Episode 133 - The Siege of Vraks pt 1 - Rise of Cardinal Xaphan and the invasion by the imperium

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Forty K-Lorecast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome 40K Lordcast with me, John Barsati and Brett Chester.
[SPEAKER_01]: This guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today we're telling a story of the War of Rex, a classic 40K conflict that starts as a minor occurrence and explodes into giant significance involving numerous factions and destroying the planet in effect.
[SPEAKER_00]: I enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's have fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: 40K Lord cast weekly show in the lore of the warhammer 40K universe releasing every Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern as always please continue to comment and follow the cast.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Also, as always, check out our YouTube.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got bi-monthly Q&A's or Brad Nye waxed poetically about things that don't matter, but enjoy ourselves and doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, when it comes to race, I appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's what we do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We also have some more attempts at shows coming up on there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all I call them anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's attempts at shows, a lot of swings and misses.
[SPEAKER_02]: If not even connected anything right now, so I am confident that I'm going to be able to do some more stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Additionally, you can check out our other show, The History of 40K, where Brad and I are joined by Alan pajama pants talking about the history of the game of tabletop.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you guys have any interest in this game of tabletop, check it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did a great series about all of the additions and now we're going back through talking about individual factions.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty fun, actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get a huge kick out of it, mostly those two.
[SPEAKER_00]: talking about how they made people's days bad with their weird broken rule sets.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a welcome and you want to check out like the notes to my other show Retro Recall where I sometimes enjoy myself sometimes hate myself playing video games in the 80s and 90s.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, seriously, some of them are awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: We did, I would brag to do Final Fantasy Tactics.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that game.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such a good game.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a good game.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a good game.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hardest part about doing it was it's a weekly show and I'm like, but I just want to go spend three weeks playing this now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, this is so well done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's actually really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can play it on the key.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm playing it yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check out the reboot.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We did keep the quality up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's us expand out and do more things or 84.37 South African Rand.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to Durban today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Durban was discovered by Vasco de Gama.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember him from history class?
[SPEAKER_00]: I forgot in the bottom to talk about him just now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And was discovered on Christmas Day, which is a story I like 5% believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he named it Real Do Natal.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then the British got there, and they renamed it after Sir Benjamin de Urban.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love the following, because it was where he's referred to as a person of somewhat controversial history.
[SPEAKER_00]: both of those words are unnecessary, dude was a dick.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, Durban is considered one of the hidden gems of South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've got an 8 kilometer long sand beach.
[SPEAKER_00]: They even were the oldest botanical gardens in Africa, which is kind of, you know, that's a lot of cool stuff to look at.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, I'm a scuba diver, they have an annual sardine run that comes through, which is insane.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've done one of these in the Philippines, and all the marine predators come through, those are, they're so cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: They get sharks, dolphins, attuna, everything comes through.
[SPEAKER_00]: Durbin also, fastingly, has the largest Indian population outside of the India.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's where Gandhi started his political career.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it also means that the local cuisine is a combination of African and Indian flavors, which makes my mouth water and bread GI track panic.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can literally hear and we're, you know, hundreds of miles away, your GI track going,
[SPEAKER_00]: And lastly, boys, our discord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Come join our discord.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's free because all discord should be free.
[SPEAKER_00]: People who charge for discord are decks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Join our discord, have a fun conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just love the fact that we like to start off with.
[SPEAKER_02]: alienated some people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't charge for things that are free.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just what I love.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fair.
[SPEAKER_00]: But discord's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great place that interact with me, interact with Brad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great spot to interact with the community.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great general chat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Great memes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I really like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see a lot of people coming in there to learn 40k and learn more about 40k.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think those two channels are probably the ones I take the most pride in, because it is a great spot for people who just want to
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, this game's always been interesting to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I went on Reddit and that was a bad idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now we finally got a place you can come to to learn the game or like, hey, I read one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where can I go to learn more?
[SPEAKER_00]: And people are positive and helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's, what are the biggest things we're going to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is we're organizing Friday night fights.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're organizing games before you can learn how to play.
[SPEAKER_02]: Get other people that are on your level.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I will be playing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want some more.
[SPEAKER_00]: super not a baby we're already doing it you've done one I know and we've got plans to continue to do them I believe you I believe you know what I don't really like you negative acts I believe in your intent you know what negative Nancy I don't really like your I do and maybe in the next one people will be able to hear you
[SPEAKER_02]: like 60 of the people got to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, with that, let's get to wrecks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, wrecks is a planet that sits in segmentum obscures, which is in the region of the eye of terror, just off the starboard bow of segmentum solar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this jokes on one, it's course eventually, but not today.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what I've
[SPEAKER_02]: the we're going to go well obviously wildly more into it, but this is always one of my favorites and it's in certain current engagements.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every thing, a lot of the Imperian stuff starts off with, we'll probably be done in a couple days.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is no big deal and then I don't know, just choose a number of years, 17 say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like this turned from a no big deal guys, I'll take care of this at lunch to pay what happened to the entire population.
