The 40k Lorecast - Episode 143 - Legion of the Damned, yeah turns out they were a little over the top.

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

On today’s cast we take a trip into the Legion of the Damned. A super fun and exciting space marine faction that got their own codex in 6th edition, and then promptly were removed from the game due to being horribly OP. We go over what they are, how they function in the galaxy and what is kind of known about them. We then review the three main theories on their origin with a little bit of us theorizing about what we believe them to be.PatreonMerchandiseDiscord Link:Our WebsiteRetro RecallBrad ChannelOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out BetterHelp and use my code betterhelp.com for a great deal: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Hims and use my code hims.com/40KLORE for a great deal: https://www.hims.com* Check out Pebl and use my code hipebl.ai for a great deal: https://hellopebl.com* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Quince and use my code quince.com/40klore for a great deal: https://www.quince.com* Check out Shopify and use my code shopify.com/lore for a great deal: https://www.shopify.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to the 40K lore cast. Welcome to the 40K lore cast. I'm John Barsadia, Bradchester. This guy. Today, we're diving into the Legion of the Damned, what they are, where they come from, and what is known about them. Also, they look cool when you paint them.

I'll talk about that. Come on. There's a lot of black armies. Yeah, but I mean, you saw Valley's Army. It looks really cool. It does. It does. Maybe talk about it later,

but if we're ranking out like the all-blanking, like the all-black space Marine armies. I actually think Death Watch look the best. That's my opinion. But... They can be pretty boring. But go ahead. 40K lorecast,

a weekly show focusing the lore of the Warhammer 40K universe, releasing every Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern. For those who are doing it and aren't doing it, the follows and in the comments help us out a lot. Please continue to do it. I do love your comments. They are hilarious. It's a very fun part of my day.

We have a, by the way, if you guys aren't aware of it, we've got a lot of comments. It's really cool. It's actually super cool. Additionally, if you check the show notes to the show, you'll see links to some other stuff, including YouTube channel for our bi-monthly, always-ish Q&As. I also have a link to Brad's YouTube channel for Brad's, you know, learn more about 40K. I've totally done some stuff.

Yeah, it's happening now. I'll link to our other show, the history of 40K. We talk about the history of the game on the tabletop. Doing some cool faction focuses right now. I did a really enjoyable one about why the Tao suck. If you like the sound of my voice, you can also check out my other show, Retro Recall, where I just recently concluded a full month of the most difficult games of all time, including Echo the Dolphin, the Lion King, Aladdin,

and then Star Wars Empire Strikes Back, which sucked so hard. Anyway, if you want to help us out and support us, there's two great ways to do it. One, going to our website, we sell great merchandise on the website, great t-shirts, stickers, wine glasses, beer glasses, and more.

And, of course, everyone's favorite part, our Patreon. Patreon's a great way to help us out. It's a great way to actually help all artists out. I realize I should start

promoting Patreon more in general. To support us, all you do is click the link to the Patreon, and you get this show and the history of 40K ad-free. It is $4.99 a month.

And if you don't realize what's about to happen next, that's on you. 4.29 euros because where are we going? You ever figured it out, guys. Come on. Miscusi. It's a big tunnel. Obviously, we're going to Rome.

If you guys haven't figured out, I've been doing Euro trip for the last, I don't know, month. This is a final stop on the Euro trip wagon. Ah, Italia. So, Italia's actually super easy for me because I go there all the time. I usually go to Tuscany because that's where my family is. But screw it. Let's say, if you can't do anything about Italy with a name like Barzada, just come on.

Fine. Because I'm going to Rome? Because I like the story. The Hebrew because not

you don't take on the Tocel Toskana is 10-miel Miliore? Not the of my

my own. The world is better. Our world is better. My name my, are my

only the wine decimante me lorry. So there we go. And for those of you who want to say what I just said, it's fun. If those of you don't, whatever. I mean, I don't know. Read a book. Also, I have to say, I went to say this last episode, we talked about the comments and stuff like that. The amount of comments that just throw in my old old man brand 40katjero.com, there's, I think, one in almost every episode. And it does crack me up. It is every time. So please keep doing.

But anyway, back to English about Rome. Look, why go to Rome? Because you like history, you like art, you like food, and you don't mind throngs of tourists. And the concept of hopping in a cab and wondering if today is the day doesn't bother you. Because your driver thinks that if you can get above 88 miles an hour, he can travel back in time. That is a real thing in Rome.

Fun story in Rome, I think like 95% of all cars in Rome are dented, if I'm not mistaken. We're not. I always tell people, when you learn to drive in it, you can drive anywhere. While you're there, though, you can see it all. I do love, I love Italy. Rome's fine. The Coliseum, but to be fair, the Coliseum looks beat up, but I'm sorry, does your country have a 2,000-year-old thing that's still standing?

No, because Toledo's 189 years old, and I think we're all ready to let that one go. Oh, my God. Come on! They do they have some of the best. The places across from the Coliseum are fantastic. I have pictures where, because they have the rooftop restaurants where you're across the way.

And I've got pictures of me, you know, on a rooftop with a coliseum in the background. And it looks 100% Photoshop because, you know, it's at night. The engineering is insane there. The truth is it's all through there. The town I'm from actually does have a Roman aqueduct in it. But you're talking about stuff that's just incredibly old. And the engineering that came out of this era spread throughout Europe because of obviously the Roman Empire.

and this was a massive birth to the all of growth of all of Europe. And if you don't believe me, go ask the guy who played Robocop because he literally has a PhD in this. But if Rome, and the thing about Rome do is if ancient Rome isn't your thing, you can go to the Vatican, which don't forget, was the most powerful seat of power in all of Europe for a thousand years. We're doing a cast on Warhammer 40K. We talk about the emperor of mankind.

