I did like the bit where the Krieg colonel ordered all non-Krieg to evacuate the battle, as he was well aware his men could resist the effects of the fallout of the atomics. That bit just goes to show that the Krieg place a higher value of life on anyone over themselves.
Value of life? No, rather it's simple logistics, the Krieg can survive the fallout and hold the line against the Orks, so there's no benefit to sacrificing the Cadians in such a situation.
Assuming 1 million worlds with an average population of 1 billion people (modern earth is almost 8 billion) it works out to 1 quadrillion, 1,000,000,000,000,000 Imperium citizens. Assuming just 1% of the population serves in the Imperial Guard that alone would be 10 TRILLION, 10,000,000,000,000 Guardsmen.
And all things considering that's a very low estimate, we know that the population of even a single hive city has a population of 10 to 100 billion, with 85% of Imperial worlds having a hive city on them.
Soldiers don’t win wars, beans win wars. Logistics is your limiting factor in this equation. You’d need billions of battleships and transports to move the men, the equipment, and food required to win campaigns. The Imperium’s military might is governed entirely by the speed of the Mechanicus to build stuff.
@@SigRho1429 who needs supply when you are just a canon fodder. Like most of this guardsman are ended up dead so the supply provided are gonna have low expectation of surviving soldier
Another book, Dead Men Walking, has the Krieg fighting Necrons alongside a PDF. I think that was a good book showing the disparity of the Krieg and normal soldiers. It’s also by Steve Lyons lol
There's a short story, only about an hour to listen to, called Down Amongst the Dead Men. From that, we learn that Kriegers aren't clones, that the vitae wombs are exactly that, artificial wombs, and that every man that leaves Krieg leaves a genetic donation to become fathers. That's part of why Kriegers are so keen on becoming soldiers, only soldiers can have children, either the normal way or from the artificial wombs. Also, I'm pretty sure the Inquisitior saw that the Krieg soldiers are young. Like, a bit too young.
I think the best part was when the nuke went off in the Octarius war part. it really shows the horrors of WMD's, and legit made my skin crawl reading what the survivors had to deal with (while they survived at least).
Loved that part, but was a bit confused. The inquisitor made it out to be a whole thing that the technology was obtained through heretical deals, but then it turned out to just be a couple of nukes. I was expecting a bit more tbh.
When it comes to the look of the soldiers, there's one part where a death rider was knocked off his horse saving our girl during an urban engagement with ork bikers, his gas-mask and helm was broken only enough to show that his "blond curly hair" flowed out.
Meanwhile khorne : so you don’t care for losses and have extreme breeding programs why you remind me of someone? Krieg: iron is us strong humanity is weak Iron warriors: moot krinded
I STRONGLY recommend you guys read/listen to Day of Ascension, a fantastic Genestealer Cults book from the perspective of a 4th generation cultist and a techpriest. Singlehandedly convinced me to drop $400 on a new army 😅
It made me happy to see that the Krieg are humans (like any other guard). I feel that lately they are seen as suicidal, but they do have emotions (they do experience fear, shame, and a sense of purpose). The fact that they keep small tokens for themselves (like the bone fragment), shows that they still have feelings as any other human.
Krieg was fine but Dead Men Walking is the superior book. From what i understand is that there was some retcons in the Krieg book. Like the launch codes was given to the loyalists by the Imperium in their last communique and that the Vitae-womb tech was given to Krieg by the Admech by order form the High Lords after the war. Buuuuut I could be wrong on that.
the orginal siege of vraks says the vitae-womb birthing techniques was only given to krieg by the admech after they returned to the imperial fold. so that is not a retcon.
What gives you the idea Jurten's daughter was killed? The word of Jurten's enemy? Certainly not, because Jurten denied the circumstances. Are we then to believe Jurten's thoughts instead, where he in turn believed his daughter's claim? (she told Jurten before the mission she would not be taken alive.) The whole point is that Jurten doesn't know. He'll never know.
The book is amazing in terms of expectations: you’ve got everything you wished for - even a Kriegsman killing an ork with a shovel. I’m biased obviously but this is how I imagined Krieg: traumatized, zealous and utterly badass people.
I really enjoyed this book, It was my first complete read of a Warhammer book! I tried with Dead Men Walking but was bored to death by the weird love-story subplot and just stopped reading. As for this book, I really liked how the author depicted the Krieg, the way they're presented is really well done! the balance between their outward inhumanity with subtle hints of the underlying humanity shining through their indoctrination is excellent, the inquisitors were a good way to compound this and make it shine Ferrin's suspicion was a good way to keep it interesting. Pairing the Krieg with the Cadians was something I actually really liked because you have this regiment of soldiers who are so dedicated and loyal to the emperor their world cracked before their loyalty and will to fight faltered... just to get one-upped by this seemingly inhuman regiment that they had never heard of or seen before that had arrived after you failed to hold the hive city, causing the Krieg to get on the Cadians nerves and having that lead to the Cadians taking a hit of Copeium to then slowly gain some respect for the Krieg was cool in my opinion. I have three big gripes about the book though, the first one is the lack of any mention of what Ferrin felt after he made the Kriegsmen remove their masks, you get blue ballsed and have to go through several chapters just to get back to Ferrin not even mentioning anything about it... not one word, I don't want a full description but no mention at all kinda felt odd. The second was the fate of the traitor soldiers after Jurten nuked the world, I was hoping for at least a small subplot to see what they did instead of just assuming death off-screen, seeing their attempt to survive would have been interesting, it would add more weight to the human aspect of what Jurten did. the Third was the relatively mediocre battle scenes, there were some really interesting moments via brutality or silliness but most of the time it was kinda just fighting for the sake of fighting, the author could have had some really interesting battle scenes during the Krieg civil war where you get to see the slow progression of the Loyalists going from being a normal IG force like the Traitors to being the Death Korps we know and love... I just think it could have been neat to see over another Ork charge. fuck you by the way... I just closed out of Warthunder and am very much a ww1- ww2 geek.
The point between yurtin and his daughter was they never really spent much time together. They weren’t close. He loved her but he put his duty above EVERYTHING.
Even then her death did affect him in a big way. Even in the book jurten says greel told him she was just one soldier, and thats what he needed to hear.
the ending was cool, yet at the same time was kinda sad hearing their training on trench and siege warfare, you get to see that the Kriegmen lost their humanity, and became a legion of artificial wombs born, soul-less zelots that knows nothing but to fight and die for their emperor. 7/10 love the book, mainly Jurtan's arc.
Would be awesome to see an episode on Lorgar and the Word Bearers next. There's so much interesting lore to unpack, and so many amazing characters, like Argel Tal and Xaphen.
I always road the memes about how is all his fault but after listing to the first heretic his story is fantastic probably one of the best written traitor primarchs.
@@shell5900 yea I really wanted to hate Him in the first heretic but you just can’t by the end especially after his conversation with magnus. You see how broken his spirit really is. Also it’s just hard t hate Gman in general. Ik all the blueberry memes are great as somewhat justified but Bobby Gman is a breath of fresh air in current lore.
I see you are a true fan of chaos. It's a well known rule that any time a request is made the faction/character gets moved to the back of the list of things to be covered. Nothing quite as chaotic than betraying a legion to move it to the back of the line. Edit: I'm just curious who you REALLY want them to cover that you're pushing word bearers to the back of the list. You clever dog.
I just finished the book not too long ago. I really liked it. I love the Krieg and how they’re portrayed. I found both the parts with Jurten and the modern Octarius wars fine. I also liked the small subtle details where the humanity side of Krieg comes to light, cause no matter how psycho indoctrinated they are, they’re still humans.
I’m surprised the next review isn’t Assassinorum Kingmaker since that was written by the same Author as the Infinite and the Divine and also heavily features Imperial Knights
The guardsmen were unsure if they had names, but eventually they ended up saying their name was jurten, and the idea was that they were all the same at least to my eyes. That combined with the fact that they were all atoning for their sins in life, says to me that they were all clones of him.
They aren't clones as that is complete Heresy to the Imperium, how a Kriegsman is made is they combine DNA from a random male and female from the gene-records and then put them in an Vita-Womb. They are Vat Grown humans so are given numbers instead of names to keep them without identity they don't have names and the only reason most of the time they don't take off their masks is that a sizable portion of Kriegsmen are teenagers.
I think this is it, tbh. They feel bad because they are indeed clones of Jurten, and they repent his actions as though they are "shared". Sort of like the Blood Angels, and the memories of Sanguinius but not due to geneseed.
vita wombs arent cloning tanks, theyre basically giant ivf vats that gestate and indoctrinate them till they are ready to train. cloning has been tried in the imperium and they are cursed with horrible luck. no matter how good clones are they all get the lamenter treatment because they have no souls.
its probably more a reference to krieg lore, where they recieve names of people considered innocient during the civil war, after they have proven themselves. the guy probably just got 'lucky' and received the name jurten. they can't be clones because clones are unlucky in 40k lore, the warp doesn't like clones. and kriegers are not unlucky.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 i think every colonel of krieg is jurten, that way he is their eternal leader. he was confused when asked what his name was, so they most likely treat it as a title.
and since you talked about the book "dead men walking", it´s a flat out better book on kriegers, because you get the point of view of the civis and of world commisars, and you get the contrats betwen the normal people seeing necrons and the kriegers figthing then like it was normal, plus you also get the cold and calculated way that kriegers wage war
Dead men walking is practically the situation where the krieg are the villains that bricky was asking for. They don't act like the good guys. Honestly, I would love to see them do a bookclub on that one as well. As much as I enjoyed this book, Dead me walking waa shi far the better of the two.
