Poorhammer podcast power rankings: 1.Burellio 2. Brad's wife 3. the other guys

“I don’t like how they voice the female characters and sounded 85” - Brad’s wife, who’s currently voicing a Hive Tyrant

I love the quick mention that Trazyn misses Orikan since ”dropping that mountain on him” It really helps us put the Infinite and the Divine on a timeline since this is between the last two visits to that planet. He also compares Cawl to Orikan which works amazing as a compliment to Cawl AND a massive insult to Orikan

The audio book broke before the guard did!

If only Cadia had dinosaurs, it would still stand. Make the Exodites a faction GW

Can't believe no one mentiones how when anyone shouts in the audiobook, it sounds like theyre severely constipated! Also great to have Eric and Jenny back!

I like Jenny episodes. please have her on more .

The Novamarines are Ultramarines successors. They show up in the Dark Imperium series.

Listening to you all say "car-skin" over and over is giving me an ulcer. Ka-sir-kin. Ka like cat. Sir like yes sir. Kin like we's kin! Unless I'm just missing something because you said it right later.

Aw man, you guys we're reading the fall of Cadia? I wish you told us!

Black Templars, when you need Space Marines to die on a hill, accept no substitutes.

There's a Space Marine Heraldry artbook that has a page titled "Rocks are not free, citizen!" It did a cost breakdown of accelerating a rock from a local asteroid belt to the planet, versus the standard kinetic strike missile. It mostly showed that you'd lose money consuming the fuel required versus the manufacturing cost of a single missile.

I thought the whole Black Templar thing was hilarious and demonstrates why the Imperium is so dysfunctional. You have one of the strongest individual military forces in the galaxy, the Black Templars, and they are next to useless in one of the most important (if not THE most important) battles in the history of the Imperium because they are too proud to accept that they made a mistake and take their medieval style code of honor too seriously. See also the Dark Angels. To me that’s a great example of the blend of fantasy and sci fi that is 40K. It’s actually something a reflection of real life: in WW2 one of the biggest challenges Eisenhower faced as being supreme commander of the Allied forces were all the prima donna generals that were constantly pulling at the leash to go off and do their own thing. It’s also ironic that Chaos was a much more united military force than the Imperium which, I’m sure, was 100% intentional.

this might sound a little cursed, but for some insane reason I thought the way the Creed voice is done sounded almost exactly like if Robin Williams was doing an irish accent. it made me picture Creed being played by him in my head and it definitely made the more dramatic scenes a little more goofy for me lol

They should have gotten the Darktide VAs for the troops. "FOR CREED!"

Eric, if you want like, horrors of war stuff in 40k, I cannot recommend 15 Hours highly enough. It's guard versus orks and it does that mentality so well!

I wasn't expecting a Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series reference but I'm giving here for it!

The Cadian voices were neither Scottish nor Irish but were in fact the kind of accent you get around NewCastle and County Durham

56:55 "Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest sonovabitch in space!"

If anyone let this book down it was the production team not giving enough resources to the story. Author, narrator, editor all I'm sure did their best, but if this was going to be such a big event in 40k it would have been better to give it more time/money/etc. Thanks for the book club episodes! love them.

The thing that made me initially think "Oh no" about the narration was the first time he narrated shouting. I feel like he was told not to yell into the microphone and got overly cautious. When I listened to Flight of the Eisenstein, I felt like the narrator was full-on bellowing "Count the seven!" every time. "Twenty-four! In the war!", by contrast, sounded like the squad was being collectively strangled.

As someone who read the book in one week and did so with the ebook, here are my thoughts. I am terrible with names. I also wanted them to be allowed to say Fuck. I thought the guy who wanted to bayonet Abbadon was great. I also love the guardswoman who went after Abbadon with a shotgun. This book made me go from "black templars are meh" to "fuck those guys, they're the worst". They were so annoying. The main thing that stood out to me was how seamless the inclusion was. Women just existed. They were important for their actions.

Jen isn't THAT bad on 1.5x speed. Though I definitely laughed when you brought up people listening to the podcast at high speed ("hey, they're talking about me!")