He should visit the Vatican. You realize there's some references. there. But if you do go, though, one fun little note, you go to the Vatican, do a little tour inside the Vatican, one of the coolest parts in it. They've got a bunch of globes. And the globes started in the 1400s. And you can see as they kept discovering more and more of the Americas, how much they thought the Americas, how much space that the Americas actually were. At first, it's Cuba and Florida. And then it's a little bit more. And eventually it actually fills into a whole thing. And the best part is you get to do all that while eating. You have gelato,

your caccio, carbunar, which I'm more into, Gritia, which is fine, but the magical Fiori di Zuka. Fiori di Zuka is freaking incredible. Carfiori is fine. I think it's a little bit too oily, but whatever. So anyway, go to Rome or go to Tuske, if I'm being completely honest, or Bologna. Actually, you kind of go really anywhere. You'll be fine. But lastly, our Discord join our discord it's fun our discord rocks it's a great place to interact with other people i cannot recommend a discord enough lore fan fiction fan theories literature gaming everything we're about to have a very big year of 40k at time of recording we're coming right up on june and this year we're going to get a new edition plus one to two video games this will be a lot of new books the whole a new dan abnett novel

There's a lot coming out this year. And I'm very excited about our Discord being a place where people can come for advice on that. And the best thing about all that, Discord's free, as it should be. So, anyway, let's get into. Actually, you know what? I think this, the Mauds in a well. Big thank you to our moderators in Discord. We've had a lot going on in the Discord recently, and I haven't thanked them in a long time.

The moderators who run our Discord have done a magic. job of kind of crafting it and really supporting it, making it a great place. Not even just a good job, a magical job. They have because it really is a fantastic place, especially with what's kind of coming up and how things are moving along to really make it what it is. So big thank you to all of them. By the time you guys read this, we will have already had our second 40K fight night from the Discord.

We're sitting up games. And our second painting competition. Yes. We've got a lot of people to put out stuff. Yeah, some really good stuff. Some good stuff too. I know. Oh, all right.

So let's get into a big oopsie. The Legion of the Dam. Yeah, we're going to call this a giant oopsie on the part of GW. All right. So what happens when you read the Return of the King and get a super cool idea for a space marine chapter? Simple. You make the most OP thing in the galaxy. And then you have to deal with the entire player base,

demanding more and more about them while you desperately try to scrub them from everyone's memory. I mean, sorry, it's just true. This chapter is basically part God. So, Leisure the Damned. Let's get into what they are. Because it's kind of, ugh. The Leagues and the Damned are kind of in a Star Day's chapter. And I say kind of because they wear power armor sort of.

They're not in a chapter. Yeah, they appear to be... They're not even governed by anybody. Yeah, Google. We don't know anything. They're just... They look like a space marine wearing black power armor

with skull iconography that are encased in fire, that psychic fire, that sometimes turns into all fire. They made Ghost Rider a Space Marine. That's all I'm saying. This is going to be such a pain in the ass to do. Oh, so the Legion...

Ghost Rider Space Marines. Oh, we should do that. No, we should not. A hundred percent. Ghost Rider is not a good comic book, made worse by being by the movie. Look, just if you're going to ever shit on the work of the esteemed Oscar-winning actor, Nick Cage, I don't even know what you're talking about here. God, face off sucks. Anyway.

By the way, he did win an Oscar. Are you really? Yes. For what? Nick Cage won an Oscar for leaving Las Vegas. He was amazing at leaving Las Vegas, actually. Oh, yeah. family leaving Las Vegas.

He's been really good at a couple movies. Blind nut in the squirrel, huh? Anyway, all right, so let's get into these guys. The Legion of the Damned. They are... They appear from nowhere. We forgot. Hold on. We didn't give it justice. It's not just encased in fire.

It is magic fire. I said it's psychic fire. They are encased in a psychic fire. They are clad in all black power armor, the flames. So they're kind of like a hot rod, but they're also on fire, which is really an actual hot rod, if we're being honest. They're not that well. Most people's hot rods aren't that well made. Sorry, they've got skulls all over them, like the kneecaps and the belts. Some of them had them on the rib cages painted where the Aquila would be. Don't do that. It makes them look weird.

They don't look good. Do not do that. It makes the armor look weird. But the scapland skull a lot of times two. I don't always love that. The best way to paint them is if you look at the cover of the sixth edition codex that they got, the only codex they ever got, that thing looks awesome. Well, they also have the flames on the shin pads. Yeah. I call them shin pads. I just go back to my hot rod thing. I mean, look, we both know what year you were born. I understand flames on cars is something that's kind of cool to you. Pretty awesome, I think. It's not cool to me. T-top Camero with flames on it, yo. There would be something fun to someone doing a white trash space marine army

where like every vehicle has flames on it. You're like where you teetop your rhinos. It would be fun. All right. But let's get serious. Well, not really. But the Legion of the Damned, what they're known for is fighting with fury and power that's unseen throughout the galaxy.

These guys fight harder and stronger than any space marine chapter, which then kind of create, this is where the problem for GW starts to come in. Because the leisure dam, they're also corporeal, corporeal in their form. Corporeal. Corporeal. They exist and don't exist at the exact same time. Because the descriptions are that an enemy will shoot them and they will shrug off what should be mortal wounds. They specifically call out firepower that would eliminate. a Terminator, these guys just shrug off,

like a regular space where it just shrugs up against nothing. And other times, plasma and Las Blasts go right through them. Which is why they used to have a three-up involved. Yeah, which is stupid. Another one I loved, there was a pack, like five of them took a volcano cannon to the face, and they just walked on through it.

Yep. Yeah, and that was in the codex. Not like a, oh, yeah, side story. Yep. The codex. And then their attacks, though, are the opposite. They are not pretend. They hit harder than anything.

And made worse by the fact that their attacks are actually more powerful than they should be. It's referred to as they've never been seen to reload. Their weapons actually, the bolts that they fire hit harder. They're kind of a start-haze orcs where like... They will, they show up, they effectively portal in all the time, which is, I think, pretty cool. Well, that's cool. But what I mean is their weapons fire, like, orc weapons fire, where it's like, it looks like a bolt- and it just does the damage it should do.

All of their ordinance, but what's crazy is there's no evidence of it. So, for example, their bolters fire, but there's no shell casings. There's nothing left afterwards. And they, to what Bradford is saying, they appear and disappear from an instant. They don't arrive on spaceships or even through portals.