On the subject of the reaction to the Kreigers removing their masks: the average Catachan can get cheaper insurance, the average Cadian can drink, and the average Kriegsman can get a driver’s license.
I loved the book. I understand why, I personally really jived with learning the details of kreig. Then again I was very close to becoming a history teacher... So I guess I have a reason for liking this one. I also had to re read the first 4 chapters cus I got lost between the transition from kreig to octarious wars.
Krieg lacking " characters " makes sense though. They're clones. Literally clones of just " Oh this person performed well in battle. CLONE THEM AND TRAIN THEM. " - But Krieg isn't supposed to be all about " Oh we're special characters with so much personality! " - it's literally just WWI trench warfare. You're right. I love Krieg because I enjoy history. You're not going to get a bunch of flavor with Krieg men. They're literally given letters and numbers at birth and told " Want me to care about your 'name'? Do something worthwhile for the Emperor while on the field of battle. " - and that's one of the reasons they're so zealous. Their lives are literally forfeit at birth. Sucks for personification and giving you someone to identify with, but you don't always need to be going " HAHA! THAT PERSON IN THE BOOK IS SOOOOO ME! " - we're all adults here. We can just enjoy " Oh, this is their life, how it works, why they're not hesitant to throw lives away, etc. " ( I hate World of Tanks and all that crap though, so shame on you for even making me remember those games exist. They bloooow. ) Also, could've sworn there was a book that had Krieg fighting dark eldar, or at least some lore that literally was like " Krieg guardsmen would be grabbed by dark eldar and brought aboard raiders with timed explosives hidden on their person, taking all the deldar on board, the raider and themselves out. Sometimes even slaying dark eldar majors and captains. "
There's not really anything about being a clone that means you don't have a personality or a character. People are formed by their experiences, and it doesn't really make sense for them to act this way other than the author saying "well that's just how it is". I don't think that's good writing.
@@hellayeproductions6739 So, a culture literally revolving around " You live and die for the Emperor. Everything else you do that's not furthering your goal is wasting time and might earn you his ire, rather than his forgiveness. " - isn't reason for the majority of them to be so emotionally repressed that they'd not make compelling characters. Goooot it. That's like saying " Ultramarines are so good because they're adaptable. " - when it's because Matt Ward LOVES Ultramarines and can't stand for his blue babies to be hurt too long. Meanwhile, if an author is like " Yes, they die in droves and many of them are clones that while they're shaped by experience, they HATE small talk, they hate anything that's not about war and earning their penance to the Emperor and they go so far as to hate any other guard regiments because they see them as cowards with all of their " Oh but what if this happens, what if that happens? " - adapt. ... So yes, they're gonna obviously be a bit uninteresting considering the only ones with personality are generals and commanding officers and even then, they're not eccentrics like some officers. They see the rank as " I've gone from joining charges to leading them, now I'm ordering them. " and that's it. They're military minds. Not sociable minds. That's another thing... if you take someone and clone them, then put them all in the same general situation, most of them will get similar experience and all be similarly shaped. In fact that's likely why they use the clone templates they have. Detached, unfeeling guardsmen that fight despite MASSIVE casualty rates that would drive Cadians to fall to their knees and pray. We all like to think " Oh, individualism is required in this and that- " - but they literally strip you of that if you go into the modern military too, so why the heck do people think it'd be any different in a MUCH more brutal version of warfare..? Why? It wouldn't. It'd be worse in fact because all soldiers are put through intense indoctrination from birth and know nothing other than war and serving the Emperor so that one day the planet of Krieg and her people might be forgiven their transgressions. There's no Ciaphas Cain from Krieg. Kriegers won't run unless ordered to because " The Emperor needs your life sold elsewhere. Not here. " And even the generals wish to fight and die on the field, but they know that they've developed experience enough that they're required in the war room, rather than the field. That's why the book comes across more cold. It's a book about Krieg, so makes sense it would try to put you in their mindset of " Straight to the point, here's your information, learn this. " - rather than treating you like a baby that needs " The radiance of the salvo's detonation and the clap of it all was deafening. It could be felt in every man's bones from miles off as we observed the bombardment from behind our masks. " - that's about all the descriptors you're gonna get from them, honestly. Considering this guy has written books that aren't from a Krieger's strict point of view, but has Kriegers in it in a more " amusing " and detailed way, there's other books for that sort of thing, certainly. It's not " THIS ARTIST IS SO BAD AND USING THAT AS AN EXCUSE. " - it's more of " He's trying to make it sound similar to how a guardsman from Krieg writes. "
As a person who started reading about the world wars in grade school for fun and then grew up to become an archaeologist... yeah I love the Death Korp of Krieg. Your guys' logic stands
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. I felt like a crazy person in the Ad Ric server for my negative review of Krieg. Normally I don't have too terribly much to say about 40k books after I'm done with them besides "that was fun" or "I don't think I'm reading that again." I had a literal list of critiques of the book, to the point that I was genuinely mad with the sheer amount of wasted potential. Did you know the Cadian captain had a squad of five? Did you know only two of them are named?? Did you know they weren't the same person with how little characterization they were given??? The book should've stuck with the past on Krieg, expanding the supporting cast to give us the perspective of the everyman on Krieg and how their lives were affected by adapting to their changing world, and in general give those involved more characterization. Also DK was absolutely right, Van Buren's Interrogator had three Kriegsmen take off their gasmasks. The book then proceeded to blueball the reader by switching to the past on Krieg, and we never see what he saw, which gets him killed.
With how the tech priest was acting during the book, I kept expecting it to reveal that he would be like "lmao I'm doing this for chaos" and then them actually feeling shame for the actions they took or something. I mean the tech priest straight up lies that Jurten okayed using the wombs and stuff.
Hey, I know, restart the clock, but I really want to give a book recommend. Do you like imagining your own hypotheticals? Do you like stories of Knights being total chads and their Houses being totally, utterly fucked up? Do you like stories about Malcador being shady? And do you like the background story of Horus and the Emperor? Then maybe read 'Vengeful spirit'. It doesn't spoil any story. It doesn't require any story to be read before, since the setting was already explained in previous videos. It is by far my favorite book. And I want to see DK and Bricky being blown away by the story! Its not our lord and saivor ABD who written it but Graham McNeill is one of the best. PLS SHY notice me senpai!!
This book in some always rewrites some of Krieg Lore in my opinion. I do enjoy the Civil war part of the book a lot and in my opinion the whole book probably should have been that. In the older Krieg Lore the Jesus motif has always been there in a small way. The original idea for the reason the Krieg was so suicidal was because each of their deaths in a small part atone for the Sin of Kriegs rebellion. Making them a small "Jesus" for their planet and people. That idea is also expanded in a short story about a Krieg soldier who gets stuck on a planet after a war. If he kind of realizes that he dies so innocent people don't have too. Dead men walking is probably the better book for Krieg then this one because of the outside view of the Krieg and not on them themselves. Because Krieg soldiers are just brainwashed kids. Which is pretty boring for a long character drive story.
i disagree on that last part. all imperials are brainwashed, especially space marines, which lorewise are supposed to be more emotionless than kriegers and there are plenty of compelling stories written from marines perspective.
It's hilarious how small Krieg's offer of 60,000 guardsmen is. Singapore, a single city state on earth, with only 283.1 squares miles of territory has an active military with 70,000 people, and can activate an additional 352,500 reservist at the drop of a hat.
I mean i understand that but there comes in a factor of their training vs krieg training standards. Krieg die in the hundreds through practice seminars. On top of that, the city is not a literal hellscape of nuclear waste. Plus these are troops they are giving to go fuck off to do whatever. Im sure if you sound the alarm all the krieg "reservists" would dwarf those numbers
I think as an introduction it's good, it does very much feel like a war documentary, but for people already deep in the lore there's very little new there and most of it gets brushed over. I'm hoping it's being used as advanced advertising to release some more Krieg models into the current edition.
There was this one fan animation that had Kriegers and I think it nailed what they are about. Charging chaos sm on horse back with AP explosive lance's, charging trenchs with their own artillery landing around them, sacrificing a whole squad just to get one guy close to a berserker to pop his neck with a krack grenade.
