Seeing one of the ummies' heavy weapons positions reduced to rubble, Redeye's face twisted into a savage grin. Satisfied with the result, he immediately turned to the Painboy at his side and barked,
"Good! Tell the boyz to tear that junk apart and move it farther left. Rebuild it there!"
One of the nearby boyz responsible for relaying orders blinked in confusion.
"Uh... Warboss? Wot's dat mean?"
Smack!
Redeye backhanded him hard enough to spin him around twice, several teeth flying through the air.
"Stop askin' questions and do wot I said!" he roared. "Too much yappin'!"
Under the absolute authority of their warboss, the Painboys didn't dare waste a second. They immediately rounded up a mob of boyz, who began frantically dismantling the Squigg Launchers. Grunting under the weight of the heavy components, they hauled everything behind a dune several hundred meters to the left.
The launchers had barely begun taking shape again when a shrill whistle descended from the sky.
A dozen artillery shells slammed into the position they had occupied only moments earlier. Fire and sand erupted in towering columns, blasting the abandoned emplacement into a crater.
Aside from a few unlucky boyz who had lingered behind and were reduced to green paste, the barrage accomplished nothing.
The surrounding orks stared at Redeye with wide-eyed amazement.
"Warboss! 'Ow'd ya know da ummies were gonna shoot dere?!"
"Hmph!"
Redeye puffed out his chest and slapped his thick iron breastplate with a massive metal fist.
"Otherwise, 'ow could I be yer Warboss?"
The nearby boyz immediately erupted into cheers.
"Our Warboss is dead clever!"
"Our Warboss can't lose!"
"Our Warboss is da best strategist!"
Redeye basked in the praise with obvious satisfaction. Then he noticed the chanting had stopped.
He glared at them.
"Keep goin'! Is dat all da words ya know?!"
The boyz shrank back under his gaze. They desperately searched their limited vocabularies for more compliments but came up empty.
An awkward silence settled over the battlefield.
Then—
The whistle of incoming shells echoed across the desert once more.
This barrage was even heavier than the last.
The newly assembled launchers vanished in an ocean of explosions before they could fire a single shot. The supervising Painboy and the hardworking boyz disappeared with them, leaving behind nothing larger than scattered scraps of twisted metal.
"AAAAARGH!"
This time, Redeye truly lost his temper.
Veins bulged across his thick neck as he threw his head back and roared at the heavens.
"WHY ARE DA UMMIES SHOOTIN' SO FAST?!"
The surrounding boyz instinctively huddled together. No one dared make a sound. At times like this, attracting the warboss's attention was often more dangerous than facing enemy artillery.
Naturally, Redeye had no idea what was happening.
The humans had already preregistered every likely approach with firing tables. Once fresh coordinates arrived, the batteries needed only moments to unleash another devastating barrage.
And those coordinates never stopped coming.
The reconnaissance outposts Redeye had destroyed were only the obvious ones. Hidden observers remained scattered across the battlefield, calmly reporting every ork movement without firing a single shot.
Eventually, Redeye forced himself to calm down.
Whatever tricks the ummies were using, one thing was obvious.
He couldn't beat them at their own artillery game.
Another point for the humans.
He snarled.
"Get da Boarboyz ready!"
"Pump 'em full o' Super-Stimz!"
"I'll lead da charge meself and crush dese ummies who only know 'ow ta hide behind big guns!"
Far behind the ork lines, the ground began to tremble.
Massive Dinosaur Squiggs lumbered forward like living hills, crude fighting platforms lashed across their backs and packed shoulder to shoulder with roaring boyz clutching oversized choppas.
Nearby, the Painboys cackled madly as they pulled enormous syringes from battered metal cases. Ignoring screams and desperate struggles, they plunged the needles into the waiting orks.
The bubbling chemicals worked almost instantly.
Eyes turned blood-red.
Veins swelled beneath green skin.
Muscles expanded with grotesque speed as the injected boyz roared in a frenzy of agony and exhilaration.
Miles away, hidden forward observers transmitted the development back to headquarters.
On the holographic battlefield display, several large red threat markers began advancing toward the defensive line.
The atmosphere inside the command post immediately grew tense.
Joker, however, remained perfectly calm.
He simply picked up the communicator.
"Prepare the heavy bolters and autocannons."
The order was brief, but dozens of concealed anti-heavy weapon positions immediately acknowledged it. Hidden behind reverse slopes throughout the defensive network, they had been waiting for exactly this moment.
After issuing the command, Joker turned toward Archer.
"Retrieve the tactical nuclear warhead."
"If that ork warboss charges the command post..."
"...detonate it."
Archer blinked.
"I swear we've started treating tactical nukes like standard ammunition."
Despite the joke, he wasted no time before hurrying from the bunker.
Joker's reasoning was straightforward.
If the conventional assault failed—as he expected—it was highly likely the overconfident ork warboss would attempt a decapitation strike, relying on his overwhelming personal strength to eliminate the defenders' command center.
If that happened...
The solution became even simpler.
Joker would detonate the ten-kiloton tactical warhead without hesitation, erasing both the command post and the ork warboss from existence.
The players could recover.
Most possessed subordinate command nodes, allowing them to respawn near squad leaders, platoon commanders, or company officers. The chain of command might suffer temporary disruption, but established contingency plans—and the players' own initiative—would keep the defense from collapsing.
The orks were another matter entirely.
Joker was convinced that killing the warboss would inflict a far greater psychological blow than losing any human commander.
A WAAAGH! revolved around its warboss.
The moment that central figure vanished in nuclear fire, the entire horde would likely descend into confusion, fragmentation, and violent infighting.