The 40k Lorecast - Episode 131 - The Minotaurs, for real this time

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

On today’s cast we jump into the Minotaurs chapter of the Space Marines. Starting with the earliest mentions of any space marines called the Minotaurs in the lore. But then we get into the more firm accounts starting in the 41st millennia. With them being super cool during the Macharian Heresy, Badab Wars, saving the Crimson Fists, and more. We spend a lot of out time talking about how the Minotaurs fight and behave, with an especial focus on what makes them different from other space marine chapters. We also spend a good amount on their super crazy bad ass (but also crazy violent) chapter master Asterion Moloc, and what or who we think he might be.PatreonMerchandiseDiscord Link:Our WebsiteRetro RecallOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Pebl: https://hellopebl.com* Check out Pebl: https://hipebl.ai* Check out Shopify: https://shopify.com/loreAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to the 40K lore cast. Welcome to the 40K lore cast with me, John Barcotti and Brad Chester. This guy. Today we'll be covering the Minutars, for real this time, with a focus on their history, the mysteries around them and a dive into how they function the lore. John, come on, man. Let me tell you what we're going to do. We're going to cover the Minutars, the mystery of their history.

Can't leave that one out there. I really just want to tell everyone that we covered the Lords of Terror last week. and Brad actually did get very sick. That is true. It's wildly sick. Covering the Lords of Terra actually almost killed me. Yeah, you actually did get wildly

ill afterwards. Anyway, just saying, 40K lorecast, weekly show in the lore of the Warhammer 40K universe releasing every Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern. Please follow and comment as it really does aid our algorithm

and helps push us out to more and more listeners. Also, we'd love if you check out our YouTube channel for our bi-monthly Q&A, and some other shows that are popping up there. In addition, if you like this show and want some more of it, check out our other show, The History of 40K,

where we talk about the history of the game of 40K on the tabletop. If you like the sound of my voice, check out my other show, Retro Recall, where I talk about video games in the 80s and 90s. Some of them are good. Some of them are not. And if you want to support us, check out the links to our merchandise and our Patreon.

Massive thank you to everyone's contributed already to the Patreon. The Patreon is awesome. helping us expand out a lot more. It's also just genuinely, guys, thank you. It does help us pay bills and do some fun stuff. We're going to have a pretty big glow-up at Adepticon this year. A lot of that's because of Patreon. So thank you guys for that.

For those who don't know, Patreon, $4.99 a month. You get this show in history of $40K ad-free or still $4.99 a month. A bunch of the foreign listeners were like, hey, you keep making comments about other countries. What about the United States? So, you know, we'll do the United States. And we're going to start where I was born. Philadelphia. Kest my ass.

You're from Ohio. Cheese steaks, Scrapple, water ice, Wawa, and the greatest American football team to ever live, the Eagles.

Goberts. It's also the birthplace of the nation. You're a Raider fan. I don't even want, I don't like Hugh O.P. Raider fan. You live in Ohio. No.

But it is actually the birthplace of the nation, which is pretty cool. I guess that's better than water ice, which I understand that. Those two words don't make a lot of sense together. Whatever, my wife and I had this discussion. But for visitors, Philadelphia is kind of a cultural phenomenon. Founded in 1682 by William Penn and English Quaker, searching for religious freedom.

The city's kind of followed that history of independence, mostly, for a lot of its existence. If you want to visit, it is really cool. You can go down to Independence Hall. We can see where the Declaration of Independence was written and signed. It's also where they wrote the Constitution. Yeah, they left a lot of people out of that document. As long as I can call that one out, let's screw them for that move. There's also a kick-ass zoo, the awesome science museum, good natural history museum, and more.

And if you want to experience a sporting game, go. We are a delight. I mean, don't. Now, you know what, go. It's a lot of fun. Philadelphia sports are a joy. And I'll also call it out, outside of New York, L.A., San Francisco, and Chicago, Philadelphia is probably the best food scene in the country.

It's massive diversity of foods and flavors. And even better news, despite our little run there, of being the murder capital, we've cleaned it up. We're down to 23rd. I had to look it up today. Just make sure. So still watch your ass, but you're doing much better, which does, by the way, put us before Brad Grumbles behind, we're doing better than Cleveland, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Akron. You have four cities in your horrible state that are higher murder rates than Philadelphia, so I don't want to hear it. Yeah, because you guys are underachievers. No, we were overachievers. Quite a few years there. Got a little, got a little, got a little

spicy. But anyway. When you guys were beat D.C.? Yep. Yep. We're kicking Chicago's ass. That wasn't an ideal time. Anyway. But lastly, also, Discord. So if you don't like any of the comments I just made about Philadelphia or those other cities, feel free to come into Discord. And I'll explain to you how awesome my city is. And because we have wonderful things like tasty cakes. They're tasty and their cake. But join the Discord. You do know that eventually people, we see where we're going. Eventually, eventually, You're going to get an Ohio lynch mob that's going to come after you and find out where you're going.

We tell people where we're going. It's Ohio. I assume it's just, it's just not that scary. I assume they'll get really riled up and then that Midwest politeness will come right through. Like, oh, we're not that mad, you know. Like, that's the thing. Like, you badmouthed Boston, you're going to get punched. Your badmouth, Ohio.

You're going to get scolded. You're scarier than Indiana. All right, you won't. You're much more intimidating than Indiana. I don't even know what this is going on. Anyway, come to our Discord and yell at me. It's half the fun. But also come to a Discord and have real fun.

Come into a Discord, great place to learn about literature, talk about the lore. Brad's actually now doing some coaching events in there, which is pretty cool. It's a great spot to learn about either how to play the game, more about the lore, or just generally hang out. memes, talk about your pets, talk about food. Also, the meme channel has been killing it lately.

Chef's kissed everybody in there. There's been some great stuff. All right, but let's get into the Minotaris for real this time. All right. Starting off with, the Minotars are actually a really complicated chapter, as we don't know anything about their founding or true history. And this is because any and all records are redacted. On purpose, in the Lord itself.

