I'm coming hard from the end of the video as well as pissing also I would like it if 40k took itself seriously sometimes and they had actual trade and politics instead of Xenos bad and suck in every way like would you guys actually prefer 40k if it was just humanity?
the Wolfblades are a poor man's Varangian Guard. They are bodyguards for navigator house Beilisarius on terra since before the Horus Heresy. Even tho they weren't seen or mentioned in the custodian books. Tho I don't hate the wolfs I agree with most of this.
Pepperidge farm remembers. But pepperidge farm just isn't going to keep it pepperidge farm's self free of charge. Maybe you go down to your local store and buy a box of these milano cookies, maybe this whole thing goes away.
the TS also killed Custodes left and right (except for CV) in that book - pretty retarded. On the other hand the SWs butchered some GKs, a GKGM and an Inquisitor without much trouble. Fucking bullshit.
Pancreas is in a room with four things, a gun with one bullet, a space wolf, a Khorne demon and some poor peasant who committed the sin of being born in bretonia. Who does he shoot?
I actually think it’d be pretty cool if the wolves used actual viking raiding tactics. Rolling up and striking where they’re least expected and strangling enemy trade routes like an angry Homer Simpson.
@@guccifer764 I mean, if you're going that "realism" route, then the same thing applies to pretty much every pre-modern warrior culture. Samurai and knights were every bit as bad as vikings were. All of these groups had no resemblance to the noble, honorable portrayal that they got in later literature. A real historical knight or samurai were more like the "Crips and Bloods", or Al Capone, than the literary characters created to make them look good. Actual peasants who had to live under these sword-swinging gangsters absolutely hated them and rebelled against them pretty much every chance they got.
"Bad Magnus! Bad! You can't use psykers! The Edict of Nikaea says you can't!" "Oh, our guys aren't psykers. They're just channeling the spirits of Fenris. It's different."
"What's that Magnus? You can sense that an entire Khornite Daemon is possessing my Chapter Master's primary weapon?" "Uhh, no it's not... maybe your brain is fried from all your warp experiments, the Axe of Morkai just naturally exudes an aura of bloodlust. That's totally normal."
I love how one of the thousand sons( I think hairyman) took the time to psychically eviscerate a space wolves' librarian and show him that he was 100% using warp juice only to smite the everloving fuck out of him. like lol your whole life is a lie, also I'm better at your job than you and I don't even care about you relaying this information to your dudes
Mentioning Yarrick and Armageddon reminds me of how comedically bad GW are with scale, which also ties into that Fenris spirit thing. Second war of Armageddon was a massive, planet spanning war on a major hive world. Several hives fell with massive casualties, sometimes near total. After all of it, the casualties were an immense… “hundreds of thousands dead and wounded”. It’s just comical, especially since the imperium is so big that they likely have over 1 quadrillion people.
That is honestly quite common in sci fi writing and some do it even worse. Did you know that in star wars there were a total of 6 millions clones made during the clone wars? Biggest wars in centuries, that spans through most of the galaxy and one side has less troops than germany during ww2.
@@kingBing101 it would not be quadrillions on a planet. The most populated planet in the galaxy is Terra, which is still only at “hundreds of billions”.
To add onto the Months of Shame point. I'd like to bring up the Celestial Lions. They didn't slight the Inquisition nearly as much as the Wolves and the Lions still got pretty much obliterated via 'ork snipers"
Not only that, but after they were nearly destroyed that time, they sent an assassin ACROSS the warp rift just to kill the Lions' chapter master... They will go to any lengths for literally any reason
I have a personal theory that Fenris was a former Eldari world. As the word 'World Spirit' appears when talking about Exodites and it's pretty much a planet sized infinity circuit. That and those gems the wolves wear for no reason, maybe the world spirit of Fenris is them drawing on the souls of the world's previous inhabitants. Maybe the gems have connections to that infinity circuit or maybe soul trapped souls for extra battery?
But there would be a hole in that theory. The other craftworlds who have fought the space wolves would notice and if escaped would rat out on the space wolves misuse on their cousins. Biel tan would never tolerate a human living on a maiden world, let alone letting them use the souls of the exodites. Even then, gw doesn't tend to let more than one person let alone a faction to have common sense. It is a theory, but I am not sure if it's the theory. Perhaps i am missing something.
@@hex_2384 I agree that would be a hole. I just find it strange that the Space Wolves and Eldar share two specific motifs, The word 'World Spirit' and wearing a single gem on the chest of their combat armour.
@@hex_2384 I mean, primaris go against almost all the themes of 40k and are still allowed to exist, fenris being a dead expedite world would actually be super interesting and a cool way to give them more relevance
@@LoRdInTeRwEbS yeah but the primaris where kinda necessary they beefed up every enemy so hard the space marines needed a reinforcement I mean come on tyranids gazkul necrons the orks basically got a demikrok size monstrosity with brain damage and two insanely difficult to fight zenos where introduced not to mention the fact that chaos was finally starting to be an actual threat the primaris are there so the setting can make at least a little sense and answer why the imperium isn’t a goner as for the wolves eh honestly could be a minor warp entity those do exist but we literally know jack shit and gw writers don’t have any creativity beyond hur dur grimdark or hur dur war
My issues with the Space Wolves are how contradictory their lore is. Every factions has their strengths and weaknesses narratively speaking. Dark Angels are so secretive that they *knowingly* shoot themselves in the foot. Ultramarines are overly orthodox. Iron Hands are assholes who actively try to remove their humanity, etc. The Space Wolves read like someone's OC, where everything that should be a hinderance just isn't. They get drunk and act like a bunch of rowdy frat boys, but are still just as disciplined and elite as any other chapter, because its just an act to make it look like they're undisciplined or some bullshit. They ignore the codex astartes, but never catch flak for it. They hate the use of psykers, and persecuted the Thousand Sons over it, but are fine using their own Rune Priests, because "nuh uh, our stuff is different".
Space Wolves are the kid who demanded to use the best controller at your house because "IM THE GUEST YOU HAVE TO" but then when you're at their house it's the "NUH UH ITS MY HOUSE I GET THE BEST CONTROLLER"
There’s also the fact that they’re said to be a more rebellious and free-spirited legion, but aside from that one time they killed an inquisitor (which they never received any punishment for, btw) I’ve never seen them do anything any other space marine hasn’t done. They even got semi-called out on this in the books when Angron calls Leman Russ and his legion nothing more than the Emperor’s obedient attack dogs.
I always thought that the Wolf Priests just thought they were using the spirt of Fenris to cast spells, but it really was just the Warp the entire time, not a separate source of energy.
I think that's exactly what they do, they use the warp just like other chapters librarians, but they're special space vikings so they get all different terminology
They do Malacador said it Magnus said it Emperor said it Jagahtai said it Litetally 3 of the most qualified people to make that diagnosis said it. Leman is an absolute tool bag
it is the warp but Fenris itself is kinda weird with the warp. For starters, some monsters on the planet are severely mutated and only exist deep underground or in the oceans and they are not natural creatures at all. one example is a "Nightganger" which is some kind of humanoid troll that can breathe underwater and regenerate.
They do actually have the Varangian guard. A Navis Nobilitae family (the three-eyed mutants who navigate ships through the Warp) on Terra get to have a few squads of Space Wolves at a time protecting them from rivals and assassins. In return, every Space Wolf vessel is guided for free by one of these nobles. It isn't as cool as maybe having a Xenos noble or leader guarded by a Wolf or two, but it's damn close.
I mean, the Varangian guard worked for people of an entirely different culture, religion and nation, whilst the Navis Nobilite and Space Wolves both serve the Imperium, the Space Wolf honour guard are more like a modern secret service.
You know, there was a time when I couldn't imagine a Space Marine chapter more insufferable than the Ultramarines... Then I was introduced to the Space Wolves.
@@connorbestbarlow1043Yes, the Smurfs are totally innocent when it comes to screwing over another Legion and sending them on their route to Chaos. *cough* Word Bearers
@@leandrocastello309and the wolves fucked prospero on what they had every reason to believe was an order from the emperor (and hell even without Horus, Russ would have had to barge in and capture Magus since the emperor actually ordered that), so really not that different
There's having a theme and then there's having an obsession. Space Wolves are certainly the latter. Like seriously you can still keep the wolf theme and not have wolf in everything, there are plenty of other wolf-adjacent nouns and adjectives you can use to mix it up, or even more nordic words you could use. Edit: Also yeah seeing more parallels to actual Viking history in the Space Viking faction would be something I'd be so in for.
I think the idea is the wolves are supposed to be more like warriors in Valhalla, drinking, fighting and hanging out with Odin (Logan) as they are often recruited at the brink of death after proving themselves worthy to a spectating Wolf Priest. They are then taken by flying gunships (Valkyries) to then become Sky warriors. So them not being actual vikings makes sense in the context of them being reborn into Odin's personal army after dying to their old life. Not supposed to do much trading and adventuring in the afterlife. The wolf thing is definitely mega cringe though. 30k wolves were so much cooler and better written, especially the books with Russ in them.
There's a very common bit of fan theory that basically says the Space Wolves call everything wolf because of poor translation. The language on Fenris probably has a ton of unique names for it's stuff, or just a bunch of unique words to describe wolves (like how some eskimo languages have a million words for 'snow') but everything just gets interpreted as wolf.
@@milliondollarmistake That doesn't really change anything though or make it less eye-roll worthy, cause all we get is, "wolf, wolf, wolf" for the millionth time, regardless of any in-lore reason (even if it is just a fan theory).
Same universe where ultramarines hold a section of the galaxy called Ultramar. Or the angry primarch is called Angron. I’m just saying, yeah gw isn’t very inspired sometimes.
@@Ynwell_theslaaneshi Doesn't make the space wolves' naming convention better or any less worthy of criticism. Those both deserved to get made fun of as much as the space wolves and any other of GW's more eye-roll-worthy names. I criticize the Space Wolves specifically because this is a Space Wolves video I'm commenting on and not an Ultramarines or Angron video.
A breakaway group of Space wolves working for/living amongst the Eldar as Varangians would actually make me like them. That kind of interspecies mercenary work would be awesome to see, especially seeing the Eldar begrudging tolerate these particularly useful Mon'Keigh.
Fun fact they do have an equivalent of the varangian guard. The Wolfblade (of course they have wolf in the name) is an order of 20 space wolves that are sent to be bodyguards of the Belisarius, a navigator house that has a close relationship with the space wolves. It's from Ragnar's books (the 4').
As I recall, the reason the Space Wolves were more or less exonerated for what happened during the Months of Shame was because the Inquisitor who was picking a fight with them over the refugees of the 1st Armageddon War drastically overstepped his bounds. The Inquisition still unanimously agreed that the refugees needed to be dealt with, but they also agreed that declaring Exterminatus on a world that the Space Wolves may or may not have dropped off some of the refugees on was going a bit too far. Plus, the Wolves HAD been acting in self-defense and hadn't technically done anything wrong by taking in the refugees. Bjorn recognized that things weren't going to keep working in the Wolves' favor though, and he managed to get Logan to quit while he was ahead.
