The 40k Lorecast - Episode 51 - The Officio Assassinorum - Pt 2

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

On todays Episode we conclude our coverage of the Officio Assassinorum. We dive into all 6 temples, actually we even cover the short lived 7th temple. We focus first on each factions style and purpose. We then move onto their equipment and weaponry and how said equipment and weaponry help them achieve their missions. We then have a little fun talking about some of the crazy stories from the lore about the assassin’s themselves 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 Barciani and Brad Chester. This guy. On today's cast, we're going to finish up our coverage of the Fisio assassinoram with a deep dive into each type of assassin used by the Imperium, you know, where they specialize in, how they're created, and a couple of fun lore stories about them.

Fun stories being horror stories, Lovecraftian. Yeah. I think there's a vindicator story that's not that bad. So we got maybe one that's not all. Well, it's actually, to be fair, they're all only one of the, The Everest or stories are just nightmare zones. Yeah. Yeah.

Some of them actually pretty cool. Anyway, as always before we begin, please like and comment on the cast. It does help us out a lot. It is increasing our audience size. We're constantly ranked in the top five in, I think UK, Australia, and Sweden on and off,

because you guys just seem to batch us and then not listen to us for a while. We're really hoping to really get into the breakdancing lore cast from Australia. Oh, God. And then actually in the U.S. still, I think we're a top 15 because it's in the U.S., but we could be better. And that's really done primarily by getting new listeners. So all you have to do is like and leave a little comment.

Also, just so you know, I do read the comments and some of them are quite funny. Like the person who point out, they thought Brad was saying the sky instead of this guy the whole time. I did say, yeah. And also some, but also somebody just will write snarky things and I read them and they make me laugh. So go for it. But speaking of interaction, we also have a disc.

I think we made that pretty clear. This is the 51st time I've mentioned it. But anyway, the Discord is there. The link is in the show notes. It's a really great community that you can be part of. We're talking about everything from, you know, episode discussion, episode questions, episode criticisms. Believe me, I'm happy to receive them.

But also beyond that, more 40K in general. There's people in there who are new to modeling, new to painting, who are looking for advice. There's people who are just showing off what they've done. People talk about video games or, you know, books, video games, anything. Louise. There's discussions about yes. I mean, and I am unless, no, I mean, there's, I am in there every day, unless something like is going on where I'm just too busy, but I'm usually in there multiple times a day.

And I'm looking at. Yeah, Brad's reading it in the corner like a weirdo. I am. It's odd that you do that. I don't, it's fine. Anyway, but so if you're looking for a 40K lore community to be part of and you should have more questions, I'm pointing. We'd love to have you there. Also, there's a link in the show notes to our Patreon. Hopefully, you all can tell that the audio has improved a lot over the last, you know, maybe 10 episodes or so.

That's really thanks to our patrons. We have people who've committed money to us, who would give us, and it's a huge asset. We used it to buy new microphones, actually hired an audio engineer to clean up some of our audio so that when I decide to just turn my head away from the microphone and speak, I just took Brad out. He was, that was mid-Dr. Pepper. That one in your nose. That was car. carbonation in the nose that did not feel good, did it? No, it did not. Anyway, but it was a good giggle. Yeah, I just did not realize microphones are directional, and I realized that around episode 40.

So anyway, even though the microphone specifically has a thing that says directional microphone on it. That's all right. Those are words. So for those of you who have- I also spend every episode I spend in order to an amount of time, aligning myself perfectly. Also, I want you to point it, I want to point out, not only do I spend time fixing my microphone, would you switch the microphones this week, by the way? It took my perfectly aligned microphone and maybe your microphone. And you also made my chair so high that I cannot touch

the ground. Sorry, this is funny. So two things. One, Brad's totally wrong. I put the microphones in a closet and pull them out. So it's a 50-50 shot. He got the same one as last week every time. The more funny thing is Brad sits in my desk chair while we do this. I am six foot four. I realized that my chair is a little bit low. So I raised my chair up this week because to kind of help with my lower back, I can you feel more comfortable. I didn't raise it up that much, but Brad's feet don't touch the ground right now. So he's like a little kid sitting sitting in a high chair and his feet are just dangling and swinging. And it's really been entertaining because he could just press the button to lower the chair. And he's not doing it on principle.

because Brad seems to want to will himself taller. It's working. It's totally. It's any day now. Any day now. I'm about to hit a growth spurt. Yeah, 50 something. That's what usually happens to people in their 50s.

They randomly get taller. Taller and healthier. Anyway, speaking of Brad, Brad is a coach of 40K. He's not just a giant lore fan. He is that too. But this is what Brad does. If you're looking for help within 40K, either to kind of just learn the game as a beginner,

understand maybe just kind of improve your list building, improve some little facets at the end that you think you're struggling in. Or if you are an experienced player and you want to kind of cross that Rubicon from like a three and two GT to four and one or even to five and no, Brad coaches, he's a lot of experience coaching people on that. We probably should mention the point that you've been coaching for a while. This is not a like new thing.

That's what I really like, yeah, you really like it, but also you have a lot of experience with it with all these areas. So if you want to reach out to him, you can email him at. Old man, Brad, 40K at gmail.com. Or you go to our website, the 40K lorecast.com.

Click his link there. So anyway, with that, let's jump into the assassin. On the last episode, we discussed kind of the history of the assassins and some of the basics of how a person ends up as an assassin with a scola progenium. On today's cast, we're going to start off with the actual making of that person into an assassin and then the individual assassin schools and temples. So starting off with like what an assassin is. Well, let's talk about the beginning of it, though,

because they don't start making an assassin until they've effectively semi-broken the psyche of the person. So they have to start with a scarred individual because, and to give them their credit, even though this is a nightmare thing, the way they do things because magic exists. It helps. They need this to happen for their program to work. Exactly. And the challenge you want to do with assassins is they are a singular fighting force.

You have to be sending an assassin out. Now, there are stories of someone that do change their mind partway through. They're assassins. I mean, they're still humans at a certain point. And they're also horribly scarred it. Yeah. So there are some of the term, but for the most part, they get sent out completely on their own to do something. And this is one of my favorite parts of actually the assassins before we dive into the individuals is, and it, because when you forget about to you start reading them, they are super soldiers, individual super soldiers.

Like the stuff of movies. Because. Mad skills. The thing is, is that these guys are all ninjas and whatnot. But a lot of these assassins, cough, cough caledists, are super wildly skilled. They're computer hackers. Yeah. They can convince you in everything.

They'll beat you in poker, James Bond style. Exactly. Because the assassins have to go out as this fully self-sufficient force. You can't, I mean, the Imperium kind of knows they exist, but they're not even officially part of the Imperium. So, like, the example I use is, like, you can't be in a chimera riding across a battlefield. and there's just a caledus standing next to you. It's like, oh, it's campy.

It's got to be soldier Eric. That's who you have to believe that just another soldier. Or more often than not, they're soloing it, which is what's really cool, which is more of a, I mean, again,

it's a British construct in GW. It's James Bond, although more Leon. And if you don't know what Leon is, go out to professional. It's wildly more Leon than it is James Bond. Well, it is, both, though. We didn't sense. It's a little bit of both.

Because Leon... It depends on which us ass. Which, by the list drives me nuts that the movie is called Leon and everywhere but the U.S. It's only the U.S. is called a professional. It's everywhere else in the world is called Leon. And if you didn't know that, there you go. It's because they realized that if you call it Leon, Americans wouldn't have gone and seen it. Also a great

movie. Incredible film. But this was the idea. This one's for my two. But that's what, but that's what they have to have the killing prowess of Leon, but they also have to have the skills of a James bond. They are some of the best of the first thing they actually teach them to do is how to drive. It's they have to be able to grab any vehicle in the Imperium and drive it really at a pretty

impressive rate because it could be just driving it like, hey, I can drive anything. You have to, well, pull that back. Sometimes you need to drive a vehicle and or a ship and go, you need to evade anti-aircraft fire. You can't just be. I know how to drive a shuttle into orbit. But you also need to be able to drive a large thing. I have people say, hey, can that guy actually drive that? You have to drive it with genuine experience so they can blend in. You don't have time to figure out like, hey, which pedal is the clutch?

Yeah. What's crazy about this is they end up with skill sets that actually the rest of the Imperium would just use these guys as a pilot. And that's just what they can do on what I would call Terencraft. they also can have to be able to fly spacecraft. Remember, in the Imperium, this doesn't exist. In the Imperium, you have people who fly spaceships, people who drive trucks, people who drive motors. It's all separated.

Unless you work for Eisenhower. Fair enough, Eisenhower does have the one guy who can fly. But even that, it's not everything. I mean, I would, the assassins just hop on something. There's no one near an assassin. I'm just saying. The assassins could sit there if razor scooters still exist and they could use a razor scooter and get around better than anyone's ever seen.