[SPEAKER_02]: But continue like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, oh, I also like to mention.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everything we're going to cover today comes from one book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imperial armor volume five, the siege of Rex, part one.
[SPEAKER_00]: it's going to be that going.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there you guys go.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very findable on the internet in PDF form.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm looking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, hey, hey, hey, I'm looking at it right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Vrax is kind of what passes for a classic world of the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The volcanic activity had been long dormant by the time it was settled, but the surface was also completely inhospitable.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a ton of sulfur in the atmosphere, which mean you couldn't breathe without a respirator.
[SPEAKER_00]: and cause these really cool lightning storms that would happen multiple times a day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Apparently, I actually didn't bother looking this up.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to GW, having a bunch of sulfur in that atmosphere makes lightning happen really aggressively, feel free to tell me if that's true or not in the discord or in the comments.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll find out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate the information.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vrax though was settleable because they had a massive subterranean water reservoir that once filtered, there's more than enough water there to provide for a very substantial population.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, yeah, a legit population.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Vrax was settled in some of the earliest days of the Great Crusade.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was discovered by one of the original rogue trader fleets that was making us without the galaxy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Vrax mattered a lot because where it was situated.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was this really nice location in respect to the eye of terror.
[SPEAKER_00]: Close enough to allow for the exploration around that area, but far enough a way to avoid the dangers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is, again, this is before the horror's heresy and the eye of terror really blows up.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is just eye of terror post-eldar, which is still like not a super fun thing to go bounce around near.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the administrative took notice of it very early on and took control of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And realizing it had some pretty solid strategic value, post-horror sereracy, it had a lot of value.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was just saying what the big things about this is it was really just a trade post more than anything because what it was was we've talked a lot about the pathways through the warp and you come out and you translate back into real space.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was a place that you could successfully go and pop into from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: warehouse more than anything because of the fact that they had items yes from food ammunition vehicles it basically anything that you needed if you were pushing a fleet out of engagement force you could stop here fuel up supply up and rock out and this was also considered
[SPEAKER_02]: any no jump I guess is safe, but this is a super safe jump spot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so what happens is as this world grows in importance, so does this defense starts off with some orbital cannons, but by M41, it's got a full blown fortress, much, it's a full blown fortress world, barred orbital cannons that could withstand orbital bombardments, fortresses all around the plants, but with one main complex and that a star port.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that main complex has a void shield of miles, of automiles, of rings, of defenses, going out into the wasteland, and a giant garrison of troops.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is because obviously, Brax is a very good target for enemies of the Imperium.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they didn't really want those getting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most importantly, they wanted to repel any invaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: that is repel being the key word there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, let's go to the truth of the thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're out in a period of world, it probably sucks a tornado of junk.
[SPEAKER_02]: Things were not great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Your job, if you lived here, was hard, suck labor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well, the everyday and there's levels to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the population was about eight million people and it's all menial labor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But a quarter of them were indentured servants, which is slaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are people who've done something wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd wrong the Imperium in one way or another.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they'd been whatever was just really good at doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Cough cough, o-grain.
[SPEAKER_02]: They did nothing wrong besides being great for manual labor.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, man, sorry about being big.
[SPEAKER_02]: chains go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and so these people were going to work until they died.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that was what that was their sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were going to these were labor camps.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there also was a most important piece at this point, is there's a shrine there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the shrine is to St. Leonis, who is a saint, is someone who came to Vraxis, but the word of the emperor, and the people there gouges eyes out and murdered him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We shouldn't go there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, I was, I love the word that they made.
[SPEAKER_02]: This guy, a shrine, he was wildly unsuccessful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope he was trying to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll respond to the word of the Empress.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how all for name is saving.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, name is same to a successful go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I can go all kinds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Save Valentine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And really, what did Saint Valentine achieve?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not instantly dying with his eyes gouge out.
[SPEAKER_00]: What did he achieve?
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't you worry about it, kid?
[SPEAKER_00]: What did he achieve?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what I'm pulling up safe now.
[SPEAKER_00]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't you know, I don't you know, I don't you know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So on 800 or so of M41, this 400-year-old cardinal dies, and he's sitting his area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this dude was horrifyingly old.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, epicly old.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like, in tomb in a chair with like tubes coming out of him old, like mostly machine old.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he has this promising
[SPEAKER_00]: And Zethan is a very firm believer in the Ecclesiarchy and really wanted to bring the light of the emperor of the people of the Ecclesiarchy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Votes and Zethan becomes the successor for the Cardinal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Zay Fan decides the best option for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's he just took over is to go in a pilgrimage.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's gone from, let's kind of an administrative assistant for lack of a better phrase to the Cardinal for an entire region.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a patawan.
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what he does is he wants to visit every single shrine within the sector to kind of meet his subjects and show face.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the biggest thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wants to meet his subjects and basically tell, show them the faith of the Emperor and how great it is for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as he's doing this though, his presence starts setting off.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a rock band at the Beatles going.
[SPEAKER_00]: His presence sets off of riots as people are desperate to get close to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: In addition, as he goes world to world, his retinue starts growing.
