable physics being displayed by this moon

was horrifying the crews of the fleet. Some of the commanders said the emperor protects, but they were met with the phrase, he used to, but we're the only ones here today. Roth. Roth. Yeah.

So the orcs, ammo supply was just the planet. The planet. Yeah. Gotcha. That's wow. All right. That's, that's, that is sufficiently orky. All right. Cool. And terrified. We're trying to protect this world and they're throwing

chunks of it out of it. Of it. What do we do? It's just, Jesus. So the death of the various Imperial Navy ships, like it lit the sky like fireworks. And despite some space marines hoping that those explosions,

were orc ships, they knew better. One by one, communication was lost with every ship in orbit. Standing alone in a sea of orcs was slaughter, who triumphantly yelled, Who is first? There's enough for all you bastards before facing the wire head-on in a final defiant, seemingly death charge.

That's a hell of a final quote. That's a great slaughter quote. What a way to go. Why do you say seemingly? Because obviously he survives. He's slaughter, for God's sakes. Oh, clearly. Yeah, like slaughter for being like a weak bitch, you know?

Yeah. So before their respective deaths, the Majos Larentis was able to rapidly translate communications being made from the moon. And that data was sent to terror. They were able to determine that the orcs referred to the subspace tunnel the moon erupted from as the wah gate. Brilliant. And these orcs inexplicably had one leader. So I've got something for you, Bricky. Sick.

The war boss refers to himself by a name that is harder to find a single specific translation for. Depending on nuance, it seems to be beast or slaughter or lord that will make great slaughter. I don't think it matters. His intent is obvious, and the image blanked again. This time, it took longer to return. Times almost gone, said Heth when he reappear. He looked straight into the recorder source. Study the files I've sent.

Study the damn data. What a love of terror, you need to understand. You need to be ready. The imperial fists are gone. They've wiped them out. The entire damned chapter. We are finished here. Unless you prepare yourselves, you...

And the screen went blank. Well, that, uh, I was just about to, I was about to say that, shy. I was like, damn, whoever the author is could not think of a better name for the war boss than slaughter, great slaughter, even though you've already got a slaughter. Brother, please. To the point. We have a slaughter already. We have a slaughter already.

The source is right there. Yeah. It feels like, it feels like the, the idea for the title came first, since the first book is I am slaughter. But then it became a thing of, oh, but if I put two things for slaughtering, people won't know which one I'm referring to, which is fine. But it's mostly just like. It's not.

Yeah, but it's just a little bit. It's not confusing. It just doesn't really work. I don't know. It's not. Yeah. Once Bricky read that part, I don't know. You could probably hear me rolling my.

eyes. I just, I, hmm. You just, I think you just don't like the word slaughter being used to the name. Slaughter is a great word. Slot, well, using it as a name is a little edgy, but hey, I've done some edgy, try hard stuff in my time to you. I'll let the, the dude being named Slaughter roll, but like, also giving it to the war boss is like, come on, man, come on. It's also, in the context of 40K, it feels very corncoded. Yeah.

It's extremely co-encoded. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, slaughter for the slaughter throne. Yeah. Well, it's just like, okay. But now we've got a loyalist

space marine and we've got an orc and both of them are like, slaughter is my thing. It's like okay, but that feels like it's not your thing. I mean, it technically is, but thematically, it kind of feels like it belongs to someone totally different, you know? Someone not related to you or the dude you're fighting. I mean, I'm having a loyalist dude who's not Zincian named schemer. And then, and then the or orc is named something like schemer or cunning or creator of schemes.

You're like, what the hell? It feels very weird. So this is, I will say. We're already starting off as in a strange, we're already starting off with like not even strange story situations and more just like bizarre naming conventions. Yeah. Yeah. I cannot disagree. I will say that Lord that will make great slaughter, that goes hard.

I don't have a problem with that. That's pretty cool. Yeah, for an or like a, you know, demon of corn or a blood letter or something, fine. Yeah. I'm okay with that. The thing is introducing that after you've got an imperial fist whose people call slaughter. It's like, why a fist? Not a blood angel maybe or like a fist?

Like his name should be like desk or Or wall IKEA Yeah or like our wall or like or some or pillar Like I just Why did they need Why did they need Xbox live game of tags in the first place? No one else uses them.