@@Turd_Rocket Because a bunch of other Inquisitors sided with the Space Wolves and said that they were in the right to act in self-defense towards a rogue Inquisitor in defense of their charges, and the Grey Knights also admitted that they fucked up and that the Space Wolves weren't wrong in their actions because the Grey Knights themselves found fault with the orders they had been given. It also doesn't hurt that Space Marines technically only answer to the Emperor himself and by law are allowed to essentially ignore all other organizations, including the Inquisition, and that as a Space Marine Chapter that had been around since the First Founding as a full Loyalist Space Marine Legion, their loyalty to the Imperium and their honor was beyond reproach even if they blatantly defied the Codex Astartes. None of that makes what happened during the Months of Shame okay, but the general consensus between all parties is that it was a tragedy and the Space Wolves were not truly at fault for what happened. I mean the alternative is declaring every Space Wolf a heretic, performing Exterminatus on Fenris, and wiping out the entire line of Leman Russ as there are no Successor Chapters for the Space Wolves, and doing so all because they were protecting civilians and soldiers who had fought against Chaos alongside the Space Wolves and killed a relatively small number of Inquisitorial personnel and a few Space Marines in the act of defending said civilians and soldiers. If Bjorn hadn't told the Wolves to quit while they were ahead, the Inquisition might have just been forced to back off, because even they recognized that going after the Space Wolves over this probably wasn't worth it.
Not only that, but retroactively calling the entire line of Russ heretics is likely to have some pretty major effects on many other Imperial Organizations. The Leman Russ tank is the mainline tank for most Imperial Factions, and it's very likely that some high ranking dumbass would declare that that shouldn't be used at all anymore if this happens (I can't think of a specific example of this happening in cannon, but would it really be so far fetched?)
@@MegaHI32 Well normal civilians aren't allowed to own or even handle boltguns or bolter rounds. And by decree of the Emperor himself, the Imperium's entire stock of Land Raiders has been set aside exclusively for the Space Marines, because the Emperor made that proclamation as an emergency response to the outbreak of the Horus Heresy and the necessity of supplying the Loyalist Legions with as much wargear as possible, and nobody has thought to try and overturn that decision for 10,000 years because the Emperor Himself made it.
@@Brutalyte616 That's fair. I suppose my confusion came from what I've noticed as a surface-level "fan justification" (for lack of a better term) giving Space Wolves a pass for atrocities that would otherwise be harshly punished if perpetrated by anyone else. The way you explained it via the nuances of the in-universe politics and alliances makes me see if differently, it isn't Space Wolves simply "getting a pass" but rather their significance in a wider context and potential consequences of prosecuting harsher punishments against them would not be worth the cost. They're still pricks, but it makes sense in-universe why they haven't been wiped out by now. I get it.
i still want it to just be the god ulric from fantasy. would explain the obbsession with wolves when you have a literal god of wolves influencing your culture
Yeah the Wolves aren’t space Vikings, they are space savages. That’s it, their whole deal is being savages, their culture is not even a shadow of Viking culture
Space Wolves from the name sounds like a 13 years old first Space Marine Chapter, it was honestly a dice roll on if the Space Wolves would’ve been Viking, Samurai, or WW2 Germany based. Edit: You made me hate the Space Wolves more than Bretonnians, where instead of being pathetic, they just get their IceCream without no repercussions.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 made from fresh Wolf Milk that comes from the Wolf Cow that requires a Wolf Bucket and to use the Wolf Cow Wolf Farmer who was trained in the art of Wolf Cow Wolf Milking.
Remember when Logan Grimnar defeated Imotekh the stormlord also known as probably one of the if not the best strategist in the warhammer universe in a strategic battle because he charged into the necron troops? You know the guy who is in charge of the biggest necron dynasty, the phaeron where its impossible to predict what hes exactly doing while he has an answer for basically any situation? Fun times.
@@cc-bk3tx This. The funny thing is the Ultramarines really were the Mary Sue faction while Matt Ward was responsible for all the lore writing. Once he left, GW stopped sucking off the Ultramarines so much...only to start sucking off the Space Wolves.
@@cc-bk3tx Oh I'm with you on that. The Ultramarines still get way too much hate while other Mary Sues like the the Space Wolves skate by without any criticism at all. It's especially annoying because I think GW has actually done a good job sort of "rehabilitating" the Ultramarines and turned them into a genuinely interesting faction.
@@Commodore22345 Fully agree meanwhile space wolves have a the opposite effect where they had a interesting faction turned into a complete merry sue faction that is completely uninteresting
Thanks for the shout-out to Crowe, my favorite Grey Knight, he’s also smart because he doesn’t try to tap into the power of the sword. He just uses it like a regular sword and probably blue-balls the daemon within. He’s also why I named one of my Lepers after him in Darkest Dungeon. Unfortunately he isn’t as pure as Crowe and ended decapitating his own Occultist under the influence of the Crimson Curse.
@@ghosthippie8465 Come on, man, using the power of occult, eldritch magic to stitch flesh back together is a tough craft to master. Just being able to critically heal nothing is a feat in and of itself.
You might like the Mesari/Vaulters from Endless Space/ which are EXACTLY like space vikings. They trade with other races, they explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy, they commit boarding actions with plasma shields and proton axes, and they were driven off of their homeworld by the endless cold.
It’s rather amazing that the Inquisition didn’t just straight up stamped “perma-heretic” on the Space Wolves for outright killing the Grey Knights’s leader and the heads of Inquistion.
I gave up on Space Wolves lore when one of them managed to trick a Harlequin, who apparently did not know that Space Marines have a secondary heart. He then proceeds to act faster than a Harlequin and kills them with a combat knife despite having a punctured primary heart. Then I looked up their fight with the Inquisition and yeah this chapter makes the Ultramarines look tame. It's so annoying when GW goes over the top to prop up a Space Marine Chapter that is a loyalist but then the Astral Claws get screwed over because they are written to be a renegade Chapter.
to be fair overconfidence and arrogance is the biggest killer in combat, and as much as i hate to say it the eldari's biggest problem is that they see all other races as little better than well organized animals. it just so happens that well organized animals can still kill you, unfortunately,
Harlequin can have a respectable kda ratio with custodes but I'm sure being slightly arrogant lets a space marine kill them. Absolutely how that works lol.
The Space Wolves are too few to actually be in the number of battles they have been in, and considering that their geneseed leads to a lot mutations makes it very difficult to get new space marines they should wisely pick their battles rather than chasing after every single scarp they can possibly get into.
I feel like they should also focus more on long distance engagements then close quarters combat with the only ones getting close being the ones who tuned into a "werewolf"
The Wolves highest number in modern 40k was 10.000. Space Wolf Companies are "grreat companies" because their are much bigger than just 100 Space Marines. However most Wolfslords are traveling with only around 100-200 Space Wolves at the time, while the rest of the great company protect other parts of the realm, assit other Imperial Forces or whatever.
Also with the Varengi Guard, something like that happened a bit in the Heresy. In the Unremembered Empire, there was a bunch of space wolves looking over Guilliman, a very Roman Primarch.
real talk: that's all the 40k community is. It's all either people getting pissy over a faction they don't like or getting pissy that their favorite faction isn't getting all the attention
hey i’ve noticed a minor lore error in this video, it’s something that many people get wrong around 4:48 you state that magnus did „everything wrong“ when in fact he really did nothing wrong :)
I wish you had mentioned before saying how he telephoned onto the ship with Grimnar. How when Bjorn was awakened and met with a inquisitorial delegation, that when the envoys realized who he was and that he had walked with the emperor they fell to their knees and and were awestruck.
Also thousand sons: oops I cast too many spells and now I'm a chaos spawn, my butt is a mouth and I eat through my asshole and shit out of my mouth. Who could have seen this coming, also I'm being bullied by a smelly hobo with gingivitis who doesn't have a warp presence and turns my spells off. Help daddy Magnus :(
If you want a Space Wolf story that’s heavily inspired from the Varangian Guard you should read Wolfblade by William King. The whole story revolves around Ragnar and some other space wolfs acting as bodyguards on Terra to a very politically powerful House and all the shenanigans that come with that
You are more right than you realize. Both Gaz and Girlyman have a rule that stops them from immediately dying in one phase on the tabletop. They are both faction leaders, and are arguably on par with each other. Ragnar beheading Gaz really is exactly like a named chaos lord, who isn't even a subfaction leader, just named, nearly killing the Blue Boi.
@@dr.squares8938 it's egregious because of how important Ghazz is, he is the main ork guy, imagine a named space marine killing Angron or any demon primarch and also everyone complains about avatars of Khaine dying so easily to random space marine shmuck so not a good point to bring that up. this also a Ghazz problem since he is the main ork guy but doesn't fight anyone that is important like a demon primarch or even Guiliman, he is just doing some stuff here and there and people complain about that.
@@dr.squares8938 1. that doesnt make it better 2. if the strongest member of a faction cant even beat someone who isnt even the leader of a subfaction then why should that faction be seen as an actual threat
For the Tau it was the Humans within their Empire and the other client races that made the Greater Good Warp Entity so the Tau not having a strong presence in the warp isn't really applicable in that case.
15:23 Yes there is. The Wolfblade are elite bodyguards to the navigators of House Belisarius. The navigators get 24 space marines and in return the Space Wolves get 24 of the best navigators. Ragnar was once a member of the Wolfblade.
@@NWLR-tv it's a tradition kept up with the same house however, the varangians did the same with the Byzantines - but Space Wolves can't realistically go wondering off to join another leader to fight for them instead so they have to do it through tradition and a deal that stretches back thousands of years.
@@pancreasnowork9939 that's fair, that would be pretty sick - easily done with any of the lost company's to! I could definitely see a shattered company thought to be lost fighting under the eldar, sounds like a conversion opportunity!
And once again though. What’re they called? Why did it have to be “wolf blade”? They could’ve picked so many other cool, non wolf things. Also, while it’s cool, it’s such a small footnote that so many other chapters do. There are tons of important imperial figures with bodyguards from various chapters.
The thing about months of shame bridge battle is that, frankly, I could see it going that way in tabletop and rpgs alike. I've seen terminator *SQUADS* die to gretchin and fresh-faced dark heresy parties dashing through heavy fire unscathed, so getting initiative and fucking off via teleport is absolutely on-point with how the game can go.
Orks are my first and favorite faction, I started collecting them for 10+ years and having Ghaz getting beat by a space wolf that wasn't a primarch level threat made me angry.
God...The idea of the Space Wolves roaming the galaxy bringing both goods and Fuck Yous to Xenos and imperial alike sounds so great it'll never happen. It could even make the Spirit of the planet thing work as they could ALSO be a sort of missionary force, spreading their ideals which would empower Fenris.
Fenrisan territory could be spread thought the galaxy, from a system following their command down to individusl cities or even a few powerfull individuals.
As flawed as the Space Wolves are, I believe it's important to note that the majority of the complaints during the Months of Shame comes down to the fact that the Wolves are a first founding chapter, the quintessential sons of Russ. Prior to their confrontation, they showed nothing but upmost loyalty for 10,000 years thus targeting them would be illogical, even by Inquisitorial standards.
Except the inquisition has fucked with first founding legions before. Just ask the dark angels. The inquisition works because no one can question them, which is why they strike down so hard on those who do. See celestial lions as an example. If people stopped fearing the inquisition and standing up to it, it would cease to work as an organization.
@@alphanoodle1877 did we ever get any information how that weirdo even gained so much power? Pretty sure it wasnt a stupid reason like "ohhhh chaos!", i dont think we even got anything tbh.
The celestial lions file a complaint against the inquisition for needlessly executing a planet and they get all their top ranks assasinated with them returning with just barely 50 marines out of the whole chapter after Armageddon and the stupid wolves get an “oh you *sitcom ending music*” after openly making war? Why are the ultramarines the hated ones again?