I'm currently going through the books in best order as possible, this is one of my favorites so ty for reviewing it. idk if you'll see this comment but just in case u guys do, plz!!!! with a cherry on top of a guards man's cake plz do a video on the very few but rare wholesome moments in 40k because I found that how few there are makes them all the more precious and reminds everyone that the salamanders aren't the only ones capable of being kind in the age of war
And yes, its Jurten’s DNA because thats why thats why when the Inquisitor asks the soldier what his name is he said “Jurten?” as if he had trouble remembering
As a massive death korps fan I found this book very mixed. The modern Octarius battles show the sheer horrific approach the korps takes to warfare. However showing it all from outside perspectives really took the spotlight away from the Death Korps and makes them feel like the backdrop of their own story. Jurten's story from his perspective really shows what comes to define the men of krieg ideology and culture wise. Defining what becomes their future values. However his doubt and inner conflict does add a level of humanity the book really benefits from. Really wish this was written by someone else, Lyons does a good job with the Death Korps in the short form but with the length of this story his style really gets old fast and comes across very dry.
I Think the Book Shows How the Kreig Became The Kreig, where Jurten was cold and calculating, His daugter being an acceptable loss. And The Cadian Gaurdsmen being Our sight, more human. But a Major Show of the difference of Local Malitia and Kreig would be “Dead Men Walking”.
I have a lot to say about this book club but the one thing that I will comment is that yes, they are all clones of yurten, fenris asks some krieg to take off their masks and he is deeply disturbed, the colonel who met the inquisiter on krieg was asked for a name and he eventually said I suppose it's Yurten, and it explains why they feel they must atone for the sins of Yurten, because they are yurten
Personally I did enjoy this book, but I am also a ww1 fanatic who loves historical documents. I get why it wasn't your guys thing though. Steve Lyons other Krieg book "Dead Men Walking" would be more up your alley I think. You have local PDF reacting to Kriegers while also fighting necrons.
60k Catachans is a lot 600k Cadians supported by 10k tanks is a lot The choice of 60k Krieg makes no sense and kinda broke my immersion. Specially when you consider their tactics. They needed to say 6 million, minimum. I'm gonna pretend that the vox recorder glitched and registered the wrong number TBH...
I'm not sure how that broke your immersion. That was the first time the Imperium heard from Kreig in 500 years. The planet had no life on it. The fact they had 60 men alive would have been impressive. 60k soldiers ready to deploy is a lot when the entire surface of the planet cannot support life.
@@NoiseTheSilent True but it's still a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of Guardsmen the Imperium must get on a regular basis, which is why the reaction of the characters is weird.
I’m halfway through Krieg book and finished Dead Men Walking quite a while ago. I would agree with the review and say the same, it is a bit dull, but definitely has its good moments (so far). It works really well as a foundation/intro for Krieg, while Dead Men Walking is just a separate story with non-krieg-related (at first) character as a main protagonist. It tells us how normal people of the imperium see the Kriegsmen while also having them in contrast with Necrons which works beautifully in my opinion. Dead Men Walking was a book that convinced me to start Krieg army :) I would totally recommend you guys checking it out some time!
Holy shit. I'm over 30 smoke meats and just read and watched band of brother again. And I was disagreeing completely with you about the book but you nailed the krieg/imperial guard fan. I really like that it was set like a historical recollection. That's why they didn't give much on the rebels. It is definitely a little dull.
I finished the book in two days and enjoyed it because I'm probably one of the few who are completely biased when it comes to the death korps. That said I think you guys hit home about why I'd felt that it was somewhat lacking and not really that memorable. Dead Men Walking on the other hand, I think is definitely up there with some of the best 40k books out there. The way it gives you hope and then just rips up your heart string is just 👌
Me and my friend personal theory on the Vat grown kriegsmen is that they took dna samples from the troops that jurgen still had alive and the ones who actually graduated from his military academy to make regular troops and jurgen DNA to make the officers of the death korps of krieg cause the can easily have the officers bat grown troops be grown in a different area from the regular troops. I also thought this was a excellent book like I kinda expected it to be a history book type of deal so I went in thinking in as that so maybe that’s why I enjoyed it.
@@alphariusomegon3965 no your theories directly contradict the lore; 1) the siege of vraks and Orpheus war says they use eugenics and breeding to keep away mutation and breed the best soldiers possible. you wouldn't need this if you just reused DNA from jurten and his orginal men. (which is reinforced in down amongst the deadmen) 2) the lore specifically says they pick officers based on ability not bloodlines, and all kriegers have to start as privates and work their way upthe ranks as veterans. 3) krieg is described as being full of underground hive cities in both novels and the imperial armour books, and deadmen walking (by the same author as this novel) goes on to say these hive cities are full of pregnant women. krieg confirms vitae wombs are artificial wombs, but its not their only method of produceing soldiers
it was tragic how the tech priest knew how this was going to go, and was basically leading jurten the whole way without him knowing...and then at the very end it leaves it entirely up to you if you believe jurten gave him the okay to use the vita wombs with his dying breaths, or if he lied and did it without his consent. it was great revealing that the true traitor behind the throne actually was a secret chaos worshipper, not just greedy a bureaucrat.
Overall, I wasn't too hot on this book. I liked the interpersonal drama surrounding the colonel in past Krieg more than trying to retake the city, I felt like the action scenes were very difficult to follow. Especially the Ork bike section. That being said, Chapter 13 (the one where the nukes go off) is pretty stellar for both timelines of the book. A sickening reminder of the type of cruel weapon we ourselves have already created and the effects it has on the grimdark setting of Warhammer 40K. Yet in spite of that, it doesn't lose out on the grimdark with the depiction of a human and ork survivor in a ruined city still trying to kill the hell out of each other, only to both be killed by a falling debris. It was almost enough to leave me with a generally good impression of the book...until Chapter 14, where the inquisitor fellates the Krieg to an extent I haven't quite seen in other faction based books. Granted I haven't read many space marine chapter books outside of Helsreach but still, hearing an Inquisitor essentially say that the Krieg were so important and so devout that any minor heresies they could be commiting should be forgiven or to straight up ignore how much they don't know about them was...a bit much for me. Overall if I had to give a grade, maybe 7/10. Krieg has it's moments and the past sections well explore the situation that made the Krieg who they are. It's hovering close to a 6/10 at times though, especially with what could be considered minor plot holes (They didn't think to use the underground drill to infiltrate the city while the first initial assault was ongoing and demanding the ork's attention? They would have saved many lives had they done so, probably could have been clear of the nukes before they went off and the assault's success margin was already slim.)
orginal krieg lore says that kriegers are so important, effective and devout that minor heresies (like the vitae wombs) are ignored and the high lords of terra themselves ordered this and that nothing should get in the way of creating more krieg regiments and an ever increaseing amount of resources is devoted to increaseing their number. its not a new thing with krieg.
I'm glad i wasn't the only one that was iffy on this book. i don't think its a bad book but its probably my least favorite out of the 9 warhammer books i read this far. However i do wish to point out that the narrator of the book on Audible; Timothy Watson, did a very good job especially doing the Krieg parts , because even though almost all of the characters in that part had German Accents i never got confused who was who, because Watson was able to give different affectations on top of the German accents to really differentiate each of the characters to really make them distinct voices. Massive credit to him
Generally, every book that jumps from one time or one place to another I never liked. It was one of the reasons I could not get in Preatorian of Dorn and finish the book.
The Octarius war colonel's name was Jurten too. They're all named Jurten, probably. Do they use the number like a forename? Yes they're all clones. They should send notes to whichever magos smoothbrain is running the Afriel project.
it would mention if they were clones considering some of them are forced to remove their masks and they are not shown to be identical. the colonels name is jurten because colonel jurten will always be their leader. even now, a colonel is in charge of krieg, even though they were forced to take militarum rankings.
I think the reason they were Cadians is because they were trying to show Cadians "getting their grove back" so to speak. Like I remember the captain lady being worried that there were fewer and fewer Cadians left, and so spending time amongst the Kriegers helped to remind her whats important as a Guardsman. I might be off base but that was the vibe I got, the Cadians lost their planet and so did Krieg (as they knew it at least) but the planet isn't whats important about them its the people. The book could have done it better but I think that's the angle it was going for.
The problem with the imperium side is that They are the good guys but have gone against what the emperor envisioned for the galaxy. Aka. They became religious depots over the emperor.
What's more fucked up is it's turning him into a god but if he tries to stop it he will die a mortal death and Terra will be consumed by the warp and then humanity will be thrown back into the dark ages and every planet will be cut off from the other. So the Emperor kinda just has to let it happen
@@jeambeam3173 personally O think it’s been the plan the entire time. What if he is the FIFTH chaos god. The god of order. Destined to arrive and bring order back to the warp t belive it was.
There were a few things that I would probably disagree with you based on what I understood but the part where you were saying that they revealed their face it was not The Inquisitor it was the interrogator he was training to become his replacement and it was three soldiers when they removed their masks and just described them as fit men because The Inquisitor was actually pretty understanding of the Krieg it was his Apprentice the interrogator that was very standoffish to them. (But I will say the story is a little slow but it made me think of the Starship Trooper book and I enjoyed that book so I enjoy this one too)
I think the biggest problem of the book is the characters didnt really feel real, they didnt feel like people, they feel like depictions of people in a textbook. This was especiallly noticeable when you read/listen to this after reading a book that had good realistic emotional characters like The Twice Dead King Books.
