Tali'Thread vas Clan Zorah nar BSN 6.0

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saFHRzcsiyk

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFAMYW2POBw

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nRLpx9DxyQ

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTRyN25-5Xs

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LkvmWAnTvE

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbf_8sD9GKk

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPNLL2oUef0

[Dragaros]

[Dragaros]

Do you have every Heresy book? That's got to be an entire bookshelf alone, counting supplemental novels.

► Show Spoiler

Chaos Custodes is gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Ugh. Fo's a cool guy tho, presumably still alive too.

I have 1 whole bookshelf, plus half of a second, double layered, filled to the brim with HH/Siege books. I’m an “all in” kind of guy when I start something, usually, but the way this series has been dragged out tested even my patience and commitment to the utmost limit and beyond. I never imagined this would go on for almost 20 years and with some many entries when I picked up that first novel. Horus Rising came out in 2006; I had only started seriously exploring 40k since 2004. Little did I know what I jumping into.

► Show Spoiler

I read a thread that went into more detail about the Chaos Custodes thing. I can't say if this is true, as I don't have the book myself, but this is what I saw:

1. Apparently, the Custodes have only lost control of their bodies; their minds and souls are still 100% loyal to the Emeperor and untainted, and they’re trying to fight against the force that’s puppeting their bodies the whole time before Big E frees them. So it's not so much Chaos corruption as it is that Chaos is, for lack of a better word, telekinetically making their bodies move against their will.
2. This was a trap that was prepared well in advance, so its not something that’s done suddenly on the spot.
3. The trap is powered by the Vengeful Spirit and Horus, both of which are drenched and overflowing with the highest amounts of Chaos juice in the whole galaxy in the entire history of everything, directly from the Big 4, with Horus being on the same level as the Emperor, and the Vengeful Spirit is so saturated with Warp energy its basically a pocket of the Warp itself in realspace.

///

The Fo subplot is interesting, especially since it seems like its tying into the Terminus Decree (A bioweapon to kill every Space Marine in the galaxy, loyalist and traitor alike, and to ensure that no new Space Marines are ever created again, would make for a good, "desperate last resort" weapon, without resorting to the more final "we know we're defeated and humanity has lost but we're going to give you a black eye on the way out" weapon of Vulkan's Talisman that would destroy Terra and the Golden Throne, but the way its presented is frustratingly vague enough that it opens up a ton of questions, and not in the fun fan speculation kind of way but more in that "how would that even work" kind of way: one book even made it seem like it would effect every genetic creation of the Emperor's, even Custodes and Primarchs, and while Fo's a brilliant scientist, he's not that brilliant. Primarchs aren't even beings of pure science, they're part Warp-craft; they've been shown repeatedly to be utterly immune to all forms of biological attack from the natural world or from a lab, only Nurgle's supernatural plagues have shown any effect on them. Not to mention they have such radically different organs from everyone else not even the best doctors and Apothecaries in the Imperium know what the hell they are.), but placing it here, at the very end of the Heresy, with no real foreshadowing or build-up, when the focus should be just on surviving a Chaos-roided up Horus and the fate of Big E, feels like a forced and unnecessary complication and distraction to the main story. But that's just me. I know others feel differently. Having this take place after the HH, but before the Scouring would have been better in my opinion.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPuMGfStaHk

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMWkoUDRyFg

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxXZhCkIn48

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgQfWoUVXg

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX1tbm3CnLo

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxUBPDtv01I

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2347gyZp0U

Ah, there's Cammy.

Damn, Zangief got even beefier.

[Dragaros]

"Project Skies announced – free-to-play cross-play co-op action RPG from former BioWare, Riot Games, and Blizzard Entertainment developers; Pre-alpha playtest sign-ups now available."

"Metal Gear Solid 3 Remake And New Castlevania Reportedly Coming To E3"

"Mortal Kombat 12 to launch in 2023 According to Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav."

