The Astartes Family's Notebook

The solution was to divide the troops and set up an ambush.

Now look what happened. It was Kaz's tactical squad that had more men, so they took advantage of Death Shadow's smaller numbers. With six guns at a time, they didn't care if it was a 3-2-2 or a 2-2-2, and in the end, they were all reduced to pieces.

The key is that Sifus doesn't know where Katz learned this habit, but he's particularly thorough in finishing off enemies, planting a high-explosive grenade in the chest cavity of every Chaos traitor's corpse.

After dealing with the ten Chaos Astartes, Katz didn't rush to carry out a reconnaissance mission. Instead, he set up a number of reconnaissance cameras, then withdrew from the factory area and called for a Thunderhawk gunboat on the back slope of a hill about 15 kilometers away. While using a promethium spray gun to disinfect the power armor, he checked the monitoring equipment.

This cautious approach left Sifus completely bewildered.

No, buddy, that's just Chaos Astartes, not Nurgle's supreme demon. It can't be that bad, it really can't be that bad...

After waiting for ten hours, Kaz actually caught up with the second group of Death Shadows members who came to check on the situation.

Yoho, kill count increased by four.

Sifus felt that it was right for him not to speak.

Although Astartes' nature is to obey orders, the tactical squad was ordered to investigate the specific situation of the factory area.

But let me ask you, isn't Captain Kaz a capable leader with impressive achievements?

Fourteen Chaos Astartes! That's more than all the fighting brothers combined since the start of the war.

But buddy, our mission is to scout the factory area and determine if the pipeline route allows for covert marches!

Seeing Kaz retreat back to the Thunderhawk gunboat once again, clearly wanting to fish again, Sifus was utterly speechless.

Even a mute person will make some noises when pushed to the limit, let alone Sifus, who isn't really mute.

"Hey, Siforth brothers, look, you're in a hurry again. There are many ways to complete the mission, you have to trust me."

Okay, okay, you're the captain, you're the sergeant in charge, and there are many of you from the Wasteland Wings, so I'll reserve my opinion.

The next day at noon, a fierce barrage of artillery fire came from the direction of Nest City No. 1 and lasted for about twenty minutes.

"Fall back, let's go."

"what?"

"The pipeline raid plan has been deemed unfeasible; our mission is complete."

hiss......

Kaz of the Fourth Company of the Wastewing Chapter, Sifus kept this name deep in his heart.

I want to criticize him, but I can't find an excuse; I want to admire him, but I can't find a reason.

Our Raptor Legion is merely tactically flexible, while your Desolate Wings are overly flexible in every sense of the word.

But Sifus was indeed unable to refute Katz's assertions.

The entire factory area was saturated and razed to the ground by bombing. So, have you completed your mission?

After Kaz and his team returned to the second hive to report, the hastily assembled tactical squad was not able to disband on the spot before a new mission was assigned.

The ley line detection station reported that it was continuously detecting abnormal seismic waves around the previously recovered promethium mine.

The world of Skold is so distinctive.

The production lines for various industries related to mining are quite complete.

Therefore, Motor Sich easily selected enough geological detection equipment from the inventory of the second nest city to complete the regional network, and used hundreds of automated ley line detection stations to complete the all-weather detection of the widely distributed underground mine tunnels.

But that's not right. Whether it's you Raptors or us Desolate Wings, aren't professional skills the priority? What have I, Kaz, done to deserve being a firefighter?

"What a coincidence! It doesn't matter who goes, so it's you guys."

With a wave of his hand, Captain Yesfer kicked Kaz out of the city before he could even get a hot meal.

While the squad was changing their combat gear, Kaz took the opportunity to contact Tyrant remotely and ask what was going on.

“The Euler Brothers’ psychic prophecy has come true. All the other personnel have been sent out to carry out other missions. It’s really just your tactical group that’s currently just a bunch of idle people.”

Hey old man, I just led a team to wipe out fourteen Chaos traitors, fourteen of them!

Explain yourself properly what you mean by "unauthorized personnel"!

Kaz originally wanted to have a serious discussion, but when he thought of Tyrant, who was in the Terminator armor and serving as the general reserve on the Victory Balance, he felt that he shouldn't waste his breath on those lonely Terminators who couldn't get any missions.

Never mind, never mind, let's go on a mission, let's go on a mission.

The entire population of hundreds of millions in the Second Nest City depends on this promethium mine for food, and the loyalists would not allow the Chaos traitors to easily destroy the production line that they have spent so much effort to restart.

So two PDF regiments, and four Astartes tactical groups of four men each, were stationed here.

Now, we also need to add the six Astartes reinforcements from the Katz squad.

The garrison strength already appears to be quite formidable.

But we've only ever heard of the saying "a thief can be caught for a thousand days, but there's no such thing as a thief can be caught for a thousand days."