[SPEAKER_00]: People there just come like, hey, I need to be with you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know this would like all I could think of.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it's not the best in that allergenic, but comparison.
[SPEAKER_02]: But all I could think of was when Forest Gump was jogging and people were jogging behind him because he keeps showing out places and leaving with more people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a lot more people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as his on-terrage grows and this thing grows, Zayfan starts to see the power of faith and the power he wields.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he sees in himself potential, potential to lead humanity to a greater place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what he realizes is back in like the administrative of the Ecclesiarchy, it's just meeting after boring meeting.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all he's doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just
[SPEAKER_00]: pouring dumb stuff back this up, Chad.
[SPEAKER_02]: He start to saw it in self-potential.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, thank you, KS, God's for the little nudge of what you could be in every night.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this wasn't K-I, this wasn't, this wasn't K-I.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was natural, this was him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was just out there seeing a suffering people and him's going around.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everywhere he went, the light of the emperor went with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he was able to serve doubters wrong purge heretics.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I get it, but like I just feel that anytime you have humor, she usually have a cast God, pulling a little bit of a string.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: And eventually, it gets worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it gets worse.
[SPEAKER_00]: But so he decides eventually to formulate like a plan, to lead a crusade.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, around this time, he's gained a lot of followers, but one of the followers he gets is a deacon by an end of Maman, Maman.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does it say, any time, Maman joins you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a great, yeah, not ideal.
[SPEAKER_02]: So go ahead, look fed up, go ahead and Google that name.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a great thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maman joins us in advisor and Maman has a great deal of knowledge, especially of the local region.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Zeven trusts him a lot as an advisor, and they also saw Ida I on Zeven's idea for a great crusade.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where he turns.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think Maman was the plant, and I think Maman began is the twister, because Maman does this next thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: He starts warming Zeven to be careful.
[SPEAKER_00]: and says, look, what you're trying to do while in the spirit of the teachings of the emperor, you're not necessary in line with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's this green position will show up and put a quick stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the auto hereticism always watching and they're always spine and a cardinal raising an army of any sort will be met with action that whole Goose Van deer thing has them a
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they're ready to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how about that?
[SPEAKER_00]: So on it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Maman advises Ethan to kind of just slow your roll a bit, buddy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And effectively says, you need to fight a spot to launch this from a planet large enough to provide them with an army, defensible enough to keep the Imperium away and wholly enough that this is all going to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Maman recommends,
[SPEAKER_00]: because it's busy, you'll fit the bill perfectly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Cardinal, they make this plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cardinal Zafan just appears on Vracks as part of his pilgrimage, like anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's there to visit the shrine and move on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once he gets there, he informs the local authorities that, hey, basically, I'm kind of tired.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to hang out here for a minute, guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, for his help again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, great time now, my go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, the local authorities are not super psyched about this because he generates
[SPEAKER_02]: even though it's good, but he generates a lot of unrest.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a lot of work for local authorities.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you've got a card note there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not built, well, but they're not built this.
[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't planning for this.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is probably the better way of saying it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're just, they're able to move security around the local sisters that the Argent Shroud show up and they pledge their support to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that kind of makes life a little bit easier.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yes, and no, but I also thought that this was one of the big things about the populist not being super, the authorities not being super hardcore because Argy Shrog could still just tell them to go pound sand and once they declared for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, we'll deal with that later.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the kind of do, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so they are saying, but have to be getting they already are in the whole example.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so they are going to try to do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they have, you know, but as usual, giant parade and Zafin does his blessings and whatnot.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what's interesting is that once Zafin's there, he kind of disappears.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's not really seen except when he's like performing the Cardinal duties at the Basilica.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's just most likely to have locked away.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the majority of his presence is actually only noticed by his, what they called ever-present minions, preachers and missionaries, always around spreading his word.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was the plan between Zafin and Maman.
[SPEAKER_00]: The issue they had is the cardinals not allowed to have an army of his own.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he could try the whole like sister's loophole.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem with the sisters is that they've got a lot of melt and flamers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if they disagree with you, it doesn't act well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they went with loophole B.
[SPEAKER_00]: And loophole B is what if I have an army that I don't control?
[SPEAKER_00]: just a bunch of people that I have no authority over but happen to act in my best interests.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not my fault if a bunch of people just agree with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know they're wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this has a name of course, the Fraterus militia.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Fraterus militia is designed that if the basilica itself is allowed to have a militia to protect it from attack.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're not
[SPEAKER_00]: the local populace can protect it, and they're not considered a military of the Ecclesiarchy because it's just a local militia helping out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So because they're on the fullition of their own, they can do whatever they want there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Deacon Maman sends out preachers and missionaries all amongst the populists, and they're out there to spreading rumors of impending and actually current attacks.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say current attacks is the big thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're saying forces are already attacking, neighboring systems.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to be ready right now to fight against the forces of
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's our spreading these rumors.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why the Cardinals actually here.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's there to muster the forces of good against these heretics and it works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because over time, your mob mentality works.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cardinals, they fans like aura begins to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: He went from a cardinal, Beth to a Messiah amongst the populace, the shining light of the Emperor, who's going to deliver salvation against their enemies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like all these movements, it spreads upward.
