Amazingly when Xander arrives to talk Warhammer lore corrections with me, they name alien races and forget necrons. Their favourite guys and literally on their Xmas list. Please be nice to Xander. It had been a long day, but also in general be nice to them.
This was wonderful. Please invite Xander again and tell us more about WH40K. I've been interested in the fandom and its crazy lore for a while, but never had the energy to really get into it. But I like listening to your book reviews while doing chores like cooking or cleaning and it's funny and this has been the funnies and most entertaining of your videos so far. Please continue.
The best way to interpret WH40k is to disregard readonability, and stop asking "does this make sense?" And instead think: "What would a being made of pure testosterone do?"
perhaps if the space marines were allowed to make sweet, sweet love to one another there would be more than just war in the grim darkness of the far future
There is a book called Space Marine by Ian Watson available from the black library where it's heavily implied that they are all gay. It's an officially commissioned WH40K book, but it's not considered canon because of this, and I think a few other details. Tried to post a goodreads link, but it got deleted,
@@pantern2 You sure you want people reading sewer goblin material? I mean that is the book where the Imperial Fists have a shit eating ritual. At least it's not Inquisitor. Ugh
From what i've heard of the stereotypical warhammer 40k players, i didn't expect the the worldbuilding to have such homoerotic elements as "threatening to eat gene seed"
Any hyper masculine thing becomes homoerotic by default tbh. I feel like the emperor of mankind is a great example because that dude made a race of male only super soldiers and surrounds himself only with big men and has armies and armies of giant men.... Hm......... That's a lot of men Mr. Emperor....
Corvus Corax is the latin/scientific name of the Common Raven. Family: Corvidae, Genus: Corvus, Species: C. corax. Crow taxonomic designations also start with “Corvus” for example, Corvus Brachyrhynchos is the American Crow. Corvids are my favorite birds. : )
Y’know, there’s definitely writers and readers out there who are like “this is SERIOUS and DARK and BRUTALLY HONEST about HUMAN NATURE” but Warhammer started out as a deadpan satire and for a lot of folks still is, so I think your vibe in this video is perfect, no notes 👍
for the longest time i had no intention of caring abt 40k but my boyfriend really likes it and now i have to face the reality that i also probably really like it, but i also go out of my way to not really read much of anything about it. it’s still not fully approved by the neurodivergency department in my brain. i both thank and curse him for introducing me to this.
Oh I have a similar story. Friend of mine in an mmo named all his characters loyalists from chaos aligned heresy legions. He has like….probably 12 characters. I looked into the story after that.
It really was. For so many months my fav charity shop had a shelf of him! Then the moment I was told to go buy one he disappeared, leading a friend to buy me one themself. But he used to be EVERYWHERE
So a fun fact about "John Spacemarine". Ok, so there are vehicles in 40K called Land Speeder and Land Raider. Rather than being named that because they operate on land, they are named that because the person who discovered them was called Arkhan Land. So, using the same logic with Space Marines being created by the Emperor some people jokingly call Big-E "Jimmy Space".
@@PhileasLiebmann metal hands he acquired AFTER his name was already "Metal Hands." Don't get me started on Raven Raven the Raven-Man and his Raven Guard.
@@Crowcaller 40% of the Imperium's mainstream military, the Astra Militarium, are women. If you can hold a lasgun and are willing to die, there's a regiment who'll take you.
@@Crowcallerthey are the sisters of battle and are genuinely some of the most badass people in the imperium mostly because they run entirely off of faith. Big E had to shove 30 hearts into a dude to make him buff but the Nuns with guns just pray and are more effective
They also have a house-sized tank with a full-sized church organ on the back, and when they play it, it shoots missiles out of the pipes! I’m not kidding!
This is a review written with no context on warhammer, before reading even this one warhammer book, and with that in mind... please prepare yourself for me to say some pretty incorrect things. This is why half the video is my warhammer friend coming in so we can correct and joke around. I know a lot more about warhammer NOW, I promise. Don't kill me. Please. Please.
Your delightful understanding of 40k lore (which I'll be considering Better Lore) gives me flashbacks to 'If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device', 10/10
@@Crowcaller It's a (weirdly lore accurate) youtube comedy series by the channel Bruva Alfabusa, would highly recommend for the best of 40k's insanity
I've made quite a few "blood for the blood god" jokes throughout the years and now I live in a state of constant terror knowing people who have heard me say it may think I am one of the hammerheads. Aside from the shock that I've been unknowingly making warhammer references for well over a decade, this video was hilarious. What a wild setting! I already know what I learned today will haunt me for weeks.
I love this recap, as a Warhammer fan it’s hilarious to see someone genuinely bamboozled by the sheer over-the-top craziness of our special grimdark universe.
so glad to see somebody else who's very much Here For The Orks. there's something very delightfully funny about the idea of big green psychic football hooligans
OH I HAD NO IDEA SOMEONE ACTUALLY SENT YOU A NIGHT LORDS 40k BOOK. I love your little doodles so much. As a 40k fan it's always fun to watch new people engage with it, since it's such a hot mess. Props to Xander for gently guiding you through Warhammer 40k lore. It IS very funny, both on purpose sometimes and very much by accident on account of being so indescribably edgy it's often impossible to take seriously. But also there is some good character drama in the better books, but you gotta know which ones and sifting through the fifty hundred million books to find them is a draaaaaaag. As people said below, the guard books tend to be higher stakes, normal humans in the grimdark 40k world are fun to follow. (My personal favorite 40k books will always be the Ciaphas Cain books, which are actually written to be comedy. We stan an imposter syndrome king.) Also yeah all the grimdark lore stuff. Slavery, the fact that all the tech isn't computers but actually lobotomized human brains, sacrificing a thousand people every day to the God Emperor to keep his mummified ass "alive", the super duper annoying bioessentialism of Space Marines, whatever is going on with Krieg. "This is lore!" *thumbs up* YEAH IT'S LIKE THAT HUH. Much Love - your local Warhammer 40k Commissar cosplayer
The thing you have to remember about Warhammer is that it isn't really its own company. Back in the 70s there was a huge boom of Sci-fi and Fantasy for comics, role-play and wargames in the UK. As with most booms there was a massive bust and a lot of companies merged to save themselves. Games Workshop bought Citadel Miniatures and became the one major company to survive that time. Rebellion/2000AD were the winners of the comics and D&D won the RPG market. (I think D&D started in America, but it was huge in the UK. The other two are British companies) This was way before Hasbro bought D&D and ironed out the lore and the systems for it. So 40K isn't really one entity, it's a lot of entities merged into one. That's why it has the weird ten thousand year history because stuff like that was all the rage back in the 70s. It was all that sort of grand and ridiculous timeline nonsense. Also 40K was written to be a facist parody, something a lot of the edgy people who love Warhammer tend to forget. Rebellion and Games Workshop have a long history together. The Black Library, the wing of Games Workshop that does the books writes a lot of the 2000AD novels and RPG games. The Judge Dredd franchise is 2000AD and has a RPG game that is printed by Rebellion. Judge Dredd is also a facist parody which started taking itself way to seriously after a while. If you want to look into a very fun RPG made by Rebellion back in the day, I recommend Paranoia, I think it would be right up your alley. My knowledge of 40K is really around the early 00s, but whoever gave you any of the Night Lord stuff to read first, knowing you aren't an edgy boy, was seriously trolling you. There is a ton of badly written 40K out there (most of it in fact). But as a fellow writer I recommend the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies by Dan Abnett. The final book of Ravenor is a bit limp, but the rest are bangers. I also like the Ciaphas Cain series of books as they are written as a comedy, so have very little edginess in them, but also explain the Imperial Guard and its structures very plainly. The first few books of the Horus Heresy are good, but after that I have no idea. They do suffer from the edginess a little, but Games Workshop were really trying when they started releasing the books, to there was quite a bit of work and world building put into them. A series I really didn't get into, but might be worth a look is the Gaunts Ghosts series. It was also written by Dan Abnett and he took inspiration from the Sharpe TV series with Sean Bean (he said this in an interview back in the day). He wrote them before he knew 40K perfectly, so there are a few inconsistancies, but Mr Abnett is a good writer and there are a lot of my 40K friends who look on the series fondly. My, this is a long post, but for the algorithm, I guess. Also Xander, you forgot Necrons. :) If you want to look up a 40K race that isn't in the system anymore, there used to be space dwarves as well, who were called "Squats" (not kidding). A quick google search shows that they might be returning, with a cooler name and background, but they were a running joke for years. (Edited for typing errors)
Yup the space dwarves in 40k came back and are called the Leagues of Votann; the species itself are called Kin with the term Squats being an in-universe pejorative for them. I love their new characterization and hope they get utilized well in the setting. Also, the Leagues of Votann are playable on the tabletop right now
8 minutes in I am already so confused I long for the simpler times of What if Human Pets or Weirdly Hornt Up Angel Stories? Edit: I just finished the video and I still dont really understand... anything about these Special Space Bois but god did I love hearing you and your friend talk about them!
