Battle of Macragge
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| Battle of Macragge | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Tyrannic War | |||||||
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| Combatants | |||||||
| Ultramarines | Hive Fleet Behemoth | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Marneus Augustus Calgar | Tyranid Hive Mind | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Ultramarines Chapter of the Space Marines (10 Companies of 100 men each) Defense auxiliaries (unknown numbers) Titans of the Legio Praetor (unknown numbers) Battlefleet Tempestus |
Thousands of bio-ships Millions of gaunts and other Tyranid genii |
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| Casualties | |||||||
| Significant losses, including the entire 1st Company | Nearly-complete destruction of Behemoth | ||||||
Macragge is a rocky, hostile world situated within the Eastern Fringe of the Galaxy in the Warhammer 40,000 science fiction mythos. It was there that the Tyranid Hive Fleet Behemoth battled the Ultramarines chapter of Space Marines. The Hive Fleet entered the Ultramar System in the year 40,745, with thousands of bio-ships stripping the garden paradise of Prandium to bare rock before moving on, undeterred by Ultramarine strike fighters.
Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, diverted most of Macragge's defensive fleet to draw the approaching horde into the planetary defense batteries and then struck at Behemoth's heart. Calgar also managed to destroy one of the largest bio-ships in Behemoth, crippling the Tyranids' Hive Mind. Behemoth responded by dropping thousands of spores onto Macragge's polar fortresses.
Calgar pursued the retreating Hive Fleet, entrusting the defense of Macragge to his Terminator-equipped 1st Company and Imperial Titans. On the surface, the Ultramarines made the endless Tyranid horde pay rivers of blood for every metre of ground they gained. However, the alien swarms were too great in number and were able to wear down the Imperial defences by attrition. Even in the polar cold, the Marines' gunbarrels glowed cherry-red and jammed. Imperial Titans, despite being dozens of metres tall, eventually fell under sheer weight of numbers. Ammunition stockpiles ran low, despite having enough to supply the Chapter for months.
Calgar drove Behemoth into the path of Battlefleet Tempestus, catching it in a pincer, but Tempestus was virtually wiped out. Only the sacrifice of the battleship Dominus Astra at the edge of the Ultramar System sealed the victory for the Imperium in space, when it triggered its warp drives, creating an uncontrollable warp vortex that wiped out the heart of the Tyranid fleet. Calgar rallied the surviving ships and sped back to Macragge to support the ground battle.
The northern polar fortress had managed to weathered the storm, but the southern polar fortress was finally overrun when a counter-attack to recover a captured bastion failed. The 3rd Company found the last battle-brothers of the 1st Company in the heart of the fortress, lying dead where they made their last stand, back to back, amidst piles of dead Tyranid gaunts.
The Ultramarines won the battle by a hair, despite taking immense losses. It would take more than 200 years to fully restore the chapter. Ultramarine veterans of the Tyrannic War would be organized into elite units for later encounters with Tyranids, and the next large-scale appearances of the Tyranids within the galaxy would come with Hive Fleet Kraken in the 993rd year of the 41st millennium and Hive Fleet Leviathan in the 997th.
Battle for Macragge is also the introductory boxed set to the 4th edition of the Warhammer 40,000 wargame. It is set during the Battle for Macragge and contains 10 Space Marines, 1 Imperial Navy Sergeant, 10 Termagants, 6 Genestealers, terrain, dice, templates, a scenario booklet, and a condensed version of the full Warhammer 40,000 rulebook.
[edit] References
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