The 40k Lorecast - Episode 71 - Death Watch pt 2 - Their weapons, tactics, facilites, stories and more.

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

On today’s cast we conclude our coverage of the Death Watch, the special forces of the Space Marines. We open with some of our favorite weapons and equipment of the Death Watch. Namely we focus on how specialized an borderline heretic their equipment and weaponry are. We also focus on how much of a nightmare it was to play against the death watch as a xenos player during certain editions. After this we spend some time talking about how the Death Watch interact with the other factions of the imperium. Lastly we talk about the overall structure of the Death Watch, with focus on some of their key fortresses and where they got themPatreonMerchandiseDiscord 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. It's me, John Barcati and Bradchester. The sky. On today's cast, we're going to conclude our coverage of the Death Watch with some focuses on some of their weapons, some of their tactics, and a bit more of a dive into some of the events that they've taken part of.

For those of you who are new to the cast, the 40K lore cast is a weekly podcast focusing the lore of the Warhammer 40K universe. It releases every Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern time in the U.S. It releases globally, actually, but 7 p.m. Eastern time, which is a U.S. time zone. that's made that clear. Anyway.

I love that you're just putting this in, period. I just keep putting in enough to keep forgetting. Like, anyway, before we begin, though, please like and comment in the cast. Your likes and your comments are a massive help to us to spreading the cast to new users. Additionally, I have to approve all the comments, so I get a good laugh out of it.

So for those who are leaving comments, I really do appreciate them, especially the person who commented on, I believe, 60 casts, please do a Space Wolf cast. Oh, no, it was, He asked for Tao, and he did it the week before Tao came out. And I had to go through 60 times to delete the comment because it just looked weird on there. I thought he did it once.

So whoever you are, sir. We did a towel. We did a towel, but I was actually more impressed. You put that much time in. So good job. I like your skills. Yeah, every single cast we'd ever done. You commented.

Or she, I don't know. Well, probably a too big surface. Before we begin, another quick announcement on. On June 6th, 2024, we will be hosting our first 40K tournament. It is a major. For those people who play the game competitively, this is a major. So it would be a three-day event, seven rounds, 150 plus players in the Metro, Detroit area, in a wonderful area called Southfield.

If you're not from here, you might believe me when I say that. Don't be bad. Midwest, woo, boon. It'll be an event here in the Detroit metro area. So anyone looking to play the game, we will be there. We'll be hosting some additional events while we're there. On to that, though, if you click on the show notes, you'll see a link to it there. You'll also see a link to our website, our Discord, Patreon, and others.

Of note, obviously, our Discord we bring up every time. Completely free site for any and all listeners, or actually even not listeners. You can find it. Do you? Do you? Do you? I'm impressed. It was built really as a repository for all the fans of the 40K universe.

We've got channels dedicated. of the cast themselves, questions for the hosts, requests for future casts. There's even more stuff on like 40K literature, like give me some advice on some good books to read, hobby and gameplay tabletop simulator, 40K games. Everything. Yeah, everything. As always, massive shout out to our mods on this. I genuinely would have burned this thing to the ground.

Talks about it all the time. Actually, I ask the mods on a weekly basis. Is it time? Is it, is the exterminatus upon us? down, arson. Yeah, exterminatus upon us. Anyway, so also a huge thank to you guys on that. Lastly, we always spent some time talking about Brad and his coaching services.

You can go to our website. You can find some more descriptions about it. Also, the Discord has some pieces on it. Brad has been playing the game for over 30 years. He's been coaching for close to 10. And he's got really great service available for anyone who wants to really dive much more into the game itself. You can reach it.

You can reach Brad. via our website or the Discord. He's happy to coach you no matter your player level. All right. So let's get back to the Death Watch. On the last cast, we talked about how the Death Watch operate different to the Space Marines. They work in small groups and they're achieving kind of smaller but more critical objectives in the battlefront.

And these like small squads are called kill teams. However, one thing we didn't dive into as much I wanted to do it in this cast was how specialized their equipment is. And wildly different than the way that regular. Marines operate because they have units that would never be together or in a one specialized unit. Exactly. But let's have some fun with the Death Watch Armory, which is a little bit heretical,

which is totally fine, which is totally fine because they're part of the Inquisition. I will say the Admec love working with the Death Watch. It's their favorite faction to work. So many things to take home. It's just all toys. And there's no rules. They're always buying it from the gift shop. Yeah.

And this makes sense because the thing about the Death Watch is they spend all their time fighting against the Xeno forces of the galaxy. And while fighting the Xenos, the Death Watch discover that these mutants who were opposed to the light of the emperor somehow through obviously blind luck stumbled upon some kind of nice technology. And by nice technology, I mean insanely advanced technology. And so it should be ashamed let this all go to waste. And that's viewed by both the Death Watch and the AdMEC very much so.

And it's a big deal with this because the Death Watch, I mean, and the AdMAC, are really one of the few people that are putting advancements towards weaponry. We are very, right now, we are Dark Ages of the Inquisition. It is, you're not supposed to change anything. It's heretical to do it. They're doing it. Yeah, not the Death Watch. Yeah, the Death Watch is definitely.

And the way that this, Unfortunately, this has a bit of a break, again, between the tabletop and the lore. On the tabletop, death watch weapons tend to be, sometimes they get more armor penetration or more damage, but it's a hit and miss. Some addition, they've got some additions to have it. They've got a lot of weapons that work specifically versus. Right. But it's, in the, in the lore, it should, it actually, their weapons are better. So I'm saying it's true.

In the lore, a death watch boulter is more powerful. more accurate and more reliable than a standard space marine one because they have these specialized armors who are billing them for these tasks because they are the special forces. Now, what I do love about them is that with the death watch, the exactly point, we talked before about when you join the death watch, you have to be a super soldier. You know, your captain, your lieutenant have to sign off on you saying that you can fight Zenos, your apothecary is a sign off saying that you can heal better and you're stronger and you're faster. Chappie.

And then your chaplain is to come in and be like, yeah, he also won't spill our secrets. Love a chaplain. But that's just the soldiers. The same thing is for the weapon smiths. So the legions send the death watch the best weapon smiths in the galaxy. And this is a big thing when people send. It's not like, because you could say, oh, we're sad that we're sending our best people. but the legions for the most part

it's an unwritten unspoken I guess competition though you you want to make sure that you want your best guy because our best guy is better than your best guy because the death watch except for the black shields are not secret so if you're sitting there saying oh did you know that 20% of the death watch armors are space wolves that's a huge thing for the space wolf

so that's that's why they're able to get the best and the best and the best because they want to show that to everybody that, oh, our weapons smiths are better than yours. Right. And our whatever's, our, you know, our eradicators are better than yours, or whatever. People are very proud about that. And there has been a ton of competition since the inception of the Marine Legion. And that's actually, I hadn't occurred to you to say that that's a great way to look at

the death watch is that these guys, it is a public competition that actually is real. Instead of having like, you know, an NFL combine or whatever, whatever the pro bowl is turned into for the NFL in the U.S. or if you guys aren't in the U.S., it's whenever, like, whatever main sport you have, they have some like all-star game where all the best players play together, but no one tries,

which is kind of stupid. This one, no, it's all the best players playing together and trying. At their hardest. You get to go, oh, wow, like they, like I said, name the Legion, like the flesh terrors who probably don't get to be in the Death Watch. Those dudes kind of keep to themselves. So not the flesh.

trash terrors. Gabriel Seth probably isn't sending a whole lot of guys over there. Yeah, but the griffins, you know, they're, it's like, how good are the griffons here? All of the minotauras, there are all these, like these chapters sending guys over who performs the best and you can see it. Work itself out. But on the Smith thing, I want to spend some time here talking about some of the weaponry that's used by the Death Watch, mostly the quintessential weaponry. And the first one is, of course, the frag canon. And the frag canon, I just think is hilarious.

Because the frag cannon is originally a dreadnought weapon. The Blood Angels specifically put these frag cannons on their drone nuts. Yeah. However, the Death Watch put them on squads of guys. It was a random Blood Angel artificer figured out a way to make it smaller and made it handheld. And then just gave it to it. So we took a weapon for a dreadnought and just gave it to a dude to carry around. These really translate over, though.