So they flood, the assassins are this just super pilot. The other example is this is Obi-1 Canobi, as a pilot where he's just like, yeah, I can just, whatever, watch this. By the way, not even known. He's actually supposed to be a shitty pilot, and he's still a really good pilot.

Was he? Yeah. I didn't know that. It's a joke because Anakin was this great pilot, and Obi-1 was a bad pilot, and then in all the movies and shows and everything, he's still a wildly great combat pilot. I like Star Wars.

I don't know it as well as I guess I thought I did. Yeah, it's fine. Assassins are also. Yeah, it's not subtle. But assassins are also some of the greatest spies in the world. Well, let's pause on that. I do want to go this because you're underselling that. because sometimes an assassin has to get a shit ton of intel before he does his specific job.

Because sometimes his job is actually to collect the information and then eliminate. Exactly. So, like, the assassin might be your press secretary for the next two months, doing a great job, by the way. The best price I heard you've ever had. You're sad twice when they murder you. Yeah. One, because I'm dying and also you were my best employee.

So good. Are you going to continue to work after you? Yeah, it's like, can you please? Just do the, do the universe of favor and continue being press secretaries. There's never been anyone like you. At least tell everybody about my death. But so to that end, what assassins are incredible at is subterfuge. So one challenge they do have is we were just just discussing the best pilots,

but they're not navigators. So they can't do war. travel. So they have to figure out a way to get onto a ship. One of them is not going to it's up to you. None of this applies to the Eversort. Everything we're saying, and actually, even the Colexis with this giant helmet probably isn't going to blend in too well of like, hello, fellow kids. What is your helmet for? Directed murder. Exactly. Not important. But for the other ones, they actually have to also, and this isn't just the Caladius who's known for it, even the Vindicare and all them have to be able to blend into a society.

The Vineyard has to just hang out. He might also, the Vinegare is actually, as a harder time. The Caledus is just better at it. Yeah. Yeah, it's the two of them. The Vinegarer has to actually has to James Bonded up because he might spend a long time figuring out where is exactly the best place to go. There.

Yeah. So blending in becomes a really key part of everything that the assassins do. unlike the custodes who in the eyes of the emperor, who are nine foot tall, 500-pound men with a cloak on. Hello, fellow human. Jesus. Very average human.

I mean, I was realizing they're about the size of the mutants in fallout. Literally sent the Hulk. Yeah, but green Hulk. Yeah. And just went, hey man, blend in and just have a drink with your fellow workers. Yeah. Gush, gush, gush, gush. Yeah, I'm going to take up all the seats.

Anyway, the assassins. I work second shift just like you. You're like, no, you know. Yeah. It'd be a good shift, though. Yeah, that's true. Hope will probably pick up your numbers. But anyway, the assassins, they become this master of spy craft.

So they know how to create and utilize informants. They can infiltrate organizations as always. They can also have. hack and decrypt data banks because they need to be able to gather all its information. Because more often than not, the assassins do have and we'll get into it a whole guild based around information gathering. Oftentimes, to get to their final target, they'll have to do some of it themselves. And so they have to have the ability to just-

They have to be massive hack. They have to be movie hackers. Yeah. Do it instantly instead of the boring hacker, which is I sit forever and don't sleep and hang out. But their hacking is movie hacking. where they have to do it now. Yeah. And so what happens is, as a result of this, too, a cool side note to that is the assassins

in all of their information gathering will oftentimes uncover other things while they're doing it. So they're going to still focus on their mission, but that's stuff we'll get reported back to the Inquisition. And so the single assassin mission can turn into much broader missions for the Inquisition, things like these Geneziler-Culton investations, where they're still going to kill the patriarch or the head of whatever is going on, but they now know. hate to go back to burn the planet he's one of my it's just my one of my favorite series of books

eisenhorn got some of the things he got from assassin mission yeah i mean like things he found out you know i mean and he does his own thing but yeah we've already talked about that eyeserorn wanted dead or alive just hang just kind of does whatever he's and i guess what we're trying to say is that the assassins are more than just a trained killer mostly one of them we're Yes. One of them just is. Yeah. But the thing is,

is that that is a big deal, though, because that's why you also have multiple of the temples here, which we're going to talk about now. Yes. Let's dive into the temples then. So as we covered the last one, after the incident with Goge, the assassin temples got scattered around the galaxy.

The weird thing is the Skola Progenium still brings everyone back to Earth, but I assume once they arrive on Earth, they just get shipped off to another station, and that sucks. Also, the fact that the matter is, these are supposed to be secret temples, and they literally, have a bus schedule that goes to each one.

So they are the least secret temples. Yeah, it's one of those things where, like, you probably could uncover it, but it's, it's one of those things where it's like, it's really easy to find out where they are. But if you tried to find out where they were, you die instantly. So you know just to not try and find out. You're like, I could look at the bus schedule, but if I grab a bus schedule, I instantly get you guys. They just have a indicator just sitting where you pick up the bus schedule.

Yeah. So, but we're going to dive into. here, though, is that, you know, the growth of the temples. So right now, four of them are playable in the game. Another three plus exist in the lore only because there are six temples, but there actually was a seventh for a hot minute. And it's annoying because one of these three doesn't exist. I'm just a warning now. I'm to complain very shortly about one of the temples not existing because the model's freaking awesome. I don't want to play some Horacee based on that. Yeah. I just, I'm just going to, well, I'll be honest, I bought the models. So they're

They're on their way. I'm going to paint them up anyway and have them and then just not have rules. Stupid, the Marines look cool. I saw the dreadnots and horse heresy like stupid. The Marines look cool. I hate beaks. So let's dive into the assassins themselves. And we'll start with the one that you don't know about?

We'll start with the one that the space marines are most afraid of. The Venetum assassin. You know what? I read these notes and then I forgot that you started with this. So we're going to stop. You know why the space marines are so? You know what? Screw this.

I'll have a conversation myself. Why are the space Marines so afraid of the Venetim Assassins? Because they specialize in poison and toxins. That's their thing. And they have poison quite a few space marines. Of course they pay. That is actually their main thing. Probably while they're wearing their power.

Well, because they're mostly around during the horace heresy. Yeah. Damn it. I don't even have anything for that. It just annoys me. Doesn't annoy me. I find it awesome. So the Venetum assassin, which, by the way, worst name ever.

They really, they went with V-E-N-E-N-U-M, Venom for the Venom Assesson. The Venom Assesson. Just saw a Venom assassin. It would have been less work. The poison guys. Yeah. Poison. Oh, yeah, poison assassins.

These guys, what they do is they, they're masters at cultivating and growing poisons meant to do kind of a whole range of topics. And the range of topics is kill things. But still, effectively. They have two things, though, because I want to go into this because one is that they have poisons that can overcome people with poison immunity or resistance because their poisons are so toxic. It's not hard to overcome it. It turns out there's actually work in the first place. They're like, what did you die from?

Bad berries. Yeah. So we took these oysters and we let them just sit out and sit out for a day. and then we gave it to a space marine and they all died. Yeah. It was just like, it was just old, old clams. So, but. Warm milk.

But also, they are masters of making people die what looks like natural causes. When they want, they're one of the people that are supposed to be able to eliminate leadership without unrest. Yeah. And the note I made here is that for those of you who remember our Nergel episode, this is what these guys are doing the same thing. in their temple that Nurgel is doing in his garden. Yep.

I'm going to make the, well, I guess they're not making plagues per se. They 100% are developing. They are like, hey, you're not supposed to do this. We're like, we're not at all. And then you take the elevator to floor three. You're like, this is everything that's on the ban list. You're like, no, just don't look at that. Now, I will be honest, there's really not much of a,

purpose to them if you think about it because every other assassin guild is the master of getting really close to its target and killing them these guys have to get really close to their target pour something in their drink and then get away so i mean i guess it they try to do them up a little bit with some of the stories where like for example there was an assassin who was supposed to kill a planetary governor like the story went wildly off the rails but they're to be fair they allude to this and they talk about it a little bit of the stories of what they could do. And it's actually something that they would be better at. They're really good at killing off without destroying.

They could kill it a populace without fucking up the infrastructure. Yeah. Which they don't do in a lot of the stories. They talk about it. They talk about it. But what they actually do in the stories is like, because they could just kill everyone and just repopulate it. Yeah.

And just have, you know, if a high world rebelled, they, these guys could actually just come man. Yeah, poison the water supply. Everyone's dead. But the water supplies is then unpoisonable because they made the toxins. Exactly. Because they're, they never wrote that story once. The stories are like, guys snuck into the imperial.

Actually, I dug it. So I did like one of the assassins had to go deal with a rebelling planetary governor. So what she did was she actually set up a poison trap in every single one of their chairs and then created like an event that forced a council meeting. And then when they all sat down for the council meeting, they all died. So it was kind of cool. The other one that they can talk, that they did, you know, to Brad's point about the specialties, they could also time their toxins.