@@Crowcaller I think one of my biggest confusions was "When's the war hammer going to come in? Whose the Specialist Boi with the War Hammer? Surely there's a war hammer in this the series named after a war hammer?
@@gigitastic90 There are multiple war hammers in the Warhammer universe however Warhammer 40K was originally a sci-fi spin-off of the original Warhammer Fantasy so one wouldn't be able to find the iconic warhammer in 40K (thought two significant hammers in lore are Forgebreaker and Dawnbringer of Primarchs Ferrus Manus and Vulkan respectively). Now, in Warhammer Fantasy there is one very iconic and very significant warhammer. Ghal Maraz, the hammer of Sigmar Heldenhammer the founder and later god of the Empire of Man, used also by his successors, the later Emperors. However even that one wasn't the original. The original warhammer was that of "Harry the Hammer/Harald Hammerstorm" who has the distinction of being on the cover of the first edition of Warhammer released in 1983.
This is such a funny video and I'm having so much fun watching it. I used to date someone that was REALLY into warhammer and yes i completely agree that it's especially great once you approach it with an angle of comedy and like, not really taking it too seriously because it's pretty absurd (from what I've heard about it at least!) "You know, the universe may be war, murder, death, kill, crimes, war... But we'll always have gene seed." so true tbh gene seed will always unite us all
From the get go w40k was a satirical universe so it's definitively the way to go. Too many fans takes that world absurdly seriously and it's always kinda weird.
the world is extremely funny and the orks are one of the best parts- certainly my favorite along with the antiques collector necron. taking it seriously is a bad play, even if you're playing one of the video games it's always more fun with your goofiest friends. just have a good time and remember it's literally playing with dolls!
It would be really confusing though, since there's quite a few factions that could be renamed to "Edgelords". Dark Eldar come to mind, Dark Angels as well and sprinkle in some of the successor chapters like the Space Sharks, Flesh Tearers and to be honest - even the craftworld Eldar.
I have refused to look at anything warhammer-related because I have a feeling I will get interested in it and then it will eat up way more of my time than I would want, so I am also now in the state of not knowing what 40K is and being afraid to ask and am thus very intrigued by this review
@@LilacMage I'm worried about spending too much time on the other stuff. It will take far too much time away from my (incredibly important /s) hobby of playing semi-obscure sci-fi games. (edited to clarify what i meant)
As a Ork 40k fan. I love the Spacemarines are pugs take. Im putting that in my seecret headcannon folder ;) This made me laugh a lot. I love this rewiew.
I love how warhammer has the unhinged edginess of a 14yo boy who is really into sci-fi and keeps throwing new stuff into his super awesome cool world where there is only war and misery
It REALLY shows in Warhammer Fantasy as well. Some of the world building is so good, and then you'll have the Japanese inspired country where the literal name is Nippon, the normal name of Japan, and all of the leaders are named after Japanese car brands. haha
"wakes up surrounded by four versions (of himself)" DEFINITELY heard 'virgins' and was like "oh wow we're going there 👀" I am so excited for the rest of this video
This is to the best of my knowledge a true fact. Nostradamus was so full of crime until feral supersoldier batman started murdering people. Admittedly. Irl if an invincible brutal feral man started killing all criminals the crime rate would definitely drop
Lovely video. Haven’t quite finished it, but Xander listed the alien species and forgot the Necrons (robo ancient egyptians basically). Your incredulity is hilarious and certainly warranted, 40k can be incredibly silly. Really enjoy the content you’ve been making, if you keep them coming I’ll keep watching!
I didn't think I knew anything about warhammer, but when you started explaining the plot about the emperor and his special boys, I was violently flashed back to a friend I had in high school that talked about that story constantly. I just fully forgot it was warhammer he was describing lmao
I genuinely really enjoy it now, though in a very weird adjacent way, where like every week when I meet up with xander for dnd we derail the entire pre-dnd conversation into warhammer lore
@Crow Caller that's honestly the best way to experience it brings me back to the day of learning the game and in-between just being told insane lore and stories
@@romulusnuma116 its like we do in my idol rythm game ( which has some of THE most insane lore among its peers in my opinion, with a lot of ambiguity like "do we have vampires in this universe? Does this guy eat people? Did they just straight up murder this guy?" Paired with kind of... Self-awarness abt the industry and a lot of grey morale and a bunch of mentally ill ( former in new game) high schoolers trying to navigate the world without the therapy) - you just throw a bunch of cool crazy facts to the person's face and wait patiently. This thing works all the time lol. This weekend Im going to watch the anime series abt my Idol boys with my friend, who loves old mecha anime and white and black films and normally is not interested about such stuff lol.
I real talk really have joked about wanting to do more just... Warhammer lore joking about times because we literally already do it anyways whenever we meet up. WH40k wise I AM gonna try to do my parody fanfic i wrote after reading this book but before learning about the lore. I just want to illustrate it first
Fun fact Games Workshop, the company that makes Warhammer, is based in Britain. So you can pretty much say this (quite literally) god forsaken universe is an attack on everyone from the British government
I might, I may also just do more Warhammer stuff somehow because it is genuinely amusing and fun to me. I probably should finish the night lords trilogy but I would probably rather pick a completely different subject matter
Nonus/Maruc is a fun character that shows up in the next book, Blood Reaver and is like "Septimus, stop being sad about being a slave and take your freedom, also kiss Octavia" That's how they eventually get to a Decimus
this is a universe where evil space elves have to constantly inflict pain and suffering on others in order to prevent their souls from being consumed by an evil sex god, so Konrad's edginess is entirely in-character for the setting.
Yeah, I feel like the thing with Warhammer is everything is in character for the setting. I guess a really nice kind normal person wouldn't fit in much but. Really, it seems like everyone is doing 200%
@@Crowcaller Well they WOULD, just not in the whole gigantic meta. The stories about the humans who aren't super soldier mary sues are far more interesting.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy... Not the first choice I'd have gone with to introduce someone to the setting, but that's okay! ... The "toy commercial in book form" is depressingly accurate, albeit one where the giant mecha (Titan) and dropship costs £600+... Each.