[SPEAKER_00]: Soon, it's not just the working class who are aligned with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the nobility on the planet, see the cardinal as their savior.
[SPEAKER_00]: Key members of the military see him as their savior.
[SPEAKER_00]: These will later become known as disciples of Zafan and some is close to the visors.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in effect, the entire military and nobility of this planet are now Zafans.
[SPEAKER_00]: The indentured servants, the lowest levels, also hurt the message of Zafan, promising them hope that maybe hey, I can atone for my crimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can fight the heretics and by fighting the heretics, I will no longer have to slave away in this camp and this death sentence of labor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, all that's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, the inquisition also here says it goes, nope, no, hard nope, absolutely not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, we've seen this one before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nope, a cardinal seeing themselves the demigod to be worshiped like the emperor.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had 10,000 years of this, a couple of few times.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have a very simple, let me check the chart of how to handle this, very simple flow chart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cardinal does, oh, kill, that's, it's cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one step, it turns out it's one step.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the inquisition orders, yeah, killing, and a sniper sneaks in the basilica.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a whole long story, guys, and like climbing up in blah, blah, blah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it gets in position, and I'm assuming, because the book refers to the assassin as a sniper assassin, not a vinsicare.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a vinsicare.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can't be a vindicare.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can't be a vindicare.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can't be a vindicare.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can't be a vindicare.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because what happens next?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he doesn't succeed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The vindicare.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sniper, he hits home, but there's a refractor field all around safe and because of his mark is Rosarius.
[SPEAKER_00]: And care round would ignore that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why the camera to be like, yeah, of course, there's a refractor field.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: Check this bullet out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Boop.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this doesn't work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sniper flees.
[SPEAKER_00]: They eventually track the sniper down and kill him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But word spreads instantly.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like, you know, if it's a movie that the bells are ringing, everyone's yelling, blah, blah, blah, blah, all of racks is now alerted that there was a temple in the Cardinals life.
[SPEAKER_00]: The enemy is here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The heretics are here and the militias, everyone rises up and they run and they grab arms.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do love give these stories that they say that the ourbites tried to restore order and I assumed that lasted for about two and a half minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was kind of all it did not even tell stories about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: They just go and they did like it was just like hey guys don't do that and we're all dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: That all happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's interesting is that once they gain control, the head of the sisters of the Argentine Shroud comes to meet with Zeyf Ali.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, what happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: And she gets immediately arrested by Zeyfans followers at which point the other sisters come what's going on and they get attacked, the bunch them get killed, those who do survive also get arrested.
[SPEAKER_00]: So within a couple of the hours,
[SPEAKER_00]: all of Rax belongs to the Cardinal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only thing that is able to happen is a very garbled message gets sent out from the planet before everything goes dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's all, literally the planet just goes dark to the imperial.
[SPEAKER_00]: No communication in, no communication out.
[SPEAKER_00]: will be right back after a quick break.
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes a few weeks before the administrative it starts to kind of realize what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look at that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Epic bureaucracy of the Imperium.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's also things go dark for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It there's two levels at the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a couple weeks before they know what's going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's months before they know what to do about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the issue is that it's a few weeks before they realize
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh crap, we've had a rebellion.
[SPEAKER_00]: On Vrax, the issue is that Vrax is kind of a conundrum.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world has 8 million people on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the world, in like the Imperium, who gives a shit?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's 8 million people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's what as we were saying before, when I was saying it was, it's the shipping lanes and logistics.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a joke.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a major, safe, this is a very well-used place in that, yeah, super off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, next jump.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what happens is they actually start running through cogitators, the effect of Brax being gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's so significant when they look at the loss of storage, the loss of the building that house regiments the move around, and they decide that the loss of racks is going to significantly weaken the imperium's holdings in the region, and remember this is where the eye of terror is in M41, and they decide we have to retake this, but the issue is how, so.
[SPEAKER_00]: These communications, by the way, start going back and forth to Terra, because Terra has to get involved because of how important this is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the question becomes, well, what do we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: VRAX, as we said earlier, was built to repel invaders.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, unfortunately,
[SPEAKER_00]: when Zayfan took it, it took it kind of without a shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of defenses are still intact.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, the people who were manning the defenses and were trained adamant that the fences are working for Zayfan.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's not really ideal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a frontal assault's just not gonna work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even with a star days, they realized they probably, the vrx would,
[SPEAKER_00]: do such terrible casualties that they started familiar with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then the next one they run is, will the star of a melt?
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll do a blockade?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ha ha, you know, suck it, racks.
[SPEAKER_00]: and then they run that through the cogitators and discover it's going to take close to 500 years not to work so that's not going to work and so they have one last option and it is an ugly one.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't do a full frontal assault on the fortress but they can land far away from the fortress and just grind their way to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a complete siege of one of the most fortified fortresses in the region.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Department of Immutatorum decides, this is possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna have at best a two-to-one casual tirasio in favor of Vrx.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is gonna be a terrifying war, yeah, the terrifying war of attrition.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they decide, that's the option to make the 88th Imperial Guard siege army.