So they would poison you knowing when you would die. So they'll get somebody who's, like, on their way to go meet with somebody. And then they would die right in front of that person, despite being poisoned, like, a week or two. They could also make it so that they poison everybody around that person. Yeah. Now, as I said, they were, the model exists for Horace Heresy. It's okay. It's not great, but it's an okay model.

and then they went away. This is largely because of the fact that you don't, they don't really make sense in 40K warfare, which is exceptionally violent. This subtlety is not there, but I was thinking about a way we could make a rule for them. So the challenge is that that style is kind of hard to play the tabletop, unless GW wants to bring back some of LATOC rules.

Hold for just a second. I'm going to let you do this, but I need to do this. Boo. Bad John. Tell them your idea. This is a great idea. Boo. This is a great idea.

If I have a Venom assassin on a 5 plus, before the game starts, I can kill one of your leaders. Boo. No warlord for you. I want that rule. Just boo. If anyone in GW is listening, feel free to release that rule. But after you release that rule, make sure none of the complaint emails come to you. you. Make sure it comes to us because

that, this rule is a... You come to me. This rule's a great idea. I'm the only person that has our email. Well, no, I'm talking about GW made this rule and you work for GW and you wrote this rule. You make sure that no, that there's no way... You think people were mad about the Votan? Yeah, yes, you think people were mad about the Votan rule. This one's worse.

So, anyway, from there, we'll move into the next one that doesn't have play, but it has a heresy model. These guys are cool as shit, though. The Vannis Temple is a really cool idea, it's, I don't know why they've made a model for them. I love the lore on them's cool as hell. So, Vanis in High Gothic apparently means empty, which by the way, I love when GW does that when they write in the book, oh, in High Gothic, this word means empty. Okay, none of us speak

high Gothic. They just make them up as they go along. Yeah. And so the reason it's called Empty is because their presence has always felt but never known. They are effectively the farseers of the assassins. They're precogs. Yeah, they're the precogs. But they're the precogs. It's weird. I actually read a couple different codexes on this to make sure I got it right. They're not psychic, though.

They're Necron precog, where they're just massive supercomputers that are able to process things. And they actually call it. They're called info sites, not the best name. They're basically, I mean, they're more cyberpunk or shadow running. Yeah, very much so. They plug into supercomputers and they download insane amounts of, information, and from that information, they start making predictions, supercomputer style, of what's going to happen.

The two descriptions I saw them that I liked the most were there were the inverse of a servitor, where we're doing all this stuff you do for a servitor, we're shoving a bunch of computers into somebody, but instead of like using it to kind of remove their soul, it's the opposite to actually to do them up, or if you like ad mech, there's just a super tech priest who's able to just run numbers at a level no one else can. For all my Shatteron players out there, it's Shatteron. Yeah, but... Shaddle Ron was as cool as crap.

I just... I just not like it'll play it. There's like the seven other players that play. Yeah, I was going to say it wasn't that... It's level... Saying it wasn't a commercial success as an insult to both those words. True. Yeah.

Also, the games... The video games also feel terribly. Oh, yeah. The idea was good. It's a cool setting. It is. But anyway, these guys do have... have a Horace heresy model.

It's a, again, and they even have some rules, but even the rules are a stretch. And it's just because, honestly, the Vanus assassin belongs in the lore. That's where it makes sense. We belong in the background. Yeah. It's pregame shit. If you're talking about the game itself, it's pregame stuff. You learn things from Venice and then you go to war.

The Vanis actually, what we were talking about, my idea, the last one I rolled a five plus to eliminate something. The Venice would be like, oh, yeah, you're homie. It's a pregame move. That's how Vannis would function. I know where you're going to be. Exactly. Vanis are,

the lore on them is nuts because what they're actually used for primarily is to support the other assassins because every assassin mission is inherently secret. I mean, to be fair, I really think that the Vannis should be, in my opinion of the lore, Vana should be the overarching people that tell the other assassins what to do. Yeah. Well, and to some ways, they do to a point. Yeah, but you're right. They provide information.

I think they should be the ones giving the missions. Oh, I completely agree. Because that's where they belong. They look in and go, this is a problem. We need to send Evistar Calvus. We need to, I have figured out what's going to happen, and we are going to stop it before it's time. And that's the whole point of the assassins is taking care of problems for the Imperium.

They should be trying to do it before. Yeah. Instead, they kind of do it on the. other, you're talking about them being above the other assassins. They're actually below them. What happens is the other contestants are granted a mission. And then it's the job of the vannis to help them figure out all the pieces. Yeah.

Well, it's, it's, they're going to something great. What are the potential roadblocks? What are the likelihoods of success? I'm saying, who do you have to manipulate? Literally your, your support team. They use them as support info. But I feel like these guys should be the instead of below, they should be above. In my opinion, I just don't understand.

in the lore how these guys aren't sending the other assassins. Yeah, they should be in charge of you're completely right. Yeah. I mean, the other thing, too, is I also do laugh at them with the assassins. Like, so this is the assassin group who have more knowledge than any other assassin group. I guarantee you they want to murder 90% of the imperial leaders. I mean, true. Because they're just like, they get to see all the, and just conceive it and go, yeah, we're

going to lose all of these wars. They also should be more involved with Gilliman. Like, if you're talking about, like, taking. on because the whole thing they talk about is they just use them for the assassin missions. I'm like, maybe these guys could figure out what the tyranids are. Like what's a tyrannid battle plan? I mean, they could just look at the information and figure it out. Exactly. That's where they belong. But instead, they're used to kind of support.

They should be full on lore and in charge. We'll be right back after a quick break. In my professional life, one thing I know well is how challenging managing a global team can be. Just the act of creating one has been an extreme challenge over. the years because one thing you learn quickly is a difficulty of hiring global talent and how unclear those costs can be it looks simple at first but then the fees start to stack up with compliance worries contractors versus employees and a host of other regulations pebble brings clarity with upfront all-in hiring costs and enables you to hire the world pebble is an AI-powered human

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into Horace heresy. The Adamus Temple assassin is a ninja. Just a full-blown 80s ninja. It's a straight ninja. They went, oh, I'm so excited to pick this guy up. It is so badass. Not only does he look like an 80s ninja,

but G.W. wrote him to be an 80s ninja. They are the swordsmen of the assassins. Their history is the oldest. Like everything oldest, I mean, like, 11th century, Hassan Isaba. If you know who that is, look it up. It's fun. Yeah.

Like, that's where they go. They are masters of melee combat and covert exercises. They stalk their prey for weeks, months, years. I mean, honestly, I don't care. They're ninjas. It's so cool. It's Assassin's Creed. Yeah, it's Ninjasons.

Well, no, it's Assassin's Creed dressed as 80s ninjas. Yeah. The model is a full-blown 80s ninja. They come out of the darkness. They stab their opponent and they retreat back into the darkness. And they rock. Now I get it. They probably got replaced by the Eversore because it does the same thing.

Yeah, but it doesn't do it as cool. No, not at all. I mean, and it- The Eversor's a nightmare. Ninja assassin is fun and cool. Yeah, and it's also the G.W. Also, these guys weirdly have full-controlled. They're regular dudes kind of thing.

Yeah. Although the funny thing on this is it's also rumored that they're temple might not exist anymore. No one explains why, which I assume the everestores ate them. I don't know. And someone went Ronan? Yeah, because the truth is as cool as these guys are. Is this because I was born in the 80s, but I was born in the 70s? We both kind of love this stuff. These are really, really good swordsmen in an era of Las Canons. What? Yeah. I mean, I did. Also, they don't have the ability to just murder people with

thought, which a couple of the other. Yeah, the other ones are a hair more powerful. than they are. You're like ninja versus dude that just makes you die by being close to him. Yeah. Well, it's just they have a sword and a pistol, which is the exact same armament of the Caladius and the Eversort. Except. Except one of those can shape shift.

And the other one is the most powerful combat creature in the galaxy. Yes. But they don't look as cool. So I'm standing by the Adamas temple just looks cool. just looks cool. So from there, actually we're going to jump. The last one we're going to cover is

would have been the seventh temple, but it didn't go great. This is stupid. Sorry, it's dumb. It's dumb, but, all right, so the story's dumb, but I like the story a lot

because I like the stories of when, like when Admec try to do something and it just blows up our planet, and that's what this was. So, oh, this is a great story. you're talking about. They tried to chip people into being assassins.

No, the Maorius tried to, it's worse than that. The Maorius Temple decided that recruiting an assassin was just was too hard. We're going to genetically engineer them. And chip them. I'll like, what, the third or fourth Jurassic Park movie, where we're just going to start adding random shit. So they decided to make a hybrid that was both, you know, they could kill.

an individual, but also could take out like an entire swath of enemies all at the same time. And the best way to do that would be to mix human mutant and xenoid DNA. Yeah. Now I do know. I know this isn't possible. This is not possible. You forgot. They tried to combine a bunch of DNA and then chip them.

Yeah. They're like, yeah, this sounds super dangerous. And then we'll put a mind control chip in them. That was obviously. My theory is that this probably came out. These guys came out like the 90s was about the area. So right at the height of Teenage Mutage Muti-Turtles. I was saying.