This is one of the things that I think transferred. pretty well from lore to table. Oh, yeah. Because the frag cannons, maybe the one of, I'll just say it. If you have Death Watch veterans and you don't have

frag cannons, you don't have to have them all with frag cannons, but like, why wouldn't you have fracons? Especially in later editions. Yeah, they're not as good right now, but they were,

they were insane for a while. Eighth, I think. Yeah, eight, they could just mop the floor. So the frag cannon, it just has two shots. It's got a slug and like a buckshot version.

And this is the, it's his quintessential. Two of them. I got your shit. Yeah, yeah. I own eight of them. Very good. Yeah.

And what this does, what it makes it so important, is that allows them to handle single targets and hoard. Because as we said, when a Death Watch kill team is deployed, they just get from point A to point B. They have an idea of what will be there, but they're not 100%.

And the frag kind of gives them this incredible versatility where they can put it to slug and blast a hole through something or they can leave it to kind of frag and just shred stuff. So the frag and the frag, cannons are quintessential, combined with the specialized ammo and 8th edition, these did some stuff. I watched Death Watch pilots pick up like 30 packs of work. Back we go to 30 orc boys. They could pick them up with these.

With your rooting on twos and everything else. Yeah, wounding on twos and the frag cannons and all the extra. Similar to the frag cannons, you don't see as much of these as the Infernes heavy bolter. Another really cool weapon, though. This is a classic Death Watch weapon of let's just take a heavy bolter and slap you. a flamethrower under it. They have a lot of that stuff. I'll make myself, as usual old.

They MacGyver a lot of stuff. Oh, there's all these words. Let's just put these two things together and see what happens. You're like, I've got duct tape. We'll just make this a thing. And it works, obviously, it works kind of similar to the frag cannon.

You've got your heavy boulder, which allows me to blast through heavy armor, you know, and, but if that heavy armor, I mean, I think of this one as being basically made for the genes to the other cult, where you're coming in, like, if you get close enough to the, the primus,

I can blast its head off of the heavy boulder, but I have to get through quite a few neophyx. There's so many idiots in the way. So I'll just burn all of them. And that's what weapons are made for. I'm a huge fan of these. But one thing that we that do have, though, that unfortunately does not translate the tabletop at all is their power.

Yeah. I mean, they don't do anything with this at all to be perfect. So in the lore, they have something called the Aegis Vigilant, which is a special super super. of power armor. And okay, this is going to be a cannon conflict here, so we'll get to in a second,

but we'll get to this piece. It is a special suit of power armor that was built by the artificers of the Death Watch to specifically, like, counter the weapons and tactics of Xenosteces. So it's like,

it's resistant to Necron Goss. Well, the two biggest things is it was resistant to gauze and it was resistant to psychic attacks. Yeah, exactly. And beyond that, it also could have, it was also able to, like,

have better visual tracking for Drew Carrey. So it was tuned up and it was just incredible suit of armor. It has no play on the tabletop whatsoever. None. Zero. And the only issue with it

I have with the cons, I like that they wrote this, but they also write that a space marine is sent to the Death Watch with their armor by their chapter. So I don't know when they would put this armor on. Unless the black shirt. Unless they juice up their armor. They never

really tell you because you still have your shoulder pad and everything else that comes with it. So I don't really know where it's written down it. Well, it's also, is it a thing that's in your armor or did you download a program that makes sure? Maybe, yeah. I don't really know. The concept is super cool.

It doesn't. And I mean, this is fairly common within GW in the sense that if it doesn't exist in the tabletop rule, it just kind of, it's there in the background. And so my assumption is that someone, GW, as you've heard, on our private has made some rules oopsies over the years. I'm sure at some point someone that said, well, I think the Death Watch have a better save against Zeno weapons. And luckily, some of the rules writing team said,

please don't do that. So you want to, you want to save on a two and hitting wound on a two? Yeah. We're not going to, we can't handle that volume of angry email. But, however, one of the better pieces about this is the secret weapons that they carry.

So the frag cannon, the artificer armor, the infernice heavy bolter, these are all, you know, these are weapons that are somewhat well known. Then there's the other challenge.

I was just to want to say, there's a lot of other special weapons. What I love about this is that all of these weapons kind of skirt right on the edge, and by skirt and the edge, I mean, they cross it constantly. They crossed the line and skipped past it.

Yeah. And this being said, we talked in the last time about how the chaplain is saying, you know, the person we're sending, can he keep our chapter's secrets? The Death Watch does it back. And this is what's written down. Should a Death Watch member ever speak of the things of the weaponry used by a Death Watch outside of the Death Watch? They will be hunted down and tortured to death. I love the note on a show. Their words, not mine.

Their words, not mine. That means that a Space Marine Group would hunt. down another space marine for telling space marines about their weapons. Yep. Yeah. Way to go, guys. But anyway, some of these are awesome. This is my favorite.

Yeah, we'll start with the open one, the Xenophase blade. These are so good. These used to be so much better. They've toned this army down. Yeah, because these used to cut through invulences. Yeah. The hyperphased swords are just something that Death Watch has a lot of. The Xenophase blades were 100% neckerone.

ground technology that they put into there. Again, they took Zeno's technology and put it right into. And I love these because they just kind of cut through anything. The idea, we covered this action, the Assassin's Castle. It's very similar to the blade used by the Collexus. Same thing. Colix or Caledis? Collexis.

No, whatever. It was the Calidus, actually. Yeah, it's the Caledus to blade, where as she swipes through, it phases in and out of reality. So you having armor doesn't match. And then reforms inside of you, so you die, and then unforms and comes back. They're used by all the watch captains. Actually, some of the, I think the watchmaster's spear has one of it. Yeah.

Because this is all Necron technology, because they were the only ones that had it. Yeah. Besides anybody that got something from it. And I love these, though, because I just love the idea of them mass producing something that they wildly should not have. Nettle. Yeah. And they just, you wonder how many inquisitors,

because necrans aren't something that a ton of the Imperium has ever seen. Yeah. And you know one has been in a fight and went, wait a minute. I was with, Hey, did you just parry my blade with my sword?

Yeah. I was fighting with the Death Watch. And they, and like, yeah, like, like this is not. Wait a minute.

Which tomb world did that come from? You know, afterwards they're probably, they're checking. in a serial number, like, oh, that's why they didn't wake up. Yeah, it's a big deal on this. And I love these weapons. One, they look super cool.

Yeah. Oh, they're modeled. It's actually, it's fairly easy to paint them well because they've got the relief within the blades actually it needs in the paint into. And you can add, there's so many great colors you can add to it. And they've got some cool animations on some of the, not just art, but some of the animations that have put out. Yep.

They just, they look super, super cool. I love them as a weapon. because they style out lore wise. They're awesome. The guy wasn't, the guy was in the cover holding it. It just looks super cool. They just look super cool.

I like them on the board. And I love them in the lore. I just, I love the idea of having this forbidden weapon and you give them to all of your commanders and stuff. And you're like, you don't even tell the regular guys what this is. What this blade is. It's just,

it's just sharp. Yeah, it's sharp and very colorful. Yeah. Why is it glowing like a light green color? Blades do that. And it does kind of look like the dark saber from the mandoling. Yeah, you're right.

Oh, very much so. Now, another one I do love, though, is the atomizer cannon, which I don't believe I've ever seen in the table. I don't think those exist at all. Yeah. This one's just amazing in the lore. So its roots are from the dark age of technology, and it's because this weapon is pure cruelty. It resembles a melt-a-gun, and it fires these highly active particles as target. it, when they hit, they agitate and they basically boil the cellular structure of whatever they

hit. Well, it's a big deal because you go, hey, isn't that kind of like gauze? You're like, no. It's, no, no, no, what God's actually. Nacron gauze looks like, I'm not, I'm not script gauce again, all right? I know it's not what it's supposed to do, what they describe it as. Yeah. This goes inside out.