I think this is the first time I've ever wholeheartedly disagreed with you guys to the point where it felt personal. I should also say this was my first 40k book, and I realized how stupid it was to take *your* criticisms of the book personally, so I ended up enjoying this episode. *HOWEVER, I HAVE SERIOUS BONES TO PICK!* The narrator was very good. His initial shouts of "24 IN THE WAR" were super cringe to me, but his voice acting for the rest of the book was stellar. For context: I am a die-hard Marc Thompson purist. And I loved this narrator. Trayzn's voice? Exactly how I imagined it. It was amazing. Urkanthos? Fucking awesome. All he does is be a whiney little bitch, spill blood, and beg for Daddy Khorne to notice him and I fucking loved every minute of it. Blood for the Blood God. The Kasrkin (pronounced KASS-er-kin) was great. Dude took out literal Chaos Raptors, which are full on Space Marines. I always loved seeing them work, and I greatly enjoyed how he got so high on his britches, only for him to crash and burn. Serious badass with a savior complex. Abaddon's daughter? Favorite character, hands down. Loved her constant struggle and inevitable failure. The whole "This is my Foxhole" speech? Fucking hated it. Something a high school English class would churn out on a bad Monday. Meant nothing at all. The Chaos Cultist? Worst character. Cut him completely. Entirely forgettable. Every time he showed up, I had to manually pause to recall who he even was. I disagreed with almost every opinion you guys had to the point that I got mad about it. Keep up the amazing work! Love this show!

The most entertaining scene by far for me was the early general staff meeting with Creed trying to get all these fucking weirdos he doesn't have actual authority over to participate in a cohesive defense plan. The crazy gun nuns refuse to do anything but guard their churches, the derp edgy dark angels refuse to do anything but guard their ship and precious secrets, the admech refuse to do anything but guard techno secrets they don't understand, and the space wolf decides to do a suicide run and takes a full regiment of guardsmen to do so because they might help for 2 minutes before dying horribly. Great showcase of how dysfunctional the imperium is and how out of his depth Creed was as a theater-level commander as opposed to a tactical one. Conversly, for me the worst moment by far was in the climax when Abaddon is just slowly walking toward a whole platoon of cadians and they're all shooting him so fast with a hundred guns and you can't even see Abaddon behind all the lasers and his armor is glowing red hot and there's so much ionising of the air that dudes stop being able to breath and then he just kills them all. I had conversations with my friends at the elementary school playground about how 'no my guy is so cool and awesome a hundred tanks could all line up and shoot him and he'd be fine'. Everyone has a personal line of when dumb 40k stuff is cool and when it's just stupid, and boy was that way on the wrong end of it for me.

Tip to make the narration better: Play it at 2x speed, honestly you're so focused trying to keep track of what's going on you stop noticing the voices.

Not gonna lie, Player of Games would make for a good Culture story for a book club. Main character obsessed with game playing, particularly strategy games? Seductive appeal of a horrific imperial system? Triumph of a much better philosophical system within the empire's own rule set? I think there’s some threads to tug on.

14:35 the one piece in the background hahahahah. Little details like this that are missed in audio only are great

Please do an episode on the Culture series

I can't disagree more about the voice, it was jarring at the beginning but I think he did a great job

Loved this episode. The book clubs are amazing to listen too. I got back in to this hobby three months ago, and listen to all your guys podcasts while painting. Your podcast was honestly a primary source of happiness and enjoying the hobby while being abroad for 5 months. If I ever felt homesick, the podcast was just there.

2 videos back to back?! What did we do to deserve this?

KZfaq did not notify me about this despite having all notifications turned on. You could say KZfaq broke before the guard did.

Look, it’s the thing that never meant anything in the long term!

So i am not alone in narrating in my head and doing voices for characters. AMAZING!

21:00 The middle ground I think would be changing the wording to describe the noise (instead of imitating it) and playing a sound effect in the background. Example: Text: The radio activated with a chyoooom. Audiobook: The radio activated with a dull hum. [chyoooom sound effect] The fact of the matter is that any adaptation where the media being used is significantly different shouldn't be done 1 to 1. Make changes where necessary to fit the medium. Don't force using the original like it was ordained by God.

This was the first audiobook I have ever listened to. I thought the narrator was annoying, but I figured it was me not being used to audiobooks. I got used to him around hour 10.

