Chapter 19

361. We need oxygen: Most people graduate from common sense primary school and realize that there's not a lot of oxygen in space. That's a start. The problem is that there are a lot of people who think "oxygen" and "air" are interchangeable. That is not how it works. There are plenty of planets out there with atmospheres, but plenty don't have the oxygen we need. I guess they're technically breathable, in that "you sure can breath in that pure methane air." At least we only lost one dropship of over eager mouth breathers before everyone else wised up.

362. Ask before you try anything weird: When you're with someone for a long time, basic bonking can get a little boring. So people have a tendency to try new things out in order to make things interesting. As I mentioned way back in 164, my wife and I have been experimenting as well. Some people have written to me, asking for advice on how to satisfy a woman in that manner. Uh...yeah. Me satisfying her. That was what was happening then. Anyway, the point is that when you bring up the more out of the ordinary means of pleasure, you gotta think and talk it through. Otherwise, if you spring it on them out of nowhere during the act, they're going to react violently and badly, usually turning whatever toys you have on you. And that, my readers, is how I got stuck cleaning up the mess that was a naked man that had suffocated because a dildo had been rammed down his throat.

363. Light is required to see: You ever see those white orbs jammed into our skull when you look in a mirror? Those are called eyes. They kind of need light to work. And we need them to work in order to see what is in front of us, something that is rather necessary for just about everything we do, particularly combat. Some genius thought it would be a good idea to shoot out all the lights in a deep underground section of a hive we were fighting cultists in. Just one problem. We couldn't see either. And some of them had night vision goggles. Yeah, we lost half of our men to a force half our size. Nice going moron.

364. Light can be a double edged sword: That being said, keep in mind that, while we need light to see, most other things out there do as well. And some thing can patiently wait in the dark, only able to see the blurriest of outlines, waiting for an easy target to wander by. And yes, light is important, but just remember. If we're out in a massive open field and you turn on a lamp pack, everything in ten kilometers is going to know exactly where we are. And boy oh boy would it suck if it turned out we accidently disturbed an Ork sleep cycle. Oh wait, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED!? And it turns out the Orks are cranky sons of bitches who need their "WAAAAGH" sleep.

365. Be creative: Just because you are handed the mother of all Precision Entrenching Implement aka a trenching shovel with a power blade, don't ask me why they made that and gave it to a lowly grunt who was muscled enough to pass for an Ork but was dumb enough to make an Ork look smart, anyways someone told him to go dig a trench in a straight line, five hours later he trenches right up to the enemy trench that was circling us, yes we were just surprised as you are. And when he got there he just stood there dumbly in disbelief when he could have been cleaving them apart with that damn shovel. Poor guy few too many steroids totes his brain I think.

366. Snipers are long range, dumbass: Now, apparently I have seen some people and commanders think that it would be great to put a sniper alongside the rest of their soldiers. The thing is, shooting a long range gun like a sniper requires focus and time, two things you don't have when someone is charging at you with a stubber! Snipers are best used as support, a fair bit away from the rest of the unit in a concealed position. That way you don't end up shooting into melee. That's difficult to do with normal weapons, you ever try doing it with a single shot weapon like a sniper rifle? You're lucky if you can even get the barrel on the right side of the enemy you're trying to kill. Because it's long, awkward and clumsy in close quarters, which makes your attempted overcompensation utterly laughable.

367. Learn how to throw grenades: Grenades, you guys know what those things are, right? You pull the pin and then make sure it's around people you don't like? You throw it for the double purpose of doing that and getting it the hell away from you? Apparently people struggle with this concept. Now, the person who I saw cock up the third thing they teach you at basic was a Chaos cultist, but he had been a member of the local PDF a few days ago, so we can't just pin this on Chaos sapping IQ points, even though that does happen most of the time. He was entranced with an upper strength platoon, primed his grenade, threw it, hit a stalactite (or stalagmite, whichever fucking one is on the ceiling) and killed around a quarter of his platoon. Now it was nice that it happened to a Chaos cultist, but please make sure your grenade has a clear path. I don't want it to be Guardsmen who get blown to pieces next time.

