Hive Fleet Kraken - The Kraken Comes: The horror stories that attended Hive Fleet Kraken's coming to Imperial space were numerous. Among the many tragedies of this time were the following:In the Miral System, Astra Militarum regiments and the Space Marines of the Scythes of the Emperor Chapter held out against the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Kraken who had overrun the lush jungles and plantations of Miral Prime. The Imperial forces retreated to a huge mesa called the Giant's Coffin where they defended against the vicious hordes of xenos that infested the dense jungles below.The flora of Miral itself had become mutated since the first Mycetic Spores of Hive Fleet Kraken had fallen on the world and eventually only constant defoliation with Flamers prevented the Tyranid spore-infected creepers from engulfing the Giant's Coffin.A Rogue Trader brought rumours of the Feral World of Larnarno to the Imperium's heart, a planet that had come to be ruled by the Celebrants of Nihilism, a heretical doomsday cult whose adherents had taken care to match their prophecies with the dire events of the times. When elements of Hive Fleet Kraken arrived at Larnarno, nearly 75% of the planet's population had calmly marched towards the Tyranid bio-ships to be consumed by their new "gods."The Rogue Trader also brought a tale from the giant asteroid-monastery of Salem, which told how the Ecclesiarchy monks there had chosen to poison both themselves and their carefully terraformed ecosystem rather than allow all to be consumed by the Great Devourer.Another dedicated Imperial merchant captain helped evacuate millions of Imperial citizens from the Mining Worlds of the Devlan System before it was consumed. Devlan's extensive system of Novastorm space stations held the hive fleet at bay long enough for a fleet of giant ore freighters to escape into the Warp.A company of Space Marines of the Lamenters Chapter held off the attacks of the Tyranid Warriors until the last starship had been loaded, though the Space Marines in the end sacrificed their own lives so that many more might live.Even those who fled successfully found little respite from the horror. One of the giant ore freighters fleeing Devlan arrived at the world of Adr's Hope ominously dark and silent. Those investigating the ship's automated landing discovered that within lay a blood-drenched abattoir where thousands of refugees -- men, women and children -- had been mercilessly butchered by a Tyranid organism that had breached the starship's quarantine even as it fled. Only three solar weeks later Adr's Hope itself was a blood-soaked ruin of a world -- the Great Devourer had claimed even more victims.Seen on a galactic scale, Hive Fleet Kraken was attacking across a front that covered thousands of light years. Some worlds were bypassed, isolated by the hive fleet's Shadow in the Warp or attacked unexpectedly, making a cohesive Imperial defence almost impossible to mount.The Imperium was forced to concentrate its forces on the most strategically important Forge Worlds and Hive Worlds, while it evacuated or simply abandoned to their horrific fate many others.Still, there were some bright moments for the Imperium. Several Space Marine Chapters dedicated their forces to saving worlds the wider armies of the Astra Militarum had abandoned.Some, such as the Lamenters and the Scythes of the Emperor, found their once-proud Chapters reduced to a few scattered remains as the price of their valour, while the Knights of Eternity Chapter is presumed to have been completely obliterated.Others carried the battle to the Tyranids as only the Space Marines can, striking at isolated tendrils of the Kraken, boarding Hive Ships and blowing them apart from the inside. Yet, no matter the efforts of the Imperium, the Tyranids were too numerous and drove ever deeper into the galaxy, towards the heart of the Imperium of Man.