[Vol]

As I am attempting to properly clear Yakuza 0, I am also attempting to learn mahjong, a minigame I absolutely avoided in the past. Not at hard as I thought to grasp the basics, but the need to memorize a ton of tile variations that you need to win seems...a bit much to ask of a westerner. Thankfully, the AI seems scripted to be fairly benevolent, compared to the shogi AI. My pet theory is that they wrote it to never make a bad move, so the result is even on the easiest battles, it always make a good move, and thus is necessarily playing at a very high level. But mahjong seems fun, once you do memorize all the hands and can read the tiles at a fast clip.

[Vol]

I have 1 whole bookshelf, plus half of a second, double layered, filled to the brim with HH/Siege books. I’m an “all in” kind of guy when I start something, usually, but the way this series has been dragged out tested even my patience and commitment to the utmost limit and beyond. I never imagined this would go on for almost 20 years and with some many entries when I picked up that first novel. Horus Rising came out in 2006; I had only started seriously exploring 40k since 2004. Little did I know what I jumping into.

► Show Spoiler

I read a thread that went into more detail about the Chaos Custodes thing. I can't say if this is true, as I don't have the book myself, but this is what I saw:

1. Apparently, the Custodes have only lost control of their bodies; their minds and souls are still 100% loyal to the Emeperor and untainted, and they’re trying to fight against the force that’s puppeting their bodies the whole time before Big E frees them. So it's not so much Chaos corruption as it is that Chaos is, for lack of a better word, telekinetically making their bodies move against their will.
2. This was a trap that was prepared well in advance, so its not something that’s done suddenly on the spot.
3. The trap is powered by the Vengeful Spirit and Horus, both of which are drenched and overflowing with the highest amounts of Chaos juice in the whole galaxy in the entire history of everything, directly from the Big 4, with Horus being on the same level as the Emperor, and the Vengeful Spirit is so saturated with Warp energy its basically a pocket of the Warp itself in realspace.

///

The Fo subplot is interesting, especially since it seems like its tying into the Terminus Decree (A bioweapon to kill every Space Marine in the galaxy, loyalist and traitor alike, and to ensure that no new Space Marines are ever created again, would make for a good, "desperate last resort" weapon, without resorting to the more final "we know we're defeated and humanity has lost but we're going to give you a black eye on the way out" weapon of Vulkan's Talisman that would destroy Terra and the Golden Throne, but the way its presented is frustratingly vague enough that it opens up a ton of questions, and not in the fun fan speculation kind of way but more in that "how would that even work" kind of way: one book even made it seem like it would effect every genetic creation of the Emperor's, even Custodes and Primarchs, and while Fo's a brilliant scientist, he's not that brilliant. Primarchs aren't even beings of pure science, they're part Warp-craft; they've been shown repeatedly to be utterly immune to all forms of biological attack from the natural world or from a lab, only Nurgle's supernatural plagues have shown any effect on them. Not to mention they have such radically different organs from everyone else not even the best doctors and Apothecaries in the Imperium know what the hell they are.), but placing it here, at the very end of the Heresy, with no real foreshadowing or build-up, when the focus should be just on surviving a Chaos-roided up Horus and the fate of Big E, feels like a forced and unnecessary complication and distraction to the main story. But that's just me. I know others feel differently. Having this take place after the HH, but before the Scouring would have been better in my opinion.

That is a _ton_ of books for what was a few paragraphs of backstory once upon a time! Didn't realize it'd been going since 2006...oh no, my sense of time is slipping, I'm aging! Kid who was getting into 40k at a teen could be a medical doctor and then some in the time it's taken...while I've taken a long road to about where I was, heh.

► Show Spoiler

Ah, yeah, see, puppeteering is fine. The Custodes are strong and resistant, but they're not Big E. Sufficient Chaos juice should be able to force them to dance, albeit at a very high cost, such as you described. While _falling_ to Chaos is to believe its truth/lies, knowingly serves its interests, and accept the consequences. Which they should never do, regardless of the Chaos juice, especially with Big E right there. They should short-circuit and explode into a golden mist first, facing such a fundamental contradiction in everything they are and think and the magic being pumped into their heads.