Oh my God. Okay. side note, DK or Krioth or Shai, have any of you been playing Silent Hill F? I played like the first two hours of it. Did you get to the part where there's a puzzle involving LeetSpeak?

I didn't. Oh my God. Is there, there's a put, oh, okay. There's a Leet Speak puzzle in the game and it's one of the best puzzles. I love it. It's great. It was really strange when they decided to give the Imperial Fists, gave his designation L33T-137.

Very bizarre. His name is actually lowercase X, capital X, slaughter, capital X, lowercase X, obviously. And the or or X name is X or Bringer of X or X or X killer or X going to kill it to you? XX X, X, X, Killer 420 underscore XX. That's got to be. Yep. Yep. So after this, after this.

after the information was sent away before everything went boom there was an immediate call to bring the high lords of terror together to discuss the next steps it needed to be done now absolutely now this is a serious crisis it has to be taken seriously but also you can't be telling people that the fists have been eradicated that's bad morale on every level

so they needed to step up their game As stated by the Grand Master of Assassins, Dracan Vangorich, what a name, beasts arise, and as they arise, so must they fall. Sure. I'm muting.

Continue. No, no, no person with an actual personality and functional brain has ever been. phrased anything like that. It's just never happened. I refuse to believe. If you were like, okay,

I've got a book series for you to read, I'm only going to give you one quote, and I gave you that sentence, would you read that book? Would you? You know, no. Probably not. Probably not.

That sounds like as moons arise, moon fall. It implies to so. many things. As baseball arises, so must the baseball fall. Like, what does it mean? So is this a beloved book series or anything? Because like, I don't want to sit there and be like, oh, man, it's not. Okay, cool. Because immediately, I was like, man, I can see why you would want to avoid this like the plague bricky, because this is rough. This is rough. It's just. It's just. It's just the, I knew, I looked at like the synopsis for it and it didn't make sense to me.

And we got four weeks of this, baby. Let's go. This is going to be a fun four weeks. I'm going to quickly put on my diplomats hat. I would say that reviews for this series so far have been mixed. Anyway, we're going to move on. So we need to take a quick step back to. something touched on a few minutes ago, all the imperial fists gone, all of them. To get a full

grasp of this and get a good idea of what's going on here, we need to take a few steps back more. So as we mentioned at the start, the Imperium at this point was in a stagnant state, and the fists were still stationed on terror. The stagnation and the more lax nature of the administratum on terror was kind of shown by the fist being sent to deal with the crimes. it was a threat that wasn't taken too seriously that in terms of optics it could look bad if it got out so by sending the defenders of terror

to deal with this like quote unquote threat it was a means to stamp it out quick and show that terror still had a strong foothole on things but you know this literally blew up in the faces of the high lords and the tension between those lords only got worse because of it

over the next few months it became very clear that there was more than one of these attack moons so there's a planet called praxeides prime which was almost completely absorbed by one while a second moon appeared near port oberon resulting in it shooting chunks of planet everywhere destroying countless ships but these are only some of the examples one thing remained universal and i will just send this over for you dk Billions perished in the fires of the invasion's ire. I don't like how that rhymed, actually. Anyway, worlds lay smashed.

The people pray for an intervention, but none came. Astromilitarim forces and planetary defenses stationed in the path of ruin did what they could, but were swiftly overrun. No reinforcements were sent. No reclamation fleet from ancient terror was on its way. Only death worlds and adeptus Astardi's homeworlds seemed to have the result. billions to slow the invasion's progress. So not great.

Get out shy. Ah, that's true, shy. You could... A slaughter. A slaughter. God. So the apocalyptic tide of the beast and the lack of response from terror caused panic across the galaxy. Some people viewed it as a time to fight back and they tried to,

unsuccessfully, while others felt that this was some sort of divine punishment. To them they felt the emperor was stagnant and whatever was causing this apocalypse had a fury that they missed from their once holy emperor. Temples were defaced and the orcs were worshipped. The high lords were completely unable to come to an agreement on anything and this caused a lot of infighting. So High Admiral Lansung refuses to cooperate entirely even with the Astrospection. militarum, which is quite a problem, given that he's the high admiral of the Imperial Navy.

