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I read through my new Tyranid codex today and found something that didn't quite add up. According to the book the Hive Fleet Behemoth attacked the home world of the Ultramarines. The entire Ultramarine chapter is 1000 men as the Codex Astartes allows. Reading it I found that they had ships orbiting the planet, many defense cannons and their army defending the world. I tried to figure out how a world with 1000 men managed to pilot ships, titans and last against possibly millions of tyranids attacking the planet. Assuming that the Ultramarines called for help, The Inquisitor barely managed to get there to warn the Ultramarines of the battle, and it took the entire Battlefleet Tempestus time to arrive Conveniently in time to save the company from destruction. The way the book tells it, 1000 Ultramarines managed to destroy the entire Hive Fleet, which Considering the numbers alone, it would have meant that each marine could have killed hundreds and thousands of Tyranids each? Including those piloting ships, and tanks.

Now granted that Battlefleet Tempestus saved the Ultramarines and were possibly Imperial Guard, I find no mention at all that the Imperial Guard were even there. Besides one mention of a Baneblade that was destroyed by Carnifexes.
Was it an intentional neglect to make the Ultramarines seem like unkillable monsters? It wouldn't shock me because of the whole Ultramarines piss money and gak gold for Games-Workshop thing. Even Considering the planet had 400 Million people living on it, In fact, after destroying the titans, the tyranid bio-titans seemed to have vanished, as much of the forces did with no narration as to how they got destroyed.

I might be reading too much into this, but I love Tyranids too much to believe that the Space smurfs managed to hold a single planet from an entire Hive fleet in one go.

Are my facts correct or can someone tell me how it actually goes, or anything that I missed?

Welcome to the over-the-top fluff of Space Marines and Ultramarines in particular.

Besides that, Ultramar has a Planetary Defense Force (kind of IG, not Space Marines). I think most of the spacefleet was part of the PDF and they played a major role in halting the Tyranids.

I wonder why it bothers people so much that Space Marines are badasses.

Yeah, The Ultramarines are just OP humies in space armour.

I read on this too, seems unjustifiable. But hey they may of had help.

I just like it when slaughter a bunch of Ultramarine in game, i always get a Ultramarine head stuck on a spear on my warboss to mark every game won against them.



I tell you what i call Ultramarines, Action men...

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I wonder why it bothers people so much that Space Marines are badasses.

That 1000 marines resisted in a tiny fortress in the north pole isn't the question. It's how 1000 marines managed to resist in that fortress, simultaneously piloted those starships (the fluff puts the medium sized of them needing crews of hundreds of thousand men) and at the same time somehow preventing the rest of the tyranids from consuming the planet except for the mentioned tiny circle at the north pole. Somehow the ripper swarms stop eating because there are a handful of dudes bunched up somewhere?

Simple.

Masses of PDFs and Chapterserfs.

Chapterserfs are manning the Ships with a single SM as Captain. (when facing down a Space Marine Battle Barge it would be a chapter serf manning the gun turrets, as a full Space Marine would be too valuable for the task.
)
And PDFs are like IG

rowenstin wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
I wonder why it bothers people so much that Space Marines are badasses.

That 1000 marines resisted in a tiny fortress in the north pole isn't the question. It's how 1000 marines managed to resist in that fortress, simultaneously piloted those starships (the fluff puts the medium sized of them needing crews of hundreds of thousand men) and at the same time somehow preventing the rest of the tyranids from consuming the planet except for the mentioned tiny circle at the north pole. Somehow the ripper swarms stop eating because there are a handful of dudes bunched up somewhere?

Yep, Its because GW are too afraid of de-gloryfing the Poster boys

Where has it ever been stated that Marines pilot their own cruisers?

With the exception of a few Marines who actually like piloting, many (if not most) Astartes ships have human captains.

In all cases, the crew is entirely human or abhuman.

True that, True that.

Still pretty stupid they even survived in the first place.

But hey, they're Ultramarines.