The Skord people's continuous mining operations over the past three thousand years have transformed the shallow continental plates into a honeycomb-like structure, making it impossible to defend against.

Because the core products of this mining world are various high-value-added rare minerals, these miners chose to use underground tailings dams as a backfilling method for the large reserves of minerals commonly found in the empire.

From an environmental and economic perspective, this is actually a pretty good choice. Even if rare minerals are exhausted, there are still a large number of easily exploitable man-made mineral veins that can be further developed.

But buddy, tailings dams, whether they're on the surface or underground, are all prone to collapse.

Melt bombs aren't rare; even Nest 2 has them, and Nest 1 has even more.

So, if someone is determined to live a life of misery, even Motor Sich is afraid of the shadow of death.

Based on the current situation, the Astartes of the Desolation Wings and the Raptor Chapter are no less powerful than these Chaos traitors who have received Nurgle's blessing, and they have a numerical advantage.

However, if the Shadow of Death were truly determined to drag the Empire's loyalists down with it, it could certainly succeed.

Currently, the Empire holds the upper hand. According to the acting governor and the Ministry of Justice, Skord's total population is at most one billion, with five hundred million in the first hive and seventy million in the second. During the previous resistance, the planetary government had already lost a large number of people. With the Empire losing the first hive and fleeing to the second hive, the Imperial population still under Imperial control is barely over one hundred million.

Even though the Shadow of Death faction is skilled in warp magic and its members are all necromancers, Mad Sich is not flustered.

Compared to other worlds of the Empire, where a single hive city can have hundreds of billions of people, the task of eliminating less than a billion Nurgle infected by three companies of loyalist Astartes, with the assistance of mortal auxiliary forces, is really not a difficult one.

Moreover, there are many scattered survivor settlements in other parts of the planet, and the Death Shadow Warband is far weaker than imagined.

Motor Sich's plan was very clear: first, stabilize the rear, mobilize the 100 million people in the second hive, then gradually clear the marching routes, and finally launch a large-scale attack on the first hive, using the numerical advantage of Astartes to crush the Chaos traitors during the siege.

As for the first hive, use it if you can after taking it back; if it gets too corrupted by the Nurgle Plague, just destroy it.

Since it wasn't their own property, the fourth company commander didn't really care.

Chapter 114 Broken Trust

Trust can collapse in an instant, and rebuilding it is likely hopeless for the rest of one's life.

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The warp is not a fairy tale world, and there is no tenderness within the Eye of Fear.

Before the Lion Guard Warband fell into the Chaos Warband, they once believed they would dedicate everything to His Majesty the God-Emperor.

But Astartes, who was not afraid of death, had his mind destroyed by Nurgle's undead plague.

......

Ha, what a useless argument. So what if we rebelled? The emperor abandoned us first. What's the point of spouting these self-comforting nonsense now?

......

The losses have been significant enough; it's time to consider retreating.

......

The reality of this planet is unnaturally solid, and even the Nurgle plague that has infected billions of lives cannot bring the Father's grace. Can Abaddon's promises really be trusted?

The Shadow of Death Warband still maintains a largely intact organizational structure, just like during the Warband era, but it is already internally fragmented.

Some abandoned everything to serve Nurgle, some sought revenge against the Empire by siding with the Great Raiders, and some simply drifted through life without any clear purpose—each member of the Warband had their own agenda.

Furthermore, the two groups of Astartes—those who first succumbed to the destructive power of Nurgle and those who were forced to join the forces of Chaos—engaged in a long Cold War.

Everything within the Eye of Fear must be fought for based on strength. The Shadow of Death Warband is not Mortalian's offspring, so it is impossible for them to obtain enough supplies from the demon world occupied by the Death Guard. Therefore, it is only natural for them to work for Abaddon.

Typhons, the true mastermind of the Fourteenth Legion, known as the Destroyer of the Flyhive, did try to recruit the Shadow of Death Warband, but the recruitment conditions were too harsh, and the two sides could not reach an agreement at all, and even almost came to blows.

It was only because Iskandar Kayan, the Destroyer and half-brother of Abaddon the Great Raider, intervened that the Shadow of Death and Typhon's forces avoided a fatal conflict.

This incident also exacerbated the internal divisions within the Zhanbang faction.

Some of the fighting brothers, terrified by Nurgle, developed a fanatical conversion, hoping to gain more of the Father's favor and one day grind that wretched Typhon into the ground.

There were also those who utterly loathed the demon Primarch Mortarion and his abominable offspring, and though they too served Nurgle, they preferred to serve the masters of the Black Legion.

The majority of the centrists are indifferent to both sides, but since the empire is gone, they can only continue to follow the war gangs.

The two companies of Astartes were certainly not the full strength of the Death Shadows, but they were paid to do the work, so the Death Shadows would only put in as much effort as Abaddon paid them.