He explicitly sent out a notice to the fleet and sends them to the Glaucasian Gulf as soon as possible, leaving defence in disarray. And as all of this is happening, Dracan Vangerich, which is still a great name, even if his quotes are garbage, he's doing what a good grandmaster of assassins does, and he's plotting behind everyone's back. So early on, like prior to the loss of the imperial fist, he was tipped off about the potential orc threat by an inquisitorial representative. So he's been keeping his finger on the pulse. He saw a series of unstable dominoes around him, and he needed them to fall so that something could be fixed. The first of these dominoes was the Ecclesiarch, Erecard measuring.

Some of the names in this. Drive me up the goddamn wall. I'm not going to lie. So this Ecclesiarch, Erechaat measuring, was a friend of High Admiral Lansung. He'd become elitist, materialist, and the stagnation ran a massive risk to the stability of the High Lords,

as well as the Ecclesiarchy in general. So because Dracan Vangerich is a sneaky little guy, he disguised himself as a priest and infiltrated his quarters. He demanded that he used his powers as the Ecclesiarch to call for an emergency meeting of the 12th and declare a war of faith. He believed that an invocation of a holy war would stir those who still had an instinctual hatred of the Xenos and give humanity a new banner to fight under,

one so strong that Lansung would recall his fleet and they could reunify and fight. If in doubt, you've got to fall back on the classic imperialian policy of kill all the aliens. Anything that ain't you, get rid of it. Let's go. Yeah, classic, start a holy war. Why not, right? Yeah.

Everything else didn't work. I mean, you know. Chai. Wait, no way. Is it actually shy? So Chai says, oh my God, I looked up Dracking Van Gogh. and the first word of his quote is slaughter. I'm fact-checking.

Oh, she's right. For God's sake. Slaughter is harder than people imagine. You know, this entire series is based off the slaughtered stern tiger. Man, if only we had that little Dante pin except it said slaughter from the acclaim series, Warhammer 40K. Didn't it now featuring slaughter from 440K. That's for the beast, baby. So, oh no.

Oh no, there's a, there we go. Autocorrect has done a number on this one. I'm not going to lie. Oh, poor pastor. I like, I'd sort of them, but there's one I've missed here. So measuring the guy's name, Ecclesiore. arc ericart measuring has been absolutely obliterated by

autocorrect and has simply been changed to measuring poor lad so measuring was like no I'm not having that and Van Gritch said well actually I poisoned you already you got three days to live sort it out or you croak

listen it's the grand master of the assassinorum okay the only the only more suss character in the entirety of Warhammer is Malkador and he ain't around anymore. I think. Honestly, they could bring it back if I'm being honest. Who knows at this point?

But yeah. So like, you know what? This sounds normal. Sure. Yeah. He's just like, I poisoned you. You've got three days to do what I say. And if you do, you get the antidote.

If you don't, tough shit, die. That's it. Those are your choices. Off you go. Which, to be fair, that's more warning than I would have thought. a grand master of the assassins would give because, like maybe 18 hours max, but no,

three days grace is what he's given there, which is pretty good. Great band too. What is that gif, shy? Oh, that's one of my favorites. Check it out.

Oh, that's the classic. That's the, that's the very fast, uh, twerking among us crew, mate. Yeah.

Yeah. That's class, that's classic bricky right there. That's, that is like, I use this one. often. I don't think I've ever seen that in the context of delayed assassination is the only thing. We also suppose suss. Yeah, okay. Yeah, also we have the slower version in case that's a little

too quick for you. I don't know. I just I just love Keriath's reaction of seeing the twerking Among Us meme and him being like, I don't think I've ever seen that in regards to like poisoning so much. Fair, dude. It's fair. I mean, this is poisoning my eyeballs, if any, thing. It's so, it's so fast. Okay. The way I have my sense up as well, so I can see when everyone's talking with the chat on the other monitor, it's like being strobed from the right. So, like, this is one of two things that was really bothering Dracan. The other thing that was bothering him had to do with Mars. The admec were acting weird, even by their standards. And let's face it, They're a bunch of freaks.

They weren't really communicating well with the High Lords or the Imperium as a whole, and they seemed to be monitoring the movements of the orcs in a fairly close manner, so much so that they seem to be popping around whenever these incursions appear and vanish again. He needed to know, oh my God, Possible, I'd skip this one before. Ah, he needed to know because they were sussie backers and the only grand and only the grand master was allowed to be a sussy backer. Yes! Yes!