Krieg is the first of 2 Warhammer books I decided to just not finish, the other one being Valedor. My personal take is that Krieg does the writing pretty well on a chapter by chapter basis, but due to the constant time shifts back and forth and the amount of characters you need to follow creates this tragic and unfun and chaotic reading experience to me. Knowing that it is not so much a bad writer as just the time jumps not really being my thing is making me a little hopeful to hear that his new Krieg book is a bit better on the side of its pacing and readability. BUT, for that I just need to wait till I see a non-spoiler review comparing the new book to the old is all!
So I bought when y’all just uploaded the review and have now finished it. Holy shit it’s so good. I loved every part. Especially the parts with colonel jurten. One of my favorite books. Also I’m a die hard Krieg fan
I liked the book. It gave a look at before the treachery, after in the current setting and most importantly the emergence from their vaults after the Nukes and how it shaped them. I agree though it should have been some random Regiments nor Cadians in the Octarious war
i feel like its supposed to be a bit of a drag with the battles because thats what it is for the krieg and guards to be in the battle , and thats also why the character deaths don´t mean shit to us since they don´t matter in the big picture.
So Krieg is my first Warhammer book ever (other than the Last Church, if the version on TH-cam counts). As someone who only knew about the Krieg through Bricky and this podcast, I knew Krieg life was bad, but not how bad. Wasn’t a huge a fan of modern time stuff, I do kinda wish it was purely from Jurten’s POV as he defends into more and more cruelty as the war rages on. Maybe develop on his relationship with his daughter as Bricky suggested. But other than that I still enjoyed it and it gave me 40k depression for the rest of the day
One takes their mask off in Dead Men Walking when infiltrating a hive alongside the commissar. Its just like a super pale 17 year old kid with greasy black hair and acne, and MASSIVE sleep rings under his eyes.
40k books range from in-universe historical accounts to comedy necron slapstick written by bored inquisitorial acolytes. I will say though, reading Krieg's imperial perspective on Ork Deffkoptas was great. They thought the Orks were dropping heavy scrap from the walls, siege tactic style, but then said scrap puttered into life and started flying.
You know it's great to see the cadians reacting to the insanity of the krieg. Cadians are themselves often considered in insanely brave, willing to charge chaos demons without hesitation
I read Dead Men Walking before Krieg. I thought both were good. But Dead Men Walking did show a bleaker perspective on Krieg. Mainly because you get a different perspective to the Krieg Guardsman as they fight the Necrons. Dead Men Walking also shows us at least what one Krieg Grenadier looks like without his mask. That was one of the cooler parts of the book in my opinion.
Dead Men Walking - Describes an unmasked korpsman Left for Dead - Protagonist is an unmasked korpsman Krieg - 'WoOOoo mySTeriOuS wE wOn'T sHow yoU oooOOOOooo' I get the book was doing that thing where it tries to be it's own screenplay, dramatic cuts and all, but they could have handled the whole 'they're clones' thing without bending over backwards to hide what any reader with more than one Krieg book under their belt is already aware of.
@@korstmahler Yeah, I spent the rest of "Krieg" wondering if they were going to tell us what the inquisitor really saw and then it just ended. It was a bit of a let down after reading both "Dead Men Walking" and "Left for Dead"
Read Krieg and have Dead Men Walking but haven't started it yet. I enjoyed this book but it didn't vibe with me as well as some of the other books have. I felt like it probably would of benefited from sticking to one timeline instead of jumping back and forth. I did like that idea you guys had of a book from the perspectives of people defending against a Krieg seige though. Need more books from the "victims" of the imperial crusades perspective
I loved the book. and is amazing to have something that feels like, down to earth, instead of jurten being some marvel larger than life figure, he is a zealot. instead of super quirky soldiers that quip their way in a battlefield, its just men fighting. The gritty and subdued reality of death. i finished reading it in two sessions and i was pumped to see krieg without the shovel memes.
Hey Bricky, have you ever heard about the Jin roh Wolf Brigade movie? Scifi animated movie where a member of a japanese secret police unit gets caught up in politics between government agencies. The power suits look a lot like the Helgast do.
Despite being negative, this video only sold me on the krieg and this book more because of the horrific nature of them as characters. They're not supposed to be heroes just soldiers and when you're fighting flies you could never stand a chance against many will die. It's so GRIMDARK, I LOVE IT.
I liked the book overall quite a bit, the present timeline stuff did get a little blah at times though. Favorite scene was the Krieg charging on horses against the Ork bikers as the Cadians watched.
If you hadn't just done a Guardsmen book I'd ask if you guys would read Steel Tread, it's like Fury tank crew story but with Guardsmen and they're being hunted by a Chaos Knight
I am 30, I do love my smoked meats, and I do love my ww1 and ww2 history, and I do enjoy games with that theme and or moding my games to have such aesthetics.. 🤭 And I really like the Krieg.. And the Mordian Iron guard.. And the Tallarn desert raiders.. And the Praetorian Guard, and the Vostroyan 1st born and-
The chairman's speech, was morally - considering the Imperium as awhole - not wrong. However, does it matter if he was still intended to rule the world where the people toiled as they would under the Imperium with the only difference being he would not have to deal with the Imperium Bureaucracy? Morever, Krieg had it pretty good compared to most imperial worlds, the fact that the chairman and the Aristocrats set this up was going to doom their world regardless if Jurten was gonna stop them. The Imperium would have eventually sent a force to deal with the traitors and bring the world into compliance. The aristocrats were not in it for the people of the world, they were in it for themselves and their greed was their downfall.
I gotta say "Krieg" has quite a few small moments that just Clicked with me such as Jurgen saying "it's Just another Soldier" when he learned of his daughters death, Or that ALL cornels in Krieg are named Jurgen and that moment when cornel that gone to re-establish communications with Imperium was confused when Inquisitor asked his name. Although parts of the "How Krieg came to be" were far more interesting then current Krieg stuff
I did like the bit where the Krieg colonel ordered all non-Krieg to evacuate the battle, as he was well aware his men could resist the effects of the fallout of the atomics. That bit just goes to show that the Krieg place a higher value of life on anyone over themselves.
Value of life? No, rather it's simple logistics, the Krieg can survive the fallout and hold the line against the Orks, so there's no benefit to sacrificing the Cadians in such a situation.
@@KageRyuu6 that same Colonel decided that Krieger will absorb most of the casualties when planning to attack the Hive
@@KageRyuu6 Exactly why they value their lives.
Assuming 1 million worlds with an average population of 1 billion people (modern earth is almost 8 billion) it works out to 1 quadrillion, 1,000,000,000,000,000 Imperium citizens. Assuming just 1% of the population serves in the Imperial Guard that alone would be 10 TRILLION, 10,000,000,000,000 Guardsmen.
And thats a very low estimate given that hive worlds can get to the hundreds of billions, and terra alone is said to house a quadrillion
And all things considering that's a very low estimate, we know that the population of even a single hive city has a population of 10 to 100 billion, with 85% of Imperial worlds having a hive city on them.
Soldiers don’t win wars, beans win wars. Logistics is your limiting factor in this equation. You’d need billions of battleships and transports to move the men, the equipment, and food required to win campaigns. The Imperium’s military might is governed entirely by the speed of the Mechanicus to build stuff.
@@SigRho1429 who needs supply when you are just a canon fodder. Like most of this guardsman are ended up dead so the supply provided are gonna have low expectation of surviving soldier
@@caretakercat7176
Yes, but even your cannon fodder need to be able to sustain itself to be good cannon fodder.
The Grenadier model was discontinued.
There is mention of Grenadiers in this book.
There is hope.
Another book, Dead Men Walking, has the Krieg fighting Necrons alongside a PDF. I think that was a good book showing the disparity of the Krieg and normal soldiers. It’s also by Steve Lyons lol
Steve Lyons basically writes the majority the Krieg lore as far as I can tell.
Only problem in that book is needless love story between a mine manager and a governors daughter. It just felt out of place.
@@tomseppanen2316 They spend like 80 percent of the book separated so it didn't really bother me. It did make the ending hurt even more though.
@@cousinzeke4888 my man's got shafted after he spent so much time growing from being wimpy to being strong and capable
Good book 👍
There's a short story, only about an hour to listen to, called Down Amongst the Dead Men. From that, we learn that Kriegers aren't clones, that the vitae wombs are exactly that, artificial wombs, and that every man that leaves Krieg leaves a genetic donation to become fathers. That's part of why Kriegers are so keen on becoming soldiers, only soldiers can have children, either the normal way or from the artificial wombs. Also, I'm pretty sure the Inquisitior saw that the Krieg soldiers are young. Like, a bit too young.
the 15 years old blonde kid you see in German war photo, yeah that's a Krieger
the inquisitor says that a krieg grenadier is 19 and thinks thats a bit too young.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 each of them had at least 5 years of service so yeah
Best part of the book for me is, the part where the Guard storms the hive full of orks and the Cadians all scream "CADIA STANDS"
I think the best part was when the nuke went off in the Octarius war part. it really shows the horrors of WMD's, and legit made my skin crawl reading what the survivors had to deal with (while they survived at least).
