■First Pacification of Luna (Unknown Date.M30) - This early Imperial campaign was the first operation mounted by elements of the early Space Marine Legions beyond the skies of Terra. The Unification Wars were still raging across the surface of Mankind's birth world. Luna was the bastion of a conglomeration of resurrectionist gene-cults whose members believed that human nature was both fractal, fractured and transcendent. Each of these Selenar gene-cults clung to a different set of archetypes. Every cult member was a product of creation by the Selenar gene-wrights according to formulae crafted in the Dark Age of Technology. Resurrected in body time and time again they sought to distill the true personification of a single human archetype. In their subterranean complexes the cults were powerful, insular and resistant to the Imperial Truth. The Imperials would have normally dealt with these insular cults in the usual matter they handled all of the other Terran factions and techno-barbarian states that refused to accept the rule of the Emperor of Mankind -- by obliteration. The fact that the Selenar gene-cults had something that the growing Imperium needed complicated that position. The Selenar returned the Imperial entreaties for alliance with silence. As the threats of the Imperium soon began to outnumber its offers, the Selenar cults began to gird themselves for war. So it was that the Emperor finally ordered Luna to be pacified by the sword, their superstitious beliefs cast down before the Imperial Truth and their gene-craft yoked to the needs of the Imperium. To this task the Emperor set the three of his newborn Space Marine Legions most suited to this purpose on what some Imperial chroniclers name as the first true battle of the Great Crusade. The combined force of the VII, XIII and XVI Legions (later named the Imperial Fists, Ultramarines and Luna Wolves) lifted from the surface of Terra in a scattering of rocket flame. The as yet unnamed XVI Legion had been chosen to serve as the Space Marine force's vanguard, and had brought its full strength to bear. Cutting power to their assault craft, the Astartes of the XVI Legion drifted silently towards Luna through the void like arrows fired into the night. As the smaller wave of assault craft belonging to the VII and XIII Legions approached the airless world, the Selenar defensive weapon systems embedded in Luna's surface lashed the oncoming Imperial force. The XVI Legion's assault craft, unlooked for and unseen, struck their targets like a dagger in the night. Within six hours of the first shot being fired, Luna had been pacified and brought into Imperial Compliance, the first off-world conquest of the Imperium of Man. Faced with annihilation, the surviving Selenar cultists bent the knee instead, their surrender communique transmitted to Terra calling for the Emperor to "call off his wolves." Broken and humbled, the enslaved gene-wrights of Luna would help forge the next generation of Space Marine who would carry out Mankind's conquest of the stars. As for the XVI Legion, they had earned their name -- the Luna Wolves.
■Compliance of Tarsis (Unknown Date.M30) - This was an Imperial Compliance carried out by the Ultramarines Legion upon the world of Tarsis against unknown assailants. During the assault the Primarch Roboute Guilliman was attacked by a mysterious assailant, but was saved by a a native soldier of this world. In a supreme display of humility, Guilliman bended his knee before the soldier and vowed a warriors oath that should this world ever need aid then the Ultramarines would answer the call. A temple within the capital city of Erebus displayed the Tarsis Frescoe, a mosaic of enormous proportions painted by an unknown artist that covered the walls, ceiling and even the floor, covering the entire chamber like a canvas. This frescoe displayed the events that had occurred during the Great Crusade. In gratitude to Guilliman and the Ultramarines, the planet renamed itself Tarsis Ultra in honour of its saviours.