Which again ties into the Khorne murder-curse. Cool idea for a scene, great even. Special circumstance, massive expenditure of power, and the result should be equally huge. However, forcing people into worshipping Khorne is silly, whereas heightening their bloodlust and anger to the max is perfectly fine. Because most people would go murder-crazy, and others would resist it, and others would shake it off. But to instantly decide, "Oh wow I heckin' love Khorne-a-rino because I'm so angry and strong," is silly. Chaos itself is the perverse desires of sapients formed into psuedo-autonomous Warp monsters. To fall to Chaos is to accept the perverted collective consciousness of everyone else, whatever it is, and make that the rest of your miserable life. "We all created this, and I'm going to serve it to my own destruction."

---

Is it likely Fo is still alive in the 41st millennium? Regardless, I thought about how that virus might work, and the best guess I have, short of "Warp magic," is that it's (probably) utterly (mostly) harmless to (ideally) normal humans, but those who bear the mark of the Emperor's handiwork, or whatever the common element is, would die horribly. So everyone would be infected, and that would spread at the speed of travel/trade, and the result would be spess mehrines outright could not accord to be anywhere near humanity without full gear, and possibly not then. Thus both making it fatal to even have serfs not kept on the strictest of quarantines, but also to drive a unbridgeable gap between the mehrines and the people there supposed to protect. That's my guess anyway.

[magnuskn]

I finally got my PC to work right, after two months of constant crashing of all sorts of games. Turns out, the memory banks the new RAM was in with the new mainboard probably were damaged in some way, which caused all the crashes. I just changed the RAM sticks into the alternate memory banks and voilá, instantly a completely stable system. Been very nice to play The Witcher 3 on DX12 with RayTracing enabled without crashing every 15 minutes.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYcS0UzgvFQ

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZSbQMqbkLI

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT4KEQFXFQo

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUdKCzMH56E

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy__NiGaKRg

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-7Cq7LLPr4

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3K-SCCkWBQ

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PujvFR1KvTM

[Vol]

I finally got my PC to work right, after two months of constant crashing of all sorts of games. Turns out, the memory banks the new RAM was in with the new mainboard probably were damaged in some way, which caused all the crashes. I just changed the RAM sticks into the alternate memory banks and voilá, instantly a completely stable system. Been very nice to play The Witcher 3 on DX12 with RayTracing enabled without crashing every 15 minutes.

How much RAM you running? I swear, software developers are like pigs in a trough with the stuff. On my first proper PC, barely any, was hardly a problem. On my last build, had 16 GB, and periodically had to manually clean up the active processes. 32 GB on this one, and I'm sitting at 42% usage with hardly anything running.

Though your rig sounds top-shelf if you're running TW3 with all the bells and whistles

[magnuskn]

How much RAM you running? I swear, software developers are like pigs in a trough with the stuff. On my first proper PC, barely any, was hardly a problem. On my last build, had 16 GB, and periodically had to manually clean up the active processes. 32 GB on this one, and I'm sitting at 42% usage with hardly anything running.

32 GB, which my friends in the know (who are mostly system administrators) tell me is still good enough for the following five years. Or so they claim, I'm not so sure. ^^

Though your rig sounds top-shelf if you're running TW3 with all the bells and whistles

Now a step below top-shelf after the release of the RTX 4000 series, but, yeah, otherwise pretty damn good. An i5-13600, 32 GB DDR5-6000 RAM, an RTX 3090, with good SSD's. The money I make from my job has to go somewhere, after all.

[Dragaros]

As I am attempting to properly clear Yakuza 0, I am also attempting to learn mahjong, a minigame I absolutely avoided in the past. Not at hard as I thought to grasp the basics, but the need to memorize a ton of tile variations that you need to win seems...a bit much to ask of a westerner. Thankfully, the AI seems scripted to be fairly benevolent, compared to the shogi AI. My pet theory is that they wrote it to never make a bad move, so the result is even on the easiest battles, it always make a good move, and thus is necessarily playing at a very high level. But mahjong seems fun, once you do memorize all the hands and can read the tiles at a fast clip.

