Plus multiple titan legios, armies of skitari, thousands of battle tanks, millions of guard, entire cities of billions press ganged into last ditch defenders, oh and a superweapon that was left lying around just in case something from the first of the three wars… *sound of bolter being racked* i mean there was no third war for armegeddon that led to a civil war between the grey knights and space wolves with the inquisition losing it and exterminatusing dozens of worlds…..
The animation is fan made. Helsreach is actually a novel. The creator of this is Richard Boylan. He was actually hired by GW. He was one of the directors on GW's official Warhammer 40K animated series angels of death.
To clarify- Helsreach, the 40k novel by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Audio book version featuring voice actor Jonathan Keeble. Fan animation done by Richard Boylan.
"Wouldn't that ensure 100% success rate in protecting this planet." No. In fact there's more than 900 space marines, because there are other chapters in this battle. They are facing the forces of Ghaghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, the greatest war leader the orks have had in over 8000 years, and also the largest ork warband. Last time the imperium faced an ork threat this serious the primarchs were still around.
The animation quality reflects Grimaldus' mental state and focus. At the start of the story he's a depressed veteran wracked with survivor guilt. Only as the story progresses does he find his focus again.
I will die on this world, i will die on Armageddon. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh Jonathan keeble goes so hard in this book. For the steel legion!!! For DORN FOR HELSREACH!!!!! Andre really be the MVP of guardsmen.
Jonathan Keeble is iconic. I remember him best for the English generals speeches in Medieval 2 Total War. His battle speech reminded me of this. He even uses the same mannerisms. "Those bastards in orbit can't hear you!" "HELSREACH! HELSREACH!"
The reason helbrecht punched grimaldus during his ceremony to become reclusiarch is that the black templars are manly inspired by the teutonic knights and other medieval knight orders. And expecially the teutons had a tradition that every highranking promotion was followd by a punch so that like helbrecht said, thus may be the last blow he would reseave unanswerd
Deebee, looking up the context and info while watching is definitely the move. It will help frame the story better and allow for the shock value to hit harder with some scenes. Glad you're reacting to this, one of the best 40k fictional pieces out there imo
Ghaz went and invited him to tea before the second war for armageddon just cause he wanted him to know he was coming back for round two and let him prepare so it would be a fair, fun fight
He doesn’t really appear in the series any more than this, just once more, as things are turning to shit. You will recognize him by the giant ork klaw.
You should have read a bit more about the history of Armegeddon. Fun fact: It was first known as Ullanor, and the triumph of Ullanor is one of the largest gathering of Imperial forces for a victory parade ever. This event had more Primarchs in one place than any other event, and it was when Big E announced his return to Terra and named Horus the Warmaster of the Imperium. The image of the 9ish Primarchs along side each other on the balcony, is from the Victory of Ullanor.
3:35 his voice is from the Helsreach audiobook, narrated by Jonathan Keeble. You might recognize him in other Warhammer media too, he does a lot of voice work for Games Workshop.
There's a fan theory about Yarrick that is pretty funny and awesome: after his legend was forged and he was known to the Orks, when in the presence of large numbers of Orks who know of him he gets a bit faster, tougher and more skilled because of the Ork imagination power. There is nothing officially canon about that, just a fun little fan theory.
Astartes service studs comes in two types silver and gold (though not all chapters use the system) silver stud is implanted in the skull for 50 years service, after 100 years the stud is removed and molten gold poured in to the wound giving them a golden stud plate this is repeated every 50 years...... though a reminder these are service years, not relative years, time displacement during warp travel, cryogenic suspension or extended time recovering from wounds does not count towards this time, it's basically a way for Astates to display veterancy at a glance for things such as displays of honour or if broken squads needing to quickly form a new chain of command.
For a Space marine to be told to stay planetside while his brothers are fighting in space is like a slap in the face to that marine, even if its an "honor".
Also keep in mind that the Black Templars are conquerors, not defenders. Grimaldus being left behind the defend Helsreach is like your parents going to the movies and telling you the 'guard the house.'
40:11 "The holy war above" refers to the space battle taking place in orbit between the invading Ork fleet and the Imperial Navy and Astartes fleets under the command of Helbrecht. The majority of the Black Templars sent to defend Armageddon are fighting the Orks in space, Grimaldus and his astartes in Helsreach (apart from his personal squad, Grimaldus also commands a full company of 100 astartes in Helsreach that don't appear in this movie to save time) look up in envy of their brothers who get to fight the Orks while they themselves are stuck protecting civilians.
11:33 Apothecaries usually have white armor with the symbol on his chest. The eypieces are common, but are also seen on techmarines as well. They are honored brothers who are charged with recovering the gene-seed and specialized implants from fallen space marines in the field.
WesHammers video on Dreadnoughts is pure gold to watch, highly recommend it! Best anecdote on Dreadnoughts: The Tau are fighting Imperial forces and one Tau fighter approaches a destroyed Dreadnought. To it's horror the thing contains what seems to be the remains of a human, still alive SOMEHOW and taunting the Tau. Quick scan reveals the human thing to be about 10.000 years old, which sends the Tau to an existential crisis. "This THING is older than my whole civilization by thousands of years!" So basically the Dreadnaught was bashing in xeno skulls when you were just figuring out how to use sticks and stones 😂
Jonathan Keeble is the best VA and narrator EVER. also, can't wait for you to meet the best guardsman in the imperium (everybody says so, you'll see) Trooper Andrej
The first High Marshall (chapter master) of the Black Templars was named Sigismund. He was (and still is) considered to be the deadliest duelist among the space marines. The guy was an absolute monster on the battlefield.
Yup. One of the few to best kharn himself. Really the only reason abbadon was able to kill sigismund was because of his age. He had become slower but abbadon had been living in the warp so therefore he hadn’t aged.
The reference list that I wish I had when I first watched: Squad Grimaldus: GRIMALDUS - Reclusiarch. skull helm. CADOR - Mark X helm (with vertical slits in faceplate) Veteran brother at least 300 years old. PRIAMUS - "Blademaster" standard helm. Youngest astartes among them. He's the one always carrying the power sword (not a chainsword). ARTARION - Banner bearer. standard helm. Slurry raspy voice, because his jaw was blown off and replaced with a mechanical jaw. NEROVAR (usually just NERO) - Apothecary. White armor, standard helm with optics. BASTILAN - Sergeant. Beakie helm. Other Black Templars: HIGH MARSHAL HELBRECHT - (no helm) Chapter Master & overall commander of the fleet protecting Armageddon. BAYARD - Emperor's Champion. Carries the "Black Sword", the most sacred blade of the Black Templars. Knightly helm (although he is wearing a standard helm in his first appearance) JURISIAN - TechMarine. Long robotic arms on his back. Standard helm with optics. Deep slow voice.
Slight correction with Cador's helm and much of his armour, he's wearing Mark IV Great Crusade/ Heresy pattern gear: the Mark X (Primaris) armour has a very similar helm, but as the Battle Of Helsreach predates Gulliman's resurrection and the Intomitus Crusade Cador is highly unlikely to be wearing such a new mark
@@PugDrivr77 oh good catch. I guess I was thinking that it was an artistic animation choice/accidental lore error. Like the way the Steel Legionnaires look. Or also how Helsreach doesn’t look like a hive city, and is also pretty small.
Sebastian Yarrick… 😔 the language of the Orcs has no word for „friend“, only for „favorite enemy“. And Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, the mightiest Orc in the Galaxy, lost both. And whoever caused this tragedy, will soon long for the pain of the butcher’s nails!
29:02 - This is why there's no audible dialogue in Astartes - they're all on helmet comms except for the Sanctioned Psyker shouting "RECALL THEM IMMEDIATELY!" and then losing his shit.
Armageddon is often called the most war torn planet in the imperium, and keep in mind the planet Cadia was basically plugging a giant hell portal until it was finally destroyed by demons.
Cadia wasn't destroyed by Daemons. Cadia was destroyed when Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of Chaos, slammed a gigantic ancient mobile warp-powered space station called a Blackstone Fortress into the planet.
"I know why you're here..." You ain't shitting brother. I love this series/book. My favorite story of the Black Templars - Another chapter pointed out, "You don't wear the symbol of the Emperor." The reply was, "We ARE the symbol of the Emperor."