This is crazy. Yeah. Well, it melts you into goop. Well, it's also, it's like what. venom canons and stuff do from the ternids. Have you venom cannon? Oh, yeah. Because it sends a superheated bug basically you,

and then it melts you from the inside out. This, these do the same same. I prefer squig launchers that should be squeaking. And the squig tries to climb its way out of you. Doesn't all seem bad. So atomizer cannons are amazing. We're showing a table top. Another one that's more just funny is the Balefire gun.

And so the Bail Fire gun is a, it's meant to be this horrifying web. that's it's only deployed against those who've fallen furthest in the light of the emperor. You could never use a bail fire gun against anything in the Imperium. It is a flamer that shoots radioactive fire. Yeah. Also, it shoots radioactive fire right in front of you. It's like the worst weapon to use.

I find this much. This is the greatest adolescent boy concept I've ever heard of because it's like, well, yeah, you've got a flamethrower where they go burn them. But what if it also irradiated that, that'd be all. Awesome. There's no need for this. Like, no one has ever been burning alive and worried, oh, no, I wonder if I'm going to get cancer. I'm going to get rats sick. Exactly, like, oh, my prostate. Oh, you know what are we doing here? But you know what, GW? There was solid effort here. It's funny, so I'll lean into it. It's also, hey, wait a minute, am I going to get cancer from holding this weapon next to me? Why am I shooting cancer out of the barrel?

that's not that far from my face. But one of the cool ones from a, like, I explain, it's called the Texericism gun. It's harder for me to pronounce than it should be. So this gun, I just like the story around it. It fires an energy signature that specifically damages and drives out machine spirits from Target. Also, they don't see where this is coming from.

This only works against the imperial other imperium. No, they say it works. It doesn't work against orcs. It works against, it works. They were used for towel. It's very heavily used against town. No, but I'm saying like it's specialized, though. Yeah.

For this is an anti-imperian weapon, man. It's, well, sort of. This is where I had to read it twice. Because the first time you read it, you're right. But it's just an EMP gun. That's what, in reality, because the thing is, it's the Imperiums. They say, oh, it drives the machine spirit out. But it works really well on things that don't have machines.

Because it shuts it down. Yeah. What I love about, because it was, it was made, it's not way, but it was primates. primarily used against the Tao because this gun would just turn off of battles. I wish we had these in the game. In lore. You know, really? You're talking about adding a weapon in the game that's just specifically bad for Tao?

Yeah, I support that. I fully support that. In the lore, they just, this also has a shotgun spread. So they would just hit a crisis team and just have them. Yeah, and it's just a bunch of dudes stuck in a suit that can't move. And I want everybody to know, I am physically showing. Brad's doing a whole. Every single cast,

there's a giant marionette puppet show. You go off the side of here. If you guys haven't seen Team America World Police, that's how this cast looks from my perspective as Brad goes through stuff. Dirka, dorka, dorka, dorka. But I love this weapon.

They have stories. They're old stories when they first had Death Watch, but they legitimately shoot this and you've got a bunch of guys frozen. And our very tiny, if their suit doesn't move, Well, they're just standing there. The battles to just stand there and someone walkers, pushes it over.

And I love the lore in this because I get very excited about Death Watch, clearly, about some of these, because they're so specific. Death Watch is a great army now. However, Death Watch used to be, and we talked about since the last cast, so specialized. If you were Zenos and you did not want to play Death Watch. Yeah, and you played Death Watch, they had so, but they all their strife around it, but we didn't talk. talking about this last time. There's strats and stuff like that. Some of the strats were a lot. They just turned you off. Yeah. Well, they only worked against Zenos. It was just like, hey, am I playing

Chaos? Am I playing another Imperium? I guess I don't use any of my strats. Oh, I am playing Zenos? Yeah. Cool. Cool. Let me pull out my book and start reading these off while laughing. Yeah. They're just so brutal. You're like, you're playing Tom. I'm going to use this every turn. You're like, ever you're playing GSC. Yeah. Yep, doing this every turn. This seems unfair. Oh, yeah. This is terrible for you. All right. But one really, my. But great thing with the Texorcism gun. Remember earlier when I said the Admec loved the Death Watch? Not this.

Oh. The Admec view this gun as an abomination. Unholy abomination. And they're hunting it down to the point where the Mechanicus is working to destroy them, whatever they can find them. So the Death Watch have to deploy them in secret, which, again, the Edmec, by the way, are trying to get rid of a gun that kills their God. it's to them this is a god destroyer so i kind of get where they're at on this one but the death watch

have to hide the guns and when they deploy them when they go on deploy with them they have to use them quickly and hide them again because the ad mech might just attack like it's entirely possibly epic would bomb them from space just to kill a squad holding these yeah kind of unfortunately they shot them the ad mec every single guy has enough meck in him that this would probably be bad But for those of us who played the tabletop, one of the best parts about this is their specialized ammunition. Special ammunition is awesome. It was a great rule.

And they kind of brought it back right now, but it's not all the way back. It's not what it used to be. It's strad-based now. You have to... It used to be able to load out your... You used to be... I think this was...

The 8th edition was probably closest they've ever been... The 8th edition, Death Watch is the best version of Death Watch. It's the most more specific. Yeah, 100%. It nailed. They were really... really, they really dialed in, and it was broken A.F. But only when you were playing certain things, and that's what the thing is, is Death Watch

is a specialized army. Yes, when you were playing Tiernitz and you met Death Watch, that was the worst, shit was going down. The Death Watch into Tiernitz was the worst combo the Death Watch had because of, in some of this ammunition we're going to talk about here, because they kept this. So, anyway, in general, the lawyer on Space Marines, just people are saying, is that there's really innumerable, innumeral bolt ammunition types, missile types, grenade types. If you read any of the Black Library books, guys are pulling rando grenades out at that time.

They're light-year-specific. But none of that ever makes it to the tabletop. The tabletop, we have frag grenades and crack grenades. That's it. A couple of guys have, what's the trip, the trip grenade to less than the charge? Well, those are only very few on that. There's a couple little random ones, but in the lore, there are hundreds. if not potentially thousands.

And the idea is that the specialized weapon can significantly affect the power output by tailing it to a battlefield need. The Death Watch, though, take this to another level. Oh, so much. And it's because, again, we've harped on this before, but I'm going to keep harping it. The Death Watch are deployed around the galaxy,

and they constantly have different physical compositions of Zenos, and they have to exploit them in battle, and they're also oftentimes not really aware or what they're going to be fighting. So they go into battle, all right, the laws of physics don't make sense with the amount of different ammo they're just kind of carrying. But it does help because depending on what you're fighting, you need to do, you got to figure out something that it work.

And they have just such a wide degree. They're effectively poisoned. They go ahead and make fun of me for this. But like, I'd say more than half of their special ammunitions are toxins on there. Well, it's because you can't just go to battle. with the same thing. Right. Like, you know, if you take a dull stick and hit a towel with it, it's very effective.

But that same dull stick hitting a Tiernid warrior. Bals off. Does not, now you get bit. You don't want to get bit. Yeah, exactly. So they adapt their tactics to handle each enemy. So those of you who played Space Marine 2, that opening bit where the Death Watch are trying to deploy a virus bomb into the atmosphere to affect the Tyrone invasion fleet, that's classic

death watch tactic. And they're tailoring of a virus bomb specifically for that because it's an organic, everything they have is organic. Exactly. So they're trying a virus bomb targets organic material. And they knew it wouldn't kill them all off, but it would slow down the invasions. They could do more stuff.

Where this goes much further down is again, what we're talking about here, into ammunition. So let's jump into some of the ammunition because, man, there's some PTSD I have on these things. So the hellfire shells. It's my favorite. It ruins your army.