[SPEAKER_02]: the sea charis also because of the fact that they I love that they went who could we get to just take horrible losses but not fall back and continue to move forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, oh yeah, we'll just grab a crap ton of craigsman.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're 16 regiments of craigsaw.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, problem self five regiments of craigsaw takes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they're artillery.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: No much artillery.
[SPEAKER_00]: Problem solved.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this thing is massive, 16 regiments of Craig, five regiments of Craig, tanks, and 24 regiments of artillery.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is excessive, and by the way, more get brought in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Command is given over to a guy named Zulke, who has no tactical experience, but keep a really rich family, because GW wanted to go all the way on the World War I references here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can do some black adder here if you guys really want.
[SPEAKER_00]: I may be able to go on the next one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The cogitators went over drive.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the cogitators like our how many men do we need to capture 100 meters, how many shovels to dig a trench, how many guns, how much ammo, everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the creague work, we're a secalculation, how many we need.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over and over and over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all this is done before they even deploy.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is on the flip side, they know how much they're going into.
[SPEAKER_00]: This planet's population of 8 million are all militarized.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've got, you know, Zafin has basically tiered them all out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The best military became the highest leaders as Becamsey, his honor guard, but even like the laborers were armed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: This, it is a militia top two bottom because this was a supply planet.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they have endless guns.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when they talk about the Imperium strategizing this, they considered all eight million as, yeah, forces.
[SPEAKER_00]: To make matters worse, racks is topography sucks.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, you know, it's a barren world.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no grass.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've got floodplains.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Imperium doesn't really have it that well mapped out.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have general idea of low point high point.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The defenders know exactly where all the low points at high points.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's the Western front.
[SPEAKER_00]: So red shall reigns, yeah, but it's sort of, but the trench remains that then drain almost immediately.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a very, it's a very, it's a very, it's not even that big of a deal.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a big deal for the troops.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's just annoying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's get to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is decided that vracks would be taken by seizing the citadel.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fortress is the main sea to power.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what we're going to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, it's built to be impregnable.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the ADA siege army is to enter from the West, which I can say now because it's a planet and it actually is, you know, those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not going with port?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, because now we have a West and they came in about a hundred miles away and they moved in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this has allowed them to deploy without being blown out of the sky.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the battle plan was brutal.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea was,
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's rock this though, because I think that everybody thinks of like a siege city with a wall and some stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, Imperium fortified.
[SPEAKER_02]: cities and fortresses are miles of walls and buttresses and gun-in-placements and everything out there huge.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, and in your city is basically just one giant form.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's just the fortress and then outside of the fortress you have trenches and then you have secondary and tertiary walls.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's all going all the way out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they had to get through the secondary interch year as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea they have is to come in basically from the west then spread out.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're actually going to hit these guys from the southwest west northwest and then curve over even into the north.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea was to engage them from everywhere all at once.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pull the defenders around, create panic, and just give them no clear way to reinforce and just begin to glide, bind them into the dirt, they'll break them around and take the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was not a good idea, by the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: The, uh, so the first engagement of the war goes about as you'd expect.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 88 set up their artillery and began a heavy bombardment at which point the defenders go, yeah, we have guns too and fire right back at them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except that a fender guns are in or kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: They're in place and defended, so like you have to hit the Defender Guns dead center, the Cree ones are just in the open.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it actually is in the favor of Rex and in these initial barrage.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Cree move forward and they begin the process of digging the first trenches.
[SPEAKER_00]: the first trenches come up, because again, this is Robor one, and the ADHD.
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, Kriegs here.
[SPEAKER_02]: So obviously, they're going to make some trenches.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you need them or not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, where are you with some trenches?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it happens is the problem is they discover that the vracks defenders have not been idle.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have been building.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've actually been reinforcing from what the Imperium knew about.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've made more underground shelters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many, many fields to mind fields, razor wire, everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when the first waves go over the top, it's a pointless slaughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Five regiments die, just in case.
[SPEAKER_02]: Without doing anything, five regiments die
[SPEAKER_02]: doing nothing, yet just five regiments, just got magic trick.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, popper field out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they don't even get to the opposing line.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the vracks counterattack and actually take their their trench trenches, which then the creek aren't really a stand up.
[SPEAKER_00]: They then take them back.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this it's like, and so for and that actually ends up being the first year of the war.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing happens over the first year of the war.
[SPEAKER_00]: artillery hammers and it's written that 2,000 creeks die per day for the first year, mostly just from artillery barages and going over the top.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, in the second year of the war, they basically get lucky on a breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_00]: one of the encased earth shaker cannons on the side of the veraqs had taken a direct hit and exploded, which made a gap in the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a routine mission to basically try and pierce the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: It basically would be a dick.
