Following the Conclave of Hera and deeds on Espandor,
Marneus Calgar sanctions the Tyrannic War Veterans. They
commence immediate training under the guidance of Chaplain
Cassius.

On the manufactorum-choked plains of Brettik V, a world that
generates promethium for the sector’s ships, the Tyrannic War
Veterans set a trap for the swarm of Hive Fleet Kraken. After
the Tyranids make planetfall, the veterans funnel the bioforms
through the labyrinthine capital, whose civilian populace has
evacuated. Cassius’ squad continually baits the swarm until
millions of creatures are concentrated within the city’s streets.
Having previously disabled the city’s manufactorums, a squad
led by Sergeant Trajus detonates the platforms of several
drilling rigs and redirects their promethium flows to flood the
streets. The veterans ignite the rampant creatures with grenade
explosions. Though the city becomes inhabitable, the Tyranids
advance no further in the star system.

On board the Vengeance of Macragge , Chaplain Cassius tracks
down a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan passing close to an
asteroid belt to enter the star system of Jomm. The
Ultramarines Strike Cruiser partners with Battle Barges from the
Howling Griffons and Aurora Chapter, and destroys the nearby
moon of Vendorak. The resulting explosion sends a shock wave
through the asteroid field and its debris crashes down onto the
planet. The hive fleet is severely depleted by the attack and is
consequently unable to reach the planets of Jomm.

A Genestealer infestation rises on Ichar IV. The Ultramarines,
led by Marneus Calgar, engage in a bitter conflict with Hive
Fleet Kraken. The Tyrannic War Veterans join the rebuilt – but
under strength – 1st Company. Together they help drive the
Swarmlord directly into the path of Marneus Calgar, in order
for their Chapter Master to exact vengeance for Macragge.
Calgar engages in combat with the Swarmlord and eventually
slaughters it. The Ultramarines proceed to annihilate every last
Genestealer, though they are too late to save the planet.

The Tyrannic War Veterans reinforce the Ultramarines 3rd
Company on the Shrine World of Saint Tylus in the face of an
assault from Hive Fleet Leviathan. Cassius takes grim delight in
utilising the aerial superiority of the agile Stormtalons against
the swarm. As Gargoyles, winged Hive Tyrants, Sky-Slasher
Swarms, Harpies and Hive Crones assault the enormous walls
outside the central Hab Cathedral, Stormtalons outflank the
masses. The aircraft pummel the hordes with bolter fire and
explode the largest beasts with Skyhammer missiles. As
Leviathan’s control quickly wanes, the veterans roll out through
the streets in Land Raiders and obliterate the remaining
Tyranids. One of the swiftest victories known against a Hive
Fleet assault, success is attributed to Cassius’ tactics.