Loved that part, but was a bit confused. The inquisitor made it out to be a whole thing that the technology was obtained through heretical deals, but then it turned out to just be a couple of nukes. I was expecting a bit more tbh.
@@npags2911 Even the people of the imperium understand how terrible nukes can be.
When it comes to the look of the soldiers, there's one part where a death rider was knocked off his horse saving our girl during an urban engagement with ork bikers, his gas-mask and helm was broken only enough to show that his "blond curly hair" flowed out.
Prince Charming joke reference?
Finn from adventure time
Meanwhile khorne : so you don’t care for losses and have extreme breeding programs why you remind me of someone?
Krieg: iron is us strong humanity is weak
Iron warriors: moot krinded
Trench kindred am I rite?
@@majormajorasic fortification
I STRONGLY recommend you guys read/listen to Day of Ascension, a fantastic Genestealer Cults book from the perspective of a 4th generation cultist and a techpriest. Singlehandedly convinced me to drop $400 on a new army 😅
That book got me into genestealer cults!
Should have waited for the Genestealer Combat Patrol bro, no idea when it’s coming out but it’s a bunch of minis for $200
Hell yeah, it is such a great read and not too long.
Oh it is getting me there as well help
Dude, yes! I was considering dropping my GSC, but goddamn if that book didn't reinvigorate my faith in the Four-Armed Emperor.
It made me happy to see that the Krieg are humans (like any other guard). I feel that lately they are seen as suicidal, but they do have emotions (they do experience fear, shame, and a sense of purpose). The fact that they keep small tokens for themselves (like the bone fragment), shows that they still have feelings as any other human.
i mean the bone fragments and emotions thing has always been in krieg lore. vraks describes them as quick to anger.
Krieg was fine but Dead Men Walking is the superior book.
From what i understand is that there was some retcons in the Krieg book. Like the launch codes was given to the loyalists by the Imperium in their last communique and that the Vitae-womb tech was given to Krieg by the Admech by order form the High Lords after the war. Buuuuut I could be wrong on that.
Yeah AdMech gave Krieg Vitae-Womb tech and maintains it after they found out how mechanically obedient Krieg regiments were.
and also yes, the launch codes were given on the last imperiun transmition on the same day that the antena was shot down.
the orginal siege of vraks says the vitae-womb birthing techniques was only given to krieg by the admech after they returned to the imperial fold. so that is not a retcon.
What gives you the idea Jurten's daughter was killed? The word of Jurten's enemy? Certainly not, because Jurten denied the circumstances. Are we then to believe Jurten's thoughts instead, where he in turn believed his daughter's claim? (she told Jurten before the mission she would not be taken alive.)
The whole point is that Jurten doesn't know. He'll never know.
The book is amazing in terms of expectations: you’ve got everything you wished for - even a Kriegsman killing an ork with a shovel.
I’m biased obviously but this is how I imagined Krieg: traumatized, zealous and utterly badass people.
It saddens me that thanks to this they won't read "dead men walking" when it's a great book
I really enjoyed this book, It was my first complete read of a Warhammer book! I tried with Dead Men Walking but was bored to death by the weird love-story subplot and just stopped reading.
As for this book, I really liked how the author depicted the Krieg, the way they're presented is really well done! the balance between their outward inhumanity with subtle hints of the underlying humanity shining through their indoctrination is excellent, the inquisitors were a good way to compound this and make it shine Ferrin's suspicion was a good way to keep it interesting. Pairing the Krieg with the Cadians was something I actually really liked because you have this regiment of soldiers who are so dedicated and loyal to the emperor their world cracked before their loyalty and will to fight faltered... just to get one-upped by this seemingly inhuman regiment that they had never heard of or seen before that had arrived after you failed to hold the hive city, causing the Krieg to get on the Cadians nerves and having that lead to the Cadians taking a hit of Copeium to then slowly gain some respect for the Krieg was cool in my opinion.
I have three big gripes about the book though, the first one is the lack of any mention of what Ferrin felt after he made the Kriegsmen remove their masks, you get blue ballsed and have to go through several chapters just to get back to Ferrin not even mentioning anything about it... not one word, I don't want a full description but no mention at all kinda felt odd.
The second was the fate of the traitor soldiers after Jurten nuked the world, I was hoping for at least a small subplot to see what they did instead of just assuming death off-screen, seeing their attempt to survive would have been interesting, it would add more weight to the human aspect of what Jurten did.
the Third was the relatively mediocre battle scenes, there were some really interesting moments via brutality or silliness but most of the time it was kinda just fighting for the sake of fighting, the author could have had some really interesting battle scenes during the Krieg civil war where you get to see the slow progression of the Loyalists going from being a normal IG force like the Traitors to being the Death Korps we know and love... I just think it could have been neat to see over another Ork charge.
fuck you by the way... I just closed out of Warthunder and am very much a ww1- ww2 geek.
The point between yurtin and his daughter was they never really spent much time together. They weren’t close. He loved her but he put his duty above EVERYTHING.
Even then her death did affect him in a big way. Even in the book jurten says greel told him she was just one soldier, and thats what he needed to hear.
One part of the 'shock' that the interogator got from seeing the kriegsmens faces is probably also the fact that they are teenagers at best.
Too bad we never found out… 🤦🏻♂️
I love krieg and kind of sad they don't like it very much, but I also really like history.
the ending was cool, yet at the same time was kinda sad hearing their training on trench and siege warfare, you get to see that the Kriegmen lost their humanity, and became a legion of artificial wombs born, soul-less zelots that knows nothing but to fight and die for their emperor.
7/10 love the book, mainly Jurtan's arc.
well, they have nothing to live for but everything to die for
@@PodreyJenkin138 ahh reading the book I must have misinterpreted that
My bad.
@@xuanquang9815 sad but true.
Would be awesome to see an episode on Lorgar and the Word Bearers next. There's so much interesting lore to unpack, and so many amazing characters, like Argel Tal and Xaphen.
It would! Especially Lorgar
I always road the memes about how is all his fault but after listing to the first heretic his story is fantastic probably one of the best written traitor primarchs.
@@shell5900 yea I really wanted to hate Him in the first heretic but you just can’t by the end especially after his conversation with magnus. You see how broken his spirit really is. Also it’s just hard t hate Gman in general. Ik all the blueberry memes are great as somewhat justified but Bobby Gman is a breath of fresh air in current lore.
I see you are a true fan of chaos. It's a well known rule that any time a request is made the faction/character gets moved to the back of the list of things to be covered. Nothing quite as chaotic than betraying a legion to move it to the back of the line.
Edit: I'm just curious who you REALLY want them to cover that you're pushing word bearers to the back of the list. You clever dog.
The first heretic is my favourite 40k book
I just finished the book not too long ago. I really liked it. I love the Krieg and how they’re portrayed. I found both the parts with Jurten and the modern Octarius wars fine. I also liked the small subtle details where the humanity side of Krieg comes to light, cause no matter how psycho indoctrinated they are, they’re still humans.
I’m surprised the next review isn’t Assassinorum Kingmaker since that was written by the same Author as the Infinite and the Divine and also heavily features Imperial Knights
The guardsmen were unsure if they had names, but eventually they ended up saying their name was jurten, and the idea was that they were all the same at least to my eyes. That combined with the fact that they were all atoning for their sins in life, says to me that they were all clones of him.
They aren't clones as that is complete Heresy to the Imperium, how a Kriegsman is made is they combine DNA from a random male and female from the gene-records and then put them in an Vita-Womb. They are Vat Grown humans so are given numbers instead of names to keep them without identity they don't have names and the only reason most of the time they don't take off their masks is that a sizable portion of Kriegsmen are teenagers.
I think this is it, tbh. They feel bad because they are indeed clones of Jurten, and they repent his actions as though they are "shared". Sort of like the Blood Angels, and the memories of Sanguinius but not due to geneseed.
vita wombs arent cloning tanks, theyre basically giant ivf vats that gestate and indoctrinate them till they are ready to train. cloning has been tried in the imperium and they are cursed with horrible luck. no matter how good clones are they all get the lamenter treatment because they have no souls.
its probably more a reference to krieg lore, where they recieve names of people considered innocient during the civil war, after they have proven themselves. the guy probably just got 'lucky' and received the name jurten.
they can't be clones because clones are unlucky in 40k lore, the warp doesn't like clones. and kriegers are not unlucky.