[SPEAKER_00]: This captain named Tyberreck and his men snuck across no man's land under the cover of darkness and leached nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: No,
[SPEAKER_02]: nobody has got going to spit whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: The cool thing is I love this because he realizes the captain realizes that we've got a gap and those I'm taking advantage of this right now they did the hero thing and it's super awesome in the right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so what they do is they actually brought some heavy weapons with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They blow up the pillboxes that are right next to them, and they actually grab this central bunker for themselves, starting shooting out.
[SPEAKER_00]: During it, Ty bark gets, well, his first injury is the guy next to him gets shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: That guy is the bones when that guy's body blow up into Ty barks.
[SPEAKER_00]: His first injury is actually the bones of the guy next to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he gets shot in the other leg.
[SPEAKER_00]: He later gets shot in the helmet, which actually, which injures his head, but whatever, he's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: but they do control it, but their vox dude died like 40 minutes ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he grabs them and tells their runner to go back, because they, you know, Craig runner, who goes back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they're holding this fighting against the racks from a control position, assuming that they're going to die, because there's no way that dude made it back.
[SPEAKER_00]: That dude makes it back in a dude's hilarious.
[SPEAKER_00]: The dude gets back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gets shot multiple times and back across the Oman's land and just stands at, of course, a steady full attention covered head to toe in blood and mud pouring blood out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Telling them, hey, we captured one of the enemies bonkers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you guys might want to go over there?
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the reaction to this because he says this and the 80s says, God, don't need to see my cards all in, they go and they launch not like, oh, let's send some troops over there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They send a full armor company with a bane blade right at that gap.
[SPEAKER_00]: And,
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's a whole great scene with a bean blade and do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But my favorite part of this is tie-brek and what's left of his dudes are hanging out and this thing in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: This always explosions coming towards them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it basically, all right, this is the end, you know, work free and discover it's actual other creativity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, cool, not today, but this one foothole, they blow through spread out, and this is it.
[SPEAKER_00]: They take the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first line of the Vrax defense falls.
[SPEAKER_00]: and after two years, they finally make a little bit of an advance.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, as cool as I was to say, except for the fact that, well, they had something up to sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So as they're pushing through, though, they're pushing, they've literally, they've got the racks on the retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now anyone who knows the stories of World War One, know about this one, when once a line falls, you actually can chase pretty well with Germans in the San Francisco, the, the, a couple times where what's it really falls, it, you get a full retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can push pretty hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it gives up, it's a big slaughter, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: That and that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but it's more of the retreat.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what happens is, I think, I've got which summer it was when the Germans pushed into the French really hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: The French extract really retreating, like all the lines being retreating.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens here is pretty similar.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the vracks notice something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they decide, all right, counterattack.
[SPEAKER_00]: And out of the north, they bring an entire armor call amount.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it comes and hits the flag of the 88th is coming down.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just,
[SPEAKER_00]: out of nowhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: It starts crushing them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's funny because one of the guys on that flank starts calling back to the 88th, like, hey, I'm looking at, I don't know, all of the tanks could someone help me out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the whoever's in charge of the 88th is like, yeah, no, we're kind of busy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, no, seriously, I'm looking at all of the tanks.
[SPEAKER_00]: I and I have a las gun, and he's told, hold out and do his credit.
[SPEAKER_00]: He dies.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, they all did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't hold out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just dies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it could be pushing forward, which means that all of a sudden the advanced towards a second line has to halt and they have to turn to the left and go engage this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just throw bodies at it until they can eventually, they do take out all the tanks,
[SPEAKER_00]: And once again, the war goes back to a grinding phase.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still made of the effort.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's important to note like any defense, each line of defenses tougher them on force.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now, the tertiary has fallen, but now we're in the secondary.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the secondary is a lot tougher than the tertiary.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 88th is pushing and they're trying to fight through this, but it's just it's not going great, simply put, and they can't really figure out why, but then they find out why.
[SPEAKER_00]: On a kind of a random attack with a sumous armor, they notice on one of the vids, they're putting in gorgons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gorgons are the super, I troop transports, and this troop transport penetrates the line of racks, and they're red, and as the troops go to pour out, a bunch of dark blue asserties are over on the vrack side.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they also, they wrecked, by the way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they just ruined the any salt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Any, it's when we are totally winning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, we are not totally winning.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is apparently the Alpha Legion was giving out boots.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody has kicking for discount prices.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's also just space Marie.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not even, this isn't even for somebody.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, space three, space Marie's guys is always getting versus higher guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is, but they don't know it's alpha legion.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the, they just know it's blue space Marie.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, as I know who these guys are, that, that, that, that's what happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: They put a call out with a picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they want to do these do it's are.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is just spread through well.
[SPEAKER_00]: asking for help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the truth is, it is Alpha Legion, specifically Lord Arcos, and Lord Arcos and his battle barge had snuck in and met with Zafin, pledging to him not only their full support, but the support of others because they were going to help them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here.