That's what this was. This was Ninja Turtles. Heroes and a half show? Yeah. That's what this was. They were going, oh, we could totally genetically engine. We could mix human and xenoid DNA. I'm just saying this whole temple is so stupid.

It makes me angry. I just like the story. because it's so dumb. I like how their story ends is why. So anyway, they successfully pull it off one time with an assassin who's for some reason Ligandstrass, so is German for whatever reason? We've decided, I was like when G.W. decides to add a new language to their repertoire instead of like we go English, Celtic, Latin, Greek.

Now we're adding a German, Ligensstrass, which might, I don't speak German. Maybe it translates. I don't know. I hope it translates. It's into teenage mutant Ninja Turtle. Oh, that'd be really great. Anyway, so this person was a mix of, actually, it was a female. She was a mix of human.

They don't say what mutants. I think they mean abhuman and tyrannid DNA. Because why not? Yeah. It went so well. It went so, it was perfect, actually. No problems. Anyway, Ligon Strauss realizes that she's the greatest being who's ever lived and is just

going to go and decide she's going to topple the Imperium and take it over. So everyone says, yeah, you can't do that. So then she flees to some remote planet. The story here, there's a lot more. They come up with the world's worst idea. This encompasses multiple books. So when I say we're going to do a long story short, oh, I'm underselling that.

The Assassin's Guild she was from, the Mayorius Temple decides they have to go destroy the evidence of what they made. So they convince demons and world eaters to attack the planet. By the way, why not? Planet was full of people. It was a human settlement. It's a full human settlement.

Yeah. Which then triggers the Imperium who send the Imperial Fists with Lysander. I was to say they sent Lysander with them, which is a real deal. Yeah, Lysander was he the current head of the Fist? The Chapter Master of the Imperial Fist goes over there with them. He single-handedly kills Ligin-Stras after she wrecks a bunch of fists. So why something? a bunch, why? Why?

No idea. Well, I think that this is such a bad plan. This is assassins covering their tracks poorly. Like, who's running this temple, Dr. Evil? Yeah, like, it's such evil. Dr. Evil had better plans. Yeah. It was a significant way. It was a complete waste.

But the part of the story I like is that afterwards, the imperial fists were super pissed off when they found out what had happened and just went back and they don't explicitly state that the imperial fist, wiped out this temple they rolled them they wiped out this temple completely

and the and then the imperial fist went to license and went to each other assassin guilt and told them I'm not covering your shit don't ever do something like this and they all probably said that's the dumbest shit yeah they were like yeah it's this is the easiest thing to agree to so we're not going to mix tiering a DNA into one of us

yeah I was also not going to stab myself in the face today anything else you want to tell me not to do is part of my daily regimen but I From there, let's jump into some of the actual playable assassins in 40K. And we're going to go most normal to least normal. You know, I'm so angry that you made me talk about that. I like that.

They're so terrible. It's so funny. Okay. I'm back to Venetka. Because we'll make a seventh temple. Vindicare is my least favorite assassin. Because it's the most boring. That's why.

It's the Vindicare. It's the least. Everything else is sci-fi. They're not, like, they're, Their abilities are sci-fi, but they're not sci-fi. It's just a really, really good sniper. It's the best sniper to ever live. I mean, they are insane levels of marksmen.

We can do all the, like, yeah, they can shoot. I'm going to pull this back. In the game, they're my least favorite assassin. In lore, Vindicare's set up a series of events. They're your least favorite in the lore, too. Kind of, yeah. Like, I'm just, I know you. But I'm saying they are,

pretty cool. When I say least favorite, it's still pretty cool. Oh, yeah. Those three are awesome. The Vindiccares will put a series of events together to get someone to sit in a chair on Tuesday afternoon and they shoot them through a vent from five miles away. Yeah. The only, the issue I have with the Vindicare is some of their stories get a little bit stupid about a Vindicare sitting still for six years waiting for somebody. that's an actual story. No. You know what's a cool story? Warhammer Plus, I'm on a G.W. Schill.

The Vindicare story is fantastic. They have a whole thing where, again, he sets up an entire series of events for one person to be sitting in a specific... In one spot, they can pick them off. Yeah. And it's completely, they have no idea why they're there. So the issue, and I've brought up before,

I take a real issue when you try to take, something sci-fi and then pretend that the laws of physics apply and they do a bunch of these things like i said vendicare sitting still in the exact same place for six years the one that i love here is the and this has written down in two codexes they're able to slow their heart rate down all the way down to one beat per minute which my father teaches medical school i know i have friends who He just cardiology. I have friends who were cardiologists. Cardiologists have a good term for this.

As someone that sees a cardiologist. It's dead. When your heart's beating at one beat per minute, the term we use for that is dead. Because nothing else, because your body wouldn't function. This is not, GM seems not as in what the heart does, by the way,

because it's the same way they were like, elder heart beats it twice a time beats per minute of normal heart. Yeah, Brad's does that sometimes. I do love, I love the fact that the things you take offense to are the most random. You're like, demons exist, this and that. You're like, one heartbeat, screw you. Because demons, I have the things.

If they tried to explain to me, the demons work because the way the mitochondria works in your DNA across it, then I get super mad. They just say, oh, there's an alternative dimension. Things live there and they're evil. I can't argue with that, you know. But when they sit there and say the Vindicare is specially trained, he can lower his his heart rate all the way down to one beat per minute. It's like, yeah, that would, you would die.

Like, that's not, it's not like that Turkish shooter isn't, he's calm, but he's still standing, you know, like, what are we talking about here? The, one of my favorites is the fact that the Vindicare's James Bond wishes Q had as much shit. Oh, the Vindicare equipment is nuts cool. So, okay, let's have some fun. He has all, he's, he has James Bond level of stuff. He does.

Unfortunately, we're going to start with Sinskin. So since Sinskin, again, they tried to explain it. Just leave it alone. They try to explain it. So all of the assassins have a suit that has been called Sinskin in it, just varying levels of which one there is. Sinskin is a special. What's the top thing it does?

Makes you immune to place. It does do that, actually. It does. Sin skin covers your whole body in a special membrane. It's why it looks like a ninja suit. And it becomes form fitting. I would be honest, I looked up when it came out. It first was introduced the game in 1987.

So it's a little bit stupid. And by a little bit, I mean exceptionally stupid. Because somehow you're immune to poison, the vacuum of space. apparently it will recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen for you so you can be underwater or in space. Everyone, all I have to say is nanotechnology. It is 100% nanotechnology. But Sinskin, so the Vindicare has been called Sinskin. Now, all that, this is how the Vindigar can sit really still because theirs also has chameleonic

capabilities. So with their Sinskin on. You just can't pick him up at all. Yeah, it's not, this isn't like the predator where there's like a little bit of a shimmer. he's gone. You could actually walk into him and not know he was there. He's that well blended into the surroundings.

So that part's actually pretty cool, and that's how they're able to set themselves up, where they don't have to, they couldn't stand in a crowd, for example, but they could hang off of a building or a pipe. In some cases, they're hang upside down for weeks on end because of their low heart rate. Gravity apparently also doesn't apply.

Their combat display is pretty awesome, though. Yeah, let's go on the helmet. Their helmet makes the space marine helmet look like, a kid's toy. I mean, they can see, just look at space, I mean, every medium, normal, night vision, thermal, everything, but it actually has a better readout, wind, because they're going to shoot a bullet pretty damn far, the pressure system, so they can actually see, so they can actually see the potential trajectory of any bullet they're going to fire. So you're saying night fight doesn't apply to them? Well, not them. They're not space

Marines. I do love that night fight apply to space marines and guard equally. But they have one of the things they talk about, and I don't know if this is canon, but they supposedly with their helmet can see into, they can detect a warp. They can't like see into the warp. But they can see the warp's presence. Yeah. Yeah. Because you can't.

The whole thing is that you're not supposed to hide from them. Period. Yeah. And so it might be their helmet might actually be able to see into the warp a little bit, just to kind of see things behind walls. They make it like a life essence kind of thing. But one of my favorite parts about them is actually their rifle, which is the excess rifle, which carries special rounds. So every single Vindicare is sent on a mission.

They've got their rifle, which has a bunch of standard bullets in it. But then, and I don't know why, but they do. They carry three special rounds, just one of each because the Vindicare's are supposed to only be sent after one target. I know, but like you just send them with more than a bullet. How about a backpack? Yeah. Anyway, but the three rounds are cool as hell, Ed, they are. I mean, the shield breaker round is also, yeah, I'm using that one all the time.

Yeah, you should make more of these. The shield break around, you shoot it, and as it's going through, it detects out the front of fourth field. If it detects a fourth field in front of it, it actually shoots energy in front of it to blow, which is a tiny hole in that fourth field, so the bullet goes through. And remember, most of the things that have, like, a force shield around them are not doing that with an arm, armor on the inside. So what this basically does is removes your armor, then hits you with a giant bullet.