And the thing is they also, I was to say, we know a bunch about their founding, kind of, because there's a bunch of conflicting tales about their founding on purpose. Yes, and that's where it's the way. It ends up happening with them is the authority of the Lords of Terra have redacted basically everything that they can redact. The only stuff that they can't redact is when the Minotars engage in actions within the Imperium, like Badaab.

So when they show up in Badaab, the Minotars appear in imperial history. But stuff like their structure, their organization, their history, completely opaque. And that actually even makes their history confusing because we only are really aware of the Minotar's existence as being a firm existence for the last thousand years, but M-41-ish. It's so many tales of before that also. And the thing is that a lot of times the Minutars only have real doing air quotes. No one can see any, but I'm still doing air quotes. Yeah, that's the tradition. Yeah.

is when they interact with other Astardis. And that's a big deal because the other Astardis chapters kind of hate their faces. Yeah, for a lot of good reasons we're going to get to shortly. So let's go back to the very first instance of the Minotars. It's actually M32. So not long after all the primarks were gone from the galaxy, chaos staged this attack on segmentum solar.

World eaters, nightlords, and iron warriors led chaos cults that create a series of rebellions on the port side of segmentum solar. Yeah, I'm doing that now. You know what? It makes as much sense as northeast, southwest. So we're going port side. What you meant to say, John, was the west side of segments of solar. We're going port.

We're off the port side. I took a bunch of heat from my black beard comments. So, hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho. Here we go. We're going port-side. Let's talk about good for chaos rebellions. This thing was badass, to be honest with you. This is billions of cultists on multiple planets.

And so what happened was to stop this, four Space Marine chapters, kind of an interesting renown attacked and suppressed it. So you had the Angels of Absolution, who were a Dark Angel's successor, one of the only ones that actually hunts the fallen with them. They're very close to the actual Dark Angels. then you have the Death Eagles who are a Ravengard successor, maybe? We're actually not even short. They're believed to be.

The Carcarodons, this is the first time the Carcadon showed up. They appeared here and then just went back out of dark space. No one called them either. They just showed up. They're like, hey, we're here to help. We definitely did not call you. Like, why are you here? But all right, I guess help.

And then a chapter simply referred to as the Minotars. They're listed as the Minotars. there's no name chapter members, no chapter information, nothing. Just it states the Minotars were there. It's the least amount of information you could possibly say. I know we had to cover this part, but I don't think this is the Minatars. That's real. Yeah, it's interesting to me because I actually think it could be.

And the reason why is that, because after this, there's no mention of the Minotars again for like 4,000 years. Yeah, until we get into 36. But the thing is, this does track because this was a rebellion in, segmentum solar, which put it really close to soul, which would make, this is the only reason it would make sense. And it gets conflicting. I'll give you kind of a reason for and a reason against. The reason for is that this rebellion, it's right by segmentum solar. So if they are genuinely afraid of dying and they had the minotars hidden, they would throw them into this to keep themselves alive. But the flip side is,

that, you know, when Van Gorich is in there, when the War of the Beast comes through, there's no Minutas. Goge. He would have been using the shit out of the Minotars. Exactly. So it doesn't really make sense. This is the Minotaris. It's just, it is there mentioned.

And so I kind of agree with Brad. It probably isn't them. Maybe they had them when they sent them off on a, I don't know, a vision quest and they just got lost for $10. Who knows? But anyway, so the next appearance for them is 4,000 years later. in M36, sort of not really. And this is,

it's more they appear by name. This is when the 21st Space Marine founding occurs. This is the cursed founding. It should have been the 13th founding because this founding went bad, bad, and each one

of them, I... This is the dumbest founding. Yes, but they were also, they talked a lot about they're trying to make, they were... Oh, no, I mean from a narrative standpoint. They call it a cursed founding, and I'm about to All over the side.

It wasn't encouraged. It was a bunch of guys that were trying to put extra spice in the mixture and everything went wrong. Yeah, the madros biologists who oversaw it was trying to basically do what Call did with a primark project and make better Astardis. And they just made busted ones. So they made seven chapters and they all had different genetic flaws. He was trying to make primaris breeds and instead got poop marines because

every one of these chapters had a pretty big flaw. No, no, no, no. See, that's my issue with this. You say that because that's what the lore says. Then you look them up and they don't. The blood-angle successors are called the lamenters. Because they got depression. They got, yeah, they made a sad chapter.

Then the ultramine successor, the firehawks, got bad luck. That's what they got. Bad luck. bad things happened to the fire hawks. So we're 0 for two and me giving a crap. Then the salamanders got arm bones. Yeah, it isn't a good thing. It actually messes with stuff.

Has no value. No value. In a world, sorry, in a galaxy of power swords, no value. Then you have. The sons of Antaeus actually got cooler stuff. Yeah, they turned into Wolverine. Their bones are made of metal. So it sucks going through airport security, but that's about it.

But again, sounds cool on paper. Oh, awesome. These space marines' bones are made of metal. That sounds cool. Space Marines wear power armor, which is made of seramite. So who cares, what's on the inside? I do. Because it's cool.

Why? What's it going to matter? Because the dude in the sides are better. Stronger, faster. Six million-dollar man. But he's not. The space marines are made faster by the power armor. It's a useless thing.

Come on. Yeah. Then the flame falcons were the only ones who were actually kind of cool. Because for some reason, they would burst in the flame like the human torch and would walk around burning like the human torch. But then the gray knights saw them and went, nope. Not significant at all because they got to do that for eight minutes. And then the gray nights went, heresy. Yeah, but it was cool.

We actually had a bunch of guys who could yell flame on, and we're going to fight chaos. By the way, we were completely loyalists, and the Grey Knights went, nope, not doing that. Nope, they're all done. The reason that I think of this as a real thing, to be honest with you, I'll give you your point. Curst founding.

However, when I think of this founding, I think of the Gorgons who instantly went, yeah, we're chaos. Not instantly. The Gorgans took some time. The Gorgans figured out that somehow they could trade their organs with each other. And remember that whole thing where space marines can eat things and gain their memories that GW just forgot about because it's kind of stupid, if I'm being honest? The Gorgans actually did it and realized if I exchange organs with you.