368. Don't get involved in the legal system unless you know what you're doing: Our legal system basically really likes killing people. "There is no such thing as innocence, only degrees of guilt" and all that. This one guy was testifying against a blue blood family, saying that they were planning to rebel. How did he do this? He said that he had proof. He did not have this proof with him, he was not an expert in any field, and he lacked the most basic of witnesses, but he had "proof." I don't know if he was that arrogant or had just forgot it, but the judge had no patience for her time being wasted. And she had a bolt pistol. I guess wasting a judge's time is a capital offense, though what isn't nowadays? Though later on I went through his notes personal (I had been "volunteered" to burn them all, and there was a long line to the furnace) and he said something about how he had proof because there was a transaction of weapons being sold to rebels. And he could prove that they did it because "it is written in a noble, and that there's three different styles on how the writing is done." That was an honest to Emperor line in his notes.

369. You don't send VIPs into the field: I swear, the way people act, I wonder what truly separates us from the Orks. Well. Ok. How to I explain this one. We had found a scholar who had been incognito on an enemy controlled world. He had been part of a Rogue Trader's entourage when he was abandoned in Chaos controlled territory. He spent seven years there, before managing to find his way to Imperial territory, with a great deal of intelligence he had gathered. However, the commander I was under thought he might not trust us and wanted to gain his trust. That was a good idea. The bad idea was that he thought the best way to do this was to have him bond with the soldiers. In battle. He promptly panicked and was gutted by a Dark Eldar, who dragged his corpse back into their territory and probably fucked it because they're that desperate to prove how edgy they are. And then high command was very cross about this, because after fighting to defend a feudal world from Dark Eldar, they were not in the mood to hear this. So they delivered this idiot commander to the Dark Eldar camp. Via trebuchet.

370. Understand the basics of discretion if you're undercover: It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing there. Hive gangers, rebels, Rogue Traders, if you're undercover, you need to make sure you don't stick out. Be the most boring motherfucker possible, tell mediocre jokes, talk about the weather, unironically quote the Imperial Uplifting Primer. Just don't do anything that draws attention to yourself. Like, say, coming up with a convoluted backstory of being a noble whose father became a Space Marine before losing your inherietance to an evil rival and fleeing to the edge of the galaxy to seek revenge and-fuck if I know, this idiot's backstory went on for an hour. And ke kept making mistakes and rewriting it. As he was telling it to the pirate crew we were supposed to be infiltrating. Needless to say, he found himself on the wrong end of an airlock. Well, wrong for him, but everyone else agreed he belonged there, me included.

371 Slaves are terrible soldiers: I can understand the appeal of slaves, if you're a rich prick, you think you're more important than anyone else because you were spawned from the ballsack of a rich man/twat of a rich woman, and you're coasting on their fame instead of doing anything for yourself. And even then they probably did the same. Anyway, if you think you're that holier than thou, you probably think you can just get a bunch of slaves to do everything, including acting as your army. That way you can have an entire army that you don't have to pay. Here's the thing. You know how penal legions suck? Because they have no real loyalty to their leaders and are just being used as cannon fodder? Slave armies are like that if you take out all the time penal legions got offered pardons. They have less motivation to fight than convicts, that's how bad it is. On top of that, they're probably poorly fed and poorly trained. So you really shouldn't be surprised when they break, desert, and frag you the second they go up against a lost mob of Grots. Because they did. And it was vicious, they literally tore her to pieces. An eyeball was the biggest bit I could find.

372. Tanks are bad at fording: You know those things call bridges? They exist for a reason. Mainly because bodies of water tend to have currents, and even when they don't, wargear sinks like rocks. All of these makes passing bodies of water through said water rather dangerous, or at the very least impractical. So imagine my predicament when 50,000 men get stuck because we're trying to reach Ork forces, but they destroyed a bridge by accident in an artillery barrage.. I'm working hard with a few thousand other men to get a makeshift bridge up, but some boys and girls (insulting terms intentional) decided it was taking too long and that they could just ford it. It turns out, sixty tonnes of warmachine isn't exactly something that floats. Or works very well with water. And it turns out four dipshits need air to breath.