@@matthiuskoenig3378 i think every colonel of krieg is jurten, that way he is their eternal leader. he was confused when asked what his name was, so they most likely treat it as a title.
and since you talked about the book "dead men walking", it´s a flat out better book on kriegers, because you get the point of view of the civis and of world commisars, and you get the contrats betwen the normal people seeing necrons and the kriegers figthing then like it was normal, plus you also get the cold and calculated way that kriegers wage war
Krieg do take moral tests on the table, they're just harder to fail than regular Guard tests
Dead men walking is practically the situation where the krieg are the villains that bricky was asking for. They don't act like the good guys. Honestly, I would love to see them do a bookclub on that one as well. As much as I enjoyed this book, Dead me walking waa shi far the better of the two.
do you guys have any plans on a episode about Celestine or the Legion of the dammed? the concept of Loyalist Daemons is quite amazing
all the more proof that Big E is a god of Order or a Chaos god of Tyranny.
On the subject of the reaction to the Kreigers removing their masks: the average Catachan can get cheaper insurance, the average Cadian can drink, and the average Kriegsman can get a driver’s license.
I loved the book. I understand why, I personally really jived with learning the details of kreig. Then again I was very close to becoming a history teacher... So I guess I have a reason for liking this one. I also had to re read the first 4 chapters cus I got lost between the transition from kreig to octarious wars.
Krieg lacking " characters " makes sense though. They're clones. Literally clones of just " Oh this person performed well in battle. CLONE THEM AND TRAIN THEM. " - But Krieg isn't supposed to be all about " Oh we're special characters with so much personality! " - it's literally just WWI trench warfare. You're right. I love Krieg because I enjoy history. You're not going to get a bunch of flavor with Krieg men. They're literally given letters and numbers at birth and told " Want me to care about your 'name'? Do something worthwhile for the Emperor while on the field of battle. " - and that's one of the reasons they're so zealous. Their lives are literally forfeit at birth. Sucks for personification and giving you someone to identify with, but you don't always need to be going " HAHA! THAT PERSON IN THE BOOK IS SOOOOO ME! " - we're all adults here. We can just enjoy " Oh, this is their life, how it works, why they're not hesitant to throw lives away, etc. "
( I hate World of Tanks and all that crap though, so shame on you for even making me remember those games exist. They bloooow. )
Also, could've sworn there was a book that had Krieg fighting dark eldar, or at least some lore that literally was like " Krieg guardsmen would be grabbed by dark eldar and brought aboard raiders with timed explosives hidden on their person, taking all the deldar on board, the raider and themselves out. Sometimes even slaying dark eldar majors and captains. "
There's not really anything about being a clone that means you don't have a personality or a character. People are formed by their experiences, and it doesn't really make sense for them to act this way other than the author saying "well that's just how it is". I don't think that's good writing.
@@hellayeproductions6739 So, a culture literally revolving around " You live and die for the Emperor. Everything else you do that's not furthering your goal is wasting time and might earn you his ire, rather than his forgiveness. " - isn't reason for the majority of them to be so emotionally repressed that they'd not make compelling characters. Goooot it. That's like saying " Ultramarines are so good because they're adaptable. " - when it's because Matt Ward LOVES Ultramarines and can't stand for his blue babies to be hurt too long. Meanwhile, if an author is like " Yes, they die in droves and many of them are clones that while they're shaped by experience, they HATE small talk, they hate anything that's not about war and earning their penance to the Emperor and they go so far as to hate any other guard regiments because they see them as cowards with all of their " Oh but what if this happens, what if that happens? " - adapt. ... So yes, they're gonna obviously be a bit uninteresting considering the only ones with personality are generals and commanding officers and even then, they're not eccentrics like some officers. They see the rank as " I've gone from joining charges to leading them, now I'm ordering them. " and that's it. They're military minds. Not sociable minds. That's another thing... if you take someone and clone them, then put them all in the same general situation, most of them will get similar experience and all be similarly shaped. In fact that's likely why they use the clone templates they have. Detached, unfeeling guardsmen that fight despite MASSIVE casualty rates that would drive Cadians to fall to their knees and pray.
We all like to think " Oh, individualism is required in this and that- " - but they literally strip you of that if you go into the modern military too, so why the heck do people think it'd be any different in a MUCH more brutal version of warfare..? Why? It wouldn't. It'd be worse in fact because all soldiers are put through intense indoctrination from birth and know nothing other than war and serving the Emperor so that one day the planet of Krieg and her people might be forgiven their transgressions. There's no Ciaphas Cain from Krieg. Kriegers won't run unless ordered to because " The Emperor needs your life sold elsewhere. Not here. " And even the generals wish to fight and die on the field, but they know that they've developed experience enough that they're required in the war room, rather than the field. That's why the book comes across more cold. It's a book about Krieg, so makes sense it would try to put you in their mindset of " Straight to the point, here's your information, learn this. " - rather than treating you like a baby that needs " The radiance of the salvo's detonation and the clap of it all was deafening. It could be felt in every man's bones from miles off as we observed the bombardment from behind our masks. " - that's about all the descriptors you're gonna get from them, honestly. Considering this guy has written books that aren't from a Krieger's strict point of view, but has Kriegers in it in a more " amusing " and detailed way, there's other books for that sort of thing, certainly. It's not " THIS ARTIST IS SO BAD AND USING THAT AS AN EXCUSE. " - it's more of " He's trying to make it sound similar to how a guardsman from Krieg writes. "
As a person who started reading about the world wars in grade school for fun and then grew up to become an archaeologist... yeah I love the Death Korp of Krieg. Your guys' logic stands
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. I felt like a crazy person in the Ad Ric server for my negative review of Krieg. Normally I don't have too terribly much to say about 40k books after I'm done with them besides "that was fun" or "I don't think I'm reading that again." I had a literal list of critiques of the book, to the point that I was genuinely mad with the sheer amount of wasted potential. Did you know the Cadian captain had a squad of five? Did you know only two of them are named?? Did you know they weren't the same person with how little characterization they were given???
The book should've stuck with the past on Krieg, expanding the supporting cast to give us the perspective of the everyman on Krieg and how their lives were affected by adapting to their changing world, and in general give those involved more characterization.
Also DK was absolutely right, Van Buren's Interrogator had three Kriegsmen take off their gasmasks. The book then proceeded to blueball the reader by switching to the past on Krieg, and we never see what he saw, which gets him killed.
With how the tech priest was acting during the book, I kept expecting it to reveal that he would be like "lmao I'm doing this for chaos" and then them actually feeling shame for the actions they took or something. I mean the tech priest straight up lies that Jurten okayed using the wombs and stuff.
Hey, I know, restart the clock, but I really want to give a book recommend. Do you like imagining your own hypotheticals? Do you like stories of Knights being total chads and their Houses being totally, utterly fucked up? Do you like stories about Malcador being shady? And do you like the background story of Horus and the Emperor? Then maybe read 'Vengeful spirit'. It doesn't spoil any story. It doesn't require any story to be read before, since the setting was already explained in previous videos. It is by far my favorite book. And I want to see DK and Bricky being blown away by the story! Its not our lord and saivor ABD who written it but Graham McNeill is one of the best. PLS SHY notice me senpai!!
This book in some always rewrites some of Krieg Lore in my opinion. I do enjoy the Civil war part of the book a lot and in my opinion the whole book probably should have been that.
In the older Krieg Lore the Jesus motif has always been there in a small way. The original idea for the reason the Krieg was so suicidal was because each of their deaths in a small part atone for the Sin of Kriegs rebellion. Making them a small "Jesus" for their planet and people. That idea is also expanded in a short story about a Krieg soldier who gets stuck on a planet after a war. If he kind of realizes that he dies so innocent people don't have too.
Dead men walking is probably the better book for Krieg then this one because of the outside view of the Krieg and not on them themselves. Because Krieg soldiers are just brainwashed kids. Which is pretty boring for a long character drive story.
i disagree on that last part. all imperials are brainwashed, especially space marines, which lorewise are supposed to be more emotionless than kriegers and there are plenty of compelling stories written from marines perspective.
25:00 GW just came out with exodite has kreig vs tau pretty fun to see them from tau perspective
Havent read krieg, did read dead men walking. Their interactions with locals and the pdf were phenomonally written. 10/10 reccomend just for that
Have not read krieg but i have read Dead Men Walking. And i honestly realy liked the book. its got great interactions and plotlines
DEAD MEN WALKING
, THIS IS THE KRIEG BOOK YOU GUYS NEED TO READ
Krieg vs necrons
Point of view is from a commissar serving with krieg and civilians stuck between krieg and necrons
It's hilarious how small Krieg's offer of 60,000 guardsmen is.
Singapore, a single city state on earth, with only 283.1 squares miles of territory has an active military with 70,000 people, and can activate an additional 352,500 reservist at the drop of a hat.
I mean i understand that but there comes in a factor of their training vs krieg training standards. Krieg die in the hundreds through practice seminars. On top of that, the city is not a literal hellscape of nuclear waste. Plus these are troops they are giving to go fuck off to do whatever. Im sure if you sound the alarm all the krieg "reservists" would dwarf those numbers
Dead Men Walking scratches that Necron and Krieg itch. Would be an awesome book club book
I think as an introduction it's good, it does very much feel like a war documentary, but for people already deep in the lore there's very little new there and most of it gets brushed over. I'm hoping it's being used as advanced advertising to release some more Krieg models into the current edition.