So that's pretty effective. The next one they have is actually one, my favorite, which is the Hellfire Round, which they did for a while give these a Death Watch. Remember that fun little, remember that fun period of... Two Ops, maybe. Oh, to everything.

Yeah. It was awesome. That sucked. So the Hellfire round. For a while with devs. With devs. Yeah, that's right, it was all mortal wounds. So the Hellfire round is, was actually made to fight Tyrannids.

It is an acid, poison, hybrid round. So also would work on space marines. Well, let's go back to this. Why? Why is this round? Because this round effectively explodes and then explodes again. Because it has a effectively whirlidurlies. Well, it's got a thousand little needles full of toxin inside of the bullet.

And the whole reason is Tarynids, regenerated and they needed something to do damage and then continue to damage to stop the regeneration of the target that you hit. And so it goes in, the bullet explodes these thousand, I don't know how, is a thousand in there, but whatever, a thousand microneedles pop out with a toxin inside and then starts spreading the toxin all throughout the being. It actually disintegrates them. So when we say toxin, I don't mean the poison that like, you know, the space marines go down to.

This is more of a, this is an. This is an acid that actually eats them from inside. I love my brain so much. This is the poison. Yeah. This actually eats them from the inside. So they're very effective against tyrannids. They use them heavily into things.

So it's funny, most of these are actually used for tyrannids because the shield break around is used against zoanthropes. And then the hellfire round is used pretty heavily into things like hive tyrants, the swarm lord of these shows up, or even a carnifex. the last one that we're going to cover the turbo penetrator round. The coolest of the rounds, by the way. You know what? You didn't have the excitement in your voice. I am going to tell everybody

what a turbo penetrator round is. You know what a tank buster missile is? They do that in a bullet. And it's awesome. If you don't think it's awesome, I'm looking at you, John. You're wrong. I just think it should be cooler.

That's kind of my thing. You think the tank buster missile into a sniper rifle isn't cool enough. Because the one that actually eats a tyrannid from the inside out's cooler. This dude shoots people in bunkers. That's true. Well, okay. Let me rephrase it. A guy in a land reader, he sniped a guy in one of the seats.

Yeah, that's right. I guess my issue is more, it's on the tabletop. This round does nothing. Oh, absolutely. There's nothing. I'm saying, lore-wise. Yeah, this should allow me. And again, because I'm using the assassin episode.

Okay, spoiler, I'm building an agent of the Imperium Army right now. So I do want a bunch of new rules for assassins just so it's broken. It's hell and everyone hates me. So I would like for my Vindicare to be able to shoot embarked units. Yes, actually. Tell me how that wouldn't make sense. It also should. Yeah, I should be able to say, oh, yeah, what's in that truck right there?

you know, or what's in that land raider? Oh, my captain. Cool, I'm shooting your captain. Yeah, in the face. Yeah, in the face. He's dead, by the way. I'm actually executing your captain. That's all I'm saying, the turbo penetrator on it just should be, it just should be better.

So in the lore, vindicators are actually probably one of the more prevalent in the stories. They're the easiest to write about because they're also not difficult to write the story about. It's a sniper shooting. It's pretty easy. It's fairly, you can encompass this guy into a lot of stories. is because, well, you don't have to make up weird stuff. It's a sniper. And I like covering their stories because it kind of helps you for people who don't really

read the lore that much, understand how insane these guys were. So one of my favorites was the one who was sent to kill a Drew Kari pilot. I mean, he's flog me. Now, this is the stupid one we waited for six years, so we'll skip that part of it and go through. This is, when we say Drew Kari pilot, we're talking about a Drew Kari, who are probably the fastest moving being in the galaxy, flying their craft, which, are the fast-moving craft in the galaxy.

And this guy shot one through the cockpit with a turbo pedgerer while he was at full speed. Yeah, that's cool. They've got aim. The other one, though, was the one who took out an entire Eldar advance. Well, he took out the advance because Eldar value Eldar, and they especially value their higher-ups. And this dude was sniping everybody with a big,

to have. Yeah, he took out multiple exarchs and warlocks. And my favorite part of the story is that is that the Eldar then decided they knew where he was. He was in a tower. So they brought support weapons over to blow the tower up and he just shot everyone who was going to operate that support weapon. So then the Eldar went, well, screw you. We're sending our scouts in. And when the scouts got there, it was fully booby trapped. And during the explosion, he then escaped. So Vindigar's, I like that kind of shows, yeah, he can shoot, but he's also outside. smarted Eldar Rangers and was able to escape an explosion, again, a la James Bond.

So I like the Vindicare. I just want the rules to be better. I want them to be more devastating, which no one else wants. I hate them on the board. I really like them in the Lord. You're incredible in the lore. I just want them better.

Lour's very fun, but the game, it's a dude that shoots once, and it, mer, it just... Yeah, that's fair. I don't think you're wrong.

I don't think you're wrong. I just still like him a lot. We'll be right back after a quick break. Now I'll move on to, oh, the Caledus. Also, people that used to have, the lore's always been great. In the game, their rules used to. Rules are fine right now. But they're.

They've had some rough ones with Caledus. No, I'm saying back in the day. Also, if you guys are looking to build Caledus, I'm just going to say it's going to cost you a lot more. And I almost never say this. get the metal one. The new one is super tall and super thin and made of plastic. It will break. You go back,

not the... It's also too tall to fit in your phone. Exactly. Not the first one. The second iteration is actually what I have, and I love it. Look them up, you'll see there's three versions of it. It is the top of the line one. So usually I don't recommend metal. In the case of Caledus, I actually do.

So Caledus are shape-shifting assassins. They're old... Caledus are fantastic. Yeah, let's talk about what they are first. Yeah. So they are, the Caledus are maybe the most feared assassin in the galaxy because they're the most, I see, true to form assassin. They, they strike from anywhere because they actually shape shift. Yeah. Polymorphin's a hell of a drug.

Okay. It's legitimately. Yeah. Polymorphine. Yeah. That's what they went with from a naming. Polymorphine. This was one of those, we're not going to try today, guys, the GW.

this is the um juice from Harry Potter well no I was going to go with the Mitch Headberg where you have to you have to you have to the guy who has to name things yeah what's that that's a freezer

I'm going on break well I have to bring it up the rule though because remember when they had word in the emperor's word in the ear like they're great people bring call it's all the time yeah because the calladus in the lore can actually can change shape

and not just small chain shape. It can actually, like, they can look like an orc. It's, I mean, not massively changed. Like, you couldn't go from a human to a war boss, but if you're a small callitis, you could impress, you could look like a Gretchen. Just all of a sudden, you know, kill his way up the chart.

Yeah. And goes, I'm now in charge of this particular fleet and says, we should move here. Caliduses are, I mean, this polymorphine gives him the ability to shape shift completely. And one question is, you know, how do you learn language? I mean, tau, whatever, that's probably pretty easy to impersonate them. Wouldn't be hard.

But an Eldar, you know, but impersoning an Eldar would be kind of tough because you don't actually. Yeah. It's not even the language. You couldn't do action in the movements. Exactly. Or trying to look like an orc, although which they actually did do. So I just realized I said that and like they did it. I mean, orcs are idiots.

That's true. Yeah. But anyway, we'll move in. Moving on from my mistake. You know, let's brush over that. So, Caledus does use this, what they do is they use this ability to position themselves,

usually within the retin retin retune, retune. Retune. Retinue. Retinue. Usually uses to position themselves within the retinue of their targets. And they could be doing this for a while, like weeks, months,

getting closer and closer. This is why I made the joke about the press secretary. Yeah, the press secretary, where it's like, it's just they legitimately will hold a, job for a while. Getting close and just being the best that anyone's ever seen and then suddenly committing murder.

So let's talk about how they're able to do this because the first one is their suit itself. So they've got this like super spandex, which made me think of the nutty professor with Eddie Murphy for some reason when I was writing this. But anyway, so the idea is as a call this shifts and changes, the suit does it with them, which gives them two tricks here. One, it allows them to get really close to their target, obviously, but it also allows them in kind of the aftermath of the murder to shift again. So they could look like the press secretary, we talked about earlier,

and then shift to, like, you know, Ted from accounting and run out the building. And or just the janitor. And they just disappear. And also, if you're not thinking of the Incredibles and Edna for their super suit, why are you not? That's much better. You're right. I totally, I'm just.

It always fits. It does always fit. You're right. And they don't have capes. So yeah, two for two. So the next one I do like is they have this weapon called a neural shredder, which doesn't the tabletop. There's nothing for how amazing this thing is. Yeah.