By the way, they said organs, not blood organs. They just trade them out because apparently space, are made of Legos. I'm not really sure how this was working exactly. Fabious Biles type stuff. Yeah. And they were doing this and they would gain each other's knowledge. But then if one guy is chaos, this is kind of how they would also gain all their chaos. This is how you get ants, John. This is how you get ants. This is how you get ants. That's exactly how you get ants, Lana. But yeah, so that didn't go great. They had to be exterminated. And then there was the Minotars. The Minotars were a berserkers. They were basically the world leader's berserkers. They would,

just run recklessly into battle, charging it enemies with reckless abandon. And like, hold on, though. Could not be told what to do. A lot of times we say in their talked about in the books is reckless abandon and all it is somebody, you know, having a lot of aggression when they're doing their melee combat. That's not this. This is full on berserker rage. They did not listen to anything.

There was no plans. There was no strategy. There was just murdering people. So a real reckless abandon. The thought process. around this is that this was either just randomly, hey, this was a chapter called the Minotars,

and then they were exterminated, and then the Minotars we have today, it's a recycled name. It's the same way, like, there's a ton of sports teams that are named, you know, the Spartans or whatever. I mean, because you wouldn't name your sports team something stupid, like a tree nut, would you? Yeah, you almost

maybe lose my train of thought on that one, brother. We'd be really dumb, right? If you really wanted to instill fear an opponent, you wouldn't want to name your sports team after a tree nut. I would kill you. It would be a really, really stupid idea. We can all agree on that, right?

No one, no one, no university, for example, would do something that stupid, right? Right? I will punch you in the throat. Buckeye fans everywhere. Take offense to this. No, admit it, Buckeye fans. It's stupid.

I will not. You're named after a tree nut. I will, however, say, what if, now this is another, this is back-to-back Brad theories. First one, nothing. I actually think that they stole these guys. I think the Lords of Terra made their own chapter after they basically took a broken chapter and stole the gene scene.

Yeah, it's possible. My theory, I think the mentors are chimeric. I think they were just created, and I think they made date further back than this. I think it's a cover story is what I think it was. I think they were like, oh, yeah, they're made here. Because I do think that the minotars may actually be heretical if you actually dive into how they were made. Well, that's kind of where I was going. That's why I thought maybe they were this, these ones, because these guys are just cornered.

I think these guys are a cover story originally for it that just kind of fell apart. But I think the minotars are technically heretical because they're a chimeric gene seed, which you're not supposed to have. You know, like all space marine chapters are supposed to have. have a founding chapter, minotars do not. They are super willing. Yeah, it's because they were put together in a lab. Yeah, which you're not supposed to do.

But anyway, but let's get into this. The minotars, though, are real and modern. However, whatever the origin, they are real. And I've said it before, I actually prefer codex lore. I like Black Library books, but they are a bit more hit and miss, unfortunately. The codex is hit pretty hard. And the one, the codecs that hit harder than anything are the forge world code. I will admit, begrudgingly, begrudgingly that every now and then, the Forge World models had rules that were a little bit over the top.

A little bit? Just a little bit? Just a wee, tintsy, tinsy bit over the top. The Leviathan Dreadnought may have, perhaps, possibly been a little bit O.P. Same with a dime I care on. It's possible I could admit that maybe it was a little bit unfair. But the lore in the law in the same. these books is incredible. And the first one we'll start with is Imperial Armor Volume 10. By the way, you guys can download all these books. They're all available on PDF. Good luck. So during our coverage of the Imperial Guard, we talked about Lord Solar McCarion. He is perhaps, but not just perhaps, he is the greatest Imperial Guard leader ever. History of Imperium, full stop. Okay? He was born in Segmentum Pacificus, and he was a living saint of the Imperium. Under his command, a thousand worlds joined the Imperium in seven years.

Gilliman is trying to do a fraction of that right now. He is incredible. But he was a boss, like for sure. Oh, McCarious is incredible. The problem with him, though, he was a cult of personality. And he died a really tragic death. He actually contracted a Nurgel rot that took him. And by took him, I mean, an imperial assassin killed him.

so that his legacy didn't get destroyed. The issue, though, is the worlds he brought into compliance didn't join the Imperium because he really sold them on how great the Imperium was. They were like, yeah, this dude's awesome. So whatever he does, let's just hang out with him. And then he died, and they went, well, screw this place because the rest of you are idiots. That dude was cool, and he's gone. So peace out, bye, the problem with that peace out by a is the Imperium calls that rebellion.

And the region of space, the segmentum Pacificus, is really rich and really wealthy. And the Lords of Terra weren't really keen to lose it. Like, it's one thing when, like, you conquer parts of the ghoul stars and then you lose them. It's like, eh, screw it. You know? Yeah, the juice ain't worth the squeeze. But this spot, they're like, no, we're keeping this. And so in the rebellion, these imperial worlds also basically gave the middle finger

to the Imperial Senate. Saying to them, we liked McCarion, he was a hero, you guys are just punks. So, McCallin, there's pencil-pushing bitches,

actually is what I think they did call them. And so the Lords of Terra did what any spoiled brat would do when someone mocks them. Have someone else go beat them up for them. Yeah. And this is...

Nerds. That's what they did. Yeah. Like, how dare you besmirch my honor? Tim, go punch him. What is it in Tropic Thunder?

The key grip. Put you in the face. Put you in the face hard. And so this is the first recorded interaction with the galaxy. The entire Minutars chapter make a name for themselves. They're not a chapter. They're also just not a chapter. They're a Legion.

Yeah. The Minotars are a Legion because they also come with, there's way more than a thousand of them for one. Also, well, there isn't, they don't, they never call out that there's more than a thousand. They just hint. Yeah. Because what they say is, we'll cover it later. They tend to, like, refill very quickly.

Yeah. Like, real quickly. Also, they show up with a lot of naval and support every time. Yeah. And we'll get more into kind of some of their technology and the way they move later. but the main thing they're sending out them right now is they act with brutality

and coldness. The ones who showed up here were not the cursed founding Minotaurus by any means. They were strategic, tactical plans. They were trapping enemies, layered assaults,

faints, etc. But the brutality of that cursed founding did come through. Yeah, because one of their favorite tactics was using civilians to catch people in their plans.