■Pacification of Arkenath (ca.004-007.M31) - Captain Hektor, commanding 500 of his battle-brothers, helped prosecute the Emperor’s Great Crusade to bring enlightenment to the galaxy and repatriate the lost colonies of man by fighting the Vektates of Arkenath. The Vektate were a deviant culture, an alien overmind that had enslaved the human populous of Arkenath. Hektor and his warrior brothers had shattered the yoke that bound their unfortunate human kin and in so doing had destroyed the Vektates. The human populace owed fealty to the Imperium, and demonstrated it gladly when they were free of tyranny. It had been a grim war. Captain Hektor's ship the Fist of Macragge had been involved in a brutal ship-to-ship action against the enemy, but had prevailed. Repairs had been conducted on Arkenath, as well as the requisitioning of a small tithe of men, eager to venture beyond the stars, to help replenish elements of the ship’s crew. Once the war was over, Hektor and his battle-brothers had been summoned to the Calth System and the region of space known as Ultramar in preparation of the massive joint campaign of extermination with the Word Bearers XVII Legion against the Ghaslakh xenohold, a common mission for the Astartes during the final days of the Great Crusade. It would be at Calth that Lorgar would launch a surprise attack on the Ultramarines, later known as the Calth Atrocity whilst they were gathered for the campaign against the Orks of Ghaslakh. The XIII Legion would be caught completely unaware while the Word Bearers attempted to use the advantage of surprise to completely annihilate their hated rivals. The Fist of Macragge would never arrive, as they would be completely obliterated by the Word Bearers secretly-constructed warship, the Furious Abyss, while enroute to Calth.
■Cleansing of Ariggata (ca.006.M31) - This was an Imperial Compliance that was carried out jointly by the Ultramarines, Luna Wolves and the World Eaters Legions against the world of Ariggata. A technologically advanced world, the world of Ariggata had been isolated from the rest of humanity for many centuries, and when Imperial envoys arrived bearing word of the Emperor and the Imperial Truth, they were executed in a bloody gesture of independence. The military might of Ariggata was formidable, and thus the honour of its pacification fell to Warmaster Horus and two other Space Marine Legions under his command. Most of the planet was quickly conquered, except for the massive fortress within which most of the leaders of the planet cowered. Eager to be on his way, Horus commanded Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters, to take back the citadel and kill only the leaders. Eagerly, Angron led the assault. However, the fortress was heavily defended and the casualties were horrendous, a dozen World Eaters falling for a meter of land. Eventually, a ramp of corpses led up to a single breach in the wall, and the Astartes of the World Eaters Legion plunged in. Filled with rage over their fallen brothers, they were merciless. By the time the Ultramarines arrived, the battle was all but over. The inside of the fortress was filled with the dismembered and mangled corpses of the defenders, for not one soul had been spared the vengeful fury of the World Eaters. It was an absolute slaughter, the fortress having been transformed into an abattoir of human blood. The Ultramarines were disgusted by this savage behaviour and by the time the appalled Sons of Guilliman left the citadel, the Luna Wolves and the World Eaters had already departed, leaving the Ultramarines to garrison Ariggata until the Imperial Army arrived. Before Guilliman was able to confront his brother Primarchs regarding the massacre on Ariggata, the Horus Heresy erupted, both Horus and Angron spitting on their oaths of loyalty to the Emperor, and Guilliman's worst fears were confirmed.
■Horus Heresy - Battle of Calth (ca.007.M31) - The Battle of Calth, also referred to as the Calth Atrocity, was the name given by later Imperial scholars to the treacherous campaign conducted during the early stages of the Horus Heresy in the 31st Millennium by the traitorous XVII Space Marine Legion, the Word Bearers, on behalf of the Warmaster Horus against their hated rivals, the XIII Space Marine Legion, better known as the Ultramarines. The campaign was launched by the Word Bearers' Primarch Lorgar Aurelian with the goal of exterminating the XIII Space Marine Legion outright. The purpose of the Word Bearers' invasion of the Ultramarines' Realm of Ultramar in the Eastern Fringe of the galaxy was to tie down the XIII Legion and prevent them from reinforcing their fellow Loyalists as the Traitor Legions marched relentlessly on Terra itself. The crux of the campaign came on the Agri-world of Calth in the Ultramar Sector, where the Ultamarines successfully broke the Word Bearers' surprise assault after a viciously-fought siege action, though at the cost of terrible casualties and the complete destruction of Calth's atmosphere and once-verdant biosphere. As a result of the devastation wrought by the Word Bearers during the Calth Atrocity, future generations of Calth's people were required to live deep underground in massive subterranean hive cities to escape their world's radiation-scorched, airless surface. While both the Ultramarines and their Primarch Roboute Guilliman survived the Word Bearers' assault, the campaign successfully prevented the Ultramarines from participating in the Battle of Terra as Horus had planned.