I've always wanted to try the Yakuza series, but just always got distracted by something else whenever I had the spare time. I'll have to rectify that. Which game is the best one to jump into for a newbie? Normally I'd just begin with the first, but I've heard that there are other games in the series that are better to start with, like 0, 2, and 3.

[Dragaros]

Ok, finally all caught up on my Siege of Terra reading. Some random thoughts:

► Show Spoiler

So, the big elephant in the room is Erda (Erda=Earth, Mother Earth, oh so clever!), the Emperor's ex-girlfriend, the Primarch's mother thanks to her DNA contribution, and second most powerful Perpetual after Big E himself. Yeah, her whole presence really fucks up the lore. Turns out she's the one who cast the Primarchs out into the Warp so they'd be scattered around the galaxy, not Chaos, even though that contradicts tons of lore and multiple books spanning decades. She did it because after standing by Big E's side for so many ages, she finally realized at the final hour maybe he's not fit to lead humanity and wouldn't be a good dad to their kids, so she threw them into the Warp to get them away from him and went into hiding. Now I see where the memes about "she's the Warhammer Space Karen who left the Emperor in the middle of the night and she took the kids and threw them out the car window!" and "an overly emotional woman being responsible for the fall of the Imperium/doom of mankind/Chaos's victory/Primarchs being corrupted, how progressive!" come from. She also comes across as very self-righteous and refuses to take any responsibility for her actions, showing a very callous disregard for all the trials and torments the Primarchs went through because of her actions, and the galaxy as a whole feeling the effects of her choices. She's a very unlikeable character just on a personality level, let alone how she affects the grander narrative. Big E was furious, but never bothered to track her down and punish her for it for some reason, even though it's mentioned he easily could have if he wanted to. Not only that, but she's just a rip off of an already existing character, the mortal scientist Amar Astarte from the Valdor novel, who tried to sabotage the Space Marine project right as it was about to launch. BUT WAIT! So GW noticed the massive backlash this character caused, because then a book later, Erebus of all people tracks her down and finds her with Warp shenanigans, and confronts her because he wanted to meet his "grandmother" and thank her for the role she played in allowing the HH to happen. He reveals to her that the Chaos Gods used her to lower the Emperor's wards and scatter the Primarchs through the Warp, meaning that what she thought was all her idea was really just her being a used and unknowing pawn, so the old lore is restored, just with her as the vehicle the Chaos Gods used to do it. She tries to deny it, stubbornly and childishly irresponsible to the last, and Erebus says her denial is the best joke in the immaterium; the Chaos Gods and all the daemons of the Warp find it hilarious and laugh about it to this day. Eerbus offers her a chance to join Chaos and be rewarded for her service by becoming a daemon, she refuses, and so he summons in 4 extra powerful greater daemons of each god. She reveals her powers, and splits into three beings: a young woman, a middle age woman, and an older woman (doing the whole Hecate/Weird Sisters/Sisters of Fate trinity thing). She's able to defeat the 4 greater daemons, using some kind of special psyker power that somehow doesn't have ties to the Warp, but is so weakened by the effort she's defenseless now, and Erebus kills her with one of those super special Chaos athames that can kill anything, though the stabbing happens offscreen so there's wiggle room for GW to bring her back if they really wanted to. I think they were trying to pull off a Pandora's Box metaphor with her, to go with the Prometheus metaphor they got going with the Emperor, but it falls flat on its face from awful execution. She's a pointless character with nothing to do or contribute, overcomplicates things just by being, and then is quickly killed off because she was hated the moment she popped up. She was so unpopular, she got the fandom to root for Erebus, and he's the most hated character in all of 40k! Man, I can only image how some of the traitor Primarchs would feel if they had gotten a chance to chat with her.