They just appear. And then when they're gone, they're just not there, which makes them really hard to know. know much about as a lot of their history and facts about them are inferred. So here we go. Let's give it a shot. So the Inquisition, the way GW's written them is sometimes when GW does something, they say, oh, they're a such and such of mystery, but we're going to spill all the beans to you, but know that the people of the 40K universe don't know anything. Other times what they give to

us, the reader, is what the people of the 40K times know. The Legion of the Damned are the latter. And the Legion of the Damned, we know kind of what the Inquisition knows. That's the most information we have, which is, at best, a piece together thing. The Inquisition are fascinated by the Legion of the Dam because they're trying to figure out mainly their purpose, but also how they can exist. The most important thing for the Inquisition is the Legion of the Legion of the Damned, the damned appear to be loyalist because they always show up and fight in the side of the

Imperium and they always show up in the situation is most died. They show up a lot when things are, there is no possible way we're winning today. That's when they show up. Yeah. The Legion of the damn don't show up. It is over. To punch down. Oh, yeah.

Things are over when they show up. But it's even beyond that because they seem to have a level of foresight in what they do. Because they show up at exactly the right place. at exactly the right time for maximum efficiency. The cool thing is we can actually pull some stories because, as you all know, I love Codex lore, and they had a Codex with great lore in it. So there was a, the planet was Godbug.

Download this, guys. For anybody you're excited at all about this, this might be one of the top 10 codexes that just have great lore. So it's worth a dollar. Because they killed this thing right afterwards. Yeah, but they have, The Codex lore, which is why you live it so much, has some great stories.

Codexes have stories on each page. This one's really, really good. So you have the High Fleet, the Tierndenid High Fleet, Mollach was invading the planet Godba. And Godba was a weapons testing planet for the Admec. And so the tech priests there were like, screw you guys, Bainblade time, and they took a bunch of Bainblades and Shadow Swords right into them. but this hive fleet was massive and actually started gaining ground.

They started overwhelming it. And the call went out to get reinforcements. But because of the way war travel is, the reinforcements were at least... They weren't going to come in time. Yeah. And they are getting overwhelmed. The unyielding swarm is pretty much from this high fleet,

by the way. You're looking at the game right now. And what I might love about this story is like any good imperial guard, the imperial guard, they have made preparations to die for the emperor in glory. They were, they got ready and they were going to open the hatch and they're going to, they basically all got together and we're going to charge out bayonet first into the high fleet and we're going down like champions.

And as soon as they opened the hatch, there's just a bunch of all black space marines shredding the high fleet right in front of it. The cooler part was there's just unending swarms of gaunts and they are getting past even with them putting down just a hail of boulter fire. these gods are just launching themselves at the Legion of the Dam and are just getting in fuego burnt up. Just exploding into fire as they touch them. And what happens is then the Legion of the Dam from a barrier and begin escorting these guardsmen from the section they were in to another area where there was a whole other chunk of these were doom hammers.

And they go over there. They then get into the doom hammers, and this lets them push out again back into the High Fleet. And the combo of leaves them the dam and Doomhammers is enough that the High Fleet then pulls out. High Fleet Molok ends up leaving and they saved the planet. And I love this because as soon as the actual danger is gone, they weren't even done fighting. Oh, yeah, they're just gone. As soon as they were instantly gone. It is not like after the fight they were gone.

It was, hey, you guys are good. Cool. Yeah, exactly. It gets a 51% chance of victory. All right, we're out. Yeah, they're like, see you later. The odds are perfect now. You're like, it's pretty grim fighting still.

You got this. I'm out. Another one I like a lot, though, is they have what appeared to be Eldar Farsier foresight. They know the people and events that will happen, and they step in to ensure positive outcomes. So there is an astral dock of Luna. The Legion appeared there to save a salamander kill team. They were trapped there by a renegade chapter of the Dracoglan. It's a renegade inquisitor.

Cool story, different cast. We'll get into that. But this kill team was trapped in this airlock, basically, and we're going to die. Legion of Damage shows up, saves them, kills the guys, disappears. That kill team, short while later makes a key discovery that prevents a shuttle loaded with explosives, some crashing into the Terran archives, which would have devastated the adeptus Ednais adenostradom. In a bad way, by the way, I need to make it clear when we say devastated.

that doesn't have been Estrada, not in a like, oh, it would have devastated them. And all the indentured servants would have been set free, a bad way. As in, we're shutting everything down logistics. Planets are going to starve. Yeah, yeah, food doesn't do. Another one was this planet called Tharlon. And planet Tharlon, there's a tech priest there named Vidrillion. Vidrillion is trying to escape.

They show up an aid in the escape of this tech priest. short while later, this tech priest is the person who unlocks a key STC. This STC allows for a cure for a virus attack by Fabius Bile. Which cracks me the hell up because, you know how annoying it is? He's a villain, but it would be so annoying. Fabius Bile makes all of these plans, works tirelessly to make this new virus. And this guy shows up and goes, it says if I push the button and Nickyus Bile, Gates that. He's like, this can't be real, man.

It's not fair. Come on. But yeah, Fadrillion saves trillions of lives only because the Legion of Dam had shown up and saved him on Tharland. So they see this a lot with him. And at the time, before this happens, he's a random. At the time he gets saved, he's super nobody. Yeah. But the Inquisition's question always is, what is the purpose of the Legion? Because their ability to appear at wills, know the future, and operate with supernatural abilities, it's pretty clearly they're warp powered. But the Inquisition is always worried. Are they loyal? Is this just a really elaborate, you know, traps? Are they loyal but using heresy? Zich's plans are often so convoluted. They escape Zich. So, but the Englishan has devoted a lot of energy and focus for learning all they can about the Legion of the Damned.

Yeah, but the problem is that they don't know where they go. They don't know how they're traveling. They know it's some sort of warp travel. They think it's some sort of warp travel. They have to assume. But they show up really, nilly where they want. And they also don't know where they go back to. So they can't predict where they're going because a lot of the things that they do make absolutely no sense.