The difference is, the Celestial Lions are a relatively low standing successor chapter. The Space Wolves are one of the OG Legions. You try wiping them out, you succeed in pissing off 90% of the Space Marines who see this as the blatant overreach of the Inquisition that it is.
The idea of a Space Wolf protecting other races leaders for the good of the imperium or more based on trade and exploring uncharted space is amazing. That could made more believable why the spirit of Fenris exists. Because space wolves love to spread their stories and sagas so by traveling so much and trading with other species they could literaly made the spirit of fenris more powerful. Its a really cool idea, a bit Heretical but Guliman and Belasarius are here and the space wolfs would probaly say " Eat a dick" if anyone found a problem with it.
Honestly, I'd be fine with the World Soul concept if we saw more examples of the concept on other worlds, Necromunda for example, or just any hive world with sufficient history, any group with sufficient spirituality and a world that followed it, like the Salamanders and the Promethean Cult, or the Mechnicus, and yes, millions of versions of the Emperor, possibly even show them fighting together and against each other. If you want to alter the rules of the universe so some group can get an edge either figure out a way to have it only work for them, or don't make them the only example.
To be fair, the Mechanicus do actually serve the and worship Dragon of Mars (this is a joke... sort of) and are entirely influenced by its powers and messages, even though they just sort of pretend they mean the Emperor when they say "Omnissiah", going so far as to commune with AI even though they consider AI to be heretical - because machine spirits are f*cking AI.
A year old but just wanna point out that at least in the lore, the people of Fenris are actual vikings. They raid, they pillage, they trade and think a gun is a magical talisman wielded by a wizard in armour when they see one. That's why they are vikings, they stop doing all the viking things they used to do once they become space marines, except drinking a lot. They still do that.
“Brothers shall fight | and fell each other, And sisters’ sons | shall kinship stain; Hard is it on earth, | with mighty whoredom; Axe-time, sword-time, | shields are sundered, Wind-time, wolf-time, | ere the world falls; Nor ever shall men | each other spare.” it basically a poem of ragnarok
@@tompotter8703 They should have just called it Ragnarok then. 40k has never had any qualms about straight up ripping off other IPs and historical cultures in the past.
Honestly, everything you just said is how I feel. Bjorn is the only good Space Wolf, all others are boring, dull, or just crappy Mary Sues. And the stuff about how the Space Wolves are just cosplaying and had so much potential for being like true Vikings was fantastic. An Eldar Farseer or Tau Ethereal with their own contingent of Space Wolf Varangian Guard would be so amazing to see in the lore.
That just wouldn't happen unless the Space Wolves get excommunicated or something from the Imperium. It's highly against the rules to join forces with Xenos.
@@KarpetBurn Well... It's been done several times already. Credit where credit's due... It was usually out of sheer necessity. A good old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of situation.
@@RoulicisThe Yeah I'm not a lore expert but I've never seen the Imperium side with a Xeno faction for reasons like expansion and partnership, so the Space Wolves unifying together with the Tau and Aeldari or something is definitely not happening on account of how closed minded and barbaric the Space Wolves are.
I am so stuck on the Wolves. Aesthetically I really like them, and individually I like a few of their characters (Lukas the Trickster is a good example), and I unironically want Russ to come back as some Odin-like wisened old man. But then you have how disgustingly they've been written and that screws them over. My main thought is really just... I try to not judge other factions for being OP mary sues in the books focused on them because well... every damn army has that issue (except CW eldar).
By the way, if the Wolves set up actual colonies, it would make their lore soooo much richer! That would explain how they get enough supplies and recruits to maintain their huge chapter, it would put them on even footing with the Ultramarines, hell it would even explain their “own warp thing”! But no, the GW is too shallow to think nanometer beyond superficial aesthetics level.
So a group of space wolves were all chanting "30 days, 30 days, 30 days" and celebrating. A near by salamander was walking past and asked "what is going on brother!" The space wolves replied they have completed a momentous task! The salamander eagerly asks what the task was. To which the space wolves reply "in just a mere 30 days we have completed a very difficult puzzle and the box said it would take 3-4 years!"
As a space wolf player I mostly agree. My headcannon is that the months of shame are heavily exaggerated because you know funny sagas. As for the rune priests I personally think it would be cooler if it wasn't warp based and was either a dark age thing or something like the Bhagaba from endless space.
I actually always assumed that because of whatever device they used in the Terraforming of Fenris it made Fenris a sort of partially living entity, where it's not that they draw their powers from Fenris, but rather a version of Fenris that is a Warp Entity, kinda similar to the Eldar Gods being Old One Weapons theory
There is a theory that the reason everything is named wolf is because their actual names in Fenris’ language (can’t remember the name) are not translatable to High Gothic, so were simplified to “wolf”
Your last point is so true! I don't know much about the space wolves and I'm fairly new to 40k lore but I know about our vikings irl. And they just don't fit the imperium of man. They'd be the guys raiding the imperium. A bit more like an ork-tau crossover. But then again, their peaceful side doesn't fit the whole universe all that much, since the Tau are the only ones, as far as I know, doing anything with other species except killing them.
Well now that whole trading/Varangian Guard just makes me want to create a Space Wolf Successor Chapter that was formed following a Rogue Trader. They could even have been formed by Watch Pack Bludbroder (if they lived I can't remember) to have a Roman theme, maybe they even took up some Ultramarine management.
Your idea of them trading with other factions borne of a temporary alliance is why people are mad at the Votann. They needed weapons and supplies and to knuckle up against the Necrons, Tyrannids, and Orks, so they traded with the Tau. They're cordial at best with the fish dudes and are otherwise entirely independent. They're also my second favorite group of people in 40k because they're the Dwarves in space. If the wolves were even 1/10th as in-depth as them I'd be cool with it. Also if the Wolves can go into full scale, actual war against the Inquisition and get away with it, I want a refund on about half of the planets that got Exterminatus'd for daring to cough in a way that the Inquisitors didn't like.
The t'au aren't fish people they're space cows from a mostly desert planet. In one Of the Xenology books they're described as sharing biological features with bovines. Don't forget they have hooves intead of feet.
@@LordCrate-du8zm he’s another warhammer lore UA-camr whose favorite factions are the Space Wolves for 40k and the Bretonians for fantasy. So the anti pancreasnowork
Modern Wolves are probably the greatest victims of flanderization in 40k. Nowadays it's all wolfwolfwolfwolf with a thin veneer of viking covering it. But back in earlier editions, like 5e, the chapter was way more focused on the totemic nature of their planet in general, not just the wolves. They honored bear totems, elk totems, bird totems, etc. Canis Wolfborn was the most wolfwolfwold marine at the time in the chapter and stuck out like a weirdo and had lore reasons (however tenuous) for existing. Now he's just barely standing out from all the background noise of all the wolfshit. Like, i really enjoyed the chapter back in the day, but GW has spent the last decade and some change reducing them to the most bare features while also doubling and then tripling down on the OC Donut Steal nature of the chapter and everything about it. I think one of the biggest reasons why they've gotten so ridiculous is because they're only a single chapter of an entire geneseed lineage. Literally every other legion was able to create dozens or hundreds of chapters during the Second and subsequent Foundings, and from a narrative standpoint GW was able to spread all their stuff around to a bunch of successors, chapter equipment and meta stuff together. The Wolves didn't do that, and the one time they tried to make a successor chapter (before Cawl ex Machina fixed the problem somehow) and gave it half their stuff like a messy divorce, it failed so hard so quickly that the Wolves are actively hunting down the survivors to this day. All the things that could possibly happen to a Wolf legion descendant had to happen to a single, slightly larger than average chapter (first founding no less) instead of being able to happen across a dozen or more, so it all was concentrated and amplified into something easy to hate
My WIP Space Wolves successors fell to Slaanesh and tripled down on the wolf theme, solely so that I can have a lore excuse to have furries fight my hazmat marines.
The space wolves primarch Leman Russ made horrible decisions. He murdered a loyalist legion, burned their world, killed their innocent people, and turned the embittered remainder to Chaos. He abandoned the defence of Terra to kill Horus. He had a chance to kill him but hesitated. Then after totally failing he disappears on a 10,000 year fetch quest. The space wolves chapter also make horrible decisions. Refusing primaris, humiliating guilliman, all their novels etc. They are the worst. The best thing they have done is flipping the bird to the inquisition.
It would be kind of interesting if in the lore the space wolves actually do eventually get there crap kicked in and are nearly wiped out. Like they square up with some orcish horde or drukhari or something and just get decimated. Like going from 1000 to like 400 troops. And due to this the wolves realize that they might’ve been stupid to pick a fight with everything in the universe and try to focus in on a new philosophy that is actually more like Vikings where they recruit more worlds to there side and eventually prefer more elite tactics like using terminators as shield walls. I feel like this helps against the Mary Sue problem and might give them more humility
Space Wolf mercenaries accompanying a xenos faction would be rad as hell. I hope part of the setting’s evolution is a fractured Imperium. The setting being humans fighting everyone else even if the only reason is “they talk different” is really stagnating the writing. Give me some fall of Rome in space. Make Tau relevant because the Eastern Imperium really needed something better than lasguns or the Western Imperium openly working with some craftworlds because everyone wants to murder Chaos. That’s what made WHFB compelling. Like, yeah, the Empire still burned witches but their first reaction to anything wasn’t “genocide the non-humans”. 40k started as Fantasy in space and would be better if it took more from the Old World. I will give my soul to Nagash to die on that hill forever.
Honestly, I feel the Leagues of Votann are doing the actual vikings in space way more than the Wolves, they're a bunch of space faring traders, settlers and warriors willing to work as mercenaries or even raid when need be. Hell, they've even got the viking sounding unit names and titles, without the added wolf-ness
Wait, the Wolves DO have a version of the Ferengian (spelling?) guard - in the Ragnar Blackmane books. There’s a small group of Space Wolves sent to Terra to act as house guards/special forces for one of the Navigator houses. Guess that was where King got that idea from.
There are three or four examples of Varangian guard style happenings for the Spaces wolves. That being said, it's only ever been for imperials, and it's only halfway to a Varangian guard.
I'm so happy to see you cover the warp stuff It brings the thousand sons and the eldar down how ridiculous the wolfs mechanic is I'm all for belief makes x real thanks to the warp, its a core mechanic, but you have to relate it the ocean of other beliefs that don't reflect that idea. If the space wolves had gone full viking like you would like, and have colonised say one thousandth of the Imperial territory, then we'd be in business for a well fleshed out power system with its own pseudo gods etc.
I like the wolf helms because they had to write lore to make it where the helmets let the Space Wolves smell stuff while remaining sealed through some complex chamber system or something like that. Also, I hope a Dark Angels video comes out at some point cause they're my favorite faction and I wanna see what stuff you like about them.
Oddly enough the Black Templars are closer to the historical Vikings and Norse cultures they leave enclaves on planets that visit and occasionally protect important individuals like inquisitors additionally since they’re a fleet based chapter they have a stronger naval tradition than the Space Wolves. Imagine if the Thousand Sons were successful and destroyed Fenris and the Wolves became the only first founding chapter to become fleet based at least their rivals the Dark Angels still have the Rock.
If I recall the Grey Knights did sort of get their payback against the Wolves during Magnus's second invasion of Fenris. Though I don't think Stern and his contingent saw it that way. The Grey Knights had to purge a large amount of the Fenrisians. The Space Wolves couldn't or didn't stop them that time.