Also, a shitty way to die. Oh, the neural shredder. The neural shredder just turns your brain into soup. That's what it does. And they carry this, this pistol with them. It doesn't just a tabletop. wish it did. This is really critical because what it does is it actually eliminates memories. And so as we've discussed in the past, both Tao or the Crout and space Marines, never do this,

can't, can't, because they just make you. Yeah, there is no memory to grab. They just crush your head. Yeah, yeah, while you're staying there, your brain turns to soup and you collapse. Really good trick for an infiltrating assassin who maybe gets found out, able to not only kill who found them out, but also remove anyone's ability to ever know they were found out. It is a big deal. Hold on. Sorry, I melted down for just a second because third is their phase sword, which used to be so much cooler.

Face sword used to be devastating. And it should be. Yeah. So the phase swords are awesome. So it's actually a Necron weapon that was converted over. for the caledus. It is, so, whereas a power sword

is just a sword that they, you know, they juice stuff. To make, like, an energy field that makes it sharper. The phased sword does, like what it sounds like,

it phases in and out of existence. It ignores your army, or your army, it ignores your armor and cuts directly through you. Well, it doesn't ignore, well, that's how it does in the table. What it actually does is,

it phases out of existence. And then as you're, halfway through it phases into existence. So now it's inside the arm or inside of you, kills you and then phases back out as you come through. So you were able to just slice and dice something like a eternal. This is one of the few times that someone should be able to kill a Terminator and it's not,

doesn't break the law rules. It used to ignore invults. Yeah. Because there was, again, it went, Hey, cool shield. I don't exist. I'm now cutting through your stomach. They would ignore invulents and carried a massive amount of

AP. Yeah. It was AP enough where you needed an involunt and then you didn't get an invul. So it didn't matter. Very cool. The fourth one they do have though is actually more hilarious to me, which is their Joker card. Yeah, they carry, well, it's worse. They call it the death card. What it happens is I guess their helmet records the death as they kill someone and then stores it on a little card or a little coin they leave on the victim. And when someone finds the coin, It just plays on an endless loop with audio in full HD, the person's dying scream as they were murdered by the assassin. There's no reason for this.

None whatsoever. They just added this under the lore, and I'm like, yeah. You're like, hey, man, I killed your leader. Also, screw you. Yeah, and I read it. And I was like, yeah, I'm leaving that in. So, now, just like the Vindicare, the Caledus is a skipping. Oh, you're so mad about this one.

It plays very heavily in the lore. in the stories, and there's two main stories. One's the big one. Conrad Kurz. Not Conrad Cruz. And people can't, so here's the mind of the guys. People pointed out to me in the Discord, hey, why is everyone keep saying Conrad Cruz, like Tom Cruise?

Is there a, is there a joke I'm not getting? And my response was, nope, I just read it wrong this many times. Like, I didn't know until someone pointed it out that it was Kurz. I've read that word thousand times. 25, whatever, 30 years ago when I started reading 40K lore, I read his name wrong once

and just went, nope, that's what it is forever. So for all of you, we've been infuriating by calling him Conrad Cruz, sorry, no guarantee it'll stop. So anyway, M. Shen, I hate that name, stalked Conrad. I'm trying to go to Conrad

as Imperial Palace and actually killed the prime Mark, I'm saying that really quickly because that way it annoys Brad. I really, I want everyone to know that I'm giving the double bird to the screen we're reading off of right now because this is so annoying because he's so cool, so crazy, but also so stupid about things. This assassin should have gotten snuffed out instantaneously, but old Conrad decided he saw it at his future, so he just had to let it happen. because he already saw it.

And that is fair. I mean, the cowardice does technically kill Conrad Kerr's, but doesn't really stalk him. He sits in a chair. And watches, watches her get closer. Like,

I have this vision of her, like, of her, like, sneaking around the room, hiding behind things. Literally right there. And he's just,

he's just sitting there waiting. Like, can you just hurry up and do it? Like, it's just, I'm just, I'm ready. Come on.

He gives a speech before he gets killed about how I knew that this was going to happen because I knew my dad would turn against me and kill me. And you're like... And the Caledus is still just like sneaking around Bugs Bunny style throughout the... It just bothers me so much. So anyway. I knew I was going to get killed so I can't do anything about it because it was destiny.

You're like, or you could just murder the assassins. Let's have more of a fun one. There's another Caledus who was actually pretty small. And there was an issue with the orcs. So the orcs were fighting space marines, and they were using primarily walkers. So she actually used her shape-shifting ability, the polymorphine, to turn into what was probably a large Gretchen.

This is actually pretty funny. Yeah. She just as a Gretchen ends up climbing into the deaf tread that the fake mech is riding. How bummed are you and possibly excited at the same time? Because you're like, this is the best death that Gretchen's ever had. I was targeted by assassination. Oh, that's true. Yeah, she did assassinate a Gretchen so that she could then take his place.

And she sneaks in. And then while the big mech is leading the death dread, she shifts back in the normal size, breaks out her phase sword. And it actually takes her a while, but does hack the big mech into tiny pieces inside of his death dread. Yep. Okay. So Caledus is a kind of badass. Those are just the fun sort of them fighting. non-humans. In reality, there's tons of stories of them just, like, imperial governors just

dying as their wife kills them. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah, wife killing. Yeah. Taking control of enemy fleets, taking control of enemy big troop movements and stuff like that. The Calvus is storyline wildly awesome as far as just what now, you know, things you can write about them. It's so cool. Yeah, because the Caledus is to. to meet, it's the most, like, it's the most sci-fi traditional assassin. Yeah. Because it's, because of the shape-shifting. Well, it's shape-shifting, but like you have to talk your way into things.

Exactly. You're taking the place of the governor. It's like Mission Impossible shit, where you have the mask on and you're, you're making things happen and you're trying to make your getaway. And they're also, in that point, they're also insanely athletic. I mean, that's the idea is they are. I'm saying, you're basically going, hey, we can have Tom Cruise play a Caledus right now. He's too short.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, I take effect with that. I'll put on some lifts. Anyway. So now let's start the dark path of assassins with the Calexis. The dark path? It gets darker. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Sorry, my bad, my bad.

Yeah, it gets a lot darker. So the Calexas are the anti-Cyker assassin and... When we say getting darker, we went with tool. You could make. movies about the first two assassins. Sorry, the first two game-playable assassins that we talked about. These are not movies people are making unless you want to terrify your audience. Yeah.

So the collects this. So as we talked about, there's a sort of silence. There is a gene called the pariah gene, which makes you anywhere from invisible to the warp all the way up through being what is, affecting a black hole of warp energy. the Calexas are only the latter part. Yeah, I'll say your mere presence can actually kill minor cygers. Yeah. And so obviously when they discover someone with the extreme version, the Pryogen,

they make them to Calexas assassins. And by discover, they don't discover them. They're Vatgram. The Cullexus assassins are a created assassin because this gene is over. Yeah, they have to start somewhere. Yeah. I mean, there was one person and then they went like, and then they went full-blown Fabius Bile and just were like, let's just turn this up to a thousand. We barely find any of these people, so we should just make them. Yeah. So my favorite part about the collects is their pariah gene is so strong that they had to put them on a special planet when they moved the temple.

And the planet is listed as having no sun, which is also known as an asteroid. that's orbiting nothing. They can't have around people. We talk about, oh, no, if you're a psycher, around a per I gene, a Coluxis, which would be the strongest of them. Regular people also, you're the stuff of nightmares to them. You just don't die from them. But you would go insane being around them.

Oh, for sure. The other one, though, I love, is that this temple of them, because we've got a temple where there are thousands, tens of thousands. of them, it has to be put in a position so that no one is ever between the astro, so it's never between any ship and the Astronomicon, because its power, its blank power is so severe, it would actually obscure the Astronomicon from a ship. Yeah, that's how powerful this is. These guys are nuts.

I mean, we're taught, it says, the sisters of silence are adorable compared to these things. It is... Well, what do the Eldar call them? Well, that's right. The two people, the two people, the two things that hate them the most are demons and the Eldar. And the Elder refer to them as pure evil. Eldar think that these basically are demons.

I think that they might think of them lower than demons. Yeah, well, the Eldar have waged campaigns to go find the temple of the Colaxus to destroy it. They are obsessed with removing these things. Because, I mean, it makes sense when you think about it. It is anti what they are. Yeah, exactly. And Eldar, in the presence of one of these, would die. And I actually don't know if its soul could get this,

Lanesh. I think that you don't, your soul wouldn't even work in the spirit stop. Yeah. It would just stop everything. You would cease to exist. They are. And the demons, actually, they don't do them justice in the game. In lore, a Coluxis can just semi-holt a demonic incursion.

Yeah. Because it just ceases to, you cease to have connection to. A lesser demons wouldn't, a lesser demon would not be able to strike a Calexas. Yeah. As it got close, if it was played on tabletop,

yeah, you would send in a unit of blood letters and all of them would just go away. Yeah, they would be sent back to the warp. Yeah, we talk a lot about in this cast about like tabletop versus law rules. If you gave assassins 40% of the rules they should have on the tabletop, people would hate you.

Yeah. I play demons. I have one model. Yeah. I have this one model. You want to shake hands? Yeah. Your entire army just ceases to function.