Like, no amount of random citizens was too much. Like, we killed two other Marines. Cool. You're like, you killed so many civilians. Yeah, but we killed those two other Marines. Yeah, but we got them. Yeah. And when they attack, I mean,

either descending on a world or ship-to-ship combat, they don't really take prisoners. and they fight with no regard for civilian casualties, too. We'll call it more of that later. It is rough. What of their defining characteristics, though? Come on. They like killing.

They love fighting Marines. Exactly. Love fighting Marines. Much like it's the same way for those are playing the tabletop or weapons are geared towards fighting Marines, every single weapon in the Menatars arsenal is damaged too. They are just Marine killing fools. And I think that this is another thing about how they were created

and how they were raised kind of thing. I think they were always indoctuary. Oh, they were made for this. They were made to kill Marines. And so during the McCarion heresy, something known as the Eucene incident takes place, which kind of sets up the Minotars for not being popular. So during the McCarion heresy,

there's two loyalist chapters find themselves at odds with each other. There's an ultramarine successor called the Inceptors, and the Doom Warriors, who are of an unknown founding, They got into a TIF. There's no record of what caused the issue, but it was an honor conflict between the two. And these were loyalist chapters, by the way.

These were not, you know, these weren't like heretics or any of those things. And it's just two space marine chapters basically focused on fighting each other, not the campaign against the rebellion. And so the Lords of Terra send the Meditars to do it. And these guys, by the way, are not even fighting. They're having these, like, weird engagements where they're...

They're having a standoff, really. Yeah, have a... Yeah, firing each other a little bit, but doing this. So the Minotars look at this situation of two Astardis chapters fighting each other and just decide, screw it. This is a useless distraction, and they attack both of them at full force. Full on. I'll say, full on.

There's full attack, translate into and full weapons blaze. The Doom warriors go by and just they're able to escape, but the Inceptors were trapped. the Minotars hunt them down and kill them down to less than a hundred remain until they accept their surrender. And the Minotars then insult to injury, take all of their chapter relics and their ships as war spoils and send them back to Ultramar. At which point, the Ultramarines and- Like, talk about talking shit. Here's your stuff. Be better.

And then they send them back. to Ultramar, and the Ultramids and all the successors have vowed revenge on the Minotars to this day, which is interesting. We'll get to it later, because Giliman is now technically in charge of the Minotars. Sort of, kind of. We'll get there later. Now, they eventually win the McCarran heresy. Minotars disappear again for a bit. The next appearance is Segmentum Solar. This time is on Hive World Hermitica. Hermetica was having a bad day. Hermetica is just having a regular, regular old day, chilling, making stuff for the Imperium,

when a spacehulk appears in orbit. And this is basically a la Armageddon water. I was just going to say, nothing good. No one's ever been a space Hulk appeared, and then good stuff happened, because space hulks are always chock full of awful every single time. And this was going to be no doubt. different because it's full of word bears. Yeah, and word bears are never good when they show up,

because word bears always bring all the cultists. And so they pour down out of the planet. And the defenders did what they could, but they got overrun pretty quickly. And they did what they could. They hunker down and they call for support. And it's a good news, bad news, and what happens next. The minotars show up because the good news is, where's the good news, John? Well, the minotars do show up. The thing about the Minotars is they're a fleet-based chapter. And when they show up, they show up as an entirety. So when Space Marines deploy, they deploy in companies. We always talk about this, first company, second company.

On occasion, they might throw a couple companies. The Mentorists don't do that. They come as one, which is imagine the entirety of the ultramarines. Or, well, the Salamanders are tiny, so we won't care about them. But like the entirety of the space wolves showing up at once. that's going to bring a whoopin. That's the only way the Minotaur's move. Actually, I believe the Caradon's made do the same thing.

It's the only way that they move. Yeah. Again, I still don't think there's any good news. You should have said the bad news and the bad news, because the Minotaurs show up and, to their credit, the Minotar is a badass. They start wrecking. Well, yeah, this is my point.

The first part of the show up was pretty cool. They show up in orbit and just destroy everything in orbit immediately. Like, oh, cool, the word bears were up here. No, you're not. Everything in orbit died. So, hooray. Yeah. And the second part went a little bit worse because they come down and start fighting

the ground forces, but also just go, hey, man, there's a bunker over there. Let's just blow it up. Yeah, but it's next to a bunch of civilians. Good to hear. They just kept blowing stuff up and cutting people down. It was like they were trying to get maximum collateral. Well, yeah, because the chaos forces are like not even that close to the sheltering civilians. And they were like, me, I don't want them running away.

It's just go boom. And just over and over again. So the Minotars are just wrecking shop. I mean, they aren't, by the way, killing all the chaos forces. But the best part is they weren't even done yet. So the main complex of Hive Hermitica is a giant cathedral to St. Leshore, Lehor, I don't care. I don't care because we don't know.

There's no record of who this person is, so I don't care. And honestly, you know who cares less than me? The Minotars. Because they were like, neat. And so the chaos moved into the cathedral because it's a super defensive position. And the Minutars went, all right, Thunderhawks. And just started bombarding the thing. It's actually something that's said when you're reading about it is they moved in there

because they didn't think they would want to destroy a holy cathedral. and wreck it so they would be easierly defend because they'd have to funnel them in. And the Minotter's went, I give zero about this. Menzart just blowing it up. And then we get to our first instance of the Chapter Master of the Menatars

Astarian Molok, who is quite a treat. We'll be right back after a quick break. Now, I am going to tell you this. When the GW wrote this, I am a hundred percent, someone at GW has a degree in religious studies, because this is one of the best naming mechanics I've ever seen. Zeus's son is King Minos. Minos is Austerian. There we go. So the first

name is King Minos Asturian. So his first name is Asturian. By the way, Minotar was his son. Well, half son. Long story short, if Poseidon wants a bull, don't try to whole little switcheroo on him, he'll get mad. Secondarily, I don't really understand why when you breed a herbivore with an omnivore, you get a giant bipedal man-eating carnivore thing. It's really good at phases. Yeah. If you're going to go spulunking, always bring some string. Now, the more interesting one is his second name. Molok. And this one, I like a lot because I also have a degree in this stuff. Moloch was a, for many, many years, was thought to be one of the Canaanite gods from the Hebrew

Bible, although we think now it might be something different. But Moloch's name appears in Leviticus. It's been around for a while. Moloch is, was a god that was actually children were sacrificed to, but was depicted as having a bullheaded human that sacrifices were given to. So GW went ham on this naming mechanic, where they were like, all right, let's take the two references that exist of bullheaded human and just give them both of those, which is significantly better than a lot of the other times they've named people, like the iron hands or salamanders. Anyway, so Asterian Moloch is a nightmare, by the way. He is effectively a... Yeah, he's a mix of Avedon, Iron Father Feroz, and Small Primark. He's just a beast.