I really, really enjoyed this book. A couple of points. I listen to about 30 books a year (get your library card!) and I have to say the narration is above average. My only gripe is that the early book was difficult to follow as there was no audio cue to know when the scene changed. Once I had the characters nailed down this wasn’t a problem. I used audible and the sound quality was perfect. If you heard pops in your headphones, that might be something related to poor Bluetooth connection.

I would watch an episode on the culture series, and I agree the audio books are very good. Maybe an “influenced on or by 40k episode”? Can talk about all the cool sci-fi / fantasy that went into and came out of 40k

Listening to the talk of the quality of the audibook itself makes me real glad to he a star wars audio book fan. We get sound effects, music, mark Thompson and his excellent voices and narration, voice effect overlays when needed (ie no awkward Droid voice attempt)

I like that Keztral saw the space wolf dog form and was like "I ain't seen shit".

My wife had to endure some of the audio. I'm trying to get her into Sisters (she has a Sylvaneth army) and if she had read the living saint parts she might have been sold on the army. Instead I don't think she will pick up a Sisters model without hearing those voices.

I loved this book actually, all those plot threads were really working for me in emphasizing the precariousness of the Cadians and their situation, and the idea that they kept fighting even though they knew they couldn't win. This is a super stretch, but it reminded me of my own battles with mental health. You're fighting to preserve what's worth protecting, even if it seems fruitless, because it's what matters to you. To steal from Rise Against, how we survive is what makes us who we are.

It might be my tism and/or favoritism for the guard, but damn I'm glad you guys didn't make the book😂. It was by far one of my favorite books.

The crime lord plot line was a bit weird until the very end where it clicks that he is actually a blank and therefore has no soul and his whole character and motivations fall into place

30:29 My initial reaction: Wtf is a car skin!?

Null shields are a complete cop out even though they're mostly worth it. Though one has to ask if there's a shield that prevents high velocity impacts basically no landing craft ever conceivable could land on it. If it's a size thing instead than consider this... Chef Boy R Dee moving at mach 10 is essentially a nuclear powered can of pasta. That could wipe out a small city or at least destroy most of the ground emplacements for next to no cost. Now there's food for thought!

I really liked the book, though I read it so didn't have any of the audiobook problems. I'm a slow mental narrator like Brad and Eric, and I'll also look up characters, units, sometimes even datasheets wherever they're relavent, so I can flesh out the scenario in my head. I spent a lot of time on this book. That said, I actually loved the Urkanthos bits, his POVs were some of my favoirite chapters. I especially liked the relationship between him and goremouth, and interactions with other chaos characters. The big problem was the lack of chapters dedicated to the other chaos characters. They introduced them all, Krom Gat being an Iron warriors leader in charge of the most crucial part of abbadons plan... and the space wolves killed him off screen, with him having no dialogue. Zeraphiston was awesome... except the only real interaction he had with anyone was the Rovestke bits. All Korda did was fire on urkanthos (though I quite liked their interaction), and slaughterborn wasn't even killed off screen. You were thinking of Gat, slaughterborn was given a badass description, told to release plagues to devestate the cadian forces, and then never mentioned again. There were no plagues, aside from the daemon released at the behest of Zeraphiston, and we are never told what happened to any nurgle forces that may or may not have been present DESPITE THE TERMINUS *FREKKING* EST BEING NAME DROPPED. I did love Siron though, he stole every scene he was in. Morkath was fantastic of course. Loved Rovetske, although his final scene with ghent was kind of dumb. Up til that point he never seemed like a one trick pony, he always had runes or something up his sleeve, but in his final moments he just kept trying to use his force mind trick, and it didn't work because... i guess ghent had a stronger will? It's not entirely clear.

KZfaq pleasantries! Big thanks to all involved and especially to Berilio for all the editing. Love the book club specifically because I’ve found that it makes good background noise for sleepless nights where I’ve seen it awake and alert already so I can half listen to keep the brain from spinning too fast.

How could you not prepare us for this bookclub thing?!

I can’t believe yall didn’t talk about the private climbing the mountain to get the supply drop part. One of the best moments in the book for me.

Phenomenal episode. Having the third person’s perspective is INCREDIBLY valuable. I think it adds so much to the podcast. I wish you could do it for the other episodes too! Completely agree about the Karsikins. QQ though, did you listen to the bonus content at the end of the book? I think it’s a shame you didn’t mention it. The author ads som perspective to influences for the book, and I think it reframes some of the Imperial Guard parts, most notably the (forgery traitor guy)’s parts.

