The Sneaky Watcher

The Warhammer worldview is essentially a space opera. Strictly speaking, Hogg was never a true lore-master, just a casual fan who found the 40k memes amusing and was eventually dragged into the hobby by his eccentric friends. It must be said: the miniatures are truly expensive, and those plastic merchants are truly unscrupulous.

He remembered watching videos at home when his mother asked why Old Man Yellow didn't know his sons were rebelling. She remarked that if she were Emperor, she would have slapped some sense into those children the moment they showed signs of treason.

One could only say that Mom was ten thousand years ahead of Emperor.

She was an incredibly open-minded mother who would discuss the various joys of 40k with him in the living room, eventually even joining his friends for tabletop battles.

These were the fondest memories for Hogg, who had become a prankster after transmigrating into the Warhammer universe. Thinking of the other Primarchs who lacked a mother made him feel even happier, and the bridge of his ship echoed with joyous, pig-like snorts of laughter.

As a Primarch, managing one's own Legion is no easy task. Every Space Marine's combat capability is essentially similar, barring a few unique cases—though, of course, those cannot be judged by conventional standards.

Legions led by different Primarchs possess distinct combat styles. For instance, the Blackwatch Legion's good buddies, the Fourth Legion, are stocky and square-built, favoring trench warfare and siege operations. The Imperial Fists, who also love their fortifications, possess tall frames and prefer defensive tactics. The Space Wolves are like guard dogs, while the Emperor's Children favor three-dimensional maneuverability, love for cosmetics, and backstabbing.

The advantage of the Blackwatch Legion lies in their high resistance and powerful regenerative capabilities. Even if their stature is smaller and their raw physical strength less prominent than other Legions, their battlefield survival rate is consistently the highest. Combined with the air-dropped units specialized by Alicia, the Legion favors tactical doctrines of rapid raids, skirmishing, and piercing straight to the heart of the enemy.

Their goofy nature ensures that when veterans interact with recruits, there is none of the backstabbing or political maneuvering found in other Legions. This is a good thing, and Hogg takes as much care of his Legion sons as possible, satisfying their little requests.

For example, if the Blackwatch soldiers want to sport bizarre hairstyles, he lets them be, as long as they are happy and it doesn't affect combat. On a daily basis, he ensures the food in the mess hall of the Blacklight is as good as possible, providing a variety of flavors and specialties to make dining a pleasure.

At the same time, Hogg treats the mortal soldiers with equal respect, striving to improve their conditions. He doesn't care about others, but once they join his Legion and become his own, they are treated as true human beings—a valuable lesson Hogg learned during his own time in the military.

Everyone has a strength, and Hogg's role is to coordinate them, allowing them to coalesce into a unified whole.

If he isn't good at management, he lets those who are handle it; if he isn't good at combat, he lets veterans with combat experience teach others to improve together. This is the unique atmosphere of the Blackwatch Legion.

On the bridge of the Blacklight, urns containing the ashes of the fallen were placed in small metal boxes, engraved with their life stories and glorious deeds. Under the gaze of the Legion soldiers and their Primarch, they were draped in the Blackwatch banner and carried onto transport ships to be buried in the cemetery built by Alicia.

This campaign served as a reminder to Hogg: at the current stage, the Legion's equipment offered insufficient protection against factions with high technology or the sorcerous races they might encounter in the future. Coupled with the Legion's preference for airborne assault tactics, the casualties would be catastrophic if they couldn't withstand the incoming fire.

With the help of numerous tech-priests obsessed with their religion, alien weaponry was dismantled, and new experimental gear was produced.

The superior plasma weapons of the xenos were given a fresh coat of paint and new packaging before being issued to the officers and men, receiving unanimous praise.

Although the power was slightly reduced, the improved cooling system made continuous fire with plasma weapons a possibility, granting Alicia's paratroopers lighter and more powerful firepower.

In the forge laboratory of the Blacklight, Hogg and Candice Laza tinkered with the shield device that had caused the Legion such heavy casualties. They aimed to cobble together a cheap, man-portable shield based on the original principles, as the reactors of standard Mark III power armor couldn't handle the original tech.

According to their analysis, the device required psychic energy to channel Warp energy into a shield. However, the Laer lizardmen lacked strong psychic talent—they were, in fact, a psychically deficient race. Thus, they had to rely on sheer numbers, using a form of soul sacrifice to trigger the shields, which explained the alien corpses surrounding the devices.

The pair came up with a solution: they found a strictly guarded cache of Orks spores in the Legion's warehouse. Through catalytic means, several Ork organisms were cultivated. Under everyone's watchful eyes, they were placed into sealed chambers, and electrodes were inserted directly into the Orks' brains to stimulate them with electric currents, forcing them to emit psychic fluctuations.

The good news was that their experiment succeeded; the shields were indeed generated, though they turned a vibrant green.

The cultivated Orks had their limbs removed and were turned into brain-jar batteries linked to micro-shield generators. The entire assembly was shaped into a shield; whenever a Space Marine supplied power to the shield, the Ork brain in the jar would be shocked, causing a layer of oily green energy to cover the shield and deflect attacks.

Tests showed that the activated energy shield could fully withstand continuous fire from bolters and man-portable plasma weapons. Although the shield would overload under prolonged fire and eventually rely on the material itself to take the hits, the cost was extremely low and the effect was excellent, greatly enhancing the soldiers' survivability.

The tech-priests cheered, praising the Omnissiah and offering prayers to Hogg, with some of the goofy Blackwatch soldiers joining in.

Interestingly, the Ork brains used as batteries were quite excited by the repeated electric shocks. Upon learning they would be taken into the most intense battles, they would actually chat happily with the soldiers, believing this to be a blessing from Gork and Mork. One has to admit, Orks are truly a joyful bunch.

Just as Hogg was pondering using Orks to brew alcohol, a piece of news interrupted his train of thought.

Yado was a Farseer of the Alaitoc Craftworld. Compared to their deranged Dark Aeldari cousins, the Craftworld Aeldari were far more rational, though some humans couldn't tell the difference.

During one of his divinations, he received a revelation from the gods: the turning point for the Aeldari had arrived. A servant of Cegorach, dressed in the exaggerated attire of a theatrical clown, appeared before him.

[The Black King of Emperor is the key to your return from the brink of extinction.]

Having received the divine revelation, the old Farseer began his investigation. Thanks to the use of the Webway, the Aeldari could traverse the galaxy as if opening portals, and he soon discovered the Primarch's trail.

He had been looking for an opportunity to approach, but the humans were in the midst of war. Based on past experience, a rash approach might lead to a firefight, so he could only tail them—and now, the opportunity had arrived.