The forces I had brought with were seemingly small, if you consider classic organization in the Imperium.
rely 5 Auxilia regints, only one of them armored, plus 4 Astartes Companies and our pilot techmarines.
But when the drop-pods began falling in the defense of my Salamanders Brothers, then kept coming and coming, and then still kept coming.
I had 20 Drop-cruisers now, each able to launch 80 thousand small drop-pods containing mostly Tarantula turrets, but also light vehicles like Ard Sentinels and Guardian walkers.
They also carried attack drones, fighter squadrons, and a bomber squadron, plus the normal capital ships weapons, mostly lance and plasma batteries.
The Heavy Cruisers and the Battlecruisers provided the main long range fire, with both torpedoes and lances, while the Battle barges brought the slow rear with ground invasion forces, plus thousands of techpriests and millions of servitors for battlefield repairs or rapid conscription.
Gone were the days when my ships' lower decks were filled with malnourished indentured serfs, prone to revolts and chaos infiltration. Servitors could do the sa jobs without complaints, and were very unlikely to revolt.
In an anvil and hamr tactic, our faster cruisers struck from the flank while the battle barges took the brunt of the invasion fleet head on, while fighters and bombers struck at the more vulnerable escorts with missiles and bombs.
It seed these Chaos traitors lacked numbers and filled their ranks with xenos, mostly corrupted has disappeared sowhere." The Salamanders' Master muttered in dismay.
"Well, I can offer you 10 Los Angeles destroyers and 40 Retribution-pattern Land Raiders, plus 3 Blank Captains for your battle barges. But in exchange, I want you to offer protection to several Hive Worlds nearby. Set up orbitals forts, clean the underhives of gangs and genstealers, and recruit a hundred Auxilia regints. When the Tyranids arrive, a thousand Astartes will not be nearly enough. We'll need trillions of soldiers, and millions of warships. We are the defenders of humanity, not of magma worlds." I demanded in a stern voice.
"So that's your big plan? Throw untrained guardsn at space bugs until they drown in blood?" Tu'Shan exclaid in outrage.
"Guardsn, PDF, turrets and Sentinels and every weapon we have. Or everyone will die, Master Tu'Shan. I do have plenty of destroyers now, and I'll start spreading them to frontier Chapters as soon as they get modified to the stronger patterns. But they are only useful for defense. To attack, we need cruisers with Nova Cannons, and warpless engines. Carriers too, if you can capture say Ork Kroozers or Terror Ships and have them refitted to carry corvettes and starfighters." I concluded and sat up from the plastel dais.
"...Looting the Orks. Where has the Imperium fell?" he grumbled in displeasure.
I completely agreed, but reality was like that. Harsh and unpleasant. I will do my part, and help other do theirs, even if they didn't like it.
We're still going to get eaten by Tyranids, most likely.
Reviews
All reviews (0)