There was this one fan animation that had Kriegers and I think it nailed what they are about. Charging chaos sm on horse back with AP explosive lance's, charging trenchs with their own artillery landing around them, sacrificing a whole squad just to get one guy close to a berserker to pop his neck with a krack grenade.
Sodaz
Yeah, they know 5 guardsmen to take out 1 chaos marine is a amazing trade in favor of the guardsmen
I'm currently going through the books in best order as possible, this is one of my favorites so ty for reviewing it. idk if you'll see this comment but just in case u guys do, plz!!!! with a cherry on top of a guards man's cake plz do a video on the very few but rare wholesome moments in 40k because I found that how few there are makes them all the more precious and reminds everyone that the salamanders aren't the only ones capable of being kind in the age of war
Reads about Krieg
disappointed that the battles are long and pointless
what did you expect?
And yes, its Jurten’s DNA because thats why thats why when the Inquisitor asks the soldier what his name is he said “Jurten?” as if he had trouble remembering
No I think it was more supposed to be symbolic as that Krieger was the colonel/planetary governor of the planet thus he was in effect Jurten
As a massive death korps fan I found this book very mixed. The modern Octarius battles show the sheer horrific approach the korps takes to warfare. However showing it all from outside perspectives really took the spotlight away from the Death Korps and makes them feel like the backdrop of their own story.
Jurten's story from his perspective really shows what comes to define the men of krieg ideology and culture wise. Defining what becomes their future values. However his doubt and inner conflict does add a level of humanity the book really benefits from.
Really wish this was written by someone else, Lyons does a good job with the Death Korps in the short form but with the length of this story his style really gets old fast and comes across very dry.
I Think the Book Shows How the Kreig Became The Kreig, where Jurten was cold and calculating, His daugter being an acceptable loss. And The Cadian Gaurdsmen being Our sight, more human. But a Major Show of the difference of Local Malitia and Kreig would be “Dead Men Walking”.
I have a lot to say about this book club but the one thing that I will comment is that yes, they are all clones of yurten, fenris asks some krieg to take off their masks and he is deeply disturbed, the colonel who met the inquisiter on krieg was asked for a name and he eventually said I suppose it's Yurten, and it explains why they feel they must atone for the sins of Yurten, because they are yurten
Personally I did enjoy this book, but I am also a ww1 fanatic who loves historical documents. I get why it wasn't your guys thing though.
Steve Lyons other Krieg book "Dead Men Walking" would be more up your alley I think. You have local PDF reacting to Kriegers while also fighting necrons.
60k Catachans is a lot
600k Cadians supported by 10k tanks is a lot
The choice of 60k Krieg makes no sense and kinda broke my immersion. Specially when you consider their tactics. They needed to say 6 million, minimum.
I'm gonna pretend that the vox recorder glitched and registered the wrong number TBH...
Remember the golden rule of 40k scale, if the numbers look too small to be reasonable then add an extra zero or two and it’ll be fine.
I'm not sure how that broke your immersion. That was the first time the Imperium heard from Kreig in 500 years. The planet had no life on it. The fact they had 60 men alive would have been impressive. 60k soldiers ready to deploy is a lot when the entire surface of the planet cannot support life.
@@NoiseTheSilent True but it's still a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of Guardsmen the Imperium must get on a regular basis, which is why the reaction of the characters is weird.
Can't wait for the Gazkull Episode! Couldn't wait for for you guys so I listened. Hope you like it!
I’m halfway through Krieg book and finished Dead Men Walking quite a while ago. I would agree with the review and say the same, it is a bit dull, but definitely has its good moments (so far). It works really well as a foundation/intro for Krieg, while Dead Men Walking is just a separate story with non-krieg-related (at first) character as a main protagonist. It tells us how normal people of the imperium see the Kriegsmen while also having them in contrast with Necrons which works beautifully in my opinion. Dead Men Walking was a book that convinced me to start Krieg army :) I would totally recommend you guys checking it out some time!
24:40 i can sense an entire crowd of people currently yelling "The siege of Vraks!" at them right now.
Holy shit. I'm over 30 smoke meats and just read and watched band of brother again. And I was disagreeing completely with you about the book but you nailed the krieg/imperial guard fan.
I really like that it was set like a historical recollection. That's why they didn't give much on the rebels. It is definitely a little dull.
I finished the book in two days and enjoyed it because I'm probably one of the few who are completely biased when it comes to the death korps. That said I think you guys hit home about why I'd felt that it was somewhat lacking and not really that memorable.
Dead Men Walking on the other hand, I think is definitely up there with some of the best 40k books out there. The way it gives you hope and then just rips up your heart string is just 👌
Me and my friend personal theory on the Vat grown kriegsmen is that they took dna samples from the troops that jurgen still had alive and the ones who actually graduated from his military academy to make regular troops and jurgen DNA to make the officers of the death korps of krieg cause the can easily have the officers bat grown troops be grown in a different area from the regular troops. I also thought this was a excellent book like I kinda expected it to be a history book type of deal so I went in thinking in as that so maybe that’s why I enjoyed it.
cool theory, but clearly Dkok chooses their officers by picking the one who serves the longest and promote them
@@xuanquang9815 my theory can still work though if the have certain one picked to be sent to officer school.
@@alphariusomegon3965 no your theories directly contradict the lore;
1) the siege of vraks and Orpheus war says they use eugenics and breeding to keep away mutation and breed the best soldiers possible. you wouldn't need this if you just reused DNA from jurten and his orginal men. (which is reinforced in down amongst the deadmen)
2) the lore specifically says they pick officers based on ability not bloodlines, and all kriegers have to start as privates and work their way upthe ranks as veterans.
3) krieg is described as being full of underground hive cities in both novels and the imperial armour books, and deadmen walking (by the same author as this novel) goes on to say these hive cities are full of pregnant women. krieg confirms vitae wombs are artificial wombs, but its not their only method of produceing soldiers
Ahhh... i love the death korps. Good and entertaining video as all ways :D
it was tragic how the tech priest knew how this was going to go, and was basically leading jurten the whole way without him knowing...and then at the very end it leaves it entirely up to you if you believe jurten gave him the okay to use the vita wombs with his dying breaths, or if he lied and did it without his consent. it was great revealing that the true traitor behind the throne actually was a secret chaos worshipper, not just greedy a bureaucrat.
Overall, I wasn't too hot on this book. I liked the interpersonal drama surrounding the colonel in past Krieg more than trying to retake the city, I felt like the action scenes were very difficult to follow. Especially the Ork bike section.
That being said, Chapter 13 (the one where the nukes go off) is pretty stellar for both timelines of the book. A sickening reminder of the type of cruel weapon we ourselves have already created and the effects it has on the grimdark setting of Warhammer 40K. Yet in spite of that, it doesn't lose out on the grimdark with the depiction of a human and ork survivor in a ruined city still trying to kill the hell out of each other, only to both be killed by a falling debris. It was almost enough to leave me with a generally good impression of the book...until Chapter 14, where the inquisitor fellates the Krieg to an extent I haven't quite seen in other faction based books. Granted I haven't read many space marine chapter books outside of Helsreach but still, hearing an Inquisitor essentially say that the Krieg were so important and so devout that any minor heresies they could be commiting should be forgiven or to straight up ignore how much they don't know about them was...a bit much for me.
Overall if I had to give a grade, maybe 7/10. Krieg has it's moments and the past sections well explore the situation that made the Krieg who they are. It's hovering close to a 6/10 at times though, especially with what could be considered minor plot holes (They didn't think to use the underground drill to infiltrate the city while the first initial assault was ongoing and demanding the ork's attention? They would have saved many lives had they done so, probably could have been clear of the nukes before they went off and the assault's success margin was already slim.)
orginal krieg lore says that kriegers are so important, effective and devout that minor heresies (like the vitae wombs) are ignored and the high lords of terra themselves ordered this and that nothing should get in the way of creating more krieg regiments and an ever increaseing amount of resources is devoted to increaseing their number.
its not a new thing with krieg.
I'm glad i wasn't the only one that was iffy on this book. i don't think its a bad book but its probably my least favorite out of the 9 warhammer books i read this far. However i do wish to point out that the narrator of the book on Audible; Timothy Watson, did a very good job especially doing the Krieg parts , because even though almost all of the characters in that part had German Accents i never got confused who was who, because Watson was able to give different affectations on top of the German accents to really differentiate each of the characters to really make them distinct voices. Massive credit to him
Dead Men Walking was a better story while still keeping the feel of the Krieg. Super depressing. Good read.
Generally, every book that jumps from one time or one place to another I never liked.
It was one of the reasons I could not get in Preatorian of Dorn and finish the book.
The Octarius war colonel's name was Jurten too.
They're all named Jurten, probably. Do they use the number like a forename?
Yes they're all clones. They should send notes to whichever magos smoothbrain is running the Afriel project.
it would mention if they were clones considering some of them are forced to remove their masks and they are not shown to be identical.
the colonels name is jurten because colonel jurten will always be their leader. even now, a colonel is in charge of krieg, even though they were forced to take militarum rankings.