Oooo this is the perfect point to pause Helsreach and watch/react to Luetin’s video “ORKS - War is Life.” He not only explains them in engrossing grimdark detail, but the 2nd half of the video sets up the story of Helsreach! Explains wtf is going on with the Orks and why this is the biggest green tide ever seen!
@@ViolosD2I It’s a story told entirely through Grim’s eyes, the way he sees it. And he doesn’t really like orks all that much. He also frames the Salamanders as incompetent.
Something interesting to note, I don't know why Boylan didn't bring them up, but the Helsreach Crusade contained around a hundred Astartes led by Grimaldus himself. I guess focusing only on the squad increases the tension and the emphasis on how outnumbered they were? Anyways, awesome animation, great story. Love it. XD
The audio is ripped from the audio book, but a fan did all the animation. He really did an amazing job, because he managed to take a roughly 13 hour audio book and trim it down to 3 hours ish without losing any of the weight or impact of the narrative. I highly recommend the audio book
Lost a little of the impact in my opinion. The attack on the docks was one of the highlights of the story imo. And the entire section that was just the death count for space marines
@tyrusdalet yeah I can get that, I mean, the whole part where the other titans attacked the god breaker would have been cool. I mean, there is so much world building left out. I would definitely tell people listen to the Audio book or just read the book, but I still think for what it is, the fan animation is as good as it could be. It's probably a lot better than if Hollywood had made it .
@@DropBear2099 oh definitely. And audiobooks can be very dense for some people - an animated movie is far easier to consume, especially when it gets 90% of the story across
Black Templars were a 2nd founding from the Imperials Fists. They were originally led by Sigismund. Who commanded the Templars of the Imperial Fist Legions’ first company during the Horus Heresy. Sigismund was also the very first Emperor’s Champion while defending Terra. Where his armor was painted black.
Straight away, I like to think that the Templars with the notable raspy voices are a consequence of them Yelling their warcrys super loud to the Heretic, the Witch, and the Xenos on a daily basis. Basically they voice-boxes are shot from yelling FOR THE GOD EMPORER!
Right off the bat, the Creator Aaron is a Legd-bag. He's responsible for many 40k novels beloved by Bricky himself. You'll could say that his brilliant writing is what made him a hardcore Nightlords fan :D
ADB has earned a great reputation as an author, but occasionally gets jobs to write for things they dislike. It shows in the lowered quality of the results, because that passion for the subject matter is part of why ADB does such great work.
- The Astartes who wear white with the helix symbol are Apothecary, combat medics, tasked with keeping battle brothers alive and retrieve the gene-seed of fallen astsrted. - The studs in the foreheads indeed show the years of service. However the material and counting varies per chapter. Rule of thumb: silver 50y, gold 100y. It grows ever unpopular for Primaris to do it as it is more a Firstborn custom. - Sebastian Yarrick was so good at fighting for a "humie" that Gazkul legit let him go from Ork captivity so he can fight Yarrick again. Sadly in the more recent codex Millitarum he is flagged as KIA. - The Black Templars are one of the very VERY few Chapters who work directly for the Inquisition. They are more or less the Inquisition's private Army of Supersoldiers. One other chapter who falls under this criteria are the Minotaurs who are, by far, the most relentless when it comes to hunting other Astartes flagged as renegade. Poor Lamenters...
Nah, the only chapters that work for the Inquisition are the Grey Knights and the Deathwatch. The Black Templars have many objectives aligned with the Inquisition and may be used by them because of their zeal and fanatism, but make no mistake, Helbrecht is no lapdog of anyone save the Emperor and Dorn.
That opening just locks me in every time; I will die on this world, I will die on Armageddon. I am so excited to see your full reaction, it's going to be a great ride. Also, Jonathan Keeble has done so many of the 40K audiobooks I've listened to, and the man's hype is well earned. Bro goes hard on his narration!
YESSSS MOAR 40K - Arbiter Ian Taros Campaign (from anyone is fine too) is a highly recommend from me. Since you like to make sense of the setting this one is a huge eyeopener for a logical thinkers like yourself for sure. Its the imperial campaign to capture new resource world. Its all about Imperial military logistics, strategy and doctraine vs Tau (Which is more like our modern military style of fighting IRL). No warb fuckery just Tanks, Plane, and Marines. Very remisnice of WW2 African campaign. Edit: Context
I love the final scenes of this movie so much, and I want to see your reaction to them so much that I screamed "NOOOOO!!" when I heard "End of part one" xD
You don’t really get the impression from this but I just want to clarify this war was massive. It’s estimated 50,000 space marines were in the sector involved in the conflict one way or another. A number of chapters deployed their entire chapter to deal with the threat posed to the sector by the orks
Okay, this one is gonna need some background. Armageddon is a manufactorum world that is one of the greatest producers of military hardware in it's part of the galaxy. It's one of the most important worlds in the Imperium. When Ghazkul Mag Uruk Thrakka brought his WAAAGH!!! to Armageddon, it was a disaster, and the Imperium rushed to defend the world. This became known as the SeconFIRST...FIRST War for Armageddon. The standout character in this conflict was Commissar Sebastian Yarrick. After weeks of mismanagement, it was he who declared the Governor incompetent and prepared to summarily execute him (Commissar's prerogative. You'll learn all about that when you look into Commissars). He took over the defense of Armageddon and drove off Waaagh! Ghazkul, crushing the Ork's momentum at Hades Hive. The rivalry between Yarrick and Ghazkul became the stuff of legends. Yarrick was THE big Imperial Guard character all the way until 9th Edition (where he 'officially' died of old age). With THAT background out of the way, let's head to IRL. In the late 90s, Games Workshop began holding Global Campaign events. In short, GW would publish special rules about a certain campaign location and players would fight battles with these rules and send the results in. The results would affect the outcome of the campaign and the final results would become Warhammer history. By 2000, they'd already held several of these, but now they were poised for their most ambitious yet: The ThirSECOND...SECOND War for Armageddon. The world of Armageddon was divided into a dozen or so battlefronts, and each of these was assigned to a region in the real world. If you were playing games in England, your battles affected the results in one region. If you were in the US, or Eastern Europe, or Asia, your results affected a different region, and in the end, the results from all the regions would determine the outcome. It was quite the ride. _Helsreach_ is a novel written about one of the conflicts during this war. It follows a Black Templar Chaplain (called a Reclusiarch because his specific role is head of the chapter's reliquary) named Grimaldus and his forces as they defend Hive Helsreach from the orks. This film series is a fan project that took the audio from the audiobook and added animation. It's one of the best 40K fan projects on the internet. (That said, this version DOES drop a few of the story threads from the book, especially near the end, so you should DEFINITLY read the book at some point). Now, on the the video. 1:04 - Aaron Dembsky-Bowden is the author of the Helsreach novel. He's one of Black Library's best writters. The 'movie' is created by Richard Boylen, who worked for years on this project. He did so well that GW hired him to produce their official Blood Angels animation Angels of Death. 2:01 - Just wait... 4:41 - Okay, before we go any further, let's just touch a little bit on the Black Templars. They are a successor chapter of the Imperial Fists, one of the Second Founding chapters. Unlike most Space Marines (particularly other 'sons of Dorn') who see their task as protecting The Emperor's Imperium, the Black Templars see themselves as a continuation of the Great Crusade, more concerned with conquering new words than holding what the Imperium has. This makes them highly aggressive. They are also one of the few Space Marine chapters that overtly worships The Emperor as a god. Most Space Marines see The Emperor secularly, as he wished, but the Black Templars fully embrace the state religion, so they have a particular hatred for witches and heretics. 5:41 - When a Space Marine survives a battle, but is too severely injured to be healed back to fighting fit, he is placed into a life support sarcophagus and placed into suspended animation. When the need arises, the marine is awakened and his sarcophagus installed into a Dreadnought: a heavily armed and armored combat walker capable of punching tanks to death and bursting through walls like the Kool-Aid Man. The quote most associated with Dreadnoughts is "Even in death, I still serve." 7:06 - High Marshal Helbrecht is the Chapter Master of the Black Templars. 11:19 - Yes. The Apothecaries are the Field Medics among the Space Marines, but they also have another incredibly important job. It is the Apothecaries that are tasked with removing the Progenoid Glands - the Geneseed - from fallen battle brothers so that future Astartes can be created. 