Chapter 162: Fleet Warlord
When it came to Gurney Wildfang personally leading his finest battle boyz to storm aboard the "Quintet," there was a lot of reasoning behind it.
The sudden appearance of the "Quintet" had turned their once assured victory into an extreme disadvantage.
The surprise attack had taken down a destroyer and a frigate, tipping the scales in the enemy’s favor.
In the ensuing naval bombardment, the "Quintet" demonstrated both powerful firepower and formidable defenses.
If the bombardment continued, defeat was certain.
To turn the tide, they needed a different strategy.
They could forgo charging the energy shields and overload the firepower system, hoping the fleet’s concentrated firepower might yield decisive results.
Alternatively, they could employ a "Wolf Pack Tactic," using agile ships and greater numbers to spread out and execute three-dimensional maneuvering combat.
This would avoid maintaining an even speed with the "Quintet" and instead use rapid bursts of acceleration and deceleration, creating fluctuating relative speeds, making it hard for the "Quintet" to maintain precise targeting.
Or, they could adopt the "Close-Quarters Tactic," which the greenskin fleet was already attempting: a wild rush towards close-range combat, eliminating space for evasive maneuvers and interception.
In this method, most firepower would have to be endured directly, and the clash would boil down to who had stronger hulls and more firepower.
However, though the options seemed varied, few were actually feasible.
The "Wolf Pack Tactic" wasn’t suited to greenskin fleets, which required highly maneuverable ships and precise firepower.
Greenskin warships typically possessed immense firepower but lacked precision; they had speed, but not agility.
Humans tended to favor this tactic, and those who used the "Wolf Pack Tactic" most effectively were those self-proclaimed Eldars.
Wildfang hated such opponents—impossible to catch, impossible to hit, their ships circling around, landing shots from afar. But just one decisive strike could swing the battle.
As for the "Close-Quarters Tactic," the greenskins were fully committed to it. In fact, Wildfang had issued a final order before leaving his flagship to board:
once close, shut down the engines and energy shields, overload the firepower system, and blast the "Quintet" to pieces.
But from the look of things, they might not even make it, with several ships likely to be blown up halfway there.
Even if some reached the target, their total firepower and defenses might still not rival the "Quintet."
To make the Close-Quarters Tactic succeed, he personally led the boarding party.
Although he was the fleet’s warlord, greenskin culture dictated that any leader, regardless of rank, had to be the strongest among them.
And Gurney Wildfang was certainly that.
He worried that during the boarding, before even reaching the target ship, the enemy's intercepting firepower might blow them apart.
This was a genuine risk, even with the use of multiple decoy pods, and the Waaagh energy camouflaging and silencing the boarding pods, reducing the chance of them being targeted.
However, he had successfully boarded the ship.
From here on, the remaining obstacles were simple.
Among the human soldiers, who could possibly match him?
In his long combat career, he had killed countless human fighters, even taking down some of those armored, hulking human elites.
The humans wearing those yellow cans had left a deep impression on him. He had to admit they were formidable, but in the end, it was he and his boyz who claimed victory.
That battle earned him great glory, increasing his size, strength, and greenness. It also earned him the favor of Warboss Kuro Ironjaw, who appointed him as the warlord of the Tenth Plundering Fleet.
And today, on this ship, surely there wouldn’t be another batch of those yellow-armored human giants.
Without such strong opponents, he was confident that, under his leadership, his elite force could cut through the starship with unstoppable momentum.
In fact, that’s exactly what was happening.
Upon boarding, Wildfang single-handedly annihilated a squad of Marines on the Quintet and then destroyed a defensive laser turret, leading his elite force towards the ship’s core.
They didn’t progress without resistance.
On the contrary, the "Quintet" deployed its finest troops to intercept them.
The "Quintet" had an armed force of up to thirty thousand, with ten thousand being regular Marines—a T4-grade force, well-equipped.
They found the G-series solid-round rifles beneath their standards, favoring L-series laser rifles or HS-series rail rifles instead.
Realizing the elite greenskin force was aboard, the Marine commander ordered his top troops to equip their best weapons.
Among these were the Walker V combat vehicles and the Foxhound-class infantry combat robots.
The former was a staple.
Larger equipment like Lion tanks weren’t practical within a starship’s enclosed environment, but the Walker V, though sizable, was still two sizes smaller than heavy tanks, allowing it to operate in the main corridors of the ship.
The Foxhound, on the other hand, was technically a "person"—a servant-robot product of the Mechanicus.
During its mechanical transformation, part of its brain was removed, leaving it obedient and efficient.
Its body underwent extensive modifications, nearly losing all human features.
Standing over two meters tall, equipped with heavy machine guns and tough ceramic-steel armor, a single Foxhound would be tough to dismantle even for a Space Marine.
These valuable Mechanicus units were limited on the ship to around 150.