Yeah, it did. So the hellfire shells are a bolt that has a hyperactive bioacid in their core. And it was built specifically for the tyranids. Once it gets through the chitlin on the outside of the tyranet, and then the acid deploys, it melts the creature from the inside of it. And it's a big thing because the tyranids were so adapting and adapting and they're making themselves more heavily armored for the tactics that the Imperium was using. and these were the counter to their adaptation

because you'd hit them and they'd go, oh, that did nothing, and then the acid would seep in and burn them out. Eat them on the inside. These invalidated tyrantids in the earth edition. It was a big deal because of the fact that you're shooting these rounds that are doing huge damage to giant tyrantid monsters

that normally would do absolutely nothing. A tyrann effects could shrughey. rug off a las cannon and a death watch guy with a bolt pistol. Bolt pistol. That's true. Yeah. Because you're going to have it equipped with a wound wound on a two and do serious damage. Yeah, because they were all two damage apiece, weren't they?

Yeah. They could wreck through them pretty good. And that's back before we actually had, for much stuff, had a high wound. The next one is the Dragonfire Bolt, which I also like a lot. This one, it's, you know, so as we said before, the standard space marine bolter shoots an RPG. It's an RPG style. The bolt goes in as soon as it feels a change in, like, in resistance, it then explodes on the inside, doing massive damage.

The Dragon Firebolt just was that with a lot more explosive in it. And it was designed to handle like hordes of low armored. It's super low armor. They wanted just to the, it works. Yeah. It was made for arc. Yeah. The idea is that with one round when it explodes, I could take out two.

to five orcs if they were clustered together. Which they typically are. Yeah, because the orcs tend to run there. This again, ripped my orcs to shreds. Like, there was... I love some of these. These two are... Those are the meat and potatoes of Death Watch ammunition.

These are just what they have. They design these specifically, and these are, they cross over a bit because what are they fighting? They're specifically fighting Xenos. They're finding orcs. They're fighting Ternans. They're fighting the GSE, Gene Thieler Coal. these all work fantastic against those type of armies. And the next one is the Derevanent shells.

I wish they'd bring these back in the current edition, because they're made to handle the necrons. These are so cool, Lord. Because these are amazing in lore, and honestly, in eighth edition, necrons weren't very good. And so you didn't deal with this very much, but what this shell does is the core of it

basically creates a disruption between the materium and the imiterium, so it turns off reanimation process for necrons. And we've talked about the Necrons. The Necron's entire army and their philosophy is based on we'll just reanimate whatever you kill. Whatever you kill will come back. So imagine using this into a horde of scarbs. It would just, it just shot them out. Giant unit of warriors, things of that nature.

The spiders, any of those things, the destroyers. Okay. Well, that thing's gone now. And again, a dude with a bolt pistol. Now, this is not a, these aren't, when we talk about this death watch, Emma, we actually should have mentioned earlier. this isn't like a special ammo for one special gun. Every single gun they fire has this ammo in it.

In that particular squad, because you'd make, you'd equip your squad with one type of ammo. No, you could check. No, I'm saying. In the lore you can on the tabletop in the addition, you chose.

You chose whatever. You might shoot which one you were shooting. These guys had like the, it's like the old video game backpacks where there was everything. It was unlimited inventory. It was unlimited inventory. Like you got a guy, running around. He's carrying 52 guns and full ammo.

In the lore, you would just choose certain teams to have certain things. But then you're kind of going, we know we're going to face this. The last one, though, are the Hell Spears, which is a round that's just covered in ruins that affect the war. This one. This one hurt. This one made Brad some sadness. This made me sad.

This caused some sadness for Brad. Real bad ones. These ones could effectively go straight through a psychic defense. So namely... In old school, force field. Well, yeah. One, it would do that, but it also, the old old rule was it caused apparel. Yeah.

So you would effectively scramble a psycher's mind, and he blew up psychically. You would shoot the psycher. He didn't get a proper save against it. And then, yeah, and then he would eventually blow up. Yeah. And he damaged everyone around him. Yeah. And because they had such low wounds, if they blew up, the next guy might blow up.

Yeah. If you got a far seer, he's pretty good likely to. The warlocks were coming with them. Yeah, all of a sudden, like, you just get this boom-bo-b-b-b-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo-bo. Why, so much of heads are popping. Yeah. Oh, it was so much fun back. That made me so sad.

Oh, it was brutal. But there was, yeah, they got rid of it, unfortunately after 8th edition because as much as this was dead on lore. I mean, like no question dead on lore specific on the table topic did clear. Yeah, but it's, I don't know. I'm a weirdo in the fact, I like having units and armies that are really. good against certain things and not very good against other things. Death Watch used to ruin Zenos, and it used to do meh against everything else. I'm a, and I could be wrong on this.

And if you don't like this opinion, that's fine. I can be wrong. But my viewpoint has always been, I think, given the diversity and the number of armies within 40K, I would like to see it where you do have auto wins. Basically, every army has one auto win and on one auto lose. And then everything else got, or something, across from that, and it's like, yeah, Just a bit of luck of the draw. Because as long as it's as long as it follows a lore-specific type-style thing,

I am totally fine with that. They try to make too many things vanilla. That's for a different cast. Exactly. Yeah, but it is a real thing. They've made a lot of things homogenous. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So anyway, we've covered their gear pretty well. Let's talk about the way that they fight. We'll be right back after a quick break. We've touched us in the last cast, but we'll do a bit more now. the Death Watch are, they're the special forces of the space marines. Now,

now, within a space marine faction, they go to war supported by a massive force. They've got heavy weapons platforms, predators repulsor tanks, orbital cannons, all that stuff. The Navy Guard.

The thing is, we don't ever talk about that the game. A lot of times you just have Marines, but Marines don't just show up with Marines. We talked about in the Upsi cast, where like, where they did,

they lore-wise, like, yeah, it wouldn't make sense to have your guard fight with your space Marines. and then people like you broke that. You're welcome. It took away all of our fun. But the Death Watch, though, they're almost always,

actually probably always outnumbered against an alien. I was going to say, I would go all in on saying they're always outnumbered because they deploy very small specialized squats. And the Death Watch also will be deployed with the Space Marine. So we just said the Space Marines and the Guard or maybe fighting a battle, the Death Watch are going to hit the same, maybe not the same battle, but the same planet or same system to do something to turn the tie of that battle.

They have a different target. They have a different, as much target, they have a different tactical goal because they're trying to do something specific. So one of my favorite examples of this, and we hinted it last time with those stories now, is the second battle of Damos. So Damos was a, there's a necron awakening on this planet, and it direct the ultramarines in the sector. So Calgar and Sikaris decided that defeat was not going to happen, and they reengaged the Necrons, but they brought the death watch with them. At this stage in...

This is such a good story, by the way. It's a great story. So at this stage, the Imperium actually realized how the Necrons were waging war. And they knew that when they slayed an overlord, they would teleport back into their tomb to be repaired and rejoined the battle. And so long as that overlords alive, the necrons function... And the thing is that the overlord usually had tech on him that aided the reanimation also. So he was making people come back faster. When he went back to the tomb, he was also speeding up the process.

He most of the time he'd show up with his entire retinue right back. Yeah, he would warp down, and within a few minutes, he's back with everybody. So the Death Watch to realize, so the Space Marines realize they have to kill this overlord, and they decide the best way to do this is to send a Death Watch kill team. into the monolith. And a monolith is a flying building. Yeah. It just is.

I don't know how they got in there. They just did. And they fought through, I mean, I need to really set the stage of how badass this is. They are inside a Necron tomb, fighting warriors, scarabs. And there's scarves in the tabletop are very different scarves in the lore.

Raiths are coming in and out of the walls. A horde of them. because they are fixing everything. Also, you got to forget, you know, you put the rates and stuff, there's spiders everywhere. Those are spiders, which are because those are. You don't see on the tabletop anymore. They even see them one.

They need to give a phenopain aura. Yeah. But you see these spiders, which are huge constructs, which are in charge of just making and fixing things. Yeah. And they're doing this. And they're everywhere in there. They're all engaging in the Death Watch.

And they're doing this, by the way, through a building. They don't have a map for. Yeah. So they just have to, but they can figure out get to the middle. And so they fight their way all the way to the middle, and they find the main sarcophagus of the crypt and then place melta bombs all over it. So, but that's the funny thing. In this story, it's already heroic and awesome.