The planet Skord has a major problem. The Shadow of Death, a Nurgle warband, has infected billions of people in the first hive. Such sacrifices are so great that even summoning a Great Unclean is difficult, leaving these Chaos Astartes somewhat bewildered.

The Father is generous and loving, but His grace is never free. It is a losing proposition for the War Gang to pay the filthy grace of God to the Greatly Unclean.

To put it more bluntly, what use is someone who is extremely unclean?

The Death Shadow War Gang has killed more than just one or two bloodthirsty madmen and secret keepers. It's only because the Myriad Transformations Demon Lord's skill in collapsing and selling his tricks is so proficient that the Great Impure One can't easily make a move. Otherwise, the Death Shadow, the great demon of the Four Gods, wouldn't mind killing them all to use as a sacrifice to Chaos.

If Chaos Astartes can do it, there's no reason why the Corpse King's lackeys can't.

Unless he can summon Nurgle's army, the Shadow of Death can't think of a way to turn the tide.

Now that the path of spreading plague to earn Nurgle's favor has come to an end, it's time to consider the task assigned by Abaddon.

Completely destroy the planet Skold.

With a sparse population and weak military, the Death Shadow War Gang couldn't understand why this mining world would have two hives, the larger one protected by an extremely powerful void shield.

If it weren't for this damned Void Shield of the Hive City, destroying Skord would have been a piece of cake using the fleet for orbital bombardment.

Unfortunately, there are no "what ifs." The solid veil of reality suppressed the effectiveness of the Nurgle Plague, and the Chaos Astartes spent too much time capturing the first hive before the Desolwing and Raptor Chapter arrived.

With the fleet destroyed, how to leave Skold became a major problem.

The problem remains: the veil of reality on this planet is too thick. Directly praying for a benevolent father to intervene is certainly one solution, but the debt of gratitude owed must be repaid many times over.

Aside from die-hard Nurgle fans, the other Chaos Astartes of the Shadow of Death Warband don't want to hang themselves on the Father's tree.

Therefore, hiring the Black Legion to help pick up people is more cost-effective.

After secretly coordinating, the Warband basically reached a consensus: "send" those die-hard fans of the benevolent father to fight the loyalists of Astartes, while the remaining Warband brothers would find a way to destroy the planet and then return to the Eye of Terror to claim their reward from Abaddon.

Don't forget, Skord's hive has a very complete production line related to mining operations, so the Shadow of Death warband is planning to dig a tunnel deep enough towards the Earth's core, bury enough explosives, and detonate them after the warband leaves.

Hahahaha, you lackeys of the Corpse King, I hope you like our plan, and enjoy the grand fireworks display as we, the old guard, send your souls back to the Golden Throne.

He's already in such a mess, yet he still can't forget the Golden Throne. Seriously, I'm going to cry.

Without Euler's think tank, the Shadow of Death's plan might have had a chance of success. The problem is that while the Blackrock creations suppress psionic energy in the real world, there is a power attenuation issue where the power decreases as the object moves closer to the surface.

Euler discovered the problem as soon as he landed on the surface of Skold from the Victory Balance. Without saying a word, he returned to space, immediately seized the navigator's workspace, and used the Desolate Wings' psionic aids to perform a psionic divination.

Although it was difficult and strenuous, Euler still managed to sense the sinister intentions of the Shadow of Death faction.

Now that the mystery has been solved, it is not difficult to reverse-engineer the question.

All of the Death Shadows' proactive attacks were feints; their real objective was to dig a tunnel downwards from Nest One.

With the support of the think tank's prediction, Motor Sich slightly changed his cautious approach, releasing half of the reserve force, which was half a company size, that had been left on the battle barges to strengthen the offensive on the planet's surface.

Especially the fighting comrades of the Sixth and Seventh Companies, all of whom were dispatched by Motor Sich.

Letting those bastards from the Fourth Company train ordinary soldiers—these idiots are actually quite willing because it's entertaining to watch—and then letting them command and coordinate a PDF regiment...

Three days, at most three days. These bastards' patience is at most three days. After three days, they will definitely cause trouble for themselves.

Why not release the entire Second Company?

How novel! The entire Second Company has been released. Who will help Motor Sich with their work?

By placing an Astartes overseeing each regiment, even newly formed PDF units can maintain high morale.

The more intense the Empire's ground offensive, the more conservative the Shadow of Death's tactical choices become.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, we should be able to advance to the outer perimeter of Nest City No. 1 in ten days.

However, Motor Sich has not yet come up with a good solution for dealing with the Chaos Astartes that have taken over the city.

Strategic advantages merely facilitate tactical choices; ultimately, battles still depend on the soldiers fighting. This applies to ordinary soldiers as well as to Astartes; there are no shortcuts or tricks.