The subject of actual space Vikings is part of why 40k can be annoying as a setting. there are so many interesting stories to be told about interacting with other people and species but 40k insists that no one can interact with eachother outside the smallest ceasefires when the nids attack. Hell at this point it makes literally no sense for eldar and ultramar to permanently team up now that robot girly man is yvrains best boy and there are only so many times you can use “they don’t trust each other” when chaos has literally ripped the galaxy in half
Well the imperium was unaffected bar a few hundred planets that got instantly replaced anyway and as soon as guilliman arrived he establisbed a connection done, problem solved. They keep soft locking themselves
@@Uthandol Oh whats that? Well Bjorn will say "fuck off dustboy" and defend Fenris again, while Thousand Shlongs have their worlds fucked, they lost not only Prospero.
@@kharngotrekson1726 Last I checked Prospero is being rebuilt. So not only do they have Prospero, but the Planet of Sorcs as well. Wolf diddlers cant do a thing without a Mc Guffin and several legions of custodes and Sisters to hold their hand. Magnus ( still alive unlike lemon party russel ) responds with " Eat a psychic cock, dog fucker."
Imo it helps to remember that this is made by the british. No wonder the vikings have been reduced to the pillaging murderhobo wolfie wolfs. Afaik the brits (or their former) fell victim to the most famous/brutal raids in history.
the world spirit of fenris should be revealed as some god of an ancient now dead xenos race that once lived their, the space wolves belief dident create it merely awaken it from dormancy and it decided it liked them since they reminded it of its old people , a fun bit of heresy thats not just chaos again
As for the Tau Greater Good warp entity, I thought that was due to all the humans being introduced to the ideology which is why some fire warriors are killing humans regardless of whether they surrender or not. Since they think the human psychic potential is too dangerous to allow them to live.
You're mixing things a bit here. The Tau warp entity came about due to Gue (Humans living in Tau Empire) misinterpreting the Greater Good and due to the fact after the capture of several hive worlds (that might have been retconned, but whatever), the Tau Empire contains more Humans than Tau. Tau don't believe in a God of Grater Good. Gue do. And since even the average human's spirit is to a Tau what and Eldar is to a Human... you get a Greater Good warp entity. Now after the Fourth Tau expansion fleet got sucked into the Warp, where Humans (and other auxiliaries) went insane/got possessed by Demons and Tau had to spend quite a while fighting them off before being rescued by the above-mentioned Greater Good warp entity, the surviving Tau have SERIOUS issues with non-Tau, having seen firsthand how they become demonhosts. To the point that they would prefer to wipe the galaxy clean of all psychic races. Of course, the Ethereals have a bit of a problem with part of the military openly advocating for genocide of ~60% of their Empire's population, so the Tau survivors of Fourth expansion were sent to "re-education camps". Whatever that means.
I'm one of those types who more likes the visuals and CONCEPT of Space Wolves moreso than their actual lore - which is also how I feel about the Dark Angels, to be honest.
Darn, I was going to ask for a space wolves video at some point but I should have known it would be like this. The wolves are the first faction I got into in the hobby and I will always love them. It is a shame how GW is doing them lately.
Love the Wolfe’s and loved the video. Had some funny moments. Small point about Logan grimnar and his axe. 40k furry lore says that for reasons unknown the when the emperor made the wolf gene seed he made it, weather intentionally or as a byproduct, very immune to the warp and to corruption. Never understood it snd don’t think it has ever been explained. But that’s lore. Totally agree with your point on gasghoul and the great commissar.
To me, it looks like they suffer from the “Superman” issue, where the “Space Wolves” are too strong, so easy to break continuity and are so unbeatable they are essentially boring or annoying.
When I was first introduced to the Warhammer way back in 2008-2010, at the time I thought the Space Wolves were some of the coolest Space Marines. However X many years latter when I started looking at them objectively and GW started doubling-tripling down on the WolfyWolfWolf I stopped caring about them and haven't looked back.
The grey knights should always get the best of the space wolves, however the gw writer's dont see it that way. GW has really nerfed the grey knights to an absurd degree.
So there is a theory that I enjoy, which basically states that their stuffs isn't actually all named wolf, but instead it has a real name in Fenrisian, which the wolves call it, and then the name that everyone else calls it, which starts with Wolf
Now im just immagining two guardsmen chatting and the fenrisian getting more and more pissed at the shitty tfanslations. It would have to be 50+ different words translated to "wolf"
With the Varangian Guard comment you just made a really cool point that could be added to one of the alternate heresies that makes it much more Grimdark. Trade the Space Wolves for Night Lords! You get a not chaosy traitor legion that goes drinking, fighting, looting and mercenarying with the eldar and meanwhile the Imperium gets an edgy spacemarine chapter that's like the Marines Malevolent but sneakier.
The varangian guard thing. I find it funny how often i see references to Space Wolves being body guards or having an attached unit seconded navigator clans or rogue traders or weirdo high ranking mechanicus. Seen it pretty often in white dwarf and other semi official stuff and a lot in the projects of the better painters. Particularly people who do the heavily moded blanchitsu stuff. Also the lack of explorator space wolves fleets and rogue traders is something That makes me so sad not being a thing I am going to make it canon in my head.
Regarding the Months of Shame, I seem to remember that time the Celestial Lions had every single one of their apothecaries shot to death by "ork snipers" not long after pissing off the inquisition... On a semi-related note, it occurs to me now that the inquisitiors seem to be petty as fuck.
It would be supremely funny if the spirit of fenris is just an exodite spirit world thing and the wolfen virus is literally just the planet originally telling them to f off
🌏 Get the exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ nordvpn.com/pancreasnowork
It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌
I'm coming hard from the end of the video as well as pissing also I would like it if 40k took itself seriously sometimes and they had actual trade and politics instead of Xenos bad and suck in every way like would you guys actually prefer 40k if it was just humanity?
About half of this was a good take, the other half was extremely pedantic. No elaboration, just my opinion.
BOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
the Wolfblades are a poor man's Varangian Guard. They are bodyguards for navigator house Beilisarius on terra since before the Horus Heresy. Even tho they weren't seen or mentioned in the custodian books. Tho I don't hate the wolfs I agree with most of this.
shoulda realized merely mentioning the ending gag makes it an ending gag.
Remember how during the battle of Prospero the thousand sons kept easily killing the wolves by sniping them because they didn’t wear helmets
REALISM IS HERESY
Pepperidge farm remembers. But pepperidge farm just isn't going to keep it pepperidge farm's self free of charge. Maybe you go down to your local store and buy a box of these milano cookies, maybe this whole thing goes away.
@@Voltboy1449 *HERESY IS HERESY THIS IS NOT*
the TS also killed Custodes left and right (except for CV) in that book - pretty retarded. On the other hand the SWs butchered some GKs, a GKGM and an Inquisitor without much trouble. Fucking bullshit.
To be fair, they did the same to the Sisters of Silence.
Pancreas is in a room with four things, a gun with one bullet, a space wolf, a Khorne demon and some poor peasant who committed the sin of being born in bretonia. Who does he shoot?
the space wolf twice juse cause he can.
Bretonnian.
He lines them up for a collateral and kills all of them
himself
trick question, he picks the bretonian up by the ankles and proceeds to beat the demon to death
I actually think it’d be pretty cool if the wolves used actual viking raiding tactics. Rolling up and striking where they’re least expected and strangling enemy trade routes like an angry Homer Simpson.
Red Corsairs say Hi.
That would require GW and the general public to know what Vikings were actually like instead of learning history purely through Sabaton songs
So the Raven Guard? Lmao real viking were fucking scary, imagine being miles inland and suddenly a horde just appears from the river lmao
@@guccifer764 I mean, if you're going that "realism" route, then the same thing applies to pretty much every pre-modern warrior culture. Samurai and knights were every bit as bad as vikings were. All of these groups had no resemblance to the noble, honorable portrayal that they got in later literature. A real historical knight or samurai were more like the "Crips and Bloods", or Al Capone, than the literary characters created to make them look good. Actual peasants who had to live under these sword-swinging gangsters absolutely hated them and rebelled against them pretty much every chance they got.
Imagine the Space Wolves pulling some kind of stunt where they land their space-ships and proceed to do the Vinland longship carry.
"Bad Magnus! Bad! You can't use psykers! The Edict of Nikaea says you can't!"
"Oh, our guys aren't psykers. They're just channeling the spirits of Fenris. It's different."
"What's that Magnus? You can sense that an entire Khornite Daemon is possessing my Chapter Master's primary weapon?"
"Uhh, no it's not... maybe your brain is fried from all your warp experiments, the Axe of Morkai just naturally exudes an aura of bloodlust. That's totally normal."
@@KarpetBurnI hate of hypocresy of wolf don't explosion in his faces.
Me: "Then Fenris must be corrupted by Chaos!"
I love how one of the thousand sons( I think hairyman) took the time to psychically eviscerate a space wolves' librarian and show him that he was 100% using warp juice only to smite the everloving fuck out of him. like lol your whole life is a lie, also I'm better at your job than you and I don't even care about you relaying this information to your dudes
@@jinpachibobochan3532nUH hUh inquisitor!
It’s the sPiRit oF FENRiS!
Mentioning Yarrick and Armageddon reminds me of how comedically bad GW are with scale, which also ties into that Fenris spirit thing. Second war of Armageddon was a massive, planet spanning war on a major hive world. Several hives fell with massive casualties, sometimes near total. After all of it, the casualties were an immense… “hundreds of thousands dead and wounded”. It’s just comical, especially since the imperium is so big that they likely have over 1 quadrillion people.
That is honestly quite common in sci fi writing and some do it even worse.
Did you know that in star wars there were a total of 6 millions clones made during the clone wars?
Biggest wars in centuries, that spans through most of the galaxy and one side has less troops than germany during ww2.
Even one planet with decent hive cities would be quadrillions, there are more humans than can be expressed with normal numbers
@@kingBing101 it would not be quadrillions on a planet. The most populated planet in the galaxy is Terra, which is still only at “hundreds of billions”.
@@mach1275 it doesn’t seem like he was referring to one planet when he said one quadrillion
@@richardschaffer3080 the comment is gone now but he specifically said something like “a well populated hive world would have 1 quadrillion”
To add onto the Months of Shame point. I'd like to bring up the Celestial Lions.
They didn't slight the Inquisition nearly as much as the Wolves and the Lions still got pretty much obliterated via 'ork snipers"
Which is hilarious, considering it was written before GW brought out Killteam Ork Snipers.
Orks snipers do exist but from what I have heard they are no way as near the level as fucking Vindicare assassins in lore or in tabletop.
Not only that, but after they were nearly destroyed that time, they sent an assassin ACROSS the warp rift just to kill the Lions' chapter master... They will go to any lengths for literally any reason
@@buivantuanlam5316 Their main trade in Killteam is that they can shoot further than 6" so that might put things into perspective for you.
@@YatzeeWillWearAGreenHat I don't play TT so is it considered extremely far ? I need to wrap my heaf around it.
I love how you somehow made this about elves
Natural talent
He's as sneaky and deadly as the Scorpion. B)
@@Archon3960 You mean elf right?
@@diegocardenas6494 Yes. The Eldar Striking Scorpion.
I have a personal theory that Fenris was a former Eldari world. As the word 'World Spirit' appears when talking about Exodites and it's pretty much a planet sized infinity circuit.
That and those gems the wolves wear for no reason, maybe the world spirit of Fenris is them drawing on the souls of the world's previous inhabitants.
Maybe the gems have connections to that infinity circuit or maybe soul trapped souls for extra battery?