But they also brought a comical amount of bombs because they didn't know what they were going to need. Yeah, one meltabom will blow up in a Landrader. They got all. They just put them all of the Meltabombs. put them all on this thing. And so what happens is they time it well. They lie in wait. They hold their ground.

But for whatever reason, you know, the overlord above ground doesn't know what's happening. Calgar and team kill the overlord. Overlord warps down. It basically opens his eyes in his tomb to look at melty bombs covering the tomb. All everywhere. And a death watch sergeant giving him the finger as he just blow the thing out. Deuces. Eat a melty bomb.

Um, chum. Exactly, yeah. And so the Death Watch, death watch, says win the Battle of Dumbos. I. . . . . . . . they also do talk about the fact that they over exploded in, because they're just like, yeah. Run. . . . . . . yeah. It was a bit of an oopsie, but it was still cool as up. But that little, this action probably saved thousands. Oh, Marines, for sure. Because. Because you, cutting through the retinue of the overlord, it's his best warriors. You've got Litchguard and stuff like that. And they come right back. And you're taking so many casualties from them because they have their best weapons and armor. Well, because the way the Necron's fight in the lore is as you would kill those lichs guard, they would teleport off. It's like they wouldn't knock them down and ramp, they would teleport off. So without the overlord, they don't come back.

So the battle's over and then you can go blow up the thing. Another one I do like is when they're deployed against Gien Steelers cults. This is because Death Watch actually engaged Geneselioric cult more than any of the Space Marine chapter. I wish they had more of these stories. One of my favorite things about the Death Watch versus GSC is the GSC, or sorry, the Death Watch going against the Gene Steelebone, the Death Watch are just trained for what to look, too. So they sniff them out real quick. Real quick. Yeah.

And that's the thing. Because remember, the Death Watch are part of Ordo Zinos. And one of the main things Ordo Zinos does is deal with Genes-Cult and Incursions because it's between that and cultists or all the big. behind enemy lines problem. It's a huge problem. Because this stuff happens in your, we're talking jeans dealer cult, we did that,

our cast on it. I do, it's one of my favorite cast we did. It's a big deal because if you ruin a hive world, that's a big deal for the Imperium. Yeah, it's a massive deal for the Imperium. And not only do you, it's,

so they, they're constantly hiding these things down. Because of this, the Death Watch are, to Brad's point, experts at fighting, not just fighting the jeans, but also finding.

the genes are called. They know all the signs of them. They know what to look for. And so they have and this is really critical because of exterminatus. Well, it's a big deal in this because they don't want to exterminate us. They want to keep this hive world churning out hubcaps, whatever they're making.

Because the GSC incursions more often than not are on important worlds. And so you can't blow up a hive world. Well, it's such a big deal on this. The problem is when the death watch uncovering some stuff, they're usually, aha, and then they go,

oh man, there's thousands of these guys around us. Thousands, millions. Millions, true. I'm just talking to their immediate what's happening. Yeah. The Death Watch then have to go, all right, boots and mighty

ass kicking. Let's do this again. And it is, these stories are epic, because what they do is the Death Watch know, all you, if you hunt down the Patriarch and the Magas is, the rest of the GSC just kind of fall apart because just like the tyrannids, they do have a variation of a hive mind that controls it. And when you take that leadership away, the vast majority of genius that are called are like Intel, IQ one. Like they're just, well, a lot of them too don't even realize what's going on.

If you kill the Patriarch, all of a sudden you go, oh, I'm super weird. What the hell is happening to me right now? What was happening? Why am I so slow? So what the Death Watch do is their masters are hunting down the Patriarch and the Magus is, because the Magus can also take over a little bit. And once they've hunted them down, then they just mop up what's left off of the guard members. They also don't have instantaneous response.

Yeah. Because they can communicate all over the planet. And once you take this away, it's a big deal. And the Death Watch are amazing. And there's so many good stories. These stories are great. So the way the way this process. usually works is the Inquisition notices something's a muck somewhere, and they go in and do their own

investigation. In the investigation, they realize, okay, there is a Jesus or a cult infectioner, at which point they call the Death Watch. The Death Watch don't come in, as is before, they'll come in guns blazing. They come in sneaky, as sneaky as a 7-foot 400-pound guy can be, but still very, very sneaky-like. And this is what we're going to, We'll get into the teams. But they deploy and wait. That's why I love it. They hide in the shadows and wait because they know what they're looking for.

They're not looking for the regular, is it, neophytes? Neophytes, you know, if it's a hybrids and stuff like that. But they'll just- They're waiting for the Patriarch. Because they will just lose eventually, the attrition will just bring them down. And so they get to Patriarch and they kill it. And then as soon as they kill the Patriarch, that's when they also go hard. Because, you know, you can go back to the cast and we'll listen to it.

The Patriarch is the most. most powerful, but there still are sub-commanders, which are called the maguses. As long as the maggis are there, the GeneoCycote can still function while waiting for a new country. And this is why also they'll sometimes send in the multiple teams, because they'll put them, and these teams might be on other sides of the world. Yeah, exactly. And they hit them all together and once have them all together. What happens is, like, as we said in the cast, the Genisler cult members, like some of the most, like the abominance, for example, they hide them really well you don't see them. But without these leaders, those are bumps

would just come wandering down the hallway. You're like, hey, janitors looking pretty funny right now. Exactly. And so at this point, they're bringing the Imperial Guard to hunt down the rest, and you save a planet. And the infrastructure. The infrastructure is so much more important than the people.

Come on, we can get more people. Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're Imperium's really good at making people. Yes. Not keeping them around. Making. So many people. Whoa. Whoa. We don't want to, get a new line going.

One interesting thing, this is my opinion, so I could be wrong about this, but I do believe the Death Watch may be the most diplomatically friendly, internally inside the Imperium. I was thinking about this when I first read when I was getting ready for this cast, and there's not that many, I don't even know if there is. I might be wrong for throw me out there in the comments if you could, but almost everybody's cool with having Death Watch show up. Yeah.

Because they don't mess anything up for you either. That's my point. Everyone's okay with them. Not only that, though, they're also really good internal diplomacy. Well, they don't cause trouble. Like, if somebody from Ordeus Malleus shows up, you might have them interrogating you guys. Exactly. The Death Watch don't care.

They work well with the Admec, the sisters, all of, even all of the different factions of the Lords of Terra. They work with them well because they're doing, because basically what I will say is the entirety of the Imperium is aligned on two things. Chaos bad, aliens bad. But the chaos bad things tricky because there's a lot of like, do we know chaos exists? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Ali. Also, do we need to kill those people that fought the chaos? Are some of your guys now chaos? That doesn't happen with the Death Watch. They're like, yeah, we killed the aliens and now we're leaving. Because the aliens don't infect things. Right. If I kill every alien, we're good now. You guys can go back to the leaving.

Yeah, whereas with the chaos, it's like, all right, which one of you is secretly a zinged clone? Like, let's do this. Oh, you know. And so that's why everyone likes them. What's even more impressive to me, though, is how well the Death Watch handle internal rivalries within their kill teams. Because we've covered this in the past, but like, for example, Dark Angels and Space

Wolves, they've got their little rivalry where they have, like, every thousand year, right. Meet me every year, man. Yeah. But they also have the. white scars and the Raven Guard we haven't touched on. They have issues getting back to the Horace heresy. That's 11,000 years of the iron hands

and the ultramarines have pretty serious disagreements on Codex Astardis. One of them feels it's pretty absolute. The other one's much more on guideline. It's like the pirate code. Exactly. It's a suggestion so a guideline.

Within the death watch, though, these guys fight next to each other. It's nothing. And some of the stories are cool where they'll actually, they'll get along so well that when they go back to their chapters after serving, they'll speak highly of some of their rival chapters. Obviously, we're talking about the space wolves primarily. It's most of the space wolves going back. Turns out they're not all pussies. That's a big deal, though, for especially I'll go, for my woos, is for a lot of the marine chapters, especially space walls, once you prove yourself to be a hero, you just are.

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, sure, we disagreed a bunch of stuff, but that guy was heroic. Yeah. So, Garrett, but there's so many space wolves who've come back from Death Watch duty and being like, yeah, actually, they can fight. It turns out, I saw it happen.

