Battle of Macragge
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Macragge is a rocky, hostile world situated within the Eastern Fringe of the Galaxy in the Warhammer 40,000 science fiction mythos and it is the Chapter homeworld of the Ultramarines. 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 745.M41, with thousands of bio-ships stripping the garden paradise world of Prandium to bare rock before moving on, undeterred by Ultramarine strike fighters.
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[edit] Space battle
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 defence 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 inch of ground they gained. However, the alien swarms were too great in number and wore down the Imperial defences by attrition. Even in the polar cold, the Marines' gunbarrels glowed cherry-red and jammed. Imperial Titans, despite being hundreds 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.
[edit] Aftermath
The northern polar fortress had managed to weather the storm, but the southern polar fortress was finally overrun when a counter-attack to recover a captured bastion failed. The 3rd Company found Brother-Captain Invictus and 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. But it had cost Behemoth dearly; the mountainous piles of the mangled corpses of Tyranid Gaunts stood metres high and stretched around the 1st Company and across all four levels of the polar fortress.
The Ultramarines won the battle by a hair, despite taking immense losses. It would take nearly 100 years to fully restore the Chapter with vast destruction of the chapter's gene-seed resources, military force and territory. Ultramarine veterans of the Tyrannic War would be organized into elite units for later encounters with Tyranids, replacing the entirely wiped out Veteran 1st Company of the chapter. The War caused many advancements to be made in military technology specifically suited to the destruction of Tyranids. The Heroic last stand of the 1st Company has become iconic in Warhammer 40,000 literature, with similar situations depicted in much art and fiction set in the universe. 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.
[edit] Battle for Macragge box-set
The Battle for Macragge is the introductory boxed set released for the fourth edition of the Warhammer 40,000 tabletop miniatures wargame. The boxed set includes specialised miniatures, accessories and rules for entry into the Warhammer 40,000 game itself. It is set during the Battle for Macragge.
The boxed set contains one Tactical Squad of Space Marines, six Tyranid Genestealers, ten Tyranid Termagants, and several other accessories and pieces of terrain.