■Great Scouring (Unknown.M31) - As one of the largest remaining Loyalist Legions that emerged relatively unscathed from the Horus Heresy, the Ultramarines Legion played an instrumental part in the Great Scouring. This was the Imperium of Man's great counter-offensive against the Traitor Legions of the slain Warmaster Horus, following the end of this lamentable civil war after the Battle of Terra. Before actually being confined within the life support mechanisms of the Golden Throne, the Emperor had pronounced judgment on the Traitors: declared Excommunicate Traitoris, they were to be driven into the hellish region of the Warp rift called the Eye of Terror, which would hold them for all eternity. All records and memory of the Traitor Legions were to be expunged from the Imperial archives. Worlds such as Istvaan V and Davin were scoured clean of all life because of their corruption by Chaos. The Traitor Legions' associated troops from the Dark Mechanicus or the regiments and starships of the Imperial Army that had turned to Chaos were to be destroyed or driven into the Eye. It would be as if the Traitor Legions had never existed to sully the Imperium with their betrayal. The fighting would continue for another seven years. The Loyalist Space Marine Legions destroyed at the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V were slowly reestablished using what little gene-seed the survivors had managed to escape with, though the Legions were refashioned as 1,000-Space Marine Chapters rather than full Legions as Primarch Roboute Guilliman's Codex Astartes now required after the Second Founding at the dawning of the 32 Millennium.
The Ultramarines make a tactical advance
Added by Algrim Whitefang
■9th Black Crusade (537.M38) - The 9th Black Crusade was a Black Crusade led by the infamous Chaos Champion Abaddon the Despoiler and his Black Legion, launched out of the Eye of Terror in 537.M38. During this time, the Lamenters Space Marine Chapter was recalled along with a number of other Crusading Chapters by the High Lords of Terra to help deal with the rising threat of incursions from the Eye of Terror. But the Lamenters' fell reputation for suffering bitter reversals and dark turns of fate worked against them during the Chaos attack on the Hive World of Corillia during this campaign. The superstition-bound Mortifactors Chapter refused to fight alongside the Lamenters, abandoning the planet rather than serve beside them. Unwilling to desert the Hive World's population, the Lamenters held out alone against the Black Legion's onslaught for six standard weeks, suffering horrendous losses until the Ultramarines and White Scars led a battle group that broke though the Chaos warfleet to relieve Corillia. Reduced to barely 200 surviving Battle-Brothers by their sacrifice, the Lamenters were deemed lost when their fleet disappeared in a Warp Storm soon afterwards, only to reappear more than a standard century later on the edge of the Segmentum Solar, having slowly battled their way back from the outer void.
■The Jorun Retaliation (143.M41) - En route to service in the Gothic War, an Imperial Guard battlegroup, the 15th Heraklion Ironclads, turned on their Commissariat detachment and went Renegade. Investigations into this turn of events uncovered the foul xenos taint of the Dark Eldar, who had managed to ensnare and corrupt General Jorun and his command structure. The Traitor General Jorun and his attached former Imperial Navy battlefleet raided planet after planet, enslaving whole populations for their foul xenos masters. The full Howling Griffons Chapter was given command of a strike force to deal with the Traitors, with support from the Ultramarines and Sons of Orar Chapters of Astartes for a campaign that became known as the Jorun Retaliation. The Traitor Guard force was intercepted as they made planetfall on the Feral World of Asturia. Caught unprepared for such a fierce counter-assault, over 5,000 Renegade Guardsmen died in the first hour of the ferocious Space Marine attack, torn apart on their landing zones with much of their heavy armour yet to be unlimbered. General Jorun eventually met the Emperor's judgement at the hands of the Howling Griffons Chaplain Armand Titus. The Traitors' morale collapsed with the death of their leader and the swift desertion of their foul xenos allies. The disordered and panicked Heraklons were ruthlessly hunted down and slain in the aftermath; the Renegade forces had been completely wiped out within only six hours of the battle's opening salvos.
