@Oculunus
You might be losing perspective on battles vs war? For some context, this chapter is maybe 40% of the way through the third novel, which is titled "The Finest Hour". And you should read that as
ominous. There are 13 volumes out right now
.
I dislike the idea that authors must kill people off constantly for it to be "realistic". Admittedly it's a fine line to walk, but it's not as if Delta Force or Seal Team 6 or the Night Stalkers or whomever are constantly taking big losses.
@DGbr3w it's not Tanya's power per se, though that certainly is a factor. But her knowledge and connections in the military were at least as important or more so. 203 was selected from a huge military pool, then given massively superior training (based on radically advanced for the time methods) and equipment with a huge budget, and they've been able to build up enormous combat experience starting with easy opponents where risks were minimized. There is some luck in them taking only a few casualties with no deaths so far, but it doesn't seem at all surprising so early in the war that the Empire's best would have real advantages over opponents who were objectively massively inferior from the beginning, were already getting exhausted, or were just barely getting started. If anything it's impressive the Kingdom could send a force like that who would give them a real run for their money despite this being their first direct official sortie of the war and with really crap intel. If you look at our actual WWs, the Germans started with major advantages, momentum, and developed some impressive tech. That gave them a few years. But the nature of war is that opponents learn and develop too.
Remember, the 95 is Tanya's final last resort she hates to use. When it comes out it's because she was out of options, her opponents were strong enough to push her and her wing to the limits. The Empire's strategies combined incredible tactics and tech, but they were also acts of desperation. The commies and notAmerica are out there. Quality is all well and good, but sometime quantity has a quality all its own...
@welcome2atlantis
It's not unlimited as she emphasized in the escape chapter. It allows "storing" mana over time in a way other orbs don't, so there can be a huge amount of power banked up. But that's still a finite supply and when it's gone, only time can recover it.