14:55 - Although there IS marked general improvement in the animation as the project moves on, the 'level' of animation is also used by Boylen as a narrative element. It's one of the more ingenious aspects of this series that we'll discuss a little more as things go on. 16:28 - We'll come back to that later when they finish the flashback. 18:11 - In most cases, yes. 100 is enough to decisively end most conflicts. But the thirSECOND Armageddon War is NOT 'most conflicts.' This war involved nearly FIFTY THOUSAND Space Marines in addition to the millions of Imperial Guard from across the galaxy. 19:13 - LEXICANUM!! YEAH!!!! That's you're BEST resource for 40K information there. 19:32 - CONGRATULATIONS!!!! You got it on the first try! 21:29 - Traditions vary somewhat between chapters, but most commonly a silver stud is 50 years and a gold stud is 100. I THINK Helbrecht is around 350 at this point. 23:40 - It's worse than you think. Think about this from the perspective of the other people in the room: the mortal commanders and representatives of other Astartes chapters. Here they are, preparing for a war that will most likely see everyone dead, and the second in command of person in charge of their most powerful asset is begging not to be left on the planet and storming out like a petulant child. It makes Helbrecht look weak in the eyes of the other Astartes, and it shakes the confidence of the mortals, who see the Astartes as Angels sent by the Emperor. What hope can they have when the Angels disagree? Grimaldus is new to command and not used to the burdens placed on him, but that's no excuse for the way he acted. (That said, this is also EXACTLY why Helbrecht chose Grimaldus to lead the defense of Helsreach: so that he can be taught the lessons he still needs to learn as a leader.) 25:05 - You're not JUST going to see titans. You're going to see an IMPERATOR!!!! 26:30 - ...and now HE uses that ork power claw in place of his own arm. It shouldn't work, but it does. Fan theory goes that the reason Yarrick lived to the age of (I think) 137 is because Ghazhkull didn't want him to die, so the WAAAGH energy kept him alive. After all, as Ghazhkull himself said to Yarrick, "Gud enemize is hard ta find." 32:55 - Most of the characters we were just introduced to have their own story threads in the novel, but most are dropped in this version. Again, you should read the book for full context. 40:00 - The 'small team' is a full Company strength. 100 Marines. The story just focuses on Squad Grimaldus, so we don't see much of the rest of his force. 41:35 - The 'clamp' is a more recent thing. Back when this came out, companies weren't as trigger-happy when it came to fan animations and copyrights on RUclips. That's mostly only been in the last decade or so. GW only started clamping down about 5 years ago when they decided to start making their own animations (although recently there've been signs they might be leaning off on that).
One more fun fact about the Black Templars connected to the Imperial Fists' reluctance to split into smaller groups is that, due to being on a literally eternal crusade, they can permanently refer to the Codex' exemption laws for that state which allows them to exceed 1000 members. And they do, many times over... while technically still adhering to the letter of Robot Girlyman's rules, at least in that aspect.
When the Legions were broken into Chapters in the Second Founding, there was a requirement to stick to the specific limits and rules that all Chapters are supposed to follow. There is an exception that Chapters can ignore this structure and limits when they are on Crusade..... So the Black Templars are perpetually on a Crusade so that they are exempt from the Codex Asartes limitations.
Helsreach is a book that some fans mad an animated series of. after having read the book myself there is a lot of details and characters missing as the animated series takes a more focused look at just Grimaldus and his brothers, but both the book and animated series are great and absolutely worth checking out if you like this stuff.
Ah yes, and so it begins! Helsreach is an awesome story and Richard Boylan really did it justice with this animation. As for the style, I understand your trepidation at first, but what you notice as you go through it, is that the style changes as the mood of Grimaldus changes, you will see what I mean later on. It is a marvelous effort though, from story to character to presentation, I think you'll really dig it. If you can, I would recommend you get hold of the book, "War for Armageddon: The Omnibus". There is a couple of other great reads in there as well. I've been around the traps a while, and have spent the last 20 odd years as a die hard Dark Angel fanboy, but I do love the Templar's, maybe it's the whole knights in space thing hahaha! And to be fair, I do like their style, I mean making use of the fine print to buck the system, is pretty awesome. You see, when they say that the Black Templar's are not codex compliant, that is a bit of an understatement! They are in fact, pretty much a legion by any other name, which is exactly why they can commit 900 marines on a whim. You see, the codex states that a chapter is to be 1000 battle brothers, and when you factor in all the extras, like apothecaries (medics and surgeons), Librarians (lore keepers and psykers - Black Templar's don't have psykers, because they don't believe in them), techmarines (mechanics and builders), Chaplains ("morale" officers), other veterans and officers, a chapter is probably closer to anywhere between 1250 and 1500 at full strength. The Templar's however, make use of a fine-print clause in the codex which states something like, "those chapters performing a crusade can have as many battle brothers as needed for the task." Hence, "the eternal crusade" because they are always crusading, they don't have to follow the rules, suck that Bobby G lol! One of the crusades mentioned in the lore somewhere was about 17000 strong and there are several of those, so it's easy to believe the BT's are at least 20000 plus as a chapter, their attrition rate is pretty high though. As for Yarrick, he is in fact, the Man! He is so cool, entire ork Waaaghs will shift focus to both fight and protect him. He is also super cool for the fact that he has his own personal baneblade called "The Fortress of Arrogance". Baneblades are super rare, so you can imagine how cool having your own one actually makes you!.
Saw the thumbnail, instaclicked and liked I absolutely love this book, Black Templars were my favourite chapter since I first heard of 40k and this book is one of those books I find the need to read multiple times (and still feel the same awe I felt the first time) ADB has a particular way of "humanizing" and making space marine characters go beyond the super-cool-badass-soldier stereotype Look at Grimaldus, Talos, Hyperion, Argel Tal, Zephon... And the man certainly can write speeches (looks at the Eternity Gate) The only that keeps me from saying he's the greatest is a certain fellow named Abnett I'll definitely be back for the remaining parts
16:17 that my friend is Comissar Sebastian Yarrick, hero of hades hive, known as Oll' bale-eye to the orcs an sworn enemy of Ghazkull mag uruk thraka, the prophet of the Waaagh!
wooooooo finally my favorite 40k animation and book lets gooo. also the animation was made by a fan the book and audiobook were made my GW and Aaron dembski-bowden. Also there is supposed to be 100 black templars but he couldn't really animate all of that.
Most likely why GW didn't clamp on this is because it was one of the best pieces of advertisement of their products around. It also cut out some parts of the audiobooks so the full work wasn't infringed upon. Also they did hire the visuals creator dude, rightly so.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden is probably one of Warhammer 40k's most popular authors. Although he hasn't written as much as some, and has a tendency to be kind of late (which he's openly joked about), it's usually worth it. Aside from Helsreach, other standouts include Spear of the Emperor, the Night Lords Trilogy, the Black Legion series, and of course his Horus Heresy entries like The First Heretic and Betrayer. Most of the 40k books exist in audiobook format, so that's an easy way to binge them.
They had 50,000 spaces marines on the planet or in orbit in the novel, with grimadulus having 100 under his command. You know your screwed when entire, multiple chapter's of space marines are on you're planet.
Top tip in the spirit of taking all this in gradually: check out Luetins video on "Titans" AND "Orks - war is life" cities before proceeding further. You'll get a good grasp of things overall to fully appreciate the viewing of Helsreach - you want to max out your first time watch brother! Oh and the vids are on the longer side, so do as you see fit with reacting to them or checking 'em out offscreen.
spoiler alert on how badass Sebastian yarrick is . . . . . . . . . . his contribution to imperium is so significant,the imperium reward him an entire planet for him to become high lord and retire. and Yarrick says "NO"
around the 40 minute mark: they wanted to be a part of the war above, as in literally the naval battle between the ork fleet and the imperial fleet in the system before they get overwhelmed
9:21 interestingly, the animation work is done through Gmod, partly with the assistance of an Xbox Kinect sensor for certain scenes. All this with filters added on to represent Grimaldus’ mental state and clarity. If you recognize some of the human models, you can tell this.
On the topic of dreadnoughts: "Only in death does duty end." - Inscribed on the sarcophagus of the first Custodian to fall in battle and be transferred into a Dreadnought by the Emperor himself.