I also narrate the book in my head when I read it, good to see I am not alone in that. Also maaaan, the narration really is rough in the audiobook, not gonna finish this episode until I finish the book but I may pull an Eric here (God help me) and drop the Audio book for the actual book, so it may be a while before I finish this one, but thanks for doing these book clubs! They always help me pick which book to read next.

Dropping my KZfaq pleasantries early as I haven’t finished the book yet but i trust these guys to deliver a great episode anyway.

As an ordained representative of the black templars, we thought this was cringe. To some degree the "we have sworn an oath to defend this thing even if it makes no sense." Is a fun part. But then they ruin it by not acting like black templars in other ways. Like they just happened to have a black blade and artificer armor and then they declared an Emperor's champion without having a chaplain. This just isn't stuff the black templars would do. Also, the whole point of helsreach was grimaldus learning that to be a black templar didn't just mean mindlessly holding ground, it meant selling your life as dearly as possible. The black templars in this book were cringe.

Ah, the episode released after the previous one that came before this one. Perfect!

Yeah! Eric is back!

It will forever be hilarious that they released a new recording right after this video.

This was by first introduction to Warhammer 40k lore proper. I know some of it, but it was all new. I think it's fun if you are new to it. I think it's more entry level then super crunchy. Didn't expect the throwing rocks at it strat.

I thought the book was also sorta rough, but I appreciate the goal of it was to describe a desperate attempt to thwart a planetary invasion that was first vaguely described in a neat campaign book 20 years ago. Through that lens a lot of the rough edges are smoothed for me as it gives highly detailed first person perspectives of one the biggest lore development of the setting that we only had the general outlines of for 20 years.

First time listening to a book club episode. I enjoyed y'alls takes, and can't wait for the next one

Y’all are a joy. Thanks for making these.

My guess is the sound effects are going to be down to what the author/publisher is willing to pay for. I'm looking at getting into VO work and typically it seems audiobook narration rates cover cleaned up audio. Editting in *other* sound effects is a separate task with a different billing rate.

Now I’m going to have to cry listening this on my commute today

This was my first 40k book. Listened to the audio all the way through. Narration was rough, but Cawl and Trazin were enough to make me want to check out Great Works and Infinite and Divine, so there's that. Enjoyed hearing your take on this one.

I really appreciate the recommendations because idk where to start and my first audio book was the talon of Horus so I almost need the recommendations so I'm not wasting my audible credits.

Really enjoyed the episode. Some good thoughts on the book. I’m reading the infinite and the divine from the last book club and have enjoyed it. So thanks for the tips.

Do a culture series, show gw fans real literature.

Love you guys, not in a 100% agreement but that's OK. Thebonly part of the audiobook I struggled with was the femme voices but I really enjoyed the vastly different perspectives on war and Cadia. I think the idea of showing how even a crime boss loved his planet and its people in a different way added a lot to the the big picture collage of what it meant to be there. I really liked this book and I'm glad you inspired me to read it by ding this video!

You mentioned speeding up the playback on the podcast. I accidently slowed it down by one notch and was seriously questioning if you both just toked up before you started.

Bile and Cawl interacting is delightful and honestly my favourite thing about it is it shows that Cawl 100% still thinks Mechanicus and expects mechanicus thinking from others despite the endless tech heresy. That and Cawl calling Fabius "pretty."

Top tier editing Berilio

Please keep doing book club, while I wasnt a huge fan of this book (mostly due to audiobook narration) I still love listening to you guys talk about it. Also as another book recommendation that I'm sure other people will point out, The Twice Dead King series is fantastic, especially if you like necrons.

Well, I had been on the fence about reading this book, and especially had been thinking about getting the audio book instead. Glad I listened to this instead 😆 Also, if you want an audio drama, the Cain books are pretty good for that, they did a really good job at it. The voice work is almost universally good, the writing really lends towards audio narration since it's literally Cain narrating his memoirs with the occasional input from Amberly, and while they don't really do sound effects as such, I prefer to think of it as an audio log. I mean, when I think in-universe 40k "books," I don't usually think of them writing things down when they could be dictated into a servoskull. So for me, this is literally listening to Cain's memoirs like he's retelling them himself. That, and they're pretty good books to begin with. There have been a few that have dragged a little, but then they connect to later books in the series, and that context makes them better.