Yeah. I mean, they show up. They have their own goals and plan, apparently, because they don't have a coordinated, this is leading to this. It's just, it is. Well, and they're also almost impossible to study because they don't travel on ships,

so you can't see them coming. They appear in an instant, so, okay, and they don't hang around and high five everybody afterwards, except there's one, there is, in the novel, there's one dude to stick around a little bit afterwards. We get some knowledge in one novel.

But if you want to study them, in effect, you have to be there when they show up. Means you have to be on one of the million plus imperial worlds, or almost infinite platforms, spaces, hostel worlds, and all those places they could potentially show up. Then to make things worse, there's the amnesia thing, which is wild. If you're going to be, lead you to the dam, you have to show up with a men in black. memory device, which I think is what they're flashing everybody. This is actually really funny because it's super cool, but it's also kind of

sketchy because people will start to forget about the event of the Legion of the Dam showing up, but they'll have horrific nightmares. Yeah, it's kind of funny. So what happens is within minutes of the Legion of Dam leaving, you begin forgetting their presence, depending on your strength. The space marines seem to be able to remember them for a bit longer, obviously, because they're a star days. But what's funny they talk about is that people, like the regular humans who see them, get pretty badly messed up because they will forget the Legion Dan was there.

But they'll have one of many side effects. The most common one are nightmares. But some of them have a permanent smell or taste of burning. Burning, yeah. forever. And a lot of the people actually ended up committing suicide because of the dreams and this permanent sense of burning, which it shows that it's probably some warhol pulls it out of it. Also think about it. They cause so much craziness to people around them that they corrupt meat. I guess they don't corrupt. I mean, I guess they don't care do. Machine sprats. I don't think you'd say there's corrupt machines, but they seem to scare them, is how I read it. So what happens is a lot of times cameras will just turn off when they show up.

But in the rare occasions, the cameras are live, the machine spirit kind of disappears into itself and it has to be coaxed back out. If they talk that only the best tech priest can actually basically get the machine spirit to come out of its shell, as if the machine spirits are running and hiding from this entity. So it's kind of like, oh. So long story short, Leisure of the Dam kind of messed up. Now, it's pretty safe to say the Inquisition have accepted that the Legion of Damned are not chaos. Yeah, but you know who was also not chaos? Horace. Yes.

Horace was the war master. He was the guy in charge of the loyalist Imperium. Exactly. And, hey, yes, I know the. these guys are doing good right now, but if they ever decided to do bad, a army of guys that can show up anywhere in the galaxy with absolutely no detection and leave before we can do anything about it, is still pretty terrifying, dude. Because that's the biggest fear is the, what if they turn?

Because the level at which they can go is insane. 999M41, the phalanx. So the super star destroyer. The Star Destroyer. The Star Destroyer. Sorry, the Death Star of the Imperial Fists. Death Star seems more accurate. The Imperial Fist Death Star is orbiting Terra.

When a warp rift bursts open in the lower decks and Warp Smith Shantu emerges with a bunch of demons and such a leaking havoc, the Imperial Fist rushed down there to deal with it. And as they rushed there, Shantu pulls off what he was really trying to do, and Bellacour comes striding out of the war for it. Not ideal, less than ideal. And now that Bellacore is there, things are real bad,

realizing that the phalanx is about to fall to chaos, the Imperial Fests, because they actually are kind of badass, just hit the go-away button and translate the thing right into the warp, which means, yeah, there's Gellerfields, but Gellerfields on the outside and bellicor on the inside isn't really ideal. Yeah.

So the entirety of this ship now is, this is the end. We're going to lose. We've got Bellocor's wreaking havoc until all of a sudden the Legion of the Damned arrive on the inside, too. And they watch as the Legion of the Damned start burning up demons and wreaking havoc through. the demons. And as the Legion of the Damned fight and fight, the Imperial Fists are able to, you know, re-center themselves, charge in, and just start beating the crap out of everything. And guess you still has the phalanx, the Imperial Fists. It is funny because they were setting people that are on fire, on fire.

It is a thing. We'll talk more about that later for some issue things. Another one is because they actually save a lot of legions, including perfect legions, Even because only a perfect legion admits to their imperfections. And so it's the only part that sucks about us recording not in the same place anymore is I can't immediately throw something at you when you say things like this. Look, when you're a perfect legion, you understand that sometimes even you can need help. And so it's nice. So in again, in 922 of M41, the greatest of the librarians, which you even can't argue with,

TIGY is awesome. TIGI was working to save the tech priests of Andraxas. Andraxas housed an ancient artifact of quite a lot of significance, namely that it's a force staff that belonged to Malkador. I'll say it was Malkador's force staff. Yeah, this was kind of important. And And Daraxis is under assault by orcs. Lots of orcs.

And Tiggie and the ultramarines unfortunately pulled a bread in which... I don't know how I feel about you being that. They did. They grossly underestimated the value in allseness of a DACA jet. That is the story. That is the actual story. I'm not arguing that. I feel like we need to go off to the top where it says,

pulled a bread. They did pull a bread. They underestimated the value of a DACA jet. And a WASBomb blast a jet. And a Burnabama. And a Blitz Obama. And it's a sixth edition. So also the Chinook was still around back then.

Warcopta. Yeah. Effectively, so the orcs had air superiority. And this was too much for the ultramarines. So TIGI and his ultramarines rushed to the bastion where the staff was. And they secured the staff, but were completely surrounded by orcs. But before the orgs could set upon them, the Legion appeared and just slaughtered the orcs. As the Legion just wrecked the orcs, Tiggie and the Mechanica made their escape.

A fun story, though, taking the Evergreen the staff back. He went there with the Mechanicum and guess who has the staff? The Perfect Legion. He did roll out and go, hey, remember the time

we had that artifact? Yeah. Will we still have it? See you later. Goodbye. Exactly, yeah. If you have a question about it, I'll be in McCrack.

You know what? I'm putting in this cast the Chinok-Warkopta story. It'll take 30 seconds. So, Alan comes into Toledo to play in a tournament under a fake name. He basically, he didn't want me to know he was coming.

Shows up running only like Roar Copters. We play at a five. No, this is the best. We play at a five game tournament. Both of us go undefeated. Both of us, unfortunately, the last game were both on two different tables.

