Chapter 5

81: Do not over rely on the Adeptus Arbites during a true battle: Many a trooper has thought "Hey, the Adeptus Arbites are equipped like a small army, surely they can help us when the planet is being invaded." Well it depends. Planets closer to active war zones usually have Arbites that balance law enforcement with planetary defense (And as it turns out, on max settings power mauls are very good at snapping spines and smashing skulls.) On planets that are more peaceful though, the Arbites seem to be more interested in beating up poor people for breaking up nonsensical laws (Apparently being destitute is illegal on more than a few planets and punishable by a fine) and/or shaking them down for tax money for a new law they totally didn't just make up. As such, when a Chaos cult is rioting in the streets (Who turned to Khorne out of desperation because the Arbites kept being asshats) you can't trust them to hold formation. Twelve men who were counting on them for supporting fire died, but on the plus side all of the Arbites died too and I now have their outfits for emergency situations.

82: Be careful on where you store the ammunition: This is like 57 except there's another layer to it. A lasgun can be left in a mud puddle overnight and it'll be ok so long as you have five minutes to clean it, but ammunition can be a bit more finicky. This goes double for bolter ammunition as those things are explosive shells that contain more explosives and we want all of that to not go off until it's in an Ork's face. So when I'm woken up by a loud explosion and I remember that someone left a box of bolter shells by the base's main reactor, I know I'm going to get pulled for corpse disposal duty. Again…also always fast for a day after something like that happens. Trust me on this one.

83: Simply burning heretical texts might be a bad idea: Now this is very much an exception to the norm. Most Chaos writings, altars, fetishes (Not that kind of fetish, shut up) can all safely have a flamer taken to it. And should. No, what I'm talking about is a Chaos text where the very ink used to write the words has power, something only done by extremely powerful sorcerers. These texts need to be shot into the sun of the local system to be disposed of. Because trying to burn it in a normal fire will incur the wrath of the demons whose blood was mixed into the ink (Of course…). I'm not even sure why that missionary was against the idea, surely the blazing heat of a star is a bigger middle finger than a simple fire. But no, and the last time I saw him a Lord of Change had inverted his body. Oh speaking of which.

84: If you ever see a Lord of Change run as fast as you can in the other direction and call down an orbital strike: This applies to all Greater Daemons really, but Lords of Change are the only ones I have any experience with. A dedicated kill-team of Space Marines going up against one, and ONLY one still has a 50% chance of not walking away from it. So unless we've got a perfectly positioned tank platoon ready to shred it to pieces, drop what you're doing, haul ass, and tell the navy to blow the frak out of that warpspawn. The missionary I mentioned earlier didn't seem to appreciate this. Yeah, your flamer is really going to hurt him buddy.

85: Don't bother trying to brutalize Slaanesh cultists. We sometimes lose ourselves in the heat of the moment and we want to cause as much pain and suffering to the people we're fighting (Emperor this one time I woke up in the back ally of a Hive, covered in blood that wasn't my own and I couldn't remember last night at all) but with Slannesh cultists it's an exercise in futility. The Inquisition has discovered (Though a LOT of experimentation I would imagine) that the only way you can really cause them suffering is through total sensory deprivation. Tearing their stomach open and ripping their guts out just makes them jizz their pants. What's more, they're not overwhelmed by the pain and can still kill you. I personally witnessed a couple of cultists kill a friend, both of them with rock hard dicks and nipples at the time, even though their organs were flapping out of their chests. Though for the record it's ok to brutalize their corpses after they're dead. I was feeling a little vindictive that day and I did things to their bodies that I honestly feel ashamed about and that I'm taking to my grave.

86: Only ingest anything Ork related as a last resort. And I don't just mean the things they make, Ork meat is the most rancid thing you'll ever taste. I tried to keep it down and failed. Considering how batshit the Orks are we really shouldn't be surprised that they drink fuel, put gunpowder in their cigars and let their meet "ripen" for a few days. Only eat or drink anything from them if death is the only alternative. And for Emperor's sake, don't chug Ork grog just to show how tough you are, that stuff shreds your insides. LITERALLY! THERE'S GROUND UP GLASS IN IT!