Yeah exactly my thinking, I thought this guy was meant to be an eldar fan and then he goes on a tangent about how world spirits aren't a thing
But there would be a hole in that theory. The other craftworlds who have fought the space wolves would notice and if escaped would rat out on the space wolves misuse on their cousins. Biel tan would never tolerate a human living on a maiden world, let alone letting them use the souls of the exodites. Even then, gw doesn't tend to let more than one person let alone a faction to have common sense. It is a theory, but I am not sure if it's the theory. Perhaps i am missing something.
@@hex_2384 I agree that would be a hole. I just find it strange that the Space Wolves and Eldar share two specific motifs,
The word 'World Spirit' and wearing a single gem on the chest of their combat armour.
@@hex_2384 I mean, primaris go against almost all the themes of 40k and are still allowed to exist, fenris being a dead expedite world would actually be super interesting and a cool way to give them more relevance
@@LoRdInTeRwEbS yeah but the primaris where kinda necessary they beefed up every enemy so hard the space marines needed a reinforcement I mean come on tyranids gazkul necrons the orks basically got a demikrok size monstrosity with brain damage and two insanely difficult to fight zenos where introduced not to mention the fact that chaos was finally starting to be an actual threat the primaris are there so the setting can make at least a little sense and answer why the imperium isn’t a goner as for the wolves eh honestly could be a minor warp entity those do exist but we literally know jack shit and gw writers don’t have any creativity beyond hur dur grimdark or hur dur war
My issues with the Space Wolves are how contradictory their lore is.
Every factions has their strengths and weaknesses narratively speaking. Dark Angels are so secretive that they *knowingly* shoot themselves in the foot. Ultramarines are overly orthodox. Iron Hands are assholes who actively try to remove their humanity, etc. The Space Wolves read like someone's OC, where everything that should be a hinderance just isn't. They get drunk and act like a bunch of rowdy frat boys, but are still just as disciplined and elite as any other chapter, because its just an act to make it look like they're undisciplined or some bullshit. They ignore the codex astartes, but never catch flak for it. They hate the use of psykers, and persecuted the Thousand Sons over it, but are fine using their own Rune Priests, because "nuh uh, our stuff is different".
Space Wolves are the kid who demanded to use the best controller at your house because "IM THE GUEST YOU HAVE TO" but then when you're at their house it's the "NUH UH ITS MY HOUSE I GET THE BEST CONTROLLER"
There’s also the fact that they’re said to be a more rebellious and free-spirited legion, but aside from that one time they killed an inquisitor (which they never received any punishment for, btw) I’ve never seen them do anything any other space marine hasn’t done.
They even got semi-called out on this in the books when Angron calls Leman Russ and his legion nothing more than the Emperor’s obedient attack dogs.
The best explanation of Ragnar Blackmane I've heard is that he's Caito Sicarius but with anger management issues
True.
I always thought that the Wolf Priests just thought they were using the spirt of Fenris to cast spells, but it really was just the Warp the entire time, not a separate source of energy.
I think that's exactly what they do, they use the warp just like other chapters librarians, but they're special space vikings so they get all different terminology
They do
Malacador said it
Magnus said it
Emperor said it
Jagahtai said it
Litetally 3 of the most qualified people to make that diagnosis said it.
Leman is an absolute tool bag
@@BillboBirsay It should be called the Wolf Warp.
The fact is 40k is an extremely pliable setting you can do basically whatever you want to it that's its main selling point
it is the warp but Fenris itself is kinda weird with the warp. For starters, some monsters on the planet are severely mutated and only exist deep underground or in the oceans and they are not natural creatures at all. one example is a "Nightganger" which is some kind of humanoid troll that can breathe underwater and regenerate.
This man is working his way to the top of the Inquisition hit list
Actually, after The Months of Shame, pretty sure the Inquisition probably approves of this video
I think the Inquisition are looking for any reason possible to excommunicate the space wolves
Lol humans and their fear of those power mongering assholes XD
"... to the top of the Inquisition hit list"
Face it, the HERETIC!!! known as Luetin is even worse.
If anything they’ll thank me
Angron: You’ve lived your entire life for battle. Are you really going to die over some mortal?!
Ghazghkull: SOMEWONE IZ.
Angron proceeds to have his head rammed so far up his ass, he can see his tonsils.
Ghaz probably shed one orky tear over the death of his best opponent
They do actually have the Varangian guard. A Navis Nobilitae family (the three-eyed mutants who navigate ships through the Warp) on Terra get to have a few squads of Space Wolves at a time protecting them from rivals and assassins. In return, every Space Wolf vessel is guided for free by one of these nobles. It isn't as cool as maybe having a Xenos noble or leader guarded by a Wolf or two, but it's damn close.
This should be pinned 😂😂😂
I mean, the Varangian guard worked for people of an entirely different culture, religion and nation, whilst the Navis Nobilite and Space Wolves both serve the Imperium, the Space Wolf honour guard are more like a modern secret service.
You know, there was a time when I couldn't imagine a Space Marine chapter more insufferable than the Ultramarines...
Then I was introduced to the Space Wolves.
At least the blueberries didn’t go out of their way to fuck over the thousand sons
@@connorbestbarlow1043Yes, the Smurfs are totally innocent when it comes to screwing over another Legion and sending them on their route to Chaos.
*cough* Word Bearers
@@ManuR-l4m that was Big E's personal order. One does not refuse Big E on his face.
For me it was the Wolves and the Black Templars, both are equally insufferable on the level of Ultramarines.
@@leandrocastello309and the wolves fucked prospero on what they had every reason to believe was an order from the emperor (and hell even without Horus, Russ would have had to barge in and capture Magus since the emperor actually ordered that), so really not that different
There's having a theme and then there's having an obsession. Space Wolves are certainly the latter. Like seriously you can still keep the wolf theme and not have wolf in everything, there are plenty of other wolf-adjacent nouns and adjectives you can use to mix it up, or even more nordic words you could use.
Edit: Also yeah seeing more parallels to actual Viking history in the Space Viking faction would be something I'd be so in for.
I think the idea is the wolves are supposed to be more like warriors in Valhalla, drinking, fighting and hanging out with Odin (Logan) as they are often recruited at the brink of death after proving themselves worthy to a spectating Wolf Priest. They are then taken by flying gunships (Valkyries) to then become Sky warriors. So them not being actual vikings makes sense in the context of them being reborn into Odin's personal army after dying to their old life. Not supposed to do much trading and adventuring in the afterlife.
The wolf thing is definitely mega cringe though. 30k wolves were so much cooler and better written, especially the books with Russ in them.
There's a very common bit of fan theory that basically says the Space Wolves call everything wolf because of poor translation. The language on Fenris probably has a ton of unique names for it's stuff, or just a bunch of unique words to describe wolves (like how some eskimo languages have a million words for 'snow') but everything just gets interpreted as wolf.
@@milliondollarmistake That doesn't really change anything though or make it less eye-roll worthy, cause all we get is, "wolf, wolf, wolf" for the millionth time, regardless of any in-lore reason (even if it is just a fan theory).
Same universe where ultramarines hold a section of the galaxy called Ultramar. Or the angry primarch is called Angron. I’m just saying, yeah gw isn’t very inspired sometimes.
@@Ynwell_theslaaneshi Doesn't make the space wolves' naming convention better or any less worthy of criticism. Those both deserved to get made fun of as much as the space wolves and any other of GW's more eye-roll-worthy names. I criticize the Space Wolves specifically because this is a Space Wolves video I'm commenting on and not an Ultramarines or Angron video.
A breakaway group of Space wolves working for/living amongst the Eldar as Varangians would actually make me like them. That kind of interspecies mercenary work would be awesome to see, especially seeing the Eldar begrudging tolerate these particularly useful Mon'Keigh.
my space wolf warlord i named Harald Hadrada. by far the best. so i second this. the varangian guard r amazing
Don't the Space Wolves have a tendency to join up with Rogue Traders?
@@baylorlopez4495 how very GW of you I love it awesome name
And seducing all the Eldar women so the Eldar men tattle on them to the inquisition 🤣🤣
Fun fact they do have an equivalent of the varangian guard.
The Wolfblade (of course they have wolf in the name) is an order of 20 space wolves that are sent to be bodyguards of the Belisarius, a navigator house that has a close relationship with the space wolves.
It's from Ragnar's books (the 4').
As I recall, the reason the Space Wolves were more or less exonerated for what happened during the Months of Shame was because the Inquisitor who was picking a fight with them over the refugees of the 1st Armageddon War drastically overstepped his bounds. The Inquisition still unanimously agreed that the refugees needed to be dealt with, but they also agreed that declaring Exterminatus on a world that the Space Wolves may or may not have dropped off some of the refugees on was going a bit too far. Plus, the Wolves HAD been acting in self-defense and hadn't technically done anything wrong by taking in the refugees. Bjorn recognized that things weren't going to keep working in the Wolves' favor though, and he managed to get Logan to quit while he was ahead.
How does this make it okay to kill Grey Knights and Inquisitors? They're Grey Knights and Inquisitors. I don't understand the excuse.
@@Turd_Rocket Because a bunch of other Inquisitors sided with the Space Wolves and said that they were in the right to act in self-defense towards a rogue Inquisitor in defense of their charges, and the Grey Knights also admitted that they fucked up and that the Space Wolves weren't wrong in their actions because the Grey Knights themselves found fault with the orders they had been given. It also doesn't hurt that Space Marines technically only answer to the Emperor himself and by law are allowed to essentially ignore all other organizations, including the Inquisition, and that as a Space Marine Chapter that had been around since the First Founding as a full Loyalist Space Marine Legion, their loyalty to the Imperium and their honor was beyond reproach even if they blatantly defied the Codex Astartes.
None of that makes what happened during the Months of Shame okay, but the general consensus between all parties is that it was a tragedy and the Space Wolves were not truly at fault for what happened.
I mean the alternative is declaring every Space Wolf a heretic, performing Exterminatus on Fenris, and wiping out the entire line of Leman Russ as there are no Successor Chapters for the Space Wolves, and doing so all because they were protecting civilians and soldiers who had fought against Chaos alongside the Space Wolves and killed a relatively small number of Inquisitorial personnel and a few Space Marines in the act of defending said civilians and soldiers.
If Bjorn hadn't told the Wolves to quit while they were ahead, the Inquisition might have just been forced to back off, because even they recognized that going after the Space Wolves over this probably wasn't worth it.
Not only that, but retroactively calling the entire line of Russ heretics is likely to have some pretty major effects on many other Imperial Organizations. The Leman Russ tank is the mainline tank for most Imperial Factions, and it's very likely that some high ranking dumbass would declare that that shouldn't be used at all anymore if this happens (I can't think of a specific example of this happening in cannon, but would it really be so far fetched?)
@@MegaHI32 Well normal civilians aren't allowed to own or even handle boltguns or bolter rounds. And by decree of the Emperor himself, the Imperium's entire stock of Land Raiders has been set aside exclusively for the Space Marines, because the Emperor made that proclamation as an emergency response to the outbreak of the Horus Heresy and the necessity of supplying the Loyalist Legions with as much wargear as possible, and nobody has thought to try and overturn that decision for 10,000 years because the Emperor Himself made it.
@@Brutalyte616 That's fair. I suppose my confusion came from what I've noticed as a surface-level "fan justification" (for lack of a better term) giving Space Wolves a pass for atrocities that would otherwise be harshly punished if perpetrated by anyone else. The way you explained it via the nuances of the in-universe politics and alliances makes me see if differently, it isn't Space Wolves simply "getting a pass" but rather their significance in a wider context and potential consequences of prosecuting harsher punishments against them would not be worth the cost. They're still pricks, but it makes sense in-universe why they haven't been wiped out by now. I get it.