Alan, of course, Maxes, because he goes Yolo Swagons, wins the tournament. By the way, came in specifically to make me not win the tournament. It doesn't have to play me. Leaves, they legends the war copters the next day. That tracks. That thing was awesome, by the way.

Those copters were, they were so O-P. Oh, my God. He made the MasterCard meme on it, too. Beating Brad was something they got legends, priceless. Yeah. I mean, that copter, when you put Flamers inside of it, was horrifying. It sustained on its regular shots.

Stayed too. Yeah. Those are good days. All right. But the days of your. We'll be right back after a quick break. Now, where G.W. When we talk about them writing the Legion Dandbiz O.P.,

I have a really good example of this. And that's Thersuius. So Thersuius. You mean where Dark Eldar sent every named character in the codex? Yeah. Got it. So the cabal of the Black Heart had a plan to target a planet for a raid, and they sent Leleth to take part in it. And this is because the entire raid was designed by Vect himself because he knew that their suitor was close to a black Templar fleet that was rearming. And in that fleet, Helbrecht was in that fleet.

And Vect wanted to kidnap Helbrecht for his arena. But they could fight in the arena. Yes. So he sent Leleth armed with a. special poison blade to stab Helbrick to incapacitate him to bring him back to Kamara. And in Vex? Hold on. Let's circle back on that, Brad.

Poison. But, you know, I... It's been a while. You know, it hasn't. I was literally coaching this morning from somebody from the Lorcast Discord. And we started off with poison. Yeah. So it is, I haven't even got through the morning talking about space free poison.

also, Burr. You know what? I'm just going to go to the, get my Chi together, my Woosa. Vec's plan is going perfect, because Vec is a hell of a skier. Yeah.

Yeah. And everything is going great. Slaves are being captured, people are being stabbed. Oh, yeah. This is great. A plus. A plus raid.

Yeah. Hellbrack shows up with Black Templars, and Lilith goes, Oh, look, right on time, I'm going to do some stabby, stabby poison stuff and take this guy back. And what should happen did happen with the poison, though. Yeah, she poisons Helbrecht. And as Helbrecht falls to unconsciousness, he sees a foot with flames on it right next to him.

And yeah, the Legion of Damned beat the ever-living piss out of Lilith, and she has to retreat. So the Legion of the Damned are the... the best hand-to-hand combat army in the galaxy. Hold on. Do the Legion of the Dam's boots of mighty ass kicking would be on fire? They have the best boots of mighty ass kicking. Well, actually, that wouldn't be on, well, they're on fire. They would have flames on them.

Good enough for me. Good enough for me. It makes them double your enhancement bonus. Yeah. It's so, no, like no, like, no. This is my, when I talk about, I know people, some help me, people want us to help serious assist.

Lelith is maybe the best melee fighter in the galaxy and they're like, oh yeah, the Lager's and Dan should just beat the crap out of her. By the way, they're also known for their shooting. They're not even known for their hand-in. Leisure of the Dam didn't punch anybody in any of the stories until right then. Yeah, but let's talk about what the Inquisition thinks

it might know about the Legion of Dam. It's kind of one of those things. They think they might know something. So what do they know? They know that their beings of the war. And the way that they operate leaves very little the imagination about them being beings of the warp. They appear all around the galaxy at an instant, which is, it's technically possible that there are a standard chapter that's using a Webway or a Dolman Gate or Necron phase shifting. But it's not really possible because the way they appear, like inside the phalanx, means a webway or a dome and gate's unlikely.

Well, they clearly have some sort of psychic ability or that. they read the psychic wins because they have wild precog, too. So they have to be using war powers somehow. Yeah, but let's get on the fun part because now we can mention Eisenhorn. One of the key inquisitors, very careful here, because I do not want to spoil anything. One of the key inquisitors who investigated the Legion of Damned is Quixoss. Quicksos had been compiling quite the research tome on the Legion. He'd been doing a lot of stuff for being honest, a lot of stuff.

So read the Eisenhorn novels. A lot, a lot of stuff. he's awesome. But Quicksauce noticed a pattern. And the pattern is that the appearance of the Legion of the Damned is that they always appear where the barrier between the Materium and the Immaterial is thinnest. Which sounds really super scientific

until you remember how the warp operates, you know, the thing that feeds off emotion. So anytime people are dying or fighting, the warp gets fed. So wouldn't that always thin the barrier? So you're in, In other words, duh. So, all right.

But Quixos postulated that the Legion were some sort of warped beings and that it was actually the Emperor's will made manifest, like a shard of the Emperor's faith. And this tracks with some of their history, because the Legion didn't start appearing until M40. By M40, the Imperian is full unadulterated worship of the Emperor. I was just about to say this. In the last millennia in the stories, the emperor has powered up pretty crazily.

Plus, we have the psycher wood shipper that the adeptus telepathic is running at this point. I mean, a thousand psychers a day is a big deal. Yeah, so this psychic force being thrown around in the emperor's name is incredible. So why couldn't it manifest? And this belief is held by most everyone about the Legion, that they are an army of vengeance and flame created by the, will of humanity and it using like supernatural powers although i do wonder what happens if they showed up in the same place the gray knights were like do they shut them down yeah what do the gray nights do about it

it's just kind of one of those like you know what guys like if drago's there right is he like you know what let's let him cook let's have been doing so much warb dust he's gonna let it go it just like that i i want to let's let's let's let's see what this happens here you think i had a line will deal something But I say we let the Legion do it Legion does. Just give them a minute. Let's give them a minute. To the question. But this leads us to the three main theories of where the Legion comes from.

One of them is the most accepted, but there are three of them, and I would give them all to you guys, and we'll get into it. The first theory is that the Legion have no origin. They are simply a creation of the warp by the will of the emperor and his light. The idea in this is that the warp is the inverse of the materium. And so what exists in the material can also exist in the immaterial. So as the legions of the Astardays have grown and fought in the material, they've created an echo in the immaterial. And eventually, this psychic or warp presence of their power and strength has manifest,

like a shadow version of the Astardis. It's not like an evil Spock or evil Michael Knight, which I still do think someone, by the way, should make their own chaos space marine chapter, just make an imperial fist or ultramarine, whatever chapter. No one could have a helmet, but everyone has to have a... Everybody has to wear a goatee? Everyone has to have a goatee. It's the evil twin of like whatever army you want to have.