But that doesn't sound fair. It's not just you can't attack me. It's. Yeah. If my model is within six inches of your model, your model has to leave the board. Yep. Yeah. And it's a big deal.

And they have, this model's a nightmare. To get to where they are, though, is a lot of torture. Oh, it's, they are. A lot of torture. They are made from just, they take this. pariah gene and these beings have a hatred of warp entities and psychers that, I mean, world eaters actually are cooler to psychers than these things are. But let's talk about my favorite part about them, which is actually their equipment. So first off, they also have a

sin skin suit. But for some reason, they were given the one that can phase in and out of reality. Feels like everyone should have had this one, by the way. So everyone else, as we said, the Vindicare version of the suit allows it to camouflage really well. The Caladius as one helps it, actually shifts and adjusts shape with them. The Calexas as one goes in and out of the warp so they can just walk through walls. Yeah. Feels like that's the one you give every assassin. I mean, there's an X-Men with Fat Power Sun. Yeah. Pretty pride. But might be pretty good. I don't know. Yeah, they literally enter a little bit of the warp and then walk between the imiterium and the material and then appear on the other side. Yeah. Also,

they're equipped with a very specialized grenade that's also a dick move. Oh, the psychout grenades cool as hell. Yeah, but it's also not even... Unless you're a psycher. Yeah, but I'm saying it's so wild. And these things in the lore, whenever they write in the lore about someone using a psychout grenade, it is insane levels of devastation. I don't think I've ever seen one use a tabletop effectively.

Fifth edition, you can use them. Okay, fair enough. Psycher grenades are actually really good and Fifthwood Green Knights were a big deal because they're all psychers. Yeah, it's always funny when they were like when the Imperium weapon works against the Imperium model. It happens all the time.

But anyway, all right, so what this is, is it's, I just, I enjoy this. It is a flashbang made up of what they call a buy product. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're a flash bag that, well, I don't know, that sucks your soul out of you. Well, that's because what is made of.

It's made of, and this is what they call it, a byproduct, in air quotes here, of the Emperor's Golden Throne. Also known as the ashes of all those psychers that just got sacrificed to the emperor. I'm throwing you a grenade of that. When it explodes, it does give off a flash and a bang. Sure. And then turns... However, flashbang of, man, that really hurt my head. And I had to take some Tylenol later, not as awful as what happened.

after the flash bang, it sucked my soul out. So basically what would happen to you if I hit you with a flash bang. That's true. Between your migraines and stuff, I think actually that's, well, Brad's gone. I would give you my soul of that. Yeah, so when this thing goes off, it creates a black, affected what I would call a black hole of warp energy. So any warp energy that's nearby gets sucked into it.

If you take someone who's actually very psychically attuned, that means that like all the connections in their body that are connected, like their cells together all disappear. There's stories of like people trace into a blob of mush. It's like when this thing goes off. They open the arc and rage is the last arc. Yeah, they just melts. It melts them.

And they'll fight these, but the reasons these things are so cool is if you throw it and let's say there's like a psycher amongst a bunch who's like killing a bunch of regular soldiers. He'll blow up. He'll blow up. And everyone around it just goes, hey, man, that was kind of loud.

Hey, where's the guy I was just fighting? And they just look down. There's a puddle on the, floor. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Those seem effective. Should we talk about their giant paper machine head? Okay. Yeah. So the helmet on them looks super stupid and it just does. I'm sorry. It looks. It looks like it looks like neck pain. That's what looks like me. It looks like just. It's comically large. Yeah. They have a, I don't have to say a parade head. Yeah. You know what I mean? A giant head on a tiny little body. The tiny little body is just a giant skull. What it does is. It's just a giant skull. What it does is.

is, actually, what it does is cool, though. So it's, it's, it's, look is stupid. It looks stupid as shit. But what it does is cool as shit. So what it is, this giant helmet actually is able to contort and control the pariah gene, which apparently only comes out of their head somehow, whatever, not important, totally important. This is poor writing.

But anyway, what it allows me is they can actually turn down their blank effect. So this allows them to be in the presence, not necessarily a powerful psychers, but at least have normal people and not just drive them. them all insane. They can turn the, they can control and turn down their pariah gene. But they can also, they can also turn it to 11, turn it to 11 and they have a focused beam out the front of it. So they can actually effectively shoot their pariah gene energy out their skull into something. Depending on, they can use the psychers against them, which is one of my favorite rules that they used to have is you got to have more shots based on the psychers around you. I also like, because you drew their

because of the fact that you're a blank, you're effectively a black hole. You pulled away their psychic energy. Wasn't there a rule where like if a psycher was nearby, the cycle could only attack them but couldn't use psychic powers? Yeah. All of your psychics, all of your smites, all of your everything, targeted that.

And he was immune to all of them. Yep. And it went away. But then their gun would be based on how many psychers are within X amount of inches. And because they would basically steal all of the power, and they'd throw it back at you as effectively an energy vortex attack. Yeah. And the truth is the collects, is this helmet they have could kill a demon,

like a demon prince. It'll just wipe them all. I mean, it would send them back to the warp. But it would effectively wipe them out with, by shooting pariah gene at them. This is one of the few times that mankind has actually mastered pariah style technology better than necrons have. Yeah.

Because this should be a necrone web. Oh, for sure, because they could use it as mass. Yeah. And we're using it, of course, as one-off killers. So a couple fun stories I like, because I like telling the assassins through stories about the collectus. The first one was someone called The Revoker, who was a Colexis assassin. This is just great. There was a revolt of psychers, full-blown cycle.

Not one guy, not two guys, dozens, maybe a hundred of them. And the revoker just wiped them all out. Well, it was also super cool because they were talking a lot of shakers. Yeah, no one can anywhere near them, and they just dropped one guy off, and he killed all of them. They effectively went, we are so powerful with our magic. No one can touch us. And a guy showed up and went, oh, you're going to die bad. None of you can do.

But my favorite story is this guy named is Dranos. So there was a thousand son's sorcerer named, of course, Zantaka, that's easy to pronounce, who was raising an entire demon army and was surrounded by rubrici. So this was, this is, you know, psychic powers turned up to an 11. No one can can break through because between the rubrici and the demons, no one's got a chance. The problem is all of these beings use warp sight. So they dropped off one dude, Dranos, who just landed on the planet and just started walking and just walked through everybody, all the way up to Zantaka who couldn't see him and melted Zantaka's brain and then walked home. Yep.

Just walking in like ceiling. Yeah. The forest come. I'm pretty tired now. You're pretty tired now. I'm pretty tired now. I'm not to go home. Yeah.

It's just an amazing story. And again, I wish I could have rules that my collectionis couldn't be seen by demons. And before we go on until, before we make it weird and dark, even darker. This part's ugly. I do want to point out that in the show notes, John slowly but surely started misspelling assassin worse and worse until you could see that he gave zero shit. I don't know why typing,

using four S's and a word is just hard. You just went, I don't even care anymore. I don't care, you know, no one sees. You started with ass and just went, and then just pounded the keyboard with your face. I was written, I was written ass over and over again, but I was like,

I'll accidentally do the Ron Burgundy and read it. F.U. Sandy. Exactly. Movies so great. All right. Let's end the cast by getting super weird. The Eversore assassin. I don't know if people, you know, I'm actually, this is one of the ones that I'm excited weirdly enough

because it's super creepy to talk about. But I don't, I don't, most people that don't know the lore really well, and they play the game, put an Eversar and they go, oh, it's good in combat, but they don't know the goddamn horror show. The nightmare that an Eversore is. So everything we've talked about of every assassin, and I'm including the one that had tyrannid genes in it, were based around a tradition of assassin.

They're stealthy, they sneak up, and then they use subtlety to kill their opponent via some level of power. The Eversore is the inverse of this. The Enversoor is a violent, loud murder machine. They don't just kill their target. They kill everything in between them and their target. They are used to send a message.

That's what the Eversore primarily is used to send a message. And before we explain what they are, I'll give you a really quick story of what an Eversore can do. There was a Duke who is financing pirates to kind of raid his competition to make himself look better. The Imperium discovered this, dropped one ever soar off. They killed the Duke and all 316 members of his family plus guards at one point using a spoon and another point using a butter knife to kill them all. This is John Wick level of murder. And again, not like subtle stabs them and then puts them in the closet, so no one can find them.

Dismembers them with the spoon. No, he didn't ageing 47 anybody. Yeah. He was full murder. Like, you have to do some serious cleaning after these guys. And they just sent vids to other people to go, don't do this. Yeah. So no one knows what the underlying skill set is for an ever soar.

Like, again, don't excel at hand-to-hand combat on your way back to Tara. Probably there. be again. Hey, where's the midpoint? Be right there. Right at the midpoint because this is what you don't want. So no one, my theory is, I think they back grow the eversores. I think just like they do with the Colexus.

