Communications were basically by yelling, a bit amusing, but no one could muster a laugh now.
The emergence of this situation meant that in this area, there still existed an orc leader with considerable appeal.
And it was unlikely that this leader had just emerged from a recent fight. On one hand, such things didn't happen so quickly; on the other hand, a newly risen boss wouldn't have this kind of charisma.
So, the answer seemed obvious: under the previous, formidable orbital bombardment, a powerful leader of the Green Skin Orcs had not perished.
Nobody knew whether it was sheer luck, being outside the core area of the bombing, or some other reason, but clearly, it was not good news.
They decided to go and check the situation out.
If a large number of Green Skin Orcs had already gathered under its call, then it was best to report the news to the Governor and then assign someone to monitor the situation.
But if the number of gathered Green Skins was still small, Matins and the other four star warriors planned to take action and kill that Green Skin leader.
Decapitation Tactics were among the most effective strategies against Green Skin Orcs.
A grand 'waaagh', even if it spanned across Star Sea during a campaign, needed a strong orc warlord to organize and initiate it. Only a sufficiently powerful leader could unite the Green Skins.
But likewise, as soon as their leader was killed, the remaining Green Skins would quickly disperse, and they normally had to fight among themselves until more than half were dead.
They had no concept of uniting against a common enemy to save their race from extinction.
Even in a specific battle, the death of a squad leader could greatly shake the entire squad; the death of a commanding leader during a campaign could lead the entire fight toward collapse...
When facing Green Skins, finding the biggest, greenest, and strongest one and then slaughtering it was the best approach.
So, who was best suited for such a task on the battlefield?
Of course, it was the star warriors.
In past wars, whenever the Phoenix fought against Green Skins, they regularly carried out similar missions five or six, or even seven or eight, times in a single campaign.
Now, they were simply revisiting an old craft.
Even the star warriors felt a touch of nostalgia.
However, when they silently arrived on the scene and saw the Green Skins that had gathered there, they dismissed the idea of a surprise attack.
The number was greater than they had anticipated.
There were easily more than a thousand orc youngsters. And it wasn't just light infantry; there were battle trucks and killer cans, AT LEAST fifty pieces accounted for among various kinds of heavy equipment.
Moreover, stray Green Skins were continuously converging at the location.
The number gathered surprised even Matins.
Why were there so many?
While discussing, they came up with a plausible conjecture:
It was possible that this orc leader had been leading the troops he gathered toward the rally point. Then the orbital bombardment happened en route.
The most important targets of the bombardment were the main camp and the rally point, which suffered the most violent, unavoidable strikes; but they, being halfway between the two, were fortunate enough to narrowly escape the disaster.
There were certainly many Green Skins who had died, and from what Matins and his team could see, many of the orcs bore injuries. After all, this round of orbital bombardment didn't consist of just two Great Macro Cannons; there were also twenty smaller Colossal Cannons and hundreds of orbital missiles raining down everywhere, and those devices were extremely lethal.
But overall, over a thousand Green Skins had survived.
Executing the Decapitation Tactics had become difficult.
It wasn't just the large number of enemies that was the issue, but the Green Skin orc leader itself warranted attention:
It was huge. It was very green.
This chapter is also 6k words