Starting the video at 370 likes (was the 370th one) and ending it at 660, 43 minutes later. Really loving the series, happy to be "yet another newcomer" in the 40K universe and see my newb questions being answered episode by episode. Hope you'll continue a bit more down this titanesque rabbit hole. Massive work, congrats!
The human in part 2 16:35 was Commissar Sabation Yarrik aka old Bal Eye by the Orks aka Ghaz Mortal enemy and destroyer of Orks. He is the equivalent of the boogie man and or hero to the Orks. He is the toughest human at least to the Orks. And he took the Ork warboss Uglard power claw and uses it himself.
Back during the Great Crusade, there were Legions of Space Marines numbering in the thousands, with some having tens of thousands of Astartes at their height. Even with those numbers, even with the equipment and enhancements of the Space Marines, even with the Imperial Army and the Mechanicum backing them up, and even with their Primarchs leading them, the Legionnes Astartes would encounter roadblocks and significant resistance. Case in point? The 1st Legion, the Dark Angels under Lion El'Jonson, were at one point the largest Space Marine Legion. Then they participated in a series of wars called the Rangdan Xenocides alongside no less than 3 other Legions, all of which brought their full power to bear against the Rangda. By the end of the Rangdan Xenocides, the Dark Angels had been utterly devastated, having lost thousands of Astartes over the course of the conflict despite the support of the other Legions, and the Dark Angels themselves being considered the strongest Legion in terms of numbers and overall effectiveness, with access to forbidden weapons and technology from the Dark Age of technology that they were only allowed to use with the express permission of the Emperor himself, including enslaved AI soldier constructs, xenos weaponry, and God-Emperor only knows what else. A conservative estimate says that at least 30,000 Space Marines participated in that campaign, only a fraction were left afterwards, and presumably two Primarchs and their Legions were lost. That was against the Rangda, a species that was wiped out during the Great Crusade. The Orks? They've been around for millions of years, always fighting, and the Orks of modern 40k are considered pale imitations of what they used to be during the War In Heaven over 60 million years ago. Even so, the Orks are probably the single most prolific and successful species in the galaxy despite constant in-fighting, having outlasted the Human Federation from the Golden Age of Technology that the Imperium sought to emulate. Moreover, Armageddon is facing an Ork WAAAGH!!! being lead by Warlord Ghazghkull Mag-Uruk Thrakka, arguably the strongest and most intelligent Ork to be born since the War of the Beast. And he is going to be leading a horde of Orks so numerous that it's entirely possible that the defenders won't just run out of bolter shells and autogun rounds, but they might also run all of their laspacks dry before they manage to kill every Ork. IF they manage to kill every Ork. Because unlike the Tyranids, killing the Orks doesn't solve the problem. It just makes more Orks...
I highly recommend watching parts one and two of leutin09's the emperor of man. Its basically a crash course on the entire history of humanity up to the 41st millennium. Id watch it before you go much further into the lore as it will explain a lot of things about why the imperium is the way it is. It also goes quite in depth about the horus heresy which is one of the most important events in warhammer. This is required viewing for newcomers.
OK, here are some explanations and details The Space Marine chapter we are following are the Black Templars. The Black Templars are a successor chapter of the Imperial Fists, that was created by the first captain of the Imperial Fists back during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy era: Sigismund. Also, remember how the Codex Astartes limited the chapters to 1000 Astartes each? Well, the Black Templars kinda wiped their asses with that rule and probably have the numbers of a Legion of old. How do they justify this? A loophole in the Codex. The Codex says that a chapter may swell their numbers past the 1000 in the case of them being involved in a crusade. So the Black Templars made it so they are perpetually on a crusade, thus their calling themselves knights of the Eternal Crusade. The guy with the fancy hat we see slaying an orc with a chainsword is Commissar Yarrick. Youv'e read about him in the video. But to give you an example of how badass he is: the Orks loved how much of challenge, and how good of a fight he put up against them, that when he was (years later) presumed dead, the Orks launched a Waaagh! agaisnt those who killed him. About the clicks in their helmets. Astartes are quite rare to ever take out their helmets and reveal their human visage in front of regular humans. In their helmets they typically have a vox inside that allows them to talk between them without humans being able to hear them. This usually unnerves the humans, because they have no idea what they're saying and ususally think they're speaking about them behind their back in a way. The Legio Invigilata is the Titanic legion on Armageddon. They are all part of the Mechanicus and their culture and hierarchy are their own and usually are very headstrong. You'll see more of them in future episodes.
32:55 When they enter the City's command center you can see the giveaway that tells you this isn't drawn, but it's actually either Garry's Mod or Source Film Maker with a rendering filter. The room has assets from Half-Life 2.
When Astartes are in your world, it's bad.
When 900 of them are present, it's cataclysmic levels of bad.
And if you ever spot a single Grey Knight, better just run away out of exterminatus range.. well.. fuck
They had 50,000 spaces marines on the planet in the novel, with grimadulus having 100 under his command.
Plus multiple titan legios, armies of skitari, thousands of battle tanks, millions of guard, entire cities of billions press ganged into last ditch defenders, oh and a superweapon that was left lying around just in case something from the first of the three wars… *sound of bolter being racked* i mean there was no third war for armegeddon that led to a civil war between the grey knights and space wolves with the inquisition losing it and exterminatusing dozens of worlds…..
@@NoLiveking87 that is if you even know what a grey knight is
ITS A PROPA KRUMPIN
WAAAGH!
The animation is fan made. Helsreach is actually a novel. The creator of this is Richard Boylan. He was actually hired by GW. He was one of the directors on GW's official Warhammer 40K animated series angels of death.
Jonathan Keeble, dont forget him. The voice
To clarify- Helsreach, the 40k novel by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Audio book version featuring voice actor Jonathan Keeble. Fan animation done by Richard Boylan.
@@n4m31355h4dow I think I heard Jonathan Keeble in Space Marine 2, as the machine voice when defending the generators during the first PvE Operation.
@n4m31355h4dow prob my favourite narrator of all those on audible. Him and longworth, got that wrong.
"Wouldn't that ensure 100% success rate in protecting this planet."
No. In fact there's more than 900 space marines, because there are other chapters in this battle. They are facing the forces of Ghaghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, the greatest war leader the orks have had in over 8000 years, and also the largest ork warband. Last time the imperium faced an ork threat this serious the primarchs were still around.
The animation quality reflects Grimaldus' mental state and focus. At the start of the story he's a depressed veteran wracked with survivor guilt. Only as the story progresses does he find his focus again.
It's a classy touch as it goes from fuzzy to full colour then back again.
Spoiler though
@@jesseseva2219 pretty sure he already watched it lol
And hence he "died" on this world, and was "reborn" with renewed zeal and conviction. :)
Wait, he had survivor's guilt *before* this?
I will die on this world, i will die on Armageddon. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh Jonathan keeble goes so hard in this book. For the steel legion!!! For DORN FOR HELSREACH!!!!! Andre really be the MVP of guardsmen.
Jonathan Keeble is iconic. I remember him best for the English generals speeches in Medieval 2 Total War. His battle speech reminded me of this. He even uses the same mannerisms. "Those bastards in orbit can't hear you!" "HELSREACH! HELSREACH!"
The reason helbrecht punched grimaldus during his ceremony to become reclusiarch is that the black templars are manly inspired by the teutonic knights and other medieval knight orders. And expecially the teutons had a tradition that every highranking promotion was followd by a punch so that like helbrecht said, thus may be the last blow he would reseave unanswerd
In German its called "Ritter schlag" which literally translated means knightly punch/hit
@@DeathKorpmen999 Let this be the last blow you receive un-answered
Deebee, looking up the context and info while watching is definitely the move. It will help frame the story better and allow for the shock value to hit harder with some scenes. Glad you're reacting to this, one of the best 40k fictional pieces out there imo
I love that this is how you find out about Yarik. Dude is respected by Orkz, he's that badass.
Ghaz went and invited him to tea before the second war for armageddon just cause he wanted him to know he was coming back for round two and let him prepare so it would be a fair, fun fight
Yarik soloed an Ork warboss.
And an Ork warboss could rip space marine head off with his barehand....
Second greatest Commissar. Right after Ci-Ci-Ciaphus Cain, Hero of the Imperium!
He doesn’t really appear in the series any more than this, just once more, as things are turning to shit. You will recognize him by the giant ork klaw.