And because I can't help myself... ~65,000,000 years ago, a race of immortal magic toads called the Old Ones rule the galaxy with their awesome magic powers. They encounter the Necrontyr, a race of really smart nerds who live short, brutal lives because their homeworld is radioactive. The Necrontyr really want to not live short, nasty, brutal lives, and ask (beg? Demand?) the Old Ones share their secret immortality power. Old Ones say no; Necrontyr declare war, Old Ones create a bunch of living weapons to fight for them; most importantly, Eldar and Krorks (space elves and space orks). Necrontyr start losing, but find these eldritch horrors living in the stars and strike a deal, turning themselves into immortal soulless robots (called Necrons) and turning the eldritch horrors into Pokemon they use to kind of win the War in Heaven. Except Heaven, aka the Immaterium, gets turned into a hellscape of suffering and horror by millennia of war with weaponised gods and stars getting blown up and what not, turning into what is now known as the Warp. So the Necrons go to sleep while the Eldar and the Krorks reclaim the galaxy. At some point, the Krorks devolve from a race of honourable warriors to interstellar football hooligans - Orks - and the elves try and fail to wipe them out, but at least succeed in reducing them from a galactic threat to an interstellar nuisance. Fast forward to about the year 15,000 CE: the Warp has calmed down, and humanity is in a golden age of science, technology, and rationality, spreading throughout the galaxy, discovering places and making friends. Then, around 20,000 CE, their AI rise up in a rebellion, leaving a specieswide trauma against Men of Iron. Then, around 25,000 CE, the elves, the powerful but aloof rulers of the galaxy torture-murder-orgy themselves a Chaos God of Excess and Hedonism, which promptly eats almost all of their space elf gods and set Hyperspace on fire. Again. And then, with Hyperspace literally filled with demons, galaxy-wide travel and communication breaks down, it's every one for themselves, and what alliances humanity had with alien powers fail in a giant free for all of survival. Jump forward to 30,000 CE, and an impossibly powerful psyker known only as the Emperor has united Earth, Mars, and the entire Sol system under his banner, and sets out on a Great Crusade to reunite humanity and find his lost sons, the Primarchs. The Great Crusade is a great success, minus one or two snags, and the Emperor hands over the last bit to his favorite son Horus while he goes back to Earth to figure out a more reliable alternative to FTL than literally taking a shortcut through Hell. He doesn't tell Horus about this though, because the Emperor is keeping it a secret from everyone that Hyperspace is actually Hell and Gods are real, on account of said Gods being evil dicks of galactic proportions and not wanting shortsighted idiots to pledge themselves to them for a taste of power. So the Gods trick Horus that his dad is actually the evil one, Horus declares a rebellion, everything goes to shit, and after getting fatally stabbed by his favorite son the Emps erases Horus' soul from existence and gets stuck on the Gold Throne, a giant machine actually intended to create that alternate FTL system, now repurposed as a life support. Cue ten thousand years of civil and not so civil wars, resulting in the Emperor's vision of a rational, meritocratic, scientific, progressive, and aggressively atheist return to the Golden Age, instead devolving into an oppressive, regressive, fascist, racist, oligarchic theocracy, with the Emperor worshipped as a God. Then, at the end of the 41st millennium, things really went to hell again; an extragalactic locust swarm called the Tyranids showed up and started eating everything, the ancient robot menace known as the Necrons are waking up, Orks are spreading and multiplying in response to all of the fighting, and Abaddon - Horus right-hand man - finally managed to blow up Cadia, aka the Gate to Hell, and a Warp-storm literally tore the galaxy in two, separated by a Rift where Hell bleeds over into reality. And that's where we are right now.
49:14 Makes sense for an ancient emperor that the official version of his past, is subject to change. Maybe all his sons left because was so unpleasant to be around.
As a fan of both you and WH40K i find it absolutely amazing how quickly you caught on to how absolutely bat shit silly the writers of WH get with some of the numbers. There are plenty of battles that involve 1 MILLION artillery cannons firing 20 MILLION shells an hour, which, when later calculated by the fandom, would mean based on the supply lines set up in the paragraph prior would have fired all of their ammo for the years’ long war in about 15 minutes.
Excellent as always, that opening section spoke to my soul as someone who has lived under the spectre of 40k since at least since I was 18 if not earlier.
I usually watch videos at 2x speed but I had to slow this one down to regular speed so I could follow all of the gun space man gun war man details. There’s SO much going on, it’s taking all three of my brain cells to understand
And here I thought this was one of the simpler books. Let me help: there's a big man with a big gun. A bigger man with a bigger gun walks in. This displeases them both.
Bricky has some decent introductions to Warhammer 40K. Also, he runs a Warhammer podcast called Adeptus Ridiculous and his co-host was a newbie to Warhammer at the start of the podcast. So it makes for a decent place of entry. 49:44 "Void War" is basically literally space warfare. Like how we have Naval War, space is the void and war in space is war in the void. The Warp is alternate dimension/hell and also hyperspace.
It's always cool to see people who only have a casual knowledge of 40k take a stab at getting to know the lore. I think seeing the reactions to the insane parts is always fun. If you ever want to try more The Infinite and The Divine is a good read.
I am absolutely adoring this review so far. I don't mind getting things wrong at all. It frankly makes the review very enjoyable. Night Lords 1 is far from the first book I'd recommend to someone completely new to 40k, but oh my god does it lead to fun content. If you're interested in reading more 40k, a generally good book to start is Xenos (Eisenhorn book 1). It's the first part of a trilogy, but it frankly stands just fine taken in isolation. It focuses much more on what the normal human society is about. This book follows an Inquisitor (essentially an officer of the secret police with way more political power than a human should responsibly be given). It stays a lot more grounded, and doesn't ever enter a warzone. It generally explains stuff pretty well too.
I keep hearing mixed things on them being great at balance or very bad. Admittedly I still am totally not knowledgeable about the game itself as I am afraid I might like it and spend all my money
@@Crowcaller I would like to say that you can play 40k online through Tabletop Simulator on Steam, with the highest cost being about 20 USD for tbt sim if you don't get it on sale and installing a mod pack. 20 dollars as opposed to spending hundreds for a full army of plastic dudes. That along with the rules being free on sites like Wahapedia, Battlescribe, or similar wargaming army/skirmish list builders I suggest if you ever want to get into the physical 40k tabletop, you should get a 3d printer since that's pretty much the only reliably way of getting models for cheap. Which feels funny to say given 3d printers aren't exactly cheap either.
@@Crowcaller They are quite good at balance given how incredibly complex the game is. ... but given how incredibly complex the game is this still amounts to a lot of pretty bad balance.
That Dreadnought looks dope. I enjoyed this as a 40k fan. My favorite books are the Peter Fehervari stories. They're a bunch of weird horror stories with Warhammer 40k skin.
Oh no, crowcaller, what kind of rabbit hole did you get yourself into this time? Now you have to take your walk of fire and rate all of the primarchs based on appearances/names alone, maybe guess who is who as well. Pro tip: just when in doubt, just call everyone "Alpharius" and no one will be mad.
Love the video, totally agree that the lives of normal people are more interesting which is why the Imperial Guard have the best books. May I suggest the Gaunt's Ghosts series. Or for Warhammer fantasy (yes there was also a fantasy series) you've got Gotrek and Felix.
Thank you for doing the hard work of reading books I couldn't bear to. I really only read seven(?) books from the Ciaphas Cain series, which is basically what if a guy ass-backwards his way into being Warhammer's greatest hero. But not in like a Forrest Gump kinda way? Like he tries to run away from a battle, then accidentally ends up discovering a surprise ambush, and gets a medal for "saving the day," which he *totally* planned all along. It's tha closest thing 40k has to (an intentionally written) comedy.
As someone who is vaguely interested in the lore, not interested in playing, interested in painting, this video is such a gift to us (very) casual warhammer image enjoyers. Theres some things I knew going into this and some I did not, and hearing you and your friend talk just...chefs kiss. I dont even normally comment I just want you to know how much I enjoyed this.
The highlight of this video is definitely the “corrections” section because holy shit it is so funny to hear about all this *lore*, if I was a talented person I would try to make an animatic from it because I really feel that the audio has that kind of potential.
Do I know anything about Warhammer 40k? No. Did I ever have any desire to know anything? Not really. Am I now so glad to have properly educated by such astute followers of the franchise 🤣? Yes. Absolutely. I will be taking my new found knowledge to my local game store. Thank you! Lovely video as always!! So glad you keep making them.
You can definitely use what you've learned from this to impress your local game store. They're shower you with free stuff because of your sheer expertise
As someone who has friends deep in warhammer, this video was so much fun. If you want a less edgy book series in Warhammer I would recommend the Ciaphas Cain series. It's basically Black Adder in the grimdark space war future. Commisar Ciaphas Cain, a guy who's job it is to execute people until moral improves, accidentally becomes a HERO OF THE IMPERIUM. He now has to juggle not looking like a coward while being a coward in the grimdark future. Every time he tries to take the safe option he ends up in a worse situation. Join the artillery so he can sit far back and drink tea while lobbing shells at people? Whoops, you've been flanked. Investigate a brothel instead of a cult hideout? Whoops everyone is a demon. It gives a much more human look at things as the characters at part of the army rather than the special space boys. They even make a joke about the 'blood for the blood god' bit.
My wh40k friends bought me it 100% knowing it was a weird entry point, and chose it because they thought it'd be the funniest place for me to jump in from
I feel like Caliphus Cain is a better series to be an intro the 40k universe bc it’s funny, and not deals with a slice of the lore and is a lot less melodramatic. But hey welcome to the tribe! Hope you try the Caliphus Cain series!
This is one of the funniest goddamn videos I've watched in a long time. I'm only passingly familiar with 40k lore, so rediscovering it like this was magical. I could listen to you and Xander discuss these special boys for at least an hour.