[SPEAKER_02]: The bonus also.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: He also said he was going to sell rebellion in confusion everywhere else to help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he tells Zayfan I'm going to give you troops to fight both space marines but also his cultists obviously his officers will train and coordinate for you, which helps explain some of the defenders and my agents will so chaos and rebellion all around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Zafem was like, ah, that works for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Lord Arcos also tells him more chaos war bands around their way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vrax is going to become a battlefront in the war between chaos and the
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know when, I have to laugh at this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't know when he fell the chaos, but it's pretty obvious he does it by then.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, again, I think that he was being manipulated a little bit from the very beginning, and especially with Maman showed up.
[SPEAKER_02]: That guy was chaos.
[SPEAKER_02]: One hundred percent the whole time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and when you're reading the codex at this point, you see a picture of the soldiers of Rax and they all have cult of symbols on them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those don't seem like they're not, you know, ideal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, again, also with UC a picture of the guy you're fighting for and the guy whispering into his ear is the most evil dude ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but this presence of chaos space marines changes everything for the imperative.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what happens next, I just get a kick out of because I think the dark angels are dicks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So 821, a convoy of troops is just arriving as normal because this war is just a wood shipper.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the convoy though, there's some creak, but more importantly, it's also not creak.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a battle barge called the
[SPEAKER_00]: A strike cruiser, the sort of caliban, and a strike cruiser, the salvation, and some small escorts, as real has arrived.
[SPEAKER_00]: As real shows in which is a big deal, as real's there for a few reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: One, there's a chance of falling, because they know Lord Arcoses there, and they don't know if it's fallen there, but they know who Lord Arcoses, and they went to capture him and interrogate him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ezreal also knows that if the alpha legions there, that means the conflict's gonna grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he wants to aid where he can.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, he's not wrong because if the alpha legion are known for anything, it's starting shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you ought to be, but my favorite thing that Ezreal does, he also has a moment of WTF around.
[SPEAKER_00]: How did the alpha legion get here?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he gets there and realizes, oh, there's a space port.
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys, like, no one secured the stupid space port.
[SPEAKER_00]: So basically, oh, I'm bombarded the space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you just get there and realize there's been a space port there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole time and goes, fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll deal with this is within the fortress.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's like no one, no one thought to take this thing out.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, hold my beer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really simple plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spaceport is being used by chaos to supply fracks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spaceport is situated inside fortress of vracks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Spaceport has no strategic value to the Imperium, so blowing up the spaceport bad for vracks.
[SPEAKER_00]: Totally good for Imperium.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ta-da!
[SPEAKER_00]: Successful idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: And part one goes swimmingly because it's Brad versus a star days.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just, the a star days just rush in and work all the local defenders finishing moves on a full thunder, hawk a assault goes in.
[SPEAKER_00]: My favorite part of it is because it's more, they're part because more of a tragic thing for me as somebody's been playing the game long enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: They come in, they take this like a chunk of
[SPEAKER_00]: the vrachs defenders are on full retreat, then they go to counter attack with their armor columns and discover devastating squads, which used to be really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were really good at things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And discover really quick that mobile space marines carrying las cannons is less than ideal for dozens of armor.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you look at the old Horace Heresy books and everything else with it,
[SPEAKER_02]: But in the game, you can take four heavy weapons period per squad in the books and the pictures they show.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're in a devastating squad and you're not the sergeant, you gotta have any weapon.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, 10 dudes and lots of games.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was always 10 dudes the last kind, it was fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the last kind.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they then have to go take out the start port because they get the out outside spots.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we got to blow this thing up.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I got a plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to go do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the dark angels attack the space port, that's when the alpha legion is strike because somehow the dark angels didn't notice, hey, we're doing a lot of fighting and I'll see a chaos space marines probably not a big deal idiots and so I don't know where the alpha legion is strike because they were using the verax guys is cannon fodder because of course they would.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they launch out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Arcos himself leads the assault, because ironically, Asriel wanted to capture Arcos and torture him, and Arcos just wanted to kill us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Asriel wanted to kill Asriel, because that sounded fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what I'll do, because Arcos gets the upper hand, but...
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's hilarious.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you bring your Dark Angels, one of the scariest, again, no nonsense guys is an interrogator chapel at Intermediator Armor, a dude that you don't really want to ever talk to because bad things will happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: What he's stating next to the battle at Arcos, I'm assuming, was doing some sort of victory dance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and this whole thing, because the guy by the way, is it's Belphagore, not a great name, like there's so many Belphagore probably hits hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, RCo's like is fighting as real and does get the better of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's ready to kill as real and Belphagore, who's in
[SPEAKER_00]: Black Terminator armor holding so many purity seals and all the other stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: He did an interrogator chaplain.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no mystery about who that guy or where that guy is.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's got everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're very he's very ever present.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he just apparently comes out of nowhere and
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just blast him and I mean that figuratively and literally because he hits our coast so hard that he flies out of sight and disappears, but in the end, they do blow up the starport.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vrax is ability to resupply as heavily reduced for now and the dark angels then bail.
[SPEAKER_00]: because I do care they did lose 200 of the star days, which is, but they just, they just, but it's just kind of funny because they're just like, oh, it's out.