It was an imperial fist, and he just blast this guy in the face. Like, it was cool, like, letting you know. I do. And that's the thing is that also you're pushing forward. You have to be awesome when you're at Death Watch. Because, and this is something that doesn't get thrown out because they full.

You always play with 2,000 points in a game. Death Watch are never playing with 2,000 points. Yeah, Death Watch should have like 800. Well, it's not even that. They're also just not showing up. They've got 2,000 points that are spread out over five battles. Well, yeah, if you're playing Death Watch, I mean, let's do this. If you're Death Walk on the tabletop should be playing actually a different game.

We're like, you know, they're fighting, you've got your elder. I've got my death watch. You've got 2,000 points. I've got 350. But all I have to is get my 350 to this one thing over there. That's the first thing. And I win. That's it.

You also should be playing kill team. The Death Watch plays. They fight in kill teams. So they definitely are better. I was saying boarding action. Boating actions. Yeah. That's a really good way to play Death Watch.

It's boarding. 100%. It is a achieve, achieve this goal with your small squad. That's what they're trying to do because they're, yeah. your Death Watch should be, you should be playing your SpaceWills, and there should be a Death Watch kill team over here doing whatever the hell they're supposed to be doing. And you're supporting them. Yeah, I mean, we're never going to bring back the Allies,

but Death Watch would have made sense as an ally. Space Marine 2 does do a good job of this, though. Yeah. In the campaign structure. So let's go into this a little bit more. Another one that I like with the Death Watch is their interaction with the Admec. So in Space Marine 2, if you guys haven't played it, it's a good game. You should play it.

you learn ever, there's a massive, just inherent distrust between the admec and a space marines. I've watched the story so much. I've played the game, but I'm just so bad at shooters. Yeah.

I'm a bad, bad. Yeah. Brad doesn't have the, I mean, I'm not good at them either. Don't get me wrong. Like, I am like,

you and I both like a good turn base. Oh, yeah. I'm a turn base. I'll crush you in turnbys. I love a good turn base on. Yeah. I play so badly in shooters that you're like,

are you, trying right now. It's actually because you are a master of the ops of the shooter. Civilization. Oh, yeah. I'll sit there and play Civ 6 the whole way through. Yep. Okay.

Turnbased, anything's good for me. But I've watched the Space Marine 2 all cut scenes all the way through several times because I'm a psycho. I said the other day in our Discord, is it wrong that I psyched myself up by listening to Marine speeches before I get up in the morning? I will sit. Space Marine 2 has something. Incredible bits.

Like, there's the whole Caligar bit jumping off, jumping off the Thunderhog, like, not even caring. Walking into the, just walking into the portal. The demons, Aziz and just killing them all. The speech that they, the guys gave to the Caneans.

Yeah. Well, they're just like, I don't care what's happening. You're like, I just listen to it all the time. They've got some great stuff with this. By the way, in Space Marine 2, going back to where we're getting at,

but ADMEC playing a lot. And the thing about the ADMEC is that, in general, admec care about one thing and one thing along. And that's technology. And this creates a bit of a problem for a lot of the people in the Imperium because the admec have no care or compassion for life or especially the lives of others and they're happy to throw away lives in order to

get some they give zero shit exactly the flip side though is that you know who comes into contact with more technology than anyone the death watch so the admec have a weird relationship with a death watch because they it's the death watch are their their best opportunity to get So the Death Watched AdBak actually get along really well. That's what I'm getting at. They get along really, really well. And the Atmec really support them heavily. Well, it's easy to support on them on this because they operate in the, well, it's not even gray air.

It's not, but it's not chaos. You know what I mean? It's not infecting and stuff. It's just Xeno's technology. And why would I let that go to waste? Yeah. I mean, when I could use it. I mean, look, the truth is, Tao Battlesuits, the Imperium would love to have this.

Oh, my gosh. Change the entire. thing. Just take all the Cadians, as much as we poo on that, but like, if you could go, hey, instead of Terminator Hammer, you're all in crisis suits. Yes. Well, they would be a space. They could take Cadians or cascans and put them in a crisis suit.

That seems to be working pretty well. We lined up all the cascans and put them in down by all of battlesuits. So as we've covered in the past, a lot of the top technology in the galaxy belongs as Zeno races. And so this Death Watch Admec Alliance is. finding ways to take this technology and use it for their own armaments, but to really improve what we were just discussing about getting battle suits for casicans, this is how it happens. So Death Watch, after every single engagement, come back,

not only with the spoils of war of what left over, but also recordings of what was going on. How it worked, what had worked against. What they were doing? And then the ad may take this and they just start dissecting not only what's brought back from the battlefield, but also giving them ideas for new technology. I mean, I'll just call out Gravis tech. There's a bunch of this stuff in the primaries.

Yeah, it came from. Yeah, this, this, I, when you look at a repulsor grav tank, and then you look at Eldar, Eldar tanks. That's the hilarious part is the ad mat kind of figure out how they're going to show this without it being heresy. Yeah. So it has to be just a little bit better, just a little bit better. But I love everything about.

this in the fact that they also, the ad may do a good job of realizing we're the youngest race besides now. Yeah. You know, in the galaxy, well, of course they're going to have something we're going to use because they've had millions of years to figure some tech out. We should be using that. Exactly. And this tech is massive.

Again, for those of those who are newer to the game, you know, maybe not aware of this, but a lot of the current, like, big stuff the Space Marines have is new to the game. You know, the tanks were predators and land raiders. It was all things on treads. Everything was on treads. Now they fly, like the Elder. Yep. Just calling out.

They're using Grave. Yeah. Everything that Elder uses, Grav tanks, what not. And then in the Imperium, as of 8th edition, we're currently in 10, got Grav tanks. In the case of Admec, those grab tanks couldn't fly. They used to fly. Remember they couldn't?

Remember, all the Space Marine ones could. Yeah. Oh, that's true, sure. Then you broke that by putting them on top of a building. It's not my fault. That actually is a photo of your army. I'm not going to talk about that. Your army.

Your army got referenced in a GW article of, no, you can't do this. I could at the time. I know. Meanwhile, the ad bet got that weird transport that was like, oh, so it's flying above the ground. Yeah, it's not flying. About an inch. It has no fly keyword. Yeah.

Anyway, this technology that we're discussing here obviously is huge. Necron. phase technology, tau plasma, also even Eldar microfilament becomes really, really useful, but not only the weapon, but also the defenses to it. Because the other piece, too, is being able to build technology and weaponry within the Imperium that can withstand us. Because what we should also mention here is that all of the Imperium's sake, this new weapon, this new technology comes in.

They improve the weapons. They improve the armor. You know who can't do that? Chaos. Yep. So this is why chaos players, the space marines get better saves than you do. Yes, your soldiers should probably hit on twos because they are 10,000 years old. You should have figured it out. Yeah, you should be a better fighter than Eric who just...

But you also have the same shit you've always had. You're wearing the same sort of armor you went into the warp with. You can get a demon-infused. There's stuff to be argued for that. Yeah, but... If it's not demon-infused, it's my point. Yeah, the new Imperium stuff is just better. I mean, every line of Gravis and Primaris, sorry old Marines, but like, all you're the new stiffs, just bigger, fester's better.

Yeah. And just protects better. One area, though, that the ad mech really get to have fun is in biologic weapons. Kind of like, you know, in the modern world, we don't use this technology. Well, there's a big deal in this because most of the Marine chapters, still think of war as something they want to win, but it's still honorable combat and everything else. Yeah. The bigger one to me on that, though, is it's more, you can't use biological weapons. See Creek, for example. It ruined the planet. It ruins the planet because it affects all of you.

However, if the thing you're affecting is a Zenos, you can go much more to town and not really worry about it. So one thing that the ADMEC and the Death Watch do really well is make special biologic and chemical weapons that are designed just to kill Zenos. This is a huge deal because they've tailored toxins to just kill Tao, Eldar, Tarynids, whatever. And this becomes in the lore one of the key pieces of things that the Death Watch do. We talked about earlier about when they put a bunch of melta bombs on a, Overlord, fine. But actually, a lot of what they do is deploying these chemicals and these toxins on battlefronts to turn tides. Because, again, there's no danger.