I'm not really a 40K fan, I've only consumed it through fan content online because the actual setting goes "If you actually consume the content you will either have a bad time or have such a good time you will never escape and lose all your money". But with my general knowledge of the setting it's funny explaining it to people. "Oh yeah a bunch of space Catholics are fighting a losing battle against bugs, socialists, football hooligans and ex-Catholics with daddy issues" "what"
I would LOVE a whole warhammer series from you if you had the time or inclination 😂 some parts of the warhammer universe have been explained to me before but i love the way you and xander have framed and discussed it - it makes the lore more consumable and interesting to listen to!
ALLEGEDLY don't fuck. They must in some sources because there's like 100s of different canon sources. But I do enjoy how they are like. Asexual by burden of caring only for war. No time for sex. No time for love. Only.... War
Ah Nightlords, never saw the appeal of space marine books, more of a Caiaphas Cain (Hero of the Imperiom.) fan. Interesting to see it from someone new to the universe.
The cards are for keeping track of stats and objectives, so you know what dice to roll and you know when you are scoring victory points I am fairly certain that the god who said "Fuck this I'm out" is Nurgle since the Night Lords are interesting in rebelling against their fates and thus not useful to Nurgle at all, since Nurgle among being the god of rot and life is also the god of stagnation and acceptance. Of "If you accept it, it won't hurt as much". The one who offered power is Khorne, and the one who offered foresight is Tzeentch. Slaanesh is the last one by process of elimination.
@@soupstoreclothing Slaanesh is also the god of perfectionism, meaning that everyone who's ever spent a 12hr day on a task to get it "just right" falls under purview. It could have been that Slaanesh made them unable to be fatigued, or gave them a sort of perfectionist ability to spot flaws, both real and perceived.
As somewhat as a nerd, I really enjoyed this take. Haven't made it through a book about the big boys, yet though, but I enjoyed Caiaphas Cain. Also, have mandatory "PURGE THE HERETICS!! BRING THE FLAMER, THE HEAVY FLAMER!!"
Far as I'm aware, from my limited perspective, it's kind of an insane amalgamation of many different sci-fi/fantasy concepts pumped full of pure nihilism and cosmic horror. And a bit of Michael Moorcock on the side
I found your channel a bit ago, but felt I had to work up to this watch. I am acquainted with someone who has written for WH40K and I was going to purchase one or more of his books to support his writing. However, upon finding out that 1. There are eleventybillion WH40K books and 2. The books I sought are not considered entry-point books and 3. The recommended entry-point books are not even the first books released - my completionist/read them in order brain seized up and I had given up on ever knowing anything about this universe. Long way 'round to say thank you for your video and the comments as well that have reasured me that I would find the whole thing too silly, might end up mocking my acquaintance, and be wasting my money anyway and I can now continue along my merry way.
@@Crowcaller I watched it first actually and send both to my friend that also likes wh40k and understands how hilarious those vids are (she loved both) and my husband watched and loved this video too and i even posted a youtube link to my meme telegram channel!! world should witness
Amazingly when Xander arrives to talk Warhammer lore corrections with me, they name alien races and forget necrons. Their favourite guys and literally on their Xmas list. Please be nice to Xander. It had been a long day, but also in general be nice to them.
please i love necrons i read the infinite and the divine and it’s my favourite novel (rivalled by many of the ciaphas cain novels)
necrons :)
This was wonderful. Please invite Xander again and tell us more about WH40K.
I've been interested in the fandom and its crazy lore for a while, but never had the energy to really get into it. But I like listening to your book reviews while doing chores like cooking or cleaning and it's funny and this has been the funnies and most entertaining of your videos so far. Please continue.
you could get the audiobook of some of the many wh40k books
The best way to interpret WH40k is to disregard readonability, and stop asking "does this make sense?" And instead think: "What would a being made of pure testosterone do?"
"what if a man had a bigger gun? And what if that man was even taller?"
Create an entire planet that’s just WWI, but worse and with nukes (and name it Krieg of course)
@@Crowcallerexactly
@@Crowcaller”and what if this man had his sack in his throat ?”
And make it super edgy in a fun way
As a British Taxpayers I'm happy that my tax money went to something I agree with for once
personally I feel like the government's warhammer budget is out of control
@@Crowcaller Do you think rishi plays tyranids
@@justelliot4870 Damn you killed me with this comment! 😂😂
perhaps if the space marines were allowed to make sweet, sweet love to one another there would be more than just war in the grim darkness of the far future
All’s fair in love and war
Love.... Hammer .........
(Which. Does indeed sound like a euphanism for the penis of a space marine, huh)
I can assure you, so many people write that exact scenario
There is a book called Space Marine by Ian Watson available from the black library where it's heavily implied that they are all gay. It's an officially commissioned WH40K book, but it's not considered canon because of this, and I think a few other details.
Tried to post a goodreads link, but it got deleted,
@@pantern2 You sure you want people reading sewer goblin material? I mean that is the book where the Imperial Fists have a shit eating ritual. At least it's not Inquisitor. Ugh
"When you put gene seed in a kid, you basically become their second dad" sounds like a horrible ad lib result
I dunno, think I nailed it
@@Crowcaller oh absolutely, like always. (Thanks for the consistently great listening content!)
From what i've heard of the stereotypical warhammer 40k players, i didn't expect the the worldbuilding to have such homoerotic elements as "threatening to eat gene seed"
Any hyper masculine thing becomes homoerotic by default tbh. I feel like the emperor of mankind is a great example because that dude made a race of male only super soldiers and surrounds himself only with big men and has armies and armies of giant men.... Hm......... That's a lot of men Mr. Emperor....
@@Crowcaller [Dr. Frank-N-Furter voice] "They bear the Charles Atlas Seal of Approval!"
....just wait till you hear about the Tyranids....
I mean gay sex is the most masuline type of sex.
@@nobody4248 can't argue with that
If you hate the name Konrad Curze, wait till you hear about Corvus Corax. His name is literally just ‘Raven Raven’.
I originally planned to just go through a wiki and make my top best silly names list
Dont forget Ferrus Manus, or Iron Hands, leader of the Iron Hands
For shame, nobody has mentioned Angron. Guess what his shtick is. Go on. Guess.
@@TheGallantDrake getting nailed!
Corvus Corax is the latin/scientific name of the Common Raven. Family: Corvidae, Genus: Corvus, Species: C. corax. Crow taxonomic designations also start with “Corvus” for example, Corvus Brachyrhynchos is the American Crow. Corvids are my favorite birds. : )
Y’know, there’s definitely writers and readers out there who are like “this is SERIOUS and DARK and BRUTALLY HONEST about HUMAN NATURE” but Warhammer started out as a deadpan satire and for a lot of folks still is, so I think your vibe in this video is perfect, no notes 👍
Its fantasy in space
29:29 “There is only war. Hammer.” That got an audible laugh out of me
40k is about finding your favorite villain and rooting for them kill all other villains.
for the longest time i had no intention of caring abt 40k but my boyfriend really likes it and now i have to face the reality that i also probably really like it, but i also go out of my way to not really read much of anything about it. it’s still not fully approved by the neurodivergency department in my brain. i both thank and curse him for introducing me to this.
also this video is fucking hilarious, incredible work
I assumed I'd really find it boring but I do now enjoy knowing about it, at the very least for the sake of jokes
Oh I have a similar story. Friend of mine in an mmo named all his characters loyalists from chaos aligned heresy legions. He has like….probably 12 characters. I looked into the story after that.
The true heresies were the friends we made along the way ❤
I need this as a tahirt 😂😂😂
A spectre is haunting Crow Caller. The spectre of mr john spacemarine
It really was. For so many months my fav charity shop had a shelf of him! Then the moment I was told to go buy one he disappeared, leading a friend to buy me one themself. But he used to be EVERYWHERE
So a fun fact about "John Spacemarine".
Ok, so there are vehicles in 40K called Land Speeder and Land Raider. Rather than being named that because they operate on land, they are named that because the person who discovered them was called Arkhan Land.
So, using the same logic with Space Marines being created by the Emperor some people jokingly call Big-E "Jimmy Space".
Don't make too much fun of Konrad Curze for his funny name. His brother is named Ferrus Manus and his boys are the Iron Hands.
Incidentally named not for Ferrus's name itself btw, but for his actual metal hands.
@@PhileasLiebmann metal hands he acquired AFTER his name was already "Metal Hands."
Don't get me started on Raven Raven the Raven-Man and his Raven Guard.