@@rottenbutter360 It is strange how Ciaphus did not manage to somehow advance backwards into this mess.
You should have read a bit more about the history of Armegeddon. Fun fact: It was first known as Ullanor, and the triumph of Ullanor is one of the largest gathering of Imperial forces for a victory parade ever. This event had more Primarchs in one place than any other event, and it was when Big E announced his return to Terra and named Horus the Warmaster of the Imperium. The image of the 9ish Primarchs along side each other on the balcony, is from the Victory of Ullanor.
Ullanor originally, was also the Ork honeworld. Or so I read. Which explains the constant attacks it sees itself in.
Yeah...he doesn't need to know about the Ullanor stuff. That's DEEP lore and mostly not relevant here. He's already got a lot on his plate.
3:35 his voice is from the Helsreach audiobook, narrated by Jonathan Keeble. You might recognize him in other Warhammer media too, he does a lot of voice work for Games Workshop.
Grimaldus is THE SPACE MARINE for me. Was and always will be.
the black templars watching the clouds, they wish they where up there, in orbit, boarding orks and that's what the holy war above is meant to signify
There's a fan theory about Yarrick that is pretty funny and awesome: after his legend was forged and he was known to the Orks, when in the presence of large numbers of Orks who know of him he gets a bit faster, tougher and more skilled because of the Ork imagination power. There is nothing officially canon about that, just a fun little fan theory.
Omg.. it all adds up
I fucking love Bastilan. "With blade and bolter... with faith and fire!"
Beakie boys forever!
Translation- i have no idea how we're going to pull this off.
Doing Grimaldus' job while he is emo. :)
Think of an Apothecary as the medic of the squad. They also recover gene-seeds from fallen brothers
Your 40 second reaction to Yarrick vs the Ork boss would make an amazing short!
Sometimes people forget about how scary Orks can actually be. Then along comes Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Tharka....
@@supremefankai5480 top bloke, that Gaz...
People who seem to think they're just goofy I'd recommend reading the prologue in _Gunheads_ to be reminded what kind of monsters they are.
Astartes service studs comes in two types silver and gold (though not all chapters use the system) silver stud is implanted in the skull for 50 years service, after 100 years the stud is removed and molten gold poured in to the wound giving them a golden stud plate this is repeated every 50 years...... though a reminder these are service years, not relative years, time displacement during warp travel, cryogenic suspension or extended time recovering from wounds does not count towards this time, it's basically a way for Astates to display veterancy at a glance for things such as displays of honour or if broken squads needing to quickly form a new chain of command.
Theres three, bronze/iron (depending on chapter) studs are awarded for 10 years service.
For a Space marine to be told to stay planetside while his brothers are fighting in space is like a slap in the face to that marine, even if its an "honor".
Also keep in mind that the Black Templars are conquerors, not defenders. Grimaldus being left behind the defend Helsreach is like your parents going to the movies and telling you the 'guard the house.'
Fun fact: Comissar Yarrik and the ork warboss Ghazkull THraka (da biggest ork) have a rich relationship to look into
It is a bit of a one-sided friendship though. :D
The current oldest living space marine in 40K is Chapter Master Dante of the Blood Angels, he's over 1500 yrs old.
Is Bjorn still about?
@@davidmarshall7390 well cybot is not necessarily "alive"
Yes Bjorn is technicly the oldest space marine but many dont count him becaues he is a dreadnought
I red somewhere that Belisarius Cawl have his Space Marine agent who was around since Cawl started Primaris project ( around 10k years).
Not heard of the Dark Angels that are in current timeline that were around from pre-heresy?
40:11 "The holy war above" refers to the space battle taking place in orbit between the invading Ork fleet and the Imperial Navy and Astartes fleets under the command of Helbrecht. The majority of the Black Templars sent to defend Armageddon are fighting the Orks in space, Grimaldus and his astartes in Helsreach (apart from his personal squad, Grimaldus also commands a full company of 100 astartes in Helsreach that don't appear in this movie to save time) look up in envy of their brothers who get to fight the Orks while they themselves are stuck protecting civilians.
11:33 Apothecaries usually have white armor with the symbol on his chest. The eypieces are common, but are also seen on techmarines as well. They are honored brothers who are charged with recovering the gene-seed and specialized implants from fallen space marines in the field.
WesHammers video on Dreadnoughts is pure gold to watch, highly recommend it!
Best anecdote on Dreadnoughts:
The Tau are fighting Imperial forces and one Tau fighter approaches a destroyed Dreadnought. To it's horror the thing contains what seems to be the remains of a human, still alive SOMEHOW and taunting the Tau. Quick scan reveals the human thing to be about 10.000 years old, which sends the Tau to an existential crisis.
"This THING is older than my whole civilization by thousands of years!"
So basically the Dreadnaught was bashing in xeno skulls when you were just figuring out how to use sticks and stones 😂
Lore videos is how I came to like 40k, Helsreach is how I came to love 40k
Jonathan Keeble is the best VA and narrator EVER.
also, can't wait for you to meet the best guardsman in the imperium (everybody says so, you'll see) Trooper Andrej
The first High Marshall (chapter master) of the Black Templars was named Sigismund. He was (and still is) considered to be the deadliest duelist among the space marines. The guy was an absolute monster on the battlefield.
You know you’re a badass when Sanguinius himself says that you’re basically the champion of Death
Yup. One of the few to best kharn himself. Really the only reason abbadon was able to kill sigismund was because of his age. He had become slower but abbadon had been living in the warp so therefore he hadn’t aged.
The reference list that I wish I had when I first watched:
Squad Grimaldus:
GRIMALDUS - Reclusiarch. skull helm.
CADOR - Mark X helm (with vertical slits in faceplate) Veteran brother at least 300 years old.
PRIAMUS - "Blademaster" standard helm. Youngest astartes among them. He's the one always carrying the power sword (not a chainsword).
ARTARION - Banner bearer. standard helm. Slurry raspy voice, because his jaw was blown off and replaced with a mechanical jaw.
NEROVAR (usually just NERO) - Apothecary. White armor, standard helm with optics.
BASTILAN - Sergeant. Beakie helm.
Other Black Templars:
HIGH MARSHAL HELBRECHT - (no helm) Chapter Master & overall commander of the fleet protecting Armageddon.
BAYARD - Emperor's Champion. Carries the "Black Sword", the most sacred blade of the Black Templars. Knightly helm (although he is wearing a standard helm in his first appearance)
JURISIAN - TechMarine. Long robotic arms on his back. Standard helm with optics. Deep slow voice.
Slight correction with Cador's helm and much of his armour, he's wearing Mark IV Great Crusade/ Heresy pattern gear: the Mark X (Primaris) armour has a very similar helm, but as the Battle Of Helsreach predates Gulliman's resurrection and the Intomitus Crusade Cador is highly unlikely to be wearing such a new mark
@@PugDrivr77 oh good catch. I guess I was thinking that it was an artistic animation choice/accidental lore error. Like the way the Steel Legionnaires look. Or also how Helsreach doesn’t look like a hive city, and is also pretty small.
Sebastian Yarrick… 😔
the language of the Orcs has no word for „friend“, only for „favorite enemy“.
And Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, the mightiest Orc in the Galaxy, lost both.
And whoever caused this tragedy, will soon long for the pain of the butcher’s nails!
Angron did an oopsie :D
@@Tragantar1310 Angron ❌ Angroff ✅
:::holds up ork boss's severed power klaw::: "like for like, which part of yourself are you willing to give?" --sebastian yarrick
29:02 - This is why there's no audible dialogue in Astartes - they're all on helmet comms except for the Sanctioned Psyker shouting "RECALL THEM IMMEDIATELY!" and then losing his shit.
Oh yeah Helsreach is without a doubt a class 40k fanimation that we must see more of.
Armageddon is often called the most war torn planet in the imperium, and keep in mind the planet Cadia was basically plugging a giant hell portal until it was finally destroyed by demons.
Cadia wasn't destroyed by Daemons. Cadia was destroyed when Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of Chaos, slammed a gigantic ancient mobile warp-powered space station called a Blackstone Fortress into the planet.
@@N0-1_H3r3 You do understand the pedantry in that distinction do you not?
While we are being pedantic, I think the prize for most torn still goes to Cadia. :p
"I know why you're here..." You ain't shitting brother. I love this series/book. My favorite story of the Black Templars - Another chapter pointed out, "You don't wear the symbol of the Emperor." The reply was, "We ARE the symbol of the Emperor."