Yeah, but he's also... He's half man, half machine. Robot. Yeah. Maybe. I mean, that's the problem with him. He's like, he's massively built with cybernetics. He's pushing Primark size. He's not Tyboros big, but, you know, he's big. He's really big.

And he's mean. Now, what's interesting about him is that he also is really ruthless in combat. He loves fighting at the front. He leads from the front, and he loves taking on, like, almost a perverse joy in one-on-one combat, which he always wins in not dread pirate sense, where it's, I have bested you, and I will leave you be. No, he just slaughters everybody that moves on. with his day. Like, he is brutal. Yeah, or not even, I guess I should probably be more talking about. What's the Slanesh guy who? Lusius, the swordsman? Lucius. Because Lucius will play with you.

Moloch does not. Moloch does not. He just cuts you down and moves on. It moves, yeah. He's more like Karn in that regard. He is unpleasant. So obviously, because they move as one, anywhere the Minotars are, Moloch goes. But whenever he appears in the battlefield, things get a lot worse for everybody. And on hermetic, this is what happens. Moloch and his Terminators, because he's in Terminator, I would teleport down to the surface and go door to door looking for chaos. Unfortunately, some doors had civilians behind them. Civilians who weighed less than a door and didn't do well when said door exploded. That's how you opened the door is you fired grenades into it. Yeah, by the time they finished, the chaos forces were completely routed.

Every leader had been destroyed, although I think actually the sorcerer may have fled before Molok could kill him. What I did like is that the senatorum got a ton of complaints about the Minotar's actions, and they were like, which weirdly fell on deaf ears. Because it was like, hey, you guys sent them here, and they just wrecked everything. And they were like, oh, yeah, anyway. But again, Minotars disappear. a bit, and the next time they appear, and we covered this before, is Badaab.

So we covered Bidab before, but I want to talk a little bit more about the Minotars and the Lamenters, because there's a key bit about the Minotar style. In the Badaab Wars, we had an Astarte civil war. The Lords of Terra didn't like this for a lot of obvious reasons. They'd already seen three chapters declare loyalty to the Renegade Astro Clause. So they're getting nervous about other space marines being sent out there and doing the same. So to kind of protect their assets, they set the Minotars to the region, you know, to handle it. Fun little side note, it's actually written in the book.

It's the brutality and violence of the Minotars was considered like atrocious until the Carharton's arrived. And everyone's like, oh, good God. And they were like, what is your word? wrong with those guys? And it's like, I don't know. Now, as Brad mentioned earlier, the Minotars are especially adept at fighting Astardis.

And so they loved this deployment. We're going to go and we're going to fight space marines. Because their basic number one function behind the scenes is to hunt down renegade chapters. Well,

air quotes. I was just wanted to say. Renegate chapters. Quotes. Pretty wide in your head defining what that is. During the Bedab Wars, the Lamenters, who were a blood angel's successor, had an oath to the Astro Clause. So they fought with them.

But they got cornered by the Minotars. The Minotars tracked down their Fortress Monastery. And they launched this kind of light attack into the Fortress Monastery, knowing it would draw all the Lamenters in, which it did. Once they all appeared, the full Minotaur fleet translated in. And this incredible space battle began. All boarding actions, it was over before it began. The numerically superior Minotars were going to win,

not to mention the fact that Minotars are physically superior to the Lamenters. They're a bigger, stronger force. Well, they're also bigger people. I mean, like, you're fighting, and they have better equipment. it's just, it was never going to go well, and it didn't. So in the end, and there's conflicting stories on this, some have it at 300, some at as low as 100, lamenters survived, but either way, the chapter was all but destroyed. However, though, they did, side note, go in a penitent crusade, which they have succeeded

and come out the other side of, which made the blood angels really happy, because the lamenters are, seem to be immune to the black rage and the red thirst. So, yeah. That's all it takes. It's just be sad. Now, we've talked about the menitarists being the bad guys. That's not always the case. Sometimes they are the heroes, though they will come to the aid of other chapters and imperial

forces that are overrun, like on Rinsworld because the crimson fists can't aim a rocket up. I love that you just choose that part, because Brad is running Rinsworld for a Depticon team tournament. Yeah. Is there a rocket facing the wrong way? Look, man, the York City of your superiority. I'll be honest. You're not building the display board. I'll ask Alan.

That's like, you're the wrong one to ask that question, too. The truth is, after almost losing a critical world for the Imperium, the fists sent out a request for aid, because this was a massive orquah. And the call was answered by quite the collection of chapters, by the way. You have the imperial fists. Makes sense. They were successor.

The white scars, I had no idea who that is. The white panthers, who actually have a super cool, black back story. I'd look this up. The White Panthers only exist because in 1994, GW hosted a design a chapter competition and some dude wrote a really good story. And this is back when GW had their own painters called Evie Metal and they painted up a tactical squad. And that's where the White Panthers came from. I will say, as an American, not a great name. So I just going to say that. But then there were this thing. I'm just saying, like, we're the white panthers.

I need to ask some follow-up questions. That's all. Then you have the Stormlords, who I'm pretty sure are in Age of Sigma, the angels and Carmine, who are just a weirdo chapters of the blood angels, and the blood drinkers, who, never mind, even weirder chapter of the blood angels, and then the minotars. So, by the way, they all get together, and they kind of A-team their way to victory and kill the orcs. It's a good book, by the way. Read it.