Or Vulcan, the Big Black Dude, and his army of Giant Black Dudes called the Salamanders.
Yes, there are women in 40K! With flamethrowers! And they sing while shooting them at the Emperor's enemies!
There are!! I was genuinely unsure but do know now there are various ladies. Still want more
And if they're Argent Shroud, they'll sprint directly at you full pelt while doing it.
@@Crowcaller 40% of the Imperium's mainstream military, the Astra Militarium, are women. If you can hold a lasgun and are willing to die, there's a regiment who'll take you.
@@Crowcallerthey are the sisters of battle and are genuinely some of the most badass people in the imperium mostly because they run entirely off of faith. Big E had to shove 30 hearts into a dude to make him buff but the Nuns with guns just pray and are more effective
They also have a house-sized tank with a full-sized church organ on the back, and when they play it, it shoots missiles out of the pipes!
I’m not kidding!
This is a review written with no context on warhammer, before reading even this one warhammer book, and with that in mind... please prepare yourself for me to say some pretty incorrect things. This is why half the video is my warhammer friend coming in so we can correct and joke around. I know a lot more about warhammer NOW, I promise. Don't kill me. Please. Please.
Knowing what you do now, what faction of Chaos are you
@@altcenter4944 Obviously that's a dumb question. The only faction is ORK! Grow big, GROW BIGGER!
@@altcenter4944 I'm with other commenter, Ork side seems like the best side I choose them
Suffice to say, this book isn't a good place to start.
"If you have been mailed a warhammer trilogy by the British government, you may be entitled to monetary compensation"
About the main characters being over 10000 years old, time works differently in the warp so determining their age is close to inpossible
Everyone's however old they need to be and as young as they must be in order to suit the timeline
I need a podcast of you two discussing this for hours. It's hilarious 😂 AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT 40K
It's just. Very fun
I second this idea!
I'm way late but you might like Adeptus Ridiculous
Can I just say how glad I am that you decided to continue making videos? Because I am so, SO glad. 🥰
It's just been fun, I have really enjoyed sticking with it
Your delightful understanding of 40k lore (which I'll be considering Better Lore) gives me flashbacks to 'If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device', 10/10
I don't know what this is but really. That dude should get one. He can finally tell everyone to stop wprshipping him as a god!
I love emperor tts….
@@Crowcaller It's a (weirdly lore accurate) youtube comedy series by the channel Bruva Alfabusa, would highly recommend for the best of 40k's insanity
@@Crowcaller That was a really beloved fan series, and...yes, he did tell people to stop worshipping him as a god, though he still had an ego.
“In the end the real Horus heresy is the friends we made along the way. The End”
-Pete McWarhammer40kwriter
I've made quite a few "blood for the blood god" jokes throughout the years and now I live in a state of constant terror knowing people who have heard me say it may think I am one of the hammerheads. Aside from the shock that I've been unknowingly making warhammer references for well over a decade, this video was hilarious. What a wild setting! I already know what I learned today will haunt me for weeks.
Blood for the blood god is just such a powerful phrase on its own. But it turns out there really is just a god who really would like more blood in 40k
So this is also the source of “by Talos this can’t be happening”?
Blood for the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne! Milk for the Khorne flakes!
by talos is from skyrim about the god king talos who was outlawed for worship by the imperials
I love this recap, as a Warhammer fan it’s hilarious to see someone genuinely bamboozled by the sheer over-the-top craziness of our special grimdark universe.
so glad to see somebody else who's very much Here For The Orks. there's something very delightfully funny about the idea of big green psychic football hooligans
Ork players also tend to be more fun
Wow this is such a cursed book for your first entry in to the series, can't wait to see what you think if it haha
I didn't pick it, the British government did :((
@@Crowcaller You should slap them then. There are FARRRR better tales to get into from the setting.
OH I HAD NO IDEA SOMEONE ACTUALLY SENT YOU A NIGHT LORDS 40k BOOK. I love your little doodles so much. As a 40k fan it's always fun to watch new people engage with it, since it's such a hot mess. Props to Xander for gently guiding you through Warhammer 40k lore. It IS very funny, both on purpose sometimes and very much by accident on account of being so indescribably edgy it's often impossible to take seriously. But also there is some good character drama in the better books, but you gotta know which ones and sifting through the fifty hundred million books to find them is a draaaaaaag. As people said below, the guard books tend to be higher stakes, normal humans in the grimdark 40k world are fun to follow. (My personal favorite 40k books will always be the Ciaphas Cain books, which are actually written to be comedy. We stan an imposter syndrome king.)
Also yeah all the grimdark lore stuff. Slavery, the fact that all the tech isn't computers but actually lobotomized human brains, sacrificing a thousand people every day to the God Emperor to keep his mummified ass "alive", the super duper annoying bioessentialism of Space Marines, whatever is going on with Krieg.
"This is lore!" *thumbs up* YEAH IT'S LIKE THAT HUH.
Much Love - your local Warhammer 40k Commissar cosplayer
you don’t even have to care that much about 40k to experience the joy of Ciaphas Cain imo
Ciaphas Cain is the gateway drug to 40k.
The thing you have to remember about Warhammer is that it isn't really its own company. Back in the 70s there was a huge boom of Sci-fi and Fantasy for comics, role-play and wargames in the UK. As with most booms there was a massive bust and a lot of companies merged to save themselves. Games Workshop bought Citadel Miniatures and became the one major company to survive that time. Rebellion/2000AD were the winners of the comics and D&D won the RPG market. (I think D&D started in America, but it was huge in the UK. The other two are British companies) This was way before Hasbro bought D&D and ironed out the lore and the systems for it.
So 40K isn't really one entity, it's a lot of entities merged into one. That's why it has the weird ten thousand year history because stuff like that was all the rage back in the 70s. It was all that sort of grand and ridiculous timeline nonsense. Also 40K was written to be a facist parody, something a lot of the edgy people who love Warhammer tend to forget.
Rebellion and Games Workshop have a long history together. The Black Library, the wing of Games Workshop that does the books writes a lot of the 2000AD novels and RPG games. The Judge Dredd franchise is 2000AD and has a RPG game that is printed by Rebellion. Judge Dredd is also a facist parody which started taking itself way to seriously after a while.
If you want to look into a very fun RPG made by Rebellion back in the day, I recommend Paranoia, I think it would be right up your alley.
My knowledge of 40K is really around the early 00s, but whoever gave you any of the Night Lord stuff to read first, knowing you aren't an edgy boy, was seriously trolling you.
There is a ton of badly written 40K out there (most of it in fact). But as a fellow writer I recommend the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies by Dan Abnett. The final book of Ravenor is a bit limp, but the rest are bangers. I also like the Ciaphas Cain series of books as they are written as a comedy, so have very little edginess in them, but also explain the Imperial Guard and its structures very plainly.
The first few books of the Horus Heresy are good, but after that I have no idea. They do suffer from the edginess a little, but Games Workshop were really trying when they started releasing the books, to there was quite a bit of work and world building put into them.
A series I really didn't get into, but might be worth a look is the Gaunts Ghosts series. It was also written by Dan Abnett and he took inspiration from the Sharpe TV series with Sean Bean (he said this in an interview back in the day). He wrote them before he knew 40K perfectly, so there are a few inconsistancies, but Mr Abnett is a good writer and there are a lot of my 40K friends who look on the series fondly.
My, this is a long post, but for the algorithm, I guess.
Also Xander, you forgot Necrons. :)
If you want to look up a 40K race that isn't in the system anymore, there used to be space dwarves as well, who were called "Squats" (not kidding). A quick google search shows that they might be returning, with a cooler name and background, but they were a running joke for years.
(Edited for typing errors)
Yup the space dwarves in 40k came back and are called the Leagues of Votann; the species itself are called Kin with the term Squats being an in-universe pejorative for them.
I love their new characterization and hope they get utilized well in the setting. Also, the Leagues of Votann are playable on the tabletop right now
8 minutes in I am already so confused I long for the simpler times of What if Human Pets or Weirdly Hornt Up Angel Stories? Edit: I just finished the video and I still dont really understand... anything about these Special Space Bois but god did I love hearing you and your friend talk about them!
Let me help. They're big men who are friends with bigger men. They all have big guns. Some have bigger guns. Hope this helps
@@Crowcaller I think one of my biggest confusions was "When's the war hammer going to come in? Whose the Specialist Boi with the War Hammer? Surely there's a war hammer in this the series named after a war hammer?