Oooo this is the perfect point to pause Helsreach and watch/react to Luetin’s video “ORKS - War is Life.” He not only explains them in engrossing grimdark detail, but the 2nd half of the video sets up the story of Helsreach! Explains wtf is going on with the Orks and why this is the biggest green tide ever seen!
My only gripe with this movie/novel is that the orks have to take the role of the ominous primal threat and aren't really seen enjoying themselves.
@@ViolosD2I It’s a story told entirely through Grim’s eyes, the way he sees it. And he doesn’t really like orks all that much. He also frames the Salamanders as incompetent.
@@ViolosD2I To everyone BUT the Orks, the 'ominous primal threat' is exactly what they are to be fair.
Something interesting to note, I don't know why Boylan didn't bring them up, but the Helsreach Crusade contained around a hundred Astartes led by Grimaldus himself. I guess focusing only on the squad increases the tension and the emphasis on how outnumbered they were? Anyways, awesome animation, great story. Love it. XD
I love it when people discover Jonathan Keeble, his voice is masterful. He and Toby Longworth are the greatest Warhammer VAs
The audio is ripped from the audio book, but a fan did all the animation. He really did an amazing job, because he managed to take a roughly 13 hour audio book and trim it down to 3 hours ish without losing any of the weight or impact of the narrative.
I highly recommend the audio book
Lost a little of the impact in my opinion. The attack on the docks was one of the highlights of the story imo. And the entire section that was just the death count for space marines
@tyrusdalet yeah I can get that, I mean, the whole part where the other titans attacked the god breaker would have been cool. I mean, there is so much world building left out. I would definitely tell people listen to the Audio book or just read the book, but I still think for what it is, the fan animation is as good as it could be. It's probably a lot better than if Hollywood had made it .
@@DropBear2099 oh definitely. And audiobooks can be very dense for some people - an animated movie is far easier to consume, especially when it gets 90% of the story across
This really is what you were hoping for, and you have only seen the start of it. The visuals gets better as it goes on.
Indeed, this will also give you a taste of how awesome the audiobooks are.
Black Templars were a 2nd founding from the Imperials Fists. They were originally led by Sigismund. Who commanded the Templars of the Imperial Fist Legions’ first company during the Horus Heresy. Sigismund was also the very first Emperor’s Champion while defending Terra. Where his armor was painted black.
26:53 - The quality and clarity of the animation is related to Grimaldus's mental state.
and also Richard Boylen getting better at his craft, too
10:00 that is lore-accurate, marines often deploy by drop pod. Them all burning up is just Grimaldus’ dark thoughts/imagination though
nothing made me happier than watching you search lexicanum for context you are a true hero of the imperium
"Nine days!..." you can feel his aggravation.
Straight away, I like to think that the Templars with the notable raspy voices are a consequence of them Yelling their warcrys super loud to the Heretic, the Witch, and the Xenos on a daily basis. Basically they voice-boxes are shot from yelling FOR THE GOD EMPORER!
The holy war above is referring to the space battle taking place above Armageddon
Right off the bat, the Creator Aaron is a Legd-bag. He's responsible for many 40k novels beloved by Bricky himself. You'll could say that his brilliant writing is what made him a hardcore Nightlords fan :D
Spear of the Emperor is so good too, and a good space marine book for newbies I’d say
ADB has earned a great reputation as an author, but occasionally gets jobs to write for things they dislike. It shows in the lowered quality of the results, because that passion for the subject matter is part of why ADB does such great work.
Helsreach was the first 40k book I have read, and I recommend it as a great place to start for people new to 40k.
- The Astartes who wear white with the helix symbol are Apothecary, combat medics, tasked with keeping battle brothers alive and retrieve the gene-seed of fallen astsrted.
- The studs in the foreheads indeed show the years of service. However the material and counting varies per chapter. Rule of thumb: silver 50y, gold 100y. It grows ever unpopular for Primaris to do it as it is more a Firstborn custom.
- Sebastian Yarrick was so good at fighting for a "humie" that Gazkul legit let him go from Ork captivity so he can fight Yarrick again. Sadly in the more recent codex Millitarum he is flagged as KIA.
- The Black Templars are one of the very VERY few Chapters who work directly for the Inquisition. They are more or less the Inquisition's private Army of Supersoldiers. One other chapter who falls under this criteria are the Minotaurs who are, by far, the most relentless when it comes to hunting other Astartes flagged as renegade. Poor Lamenters...
They aren't apart of the inquisition and minotaurs serve the high lords of terra
Nah, the only chapters that work for the Inquisition are the Grey Knights and the Deathwatch. The Black Templars have many objectives aligned with the Inquisition and may be used by them because of their zeal and fanatism, but make no mistake, Helbrecht is no lapdog of anyone save the Emperor and Dorn.
That opening just locks me in every time; I will die on this world, I will die on Armageddon. I am so excited to see your full reaction, it's going to be a great ride. Also, Jonathan Keeble has done so many of the 40K audiobooks I've listened to, and the man's hype is well earned. Bro goes hard on his narration!
I shall watch this with you. I haven't seen this before.
you should give the original a view too.
you’ll both have a lovely time, I promise.
YESSSS MOAR 40K - Arbiter Ian Taros Campaign (from anyone is fine too) is a highly recommend from me. Since you like to make sense of the setting this one is a huge eyeopener for a logical thinkers like yourself for sure.
Its the imperial campaign to capture new resource world. Its all about Imperial military logistics, strategy and doctraine vs Tau (Which is more like our modern military style of fighting IRL). No warb fuckery just Tanks, Plane, and Marines. Very remisnice of WW2 African campaign.
Edit: Context
16:17 you shall bow the name of the GOAT of all Commissars, Yarrick! Ol bale eye.
Ya man, this film is the Jewel of the Emperor.
I love the final scenes of this movie so much, and I want to see your reaction to them so much that I screamed "NOOOOO!!" when I heard "End of part one" xD
“Isn’t 900 astartes overkill…”
Um there were two dozen chapters in that one war…..
You don’t really get the impression from this but I just want to clarify this war was massive. It’s estimated 50,000 space marines were in the sector involved in the conflict one way or another. A number of chapters deployed their entire chapter to deal with the threat posed to the sector by the orks
Yes he seems to have missed the appearance of the Ork fleet on the hologram, it was important to see that it rivaled the size of the planet.
Okay, this one is gonna need some background. Armageddon is a manufactorum world that is one of the greatest producers of military hardware in it's part of the galaxy. It's one of the most important worlds in the Imperium. When Ghazkul Mag Uruk Thrakka brought his WAAAGH!!! to Armageddon, it was a disaster, and the Imperium rushed to defend the world. This became known as the SeconFIRST...FIRST War for Armageddon. The standout character in this conflict was Commissar Sebastian Yarrick. After weeks of mismanagement, it was he who declared the Governor incompetent and prepared to summarily execute him (Commissar's prerogative. You'll learn all about that when you look into Commissars). He took over the defense of Armageddon and drove off Waaagh! Ghazkul, crushing the Ork's momentum at Hades Hive. The rivalry between Yarrick and Ghazkul became the stuff of legends. Yarrick was THE big Imperial Guard character all the way until 9th Edition (where he 'officially' died of old age).
With THAT background out of the way, let's head to IRL. In the late 90s, Games Workshop began holding Global Campaign events. In short, GW would publish special rules about a certain campaign location and players would fight battles with these rules and send the results in. The results would affect the outcome of the campaign and the final results would become Warhammer history. By 2000, they'd already held several of these, but now they were poised for their most ambitious yet: The ThirSECOND...SECOND War for Armageddon. The world of Armageddon was divided into a dozen or so battlefronts, and each of these was assigned to a region in the real world. If you were playing games in England, your battles affected the results in one region. If you were in the US, or Eastern Europe, or Asia, your results affected a different region, and in the end, the results from all the regions would determine the outcome. It was quite the ride.
_Helsreach_ is a novel written about one of the conflicts during this war. It follows a Black Templar Chaplain (called a Reclusiarch because his specific role is head of the chapter's reliquary) named Grimaldus and his forces as they defend Hive Helsreach from the orks. This film series is a fan project that took the audio from the audiobook and added animation. It's one of the best 40K fan projects on the internet. (That said, this version DOES drop a few of the story threads from the book, especially near the end, so you should DEFINITLY read the book at some point). Now, on the the video.