[SPEAKER_02]: So do we dark age old stuff where you're like, did we win?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, did we get what we want it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we done here because we no longer can get the thing we wanted?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get something to this way else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now we move into year nine of the conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Lord Zulke sees an opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was given by the week 12 years to reclaim for X and that's kind of getting up there because he's nine years in he's gotten through the first of three lines.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not even working on the rest of the planet
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but so he's got a plan and his plan is effectively the Psalm.
[SPEAKER_00]: The small gains are enough every time they get a small gain There's a counter attack and then some so he's just gonna go one big push and insane
[SPEAKER_00]: insane artillery barrage followed by a massive pressure campaign, endless regiments on foot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're just going to push the enemy into breaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where they're going to break, but we're going to put so much pressure on that no matter where they break, we're going to get through them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's going to work unlike the saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the day comes and the assault everything is to plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: The artillery barrage just goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's recorded.
[SPEAKER_00]: The smoke is so thick.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't see anybody like the even Vox communications.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's weight on those, but like did it work?
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's basically a failure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the second day they do the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second day they actually get a little bit of ground.
[SPEAKER_00]: counterattack, but they gain some.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the third day, they're gaining a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're starting to actually get somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Noticeably, on the third day, he actually commits all of his armor into this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because, all right, now we're going to throw the tanks in.
[SPEAKER_00]: to which Brax defenders, they're ready for it, we're going to go counter the armor, but there's so much coming at them that even with all the planning and all this stuff, the lines start to move back where it's a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even with them moving backwards, the main fortifications that the kind of key spots are not falling.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're gaining trenches and they're gaining land, but it's not falling,
[SPEAKER_00]: over in a different section is Colonel Attez of the Craig 468th, and he has a very greedy idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, I don't care about my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, well, look, the problem we keep having is, every time we stop our artillery barrage by a time, I get out of the trench and run across no man's land and get to the other trench, they're ready for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how about instead, we get a lot closer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by get a lot closer, I mean, what if I'm not in the trench?
[SPEAKER_00]: So my favorite part is this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So ATAS is idea is, look,
[SPEAKER_00]: You guys bombard them, nonstop into the light, and me and my entire regiment are going to come out of the trench during the bombardment.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to crawl on our bellies through the mud while you're bombarding like right in front of us to the point where we're 300 feet from the enemy line.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the second of bombardment lifts we're going to run.
[SPEAKER_00]: and everyone's like, this is the dumbest thing we've ever heard, but nothing else is working, so and screw it, it's another dead regiment who cares.
[SPEAKER_00]: So go for it!
[SPEAKER_00]: they go for it and it works perfectly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, the bombardment lifts all the vracks come running up and they brought they drug heavy weapons with them into the thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the vracks run up basically into heavy bolters just sitting waiting for them and they slaughter everyone in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They start grabbing chunk after chunk after chunk the entire section falls right around
[SPEAKER_00]: word reaches Lord Zulke and he just does the same thing as the last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything into the gap, pain blades, Lehman rushes, gorgons, everything into the gap, and it just blows wide open.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second line falls.
[SPEAKER_00]: After nine years, it falls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone full retreat back to the line.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so here we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got, we've now got them all the way to the edge of the fortress now.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's only one line left.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're sitting there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've got it surrounded.
[SPEAKER_00]: They take the entire outer perimeter.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're surrounded by like 4 million creeper dead at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, however, the forces of chaos.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, hold on, let everybody know.
[SPEAKER_02]: The arcos hadn't died.
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't believe that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, arcos still live.
[SPEAKER_00]: So inside the Citadel, Zayfan is just like, nah, whatever, I'm care.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause he actually doesn't care anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Holding land has no value to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only slaughter as much slaughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause the arcos,
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'll say, well, it's more so because Arcos had brought in a crap ton of sorcerers who have been doing a ritual this entire time using the slaughter of anybody, a line forces are not to create a huge ritual.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the imperial forces on vracks start noticing this, because
[SPEAKER_00]: If you just keep this up, I'm going to bring forces to us who are going to lend themselves to the cause.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just keep the slaughter going.
[SPEAKER_00]: And around this time, the 88th have happily taken two of the outer layers.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're staring at the main fortress.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they notice things are getting a little bit weird, the lightning storms that are always constant are a lot more ominous.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sky is turning red.
[SPEAKER_00]: The clouds are shaped basically incorrectly and even the landscape starting to change.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're gonna stop there for the next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cause next week, spoiler alert, chaos is gonna show up in force.
[SPEAKER_00]: This thing's going to blow up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this rich will effectively lit the fires of Gondor.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take care everybody here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this fortress gets crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this conflict that was just a, you know, that the Imperium thought was a small rebellion on a planet of eight million is about to pull in.
[SPEAKER_00]: everything from a star days to tightens.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to get why for access.
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: This crap.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is going to be wild.
[SPEAKER_00]: I super into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next week, we're going to Imperial Armour 6.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pre-rated.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: And do you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But until then, John Barsotti, Brad Chester.
[SPEAKER_00]: This guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: See you guys then.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.