When the hive fleets overwhelm a planet, there are many
options available to Imperial commanders – the mobilisation of
huge swathes of Imperial Guard regiments, fortification of
Imperial placements or even Exterminatus. However, when a
planet is of particular importance to a star system, Marneus
Calgar mobilises Cassius’ Tyrannic War Veterans, who then
deploy from the Vengeance of Macragge into a battlezone.
With all the pragmatism and tactical nous of the Ultramarines,
these veterans are trained to deal with any scenario on the
ground, and local Imperial officers are often honoured to
co-operate with the battle doctrines of these revered warriors.
Whether the planet has a large contingent of domestic forces
or has only limited numbers garrisoned there, whether they
have to deal with harsh environmental conditions or terrain
ill-suited to defensive actions, the Tyrannic War Veterans will
process and execute a plan to deal appropriately with the
Tyranid threat.
Once engaged, the Tyrannic War Veterans smash through seas
of chitin in Land Raiders. The vehicles’ heavy-bolters and
lascannons are able to eviscerate broods of Gaunts , fell Hive
Tyrants and Tervigons alike. Once into the thick of battle, the
veterans charge down the vehicles’ ramps and continue their
slaughter of the hungry bio-forms. Tyrannic War Veterans are
trained to read the movement of the swarm and understand
the baser xenos instincts, so the Space Marines excel at guiding
the battle at range. However, the veterans enjoy nothing more
than to face the bio-horrors close enough to smell their
burning carapaces and spilt ichor. These sensations go some
way towards satisfying the veterans’ urge to avenge the
warriors of the fallen 1st.
Over the years, the Tyrannic War Veterans have learnt to
observe different behaviours in the hive fleets. Whereas
Behemoth preferred blunt attacks, overwhelming planets with
war beasts, Kraken proved more insidious. As a consequence,
the strike force has adjusted its tactics. Against the remaining
splinters of Hive Fleet Behemoth, Cassius maintains rigorous
fortifications on the ground, but often attacks off-world from
their Strike Cruiser, Vengeance of Macragge, in order to
weaken the coming Tyranid assault. Against Kraken, however,
Cassius often takes the fight to the Tyranids themselves. On the
shrine world of Saint Theresta, Cassius led a stealth mission
into capital’s hab shrine. The veterans flushed out hordes of
Kraken’s genestealers, which had been skulking within the
many hundreds of levels, and burned their rotten forms.
Whether fighting as their own force or assisted by veterans
from other Chapters, Cassius’ strike force continues its crusade
to save key Imperial worlds from Tyranid invasions. Given the
unpredictable presence of Hive Fleet Leviathan, there are always
a number of vital planets suffering from the incessant attacks
of the swarm. Cassius’ work is endless.
Y et it is thought by those Space Marines who sometimes fight
alongside the Tyrannic War Veterans that Cassius has observed
some pattern in the movement of the hive fleets. With his
closest battle-brothers, Cassius discusses his prime theory
concerning Leviathan. He is convinced that the hive fleet is
seeking to cut off Segmentum Tempestus from the rest of the
galaxy in order to create a vast Tyranid breeding ground. All
that remains certain is that few Space Marines are better skilled
in the subtleties of warfare against Tyranids than Cassius and
his legendary Tyrannic War Veterans.

Perhaps the most famous Strike Force Ultra is that led by
Severus Agemman, Captain of the Ultramarines 1st Company.
Composed entirely of hardened veterans from arguably the
most celebrated of Space Marine Chapters, the force has
several thousand of years’ worth of collective combat
experience; there is no known enemy of the Imperium or
battlefield environment that it has not met with and emerged
victorious. Strike Force Ultra Agemman has become an
indispensable weapon in Chapter Master Marneus Calgar’s war
against the Tyranid hive fleets, winning many great victories in
the Second and Third Tyrannic Wars. Often, an entire planet
will owe its continued existence to the intervention of Captain
Agemman and his Strike Force Ultra. During the Torlamuda
Gambit, the Ultramarines detonated the crystal forests
surrounding Hive Torlarok, shredding the entire first wave of a
Hive Fleet Kraken invasion swarm in a cataclysmic storm of
razor-sharp shrapnel from the exploding mineral formations.
The precious time bought by the Strike Force Ultra gave the
people of Hive Torlarok a chance to strengthen their defences,
and though the war would last almost three years, they were
ultimately blessed with victory over the ever-hungering Hive
Mind.
As Hive Fleet Leviathan rises from beneath the galactic plane,
Marneus Calgar has tasked Captain Agemman and his Strike
Force Ultra with one perilous mission after another against the
Great Devourer, often in league with the Holy Ordos of the
Emperor’s Inquisition. Though the 1st Company Captain’s
knowledge concerning the true extent of the xenos threat does
not reach so far as that of his Chapter Master, there can be
no doubt that soon, Strike Force Ultra Agemman will be
needed as never before.