I only know what one of those two words mean. I don't know what the other one is. You know what Baca means? It's okay. It's Japanese for stupid. I love how you immediately assume he doesn't know what Baca means. Well, I don't know. I think we could have gone either way on that one.

That's true. That's true. The Cypric memes on this channel is like, I don't know if you all have seen Star Trek at all, but it's like that, that, that Darmac episode where they literally speak in metaphors, like Shaka when the Wall's film, it's like, what the fuck does that mean? It's like, well, if you don't have the context for the metaphor, you kind of don't understand what the, yeah. Yeah, I feel like in locker. Oh, God, no.

All right. Kiriath, move it right along, brother. I feel like I'm at like a solid six and a half out of ten on some of the references that show up when we do these But every now again there'll be one that hits me And I'm like I may as well be 80 years old And like in care

Because I'm going to die in two days time There's no there's no midpoint I'm either I know what that means Or I'm basically a corpse at this point There's not a real... This is what the War of the Beast does to you, okay? This is what the War of the Beast will cause. Karioth hitting us with a damn, this podcast makes me feel like I'm in hospices wild.

Like, geez, all right. Oh, dear. Right, okay. That took all the air out of my chest. So, meanwhile, whilst the... Whilst the Grandmaster was being a sussy backer, Marshall Bowman of the Black Templars had a separate plan, a plan that he outlined during a relatively tense meeting with,

I love this, Captain Maximus Thane of the Fist's exemplar. What a net. Maximus Thane? You know, I'm- I'm shockingly okay with that one, actually. That's fine. There's no slaughter in it.

We're good. Yeah. Your turn. Off you go. Your turn, Bricky, right? Yep. Oh, I didn't hear the bricky part. I didn't say it. I was just thrown it out there.

Oh, all right. I added it because I was like, yeah, that was a little ubiquitous, but, you know. Yeah, no, I just went for it. All right. What we must do, brothers, all, is gather our strength. The savages will be stopped here no more than they would have been at Asperia. We must consult with Chapter Master Merhin, with my own high, Marshaled with Sharn, with Quisador of the Crimson Fis, and Isakar of the Exsoriators.

It is time for the scattered successors of all loyal legions to once again, to join once again, in defense of humanity. This will not happen here, Thane. It will not happen now. But we must be as one and ready for Dorn's call when it comes. D.K., I think, because you may not know this, the high marshal is a rank in the Black Templars. So these are all Imperial Fist successor chapters, one would assume.

Gotcha. I just love how he felt the need to list all those people instead of just like, yes, we must consult with, you know. Like, damn it, we have to come up with how many new names? We can't call them all slaughter. It just slaughters all the way down. So this will be helped substantially thanks to, a discovery. In the ruins of

Ardimantua under the collapsed soil in countless bodies, a single imperial fist has survived. Corland, second captain, wall name, or Xbox Live Game Attack, slaughter. Of course. Sure.

We'll come back to him in a little bit. We need to jump back to terror for a moment. So, tensions have now reached a bit of a fever pitch due to the extreme hampering of the war effort, and if there's one organisation that hates when things aren't moving, it's the Inquisition. Inquisitorial representative Wynand, much like Vangrich, knew that the gears were predominantly not turning thanks to Lord High Admiral Lansung. Fortunately, through some inquisitorial back channels, Wynan was able to piece

together a plan to spring life back into this conflict. In focus were two admirals. Admiral Achaya of Battlefleet Solar and Admiral Price of the Rimward Fleet. Both of these admirals had a fierce rivalry, but Achaya was exceptionally ambitious, dangerously so. So Wynan was able to convince Admiral Achaya to divert course from the High Admiral's meeting point to Port Sanctus, which was currently facing a direct assault from the Orks. A bit blinded by ambition, Achia broke. formation and took his fleet with him. Langsung was not really a fan of this.