373. Dogs are not effective tools of war: I get it, everyone loves a good dog, they're kinda dumb, but there's a sort of simple minded sincerity to them. The ones that haven't been mistreated into becoming assholes are generally friendly and enjoyable to be around, even if they can get grating at times. But they're not very good at combat. At best, they can be used by Arbites to help track down criminals and subdue them, but anything bigger than that and they're not much good. So you can't use them on the Necrons for fuck's sake. Ironically, the dogs were much smarter than the kennel master and legged it the second they saw a Necron vaporize a man. That man being the kennel master, who was wondering why his dogs weren't biting at the ankles of the eon old killing machine that could survive a bolt round to the head.

374. Tyranid weapons cannot be salvaged: I don't know what the shit is up with the Tyranids, biological life forms, having very man made looking weapons that are also biological, but whatever. You can't use them. At all. They just don't work. The very second you rip it off of a Tyranid or the Tyranid dies, those things stop working. It's like trying to use a brain after you ripped it out of someone's skull. Again, no idea how the fuck this even works, but that's not the point. Do not drag around a Tyranid Warrior's Venom cannon. Best case scenario, it slows you down and other Warriors catch up and gouge your insides out. Worst case scenario, you melt your own face off. Or both.

375. Do not get into a melee fight against a power weapon with a non-powered weapon: Ok, I get this one to some extent, very few of us ever get to use a power weapon. I'm honestly very fortunate to have been near enough to someone who was rich enough to afford one but dumb enough to make it onto this list. Honestly, that's my advice to you, stick close to people with nice equipment and no skill with it, you'll get an upgrade real fast. But anyway, these things are damn powerful and cut through all but the strongest materials. If one clashes with a non-powered blade, that blade is going to get turned to slag. So avoid that. Don't just pick another weapon off of a rack and try again. Or a third time. Of a fourth time. By the time we were halfway through the rack, the swordswoman got bored and just cut his head off. Both of them. And this all started because a dipshit attacked his teacher because he felt she wasn't taking him seriously enough. Needless to say, I feel she was right to do so.

376. Wear REAL armor: Ok look. I get that there's a lot of flexibility when it comes to individual regiments, when we're not just ripping off the Cadians, but there are standards. Flak armor should be covering your vital organs, at the very least. Catachans are stupid because they seem to think a tank top is armor. I know a flak jacket probably wouldn't help them much on their homeworld, but it would help them on the battlefield. And this is without getting into those regiments that have gold codpieces, corsets that show a fair bit of cleavage, silk jackets, and leather suits. All of which do somewhere between fuck and all to stop projectiles. Leading me to the awkward situation where I'm in a trench, trying to get a bead on a Tau, and a line of their infantry sends everything I just described crashing down on me. All of it wrapped around complimentary corpses.

377. Don't bother invading Death Worlds: Whatever men you sacrificed for a rock like that? 90% chance it wasn't worth it. Very rarely do they have any valuable resources, as the common saying goes, their main export is men. That's really the only reason the Imperium bothers trying to hold onto the majority of its death worlds, they produce effective regiments for the Guard. If it turns out that it has a pure Promethium core or something, then it's worth fighting for. Otherwise, it really isn't worth sending hundreds of thousands of people to die on. Seriously, one up and coming Lord General tried it, and at the end of a year, she had killed all the Orks, won the rock, and then was asked what value it had. Aside from a thousand and one ways to kill people. She couldn't give a reply. She proceeded to become the first and only settler for the place.

378. Check your perimeters: You see this circle we have around the camp? This is something we cannot allow enemy soldiers to get through. Most commanders get that, they have trenches, gun emplacements, and other things like that from the get go. But we need to know that the enemy is coming, and for that, we need people checking the perimeter, preferably a bit far out so that the scouts have time to vox in that someone is coming. Fail to do this, and the fucking impossible will happen. A surprise attack made by a Baneblade. All we needed was five scouts on foot to see that thing coming. But no. "Waste of resources." Fuck you lady.