Precisely. The battle of Macragge should be the tale of how the heroic PDF forces and the crew of the local fleet prevented the tyranids from eating the planet and forced them to retreat, with a footnote saying that somewhere in the north pole the Ultramarines managed to survive too although severely damaged.

rowenstin wrote:
Precisely. The battle of Macragge should be the tale of how the heroic PDF forces and the crew of the local fleet prevented the tyranids from eating the planet and forced them to retreat, with a footnote saying that somewhere in the north pole the Ultramarines managed to survive too although severely damaged.

Hell yes, who who should be credited for their hard work more?.

Normal guys with terrible armour and terrible guns with bad equipment fighting against a endless swarm of massive space lizards trying to eat them, who do most of the work and are never credited and are shot for running for their lives.

Or some super humans, who feel less pain, have a huge amount of equipment, feel no fear, are genetically made for battle, are tough as bricks, and can easily punch a tyranid in the face to death, getting all the credit, and aren't shot straight away for giving opinions.

I think the PDF and local fleet should too.

indeed, the marine crew of most ships is TINY with the marines serving as simply officers if anything else. the Ultramarines, given who they are proably have capable non-marine officers running their ships.

A Space Marine Chapter consists of approximatly 1000 Marines, although it's worth noting that specialists such as tech marines, honorguard, and libarians don't count. as of the 6th edition SM codex, the Ultramarines consist of about 1113 marines. (possiably more, I'm actually not counting command squads) in addition the Space Marines have chapter serfs whom are trained for battle and would certinly have been deployed to defend mccragge, in addition you have the mcragge PDF which is a PDF in name only. and is easily on par with frontline guard regiments.

realisticly at Mcragge the 'nids where proably mostly fighting the equivilant of guardsmen.

it's not a lightly defended world.

 Warboss Fleshbull wrote:

rowenstin wrote:
Precisely. The battle of Macragge should be the tale of how the heroic PDF forces and the crew of the local fleet prevented the tyranids from eating the planet and forced them to retreat, with a footnote saying that somewhere in the north pole the Ultramarines managed to survive too although severely damaged.

Hell yes, who who should be credited for their hard work more?.

Normal guys with terrible armour and terrible guns with bad equipment fighting against a endless swarm of massive space lizards trying to eat them, who do most of the work and are never credited and are shot for running for their lives.

Or some super humans, who feel less pain, have a huge amount of equipment, feel no fear, are genetically made for battle, are tough as bricks, and can easily punch a tyranid in the face to death, getting all the credit, and aren't shot straight away for giving opinions.

I think the PDF and local fleet should too.

The Ultramarines did the brunt of the work, though. They're the ones who actually dealt the deathblow to Behemoth.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 Warboss Fleshbull wrote:

rowenstin wrote:
Precisely. The battle of Macragge should be the tale of how the heroic PDF forces and the crew of the local fleet prevented the tyranids from eating the planet and forced them to retreat, with a footnote saying that somewhere in the north pole the Ultramarines managed to survive too although severely damaged.

Hell yes, who who should be credited for their hard work more?.

Normal guys with terrible armour and terrible guns with bad equipment fighting against a endless swarm of massive space lizards trying to eat them, who do most of the work and are never credited and are shot for running for their lives.

Or some super humans, who feel less pain, have a huge amount of equipment, feel no fear, are genetically made for battle, are tough as bricks, and can easily punch a tyranid in the face to death, getting all the credit, and aren't shot straight away for giving opinions.

I think the PDF and local fleet should too.

The Ultramarines did the brunt of the work, though. They're the ones who actually dealt the deathblow to Behemoth.

I personally think that the PDF should be credited more though, i mean Space marines are meant and are able to do things like that. Its a incredible feat for the PDF, they had huge losses in it. I bet the Space marines took it better than the guys who had their friends ripped up and eaten.

Still, pretty awesome battle huh?.

For every one Marine, there are 1000 chapter serfs, maybe more. Its the serfs who tend to the Astartes wounded off the battlefield, clean their armor, provide fixes, upgrades, replentish ammo, requisition for supplies, maintain supply routes, fix, repair, and maintain vehicles, all equipment, and servitors, grow or obtain food for the entire chapter. Keep all structure assets well maintained, like ships, and headquarters, provide an intelligence network so as to obtain data for just about everything, some of the most important being status of known human planets the chapter is responsible for, locations of enemies, messages of interest, and anything and everything related to the chapter and nearby chapters. There's probably about 50 other tasks i might have missed too. I wouldn't say it is unusual for a chapter of 1000 Space Marines to have a staff of chapter serfs ranging in the number of 500,000 individuals.