I know, I don't, I actually don't think this. I think that they literally weed out the most, the fastest, the strongest and the most unstable because you're getting a bunch of those. I guess it's true. Remember, again, the ship's a shit show. Yeah, I guess that's true. When they grab all these people, so you just literally go, hey, that guy's super strong, super fast, super violent, and super unstable. Right. And then, hey, you're about to go to the shittiest assassin's school.

Yeah, the Eversore is a party time of horrid. So let's just talk about what an Eversore is. An Eversore is an abomination. They combine cybernetics, drugs, and psychological conditioning. I did put a note here, not the good kind. Again, nightmare time. They are, they're cybernetics. So we'll start with the cybernetics, which do two main things.

First, super strength and speed. Like any cybernetic would, you know, these guys can move buildings. I mean, they can move buildings. I mean, they are, they're stronger than a space marine by a good margin. They also have drug pumps. We'll get there in a minute. Yeah. So, but that's the part one.

part two, they also can explode. Also, yes. So that's a little help. Well, that comes in the mixture that they give them. Yeah, they can actually explode. So not a great set. But where it really gets fun are the chemicals. The chemical enhancements that they put in these things,

they actually can move at speeds the Eldar can't. Also, not super worried about the safety of the Eversor and or, let's reel that back again. We're talking about nightmare mode. All of the shit that they do, the Eversar, all of it causes insanity pain. You're like, hey, I'm going to give you this drug that makes you super strong and fast. What's it feel like? Have you ever put acid everywhere in your body?

Actually, you said, I could have sworn there was something I read one time that they sever that for them, but they actually can't feel pain. The Eversor cannot feel anything. When they first start doing it as they talk about it, they had the one story where they're talking about making an episode. I could be mixing it out there. for some reason I think there was something I read where they severed it could be the same thing of once you're and have that in your system who cares fair but what I like is there's two levels to the drugs they put in them there's just the regular drugs that are in their system at all times

and then a special booster pack that they can trigger at a key moment in combat to actually speed them up even faster they're they're going into vats and fall out where they go yeah this just go to a psychotic rage and just slaughter everything around everything around Everything around them happens at one tenth of speed, basically, for them. The other one, I do. So there's a lot of pieces of Erosaur that are funny. Another one that's funny is that the drugs that they're putting them on to make them this fast, this strong, this everything, are so toxic that they also have to go through genetic conditioning beforehand to improve their immune system. That's true.

So when they put the drugs in them, they don't just fall over and die. Instantly die. Yeah. I just, like, it's like, you know, they actually, they're genetically conditioned to be able to handle a toxic load beyond anything else out there. You know, space marines could use that. Maybe that's the secret. Jesus. And then, then once they get them with a higher tolerance for toxins, then they pump them so full of these horrifying drugs, they can, they can do nasty things.

by the way, these drugs, we'll get to in a minute one of their key side effects. It's kind of hilarious. They're not good for you. Yeah. The last one they do to them, though, is the psychiatric conditioning, which consists of someone at GW saw clockwork orange and went, okay, let's just do that in reverse. Yeah. Makes it easier.

They are, they have no concept of compassion, humanity, even, but more importantly, Yeah, but more importantly, also no sense of self-preservation. Because all of the assassins understand at their core, what their job is to do, and they may die for it. The Eversores are a whole different system here. Like, they're expecting to die. It's probably actually a step up for that. Again, they have no, anybody that's in between them and trying to do what they're supposed to do, you might as well be a breadcromb or a piece of paper.

It means nothing. So the part of the Eversores that's. more, this is a dark humor, but it's funny, is the way that they deploy them. So Eversores are all held in cold storage. And this is because of a couple reasons. One, the drug, yeah, they would just kill anyone. I was just supposed to say one, oh yeah,

remember the guys that we condition to have zero compassion for life at all and everything is nothing to them? Yeah, you probably shouldn't have those guys walking around. Yeah, they're not cool. Because when you accidentally grabbed a piece of bread before them, you don't want them killing the entire cafeteria. Yeah. Remember earlier we talked about how these guys would be able to blend in. They would blend in on a ship and pretend to be part of the crew. Yeah.

Now, they're just might kill the whole crew. Yeah. So, yeah. So they're stored in cold storage. But it's not just because they'll murder everybody. It's also because the drugs that they're on, kill them. They have a lifespan of like a couple months. So they have to actually keep them in cold storage.

to the point where there are eversaurs who are deployed, who are two to three thousand years old. They've just been sitting in cold storage. They haven't gotten a lot 42 years. They just scoop them up afterwards. Yeah. Which is the crazy part. If they can.

Zero life. You've never lived one day that wasn't just murdering shit or training to murder shit or frozen. You got murder shit, training to murder shit, frozen. and oh yeah, what was before that, horribly having drugs that were basically battery acid in your body and being beat in the head until you didn't care about any life. What I love is just the way that they're deployed because, again, as bad said, if you play on a tabletop, you may not realize how funny the Eversore is. The Eversore sits in this pod frozen. They have a computer then.

They basically load into your brain what your target is. And then they fire the drop pod out of a ship onto a planet. The pod opens, defrosts you, and then you just go hunting. That's what the Eversore does. If at the end of the mission, the Eversore has not exploded, they then tag it, freeze it, repeat. That's what they do. I mean, their life is just awful. Well, another really great example of how messed up the Eversore is, is the accept.

a level of basic-ass equipment that it carries. Everyone else, yeah. I got a super special shit. I've got this incredible gun with specialized bullets. Oh, I've got a phase with goes in and out of reality. I shoot energy out of my face that melts a cyker. What's the Eversore have? A stick.

A bolt pistol, a power sword, melt a bombs, and a, it's a poison glove. It's not in Freddie Kruger's hand. That's what he has. And it's because that's all it needs. The Eversore is about as armed as a guardsman. Actually, no, less armed. The Eversor is actually less armed than an Imperial Guard sergeant. It's just so insane.

And he gets to do all of the attacks. Their life sucks so much. But they're awesome. Yes. They're awesome. So obviously, we weren't going to not talk about stories of them. And I've got a few of these that I just enjoy. The first one is,

Ganimus, who is sent to a hive world to kill a baron. Yeah, but he doesn't kill the baron. Well, he killed the baron. And sure. And he legitimately killed an entire regiment. Anybody that effectively got into eyesight of him, he killed just killed all of them. Regiment of Gartman on his way to the baron.

He got both of them. The other story is more funny is Regent. So Regent wasn't ever sort of. They actually, this is one of the few times they used an execution force. This is newer lore, by the way. This was in, not a psychic awakening. What was the one of the psychic awakening? Arks of Omen.

Arks of Omen. This is an Arks of Omen when Fabius Bile kind of reappeared in the lore. They sent an actual execution force, which is multiple assassins out. And they had to go take out one of the, like, there was a chaos lord who was with Fabius Bile. And this chaos lord was just playing with them, like just ripping the, them all to shreds. They couldn't get anywhere. And the Eversore launched himself at the Chaos Lord.

And when we say Chaos Lord, I want to put it, this is in a being infused with the power of chaos. It wasn't a low-level chaos. Yeah, this isn't just isn't a sergeant. This is a guy who's, you know, to the nines. The Chaos Lord breaks his neck when he comes in. And then the Eversor just goes, all right, and explodes and kills the Chaos Lord. Problem solved.

Yeah, I love these things. I love these things. They are one of my favorite things to play on the tabletop. You know, I always love the Sessions. Yeah. You're like, hey, man, how's your life been? Oh, since I actually got into consciousness, I've been tortured my whole life injected with chemicals that give me nothing but pain.

And I'm unfrozen to kill people. And then I immediately am frozen again. So my entire life has been the stuff of your worst nightmares. You're like, oh, cool. Continue on. Well, I think with that, that's a good spot to kind of, then we've covered enough Imperial Assassins for now. We made it dark enough.

Yeah, exactly. So we hope you enjoy as much as we have. It's been quite fun. Next week is actually going to be our 50 second episode, which means we're going to hit the one year mark. So I think we're done. It's been fun. It's been fun.

No, I'm kidding. I didn't even know. No, I'm kidding. Let's have some fun with it. So for all of you who've been listening so far, we'll probably do a bigger deal about it next week. I just do want to thank you. we were about to hit cross the one year mark it has been a year yeah it's about to do one year that's

crazy yeah it's good uh we've been a lot more successful i thought we'd be in a year let's put it that way like that's a horrifying understatement i just made there next week we're actually going to jump into deathguard but we're going to do it the way we did uh thousand sons we're going to do it from about typhus death guard themselves the stories just most of the chaos armies tend to be very character focused from a writing standpoint. So it was easier to actually talk about the character and use that to talk about the force. So we'll be talking about Typhus, starting from the Horace heresy

and then moving all the way through. Probably, like, I haven't written it yet, so I assume about two episodes. Typhus School of shit. Yeah, and this way, it's nice, too, because we've set the stage pretty well with, like, the 13th Black Crusade and some of the other stuff.

Typhus plays a big role through this. So, but with that, this has been John Barcati and Bradchester. This guy. See you guys next week.