We get a flashback to the Emperor meeting Sanguinius, and a few interesting things of note here: first, when talking about faith, Big E speaks of it like a weapon that he considers mankind to still be too young and immature to wield instead of something he dislikes on principle. Less, "it must be removed forever", and more "you're not old enough and responsible enough to play with Daddy's guns, wait until you're 18". Which is a different take compared to a lot of other books. And second and most importantly, Sangy looks at the Emperor with his full pysker vision, and sees that his dad's soul is like a massive fusion of countless individuals, which means the "Big E is the reincarnated fusion of the ancient Shamans" theory from the early 40k days is back on the table! In addition, when Big E telepathically talks with Sangy, his words are overlapped with other words simultaneously, each with different meanings, just like the fragmented god-mind we saw when Guilly talked to Big E on the throne when he came back. Maybe some aspects of the Emperor do view the Primarchs as sons to be loved, and other aspects of the Emperor see them only as weapons and tools to be used, and the fusion-soul of Emps can't always find consensus or harmony.

Malcador mentions that if things had all gone according to the Emperor's plan, if the Webway project wasn't ruined, and if mankind evolved into the race of super-psykers in the ages to come like he wanted, he would have eventually used the Astronomican and the Golden Throne as weapons to try to purge the Warp of its daemonic taint, fueled by mankind's psychic power. Wage war directly on Chaos and burn out the darkness with the light of humanity.

Even by 40k standards, power levels are all over the place. Characters pull of feats in one book, but aren't capable of them in the next, and it all gets really confusing on just how strong anyone is. Kharn, swollen with so much Chaos power that he easily beats Sigismund who's the best fighter of all the Space Marines, gets swatted away like a fly when he tries to go after Dorn, but then a third-rate son of Fulgrim of no special import is able to briefly fight Dorn 1v1? Like, I get that the Chaos Gods are being extra generous with the gifts and blessings during the Siege, but there's no context to why this guy is that strong but this dude over there is even stronger.

Sigismund and Kharn have a rematch after Sigs fully commits himself to his faith in Big E being a god and being the Big E's instrument of vengeance against traitor Space Marines, and gets his infamous Black Sword. The book bizarrely tries to paint him as an even greater broken monster than Kharn, which is, in my opinion, just laughable. Sigs on his worst day is still miles better than Kharn on his best. The new and improved Sigs defeats Kharn.

Jenetia Krole, the Soulless Queen, is the Knight Commander of the Sisters of Silence, and she is super cool and badass as fuck, both as a warrior and as a character, and of course GW give her a lame and anticlimactic death. She deserved so much better. If she wasn't the most badass woman the Imperium as ever produced, she's easily in the top 3. Big E had Valdor personally find her as a child when he was still unifying Terra, and gave her special enhancements and age-prolonging treatments that other SoS don't get. Her blank/null power was unrivaled; even Primarchs and Custodes had trouble seeing her because their eyes and brains can barely grasp her presence, and even Malcador is pretty much powerless before her.

When we were first introduced to Dorn in the HH, he didn't leave a good first impression with me, so I never got why so many people liked him outside of the memes, but here in the Siege, I get it now. Dorn's stress strips him of the stoic, rigid amour he hides his true feelings and emotions with, and we get to see the real him underneath, and turns out he's a pretty chill guy and a great bro. Very relatable and sympathetic, with a good heart even if he doesn't express it often, and his sense of duty is second to none. Dorn is even a huge believer in the ideals of free speech and freedom of expression, and hates that he lives in a universe where such things can't be allowed because Chaos will use it to sneak in.

So many uninteresting and unnecessary subplots and convoluted plot threads dragging this story down, not just with unnecessary complications, but also slowing it to a crawl.

The whole Ollanius Pius/Ollanius Persson/Ollanius Piers thing has become such unnecessary mess.

We have some characters still trying to argue that the Chaos Gods aren't really gods, but it comes across as denial of basic reality at this point with the gates of hell opening up around them, logic-defying unholy miracles are happening, souls are being torn out of people, and you can look up and see the Chaos Gods laughing through the Warp-haze shattering the sky. "They're not gods, they're just interdimensional sentient warp-storm thought-parasites born from the collective psychic echoes of every species' sins and nightmares!" Ok, whatever helps you sleep at night. Not sure why everyone is using the Judeo-Christian definition of a god in these discussions. Likewise, hearing some characters trying to defend the Imperial Truth's effectiveness at this point is just funny. It didn't work guys, and nothing you say can change that. The Imperial Truth left everyone unprepared for Chaos' insidious corrupting predations and manipulations, we know it was never going to starve the Chaos Gods, and it gives no comfort or hope to the soldiers on the walls being murdered by daemons. Even Malacdor understands now; he's letting the cult of the Emperor spread so he can study the power of faith as he knows it will be a useful weapon in the ages to come. Gotta be pragmatic about this shit.