One of his most respected admirals broke formation and this ran the risk of outright ruining the perception that he was able to control his own fleet. So in a meeting which hilariously involved the very same inquisitor that caused this whole schism, he essentially said, oh it seems my orders have breached the fleet early than expected. I was going to end the session by saying I was going to lead the charge, but I guess you jumped the gun and the surprise is spoiled now. While this is going on, the last Imperial Fist in the Galaxy, otherwise known as Mr. Slaughter, confirmed the suspicions that were had. These orcs were unlike the orcs that the

Imperium once faced, and something a bit more smart, more violent and more gigantic had taken their place. He needed to send a message out as a general broadcast as far and as wide as he could, but not just any broadcast. Three specific words. Words put in motion by Rogal Dawn. Words that were now heretical, thanks to the reforms done by Gilliman in the Codex Astartes. Slaughter didn't care and the message was sent the last wall. That was that was the message, the outlawed

message? The last wall? Yeah. It sounds super underwhelming. I'll say. Yeah. I mean, are you sure it wasn't the last slaughter? It was not the last slaughter, but I'm gonna, you know what? I don't know the last wall. What is the last wall protocol. What is that?

Okay. I'm going to give you three guesses on what the last war protocol might be. DK. You're up. No, no, let's be fair. Let's be fair. Let's be fair. Okay. Bricky has been, you know,

Bricky has been a fan for longer. The entire basis of the podcast was a fan, teaching a non-fan, right? So, We will start with Bricky. Bricky, what is the last war protocol? I am assuming, you know, I gotta be honest. I, I, there's a lot of, hmm, words.

I am assuming it is every single fleet chapter coming back to Terra and forming a gigantic orbital defensive line to save Terra. Oh, that's not bad. You're not that far. off. Okay. D.K. Okay. I mean, I... Can you refine that a bit? Refine it? I don't know.

Yeah. Because a part of me was like, oh yeah, the orc threat has gotten so bad that like, you know, last world protocol means like there's something that's gotten so bad. It is literally coming for Tara. We cannot stop it. Tara is the last wall of defense. There's nothing that's going to stop it. There's no emperor. There's no fists. There's, it's speeding to. towards our last wall. Okay. Yeah, like,

again, you're both very, very close, but Shai has said that she can refine it after DK. Of course she can. She knows what it is.

I feel like she already knows what it is. What do you mean? Of course you can. You know the answer. It's down to spoil the text. So I'm going to do one more for Bricky just to really condense it into, given what you said,

what D.K said. but let's put the focus on dawn really condense it down what do you reckon? Yeah, Bricky. I mean, like in the stupid way or like in the Dorn way? Aren't they the same thing?

Oh, the shade, okay. Because the stupid thing. Because the stupid thing is they are literally going to build a wall around the terror, like a dome. Okay, it's not that cheap. It's not cheap. The Dornway, to me, is screw you, Gilliman, you blueberry bitch.

We're rebuilding, like, we're putting all the success of chapters back into the one big thing. And then, and then, like, Uber, like, screw you Uber time of pain. Maybe, like, a good terminus decree. That's the only one I got. Shire. I'm calling for you out. No, I'm clicking the spoiler on the tell. No, I'm clicking the spoiler now.

Fuck you, Bluebeen. Gorilla, man, fuck Codex Astardis High Lord's, fuck High Lords, Tara, we are reforming Imperial Fis Legion. I can see how she would think that you may have read it. That's pretty close. That's pretty close. Well, Dorn is a notable

hater of the Codex Astardis. Yeah, he was not a fan. He really hated that whole thing. He really despised it. So I don't think it was that off. Yeah, you know, well, I say we give it to him. Because I wasn't close. I think you got there. I think you got there.

I did not. I click on the spoiler if it makes you feel any better. I'm not that much of a shithead. I don't think Shai's going to believe you either way. I don't need her to. You sit on a throne of life. You smell like beef and cheese. You don't smell like Dorn.

So you are pretty much dead on. So the last wall was a protocol created in secret by Orgo, Dawn, it feels like there's been a lot of those now, after the creation of the Codex Astardis. So to Dawn, the splitting of his sons, it was painful, especially since he considered his guys to be the, like, the warriors to protect terror. The last war's purpose was to entirely reunite all the sons of Dawn into one legion in the event that terror faced a final threat. Upon calling of the last wall, the Imperial Fists, Black Templars, Exorriators, Iron Knights, Crimson Fists, Soul Drinkers?

Hell yeah, best chapter. Hell yeah. I love so messy, but so fun. And the Fists Exemplar were all to convene in the file system as one and then move as a single unit toward terror. So, off slaughter went in hopes that they would reunite. I love, I'm such a fan of the soul drinkers mentioned there. Love it. Love a tasty beverage.