1:04 - Aaron Dembsky-Bowden is the author of the Helsreach novel. He's one of Black Library's best writters. The 'movie' is created by Richard Boylen, who worked for years on this project. He did so well that GW hired him to produce their official Blood Angels animation Angels of Death.
2:01 - Just wait...
4:41 - Okay, before we go any further, let's just touch a little bit on the Black Templars. They are a successor chapter of the Imperial Fists, one of the Second Founding chapters. Unlike most Space Marines (particularly other 'sons of Dorn') who see their task as protecting The Emperor's Imperium, the Black Templars see themselves as a continuation of the Great Crusade, more concerned with conquering new words than holding what the Imperium has. This makes them highly aggressive. They are also one of the few Space Marine chapters that overtly worships The Emperor as a god. Most Space Marines see The Emperor secularly, as he wished, but the Black Templars fully embrace the state religion, so they have a particular hatred for witches and heretics.
5:41 - When a Space Marine survives a battle, but is too severely injured to be healed back to fighting fit, he is placed into a life support sarcophagus and placed into suspended animation. When the need arises, the marine is awakened and his sarcophagus installed into a Dreadnought: a heavily armed and armored combat walker capable of punching tanks to death and bursting through walls like the Kool-Aid Man. The quote most associated with Dreadnoughts is "Even in death, I still serve."
7:06 - High Marshal Helbrecht is the Chapter Master of the Black Templars.
11:19 - Yes. The Apothecaries are the Field Medics among the Space Marines, but they also have another incredibly important job. It is the Apothecaries that are tasked with removing the Progenoid Glands - the Geneseed - from fallen battle brothers so that future Astartes can be created.
14:55 - Although there IS marked general improvement in the animation as the project moves on, the 'level' of animation is also used by Boylen as a narrative element. It's one of the more ingenious aspects of this series that we'll discuss a little more as things go on.
16:28 - We'll come back to that later when they finish the flashback.
18:11 - In most cases, yes. 100 is enough to decisively end most conflicts. But the thirSECOND Armageddon War is NOT 'most conflicts.' This war involved nearly FIFTY THOUSAND Space Marines in addition to the millions of Imperial Guard from across the galaxy.
19:13 - LEXICANUM!! YEAH!!!! That's you're BEST resource for 40K information there.
19:32 - CONGRATULATIONS!!!! You got it on the first try!
21:29 - Traditions vary somewhat between chapters, but most commonly a silver stud is 50 years and a gold stud is 100. I THINK Helbrecht is around 350 at this point.
23:40 - It's worse than you think. Think about this from the perspective of the other people in the room: the mortal commanders and representatives of other Astartes chapters. Here they are, preparing for a war that will most likely see everyone dead, and the second in command of person in charge of their most powerful asset is begging not to be left on the planet and storming out like a petulant child. It makes Helbrecht look weak in the eyes of the other Astartes, and it shakes the confidence of the mortals, who see the Astartes as Angels sent by the Emperor. What hope can they have when the Angels disagree? Grimaldus is new to command and not used to the burdens placed on him, but that's no excuse for the way he acted. (That said, this is also EXACTLY why Helbrecht chose Grimaldus to lead the defense of Helsreach: so that he can be taught the lessons he still needs to learn as a leader.)
25:05 - You're not JUST going to see titans. You're going to see an IMPERATOR!!!!
26:30 - ...and now HE uses that ork power claw in place of his own arm. It shouldn't work, but it does. Fan theory goes that the reason Yarrick lived to the age of (I think) 137 is because Ghazhkull didn't want him to die, so the WAAAGH energy kept him alive. After all, as Ghazhkull himself said to Yarrick, "Gud enemize is hard ta find."
32:55 - Most of the characters we were just introduced to have their own story threads in the novel, but most are dropped in this version. Again, you should read the book for full context.
40:00 - The 'small team' is a full Company strength. 100 Marines. The story just focuses on Squad Grimaldus, so we don't see much of the rest of his force.
41:35 - The 'clamp' is a more recent thing. Back when this came out, companies weren't as trigger-happy when it came to fan animations and copyrights on RUclips. That's mostly only been in the last decade or so. GW only started clamping down about 5 years ago when they decided to start making their own animations (although recently there've been signs they might be leaning off on that).
One more fun fact about the Black Templars connected to the Imperial Fists' reluctance to split into smaller groups is that, due to being on a literally eternal crusade, they can permanently refer to the Codex' exemption laws for that state which allows them to exceed 1000 members.
And they do, many times over... while technically still adhering to the letter of Robot Girlyman's rules, at least in that aspect.
When the Legions were broken into Chapters in the Second Founding, there was a requirement to stick to the specific limits and rules that all Chapters are supposed to follow. There is an exception that Chapters can ignore this structure and limits when they are on Crusade..... So the Black Templars are perpetually on a Crusade so that they are exempt from the Codex Asartes limitations.
Sigusmund read the Codex, and immediately took the loophole, because he didn't agree with it but was diplomatic enough not to directly defy it.
Silver Service studs denoted 100 years of service. The gold is referred to as a command studs and denotes 100 years of command.
When they say the holy war above they are talking about the space battle between the orks and impirium battleships.
Helsreach is a book that some fans mad an animated series of.
after having read the book myself there is a lot of details and characters missing as the animated series takes a more focused look at just Grimaldus and his brothers, but both the book and animated series are great and absolutely worth checking out if you like this stuff.
I like your titles because they are never clickbait and the videos are awesome
Ah yes, and so it begins! Helsreach is an awesome story and Richard Boylan really did it justice with this animation. As for the style, I understand your trepidation at first, but what you notice as you go through it, is that the style changes as the mood of Grimaldus changes, you will see what I mean later on. It is a marvelous effort though, from story to character to presentation, I think you'll really dig it. If you can, I would recommend you get hold of the book, "War for Armageddon: The Omnibus". There is a couple of other great reads in there as well.
I've been around the traps a while, and have spent the last 20 odd years as a die hard Dark Angel fanboy, but I do love the Templar's, maybe it's the whole knights in space thing hahaha! And to be fair, I do like their style, I mean making use of the fine print to buck the system, is pretty awesome.
You see, when they say that the Black Templar's are not codex compliant, that is a bit of an understatement! They are in fact, pretty much a legion by any other name, which is exactly why they can commit 900 marines on a whim. You see, the codex states that a chapter is to be 1000 battle brothers, and when you factor in all the extras, like apothecaries (medics and surgeons), Librarians (lore keepers and psykers - Black Templar's don't have psykers, because they don't believe in them), techmarines (mechanics and builders), Chaplains ("morale" officers), other veterans and officers, a chapter is probably closer to anywhere between 1250 and 1500 at full strength. The Templar's however, make use of a fine-print clause in the codex which states something like, "those chapters performing a crusade can have as many battle brothers as needed for the task." Hence, "the eternal crusade" because they are always crusading, they don't have to follow the rules, suck that Bobby G lol! One of the crusades mentioned in the lore somewhere was about 17000 strong and there are several of those, so it's easy to believe the BT's are at least 20000 plus as a chapter, their attrition rate is pretty high though.
As for Yarrick, he is in fact, the Man! He is so cool, entire ork Waaaghs will shift focus to both fight and protect him. He is also super cool for the fact that he has his own personal baneblade called "The Fortress of Arrogance". Baneblades are super rare, so you can imagine how cool having your own one actually makes you!.
Yarrik will always be my favorite commander of the imperium long may he live to spite the enemies of the imperium
A few loyal subscribers against 3000 likes, i like those odds
“NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS!”
Saw the thumbnail, instaclicked and liked
I absolutely love this book, Black Templars were my favourite chapter since I first heard of 40k and this book is one of those books I find the need to read multiple times (and still feel the same awe I felt the first time)
ADB has a particular way of "humanizing" and making space marine characters go beyond the super-cool-badass-soldier stereotype
Look at Grimaldus, Talos, Hyperion, Argel Tal, Zephon...