The canon explanation of the spirit of Fenris is that it's literally a Tzeentch demon
I was looking for this. Literally just Tzeentch messing with the Space Wolves because he thinks its funny.
@@stratigangames508 Exactly
"Lmao khorne, look. I told them that if they yip like dogs when painting the runes it makes them stronger!"
It it's stupid but works, it's not stupid. @@kingalphawerewolf
i still want it to just be the god ulric from fantasy. would explain the obbsession with wolves when you have a literal god of wolves influencing your culture
Yeah the Wolves aren’t space Vikings, they are space savages. That’s it, their whole deal is being savages, their culture is not even a shadow of Viking culture
I loved it when the space wolves said it was wolfing time and wolfed all over the wolfiest wolf
its dead dude. Move on
@@FrantisekPicifuk you're mother
@@FrantisekPicifuk It's dead when GW aknowledges it.
@@FrantisekPicifuk We're done when I SAY we're done.
All I got out of that was wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf wolf and wolf.
Dude as a type 1 I LOVE your little add on "my blood sugar flopped because I decided to climb the stairs one too many times" I feel that in my bones
My brother in Christ, my insulin pump screams at me through the night when I sleep too hard.
@@UrbanCohort I feel that in my soul! Sleeping on your side? Better hope it's the side your pump isn't on or I shall sing you the song of my people
@@zaneriva5903 there are times I want to fling my minimed into a brick wall, but I don't want to damage the wall.
Space Wolves from the name sounds like a 13 years old first Space Marine Chapter, it was honestly a dice roll on if the Space Wolves would’ve been Viking, Samurai, or WW2 Germany based.
Edit: You made me hate the Space Wolves more than Bretonnians, where instead of being pathetic, they just get their IceCream without no repercussions.
It's Wolf Cream.
Not ice cream, Wolf Cream
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 made from fresh Wolf Milk that comes from the Wolf Cow that requires a Wolf Bucket and to use the Wolf Cow Wolf Farmer who was trained in the art of Wolf Cow Wolf Milking.
I didn’t know about the wolf helmets until now.
Like I didn’t have enough Space Marine-related bile to choke on…
My favorite part of Space Wolf lore is when he said "IT'S WOLFIN' TIME" and wolfed all over those guys.
Ha ha, excellent, you're the 9864379753th person to make this joke, using the _exact same words_ as the rest! Good work, many laughs indeed
@@orbitalbutt6757 Get wolfed, son.
You joke, but the space wolves are so bad that I can imagine them actually unironically saying something like this
This sounds like a thing a furry would say...maybe OP is...hm
@@orbitalbutt6757relax bud.
Remember when Logan Grimnar defeated Imotekh the stormlord also known as probably one of the if not the best strategist in the warhammer universe in a strategic battle because he charged into the necron troops?
You know the guy who is in charge of the biggest necron dynasty, the phaeron where its impossible to predict what hes exactly doing while he has an answer for basically any situation?
Fun times.
Something something Ultramarines are the marry sue faction ofc and not the wolves
@@cc-bk3tx This. The funny thing is the Ultramarines really were the Mary Sue faction while Matt Ward was responsible for all the lore writing. Once he left, GW stopped sucking off the Ultramarines so much...only to start sucking off the Space Wolves.
@@Commodore22345 I'm just tired of the bitching with the ultramaines when the same people won't say a thing about the wolves
@@cc-bk3tx Oh I'm with you on that. The Ultramarines still get way too much hate while other Mary Sues like the the Space Wolves skate by without any criticism at all. It's especially annoying because I think GW has actually done a good job sort of "rehabilitating" the Ultramarines and turned them into a genuinely interesting faction.
@@Commodore22345 Fully agree meanwhile space wolves have a the opposite effect where they had a interesting faction turned into a complete merry sue faction that is completely uninteresting
Thanks for the shout-out to Crowe, my favorite Grey Knight, he’s also smart because he doesn’t try to tap into the power of the sword. He just uses it like a regular sword and probably blue-balls the daemon within.
He’s also why I named one of my Lepers after him in Darkest Dungeon. Unfortunately he isn’t as pure as Crowe and ended decapitating his own Occultist under the influence of the Crimson Curse.
To be fair the Occultist probably deserves it after critical healing him for 0 health and then chasing bleed.
@@pancreasnowork9939 Any occultist that does it at least once should have that coming to them
@@ghosthippie8465 Come on, man, using the power of occult, eldritch magic to stitch flesh back together is a tough craft to master. Just being able to critically heal nothing is a feat in and of itself.
A good Grey Knight in a sea of lads tainted by Ward
You might like the Mesari/Vaulters from Endless Space/ which are EXACTLY like space vikings.
They trade with other races, they explore the furthest reaches of the galaxy, they commit boarding actions with plasma shields and proton axes, and they were driven off of their homeworld by the endless cold.
It’s rather amazing that the Inquisition didn’t just straight up stamped “perma-heretic” on the Space Wolves for outright killing the Grey Knights’s leader and the heads of Inquistion.
I gave up on Space Wolves lore when one of them managed to trick a Harlequin, who apparently did not know that Space Marines have a secondary heart. He then proceeds to act faster than a Harlequin and kills them with a combat knife despite having a punctured primary heart. Then I looked up their fight with the Inquisition and yeah this chapter makes the Ultramarines look tame.
It's so annoying when GW goes over the top to prop up a Space Marine Chapter that is a loyalist but then the Astral Claws get screwed over because they are written to be a renegade Chapter.
to be fair overconfidence and arrogance is the biggest killer in combat, and as much as i hate to say it the eldari's biggest problem is that they see all other races as little better than well organized animals. it just so happens that well organized animals can still kill you, unfortunately,
Harlequin can have a respectable kda ratio with custodes but I'm sure being slightly arrogant lets a space marine kill them. Absolutely how that works lol.
The Space Wolves are too few to actually be in the number of battles they have been in, and considering that their geneseed leads to a lot mutations makes it very difficult to get new space marines they should wisely pick their battles rather than chasing after every single scarp they can possibly get into.
We don't even know how many Wolves there are or have been at any given time.
I feel like they should also focus more on long distance engagements then close quarters combat with the only ones getting close being the ones who tuned into a "werewolf"
@@tyrantsmiseryThe space wolves are probably around the size of the BTs if the amount of naval power they have is anything to go by
Primaris fixed most of the issues because... of course it did.
Cawl is such waste of narrative space....
The Wolves highest number in modern 40k was 10.000. Space Wolf Companies are "grreat companies" because their are much bigger than just 100 Space Marines. However most Wolfslords are traveling with only around 100-200 Space Wolves at the time, while the rest of the great company protect other parts of the realm, assit other Imperial Forces or whatever.
Also with the Varengi Guard, something like that happened a bit in the Heresy. In the Unremembered Empire, there was a bunch of space wolves looking over Guilliman, a very Roman Primarch.
Your best videos are the ones that are entirely bias and salt
real talk: that's all the 40k community is. It's all either people getting pissy over a faction they don't like or getting pissy that their favorite faction isn't getting all the attention
hey i’ve noticed a minor lore error in this video, it’s something that many people get wrong
around 4:48 you state that magnus did „everything wrong“ when in fact he really did nothing wrong :)
I wish you had mentioned before saying how he telephoned onto the ship with Grimnar. How when Bjorn was awakened and met with a inquisitorial delegation, that when the envoys realized who he was and that he had walked with the emperor they fell to their knees and and were awestruck.
Space wolves fan: No were noble warriors who can be monsters if needed
Thousand sons enjoyer: ha ha warp fire go burr
Also thousand sons: oops I cast too many spells and now I'm a chaos spawn, my butt is a mouth and I eat through my asshole and shit out of my mouth. Who could have seen this coming, also I'm being bullied by a smelly hobo with gingivitis who doesn't have a warp presence and turns my spells off. Help daddy Magnus :(
Blanks are what the inferno bolters are for.
If you want a Space Wolf story that’s heavily inspired from the Varangian Guard you should read Wolfblade by William King. The whole story revolves around Ragnar and some other space wolfs acting as bodyguards on Terra to a very politically powerful House and all the shenanigans that come with that
ragnar beheading gaz is like a regular chaos lord nearly killing guiliman
You are more right than you realize. Both Gaz and Girlyman have a rule that stops them from immediately dying in one phase on the tabletop. They are both faction leaders, and are arguably on par with each other. Ragnar beheading Gaz really is exactly like a named chaos lord, who isn't even a subfaction leader, just named, nearly killing the Blue Boi.
Or like games workshop respecting fan content creators. RIP TTS.
Ghaz didn't die tho? So it's like every named character banishing demons or avatar of Khaine coz they are immortal
@@dr.squares8938 it's egregious because of how important Ghazz is, he is the main ork guy, imagine a named space marine killing Angron or any demon primarch and also everyone complains about avatars of Khaine dying so easily to random space marine shmuck so not a good point to bring that up.
this also a Ghazz problem since he is the main ork guy but doesn't fight anyone that is important like a demon primarch or even Guiliman, he is just doing some stuff here and there and people complain about that.
@@dr.squares8938 1. that doesnt make it better
2. if the strongest member of a faction cant even beat someone who isnt even the leader of a subfaction then why should that faction be seen as an actual threat
For the Tau it was the Humans within their Empire and the other client races that made the Greater Good Warp Entity so the Tau not having a strong presence in the warp isn't really applicable in that case.
"And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you darn kids and that dog."
-the Inquisition
15:23 Yes there is. The Wolfblade are elite bodyguards to the navigators of House Belisarius. The navigators get 24 space marines and in return the Space Wolves get 24 of the best navigators. Ragnar was once a member of the Wolfblade.
So they give some of there best warrior over to protect the GREATEST ASSET ANY IMPERIAL FACTION CAN HAVE.
bro thats common sense not a buisness deal
@@NWLR-tv it's a tradition kept up with the same house however, the varangians did the same with the Byzantines - but Space Wolves can't realistically go wondering off to join another leader to fight for them instead so they have to do it through tradition and a deal that stretches back thousands of years.
The reason I don’t count them is because that’s still within the Imperium. I want straight up them to be helping another faction.
@@pancreasnowork9939 that's fair, that would be pretty sick - easily done with any of the lost company's to! I could definitely see a shattered company thought to be lost fighting under the eldar, sounds like a conversion opportunity!
And once again though. What’re they called? Why did it have to be “wolf blade”? They could’ve picked so many other cool, non wolf things.
Also, while it’s cool, it’s such a small footnote that so many other chapters do. There are tons of important imperial figures with bodyguards from various chapters.
The thing about months of shame bridge battle is that, frankly, I could see it going that way in tabletop and rpgs alike. I've seen terminator *SQUADS* die to gretchin and fresh-faced dark heresy parties dashing through heavy fire unscathed, so getting initiative and fucking off via teleport is absolutely on-point with how the game can go.
For those not in the know: the Space Wolves of 30k are actually *much, MUCH,* worse.
Half the stuff mentioned in this video happened in 30K.
Actually they were better. They still had flaws but they were cooler.
@@LordCrate-du8zmhow so? It seems to me that in 40k they slightly grew up.
@@KingInBlack69 They "slightly grew up" into furries.
Orks are my first and favorite faction, I started collecting them for 10+ years and having Ghaz getting beat by a space wolf that wasn't a primarch level threat made me angry.