87: Death worlds are called that for a reason: Did you know that Catachan doesn't have a standing defensive army? That's because it doesn't need one. The wildlife on that planet is so vicious it honestly repels planetary invasion. It's an extreme example but death worlds are named that for a bleedingly obvious reason. On half of them it's considered a great achievement to make it to adulthood, and even people who have lived on said planets their entire life are just one slip away from dying. Anyone who goes skinny dipping in a lake that turns out to have a giant man eating serpent in it, I will gladly help the natives erect your half digested skeleton in their display for "Stupid people who couldn't read the sign." For the record, the woman I helped put back together was #999. If she had been #1000 I would've gotten a free bottle of highly expensive whisky…thanks for nothing.

88: Don't look the other way when your squamates are doing something heretical: I don't mean the "Is not paying respect by not reciting the 6532nd hymn properly" or something, I'm talking about serious Chaos worship crap. See as much as we hate Comissars, they exist for a reason. To put bolt shells in the heads of people who think praying to Slannesh is a reasonable response to not getting laid. Hey asshole, I don't care how much you like the guy, he's praying to a being that was born from the dying souls of trillions if not quintillions of Eldar so he can stick his dick in something. Luckily you didn't get killed from his Chaos related bullshit. The Commissar just executed the both of you when he found out.

89: Never accuse a Warboss of having no balls:…I was young. Very young. He kicked me…one of them popped. I was one of the lucky ones too.

90: Don't play Vostroyan roulette with any gun, ever: You are presumably not suicidal. Ergo, playing a game which could explicitly kill you is a bad idea. That's basic common sense, right? I frakking wish. A few people in one of my old squads tried it out with, I shit you not, A MALFUNCTIONING PLASMA PISTOL. Mind you, they weren't entirely dense: they'd overloaded it and aimed away from themselves with the idea that it'd explode on a random trigger pull, then failed to account for the splash radius of superheated plasma. How many of them survived that? A surprisingly high number, at least for a few days, with their skin melted into their clothes and their flesh turning to goo from absurd amounts of radiation poisoning. Remember why we don't turn guns into makeshift grenades?

91: Remember that Orks reproduce via spores: A bad thing about Orks is that they come back to life unless you burn everything in a ten mile radius of anywhere they've been to ashes. It's not the worst thing about them, that'd be either their homicidal rampages across star systems or their lack of grammar skills, but it's bad enough that you'll want to keep your flamer on you at all times. My company forgot theirs one time, and were for some reason surprised when the Orks they'd killed ten years ago ended up overrunning the planet they'd been fighting on, losing that system a critical Agri-World's worth of resources. A lot of people were executed for that monumental frakup, several of them by me personally, and the reason I got to live is because I joined literally a week after that particular battle. Thank the Emperor.

92: Segways are not proper military vehicles: I am seriously having a hard time figuring out if this is real, but I've seen too much evidence to the contrary to pass it up. So apparently Imperial Guardsmen sometimes make massive charges with segways. I just…why? I can walk faster than half of those things, they take up both of your arms so you can't do that shooting thing you want to do when charging, and you just look like an asshole! Maybe the plan is that the enemy will laugh themselves to death. Maybe. From the records that I've seen that's a little overly optimistic. And my overly optimistic I mean if you think that'll work I think you've recently been skull fucked by a Keeper of Secrets.

93: Don't interfere with a Imperial assassin's work: One official from the Adeptus Administrium tried to prevent an attempt on a traitorous planetary governor by sending mercenaries to kill the operative in order to buy the subject some time to flee. It was somewhat successful... Until the operative snuck on the governor's ship, and used his gun to blow the frakking jackass's head off. It turned out that after the Vindicare had interrogated this particular Administrium official, he left the bastard to die in the most painful way by slathering the arsehole with honey and milk and hanging him from a high perch. The intent was to have stray animals slowly bite off chunks of his flesh, and this is a fate I wouldn't wish upon anyone.

94: Removing a bullet on a battlefield doesn't help anyone: Too many kids in the Guard nowadays act on crappy propaganda movies, where they need a dramatic scene so they have a surgeon rip a solid projectile that was stuck in some 15 year old blue blood who couldn't act but wanted to be famous. I mean brave soldier. The thing is, a bullet or other projectile that has come to a full stop has already done all of its damage, and digging it out is just going to make the poor bastard on the table lose more blood. Even if its poisoned, odds are its already made his way into the bloodstream, as that's a Dark Eldar thing and their poisons work FAST! So your attempts at heroics are probably going to kill the guy faster because your serrated combat knife tearing his chest apart isn't good for him. Who would've thought? (Minor exception, you DO need to get the bullet out if it's an explosive round that hasn't gone off)