In theory, disperses into the atmosphere and all the humans there would be fine. So it's a great way to deal with GSC, by the way. It's a big deal with the system. All the GSC died. And the non-GSC are they're like, why is everyone lying in the ground convulsing? You said this before on this with the grenades. That's one thing that I wish we had more in the game. Because in the lore, they just show up with the bat anti-shark propellant.

They have an answer to whatever they're coming against. And they have grenades that just are horrific versus Eldar. You know, whatever. This is my anti-Eldar grenade. Yeah, it does nothing to anybody else. It's just a super toxin for you specifically. And so what the Death Watch do is they deploy these things all of these tiny, these tiny little events. And they set off a virus bomb.

and now an entire section of an enemy invasion just dies in an instant. From that, I kind of want to transition from there to one of my favorite parts of the Death Watch, which is their long watches on the edges of the galaxy. So this last time a little bit, I want to dive a bit more into it. So every Death Watch member is sent to a fortress or there's another term, or a station. And these stations and fortresses are strategically chosen due to their, But they're all over the place. Each of them is strategically chosen to deal with a specific xeno threat in that area, or it's just pure dark space.

Now, GW, when they write well, they write real well, and they went hard into these fortresses. They made some of them just light years cool. So, for example, there's ones on the edge of Tao space, the Ork Worlds, there's ones that are following Eldar Krauthworlds about them. We're going to talk about those in a minute. And runs just outside the eye of terror and more. Let's talk with the main one. So the main fortress is called Talasa Prime, and it's actually within Ultramar. This is the main spot.

This is actually not placed there for Zenos. This is placed as the research hub. So all the Death Watch, this is coordinates where all the R&D work goes. They're evaluating a lot of the testing of weaponry. And it's actually, you know, it's kind of the main hub of Death Watch. But it's not like this is a, a. castle. It's not a small fortress. It's a planet. It's an entire planet. The whole planet is designed is just working on death watch stuff. Yeah. But that being said, that one's not interesting to me.

The ones they're interesting to me are the ones they're further out. So for example, the fit sphere of expansion by the Tao, there was a watch fortress called the Diath Amicles that was there, and it kind of wrecked it. Uh-huh. Well, man, they have a couple of these. We'll talk about this one, but like, yeah, like they, I have to give, they went, they went Big D. Jones on a couple of these fortresses, because they just went,

dink, here's a fortress, where? Right in front of the guys. I'm looking at you. So that's what I'm saying. We talked about us, the fifth sphere of expansion for Tao hasn't gone well. It's because as they, they began their expansion, the I of Damocles was right there, and they launched full-scale counterattack right in the towel

before they even saw it was coming. They did the same, they did the same thing versus the Kronos wing of the Ternet invasion. Kronos, it was, it was a Kronos? Yeah, I think it was. Kronos was coming in, yeah. And then at the airport station, it just went, nope.

Like that's not happening. Just like, we're right here right now. You're like, you're right in the way. You're like, yeah, we're putting on a new porch here. In the case of the Damocles one, for example, they were meant for Tao. So the Tao were beginning an expansion. They hit a force that was tailored specifically to fighting them,

knew their tactics, their everything and wrecked them. That was just so funny because the Tao had never experienced that either. It was anti-Tau weaponry and they went, what the hell is this? What the hell just happened? That being said, though, the other really

cool thing is that while like Damocles and Talasa were built by the Imperium for the Death Watch, a bunch of the others are claimed, which makes these ones really cool. One of my favorites is

Damaroth, which is a massive fortress that is actually a ring around a moon. It's like the same ago, the rings of Saturn or Uranus. No way I wasn't going to say that. No way I wasn't going to say that. But it's a solid structure. And the Imperium one day just found it abandoned and like a bunch of hobos just moved into it. Instantly, they're like, the best part is it was clearly Zenos. Yeah.

And they're like, yeah, they're like, this is us now. Yep, this is ours. they to this point have no idea who built it or when it was built. And they found six of them. And all of them sit within the void of the Milky Way. Another one is just funny. Why? Because it was, we killed them and then went, thanks for your stuff, Chump, go get your own.

So the Death Watch, unlike, you know, the last one, unlike Damroth, which we just talked about, where no one knows where it came from. We're very well aware of where Zarebek came from because they took it. There was a race called the mouhlari I'm going to go with as a pronunciation. Also, it's not like we just took it and it's not like we defeated them. We killed all of them. This story's awesome. Actually, this is a fun story. So the death will...

I like when we start off, we're like, we're about to tell how about the genocide of a race. It's batting down, guys. It's hilarious. This one is funny. So the mulari are a race that actually were preservers of knowledge and information, and the Imperium just went, yeah, that's not cool, and launched a full-scale attack on them, defeated them all the way back to their main planet, their main fortress, which is, you know, obviously Zara Beck.

Once they got there, they decided the best way to handle a race who are masters of knowledge and information is to invade their fortress and burn everything all the way down, all their data crystals, all their knowledge banks, everything. And after burning all of this down, including all of the people that were there, everything there, they, I guess, got servitors to gather all the ashes

that were left over, took all the ashes, shoved them in a rocket, and fired the rocket into the sun. Because... Like, dick move, man. Zeno technology is heretical, and we're going to solve that by firing it literally

into the sun. They also just killed the librarians. Yeah. Well, and the best part is this was a many black library, which we haven't covered yet, but we will. And the Imperium went, nope, black library of forbidden knowledge into the sun. Send all of that into the sun. They were so woefully prepared for us because they're like, hey, guys, what's going on? I'm on fire. Also, why? And then they moved in. Another cool thing about the Zarebek is that it actually sits in the dark void of space. So it's really

well hidden. So this is one of the more important fortresses for the death watch because alien races don't know it's there. Because they can't see it. And they often, you know, like a tyrannid invasion, for example, would go right past it because there's nothing there to heat. Same with Eldar.

Eldar might be able to detect it. Tau would miss completely, but they're nowhere near this. I would say they're nowhere near it. It's a very lost town. You have to get it all the way He's the township that's out here is super bum that he's out here right now. Well, yeah, especially because people don't have faster than like or warp travel. So they're out there. They do.

It just didn't go so well for him. Oh, yeah. Maybe that's the guy who reappeared here. Like, oh, we're, remember that? I'm finally out of the war. That entire invasion fleet that they went, so anybody know where those guys went? That's that. That's Zarebek.

Another cool one is his Anyukes Patrol. This is just more funny. it's not a station. It's just a bunch of warships that are kind of tethered together. The Death Watch decided to build their own craft world. They just made a flotilla.

It's the quarians for Mass Effect. Yeah. And they're doing this because they saw the Eldar Craftworlds. And let's just do that. And you know what they do with it? Hunt down Eldar Craft worlds. They don't hunt them down.

They just harass them. They're just being dicks to it, basically. You're like, why are you doing this? Screw you. It's just trying to chase them out of the neighborhood. That's okay. Pretty much. Get out of here.

Get out of here. Go on. Go on. You didn't even do a full invasion. You just irritated us and made us leave. You're like, yeah, I know. So one of the most important ones, though, and also this one frustrates me really badly, is Ariok. And it's because it's unfinished.

So there's an area of the galaxy called the Jericho Reach. This is outward tower. That's what's on the right side of the galaxy. Eastern fringe. Which is not to be confused with the walls of Jericho, which is just a lazy Boston crab. But anyway, the Jericho reach, the Jericho reach has always been a nightmare zone for the Imperium. It's over again on the right side of the galaxy.

This is the area right where they were, they've discovered the tau, and they were going to go and colonize the Tao, but then the warp storms ate them. So then the wars of Goja Van Deer, all that stuff. I was just about saying, don't play off in the fact that Goge was over here doing crazy shit. What's fascinating, though, is that while all that's going on, you know, the tower rising up, all this stuff, there was a Death Watch fortress there. And that fortress, Aeryok, is all the way over there. Now, what's really cool about this is it's obviously man-made, but no one knows how. because the construction would have been impossible this far out for what it's dated as.

