Initiative

Legions had their way of fighting, and Chapters had theirs.

Hope had never commanded a Chapter two thousand strong, but that did not mean he could not command one. Perturabo had told him many examples of battle, and they almost always adhered to one fundamental principle.

Apply enough pressure from the front, but do not forget to slip the knife in from behind.

The company veterans assigned to the decapitation strike arrived near the command post of the combat battalion. They were ready to sever the enemy's head.

The launch of armor-piercing harpoons became the signal for the assault. The company veterans opened fire at once, overloading the soldiers' shields before killing them cleanly and efficiently.

"We're under attack. They must have used the hive city's sewer system to get here."

"But this is part of war. There is nothing surprising about it."

Listening to the gunfire and artillery outside, the officers in the command post did not panic. They continued issuing orders, directing the soldiers to carry out their assigned tasks.

Would the soldiers become headless flies if the command post was crippled?

That would have been the case with the old Astra Militarum. They were uneducated and did not understand the basic rules of how war functioned. Without the commissars' roars and messages from high command, they would be left completely blind.

But the soldiers recruited by the 37th Regiment were absolutely not allowed to be illiterate. Under the clubs of Krieg drill instructors, they had to learn the knowledge they needed.

High command informed every soldier of the battlefield's overall objective, so even if the command post was decapitated by the enemy, they would continue operating in an orderly fashion.

But could high command really be decapitated so easily? That did not seem to be entirely true