For sure!!!
At least have him somehow get into a fight with Tyberos the Red Wake or Asterion Moloc or something. Those guys make sense.
I would be 100% more okay with that than how the did him in.@@jahrusalem3658
But... but... but... WOOOOOOOOLF!
@@jahrusalem3658 Tyberos vs Ghaz sounds like the most amazing thing ever.
God...The idea of the Space Wolves roaming the galaxy bringing both goods and Fuck Yous to Xenos and imperial alike sounds so great it'll never happen.
It could even make the Spirit of the planet thing work as they could ALSO be a sort of missionary force, spreading their ideals which would empower Fenris.
and could make the months of shame more beliavable, like they actually had reiforcements from other planets to help them
Fenrisan territory could be spread thought the galaxy, from a system following their command down to individusl cities or even a few powerfull individuals.
As flawed as the Space Wolves are, I believe it's important to note that the majority of the complaints during the Months of Shame comes down to the fact that the Wolves are a first founding chapter, the quintessential sons of Russ. Prior to their confrontation, they showed nothing but upmost loyalty for 10,000 years thus targeting them would be illogical, even by Inquisitorial standards.
Exactly, plus most of the inquisitors didn't want to fight the space wolves it was just one virgin
Except the inquisition has fucked with first founding legions before. Just ask the dark angels. The inquisition works because no one can question them, which is why they strike down so hard on those who do. See celestial lions as an example. If people stopped fearing the inquisition and standing up to it, it would cease to work as an organization.
exactly plus the possibility LEMAN RUSS showing up to kick your ass throught space and time is always there.
@@alphanoodle1877 did we ever get any information how that weirdo even gained so much power? Pretty sure it wasnt a stupid reason like "ohhhh chaos!", i dont think we even got anything tbh.
@@ratatouilledrinksclorax9897 no clue how it happened honestly. My guess is just *CHAOS BAD RREE*.
The celestial lions file a complaint against the inquisition for needlessly executing a planet and they get all their top ranks assasinated with them returning with just barely 50 marines out of the whole chapter after Armageddon and the stupid wolves get an “oh you *sitcom ending music*” after openly making war? Why are the ultramarines the hated ones again?
The difference is, the Celestial Lions are a relatively low standing successor chapter. The Space Wolves are one of the OG Legions. You try wiping them out, you succeed in pissing off 90% of the Space Marines who see this as the blatant overreach of the Inquisition that it is.
The thing is the reason the Inquisition hates the Celestial lions so much is because they're black
(Racist inquisition is probably canon)
Dissappointed you didn't mentioned that time Space Wolfes cross-dressed as Orks then raced them.
The idea of a Space Wolf protecting other races leaders for the good of the imperium or more based on trade and exploring uncharted space is amazing. That could made more believable why the spirit of Fenris exists. Because space wolves love to spread their stories and sagas so by traveling so much and trading with other species they could literaly made the spirit of fenris more powerful. Its a really cool idea, a bit Heretical but Guliman and Belasarius are here and the space wolfs would probaly say " Eat a dick" if anyone found a problem with it.
Honestly, I'd be fine with the World Soul concept if we saw more examples of the concept on other worlds, Necromunda for example, or just any hive world with sufficient history, any group with sufficient spirituality and a world that followed it, like the Salamanders and the Promethean Cult, or the Mechnicus, and yes, millions of versions of the Emperor, possibly even show them fighting together and against each other. If you want to alter the rules of the universe so some group can get an edge either figure out a way to have it only work for them, or don't make them the only example.
To be fair, the Mechanicus do actually serve the and worship Dragon of Mars (this is a joke... sort of) and are entirely influenced by its powers and messages, even though they just sort of pretend they mean the Emperor when they say "Omnissiah", going so far as to commune with AI even though they consider AI to be heretical - because machine spirits are f*cking AI.
A year old but just wanna point out that at least in the lore, the people of Fenris are actual vikings. They raid, they pillage, they trade and think a gun is a magical talisman wielded by a wizard in armour when they see one. That's why they are vikings, they stop doing all the viking things they used to do once they become space marines, except drinking a lot. They still do that.
I don’t know that much about Warhammer; but I can see the bullshit in a Space Wolf killing a Gray Knight, let alone a Grandmaster.
The term "The Wolf Time" will always make me laugh.
They literally say “it’s wolfin’ time” and actually no joke wolf all over them
“Brothers shall fight | and fell each other,
And sisters’ sons | shall kinship stain;
Hard is it on earth, | with mighty whoredom;
Axe-time, sword-time, | shields are sundered,
Wind-time, wolf-time, | ere the world falls;
Nor ever shall men | each other spare.”
it basically a poem of ragnarok
@@creed8712 wolf
It’s really more of a reference to Ragnarök, but it does sound a little silly out of context.
@@tompotter8703 They should have just called it Ragnarok then. 40k has never had any qualms about straight up ripping off other IPs and historical cultures in the past.
Honestly, everything you just said is how I feel. Bjorn is the only good Space Wolf, all others are boring, dull, or just crappy Mary Sues.
And the stuff about how the Space Wolves are just cosplaying and had so much potential for being like true Vikings was fantastic. An Eldar Farseer or Tau Ethereal with their own contingent of Space Wolf Varangian Guard would be so amazing to see in the lore.
That and real vikings were actually CIVILISED, unlike this bunch of wolf-lover enthusiasts
That just wouldn't happen unless the Space Wolves get excommunicated or something from the Imperium. It's highly against the rules to join forces with Xenos.
@@KarpetBurn Well... It's been done several times already.
Credit where credit's due... It was usually out of sheer necessity. A good old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of situation.
Don't know what your issue is.
The Imperium was literally built by a mary sue lol
Nothing less than mary sue can defend it!!
@@RoulicisThe Yeah I'm not a lore expert but I've never seen the Imperium side with a Xeno faction for reasons like expansion and partnership, so the Space Wolves unifying together with the Tau and Aeldari or something is definitely not happening on account of how closed minded and barbaric the Space Wolves are.
I am so stuck on the Wolves. Aesthetically I really like them, and individually I like a few of their characters (Lukas the Trickster is a good example), and I unironically want Russ to come back as some Odin-like wisened old man.
But then you have how disgustingly they've been written and that screws them over. My main thought is really just... I try to not judge other factions for being OP mary sues in the books focused on them because well... every damn army has that issue (except CW eldar).
By the way, if the Wolves set up actual colonies, it would make their lore soooo much richer! That would explain how they get enough supplies and recruits to maintain their huge chapter, it would put them on even footing with the Ultramarines, hell it would even explain their “own warp thing”! But no, the GW is too shallow to think nanometer beyond superficial aesthetics level.
So a group of space wolves were all chanting "30 days, 30 days, 30 days" and celebrating. A near by salamander was walking past and asked "what is going on brother!" The space wolves replied they have completed a momentous task! The salamander eagerly asks what the task was. To which the space wolves reply "in just a mere 30 days we have completed a very difficult puzzle and the box said it would take 3-4 years!"
15:25 the closest thing we got to this is the Wolves protecting Guilliman's mom during Heresy
The most sacred of missions in ALL of 40k: protecting the G-man's mommy.
I'm not joking.
@@dac314 maybe not the most sacred one but the coolest one
Actually space wolves also had detachments in all legions to protect primarchs and keep an eye on them
As a space wolf player I mostly agree. My headcannon is that the months of shame are heavily exaggerated because you know funny sagas. As for the rune priests I personally think it would be cooler if it wasn't warp based and was either a dark age thing or something like the Bhagaba from endless space.
I actually always assumed that because of whatever device they used in the Terraforming of Fenris it made Fenris a sort of partially living entity, where it's not that they draw their powers from Fenris, but rather a version of Fenris that is a Warp Entity, kinda similar to the Eldar Gods being Old One Weapons theory
My biggest complaint is that fenris's culture isn't even a viking or norse themed planet. Its Eskimo or some shit like wtf?
No it's definitely viking. Low tech Vikings, but still vikings
@@alphanoodle1877 when I read the wiki a couple months back it depicted them as Eskimo with a heavy dependents on the native whale fauna.
There is a theory that the reason everything is named wolf is because their actual names in Fenris’ language (can’t remember the name) are not translatable to High Gothic, so were simplified to “wolf”
Your last point is so true! I don't know much about the space wolves and I'm fairly new to 40k lore but I know about our vikings irl. And they just don't fit the imperium of man. They'd be the guys raiding the imperium. A bit more like an ork-tau crossover. But then again, their peaceful side doesn't fit the whole universe all that much, since the Tau are the only ones, as far as I know, doing anything with other species except killing them.
Well now that whole trading/Varangian Guard just makes me want to create a Space Wolf Successor Chapter that was formed following a Rogue Trader. They could even have been formed by Watch Pack Bludbroder (if they lived I can't remember) to have a Roman theme, maybe they even took up some Ultramarine management.
fuck it, im stealing that.
Your idea of them trading with other factions borne of a temporary alliance is why people are mad at the Votann. They needed weapons and supplies and to knuckle up against the Necrons, Tyrannids, and Orks, so they traded with the Tau. They're cordial at best with the fish dudes and are otherwise entirely independent. They're also my second favorite group of people in 40k because they're the Dwarves in space.
If the wolves were even 1/10th as in-depth as them I'd be cool with it.
Also if the Wolves can go into full scale, actual war against the Inquisition and get away with it, I want a refund on about half of the planets that got Exterminatus'd for daring to cough in a way that the Inquisitors didn't like.
The t'au aren't fish people they're space cows from a mostly desert planet. In one Of the Xenology books they're described as sharing biological features with bovines. Don't forget they have hooves intead of feet.
@@davidfrancisco3502 I call them fish people because of the way they look and because I'm racist against anything that isn't Human in 40k.
whose the 1st
@@CRMSN_RDR AdMech
@@UncleSarge From the moment I understood the weakness of flesh, it disgusted me...
Every time he says general space wolves fan just pretend he’s saying “Wolf Lord Rho”
Who's that?
Edit how the fuck did I type "wgi" and not "who"
@@LordCrate-du8zm he’s another warhammer lore UA-camr whose favorite factions are the Space Wolves for 40k and the Bretonians for fantasy. So the anti pancreasnowork
@@cows543 Ah, so his pancreas _is_ working.
@@cows543 So what your saying is that his pancreas functions
Modern Wolves are probably the greatest victims of flanderization in 40k. Nowadays it's all wolfwolfwolfwolf with a thin veneer of viking covering it. But back in earlier editions, like 5e, the chapter was way more focused on the totemic nature of their planet in general, not just the wolves. They honored bear totems, elk totems, bird totems, etc. Canis Wolfborn was the most wolfwolfwold marine at the time in the chapter and stuck out like a weirdo and had lore reasons (however tenuous) for existing. Now he's just barely standing out from all the background noise of all the wolfshit.
Like, i really enjoyed the chapter back in the day, but GW has spent the last decade and some change reducing them to the most bare features while also doubling and then tripling down on the OC Donut Steal nature of the chapter and everything about it.
I think one of the biggest reasons why they've gotten so ridiculous is because they're only a single chapter of an entire geneseed lineage. Literally every other legion was able to create dozens or hundreds of chapters during the Second and subsequent Foundings, and from a narrative standpoint GW was able to spread all their stuff around to a bunch of successors, chapter equipment and meta stuff together. The Wolves didn't do that, and the one time they tried to make a successor chapter (before Cawl ex Machina fixed the problem somehow) and gave it half their stuff like a messy divorce, it failed so hard so quickly that the Wolves are actively hunting down the survivors to this day.