The various writers have very different ideas and perspectives on Saint Keeler and the burgeoning religion that will one day become the Ecclesiarchy, which makes the whole thing very messy.

We have so many origin stories for the Inquisition, it's almost a running gag at this point.

Garro, the last uncorrupted Death Guard, who was one of the first Space Marines to have faith in the Emperor as a god after the HH began, finally confronts his Primarch after almost 20 years since the character was introduced. He has no chance, Morty kicks his ass and he's just toying with him, dragging the fight out, before he stabs Gorro with his scythe and looks him in the eye, but Gorro uses his last breaths to pull himself along the blade so he can stab Morty in the neck before dying as a final rejection of his traitorous father, and the last thing he sees as he dies is the Emperor welcoming him to his side.

My boy Jaghatai Khan tales back the space port and challenges Morty to a duel and wins, casting him back to the Warp, but the way he wins is a little silly; instead of using his trademark speed and grace, he somehow just has better endurance than Morty, even though that's Morty whole special gimmick. Though to be fair, Khan takes so much damage in the processes he's on death door and in a coma, removing him from the rest of the fighting. Once again, an Imperial character pulls the "I let you beat the shit out me so I could get close and deal a powerful blow!". Its happened so many times now its hilarious.

Big lore change: the first legion to leave Terra isn't the Sons of Horus after the Warmaster's death, its Perturabo and the Iron Warriors mid-way through. Perty resents the way Horus is treating him, realizing he's just traded one master for another, and that any victory he might win here over Dorn would be meaningless because of all the Warp sorcery and daemons and the breakdown of all orderly battle; he wants his victory to be pure, to prove he was the better strategist and tactician with his own merit, not that he had dark gods giving him an unfair advantage. So he leaves right in the middle of the siege and takes the bulk of his legion with him. (Though he resolves to master the Warp and bend it to fit his standards of logical, orderly warfare, which will of course be his doom and eventually lead to his own Chaos corruption and become a Daemon Primarch himself in the future.) They build up a Dorn vs Perty duel, but it never happens. I guess they're saving that for a book series about the Iron Cage. Because of this change, the Sons of Horus getting the shame treatment from the other Legions in the Eye of Terror post-HH instead of the Iron Warriors is nonsensical. At least the Emperor's Children stayed on Terra, even if they abandoned the siege of the Palace to turn civilians into drugs and worse besides. Iron Warriors went home at the half-way point.

So after the events of Fury of Magnus, where Big E offered Magnus redemption but accidentally pushed him fully into Tzeentch's grasp, Magnus has been in the Webway outside the Portal, crafting a spell to drain the Emperor of his power, which would bring down the shield fully and allow the daemons to pour through the gate. Vulkan goes to deal with him, the Webway portal opening for a few brief moments to allow him quick passage. (How he doesn't immediately get swamped by that nigh-infinite tide of daemons scratching at the door is never explained.) Vulkan confronts Daemon-Magnus, and is easily killed. But because he's a Perpetual like Emps, he regens and gets back up and the battle resumes. Magnus kills him again, and again, and again, and again, countless times upon countless times. Magnus is slowly but surely being drained of his fuel reserves and taking little damage bit by bit; death by a million cuts. Vulkan is possessed and empowered by the Emperor during this encounter, who not only supercharges his regeneration so he can get right back up immediately, but speaks through Vulkan telling Magnus that he never offered him redemption, that the events of Fury of Magnus were all a delusion in his head for Magnus to justify himself (which is a stupid retcon because Fury of Magnus was awesome. Either that or Big E is trying to gaslight Magnus because he took the rejection poorly and his ego needs saving, which makes insanely petty if that's the angle they're going for, and they're once again abusing the unreliable narrator trope, this time to the point you can't even trust the entire core plot of whole books now) Magnus casts one last spell to unmake Vulkan at the atomic level to counter the Perpetual-regen, the Emperor commands Vulkan to mercilessly kill him, Vulkan manages to smash his head off with his hammer which forces Mag back to the Warp but not before Vulkan's reduced to a charred skeleton mid-swing, however a few hours later he's able to regen from that and and slowly treks back to the Webway portal.