379. Try not to piss people off on purpose: I know what you're thinking, shut up. As mentioned before, I keep my mouth shut when I'm around people who can kill me. But even then, you have enough people out there who will try and kill you on the basis that you're in the Guard. Don't try and get on the bad side of people who are supposed to be helping you, particularly for petty reasons. If you're clearing a city room by room, you want the person behind you to bail you out. Not leaving you to die because you kept trying to fuck his sister even though she kept saying no. Yeah, neither of us were leaving him alive after that one.

380. Stop saying Hive Fleet Leviathan isn't the main Tyranid Fleet: I have heard so many terrified whispers that Hive Fleet Leviathan is just a vanguard, the way Behemoth and Kraken were. That they're just a taste of what's to come, and that the true Tyranid fleet will be able to swallow the Imperium whole. Shut up. Stop and think about it. They're heading for the very heart of Imperial territory, no doubt seeing the Emperor's light and craving it for themselves. Do you have any idea how powerful the Emperor's light is? It's damn powerful, if the Navigators I've talked to are anything to go by. So if they're looking to eat him, I think they'd have gotten here pretty damn quick, and I doubt the main fleet would be dicking around while the vanguards are doing all the heavy lifting and running into trouble. I mean, let's look at dates here. Behemoth arrived in 745.M41. Kraken didn't show up later, 992.M41. Over two centuries. That suggests to me that Behemoth was the vanguard, and Behemoth alone. Because Leviathan showed up five years after Kraken, and they had needed to take the time to angle underneath the galactic plane. If Leviathan was able to take the time to make that detour and still show up only five years after Kraken, why would a hypothetical main fleet be taking so long?

I mean, Leviathan is making good headway to Terra, which means that it's eating its way there. Tell me something. With everything Leviathan has consumed, what exactly is the main fleet supposed to eat? I mean, Leviathan is doing a good job of breaking through our defenses so far, consuming a hell of a lot of biomass. Either it's doing it's doing its job too well and is eating up all the food the main fleet would need to survive, or it's doing a very shit job and was supposed to die early on, leaving food for the main fleet. The concept of a main fleet doesn't make sense. It would starve to death. It's been proven that, if Tyranid fleets go too long without feeding on a planet, they will die.

Now, let's look at it from my theory. Behemoth was the vanguard, Levithan the main fleet, and Kraken the secondary fleet. Think about it, it makes sense. Behemoth tests the waters, softens up the very edge of the Imperium, seeding enough Genestealers to pave the way for the next wave, and then attacks a major military stronghold that it most likely won't survive against, destroying itself but takes out, or at the very least weakens, those who would be most likely to stop the rest of the species. Two more fleets show up a few centuries later. Kraken takes the same path Behemoth did, feeding off of weakened worlds and utilizing Genestealers left behind by Behemoth. It establishes a pattern and gets everyone looking at the edge of the galaxy, thinking that that's where the Nids are coming from.

And then Leviathan happens. Everyone's focus is on the edge, so Leviathan is able to hit from below to devastating effect, they're going to straight for Terra, and they've inflicted the most devastating blow the Imperium ever felt from them. And that's the thing that makes me doubt everything about the true main fleet narrative. This fleet was going straight for Terra, and the half that was nearer to it got uncomfortably close. So here's my question. If Leviathan's closer half hadn't been stopped and it had devoured the core of the Imperium, what would have been left for the main fleet? I mean, the Tyranids are intelligent enough to figure out how to exploit our weaknesses, they must know we'd all be fucked if the Astronomican went out, it'd be a buffet for them. There'd be little left for the main fleet with the gorging Leviathan would do if it went out. Fuck, if it went out, the remnants of Kraken would probably work its way through the entirety of the eastern galactic rim, so that's even less for the main fleet to eat.

So yeah, if there is a main fleet, the Tyranids are highly stupid motherfuckers. So stop making suicide pacts over it already. All of this sounds like it was written by an amateur propaganda author who has no idea how stakes work.