■Charadon Campaign (698.M41) - In 698.M41 the Ultramarines took part in a combined Space Marine force led by their Chapter Master Marneus Calgar, which consisted of elements of the Angels of Absolution, the Lamenters, the Marines Errant, and the Silver Skulls. During a seven-year-long Imperial Crusade the force inflicted a series of major defeats on the Ork empire of Charadon which delayed the invasion of the Imperium by the WAAAGH! Argluk for thirty standard years.
■The Battle of Macragge (745.M41) - Hive Fleet Behemoth was spearheading a large Tyranids invasion force into Imperial space and were making unprecedented progress towards the Realm of Ultramar. Upon learning of the threat posed to Ultramar by the vicious Tyranids, Chapter Master Marneus Calgar at once drew up his plans. Calgar declared that the Hive Fleet would be halted at Macragge before it consumed more of Ultramar or drove deeper into the heart of the Imperium. Deeming Macragge to be the star system most immediately threatened, Calgar ordered its formidable defences to be further improved. Scant weeks later, the outrider vessels of the Tyranid fleet attacked Macragge. With the Hive Fleet destroyed after the sacrifice of an Imperial Battleship created a Warp vortex that destroyed the majority of the Hive Fleet, Calgar's surviving starships came about and roared back to Macragge to try to save the beleaguered polar garrisons. Calgar, feeling that the situation was becoming critical, sent the 3rd and 7th Ultramarines Companies ahead in their fast Strike Cruisers while his remaining damaged ships limped back to Macragge. Despite horrendous losses inflicted upon the Tyranid fleet from the orbital and polar defence grids, many Tyranid organisms were able to reach the surface of the planet. The Tyranid swarm swept across the planet with the most intense fighting in the region of the northern polar defence installations. Despite the Ultramarines fleet's ability to destroy the Tyranid bio-ships, horrific casualties were suffered by the planet's population as well as the Chapter. Calgar went down to the planet's surface, leading the 3rd Company against the ravenous hordes of the Great Devourer. The entirety of the elite 1st Company was wiped out to a man whilst defending the northern pole's defence grid. The Ultramarines 1st Company was gone and the 3rd and 7th sorely diminished. It would be many long years before the Chapter could properly replace its losses from the Battle of Macragge, but replace them it would.
■The Purge of Thrax (762.M41) - Chapter Master Marneus Calgar lead the remnants of his Chapter against the Daemon-corrupted Adeptus Mechanicus Forge World of Thrax in 762.M41. Under the leadership of their Chapter Master, the Ultramarines banish countless thousands of daemons and recover crucial Imperial data-records from the twisted manufactorum complexes. With the mission complete, Calgar issues the order for Exterminatus.
■Siege of Zalathras (797.M41) - Marneus Calgar, Chapter Master of the Ultramarines, holds the gate alone against an Ork horde for a night and a day.
■The Forgoil Campaign (805.M41) - WAAAGH! Gutshredda rampages through the Forgoil System. Marneus Calgar leads 3 companies to the assistance of the Forgoil Planetary Defence Forces. In a little more than three weeks, the Ultramarines destroy the tellyporta ships and Stompa factories that provided WAAAGH! Gutshredda with much of its momentum. In the final battle of the war, Calgar and his Terminator-armoured retinue board and destroy Gutshredda's flagship, Da Supadestructa.
■The Assault on Black Reach (855.M41) - The Ultramarines 2nd Company under the command of Captain Cato Sicarius defeats the brutal Ork WAAAGH! Zanzag, a Greenskin horde under the command of the Ork Warlord Zanzag, a Big Mek, or Ork Warlord who possessed unusual mekanical skill for an Ork.
■The Siege of Barathred (921.M41) - Marneus Calgar is ambushed by the Night Lords whilst en route to the Darkhold battle zone. The Chapter Master's crippled vessel makes planetfall on the sparsely settled Imperial Feudal World of Barathred. Several hundred Night Lords Chaos Space Marines make landing shortly thereafter, but Calgar rallies the planet's feudal population to defeat them.
■The Trenor Uprising (929.M41) - Three dozen Ultramarines Scout Marines, under the expert direction of the famed Sergeant Telion, put down a rebellion against the Imperium on Trenor in less than a day.