And the man certainly can write speeches (looks at the Eternity Gate)
The only that keeps me from saying he's the greatest is a certain fellow named Abnett
I'll definitely be back for the remaining parts
37:14 bro is LOCKED IN
16:17 that my friend is Comissar Sebastian Yarrick, hero of hades hive, known as Oll' bale-eye to the orcs an sworn enemy of Ghazkull mag uruk thraka, the prophet of the Waaagh!
Even the Orks know to fear/ respect Ol' Bale Eye, they took his arm , so he took one of theirs to replace his
wooooooo finally my favorite 40k animation and book lets gooo. also the animation was made by a fan the book and audiobook were made my GW and Aaron dembski-bowden. Also there is supposed to be 100 black templars but he couldn't really animate all of that.
Most likely why GW didn't clamp on this is because it was one of the best pieces of advertisement of their products around. It also cut out some parts of the audiobooks so the full work wasn't infringed upon. Also they did hire the visuals creator dude, rightly so.
Aaron Dembski-Bowden is probably one of Warhammer 40k's most popular authors. Although he hasn't written as much as some, and has a tendency to be kind of late (which he's openly joked about), it's usually worth it. Aside from Helsreach, other standouts include Spear of the Emperor, the Night Lords Trilogy, the Black Legion series, and of course his Horus Heresy entries like The First Heretic and Betrayer. Most of the 40k books exist in audiobook format, so that's an easy way to binge them.
Jonathan Keeble is a great narrator, currently listening to his voice over of the Siege of Terra.
15:35 lol consider that guard lucky to get such a quick and painless death
They had 50,000 spaces marines on the planet or in orbit in the novel, with grimadulus having 100 under his command. You know your screwed when entire, multiple chapter's of space marines are on you're planet.
The animation reflects grimaldus state of mind as the battle progresses
Top tip in the spirit of taking all this in gradually: check out Luetins video on "Titans" AND "Orks - war is life" cities before proceeding further. You'll get a good grasp of things overall to fully appreciate the viewing of Helsreach - you want to max out your first time watch brother!
Oh and the vids are on the longer side, so do as you see fit with reacting to them or checking 'em out offscreen.
So hyped for you to experience this. It gets better and better every episode.
spoiler alert on how badass Sebastian yarrick is
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his contribution to imperium is so significant,the imperium reward him an entire planet for him to become high lord and retire. and Yarrick says "NO"
around the 40 minute mark: they wanted to be a part of the war above, as in literally the naval battle between the ork fleet and the imperial fleet in the system before they get overwhelmed
9:21 interestingly, the animation work is done through Gmod, partly with the assistance of an Xbox Kinect sensor for certain scenes. All this with filters added on to represent Grimaldus’ mental state and clarity. If you recognize some of the human models, you can tell this.
Reminds me of Kain's monologs from the Legacy Of Kain series
Another Warhammer 40k video, another day of me screaming from the rooftoops for you to ... wait, this is Helsreach! IT'S HAPPENING!!!!
YOU’RE GOD DAMN RIGHT IT IS!!
it is written in a style as if you were reading a book
this is awesome animation
This is a book. It's literally an animation over the _Helsreach_ audionovel.
On the topic of dreadnoughts: "Only in death does duty end." - Inscribed on the sarcophagus of the first Custodian to fall in battle and be transferred into a Dreadnought by the Emperor himself.
I will die on this world. I will die on Armageddon.
The voice actors did a really good job.
Thank you for reacting to one of our most important stories. I'm sure you see now why we recommended it!
Starting the video at 370 likes (was the 370th one) and ending it at 660, 43 minutes later.
Really loving the series, happy to be "yet another newcomer" in the 40K universe and see my newb questions being answered episode by episode.
Hope you'll continue a bit more down this titanesque rabbit hole.
Massive work, congrats!
The human in part 2 16:35 was Commissar Sabation Yarrik aka old Bal Eye by the Orks aka Ghaz Mortal enemy and destroyer of Orks. He is the equivalent of the boogie man and or hero to the Orks. He is the toughest human at least to the Orks. And he took the Ork warboss Uglard power claw and uses it himself.
Back during the Great Crusade, there were Legions of Space Marines numbering in the thousands, with some having tens of thousands of Astartes at their height.
Even with those numbers, even with the equipment and enhancements of the Space Marines, even with the Imperial Army and the Mechanicum backing them up, and even with their Primarchs leading them, the Legionnes Astartes would encounter roadblocks and significant resistance. Case in point? The 1st Legion, the Dark Angels under Lion El'Jonson, were at one point the largest Space Marine Legion. Then they participated in a series of wars called the Rangdan Xenocides alongside no less than 3 other Legions, all of which brought their full power to bear against the Rangda.
By the end of the Rangdan Xenocides, the Dark Angels had been utterly devastated, having lost thousands of Astartes over the course of the conflict despite the support of the other Legions, and the Dark Angels themselves being considered the strongest Legion in terms of numbers and overall effectiveness, with access to forbidden weapons and technology from the Dark Age of technology that they were only allowed to use with the express permission of the Emperor himself, including enslaved AI soldier constructs, xenos weaponry, and God-Emperor only knows what else.
A conservative estimate says that at least 30,000 Space Marines participated in that campaign, only a fraction were left afterwards, and presumably two Primarchs and their Legions were lost.
That was against the Rangda, a species that was wiped out during the Great Crusade. The Orks? They've been around for millions of years, always fighting, and the Orks of modern 40k are considered pale imitations of what they used to be during the War In Heaven over 60 million years ago. Even so, the Orks are probably the single most prolific and successful species in the galaxy despite constant in-fighting, having outlasted the Human Federation from the Golden Age of Technology that the Imperium sought to emulate.
Moreover, Armageddon is facing an Ork WAAAGH!!! being lead by Warlord Ghazghkull Mag-Uruk Thrakka, arguably the strongest and most intelligent Ork to be born since the War of the Beast. And he is going to be leading a horde of Orks so numerous that it's entirely possible that the defenders won't just run out of bolter shells and autogun rounds, but they might also run all of their laspacks dry before they manage to kill every Ork. IF they manage to kill every Ork. Because unlike the Tyranids, killing the Orks doesn't solve the problem. It just makes more Orks...
I highly recommend watching parts one and two of leutin09's the emperor of man. Its basically a crash course on the entire history of humanity up to the 41st millennium. Id watch it before you go much further into the lore as it will explain a lot of things about why the imperium is the way it is. It also goes quite in depth about the horus heresy which is one of the most important events in warhammer.
This is required viewing for newcomers.
Jumping in deep my man, let's goooooooo. FEET FIRST INTO HELL!!!!
OK, here are some explanations and details
The Space Marine chapter we are following are the Black Templars. The Black Templars are a successor chapter of the Imperial Fists, that was created by the first captain of the Imperial Fists back during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy era: Sigismund.
Also, remember how the Codex Astartes limited the chapters to 1000 Astartes each? Well, the Black Templars kinda wiped their asses with that rule and probably have the numbers of a Legion of old. How do they justify this? A loophole in the Codex. The Codex says that a chapter may swell their numbers past the 1000 in the case of them being involved in a crusade. So the Black Templars made it so they are perpetually on a crusade, thus their calling themselves knights of the Eternal Crusade.
The guy with the fancy hat we see slaying an orc with a chainsword is Commissar Yarrick. Youv'e read about him in the video. But to give you an example of how badass he is: the Orks loved how much of challenge, and how good of a fight he put up against them, that when he was (years later) presumed dead, the Orks launched a Waaagh! agaisnt those who killed him.
About the clicks in their helmets. Astartes are quite rare to ever take out their helmets and reveal their human visage in front of regular humans. In their helmets they typically have a vox inside that allows them to talk between them without humans being able to hear them. This usually unnerves the humans, because they have no idea what they're saying and ususally think they're speaking about them behind their back in a way.
The Legio Invigilata is the Titanic legion on Armageddon. They are all part of the Mechanicus and their culture and hierarchy are their own and usually are very headstrong. You'll see more of them in future episodes.
Get ready to see that, when they aren’t comic relief, Orks are bloody terrifying
32:55 When they enter the City's command center you can see the giveaway that tells you this isn't drawn, but it's actually either Garry's Mod or Source Film Maker with a rendering filter. The room has assets from Half-Life 2.
The animation is done in Source Filmmaker with a rotoscoped filter. The animation style changes quite a lot as the series progresses.
A like for you Brother! The fight isn't over. For the Emperor!
Hellsyes. This is a masterwork.