Damnos - Damnos Incident: The Necron presence was first discovered in the north of Damnos' landmass by the Imperials after their tomb complex inexplicably began its awakening protocols in 973.M41, whilst the hive city of Mandos Prime's geothermic fusion stations were undergoinf repair as a result of the severe seismic activity that may have been caused by the tomb's activation. The Adeptus Mechanicus Tech-priests rapidly claimed the right to the xenos artefacts discovered during the repairs and extradited several specimens to the nearby Forge World of Goethe Majoris for closer study.Soon after, under waves of atmospheric interference that clouded the entire northern hemisphere of the planet, the Necrons emerged from their tombs. The planet went on alert, but the threat was incomprehensible, no warning had been received from the fallen hive cities, and any reconnaissance units deployed never returned. As more of Damnos' hive cities toppled to the unknown invaders, word of the assault finally got through to the planetary governor, who deployed every regiment under his command.Yet, despite valiant Human resistance, after six solar months of warfare almost all of Damnos' vast manufactorum hive cities were in ruins, and the planetary capital of Kellenport finally fell to the Necron forces in 974.M41.The strike cruiser Valin's Revenge with the Ultramarines 2nd Company aboard arrived just as the final Necron assault on Damnos' capital city of Kellenport had begun. Captain Cato Sicarius ordered the cruiser to move into low orbit above Kellenport to begin a ground assault. The 2nd Company launched in three groups of Drop Pods.The first with Captain Sicarius struck the Necron forces in the very heart of their siege lines, scouring the machine warriors from the capital city's outer walls. The second group of Ultramarines under the command of Chief Librarian Varro Tigurius hit home amidst the Necron Gauss Cannon and Gauss Pylons whose fire was raining down upon the remaining Imperial defenders of the capital.The third wave of Ultramarines, consisting entirely of unmanned Deathwind Drop Pods, slammed into the broken rubble outside the besieged capitolis administratum, firing waves of missiles into the Necrons' ranks. The first strike force advanced against a Necron command node.Their target was the Necron Lord commanding the assault. Captain Sicarius assaulted his position with his most experienced battle-brothers and the Dreadnought Agrippan. Sicarius was badly wounded in the assault and for a moment it looked like the Necrons would earn the victory, but the Dreadnought Agrippan attacked the Necron Lord and with a single blow he destroyed that nefarious enemy commander.With their leader, the only truly sentient Necron, destroyed, the Necrons reverted to their secondary command protocols and began to retreat. Captain Sicarius was taken to the Strike Cruiser's medical bay and Tigurius took command over the remaining Ultramarines.Later Tigurius and Agrippan were forced to acknowledge that Damnos was lost to the enemy. They initiated an evacuation of as many of the planet's inhabitants as possible. When the new Necron assault began most of the planet's inhabitants were already gone, and only the Ultramarines and the Kellenport-based regiment of the Astra Militarum were still on the ground.The Ultramarines defended the city valiantly, slowly falling back to the spaceport. As the last Thunderhawk gunships landed to evacuate the survivors, only forty Space Marines and twenty Guardsmen were still alive. In the final moments of the battle, the Dreadnought Agrippan fell, pinned between a dozen streams of Gauss Cannon fire.As the Thunderhawks sped Tigurius and the last of the Imperial defenders to the safety of the Valin's Revenge, Agrippan's internal Plasma Reactor went critical and the resulting explosion destroyed Damnos' capital city and every Necron within it. Later, Damnos was bombarded by the vessels of the Imperial Navy from orbit, destroying the planet's surface and ending the Necron threat on Damnos -- at least as far as the Imperium was aware.Since Sicarius and his men were able to evacuate large swathes of the world's population from certain death, the mission was not a complete failure. However, the Ultramarines failed in their primary objective of destroying the Necron threat that had emerged on Damnos.Sicarius was determined to not let such a slight go unanswered for long. For the first time, he had tasted bitter defeat in battle and it was a black mark that would twist within his heart for the next twenty-five standard years. In future battles, his violent displays of courage became reckless to the point of unnecessarily endangering the lives of his men and every victory after Damnos rang hollow to him.In the aftermath of Damnos, as Sicarius recovered from the wounds he had suffered, Sergeant Chronus was by unanimous assent honoured with the title of "Spear of Macragge", a title rarely bestowed in the history of the Chapter and only given to an Astartes who was considered a great hero of the Ultramarines. Some say this was a move by Sicarius' detractors to lessen his influence.