Severus Agemman has served his Chapter with honour for
many years, earning his place as 1st Captain though the weight
of his deeds and the respect of his Chapter Master. As part of
his rank, he also bears the title of Regent of Ultramar, and is
considered the lord of that realm should Marneus Calgar be
called away to war.
As can be expected, Agemman is a proud warrior who lives
for his duty; he is utterly devoted to the Chapter, its master
and the Emperor. However, Agemman lives under the shadow
that many great men must endure; the knowledge that, as
masterful a leader and warrior as he is, perhaps this is all he
will ever be. It is no secret that Cato Sicarius, Captain of the
2nd Company, is favoured to become Chapter Master after
Calgar, and that many within the Chapter consider Agemman
too valuable in his current role to advance to higher command.
If this bothers Agemman, he has never shown it; the 1st
Company Captain immerses himself in his duty so that none
might ever say he has placed his own glory before that of the
Ultramarines.

Captain Darnath Lysander leads the 1st Company of the
Imperial Fists, and so it has fallen to him on many occasions
to lead a Strike Force Ultra in the name of his Chapter. In
many of the Imperial Fists’ fierce conflicts with the Iron
Warriors, Lysander has used the Strike Force Ultra to bring an
end to the protracted sieges for which both loyalist Chapter
and traitor warband are renowned.
One such battle was that of the Ironstar of Yorg, when a
group of Iron Warriors captured the Ramilies Class Star Fort
Divine Rampart, shackling its ancient weapons systems with
Warp-corrupted scrap code. The Iron Warriors Warsmith
known only as the Rust King used the immense firepower of
the star fort to lay siege to Yorg’s Tri-systems, cutting their
worlds off from the aid of the wider Imperium. While the
defenders fought a war of attrition on the ground against the
Rust King’s traitor armies, it was an Imperial Fists Strike Force
Ultra that went after the Chaos Space Marines. Led by Captain
Lysander, the force was comprised of 1st Company
Terminators, each of whom was a veteran of the war on
Malodrax, and the Venerable Dreadnought Eyranthos, who had
fought at Lysander’s side during the disaster at Haddrake Tor.
Thus it was that every member of the force had cause to hate
their foe above and beyond the Chapter’s bitter enmity with
the traitors, and a measure vengeance was within their grasp.
In a battle that would rage from the vast marshalling decks of
the star fort to the moons of Yorg, Lysander and his brothers
would exact a bloody price from the Iron Warriors. Eyranthos
would prove to be the doom of the Rust King, crushing the
warlord’s head in a burst of gore even as the Imperial Fists
carved apart his bodyguard.

On countless worlds, the Strike Force Ultra has proven its
potential for destruction against a myriad of foes. Utilising its
full strength of arms, the force has broken the deadlock of
battles that had fallen into grinding wars of attrition, and
destroyed both seemingly unassailable fortresses and warships
that would otherwise have been the death of worlds. In void
combat, the Ultramarines have used the Strike Force Ultra
many times to cripple or destroy enemy capital ships. During
the Battle for Prandium, a Strike Force Ultra was responsible
for the death of the bio-ship known as the Eye of the
Behemoth. The Terminators of Squads Hyperos and Damalos,
supported by the Venerable Dreadnought Ichrius, fought their
way through a dozen living strata of the great void-beast,
before detonating its bio-cortex with melta charges. The heavy
armour plating of the Dreadnought and the formidable
durability of the squads’ Terminator armour was instrumental to
the battle-brothers’ success in that utterly hostile alien
environment, enabling them to complete their mission whilst
sustaining relatively few casualties.
There are countless environments in the galaxy in which even
a power armoured Space Marine can find himself at the mercy
of his surroundings. In 910.M41, the Salamanders Chapter
deployed a Strike Force Ultra to break the siege of Xaros
against the awakened tomb world of Zykorak. For almost a
hundred days, armoured regiments of the Astra Militarum had
thrown themselves against the legions of the Sautekh Dynasty,
but were driven back by the advanced weaponry of the
Necrons and the unpredictable rad-storms that raged across
the planet’s surface. The Salamanders, already made hardy by
their own world’s treacherous conditions, were doubly shielded
by their Terminator armour and the heavy hull plating of their
Land Raider and Stormraven. The Space Marines were able to
endure the worst of the world’s deadly weather patterns and
fight a path to the Necron Overlord, Aramakh, smashing his
living metal form to scrap in a flurry of blows from their
masterwork thunder hammers.
The Strike Force Ultra acts as the hammer and the blade of
the Codex Chapters, able to strike with both brutal force and
deft precision. Often, the only evidence for the allies of the
Adeptus Astartes that a Strike Force Ultra has been deployed
is the bloody remains of their enemies and a scattering of
smoking of bolt shell casings, the Space Marines having already
moved on to war zones new.