@@gigitastic90 There are multiple war hammers in the Warhammer universe however Warhammer 40K was originally a sci-fi spin-off of the original Warhammer Fantasy so one wouldn't be able to find the iconic warhammer in 40K (thought two significant hammers in lore are Forgebreaker and Dawnbringer of Primarchs Ferrus Manus and Vulkan respectively).
Now, in Warhammer Fantasy there is one very iconic and very significant warhammer. Ghal Maraz, the hammer of Sigmar Heldenhammer the founder and later god of the Empire of Man, used also by his successors, the later Emperors. However even that one wasn't the original.
The original warhammer was that of "Harry the Hammer/Harald Hammerstorm" who has the distinction of being on the cover of the first edition of Warhammer released in 1983.
@@gokbay3057 Thank you so much for taking the time to explain to me! I felt like if I googled it I would be absolutely lost.
@@gokbay3057 and that's why Sigmar is actually better then big E.
This is such a funny video and I'm having so much fun watching it. I used to date someone that was REALLY into warhammer and yes i completely agree that it's especially great once you approach it with an angle of comedy and like, not really taking it too seriously because it's pretty absurd (from what I've heard about it at least!)
"You know, the universe may be war, murder, death, kill, crimes, war... But we'll always have gene seed." so true tbh gene seed will always unite us all
Yeah, it has accidentally fallen into my life and now I embrace it as a very fun little confusing giant world
From the get go w40k was a satirical universe so it's definitively the way to go. Too many fans takes that world absurdly seriously and it's always kinda weird.
the world is extremely funny and the orks are one of the best parts- certainly my favorite along with the antiques collector necron. taking it seriously is a bad play, even if you're playing one of the video games it's always more fun with your goofiest friends. just have a good time and remember it's literally playing with dolls!
The Emperor's vision for his Imperium was a human race united by cum
Petition to rename the night lords the edgelords
They should be
It would be really confusing though, since there's quite a few factions that could be renamed to "Edgelords". Dark Eldar come to mind, Dark Angels as well and sprinkle in some of the successor chapters like the Space Sharks, Flesh Tearers and to be honest - even the craftworld Eldar.
Pizza Cutter Lords; all edge, no point, and completely redundant.
I have refused to look at anything warhammer-related because I have a feeling I will get interested in it and then it will eat up way more of my time than I would want, so I am also now in the state of not knowing what 40K is and being afraid to ask and am thus very intrigued by this review
Join us, we have funny green British hooligans that just wanna have fun and fight
One of us
You dont have to buy the plastic crack. There are books and other delights to suffer. :P
@@LilacMage I'm worried about spending too much time on the other stuff. It will take far too much time away from my (incredibly important /s) hobby of playing semi-obscure sci-fi games.
(edited to clarify what i meant)
@@3XHSi meam they got video games
As a Ork 40k fan. I love the Spacemarines are pugs take. Im putting that in my seecret headcannon folder ;) This made me laugh a lot. I love this rewiew.
This feels like someone read dune and wanted it to be about war and orcs
I wish there were more orks :((
Dune was a big influence on it, the original creators even said so.
I love how warhammer has the unhinged edginess of a 14yo boy who is really into sci-fi and keeps throwing new stuff into his super awesome cool world where there is only war and misery
It REALLY shows in Warhammer Fantasy as well. Some of the world building is so good, and then you'll have the Japanese inspired country where the literal name is Nippon, the normal name of Japan, and all of the leaders are named after Japanese car brands. haha
We just got biker dwarves from space back :)
As a 90's 40k fan, we should have gatekeeped the setting harder....
@@MarquisLeary34 no shame in loving a little cringe. I'm really into winx club so...
@@sabrinabeeart Valid, but I still say it's a bit different when you watch it all happen in real time like my fellow Oldhammer fans did.
"wakes up surrounded by four versions (of himself)" DEFINITELY heard 'virgins' and was like "oh wow we're going there 👀"
I am so excited for the rest of this video
Crow, if you want a book about Orks read Brutal Kunnin’ it’s an amazingly hilarious book from the perspective of the orks
the corrections section satisfies my innate need to listen to someone nerd out about something I know nothing about but they both enjoy and criticise
amazing summaries, especially the Death Note-style take that a Super Murder Man is what it takes to end crime lol
This is to the best of my knowledge a true fact. Nostradamus was so full of crime until feral supersoldier batman started murdering people. Admittedly. Irl if an invincible brutal feral man started killing all criminals the crime rate would definitely drop
Lovely video. Haven’t quite finished it, but Xander listed the alien species and forgot the Necrons (robo ancient egyptians basically). Your incredulity is hilarious and certainly warranted, 40k can be incredibly silly. Really enjoy the content you’ve been making, if you keep them coming I’ll keep watching!
FUCK I KNEW I FORGOT SOMEONE
This is the funniest thing BC necrons are like xanders fav I stg. Certainly the ones on their Xmas gift list
I DO LOVE NECRONS :(((((((((
necrons
I didn't think I knew anything about warhammer, but when you started explaining the plot about the emperor and his special boys, I was violently flashed back to a friend I had in high school that talked about that story constantly. I just fully forgot it was warhammer he was describing lmao
As someone who is way too into warhammer I am so interested to hear about it from someone who isn't that into it
I genuinely really enjoy it now, though in a very weird adjacent way, where like every week when I meet up with xander for dnd we derail the entire pre-dnd conversation into warhammer lore
@Crow Caller that's honestly the best way to experience it brings me back to the day of learning the game and in-between just being told insane lore and stories
@@romulusnuma116 its like we do in my idol rythm game ( which has some of THE most insane lore among its peers in my opinion, with a lot of ambiguity like "do we have vampires in this universe? Does this guy eat people? Did they just straight up murder this guy?" Paired with kind of... Self-awarness abt the industry and a lot of grey morale and a bunch of mentally ill ( former in new game) high schoolers trying to navigate the world without the therapy) - you just throw a bunch of cool crazy facts to the person's face and wait patiently. This thing works all the time lol.
This weekend Im going to watch the anime series abt my Idol boys with my friend, who loves old mecha anime and white and black films and normally is not interested about such stuff lol.
I'm begging you to make more videos like this, the lore roasting is so much fun
I real talk really have joked about wanting to do more just... Warhammer lore joking about times because we literally already do it anyways whenever we meet up. WH40k wise I AM gonna try to do my parody fanfic i wrote after reading this book but before learning about the lore. I just want to illustrate it first
@@Crowcaller Yes, yes please. Either would be so good
Fun fact Games Workshop, the company that makes Warhammer, is based in Britain. So you can pretty much say this (quite literally) god forsaken universe is an attack on everyone from the British government
How could Mr James workshop do this.....
Rewatching this again. It's such a fun video, I hope you'll read more from the series because hearing your take on it is seriously fun
I might, I may also just do more Warhammer stuff somehow because it is genuinely amusing and fun to me. I probably should finish the night lords trilogy but I would probably rather pick a completely different subject matter
Nonus/Maruc is a fun character that shows up in the next book, Blood Reaver and is like "Septimus, stop being sad about being a slave and take your freedom, also kiss Octavia"
That's how they eventually get to a Decimus
this is a universe where evil space elves have to constantly inflict pain and suffering on others in order to prevent their souls from being consumed by an evil sex god, so Konrad's edginess is entirely in-character for the setting.
Yeah, I feel like the thing with Warhammer is everything is in character for the setting. I guess a really nice kind normal person wouldn't fit in much but. Really, it seems like everyone is doing 200%
@@Crowcaller it helps that official policy to resolve mutually contradictory stories is "Everything is canon; not everything is true."
Though i think with konrad its a bad mix of upbringing, abilities and a tiny bit of braindiddling
@@Crowcaller Well they WOULD, just not in the whole gigantic meta. The stories about the humans who aren't super soldier mary sues are far more interesting.
@Crowcaller i am the conquerer of worlds thr leader of the the bloodbmoon legion i am
Steve
Steven johnson
Oh boy oh boy oh boy... Not the first choice I'd have gone with to introduce someone to the setting, but that's okay!
... The "toy commercial in book form" is depressingly accurate, albeit one where the giant mecha (Titan) and dropship costs £600+... Each.
And because I can't help myself...