And the technology to move it and necessarily move there. It's so big, though. We really go into that. It's huge. Yeah, this station should exist in and around Seoul. It's a death star. Yeah. No one knows how it got there.

And it seems to have quite a bit of technology that's more akin to before the Great Crusade. So this might be a golden age of technology build. but as we can do a second, also it would be a dark age of technology built. That's where my head goes for it, because this is effectively alien technology for us. That's where I was going with it. It's alien technology made by humans.

Made by humans, but we just don't know what it is. In the center of it is this great secret. It's called the Omega Vault, which is, it just adds core. No one knows what this thing really is. It's just a giant door with a big lock on it. They can't tell how deep it goes. No one knows much about it.

know there's a giant door and only one door. But on rare occasions, the door is open and they reveal an artifact. And it's always some sort of discovery that then leads to more mystery. You know, what I would say is, it's the room of requirement, which if you weren't such a heretic and watched Harry Potter. No idea we're talking about. You're upsetting. No idea we don't. The truth, there's three people who would be listening to this cast. I mean, I can't believe you never read Harry Potter. It'll be a couple of years in the future. I'm like, yeah, my kid and I just did.

It's fantastic. You guys are all right. I just, it came out when I was already, like, almost 20, and I didn't watch it. And I knew I bet I'd have children. So now I will enjoy it with my child when he gets older. Whatever. This tomb does drive me a little bit nuts because they get really good stories about the tomb opening and getting some stuff.

But a lot of us is codec stuff. So you never get it fleshed all the way out. It's always a partial story. And the stories are so good, I need more. And it also, the shit they get out of this tomb, also you go, where the hell did this come from? Yeah, it just appears. Effectively, the doors open. It's like an example.

So one day, the doors open and there was just a spear sitting there. And they pick the spear up on the spear. And it takes them to a, you know, imperial world that has fallen to worshiping an energy of being, which is totally a C-Tan. Yep. because the world, by the way, turns out later to be a Deccan 2 world. And the kill team go there with the spear and they kill the entity with this spear. Which they would have done absolutely nothing to without the spear. The empty would have gone like, that was why?

Why? Like, what are you trying to do? But that's the full story in that one. We don't get anything more. Another time, there's a chronograph, which if you don't know what that is, it's basically just a device that has spinning wheels on it. And it tells time. Chronographs are a way of telling time. It's a complex way of telling time.

And it was counting down to zero. And the Inquisition just showed up and couldn't figure out what it was or what it was counting down to and took it with them. So, I don't know. Like, these ones are kind of, that's what I'm saying, the stories are really cool, but they're random. Another great one is it just opens and there's a bolt gun there, just a bolt gun. Which it looks like absolutely nothing to it. It's just a normal bolt gun. And then when they look at it, it's got engravings and the bolt gun showing it was actually,

used by a space marine at the eternity game, which is like a billion light years away, not really, but like from where this place is. So far. There's no way that that bolt gun could get here without some sort of nefarious thing.

And the question is, is this really a vault or not? And no one knows. Because it feels less like this is a vault built in the station than more this is a, the station was built around the vault.

Ready for Brad's? Go. Brad's theory of the week? I think that this is driven completely by a Dark Age of Technology AI. And it gives them information based on what it thinks they need. See, what I think is an old one-esque relic

that was found. And then loaded in. I think what's inside the tomb is something from the old ones. And that's how it's the end. Because a lot of this that helps them either predict the future or gives them clarity,

in the past, it gives it, but it's always a little bit obscured. Yeah, I mean, they're giving him for it. They're also getting items that they shouldn't be able to get, I guess. Exactly. I can see that. I just, my thinking is, the way they've written it is, I think this is something that was, this is Malcador. This just has Malcador written all of it.

I just think, he would have used, he used the, he used the Iron Man and stuff like that. That's what I'm thinking. So that's why I think this is a dark age of technology AI because it's something that keeps giving you breadcrops to a greater mystery. Oh, you know, and that's actually, you're right. That actually makes more sense because the thing is, it seems to always be helping aid humanity against Zenos, which it would be weird if the old one tech was doing that. So you're right. It's more likely something that it's an AI from Dark Age of Technology that's helping humanity succeed.

Right. Okay. Yeah. I think that's a fair point. Also, they just let this happen. Yeah. I love when there's just pure heresy going on, they're like, yeah, it's probably not. Yeah.

fine. So the best part about the Death Watch to me is they, it's more from the lore standpoint, they fight the random Zenos in the galaxy. One area that I struggle with with GW is that I want to know more about what's going on, not on the tabletop. Yeah. I love it. Tell me more about what's happening over here, over there. And the Death Watch are the source of that, because they basically spend all their time interact with the NPCs of the galaxy. Every tiny Xenot race, that's not large, not to be playable, have to deal with the death watch. If you're a librarian and then all of a sudden you get sent on fire,

yeah, the death watch at that, yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, they were asking for it. They should have been writing stuff down. Stop writing, writing all this stuff down, alien, you know, good. How dare you?

And it gives us, these stories really give us incredible glimpses into how diverse and crazy the galaxy is. You know what, actually, no, screw that. I have idea. Let's stop here. Let's cut this on Death Watch, a little bit of an abrupt cut, but they're going to come up more. Next week, let's do an episode focusing on some of these random races. Because it's a good way to kind of talk about Death Watch.

My first of the cast, to be fair, there's so many non-in-game races. There's wildly more. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. So according to Lexa Canum, there are 347 non-codex races in the, The galaxy. It's so many more. I can't do all in, but this is going to be Ragdan, the Slawn. If you don't know who the Slawn are.

You're awesome. The Slawn, you're all of. The Jokero. We might do the Serootie. I'm not sure if we can do Seroot, because I don't want to ruin the Eisenhorn novels for people. What they decide we want to do them. It's a really cool thing, but those books are. As far as, and I've put this out to a lot of people when they ask what to read first.

And my go-toes, and I'm going to say this to everybody, because we get asked a lot. Yeah. I say that if you're starting to read the 40K novels, Horace. Horace heresy and the Eisenhorn books are probably where I'd start. The early Horace Harris, yeah. It's like 60 books. We should start with these 60 novels. No, you just start with Horace Ryan.

It's the first four. You read the first four. You read the first four. Then you do Eisenhorn. Maybe you do Gaunt's Ghost because it does. You know what? We won't do Sir Ruth. You know, I think about it.

I don't want to ruin that because it's a really great reveal in the book. And if you're going to go for fun, if you want to mix it in, all the Kythus Cane novels are fantastic. The canes are good. Some of the orc ones are good, too. Yeah. Those are funner reads because they're so off the wall. Yeah, this will be fun. This is a good idea.

So I think what we'll do is we're not going to cut the Death Watch at this point because you're going to come up a bunch more. I think it's a really great way to kind of tell the Death Watch stories is how, is like basically how a lot of these races were eliminated by the Death Watch. Oh, yes. And we just took their stuff consistently. Because I will say that for GW, for those of you who are like newer to this, GW writes side stories better than that.

than anyone I've ever seen. Everyone, most writers are very good at campaigns. So it must, it might just be that everyone at GW has horrible ADHD. And so, like, the campaigns, they can do them. But if you give them, hey, write four paragraphs on this random thing. Well, I mean, they're all playing. You're just doing Skyrim and Fallout where you only do side quests. The GW side bits are incredible.

With great ideas. Yeah, because they're really cool. The Slawn are ones. we'll spend a bunch of time on because the salon go all the way back to pre. Well, there's a fantasy race. Well, they're a fantasy, but they're also the ones who controlled the inslavers. Yep. Except, sorry, who controlled the ragdan.

Yeah, they controlled the ragdan. So, all right, but we'll do that next week. So this has been fun, and we're doing kind of an abrupt stop. Sorry, but I just, I have to start writing an episode now. So this has been John Barzotti and Bradchester. This guy. We'll see you guys next week.