■The Rise of M'kar (935.M41) - A daemonic horde under the direction of the Word Bearers Daemon Prince M'kar the Reborn seizes control of the star fort Indomitable in Calth's outer orbit. Under the command of Marneus Calgar, Terminators from the Ultramarines 1st Company board the star fort. M'kar is slain by the hand of Lord Macragge, who tears the upstart Daemon Prince limb from limb.
■The Second War for Armageddon (941.M41) - WAAAGH! Ghazghkull descends upon the Imperial Hive World of Armageddon in the Segmentum Solar, initiating the Second War for Armageddon. The Orks are defeated only by the extreme stubbornness of the defenders and the combined might of the Blood Angels, Ultramarines and Salamanders Chapters. Thought dead by his foes, the wily Ork Warlord Ghazghkull himself escapes into space.
■The Cleansing of Malbede (963.M41) - The Ultramarines clash with a Tau expeditionary fleet for control of the cursed planet of Malbede. When the conflict awakens the Necrons hidden on Malbede, the Ultramarines and the Tau join forces to defeat the emerging Necrons. In the wake of the battle, Marneus Calgar initiates Exterminatus on Malbede, but allows the Tau to evacuate before the planet is destroyed.
■The Damnos Incident (974.M41) - The 2nd Company under the command of Captain Cato Sicarius rescues survivors from the doomed world of Damnos, an Imperial Civilised World that was also a Necron Tomb World. The Necrons awakened and launched a massive assault upon all life on the planet's surface, while Damnos Planetary Defence Force and Imperial Guard Regiments proved unable to defeat the hideous cybernetic xenos. The Ultramarines successfully rescused survivors from the planetary capital city of Kellenport before the Necrons claimed the world for their own.
■Skirmish with Hive Fleet Perseus (976.M41) - Hive Fleet Perseus is detected by the Ultramarines in 976.M41. Spearheading an assault, Chapter Master Marneus Calgar was severely mauled, losing all four limbs as well as large areas of body tissue and his left eye. He underwent extreme augmetic surgery and has had most of his missing body parts replaced with bionics.
■The Liberation of Lagan (989.M41) - The Ultramarines 3rd Company liberates the Lagan System from the Tau Empire.
■The Second Tyrannic War and the Battle of Ichar IV (993.M41) - The Ultramarines quash rebellion on the industrial world of Ichar IV, only to find themselves at the forefront of a desperate defence against the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Kraken. Elsewhere, the Eldar Craftworld Iyanden is ravaged by other tendrils of the Kraken. Two Space Marine Chapters - the Scythes of the Emperor and the Lamenters - are all but wiped out and hundreds of Imperial worlds are lost to the Tyranids before the incursion is blunted.
■The Battle of the Sepulchre (996.M41) - An Eldar emissary from the Biel-tan Craftworld was sent to the Imperial world of Commrath to enter negotiations with its Planetary Governor for the return of an ancient eldritch artefact from the tomb of one of the Ultramarines' most-lauded heroes, Captain Orar, known as the Sceptre of Galaxian. Refusing his request, the Eldar emissary grew angry and soon his pleas turned to threats of violence. The Planetary Governor refused to be cowed by the arrogant xenos and had the Eldar executed on the spot. However, the Governor had the foresight to heed the Eldar's threats and requested aid from the Ultramarines. Calgar responded with overwhelming force, mobilising his entire Chapter. This would be the first engagement the Ultramarines fought in as an entire Chapter since the First Tyrannic War. The Eldar launched a series of devastating attacks against the tomb complex. Though unsuccessful against the stoic Ultramarines' defenses, fully half the Astartes' number were either wounded or dead. When the third and final attack came, the Eldar looked like they were going to overwhelm the defenders. An Eldar Avatar of Khaine spearheaded the assault, breaking the Ultramarines' lines of defence and spilling into the tomb complex. Dozens of Ultramarines were killed by the mighty Avatar. Calgar valiantly fought the Avatar in single combat, and though grievously wounded, managed to kill the vile creature. With the fall of their War God, the Eldar lost all heart for the fight. Some fled without heed while others fell back in good order, but all retreated into the darkness. Despite overwhelming odds, once again the Ultramarines had emerged victorious, but in his wisdom Calgar knew that the Eldar would return for the Sceptre of Galaxian. So it was that Calgar informed Commrath's Governor that the Galaxian Sceptre would be removed from Orar's Sepulchre to Macragge, where it could be properly defended.