Goatee and a ponytail? It would be hilarious to anyone over the age of 40, just calling it up. But the idea is that this Legion of the Damned are just demons. Demons in service to the emperor. So, of course, they're going to manifest themselves to appear as the emperor's warriors. This explains a lot. This theory works because it explains why they're wreathed in psychic fire, why their fire can burn demons. Because, hey, guys, by the way, just no one ever thought about this, why do flamers work on blood letters?

Blood letters come from a region of fire, and you're shooting them with a flamer. should do, you know, nothing. But dice or dice and rules or rules. Same way poison worked on necrons. This also explains how they can appear from nowhere because the thin veil within the immaterial, boom, they pop in. And it accounts for some of the stories of how sometimes in the Legion of the Damned are fighting.

If a fighting gets so intense, they would actually stop appearing to be space marines. they actually turn into pillars of fire and fight. So that's kind of cool. Which is pretty freaking awesome, by the way. Yeah. Period. Now, that stories, though,

it's got some challenges with some of the other information we have out there. So it's a cool idea, and it's quite possible. It's true. The second one is a bit more common, and it's the one that I'll admit I like more. This one is that... Probably... This is what I...

This is the one I think... You talked about this before the cast. Yeah. This is the one I think most of us like the most. It may be the third one we're going to get to is the one that's maybe the most factual. We'll get into it. But this one... I love that I love D&D Revenants so much that I love this thing.

That's fair. So this next one is that they are a collection of Astardes who basically their love of the emperor and their hate of their enemies. They just wouldn't accept... death. So if you played the god of war games, Cratos, that's what this is. Dude, Cretus rocks. Yeah. You're like, what are your powers? I'm super mad. I can get behind that. I live my life, I guess.

So it's believed in this one that the Legion of the Damned are actually headed by Theris Manus, who, along with the members of the 10th Legion at Istavon, were so angered at the a trail that they just refuse to die. They refuse that their souls die. And their souls have been sitting in the imitarium for almost 10,000. Wandering about, basically wandering for vengeance, but so angry, they wouldn't leave. Yeah. And then as the emperor and the Imperium gained power, that power found a home in these

astardious souls. And these souls became a conduit. And eventually, thanks the will of the emperor, they can now manifest in reality. But they're not alone. other legionnaires have died, the same way, fueled by this unquenchable hate for the enemies of the Imperium, and they've joined the ranks of the Imperium. You should be able to smite, the paladin of vengeance. And it kind of worked, because we get in the novel, which is actually called Legion of the Dam,

we meet the only talking member of this. Centurius. Yeah, Atticus Centurius, which, by the way, translates to 100 Athens. Why? I don't know. Because he's 100 times Athens, duh. There's times where their use of Latin confuses me. It's like, I don't get this.

It's like, why? Just, just why? Centurius always means whatever. But anyway, in the novel, Centurius is able to both resurrect fallen legionaires, but more importantly, recruit dead legionaires. Two legionage. And if you guys thought I was, I was going to make this about the Ultramarines.

Suck it. We're back. More Ultramarines. Yay! Octavius, captain of the, one of the greatest of the first companies. Well, probably the greatest of first companies, the Ultramarine's first company. He died at some point defending Ultramar from one of its many aggressors. I wish we were video right now so people could see how badly I rolled my eyes during that. Don't give yourself a migraine.

It's too late. So Octavius dies, his death is entered into the annals of the Ultramarines, but his grave is now actually empty. Coincidentally, the ultramarines have on a few occasions found themselves benefiting from the support of the Legion of the Dent, being saved the very last second by a key interruption by the Legion. But it's been noted by a few observers that one of the captain, in the ranks of the Legion has a holy relic of Ultramar hanging from his armor, a relic that was buried with Octavius, showing that Octavius was able to join the Legion of the Dam.

So I really prefer this story. I love this idea that the Legion of the Dam is made up of Astardis who just refused to let death be the end of their story. They're just basically too much ass to kick in the galaxy for one lifetime. and, you know, by the way, if you don't think the GW's going to do it with Titus, you're out of your mind. If GW decides to kill Titus, that would be the sign. A thousand percent he's coming back. That'll be the sign that the Legion of the Dan to entering the game.

It'll be like, oh, yeah, Titus died. Why did Titus die? Oh, Legion of the Dam beginning of Codex. And look, Titus is the new chapter master. But let's get to the last and what is probably the most plausible of the origin of storage. It's the most possible. Well, I think this is generally considered to be, and I'm heavy air quoting it, though. This is the canon.

I like the second more. We all do. Because it's just Marines that refuse to end without getting vengeance on people that did wrong to them is just so badass. Now, the story, don't get me wrong. Firehawks is cool. But it's just not endless vengeance, not letting, you know, you. You know what? I haven't referred to him in a long time. It's not Talada Moss levels of anger and vengeance.

Also, that's Stephen Erickson, Malaysan, Book of the Fall. But continue. Fair enough. So the Firehawks, this is what's considered maybe the most accepted origin story of the damned. And this is by the Imperium and the Inquisition, but not by GW. So when I say this, GW has written the story. So make sure people understand this. UW has written the story of the Firehawks into the Sixth Edition Codex.

but in it, they claim it as a possible origin story. So despite this having a lot of details, it is not meant to be the correct one. It's just an option. So just so everyone understands that, it's a really key thing like they did that. So we don't have to accept this as canon. Now, Firehawks, they were founded in M36 as part of the 21st founding. The first founding. It's the lamest of the foundings.

We get black dragons with useless arm blades. We both know they're useless, Brad. We have the lamenters who were the sad chapter. The blood gorgas. The blood gorgans. They're lamenting. Yeah, the blood gorgans who went traitor because they were sharing organs with each other. Weird.