Finally I’ve been waiting for this episode since they announced it
Another great episode as always!
i hope you guys do a book review of blackstone fortress, janus drake is one of my favorite characters in 40k
I think the reason they were Cadians is because they were trying to show Cadians "getting their grove back" so to speak. Like I remember the captain lady being worried that there were fewer and fewer Cadians left, and so spending time amongst the Kriegers helped to remind her whats important as a Guardsman. I might be off base but that was the vibe I got, the Cadians lost their planet and so did Krieg (as they knew it at least) but the planet isn't whats important about them its the people. The book could have done it better but I think that's the angle it was going for.
Ghazghkull Thrakka: Prophet of the WAAAGH is a great time. almost finished with it in a day and looking forward to the video on that.
I absolutely recommend Dead Men Walking. You’d absolutely enjoy it more.
The problem with the imperium side is that They are the good guys but have gone against what the emperor envisioned for the galaxy. Aka. They became religious depots over the emperor.
What's more fucked up is it's turning him into a god but if he tries to stop it he will die a mortal death and Terra will be consumed by the warp and then humanity will be thrown back into the dark ages and every planet will be cut off from the other. So the Emperor kinda just has to let it happen
@@jeambeam3173 personally O think it’s been the plan the entire time. What if he is the FIFTH chaos god. The god of order. Destined to arrive and bring order back to the warp t belive it was.
Not only did the Orcs have the Squigs - they used the Choppers. With them flying out of the hive and nearly crashing.
There were a few things that I would probably disagree with you based on what I understood but the part where you were saying that they revealed their face it was not The Inquisitor it was the interrogator he was training to become his replacement and it was three soldiers when they removed their masks and just described them as fit men because The Inquisitor was actually pretty understanding of the Krieg it was his Apprentice the interrogator that was very standoffish to them. (But I will say the story is a little slow but it made me think of the Starship Trooper book and I enjoyed that book so I enjoy this one too)
I think the biggest problem of the book is the characters didnt really feel real, they didnt feel like people, they feel like depictions of people in a textbook. This was especiallly noticeable when you read/listen to this after reading a book that had good realistic emotional characters like The Twice Dead King Books.
Krieg is the first of 2 Warhammer books I decided to just not finish, the other one being Valedor.
My personal take is that Krieg does the writing pretty well on a chapter by chapter basis, but due to the constant time shifts back and forth and the amount of characters you need to follow creates this tragic and unfun and chaotic reading experience to me. Knowing that it is not so much a bad writer as just the time jumps not really being my thing is making me a little hopeful to hear that his new Krieg book is a bit better on the side of its pacing and readability. BUT, for that I just need to wait till I see a non-spoiler review comparing the new book to the old is all!
So I bought when y’all just uploaded the review and have now finished it. Holy shit it’s so good. I loved every part. Especially the parts with colonel jurten. One of my favorite books. Also I’m a die hard Krieg fan
I liked the book. It gave a look at before the treachery, after in the current setting and most importantly the emergence from their vaults after the Nukes and how it shaped them. I agree though it should have been some random Regiments nor Cadians in the Octarious war
i feel like its supposed to be a bit of a drag with the battles because thats what it is for the krieg and guards to be in the battle , and thats also why the character deaths don´t mean shit to us since they don´t matter in the big picture.
Good point. Very good point.
So Krieg is my first Warhammer book ever (other than the Last Church, if the version on TH-cam counts). As someone who only knew about the Krieg through Bricky and this podcast, I knew Krieg life was bad, but not how bad. Wasn’t a huge a fan of modern time stuff, I do kinda wish it was purely from Jurten’s POV as he defends into more and more cruelty as the war rages on. Maybe develop on his relationship with his daughter as Bricky suggested. But other than that I still enjoyed it and it gave me 40k depression for the rest of the day
One takes their mask off in Dead Men Walking when infiltrating a hive alongside the commissar. Its just like a super pale 17 year old kid with greasy black hair and acne, and MASSIVE sleep rings under his eyes.
I am a guard fan, and I love history. Please do not out me like this agaIn. Thank you.
40k books range from in-universe historical accounts to comedy necron slapstick written by bored inquisitorial acolytes.
I will say though, reading Krieg's imperial perspective on Ork Deffkoptas was great. They thought the Orks were dropping heavy scrap from the walls, siege tactic style, but then said scrap puttered into life and started flying.
Just throwing in my two cents, I thought Dead Men Walking ( the book the mention in the episode briefly) is a better showing for the Death Korps
You know it's great to see the cadians reacting to the insanity of the krieg. Cadians are themselves often considered in insanely brave, willing to charge chaos demons without hesitation
I read Dead Men Walking before Krieg. I thought both were good. But Dead Men Walking did show a bleaker perspective on Krieg. Mainly because you get a different perspective to the Krieg Guardsman as they fight the Necrons. Dead Men Walking also shows us at least what one Krieg Grenadier looks like without his mask. That was one of the cooler parts of the book in my opinion.
Dead Men Walking - Describes an unmasked korpsman
Left for Dead - Protagonist is an unmasked korpsman
Krieg - 'WoOOoo mySTeriOuS wE wOn'T sHow yoU oooOOOOooo'
I get the book was doing that thing where it tries to be it's own screenplay, dramatic cuts and all, but they could have handled the whole 'they're clones' thing without bending over backwards to hide what any reader with more than one Krieg book under their belt is already aware of.
@@korstmahler Yeah, I spent the rest of "Krieg" wondering if they were going to tell us what the inquisitor really saw and then it just ended. It was a bit of a let down after reading both "Dead Men Walking" and "Left for Dead"
Read Krieg and have Dead Men Walking but haven't started it yet. I enjoyed this book but it didn't vibe with me as well as some of the other books have. I felt like it probably would of benefited from sticking to one timeline instead of jumping back and forth. I did like that idea you guys had of a book from the perspectives of people defending against a Krieg seige though. Need more books from the "victims" of the imperial crusades perspective
Finally, nice work and have a nice Sunday afternoon everyone
I loved the book. and is amazing to have something that feels like, down to earth, instead of jurten being some marvel larger than life figure, he is a zealot. instead of super quirky soldiers that quip their way in a battlefield, its just men fighting. The gritty and subdued reality of death. i finished reading it in two sessions and i was pumped to see krieg without the shovel memes.
I love the moment I hop in here there using B-roll Garfield footage as a descriptor for kreigers
Hey Bricky, have you ever heard about the Jin roh Wolf Brigade movie? Scifi animated movie where a member of a japanese secret police unit gets caught up in politics between government agencies. The power suits look a lot like the Helgast do.
I feel you brickyard. I came home from the Bahamas. Not even 1 week back i had it my mom had it an my sister had it. Just feels like a mild flu.
Despite being negative, this video only sold me on the krieg and this book more because of the horrific nature of them as characters. They're not supposed to be heroes just soldiers and when you're fighting flies you could never stand a chance against many will die. It's so GRIMDARK, I LOVE IT.
It's only implied that jurten had the base but considering how he mistrusted everyone it's likely he would view himself as the best hope
I liked the book overall quite a bit, the present timeline stuff did get a little blah at times though. Favorite scene was the Krieg charging on horses against the Ork bikers as the Cadians watched.
One book does the horror thing well, as it's imperial citizens being terrified of them.
If you hadn't just done a Guardsmen book I'd ask if you guys would read Steel Tread, it's like Fury tank crew story but with Guardsmen and they're being hunted by a Chaos Knight
I am 30, I do love my smoked meats, and I do love my ww1 and ww2 history, and I do enjoy games with that theme and or moding my games to have such aesthetics.. 🤭
And I really like the Krieg.. And the Mordian Iron guard.. And the Tallarn desert raiders.. And the Praetorian Guard, and the Vostroyan 1st born and-
The chairman's speech, was morally - considering the Imperium as awhole - not wrong. However, does it matter if he was still intended to rule the world where the people toiled as they would under the Imperium with the only difference being he would not have to deal with the Imperium Bureaucracy? Morever, Krieg had it pretty good compared to most imperial worlds, the fact that the chairman and the Aristocrats set this up was going to doom their world regardless if Jurten was gonna stop them. The Imperium would have eventually sent a force to deal with the traitors and bring the world into compliance. The aristocrats were not in it for the people of the world, they were in it for themselves and their greed was their downfall.
I gotta say "Krieg" has quite a few small moments that just Clicked with me such as Jurgen saying "it's Just another Soldier" when he learned of his daughters death, Or that ALL cornels in Krieg are named Jurgen and that moment when cornel that gone to re-establish communications with Imperium was confused when Inquisitor asked his name. Although parts of the "How Krieg came to be" were far more interesting then current Krieg stuff
the first part was fantastic. i loved hearing about how they finally made contact with the imperium
Who was the mutant that couldn't remember his name? (Raim/Rahm) Was he someone from the book earlier or just a random character?