Having seen the Webway Project up close for himself, Vulkan, the master craftsman that he is, doesn't believe that it would have worked in the long-term. The melding of human technology with Webway itself wasn't really compatible and stable, and would have eventually broken down, in his opinion. Maybe's he's right, maybe's he's wrong, we'll never know.

Lotara Sarrin basically fused with and become one with her ship thanks to Chaos corruption. She is the Conqueror now. Probably the closest thing to a happy ending for a Traitor character. Void warfare was her life, and now she can do that that forever, ravaging the stars with the World Eaters until the end of time.

Sanguinius proves he's a a top tier badass among top tier badasses by defeating Ka'Bandha and Angron in 1v1s, one right after the other, while tired from all this constant fighting. (I'm a little salty that they didn't keep the old lore of Sangy breaking Ka'Bandah's back over his knee, Bane style, though. He does it with his sword here. Still cool, but its not the same.) The Angron fight is like something out of an anime, both sides dealing massive damage to the other, the fight going from the sky, to the cockpit of a Titan, to the sky, to the ground, back to the sky again. Angron has the edge in brute strength and being able to regenerate from any injury instantly because of all the psychic energy of the war around them, but Sangy is faster and has better fighting technique. Angron's been alternating between being a mindless force of pure rage and hallucinating that he's back in the gladiator ring during the Siege, but fighting with his brother brings back some of his sanity and cunning. Sangy deals Angron multiple attacks that would have killed him outright had he not been a daemon, however slowly but surely Angron's power starts to wear him down. He runs him through with his sword, then chokes him with his free hand, bringing him close so he can taunt him and watch him die. Horus sends Angron a psychic warning but its too late: Sangy goes into full rage mode, a rage so pure and noble in its wrath that Angron is jealous of it, and Sangy grabs the Butcher's Nails sticking out of his head and begins pulling. In pain beyond imagining, Angron then begs a quiet plea of "No", (a sound said to be so shameful that Angron will refuse to believe it ever happened for the rest of eternity, and no one else but Sangy heard it, and Sangy is destined to take this knowledge to his grave.) before the Nails and what's left of his brain are torn out, and the metaphysical act of one brother killing another, and Angron losing a core piece of what he is however briefly, banishes him to the Warp, unable to regen. Yet again, an Imperial wins with the "I let you impale me so I get close enough to deal the KO!" card. Sangy is alive but really hurt and exhausted, and closes the Eternity Gate. (Angron begging is really out of character if you ask me, however subdued it was, because Angron has no fear of death, either as a daemon or a Primarch. As a daemon, he's immortal and beyond Sangy's ability to truly destroy, and as a Primarch, he longs for death to be free of the agony and slavery. Makes no sense, however you slice it.)

ADB is a huge Chaos fanboy, so to see him dunk on Magnus and Angron is really weird. As was his reluctance to keep the old lore of the Ka'Bandha fight; he mentions that he didn't want to include it. Guess one of the higher ups forced him to keep it in.

And I also got my copy of The End and the Death Part 1 today. Time to step into the abyss!

[TTTX]

I've always wanted to try the Yakuza series, but just always got distracted by something else whenever I had the spare time. I'll have to rectify that. Which game is the best one to jump into for a newbie? Normally I'd just begin with the first, but I've heard that there are other games in the series that are better to start with, like 0, 2, and 3.

canonically 0 is the first story in the Yakuza series (like metal gear 3 takes place before all the others) so starting there is actually a good jumping in point.

so yakuza 0 and yakuza kiwami are the best jumping in points story wise if you want to understand everything going (you can start a like 3 or 4 and still understand what is going on as the game will give you the context you need, I started with yakuza 4 personally).

yakuza 3, 4 and 5 have the older gameplay as yakuza 1 and 2 have been remade from the ground up.