They were the ones with the crab dude, right? Yeah, they're the ones who went like rogue. Not chaos, but rogue. They got all sorts of messed up. They were like, we see. secede from the Imperium. Oh, chaos tempted us away. Now, fuck you. We're not serving chaos. And then it just became a whole mess. Love them. Good times. So back on terror, things were going a bit wild in the Inquisition. Lord Inquisitor Veritas,

who watched all of the stuff happen with Wyandand, was not so certain of Weyenne's priorities and felt that she'd become a bit too in league with the High Lords and asked for her to step down. There was a refusal, so Veritas did what most inquisitors do, and sent assassins to kill her. Fortunately for her, Grandmaster Dracon felt this was excessive, and he made sure that Wyand wasn't actually killed. He had a death faked and wished her away into hiding. Veritas took over as inquisitorial representative to the High Lords. His tone made it seem like his predominant focus was to make sure that the High Lords were doing the bidding of the Inquisition and not the other way around,

but he kept his cards close to his chest. Dracan suspected this was the case, and he also determined that Veritas was a bit too close to Lansung, the High Admiral of the Imperial Navy, and he felt they were probably planning something. But, as of right now, Lansung was a bit busy with his 100% fully planned out battle of Port Sanctus, which he only did because one of his sub-admirals decided to go after.

Almost half of an entire segmentum fleet was there for battle against one of the attack moons. A battle like that, it shouldn't take that long. It should be fine, right? A whole fleet versus an attack moon? Easy. What the hell do you mean, Kiroath? A whole fleet versus the planet? A moon?

Easy me The Imperial I think so Me taking like the The double A baseball team To go fight like a like I just I don't know the Dodgers Yeah like I just easy they're smaller They can run fashers less mass

Well funnily enough A week goes by and it's just a battle of attrition. Despite the size of the fleet initially, the orcs were just outgunning them at every step of the way. They'd built and weaponised asteroid forts, they hijacked Imperial ships,

and they also had a neat trick where small orc attack vessels were able to rush in under or around an Imperial ship and teleport boys through the void shields onto random decks of the imperial ships. Classic. So you'd have a ship just mining his own business

and then suddenly, boys on the gunnery deck. What do we do? We're all human and these guys are nutters. What happens? Well, you all die. Congratulations. You were born in the Imperium.

Damn, they're nutters, crazy. What is not? Wait, oh, Nutter's be nothing, man. Crazy. Have I done an English slang with English slang thing? No, Nutter is acceptable. Yeah, it's fine.

Is it? Okay. That's fine. It seems suspect, even though it shouldn't be. So, suss. It seems sussie. Call an emergency meeting? If you will.

Oh, God. So. there is one more side effect when it comes to battling orcs which is the orcs themselves even the most organized band of orcs they still have an urge to do their own fighting and this battle of attrition meant that things were spread out quite a bit this also meant that the battle became super disorganized but there was one moment where there was an opening for attack on the attack moon itself. So the fleet as a whole was told to just rush the moon and deal with it.

A unified front seems to be the theme of the moment, as in the foul system, slaughter was met by a shuttle from the Black Templar vessel, Aborantz, what a great name for his ship, and was taking him up to see Marshall Beaumont. At best, the successes would come together and agree that the beast was a Titanic threat to the throne world. At worst, The last of the Imperial Fists will be ridiculed for his pretensions of grandeur so that the memory of my chapter will end not only with extension, but with infamy. Upon arrival on the ship, he was greeted ominously by Council of Chaptermasters.

Beaumont, Issaqar of the excoriators, a fist exemplar you didn't recognise, and Master Cassandra of the Crimson Fists. The chapter masters liked Slaughter's attitude, but they didn't really understand why he was there to begin with. He kept stating that he was the only survivor. They thought he was referring to his regiment, but eventually it clicked. The imperial fists were gone. He was the last one of a thousand brothers. And he made a statement that for those who had dawn's gene seed,

would make their blood run cold. The final wall has fallen. Very melodramatic. Very. It's pretty heavy. So, you know what, that one imperial fist, clearly, what's up with the imperial fists with, like, killing their whole chapter? I don't think they do it on purpose.

I mean, yeah, but then there was the whole cage thing, and like, I don't know. I gotta be honest. Just the circumstance. They just have really bad luck. Hmm. Caperturo. Oh, go.