~65,000,000 years ago, a race of immortal magic toads called the Old Ones rule the galaxy with their awesome magic powers. They encounter the Necrontyr, a race of really smart nerds who live short, brutal lives because their homeworld is radioactive. The Necrontyr really want to not live short, nasty, brutal lives, and ask (beg? Demand?) the Old Ones share their secret immortality power. Old Ones say no; Necrontyr declare war, Old Ones create a bunch of living weapons to fight for them; most importantly, Eldar and Krorks (space elves and space orks). Necrontyr start losing, but find these eldritch horrors living in the stars and strike a deal, turning themselves into immortal soulless robots (called Necrons) and turning the eldritch horrors into Pokemon they use to kind of win the War in Heaven. Except Heaven, aka the Immaterium, gets turned into a hellscape of suffering and horror by millennia of war with weaponised gods and stars getting blown up and what not, turning into what is now known as the Warp. So the Necrons go to sleep while the Eldar and the Krorks reclaim the galaxy. At some point, the Krorks devolve from a race of honourable warriors to interstellar football hooligans - Orks - and the elves try and fail to wipe them out, but at least succeed in reducing them from a galactic threat to an interstellar nuisance.
Fast forward to about the year 15,000 CE: the Warp has calmed down, and humanity is in a golden age of science, technology, and rationality, spreading throughout the galaxy, discovering places and making friends. Then, around 20,000 CE, their AI rise up in a rebellion, leaving a specieswide trauma against Men of Iron.
Then, around 25,000 CE, the elves, the powerful but aloof rulers of the galaxy torture-murder-orgy themselves a Chaos God of Excess and Hedonism, which promptly eats almost all of their space elf gods and set Hyperspace on fire. Again. And then, with Hyperspace literally filled with demons, galaxy-wide travel and communication breaks down, it's every one for themselves, and what alliances humanity had with alien powers fail in a giant free for all of survival.
Jump forward to 30,000 CE, and an impossibly powerful psyker known only as the Emperor has united Earth, Mars, and the entire Sol system under his banner, and sets out on a Great Crusade to reunite humanity and find his lost sons, the Primarchs. The Great Crusade is a great success, minus one or two snags, and the Emperor hands over the last bit to his favorite son Horus while he goes back to Earth to figure out a more reliable alternative to FTL than literally taking a shortcut through Hell. He doesn't tell Horus about this though, because the Emperor is keeping it a secret from everyone that Hyperspace is actually Hell and Gods are real, on account of said Gods being evil dicks of galactic proportions and not wanting shortsighted idiots to pledge themselves to them for a taste of power.
So the Gods trick Horus that his dad is actually the evil one, Horus declares a rebellion, everything goes to shit, and after getting fatally stabbed by his favorite son the Emps erases Horus' soul from existence and gets stuck on the Gold Throne, a giant machine actually intended to create that alternate FTL system, now repurposed as a life support.
Cue ten thousand years of civil and not so civil wars, resulting in the Emperor's vision of a rational, meritocratic, scientific, progressive, and aggressively atheist return to the Golden Age, instead devolving into an oppressive, regressive, fascist, racist, oligarchic theocracy, with the Emperor worshipped as a God.
Then, at the end of the 41st millennium, things really went to hell again; an extragalactic locust swarm called the Tyranids showed up and started eating everything, the ancient robot menace known as the Necrons are waking up, Orks are spreading and multiplying in response to all of the fighting, and Abaddon - Horus right-hand man - finally managed to blow up Cadia, aka the Gate to Hell, and a Warp-storm literally tore the galaxy in two, separated by a Rift where Hell bleeds over into reality.
And that's where we are right now.
"John Spacemarine" excuse you that is James W. Orkshop
You're mistaken. James Workshop is the scientist, John Spacemarine is the monster
49:14 Makes sense for an ancient emperor that the official version of his past, is subject to change. Maybe all his sons left because was so unpleasant to be around.
As a fan of both you and WH40K i find it absolutely amazing how quickly you caught on to how absolutely bat shit silly the writers of WH get with some of the numbers. There are plenty of battles that involve 1 MILLION artillery cannons firing 20 MILLION shells an hour, which, when later calculated by the fandom, would mean based on the supply lines set up in the paragraph prior would have fired all of their ammo for the years’ long war in about 15 minutes.
Maybe the REAL war was the hammers we made along the way.
Blacksmith motto
Excellent as always, that opening section spoke to my soul as someone who has lived under the spectre of 40k since at least since I was 18 if not earlier.
It really used to follow me around in charity book shops. And then I was SO deeply confused to find it had a WHOLE STORE in town, even....
I usually watch videos at 2x speed but I had to slow this one down to regular speed so I could follow all of the gun space man gun war man details. There’s SO much going on, it’s taking all three of my brain cells to understand
And here I thought this was one of the simpler books. Let me help: there's a big man with a big gun. A bigger man with a bigger gun walks in. This displeases them both.
Ah yes. It all becomes clear
I'm going to destroy my husband by asking about his shootie boys.
Now you have so much more real definite context!
I loved this much. I also know absolutely nothing about Warhammer but the gene seed conversation had me giggling.
Bricky has some decent introductions to Warhammer 40K.
Also, he runs a Warhammer podcast called Adeptus Ridiculous and his co-host was a newbie to Warhammer at the start of the podcast. So it makes for a decent place of entry.
49:44 "Void War" is basically literally space warfare. Like how we have Naval War, space is the void and war in space is war in the void. The Warp is alternate dimension/hell and also hyperspace.
It's always cool to see people who only have a casual knowledge of 40k take a stab at getting to know the lore. I think seeing the reactions to the insane parts is always fun. If you ever want to try more The Infinite and The Divine is a good read.
The only thing that needs correcting is that it is canon that the Emperors did fuck but one day he got onto reddit and never did again.
He's alive in the world RIGHT NOW he must be getting laid. One of those 10k shaken souls must be into it
The Sensei?
You’re quickly becoming one of my favorite booktubers I can’t believe you only have 10k subs
I am absolutely adoring this review so far. I don't mind getting things wrong at all. It frankly makes the review very enjoyable. Night Lords 1 is far from the first book I'd recommend to someone completely new to 40k, but oh my god does it lead to fun content. If you're interested in reading more 40k, a generally good book to start is Xenos (Eisenhorn book 1). It's the first part of a trilogy, but it frankly stands just fine taken in isolation. It focuses much more on what the normal human society is about. This book follows an Inquisitor (essentially an officer of the secret police with way more political power than a human should responsibly be given). It stays a lot more grounded, and doesn't ever enter a warzone. It generally explains stuff pretty well too.
As someone who had to watch this 20 times, my favourite part will always be the way yo go "secretly... a game... mhm"
The company actually does a deep statistical analysis of tournament wins to balance all the armies. It’s pretty impressive.
I keep hearing mixed things on them being great at balance or very bad. Admittedly I still am totally not knowledgeable about the game itself as I am afraid I might like it and spend all my money
@@Crowcaller
I would like to say that you can play 40k online through Tabletop Simulator on Steam, with the highest cost being about 20 USD for tbt sim if you don't get it on sale and installing a mod pack. 20 dollars as opposed to spending hundreds for a full army of plastic dudes. That along with the rules being free on sites like Wahapedia, Battlescribe, or similar wargaming army/skirmish list builders
I suggest if you ever want to get into the physical 40k tabletop, you should get a 3d printer since that's pretty much the only reliably way of getting models for cheap. Which feels funny to say given 3d printers aren't exactly cheap either.
@@Crowcaller They are quite good at balance given how incredibly complex the game is.
... but given how incredibly complex the game is this still amounts to a lot of pretty bad balance.
That Dreadnought looks dope.
I enjoyed this as a 40k fan. My favorite books are the Peter Fehervari stories. They're a bunch of weird horror stories with Warhammer 40k skin.
This came at such a good time, I listened to all of it while traveling today. You guys are funny together.
I'm glad to know, Xander had a list of points but we really had no plan or scheme, only japes
Oh no, crowcaller, what kind of rabbit hole did you get yourself into this time? Now you have to take your walk of fire and rate all of the primarchs based on appearances/names alone, maybe guess who is who as well.
Pro tip: just when in doubt, just call everyone "Alpharius" and no one will be mad.