Just weird. The flame falcons who were exterminated by the gray knights because they were Johnny Storm. The original Minotars who were berserkers and the sons of Antaeus who were wolvering. All right. That's the breakdown. Firehawks, who claimed to be of ultramarine origin, were also founded. Fun note, the ultramarines are not willing to acknowledge that they were of it until they go on Mori. Their viewpoints, yeah. I was just going to say, you are the father.

Yeah, until we go on Mori, you're not, nope, I'm not claiming anything here. The best way to describe the firehawks is they're a fun combination of black Templars, sisters of battle and minotars in that they feel about the people who don't align with the emperor's vision of the galaxy pretty strongly pretty strongly they've got some views you would say that maybe their concrete views yeah yeah and they're in the flexible is where I'm getting at yeah and their viewpoint of collateral damage is very much so Ivan drago if they die they die They're known for, they're weird to in the way that they fight. They're very quick to fight, but only for themselves.

They have a very weird twist. Everyone hated them, by the way. Like, everyone hated them. Because they would just refuse to take part in actions that they didn't see as benefiting themselves. So if someone said... Also, if they were going to suffer casualties. Yeah, I'm not doing that. They kind of cherry-picked a lot of their fights, do you?

Yeah, it's weird, though. They wouldn't cherry-pick the fights. They would just say, oh, if someone says, hey, can you help us out over here? They just be like, no, but you're a spaceman chapter. Yeah, no. But then they would go and they would take on hardcore fights that were of their own purpose. They just wouldn't care about other people's purposes. This is how I kind of looked at it.

Yeah, I did do that. When shit went down, they did get... That's the thing, because they also have a history of starting crap. So, Gose Van Dier, key one. Gosevenor rises the power to reckon the galaxy. Almost every Space Marine Legion just goes, whatever. I'm staying out of this. The Firehawks not only got involved, but they led. They bat Sebastian Thor and aided him personally on his crusade. And for that action,

Gouge Van Deere exterminated noticed their home planet, which sounds really bad, but they lost a bunch of home planets. They're like Kevin McAllister's parents leaving him behind. They get left all over the place. Yeah, that's right. I mean, they are kind of responsible for the Badaab War as well. They are responsible for the Badaab War. They are responsible for the Badaab War. started the Badaab War. They, the negotiation factor of jabbing the guy in the face while he's talking to you didn't really go well. They're the ones who opened fire on the Mantis Warriors.

They started the Badaab War. By the way, they, if you go back to that, they were mid-talking when they opened fire. And that's the whole thing. Yeah, the firehawks are, they're testy. The thing about them, too, though, is that they are, though, incredibly, you know, incredibly loyal. They worship... This is M36, by the way. So we are not M41. M36, they worship the emperor like as a god.

They were the first Space Marine chapter to be full-blown imperial cult. They'll also stab you if you'd question the emperor's divinity. Yeah, they were the word bears from M36 to M-41 in effect, because they would spread the emperor's divinity, and they would smite anyone who disagreed. with the emperor's divinity. And like the Minotars, they would fight with a lot of collateral damage. It's a really important piece.

They would exterminatus entire planets because whatever, that's just easier than taking a casualty or two. And another fun story, they didn't get along well with the rest of the Imperium. The other Astardes didn't like them because they kept moving up high and dry.

The Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard also hated them because they did the same crap to them, leaving them high and dry, or just blowing half of them up because they were too close to the enemy. They would just exterminate as a planet the Imperial Guard were fighting on.

Like, oh, yeah, this will be easier. Virus bomb. Poop. That's just how they operate. So they kind of sucked. So then, 963 of M41, the Firehawks disappeared. And they disappeared in a kind of interesting way.

Dark Eldar pirates are being dicks in the Crow's World Suburb. sector. As a result, the firehawks are sent out there. Now, key thing about this, when they supported Sebastian Thor and they lost their homeworld, Sebastian Thorpe hooked them up, and he gave them what's called the Raptorus Rex. I was to say, hook them up is like a really chill term for the fact that he gave them a smaller death star. Yeah, it's a smaller version of things. He didn't give him free chicken on Thursdays. That's a hook. man, a powerful death star superstation is slightly better than a hookup.

I do laugh about this a lot. So they became a fleet-based chapter with, yeah, a death star, but they moved around with. Fun thing about this. So the Jukari are out there, Crowsworld subsector, just raiding stuff. One really good way to shut the Jukari down. Are they fast? Yeah. They have cool guns.

Yeah, they're effectively unarmored. So a Death Star Gun Fortress showing up shuts them down pretty quick. Yeah. Big hair and a bikini is the only way to go into comment, my friend. Yeah, so the Firehawks chapter was sent out there for what was supposed to be a three-hour tour. Oh, come on. Really? A three-hour tour.

Thank you. Come on. Help me out here. Was the warbster getting rough? Yeah, it actually went. That tiny ship got tossed. Luckily, the noble crew, the Raptorus Rex wasn't lost. I haven't heard that theme song in a long time.

I'm trying to do this a lot by memory now. But the Raptorus Rex, it was that supposed to be a 12-hour journey. 20 years later, they were officially declared lost in the warp. Now, he was the entirety of the chapter was sent out there. It was rumored, though, that the assassin Norm had something to do. this for the record because they were really not liked by the Imperium. There is a rumor there. Now, what happens, though, is that there's some real weird hints to the Firehawks and the Legion of the Damned. So, as I said, they disappear in 963 of M41. The first appearance of the Legion of the Damned is 985 of M41 in the

Jacoral Tal sector fighting the orcs. It's a random sector out there. So while this is happening, they keep having these fights against the orcs. While they're out there, an unidentified craft is discovered. And inside it are two coffins. And inside it, they examine the coffins. And in that, they find that there's members of the fire hawks were in these coffins. This is the first time we've seen a fire hawk ever.

So it shows that fire hawks had returned. but no one has heard from the firehawks. So that's kind of weird. Later, and this is going to drive me nuts, and I'm sorry, fighting against the orcs, the Legion leaves behind one of their banners. And on it is inscribed Dedicato imperatato, ultracolo mortus. According to GW,

that says for the emperor being the point of death. by the way, I love this because before our show in the notes, I put this in Google, and I'm like, he's going to be angry. Yeah, because I can tell immediately by looking at, where's the verb going? You're the Catholic school, Brad. Where does the verb go in Latin? Not in the end. Goes at the end.