I'm gonna agree that the local PDF should be given more credit. one of the trueisms of 40k is that the guard does all the grunt work and foot slogging so that the space marines can show up launch a heroic game changing manuver and take all the credit

Dylanj94 wrote:In fact, after destroying the titans, the tyranid bio-titans seemed to have vanished, as much of the forces did with no narration as to how they got destroyed.

Probably either heavy weaponry in fortresses and the like or orbital bombardment after the Tyranid fleet was destroyed.

 BlaxicanX wrote:

The Ultramarines did the brunt of the work, though. They're the ones who actually dealt the deathblow to Behemoth.

Wasn't it the Dominus Astra that really dealt the deathblow to Behemoth? After the Tyranid fleet was destroyed it would have been relatively easy to wipe out the ground based Tyranids.

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Wasn't it the Dominus Astra that really dealt the deathblow to Behemoth? After the Tyranid fleet was destroyed it would have been relatively easy to wipe out the ground based Tyranids.

Yes, it was Lord Admiral Zaccarius Rath who saved the day. People don't really remember him though, as not many people know the BFG fluff.

We need a trilogy on the Battle for Macragge, starting with Kryptman's flight to warn Calgar. I would simply love to read the fleshed-out conversation between he and Calgar and the resulting preparations for war.

Have they changed the fluff in the new codex? As the only company on the ground for the first part of the battle were the first company, who died to a man defending the fortress, and only two companies retook the fortress later on.

Then again, this was the fluff in 2nd and 3rd edition.

BrianDavion wrote:
I'm gonna agree that the local PDF should be given more credit. one of the trueisms of 40k is that the guard does all the grunt work and foot slogging so that the space marines can show up launch a heroic game changing manuver and take all the credit

PDF never get credit for anything in 40K.

Yeah, i still think Space Marines are credit Bastards. I mean their Space marines, Didn't you think a massive army of action men in massive armour with massive guns could kill at on of space lizards? *Sigh*, poor PDF guys...

Ultramar is one of the best run and most well defended empires in the galaxy, run by competent leaders and surprisingly willing to adapt to change.

I have always put the Battle of Macragge down to their really good orbital defence systems, which forced the Tyranids to try and smash the polar fortresses before they could invade en masse.

The Ultramarine chapter has 10 companies, each with exactly 100 active soldiers. The chapter maintains this particular number in the face of losses and gains. The Ultramarines have some of the best recruitment pools of all the space marine chapters and can easily replace losses from their vast holdings. Space marine recruits have a gigantic washout rate and the best arms/technology in the Imperium.


I wanna say there must be at least 25% as many actual trained Ultramarines beyond the 1000 active guys kept at the fortress, who do things like train recruits and head out to replace losses. Considering it takes so long to travel anywhere, you'd need a surplus of dudes constantly traveling just to maintain your 1000-man quota.

As far as aspirants, failed recruits, serfs who rejected the geneseed, and geneseed failures-turned-into-servitors?
Probably tens of thousands of them, all with space marine training, doctrine, and firepower.

It was in no way a 1000 vs 10-million scenario. Still vastly outnumbered and the usual Warhammer silliness to imagine them defending a planet, but any chapter's strength, especially one like the Ultramarines with all its infrastructure, goes far beyond a thousand dudes with a thousand bolters and a hundred rhinos.

I tried to figure out how a world with 1000 men managed to pilot ships, titans and last against possibly millions of tyranids attacking the planet.

As said before, it's easy to comprehend when the majority of the Chapter did not do any of that in the first place. Since the days of 2nd edition the Ultramarines have what amounts to an abnormally large and well-equipped personal army funded and supplied by the systems they control, almost to a heretical level that breaks all the rules set up by Guilliman himself of the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. The actual forces of the Ultramarines Chapter fought in their own ways and maybe a handful of them captained several starships during the fleet battles. If I remember right is was an ordinary human Imperial Admiral who used an epic plot-armored sacrifice to save the day by using his ship as a silver bullet.