The Lions of Macragge – Ultramarines 2nd Company
The Command Squad of the Ultramarines 2nd Company has
been known to reform alongside Chaplain Trajan. During the
Hagus Wars, Chaplain Trajan’s squad spearheaded several
counter attacks against a potent Tau expansionary force to
recover the Sword of Zalthus. The legendary weapon, once
wielded by Company Champion Zalthus a century before, had
been captured during a devastating sequence of planetary raids.
After Captain Sicarius had sustained great injuries from a
XV104 Riptide, the Lions of Macragge rallied around Trajan
and delivered a blistering strike against the Tau Ethereal leading
the force. The Sword of Zalthus stands to this day, engulfed by
clouds of incense, safe in the Ultramarines’ Reclusiam.

High Hand of the Emperor – Black Templars Nightfire Crusade
A powerful devotion to the Emperor is evident among the
warriors of the Black Templars. Chaplain Haldredd was leading
a strike force against the Tau Farsight Enclaves during the
Nightfire Wars when the spirit of the Emperor overcame him.
Heeding his sacred words, a group of Space Marine veterans
formed a Command Squad to protect him. Following the
Chaplain’s wise battle council and fervent prayers, the High
Hand of the Emperor smashed through lines of battlesuits and
set the Tau to flight. In the bloody battles that followed, the
High Hand of the Emperor – as Haldredd and his Reclusiarch
Command Squad became known – guided the Black Templars
to many great victories.

Conclave of Midnight – Dark Hunters 4th Company
Chaplain Hyron of the Dark Hunters 4th Company earned a
bloody reputation over the course of the Dellrond Campaign. It
was Hyron who rallied his brothers again and again to drive
back the seemingly endless tide of Orks. Nights on the moons
of Dellrond can last months, or even years, and toward the
end of the campaign the battered veterans of Hyron’s
Command Squad had become known as the Conclave of
Midnight, survivors of the endless war within the darkness. The
Conclave slaughtered the Ork Warboss on the steps of the
Cathedral of the Emperor Ossified in the final days of the
conflict. They were then able to oversee the demise of Waaagh!
Nagrut in a storm of blood and fire.

Unseen Spears – Knights of the Raven 2nd Company
The Unseen Spears are the Reclusiam Command Squad of the
Knights of the Raven 2nd Company, and were responsible for
escalating tensions between themselves and their battle-brothers
from the Aurora Chapter. Space Marines of the Aurora
Chapter accused Chaplain Givus of the Unseen Spears of
cultivating superstition and fanaticism on their feudal home
world. The Unseen Spears took this as a grave insult to their
Chapter and came to blows with the Aurora Chapter. It was
Marneus Calgar himself who intervened with an impassioned
speech. He suggested, as penance, that the entire Knights of
the Raven Chapter be despatched to fight against Hive Fleet
Kraken. The Unseen Spears immediately led the salvation of the
death world of Vallyx V, where the Knights of the Raven and
their allies slaughtered thousands upon thousands of
Genestealers. The Unseen Spears endure to this day, and with
their Chaplain at the helm they lead blistering strikes against
Kraken’s splinter fleets in an effort to bring honour back to
their Chapter.