Goes at the end. This is full-blown Monty Python, by the way. This is a thousand percent Monty Python. in dada cato imperatatum artor articum mortis is an order in the dedicated in the dedicated beyond the article of death. Is it the emperor beyond the point of death? No, it's not. It's pro imperatatum.

I know. Obramortem. It's not hard. Pro imperatator is for the emperor. Pro simple imperator, emperor. And then if you want beyond death. Ultramortem. It's not even, this is even hard Latin.

This is easy Latin. We're not doing like Romans go home. That gets a little bit hard because it's a command. Anyway, so it's pro-importar, ultra-mortem. Yeah, pro-imperator. Pro-imperator ultramortem. It's not, Latin's not hard. Actually, I'm kidding.

Latin's incredibly hard. Latin is a nightmare language. They're genuinely, well, it's not Mandarin, but it is a nightmare language. because they have to conjugate every word. That's what I make so hard. And you throw your verb to the end. So you don't know what the sentence is

until you hear the full sentence, which is kind of annoying. So you didn't get Latin in school? No. Toledo. That's a, that tracks. I've learned Spanish, you know, a language spoken.

It's the same thing. It is not. Let me, let's go have a conversation in Latin with zero people. I think I'm getting better, bang for my buck out of Spanish, bro. What are you summoning spirits so you can talk to him in Latin?

I like. So, but let's get back to it. So later on, the Legion appears in a giant space station resembling the Raptorus Rex and Rex a chaos armada, like John Wick style. The story is pretty funny. There's a whole chaos armada bearing down on an imperial fleet. And this one, I mean, it was a Death Star shows up. and just starts bouncing around the entire armada blowing each and every ship up,

like it had an invincibility code on it. That was great. And these stories make it seem like the Fire Raptors are the Legion of the Damned. I don't like this being the case. I agree, you know, and I agree with you. Whatever was reading the notes and I looked at stuff. That's why we had talked before about talking about the Firehawks origin in the beginning and then talking about the alternatives.

But I think that the Firehawks are just members of the Legion of the Dam. I think the Legion of the Dam isn't any one chapter. This is Brad Theory, 100% Brad Theory. It's not canon. But, like, I think that the Legion of the Damned is a bunch of these guys. But I think it's a ton of different chapters, members of different chapters, because you have to have a level of hatred and anger with a dedication to the emperor. And those, these are hard to come by.

You know what I mean? You have a lot of things. that go together to form somebody being inside the Legion of the Dan. Yeah. They're taken from everywhere. That's what works for me better. It's like, hey, just there were some firehawks. The fireworks, to be fair, are incredible zealots.

So if anyone's going to be like, yeah, I'm not done fighting for the emperor. It makes sense it was there. But it would also make sense that there's a lot of the Templars in there. Space wolves. It just doesn't... That's kind of where I'm going on that. Do you think that probably a lot of the lost firehawks became Legion of the Dam. I just don't think it's only them.

Yeah. That's just, and again, that is a straight brand theory. You know, because when you look them up and you look at Legion of the Dam, a lot of times it talks about the Firehawks, and this is what the Legion of the Dam is. But I think Legion of the Dam is just more. All right. Now, I need to call out, there was a canon conflict here. And I'm going to call it out real quick to get it out of the way, because I hate dealing with this crap. White Dwarf 99, which was released in 1988.

In it, they detail... I was still in high school. Yeah, they detail the Legion of the Damned pretty heavily as the Fire Raptors, who were claimed by the warp. All warp entities descended upon them. All but one ship is destroyed. That ship makes an emergency translation back in the Materium. And upon arriving back in the Materium, the Astardis are permanently changed by the advance of the warp.

They're all dying, a gruesome death. It sounds like a nergal plague, and they decide death isn't going to take them, and they strip their armor bear, and they cover it with skulls and bones on the cool stuff. The story sucks. It's so old that I tend to ignore any lore from before 1999. Yeah, but this also conflicts heavily with the Legion of the Damned Codex that came up. Yeah, it makes it sound like these are just a radar space marine chapter that's kind of going around. It doesn't account for the meaning in case in flames.

It doesn't account for any other stuff. Or translating it out of the war. Exactly. So I, this is an era where this wasn't even Warhammer 40K. This is rogue trader. So if you look up Legion of the Dan and you go to Lexicanum, you will see this story. But just to be listening, the reason that we are ignoring this story from a lore standpoint is it's so old that GW treats a lot of stuff from this early era as, oh, you read that? Oh, you know, that's kind of.

They're not going to say, oh, that's not canon, but they're kind of hoping you hadn't read that because, you know. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Yeah, it's just, it's very old. And if you could not, it's like a musician who's like, oh, my early work. Yeah. When I was a pop star. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and never play that song ever again because it sucked. So that's one of those things. So that's why we're not going to really cover that. It does exist. Eh. But with that, that's leisure at the end, I think. Pretty good coverage of them. Good enough stuff. Next week, though, we're diving back into chaos. We're bears. I've been promising for a while that we're going to cover the end of death series, which is pretty in depth, mostly because just the first book. That's pretty cool. Well, the first book alone lets me talk about Uranus nonstop. It is, it is. I was just about to say, yeah, we're going to do an entire cast on destroying Uranus. Who casts? We're going to have two casts about constantly encircling, destroying, and fighting Uranus. But by the inside and around Uranus. Inside all up in. Yeah, we're spending a lot of time on Uranus. It's going to be highly enjoyable for me, but we can't do that until we cover some more

chapters. Not the white scars. That's just too funny to ignore. But, you know, word bears, iron warriors, and Luna wolves, obviously we're going to have to do. So we're going to start with those who started at all. We're not going to do them all back to back, but the first one I do wing out of the way is the word bearers. So it'll be fun. Hopefully Brad won't die. And yeah, so until next week, John Barsati, Bradchester. This guy. See you guys then.