Tyrannic War Veteran - History: The Battle of Macragge was the greatest test ever faced by the Ultramarines Chapter when they confronted the first invasion of the Milky Way Galaxy by the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Behemoth in 745.M41. Coming from the Eastern Fringes of the galaxy, Hive Fleet Behemoth invaded the Imperium of Man's Ultima Segmentum.It is likely that the Tyranid Hive Mind was drawn to the Milky Way Galaxy by either the potent psychic beacon of the Astronomican in the Warp or the potent psychic presence of the Emperor Himself.Thankfully, the Ultramarines stood in its way. The Ultramarines were quick to react, and the Ultramarines newly appointed Chapter Master, Marneus Calgar, deployed the Ultramarines Chapter fleet to stop the Tyranid Hive Fleet at the Garden World of Prandium -- the jewel of Ultramar, with gardens and forests of such amazing beauty and genetic craftsmanship that it was considered one of the Wonders of the Imperium -- a world that the Ultramarines were duty-bound to protect.It was a slaughter. The tactics and strategies decreed by the Codex Astartes, a tome of knowledge created by the Ultramarines' Primarch Roboute Guilliman to govern all aspects of Imperial warfare, did not succeed against the Tyranids.The harrying strategies of the Ultramarines could not inflict enough damage against the Tyranids, while the close-range passes of Thunderhawks and other Imperial aircraft and vehicles for optimal firepower favoured the Tyranids' mode of attack, since their Spore Cysts and clawed tentacles would burst or tear open many of the ships that went in on the attack.The Ultramarine fleet had to sacrifice Prandium to consumption by the Hive Fleet. The Chapter needed to adapt and develop new strategies and tactics, even weapons, if they were to be successful against the Tyranid menace. Hit-and-run raids were abandoned in place of concentrated defences and static firepower. This meant that the Ultramarines had to choose a place to defend, and they chose their homeworld of Macragge, the very heart of Ultramar.Scant solar weeks later, the outrider vessels of the Tyranid fleet attacked Macragge. The alien bio-vessels swept aside attacks by Ultramarines Strike Cruisers and swarmed over the planet below. Soon many thousands of Mycetic Spore-birthed Tyranid beasts scurried and rampaged across Macragge. Deeming that the Tyranid threat was too massive to be opposed piecemeal, Calgar combined his ground forces into three mighty armies.The primary and secondary taskforces, composed largely of 1st Company Veterans and the regiments of the Ultramaran Planetary Defence Forces, known as the Ultramar Auxilia, bolstered Macragge's polar fortresses against the Tyranid onslaught. Meanwhile, Calgar's taskforce, the largest of the three, performed a series of rearguard actions, attempting to slow the Tyranid advance and eliminate the Hive Mind's synapse-control bioforms.Calgar achieved great success in the early days of the campaign, buying time with blood for his Battle-Brothers to the north and south. However, the Tyranids kept coming.In a final climactic battle on Cold Steel Ridge, the Ultramarines rearguard was brutalised by the Tyranid horde and Calgar himself was gravely wounded. Knowing that to remain planetside was to doom his followers to wasteful deaths, Calgar withdrew to the orbiting Battle Barge Octavius.Refusing all but the most vital medical attention, the Master of Macragge took command of the fleet, and sought a way to save his homeworld from certain destruction. Hours later, the main Tyranid fleet arrived at Macragge. With no sign of reinforcements, Calgar led his fleet in a series of daring attacks, striking at isolated vessels as they spread out to invade Macragge in force.Caught between the blistering firepower of Macragge's polar fortresses and the vengeful hammer blows of Calgar's fleet, Tyranid vessels were destroyed by the score, but many more yet remained.As battle raged, the Tyranids unleashed thousands of Mycetic Spores above the vital polar fortresses -- and if the fortresses were taken, Macragge's planetary defence guns would be silenced, and the world left defenceless. So it was that the Tyranids landed in even greater numbers than before, and the fortresses soon found themselves sorely beset.Their gruesome cargo delivered, the battered Hive Ships retreated from orbit. Trusting to his Ultramarines to keep the fortresses secure, Calgar relentlessly pursued the Tyranid fleet, determined that it would not bring ruin to other worlds.Never before or since has the valour of the Ultramarines been tested as it was in the defence of Macragge's polar fortresses. The Veteran Space Marines of the 1st Company led the lightly-armed Ultramar Auxilia in a tenacious defence of the fortresses, holding every wall and trench until the last possible moment before it was overrun by the Tyranid swarm.Slowly the troops withdrew ever deeper into the fortress, while making the Tyranids pay for every single yard of ground they advanced over.However, the war in space was not yet concluded. Refusing all but the most vital medical aid, Calgar took command of the surviving vessels and began to harry the Hive Fleet as it spread out to surround Macragge. Its forces deployed on the planet's surface, the Hive Mind chose to withdraw its bio-ships from Macragge in order to lure the defending Imperial ships away and thus prevent them from coming to the polar fortresses' aid.Calgar took the Tyranids' bait, and pursued the Tyranid fleet toward the ringed world of Circe at the edge of the Macragge System. The timely arrival of the Imperial Navy's entire Battlefleet Tempestus from Bakka finally sealed the Tyranids' fate by catching them in a vice between the two fleets.Even now, the Imperial fleet was overmatched, for the Tyranids were too many. However, the Hive Mind's victory was short-lived. The battle would have been lost save for the heroic sacrifice of the great Battleship Dominus Astra.Charging into the heart of the Hive Fleet, the huge  Emperor-class Battleship detonated its Warp-Drives, creating a Warp vortex that dragged both it and the entire Tyranid fleet to oblivion. With the Hive Fleet destroyed, Calgar's surviving starships came about and roared back to Macragge to try to save the beleaguered polar garrisons.Through darkness and terrors unimaginable, the 3rd Company finally reached the lower Penitorium where the Astartes defenders had made their last stand. Tyranid bodies were piled six deep around the doors, and within the room a circle of Terminators lay where they had fought back to back. Each had given his life for his brothers. The Ultramarines' 1st Company had been wiped out to the last man.The Battle of Macragge remains a great source of both sorrow and pride for the Ultramarines. The names of its fallen are commemorated each year by the Chapter at the Feast of Days, their sacrifice remembered throughout Ultramar with honour and gratitude, but the cost had been great. The Ultramarines 1st Company was gone and the 3rd and 7th Companies sorely diminished. It would be many long years before the Chapter could properly replace its losses, but replace them it would, and the Ultramarines would endure.