■The Third Tyrannic War and the Defence of Tarsis Ultra (997.M41) - Elements of the Ultramarines and Mortifactors Space Marine Chapters make a stand against one spur of the Tyranids' Hive Fleet Leviathan on the world of Tarsis Ultra. The defenders defeat this tendril of the Leviathan with an engineered anti-Tyranid biological plague, but the remainder of Hive Fleet Leviathan rampages on unabated.
■The Liberation of Graia (Unknown Date.M41) - The Forge World of Graia in the Segmentum Tempestus, home to the Titan Legion known as the Legio Astraman ("The Morning Stars"), was assaulted by the Ork WAAAGH! Grimskull, over a million Greenskins strong. The Imperial Guard's 203rd Cadian Shock Troops Regiment was diverted to Graia and made a combat drop, but was unable to stem the green tide and the Adeptus Mechanicus feared that the world and its extremely valuable Battle Titan-manufacturing facilities would fall into the Orks' hands, representing a major threat to the Imperium. To deal with this threat, the Ultramarines despatched the 2nd Company, at this time under the command of Captain Titus, to assist the Imperial Guardsmen. After launching an assault on the Ork flagship in orbit of the world in the hope of slaying the Ork Warboss Grimskull outright, Titus and two members of his company's command squad were forced to land on the planet itself. They proceeded to engage the Ork forces and ultimately to unmask a plot of the Chaos Sorcerer Nemeroth and his warband of Chaos Space Marines, the Chosen of Nemeroth, to seize experimental technology on Graia that would allow Nemeroth to ascend to become a Daemon Prince with Graia as his Daemon World. In the course of the Graian campaign, Titus successfully slew Grimskull in single combat, thus ending the Ork threat as the Greenskins withdrew from the world as their various clans began fighting for control of the WAAAGH! Titus also faced Nemeroth as he began his ascension to daemonhood and slew the foul sorcerer, banishing his soul to the Warp and ending his plans for Graia. Detachments of the Blood Ravens and Black Templars Chapters then arrived to aid the Ultramarines and the remnants of the Imperial Guard in securing the Forge World. However, during the crisis on Graia, Titus had displayed both a disregard for the strictures of the Codex Astartes and had been curiously unaffected by Nemeroth's Chaotic sorcery. Fearful that his commander had become tainted by Chaos, his subordinate Leandros made his concerns known to the Inquisition. Inquisitor Thrax, who had arrived on Graia with the Black Templars, took Captain Titus into custody for interrogation and the determination of his purity. The Liberation of Graia took place in an alternate universe where Titus rather than Cato Sicarius was the Captain of the 2nd Company.
■The Taking of Bridge Two-Four (999.M41) - Uriel Ventris succeeds Captain Idaeus as commander of the Ultramarines 4th Company.
■The Zeist Campaign (999.M41) - Captain Cato Sicarius leads an army to halt the Tau's Fourth Sphere Expansion. An Imperial Crusade later known as the Zeist Campaign drawn from 30 Space Marine Chapters drives the Tau back from dozens of Imperial worlds, but is recalled before its work can be completed to deal with the much greater threat of Abaddon the Despoiler's 13th Black Crusade.
■Defence of Ultramar (999.M41) - In the midst of the 13th Black Crusade, the Realm of Ultramar comes under renewed assault from the Forces of Chaos. The Daemon Prince M'kar the Reborn, clad in mortal flesh once again within the body of a former Ultramarines Dreadnought, leads the onslaught against the world of Talassar. Other Chaotic warlords under the control of the Iron Warriors Warsmith Honsou attack Calth, Espandor and Tarentus. Marneus Calgar recalls all Ultramarines forces to defend Ultramar, dispatching a reinforced Battle Company to each threatened planet. Calgar himself accompanies the 2nd Company to defend Talassar, determined to slay M'kar a hundred times over if need be.
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