[Vol]

I've always wanted to try the Yakuza series, but just always got distracted by something else whenever I had the spare time. I'll have to rectify that. Which game is the best one to jump into for a newbie? Normally I'd just begin with the first, but I've heard that there are other games in the series that are better to start with, like 0, 2, and 3.

I'll echo what TX said, he's completely correct.

In my opinion, 0 is absolutely the best place to start, as it introduces characters and plots that bear fruit in Kiwami 1 (remake of Yakuza 1). However, obviously, the prequel (0) came out much later than the first game, so the way players knew the games until then was solely starting with 0, then enjoying going back in time to the BOOM ECONOMY of 1980's Japan. Matter of preferences, but I'd always recommend 0 first.

[Dragaros]

canonically 0 is the first story in the Yakuza series (like metal gear 3 takes place before all the others) so starting there is actually a good jumping in point.

so yakuza 0 and yakuza kiwami are the best jumping in points story wise if you want to understand everything going (you can start a like 3 or 4 and still understand what is going on as the game will give you the context you need, I started with yakuza 4 personally).

yakuza 3, 4 and 5 have the older gameplay as yakuza 1 and 2 have been remade from the ground up.

I'll echo what TX said, he's completely correct.

In my opinion, 0 is absolutely the best place to start, as it introduces characters and plots that bear fruit in Kiwami 1 (remake of Yakuza 1). However, obviously, the prequel (0) came out much later than the first game, so the way players knew the games until then was solely starting with 0, then enjoying going back in time to the BOOM ECONOMY of 1980's Japan. Matter of preferences, but I'd always recommend 0 first.

Gotcha. I'll be sure to start with 0.

Maybe I'll do a big Yakuza marathon over the summer.

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkJQZ2Cz9-s

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ26yWlFH88

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6SGWZGK3-E

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL4wBc5YUxM

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1S8Zu-pH2M

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8N7w5q6Z1w

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cUEFp9fV0Y

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKN3t3HJJDw

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm33wqDMhdc

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AI28WHLeUbY

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgM-GSfkeHs

[Dragaros]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fnHaYdzPco

[Dragaros]

"Publisher Bandai Namco and developer FromSoftware have announced Elden Ring expansion “Shadow of the Erdtree.” A release date was not announced.
Rise, Tarnished, and let us walk a new path together. An upcoming expansion for ELDEN RING Shadow of the Erdtree, is currently in development. We hope you look forward to new adventures in the Lands Between."

[TTTX]

Gotcha. I'll be sure to start with 0.

Maybe I'll do a big Yakuza marathon over the summer.

these games takes a while to complete. so you might need more then a summer to do it.

[Vol]

They also repeat minigames. Which is a big part of why I'm forcing myself to learn mah jong, since I'm fairly sure ever one of them has it. Though I'm getting better! Managed a 50/50 win in the easy group, and holding my own in the medium. No way I'll remember every winning yaku, but I can remember enough to get the completion points at least. Need one more big win, then a super big win, and then it's only grinding out the expert group for money. The Chinese dice game stuff later on, I'm fairly there's trick dice you can get, or some sort of good luck charm to speed up the grind.

Had a nice streak in mah jong earlier where I gave ron 4 times in a row. Which means I discarded a tile that finishes one of my opponent's hands, and they win the round. And also if you're the one that triggers ron, you lose a ton of money. Got quite a few 3 wind/dragon hands, which means 3 of a kind of the prevailing wind (indicated cardinal direction on the board) or your seat wind (assigned at round start) or 3 of any dragon color (white, red, green). That's 1 yaku, which means a win condition, and you need 2 to declare it. So all I would need to win those rounds would be to fill the other 11 tiles in my hand with a pair, 3 of a kind, or 3-tile straights. Which is very easy. And yet those hands I usually got smoked, hard. Like starting at the 80 yard line in football, and giving up a safety.