Per Trobo out there. Per Trobo out there. I'm ready to fight you, Dorn. Slams a handful of Tylenol into his face. Oh, no. Okay. So back to Port Sanctus, the direct assault against the attack moon. It's more devastating than they could have imagined.

Blasts emanating from the moon were proving difficult to avoid, but the full firepower of the Navy, it's not breaking the moon's focus. Eventually, the repeated assaults against the void shield start to make it buckle, and the moon becomes more and more vulnerable. In rapid succession, attack craft is sent into the moon to really fucking. up. In particular, the gravitic, I hate that word, the gravitic generators of the moon are the primary target. The runs by these attack craft proved to be successful, but also suicidal. The detonation of the moon tore through spacetime and engulfed half a dozen or more capital ships

with it. Escorts, fighters, bombers, all of it. The first of the beast, attack moons was finally destroyed. Lansung returned to terror and was greeted with an incredible parade. He was a true hero of the Imperium and this victory resulted in a rousing speech stating that this was proof that the orcs could be defeated, but he needed support. A grievous blow was dealt to the enemy, but they needed to unite. The guard, the navy, the holy word of the emberts. needed to unify everyone in this war.

But can you guess what happens next? I would imagine another orc, moon, ship just kind of starts hovering in the distance. I would assume a beast that makes slaughter or a slaughter beast or some phrase of this ends up arriving. The slaughter arrives to Terra And we're not talking about the man Ah, shy hitting me directly in the heart With the slip space rupture detected I mean, you're pretty much both correct

So massive shockwave The stage buckles The road cracked beneath them Members of the Lucifer Blacks Are just scattered as another shockwave hits and the Grandmaster of the Assassins, who of course was there, he looks to the sky as the crowds on terror do the same. D.K., would you do the final honors with this one?

Of course. Something glinted above, bigger than anything else that had been in orbit. The sky had turned purple and green around it, many miles above, uncaring of Lansung's victory, his speeches, or any of the petty politics that had allowed its arrival, a monstrous star fortress larger than anything previously recorded extruded itself into orbit. The grand master of the officio assassin arm

had never known fear. At that moment, as he watched a false moon rip its way into existence above the imperial capital, he felt a cold trickle of dread. Wampwomp, Swester Stallone. That,

movies so can be but it's so good anyway yeah but as we expected more orcs yep a hundred percent more orcs and uh and with that quote we will see you next week for the next three books of the beast series what a journey this has been so far holy wait i have a real actual genuine question in case i missed this is slaughter still around Oh yeah, he's still around. Yeah, he is he like, is he like the main character for all 12 books? He's trying to get the imperial, he's trying to get the gang back together. No, I know that, but he's the less surviving, uh, dude, right?

He's the last surviving fist. No, I know that, but like, I didn't know if he was like a, a, because, you know, the main characters in these books often are not the ones that are the most important, you know? Right, right, right. I just Is Is he the main Because I

I guess it'll be a spoiler He's not like a side character right It's not like A spoiler He's fairly He's fairly major to most of it Let's put it that way So basically what you're trying to tell me

Is that he's going to be my favorite character And last all the books Like my favorite character Torgaden Yes 100%. Man I fucking He hate Lucius the Eternal so much. Oh yeah.

Fuck that guy, dude. Oh, man. Even though he didn't cause that problem. Just like, I'm just mad about him for some reason. It's because he's such a shitter. He's a bullshit liar. His whole thing is I'm the best at close combat until someone mers me. And then I just respawn anyway.

Fuck off. Garbage. He did kind of back it up though. He did kind of back it up when he was a human, when he was a Marine a little bit, you know. He was really good, but he demonstrated he wasn't the best. And he just, him being arrogant of it. Like, look, I'm super arrogant about what I can play on guitar

until I don't play guitar for six months, pick it up, and then go, oh, actually, I'm a piece of shit. He's that, but 100% of the time with a sword. He's just not that great. He's fine. He's perfectly good. Better than 90%. But when 90% are just untrained assholes, who cares?