If I ever meet my bestie's partner who runs a warhammer store the first thing I'm gonna do is sit him down and make him watch this video with me ♡
Prime way to meet someone for the first time
Love the video, totally agree that the lives of normal people are more interesting which is why the Imperial Guard have the best books. May I suggest the Gaunt's Ghosts series. Or for Warhammer fantasy (yes there was also a fantasy series) you've got Gotrek and Felix.
Ahhhh, the classic 'so testosterone filled and macho that it circles back around and becomes strangely homoerotic
It's part of the joy...... It's lots and it's of giant men with daddy and granddaddy issues
You ain’t wrong. This is a running joke in the community
this was unexpected to see, more warhammies PLEASE
Thank you for doing the hard work of reading books I couldn't bear to. I really only read seven(?) books from the Ciaphas Cain series, which is basically what if a guy ass-backwards his way into being Warhammer's greatest hero. But not in like a Forrest Gump kinda way? Like he tries to run away from a battle, then accidentally ends up discovering a surprise ambush, and gets a medal for "saving the day," which he *totally* planned all along. It's tha closest thing 40k has to (an intentionally written) comedy.
As someone who is vaguely interested in the lore, not interested in playing, interested in painting, this video is such a gift to us (very) casual warhammer image enjoyers. Theres some things I knew going into this and some I did not, and hearing you and your friend talk just...chefs kiss. I dont even normally comment I just want you to know how much I enjoyed this.
The real, deep gene seed lore:
When a Space Marine loves the Emperor or Chaos Gods very much...
The highlight of this video is definitely the “corrections” section because holy shit it is so funny to hear about all this *lore*, if I was a talented person I would try to make an animatic from it because I really feel that the audio has that kind of potential.
Do I know anything about Warhammer 40k? No. Did I ever have any desire to know anything? Not really. Am I now so glad to have properly educated by such astute followers of the franchise 🤣? Yes. Absolutely. I will be taking my new found knowledge to my local game store.
Thank you! Lovely video as always!! So glad you keep making them.
You can definitely use what you've learned from this to impress your local game store. They're shower you with free stuff because of your sheer expertise
This one really had me cackling! Never even heard of Warhammer 40k and this was quite entertaining.
It's such a... UNIVERSE
As someone who has friends deep in warhammer, this video was so much fun. If you want a less edgy book series in Warhammer I would recommend the Ciaphas Cain series. It's basically Black Adder in the grimdark space war future.
Commisar Ciaphas Cain, a guy who's job it is to execute people until moral improves, accidentally becomes a HERO OF THE IMPERIUM. He now has to juggle not looking like a coward while being a coward in the grimdark future. Every time he tries to take the safe option he ends up in a worse situation. Join the artillery so he can sit far back and drink tea while lobbing shells at people? Whoops, you've been flanked. Investigate a brothel instead of a cult hideout? Whoops everyone is a demon.
It gives a much more human look at things as the characters at part of the army rather than the special space boys. They even make a joke about the 'blood for the blood god' bit.
The night lords omnibus is a weird choice for entry buy its great nontheless. Ave Dominus Nox!
My wh40k friends bought me it 100% knowing it was a weird entry point, and chose it because they thought it'd be the funniest place for me to jump in from
"we feast on their gene seed" is something I'll start saying to my friends before grindr dates
I wrote this before the whole thing was explained and... ummm 💀💀💀 I may not use it after all. Plato would be proud though
Really great video! It's always interesting to see how something like a war game can get adapted into books.
I feel like Caliphus Cain is a better series to be an intro the 40k universe bc it’s funny, and not deals with a slice of the lore and is a lot less melodramatic. But hey welcome to the tribe! Hope you try the Caliphus Cain series!
I actually really might one day, it does sound legit fun!
Any book series that will describe a city exploding as “a fart from the bowels of hell” without a hint of shame is automatically a must-read.
This is one of the funniest goddamn videos I've watched in a long time. I'm only passingly familiar with 40k lore, so rediscovering it like this was magical. I could listen to you and Xander discuss these special boys for at least an hour.
I've read one (1) Horus Heresy book and this is so fun because I know just enough to be incredibly confused
I'm not really a 40K fan, I've only consumed it through fan content online because the actual setting goes "If you actually consume the content you will either have a bad time or have such a good time you will never escape and lose all your money". But with my general knowledge of the setting it's funny explaining it to people.
"Oh yeah a bunch of space Catholics are fighting a losing battle against bugs, socialists, football hooligans and ex-Catholics with daddy issues"
"what"
Yeah I'm not really planning to consume content actively, but I do enjoy Xander bringing me updates as they like it.
I would LOVE a whole warhammer series from you if you had the time or inclination 😂 some parts of the warhammer universe have been explained to me before but i love the way you and xander have framed and discussed it - it makes the lore more consumable and interesting to listen to!
Yesss, i was waiting for this
OMG IM AM SO HAPPY YOU POSTED A VIDEO TODAY, I’ve had a really had week and seeing your notification made me smile :)
Yeah!! I'm trying to do weekly, had a small day for Friday but the goal is Def Friday weekly!
"the space marines dont fuck" well damn guess all i thought i knew about warhammer isnt true
ALLEGEDLY don't fuck. They must in some sources because there's like 100s of different canon sources. But I do enjoy how they are like. Asexual by burden of caring only for war. No time for sex. No time for love. Only.... War
@@Crowcaller still the opposite of what i've seen. though i guess my internet circles arent the.... standard when it comes to fandom
I just discovered this lovely channel yesterday, so this is incredible timing
Ah Nightlords, never saw the appeal of space marine books, more of a Caiaphas Cain (Hero of the Imperiom.) fan. Interesting to see it from someone new to the universe.
Personally I'm a Gaunt's Ghosts man
The cards are for keeping track of stats and objectives, so you know what dice to roll and you know when you are scoring victory points
I am fairly certain that the god who said "Fuck this I'm out" is Nurgle since the Night Lords are interesting in rebelling against their fates and thus not useful to Nurgle at all, since Nurgle among being the god of rot and life is also the god of stagnation and acceptance. Of "If you accept it, it won't hurt as much". The one who offered power is Khorne, and the one who offered foresight is Tzeentch. Slaanesh is the last one by process of elimination.
It also mentioned they were stinky, so definitely Nurgle.
slaanesh is the god of sex and crazy parties so idk what he could've offered
@@soupstoreclothing Slaanesh is also the god of perfectionism, meaning that everyone who's ever spent a 12hr day on a task to get it "just right" falls under purview. It could have been that Slaanesh made them unable to be fatigued, or gave them a sort of perfectionist ability to spot flaws, both real and perceived.
time to drink my gene seed smoothie :)
As somewhat as a nerd, I really enjoyed this take. Haven't made it through a book about the big boys, yet though, but I enjoyed Caiaphas Cain.
Also, have mandatory "PURGE THE HERETICS!! BRING THE FLAMER, THE HEAVY FLAMER!!"
My kindle lock screen just recommended a WH40K book called “Only War” so it seems they’re very much aware of their brand
Far as I'm aware, from my limited perspective, it's kind of an insane amalgamation of many different sci-fi/fantasy concepts pumped full of pure nihilism and cosmic horror.
And a bit of Michael Moorcock on the side
I found your channel a bit ago, but felt I had to work up to this watch. I am acquainted with someone who has written for WH40K and I was going to purchase one or more of his books to support his writing. However, upon finding out that 1. There are eleventybillion WH40K books and 2. The books I sought are not considered entry-point books and 3. The recommended entry-point books are not even the first books released - my completionist/read them in order brain seized up and I had given up on ever knowing anything about this universe.
Long way 'round to say thank you for your video and the comments as well that have reasured me that I would find the whole thing too silly, might end up mocking my acquaintance, and be wasting my money anyway and I can now continue along my merry way.
I spend most of my down time painting warhammer and this is the most fantastic thing ever. Thank you 😂
Wow you are prolific. Keep it up!
that’s the perfect content i was looking for - girls, gays and theys discussing wh40k and having a blast
It's a highly specific niche but it's honest work (ps please if you liked this watch my other Warhammer joke vid pls)
@@Crowcaller I watched it first actually and send both to my friend that also likes wh40k and understands how hilarious those vids are (she loved both)
and my husband watched and loved this video too
and i even posted a youtube link to my meme telegram channel!! world should witness
@@Crowcaller i want you to know that i have rewatched this video at least four times and please tell xander i miss them dearly
You and your friends should watch If the Emperor had a Text to Speech Device.
I love tts!!
Perfect timing, what a way to start my day 😂😂😂