Yeah. It's a very good book, but just calling it. They also come to the defense of a major guard recruitment world called the Bifrost, because some Gene Stiller cult had infiltrated it, and there was a rebellion. The Lords of Terror were like, yeah, no. The Meditars did that, save the planet. And after, this one's a weird one to me because they saved the planet from a genealier cult uprising, and they let the planet keep making guard regiments, which I'm always like,

those guys were dead. Geneseeilert. Yep. cult there like but anyway those are the happy stories let's get back to the minotars being monsters being terrible oh god because the night reaper story's

freaking awesome all right this is great imperial armor book 13 because I'm sure I call them out when I can the night reapers are a loyalist chapter of unknown lineage and it's unknown because it's been fully redacted because they don't exist anymore

spoiler alert I don't know They're out in Segmentum Pacificus to deal with a rebellion there from a renegade space marine chapter called the Sons of Gilman. They'd fall into chaos and they'd been getting joined by a bunch of chaos war bands. I'll be honest, it's basically the same story as the Bedab War. There's almost no difference when you read it. Like, okay, so it's just Huron Blackheart, but less pirity. Yeah, kind of.

Whatever. Still cool story. The Night Reapers didn't fall to chaos. They're actually out there defending the shrine world of salvation gamma. And the scanners worked, Brad, for once. The scanners were working. What? I know.

And on the scanners, they see the entirety of the chaos force coming there. And there's just no way they're going to be able to stop this. Not only are they going to lose, but the world's going to fall. and they know what chaos forces would do to a shrine world. So they decide the best thing to do is give the population a merciful end, and they exterminate us the planet, which actually is like, it's kind of noble. Okay, look, you guys are going to get. Well, if you can, all right, so your options are, we cannot evacuate you.

I mean, actually, they probably could. It's a classic space, right? And or Flaid and call for reinforcements. There's so many other options. Well, they decided they couldn't do that. So they decided what if we just. blow them up from orbits, they'll die in a second versus chaos gets there. Anyway, so this is what they went with.

Defend them. Fine. Well, anyway, the Ecclesiarchy agrees with Brad, which is how I know, we all know Brad's wrong. The Ecclesiarchy lose their minds about this, and they, especially about the start of chapter, blowing up a shrine world. And they want to label them heretics and all this stuff. But the problem is that it's actually not heresy what they did.

They just saved the, well, they didn't really save a population. They spared a population from chaos. And so what they decided to do was banish them to the fringe of the galaxy, which is like on, effectively an unlimited panting crusade, which is a death sentence on its own, but at least we don't lose a space marine chapter because they are pretty valuable. After less than a decade out there, though. They kind of were there, but continue. They basically got called in to do a whole bunch of stuff.

They were big, air quotes, vanished. No. Yeah. No they were. What happens next is, so they're out there for a while, less than a decade. And this area is called the Lana Rift. A rogue traitor fleet is out there exploring and just gets destroyed. And all it says is upon investigation, it's, my guess is just like there was video that they got sent back. The Night Reapers did it. Yeah. And at this point, now you are traders. Something's up. But the Inquisition is really concerned about this. They don't want to send anything out there. Their viewpoint is, hey, something's off about this situation.

So they send the Minotars and the Red Templars, which is the Inquisition Space Marine Group. Hey, you guys go deal with this. They get out there. And remember, the Minotars are a incredibly large and powerful fleet. They arrive, ready to just kick ass and take names and start not losing, but having a problem out the gate. Get a real fight for a change. Yeah. Yeah, because the Nightreepers have alien weaponry in all their ships, and it's bad.

It takes them three years of conflict and battle until they finally figure out what's going on. They find the home base of the Night Rapers, which is this giant, like, alien construct in the middle. It's just a, it's not, it's a space Hulk, I guess, sort of. You know what it is? It's the Star Forge from Coder. Knights the old Republic won. No, you're right, yeah. That's exactly what it is.

Exactly what it is. Yeah. And the night reapers are excavating this thing for technology. So the ensuing battle is about to begin. And they've brought in at this point imperial reinforcements that kind of wage this battle. And just as they're about to go after the Star Forge, the Grey Nights show up. And their Grey Knights go, everyone leave except the Minotars. And all the Imperial forces go, all right, we'll leave.

Because again, you don't want to see the grey nights, because you know what happens if you see the grey nights? Everyone's like, yeah, I don't want nothing to do with this situation. This only ends bad for me. I'm happy to leave. So the grey knights and the Minotars attack the alien vessel and the Night Reapers together. During the conflict, the alien vessel explodes.

They actually get onto this vessel, by the way, and killing the entire Grey Knight force that's inside of it. And almost all the Minotars. Everybody in the Minotires. Except of note, Starian Molok was on that ship when it blew up. He survives, or does he? We'll talk about that in a little bit.

So I just love that story because it was like, nope, no one is trusted, just you guys. And yeah, every Grey Knight died blowing this thing up. So it's quite possible it might have had a teeny little bit of chaos floating through it. Now, the next one for the Mayataris is actually not as impressive as. story for them. It's just more of a story. And this is when they fight the necrons. Segmentum tempestus, so the aft part of the galaxy. This is down in the Orphian sector. Out of nowhere, the necrons attack. And this is, the attack is so sudden and brutal that it actually resembles a tyrant invasion because

world after world just goes dark. And what's makes this complicated, is this as in the early days of the Nechron awakening, so the Imperium doesn't know very much about them. And by the Imperium, I mean, the Admec knows a ton about them, didn't tell anybody. I'm going to say, and the Death Watch and the Inquisition, but no one else does. I love that you said that I was like, just going to jump all over this because you're like, nobody knows about him. Well, except for these guys, and these guys, and these guys, so many people knew. Yeah, what? So what ends up being really funny about this, though. The part of the story

that's awesome is after taking a bunch of worlds, the necrons just stop attacking. And the imperium's like scrambling. Like, where is the attack coming from? They're looking around, trying to figure out where the next punch is coming from. And because they're assuming it's demonic in nature. The way

this is happening, it's just too weird and they don't know what necrone is. And then this massive pulse blows through the whole area. And this pulse burns out astropaths. But in the poll says a message, and the message is, Maynark comes, Maynark comes, because it's the Maynark dynasty.