You know? Me stabbing the beast or some giant org war boss that has killed all of my friends. God, I hate you, Lucius, as I chock the orc's head off. Also, Shai wants to know, what's your impression of the War of the Beast so far since we got, you know, a little longer? I think it has good ideas. I think there's good to be had here. There's a good story to be had. It just sounds like maybe the execution is a little lacking

because, again, there's how many different authors that are all pooling together to try and make this thing happen? Yeah. So I think the story is fine. It's just too many cooks. I would say one of the biggest issues with the Horace heresy is A, it's too long, because it is. It's so fucking long. And like half of it you don't need to read.

And B, you can tell who writes what. And I'm not suggesting that one author is necessarily better than another, but different authors have, I'm being very diplomatic. Different authors have very different styles. And so, like, when you read through the Horace Heresy, for example, you get a feel for what each author is doing with each book. And it didn't necessarily work great for that series, good though that series is overall. So try to condense that into effectively,

like, a year and a half's worth of 12 books. I just don't I don't think that was ever going to be like an absolute winner across the board because tonal differences like writing styles also fuck wall names

why do it slaughter and frenzy and fucking like I don't know kill shot and tea bag or whatever why is that even in there The last surviving Imperial Fiss T-bag That's just stupid

No one was asked You know when you're sitting there and you go Okay No one asked for this No one wanted it No one was sitting there going You know what Would make you know

Space Marines more approachable Fucking gamer tags That would make you more No no one thought that What was the point Why do we do it? We don't know And there's no good answer for it

And it's just, oh. I will say it is a writing phenomenon, not phenomenal, a writing, a Herculean effort in writing to somehow get 12 fucking books out in the span of a year and a half. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, that is insane. I mean, I just got to, listen, I just got to be honest, you know, I mean, Mass Effect 3 was done in a year and a half and that game is flawless. I'm The thing is It's not even a full year

December 2015 to November 2016 Wow Even across six authors That's two books in 11 months Yeah, that's a lot What the fuck are you doing? Spread it out, give them time to cook

Don't just be like yeah, this guy, this guy, he's called slaughter. Off you go, what the fuck are you talking about? Give them more time than that. It doesn't need to be rushed to an insane extent. It's just, oh dear. I feel like that's like six years worth of books in the span of like a year and a half. And it's like, aye, aye, y, man.

It was, anyway, but yeah, War of the Beast is so a thing right now. This is the thing. I feel like I really want to, I really want to, like, stress that of the listed authors, like, they're not bad. They're not bad at writing. They're good. But I was going to say, there's like Dan Abnett and Guy Haley. We've read really good books from them. I mean, I mean.

I mean, I mean. I mean, I really like. Like, every single time this stuff happens, it's always the same thing. It's either not given enough time to cook. Deadlines are too strict. or requirements are blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, like, it's always constantly that case. Yeah.

I mean, how many video games have we played from extremely good studios that have not met publisher requirements and or were rushed out the gate? I sure do love playing Monster Hunter Wilds at 60 frames a second. Yeah, that PC release was a little, yeah. I mean, I'm not playing a dynamo supercomputer. It was tough. Do you remember,

do you remember trying to play, uh, Dark Souls when it was ported to PC? Oh God. Yes. That, that initial launch. Holy shit.

That was, that was rough. That was absolutely atrocious. Not me. Like, you watching me start fall at New Vegas every single day with like, like a lawnmower on. Come on.

Work this time. Yeah. Or honestly, cyberpunk on release was pretty gnarly on release. It got a lot better, but on release, it was yikes.

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, Shai, yeah, Expedition 33, made by ex-Ubersoft people who turns out are actually talented when not forced to make a slop

by AAA Corpose. Yeah. I love that game too. God, what a good. It's so good. It's so good. Oh, yeah. It has to be.

A friend of mine absolutely hates Ubisoft games. Like absolutely hates them and didn't play Expedition 33 specifically because they'd heard that it was like Ubisoft devs. And then they finally picked it up and went, this is the best fucking game I've played for like 10 years. Yeah. What is going on? I'm like, yeah, it's almost like if you're not under horrendous pressure

and like the most work for the least money, you get to create cool stuff. It's almost like that's how that works or something. I cannot wait to play my brand new mass effect that's going to maintain all of its ideals under the new Saudi Arabian acquisition. Anyway, I sure do love, I sure do love War of the Beast.

I can't wait for it next week. Smile. And then two more weeks after that, fucking strap in, let's go. Strap in. We haven't even met the beast yet, baby. Yeah, no. Let's go.

Save him.