I want to say the Black Templar character did the same thing in the Fall of Cadia lore section of the campaign book. Same with the Dark Angles and Space Wolves. Gave me a lot of weird Deja Vu with some of the things in the book due to reading the campaign lore years ago.

This echoed a lot of what I thought when I was listening to it. I only listened while driving, and when the drone of the highway was more entertaining then hearing Eleanor talking about how she's better, or the Kasrkin were the "elite of the elite", you know something was up. I actually completely missed a few of the plot points you had mentioned. Jenny nailed it right towards the end though: There were SO many Point of Views from characters that died super early on that it was frustrating to keep track of them. Does anyone remember that sergeant that was loaded up into a ship and shot at the Blackstone fortress who died one chapter later? It was almost unnecessary filler. (Good filler, I did like that character quite a bit.) Though, overall, it was...enjoyable, I guess? It was good enough that I did like it, but enough flaws throughout that there were times where I just flipped on KZfaq or played some music while driving instead. It did confirm one thing for me, and nobody can change my mind on it: Abbadon is the best Primarch. Yes, you read that right. Yes, I meant every word of that. Everytime he was on screen, I liked how deep of a character he actually became. Brad was 100% correct in that the Chaos parts (minus one blood ragey guy...) were amongst the best parts of it. I kinda wanna read more on Abaddon himself, to be quite honest. Sure, he had to fail 12 times to get it right, but the character himself seems much more interesting then the memes give him credit for.

I really like the Version of Aborder Prince here on yt, it´s very condensed, nice and moody in universe recap of the story. I know that plotline progressions like this aren´t usually rushed, but it really felt like it was knitted on a hot needle to fit it in with Battlefleet Gothic 2, 9th codex and get it finished before 10th.

I would love it if you covered Helsreach at some point. It allows the Templars to be a lot more human and vulnerable than it sounds like Fall of Cadia did. The audiobook is great. It's narrated by Jonathan Keeble, my favorite narrator of the ones I've listened to so far, who does an absolutely fantastic job with it. The only questionable voice is Helbrecht, who sounds like a chain-smoking muppet, but he's only in the very beginning of the book and Keeble's voice for Andrej, the best boy, more than makes up for it. I'm not sure if it'll change your mind on the Templars, but I think it'll help give you another perspective on them and why they appeal to some people. If nothing else, it made a believer out of me.

It would be interior compare this to Candia Stands book by Justin D Hill. I listened to this one and it’s very different I think. I also would love to see Pariah by Dan Abnett covered.

I was very confused why there was YGO Abridged in my Poorhammer thinking I clicked the wrong video. Having now watched the Video I get why its there.

This was good to listen to. I would like to hear what ideas you would have for stories in the 40K Universe.

I liked this book club thing a lot. Picked up the book to listen just for this (mistake). He was very good at narration, but i agree with the points you all made about him. Hopefully we get another of these book club things soonish. Thanks poorhammer crew! ❤❤❤

This is my first episode. I related so hard to 12:19. And I only recently found out that most people in the world don’t have an inner voice.

I'm going to throw out a random recommendation for Steel Tread as an IG book that doesn't get bogged down by being about particularly important events or characters, and also shows guardsmen from a bunch of places other than Cadia. The same author wrote Celestine the Living Saint which is also phenomenal.

The audiobook is under new releases on black librarys website. Looks like they got another narrator to redo it?

I honestly didn't realize listening to podcasts sped up was a thing. I often find myself having to rewind and repeat segments.

Gonna watch this after i finish the long af book, but want to do the pleasantries

I struggled with the narrator's voices initially, but got used to it by the end. Definitely not my first pick, but not a deal-breaker for me. With regards to the story itself, I think this was always going to be a pain to get right, simply due to how much of it was pre-written, and how many characters were pre-determined to be included. I think Robert Rath does a hell of a lot better when he can write the story and characters as he sees fit, rather than having to work on someone else's script. Incidentally, despite The Infinite and the Divine being what properly got me into the novels (I tried the Ciaphas Cain books years ago but it never really stuck) I genuinely had a better time with Assassinorum: Kingmaker, and I really hope he writes the teased sequel to that next.