And Maynark does show up after that, and they hit hard. Entire worlds turn to ash almost in an instant. Anything less than a full regiment of guard falls immediately. But the advance eventually stalls on the world of Amara, Because on Amara, there are millions of Kriegman. And Krieg did it? They do what does, which is... I have a shovel.

Yeah. I don't care. Yes. I love the fact that they're like, they're putting everybody in woodchippers. Yes. But if we put everybody in the woodchippers, yes. We'll stall them up and they won't be able to run.

Yeah. It's basically, you know what's bad for a wood chipper? A big metal shovel. And so the creek... A million. metal shovels. Yes, we've got this. So the Krieg start just slowing the necrons down, which is enough time for the Minutars to arrive in orbit. And at this point, the Imperial Navy has been trying to fight the Necrons in orbit not well. They're getting their butts handed.

The Minotars show up, and they do have more powerful ships and more aggressive tactics. Chapter Master Moloch is there, and he goes prison rules when he arrives. He looks around, picks up the biggest Necrons ship and decides to go punch it in the face. And he did punch it in the face. That's exactly what he does, by the way. Because they did boarding actions. He went to punch it in the face.

They straight up ran this thing. Get as close as they can. A bunch of minotars go in. Yeah, but this is awesome. He has a bunch of dreadnots inside his ship. Who boards a ship with a dreadnought? Sorry, not one, a bunch of dronaut. dreadnots. Yes. Yeah. It's even cool with that. So the boring torpedoes hit the neck

crunch ship, which they're also shooting at while they're doing the boring torpedoes because the mentors are psychopaths. Then once inside, they basically carry in a homing beacon, hit the button, Moloch and Dreadnots appear inside the ship and go, let's party. Moloch fights his way to the bridge where him and the overlord meet each other. He jams his spear, which is 100% a dark agent. technology spear, 1,000% into the overlord as the ship breaks apart. They both get sucked into space. As that happens, by the way, the Minotars ram a ship into this thing, which is just enough for the Necrons to go, all right, message received, and they bail.

Why are you guys so weird, man? Yeah, like, get it. But what I love about after all of that, this whole, this whole sit. like system is pretty beat up. Of course, chaos shows up. And so it's going, well, cool. This whole place is beat to hell. Let's start building cults.

So the Lords of Terror go to the Minotars and go, yeah, thanks for saving it. Can you exterminate out of it now? Yeah. And the Nitar's everyone. Yeah, got it. Because that's just what they do. And so right there, I want to talk a bit more about the Minotars themselves before we get to the end of the cast. And namely, Gene Seed recruit.

and equipment. The gene seeds really quick. It's just chimeric. It's made up of a jumble of chapters like Jamba Juice, which is Jambahuees still around? I actually don't know. I always thought it was gross, but is it still around? I don't know. Either way, you're blending up a bunch of stuff. There you go. Yeah, so fine. They're the Jamba Juice chapter. There we go. The cooler part, though, is recruitment and equipment. So their equipment is nuts. And this comes in a few different forms. First off, they've stolen a ton of relics. every time they get sent out to go put down a heavy air quotes, renegade chapter, which is basically just somebody the Lords of Terra don't like or don't want around, but continue. Yeah, they then kill them all.

But the chapter was renegade. Their equipment isn't, so they just keep it all as spoils of war. So this chapter has more like relic weaponry and war gear. Like basically, right now we don't pay for war at a table. but man, these guys would have been O.P. in eighth edition. So much freeware. Yeah, and their ships, too. Like, their ships have, like, cannons and lances that have just rivaled the admec.

So when they go to war, they bring the Wamp. At the same time, though, just their regular weaponry is better. Like, they've got Volkite. They've got lances. All that's just commonplace where most, like, Astardis might have one Volkite pistol, which I know for people who play tabletop, that sounds weird because they're like, you have my whole squad. I know you did.

I know you did. But in the lore, it'd be like, oh, yeah, the entire first company of the ultramarines have one Volkite pistol. And like the, you know, militars are playing, are juggling with them. The levels are different.

They have a bunch of contemptor dreadnots. They have so many old. Well, the contemptors, the craziest thing, because in the Orphian War, they had at least 10 contemptors in the field. The contemptor dreadnought, has been out of production since the Horace heresy. The admet cannot make them anymore.

So that means, first of all these, we'll just step one, all of these are stolen. They're all maintained. I mean, most chapp, actually, most times don't even have one of these. I know, again, Tabletop versus Lore. The Minotars, this is incredible to have them. But what's crazier about them is that usually when something, someone's entombed in a dreadnought, they're treated with incredible respect. Like, oh, this is an

elder of our chapter. I can't, you know, we should bow down to them. And the menatars basically look at the guy like, oh, yeah. Minutars are hymns. Yeah. And it's like, they're actually almost second class minotars because I think it's because they view it as, oh, he fell in battle. He should have been better at it. Like, ugh. And this may have to do with the other thing I want to talk about, which is their recruitment, which is psychotic. Because one thing, it's a weird thing. We're not supposed to know anything about this, but we somehow do know a lot about it because GW writing.

But Minotars are a fleet-based chapter. So they get recruits on the move. We don't know if it's volunteers like Imperial Fists are volunteered like Carcaryodops. I think it's the latter. Most likely, yeah. What's crazy is they do all the regular stuff. But they wackily indoctrinate them.

Like, you know, eyes forced open. You have to watch the video and for, you know, $100. It's crazy what they can. Well, they also talk about they indoctrinate them both with, I don't know exactly how this works. Genetically. I don't know how they works. The psychological indoctrination, okay, I've seen,

oh, what is that Kubrick film, whatever it's called, the Kubrick film. People, everyone knows what I'm talking about. I've seen that, but I don't know how you genetically indoctrinate someone. Anyway, but what happens is every Minotaur is lockstep in the chapter. And so once they get in, they also are able to then progress a lot faster. Whatever this method of indoctrination is, they don't have as high of a casualty rate going through the gene seed implantation. Are you talking?

You don't even, you can edit this out. You were talking about Clockwork Orange, right? Clockwork Orange, yeah, Clockwork Orange. Thank you. Get together. We're good. Sorry. I could remember Kubrick.