All the things that could possibly happen to a Wolf legion descendant had to happen to a single, slightly larger than average chapter (first founding no less) instead of being able to happen across a dozen or more, so it all was concentrated and amplified into something easy to hate
Tldr
@@Saf_Ibn_Sayyad_Bacon Man we've failed as a species if your attention span is too short to read that.
My WIP Space Wolves successors fell to Slaanesh and tripled down on the wolf theme, solely so that I can have a lore excuse to have furries fight my hazmat marines.
It's refreshing to hear lore from someone who appreciates GOOD lore.
The space wolves primarch Leman Russ made horrible decisions. He murdered a loyalist legion, burned their world, killed their innocent people, and turned the embittered remainder to Chaos. He abandoned the defence of Terra to kill Horus. He had a chance to kill him but hesitated. Then after totally failing he disappears on a 10,000 year fetch quest. The space wolves chapter also make horrible decisions. Refusing primaris, humiliating guilliman, all their novels etc. They are the worst. The best thing they have done is flipping the bird to the inquisition.
What did they do to Guilliman?
It would be kind of interesting if in the lore the space wolves actually do eventually get there crap kicked in and are nearly wiped out. Like they square up with some orcish horde or drukhari or something and just get decimated. Like going from 1000 to like 400 troops. And due to this the wolves realize that they might’ve been stupid to pick a fight with everything in the universe and try to focus in on a new philosophy that is actually more like Vikings where they recruit more worlds to there side and eventually prefer more elite tactics like using terminators as shield walls. I feel like this helps against the Mary Sue problem and might give them more humility
Space Wolf mercenaries accompanying a xenos faction would be rad as hell.
I hope part of the setting’s evolution is a fractured Imperium. The setting being humans fighting everyone else even if the only reason is “they talk different” is really stagnating the writing. Give me some fall of Rome in space. Make Tau relevant because the Eastern Imperium really needed something better than lasguns or the Western Imperium openly working with some craftworlds because everyone wants to murder Chaos.
That’s what made WHFB compelling. Like, yeah, the Empire still burned witches but their first reaction to anything wasn’t “genocide the non-humans”. 40k started as Fantasy in space and would be better if it took more from the Old World. I will give my soul to Nagash to die on that hill forever.
Honestly, I feel the Leagues of Votann are doing the actual vikings in space way more than the Wolves, they're a bunch of space faring traders, settlers and warriors willing to work as mercenaries or even raid when need be. Hell, they've even got the viking sounding unit names and titles, without the added wolf-ness
The whole “different interpretations of the God Emperor” thing actually sounds like a really interesting idea for an AU
Wait, the Wolves DO have a version of the Ferengian (spelling?) guard - in the Ragnar Blackmane books. There’s a small group of Space Wolves sent to Terra to act as house guards/special forces for one of the Navigator houses. Guess that was where King got that idea from.
Varangian guard.
i had to look it up. ;)
There are three or four examples of Varangian guard style happenings for the Spaces wolves. That being said, it's only ever been for imperials, and it's only halfway to a Varangian guard.
I'm so happy to see you cover the warp stuff
It brings the thousand sons and the eldar down how ridiculous the wolfs mechanic is
I'm all for belief makes x real thanks to the warp, its a core mechanic, but you have to relate it the ocean of other beliefs that don't reflect that idea. If the space wolves had gone full viking like you would like, and have colonised say one thousandth of the Imperial territory, then we'd be in business for a well fleshed out power system with its own pseudo gods etc.
I like the wolf helms because they had to write lore to make it where the helmets let the Space Wolves smell stuff while remaining sealed through some complex chamber system or something like that. Also, I hope a Dark Angels video comes out at some point cause they're my favorite faction and I wanna see what stuff you like about them.
The one chapter i despise more than the wolves and iron hands.
Oddly enough the Black Templars are closer to the historical Vikings and Norse cultures they leave enclaves on planets that visit and occasionally protect important individuals like inquisitors additionally since they’re a fleet based chapter they have a stronger naval tradition than the Space Wolves.
Imagine if the Thousand Sons were successful and destroyed Fenris and the Wolves became the only first founding chapter to become fleet based at least their rivals the Dark Angels still have the Rock.
If I recall the Grey Knights did sort of get their payback against the Wolves during Magnus's second invasion of Fenris. Though I don't think Stern and his contingent saw it that way. The Grey Knights had to purge a large amount of the Fenrisians. The Space Wolves couldn't or didn't stop them that time.
The subject of actual space Vikings is part of why 40k can be annoying as a setting. there are so many interesting stories to be told about interacting with other people and species but 40k insists that no one can interact with eachother outside the smallest ceasefires when the nids attack. Hell at this point it makes literally no sense for eldar and ultramar to permanently team up now that robot girly man is yvrains best boy and there are only so many times you can use “they don’t trust each other” when chaos has literally ripped the galaxy in half
Well the imperium was unaffected bar a few hundred planets that got instantly replaced anyway and as soon as guilliman arrived he establisbed a connection done, problem solved. They keep soft locking themselves
@@michelecastellotti9172 fair enough lol I've never heard someone shortsell the Cicatrix Maledictum quite so hard
Shit, Fulgrim held onto a daemon sword for like 17 minutes and he got corrupted. But not Grimnar, cause wooooooooolves
the worst part is that Grimnar is just a fucking chapter master and yet he gets to have a Cursed Khorn Axe with zero issues because bad writing
This man has a point.. the Space Wolves should definitely have more worlds under their remit than just Fenris.
They cant even hold Fenris from the Tsons without some marty stu mc guffin. Let alone multiple worlds.
@@Uthandol Oh whats that? Well Bjorn will say "fuck off dustboy" and defend Fenris again, while Thousand Shlongs have their worlds fucked, they lost not only Prospero.
@@kharngotrekson1726 Last I checked Prospero is being rebuilt. So not only do they have Prospero, but the Planet of Sorcs as well. Wolf diddlers cant do a thing without a Mc Guffin and several legions of custodes and Sisters to hold their hand.
Magnus ( still alive unlike lemon party russel ) responds with " Eat a psychic cock, dog fucker."
Imo it helps to remember that this is made by the british. No wonder the vikings have been reduced to the pillaging murderhobo wolfie wolfs. Afaik the brits (or their former) fell victim to the most famous/brutal raids in history.
the world spirit of fenris should be revealed as some god of an ancient now dead xenos race that once lived their, the space wolves belief dident create it merely awaken it from dormancy and it decided it liked them since they reminded it of its old people , a fun bit of heresy thats not just chaos again
It was Lileath again lmao
As for the Tau Greater Good warp entity, I thought that was due to all the humans being introduced to the ideology which is why some fire warriors are killing humans regardless of whether they surrender or not. Since they think the human psychic potential is too dangerous to allow them to live.
You're mixing things a bit here. The Tau warp entity came about due to Gue (Humans living in Tau Empire) misinterpreting the Greater Good and due to the fact after the capture of several hive worlds (that might have been retconned, but whatever), the Tau Empire contains more Humans than Tau. Tau don't believe in a God of Grater Good. Gue do. And since even the average human's spirit is to a Tau what and Eldar is to a Human... you get a Greater Good warp entity.
Now after the Fourth Tau expansion fleet got sucked into the Warp, where Humans (and other auxiliaries) went insane/got possessed by Demons and Tau had to spend quite a while fighting them off before being rescued by the above-mentioned Greater Good warp entity, the surviving Tau have SERIOUS issues with non-Tau, having seen firsthand how they become demonhosts. To the point that they would prefer to wipe the galaxy clean of all psychic races. Of course, the Ethereals have a bit of a problem with part of the military openly advocating for genocide of ~60% of their Empire's population, so the Tau survivors of Fourth expansion were sent to "re-education camps". Whatever that means.
I'm one of those types who more likes the visuals and CONCEPT of Space Wolves moreso than their actual lore - which is also how I feel about the Dark Angels, to be honest.
yeah, i mean i love my space knights, but there is a bunch of stupid shit in their lore *cough* *cough*.. the fallen,, *cough* cough*
YEEEEEEEEEEAGGGHHHHHHH FUCK THE DARK ANGELS
@@felipequaresma4215 _Asmodai...!_
All I want is chivalrous space knights like the Dark Angels and GK but the lore is just…bad
Darn, I was going to ask for a space wolves video at some point but I should have known it would be like this. The wolves are the first faction I got into in the hobby and I will always love them. It is a shame how GW is doing them lately.
Love the Wolfe’s and loved the video. Had some funny moments.
Small point about Logan grimnar and his axe.
40k furry lore says that for reasons unknown the when the emperor made the wolf gene seed he made it, weather intentionally or as a byproduct, very immune to the warp and to corruption. Never understood it snd don’t think it has ever been explained.
But that’s lore. Totally agree with your point on gasghoul and the great commissar.
To me, it looks like they suffer from the “Superman” issue, where the “Space Wolves” are too strong, so easy to break continuity and are so unbeatable they are essentially boring or annoying.
When I was first introduced to the Warhammer way back in 2008-2010, at the time I thought the Space Wolves were some of the coolest Space Marines.
However X many years latter when I started looking at them objectively and GW started doubling-tripling down on the WolfyWolfWolf I stopped caring about them and haven't looked back.
I have a hard time believing Grey Knights could ever be slain by a Space Wolf.... ferocity notwithstanding.
The grey knights should always get the best of the space wolves, however the gw writer's dont see it that way. GW has really nerfed the grey knights to an absurd degree.
So there is a theory that I enjoy, which basically states that their stuffs isn't actually all named wolf, but instead it has a real name in Fenrisian, which the wolves call it, and then the name that everyone else calls it, which starts with Wolf
Now im just immagining two guardsmen chatting and the fenrisian getting more and more pissed at the shitty tfanslations. It would have to be 50+ different words translated to "wolf"
Pretty sure this is actually canon.
GW should just bite the bullet and make Space Wolves into giant muscular anthro wolf women. Then Space Wolves would be good.
I will not elaborate.
With the Varangian Guard comment you just made a really cool point that could be added to one of the alternate heresies that makes it much more Grimdark.
Trade the Space Wolves for Night Lords! You get a not chaosy traitor legion that goes drinking, fighting, looting and mercenarying with the eldar and meanwhile the Imperium gets an edgy spacemarine chapter that's like the Marines Malevolent but sneakier.
6:37 well there isn't A cadia left
The varangian guard thing.
I find it funny how often i see references to Space Wolves being body guards or having an attached unit seconded navigator clans or rogue traders or weirdo high ranking mechanicus. Seen it pretty often in white dwarf and other semi official stuff and a lot in the projects of the better painters. Particularly people who do the heavily moded blanchitsu stuff.
Also the lack of explorator space wolves fleets and rogue traders is something That makes me so sad not being a thing I am going to make it canon in my head.
Regarding the Months of Shame, I seem to remember that time the Celestial Lions had every single one of their apothecaries shot to death by "ork snipers" not long after pissing off the inquisition...
On a semi-related note, it occurs to me now that the inquisitiors seem to be petty as fuck.
Some inquisitors are, yes, the imperium is a pretty massive place.
Bjorn singlehandedly makes it impossible for me to hate the wolves. He's such a cool character.
It would be supremely funny if the spirit of fenris is just an exodite spirit world thing and the wolfen virus is literally just the planet originally telling them to f off
Was the channel hacked by Magnus?
As a SW fan and player... I get it, I totally get it.