The wait did not last long, as the small ships at the front of the Imperial fleet quickly detected hostile signals.
The nearest signal came from those Chaos plundering ships, hundreds of them, most scavengers following the main fleet of the Black Legion out of the Eye of Terror.
Behind these smaller ships were the larger ones, the real targets, bearing the black Legion mark on their axe-blade prows.
At this time, Iengra Speer was already fully armed and standing on the secondary command platform of the Vengeful Spirit, observing the final evaluation of the empire's formation. His amber eyes were shining under his gray and black eyebrows, and he was carefully observing the void. As if he would tear it apart with his own hands.
On the stepped deck below, the Black Legion warriors looked up at him, waiting.
All their expressions were tense with the desire for revenge, the desire to prove themselves, and the desire to kill.
Iron Grasper clung to the iron fence, leaned out, and crossed the cavernous bridge of the Vengeful Spirit.
"start."
With a command, under the light of the superheated promethium hollow, the Black Legion's fleet ignited its engines layer by layer, activated its arsenal, and increased to attack speed.
First, the flanking cruisers skimmed the edge of the battlefield, engines firing into overdrive, trying to hit their targets before the Empire could react.
The Spirit of Vengeance occupies the central command position, and four frigate formations protect it in all directions. The Endless Fury, the Red Glory and the Immortal Steel form a loose triangular formation on the battle plane. Adjust the angle to expand the main fire hole to the widest .
The gap between the fleets narrowed, and the Imperial fleet formation remained the same, with each ship sitting next to the other based on the range of its main macrogun.
They did not try to catch up with the attacking speed of the Black Legion, but maintained a stable speed and united to form a classic lattice formation.
In space warfare, formation is everything, and in the open void, a fleet's defense relies entirely on its overlapping formations, especially since each of the Astartes' warships is ferocious, almost over-armed - they are forged. In order to go all out to kill, each battleship puts firepower first, enough to unleash rounds of destruction from a distance.
Forming such warships into a geometric formation, with each warship protecting the sides of other warships, can achieve an exponential multiplier reaction, so most Astartes fleet commanders tend to be like gorgeous hunters. The eaters swarm like this, leaving no opportunity for the enemy to take advantage of.
On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to break an established fleet formation. Every captain of any battle group understands the importance of maintaining the formation.
Then all that's left is a battle of numbers and strategy.
Iongraspiel believed that the number of warriors would give them an advantage. Although they could not match the firepower advantage that the Empire gradually accumulated, they could still surpass their opponents in courage.
So the Black Legion's vanguard escort rushed forward with a feral fervor, rolling to avoid the incoming gunfire - by this time the Imperial capital ship's light spear was burning like a star.
The Imperial forwards immediately began to retreat, still maintaining a chain formation, absorbing the initial offensive.
Seconds later, the battleships began to engage.
The Spirit of Vengeance launched a salvo, followed by a barrage of broadside macroguns and frigate lance strikes.
This ferocious firepower immediately damaged the Heart of Light, the flagship of the White Templar. The series of attacks shattered the void shield at the front of the battleship and bent the adamantine armor on the bow.
Eingra Speer had previously ordered all commanders to overload their main weapons, risking system overload to deliver a vicious punch in an attempt to open a gap.
Soon, two more destroyers marked as Imperial Navy disappeared in the catastrophic explosion. Their power systems were overloaded, and the vortex generated by the explosion marked their death.
But that was not the main goal of the raid.
Soon, the hangar doors of each battleship of the Black Legion opened with a hiss, leaking wisps of oxygen into the void.
Wave after wave of boarding torpedoes rushed out of the launch tube, sometimes gathering and sometimes scattering, until the attack target was locked.
Although the mothership was still at attack speed, the second wave of attacking gunboat formations launched according to the pre-planned attack vector, with the mothership's side guns deployed behind them.
Aingra Speer had already made his own move and ordered the fleet to enter a short-range assault. The small attack boats aimed at the behemoth ahead and roared towards the target. The hope of the legion relied on them.
The Black Legion's gang-hopping swarms launched from the flight decks in the first seconds of the assault, boarding torpedoes and others of their kind moved through the battle sphere, spinning through plasma blasts, and the cogitators carried out trillions of times of calculation to deliver them to the target.
Although many were hit and destroyed midway, there were still quite a few torpedoes that found their targets.
In the disgusting crackling sound, the torpedo smashed into the trunk of the ship, and the head with the melta impactor smashed through several layers of armored decks, making a piercing scream like a banshee, and then wrapped around the molten iron. Zhong crunched to a stop.
The melta fired, the clamps exploded, the bow door burst open, and the roar of the escaping atmosphere drowned out the amplified thunder of the engines in the enclosed room.
The beasts restrained in the cage broke free from their safety gear, took out their bolters, and rushed out of the burning gap. Their helmet eyepieces flashed red in the whirlpool of light and shadow.
"Kill the false emperor and burn the galaxy!"
These traitors emerged from the flickering shadows, their armor dimmed under the gray lumens. The hunting group quickly cleared the defenders near the landing point. There were only mortals here, and they had no opponents.
Later, the gang members gathered together to sweep the branch corridors.
But they have clear goals in their hearts, all act in unison, and their eager desire for revenge drives them to even more barbaric levels.
The two fleets were already locked in a close-range battle across the void. A large number of boarding torpedoes either hit their targets or were knocked off. A series of bright explosions lit up in front of the imperial fleet's cordon.
The only counterattack of the imperial fleet was to concentrate and stabilize laser firepower, passing through a chaotic group of battleships and shooting at the main ship on the opposite side. Lothar did not launch a jump team, and seemed to prefer long-range strikes, but in fact it was not The key to the problem is that he simply does not have enough troops.
Iongrasper's guess was correct. There were indeed very few troops left in orbit. Lothar could mobilize less than 300 troops, and they came from four battle groups.
And some of these forces must be used to defend the most important warships.
Therefore, Lothar has been carefully choosing tactics to keep the heavy battleships at the core of the fleet at a safer distance, although the buffer zone in the middle is already full of burning frigates.