After Wildfang’s half-hour rampage towards the core, the Marines' first wave of elite reinforcements arrived: eighty Foxhound robots, thirty Walkers, and over a thousand Marines supported by two thousand armed sailors.
Wildfang smashed through their defenses in a single charge.
His rockets seemed blessed with mysterious power, highly accurate and even with some tracking ability.
Above his left shoulder, he carried a melta cannon, fully maxed out in firepower.
Moreover, he wasn’t fighting alone; other greenskins who had boarded earlier had instinctively gravitated towards their boss.
By now, the greenskin force behind Wildfang numbered over a thousand.
His boyz weren’t just any greenskins; they were elites—tall for greenskins, clad in robust armor, wielding larger-caliber, more destructive guns, and well-stocked with explosives.
Among them, there were even greenskin kill-cans and larger Deff-Dreads, both formidable in their own right.
With Warlord Wildfang leading the charge, they advanced ferociously.
Wildfang's melta cannon and multi-rocket launcher decimated the robot’s firing positions.
He charged headlong into close range, launched another volley of rockets, then began a brutal axe assault, while greenskin walkers and elite infantry followed closely behind.
The battle, though not large in scale, was intensely bloody.
This Marine elite force, having lost all its combat robots and combat vehicles, fought on for fifteen more minutes, enduring over sixty percent casualties before the collapse of the armed sailors led to a full retreat.
One could hardly blame them. Even with boundless fighting spirit, willing to die for the cause, at best they could only slow down the greenskin assault for a short while without altering the outcome.
The greenskins paid a price too, losing at least four hundred orks, along with over thirty armored units.
Both sides left behind more than a hundred destroyed machines and almost three thousand corpses, all within a battlefield under 800 meters.
The corpses and wreckage were piled so thickly that stepping over dismembered limbs was unavoidable as the greenskin army advanced.
Wildfang himself remained unscathed.
With him, the six hundred greenskins continued to press forward with enough strength to keep up the assault.
In contrast, the Marines couldn’t gather forces quickly enough to mount a similar level of resistance.
Along the way, small units of courageous soldiers tried to slow the greenskin advance with their lives, buying time for their allies.
Yet, Alicia, standing on the command bridge, felt fear.
Through reports from the frontline, she recognized that the warlord himself was leading the greenskin boarding party.
She quickly realized that the "Quintet's" battle preparations could not stop this greenskin warlord.
Astonished at the warlord’s recklessness, she thought, how could a fleet commander—a warlord—lead a boarding party himself?
A misstep in the intercept fire, and he would die without value.
But reality struck her hard. His immense power, coupled with the unique environment of a starship, gave him a terrifying advantage.
This wasn’t an open ground battlefield; every fight happened inside the ship, and even the most open areas were limited.
No artillery groups could be stationed kilometers away to bombard the enemy.
In such a restricted environment, a heavily armored, invincible warlord with full firepower was a nightmare for any defense line.
To make matters worse, the beast appeared to possess an acute combat instinct.
He didn’t deviate from his path, advancing directly towards the ship's core—the engine room.
If he reached it, the consequences were unthinkable.
The naval battle had reached a critical juncture. Just moments ago, they destroyed another enemy frigate, but the two forces had drawn closer.
With several weapon platforms on the "Quintet" silenced by boarding parties, their bombardment was weakening.
The ship’s void shield was turning red, with more fire beginning to penetrate, challenging the armor directly.
Meanwhile, the greenskin warships also suffered, enduring severe pressure from the terrifying "Sons of Loyalty" L-class cannon.
In this dire moment, if the "Quintet" were
to suffer a fatal blow to its engine room, its power and void shield systems would fail, exposing the cruiser to catastrophic damage.
What could be done?
What could stop this beast?
Their final hope lay with Governor Gu.
The planetary governor hadn’t come alone; he brought twenty thousand soldiers and four Space Marines.
Alicia immediately opened a communication link to Governor Gu, who had already left the bridge to mobilize his forces.
“You have to fix this, now! We’re in the same boat. If the ‘Quintet’ goes down, none of us are leaving alive!”
Soon, Gu’s calm voice responded, “I know. I’m already there.”
His tone was steady, which gave Alicia some reassurance.
She didn’t know if Governor Gu and his Space Marines could stop the greenskin warlord, but at this moment, she had no choice but to trust him.
At this point, she felt grateful that she had allowed Gu aboard.
...
Gu was not misleading Alicia; his forces had indeed arrived.
Not only him and the four Phoenix Marines, whose combined power alone wouldn’t be enough to stop the greenskin army.
Accompanying him were the First and Second Battalions of the Silent Wind Brigade and a regiment from the Second Infantry Division.
He was already aware of the brutal news from earlier—that the entire Marine force had been wiped out in just twenty minutes.
The forces he brought weren’t necessarily stronger than those Marines.
If he had the option, he wouldn’t send his men into such a brutal fight.
But this was war.
And in war, there were no choices.
(End of Chapter)