95: Maintain any cybernetics that you have: This goes double if they're second hand (Anyone who makes a joke about that gets my boot up their ass). The Imperium has incredibly advanced medical technology, but you have to be important enough for them to bother using it on you. After decades and decades of service and fighting in dozens of war, I qualified for implants that weren't used by someone else before. They were low budget, but I was the first one to wear them. And you've got to maintain all of them, or they will crap out on you at the wrong moment. So no, your leg leaking grey fluid isn't something that will just go away, and you have no one but yourself to blame when it gives out on you lady. I told you to maintain that thing but you just said, "I'll do it later." You are so fucking lucky that Dark Eldar accidentally shot you in the head…

96: Blue-Bloods couldn't be more stuck up if they tried: Dear Emperor, NOBLES! Proof that Tzeench exists and is laughing at our misery. Think about it, how else could something so stupid exist unless that tentacle monster stopped hunting for teenage schoolgirls (Probably pissed he didn't get to Fulgrim first) and blew his load all over the Imperium? They seem determined to fuck over the Imperium. If they're not blowing Thrones (That seems to be the currency of the Imperium? No one can really make up their mind if it is or not.) on their diamond encrusted toilet seats or gold plated jock straps (yes REALLY) they're doing much dumber things. Like the time they had their servants carry them to the battlefield in suspended chairs. And then the rebels shelled them. Predictable results were predictable. And the inconsiderate pricks had all of their weapons studded with jewels. Do they have any idea how hard it is to pull that crap off of a power sword so people won't know it was looted?

97: Purple does NOT equal stealth: It's a semi-well known fact that Orks can slightly bend reality if they collectively believe something, like red ones go faster. (My sister actually sabotaged an Ork vehicle by dumping pink paint on it. That was a freaking funny day.) That being said, it ONLY works for Orks. So trying to play against their weaknesses by putting on a purple body suit is not going to get you through their camp for recon. Well we did learn one thing. Apparently the Orks did copy one thing from human culture that we didn't know about. Wishbone pulling.

98: Remember that we need to eat: I've lost track of the number of times we've run low on rations because its more satisfying to pack guns than it is food. More than once I've had to eat (IE, force down and try hard to not vomit up) Emperor's Mercy Bars and at one point I gave up and just ate a rat. More protein there. The important thing to remember is that soldiers need food just as much as they need ammo, at least with food we won't die FOR the Eldar. It must have been odd for them. To see hundreds of thousands of soldiers starving and forced to retreat, eating those who had already died. I wonder if they were disappointed they didn't get to use their elaborately complicated plan.

99: Dark Eldar are not fucking kinky: What is wrong with people? I'm not going to judge you for your kinks, we all have a few, but the Dark Eldar are not people who engage in naughty fun times. They put you through the most unbearable torture possible so that they can fend for Slannesh from gobbling up their souls for a few more miserable years. So don't flirt with them and for Emperor's sake don't let them near your food! I've risked my life to mercy kill someone who was being carried off by Dark Eldar, and I'm not doing it again.

100: Be wary of angry loved ones: There was a brave young woman. Well if she had been living on a peaceful planet she would've been young, on the battlefield she was older. There was another young lady who made her heart flutter. This second woman was wounded and under fire from when one of our lines were overrun by a Chaos invasion, one that the Eldar caused via manipulation. The first woman had a fire in her eyes I had never seen before. She abandoned her position and flitted between enemy lines. I got distracted by a sniper trying to take my head off, but when I had put a burn hole in her throat, twelve cultists were dead, and the woman was running back towards me. Her sweetheart in her arms.

The commander was furious. Not because she had thrown his plans into jeopardy, but because he was one of those pricks who didn't like his soldiers eating without his say so. He stood there, screaming at her, lasers and darker projectiles still flying. She stood her ground, glaring at him, her sweetheart whimpering in her arms. Then he pulled a pistol.

I doubt he was expecting the heavy weapons expert to kick him in the kneecap so hard that it shattered. I doubt he was expecting the sister of battle to sear his trigger hand into a blackened shell. And I doubt he expected the sergeant to use a stolen Eldar pistol that had a few shots left in it to reduce his corpse to a red mist and, making it look like the Eldar did it. Anyway, the moral?

Don't. Threaten. My. Daughter.