Honestly, to give Elstob some genuine props, I think his Urkanthos performance was the highlight of the audiobook. Listening to him snarl “BLOOD!” every other word actually made me think, ‘Y’know, I actually kinda vibe with the demon prince now’.” Hanna Keztral was definitely a high point of the story. I’ve always loved pilot characters, and her marking off kill counts as she escorts the transports to safety really drove the “This is not a foxhole” emotional spike home for me. I was also kinda disappointed with the Sisters’ showing. I liked Geneveive, and kept expecting her to have a moment where she genuinely got to surpass Ellynore in some regard. I suppose being the moral catalyst, the martyred example that inspires Ellynore to action is a very sisters-y payoff, but I did feel a little underwhelmed in that moment. On the other hand, I *did* enjoy the eldritch horror of all the dead and mangled sisters heralding the arrival of Celestine. That was very daemony of it in its own right. As for book recommendations, First and Only definitely would suit Eric, I think. It does have that Vietnam, War-Is-Hell tone to it, and is probably my most unreserved Dan Abnett recommendation. I’ve enjoyed plenty of Abnett novels, but First and Only benefits from not having many female characters, and so you are spared too many lingering descriptions of “magnificent cleavage” or “form-fitting bodygloves.” That said, I cannot recommend Ciaphas Caine enough. As a former academic, I have a soft spot for snarky footnotes and having to work with references texts with clear biases.

I'm only 11 hours in and having a VERY hard time finishing the book. I just wanted to get to the Trazyn part(s). I will decide after listening to this one hour version to finish the book or not.

Did not read this one, but enjoyed the episode quite a lot. Also recently finished TI&TD and look forward to when I find the time for THAT bookclub episode of yours! I guess you will let the Patrons decide, but if you are doing it by poll: please put "Brutal Kunnin" on the list. 'tis good.

Loved this review even if i didnt get the book or read it. Would love to hear your thoughts on the trilogy of Night Lords, my favorite series and the second set of 40k books i ever read

I’d be more then happy to lend you my Night Lords omnibus! Incredible read and insight to Legion in the 41st Millennium!

I've listened to two audio-plays by GW, and both had terrible mixing. Battle scenes had constant background noises (swords clanging, hammers hitting) that were obviously repeating and drowning out the narration and voices. They also had that 1950's Comics thing where people point at something and describe it in lengthy details. Sometimes, that works, but when a death laser is killing everyone, it seems odd to have a character stop, point at it, and loudly describe the horror that he is just barely avoiding. Edit: They were Realmslayer and Prisoner of the Black Sun.

Ah, a fellow Midwest self narrator. A man of culture, I see.

45:39 congratulations, you have described the Black Templars.

Can we get a playlist with all the past book clubs?

One thing about the talk of foley work and sound effects. That is something the Star Wars books can do really well. The Heir to the Empire audiobook is almost an audio drama. They do have the benefit of a lot of iconic licensed music, but it is amazing. Also Marc Thompson can do the widest range of voices I’ve ever heard. He did a conversation between a small girl and a teenage girl and it was terrifyingly normal. Also for the reading of the night lords trilogy. I as a Red Corsair fan read the first two books to get to Huron in the second one. As a non NL fan it was ok. I liked the characters but couldn’t remember half their names. The humans were kinda cool until typical plot point stuff. And while there were some fun bits and ideas (Abaddon, old dreadnought man, and throne room scenes, etc) the main plot is just kinda eh. It does do a good job of making the NLs kinda pathetic. I thought it was alright overall, but I had no motivation or want to go into the third book.

Poorhammer broke before cadia did, good chat and thanks to berellio for his editing!

Definitely read the Night Lords trilogy, it is decidedly NOT 'bolter porn'. It does an amazing job of depicting how a Chaos warband would likely function: there's infighting, they deal with lack of supplies and having to scrounge, raid, and steal to get everything they need, their complicated relationship with other Chaos warbands, they win some battles but lose others, etc. The Night Lords are obviously bad, but they're not Chaotic Stupid and just do evil shit for evil's sake. Everything they do has a purpose and reason behind it. Also the Abaddon series is is great ("The Talon of Horus" and "Black Legion"), though I believe we're still waiting on book 3. Same author.