I could remember the image. I just couldn't remember the name. But yeah. No, you're good. It was just sticking with me. I'm like, wait a minute. What is what was he actually talking about? But yeah, so what's crazy about the Minotars, though, is that with this indoctrination system that they use,

they actually are able to replenish faster than anybody else. They talk about this a lot where, because they do, they fight rough. They are not fighting. from the back being cautious. They go full bore because they're always able to use their gene seed and their special tricks to replenish as fast as they can. Is this another chapter you think is cloning? I don't know.

That's the hard thing about them. It's really, it's possible because you're not supposed to clone, but I guess they totally would. They don't care. They've been using a shit ton of forbidden everything. And they do take wild losses. and then are instantaneously back up to force. Actually, that would make sense for this last little bit, too, though, because of the death guard situation.

Because the death guard in the 10th edition codex decided to stick it to the Minotars. And they somehow attacked their fortress monastery and dropped the Nergal plague into it. And the Nergal plague infected all of the gene seed in the monastery, basically making it barren because they couldn't use any of the gene seed. And then the Minotars had to flee the death guard. because they had to rush back to Terra where the healthy gene seed was

while being whittled away by the Death Guard the whole way through. So good on you, Death Guard. But let's talk about a very fun story, the Hexarchy. You like it because... This works really well with our cast last week. That's why I'm excited for this one. You like it a ton because G-Man gets to stick it to everybody. That's great.

I like it because the Lords of Terra get kicked in the face. Yeah. So this one's hilarious. So the most recent actions of the Meditars actually involved Gilman, sort of. So last week we talked about how the Lords of Terra really love giving up power. So when Gilliman returns, he was not really popular with them. And a bunch of them decided while he was off Terra to try and take the power back. And I really do foresee this whole thing as a bunch of preteens blasting, like raging against the machine to build up the courage, like only to lose so badly. She just clapped right in the face.

So their plan was to undo all the changes Gilliman made, just the ones that took their power away and like vote Gilliman off the island. That's what they were going for. They also voting amongst themselves. Like they were in the basement going, yay, let's do a vote. Do we all vote that were awesome? Yes, cool. Great. And what they did before they did it, though,

they called the Minotars back to stand next to them because they knew working out some problems. By the way, the Minotars, they're good. They were going to stand against the entirety of the Imperium. This was never going to work. But anyway, what's funny, though, is this entirely predictable thing happened. And it's not, but maybe some of you're thinking, but you should all be thinking. The Lords of Terra, who took part in the Hexarchy, which they called it because there were six of them, hex, okay, made a colossal error. They did what they always do.

They kept thinking their largest danger were the Astardis, because they're going to attack us in the front, they're going to kill them all, and they're going to basically restructure Terra again. And they forgot the real number one threat to the Lords of Terra has been, and forever will be, the Assassin's Guild. It is throughout history, that one. And they forgot that because the head of the Assassin's Guild was part of the Hexarchy, except of course he wasn't.

Obviously, he's a double agent, because by the way, that's what the head of the Assassin's Guild has also done every single time. So he kills all five of them. Yep. And the Minotars arrive. The Minotars arrive seeing all the Lords of Tara dead, well, the ones who called them, and they actually get ready to attack. And they're going to attack what space marines are there.

More importantly, Trajan and the custodes, along with a bunch of sisters of battle. And what I like about this is that all that's written is before the battle can begin, the head of the Aministratum walks over to Asteron Moloch and whispers something in his ear, and Moloch stands up because he had to lean down because it's a human and just goes, all right, we're out and leaves. But even that, he's not only just his dad,

but he joins the Indominus crusade. Exactly. So we don't know what was said, but he does that. Last little bit I want to talk about is Moloch. Moloch is complicated because he has cheated death too many times. He's been blown up. He's been stabbed.

He's been, I find you, he's not Vulcan. I understand where you're going. I know, but I'm no, no. What I'm saying is, no, he's not. He's 007. He's Dread Pirate Roberts. It's a different guy each time, in my opinion. Yeah, so this becomes the question.

This is the lower question on him. Is it, are we doing Dread Pirate Roberts? O'S 7's lame. Do Dread Pirate Roberts. It's a much better movie. But are we, have there been numerous Molox over the years? Or is he a propeller? And the only reason I could see it being perpetual is if this is a kind by argument for this,

it's a chimeric chapter. If they were crafting a chapter, why wouldn't they have made the chapter master of perpetual? Sure, but he's he's juiced up with so much augmentation. I just think they choose a new guy, put a bunch of stuff in him. Yeah, but if they make him a perpetual, he never loses his memories, which also does help. That's the problem. If it's a new guy goes in, then you have to, it just gets kind of. complicated.

I don't show him that. I just... From the stories, he's just been in places where he's just gone, gone. Yeah, this is more for the Discord. Guys, come to the Discord and have comments about this,

but I do, anyone who's read a lot about Moloch, that's my theory. I think he's a perpetual. I think he was crafted, and they had to give them a super-powered chapter master, so why not make him a perpetual? That way, he can kind of do whatever,

and he'll always keep coming back. But with that, that's the Minotars, guys. pretty interesting. They're going to pop up here and there as we cover more stuff because they do appear in really quite a lot of the lore from the 41st millennia on. But next week, we're going to go from one fan request to another. And it probably should be two weeks. Krieg. We're going to finally go back into Death Corps of Creek. We touched on them when we did our Imperial Guard episodes, but I was told it wasn't enough. And people are correct.

It's Death Corps. Fine, Death Corps. Is it now? Whatever. Okay. Next week. So for the next two weeks, You're going to hear me wax poetically about my love of Krieg shovels, of Krieg bravery, of all things about Krieg, at the same time, bitch incessantly about horses. So it's going to be a bit of a party. So many horses. That's the problem with Krieg for me. I love the whole like Krieg running off with a shovel to go hit a swarm lord, cool as hell. But then they hop on a horse.

and so we may have to spend 10 minutes of me explaining what the charge of the Light Brigade was next week. We'll see. So it's going to be fun, excited. But until then, John Barsati, Bradchester, this guy. See you guys then.