The battle in the polar regions completely destroyed their 1st company, something which all other chapters have plot-armor to protect from happening. Hell, if you count the Space Hulk fluff as canon, the Blood Angels came back from having 90% of their chapter killed in just one campaign, which in other parts of the 40K fiction is impossible, or at least an act that requires huge amounts of time.

It was in no way a 1000 vs 10-million scenario.

Yeah. More like 1,000 marines+ several million specialized PDF+ a massive Imperial Fleet versus 10 million.

 Dylanj94 wrote:
I read through my new Tyranid codex today and found something that didn't quite add up. According to the book the Hive Fleet Behemoth attacked the home world of the Ultramarines. The entire Ultramarine chapter is 1000 men as the Codex Astartes allows. Reading it I found that they had ships orbiting the planet, many defense cannons and their army defending the world. I tried to figure out how a world with 1000 men managed to pilot ships, titans and last against possibly millions of tyranids attacking the planet. Assuming that the Ultramarines called for help, The Inquisitor barely managed to get there to warn the Ultramarines of the battle, and it took the entire Battlefleet Tempestus time to arrive Conveniently in time to save the company from destruction. The way the book tells it, 1000 Ultramarines managed to destroy the entire Hive Fleet, which Considering the numbers alone, it would have meant that each marine could have killed hundreds and thousands of Tyranids each? Including those piloting ships, and tanks.

Now granted that Battlefleet Tempestus saved the Ultramarines and were possibly Imperial Guard, I find no mention at all that the Imperial Guard were even there. Besides one mention of a Baneblade that was destroyed by Carnifexes.
Was it an intentional neglect to make the Ultramarines seem like unkillable monsters? It wouldn't shock me because of the whole Ultramarines piss money and gak gold for Games-Workshop thing. Even Considering the planet had 400 Million people living on it, In fact, after destroying the titans, the tyranid bio-titans seemed to have vanished, as much of the forces did with no narration as to how they got destroyed.

I might be reading too much into this, but I love Tyranids too much to believe that the Space smurfs managed to hold a single planet from an entire Hive fleet in one go.

Are my facts correct or can someone tell me how it actually goes, or anything that I missed?

Chapters are a thousand space marines, but all they do at most is serve as officers on ships and drive their own vehicles. A chapter is a thousand space marines with thousands, if not millions, of serfs tacked on, and probably well over several million servitors.

I may be thinking of Kraken but didn't Behemoth take on an Eldar Craftworld at the same time as the Ultramarines and this was its fatal mistake or something? Also for those that are interested Behemoth has been rumoured to be rising once again in the new Dex alongside Kraken.

 Dylanj94 wrote:
The way the book tells it, 1000 Ultramarines managed to destroy the entire Hive Fleet, which Considering the numbers alone, it would have meant that each marine could have killed hundreds and thousands of Tyranids each? Including those piloting ships, and tanks.

Now granted that Battlefleet Tempestus saved the Ultramarines and were possibly Imperial Guard, I find no mention at all that the Imperial Guard were even there. Besides one mention of a Baneblade that was destroyed by Carnifexes.

Are my facts correct or can someone tell me how it actually goes, or anything that I missed?

I'ts interesting, while I really hate the "mary sue-ness" of the Ultramarines, and have not read the new Tyranid codex, I had never gotten the impression that the Ultramarines defended against hive fleet behemoth on their own. I always figured they had armies of guardsmen and pdf aiding them, that makes sense to me. Even if gw has written it that the Ultramarines soled the conflict, the classic tactic for that is to interpret the lore as you like it.

- Also maybe the reason there was no mention of guard, is that while they aided every battle, they were not the leading factors. - and the notable action was the Baneblade.

- Perhaps I gained my impression of it from the first apocalypse book, which shows a the Battle of steal ridge or something, and shows a sizable guard force with the Ultramarines.

the mention of a bane blade being there means the IG where indeed there.

BrianDavion wrote:
the mention of a bane blade being there means the IG where indeed there.

I imagine that the Macragge PDF is better equipped than most Guard regiments, and would have access to a baneblade themselves. It is likely that there was no Guard involved, just the PDF force.